Historical Background
This Creed is also referred to as Constantinopolitan or Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. It is widely accepted as authoritative by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and other major Protestant churches all over the globe.
Theology of Arius raised a dispute concerning the very core of Christianity, Jesus Christ. It was pretty much believed that Jesus Christ was God and man at the same time. But it was Arian Theology that made the church clarify what they mean when they say Jesus Christ is God. Arius taught that Jesus Christ or the Word was a creature, that He was made by God, that He had a beginning, and that He was subject to change. Arius followed in the ways of Athanasius to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ. Athanasius also maintained that the Son does not have the full and accurate knowledge of the Father. The point it all came down to was that in Jesus man is not really confront by God. The attack on the identity of Christ is not something new but is an old heresy.
The Synod of Nicaea was convened in 325 AD and it rejected the doctrine of Arianism along with other Christological distortions. The expressions found in the Creed are directly stated against the false views of Jesus Christ. The Synod stated that the Son was “of the same substance with the Father.” The Greek term (homo-ousios) used to express the equality of Son with the Father was objected to by some that this term did not occur in Scripture, but as Arianism became influential and the fight against it became more intense and serious, this expression became a generally accepted one.
But for other matters, the Nicene Creed features the tradition of the creed of Jerusalem rather than a Roman tradition, as featured by the Apostles’ Creed. The passage on the Holy Spirit, the church, and baptism and so on was added at the Synod of Constantinople in 381 AD; hence it is more accurately the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. The Nicene Creed became the generally accepted among the Western and the Eastern churches.
Another heresy it combats relates to the procession of the Holy Spirit, a faulty view that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Son. It was stated in the Creed that He proceeds from the father with a later promoted addition “…and (from) the Son (Latin: ‘filioque’; the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son”), especially by Augustine. 800 AD onwards, the Creed was recited with this later addition in the Western church and in 11th century, also in Rome. The Eastern Church was sharply against the view of the Nicene Creed and shortly afterwards the great schism between the Western and the Eastern Church took place.
The Nicene Creed
I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of the Father before all worlds;
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God;
begotten, not made.
Being of one substance with the Father,
by whom all things were made.
Who, for us men and for our salvation,
came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
He suffered and was buried;
and the third day He rose again,
according to the Scriptures;
and ascended into heaven,
and sits on the right hand of the Father;
and He shall come again, with glory,
to judge the living and the dead;
whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Spirit,
and Lord and Giver of life;
who proceeds from the Father and the Son;
who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified;
who spoke by the prophets.
And I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;
and I look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
References
* Creeds of the Churches: A Reader in Christian Doctrine from the Bible to the Present, by John H. Leith
* Handbook of Reformed Confessions: Classroom Edition, PTS, Dehradun
Dose of Doctrine 