life, liberty and the pursuit of geekiness

About the only thing Brown said that was true was that there was this Council at Nicea once. The way he tells it, Constantine strolled into the middle of the assembled bishops and went, 'I have this really radical idea—you'll never believe you didn't think of this before', and after weeks of frenzied debate (a damned close-run thing, as the man said at Waterloo, when he missed the last train home), the dissenting bishops went home and meekly threw their Gnostic texts in fire (possibly accompanied by a detachment of Roman soldiers to make sure they did it). He gives the impression that no-one considered Jesus divine before 325. Oh, and I wouldn't exactly call five dissenters a 'very close vote' either.