This year, the Nicene Creed is 1700 years old, and here we are still paying attention to it. By any measure, that is an impressive achievement. The number of historical and cultural artifacts to which we still pay attention and which we still recite in church from that long ago, apart from Scripture itself, is few. The Nicene Creed is far from a mere artifact of a bygone age. It is the living confession of the holy catholic church, i.e., the church of all times and places. It is confessed in the East and the West. It was confessed then and it is now believed in the heart and confessed with the mouth, with, as we say in the Belgic Confession. The Nicene Creed is listed along with the Apostles’ and the Athanasian as ecumenical, i.e., universal creeds of the church.

How did the Nicene Creed come about? It was stimulated by a problematic presbyter named Arius. He appears on our historical radar in the late third century (c. AD 260–80). Not much is known about his life. He may have been from Libya. He was a pupil of Lucian of Antioch (d. AD 312), a presbyter, theologian, and martyr, who taught that the Son was subordinate to the Father from all eternity. His teaching was influenced by Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia (d. AD 342), who would become the leader of the Arian party after Arius.^l

Arius was ordained to the diaconate by Alexander (d. AD 328), the Bishop of Alexandria, but when Arius supported Melitius, the former Bishop of Lycopolis (Egypt), whom Alexander had opposed, Alexander also sought Arius’ excommunication in a council in AD 321. Read more»

R. Scott Clark | “The Nicene Creed: We Believe in One God” | October 23, 2025

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Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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