‘Not so fast my friend’ - 1700 years since Nicaea - with Rachel Ciano and Leonardo Di Chirico

It is 1700 years since the council of Nicaea and the publication of the Nicene Creed - but what are we to make of it?

It was the twentieth of May in the year 325 that the Council of Nicaea first met. 

Pope Francis said ‘The Nicene Creed is a powerful sign of unity among Christians.’

The 17 hundredth anniversary of the Council of Nicaea - is being used - by the Roman Catholic Church to push the idea that ‘All Christians are Nicene Christians.’

However the difficulty is that while we say the same words, Roman Catholics and Protestants mean vastly different things, and any unity is a fake unity at best. 

Leonardo de Chirico is pastor of the Church Breccia di Roma and director of the Reformanda Initiative.

Rachel Ciano lectures in Christianity and History at Sydney Missionary and Bible College. She is a faculty member at the Rome scholars and leaders network, hosted by The Reformanda Initiative.

The book ‘The Nicene Creed’ is available from Matthias Media.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Appeal for The Pastor's Heart Support
• 3:41 Introduction: 1700 Years Since Nicaea
• 8:17 Church History: What Happened at Nicaea
• 14:41 Scripture vs Church Authority Debate
• 20:27 Person of Christ & Work of Spirit
• 27:15 One Catholic Church & Christ's Return
• 36:34 Conclusion and Guest Information

Transcript

Dominic Steele: 2:22

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Dominic Steele: 3:17

Not so fast, my friend. It is the pastor's heart and it's 1700 years since the council of nicaea and the publication of the nicene creed. And what are we to make of it? Today? It is dominic steel. I'm with rachel chiano and leonardo de. There's an old line the devil is in the details. Now it was the 12th of May in the year 325 that the Council of Nicaea first met, so that's 1,700 years this month.

Dominic Steele: 3:40

Pope Francis said the Nicene Creed is a powerful sign of unity among Christians. Creed is a powerful sign of unity among Christians, and the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea is being used by the Roman Catholic Church to push the idea that all Christians are Nicene Christians. And the Pope has said how beautiful it would be if, each time we proclaim the creed, we felt united with Christians of all traditions. But a new Matthias Media book published this month, called the Nicene Creed the Nature of Christian Unity and the Meaning of Christian Words, essentially says not so fast, my friend, and we have linked to that book in the show notes.

Dominic Steele: 4:23

Leonardo Di Chirico is with us again, this time in person, along with Rachel Ciano. Leonardo is pastor of the Church Breccia di Roma and the director of the Reformanda Initiative. Rachel lectures in Christianity and history at Sydney Missionary and Bible College and is part of the faculty at the Rome Scholars and Leaders Network, which is hosted by the Reformanda Initiative. Leonardo, the problem is, isn't it, that when we say the words of the Nicene Creed, we all say the same words and we think we're meaning the same thing, but we're actually meaning quite different things?

Leonado D Chirrico: 5:05

Yes, you're right. When we say the words, we are pronouncing the same sounds and to a certain extent also we refer to the same meaning. And yet, if we pronounce the words, after many centuries, since the Council of Nicaea, words have been loaded with meanings that make it impossible just to stick to the point of if we pronounce the same sounds, we are meaning the same thing. Think about Mary, for example. There is a reference in the Creed regarding the Holy Virgin, and for a Catholic to refer to Mary opens up a whole set of files that not necessarily were meant to be opened in the original drafting. And there are many Christians, like the Protestants, for whom the reference to the Holy Virgin doesn't quite….

Dominic Steele: 6:18

But it's almost incidental for the Protestants.

Leonado D Chirrico: 6:21

Yes, exactly, and the same is true as far, as, say, the remission of sins and the same is true as far as say, the remission of sins. It's a very important statement, a very important truth, but how do we appropriate or benefit from the grace of God in being forgiven in our sins? The Roman Catholic Church has built a whole sacramental system in response.

Dominic Steele: 6:45

And as the Roman Catholic reads that sentence, they read that whole framework. Sure, sure, let's come back to that in a moment, but first let's go to the history of it. Rachel, and you're the church history lecturer, and I'm just thinking there's a lot of people watching who've studied church history, but it was 25 years ago. Sure, I get mixed up between my Nicaea and my Constantinople and take me back to actually what happened 1,700 years ago.

Rachel Ciano: 7:14

Sure, there's a lot going on. So, yes, the fourth century is the century for Christological controversies and articulation of the Trinity, and that goes, goes on in further centuries. But the fourth century is really ground zero for those discussions. And so, at the beginning of the fourth century, there emerges this teacher, arius. Now I don't know if that's ringing a bell.

Dominic Steele: 7:40

I haven't forgotten quite that much.

Rachel Ciano: 7:42

The big line I kind of tie to him is he taught that there was a time when the sun was not. So he argued, in trying to protect the unity of God and the kind of unchangeable nature of God, that Jesus was not eternal. And so if Jesus is not eternal then he is not fully divine.

Dominic Steele: 8:05

And can't pay for the sins of the world. That is one of the implications That't pay for the sins of the world in the same way.

Rachel Ciano: 8:07

That is one of the implications. That is one of the implications. So salvation comes through imitation in Arian's system. So Constantine comes to be the great emperor, has some sort of conversion experience, ends up uniting the empire under his rule, and one of the first things he wants to do is create kind of re-unity in the empire, pax Romana, by using the Christian church as part of that unity. He can see this kind of these grumblings, this schism sort of happening around Arius' teaching, and so he wants unity. So he calls this council to Nicaea, near the imperial residence in today's Turkey, and bishops and delegates come and meet to discuss lots of things. But number one on the agenda is what do we do with the teachings of Arius?

Dominic Steele: 9:06

And there were three groups. There was the Arians, the Athanasius people and the middle mob the middle mob.

Rachel Ciano: 9:14

So the largest group at that council are the middle mob. They are happy to say that Jesus is mostly like God, but they can't quite articulate that he is exactly the same substance, the same essence. So the Athanasian camp is firmly in that that Jesus is of the same essence as the Father. And then you have the Arians. He is not of the same essence as the Father.

Dominic Steele: 9:42

Remind me of the Greek words.

Rachel Ciano: 9:44

So homoousios, same substance, same essence.

Dominic Steele: 9:49

That's the Athanasius.

Rachel Ciano: 9:50

So the Athanasius, the broad group in the middle, the semi-Arians homoousios similar essence.

Dominic Steele: 9:59

And really I hadn't reflected until I read your book or maybe I hadn't and I'd forgotten on the intense political pressure from the emperor for this council to come up with a conclusion, and so there was intense political pressure for it to come up with a conclusion. So it did. It came up with the original version of the Nicene Creed, but it was a forced unity.

Rachel Ciano: 10:24

It was a forced unity which meant a paper-thin unity. So very soon after the Council of Nicaea in 325, the unity crumbles and in kind of the middle decades of the fourth century, the empire and the emperor's court after Constantine more or less winds up Arian. That's when you have the work of the Cappadocian fathers.

Dominic Steele: 10:50

I mean that's very interesting because I mean we'll put up the original creed on the screen here and it was very clear when you look here, and it'll be more clear, if you like, than I suppose, than the creed with which we're familiar with today. And we believe in one Lord, jesus Christ, son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, god from God, light from light, very God from very God. Begotten, not made consubstantial.

Rachel Ciano: 11:21

And then your word, the same essence, yeah, so yes, in 325 the council wanted to make clear that in every way Jesus was fully God.

Dominic Steele: 11:33

So they signed off under pressure from the emperor.

Rachel Ciano: 11:36

But there is pressure because it was a forced unity and so it hadn't gripped their hearts largely. Emperor Constantine wasn't known for his theological acumen. He was a statesman and he uses Christianity for some of those means. So it's at the Council of Constantinople in 381 that the creed is re-articulated, re-affirmed, and there are some additional clauses, there's expansion on what it means to believe in the Holy Spirit, and that's more or less the creed that we say today is the 381 Nicene Constantinople creed.

Dominic Steele: 12:18

Right. And now what was going on in the politics of the church at the time? Because you've got the power base of Athanasius, you've got the power base of Athanasius, you've got the power base of Arian. It doesn't feel like the Roman guys. I mean, what's happening with popes? And things like that at that stage.

Rachel Ciano: 12:42

It's really almost prior to popes.

Dominic Steele: 12:43

Depends who you ask. Yeah, that's what I realised.

Rachel Ciano: 12:47

Certainly, if you look at the power of the Bishop of Rome, I would say it's around the 5th century that the Bishop of Rome really starts to gain ascendancy as a position, because there's lots of cities in the Roman Empire that are important, that have bishops Constantinople, rome, antioch, alexandria, jerusalem and so it's as the Roman Empire starts to crumble that in the gap, that the Bishop of Rome really becomes the prominent person in Rome after the fall of Rome in the 5th century.

