İznik — in the end, God remains
In Book III of Plato’s Republic, Socrates explores what he calls the γενναῖον ψεῦδος gennaion psevdos — noble lie meant to propagate a fabricated story that citizens are born with different types of metal in their souls (gold for rulers, silver for auxiliaries, bronze or iron for producers). This story is a lie, but a useful one, meant to cultivate allegiance to the city and acceptance of one’s social role. The idea is to introduce a mechanism in realpolitik that seeks to unite the inhabitants of the city-state. For Plato, the Greek myths just didn’t do the job. They were too emotional, too carnal. He felt that the Athenians needed some cultural narrative to rally behind… but one that made the populace useful for the political machine.
It is, in essence, fascism.
It’s no coincidence that Fascism is tied to Hegelian idealism, which is itself tied back to Platonic philosophy. The whole notion of “national identity”, of “cultural myths and stories” is all a product of the Hellenism that spread like a virus with the conquest of Alexander the Macedonian, and has continued to mold our way of thinking today. We as Americans inherited manifest destiny and the false promise of the American republic as a beacon of progress in the age of “enlightenment”. It is no coincidence that out of the Enlightenment came the coalescing of several tribes throughout the world (and especially Europe) into “nations”, where one tribe exerted dominance over the others. We have the Castilians in Spain whose language became what we now refer to simply as “Spanish”, despite the fact that there are several languages spoken there. We have the “standardization” of German for the united German Empire in the late 19th century, and the standard Italian for the united Kingdom of Italy around the same time. The Kingdom of England exerted its dominance over the rest of the British isles and eventually became Great Britain, subjugating the Welsh, Irish, Scots, Jutes, Picts, and Mercians in the process. The language of Great Britain was simply known as “English”, named after only one of the “tribes” that settled there. This is Platonic philosophy in motion. Unity in assimilation. It’s like the Borg Collective. Resistance is futile. And yet, the biblical authors, even though they lived 2,300 years before Star Trek, understood that basic point. That is why they wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, which subsumes all human enterprise into one word: הֶבֶל hebel — vanity, passing breath, futility (Arabic:هَبَل habal — stupidity). The biblical authors were not seeking to control anyone, nor were they trying to warp people’s minds in order to build a better world… they wrote in order to disarm the powers and principalities of the world. It was about the release from the impasse of cycles of violence and oppression, exacerbated by their cultural genocide at the hands of Hellenists who imposed Alexander’s concocted Koine (common) Greek onto everyone else. The attack was on Plato’s philosophy as expressed in the Republic, which manifested itself in the Seleucid imposition upon the Mesopotamian cities.
But Judaism and Christianism went the way of Plato in the end. The Judaism that Paul critiques in his letters was a post-Hasmonean reality, where certain priestly factions attempted to co-opt the biblical literature and distort them for their own purposes to fight back against the Seleucids by adopting their Platonic, nationalistic philosophy. Just read 1 Maccabees to get a crash course in Plato’s noble lie. Then it will make sense when American politicians praise the story of Hanukkah and the Maccabees whenever that holiday hits the national liturgical calendar. Judaism was about “Judean supremacy”, centered at the “Jerusalem below” in the province of Yehud. Christianism fared much the same way. The term “Christianity” appears nowhere in scripture, although the word Χριστιανός khristianos — little anointed one does (Acts 11:26; 26:28 & 1 Pet. 4:16). This term applies to those who are in Christ, whether they be Gentile or Jew. It is not an identity! And furthermore, it is not something that can be imposed on others! Paul tells new converts to “remain as they are” (1 Cor. 7:20). Later, he warns the newcomers not to be arrogant against their Judean older brothers in the family of Christ because they are the root, and the root supports you, the Gentiles (Rom. 11:18)! Paul’s eucharistic community is not a melting pot. It is a table where all of the world’s tribes share a common meal under the aegis of the scriptural God. There is no imposition allowed, and debates about “orthodoxy” are completely foreign to the table. This is why Paul could not tolerate the Judeans imposing circumcision on their younger brothers. They wanted to follow the Hasmoneans in their crusade to turn the inclusive covenant of Abraham into a political banner meant to force the other tribes in the Levant to bend the knee — namely the Samaritans, whose temple was destroyed by Hasmonean King John Hyrcanus in 112 BCE.
Christians of late antiquity, unfortunately, took up this same mantle. Judaism became Christianism. Instead of a geographical location or a city state being the rallying marker, it was the philosophical orthodoxy of metaphysical babble. The “symbol of faith” became the instrument at which Christians were to be judged, deviating far from the open table fellowship written of by the Pauline school. Ironically, that table of fellowship, meant to be the uniting factor, became the instrument of division when it was weaponized. This abuse of the Lord’s table was the topic of the Qur’an’s fifth chapter. Refusal to proclaim the Lord’s death with a neighbor with deviant metaphysics is nothing to be proud of… let alone violently persecuting believers in communion with the wrong bishop.
May 20th marks the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. To commemorate the occasion, the newly elected Pope Leo XIV and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I are slated to meet and discuss “Christian unity” sometime this year. Councils are always problematic. Their modus operandi is city building. Every Ecumenical Council ostensibly was convened in order to reach a reasonable consensus and promote unity, but each one led to progressively more and more division. That is because humans cannot lead themselves out of diaspora. It is God who strikes the shepherd and scatters the sheep! It is he who moistens the bricks and confuses the languages at Babylon. And it is only he, through the teaching, who can bring the nations into table fellowship… not into subjugation to one another, but in partaking of the common meal. It’s just old-fashioned Bedouin hospitality, but you have to leave your Hellenism at the door. Chalcedon is nothing to be proud of. Neither is Ephesus, nor Nicea. All of these events were tragic and betrayed the wisdom that was codified in a book! Just listen to the magisterial words of the book of Baruch:
οὗτος ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν, οὐ λογισθήσεται ἕτερος πρὸς αὐτόν. ἐξεῦρε πᾶσαν ὁδὸν ἐπιστήμης καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτὴν ᾿Ιακὼβ τῷ παιδὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ ᾿Ισραὴλ τῷ ἠγαπημένῳ ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ· μετὰ τοῦτο ἐπὶ γῆς ὤφθη καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις συνανεστράφη αὐτὴ ἡ βίβλος τῶν προσταγμάτων τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ ὁ νόμος ὁ ὑπάρχων εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα· πάντες οἱ κρατοῦντες αὐτὴν εἰς ζωήν, οἱ δὲ καταλείποντες αὐτὴν ἀποθανοῦνται. — ᾿Επιστρέφου, ᾿Ιακώβ, καὶ ἐπιλαβοῦ αὐτῆς, διόδευσον πρὸς τὴν λάμψιν κατέναντι τοῦ φωτὸς αὐτῆς.
This is our God; no other shall be reckoned comparable to Him. He devised the whole way to knowledge, and gave her to Jacob his servant and to Israel whom he loved. Afterward she appeared upon earth and lived among men. She is the book of the commandments of God, and the law that endures for ever. All who hold her fast will live, and those who forsake her will die. Turn, O Jacob, and take her; walk toward the shining of her light. — Bar. 3:36–4:2
It is the “book of the commandments of God” that is the “whole way to knowledge”. This is the only guidance from God to his creatures. There’s nothing to build. Read 1 Corinthians chapter four. There’s only the proclamation of Christ crucified, no other λόγος to be found.
1,700 years later, Nicea is now İznik (from the Greek εἰς Νίκαιαν), just as Constantinople is now Istanbul (from εἰς τὴν πόλιν). No one knows for sure where Constantine’s Imperial palace was in Nicea. Despite the painstaking labor exerted for that effort, there aren’t even identifiable ruins that testify to its existence. It’s gone from time, just as Ecclesiastes witnesses. It is likely underneath the lake, submerged for ages after being destroyed by frequent earthquakes.
God does not work in mysterious ways. But you have to know scripture to know what he’s doing.