ek: tie].]

[Sidenote: The idea of a test creed.]

It seems to have been understood that the council was to settle the
question by drawing up a creed as a test for bishops. Here was a twofold
novelty. In the first place, Christendom as a whole had as yet no
written creed at all. The so-called Apostles' Creed may be older than
340, but then it first appears, and only as a personal confession of the
heretic Marcellus. Every church taught its catechumens the historic
outlines of the faith, and referred to Scripture as the storehouse and
final test of doctrine. But that doctrine was not embodied in forms of
more than local currency. Thus different churches had varying creeds to
form the basis of the catechumen's teaching, and placed varying
professions in his mouth at baptism. Some of these were ancient, and
some of widespread use, and all were much alike, for all were couched in
Scripture language, variously modelled on the Lord's baptismal formula
(Matt. xxviii. 19). At Jerusalem, for example, the candidate declared
his faith:

in the Father;
in the Son;
in the Holy Spirit;
and in one Baptism of Repentance.

The Roman form, as approximately given by Novatian
in the middle of the third century, was,

I believe in God the Father,
the Lord Almighty;
in Christ Jesus his Son,
the Lord our God;
and in the Holy Spirit.

Though these local usages were not disturbed, it was none the less a
momentous step to draw up a document for all the churches. Its use as a
test for bishops was a further innovation. Purity of doctrine was for a
long time guarded by Christian public opinion. If a bishop taught
novelties, the neighbouring churches (not the clergy only) met in
conference on them, and refused his communion if they proved unsound. Of
late years these conferences had been growing into formal councils of
bishops, and the legal recognition of the churches by Gallienus
[Sidenote: c. 261.] had enabled them to take the further step of
deposing false teachers. Aurelian had sanctioned this in the case of
Paul of Samosata by requiring communion with the bishops of Rome and
Italy as the legal test of Christian orthodoxy. [Sidenote: 272.] But
there were practical difficulties in this plan of government by
councils. A strong party might dispute the sentence, or even get up
rival councils to reverse it. The African Donatists had given
Constantine trouble enough of this sort some