In the "Apostles' Creed" were they referring to themselves when they said "holy catholic church"? I know that the stock answer concerning the identity of "the holy catholic church" is to say that it refers to the "Church Universal". But in all honesty, weren't they talking about Constantine's circle of bishops, loyal to Rome?



Weren't they saying, in effect, that "we bishops that are signing this comprise the government of the Church Universal and we write its laws"?
Constantine Not the  Father of Catholicism

Constantine has nothing to do with Catholicism whatsoever, except that he, as a pagan, was a lukewarm convert to it, and was baptized before his death. Whether or not Nicaea I was convened, the Trinity was still the Catholic faith before and afterwards—the only difference is that whereas before the Nicaean understanding of God was not dogmatically settled (but simply the lived faith, not hitherto defined officially), it was still believed in a 'more than unofficial, but not yet official' capacity.

This is a common myth spread by 'history' documentaries with zero sources: that since he convened a Council for Christians to settle their disputes about the precise nature of Christ's divinity, as the bishops discussed a salvation issue in Jerusalem a few centuries prior (Acts 15), that he 'made Trinitarianism the official religion.'

In reality, he simply legalized Christianity; it would only later be made the official religion of the Empire, an indubitable and objective improvement on the prevalent heathen religions which mocked Christianity, and hated Christ implicitly or otherwise.

The 'Constantine invented Trinitarian pagan Christianity' trope simply needed to exist in one way or the other: it amounts to a fumbling attempt at explaining the dominance of the persecuted religion begun by some obscure teacher from Jerusalem over the most mighty Empire of all time, which on a natural level is quite impossible, and which was also prophesied to make matters worse.

Catholic Just Means Universal

The Greek word καθολικος (sometimes simply transliterated due to its quasi-technical use) just means 'universal' (or 'general' as in 'the General Judgement [of all humanity on the last day]') or 'everywhere' (in the geographical sense; cf. Acts 9:31: η εκκλεσια καθ’ ολης). It's not rocket science how the true Church both would and could describe itself as the universal church, which isn't limited to certain bishops and regions, like sects, cults and heresies. It's a great adjectival or title for the Church because only the true Church, rather usefully for discernment of the true Church, can be universal in all centuries. Arianism wasn't 'catholic' because it was started by Arius, and everyone upbraided him when he started teaching this heresy because it was new, and not catholic. This took its fullest form in the Council of Nicaea, where the Catholic Church gathered to condemn this novelty, and affirm the catholic—Catholic—truth on the matter. They didn't need to assert the authority bishops in unison had to teach on Scripture, even though they had it; they didn't need to cite Scripture to prove the perennial faith to some heretic, but they did. They could have simply cited, as Athanasius would cite, the perennial faith as held by the fathers of the faith, those who passed the Scriptures on to them from the beginning, and how they all taught the Trinity as the true doctrine on God.

To be Christian before relatively recently (1500s), was just to be Catholic and vice versa, then. (I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I heard 'Are you Catholic or are you Christian.') It's a myth that there were 'secret bible believing Christians who weren't catholic and believed sola scriptura and symbolic eucharist' etc. It's just antihistory.

Authorship of the Apostles' Creed

One can't prove the Apostles' themselves penned this creed, although that is a traditional (little 't') ascription. But it is impossible to claim that it doesn't crystallize the faith of the early Church as seen from every evidence we have of it, which it manifestly is. Both of these things are subjectively indistinguishable anyway. There is no need for conspiracy here anywhere... unless you do not belong to the same Church as the fathers of the faith, in which case you have every reason to need such conspiracies to explain the absence of your church anywhere close to the beginning.

The path of least resistance is to be Catholic, accept the Apostle's Creed whether an Apostle or other men wrote it, since it summarizes the lived faith anyway, otherwise it wouldn't be considered a summary or σύμβολον of the faith.

No conspiracies.

And the condemnation by Councils of contrary positions ('let him be anathema' and such things) is not different from the Church claiming to have the true faith: indeed, if you have a false faith you indeed are going to hell. There is nothing sinister at work. Why it is seen as sinister is people who aren't of the Church have an aversion of dogmatic statements, because Scripture can be interpreted by the invidual, and after all, you could be wrong? At least, that's what's behind the aversion at least implicitly—otherwise describing those who believe in a false religion as going to hell is not bad, but charitable toward all who would believe likewise.