Still Fighting Over Nicaea

The Anglican Communion dusts off and debates some of the Council of Nicaea's forgotten canons.

The 38 provincial heads of the Anglican Communion meet next week in Northern Ireland for "careful study of the Windsor Report," the recommendations issued last October on the future of Anglican unity amid deep divisions over theology, ethics, and practice.

Anglicans and religion journalists, however, are getting tired. The resolution of each meeting of Anglican leaders seems to be, "just wait until the next meeting." Though some orthodox and conservative Anglicans are hopeful that leaders from southern provinces, especially in Africa, will stand firmly against North American theological liberalism and sexual libertinism, few are expecting anything decisive. This isn't being billed as the Anglican Council of Nicaea.

Not that the Council of Nicaea was as decisive as it is usually billed, either. It took almost 60 years for Nicaea's influence to solidify. In the meantime, the main heresy condemned at the council, Arianism, became ascendant and almost triumphed over orthodoxy. Even the Nicene Creed recited today wasn't really adopted until 381, 56 years after the council ended.

The Council of Nicaea was not, as Da Vinci Code novelist Dan Brown has convinced scores of readers, the place where the church made up the ideas of Jesus' divinity and the infallibility of Scripture, but it still stands as one of the biggest moments in church history (which is why Christian History & Biography has devoted its next issue to the council; click here if you don't already subscribe).

A few Anglican leaders have made a habit of systematically denying each line of the Nicene Creed, but most Anglicans revere the council as authoritative. So it was no throwaway comment when the Windsor Report made direct reference to the council's canons (rules or standards) in issuing its evaluation. But the Lambeth Commission on Communion, which issued the Windsor Report, didn't invoke Nicaea to talk about heretical priests and bishops in the West. Instead, the canons appeared in a discussion of how some orthodox parishes have responded to their own apostate leaders by seeking outside oversight:

Some Archbishops from elsewhere in the Communion have, both by taking initiatives, and by responding to invitations from clergy purporting to place themselves under their jurisdictions, entered parts of the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada and exercised episcopal functions without the consent of the relevant diocesan bishop. This goes not only against traditional and often-repeated Anglican practice … but also against some of the longest-standing regulations of the early undivided church (Canon 8 of Nicaea). These actions are not purely reactions to recent events, though that has been their main character. In some cases they build on earlier attempts at unilateral action against bishops whose theology and/or practice was perceived to be out of line with traditional Anglican and Christian teaching, or even to set up would-be "orthodox" structures or "mission churches" for their own sake, e.g. the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA).

Conservatives were aghast that the Lambeth Commission treated orthodox leaders offering "alternative oversight" as akin to blessing same-sex unions and ordaining actively homosexual bishops in terms of disrupting church unity. But even the evangelicals on the commission stood by the claim. Bishop of Durham N.T. Wright, whose orthodox credentials are impeccable, told Christianity Today:

The important thing to say is that border crossings are disruptive. Not only are they against the spirit and the letter of Anglican formularies, they are against one of the decrees of the Council of Nicaea, as we point out. And I think not a lot of people know this, but it's important to say this was a question that the early fathers faced at the same time as they were hammering out the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ, and that they gave it their time to say people should not do this because that's not how episcopacy works.

Now, of course it's open to people to come back and say episcopacy has broken down because of this and this. But then the critical thing, and this is where it is very similar, is that we have mechanisms—they demand patience, of course, which many of us don't have in great supply.

The problem with the Windsor Report's reference to the canons of Nicaea, some conservatives have responded, is that it focuses on the wrong heretics.

The Arians, who denied the full divinity of Christ, were spotlighted at the Council of Nicaea, and most of the council's work focused on accurately defining Jesus' nature. But the 20 canons adopted, in addition to setting the date of Easter and regulating aspects of church life, deal with two other heretical groups.

