Creeds & Confessions
Nicene Creed
Ecumenical Christian
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Origin from 325
The creed issued by the Council of Nicaea in 325, which confessed the Son as homoousios, of one being with the Father, and closed with anathemas against those who said there was a time when he was not. It was drawn up to answer Arius, and the word homoousios is not scriptural, which is precisely what made it decisive and what made it contested for the next fifty years. This original text is shorter than the creed recited in churches today, says little about the Holy Spirit, and was superseded in liturgical use by the longer creed of 381, so the two are distinct documents that share a name.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period Place of OriginNicaea in Bithynia, the emperor's summer residence, now Iznik in Turkey. 1 Form of the ConfessionA short conciliar creed closing with four anathemas, which no later liturgical creed carries. It is a ruling on a dispute, drafted to exclude a position rather than to be sung. 2 The Event
Convened or Ordered ByThe emperor Constantine, who summoned the bishops, paid for their travel on the imperial post and presided at the opening session. 3 Controversy
Point in DisputeWhether the Son is of the same being as the Father or a creature, however exalted. The council answered the first way with the word homoousios and anathematised those who said there was a time when he was not. 2 Status
Standing as a StandardSuperseded in liturgical use by the longer creed of 381 and kept as a historical document. The two texts are routinely conflated under one name, including in scholarly writing. 2 Scholarship
Where It Is RecordedSourced to the subject's own accountThe creed and twenty canons survive; the acts of the council do not. Eusebius of Caesarea's letter to his own church, explaining why he signed, is the fullest first-hand account. 4 Learn More
The Word That Was Not in Scripture
The Council of Nicaea in 325 was called to end an argument that was already tearing the Eastern churches apart. Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, taught that the Son was the first and highest of all creatures, brought into being by the Father, so that there was a time when he was not. His opponents held that this made the object of Christian worship a creature. Both sides could quote scripture, and both did, at length, without moving each other.
The council broke the deadlock by choosing a word that is not in scripture at all: homoousios, of one being with the Father. That decision is the hinge of Christian doctrinal history. It conceded that the biblical vocabulary alone could not settle the question, because each side was reading the same texts, and it accepted that the church might fix the meaning of scripture with a term from outside it. Everything that follows in the conciliar tradition rests on that move having been made.
It cost the council fifty years of unrest. Homoousios was suspect to many bishops who were not Arians, because it had been used before in senses the church had rejected, and because it was new. The generation after Nicaea spent itself arguing over one word, and the creed of 381 that finally settled the matter kept it. The creed also closed with four anathemas, naming and excluding the Arian formulas, which no later liturgical creed does.
Two Creeds, One Name
What is recited in churches on Sunday is not the creed of 325. It is the longer creed associated with the Council of Constantinople in 381, and the two are different documents. The creed of Nicaea is shorter, says almost nothing about the Holy Spirit beyond naming him, and ends with anathemas against Arian formulas. The creed of 381 expands the article on the Spirit, adds clauses on the church, baptism and the age to come, and drops the anathemas.
The conflation is old and it is not confined to popular usage. Councils, liturgies and scholarly works have all called the later text the Nicene Creed, because the whole point of the later text was to be received as what Nicaea meant. Chalcedon in 451 read both into its record and treated them as one faith in two statements, which is theologically coherent and historically confusing.
The atlas holds them as two entries for the ordinary reason that they are two texts, with different wording, different lengths and different histories. Where a source says Nicene Creed it usually means the creed of 381, and readers tracing a claim about wording back to 325 will often find it is not there. The distinction matters most for the Holy Spirit, whose full treatment belongs to the later council, and for the anathemas, which belong only to the earlier one.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Derived from This
Why this is disputed. It carries the substance of the creed adopted at Nicaea in 325 in an expanded form, adding the fuller statements on the Holy Spirit the earlier creed lacked. J.N.D. Kelly's Early Christian Creeds argues the 381 text was likely adapted from an existing local baptismal creed rather than composed fresh at Constantinople, against the traditional account that treats the council itself as the creed's point of composition, and the sparse fourth century record has not settled which account is right.
Product Of
Issued by the council of 325 together with its anathemas and canons.
Related To
The Nicene Creed was framed against it, confessing the Son as of one substance with the Father.
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