What evidence is there that the original framers of the 325 Nicene Creed intended it to be read in subordinationist ways?

Question

“’Subordinationism’, it is true was pre-Nicene orthodoxy” [Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers p. 239.]. RPC Hanson (The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, p. xix.) even wrote:

“With the exception of Athanasius virtually every theologian, East and West, accepted some form of subordinationism at least up to the year 355.”

If Hanson is right, then the delegates at Nicaea, who accepted the Nicene Creed, must have read that creed as consistent with their subordinationist views. The creed starts with the words:

“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty ... And in one Lord Jesus Christ.”

This seems to exclude the Son as that “one God” and as “Almighty.” But the creed goes on to describe the Son as:

"God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God … homoousion with the Father"

This seems to describe the Son as equal with the Father and would be inconsistent with Hanson’s statement that the delegates at Nicaea were subordinationists. For that reason, I ask: What evidence is there that the original framers of the 325 Nicene Creed intended it to be read in subordinationist ways?

Answer 1

'I and the Father are one', John 10:30, and 'My Father is greater than I', John 14:28, express both equality (of nature) and subordination (in relationship) which the Nicene Fathers fully appreciated and expressed.

These two aspects are written in to the Nicene documents and appear especially in the extensive writings of Athanasius.

Answer 2

Subordination in the Nicene Creed

You ask

What evidence is there that the original framers of the 325 Nicene Creed intended it to be read in subordinationist ways?

The short answer is that the Council clearly intended to

• Affirm the Son as having His origin within the Father.
• Deny there is any difference or distinction in the nature of the Father and Son.

The semantics of subordination can be debated, but the evidence favors the conclusion that the Council did not intend the Symbol to indicate that the Son was in any way lesser than the Father. The opponents of Nicaea seem to hang their arguments on two points.

• The Son is lesser than the Father because he is of a different nature from the Father.
• The Son is lesser than the Father because he has his a beginning/is dependent on the Father for existence.

The first is explicitly excluded in the Symbol. The second is disavowed by Athenasius in his commentary on the Council's proceedings.

Before explaining this answer we must acknowledge several difficulties in the question. Among them are

• Determining the intent of any author will be biased by the reader. This applies to both our reading of the Creed and the Council's reading of the Ante-Nicaean fathers.
• There are few extent primary sources on the thoughts of the Council, and the principle one is Athenasius's De Decretis.
• The term subordination has been prominent in recent Christian theological debates. We must take care to not conflate inappropriately Bettenson's use of the word with current uses[^1].

Separating the Father from the Son

You note that

The creed starts with the words:

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty ... And in one Lord Jesus Christ."

This seems to exclude the Son as that "one God" and as "Almighty."

This may not mean to exclude the Son from One God but rather suggest unity with the One God. Note that the Creed parallels 1 Corinthians 8:6.

yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Corinthians 8:6 NRSV)

The Nicaean Fathers adapted this as

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ [...] by whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth

While Paul does maintain a separation between them in that the all things are from the Father but are through Jesus, he also unites them in the act of creation. To both Jewish and Greek readers, this declares Jesus as divine and places him beyond Creation.

If Paul intended this verse to be a reworking of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4), then this unequivocally unites Jesus with the Father rather than suggesting separation. (Paralleling 1 Corinthians 8:6 with Deuteronomy 6:4 is a matter of interpretation, but one that I think is well supported.)

If Paul did not intend this, he is still using language that identifies Jesus as the Logos of the Father. Of course there are some interpretations that separate the nature of the Logos from the One, the Father, making the Logos a creation or emanation of the Father. In this case, the Logos is of a different nature than the Father. He is of a nature that can mediate between the eternal nature of the Father and the temporal nature of creation. That is, the Logos is fundamentally different from the Father. Further, phrases from the Creed such as "Light of Light" are not incompatible with such a separation. However, the Creed quickly suppresses the idea that there is any difference in nature by declaring (as you noted) that Jesus is "homoousion with the Father".

