The Council of Nicaea, AD 325

Ecclesiastical History X (cf. Life of Constantine III.6–22, held separately)

[Eusebius was present and gives the summons, the assembly and the emperor’s part in it. **He says the bishops numbered more than 250.** ⚠ The traditional **318** appears later, and matches the number of Abraham’s servants at Genesis 14:14 — a reason for caution; ancient figures range from about 270 to 320, and **the archive records the range rather than the round number.** The fuller narrative is in the *Life of Constantine*, held here as its own text and cited separately.]

Eusebius, *Ecclesiastical History* — held in this library. English: A. C. McGiffert, NPNF 2nd ser. 1 (1890), public domain. The council narrative proper is in the *Life of Constantine*, **which this library also holds** and which is linked as its own mention below.

Symbolum Nicaenum, with the anathemas; canons 1–20

[**The creed’s decisive word is ὁμοούσιος, and it is not a scriptural term** — the council reached for a word not in the Bible because every scriptural formula proposed had proved acceptable to the Arians. Its anathemas name the Arian propositions explicitly, making it a record of what was being taught. **The twenty canons are administrative and therefore evidence**: the precedence of Alexandria, Rome and Antioch; eunuchs by their own act barred from orders; terms for readmitting the lapsed; clergy forbidden to move between cities; **kneeling omitted on Sundays and in Paschaltide**; no bishop ordained without three others present. **A church legislating about transfers and precedence is a church with an administration.** And the subscription list is the prosopographical prize — its geographic spread, from Britain’s absence to bishops from Persia and Scythia, is the evidence for the church’s reach in 325.]

*The Creed of Nicaea (325)* — **held in this library**. The canons are in the standard conciliar collections with public-domain English in NPNF 2nd ser. 14 (Percival, 1900); the subscription lists are held here separately and linked below.

Life of Constantine III.6–22

[Eusebius gives the summons, the assembly, the emperor’s entry and his part in the debates — the fullest ancient narrative of the council, and the source of nearly every later description of it. **He says the bishops numbered more than 250.** ⚠ He does not set out the argument over ὁμοούσιος in the terms the theological sources use, and he had subscribed under protest; **what he supplies is the occasion, not the doctrine**, and the archive keeps the two apart.]

*The Life of Constantine* — **held in this library** (c. AD 337–339). English: E. C. Richardson, NPNF 2nd ser. 1 (1890), public domain. ⚠ A panegyric by a bishop who was present and who had his own position to defend in the Arian question; the archive uses it as an eyewitness account written to praise.

The subscriptiones, in the surviving recensions

[The prosopographical prize, and the reason this archive can name figures at Nicaea at all: **the signatures are how the archive knows which bishops were there**, and their spread — Britain absent, bishops present from Persia and Scythia — is the evidence for the church’s reach in 325. ⚠ The lists disagree with each other, and the traditional 318 is the count of none of them.]

*The Subscription Lists of the Council of Nicaea* — **held in this library**. ⚠ The recensions differ in order and in the number of names and no list is complete; the archive holds the lists and treats the totals as reconstructions.