The Ecumenical Creeds
The Nicene Creed
Symbolum Nicæno-Constantinopolitanum · A.D. 325 / 381
The Nicene Creed, or Symbolum Nicæno-Constantinopolitanum, is the Eastern form of the primitive Creed, but with the distinct impress of the Nicene age, and more definite and explicit than the Apostles’ Creed in the statement of the divinity of Christ and the Holy Ghost. The terms ‘coessential’ or ‘coequal’…‘begotten, not made’…are so many trophies of orthodoxy in its mighty struggle with the Arian heresy, which agitated the Church for more than half a century. The Nicene Creed is the first which obtained universal authority. It rests on older forms used in different churches of the East, and has undergone again some changes.
— Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 1
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.
Support the Work
Help Keep Reformed Dogmatika Freely Available
Reformed Dogmatika is offered freely as a theological library. If this resource has served you, consider helping us continue publishing thoughtful, confessionally Reformed resources.
You must be logged in to post a comment.