The Meaning of the Nicene Creed

How to Read the Creed

The Creed recited at Mass is the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed: drafted at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 against Arius, who taught that the Son of God was a creature, and completed at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381 with the article on the Holy Spirit. It is not a poem or a summary of religious feeling. It is a symbolum, a token of identity: the Church's precise, conciliar statement of what the apostles taught, framed so that error could not sign it.

That is why its structure is Trinitarian. The Creed makes three great professions, in one God the Father, in one Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Spirit, and then confesses the Church and the sacraments through which that Trinitarian life reaches us. Each section below quotes the line of the Creed, explains what it affirms and what it excludes, and gives the Scripture and a Father of the Church behind it.

“I believe in one God, the Father almighty”

The Creed opens where Israel's faith opens: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Against the crowded heavens of paganism, the Church confesses one God only, and St Paul makes the same confession the mark of a Christian: “for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist” (1 Corinthians 8:6). Everything that follows in the Creed unfolds from this first word: one.

“Father” is not a metaphor added late. God is eternally Father because he eternally has a Son, as the next article will confess. And “almighty” (Greek pantokrator, the ruler of all things) means that nothing that exists stands outside his power or his providence: not matter, not fate, not the devil. The Christian says credo, “I believe”, not as a guess but as an act of personal trust in this Father.

“We believe in one unbegotten Father, who has no cause of His being, immutable and unchangeable, who is always the same.” St Alexander of Alexandria, Letter to Alexander of Constantinople, c. 320

“Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible”

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The Creed insists that the one Father is also the one Creator, and that his creation includes “all things visible and invisible”: not only stars and seas but angels, thrones and dominions. St Paul says it exactly: “in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible” (Colossians 1:16).

This line was aimed at real opponents. The Gnostics and Marcion taught that the material world was the botched work of a lesser god, and that the true God of Jesus Christ had nothing to do with matter. Writing against them around AD 180, St Irenaeus of Lyons argued in his Against Heresies that there is no second god behind the Creator: the God who made the world through his Word is the very Father of Jesus Christ, and matter itself is his good handiwork. The Creed canonised that answer. Creation is not a prison to escape; it is the first gift.

“One Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God”

The second great profession names Jesus of Nazareth with the divine title “Lord” (Kyrios), the word the Greek Old Testament uses for the name of God. St John calls him the “only Son” of the Father: “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son” (John 1:14). He is “only begotten” (monogenes): not one son among many, but the Son, in a sense that belongs to no creature.

“Born of the Father before all ages” places that sonship outside time altogether. The Son does not begin to exist; his birth from the Father is eternal, as light is never without its radiance. This was precisely what Arius denied with his slogan “there was a time when he was not”, and precisely what the council anathematised. The Fathers of Nicaea spelt out what “only begotten” means in the original creed of 325:

“That is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God.” The Council of Nicaea, Creed of 325

“God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God”

Three hammer blows, each closing a loophole. “God from God”: the Son is not a second, junior deity but God derived eternally from God. “Light from Light”: the council's most beautiful image. Light begets radiance without ever existing before it or apart from it; the radiance is not a copy of the light but its own outshining. So the Son is “the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being” (Hebrews 1:3), and can say of himself, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).

“True God from true God” closes the last escape. Arians were content to call the Son “god” in a courtesy sense, a creature exalted above other creatures. The Creed replies with St John: “He is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). There are no degrees of divinity; either the Son is true God or he is not God at all.

“As the radiance from the light, so He is true offspring from the true Father, proper to His substance, His indivisible Son.” St Athanasius of Alexandria, Defence of the Nicene Definition, c. 353

“Begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father”

This is the hinge of the whole Creed, and the reason the Creed exists. “Begotten, not made” draws the line that Arius blurred: everything that exists is either begotten of God's own being or made out of nothing. A son shares his father's nature; a work does not share its maker's. The Son is begotten, so he stands on God's side of that line, with all creation on the other. That is why the Creed adds at once, “through him all things were made”: he cannot be one of the things made, for “all things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be” (John 1:3).

Then comes the famous word. The English “consubstantial” translates the Greek homoousios, from homos (“same”) and ousia (“substance”, “being”): the Son is of the very same being as the Father. It is the one word in the Creed that is not taken from Scripture, and the council chose it for exactly that reason. The bishops at Nicaea first tried scriptural language: the Son is “from God”, “the power of God”, “the image of God”. Athanasius records that the Arian party signalled to one another that they could sign every such phrase, since in a loose sense all creatures are “from God” and even the locust is called God's “power”. Scripture's words were true, but the heretics had learnt to recite them with crossed fingers. So the council forged a term that could not be bent: homoousios, the same in being, admitting no wider sense.

The Arians could not sign it, and that was the point. To confess the Son homoousios with the Father is to confess that he is not a creature at all, not even the highest; there was never a time when he was not. The original creed of 325 nailed this shut with an anathema against anyone who said “there was a time when he was not” or that the Son is “of another substance” than the Father. Later compromisers offered homoiousios, “of like substance”, one iota of difference in Greek and an abyss of difference in meaning: “like” God is not God. The Church refused the iota. On homoousios hangs salvation itself, for if the Son is not truly God, no creature could bridge the gap between God and man, and Christ's own claim, “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30), would be blasphemy rather than revelation.

“The Fathers at Nicaea determined well when they wrote ‘of one substance’ (homoousios), that all might understand that the Son is of the same reality as the Father, and not a creature.” St Athanasius of Alexandria, De Decretis, c. 352

“Incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man”

Note first the motive: “for us men and for our salvation”. The eternal Son did not become man out of necessity but out of love, “for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). At Mass, all bow during these words: the Creed here touches the event on which everything turns.

“Incarnate” means literally “enfleshed”. The Son took real flesh from a real mother, conceived not by man but by God's own power: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). And “became man” shuts out the opposite error to Arianism: the Docetists taught that Christ's body was a phantom, a divine costume. The Church answered that he “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness” (Philippians 2:7), true God and true man in one person. Because the child Mary bore is that one divine person, the Council of Ephesus in 431 would confess her Theotokos, Mother of God.

“He truly took human nature from the holy Virgin; not in semblance or mere appearance, but in truth. He truly entered the womb, was truly nourished with milk, truly ate as we eat and drank as we drink.” St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures IV, c. 350

“Crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried”

The Creed anchors the faith to a date and a bureaucrat. Pontius Pilate governed Judaea from AD 26 to 36; naming him plants the Cross in verifiable history, not in myth or in “once upon a time”. This is the oldest core of Christian preaching, which St Paul says he himself received: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” and “was buried” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). “He was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity... by his wounds we were healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

Every verb is a wall against unreality. He was truly crucified: not rescued at the last moment, not substituted. He truly suffered and truly died: his divinity did not exempt his humanity from pain. He was truly buried: the death was complete and public. St Ignatius of Antioch, writing on the road to his own martyrdom, hammered the same “truly” against those who called the Passion an appearance:

“He was truly born, ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died, in the sight of the things that are in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” St Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Trallians 9, c. 110

“And rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures”

“In accordance with the Scriptures” does not mean “as the Gospels report”; it means the Old Testament. The Resurrection was not an improvisation but the keeping of promises: “you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor let your devout one see the pit” (Psalm 16:10); “on the third day he will raise us up, to live in his presence” (Hosea 6:2). The risen Christ himself read the Scriptures this way to the disciples on the Emmaus road, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets” (Luke 24:27).

And the rising is as real as the dying. The tomb was empty; the body that was buried is the body that was raised, glorified. St Paul stakes the whole faith on it: “if Christ has not been raised, then empty is our preaching; empty, too, your faith” (1 Corinthians 15:14). The Creed will not let the Cross and the Resurrection be separated, and neither would the Fathers:

“If the Cross is only a delusion, then the Resurrection is also a delusion. But if the Cross is not a delusion, neither is the Resurrection. For Christ truly suffered, truly died, and truly rose again.” St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures XIV, c. 350

“He ascended into heaven... and will come again in glory”

“The Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19). The Ascension is not Christ's departure from the world but his enthronement over it: “seated at the right hand” is the language of Psalm 110:1, the king installed in power. Our human nature, in him, is now on the throne of God.

And the same Jesus will return, “in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven” (Acts 1:11), this time as judge: “Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead” (2 Timothy 4:1). History has a direction and an end, and the end has a face. The final clause, “and his kingdom will have no end”, was added at Constantinople in 381 with Gabriel's words to Mary (“of his kingdom there will be no end”, Luke 1:33), against Marcellus of Ancyra, who taught that Christ's reign would one day be absorbed back into the Father. The Creed answers: the reign of the incarnate Son is forever.

“We preach not one advent only of Christ, but a second also, far more glorious than the former. For the former gave a view of His patience; but the latter brings with it the crown of a divine kingdom.” St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures XV, c. 350

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life”

This whole article was added at Constantinople in 381, when a new party (the Pneumatomachi, “Spirit-fighters”) conceded the Son's divinity but denied the Spirit's. The council's reply is a creed in miniature. The Spirit is “Lord”, the divine title. He is “the giver of life”, and only God gives life. He “is adored and glorified” together with the Father and the Son: we worship him, and worship belongs to God alone. And he “has spoken through the prophets”, for “human beings moved by the Holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God” (2 Peter 1:21). Without ever using the word homoousios, the council confessed the Spirit's full divinity, completing the doctrine of the Trinity.

One phrase needs honest handling. The Greek text of 381 says the Spirit proceeds “from the Father” (John 15:26); the words “and the Son”, the Filioque, are a later Western addition to the text, first inserted in Spain in 589 and not sung at Rome until about 1014. The doctrine they express is ancient and scriptural: the Spirit is “the Spirit of his Son” (Galatians 4:6), who “will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:14), and the Latin Fathers taught the procession from Father and Son long before the word entered the Creed. The Catholic Church holds it as a true development of the same faith, with the Father remaining the sole source of the Trinity. The full story, including the Orthodox objection and the Catholic answer, is on the Filioque page.

“The Holy Spirit proceeds not from the Father alone, nor from the Son alone, but from both the Father and the Son. The Father and the Son are one principle of the Holy Spirit, not two.” St Augustine of Hippo, De Trinitate XV, c. 416

“One, holy, catholic and apostolic Church”

The Creed gives the Church four marks, and each one identifies her. She is one: Christ founded one Church on Peter, “you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18), and prayed “that they may all be one” (John 17:21). She is holy: not because her members are sinless, but because her founder, her sacraments and her calling are holy; Christ “handed himself over for her, to sanctify her” (Ephesians 5:25-26). Saints and sinners share her pews; only the Church herself is the Bride.

She is catholic, from the Greek kath' holou (kata holos), “according to the whole”: the Church that is whole and entire in her faith, whole in her sacraments, and sent to the whole world, “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Catholic is the opposite of partial and of sectarian; a body defined by one nation, one century or one dissent is by definition not kath' holou. And she is apostolic: “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone” (Ephesians 2:20), teaching what the apostles taught and governed by their successors in unbroken line. The word “catholic” as the Church's proper name is nearly as old as the New Testament itself; the first surviving use is from a martyr bishop who had known the apostles' own generation:

“Wherever the bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” St Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8, c. 110

“One Baptism, the resurrection of the dead, and the world to come”

“One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5). Baptism truly forgives sins, “Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38), and it can never be repeated, because it marks the soul once and forever. The Fathers of Nicaea legislated on exactly this: the council's canons ruled on how those baptised in schismatic and heretical groups were to be received, recognising true baptism where it was truly given (canon 8) and requiring baptism where it had not been (canon 19). One washing, one adoption, one entry into the one Church.

The Creed ends looking forward. “I look forward to” translates a word of expectation, almost of longing. The resurrection of the dead means bodies, not merely souls: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live” (John 11:25-26), and what is “sown corruptible” will be “raised incorruptible” (1 Corinthians 15:42). “The life of the world to come” is the new heavens and new earth where “he will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death” (Revelation 21:4). Then the one word that seals it all: Amen, Hebrew for “so it is, so let it be”. To say Amen to this Creed is to sign your name to the faith of the apostles, the martyrs and the councils, the faith the Catholic Church has professed without a break since Nicaea.