The Council of Nicaea Explained by an Exciting New Acquisition

Visitors to Museum of the Bible can now enjoy an exciting new exhibit in the Floor 4 gallery. Diagonally across the way from the Qumran exhibit that is dominated by a facsimile of the Great Isaiah Scroll, is a horseshoe-shaped alcove, the new home of the Crosby-Schøyen codex.

This new exhibit opened on June 19, the 1700th anniversary of the traditional date for the start of the Council of Nicaea, convened by the Roman emperor, Constantine the Great, in AD 325. What was this church council, and how did the new exhibit come about?

During most of its first three centuries, Christianity was a little-known religion that was technically illegal in the Roman empire, and subject to sporadic persecutions. It was a religion with doctrines most pagans knew little about, except in distorted caricatures. After Constantine emerged as the victor in a civil war and Christianity was finally legal, Christian theological controversies spilled out into the open and Christian beliefs became an imperial concern. 

Around AD 320, a priest in Alexandria named Arius began preaching that God the Father had created Jesus. Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, and his deacon and successor, Athanasius, fiercely opposed this doctrine, and had Arius exiled from Egypt. The ideas of Arius nevertheless took root in Constantinople, and so Constantine tried to smooth over the dispute with a letter sent to both Arius and Alexander asking them to compromise, which they both refused to do. Therefore, Constantine summoned all the bishops in the empire to attend the first ecumenical church council at Nicaea in the summer of AD 325.

Over 300 bishops came to Nicaea, a city just across the Bosporus from Constantinople. With Constantine presiding, the bishops hotly debated the theological positions of Alexander and Arius. Finally, they agreed that Arius was wrong, and that Jesus was not created, but was of the same substance (homoousios in Greek) as God the Father. The bishops codified this by writing the Nicene Creed, a short statement of what all Christians believed. In a further act of unity, they proclaimed that Easter would always be celebrated on a Sunday rather than on the Jewish date of Passover, the 14th day of the month of Nisan which can fall on any day of the week.

Late last fall, museum curators and exhibits staff made two decisions. First, the museum would use the curved space across from the Qumran display on Floor 4 to tell the story of the Council of Nicaea. Second, to help tell the story, the space would highlight an exciting new acquisition, the Crosby-Schøyen Codex.

The codex is a papyrus book written in Coptic, the last phase of the ancient Egyptian language, that dates to between AD 250 and AD 350. It was found rolled up inside a jar in 1952 near Dishna, Egypt, around the same time and place that the museum’s Bodmer Psalms were discovered. The Green Collection of Oklahoma City agreed to allow Museum of the Bible to display it beginning in June 2025 prior to its donation to the museum on August 1. This timing coincided with the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, but do the contents of the codex lend themselves to telling the story of the council?

The Crosby-Schøyen Codex contains five distinct texts. It preserves the oldest complete text of two books of the Bible in any language: Jonah and 1 Peter. It also contains 2 Maccabees 5:27–7:41, a book that appears in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles. The excerpt tells the story of Jewish martyrs who resisted the tyranny of the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, ending with the martyrdom of Eleazar the scribe followed by seven brothers and their mother.

Figure 1: Folio on left: 2 Maccabees 5:27–6:2; folio on right: 1 Peter 2:5–8. The folio on the left shows the beginning of the extract from 2 Maccabees with a title that says, “The Martyrs of the Jews who Lived under Antiochus the King.” At the end of the title, the Coptic word for the king, ΠΡΡΟ, preserves the ancient Egyptian word we say as “pharaoh.”

There are two sermons, Peri Pascha (On the Passover) by Melito of Sardis (died ca. AD 180), and an unidentified sermon that exhorts Christians to be watchful and remain faithful. While these texts seem unrelated, all address one or more themes associated with Easter—remaining faithful despite suffering and death.

Early Christians linked the story of Jonah to the three days Jesus spent in the tomb, based on Matthew 12:40, “Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” (NABRE). 1 Peter 4:12–13 addresses the persecution of Christians, saying, “Beloved, do not be surprised that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as if something strange were happening to you. But rejoice to the extent that you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice exultantly” (NABRE). Peri Pascha directly links the Passover in Exodus to the Passion of Jesus. After a recitation of the evils in the world due to sin, Melito says, “For this reason, then, the mystery of the Passover was accomplished in the body of the Lord” (Peri Pascha 56, translated by J. E. Goehring). This emphasis on the Passion and Easter helps to explain why the Council of Nicaea decided it was so important that all Christians celebrate it on the same day. Ironically, many scholars believe that Melito himself was a quartodeciman, that is, a person who celebrated Easter on the 14th day (quartusdecimanus in Latin) of Nisan.

Another link between the codex and the Council of Nicaea is the language Melito uses near the end of Peri Pascha about Jesus that resembles the words of the later Nicene Creed. Melito wrote, “It is he who created the heaven and the earth; he formed man from the beginning; he who was proclaimed by the law and the prophets; he who received flesh through the virgin; he who hung on the tree; he who was buried in the earth; he who rose from the dead, ascended to the height of the heavens; he who sits at the right hand of the father; he who has the authority to save all that the father created through him from eternity to eternity” (Peri Pascha 104, translated by J. E. Goehring). You can compare this with the text of the Nicene Creed here: https://www.usccb.org/prayers/nicene-creed. 

Figure 2: Folio on left: 1 Peter 2:9–11; folio on right: Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha 105. The end of the Peri Pascha contains language similar to that in the later Nicene Creed: “. . . Jesus, the Christ . . . he who rose from the dead, he who sits at the right hand of the father. . .”

Figure 3: Folio on left: Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha 59–62; folio on right: 1 Peter 5:12–13, Jonah 1:1. On the right, the scribe designated the end of 1 Peter with the title, “The Letter of Peter,” then gave the title of the next book, “Jonah the Proph(et).” The dash after the letter phi seems to indicate an intentional abbreviation.

Seven leaves of the codex (three bifolios and one single folio) are currently on display in the exhibit. They will be rotated at various points throughout the year. Come see these pages from an ancient Christian treasure, learn about Coptic through an interactive touch screen, and read how the codex highlights an important period in Christian history.

Published July 31, 2025