Dominic Steele: 13:54

So as I think about that, I read, in preparation for today, the document that's been prepared by the Roman Catholic Church ahead of the 1700th anniversary and they're really wanting to read back into, read the papacy and the authority of bishops back into this. But as I read your book, leonardo, you were at pains to see not that it was the bishops and the church hierarchy that were the authority, but in the end it is the scriptures that's the authority. Can you take us to that?

Leonado D Chirrico: 14:34

Yeah, that was the main concern of the Athanasians group to articulate the biblical message in a way that was think of the Nicene Creed as stemming from the language of John's gospel, for example, reflecting on the nature of the person of Jesus as being divine and human at the same time, and connecting the language of the Gospel of John to the other synoptical Gospels when they talk about the history, the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus and its salvific significance, and putting the summary of those two different statements in a language that was adequate to the philosophical discussions that were going around in the 4th century, so introducing the word homoousion. That is not a biblical word, but the council thought of this word as being the right, appropriate elaboration of biblical teaching concerning the person of Jesus, and so they introduced it as a way of serving biblical truth and serving the gospel. Ultimately.

Dominic Steele: 16:30

Very clearly, though in the thesis you're promoting here it's the creed sitting under the scripture, whereas it's very clear in the Roman Catholic thesis it's the church sitting over the creed sitting under the scripture, whereas it's very clear in the Roman Catholic thesis it's the church sitting over the creed. Can you give us some more of that argy-bargy? And between those two theses?

Rachel Ciano: 16:51

So I think creeds are very useful. They're very helpful articulations of theology, they're summaries.

Rachel Ciano: 17:00

But, the bedrock, the foundation, is scripture. They're only useful insofar as they clearly articulate what scripture teaches. There may be terms that are not in scripture that are used in creeds, but they are only useful if they articulate scriptural concepts. If there is the understanding that creeds come from the church and the authority of the church rather than from the authority of scripture, then a church a Roman Catholic church in this case then has authority over the creeds and then is able to read back into the creeds and understanding of, even, say, the papacy or ideas of Mary or forgiveness of sins, what it means to be one holy Catholic apostolic church, back into the creed in a way that the fourth century debates did not anticipate.

Dominic Steele: 17:56

Well, let's go through some of the big ideas of the Creed, and what I want to explore is the different position of people who have the Scriptures as their ultimate authority versus people who have the Roman Church as their ultimate authority. Person of Jesus Christ, work of Jesus Christ. The Creed makes a statement and yet you're saying different meanings in the statement there, Leonardo.

Leonado D Chirrico: 18:24

Well, there is certainly the claim of the historical nature of the incarnation and the historicity of the person of Jesus and the divinity and the full humanity historicity of the person of Jesus and the divinity and the full humanity and that is something that, at least at the level of even the catechism of the Catholic Church, is affirmed.

Leonado D Chirrico: 18:51

The problem comes in when the question is what do we do with this? What are the outcomes? What are the consequences for our Christian worship, christian life and the receiving of Christ's salvation? So on the one hand there is a commonality in affirming the historicity of the person of Jesus, but then that doesn't translate necessarily into the same appreciation on how the person of Jesus, but then that doesn't translate necessarily into the same appreciation on how the person of Jesus is our Savior and how he actually exercises his lordship over the world, over the church, over our lives. So at one level there is commonality, but that level is not the whole thing and we must not read into the creed something that is beyond the scope of the creed and even also considering the fact that we are no longer 1,700 years ago. There have been many developments, many elaborations, many discussions, many more creedal statements by the Roman church interpreting.

Dominic Steele: 20:09

In fact, that was one of the things that really jumped out at me strongly when I read the recent Roman article, which said you should expect theology to develop, whereas I want to say no, I want to look back to the scriptures. Keep going, yeah, yeah.

Leonado D Chirrico: 20:21

So it's in the nature of the Roman church to claim infallibility and indefectibility and so to put the Nicene Creed as one kind of stepping stone in this process, kind of stepping stone in this process, and so we cannot use it, the Nicene Creed, as the fully orbed, fully expressed summary of the Christian faith. It's one attempt at addressing one specific issue of the 4th century and putting kind of a foundational block, but not the summary of the whole gospel message, but addressing that specific issue for that specific circumstance. Circumstance, and also realizing that the nature of the subsequent Church of Rome thought of Nicaea as just one. They thought of it in organic, developmental terms only, in terms of then needing further elaboration, further expansion, to the point of then coming with this fully expressed Roman Catholic faith. That is something beyond the Creed, although they claim that it originates from the Creed, but actually it is something that moved beyond the boundaries of the creed and interpreted the creed in a certain way.

