United States or Saint Helena, Ascension, and Tristan da Cunha ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Together, they drew up the two first paragraphs of the confession of faith called the Nicene Creed, and three hundred of the bishops set their sign and seal to it, declaring it was the truth, as they had been charged to hold and teach it fast, the Catholic or universal faith. Arius was put out of the Communion of the Church, and all his followers with him.
Most of all when, breaking through all the regulations which the Nicene Council had consecrated by its approval, which, however, it had not created, but found in immemorial subsistence, he ventured to ordain at Constantinople a patriarch of Antioch.
It will be seen that the genuine Nicene Creed here given differs in almost every clause from the so-called Nicene Creed of our Communion Service. Leaving, however, the spurious Nicene Creed till we come to it, let us see how the genuine Nicene Creed dealt with Arianism. Its central phrases are the two which refer to essence.
Hence the reaction went on as long as these were agreed against the Nicene party; it was suspended as soon as Julian's policy turned another way, became unreal when conservative alarm subsided, and finally collapsed when Asia went over to the Nicene side. We may now return to the sequel of the great council.
'They were not the only zealous defenders of the Nicene faith in the East, and should not have acted without the consent of the Westerns and of their own bishop, Peter. In their haste to heal one schism they might cause another if they did not make it clear that the heretics had come over to them, and not they to the heretics. This, however, was mere grumbling.
The opinions of Arianism might satisfy a cold and speculative mind: but the doctrine of the Nicene creed, most powerfully recommended by the merits of faith and devotion, was much better adapted to become popular and successful in a believing age.
Leo, because nothing would induce him to violate the canons, and to the other fact that Anatolius, himself bishop of Constantinople, confessed that it was rather his clergy than himself who made this attempt, and that all lay in the power of the Apostolic See. And, thirdly, did not St. Leo, who confirmed the Council of Chalcedon, annul in it whatever was done beyond the Nicene canons?
And the issue was favorable to their wishes; for in a few years after the Nicene Council an Arian presbyter whom Constantia, the Emperor's sister, at her death had recommended to the care of her brother, succeeded in persuading Constantine the Great that Arius had been wrongfully condemned from personal enmity.
He renewed the condemnation of Peter the Stammerer, he had in the interval admonished Acacius again, without result. He now issued the decree of deposition upon him. It runs in the following words: "You are guilty of many transgressions; have often treated with insult the venerable Nicene Council; have unrightfully claimed jurisdiction over provinces not belonging to you.
It was his opinion that the creeds in public worship ought to be used as triumphant hymns of thanksgiving, and, in accordance with this view, although unfortunately he possessed no natural gift for music, he regularly joined in the chanting of the Nicene Creed with a visible animation and a peculiar fervour, which it was impossible to forget.
Word Of The Day