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The Jewishness of the Nicene Creed
It was the Bible, not Greek philosophy, that shaped the theology of the Nicene bishops.
Reviewed by David Neff | posted 8/08/2008 12:33PM
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In working on the most recent issue of Christian History & Biography ("Debating Jesus' Divinity"), we once again ran into the old canard that the Nicene bishops relied more on Greek philosophical concepts than on the Bible. That is the conventional wisdom in some circles, but let's take a closer look at what those bishops did. With the help of Norwegian church historian Oscar Skarsaune and his book In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish influences on Early Christianity (IVP, 2002), we'll learn a different story.
Let's begin at the beginning. The oldest creeds were simple baptismal vows—affirmations of belief in God the Father, in Jesus the Messiah, his Son, and in the Holy Spirit. Hints of such early baptismal statements can be found in Justin (writing about 150) and Tertullian (writing between 190 and 200).
By about 220, baptismal candidates were affirming a slightly more complex set of beliefs. Here is how the Roman presbyter Hippolytus describes the questions they were asked:
Do you believe in God the Father Almighty?
Do you believe in the Messiah (Christus) Jesus, the Son of God,
Who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,
Who was crucified in the days of Pontius Pilate, and died, and rose the third day living from the dead and ascended into the heavens and sat down at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead?
Do you believe in the Holy Spirit in the Holy Church, and the resurrection of the flesh?
If you translate those "Do you believe" questions into "I believe" statements, you have something very much like the Old Roman Creed which took final form in the Apostles' Creed (5th century).
These baptismal vows say a lot more about Jesus and his activity than they do about God the Father or the Holy Spirit. That's because they focus on Jesus' role as the Messiah rather than on his relationship to the other members of the Godhead. This summary of activity is similar to earlier summaries found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, a document called the Preaching of Peter (about AD 125), and Justin's First Apology (about AD 150). According to Skarsaune, this Messianic focus reveals a very Jewish interest. As the church composed the Nicene Creed, it added a focus on Christ's person to its previous focus on his work.
The Nicene Creed retained a summary of Jesus' activity as Messiah, but it added material about the way the Son is related to the Father. Consider the italicized words in the following excerpt from Nicaea.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only begotten, God from God, light from light, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, … .
In addition, the Nicene formulation introduced the idea that the Son participated in Creation. It also talks about the Incarnation more "theologically." Instead of following the pattern of Matthew and Luke, saying that Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary (as the Old Roman Creed did), this statement of belief follows John in talking about the Son becoming flesh.
The Old Roman creed, says Skarsaune, was oriented "horizontally" along a timeline. It portrays Jesus as the Messiah who did the deeds predicted by the prophets. This new "eastern" creed is oriented vertically. "The one who was with God and created the world with him, 'came down,' suffered, rose again, and shall finally descend once more as the final judge. The 'movement' in this creed is 'vertical' the whole time."
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