Philip Schaff · 17 of 132

The Nicene Creed.

§ 8. The Nicene Creed.

Literature.

I. See the works on the œcumenical Creeds noticed p. 12, and the extensive literature on the Council of Nicæa, mentioned in my Church History, Vol. III. pp. 616, 617, and 622. The acts of the Council are collected in Greek and Latin by Mansi, Collect. sacr. Concil., Tom. II. fol. 635–704. The Council of Nicæa is more or less fully discussed in the historical works, general or particular, of Tillemont, Walch, Schröckh, Gibbon, A. de Broglie, Neander, Gieseler, Baur (Hist. of the Doctrine of the Trinity), Dorner (History of Christology), Hefele (History of Councils, Stanley (History of the Eastern Church).

II. Special treatises on the Nicene symbol:

Ph. Melanchthon: Explicatio Symb. Nicæni, ed. a J. Sturione, Viteb. 1561, 8vo.

Casp. Cruciger: Enarrationis Symboli Nicæni articuli duo, etc., Viteb. 1548, 4to, and Symboli Nicæni enarratio cum præfatione Ph. Melanchthonis, acc. priori editioni plures Symboli partes, Basil (without date).

J. H. Heidegger (d. 1698): De Symbolo Nicæne-Constantinopolitano (Tom. II. Disp. select. pp. 716 sqq., Turici, 1675–97).

J. G. Baier: De Conc. Nicæni primi et Œcum. auctoritate atque integritate, Jen. 1695 (in Disputat. theol. decad. I.).

T. Fecht: Innocentia Concilii et Symboli Nicæni, Rostock, 1711.

T. Caspar Suicer (d. 1684): Symbolum Nicæno-Constant. expositum et ex antiquitate ecclesiastica illustratum, Traj. ad Eh. 1718, 4to.

George Bull (d. 1710): Defensio Fidei Nicænæ, Oxon. 1687, in his Latin works ed. by Grabe, 1703; by Burton, 1827, and again 1846; English translation in the Anglo-Catholic Library, Oxf. 1851, 2 vols.

The Nicene Creed, or Symbolum Nicæno-Constantinopolitanum, is the Eastern form of the primitive Creed, but with the distinct impress of the Nicene age, and more definite and explicit than the Apostles' Creed in the statement of the divinity of Christ and the Holy Ghost. The terms 'coessential' or 'coequal' (ὁμοούσιος τῷ πατρί), 'begotten before all worlds' (πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων), 'very God of very God' (θεὸς ἀληθινὸς ἐκ θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ), 'begotten, not made' (γεννηθείς, οὐ ποιηθείς), are so many trophies of orthodoxy in its mighty struggle with the Arian heresy, which agitated the Church for more than half a century. The Nicene Creed is the first which obtained universal authority. It rests on older forms used in different churches of the East, and has undergone again some changes.

The Eastern creeds arose likewise out of the baptismal formula, and were intended for the baptismal service as a confession of the faith of the catechumen in the Triune God.

We must distinguish two independent or parallel creed formations, an Eastern and a Western; the one resulted in the Nicene Creed as completed by the Synod of Constantinople, the other in the Apostles' Creed in its Roman form. The Eastern creeds were more metaphysical, polemical, flexible, and adapting themselves to the exigencies of the Church in the maintenance of her faith and conflict with heretics; the Western were more simple, practical, and stationary. The former were controlled by synods, and received their final shape and sanction from two œcumenical Councils; the latter were left to the custody of the several churches, each feeling at liberty to make additions or alterations within certain limits, until the Roman form superseded all others, and was quietly, and without formal synodical action, adopted by Western Christendom.

In the Nicene Creed we must distinguish three forms—the original Nicene, the enlarged Constantinopolitan, and the still later Latin.

1. The original Nicene Creed dates from the first œcumenical Council, which was held at Nicæa, A.D. 325, for the settlement of the Arian controversy, and consisted of 318 bishops, all of them from the East (except Hosius of Spain). This Creed abruptly closes with the words 'and in the Holy Ghost,' but adds an anathema against the Arians. This was the authorized form down to the Council of Chalcedon.

