Exposition of the Nicene Creed

Contents

Reading pages: 1–13 · 14–24

1. 1Theodotus praises his addressee's inherited faith, which protects the empire, and introduces the parable of the sower and the tares as a picture of true teaching and heresy.
2. 2Christ, one and the same, shows himself both God and man; by the union the sufferings of his flesh are truly God's, as Paul's “Lord of glory” and Peter's “Author of life” show.
3. 4The union of God and man is a wonder beyond reason, like the virgin birth, and must be held by faith rather than investigated; God willed to suffer and so chose to be born.
4. 5Denying that Mary bore God undoes God's saving condescension; Christ's warning against being ashamed of him and Paul's “I am not ashamed of the gospel” concern God who suffered in the flesh.
5. 6The “weakness” and “foolishness” of God in 1 Corinthians are his acceptance of sufferings, which healed humanity and conquered the world's wisdom.
6. 7Those who divide Christ into two abolish the economy: only a real union explains Paul's self-emptying, the crucified Lord of glory, and the one who descended and ascended.
7. 8Theodotus quotes the Nicene Creed of the 318 Fathers as a rule of faith that speaks of one Son and is to be believed, not argued over.
8. 9The Nicene Fathers, facing Arius as the church now faces Nestorius, began the creed with the one Father so that the Son too would be confessed as one.
9. 10Theodotus rejects the claim that “Son” and “Christ” are one name for two realities, and introduces Nestorius's reply to Cyril, which quotes the Nicene Creed.
10. 11Theodotus accuses Nestorius of omitting the word “one” from the creed's article on the Son so as to make room for two subjects, one Son by nature and another by grace.
11. 12Against Nestorius's claim that “Jesus” names only the human nature, Theodotus argues that the creed gives “Jesus”, “Christ”, and “Son of God” to one and the same subject.
12. 13Against Nestorius's contempt for the infant and circumcised Jesus, Theodotus argues that by the union the Word himself, impassible, is the crucified Lord of glory and the one Lord through whom all things were made.
13. 14As the Virgin became a mother without losing her virginity, so God suffered in the flesh without ceasing to be impassible; Peter's Pentecost speech shows one and the same Jesus who died and could not be held by death.
14. 15The creed calls the Jesus whom Peter confessed the consubstantial Son, not an adopted son; its words “came down … made flesh … became man … suffered” express a real union in which God suffered without a passible nature.
15. 17God's suffering, like the virgin birth, is a wonder to be believed; “passible” describes a nature able to suffer, so God, who suffered by union with the flesh, is not thereby passible.
16. 18The creed says the impassible Word came down, was made flesh, became man and suffered; as one virgin giving birth does not make virgins child-bearers, so God's suffering once in the flesh does not make him passible.
17. 19The creed's “rose on the third day” shows the fruit of God's suffering, which raises us with him; Paul's hymn in Philippians shows that God himself emptied himself by becoming man.
18. 20Theodotus charges that Nestorius, quoting Philippians 2 in his letter to Cyril, left out “he emptied himself” because those words show God himself entering human life.
19. 21By quoting “obedient to death” Nestorius convicts himself, since the one in God's form is the one who died; the creed teaches that God the Word suffered in his flesh, and comes as our kinsman to judge the living and the dead.
20. 22The birth from the Virgin was the beginning not of the Son's Godhead but of his manhood; the Nicene anathemas exclude both Arius and those who make Christ a mere man.
21. 23The creed's anathema on calling the Son changeable shows that the incarnation is a wonder of God, not a change; Zechariah's punishment for demanding proof teaches us to receive God's wonders in faith.
22. 24The Nicene Fathers, by placing faith in the Holy Spirit beside faith in the Father and Son, showed the Spirit's equal Godhead; Theodotus ends by dedicating the work to his addressee.