In Our Time - The Nicene Creed

Episode Date: December 27, 2007

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Nicene Creed which established the Divinity of Christ. "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds." Thus begins the Nicene Creed, a statement of essential faith spoken for over 1600 years in Christian Churches - Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant. But what has become a universal statement was written for a very particular purpose - to defeat a 4th century theological heresy called Arianism and to establish that Jesus Christ was, indeed, God. The story of the Creed is in many ways the story of early Christianity – of delicate theology and robust politics. It changed the Church and it changed the Roman Empire, but that it has lasted for nearly 2000 years would seem extraordinary to those who created it. With Martin Palmer, Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture; Caroline Humfress, Reader in History at Birkbeck College, University of London; Andrew Louth, Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies at the University of Durham.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the program. Hello, we believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God,

begotten of the Father before all worlds. Thus begins the Nicene Creed, a statement of essential faith spoken for over 1,600 years in Christian churches, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant. But what's become a universal statement has written for a very particular purpose, to defeat a fourth-century theological heresy called Arianism, and to establish that Jesus Christ was indeed God. The story of the creed is in many ways the story of early Christianity, a philosophical theology and real politic.

It changed the church, and it changed the Roman Empire. but that it has lasted for more than 1,600 years would seem extraordinary to those who created it. With me to discuss the Nicene Creed are Andrew Lath, Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies at the University of Durham, Caroline Humphreys, reader in history at Birkbeck College University of London, and Martin Palmer, Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture. Martin Palmer, can you tell us about the early Christian church in the 4th century before this council? How is it based? How is it organised? and what it'd believe in.

If you can give us a picture of that, please. Well, I think we have to put it in the context that in the late Roman period, you have a supermarket of religions to choose from. You could go and immolate yourself for the cult of Sybil. You could go into underground secret cults with Mithras. You could believe that the world was evil and you were being saved from it by manichaeism.

You could go and worship the goddess ISIS. Or you could join one of a number of expressions of Christians of Christianity. So we have to see Christianity, as it were, as part of this enormous array of religions in a world in which the old certainties had crumbled. Jupiter and the others were really by that stage not terribly popular and not terribly powerful. And then I think within that context, one has to recognise that there was a tremendous diversity of Christianity's at that period. And I think it's right to use the word Christianity is in the plural. There is an image that is used by the church of the church being a ship of salvation,

sailing through the troubled waters of the world. Well, I think when we're reaching the period of the end of the third century, beginning the fourth century, we need to talk about ships of salvation that are setting off from different ports with different destinations, different pilots to some degree, all of whom claim to be faithful to the gospel of Christ, but some of whom emphasise that Christ could only be a human being

who've been adopted, others who were emphasizing that God was absolute and the only monarch. And gradually, as the storms of the political world and the ecclesiastical world rise up, a number of these ships sink en route and others begin to cluster together. So that by the time you get to 325 and the Council of Nicaea, what you've got are a number of dominant ships, if you like, who are sailing roughly in the same direction, but not all of them. was no attempt then, or little attempt then, before the Council and I see, to bring them together

to say there will be one way to do this, there will be a central organisation. No, in a sense, what you had was more a defining of what ought to be considered acceptable by saying what wasn't acceptable. Cutting out the hereses, if you like, was the way you defined yourself. So we're dealing with a very fluid situation, and because it's fluid, the era, if you like, of speculation as to who and what Christ was, what God was, what the salvation brought by Jesus actually meant, was really up for grabs. And about in the year 319, Presbyter Arias, a relatively junior member of the church, wrote to Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia complaining, we are persecuted because we say the son had a beginning. He was talking about Jesus Christ, the son of God. But can you explain the significance then,

and as it resonated through of his why he was being persecuted because we say the sun has a beginning. The great debate was, what exactly is the relationship of Christ to the Godhead? Is Christ an eternal element of the Godhead created before all time? Or is Christ, putting it in a very crude sense, a jolly good person who got adopted into the Godhead

because he exemplified everything that a good human being should be? Or was he halfway? between. And Arias is say, look, if he's of the father and he speaks of God as father, therefore he has to be after the father in time. And so Arias says there was a time when Christ was not, whereas what has now become Orthodox Christian teaching but wasn't really at that stage or wasn't defined as such, says no, no, Christ is eternal and before time. Caroline Humper is, in his letter, that letter, Aries complains of being persecuted.

