Bicknell on Article VIII: Of the Three Creeds

(a) From the first the Church required from all who wished to become her members, some public profession of faith in Christ. Men whose hearts were touched by the apostolic preaching were urged to repent and believe and be baptized (eg. Acts 2074). St. Timothy, probably at the moment of his baptism, had confessed a good confession in the sight of many witnesses (1 Tim. 617). In the Bezan text of the Acts we find such a confession put into the mouth of the Ethiopian Eunuch: ‘See here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized. And Philip said, If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God’ (Acts 8°37), The last two sentences formed probably no part of the original text as written by St. Luke, but they are quite early * and illustrate the practice of the

• They were known to Irenaeus (180).

Church at least in sub-apostolic times. So, too, St. Peter speaks of the ‘interrogation’ (€rep#Tnua) in connexion with Baptism (1 Pet. 324),

(i) When we wish to go a step further and ask in what form such belief was expressed, the evidence is less clear. Probably some quite short and simple form of words was in use, such as ‘ I believe that Jesus is Lord.’ The primary aim of the earliest apostolic preaching was to create the conviction that Jesus of Nazareth who had been crucified was the Christ. Men already possessed a belief in a Messiah: they were now bidden to identify the Messiah whom they expected with Jesus. The use of some such simple formula is implied in passages of St. Paul. ‘No man can say that Jesus is Lord save in the Holy Ghost’ (1 Cor. 12%). ‘Tf thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation’ (Rom. 10°19, cp. Phil. 24). The same custom is also suggested by the First Epistle of St. John. ‘ Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him and he in God ’ (4%. Notice the aorist, denoting a single definite act of confession). So, too, in 5° the context quite clearly points to a connexion between the confession that ‘ Jesus is the Son of God’ and the coming by water, 7.e. baptism (cp. also Heb. 4”). The language of St. John suggests an alternative form of bap- tismal confession, ‘I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,’ the phrase ‘Son of God’ having primarily a Messianic meaning. In short, all the evidence goes to show that from the earliest days Baptism in the name of the Lord Jesus was accompanied by a public acknowledgement of His lordship by the recipient. In this simple profession of faith is to be found the germ of our later creeds.

(ii) The connecting link between our fully developed creeds and the short and simple formulas of the apostolic Church may probably be found in the questions and responses that formed a part of the service of Baptism. Even if the full Baptismal formula ‘in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost’ was not always employed from the first, it soon became universal. Consequently, if the threefold Name was invoked by the baptizer, it was fitting that it should be accom-

panied by a confession of the threefold Name on the part of the baptized. As St. Cyril of Jerusalem writes in the fourth century in his catechetical instructions ‘ Ye were led by the hand to the holy font of the divine baptism …and each one was asked whether he believed in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and ye confessed the saving confession.’ So, too, in the Gelasian Sacramentary, representing the oldest form of the order of service at Rome that we possess, we find these questions: ‘Dost thou believe in God the Father almighty ? ’ ‘Dost thou believe also in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was born and suffered?’ ‘Dost thou believe also in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Church; the remission of sins; the resurrection of the flesh?’ In the light of this we can under- stand what Tertullian means when he writes: ‘ We are thrice immersed, giving a somewhat fuller answer than the Lord laid down in the Gospel.’* The form in which these baptismal questions and responses were expanded was determined by the threefold formula of Baptism. In all the ancient creeds which were developed out of them we find the same triple division. The first division refers to the Father, the second to the Son and the historic parts of the Incarnation, and the third to the work of the Holy Spirit. Under this last one of the earliest additions made was ‘the remission of sins,’ with reference to the work of the Holy Spirit in Baptism. f

But if the administration of Baptism was preceded by such a wide and definite questioning, it is clear that it presupposed some. considerable instruction of the candidates. It is in this preliminary instruction that we find the origin of the fully developed creed-forms. In reading the Acts of the Apostles we cannot but be struck by the apparent scantiness of the teaching given to candidates for baptism. Partly no doubt this was due to the inchoate form of the Church’s belief. She was only making clear to herself, as the result of her growing experience, all that was contained in her belief in Jesus as Lord. Partly also the first converts came almost entirely from Jews or from those under Jewish influence, to whom the fundamental truth of the Unity of God and His creation of the world would be already

familiar. But even within the New Testament we find hints of a more or less regular outline of Christian instruction. The Roman Christians had obeyed the ‘ form of doctrine unto which ye were delivered,’ 7.e. as unto a guardian (Ro. 61”). St. Paul exhorted St. Timothy to ‘hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me’ (2 Tim. 133, cp. also 28). We may be sure that some statement of the main facts about the life and death of the Lord Jesus was always given, where necessary, before Baptism. The early chapters of the Acts suggest that the Church possessed a common store-house of proof-texts from the Old Testament, used to reconcile the Jewish mind to the unwelcome fact of a suffering Messiah. In 1 Cor. 157 we have something approaching an official list of Resurrection appear- ances (cp. also the later summary given in [Mk.] 16°ff.). In 1 Tim. 31° we have a fragment of an early Christian hymn. ‘He who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of Angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory.” The whole of the evidence of the New Testament, both of the Acts and Epistles, suggests that the Apostles agreed on a more or less definite outline of teaching. Out of this teaching grew the Creeds, as a summary of the chief truths that a Christian man was called upon to believe. Some have tried to go further and to construct a definite creed-form as used by St. Paul and the Apostles, which could be regarded as the parent of all later creeds, Eastern and Western alike ; but the evidence hardly allows us to go as far as this. What we can say is that certainly by the middle of the second century and probably earlier we find proofs of the use of definite creed- forms. During the period of preparation for Baptism the candi- dates were instructed in the doctrines of the Church. The creed was delivered to them shortly before Baptism as the official summary of the doctrines so taught and explained and an exposi- tion of it was given in the form of asermon. This was known as the traditio symboli. It was followed at the Baptism by the

*The word symbolum (ctBorov) is first applied to the creed by St. Cyprian and became a regular term. Its exact meaning is not certain. It may mean ‘a watchword,’ the token by which Christians could recognize one another, or “a banner’ under which the army of Christ marched in its battle for truth. It cannot mean a ‘collection’ or ‘summary’ of doctrine, which would rather be cvpBody, though many, including Rufinus, have taken it in this sense. The

redditio symboli, when the candidate gave back the creed by repeating it in the presence of his teacher. As late as the time of St. Augustine the creed was not committed to writing but stored up in the memory, as a statement of revealed truth to be pondered on and treasured.

(ui) Accordingly we find indications of the use of creeds in all the principal churches of Hast and West alike. Their general structure as developed out of the Trinitarian formula is identical : their details vary at different dates and different places. Whether all these creeds go back ultimately to a smgle common ancestor or whether they were evolved independently to meet similar needs, is a question to which no final answer can at present be given. At least their universality shows that they corresponded to a universal want. The exact causes that decided the parti- cular form of development in any given place varied. Speaking generally we may say that in the earlier days the dominant motive was to set forth positive truth. At a later date this was supplemented by the desire to exclude heresy or error. So the growth of a creed, especially in its first stages, would be largely unconscious, prompted by the practical desire to sum up in a brief statement the Church’s growing apprehension of the truth by which she lived.

