Misconceptions about the Nicene Creed

The Pope was simply the bishop of Rome.  He did have a lot of clout as the leader of the Christians in the imperial capital.  But so did the bishop of Constantinople, the leader of Christians in the eastern capital of the empire.  The Latin-speaking western churches and the Greek-speaking eastern churches were in fellowship with each other, but they had their differences, which would build until they eventually precipitated the Great Schism of 1054, which was caused largely by the Pope attempting to impose his authority over all Christians.  But that was in the future.

The Council of Nicaea is also called the First Ecumenical Council, meaning that bishops from the whole inhabited world (from the Greek word oikomenikos), both west and east, were invited to take part.

The Pope of Rome didn’t have the authority to call an ecumenical council.  The Emperor did.  Constantine, the first Christian emperor, summoned the Council of Nicaea.  This would be more in line with the early Luther who called on the secular rulers to reform the church or with the state churches that grew out of the Reformation whose titular head was the nation’s monarch.  Not that giving secular rulers an ecclesiastical authority was necessarily a good idea, but it was far from medieval Catholicism, in which the Popes claimed authority over temporal rulers.

This brings up another misconception.  I have heard it said that Constantine called the council so that he could impose the dogma that he wanted, changing the simple and kindly teachings of Jesus into an authoritarian imperial religion that he could control and that could cement his power.

But by all accounts, Constantine, who probably called the Council so that he could get a more settled picture of his new religion, was sympathetic to Arianism.  Later in life he demanded that the Arians be restored to the church and was baptized on his deathbed by an Arian priest.  And his son and successor, Constantius II  favored the Arian position that Christ was not fully divine.  He called a council of his own in 359 A.D., to be held in Constantinople, a hotbed of Arianism, but hardly any of the bishops showed up. There was talk of rescinding the Nicene Creed.

Far from being suppressed by the Council of Nicaea and its Creed, the Arians were ascendant politically.  Ten years after the council, Arians who had gained power in the church called a “synod,” a mini-council, and deposed Athanasius, the great theological champion of the deity of Christ, from being the bishop of Alexandria.  Constantine banished him and so did his Constantius. Councils kept finding him innocent, but the succeeding emperors Julian the Apostate (a non-Christian who sought to reimpose paganism) and Valens (another Arian) subjected Athanasius to five exiles.

The Arians were the ones who wielded political power.  (As would the Vandals and Goths who sacked Rome and were also Arians).  The church that confessed the Nicene Creed pushed back against that power.  (See How Arianism Almost Won.)

Finally, Rome had a devoutly Christian emperor in Theodosius I (reigning 379-395 A.D.).  He wanted to restore Nicene theology, so he called the second ecumenical council, the Council of Constantinople, in 381 A.D., which we discussed yesterday.  This did set the church on a more orthodox course, with the help of the finished Nicene Creed.

But it wasn’t just councils that put the creed into its final shape.  The shift from “we believe” to “I believe” was not a top/down development.  It happened from grassroots Christians, how the creed was actually used by ordinary Christians who wanted to use the creed to confess their personal faith.

This was apparently the case with the controversial filioque addition, which arose among  western Christians and eventually found its way into the liturgy.

The filioque does not have the authority of an ecumenical council, as the Orthodox rightly complain, but it does have the authority of Scripture.  The Holy Spirit does proceed from the Father: “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever” (John 14:22).   The Father will send the Spirit because, crucially, the Son asks Him to.  And the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son:  “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me” (John 15:26).  Here the Son will send the Spirit, who “proceeds” from the Father.

All of this is to say, the Holy Spirit “proceeds
from
the
Father
and
 the
Son.”  (Other Biblical texts that apply to the filioque controversy are John 16:7, John 20:22, Romans 8:9, Galatians 4:6, Philippians 1:19, and Revelation 22:1.)

We should believe the Nicene Creed not because it has authority in itself or because it has the authority of church councils, much less popes or emperors.  Rather, we should believe it because it expresses the truth as revealed in Scripture.

Confessional Lutherans hold to a “quia” subscription to the Book of Concord, which includes the Nicene Creed.  “Quia” is the Latin word for “because.”  Lutherans believe in those confessions of faith because they conform to the Word of God.

The often messy history of the church plays its role under the Father’s providential care, the intercession of the Son, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth,” promises Jesus (John 16:13), who in another example of the interrelationships of the Trinity asks His Father to “Sanctify them”—those whom the Father has given Him—“in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).

As Luther said at the Diet of Worms, “I believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves—I consider myself convicted by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God.”

Illustration:  St. Athanasius Icon via Picryl, Public Domain