The abundance of synods and the process of repeated creed-making helped, ironically, to create a sense of the unique authority of the Council of Nicaea and its creed. Over time, that creed came to be seen as a definitive statement of orthodoxy, rendering all further attempts at creedal definition superfluous. In the end, the council and its creed achieved such an elevated status that subsequent doctrinal clarification was presented as merely a commentary upon it. In the collective memory of the Church, Nicaea was remembered with reverence as a foundational event in the formation of the true, orthodox Church.
In the half-century of debate following the Council of Nicaea, some theologians became increasingly wary of the repeated rephrasing of doctrinal positions. Athanasius ridiculed his opponents’ repeated efforts to define the faith in ever renewed formulae, calling them a perpetual reinvention of the Christian faith. He asked how any such formula could command the respect of future generations when its authors seemed to be constantly overturning the decisions and sentiments of their predecessors and continually changing their own minds (De synodis, 13. 2-4). In the face of such endeavors he, like others, began to claim the unalterable authority of the Nicene Council and Creed of ad 325. Initially, he had seen it as little more than a definitive juridical solution to the case of Arius. Gradually, he began to promote it as the only valid, and ultimately sufficient, exposition of Christian doctrine (Sieben 1979: 40-52). After his death, the process of systematic clarification and exposition of the council’s teaching continued. Although its teaching was still controversial, it became ever more apparent that any resolution of differences could be based only on its acceptance in principle. Consequently, the Council of Constantinople (ad 381) declared that it wished merely to reiterate the Nicene faith, establishing it as the binding expression of orthodoxy (canon 1; see Socrates, Hist. eccl. 5. 8. 1,14). By the time the next major doctrinal conflict arose, between Cyril of Alexandria and Nestor-ius of Constantinople, this status was beyond discussion. Both men, as a matter of course, used the creed as the starting point of their argument, and claimed simply to elucidate its teaching (Cyril, Ep. 4. 3; 17. 2-3; Nestorius, Ep. ad Cyrillum 2, sermo 14, 17). Formally at least, the Nicene Creed was the yardstick against which Cyril had his own and Nestorius’ teachings tested at the Council of Ephesus (ad 431), making sure that the verdict could only be in his favor (Conc. Ephes. Gesta, 43-4, ACO 1. 1.2, pp. 12-13). The eastern collections of canon law list a ruling of the assembly that decrees the sole authority of the Nicene Creed and forbids any future efforts to compose another (canon 7). The canon testifies to the supreme authority that the council and its creed had eventually achieved. Not only would the validity of doctrinal propositions by this time be measured against the creed as an authoritative norm in general, but theological reasoning would often also be based directly upon it. Theological treatises attempted an exegesis of the creed and interpreted its wording almost like Scripture. The canon asserting its sufficiency could, on the other hand, be used to circumvent demands for further doctrinal precision and to refuse theological judgment altogether (Eutyches at the Synodos Endemousa, or Resident Synod, of
AD 448: Conc. Constant. ACO 2. 1. 1, no. 359). The Council of Chalcedon struggled with this apparent problem: while it reenacted the Ephesine prohibition, it found ways to allow for a renewed attempt at doctrinal definition. Pointing out precedence and referring to approved documents by select Fathers it modestly presented, implicitly at least, its own definitions as no more than a clarifying commentary upon the Nicene Creed (see below).
Still, while the creed had risen to such an elevated and indeed revered status by the early fifth century, a general theory of the authority of councils and of the creeds promulgated by them had not yet been formulated (Sieben 1979: 223-30, 263-9). The closest we come to a discussion of what constituted a council’s authority is a reductio ad absurdum that Athanasius presents in order to refute criticism of Nicaea. His critics had unearthed an earlier condemnation of the word homoousios; this precedent appeared to invalidate the Nicene statements. Athanasius plays briefly with the idea that one might decide between synods on the basis of either priority in time or the participation of a larger number of churchmen, only to reject both alternatives as absurd. In fact, a contradiction between synods was unthinkable, just as much as a contradiction in Scripture: what was demanded, again as in the case of Scripture, was a harmonizing interpretation (De synodis, 45).
Immediately after Nicaea, Constantine had spoken of the assistance of the Holy Spirit in the council’s decisions (Constantine, Letter to the Churches, in Socrates, Hist. eccl. 1. 9. 17-18, Opitz 1934: Urkunden 25. 8). Theologians and bishops seemed more reluctant initially to make such assertions. But later generations spoke with great reverence of the holy council and the holy Fathers gathered. By ad 431, when the Council of Ephesus looked back to it, such phrasing had long become common parlance. The idea of divine inspiration had also taken root; votes cast by the participants echoed it many times (Conc. Ephes. Gesta, 45; see also Cyril, Ep. 1.5).
So, while the process of doctrinal interpretation and clarification continued, the desire for ever more subtle and precise definition, evident in the creed-making of the mid fourth century, slowly gave way to a sense of completeness and closure that would ultimately banish additional creeds. Commentary and the layering of documents, not renewed phrasing, became the preferred mode of doctrinal definition. From about the second half of the fourth century, concern with creed spilled over from the sphere of specialized debate to a wider audience and into liturgical and homiletical contexts. Catechetical instructions began to include explanations of the creed’s central theological tenets, and its recitation became a feature in the context of preparation for baptism.
World History
