Reasons to Believe--Constantine's Convictions

I know it has been awhile since we all heard the back and forth generated by the success of the Dan Brown novels, but The DaVinci Code sold roughly 80 million copies which makes it one of the MOST widely read books EVER written.  A book that successful by publishing standards will continue to have a life of its own influencing people's perceptions about the Bible and Christianity for decades to come.  The question Brown amazingly seems to have inserted into many people's subconscious is, "Did our sacred scriptures or any foundational truth about Christianity get created by some ancient Roman emperor named Constantine??"

I stumbled across some interesting information recently that I cannot help but share in regards to this discussion.

At the time of the rather large brouhaha, one of the primary points being made or insinuated by Brown and others, who wanted to claim other gospels as legitimate, was that the books of the New Testament as we know them today were simply picked out by those in power during the Council of Nicea in 325 during Constantine’s reign. Christian scholars who were aware of the process by which the New Testament had been reached quickly pointed out that this was filled with factual inaccuracies and half truths so as to lead astray large numbers of people who were generally not educated about the subject. Back and forth this went.

"Constantine picked out the stuff in your Bible!" said Brown.

"Nuh, uh!" said the scholars.

"Yuh, huh!" said Brown……and so on and so forth. (The aforementioned conversation never happened as such but is an attempt at humor.)

Anyhoo. The serious point that scholars often made was that the point of contention at the Council had nothing to do with what would be included within AS scripture since this was almost universally agreed upon. The hot button issue at the Council of Nicea was the trinity and how to deal with the deity of Jesus. Why am I bringing this "hot button issue" up?

What is often referred to as the orthodox view about this question has long been to affirm the members of the trinity, especially regarding the deity of Christ, and the departure from this orthodox view is called Arianism. AGAIN, the Council of Nicea AFFIRMED the Trinity and denounced Arianism. This, however, did NOT resolve internal disagreements by many in power, including many bishops in power, and this is where I came across the new information I had previously been unaware of until recently.

Athanasius has long been considered one of the great church fathers (a term reserved for those who are seen as having helped to shepherd the early church by their servant leadership and insights). He played a crucial role in the ongoing debates about Trinity and the deity of Christ. In spite of obviously ending up venerated on the "winning side", initially, Athanasius was run out of the city of Alexandria by none other than Constantine himself because of this Arianism vs. Nicean issue. As a matter of fact, Athanasius, the champion of what became the church doctrine was exiled by no less than four different emperors. Constantine, Constantius II, Julian, AND Valens are the four emperors that exiled Athanasius for various lengths of time.

I think some of you are Bible geeks like me and are genuinely interested, BUT for rest of you who are not so nerdily inclined toward Bible trivia, listen UP! The point that is relevant to my initial connection to the Dan Brown controversy is simple. You can compare the current orthodox view regarding Trinity and the Deity of Christ and understand that the convictions of Constantine had NOTHING to do with ANY thing decided in the momentous Council of Nicea. Constantine’s convictions and the convictions of three other emperors as well as highly influential and politically connected bishops ran completely counter to what became the long standing doctrine of the church. The truth and truths found within the Bible actually are often fought for BY God AGAINST the powers that exist in any given generation. They are eternal. This is just one tiny example of the evidence of HIS ability to guard the integrity of His Word and His words. I hope you will dig into the many, MANY reasons we should have such incredible confidence in the integrity of the Bible and how supernaturally it was established and has been preserved.