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In many ways it was a turning point for the early church, and in other ways it was simply the

continuation of what the church had been doing all along, gathering around God's Word, around

Holy Scripture, and seeking the Council of God's Word to answer the burning theological questions of the day.

That was the first Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.

Welcome back to Issues, Et cetera.

I'm Todd Wilkin, joining us to talk about this council from which we get the beginnings of our Nicene Creed.

Dr. Joel Olowski, he's professor of historical theology and director of the Center for the Study of our Nicene Creed. Dr. Joel Olowski, he's professor of historical theology

and director of the Center for the study of early Christian texts at Concordiaeus Seminary

in St. Louis, formerly served as operations manager for the ancient Christian commentary on

scripture series. He's author of a column for the May issue of the Lutheran Witness magazine

titled the Council of Nicaea. Joel, welcome back.

Yeah, thanks. I'm with you. What was life like for Christians prior to the fourth century?

That's an interesting question. I always like to tell students that they weren't, you know, hiding in the catacombs waiting for the Romans to round them up.

Christianity actually was quite, well, it actually was spreading pretty much by the third century.

I mean, somebody like Churchill in can talk about the fact that Christians almost outnumber the pagans in Carthage, for instance.

But it was a time where there could be episodic

persecutions in different places, but they were pretty much, well, trying to live out

their faith in a life in a pagan culture that was pretty much opposed to Christianity, I would say.

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