The "rule of faith"

While the Fathers did not offer the same answers to all of these issues, they are remarkably united on the essentials, or what Ramsay calls “the rudiments of Christian confession.” He states that we can confidently affirm that the Fathers agree among themselves and with us on these essentials—belief in a triune God; in a Christ who is at once divine and human and who exercises a salvific role with respect to the human race; in the infallibility of Scripture; in the fallen condition of the human race and its need for salvation; in certain important rites, chief among them being baptism and Communion; in the church, in which unity must be preserved; and in the value of prayer.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, pages 42–43