What evidence is there that Christians regarded Christ as God before the Council of Nicea?
Christ’s divinity is stressed repeatedly in the New Testament. For example, we are told that Jesus’ opponents sought to kill him because he “called God his Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18). When quizzed about how he has special knowledge of Abraham, Jesus replies, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58), invoking and applying to himself the personal name of God-“I Am” (Ex. 3:14). His audience understood exactly what he was claiming about himself. “So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple” (John 8:59). In John 20:28, Thomas falls at Jesus’ feet, exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!” And Paul tells us that Jesus chose to be born in humble, human form even though he could have remained in equal glory with the Father, for he was “in the form of God” (Phil. 2:6). Plus, why were the early Church persecuted if not for worshiping Jesus rather than Caesar? Would the early converts to Christianity have give
