The
Nicene Creed (
Latin: ) is the
creed or
profession of
faith (
Greek: ) that is most widely used in
Christian liturgy.
It is
called Nicene ( ) because, in its original form, it was adopted in
the city of Nicaea
by the first
ecumenical council, which met
there in 325. The Nicene Creed has been normative to the
Anglican and
Roman Catholic Eucharistic rite as well as
Eastern and
Oriental Orthodox liturgies. The Creed is
recited in the
Roman Rite Mass directly after the
homily on all Sundays and
Solemnities (
Tridentine Feasts of the First Class), and
in the
Byzantine Rite Liturgy following the Litany of Supplication
on all occasions.
It is given high importance in the
Anglican
Church,
Eastern Orthodox
Church,
Assyrian Church
of the East,
Oriental Orthodox
churches, the
Roman Catholic
Church including the
Eastern Catholic Churches and the
Old Catholic Church, and most
Protestant denominations.
For current English translations of the Nicene Creed, see
English
versions of the Nicene Creed in current use.
Nomenclature
There are several designations for the two forms of the Nicene
creed, some with overlapping meanings:
- Nicene Creed can refer to the original version
adopted at the First Council of
Nicaea (325), to the revised version adopted by the First Council of
Constantinople (381), to the later Latin version that includes
the phrase "Deum de Deo" and "Filioque",
and to the Armenian version.
- Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed can stand for
the revised version of Constantinople (381) or to the later Latin
and Armenian 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 Nicea 325 (traditionally, 318
bishops took part at the First Council of Nicea).
- 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)
In musical settings, particularly when singing in
Latin, this Creed is usually referred to by
its first word,
Credo.
History
The purpose of a creed is to act as a yardstick of correct belief.
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 deniers of a particular doctrine or set
of doctrines. For that reason a creed was called in Greek a
σύμβολον, a word that meant half of a broken object which, when
placed together with the other half, verified the bearer's
identity. The Greek word passed through Latin "symbolum" into
English "symbol", which only later took on the meaning of an
outward sign of something. The Nicene Creed was adopted in the face
of the
Arian controversy.
Arius, a Libyan preacher, had declared that although
Jesus Christ was divine, God had
actually created him, and there was a time when he was not. This
made Jesus less than the Father and contradicted the doctrine of
the
Trinity. Arius's teaching provoked a
serious crisis.
The Nicene Creed of 325 explicitly affirms the
divinity of Jesus, applying to him the
term "God". The 381 version speaks of the Holy Spirit as worshipped
and glorified with the Father and the Son. The
Athanasian Creed describes in much greater
detail the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The
Apostles' Creed, not formulated in
reaction to Arianism, makes no explicit statements about the
divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit, but, in the view of many
who use it, the doctrine is implicit in it.
The original Nicene Creed of 325
The original Nicene Creed was first adopted in 325 at the
First Council of Nicaea. At that
time, the text ended after the words "We believe in the Holy
Spirit", after which an
anathema was
added.
The
Coptic Church has the tradition
that the original creed was authored by
Pope Athanasius I of
Alexandria.
F. J. A. Hort and Adolf Harnack argued that the Nicene creed was
the local creed of Caesarea
(an
important center of Early
Christianity) brought to the council by Eusebius of Caesarea. J.N.D.
Kelly sees as its basis a baptismal creed of the Syro-Phoenician
family, related to (but not dependent on) the creed cited by
Cyril of Jerusalem and to the
creed of Eusebius.
Soon after the Council of Nicaea, new formulae of faith were
composed, most of them variations of the Nicene Symbol, to counter
new phases of
Arianism. The
Catholic
Encyclopedia identifies at least four before the
Council of
Sardica (341), where a new form was presented and inserted in
the Acts of the Council, though it was not agreed on.
The Nicene–Constantinopolitan Creed of 381
The
second Ecumenical
Council in 381 added the section that follows the words "We
believe in the Holy Spirit" (without the words "and the Son"
relative to the procession of the Spirit); hence the name
"Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed", referring to the Creed as
modified in Constantinople. This is the received text of the
Eastern Orthodox Church,
with the exception that in its liturgy it changes verbs from the
plural by which the Fathers of the Council collectively professed
their faith to the singular of the individual Christian's
profession of faith.
Byzantine Rite
Eastern Catholic Churches
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 verb "ἐκπορευόμενον", but correct to
add it to the
Latin "qui procedit", which does
not have precisely the same meaning.
