THE PERSON AND WORK OF JESUS, THE CHRIST

Topic: Christological debates during the patristic period: Nicene Creed

Submitted By: Binzon P Thomas (BD III)

Submitted To: Rev. Kadalung Chawang

Introduction

The word creed is derived from the Latin word credo, meaning I believe. The creeds

therefore, are summaries of belief. In 325, the First Council of Nicaea accepted the Nicene

Creed for the first time. It was updated in 381, at the First Council of Constantinople. The

altered form is known as the Nicene Creed, or the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. The

Nicene Creed is the founding document of Nicene Christianity, as well as the Christian sects

that follow it. The Nicene Creed is part of the Catholic Church's faith statement required of

those in positions of authority. In Nicene Christianity, Jesus is regarded divine and co-eternal

with God the Father. Several non-Nicene views, beliefs, and creeds have evolved since the

fourth century, all of which are considered heretics by Nicene Christians. In this assignment

we are discussing about Nicene Creed and the Christological debates during the patristic

period.

The Nicene Creed

We believe in one God,

the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,
 begotten from the Father before all ages,
God from God,
Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made;
of the same essence as the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,
and was made human.
He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried.
The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again with glory
to judge the living and the dead.
His kingdom will never end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit,

the Lord, the giver of life.
He proceeds from the Father and the Son,
and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.
He spoke through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.
We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look forward to the resurrection of the dead,
and to life in the world to come. Amen.”1

1
http://www.crivoice.org/creeds.html.
Background

The Nicene Creed was formed to end the Arian disagreement, in which Arius, an Alexandrian

priest, "objected to Alexander's (the bishop at the time) seeming negligence in obscuring the

distinction of nature between the Father and the Son by his stress on endless generation." The

Council of Nicaea was convened by Emperor Constantine to settle a church conflict arising

from the widespread embrace of Arius' beliefs, which threatened to destabilise the entire

empire. Following the Nicene Creed's development, Arius' teachings were labelled as

heresy.2

The Father is declared to be "one God" and "Almighty" in the Nicene Creed of 325, while

Jesus Christ is said to be "the Son of God," "begotten of...... the essence of the Father," and

therefore "consubstantial with the Father," which means "of the same substance" as the

Father; "very God of very God." In the 325 Creed, the Holy Spirit is mentioned, but not as

"God" or "consubstantial with the Father." The Holy Spirit is adored and worshipped with the

Father and the Son, according to the Nicene Faith, a 381 revision of the faith in

Constantinople. The Athanasian Creed, which was not the product of any known church

council and is not employed in Eastern Christianity, was developed approximately a century

later and outlines the connection between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in much more depth.

The older Apostles' Creed, written before the fourth-century Arian debate, does not refer to

the Son or the Holy Spirit as "God" or "consubstantial with the Father."3

2
Chris Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000 (New York:
Viking, 2009), 61-62.

3
Gerald Bray, Creeds, Councils and Christ (Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1984), 56.
Original Nicene Creed of 325

The Nicene Creed was established for the first time at the First Council of Nicaea, which

convened on June 19, 325. The book concludes with anathemas against Arianism, which are

followed by the words "We trust in the Holy Spirit," which concludes the affirmations of

faith.4

The Nicene Creed, according to F. J. A. Hort and Adolf von Harnack, was the local credo of

Caesarea (an important Early Christian city) stated in the council by Eusebius of Caesarea.

Their argument was based on a highly particular interpretation of Eusebius' description of the

council's events. Their claims have not been supported by more recent research. It's unlikely

that those who formulated the conciliar creed used Eusebius' quote of the creed as a starting

point because of the numerous later divergences. They most likely began with a local credo

from a Syro–Palestinian source, into which they clumsily inserted Nicene doctrine

definitions. As a result, the Eusebian Creed might have been a second or one of several

Nicene Creed candidates.5

According to the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia, the church composed new faith formulae soon

after the Council of Nicaea, most of which were variations of the Nicene Symbol, to meet

new phases of Arianism, of which there were at least four before the Council of Sardica

(341), at which a new form was presented and inserted in its acts, despite the council's

rejection.6

4
Karl Joseph von Hefele, A History of the Christian Councils: From the Original Documents, to the
Close of the Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325 (London: T & T Clark, 1894), 275.

