Forbes on Article VIII: Of the Three Creeds

the advent of the Son of Man there were of necessity proposed to man the highest degree of ethical and re ligious knowledge ; the ideal of a life agreeable to God ; forgiveness of sin and sanctification. As these three are united in Christ, they must be found also in us.

” Christ proposed to man the highest ethical ideal, giving fresh knowledge, and developing the old as found in the Old Testament ; forgiveness of sin, and pardon for every moral transgression are announced in His Name to all who believe in Him ; the union of these two apparently contradictory propositions is me diated by that which shall be akin both to law and to grace, both to rigid exaction and to merciful remission. This is the sanctifying power which flows from the living union with Christ, the free grace of holy love which in justification He pours out on His followers ; in it all law is abolished, because law no longer stands forth as an outward claim; it is at the same time established, because love is the fulfilling of the law. In love, law and grace become one. In love, the entire undivided Christ becomes living within us, and the moral teacher and forgiver of sin is alike glorified0.”

” Mohlcr, vol. i. p. 260.

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” Of the Three Creeds.

” THE three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasius’ s Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles3 Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed, for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.”

ST. CYRIL of Jerusalem a beautifully compares the Creed to the mustard seed, for as that in a little grain contains many branches — is the whole tree in embryo — so this faith, in a few words, hath enfolded in its bosom the whole knowledge of godliness contained both in the Old and New Testaments. Hence it is with the deepest reverence that the Catholic Chris tian regards these venerable symbols, which, found in their faintest expression in St. Paul’s Epistles, may be traced back in more or less definite form to the remotest antiquity. While, after the Council of Nicsea,

• Led. Cat. v. 12, p. 58 O. T.

the Creed put forth therein, was binding on the whole Church, and therefore recited once a-year in the holy mysteries, and regarded as the standard or norm of orthodoxy, as is illustrated by the fact of Leo III. hanging it up in St. Peter’s in proof of his adherence to the unchanged Creed, yet the Western Church con tinued to use in the Baptismal Service a form that had come clown from the Apostles. In St. Irenseus and Tertullian we find both Eastern and Western Creeds, as regards the main articles of the faith, but it re ceived from time to time additional articles. It is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to determine precisely all the detailed expressions of the original Creed, be cause the Fathers recite its articles at times paraphras- tically, at times summarily. Or again, with special em phasis against one particular heresy, so omitting some which did not bear on that heresy ; or again, a clause of the Creed is passed over, as being virtually contained in another. Yet there seems to be traces that addi tions were made in very early times, to meet prevailing heresies. Thus the word “One” appears to have been added in the clauses ” I believe in ONE God,” ” And in ONE Lord Jesus Christ,” against the Marcionites, who denied the unity of God, and Cerinthus, who separated Jesus from the Christ. The word ” Catholic” occurs very early in the East, where heretics claimed to be the Church ; while unknown in the West, where heresies sprang up later. The clause, ” The Communion of Saints,” as lying implicitly in ” the Holy Church,”

does not appear in any ancient Creed, wherefore it was not introduced, either into the Nicene or the Athana- sian Creeds, and occurs first in the Gallican Sacrarnen- tary, whose date is at the close of the seventh century, although its materials may be much earlier b.

As to the Eastern or Nicene Creed, we see how the faith against the perversions of heretics, flexibly adapt ing itself to meet the exigencies of the Church in maintenance of it, was expanded into that of Constan tinople ; the anathematisms having been dropped, and certain additions made, which by some are said to be due to St. Gregory Nazianzen, by others to St. Gregory of Nyssa, but which embodied in great measure expres sions of ancient Creeds. Diogenes, I3ishop of Cyzicum, tells us that the aapKwOivra and evavOpwrrrjcravTa were inserted on account of the Apollinarian heresy. The unending nature of Christ’s kingdom was asserted against Marcellus of Ancyra. In the East, Creeds were more the work of Councils than in the West.

It is a difficulty how, when the Nicene Creed ends with “And in the Holy Ghost,” we find so many of the additional clauses of the Council of Constan tinople already existing in Ariaii formularies before that Council. The probable solution seems to be that, there being no heresy at that time in regard to any of those later Articles, the Nicene Creed stopped in the complete confession of the Holy Trinity ; while the

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Arians on the one side, and Marcellus of Ancyra on the other, sought to veil their heresies by dwelling on the true doctrines which they also acknowledged c.