Who was persecuting him? And why? Well, I think in order to understand that, we have to perhaps leave to one side, if we're thinking about the very early stages of the debate, we have to put to one side this notion of their being a well-defined doctrine of Arianism, which is being persecuted on an empire-wide basis. When Arias wrote that letter to U.S. Abuse of Nicomedea and said, you know, we are being persecuted because we say the sun has a beginning, and the father does not,

we really need to imagine the situation in Alexandria because that's what Arias is talking about. So you've got a strong metropolitan bishop in a highly urban area of the empire. Alexandria was the bread basket for the empire. It's where the grain was shipped out to Rome and the rest of the very, very important strategic city. In Alexandria, the way in which the institutional church was organized

was one strong metropolitan bishop, who at the time of Arias, when the contraband, Traversy first began is Alexander of Alexandria. So when Aria says we are being persecuted, what he actually means is we're not allowed to assemble ourselves in our church anymore because my metropolitan bishop has refused us the right to do that. It's a very local affair, which is particular to Alexandria and Egypt. We've got Alexander of Alexandria, a mighty man, sometimes called a pope as well as a

metropolitan bishop, so I understand it. But what sort of figure was Arias? Clearly he was a figure of influence, even though he was being persecuted and he was, as it were, mere presbyter, because he was listened to. He had followers all over the place. He stirred up enough anxiety and trouble for the, to be called a council. So can you tell us a bit more about him? Most of our information about the historical areas, the areas who actually lived, comes from people who wrote against him. So it's hard to separate the kind of straw man picture of Arius from what we in fact know. Athanasius, who was one of Arias's greatest combatants writing later, accuses Arias of being a kind of man of the people, someone who invented theological slogans,

who deliberately tried to motivate the people of Alexandria to be in his course. Philistogius, a later pro-Aryan historian, writes that Arias composed songs for the sea, he composed songs for the road, he set them to music, and that was why his doctrine spread. So there is this sort of slight status anxiety about Arias, a mere presbyter, not a bishop,

somebody who's very much in contact with the demos, the people at a very basic level. But whether that's actually historically accurate or not, it's very difficult to say. Andrew Love, at this stage, as Caroline hinted, this was fairly local and regional. Why didn't remain a private theological tussle? There are probably two elements.

The letter that you mentioned, the letter to Eusebius and Zimnik and Medea, in the course of it, Ares tries to make out that he's being persecuted for what all we followers of Lucian believe. He calls himself a disciple of Lucian and rather gives the impression that Eusebius himself was and that there were other people.

Now, Luciano Antioch, was a prominent biblical scholar in Antioch, who had died in the persecution under Diocletian, about 310. So it was an immensely respected figure, both as a scholar and as a martyr. And he obviously had attracted people from the east, from Asia Minor, from Palestine, from Egypt. And so there's a kind of group of students who had a kind of camaraderie. And these were now quite important people. You see this of Nakhimedeer, Nakhimedeer was effectively the court capital.

so he was very well placed. And it looks as if, but what Caroline said about being very cautious about pushing the evidence, that we have to repeat again, but it looks as if Ares was able to appeal to a lot of other people in the East saying that he was being

persecuted for what we all believed, what we all learnt at the feet of the Great Mark Lucian. So he did start what could be called a movement. There was unrest caused by Aris' views and the way that other people took up his views and the way his views were opposed.

There was a dispute going on there which became more than a local issue. I think that must be true. And because the other thing is that by 3-2-4, Constantine has become the sole emperor. He's got rid of Larkinnae. And he is concerned for the whole of the inhabited world, as they called it, the ecumenes.

And so what earlier on might have just been a squabble among Christians become something that comes to the attention of the emperor himself. This is the big thing, isn't it? And the Emperor Constantine, three to four, comes into the dispute, and he sends Bishop Osce of Cordova to resolve it. This is a big entry into what might seem a small dispute. Why did he come in and why did he take it so seriously? Well, one of his letters, he says that the job of the Christian church, as far as he is concerned,

is to pray to God for the emperor and for the empire. and I think he thought that if the church was divided and squabbling, God wouldn't hear its prayers anything like as readily as he would if the church was united. I think he sees the church as his link with the God who has given him victory. He never lost a battle, did he? He never lost a battle. The great battle where he had the shields with the... Cairoarsing.

Yes. What do you think? We told that he was the first Christian emperor. The implication there, from your point of view, and there is that it was cynical, is far too strong a word, but it wasn't a Christian move so much as a power move. I'm not sure about that. I think one of the trolls about asking my constantance Christianity

is that I think a lot of people tend to compare consonant with, say, Athanasius. That seems to me silly. I mean, it's a bit like comparing Field Marshal Montgomery with William Temple. He was a soldier. He was not a simple man. He was an intelligent man. But I think fair enough to say that Constantine did regard the Christian God as his patron in a way that the battle you mentioned was certainly significant for him.

And I would be hesitant to say that this isn't Christianity. There are varieties of Christianity. Can I briskly ask the other two before we move on? What do you think his motivation was, Martin? I think he is typical of his period. He is in the supermarket of religions. He's discovered that one is pretty effective, but he's also deeply committed to the unconquered son,

not the son of God, but the literal son. And he plays with both. When he founds Constantinople, he puts relics of the apostles and of Mary and bits of Noah's ark into the main dedication, but he also puts pagan elements in there. So I think he's typical of his period, but I would agree with Andrew.

I think we therefore have to see his Christianity, not as an aberration, but as simply how people were. At that period, we were having mosaics built here in Britain, which depicted Christ in the middle, and pagan scenes on the outskirts. And Caroline on this. I think more generally as well, in order to understand Constantine, we have to step outside this very modern or at least post-enlightenment idea that religion and politics are two separate things or can be separated out. Because for Constantine, he's in charge of keeping the empire happy. And that means keeping the gods happy.

So if he favours the Christian god, part of the way in which you keep the Christian, God happy is by being exclusivist and by ensuring that there is unity. So the politics and the religion, it's not, I don't think you can accuse him of being cynical. It's all part of the same parcel and that's a very traditional Roman attitude. Okay, staying with you, so in 324, Constantine, Emperor Constantine, calls this great council in Nicaea, which is in modern Turkey. So we already must observe that it's in the eastern part of Christianity. He's found in Constantinople, the thing is shifted east.

It was unprecedented. He called as many people as wanted to come, as it were. And a lot of people came. Was it surprising that so many people turned up to do? What did they think they were turning up to do? When the order goes out from the emperor, you answer. So that's the first, you know, and he situated it in Nysia as he wrote this general letter

because he said that it would make access for the Western bishops, as he'd certainly wanted Nicaea to include both Eastern bishops and Western bishops, so it would facilitate their access. And he also said the weather was better. You know, it would make it easier for him to turn up, and it was sunnier in Nicaea. So that is another reason. Now, the reason why all these bishops traveled there,

I think it's not just the theological debate to do with areas because the Council of Nicaea touched on any number of different matters to do with the church. So the first canon, for instance, is about whether priests who have been castrated should be allowed to continue in the clergy or not. Those who had been castrated by barbarians could. Those who'd done it themselves couldn't.

The second canon is about whether clergy can continue to live with women who aren't their mothers or widows. So there's all sorts of disciplinary issues which, and I see, a sorts out. There's also the very important theological and institutional issue of the date of Easter. You can't have a single unified church if everybody's celebrating, you know, the crucifixion and the rising of Christ on different days. And that rumbled on, as we know. But there are 20 canons, 20 laws passed at the Ghana. but we're going to concentrate on the Aaron Dispute and the status of Jesus Christ.

Martin Palmer, can you restate the basic positions? We're at Nicaea, a great number of bishops turned up, the overwhelming number from the Eastern Church, as I understand it. But there it is. Can you tell us what Aeus brought to the Council and what they were fighting about there? Well, they were fighting about this relationship between the divine and the human in Christ.

Arias was trying to move between this constant tension in the early church, between over-emphasizing the divinity of Christ and undermining, as it were, or ignoring his humanity, or over-emphasizing his humanity, and to some extent they're making the divinity secondary. It was a real tension. The crucial issue is what is the relationship between Jesus and his father? Is it a descending one? Is he begotten before time, not created?

Does that mean that therefore he's not as great as God? What is the significance of his human status? Why was he born as a human being? And in a sense, at this stage, and I think this is the point we've got to remember, there was no orthodoxy. There was a debate. There had been a continuous debate. And indeed the debate goes on for another 100 years,

at least until you get to the Council of Calcedon in 451, where again you've got this constant tension. is he more God than human or more human than God? And Arius is basically saying, well, I think that he is essentially God, but he's not exactly God. And therefore you get into the whole debate of is he of the same substance

or is he of like substance to God? At one level, it is a very abstruse discussion. Yes, but nevertheless inside it, there's a fascinating debate goes on, Andrelath. And in that, there's the idea of Logos, which translates as the word, plays a part, as in the John's Gospel in the beginning was the word.

It's a very Greek idea. Can you explain how that word and that idea came into the discussion that Martin's outlined? Well, in one thing, what's interesting about in the United States is it doesn't actually use the word Logos in the creed. And Logos had been, as you say, from the time of John's Gospel, at least

one way of talking about the incarnate Jesus as an expression, as a word, as a declaration of the father. So what he said was what the father said. And think of all those remarks in John's Gospel,

which align the father and the son. The word Logos, there also was a philosophical term and suggested the idea of the meaning of the universe so that to identify Jesus, the Logos, was both to relate him to the father and see him as his declaration, if you like. But at the same time, to suggest that it were the inner meaning of the cosmos in some ways,

was summed up in his being too. So it's a term that relates Jesus to God and to the world. Can I just get this a bit clearer? Although the word Logos wasn't used, the argument that you're putting forward, which is saying what Logos stood for and that Christ might, Jesus Christ might have stood for Logos, was disputed.

All that's in the background there. Yeah. But what happens in now here is that the term used is son rather, because what they're really interested in is the relationship with the father. Some of the later creeds in the 4th century go back and introduce the word logos. Well, I think the interesting thing, and I'm interested in Andrew's comments on this, is that it is essentially a Greek philosophical exercise,

trying to reconcile Greek thought into a emotional Hebraic notion of a passionate divine. And therefore, phrases light, very light of very light, for example, is going back to the notion which is picked up to some degree in the Lagos of there being a light of creation, and that this is the very origin of it. tries to create for the classical world an acceptable formula. It is an attempt to reconcile philosophy and faith.

And I think I would argue, but I'd be interested in Andrew's views, because I suspect he won't agree, that to some degree what gets lost is the passion of the Hebrew. I didn't think the Nicene Creed, the Creed in Isaiah was drawn up simply to condemn Arias, and it succeeded in that. Nobody would have thought of using it in any other context. Caroline, those of opposing Arias who were led by now by Athanasius, not Alexander, they came with the idea that the father and son were consubstantial.

Can you explain what that means? It's very important because I have the feeling that people listening to this program might feel that this is all dialectical hair splitting, but this stuff matters. It matters if you believe in Christianity. And it matters because Arias is challenging the notion that the father and the son are consubstantial. He's saying there was a time when there was a time when, the son was not, there was also a time when God the father was just God, not necessarily the father.

Now, that matters because if pushed to an extreme, you could see Aeus's views as claiming that Christ, the son of God, is part of the created order, not part of the creator. Now, that means that when Christ was incarnated, that then puts into question the whole notion of, you know, what the saving power of Christ is. And if Christ is more human than it, divine, then if he's human, that means that he's mutable. He can change. He could maybe, you know, he could go out and sin, right? The potential is there. Now, if Christ could sin, whether he did or not, when he dies on the cross, is he dying for us or is he in fact dying because he's sinned himself? So these are big questions about the saving power of Christianity, which Arius is challenging

here. They also, in the context of the early fourth century, tap into fears about Christianity. looking polytheistic. If there is a time at which Christ was not, does that mean you've got two gods and is Christianity just another form of polytheism? That was an accusation which Athanasius hurled at Arias. There's also the question that,

if you question Christ's majesty, Christ divinity, what does that then do to his eschatological role? At the end point of human time, Christ is supposed to come in judgment and sit in glory on the right side of the father, judge between the sheep and the goats, So if Christ is human rather than divine, how can he do that?

