Formation of the Creed in the Early Church

The historical development from the baptismal creeds to the Nicene Creed

The two most common Creeds professed by Catholics are the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed.

The Apostle’s Creed, ancient in origin, gives us the fundamental sketch of the articles of the faith. The Nicene Creed, formulated and promulgated by the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, gives a fuller articulation of the belief of the Church. At the same time, the Nicene Creed offers a defense of orthodox Catholic faith as a robust response to the heresy of Arianism.

Creedal statements have always been a part of the Church. They were not, however, formalized in the way we have them now. Most were a developmental product of the baptismal statements of the Roman Church.

In this essay, which I wrote in the conclusion to my Masters of Theology degree, I explore the development of the Creeds in the early Church.

This essay has been reformatted and formulated for In Defense of Theology.

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Introduction to the Development

The Nicene Creed is the fundamental profession of faith for the Christian Church. It was formally articulated and promulgated during the Ecumenical Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople. Before this creed, the Christian profession of faith began in short, declaratory statements. These statements of faith varied through the Churches. We know these varied professions through the writings of numerous Church Fathers like St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus of Lyon, and St. Hippolytus of Rome.

Early on, these statements were located during the baptismal liturgies of the early Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “from the beginning, the apostolic Church expressed and handed on her faith in brief formulae normative for all. But already very early on, the Church also wanted to gather the essential elements of her faith into organic and articulated summaries, intended especially for candidates for baptism.”¹ Once Christianity became legal with the Edict of Milan in 313, the Church was able to gather at Councils to discuss important matters of belief. As a consequence of the confusion of heresy, most notably the Arian heresy, the Church needed to formulate a stand with which to judge orthodoxy. Thus, the Nicene Creed was embraced as the litmus test of right belief.

Creedal Belief in Scripture

In the beginning of the Church, following Pentecost, the teaching of the Apostles and the recounting of the life and teachings of Christ shaped the belief of the Christian Church. In Sacred Scripture, we have various instances of “creeds,” or statements of belief. One of the earliest is the profession of faith that St. Paul recounts to the Philippian Church. St. Paul states that:

though he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.²

In this profession, St. Paul gives a basic essential structure of belief. We find the profession that Jesus was equal to God the Father, he took on the “likeness of men,” he was “obedient to death…on a cross,” he was “exalted by God,” and He is Lord. This profession is fundamental in the early Church and, at that point, it was the basic and essential statement of belief. As the decades and centuries progressed, heresies and division became rampant and widespread, and the need for a more structured and detailed profession of faith became necessary.

Baptismal Creeds and “Rules of Faith”

Before the formal doctrinal creeds following the synods and councils of the fourth century, there were various baptismal creeds and “rules of faith.”³ According to Kinzing and Vinzent, “as far as we know, there were no fixed declaratory creeds before well into the fourth century.”⁴ However, from manuscripts and various writings, “from the end of the second century onwards there is also evidence for the existence of baptismal interrogations.”⁵ These “interrogations,” or baptismal creeds, constituted the formulations of faith for the Churches throughout the early history of the Church.

Interrogations in the Roman Church

According to H.J. Carpenter, in the Roman Church, “it was the established custom for candidates for baptism to recite the creed publicly before the congregation.”⁶ Carpenter writes that this “recitation or redditio of the creed implies the existence of an exactly worded formula” was given to the candidates during the preparatory stages of their formation and was then known as the “traditio symboli.”⁷ These two-fold practices, the redditio and traditio, both formed the preparation for baptism and the “organization of the catechumentate as a whole.”⁸ Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in discussing the early baptismal formulas, writes, “we can state with certainty, then, that the formulation of the content of faith in fixed formulas—symbola—originally occurred primarily in the context of baptism.”⁹

Roman Baptismal Creed

The earliest record of this formula and the baptismal rite in particular are found in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus. In his account, we find the formula of an interrogation—a question by the minister and a response by the candidate. Carpenter writes that “the baptismal interrogations themselves differ by only a few words from what we know in the fourth century as the declaratory Roman baptismal creed.”¹⁰ In the text of Hippolytus, he recounts the interrogation narrative. The minister begins by asking the candidate:

‘Dost thou believe in God the Farther Almighty?’

