The Nicene Council, what was it really about?

Emperor Constantine's Nicene council is usually pointed to as the source for the doctrine of the Trinity, yet the Trinity was present in the church long before Constantine. Most Jehovah Witnesses and other anti- trinitarians have never had a true presentation of Church history. If they knew history they may not point to Constantine. They have created this misrepresentation to do battle against a lie. They portray Church history as  proof that the doctrine of the Trinity is of a pagan source from the Emperor Constantine. The truth will astound you.

The term Trinitas was popularized by Tertullian almost 100 years before the Nicene council in his debate against Praxeas. However, he was not the first to use the term, a man Theophilus Bishop of Antioch in 160 was the first to use the term (that we have in writing), many years before in his epistle to Autolycus The 2^nd,xv..We can assume it was used prior to Theophilus and was held as a common church belief with the many quotes that are left to us in history by the early church pastors. Athenagoras representing the whole Churches belief wrote, that, "they hold the Father to be God, and the Son God, and the Holy Spirit, and declare their union and their distinction in order."(A plea for the Christians.10.3) The term was used to simply describe the three that simultaneously exist as the one God. A man named Praxeas promoted what is called Monarchianism, which held a strict form of monotheistic progression. That the Father became the Son, and the Son became the Spirit. This is what is called modalism in it's simplest form, What is better termed Oneness today. Despite the accusation's of the Church inventing and promoting the Trinity. We find the Church in Rome and elsewhere falling prey to numerous heresies that they tried to keep out.

As we see from history the doctrine of the Trinity did not depend on any council as it was used by Tertullian and others long before a council was called on doctrinal teaching. The Catholic Church gets blamed for inventing the Trinity yet when we look through it's history it tells a different story. History shows that it was Trinitarians that first resisted a single church Government with a Pope as its head, they did not invent it. Zephyrinus (210 AD.) and Callistus (220 AD.) were the first bishops to claim Mt.16:18 to themselves, they were both modalistic in their view of God. Tertullian called him an usurper saying, "as if he was the Bishop of Bishop's." So it was Oneness believers who first wanted to be head of the whole Church, not Constantine. Adolf Harnack in his book the History of Dogma actually states that "Modalism…was for almost a generation the official theory in Rome." (3:53). Which certainly proposes a problem for those who claim a Roman origin of the Trinity. This occurred before Constantine and Arius' heresy won after Constantine which  Rome promoted for yet another 50 years.

The truth is that there was no Roman Catholic Church ruling Christianity before Constantine, because Christianity was an illegal religion and an underground practice. It was not until hundred's of year's later, 5th cent. to the 7th cent., that the first vestiges of this church government rose where there was a Roman bishop as the head of the Church, making it an official Roman Church functioning similar to today's.

Before we can understand the council of Nicea we need to at least understand Constantine and what took place. In 312 AD, Constantine claimed a vision from God, a shape similar to a cross in front of the sun. Many believe it was then that he declared his conversion to Christianity. Constantine saw a flaming cross in the sky, with the Greek words en toutoi nika- in this sign conquer.  Early the next morning, (this is according to Eusebius whom Constantinegave this account to). Constantine dreamed that a voice commanded him to have his soldiers mark upon their shields the letter X with a line drawn through it and curled around the top ...

He heard a voice say that he would conquer in the sign that he had seen. Constantine painted the perverted crosses on the shields of his soldiers. The victory was directly linked to the sign he had seen.

It is assumed it was Jesus Christ whom he accepted. The fact that Constantine saw the cross and the sun together may explain why he worshiped the Roman sun god, while at the same time professing to be a Christian to bring a political religious unity to his empire. Constantine built a triumphal arch featuring the sun god, his coins featured the sun. Constantine made a statue of the sun god, with his own face on it, for his new city of Constantinople.

Under Constantine in 312 AD, Christianity was adopted by Rome. He repealed the persecution edicts of Diocletian. Constantine 'Christianised' the Roman Empire and made it the religion of the state. He also paganized Christianity in Rome. Constantine's plan to have unification and peace in his empire succeeded and “Christianized Rome” and a political church was made to rule. Satan began the process of corrupting the church from within. Christianity was slowly infiltrated with a pagan system and joining the church with the world political system. Baptism made one a Christian and they brought their pagan religion in to be synthesized with the church. Saints and Images entered the Church under Christian `names, the worship of relics. In Eastern Orthodoxy, icons had intrinsic power.

Historians disagree whether or not Constantine actually became a Christian. His character certainly did not reflect the teachings of Jesus Christ. Constantine was vain, violent and superstitious. Constantine waited until he was dying before asking to be baptized. Christianity became politically correct. Many people joined the Church for other reasons than forgiveness of sins and a changed life.

Constantine did not care about the theological issues as much as he did keeping the peace and his power play. The succeeding popes eventually claimed the emperor's titles to themselves, Pontifex Maximus and Vicar of Christ. Over the course of time the true Christians separated themselves from the corrupted church, began to call the popes Antichrist and were martyred.

Arius reasoned that since Jesus was begotten, he must have had a beginning, associating the word (begotten) generation, to be = with creation. He neglected the term is only begotten and the many scriptures that teach Christ was preexistent before creation.

So it’s clear that Arius called Christ a created being not the eternal God in human flesh. This teaching also went against two groups that had clashed over 50 years before, that differed on how Christ was God, though both agreed his was deity. (The Oneness group and the Trintarians)

Constantine was later won to the side of Arius by his friend Eusibius, a co- believer in Arius' view of Christ being a creature.  Receiving Eusebius of Nicodemia, on his death bed Constantine was then baptized an Arian (337 A.D.). Constantine then rejected the Trinitarian view, and by his order, disposed of Athanasius and his followers. A year after Constantine's death Eusebius of Nicodemia became the bishop of Constantinople and the Arians quickly came into control of the most important areas of the church. So the Trinity was not promoted by the Church (in Rome), but was actually rejected by the very man everyone points to as the source. He was supporting Arius' view , and rejected the Trinitarian view. So the Trinity as well as Christ being God, which was once a settled issue was no longer promoted by the Church. Instead it was rejected, replace b y what we would call today a Jehovah Witnesses doctrine. Constantine was not a Christian but was baptized to be like a Jehovah's Witness believes today. So the Trinity which was a settled issue (temporarily) was not promoted by the Church but was actually rejected, replaced by what we call today the Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrine. For the next 50 years Arianism became a major movement in the Church. So what the Jehovah’s Witnesses proclaim as accurate history is in fact the very opposite of what actually happened. Constantine is their friend - not an enemy.

In 360 in Constantinople all the earlier creeds were disavowed and the term substance (ousia) was outlawed. The Son was declared to be like the Father who begot, not as the same substance. The tide would soon to turn, with Constantius death in 361.