History

Title: Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical notes. Volume II. The History of Creeds. Creator(s): Schaff, Philip (1819-1893) Print Basis: Sixth Edition Rights: Public Domain CCEL Subjects: All; Creeds; History; Reference; Proofed LC Call no: BR145.S3 1882-1910 LC Subjects:

Christianity

History

Bibliotecha Symbolica Ecclesiæ Universalis

THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM

with

A HISTORY AND CRITICAL NOTES

PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, N.Y.

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOLUME II.

THE GREEK AND LATIN CREEDS, WITH TRANSLATIONS

Reprinted by arrangement with

Harper and Row, Publishers

THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM

Printed in the United States of America

D-H

NOTE.

In the present edition I have added, at the close of this volume, an important document--namely, the Encyclical Letter of Pope Leo XIII., on the Christian constitution and government of States. It is closely connected with the famous Syllabus of his predecessor, Pius IX. (vol. II. pp. 213-233), and sets forth more fully the papal or mediæval theory of the relation between Church and State.

PHILIP SCHAFF.

NEW YORK, December, 1889.

CONFESSIONES ECCLESIAE APOSTOLICAE.

SCRIPTURE CONFESSIONS.

CONFESSIONES ECCLESIAE APOSTOLICAE.

SCRIPTURE CONFESSIONS.

CONFESSIONES ECCLESIÆ APOSTOLICÆ.

SCRIPTURE CONFESSIONS.

The Bible is the Word of God to man; the Creed is man's answer to God. The Bible reveals the truth in the popular form of life and fact; the Creed states the truth in the logical form of doctrine. The Bible is to be believed and obeyed; the Creed is to be professed and taught. Hence we find few traces of creeds in the Bible.

In the Old Testament the fundamental doctrine of Monotheism is placed as a command at the head of the Decalogue, Exod. xx. 2, 3, and put in the form of a dogma, Deut. vi. 14:

sm ysr'l Hear, O Israel:

yhvh '?hynv yhvh 'chd Jehovah our Elohim, Jehovah is one [The Lord our God, the Lord is one].

These words form the beginning of what is termed Shama (Hear), and are repeated in the daily morning and evening services of the Jews. They are the Creed of the Jews, in distinction from the Gentiles or idolaters.

The sentence does not mean, 'Jehovah is our God, Jehovah alone' (and no other God), but it means either 'Jehovah, our God, Jehovah is one,' [1] or, 'Jehovah, our God, is one Jehovah.' [2] In either case it is an affirmation of the unity of God, and this is made the basis of the fundamental moral precept which follows (ver. 5): 'And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.' Hence our Lord, Mark iv. 29, quotes these two passages together as 'the first of all the commandments.'

Similar assertions of the unity of God are found in Deut. iv. 35, 39 ('Jehovah is the God; there is none else beside him'); 2 Sam. vii. 22; xxii. 32; 1 Kings viii. 60; I Chron. xvii. 20; Psa. xviii. 31 ('Who is God save Jehovah? or who is a rock save our God?'); Psa. lxxxvi. 10 ('Thou art God alone'); Isa. xliii. 10-12; xliv. 6, 8; xlv. 22; Joel ii. 27; Zech. xiv. 9.

The New Testament confirms this doctrine repeatedly: Mark xii. 29; John xvii. 3 ('Thee, the only true God'); 1 Cor. viii. 4 ('There is none other God but one'); Gal. iii. 20; 1 Tim. ii. 5.

But while the New Testament presupposes the unity of the Godhead, it makes the Divinity and Messiahship of Jesus of Nazareth the centre of the Christian religion in its distinctive fundamental creed. The following are the passages which furnished the nucleus for the ancient rules of faith and baptismal creeds.

The Confession of Nathanael (Bartholomew).

John i. 50 (49).

Apekrithe Nathanael kai legei auto ;

Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rhabbi, su ei ho huios tou theou, Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God,

su ei ho basileus tou Israel.

Thou art the King of Israel.

Note.--'King of Israel' is a designation of the Messiah, and an anticipation of the Confession of Peter. Nathanael reasons from the divine character of Christ as revealed in his supernatural knowledge of the heart, to his Messiahship, and returns the commendation, 'Behold an Israelite indeed without guile,' by the acknowledgment, 'Thou art the King of Israel,' and hence my King. The term 'Son of God' was also a designation of the Messiah in his divine nature, derived from Psa. ii. 5,12 (comp. Isa. ix. 6), and is so used by Peter, Matt. xvi. 16; by the disciples in the ship, Matt. xiv. 33; by Martha, John xi. 27; and by the high-priest, Matt. xxvi. 63. The Apostles, before the pentecostal illumination, had no clear insight into the full meaning of the expression; but their faith, based upon the Old Testament and the personal knowledge of our Lord, contained the living germ of the full knowledge.

The Confession of Peter.

Matt. xvi. 16.

Apokritheis de Simon Petros eipen ;

And Simon Peter, answering, said,

Su ei ho Christos, ho huios tou theou tou zontos

Thou art the Christ [the Messiah], the Son of the living God.

Note.--This is the fundamental Christian Confession, and the rock on which the Church is built. See Schaff's Annotations to Lange on Matthew, pp. 293-295.

John vi. 68.

Kurie, pros tina apeleusometha? remata zoes aioniou echeis; kai hemeis pepisteukamen, kai egnokamen hoti

Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast words of life eternal, and we have believed and known that

Su ei ho hagios tou theou

Thou art the Holy One of God.

