![Nicaea icon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Nicaea_icon.jpg)
The original Nicene Creed (; grc-gre, Σύμβολον τῆς Νικαίας; la, Symbolum Nicaenum) was first adopted at the
First Council of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea (; grc, Νίκαια ) was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325.
This ecumenical council was the first effort ...
in 325. In 381, it was amended at the
First Council of Constantinople
The First Council of Constantinople ( la, Concilium Constantinopolitanum; grc-gre, Σύνοδος τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως) was a council of Christian bishops convened in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) in AD 381 b ...
. The amended form is also referred to as the Nicene Creed, or the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed for disambiguation.
The Nicene
Creed
A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) in a form which is structured by subjects which summarize its core tenets.
The ea ...
is the defining
statement of belief of Nicene or mainstream Christianity and in those
Christian denomination
A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity that comprises all church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, particular history, organization, leadership, theological doctrine, worsh ...
s that adhere to it. The Nicene Creed is part of the
profession of faith
A profession of faith is a personal and public statement of a belief or faith.
Judaism
Among the Jews, the profession of faith takes the form of '' Shema Israel'' (שמע ישראל in Hebrew), ''Shema Israel Hachem Elokenu, Hachem Ekhad''; is ...
required of those undertaking important functions within the
Orthodox
Orthodox, Orthodoxy, or Orthodoxism may refer to:
Religion
* Orthodoxy, adherence to accepted norms, more specifically adherence to creeds, especially within Christianity and Judaism, but also less commonly in non-Abrahamic religions like Neo-pa ...
and
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
Churches.
Nicene Christianity regards
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
as
divine and "begotten of the Father". Various non-Nicene
doctrine
Doctrine (from la, doctrina, meaning "teaching, instruction") is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a belief system ...
s, beliefs, and creeds have been formed since the fourth century, all of which are considered
heresies
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
by adherents of Nicene Christianity.
In
Western Christianity
Western Christianity is one of two sub-divisions of Christianity ( Eastern Christianity being the other). Western Christianity is composed of the Latin Church and Western Protestantism, together with their offshoots such as the Old Catholic ...
, the Nicene Creed is in use alongside the less widespread
Apostles' Creed
The Apostles' Creed (Latin: ''Symbolum Apostolorum'' or ''Symbolum Apostolicum''), sometimes titled the Apostolic Creed or the Symbol of the Apostles, is a Christian creed or "symbol of faith".
The creed most likely originated in 5th-century Ga ...
. In musical settings, particularly when sung in
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, this creed is usually referred to by its first word, . On
Sundays
The Sundays were an English alternative rock band, formed in the late 1980s, which released three albums throughout the 1990s.
The band's beginnings came with the meeting of singer Harriet Wheeler and guitarist David Gavurin while attending ...
and
solemnities
In the liturgical calendar of the Roman Rite, a solemnity is a feast day of the highest rank celebrating a mystery of faith such as the Trinity, an event in the life of Jesus, his mother Mary, his earthly father Joseph, or another important sain ...
, one of these two creeds is recited in the
Roman Rite
The Roman Rite ( la, Ritus Romanus) is the primary liturgical rite of the Latin Church, the largest of the ''sui iuris'' particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. It developed in the Latin language in the city of Rome and, while dist ...
Mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
after the
homily
A homily (from Greek ὁμιλία, ''homilía'') is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture, giving the "public explanation of a sacred doctrine" or text. The works of Origen and John Chrysostom (known as Paschal Homily) are considered ex ...
. In the
Byzantine Rite
The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or the Rite of Constantinople, identifies the wide range of cultural, liturgical, and canonical practices that developed in the Eastern Christianity, Eastern Christian Church of Constantinople.
Th ...
, the Nicene Creed is sung or recited at the
Divine Liturgy
Divine Liturgy ( grc-gre, Θεία Λειτουργία, Theia Leitourgia) or Holy Liturgy is the Eucharistic service of the Byzantine Rite, developed from the Antiochene Rite of Christian liturgy which is that of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of C ...
