This year, Christians around the world are celebrating the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, held in 325 A.D. We are celebrating this council for several reasons. It was the first ecumenical council of bishops held by the church, and it gave us the Nicene Creed, the great statement of faith professed by Christians for the last 1,700 years.
As a church, we recite the Nicene Creed after the homily at Mass. This creed, also called the Profession of Faith, is the definitive statement about what we believe as Christians. But have you ever wondered about the story behind the creed? Why and how was it created? And what is the meaning behind those unusual words such as begotten, not made or consubstantial?
At the beginning of the fourth century, Christianity was a persecuted religion of a minority of the population in the Roman Empire. In 312 A.D., Emperor Constantine won his most important battle with, he believed, the help of “the Christian God.” And in 313 A.D., he published the Edict of Milan making Christianity legal. By 325 A.D., Constantine had united the whole Roman Empire under his leadership and the number of Christians began to rapidly increase.
However, Constantine soon found that the church was in the midst of an internal conflict, the Arian crisis, which threatened to tear it apart. Trying to avoid conflict within his realm, Constantine called all the bishops of the church to his palace in Nicaea —now Iznik, Turkey, — so that they could come to a resolution. This resolution took the form of the Nicene Creed.
What was the Arian controversy that led to this great statement of belief? Arius, a priest in Alexandria, Egypt, declared that Jesus was not the same as God, but was the “first among creatures.” This meant that Jesus was not co-eternal with the Father, but that “there was a time when he was not,” a time before he was created by the Father, when the Son of God did not exist.
At Nicaea, this controversy of how to describe the relationship between the Father and the Son came down to which Greek word to use, either “homoousios,” meaning of the same substance (or essence) as the Father, or “homoiousios,” meaning of similar substance (or essence) as the Father. A deacon at the time, St. Athanasius, was the champion of the orthodox faith against Arius and rightly convinced the bishops that the correct word is “homoousios,” which was previously translated as “one in being with” and now as “consubstantial.”
At Nicaea, the bishops created a statement of faith that defines the true Christian belief about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed strongly refutes Arius’ contentions with these words about Jesus: “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.” These phrases each mean that Jesus Christ has the same essence as the Father. The Son has the same “Godness” as the Father because He is begotten of the Father. When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself; to make is to create something different from oneself. What God begets is God; just as what man begets (a child) is man.
Jesus is, therefore, God, just as is the Father, and so He can show us the Father and bring about our salvation. Only the God-man can save humanity. Because he is God, Christ could offer the Father an infinite satisfaction for the infinite malice of sin. Because he is human, Jesus could offer a man’s satisfaction for sins of humanity.
As well as the creed, the Council of Nicaea gave the church precedents that still hold to this day. These precedents include the truth of the ways in which the Holy Spirit guides the church, the authority of the bishops, and the difference between dogma (e.g., the creed) and discipline (e.g., the date to celebrate Easter).
The Holy Spirit, the council clearly showed, is not limited to sacred Scripture in conveying the truths of the faith to the church, but also uses sacred tradition and human reason, God’s great gift to humanity.
The Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council, and it is worth remembering the major contributions to our faith made at this great council 1,700 years ago.
Hemler and O’Brien are officers of the Catholic Apologetics Institute of North America.
Find out more
A presentation on the Nicene Creed will be held at Precious Blood parish hall, 114 E Edmondson St., Culpeper Dec. 10 at 7 p.m.
