![]() To put things simply, at the time, the church was divided into two main camps, one believing that Christ was God, and the other believing that Christ was a human being like the rest of us. There were around 300 bishops present at this council (although others were invited). The bishops exerted a lot of influence and power, and their fighting over this matter was causing a lot of division within his empire, and he wanted to put a stop to it. Combatting Arianism was the major theological reason of course. There was a mixture of motivations for calling this meeting. The Council was convened by Emperor Constantine for the purpose of getting all the bishops in the empire to sit down and agree to a uniform set of beliefs. The Greek words were especially used in the Council of Nicaea of 325. These debates had been going on before Nicea, but as things came to a head, it was deemed to be necessary to more fully clarify and affirm the biblical teachings on this. This was the heterodox position being refuted at Nicea. Thus Christ is not fully equal to the Father in divinity. Homoiousios = of a similar substance, of a similar essence. This was the orthodox position being affirmed at Nicea. Thus Christ is equal to the Father in divinity. Homoousios = of the same substance, of the same essence. When we apply the two different prefixes we come up with two quite different concepts: As to the Greek version, here is how the two Greek terms in question break down: So various terms were used to help elucidate and clarify what the biblical data was saying. He denied the full deity of Christ and insisted that he was merely a created being. Contrary voices to the biblical position were making the rounds, such as that of Arias. It was part of ongoing discussions as the church sought to iron out what exactly it believed concerning the nature of Christ. The Council of Nicaea of 325 was assembled to deal with these matters. The first term is the orthodox word used by the early church fathers while the second term was used by those who denied the deity of Christ and the Triune understanding of the Godhead. You have to look closely at the two Greek words to see just what the difference is: one has an extra āiā (the Greek letter, iota).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |