Nicaea and the Biblical Divine “We”
The original “creedal” statements of the Council at Nicaea, like everything “creedal” in the Christian Church, went through subsequent changes and evolved over time. What stands as the familiar words of what we call the Nicene Creed required three additional ecumenical councils and, except for the later addition of one seemingly benign but particularly divisive word (which contributed mightily to what history calls “The Great Schism” in the Church between the churches in the West and those in the East - and which we will eventually address), the process of developing that “creed” did not reach its fruition until the Council at Chalcedon in 451 C.E.
It is important to remember that the one great motivating factor behind the initial council at Nicaea, Emperor Constantine’s desire to get the Church to formally and mutually agree on what affirmed the unity they claimed to possess in Christ, remained the one great motivating factor throughout this process. The establishment of the Nicene “Creed” has less to do, as we are often popularly led to believe, with Trinitarian claims about the nature of God and/or the dual nature of the human and divine Christ, as it is about the essentially given united nature of a Church which is called to be a unifying presence in the world for the sake of the world. For that reason, I believe that the Creed is best understood when we see it as developed to highlight the very givenness of a unity which, as an act of God, stems directly from the very nature of God. This, I further believe, will better enable us to perceive what the threat of heresy was to these early forbears of ours and what it has remained being to our own day. Heresy was a threat to what was perceived to be a God-given unity. As such, heresy lies somewhere beyond whatever doctrinal issues may and will undoubtedly exist between individuals. Heresy, which we will explore more fully as we continue our adventure, is more of an abandonment of trusting the God-given unity of the Church for some self-determined insistence that there is a means of identifying exactly who is to be included and who is excluded from that oneness. Heresy, understood in this way, becomes an insistence on seeking a way to define - and thus identify - the pure, untarnished, right-believing folk claimed to be the true church to the exclusion of all others.
In the previous article, I hinted at how the development and adoption of the Apostles Creed (more than two hundred years after the Nicene Creed had been more or less finalized at Chalcedon) may well have been an attempted power-play in the political machinations between the increasingly centralized Latin-speaking churches centered in Rome and the less-centralized Greek-speaking churches in the East. Its first words - “I believe” - carried radically different meaning and intent than the opening claims of the Nicene creed. The impact of that meaning and intent has been deeply influential in how both the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions have perceived and understood Christian “faith” to this day and, if I might so boldly claim, in mostly heretical ways. To claim, as we do in the words of Nicaea, that “We entrust ourselves in(to) One God” grounds us all in what God has done and continues to do. “I believe” can all too easily lead us to make what we individually do - even if it is in response to what God has done - as the most significant act in what is now too readily perceived to be “my salvation”. I will be significantly bolder here and claim that I believe that the great American heresy is embedded in that which we identify as a person’s own personal salvation. I find claims that “I am saved” or that Jesus “must be accepted as one’s own personal savior” both theologically and biblically suspect. Biblically, and thus theologically, salvation - derived from a Greek word and concept which implies “wholeness” - occurs for all of us or for none of us. Simply put, we cannot hope to be whole without wholly being one with one another. My wholeness requires my at-one-ment with you and your wholeness requires your at-one-ment with me. As Christians we claim that God in Christ has declared that at-one-ment and we are entrusted with that message, that good news, to both claim it and live it out. The history of this, and particularly how it has been emboldened by both the ideologies of the Enlightenment and the rugged individualism inspired in part by the Protestant work ethic would certainly make a worthy study, but let me identify one other interesting player in this arena.
In regards to how we have come to spin the biblical concept of salvation, our English translations of the Bible have not exactly been helpful. Most English translations of the Bible fail to convey a deeper and fuller meaning to one particular word and that word is “you”. Unlike most languages, there is often little distinction made between the written singular “you” and the plural “you”. English translations - as well as our liturgies - might well be better served if we more freely adopted the common street lingo of a plural “you” rather than what passes for proper English. The Southern idiom of “y’all” or the Brooklynese of “Yews guys” would get us a lot closer to more adequately understanding the Biblical “you” which, except in conversational exchanges between particular individuals, is almost always a plural “you". I encourage all of us to consider such an application to all our readings of scripture but let me present just one example for consideration. Paul, in his Letter to the church at Corinth, writes (in a way similar to most English translations):
I would remind you in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, providing you hold fast - unless you believed in vain”.
Now let’s vulgarize that:
“I would remind yews guys in what terms I preached to y’all the good news, which y’all received, in which all yews guys stand, by which y’all are made whole, if yews guys all hold fast - unless y’all trusted in vain…”
To my ears, each of these readings has the potential to take us to two radically different places.
The composers of the Nicene Creed adhered to the beginning of that creed in the spirit of the vulgarized reading above. “We entrust ourselves”, they wrote for the ages, “in(to) One God…” It is in the Oneness of that One God in which we (all of us without exception) live and move and have our being, and in which we (all of us without exception) are given and share unity with one another.
