Council of Nicea
The emperor was pleased with the result and sent Arius and his supporters into banishment. Outside of the Holy Scriptures, the Nicene Creed is the most important document the Church holds to establish orthodoxy.
The emperor was pleased with the result and sent Arius and his supporters into banishment. Outside of the Holy Scriptures, the Nicene Creed is the most important document the Church holds to establish orthodoxy.
The Greek Fathers were important champions and defenders of the Nicene Creed and their influence as men of God who would never waver in their faith did much to defend orthodoxy against heresy and the interference of the government.
Synods were held at Carthage at which an anti-Roman position was ratified. But the Roman influence was the stronger, and in the end, Augustine fixed the position of the Catholic Church by affirming that once a person was baptized they could be readmitted regardless of their sin by the simple laying on of hands.
By making Christianity a legal religion, Constantine opened the door for one of the greatest periods of growth in the history of the church.
The faithfulness of Christian martyrs had a great influence on those who witnessed their courage and, as a result, countless men and women converted to the faith.
The schools, especially the one in Alexandria, preserved early writings and produced important scholars who impacted the church for centuries.
The Church Fathers anticipated Augustine by two centuries in their formulation of the doctrine of original sin and in their acceptance of the principle of divine grace.
The result of the writings of the Apologists was to dignify Christianity and give it a place as a reasoned system of thought, not merely as a passing spiritual fad.
These writings encouraged the early Christians and give scholars today information about a period of early Christian history that is otherwise relatively obscure.
The Festal Letter of Athanasius in 367 contains the names of twenty-six books of the New Testament, the same as now. The establishment of the canon set the foundation upon which the Church was built.