“The creed also contained the “anathema” (i.e., condemnation) for those who rejected these truths, and for the first time, such anathemas carried with them civil repercussions. Arius and some of his followers were banished, even though for a short time. This set a precedent that eventually would have tremendous impact on culture and church, but it is also a separate issue from the theological proclamation of the council.”
There’s a good reason the anathema doesn’t appear in the creed when most post it, it was not in the creed when it was adopted. According to Eusebius, the anathema was not in the copy of the creed he and most bishops signed but was placed in later after the adoption. The thing was that Eusebius and many of the bishops agreed with Arius because that was the teaching they’d received as neophytes in the Church. A council empowered to examine him and his teachings would later admit as much. That was why he was on the eve of being accepted fully back into the church when he was assassinated.
I thought it quite interesting that every time the bishops would come up with a statement in simple biblical term each one was found to support Arianism, which was why they had to “go beyond what is written” (1 Cor. 4:6) to find a way to justify their duality creed. The thing to keep in mind about what led to the council of Nicea is that it was really a power struggle for the office of bishop of Alexandria where most of the people wanted Arius and the aged Bishop Alexander wanted the ambitious Athanasius, his assistant, to get the position. Arius had to go, so Athanasius, who history tells us had no scruples, made it into an issue of teachings with Alexander’s approval. The two were willing to split the Empire so Athanasius could get the position, which was one of the most powerful in Christendom at the time.
As to the Mormon, he was obviously ignorant regarding how the Bible became the Bible. But what more can we expect from somebody who goes beyond the scriptures to find his teachings?
Not sure who your source is on that idea, but it is not an accurate portrayal of the events. From the OP article:
During the course of the decades following Nicea, Athanasius, who had become bishop of Alexandria shortly after the council, was removed from his see five times, once by force of 5,000 soldiers coming in the front door while he escaped out the back! Hosius, now nearly 100 years old, was likewise forced by imperial threats to compromise and give place to Arian ideas. At the end of the sixth decade of the century, it looked as if Nicea would be defeated. Jerome would later describe this moment in history as the time when “the whole world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian.”24
Yet, in the midst of this darkness, a lone voice remained strong. Arguing from Scripture, fearlessly reproaching error, writing from refuge in the desert, along the Nile, or in the crowded suburbs around Alexandria, Athanasius continued the fight. His unwillingness to give place — even when banished by the Emperor, disfellowshipped by the established church, and condemned by local councils and bishops alike — gave rise to the phrase, Athanasius contra mundum: “Athanasius against the world.” Convinced that Scripture is “sufficient above all things,”25 Athanasius acted as a true “Protestant” in his day.26 Athanasius protested against the consensus opinion of the established church, and did so because he was compelled by scriptural authority. Athanasius would have understood, on some of those long, lonely days of exile, what Wycliffe meant a thousand years later: “If we had a hundred popes, and if all the friars were cardinals, to the law of the gospel we should bow, more than all this multitude.”27
Movements that depend on political favor (rather than God’s truth) eventually die, and this was true of Arianism. As soon as it looked as if the Arians had consolidated their hold on the Empire, they turned to internal fighting and quite literally destroyed each other. They had no one like a faithful Athanasius, and it was not long before the tide turned against them. By A.D. 381, the Council of Constantinople could meet and reaffirm, without hesitancy, the Nicene faith, complete with the homoousious clause. The full deity of Christ was affirmed, not because Nicea had said so, but because God had revealed it to be so. Nicea’s authority rested upon the solid foundation of Scripture.
A century after Nicea, we find the great bishop of Hippo, Augustine, writing to Maximin, an Arian, and saying: “I must not press the authority of Nicea against you, nor you that of Ariminum against me; I do not acknowledge the one, as you do not the other; but let us come to ground that is common to both — the testimony of the Holy Scriptures.”28