Deuteros Theos: Constantine’s Christology at Nicaea

Abstract

Abstract Recent inquiries into the Christology of Rome’s first Christian emperor have produced a more or less “orthodox” image. While it is widely acknowledged that Constantine’s Christian doctrine developed throughout his career, his vision of Jesus at the time of the Council of Nicaea (325 CE) has been regularly cast as a Trinitarian Christology of co-eternality and ontological unity with God the Father. Recent analysis has not, however, taken into account the range of possible interpretations of the available data. By revisiting this data, including Constantine’s Oration, an important letter from Eusebius, the history of the word homoousios, and the Hermetic philosophical tradition, it is possible to locate within Constantine’s views a subordinationist Christology—a Christology which the Council of Nicaea allegedly condemned.