Early Church
Separate myth from history by examining Christianity before Constantine, the Edict of Milan, Nicaea, imperial involvement, and the church structures that already existed centuries earlier.
THE SHORT VERSION
The claim that Constantine invented Christianity or simply created the Catholic Church at Nicaea is historically too late.
Long before Constantine, Christians had spread across the Roman world. They had Scriptures, congregations, bishops and presbyters, baptism, the Lord's Supper, theological disputes, martyrs, and extensive Christian literature.
Ignatius used the expression Catholic Church around AD 110—more than two centuries before Nicaea.
Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian, and many other Christian writers also predate Constantine.
THE BOOK'S TIMELINE MAKES THE MYTH IMPOSSIBLE
Don Wood's historical argument does not need Constantine to explain the first departures he identifies.
The manuscript points to Ignatius around AD 107–110 for the clear elevation of one bishop over presbyters. It examines Irenaeus in the later second century, Tertullian and the New Prophecy, Hippolytus, and Cyprian in the third century.
By the time Constantine was born, the structural story traced in the book was already well underway.
That is one reason the popular claim 'Constantine changed everything' is too crude for this investigation.
WHAT CHANGED IN AD 313?
Constantine's importance is nevertheless enormous.
In the early fourth century, imperial policy toward Christianity changed dramatically. The arrangement commonly called the Edict of Milan in AD 313 established toleration and restored Christian property after periods of persecution.
Constantine then favored Christianity with patronage and privileges.
That did not create Christian belief, but it fundamentally changed the social and political conditions under which the church operated.
THEN CAME NICAEA
The Council of Nicaea met in AD 325 against the background of the Arian controversy over the relationship between the Son and the Father.
Constantine wanted religious unity in an empire he had recently consolidated, and he summoned bishops to address the dispute.
The council became the first ecumenical council and produced the Nicene Creed in its initial form.
But bishops, councils, theological disputes, and competing claims to orthodoxy all existed before Nicaea. The council represents a major new scale of imperial and episcopal coordination, not Christianity's birthday.
CONSTANTINE DID NOT MAKE CHRISTIANITY THE OFFICIAL RELIGION
Constantine favored and legalized Christianity, but the establishment of Nicene Christianity as the empire's official religion belongs later in the fourth century under Emperor Theodosius I.
Keeping those events separate matters.
AD 313 marks a major change in legal status and imperial favor. AD 325 marks the first ecumenical council. The later fourth century brings another stage in the church-state relationship.
Collapsing all of that into 'Constantine created Catholicism' obscures rather than explains the history.
WHAT CONSTANTINE REALLY CHANGED
Once emperors patronized Christianity, disputes within the church could have consequences far beyond a local congregation.
Imperial resources could support councils, buildings, bishops, legal privileges, and enforcement. Emperors could summon councils and involve themselves in disputes that earlier Christians had faced without state sponsorship.
That new environment deserves serious investigation because political power can affect institutions even when it does not create their underlying religion.
But it is historically different from saying Constantine sat down and invented Catholic doctrine.
THE DEVELOPMENT STARTED EARLIER
The book's central historical trail begins with the New Testament organization of local congregations and then follows the evidence immediately after the apostles.
Clement and Polycarp provide early comparison points. Ignatius shows a strongly elevated bishop. Irenaeus appeals to succession and tradition. Tertullian becomes connected with claims of new prophecy. Hippolytus reveals conflict over ecclesiastical office. Cyprian displays a substantially developed episcopal and sacerdotal outlook.
All of that occurs before Constantine.
Whatever conclusion a reader reaches about those developments, their chronology means the transformation of church structure cannot responsibly be blamed entirely on Nicaea.
A BETTER QUESTION
That question produces a much more useful timeline.
What did the apostles establish? What changed immediately after them? When did one bishop rise over the elders? When did succession become an argument for authority? When did priestly language develop? What changed when imperial power began supporting the church?
Those questions do not offer the simplicity of a single villain or a single date.
They do something better: they make the historical argument testable.
WHY NICAEA STILL MATTERS
Nicaea remains one of the great turning points in Christian history.
For the first time, an emperor summoned bishops from across the empire into an ecumenical council whose doctrinal decisions would carry enormous institutional consequences.
That is a profound development in church history and church-state relations.
But if the goal is to discover who changed the church, the investigation has to begin earlier—because the documentary trail of change begins before Constantine ever held imperial power.
Why It Matters
Constantine did not start Christianity or suddenly create the Catholic Church at Nicaea. Christianity, bishops, theological controversy, church organization, and even the phrase 'Catholic Church' all predate him by generations. His reign did produce a different kind of turning point: Christianity moved from persecution toward imperial favor, and the emperor became deeply involved in resolving ecclesiastical conflict. Who Changed the Church? argues that readers must begin much earlier than AD 325 if they want to trace structural change. Constantine matters—but by the time he appears, the historical road has already been developing for more than two centuries.