Post-Nicene Council and the Militant Church

This summer marks 1,700 years since Emperor Constantine called the church to come and reason together regarding the Christological crisis originating with a little-known presbyter in Alexandria, Arius. While Constantine’s genuine interest in the development of Christian doctrine has been debated, his desire for peace and unity across his empire was undeniable. While the council’s theological purpose was to articulate and defend orthodoxy, socially and politically it enabled a transition where Christians, under the umbrella of Nicene Christianity, could finally become fully integrated with Roman society and particularly the military. While some church fathers reference Christians in the military prior to Nicaea, as Eusebius of Caesarea alludes to in The History of the Church, Christian military service was controversial in the early church, with many of the ante-Nicene fathers in direct opposition.