The first are the Cathari, or Novatians. (This is the group referenced in the eighth canon, which the Windsor Report references.) While condemned as heretics, followers of Novatian were doctrinally orthodox. Novatian, in fact, had written one of the church's important works on the Trinity. This, then, was a group that could say the Nicene Creed with pride.

Indeed, pride was the issue: Novatians were outraged at how easily those who had lapsed under persecution had been received back into the church once the pressure lifted. They were also upset with lax church attitudes toward the twice-married. The solution, as they saw it, was to appoint rival bishops to "compromised" sees, which earned them a reputation as schismatics condemned by the rest of the church. At Nicaea, the Novatian bishop Acesius was personally criticized by Emperor Constantine, who had been more conciliatory with those who denied orthodox theology.

If a Novatian wanted to return to the church's good graces, the Council of Nicaea ruled, all they had to do was to "profess in writing that they will observe and follow the dogmas of the Catholic and Apostolic Church." Novatian priests could stay priests. Novatian bishops had to be under the local orthodox bishop, but in many cases didn't even have to step down in rank (whether a Novatian bishop retained the title of bishop or became a priest was up to the local orthodox bishop). It's important that the ex-Novatian "be evidently seen to be of the clergy," the Council decided, so long as "there may not be two bishops in the city."

Canon 8, however was markedly different from the other one dealing with heretics: Canon 19, which addressed the Paulianists. These followed the bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata, who was known both for heresy and an opulent lifestyle. He expressly rejected the deity of Christ, whom he considered an "ordinary man" inspired by the Word of God.

A Paulianist returning to orthodoxy had to do much more than simply offer a letter professing fealty to the church. "They must by all means be rebaptized," the council declared. Even clergy "found blameless and without reproach" had to go through ordination again. Clergy found unfit were deposed. Deaconesses were laicized. In short, they held a place between heretic and unbeliever. The church may have welcomed repentant Paulianists, but it was with a reluctant handshake, not with open arms.

So the question for today is applicability. Many orthodox Anglicans in the West see the Episcopal Church (USA) not just as wayward, but as apostate. Bishops who deny the authority of Scripture and declare that God has changed his mind on matters of sexual ethics, they say, are heretics, not just schismatics. The repentance of the Paulianists is in order, not the assurances of the Novatians. Anglican liberals may find parallels between Novatian rigors on remarriage and today's conservative emphasis on sexual ethics, but that doesn't mean that the Anglican Mission in America or other groups offering "alternative oversight" are schismatics, let alone heretics.

The Windsor Report misses the real lessons of Nicaea, says Robert J. Sanders, associate rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, Florida, in an online commentary. He writes, "What does Nicaea teach us? It teaches us that believers need to come under the oversight of bishops, that they cannot receive from heretical bishops, and therefore, orthodox bishops must officiate in dioceses headed by heretical bishops."

The 49-page Windsor Report has enough mystery and controversy in it to keep the Primates busy during their meeting. There's a good chance that a parenthetical aside referencing the Council of Nicaea won't even come up. But one hopes that some lessons of Nicaea won't be lost on the Anglican Communion. In 325, church leaders were willing to die to see that orthodox doctrine was upheld. It didn't come to that: Instead, orthodox Christians, despite "winning" at Nicaea, had to face decades of uncertainty and apparent defeat before the church got its act together. Boldness and patience will likely be needed again among Anglicans.