This seems to indicate that the Council intended to eliminate a subordination of the Son to the Father by means of nature. We will see below that Athenasius further attacked in De Decretis this idea of a secondary/mediator creator (demiurge) separate from the Father.

Created or Begotten, Contingent or Essential

One of the arguments put forth by some Arians[^2] was that the Son is lesser than the Father because the Son had a beginning but the Father did not. We should note that the use of 'created' in reference to the Son should not be understood in the same manner as 'God created the world'. Rather, Arian's acknowledged that the cosmos was created through the Son, but that the Son was created/begotten 'before' this. Arius himself wrote in a letter to his fellow Arian Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia:

But we say and believe, and have taught, and do teach, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any way part of the unbegotten; and that He does not derive His subsistence from any matter; but that by His own will and counsel He has subsisted before time, and before ages, as perfect God, only begotten and unchangeable, and that before He was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, He was not. For He was not unbegotten. We are persecuted, because we say that the Son has a beginning, but that God is without beginning.

It would seem that Arian faction would not object had the Creed read,

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, the only-begotten, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, by whom all things were made both in heaven and on earth

Indeed, it seems likely that they would not oppose the addition of the phrase "begotten of the Father before all worlds" that was later made at Constantinople. However, they were insistent that the Son has a beginning (even if this beginning is outside of time) while God the Father does not have a beginning. Even the Nicaean inclusion of 'the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, [...] consubstantial with the Father' does necessarily eliminates the Arian argument that the Son has a beginning.

Athenasius later argued that it is impossible for the Son to both have an beginning and not be part of Creation. (As mentioned above, this passage also attacks the idea that the Father could not participate in creation of the temporal world.)

But let us suppose that the other creatures could not endure to be wrought by the absolute Hand of the Unoriginate and therefore the Son alone was brought into being by the Father alone, and other things by the Son as an underworker and assistant, for this is what Asterius the sacrificer has written, and Arius has transcribed and bequeathed to his own friends, and from that time they use this form of words, broken reed as it is, being ignorant, the bewildered men, how brittle it is. For if it was impossible for things originate to bear the hand of God, and you hold the Son to be one of their number, how was He too equal to this formation by God alone? and if a Mediator became necessary that things originate might come to be, and you hold the Son to be originated, then must there have been some medium before Him, for His creation; and that Mediator himself again being a creature, it follows that he too needed another Mediator for his own constitution. And though we were to devise another, we must first devise his Mediator, so that we shall never come to an end. And thus a Mediator being ever in request, never will the creation be constituted, because nothing originate, as you say, can bear the absolute hand of the Unoriginate. And if, on your perceiving the extravagance of this, you begin to say that the Son, though a creature, was made capable of being made by the Unoriginate, then it follows that other things also, though originated, are capable of being wrought immediately by the Unoriginate; for the Son too is but a creature in your judgment, as all of them. And accordingly the origination of the Word is superfluous, according to your irreligious and futile imagination, God being sufficient for the immediate formation of all things, and all things originate being capable of sustaining His absolute hand.

De Decretis 3:8

If Athenasius is expressing the opinion of the Council, and he claims to be doing so, then Nicaea intended to disavow the idea that the Son is in some way lesser than the Father because the Son had a beginning and the Father did not.

Even if the Son does not a beginning, it could be argued that the Son is lesser than the Father since the Father must necessarily (in a logical sense if not a temporal sense) must precede the Son. Athenasius counters this by stating that if God is unchanging, then the Father is always Father. And if the Father is always Father, the Son must necessarily and always be. The begetting of the Son is not act or choice of the Father, but part of his nature. If the Father necessarily exists by his nature (and it is assumed that he does), then the Son necessarily exists by the same means. Although we can say the light has its origin in the fire or the stream in the fountain, the fire cannot exist without the producing the light nor the fountain the stream. Likewise, Athenasius argues that without Son, the Father is not God.

