Before a creed was called “the Creed”
First Corinthians 15:3–7 is one of the New Testament’s clearest windows into an early Christian confession: Christ died for our sins, was buried, was raised on the third day, and appeared to named witnesses.
Paul says he “received” and “handed on” this proclamation. The USCCB notes that its language draws on older credal formulas. That makes it powerful evidence that the death and Resurrection of Jesus stood at the center of Christian proclamation before Paul wrote First Corinthians.
It is best called an early credal or confessional formula—not the direct draft from which the later Nicene or Apostles’ Creed was copied. The later creeds gather a wider rule of faith around the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Church, baptism, resurrection, and eternal life.
A living rule of faith
Apostolic proclamation
Short formulas confess Jesus as Lord, his saving death, burial, Resurrection, and appearances. First Corinthians 15 preserves one of the earliest and most important examples.
Baptismal professions
Christians answer a threefold profession of faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at baptism. Local churches transmit related “rules of faith” before a single universal text is fixed.
The Council of Nicaea
The bishops confess that the Son is truly God: begotten, not made, and of one substance with the Father. The council’s language rejects teaching that reduced the Son to a creature.
The Council of Constantinople
The creed received in the Church as Niceno-Constantinopolitan gives the confession its familiar fuller form, including an explicit profession of the divinity and work of the Holy Spirit.
The Apostles’ Creed takes shape
The shorter Western creed grows from the ancient baptismal symbol of the Church of Rome. Its roots run alongside the conciliar story rather than beginning only after 381.
Two creeds, one faith
The Roman liturgy normally uses the Nicene Creed on Sundays and solemnities and permits the Apostles’ Creed in its place, especially during Lent and Easter Time.
Why Catholics still use two
The Apostles’ Creed
A concise summary of apostolic faith shaped by the baptismal tradition of the Church of Rome.
- Shorter and personal in form: “I believe.”
- Closely associated with baptism and catechesis.
- Especially fitting in Lent and Easter, when baptismal identity comes to the foreground.
The Nicene Creed
More precisely, the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed: the fuller conciliar profession received from Nicaea and Constantinople.
- More explicit about the Son’s eternal divinity.
- More detailed about the Holy Spirit, Church, baptism, resurrection, and the life to come.
- Common in substance to the great Churches of East and West.
The two do not compete. The Catechism gives both a “special place”: the Apostles’ Creed as the ancient Roman baptismal symbol and the Nicene Creed as the fuller confession stemming from the first two ecumenical councils.
Development does not mean invention
The creed’s history is not a chain in which each generation throws away the previous faith. The New Testament proclamation, baptismal confession, theological vocabulary, and conciliar definitions are distinct historical forms that serve one apostolic faith.
Received
The Church receives the Gospel and the apostolic witness before it formulates every later doctrinal term.
Clarified
Controversy forces the Church to say more precisely who Christ is and how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are confessed.
Professed
A creed is not only a historical document. It is spoken in worship as the faith of the baptized Church.
Not exhaustive
No creed attempts to quote the whole Bible. It provides a rule and summary for reading, teaching, and living the faith.
About the filioque
The Western form of the Nicene Creed includes “and the Son” in the article on the Holy Spirit. That later Latin addition has an important theological and ecumenical history. It deserves its own carefully sourced treatment rather than a passing simplification here.
Church and Scripture sources
- USCCB Bible — 1 Corinthians 15 and its notes on the older credal formula ↗
- Catechism of the Catholic Church 185–197 — the Church’s creeds ↗
- International Theological Commission — Nicaea at 1700 years ↗
- USCCB liturgical guidance — use of the Apostles’ Creed in place of the Nicene Creed ↗