Ancient Greeks believed in a wide variety of gods and goddesses - beings who fought one another, were immoral, dishonest and only partly powerful. But eventually Greek philosophers began to teach that there was a supreme God, a being who had all power, wisdom and perfection. Since there could be only one being who had all power, there was only one supreme God. Since perfection does not change, this God did not change. This God was above all other gods, not swayed by humanlike emotions, not affected by physical things that change.
In A.D. 381 the Council of Constantinople rejected the teaching of an elderly bishop from Syria, named Apollinaris. Apollinaris had theorized that Jesus Christ’s divine nature displaced Jesus’ human mind and will. To him, Jesus possessed only a divine nature, and therefore did not truly take on the fallen nature of humanity.
As
the Christian church spread
throughout the Roman world in the first century, and as the first
leaders died out, there
was a practical need for local churches to have a basic statement of
beliefs. As false
teachers began to bring in strange ideas, Christians needed to know
"Just what is it
that we believe?"
Some of these churches had a
few books of the New Testament, perhaps
some of Paul's letters or one of the four Gospels. But none of the
churches had all the New
Testament. They needed a standard to judge whether a teaching was truth,
or heresy.
A creed is a brief statement of faith used to list important truths, to clarify doctrinal points and to distinguish truth from error. Creeds are usually worded to be easily memorized. The word creed comes from the Latin word credo, meaning, "I believe." The Bible contains a number of creed-like passages. For example, Jews used the Shema, based on Deuteronomy 6:4-9, as a creed. Paul wrote simple creed-like statements in 1 Corinthians 8:6; 12:3 and 15:3-4. 1 Timothy 3:16 also appears as a creed, a concise statement of belief
