Early Creeds and the Rule of Faith

Tertullian, On Prescription Against Heretics Direct teaching

For wherever it shall be manifest that the true Christian rule and faith shall be, there will likewise be the true Scriptures and expositions thereof, and all the Christian traditions.

Tertullian, On Prescription Against Heretics Direct teaching

Now, faith has been deposited in the rule;

Cyprian, Epistles Supporting witness

... is a short way for religious and simple minds both to put away error and to find and bring out the truth. For if we return to the head and source of divine tradition, human error ceases. And when the reason of the heavenly sacraments has been seen, whatever lay hidden in obscurity under the gloom and cloud of darkness is opened into the light of truth. If a channel supplying water, which once flowed plentifully and freely, suddenly fails, do we not go to the fountain so that the reason for the failure may be found there? We ask whether the water has failed at the source because the springs have dried up, or whether, after flowing from there free and full, it has failed in the middle of its course. Then, if this has happened because of the fault of a broken or leaking channel, so that the steady stream does not flow without interruption and continuously, the channel is repaired and strengthened, and the collected water can be supplied for the use and drinking of the city with the same richness and abundance with which it comes from the spring. And this is what the priests of God ought to do now, if they would keep the divine precepts: if the truth has wavered or faltered in any

Cyprian, Epistles Supporting witness

And this it behooves the priests of God to do now, if they would keep the divine precepts, that if in any respect the truth have wavered and vacillated, we should return to our original and Lord, and to the evangelical and apostolic tradition;

Novatian, Treatise Concerning the Trinity Direct teaching

Novatian, with the View of Treating of the Trinity, Sets Forth from the Rule of Faith that We Should First of All Believe in God the Father and Lord Omnipotent, the Absolute Founder of All Things.

Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse Supporting witness

Novatian, with the View of Treating of the Trinity, Sets Forth from the Rule of Faith that We Should First of All Believe in God the Father and Lord Omnipotent, the Absolute Founder of All Things.

Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse Supporting witness

He first of all, from chapter first to the eighth, considers those words of the Rule of Truth or Faith, which bid us believe in God the Father and Lord Almighty, the absolutely perfect Creator of all things.

Novatian, Treatise Concerning the Trinity Supporting witness

He first of all, from chapter first to the eighth, considers those words of the Rule of Truth or Faith, which bid us believe in God the Father and Lord Almighty, the absolutely perfect Creator of all things.

Tertullian, De Spectaculis (On the Shows) Direct teaching

When entering the water, we make profession of the Christian faith in the words of its rule;

Gregory Thaumaturgus, A Sectional Confession of Faith Supporting witness

But the Church’s confession, and the creed that brings salvation to the world, is the one that speaks about the incarnation of the Word. It testifies that He gave Himself to the human flesh He received from Mary, while still preserving His own identity and undergoing no divine transfer or change. Instead, He was joined to the flesh in the likeness of man, so that the flesh was made one with the divinity, because the divinity had taken on the capacity to receive the flesh in the fulfillment of the mystery. And after death was dissolved, there remained in the holy flesh a lasting impassibility and an unchanging immortality. Man’s original glory was taken up into it again by the power of the divinity, and then was given to all men through the appropriation of faith.

Gregory Thaumaturgus, A Sectional Confession of Faith Direct teaching

But the Church's Confession, and the Creed that brings salvation to the world, is that which deals with the incarnation of the Word, and bears that He gave Himself over to the flesh of man which He acquired of Mary, while yet He conserved His own identity, and sustained no divine transposition or mutation, but was brought into conjunction with the flesh after the similitude of man;

Gregory Thaumaturgus, A Sectional Confession of Faith Supporting witness

and it is right that our conceptions should follow the inspired and apostolic doctrines, and not that our impotent fancies should coerce the articles of our divine faith.

Novatian, Treatise Concerning the Trinity Supporting witness

Further, that the Same Rule of Truth Teaches Us to Believe, After the Father, Also in the Son of God, Jesus Christ Our Lord God, Being the Same that Was Promised in the Old Testament, and Manifested in the New.