After the Constantinopolitan Creed had been sanc tioned by a General Council, we find no further change in the unchanging East ; but in the West the expres sion Dciun de Deo, which had been in the Nicenc for mula, was probably restored by a Spanish Council, either that of Braga, A.D. 411, or of Galicia, A.D. 447. It is certain that the expression occurs in the formulae of the three Councils of Toledo, A.D. 589.

Here also occurs the other more important addition of the Filioque which has been fraught with such mo mentous consequences to the Church of God. This Toledan Creed moreover agrees with the present Eng lish Form, in which ’ holy ’ is missed out before the Catholic and Apostolic, as well as the preposition ’ in 7 in the same clause.

It is a remarkable thought how, in the history of Christianity, God has used works of anonymous or doubtful authorship to produce the most profound eifects upon the intellect of the Church. Putting out of sight, on the grounds of reverence, any discussion as to the Epistle to the Hebrews, we find various works telling markedly on the religious consciousness of the times, on the authorship of which no certainty has been arrived at. The Apostolic Constitutions, though probably the embodiment of a very early phase of Church discipline, are no longer attributed to is-apo- c See Tertullian, Oxf. Ed. note P. p. -196.

stolic times. The treatise on the Heavenly Hierarchy, ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, is certainly not his work, but has been a storehouse for pious meditation for many centuries. No one can positively say who wrote the Tc Dcum, and in later times, the author ship of the “Imitation of Christ” is still controverted. Thus it is that God uses servants unknown to man for His purposes, and thus the words of some unknown individual, unrewarded by human commendation on earth, receive the blessing from the Most High, and the praise not of man, but of God.

This is the case with what is termed the Creed of St. Athanasius. It certainly is no Eastern Creed at all, for although now printed in some of the Euchologia of the Greek Church, it is nowhere found in Greek be fore the twelfth century, and is evidently the result of purely Latin influence. Neither in the West was it promulgated by any council, or by any authority of the see of Rome. Its origin is probably from Gaul. St. Hilary of Aries was long reputed to be its author. Modern criticism bestows the honour upon Victricius of Rouen. This, at least, is certain, that it was com mented upon in company with the Lord’s Prayer and Apostles’ Creed by Venantius Fortunatus about A.D. 570, and that in France it generally was called the Faith of St. Athanasius the Bishop, the exposition of the Catholic Faith of Athanasius, the Sermon of St. Athanasius of Faith, the Symbol of Athanasius, the Little Book of Athanasius of Faith, the Sermon of the Catholic Faith. About the year 1050, we have

Gualdo of Corby calling it the Catholic Faith ascribed to Athanasius (quern composuisse fertur B. Athanasius)* Honorius of Aries calls it the Faith Quicunque vult. The Schoolmen generally attribute it to Athanasius, but in the twelfth century there appears a more cri tical spirit in the title. A German MS. of Leipzig, A.D. 1180, calls it Fides Anastasii Papa; so in 1120, a Haiieian MS. A MS. of the Friar Minors in France has Canticum Bonifacii, cc Chant fust St. Anaistaise qui Apostoilles dc Rome, and in a Bodleian MS. of 1400 we have Anastasii Expositio Symboli Apostolorum. Laud. Misc., 490.

All that we can gather is, that it was written in Gaul before the Council of Chalcedon, that it specially referred to the Apollinarian heresy which appeared about A.D. 360, and that its author was deeply imbued with St. Augustine’s teaching, especially as expressed in his treatise DC Trinitate.

The essence of a revelation is that it must be definite. We cannot conceive God announcing anything to His creatures which is not precise. There may be question whether a fact is really revealed or not, but there can be no question as to the obligation of accepting the entire conception, if it really be so. Moreover this applies not only to this or that doctrine or faith. It applies to the whole body of truth that claims to be communicated by God. There is no scope for selection of this or that doctrine, which speaks especially to this or that soul. The one question is, What is the sum of revelation ?

