Introduction
In 325, bishops assembled at Nicaea, near Constantinople, and compiled a declaration of faith. It was enlarged at Constantinople in 381, and fifty years later the world’s bishops gathered at Ephesus and agreed never to change one word of it. It is recited to this day at every service of holy communion, and was consequently known to the Anglo-Saxons as ‘the Mass Creed’.
The following translation is essentially that of the English Prayer Book of 1662. Some amendments have been made, as the Latin on which it was based differed from the Greek text in several places and the Reformers introduced an alteration of their own.
The 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 his Father before all worlds; 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 of the Holy Ghost and 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 sitteth at the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end.*
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father,* Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spake 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.
* The Council of course declared ‘We believe’, but the Church has always expected each member of the congregation to make this confession a personal rather than communal one.
* Dutifully following the Latin translation, the Prayer Book printed ‘God of God’ before ‘Light of Light’. ‘God of God’ was not in the Creed of Constantinople as originally issued by the Council of 381, though it was in the Creed of the Council of Nicaea in 325 on which this Creed is based.
* ‘Of one substance with the Father’ is not a phrase to be found in the Bible. It was an attempt to express the idea that the Son of God was not a creature, not a being created by God from nothing as both men and angels are, but everlastingly God himself. The idea is Biblical nonetheless: see Hebrews 1:1-4, which is an application of Wisdom 7:25-26, and John 14:6-9.
* That is, all things were made by God’s only-begotten Son, his Word and Wisdom. See John 1:1-4 and Colossians 1:15-17. At the time the Creed was written, some very senior bishops denied this, saying that the Son of God was in fact the first and best of God’s creatures, not their co-Creator. This gave rise to the Arian crisis, named after leading theologian Arius. The Council of Nicaea in 325 decided against Arius but his teachings persisted stubbornly.
* The Latin distinguishes the prepositions ‘by the Holy Ghost’ and ‘from the Virgin Mary’, which was reflected in the Prayer Book translation, but the Greek makes no distinction.
* That is, as foretold by the Scriptures, in accordance with them. For the most important texts, see the speeches of Peter in Acts 2:14-36 and Stephen in Acts 7.
* This clause was omitted from the 1549 Prayer Book, but was printed in the Prayer Book of 1559 and thereafter. It is taken from Luke 1:33.
* See John 15:26: “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.” In the West, the words ‘and the Son’ have been added at this point since the 6th century, with the awkward result that the Western version misquotes Scripture. The alteration took time to be accepted: in the eighth-century Stowe Missal, it has had to be scribbled in at a later date, and it has never been accepted in the East. See our story Filioque.
* The word ‘holy’ was omitted from the 1549 Prayer Book and from subsequent editions, even though it was used cheerfully enough at the corresponding place in The Apostles’ Creed. See 1 Peter 2:9.
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