The
third Ecumenical
Council (
Council of
Ephesus of 431) reaffirmed the 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
Nicæa"(i.e. the 325 version) This statement has been interpreted as
a prohibition against changing this creed or composing others, but
not all accept this interpretation. This question must be
considered against the background of long and continuous
controversy in the Church concerning the nature of the Trinity, and
of Jesus in particular; and the debate over whether a
creed proclaimed by an
Ecumenical Council is definitive or
subject to change.
Comparison between Creed of 325 and Creed of 381
The following table juxtaposes the earlier (325 AD) and later (381
AD) forms of this Creed in the English translation given in
Schaff's work,
Creeds of Christendom, which indicates by [square
brackets] the portions of the 325 text that were omitted or moved
in 381, and uses
italics to indicate what phrases, absent
in the 325 text, were added in 381.
| First Council of Nicea (325) |
First Council of Constantinople (381) |
| We believe in one God, the Father
Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible. |
We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven
and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. |
| And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the
Father [the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father,
God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not
made, being of one substance with the Father; |
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of the Father before all worlds (æons), Light of
Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one
substance with the Father; |
| By whom all things were made [both in heaven and on
earth]; |
by whom all things were made; |
| Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was
incarnate and was made man; |
who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man; |
| He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into
heaven; |
he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and
suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again,
according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and
sitteth on the right hand of the Father; |
| From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. |
from thence he shall come again, with glory, to judge
the quick and the dead; |
|
whose kingdom shall have no end. |
| And in the Holy Ghost. |
And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who
proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son
together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the
prophets. |
|
In one holy catholic
and apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the
remission of sins; we look for the resurrection of the dead, and
the life of the world to come. Amen. |
| [But those who say: 'There was a time when he was not;' and 'He
was not before he was made;' and 'He was made out of nothing,' or
'He is of another substance' or 'essence,' or 'The Son of God is
created,' or 'changeable,' or 'alterable'—they are condemned by the
holy catholic and apostolic Church.] |
|
Filioque controversy
In the late sixth century, the Latin-speaking churches of Western
Europe added the words "and the Son" (
Filioque) to the description of the procession
of the Holy Spirit, in what Easterners have 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.The
Vatican has
recently argued that while these words would indeed be
heretical if associated with the Greek verb
ἐκπορεύεσθαι of the text adopted by the Council of
Constantinople, they are not heretical when associated with the
Latin verb
procedere, which corresponds instead to the
Greek verb
προιέναι, with which some of the Greek Fathers
also associated the same words.
Views on the importance of this creed
The Nicene Creed has been regarded as a touchstone of true
Christian faith, though not a complete expression of it. When the
word "symbol" meant a "token for identification (by comparison with
a counterpart)", the Nicene Creed was given, in Greek and Latin,
the name "symbol of faith", a name still used even in languages in
which "symbol" no longer has that meaning.
In the
Roman Rite Mass, the Latin text of the
Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, with "Deum verum de Deo vero"
(true God from true God) and "
Filioque"
(and from the Son), phrases absent in the original text, was
previously the only form used for the "
profession of faith". The
Roman Missal now refers to it jointly with the
Apostles' Creed 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". Use of the 1962 edition of the
Roman Missal, which contains only the Latin
text of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, is still permitted,
with certain limitations on its public use. The liturgies of the
ancient Churches of
Eastern
Christianity (
Eastern
Orthodox Church,
Oriental
Orthodoxy,
Assyrian
Church of the East) and the
Eastern Catholic Churches), use
the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, never the Western Apostles'
Creed.
While not necessarily rejecting the Nicene Creed as erroneous, some
evangelical and other
Christians, on the basis of their
sola scriptura view, consider it as in
no way authoritative because it is not part of the
Bible, and do not recite it in their services.
The Church of the New Jerusalem, the
Jehovah's Witnesses, and similar
groups, accept the Christian Scriptures in whole or in part, but
reject post-Apostolic statements such as the Nicene Creed. They
consider themselves Christians, an identification contested by
others who consider acceptance of the Nicene Creed a key part of
Christian orthodoxy.
Ancient liturgical versions
All 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, owing to
the location of the two councils. But though the councils' texts
have " " (
we believe ... confess ... await), the Creed
that the Churches of Byzantine tradition use in their liturgy has "
" (
I believe ... confess ... await), accentuating the
personal nature of recitation of the Creed. The Latin text, as well
as using the singular, has two additions: "Deum verum de Deo vero"
(true God from true God) and "Filioque" (and from the Son). The
Armenian text has many more additions.
