Logo

The Nicene Creed (325 AD)

We believe in one God, the Father Almight, Maker of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father [the only-begotten; that is, of the eessence of the Father, God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (ὁμοούσιον) with the Father; by whom all things were made [both in heaven and on earth]; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man; he suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

And in the Holy Ghost.

[But those who say: 'There was a time when he was not:' and 'He was not before he was made;' and 'He was made out of nothing,' or 'He is of another substance' or 'essence,' or 'The Son of God is created,' or 'changeable,' or 'alterable'– they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.]

This is the 325 AD version of the Nicene Creed from The Creeds of Christendom by Phillip Schaff, originally published in 1877.

Bracketing, per Schaff's notes, indicate Western changes.

Note the lower case "c" in the word catholic. The original authors of this creed likely intended this term to be understood as a reference to the universal church, the body of believers throughout all time and locations, as these words were penned and compiled long before the structures we associate with Christian life and faith, whether Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, or Protestantism, existed.      .