, immediately preceding the
Anaphora (eucharistic prayer), and is also recited daily at
compline
Compline ( ), also known as Complin, Night Prayer, or the Prayers at the End of the Day, is the final prayer service (or office) of the day in the Christian tradition of canonical hours, which are prayed at fixed prayer times.
The English wo ...
.
History
![Nicaea icon (cropped Greek text homoousion tooi p(a)tri, Of one Being with the Father)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Nicaea_icon_%28cropped_Greek_text_homoousion_tooi_p%28a%29tri%2C_Of_one_Being_with_the_Father%29.jpg)
The purpose of a
creed
A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) in a form which is structured by subjects which summarize its core tenets.
The ea ...
is to provide a doctrinal statement of correct belief among Christians. The creeds of Christianity have been drawn up at times of conflict about doctrine: acceptance or rejection of a creed served to distinguish believers and heretics. For that reason, a creed was called in Greek a grc, σύμβολον, symbolon, label=none, which originally meant half of a broken object which, when fitted to the other half, verified the bearer's identity. The Greek word passed through Latin into English "symbol", which only later took on the meaning of an outward sign of something.
The Nicene Creed was adopted to resolve the
Arian
Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God t ...
controversy, whose leader,
Arius
Arius (; grc-koi, Ἄρειος, ; 250 or 256 – 336) was a Cyrenaic presbyter, ascetic, and priest best known for the doctrine of Arianism. His teachings about the nature of the Godhead in Christianity, which emphasized God the Father's un ...
, a clergyman of Alexandria, "objected to
Alexander's
Alexander's is a real estate investment trust that owns 7 properties in New York metropolitan area, including 731 Lexington Avenue, the headquarters of Bloomberg L.P. It is controlled by Vornado Realty Trust. It was founded by George Farkas and ...
(the bishop of the time) apparent carelessness in blurring the distinction of nature between the Father and the Son by his emphasis on eternal generation". Emperor
Constantine
Constantine most often refers to:
* Constantine the Great, Roman emperor from 306 to 337, also known as Constantine I
*Constantine, Algeria, a city in Algeria
Constantine may also refer to:
People
* Constantine (name), a masculine given name ...
called the Council at Nicaea to resolve the dispute in the church which resulted from the widespread adoption of Arius' teachings, which threatened to destabilize the entire empire. Following the formulation of the Nicene Creed, Arius' teachings were henceforth marked as
heresy
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
.
The Nicene Creed of 325 explicitly affirms the Father as the "one God" and as the "Almighty," and Jesus Christ as "the Son of God", as "begotten of
..the essence of the Father," and therefore as "consubstantial with the Father," meaning, "of the same substance" as the Father; "very God of very God." The Creed of 325 does mention the
Holy Spirit
In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is the divine force, quality, and influence of God over the Universe or over his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as ...
but not as "God" or as "consubstantial with the Father." The 381 revision of the creed at Constantinople (i.e., the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed), which is often simply referred to as the "Nicene Creed," speaks of the Holy Spirit as worshipped and glorified with the Father and the Son. The
Athanasian Creed, formulated about a century later, which was not the product of any known church council and not used in Eastern Christianity, describes in much greater detail the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The earlier
Apostles' Creed
The Apostles' Creed (Latin: ''Symbolum Apostolorum'' or ''Symbolum Apostolicum''), sometimes titled the Apostolic Creed or the Symbol of the Apostles, is a Christian creed or "symbol of faith".
The creed most likely originated in 5th-century Ga ...
, apparently formulated before the Arian controversy arose in the fourth century, does not describe the Son or the Holy Spirit as "God" or as "consubstantial with the Father."
St. Thomas Aquinas stated that the phrase ''for us men, and for our salvation'' was to refute the error of
Origen
Origen of Alexandria, ''Ōrigénēs''; Origen's Greek name ''Ōrigénēs'' () probably means "child of Horus" (from , "Horus", and , "born"). ( 185 – 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, ...
