There are plenty of good articles and books on the primitive creedal statements. You can find a very good overview article by Brett Seybold by following this link. Brother Brett does an excellent job of giving a high level view without diving too deeply into the weeds and details. Yet, he does posit a question and then provides his take on the answer: "And what conclusion they point to".
From his article, it seems that Seybold's conclusion is that the early creedal statements demonstrate a couple of outstanding points. First, the most primitive creedal statements represent what scholars call the highest Christology, that is, the highest and most lofty form of the story of Jesus as both God and servant-Savior, come in the flesh, resurrected by the power of God, and ascended on high as King, working towards the last judgment, the final trumpet, where death and the enemies of God are defeated forever and eternal life with God begins.
Second, Seybold points to a conclusion that later scripture consisting of written letters by the apostles, including Paul, have no disagreement with the high Christology of the primitive creedal statements. This works out to a demonstration of perfect Spirit-led unity, among the apostles, and what they taught, from the very beginning. In other words, the Gospel of Jesus Christ did not change or evolve over time. Instead, it hit the ground running, with all of its faculties in tact, and then never looked back, as it turned the world upside down.
Nevertheless, are these the only conclusions that we can draw? What else can the Spirit of God lead us into. After all, this is his work through the disciples, chosen by Jesus directly to carry on in the matter of building the New Testament church and laying the old ways to rest, forever. What did the fledgling apostles face immediately on the day of Pentecost and beyond? What tools did the Spirit of the Lord imbue them with, to get the job done, of launching the body of Christ, in the finest style ever? Look no further than the mass of humanity, sitting in demonic darkness, spread out before the church, Jews and pagan Gentiles. How are we to imagine that these twelves disciples carved up and ate this complex elephant?
Getting at the human core
The book of Acts tells us in chapter 2 that some three thousand souls were added to the church on the day of Pentecost. We can only speculate at the details of the hours, days, and weeks that followed. What seems obviously certain is the general state of the mass of people who responded to the preaching of the twelve, being baptized not only in water, but in the Spirit of God, where the water baptism alone must have been an incredible, complicated, and time-consuming task.
Through excavations around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, we know that there were literally hundreds of Mikveh ceremonial baths (Jewish baptismals) for purification surrounding the Temple. Did they use them? Would the Jewish Sanhedrin have allowed baptism into Christ (whom they had just crucified 40 days earlier) in the Mikveh's located literally at the Temple gates?—or—would the disciples have taken to the wilderness and gone in the John-the-Baptist route, leading their new converts out into the desert to be baptized in the Jordan?
What seems rather obvious is that three thousand souls being baptized by twelve apostles would have taken significant amounts of time. The matter of answering the question of "Why baptism" to the new Jewish converts might very well be "skipped" because as Jews, they most likely already understood and connected the baptismal-dots. And even if they did not all understand, the very process of watching others, hearing the testimonies, and watching the baptism process may well have been enough for most. Nevertheless, baptizing that many people leaves one with the impression of it having taken as long as a week or more. The complexities of organization so many baptisms alone seems overwhelming.
Of course, this is just baptism. What about training these people, telling them the story, the details of Jesus, and doing so in light of most of them being illiterate? In addition, many of them had traveled from all over the Roman empire to be in Jerusalem for Pentecost. They would have come with provisions and money for their initial plans, but now they are faced with staying longer to learn, fellowship, and then prepare, before returning home. What did that look like, and how did that happen?
While speculation can be a dangerous thing, it seems reasonable to consider such questions, and to do so in light of the spiritual needs of these people, who need to know the story of Jesus. What we want to know is, what part did creedal statements play in it all?
If the water and Spirit baptism process took upwards of a week or even more, what did the evening meetings of the disciples consist of? What did they talk about after the day was done and they returned home to each other? Were there late night meetings, prayer times, discussions, brainstorming, and so on?
How much rest did they get during the weeks after Pentecost? Did they start rising early in the morning to spend time in prayer? Did they initially realize the purpose of speaking in tongues beyond the initial shock-and-awe demonstration by God, as the Spirit was delivered on Pentecost? What choices did they arrive at, concerning what the Lord wanted to do with all these new disciples they were making? What other gifts of the Spirit came aboard and did they realize it to teach it?
It seems blatantly obvious that the disciples would have run headlong into a maze of details. They may have quickly realized how many of these people would not be staying in Jerusalem or joining them in a new desert-based Christian community away from the city. Sure, perhaps some would stay. Perhaps many would return home.
If they left the local church, what would become of them, and what did the Spirit lead the disciples to do, to ensure the story of Jesus stuck, and remained in them? It also seems obvious that upon returning home, these new converts would be faced with other Jews, who would be initially curious, wanting to know what happened, and to hear the details of Jesus. Of course, not everyone would accept. Attacks would begin, and the attrition might reverse the fragile work; literally making them lambs among wolves.
Creedal statements as a weapon?
It makes me smile inside to wonder who was the first disciple to whom the Spirit of God pushed the idea of creating little ditty songs, hymns, and psalm-ish sayings into which to compress the story of Jesus that was being preached by the apostles to this new group of three thousand souls.
Was it Peter? Did Andrew come up with it? Was it picked up from Jewish culture, Yeshiva's, or Essene teaching styles and methods? Do we have any record at all, where we might surmise that the Spirit of God repurposed a ready-and-waiting tool for the need at hand?
Whatever the source, we do know that the creeds we find scattered through the New Testament (and in other documentation spanning more than four hundred years after Pentecost) were largely developed within the first two years. We know this because Paul was saved about twenty-four months into the new church and then spent three years in study. He then returned to Jerusalem to confer with, and confirm what he had learned, where he met with Peter for a couple of weeks, but then also James, who was also an apostle by this time.
CONCERNING THE NOTION OF APOSTLE:
The notion of "apostle" originates from the Greek word "apostolos," which means "one who is sent out." This term was used in ancient Greece for a naval expedition or an envoy sent out by a ruler or government. However, the concept of an apostle as we understand it today is largely rooted in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.
In the context of Christianity, an apostle is considered one of the original 12 disciples chosen by Jesus Christ to preach his teachings. The term was not borrowed but rather repurposed by Jesus and his followers to denote those who were sent out to spread the word of God.
So, while the term "apostle" was already in existence, its religious connotation was established by Jesus and his disciples, and like many things, God takes from well-understood common notions, and repurposes and refines them to his own purposes for his own reasons. Such is the notion of apostle!
We know from Paul's letters that what he learned matched perfectly with what the apostles were teaching as we have a number of scriptural evidences pointing at the creedal statements as a primary vehicle upon which Paul drew his learning, coupled with Old Testament scripture, other Jewish materials, and of course, the leading and guiding of the Spirit of Christ in him.
If the creedal statements played a major role in Paul's introduction to the details of Jesus, then we can only conclude that those creedal statements were hammered together and used to teach the Gospel story before Paul's conversion. Hence, they were created sometime during the 24 months from Pentecost to Paul, most likely early on, due to the needs of solidifying the doctrines of the Gospel in new-converts, right from the start.
With this being powerfully demonstrable, what we're left with is to conclude that the Holy Spirit started leading and guiding the apostles into building these creed prayers, songs, hymns, and psalms almost immediately. We might even push this envelope to surmise that the creeds were being Holy Spirit inspired and derived in the opening months after Pentecost as the disciples pushed to implant and impart the story of Jesus into new Messianic Jewish converts, who would be returning to their homes across the pagan Roman empire.
Method of Loci
I realize that I am in high speculation mode. A lot of what I have written above is coming from what might appear as whole-cloth concoctions and leaps of logic.
What is needed is evidence, either archeological, textual, or both. Sadly, we seem to be lacking this collaborative physical evidence.
The nature of the early Christian movement and the historical context in which it developed means that physical archaeological evidence from the first few years after Pentecost is extremely limited. The early Christian community was a small sect within the broader Jewish community, and did not have the resources or inclination to produce the kind of monumental architecture, or inscriptions that typically survive in the archaeological record.
However, we do have some indirect evidence of early Christian beliefs and practices from the New Testament texts themselves, and from other early Christian writings. For example, many scholars believe that certain passages in the New Testament, such as Philippians 2:6-11, 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, and Romans 1:3-4, contain early Christian creeds or hymns that predate the New Testament texts and were likely used in worship by the earliest Christian communities.
These passages contain key elements of Christian belief, such as the divinity of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and his exaltation by God. The fact that these ideas are presented in a formulaic and rhythmic way suggests that they were meant to be memorized and recited, which is characteristic of creeds.
In terms of physical archaeological evidence, the earliest Christian inscriptions date from the second and third centuries AD, and the earliest Christian art, such as the frescoes in the catacombs of Rome, also date from this period. These inscriptions and artworks often contain symbolic representations of key Christian beliefs, such as the cross and the fish symbol, which may reflect the influence of early Christian creeds.
So while we do not have physical archaeological evidence of early Christian creeds from the first few years after Pentecost, we do have textual evidence from the New Testament and other early Christian writings that strongly suggest the existence of such creeds.
If in fact we have run aground on the shoals of no evidence, then perhaps we are done. However, we may yet have materials to explore that offer relevant evidence to help fill out our missing data, and shape our discussion and speculation.
From Greco-Roman times comes history, that may in fact, provide the closest evidence in support of the idea that the Spirit of God would once again borrow and enhance, from the pagan world, the means and methods of promoting the purpose, and story of God. However, let's begin with a little history reminder, telling us something about the Jews in a Roman empire world.
Starting in the 4th century BC, the Jews began a process of Hellenization. Between 408 and 333 BC, the Greek empire is winding down, but is still strong, ruling the Jews under a Greco-Macedonian government. The result of this, plus Judea being a hub intersection of various trade routes, resulted in a great deal of Hellenization of the Jews, turning them on to all-things-Greek, including language, thinking, philosophy, materials, and money.
But what does Hellenization of the Jews mean?
"Hellenization" refers to the historical spread of ancient Greek culture, and, to a lesser extent, language, over foreign peoples conquered by Greece, or brought into its sphere of influence, particularly during the Hellenistic period following the campaigns of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. The result of Hellenization was that elements of Greek culture became dominant in various other cultures, mainly in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. This included the Jews, who had just come out of Babylonian captivity and exile. While Aramaic was their primary language coming out of exile, this quickly gave way to speaking Greek, as the common language of commerce, much like English is today.
The Greeks and then the Romans were famous for their orators, who would write and memorize enormous speeches, plays, and other presentations. Paul even mentions this fact as him failing the expectations of his pagan audience. He states:
And I, when I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
At the time of Jesus and the new church, Greco-Roman orators were famous. They even had schools dedicated to teaching people how to make, create, write, and deliver speeches, oratory, and orations. Such schools were located all over the empire: Athens in Greece, Rhodes, a Greek island, Alexandria in Egypt, Antioch, Tarsus, which impacted Paul, and even Rome itself.
One of the historically documented methods used for memorizing great amounts of text was referred to as: the "Method of Loci".
The "Method of Loci" mentioned above is an ancient technique, used by Greek and Roman orators to remember speeches. They would visualize a familiar place (like a palace or a city street) and associate different parts of their speeches with different landmarks. This method was also used in medieval education, where students were taught to associate information with specific locations in a room or building. In more recent history, the chunking method has been used in various forms of education and training.
What we glean from this history is that Hellenized Jews would have been familiar with Method of Loci memorization. Perhaps one of the Hellenized Jewish converts would have suggested adopting the Method of Loci to the disciples as a means of teaching the story of Jesus and the Gospel to the newly converted Jews, even as early as Pentecost. The Hellenized converts may have flocked to the idea on its face, which leads to another interesting observation from scripture: The new converts most certainly included Hellenized Jews. The book of Acts tells us this reality and truth in point blank words.
