The Council of Nicaea and Its Influence on Replacement Theology

The Council of Nicaea—called together in AD 325 by Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity—played a pivotal role in the early church, establishing Christian doctrine that churches continue to uphold today.

The Council put forth a set of beliefs leaders could agree on, uniting a divided church threatening the newly Christianized Roman Empire. It established agreements about key church issues like baptism, the Eucharist, and what to do about people who lapsed in their faith. Most importantly, it clarified Jesus’ true identity as both God and man and settled on a creed [Nicene] that churches repeat throughout the world today.

Despite its positive impact on the church, the Council of Nicaea also played a major part in the severing of Christianity from its Jewish roots leading to a schism between Christians and Jews and between Christianity and Judaism. It marked the conclusion of a long, drawn-out process referred to as the “parting of the ways.”^[1]

Background

The early church was primarily Jewish, but as more and more gentiles came to faith, the focus on Jewish law and customs decreased. After Rome destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70, temple rituals stopped, and two conflicting systems emerged: rabbinic Judaism (which focused on the study and interpretation of Mishna, the oral law in which Jesus and Paul were steeped, and then committed to writing around AD 200) and Christianity (a distinct religion from Judaism with bishops, priests, and deacons modeled on the Jewish order of chief priests, priests, and deacons). For a time, Christianity held on to some Jewish concepts. But during his reign, Constantine began to enact anti-Jewish legislation and deemed it improper to adhere to Jewish customs.

Constantine had convened the Council of (non-Jewish) bishops in Nicaea to consolidate the Christian faith—but a lesser-known reason was to establish the church’s non-Jewish identity. (The Jews had persecuted the Christian church for centuries, but an anti-Jewish view had also characterized Constantine’s life.) The Council separated the date of the Jewish Passover from Jesus’ resurrection, banning that Jewish feast and substituting for it Easter. It condemned Sabbath-keeping, established the first-century transition of the Lord’s Day to Sunday, and established sun worship. 

Writing to bishops who were not present at the Council, Constantine said:

It was, in the first place, declared improper to follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this holy festival, because their hands having been stained with crime, the minds of these wretched men are necessarily blinded. … Let us, then, have nothing in common with the Jews, who are our adversaries. … Let us … studiously avoid all contact with that evil way.^[2]

The Council of Nicaea had a lasting impact on Christianity. But it also opened the already cracked door to Replacement Theology and blinded centuries of Christians to the Jewish roots of their faith—which are key to understanding biblical prophecy. The church’s Messiah was stripped of His Jewishness, and Jewish believers who saw Jesus as the fulfillment of their Scriptures could not accept the changes because they were told they had to renounce all Jewish expressions of their faith in the Jewish Messiah. Soon, any remaining Jewish presence in the church ended.

Former ICEJ Executive Director Malcolm Hedding compares what happened at the Nicaea Council to the story of biblical Joseph, who was unrecognizable to his own Hebrew family because he looked Egyptian. Hedding says “The Nicaea Council ‘dressed Jesus up as a gentile,’” and as a result, like Joseph, Jesus was and continues to be unrecognizable to His own brethren, the Jewish people.

Sadly, this fed into the error of replacement theology that contributed to centuries of antisemitism that continues to this day.

Compiled by ICEJ Staff

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[1] Ipgrave, M. (2023). “Nicaea and Christian–Jewish Relations.” Ecumenical Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/erev.12784

[2] Ecclesiastical History by Theodoret. Book 1 Chapter 9