ABSTRACT
Creedal developments entered a new stage at Nicaea when an ecumenical council adopted a creed that was to be a test for orthodoxy and was to be authoritative for the whole Church. There were earlier indications of this type of development, as the Councils of Antioch had prepared synodical statements and the local creeds had been regarded as containing the catholic faith. Nevertheless, Nicaea is sufficiently different from anything that had gone before to represent a new epoch in creed-making. The Nicene Creed insisted that God has fully come into human history in Jesus Christ. The cultural significance of the Nicene theology is revealed in the disposition of the political Imperialists to be Arians. Theologically, the assertion that the Son is only like God undermined the Christian community's conviction about the finality of Jesus Christ.
