The Nicene Creed – The Birth of Christian Dualism

Frank Huguenard, Staff Writer
Waking Times

All of modern Christianity is hinged upon a short, eight paragraph document that was crafted three hundred years after the execution of Jesus of Nazareth. This one brief doctrine of belief, or creed, then determined which strain of Christianity, from the dozens of different sects that had sprung up, would prevail to be the correct one. This decision would then set the groundwork to eventually determine which of the hundreds of different volumes of literature regarding the teachings of Christ would then be chosen to be represented in the new Bible. But what if they got it wrong?

The details from the First Ecumenical (worldwide) Council of Nicea are sparse but we do know this much; in 325 A.D., Emperor Constantine gathered together 318 bishops from all over the entire Roman Empire (everywhere except for England) to forge out a single delineation of the new religion. While books such as Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code suggest that the Bible was crafted at this meeting and Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire at this first meeting, the truth is that those things did occur but over the following fifty year period. Constantine eventually commissioned bishop Eusubius to produce the first assemblage of 50 bibles in 331 and it was Emperor Theodosius on February 27, 380 AD who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire but these things were all precipitated by this first Council of Nicea, which culminated in a democratic vote on who and what Jesus was.

The fact that Jesus’ divinity was put up to a vote should be enough to trigger alarm bells in anyone with an interest in spirituality and a search for truth but it gets far worse. For starters, most of the bishops in attendance had been brutally maimed and persecuted by the Roman guard for decades and suffered from a wide variety of disfigurements and from mental and emotional traumas. Additionally, over the three hundred years of early Christianity, there were many, many splinter groups as the prepubescent movement had fractured along philosophical and interpretational lines. In a contentious and fiercely argumentative process lasting from May 20th through July 25th, 325 A.D., and ending with threats of banishment out of the empire for those not accepting to vote with the majority, the Nicene Creed was adopted unanimously. To attempt to put this into context, imagine the US Congress debating for 10 weeks the divinity of Christ and eventually putting it up for a vote!! Or better yet, imagine a panel of Jewish Rabbis and Islamic Mullahs gathering together to determine which book, the Koran or the Torah was the correct interpretation of the Godhead and after ten weeks of acrimonious bickering and arguing ending up with a unanimous vote.  This would be preposterous and yet this is basically how the First Council of Nicea culminated.


  • Of the many divisions in Christianity, the two major factions were the ones headed up by Bishop Athanasius and Bishop Arius, both of Alexandria Egypt. Athanasius’ version of the Nicene ultimately prevailed so we know what his looked like but we can only imagine what Arius’ Creed would have looked like, assuming that his spiritual lineage was based more on the Gnostic side of the early movement. Gnosticism itself was a fairly splintered branch of Christianity that had its roots in The Essenes, Neoplatonism and even Vedanta and may have predated Christ by 600 years.

    The core theme to most Gnostic practices is a non-dual view of the universe, in which everything is made up of the same substratum, (consciousness)  and physical reality was seen as essentially an illusion or maya. Because of this, Gnostic Christians focused on spiritual experience and knowledge as the key to liberation or union with God, rather than being centered on beliefs and church rituals.  If we apply an understanding of Gnosticism, we accept that Jesus trained in India and also assume that Arius would have used books like The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Philip (all Gnostic books discovered in Egypt in 1945), we can extrapolate that Arius’ version of the creed would have looked something like the following:

    Athanasius Version

    We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

    We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made.

    For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.

    For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven
    and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

    He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

    We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father [and the  on], who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

    We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

    Hypothetical Arius Version

    We assume one truth, one existence, one Divinity, from which all of of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen have sprung forth from and from which we are all extensions of.

    We assume that Our teacher, Jesus Christ, was the embodiment of God, and who showed us that we are all eternally one with the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made; we are all of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made.

    For us and for our liberation Jesus incarnated as a human to teach us that we are eternal beings; that we are not our bodies; that the kingdom of heaven is within us, and for each of us to seek this truth for ourselves, for this truth shall bring liberation.

    As a demonstration of these truths, he resurrected 36 hours after being tortured and killed.

    He will continue to incarnate again and again to bring this message in times of mankind’s greatest needs.

    We believe in the Holy Spirit, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken about by the teachers. We believe everyone has a right to discover these truths for themselves.

    We acknowledge one baptism for the removal of karma. We look for the reincarnation of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Om.

    Conclusion

    So the question to wonder about is this, if Arius’ interpretations of Christ’s teachings had prevailed 1700 years ago, in what appears to be probably be a much more authentic version of Christianity, then what would the world look like today? Would have murdered 100 million of our own species over the past hundred years, all in the name of God? Would the Vatican be confronted with so much corruption and insanity, including priests molesting young boys in churches around the world?

    Furthermore, given the Pope Francis is now heading the papacy, perhaps a deeper question is how long has the Vatican known the truth about how the divinity of Christ was arrogated in 325 and how much longer are they going to continue covering up this abomination? There are eight miles of libraries under the Vatican, concealed from the public.

    Certainly there must be full versions of The Gospel of Mary, The Secret Gospel of Mark, The Gospel of Philip and so forth as well as documentation proving the Jesus trained in India and traveled back there after the Crucifixion. Isn’t it time that the Pope issues a public apology for this ongoing deception and opens the doors to this library and posts all the books on the Internet? Above all else, Jesus taught forgiveness, the Vatican too will be forgiven but it needs to come clean first.

    About the Author

    Frank Huguenard is an author, teacher and documentary film producer, specializing in films on Science and Spirituality. You can see a trailer of his Beyond Imagination Trilogy here:  http://vimeo.com/60887570 and you can see all three of his films, Beyond MeBeyond Belief and Beyond Reason at his website www.beyondmefilm.com.

    This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.

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