What was Constantine up to?

I think it’s interesting that the First Council of Nicaea in 325, the very first ecumenical council, was convened by a political leader, the Roman Emperor Constantine, and not a religious leader. This is the council that gave us the Nicene Creed (which was later revised). This creed was an attempt to settle for Christians the nature of God, Christ and the Holy Ghost and their relationship to one another.

If you look into the disputes and divisions of early Christianity, you can see that the creed is designed by the orthodox to refute all other competing views. “We believe in one God, the Father almighty. Maker of all things visible and invisible.” That’s an assertion that Christianity isn’t like the polytheism of the pagans, and it’s also a refutation of the claim that the god of the Old Testament was a lesser god who trapped divine spirits in the material world. That claim was made by some of the Gnostic Christians. It goes on to say that the Lord Jesus Christ was “begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father.” Some early Christians rejected the divinity of Jesus, and others saw him as divine but subordinate to God the Father. However, the creed is saying that Christ and God are of “one substance.” They are on equal footing, and they are somehow different and the same. It goes on to claim that Jesus “came down and was incarnate and was made man” and that he “suffered.” This is a refutation of those who claimed Jesus only appeared to be a human being and that he was really a divine spirit pretending to be a man. The creed here is saying, no, he really was a man, and when he was executed, he really did suffer as any man would suffer.

Jesus is, of course, the most important figure in the development of Christianity. After him, many would claim that Paul was the second most important figure because Paul is the one who took the Christian message out of Palestine and spread it to the Gentiles in other parts of the empire. Christianity was still a very small religion in Paul’s time, but he planted the seeds. Many would say that the third most important figure in the development of Christianity is the Emperor Constantine. He put an end to the official persecution of Christians and began showing Christians favor. At some point, he converted. Christianity had been growing steadily up until the 4^th century, but after Constantine, it became the majority religion within a few decades, and by the end of the 4^th century, it became the official religion of the empire.

The German scholar Walter Bauer concluded that what we know of as orthodoxy was the doctrine favored by the Christian church in Rome and that the so-called heresies were the favored, and maybe even the original form of Christianity in other parts of the empire. Of course, the Roman self proclaimed Orthodox view would be the version of Christianity that Constantine would be most familiar with. But why would he want to help the Roman church establish uniformity and dominance? Was it really spiritual? Scholars are unsure when Constantine became a fully committed Christian. Some think he wasn’t baptized until he was on his deathbed. Could it have been political? Did he think it would be easier to maintain control over the empire if a majority of the citizens believed in one god, as opposed to a bunch of local deities, with a unifying religion with a single, undisputed creed?