“Light from light”: on Athanasius, Constantine, and the Nicene Creed

If De incarnatione verbi was written by Athanasius before the Nicene Council, and there are strong indications it was, then the idea of ‘light’ was not deeply rooted in his thinking of Christ’s eternal being and incarnation. However, in Constantine’s address in AD 314 to an audience of Christian delegates, the Oratio ad sanctorum coetum, the imagery of ‘light’ is distinctly addressed by the emperor to describe Christ’s forthcoming from the Father, eternally and in time, to become a shimmering of palpable, materialized light. As such, the divine Son was ‘caused’ by its source, the heavenly Father, from Whom he originated to become the eternal Word and Son, a designation which plausibly informed the Nicene debate over a decade later. It seems that the emperor’s influence on the Nicene debate was substantial, and that his pragmatic approach led the council to choose for rather vague descriptors, such as ‘Light from Light’, which easily reverberated from the Sol Invictus cult to which he formerly adhered. Spiritually, the diverging parties developed their own idiosyncrasies, pertaining to the early apophatic tradition, emphasizing participation (Constantine, Arius), as well as to the apophatic-cataphatic tradition, accentuating transformation and impartation (Athanasius).