Now, not only has the Christian religion ever main- K

tamed that God in sundry measures, •jrdhvpep&s d, and divers manners, TroXvTpoTrws, spake in times past to the human race, communicating so much divine know ledge as He thought good for them, or as they were able to bear,— as to Adam, Noah, and Moses; but it has asserted that one of the offices of the God-man, one of the objects of the Incarnation, was to communicate a fresh and fuller measure of certain truths by the Holy Spirit, which was sent as a consequence of His ascension. Of the gifts for men which He obtained, none was so important as that of the Paraclete, for His indwelling in the Church organic, and in the soul and body of the individual believer, was not only as a prin ciple of love and holiness, but as a principle of divine faith. ” Xo one can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost.”

But how did the Spirit work ? Of course the work -was supernatural, and even its manifestations were such as we now see no more; but its more obvious external manifestations were : — 1. the direction of the Apostles, as a corporation, to declare certain Divine truths, the belief in which constituted the right of belonging to the new community, and the participation of the spiri tual privileges deposited therein, and 2. the illumina tion of the minds, the memories, and all the inward powers of certain of their number to record more fully vthe supernatural events of the Life of the Founder and His teaching.

From these two sources spring the two authorities

• Vicle Alford on the Epistle to. the Hebrews, inti.

I

of the Creeds and the Scriptures. We have already touched upon the second, it remains to say somewhat of the first.

Before a page of the New Testament was written, Christianity was an organized polity. Like every other polity, it had its laws, its privileges, its penalties, its conditions of membership. Of these last, the necessity of receiving Baptism was the initiatory. But this implied certain requirements. A thorough repentance of all past sin, and a renunciation of the three great enemies of Christ and His people were not sufficient. Beyond this there was the de fide acceptance of certain historic facts, certain theological truths (very simple indeed and rudimentary, but still definite and precise) concerning God. His unity and existence as against Polytheism, His creative energy against Pantheism, the personal existence of His Word against Emana tion ism, the Incarnation of the Word as the distinctive truth of the new religion ; the historic facts of the Birth, Life, Suffering, Death, Rising, Ascension, and Assession of the Word in His Human Nature ; the ex istence of the Holy Spirit ; was what their Founder had laid down as the terms of knowledge required in those who were to be baptized in the Name of the Father, -and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Moreover we find that close to this primary faith required in the baptized, there were certain ” principles of the doc trine of Christ,” ” the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resur-

rectioii of the dead, arid of eternal judgment0,” which went to make up the sum of necessary convictions on their part. It will be seen at once that these in sub stance suggest the Sacraments of the Church, and cor respond with the Articles of the Creed, when actually formalized. Such was ” the form of sound words,” to which allusion is made in the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul, and the TrapafcarafajKij or deposit.

From that day to this, these articles have been the sum and substance of Christianity. Nothing less than that is sufficient. Nothing more than that is of ab solute necessity to salvation. When a child is bap tized, the Church demands no more of him, or of his sponsors, than an assent to the Apostles’ Creed — and when the Christian soul is going out of the world to meet its Judge, it is in the terms of the same Creed that the dying man is interrogated f.

In the present day there is a great jealousy of the principle of dogma. It is imagined that a true Chris tian morality, a holy Christian sentiment can exist without it ; that Creeds, professing to give us very de finite statements on supernatural subjects, are by the very imperfection of language and thought, only tram mels to the soul, which is thereby kept from aspiring to the indefinite. Yet this is unreasonable, for there can be no Christian morals without Christian definite faith. Dogma is to morals as cause to effect, will to motion. Christian Yaorality is dogma in action, or practical faith. Indeed, to make men receive and prao • Heb. vi. 1, 2. f Office of Visitation of the Sick.

tise a morality severe and painful to human nature, one must give great and positive reasons for so doing : when the morality is superhuman, the motives must be so also. Virtues imply beliefs. Nay more, the very fact of Christian morality and its realization in the world implies a set of dogmas at its back, perfect like unto itself. ” By their fruits ye shall know them/’ said our Lord, and the common sense of mankind has accepted the dictum. As we gather an argument for the existence of God from the contemplation of the divine beauty of things created, so we obtain a proof of the supernatural truths of religion from the lives of those who believe and practise it.