5
J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds (London: Longmans, 1963) 217–218.

6
Joseph Wilhelm, ―The Nicene Creed,‖ In Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol 11, (New York: Robert
Appleton Company, 1911), 76.
Niceno- Constantinopolitan Creed

The Nicene–Constantinopolitan Creed was named after the Second Ecumenical Council in

Constantinople in 381, which adopted it as a modification of the original Nicene Creed of

325. It became known simply as the "Nicene Creed" in this light. It is regarded as the single

official ecumenical proclamation of Christian faith by the Catholic Church (with the addition

of the Filioque), the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Church of the East,

and much of Protestantism, including the Anglican Communion. The Apostles' and

Athanasius' creeds are not widely recognised.7

It differs from the creed approved at the First Council of Nicaea in a number of ways, both by

addition and omission. The most noticeable distinction is the insertion of a new section:

“We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and

the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through

the Prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one

baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of

the world to come. Amen.”8

Scholars have questioned the conventional narrative of the birth of this creed, which has been

carried down in the name of the council, whose formal deeds have been lost through time,

since the end of the 19th century. The Third Ecumenical Council (Council of Ephesus, 431)

made no mention of it, with the latter confirming the 325 creed of Nicaea as a genuine

declaration of faith and using it to attack Nestorianism. Though some academics suggest that

clues of the later creed's existence may be found in some works, no known source has its

7
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nicene-Creed
8
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.ix.iii.html
language or explicitly mentions it before the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon in

451.9

It has been argued, based on both internal and external evidence that this creed originated as

an independent creed (probably an older baptismal creed) that was modified to make it more

like the Nicene Creed proposed at Nicaea in 325, rather than as an editing of the original

Creed proposed at Nicaea in 325. According to some researchers, the credo was given at

Chalcedon as "a model for drafting new creeds and definitions to augment the Creed of

Nicaea, as a manner of circumventing the restriction on new creeds in Canon 7 of Ephesus."10

The Nicene Creed was reaffirmed by the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus), which

proclaimed that "it is forbidden for any individual to put up, or to write, a different religion as

a rival to that established by the holy Fathers convened with the Holy Ghost in Nicaea" (i.e.,

the 325 creed). Instead of "another," the term "heteran" is more correctly interpreted by the

council to imply "different," "contradictory." This remark has been regarded as prohibiting

the change or composition of other creeds, however not everyone agrees with this view. This

topic is linked to the debate over whether an ecumenical council's proclamation of a creed is

final in excluding not just excisions from its language but also additions to it.11

The Eastern Orthodox Church's recognised version of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed

differs from the earliest form, which is recorded in the acts of the Council of Chalcedon of

451: The Eastern Orthodox Church uses single forms of verbs such "I believe" instead of the

plural term ("we believe") used by the council.12

9
Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 305, 330-331.
10
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=6IUaOOT1G3UC&pg=RA1
PA3&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
11
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.x.xvi.xi.html
12
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds2.iv.i.ii.ii.html
The Arian Controversy

After Constantine edited the edict of Milan and Christianity was given legal toleration in the

Roman Empire13, Arius rejected the polytheistic view of Trinity and argued that Christ is the
14
first and greatest creation of God. Arius argued that the Godhead is unique and cannot be

shared or communicated. Because the Godhead is immutable, the Son, who is mutable, must,

therefore, be deemed a creature that has been called into existence out of nothing and has had

a beginning. Moreover, the Son can have no direct knowledge of the Father, since the Son is

finite and of a different order of existence.15 But the young theologian and Presbyter

Athanasius, who in 319 composed the influential ‗treatise De incarnatione verbi Dei‘, or

Treatise on the Incarnation of the Word. This treatise held that the Logos had existed from all

eternity with the Father and was of the same essence—in Greek, ‗homoousios‘—as the

Father, though he was an individual distinct from the Father and thus opposed the theory of

Arius. This controversy was the main reason that led to the formation of the council of

Nicea.16

Filioque Controversy

Many Eastern Orthodox Christians later argued that the addition of the word Filioque ("and

the Son") to the description of the procession of the Holy Spirit was a violation of Canon VII

of the Third Ecumenical Council, because the words were not included in the text by either

the Council of Nicaea or the Council of Constantinople. In 1014, this was adopted into

13
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318725655_Reference_Article_-_Nicene_Creed.
14
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318725655_Reference_Article_-_Nicene_Creed.
15
Millard J.Erickson. Christian Theology (Michigan: Baker Academic, 1983),346.
16
J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (Peaboy: Prince –press, 2004), 237-238.
Rome's liturgical practise. Filioque was one of the fundamental reasons of the East-West

Schism in 1054, as well as the recurrent failures of unification attempts.17

While the words "and the Son" would be heretical if used with the Greek verb 'Ekporeuomai'

—one of the terms used by St. Gregory of Nazianzus and adopted by the Council of

Constantinople—the word Filioque is not heretical when used with the Latin verb 'procedo'

and the related word 'processio,' according to the Vatican in 1995. Unlike Gregory's and other

Fathers' usage of the word 'Ekporeuomai,' which means "to originate from a cause or

principle," the Latin phrase procedo merely means "to communicate the Divine Essence or

