Christianity & Shakespeare

This was probably the date in 325 A.D. on which the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea was called to order. The conference lasted 47 days, until July 25th, and it was held in the city of Nicaea, which is now known as İznik, in northwestern Turkey.

It was 325 years since Jesus had been crucified, but Christianity was still a small and relatively unorganized religion. People had very different beliefs about what Christianity was. Some thought that Jesus was a great man but not a divine figure. Some believed that Jesus was a supernatural being but not really God himself. And then there were the Gnostics, who believed that the God of the Old Testament was an evil God, and that Jesus had come to save humanity from that evil God. Along with the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, there was a Gospel of Thomas, a Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and a Gospel of Judas. 

The council established that Jesus was the son of God and that he was also of one being with God. Anyone who refused to accept the decision of the council about Jesus' divinity was exiled, and it led to infighting and persecution among Christians. But within 50 years, about 34 million people had converted to Christianity.

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It was on this day exactly 400 years ago — May 20, 1609 — that the publisher Thomas Thorpe made an entry in the Stationer's Register that said: Entred for his copie under the handes of master Wilson and master Lownes Wardenes a booke called Shakespeares sonnettes, and soon after (we don't know the exact date) Shakespeare's sonnets were published. Many people think that Thorpe published them without Shakespeare's consent.

The 1609 collection contained 154 sonnets, only two of which had been published before. Shakespeare addresses some to a beautiful young man whom he calls "fair youth," and others to "a dark lady."

Shakespeare's sonnets are considered some of the greatest love poems ever written, with such lines as, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?/ Thou art more lovely and more temperate," and, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments; love is not love/Which alters when it alteration finds,/Or bends with the remover to remove," and, "For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings/That then I scorn to change my state with kings."