ABSTRACT
Theology and "creed making" are as old as the Christian community itself. Precise, fixed, official creeds did not appear until the third and fourth centuries, but the process that culminated in them had its beginning in the historical credos and declaratory affirmations of the Old Testament. There are no precisely defined and officially authorized creeds in the New Testament. There is no one creedal pattern in the New Testament formulas, even in the affirmations concerning Jesus. In addition to the Christological confessions, there are also in the New Testament two-article formulas confessing both God and Christ and three-article formulas affirming Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In the third century the trinitarian formulas largely replaced the single-article and the two-article formulas, partly due to the influence of Baptismal rite and partly due to the implicit trinitarianism of the New Testament documents.
