i

Bibliotheca Symbolica Ecclesiæ Universalis.

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THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM,

WITH

A HISTORY AND CRITICAL NOTES.

 

BY

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

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

 

IN THREE VOLUMES

 

SIXTH EDITION—REVISED AND ENLARGED

 

VOLUME I.

THE HISTORY OF THE CREEDS

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The Creeds of Christendom

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Copyright, 1877, by Harper & Brothers

Copyright, 1905, 1919, by David S. Schaff

Printed in the United States of America

 

 

 

 

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ivv

PREFACE

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A 'symbolical library' that contains the creeds and confessions of all Christian denominations fills a vacuum in theological and historical literature. It is surprising that it has not been supplied long ago. Sectarian exclusiveness or doctrinal indifferentism may have prevented it. Other symbolical collections are confined to particular denominations and periods. In this work the reader will find the authentic material for the study of Comparative Theology Symbolics, Polemics, and Irenics. In a country like ours, where people of all creeds meet in daily contact, this study ought to command more attention than it has hitherto received.

The First Volume has expanded into a doctrinal history of the Church, so far as it is embodied in public standards of faith. The most important and fully developed symbolical systems the Vatican Romanism, the Lutheranism of the Formula of Concord, and the Calvinism of the Westminster standards have been subjected to a critical analysis. The author has endeavored to combine the ἀληθεύειν ἐν ἀγάπῃ and the ἀγαπᾷν ἐν ἀληθείᾳ, and to be mindful of the golden motto, In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. Honest and earnest controversy, conducted in a Christian and catholic spirit, promotes true and lasting union. Polemics looks to Irenics—the aim of war is peace.

The Second Volume contains the Scripture Confessions, the ante-Nicene Rules of Faith, the cumenical, the Greek, and the Latin Creeds, from the Confession of Peter down to the Vatican Decrees. It includes also the best Russian Catechism and the recent Old Catholic Union Propositions of the Bonn Conferences.

The Third Volume is devoted to the Lutheran, Anglican, Calvinistic, and the later Protestant Confessions of Faith. The documents of the Third Part (pp. 707–876) have never been collected before.

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The creeds and confessions are given in the original languages from the best editions, and are accompanied by translations for the convenience of the English reader.¹¹   I have used, e.g., the fac-simile of the oldest MS. of the Athanasian Creed from the 'Utrecht Psalter:' the ed. princeps of the Lutheran Concordia (formerly in the possession of Dr. Meyer, the well-known commentator); the Corpus et Syntagma Confessionum, ed. 1654; a copy of the Harmonia Confessionum, once owned by Prince Casimir of the Palatinate, who suggested it; the oldest editions of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, of the Savoy Declaration, etc.

While these volumes were passing through the press several learned treatises on the ancient creeds by Lumby, Swainson, Hort, Caspari, and others have appeared, though not too late to be noticed in the final revision. The literature has been brought down to the close of 1876. I trust that nothing of importance has escaped my attention.

I take pleasure in acknowledging my obligation to several distinguished divines, in America and England, for valuable information concerning the denominations to which they belong, and for several contributions, which appear under the writers' names.²²   The Rev. Drs. Jos. Angus, W. W. Andrews, Chas. A. Briggs, J. R. Brown, E. W. Gilman, G. Haven, A. A. Hodge, Alex. F. Mitchell, E. D. Morris, Chas. P. Krauth, J. R. Lumby, G. D. Matthews, H. Osgood, E. von Schweinitz, H. B. Smith, John Stoughton, E. A. Washburn, W. R. Williams. See Vol. I. pp. 609, 811, 839, 911; Vol. III. pp. 3, 738, 777, 799. In a history of conflicting creeds it is wise to consult representative men as well as books, in order to secure strict accuracy and impartiality, which are the cardinal virtues of a historian.

May this repository of creeds and confessions promote a better understanding among the Churches of Christ. The divisions of Christendom bring to light the various aspects and phases of revealed truth, and will be overruled at last for a deeper and richer harmony, of which Christ is the key-note. In him and by him all problems of theology and history will be solved. The nearer believers of different creeds approach the Christological centre, the better they will understand and love each other.

P. S.

Bible House, New York,

December, 1876.

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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

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The call for a new edition of this work in less than a year after its publication is an agreeable surprise to the author, and fills him with gratitude to the reading public and the many reviewers, known and unknown, who have so kindly and favorably noticed it in American and foreign periodicals and in private letters. One of the foremost divines of Germany (Dr. Dorner, in the Jahrbüher für Deutsche Theologie, 1877, p. 682) expresses a surprise that the idea of such an œcumenical collection of Christian Creeds should have originated in America, where the Church is divided into so many rival denominations; but he adds also as an explanation that this division creates a desire for unity and co-operation, and a mutual courtesy and kindness unknown among the contending parties and schools under the same roof of state-churches, where outward uniformity is maintained at the expense of inward peace and harmony.

The changes in this edition are very few. The literature in the first volume is brought down to the present date, and at the close of the second volume a fac-simile of the oldest MSS. of the Athanasian Creed and the Apostles' Creed is added.

 

P. S.

NEW YORK, April, 1878.

 

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PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

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This edition differs from the second in the following particulars:

1. In the first volume several errors have been corrected (e.g., in the statistical table, p. 818), and a list of new works inserted on p. xiv.

2. In the third volume a translation of the Second Helvetic Confession has been added, pp. 831 sqq.

 

P. S.

New York, December, 1880.

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PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

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The call for a fourth edition of this work has made it my duty to give the first volume once more a thorough revision and to bring the literature down to the latest date. In this I have been aided by my young friend, the Rev. Samuel M. Jackson, one of the assistant editors of my "Religious Encyclopædia." The additions which could not be conveniently made in the plates have been printed separately after the Table of Contents, pp. xiv–xvii.

The second and third volumes, which embrace the symbolical documents, remain unchanged, except that at the end of the third volume the new Congregational Creed of 1883 has been added.

Creeds will live as long as faith survives, with the duty to confess our faith before men. By and by we shall reach, through the Creeds of Christendom, the one comprehensive, harmonious Creed of Christ.

 

P. S.

New York, May, 1884.

 

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The fifth edition was a reprint of the fourth, without any changes.

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PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION.

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Since the appearance of the Creeds of Christendom, 1877, no work has been issued competing with it in scope and comprehensiveness. The valuable collection of W. W. Walker, The Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, 1893, and W. J. McGlothlin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, 1911, are limited to separate Protestant bodies. The extensive collection of Karl Müller, 1903, is confined to the creeds and catechisms of the Reformed Churches. Professor W. A. Curtis of the University of Edinburgh, in his History of the Creeds and Confessions of Faith in Christendom and Beyond, gives the contents of creeds and an account of their origins, not their texts. C. Fabricius, in his Corpus confessionum, etc., 1928, sqq., proposes in connexion with colaborers to furnish not only the texts of the Christian creeds, but also the texts of hymns, liturgies, books of discipline, and other documents bearing on Christian doctrine, worship, and practice. For example, 250 pages of Volume I are devoted to hymns, and 250 pages to "The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1924."

The new material of the present edition is the following:

Volume I. Additions to the literature; notices of the Church of the Disciples and the Universalist and Unitarian Churches; and changes and additions, as, for example, on the primitive creeds and the Russian Church.

Volume II. In the fourth edition Dr. Schaff, in view of the new importance given in Canon Law to papal utterances on doctrine and morals, added one of the important encyclicals of Leo XIII., who was then living. To this encyclical have been added bulls on the Church, by Boniface VIII., 1302, Anglican Orders, by Leo XIII., 1896, "Americanism" and "Modernism" by Pius X., 1907–10, and Pius XI.'s encyclical on Church Union, 1928.

Volume III. Additions giving Recent Confessional Declarations and Terms of Union between Church organizations. The material on the latter subject, so closely akin to the general topic of the book, makes it xquite probable that Dr. Philip Schaff, in view of his pronounced attitude on Church fellowship and union, would have included it, were he himself preparing this edition of the Creeds of Christendom.

 

David S. Schaff.

 

Union Theological Seminary

New York, January, 1931

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TABLE OF CONTENTS.

(Vol. I.)

 

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HISTORY OF THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM.

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FIRST CHAPTER.
ON CREEDS IN GENERAL.
PAGE
§ 1.	Name and Definition	3
§ 2.	Origin of Creeds	4
§ 3.	Authority of Creeds	7
§ 4.	Value and Use of Creeds	8
§ 5.	Classification of Creeds	9

 

SECOND CHAPTER.
THE ŒCUMENICAL CREEDS.
PAGE
§ 6.	General Character of the Œcumenical Creeds	12
§ 7.	The Apostles' Creed	14
§ 8.	The Nicene Creed	24
§ 9.	The Creed of Chalcedon	29
§ 10.	The Athanasian Creed	34

 

THIRD CHAPTER.
THE CREEDS OF THE GREEK CHURCH.
PAGE
§ 11.	The Seven Œcumenical Councils	43
§ 12.	The Confessions of Gennadius, A.D. 1453	46
§ 13.	The Answers of the Patriarch Jeremiah to the Lutherans, A.D. 1576	50
§ 14.	The Confession of Metrophanes Critopulus, A.D. 1625	52
§ 15.	The Confession of Cyril Lucar, A.D. 1631	54
§ 16.	The Orthodox Confession of Mogilas, A.D. 1643	58

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§ 17.	The Synod of Jerusalem, and the Confession of Dositheus, A.D. 1672	61
§ 18.	The Synods of Constantinople, A.D. 1672 and 1691	67
§ 19.	The Doctrinal Standards of the Russo-Greek Church	68
§ 20.	Anglo-Catholic Correspondence with the Russo-Greek	74
§ 21.	The Eastern Sects: Nestorians, Jacobites, Copts, Armenians	78

 

FOURTH CHAPTER.
THE CREEDS OF THE ROMAN CHURCH.
PAGE
§ 22.	Catholicism and Romanism	83
§ 23.	Standard Expositions of the Roman Catholic System	85
§ 24.	The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, A.D. 1563	90
§ 25.	The Profession of the Tridentine Faith, A.D. 1564	96
§ 26.	The Roman Catecism, A.D. 1566	100
§ 27.	The Papal Bulls against the Jansenists, A.D. 1653, 1713	102
	Note on the Old Catholics in Holland, 107.
§ 28.	The Papal Definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, A.D. 1854	108
§ 29.	The Argument for the Immaculate Conception	113
§ 30.	The Papal Syllabus, A.D. 1864	128
§ 31.	The Vatican Council, A.D. 1870	134
§ 32.	The Vatican Decrees. The Constitution on the Catholic Faith	147
§ 33.	The Vatican Decrees, Continued. The Papal Infallibility Decree	150
§ 34.	Papal Infallibility Explained, and Tested by Scripture and Tradition	163
§ 35.	The Liturgical Standards of the Roman Church	189
§ 36.	The Old Catholics	191

 

FIFTH CHAPTER.
THE CREEDS OF THE EVANGELICAL PROTESTANT CHURCHES.
PAGE
§ 37.	The Reformation. Protestantism and Romanism	203
§ 38.	The Evangelical Confessions of Faith	209
§ 39.	The Lutheran and Reformed Confessions	211

 

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SIXTH CHAPTER.
THE CREEDS OF THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH.
PAGE
§ 40.	The Lutheran Confessions	220
§ 41.	The Augsburg Confession, A.D. 1530	225
§ 42.	The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, A.D. 1530	243
§ 43.	Luther's Catechisms, A.D. 1529	245
§ 44.	The Articles of Smalcald, A.D. 1537	253
§ 45.	The Formula of Concord, A.D. 1577	258
§ 46.	The Formula of Concord, Concluded	312
§ 47.	Superseded Lutheran Symbols. The Saxon Confession, and the Würtemberg Confession, A.D. 1551	340
§ 48.	The Saxon Visitation Articles, A.D. 1592.	345
§ 49.	An Abortive Symbol against Syncretism, A.D. 1655	349

 

SEVENTH CHAPTER.
THE CREEDS OF THE EVANGELICAL REFORMED CHURCHES.
PAGE
§ 50.	The Reformed Confessions.	354
I. Reformed Confessions of Switzerland.
§ 51.	Zwinglian Confessions. The Sixty-seven Articles. The Ten Theses of Berne. The Confession to Charles V. The Confession to Francis I., A.D. 1523-1531	360
§ 52.	Zwingli's Distinctive Doctrines	369
§ 53.	The Confession of Basle, A.D. 1534	385
§ 54.	The First Helvetic Confession, A.D. 1536	388
§ 55.	The Second Helvetic Confession, A.D. 1566	390
§ 56.	John Calvin. His Life and Character	421
§ 57.		444
§ 58.	The Catechism of Geneva, A.D. 1541	467
§ 59.	The Zurich Consensus, A.D. 1549	471
§ 60.	The Geneva Consensus, A.D. 1552	474
§ 61.	The Helvetic Consensus Formula, A.D. 1675	477

II. Reformed Confessions of France and the Netherlands.
§ 62.	The Gallican Confession, A.D. 1559	490
§ 63.	The French Declaration of Faith, A.D. 1872	498
§ 64.	The Belgic Confession, A.D. 1561	502

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§ 65.	The Arminian Controversy and the Synod of Dort, A.D. 1604-1619.	508
§ 66.	The Remonstrance, A.D. 1610	516
§ 67.	The Canons of Dort, A.D. 1619	519

III. The Reformed Confessions of Germany.
§ 68.	The Tetrapolitan Confession, A.D. 1530	524
§ 69.	The Heidelberg Catechism, A.D. 1563	529
§ 70.	The Brandenburg Confessions	554
The Confession of Sigismund (1614), 555.
The Colloquy at Leipzig (1631), 558.
The Declaration of Thorn (1645), 560.
§ 71.	The Minor German Reformed Confessions. . .	563

IV. The Reformed Confessions of Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary.
§ 72.	The Bohemian Brethern and the Waldenses before the Reformation	565
§ 73.	The Bohemian Confessions after the Reformation, A.D. 1535 and 1575	576
§ 74.	The Reformation in Poland and the Consensus of Sendomir, A.D. 1570	581
§ 75.	The Reformation in Hungary and the Confession of Czenger, A.D. 1557	589

V. The Anglican Articles of Religion.
§ 76.	The English Reformation.	592
§ 77.	The Doctrinal Position of the Anglican Church and her Relation to other Churches	598
§ 78.	The Doctrinal Formularies of Henry VIII.	611
§ 79.	The Edwardine Articles, A.D. 1553.	613
§ 80.	The Elizabethan Articles, A.D. 1563 and 1571	615
§ 81.	Interpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles	622
§ 82.	Revision of the Thirty-nine Articles by the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, A.D. 1801	650
§ 83.	The Anglican Catechisms, A.D. 1549 and 1662	654
§ 84.	The Lambeth Articles, A.D. 1595	658
§ 85.	The Irish Articles, A.D. 1615	662
§ 86.	The Articles of the Reformed Episcopal Church, A.D. 1875	665

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VI. The Presbyterian Confessions of Scotland.
§ 87.	The Reformation in Scotland	669
§ 88.	John Knox	673
§ 89.	The Scotch Confession, A.D. 1560.	680
§ 90.	The Scotch Covenants and the Scotch Kirk	685
§ 91.	The Scotch Catechisms	696

VII. The Westminster Standards.
§ 92.	The Puritan Conflict	701
§ 93.	The Westminster Assembly.	727
§ 94.	The Westminster Confession .	753
§ 95.	Analysis of the Confession .	760
§ 96.	The Westminster Catechisms .	783
§ 97.	Criticism of the Westminster System of Doctrine	788
§ 98.	The Westminster Standards in America	804
§ 99.	The Westminster Standards among the Cumberland Presbyterians	813

 

EIGHTH CHAPTER.
THE CREEDS OF MODERN EVANGELICAL DENOMINATIONS.
PAGE
§ 100.	General Survey	817
§ 101.	The Congregationalists	820
§ 102.	English Congregational Creeds	829
§ 103.	American Congregational Creeds	835
§ 104.	Anabaptists and Mennonites	840
§ 105.	The Calvinistic Baptists	844
§ 106.	The Arminian Baptists	856
§ 107.	The Society of Friends (Quakers).	859
§ 108.	The Moravians	874
§ 109.	Methodism	882
§ 110.	Methodist Creeds	890
§ 111.	Arminian Methodism	893
§ 112.	Calvinistic Methodism	901
§ 113.	The Catholic Apostolic Church (Irvingites)	905
§ 114.	The Evangelical Alliance.	915
§ 115.	The Consensus and Dissensus of Creeds	919
§ 116.	The Disciples of Christ	930
§ 117.	The Universalists.	933
§ 118.	The Unitarians	954

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ADDITIONS TO THE LITERATURE

 

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A HISTORY OF THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM

 

 

 

 

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HISTORY OF THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM.

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FIRST CHAPTER.

OF CREEDS IN GENERAL.

§ 1. Name and Definition.

A Creed,³³    From the beginning of the Apostles' Creed (Credo, I believe), to which the term is applied more particularly. or Rule of Faith,⁴⁴     Κανών τῆς πίστεως or τῆς άληθείας, regula fidei, regula veritatis. These are the oldest terms used by the ante-Nicene fathers, Irenæus, Tertullian, etc. or Symbol,⁵⁵     Σύμβολον, symbolum (from συμβάλλειν, to throw together, to compare), means a mark, badge, watchword, test. It was first used in a theological sense by Cyprian, A.D. 250 (Ep. 76, al. 69, ad Magnum, where it is said of the schismatic Novatianus, 'eodum symbolo, quo et nos, baptizare'), and then very generally since the fourth century. It was chiefly applied to the Apostles' Creed as the baptismal confession by which Christians could be known and distinguished from Jews, heathen, and heretics, in the sense of a military signal or watchword (tessera militaris); the Christians being regarded as soldiers of Christ fighting under the banner of the cross. Ambrose (d. 397) calls it ' cordis signaculum et nostræ militiæ sacramentum. ' Rufinus, in his Expositio in Symb. Apost., uses the word likewise in the military sense, but gives it also the meaning collatio, contributio (confounding σύμβολον with συμβολη), with reference to the legend of the origin of the creed from contributions of the twelve apostles (' quod plures in unum conferunt; id enim fecerunt apostoli, ' etc.). Others take the word in the sense of a compact, or agreement (so Suicer, Thes. eccl. II. 1084: ' Dicere possumus, symbolum non a militari, sed a contractuum tessera nomen id accepisse; est enim tessera pacti, quod in baptismo inimus cum Deo '). Still others derive it (with King, History of the Apostles' Creed, p. 8) from the signs of recognition among the heathen in their mysteries. Luther and Melancthon first applied it to Protestant creeds. A distinction is made sometimes between Symbol and Symbolical Book, as also between symbola publica and symbola privata. The term theologia symbolica is of more recent origin than the term libri symbolici. is a confession of faith for public use, or a form of words setting forth with authority certain articles 4of belief, which are regarded by the framers as necessary for salvation, or at least for the well-being of the Christian Church.

A creed may cover the whole ground of Christian doctrine and practice, or contain only such points as are deemed fundamental and sufficient, or as have been disputed. It may be declarative, or interrogative in form. It may be brief and popular (as the Apostles' and the Nicene Creeds), for general use in catechetical instruction and at baptism; or more elaborate and theological, for ministers and teachers, as a standard of public doctrine (the symbolical books of the Reformation period). In the latter case a confession of faith is always the result of dogmatic controversy, and more or less directly or indirectly polemical against opposing error. Each symbol bears the impress of its age, and the historical situation out of which it arose.

There is a development in the history of symbols. They assume a more definite shape with the progress of biblical and theological knowledge. They are mile-stones and finger-boards in the history of Christian doctrine. They embody the faith of generations, and the most valuable results of religious controversies. They still shape and regulate the theological thinking and public teaching of the churches of Christendom. They keep alive sectarian strifes and antagonisms, but they reveal also the underlying agreement, and foreshadow the possibility of future harmony.

§ 2. Origin of Creeds.

Faith, like all strong conviction, has a desire to utter itself before others—'Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh;' 'I believe, therefore I confess' (Credo, ergo confiteor). There is also an express duty, when we are received into the membership of the Christian Church, and on every proper occasion, to profess the faith within us, to make ourselves known as followers of Christ, and to lead others to him by the influence of our testimony.⁶⁶    Comp. (Matt. x. 32, 33: 'Every one who shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven.' Rom. x. 9, 10: 'If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus [Jesus as Lord], and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, then shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto [so as to obtain] righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.'

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This is the origin of Christian symbols or creeds. They never precede faith, but presuppose it. They emanate from the inner life of the Church, independently of external occasion. There would have been creeds even if there had been no doctrinal controversies.⁷⁷    Semisch, Das apostolische Glaubensbekenntniss (Berlin, 1872, p. 7): ' Bekenntnisse, an welchen sich das geistige Leben ganzer Völker auferbaut, welche langen Jahrhunderten die höchsten Ziele und bestimmenden Kräfte ihres Handelns vorzeichnen, sind nicht Noth- und Flickwerke des Augenblicks . . . es sind Thaten des Lebens, Pulsschläge der sich selbst bezeugenden Kirche. ' In a certain sense it may be said that the Christian Church has never been without a creed (Ecclesia, sine symbolis nulla). The baptismal formula and the words of institution of the Lord's Supper are creeds; these and the confession of Peter antedate even the birth of the Christian Church on the day of Pentecost. The Church is, indeed, not founded on symbols, but on Christ; not on any words of man, but on the word of God; yet it is founded on Christ as confessed by men, and a creed is man's answer to Christ's question, man's acceptance and interpretation of God's word. Hence it is after the memorable confession of Peter that Christ said, 'Thou art Rock, and upon this rock I shall build my Church,' as if to say, 'Thou art the Confessor of Christ, and on this Confession, as an immovable rock, I shall build my Church.' Where there is faith, there is also profession of faith. As 'faith without works is dead,' so it may be said also that faith without confession is dead.

But this confession need not always be written, much less reduced to a logical formula. If a man can say from his heart, 'I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,' it is sufficient for his salvation (Acts xvi. 31). The word of God, apprehended by a living faith, which founded the Christian Church, was at first orally preached and transmitted by the apostles, then laid down in the New Testament Scriptures, as a pure and unerring record for all time to come. So the confession of faith, or the creed, was orally taught and transmitted to the catechumens, and professed by them at baptism, long before it was committed to writing. As long as the Disciplina arcani prevailed, the summary of the apostolic doctrine, called 'the rule of faith,' was kept confidential among Christians, and withheld even from the catechumens till the last stage of instruction; and hence we have only fragmentary 6accounts of it in the writings of the ante-Nicene fathers. When controversies arose concerning the true meaning of the Scriptures, it became necessary to give formal expression of their true sense, to regulate the public teaching of the Church, and to guard it against error. In this way the creeds were gradually enlarged and multiplied, even to the improper extent of theological treatises and systems of divinity.

The first Christian confession or creed is that of Peter, when Christ asked the apostles, 'Who say ye that I am?' and Peter, in the name of all the rest, exclaimed, as by divine inspiration, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God' (Matt. xvi. 16).⁸⁸    The similar confession, John vi. 69, is of a previous date. It reads, according to the early authorities, 'Thou art the Holy One of God' (σὺ εἶ ὁ ἅγιος θεοῦ). A designation of the Messiah. This text coincides with the testimony of the demoniacs, Marc. I. 26, who, with ghostlike intuition, perceived the supernatural character of Jesus. This became naturally the substance of the baptismal confession, since Christ is the chief object of the Christian faith. Philip required the eunuch simply to profess the belief that 'Jesus was the Son of God.' In conformity with the baptismal formula, however, it soon took a Trinitarian shape, probably in some such simple form as 'I believe in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.' Gradually it was expanded, by the addition of other articles, into the various rules of faith, of which the Roman form under the title 'the Apostles' Creed' became the prevailing one, after the fourth century, in the West, and the Nicene Creed in the East. The Protestant Church, as a separate organization, dates from 1517, but it was not till 1530 that its faith was properly formularized in the Augsburg Confession.

A symbol may proceed from the general life of the Church in a particular age without any individual authorship (as the Apostles' Creed); or from an œcumenical Council (the Nicene Creed; the Creed of Chalcedon); or from the Synod of a particular Church (the Decrees of the Council of Trent; the Articles of Dort; the Westminster Confession and Catechisms); or from a number of divines commissioned for such work by ecclesiastical authority (the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England; the Heidelberg Catechism; the Form of Concord); or from one individual, who acts in this case as the organ of his church or sect (the Augsburg Confession, and Apology, composed by Melancthon; the Articles of Smalkald, and the Catechisms of Luther; the second Helvetic 7Confession by Bullinger). What gives them symbolical or authoritative character is the formal sanction or tacit acquiescence of the church or sect which they represent. In Congregational and Baptist churches the custom prevails for each local church to have its own confession of faith or 'covenant,' generally composed by the pastor, and derived from the Westminster Confession, or some other authoritative symbol, or drawn up independently.

§ 3. Authority of Creeds.⁹⁹    On the authority and use of Symbols there are a number of Latin and German treatises by C. U. Hahn (1833), Hoefling (1835), Sartorius (1845), Harless (1846), A. Hahn 1847), Köllner (1847), Genzken (1851), Bretschneider (1830), Johannsen (1833), and others, all with special reference to the Lutheran State Churches in Germany. See the literature in Müller, Die symb. Bücher der evang. luth. Kirche, p. xv., and older works in Winer's Handbuch der theol. Literatur, 3d ed. Vol. I. p. 334. Comp. also Dunlop and Chaponnière (Part II.), cited in § 1.

1. In the Protestant system, the authority of symbols, as of all human compositions, is relative and limited. It is not co-ordinate with, but always subordinate to, the Bible, as the only infallible rule of the Christian faith and practice. The value of creeds depends upon the measure of their agreement with the Scriptures. In the best case a human creed is only an approximate and relatively correct exposition of revealed truth, and may be improved by the progressive knowledge of the Church, while the Bible remains perfect and infallible. The Bible is of God; the Confession is man's answer to God's word.¹⁰¹⁰    For this reason a creed ought to use language different from that of the Bible. A string of Scripture passages would be no creed at all, as little as it would be a prayer or a hymn. A creed is, as it were, a doctrinal poem written under the inspiration of divine truth. This may be said at least of the œcumenical creeds. The Bible is the norma normans; the Confession the norma normata. The Bible is the rule of faith (regula fidei); the Confession the rule of doctrine (regula doctrinæ). The Bible has, therefore, a divine and absolute, the Confession only an ecclesiastical and relative authority. The Bible regulates the general religious belief and practice of the laity as well as the clergy; the symbols regulate the public teaching of the officers of the Church, as Constitutions and Canons regulate the government, Liturgies and Hymn-books the worship, of the Church.

Any higher view of the authority of symbols is unprotestant and essentially Romanizing. Symbololatry is a species of idolatry, and substitutes the tyranny of a printed book for that of a living pope. It is 8apt to produce the opposite extreme of a rejection of all creeds, and to promote rationalism and infidelity.

2. The Greek Church, and still more the Roman Church, regarding the Bible and tradition as two co-ordinate sources of truth and rules of faith, claim absolute and infallible authority for their confessions of faith.¹¹¹¹    Tertullian already speaks of the regula fidei immobilis et irreformabilis (De virg. vel. c. 1); but he applied it only to the simple form which is substantially retained in the Apostles' Creed.

The Greek Church confines the claim of infallibility to the seven œcumenical Councils, from the first Council of Nicæa, 325, to the second of Nicæa, 787.

The Roman Church extends the same claim to the Council of Trent and all the subsequent official Papal decisions on questions of faith down to the decree of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, and the dogma of Papal Infallibility proclaimed by the Vatican Council in 1870. Since that time the Pope is regarded by orthodox Romanists as the organ of infallibility, and all his official decisions on matters of faith and morals must be accepted as final, without needing the sanction of an œcumenical council.

It is clear that either the Greek or the Roman Church, or both, must be wrong in this claim of infallibility, since they contradict each other on some important points, especially the authority of the pope, which in the Roman Church is an articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiæ, and is expressly taught in the Creed of Pius V. and the Vatican Decrees.

§ 4. Value and Use of Creeds.

Confessions, in due subordination to the Bible, are of great value and use. They are summaries of the doctrines of the Bible, aids to its sound understanding, bonds of union among their professors, public standards and guards against false doctrine and practice. In the form of Catechisms they are of especial use in the instruction of children, and facilitate a solid and substantial religious education, in distinction from spasmodic and superficial excitement. The first object of creeds was to distinguish the Church from the world, from Jews and heathen, afterwards orthodoxy from heresy, and finally denomination from denomination. In all these respects they are still valuable and indispensable in the present order of things. Every well-regulated society, 9secular or religious, needs an organization and constitution, and can not prosper without discipline. Catechisms, liturgies, hymn-books are creeds also as far as they embody doctrine.

There has been much controversy about the degree of the binding force of creeds, and the quia or quatenus in the form of subscription. The whole authority and use of symbolical books has been opposed and denied, especially by Socinians, Quakers, Unitarians, and Rationalists. It is objected that they obstruct the free interpretation of the Bible and the progress of theology; that they interfere with the liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment; that they engender hypocrisy, intolerance, and bigotry; that they produce division and distraction; that they perpetuate religious animosity and the curse of sectarianism; that, by the law of reaction, they produce dogmatic indifferentism, skepticism, and infidelity; that the symbololatry of the Lutheran and Calvinistic State Churches in the seventeenth century is responsible for the apostasy of the eighteenth.¹²¹²    These objections are noticed and answered at length by Dunlop, in his preface to the Collection of Scotch Confessions, and in the more recent works quoted on p. 7. The objections have some force in those State Churches which allow no liberty for dissenting organizations, or when the creeds are virtually put above the Scriptures instead of being subordinated to them. But the creeds, as such, are no more responsible for abuses than the Scriptures themselves, of which they profess to be merely a summary or an exposition. Experience teaches that those sects which reject all creeds are as much under the authority of a traditional system or of certain favorite writers, and as much exposed to controversy, division, and change, as churches with formal creeds. Neither creed nor no-creed can be an absolute protection of the purity of faith and practice. The best churches have declined or degenerated; and corrupt churches may be revived and regenerated by the Spirit of God, and the Word of God, which abides forever.

§ 5. Classification of Creeds.

The Creeds of Christendom may be divided into four classes, corresponding to the three main divisions of the Church, the Greek, Latin, and Evangelical, and their common parent. A progressive growth of theology in different directions can be traced in them.

1. The Œcumenical Symbols of the Ancient Catholic Church. They 10contain chiefly the orthodox doctrine of God and of Christ, or the fundamental dogmas of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation. They are the common property of all churches, and the common stock from which the later symbolical books have grown.

2. The Symbols of the Greek or Oriental Church, in which the Greek faith is set forth in distinction from that of the Roman Catholic and the evangelical Protestant Churches. They were called forth by the fruitless attempts of the Jesuits to Romanize the Greek Church, and by the opposite efforts of the crypto-Calvinistic Patriarch Cyrillus Lucaris to evangelize the same. They differ from the Roman Creeds mainly in the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit, and the more important doctrine of the Papacy; but in the controversies on the rule of faith, justification by faith, the church and the sacraments, the worship of saints and relics, the hierarchy and the monastic system, they are much more in harmony with Romanism than with Protestantism.

3. The Symbols of the Roman Church, from the Council of Trent to the Council of the Vatican (1563 to 1870). They sanction the distinctive doctrines of Romanism, which were opposed by the Reformers, and condemn the leading principles of evangelical Protestantism, especially the supreme authority of the Scriptures as a sufficient rule of faith and practice, and justification by faith alone. The last dogma, proclaimed by the Vatican Council in 1870, completes the system by making the official infallibility of the Pope an article of the Catholic faith (which it never was before).

4. The Symbols of the Evangelical Protestant Churches. Most of them date from the period of the Reformation (some from the seventeenth century), and thus precede, in part, the specifically Greek and Latin confessions. They agree with the primitive Catholic Symbols, but they ingraft upon them the Augustinian theory of sin and grace, and several doctrines in anthropology and soteriology (e.g., the doctrine of atonement and justification), which had not been previously settled by the Church in a conclusive way. They represent the progress in the development of Christian theology among the Teutonic nations, a profounder understanding of the Holy Scriptures (especially the Pauline Epistles), and of the personal application of Christ's mediatorial work.

The Protestant Symbols, again, are either Lutheran or Reformed. 11The former were all made in Germany from A.D. 1530 to 1577; the latter arose in different countries—Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland, Hungary, Poland, England, Scotland, wherever the influence of Zwingli and Calvin extended. The Lutheran and Reformed confessions agree almost entirely in their theology, christology, anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology, but they differ in the doctrines of divine decrees and of the nature and efficacy of the sacraments, especially the mode of Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper.

The later evangelical denominations, as the Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers, Arminians, Methodists, Moravians, acknowledge the leading doctrines of the Reformation, but differ from Lutheranism and Calvinism in a number of articles touching anthropology, the Church, and the sacraments, and especially on Church polity and discipline. Their creeds are modifications and abridgments rather than enlargements of the old Protestant symbols.

The heretical sects connected with Protestantism mostly reject symbolical books altogether, as a yoke of human authority and a new kind of popery. Some of them set aside even the Scriptures, and make their own reason or the spirit of the age the supreme judge and guide in matters of faith; but such loose undenominational denominations have generally no cohesive power, and seldom outlast their founders.

The denominational creed-making period closed with the middle of the seventeenth century, except in the Roman Church, which has quite recently added two dogmas to her creed, viz., the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (1854), and the Infallibility of the Bishop of Rome (1870).

If we are to look for any new creed, it will be, we trust, a creed, not of disunion and discord, but of union and concord among the different branches of Christ's kingdom.

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SECOND CHAPTER.

THE ŒCUMENICAL CREEDS.

§ 6. General Character of the Œcumenical Creeds.

By œcumenical or general symbols (symbola œcumenica, s. catholica)¹³¹³   The term οἰκουμενικός (from οἰκουμένη, sc. γῆ, orbis terrarum, the inhabited earth; in a restricted sense, the old Roman Empire, as embracing the civilized world) was first used in its ecclesiastical application of the general synods of Nicæa (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451), also of patriarchs, bishops, and emperors, and, at a later period, of the ancient general symbols, to distinguish them from the confessions of particular churches. In the Protestant Church the term so used occurs first in the Lutheran Book of Concord (œcumenica seu catholica). we understand the doctrinal confessions of ancient Christianity, which are to this day either formally or tacitly acknowledged in the Greek, the Latin, and the Evangelical Protestant Churches, and form a bond of union between them.

They are three in number: the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creed. The first is the simplest; the other two are fuller developments and interpretations of the same. The Apostles' Creed is the most popular in the Western, the Nicene in the Eastern Churches.

To them may be added the christological statement of the œcumenical Council of Chalcedon (451). It has a more undisputed authority than 13the Athanasian Creed (to which the term œcumenical applies only in a qualified sense), but, as it is seldom used, it is generally omitted from the collections.

These three or four creeds contain, in brief popular outline, the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, as necessary and sufficient for salvation. They embody the results of the great doctrinal controversies of the Nicene and post-Nicene ages. They are a profession of faith in the only true and living God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, who made us, redeemed us, and sanctifies us. They follow the order of God's own revelation, beginning with God and the creation, and ending with the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. They set forth the articles of faith in the form of facts rather than dogmas, and are well suited, especially the Apostles' Creed, for catechetical and liturgical use.

The Lutheran and Anglican Churches have formally recognized and embodied the three œcumenical symbols in their doctrinal and liturgical standards.¹⁴¹⁴   The Lutheran Form of Concord (p. 569) calls them 'catholica et generalia summæ auctoritatis symbola.' The various editions of the Book of Concord give them the first place among the Lutheran symbols. Luther himself emphasized his agreement with them. The Church of England, in the 8th of her 39 Articles, declares, 'The three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasius's Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed, for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.' The American editions of the Articles and of the Book of Common Prayer omit the Athanasian Creed, and the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States excludes it from her service. The omission by the Convention of 1789 arose chiefly from opposition to the damnatory clauses, which even Dr. Waterland thought might be left out. But the doctrine of the Athanasian Creed is clearly taught in the first five Articles. The other Reformed Churches have, in their confessions, adopted the trinitarian and christological doctrines of these creeds, but in practice they confine themselves mostly to the use of the Apostles' Creed.¹⁵¹⁵   The Second Helvetic Confession, art. 11, the Gallican Confession, art. 5, and the Belgic Confession, art. 9, expressly approve the three Creeds, 'as agreeing with the written Word of God.' In 'The Constitution and Liturgy' of the (Dutch) Reformed Church in the United States the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed are printed at the end. The Apostles' Creed is embodied in the Heidelberg Catechism, as containing 'the articles of our catholic undoubted Christian faith.' The Shorter Westminster Catechism gives it merely in an Appendix, as 'a brief sum of the Christian faith, agreeable to the Word of God, and anciently received in the churches of Christ.' This, together with the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, was incorporated in the Lutheran, the Genevan, the Heidelberg, and other standard Catechisms.

 

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§ 7. The Apostles' Creed.

The Apostles' Creed, or Symbolum Apostolicum, is, as to its form, not the production of the apostles, as was formerly believed, but an admirable popular summary of the apostolic teaching, and in full harmony with the spirit and even the letter of the New Testament.

I. Character and Value.—As the Lord's Prayer is the Prayer of prayers, the Decalogue the Law of laws, so the Apostles' Creed is the Creed of creeds. It contains all the fundamental articles of the Christian faith necessary to salvation, in the form of facts, in simple Scripture 15language, and in the most natural order—the order of revelation— from God and the creation down to the resurrection and life everlasting. It is Trinitarian, and divided into three chief articles, expressing faith—in God the Father, the Maker of heaven and earth, in his only Son, our Lord and Saviour, and in the Holy Spirit (in Deum Patrem, in Jesum Christum, in Spiritum Sanctum); the chief stress being laid on the second article, the supernatural birth, death, and resurrection of Christ. Then, changing the language (credo in for credo with the simple accusative), the Creed professes to believe 'the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.'¹⁶¹⁶   This change was observed already by Rufinus (l.c. § 36), who says: 'Non dicit "In Sanctam Ecclesiam," nec "In remissionem peccatorum," nec "In carnis resurrectionem." Si enim addidisset "in" præpositionem, una eademque vis fuisset cum superioribus. . . . Hac præpositionis syllaba Creator a creaturis secernitur, et divina separantur ab humanis.' The Roman Catechism (P. I. c. 10, qu. 19) also marks this distinction, 'Nunc autem, mutata dicendi forma, "sanctam," et non "in sanctam" ecclesiam credere profitemur.' It is by far the best popular summary of the Christian faith ever made within so brief a space. It still surpasses all later symbols for catechetical and liturgical purposes, especially as a profession of candidates for baptism and church membership. It is not a logical statement of abstract doctrines, but a profession of living facts and saving truths. It is a liturgical poem and an act of worship. Like the Lord's Prayer, it loses none of its charm and effect by frequent use, although, by vain and thoughtless repetition, it may be made a martyr and an empty form of words. It is intelligible and edifying to a child, and fresh and rich to the profoundest Christian scholar, who, as he advances in age, delights to go back to primitive foundations and first principles. It has the fragrance of antiquity and the inestimable weight of universal consent. It is a bond of union between all ages and sections of Christendom. It can never be superseded for popular use in church and school.¹⁷¹⁷   Augustine calls the Apostolic Symbol 'regula fidei brevis et grandis; brevis numero verborum, grandis pondere sententiarum.' Luther says: 'Christian truth could not possibly be put into a shorter and clearer statement.' Calvin (Inst., Lib. II. c. 16, § 18), while doubting its strictly apostolic composition, yet regards it as an admirable and truly scriptural summary of the Christian faith, and follows its order in his Institutes, saying: 'Id extra controversiam positum habemus, totam in eo [Symbolo Ap.] fidei nostræ historiam succincte distinctoque ordine recenseri, nihil autem contineri, quod solidis Scripturæ testimoniis non sit consignatum.' J. T. Müller (Lutheran, Die Symb. Bücher der Evang. Luth. K., p. xvi.): 'It retains the double significance of being the bond of union of the universal Christian Church, and the seed from which all other creeds have grown.' Dr. Semisch (Evang. United, successor of Dr. Neander in Berlin) concludes his recent essay on the Creed (p. 28) with the words: 'It is in its primitive form the most genuine Christianity from the mouth of Christ himself (das ächteste Christenthum aus dem Munde Christi selbst).' Dr. Nevin (Germ. Reformed, Mercersb. Rev. 1849, p. 204): 'The Creed is the substance of Christianity in the form of faith . . . the direct immediate utterance of the faith itself.' Dr. Shedd (Presbyterian, Hist. Christ. Doctr., II. 433): 'The Apostles' Creed is the earliest attempt of the Christian mind to systematize the teachings of the Scripture, and is, consequently, the uninspired foundation upon which the whole after-structure of symbolic literature rests. All creed development proceeds from this germ.' Bishop Browne (Episcopalian, Exp. 39 Art., p. 222): 'Though this Creed was not drawn up by the apostles themselves, it may well be called Apostolic, both as containing the doctrines taught by the apostles, and as being in substance the same as was used in the Church from the times of the apostles themselves.' It is the only Creed used in the baptismal service of the Latin, Anglican, Lutheran, and the Continental Reformed Churches. In the Protestant Episcopal and Lutheran Churches the Apostles' Creed is a part of the regular Sunday service, and is generally recited between the Scripture lessons and the prayers, expressing assent to the former, and preparing the mind for the latter.

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At the same time, it must be admitted that the very simplicity and brevity of this Creed, which so admirably adapt it for all classes of Christians and for public worship, make it insufficient as a regulator of public doctrine for a more advanced stage of theological knowledge. As it is confined to the fundamental articles, and expresses them in plain Scripture terms, it admits of an indefinite expansion by the scientific mind of the Church. Thus the Nicene Creed gives clearer and stronger expression to the doctrine of Christ's divinity against the Arians, the Athanasian Creed to the whole doctrine of the Trinity and of Christ's person against the various heresies of the post-Nicene age. The Reformation Creeds are more explicit on the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures and the doctrines of sin and grace, which are either passed by or merely implied in the Apostles' Creed.

II. As to the origin of the Apostles' Creed, it no doubt gradually grew out of the confession of Peter, Matt. xvi. 16, which furnished its nucleus (the article on Jesus Christ), and out of the baptismal formula, which determined the trinitarian order and arrangement. It can not be traced to an individual author. It is the product of the Western Catholic Church (as the Nicene Creed is that of the Eastern Church) within the first four centuries. It is not of primary, apostolic, but of secondary, ecclesiastical inspiration. It is not a word of God to men, but a word of men to God, in response to his revelation. It was originally and essentially a baptismal confession, growing out of the inner life and practical needs of early Christianity.¹⁸¹⁸   Tertullian, De corona militum. c. 3: 'Dehinc ter mergitamur, amplius aliquid respondentes, quam Dominus in Evangelio determinavit.' The amplius respondentes refers to the Creed, not as something different from the Gospel, but as a summary of the Gospel. Comp. De bapt., c. 6, where Tertullian says that in the baptismal Creed the Church was mentioned after confessing the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. It was explained to the 17catechumens at the last stage of their preparation, professed by them at baptism, often repeated, with the Lord's Prayer, for private devotion, and afterwards introduced into public service.¹⁹¹⁹   Augustine (Op., ed. Bened., VI. Serm., 58): 'Quando surgitis, quando vos ad somnum collocatis, reddite Symbolum vestrum; reddite Domino. . . . Ne dicatis, Dixi heri, dixi hodie, quotidie dico, teneo illud bene. Commemora fidem tuam: inspice te. Sit tanquam speculum tibi Symbolum tuum. Ibi te vide si credis omnia quæ te credere confiteris, et gaude quotidie in fide tua.' It was called by the ante-Nicene fathers 'the rule of faith,' 'the rule of truth,' 'the apostolic tradition,' 'the apostolic preaching,' afterwards 'the symbol of faith.'²⁰²⁰    Κανὼν τῆς πίστεως, κ. τῆς ἀληθείας, παράδοσις ἀποστολική, τό ἀρχαῖον τῆς ἐκκλησίας, σύστημα, regula fidei, reg. veritatis, traditio apostolica, prædicatio ap., fides catholica, etc. Sometimes these terms are used in a wider sense, and embrace the whole course of catechetical instruction. But this baptismal Creed was at first not precisely the same. It assumed different shapes and forms in different congregations.²¹²¹   See the older regulæ fidei mentioned by Irenæus: Contra hær., lib. I. c. 10, § 1; III. c. 4, § 1, 2; IV. c. 33, § 7; Tertullian: De velandis virginibus, c. 1; Adv. Praxeam, c. 2; De præscript. hæret., c. 13; Novatianus: De trinitate s. de regula fidei (Bibl. P. P., ed. Galland. III. 287); Cyprian: Ep. ad Magnum, and Ep. ad Januarium, etc.; Origen: De principiis, I. præf. § 4–10; Const. Apost. VI. 11 and 14. They are given in Vol. II. pp. 11–40; also by Bingham, Walch, Hahn, and Heurtley. I select, as a specimen, the descriptive account of Tertullian, who maintained against the heretics very strongly the unity of the traditional faith, but, on the other hand, also against the Roman Church (as a Montanist), the liberty of discipline and progress in Christian life. De velandis virginibus, c. 1: 'Regula quidem fidei una omnino est, sola immobolis et irreformabilis, credendi scilicet in unicum Deum omnipotentem, mundi conditorem, et Filium ejus Jesum Christum, natum ex virgine Maria, crucifixum sub Pontio Pilato, tertia die resuscitatum a mortuis, receptum in cælis, sedentem nunc ad dexteram Patris, venturum judicare vivos et mortuos, per carnis etiamresurrectionem. Hac lege fidei manente cætera jam disciplinæ et conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis, operante scilicet et proficiente usque in finem gratia Dei.' In his tract against Praxeas (cap. 2) he mentions also, as an object of the rule of faith, 'Spiritum Sanctum, paracletum, sanctificatorem fidei eorum qui credunt in Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum.' We may even go further back to the middle and the beginning of the second century. The earliest trace of some of the leading articles of the Creed may be found in Ignatius, Epistola ad Trallianos, c. 9 (ed. Hefele, p. 192), where he says of Christ that he was truly born 'of the Virgin Mary' (τοῦ ἐκ Μαρίας, ὃς ἀληθῶς ἐγεννήθη), 'suffered under Pontius Pilate' (ἀληθῶς ἐδιώχθη ἐπί Ποντίου Πιλάτου), 'was crucified and died' (ἀληθῶς ἐσταυρώθη καὶ ἀπέθανεν,) and 'was raised from the dead' (ὃς καὶ ἀληθῶς ἠγέρθη ἀπὸ νεκρῶν, ἐγείραντος αὐτὸν τοῦ πατρὸς, αὐτοῦ.) The same articles, with a few others, can be traced in Justin Martyr's Apol. I. c. 10, 13, 21, 42, 46, 50. Some were longer, some shorter; some declarative, some interrogative in the form of questions and answers.²²²²   Generally distributed under three heads: 1. Credis in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, etc.? Resp. Credo. 2. Credis et in Jesum Christum, etc.? Resp. Credo. 3. Credis et in Spiritum Sanctum, etc.? Resp. Credo. See the interrogative Creeds in Martene, De antiquis ecclesiæ ritibus, 1. I. c. 1, and in Heurtley, l.c. pp. 103–116. Each of the larger churches adapted 18the nucleus of the apostolic faith to its peculiar circumstances and wants; but they all agreed in the essential articles of faith, in the general order of arrangement on the basis of the baptismal formula, and in the prominence given to Christ's death and resurrection. We have an illustration in the modern practice of Independent or Congregational and Baptist churches in America, where the same liberty of framing particular congregational creeds ('covenants,' as they are called, or forms of profession and engagement, when members are received into full communion) is exercised to a much larger extent than it was in the primitive ages.

The first accounts we have of these primitive creeds are merely fragmentary. The ante-Nicene fathers give us not the exact and full formula, but only some articles with descriptions, defenses, explications, and applications. The creeds were committed to memory, but not to writing.²³²³   Hieronymus, Ep. 61, ad Pammach.: 'Symbolum fidei et spei nostræ, quod ab apostolis traditum, non scribitur in charta et atramento, sed in tabulis cordis carnalibus.' Augustine, Serm. ccxii, 2: 'Audiendo symbolum discitur, nec in tabulis vel in aliqua materia, sed in corde scribitur.' This fact is to be explained from the 'Secret Discipline' of the ante-Nicene Church. From fear of profanation and misconstruction by unbelievers (not, as some suppose, in imitation of the ancient heathen Mysteries), the celebration of the sacraments and the baptismal creed, as a part of the baptismal act, were kept secret among the communicant members until the Church triumphed in the Roman Empire.²⁴²⁴   On the Disciplina arcani comp. my Church History, I. 384 sq., and Semisch, On the Ap. Creed, p. 17, who maintains, with others, that the Apostles' Creed existed in full as a part of the Secret Discipline long before it was committed to writing.

The first writer in the West who gives us the text of the Latin creed, with a commentary, is Rufinus, towards the close of the fourth century.

The most complete or most popular forms of the baptismal creed in use from that time in the West were those of the churches of Rome, Aquileja, Milan, Ravenna, Carthage, and Hippo. They differ but little.²⁵²⁵   See these Nicene and post-Nicene Creeds in Hahn, l.c. pp. 3 sqq., and in Heurtley, l.c. 43 sqq. Augustine (and pseudo-Augustine) gives eight expositions of the Symbol, and mentions, besides, single articles in eighteen passages of his works. See Caspari, l.c. II. 264 sq. He follows in the main the (Ambrosian) form of the Church of Milan, which agrees substantially with the Roman. Twice he takes the North African Symbol of Carthage for a basis, which has additions in the first article, and puts the article on the Church to the close (vitam æternam per sanctam ecclesiam). We have also, from the Nicene and post-Nicene age, several commentaries on the Creed by Cyril of Jerusalem, Rufinus, Ambrose, and Augustine. They do not give the several articles continuously, but it is easy to collect and to reconstruct them from the comments in which they are expounded. Cyril expounds the Eastern Creed, the others the Western. Rufinus takes that of the Church of Aquileja, of which he was presbyter, as the basis, but notes incidentally the discrepancy between this Creed and that of the Church of Rome, so that we obtain from him the text of the Roman Creed as well. He mentions earlier expositions of the Creed, which were lost (In Symb. § 1). 19Among these, again, the Roman formula gradually gained general acceptance in the West for its intrinsic excellence, and on account of the commanding position of the Church of Rome. We know the Latin text from Rufinus (390), and the Greek from Marcellus of Ancyra (336–341). The Greek text is usually regarded as a translation, but is probably older than the Latin, and may date from the second century, when the Greek language prevailed in the Roman congregation.²⁶²⁶   See Caspari, Vol. III. pp. 28–161.

This Roman creed was gradually enlarged by several clauses from older or contemporaneous forms, viz., the article 'descended into Hades' (taken from the Creed of Aquileja), the predicate 'catholic' or 'general,' in the article on the Church (borrowed from Oriental creeds), 'the communion of saints' (from Gallican sources), and the concluding 'life everlasting' (probably from the symbols of the churches of Ravenna and Antioch).²⁷²⁷   The last clause occurs in the Greek text of Marcellus and in the baptismal creed of Antioch (καὶ εἰς ἁμαρτιῶν ἄφειν καὶ εἰς νεκρῶν ἀνάστασιν καὶ εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον). See Caspari, Vol. I. pp. 83 sqq. These additional clauses were no doubt part of the general faith, since they are taught in the Scriptures, but they were first expressed in local creeds, and it was some time before they found a place in the authorized formula.

If we regard, then, the present text of the Apostles' Creed as a complete whole, we can hardly trace it beyond the sixth, certainly not beyond the close of the fifth century, and its triumph over all the other forms in the Latin Church was not completed till the eighth century, or about the time when the bishops of Rome strenuously endeavored to conform the liturgies of the Western churches to the Roman order.²⁸²⁸   Heurtley says (l.c. p. 126): 'In the course of the seventh century the Creed seems to have been approaching more and more nearly, and more and more generally, to conformity with the formula now in use; and before its close, instances occur of creeds virtually identical with that formula. The earliest creed, however, which I have met with actually and in all respects identical with it, that of Pirminius, does not occur till the eighth century; and even towards the close of the eighth, A.D. 785, there is one remarkable example of a creed, then in use, which retains much of the incompleteness of the formula of earlier times, the Creed of Etherius Uxamensis.' The oldest known copies of our present textus receptus are found in manuscripts of works which can not be traced beyond the eighth or ninth century, viz., in a 'Psalterium Græcum Gregorii Magni,' preserved in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and first published by Abp. Usher, 1647 (also by Heurtley, l.c. p. 82), and another in the 'Libellus Pirminii [who died 758] de singulis libris canonicis scarapsus' (=collectus), published by Mabillon (Analecta, Tom. IV. p. 575). The first contains the Creed in Latin and Greek (both, however, in Roman letters), arranged in two parallel columns; the second gives first the legend of the Creed with the twelve articles assigned to the twelve apostles, and then the Latin Creed as used in the baptismal service. See Heurtley, p. 71. 20 But if we look at the several articles of the Creed separately, they are all of Nicene or ante-Nicene origin, while its kernel goes back to the apostolic age. All the facts and doctrines which it contains, are in entire agreement with the New Testament. And this is true even of those articles which have been most assailed in recent times, as the supernatural conception of our Lord (comp. Matt. i. 18; Luke i. 35), the descent into Hades (comp. Luke xxiii. 43; Acts ii. 31; 1 Pet. iii. 19; iv. 6), and the resurrection of the body (1 Cor. xv. 20 sqq., and other places).²⁹²⁹   The same view of the origin of the Apostles' Creed is held by the latest writers on the subject, as Hahn, Heurtley, Caspari, Zöckler, Semisch. Zöckler says (l.c. p. 18): 'Das Apostolicum ist hinsichtlich seiner jetzigen Form sowohl nachapostolisch, als selbst nachaugustinisch, aber hinsichtlich seines Inhalts ist es nicht nur voraugustinisch, sondern ganz und gar apostolisch—in diesen einfachen Satz lässt die Summe der einschlägigen kritisch patristischen Forschungsergebnisse sich kurzerhand zusammendrängen. Und die Wahrheit dieses Satzes, soweit er die Apostolicität des Inhalts behauptet, lässt sich bezüglich jedes einzelnen Gliedes oder Sätzchens, die am spätesten hinzugekommenen nicht ausgenommen, mit gleicher Sicherheit erhärten.' Semisch traces the several articles, separately considered, up to the third and second centuries, and the substance to the first. Fr. Spanheim and Calvin did the same. Calvin says: 'Neque mihi dubium est, quin a prima statim ecclesiæ origine, adeoque ab ipso Apostolorum seculo instar publicæ et omnium calculis receptæ confessionis obtinuerit' (Inst. lib. II. c. 16, § 18). The most elaborate argument for the early origin is given by Caspari, who derives the Creed from Asia Minor in the beginning of the second century (Vol. III. pp. 1–161).

The rationalistic opposition to the Apostles' Creed and its use in the churches is therefore an indirect attack upon the New Testament itself. But it will no doubt outlive these assaults, and share in the victory of the Bible over all forms of unbelief.³⁰³⁰   The discussion of the Apostles' Creed entered a stage of great warmth after Dr. Schaff's death, 1893. The work by Kattenbusch, the most extensive and exhaustive on the subject, was followed by treatments from the pens of Harnack, Cremer, Zahn, Loofs, Kunze, and others in Germany, Burn, and Badcock, 1930, in England and McGiffert in the United States. The early Roman baptismal formula is carried by Harnack and Mirbt to 150 or earlier, and by Kattenbusch and Zahn to 120 or earlier. A. Seeberg found the clauses in the New Testament writings and held that a creedal formula was in use in Apostolic times. McGiffert, who was followed by Krüger, proposed the theory that the formula was a reply to the heresies of Marcion about 160. Badcock opposes the view of Kattenbusch, Harnack, and Burn on the origin of the Apostles' Creed, relying in part upon Irenaeus's recently found treatise, "The teaching of the Apostles." The renewed study of the Apostles' Creed was followed by a new study of the doctrine of the Virgin birth of Christ in view of the omission of the clause "conceived by the Holy Ghost" in the forms of the Rule of Faith known to us and the statement of the early Roman baptismal formula, "born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary." The most recent treatise on the Virgin birth is by Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ, N. Y., 1930.—Ed.

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III. I add a table, with critical notes, to show the difference between the original Roman creed, as given by Rufinus in Latin (about A.D. 390), and by Marcellus in Greek (A.D. 336–341), and the received form of the Apostles' Creed, which came into general use in the seventh or eighth century. The additions are inclosed in brackets.

The old Roman Form.	The Received Form.
1. I believe in God the Father Almighty3131   The Creed of Aquileja has, after Patrem omnipotentem, the addition: 'invisibilem et impassibilem,' in opposition to Sabellianism and Patripassianism. The Oriental creeds insert one before God. Marcellus omits Father, and reads εἰς θεὸν παντοκράτορα.	1. I believe in God the Father Almighty [Maker of heaven and earth].3232   'Creatorem cœli et terræ' appears in the Apostles' Creed from the close of the seventh century, but was extant long before in ante-Nicene rules of faith (Irenæus, Adv. hœr. I. c. 10, 1; Tertullian, De vel. virg. c. l, 'mundi conditorem;' De prœscr. hæret. c. 13), in the Nicene Creed (ποιητὴν οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς, κ.τ.λ.), and all other Eastern creeds, in opposition to the Gnostic schools, which made a distinction between the true God and the Maker of the world (the Demiurge).
2. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;	2. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;
3. Who was born by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary;3333   'Qui natus est de Spiritu Sancto ex (or et) Maria virgine.'	3. Who was [conceived] by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary;3434   'Qui CONCEPTUS est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria virgine.' The distinction between conception and birth first appears in the Sermones de Tempore, falsely attributed to Augustine.
4. Was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was buried;	4. [Suffered]3535   'Passus,' perhaps from the Nicene Creed (παθόντα, which there implies the crucifixion). In some forms 'crucifixus,' in others 'mortuus' is omitted. under Pontius Pilate, was crucified [dead], and buried
	[He descended into Hell (Hades)];3636   From the Aquilejan Creed: 'Descendit ad inferna,' or, as the Athanasian Creed has it, 'ad inferos,' to the inhabitants of the spirit-world. Some Eastern (Arian) creeds: κατέβη εἰς τὸν ᾅδην (also εἰς τὰ καταχθόνια, or εἰς τὰ κατώτατα). Augustine says (Ep. 99, al. 164, § 3) that unbelievers only deny 'fuisse apud inferos Christum.' Venantius Fortunatus, A.D. 570, who had Rufinus before him, inserted the clause in his creed. Rufinus himself, however, misunderstood it by making it to mean the same as buried (§ 18: 'vis verbi eadem videtur esse in eo quod sepultus dicitur').
5. The third day he rose from the dead;	5. The third day he rose from the dead;
6. He ascended into heaven; and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;	6. He ascended into heaven; and sitteth on the right hand of [God] the Father [Almighty];3737   The additions 'Dei' and 'omnipotentis,' made to conform to article first, are traced to the Spanish version of the Creed as given by Etherius Uxamensis (bishop of Osma), A.D. 785, but occur already in earlier Gallican creeds. See Heurtley, pp. 60, 67.
7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.	7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
8. And in the HOLY GHOST;	8. [I believe]3838   'Credo,' in common use from the time of Petrus Chrysologus, d. 450. But And, without the repetition of the verb, is no doubt the primitive form, as it grew immediately out of the baptismal formula, and gives clearer and closer expression to the doctrine of the Trinity. in the Holy Ghost;

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9. The Holy Church;	9. The Holy [Catholic]3939   'Catholicam' (universal), in accordance with the Nicene Creed, and older Oriental forms, was received into the Latin Creed before the close of the fourth century (comp. Augustine: De Fide et Symbolo, c. 10). The term catholic, as applied to the Church, occurs first in the Epistles of Ignatius (Ad Smyrnæos, cap. 8: ὥσπερ ὅπου ἂν ᾖ Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς, ἐκεῖ ἡ καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία and in the Martyrium Polycarpi (inscription, and cap. 8: ἁπάσης τῆς κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην καθολικῆς ἐκκλησίας, comp. c. 19, where Christ is called ποιμὴν τῆς κατὰ οἰκουμένην καθολικῆς ἐκκλησίας. Church
	[The communion of saints];4040   The article 'Commumionem sanctorum,' unknown to Augustine (Enchir. c. 64, and Serm. 213), appears first in the 115th and 118th Sermons De Tempore, falsely attributed to him. It is not found in any of the Greek or earlier Latin creeds. See the note of Pearson On the Creed, Art. IX. sub 'The Communion of Saints' (p. 525, ed. Dobson). Heurtley, p. 146, brings it down to the close of the eighth century, since it is wanting in the Creed of Etherius, 785. The oldest commentators understood it of the communion with the saints in heaven, but afterwards it assumed a wider meaning: the fellowship of all true believers, living and departed.
10. The forgiveness of sins;	10. The forgiveness of sins;
11. The resurrection of the body (flesh).4141   The Latin reads carnis, the Greek σαρκός, flesh; the Aquilejan form hujus carnis, of this flesh (which is still more realistic, and almost materialistic), 'ut possit caro vel pudica coronari, vel impudica puniri' (Rufinus, § 43). It should be stated, however, that there are two other forms of the Aquilejan Creed given by Walch (xxxiv. and xxxv.) and by Heurtley (pp. 30–32), which differ from the one of Rufinus, and are nearer the Roman form.	11. The resurrection of the body (flesh);
	12. [And the life everlasting].4242   Some North African forms (of Carthage and Hippo Regius) put the article of the Church at the close, in this way: 'vitam eternam per sanctam ecclesiam.' Others: carnis resurrectionem in vitam æternam. The Greek Creed of Marcellus, which otherwise agrees with the old Roman form, ends with ζωὴν αἰώνιον.

 

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§ 8. The Nicene Creed.

The Nicene Creed, or Symbolum Nicæno-Constantinopolitanum, is the Eastern form of the primitive Creed, but with the distinct impress of the Nicene age, and more definite and explicit than the Apostles' Creed in the statement of the divinity of Christ and the Holy Ghost. The terms 'coessential' or 'coequal' (ὁμοούσιος τῷ πατρί), 'begotten before all worlds' (πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων), 'very God of very God' (θεὸς ἀληθινὸς ἐκ θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ), 'begotten, not made' (γεννηθείς, οὐ ποιηθείς), are so many trophies of orthodoxy in its mighty struggle with the Arian heresy, which agitated the Church for more than half a century. The Nicene Creed is the first which obtained universal authority. It rests on older forms used in different churches of the East, and has undergone again some changes.⁴⁷⁴⁷   Compare the symbols of the church of Jerusalem, the church of Alexandria, and the creed of Cæsarea, which Eusebius read at the Council of Nicæa, in Usher, l.c. pp. 7, 8; more fully in Vol. II. pp. 11 sqq., and in Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, pp. 40 sqq., 91 sqq.

The Eastern creeds arose likewise out of the baptismal formula, and were intended for the baptismal service as a confession of the faith of the catechumen in the Triune God.⁴⁸⁴⁸   Eusebius, in his Epistle to the people of Cæsarea, says of the creed which he had proposed to the Council of Nicæa for adoption, that he had learned it as a catechumen, professed it at his baptism, taught it in turn as presbyter and bishop, and that it was derived from our Lord's baptismal formula. It resembles the old Nicene Creed very closely; see Vol. II. p. 29. The shorter creed of Jerusalem used at baptism, as given by Cyril, Catech. xix. 9, is simply the baptismal formula put interrogatively; see Hahn, pp. 51 sqq.

We must distinguish two independent or parallel creed formations, 25an Eastern and a Western; the one resulted in the Nicene Creed as completed by the Synod of Constantinople, the other in the Apostles' Creed in its Roman form. The Eastern creeds were more metaphysical, polemical, flexible, and adapting themselves to the exigencies of the Church in the maintenance of her faith and conflict with heretics; the Western were more simple, practical, and stationary. The former were controlled by synods, and received their final shape and sanction from two œcumenical Councils; the latter were left to the custody of the several churches, each feeling at liberty to make additions or alterations within certain limits, until the Roman form superseded all others, and was quietly, and without formal synodical action, adopted by Western Christendom.

In the Nicene Creed we must distinguish three forms—the original Nicene, the enlarged Constantinopolitan, and the still later Latin.

1. The original Nicene Creed dates from the first œcumenical Council, which was held at Nicæa, A.D. 325, for the settlement of the Arian controversy, and consisted of 318 bishops, all of them from the East (except Hosius of Spain). This Creed abruptly closes with the words 'and in the Holy Ghost,' but adds an anathema against the Arians. This was the authorized form down to the Council of Chalcedon.

2. The Nicæno-Constantinopolitan Creed, besides some minor changes in the first two articles,⁴⁹⁴⁹   The most remarkable change in the first article is the omission of the words πουτέστιν ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρός, θεὸν ἐκ θεοῦ on which great stress was laid by the Athanasian party against the Arians, who maintained that the Son was not of the essence, but of the will of the Father. adds all the clauses after 'Holy Ghost,' but omits the anathema. It gives the text as now received in the Eastern Church. It is usually traced to the second œcumenical Council, which was convened by Theodosius in Constantinople, A.D. 381, against the Macedonians or Pneumatomachians (so called for denying the deity of the Holy Spirit), and consisted of 150 bishops, all from the East. There is no authentic evidence of an œcumenical recognition of this enlarged Creed till the Council at Chalcedon, 451, where it was read by Aëtius (a deacon of Constantinople) as the 'Creed of the 150 fathers,' and accepted as orthodox, together with the old Nicene Creed, or the 'Creed of the 318 fathers.' But the additional clauses existed in 374, seven years before the Constantinopolitan Council, in the two creeds of Epiphanius, a native of Palestine, 26and most of them as early as 350, in the creed of Cyril of Jerusalem.⁵⁰⁵⁰   See Vol. II. pp. 31–38, and the Comparative Table, p. 40; Lumby, p. 68; and Hort, pp. 72–150. Dr. Hort tries to prove that the 'Constantinopolitan' or Epiphanian Creed is not a revision of the Nicene Creed at all, but of the Creed of Jerusalem, and that it dates probably from Cyril, about 362–364, when he adopted the Nicene homoousia, and may have been read by him at the Council of Constantinople in vindication of his orthodoxy. Ffoulkes (in Smith's Dict. of Christ. Antiq. Vol. I. p. 438) conjectures that it was framed at Antioch about 372, and adopted at the supplemental Council of Constantinople, 382.

The Nicene Creed comes nearest to that of Eusebius of Cæsarea, which likewise abruptly closes with πνεῦμα ἅγιον; the Constantinopolitan Creed resembles the creeds of Cyril and Epiphanius, which close with 'the resurrection' and 'life everlasting.' We may therefore trace both forms to Palestine, except the Nicene homoousion.

3. The Latin or Western form differs from the Greek by the little word Filioque, which, next to the authority of the Pope, is the chief source of the greatest schism in Christendom. The Greek Church, adhering to the original text, and emphasizing the monarchia of the Father as the only root and cause of the Deity, teaches the single procession (ἐκπόρευσις) of the Spirit from the Father alone, which is supposed to be an eternal inner-trinitarian process (like the eternal generation of the Son), and not to be confounded with the temporal mission (πέμψις) of the Holy Spirit by the Father and the Son. The Latin Church, in the interest of the co-equality of the Son with the Father, and taking the procession (processio) in a wider sense, taught since Augustine the double procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son, and, without consulting the East, put it into the Creed.

The first clear trace of the Filioque in the Nicene Creed we find at the third Council of Toledo in Spain, A.D. 589, to seal the triumph of orthodoxy over Arianism. During the eighth century it obtained currency in England and in France, but not without opposition. Pope Leo III., when asked by messengers of a council held during the reign of Charlemagne at Aix la Chapelle, A.D. 809, to sanction the Filioque, decided in favor of the double procession, but against any change in the Creed. Nevertheless, the clause gained also in Italy from the time of Pope Nicholas I. (858), and was gradually adopted in the entire Latin Church. From this it passed into the Protestant Churches.⁵¹⁵¹   Comp. Vol. II., at the close.

Another addition in the Latin form, 'Deus de Deo,' in article II., created 27no difficulty, as it was in the original Nicene Creed, but it is useless on account of the following 'Deus verus de Deo vero,' and hence was omitted in the Constantinopolitan edition.

The Nicene Creed (without these Western additions) is more highly honored in the Greek Church than in any other, and occupies the same position there as the Apostles' Creed in the Latin and Protestant Churches. It is incorporated and expounded in all the orthodox Greek and Russian Catechisms. It is also (with the Filioque) in liturgical use in the Roman (since about the sixth century), and in the Anglican and Lutheran Churches.⁵²⁵²   In the Reformed Churches, except the Episcopal, the Nicene Creed is little used. Calvin, who had a very high opinion of the Apostles' Creed, depreciates the Nicene Creed, as a 'carmen cantillando magis aptum, quam confessionis formula' (De Reform. Eccles.). It was adopted by the Council of Trent as the fundamental Symbol, and embodied in the Profession of the Tridentine Faith by Pius IV. It is therefore more strictly an œcumenical Creed than the Apostles' and the Athanasian, which have never been fully naturalized in the Oriental Churches.

The relation of the Nicene Creed to the Apostles' Creed may be seen from the following table:

 

The Apostles' Creed; Received Text.	The Nicene Creed, as Enlarged A.D. 381.
(The clauses in brackets are the later additions.)	(The words in brackets are Western changes.)
1. I believe in God the Father Almighty,	1. We [I] believe5454   The Greek reads the plural (πιστεύομεν), but the Latin and English versions have substituted for it the singular (credo, I believe), in accordance with the Apostles' Creed and the more subjective character of the Western churches. in one God the Father Almighty,
[Maker of heaven and earth].	Maker of heaven and earth,
	And of all things visible and invisible.
2. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;	2. And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
	the only-begotten Son of God,
	Begotten of the Father before all worlds;
	[God of God],
	Light of Light.
	Very God of very God,

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	Begotten, not made,
	Being of one substance with the Father;
	By whom all things were made;
3. Who was [conceived] by the Holy Ghost,	3. Who, for us men, and for our salvation,
Born of the Virgin Mary;	came down from heaven,
	And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of
	the Virgin Mary,
	And was made man
4. [Suffered] under Pontius Pilate, was crucified [dead], and buried;	4. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate;
	And suffered and was buried;
[He descended into Hades];	*             *            *            *           *
5. The third day he rose again from the dead;	5. And the third day he rose again,
	According to the Scriptures;
6. He ascended into heaven,	6. And ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of [God] the Father [Almighty];	And sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.	7. And he shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead;
	Whose kingdom shall have no end.
8. And [I believe] in the Holy Ghost;	8. And [I believe] in the Holy Ghost,
	The Lord, and Giver of life;
	Who proceedeth from the Father [and the Son];
	Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified;
	Who spake by the Prophets.
9. The holy [catholic] Church;	9. And [I believe] in5555   The Greek reads εἰς μίαν . . . ἐκκλησίαν, but the Latin and English versions, in conformity with the Apostles' Creed, mostly omit in before ecclesiam; see p. 15. one holy catholic and apostolic Church;
[The communion of saints];	*             *            *            *           *
10. The forgiveness of sins;	10. We [I] acknowledge5656   Here and in art. 11 the singular is substituted in Western translations for ὁμολογοῦμεν and προςδοκῶμεν. one baptism for the remission of sins;
11. The resurrection of the flesh [body];	11. And we [I] look for the resurrection of the dead;
12. [And the life everlasting].	12. And the life of the world to come.

 

We give also, in parallel columns, the original and the enlarged formulas of the Nicene Creed, italicizing the later additions, and inclosing in brackets the passages which are omitted in the received text:

 

The Nicene Creed of 325.5757   The Greek original is given, together with the similar Palestinian confession, by Eusebius in his Epistola ad Cæsareenses, which is preserved by Athanasius at the close of his Epistola de decretis Synodi Nicænæ (Opera, ed. Montfaucon, I. 239); also, with some variations, in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon (Act. II. in Mansi, Tom. VII.); in Theoderet, H. E. I. 12; Socrates, H. E. I. 8; Gelasius, H. Conc. Nic. 1. II. c. 35. See the literature and variations in Walch, l.c. pp. 75 and 87 sqq.; also in Hahn, l.c. pp. 105 sqq.

The Constantinopolitan Creed of 381.5858   The Greek text in the acts of the second œcumenical Council (Mansi, Tom. III. p. 565; Hardouin, Vol. I. p. 814), and also in the acts of the fourth œcumenical Council. See Vol. II p. 35; Hahn, l.c. p. 111; and my Church Hist. Vol. III. pp. 667 sqq.

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

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

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And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father [the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (ὁμοούσιον) with the Father; by whom all things were made [both in heaven and on earth]; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man; he suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.	And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds (æons), Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; from thence he shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And in the Holy Ghost.	And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets. In one holy catholic and apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
[But those who say: 'There was a time when he was not;' and 'He was not before he was made;' and 'He was made out of nothing,' or 'He is of another substance' or 'essence,' or 'The Son of God is created,' or 'changeable,' or 'alterable'—they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.]

 

§ 9. The Creed of Chalcedon.

The Creed of Chalcedon was adopted at the fourth and fifth sessions of the fourth œcumenical Council, held at Chalcedon, opposite Constantinople, A.D. 451 (Oct. 22d and 25th). It embraces the Nicæno-Constantinopolitan Creed, and the christological doctrine set forth in 30the classical Epistola Dogmatica of Pope Leo the Great to Flavian, the Patriarch of Constantinople and martyr of diophysitic orthodoxy at the so-called Council of Robbers (held at Ephesus in 449).⁵⁹⁵⁹   Comp. my Church Hist. Vol. III. p. 738.

While the first Council of Nicæa had established the eternal, pre-existent Godhead of Christ, the Symbol of the fourth œcumenical Council relates to the incarnate Logos, as he walked upon earth and sits on the right hand of the Father. It is directed against the errors of Nestorius and Eutyches, who agreed with the Nicene Creed as opposed to Arianism, but put the Godhead of Christ in a false relation to his humanity. It substantially completes the orthodox Christology of the ancient Church; for the definitions added during the Monophysite and Monothelite controversies are few and comparatively unessential. As the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity stands midway between Tritheism and Sabellianism, so the Chalcedonian formula strikes the true mean between Nestorianism and Eutychianism.

The following are the leading ideas of the Chalcedonian Christology as embodied in this symbol:⁶⁰⁶⁰   Abridged, in part, from My Church History, Vol. III. pp. 747 sqq.

1. A true incarnation of the Logos, or the second person in the Godhead (ἐνανθρώπησις θεοῦ, ἐνσάρκωσις τοῦ λόγου, incarnatio Verbi).)⁶¹⁶¹   The diametrical opposite of the ἐνανθρώπησις θεοῦ is the heathen ἀποθέωσις ἀνθρώπου. This incarnation is neither a conversion or transmutation of God into man, nor a conversion of man into God, and a consequent absorption of the one, or a confusion (κρᾶσις, σύγχυσις) of the two; nor, on the other hand, a mere indwelling (ἐνοίκησις, inhabitatio) of the one in the other, nor an outward, transitory connection (συνάφεια, conjunctio) of the two factors, but an actual and abiding union of the two in one personal life.

2. The precise distinction between nature and person. Nature or substance (essence, οὐσία) denotes the totality of powers and qualities which constitute a being; while person (ὑπόστασις, πρόσωπον) is the Ego, the self-conscious, self-asserting and acting subject. The Logos assumed, not a human person (else we would have two persons, a divine and a human), but human nature which is common to us all; and hence he redeemed, not a particular man, but all men as partakers of the same nature.

313. The God-Man as the result of the incarnation. Christ is not a (Nestorian) double being, with two persons, nor a compound (Apollinarian or Monophysite) middle being, a tertium quid, neither divine nor human; but he is one person both divine and human.

4. The duality of the natures. The orthodox doctrine maintains, against Eutychianism, the distinction of nature even after the act of incarnation, without confusion or conversion (ἀσυγχύτως, inconfuse, and ἀτρέπτως, immutabiliter), yet, on the other hand, without division or separation (ἀδιαιρέτως, indivise, and ἀχωρίστως, inseparabiliter), so that the divine will ever remain divine, and the human ever human,⁶²⁶²   'Tenet,' says Leo, in his Epist. 28 ad Flavian., 'sine defectu proprietatem suam utraque natura, et sicut formam servi Dei forma non adimit, ita formam Dei servi forma non minuit. . . . Agit utraque forma cum alterius communione quod proprium est; Verbo scilicet operante quod Verbi est, et carne exsequente quod carnis est. Unum horum coruscat miraculis, aliud succumbit injuriis. Et sicut Verbum ab æqualitate paternæ gloriæ non recedit, ita caro naturam nostri generis non relinquit.' and yet the two have continually one common life, and interpenetrate each other, like the persons of the Trinity.⁶³⁶³   Here belongs, in further explanation, the scholastic doctrine of the περιχώρησις, permeatio, circummeatio, circulatio, circumincessio, intercommunio, or reciprocal indwelling and pervasion, which has relation, not merely to the Trinity, but also to Christology. The verb περιχωρεῖν is first applied by Gregory of Nyssa (Contra Apollinarium) to the interpenetration and reciprocal pervasion of the two natures in Christ. On this rested also the doctrine of the exchange or communication of attributes, ἀντίδοσις, ἀντιμετάστασις, κοινωνία ἰδιωμάτων, communicatio idiomatum. The ἀντιμετάστασις τῶν ὀνομάτων, also ἀντιμεδίστασις, transmutatio proprietatum, transmutation of attributes, is, strictly speaking, not identical with ἀντίδοσις, but a deduction from it, and the rhetorical expression for it.

5. The unity of the person (ἕνωσις καθ᾽ ὑπόστασιν, ἕνωσις ὑποστατική, unio hypostatica or unio personalis). The union of the divine and human nature in Christ is a permanent state resulting from the incarnation, and is a real, supernatural, personal, and inseparable union—in distinction from an essential absorption or confusion, or from a mere moral union; or from a mystical union such as holds between the believer and Christ. The two natures constitute but one personal life, and yet remain distinct. 'The same who is true God,' says Leo, 'is also true man, and in this unity there is no deceit; for in it the lowliness of man and the majesty of God perfectly pervade one another. . . . Because the two natures make only one person, we read on the one hand: "The Son of Man came down from heaven" (John iii. 13), while yet the Son of God took flesh from the Virgin; and on the other hand: "The 32Son of God was crucified and buried,"⁶⁴⁶⁴   Comp. 1 Cor. ii. 8: 'They would not have crucified the Lord of glory.' while yet he suffered, not in his Godhead as coeternal and consubstantial with the Father, but in the weakness of human nature.' The self-consciousness of Christ is never divided; his person consists in such a union of the human and the divine natures, that the divine nature is the seat of self-consciousness, and pervades and animates the human.

6. The whole work of Christ is to be attributed to his person, and not to the one or the other nature exclusively. The person is the acting subject, the nature the organ or medium. It is the one divine-human person of Christ that wrought miracles by virtue of his divine nature, and that suffered through the sensorium of his human nature. The superhuman effect and infinite merit of the Redeemer's work must be ascribed to his person because of his divinity; while it is his humanity alone that made him capable of, and liable to, toil, temptation, suffering, and death, and renders him an example for our imitation.

7. The anhypostasia, impersonality, or, to speak more accurately, the enhypostasia, of the human nature of Christ;⁶⁵⁶⁵   Ἀνυπόστατος is that which has no personality in itself, ἐνυπόστατος that which subsists in another personality, or partakes of another hypostasis. for anhypostasia is a purely negative term, and presupposes a fictitious abstraction, since the human nature of Christ did not exist at all before the act of the incarnation, and could therefore be neither personal nor impersonal. The meaning of this doctrine is that Christ's human nature had no independent personality of its own, besides the divine, and that the divine nature is the root and basis of his personality.⁶⁶⁶⁶   The doctrine of the impersonality of the human nature of Christ may already be found as to its germ in Cyril of Alexandria, and was afterwards more fully developed by John of Damascus (De orthodoxa fide, lib. III.), and by the Lutheran scholastics of the seventeenth century, who, however, did not, for all this, conceive Christ as a mere generic being typifying mankind, but as a concrete human individual. Comp. Petavius, De incarnatione, lib. V. c. 5–8 (Tom. IV. pp. 421 sqq.); Thomasius, Christol. II. 108–110; Rothe, Dogmatik, II. 51 and 147.

There is, no doubt, a serious difficulty in the old orthodox Christology, if we view it in the light of our modern psychology. We can conceive of a human nature without sin (for sin is a corruption, not an essential quality, of man), but we can not conceive of a human nature without personality, or a self-conscious and free Ego; for this distinguishes it from the mere animal nature, and is man's crowning excellency and glory. To an unbiased reader of the Gospel history, 33moreover, Christ appears as a full human personality, thinking, speaking, acting, suffering like a man (only without sin), distinguishing himself from other men and from his heavenly Father, addressing him in prayer, submitting to him his own will, and commending to him his spirit in the hour of death.⁶⁷⁶⁷   He calls himself a 'man,' ἄνθρωπος (John viii. 40; comp. xix. 5), and very often 'the Son of man,' and other men his 'brethren' (John xx. 17). Yet, on the other hand, be appears just as clearly in the Gospels as a personality in the most intimate, unbroken, mysterious life-union with his heavenly Father, in the full consciousness of a personal pre-existence before the creation, of having been sent by the Father from heaven into this world, of living in heaven even during this earthly abode, and of being ever one with him in will and in essence.⁶⁸⁶⁸    John viii.58; xvii. 5, 24; iii. 11-13; v. 37; vi. 38, 62; viii. 42; x. 30, and many other passages in the Gospels. Dr. R. Rothe, who rejects the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation, yet expressly admits (Dogmatik, II. 88): 'Ebenso bestimmt, wie seine wahre Menschheit, tritt im Neuen Testament auch die wahre GOTTHEIT des Erlösers hervor.' To escape the orthodox inference of an incarnation of a divine hypostasis, Rothe must resort (p. 100) to the Socinian interpretation of John xvii. 5, where the Saviour asserts his pre-existence with the Father (δόξασόν με σύ, πάτερ, παρὰ σεαυτῷ τῇ δόξῃ, ᾗ εἶχον πρὸ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον εἶναι παρὰ σοί); thereby distinguishing himself from the hypostasis of the Father, and yet asserting coeternity. The Socinians and Grotius find here merely an ideal glory in the divine counsel; but it must be taken, in analogy with similar passages, of a real, personal, self-conscious pre-existence, and a real glory attached to it; otherwise it would be nothing peculiar and characteristic of Christ. How absurd would it be for a man to utter such a prayer! In one word, he makes the impression of a theanthropic, divine-human person.⁶⁹⁶⁹   A persona σύνθετος, in the language of the old Protestant divines. Divina et humana naturæ' (says Hollaz), 'in una persona συνθέτῳ Filii Dei existentes, unam eandemque habent ὑπόστασιν, modo tamen habendi diversam. Natura enim divina eam habet primario, per se et independenter, natura autem humana secundario, propter unionem personalem, adeoque participative. The divine nature, therefore, is, in the orthodox system, that which forms and constitutes the personality (das personbildende Princip.). His human personality was completed and perfected by being so incorporated with the pre-existent Logos-personality as to find in it alone its full self-consciousness, and to be permeated and controlled by it in every stage of its development.

The Chalcedonian Christology has latterly been subjected to a rigorous criticism (by Schleiermacher, Baur, Dorner, Rothe, and others), and has been charged with a defective psychology, and now with dualism, now with docetism, according as its distinction of two natures or of the personal unity has most struck the eye. But these imputations neutralize each other, like the imputations of tritheism and modalism, which may be made against the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity when either 34the tri-personality or the consubstantiality is taken alone. This, indeed, is the peculiar excellence of the Creed of Chalcedon, that it exhibits so sure a tact and so wise a circumspection in uniting the colossal antithesis in Christ, and seeks to do justice alike to the distinction of the natures and to the unity of the person. In Christ all contradictions are reconciled.

The Chalcedonian Creed is far from exhausting the great mystery of godliness, 'God manifest in flesh.' It leaves much room for a fuller appreciation of the genuine, perfect, and sinless humanity of Christ, of the Pauline doctrine of the Kenosis, or self-renunciation and self-limitation of the Divine Logos in the incarnation and during the human life of our Lord, and for the discussion of other questions connected with his relation to the Father and to the world, his person and his work. But it indicates the essential elements of Christological truth, and the boundary-lines of Christological error. It defines the course for the sound development of this central article of the Christian faith so as to avoid both the Scylla of Nestorian dualism and the Charybdis of Eutychian monophysitism, and to save the full idea of the one divine-human personality of our Lord and Saviour. Within these limits theological speculation may safely and freely move, and bring us to clearer conceptions; but in this world, where we 'know only in part (ἐκ μέρους),' and 'see through a mirror obscurely (δἰ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι)' it will never fully comprehend the great central mystery of the theanthropic life of our Lord.

 

§ 10. The Athanasian Creed.

The Athanasian Creed is also called Symbolum Quicunque, from the first word, 'Quicunque vult salvus esse.'⁷⁰⁷⁰   It first bears the title, 'Fides sanctæ Trinitatis,' or 'Fides Catholica Sanctæ Trinitatis;' then (in the 'Cod. Usserius secundus') 'Fides Sancti Athanasii Alexandrini.' Hincmar of Rheims, about A.D. 852, calls it 'Sermonem Athanasii de fide, cujus initium est: "Quicunque vult salvus esse."'

I. Its origin is involved in obscurity, like that of the Apostles' Creed, the Gloria in Excelsis, and the Te Deum. It furnishes one of the most remarkable examples of the extraordinary influence which works of unknown or doubtful authorship have exerted. Since the ninth century it has been ascribed to Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, the chief defender of the divinity of Christ and the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity (d. 373).⁷¹⁷¹   According to the mediæval legend, Athanasius composed it during his exile in Rome, and offered it to Pope Julius as his confession of faith. So Baronius, Petavius, Bellarmin, etc. This tradition was first opposed and refuted by Gerhard Vossius (1642) and Ussher (1647). The great name of 'the father of orthodoxy' secured for it an almost œcumenical authority, notwithstanding the solemn prohibition of the third and fourth œcumenical Councils to compose or publish any other creed than the Nicene.⁷²⁷²   Conc. Ephes. Can. VII. 'The holy Synod has determined that no person shall be allowed to bring forward, or to write, or to compose any other Creed (ἑτέραν πίστιν μηδενὶ ἐξεῖναι προφέρειν ἤγουν συγγράφειν ἢ συντιθέναι), besides that which was settled by the holy fathers who assembled in the city of Nicæa, with the Holy Spirit. But those who shall dare to compose any other Creed, or to exhibit or produce any such, if they are bishops or clergymen, they shall be deposed, but if they are of the laity, they shall be anathematized.' The Council of Chalcedon (451), although setting forth a new definition of faith, repeated the same prohibition (after the Defin. Fidei).

Since the middle of the seventeenth century the Athanasian authorship has been abandoned by learned Catholics as well as Protestants. The evidence against it is conclusive. The Symbol is nowhere found in the genuine writings of Athanasius or his contemporaries and eulogists. The General Synods of Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451) make no allusion to it whatever. It seems to presuppose the doctrinal controversies of the fifth century concerning the constitution of Christ's person; at least it teaches substantially the Chalcedonian Christology. And, lastly, it makes its first appearance in the Latin Churches of Gaul, North Africa, and Spain: while the Greeks 36did not know it till the eleventh century, and afterwards rejected or modified it on account of the Occidental clause on the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. The Greek texts, moreover, differ widely, and betray, by strange words and constructions, the hands of unskilled translators.

The pseudo-Athanasian Creed originated in the Latin Church from the school of St. Augustine, probably in Gaul or North Africa. It borrows a number of passages from Augustine and other Latin fathers.⁷³⁷³   See the parallel passages in Waterland's treatise and in my Church History, Vol. III. pp. 690 sqq. It appears first in its full form towards the close of the eighth or the beginning of the ninth century. Its structure and the repetition of the damnatory clause in the middle and at the close indicate that it consists of two distinct parts, which may have been composed by two authors, and afterwards welded together by a third hand. The first part, containing the Augustinian doctrine of the Trinity, is fuller and more metaphysical. The second part, containing a summary of the Chalcedonian Christology, has been found separately, as a fragment of a sermon on the Incarnation, at Treves, in a MS. from the middle of the eighth century.⁷⁴⁷⁴   Now known as the Colbertine MS., in Paris, which is assigned to about A.D. 730–760, but is derived in part from older MSS. This fragment was first published consecutively by Professor Swainson in 1871, and again in his larger work, 1875 (p. 262), also by Lumby, p. 215. It begins thus: 'Est ergo fides recta ut credamus et confitemur quia Dominus ihesus christus Dei filius, deus pariter et homo est,' etc.; and it ends: 'Hæc est fides sancta et Catholica, quam omnes [omnis] homo qui ad uitam æternam peruenire desiderat scire integræ [integre] debet, et fideliter custodire.' The compiler of the two parts intensified the damnatory clause by changing it into 'quam nisi quisque fideliter firmiterque crediderit, salvus esse non poterit.' The passages quoted by Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims, A.D. 852, are all taken from the first part. The fact that Athanasius spent some time in exile at Treves may possibly have given rise to the tradition that the great champion of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity composed the whole.⁷⁵⁷⁵   The authorship of the Symbolum Quicunque is a matter of mere conjecture. The opinions of scholars are divided between Hilary of Arles (420–431), Vigilius of Tapsus (484), Vincentius Lirinensis (450), Venantius Fortunatus of Poitiers (570), Pope Anastasius (398), Victricius of Rouen (401), Patriarch Paulinus of Aquileja (Charlemagne's favorite theologian, d. 804). Waterland learnedly contends for Hilary of Arles; Quesnel, Cave, Bingham, and Neander for Vigilius Tapsensis of North Africa. Gieseler traces the Quicunque to the Councils of Toledo in Spain (633, 638, 675, etc.), which used to profess the Nicene Creed with additional articles (like the Filioque) against Arianism. Ffoulkes (who seceded to Rome, and returned, a better Protestant, to the Church of England) and Dean Stanley maintain that it arose in France, simultaneously with the forgery of the pseudo-Isidorean Decretals, for controversial purposes against the Greeks, to set up a fictitious antiquity for Latin doctrine (the Filioque), as the Decretals did for Latin polity. Swainson and Lumby assign the Creed to an unknown writer of the age of Charlemagne (d. 814) and Alcuin (d. 804), or to the period between 813 and 850.    The latest investigations since the rediscovery of the oldest (the Cotton) MS. in the 'Utrecht Psalter' (which was exposed for inspection at the British Museum in 1873, and has since been photographed) are unfavorable to an early origin; for this MS., which Ussher and Waterland assigned to the sixth century, dates probably from the ninth century (as the majority of scholars who investigated it, Drs. Vermuelen, Heurtley, Ffoulkes, Lumby, Swainson, contend against Hardy, Westwood, and Baron van Westreenen), since, among other reasons, it contains also the Apostles' Creed in its final form of 750. The authorship of Venantius Fortunatus (570) was simply inferred by Muratori from the common name 'Fortunatus' at the head of a MS. (Expositio Fidei Catholicæ Fortunati) which contains a commentary on the Athanasian Creed, but which is not older than the eleventh century, and quotes a passage from Alcuin. Two other MSS. of the same commentary, but without a title, have been found, one at Florence, and one at Vienna (Lumby, p. 208; Swainson, pp. 317 sqq.). The internal evidence for an earlier date is equally inconclusive. The absence of Mater Dei (θεοτόκος) no more proves an ante-Nestorian origin (before 431, as Waterland contended) than the absence of consubstantialis (ὁμοούσιος) proves an ante-Nicene origin.
   So far, then, we have no proof that the pseudo-Athanasian Creed in its present complete shape existed before the beginning of the ninth century. And yet it may have existed earlier. At all events, two separate compositions, which form the groundwork of our Quicunque, are of older date, and the doctrinal substance of it, with the most important passages, may be found in the works of St. Augustine and his followers, with the exception of the damnatory clauses, which seem to have had their origin in the fierce contests of the age of Charlemagne. In a Prayer-Book of Charles the Bald, written about A. D. 870, we find the Athanasian Creed very nearly in the words of the received text.
   I may add that the indefatigable investigator, Dr. Caspari, of Christiania, informs me by letter (dated April 29, 1876) that he is still inclined to trace this Creed to the fifth century, between 450 and 600, and that he found, and will publish in due time, some old symbols which bear a resemblance to it, and may cast some light upon its obscure origin. Adhuc sub judice lis est.

37

II. Character and Contents.—The Symbolum Quicunque is a remarkably clear and precise summary of the doctrinal decisions of the first four œcumenical Councils (from A.D. 325 to A.D. 451), and the Augustinian speculations on the Trinity and the Incarnation. Its brief sentences are artistically arranged and rhythmically expressed. It is a musical creed or dogmatic psalm. Dean Stanley calls it 'a triumphant pæan' of the orthodox faith. It resembles, in this respect, the older Te Deum, but it is much more metaphysical and abstruse, and its harmony is disturbed by a threefold anathema.

