The classic 1662 Book of Common Prayer calls for the Athanasian Creed to be read in the Morning Prayer liturgy at least thirteen times throughout the year. Notably, it is to be read on Christmas and Easter. The Athanasian Creed also shows up in the Thirty Nine Articles in Article Eight as one of the big “three creeds.” Since then, however, it has fallen from its state of prominence. Not quite lost, few churches use the Athanasian Creed in practice, and many people have questioned both its status as an authoritative creed and its content.

To defend its content would require an essay, or perhaps a book, all of its own. For now, I simply want to point out a few features of the creed’s status during the time of the Reformation. How widely was it used at the time? Could it really be called an “ecumenical” creed?

The Athanasian Creed does not seem to have been written by Athanasius. There are many sections of Athanasius’ writings which sound like the creed, but there is no actual version of this creed in his lifetime. And some of the affirmations and denials appear to be a bit more precise and sophisticated than what you would have expected for his time. Scholars do tend to date it to around the fifth century, though, which isn’t too shabby. And it gained enough support throughout the Middle Ages that it was added to the Sunday prayer office called Prime. For Roman Catholics this continued until the twentieth century. (You can see this online Breviary, which claims the authority of the Council of Trent, for just one example.)

Among the Lutherans, the Athanasian Creed was included in the 1536 “Wittenberg Articles.” The first of those articles names “the three creeds” and says, “the articles of faith given in them are so necessary for the salvation of souls that those who believe differently cannot be members of the Church, but are complete idolaters” (Gerald Bray. Documents of the English Reformation, p. 104. The Lutterworth Press). The Lutherans would continue to affirm the Athanasian Creed, eventually including it in the Book of Concord.

For Reformation-era England, the Athanasian Creed was already being mentioned in confessional documents by 1536. The “Ten Articles,” written two years after Henry VIII’s break with Rome and nearly a decade before Cranmer’s true Reformed Anglican project could begin, named the Athanasian Creed alongside the Apostles and Nicene as “the three creeds, or symbols” as a part of “the principal articles concerning our faith” (Art. One of the Ten Articles). That article went on to say that people must “hold and take all the same things for the most holy, the most sure and the most certain and infallible words of God” (G. Bray, p. 143). The Athanasian Creed would later be included in the 1553 Forty-Two Articles and then, finally, in the 1571 Thirty-Nine Articles. Liturgically, it became customary to recite the Athanasian Creed in Morning Prayer for certain feast days. A rubric was added to the Book of Common Prayer in 1662, making this a binding practice.

The Belgic Confession was written in 1559 and eventually received as an authoritative Reformed statement. Its ninth article mentions the Athanasian Creed and calls it one of “the three ecumenical creeds.” Chapter eleven of the Second Helvetic Confession also names the Athanasian Creed as an authoritative creed.

Interestingly– ironically, perhaps– it is the Puritan movement which first dislodges the Athanasian Creed from its place of prominence. Some Puritans objected to the liturgical use of creeds in public worship services. You will notice that the Westminster Directory for Publick Worship does not include the recitation of any creed. This was not universal, however. Importantly, Richard Baxter’s Savoy Liturgy did retain the Athanasian Creed, calling for it to be read “sometimes” in the ordinary public worship on the Lord’s Day. Another form of protest looked back to John Calvin’s refusal to subscribe to the Athanasian Creed while facing a doctrinal attack from Peter Caroli. But complicating this history is the French Confession of 1559, of which Calvin was a substantial author. Its fifth article names the Athanasian Creed as (again) one of “the three creeds” which “we confess.” The Athanasian Creed simply was a true universal during the first and second and third generations of the Reformation.