The Nicene Creed

From Nicaea to Constantinople

Early in the fourth century Arius, a presbyter in Alexandria, set out to protect the truth that God is one. The Son, he taught, was the first and greatest of God's creatures, made out of nothing; his party's watchword was ‘there was when he was not’. He found support in Wisdom's words in Proverbs, which in the Greek Old Testament he read, as in the BSB, speak of being created: "The LORD created me as His first course, before His works of old" (Proverbs 8:22). He read Paul's "firstborn over all creation" (Colossians 1:15) as naming the first creature. His bishop, Alexander, condemned him, but the dispute spread across the Eastern church.

In 325 the emperor Constantine called the bishops to Nicaea. Tradition puts their number at 318; historians estimate between 250 and 300. The council confessed that the Son is begotten from the very being of the Father, not made, and of one substance with him, and it closed its creed with condemnations of Arius's phrases. On the Holy Spirit that first creed had a single line.

The council did not end the controversy. For half a century the balance swung with each emperor, and Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria and Nicaea's most steadfast defender, was exiled five times. When the councils of 359 accepted a creed calling the Son merely ‘like’ the Father, Jerome later wrote that the whole world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian. Meanwhile Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa taught the church to say that God is one in being (ousia) and three in persons (hypostaseis).

In 381 the emperor Theodosius called a council at Constantinople, attended by about 150 bishops of the East. It reaffirmed the faith of Nicaea, and the creed handed down as its own is the one we call the Nicene Creed, more precisely the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. Compared with 325 it drops the condemnations and adds, among other things, that Christ's kingdom will have no end, a full article on the Spirit, and the lines on the church, baptism and the resurrection. Its text first appears in the surviving records of the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which received it as the faith of the 150 fathers.

The creed soon moved into the Eucharist. In the East the custom is said to have begun at Antioch late in the fifth century, and by the early sixth it was said at every liturgy in Constantinople. In the West the Third Council of Toledo in 589 had Spanish congregations sing it at Mass before the Lord's Prayer; the custom spread to the Frankish lands, and Rome added the creed to its Mass only in 1014.

One God, one Lord

"We believe," the creed begins: the bishops confessed together the faith of the whole church. The first article confesses "one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." It stands on Israel's confession, "The LORD our God, the LORD is One" (Deuteronomy 6:4), as the apostles read it:

yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we exist. And there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we exist.

1 Corinthians 8:6

The creed's first two articles follow that sentence. Its phrase about things unseen comes from Paul too: in Christ "all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities" (Colossians 1:16). Angels and powers are creatures; nothing is a second source beside God. The Belgic Confession says it in nearly the same words: "The Father is the cause, origin, and beginning of all things, visible and invisible" Belgic Confession, Article 8.

The second article is the heart of the creed. Jesus Christ is "the only-begotten Son of God". The Greek word is monogenēs (μονογενής), ‘one of a kind’; the BSB renders it "the one and only Son, who is Himself God" (John 1:18). We become God's children by adoption; he is the Son by nature. As Hilary says of John, in calling him "also the Only-Begotten, he cut off altogether all suspicion of adoption" Hilary.

"Begotten of the Father before all worlds" means that his birth is not an event in time. He shared the Father's glory "before the world existed" (John 17:5). Even "firstborn over all creation", the phrase Arius leaned on, cannot mean the first thing made, for the next verse says, "For in Him all things were created" (Colossians 1:16).

"God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God" says one thing three times. Hebrews calls the Son "the radiance of God’s glory" (Hebrews 1:3). Where there is fire there is brightness, as old as the fire itself; so the Father has never been without the Son. Augustine pressed the image: "Give me the fire without the brightness, and I will with you believe that the Father was without the Son" Augustine. Arius's party confined "the only true God" (John 17:3) to the Father, but John says of the Son, "He is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20).

"Begotten, not made" draws the line most sharply. A man begets a son, who shares his nature; he makes a house, which does not. There is no third kind of being between God and his creatures; as Augustine puts it: "And if It is not made, It is not a creature; but if It is not a creature, It is of the same Substance with the Father" Augustine. So the article ends "by whom all things were made", as John wrote: "Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made" (John 1:3). The maker of all things cannot be one of the things made.

Then comes the word that made Nicaea famous: "being of one substance with the Father". The Greek is homoousios (ὁμοούσιος), from homos, ‘same’, and ousia, ‘being’ or ‘substance’. It is not a biblical word, and some bishops were uneasy about it. The council chose it because Arius's party could accept every biblical title for the Son and fill it with their own meaning; asked only in Scripture's words, they could agree to anything. Calvin makes the point: Arius called Christ God yet muttered that he was made, and the word consubstantial tore the mask from the evasion while adding nothing to Scripture Calvin, Institutes 1.13. A word from outside the Bible guarded what the Bible says.

The word rules out the idea that the Son, however exalted, is a creature. It also rules out the compromise that he is of like substance, homoiousios: what is only like God is not God, and the gulf between Creator and creature remains. Yet it does not make the Father and the Son one person, for the Son is "begotten of the Father". See The Trinity.

Salvation and worship hung on this word. Athanasius taught that the Word of God himself became human so that humanity, fallen into corruption and death, could be renewed, which no creature could do Athanasius, On the Incarnation. And the church had worshipped Christ from the beginning: around 112 Pliny reported that Christians sang hymns to Christ as to a god Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96. If the Son were a creature, that worship would be idolatry. The Reformed confess with Nicaea that Christ is "begotten from eternity, not made nor created (for then he would be a creature)" Belgic Confession, Article 10.

For us and for our salvation

The third article tells what the eternal Son has done, and its first words give the reason: "for us men and for our salvation". He is "the One who descended from heaven" (John 3:13), who "emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness" (Philippians 2:6-7). He "was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man":

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

Made man means a real man, body and soul, not a divine visitor in disguise. The Definition of Chalcedon in 451 carried Nicaea's word through: the same Christ is of one substance with the Father in his Godhead and of one substance with us in his manhood. See The incarnation and Truly God and truly man.

He "was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate": the cross was a death for our sins. He "rose again, according to the Scriptures", as Paul handed on: "He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:4). He "ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father"; Mark says, "He was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God" (Mark 16:19). Pilate and the burial are discussed in the article on the Apostles' Creed.

The creed of 381 adds that he will come again with glory, "in His glory, and all the angels with Him" (Matthew 25:31), to judge the quick and the dead, that is, the living and the dead. It also added "whose kingdom shall have no end", usually read as a reply to Marcellus of Ancyra, who was accused of teaching that the Son's reign would one day end. The creed holds to the angel's promise: "His kingdom will never end!" (Luke 1:33).

The Holy Spirit and the filioque

The fourth article is the great addition of 381. Against those who ranked the Spirit among the ministering spirits, Basil of Caesarea argued that since we are baptized into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit together, we must glorify all three together Basil, On the Holy Spirit. The council did not call the Spirit ‘God’ in so many words; it gave him the name and the worship that belong to God alone, which says the same.

He is "the Lord and Giver of Life". "Now the Lord is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:17), and giving life is his work from creation onward: "When You send Your Spirit, they are created" (Psalm 104:30); "The Spirit gives life" (John 6:63). He "with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified", as the one name of baptism implies: "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). He "spoke by the prophets", who "spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21).

The text on this page says that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son". The creed of 381 said only that he proceeds from the Father, in the words of Jesus:

When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father — the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father — He will testify about Me.

John 15:26

Proceeds translates ekporeuō (ἐκπορεύω), to come out, and the creed uses it for the Spirit's eternal origin from the Father, distinct from the Son's being begotten. The words ‘and the Son’, in Latin filioque, entered the creed in the West. They are usually traced to the Third Council of Toledo in 589, where the Visigothic king Reccared renounced Arianism; many scholars think the phrase was meant to underline the Son's full equality with the Father. It spread to the Frankish church. Pope Leo III is reported to have agreed with the teaching but refused to add it to the council's creed; yet when Rome adopted the creed at Mass in 1014, it took the filioque with it.

The Eastern churches have objected on two grounds. First, a creed confessed by the whole church was changed by one part of it alone; the Council of Ephesus in 431 had forbidden anyone to put forward a faith different from that of Nicaea. Second, the Orthodox hold that the Father is the one source of the Son and the Spirit, and that the Spirit's eternal procession from the Father must be distinguished from the Son's sending of the Spirit into the world. John 15:26 keeps the two apart. The Byzantine commentator Theophylact writes, "To proceed is not the same as being sent, but is the essential nature of the Holy Ghost, as coming from the Father" Theophylact. In the ninth century Patriarch Photius pressed these objections, and the filioque became one of the issues in the breach of 1054.

