Tridentine Creed

The Tridentine Creed, also called the Professio Fidei Tridentinae or the Creed of Pope Pius IV, is a summary of the doctrines defined by the Council of Trent, promulgated by papal bull in 1564 and subscribed by oath by Catholic clergy and by converts from Protestantism.¹ Unlike the ancient creeds, it is not a brief statement of the church’s common Trinitarian faith but a lengthy personal oath covering tradition’s authority alongside Scripture, the seven sacraments, Trent’s decrees on sin and justification, the sacrifice of the Mass, purgatory, the veneration of saints and relics, indulgences, and obedience to the Roman pontiff.¹

Historical Development

Pope Pius IV called the Council of Trent’s final sessions to answer the Reformation, and after the council closed in 1563 he had its decrees distilled into a single sworn profession, issued by bull the following year.¹ The council’s own decrees carry the positive statements of Roman doctrine and the canons that condemn opposing views point by point; the profession instead reduces that whole body of decisions to one oath that binds the person swearing it, not merely stating doctrine but promising to “hold and profess the same whole and entire” for life and to see it “held, taught and preached” by all under his care.¹ The same 1564 bull’s provisions were further explained for parish use two years later in the Roman Catechism, prepared at Pius IV’s order and promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1566.¹

The oath’s text was not left untouched. More than three centuries later, the First Vatican Council met at Rome from December 8, 1869 to October 20, 1870 and issued two dogmatic constitutions, one on the Catholic faith and one on the church, the latter’s fourth chapter defining the pope’s teaching, “pronounced ex cathedra, as pastor and doctor of all Christians, upon any question of faith or morals,” as personally infallible and irreformable.² On January 2, 1877, a decree of the Sacred Congregation of the Council amended the profession’s own wording, inserting a clause binding the one swearing it to “the Œcumenical Vatican Council” alongside Trent, “particularly concerning the primacy and infallible rule of the Roman Pontiff.”¹ Vatican I’s own decree stood on its own authority as soon as it was issued in 1870; the 1877 decree only added a reference to that already-settled dogma to the wording clergy and converts swear.¹

Text of the Creed

Hodge gives the profession’s full text, incorporating the Nicene Creed before the profession proper begins and closing with the 1877 addition, itself set off in the original by brackets:

I, A. B., believe and profess with a firm faith all and every one of the things which are contained in the symbol of faith which is used in the holy Roman Church… I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions, and all other constitutions and observances of the same Church. I also admit the sacred Scriptures according to the sense which the holy mother Church has held and does hold, to whom it belongs to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; nor will I ever take or interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers. I profess, also, that there are truly and properly seven sacraments of the new law… I receive and embrace all and every one of the things which have been defined and declared in the holy Council of Trent concerning sin and justification. I profess likewise that in the mass is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; and that in the most holy sacrament of the eucharist there is truly, really, and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, which conversion the Catholic Church calls transubstantiation… I constantly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the souls detained therein are helped by the suffrages of the faithful. Likewise that the saints reigning together with Christ are to be honored and invoked, that they offer prayers to God for us, and that their relics are to be venerated. I most firmly assert that the images of Christ, and of the mother of God ever Virgin, and also of the other saints, are to be had and retained, and that due honor and veneration are to be given to them. I also affirm that the power of indulgences was left by Christ in the Church, and that the use of them is most wholesome to Christian people. I acknowledge the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, the mother and mistress of all churches; and I promise and swear true obedience to the Roman bishop, the successor of St. Peter, prince of the apostles, and vicar of Jesus Christ. I also profess, and undoubtedly receive all other things delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and general councils, and particularly by the holy Council of Trent [and by the Œcumenical Vatican Council delivered, defined, and declared, particularly concerning the primacy and infallible rule of the Roman Pontiff]… And likewise I also condemn, reject, and anathematize all things contrary thereto, and all heresies whatsoever condemned, rejected and anathematized by the Church. This true Catholic faith, out of which none can be saved, which I now freely profess and truly hold, I., A. B., promise, vow and swear most constantly to hold, and profess the same whole and entire, with God’s assistance, to the end of my life.¹

Confessional Contrast

The profession’s clause on Scripture, that its “true sense and interpretation” belongs to the church to judge rather than to Scripture itself, states in oath form the rule-of-faith position the Second London Baptist Confession denies: “the Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.”³ Where the profession binds the one swearing it to the church’s own sense of Scripture as a further, church-supplied rule alongside the text, the confession holds Scripture self-authenticating and sufficient on its own. The profession’s other articles, on justification, the sacraments, the Mass, and papal authority, restate Trent’s own decrees, which Roman Catholicism sets against the confession’s teaching point by point.

Related Doctrines

References

Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1879), chap. 7, “Creeds and Confessions,” 112-128. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
Hodge, Outlines of Theology, chap. 27, “The Mediatorial Kingship of Christ,” quoting First Vatican Council, “First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ,” chap. 4. ↩
The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), chap. 1, “Of the Holy Scriptures,” para. 1. ↩