It consists of two parts.

The first part (ver. 3–28) sets forth the orthodox doctrine of the Holy Trinity, not in the less definite Athanasian or Nicæno-Constantinopolitan, but in its strictest Augustinian form, to the exclusion of every kind of subordination of essence. It is therefore an advance both on the 38Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed; for these do not state the doctrine of the Trinity in form, but only indirectly by teaching the Deity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and leave room for a certain subordination of the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. The post-Athanasian formula states clearly and unmistakably both the absolute unity of the divine being or essence, and the tri-personality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is one in three persons or hypostases, each person expressing the whole fullness of the Godhead, with all his attributes. The term persona is taken neither in the old sense of a mere personation or form of manifestation (πρόσωπον, face, mask), nor in the modern sense of an independent, separate being or individual, but in a sense which lies between these two conceptions, and thus avoids Sabellianism on the one hand, and Tritheism on the other. The divine persons are in one another, and form a perpetual intercommunication and motion within the divine essence.⁷⁶⁷⁶   The later scholastic terms for this indwelling and interpenetration are περιχώρησις, inexistentia, permeatio, circumincessio, etc. See my Church History, Vol. III. p. 680. Each person has all the divine attributes which are inherent in the divine essence, but each has also a characteristic individuality or property,⁷⁷⁷⁷   Called by the Greeks ἰδιότης or ἴδιον, by the Latins proprietas personalis or character hypostaticus. which is peculiar to the person, and can not be communicated; the Father is unbegotten, the Son begotten, the Holy Ghost is proceeding. In this Trinity there is no priority or posteriority of time, no superiority or inferiority of rank, but the three persons are coeternal and coequal.

If the mystery of the Trinity can be logically defined, it is done here. But this is just the difficulty: the infinite truth of the Godhead lies far beyond the boundaries of logic, which deals only with finite truths and categories. It is well always to remember the saying of Augustine: 'God is greater and truer in our thoughts than in our words; he is greater and truer in reality than in our thoughts.'⁷⁸⁷⁸   'Verius cogitatur Deus quam dicitur, verius est quam cogitatur,' De Trinitate, lib. VII. c. 4, § 7. Dr. Isaac Barrow, one of the intellectual giants of the Anglican Church (died 1677), in his Defense of the Blessed Trinity (a sermon preached on Trinity Sunday, 1663), humbly acknowledges the transcendent incomprehensibility, while clearly stating the facts, of this great mystery: 'The sacred Trinity may be considered either as it is in itself wrapt up in inexplicable folds of mystery, or as it hath discovered itself operating in wonderful methods of grace towards us. As it is in itself, 'tis an object too bright and dazzling for our weak eye to fasten upon, an abyss too deep for our short reason to fathom; I can only say that we are so bound to mind it as to exercise our faith, and express our humility, in willingly believing, in submissively adoring those high mysteries which are revealed in the holy oracles concerning it by that Spirit itself which searcheth the depths of God. . . . That there is one Divine Nature or Essence, common unto three Persons, incomprehensibly united, and ineffably distinguished—united in essential attributes, distinguished by peculiar idioms and relations; all equally infinite in every divine perfection, each different from the other in order and manner of subsistence; that there is a mutual inexistence of one in all, and all in one, a communication without any deprivation or diminution in the communicant; an eternal generation, and an eternal procession, without precedence or succession, without proper causality or dependence; a Father imparting his own, and the Son receiving his Father's life, and a Spirit issuing from both, without any division or multiplication of essence—these are notions which may well puzzle our reason in conceiving how they agree, but should not stagger our faith in assenting that they are true; upon which we should meditate, not with hope to comprehend, but with dispositions to admire, veiling our faces in the presence, and prostrating our reason at the feet, of Wisdom so far transcending us.'

39The second part (ver. 29–44) contains a succinct statement of the orthodox doctrine concerning the person of Christ, as settled by the general Councils of Ephesus 431 and Chalcedon 451, and in this respect it is a valuable supplement to the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. It asserts that Christ had a rational soul (νοῦς, νεῦμα), in opposition to the Apollinarian heresy, which limited the extent of his humanity to a mere body with an animal soul inhabited by the divine Logos. It also teaches the proper relation between the divine and human nature of Christ, and excludes the Nestorian and Eutychian or Monophysite heresies, in essential agreement with the Chalcedonian Symbol.⁷⁹⁷⁹   See the preceding section.

III. The Damnatory Clauses.—The Athanasian Creed, in strong contrast with the uncontroversial and peaceful tone of the Apostles' Creed, begins and ends with the solemn declaration that the catholic faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation herein set forth is the indispensable condition of salvation, and that those who reject it will be lost forever. The same damnatory clause is also wedged in at the close of the first and at the beginning of the second part. This threefold anathema, in its natural historical sense, is not merely a solemn warning against the great danger of heresy,⁸⁰⁸⁰   So a majority of the 'Ritual Commission of the Church of England,' appointed in 1867: 'The condemnations in this Confession of Faith are to be no otherwise understood than as a solemn warning of the peril of those who willfully reject the Catholic faith.' Such a warning would be innocent and unobjectionable, indeed, but fall far short of the spirit of an age which abhorred heresy as the greatest of crimes, to be punished by death. nor, on the other hand, does it demand, as a condition of salvation, a full knowledge of, and assent to, the logical statement of the doctrines set forth (for this would condemn 40the great mass even of Christian believers); but it does mean to exclude from heaven all who reject the divine truth therein taught. It requires every one who would be saved to believe in the only true and living God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one in essence, three in persons, and in one Jesus Christ, very God and very Man in one person.

The damnatory clauses, especially when sung or chanted in public worship, grate harshly on modern Protestant ears, and it may well be doubted whether they are consistent with true Christian charity and humility, and whether they do not transcend the legitimate authority of the Church. They have been defended by an appeal to Mark xvi. 16; but in this passage those only are condemned who reject the gospel, i.e., the great facts of Christ's salvation, not any peculiar dogma. Salvation and damnation depend exclusively on the grace of God as apprehended by a living faith, or rejected in ungrateful unbelief. The original Nicene Symbol, it is true, added a damnatory clause against the Arians, but it was afterwards justly omitted. Creeds, like hymns, lose their true force and miss their aim in proportion as they are polemical and partake of the character of manifestoes of war rather than confessions of faith and thanks to God for his mighty works.⁸¹⁸¹   'It seems very hard,' says Bishop Jeremy Taylor, 'to put uncharitableness into a creed, and so to make it become an article of faith.' Chillingworth: 'The damning clauses in St. Athanasius's Creed are most false, and also in a high degree schismatical and presumptuous.'

IV. Introduction and Use.—The Athanasian Creed acquired great authority in the Latin Church, and during the Middle Ages it was almost daily used in the morning devotions.⁸²⁸²   J. Bona, De divina Psalmodia, c. 16, § 18, p. 863 (as quoted by Köllner, Symbolik, I. 85): 'Illud Symbolum olim, teste Honorio, quotidie est decantatum, jam vero diebus Dominicis in totius cœtus frequentia recitatur, ut sanctæ fidei confessio ea die apertius celebretur.'

The Reformers inherited the veneration for this Symbol. It was formally adopted by the Lutheran and several of the Reformed Churches, and is approvingly mentioned in the Augsburg Confession, the Form of Concord, the Thirty-nine Articles, the Second Helvetic, the Belgic, and the Bohemian Confessions.⁸³⁸³   It is printed, with the two other œcumenical Creeds, in all the editions of the Lutheran 'Book of Concord,' and as an appendix to the doctrinal formulas of the Reformed Dutch Church in America. It was received into the 'Provisional Liturgy of the German Reformed Church in the United States,' published Philadelphia, 1858, but omitted in the revised edition of 1867.

41Luther was disposed to regard it as 'the most important and glorious composition since the days of the apostles.'⁸⁴⁸⁴   'Es ist also gefasset, dass ich nicht weiss, ob seit der Apostel Zeit in der Kirche des Neuen Testamentes etwas Wichtigeres and Herrlicheres geschrieben sei' (Luther, Werke, ed. Walch, VI. 2315).

Some Reformed divines, especially of the Anglican Church have commended it very highly; even the Puritan Richard Baxter lauded it as 'the best explication [better, statement] of the Trinity,' provided, however, 'that the damnatory sentences be excepted, or modestly expounded.'

In the Church of England it is still sung or recited in the cathedrals and parish churches on several festival days,⁸⁵⁸⁵   The rubric directs that the Athanasian Creed 'shall be sung or said at Morning Prayer, instead of the Apostles' Creed, on Christmas-day, the Epiphany, St. Matthias, Easter-day, Ascension-day, Whitsunday, St. John the Baptist, St. James, St. Bartholomew, St. Matthew, St. Simon and St. Jude, St. Andrew, and upon Trinity Sunday.' but this compulsory public use meets with growing opposition, and was almost unanimously condemned in 1867 by the royal commission appointed to consider certain changes in the Anglican Ritual.⁸⁶⁸⁶   By nineteen out of the twenty-seven members of the Ritual Commission. See their opinions in Stanley, l.c. pp. 73 sqq. Dean Stanley on that occasion urged no less than sixteen reasons against the public use of the Athanasian Creed. On the other hand, Dr. Pusey has openly threatened to leave the Established Church if the Athanasian Creed, and with it the doctrinal status of that Church, should be disturbed. Brewer's defense is rather feeble. Bishop Ellicott proposed, in the Convocation of Canterbury, to relieve the difficulty by a revision of the English translation, e.g. by rendering vult salvus esse, 'desires to be in a state of salvation,' instead of 'will be saved.' Others suggest an omission of the damnatory clauses. But the true remedy is either to omit the Athanasian Creed altogether from the Book of Common Prayer, or to leave its public use optional.

The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, when, in consequence of the American Revolution, it set up a separate organization in the Convention of 1785 at Philadelphia, resolved to remodel the Liturgy (in 'the Proposed Book'), and, among other changes, excluded from it both the Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds, and struck out from the Apostles' Creed the clause, 'He descended into hell.' The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, before consenting to ordain bishops for America, requested their brethren to restore the clause of the Apostles' Creed, and 'to give to the other two Creeds a place in their Book of Common Prayer, even though the use of them should be left discretional.'⁸⁷⁸⁷   Bishop White (of Philadelphia): Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, New York, 2d ed. 1836, pp 305, 306. In the Convention held at Wilmington Del., October 10, 421786, the request of the English prelates, as to the first two points, was acceded to, but 'the restoration of the Athanasian Creed was negatived.' As the opposition to this Creed was quite determined, especially on account of the damnatory clauses, the mother Church acquiesced in the omission, and granted the desired Episcopal ordination.⁸⁸⁸⁸   White's Memoires, 26, 27. Bishop White himself was decidedly opposed to the Creed, as was Bishop Provost, of New York. The Archbishop of Canterbury told them afterwards: 'Some wish that you had retained the Athanasian Creed; but I can not say that I feel uneasy on the subject, for you have retained the doctrine of it in your Liturgy, and as to the Creed itself, I suppose you thought it not suited to the use of a congregation' (l.c. 117, 118).

In the Greek Church it never obtained general currency or formal ecclesiastical sanction, and is only used for private devotion, with the omission of the clause on the double procession of the Spirit.⁸⁹⁸⁹   Additional Lit. on the Athan. Creed.—Swainson: The Nic. and App. Creeds, with an Account of the Creed of St. Athanasius, London, 1894.—Burn in Robinson's Texts and Studies, 1896.—Ommanney, London, 1897, is inclined to ascribe it to Vincens of Lerins about 450.—Bp. Gore, Oxf., 1897.—J. B. Smith in Contemp. Rev., Apr., 1901.—Oxenham, London, 1902.—J. A. Robinson, London, 1905.—Bp. Jayne, 1905.—W. S. Bishop: Devel. of Trin. Doctr. in the Nic. and Athanas. Creeds, 1910.—H. Brewer (S.J.), Das sogenannte Athanas. Glaubensbekenntniss, 1909.—Burkitt, 1912.—Loofs in Herzog, ii, 177–194, who places its probable origin in Southern France, 450–600.—Badcock inclines to the Ambrosian authorship and calls it a hymn to be memorized. The Abp. of Canterbury, following a resolution of the Lambeth Conference, 1908, appointed a commission of seven, including Bp. Wordsworth of Salisbury, Prof. Swete and Dean Kilpatrick, to prepare a revision of the English translation of the Athanas. Creed. Their report proposed thirteen minor changes. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer prescribed that the Creed be said or sung at morning prayer on thirteen feasts, including Christmas, Easter, Ascension day, and Trinity Sunday. By the order of both Convocations it was omitted and a new rubric inserted, making its use optional on Trinity Sunday. In the "Revised" Book of Common Prayer, recommended by the House of Bishops and rejected by Parliament, 1928, the following rubrics are printed side by side, making the use of the creed optional: "may be sung or said at morning or evening prayer" on the first Sunday after Christmas, the feast of the Annunciation, and Trinity Sunday.  2.  On Trinity Sunday, the recitation beginning with clause 3, "The Catholic faith is this," etc., and closing with clause 28.  3.  On the Sunday after Christmas and Ascension day, the recitation being from clause 30 to clause 41.  4.  On all the thirteen festivals mentioned in the original Book of Common Prayer. A "revised translation is added" which differs from the translation of 1909. See the Translation of 1909 with Latin Text, by H. Turner, London, 1910, 15 pp. and 1918, 23 pp. Also the Book of Com. Prayer with the Additions and Deviations Proposed in 1928, with Pref., Cambr. Press, 1928. By Roman Cath. usage the creed is prescribed for Trinity Sunday and at prime on all Sundays except Easter and such other feasts for which a special service is provided.—Ed.

43

THIRD CHAPTER.

THE CREEDS OF THE GREEK CHURCH.

§ 11. The Seven Œcumenical Councils.

The entire Orthodox Greek or Oriental Church,⁹⁰⁹⁰   The full name of the Greek Church is 'the Holy Oriental Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church.' The chief stress is laid on the title orthodox. The name Γραικός, used by Polybius and since as equivalent to the Latin Græcus, was by the Greeks themselves always regarded as an exotic. Homer has three standing names for the Greeks: Danaoi, Argeioi, and Achaioi; also Panthellenes and Panachaioi. The ancient (heathen) Greeks called themselves Hellenes, the modern (Slavonic) Greeks, till recently, Romans, in distinction from the surrounding Turks. The Greek language, since the founding of the East Roman empire, was called Romaic. including the Greek Church in Turkey, the national Church in the kingdom of Greece, and the national Church of the Russian Empire, and embracing a membership of about eighty millions, adopts, in common with the Roman communion, the doctrinal decisions of the seven oldest œcumenical Councils, laying especial stress on the Nicene Council and Nicene Creed. These Councils were all summoned by Greek emperors, and controlled by Greek patriarchs and bishops. They are as follows:

44

I. The first Council of Nicæa, A.D. 325; called by Constantine M.

II. The first Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381; called by Theodosius M.

III. The Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431; called by Theodosius II.

IV. The Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451; called by Emperor Marcian and Pope Leo I.

V. The second Council of Constantinople, A.D. 553; called by Justinian I.

VI. The third Council of Constantinople, A.D. 680; called by Constantine Pogonatus.

VII. The second Council of Nicæa, A.D. 787; called by Irene and her son Constantine.

The first four Councils are by far the most important, as they settled the orthodox faith on the Trinity and the Incarnation. The fifth Council, which condemned the Three (Nestorian) Chapters, is a mere supplement to the third and fourth. The sixth condemned Monothelitism. The seventh sanctioned the use and worship of images.⁹¹⁹¹   Worship in a secondary sense, or δουλεία, including ἀσπασμὸς καὶ τιμητικὴ προσκύνησις, but not that adoration or ἀληθινὴ λατρεία, which belongs only to God. See Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, Bd. III. p. 440.

To these the Greek Church adds the Concilium Quinisextum,⁹²⁹²   This Synod is called Quinisexta or πενθέκτη, because it was to be a supplement to the fifth and sixth œcumenical Councils, which had passed doctrinal decrees, but no canons of discipline. It is also called the second Trullan Synod, because it was held 'in Trullo,' a saloon of the imperial palace in Constantinople. The Greeks regard the canons of this Synod as the canons of the fifth and sixth œcumenical Councils, but the Latins never acknowledged the Quinisexta, and called it mockingly 'erratica.' As the dates of the Quinisexta are variously given 686, 691, 692, 712. Comp. Baronius, Annal. ad ann. 692, No. 7, and Hefele, l.c. III. pp. 298 sqq. held at Constantinople (in Trullo), A.D. 691 (or 692), and frequently also that held in the same city A.D. 879 under Photius the Patriarch; while the Latins reject these two Synods as schismatic, and count the Synod of 869 (the fourth of Constantinople), which deposed Photius and condemned the Iconoclasts, as the eighth œcumenical Council. But these conflicting Councils refer only to discipline and the rivalry between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope of Rome.

The Greek Church celebrates annually the memory of the seven holy Synods, held during the palmy days of her history, on the first Sunday in Lent, called the 'Sunday of Orthodoxy,' when the service is made to 45reproduce a dramatic picture of an œcumenical Council, with an emperor, the patriarchs, metropolitans, bishops, priests, and deacons in solemn deliberation on the fundamental articles of faith. She looks forward to an eighth œcumenical Council, which is to settle all the controversies of Christendom subsequent to the great schism between the East and the West.

Since the last of the seven Councils, the doctrinal system of the Greek Church has undergone no essential change, and become almost petrified. But the Reformation, especially the Jesuitical intrigues and the crypto-Calvinistic movement of Cyril Lucar in the seventeenth century, called forth a number of doctrinal manifestoes against Romanism, and still more against Protestantism. We may divide them into three classes:

I. Primary Confessions of public authority:

   (a) The 'Orthodox Confession,' or Catechism of Peter Mogilas, 1643, indorsed by the Eastern Patriarchs and the Synod of Jerusalem.

   (b) The Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem, or the Confession of Dositheus, 1672.

   To the latter may be added the similar but less important decisions of the Synods of Constantinople, 1672 (Responsio Dionysii), and 1691 (on the Eucharist).

   (c) The Russian Catechisms which have the sanction of the Holy Synod, especially the Longer Catechism of Philaret (Metropolitan of Moscow), published by the synodical press, and generally used in Russia since 1839.

   (d) The Answers of Jeremiah, Patriarch of Constantinople, to certain Lutheran divines, in condemnation of the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession, 1576 (published at Wittenberg, 1584), were sanctioned by the Synod of Jerusalem, but are devoid of clearness and point, and therefore of little use.

II. Secondary Confessions of a mere private character, and hence not to be used as authorities:

   (a) The two Confessions of Gennadius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 1453. One of them, purporting to give a dialogue between the Patriarch and the Sultan, is spurious, and the other has nothing characteristic of the Greek system.

   (b) The Confession of Metrophanes Critopulus, subsequently Patriarch 46of Alexandria, composed during his sojourn in Germany, 1625. It is more liberal than the primary standards.

III. Different from both classes is the Confession of Cyril Lucar, 1629, which was repeatedly condemned as heretical (Calvinistic), but gave occasion for the two most important expositions of Eastern orthodoxy.

We shall notice these documents in their historical order.

 

§ 12. The Confessions of Gennadius, A.D. 1453.

The one or two Confessions which the Constantinopolitan Patriarch Gennadius handed to the Turkish Sultan Mahmoud or Mahomet II., in 1453, comprise only a very general statement of the ancient Christian doctrines, without entering into the differences which divide the Oriental Church from the Latin Communion; yet they have a historical importance, as reflecting the faith of the Greek Church at that time.

Georgius Scholarius, a lawyer and philosopher, subsequently called Gennadius, was among the companions and advisers of the Greek Emperor John VII., Palæologus, and the Patriarch Joasaph, when they, in compliance with an invitation of Pope Eugenius IV., attended the Council of Ferrara and Florence (A.D. 1438 and '39), to consider the reunion of the Eastern and Western Catholic Churches. Scholarius, though not a member of the Synod (being a layman at the time), strongly advocated the scheme, while his more renowned countryman, Georgius Gemistus, commonly called Pletho (d. 1453), opposed it with as much zeal and eloquence. Both were also antagonists in philosophy, Gennadius being an Aristotelian, Pletho a Platonist. The union party triumphed, especially through the influence of Cardinal Bessarion (Archbishop of Nicæa), who at last acceded to the Latin Filioque, as consistent with the Greek per Filium.⁹³⁹³   See, on the transactions of this Council, Mansi, Tom. XXXI., and Werner: Geschichte der apologetischen and polemischen Literatur, Vol. III. pp. 57 sqq.

But when the results of the Council were submitted to the Greek Church for acceptance, the popular sentiment, backed by a long tradition, almost universally discarded them. Scholarius, who in the mean time had become a monk, was compelled to give up his plans of reunion, and he even wrote violently against it. Some attribute this inconsistency 47to a change of conviction, some to policy; while others, without good reason, doubt the identity of the anti-Latin monk Scholarius with the Latinizing Gennadius.⁹⁴⁹⁴    Karyophilus, Allatius, and Kimmel deny the identity of the two persons; Robert Creygthon, Renaudot (1704), Richard Simon, Spanheim, and Gass defend it. Spanheim, however, regards the unionistic writings as interpolations. Allatius and Kimmel maintain that Gennadius continued friendly to the union as Patriarch, but Karyophilus supposes that the unionistic Scholarius died before the conquest of Constantinople, and never was Patriarch. See Kimmel, Monumenta, etc., Prolegomena, p. vi.; Gass, l.c. Vol. I. pp. 5 sqq., and Werner, l.c. Vol. III. pp. 67 sqq. Scholarius was a fertile writer of homilies, hymns, philosophical and theological essays. Four of these are edited in Greek by W. Gass, viz., his Confession, the Dialogue De via salutis, the book Contra Automatistas et Hellenistas, and the book De providentia et prædestinatione (l.c. Vol. II. pp. 3–146).

Immediately after the conquest in 1453, Scholarius was elected Patriarch of Constantinople, but held this position only a few years, as he is said to have abdicated in 1457 or 1459, and retired to a convent. This elevation is sufficient proof of his Greek orthodoxy, but may have been aided by motives of policy, inspired by the vain hope of securing, through his influence with the Latin church dignitaries, the assistance of the Western nations against the Turkish invasion.

At the request of the Mohammedan conqueror, Gennadius prepared a Confession of the Christian faith. The Sultan received it, invested Gennadius with the patriarchate by the delivery of the crozier or pastoral staff, and authorized him to assure the Greek Christians of freedom in the exercise of their religion.⁹⁵⁹⁵   An account of the interview is given in the Historia patriarcharum qui sederunt in hac magna catholicaque ecclesia Constantinopolitanensi postquam cepit eam Sultanus Mechemeta, written in modern Greek by Emmanuel Malaxas, a Peloponnesian, and sent by him to Prof. M. Crusius, in Tübingen, who translated and published it in his Turco-Græcia, 1584. Crusius and Chytræus were prominent in a fruitless effort to convert the Greek Church to Lutheranism.