We can distinguish two main types of creed, Eastern and Western, corresponding in large measure to the difference between the Eastern and the Western mind. The West was always practical, interested in facts rather than ideas. The East was speculative, interested in ideas rather than facts. The West was unable to speculate for itself and unwilling to pay great attention to the speculations of others. It opposed error less from the love of truth in the abstract than from motives of practical Christianity and the wish to be free from the confusion and distraction of controversy. The Hast delighted to think out the intellectual content of the Christian faith. Hence, inevitably Eastern Christianity produced a crop of home-grown heresies, side by side with those heathen and gnostic errors that from the first had been the common enemy of the whole Church. These characteristics are reflected in the development of the creeds. creed is also known as the ‘ regula fidei ’ or caywv, that which keeps the Christian

straight on the path of truth. But these titles are also used in a wider sense of Christian doctrine as a whole.

Western creeds are as a rule short straightforward recitals of fact. astern creeds add dogmatic explanations and _ inter- pretations. The Western creeds on the whole remain closer to the original purpose of creeds, namely, to state positive truth. The Eastern creeds necessarily betray a more obvious desire to exclude heresy and error. Taking our so-called Apostles’ Creed as a typical Western creed and our so-called Nicene Creed as a typical Eastern creed, we may illustrate from them these tendencies :

(a) We find the Eastern creeds giving the reason for certain facts, where the Western creeds are content simply to state the facts, even where there is no theological question at stake. The Apostles’ Creed recounts our Lord’s birth. The Nicene adds that it was ‘for us men and for our salvation.’ The Apostles’ Creed records the Resurrection on the third day, the Nicene adds that it was ‘ according to the Scriptures.’ The Nicene explains that baptism is ‘for the remission of sins.’ Similarly Eastern creeds alone have ‘ shall come again with glory.’

(6) Again, in the interests of theology the Eastern creeds dwell on the life and work of our Lord before the Incarnation. ‘The only begotten Son of God,’ ‘ Begotten of His Father before all worlds,’ ‘Through whom all things were made.’ Clause is added to clause in order to insist upon His Divinity. The Nicene addition ‘ of one substance with the Father’ was added only to Eastern Baptismal creeds. The West felt no need of it. In contrast with this the Western creeds go straight on from the mention of our Lord to the fact of His Incarnation and His death. The theological interpretation of His death, ‘ He suffered ’ though present in Hastern creeds from the first in order to exclude Docetism, was a late addition in the West. The Nicene Creed further adds ‘ Whose Kingdom shall have no end’ to refute the heresy of Marcellus, and emphasizes the Divinity of the Holy Spirit ‘ The Lord and the giver of life ’ as against Macedonianism. The only additions found exclusively in the West aré ‘He descended into Hell ’ and ‘the communion of Saints.’

(y) A more complicated question arises when we turn to the opening section of the creed. The Nicene, like all Hastern creeds, inserts ‘One’ before God and adds ‘Maker of Heaven and Earth’ as a protest against any form of dualism. Our present Apostles’ Creed does contain the latter clause, but, as we shall see, it is quite a late addition. On the other hand, from

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quotations in Irenaeus and Tertullian it is fairly clear that in their day the Roman Creed contained the word ‘One.’ It may have dropped out accidentally or it may have been deliber- ately removed for fear of Sabellianism. There was a period at the close of the second century when for a time Rome was the storm centre of heresy, and this may have left its mark in the Creed, not however by addition as in the Hast, but by omission.

(6) Hitherto we have dealt with creeds as local variations of a common type, framed for the single purpose of imparting the elements of the Christian faith to learners. At the Council of Nicaea we find the first instance of the employment of a creed for an entirely different purpose, as a test of orthodoxy for teachers. No doubt in earlier days from time to time appeal had been made to the creed as the rule of faith and as the evidence of conformity to primitive and apostolic teaching. But such a use was only secondary and incidental. At the Council of Nicaea we find for the first time a creed deliberately constructed for use as a test of right teaching. This new creed was not intended to supersede existing creeds : it was called into existence for anew purpose. Accordingly we get from this point onwards a new class of creeds, ‘ conciliar’ as opposed to ‘ baptismal.’ The baptismal creed as being the personal confession of faith made by the individual, is naturally in the singular ‘I believe.’ The conciliar creed, as expressing the faith of an assembled body, is naturally in the plural ‘ We believe.’ The employment of the singular is not a mark of Western as opposed to Hastern creeds, but is found in all baptismal creeds. The distinction between conciliar and baptismal creeds is not absolute. The former were built on the foundation of the latter. The threefold structure is always retained and a conciliar can be adopted as a baptismal creed by the change of the plural into the singular. But the action of the Council of Nicaea marks a revolution in the use of creeds.*

• This is why we meet with ‘anathemas’ for the first time at the end of the creed of the Council of Nicaea. ‘The anathemas are there because and only because the creed is no longer the layman’s confession of faith but the bishop’s. The old principle that the profession of belief of catechumens should be positive in character is not infringed : the Council has not even in view the case of the clergy, still less that of the faithful laity : to bishops alone belonged the office of deciding in the last resort what was Christian and Catholic and what was heretical, and therefore bishops alone should be called upon to guar-

antee their soundness in the faith by formal and solemn anathema of error.’ Turner, History and use of Creeds, p. 28.

A third type of creed deserves mention, namely, private or individual theological confessions. Such sit more loosely to the creed-form and have in themselves no authority but that of the individuals who composed them. We shall see that our so-called Athanasian really belongs to this third type. The object of their existence is to state certain aspects of Christian truth which made a special appeal to their authors.

§ 2. The Apostles’ Creed.

(i) We may now turn to the history of ‘that which 1s commonly called the Apostles’ Creed.’ Put shortly, the Apostles’ Creed as we use it, is an enlarged form of the Baptismal Creed of the Roman Church. This ‘Old Roman Creed’ is first found in Greek in a letter written by Marcellus of Ancyra about 340 a.D. to the Bishop of Rome and preserved in the writings of Hpi- phanius. Marcellus had been accused of a form of Sabellianism. In order to prove his orthodoxy he left with the Bishop of Rome a formal statement of his faith. This was in reality the Bap- tismal Creed of the Roman Church, which we find some sixty years later described in the commentary of Rufinus. It runs as follows :

1. I believe in God (the Father) almighty

2. And in Christ Jesus, His only Son, our Lord,

Who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, Crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried, The third day He rose from the dead, He ascended into Heaven, Sitteth at the right-hand of the Father, Whence He cometh to judge quick and dead. 3. And in the Holy Ghost, Holy Church, Remission of sins, Resurrection of flesh.*

• Our present text of Marcellus omits ‘the Father’ in the opening clause and adds ‘eternal life’ at the close. These changes were probably due to the mistakes of copyists. The Latin of Rufinus has ‘the Father’ and omits ‘eternal life,’ and Jerome expressly tells us that the Roman Creed ends with ‘Resurrection of flesh.’ Other authorities support this version.

