CREED (or Credo [AS. creda ], taken from the first word of the Latin confession of faith = Greek ‘symbol’ [ symbolon, symbolum ]). An ecclesiastical (non-Biblical) term, signifying ‘the faith’ objectively and as explicitly declared, ‘the articles of’ Christian ‘belief’ drawn up in systematic and authoritative form. ‘The Creeds’ denote the three great historical Confessions of the early Church ‘the Apostles’,’ the Nicene or Constantinopolitan (325, 381 a.d.), and the Athanasian (of Latin origin, 6th century); ‘the Creed’ commonly means the Apostles’ Creed alone. This last can be traced, in its simplest form, to the 2nd century; see Lumby’s Hist. of the Creeds , or Swete’s Apostles’ Creed . Shaped in their developed form by doctrinal controversy and Conciliar definition, the Creeds owe their origin to the necessities of worship and the instinct of public confession in the Church, felt at baptism to begin with. Christian believers formed the habit, when they met, of reciting their common faith, and this recitation assumed a fixed rhythmical form; so that the creed is akin to the hymn and the doxology. Its beginnings are visible in the NT see Matthew 16:16; Matthew 28:19 , Romans 10:9-10 , 1Co 8:6; 1 Corinthians 12:3 (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ), Ephesians 4:4-6 , 1Ti 3:16 , 1 John 4:2; and further back, for the OT and the Synagogue, in the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4 . G. G. Findlay.