The Western churches hold that the filioque is rooted in Scripture. The Spirit is "the Spirit of His Son" (Galatians 4:6) and "the Spirit of Christ" (Romans 8:9); the Son sends him, and the risen Lord "breathed on them" (John 20:22) as he gave the Spirit. Augustine argued that the Spirit is the Spirit of both, yet insisted that the Son has even this from the Father: "From whom the Son has His Godhead, from Him He has it that the Holy Ghost proceeds from Him" Augustine. The Spirit, he taught, proceeds from the Father ‘principally’ Augustine, On the Trinity. The West has never meant to deny that the Father is the source.

The Reformed and other Western Protestants received the creed in its Western form and confess the filioque in their standards. The Westminster Confession speaks of "the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son" Westminster Confession 2.3, and the Larger Catechism of his property "to proceed from the Father and the Son from all eternity" Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 10. The Belgic Confession confesses the same in Article 8 and Article 11, as does the Athanasian Creed, which it receives. Yet in the same section the Westminster Confession says, "The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding", guarding what the East cares about: the Father is without source.

Today the churches treat the question in dialogue rather than condemnation. Greek Fathers spoke of the Spirit proceeding from the Father through the Son; John of Damascus taught that the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, not as from the Son but as proceeding through him from the Father John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church presents the Eastern and Western formulas as complementary, provided neither hardens Catechism of the Catholic Church, and popes have recited the creed in Greek without the filioque alongside the Ecumenical Patriarch. In 1979 the World Council of Churches' Faith and Order Commission proposed that the original text of 381 be recognized everywhere as normative, and the Lambeth Conferences of 1978 and 1988 asked Anglican churches to consider omitting the clause. Reformed and Orthodox theologians reached an agreed statement on the Trinity in the early 1990s. Both traditions confess the Spirit as true God, worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son. See also Who the Holy Spirit is.

Church, baptism and the world to come

The last article confesses the Spirit's work in "one holy catholic and apostolic Church", the four marks of the church. Paul grounds the first in God himself:

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:4-6

The church is one because it belongs to one Lord, one Spirit and one Father, and holy because Christ gave himself for her "to sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word" (Ephesians 5:26). Catholic means ‘according to the whole’, the church of every place and age, what the Westminster Confession calls "the catholic or universal Church" Westminster Confession 25.1. Apostolic means "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets" (Ephesians 2:20). Catholic and Orthodox Christians see apostolicity also in the unbroken succession of bishops; Protestants see it above all in faithfulness to the apostles' teaching in Scripture. See What the church is.

"We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins" echoes Peter's first sermon: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins" (Acts 2:38). One baptism is also given once: for the most part the early church did not repeat baptism given in the triune name, and the Westminster Confession says, "The sacrament of baptism is but once to be administered to any person" Westminster Confession 28.7. Churches explain the link between baptism and forgiveness differently. Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran churches teach that forgiveness and new life are given through baptism; the Reformed confess it as "a sign and seal" of, among other things, "remission of sins" Westminster Confession 28.1; Baptists see in it the believer's public confession of union with Christ. See Baptism and the Lord's Supper.

The creed ends, "we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come." "The hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice" (John 5:28), and "the dead will be raised imperishable" (1 Corinthians 15:52), with "the self-same bodies, and none other" Westminster Confession 32.2. The life to come is not the soul's escape from the world but life in a world made new: "Behold, I make all things new" (Revelation 21:5). See Resurrection, judgment and the new creation.

The creed in the church today

The Orthodox say the creed together at every Divine Liturgy, before the eucharistic prayer; Catholics say it after the homily at Mass on Sundays and solemnities. Anglican and Lutheran churches use it at the Eucharist, and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer sets it after the Gospel at Holy Communion. Korean Presbyterian churches mostly confess the Apostles' Creed on the Lord's Day; the Nicene Creed spells out what that shorter creed says of the Son and the Spirit.

The confessions of the Reformation build on it. The Augsburg Confession opens by affirming the decree of the Council of Nicaea on the unity of the divine essence and the three persons Augsburg Confession, Art. 1. The Belgic Confession says, "we do willingly receive the three creeds" Belgic Confession, Article 9, and names Arius among those "justly condemned by the orthodox fathers".

The Nicene Creed is not a list of technical terms but the confession of a worshipping church. The Jesus to whom we pray is not the highest of creatures but "very God of very God", and the Spirit who lives in us is "the Lord and Giver of Life". With Paul the church can say, "By common confession, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in the flesh" (1 Timothy 3:16). The Reformed confessions built on this foundation are introduced in The Reformed confessions.