originally included all that was traced back to Christ himself through
the medium of the Apostles and was of value for the faith and life of
the Church, together with everything that was or seemed her inalienable
possession, as, for instance, the Christian interpretation of the Old
Testament. In the narrower sense that canon consisted of the history and
words of Jesus. In so far as they formed the content of faith they were
the faith itself, that is, the Christian truth; in so far as this faith
was to determine the essence of everything Christian, it might be termed
[Greek: kanon tes pisteos, kanon tes aletheias] (canon of the faith,
canon of the truth).[23] But the very fact that the extent of what was
regarded as tradition of the Apostles was quite undetermined ensured the
possibility of the highest degree of freedom; it was also still
allowable to give expression to Christian inspiration and to the
intuition of enthusiasm without any regard to tradition.

We now know that before the violent conflict with Gnosticism short
formulated summaries of the faith had already grown out of the
missionary practice of the Church (catechising). The shortest formula
was that which defined the Christian faith as belief in the Father, Son,
and Spirit.[24] It appears to have been universally current in
Christendom about the year 150. In the solemn transactions of the
Church, therefore especially in baptism, in the great prayer of the
Lord's Supper, as well as in the exorcism of demons,[25] fixed formulae
were used. They embraced also such articles as contained the most
important facts in the history of Jesus.[26] We know definitely that not
later than about the middle of the second century (about 140 A.D.) the
Roman Church possessed a fixed creed, which every candidate for baptism
had to profess;[27] and something similar must also have existed in
Smyrna and other Churches of Asia Minor about the year 150, in some
cases, even rather earlier. We may suppose that formulae of similar plan
and extent were also found in other provincial Churches about this
time.[28] Still it is neither probable that all the then existing
communities possessed such creeds, nor that those who used them had
formulated them in such a rigid way as the Roman Church had done. The
proclamation of the history of Christ predicted in the Old Testament,
the [Greek: kerygma tes aletheias], also accompanied the short baptismal
formula without being expressed in set ter