In accordance with this injunction, three questions are put to the person to be baptized: “Do you believe in God the Father Almighty? Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. . .? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit. . .?”2 The person being baptized replies to each of these three questions with the word “Credo”—I believe—and is then each time immersed in the water. Thus the oldest form of the confession of faith takes the shape of a tripartite dialogue, of question and answer, and is, moreover, embedded in the ceremony of baptism.
