It’s the old Constantine myth. There has been a mass of misinformation about Constantine, and the Council of Nicaea. This was something that figures such as Dan Brown (the author of the Da Vinci Code) have really capitalized on, which has propelled such myths into the mainstream.
However, the actual accounts of the Council of Nicaea are quite different.
In the grand scheme of things, Constantine had pretty much nothing to do with the Council of Nicaea. That is besides calling it to order. Constantine had little to no grasp over the theological issues that were at stake. Nor was he a theologian, or a scholar. Some would even debate whether or not he was a Christian at all as he wouldn’t be baptized until much later.
What he did do was allow the Bishops to debate these issues and come to some sort of agreement (even though that agreement really didn’t settle anything). And in the end, he really didn’t care what view of Christ’s nature won out, as long as they came to some sort of agreement for unity sake.
A bit of background would be helpful. In 313 AD, Constantine made it possible for Christians to practice their religion openly through the Edict of Milan. The Edict wasn’t just focused on Christians, but opened up religious tolerance in general.
Christianity was still just a small portion of the Roman Empire, but it was one that was growing considerably. However, it was a fractured religion. Constantine was looking to unify his empire in general, and having a unified Christianity would help with that task.
The big division within Christianity in the 4th century surrounded a controversy regarding the nature of Jesus, and specifically how Jesus related to God. There were too main views, Arianism, which was view of Arius of Alexandria, and homoousian, meaning same in being.
Arianism claimed that Jesus was divine, but he was not equal to God, as Jesus was still a created being. Homoousian instead declared that Jesus and God are in fact equal, that they were of one substance, and coeternal.
The Council of Nicaea wouldn’t be the first time that this difference would be debated though. In 320/321 AD, the Bishop of Alexandria, St. Alexander, called over 100 Bishops from Egypt and Libya together, and they condemned Arianism. But it really didn’t stop Arius from continuing to preach and recruiting new members to his view. He would be banished from Egypt, but just continued to travel elsewhere.
This was a major controversy within Christianity, and would garner the attention of Constantine, who wrote letters to both Arius and St. Alexander, telling them that they needed to reconcile. The Council was just the next step.
Interesting enough, Constantine would be limited with his interactions with the council because he spoke a different language. The language of Rome, and Constantine, was Latin. But the language of Christianity was largely Greek. Because of that, Constantine, when addressing the council, had to use an interpreter.
The second myth actually is linked to the first. The idea is that the Council of Nicaea created a unified Christianity, or in other words, defined Christianity. Now, this may be true on paper, but in actual discussion, it really changed nothing. Debate continued for decades, and the same positions were still held afterward. The main change was that on paper, there was an accepted idea.
Arius would be deemed a heretic, and the Emperor exiled him, to Illyria, which was in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula. Instead, Arius would take refuge in Palestine, and eventually, Constantine allowed him to return, with the concession that Arius played down the ideas that his critics found most objectionable. This didn’t go over very well with his critics, and it is probable that one of his opponents poisoned him.
However, that wasn’t the end of Arianism. After Constantine died, Constantius II took over, and was an Arian sympathizer. In 357, the Third Council of Sirmium produced the Seventh Arian Confession (or Second Sirmium Confession) which basically said that Arius was right. The confession would then be dropped, and it is now known as the Blasphemy of Sirmium.
So not much changed from a practical stance, but on paper, there was now a more unified view of Christianity.
So where does the Bible fit in? It fits in as almost a footnote as the Bible wasn’t really discussed. Constantine did have 50 Bibles commissioned to be made, but it wasn’t something that needed to be discussed as the canon was virtually set by that time.
The Tanakh, or the Christian Old Testament, was finished by the time Jesus was born. The Septuagint, which was the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which Christians then inherited, was completed by the second century BC. Constantine and Christians in general really didn’t have anything to do with it.
As for the New Testament, the first canon began in the second century AD. This was created by Marcion of Sinope. He included 10 epistles of St. Paul, as well as a version of the Gospel of Luke. It wouldn’t be long after that that the proto-orthodox Church would then start forming a canon.
Also in the second century, a four Gospel canon was also being promoted by Irenaeus. By the early third century, we have Origen of Alexandria who seems to be using a similar canon to the 27 books we have now. But by the middle of the 3rd century, the canon was pretty much set up. This is nearly a century before the Council of Nicaea.
Just a quick note. In 391, the Emperor Theodosius issued a few decrees that effectively banned paganism. However, that had nothing to do with burning pre-Christian documents that proved the religion fictitious. What possible documents those would be, I have no idea anyway, as pre-Christian documents simply didn’t talk about a faith that hadn’t been created.
In 380, there was persecution conducted on behalf of the Catholic Church. That really has nothing to do with getting the Bible though, so I’m not really sure why it is thrown into the meme.
When it comes down to it, the Bible was largely formed before Constantine, and the fact that later on, Christians persecuted others really has nothing to do with the Bible. It’s a great topic for another time, but is irrelevant to the Bible.
