The Council of Nicaea (325), canons and synodal letter

The Council of NicaeaAD 325

The twenty canons issued by the bishops at Nicaea and the letter in which they reported their decisions to the church of Alexandria. With the creed, these are the council’s own surviving documents; no minutes were kept or none survive.

Besides its creed, which has its own record (The Creed of Nicaea), the council left two kinds of document. The twenty canons are rules of church order: on the appointment of bishops, the standing of the great sees, the readmission of those who had lapsed in persecution or belonged to separated groups, and points of conduct and worship. They survive because they were copied into the early collections of church law. Later collections, among them an Arabic one whose headings are printed in the same volume, attribute many further canons to the council.

The synodal letter, addressed to the churches of Alexandria, Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis, reports the condemnation of Arius, the settlement with the followers of Melitius and the agreement about Easter. It is preserved by the fifth-century historians Socrates (1.9) and Theodoret (1.8). The Easter decision is not among the canons. It is known from this letter, from a letter of Constantine quoted by Eusebius (Life of Constantine 3.17–20), and from later references. These are primary documents of the first rank for what the council decided. They do not report the debates.

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