/krᵻˈdɛndəm/, U.S. /krəˈdɛndəm/; plural credenda.credendan.
/krᵻˈdɛndə/, U.S. /krəˈdɛndə//krᵻˈdɛndəm/, U.S. /krəˈdɛndəm/; plural credenda. Originally Theology.
With plural agreement: things to be believed; matters of faith; propositions forming or belonging to a system. Also in singular (credendum): one such thing, an article of faith; (also) a system of beliefs or propositions, a creed.Esp. in Theology opposed to agenda, things to be done, matters of practice (see agend n.).
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > belief > [noun] > system of belief, creed > matters of belief
credenda1601
credends1641
acousma1660
1601 Bp. W. Barlow Def. Protestants Relig. 100 Whatsoeuer thinges are credenda, saith Aquinas, are referred either ad esse naturae..or ad esse gratiae.
1625 R. Montagu Appello Cæsarem ii. v. 161 We consent and agree, it is Antichristian to dissent from, to reject that Rule; and him an Antichrist that doth so, or proposeth any thing as Credendum against that Rule.
1638 W. Chillingworth Relig. Protestants i. 41 Those points of Faith..which were meerely and purely Credenda, and not Agenda.
1680 R. Baxter Nonconformists Advocate 21 Every Collect, every Prayer has in it a Credendum.
1748 London Mag. Feb. 67/1 Under the Administration of the late deceased Minister, it was right to lay it down as a Credendum, viz. Believe in France, suspect the House of Austria; pull down the latter, and aggrandize the former.
1753 Chambers's Cycl. Suppl. at Agenda Divines speak of the agenda of a christian, meaning the things to be practised by way of contradistinction from credenda or the things to be believed.
a1774 A. Tucker Light of Nature Pursued (1777) III. iii. 40 There never yet was a people of Philosophers..their Credenda being too..speculative for vulgar comprehension.
1805 Let. to Rev. Principal Hill on Case of Mr. John Leslie 149 Their conduct in regard to the credendum is not altogether without a precedent in the annals of our church.
1841 E. Miall in Nonconformist 1 481 Is the power of selecting the credenda of the nation to be vested in the civil magistrate?
1865 H. Alford Lett. from Abroad (ed. 2) ii. 28 Before, it was among the mind's credenda: heard of, read of in writing, or read of in printing: but from the moment of eye witness, no longer a credendum, but a living fact, underlying the after-life.
1894 H. B. Swete Apostles' Creed v. 57 Cyril..assigns great importance to the Descent, making it one of his ten primary credenda.
1922 Yale Law Jrnl. 31 732 These [rules], in their reaction, tend to tie society to the credenda of its past.
1960 N. Sykes Man as Churchman iii. 69 Chillingworth placed in opposition to each other the decrees of the Council of Trent as the official creed of the Church of Rome and the Bible only as the credendum of Protestants.
1972 Nature 24 Nov. 179/1 Almost since the discovery of pulsars it has been a credendum that pulsars are formed phoenix-like in the ashes of stars.
2008 New Statesman (Nexis) 28 July 49 The peerless west defeats all-comers by virtue of certain ‘values’ that often prove to be the credenda of neoconservatism.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2013; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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