, "who alleged that by the power of Christ's Passion even the devils were to be set free." He also stated that the phrases stating Jesus was made ''incarnate by the Holy Spirit'' was to refute the
Manicheans
Manichaeism (;
in New Persian ; ) is a former major religionR. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century AD by the Parthian prophet Mani ( ...
"so that we may believe that He assumed true flesh and not a phantastic body," and ''He came down from Heaven'' was to refute the error of
Photius, "who asserted that Christ was no more than a man." Furthermore, the phrase ''and He was made man'' was to "exclude the error of
Nestorius
Nestorius (; in grc, Νεστόριος; 386 – 451) was the Archbishop of Constantinople from 10 April 428 to August 431. A Christian theologian, several of his teachings in the fields of Christology and Mariology were seen as controve ...
, according to whose contention the Son of God ... would be said to dwell in man
atherthan to be man."
Original Nicene Creed of 325
The original Nicene Creed was first adopted at the
First Council of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea (; grc, Νίκαια ) was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325.
This ecumenical council was the first effort ...
, which opened on 19 June 325. The text ends with
anathema
Anathema, in common usage, is something or someone detested or shunned. In its other main usage, it is a formal excommunication. The latter meaning, its ecclesiastical sense, is based on New Testament usage. In the Old Testament, anathema was a cr ...
s against Arian propositions, preceded by the words: "We believe in the
Holy Spirit
In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is the divine force, quality, and influence of God over the Universe or over his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as ...
" which terminates the statements of belief.
F. J. A. Hort
Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828–1892), known as F. J. A. Hort, was an Irish-born theologian and editor, with Brooke Foss Westcott of a critical edition of ''The New Testament in the Original Greek''.
Life
He was born on 23 April 1828 ...
and
Adolf von Harnack
Carl Gustav Adolf von Harnack (born Harnack; 7 May 1851 – 10 June 1930) was a Baltic German Lutheran theologian and prominent Church historian. He produced many religious publications from 1873 to 1912 (in which he is sometimes credited ...
argued that the Nicene Creed was the local creed of
Caesarea
Caesarea () ( he, קֵיסָרְיָה, ), ''Keysariya'' or ''Qesarya'', often simplified to Keisarya, and Qaysaria, is an affluent town in north-central Israel, which inherits its name and much of its territory from the ancient city of Caesare ...
(
an important center of Early Christianity) recited in the council by
Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea (; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος ; 260/265 – 30 May 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilus (from the grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος τοῦ Παμφίλου), was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christia ...
. Their case relied largely on a very specific interpretation of Eusebius' own account of the council's proceedings. More recent scholarship has not been convinced by their arguments. The large number of secondary divergences from the text of the creed quoted by Eusebius make it unlikely that it was used as a starting point by those who drafted the conciliar creed. Their initial text was probably a local creed from a Syro-Palestinian source into which they inserted phrases to define the Nicene theology. The Eusebian Creed may thus have been either a second or one of many nominations for the Nicene Creed.
The 1911 ''
Catholic Encyclopedia
The ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'' (also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedia'') i ...
'' says that, soon after the Council of Nicaea, the church composed new formulae of faith, most of them variations of the Nicene Symbol, to meet new phases of
Arianism
Arianism ( grc-x-koine, Ἀρειανισμός, ) is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (), a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God ...
, of which there were at least four before the
Council of Sardica The Council of Serdica, or Synod of Serdica (also Sardica located in modern day Sofia, Bulgaria), was a synod convened in 343 at Serdica in the civil diocese of Dacia, by Emperors Constans I, augustus in the West, and Constantius II, augustus in t ...
(341), at which a new form was presented and inserted in its acts, although the council did not accept it.
Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed
What is known as the "Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed" or the "Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed", received this name because it was adopted at the
Second Ecumenical Council
The First Council of Constantinople ( la, Concilium Constantinopolitanum; grc-gre, Σύνοδος τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως) was a council of Christian bishops convened in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) in AD 381 b ...
held in Constantinople in 381 as a modification of the original Nicene Creed of 325. In that light, it also came to be very commonly known simply as the "Nicene Creed". It is the only authoritative ''
ecumenical
Ecumenism (), also spelled oecumenism, is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjec ...
'' statement of the Christian faith accepted by the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
(with the addition of the
Filioque
( ; ) is a Latin term ("and from the Son") added to the original Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (commonly known as the Nicene Creed), and which has been the subject of great controversy between Eastern and Western Christianity. It is a term ...
), the
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via ...
,
Oriental Orthodoxy
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 60 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches are part of the Nicene Christian tradition, and represent ...
, the
Church of the East
The Church of the East ( syc, ܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ, ''ʿĒḏtā d-Maḏenḥā'') or the East Syriac Church, also called the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Persian Church, the Assyrian Church, the Babylonian Church or the Nestorian C ...
, much of
Protestantism
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
including the
Anglican communion
The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other ...
. (The Apostles' and Athanasian creeds are not as widely accepted.)
It differs in a number of respects, both by addition and omission, from the creed adopted at the First Council of Nicaea. The most notable difference is the additional section:
Since the end of the 19th century,
[Kelly, J.N.D. ''Early Christian Creeds'' Longmans (1960) pp. 305, 307, 322–331 respectively] scholars have questioned the traditional explanation of the origin of this creed, which has been passed down in the name of the council, whose official acts have been lost over time. A local council of Constantinople in 382 and the Third Ecumenical Council (
Council of Ephesus
The Council of Ephesus was a council of Christian bishops convened in Ephesus (near present-day Selçuk in Turkey) in AD 431 by the Roman Emperor Theodosius II. This third ecumenical council, an effort to attain consensus in the church th ...
of 431) made no mention of it,
[Davis, Leo Donald S.J., ''The First Seven Ecumenical Councils'', The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1990, , pp. 120–122, 185] with the latter affirming the 325 creed of Nicaea as a valid statement of the faith and using it to denounce
Nestorianism
Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinarily distinct sets of teachings. The first meaning of the term is related to the original teachings of Christian theologian ...
. Though some scholarship claims that hints of the later creed's existence are discernible in some writings,
[Kelly, J.N.D. ''Early Christian Creeds'' London, 1973] no extant document gives its text or makes explicit mention of it earlier than the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon in 451.
Many of the bishops of the 451 council themselves had never heard of it and initially greeted it skeptically, but it was then produced from the episcopal archives of Constantinople, and the council accepted it "not as supplying any omission but as an authentic interpretation of the faith of Nicaea".
In spite of the questions raised, it is considered most likely that this creed was in fact introduced at the 381 Second Ecumenical Council.
On the basis of evidence both internal and external to the text, it has been argued that this creed originated not as an editing of the original Creed proposed at Nicaea in 325, but as an independent creed (probably an older baptismal creed) modified to make it more like the Nicene Creed. Some scholars have argued that the creed may have been presented at Chalcedon as "a precedent for drawing up new creeds and definitions to supplement the Creed of Nicaea, as a way of getting round the ban on new creeds in Canon 7 of Ephesus".
[Richard Price, Michael Gaddis (editors), ''The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon'' (Liverpool University Press 2005]
), p. 3 It is generally agreed that the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed is not simply an expansion of the Creed of Nicaea, and was probably based on another traditional creed independent of the one from Nicaea.
The Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus) reaffirmed the original 325 version of the Nicene Creed and declared that "it is unlawful for any man to bring forward, or to write, or to compose a different () faith as a rival to that established by the holy Fathers assembled with the Holy Ghost in Nicaea" (i.e., the 325 creed). The word is more accurately translated as used by the council to mean "different", "contradictory", rather than "another".
This statement has been interpreted as a prohibition against changing this creed or composing others, but not all accept this interpretation.
[ This question is connected with the controversy whether a creed proclaimed by an ]ecumenical council
An ecumenical council, also called general council, is a meeting of bishops and other church authorities to consider and rule on questions of Christian doctrine, administration, discipline, and other matters in which those entitled to vote are ...
is definitive in excluding not only excisions from its text but also additions to it.
In one respect, the Eastern Orthodox Church's received text
''Textus Receptus'' (Latin: "received text") refers to all printed editions of the Greek New Testament from Erasmus's ''Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) to the 1633 Elzevir edition. It was the most commonly used text type for Protestant denomi ...
of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed differs from the earliest text, which is included in the acts of the Council of Chalcedon
The Council of Chalcedon (; la, Concilium Chalcedonense), ''Synodos tēs Chalkēdonos'' was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, Bith ...
of 451: The Eastern Orthodox Church uses the singular forms of verbs such as "I believe", in place of the plural form ("we believe") used by the council. Byzantine Rite
The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or the Rite of Constantinople, identifies the wide range of cultural, liturgical, and canonical practices that developed in the Eastern Christianity, Eastern Christian Church of Constantinople.
Th ...
Eastern Catholic Churches
The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also called the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Eastern Rite Catholicism, or simply the Eastern Churches, are 23 Eastern Christian autonomous (''sui iuris'') particular churches of th ...
use exactly the same form of the creed, since the Catholic Church teaches that it is wrong to add " and the Son" to the Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
verb "", though correct to add it to the Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, which does not have precisely the same meaning. The form generally used in Western churches does add "and the Son" and also the phrase "God from God", which is found in the original 325 Creed.
Comparison between creed of 325 and creed of 381
The following table, which indicates by square brackets the portions of the 325 text that were omitted or moved in 381, and uses to indicate what phrases, absent in the 325 text, were added in 381, juxtaposes the earlier (AD 325) and later (AD 381) forms of this creed in the English translation given in Philip Schaff
Philip Schaff (January 1, 1819 – October 20, 1893) was a Swiss-born, German-educated Protestant theologian and ecclesiastical historian, who spent most of his adult life living and teaching in the United States.
Biography
Schaff was born ...
's compilation ''The Creeds of Christendom'' (1877).
Filioque controversy
In the late 6th century, some Latin-speaking churches added the word ("and the Son") to the description of the procession of the Holy Spirit, in what many Eastern Orthodox Christians have at a later stage argued is a violation of Canon VII of the Third Ecumenical Council, since the words were not included in the text by either the Council of Nicaea or that of Constantinople. This was incorporated into the liturgical practice of Rome in 1014. eventually became one of the main causes for the East-West Schism
East West (or East and West) may refer to:
*East–West dichotomy, the contrast between Eastern and Western society or culture
Arts and entertainment
Books, journals and magazines
*'' East, West'', an anthology of short stories written by Salm ...
in 1054, and the failures of the repeated union attempts.
The Vatican
Vatican may refer to:
Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum
The Holy See
* The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...
stated in 1995 that, while the words ("and the Son") would indeed be heretical
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
if used with the Greek verb (from , "out of" and , "(I) come or go")—which is one of the terms used by St. Gregory of Nazianzus
Nazianzus or Nazianzos ( grc, Ναζιανζός), also known as Nandianulus, was a small town of ancient Cappadocia, and in the late Roman province of Cappadocia Tertia, located 24 Roman miles to the southeast of Archelais. In the Jerusalem It ...
and the one adopted by the Council of Constantinople—the word is not heretical when associated with the Latin verb and the related word . Whereas the verb in Gregory and other Fathers necessarily means "to originate from a cause or principle," the Latin term (from , "forward;" and , "to go") has no such connotation and simply denotes the communication of the Divine Essence or Substance.[Such as St. Gregory of Nazianzen, as seen in the passage from ''Oratio 39'' cited above.]
In this sense, is similar in meaning to the Greek term , used by the Fathers from Alexandria (especially Cyril of Alexandria
Cyril of Alexandria ( grc, Κύριλλος Ἀλεξανδρείας; cop, Ⲡⲁⲡⲁ Ⲕⲩⲣⲓⲗⲗⲟⲩ ⲁ̅ also ⲡⲓ̀ⲁⲅⲓⲟⲥ Ⲕⲓⲣⲓⲗⲗⲟⲥ; 376 – 444) was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444 ...
) as well as others. Partly due to the influence of the Latin translations of the New Testament (especially of John 15:26), the term (the present participle of ) in the creed was translated into Latin as . In time, the Latin version of the creed came to be interpreted in the West in the light of the Western concept of , which required the affirmation of the to avoid the heresy of Arianism.
Views on the importance of this creed
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
The Roman Rite ( la, Ritus Romanus) is the primary liturgical rite of the Latin Church, the largest of the ''sui iuris'' particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. It developed in the Latin language in the city of Rome and, while dist ...
mass
Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
, the Latin text of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, with (God from God) and (and from the Son), phrases absent in the original text, was previously the only form used for the "profession of faith". The Roman Missal
The Roman Missal ( la, Missale Romanum) is the title of several missals used in the celebration of the Roman Rite. Along with other liturgical books of the Roman Rite, the Roman Missal contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the m ...
now refers to it jointly with the Apostles' Creed
The Apostles' Creed (Latin: ''Symbolum Apostolorum'' or ''Symbolum Apostolicum''), sometimes titled the Apostolic Creed or the Symbol of the Apostles, is a Christian creed or "symbol of faith".
The creed most likely originated in 5th-century Ga ...
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
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
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
Nontrinitarianism is a form of Christianity that rejects the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity—the belief that God is three distinct hypostases or persons who are coeternal, coequal, and indivisibly united in one being, or essence ...
groups, such as the Church of the New Jerusalem
The New Church (or Swedenborgianism) is any of several historically related Christian denominations that developed as a new religious group, influenced by the writings of scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772).
Swedenborgian o ...
, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
and the Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...
, explicitly reject some of the statements in the Nicene Creed.
Ancient liturgical versions
There are several designations for the two forms of the Nicene Creed, some with overlapping meanings:
* Nicene Creed or the Creed of Nicaea is used to refer to the original version adopted at the First Council of Nicaea
The First Council of Nicaea (; grc, Νίκαια ) was a council of Christian bishops convened in the Bithynian city of Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325.
This ecumenical council was the first effort ...
(325), to the revised version adopted by the First Council of Constantinople
The First Council of Constantinople ( la, Concilium Constantinopolitanum; grc-gre, Σύνοδος τῆς Κωνσταντινουπόλεως) was a council of Christian bishops convened in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) in AD 381 b ...
(381), to the liturgical text used by the Eastern Orthodox Church
The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via ...
(with "I believe" instead of "We believe"), to the Latin version that includes the phrase and , and to the Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
version, which does not include "and from the Son", but does include "God from God" and many other phrases.[What the Armenian Church calls the Nicene Creed is given in th]
Armenian Church Library
St Leon Armenian Church
, etc.]
* Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed can stand for the revised version of Constantinople (381) or the later Latin version or various other versions.
* Icon/Symbol of the Faith is the usual designation for the revised version of Constantinople 381 in the Orthodox churches, where this is the only creed used in the liturgy.
* Profession of Faith of the 318 Fathers refers specifically to the version of Nicaea 325 (traditionally, 318 bishops took part at the First Council of Nicaea).
* Profession of Faith of the 150 Fathers refers specifically to the version of Constantinople 381 (traditionally, 150 bishops took part at the First Council of Constantinople).
This section is not meant to collect the texts of all liturgical versions of the Nicene Creed, and provides only three, the Greek, the Latin, and the Armenian, of special interest. Others are mentioned separately, but without the texts. All ancient liturgical versions, even the Greek, differ at least to some small extent from the text adopted by the First Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople. The Creed was originally written in Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, owing among other things to the location of the two councils.
Although the councils' texts have (" believe ..confess ..await"), the creed that the Churches of Byzantine tradition use in their liturgy has (" believe ..confess ..await"), accentuating the personal nature of recitation of the creed. The Latin text, as well as using the singular, has two additions: (God from God) and (and from the Son). The Armenian text has many more additions, and is included as showing how Armenian Apostolic Church, that ancient church has chosen to recite the creed with these numerous elaborations of its contents.[
An English translation of the Armenian text is added; English translations of the Greek and Latin liturgical texts are given at ]English versions of the Nicene Creed in current use
The Nicene Creed, composed in part and adopted at the First Council of Nicaea (325) and revised with additions by the First Council of Constantinople (381), is a creed that summarizes the orthodox faith of the Christian Church and is used in the li ...
.
Greek liturgical text
Latin liturgical version
The Latin text adds and to the Greek. On the latter see The Filioque Controversy above. Inevitably also, the overtones of the terms used, such as a grc, παντοκράτορα, pantokratora, label=none and , differ ( meaning ruler of all; meaning omnipotent, almighty). The implications of the difference in overtones of and was the object of the study ''The Greek and the Latin Traditions regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit'' published by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
The Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, previously named the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), is a dicastery whose origins are associated with the Second Vatican Council which met intermittently from 1962 to 1965.
Po ...
in 1996.
Again, the terms and , translated as "of one being" or "consubstantial
Consubstantiality, a term derived from la, consubstantialitas, denotes identity of substance or essence in spite of difference in aspect.
It appears most commonly in its adjectival form, "consubstantial", from Latin ''consubstantialis'', and ...
", have different overtones, being based respectively on Greek (stable being, immutable reality, substance, essence, true nature), and Latin (that of which a thing consists, the being, essence, contents, material, substance).[Charlton T. Lewis]
''A Latin Dictionary: substantia''
, which in classical Latin is used with the accusative case of the thing held to be true (and with the dative of the person to whom credence is given),[Charlton T. Lewis]
''A Latin Dictionary: credo''
is here used three times with the preposition "in", a literal translation of the Greek (), and once in the classical preposition-less construction ().
Armenian liturgical text
English translation of the Armenian version
Other ancient liturgical versions
The version in the Church Slavonic language
Church Slavonic (, , literally "Church-Slavonic language"), also known as Church Slavic, New Church Slavonic or New Church Slavic, is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bosnia and Herzeg ...
, used by several Eastern Orthodox churches is practically identical with the Greek liturgical version.
This version is used also by some Byzantine Rite
The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or the Rite of Constantinople, identifies the wide range of cultural, liturgical, and canonical practices that developed in the Eastern Christianity, Eastern Christian Church of Constantinople.
Th ...
Eastern Catholic Churches
The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also called the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Eastern Rite Catholicism, or simply the Eastern Churches, are 23 Eastern Christian autonomous (''sui iuris'') particular churches of th ...
. Although the Union of Brest
The Union of Brest (; ; ; ) was the 1595–96 decision of the Ruthenian Orthodox Church eparchies (dioceses) in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth to break relations with the Eastern Orthodox Church and to enter into communion with, and place i ...
excluded addition of the Filioque
( ; ) is a Latin term ("and from the Son") added to the original Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (commonly known as the Nicene Creed), and which has been the subject of great controversy between Eastern and Western Christianity. It is a term ...
, this was sometimes added by Ruthenian Catholics, whose older liturgical books also show the phrase in brackets, and by Ukrainian Catholics. Writing in 1971, the Ruthenian Scholar Fr. Casimir Kucharek noted, "In Eastern Catholic Churches, the may be omitted except when scandal would ensue. Most of the Eastern Catholic Rites use it." However, in the decades that followed 1971 it has come to be used more rarely.
