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The Council of Nice

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 28, 1871

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 37, No. 11.

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The Council of Nice.

THE following request explains itself:
BRO. SMITH: I would like to see something in the REVIEW concerning the Council of Nice. Infidels, you know, claim that that Council made a Bible. Many are inquiring of me just what that Council did do. I have not the authorities at hand, neither can I go at present where I can search up what I want on that subject. A little information, such as I presume you can give without much trouble, will help a number of your readers on this coast. J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.
California, Feb., 1871.
ANSWER: We can find no evidence that the Council of Nice, A. D. 325, decided what books should be considered genuine, and compose the canon of the New Testament. Lardner, Vol. IV, pp. 55–68, gives a very full history of that Council. Concerning the matters it had under investigation, he says:
“The three points debated and determined there, as appears from all the ecclesiastical historians, and from the synodical epistle of the Council itself, were the Arian controversy before mentioned, the time of keeping Easter, and the affair of Meletius in Egypt.”
The Council was called, as all authorities agree, especially for the purpose of condemning the doctrine of Arius. Lardner expressly says that it did not compose any catalogue of the books of Scripture.