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>> the earliest communities were already giving jesus the worship that could only be given to god. this is happening 30 years of jesus' death, but to find a philosophical language in which to say it, in which to formulate it, that took 300 years. the council of nicaea was not called in order to decide whether jesus was divine. it was called in order to decide in what way is jesus divine? is jesus a secondary deity, a subordinate deity, or in fact, is he equal with god the father? and the side that won out was the side that declared that jesus was equal with god the father, that he had always b...

But it marked fierce internal battles in the church. the biggest of which went to the heart of christianity. >> now while the church was persecuted in an illegal religion and underground, there was only so much work that it could do to normalize what would be the heart of christian teaching about the nature of god, about the nature of jesus, about relationships within the church. >> but once constantine legalized the church, long standing doctrinal questions broke into the open. the biggest of them going to the core of christian belief. was jesus truly the son of god or just a wise man? >> con...

>> constantine vowed to convert to christianity if he won the battle. and for centuries, his victory was seen as a turning point for christianity. but did constantine really convert to the faith his empire had tried to destroy? >> some historians have doubted whether constantine actually converted in the year 312, and it's true that there's some evidence that he retained a devotion to some of the roman gods. even after allegedly converting, for example, he minted coins in which he had a picture of the sun god. the inscription on the coin was saul invictus, the unconquerable sun, a reference to...

The council of nicaea was not called in order to decide whether jesus was divine. it was called in order to decide in what way is jesus divine? is jesus a secondary deity, a subordinate deity, or in fact, is he equal with god the father? and the side that won out was the side that declared that jesus was equal with god the father, that he had always been god. >> beyond questions of dogma, however, constantine's nicaean council was also a major political turning point for the church. >> constantine declared christianity a legal religion, and he stopped the persecution, but it's not correct to s...

>> in the year 325 a.d., constantine called the world's bishops to the small town of nigh see nicea, outside the empire atcity of byzantium to grapple with the essence of christian belief. >> what we now call the nicean creed, "i believe in god, the father almighty and heaven on earth." those tenets of faith come down from the 4th century and are still the bottom line of christian teaching today. >> in the heart of the nicean creed and christian faith is the jesus was both god and man. >> the earliest communities were already giving jesus the worship that could only be given to god. this is ha...