Note.--This is the true reading, instead of the received text: 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God', ( su ei ho Christos, ho huios tou theou tou zontos ) which is conformed to Matt. xvi. 16. It is equivalent to Thou art the Messiah, and coincides with the testimony of the demoniacs (Mark i. 26), who with ghost-like intuition perceived the supernatural character of Jesus. This Confession of Peter belongs to an earlier period than the one recorded by Matthew. See Lange, Com. on John, pp. 234 sq. (Am. ed.).

The Confession of Thomas.

John xx. 28.

Apekrithe Thomas kai eipen auto; Thomas answered and said unto him, Ho kurios mou kai ho theos mou My Lord and my God!

Note.--This is the strongest apostolic Confession of Faith in the Lordship and Divinity of Christ, an echo of the beginning of the fourth Gospel (i. 1, 'the Word was God'), and an anticipation of its close (xx. 31, 'that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life in his name'). For the words are undoubtedly addressed to Christ, as is evident from the preceding 'to him,' and from the appellation, 'My Lord;' [3] and not an exclamation of astonishment addressed to God. [4] For in the latter case Thomas would utter a profanity unrebuked by the Lord. The words indicate a triumph of faith over doubt. Thomas was not an unbeliever--he was not a doubter from indifference to the truth (as Pontius Pilate), still less from hostility to the truth, but from love of truth. He was an honest and earnest inquirer; his heart was anxious and ready to believe, but his understanding demanded evidence, which he embraced with joy as soon as it was presented. He represents the principle, intellectus precedit fidem , which is not entirely inconsistent with the other, fides precedit intellectum. He was a rationalist in the best sense of the term, animated and controlled by a love of truth. Blessed are those that seek the truth, for they shall find it. This kind of skepticism, or spirit of inquiry rather, is a stimulating and propelling force in the Church, and is necessary to the progress of theological science and historical and philosophical research. To such skepticism the words of the poet may be applied:

'There lives more faith in honest doubt,

Believe me, than in half the creeds:

He fought his doubts, and gathered strength,

To find a stronger faith his own.'

And yet there is a higher faith, which believes without seeing (ver. 29; (1 Pet. i. 8; 2 Cor. v. 7), which holds fast to the invisible as seeing him (Heb. xi. 27), which goes to Christ as the child to his mother's breast, as heart to heart, as love to love, with undoubting, implicit, unbounded trust and confidence.

[3] The Greek nominative with the article is used for the vocative, as in Matt. xi. 26, where God is addressed in prayer, ho pater ; xxvii. 29, chaire ho basileus ; in Mark xv. 34, ho theos mou, ho theos mou, eis ti enkatelipes me ; in Luke viii. 54, and in many other passages.

[4] Theodore of Mopsnestia: ' Quasi pro miraculo facto Deum collaudat. ' He is followed by Socinians and Rationalists.

The Baptismal Formula.

Matt. xxviii. 19.

Matheteusate panta ta ethne, baptizontes autous

Disciple [make disciples of] all the nations, baptizing them

eis to onoma tou patros

into the Name of the Father,

kai tou huiou

and of the Son,

kai tou hagiou pneumatos,

and of the Holy Ghost;

didaskontes autous terein panta hosa eneteilamen humin.

teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

Note.--For an explanation of the Baptismal Formula, which is the basis of the old Trinitarian creeds, and for the various renderings of eis (into, to, in, with reference to), see Schaff and Lange, Com. on Matt. pp. 556-558.

The Confession of the Eunuch.

Acts viii. 37.

Pisteuo ton huion tou theou einai ton Iesoun Christon.

I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Note.--This confession of the Ethiopian Eunuch before his baptism by Philip the Deacon, together with the preceding words of Philip, 'If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest' [be baptized], according to the received text (with sundry variations), is not contained in the best Uncial MSS., and is given up by critical editors (Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Westcott and Hort), as an interpolation made to suit the baptismal service of the Church; but it is found even in Irenæus and Cyprian, and tends to prove the apostolical origin of a baptismal confession of faith in Christ as the Son of God.

One God and One Lord.

1 Cor. viii. 6.

Heis theos ho Pater, There is One God the Father,

ex hou ta panta,

of whom are all things,

kai hemeis eis auton;

and we unto [for] him;

kai eis kurios Iesous Christos,

and One Lord Jesus Christ,

di hou ta panta,

by whom are all things,

kai hemeis di autou.

and we by him.

The Mystery of Godliness.

1 Tim. iii. 16.

Homologoumenos mega estin to tes eusebeias musterion;

Confessedly great is the mystery of godliness:

Hos [Theos] ephanerothe en sarki,

'Who [God] was manifested in the flesh,

edikaiothe en pneumati,

justified in the Spirit,

ophthe angelois,

seen of angels,

ekeruchthe en ethnesin,

preached among the Gentiles,

episteuthe en kosmo,

believed on in the world,

anelephthe en doxe.

received up in glory.'

Note.--The relative OC ( hos , who) is best sustained by evidence ( ' AC--though Aleph has been meddled with, and B is wanting), instead of the noun Th C ( theos , God, in the text. rec.), or of the neuter gender, ho (which). See Tischendorf, ed. viii. maj. ii. p. 849, and the long notes of Alford and Wordsworth. The reading hos improves the rhythm without changing the sense; for it certainly refers to Christ the God-Man, whether we connect it with musterion (by transition from the mystery to the person of Him who is the sum and substance of the revelation of God), or regard it (in accordance with the parallelism and continuity of the following clauses) as a quotation from a primitive hymn or confession. Wordsworth refers 'who' to the preceding 'living God,' but God as such can not be said to have been 'received in glory.'