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the program. Hello we believe in one God the Father Almighty maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and

invisible and in one Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten son of God, begotten of the

Father before all worlds. Thus begins the Nicene Creed, a statement of essential faith spoken for over 1,600 years in

Christian churches, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant.

But what's become a universal statement has written for a very particular purpose,

to defeat a fourth century theological heresy called Aerianism

and to establish that Jesus Christ was indeed God.

The story of the Creed is in many ways the story of early Christianity,

of philosophical theology and Raal Politik.

It changed the Church and it changed the Roman Empire,

but that it has lasted for more than 1,600 years would seem extraordinary

to those who created it.

With me to discuss the Nicene Creator Andrew Lath, Professor Patristic and Byzantine

studies at the University of Durham, Caroline Humphreys, reader in history at Birkbeck College University. and education and culture. Martin Palmer, can you tell us about the early Christian church in the fourth century before this council?

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