Coel, after your post, I realized that I might have made some assumptions about the Council at Nicea that were not historically accurate. In the interest of furthering my own understanding, I did some reading this evening about that event.
I already had a book that I have yet to read in its entirety entitled Constantine's Sword, written by a Roman Catholic priest named James Carroll. Its a historical perspective primarily focusing on the relatinship between Judaism and Christianity. Its a huge book, so I'm not sure if I recommend it as something for casual interest, but its what I had on hand as it was written by a schoolmate of my godfather's and he had recommended it to me.
Please know that I'm not trying to be intentionally contentious with this post. You just piqued an interest and I did some reading. In regard to the overwhelming vote that you cited as evidence of uniformity in early Christianity regarding the nature of Jesus' divinity, Carroll provides a more political explanation. The two dissenters that you mentioned were exiled by Constantine.
From the footnote of the book, which cites an exact quote from Eusebius (c 260 - c 339) who was a historian documenting Constantine's life and as such the proceedings of the council:
"On this faith being publicly put forth by us, no room for contradiction appeared; but our most pious emperor, before any one else, testified that it was most orthodox. He confessed, moreover, that such were his own sentiments; and he advised all present to agree to it, and to subscribe its articles and to assent to them, with the insertion of the single word Consubstantial which, moreover, he interpreted himself saying the Son subsisted from the Father neither according to division, nor severance: for the immaterial and intellectual, and incorporeal nature could not be the subject of any bodily affection, but that it became us to conceive of such things in a divine and ineffable manner. And our most wise and most religious emperor reasoned in this way; but they, because of the addition of Consubstantial, drew up the following formulary."
Its sounds to me like there was a good bit of pressure being applied there in the council chambers. I'm open to other explanation, but from what I've read, I stand by my original assertion that one of the primary purposes of the council was to codify the nature of Jesus' divinity, and that there may well have been more diversity on that issue than the overwhelming vote that you describe indicates.
More interestingly and something that cames as totally new information to me is that the cross was not a particularly revered Christian symbol until the time of Constantine.
Carroll also discusses the evolution of the Nicene Creed over the more than dozen councils from 325 to 381.
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