"I Believe" Rather Than "We Believe" in the Creed?
The Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds we use at Mass, in Latin, begin with credo — “I believe.” This is where the word “creed” comes from. But this might seem strange. Why is it “I believe” rather than “we believe,” especially since the Mass and Christianity are so focused on the bond of communion among the faithful? As a matter of fact, it was precisely because of this focus on community that, when the Latin was first translated for English Masses in the 1970s, the congregation was to say “we believe” and not “I believe.” Since 2011, though, we’ve used the more literal “I believe.”
But why is it that, even in the Latin, the phrase credo (“I believe”) and not credimus (“we believe”) is used?
The Nicene Creed ― the one used most often at Mass ― was developed at Church councils in the fourth and fifth centuries as a summary of orthodox Christian faith. Interestingly, the earliest creed produced by these councils — the one from Nicaea — actually begins with “we believe” rather than “I believe.”1 So why the change as time went on?
At first, creeds were not meant to be utilized at Mass. They were used, instead, at baptisms. In the fourth-century, for instance, St. Cyril taught adults preparing for baptism in the city of Jerusalem using an early version of the Nicene Creed. At their baptism, they would then need to publicly profess that Creed.2 This was practiced in Rome, too, but with the Apostles’ Creed. Catechumens and candidates still do this today at our Easter Vigil.
The creeds were only slowly added into the Mass, and, at first, just in certain places. About one-hundred years after it was developed, Egyptian Christians inserted the Nicene Creed into their Masses. It wasn’t until the 11th-century that the city of Rome began the practice.3
But this baptismal legacy is precisely why it became “I believe” rather than “we believe.” Creeds were used by specific individuals to publicly proclaim their personal beliefs before being baptized. Grammatically, an individual, speaking for him or herself, would not say “we.” Hence credo (“I believe”) and not credimus (“we believe”). And so even now that creeds are utilized in the Mass for the entire congregation, they continue to show this baptismal heritage, and even to bring us back to our own baptisms.4
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See Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 256.
See Cyril of Jerusalem, Cataheses, VII-XVIII.
See A Commentary on the Order of Mass of the Roman Missal, ed. Edward Foley (Collegeville, MN: Pueblo, 2011), 168.
See Joseph A. Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origin and Development, vol. 1 (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 2012 [1951]), 463.