In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.
The exact year of the events described in Acts 6:1 is not specified in the text. However, most scholars agree that the book of Acts was written by Luke around 80-90 AD. The events in Acts 6:1, which describe the appointment of the seven deacons in the early Christian church, likely took place a few years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. We know this is the case, because one of the seven chosen to relieve the disciples of table-waiting is Stephen.
Further, we know that Paul, or Saul as he was then known, was present at the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58; 8:1). From this, we can now noodle-out the presence of Hellenized Jews among the church body after the opening months of Pentecost is certain. Thus, the evidence we need to link Hellenized, Greco-Roman oratory skills specifically to the church during this critical time is a lock. The evidentiary link from creedal statements to Greco-Roman oratory skills, through Hellenized Jews, is quite likely, even strongly so.
While we cannot know how many of the Jewish converts to Christ were Hellenized, we do know that in a general sense, the Hellenized Jews represented a significant portion of the Jewish population, especially among Jews living away from Judea in the pagan nations to which they were dispersed (e.g., the diaspora under the Assyrians of the northern tribes before Babylon).
What we can perhaps comfortably speculate is that some significant number of Jewish converts on the day of Pentecost and afterwards ("the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved."—Acts 2:47) were Hellenized Jews. This means that with formal Greek language training and education, they would have been well-acquainted with formal Greco-Roman memorization techniques like "Method of Loci" or even something like "Chunking", which resembles the Loci method.
Given this information, it does not seem terribly speculative or unreasonable to think the church was extraordinarily ripe for the spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through creedal statement ditty's, modeled after Greco-Roman oratory tools and methods. Obviously, the Lord and the Spirit knew that the written New Testament letters would not fully materialize among the churches for many decades to come, only starting to show up in 48-50 AD, a full 15-20 years after Pentecost. Therefore, having a method of putting the story of Jesus effectively into the hearts and minds of new converts seems relatively straight forward and obvious.
Conclusions that lead us forward
What can we conclude and how do we move forward from those conclusions?
It appears that we can safely conclude the firm place and purpose of the creedal statements within the context of the early church and the people of it. The needs of the early church and how the creedal statements filled their needs seems rather obvious when the data is marshalled together and assembled as a coherent mosaic whole. Yet, this leaves a remaining question: What to do with the data, and where do we go from here with it? Is there somewhere, and something useful yet to explore?
One might reasonably conclude that here is far enough, at least for awhile. There is a lot to chew on and a lot to ponder. However, does this mean we are done? I think the answer is no. There is plenty remaining ahead.
For example, while we might be satisfied with the purpose and place of creedal statements as they formed and were used in the early church, does knowing these conclusions have any bearing on us as the church in the 21st century? I think the answer is yes and the best way to suggest paths forward is to pose questions.
- What can be learned from the creedal statements in the New Testament that we already know about?
- Is there any value to be had from picking them up, in our century, and putting them back to work today, as the disciples did in the past?
- If the answers to the questions above are yes, then do we use them in various means like putting them to music? Teaching them by expanding them, that is, putting the details to them through methods of chunking or loci?
- Does the New Testament represent all of the primitive creeds of the early church or are there more? Can we know them?
- We have evidence of other creedal statements in the 4th century AD as a part of an Egyptian prayer of protection. Was this made up in the four hundred years between the Egyptian papyrus, or is it from the original disciple-made materials?
- Do we have what it takes to recover missing or lost creeds by way of the Spirit of God today?
Perhaps these questions represent some part of a pathway to move ahead. Time, and the work and revealing of the Spirit of God, may well tell us more and more answers. Thus, the study of, and hunt for primitive Gospel creedal statements is a vector of prayerful research that might reveal worthwhile, helpful, and useful answers, and evangelistic tools!