Greek text
Latin version
- Credo in unum Deum,
- Patrem omnipoténtem,
- Factórem cæli et terræ,
- Visibílium ómnium et invisibílium.
- Et in unum Dóminum Iesum Christum,
- Fílium Dei Unigénitum,
- Et ex Patre natum ante ómnia sæcula.
- Deum de Deo, lumen de lúmine, Deum verum de Deo vero,
- Génitum, non factum, consubstantiálem Patri:
- Per quem ómnia facta sunt.
- Qui propter nos hómines et propter nostram salútem
- Descéndit de cælis.
- Et incarnátus est de Spíritu Sancto
- Ex María Vírgine, et homo factus est.
- Crucifíxus étiam pro nobis sub Póntio Piláto;
- Passus, et sepúltus est,
- Et resurréxit tértia die, secúndum Scriptúras,
- Et ascéndit in cælum, sedet ad déxteram Patris.
- Et íterum ventúrus est cum glória,
- Iudicáre vivos et mórtuos,
- Cuius regni non erit finis.
- Et in Spíritum Sanctum, Dóminum et vivificántem:
- Qui ex Patre Filióque procédit.
- Qui cum Patre et Fílio simul adorátur et conglorificátur:
- Qui locútus est per prophétas.
- Et unam, sanctam, cathólicam et apostólicam Ecclésiam.
- Confíteor unum baptísma in remissiónem peccatorum.
- Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum,
- Et vitam ventúri sæculi. Amen.
The Latin text adds "Deum de Deo" and "Filioque" to the Greek. On
the latter see
The
Filioque Controversy above. Inevitably also, the overtones of
the terms used, such as " " (pantokratora) and "omnipotentem"
differ ("pantokratora" meaning Ruler of all; "omnipotentem" meaning
omnipotent, Almighty). The implications of this for the
interpretation of " " and "qui ... procedit" 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 in 1996. Again, the terms
" " and "consubstantialem", translated as "of one being" or
"
consubstantial", have different
overtones, being based respectively on Greek (stable being,
immutable reality, substance, essence, true nature),
[3431] and Latin
substantia (that of
which a thing consists, the being, essence, contents, material,
substance).
[3432]
"Credo", 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), is here used three times with the
preposition "in", a literal translation of the Greek " " (in unum
Deum ..., in unum Dominum ..., in Spiritum Sanctum ...), and once
in the classical preposition-less construction (unam, sanctam,
catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam).
English translation of the Armenian version
- We believe in One God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and
earth, of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord, Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that
is of the substance of the Father. God of God, light of light, very
God of very God, begotten and not made; Himself of the nature of
the Father, by whom all things came into being in heaven and on
earth, visible and invisible. Who for us men and for our salvation
came down from heaven and was incarnate, was made man, was born
perfectly of the Holy Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. By whom he
took body, soul and mind, and everything that is in man, truly and
not in semblance. He suffered and was crucified, and was buried and
rose again on the third day and ascended into heaven with the same
body and sat at the right hand of the Father. He is to come with
the same body, and with the glory of the Father to judge the quick
and the dead, of Whose kingdom there is no end. We believe in the
Holy Spirit, the uncreated and the perfect, who spoke in the law
and the prophets and the Gospel, Who came down upon the Jordan,
preached to the Apostles and dwelt in the saints. We believe also
in only one, catholic, and apostolic, holy Church, in one baptism
of repentance for the remission of sins; in the resurrection of the
dead, and in the everlasting judgement of souls and bodies, in the
kingdom of heaven and in the life eternal."Armenian Church Divine
Liturgy." Web: Nov. 9. 2009.
/www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Armenian_Church_Divine_Liturgy>
Church Slavonic Version
| Church Slavonic text |
Transliteration into modern Russian
alphabet |
 |
Верую во единаго Бога Отца, Вседержителя, Творца небу и
земли, видимым же всем и невидимым. И во единаго Господа
Иисуса Христа, Сына Божия, Единороднаго, Иже от Отца рожденнаго
прежде всех век; Света от Света, Бога истинна от Бога истинна,
рожденна, несотворенна, единосущна Отцу, Имже вся быша.
Нас ради человек и нашего ради спасения сшедшаго с небес и
воплотившагося от Духа Свята и Марии Девы, и вочеловечшася.
Распятаго же за ны при Понтийстем Пилате, и страдавша, и
погребена. И воскресшаго в третий день по Писанием.
И возшедшаго на небеса, и седяща одесную Отца. И паки
грядущаго со славою судити живым и мертвым, Егоже Царствию не будет
конца. И в Духа Святаго, Господа животворящаго, Иже от
Отца исходящаго, Иже со Отцем и Сыном спокланяема и сславима,
глаголавшего пророки. Во едину Святую, Соборную и
Апостольскую Церковь. Исповедую едино крещение во
оставление грехов. Чаю воскресения мертвых, и жизни
будущаго века. Аминь. |
English translations
For English translations of the Nicene Creed, which of necessity
are not as ancient as the original Greek and the Latin and Armenian
versions, see
English
versions of the Nicene Creed in current use.
References
- Jeffrey, David L. A Dictionary of biblical tradition in
English literature. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1992. ISBN
0802836348
- Symbol. c.1434, "creed, summary, religious belief," from L.L.
symbolum "creed, token, mark," from Gk. symbolon "token, watchword"
(applied c.250 by Cyprian of Carthage to the Apostles' Creed, on
the notion of the "mark" that distinguishes Christians from
pagans), from syn- "together" + stem of ballein "to throw." The
sense evolution is from "throwing things together" to "contrasting"
to "comparing" to "token used in comparisons to determine if
something is genuine." Hence, "outward sign" of something. The
meaning "something which stands for something else" first recorded
1590 (in "Faerie Queene"). Symbolic is attested from 1680. (
symbol. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper,
Historian. Accessed: 24 March 2008).
- Collins. M, The Story of Christianity, Dorling
Kindersley, 1999, p60
- cf. Philip
Schaff's The Seven Ecumenical Councils - The Nicene
Creed and Creeds of Christendom: § 8. The Nicene Creed
- cf. Schaff's Seven Ecumenical Councils: Second Ecumenical: The Holy
Creed Which the 150 Holy Fathers Set Forth...
- Schaff's Creeds: Forma Recepta Ecclesiæ Orientalis. A.D.
381, Schaff's Creeds: Forma Recepta, Ecclesiæ
Occidentalis
- The Father as the Source of the Whole Trinity
- It was the original 325 version, not that of 381, that was
recited at the Council of Ephesus ( The Third Ecumenical Council. The Council of Ephesus, p.
202).
- Canon VII of the Council of Ephesus
- Excursus on the Words
- The following table presents in the same way the texts of the
two Councils, as given in the original Greek language on the Web
site Symbolum Nicaeno-Constantinopolitanum - Greek: {|
class="wikitable" |- Valign=top ! First Council of Nicea (325) !
First Council of Constantinople (381) |- | || |- | || |- | || |- |
|| |- | || |- | || |- | || |- | || |- | || |- |}
- For a different view, see e.g. Excursus on the Words πίστιν ἑτέραν
- The Roman Catholic Church does not permit the addition of these
words to the Creed recited in Greek and so with the word
ἐκπορευόμενον
- Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity:
The Greek and the Latin Traditions regading the Procession of the
Holy Spirit (scanned image of the English translation on
L'Osservatore Romano of 20 September 1995); also text with Greek letters transliterated and text omitting two sentences at the start of the paragraph
that it presents as beginning with "The Western tradition expresses
first ..."
- See etymology given in The
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth
Edition. 2000
- Ordo Missae, 18-19
- In Let Us Pray: A Guide to the Rubrics of Sunday
Mass Paul Turner says that "the Apostles' Creed may be said on
some occasions", citing the Ordo Missae, 19, which instead
says: "Instead of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed,
especially during Lent and Easter time, the baptismal
Symbol of the Roman Church, known as the A[ostles' Creed, may be
used" (emphasis added).
- Are Mormons Christians? Are Mormons Christian? Are Mormons Christians?
- Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America: Liturgical
Texts. Greek Orthodox
Archdiocese of America.
- Η ΘΕΙΑ ΛΕΙΤΟΥΡΓΙΑ. Church of
Greece.
- Missale Romanum
- Lewis & Short
See also
Bibliography
- A. E. Burn, The Council of Nicaea (1925)
- G. Forell, Understanding the Nicene Creed (1965)
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