Brasher, Stephen H2017-09-052017-09-052017-05https://hdl.handle.net/11299/189859University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. May 2017. Major: Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication. Advisors: Dr. Ronald Ross, Dr. Melissa Sellew. 1 computer file (PDF): iii, 118 pages.The Nicene Creed, formulated at the first Ecumenical Council (The Council of Nicaea) convened by Emperor Constantine, in the year 325 C.E, represents a watershed moment in the history of Christian thought. This particular creedal statement was crafted as a rhetorical and political response, backed by Imperial power, to a debate within the early Eastern church, the "Arian Controversy," that concerned both the nature of the divinity of Jesus the Son, as well as his relational status to God the Father. Within this theological and political context, the Nicene Creed became the mechanism by which emergent Christian orthodoxy concerning the full divinity of Jesus established itself, through a specific phrase regimen - a disciplined discourse - over and against equally viable, but rival conceptions of the extent of Jesus' divinity wherein the Son was made subordinate to the Father; the Nicene Creed became the litmus test by which orthodoxy and heresy were measured and construed. Using rhetorical theory, French Postmodern philosophy, Late Antique Christian Studies, and writings from the Sociology of Knowledge, this dissertation illustrates how the Nicene Creed served simultaneously as a tool of both existential confession, and social/regulative control-through-communication, designed to manage bodies and carve out specific subject positions for the laity within the then emerging institutionalization of the Christian church.enRhetoricReligionPhilosophyAriusCommunicationControlNiceneThesis or Dissertation