[rface]

The Nicene Creed is an very good start.

When was that "creed" developed. What were Christians before the Nicene Creed?

[fishtank]

I’ll have to get back to you later on this....... best wishes to you and the rest of the participants on this thread for a while until I can return.....

[Notary Sojac]

"The Emperor Constantine, who lifted Christianity into power, murdered his wife Fausta, and his eldest son Crispus, the same year that he convened the Council of Nice to decide whether Jesus Christ was a man or the Son of God.

The Council decided that Christ was consubstantial with the Father. This was in the year A.D. 325. We are thus indebted to a wife-murderer for settling the vexed question of the divinity of the Savior. Theodosius called a council at Constantinople in 381, and this council decided that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father. Theodosius, the younger, assembled another council at Ephesus to ascertain who the Virgin Mary really was, and it was solemnly decided in the year 431 that she was the Mother of God.

In 451 it was decided by a council held at Chalcedon, called together by the Emperor Marcian, that Christ had two natures -- the human and divine. In 680, in another general council, held at Constantinople, convened by order of Pognatius, it was also declared that Christ had two wills, and in the year 1274 it was decided at the council of Lyons that the Holy Ghost proceeded not only from the Father, but from the Son as well.

Had it not been for these councils, we might have been without a Trinity even to this day. When we take into consideration the fact that a belief in the Trinity is absolutely essential to salvation, how unfortunate it was for the world that this doctrine was not established until the year 1274. Think of the millions that dropped into hell while these questions were being discussed."

-Robert G. Ingersoll

[joebuck]

"What were Christians before the Nicene Creed?"

Pretty much the same as after only now they had the Creed to use in battling the heresies of the Gnostics, Donatists, Montanists, etc. etc.

[RobbyS]

The Apostle’s Creed can be found more than a hundred Years before. Substantially, Irenaeus “Against the Heretics” has the same doctrine and that dates back to 180 AD.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"When was that "creed" developed?"

325 AD

" What were Christians before the Nicene Creed?"

The communities gathered around their bishops, that is, the successors to the Twelve Apostles, and in communion with the successor of Peter, whose role was primarily to "strengthen the brethren," as it says in the Gospel of Luke 22:32:

But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have returned, strengthen your brothers."