The Ecumenical Creeds
The Nicene Creed
Symbolum Nicæno-Constantinopolitanum · A.D. 325 / 381
The Nicene Creed is the church’s great confession of the Trinity, forged in the fourth century against Arianism, which denied that the Son is fully God. The Council of Nicaea (325) confessed the Son to be of one substance with the Father; the Council of Constantinople (381) filled out the article on the Holy Spirit. Together they gave us the creed the whole church still confesses.
The text below is the received Western form used in Reformed and other Protestant churches. It includes the words “and the Son” (the filioque) in the article on the Spirit’s procession, the reading the West has confessed since the early Middle Ages. We’ve kept that received wording here.
Date: Nicaea, A.D. 325; expanded at Constantinople, A.D. 381
Against: Arianism, the denial of the Son’s full deity
Form: Received Western text, including the filioque (“and the Son”)
Text: From Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. II (the Anglican and Protestant received text)
I 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 only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; 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; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he 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; and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified; who spake by the Prophets. And I believe one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
More Ecumenical Creeds
The Apostles’ Creed 2nd to 8th c.
The Athanasian Creed 5th to 6th c.
Reformed Confessions The full hub
Text from Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. II (1877), now in the public domain. Formatted for Reformed Dogmatika. Spelling Americanized; wording unaltered.