[quote]This is a portion of a larger paper written to refute a Gnostic-feminist professor at CSUN. It also had the side-effect of refuting Dan Browns theories. Enjoy, it is meant only as an addition to the Orthodoxy here. Me, SeanG[/quote] [b]Nag Hammadi[/b] Understanding the political motives behind modern feminism and its attacks on the Christian faith will help shed some light on how the modern feminists endeavor to interpret religious history and theology. A feminist author that has delved into the early Gnostic tradition and writings is Elaine Pagels. She uses this understanding of Gnostics to attack, and ultimately reject, Christianity. She states that, for one thing, the Christian faith is patriarchal and should be rejected for that alone, this will all be dealt with herein. For many, many years, all that was understood about Gnosticism came through primarily the writings of the early church fathers, more specifically, Irenaeus [1] (died about A.D. 200), Tertullian (died about A.D. 220), Hippolytus [2](died about A.D. 236) [3], and Origen (died about A.D. 254). This is no longer the case, as the Gnostic writings have recently come to light again due to an interesting archaeological find at Nag Hammadi (300 miles south of Cairo in the Nile River region of Egypt, in 1945) [4]. The 52 surviving [5] Coptic writings are firmly placed from A.D. 350-400, based on the type of script and papyrus utilized. However, some of these documents were most probably taken from earlier Greek versions that are, as of yet, not to be found. It is here where the scholarly consensus on the dates of these earlier Greek versions comes to an end. The Gospel of Thomas, one of these documents found at Nag Hammadi, is, by far, the most well known “gospel” of Gnostic tradition. This popularity can, in part, be attributed to the Jesus Seminar[6] and more recently the movie Stigmata. Some scholars theorize that the date of the Greek version that predated the Coptic version of the Gospel of Thomas is around A.D. 140-200. This date is important to some because of various theories promulgated by the likes of Marcus Borge [7], Robert Funk [8], John Dominic Crossan [9], Elaine Pagels [10], and others. [i]Why [/i]this [b]early [/b]date is important to these authors mentioned is that they all demand a [b]late [/b]date for the canonical Gospels and the theological understanding of [i][b]who [/i][/b]Jesus was understood to be. As an example, in Pagels book [u]The Gnostic Gospels[/u], the thesis is put forward that the second-century church had a panoply of documents and theologies to choose from, saying in effect that both the Gnostic and orthodox traditions circulated alongside each other. She goes on to say that because canonical, ecclesiastical, theological issues and views hadn’t been settled yet, a struggle ensued and the orthodox views won out over the others and became predominate. Pagels makes the point that rather than distinguishing itself as the superior historical and theological view, orthodoxy achieved victory largely on political and social grounds. Thus Pagels asks:[list]Why were these texts buried – and why have they remained virtually unknown for nearly 2,000 years? Their suppression as banned documents, and their burial on the cliff at Nag Hammadi, it turns out, were both part of a struggle critical for the formation of early Christianity. The Nag Hammadi texts, and others like them, which circulated at the beginning of the Christian era, were denounced as heresy by orthodox Christians in the middle of the second century. We have long known that many early followers of Christ were condemned by other Christians as heretics, but nearly all we knew about them came from what their opponents wrote attacking them.[11][/list]Is there a response to this controversy? Only for those interested in a historical search and not so interested in their presupposed biases or ideologies. One supposition that is current between all the authors mentioned above is that the Biblical Gospels were written around the same date as the supposed Greek versions of the Gnostic writings. For instance, [i]“…the Gnostic holy books must be assigned such an early date that Christianity itself may be seen as no more than a ‘branch of gnosticism.’”