This then is quite enough to expose the infamy of the Arian heresy; for, as the Lord has granted, out of their own words is irreligion brought home to them. But come now and let us on our part act on the offensive, and call on them for an answer; for now is fair time, when their own ground has failed them, to question them on ours; perhaps it may abash the perverse, and disclose to them whence they have fallen. We have learned from divine Scripture, that the Son of God, as was said above, is the very Word and Wisdom of the Father. For the Apostle says, 'Christ the power of God and the Wisdom of God;' and John after saying, 'And the Word was made flesh,' at once adds, 'And we saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,' so that, the Word being the Only-begotten Son, in this Word and in Wisdom heaven and earth and all that is therein were made. And of this Wisdom that God is Fountain we have learned from Baruch, by Israel's being charged with having forsaken the Fountain of Wisdom. If then they deny Scripture, they are at once aliens to their name, and may fitly be called of all men atheists, and Christ's enemies, for they have brought upon themselves these names. But if they agree with us that the sayings of Scripture are divinely inspired, let them dare to say openly what they think in secret that God was once wordless and wisdomless; and let them in their madness say, 'There was once when He was not,' and, 'before His generation, Christ was not;' and again let them declare that the Fountain begat not Wisdom from itself, but acquired it from without, till they have the daring to say, 'The Son came of nothing;' whence it will follow that there is no longer a Fountain, but a sort of pool, as if receiving water from without, and usurping the name of Fountain.

De Decretis 4:15

Since Athenasius asserts that the Father is not God without the Son, it seems difficult to infer that the Son is subordinate to the Father.

Keeping or Changing Tradition

It should not be a surprise that both the pro-Nicaean and anti-Nicaean sides claimed that they were in agreement with them. In part this is a result of an imprecision in language and thought. As can seen by the arguments of Arius and Athenasius, logically changing ideas such as the whether or not the Son had a beginning even if that beginning was before time, care must be taken to examine the implication of these statements. There were certainly ante-Nicaean fathers who used subordinationist language, and it is likely that some of them believed exclusively believed it, care must be taken before asserting that is was the majority position prior to the Council. Take for example Theognostus of Alexandria. In Book 2 of Hypotyposes he refers to the Son as a creature, suggesting an Arian viewpoint. Later he states as quoted by Athenasius

The essence of the Son is not one procured from without, nor accruing out of nothing, but it sprang from the Father’s essence, as the radiance of light, as the vapour of water; for neither the radiance, nor the vapour, is the water itself or the sun itself, nor is it alien; but it is an effluence of the Father’s essence, which, however, suffers no partition. For as the sun remains the same, and is not impaired by the rays poured forth by it, so neither does the Father’s essence suffer change, though it has the Son as an Image of Itself.

Had he heard the arguments of Arius and Athenasius, with which would he have agreed?

[^1]: I don't have a copy of Bettenson, so I can not comment his use of subordination.

[^2]: I use the term Arian in the broadest sense to include various semi-Arian pre- and post-Nicaean positions. I am aware that these were not all the position of Arius.

Answer 3

In the Nicene Creed, is the Son equal to the Father?

This article first discusses what the delegates to Nicaea in 325 believed and then what the Creed says.

Authors Quoted

This article series is based on the latest books on this subject, all by world-class Trinitarian scholars.

Following the last full-scale book on the Arian Controversy, published in English by Gwatkin at the beginning of the 20th century, R.P.C. Hanson in 1988 published perhaps the most influential book in modern history on the Arian Controversy.[Hanson RPC, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God: The Arian Controversy, 318-381. 1988]

This was followed in 2004 by a book by Lewis Ayres.[Ayres, Lewis, Nicaea and its Legacy, An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology, 2004] Ayres confirmed the importance of Hanson's book.

“Richard Hanson’s The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God (1988) and Manlio Simonetti’s La Crisi Ariana nel IV secolo (1975) remain essential points of reference.” (Ayres, p. 12)

Ayres’ book is based on those surveys and “in some measure advances on their texts.” (Ayres, p. 5)

Summary

All theologians of the centuries before Nicaea described the Son as subordinate to the Father. During the fourth-century Controversy, both pro- and anti-Nicenes continued to regard the Son as subordinate to the Father. Almost all delegates to the Council of Nicaea came from the East and the Eastern church believed the Son to be subordinate. Therefore, the delegates to Nicaea must have understood the Creed to say that the Son is subordinate.

The Creed itself also presents the Son as subordinate:

• It calls the Father Father and the Son Son.
• While the Father is Almighty God, the Son is 'Lord'.
• While the Father is the Creator, the Son is His means of Creation.
• While the Son is 'begotten' the Father exists without cause.

The term homoousios implies equality but was explained and accepted at the Council as allowing subordination.

The Creed refers to the Son as ‘God’ but that did not mean that He is equal to the Father. For example, the Arians, who regarded the Son as subordinate, also described Jesus as 'God'. The reason is that the Greek term translated as 'God' (theos) had a flexible meaning.

The pro-Nicene of today is not equivalent to the Nicene Creed of 325 but evolved after Nicaea as one way of explaining it. Emperor Theodosius’ Edict of Thessalonica in 380 was the first clear Trinitarian document.

The Delegates

All theologians of the centuries before Nicaea described the Son as subordinate to the Father.

“It is evident in Origin’s writings that he considered the Son's divinity lesser than the Father's, since he even calls the Son a creature.” [Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, 1971, The Chicago University Press, p. 191.]

“’Subordinationism’, it is true was pre-Nicene orthodoxy”[Henry Bettenson, The Early Christian Fathers p. 239.]

The “conventional Trinitarian doctrine with which Christianity entered the fourth century ... was to make the Son into a demi-god … a second, created god lower than the High God” (Hanson Lecture).

During the fourth century, both pro- and anti-Nicenes continued to regard the Son as subordinate to the Father.

“With the exception of Athanasius virtually every theologian, East and West, accepted some form of subordinationism at least up to the year 355; subordinationism might indeed, until the denouement (end) of the controversy, have been described as accepted orthodoxy.” (Hanson, p. xix)

“Until Athanasius began writing, every single theologian, East and West, had postulated some form of Subordinationism.” [mfn]RPC Hanson, “The Achievement of Orthodoxy in the Fourth Century AD” in Rowan Williams, ed., The Making of Orthodoxy (New York, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989) p. 153.[/mfn]

Almost all delegates to the Council of Nicaea came from the East and the Eastern church believed the Son to be subordinate.

Almost all delegates came from the East:

The delegates were “drawn almost entirely from the eastern half of the empire” (Ayres, p. 19).

“The Council was overwhelmingly Eastern, and only represented the Western Church in a meagre way.” (Hanson, p. 156)

The Eastern church believed the Son is subordinate:

“Almost all the Eastern theologians believed that the Son was in some sense subordinated to the Father before the Incarnation,” (Hanson, p. xix)

”Almost everybody in the East at that period would have agreed that there was a subordination of some sort within the Trinity.” (Hanson, p. 287)

The creeds formulated by the Eastern church in the decades after Nicaea, such as the Dedication and the Long-Lined (Macrostich) creeds formulated respectively 16 and 19 years after Nicaea, confirm that they regarded the Son as subordinate.

Since they accepted the Nicene Creed but also regarded the Son as subordinate to the Father, the Easterners, who were the vast majority at Nicaea, must have read the Creed as saying that the Son is subordinate to the Father.

The Creed

This section discusses indications of subordination and equality in the Creed.

Indications of Subordination

While the Creed identifies the Father as the ‘one God’, the only Almighty Creator, the Son is Lord and Means of Creation.

It is often claimed that the Nicene Creed describes the Son as equal to the Father. However, the creed begins as follows:

“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father ... through Whom all things came into being … very God of very God ...”

This identifies the Son as subordinate to the Father:

• God vs Lord - The Creed describes the Son as “one Lord” but the Father with higher titles, namely as the “one God” and as the “Almighty.”

• Almighty - The creed identifies the Father alone as “Almighty.” Consequently, the Son is not “Almighty.” Two 'Almighty' Beings are impossible, for each would limit the might of the other.

• Creator - The Creed identifies the Father as the “Maker of all things” and adds that all things came into being "through" the Son. However, it is the Father who makes all things 'through' or 'by' the Son. (Cf. John 1:3; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2; 1 Cor 8:6).

• Father vs Son - The titles "Father" and "Son" also identify the Son as subordinate to the Father.

• Begotten - If the Father begat (gave birth to) the Son, then the Son is not the original Source of all things; the Father alone exists without cause and is the Cause of all things. For that reason, we cannot compare the Father and the Son to a human father and son.

Homoousios

The term homoousios implies equality but was explained and accepted at the Council as allowing subordination.

The Creed says the Son was begotten from the Father’s substance and that He is homoousios (same substance) with the Father.

In the Trinity doctrine as later developed, Father and Son are one Being with a single will and mind. Therefore, it interprets homoousios as 'one substance', meaning a single substance. But homoousios (same substance) can also mean two substances of the same type.

In both cases, the term implies that the Son is equal to the Father in terms of substance, nature, or being (ontological equality).

However, since the Creed presents the Son as subordinate to the Father in other respects, other options must be considered:

• In Tertullian's theology homoousios did not mean equality. He taught that the Son is part of the substance of the Father. Therefore, in his schema, the Son is both 'one substance' with the Father and subordinate.

• At the Nicene Council, the emperor, who proposed and insisted on the term, also explained it and said it must be understood figuratively as merely meaning that the Son is from the Father. With that explanation, the Eusebians were able to accept the creed. However, if it only means that the Son is truly from the Father, the Son can still be subordinate to the Father:

“In Eusebius' reading of the text it is still possible to read Nicaea as implying a certain subordinationism” (Ayres, p. 91)

But the Sabellians at the Council understood the term to mean both equality and unity.

Before Nicaea, 'homoousios' was a Sabellian term (Read more). At the Council, the Sabellians were able to include the term in the Creed because they allied with Alexander and because the emperor took Alexander's side. (Read More) Since, in Sabellian theology, Father and Son are a single Person with a single mind, they would have understood the term to mean 'one substance'.

However, the Sabelians were in the minority and, after Nicaea, the church eradicated the term homoousios from its vocabulary by exiling all leading Sabelians. (Read more) Therefore, the majority accepted 'homoousios' as consistent with subordination.

God

The Creed refers to the Son as “very God of very God,” but that did not mean that He is equal to the Father.

In English translations of the Nicene Creed, it seems to profess equality when it describes the Son as ‘true God from true God’. However, in the original language, the term does not require equality.

For example, the Arians, who regarded the Son as subordinate, also described Jesus as 'God'. Later in the century, the Arians formulated several creeds that also proclaimed Jesus as ‘God’:

• The Dedication Creed, which opposed the Nicene Creed, describes the Son as “God” and as “God from God.”

• Two years later the same people - the Easterners (the anti-Nicenes) at Serdica - condemned those who say, "Christ is not God." (Hanson, p. 298)

• The ‘Arian’ creed of 357, which has been described as the high point of Arianism, describes the Son as “God from God.” (Hanson, p. 345)

The reason is that the Greek term translated as 'God' (theos) had a flexible meaning.

We use the term “God” as a name for one specific Being - the One who exists without cause - the omnipotent originator of the universe (Merriam-Webster).

The Greek of the Bible and the fourth century did not have a word exactly equivalent to the term “God.” In the Creed, the word "God" is translated from the Greek word theos which had a wide range of meanings. This is the same word the Greeks used for their gods; the Greek Pantheon, believed to be immortal beings with supernatural powers. When the Jews began speaking Greek, they used this word for the God of the Bible but they also used it for other beings. Jesus even referred to humans, “to whom the word of God came,” as “gods” (the same word - John 10:34-35). (Read more)

"At issue until the last decades of the controversy was the very flexibility with which the term ‘God’ could be deployed." (Ayres, p. 14)

When theos refers to the Almighty, it is translated as "God." In other instances, it is translated as "god." To translate theos, when it refers to Jesus, as "God" is based on the assumption that He is the Almighty. It is an application of the Trinity doctrine and should not be used as proof of that doctrine. Since the Creed already identified the Father alone as the Almighty, the term theos for the Son should not be translated as "God." (Read More)

Theology Evolved

The pro-Nicene of today is not equivalent to the Nicene Creed of 325 but evolved after Nicaea as one way of explaining it.

The century must be understood as “one of evolution in doctrine.” (Ayres, p. 13)

“By ‘pro-Nicene’ I mean those theologies, appearing from the 360s to the 380s … of how the Nicene creed should be understood. … These theologies build closely on and adapt themes found earlier in the century, but none is identical with any original ‘Nicene’ theology apparent in the 320s or 330s.” (Ayres, p. 6)

Emperor Theodosius’ Edict of Thessalonica in 380 was the first clear Trinitarian document.

As stated, in the Trinity doctrine, the Father, Son, and Spirit are one Being with one mind. In that doctrine, the term 'Persons" is misleading. (Read More)

The Nicene Creed does not contain the Trinity doctrine for it still identifies the ‘one God’ in whom we believe as the Father and because it does not describe the Holy Spirit as God or as homoousios.

Theodosius' Edict, which made Trinitarian Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire and outlawed all other forms of Christianity, was the first to describe the Trinity as the 'one God;' a single 'Being'. It reads:

"Let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

The Creed of the Council in Constantinople of the next year (381) still identifies the Father alone as the 'one God':

“We believe in one God the Father Almighty ...”

Kind of Subordination

Some Christians distinguish between ontological and functional subordination. They claim that the Son is ontologically (in terms of His being or substance) equal to the Father but functionally, in terms of role, subordinate to the Father. I would respond as follows:

• Firstly, the Bible says nothing about God's substance and it is not something that human beings are even able to understand.

• Secondly, I am not aware of any of the fourth-century fathers who distinguished between kinds of subordination.

• Thirdly, if the Son is functionally subordinate to the Father, and if He is eternally so, it implies He is also subordinate in person or being. If the Son is eternally subordinate in terms of roles, what difference does it make to say that they are ontologically equal?

The Creed

The Nicene Creed reads as follows:

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible;

And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down, and became incarnate and became man, and suffered, and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the heavens, and will come to judge the living and dead,

And in the Holy Spirit.

But as for those who say, There was when He was not, and, Before being born He was not,| and that He came into existence out of nothing,| or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance, or created, or is subject to alteration or change these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.

For the original article, with many more links, see here.

Answer 4

All you need for the evidence of subordination in their emphasis and characterisation of the Logos as the Son of God, especially, as a Begotten son. A son cannot by definition be equal to the father, just as a servant cannot be equal to his master (John 14:28; 13:16).

The references of God from God, and having the same substance of the father, does not avoid the logical problem posed by others such as Arius due to the fact of generation as a child, rather than being equal as a twin brother. As long as you have the begotten [in divinity] at its core of their creeds, you can be assured that it is subordinationism. The mistranslation of the Greek monogenes as unigenitus/only-begotten (rather than only-son) by the Romans is also an important factor to consider in this study.

Arius argued:

"that the Son of God did not always exist but was begotten/made[c] before time by God the Father;" (Arius used the two words as synonyms[7]), citing Davis, Leo Donald (1990). The first seven ecumenical councils (325–787) p. 52: their history and theology [wikipedia]

The difference between Arius and the orthodox rivals was the nature of the begotten son being ex-nihilo (out of nothing) as opposed to from God's substance. Both sides had the begotten subordinationism. A major indication has been pointed out by you already, that their creed excluded the Son from the title of God Almighty who is over all, which is contrary to the Bible. See the scribal changes that displayed this subordinationist Christology, which is still seen in certain new Bible versions in translation and interpretations: 1Cor 10:9; Rom 9:5; Jude 1:5; Jude 1:25; John 1:18; Col 3:16;Titus 2:13; 2Pet 1:1.