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History of the Christian Church — Topic 4

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History of the Christian Church — Topic 4

  • St. Athanasius the Great
    • St. Constantine and the First Ecumenical Council

ST. ATHANASIUS THE GREAT AND THE DEFENSE OF THE COUNCIL OF NICEA

St. Athanasius the Great

The intent of the use of the word homoousios in the creed, which was declared at the First Ecumenical Council, held in Nicea in 325, was to affirm the full deity of Christ - that God the Father has always had His Son, sharing fully in the same Divine Essence. But some of the bishops who signed apparently were retaining in their minds the right to interpret this word in their own way. And perhaps the Council members had been more interested in finding unity among themselves (also Emperor St. Constantine’s main goal) than in rigidly defining dogma - which is ultimately undefinable.

Fr. Schmemann asserts that Constantine compounds the problem “by exiling Arius and his followers, thus again [i.e., his intervention in the Donatist crisis] confusing the judgment of the Church with that of Caesar” (Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy, p. 79).

Now a number of bishops - especially the “court bishop” Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia - begin to exert their influence on Constantine on behalf of their old friend Arius, for whom they still have sympathy, especially in light of his exile. These bishops “had accepted the condemnation [of Arianism at the Nicene Council], since nearly all the bishops had shown themselves against him at the council; but [apparently they had done so] with reluctance and with hope of revenge. Since they could not openly oppose the Council [‘s decision], they resorted to intrigue, and taking advantage of the general indifference of the bishops to the constructive Nicene definition, they began to minimize it and to direct their forces against the [small] group of theologians who alone understood its full significance” (Schmemann, p. 79).

Rumors and accusations are set in motion; Bishop Eustathius of Antioch’s reputation is blackened and he is the first to be deposed and exiled (Rome continues to support him and his followers - known as the Eustathians - until c. 400).

** The great role of St. Athanasius**

Young Bishop Athanasius, who had been a leading figure at the Nicene Council as a deacon under Bishop Alexander,1 becomes the next bishop of Alexandria in 328. He is the next pro-Nicene bishop to be attacked. First he is criticized for not restoring Arius to communion after he was called back from exile upon his acceptance of the Nicene Creed “(with a few private glosses)” (Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, p. 134). Through years of constant slander, his enemies finally succeed in getting him condemned for alleged canonical wrong- doing - not for any doctrinal reasons - at the Council of Tyre in 335. Then he is exiled by Emperor Constantine to Trier in Gaul - his first exile (335-337). Meanwhile, some time around the year 336, Arius dies a sudden, wretched death in a public bathroom in Constantinople.

Upon St. Constantine’s death in 337, his son Constantius takes over as the Emperor of the East. He at first recognizes all the exiled bishops and brings them back to their rightful episcopal thrones. Athanasius is welcomed home in Alexandria.

However, the “Eusebian” party, led by Bp. Eusebius of Nicomedia, does not give up. They send an epistle to all the bishops and to Emperor Constantius, accusing Athanasius of returning to his throne illegally. They claim that since a Church council had deposed him (at Tyre in 335), one would be necessary to restore him. Obligingly, Athanasius holds a council in Egypt of 62 bishops, who declare him innocent of the absurd charges against him, and who point out the real significance of the activities of the Eusebians: “to abolish the Orthodox and do away with the condemnation of the Arians at the true and great council” (Schmemann, p. 81).

Emperor Constantius is now favorable towards Bp. Eusebius of Nicomedia and his party, and in 339 Athanasius is again condemned and deposed at a Church council, this time in Antioch. Authorized by Constantius, armed force is used by the local police to install an Arian - Gregory of Cappadocia - as bishop of Alexandria, with Athanasius managing to escape into the desert. This begins his second exile (339-346). “Athanasius, however, was not a man to give in to force. He possessed great energy and absolute faith in the righteousness of his cause, and the ordeals which the great Alexandrian Father and teacher underwent all his life long apparently added to his strength. A truly epic struggle began between this giant and all the forces combined against him” (Schmemann, p. 82).