Substance." In this respect, processio is akin to the Greek term 'Proienai,' which was

popularised by the Fathers of Alexandria (particularly Cyril of Alexandria) and others.18

The word ‗Ekporeuomenon‘ in the creed was translated into Latin as ‗procedentem‘, partly

due to the impact of Latin translations of the New Testament. The Latin form of the creed

was eventually understood in the West in light of the Western idea of ‗processio‘, which

needed acceptance of the Filioque in order to escape Arianism's heresy.19

Importance

Some distinctive elements in the Nicene Creed, perhaps from the hand of Hosius of Cordova,

were added, some specifically to counter the Arian point of view.20

17
https://web.archive.org/web/20181228015533/http://www.ewtn.com:80/library/CURIA/PCCUFILQ
.HTM
18
https://web.archive.org/web/20181228015533/http://www.ewtn.com:80/library/CURIA/PCCUFILQ
.HTM
19
https://web.archive.org/web/20181228015533/http://www.ewtn.com:80/library/CURIA/PCCUFILQ
.HTM
20
Henry Royston Loyn, The Middle Ages (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1991), 240.
 1. Jesus Christ is described as "Light from Light, true God from true God," proclaiming

his divinity.

2. Jesus Christ is said to be "begotten, not made," asserting that he was not a mere

creature, brought into being out of nothing, but the true Son of God, brought into

being "from the substance of the Father."

3. He is said to be "of one being with the Father," proclaiming that although Jesus Christ

is "true God" and God the Father is also "true God," they are "of one being," in

accord to what is found in John 10:30: "I and the Father are one." The Greek

term homoousios, or consubstantial (i.e., of the same substance) is ascribed

by Eusebius to Constantine who, on this particular point, may have chosen to

exercise his authority. The significance of this clause, however, is extremely

ambiguous as to the extent in which Jesus Christ and God the Father are "of one

being," and the issues it raised would be seriously controverted in the future.

The creed ended with a litany of anathemas, which were intended to directly refute the

Arians' assertions.21

1. The view that "there was once when he was not" was rejected to maintain the

coeternity of the Son with the Father.

2. The view that he was "mutable or subject to change" was rejected to maintain that the

Son just like the Father was beyond any form of weakness or corruptibility, and most

importantly that he could not fall away from absolute moral perfection.

21
Loyn, The Middle Ages, 240.
Conclusion

The view that the Nicene Creed can serve as a touchstone of true Christian faith is reflected

in the name "symbol of faith", which was given to it in Greek and Latin, when in those

languages the word "symbol" meant a "token for identification (by comparison with a

counterpart)".

In the Roman Rite mass, the Latin text of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, with "Deum

de Deo" (God from God) and "Filioque" (and from the Son), phrases absent in the original

text, was previously the only form used for the "profession of faith". The Roman Missal now

refers to it jointly with the Apostles' Creed as "the Symbol or Profession of Faith or Creed",

describing the second as "the baptismal Symbol of the Roman Church, known as the

Apostles' Creed".

Some evangelical and other Christians consider the Nicene Creed helpful and to a certain

extent authoritative, but not infallibly so in view of their belief that only Scripture is truly

authoritative. Non-Trinitarian groups, such as the Church of the New Jerusalem, The Church

of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Jehovah's Witnesses, explicitly reject some of the

statements in the Nicene Creed.

Bibliography

 Bray, Gerald. Creeds, Councils and Christ. Illinois: InterVarsity Press. 1984.

 J.Erickson, Millard. Christian Theology. Michigan: Baker Academic. 1983.

 Joseph von Hefele, Karl. A History of the Christian Councils: From the Original

Documents, to the Close of the Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325. London: T & T Clark. 1894.

 Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Creeds. London: Longmans. 1963.

 Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines. Peaboy: Prince –press. 2004.

 Loyn, Henry Royston. The Middle Ages. New York: Thames & Hudson. 1991.
 Wickham, Chris. The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000. New

York: Viking. 2009.

 Wilhelm, Joseph. ―The Nicene Creed.‖ In Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol 11. New York:

Robert Appleton Company. 1911.

Online Sources

 http://www.crivoice.org/creeds.html.

 https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nicene-Creed

 https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.ix.iii.html

 https://books.google.co.in/books?id=6IUaOOT1G3UC&pg=RA1PA3&redir_esc=y#v=on

epage&q&f=false

 https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214.x.xvi.xi.html

 https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds2.iv.i.ii.ii.html

 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318725655_Reference_Article_-

_Nicene_Creed.

 https://web.archive.org/web/20181228015533/http://www.ewtn.com:80/library/CURIA/P

CCUFILQ.HTM