So it really puts into question the whole timeline of Christianity as well as the saving power. But isn't there an element, though, Caroline, that Arias is also responding to what later develops into a very strong tradition of monophism in Alexandria, which is an over-emphasis on the divine. And I slightly, I feel you sort of slightly present too strong a case for the Orthodox perceptive as we now have it, whereas there are really one. was a genuine debate. I mean, Antioch was very much for the humane side of Christ and was arguing in a sense, if Christ isn't human, then what on earth does this salvation mean? I mean, why go through this great play? Whereas Alexandria is much more saying, oh, no, we want to hower on the, on the divine side. That debate comes later and presupposes Niccia. What Nysia did, eventually, after about 50 years, was it became the only way which would be an orthodox Christian was to believe,

that Jesus was God come to save us. He wasn't a demigod. He wasn't a creature. He was God himself who had come to save us. He was one of the Trinity, and that expression emerges later on in the 4th century. Once you said that, then the question is, how does the humanity fit in?

And Antiole very much wanted to say that whatever Christ did as a God, he also did as a human being. Whatever the crucifixion is, this is something that is suffered by a human being. Well, that seems to me to be a later debate, and it's a debate which, as it were, presupposes the Nicene settlement. Just to keep listeners up to speed on this, Arias was defeated in that. He was exiled, and the Nicenecri that emerged is a victory for Athanasius and Alexander,

and actually in the background for Constantine. I think looking back, it certainly looks that way. So 325. But at the time, of course, 325 wasn't the end of the issue. Arias had very powerful. connections. Eusebius of Nicomedea, we've already mentioned, and effectively sitting very close to the emperor in the capital. And the whole thing rumbled on and on so much so that the night, so the story goes, the night before Arias died, he died in Constantinople because he'd been

recalled by Constantine because the very following day he was to be readmitted to communion. So of course, Athanasius then says, well, the fact that Arius died the night before was God's judgment. You know, he was condemned by a council in 325, by the Emperor in 2335, he was condemned by God in 336, and God would not allow areas to be readmitted. So there's a danger in looking back that we see 325 as this defining moment, which perhaps it wasn't until much later. But Andrew and then, well, Martin then Andrew, it doesn't matter which were, the Nicene Creed, as it eventually emerged, and it was, it was tempered at the Council of Consented Noble, and then later, as you said, Martin 150 years later, then later again. The Nicene Creed, as we know it, as we say it, read it, have it now.

What does it, it seems to be a test of, not so much a test of faith, a test of membership, really. This is, if you say this, you belong to this one church. Can you give us some, both of you, can you give it, first of all, Martin, can you give us some idea of what, the number of things it's saying and how it's embracing, one, trying to bring in to play all Christians into one church? a sense, if you look at the Nicene Creed, it's almost like a sort of geological strata is laid down by theological debates in the first 300 years of Christianity, somewhat fossilized as you go through. So, for example, it opens, as you did, the program, that

we believe in God Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth, which was an answer to those who were Gnostics, who said, no, this is an evil world created by an evil deity. So a great deal of what the creed is saying is this deals with this particular issue. of anarchism, this deals with manichyism, this deals with neoplatonism. There's all sorts of stuff already being debated and hammered out. But I think that the reason that Arius becomes important

at this particular moment, Constantine is wanting one church that is unified in order that you have one state, one emperor, one church. And in a sense, Aureus is the excuse for hammering through a definition which probably most of those who attended the council didn't actually understand or particularly believe in.

Arias is the excuse for streamlining a state church. I think it's a very important point, this use of the creedal formula, because I think the way in which the formula was arrived in 325, actual Nicene Creed, it's a crib sheet for professionals. It's to sort out a very particular theological dispute. And Constantine, remember, presided over the Council, and he was adamant that that creed should be as inclusive as possible. So if you compare the creed of Niccia in 325 with the creed which came out for Constantinople 383.81,

there's a big difference because Constantinople is phrased to be exclusive. You know, you had to believe in order to be able to sign. Whereas for Constantine in 325, he wanted as many bishops as possible, you know, bums on seats signed up. So the definition in that sense was loose. You know, you were supposed to be able to sign up to it. So, you know, it's a big. leap from that early 4th century context to the early 6th century context when we know school children in Egypt used to practice their handwriting by copying out the Nicene Creed onto

shards of pot. I mean, that's a very different world. Isn't it almost the nature of when you've got a religion that is beginning to establish itself, it needs to create a sort of touchstone of loyalty. I mean, you see that with Buddhism. 400 years after the Buddha, they create the Pali canon in Islam. You have the same phenomenon with the schools of law. by the three, four hundred years after Muhammad, they're codifying their law. I mean, at one level, I would see this as simply how religions work. They move through a charismatic period, through a period of great growth, and then you consolidate.

My problem is that I think we consolidate it with something rather limited. But in the way, I don't think the creed is that. The creed isn't part of that phenomenon. The canon... But it became that, surely, Andrew? Hardly. Because, you see, the West never, generally, used in the 19 creed of baptism.

There was a brief period of a couple of centuries. from I think the fifth century, was Rome used the Nicene Creed in baptism. But in fact, the Western writers never used. They use the Apostles' Creed, which is a much simple statement. The baptismal creeds of the 4th and 5th century are very various indeed.

And the only influence of Niccia is there is a tendency to include a few key phrases here and there. The use of the Nicene Creed liturgically in the Eucharist is in fact a feature of the late 5th century, the people that we call monophysites introduced it as a badge of their orthodoxy. And then it started to spread. It spreads to Spain,

where interestingly, that the creed is included in the liturgy just before you receive communion. Can I return to Constantin? I lost sight of him for a moment. He called the council. He is the first, we needn't well into the details of this,

or when it happened to know how deeply were. He's the first Christian emperor of Rome. He began the process by which Rome declared itself, even though he had a more so completely pagan army, declared itself to be a Christian state. He set off the whole thing that has rumbled through for the last 1600 years and been very, very important in faith, in the politics of the faith,

in faith in politics, all the sort of things. Did he get out of it, Martin, what he went in to get out of it? No, not really, because he hoped that this minor squabble, as he saw it, and indeed wrote, would be resolved and there would be a unified church. It would come out with an absolute clear,

commitment that the Roman Empire was an instrument of God. Constantine in particular was an instrument of God and so on and so forth. Instead, this whole debate rumbles on, exactly as Caroline said. The Arians, the supporters of Arias, have a resurgence under Eusebius in particular. And then other debates arise because the attempt to define out Arias means that other things have become overemphasized or other groups are now saying, in that case, we want to say the following. So ironically, where he tries to put a plaster over what is a small crack,

by perhaps pressing down on that small crack, he begins to crack the whole fabric. So no, I think it's not at all what he wanted. But whether what he wanted was possible, of course, is another question. Now this is a huge question, Andrea. But if you give it a shot, I think we'd all be very obliged. Did the intervention of Constantine, the emperor, a powerful emperor, the man who never lost a battle and thought that prayer would help him to win all the other battles.

Did his intervention change, or eventually, not that time, Euro-Same, eventually changed the very nature of Christianity, the place it played in society, in history even? I would say it didn't change fundamentally the nature of Christianity, but it gave Christianity, it opened up to Christianity, areas of influence that it would never have had, and areas of influence which it has not very well coped with. Christianity became, much more so with Theodosius at the end of the century,

Christianity became the ideology of the empire. And that is something that I think Christians have not found very easy to cope with because it raises all sorts of things like Christianity before Constantin was an anti-Pacific religion. There are lots of stories of Christians being persecuted because they refuse to serve in the army. This sort of thing changes dramatically in the fourth. century and the church has to find some way of ending up, you know, blessing guns.

Caroline. I think I can answer that question by actually going back to the description of what happened at the Council of Mycia before the debates about areas came about or the formalising of the canons. So you should imagine the large imperial audience hall with Constantine, you know, sitting in state as befits a Roman emperor. He stands up and makes a speech of welcome to the assembled bishops. of the assembled bishop, Eusebius of Nicomedeus, stands up and makes a panegyric, you know, speech

of praise to Constantine. And then, so we're told, the bishop's scramble to present petitions to Constantine, because they want churches reassigned, they're asking for money. All of a sudden, that whole powerful structure of the Roman Empire, the idea of the emperor being the person who bestows the largest and gives the gifts, has become accessible to Christianity. Now, I think in that sense, Constantine made a massive impact on the history of Christianity. But if I could just pick up on something that Martin mentioned before, I also think it's perhaps a bit of a mistake to see a kind of charismatic phase of the church being replaced by an institutional phase of the church.

Because one of the great concerns about Constantine's era was precisely what do you do with the people who are faithful, you know, with the people who just believe in God and believe wholeheartedly. And there's a story which is told in the early. 5th century about the sort of prelude to Nicenecia, all these bishops are assembled, very skilled non-Christian dialectician comes up and starts to debate with a bishop. The bishop gives him all these creedal formulae, all the very complicated things that we've been talking about. Still, the pagan philosopher is unconvinced. Then upstep, somebody who suffered under the persecutions of

diocletian makes a very simple profession of faith that he believes in God, the Father. And the pagan philosopher then declares himself to be completely converted and gets carried off to be baptized. Now, I think what that story, when the 5th century writers who dreamt that story up, what they were trying to get across to us was this notion that you might well have an institutional church with access to power, but the charismatic part of it, the simply believing and witnessing to your faith, has to remain important. I think that's absolutely essential, but I think we've also got to recognize that elements are coming into Christianity.

If we just look at the creed again, the statement that Christ is seated at the right hand of God is taken straight from Imperial Court etiquette. That's where the co-Cesar sat. So, yes, I would agree with, of course, the saints and the charismatics and the simple faith, but we are moving into a phase in which the state is beginning to shape the way in which a church thinks of itself and expresses itself, even in the creed. We are mimicking the imperial court. Was it a creed imposed?

If so, when did it start to be imposed? throughout the empire? I can't think of any imposition of a creed in the way of having to sign up to something until about the iconoclast controversy. I mean, the creed spread, I think, because it became more and more recognized as a good way of putting what most people thought.

And that's why it's this particular creed rather than... I mean, the Nicene Creed itself, and I say it was never going to be useful liturgically because it ends and in the Holy Spirit and then a string of curses against Ares' position. I think the Armenians actually do use it, but it's a bit odd. There's a feeling that I got from reading about this

and from what three of you have written for this programme that not only, obviously, Constantine's intervention had an impact on Christianity inside the empire and had a continued impact on Christianity's relationship with the state. You outlined one or two things, from not bearing arms to having to bless guns, and it became part of the state, and it became intricate, supportive of the state,

and people argued about its position with regard to the state and have done ever since still. It became organisation, unhierarchic and institutionalised and building driven and so on and so forth. But is there also a sense, Martin, Palmer, that discussions of these matters in these terms were aside from the main point of faith. Oh, I think that's absolutely true,

and I think Andrew is right in the sense that it doesn't have this formal sign-up or be thrown out element, although it does to some degree when you come to the Council of Calcedon because the creed becomes very important in defining who is in and who is out in terms of major power blocks. But I think for the vast majority of people, their faith was expressed as it's always been expressed through stories and saints and prayers.

And this is where Aureus was so popular as we understand it. And there is a slight clash here that you are beginning to get a religion that wants to become more clear about what it means. to belong and has less fun with some of the speculation. Now it's solidified and said again and again, as I did from very early age. What part does the Holy Spirit, sometimes as the Holy Ghost play in this? Would you like to start that, Andrew?

In the Nicene Creed as we have it, what is the relationship between God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit? Well, in the creed that was agreed in 381 at Constantinople, The section on the Holy Spirit runs, and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who together the Father and the Son is worshiped and together glorified. And so the idea is that the Son proceeds from the Father, and this is something like Begetting, but not the same, because whereas Begetting produces a son, possession produces a spirit. The people who talked about, the The Theologians talked about this,

didn't imagine for a minute that we would be able to understand any of this. they're not saying that we understand this we've penetrated the mysteries of the godhead they're just saying that this as it were expresses as much as we can grasp of the mystery of the Trinity there's also a very interesting fact in the fourth century

where a lot of theologians have told around and say we should just shut up about this stuff it's a mystery it's not supposed to be understood it's not supposed to be understood logically but I think to come back to the Holy spirit and that it's not really until the 360s, 370s that the Holy Spirit starts to come into the picture. And then you find in 381, the emperor Theodosius I looks back to the creed of Nicaea and issues a piece of legislation, which we know today as the concutus populace, addresses

it to the whole people of the empire, and embodies the creedal statement from Nicaa as a touchstone for orthodoxy. So from 381, you do have this idea that if somebody's hauled up in a legal court and accused of being a heretic, one way to test that is to say, can you recite the Nisian creed? But by the 380s, the debate had already moved on so that the Nisian creed wasn't sufficient as a touchstone of orthodoxy. But it does become a test of all sorts of things, not just a faith, doesn't it, might have It does, and I think the fact that we have a split between the Eastern and the Western churches to this day over the insertion of the filoque clause, which in the creed that you and I would

have said as growing up in the... Anglican Church, includes the phrase receives from the father and the son. And that is not, as Andrew has said, in the original creed. And the fact that that has become a major division point or a reason for articulating many, many other reasons for a split, I think shows that the Nicene Creed has become,

or did become, within three or four hundred years, a touch of loyalty, a touchdown of loyalty. And in that sense, ironically, and very sadly did lead to a major split between the Catholic Church of the West and the Orthodox Church of the East. Andrew, would you like to take that forward?

I think it's more of a symbol. The filiocry didn't cause the split. No, I said it was one of the reasons. The split emerged and it became an issue that you could hurl one side and the other. I mean, Rome was very, very reluctant to change the creed. It's not until the second millennium the Church of Rome, the Church of the City of Rome,

under the Pope, under pressure from the Holy Roman Emperor, adds the filial of the Creed. It was intended when Constantine called that council, it seems to be one of his intentions, to bring Christianity to give it a set purpose to make it very important to the state, to his empire. Has it fulfilled that finally? Do you think it's fulfilled that function over the last 1600 years?

Starting with you, Andrew. I think in some ways it has, because I think the, The way in which the creak may understood is actually fairly flexible for a start. And it is a kind of emblem of what all Christians believe. Martin? I think to some degree it achieved what it set out to do, but I think it also lost us a great deal of beauty, of diversity, of sheer variety,

because it has been used as a sledgehammer to occasionally crack some rather interesting nuts. and I think we've lost quite a lot as a result. Carly? I think it's a very, it's a difficult question. It's a big question. But one of the interesting side lines to this whole has the Nisine Creed achieved its purpose is to look at how our views of the historical figure of Ares has changed

because Aries has become increasingly vilified. So I think as the creedal formula in the relationship between church and state as we would describe it, became more sedimented, it did leave open the way in a late fourth century, one emperor apparently set up a statue of Arias in Constantinople at the place where he died, which was unfortunately a public toilet where his bowels had exploded, and actually invited people to, you know, go to the toilet on the statue rather than going to the toilet. So, you know, people actually hurling excrement at a statue of Arias is pretty much the situation historians have been in

up until about 20 or 30 years ago. So it really does, you know, this is, I'd hate to say this is all about power, but we'd be very naive if we didn't think that this was a power game which was set in place from the early 4th century and which we still live under the influence of today. Well, thank you all very much. Thanks Caroline Humphreys. Thank you, Marty Palmer. Thank you, Andrew Laugh. Next week I'll be talking about Albert Camus, he of the outsider, the myth of Sisyphus, the Nobel Prize of Literature, and an early death. Thank you for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast. You can find hundreds of other programmes about History, Science and Philosophy at BBC.com.com.uk forward slash Radio 4.