the council, which consisted of country pastors of no theological pretensions. It became necessary to expose the Arian tactics, and this was done successfully. Nevertheless, when the reaction came it was made apparent that the final decision of the council had been rather acquiesced in by the majority than intelligently conceived and earnestly desired. Certainly the majority were not Arian; but neither were they at this time convinced of the necessity of the technical language of the opponents of Arianism. Left to themselves they would have been satisfied with a simpler solution; but they were overawed by a few men of superior culture and great determination—especially Alexander, Athanasius, and Hosius. It was in this way that at length they were led to give an almost unanimous vote for the final definition.
The creed thus adopted was based on an old Palestinian confession introduced by Eusebius of Cæsarea. Hitherto there had been no one form of words accepted by all Christians as an expression of their faith. Although the "rule of faith" was recognised by Irenæus and insisted on with great vehemence by Tertullian, this could not have existed in any rigid verbal form, because it is variously worded in different places. Therefore the phrase would seem to represent simply a generally understood common agreement of belief. Still, as early as this time, i.e. by about the end of the second century, we have the Apostles' Creed at Rome in its primitive form. This, which is the most elementary of the creeds, is based on the baptismal formula,[1] the basis of all the creeds. But there is no reason to believe that any elaborate creed was actually repeated by converts at baptism. At first renunciation of the old life and faith in Christ were the only requisites. In the Æthiopic version of the Apostolical Constitutions, representing the oldest text, the candidate for baptism says, "I believe in the only true God, the Father Almighty, and in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, and in the Holy Ghost the Giver of life"—with other phrases which must have