The versions used by Oriental Orthodoxy
The Oriental Orthodox Churches are Eastern Christian churches adhering to Miaphysite Christology, with approximately 60 million members worldwide. The Oriental Orthodox Churches are part of the Nicene Christian tradition, and represent ...
and the Church of the East
The Church of the East ( syc, ܥܕܬܐ ܕܡܕܢܚܐ, ''ʿĒḏtā d-Maḏenḥā'') or the East Syriac Church, also called the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Persian Church, the Assyrian Church, the Babylonian Church or the Nestorian C ...
may differ from the Greek liturgical version in having "We believe", as in the original text, instead of "I believe".[Nicene Creed]
(Armenian Apostolic Church
, native_name_lang = hy
, icon = Armenian Apostolic Church logo.svg
, icon_width = 100px
, icon_alt =
, image = Էջմիածնի_Մայր_Տաճար.jpg
, imagewidth = 250px
, a ...
)
The Coptic Orthodox Church: Our Creed
( Coptic Orthodox Church)
Nicene Creed
(Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church ( am, የኢትዮጵያ ኦርቶዶክስ ተዋሕዶ ቤተ ክርስቲያን, ''Yäityop'ya ortodoks täwahedo bétäkrestyan'') is the largest of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. One of the few Chris ...
)
The Nicene Creed
( Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church)
The Nicene Creed
(Syriac Orthodox Church
, native_name_lang = syc
, image = St_George_Syriac_orthodox_church_in_Damascus.jpg
, imagewidth = 250
, alt = Cathedral of Saint George
, caption = Cathedral of Saint George, Damascus ...
)
English translations
The version found in the 1662 ''Book of Common Prayer'' is still commonly used by some English speakers, but more modern translations are now more common. The International Consultation on English Texts The English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC) is a group of national associations of ecumenical liturgists in the English-speaking world. Their work has been concerned with developing and promoting common liturgical texts in English and shari ...
published an English translation of the Nicene Creed, first in 1970 and then in successive revisions in 1971 and 1975. These texts were adopted by several churches. The Roman Catholic Church in the United States, which adopted the 1971 version in 1973, and the Catholic Church in other English-speaking countries, which in 1975 adopted the version published in that year, continued to use them until 2011, when it replaced them with the version in the ''Roman Missal
The Roman Missal ( la, Missale Romanum) is the title of several missals used in the celebration of the Roman Rite. Along with other liturgical books of the Roman Rite, the Roman Missal contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the m ...
third edition''. The 1975 version was included in the 1979 Episcopal Church (United States) ''Book of Common Prayer'', but with one variation: in the line "For us men and for our salvation", it omitted the word "men".
See also
* Homoousion
Homoousion ( ; grc, ὁμοούσιον, lit=same in being, same in essence, from , , "same" and , , "being" or "essence") is a Christian theological term, most notably used in the Nicene Creed for describing Jesus (God the Son) as "same in be ...
* First seven ecumenical councils
* Mainline Protestant
The mainline Protestant churches (also called mainstream Protestant and sometimes oldline Protestant) are a group of Protestant denominations in the United States that contrast in history and practice with evangelical, fundamentalist, and charis ...
Notes
References
Bibliography
*
* A. E. Burn, ''The Council of Nicaea'' (1925)
* G. Forell, ''Understanding the Nicene Creed'' (1965)
*
*
*
Further reading
Extensive discussion of the texts of the First Council of Nicea
Nicene Creed
*
"The Nicene Creed", run time 42 minutes, BBC ''In Our Time'' audio history series, moderator and historians, Episode 12-27-2007
External links
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{Christianity footer
4th-century Christian texts
Book of Concord
Ecumenical creeds
Trinitarianism
Christian terminology
Filioque
4th century in the Byzantine Empire
Entering heaven alive
Pontius Pilate
325
Nicaea
Nature of Jesus Christ