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Appendix: The Nicene Creed
Minor variations in the contemporary English text of the Nicene Creed appear throughout the world, as each church attempts to render the original in accessible contemporary language suitable for congregational recitation, whilst catching as many of the subtleties and nuances of the original as possible. Despite these variations, the essential theology of homoousion and enanthropesanta is not in dispute amongst mainstream Trinitarian churches.
The Roman Catholic church has an authoritative Latin translation which inevitably loses nuances in translation from the original Greek – dominus lacks the subtlety and deliberate ambiguity of kurios, and it is possible to argue over the shades of difference between homoousion and consubstantialem – but the real bone of contention between east and west is the Roman (western) addition of the Latin world filioque (‘and the son’) to describe the holy spirit as ‘proceeding from’ both the father and the son, reigniting the subtle argument (suppressed by the adoption of homoousion) about the equality or otherwise of the Father and the Son: eastern instincts have the Father more recognisably primary, western instincts have Father, Son and Holy Spirit all equal within the Godhead. The Nicene Creed succeeds in defining the nature of Christ, but does not develop the full richness of the theology of the Trinity as now understood in the west.
A comparison between the original Nicene creed of AD325 and the revised text of AD381 is instructive in this regard. The original text includes a rejection of specific alternative ideas about the nature of the Christ, but has nothing at all about the Holy Spirit beyond an unembellished statement of believing in it. The text is compatible with Trinitarianism as now understood, but by no means demands it: it is a ‘God and Jesus’ creed, with the Holy Spirit wholly undefined.
In the later text of AD381, Holy Spirit is defined as kurios, which is a major affirmation in itself, and further acclaimed as the giver of life (zoopoion) who is to be co-worshipped (sumproskynoumenon) and co-glorified (sundoxazomenon) with the Father and the Son.
The earlier text was defined by the Council of Nicaea in AD325, hence the title Nicene Creed. The revised version was defined by the Council of Constantinople in AD381, so the full title of the creed presently in universal use is the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed, although it is everywhere called simply the Nicene Creed.
The creed of AD381 appears below in the original Greek, in literal translation, and in the official Latin text of the Roman Catholic church. The literal translation and the line numbering are the author’s own. Finally there is a word-by-word comparison (in English only) with the text of AD325.
Original Greek
01 Pisteuomen eis hena Theon,
02 patera, pantokratora,
03
poieten ouranou kai ges,
04 horaton te panton kai aoraton.
05 Kai eis hena Kyrion Iesoun Christon,
06 ton Hyion tou Theou,
ton monogene,
07 ton ek tou Patros gennethenta
08 pro panton
ton aionon,
09 phos ek photos,
10 Theon alethinon ek Theou
alethinou,
11 gennethenta ou poiethenta,
12 homoousion to
Patri,
13 di ou ta panta egeneto.
14 Ton di hemas tous anthropous
15 kai dia ten hemeteran
soterian
16 katelthonta ek ton ouranon
17 kai sarkothenta
18
ek Pneumatos Hagion kai Marias tes Parthenou
19 kai
enanthropesanta.
20 Staurothenta te hyper hemen epi Pontiou Pilatou,
21 kai
pathonta kai taphenta,
22 kai anastanta te trite hemera kata tas
graphas,
23 kai anelthonta eis tous ouranous,
24 kai
kathezomenon ek dexion tou Patros,
25 kai palin erchomenon meta
doxes
26 krinai zontas kai nekrous,
27 ou tes basileias ouk
estai telos.
28 Kai eis to Pneuma to Hagion, to kurion, to zoopoion,
29 to ek
tou Patros ekporeuomenon,
30 to sun Patri kai Hyio
31
sumproskynoumenon kai sundoxazomenon,
32 to lalesan dia ton
propheton.
33 Eis mian, hagian, katholiken kai apostoliken ekklesian.
34
Homologo hen baptisma eis aphesin hamartion.
35 Prosdoko anastasin
nekron,
36 kai zoen tou mellontos aionos.
A literal translation
01 We believe in one God,
02 the Father, the sum of all
powers,
03 maker of the air-and-sky and the earth,
04
everything visible and invisible.
05 And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
06 the Son of God, the
only-begotten,
07 begotten of the Father
08 before all time,
09
[Latin adds: God from God,] light from light,
10 true God
from true God,
11 begotten not made,
12 of one substance with
the Father;
13 through him [ie Jesus] all things came into being.
14 For us human beings
15 and for our salvation
16 he came down
from the air-and-sky
17 and became flesh
18 from the Holy Sprit
and Mary the Virgin
19 and became human.