2. The Nicæno-Constantinopolitan Creed, besides some minor changes in the first two articles, adds all the clauses after 'Holy Ghost,' but omits the anathema. It gives the text as now received in the Eastern Church. It is usually traced to the second œcumenical Council, which was convened by Theodosius in Constantinople, A.D. 381, against the Macedonians or Pneumatomachians (so called for denying the deity of the Holy Spirit), and consisted of 150 bishops, all from the East. There is no authentic evidence of an œcumenical recognition of this enlarged Creed till the Council at Chalcedon, 451, where it was read by Aëtius (a deacon of Constantinople) as the 'Creed of the 150 fathers,' and accepted as orthodox, together with the old Nicene Creed, or the 'Creed of the 318 fathers.' But the additional clauses existed in 374, seven years before the Constantinopolitan Council, in the two creeds of Epiphanius, a native of Palestine, and most of them as early as 350, in the creed of Cyril of Jerusalem.

The Nicene Creed comes nearest to that of Eusebius of Cæsarea, which likewise abruptly closes with πνεῦμα ἅγιον; the Constantinopolitan Creed resembles the creeds of Cyril and Epiphanius, which close with 'the resurrection' and 'life everlasting.' We may therefore trace both forms to Palestine, except the Nicene homoousion.

3. The Latin or Western form differs from the Greek by the little word Filioque, which, next to the authority of the Pope, is the chief source of the greatest schism in Christendom. The Greek Church, adhering to the original text, and emphasizing the monarchia of the Father as the only root and cause of the Deity, teaches the single procession (ἐκπόρευσις) of the Spirit from the Father alone, which is supposed to be an eternal inner-trinitarian process (like the eternal generation of the Son), and not to be confounded with the temporal mission (πέμψις) of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son. The Latin Church, in the interest of the co-equality of the Son with the Father, and taking the procession (processio) in a wider sense, taught since Augustine the double procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, and, without consulting the East, put it into the Creed.

The first clear trace of the Filioque in the Nicene Creed we find at the third Council of Toledo in Spain, A.D. 589, to seal the triumph of orthodoxy over Arianism. During the eighth century it obtained currency in England and in France, but not without opposition. Pope Leo III., when asked by messengers of a council held during the reign of Charlemagne at Aix la Chapelle, A.D. 809, to sanction the Filioque, decided in favor of the double procession, but against any change in the Creed. Nevertheless, the clause gained also in Italy from the time of Pope Nicholas I. (858), and was gradually adopted in the entire Latin Church. From this it passed into the Protestant Churches.

Another addition in the Latin form, 'Deus de Deo,' in article II., created no difficulty, as it was in the original Nicene Creed, but it is useless on account of the following 'Deus verus de Deo vero,' and hence was omitted in the Constantinopolitan edition.

The Nicene Creed (without these Western additions) is more highly honored in the Greek Church than in any other, and occupies the same position there as the Apostles' Creed in the Latin and Protestant Churches. It is incorporated and expounded in all the orthodox Greek and Russian Catechisms. It is also (with the Filioque) in liturgical use in the Roman (since about the sixth century), and in the Anglican and Lutheran Churches. It was adopted by the Council of Trent as the fundamental Symbol, and embodied in the Profession of the Tridentine Faith by Pius IV. It is therefore more strictly an œcumenical Creed than the Apostles' and the Athanasian, which have never been fully naturalized in the Oriental Churches.

. . 'The faith of the Trinity lies,

Shrined for ever and ever, in those grand old words and wise;

A gem in a beautiful setting; still, at matin-time,

The service of Holy Communion rings the ancient chime;

Wherever in marvelous minster, or village churches small,

Men to the Man that is God out of their misery call,

Swelled by the rapture of choirs, or borne on the poor man's word,

Still the glorious Nicene confession unaltered is heard;

Most like the song that the angels are singing around the throne,

With their "Holy! holy! holy!" to the great Three in One.'

The relation of the Nicene Creed to the Apostles' Creed may be seen from the following table:

We give also, in parallel columns, the original and the enlarged formulas of the Nicene Creed, italicizing the later additions, and inclosing in brackets the passages which are omitted in the received text: