Every community has signs that show what it stands for. In the early church, one of those signs was the Nicene Creed.
Christians sometimes called it a symbolon. In the ancient world, people in covenant would break a piece of pottery, each keeping half as proof of belonging. The Creed worked the same way: a token of identity, a shared anthem joining voices across time and place.
This year marks 1700 years since the Creed was first written. It was drafted in the city of Nicaea in 325 and revised in Constantinople in 381. It is one of the oldest and most widely shared statements of Christian faith, still spoken in churches all over the world.
At first the Creed can look like a list of doctrines. But read more closely and it is both poetry and promise.
It begins with wonder – God as “maker of heaven and earth” – and ends with hope – “the life of the world to come”. In between, it tells the story of Christ: eternally begotten, born of Mary, who suffered and rose again “for us and for our salvation”.
It also speaks of the Spirit who gives life, and the Church called into unity and holiness – into fellowship with the poor, the persecuted, and all who long for justice.
Long before the biblical canon was closed, the Creed gave Christians a way of seeing the Scriptures whole: Christ at the centre, God as persons in communion, the entire story moving toward life.
It is striking for the way it presents salvation.
The Creed does not describe Christ’s death as a legal transaction to satisfy God’s wrath, nor does it threaten eternal punishment (teachings that developed later in some churches). Early teachers such as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa spoke of judgement as a refining fire – burning away what is false so that healing and restoration may come.
In this light, the Creed celebrates God with us in the humanity of Christ, renewing through the Spirit, and bringing resurrection and life to the world.
There are also surprising images. The Father’s “begetting” of the Son echoes a mother giving birth. “Spirit” (in the original Greek) is a feminine word for wind or breath. The “communion of saints” is a mystical picture of belonging – like the bride of Christ in gospel and apocalyptic texts.
These images open space for imaginative and even queer ways of speaking about God and humanity.
Perhaps the boldest claim presents Christ and Spirit as “Lord”, sharing divine rule with the Father. In the ancient world this was radical and risky. For Christians today it still challenges us: real power is not domination but solidarity – power shared in love.
There’s a lot more to unpack, of course; a lot more to learn about poetry and ethics, about belonging in a world of diverse cultures – Christianity as one among many wisdom traditions.
To recite the Creed is not simply to repeat old words. It is to join a 1700-year-long poem of faith. It invites us into trust, and the dream of a world reconciled and renewed.
