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In Dorothy Sayers's imaginative play, The Emperor Constantine, the defining role of the Nicene creed is put into words when Constantine criticizes a group of bishops for their indecisiveness: "Our Lord said to the Samaritan woman, 'You worship what you know not, but we know whom we worship.' Do you know whom you worship? It would seem you do not. And it matters now that you should." The question, "Do you know whom you worship?" has been a perennial one for Christians, but it came to the forefront at the beginning of the fourth century when there was as yet no doctrinal consensus about the divinity of Christ.

All Christians asserted that Jesus was God and worshipped Him as such, following the understanding laid down in an early second-century sermon known as II Clement: "brethren, we ought to think of Jesus as we do of God." However, those baptismal creeds which have come down to us from local churches said very little beyond the basic wording: "of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary" (Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus).

Such confessional statements left many questions unanswered. How could the Son, who was born a human being, suffered and died, also be God in relation to God the Father? Which Bible passages were speaking about the Son's divinity and which were about the Son's humanity? When Jesus declared his dread of the "cup" before him (Matt. 26:37-38), or displayed ignorance about the time of his second return (Mk. 13:32), surely these experiences were applicable to his human self, but what did that mean for his divinity? If Christ suffered on our behalf did that mean he was different from God who, by virtue of his immutability and eternality, cannot suffer? There was no agreement among Christians about the Bible's teaching on these issues.

It was inevitable, therefore, that the early church would eventually require a more universal statement of faith like the Nicene Creed. As the church grew in numbers, geographical distance and theological sophistication, the need for a comprehensive explanation of the Christian faith grew as well. The interchurch crisis between Arius and Alexander erupted and spread throughout the East so quickly precisely because Christian teaching was unsettled on these matters. As this crisis took hold of churches in Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor and even Greece, local baptismal confessions were obviously insufficient to address the widespread nature of the conflict. While these confessions would continue to be regarded as authoritative throughout the fourth century, their wording was not exact enough to insure future doctrinal orthodoxy.

This is what later prompted Augustine (in On Faith and the Creed) to use the Nicene faith as the lens for interpreting the older church creed of North Africa. When the believer professed, "I believe … in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, only-begotten of the Father, our Lord, who was born through the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary," there was no dispute about its truth, but "under color of the few words found in the [North African] creed, many heretics have attempted to conceal their poison."

It was just a matter of time, therefore, that a formal statement about the identity of Christ in relation to the Father should be debated and endorsed by an official body. Not only would error have to be ruled out, but it first had to be redefined, as would the parameters for a proper scriptural interpretation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

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