Soon thereafter, Athanasius travels to Rome to seek the support of the Bishop there, Pope Julius. He is joined there by Marcellus of Ancyra, who was correctly condemned at a council at Constantinople in 336 for anti-Origenist Trinitarian theology which sounded modalistic (he was convinced, perhaps rightly, that Origen’s “three hypostases” really meant “three essences” - implying three different Gods - but he responded by going too far in the opposite direction, overemphasizing the sameness of the Three Persons). Pope Julius receives both Athanasius and Marcellus quite favorably. But as Chadwick says, “It was a grave matter for Rome to accept clergy formally excommunicated by Greek synods” (The Early Church, p. 137). For this strongly implied that Rome was disregarding the verdicts rendered by the Eastern bishops concerning the guilt of Athanasius and Marcellus.

Pope Julius summons all the Church to a council in Rome to decide the issues. This is interpreted in the East as an attempt by the Roman Church to promote herself as being the final court of appeal for the whole Church, something which is never accepted in the East. So the East reacts with indignation to this papal pretension (we recall the indignant Eastern reaction to Pope Victor during the Paschal controversy c. 190, and to Pope Stephen during his dispute with St. Cyprian of Carthage in the 250’s concerning the proper way to receive schismatics and heretics into the Church). The Eastern bishops are especially affronted since Marcellus undoubtedly was heretical and had been properly ex- communicated by them at the Council in Constantinople in 336. Eusebius of Nicomedia and two other senior Eastern bishops write back respectfully but ironically, putting Pope Julius in his place. Furious, Julius calls a synod of Italian bishops, which defends Athanasius and Marcellus; and he writes to the Eastern bishops, “‘Do you not know that the custom is that we should be written to first, and that judgment is rendered here? What I write to you and what I say we received from the blessed Apostle Peter’” (Schmemann, p. 86; my emphasis).

In 343, Constans, the Emperor in the West, calls an “ecumenical council” to meet in Sardica (now Sofia, Bulgaria). But when the Emperor and the Western bishops refuse the Eastern bishops’ demand that Athanasius be absent from the council, the Easterners refuse to attend the council. The Westerners press on, and issue a naive theological manifesto justifying their favorable reception of Marcellus (giving it as a companion piece to the Nicene Creed). They also renew their affirmation of Athanasius as the legitimate bishop of Alexandria.

But with the Eastern bishops as hostile as ever towards Athanasius and as indignant as ever towards the Roman Church’s presumption to judge his case, and because there is a bishop ruling in Alexandria in his place, St. Athanasius must continue to wait in Rome, entrusting his and his Church’s destiny into the hands of God. Then in 345, Bishop Gregory of Alexandria, the pro-Eusebian who had replaced Athanasius, dies. The Eastern Emperor Constantius, in a gesture of kindness towards his brother Constans, the Western Emperor, then summons Athanasius back from exile to assume once again his episcopal throne. He is received back in

Alexandria with magnificent, triumphant celebration: “the people, together with the civil authorities, are said to have streamed out like a second Nile to meet him a hundred miles from Alexandria. A sea of faces gazed from every point of vantage, ears were strained to catch the tones of his voice, cheers and clapping accompanying his progress. The air was fragrant with incense, and the city was blazed with illuminations” (G. L. Prestige, Fathers and Heretics, pp. 72-73). Even his most violent enemies accepted the fact of his return. He then enjoys ten years of relative peace.

But events will prove that this respite is only possible because of the temporary goodwill of Emperor Constantius. For when he emerges as sole ruler of the entire empire in 353, after his brother Constans, the emperor in the West, is murdered in 350, Constantius finds those Eastern bishops who still have Arian or semi-Arian tendencies to be more supportive of him.

In 355, he acts by brute force to have Athanasius denounced at a council which he summons in Milan, the Western Capital, at which he declares: “My will is the canon for you!” Most of the bishops yield, and most of the others are exiled, including the great St. Hilary of Poitiers, who will become known as “the Athanasius of the West” for his unflagging support of the Nicene Council in the face of this anti-Nicene pressure. Indicative of the sudden rising power of the anti-Nicene party, Patriarch St. Paul of Constantinople, a defender of Nicea, is driven from the city and strangled by Arians in Armenia (he is honored on Nov. 6); and St. Marcian and St. Martyrius, two clergymen under St. Paul (a reader and a subdeacon) are beheaded after refusing bribes to renounce the Nicene definition (their day is Oct. 25).

