The Nicene Creed

Something almost all Christians agree upon...

Today, a bit of church history – and a key aspect of Christian doctrine.

A little over 1700 years ago, in the early 320’s, Arius, who was a Christian elder/priest in Alexandria, Egypt began to loudly teach that Jesus Christ, as Son of God, was created by God the Father before Time began. “So what?”, you might ask.

The problem, you see, was that this differed from the majority standard view of Jesus that had held since the Gospel of John was written and circulated. According to John’s Gospel, Jesus the Christ is the eternal Word of God, the logos, a Greek word which means “living, active word”. John’s teaching – which was very important since John appears to be the most sophisticated and educated of the original twelve disciples – was that Jesus the Christ and God the Father “are one.” In fact, John points out that Jesus even said, “I and the Father are One.” In John 10:30. In the traditional view, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-equal persons of the Trinity, each in constant, eternal communion with one another. The Father has the power of creation, but the Son directs the power of creation. The Son is the Wisdom of God, fully God and fully human, who walks upon the earth.

But Arius’ viewpoint was very different from the commonly accepted understanding. For Arius held that because the Son was created by the Father, this meant that the Son was subordinate to the Father. The leader of the Alexandrian church, Athanasius, insisted that Jesus was the same in essence with God the Father. If Arius was correct, then Jesus was simply the first man created and essentially (in essence) no different from Adam, Abraham, or Fred the butcher down the street. This led to a major debate within the church.

The ideas of Arius made sense to people who believed in a single God, for the three-fold nature of God was – and is – difficult to understand. And to many other people, there was the simple question of “what difference does it make?”

But the traditionalists pointed out that it makes a lot of difference. Was Jesus God walking upon the earth, with everything Jesus said having the weight of God’s authority behind Him? Or was Jesus, if created, simply another prophet, although perhaps the most important prophet? Or perhaps Jesus could be considered to be simply the most important angel, since angels were also created creatures? And if Jesus was created, then what did this mean for the Holy Spirit?

In ordinary times, this would have been argued over for decades among the various Christian leaders, but the political situation in the Empire had changed. The new Emperor, Constantine the Great, had become emperor in 306, but had to fight other claimants for the next six years. Notably, his armies had to defeat Maxentius’ armies, which were twice the size and had advanced north from Rome.

Constantine had a vision and then a dream where Christ directed him to put the Chi Rho (XR) symbol on his armies shields – these were the first two letters of Christ (in Latin). He did so and defeated Maxentius and became uncontested Emperor of the West. Over the next couple of years, he defeated or came to treaties with the remaining contestants, eventually defeating Licinius, his final opponent in 324.

But in 312, Constantine had rewarded the Christians by making Christianity the preferred religion of the Empire. And so, after his final victory in 324, Constantine decided to bring all the Christian bishops together to deal with the Arian controversy at Nicaea, just east of his new capital of Constantinople, today’s modern Istanbul. Constantine, no stranger to political division, did not want division in the most important religion of his empire, which might fester and lead to still another civil war – a religious war at that! So he paid the travel expenses out of the imperial treasury.

So the bishops began to arrive in Nicaea in May of 325. The exact number in attendance is lost to history, but 318 is the traditionally accepted number of bishops from all over the Empire. The council opened on May 20^th. After a month of debate, a creed, known today as the Nicene Creed was signed on June 19^th, 325 – 1700 years ago today. This was the first general council of the entire church since the days when the disciples met in the Upper Room in Jerusalem.

In English translation, the original Nicene Creed focused upon affirming the traditional view of one God in three persons – the Holy Trinity. All but two of the bishops signed the creed, healing what had threatened to divide Christianity:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty,
maker of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
begotten from the Father, only-begotten,
that is, from the substance of the Father,
God from God, light from light,
true God from true God, begotten not made,
of one substance with the Father,
through Whom all things came into being,
things in heaven and things on earth,
Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down,
and became incarnate and became man, and suffered,
and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the heavens,
and will come to judge the living and dead,
And in the Holy Spirit.
But as for those who say, There was when He was not,
and, Before being born He was not,
and that He came into existence out of nothing,
or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance,
or created, or is subject to alteration or change
– these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.

Readers should notice that Jesus is “begotten…from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made,”.

In the same way, the Arian viewpoint is argued against in the last few lines.

(It should also be noted the meaning of “Catholic” at this time meant simply “universal” rather than referring specifically to the Roman Catholic church.)

The council also declared that the celebration of Easter should always be on a Sunday, removing it from the rotating days of the Jewish lunar calendar. An additional twenty canons – or church laws – were established to answer minor questions. (These are listed in the Wikipedia article on First Council of Nicaea.)

The Nicene Creed has survived to this day with minor changes and is considered a key part of the beliefs of churches as widely separated as the Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic church, the Church of England (Anglican, Episcopalian), Methodists, Presbyterians, Calvinists, and many other churches. Many churches use the creed during worship.

Some might say, “Why do we need a creed, when we have the Bible?”

The reason for the creeds is pretty straightforward. The Bible contains far too much information to explain to someone quickly and concisely what Christians believe. The creeds – the Nicene, the Apostles creed, and others – take just a couple of minutes to lay out our basic beliefs. And… as the history behind the Council shows – sometimes people can get very strange ideas when reading the Bible without the wisdom of those who have carried the faith down throughout the years and decades and centuries from one generation to another.

Personal

I want to apologize for failing to provide you with newsletters this past month. In case you haven’t been following along, our son Andrew married Megan on May 3^rd near Clarksburg, WV. The next week, our granddaughter Kinzi graduated from college in Myrtle Beach. On the 24^th, our daughter Jessie married Ed outside Fairbanks, AK, and on June 6^th, our grandson Gavin graduated from high school in Myrtle Beach. In the meantime, I’ve had to convert my Ethics class from an in-person class into a 100% online class, which meant adding narration to all the PowerPoints and setting up discussion forums to replace our in-class discussions. Then, courtesy of the man sitting next to me on the airplane ride to Fairbanks, I came down with a severe respiratory ailment – lots of coughing – which I then passed onto Saundra, who then contracted pneumonia.

But we are both now just about recovered from our trips and ailments, and I’m now on top of the summer Ethics class. So I hope and plan to get back to regular newsletters.

Thanks to all those who have been praying for us!