THE FIRST ŒCUMENICAL
COUNCIL OF NICE.
CHAPTER I.
PROLOGUE.—OBJECTS AND RESULTS.
The principal object of this famous Synod was to discuss and settle, upon a firm basis, the true Christian doctrine respecting the Divine nature of Christ, and his precise relation to the Almighty Deity of the material Universe; because the churches, and even the public, had been recently disquieted by the Arian controversy. But there were other questions of doctrine and discipline to be determined by this great Assembly of Christian Prelates; the more prominent of which questions were those relating to the Meletians, for having agitated a novel dogma, and the Novatians, for the same reason, and the most appropriate day for celebrating the Passover.
Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of the Roman World,[1] having been appealed
- ↑ Dr. Mosheim says,—"About A.D. 313, Constantine, who had been previously a man of no religion, is said to have embraced Christianity. But he also regarded some other religious as likewise true and useful to mankind." His purpose of abolishing the ancient religion of the Romans, and of tolerating only the Christian religion, he did not disclose till a little while before his death; when he published his edicts for pulling down the Pagan temples, and abolishing the sacrifices. According to the historian Zosimus (lib. ii., p. 104), an Egyptian (probably Hosius, bishop of Cordova in Spain), came to Rome and instructed the emperor upon the nature of Christianity.
