Two Egyptians carry the argument that settles Christian doctrine

The Council of Nicaea met in 325 CE to settle what Christians were required to believe about the nature of Christ. The argument was carried by Alexander, the Egyptian patriarch of Alexandria, and by his student Athanasius, who between them defeated the position that Christ was a created being. Out of the council came the doctrine of the Trinity and the statement of belief still recited as the Nicene Creed. Every later century of Christian theology in Europe was built on that foundation, and it was fixed in place by two men from Egypt. The other decisive figure of the period was also African. Augustine was born in the fourth century at Hippo, in what is now Algeria, of Amazigh descent, and his writing on sin, grace, predestination and the standing of the church shaped Catholic doctrine for sixteen hundred years and handed the Protestant reformers their arguments as well. He learned his trade inside an African intellectual tradition that had already produced Tertullian and Cyprian.