12.

 What was the primary purpose for which Constantine called together the first General Council?

            The textbook for this course notes that Constantine wanted the Roman Empire to be a Christian empire based upon the Orthodox faith. To this end, he convened the Nicene Council to clarify and elaborate the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.

            More specifically, the First Ecumenical Council was convoked against the false teaching of Arius, which denied the truth that “in Him [Christ] dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col 2:9). This Council anathematized both the Arian heresy that disturbed the whole Christian world, and Arius, the corrupter of faith. It also anathematized those who maintained that there was a time when the Son of God did not exist, and those who maintained that He was created or that He is of a different essence from God the Father. While Arius falsely taught that the Son of God was not the Creator but was a created being, the First Ecumenical Council affirmed that the Son of God is of the same nature as God the Father.

            The First Ecumenical Council also composed the Church's Symbol of Faith, the Creed, which was confirmed and completed later at the Second Ecumenical Council. The unity and equality of the Son of God with God the Father was expressed in this Creed by the words: “of one essence with the Father.”

            Concerning God the Father's Only-Begotten Son, the Eternal God before the Ages, Jesus Christ, Hieromonk Damascene Christensen explains that by means of the term begotten in Christ's words and in the Creed, the existence of the Son is shown to be above any kind of creatureliness, above something created. An existence which comes from the essence of God can only be divine and eternal. That which is begotten is always of the same essence as that which begets. However, that which is created and made is of another, lower essence, and it is external with relation to the Creator.

            The same writer goes on to explain that the Son was begotten before the creation of Heaven and earth. Created things are made at a certain time, but the Son, coming directly from the essence of the Father, was begotten outside time, in eternity. In other words, there was a time when created things did not exist, but there was never a time when the Only-Begotten Son did not exist.

            Fr. Damascene also states that Christ Himself referred to His eternal begetting when He called Himself “the Only-Begotten Son of God” (Jn 3:18), and He spoke of His eternal existence when He said: “Before Abraham was, I am,” and, “Father... You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (Jn 8:58; 14:24).