Dominic Steele: 22:03

What about the Holy Spirit? We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son, he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets. Differences, similarities between Protestant and Catholic understandings there.

Rachel Ciano: 22:21

I think in the Roman Catholic Church's teaching the Holy Spirit's primary work is in the sacraments, so first in the sacrament of holy order, so in the nature of priesthood. It is the Holy Spirit that then allows the priest to act in the person of Christ, the head, so that when he forgives it's actually Christ forgiving, when the priest baptises it's actually Christ baptising. And then the spirits work in the sacraments such as the Eucharist, which is the source and summit of the Christian life. Sacraments such as the Eucharist, which is the source and summit of the Christian life. For example, the priest at the moment of transubstantiation will call down the spirit to transubstantiate the element. So it is the spirit's work in transubstantiation that then becomes a way for Catholics to access that grace.

Dominic Steele: 23:17

I've forgotten that. And then I was watching the Pope's funeral the other night and the little bell rang and I said to my wife that's what's happening and she said, no, that's the moment of transformation that is calling on the epiclesis is calling on the Spirit to transubstantiate the elements.

Rachel Ciano: 23:35

Whereas I think in a Protestant understanding of the elements, whereas I think in a Protestant understanding of the scriptures, the Holy Spirit isn't so much tied to the nature of the priesthood or the sacraments, but rather the Spirit's job is to bring new life, to regenerate. The Spirit is never separate in a Trinitarian formulation from the work of the son and the father, and so Calvin made this argument when he was talking with well, not talking writing with Sardaletto, Cardinal Sardaletto, in the 16th century. He said when you receive Christ, you receive his spirit. You can't have the spirit without Christ, and therefore the spirit will do the work of regeneration. So our good works by the spirit are connected to our regeneration in Christ. According to Calvin, the spirit's work is not to help us participate in accessing grace.

Dominic Steele: 24:37

That's profoundly different, that if the Spirit's there to give me the new birth and to lead me to holiness versus all of those kind of holy, order-y type things and seven sacraments and that kind of thing the Spirit's sitting beside me as I read the Scriptures, helping me to understand the Scriptures.

Dominic Steele: 25:02

It's just I mean you said before the difference in understanding of the words over the person of Christ, particularly the atoning work of Christ. But here there's just a massive difference in understanding that the Protestant and the Catholic are going to be reading different things.

Rachel Ciano: 25:19

So the way that you've described the work of the Spirit in your own life there to be beside you, perhaps leading you interceding for you, your comforter, your guide.

Dominic Steele: 25:30

Yeah, that's the language of John 14 to 16, yeah.

Rachel Ciano: 25:34

In the Roman Catholic system Mary often takes that role. So we would suggest in the book that actually the high view given to Mary actually makes us think about are we confessing the same Trinity? Because the roles ascribed to Mary in the Roman Catholic system are actually roles that the scriptures say are the work of the Spirit alone.

Dominic Steele: 26:02

Referee me there, leonardo. I mean I'll just go back to the early clauses For us men and for our salvation. He came down from heaven by the power of the Holy Spirit. He was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. That's the reference to the Virgin Mary in the Apostles' Creed. But a whole different set of thinking is going on in the Catholic's mind to the Protestant mind at that point.

Leonado D Chirrico: 26:26

That's right, because the reference in the Creed is based on the history of salvation and the redemptive history that we're told of in the Gospels, whereas the further elaboration of the Catholic Church elevated Mary to a mediating agency or person, to the comforting presence, presence to the helping resource, and making the Holy Spirit kind of redundant or removed from the Christian life, and also making the presence of the risen Christ too remote, too distant, too high and filling the gap with the pervasive presence of Mary. And so while we state together these historical facts that come from the Bible, the way we appropriate them, we receive them, we benefit from them, differs in a in a substantial way and leading to different directions, different paths, different spiritualities, different accounts of the gospel, basically coming from the same summary that is not complete, but just a summary of certain issues discussed at the time, but then resulting in very different directions. And therefore, claiming that we can go back and find in the Nicene Creed our common shared unity. Agreement is something that has to be demonstrated, not something that has to be assumed.

