Audio
Historical creeds
A creed (Credo, from Latin "I believe") is a summarizing formulation of beliefs. It wants to enumerate important truths, clarify doctrinal statements, separate truth from error. It is usually written in such a way that it can be easily memorized. A number of passages in the Bible have the character of creeds. So Jesus used the scheme based on 5. Mose 6,4-9, as a creed. Paul makes simple, credo-like statements in 1. Corinthians 8,6; 12,3 and 15,3-4. Auch 1. Timothy 3,16 gives a creed in a strongly tightened form.
With the spread of the early church, the need arose for a formal creed that showed the believers the most important teachings of their religion. The Apostles 'Creed is so named, not because it was written by the first apostles, but because it sums up the apostles' teaching aptly. The Church Fathers Tertullian, Augustine and others had slightly different versions of the Apostles' Creed; The text of the pirminus (around 750) was finally adopted as the standard form.
As the Church grew, so did heresies, and early Christians had to clarify the limits of their faith. In the early 4. In the 325th century, before the New Testament canon was established, controversy arose over the divinity of Christ. To clarify this question, at the request of Emperor Constantine, bishops from all parts of the Roman Empire came together in Nicaea in 381. They wrote down their consensus in the so-called Creed of Nicaea. In another synod met in Constantinople, at which the Nicene Confession was slightly revised and expanded to include a few points. This version is called Nicene Constantinople or also briefly Nicene Creed.
In the following century, church leaders met in the city of Chalcedon to discuss, among other things, the divine and human nature of Christ. They found a formula that, in their opinion, was consistent with the gospel, apostolic doctrine, and Scripture. It is called Christological Definition of Chalcedony or Chalcedonensic Formula.
Unfortunately, creeds can also be formulaic, complex, abstract, and sometimes equated with "Scripture." Properly used, however, they provide a coherent doctrinal foundation, safeguard proper biblical doctrine, and create a focus for church life. The following three creeds are widely accepted among Christians as biblical and as formulations of true Christian orthodoxy (orthodoxy).
The Nicene Creed (381 AD)
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, of all that is visible and invisible. And to a Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all time, light of light, true God of the true God, begotten, not created, of a being with the Father, through whom all things became, those around us humans and for the sake of our salvation came down from the heavens, and took flesh from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and Man, and was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and was suffered and buried, and risen on the third day after the scriptures, and to heaven, and to heaven sitting right hand of the Father and will come again in glory, to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.
And to the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, who proceeds from the Father, who is worshiped and glorified together with the Father and the Son, who has spoken through the prophets
Has; to a sacred and catholic [all-inclusive] and apostolic church. We confess a baptism for the remission of sins; we are waiting for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the future world. Amen.
(Quoted from JND Kelly, Old Christian Confessions, Göttingen 1993)
The Apostles' Creed (around 700 AD)
I believe in God, the Father, the Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth. And to Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord, received by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, died and buried, descended into the kingdom of death, resurrected on the third day from the dead, ascended to heaven, he sits at the right hand of God, the Father; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the sacred Christian Church, communion of saints, forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the dead and eternal life. Amen.
Definition of the unity of God and man nature in the person of Christ
(Council of Chalcedon, 451 n. Chr.)
So, following the holy fathers, we all unanimously teach to confess our Lord Jesus Christ as one and the same Son; the same is perfect in the deity and the same perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly human being from the rational soul and body, with the Father being (homooúsion) of the Godhead and being the same with us being according to humanity, similar to us in every respect, except except the sin. Born before times out of the Father according to the Godhead, but at the end of times, as the same, for our sake and for our salvation from Mary, the Virgin and Mother of God (theotokos), he is [born], as one and the same, Christ, Son, native, recognized in two natures unmixed, unchanged, undivided, undivided. In doing so, the diversity of natures is by no means abolished for the sake of unity; on the contrary, the peculiarity of each of the two natures is preserved and combines to form a person and hypostasis. [We confess him] not as split and separated in two persons, but as one and the same Son, native, God, Logos, Lord, Jesus Christ, as the prophets of old about him [prophesied] and himself, Jesus Christ instructed us and handed down to us the father symbol [Creed of Nicaea]. (Quoted from religion in the past and present, edited by Betz / Browning / Janowski / Jüngel, Tübingen 1999)
