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From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS
VII. THE LATER EMPIRE: CHRISTIANITY IN THE ROMAN WORLD, 180-395 A.D.
» Contents of this Chapter
Page 20
CHURCH COUNCIL AT NICAEA, 325 A.D.
Significant of the emperor's attitude toward Christianity was his action in summoning all the bishops in the different provinces to a gathering at Nicaea in Asia Minor. It was the first general council of the Church. The principal work of the Council of Nicaea was the settlement of a great dispute which had arisen over the nature of Christ. Some theologians headed by Arius, a priest of Alexandria, maintained that Christ the Son, having been created by God the Father, was necessarily inferior to him Athanasius, another Alexandrian priest, opposed this view and held that Christ was not a created being, but was in all ways equal to God. The Council accepted the arguments of Athanasius, condemned Arius as a heretic, and framed the Nicene Creed, which is still the accepted summary of Christian doctrine. Though thrust out of the Church, Arianism lived to flourish anew among the Germanic tribes, of which the majority were converted to Christianity by Arian missionaries.
CHRISTIANITY BECOMES THE STATE RELIGION UNDER THEODOSIUS, 379-395 A.D.
The recognition given to Christianity by Constantine helped immensely to spread the new faith. The emperor Theodosius, whose services to the church won him the title of "the Great," made Christianity the state religion. Sacrifices to the pagan gods were forbidden, the temples were closed, and their property was taken away. Those strongholds of the old paganism, the Delphic oracle, the Olympian games, and the Eleusinian mysteries, were abolished. Even the private worship of the household Lares and Penates [24] was prohibited. Though paganism lingered for a century or more in the country districts, it became extinct as a state religion by the end of the fourth century.
THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents
url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp
Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy
