Nicene Creed

The Nicene Creed is a Christian profession of faith used in Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, and some branches of Protestantism. The product of two separate Christian church councils in the 300s C.E., the Nicene Creed expresses all that Christians believe about the nature of God and his son, Jesus Christ. This summary of core Christian tenets is recited at every Sunday worship service.

Contents of the Nicene Creed

The content and specific wording of the Nicene Creed were carefully crafted by church leaders to assert their faith in Jesus while at the same time combating opposing beliefs that they considered heresy, or false teachings. Today, this wording encapsulates the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.

The Nicene Creed states that Christians believe in one God who sent his only son, Jesus, from heaven to be crucified among humans on earth. On the third day after his death, Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. By these acts, Christians believe they were granted eternal life in heaven after their deaths.

The creed also professes the Christian belief in the Holy Spirit, who is of one being with God and Jesus in the Holy Trinity. Finally, the creed states that Jesus will return to judge those who are living and deceased to determine who should enter God's kingdom.

Origins of the Creed

The creation of the Nicene Creed occurred in two phases. Many of the important elements of the statement were conceived at the Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E., though various other amendments were made to it at the Council of Constantinople in 381 C.E.

Council of Nicaea

After its followers suffered years of persecution, Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire in 313 C.E. by the emperor Constantine. The freedom to practice the faith, however, generated an influx of new and competing beliefs about it, specifically, how Christians should view the person of Jesus. The primary debate was whether Jesus had been simply a human preaching God's word or whether he himself was fully divine and one with God.

The minority view that Jesus was only a man was held most prominently by the priest Arius, of Alexandria, Egypt. Arius reasoned that if Jesus was "begotten" by God, as Christians claimed, then he must also have been produced by God; and, if Jesus had a beginning, then he could not be divine like God. This doctrine came to be known as Arianism.

Christians asserting that Jesus was fully divine labeled Arius a heretic, a spreader of false teachings, and worried that his theology would violently divide the Roman Empire. Several bishops ultimately requested that Constantine assemble a church council that would proclaim Christianity's official position on the matter of Jesus's divinity. In May of 325 CE, more than three hundred bishops—and their assistant priests and deacons, who could have made the number of attendees near two thousand—from across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East arrived for the conference in the town of Nicaea, in present-day Iznik, Turkey.

For the next month, the bishops argued how they should construct a new declaration of faith for all Christians to profess. Their working document was heavily influenced by various existing creeds, such as the Apostles' Creed, used by Roman Christians to identify one another. What was certain to the bishops was that the new creed should include the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity, with Jesus sharing in the same divinity as God and the Holy Spirit.

By the end of June of 325, the Council of Nicaea had composed the earliest version of what is now known as the Nicene Creed, originally written in Greek. Its phrasing negated the teachings of Arius, and the two Arian council bishops who voted to reject the new creed were excommunicated, or cut off, from the church.

Council of Constantinople

The passage of the Nicene Creed, however, did not suppress Arianism, and the theology in fact resurged in the decades following the Council of Nicaea. This was begun when Constantine himself was convinced by some Arian supporters to appoint Arian bishops to positions of power in the church. Gradually, Arianism began to subsume mainstream Christianity, with some local church councils approving Arian creeds and Nicene officeholders being deposed or killed by Arian supporters.

Amid this political and religious chaos, the Roman emperor, Theodosius, a sympathizer with the conclusions of the Council of Nicaea, convened the Council of Constantinople in 381 C.E., in present-day Istanbul, Turkey. By Theodosius's order, no Arian bishops were permitted to attend the council, and they were replaced by newly instated Nicene bishops.

The Council of Constantinople ruled overwhelmingly that Jesus was one with God and the Holy Spirit, who together composed the three persons of the Holy Trinity. The bishops based their wording of this belief on the scriptures of Jesus's life and ministry, which, they asserted, could not have meant anything different.

For this reason, the resulting Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, referred to simply as the Nicene Creed, did not attempt to justify the Christian belief in the Trinity but only stated it as fact. Although the Council of Constantinople reexamined the entire original Nicene Creed, altering phrases and inserting some elements of the older Apostles' Creed, the eventual document closely mirrored the product of the Council of Nicaea and thereafter became the official doctrine of the church.

Despite the definitive nature of the Nicene Creed, it was not until the early 500s C.E. that it was adopted for recitation at every Sunday mass. Today, the creed is accepted and spoken in almost all Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant churches, serving as the most fundamental declaration of Christian faith.

Bibliography

"The Nicene Creed." Grace Communion International. Grace Communion International. Web. 20 July 2015. https://www.gci.org/history/nicene

"The Nicene Creed and Its Origins." Catholic News Herald. Catholic News Herald. 17 Jan. 2013. Web. 20 July 2015. http://www.catholicnewsherald.com/our-faith/200-news/roknewspager-yearfaith/2718-the-nicene-creed-and-its-origins?showall=&limitstart

Saunders, William. "Why Do Catholics Have Two Creeds?" Catholic Education Resource Center. Catholic Education Resource Center. Web. 20 July 2015. http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/why-do-catholics-have-two-creeds.html