Nicene Creed

The Creed was written to settle whether Jesus Christ is fully God or a created being. It answers that the Son is “true God from true God, begotten, not made,” and of one substance (homoousios) with the Father. Catholic, Orthodox, and most Protestant churches accept it.

Two errors preceded it. Sabellianism, taught by Sabellius in Rome in the early third century and rejected there around AD 220, held that God is one person appearing successively as Father, Son, and Spirit. Arianism, taught by Arius of Alexandria from around AD 318, held that the Son was the first and greatest created being, summarized in the slogan “There was when he was not.”

Emperor Constantine, who had legalized Christianity in 313, called the council at Nicaea (in modern Turkey) in 325. About 250 to 300 bishops attended; tradition later set the number at 318. Athanasius, then a deacon to Alexander of Alexandria, attended and spent the next fifty years defending its decision. All but two bishops signed the Creed, and Arius and those two were exiled.

The Creed of 325 closed with “And in the Holy Spirit,” followed by a condemnation of those who said the Son came into being out of nothing or was of another substance than the Father.

The controversy continued after 325, and Athanasius was exiled five times. In 381 the Council of Constantinople reaffirmed Nicaea and expanded the text, adding Christ’s birth of the Virgin Mary, His crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, the phrase “his kingdom will have no end” (against Marcellus of Ancyra), and a full article on the Holy Spirit, the church, baptism, and the resurrection.

The 381 text is the form recited in churches today. Western churches later added “and the Son” (the filioque) to the line on the Spirit’s procession, which became a major point of division between Eastern and Western Christianity.