On Feb. 8, 356, soldiers surround the cathedral in Alexandria, intent on arresting Athanasius, but he manages to slip away, and he goes into hiding among the monks of the Egyptian desert for six years. This is his third exile (356-362). In this time he writes his Apology to Constantius, his History of the Arians, and his most important work in defense of the Nicene definition, called Discourses against the Arians, in four books.2 In this work, with painstaking determination and methodical precision, he powerfully refutes the tenets and presuppositions of Arianism, garnering every possible argument from the Holy Scriptures to do so. During this time, with almost every bishopric in the hands of Arian sympathizers of one degree or another (and all of them backed by the military force of the Emperor), and with Athanasius fighting with his pen in seclusion in the Egyptian desert, it really did seem that it was “Athanasius Contra Mundum” - “Athanasius against the world.”

With full state support on their side, the various anti-Nicene bishops press their advantage. At a Church council held at Sirmium on the upper Danube River in 357, an openly Arian creed is accepted. This council declares, “But many are disturbed by questions about ‘substance,’ or in Greek ousia - that is, to make it more clearly understood, about the term homoousion [‘of the same substance’], or the phrase homoiousion [‘of like substance’]. Therefore no mention ought to be made of these, nor any exposition of them in the Church, for this reason: that they are not contained in the Divine Scriptures, and because they are beyond the understanding of man. Also, because no one can explain the birth of the Son, of whom it is written, ‘Who shall explain [declare] his generation?’ (Is. 53:8)… . There is no doubt that the Father is greater … than the Son in honor, renown and deity, and in the very name of Father, for the Son himself testifies ‘He that sent me is greater than I’ (John 14:28)” (Henry Bettenson, Documents of the Christian Church, p. 43; my emphasis). This statement is so blatantly Arian that St. Hilary of Poitiers calls it “the Blasphemy of Sirmium.”

But this declaration from the Council of Sirmium is so openly Arian that many of the moderate “semi-Arians” are taken aback; perhaps some are even frightened that the anti-Nicene position has suddenly developed this far. So these moderates begin to move back gradually towards the Nicene position. Some of them begin promoting one of the terms forbidden at Sirmium, suggesting that the Son is homoiousion with the Father - “like the Father” - and some of them were willing to even say that the Son is “like the Father in all things.” At a Church council in Constantinople in 360, Emperor Constantius allows the terminology “the Son is like the Father (homoiousion)” - though without the added words “in all things.”

In the next year, 361, Constantius dies, bringing Julian to the imperial throne. Soon known as “the Apostate,” this man who was raised as a Christian turns against the Christian Church and tries to revive the old pagan state religion. As part of his plan to undermine and eventually eliminate Christianity, he recalls all the exiled bishops, hoping that the Church will destroy Herself in the confusion of rival bishops in many cities.

So Athanasius is allowed to return to Alexandria, where again he is triumphantly received by his faithful flock. At this point Athanasius believed that those who could say “the Son is like the Father (homoiousion) in all things” were not very far from being able to say that “the Son is of the same essence (homoousion) with the Father,” since “in all things” would have to include “in essence.” If they are like each other in essence, isn’t this just about the same as saying that they actually are of the same essence? So he soon calls a council in Alexandria which makes the way open for reconciliation with the “semi-Arians.” Fr. Schmemann describes this momentous decision in this way: Athanasius ” understood that real incomprehension lay back of their rejection [of homoousion], and he perceived in their inadequate words their complete return to the Truth. For this alone he deserves his title, ‘The Great’” (Historical Road, p. 92). As he said, “Those who accept the Nicene Creed but have doubts about the term homoousios must not be treated as enemies; they mean the same as we, and dispute only about the word” (see Johannes Quasten, Patrology, vol. III, p. 70, for more of Athanasius’s overture towards the semi-Arians).

However, Athanasius’s struggles are not over. When Emperor Julian sees that Athanasius’s return to Alexandria has caused no hardship for the church there whatsoever - indeed, she is flourishing with her beloved pastor back in her midst - he sends him back into exile. This is his fourth exile (362-363, for 15 months). But in 363 Julian dies in battle against the Persians, and the troops proclaim his general Jovian to succeed him as emperor. Jovian is a Christian, and he recalls Athanasius back to his episcopal throne.

