- The confusing relationship between barbarians and imperial authority. Particularly with Odoacer and Ricimer. Odoacer is supporting Ricimer against Frankia/Roman Gaul, and then later Odoacer becomes leader of the Herulii etc. alliance which supposedly was in the East, but I think they were already West or in Italy when Odoacer was their leader. We also wonder why Ricimer was so awful, leading to the impression that he was trying to sabotage the empire.
- Justianian and Belisarius definitively killing the Western Empire in essence, in that while Odoacer killed its substance, Western Rome thrived under the Franks and Ostrogoths and the city of Rome still stood in much of its former glory.
I am already aware that there is no such indication in the view of historians. However, if we were to say that a theological concern is the explanatory variable, then we would also assume that the Eastern Empire would have desperately censored and redacted this factor.
We know the Byzantines used theological uniformity and religion to rule their society like an early police state. We know they controlled literature and ideas. In this light, the prospect of theological weakness would be more threatening than even military, political or moral weakness. Concerning the criteria of embarrassment, theological embarrassment would have been more important to Byzantine redactors, so they would not necessarily censor history especially if the redacted history's embarrassments give no sign of what would be theologically embarrassing.
In the East, there's a view that Byzantine theocratic tyranny is a major cause of the rise of Islam among pseudo-Jewish, pseudo-Christian Arabs. So there's a common theme between East and West.
Coming back to Nicaea, there are unanswered questions:
- Why was Arianism rejected when most bishops believed it, including Eusebius?
- Why did Constantine later reinstate Arius and censure Athanasius?
- Why was Constantine baptized Arian?
- Why did Theodosius support Niceanism when Constantinople and most everyone was Arian, while the Niceans were themselves infighting?
Then, only minority factions continue to oppose it, idiosyncratically the church in Alexandria.
Then what happens is Theodosius is confronting the Arian Goths, and perceives that Nicene doctrine will create a theological wedge between Rome and the barbarians. This is perceiving the changes which will lead to the collapse of the Western Empire. It must also be noted that there are still many pagans in the Empire, particularly in the West. What Theodosius is doing is using theological orthodox to define what is civilization and what is barbarism, securing Byzantium's status as the appropriate source of political and religious authority. This also avoids having to deal with the zealous and important church in Egypt. It would secure Egypt's loyalty to Byzantium during a time of upheaval.
After the Council of Constantinople, then Arianism is rejected. Arian literature is burned, people are prosecuted, and the history of Nicaea is redacted (which would have been very inconvenient to Theodosius's project). This persecution of Arians is partially back cast into Nicean times.
One consequence of this use of theology to consolidate Byzantine supremacy is both the essential death of Western Rome, but also a legacy which provokes Arab Christians to help create Islam.
During Nicaea, church doctrine was a matter of concern for believers. After Constantinople, orthodoxy became a concern for citizens hoping to avoid political persecution.
Could this be true?
I looked up the documentary sources for Nicaea. There are no originals before 400 AD. The history could very well have been redacted.
Now, is there ancillary evidence, perhaps inconsequential documentation between the times of Nicaea and Constantinople which affirm the conventional view that Nicaea rejected Arianism? I don't know. But the direct documentary evidence proceeding from Nicaea does not pre date Theodosius.
If Nicaea actually affirmed Arianism, then we could interpret both Ricimer and Odoacer as part of an Arian attempt to prevent the infiltration of anti-Arianism into the West. Not prevent belief in homoousios, but rather prevent the enforcement of Imperial policy which made Arianism a heresy.
If one interprets Ricimer and Odoacer by attributing to them this theological priority, then their actions with regards to the health of the Western Empire make more sense. It also makes sense why Odoacer was killed (his stance was found out). And why the Ostrogoths had to be defeated at the expense of Rome itself. I have to investigate Ricimer's actions a little more closely to see if there's a pattern which supports this hypothesis. I could be wildly wrong.
Just a thought. Feel free to contribute any opinions on the paradoxes surrounding Nicaea.
And, there is a good connection to Christian origins, in that the proto-Theodosian environment was more permissive, and we see the the structure of catholicism before orthodoxy but after the defeat of gnosticism and other speculative branches. That is, even with Arius and Athanasius we see battle scars of the church which contain echoes of what preceded catholicism. The system of bishops and patriarchs, the disorganization and differences of opinion, the different centers and tentpoles of influence. We might plausibly say that Athanasius was the genuinely first true apostle of orthodoxy, and the regimented church government orthodoxy claims goes back to Peter et al.