20 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate,
21 and suffered
death and was buried,
22 and rose again the third day as
written,
23 and ascended to the air-and-sky,
24 and took his
seat on the right hand side of the Father,
25 and is coming again
with glory
26 to judge the living and the dead;
27 his Kingdom
will have no end.
28 And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
29
proceeding from the Father [Latin adds: and the son],
30
who with the Father and the Son
31 is co-worshipped and
co-glorified,
32 who spoke through the prophets.
33 And one, holy, universal and apostolic church.
34 I declare one
baptism for the remission of sins.
35 I look towards the
resurrection of the dead,
36 and the life of the future time.
Latin
The official Roman Catholic Latin text. Sections in square brackets do not appear in the Greek text of AD381. The most likely solution to the argument about whether the opening should be ‘We believe’ or ‘I believe’ is that both were used from the earliest times in the original Greek, the plural in a corporate declaration (for example from the council defining the creed) and the singular in a personal declaration (for example at a baptism). The Latin text has credo, which is singular.
01 Credo in unum Deum,
02 Patrem omnipoténtem,
03 factórem
cæli et terræ,
04 visibílium ómnium et invisibílium.
05 Et in unum Dóminum Iesum Christum,
06 Fílium Dei unigénitum.
07 Et ex Patre natum
08 ante ómnia sæcula.
09 [Deum de
Deo], lumen de lúmine,
10 Deum verum de Deo vero.
11
Génitum, non factum,
12 consubstantiálem Patri:
13 per quem
ómnia facta sunt.
14 Qui propter nos hómines
15 et propter nostram salútem
16
descéndit de cælis
17 et incarnátus est
18 de Spíritu
Sancto ex María Vírgine:
19 Et homo factus est.
20 Crucifíxus étiam pro nobis: sub Póntio Piláto,
21 passus,
et sepúltus est.
22 Et resurréxit tértia die, secúndum
Scriptúras.
23 Et ascéndit in cælum:
24 sedet ad déxteram
Patris.
25 Et íterum ventúrus est cum glória
26 judicáre
vivos et mórtuos:
27 cujus regni non erit finis.
28 Et in Spíritum Sanctum, Dóminum et vivificántem:
29 qui ex
Patre [Filióque] procédit.
30 Qui cum Patre et Fílio
31
simul adorátur et conglorifícatur:
32 qui locútus est per
Prophétas.
33 Et unam, sanctam, cathólicam et apostólicam Ecclésiam.
34 Confíteor unum baptísma in remissiónem peccatorum.
35 Et
expecto resurrectionem mortuorum.
36 Et vitam ventúri sæculi.
AD325 and AD381 compared
The text below compares the creeds of AD325 and AD381. Sections removed at the revision are placed in [square brackets]. Sections added at the revision are italicised. To read the full text of AD325, exclude the italicised sections and include the sections in square brackets.
Comparing the two creeds, the later text has some minor changes in word order, extensions to the biography of Christ, major additions defining the role of the Holy Spirit, and a new final paragraph that takes the creed beyond the nature of the Trinity to the Christian life.
The line numbering is as above for convenience.
01 We believe in one God,
02 the Father, the sum of all
powers,
03 maker of the air-and-sky and the earth,
04
everything visible and invisible
05 And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
06 the Son of God, the
only-begotten,
07 begotten of the Father, [that is, from the being
(ousia) of the Father]
08 before all time,
09
[God from God,] light from light,
10 true God from true God,
11
begotten not made,
12 of one substance with the Father;
13
through him all things came into being, [things of the air-and-sky
and things of the earth].
14 For us human beings
15 and for our salvation
16 he came down
from the air-and-sky
17 and became flesh
18 from the
Holy Sprit and Mary the Virgin
19 and became human.
20 He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate,
21 and
suffered death and was buried,
22 and rose again the third
day as written,
23 and ascended to the air-and-sky,
24
and took his seat on the right hand side of the Father,
25
and is coming again with glory
26 to judge the living and
the dead;
27 his Kingdom will have no end.
28 And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
29
proceeding from the Father,
30 who with the Father and
the Son
31 is co-worshipped and co-glorified,
32
who spoke through the prophets.
33 And one, holy, universal and apostolic church.
34 I
declare one baptism for the remission of sins.
35 I look
towards the resurrection of the dead,
36 and the life of
the future time.
37 [But for those who say ‘There was when he was not’, and ‘Before being born he was not’, and ‘He came into existence out of nothing’, or who pretend the Son of God is a different substance (hypostasis) or being (ousia), or is subject to alteration or change, these the universal and apostolic church rejects.