The Epistles bear the same witness : ' No one can say that Jesus is the Lord, save in the Holy Ghost ' (1 Co 123). « If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved' (Ro 10'). St. Paul here im- plies that the Lord Jesus is one with the Lord Jahweh on whom the prophet Joel bade men call when he predicted ' this word of faith.' Our diffi- culties begin when we try to piece together any sort of longer confession which might be regarded as the archetype of the later creeds. It is so diffi- cult to keep an open mind and refrain from read- ing too much into the evidence.
The Epistle to the Hebrews confirms the testi- mony of the earlier Pauline Epistles. He 3^ reads, ' consider the Apostle and High Priest of our con- fession, even Jesus.' In Westcott's words (Ep. to Hebrews, 1889, ad loc.) : 'In Christ our "confes- sion," the faith which we hold and openly acknow- ledge, finds its authoritative promulgation and its priestly application. ' In 4" the idea is expressed of clinging to faith in one who is truly human and truly Divine. In 10^ this confidence is described as the confession of our hope, by which it is shaped. There is an interesting parallel in Clement, ad Cor., ch. 36, who calls Christ 'the High Priest of our oflFerings.'
The Johannine Epistles correspond to the Pauline. In 1 Jn 2^ confession is contrasted with denial as entailing the privilege of having the Father. The true inspiration of the Spirit is shown in confession of 'Jesus Christ come in the flesh' (i^-) uniting the Divine and the human in one person. ' The recognition of the revelation of God is the sign of the presence of God' (Westcott, Epp. of St. John, 1883, p. 146) : ' Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him and he in God ' (415), There is an interesting parallel with Johannine
teaching in Polycarp's Epistle, ch. 7, where he urges confession of Jesus Christ come in the flesh, echoing 1 Jn 4*. Polycarp's teacher, Ignatius of Antioch, has much more to say on the lines of the developed teaching about the person of Christ in opposition to Docetic heresy. Thus he writes to the Ephesians (ch. 7) : ' There is one only physician, of flesh and of spirit, generate and ingenerate, God in man, true Life in death. Son of Mary and Son of God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord.' This is a good illustration of the way in which the simple primitive creed was analyzed to meet new phases of thought which were felt to impoverish its full meaning. But there is great risk in the attempts which have been made to extract a full parallel with a later baptismal creed, such as the Old Roman, from passages like the follo\\'ing. Ignatius writes to the Trallians (ch. 9): 'Be ye deaf therefore, when any man speaketh to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the race of David, who was the Son of Mary, who was truly born and ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven, and those on earth, and those under the earth ; who moreover was truly raised from the dead. His Father having raised Him, who in the like fashion will so raise us also who believe on Him — His Father, I say, will raise us — in Christ Jesus, apart from whom we have not true life.' It is reasonable to argue from this and similar passages {ad Eph. 18, ad Sinyrn. 1) that for purposes of catechetical instruction Christian teachers would soon prepare a precise statement of the great facts of the Lord's life and death and resurrection. But there is no evidence that it had as yet been fitted into the setting of the Trinitarian baptismal formula. Ignatius expresses his faith in the Trinity — ' in the Son, and in the Father, and in the Spirit' [ad Magn. 13 ; cf. 2 Co 13'*)— clearly enough. But he does not bring it into connexion with his confession of Christ.
From a study of Ignatius we may work back- wards to the i)roblem of the confession of faith in the Pastoral Epistles of St. Paul. , We are not concerned here to defend their authenticity, but only to ask whether it is possible to extract from them, as Zahn attempts to do, an Apostolic Creed of Antioch. St. Paul reminds Timothy of the confession which he made before many witnesses, we may suppose at his baptism (1 Ti B^^). He calls it the beautiful confession to which Christ Jesns has borne witness before Pontius Pilate, and charges Timothy ' before God, who quickeneth all things, to keep the commandment undefiled, irre- proachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.' The reference is to the Lord's avowal that He was a King (Jn 18^^). The word ' confes- sion ' seems to draw attention to the fact that He confessed rather than to any form of words. In the Martyrdom, of Ignatius, ch. 1, it is referred to the martyrdom of one who witnesses by blood- shedding — that is to say, in deed, not in word.