But that is *precisely* what was rejected at & after Nicaea.

One God. Christ Jesus, the man, is God. Consubstantial with the Father. There is no time when He was not.

All the saints who we honor, Mary herself, are simply not consubstantial with the Father. That is not and has never been orthodoxy. And this has always been entirely public and clear. The possibility of a paganized and syncretized religion presented itself, then: as long after the death of the last apostle as we are after the American Revolutionary War.

It tried its best. It looked very much like it was going to win.

Of course that religion would have lost Christianity’s Judaism, but it might have been a lot more helpful empire-building wise. Super easy to skootch any pagans you run into in to the Arian “Church”.

But what Athanasius (and, in the end, all but two of the 318 bishops who attended) said to Constantine and Arius was this: Yes I see what you mean, that would be a more straightforward religion and make things easier politically. But that is not what the apostles taught. That is a new thing. And we say no.

God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί”

– Sussanah Black Roberts, Editor of Plough Quarterly and Mere Orthodoxy