Our Doxological Creed: The Feast of the Holy Trinity

By: Evan Underbrink

Rublev's ikon of the three angels

I believe in one God,

the Father almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all things visible and invisible.

I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,

the Only Begotten Son of God,

born of the Father before all ages.

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;

through him all things were made.

For us men and for our salvation

he came down from heaven,

and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,

and became man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,

he suffered death and was buried,

and rose again on the third day

in accordance with the Scriptures.

He ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory

to judge the living and the dead

and his kingdom will have no end.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son,

who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,

who has spoken through the prophets.

I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins

and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The Nicene Creed is a kind of magic. In our current times of scientism and consumerism, it suffers the same fate as all magical things: a savage compartmentalization into reason, a loveless dissection, a need for a spotless machine of analytical perfection. Under these constraints, the Creed becomes viewed as a kind of declaration, a polemical document, a purely logical document which counters heresy and explicates faith in the purest possible terms. It becomes, in short, much more the answer to a Google search, and much less a love letter.

Ikon: St Constantine and the council fathers

    And love letter the Creed is. A love letter to the God with whom our adoration, as creatures, is always naturally inclined. A love letter to Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray, and thus taught us how to rightly believe. A love letter to the Holy Spirit, whose smoky visage perfumes each line, for those of us with enough time to smell the roses and old books. This is not to say that the Creed is devoid of reason and truth, it’s deftness in argument and sharpness in thought; indeed, much the opposite. As Olivia and Viola knew so well in Twelfth Night, a love letter not perfected in reason and erudite in claims loses all its loveliness in its form. And what splendour of form would be lost, if the Creed was not robed in the fullness of beautiful truth!

    Watch the first stanza play out with all the expansive, riotous glory of creation. In two lines, we can dive into the deep intimacy of the oneness, perfection, and paternity of God. From that singularity spills out the heavens, the billion stars, the infinite escape of light into the vastness of the universe. And from that vastness contract the brilliant microcosms, the infinity in a molecule, the universe on the head of a needle. And all this, only the material physicality of nature, which is likely itself merely the asteroid, the atom in the face of all that is invisible to our eyes. Such is the stuff of the first four lines.

    Amid this mise en scene we come the the hero of our story, indeed the hero of all creation. We come to know him, deep in the intimacy of God. We can understand that it is only through Christ that we come to know that intimacy of the one true God. More, we come to one final sweep in the grandness of this epic: the before all ages, in which Christ dances Divine. We then come to know him, with all the repetition and brilliance of an anthem, all the solemn wonder of a hymn. God, Light, Truth, Being. And finally we come to know him, Christ, as the one whom had us in mind when all creation came to be.

    Knowing who Christ is, we can enter in to the magic of the Gospel. Divinity, which seeing its own nature as nothing to be held or clutched, comes down about the creation God lovingly spoke into being. By the act of Spirit, and the free choice of the Virgin Mary, God transcended all categories of separation, and became man. The heart of the Creed is then the great act of divine love: the suffering of death, “even death on a cross,” and the rising again on the third day. In so little time we see the divine come down like a thunderbolt, to the rotten core of all creation, and rise again, building a path for us to follow, to the very seat of Father God.

Fra Angelico
Triptych of the Ascension, Pentecost,
And Last Judgment

    The background place, the greatest and truest story told, we are then in the third stanza brought to now, the present, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit, given the name of Lord and Life-Giver, is amongst us whenever we prayer, and whenever we gather. This same Spirit who once was only given to the prophets, is now our profit, our prize, proceeding from the Father and Son as Help-Meet and Guide. In our present, as the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, we recount our blessed rites and hopes: baptism, forgiveness, resurrection. We are propelled also into the future vision of what is to be: the life of the world to come. It is on this not, this line which suggests all dreams of the faithful, which our love letter ends. It is as potent as a kiss, and with all the longing of lovers long parted. So we, when we pray the Creed, must remember the joy of our Creator, our story, our present, and our future dream. Amen.