This 'Confession' of Gennadius,⁹⁶⁹⁶   Kimmel calls it the second Confession, counting the Dialogue (which is of questionable authenticity; see below) as the first. But Gass more appropriately prints the Confession first, and the Dialogue afterwards, under its own proper title, De Via Salutis. or 'Homily on the true faith of the Christians,' was written in Greek, and translated into the Turko-Arabic (the Turkish with Arabic letters) for the use of the Sultan.⁹⁷⁹⁷   The title of the Vienna MS. as published by Otto is: Τοῦ αἰδεσιμωτάτου πατριάρχου Κωνσταντινουπόλεως | ΓΕΝΝΑΔΙΟΥ ΣΧΟΛΑΡΙΟΥ | Βιβλίον περὶ τινων κεφαλαίων τῆς ἡμετέρας | πίστεως. The title as given by Gass from a MS. in Munich reads: Τοῦ ἀγιωτάτου καὶ πατριάρχου καὶ φιλοσόφου | ΓΕΝΝΑΔΙΟΥ | ὁμιλία περὶ τῆς ὀρθῆς καὶ ἀληθοῦς | πίστεως τῶν Χριστιανῶν. In other titles it is called ὁμλογία or ὁμολόγησις. This Confession (together with the Dialogue on the Way of Life) was first published in Greek at Vienna by Prof. John Alex. Brassicanus (Kohlburger), in 1530; then in Latin by J. Harold (in his Hæresiologia, Basil. 1556, from which it passed into the Patristic Libraries, Bibl. P. P. 48Lugdun. Tom. XXVI. 556, also B. P. P. Colon. Tom. XIV. 376, and B. P. P. Par. Tom. IV.); then in Greek and Latin by David Chytræus (in his Oratio de statu ecclesiarum hoc tempore in Græcia, Asia, Bœmia, etc., Frankf. 1583, pp. 173 sqq.); and soon afterwards in Greek, Latin, and Turkish by Mart. Crusius of Tübingen (in his Turco-Græcia, Basil. 1584, lib. II. 109 sqq.). The text of Crusius differs from the preceding editions. He took it from a copy sent to him, together with the Sultan's answer, by Emmanuel Malaxas. Two other editions of the Greek text were published by J. von Fuchten, Helmst. 1611, and by Ch. Daum, Cygneæ (Zwickau), 1677 (Hieronymi theologi Græci dialogus de Trinitate, etc.). Kimmel followed the text of Chytræus, compared with that of Crusius and the different readings in the Bibl. Patr. Lugdun. See his Proleg. p xx. The last and best editions of the Greek text of the Confession are by Gass, l.c. II. 3–15, who used three MSS., and compared older Greek editions and Latin versions; and by Otto (1864), who (like Brassicanus) reproduced the text of the Vienna Codex after a careful re-examination, and added the principal variations of Brassicanus and Gass. It treats, in 48twenty brief sections, of the fundamental doctrines on God, the Trinity, the two natures in the person of Christ, his work, the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the body. The doctrine of the Trinity is thus stated: 'We believe that there are in the one God three peculiarities (ỉδιώματα τρία), which are the principles and fountains of all his other peculiarities . . . and these three peculiarities we call the three subsistences (ὑποστάεις). . . . We believe that out of the nature (ἐκ τῆς φύσεως) of God spring the Word (λόγος) and the Spirit (πνεῦμα), as from the fire the light and the heat (ὥσπερ ἀπὸ τοῦ πυρὸς φῶς καὶ θέρμη). . . . These three, the Mind, the Word, and the Spirit (νοῦς, λόγος, πνεῦμα), are one God, as in the one soul of man there is the mind (νοῦς), the rational word (λόγος νοητός), and the rational will (θέλησις νοητή); and yet these three are as to essence but one soul (μία ψυχὴ κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν).'⁹⁸⁹⁸   Compare, on the Trinitarian doctrine of Gennadius and its relation to Latin Scholasticism, the exposition of Gass, I. 82 sqq. Kimmel and Otto (l.c. p. 400) make him a Platonist, but there are also some Aristotelian elements in him. The difference of the Greek and Latin doctrine on the procession of the Holy Spirit is not touched in this Confession. The relation of the divine and human nature in Christ is illustrated by the relation of the soul and the body in man, both being distinct, and yet inseparably united in one person.

At the end (§ 14–20) are added, for the benefit of the Turks, seven arguments for the truth of the Christian religion, viz.:⁹⁹⁹⁹   This apologetic appendix is omitted in the editions of Brassicanus and Fuchten, and is rejected by Otto as a later addition (l.c. pp. 5–11).

1. The concurrence of Jewish prophecies and heathen oracles in the pre-announcement of a Saviour.

2. The internal harmony and mutual agreement of the different parts of the Scriptures.

3. 49The acceptance of the gospel by the greatest and best men among all nations.

4. The spiritual character and tendency of the Christian faith, aiming at divine and eternal ends.

5. The ennobling effect of Christ's religion on the morals of his followers.

6. The harmony of revealed truth with sound reason, and the refutation of all objections which have been raised against it.

7. The victory of the Church over persecution and its indestructibility.

The other Confession, ascribed to Gennadius, and generally published with the first, is written in the form of a Dialogue ('Sermocinatio') between the Sultan and the Patriarch, and entitled 'The Way of Life.'¹⁰⁰¹⁰⁰   De Via Salutis. The full title, as given by Gass, l.c. II. 16, and Otto, l.c. p. 409, reads:     Τοῦ αἰδεσιμωτάτου πατριάρχου Κονσταντινουπόλεως
    ΓΕΝΝΑΔΙΟΥ ΣΧΟΛΑΡΙΟΥ
    Βιβλίον σύντομόν τε καὶ σαφὲς περὶ τινων κεφαλαίων τῆς ἡμετέρας πίστεως, περὶ ὦν ἡ διάλεξις γέγονε μετὰ Ἀμοιρᾶ τοῦ Μαχουμέτου, ὃ καὶ ἐπιγέγραπται
   περὶ τῆς ὀδοῦ τῆς σωτηρίας (τῶν) ἀνθρώπων.
   The tract was published three times in Greek in the seventeenth century—by Brassicanus, Vienna, 1530; by Joh. von Fuchten, Helmstädt, 1611 (or 1612); and by Daum, Zwickau, 1677; but each of these editions is exceedingly rare. The Latin version was repeated in several patristic collections, but with more or less omissions or additions (occasionally in favor of the Romish system). We have now two correct editions of the Greek text, one by Gass (1844), and another by Otto (1850; the latter was originally intended for an Appendix to Kimmel's collection). Kimmel gives only the Latin version, having been unable to obtain the Greek original (Proleg. p. xx.), and seems to confound the special title with the joint title for both Confessions; see Bibl. P. P. Colon. XIV. 378; Werner. l.c. III. 68. note. The Dialogue has also found its way into the writings of Athanasius (Opera, Tom. II. 280. Patav. 1777, or II. 335, ed. Paris, 1698), but without a name or an allusion to the Sultan, simply as a dialogue between a Christian bishop and a catechumen, and with considerable enlargements and adaptations to the standard of Greek orthodoxy. Comp. Gass, I. pp. 89 sqq., II. pp. 16–30, and Otto, p. 407. The Sultan is represented as asking a number of short questions, such as: 'What is God?' 'Why is he called God (θεός)' 'How many Gods are there?' 'How, if there is but one God, can you speak of three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?' 'Why is the Father called Father?' 'Why is the Son called Son?' 'Why is the Holy Spirit called Spirit?' To these the Patriarch replies at some length, dwelling mainly on the doctrine of the Trinity, and illustrating it by the analogy of the sun, light, and heat, and by the trinity of the human mind.

But there is no external evidence for the authorship of Gennadius; 50and the internal evidence is against it. There was no need of two Confessions for the same occasion. There is nothing characteristic of a Mohammedan in the questions of the Sultan. The text is more loose and prolix in style than the genuine Confession; it contains some absurd etymologies unworthy of Gennadius;¹⁰¹¹⁰¹   The word θεός, is derived from θεωρεῖν (ἀπὸ τοῦ θεωρεῖν τὰ πάντα οἱονεὶ θεωρός), and also from θέειν, percurrere (ὁ γὰρ θεὸς ἀεὶ καὶ πανταχοῦ πάρεστιν); πατήρ is derived from τηρεῖν (ἀπὸ τοῦ τὰ πάντα τηρεῖν), υἱός from οἷος, talis (qualis enim Pater, talis Filius), πνεῦμα from νοέω, intelligo (πάντα γὰρ ὀξέως ἐπινοεῖ). and it expressly teaches the Latin doctrine of the double procession of the Holy Spirit.¹⁰²¹⁰²   In the Latin Version (Kimmel, p. 3): 'Quemadmodum substantia solis producit radios, et a sole et radiis procedit lumen: ita Pater generat Filium seu Verbum ejus, et a Patre et Filio Procedit Spiritus Sanctus.' In the Greek text (Gass, II. 19): Ὥσπερ ὁ δίσκος ὁ ἡλιακὸς γεννᾷ τὴν ἀκτῖνα, καὶ παρὰ τοῦ ἡλίου καὶ τῶν ἀκτίνων ἐκπορεύεται τὸ φῶς · οὕτω ὁ θεὸς καὶ πατὴρ γεννᾷ τὸν υἱὸν καὶ λόγον αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεται τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον. A Greek Patriarch could not have maintained himself with such an open avowal of the Latin doctrine. The text of Pseudo-Athanasius urges the processio a solo Patre, and removes all other approaches to the Latin dogma. For these reasons, we must either deny the authorship of Gennadius, or the integrity of the received text.¹⁰³¹⁰³    See Gass, I. p. 100, and Symb. der griech. Kirche, p. 38; Otto, p. 405. Both reject the authenticity of the Dialogue. At all events, it can not be regarded in its present form even as a secondary standard of Greek orthodoxy.

§ 13. The Answers of Patriarch Jeremiah to the Lutherans, A.D. 1576.

Melanchthon, who had the reunion of Christendom much at heart, especially in the later part of his life, first opened a Protestant correspondence with the Eastern Church by sending, through the hands of a Greek deacon, a Greek translation (made by Paul Dolscius) of the Augsburg Confession to Patriarch Joasaph II. of Constantinople, but apparently without effect.

Several years afterwards, from 1573–75, two distinguished professors of theology at Tübingen, Jacob Andreæ, one of the authors of the Lutheran 'Form of Concord' (d. 1590), and Martin Crusius, a rare Greek scholar (d. 1607),¹⁰⁴¹⁰⁴   He was able to take Andreæ's sermons down in Greek as they were delivered in German. on occasion of the ordination of Stephen Gerlach for 51the Lutheran chaplaincy of the German legation at the Sublime Porte, forwarded to the Patriarch of Constantinople commendatory letters, and soon afterwards several copies of the Augsburg Confession in Greek (printed at Basle, 1559), together with a translation of some sermons of Andreæ, and solicited an official expression of views on the Lutheran doctrines, which they thought were in harmony with those of the Eastern Church.

At that time Jeremiah II. was Patriarch of Constantinople (from 1572–94), a prelate distinguished neither for talent or learning, but for piety and misfortune, and for his connection with the Russian Church at an important epoch of its history. He was twice arbitrarily deposed, saw the old patriarchal church turned into a mosque, and made a collecting tour through Russia, where he was received with great honor, and induced to confer upon the Metropolitan of Moscow the patriarchal dignity over Russia (1589), and thus to lay the foundation of the independence of the Russian Church.¹⁰⁵¹⁰⁵   Mouravieff gives an interesting account of this visit of Jeremiah, who styled himself 'by the grace of God, Archbishop of Constantinople, which is new Rome, and Patriarch of the whole universe.' He made his solemn entry into the Kremlin seated on an ass, and presented to the Czar several rich relics, among which are mentioned 'a gold Panagia [picture of the Virgin Mary], with morsels of the life-giving Cross, of the Robe of the Lord, and of that of the Mother of God, incased within it, as well as portions of the instruments of our Lord's Passion, the Spear, the Reed, the Sponge, and the Crown of Thorns.'

After considerable delay, Jeremiah replied to the Lutheran divines at length, in 1576, and subjected the Augsburg Confession to an unfavorable criticism, rejecting nearly all its distinctive doctrines, and commending only its indorsement of the early œcumenical Synods and its view on the marriage of priests.¹⁰⁶¹⁰⁶   This third letter of Jeremiah is called Censura Orientalis Ecclesiæ, and covers nearly ninety pages folio. His first two letters are brief, and do not enter into doctrinal discussions. The Tübingen professors sent him an elaborate defense (1577), with other documents, but Jeremiah, two years afterwards, only reaffirmed his former position, and when the Lutherans troubled him with new letters, apologetic and polemic, he declined all further correspondence, and ceased to answer.¹⁰⁷¹⁰⁷    Vitus Myller, in his funeral discourse on Crusius, complains of the Greeks as being prouder and more superstitious than the Papists (pontificiis longe magis superstitiosi). Crusius edited also a Greek translation of four volumes of Lutheran sermons (Corona anni, στέφανος τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ, Wittemb. 1603) for the benefit of the Greek people, but with no better success.

The documents of both parties were published at Wittenberg, 1584.

The Answers of Jeremiah received the approval of the Synod of Jerusalem 52in 1672,¹⁰⁸¹⁰⁸   In Kimmel's Monumenta, Vol. I. p. 378. and may be regarded, therefore, as truly expressing the spirit of the Eastern Communion towards Protestantism. It is evident from the transactions of the Synod of Jerusalem that the Greek Church rejects Lutheranism and Calvinism alike as dangerous heresies.

The Anglican Church has since made several attempts to bring about an intercommunion with the orthodox East, especially with the Russo-Greek Church, during the reign of Peter the Great, and again in our own days, but so far without practical effect beyond the exchange of mutual courtesies and the expression of a desire for the reunion of orthodox Christendom.¹⁰⁹¹⁰⁹   See beyond, § 20.

 

§ 14. The Confession of Metrophanes Critopulus, A.D. 1625.

 

Next in chronological order comes the Confession of Metrophanes Critopulus, once Patriarch of Alexandria, which was written in 1625, though not published till 1661.

Metrophanes Critopulus was a native of Berœa, in Macedonia, and educated at Mount Athos. Cyril Lucar, then Patriarch of Alexandria, sent him to England, Germany, and Switzerland (1616), with a recommendation to the Archbishop of Canterbury (George Abbot), that he might be thoroughly educated to counteract, in behalf of the Greek Church, the intrigues of the Jesuits.¹¹⁰¹¹⁰   See the letter in Kimmel, Preface to Vol. II. p. vii., and in Colomesii, Opera, quoted there. On Cyril Lucar, see the next section. The Archbishop kindly received him, and, with the consent of King James I., secured him a place in one of the colleges of Oxford. In 1620 Metrophanes visited the Universities of Wittenberg, Tübingen, Altdorf, Strasburg, and Helmstädt. He acquired good testimonials for his learning and character. He entered into close relations with Calixtus and a few like-minded Lutheran divines, who dissented from the exclusive confessionalism and scholastic dogmatism of the seventeenth century, and labored for Catholic union on the basis of the primitive creeds. At their request Metrophanes prepared a work on the faith and worship of the orthodox Greek Church. He also wrote a number of philological essays. After spending 53some time in Venice as teacher of the Greek language, he returned to the East, and became successor of Cyril Lucar in Alexandria. But he disappointed the hopes of his patron, and, as a member of the Synod of Constantinople, 1638, he even took part in his condemnation. The year of his death is unknown.

The Confession of Metrophanes¹¹¹¹¹¹    Ὁμολογία τῆς ἀνατολικῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς καθολικῆς καὶ ἀποστολικῆς, συγγραφεῖσα ἐν ἐπιτομῇ διὰ Μητροφάνους Ἱερομονάχου Πατριαρχικοῦ τε Πρωτοσυγγέλλου τοῦ Κριτοπούλου. Confessio catholicæ et apostolicæ in Orienti ecclesiæ, conscripta compendiose per Metrophanem Critopulum, Hieromonachum et Patriarchalem Protosyngellum. It was first published in Greek, with a Latin translation, by J. Hornejus, at Helmstädt. 1661. Kimmel compared with this ed. the MS. which is preserved in the library at Wolfenbüttel, but he died before his edition appeared, with a preface of Weissenborn (1850). discusses, in twenty-three chapters, all the leading doctrines and usages of the Eastern Church. It is a lengthy theological treatise rather than a Confession of faith. It has never received ecclesiastical sanction, and is ignored by the Synod of Jerusalem; hence it ought not to be quoted as an authority, as is done by Winer and other writers on Symbolics. Nevertheless, as a private exposition of the Greek faith, it is of considerable interest.

Although orthodox in the main, it yet presents the more liberal and progressive aspect of Eastern theology. It was intended to give a truthful account of the Greek faith, but betrays the influence of the Protestant atmosphere in which it was composed. It is strongly opposed to Romanism, but abstains from all direct opposition to Protestantism, and is even respectfully dedicated to the Lutheran theological faculty of Helmstädt, where it was written.¹¹²¹¹²   Nicolaus Comnenus called Metrophanes a Græco-Lutheranus, but without good reason. In this respect it is the counterpart or complement of the Confession of Dositheus, which, in its zeal against Protestantism, almost ignores the difference from Romanism.¹¹³¹¹³    See below, § 17. Thus Metrophanes excludes the Apocrypha from the canon, denies in name (though maintaining in substance) the doctrine of purgatory, and makes a distinction between sacraments proper, viz., baptism, eucharist, and penance, and a secondary category of sacramental or mystical rites, viz., confirmation (or chrisma), ordination, marriage, and unction.

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§ 15. The Confession of Cyril Lucar, A.D. 1631.

The Confession of Cyril Lucar was never adopted by any branch or party of the Eastern Church, and even repeatedly condemned as heretical; but as it gave rise to the later authentic definitions of the 'Orthodox Faith,' in opposition to the distinctive doctrines of Romanism and Protestantism, it must be noticed here.

Cyrillus Lucaris (Kyrillos Loukaris¹¹⁴¹¹⁴   Properly 'the son of Lucar,' hence τοῦ Λουκάρεως. The word λοῦκαρ in later Greek is the Latin lucar, or lucrum, stipend, pay, profit, whence the French and English lucre.), a martyr of Protestantism within the orthodox Greek Church, occupies a remarkable position in the conflict of the three great Confessions to which the Reformation gave rise. He is the counterpart of his more learned and successful, but less noble, antagonist, Leo Allatius (1586–1669), who openly apostatized from the Greek Church to the Roman, and became librarian of the Vatican. His work is a mere episode, and passed away apparently without permanent effect, but (like the attempted reformations of Wyclif, Huss, and Savonarola) it may have a prophetic meaning for the future, and be resumed by Providence in a better form.

Cyril Lucar was born in 1568 or 1572 in Candia (Crete), then under the sovereignty of Venice, and the only remaining seat of Greek learning. He studied and traveled extensively in Europe, and was for a while rector and Greek teacher in the Russian Seminary at Ostrog, in Volhynia. In French Switzerland he became acquainted with the Reformed Church, and embraced its faith. Subsequently he openly professed it in a letter to the Professors of Geneva (1636), through Leger, 55a minister from Geneva, who had been sent to Constantinople. He conceived the bold plan of ingrafting Protestant doctrines on the old œcumenical creeds of the Eastern Church, and thereby reforming the same. He was unanimously elected Patriarch of Alexandria in 1602 (?), and of Constantinople in 1621. While occupying these high positions he carried on an extensive correspondence with Protestant divines in Switzerland, Holland, and England, sent promising youths to Protestant universities, and imported a press from England (1629) to print his Confession and several Catechisms. But he stood on dangerous ground, between vacillating or ill-informed friends and determined foes. The Jesuits, with the aid of the French embassador at the Sublime Porte, spared no intrigues to counteract and checkmate his Protestant schemes, and to bring about instead a union of the Greek hierarchy with Rome. At their instigation his printing-press was destroyed by the Turkish government. He himself—in this respect another Athanasius 'versus mundum,' though not to be compared in intellectual power to the 'father of orthodoxy'—was five times deposed, and five times reinstated. At last, however—unlike Athanasius, who died in peaceful possession of his patriarchal dignity—he was strangled to death in 1638, having been condemned by the Sultan for alleged high-treason, and his body was thrown into the Bosphorus. His friends surrounded the palace of his successor, Cyril of Berœa, crying, 'Pilate, give us the dead, that we may bury him.'¹¹⁵¹¹⁵    Πίλατε, δὸς ἡμῖν τὸν νεκρόν, ἵνα αὐτὸν θάψωμεν. The corpse was washed ashore, but it was only obtained by Cyril's adherents after having been once more cast out and returned by the tide. The next Patriarch, Parthenius, granted him finally an honorable burial.

Cyril left no followers able or willing to carry on his work, but the agitation he had produced continued for several years, and called forth defensive measures. His doctrines were anathematized by Patriarch Cyril of Berœa and a Synod of Constantinople (Sept., 1638),¹¹⁶¹¹⁶   Cyril of Berœa seemed to assume the authenticity of Cyril's Confession. He was, however, himself afterwards deposed and anathematized on the charge of extortion and embezzlement of ecclesiastical funds, and for the part he took in procuring the death of Cyril Lucar by preferring false accusation against him to the Turks. See Mouravieff, Hist. of the Church of Russia, translated by Blackmore, p. 396. Blackmore, however, gives there a wrong date, assigning the death of Cyril to 1628 instead of 1638. then again by the Synods of Jassy, in Moldavia, 1643, and of Jerusalem, 1672; but 56on the last two occasions the honor of his name and the patriarchal dignity were saved by boldly denying the authenticity of his Confession, and contradicting it by written documents from his pen.¹¹⁷¹¹⁷    The Synods of Jassy and Jerusalem intimate that Cyril's Confession was a Calvinistic forgery, and the Synod of Jerusalem quotes largely from his homilies to prove his orthodoxy. Mouravieff, l.c. p. 189, adopts a middle view, saying: 'Cyril, although he had condemned the new doctrine of Calvin, nevertheless had not stood up decidedly and openly to oppose it, and for his neglect he was himself delivered over to an anathema by his successor, Cyril of Berœa.'

This Cyril was the same who seat the famous uncial Codex Alexandrinus of the Bible (A) to King Charles I. of England,¹¹⁸¹¹⁸   Not to James I. (who died 1625), as Kimmel and Gass wrongly state. Cyril brought the Codex with him from Alexandria, or, according to another report, from Mount Athos, and sent it to England in 1628, where it passed from the king's library into the British Museum, 1753. It dates from the fifth century, and contains the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament, the whole New Testament, with some chasms, and, as an Appendix, the only MS. copy extant of the first Epistle of Clemens Romanus to the Corinthians, with a fragment of a second Epistle. The New Test. has been edited in quasi-fac-simile, by Woide, Lond. 1786, fol., and in ordinary Greek type by Cowper, Lond. 1860. and who translated the New Testament into the modern Greek language.¹¹⁹¹¹⁹    Published at Geneva or Leyden, 1638, and at London, 1703.

The Confession of Cyril was first written by him in Latin, 1629, and then in Greek, with an addition of four questions and answers, 1631, and published in both languages at Geneva, 1633.¹²⁰¹²⁰   The Latin edition was first published in 1529, either at the Hague (by the Dutch embassador Cornelius Van der Haga) or at Geneva, or at both places; the authorities I have consulted differ. The subscription to the Græco-Latin edition before me reads: 'Datum Constantinopoli mense Januario 1631 Cyrillus Patriarcha Constantinopoleos.' Another edition (perhaps by Hugo Grotius) was published 1645, without indication of place (perhaps at Amsterdam). I have used Kimmel's edition, which gives the text of the edition of 1645. It expresses his own individual faith, which he vainly hoped would become the faith of the Greek Church. It is divided into eighteen brief chapters, each fortified with Scripture references; eight chapters contain the common old Catholic doctrine, while the rest bear a distinctly Protestant character.

