The Three Ecumenical Creeds: The Nicene Creed
The Nicene Creed, or Symbolum Nicæno-Constantinopolitanum, An Introduction
The Nicene Creed, most often confessed at every Divine Service (or Mass) of the Church, dates from the first ecumenical Council held at Nicæa, (modern Turkey) 325 AD. The council was called to settle the Arian controversy – Arius being the great heretic who claimed Jesus the Son of God was merely a created being. The 318 bishops assembled produced the first two articles of the Creed as we confess it today, and abruptly closed it with the words “and in the Holy Spirit” followed by an anathema against the Arians. Feelings ran strong at the Council: one legend says that St. Nicolas of Myra (who was morphed into today’s “Santa Claus”) was so angered by the blasphemy against Christ uttered by Arius that he struck Arius, was arrested, and spent the night in jail.
The complete third article of the Nicene Creed as we know it was thanks to the second ecumenical Council, which was convened by Emperor Theodosius in Constantinople, 381 AD, set up to settle the controversy caused by the Pneumatomachians (so called for denying the deity of the Holy Spirit). This council was attended by 150 bishops, all from the East. The Council at Chalcedon, 451 AD, affirmed and accepted as orthodox the so-called “Creed of the 150 fathers” together with the old Nicene Creed, or the “Creed of the 318 fathers.”
The Latin or Western form of the Nicene Creed differs from the Greek by one little word: filioque. The Holy Spirit proceeds “from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified.” Next to the issue of the authority of the Roman Pontiff, this is the chief source of the greatest schism in Christendom between Eastern and Western Christianity. (1054 AD) Eastern or Greek churches, adhering to the original Constantinopolitan text, emphasize the role of the Father as the only root and cause of the Deity, teaching a single procession 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 of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son (as expressed by our Lord in John chapters 14-16; e.g. “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” Jn 15.26).
Western or Latin-based churches, seeking to maintain the co-equal divinity of the Father and the Son, taught since St. Augustine the double procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son. The western Church, starting with the Council of Toledo in Spain (589 AD), seeking to finally fortify the orthodox faith against a persistent Arianism, gradually inserted “who proceeds from the Father and the Son” (et filioque) into the Creed. By the ninth century, the filioque (pronounced “philly-oh-quay”) was being confessed out loud throughout the Latin Church.
The Lutheran confession of the faith descends from the Latin Church tradition. Thus, we confess Sunday after Sunday, Divine Service after Divine Service, the Latin version of the Nicene Creed (for us, translated into English of course). Dr. David Scaer, esteemed professor of Systematics at Concordia Theological Seminary, always had us students stand at the beginning of each first-year doctrine class and recite in Latin the Nicene Creed. He was doing a few things. Enlarging our vocabulary, enlightening our minds, and reminding us that we are connected to many confessors across two millennia of Church history – Lutheranism does not stand alone.