But Athanasius’s struggles are still not over. In the very next year, Jovian dies, to be succeeded by Valentinian. He also is a Christian, and willing to support the Nicene definition, so he allows the Church in the West to meet freely, and the bishops there return to complete acceptance of the Nicene Creed. But Valentinian appoints Valens to be the emperor in the East, and Valens supports the more radical semi-Arians who were still unwilling to accept the homoousion. In 365 Valens sends Athanasius into exile for the last time - his fifth exile (365, for four months) - but when Valens sees that this only incurs the wrath of the people of Alexandria, he soon allows Athanasius to return.

The great St. Athanasius is then allowed to live the remainder of his days in peace, as bishop of Alexandria, until his death on May 2, 373. The final victory of the Nicene Faith over Arianism, however, must wait until the death of Emperor Valens at the hands of the Goths in Adrianople in 378, and the subsequent appointment of St. Theodosios the Great as Emperor and his calling of the Second Ecumenical Council, which in 381 reaffirms once and for all the Nicene Creed.

G. L. Prestige states concerning the tremendous importance of St. Athanasius in this final victory over Arianism: “He died in 373, full of years, of reverent esteem, and of spiritual grace. Single-hearted, and sometimes almost single-handed, he had saved the Church from capture by pagan intellectualism. Indeed, he had done more. By his tenacity and vision in preaching one God and one Saviour, he had preserved from dissolution the unity and integrity of the Christian faith… . His own contemporaries rightly called Athanasius ‘the Great,’ and rightly judged that under God it was due to him, more than to any other single person, that Christian monotheism was saved from extinction” (Fathers and Heretics, p. 76).

St. Constantine and the First Ecumenical Council

In September of 324, when Emperor Constantine arrives in the East as sole ruler of the undivided Empire after his defeat of Licinius, the Eastern Emperor who had renewed the persecution of Christians around the year 320 (the illustrious Forty Martyrs of Sebaste suffered for Christ in this persecution), he is dismayed to learn of this new threat to the peace and unity of the Christian Church – and hence, of the Empire itself. He soon sends his close associate and theological advisor, Bp. Hosius of Cordova, Spain, to Alexandria to attempt to bring peace between the two opposing groups there. However, this mission fails.

Constantine then decides that he must help the Church meet this problem head- on, in the most comprehensive and thorough way possible – through a major council of as many Church leaders as possible from all over the Christian world. Hence, he summons what will be known forever afterwards as the First Great Ecumenical Council. At first it is meant to be held in the city of Ancyra in Asia Minor, but after Bp. Hosius holds a council in Antioch which excommunicates Bp. Eusebius of Caesarea, “an Origenist to the core” (W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity [Phila.: Fortress, 1984], p. 497), Constantine has it moved to Nicea, close to the imperial headquarters in Nicomedia, so that he can participate more easily. He hopes that this council will give all the disputants the opportunity to work out their differences.

This grand council, which Constantine wanted to make “the symbol and crown” of his own victory over Licinius and the reunification of the Empire (Schmemann, 76), opened on May 20, 325. We know the names of about 230 bishops who attended, but that list may have been incomplete; St. Athanasius later will give the total number at 318.3 Only a few were from the West – the bishops of Milan, Dijon, Bp. Hosius of Cordova, Bp. Caecilian of Carthage, and two others; Pope Sylvester of Rome was represented by two priests. A number of future Saints were in attendance – St. Athanasios the Great, St. Nicholas of Myra,4 St. Spyridon of Cyprus (Dec. 12), St. Alexander of Alexandria (May 29), St. Paphnutius of Egypt (March 27), as well as St. Hosius (Aug. 27). During the time of the council, the Emperor lavishes hospitality upon the delegates.

Constantine himself gives the opening address, in which he says that disputes within the Church are “more dangerous than war and other conflicts; they bring me more grief than anything else” (Schmemann, p. 77). The presidency is then probably given over to Bp. Hosius of Cordova.

Bp. Eusebius of Nicomedia submits an Arian creed for the delegates to consider. It is at once rejected. Then Bp. Eusebius of Caesarea submits the baptismal creed of his Palestinian community for consideration This creed is accepted as the basic framework for the Creed that is finally produced. Very significantly and remarkably, the Scriptural phrase “Firstborn of all creation” (Col. 1:15), part of the creed of Eusebius, is deleted, as it sounds very Arian when taken out of its context in St. Paul’s letter. This phrase is basically replaced with the words “of one essence with the Father,” using the philosophical word homoousios – even though this word had been used in a Sabellian (modalist) sense by the Libyan bishops opposing St. Dionysios the Great in 259, and by Paul of Samosata at the Council of Antioch in 264,5 and even though the word was not in the Scriptures! Then four explicitly anti- Arian anathemas attached. (See Bettenson, DCC, pp. 24-25, for the texts of both Eusebius’s creed and the original Nicene Creed.)

The word “homoousios” had been introduced probably by Hosius, or even by Constantine himself, and was supported by “a small group of bold and far- sighted theologians [especially St. Athanasios, then a deacon to Bp. Alexander of Alexandria] who understood the inadequacy of merely condemning Arius and the need to crystallize Church tradition in a clear concept” (Schmemann, p. 78). In light of the ongoing support for Arius, and for various forms of Semi- Arianism, in the years after Nicea, it is evident that many at the Council were not fully convinced of the truthfulness of this word in expressing the relationship of the Father and the Son, or of the necessity of using the word in the Creed. We recall that the Origenist-leaning bishops at the Council of Antioch in 264, led by St. Dionysios the Great,6 had preferred homoiousios to homoousios. Still, all the bishops at Nicea signed the Creed except two – Theonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais, who were deposed by the Church and banished by the Emperor, along with Arius, who refuses to accept the Council’s decisions. Fr. Schmemann remarks that with the exile of Arius and his followers, Constantine was “thus again confusing the judgment of the Church with that of Caesar” (Historical Road, p. 79).

The Nicene Council also passed 20 canons (given in NPNF 2, XIV, pp. 8-42). Highlights include:

  • mandating that synods should be held twice a year in every province (Canon 5)
  • forbidding bishops from changing dioceses, “on account of the great disturbance and discords that occur” (Canon 15)
  • urging that bishops be consecrated by all the other bishops in the diocese, but at least by three, with the others giving their assent in writing (Canon 4)
  • allowing the Novatianists to return to the Church through only a confession of faith (Canon 8), yet
  • requiring that Paulinianists (followers of Paul of Samosata) “must by all means be rebaptized” (Canon 19); St. Athanasius will later say that this is because they [as well as the Arians] gave a false meaning to the baptismal formula (Against the Arians.II.43; NPNF 2, IV, p. 371)
  • disallowing anyone who had lapsed from becoming a priest (Canon 10); this would seem to contradict Pope Stephen’s policy of allowing lapsed bishops to repent and continue as bishops

Also concerning the lapsed, it is worth quoting all of Canon 11:

Concerning those who have fallen without compulsion, without the spoiling of their property, without danger or the like, as happened during the tyranny of Licinius, this Synod declares that, though they have deserved no clemency, they shall be dealt with mercifully. As many as were communicants, if they heartily repent, shall pass three years among the hearers; for seven years they shall be prostrators; and for two years they shall communicate with the people in prayers, but without oblation (NPNF 2, XIV, p. 24)

Also worth quoting is the first part of Canon 6, concerning the conciliar organization of the Church, with the bishop of each major city having full jurisdiction over that city and its surrounding territory:

Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also. Likewise in Antioch and the other provinces, let the Churches retain their privileges (NPNF 2, XIV, p. 15; my emphasis).

The Council also dealt with the Melitian schism in Egypt. According to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, At the Council of Nicea (325), where the matter was raised, it was determined that Melitian clergy should be allowed to continue their functions, but to be subordinated to Bp. Alexander (who had meanwhile succeeded Peter). Their bishops, if legally elected, might take the place of the Catholic bishops when the latter died. Melitius himself was to retain the title of bishop, but to have no see. On the accession of St. Athanasius [as bishop of Alexandria in 328], this arrangement broke down, as the Melitians, encouraged by Eusebius of Nicomedia, again went into schism… . It seems to have survived as a small body down to the 8th century (second ed., p. 900).

The Council also addressed the question of the date of Pascha. The assembled bishops chose to accept the Alexandrian practice of making an independent calculation, disregarding the date of the Jewish Passover, and stipulating that the Paschal celebration must follow the vernal equinox. They thus rejected the Antiochian practice of “being content to accept the Jewish reckoning” (Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, second ed., p. 1037).

