Article VIII: Why the Anglican Articles Name the Three Ancient Creeds

Of the Thirty-Nine Articles' many statements on doctrine, worship, and church order, Article VIII stands out for what it doesn't do: it makes no new theological argument of its own. Instead, it simply names three ancient documents and declares them binding — a deliberate act of continuity that deserves closer attention than its brevity might suggest.

The Article's Own Words

Article VIII reads, in full: "The Three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasius's Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture." Three sentences, doing an enormous amount of theological work by simply pointing outward to documents the Articles' authors did not write and had no need to restate in their own words.

Answering a Real Accusation

This article addresses a charge the English Reformation faced from multiple directions: that Protestant reform represented a genuine rupture with historic Christianity, discarding centuries of church tradition in favor of novel doctrine invented by reformers with no real continuity to the apostolic faith. By explicitly naming and formally receiving the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed, Article VIII stakes out a direct counter-claim: this reformed English church stands in unbroken confessional continuity with the earliest centuries of Christian faith, not in opposition to them.

A Test Applied Even to Beloved Tradition

What makes Article VIII theologically interesting rather than merely traditional is its stated grounds for reception. The three creeds are received specifically because they "may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture" — the same standard the Articles apply throughout to every doctrine they affirm or reject. This is a notable methodological choice. The Reformers could easily have simply asserted the creeds' authority on the grounds of their ancient and near-universal use across Christian history. Instead, Article VIII subjects even these beloved, foundational documents to the same scriptural test it applies everywhere else, receiving them not merely because the church has always used them, but because their content genuinely holds up under scriptural scrutiny.

Naming Three, Building on One

It's worth noting that Article VIII names all three of the great ecumenical creeds together, treating them as a unified confessional inheritance rather than singling out any one for special emphasis. This reflects a broader pattern in Reformation-era confessional documents: reformers across multiple traditions, not only the Church of England, generally understood their work as a recovery and continuation of ancient orthodoxy rather than an invention of something new — a conviction Article VIII states with unusual directness by simply naming its sources.

Why a Brief Article Carries Lasting Weight

Article VIII's brevity is part of its strength. It doesn't need to re-argue Trinitarian or Christological doctrine already settled at Nicaea, Constantinople, and in the tradition surrounding the Apostles' Creed — it simply receives that settled inheritance, formally and by name, as part of the English church's own confessional identity. In doing so, it offers one of the clearest, most direct textual bridges in this entire network: a sixteenth-century confession reaching back explicitly, by title, to bind itself to documents whose authors had been dead for well over a thousand years.

Read the Apostles' Creed side of this same direct textual link at [ApostlesCreed.info](https://apostlescreed.info/blog/anglican-articles-received-apostles-creed).