Tertullian, Against Praxeas Supporting witness

Bear always in mind that this is the rule of faith which I profess;

Irenaeus, Against Heresies: Book III Direct teaching

...t He, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was preached by the Churches and may also understand the apostolic tradition of the Church. This Epistle predates those who now spread falsehoods and invent another god beyond the Creator and Maker of all things. Clement was succeeded by Evaristus, followed by Alexander; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telesphorus, who was gloriously martyred; followed by Hyginus, then Pius, and then Anicetus. Soter succeeded Anicetus, and now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, Eleutherius holds the office of the episcopate. Through this order and succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles and the preaching of the truth have come down to us. This is ample proof that there is one and the same life-giving faith, preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies: Book III Supporting witness

...ntly teaching what he had learned from the apostles and what the Church has passed down as the only truth. All the Asian Churches testify to this, as do the successors of Polycarp to this day—a man of far greater significance and a more steadfast witness of truth than Valentinus, Marcion, and the other heretics. He was the one who, coming to Rome during the time of Anicetus, led many away from these heretics to the Church of God, declaring that he received this singular truth from the apostles—that which is transmitted by the Church. Some heard him recount that John, the disciple of the Lord, went to bathe at Ephesus, and upon seeing Cerinthus inside, rushed out without bathing, shouting, "Let us flee, lest the bath-house collapse, because Cerinthus, the enemy of truth, is inside." Polycarp himself also replied to Marcion, who once encountered him and asked, "Do you know me?" “I do know you, the firstborn of Satan.” This illustrates the disdain the apostles and their disciples held against even speaking with anyone who corrupted the truth; as Paul also says, “A heretic, after the first and second warning, reject; knowing that such a person is warped and sins, condemned by himsel

Origen, De Principiis (On First Principles) Direct teaching

so, seeing there are many who think they hold the opinions of Christ, and yet some of these think differently from their predecessors, yet as the teaching of the Church, transmitted in orderly succession from the apostles, and remaining in the Churches to the present day, is still preserved, that alone is to be accepted as truth which differs in no respect from ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies: Book III Supporting witness

1. Since, therefore, the tradition from the apostles does thus exist in the Church, and is permanent among us, let us revert to the Scriptural proof furnished by those apostles who did also write the Gospel, in which they recorded the doctrine regarding God, pointing out that our Lord Jesus Christ is the truth, and that no lie is in Him.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies: Book IV Supporting witness

8. True knowledge is [that which consists in] the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient constitution of the Church throughout all the world, and the distinctive manifestation of the body of Christ according to the successions of the bishops, by which they have handed down that Church which exists in every place, and has come even unto us, being guarded and preserved without any forging of Scriptures, by a very complete system of doctrine, and neither receiving addition nor [suffering] curtailment [in the truths which she believes];

Irenaeus, Against Heresies: Book III Supporting witness

In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us.

Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata (Miscellanies) Supporting witness

for as the teaching, so also the tradition of the apostles was one.

Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata (Miscellanies) Supporting witness

...roclamation, calls him who is willing, and crowns him who is able to continue unmoved as far as the truth is concerned. And in truth, the Word does not wish him who has believed to be idle. For He says, "Seek, and you shall find." Matthew 7:7. But seeking ends in finding. It drives out empty trifling, and approves the contemplation that confirms our faith. And this I say, "lest any man beguile you with enticing words," Colossians 2:4, says the apostle, evidently as having learned to distinguish what was said by him, and as being taught to meet objections. "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith." Colossians 2:6-7. Now persuasion is the means of being established in the faith. Beware lest any man spoil you of faith in Christ by philosophy and vain deceit, which does away with providence, after the tradition of men. For the philosophy that is in accordance with divine tradition establishes and confirms providence. If providence is done away with, the divine arrangement of the Savior appears a myth, while we are influenced after the elements of the world, and not after Christ. Colossians 2:8. Fo

Cyprian, Epistles Supporting witness

...anged," he says, "let nothing be maintained except what has been handed down." From where does that tradition come? Does it come down from the authority of the Lord and of the Gospel, or does it come from the commands and letters of the apostles? For God bears witness and warns that the things written must be done, saying to Joshua the son of Nun, "This Book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it" Joshua 1:8. Also, when the Lord sent His apostles, He commanded that the nations should be baptized and taught to observe all things that He commanded. If, therefore, it is either ordered in the Gospel, or contained in the letters or Acts of the Apostles, that those who come from any heresy should not be baptized, but should only have hands laid on them for repentance, then let this divine and holy tradition be observed. But if heretics everywhere are called nothing other than adversaries and antichrists, if they are declared to be people who must be avoided, and to be perverted and self-condemned, why then should they not be considered worthy to be condemned by u

Cyprian, Epistles Supporting witness

5. For which reason you must diligently observe and keep the practice delivered from divine tradition and apostolic observance, which is also maintained among us, and almost throughout all the provinces;

Origen, De Principiis (On First Principles) Background

For as we ceased to seek for truth (notwithstanding the professions of many among Greeks and Barbarians to make it known) among all who claimed it for erroneous opinions, after we had come to believe that Christ was the Son of God, and were persuaded that we must learn it from Himself;

Tertullian, De Anima (On the Soul) Direct teaching

...t belong especially to themselves, but that are contrary in some points to our rule and standard of faith. At other times, they defend ideas that are especially their own by using arguments that both sides admit are valid, and that sometimes even fit with our system of belief. In this way, the truth has almost been shut out by the philosophers through the poisons with which they have infected it. Therefore, if we consider both kinds of mixing that I have just mentioned, and both are equally hostile to the truth, we see the urgent need to do two things. First, we must free the ideas that we hold in common with them from the philosophers' arguments. Second, we must separate the arguments that both sides use from the philosophers' own opinions. And we can do this by bringing every question back to God's inspired standard, except in simple cases that are free from the confusion of preconceived notions, where one may fairly accept mere human testimony. For sometimes we must borrow plain evidence of that kind even from opponents, when our opponents have nothing to gain from it. Now I am not unaware of how great a mass of writing the philosophers have gathered on this subject in their

Tertullian, On Prescription Against Heretics Supporting witness

...apostolic church on these two tests, offer proof for how they consider themselves apostolic. But in truth they are not apostolic, nor are they able to prove themselves to be what they are not. Nor are they allowed peaceful relations and communion by those churches that are in any way connected with apostles, since they are in no sense apostolic themselves because they differ regarding the mysteries of the faith.

Novatian, Treatise Concerning the Trinity Supporting witness

But because heretics, ever struggling against the truth, are accustomed to prolong the controversy of pure tradition and Catholic faith, being offended against Christ;

Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse Supporting witness

But because heretics, ever struggling against the truth, are accustomed to prolong the controversy of pure tradition and Catholic faith, being offended against Christ;

Irenaeus, Against Heresies: Book III Supporting witness

...only than the presbyters but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. They argue that the apostles mixed the law with the words of the Saviour, and that not only the apostles but even the Lord Himself spoke at times from the Demiurge, at other times from the intermediate place, and yet again from the Pleroma. However, they claim to have knowledge of the hidden mystery, clearly, purely, and without error: this is, indeed, to blaspheme their Creator in a most impudent manner! It comes to this, therefore, that these people now agree with neither Scripture nor tradition.

Cyprian, Epistles Supporting witness

...escension to the Church alone, then what stubbornness is this, or what presumption, to prefer human tradition to divine ordinance? Why do they not observe that God is indignant and angry whenever human tradition loosens and sets aside the divine commands, as He cries out and says through Isaiah the prophet, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain they worship me, teaching the doctrines and commandments of men." Isaiah 29:13 Also, the Lord in the Gospel, in the same way rebuking and reproving, declares and says, "You reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition." Mark 7:13 Remembering this command, the blessed Apostle Paul also warns and instructs us, saying, "If any man teaches otherwise, and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and with His doctrine, he is proud, knowing nothing." From such a man withdraw yourself. 1 Timothy 6:3-5

Alexander of Alexandria, Epistles on the Arian Heresy Supporting witness

To these Arius and Achilles opposing themselves, and those who with them are the enemies of the truth, have been expelled from the Church, as being aliens from our holy doctrine, according to the blessed Paul, who says, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that you have received, let him be accursed;

Alexander of Alexandria, Epistles on the Arian Heresy Supporting witness

These are the apostolic doctrines of the Church, for which also we die, esteeming those but little who would compel us to forswear them, even if they would force us by tortures, and not casting away our hope in them.

Tertullian, On Prescription Against Heretics Supporting witness

We hold communion with the apostolic churches because our doctrine is in no respect different from theirs. This is our witness of truth.

Cyprian, Epistles Supporting witness

nor can he be reckoned as a bishop, who, succeeding to no one, and despising the evangelical and apostolic tradition, sprang from himself.