Dogma as a single tenet proclaimed by the pope ex cathedra is the latest and lowest way of forming dogma. The original form in which the Church states her faith in a binding fashion is the Creed or symbolum; the profession of faith in the birth of Jesus from the Virgin, a statement quite unequivocal in meaning belongs firmly from the start to all symbola and is thus a constituent part of the original dogma of the Church.
--Cardinal Josef Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Introduction to Christianity, 1968
