What Scripture says
The New Testament books were written and circulating long before Nicaea. Peter already refers to a collection of Paul’s letters (2 Peter 3:15–16), and the Gospels were being read in churches in the 2nd century. This question isn’t about what Scripture says, but about church history.
What the evidence says
History
What Nicaea actually did
The Council of Nicaea met in AD 325 in what is now İznik, Turkey, called by Emperor Constantine. Around 250–300 bishops attended; tradition later fixed the number at 318. Its main business was:
- Arius’s teaching. Arius, a priest in Alexandria, taught that the Son of God was a created being: “there was a time when he was not.” The council rejected this and affirmed that the Son is “of one substance” (homoousios) with the Father, in what became the Nicene Creed. Only two bishops refused to sign.
- The date of Easter, so that churches would celebrate it on the same day.
- Church order, in twenty rules (canons) about appointing bishops, readmitting people who had lapsed in persecution, and so on.
The surviving creed and the twenty canons say nothing about which books belong in the Bible. Eusebius, who attended and wrote about the council, doesn’t mention the canon being discussed. No ancient historian reports it.
Where the myth came from
- A late legend. A 9th-century Greek document, the Synodicon Vetus, tells a story that the true books were placed on an altar at the council and the false ones fell to the floor. It was written over 500 years later and isn’t treated as history.
- Voltaire repeated the legend mockingly in the 1700s.
- Modern fiction. Dan Brown’s bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code (2003) popularized the idea that Constantine collated the Bible and suppressed other gospels to suit his politics. Historians across the spectrum, including skeptics like Bart Ehrman, have written that this is false.
The actual timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Late 2nd century | The four Gospels widely accepted; Irenaeus says there are exactly four |
| c. 200 | The Muratorian Fragment lists most New Testament books |
| 325 | Council of Nicaea, about Arius and the date of Easter |
| 367 | Athanasius lists exactly the 27 New Testament books |
| 393, 397 | Regional councils at Hippo and Carthage confirm the list |
The core of the New Testament was accepted more than a century before Nicaea, and the full list came more than 40 years after it (see 3.1).
Constantine’s real role
Constantine did order fifty copies of the Scriptures for churches in Constantinople around 331, according to Eusebius. That shows the books already existed and were recognized. Ordering copies isn’t the same as choosing the contents.
Where they meet
The New Testament books were already in use as Scripture before Nicaea. The council dealt with who Jesus is, not which books tell his story. Ironically, it relied on those books: the debate with Arius was largely about how to interpret passages like John 1:1 and Proverbs 8:22.
What’s still open
Nothing about this question. Historians discuss Constantine’s influence on the church in other ways, such as its relationship with the state.
Bottom line
No. Nicaea (AD 325) dealt with Arius and Christ’s deity. The idea that it picked the books comes from late legend and modern fiction, and is rejected by historians of all views, so this is rated Settled.