‘Dost thou believe also in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, [who came from the Father, who of old is with the Father]; who was born of Mary the virgin through the Holy Spirit; who was crucified in the days of Pontus Pilate, and died; and rose the third day alive from the dead; and ascended to heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father; and cometh to judge the living and the dead?,’

‘Dost thou believe also in the Holy Spirit in the holy Church?.’¹¹

After each line, the candidate would respond with “I believe.”

This simple interrogation served as a model of belief for the Church. It is interesting to note that in this interrogatory formula, as well as the Philippian hymn quoted above, the Apostles Creed, and the Nicene Creed, we have the “composition: preexistence—Incarnation—Passion—exaltation.”¹² Christoph Cardinal Schönborn states that we can clearly see the “creed-like” formula in the interrogatory dialogue of St. Hippolytus. In the decades that followed, that simple interrogation would be developed into the formalized statement of belief as a result of heresy and doctrinal development.

Development of the Profession: Conflicts

Internal conflicts—heresies, and external conflicts—persecutions, shaped the Church’s profession of faith. In the history of the Church, most of the formal statements of belief have come as a result of error—oftentimes widespread error. Among the many heresies of the first four centuries, none were as widespread and deadly as the Arian heresy, and none had as much of an impact on the development and formalization of the creed for the Church.

The Arian Effect

Arius was a presbyter in Alexandria toward the end of the fourth century. His break from orthodox faith stemmed from his rejection of the dual natures of Christ. Arius professed that Jesus Christ was not fully God but was merely like God, or a kind of demi-god. Arius’s concern, however noble, was ultimately misguided; his objective was to protect the Oneness of God. Schönborn writes that “the primary concern of Arian faith is to safeguard the absolute solitude of God.”¹³ In an effort to defend this position, Arius maintained that the Logos was created and was not eternal with the Father. This heresy became so widespread that at a certain point, much of the Christian world was Arian.

The effects of this heresy finally reached the Emperor Constantine who would eventually call for a council to be held so that the Church could formally clarify what constituted the nature of Christ. As a result of the legalization of Christianity by the Edict of Milan in 313, the Church was now given the freedom to publicly meet and decide matters of importance to the Church.

Nicaea

The first Ecumenical Council was held in 325 in Nicaea where the Church would formally debate and definitively declare that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man. The result of this Council would be the first magisterially promulgated Creed—the Nicene Creed. At the council of Nicaea, the Fathers had to decide what the Church professed and, most importantly, who the Church confessed Jesus Christ to be based on how He was revealed in the Gospels and in the New Testament.

The basics of the Nicene Creed “repeat the early creeds: the belief in the one God, the Father, the almighty, Creator of all things, in Christ and his work of salvation, in the Holy Spirit.”¹⁴ In response to the Arian heresy, the Fathers expanded the original creeds to meet the specific challenge that was posed by the current heresy. The creed added three clauses: they confessed that Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, is “the Only-Begotten generated from the Father, that is, from the substance of the Father”; “he is begotten, not made”; and he is “consubstantial with the Father.”¹⁵ Each of these clauses clarifies and deepens the Church’s understanding of the Incarnation and is a direct refutation of the Arian heresy.

Going Beyond the Language of Scripture

Cardinal Schönborn states that “the early creeds were understood as being simply summaries of the apostolic kerygma…”¹⁶ This implies that the creeds before Nicaea used strictly biblical language in their profession. The conscious addition and development from the older creeds, specifically when using philosophical language, allowed the Fathers at Nicaea to “go further linguistically.”¹⁷ This shift would allow the Church to move from “a strict biblicalism” which would have “slammed the door on any theological development,” so that “theology would henceforth not only have been declaring the same things, but also declaring them in the same terms.”¹⁸ The addition of philosophical language, such as “substance” and “consubstantial,” set the tone for further developments and clarifications so that the Church could come to a greater understanding of the Incarnation.

Following the the Council of Nicaea and the condemnation of Arianism, heretical teachings continued. With the enduring nature of Arianism and the new heresy of Apollinarianism, the Church once again convened an Ecumenical Council in 381 at Constantinople. The final creed, as it appeared at the end of the Council of Constantinople, reaffirmed the condemnation of Arianism as well as clarified the doctrine of the Trinity. This creed, as is referenced in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, is the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed, which is still the creed of the Catholic Church.

Thus, from the apostolic kerygma, through the baptismal interrogations, and the formal creeds of the Ecumenical Councils, the Church deepened her understanding of revelation and formulated statements of belief.

Conclusion

In the decades following the Passion of Jesus, the Church grew and expanded throughout the world. The profession of faith, or the standard of what the Church professed, began with short declarative statements. The content and mode of profession greatly varied by culture and Church.

In Sacred Scripture, we see one of the earliest professions of faith in St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians where he recounts the creed used in the Philippian community. Following the Apostolic period, one of the earliest examples of what would later become the formal creed begins in interrogatory formulas which were used during the baptismal liturgy of the various Churches. The most famous and well documented interrogatory baptismal formula is the baptismal creed of the Roman Church, recounted by St. Hippolytus. This formula is professed not as a recited statement, but rather as an interrogatory dialogue between presbyter and candidate.

External pressures, political changes, and formalization of the Church’s belief all contributed to the development from the baptismal dialogue to the formal creed of Nicaea. Various heresies existed in the early Church, but none were as impactful as the Arian heresy. Christianity was made legal through the Edict of Milan in 313 by the Christian Emperor Constantine and made possible the gathering of the Church where it was formalized what the Church believed. In response to the wide-spread heresy of Arianism and the legalization of Christianity, the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 responded and condemned the Arian heresy through the formal and declarative Creed of Nicaea. The Nicene Creed, taking the Apostles Creed and the Baptismal Formulas, gives the new standard of orthodox profession. This Creed condemns the Arian heresy and, for the rest of Church history, provides the Church with a formal and systematized Creed for the profession of faith.

The development of the Nicene Creed is an organic result of almost four centuries of cultural circumstances, heresies, and doctrinal necessities. Henceforward, the Nicene creed is the test to which all are judged as whether they adhere to the faith of the Apostles.

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1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: United States Catholic Conference, 2000), 186.

2. Philippians 2:6-11

3. Wolfram Kinzing and Markus Vinzent, “Recent Research on the Origin of the Creed,” The Journal of Theological Studies, vol. 50, no. 2 Centenary Issue 1899-1999 (October 1999), 541.

4. Kinzing and Vinzent, “Recent Research on the Origin of the Creed,” 541.

5. Ibid., 542.

6. H. J. Carpenter, “Creeds and Baptismal Rites in the First Four Centuries,” The Journal of Theological Studies, January/April 1943, vol. 44, no. 173/174 (January/April 1943), 2.

7. Carpenter, "Creeds and Baptismal Rites,” 2.

8. Ibid., 3.

9. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, trans. Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 109.

10. Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, 7.

11. R. H. Connolly. “On the Text of the Baptismal Creed of Hippolytus”. The Journal of Theological Studies, vol. 25, no. 98 (January, 1924), 135.

12. Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, God Sent His Son: A Contemporary Christology, trans. by Henry Taylor (San Fransisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), 67.

13. Schönborn, God Sent His Son, 80.

14. Ibid., 82.

15. Ibid., 82.

16. Ibid., 82.

17. Ibid., 83.

18. Ibid., 83.