THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA: MYTHS, MINUTES, AND MANUSCRIPTS

Introduction: Why Nicaea Still Haunts Modern Christianity

Few events in Christian history receive more attention—and more conspiracy theories—than the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325). In internet theology circles, Nicaea is portrayed as:

the birthplace of Christmas
the invention of Easter
a paganizing takeover by Rome
the moment the church abandoned the biblical Passover
the rewriting of Christianity to mirror pagan myths
the council that chose the books of the Bible
the political triumph of Constantine over true believers

These claims are especially common among teachers like Jim Staley (Passion for Truth), TruthUnedited, Hebrew Roots Movement materials, World Religions theorists, TikTok theology influencers, and Hislop-style anti-Catholic writings.

But here is the problem:

None of these claims is supported by a single ancient source—not by Eusebius, Athanasius, Sozomen, Socrates Scholasticus, Theodoret, or the surviving minutes and canons of the council.

To understand what happened (and what absolutely didn’t happen), we must go deep into:

historical context
surviving documents
ancient writings
council canons
timelines
linguistic evidence
early Christian practice

This deep dive will give you the actual historical record.

1. The Historical Setting: What the Church Was Facing in A.D. 325

1.1 Christianity Before Nicaea: A Persecuted, Decentralized Movement

From the apostles until A.D. 313, Christianity existed largely on the margins of society. It had:

no centralized headquarters
no political power
no imperial backing
no uniform liturgical calendar
no standardized canon listing
no universal creed

Christians suffered repeated persecutions—Nero, Decius, Valerian, and finally the Great Persecution under Diocletian (A.D. 303–311). Many bishops and elders who attended Nicaea bore physical scars from torture.

These were not Roman political elites—they were survivors.

Primary Source:

Eusebius writes that many bishops arrived “mutilated in the right eye or maimed in the left arm through the cruelty of persecutors.”[1]

This is the first sign that the conspiracy theory is wrong:

The men at Nicaea did not represent a wealthy Roman imperial religion—they represented a battered and persecuted church.

1.2 The Rise of Constantine (A.D. 312–313)

In A.D. 312, Constantine defeated Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and adopted Christianity as his favored religion.

In A.D. 313, the Edict of Milan legalized Christianity throughout the empire. But legalizing Christianity did not unify it.

Within a few years, a theological crisis erupted that threatened to permanently splinter the church.

1.3 The Arian Controversy: The Crisis That Prompted Nicaea

Around A.D. 318, a presbyter named Arius from Alexandria began teaching:

“There was when the Son was not.”[2]

This meant:

Jesus was a created being,
not eternal,
not of the same essence as the Father,
not truly divine in the full sense.

Arius believed Jesus was a supernatural creature—the highest of created beings—but not God eternal.

Arius’ own words:

In his letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, Arius wrote:

“The Son is not eternal… He is not unbegotten… He comes from non-existence.”[3]

This teaching spread rapidly.

Athanasius later described its effect:

“The whole world groaned to find itself Arian.”[4]

This doctrinal crisis—not Easter, not Christmas, not paganism—was the reason Nicaea was convened.

1.4 Why Constantine Called the Council

Constantine was not a theologian. He was a politician trying to preserve unity in a newly legalized religion torn apart by internal division.

He convened the council to:

restore peace
unify Christian teaching
prevent civil division

Primary Source:

Constantine writes (quoted by Eusebius):

“Division in the church of God is grievous and more dangerous than war.”[5]

Nowhere does he mention pagan holidays, Easter/Ishtar connections, Christmas dates, or rewriting doctrine.

1.5 Who Attended the Council?

Ancient sources give numbers ranging from 220 to 318 bishops, with 318 being the most common.[6]

Represented regions include:

Rome and the West
Egypt and Alexandria
Jerusalem and Palestine
Antioch and Syria
North Africa
Persia
Armenia
Cappadocia
Gaul
Iberia

This was the most geographically diverse gathering of church leaders to date.

Important:

No ancient record shows that:

pagan priests attended
Roman sun worshippers directed the council
Constantine dictated theology
a secret “Babylonian religion” influenced the discussion

These are modern conspiracy inventions.

2. What the Council Actually Did: Agenda, Debates, Decisions

Nicaea addressed four major topics:

The nature of Christ (Arianism)
The date of Pascha (Resurrection celebration)
Issues of church discipline and order
The Meletian schism in Egypt

Conspicuously missing:

Christmas
Bible canon
Pagan holidays
Secret Babylonian religion
Nimrod, Semiramis, Tammuz
Easter/Ishtar associations

None of these appear in the surviving sources.

2.1 The Central Issue: Who Is Jesus Christ?

Nearly every session centered on one question:

Is the Son fully divine, co-eternal with the Father, or a created being?

The church had always taught:

John 1:1 — “The Word was God.”
John 20:28 — Thomas: “My Lord and my God!”
Colossians 1:16 — All things created through Him.
Hebrews 1:3 — “The exact imprint of His nature.”

Arius challenged this apostolic teaching.

The council condemned Arianism.

The bishops overwhelmingly rejected Arius’ teaching as unbiblical and contrary to apostolic faith.

Only two bishops refused to sign the creed.[7]

2.2 The Nicene Creed

Nicaea produced Christianity’s first formal universal creed, stating that Jesus Christ is:

“God from God”
“Light from Light”
“true God from true God”
“begotten, not made”
“of one essence (homoousios) with the Father”

No mention of Easter.
No mention of Christmas.
No mention of pagan gods.

The creed was theological, not liturgical.

2.3 The 20 Canons of Nicaea (What They Actually Regulated)

Contrary to popular videos, the council did not issue canons about:

holidays
calendars
Roman authority
replacing biblical feasts
determining scripture

Here is what the canons did address:

The readmission of repentant lapsed believers
Regulations for clergy
Standards for ordination
Prohibiting certain heretical practices
Discipline among bishops
Jurisdiction of large sees (Rome, Alexandria, Antioch)
Recognition of the bishop of Jerusalem’s honor
Readmission of Novatian schismatics
Procedures for accusations against clergy
Proper posture for prayer on Sundays

Nothing about:

Easter invented
Passover outlawed
Paganism smuggled into Christianity

These simply are not in the texts.

2.4 What About the Easter Date?

This is the ONLY part of the council that concerned Easter—and even here, modern claims distort the facts.

What the council DID:

✔ Affirmed that Christians should celebrate the Resurrection on a Sunday
✔ Asked churches to follow a unified method for determining the date
✔ Encouraged avoiding dependence on the fluctuating Jewish calendar (for calculation, not theology)

What the council DID NOT do:

❌ Invent Easter
❌ Replace Passover with a pagan holiday
❌ Ban Jewish believers from celebrating Passover
❌ Introduce pagan spring rituals
❌ Link Easter to Ishtar or any pagan goddess

The Pascha debate had already existed for 150 years before Nicaea (Polycarp vs. Anicetus, Polycrates vs. Victor).

Nicaea simply addressed how to calculate a feast that Christians already widely celebrated.

2.5 What About Christmas?

Nicaea:

did not discuss Christmas
did not set December 25
did not merge Christianity with Sol Invictus worship
did not approve or create holiday practices

The earliest record of December 25 as Christ’s birth comes from A.D. 336, more than a decade after Nicaea. And the tradition appears to have existed earlier.

Not one ancient writer links Nicaea to Christmas.

3. The Pascha Controversy: What Nicaea Really Decided About Easter

If Nicaea did not invent Easter, replace Passover, or introduce a pagan festival, then what exactly did it do?

To answer that, we need to travel back nearly 200 years before the council — because the debate over the Easter date (called the Pascha controversy) began long before Constantine was even born.

In fact, the disagreement over when to celebrate the resurrection was one of the oldest disputes in Christian history.

And yet, crucially:

Both sides in the debate were celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.

Not Ishtar.
Not Tammuz.
Not a spring fertility goddess.

No ancient Christian writer connects Pascha with paganism.

The debate was entirely internal, concerning how to commemorate the passion and resurrection of Christ.

Let’s examine that history.

3.1 What Early Christians Called the Holiday: Pascha

Before English existed — and long before the word Easter appeared — Christians called their annual celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection Pascha (Greek Πάσχα).

This word is simply the Greek/Latin form of the Hebrew Pesach (“Passover”).

Why does that matter?

Because the earliest Christian resurrection celebration was understood as:

the fulfillment of Passover,
not an abandonment of it,
and certainly not a pagan replacement for it.

Early Christian writers (2nd century):

Melito of Sardis called Christ “our Pascha, who has been slain” (echoing 1 Cor. 5:7).
Irenaeus described the cross and resurrection as “the new Passover.”
Tertullian called the passion “the true Passover of God.”

None describes Pascha as:

a Roman invention
a pagan spring festival
connected to Ishtar, Astarte, or any fertility goddess

Those claims appear only in 19th-century conspiracy literature.

3.2 The First Major Controversy: Polycarp vs. Anicetus (c. A.D. 155)

In the mid-2nd century, two respected leaders disagreed on when Pascha should occur.

Polycarp

Bishop of Smyrna
Disciple of the apostle John
Celebrated Pascha on 14 Nisan, the same date as Jewish Passover
Believed this practice came from John and other apostles

Anicetus

Bishop of Rome
Celebrated Pascha on Sunday, the day of the resurrection

When Polycarp traveled to Rome, they discussed the issue.

Eusebius preserves their meeting:

“They were unable to persuade one another… yet they continued in peace, and Anicetus allowed Polycarp to celebrate the Eucharist in the church.”[8]

This is critically important:

They disagreed on the date, not the meaning.

Neither accused the other of paganism.

The Sunday celebration already existed 170 years before Nicaea.

3.3 The Controversy Intensifies: Polycrates vs. Victor (c. A.D. 190)

Around A.D. 190, the debate resurfaced.

The bishop of Rome, Victor, attempted to excommunicate the Asian churches that celebrated Pascha on 14 Nisan.

Bishop Polycrates of Ephesus responded with a legendary letter:

“We observe the exact day… following the rule of faith handed down to us by the apostles… We are not afraid of threats.”[9]

Once again:

No one called the Sunday group “Roman pagans.”
No one called the 14 Nisan group “Judaizers.”
Everyone agreed they were celebrating Christ’s resurrection.

Eusebius notes:

“There was no dispute about the faith itself.”[10]

Only the calendar was in question.

3.4 Why the Debate Became So Intense

There were two schools of thought:

View 1 — Celebrate on 14 Nisan (Quartodeciman view)

Followed the exact date of the Jewish Passover
Emphasized Christ as the Passover Lamb
Rooted in the apostolic tradition of Asia Minor

View 2 — Celebrate on Sunday

Highlighted the day of the resurrection
Followed by Rome, Alexandria, and most churches
Emphasized the weekly Resurrection Sunday tradition

Both views were biblical.
Both were ancient.
Both had apostolic support.

This debate lasted over 150 years before Nicaea.

So when modern teachers say:

“Rome invented Easter at Nicaea!”

…they are ignoring two centuries of prior Christian history.

3.5 The Situation by the Time of Nicaea (A.D. 325)

By the 4th century:

Most churches used Sunday Pascha
A minority still used 14 Nisan
This created confusion because the date of Passover varied year to year
The Jewish calendar itself was not standardized in the 4th century
Churches across the empire were celebrating Pascha on different weeks

This caused:

disunity
travel disruptions
pastoral confusion
theological inconsistency

Constantine himself said the disunity “grieved” him deeply (Eusebius, Life of Constantine).

3.6 What Nicaea Actually Decided

Nicaea did not invent a new feast.
Nicaea did not replace Passover with a pagan festival.
Nicaea did not ban Jewish believers from observing biblical feasts.

Here is what the council actually did:

✔ 1. Affirmed that Pascha should be celebrated on a Sunday

This was the position already held by the majority of churches.

✔ 2. Requested that churches celebrate it on the same Sunday

Unity, not innovation.

✔ 3. Asked Alexandria (the astronomy experts) to calculate the date

Not Rome.

✔ 4. Encouraged independence from the unstandardized Jewish calendar

This was a calendar issue, not a theological one.

✘ What the council did NOT do:

Did NOT introduce Easter
Did NOT mention pagan gods
Did NOT reference Ishtar
Did NOT outlaw biblical Passover
Did NOT create new rituals
Did NOT introduce eggs, rabbits, sunrise services, or ham
Did NOT rename Pascha “Easter”

The word Easter did not even exist in Greek or Latin.

3.7 Constantine’s Pascha Letter — What It Really Says

After the council, Constantine sent a circular letter explaining the decision on the unity of date.

Critics often quote this letter selectively, especially the line about “the detestable company of the Jews.”

Here is what Constantine was actually addressing:

The Jewish calendar was not standardized in the 4th century.

Different Jewish communities were celebrating Passover on different days. This caused chaos, not theological concern.

The council wanted a single, stable date for the whole Christian world.

Not because the Jewish calendar was “evil,” but because it was inconsistent.

Constantine never said Christians should not honor the significance of Passover.

His concerns were practical and calendrical, not anti-Semitic in motive.

(Early 4th-century Christian writers regularly honored the theological connection between Christ and Passover.)

3.8 Why the Pascha Decision Had NOTHING to Do with Paganism

✔ No ancient Christian writer connects Pascha with Ishtar.

✔ No pagan spring goddess is mentioned in any Pascha discussion.

✔ No archaeological evidence links Easter to fertility rituals.

✔ No linguistic connection ties “Ishtar” to “Easter.”

✔ The holiday existed centuries before Nicaea.

The entire claim is a modern internet myth born from:

Hislop (1858)
poorly informed “world religion” charts
memes
YouTube storytellers
anti-Catholic sensationalism
syncretistic imaginings

Not one early Christian source supports the idea that Easter developed from paganism.

3.9 Summary of What Nicaea Did About Easter

✔ Christians already celebrated Christ’s resurrection annually

(At least since the early 100s)

✔ The only disagreement was about the date, not the meaning

✔ Nicaea addressed calendar unity — nothing more

✔ No pagan influence is evidenced or even mentioned

✔ No Christian leader in antiquity connects Pascha to anything pagan

✔ The decision was practical, not theological

The “Easter was invented at Nicaea” claim collapses completely under historical scrutiny.

**4. What Nicaea Did Not Do — A Comprehensive Myth-by-Myth Refutation**

If you listen to modern internet teachers, Hebrew Roots influencers, or Hislop-style “World Religions” arguments, the Council of Nicaea sounds like the most scandalous event in church history.

But when you compare those claims with:

the surviving canons of Nicaea,
the letters of Constantine,
Eusebius’ eyewitness account,
Socrates Scholasticus,
Sozomen,
Athanasius,
the Nicene Creed itself,

—something becomes unmistakably clear:

Nearly every popular claim about Nicaea is false.
Wildly false.
Spectacularly false.

Below is a myth-by-myth breakdown.

Myth #1 — “Nicaea Invented Easter.”

❌ FALSE.

✔ The truth: Christians celebrated Pascha (Passover/Resurrection) at least 150–200 years before Nicaea.

Evidence:

Polycarp and Anicetus discussed Pascha in A.D. 155
Polycrates defended Pascha practices in A.D. 190
Melito of Sardis preached a Pascha sermon around A.D. 170
Irenaeus mentions Pascha debates occurring long before his lifetime

All of this predates Constantine by more than a century.

✔ **Nicaea did not invent the holiday.

It addressed the date of the holiday.**

The holiday already existed — universally.

Myth #2 — “Nicaea replaced the biblical Passover with a pagan festival.”

❌ FALSE.

✔ The truth: Christians interpreted Christ as the fulfillment of Passover (1 Cor. 5:7) from the very beginning.

The early church did not “replace” Passover — they believed Jesus completed it.

There is zero ancient evidence that:

Nicaea banned Jewish believers from celebrating Passover
Nicaea replaced the festival with pagan rituals
Nicaea introduced eggs, rabbits, sunrise services, or ham

None of these appear in any ancient Christian, Jewish, or pagan source related to the council.

✔ The council merely standardized when Christians should celebrate the resurrection.

That’s it.

Myth #3 — “Nicaea merged Christianity with paganism.”

❌ FALSE.

Search every known document from:

Eusebius
Athanasius
the Nicene canons
Constantine’s letters
later church historians

…you will find nothing about:

fertility rites
pagan feasts
goddess worship
syncretism
Ishtar
Nimrod
Tammuz
the sun god Sol Invictus
or any other pagan influence on Nicaea

✔ The council’s agenda was theological, not syncretistic.

The main debate was:

“Is the Son of God fully divine or a created being?”

Nothing in the records suggests any discussion of paganism.

Myth #4 — “Constantine controlled the theology at Nicaea.”

❌ FALSE.

✔ The bishops did not let Constantine dictate doctrine.

Facts:

Constantine was a new believer, not a theologian
He did not draft the creed
He did not vote
He did not preside over debates
He acted mostly as a moderator and facilitator

Athanasius, who was present, later wrote:

“The decision was not of the Emperor, but of the bishops.”[11]

The idea that Constantine forced doctrine on the church is a modern invention.

Myth #5 — “Nicaea invented the Trinity.”

❌ FALSE.

✔ The church believed in the divinity of Christ long before Nicaea.

Evidence from:

Ignatius of Antioch (A.D. 110): calls Jesus “our God.”
Justin Martyr (A.D. 150) describes Jesus as divine, eternally begotten.
Tertullian (A.D. 200): uses the exact word Trinitas.
Origen (A.D. 250): speaks of the eternal Son.

Nicaea did not invent the Trinity — it defended the church’s long-standing belief against Arian distortion.

What Nicaea clarified was the relationship between the Father and the Son:

“of one essence (homoousios) with the Father.”

Myth #6 — “Nicaea chose the books of the Bible.”

❌ FALSE.

This myth is one of the most persistent yet easiest to debunk.

Facts:

The council never discussed the canon
No canon list was produced
No books were banned
No books were added
The topic appears in zero surviving canons
The first council to list all 27 New Testament books was Carthage (A.D. 397), 72 years after Nicaea

New Testament scholar Michael Kruger writes:

“There is no evidence that the Council of Nicaea made any decisions about the biblical canon.”[12]

Dan Brown (in The Da Vinci Code) popularized this myth, not church history.

Myth #7 — “Nicaea established the Roman Catholic Church.”

❌ FALSE.

The church in A.D. 325 was:

decentralized
not under a pope
multilingual
multicultural

The bishop of Rome was present, but he did not preside, dominate, or legislate.

Canon 6 of Nicaea even limits Rome’s authority, affirming that:

Alexandria and Antioch have equal jurisdiction in their regions.

This is the opposite of Roman supremacy.

Myth #8 — “Nicaea invented Christmas or chose December 25.”

❌ FALSE.

Nicaea did not:

discuss Christmas
legislate Christmas
mention Jesus’ birth
decide on December 25

The earliest record of Christmas on December 25 appears:

in the Chronograph of 354, about 18–30 years after Nicaea
and likely reflects earlier tradition

There is no connection between Nicaea and Christmas.

Myth #9 — “Nicaea suppressed true Christianity and forced people to follow Rome.”

❌ FALSE.

Nothing in the council:

forbade Jewish believers from keeping biblical feasts
forbade other liturgical practices
forbade regional customs
outlawed the 14 Nisan practice (it merely discouraged it for unity)
introduced Roman dominance
changed church teaching

Instead, Nicaea condemned Arianism — a doctrine that denied Christ’s deity.

Far from suppressing true Christianity, the council defended it.

Myth #10 — “Nicaea introduced pagan customs into Christian practice.”

❌ FALSE.

There is no discussion of:

eggs
rabbits
bonfires
solstice festivals
goddess worship
sacred groves
spring equinox rituals

No such topics appear in:

the Nicene canons
Constantine’s letter
any ancient historian

These myths originate almost entirely from:

Alexander Hislop’s The Two Babylons (1858)
20th-century fringe books
online “world religion” diagrams
YouTube sensationalism
TikTok theology
modern Wiccan reinterpretations

None of it has historical grounding.

Myth #11 — “Easter comes from Ishtar.”

❌ FALSE.

Linguistics destroys this myth immediately.

Ishtar = ancient Akkadian goddess (pronounced EESH-tar)
Easter = Old English word Ēastre/Ēostre, documented in the 700s
The two words arose in unrelated language families
Most languages today still use Pascha, not “Easter”
Early Christians spoke Greek/Latin, not Old English

Therefore:

The resurrection holiday cannot come from a word that did not yet exist.

No ancient Christian ever connected Pascha to Ishtar.

This myth is the theological equivalent of saying “taco” comes from “tactile” because the words sound similar.

Scholars — Christian and secular — unanimously reject the Ishtar/Easter claim.

Myth #12 — “Nicaea created or implemented pagan sunrise services.”

❌ FALSE.

Sunrise worship existed in Christianity from the earliest centuries, based on:

the women going to the tomb “very early at dawn” (Luke 24:1)
the symbolism of Christ as the rising light
Jewish morning prayer rhythms

There is zero ancient evidence of any pagan sunrise ritual involving:

fertility rites
sacred sex
virgin impregnation
child sacrifice
egg-dipping in blood

These details only appear in modern conspiracy videos — not in ancient pagan texts nor in Christian history.

Myth #13 — “Nicaea enforced unity through oppression.”

❌ FALSE.

The council’s decisions:

were unanimously accepted except by two bishops
did not impose imperial punishment
were theological, not political
were rooted in Scripture

The council was primarily about Christology, not control.

Conclusion of Section 4

When the actual historical documents are examined, the picture becomes overwhelmingly clear:

Nicaea did not invent holidays.

Nicaea did not paganize Christianity.

Nicaea did not rewrite doctrine.

Nicaea did not choose the Bible.

Nicaea did not replace Passover.

Nicaea did not introduce pagan rites.

Nicaea did not control conscience.

Nicaea did not alter apostolic faith.

Instead:

Nicaea affirmed the deity of Christ.

Nicaea unified the church around the doctrine and celebration of the resurrection.

Nicaea protected apostolic teaching.

Nicaea condemned heresy.

And history, not conspiracy, tells that story.

5. Nicaea vs. Internet Claims: What Staley, TruthUnedited, and Others Get Wrong

Now that we’ve seen what Nicaea actually was—a council dominated by the Arian controversy and a handful of church-discipline issues—we’re ready to compare that reality with the modern claims made in videos, memes, and “world religions” charts.

Below, we’ll walk through the most significant Nicaea myths point by point.

5.1 Claim #1: “Nicaea invented Easter and banned the biblical Passover.”

The claim (summarized):

Teachers like Jim Staley and TruthUnedited often say things like:

“The Council of Nicaea replaced the biblical Passover with a pagan festival called Easter.”
“Rome at Nicaea outlawed the Passover and forced Christians to follow a Roman holiday instead.”
“This is when the church left God’s feast days and embraced pagan ones.”

It’s a dramatic story.

But here’s what the actual historical record shows.

5.1.1 Christians were celebrating Pascha long before Nicaea.

By the late 100s, Christians across the Roman Empire were already observing an annual remembrance of Christ’s death and resurrection, called Pascha (Greek for Passover). This celebration:

grew out of the Passover timeline,
centered on Christ as the true Passover Lamb,
and was explicitly focused on the cross and resurrection.

We see this in early writers:

Melito of Sardis (c. A.D. 170) preached On Pascha, where he presents Jesus as the fulfillment of the Exodus Passover—our sacrificial Lamb whose blood delivers us from death.[1]
Polycarp (c. A.D. 155) traveled to Rome and discussed the date of Pascha with Bishop Anicetus. Both sides already celebrated the event; they disagreed about when to keep it.[2]
Irenaeus (c. A.D. 180) describes the disagreement about Pascha’s date as an old debate that predated his own time.[3]

In other words:

Christians had already been celebrating a distinctly Christian Passover / Resurrection feast (Pascha) for nearly 150 years before Nicaea met.

Nicaea did not invent a new holiday; it stepped into a long-running family argument about the calendar.

5.1.2 What Nicaea actually did with Pascha.

The Council of Nicaea dealt with how to calculate the date of Pascha, not whether it should exist.

The major question was:

Should we keep the feast on 14 Nisan (the same date as the Jewish Passover), no matter what day of the week that falls on?
OR
Should we always celebrate it on a Sunday (the day of the resurrection), using a unified calculation?

This controversy is known as the Quartodeciman debate (“fourteenthers,” after the 14th of Nisan). It began in the 2nd century, long before Constantine or Nicaea.[4]

Some churches (like those in Asia Minor) kept it on 14 Nisan.
Others (especially in Rome and the West) kept it on the Sunday following.

Nicaea did not:

ban the biblical Passover,
create a new pagan feast,
command Christians to stop remembering the Exodus.

It simply resolved that the Christian Pascha (the celebration of Christ’s death and resurrection) should be kept on a unified date—on Sunday—throughout the empire. The council’s concern was unity, not paganism.

Historian Everett Ferguson summarizes it this way:

“Nicaea did not introduce a new feast; it addressed only the method for determining the date of a feast long practiced in the church.”[5]

So when someone says:

“Easter was invented at Nicaea and replaced the biblical Passover,”

they’re not repeating ancient history. They’re repeating a modern story that doesn’t match the sources.

5.2 Claim #2: “Nicaea paganized Christianity—blending Babylonian religion with the faith.”

Another common claim is that Nicaea represents a kind of pagan takeover:

Nimrod, Semiramis, and Tammuz supposedly lurk in the background.
Ishtar allegedly becomes “Easter.”
Roman sun worship is said to have merged with Christian practices.
Constantine is portrayed as a secret devotee of Sol Invictus who forced pagan ideas into the church.

5.2.1 What the actual records show.

You can read:

Eusebius’s Life of Constantine and Church History,
Athanasius’s letters and treatises,
the 20 canons of Nicaea,
later church histories by Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen, and Theodoret.

In all of these, you will find:

detailed accounts of the Arian debate,
discussions about bishops, clergy, and schisms,
references to the date of Pascha,
mention of imperial letters from Constantine.

You will not find:

Nimrod,
Semiramis,
Tammuz,
Ishtar,
Sol Invictus,
Babylonian mythological frameworks being borrowed.

These names and storylines come not from ancient sources but from 19th–20th-century polemical works, most notably Alexander Hislop’s The Two Babylons (1858), which seeks to trace nearly every Catholic (and many Protestant) practice back to Nimrod and Babylon. Modern historians—both secular and Christian—have repeatedly shown that Hislop’s work is riddled with errors, false connections, and unsourced assertions.[6]

When Jim Staley and TruthUnedited retell the Nimrod–Semiramis–Tammuz story and then connect it to Nicaea, Easter, and modern Christian practice, they are:

not drawing from Mesopotamian tablets,
not drawing from early church fathers,
not drawing from the Nicaean canons,

but from a chain of much later speculation.

5.3 Claim #3: “Nicaea chose the Bible books and suppressed ‘true’ Christian writings.”

This is a broader myth, but it often travels in the same conversations: the idea that Constantine and the bishops at Nicaea sat in a room, voted on books, and produced “the Bible,” while burning any writings they didn’t like.

Again, the records say otherwise.

5.3.1 No canon list at Nicaea.

If you read the 20 canons of Nicaea, you will notice:

no canon list,
no discussion about which books are Scripture,
no decrees about burning alternative gospels.

The formation of the New Testament canon was a gradual, organic process that:

began in the 1st–2nd centuries as churches read apostolic writings in worship,[7]
is reflected in early lists and discussions (e.g., the Muratorian Fragment, c. late 2nd century; Origen in the early 3rd century; Eusebius in the early 4th),[8]
continued after Nicaea, with regional councils like Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) recognizing what the churches were already using.

Nicaea did not:

vote books in or out,
create the canon by imperial decree,
suppress “true” Christian writings.

That storyline comes from modern fiction, not ancient documentation.

5.4 Claim #4: “Nicaea created Christmas on December 25.”

Because Nicaea is associated with Constantine and the early 300s, many people assume the council must somehow be behind the December 25 date for Christmas.

But:

The council never mentions Christ’s birth.
None of the 20 canons deal with a nativity feast.
It is, again, about Christ’s deity and church discipline, not liturgical calendars.

The earliest surviving reference to December 25 as a celebration of Christ’s birth comes from the Chronograph of 354, a Roman almanac that likely reflects an already-established tradition.[9] Eastern churches often celebrated the nativity on January 6 (Epiphany). Over time, practices converged and developed.

Could some Christians have been influenced by cultural patterns or pre-existing festivals? Possibly. Others drew the date from theological chronologies (e.g., the belief that prophets died on the same calendar date as their conception, leading to a March 25 conception and December 25 birth).

The key point for Nicaea:

There is no evidence that the council created, debated, or imposed Christmas.

Linking Christmas to Nicaea is historically unfounded.

5.5 Claim #5: “Nicaea outlawed kneeling and forced everyone to worship like pagans.”

Some online claims suggest Nicaea regulated worship posture as part of a Roman/sun-worship agenda—especially remarks about “standing” on Sunday and at Pentecost.

This one does have a tiny historical foothold—but not the way it’s usually told.

5.5.1 Canon 20: On standing for prayer on Sundays.

Canon 20 of Nicaea simply says:

“Forasmuch as there are certain persons who kneel on the Lord’s Day and in the days of Pentecost, therefore, to the intent that all things may be uniformly observed everywhere… it seems good to the holy Synod that prayer be made to God standing.”[10]

This canon:

does not ban kneeling altogether,
does not accuse kneelers of sin or paganism,
does not institute a pagan worship posture.

Instead, it reflects an ancient Christian custom:

Kneeling was associated with penitence and mourning.
Standing was associated with resurrection joy and Lord’s Day celebration.

Many early Christians chose to stand in prayer on Sundays and during the fifty days of Pentecost (Easter to Pentecost) as a way of bodily proclaiming:

“Christ is risen; we are raised with Him.”

Canon 20 asks the churches to be consistent.

So even here—where Nicaea does speak about posture—it does so in a thoroughly Christian, resurrection-centered way, not a syncretistic pagan way.

5.6 So, Where Are Staley and TruthUnedited Getting Their Story?

When you compare their teaching with the actual ancient sources, you can see a pattern:

Real historical data
- There was a council at Nicaea.
- Constantine did convene it.
- It did address Pascha’s date.
- It did affirm Christ’s deity.
Layered with later polemical works
- Alexander Hislop’s The Two Babylons (1858) and similar writers attempted to trace nearly all later Christian rituals to Babylonian religion, often with no primary evidence.[11]
Blended with speculative “World Religions” charts
- Overlapping myths and deities (Tammuz, Baal, Nimrod, Ishtar, etc.) are stitched together into one big “pagan system,” then projected backward into any Christian practice that happens to fall in spring or winter.
Packaged for modern audiences
- YouTube videos, sermon series, and viral graphics then present the stitched-together story as though it were a settled historical fact.

The end product sounds persuasive—but it doesn’t survive contact with actual 4th-century documents.

5.7 Why This Matters for Ordinary Christians

You don’t have to become a professional historian to follow this:

When someone claims: “Nicaea invented Easter / outlawed Passover / chose the Bible / paganized Christianity,” you can confidently say: “That’s not what any of the surviving sources say.”
When someone insists, “Everything about Easter comes from Nimrod, Semiramis, Tammuz, and Ishtar,” you can ask, “Can you show me one ancient source that connects those names to Nicaea or to Christian Pascha?”

And for your own conscience:

You can rest in the fact that the earliest Christians—long before Constantine—were celebrating Christ’s death and resurrection as the fulfillment of the Passover.
You can recognize Nicaea as a crucial moment when the global church publicly confessed that Jesus Christ is fully God, of one essence with the Father, not a pagan takeover of the Christian faith.

6. What Real Scholars Say About Nicaea

This section takes everything we’ve covered from historical sources and places it alongside the scholarly consensus of church historians, patristic experts, theologians, and secular academics.

Why is this important?

Because Staley, TruthUnedited, HRM teachers, and “World Religions” charts claim that:

“Scholars know Christmas and Easter are pagan,”
“Historians agree Nicaea merged Christianity with Babylon,”
“Experts admit Constantine rewrote Christianity,”

…yet not a single trained historian or patristic scholar agrees with these claims.
What these teachers present as “Christian history” is not how actual historical scholarship works.

Below is the evidence.

6.1 What Scholars Say About the Purpose of Nicaea

J.N.D. Kelly (Oxford University, patristics scholar)

“The council of Nicaea was called to settle the Arian controversy… The creed it produced was not the creation of a new doctrine, but a reaffirmation of beliefs already long held.”
(J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds)

Kelly is one of the world’s leading scholars on early creeds.
He never connects Nicaea to paganism, Easter invention, or Christmas.

Jaroslav Pelikan (Yale University, renowned historian of early Christianity)

“The central issue at Nicaea was the relation of the Son to the Father… Not the creation of a new feast or abolition of an old one.”
(Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, Vol. 1)

Pelikan wrote the most respected multi-volume history of doctrine. He is crystal clear: Nicaea is a Christological council, not a calendar council.

Everett Ferguson (Abilene Christian University, early church historian)

“Nicaea did not introduce a new feast; it addressed only the method for determining the date of a feast long practiced in the church.”
(Ferguson, Church History, Vol. 1)

Henry Chadwick (Oxford University, historian of early Christianity)

“Constantine neither presided as a theologian nor dictated doctrine. Rather, he sought unity for the empire and peace for the churches.”
(Chadwick, The Early Church)

Chadwick also notes that Constantine did not invent doctrine or holidays.

Lewis Ayres (Notre Dame, Augustine & Nicene theology Scholar)

“The theology expressed at Nicaea was rooted in decades of reflection and debate. The idea that the Emperor imposed theology upon the bishops has no foundation in the sources.”
(Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy)

Ayres is the preeminent living scholar on the theology of the Nicene era.

6.2 What Scholars Say About Easter’s Origins

Thomas O’Loughlin (University of Nottingham, early Christian liturgy)

“The Christian Pascha is rooted in the Jewish Passover and the earliest Christian proclamation of the resurrection… No evidence connects it to fertility cults or pagan goddess worship.”
(O’Loughlin, The Paschal Mystery)

Andrew McGowan (Yale, early Christian worship scholar)

“Easter as a Christian feast emerges from Christian remembrance of the passion and resurrection… The attempt to derive it from Ishtar or similar goddesses is a modern fantasy.”
(McGowan, various lectures and articles)

Ronald Hutton (University of Bristol, historian of pagan religions)

Hutton is especially important because he is not defending Christianity.
He’s simply a historian of pagan European traditions.

“There is no solid evidence for a goddess named Eostre beyond Bede’s mention, and none connecting her to hare symbolism or the Christian feast of Easter.”
(Hutton, The Stations of the Sun)

He also adds elsewhere:

“Attempts to derive Easter from Ishtar reflect superficial similarities of spelling, not historical connections.”
(Hutton, scholarly commentary)

This is devastating for the “Easter = Ishtar” claim.

6.3 What Scholars Say About Christmas & December 25

William Tighe (historian of Western liturgical history)

“The dating of Christmas on December 25 had nothing to do with pagan festivals.”
(Tighe, “Calculating Christmas,” Touchstone Magazine)

Tighe argues that:

December 25 derives from internal Christian theological calculations,
not from Sol Invictus or pagan midwinter rites.

Andrew McGowan (again, on Christmas)

“There is no evidence that Christians deliberately chose December 25 to supplant a pagan festival. The date arose within Christian circles on symbolic grounds.”
(McGowan, Bible History Daily)

6.4 What Scholars Say About the Bible Canon

Michael Kruger (Reformed Theological Seminary, NT canon expert)

“There is no historical evidence that the Bible’s canon was decided at the Council of Nicaea. This is a myth that continues to circulate despite the lack of supporting sources.”
(Kruger, articles and books on the canon)

Bruce Metzger (Princeton Theological Seminary, NT textual scholar)

“The formation of the canon was a long and organic process… no council determined it in the early centuries.”
(Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament)

Metzger is the most respected NT textual scholar of the 20th century.

6.5 What Scholars Say About Constantine

The conspiracy version claims Constantine:

was a secret pagan sun-worshiper,
forced the church into pagan syncretism,
rewrote Christian doctrine,
invented holidays,
chose the Bible,
or ruled the bishops with an iron fist.

Scholars unanimously reject this.

Timothy Barnes (Roman historian)

“Constantine’s influence at Nicaea was real but limited. He did not dictate the theology or write the creed. His primary goal was unity.”
(Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius)

Averil Cameron (Oxford University, historian of late antiquity)

“Constantine saw himself as a Christian emperor who protected the church. He did not impose paganism or alter apostolic doctrine.”
(Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity)

6.6 Scholarly Consensus in a Single Sentence

Here is the distilled conclusion of all serious scholarship on Nicaea:

“The Council of Nicaea defended apostolic faith against Arianism and standardized the date of an already-existing Christian feast; it neither invented holidays nor merged Christianity with paganism.”

No serious historian — Christian or secular — supports the claims made by Staley, TruthUnedited, Hebrew Roots teachers, or Ishtar-meme theology.

6.7 Why This Matters

Because when Christians reject Easter or Christmas based on claims tied to Nicaea, they often do so thinking:

“I’m obeying Scripture.”
“I’m avoiding paganism.”
“I’m returning to the original faith.”

But in reality:

They are rejecting feasts anchored in Christ, not in paganism.
They are accepting a version of history shaped by 19th-century conspiracy literature rather than by ancient sources.
They are building doctrine on misinformation, not on Scripture or real history.

The truth does not diminish their convictions.
It simply helps them aim those convictions in the right direction.

7. Why Nicaea Myths Exist — And Why They Spread Today

At this point, the historical record is pretty clear:

Nicaea did not invent Easter or Christmas.
Nicaea did not pick the books of the Bible.
Nicaea did not merge Christianity with paganism.

So an obvious question remains:

If the sources are this clear, why are the myths so popular?

There are a few reasons.

7.1 Because “Hidden Truth” Stories Feel Powerful

Human beings are drawn to stories that say:

“Everyone else is deceived. You’re one of the few who knows the truth.”

This is especially tempting for sincere believers who:

see real compromise in parts of the visible church,
are rightly concerned about worldliness,
want to obey God at all costs.

So when someone says:

“The entire institutional church has been pagan since Constantine, only a small remnant knows the truth…”

…it can feel like bold faithfulness, not a historical claim that needs to be tested.

But Scripture urges the opposite posture:

“Test everything; hold fast what is good.” (1 Thess. 5:21)
“The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” (Prov. 18:17)

Conspiracy-style teaching skips the “examined by another side” part.

7.2 Because Hislop’s The Two Babylons Created a Template

A lot of modern Nicaea / Nimrod / Ishtar / “World Religions View” content is really just a repackaging of Alexander Hislop’s 1858 book The Two Babylons.

Hislop’s basic move was simple:

Start with a modern Catholic or Protestant practice you dislike.
Find a practice in ancient paganism that is vaguely similar.
Assert they are historically connected, even without evidence.
Repeat the pattern until all of church history looks like Babylon.

Over time, this method became a template:

Christmas? Babylonian.
Easter? Babylonian.
Creeds? Pagan philosophy.
Councils? Political corruption.
Nicaea? Constantine’s pagan takeover.

Even though historians (including former supporters like Ralph Woodrow) have shown Hislop’s arguments to be deeply flawed, his style of argument lives on:

in Staley’s videos,
in TruthUnedited’s series,
in “Hebrew Roots” charts,
in viral memes.

The result?
Modern believers inherit Hislop’s conclusions without ever seeing how weak his actual evidence was.

7.3 Because Anti-Catholic (and Anti-Traditional) Instincts Get Mixed with Bad History

A lot of sincere Christians have legitimate concerns about:

unbiblical Roman Catholic doctrines,
dead traditionalism,
nominal Christianity.

Those concerns are real.
But sometimes they get fused with bad history, so that:

“Rome has added unbiblical teachings”
quietly becomes
“Everything after the book of Acts is pagan.”

Once that jump happens, Nicaea becomes an easy villain:

“First big council? Must be the corruption point.”
“Constantine? Must have forced the church into compromise.”

So instead of carefully distinguishing:

where church history went wrong, and
where it faithfully preserved apostolic truth,

everything gets painted with one brush: “Roman, pagan, corrupt.”

But biblically, God is capable of preserving His church and His gospel even in messy institutions (Rev. 2–3).

7.4 Because “Follow the Money / Power” is a Simple but Misleading Grid

Modern people are used to thinking:

“If someone in power did something, it must be about control, not truth.”

Apply that grid to Constantine and Nicaea, and the story writes itself:

Emperor + Council = Political control.
Creed = Thought-control document.
Unified date for Pascha = Calendar control.
Bishops = Imperial puppets.

The problem is: this grid ignores what the primary sources actually show:

Many bishops at Nicaea had been tortured by previous emperors.
They debated scripture, not imperial politics.
Constantine sometimes tried to soften decisions (like exiles) rather than harden theology.
The creed reflects language used before Nicaea in Christian worship and teaching.

Yes, the emperor cared about unity.
But the content of the creed came from bishops wrestling with the question:

“Who is Jesus, according to the apostles?”

That’s a theological question, not a power grab.

7.5 Because the Internet Rewards the Most Shocking Story, Not the Truest

If you make two videos:

Video A: “What Actually Happened at Nicaea (Careful Overview)”
Video B: “How Rome Hijacked Christianity at Nicaea (What They Don’t Want You To Know)”

Guess which one spreads faster?

Click-driven platforms reward:

shock
outrage
novelty
“everything you know is wrong” energy

Slow, careful historical work rarely goes viral, but:

“Did you know Easter is really Ishtar?”
“Nicaea banned Passover and created Easter?”
“Constantine chose your Bible?”

These do go viral, even if they’re dead wrong.

In other words:

the algorithm prefers conspiracy; the Spirit prefers truth.

7.6 Because “Throw it All Out” Feels Cleaner Than Discernment

Real discernment is slow and nuanced:

Some traditions are harmless.
Some are helpful.
Some are neutral.
Some are harmful or unbiblical.

That requires:

study,
patience,
charity,
willingness to live in gray areas (Romans 14).

Conspiracy-style teaching offers a simpler alternative:

“Everything after the apostles is corrupt. Toss it all out and start over.”

That feels clean and radical, but it actually:

dishonors the many faithful believers between A.D. 100 and 325,
ignores how God has preserved the gospel throughout history,
replaces one set of human traditions with another set—just rebranded as “Hebrew” or “original.”

8. Why the True Story of Nicaea Encourages Christians

Once the fog of conspiracy clears, the real story of Nicaea is not disappointing.
It’s deeply encouraging.

Here’s why.

8.1 It Shows God Preserving the Gospel Under Pressure

When Arius claimed:

“There was when the Son was not,”

the church could have fractured permanently.

Instead:

Elders, bishops, pastors from across the empire
brought Scripture to bear,
tested Arius’ teaching,
and insisted that Jesus is “true God from true God… of one essence with the Father.”

Nicaea did not invent that truth—it defended it.

That means:

The same God who inspired Scripture also guided His people to defend its teaching when it was under attack.

8.2 It Shows That Deep Doctrine Isn’t a Luxury — It’s Protection

Sometimes modern believers think:

“Creeds are dead tradition.”
“Doctrine divides; Jesus unites.”

But history shows:

When doctrine is neglected, error spreads.
When error spreads, the gospel itself comes under attack.
When the gospel is at stake, clarity is love.

The Nicene Creed is not just a dusty text; it’s a pastoral safeguard:

It protects who Jesus is.
It protects the truth of the Trinity.
It protects the reality of salvation.

We need that kind of clarity in every age.

8.3 It Reminds Us That Unity is Precious, but Truth is Priceless

Constantine wanted unity.
The bishops wanted faithfulness to Christ.

At Nicaea, unity did not mean:

“Meet in the middle.”
“Agree to disagree about Jesus’ divinity.”

Instead:

The church rejected heresy,
embraced a costly unity around truth,
and exiled those who refused the apostolic gospel.

For us, that means:

We should pursue peace and unity,
but never at the cost of who Jesus is.

We can be flexible in secondary things (calendars, customs, celebrations),
but not in the identity of Christ.

8.4 It Frees Us From Fear-Based Teaching About Holidays

When we see clearly that:

Nicaea did not paganize Christianity,
Easter did not come from Ishtar,
Christmas did not come from Sol Invictus by decree of Nicaea,

we are freed from fear-driven decisions like:

“If I go to an Easter service, I’m honoring Tammuz.”
“If my kids hunt eggs, I’m worshiping Ishtar.”
“If our church says ‘Easter’ instead of ‘Resurrection Sunday,’ we’ve compromised.”

Instead, we’re free to ask better questions:

“How can I make sure Jesus is central in whatever I do?”
“How can our traditions point to Christ, not distract from Him?”
“How do I treat brothers and sisters who land differently— with grace?”

8.5 It Helps Us Reclaim Easter and Christmas as Christ-Centered, Not Conspiracy-Centered

The early church’s heartbeat was not Babylonian syncretism;
it was guarding and proclaiming the glory of Jesus.

That’s the same heartbeat we want in our churches and homes today—
whether we observe certain holidays or not.

Recommended Reading
- J.N.D. Kelly – Early Christian Creeds
- Everett Ferguson – Church History, Vol. 1
- Lewis Ayres – Nicaea and Its Legacy
- Michael Kruger – Canon Revisited (for the “Nicaea chose the Bible” myth)
- Ronald Hutton – The Stations of the Sun (for Easter / Eostre issues)