[/i][12] A late date for the Christian documents is the one joining influence between all those who put a heavy emphasis on the Gnostic documents. However, this can easily be shown to be a mistaken belief. This brings us to another interesting archaeological find, which involves some caves at Qumran, a small area off the shores of the Dead Sea in Palestine [13]. The Dead Sea Scrolls, as they are popularly known, has shed some light on just how early the Biblical Gospels were circulating. Without going into much detail, I will lay out some of the reasoning (evidence) behind the rejection of the Gnostic tradition and writings while accepting the [i]“superior historical and theological view”[/i] that orthodoxy rightly deserves. This, then, would deal a deathblow to the various interpretations about the importance of Gnosticism, not the least of which is the thesis that orthodoxy [i]“achieved [its] victory largely on political and social grounds,”[/i] which seems hard to swallow considering the emphasis in placing women in positions of authority, thus challenging the patriarchy in Orthodox Judaism and Roman culture (this will be elucidated on shortly) Too Young to Date Not only did the Dead Sea Scrolls yield portions of, and even entire books from the Old Testament, the scrolls offered up some New Testament fragments as well [14]. (The following chart uses the numbering system established for manuscripts, for example, “7Q5” means fragment 5 from Qumran cave 7:)[list]Mark 4:28___7Q6?___Dated to A.D. 50 Mark 6:48___7Q15___A.D. ? Mark 6:52,53___7Q5___A.D. 50 Mark 12:17___7Q7___A.D. 50 Acts 27:38___7Q6?___A.D. 60 Romans 5:11,12___7Q9___A.D. 70[+] 1 Timothy 3:16; 4:1-3___7Q4___A.D. 70[+] James 1:23,24___7Q8___A.D. 70[+] [15, 16][/list]There are also illusions to the Gospel of Luke in 4Q246, which date to A.D. 49 [17]. A little-known papyrus of Matthew has opened the trained eye as well. The Magdalen Papyrus, named after the university that houses it, corroborates three traditions: that St. Matthew actually wrote the Gospel bearing his name; that he wrote it within a generation of Jesus’ death (dated to A.D. 60); and that the gospel stories are true [18]. This portion of Matthew is a Coptic translation; the original Aramaic version pre-dates this, obviously, placing Matthew around A.D. 50. Not to mention that almost all Bible critics place Paul’s first epistle at A.D. 52-57 [19], and the creed in that epistle (1 Cor. 15:3) is dated about ten years earlier than that, “Paul had not invented it but had been the one who transferred to them what he had received” (4:1) [20]. 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 reads:[list][i]“I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me—that Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the twelve apostles. After that, he was seen by more than five hundred of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died by now. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.”[/i] (NLT) [21][/list][i]“Handed on to you … what I had received” [/i](NRSV) is the language of what scholars call [i]“traditioning:”[/i] [22] Jewish teachers would pass on their teachings to their students, who would in turn pass them on to their own students. The students could take notes, but they delighted especially in oral memorization and became quite skilled at it; memorization was a central feature of ancient education. The early Christian community had already memorized, codified, and passed on creeds within about ten years of Jesus death, this is very important. Evidence of this comes also from early Christian tombs with reference to [i]who [/i]Jesus was understood to be, further confirming the Gospels [23]. One tomb I wish to focus on, as an example (there are many others [24]), is one found by professor Sukenik as reported in [u]American Journal of Archaeology[/u]:[i]“When the ossuary with four crosses on its sides was found there was not the slightest possible doubt as to the antiquity of the cross [marks], because it was clear that these [ossuaries] had not been touched from the moment they had been placed inside until the day we took them out…. I noticed the inscription on one of the ossuaries in which the name ‘Jesus’ was clearly discernable, followed here not by the usual [second] name, but by a description or an exclamation.”