Credo in Deum patrem omnipotentem, et in Christum Iesum filium eius unicum, dominum nostrum, qui natus est de Spiritu Sancto et Maria virgine,

The Latin version of the Old Roman Creed first appears in the commentary of Rufinus (400 4.D.), in which he compares the creed of his own Church of Aquileia with that of Rome. This then we can take as our starting-point. By the middle of the fourth century the Old Roman Creed was in use in the form given above. Two questions still remain. How much further back can it be traced? By what process of development did it assume the later form that we commonly call ‘the Apostles’ Creed ’ ? It is usually agreed that the Old Roman Creed can be traced back to the early years of the second century. We must remem- ber that as long as the creed was a ‘ pass-word ’ among Christians, stored in the memory but on principle never committed to writing, Christian writers would be indisposed to make any open quotation from it. Further, since the creed is a summary of apostolic teaching, it is by no means easy to determine whether any given passage implies behind it a definite creed-form or rather some more or less systematized course of instruction. It is certain, however, that Tertullian and probable that both Trenaeus and Justin Martyr were familiar with the Old Roman Creed. Internal evidence, too, goes to support an early date. ‘The simplicity and terseness of the style point to the sub-apos- tolic age … its authorship remains unknown, but it seems to have become a rule of faith without dispute.’ * The origin of the Old Roman Creed may therefore be assigned to a date somewhere about 100 a.p.

One school of specialists in creed-forms, including Professor Harnack, would maintain that the Old Roman Creed lies behind

crucifixus sub Pontio Pilato et sepultus; tertia die resurrexit a mortuis, ascendit in caelos, sedet ad dexteram patris, inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos. Et in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam ecclesiam, remissionem peccatorum, carnis resurrectionem.

Credo in Deum patrem omnipotentem, creatorem caeli et terrae, et in Iesum Christum filium eius unicum, dominum nostrum, qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria virgine, passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus et sepultus ; descendit ad inferna, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis, ascendit ad caelos, sedet ad dexteram Dei patris omnipotentis, inde venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos. Credo in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam ecclesiam catholicam, sanctorum communionem, remissionem peccatorum, carnis resur- rectionem, vitam aeternam.

all similarly constructed creeds, Eastern and Western alike. It is argued that all the Eastern creeds can be traced back to a single model in the Creed of Antioch and that this in turn is dependent on the Old Roman Creed, which was introduced there after the deposition of Paul of Samosata in 272. Others, however, argue that there is evidence for the existence of an independent Eastern creed of equal antiquity. In any case the important fact is that a similar outline of teaching prevailed in East and West alike. (i) When we contrast the Old Roman Creed with our present

• Apostles’ Creed’ we find that it has been enlarged by the fol- lowing additions :

‘Maker of heaven and earth ’

“Who was conceived ’

‘ Suffered ’

• Dead.’

• Descended into hell.’

‘God… almighty.’ (On the right hand of God the Father |

Almighty.)

‘Catholic ’

‘The communion of Saints ’

‘ The life everlasting.’ Of these some appear in use in local creeds earlier than others. ‘The life everlasting,’ as we learn from Cyprian, had its place in a baptismal interrogation used in the Church of Africa as early as the middle of the third century. The creed of Milan had “suffered ’ instead of ‘ was crucified ’’ by the close of the fourth century, when St. Augustine was baptized. ‘ Descended into hell ’ is found in the creed of the Church of Aquileia by the time of Rufinus (400 a.p.) and had previously appeared in an Arian creed drawn up at Sirmium in 359 and accepted at Ariminum. The majority of the additions are found in the creed used by a certain Niceta or Nicetas, Bishop of Remesiana in the Balkan peninsula at the close of the fourth century. His creed con- tamed ‘ maker of heaven and earth,’ ‘ suffered,’ ‘ dead,’ ‘ catholic,’ ‘communion of saints,’ ‘life everlasting.’ His diocese lay on the borderland between East and West, on the high road between Constantinople and Milan, then the chief city of the West, and we may reasonably suppose that these additions were in part due to Eastern influence. Again, a creed-form has recently been

discovered which is probably a personal confession of faith sent by Jerome to Cyril of Jerusalem. It contains practically all the additions in our present Apostles’ Creed or some equivalent expression. Jerome came from much the same region as Nicetas, namely, Pannonia, and his creed forms a link between the Old Roman Creed and our present form. Again, we find most of the additions more or less current in Gaul between the middle of the fifth and the opening of the sixth century. We have sermons composed by Faustus, Bishop of Riez, for a time abbot of the great monastery of Lerins and by Caesarius, Bishop of Arles (died 543), and a letter written by Cyprian, Bishop of Toulon. From these we gather by the close of the fifth century the Gal- lican Church used a creed that differed from our Apostles’ Creed only by the omission of ‘maker of heaven and earth.’ It has been conjectured that the additions had travelled westwards from Pannonia through Aquileia and Milan to the south of France. There they became diffused through the influence of the school of Lerins. The Apostles’ Creed in the precise form in which we now repeat it is first met in a treatise of Priminius or Pirminius, a missionary bishop who had been for a time abbot of the Benedictine monastery of Reichenau and worked in France and Germany about 750. But there are certain earlier creeds found in the Gallican Missal and the Gallican Sacramentary and employed in Gaul before 700 which contain all the additions but are marked by certain slight variations from our present form.

If we ask the further question, how came our Apostles’ Creed to be substituted for the Old Roman Creed throughout the West and even in Rome itself, no certain answer can be given. It used to be supposed that during the fifth century, in order to exclude Arianism, the Church of Rome substituted the Nicene Creed for the Old Roman as her baptismal formula: that so the Old Roman Creed dropped out of use in Rome itself and sur- vived only in the provinces in an enlarged form, and that it was reintroduced into Rome with the additions under the influence of Charles the Great, about 800. There is, however, some evidence that the Church of Rome never gave up the use of the Old Roman Creed, but in the seventh century, when intercourse with Constantinople was frequent, employed the ‘ Nicene ’ Creed in the case of Greek-speaking catechumens, since the Greek

text of the Roman Creed had long dropped out of use. Later the full form of the creed was substituted for the old form, as being an improved version. To sum up, the Roman Church gave her creed to the West in early days. Then it took it back again enriched by additions made by the Christian piety of many lands and once again sent it out in its enriched form as a new gift to the Western Church.*

(ii) In what sense, then, may our creed rightly be styled ‘Apostles’? It clearly cannot have been drawn up by the apostles themselves. It is found in a less fully developed form long after the death of the last apostle and its development imto its present form can be traced. It is true that Rufinus supposed that the Old Roman Creed was put together by an assembly of the apostles before leaving Jerusalem and had remained unaltered; but there is no trace of any such. belief in other writers, earlier and wiser than Rufinus,f including, for in- stance, St. Luke. Still less credence can be given to the legend, found first in Pirminius, that assigned the composition of our present creed to the twelve on the day of Pentecost, distributing with some difficulty a fair portion to each apostle. It is possible that a belief of this kind gave rise to the title. More probably, however, the name ‘symbolum apostolicum’ or ‘symbolum apostolorum ’ is used in a wider sense. It means no more than that the creed is a faithful summary of apostolic teaching and that its substance came from the apostles. In an uncritical age the title was perverted to mean that the actual creed came ready-made from the lips of the apostles. Another possible

• The only addition that needs explanation is ‘the communion of saints.’

The Latin ‘sanctorum communionem’ is ambiguous. Sanctorum may be either masculine or neuter. Probably it is masculine, as it is so taken in the sermon of Nicetas, where the addition first occurs. He explains the clause as the fellowship of holy men in one church. ‘The addition may have been useful as a protest against the Donatists, who taunted the Catholics with being a ‘communio malorum.’ In any case ‘saints’ means ‘Christians’; it must not be limited to specially famous Christians, but includes living and departed alike. If we take sanctorum as neuter, the ‘holy things ’ mean ‘sacraments.’ The fellowship in holy things is a visible sign of the communion of saints. The phrase may then be connected with the correspondence between Cyprian and Firmilian. Both maintained that only within the Catholic Church could valid sacraments be found.

+A similar belief in direct apostolic authorship is found in Ambrose and possibly in Jerome, who speaks of ‘symbolum… ab apostolis traditum.’ Ambrose first applies the title ‘ apostles’ ’ to the Old Roman Creed.

explanation of the name is that it was the creed of the Roman Church, the one and only apostolic see of the West ; hence the creed of the apostolic see came to be called the Apostolic Creed.

(iv) The Apostles’ Creed has been for over a thousand years the Baptismal Creed of the whole Western Church. It has never been used in the East. In our Prayer Book it is found in two slightly different forms. First the ordimary form recited at Mattins and Evensong, found also in the Catechism. Secondly, an interrogative form found in the Baptismal service and the Visitation of the Sick. This last differs from the first in speaking of the ‘ Resurrection of the flesh’ instead of the ‘ Resurrection of the body’ and in adding ‘after death’ to the last clause. The Latin is ‘ carnis resurrectionem,’ * of which the ‘ resurrection of the flesh’ is the more correct translation. The phrase is not Scriptural, but is quite early. ‘After death’ is an addition found in certain Gallican creeds, which failed to win a place in the final form of the Baptismal Creed.

§ 3. The Nicene Creed.

Our so-called ‘Nicene’ Creed has a long and complicated history. We may best begin with some account of the Council of Nicaea itself.

(i) Eusebius of Caesarea produced before the Council the creed of his own church and suggested this creed, with an appendix asserting the distinction of the three Persons against Sabellianism, as a basis of unity. His creed ran thus :

We believe in One God the Father Almighty, the Maker of all things visible and invisible.

And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God of God, light of Light, Life of Life, Only-begotten Son, First-born of all creation, begotten of God the Father before all worlds, by whom also all things were made, who for our salvation became incarnate and lived among men, and suffered and rose again on the third day and ascended to the Father and shall come again in glory to judge quick and dead. .

• « Huius carnis resurrectionem’ is even found in some early forms, but happily was not adopted. The earliest Kastern creeds may have contained the phrase ‘the resurrection of flesh.’ But later Eastern creeds, perhaps under the influence of Origen, prefer ‘the resurrection of the dead,’ as being closer to Scripture. We may wish the West had followed their example. Cranmer’s

translation of ‘carnis’ by ‘body’ may have been deliberate, to bring the phrase nearer to Scripture. See Swete, J.7h.S., Jan. 1917.

We believe also in one Holy Spirit.*

The creed of Eusebius was excellent as far as it went, but unfortunately, even with the addition of a protest against Sabel- hanism, it had no real relation to the point at issue. There was nothing in it that Arians would not accept. It contained no decisive affirmation of the eternity and full divinity of the Son. Accordingly the creed was approved, but it was proposed that the test word homo-ousios should be inserted. And the change did not end here. The creed of Eusebius was subjected to a considerable revision and the amended creed was accepted unanimously by the Council, with only two dissentients. The Creed of Nicaea runs as follows :

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made, both those in heaven and those on earth ; Who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh and lived as man among men, suffered and rose the third day, ascended into heaven, is coming to judge the quick and the dead.

And in the Holy Ghost. +

*The last section is singularly abrupt. Eusebius may have quoted only so much of the creed as was required for the purpose in hand. We should not have expected the baptismal creed of any church to have its third division so entirely undeveloped. But other parallels to this undeveloped form can be quoted.

The appendix, based on a creed of Lucian of Antioch, may be translated :

‘ Believing that each of these’ (i.e. the Three Persons) ‘is and exists, the Father truly Father, and the Son truly Son and the Holy Spirit truly Holy Spirit: even as also our Lord sending forth His disciples to the preaching said: ‘“‘Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” ’

It is worth noting how the intimate connexion between the creed and the baptismal formula is brought out even on the eve of an entirely fresh use of

the creed. t THE CREED OF NICAEA.

[…]

Then followed anathemas directed against Arian phrases.

Some of the changes from the creed of Eusebius are worth noting. ‘Son’ is substituted for ‘Word.’ ‘That is of the sub- stance of the Father’ balances and completes ‘ of one substance with the Father’ and excludes any possible Sabellianism in the latter. ‘First born of all creation’ is omitted as having been twisted by the Arians into an argument for their position. ‘ Be- gotten not made’ instead of simply ‘ begotten of the Father’ rules out the Arian assertion that our Lord was a creature. The addition of ‘lived as man among men ’ to ‘ was made flesh ’ controverts the Arian position that Christ took only a human body. The condemnation of Arianism was at least thorough.

(u) It will have been observed that there are very important differences between this creed as put forth by the Council of Nicaea and our own so-called Nicene Creed. It used to be said that the Creed of Nicaea was altered and expanded into its present form at the Council of Constantinople at 381. Indeed it is commonly known as the Constantinopolitan Creed. This view, however, can no longer be maintained. Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, composed in 374, seven years before the Council of Constantinople, a book entitled The Anchored One (Ancoratus). In it he quotes practically word for word a creed that is identical with our own Nicene Creed.* We gather that it had been introduced into his diocese as a bap- tismal creed before his own consecration as bishop in 367. This is sufficient to prove that the creed cannot have first been com- posed at the Council of Constantinople. Epiphanius goes on to say that ‘this faith was handed down from the holy apostles and in the Church in the holy city’ (7.e. Jerusalem), ‘from all the holy bishops together, above 310 in number’ (z.e. the 318 bishops at the Council of Nicaea).t If only we could mend the

[…]

*Tt omits ‘God of God’ and, of course, ‘and the Son’ (after proceeding from the Father). It contains ‘that is of the substance of the Father’ and ‘ both that are in heaven and that are in earth.’

[…]

text by inserting, as has been suggested,* ‘and’ before ‘ from all the holy bishops’ the sentence would imply that the creed contained Apostolic, Jerusalem, and Nicene elements.

Tt has been generally agreed that Dr. Hort + has proved that Epiphanius obtained his creed from Jerusalem. He had pre- viously lived for some time in Palestine. Further, hig creed has been altered to correspond with the teaching of Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem. In his catechetical lectures Cyril insisted that the Son did not begin to sit at the right hand of the Father at the Ascension but sits from all eternity. In the creed ‘sat’ has been changed to ‘sitteth.’ Again, Cyril deliberately changed “in glory ’ to ‘ with glory.’ More important still, Cyril substituted ‘the resurrection of the dead ’ for ‘the resurrection of the flesh,’ and based his teaching on the latter phrase. On all these points the creed of Epiphanius agrees with the teaching of Cyril, the very points on which he laid stress. Dr. Hort therefore argued that Cyril on his return to his diocese in 362 enlarged the Bap- tismal Creed of Jerusalem by the insertion of phrases from the Creed of Nicaea. Just those clauses in the creed of Epiphanius which are absent from the Creed of Nicaea are contained in the Baptismal Creed of Jerusalem as gathered from Cyril’s lectures. Dr. Hort’s theory explains the fusion between the two. The Nicene Creed, as having been formed out of an Eastern creed, easily blended with a fellow Eastern creed, and other examples can be given of the incorporation of Nicene language into local creeds in order to emphasize adhesion to the Nicene faith.

But we have still to explain the origin of the title ‘ Constanti- nopolitan ’ if our present creed did not originate at the Council of Constantinople. The minutes of the Council have been lost and we have no contemporary evidence that any new creed was put forth by it. The Creed of Nicaea was reaffirmed. Further, at the Council of Ephesus in 431 the Creed of Nicaea was once more ratified, but no mention is made of any Creed of Constanti- nople.t On the other hand, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 both creeds were recited, first the original Creed of Nicaea, ‘the

• In his T’wo Dissertations, criticized in Gibson, The Three Creeds, pp. 169-173.

+In any case, however, the clauses relating to the Holy Spirit are aimed at Macedonianism, which was first condemned at this Council.

creed of the 318 Fathers,’ and then the Constantinopolitan, ‘the creed of the 150 Fathers.’ Dr. Hort conjectured that some attack was made on the orthodoxy of Cyril of Jerusalem and that he produced the Constantinopolitan as the creed of his Church, and it was approved by the Council and as so approved received its name. Mr. Turner further argues that the creed so approved was not laid on one side, but became the local creed of the Church of Constantinople. ‘Constantinople, it must be remembered, was a comparatively new foundation in 381 and nearly all its fifty years of history had been passed under Arian domination.’ Hence it would welcome a new creed ‘at once Nicene in its theology and yet baptismal in its form and character.’* It has also been conjectured that when Nektarius, an unbaptized layman, was elected Bishop of Constantinople during the session of the Council, this creed was employed as his baptismal con- session } and was adopted as the baptismal creed of his diocese. This at least explains the facts. In any case, by the close of the fifth century the Constantinopolitan Creed had become the baptismal creed of the East and won its way even in the West as the representative Greek creed. This position it owed to its connexion with Constantinople. Just as the West received its baptismal creed from Rome, so the Hast was to receive its baptismal creed from the new Rome.

But this is not the most familiar use of the creed. To the modern Christian the Creed of Constantinople is above all the creed of Hucharistic worship. As we have seen, it sprang out of instruction given to candidates for baptism: it was deliberately amended to become a test of orthodoxy. From the sixth century it has been used for a new purpose, as ‘ the continuous doxology of the faithful Sunday by Sunday,’ in the Eucharist. ‘To this position no other form of the creed ever aspired than that of Constantinople. Alike in the Greek, the Latin and even the Coptic Churches, its majestic rhythm and its definite but simple and straightforward theology have marked it out as the creed

• One of the bishops who signed the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon refers, in a note that he appended, to the Council of Constantinople as having been held at the ordination of Nektarius. This has been held to suggest some connexion between the Constantinopolitan Creed and the consecration of Nektarius.

of Christian worship.’ * It is true that the beginning of this custom was not altogether happy. It was introduced at Con- stantinople by the Monophysites, in protest against the definition of Chalcedon as a novelty infringing the sufficiency of the all- sufficient creed. But the custom commended itself to the mind of the Church and spread throughout the Churches of the Hast. Thence it extended gradually to the Churches of Gaul and Spain. But it was not adopted at Rome until 1014, when Pope Benedict VIII was prevailed on by the Emperor Henry II to assimilate the use of Rome to that of Germany and the rest of Christendom. Accordingly the creed, with the addition of the words ‘ and the Son,’ for the first time obtained a sure footing at Rome. We can see the appropriateness of our present Western usage. At the font the short and simple baptismal creed is sufficient: at the service which embodies the highest worship of baptized Christians there is a peculiar fitness in reciting the fuller con- session of belief, which demands and is itself the product of a more matured faith, based upon a richer Christian experience.

Our English translation is not altogether satisfactory. (i) The word ‘ Almighty ’ as applied to the Father does not accurately represent the Greek ‘ zaytoxpatopa,’ which means rather ‘all sovereign.’ The English ‘ almighty,’ which came in through the Latin omnipotens, as in the Apostles’ Creed, suggests ‘ able to do anything.’

(ii) ‘ By whom all things were made’ should rather be ‘ through whom’ (0? od). ‘By’ in old English meant ‘through.’ The clause describes the Son as the agent of the Father in creation (dca as opposed to v7ro) in accordance with the teaching of, e.g. Jn, 13 274 10 and Heb, 1.

(iti) ‘The Lord and Giver of Life’ is an ambiguous rendering of the original, To KULOV Kal TO Cworro.ov. ‘The Lord’ is a distinct attribute and expresses the full divinity of the Holy Spirit. A better translation would be ‘The Lord and the Life- giver’; or at least a comma should be inserted after Lord.

(iv) The word ‘holy’ was deliberately omitted by the reformers before ‘Catholic Church’ not from any doctrinal reasons but because they supposed that it was absent from the best texts. It is clear, however, that the omission is wrong, and ‘holy’ should be restored.

§ 4. As we have seen, the Apostles’ Creed was not composed by apostles and the Nicene Creed did not originate at the Council of Nicaea. So, too, ‘Athanasius’ Creed ’ is not the composition of Athanasius. To begin with, it was beyond all doubt written in Latin, while Athanasius wrote in Greek. Greek translations of it do indeed exist, but the clumsiness of their language and the variety of their renderings prove conclusively that they are translations and not original. Further, the ‘creed’ in several of its clauses is based word for word on the writings of Augustine, which were not composed till long after the death of Athanasius. Again, strictly speaking, it is not a ‘creed’ at all. At best it is an individual profession of faith, framed probably to be an instruction and later on used as a psalm or a canticle. It does not conform to the fundamental creed type arising out of the threefold baptismal formula. It has not been expanded out of any simpler and earlier creed. In doctrine it may be dependent on earlier creeds, but not in form. The title of ‘Symbolum ’ was not given to it in early MSS. It was styled rather ‘ fides sancti Athanasii.’ So, too, it is found at its earliest appearance keeping company not with creeds but with the psalter or with canons or with miscellaneous dogmatic formularies to which were attached, with equal want of justification, the names of great theologians. These last have all been forgotten: the ‘ Quicunque ’ survives, and Mr. Turner gives as the reason, not only ‘the survival of the fittest,’ but its actual lack of creed-form. ‘ Other formularies failed to live, because they perpetuated the structure and arrange- ment, while destitute of the authority, of the creeds. The ‘ Athanasian ’ formulary lived on, because it put the old truths in a new and effective setting : in other words, because it was a hymn about the creed, and not itself a creed at all.’ *

(i) What then can be said as to date and authorship ?

The available evidence may be divided into two classes (a) internal, ((@) external.

(a) Internal evidence shows that the ‘ Quicunque’ cannot be earlier than 416, for the author knew St. Augustine’s work on the Trinity, which was first published in that year. Further, the nature of the heresies combated in the second half of the creed is consistent with an early date before Nestorianism or Mono- physitism became prominent. The language used about the

two natures of Christ, e.g. ‘ Perfect God and Perfect Man of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting, equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, etc.,’ is opposed to Arianism and Apollinarianism, both of which denied to Christ the possession of a “reasonable soul.’ There is nothing in the whole statement that directly hits Nestorianism. The language which insists upon the unity of the Person of Christ (e.g. ‘not two but one Christ ’) is taken from the writings of St. Augustine and would be accepted by Nestorians in their own sense. No doubt Eutyches did ‘confuse the substance,’ and much of the language employed would oppose his teaching ; but it would be equally suitable to oppose the teaching of Apollinarius, and in point of fact comes largely from St. Augustine who did so use it. In other words, no phrase in the whole creed compels us to suppose that the writer had ever heard of either Nestorianism or Monophysitism. It has further been argued, e.g. by Waterland, that, if Mono- physitism had come into existence, the writer would have avoided the expression ‘as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ,’ because this was precisely the illus- tration employed by the Monophysites. This argument, however, does not hold good, as a long list of Catholic writers can be compiled who all continued to employ the illustration even after the rise of Monophysitism. The internal evidence does not carry us very far. The argument from silence is always precarious. The author may have refrained from combating Nestorianism or Monophysitism, not because they did not exist, but because he and those for whose instruction he wrote were not particularly concerned with them. There is a limit to the number of heresies that can be controverted with profit in a single instruction. All that we can say is that the internal evidence is perfectly con- sistent with a date before 428, the year of the rise of Nestorianism.

(@) The external evidence falls into three divisions : (a) quota- tions, (b) MSS., (c) commentaries.

(a) The earliest quotation from the ‘ Quicunque’ which can hardly be disputed, is in a canon of the fourth Council of Toledo in 633, which quotes largely from it as a recognized authority. It is also quoted in asermon found among the works of St. Augus- tine and for a long time attributed to Caesarius, Bishop of Arles (d. 543). It is now, however, considered that the attribution is doubtful, but even if the authorship is unknown, unless the

sermon can be shown to be later, we still possess in it a quotation dating from the sixth century. Further, most authorities agree that there is a remarkable similarity between the undisputed writings of Caesarius and the ‘ Quicunque.’ Again, we have the so-called ‘Tréves Fragment,’ containing part of a sermon on the creed, which quotes from the ‘Quicunque.’ The fragment was written about 730, but the sermon must be eaglier, perhaps about 680, and therefore the ‘ Quicunque’ must be earlier still. Other quotations can be found in anonymous sermons of the sixth and seventh centuries, but in all cases the exact date is uncertain.*

(6) The earliest MS. of the ‘ Quicunque’ is the Codex Am- brosianus at Milan, written in an Irish hand. It is assigned by experts to the end of the seventh or beginning of the eighth century. Other early MSS. are the Codex Monacensis at Freising (eighth century), the Codex Petriburg at Petrograd (about 750) and Leidrat’s M§. at Lyons (about 800).

(c) Besides these we have an independent source of evidence in early commentaries on the ‘ Quicunque,’ which witness to its existence in its present form. The earliest is the ‘ Fortunatus ’ commentary, which can hardly be later than 700 and may be much earlier, though our existing MSS. of the commentary are rather later. Other commentaries belong to the ninth and tenth centuries: some may be earlier. In any case the fact that the ‘ Quicunque ’ was thought worthy of such commentaries shows that it had been widely known and used for a considerable time. To sum up, our external evidence carries us back to the seventh century at the latest. If we place it side by side with the internal evidence we get a date for the origin of the ‘Quicunque’ between, say, 420 and 600. Neither on the question of date or authorship is any certainty attainable. All that we can do is to give some of the chief opinions that have been held.

Dr. Waterland, in his Critical History of the Athanasian Creed, published in 1723, laid the foundation of all future criticism. Mainly on internal evidence he held that the ‘ Quicunque’ was composed in Gaul between 420 and 430, and he assigned it to

*Tt is interesting to note that the ‘ Quicunque’ had reached England by 798 since it is quoted by Denebert, Bishop of Worcester, on his election to the bishopric, as an authoritative formula,

Hilary, Bishop of Arles (d. 449), a pupil of Honoratus, the founder of the monastery of Lerins, the great centre of learning in south Gaul, and later Bishop of Arles. As we have seen, however, the internal evidence is perhaps less conclusive than Dr. Waterland supposed.

Dr. Burn agrees with Dr. Waterland as to the early date of the creed, assigning it to Honoratus himself. He has reinforced the previous arguments for an early date with strong arguments based on evidence discovered in recent years. He has shown that the ‘ Quicunque’ is exactly what would be needed against the teaching of Priscillian, Bishop of Avila in Spain (about 380). Writings of Priscillian were discovered in 1885 and they prove that what he taught consisted of a mixture of Sabellianism and Apollinarianism. These are just the two heresies that are most clearly opposed by the teaching of the ‘ Quicunque.’ Further, he claims that quotations from it occur in the writings of Avitus, Bishop of Vienne (d. 523), and of Faustus, Bishop of Riez (about 480). There are undoubted similarities of thought and expression between the ‘ Quicunque’ on the one hand and the writings of Caesarius and Vincent of Lerins (d.450) on the other. So near do they come to it that each of them has been suggested as its author. Two explanations are possible. Hither such language was in the air and both avail themselves of current theological phrases, which later on materialized into our ‘ Quicunque.’ Or each was quoting from the ‘ Quicunque ’ which they knew and respected as coming from an author belonging like themselves to the school of Lerins. Dr. Burn holds that the latter is the true explanation. He believes that it ‘had been taught to him’ (z.e. Caesarius) ‘from his early years and came as naturally to his lips as the phrases of our Church Catechism rise to our lips,’ and that ‘it is easier to believe that Vincentius used the creed than that any one in subsequent generation or century, of less exact scholarship, picked out his phrases and wove them into a document of this kind.’* He goes on to point out that there are considerable parallels to the teaching of the ‘Quicunque ’ not only in St. Augustine but in St. Ambrose. That is to say, the elements out of which it is composed were already present in the mind of the Church’s teachers.

The great Benedictine writer, Dom Morin, proposed Caesarius

as the author on the strength of the close parallelism of style and thought between the ‘ Quicunque’ and his works. This con- jecture was accepted by Mr. Turner as the best available hypo- thesis. Dom Morin has, however, now altered his opinion and regards the ‘ Quicunque ’ as composed not in Gaul but in Spain, by a certain Martin, Bishop of Braga, at the close of the sixth century. He accepts no quotation from it earlier than that in the canon of Toledo, and points to the existence of a large number of anonymous formularies of Spanish origin dating from the fifth century onwards and witnessing to Trinitarian teaching.

Some mention must be made of the theory of a late origin of the ‘Quicunque’ put forward by Dr. Swaimson and Dr. Lumby and held in a modified form by Professor Harnack. It was argued that in its present form it was a work of the ninth century, composed out of earlier materials : that before that date there existed two separate compositions, one dealing with the Trinity, the other with the Incarnation: and that quotations prior to the ninth century were made not from the ‘ Quicunque’ as it now exists, but from these earlier documents. Such a view is no longer tenable. It conflicts with the early date of several MSS. and commentaries. Further, quotations are made quite early not from the two parts independently, but from the whole. Even if a writer does only quote from one half it is hazardous to assume that he did not know the other, without some positive reason. There are really no solid grounds for supposing that the ‘ Quicunque ’ ever existed except in its present form.

(ii) The ‘ Quicunque’ falls into three parts : (a) a summary of the doctrine of the Trinity (vv. **); (6) a summary of the doctrine of the Incarnation (vv. 7°38); (vy) at the beginning and end, and in between these two large sections, we find warning clauses (vv. }2, 26, 27 and 4°). We may take these in order.

(a) This section on the Trinity is a summing up of the successive negative answers given by the Church to those attempts to explain the facts of the divine revelation in Christ, which she saw either to ignore or contradict some of those facts. The early heresies either ‘confounded’ (7.e. confused) ‘the Persons’ by practically denying the distinction between them or else divided the substance by introducing a form of tritheism or polytheism. As against Sabellianism v. ° asserts the distinct Personality of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. As against Arianism

and Macedonianism, vv. ©“ assert that whatever Godhead is, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost possess it equally: this is illustrated by selecting certain of the attributes of Godhead and assigning them to each Person in turn. In v. ® ‘incomprehen- sible’ in the P.B. version, is a translation of the Latin immensus and means ‘ above the limitations of space’; the word probably came in to the English version through a Greek translation, axatadyrros. In vv. %2° the Trinity of Persons is asserted side by side with the counter-truth of the Unity of Substance. In vv. #27 the modes in which the Three Persons possess the Godhead are set out in language taken from Scripture. All through the primary object is to say ‘no’ to ingenious specula- tions which explained away the mystery to mean either that the Three Persons are only three aspects of One God or that they are three separate divine Beings.

(CG) The second section deals similarly with the Incarnation. vv. 3033 emphasize alike Christ’s true divinity and His true and full humanity as against Arius and Apollinarius. vv. °87 assert that the reality of His two natures did not destroy either the unity of His Person or the reality of either nature. Avpollinarians in their wish to avoid a double Personality had ‘ confused the substance.’ vv. *°4° are a simple statement of the facts and issues of Christ’s redemption. Once again we find not specu- lation, but the attempt of the Church to preserve the whole truth, by rejecting explanations that in reality were inconsistent with some of the facts.

(vy) The minatory portions require more explanation. Their interpretation depends upon the importance of the truth enshrined in the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation. All Christians agree that Christ is the only Saviour. The doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation were only formulated to safeguard that conviction. The Church found in Christ the saving power of God Himself and hence was compelled to say ‘no’ to all explanations that must in the long run undermine that truth. Further, if we believe that Christ is the only Saviour, all who wilfully reject Christ, so long as they reject Him, cut themselves off from the only source of life and health and therefore incur the risk of grave loss and injury. These ‘damnatory ’ clauses are primarily a warning of the terrible consequences that must follow the rejection of Christ.

Viewed in this light they are capable of a perfectly charitable interpretation, though it must be admitted that the English translation is inaccurate and harsher than the Latin original. In the first verse ‘ Whosoever will be saved,’ which suggests to modern ears ‘ Whosoever is going to be saved,’ should be trans- lated ‘Whosoever wishes to be sound’ or ‘healthy.’ (Quicunque vult salvus esse.) The Latin ‘salvus’ may refer either to a present state of salvation (cw(duevos) or to the final issue. Examples of either sense can be quoted from contemporary ecclesiastical writers. Again, ‘hold’ (Latin teneat) would be better rendered ‘hold fast,’ and in the following verse ‘ keep’ (Latin servaverit) would be better rendered ‘preserve.’ So the opening would run: ‘ Whosoever wishes to be in a sound state, before all things it is necessary that he hold fast the Catholic faith: which except he preserve whole and undefiled, etc.’ This makes it clear that the clause does not invoke damnation on heretics or heathen, but is a warning to those who possess the Catholic faith not to let it go through indifference or slackness. The words cannot apply to heretics or heathen who cannot hold fast or preserve what they have not got.

Again, in v. 26 ‘ He therefore that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity ’ is not a fair rendering of the Latin ‘ Qui vult ergo salvus esse: ita de Trinitate sentiat.’ ‘Must’ in the sixteenth century meant little more than ‘should’ and the whole sentence would more accurately run: ‘ Let him then who wishes to be in a healthy state, thus think of the Trinity.’ In the following verse an even more serious mistranslation occurs. ‘ It is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ ‘Rightly’ came ito our version through a Greek translation, which apparently the reformers took as the work of Athanasius himself! This had 6p0es, whereas the true Latin original has ‘ fideliter,’ ‘ faithfully.’ To ‘believe faith- fully’ is not the same as to ‘believe rightly.’ It involves the will and heart and conscience and is a moral act of the whole person- ality, not merely an affair of the intellect. Once again itis an appeal to the Christian to be faithful to the light that he has received.

So, too, v. 40, ‘ This is the Catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved’ (or rather be in a sound state), is no more than the assertion that without Christ the truest kind of life is impossible,

What then are we to say of heretics and heathen who do not possess the Catholic faith ? On the interpretation given above they are not under consideration at all. Christ is the only Saviour, but we believe that many who do not consciously believe in Him as yet, are unconsciously following His guidance. Since He is the light that ‘lighteth every man,’ all that is good and true in the world comes from Him. Those men who follow the light that is given to them and live up to the best that they know are in reality disciples of Christ, though they may never have heard of Him (cp. Mt. 25% ff., which would seem to refer to the judgment of the Gentiles, ra @yy). All that the Church teaches is that without Christ a man cannot be his best self. We are sure that every man whom God has created and for whom Christ has died will have an opportunity of knowing Christ, if not in this world then in some other. Whether that opportunity has yet been given in the case of any particular individual, we cannot say. We dare not say of any man, even the worst, that he has rejected Christ. It may be that im spite of a Christian home and. education, Christ has been hidden from him by the sins and inconsistencies of Christians. The Church has her calendar of saints : she has no roll of the lost. God alone knows the secret of a man’s heart and whether Christ has really been presented to him. Again, acceptance of Christ is far more than acceptance by the intellect of certain theological statements about Him. The ‘ Quicunque’ itself makes this quite clear. It exhorts us not to understand but to ‘worship’ the Unity in _ Trinity and the Trinity im Unity. It warns us that we shall be judged at the Last Day for our works. ‘They that have done good, shall go into life everlasting.’ Its exhortations and warnings are addressed less to the mind than to the conscience and the will. Experience shows that on the whole the greatest hindrance to the acceptance of Christ and His claims is not intellectual difficulties, but moral indifference and sloth or the cherishing of unlawful desires.

But this position carries with it the conviction that the re- jection of Christ involves loss. Whether finally any will reject Christ altogether is a question to which Scripture hardly gives a definite answer. While we dare not say dogmatically that any individual is finally lost, the teaching of Christ strongly suggests that there is such a possibility as that of final separation

from Christ. He could say of Judas Iscariot ‘It were good for that man, if he had never been born’ (Mk. 1474). So the language of the ‘ Quicunque’ ‘they that have done evil’ shall go ‘into everlasting fire’ and ‘he shall perish everlastingly,’ if we substitute ‘eternal’ and ‘eternally’ (Latin ‘ aeternum ’ and ‘in aeternum’) is simply a repetition of the language of Scripture. Christ pictures Himself as bidding those on His left depart into ‘eternal fire’ Mt. 25% (vp aiwvoy), and He explains this in v. ® as ‘eternal punishment.’ The phrase ‘perish eternally ’ occurs in Jn. 1176 (cp. 2 Thess. 1°, ‘ Eternal destruction from the face of God’). Whatever Scripture means, the ‘Quicunque’ means the same. The whole teaching of Christ insists upon the importance of life on earth and on the far- reaching results of our conduct here. Our mind rightly revolts. from the thought of useless tortures prolonged through all eternity and from the pictures of the torments of hell to be found in mediaeval pictures. But such conceptions are no essential part of the doctrine of eternal punishment. Some have thought that all will ultimately become reconciled with God and be saved—the doctrine known as universalism. But this lacks positive evidence in Scripture, and indeed is hardly consis- tent with certain statements in it. Others, again, hold that since Christ is the source of all life, final rejection of Him must involve as its consequence, annihilation. This view of ‘con- ditional immortality’ can be supported by very strong argu- ments and to many minds appears the most probable answer to the problem; but it can hardly be proved from Scripture. A view perhaps more consistent with Scripture is to suppose that there are, as it were, ‘degrees of salvation.’ It may well be that through suffermg after death men will be brought to repentance, but that the consequences of their past will remain. They will be in a lower state than they might have been, but yet they will accept their condition as just. Punishment so accepted is still ‘eternal punishment,’ but yet it has ceased to be torment.f But on such matters we can do little more than

• In defence of mediaeval pictures of hell, we must bear in mind that it was only through such gross and literal representations of the consequences of sin that spiritual truth could be brought home to rough minds. Such pictures might be needed to-day to make real, say, to African savages the ruin wrought by evil acts and habits.

wonder. God has not given us any answer to the many questions that we would wish to ask. It may well be that our minds are as yet incapable of grasping the conditions of another world that lies wholly outside our present experience.

Lastly. It may be urged that though the ‘ Athanasian Creed ’ may be interpreted in this sense, that was not the sense in which it was originally composed. That may well be true. It is quite possible that the author meant by ‘salvus’ final salvation, and that he believed in the eternal damnation of all heretics and heathen and even rejoiced in such belief.* A cruel and barbaric age found small difficulty in cruel and barbaric ideas about God. But even if this is so the words of the formula admit of a perfectly Christian interpretation and we are not tied down to sixth century ideas about God. The clauses rest on Scripture, and if our inter- pretation of Scripture has changed, then we can with perfect honesty change our interpretation of these clauses too.

(ui) As regards the authority of this formula, let us frankly admit that it does not possess the same oecumenical authority as the Apostles’ and Constantinopolitan Creeds. It has never been formally accepted by the Orthodox Church of the East. It is found (of course without the words ‘ and the Son ’) in modern editions of the Horologion placed apart from the Hour offices, possibly because these were first printed at Venice under Western influence. In the Russian service books it has been placed at the beginning of the psalter, perhaps since the middle of the seventeenth century. But it never has been recited at any office and is at best treated as an estimable theological exposition. Even its acceptance in this form would appear to be due to the belief that it was the work of Athanasius himself. In the West it came to be recited at Prime, on Sundays according to the Roman use, daily according to the use of Sarum. In the later middle ages Prime was frequently said by accumulation with other offices under the general title of Mattins. The more devout lay people would attend Mattins on Sundays and holy days. They would therefore be present at the recitation of the ‘Quicunque.’ How far they would attempt to jom in or understand it is a different question. Few would understand Latin and the poor could not afford a Breviary. They would probably be occupied with their own private devotions. Hence

it was a great change when in 1549 the ‘ Quicunque’ appeared in English for recitation by the priest and people at Mattins on certain days, followed by the Apostles’ Creed. In 1552 the number of days on which it was to be recited were increased. In 1662 it was definitely made a substitute for and not an addi- tion to the Apostles’ Creed. This position assigned to it by the Reformers was due to the belief that it was a Greek Creed and the work of Athanasius. Owing to the position which Mattins came to hold in the life of the ordinary English layman, the “Quicunque’ has assumed a prominence which was never intended and which has no parallel in any other part of the Church.

The question of retaining the ‘Quicunque’ in its present position is at this moment under discussion. That the Church of England has the right to revise her own rubric without loss of Catholicity can hardly be disputed. Although we acquit its author of any moral blame in attaching the name of Athanasius to it, since he was only following a literary custom of his own age, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the name of Athanasius has had great weight in winning for it its present position, at least in the Book of Common Prayer. In the light of modern knowledge we may be justified in revising the decision of Cranmer. Again, though we believe that every clause in it can fairly be interpreted in a sense in accordance with Scripture, there can be no doubt that its recitation is a stumbling-block to many devout Christians. It is reasonable to ask whether it is wise to retain in the public services a document that needs so much explanation. At least a revised translation is required. On the other hand, there is a natural fear that the deposition of the ‘ Quicunque’ from its present place in our services might seem to imply a loss of grip on the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation which it enshrines. It is suspected that much of the opposition to it springs less from the wounds inflicted on tender consciences by the recitation of the damnatory clauses than from a general dislike of all definite Christian doctrme. The ‘ Quicunque’ has great value as a summary of Christian truth. Missionaries in India find it most useful in dealing with Orientals. Attempts have been made to use it as a means of drawing together the separated Churches of the Hast. As a new document, venerated in the West and unconnected with the past controversies, political

and religious, that rent Hastern Christendom, it might form a basis of common agreement. We must not assign too great importance to the modern Englishman’s dislike of dogma, even though we may doubt whether it is profitable to compel him to recite the ‘ Quicunque ’ some fourteen times a year at Mattins.

For fuller information see Dr. Burn’s three excellent little books on the Apostles’, Nicene and Athanasian Creeds in the Oxford Church Text Books.

Also Turner, The History and Use of Creeds.

Notes

• De Corona Militis, c. 3. + H.g. ‘Dost thou believe in life eternal and remission of sins through the holy Church ?” quoted by St. Cyprian.
• Burn, The Apostles’ Creed, p. 30.
• Bindley, Occwmenical Documents, ed. 2, p. 302, quoted Burn, Nicene Creed, p. 25.
• Turner, op. cit. pp. 44-45.
• Turner, op. cit. pp. 46-47.
• Turner, op. cit. p. 70.
• Burn, Athanasian Creed, pp. 30 and 33. 0)
• Cp. Illingworth, Reason and Revelation, p. 120.
• Cp. Armitage Robinson, Thoughts on the Athanasian Creed, pp. 43-44.