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Scottish Journal of Theologyhttp://journals.cambridge.org/SJT
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The Nicene Creed: A Turning Point
Canon J. N. D. Kelly
Scottish Journal of Theology / Volume 36 / Issue 01 / February 1983, pp 29 - 39
DOI: 10.1017/S0036930600016240, Published online: 02 February 2009
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0036930600016240
How to cite this article:Canon J. N. D. Kelly (1983). The Nicene Creed: A Turning Point.Scottish Journal of Theology, 36, pp 29-39 doi:10.1017/S0036930600016240
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Scot. Journ. of Theol. Vol.
36, pp.
29-39.
THE NICENE CREED:
ATURNING POINT
1
by
T H E
R E V .
CANON J . N . D. K E L L Y
I
W
HILE
the
other lectures
at
this Conference have explored
the
deep er theological issues raised by the N icene Creed , the aims of
this lecture are primarily historical.
I
should like to tell you something
of the origins of the creed, and how it came to be adop ted — or at least
used
— at the
First Cou ncil
of
Constantinople
in
October 381.
Theology will of course mak e its ap pearan ce , for it was in the con text of
the acrimonious theological debates
of
the fourth century tha t
the
creed emerged; and there is
a
profound sense in which, as
I
shall very
briefly suggest, its adoption marked
a
significant turn ing -po int. But
my treatment
of
the theological backgro und , and
of
the theological
revolution of which it was the token, will remain historical.
There is one misund erstand ing, not I imagine shared by professional
scholars
or
experts
in
Ch ristian institutions who m ay be present but
certainly widespread among educated people, which I must clear out
of the way at the outset. The creed we are considering is not only
widely known in a general w ay, being used by all the major bran ches of
the Christian Church, but is probably as familiar to people withou t
theological training as to trained scholars through its liturgical use at
the eucha rist. And the title we all give it, and by which the orig inato rs
of this Conference have chosen to describe it, is the Nicene Creed. In
fact, however, while it can fairly be described as a Nicene creed, as a
creed em bod ying the Nicene theology, it is not in strictness of lang uage
the Nicene Creed . T he council of Nicaea, the first of the so-called
ecumenical councils, was held at Nicaea in Bithynia in June 325,
almost sixty years before the council of Co nsta ntinop le. Its purpose, in
the mind of the emperor Con stan tine and his advisers, was to establish
a common Christian faith against the divisive allegations of Arius and
his talented coterie of friends tha t the W ord or Son was not God in the
1
A lecture delivered at the Colloquium in Com mem oration of the Nicene Creed, at
New College, University of Edinburgh, 2nd May 1981. Much ofihis lecture reproduces,
in a form ad apte d to a non-specialist au dienc e, the argu me nt developed in cha p, x of my
Early Christian Creeds (3rd edition).
29
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30 SCO TTI SH JO UR NA L
OF
THEOLOGY
full sense
but a
kind of demigod,
far
superior
to
ordinary human beings
but inferior
to the
ineffable
God.
This
aim the
council achieved
by
publishing
a
creed which
all the
bishops present were required,
on
pain
of excommunication,
to
sign. This
is of
course
the
authentic Nicene
Creed, and for convenience scholars distinguish it from other creeds
(including
the one we are
considering)
by the
initial letter
N.
While
it
bears (especially
in
translation,
in
which subtle details
are
lost)
a
superficial resemblance
to our
creed,
it is a
much shorter statement,
as
is illustrated most strikingly
by its
closing section. While
the
closing
section
of our
creed
has a
full-dress exposition concerning
the
Holy
Spirit
and
then goes
on to
affirm belief
in the one
baptism,
the
resurrection
of
the dead,
etc., the
third
or
closing article of the original
Nicene creed consists
of a
single terse clause,
and in the
Holy Spirit .
The reason
for its
reticence
is
that
the
bishops attending
the
council
were
not
concerned
to
elaborate
a
full doctrine
of the
Spirit
or to go
into the other items later to be dwelt on by our creed. They were
interested
in one
thing only,
the
refutation of Arius
and
his friends;
and
this they accomplished
— or,
rather,
a
small, determined group
of
them accomplished
— by
thrusting awkwardly into
a
sample creed
they
had in
front
of
them affirmations which they knew would
be
totally unacceptable
to the
heretics , notably
the
affirmations that
the
Son was derived from the essence
or
being of the Father,
and
was one
in
being (homoousion) with
him.
They rammed this message home
by
appending
a
string
of
anathemas which were
an
integral part
of the
creed: whereas
our
creed
has no
anathemas
and
ends triumphantly
with
the
proclamation
of
life
in the
world
to
come.
II
Let us direct our attention now specifically to our creed, which the
liturgies name the Nicene creed but for which scholars prefer, for
reasons which will become clear, the cumbrous but revealing
designation of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed. For convenience
we shall label it C. The question which concerns us is its history, and
more particularly its connexion with the council held at
Constantinople in October
381.
This council, may I remind you, was
convened by the emperor Theodosius I to restore unity in the Eastern
Church — and to restore it on the basis of the Nicene faith that the Son
was one in being with the Father. Although neither Western bishops
nor representatives of the pope (Damasus I) were present, its
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TH E NICE NE CREED 31
achievement was sufficiently significant for it to come eventually to be
regarded as the second ecumenical council.
The anc ient answer to our question , an answer going back (as I shall
explain in a mom ent) to the middle of the fifth cen tury at any rate , was
that our creed C was the definition of faith formulated and published
by the council of Constantinople. Until recently most modern scholars
have felt unable to accept this answer, although there have been three
or four eminent ones this century who have thrust their necks out and
done so. Nevertheless the traditional description of C, from the fifth
cen tury until the birth of scientific investigation of credal origins, was
'the faith pistis) of the 150 fathers' (one hundred and fifty being the
accepted figure for the participating members of the council). This
explanation of the creed's origins goes back at least to the council of
Chalcedon, which as you recall met in 451 and formulated what has
ever since been the orthodox definition of the union of divine and
human in Christ the God-man. At that council, the minutes of which
survive and can be studied in Schwartz's magisterial edition, the
original Nicene creed (N) was publicly read out and acclaimed at the
second session (10th October), and then the imperial commissioners
ordered 'the faith of the 150 fathers' to be read out too. The
archdeacon of Constantinople, Aetius, immediately got up and
recited our creed (C) from a written text. It again played a prominent
part at the fifth and sixth sessions (22nd and 25th October), when it
was incorporated along with N in the definition adopted by the
council.
11 is
imp orta nt to emphasise that, when C was read ou t as the symbol
of the council of Constantinople, no one at Chalcedon raised the
slightest objection or protest. Admittedly, the applause with which it
was greeted (as the minutes betray) was cooler, less enthusiastic than
the cheers with which N was received; but that is entirely compre-
hensible in view of N's extraordinary and universal prestige.
Nevertheless the majority of critics, in both the last century and the
present one, have rejected the view that C is a creed promulgated at
Co nstantino ple in 38 1. The reasons for their scepticism can be briefly
sum marised. First, as these scholars read it, the surviving evidence for
the counc il's work does not seem to suggest that it published any creed
or formal definition of its own. Secondly, all the reports of
contemporary or near-contemporary historians and other writers
agree that the object of the council was 'to ratify the Nicene faith' (so
Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, etc.), and this has been taken, not
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32 S C O T T I S H J O U R N A L O F T H E O L O G Y
un na tur a l l y , to m ean the reaf fi rmat ion of the or ig ina l Nicene c reed
( N ) . Th ird ly , these schola r s po in t ou t th a t there is a seemingly abso lu te
s i lence reg ard i ng a Co ns t an t ino po l i tan c reed be twee n 381 an d 451 , in
spite of the fact tha t a nu m b er of syno ds an d co uncils were held a t
w hic h a reference to it , if it in fact existe d, wou ld h av e been n at u ra l.
Thus Harnack a rgued long ago tha t there was no t the s l igh tes t t r ace in
the period 381
-451,
w h et he r in the official reco rds of syn ods east ern or
western or in the writ ings of theologians or thodox or heterodox, of the
existence of C, much less any hint of its being the ekthesis sponsored by
the fa thers of Co ns t an t ino ple . T h e coup de grace seemed to hav e been
dec is ive ly , and humil ia t ing ly , adminis te red when i t was po in ted out
tha t ou r creed C featured as a rec om m en de d ba pti sm al confess ion in
the Ancoratus publ ished by Epip ha niu s of Sa lam is a lmos t a de cad e
before the counc i l o f Cons tan t inople .
Such cons idera t ions might seem fa ta l to the t rad i t iona l hypothes is ,
but they themselves suffer f rom ser ious weaknesses . Perhaps the most
im po r ta n t is tha t , if the t rad i t io na l a cco un t is ab an do ne d , we s ti ll ha ve
the prob lem of exp la in in g the a t t i tu de of the C ha lce do ni an fa thers.
A l tho ugh C was m uch less w arm ly rece ived by the ma jor i ty tha n the
ancient Nicene creed, no one ventured to question i ts c la im to be the
publ ica t ion of the counc i l o f Cons tan t inople . The ir acceptance of i t i s
incredible unless they were satisfied that it was, and since it was
rehearsed by the a rc hd eac on of Co ns ta n t i no ple they could in case of
do ub t consu lt the archi ves f rom wh ich he dre w his text . T h e cr i t ics
admi t tha t C mus t have had some connex ion wi th Cons tan t inop le , bu t
unt i l com para t ive ly recent t imes the i r a t t em pts to show wh at th is was
hav e tend ed to suggest an ar tif ic ia l or largely for tui tous l ink age . Ag ain ,
the a r g um en t wh ich I c a ll ed the hum i l i a t ing coup de grace has itself been
exposed as an insubstantia l bogy, for i t has been es tablished beyond
an y shado w of do ub t th at the creed whic h stood in the or igin al text of
E p i p h a n i u s ' s
Ancoratus
published several years before our council , was
not in fact C but N. Finally , the c la im that there is not a par t ic le of
four th - or f if th-century evid ence ( ap ar t of course f rom the C ha lce -
don ian m inu te s ) ind ica t ing tha t the counc i l o f Co ns tan t inop le had
shown any in te res t in c reed-making has been ca l led in ques t ion . Both
Ed . Schw ar tz and o the r s have d r aw n a t t en t ion to a nu m be r of pa t r i s ti c
passages dating f rom the per iod 381 451 which s ta te or imply that the
150 fa thers of C on s tan t ino ple w ere und ers too d to hav e m ad e add i t ion s
to the sacro sanct text of N w ith the object of de alin g with theolog ical
issues which had not been ra ised at the t ime of Nicaea.
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T H E N I C E N E C R E E D 33
I I I
At this point scholarly debate about the creed and its provenance
seemed to have reached an impasse. Although important difficulties
had been disposed of, there still remained, as an apparently
unsurmountable obstacle to accepting the tradition that C was the
creed of the council of 381, the fact that the weight of contemporary
evidence , as well as the reports of historians, clearly suggested tha t the
work of the council was confined to endorsing or confirming the Nicene
faith. The first and necessary step to finding a way out of this impasse
was taken in this country in the first edition of my Early Christian Creeds
(1950) in which, working on suggestions put forward by the
distinguished Belgian scholar, Pere J . L ebo n, I drew at ten tion to an
important fact which had hitherto passed unnoticed. It is a
circu ms tance of imm ense significance that, from the time of the council
of Constantinople and probably well before that, and also for
generations after Chalcedon, the description 'the faith of Nicaea', or
'the faith, symbol, or ekthesis of the 318 fathers' (the num ber
traditionally held to have been present at N icaea ), was not in o rdina ry
patristic usage applied solely to N in its pu re, au the ntic form. It could
equa lly well be used of a creed, local or otherwise, which w as pa tent ly
Nicene in its general character and import, even although it might
differ from N in mu ch of its phraseo logy . It is of course impossible, in a
lecture like this, to set out the evidence for this in full; I must content
myself with selecting for you one single, rather striking item of it. We
possess the catechetical lectures which Theodore, bishop of Mopsues-
tia in Cilicia, delivered around 400 to candidates preparing for
baptism. In these he expounds the creed, and it is possible to
reconstruct the formula he was using with a high degree of accuracy.
Now the study of this formula reveals two interesting and relevant
facts.
First, while it includes prominently the Nicene key-phrases
'begotten from the Father', 'not made', and 'of one substance with his
Father', it is in language, content and general style a very different
creed from N; indeed, it is much closer in wording and manner to our
creed C, and like it not only lays stress on the Lord's birth from the
Virgin and crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, but has a third article
dwelling on the procession of the Holy Spirit the life-giver, the one
baptism, the one holy catholic church, remission of sins, and
resurrection to eternal life. Secondly, in spite of its great and manifest
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34 SCO TTIS H JO UR NA L OF THE OLO GY
divergence from the original Nicene creed, this elaborate confession
was designated the Nicene creed by Theodore in his lectures. The
inescapable inference is that any orthodox credal formula which
embodied the full-blooded Nicene theology in the characteristic
terminology of N qualified, in the accepted usage of fourth- and fifth-
century writers, for the title of Nicene creed.
A revealing illustration, from a rather different point of view, of the
readiness of fifth-century churchmen to apply expressions like the
faith of Nicaea much more loosely than scholars previously allowed or
appreciated is provided by the minutes of the third session of
Chalcedon. When the Nicene creed in its original wording had been
recited, the assembled fathers hailed it with excited shouts: In this we
were baptized, in this we baptize. Now it is pretty certain that N was
hardly ever, if indeed ever normally, employed for baptism; no one in
any case could possibly believe that it was at any stage the exclusive
baptismal formula of the church. The clear implication of the bishops
acclamation is that they were prepared to treat any baptismal creed
which contained the Nicene theology and the characteristic Nicene
slogans as identical with the Nicene creed proper.
With this important discovery as our guide we can descry, in a
general way at any rate, a way out of the impasse. The explanation
which fits the apparently contradictory facts is that the council of
Constantinople did in fact, at some stage in its proceedings, endorse
and use our creed C, but in doing so it did not conceive of itself as
promulgating a new creed. Its sincere intention, perfectly understood
by contemporary churchmen, was simply to confirm and ratify the
Nicene faith. That it should do this by adopting what was really a
different formula from that of Nicaea may appear paradoxical to us,
until we recall that at this stage importance attached to the Nicene
teaching and the Nicene controversial key-words rather than to the literal
text of N. It is improbable that the council actually composed C. The
whole style of the creed, its graceful balance and smooth flow, convey
the impression of a liturgical piece which had emerged naturally in the
life and worship of the Church, rather than of a conciliar artefact. C
was probably already in existence when the council took it up,
although it is likely that the fathers touched it up here and there to suit
their purposes. In settling on C as a suitable formulary the council
assumed without question that it was reaffirming the Nicene faith, but
it was no doubt guided in its choice by the conviction that this
particular formulation of the Nicene teaching, as modified by
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TH E NIC EN E CR EE D 35
whatever additions it had thought fit to make, was peculiarly well
adapted to meet the special situation with which it was dealing.
IV
Can we take a further, final step and identify both the special
situation in which the council came to adopt C and the form of
endorsement it gave it? Hitherto scholars had to be content with
vague, general suppositions, but in 1965 an attractive and satisfying
solution was propounded by a brilliant German researcher, A. M.
Ritter, in his masterly study of the council and its creed.
2
Briefly, his
proposal was that the creed was put forward officially at the council
during discussions with a delegation of Macedonian or Pneumatoma-
chian bishops led by Eleusius of Cyzicus. The object of these
discussions, as we learn from Socrates and Sozomen, was to bring
about an accommodation between the orthodox majority, who
accepted the divinity and consubstantiality of the Spirit, and the
Macedonians, who contested this doctrine; and Ritter gave good
reasons for our believing
(a)
that they should be placed, not at the
commencement of the council (as had been generally supposed), but
after the death of bishop Meletius, the first president, when Gregory of
Nazianzus was acting as president; and
(b)
that the initiative both for
getting them going and for indicating the line to be followed must have
lain with emperor Theodosius
himself.
Flying in the face of all
reasonable probability, he must have hoped, in his keenness to
establish church unity on as wide a basis as possible, that at least the
less intransigent Macedonians could be won over; and to this end he
must have induced the reluctant majority to hold out an olive branch
to them.
That this is not guess-work but fact, and that in all probability the
olive branch took the form of C, Ritter effectively argued by drawing
attention to a striking passage in the long autobiographical poem
which Gregory of Nazianzus composed in his retirement and which
(although its importance has been generally neglected) constitutes in
the relevant sections an eye-witness, if heavily prejudiced, account of
events at the council. In this passage
3
Gregory bitterly complains that
at the council he had been compelled to witness the sweet and
1
Das Konzil vo n Konstantinopel undsein Symbol (G ottingen).
Carm. hist,
x i , 1 7 0 3 - 1 4 P G 3 7 , 1 1 4 8 f ) .
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36 S C O T T I S H J O U R N A L O F T H E O L O G Y
bea uteo us spr ing of our anc ien t fai th , wh ich ga the red in un i ty the
ad ora ble na t ur e of the T r in i ty , be in g w re tche dly befouled wi th b r iny
infusions poured into i t by double-minded men shar ing the beliefs
favoured by augus t Majes ty who c la im to be media tors — how
ad m ira b le i f they rea lly were m edia tors and no t b la tan t ly adh ere n ts of
the co ntr a ry cause ' S t r ip ped of d ip lom at ic an d po e t ic obscur i t ies , the
obvious implication of these l ines is that the Nicene creed, the
pa l l ad ium o f Nicene o r thod oxy , had been t amp er ed wi th and , in the
supp osed interes ts of uni ty an d to sat is fy the imp er ia l w il l , had had
add i t ions in t r uded in to i t wh ich , in Gr egor y ' s op in ion , we r e
unsa t is fac tory to the po in t o f b las phe m y. T h a t these me dia t in g
concess ions were designed to p laca te M ac ed on ian s is c lear ly ind ica ted
by Gregory ' s la te r s ta tement tha t , as a resu l t , the church had now
open ed i t s doors to 'M oa bi t es an d A m m on i tes ' , fo r th is was the
uncompl imen ta r y desc r ip t ion he l iked to app ly to the con ten t ious
people who questioned the divinity of the Holy Spir i t . As is well
known, he himself not only believed in the divinity and consub-
s tan t ia l i ty of the Spir i t ( as d id the o th er Ca pp ad oc ian s ) , bu t w as
con ten t w i th no th i ng less tha n the i r fu ll and f rank p roc lam at io n an d
had no use for the i r d ip lom at ic wa te r in g d ow n.
W e m ay con clu de, the n, th at in the course of the discussions w ith the
Macedonians the counc i l pu t forward , as a s ta tement of be l ie f which
might be acceptable to a l l par t ies , a vers ion of ' the Nicene creed '
modif ied by addi t iona l mat te r concern ing the Holy Spir i t which fe l l
shor t of w ha t G reg ory (wh o was fu lly aw ar e tha t N ne eded
sup ple m ent ing a t th is po in t ) dee m ed ad eq ua te . Fro m th is i t is an easy
step to identify th e form ula p ropo sed with C, w hich by s tudio usly
re f ra in ing from ca l l ing the Spir i t 'Go d ' and ' co nsu bs ta n t ia l ' m ight
seem to be s tre tching out an irenical hand to Chris t ians , l ike the
M ac ed on ian gro up , who re jected h is fu lly d iv ine s ta tus . T o be sure ,
Gregory did less than jus t ice to i ts sponsors by condemning i t so
sharply as a betrayal of the true faith. A careful analysis of the section
on the Holy Spir i t reveals that , for a l l i ts tactful avoidance of language
tha t would a rouse Macedonian pre jud ices , i t in fac t conta ined a
pn eum ato log y th a t was in subs tan ce al l tha t G rego ry could hav e
des i red . For example , the a l l - impor tan t c lause
WHO WITH THE FATHER
AND THE SON IS TOGETHER WORSHIPPED AND TOGETHER GLORIFIED p re -
cisely reflects Basil the Great 's view that the Spirit should be glorif ied
along with the Father and the Son because of the convict ion that he is
not a l ien to them bu t shares the div ine na tu re . As is well kn ow n, the
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TH E NICE NE CR EED 37
council was dete rmin ed to assert the full con subs tantiality of the Sp irit,
but many in the orthodox camp were still uneasy about the frank
description of him as God and consubstantial with the Fath er and the
Son which was becoming de rigueur and preferred, as Basil had done,
more cautious modes of expression. Bearing this in mind, and also
recalling that the aim ofTheodosius at this phase of the council was the
conciliatory one of uniting as many as possible on the basis of the
Nicene faith, we can ap prec iate that C's firm but temperately w orded
theology of the Spirit corresponded, so far as its substance was
concerned, with the real convictions of the orthodox majority, and in
its expression went so far as they deemed prudent to meet the
susceptibilities of
the
Macedonian delegation.
Not surprisingly, the delegation soon decided that no worthwhile
com prom ise was being offered them, for the supposed concessions were
pace Gregory) largely verbal. The negotiations broke down, the
dissatisfied Macedonians packed their bags and departed, and the
creed lost its original raison
d etre.
But since the council had adopted
and used it in the abo rtive discussions, it was the council's creed. Th is
account of its origins also explains the curious silence about it as an
independent confession. If the council really had framed a new creed
and published it as such under its own name, it is inconceivable that
every trace of such a mom entous h app enin g should h ave d isappea red.
On the other hand, if what the council did was to reaffirm the Nicene
faith in the form of C in the context of its unsuccessful neg otiations w ith
the Macedonian group, everything becomes clear. We should not
expect to come across sep ara te references to C u ntil the original text of
N began to be disentangled from the ambiguous formula 'the faith of
the Nicene fathers'. Nevertheless, since the council had ado pted C at a
critical juncture in its proceedings and had used it as a negotiating
instrum ent, C can with justification claim to be the creed of the 150
fathers of the council, and all the more so as they had promulga ted no
other.
V
This is all I propose to say about the history of the creed which is
awkwardly but, I think, accurately described as Niceho-
Constantinopolitan. In the few minutes still at my disposal I must try
to say something abo ut the claim advanced in the title that it marks a
turning point.
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38 SCO TTI SH JO UR NA L OF THE OLO GY
Throughout the fourth century a fateful intellectual debate
continued, with Nicaea and Constantinople as the focal points and
their two creeds, N and C, as the public tokens of the great shift in
theological emphasis that was taking place. The subject of the debate
was the understanding of God and the conceptual devices by which the
cardinal features of the Christian revelation were to be accommodated
in it. From the external point of view the debate appeared to be a
struggle between the orthodox tradition of the full divinity of Christ on
the one hand and the manifold forms of Arianism on the other; and so
it tends to be represented in histories both of the development of
doctrine and of the Church. But deeper issues were also at stake. At
Nicaea a small, determined minority succeeded in getting the
homoousion inserted in the creed, and for generations this was the bone
of contention between the fiercely warring theological parties. At
Constantinople the doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Son was
finally vindicated, and the homoousion was extended, in guarded
language in the creed but openly in the council s public teaching,
4
to
the Holy Spirit. Arianism was therefore finally crushed in the great
church, although it continued, usually in moderate forms, to retain the
allegiance of millions among the barbarians outside or in the frontier
provinces of the empire. All this is a familiar story. What is not always
noticed, however, is the profound intellectual revolution which the
triumph of the new orthodoxy at the two great councils implied. To
make my point as clearly and as simply as I can, prior to Nicaea the
accepted Christian doctrine of God was an Origenistic one of a holy
Triad, of an ineffable Godhead with two subordinate and, in the last
resort, disparate hypostases; but after Nicaea the pressure group which
pushed through the introduction of the homoousion dragged, if you will
forgive the crude metaphor, these two inferior hypostases within
the divine essence. During the four or five decades following Nicaea
the predominant view in the church continued to be Origenistic,
pluralistic; that applies as much to an orthodox leader such as Cyril
of Jerusalem as to Eusebius of Caesarea and Arians of right and left
wing. But once the creed of Constantinople both reaffirmed and
supplemented the Nicene creed proper, there could be no future
for such pluralism. Th e Son and the Spirit were one in being (as
we now translate homoousion) with the Father, and the Godhead
was an indivisible unity expressing itself in three eternal modes differ-
4
cf. the tomos of the council of 382: Theodoret,
hist. ecct.
5, 9, iof. (GCS 44, 292).
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TH E NICE NE CR EED 39
ing only in their relations. The Nicene creed, in its original form N
and its more mature development C, symbolised this far-reaching
revolution.
J. N. D. KELLY
St. Edmund Hall
Oxford