In Chapter I. the dogma of the Trinity is plainly stated in agreement with the œcumenical creeds, the procession of the Spirit in the conciliatory terms of the Council of Florence.¹²¹¹²¹   'Spiritus Sanctus a Patre Per Filium procedens,' ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς δἰ υἱοῦ. Chapters IV. and V. treat of the doctrines of creation and divine government; Chapter VI., of the fall of man; Chapters VII. and VIII., of the twofold state of Christ, his incarnation and humiliation, and his exaltation and sitting on the right hand of the Father, as the Mediator of mankind and the 57Ruler of his Church (status exinanitionis and st. exaltationis); Chapter IX., of faith in general; Chapter XVI., of baptismal regeneration.

The remaining ten chapters breathe the Reformed spirit. Chapter II. asserts that 'the authority of the Scriptures is superior to the authority of the Church,' since the Scriptures alone, being divinely inspired, can not err.¹²²¹²²   'Credimus Scripturam sacram esse θεοδίδακτον (i. e., a Deo traditam) habereque auctorem Spiritum Sanctum, non alium, cui habere debemus fidem indubitam. . . . Propterea ejus auctoritatem esse superiorem Ecclesiæ auctoritate; nimis enim differens est, loqui Spiritum Sanctum et linguam humanam, quum ista possit per ignorantiam errare, fallere et falli, Scriptura vero divina nec fallitur, nec errare potest, sed est infallibilis semper et certa.' In the appendix to the second (the Greek) edition, Cyril commends the general circulation of the Scriptures, and maintains their perspicuity in matters of faith, but excludes the Apocrypha, and rejects the worship of images. He believes 'that the Church is sanctified and taught by the Holy Spirit in the way of life,' but denies its infallibility, saying: 'The Church is liable to sin (ἁμαρτάνειν), and to choose the error instead of the truth (ἀντὶ τῆς ἀληθείας τὸ ψεῦδος ἐκλέγεσθαι); from such error we can only be delivered by the teaching and the light of the Holy Spirit, and not of any mortal man' (Ch. XII.). The doctrine of justification (Chapter XIII.) is stated as follows:

'We believe that man is justified by faith, not by works. But when we say "by faith," we understand the correlative of faith, viz., the Righteousness of Christ, which faith, fulfilling the office of the hand, apprehends and applies to us for salvation. And this we understand to be fully consistent with, and in no wise to the prejudice of, works; for the truth itself teaches us that works also are not to be neglected, and that they are necessary means and testimonies of our faith, and a confirmation of our calling. But, as human frailty bears witness, they are of themselves by no means sufficient to save man, and able to appear at the judgment-seat of Christ, so as to merit the reward of salvation. The righteousness of Christ, applied to the penitent, alone justifies and saves the believer.'

The freedom of will before regeneration is denied (Ch. XIV.).¹²³¹²³    Πιστεύομεν ἐν τοῖς οὐκ ἀναγεννηθεῖσι τὸ αὐτεξούσιον νεκρὸν εἶναι. This is in direct opposition to the traditional doctrine of the Greek Church, which emphasizes the liberum arbitrium even more than the Roman, and was never affected by the Augustinian anthropology. In the doctrine of decrees, Cyril agrees with the Calvinistic system (Ch. III.), and thereby offended Grotius and the Arminians. He accepts, with the Protestants, only two sacraments as being instituted by Christ, instead of seven, and requires faith as a condition of their application (Ch. XV.). He rejects the dogma of transubstantiation and oral manducation, and teaches the Calvinistic theory of a real but spiritual presence and fruition of the body and blood of Christ by believers only (Ch. XVII.). In the last chapter he rejects the doctrine of purgatory and of the possibility of repentance after death.

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§ 16. The Orthodox Confession of Mogilas, A.D. 1643.

The Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church¹²⁴¹²⁴     Ὀρθόδοξος ὁμολογία τῆς καθολικῆς καὶ ἀποστολικῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἀνατολικῆς. It is uncertain whether it was first written in Greek or in Russ. First published in Greek by Panagiotta, Amst. 1662; then in Greek and Latin by Bishop Normann, of Gothenburg (then Professor at Upsala), Leipz. 1695; in Greek, Latin, and German by C. G. Hofmann, Breslau, 1751; by Patriarch Adrian in Russian, Moscow, 1696, and again in 1839, etc.; in Kimmel's Momum. I. 56–324 (Greek and Latin, with the letters of Nectarius and Parthenius). Comp. Kimmel's Proleg. pp. lxii. sqq. The Confession must not be confounded with the Short Russian Catechism by the same author (Peter Mogilas). was originally drawn up about the year 1640 by Peter Mogilas (or Mogila), Metropolitan of Kieff, and father of Russian theology (died 1647), in the form of a Catechism for the benefit of the Russian Church.¹²⁵¹²⁵    The following account of Mogilas is translated from the Russian of Bolchofsky by Blackmore (The Doctrine of the Russian Church, p. xviii.): 'Peter Mogila belonged by birth to the family of the Princes of Moldavia, and before he became an ecclesiastic had distinguished himself as a soldier. After having embraced the monastic life, he became first Archimandrite of the Pechersky, and subsequently, in 1632, Metropolitan of Kieff, to which dignity he was ordained by authority of Cyril Lucar [then Patriarch of Constantinople], with the title of Eparch, or Exarch of the Patriarchal See. He sat about fifteen years, and died in 1647. Besides the Orthodox Confession, he put out, in 1645, in the dialect of Little Russia, his Short Catechism; composed a Preface prefixed to the Patericon; corrected, in 1646, from Greek and Slavonic MSS., the Trebnik, or Office-book, and added to each Office doctrinal, casuistical, and ceremonial instructions. He also caused translations to be made from the Greek Lives of the Saints, by Metaphrastus, though this work remained unfinished at his death; and, lastly, he composed a Short Russian Chronicle, which is preserved in MS., but has never yet been printed. He was the founder of the first Russian Academy at Kieff.' It was called, after him, the Kievo-Mogilian Academy. He also founded a library and a printing-press. See a fuller account of Peter Mogilas in Mouravieff's History of the Church of Russia, translated by Blackmore (Oxford, 1842), pp. 186–189. It is there stated that he received his education in the University of Paris. This accounts for the tinge of Latin scholasticism in his Confession. It was revised and adopted by a Provincial Synod at Kieff for Russia, then again corrected and purged by a Synod of the Greek and Russian clergy at Jassy, in 1643, where it received its present shape by Meletius Syriga, or Striga, the Metropolitan of Nicæa, and exarch of the Patriarch of Constantinople. As thus improved, it was sent to, and signed by, the four Eastern Patriarchs. The Synod of Jerusalem gave it a new sanction in 1672 (declaring it a ὁμολογία, ἣν ἐδέξατο καὶ δέχεται ἁπαξαπλῶς πᾶσα ἡ ἀνατολικὴ ἐκκλησία). In this way it became the Creed of the entire Greek and Russian Church. It has been the basis of several later Catechisms prepared by Russian divines.

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The Orthodox Confession was a defensive measure against Romanism and Protestantism. It is directed, first, against the Jesuits who, under the protection of the French embassadors in Constantinople, labored to reconcile the Greek Church with the Pope; and, secondly, against the Calvinistic movement, headed by Cyril Lucar, and continued after his death.¹²⁶¹²⁶    See § 15. Mouravieff, in his Hist. of the Church of Russia, p. 188, distinctly asserts that the Confession was directed both against the Jesuits and against 'the Calvinistic heresy,' which, 'under the name of Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople,' had been disseminated in the East by 'crafty teachers.' As Cyril and the Calvinists are not mentioned by name in the Orthodox Confession, another Russian writer, quoted by Blackmore (The Doctrine of the Russian Church, p. xx.), thinks that Mogilas wrote against the Lutherans rather than the Calvinists; adding, however, that it is chiefly directed against the Papists, from whom danger was most apprehended.

It is preceded by a historical account of its composition and publication, a pastoral letter of Nectarius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, dated Nov. 20, 1662; and by a letter of indorsement of the Greek text from Parthenius, Patriarch of Constantinople, dated March 11, 1643,¹²⁷¹²⁷    This is the date (αχμγ́) given by Kimmel, P. I. p. 53, and the date of the Synod of Jassy, where the Confession was adopted. Butler (Hist. Acc. of Conf. of Faith, p. 101) gives the year 1663; but the Confession was already published in 1662 with the letters of the two Patriarchs. See Kimmel, Proleg. p. lxii. followed by the signatures of twenty-six Patriarchs and prelates of the Eastern Church.

The letter of Parthenius is as follows:

The Confession itself begins with three preliminary questions and answers. Question first: 'What must an orthodox and Catholic Christian man observe in order to inherit eternal life?' Answer: 'Right 60faith and good works (πίστιν ὀρθὴν καὶ ἔργα καλά); for he who observes these is a good Christian, and has the hope of eternal salvation, according to the sacred Scriptures (James ii. 24): "Ye see, then, how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only;" and a little after (v. 26): "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." The divine Paul adds the same in another place (1 Tim. i. 19): "Holding faith and a good conscience; which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck;" and, in another place, he says (1 Tim. iii. 9): "Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience."' This is essentially the same with the Roman Catholic doctrine. It is characteristic that no passage is cited from the Romans and Galatians, which are the bulwark of the evangelical Protestant view of justification by faith. The second Question teaches that faith must precede works, because it is impossible to please God without faith (Heb. xi. 6). The third Question treats of the division of the Catechism according to the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity.

The Catechism is therefore divided into three parts.

1. Part first treats of Faith (περὶ πίστεως), and explains the Nicene Creed, which is divided into twelve articles, and declared to contain all things pertaining to our faith so accurately 'that we should believe nothing more and nothing less, nor in any other sense than that in which the fathers [of the Councils of Nicæa and Constantinople] understood it' (Qu. 5). The clause Filioque is, of course, rejected as an unwarranted Latin interpolation and corruption (Qu. 72).

2. Part second treats of Hope (περὶ ἐλπίδος), and contains an exposition of the Lord's Prayer and the (nine) Beatitudes (Matt. v. 3–11).

3. Part third treats of Love to God and man (περὶ τῆς εἰς θεὸν καὶ τὸν πλησίον ἀγάπης), and gives an exposition of the Decalogue; but this is preceded by forty-five questions on the three cardinal virtues of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and the four general virtues which flow out of them (prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance), on mortal and venial sins, on the seven general mortal sins (pride, avarice, fornication, envy, gluttony, desire of revenge, and sloth), on the sins against the Holy Ghost (presumption or temerity, despair, persistent opposition to the truth, and renouncing of the Christian faith), and on venial sins. In the division of the Ten Commandments the Greek Confession agrees with the Reformed Church in opposition to the Roman and Lutheran 61Churches, which follow the less natural division of Augustine by merging the second commandment in the first, and then dividing the tenth.

 

§ 17. The Synod of Jerusalem and the Confession of Dositheus, A.D. 1672.

The Synod convened at Jerusalem in March, 1672, by Patriarch Dositheus, for the consecration of the restored Church of the Holy Nativity in Bethlehem,¹²⁹¹²⁹    Hence it is sometimes called the Synod of Bethlehem, but it was actually held at Jerusalem. issued a new Defense or Apology of Greek Orthodoxy. It is directed against Calvinism, which was still professed or secretly held by many admirers of Cyril Lucar. It is dated Jerusalem, March 16, 1672, and signed by Dositheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem and Palestine (otherwise little known), and by sixty-eight Eastern bishops and ecclesiastics, including some from Russia.¹³⁰¹³⁰    Its title is Ασπὶς ὀρθδοξίας ἢ ἀπολογία καὶ ἔλεγχος πρὸς τοὺς διασύροντας τὴν ἀνατολικὴν ἐκκλησίαν αἱρετικῶς φρονεῖν ἐν τοῖς περὶ θεοῦ καὶ τῶν θείων, κ.τ.λ. Clypeus orthodoxæ fidei sive Apologia adversus Calvinistas hæreticos, Orientalem ecclesiam de Deo rebusque divinis hæretice cum ipsis sentire mentientes. The first edition, Greek and Latin, was published at Paris, 1676; then revised, 1678; also by Hardouin, and Kimmel, l.c.

This Synod is the most important in the modern history of the Eastern Church, and may be compared to the Council of Trent. Both fixed the doctrinal status of the Churches they represent, and both condemned the evangelical doctrines of Protestantism. Both were equally hierarchical and intolerant, and present a strange contrast to the first Synod held in Jerusalem, when 'the apostles and elders,' in the presence of 'the brethren,' freely discussed and adjusted, in a spirit of love, without anathemas, the great controversy between the Gentile and the Jewish Christians. The Synod of Jerusalem has been charged by Aymon and others with subserviency to the interests of Rome; Dositheus being in correspondence with Nointel, the French embassador at Constantinople. The Synod was held at a time when the Romanists and Calvinists in France fiercely disputed about the Eucharist, and were anxious to secure the support of the Greek Church. But although the Synod was chiefly aimed against Protestantism, and has no direct polemical reference 62to the Latin Church, it did not give up any of the distinctive Greek doctrines, or make any concessions to the claims of the Papacy.

The acts of the Synod of Jerusalem consist of six chapters, and a confession of Dositheus in eighteen decrees. Both are preceded by a pastoral letter giving an account of the occasion of this public confession in opposition to Calvinism and Lutheranism, which are condemned alike as being essentially the same heresy, notwithstanding some apparent differences.¹³¹¹³¹     Ἄδελφὰ φρονεῖ Λουθῆρος Καλουΐνῳ, εἰ καὶ ἐν τισι διαφέρειν δοκοῦσιν . 'Non alia est Lutheri hæresis atque Calvini, quamquam nonnihil videtur interesse' (Kimmel, P. I. p. 335). The Answers of Patriarch Jeremiah given to Martin Crusius, Professor in Tübingen, and other Lutherans, in 1572, are approved by the Synod of Jerusalem, as they were by the Synod of Jassy, and thus clothed with a semi-symbolical authority. The Orthodox Confession of Peter Mogilas is likewise sanctioned again, but the Confession of Cyril Lucar is disowned as a forgery.

The Six Chapters are very prolix, and altogether polemical against the Confession which was circulated under the name of Cyril Lucar, and give large extracts from his homilies preached before the clergy and people of Constantinople to prove his orthodoxy. One anathema is not considered sufficient, and a threefold anathema is hurled against the heretical doctrines.

The Confessio Dosithei presents, in eighteen decrees or articles,¹³²¹³²     Ὅρος, decree, decision. It is translated capitulum in Hardouin, decretum in Kimmel. a positive statement of the orthodox faith. It follows the order of Cyril's Confession, which it is intended to refute. It is the most authoritative and complete doctrinal deliverance of the modern Greek Church on the controverted articles. It was formally transmitted by the Eastern Patriarchs to the Russian Church in 1721, and through it to certain Bishops of the Church of England, as an ultimatum to be received without further question or conference by all who would be in communion with the Orthodox Church. The eighteen decrees were also published in a Russian version (1838), but with a number of omissions and qualifications,¹³³¹³³    Under the title 'Imperial and Patriarchal Letters on the Institution of the Most Holy Synod, with an Exposition of the Orthodox Faith of the Catholic Church of the East.' See Blackmore, l.c. p. xxviii. Blackmore (pp. xxvi. and xxvii.) gives also two interesting letters of 'the Most Holy Governing Synod of the Russian Church to the Most Reverend the Bishops of the Remnant of the Catholic Church in Great Britain, our Brethren most beloved in the Lord, 'in answer to letters of two Non-Jurors and two Scotch Bishops seeking communion with the Eastern Church. Comp. § 20. showing that, after all, the Russian branch of the Greek 63Church reserves to itself a certain freedom of further theological development. We give them here in a condensed summary from the original Greek:

Article I.—The doctrine of the Holy Trinity, with the single procession of the Spirit. (Πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον. Against the Latins.)

Article II.—The Holy Scriptures must be interpreted, not by private judgment, but in accordance with the tradition of the Catholic Church, which can not err, or deceive, or be deceived, and is of equal authority with the Scriptures. (Essentially Romish, but without an infallible, visible head of the Church.)

Article III.—God has from eternity predestinated to glory those who would, in his foreknowledge, make good use of their free will in accepting the salvation, and has condemned those who would reject it. The Calvinistic doctrine of unconditional predestination is condemned as abominable, impious, and blasphemous.

Article IV.—The doctrine of creation. The triune God made all things, visible and invisible, except sin, which is contrary to his will, and originated in the Devil and in man.

Article V.—The doctrine of Providence. God foresees and permits (but does not foreordain) evil, and overrules it for good.

Article VI.—The primitive state and fall of man. Christ and the Virgin Mary are exempt from sin.

Article VII.—The doctrine of the incarnation of the Son of God, his death, resurrection, ascension, and return to judgment.

Article VIII.—The work of Christ. He is the only Mediator and Advocate for our sins; but the saints, and especially the immaculate Mother of our Lord, as also the holy angels, bring our prayers and petitions before him, and give them greater effect.

Article IX.—No one can be saved without faith, which is a certain persuasion, and works by love (i.e. the observance of the divine commandments). It justifies before Christ, and without it no one can please God.

Article X.—The holy Catholic and Apostolic Church comprehends 64all true believers in Christ, and is governed by Christ, the only head, through duly ordained bishops in unbroken succession. The doctrine of Calvinists, that bishops are not necessary, or that priests (presbyters) may be ordained by priests, and not by bishops only, is rejected.

Article XI.—Members of the Catholic Church are all the faithful, who firmly hold the faith of Christ as delivered by him, the apostles, and the holy synods, although some of them may be subject to various sins.

Article XII.—The Catholic Church is taught by the Holy Ghost, through prophets, apostles, holy fathers, and synods, and therefore can not err, or be deceived, or choose a lie for the truth. (Against Cyril; comp. Art. II.)

Article XIII.—Man is justified, not by faith alone, but also by works.

Article XIV.—Man has been debilitated by the fall, and lost the perfection and freedom from suffering, but not his intellectual and moral nature. He has still the free will (τὸ αὐτεξούσιον) or the power to choose and do good or to flee and hate evil (Matt. v. 46, 47; Rom. i. 19; ii. 14, 15). But good works done without faith can not contribute to our salvation; only the works of the regenerate, done under grace and with grace, are perfect, and render the one who does them worthy of salvation (σωτηρίας ἄξιον ποιεῖται τὸν ἐνεργοῦντα).

Article XV.—Teaches, with the Roman Church, the seven sacraments or mysteries (μυστὴρια), viz., baptism (τὸ ἅγιον βάπτισμα, Matt. xxviii. 19), confirmation (βεβαίωσις or χρίσμα, Luke xxiv. 49; 2 Cor. i. 21; and Dionysius Areop.), ordination (ἱεροσύνη, Matt. xviii. 18), the unbloody sacrifice of the altar (ἡ ἀναίμακτος θυσία, Matt. xxvi. 26, etc.), matrimony (γάμος, Matt. xix. 6; Eph. v. 32), penance and confession (μετάνοια καὶ ἐξομολόγησις, John xx. 23; Luke xiii. 3, 5), and holy unction (τὸ ἅγιον ἔλαιον or εὐχέλαιον, Mark vi. 13; James v. 14). Sacraments are not empty signs of divine promises (as circumcision), but they necessarily (ἐξ ἀνάγκης) confer grace (as ὄργανα δραστικὰ χάριτος).

Article XVI.—Teaches the necessity of baptism for salvation, baptismal regeneration (John iii. 5), infant baptism, and the salvation of baptized infants (Matt. xix. 12). The effect of baptism is the remission of hereditary and previous actual sin, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. It can not be repeated; sins committed after baptism must be forgiven by priestly absolution on repentance and confession.

65Article XVII.—The Eucharist is both a sacrament and a sacrifice, in which the very body and blood of Christ are truly and really (ἀληθῶς καὶ πραγματικῶς) present under the figure and type (ἐν εἴδει καὶ τύπῳ) of bread and wine, are offered to God by the hands of the priest as a real though unbloody sacrifice for all the faithful, whether living or dead (ὑπὲρ πάντων τῶν εὐσεβῶν ζώντων καὶ τεθνεώτων), and are received by the hand and the mouth of unworthy as well as worthy communicants, though with opposite effects. The Lutheran doctrine is rejected, and the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation (μεταβολή, μετουσίωσις) is taught as strongly as words can make it;¹³⁴¹³⁴    Decr. 17 (Kimmel, P. I. p. 457): ὥστε μετὰ τὸν ἁγιασμὸν τοῦ ἄρτου καὶ τοῦ οἴνου μεταβάλλεσθαι (to be translated) μετουσιοῦσθαι (transubstantiated), μεταποιεῖσθαι (refashioned, transformed), μεταῤῥυθμίζεσθαι (changed, reformed), τὸν μὲν ἄρτον εἰς αὐτὸ τὸ ἀληθὲς τοῦ κυρίου σῶμα, ὅπερ ἐγεννήθη ἐν Βηθλεὲμ ἐκ τῆς ἀειπαρθένου, ἐβαπτίσθη ἐν Ἰορδάνῃ, ἔπαθεν, ἐτάφη, ἀνέστη, ἀνελήφθη, κάθηται ἐκ δεζιῶν τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ πατέρος, μέλλει ἐλθεῖν ἐπὶ τῶν νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ—τὸν δ̉ οἶνον μεταποιεῖσθαι καὶ μετουσιοῦσθαι εἰς αὐτὸ τὸ ἀληθὲς τοῦ κυρίου αἶμα, ὅπερ κρεμαμένου ἐπὶ τοῦ σταυροῦ ἐχύθη ὑπὲρ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου ξωῆς. Mosheim thinks that the Greeks first adopted in this period the doctrine of transubstantiation, but Kiesling (Hist. concertat. Græcorum Latinorumque de transsubstantiatione, pp. 354–480, as quoted by Tzschirner, in Vol. IX. of his continuation of Schroeckh's Church Hist. since the Reformation, p. l02) has shown that several Greeks taught this theory long before or ever since the Council of Florence (1439). Yet the opposition to the Calvinistic view of Cyril and his sympathizers brought the Greek Church to a clearer and fuller expression on this point. but it is disclaimed to give an explanation of the mode in which this mysterious and miraculous change of the elements takes place.¹³⁵¹³⁵    Ibid. (p. 461): ἔτι τῇ μετουσίωσις λέξει οὐ τὸν τρόπον πιστεύομεν δηλοῦσθαι, καθ̉ ὃν ὁ ἄρτος καὶ ὁ οἶνος μεταποιοῦνται εἰς τὸ σῶμα καὶ τὸ αἷμα τοῦ κυρίου—τοῦτο γὰρ ἄληπτον πάντη καὶ ἀδύνατον πλὴν αὐτοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ. In the Lat. Version: 'Præterea verbo Transsubstantiationis modum ilium, quo in corpus et sanguinem Domini panis et vinum convertantur, explicari minime credimus—id enim penitus incomprehensibile,' etc. Μετουσίωσις (not given in the Classical Dict., nor in Sophocles's Byzantine Greek Dict., nor in Suicer's Thesaurus)—from the classical οὐσιόω, to call into being (οὐσία) or existence, and the patristic οὐσίωσις, a calling into existence—must be equivalent to the Latin transsubstantiatio, or change of the elemental substance of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.

Article XVIII.—The souls of the departed are either at rest or in torment,¹³⁶¹³⁶     ἐν ἀνέσει, lit. in relaxation, recreation, ἢ ἐν ὀδύνῃ, or in pain, distress. according to their conduct in life; but their condition will not be perfect till the resurrection of the body. The souls of those who die in a state of penitence (μετανοήσαντες), without having brought forth fruits of repentance, or satisfactions (ἱκανοποίησις), depart into Hades (ἀπέρχεσθαι εἰς ᾄδου), and there they must suffer the punishment for their sins; but they may be delivered by the prayers of the priests and the alms of their kindred, especially by the unbloody sacrifice of the mass 66(μαγάλα δυναμένης μάλιστα τῆς ἀναιμάκτου θυσίας), which individuals offer for their departed relatives, and which the Catholic and Apostolic Church daily offers for all alike. The liberation from this intervening state of purification will take place before the resurrection and the general judgment, but the time is unknown.

This is essentially the Romish doctrine of purgatory, although the term is avoided, and nothing is said of material or physical torments.¹³⁷¹³⁷   The same doctrine is taught in the Longer Russian Catechism of Philaret (on the 11th article of the Nicene Creed). It is often asserted (even by Winer, who is generally very accurate, Symb. pp. 158, 159) that the Greek Church rejects the Romish purgatory. Winer quotes the Conf. Metrophanis Critopuli, c. 20; but this has no ecclesiastical authority, and, although it rejects the word πῦρ καθαρτήριον (ignis purgatoris), and all idea of material or physical pain (τὴν ἐκείνων ποινὴν μὴ ὑλικὴν εἶναι, εἴτους ὀργανικήν, μὴ διὰ πυρός, μήτε δἰ ἄλλης ὕλης), it asserts, nevertheless, a spiritual pain of conscience in the middle state (ἀλλὰ διὰ θλίψεως καὶ ἀνίας τῆς συνειδήσεως), from which the sufferers may be released by prayers and the sacrifice of the altar. The Conf. Orthodoxa (P. I. Qu. 66) speaks vaguely of a πρόσκαιρος κόλασις καθαρτικὴ τῶν ψυχῶν, 'a temporary purifying (disciplinary) punishment of the souls.' The Roman Church, on her part, does not require belief in a material fire. The Greek Church has no such minute geography of the spirit world as the Latin, which, besides heaven and hell proper, teaches an intervening region of purgatory for imperfect Christians, and two border regions, the Limbus Patrum for the saints of the Old Testament now delivered, and the Limbus Infantum for unbaptized children; but it differs much more widely from the Protestant eschatology, which rejects the idea of a third or middle place altogether, and assign all the departed either to a state of bliss or a state of misery; allowing, however, different degrees in both states corresponding to the different degrees of holiness and wickedness.

To these eighteen decrees are added four questions and answers, with polemic reference to the similar questions at the close of the enlarged edition of Cyril's Confession.¹³⁸¹³⁸    Comp. § 15, p. 57. The first question discourages and even prohibits the general and indiscriminate reading of the Holy Scriptures, especially certain portions of the Old Testament. The second denies the perspicuity of the Scriptures. The third defines the extent of the canon including the Apocrypha.¹³⁹¹³⁹    The following Apocrypha are expressly mentioned (Vol. I. p. 467): The Wisdom of Solomon, Judith, Tobit, History of the Dragon, History of Susannah, the books of the Maccabees, the Wisdom of Sirach. The Confession of Mogilas, though not formally sanctioning the Apocrypha, quotes them frequently as authority, e.g. Tobit xii. 9, in P. III. Qu. 9, on alms. On the other hand, the less important Confession of Metrophanes Critopulus, c. 7 (Kimmel, P. II. p. 104 sq.), mentions only twenty-two canonical books of the Old Test., and excludes from them the Apocrypha, mentioning Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach, Baruch, and the Maccabees. The Russian Catechism of Philaret omits the Apocrypha in enumerating the books of the Old Test., for the reason that 'they do not exist in Hebrew,' but adds that 'they have been appointed by the fathers to be read by proselytes who are preparing for admission into the Church.' (See Vol. II. 451, and Blackmore's translation, pp.38, 39.) The fourth teaches the worship of saints, especially the Mother of God (who is the object of 67hyperdulia, as distinct from the ordinary dulia of saints, and the latria or worship proper due to God), as also the worshipful veneration of the cross, the holy Gospels, the holy vessels, the holy places,¹⁴⁰¹⁴⁰    προσκυνοῦμεν καὶ τιμῶμεν τὸ ξύλον τοῦ τιμίου τοῦ ζωοποιοῦ σταυροῦ, κ.τ.λ. and of the images of Christ and of the saints.¹⁴¹¹⁴¹    τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χρ. καὶ τῆς ὑπεραγίας θεοτόκου καὶ πάντων τῶν ἁγίων προσκυνοῦμεν καὶ τιμῶμεν καὶ ἀσπαζόμεθα.

In all these important points the Synod of Jerusalem again essentially agrees with the Church of Rome, and radically dissents from Protestantism.

§ 18. The Synods of Constantinople, A.D. 1672 and 1691.

Three months previous to the Synod of Jerusalem a Synod was held at Constantinople (January, 1672), which adopted a doctrinal statement signed by Dionysius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and forty-three dignitaries belonging to his patriarchate.¹⁴²¹⁴²    It is called Dionysii, Patr. Const., super Calvinistarum erroribus ac reali imprimis præsentia responsio, and is published in some editions of the Confession of the Synod of Jerusalem; in Harduini Acta Conciliorum, Tom. XI. pp. 274–282; and in the second volume of Kimmel's Monumenta, pp. 214–227. It is less complete than the Confession of Dositheus, but agrees with it on all points, as the authority and infallibility of the Church, the extent of the canon, the seven mysteries (sacraments), the real sacrifice of the altar, and the miraculous transformation¹⁴³¹⁴³   On this the document teaches (Kimmel, P. II. p. 218) that when the priest prays, 'Make (ποίησον) this bread the precious blood of thy Christ,' then, by the mysterious and ineffable operation of the Holy Ghost, ὁ μὲν ἄρτος μεταποιεῖται (transmutatur) εἰς αὐτό ἐκεῖνο τὸ ἴδιον σῶμα τοῦ σωτῆρος Χριστοῦ πραγματικῶς καὶ ἀληθῶς καὶ κυρίως (realiter, vere, ac proprie), ὁ δὲ οἶνος εἰς τὸ ζωοποιὸν αἷμα αὐτοῦ. of the elements.

Another Synod was held in Constantinople nineteen years afterwards, in 1691, under Patriarch Callinicus, for the purpose of giving renewed sanction to the orthodox doctrine of the Eucharist, in opposition to Logothet John Caryophylus, who had rejected the Romish theory of transubstantiation, and defended the Calvinistic view of Cyril Lucar. The Synod condemned him, and declared that the Eastern Church had always taught a change (μεταβολή) of the elements in the sense of a transubstantiation (μετουσίωσις), or an actual transformation of their essence into the body and blood of Christ.¹⁴⁴¹⁴⁴    I have not been able to procure the proceedings of this Synod; they are omitted both by Hardouin and Kimmel. They were first printed at Jassy, 1698; then in Greek and Latin by Eusebius Renaudot, together with some other Greek writings on the Eucharist, Paris, 1709; in German by Heineccius, in his Abbildung der alten und neuen Griechischen Kirche, 2 Parts, Leipz. 1711. Appendix. p. 40. etc. So says Rud. Hofmann (in his Symbolik, Leipz. 1857, p. 135), who has paid careful attention to the Greek Church.

 

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§ 19. The Doctrinal Standards of the Russo-Greek Church.

The latest doctrinal standards of Greek Christianity are the authorized Catechisms and Church-books of the orthodox Church of Russia, by far the most important and hopeful branch of the Eastern Communion.

Russia received Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Cyril and Methodius, two monks of Constantinople, preached the gospel to the Bulgarians on the Danube after the middle of the ninth century, translated the Scriptures¹⁴⁵¹⁴⁵    The Psalms and the New Testament, with the exception of the Apocalypse. into the Slavonic language (creating the Slavonic alphabet in quaint Greek characters), and thus laid the foundation of Slavonic literature and civilization. This event was contemporary with the founding of the Russian Empire by Ruric, of the Norman race (A.D. 862), and succeeded by half a century the founding of the 69German Empire under Charlemagne, in close connection with Rome (A.D. 800). As the latter was a substitute for the Western Roman Empire, so the former was destined to take the place of the Eastern Roman Empire, and looks forward to the reconquest of Constantinople, as its natural capital. The barbarous Russians submitted, in the tenth century, without resistance, to Christian baptism by immersion, at the command of their Grand Duke, Vladimir, who himself was brought over to Christianity by a picture on the last judgment, and his marriage to a sister of the Greek Emperor Basil. In this wholesale conversion every thing is characteristic: the influence of the picture, the effect of marriage, the power of the civil ruler, the military command, the passive submission of the people.

Since that time the Greek Church has been the national religion of the Slavonic Russians, and identified with all their fortunes and misfortunes. For a long time they were subject to the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople. But after the fall of this city (1453) the Metropolitan of Moscow became independent (1461), and a century later (January, 1589) he was raised by Patriarch Jeremiah II. of Constantinople, then on a collecting tour in Russia, to the dignity of a Patriarch of equal rank with the other four (of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem). Moscow was henceforward the holy city, the Rome of Russia.

In the beginning of the eighteenth century, Peter the Great, a second Constantine, founded St. Petersburg (1703), made this city the political and ecclesiastical capital of his Empire, and created, in the place of the Patriarchate of Moscow, the 'Most Holy Governing Synod,' with the Czar as the head (1721). This organic change was sanctioned by the Eastern Patriarchs (1723), who look upon the emperor-pope of Russia as their future deliverer from the intolerable yoke of the Turks.

We have already seen that the 'Orthodox Confession,' or the first systematic and complete exhibition of the modern Greek faith, is the product of a Russian prelate, Peter Mogilas of Kieff. It was followed, and practically superseded, by other catechisms, which are much better adapted to the religious instruction of the young.

1. The Catechism of Platon, Metropolitan of Moscow (died 1812), one of the very few Russian divines whose name is known beyond their native land.¹⁴⁶¹⁴⁶    'Orthodox Doctrine, or Summary of Christian Divinity;' first published 1762 in Russian, and translated into eight languages: in English, ed. by R. Pinkerton, Edinb. 1814; German ed., Riga, 1770; Latin ed., Moscow, 1774. Blackmore (l.c. p. vii.) speaks of three Catechisms of Platon, which probably differ only in size. He was the favorite of the Empress Catherine II. (died 1796), and, for a time, of her savage son, the Emperor Paul (assassinated 1801), and at the end of his life he encouraged the Emperor Alexander I. in the terrible year of the French invasion and the destruction of Moscow. When the French atheist Diderot began a conversation with the sneering remark, 'There is no God,' Platon instantly replied, 'The fool says in his heart, There is no God.' He was a great preacher and the leader of a somewhat milder type of Russian orthodoxy, not disinclined to commune with the outside world. His Catechism was originally prepared for his pupil, the Grand Duke Paul Petrovitsch, and shows some influence of the evangelical system by its tendency to go directly to the Bible.

2. The Catechism of Philaret, revised, authorized, and published by the Holy Synod of St. Petersburg. It is translated into several languages, and since 1839 generally used in the schools and churches of Russia. It was sent to all the Eastern Patriarchs, and unanimously approved by them.¹⁴⁷¹⁴⁷    Philaret wrote two Catechisms—a shorter one, called 'Elements of Christian Learning; or, a Short Sacred History and a Short Catechism,' St. Petersburg, at the Synodical Press, 1840 (only about twelve pages), and a longer one under the title, 'A Full Catechism of the Orthodox Catholic Church of the East, examined and approved by the Most Holy Governing Synod, and published for the Use of Schools and of all Orthodox Christians, by order of His Imperial Majesty,' Moscow, at the Synodical Press, 1839 (English translation of Blackmore, Aberdeen, 1845). Most of the German works on Symbolics ignore Philaret altogether. Even Hofmann (p. 136) and Gass (p. 440) barely mention him. We give his Larger Catechism in the second volume.

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Philaret (born 1782, died 1867) was for forty-seven years (1820–67) Metropolitan of Moscow. He was intrusted with the important State secret of the will of Alexander I., and crowned his two successors (Nicholas I. and Alexander II.). He represents, in learning, eloquence, and ascetic piety, the best phase of the Russian State Church in the nineteenth century.¹⁴⁸¹⁴⁸    Dean Stanley, who saw him in Moscow in 1857, praises his striking and impressive manner as a preacher, his gentleness, his dignified courtesy and affability, and associates him with a reactionary revival of mediæval sanctity, which had its parallel in the Puseyism of the Church of England. The Scottish Bishop of Moray and Ross, who called on him in behalf of the Eastern Church Association in 1866, describes him as the most venerated and beloved man in the Russian Empire, and as 'gentle, humble, and pious.' Comp. Souchkow, Memoirs of Philaret, Moscow, 1868; Select Sermons of Philaret. transl. from the Russian, London (Jos. Masters), 1873.

His longer Catechism (called a full catechism) is, upon the whole, the ablest and clearest summary of Eastern orthodoxy, and shows a disposition to support every doctrine by direct Scripture testimony. It follows the plan and division of the Orthodox Confession of Mogilas, and conforms to its general type of teaching, but it is more clear, simple, evangelical, and much better adapted for practical use. In a number of introductory questions it discusses the meaning of a catechism, the nature and necessity of right faith and good works, divine revelation, the holy tradition and Holy Scripture (as the two channels of the divine revelation and the joint rule of faith and discipline), the Canon of the Scriptures (exclusive of the Apocrypha, because 'not written in Hebrew'), with some account of the several books of the Old and New Testaments, and the composition of the Catechism. This is divided into three parts, like the Confession of Mogilas, according to the three cardinal virtues (1 Cor. xiii. 13).

First Part: On Faith. An Exposition of the Nicene Creed, arranged in twelve articles. In the doctrine of the Church the Protestant distinction of the visible and invisible Church is, in a modified sense, adopted; Christ is declared to be the only and ever-abiding Head of the Church, and it is stated that the division of the Church into many particular and independent organizations, as those of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, Russia (Rome, Wittenberg, Geneva, and Canterbury are ignored); does not hinder them from being spiritually members 'of the one body of the Universal Church, from having one Head, Christ, and one spirit of faith and of grace.'

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Second Part: On Hope. An Exposition of the Lord's Prayer (in seven petitions), and of the nine Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount.

Third Part: On Love or Charity. An Exposition of the Decalogue as teaching, in two tables, love to God and love to our neighbor. The last question is: 'What caution do we need when we seem to ourselves, to have fulfilled any commandment?  A. We must then dispose our hearts according to the words of Jesus Christ: "When ye have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do" (Luke xvii. 10).'

3. Finally, we may mention, as secondary standards of Russian orthodoxy and discipline, the Primer or Spelling-Book, and a Treatise on The Duty of Parish Priests.¹⁴⁹¹⁴⁹    Both translated by Blackmore, l.c.

The Primer contains the rudiments of religious learning for children and the common people, viz., daily prayers (including the Lord's Prayer, and the 'Hail Mary, Virgin Mother of God,' yet without the 'Pray for us' of the Latin formula), the Nicene Creed, the Ten Commandments (the second and fourth abridged), with brief explanations and short moral precepts.

The Treatise on The Duty of Parish Priests was composed by George Konissky, Archbishop of Mogileff (died 1795), aided by Parthenius Sopkofsky, Bishop of Smolensk, and first printed at St. Petersburg in 1776. All candidates for holy orders in the Russian Seminaries are examined on the contents of this book. It is mainly disciplinary and pastoral, a manual for the priests, directing them in their duties as teachers, and as administrators of the mysteries or sacraments. But doctrine is incidentally touched, and it is worthy of remark that this Treatise approaches more nearly to the evangelical principle of the supremacy of the Bible in matters of Christian faith and Christian life than any deliverance of the Eastern Church.¹⁵⁰¹⁵⁰   See Part I. No. VIII.–XIII. pp. 160–164 in Blackmore's version: 'All the articles of the faith are contained in the Word of God, that is, in the books of the Old and New Testaments. . . . The Word of God is the source, foundation, and perfect rule, both of our faith and of the good works of the law. . . . The writings of the holy Fathers are of great use . . . but neither the writings of the holy Fathers nor the traditions of the Church are to be confounded or equaled with the Word of God and his Commandments.'

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§ 20. Anglo-Catholic Correspondence with the Russo-Greek Church.

The Reformation of the sixteenth century proceeded entirely from the bosom of Latin or Western Catholicism. The Greek or Eastern Church had no part in the great controversy, and took no notice of it, until it was brought to its attention from without. The antagonism of the Greek Communion to Western innovations, especially to the claims of the Papacy, seemed to open the prospect of possible intercommunion and co-operation. But, so far, all the approaches to this effect on the part of Protestants have failed

1. The first attempt was made by Lutheran divines in the sixteenth century, and ended in the condemnation of the Augsburg Confession.¹⁵¹¹⁵¹    See above, § 13.

2. Of a different kind was Cyril's movement, in the seventeenth century, to protestantize the Eastern Church from within, which resulted in a stronger condemnation of Calvinism and Lutheranism.¹⁵²¹⁵²    See §§ 15–18.

3. The correspondence of the Anglican Non-Jurors with Russia and the East, 1717–1723, had no effect whatever.

Two high-church English Bishops; called 'Non-Jurors' (because they refused to renounce their oath of allegiance to King James II., and to transfer it to the Prince of Orange), in connection with two Scottish Bishops, assumed, October, 1717, the responsibility of corresponding with the Russian Czar, Peter the Great, and the Eastern Patriarchs.¹⁵³¹⁵³    The letters of the four Bishops signing themselves 'Jeremias, Primus Angliæ Episcopus; Archibaldus, Scoto-Britanniæ Episcopus; Jacobus, Scoto-Britanniæ Episcopus; Thomas, Angliæ Episcopus,' are given by Lathbury, in his History of the Non-Jurors, pp. 309–361, as documentary proof of their doctrinal status, but the answers are omitted. They were prompted to this step by a visit of an Egyptian Bishop to England, who collected money for the impoverished patriarchal see of Alexandria, and probably still more by a desire to get aid and comfort from abroad in their schismatical isolation. They characteristically styled themselves 'The Catholic Remainder in Britain.'

After a delay of several years, the Patriarchs, under date, Constantinople, September, 1723, sent their ultimatum, requiring, as a term of communion, absolute submission of the British to all the dogmas of the Greek Church. 'Those,' they wrote, 'who are disposed to agree 75with us in the Divine doctrines of the Orthodox faith must necessarily follow and submit to what has been defined and determined by ancient Fathers and the Holy Œcumenical Synods from the time of the Apostles and their Holy Successors, the Fathers of our Church, to this time. We say they must submit to them with sincerity and obedience, and without any scruple or dispute. And this is a sufficient answer to what you have written.' With this answer they forwarded the decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem of 1672.

The Russians were more polite. The 'Most Holy Governing Synod' of St. Petersburg, in transmitting the ultimatum of the Eastern Patriarchs, proposed, in the name of the Czar, 'to the Most Reverend the Bishops of the Remnant of the Catholic Church in Great Britain, our Brethren most beloved in the Lord,' that they should send two delegates to Russia to hold a friendly conference, in the name and spirit of Christ, with two members to be chosen by the Russians, that it may be more easily ascertained what may be yielded and given up by one to the other; what, on the other hand, may and ought for conscience' sake to be absolutely denied.¹⁵⁴¹⁵⁴    The two letters of the Holy Synod, the one signed Moscow, February, 1723, the other without date, are given by Blackmore, Doctrine of the Russian Church, Pref. pp. xxvi.–xxviii. The anonymous author (probably Dr. Young, now Bishop in Florida) of No. II. of the Papers of 'the Eastern Church Association' supplies the signatures of nine Church dignitaries of Russia from personal inspection of the archives of the Holy Synod, at a visit to St. Petersburg, April, 1864.

But such a conference was never held. The death of Peter (1725) put an end to negotiations. Archbishop Wake, of Canterbury, wrote a letter to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, in which he exposed the Non-Jurors as disloyal schismatics and pretenders. The Eastern Patriarchs accused the Anglicans of being 'Lutherano-Calvinists,' and the Russian Church historian, Mouravieff, in speaking of the correspondence, represents them as being infected with the same 'German heresy,' which had been previously condemned by the Orthodox Church.¹⁵⁵¹⁵⁵    History of the Church of Russia, translated by Blackmore, pp. 286 sq., 407 sqq.

4. A far more serious and respectable attempt to effect intercommunion between the Anglican and Russo-Greek Churches was begun in 1862, with the high authority of the Convocation of Canterbury, and the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. The ostensible occasion was furnished by the multiplication 76of Russo-Greeks on the Pacific coast, and by the desirableness of securing decent burial for Anglican travelers in the East, but the real cause lies much deeper. It is closely connected with the powerful Anglo-Catholic movement, which arose in Oxford in 1833, and has ever since been aiming to de-protestantize the Anglican Church. Hundreds of her priests and laymen, headed by Dr. John H. Newman, seceded to Rome; while others, less logical or more loyal to the Church of their fathers, are afraid of the charms or corruptions of the Papacy, and look hopefully to intercommunion with the Holy Catholic Orthodox and Apostolic Mother Church of the East to satisfy their longing for Catholic unity, and to strengthen their opposition to Protestantism and Romanism. The writings of the late Dr. John Mason Neale, and Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon, contributed not a little towards creating an interest in this direction.

In the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, held in New York, October, 1862, a joint committee was appointed 'to consider the expediency of opening communication with the Russo-Greek Church, to collect authentic information upon the subject, and to report to the next General Convention.' Soon afterwards, July 1, 1863, the Convocation of Canterbury appointed a similar committee, looking to 'such ecclesiastical intercommunion with the Orthodox East as should enable the laity and clergy of either Church to join in the sacraments and offices of the other without forfeiting the communion of their own Church.' The Episcopal Church in Scotland likewise fell in with the movement. These committees corresponded with each other, and reported from time to time to their authorities. Two Eastern Church Associations were formed, one in England and one in America, for the publication of interesting information on the doctrines and worship of the Russo-Greek Church. Visits were made to Russia, fraternal letters and Christian courtesies were exchanged, and informal conferences between Anglican and Russian dignitaries were held in London, St. Petersburg, and Moscow.¹⁵⁶¹⁵⁶    See the details in the Occasional Papers of the two Eastern Church Associations, published since 1864 in London (Rivington's) and in New York, and the Reports in the Journal of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, held in New York, 1868, Append. IV. p. 427, and Append. XI. p. 480, and of the Convention in Baltimore, 1871, Append. VI. pp. 565–85. These reports are signed by Bishops Whittingham, Whitehouse, Odenheimer, Coxe, Young, and others. A curious incident in this correspondence, not mentioned in these documents, was the celebration of Greek mass, by a Russian ex-priest of doubtful antecedents, in the Episcopal Trinity Chapel of New York, on the anniversary of the Czar Alexander II., March 2, 1865.

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The Russo-Greeks could not but receive with kindness and courtesy such flattering approaches from two of the most respectable Churches of Christendom, but they showed no disposition whatever either to forget or to learn or to grant any thing beyond the poor privilege of burial to Anglicans in consecrated ground of the Orthodox (without, however, giving them any right of private property). Some were willing to admit that the Anglican Church, by retaining Episcopacy and respect for Catholic antiquity, 'attached her back by a strong cable to the ship of the Catholic Church; while the other Protestants, having cut this cable, drifted out at sea.' Yet they could not discover any essential doctrinal difference. They found strange novelties in the Thirty-nine Articles; they took especial offense at Art. 19, which asserts that the Churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred; they expressed serious scruples about the validity of Anglican orders, on account of a flaw in Archbishop Barker's ordination, and on account of the second marriage of many Anglican priests and bishops (which they consider a breach of continency, and a flagrant violation of Paul's express prohibition