Dialectics between conceptual innovation and doctrinal continuity in the Late Antique Mediterranean: a study in the light of the impact of the Council of Nicaea in its 1700th anniversary

Abstract

The current state of academic research on the First Council of Nicaea and how it relates to the shaping of the official intellectual history of the Church shows the operation of a dialectics between conceptual innovation and doctrinal tradition in the promulgation of dogma. That is to say: in the establishment of the orthodoxy of the Christian faith, both a basis of continuity with a binding past and a commitment to new concepts are combined. With regard to this, Nicaea served as a paradigm for the establishment of doctrine and the linguistic specification of the contents of faith, by means of a Creed centred on the concept ‘homoousios’.  In turn, the appeal to an idealised Nicaea in subsequent decades (the ‘idea of Nicaea’, in M. S. Smith’s words) led to an intensification of this conciliar logic of defining doctrine and even to an increase in the binding contents of faith, at the expense of excluding the diversity of legitimate theological interpretations in favour of an exclusive one. This study focuses on the analysis of this dynamics, particularly shown in the example of the dogma of original sin, where the construction of a single, common enemy (heresy) and the self-interested use of sacred texts to promote the political and religious uniformity of the Roman Empire would be tools for the social stabilisation and the corresponding scapegoating of dissidents.