Philip Schaff · 20 of 60

Eusebius, of Cæsarea. A.D. 325.

Socrates, Hist. Eccl. Lib. I. cap. 8.

Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea, in Palestine (d. 340), the Church historian, the friend and eulogist of Constantine I., and a leading member of the Council of Nicæa (325), forms the connecting link between the ante-Nicene and the Nicene Church. In his account of that Council he mentions the following creed, which his church in Cæsarea had received from the bishops of former times in catechizing and at baptism, which he himself had learned from Scripture, believed, and taught, and which he had laid before the Emperor and the Council. It comes very near the Nicene Creed as adopted in 325, and was the basis of it, but the characteristic shibboleth of Nicene orthodoxy, the term homoousios or consubstantial, is wanting. See Eusebii Cæsareensis Episcopi de fide Nicænæ exposita, in Athanasius, Epistola de decretis Synodi Nicænæ (Opera, Tom. I. Pt. I. pp. 238 sqq., ed. Montfauc.); Socrates, Hist. Eccl. Lib. I. cap. 8; Theodoret, Hist. Eccl. Lib I. cap. 12.

To this creed Eusebius adds: 'And concerning these things we affirm that we so hold and so think, and have of old so held, and will so hold till death, and stand steadfast in this faith, anathematizing all ungodly heresy. We testify before Almighty God and our Lord Jesus Christ that we have thought all this in heart and soul ever since we knew ourselves, and we now so think and speak in truth, being able to show by evidence and to convince you that we in past times so believed and preached accordingly.'