Hence proceeded the deficiency of motive, that is, of definite belief or dogma, which weakened the moral conceptions of the heathen. Their notions of God, the soul, and a retribution, were so feeble that they could not resist the onslaught of the passions ; but our Lord, manifesting Himself as the Logos, as the Archetypal Beason, whence human reason has ever derived its truths, came to strip the spiritual edifice of the en cumbering ruins that choked man’s understanding; to restore in all their primitive purity and strength those enfeebled truths; to communicate fresh notions destined to aid man’s weakness, and finally to place all these things beyond attack, on the impregnable fortress of His own. authority, so that the incessant assaults of nineteen centuries have failed to touch the sacred treasure.

With Him every new precept has been a fresh reve-

lation of truth. He has rested the one upon the other. He has made men touch the invisible by faith. Faith has bound dogma to practice, as the bond between the two — partaking in the first by its object, in the latter by its principle — the link between the creature and the Creator. In Christianity there is a precise adjust ment between the work of the intellect and the work of the heart. It is not a speculative system. We know that we may act : we act because we know. Where our conception surpasses our power of practice, we have evidence of a fall in an originally grand nature ; but in the original intention of God, in the restoration of humanity in Christ, there is a holy proportion between the province of the understanding and the province of the heart : just as the intellect and will in God, the Son and the Spirit, are hypostatically separate, but essentially one ».

And such has been the course of the world — such the history of the progress of Christianity. From cer tain convictions, so strong that many have died for them, has proceeded the whole of the supernatural life, which has distinguished the true faith from all others. Because men have held, not as speculations, but with the grim tenacity of a struggle for life, certain truths, the Christian world is what it is.

And this is no slavery, but rather emancipation. The human soul must think on the relations in the adorable Trinity. This teaches one to think safely,

s Vide Nicolas, Etudes Philofophiqite* sur le Clirisliamsme, vol. iu p. 367.

and safety ever gives the sense of freedom and ex pansion. The greatest of human minds has found suf ficient scope for the most abstract speculation on the dogmas of revealed faith, and in such speculation has been aided by the possession of an infallible starting- point in the Creeds. Without Creeds speculation is- apt to run into mysticism : with Creeds it is the ex ercise of the Spirit-illumined faculty, the grandest usa of that divine reason which God has implanted in the master-work of His Hands.

And the same Creed which has this mighty office with the profound thinker, has a no less holy one with regard to every Christian. As a fund of pious medi tation, we have here the mysteries of the faith pre sented to us in the briefest form, the great verities brought before us day by day so as to enter into the very substance of the soul. Hence the benefit of mak ing the Creed a part of man’s daily devotion. The repetition of our belief is an act of faith, and we are justified by faith. St. Augustine says : ” Say it daily ; when you rise, when you betake yourself to sleep, say your Creed ; say it to the Lord. Do not say, I said it yesterday, I said it to-day, I daily say it, I have it perfect. Call to mind thy faith, examine thyself. Let thy Creed be thy mirror. In it see if thou believest all that thou confessest thou believest, and rejoice in. thy faith V

Speaking of the Council of Nicaea, an eloquent au thor remarks : ” That Asia Minor, where the Christian

h Serm. Iviii. torn. v.

Church, had just held her grand assizes, had been for many centuries the birthplace of all superstitions and of all systems. Philosophy and fable had alike their favoured abode there. The southern coast of that same land was strewn with the ruins of Troy, the brilliant country of the gods of Homer. There was not one of all the flourishing cities along the margin of the Ionian sea, not one of the islands of her archipelago, which could not at the same time boast of a god, and the birth of a sage. Samos had the temple of Neptune and the cradle of Pythagoras. The Apollo of Claros and the Diana of Ephesus were adored on the same shores where Thales and Anaximander had taught, and where Heraclitus first saw the light. But this long labour of the same people to conceive the thought or the image of Grod, had only produced, till that day, dreams, idols, and monsters. And in less than six weeks, three hundred men unknown to one another, arriving from opposite ends of the world, speaking in different tongues, had been able to give a nervous arid concise formula of the Divine nature, destined to tra verse all oceans and all ages ! And at this day, after fifteen centuries have passed away, from one extremity of the civilized world to the other, in the lonely ham lets of the Alps, in unknown isles of ocean discovered by modern science, when the solemnity of the Sunday lifts towards heaven brows bent earthward by labour, is heard a concert of rustic voices repeating in one and the same tone the hymn of the Divine Unity : ’ I be lieve in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all