[/i] [25][/list]After the name “Jesus,” the exclamation or dedication read [i]“y’ho,”[/i] meaning [i]“Jehovah” [/i]or [i]“the Lord.” [/i] The full inscription of the ossuary reads: [i]“[To] Jesus, the Lord.” [/i]In light of the A.D. 42 date for the sealing of this tomb, the presence of this dedication to [i]“Jesus, the Lord”[/i] attests to the Christians’ acceptance of Jesus Christ as God within ten years of the death and resurrection of Jesus. These are merely a few [i]of the many [/i]evidences for an early date for the Christian faith. This is important because most historians observe that in order for a historical event to be metamorphosed into myth, it needs to be at least three to four generations removed from the time it occurred whereas the New Testament is within one generation of the actual event. [b]New Testament Documents vs. Ancient Documents[/b] The earliest partial copy of Caesar’s [u]The Gallic Wars[/u], which historians accept, dates 1,000 years after it was written. The first complete copy of the [u]Odyssey[/u], by Homer, dates to 2,200 years [i][b]after [/i][/b]it was written. When the interval between the writing of the New Testament and earliest copies is compared to other ancient works, the New Testament proves to be much closer to the time of the original. There are over 5,500 Greek copies of the Gospels; this is far and away the most we have of any ancient work. Many ancient writings have been transmitted to us by only a handful of manuscripts, but these are accepted as reliable commentary on the events they describe ([u]Catullus[/u] – three copies, the earliest copy being dated at 1,600 years after it was written; [u]Herodotus[/u] – eight copies, the first being dated to 1,300 years later) [26]. Not only do the New Testament documents have more manuscript evidence and close time interval (which no other writing of antiquity shares) between the original writing and its earliest copy, but they were also translated into several other languages at an early date. Translation of a document into another language was rare in the ancient world, so this is an added plus for the New Testament as one could compare for errors between the many versions and copies. This ability to compare and search for grammatical errors within the plethora of early New Testament text is nonexistent in other ancient documents [27] – Homer’s [u]Iliad[/u] [[i]somewhat[/i]] excluded. The number of copies of the versions of the Greek New Testament is in excess of 18,000, with possibly as many as 25,000. This is further evidence that helps us establish the New Testament text. Even if we did not posses the 5,500[+] Greek manuscripts or the almost 25,000 copies of the versions, the text of the New Testament could still be reproduced within 250 years from its composition! How? merely by the writings of the early Christians in commentaries, letters, and the like. These ancient writers quote the biblical text, thus giving us another witness to the text of the New Testament. John Burgon has catalogued [i]more than 86,000 citations[/i] by the early church fathers who cite different parts of the New Testament. Thus we observe that there is so much more evidence for the reliability of the New Testament text than any other comparable writings in the ancient world. We can reconstruct the entire New Testament just with these early quotes, except for eleven verses. They were quoting from manuscripts that were written prior to their citing them, obviously then, exemplifying the plethora of widely distributed copies of the early Gospels [28]. [1] It is worth noting that Irenaeus was discipled by Polycarp, who was in turn discipled by the Apostle John. [2] Hippolytus was discipled by Irenaeus… this direct lineage to an apostle is important because the early church fathers were in possession of not only written records of the disciples but were also contemporaries of persons who personally knew the apostles and forwarded their understanding of the gospels and who Jesus was (is). Josh McDowell & Bill Wilson, [u]He Walked Among Us: Evidence for the Historical Jesus[/u], Here’s Life Publishers, San Bernardino: CA [1988], p. 89. [3] Trent C. Butler, gen. ed., [u]Holman Bible Dictionary[/u], Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville: TN [1991], Gnosticism [4]Gary R. Habermas, [u]The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ[/u], College Press, Joplin: MS [1996], p. 101. [5] The Nag Hammadi codices were found by an Arab peasant, though, they remained obscure for several years due to several bizarre occurrences, including murder, black market sales and the destruction of some of the findings. footnote #4. [6] A very scholarly response to the Jesus Seminar is the book edited by Michael J. Wilkins & J. P. Moreland, [u]Jesus