Finally, partly through the dramatic intervention of the celibate bishop St. Paphnutius of Egypt,7 it is also decided to continue to allow married clergy to have conjugal relations with their wives. According to Hefele,

Socrates, Sozomen, and Gelasius [all Church historians of the fifth century] affirm that the Synod of Nicea, as well as that of Elvira [Spain; held in 306], desired to pass a law respecting celibacy. This law was to forbid all bishops, priests and deacons (Sozomen adds subdeacons), who were married at the time of their ordination, to continue to live with their wives. But, say the historians, the law was opposed openly and decidedly by Paphnutius, bishop of a city of the Upper Thebais in Egypt, a man of a high reputation, who had lost an eye during the persecution under Maximian. He was also celebrated for his miracles, and was held in so great respect by the Emperor, that the latter often kissed the empty socket of the lost eye. Paphnutius declared with a loud voice, ‘that too heavy a yoke ought not to be laid upon the clergy; that marriage and married intercourse are of themselves honorable and undefiled [Heb. 13:4]; that the Church ought not to be injured by an extreme severity, for all could not live in absolute continency. In this way (by not prohibiting married intercourse) the virtue of the wife would be much more certainly preserved (viz. the wife of a clergyman, because she might find injury elsewhere, if her husband withdrew from her married intercourse). The intercourse of a man with his lawful wife may also be a chaste intercourse. It would therefore be sufficient, according to the ancient tradition of the Church, if those who had taken holy orders without being married were prohibited from marrying afterwards; but those clergymen who had been married only once as laymen, were not to be separated from their wives.’

This discourse of Paphnutius made so much the more impression, because he had never lived in matrimony himself, and had had no conjugal intercourse. Paphnutius, indeed, had been brought up in a monastery, and his great purity of manners had rendered him especially celebrated. Therefore the Council took the serious words of the Egyptian bishop into consideration, stopped all discussion upon the law, and left to each cleric the responsibility of deciding the point as he would (NPNF 2, XIV, p. 51).

Editorial Footnotes

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Footnotes

  1. Athanasius was present at Nicaea as a young deacon and secretary to Bishop Alexander, but the tradition of him as a “leading figure” who shaped the debate is largely a later hagiographic amplification; as a deacon he had no vote or official voice at the council, and contemporary sources do not single him out. His decisive leadership of the Nicene cause belongs to the decades after 325. ↩

  2. Of the Orations (Discourses) against the Arians, modern scholarship generally accepts only the first three as genuinely by Athanasius. The so-called fourth oration is widely regarded as spurious (not written by Athanasius), so “in four books” overstates the authentic work. ↩

  3. The figure of 318 is symbolic rather than a head count: it matches the 318 servants of Abraham in Genesis 14:14 (and the Greek numerals ΤΙΗ were read as a sign of the Cross and the name of Jesus). Contemporary attendance lists name roughly 220–250 bishops, and modern historians treat 318 as a traditional/typological number, not an accurate total. ↩

  4. Nicholas of Myra’s presence at Nicaea is historically doubtful. He is absent from all the early attendance lists; his name first appears in a late source (Theodore Lector), and the famous episode of his striking Arius is a legend first attested only in the 14th century, with no historical value. The same caution applies to several others on this traditional list of attending future saints. ↩

  5. The synod of Antioch that condemned and deposed Paul of Samosata — and that is reported to have rejected the term homoousios — met in 268 (the earlier synods against him fall c. 264–265), not 264. The rejection was tied specifically to Paul’s problematic use of the word. ↩

  6. This compounds the error: St. Dionysius “the Great” of Alexandria died c. 264/265 and therefore could not have led the 268 synod of Antioch associated with the rejection of homoousios. He was invited to an earlier synod but declined owing to age and died before the proceedings concluded; the later synod was presided over by others (Firmilian, then Malchion). ↩

  7. The Paphnutius anecdote, though repeated by the 5th-century historians and by Hefele, has been widely doubted since at least the 17th century (e.g., by Valesius) and is regarded by many modern scholars as unhistorical or legendary. There is no firm evidence Nicaea formally took up a general celibacy law at all, so the story should be treated as tradition rather than established fact. ↩

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