The Apostles' and Nicene Creeds
The Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds
The Presbyterian Book of Confessions opens with two of the three Ancient Ecumenical Creeds. The first adopted by the church catholic, the Nicene Creed, is the broadest excepted creed in all of Christianity. This immensely foundational document, formulated over the course of four ecumenical councils: Nicene in 325 CE, Constantinople in 381, Ephesus in 431, and Chalcedon in 451, speaks to the persons of the Trinity in its three major sections, using the language of the “one God, the Father, the Almighty,” one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,” and “the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.” [1] Each section provides a formulaic description of the person of the Trinity it describes.
The Apostles’ Creed is a formulation of early baptismal statements used in the first century and has become perhaps the most well known of all creedal statements used by the Western church. Despite its use in the early church, and use by the church of Rome, the Apostles’ Creed was not formally adopted as a rule of faith until Charlemagne sanctioned the creed for use in education and worship in his newly created pan-European empire in 813 CE. [2] Using a similar structure as the Nicene Creed, the Apostles’ describes the Trinity without providing theological explanation.
These early creeds provide a unique link to the saints who have gone before us. Their short passages provide not only a glimpse at the first 800 or so years of Christian history and theological evolution, but also allow for a certain unity and even solidarity with fellow Christians around the world and throughout history by providing basic statements beginning to describe who we collectively understand God to be. As reformed Christians, these two creeds are also foundational, as Joseph Small describes:
“The affirmations of the Nicene Creed shape the affirmations of the creeds, confessions, and catechisms that follow. There is a sense in which later confessions can be seen as contextualized implementations of the Nicene (and Apostles’) Creed.” [3]
The first several centuries after Christ’s death brought many questions over who Christ was and how the church should understand the relationship between Christ and the Creator, and the relationship of the Spirit to both [4]. While these ancient statements attempt to codify an orthodox belief (which the Nicene Creed specifically does), they also provide a liturgical resource in which a Christian throughout history can state the very basis of their faith - who God is.
Questions of the nature of Christ were hotly debated in the councils leading to the finalization of The Nicene Creed, and eventually the term homoousion (of one substance) was used to describe the relationship between “Father” and “Son.” [5] As Jack Rogers writes: “The Nicene Creed answers the first question: Is Jesus both divine and human? The answer is yes! The eternal Word of God is incarnate in Jesus Christ.” [6]
What can become problematic for the church now, specifically from a more progressive, Western, protestant context are the implications that naturally arise from a faith tradition within a culture that existed before our post-enlightenment, post-modern, empirical and materialistic contexts. Both creeds use paternal language to describe the Creator and Christ, and both imply supernatural historical events that many would hotly debate today. Yet, regardless of the critiques that can be rightly leveled against these two ancient documents, they remain important standards which, in the case of the non-Western version of The Nicene Creed, continue to unite the majority of Christians around the world with one liturgical understanding of our God, our church catholic, our baptism and communion, and our eschatological hope.
[1] Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), “The Nicene Creed,” in The Book of Confessions (Louisville: Office of the General Assembly, 2002), 3.
[2] Jack Rogers, Presbyterian Creeds (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991), 64-5.
[3] Joseph D. Small, “The Church’s Conversation with the Confessions,” in Conversations with the Confessions: Dialogue in the Reformed Tradition (Louisville: Geneva Press, 2005), 11.
[4] The assumption in The Apostles’ Creed of the Spirit proceeding from the first two Persons and stated explicitly in the western version of The Nicene Creed with the inclusion of filioque (and the son) was a factor in the schism between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. See:
Edward A. Dowey, Jr, A Commentary on the Confession of 1867 and an Introduction to “The Book of Confessions,” (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1968) 166, 172.
[5] Jack Rogers provides an excellent summary of the context and debates in formulating the Nicene Creed:
Rogers, Presbyterian Creeds, 50.
[6] Rogers, Presbyterian Creeds, 50.