Nice. See Nic^an Councils.
Nicene Creed is the name applied to a detailed statement of Christian doctrine which forms part of the liturgy of the Roman, Oriental, and Anglican churches, and is also received as a formulary by many of the other Protestant communions. The creed is given in the article on that subject. It remains simply to add that though it is called by the name of the Council of Nicaja (q. v.), nearl}' one half of the present clauses formed no part of the original Nicene formulary, that document containing a series of anathemas condemnatorj' of spe- cific statements of Arius which find no place in the pres- ent so-called Nicene Creed. It was not even framed by the fathers of the first general council. They rather adopted the existing Oriental Creed, as the Koman or Apostles' Creed was followed by the churches of the West. Eusebius, the historian, exhibited it to the council as the ancient creed of the Church of Cfesarea, of which he was the bishop. Doubtless it had descended in that Church from primitive times. A general like- ness may be obscrveil between it and the Creed of An- tioch, as given by Lucian the MartjT (Socrates, Hist. Eccles. iii, 5 ; vi, 12). The principal addition made to it by the council was the insertion of the phrase uno- ovaioQ rqi IlaTpi, " of one substance with the Father," in order to render the creed all that could be wished for as a standard of orthodoxy. See Arianism. Euse-
bius says, however, that this was no new term : " We are aware that certain illustrious bishops and writers among the ancients have made use of this expression, ujxooiiGiovq, in defining the Godhead of the Father and Son" (ibid.'). Athanasius declares the same thing in his epistle to the African bishops, and states that the term was incorporated in the Nicene Creed on the au- thority of ancient bishops: ry fxapTvpif rwv ap\aiu}v tTnaKoTTitiv. In the preceding century Dionysius of Alexandria still appeals to older writers who used the expression ro ojioovfjiov toi Tlarpl ilpijuivov vtto tu)v ay'nov irarEpiov (Athanasius, De Sent. Dionys.). Ori- gen, the preceptor of Dionysius, used the word in the same sense as the Nicene Council, as shown by Kuf- finus and Pamphilus in his apology. TertuUian, writ- ing in Latin, while he thought in Greek, as was often the case with him, says that the three persons of the Godhead were " unius substantia}" {Adv. Pra. 11), which was the equivalent for ofioovaioQ, as bishop Bull aflfirms; so also Kuftinus, "Unius substantise quod Griece bfjioovmov dicitur" {De Deprav. lib?'. Grig.). The term itself was coined in the philosophical schools of ancient Greece. Thus Aristotle affirmed the consub- stantial character of the stars, ofioovaia Si ndvra da- Tpa ; and Porphyry uses it with regard to the soul of life or vital principle that man shares with the lower animals, tiys 6[ioovmot at tCjv Z,uiwv '^v^ai I'li^sripaig {Be Abstin. ab esu Anim. i, 19). Hence it was adopted by the Gnostic heretics to express the oneness of nature that existed between the psychic seed of the human race and the Demiurge (Iren»us, Contr. Hcer, i, 9, 10, Cambridge ed.). The term fell into a certain degree of discredit when Paul of Samosata made use of it in his heretical Christology. He maintained that Christ had no pre-existence before his birth of the Virgin Mary, and that he could only be consubstantial with the Father through the deification of his mortal body. The very gainsaying of heresy thus helped to establish the high antiquity of the term as used by the Church. The Council of Antioch denied the consubstantiality of the Son in this gross sense, but left no doubt as to their be- lief in the eternally divine substance of the Word, though they suppressed for a time the term ufioovaioQ as having been rendered suspicious by Paul. Alto- gether there can be no doubt that the term was well known and of familiar use for more than a century be- fore the Church stereotyped it in her creed at Nice. The Cesarean Creed contained the clause " God of God," which was omitted by the fathers at Constanti- nople, but was afterwards restored to its position. The insertion of " Filioque" (q. v.) by the Spanish Church was unauthorized. The final clauses were added at Con- stantinople, the Nicene formula having ended with km elg TO Urtvfjia to ciyiov. But midway between the two councils Epiphanius indicates three clauses in his longer creed as used by the Church of Cyprus. It is probable therefore that the Creed of Cajsarea also con- tained them ; but Eusebius, having quoted so much of the formula as was germane to his purpose, stopped when he came to the expression of faith in the Holy Spirit in order that he might assert the hypostatic unity of each person, and so never completed the words of the creed. The creed so foreclosed by Eusebius remained on record as the faith of the Nicene fathers, an anathe- ma against all who lield Arian notions having been sub- stituted for the closing words of Eusebius. The creed thus formed was used for catechetical instruction, and was the baptismal confession of faith, as in fact it had been from the earliest days (comp. Eusebius, ^fZ Ccesar.), but it had no place in the liturgy until the time of Pe- ter Fullo, bishop of Antioch, who embodied it in the ser- vice (A.D. 471). Timothy, patriarch of Constantino- ple, adopted the same course (A.D. 511). In the third Council of Toledo (A.D. 589) the Spanish Church made it a part of the liturgy as an antidote to the Arianism of the Goths. The Gallican Church admitted it soon afterwards. The question was raised in the CouucU of