Under Fire: Modern Scholarship Reinvents the Historical Jesus[/u], Zondervan, Grang Rapids: MI [1995]. [7] [u]The God We Never Knew[/u], Harper, San Francisco: CA [1997]; [u]The Lost Gospel Q: The Original Sayings of Jesus[/u], Ulysses Press, Berkley: CA [1996]. [8] [u]The Gospel of Jesus: According to the Jesus Seminar[/u],: Polebridge Press, Santa Rosa: CA [1999]; [u]The Acts of Jesus: What Did Jesus Really Do[/u]? Harper, San Francisco: CA [1998]; [u]Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say[/u]? Harper, San Francisco: CA [1996] [9] [u]The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant[/u], Harper, San Francisco: CA [1993]; [u]Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography[/u], Harper, San Francisco: CA [1995]. [10] [u]The Gnostic Gospels[/u], Vintage Books, New York: NY [1989]; [u]The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters[/u],: Trinity Press International, Harrisburg: PA [1992]. [11] Elaine Pagels, [u]The Gnostic Gospels[/u], Vintage, New York: NY [1989], p. xviii. [12] Andre Nataf, [u]Dictionary of the Occult[/u], Wordsworth Editions, Bordas,: Paris [1988], p. 37. [13] Douglas Groothuis, [u]Jesus In an Age of Controversy[/u], Harvest House, Eugene: OR [1996], p.152. [14] Jeffery L. Sheler, [u]Is the Bible True? How Modern Debates and Discoveries Affirm the Essence of the Scriptures[/u], Harper, San Francisco: CA [1999]. [15] Norman L. Geisler, [u]Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics[/u], Baker Books, Grand Rapids: MI [1999], p. 188. [16] Grant R. Jeffrey, [u]Jesus: The Great Debate[/u], Frontier Research, Toronto: Ontario [1999], pp.66-68. [17] Grant R. Jeffrey, [u]The Signature of God: Astonishing Biblical Discoveries[/u], Tyndale House, Wheaton: IL [1996], pp. 100-103. [18] Carsten Peter Thiede & Matthew d’Ancona, [u]The Jesus Papyrus: The Most Sensational Evidence on the Origins of the Gospels Since the Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls[/u], Galilee Doubleday, New York: NY [1996], back cover. [19] Norman Geisler & Paul Hoffman, [u]Why I Am a Christian: Leading Thinkers Explain Why They Believe[/u], Baker Books, Grand Rapid: MI [2001], p. 158. [20] Carson, D. A. (1994). [u]New Bible commentary : 21st century edition[/u]. Rev. ed. of: The new Bible commentary. 3rd ed. / edited by D. Guthrie, J.A. Motyer. 1970. (4th ed.) (1 Co 15:1). Leicester, England; Downers Grove: IL, USA: Inter-Varsity Press. [21] [u]Holy Bible : New Living Translation[/u]. (1 Co 15:3-7). Tyndale House, Wheaton: IL [1997]. [22] Craig S. Keener, [u]IVP Background Commentary New Testament[/u], InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove: IL [1993], 1 Cor. 15:3. [23] See for instance: Josh McDowell, [u]More than a Carpenter[/u], Living Books, Wheaton: IL [1977]. Chapters 1 & 2; Josh McDowell, [u]The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict[/u], Thomas Nelson, Nashville: TN [1999], chapters 5-10. [24] Grant R. Jeffrey, [u]Jesus: The Great Debate[/u], Frontier Research, Toronto: Ontario [1999], pp.79-92. [25] Quoted in the [u]Jerusalem Christian Review[/u], vol. 7, issue 6 [26] Josh McDowell, [u]More than a Carpenter[/u], Living Books, Wheaton: IL [1977], pp. 47-49 [27] F. F. Bruce, [u]The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable[/u]? Leicester, England; InterVarsity Press [1943/1998]. [28] Some good books that elucidate on this matter are: John Warwick Montgomery, [u]History and Christianity: A Vigorous, Convincing Presentation of the Evidence for a Historical Jesus[/u], Bethany House, Minneapolis: MN [1964]; Norman Geisler & Peter Bocchino, [u]Unshakeable Foundations: Contemporary Answers to Crucial Questions about the Christian Faith[/u], Bethany House, Minneapolis: MN [2001]; Gary R. Habermas, [u]The Verdict of History: Conclusive Evidence for the Life of Jesus[/u], Thomas Nelson, Nashville: TN [1988]; Norman L. Geisler & Paul K. Hoffman, [u]Why I am a Christian: Leading Thinkers Explain Why They Believe[/u], Baker Books, Grand Rapids: MI [2001]; William Lane Craig, [u]Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus[/u], Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston: NY [1989]; Craig Blomberg, [u]The Historical Reliability of the Gospels[/u], InterVarsity Press, Wheaton [1987]; Josh McDowell, [u]The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict[/u], Thomas Nelson, Nashville: TN [1999]

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