How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee

by Bart D. Ehrman

To make a long and complex story very short, there was widespread agreement among the bishops present about the details of the new creed, which was seen to be binding on all Christians. That is what the creed means when it states that it presents the view of the “Catholic and Apostolic church”: it is the view of the church that descended in direct lineage from the apostles of Jesus and that is found scattered throughout the entire world (“catholic” in this context means “universal”). Sometimes you will hear that at Nicea it was “a close vote.” It was not close. Only twenty of the 318 bishops disagreed with the creed when it was finally formulated. Constantine, who was actively involved with some of the proceedings, forced seventeen of those twenty to acquiesce. So only three did not eventually sign off on the creed: Arius himself and two bishops from his home country of Libya. These three were banished from Egypt. A couple of other bishops signed the creed but refused to agree to the anathemas at the end, which were directed specifically against Arius’s teachings. These bishops too were exiled.