The first General Council (summoned by the Emperor Constantine) opened on 19th June, 325, at Nicaea.^[1]  The 318 Bishops present issued a Creed designed to refute the errors of Arius, presbyter of Alexandria, who denied the co‑eternity and co‑equality of the Son with the Father.  It was probably a revised version of an earlier Baptismal Creed^[2] into which they inserted anti‑Arian clauses which declared that the Son is ‘Very God of Very God, begotten not made, Being of one substance with the Father’.  The Creed issued by the Council of Nicaea (technically designated by the letter N) was not, however, identically the same as our Nicene Creed.^[3]  In fact, some scholars have denied any connection between the two, and prefer to call our Creed the ‘Constantinopolitan Creed’.  It is true that the second General Council held at Constantinople in 381 issued a Creed almost verbally identical with our Nicene Creed.^[4]  But it has been pointed out that the Council of Constantinople ‘did not conceive of itself as manufacturing a new Creed’,^[5] and that the description ‘the faith of Nicaea’ in the fourth century ‘could equally well be used of a Creed, local or otherwise, which was patently Nicene in its general character while differing from N in much of its language’.^[6]  Whoever may have been the original author of the present text of our Nicene Creed,^[7] it was promulgated by the Council of Constantinople as ‘the faith of the Nicene fathers’ but that faith set forth in a form better adapted than N for dealing with the heresies of the hour.^[8]  It was also received and endorsed by the fourth General Council at Chalcedon in 451.  It thus comes to us as a Conciliar Creed possessing the full authority of the Undivided Church.

The origin and date of the Athanasian Creed has been the subject of much controversy and speculation.^[9]  Scholars are agreed that Athanasius did not write it,^[10] but are less certain as to the identity of the actual author.  It was probably written in the 5th or 6th century, and is more a Canticle or Hymn than a Creed.  The Orthodox Church of the East has never formally accepted it, and it does not possess the same oecumenical authority as the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds.  The American Church has omitted use of the ‘Quicunque Vult’ (as it is commonly called), and its use is optional in the Irish and Canadian Churches.  It is a theological statement designed to protect the Faith against heretical views concerning the Trinity, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

For over a thousand years the Baptismal Creed of Western Christendom has been ‘that which is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed’.  Though not written by the Apostles, it summarizes the Apostolic teaching.^[11]  In its present form it was used in Gaul c. A.D. 750 but most of its substance can be traced back to a Baptismal Creed used in the Roman Church about the middle of the second century.