A Creed Agreed: An Overview of the Past and Present of the Nicene Creed - Essay Example

A Creed Agreed: An Overview of the Past and Present of the Nicene Creed In the contemporary times, Christianity has generally inculcated that a vast majority of individuals are "unsaved". As Catholics, we know that unbelievers are isolated from God and are lost in their sins. Although everyone has eternal life after death, only those who are "saved" eventually go to Heaven, where they receive rewards beyond our imagination. As we are raised to be Roman Catholics, we are obliged to memorize different prayers as indications of our faith. The universality of the Christian faith, no matter who we are or how we worship, these prayers are considered to be a collective canon of depicting our spirituality and faith. These signify our universal certainty of a benevolent and omnipotent divinity greater than ourselves. The literal definition of being Catholic also connotes "including or concerning all humankind" and "free from provincial prejudice or attachments." Clearly, the essence of one prayer, the Nicene Creed, summarizes what we Catholics should believe. As an authorized summary of the Christian doctrine, a creed is a brief prayer that sometimes recited in church services as an affirmation of faith. Presumably taken as the basis of teaching and evangelization, this formulation of the Christian faith are to be found in the New Testament, although in a rudimentary form as in 1 Cor. 12:3. St. Paul wrote of believers who submitted without reservation to the creed that they were taught (Kelly, p 252). In its etymology, "creed" derives from the Latin credo which means "I believe." The form is active, denoting not just a body of beliefs but confession of faith. This faith is trust: not "I believe that" (though this is included) but "I believe in." It is also individual; creeds may take the plural form of "we believe," but the term itself comes from the first person singular of the Latin: "I believe" (Kelly, p 26). Despite its name, the Nicene Creed must be distinguished from the creed of Nicaea (325). Yet it embodies in altered form, and without the anathemas, the Christological teaching which Nicaea adopted in answer to Arianism. It probably rests on creeds from Jerusalem and Antioch. Whether it was subscribed at Constantinople I in 381 has been much debated, but Chalcedon recognized it (451) and Constantinople II (553) accepted it as a revision of Nicaea. The West on its own added the filioque clause ("and from the Son") to the statement on the Holy Spirit, but the East never conceded its orthodoxy or the validity of its mode of insertion. In both East and West this creed became the primary Eucharistic confession (Burn, p 124). The Nicene Creed is the most widely accepted and used brief statements of the Christian Faith. In liturgical churches, it is said every Sunday as part of the Liturgy. It is Common Ground to East Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Calvinists, and many other Christian groups. Many groups that do not have a tradition of using it in their services nevertheless are committed to the doctrines it teaches (Kelly, p 227). The two councils of Nicaea were ecumenical councils of the Christian church held in 325 and 787, respectively. The First Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council held by the church, is best known for its formulation of the Nicene Creed, the earliest dogmatic statement of Christian orthodoxy. The council was convened in 325 by the Roman emperor Constantine I in an attempt to settle the controversy raised by Arianism over the nature of the Trinity (Young, p 63). This council opened on 19 June in the presence of the emperor, but it is uncertain who presided over the sessions. In the extant lists of bishops present, Ossius of Cordova, and the presbyters Vitus and Vincentius are listed before the other names, but it is more likely that Eustathius of Antioch or Alexander of Alexandria presided. (Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. Norman P. Tanner S.J.) Nearly all those who attended came from the eastern Mediterranean region. At that time, there were passionate debates about the nature of Christ, and all types of heresies abounded. To define the true nature of Christ was the task of a series of Councils of the Church, and of these, the Council of Nicea (325) formulated the creed that is widely held today. Constantine summoned the first General or Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church at Nicaea in 323. If the Roman Empire was to be a Christian Empire, then Constantine wished to see it firmly based upon the one Orthodox faith (Young, p 72). It was the duty of the Nicene Council to elaborate the content of that faith. Nothing could have symbolized more clearly the new relation between Church and State than the outward circumstances of the gathering at Nicaea. The Emperor himself presided, 'like some heavenly messenger of God', as one of those present, Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, expressed it. At the conclusion of the council, the bishops dined with the Emperor. 'The circumstances of the banquet, wrote Eusebius (who was inclined to be impressed by such things), 'were splendid beyond description. Detachments of the bodyguard and other troops surrounded the entrance of the palace with drawn swords, and through the midst of these the men of God proceeded without fear into the innermost of the imperial apartments (Young, 82). Formalized in the Nicene Creed, it was the decision of the council that God the Father and God the Son were consubstantial and coeternal and that the Arian belief in a Christ created by and thus inferior to the Father was heretical. Arius himself was excommunicated and banished. The council was also important for its disciplinary decisions concerning the status and jurisdiction of the clergy in the early church and for establishing the date on which Easter is celebrated. Later, the Second Council of Nicaea, the seventh ecumenical council of the Christian church, was convoked by the Byzantine empress Irene in 787 to rule on the use of saints' images and icons in religious devotion (Burn, 115). At that time a strong movement known as Iconoclasm, which opposed the pictorial representation of saints or of the Trinity, existed in the Greek Church. At the prompting of Irene, the council declared that whereas the veneration of images was legitimate and the intercession of saints efficacious, their veneration must be carefully distinguished from the worship due God alone. In the Information Age, the implications of the Creed for Christians are staggering. In reciting it we affirm a life of community in a world marked by extreme individualism. In an age that avoids commitment, they pledge themselves to a set of convictions and thereby to each other. ... In a society where accepted wisdom changes by the minute, they claim that some truths are so critical that they must be repeated over and over again. In a throwaway, consumerist world, they accept, preserve, and continue tradition. Reciting the creed at worship is thus a countercultural act (Johnson, p 24). Johnson sees the Nicene Creed as a definition of what it means to be a Christian. It is a rule of faith, setting boundaries without erecting unnecessary barriers. A healthy appropriation of the Creed, Johnson believes, will help avoid the extremes of both modernism and sectarian fundamentalism. Thus, creeds should not be seen as superfluous and confining prayers, or as relics of a bygone age when religion was frequently shoved down unwilling throats. The Nicene Creed demonstrates the intellectual depth of our faith and its history offers a potential life-giving, freedom-enhancing mechanism to our contemporary Church. Works Cited Burn, A.E. The Council of Nicaea. London, 1925, pp. 28-266 Johnson L.T. The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters. New York: Doubleday, 2003, 324 pp. Kelly, J. N. D. Early Christian Creeds, 3rd ed. London: Longmans,. pp.205-262 Tanner, Norman. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. Available online at http://www.piar.hu/councils/ecum01.htm Young F. M. From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and Its Background. London: SCM Press, 1983. pp. 65-83 Read More