Dominic Steele: 28:26

Yeah, I'm just going to come to the last clause. Really, we believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. What do you make of that? Well, what do the Protestants versus the Roman Catholics? How do we differently interpret?

Leonado D Chirrico: 28:42

that? Yeah. Well, that's a great example of the way in which we can say the same marks of the church and yet understanding them in a way that is very different. The Catholic Church sees in those four marks the legitimacy of the Roman Catholic papal institutional, political church, as the Protestant receives the four marks as an indication of the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit in the community of those who profess the faith in Christ and those who obey Christ and follow the leadership, the lordship of Christ and understanding the Church as the servant of the word and at the service of the gospel, rather than as a mediating agency representing God and exercising the power, the offices of Christ on his behalf.

Dominic Steele: 29:54

Rachel, through church history people have gone back and forward over the significance of that clause. The have gone back and forward over the significance of that clause. The one holy Catholic and apostolic church.

Rachel Ciano: 30:04

Yes, in a sense the story of the church is what does it mean to be one?

Dominic Steele: 30:10

That's something that the reformers wrestled with One.

Rachel Ciano: 30:14

that's something that the reformers wrestled with. The Protestant reformers of the 16th century were devoted Catholic men and women, and so they wanted to maintain the unity of the one Didn't want to be the splitters. Absolutely. They didn't want to be new, they didn't want to be novel, they weren't being innovative. They were simply calling back the church of their day to a church that they saw in the scriptures as they read them, and so, in a sense, it broke their hearts to have to move away, or really, they were pushed out they were miscommunicated and so no longer part of the church.

Rachel Ciano: 30:57

And so some people describe the Reformation as Augustine's doctrine of grace, which is grace alone in his debates with Pelagius, winning over Augustine's doctrine of the church, which is there to be unity and not divisibility. And so, in the end, for the Reformers, it is the work of God, through his Son and by his Spirit, in enabling grace to be available for believers, that wins the day, in the Reformation, over there being one individual church. And then, what does it mean to be Catholic? What does it mean to be Catholic? What does it mean to be universal? Is that the Roman Catholic Church, or is it the universality of people who have trusted in Jesus, who call on him as Lord, who meet in local gatherings but are united by his spirit across the world and across time?

Dominic Steele: 31:54

It's a super important difference you're articulating and yet so many people just kind of blur it over and say, yes, it's all of us and it's also the group headed by Rome and the Pope.

Rachel Ciano: 32:09

Well, I think that's where the apostolic idea in that confession comes through. So is the church apostolic because it can trace apostolic succession from Peter through to whoever the next Pope is going to be? Or is it apostolic because the foundations are the apostolic teaching and preaching, the written words of scripture? Is that submission to that what makes the church?

Dominic Steele: 32:35

apostolic. Again, that's an example of same words, different meaning. Yeah, what about the return of Christ Leonardo? How do we think differently? I'm just looking at this last sentence. We look for the resurrection of the dead, the life of the world to come.

Leonado D Chirrico: 32:49

Yeah, well, there is the expectation that the Lord Jesus will come a second time in glory, and there is a sense in which the Roman Catholic Church has internalized that expectation in the life and the structures of the church itself, so that the kingdom of God is completely realized and actualized in the life of the Roman Church. And so there is very little to expect, there is very little that has yet to come. And because the vicar of Christ is the head of the Church, the full presence, real presence and transubstantiated presence of the Lord Jesus is with us, the infallible words of Jesus are with us, and the absolution of our sins through the priest is with us, what else you would expect? What else are you waiting for? And so, even at that point, the Catholic Church embraced an over-realized type of eschatology. Over-realized because they thought of the church being the full realization of the eschatological expectations, and so making the statement again a footnote to their ecclesiology, not a proper indication of the eschatological hope.

Dominic Steele: 34:28

Thank you so much for coming and talking to us. The book is the Nicene Creed, the Nature of Christian Unity and the Meaning of Gospel Words. It's been edited by Mark Gilbert and Leonardo DiCirico, and Rachel is a contributor to it, along with a number of others. We want to say thanks for coming in and talking to us about that. We'll put a link to the book in the show notes. Leonardo DiCirico has been our guest. He is the pastor of Church Breccia di Roma and director of the Reformanda Institute, and Rachel lectures in Christianity and History at Sydney Missionary and Bible College and is on the faculty at the Rome Scholars and Leaders Network, part of that Reformanda initiative. My name's Dominic Steele. You've been with us on the Pastor's Heart. We will look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon.