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THE APOSTLES' CREED

ITS RELATION TO

PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY

BY

H. B. SWETE, D.D.
HON. LITT. D. DUBLIN ;
FELLOW OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE,
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, CAMBRIDGE.

LONDON :
C. J. CLAY AND SONS,
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
AVE MARIA LANE.
1894
[All Rights reserved]

ffiambrtUp:
PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AND SONS,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

SW4-

The following pages contain the substance of a
short course of lectures which was delivered in the
Divinity School at Cambridge during the Lent Term
of the present year.
Their purpose is to enable educated members of the
English Church who do not possess the leisure or the
opportunities necessary for a fuller study of the subject
to form some judgement upon a recent controversy
which intimately concerns all who have been baptized
into the Faith of the Apostles' Creed.

Cambridge, June, 1894.

CONTENTS.
I> PAGE
Attitude of the English Reformers towards the Apostles' Creed. —
Recent controversy on the Creed. — The Creed in England
before the Conquest. — Two forms, the Old-Roman Creed, the
' Symbolum Apostolorum.' — The forms compared. — Professor
Harnack's criticisms. — Importance of the issues raised . . 9
IL
Primitive Christian conceptions of Divine Fatherhood and Omni
potence. — The deeper teaching not ignored in the first half of
the second century. — In what sense is our Lord the 'Only
Son ' ? — Early use of the term ' Only-begotten ' — its purpose in
the Creed. — The Sonship seen to be prehistoric, notwithstand
ing some indistinctness in early statements of the doctrine . 19
IIL
The Holy Ghost of the Creed a Person. — Growth of the doctrine
of the Spirit in the teaching of Tertullian and Origen. — His
personality not denied by Arianism, or called in question by
any party excepting the Macedonians. — Catholic theology in
the fourth century not revolutionary, but in the deeper sense
conservative. — A hypostatic Trinity confessed before Basil. —
The Cappadocians did not create doctrine, but gave it scientific
expression  30
IV.
The Miraculous Conception maintained by Justin in controversy
with Pagans and Jews — by Aristides and by Ignatius — recog
nised by early heretics — misrepresented by the Jews. — Sources
of the Christian behef. — St Luke's account. — St Matthew's
account. — Probable origin of the two narratives. — Variations in
Matt. i. 16 do not affect the trustworthiness of the story. —
Whether known to the first generation or not, the belief runs
back into the Apostolic age ....... 42
V.
Early legends connected with the Descent. — Their probable his
tory. — The Aquileian article Scriptural. — Original meaning of
the words. — When and why introduced into the Creed. — Their
subsequent history and justification  eg

Contents.

VI. PAGE
The Ascension : silence of the Synoptists and of St Paul — silence
of the subapostolic writers. — Early testimony to the fact. — The
Resurrection and Ascension not identified, although the interval
is differently stated. — Witness of the Creeds to the Ascension.
— Two symbolical expressions for the fact. — The prevalent form
free from ambiguity ......... 64
VII.
* Holy Church' primitive. — 'Catholic' not in the Old-Roman Creed,
though early applied to the Church in East and West. — The
'Catholic Church' not an abstraction, or a symbol of subjection
to Rome. — Why the name was limited to orthodox Churches
and Christians. — 'Catholic' at once comprehensive and exclu
sive. — Its retention in the English Creed  73
VIIL
Origin of the phrase, 'Communion of Saints.' — Its use in Galilean
homilies ofthe sixth century.— Occasion of its introduction into
the Creed.— How interpreted by the tradition of the English
Church  82
IX.
'Resurrection of the Flesh' not in Scripture.— Its adoption an early
protest against Docetic error. — Not opposed to St Paul's teach
ing.— How understood by Pseudo-Clement and Origen, by
Jerome and Rufinus, by Augustine and the later Western
Church.— Other phrases : ' Resurrection of the Dead'—' Resur
rection of the Body'  89
Appendix.
A.— Western Creeds: Creed of the Prymer— the 'King's Book'
—the Gelasian Sacramentary— the Sarum Ritus baptizandi—
the first English Book of Common Prayer— Priminius— two
British Museum MSS.— Marcellus— Cod. Laudianus— Bangor
Antiphonary— C. C. C. MS.— Aquileia— Venantius Fortunatus
—Faustus of Riez  '°'
B.— Eastern Creeds : Creed of Jerusalem— of the Apostolical
Constitutions— of Constantinople  ^°°

MAeHTefcATe riANTA ta e'eNH, BAHTizoNTec ay'toyc eic
to onoma toy nATpdc ka'i toy Yioy kai toy ^riOY nNeV-
MATOC.

I.

No Christian document outside the limits of the
Canon appeals to the loyalty of religious Englishmen
so forcibly as the Apostles' Creed. For nearly three
centuries and a half it has held its place in the Book
of Common Prayer as the Creed of Baptism, of the
Catechism, and of the daily offices. Even in the middle
ages it was known to a relatively large number of the
English laity through the instructions of the Clergy
and the versions circulated in Primers. The English
Reformers inherited a reverent esteem for the Credo,
and gave it in their new Order of 1549 a place of honour
equal to that which it had held in the Breviary and
the Manual. From Prime it passed into Matins, from
Compline into Evensong; in the Baptismal office it
was ordered to be rehearsed by minister and sponsors
as in the Sarum ordo ad faciendum catechumemtm, and
sponsors were required as heretofore to provide for its
being taught to their godchildren. In the new Cate
chism the English Creed was printed in full, and the
translation which appears there was afterwards adopted
in the offices. It seems to be due to the Reformers
themselves, probably to Cranmer, for while differing
materially from the versions which are found in the
Primers, it bears a close resemblance to the Creed set
forth in the 'King's Book' of 1543, a work with which

IO Attitude of the English Reformers

the Archbishop was concerned' Thus the English
Reformers gave the fullest sanction to the existing
Creed of the Western Church, and retained it in its old
position. They did more, for they enlarged the old
interrogative Creed of Baptism in such wise as to make
it practically identical with the Apostles' Creed. The
Church had perhaps from the first used at the font a
Creed shorter than that which she delivered to her
catechumens before their baptism. But the short in
terrogative Creed had gradually been enlarged in the
West by the introduction of clauses from the symbolum,
as may be seen by any one who will compare the Sarum
interrogatories with those of the Gelasian Sacramentary^
The English Reformers completed this process in 1549,
and, as a result, they were able to identify the Creed
professed at the font with that which is taught to the
baptized ; in the Catechism the child is made to repeat
the Apostles' Creed as the Creed in which his sponsors
promised beliefs
' Formularies of the faith, &c. may be assigned to a date near the
(Oxf. 1825), p. ii(>. Thefollowing endof the ninth century"; but all are
are the only variants: Jesu, Ponce wanting in the Vatican MS., which,
Pilate, and descended, and the third notwithstanding the presence of
day, from death. A similar form Gallican elements, seems to rest, so
appears in the Primer of 1545, and far as regards the services from
in a paper left by Cranmer ( Works, Christmas to Pentecost, upon a
ed. Parker Soc, ii. p. 83), with a Roman Sacramentary of early date
note, " The Credo I have trans- (Wilson, p. xxvii).
lated." * This is clearly implied in the
^ The Sarum Creed adds (i) crea- words of the Catechism, They did
torem caeli et terrae, (2) catholicam, promise and vow .. .that I should be-
(3) sanctorum comviunionem, (4) et Ueve all the articles of the Christian
uitam aeternai7i post morte-m. Of faith. ..Dost tliou not think that tho-u
these (i), (2) and part of (4) are in art bound to believe. ..as they have
the Rheinau MS. of the 'Gelasian' proftiised for thee? ...Yes, verily...
Sacramentary, which was written in Rehearse the articles of thy belief:
the eighth century and under Galli- upon which the child repeats the
can influences (Wilson, Gel. Sacr. Apostles' Creed as it now stands in
pp. xxxiv — xxxv, 86 — 7), while (3) the Order for Morning and Evening
occurs in a Bodleian MS. "which Prayer.

towards the Apostles' Creed. 1 1

Thus in the Church of England since the publica
tion of the first Prayer-book the Apostles' Creed has
occupied a position even more important than that
which it held in the mediaeval Church or now holds
in Churches subject to the Roman See. Apart from
all questions relating to the origin and history of the
Creed, it commended itself to the practical instincts
of the English Reformers as a sober and convenient
summary of Christian belief With the legend which
attributed it to the Apostles they did not concern
themselves. Nowell's catechism allows the alternative
views that it "was first received from the Apostles'
own mouth, or most faithfully gathered out of their
writings." The latter explanation of the title was
more in harmony with the way of thinking which pre
vailed at the time. An anonymous tract printed in
1548, and by some attributed to Cranmer, complains
bitterly that the legend was still taught by the parish- '
priests as a necessary truth, "whereas it is at the best
uncertain.'' It is a significant circumstance that in the
first Prayer-book the document is simply called 'the
Creed ' without further description. The Articles of
1552 ruled that it was to be retained on the ground of
its close agreement with Apostolic teaching ; what
ever its history, it could be proved by " moste certayne
warrauntes of holye Scripture."
A more critical method of study has led our own
age to examine with minute care the sources and the
interpretation of authoritative documents. With this
examination there has come the challenge to reconsider
the decision of the Reformers in reference to the
Apostles' Creed. In England the dissatisfaction is at
present limited to a section of the Nonconformist^ who

12 Recent controversy on the Creed.
either regard all Creeds with aversion, or find them
selves unable to accept certain statements in this par
ticular formulary. In Germany recent controversy has
been more thoroughgoing, turning upon the history
of the Creed. There are indications that public atten
tion amongst ourselves will shortly be directed to the
latter point. Professor Harnack's pamphlet, which in
Germany passed through five-and-twenty editions during
the course of a year', has been reproduced in the pages of
an English periodical with a commendatory preamble by
the pen of the authoress of Robert Elsmere''. Most of its
facts are familiar to students of theology, as the learned
author fully recognises ; but to many educated laymen
in England as well as in Germany they probably wear
the appearance of startling novelty, and the general
effect cannot fail to be for the time unsettling to those
who had regarded the Apostles' Creed as a document
uniformly primitive in its origin and teaching. But
Professor Harnack does not confine himself to the
history of his subject, in which he is a master ; his
pamphlet abounds in statements upon matters of opinion
which the narrow limits of a popular discussion do not
permit him to support by argument, but which will
carry with them the weight of a name deservedly high
in the estimation of educated Europe. The appearance
of his work in an English form becomes, therefore,
under present circumstances matter of grave concern
to those who are charged with the teaching of Christian
' Das apostolische Glaubensbe- art. xiv : " The Apostles' Creed, by
kenntniss: ein geschichtlicher Be- Professor Harnack (with an Intro-
richt nebst einem Nachwort. Von duction by Mrs Humphry Ward)."
D. Adolf Harnack, o. Professor der In the following pages Prof. Har-
Theologie an der Universitat Berlin. nack's work has, for the sake of
Berlin, 1892. convenience, been cited in Mrs H.
2 Nijzeteenth Century, ]u\-y,i8g3. Ward's translation.

The Creed in England before the Conquest. 13
doctrine as it is maintained in the English Chui^ch.
In the following pages I have not hesitated to take up
the challenge which has been dropt, not by Dr Harnack
himself, but by his English translator. Dr Harnack's
remarks were addressed to the Protestant communions
of Germany, and in their original form called for no
discussion at the hands of members of the English
Church. But their reproduction by an English writer
in a popular form has transferred the controversy to
English soil, and thrown upon English Churchmen the
duty of defending, if it be defensible, the Creed which
the Edwardine Reformers inherited from the mediaeval
Church. The symbolum Apostolorum in mediaeval England
was practically identical with that which we repeat to
day. A few variations have been collected by Dr 1
Heurtley from the English versions of the Creed', but
all the forms, English and Latin, clearly belong to one
type. It is otherwise when we go back behind the
Norman Conquest. In the British Museum there are
two MSS. containing Creeds, one Latin, the other Greek^
which fall short of the complete Apostles' Creed in a
number of important particulars. These MSS. belong,
it is stated, to the eighth and ninth centuries respectively,
and are both apparently of English origin. Further,
they present nearly the same text, and their text agrees
very closely with the Roman Creed of the fourth cen
tury as it is represented in the Greek confession of "
Marcellus, and in the Latin of Rufinus. It seems, then,
' Heurtley, .ffarzB. Symb.,-^. loi f. pp. i, 15 ; Kattenbusch, das apostol.
2 Heurtley, p. 74 ff-; Swainson, 5>ff2*rf (Leipzig, 1894), p. 64 ff. The
Nicene and Apostles'' Creeds, p. i6i ; texts will be found in the Appendix.
cf. Hahn, Bibl. der Symbole (1877),

14 Two forms : the Old-Roman Creed,
that in England down to the ninth century, a shorter
Creed was current which was substantially identical
with the old Creed of the Roman Church, and was
probably brought to England by the Roman mission
aries. There is reason to think that at Rome itself the
shorter Creed was still known in the time of Gregory
the Great. The great Oxford MS. of the Acts (cod.
Laudianus, E), which was written in Sardinia, or at
least was in the hands of a Sardinian owner between
the sixth and eighth centuries, contains the Creed in a
similar form written at the end of the Codex by a hand
of the sixth or seventh century'. But Sardinia was
in constant communication with Rome, and Januarius,
Bishop of Cagliari, appears among Pope Gregory's most
frequent correspondents. It is true that by this time
the Creed of Constantinople may have taken the place
of the Roman Creed in the traditio symboli, as the
Gelasian Sacramentary seems to shew^; but the local
Creed must have survived as a form of instruction
after its deposition from liturgical honours, and as such
would probably have found its way with Augustine
into Kent. This simpler and briefer Creed, which is
known to have been in use at Rome during the fourth
century, may with great probability be carried back to
the second. "We may regard it," Professor Harnack
writes, '' as an assured result of research that the Old
Roman Creed... came into existence about or shortly
before the middle of the second century."
The other recension, now known as the Apostles'
Creed, is of later and not of Roman origin. Traces of
it may be seen in English episcopal professions of the
^ Heurtley, p. 60 ff. Comp. Gregory, prolegg. in N. T., p. 411 sqq.
2 Wilson, p. 53 ff.

the 'Symbolum Apostolorum'. 15
ninth century', and it is found with an interlinear trans
lation in a Lambeth MS. of the same period^ But it
did not, like the earlier form, emanate from Rome. All
the evidence goes to shew that the fuller Creed was of
Gallican growth, and that it was crystallized into its
present shape by influences which found their centre in
the person of Charlemagne. This Gallican Creed had
reached Ireland, whether in its completeness or not,
before the end of the seventh century, for it has left
distinct marks of its presence in the Creed of the
Bangor Antiphonary'. To England it probably came
quite a century later, not from Gaul, but from the court
of Charles, possibly through the hands of Alcuin. At
all events it was here about A.D. 850 and existed for a
while side by side with the Old Roman Creed, until
official recognition secured for it an exclusive place in
Psalters and books of devotion. After the beginning
of the tenth century the older form ceases to appear in
MSS. of English origin ; and for a thousand years the
Gallican recension has held undisputed possession as
the Baptismal Creed of the Church of England.
Thus the present Apostles' Creed is a document of
composite origin with a long and complicated history.
The basis of this document, the local Creed of the
early Church of Rome, is substantially a product of the
second century. But the Churches which derived their
faith from Rome, or acknowledged the primacy of the
' Swainson, p. 286, «. E.g. f. 19 : conceptum de Spiritu Sancto,
Diorlaf's profession (c. a.d. 860) has -natum de Maria uirgine, discendit
the clauses cotueptum de Spi-ritu ad inferos, sanctorum commonionem,
Sancto et natum ex Maria uirgine ; are in the Bangor form. "The
ad inferos descendentem. date was A.D. 680 — 691" (Warren,
2 Heurtley, p. 88 ff. p. viii). See Appendix.
^ Warren, Antiphonary of Bangor,

1 6 The forms compared.
Roman See, felt themselves under no obligation to ad
here to the letter of the Roman Creed ; and it received
at their hands not only verbal changes, but important
additions, involving in some cases new articles of belief
The process was gradual, and some of the new clauses
do not appear before the sixth century, whilst others are
as late as the seventh. The question arises whether
these accretions are of equal authority with the original
draft. From the second century to the seventh is a far
cry, and in the interval the primitive teaching had been
obscured in some quarters by modifications and exten
sions which do not now command general assent. Do
the later clauses of the Apostles' Creed, or does any one
of them, fall under this category ?
Let us place the two forms of the Creed side by side
for the purpose of comparison, italicising the later words
and clauses in the Apostles' Creed.
Roman Creed. Apostles' Creed.
Credo in Deum Patrem' omnipo- Credo in Deum Patrem omnipo-
tentem. tentem,
crecUore-m caeli et terrae.
Et in Christum lesum unicum Fi- Et in lesum Christum Filium eius
lium eius, dominum nostrum, unicum, dominum nostrum,
qui natus est de Spiritu Sancto qui foBCi^^aj- est de Spiritu Sancto,
ex Maria uirgine, natus ex Maria uirgine,
crucifixus sub Pontio Pilato et passus sub Pontio Pilato, cruci-
sepultus, fixus, mortuus et sepultus,
descendit ad infema,
tertia die resurrexit a mortuis, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis,
ascendit in caelos, sedet ad dex- ascendit ad caelos, sedet ad dex-
teram Patris, teram Dei Patris omnipotentis ;
inde uenturus est iudicare uiuos inde uenturus est iudicare uiuos
et mortuos. et mortuos.
Et in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam Credo in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam
ecclesiam, remissionem pecca- ecclesiam catholicam, sanctor-
torum, carnis resurrectionem. um communionem, remissionem
1 Rufinus writes Deo Patre, &c., tut peccatorum, carnis resurrecti-
Marcellus eis Seor, and so the other early onem, uitam aeternam.
forms.

Professor HarnacMs criticisms. 17
It will be seen that much of the new matter in the
later form consists of amplifications which either do not
seriously affect the sense, or cannot be regarded as
departures from primitive belief. Creatorem caeli et
terrae, uitam aeternam, are additions of which no Chris
tian can complain. Conceptus, passus, mortuus, supply
new details which scarcely alter the balance of truth.
Three points only need separate discussion : the clauses
which affirm our Lord's Descent into Hell and the
Communion of Saints, and the epithet 'Catholic' ap-|
plied to the Holy Church.
But the doubts which are suggested by Professor
Harnack's pamphlet reach much further. He contends
that even the earliest form of the Roman Creed con
tained articles of belief in excess of the Apostolic teach
ing. Moreover, he suspects the interpretations that later
generations of Christians have put upon articles which
are confessedly primitive. Under the former of these
counts he challenges the article which asserts the
Miraculous Conception of the Lord, and that which
confesses the Resurrection of 'the Flesh.' Under the
latter he takes exception to the received explanation of
the Names ' Father,' ' Only Son,' ' Holy Ghost,' regard
ing the doctrine of the hypostatic Trinity as one which
lies entirely outside the original drift and meaning of
the Creed.
It is evident that these criticisms tend largely to
discredit the ancient Creed of Western Christendom.
Their author, it is true, abstains from drawing any
inference adverse to the retention of the Apostles' Creed
by his own communion, and gracefully acknowledges
the benefits which the early Roman Church has con
ferred upon Western Christians by transmitting so
S. C. 2

Importance of the issues raised.

precious an heirloom. Nevertheless, if his conclusions
are sound, the fate of the Creed in many of the Reformed
Churches cannot be doubtful. Nor is the Creed alone
in danger; articles of faith which are common to the
Reformed Churches and to those which are still subject
to the See of Rome, must stand or fall with it. It is
difficult to exaggerate the gravity of these issues.
In the following pages an attempt will be made
to submit Professor Harnack's conclusions to a detailed
examination. But instead of following him through
successive articles of the Creed, we propose to arrange
the points in dispute under three heads. The strictly
theological articles will come first under review ; then
those which recite the Evangelical history ; lastly, those
which set forth the doctrine of the Church.

IL

CREDO in Deum Patrem omnipotentem...et in lesum
Christum unicuin Filium eitts...et in Spiritum Sanctum.
The theology of the Creed forms its framework. The
three articles just cited are distinguished from the rest
by the fresh act of faith with which each is introduced
{credo in...et in...et in). Thus the Baptismal Creed is
seen to rest upon the Baptismal words. It was the
answer of the Church to the Lord's final revelation of
the Name of God. "As we are baptized, so (writes
St Basil) must we believe'."
The theology of the Apostles' Creed begins with the
confession of a Divine Fatherhood. It may be open to
doubt whether this truth was directly recognised in the
earliest form of the Roman Creed. Marcellus begins,
' I believe in God Almighty,' and TertuUian's statements
of the Rule of Faith exhibit the same omission. Yet
' Patrem ' stood in the Creed as it was known to
Novatian and to Cyprian, and the Acts of Perpetua^
seem to give it a place in the African Creed of the
^ ep. 125 ^" T^P ^("Ss ^airrl- minum nostrum." The Greek gives
iea8<u fi.cv lis ¦jrapeXdpoiJ.ev, Trioreieiv anotherturntothesentence.changing
S^ lis ^airTif6,ueSa. the reference to the Creed into a
2 pass. S. Perpettiae (ed. Robinson, doxology of the Eastern type : hb^av
p. 94) "omnipotentem Deum Patrem 6,v^irtp,-woii,ai tQ -irarpl twv alihvav
et Filium eius lesum Christum Do- ajxa, T<f nomyevu airov nip, k.t.X.

20 Primitive Christian conceptions of
writer, who has been thought to be Tertullian himself.
It is fair then to assume that the word established itself
in symbolical use before the end of the second century.
But Harnack warns us that when the second century
professed its faith in God the Father, it did not neces
sarily attach to that Name the significance which it
bore upon the lips of Christ and in the Epistles of
St Paul. The Name itself is not common in the
Christian literature of the time, and when it is used,
it refers as a rule to the paternal relation of God to
the Creation. Therefore the author of the Creed " did
" not probably attribute the same meaning to the word
"as it bears in Matt. xi. 25 ff., Rom. viii. 15," although
" he does not stand in the way of such a meaning."
A creative paternity is ascribed to God in the New
Testament itself He is the Father of "the lights"
of heaven (James i. 17) and of "the spirits" of men
(Heb. xii. 9); "we are also His offspring" (Acts xvii. 28)'.
The early post-apostolic Church seized upon this concep
tion and gave it new prominence, for it supplied her
with an answer to Gnosticism, and a doctrine of God's
relation to the world which Paganism was half prepared
to accept. It appears in Clement of Rome : " Let us
"look (he writes) to the Father and Creator of the
" whole world^." It is especially frequent, as we might
expect, in the early apologists. Christians are baptized,
Justin tells the pagan world, "in the Name of God
"the Father and Lord of the Universe, and of our
" Saviour Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost ^" "God is
" a Spirit," Tatian explains, " a Being Who, Himself in-
' Comp. Eph. iii. 14, 15 rbv d. ^5, b dripuovpybs nal iraT-rif).
Tvaripa ^| ov -waaa -n-arpii, iv oipavoh ^ .4p. i. 6i tov Trarpbs rCiv oKotv
Kal i-irl y'qt bvoix&^eraL. Kal Setr-n-trrov Beov : cf. 36, tov 8e-
' 1 Cor. l^rbviraTipaKalKTla-T-qv: OTrbTov -irdvTuv Kal -n-arpbs.

Divine Fatherhood and Omnipotence. 21
" visible and intangible, has become the Father of things
" sensible and visible'." Theophilus states expressly that
God is called Father, " because He existed before the
" Universe'." Further, it is true that, as Harnack says, the Church
of the second century laid special stress upon the
sovereignty of God over the creation He has made.
The conception of a supreme Lord (Seo-TrdrT;?) is more
frequent during this period than that of an universal
Father. This conception, also, came from Scripture,
perhaps chiefly from the Greek Old Testament. It
occurs indeed in the New Testament, especially in
passages which are coloured by Jewish ideas (Luke ii.
29, Acts iv. 24, 29, 2 Pet. ii. i, Jude 4); but the post-
apostolic Church probably received it from the LXX.,
where Seo-Tror?;? frequently represents ^'K^'^, or even i^JiTl.
In the Wisdom Books, for which the early Church
entertained a high esteem, the word is specially used
to denote the relation of the Creator to the Universe
as its supreme Governor (Wisd. viii. 3, Sir. xxxvi. i);
" Lord of all creation " appears in 3 Mace. ii. 2 as a
recognised form of invocation^ The Church took over
the conception from the Synagogue, and there was
abundant reason why in her first struggles with the
world she should rejoice in a truth which reminded her
where her strength lay. The Creed reflects this truth
in the word 'Almighty,' for omnipotens is "jravTOKparcop
rather than ¦7ravToSvvafji,o<;, not so much the ' Almighty '
as the 'All-Ruler*.' It is therefore quite possible and
' Or. c. Graec. 4 abparbs re Kal Sir. xxxvi. i Sicrtrora 6 Se6s tt&vtuv :
a.va(pi]t, alo-OrjTuv Kal dopdruv airbs 3 Mace. ii. -1 Sjo-irora -irdffris ktIows :
7e70j'iis -n-ar-rip. cf. 2 Mace. xiii. 14.
2 ad Autol. i. 4 lid rb dvai airbv ¦'Ilai'TOKpdTW/j stands in theEastem
irpb tQv S\av. Creeds quite regularly, and the com-
^ Sap. viii. 3 0 irivrav deo-n-br-ris. bination -n-ar-rip iravTOKpdrap is fre-

22 The deeper teaching not ignored
even probable that the combination Pater Omnipotens
points in the first instance to the relation of God to the
world which He has created, and over which He exercises
sovereign rights, and Harnack has done good service by
directing attention to an aspect of the words which
was certainly primitive, but in these days is too often
left out of sight.
But the question remains whether this aspect of the
Divine Paternity, which circumstances placed foremost
in the thought of the second century, was allowed to
overshadow the deeper revelation of the Baptismal
Words. As a matter of fact, the early Christian
writers who speak of God's fatherly relation to Nature,
speak also of His special relation to Jesus Christ and to
the members of the Church. " Let us approach Him
"(Clement exhorts) in holiness of soul, lifting up to
" Him pure hands and undefiled, loving our gentle and
" compassionate Father, who made us an elect portion
"(eKXoyrj<; fiepc;) for Himself (c. 29)." The homily
known as the Second Epistle of Clement, a survival
quent in documents of the second eighty instances. Omnipotens is the
and third centuries (cf. Gebhardt and O. L. rendering of -n-avTOKpdroip in
Harnack, /a/n app. I. ii. p. 134). In 2 Kings vii. 8, 27, 3 Kings xix. 10,
Greek versions of the Roman Creed, Jer. iii. 19, &c. For the meaning of
from Marcellus downwards, iraripa -iravTOKpdrap cf. Theoph. ad Autol.
iravroKpdropa. is the rendering of i. 4 TravTOKpdrup Sn airbs rd -Irdvra
patrem omnipotentem ; the only ex- Kparet. Cyril, cat. 8 ir. ^irra' 6
ception seems to be the late form -jrdvTtov Kparuiv, b irdvTwv l^ovffidi^ojv.
printed by Hahn, pp. 59, 60, in A later age undoubtedly understood ,
which a Vienna MS. gives iravro- omnipotens in the Creed as = 7raj'To-
diva/j.ov; the St Gall MS. 338 and diva/xos; cf. Aug. de symb. ad catech.:
the Corpus MS. 468 read iv Be^i^ facit quidquid uult : ipsa est omni-
Beov -irarpbs [tov] TravTodvvdfiov in the potentia. . .nemo resistit omnipotenti.
second part of the Creed, but retain But the writers of the Old Roman
¦wavTOKpdTopa in the first article. Creed probably followed the leading
IlavToSiii'a/.ios occurs but rarely in of the Greek word which repre-
the O. T. (only in Sap. vii. 23, xi. sented the Father as Sovereign of
18, xviii. 15), whereas -n-avTOKpdrwp the Universe. See, however, Oas
is the equivalent of niN3V in some pari, Quellen, il pp. 92, 208 ff.

in the first half of the second century. 23
from the first half of the second century, abounds in
references to the Father, and identifies Him with the
Father of Christ (c. 3) and the Father of Christians
(cc. 10, 14)'. Ignatius dwells almost exclusively on His
relation to our Lord, quite after the manner of St Paul
(Eph. 5, Magn. i, 3, 7, 8). In Hermas, whose practice is
specially significant as that of a Roman Christian who,
according to the commonly accepted view, belonged to
the very generation which gave shape to the Roman
Creed, God is called Father only in His relation to the
Son and to the Church (uis. iii. 9. 10; sim. v. 6. 3, 4;
ix. 12. ¦zf. The Apologists, addressing the heathen, led
them to identify the Father of the Universe with the
Father of Christ. " The Almighty Creator of all things,"
writes the unknown author of the Epistle to Diognetus,
" sent His Son as a King might send a Royal Prince,
''as sending God''." "Jesus Christ," says Justin, "is
" the begotten Son of God after a manner peculiar to
" Himself ^"
In the face of these facts it is arbitrary to say that
the deeper sense of the word was probably absent from
the mind of the author of the Creed. It is more than
arbitrary in view of the words that immediately follow in
the Creed itself: et in Christum lesum unicum Filium
eius. Can it be believed that Patrejjt in the first clause
of the Creed has no prospective reference to Filium in
the second t Rufinus's explanation cannot be entirely

' Ps. Clement. 2 Cor. 3 lyvoiiiev Si' Harnack on uis. I.e.
airov rbv iraripa ttIs d\ri8das...\iyei ^ ad Diogn. 7 ii% paa-iKeis Tri/i-irav
5e Kal airbs Hbv bp.oXoyil'^avTd /xe viov ^aoiXia iireix^ev, lis dibv (?(is
bfjioXoy-ija-u airbv iviinriov rov -irarpbs &€bs debv) 'i-ircfj-^ev.
/iov. § 15 TroioWTes rb 6(\Tip.a toC * Ap. i. 22 fibvos ISlas vlbs tQ
irarpbs TfuQv Beov. 6eip yiytwiyrai : cf. ib. 13, 14, 65.
^ See the note in Gebhardt and

24 In what sense is our Lord tlte ' Only Son ' f
wrong, "Fili intellige Patrem'"; or Cyril's, Tw elivdv
OTt Trar-rjp, rjSr] eSijXcocra/Mev oro Kal vlov e-X^t^- The fourth
century may have insisted on this aspect of the truth too
exclusively, but the second did not overlook it.

Passing to the second article of the Creed, we are
invited to enquire in what sense Jesus Christ is confessed
to be the " only Son " of God.
Et in Christum lesum U7iicum Filium eius : so runs
the Roman Creed of the fourth century as attested by
both Marcellus and Rufinus ; so too the other Italian
forms of the Roman Creed, e.g. those of Milan, Turin,
Aquileia, Ravenna, and the later forms prevalent in
Spain, Gaul, Ireland, and England'. Unicum, however,
appears to have been wanting in African types of the
Creed ; it is not in TertuUian's accounts of the Rule of
Faith, or in the Creeds of Cyprian and Augustine.
Even Novatian of Rome omits it, and, at a later
time, Nicetas. Thus, although possibly present in the
Roman Creed before the end of the second century,
it cannot claim to have been universally admitted by
the Western Churches. But, as Harnack points out,
the matter is not of serious moment, for unicum adds
nothing to the sense ; He who is confessed to be ' the
'Son' of God must needs be the ' Only Son.' It is only
as authoritatively interpreting Filium that unicum is
important. ' Rufin. in Symb. 4. He adds: Deus Pater appellatur, cum Patre
sicut enim nemo dicitur ' dominus,' pariter subsistere etiam Filius de-
nisi habeat uel possessionem uel monstratur.
seruum cui dominetur ; ita et' pater' ^ C-yril cat. 8.
nullo pacto quis dici potest nisi filium ^ ^he only variation is in the
habens. hoc igitur ipso nomine quo order of the words Christum lesum.

Early use of the term 'Only-begotten': 25
There can be no doubt that unicum. (for which
unigenitum is occasionally substituted) represents t'ov
fiovoyev-rj, which answers to it in the Creed of MarceUus.
Tertullian indeed has "unicum Deum omnipotentem'"
for ei'a Oeov iravroKparopa, so that if unicuin in the
Roman Creed had stood before Christum, we might
have understood it in the sense of itnitm. But unicuin
Filium points quite certainly either to Gen. xxii. 2^,
where the Old Latin version, as given by Cyprian,
renders "Accipe filium tuum unicum," or to the Gospel
of St John ; the latter being more probably the immediate
source. St John's phrase finds indeed no place in subapo
stolic writers : though Ignatius approaches to it when he
calls our Lord the Only Son (jov fiovov vlovY. It seems
to have been first seized upon by the Valentinians, who [
gave the name Monogenes to the Aeon Nous, The
Catholic writers began, although slowly, to reclaim it ;
Justin uses it sparingly; it occurs once in the Smyrnean
circular on the martyrdom of Polycarp ; in Irenaeus at
length it becomes frequent. Thus it is not unlikely that
the word took its place in the vocabulary of the Church
by way of protest against the Valentinian misuse of St
John ; and the same cause may have gained for it
admission to the Creed. Valentinus taught at Rome
during the episcopates of Hyginus, Pius, and Anicetus,
i.e. between 140 and i6o A.D. — the very epoch to which
the making of the Creed is assumed to belong. The
Valentinians, or at least the Anatolic School, dis
tinguished Monogenes from the historical manifestation,
' de tcel.uirg. i (cf. adu. Prax. 2). "at least some form of the LXX."
^ LXX. X(i/3e rbv vlbv oov rbv (Hort, T-zeio Dissertations, p. 49, n.\.
dyarrrirbv. Aquila seems to have ^ Gebhardt and Harnack, patr.
rendered THJ here by ixovoyevfis, app. 1. ii, p. 136.
and the word must have stood in

26 its purpose in the Creed.
remarking that St John guards himself by writing " we
" beheld His glory, glory as of the only-begotten," where
the qualifying word as bars out complete identification'
If the Church of Rome admitted the word under these
circumstances, it can hardly have done so except by
way of protest against the Valentinian interpretation.
To confess faith in Jesus Christ as the only-begotten
Son, was to identify the Only-begotten with the histori
cal Person who was born, and died, and rose again.
Harnack however contends that when the Creed
calls Jesus Christ 'the Son' or 'the only-begotten
' Son,' it does not claim for Him a preexistent Sonship,
but limits its view to His Incarnate Life. "After
" Nicaea these words came to be unanimously believed
"by the Church to refer to the prehistoric and eternal
"Sonship of Christ... But to transfer this conception to
" the Creed is to transform it. It cannot be proved that
"about the middle of the second century the idea 'only
" 'Son' was understood in this sense: on the contrary the
" evidence of history conclusively shews that it was not
" so understood."
There can be no doubt that the Valentinians re
cognised in the Monogenes of the Fourth Gospel a
prehistoric Being, or that they were right in this
exegesis. It is equally certain that when the Church
began to use the word in reference to our Lord, she used
it in this sense. " He was the Only Begotten of the
" Father of the Universe," writes Justin, "inasmuch as He
' Clem. Al. exc. § 7 6 )ikv fielvas yev-fjs, dXX' iis piovoyevifs Trpbs
fjLOVoyevT]! vlbs eis rbv KbXrrov rov tov d-rroorbXav -Trpoo-ayopeierar ' Sb^av
irarpbs tt/i' ivOifiTjoiv Sia ttjs yuiaeas lis /lovoyevovs'' on ets Kal 6 airbs av
e^rryetrai tois alCiaiv, lis dv Kal VTrb ev fiiv rrj Kricrei TrpoyrbroKbs icrnv
TOV KbXTTov avrov TrpojSlXTjdeis' 6 Si 'Itioovs, iv Si Tip TrXTipui/xan piovo-
ivrauda dcfjOels oiK ^ri piovo- yev-rjS.

The Sonship seen to be prehistoric, 27
" was after a peculiar manner produced from the Father as
" His Word and Power'." Justin, like Valentinus, taught
at Rome in days not far removed from those which
witnessed the genesis of the Creed, and his conception
of the sense of fiovoyevrj'; may fairly be regarded as
determining the meaning of the word in the Creed.
But if we limit our enquiry to the essential point,
the nature of the Sonship assigned to our Lord by
writers contemporary with the Creed or anterior to it,
the evidence against Harnack's view becomes stronger.
Behind Justin is Aristides, and his brief statement of
the common faith includes the preexistence of the Son,
"the Son of God most high is confessed... as having
"come down from heaven"." Further back, we have the
frequent references of Ignatius to a Sonship which lies
beyond the limit of time. "Jesus Christ... came forth
"from one Father" {Magn. 7); is "both of Mary and of
" God " {Eph. 7), " of the family of David according to
"the flesh. Son of God by [the Divine] Will and Power"
{Smyrn. i); "was with the Father before the world was"
{Magn. 6). One remark of Ignatius seems indeed to
conflict with our interpretation of his testimony. He
contrasts {Eph. 7) the two natures in Christ in such a
manner as to predicate generation ofthe manhood only;
the one Christ is both yevv7)To<i xal a.'yivv7]To<;, generate
as Man, ingenerate in His Divine life"- This denial of
a Divine generation characterises an early phase of
' dial. 105 fiovoyevTjs ydp on rjv Aristides, p, 9.
Tijj Trarpl rdv oXmv oOros iSlois i^ ^ The words form part of a series
airov Xdyos Kal divapiis yeyevTjpiivos. of contrasts : els larpbs ioriv oapKiKbs
Justin has just quoted Ps, xxi ( = xxii). Kai TrvevixariKos, yevvrp-bs Kal dyiv-
19. vriTos, iv dvBpdjTrip debs, iv Bavdrip
^ ap. p, no (ed. Robinson) oStos fw-f; dXT^Birfj, Kal iK Mapias Kal iK
S^ 6 vlbs TOV Beov tov v^piarov bfMoXo- Beov, rrpdrov -iraBrp-bs Kal rbre d-iraB-qs,
yeiTai...d-jr' oipavoG Kara^ds, k.t.X. '1-tjaovs ^.piorbs b Kipios i}fJ.(Jjv.
Compare Hennecke, die Apologie des

28 notwithstanding some indistinctness
Christian thought which associated with ' generation '
ideas inconsistent with the unchangeableness of God.
The doctrine of an Eternal Generation was unknown to
Ignatius, and any lower conception was felt to be un
worthy of the Divine Essence. But to deny to the
Eternal Logos a generation such as Ignatius had in
view, was not to deny His prehistoric Sonship. The
conception of a Divine Sonship was realised by the
Church before the conception of a Divine generation,
and Ignatius belonged to the earlier stage. " Sub-
" stantially," as Dr Lightfoot shews, Ignatius "held the
" same views as the Nicene fathers respecting the Person
" of Christ'." He would probably have been startled by
language which is freely used in pages of Justin and
Tatian; it might have seemed to him precarious to speak
of the Word as yevvr^Oei,'; or 'yeww^evo^; but he would
have surely been roused to indignation had any teacher
risen up to say that the Word was not already Son of
God when He was with the Father, or before He was
made Man,
Professor Harnack brings to his study of subapostolic
writers a preconception which to his own mind has
assumed the dimensions of a historical fact. Primitive
Christianity, as he conceives it, had two Christologies,
the one pneumatic, the other adoptianist. The former
regarded the Christ as a preexistent Spirit who was
made Man; the latter fixed its thoughts upon the
historical Person who received from the Almighty
Father a Sonship unique indeed and Divine but not
essential. The former was the point of view adopted
by such writers as Barnabas, Clement, the author of the
Homily, Ignarius, Polycarp; the latter prevailed in
' Apostolic Fathers, pt. ii, vol. ii, p. 93.

in early statements of the doctrine. 29
circles which were regarded by these writers as heretical.
But the Christology which asserted the preexistence of
our Lord did not connect His preexistence with a filial
relation to God. It is in Hermas that the two systems
are first fused together, and the: Sonship is seen to have
belonged to the preexistent Christ'.
For our purpose it might suffice to point out that if
the supposed fusion took place in Hermas, it was pro
bably earlier than the formation of the Creed, But
Harnack's theory rests on evidence which is quite
inadequate. It is true that the preexistence of Christ
was ignored or denied in certain quarters, and His
Sonship limited to the human life, or that part of it
which followed the Baptism, It is also true that the
earliest orthodox writers spoke of the preexistent Christ
as Spirit", and connected His Sonship more especially
with the human life by which it was manifested'. Further,
the Church had not yet learned to conceive of a Divine
generation as involved in the fact of a Divine Sonship,
All this is admitted. But it does not establish Dr Har
nack's contention. Evidence has been produced to shew
that about the middle of the third century a prehistoric
and premundane Sonship was ascribed by the majority of
believers to Jesus Christ, There is no sufficient evidence
on the other hand that during any part of the second
century the Sonship was limited by orthodox Christians
to the manifestation of the Word in human flesh,
' Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, rCov oipavQv dfia iX-riX68ei, tJtis Kal
i, p, 160 ff. Grundriss der Dogmen- did Aa^lS Xeyo/iivrj lis d-n-b^Trpoodi-n-ou
geschichte, p. 29 ff, ( = E. T. p, 51), airov Xiyovros o-irep ain} dirb toC
2 See e.g. Ps, Clem, 2 Cor. 9 irarpbs IpieXXe Xiyeo-Bai Tibs luiv el
Xpia-rbs b Kipios...wv /liv rb irpHrov oi, iyoi o-rj/j-epov yeyivvriKa oe- rbre
irvevp.a, iyivero adp£,,with.'L\ghtioot's yiveaiv airov Xiyav yiveoBat
note, Tois dvBpiiirois i^ Srov -ri yvio-
' Comp. Justin, dial. 88 ipuvri iK ois airov iixeXXe ylveoBai.

Ill,

After reciting the facts of the Incarnate life, to
which we shall presently return, the Roman Creed
proceeds, Et in Spiritum Sanctum, " And [I believe] in
"the ?Ioly Ghost." This clause opens the third division
of the Creed, and thus corresponds to the clauses which
confess the Father and the Son'; but whereas in the
first and second articles the Name is followed by a
personal definition, the confession of the Holy Spirit
stands by itself, and the Creed passes on at once to
other articles of belief A comparison of the ' Nicene '
Creed places this fact in a stronger light, for there the
Holy Ghost is declared to be to K-upiov, to t^wo-woiov,
TO Ik, tov 7raT/Do? eKiropevofievov, k.t.X.; whilst the
Western Creed affirms nothing beyond His existence.
"It looks therefore," Professor Harnack says, "as though
" the writer of the Creed did not conceive the Holy Ghost
" as a Person, but as a Power and Gift. This is indeed
" literally the case. No proof can be shewn that about
" the middle of the second century the Holy Ghost was
' Rufin, in Symb. 35 ea quae in solius diuinitatis ratio habeatur, eo
superioribus paulo latius de Christo modo quo in principlo dicitur Credo
sunttradita...dummediaintercedunt in Deo Patre omnipotente, et post
personae ipsius coaptata Sancti haec In lesu Christo Filio eius unico
Spiritus commemorationem paulo Domino nostro, ita iungitur Et in
longius reddiderunt. ceterum si Spiritu Sancto.

The Holy Ghost of the Creed a Person. 31
"believed in as a Person. This conception, on the
'' contrary, is one of much later date, which was still
" unknown to most Christians by the middle of the
"fourth century.... In the Creed the Holy Ghost is
" conceived of as a gift, but as a gift by which the Divine
" life is offered to the believer ; for the Spirit of God
" is God Himself"
These words raise the whole question to what extent
the doctrine of the coexistence of three hypostases in
God was implicit in the faith of the second century.
Since even in the fourth century the terminology of the
doctrine was by no means fixed or uniform, no one will
expect to find in writers of the second century a strictly
accurate use of such words as ovala, vTroa-Taai'i, Trpocr-
lOTTov. It will suffice if we can shew that the sub
apostolic age and that which succeeded to it were
conscious of a distinction between God and the Spirit
of God, analogous to that which was seen to exist
between God and the Logos,
Such a consciousness betrays itself in a Roman
document earlier than the Creed by perhaps half a
century. When Clement of Rome asks, '' Have we not
one God and one Christ and one Spirit of grace which
was poured out upon us'?," whilst emphasising the his
torical manifestations of the Son and the Spirit, does he
not at once distinguish Them from God and from Each
Other, and yet coordinate the Three .'' When he permits
himself the use of the adjuration, " As God lives, and
" the Lord Jesus Christ lives, and the Holy Spirit, the
" faith and hope of the elect"," is it not fair to say that
' I Cor. 46. 6 o^x^ ^va Bebv Kipios 'Irioovs Xpiorbs Kal rb irvev/j.a
Ixo/'E" Kal Iva Xpiorbv Kal fx irvevjia rb dyiov. For the form of adjuration
rrjs xi^piros rb iKxvBiv i<p' ij/ms ; cf, Serapion ap. Euseb, v, 19 fn °
^ ib. 58, 2 ^-rj ydp b Bebs Kal f^ 6 Bebs b iv rols oipavoXs.

32 Growth of the Doctrine of the Spirit :
he claims for the Son and the Spirit a personal Life
which is not absolutely identified with the Life of the
Father, and yet is understood to be Divine ,'
Yet there is reason to think that by the middle of
the second century the Church had gained a firmer
grasp upon the conception of the Spirit's personal dis
tinctness than she possessed in the days of Clement,
The growing use of the Fourth Gospel contributed to
this result, Dr Harnack characteristically observes that
this "cannot be shewn," but it can at least be made
probable. The ' Paraclete ' appears together with the
'Only-begotten' in the Valentinian system, whilst
Montanism called the attention of the Catholic Church
to the Johannine title, " They called him (Vettius
"Epagathus) the Christian's advocate, and he had 'the
"'Advocate' within him'," So wrote the Churches of
Lyons and Vienne in A,D, 177. Tertullian gives the
personal name a place in the Rule of Faith, and it is in
the early Creed of Jerusalem, where it may have gained
admission about the same period. But the free use
of the masculine noun '7rapdKX7jT0<; could hardly have
failed to influence Christian thought. It did not origi
nate the conception of the Spirit's distinct personality,
for we have seen that that was already latent in the
words of the Roman Clement ; but it gave fuller and
clearer expression to the belief Thus the Passion of
Perpetua, written under Montanist influence, discrimi
nates quite unambiguously between the Person of the
Spirit and His work : " uiderint qui unam uirtutem
" Spiritus unius Sancti pro aetatibus iudicent temporum " ;
— "ut nouae quoque uirtutes unum et eundem semper
" Spiritum Sanctum usque adhuc operari testificentur"."
' ap, Euseb, ff. E. v. i, 2 e(j_ Robinson, pp, 60, 94.

in the teaching of Tertullian and Origen. 33
To Tertullian the Western Church owes the word
trinitas, and although his Trinity is an ' economy,' i.e.
is viewed chiefly in reference to the manifestation of
God in human history, it is seen to be rooted in the
inner life of the Godhead. The ' persons ' — he uses the
term — are gradus, formae, species, and are at once in
separable and distinct (" inseparatos ab alterutrctestor,.
"dico alium esse Patrem et alium Filium et alium
"Spiritum"); the Scriptures represent each Person as
invested with a ' property ' which is peculiar to Him-
'Self ("unamquamque personam in sua proprietate con-
" stituunt ") ; the Second and Third Persons are derived
from the First — the Second immediately, the Third
through the medium of the Second'. If this teaching,
which comes from the first quarter of the third century,
falls short of the theology of the third quarter of the
fourth century, it does so chiefly because Tertullian has
not grasped the timelessness of the mutual relations of
the Divine Life, or the truth that the Second and Third
Persons receive from the First the whole essence of the
Godhead. Origen carries us many steps nearer to the
full evolution of the doctrine. Christian tradition, he says,
has left certain points with regard to the Holy Ghost's
manner of existence uncertain, yet it certainly places
Him on an equality with the Father and the Son",
and regards Him as possessing spiritual life. And so
far is Origen from ignoring the distinctness of the
Holy Spirit', that he goes to the length of suggesting
that the Spirit, since He is neither the Father nor
'^ adv. Prax. 1, 9, 11, habendus sit necne. Comp. Aug,
" rfc/n«c, i,;*ra«^ honore ac digni- de fide et symb. ig.
tate Patri ac Filio sociatum tradi- ^ de princ. i, i, 4 Sp, S, subsis-
derunt Spiritum Sanctum, in hoc non tantia est intellectualis et proprie
iam manifeste discernitur utrum natus subsistit et exstat.
an innatus uel Filius etiam Dei ipse
S, C. 3

34 Hi^ personality not denied by Arianism,
the Son, must be placed among the jevrjTa made by
the Son'. He interprets Hab, iii. 2 (LXX., iv ixeam
Bvo ^a>a>v yvwa-d-rja-rj) as referring to the Son and the
Spirit'' In one place he directly distinguishes the
Xapia-p,aTa of the Spirit from the Person : " I think that
"the Holy Spirit supplies the saints with the material
" (if I may so speak) of the gifts that they receive from
"God, this material finding its essential ground {vf^e-
" o-TcrSo-i;?) in the Holy Spirit"," He realises more clearly
than Tertullian that the Holy Spirit had no beginning
of existence : " He would not have been reckoned in the
" Unity of the Trinity together with the unchangeable
" Father and the Son if He had not been always Holy
" Spirit," He grasps the truth of His essential equality
with the Father and the Son : " No relation in the
" Trinity can be said to be greater or less*."
Arianism was in the first instance a protest against
the Sabellian confusion of the Persons^ Arius spoke
freely of three ova-iai, or uTroo-Tacret?^; and though in the
long conflict that followed his condemnation the use of
these terms was in some quarters abandoned or depre-
1 in Joann. ii. 6. ^ Socr, ff. E. i, 5 "Apeios...
2 de princ. i, 3. 4, olbiLevos rb 2a/3eXXiou rov Ai^vos
^ in Joann. I.e. oTfiai Se rb dyiov Sbypia elcnjyeioBai rbv iirloKOirov, iK
TTvevpia TTjv (iv' oijTtos eiirio) vXijv rdv (piXoveiKias Kara Sidfierpov els rb
dirb Beov xo-P^opidruv irapixeiv rois ivavrlov ttjs tov Alavos Sb^ris diri-
Si' avrb Kal ttiv pierox^v avrov XPV- KXive.
ixari^ovaiv^ dyiois,' rijs eipijfiivijs iJXijs ^ Ath, or, c. Arian. i. 6 piefiepttT-
tQv xapiofJidruiv ivepyovfiivijs [xiv dirb fjAvai ttj <pioei Kal dire^evufjAv&i Kal
TOV Beov, SiaKovovpiivifS Si virb rov direffxoivitrtUvai Kal dXXbrpioi Kal
Xpiorov, i^eo-Tijoijs Si Kard rb dpiiroxoi eioiv dXXrjXwv al oitriai
dyiov TTvevfia. rov irarpbs Kal rov vlov Kal rov dyiov
* rf^/nW, i, 3, 4 nunquam utique irvei/iaros, Kal lis airbs i<j)Biy-
in unitate Trinitatis, id est, Dei Patris ^aro, dvbp-oioi ird^i-jrav dXX-^Xiov rais
inconuertibilis et Filii Eius etiam re oioiais Kal Sb^ais eiolv iir' direipov.
ipse Spiritus Sanctus haberetur, nisi de Syn. 1 5 dveiri/uKroi iavrats eioiv
quia et ipse semper erat Sp, S, ib. al viroordaeis airdv. Comp,
7 nihil in Trinitate maius minusue Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, p.
dicendum est, 27,

or called in question by any party, 35
cated, no attempt was made to merge the personality of
the Spirit in that of the Father or of the Son. The first
Synod of Sirmium anathematises those who speak of the
Three as "one person" (%v irpocrmTvov), or identify the
Holy Ghost with the Ingenerate God, or call Him a
part of the Father or of the Son ; whilst on the other
hand it equally condemns a proposition which the
Catholics certainly did not support, that the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit are three Gods'. From any
positive statements about the Person of the Spirit the
Arian Creeds usually abstain, contenting themselves
with expressing belief in His operations ; but the title
Paraclete, which suggests personality, is used in these
documents with remarkable frequency. Thus the last
of the series (Constantinople, a.d. 360) confesses,
" And [we believe] in the Holy Ghost, which the Only-
" Begotten Son of God Himself the Christ, our Lord and
" God, promised to send to mankind as Paraclete (ac-
" cording as it is written), the Spirit of Truth; which He
" sent to them when He went up to Heaven","
We have now passed the middle of the fourth century,
when according to Harnack's view most Christians were
still ignorant of the personality of the Holy Ghost; yet
no trace of the assumed ignorance has met us hitherto,
Jerome, indeed, charges Lactantius with a direct denial
of the personality : " Spiritus Sancti negat substantiam,
"et errore ludaico dicit eum uel ad Patrem referri uel
" Filium, et sanctificationem utriusque personae sub eius
"nomine demonstrari'." But assuming that Jerome's
charge is well founded, Lactantius is the solitary
champion within the Catholic Church of this "Jewish
" error." It appears, however, to have been revived by
' Hahn, p. 118. " ib. p. 130. ^ ep. ad Pamm. et Ocean. % 7,
3—2

36 excepting the Macedonians.
certain members of the Macedonian party, who found
themselves embarrassed by the question, ' If the Holy
' Ghost be not God, who or what is He .? ' The sounder
thinkers and more reverent believers of the party shrank
from calling Him a creature. Some fell back upon a
confession of ignorance ; others took the bolder course
of representing the Holy Spirit as the Divine energy.
The fact is mentioned by Gregory of Nazianzus, who
describes adherents of this view as "some of our
" Christian philosophers'." He is clearly thinking of
non-Catholics ; and since Eunomius distinctly opposed
the tenet, and Augustine states that it was attributed by
some to the Macedonians or Semiarians, we may fairly
assume that it was practically confined to that party".
But that it had a very limited acceptance even amongst
Semiarians seems clear from the silence of contemporary
writers on the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, If " most
" Christians about the middle of the fourth century" had
still to learn that the Holy Spirit is personal, how came
it to pass that the Catholic theology of the time was
content to establish His Deity .? Such a book as St
Basil's treatise on the Holy Spirit passes over the
question of His personal existence altogether; the
writer proceeds at once to his task of shewing that the
personal Holy Ghost is Divine. What were the influ
ences, or where is the writing, to which the Church
owed her conversion to the doctrine of the personality
' or. theol. v ( = xxxi) rb irvevfia rb ^ de haer. lib. § 52 quamuis a non-
dyiov ^aSSovKoioi fikv oiSe elvai rb nullis perhibeantur non deum sed
n-apd-irav ivb/xioav ..."EXX-^ivav Si ol deitatem patris et filii dicere Spiri-
6eoXoyiKi!iTepoi...iif>avTd(rBiio-av...vovv tum Sanctum, et nullam propriam
TOV iravT6s...irpoo-ayope6a-avres. rdv habere substantiam. The view was
Si KaB' -rjpias ooipQv ol /j,iv ivipyeiav however capable of an orthodox
TOVTO viriXapovol Si KTl<rpia,ol Si Bebv, presentation; cf, de fide et symb.
ol Si oiK iyvoiaav birbrepov roirav. 19, 20, de Trin. xv, 27,

Catholic theology in the fourth century not revolutionary, 37
of the Holy Ghost } " The scientific Greek theology
" of the day " is responsible for having moulded earlier
conceptions into a consistent dogma, and provided them
with a nicely balanced terminology ; but it is certainly
innocent of the creation of an idea which is as old as the
Fourth Gospel and the Epistles of St Paul, and which
we have seen reflected continuously, although with
varying distinctness, in Church teaching from the end
ofthe first century.
But Professor Harnack proceeds : " Whoever, there-
"fore, introduces the doctrine of the Three Persons of
"the Godhead into the Creed, explains it contrary to
"its original meaning, and alters its true sense. Such
"an alteration was, of course, demanded of all Chris-
" tians from the end of the fourth century onwards, if
" they did not wish to expose themselves to the charge
"of heresy and its penalties."
It is remarkable that this vital alteration in the Faith
was not followed by an alteration in the Western Creed.
That Creed was in a fluid state until the eighth century,
yet no Western Church shewed the faintest desire to
modify the articles which relate to the Son and the
Holy Ghost. It would have been easy and even natural
to transfer to the Western Creed the definitions of the
Creed which was believed to have been accepted at
Constantinople; and it may be with some confidence
assumed that this would have been done if there had
been the least consciousness on the part of the Western
Church that she had executed the change of front im
puted to her.
But there was no such consciousness either in East
or West, The adherents of the Nicene theology pro-

38 but in the deeper sense conservative.
tested from the first that they had changed nothing.
The party represented at Nicaea by Eusebius of
Caesarea have been called " the conservatives," and the
name may be justified by their dislike of new phrase
ology'; but conservatism in regard to the essentials of
theology was characteristic of the stoutest advocates of
the Homoousion, Arianism, not the Nicene Faith, was
the real offender ; the serious innovations were on the
side of those who denied the proper Deity of the Son
and of the Spirit, If the Catholics used new terms,
they did so in order to guard old beliefs ; " malo enim
"aliquid novum commemorasse, quam impie respuisse""
is Hilary's sufficient answer to the charge of novelty.
In the definitions subsequently introduced into the
Creed of Jerusalem with the view of maintaining the
Deity of the Holy Spirit, even verbal innovations seem
to have been studiously avoided ; the new matter was
drawn almost exclusively from Scriptural sources; the
word ofioovaiov was not applied to the Spirit, nor was
He even called God, It may be said that this anxiety
to keep within the limits of a Scriptural vocabulary was
the fruit of policy; but the careful student of the
Catholic writers of this epoch will recognise in it a
deeper purpose. From Athanasius to Gregory of Nazi
anzus there comes an unbroken appeal to Holy Scrip
ture and Catholic tradition, which repels the unworthy
suspicion that the great Nicene teachers were guilty of
consciously tampering with the ancient faith.
Did they, then, unconsciously and against their will
change the current of Christian thought, and create the
doctrine of a hypostatic Trinity.? Harnack elsewhere
attributes the change more especially to the Cappa-
' See however Bright, Waymarks, p. 368 f, 2 ^^ synod. 82,

A hypostatic Trinity confessed before Basil. 39
docians. It was the work of the second half of the
fourth century. Let us, then, refer to earlier writers
who cannot be suspected of Cappadocian orthodoxy.
(i) The Creed of the martyr Lucian confesses that
"the names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not
"mere otiose titles, but accurately represent the hypo-
" stasis, order, and glory proper to Those Who bear
"them, so that they are Three in hypostasis, although
"One in their perfect harmony (r^ p-ev viroaTaaet rpLa,
''Tfi Be o-vfKpcovia eV)'." (2) Eusebius of Caesarea, fol
lowing the suggestion of Origen, speaks of the Holy
Spirit as " the Third Power, above every created nature
" — first of all the intelligent essences which have their
"being through the Son, but third in order from the
"First Cause"," (3) Cyril of Jerusalem, writing before
the middle year of the century, teaches catechumens
and the newly baptized : " Our hope is in the Father,
" the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; we preach not three
" gods, but One God through One Son together with the
" Holy Spirit — we neither divide the Holy Trinity, as
"the manner of some is, nor work confusion, as the
"Sabellians do." Of the Holy Ghost, Cyril remarks
that He " is equal in dignity with the Father and the
" Son " ; " the Spirit is a living principle and possesses
" a substantial existence {^cov Kal ixpeaTof), and is ever
" present with the Father and the Son^"
These statements vary in precision and in nearness of
approach to the theology of the Cappadocian fathers ;
but they agree with one another and with the later
teaching of the century in their practical recognition of
a hypostatic Trinity. Yet the first two at least are less
' Hahn, p, i86, " de eccl. theol. iii, 6,
' cat. iv. 1 6, xvii. 5.

40 The Cappadocians did not create doctrine,
explicit than passages which might be quoted from
writers of the third century, and the third is in harmony
with the best teaching of the second. It is not pre
tended that the dogmatic language of individual teachers
in the second century is always consistent with the riper
convictions of the post-Nicene age. Like all pioneers,
Justin, Tertullian, Origen, occasionally started on a
\ false track ; yet on the whole they moved upon lines
which eventually led to the decisions of Nicaea and
Constantinople. Of an essentially unequal Trinity, of
a Son of God whose filial relations began with His
human life, of an impersonal Spirit of God not to be
distinguished from the ' energy ' of the Father and the
Son, they betray no knowledge. These were actual
creations of the third century or of the fourth, and the
Church disowned them as soon as their nature was
clearly seen. The work of the great Nicene theologians
was not primarily constructive ; their first business was
to refute novel and strange teaching. But the refutation
of heresy has always served as an opportunity for a fresh
illumination of the truth, and it was thus in the fourth
century. The primitive faith in Father, Son and Holy
Ghost, grew under the hands of the great Greek theo
logians into a dogma, i.e., it acquired philosophical
expression and a fi.xed terminology. But it ought to
be possible to distinguish between the formulation of
a doctrine and its creation. According to Professor
Harnack the theology of the Church was created by the
genius of a handful of Catholic preachers and writers
who lived in the second half of the fourth century.
It has been the purpose of these chapters to shew that,
while Catholic theology is indebted to these Fathers for
much of its philosophical form and literary dress, its

but gave it scientific expression. 41
substance is due to the teaching of our Lord and of the
Apostolic age, jealously preserved and gradually as
similated by successive generations of the Ante-Nicene
Church.

IV.

In the Roman Creed of the fourth century the
Miraculous Conception occupied, as it now occupies in
the Apostles' Creed, the foremost place among the facts
of the life of Christ, Qui natus est— so ran the Creeds
both of Aquileia and of Rome — de Spiritu Sancto ex
Maria uirgine. The words were slightly varied in some
recensions; Marcellus read, "Who was born of the
" Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary," and the same
variation is exhibited in the Creeds of Codex Laudianus
and the Athelstan Psalter' The later paraphrase. Qui
conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria uirgine,
appears first in a series of sermons ascribed to Augus
tine", and in Gallican formularies^, whence it passed into
our present Creed. But it adds nothing of importance
to the teaching of the fourth century form, and the only
question which concerns us now is whether the sub
stance of the article may be safely attributed to the
earliest Creed of the Roman Church. Of this there
seems to be little doubt. Both Irenaeus and Tertullian
' iK irveifiaros dyiov Kal M.apias 26, 34, 36),
rrjs irapBivov (Marc, Ath.); de ^ App. serm. i^o — 244.
Spiritu sancto et Maria uirgine (cod. ^ E. g, in the traditio symboli of
Laud.). So also MS, Reg, -i A xx. the Missale Gallicanum uetus (Mu-
and the Creeds in K\x%.Serm. 212 ratori, ii, 710), "qui conceptus est
— 214, Nicetas, Facundus Herm,, de Spiritu Sancto, natus est de Maria
Hildefonsus Tolet (Hahn, pp, 22, uirgine,"

The Miraculous Conception maintained by Justin 43
give the Virgin-Birth a place in the Rule of Faith, and
Tertullian in one of his expositions of the Faith con
nects with it a descent of the Holy Spirit', No fact of
the Evangelical history was more firmly or generally
believed by the generation which gave shape to the
Western Creed. This is fully admitted by Dr Harnack,
who writes : " By the middle or probably soon after the
" beginning of the second century this belief had become
" an established part of the Church tradition." Never
theless he contends that the belief was subapostolic
only, not Apostolic ; " it is one of the best established
"results of history that the clause does not belong to
" the earliest Gospel preaching,"
In examining this statement we will begin with the
middle of the century, about which there is no doubt,
and work our way back with the view of discovering
when and how this belief took its rise, J ustin's writings
will be the natural starting-point. From Justin's point
of view the Miraculous Conception is inseparable from
the Incarnation, The point of interest with him is the
virginity of Mary", and not the office ascribed to the
Holy Spirit ; when he refers to the latter, he gives us
to understand that he identifies the ar^iov TTvevp,a of
the Conception with the Logos and not with the Third
Person of the Trinity'. But it is a definite article in his
creed that the Logos was born without the intervention
of a human father. The miracle was foretold by the
' Iren. i. 10. I Kal tt^v iK irapBivov ^ apol. i. 21 dvev iiri/u^ias. 22
yivvTjoiv. Tert, de uel. uirg. i na- Sid irapBivov. Cf, ib. 32, 33, 63,
tum ex Maria uirgine ; adv. Prax. -l ^ ib. 31, 33 ; in the latter chapter
missum a Patre in uirginem et ex Justin says plainly, To TrceC/xa o5i' rai
ea natum ; de praescr. 1 3 delatum rrjc Siva/uv rijv irapd rov Beov oiSiv
ex Spiritu Patris Dei et uirtute in liXXo voija-ai Bipusrj rbv Xbyov, 8s Kal
uirginem Mariam, carnem factum in irpurbroKos rip Beip ionv.
utero eius et ex ea natum.

44 in controversy with Pagans and Jews:
Hebrew prophets, and certain stories in the Greek
mythology were malicious attempts on the part of
the demons to caricature the event by anticipation'.
These statements appear in the first Apology, and they
shew that the belief was at this time disclosed to the
heathen without reserve. With Trypho the Jew Justin
is equally free ; the Dialogue is full of the subject,
which is treated as one of the commonplaces of Chris
tianity ; and we get an insight into the reasons which
led Christians of that age to attach so much importance
to it. The Virgin's Son is, as such, "without sin" (8t;^a
ajxapTia'i, c. 23); He is true man, but not dv6poi>'iro<; i^
avOpwirov (c, 48). By her obedience to the call of God
the Virgin reversed the disobedience of Eve", Two
important facts in the history of the belief are inciden
tally mentioned, (i) The Jews were so familiar with
the Christian doctrine in this matter that they had
begun to meet the argument based on Isa, vii. 14 by
denying that il??5? is rightly represented by -n-apOevoi
and substituting veavu^ for the rendering of the LXX.'
(2) The Virgin-Birth was consistently rejected by those
Christians — a minority, as Justin implies — who held the
adoptianist or elective view of our Lord's Sonship*.
Going backwards, we find the belief in the Virgin-
' apol. 54 ore Si iJKova-av [ol Sai- i/xwv roXfidre Xiyeiv /xriSi elprjoBai ev
/xoves]SidTov dXXovirpo(fyif}Tov'Jlo-aiov rri irpoiprp-eiq. rov 'Jlaaiov 'ISoi 1}
XexBivSn Sid irapBivov rexB-qoerai... irapBivos iv yacrrpl ?fei, dXX"ISou 17
rbv TLepoia XexBijvai irpoe^dXXovro. vedvis iv y. Xif^perai. Comp. Iren,
" dial. 100 Iva Kal Si' ^$ oSov 17 ap. Euseb. ff. E. v, 8, Orig, i. Cels.
dirb rov oipeois irapaKOj] r-qv dpxi}v i, 34.
IXajSe, Sid rairijs r^s bSov Kal Kard- ¦• ib. 48 Kal ydp eioi nves, a ^iXoi,
Xvoiv Xd^-rj- irapBivos ydp oBira ECo ?Xe70J', dirb rov ijpieripov yivovs bixo-
Kal dip&opos, rbv Xbyov rbv dirb rov Xoyovvres airbv Xpiorbv elvai, dv-
otf>eiosavXXa^ovo-a,irapaKoi]VKalBdva- Bputirov Si i^ dvBpibirwv yevbfievov
rov IreKe- irlonv Si koX xapdv Xa^ovoa diro(paivb/j,evoi^ ols oi ovvrlBe/Lai, oiS'
Mapla i] irapBivos, K.r.X. dv irXeioroi raird p,oi So^da-avres
^ ib. 43 vfxeis Kal ol SiSdoKaXoi etiroiev.

by Aristides and by Ignatius. 45
Birth in Aristides, who seems to include it in his formal
summary of Christian credenda. A comparison of the
restored Greek apology with the Syriac and Armenian
versions justifies us in attributing to Aristides himself
the words Ik irapQkvov yewrjdel'; a-dpKa dveXa^e, and
the preceding context in the Greek refers to the agency
of the Holy Spirit',
The next step brings us to Ignatius. His witness is
clear and emphatic. The classical passage is Eph. 19 :
" the prince of this world was ignorant of the virginity
" of Mary and of her child-bearing." It was one of the
mysteries which were ' wrought in the silence of God,
'but are now to be proclaimed to the world".' With
regard to the fact Ignatius had no doubt; it was as
certain in his eyes as the Crucifixion. Jesus Christ
(he maintains against certain Docetic teachers) was
truly born of a Virgin ; truly nailed to the Cross for
us in the flesh {Trail 9, Smyrn. i). It is important
to observe that while Justin presses the Virgin-Birth
against pagans and Jews, Ignatius asserts it against
heresy. The heretics whom Ignatius wishes to refute
appear not to have denied the fact, but they explained
it away, as they explained away the Passion, The
doctrine of the Miraculous Conception lent itself readily
to the suggestion of unreality, Ignatius is not shaken
' Comp, J, R, Harris, Aristides, down from heaven"; the latter
p, 24 f, Hennecke, p, 9. The full paraphrases, "The Son... together
Greek text is buoXoyelrai iv irve6p.ari with the Holy Ghost was revealed
dyiip dir' oipavov Kara^ds Sid rijv to us " ; but the Greek phrase has
a-iorripiav rdv dvBpiiiray, Kal iK irap- the true ring of the second century^
eivov av^as yevvriBels doirbpias re Kal ^ Eph. 19 ^aBev rbv dpxovra rov
dcjiBbpas adpKa dviXa^e. The words alCivos roirov r) irapBevia Mapias Kal
iv irveifiari dylip are not directly 6 roKerbs airris, b/ioiois Kal 6 Bdvaros
represented either in the Syriac or toC Kvpiov rpia nvorfipia Kpavyrjs,
the Armenian : the former turns the ariva iv r)avxll. Seov iirpdxB-r).
sentence "It is said that God came

46 Recognised by early heretics:
by this circumstance ; he asserts the reality of the event
notwithstanding its supernatural character. It would
have been comparatively easy to turn the Docetic
position, if he could have replied that the Lord was
born as other men are. But Ignatius knows nothing
of such a doctrine, and the great Church over which he
had presided and the Churches of Western Asia Minor
to which he wrote were evidently involved in the same
ignorance. Before we attempt to get behind the age of Ignatius,
it may be well to consider the attitude of second century
heresy toward this belief There were heretical Chris
tians who rejected it altogether, as Justin tells us ; and
we have no difficulty in identifying them with the
Ebionite school or its Gnostic exponents, the foUowers
of Cerinthus and Carpocrates, and the early Ophites'.
No critical grounds are stated for their repudiation of
the doctrine by these heretics, whilst the exigencies of
their dogmatic position supply an obvious motive. But
the other and more important Gnostic schools, those
whose tendency was Docetic rather than Ebionite, fol
lowed the Ignatian Docetae in accepting the Miraculous
Conception, working it into their own systems in various
shapes. So the Valentinians, both 'Italic' and 'Ana-
'tolic' (Hipp, vi, 35); so, too, Basihdes {ib. vii. 26), and
the later 'Docetae' described by Hippolytus (viii. 9), and
the Gnostics of Irenaeus (iii. 11. 3), The fact was ac
cepted by these heretics on the authority of the Gospels,
and not as a tradition inherited from the Church ; Hip-
Iren. i, 25, i Carpocrates autem eum loseph et Mariae fiUum similiter
et qui ab eo. .. lesum. ..e loseph ut reliqui omnes homines, Comp,
natum [esse dicunt], ib. 26, i Hippol. vii. 32, 33, Similarly Justin
Cerinthus.. .lesumsubiecit [sc. Deo], the Ophite represented Jesus as the
non ex uirgine natum (impossibile son of Joseph and Mary (Hippol.
enim hoc ei uisum est), fuisse autem v, 26), Cf, Asc. Isai., p, 54,

misrepresented by the Jews. 47
polytus represents both the Valentinians and BasUides
as appealing to St Luke.
A word may be said in passing as to the view which
the Jews took of the Christian doctrine. They made
no serious attempt to shew that our Lord was the Son
of Joseph and Mary, Finding that the great majority
of Christians, both Catholics and heretics, were agreed in
denying the paternity of Joseph, they acquiesced in this
belief, but used it as the occasion for a blasphemous
libel, which was already familiar to Celsus in the eighth
decade of the second century'. The true father of Jesus
was, they said, a soldier named Pantheras, The story
seems to have originated in a misunderstanding of the
title Ben-Pandera", which was taken for a patronymic,
but was probably an intentional misreading of Ben
Parthena, the Virgin's Son, But why was the imaginary
Panderas or Pantheras represented as a soldier 1 It has
been suggested that the tale belongs to the time of
Hadrian, when the Roman soldier was naturally exe
crated by the crushed and scattered race. If this con
jecture be accepted as probable, the Jewish use of
Pandera must be pushed back to a time anterior to
Hadrian's war: and the impression is confirmed which
has been received from the letters of Ignatius as to
the wide diffusion of this belief among Christians of
' Orig. c. Cels. 28 irpoaairoiroiei ^ XIIJS \1 is a common name of
'\ovSaiov airif SiaXeyb\i.evov r^"lr)aov scorn for our Lord in the Talmud,
Kal iXiyxovra airbv irepl iroXXQv fjAv, On the whole subject see Laible,
lis oterai' irparov Si, lis irXairapiivov lesus Christus im Talmud, pp. 9 —
airov rijv iK irapBivov yiveoiv . . .tpi/o-l 26, or Streane.y, C. in the Talmud,
Si air'tpi [sc, rr\v Mapiav'\ Kal virb p, 7 ff. Whatever the solution may
Tavyl\p.avTos...iie!j>aBai,iXeyxBeloav be, there can be no doubt that
lis p.eiMixevi'.ivipi . § 32 dXXa ydp Origen's criticism is just : ravra
iiraviXBoi/jiev els rr/v rov 'lovSalov irdvra dviirXaaav iirl KaBaipiaei tt\s
irpoffioTOiroitav iv ^ dvayiypairrai i) irapaSb^ov dirb dyiov irveifiaros <rvX-
Tov'lija-Qv pi-^rijp...riKrovoa dirb nvos X-ii^J/eios.
arparnirov tlavB-f/pa ToUvojia.

48 Sources of the Christian belief.
the generation which immediately followed the death
of St John.
What was the ultimate source of the belief.' We
have seen that the Gnostic sects of the middle of the
century appealed to the Gospel of St Luke. Justin
similarly justifies his statements by the words "as we
"learned from the Memoirs" {dial. 105). His references
are for the most part to St Luke, but St Matthew
appears to be in view more than once {dial. 78, apol.
'• 33)- Ignatius, on the other hand, seems to be inde
pendent of both narratives ; if he leans to either, it is to
St Matthew, but on the whole his words leave the im
pression that he either refers to some third document
perhaps akin to our First Gospel, or is simply handing
on a fact which had been taught him orally, probably
when he first received the Faith, The latter supposition
carries us back, perhaps far back, into the first century'.
We cannot, however, pursue this clew, and for further
light we must turn to the two Gospels which record the
Conception, Much has been made of the silence of
St Mark, but the argument ex silentio was never more
conspicuously misplaced ; it is puerile to demand of a
record which professes to begin with the ministry of the
Baptist that it shall mention an event which preceded
the Baptist's birth. The plan of the Fourth Gospel
equally excludes a reference to the manner of our
Lord's entrance into the world ; although the promi
nence given by St John to the Mother of the Lord
is favourable to the hypothesis that the Evangelist
was not ignorant of her peculiar privilege. In
St Luke, on the other hand, we might reasonably
expect to find the fact recorded ; had it been wanting
' See Lightfoot on Ign. Eph. 19.

St Luke's account. 49
our suspicions would have been awakened, for the
author's purpose is to construct a biography, and he
gathers from all the sources at his command. Hence
the Nativity and the events which led up to it are
an integral part of his story. Few will now con
tend that Marcion's mutilated Gospel, beginning as it
did with arbitrary fusion of Luke iii. i, iv. 31, was
the original St Luke, Yet if the first two chapters
formed part of the original Gospel, our most im
portant record of the Conception is carried back, let
us say, to A,D, 75 — 80, a terminus ad quem for the
publication of the third Gospel accepted by one of
the most cautious and far-seeing of living New Testa
ment scholars'. But we cannot stop there. The style
of Luke i, 5 — ii. 52 clearly points to sources older than
the Gospel itself There are indeed correspondences
of style and vocabulary which connect this section with
the rest of the Gospel, and shew that the whole book
has passed through the hands of the same compiler''; yet
the section betrays unmistakably, as we think, an inde
pendent origin. It has an archaic tone; its thought
and spirit are Judaeo-Christian ; the hymns which
characterise it are permeated by the thought and lan
guage of the Old Testament ; the narrative preserves
a simplicity which contrasts not only with St Luke's
formal prologue, but with his rendering of the synoptic
tradition. The whole section may thus with some
confidence be traced to a source earlier than the Fall of
Jerusalem, and ' probably derived from the traditions
of the Church of Jerusalem, And bearing in mind
St Luke's plan of pushing his enquiries back as far as
f ' Sanday, Inspiration, p, 277 ff-
^ See, e.g., Sanday, Gospels in the Second Century, p, 222 ff,
S, C. 4

50 St Matthew's account.
he could go, it is scarcely too bold to suppose that he
believed himself to be in possession of a narrative which
came from the Mother of the Lord. The Church over
which James the Lord's brother presided and of which
Mary herself had been a member during her residence
at Jerusalem with the Apostle John, would have been
the natural repository of such a reminiscence. There,
if anywhere, the hymns of Zacharias, Mary, and Simeon,
would have been treasured — perhaps liturgically used
and moulded into their present form.
The narrative of the Conception in the first Gospel
is absolutely independent of the narrative in the third.
They are not simply distinct accounts proceeding from
two independent observers, but they cover almost
entirely different ground. Joseph is the centre of §t
Matthew's story, as Mary of St Luke's. The latter
story deals with the Annunciation and Visitation, the
former with a revelation to Joseph made subsequently
to the Annunciation, and probably after Mary's return
from Judaea. The work of the harmonist is here simple
and straightforward ; Luke i, 26 — 56 is naturally fol
lowed by Matt, i, 18 — 25, and Luke ii. i — 38 by Matt.
ii, I, Yet this ready locking together of the parts of
the story cannot be due to a desire on the part of either
Evangelist to supplement the work of the other, St
Matthew seems to write in entire ignorance of the
circumstance that the scene of the events which pre
ceded the Nativity was laid in Galilee. St Luke allows
no interval for the flight into Egypt, Tatian, who ar
ranged the two accounts nearly in the manner suggested
above, was evidently perplexed when he reached Luke
ii, 39', and endeavoured to meet the difficulty by placing
' Ciasca, p, 5 : cf, Mr Hamlyn Hill's Earliest Life of Christ, p, 50, n.

Probable origin of the two narratives. 51
Matt, ii. I after the return into Galilee and substituting
a vague phrase for St Matthew's note of time. It
would have been better to recognise that St Luke was
ignorant of the visit of the Magi and the flight. Igno
rance of this kind does not affect the credibility of a
writer with regard to matters which he professes to
know, but it demonstrates his independence.
It is natural to conjecture that St Matthew's story
originated with Joseph, as St Luke's with the Mother of
the Lord', Of Joseph we have no certain information
later than our Lord's twelfth year, but the committal of
the Mother to St John is usually regarded as evidence
that he died before the Crucifixion, Probably his death
preceded the Baptism, for throughout the Ministry the
Mother appears in company with the Lord's brethren.
But if Joseph died in Galilee before the Ministry, his
account of the events which preceded the Nativity might
have been long in gaining circulation. It might have
escaped even the vigilance of St Luke, and have formed
one of the latest accretions to the narrative of the
Gospels. Such a hypothesis may be thought to account for
certain appearances in the text of Matt, i, 16 ff. Epipha
nius relates that the first Gospel was used in a shorter
form by the Ebionites, Cerinthians, and Carpocratians.
The Ebionites omitted the first two chapters, the Cerin
thians retained the genealogy, for " they wished to shew
" from the genealogy that our Lord was the son of Joseph
" and Mary"." It is precarious to place faith in Epipha-
' This view is well stated by Mr is,iv ydp K^pipSos koj. KapiroKpds rip
Gore, Incarnation, p. 78, ai>nj XP'^/^^"'" S^^f irap airois
^ haer. xxxviii, 5 xp^^rai ydp np eiayyeXiip dirb r^s dpxvs rov Kard
Kard MarBaiov eiayyeXlip dvb piipovs MarBaiov eiayyeXlov Sid r^s yevea-
Kal oix oXip, ctXXa Sid rifv 7ei'ea- Xoyias ^oiXovrat irapior^v iK oirip-
Xoyiav ri]V ivoapKOV. ib. xxx. 14 0 paros 'Ia<ri](f> Kal Mapias elvai rbv

52 'Variations in Matt. i. i6
nius's statements, especially when they concern the wrong
doings of heretics ; but if we may trust him here, the
Cerinthian Gospel must have differed from our own by
the absence not only of c, i, i8 — 25, but of a part of
c, i, 16. Now it is remarkable that this verse exists in
a variety of forms which suggests some early disturb
ance of the text. Most of our Greek MSS. read : 'la/ctu/S
Be e'yevvrjaev rov Icoa-rjcf} tov dvBpa Mapta?, i^ 779 iyevvrjOr)
'Irjaov'; 6 Xey6p.evo<; Xpto-To'?. But three of the cursives
known as ' the Ferrar group ' (codd, 13, 69, 346) substitute
for TOV dvBpa, k.t.X., the words c5 fj.vrja-TevOelcra TrapOevot;
yiapidp, eykvvr)(Tev 'Ytjctovv tov Xeyofievov ^piaTov, and
this alternative ending to the verse is supported in
substance by seven MSS. ofthe prae-Hieronymian Latin',
and by the Curetonian Syriac, These facts involve the
ending of verse 16 in some uncertainty, and lend plausi
bility to the idea that the verse did not originally
contain the words which assert the virginity of the
Lord's mother. But the evidence is at present far from
sufficient to justify this conclusion ; and if it were
stronger, the phenomena might be explained with
almost equal probability on the hypothesis of early
mutilation. In the mean while the matter may be
regarded with comparative equanimity by those who
believe in the miracle of the Virgin-Birth, Even if it
should appear that in the original Matthew the Genea-

'Kpiorbv' ovroi Si [ot 'E/3iwpaioi] aXXa d gives cui desp. ii. M. peperit C. I. ;
nvd Siavoovvrai' irapaKd^avres ydp h, ctii desp. erat it. M., u. autem M.
rds irapd np MarBaiip yeveaXoylas genuit I. C. ; c, cui desp. u. M.,
dpxovrai ri]v dpxv" iroielaBai, lis M. autem genuit I. qui dicitur
irpoelirov, Xiyovres 0Ti"^yiveT0 K.r.X. Christus ; ag^ have cui desp. u. M.
(Mt. iii. i), Comp, Westcott, genuit I. qui uocatur (a, dicitur)
Canon, p, 277, n. 2. Christus ; q has cui desp. M. genuit
' Cod, k reads cui desponsata I. qui uoc. Chr,
uirgo M. genuit lesu-m CJi-ristum ;

do not affect the trustworthiness of the story. 53
logy ended with the formula "Joseph begat Jesus," the
words would no more be a denial of the miracle than
St Luke's references to Joseph as " the father " (Luke
ii. 33) and to Joseph and Mary as "the parents" of the
Lord (ib, 27, 41), If St Matthew's account of the Angel's
message to Joseph could be shewn to have been inserted
in the Gospel after its publication, the circumstance would
prove nothing more than that the facts were unknown
to the writer of the original draft, nor would it materially
weaken their claim to be regarded as historical.
We have then, in any case, two absolutely inde
pendent narratives of events connected with the Miracu
lous Conception, one an integral part of the third Gospel,
the other a part of the first Gospel in all existing MSS.
and versions. Apart from the question of the date of
the completion of our present Matthew, both these
documents shew every indication of being genuine pro
ducts of the first century, probably of a generation
anterior to the Fall of Jerusalem. St Luke's story has
the true ring of the primitive age ; St Matthew's is
shewn by its independence of St Luke's to be earlier
than the publication of the latter. There is probability
in the conjecture which traces them respectively to the
Mother of the Lord and His supposed father.
Nevertheless, Dr Harnack contends, the Conception
" does not belong to the earliest Gospel preaching."
This may at once be conceded, if the words are re- ]
stricted to their narrowest sense. The earliest Gospel
preaching was limited to the witness borne by the
Twelve to the things which they had seen and heard.
It began, therefore, with the baptism of John, reaching
from the beginning of the Galilean Ministry of the Lord
to His Ascension, but finding its culminating point in

54 Whether known to the first generation or not,
the Resurrection (Acts i. 21, 22). The second Gospel,
in its completed form, may be taken to correspond as
nearly as possible with this original cycle of teaching ;
and the Gospel of St Mark, as we are often reminded,
knows nothing of the miracles which attended the Lord's
Conception and Nativity, It is urged, however, that
the doctrine of the Conception is equally absent from
St Paul's teaching. As a matter of fact we have little
direct evidence to shew what St Paul's presentment of
the Gospel history may have been, unless we suppose it
to be mirrored in the Gospel of St Luke, which gives us
our fullest account of the event. But not to press this
point, it is obviously unsafe to argue from St Paul's
silence, when he is equaUy silent on many other matters
which certainly formed part of the Apostolic teaching.
The purpose of his Epistles is to teach the religion
and the ethics of the Faith, not to restate its historical
basis ; the latter was the work of the catechist, rather
than of an Apostle who had received a special mission
of another kind. It would have been a departure from
St Paul's plan, if he had directly referred to the fact of
the Conception, But there are portions of his teaching
where the event may well have been in the background
of his thought, as when he speaks of our Lord as ' the
' heavenly man,' insists on His absolute sinlessness, and
describes Him as ' made of a woman,' in a context where
it would have been at least as natural to represent Him
as the son of Joseph had he believed Him to be such'.
On the other hand no adverse conclusion can fairly be
drawn from Rom, i. 3, 'made of the seed of David
' See an article by C.J, H, Ropes, pp. 704 — 707; and cf. Knowling,
" Born of the Virgin Mary," in the Witness ofthe Epistles, p, 274 ff.
Andover Review, Nov, — Dec, 1893,

the belief runs back into the Apostolic age. 55
' according to the flesh,' as if the words asserted the
paternity of Joseph. Ignatius more than once combines
in the same sentence the Davidic descent with the
Virgin-Birth'. But the right of the Church in the second century to
teach the doctrine does not turn upon the question
whether it was taught by the Apostles or in their life
time. If an important fact connected with the Incarna
tion did not come to light until St Paul had passed
away, it was none the less worthy of a place in the
historical portion of the Creed so soon as it became part
of the common heritage of the Christian Society, The
appearance in the first and third Gospels of two inde
pendent accounts, gathered from the stores of the primi
tive Palestinian Church, would have been justification
enough. But as far as we can judge, the belief was
older than the publication of the Gospels. When it first
appears in the letters of Ignatius, it was already accepted
without question from Antioch to Ephesus. Yet some
of the Churches by which it was confessed had received
the faith from St Paul, and all were fresh from the
teaching of St John. ' Eph. 18, Trail. 9, Smyrn. i.

V.

"The words He descended into Hell are not in the
" Creed of the Church of Rome." So Rufinus tells us at
the end of the fourth century. He adds that they were
unknown to the Churches of the East'. This is true so
far as regards the baptismal creeds ; no Eastern form
contains the clause or anything corresponding to it.
Yet, before Rufinus wrote his commentary, the doctrine
of the Descent had found a place in three synodical
declarations, put forth by the Arian assemblies gathered
at Sirmium, Nice, and Constantinople, in the years 359
and 360"- The wording of these manifestos will repay
examination and comparison,
Sirmium, Nice, Constantinople.
^Gleisrd KaraxBbvia Kai raipivra Kal eis Kai ra<f>ivra Kal els
KareX&bvra, Kal rd rd KaraxBbvia KareX- rd KaraxBbvia KareXi)-
iKeloe oiKOvo/j.-rj(ravra' Sv Bbvra' Sv airbs b ^Srjs Xv&bra' ovriva Kal airos
irvXiopol g.Sov ISbvres irpbfxaoe. 6 ^St^s 'iirrrj^ev.
^<f)pi^av. It will be observed that the earliest of the three
forms omits Kal Ta(f)evTa, as if it were implied in the new
phrase which follows^: the second and third replace kuI
' in symb. i8 sciendum sane est ^ Hahn, pp, 125 — 9,
quod in ecclesiae Romanae symbolo ^ Comp, Rufinus, I.e. uis tamen
non habetur additum descendit ad uerbi eadem uidetur esse in eo quod
inferna, sed neque in Orientis eccle- sepultus uidetur (cf, infr. § 28),
siis habetur hie sermo.

Early legends connected ivith the Descent. 57
Tu^evTu but retain the new words. All the three are
remarkable for the dramatic tone in which they describe
the Descent, The Sirmian phrase rests ultimately on Job
xxxviii. 17 (LXX. irvXapol Be aBov IBovTe'i ae eiTTri^av);
but the reference is probably at second hand, for the
passage in Job had been applied to our Lord by Atha
nasius' and Cyril of Jerusalem". Cyril, whose influence
is seen in other features of the Sirmian ecthesis, assigns
great importance to the Descent, making it one of his
ten primary credenda^. With regard to the personifica
tion of Hades which appears in the two later forms, this
new feature may have been borrowed di^ctly from
St Paul (i Cor. xv, 55, after Hosea x'i'fiyi4) or from
St John (Apoc, vi, 8, xx, 13, 14), U,
The rhetorical language in which these Councils
describe the Descent seems to be characteristic of the
fourth century : but the belief existed from the first, and
at a very early period gathered round itself a number of
remarkable accretions. Our Lord, it was said, descended
in order to visit and instruct the patriarchs and prophets
of the Old Testament, or to raise them to a higher state
of existence, or in some cases to restore them to life on
earth. A similar descensus ad inferos was attributed by
some early writers to the Forerunner, and to the Apostles
and the first generation of believers. How wide a range
these ideas attained will be seen when we add that in
one form or another they occur in Ignatius, Hermas,
Justin, Irenaeus, the Petrine Gospel, Clement of Alex-
'^ fragm. in Luc. a. 22; or. c. poi aSov, rovrov ISbvres eirrrj^aoBe ;
Ariatt. iii. 57. Comp. Heurtley, pp. 136—7,
2 catech.id.i-3i,idv. 19: i^eirXdyri ^ Gwatkin, Studies, pp, 132 — 3,
b Bdvaros Beap^oas Kaivbv nva KareX- Cyril's catecheses were delivered a
Bbvra els q.Si]v...Tivos iveKev, u irvXoi- full decade before the ' dated creed,'

5 8 Their probable history.
andria, Hippolytus, Origen', the Edessan document cited
by Eusebius {H. E. i. 13), and the Teaching of Addai".
Can we trace these aspects of the Descent to the
Apostolic age } It is natural to think of i Pet. iv. 6 {koX
veKpoi'i evTjryyeXlddrj) ; but I Pet. iii. 18, 19 seems to limit
this preaching to the generation who perished in the
flood. Nor is there any considerable evidence that either
of these passages influenced the thought of the second
century. There is a possible reference to them in the
Petrine Gospel {eK-rjpv^a'i rot? KOL/j,a>/J,evoi<;y, and they
may also be contemplated in the saying of the Elder
(possibly Pothinus, Irenaeus's predecessor in the see of
Lyons*) quoted by Irenaeus (iv. 27. 2), But no direct
appeal is made to St Peter in any of the numerous
references to the Descent ; the earliest quotation of
I Pet. iv, 6 we have been able to find is in Cyprian's
Testimonial. On the whole it is scarcely possible
to" account for the early legends of the Descent by
supposing them to be based upon reminiscences of St
Peter's words. Their general acceptance may with more
probability be traced to the influence of some early
teaching which strove to combine the scattered hints of
Scripture, as that (e,g,) of the apocryphen which is boldly
said by Justin {dial 70) to have been removed by the
Jews from their copies of Jeremiah, and which Irenaeus
ascribes once (iv. 22. i) to Jeremiah, once (iii. 20. 4) to
Isaiah, and in three other places (iv. 33. i, 12; v. 31. i)
' See Lightfoot's note on Ign, quae sunt sub terra descendisse euan-
Magn. 9, gelizantem et illis aduentum suum,
^ Cureton, Ancient Syriac docu- remissione peccatorum existente his
ments, p, 7, qui credunt in eum,
3 Akiimtm fragment, p. 19, n. ^ ii. 27 item illic: In hoc enim et
* Lightfoot, Essays on Super- mortuis praedicatum est ut susci-
natural Religion, p, 266, The words tentur. Ut suscitentur seems to in-
of the Elder are: Dominus in ea \.etpxs\.iva...^Ciaivas = ivai^epBCj<riv.

The Aquileian article Scriptural. 59
quotes anonymously. The words are : "The Lord God,
" the Holy One of Israel, remembered His dead, which
" slept in the dust of the earth, and descended to them,
" to preach unto them His salvation'," One of the sources
of this saying is betrayed by the words et? 7^1/ ")(a>p,aTO<i,
an inversion of the phrase in Dan, xii, 2 (Th.)"; and the
author had also in view, besides the passage in i Peter,
the incident recorded in Matt, xxvii, 52, for he has
altered Theodotion's KaOevBovTcov into St Matthew's
KeKoi/xrjfievaiv^. His words, possibly a fragment of a
primitive homily, commended themselves so fully to
the subapostolic age that before Justin's time they
had acquired a place in some Christian copies of the
Prophets, A remarkable contrast is presented when we turn
from the rhetorical descriptions of the fourth century,
and the simpler yet fanciful conceptions of the second,
to the article in the Apostles' Creed which announces
the fact of the Descent, Here both words and teaching
are directly Scriptural : Descendit in infernum {ad infer-
num, ad inferno) are Old Latin and Vulgate renderings
of nVx^ Ti';^ LXX. et? aBov KUTe^T]. The clause carries
Rufinus back to his Psalter, and he quotes Ps. xv (xvi). 10,
xxi (xxii), 16, xxix (xxx), 4, 10, Ixviii (Ixix). 3'; for the
phrase he might have referred to Ps. liv (Iv), 16, cxiii, 25
(cxv. 17), cxxxviii (cxxxix). 8, Of these passages the
first had been cited by St Peter on the Day of Pentecost,
' ipiv-ijoBi} Si Kipios 6 Bebs dyios ^ TroXXoi riov KaBevSbvnav iv yrjs
(dirb. Just, ; sanctus, Iren, ; cf, the X''/"'"'' iieyepBrfoovrai. The apo-
vv, 11, in 3 Mace, vi, 9) 'lopar)X rCiv cryphon follows the original nD"]K
veKpSiv airov rdv KeKoifiiifiivoiv eis -|Sj;_ Comp. Bevan, /)«««/, p, 201,
yrjv xii/J.aros, Kal KaripV^pl>s o.irois V^he same variant occurs in
evayyeXloaa-Bai avrois rb aar-qpiov Const Ap. v. 7,

avrov.

¦• in symb. § 28,

6o Original meaning of the words.
and applied to our Lord's departure from the body in a
manner which alone might have been sufficient to justify
the use of the words in the Creed, If we ask ourselves
what meaning was attached to such words by the primi
tive Church of Jerusalem, it is natural to seek an
answer in the interpretation of the corresponding Hebrew
phrase, " Sheol," writes Professor Schultz, " is not the
"grave itself, for even when there is no grave, Sheol is
"thought of as the abode of the departed. It is the
" dwelling-place of the dead, who rest there after the joy
" and the suffering of life'." Since the body was com
mitted to the depths of the earth, it was natural to asso
ciate the condition of the dead with the thought of an
underworld, and to speak of a ' descent ' into Sheol.
The primitive Church took over these ideas, and the
language in which they were clothed ; that our Lord at
His death descended into Hades not only accorded with
the Psalmist's prophecy, but was involved in her belief
of the reality of His human nature, St Paul followed
upon the same lines, boldly adapting Deut. xxx, 13 to
the fact of the Descent (Rom, x, 7)". The Descent into
Hades was in the Pauline Christology the lowest point
in the Kard^aai^i which preceded the dvd^aai<i of the
Incarnate Son (Eph. iv. 9)1 Obedience even unto death
secured for Him the sovereignty of the underworld {rd
Kara'xQovia) ; His descent thither was the pledge of His
lordship over it (Phil, ii, 10)*,
' O.T. Theology CE.T. ), it. -p. ^2^. (cvii). 26, Luke viii. 31),
^ For Tk Siairepdoei ripiiv els rb ^ rb Si dvifiij, rl ioriv ei p,^ 6n
iripav rijs BaXdooTjs; (Deut. I.e. LXX.) Kal Kari^ij eis rd Kaniyrepa pipi] rijs
the Apostle substitutes, Tis Kara- yijs ;
^T]fferai eis ri]v d^voffov; commt-ating ^ i.Va irav ybvv Kdpitp'Q..,KaraxBo-
TOVT 'ionv %piiTrbv iK veKpCiv dvaya- viiov (infernorUTri), Kai irdtra yXdaoa
yeiv. The ambiguous d^vffoov covers e^op.oXoyi}ar]rai 'on Kipios 'lijoovs
both BdXaa-oav and g.^riv (cf, Ps. cvi Xpiarbs.

'When and why introduced into the Creed. 6i
At what precise time these primitive ideas took their
place under a severely simple form in the baptismal Creed,
we cannot say. We meet with the clause for the first
time in the Aquileian Creed of the fourth century, but it
can hardly have been then of recent introduction. The
Church of Aquileia laid claim to an antiquity scarcely
inferior to that of the Roman Church, St Mark was
regarded as its founder, and the martyrologies speak of
an Aquileian Bishop who suffered under Nero, No
reliance, of course, can be placed upon these stories
of a later age, yet they witness to a belief which on
the whole was probably sound. The importance of
Aquileia, which afterwards secured to its Bishop metro
politan rank and an independence shared in Italy only
by the see of Milan, points to an early establishment of
the Church in that city. The Aquileian Church received
her Creed from Rome, but exercised the right of modify
ing the original form. To the first article she added
the words " invisible and impassible," as a protest, Rufi
nus tells us, against Sabellianism ; whilst against a false
spiritualising she maintained "the resurrection of this
" flesh," It is at least probable that the words descendit
ad inferna were introduced with a like purpose, to meet
some heresy ; and the Docetic tendency of the latter
part of the second century suggests itself as likely to
have supplied the occasion, Rufinus in any case has
lost the clue, and this circumstance alone would lead us
to suppose that the addition was made long before his
time. Moreover the simplicity of the words points us
to the early days of the Aquileian Church, We shall
perhaps not be far wrong if we assign the clause to
the end of the second century, or the beginning of the
third.

62 Their subsequent history
From Aquileia the reference to the Descent made
its way further west. It occurs in the Creed of Venan
tius Fortunatus, who was Bishop of Poitiers in the last
years of the sixth century, but in early life had resided
at Aquileia, Here it appears to take the place of et
sepultus, as in the Sirmian manifesto of 359'; but in the
Gallican and Spanish creeds of the next half century
the two clauses stand side by side, and from that time
in Creeds of the Gallican recension they kept the posi
tion which they still occupy.
The history is an instructive one. An article of
faith, which is neither Roman nor Eastern, has estab
lished itself in the Creed of Western Christendom
through the influence of a remote Church represented
by a Gallican prelate who had spent his early days in
North-East Italy, It did not reach Gaul, as far as we
can judge, till the end of the sixth century. But it
came from one of the earliest forms of the baptismal
Creed; it reflected an absolutely primitive belief: it is
expressed in the phraseology of the early Latin Bible.
Why should this clause be regarded with misgiving
because of the accident of its Aquileian origin ,'' Pro
fessor Harnack insists that "the clause is too weak to
" maintain its ground beside the others, as equally inde-
" pendent and authoritative," In what its weakness Hes,
the Professor fails to point out ; to us it appears to
possess in a very high degree the strength which comes
from primitive simplicity and a wise reserve. Each of
the great Churches in ancient Christendom had its
special contribution to bring to the fulness of Christian
faith and life. It was the privilege of the Church of
' Hahn, p. 29 ; crucifixus sub Pontio Pilato, descendit ad infernum.
Comp, pp, 36, 38, 39,

and justification. 63

Aquileia to hand down to a remote age, free from legen
dary accretions, an Apostolic belief which affirms that
the Incarnate Son consecrated by His presence the
condition of departed souls.

VI,

" The special prominence given to the Ascension " in
the Apostles' Creed is, according to Professor Harnack,
"another deviation from the oldest teaching"; for "in
" the primitive tradition the Ascension had no separate
" place," " It is not quite certain," he adds, " that the
"writer of the Creed so conceived it, or that he did
"not rather intend to describe one single action by
" the three words ' risen,' ' ascended,' ' sitting '." It is
certain, however, that from the time of Rufinus they
have been otherwise understood ; and Harnack's con
tention invites an examination into the grounds upon
which the Church regards the Ascension as a historical
event, distinct from the Resurrection, and preliminary
to the Session of our Lord at the right hand of God.
That the Ascension had no separate place in the
primitive tradition, appears, it is said, from the follow
ing considerations, {a) It is not mentioned by the
Synoptists, or by St Paul in his creed-like summary of
the Faith (i Cor. xv, 3 ff,), or by the chief sub-apostolic
writers, {b) It is omitted in some of the oldest accounts,
which place the Session immediately after the Resur
rection, {c) The interval between the Resurrection and
the Ascension is variously estimated by the earliest

Silence of the Synoptists and of St Paul. 65
authorities. It will be convenient to consider these
points seriatim.
We have first the argument ex silentio. The Syn
optists, we are told, know nothing of the Ascension ;
it is wanting in their Gospels. This statement needs
some rectification. The first Gospel cannot fairly be
said to omit the Ascension, for it does not carry the
reader so far, stopping short with the meeting in Galilee.
Whether the second Gospel omitted it may never be
known, for if St Mark completed his work, the original
ending is perhaps hopelessly lost. Nor is it certain that
the Ascension is wanting in St Luke. After removing
the interpolations from Luke xxiv. 50, 51, we still have
the words Bikarf] dir avrwv, Kal avrol vrrearpe'^av et?
'lepovcraXrj/j, piera ¦)(apd'i pbe<ydXr)<;. Auearrj may of course /
refer to a temporary parting, or to a permanent one
not effected by an Ascension ; but the joyful return to
Jerusalem is difficult to explain on either hypothesis.
On the whole, then, the facts scarcely justify the asser
tion that the Ascension is "wanting in the first three
"Gospels." But granting that it is, the silence of the
Synoptists does not imply ignorance. There is another
explanation which deserves to be considered. "The
"Ascension," it has been said, "apparently did not lie
"within the proper scope of the Gospels... its true
" place was at the head of the Acts of the Apostles, as
"the preparation for the Day of Pentecost, and thus
" the beginning of the history of the Church'."
The silence of St Paul in i Cor. xv. is a stiU more
precarious argument. The Apostle's purpose in that
chapter is simply to establish the truth of the Resur
rection, and it is idle to require him to step aside from
' Notes on Select Readings (App, to W, H,), p, 73.
s, c, 5

66 Silence of the sub-apostolic writers.
his argument in order to mention the Ascension. 'Attc-
davev — erd(j)r] — iyrjiyeprai — co(j)di], form a series of state
ments essential to the matter in hand ; the addition of
dveX-rip,^6r] would have been at once superfluous and
misleading. But the great sub-apostolic writers are also silent.
The relevance of this circumstance depends upon the
nature of their writings. What reason is there to expect
them to touch upon the subject of the Ascension ,'
Clement is almost exclusively concerned with the
maintenance of discipline, Ignatius, as the opponent
of Docetism, is chiefly interested in the Birth, the
Passion and the Resurrection of the Lord. Polycarp
has left us only one short letter, which is taken up with
practical details. Nevertheless, Ignatius uses language
which seems to imply a belief in the Ascension', and
Polycarp, who quotes i Peter", could not have been
ignorant of St Peter's distinct reference to the event.
Thus the argument from the silence of early writers
is in itself insufficient to bear the weight of Dr Harnack's
conclusions. Moreover, it is only fair to set against the
silence of some writers the express statements of others
who fall within the same period. The present ending
to St Mark, which asserts the Ascension in the plainest
terms, belongs at the latest to the earlier sub-apostolic
age, and some cogent reasons have recently been pro
duced for connecting it with the name of a personal
disciple of our Lord^ The fourth Gospel, which, if its
Johannine authorship be not conceded, can hardly be
placed later than the beginning of the second century,
' E.g. in Magn. 7 d0' evbs irarpbs 10,
irpoeXBbvra Kol eis iva ovra KoX x^op-rj- ^ Aristion : see F. C. Conybeare
a-avra. in Expositor, ser, iv, vol, viii. p.
2 Phihpp. I, 2 (fer), 5, 7, 8 (fe>), 241 ff.

Early testimony to the fact. 6y
contains allusions to the Ascension which are the more
significant because they are incidental (cc. vi. 62, xx.
17). If we may not assume that the Acts was the work
of St Luke, or that the materials for the early chapters
of that book were derived from original sources, the
statements in cc. i. 9, ii. 33, 34, are at least earlier than
the date of Polycarp's Epistle, which quotes c. ii. 24.
The Epistle to the Ephesians assumes the fact of the
Ascension (c. iv. 8 — 10) ; the Pastorals quote a primitive
Christian hymn in which it is celebrated (i Tim, iii. 16),
Passages in the Epistles which speak of the Lord's
Return may also fairly be claimed (e.g. i Thess. iv. 16,
2 Thess, i, 7), for the hope of a Kard^aa-a postulates an
antecedent dvd^aai';, without which it is inconceivable.
On the whole it may confidently be maintained that the
Christian literature of the century which followed the
Ascension contains as many references and allusions to
it as the position of that event in the Christian scheme
and its relative importance in the estimation of the
first age might have led us to expect.
But Professor Harnack proceeds to urge that "in
" some of the oldest accounts the resurrection and the
" sitting at the right hand of God are taken as parts of
" the same act, without mention of any ascension," Let
us interrogate one of these accounts. In Rom. viii. 34
St Paul writes : 'Kpiaro^i 'Irjaov'; 6 drrodavcov /MaXXov Be
iyepdel<; eK veKpwv, 0? ea-nv iv Be^ia rov deov, b? Kal
evrvyxo,vei, vrrep rjpiwv. Here are four well-marked links
in a chain of facts — our Lord's death, resurrection, ses
sion, intercession. It is difficult to see why the second
and the third, the Resurrection and the Session, should
be taken as parts of the same act, when the first is clearly
distinct. If the Ascension is not mentioned, it is implied
S— 2

68 The Resurrection and Ascension not identified,
in the Session, for it is contrary to the usage of the New
Testament to interpret eyeipeadai of any exaltation
beyond the mere recall from death. In other passages
the eUipsis is equally easy to supply. Thus St Peter's
words in Acts ii, 32 {rbv 'Irjaovv dvearrjaev 6 0e6<;...T'p
Be^ia ovv TOV deov iSi/rw^et?) are interpreted by i Pet. iii.
21, 22 {Bl dvaardaeco<; 'Irjaov Xpicrrov, o? eanv ev Be^id
rov deov, 7ropevdei<; et? ovpavov). If in Eph. i. 20 the
sequence iyeipa<;...Kadiaa'; should be seized upon by a
zealous advocate of the new teaching as a clear instance
of the omission of the Ascension, he would presently
find himself confronted by the appearance of the missing
link in c, iv, 10 (o dva^d<; vrrepdvco rrdvroav rwv ovpavoSv).
But a single instance from a later writer will suffice to
shew the futility of this reasoning. Justin in one place
brings the Crucifixion and the Ascension together {dial
38 aravpwdrivai Kal dva/3e^7]Kevai et? rov ovpavov). Will
it be contended that he omits the Resurrection because
he regarded it as ' part of the same act ' with either
the one or the other of the events which he men
tions .''
One argument remains. Opinion for a long time
fluctuated with regard to the interval which elapsed
between the Resurrection and the Ascension. This
uncertainty is thought to shew the unsoundness of the
received teaching, "It follows,,. that the differentiation"
of the single fact " into several acts was the work of a
" later time,"
Let us examine the evidence. "In the Epistle of
"Barnabas both resurrection and ascension happen in
" one day." So Harnack, But the words are (c, 1 5) :
" We keep the eighth day for rejoicing, on which Jesus
" both rose from the dead, and, after His manifestation.

although the interval is differently stated. 69
" ascended into heaven'." Barnabas seems to affirm that
both the Resurrection and the Ascension occurred on the
eighth day, or on a Sunday. But he does not even hint
that they occurred on the same Sunday, Nor does his
statement necessarily conflict with St Luke's (Acts i, 3
Bl r)p,epQ>v reaaepaKovra 6'KTav6p,evo<s). Undoubtedly it
was a natural inference from St Luke's words that the
Ascension took place on the fortieth day after the
Resurrection ; and this inference is already drawn by
the author of the fifth book of the Constitutions^, and
since the fourth century has been sanctioned by the
annual celebration of Holy Thursday. Yet the words
of the Acts allow greater latitude, and would be satisfied
if the Ascension could be shewn to have taken place on
the following Sunday, the forty-third day after Easter.
Indeed the Syriac Doctrine of tlie Apostles carries it
forward to the fiftieth day, making it coincide with the
Descent of the Holy Ghost'. This is clearly inconsistent
with the Acts, but it supports the statement of Barnabas
that the Ascension occurred on the first day of the
week. But "other ancient witnesses give us yet a different
" story, and make the interval eighteen months." Harnack
omits to mention that these witnesses were certain
Valentinians who sought by this arbitrary reckoning to
bolster up their theory of the Pleroma*. A school of
' Sib Kal ^Ojuei- r-iiv -ripiipav rrjv ¦* Iren, i, 3, 2 octodecim aeonas
bySbriv eis ei^poaivriv, iv rj Kal 6 manifestari per id quod post resurrec-
'Irjoovs dviorri ix veKpGiv Kal (pave- tionem a mortuis octodecim mensibus
puiBels dvipi) eis oipavois. dicunt conuersatum eum cum disci-
^ Const. Ap.'v. i^ dirb TTJs Tpiiriis pulis. Ib. 30. 14 remoratum...eum
KvpiaKTjs dpiBjirioavres recaapdKovra post resurrectionem xviii mensibus,
ripApas, dirb KvpiaKTJs axpi iripurrijs et sensibilitate in eum descendente
ioprd^ere ri-jv ioprifv rijs dvaXri^eois. didicisse quod liquidum est...et sic
^ Careton, Ancient documents, pp. receptus est in caelum.
24, 27.

70 Witness of the Creed to the Ascension.
Ophites increased the interval to eleven or twelve years',
probably on the strength of the tradition which repre
sented the Apostles as having remained for the latter
period at Jerusalem", Even within the Church specula
tion sometimes ran riot upon this subject, and Eusebius
in one place {dem. ev. viii. 2) suggests that our Lord's
ministry lasted for the same number of years after the
Passion as before it, three and a half years each way'.
Such eccentricities shew that the statement of Acts i. 3
was not always taken as fixing a limit of time ; but
they certainly do not throw any reasonable doubt upon
the fact of the Ascension, which is accepted without
question by all Christian writers. Gnostic or Catholic,
who refer to it at all.
To return to the Creed. No doubt can be entertained
as to the place of the words "ascendit in caelos" in the
Old-Roman form. In fact, no article in the Creed more
certainly belongs to the earliest tradition, 'AveX-rjp,(j)6r}
iv Bo^-rj finds a place in the creed-like hymn already
noted in i Tim, iii, 16. Et? ovpavov<; dvrjXdev stands in
the confession of Aristides*. Irenaeus witnesses that
the Church throughout the world believed in the as
sumption into heaven of the flesh {rrjv evaapKov et?
Toi)? ovpavoi)^ dvdXrjyp-iv) of Jesus Christ^ Tertullian
professes that He Who rose from the dead was " carried
' Pistis Sophia, p. i Schmidt, iriov xp^''o>' tois iavrov fJiaBi)Tdis Kal
gnostische Schriften, p. 439, Cf, d7ro£rT6Xois avvriv SC Ti/Mepiov reooapd-
Asc. Isai. p. 43, Kovra iirravb/ievos airois Kal ovvaXi-
^ So ApoUonius ap. Euseb, ff. E. f A^ei/os. . . iis 70OV al irpd^eis rSv diro-
V, 18. orbXojv irepiixovoiv, iis elvai rairrjv
^ irpb (liv ydp rov irdBovs iirl rpia rrpf Si}Xovfjiiv7]v rijs irpotpiyrelas rOv
Kal ijfuov irri rols irdaiv iavrbv irapi- irSv i^SopidSa (cf, Dan, ix. 27),
Xiov fiaBijrais <re Kal TOIS piri Toioirois * ed. Robinson, pp. 24, no,
dvayiypairrai...pLerd Si rr\viKveKpG)v Hennecke, p, 9,
dj'dirTairu' rbv loov, us eiKbs, tS>v. ^ Iren. i. 10, 1.

Two symbolical expressions for the fact. 71
"up" {receptum, ereptum) or "taken back" {resumtum) into
heaven'- None of these forms shews any trace of a
confusion between the resurrection and the ascension,
or of a suspicion that the latter was less truly matter
of history than the former. It is evident, indeed, that
from the first there were two ways of regarding the
Ascension. It was either an ai/a/3ao-i? or an dydXtj-yfrif,
an ascent or an assumption. Both of these terms
were suggested by passages in the LXX. — the first
by Pss. xxiii (xxiv). 3 (rt? dva^-ijaerai et? ro '6po<;
rov KVpiov;), Ixvii (Ixviii). 19 {dva^d<; et? {5i|ro?); the
second by 4 Kings ii. 9 — 1 1 {dveX'jfKpdrj ''H.Xeiov). The
latter view, in which the mystical aspect of the event
predominates, recommended itself to the writers of the
Acts, the Marcan fragment, the hymn cited in the
Pastorals; and it appears also in Irenaeus, Tertullian,
and Origen, and in some of the later Eastern expositions
of the Faith. But the great Eastern Creeds, and the
Western Creeds with scarcely an exception, represent
our Lord as having ' gone up to heaven,' using either /
dva^aiveiv {ascendere) or dvep-^eadai. These expressions,
which emphasised the historical character of the mystery,
viewing it from the standpoint of its earthly surroundings,
rested on equally good authority with the other (John
vi. 62, XX. 17; Eph. iv. 10), and the Church almost from
the first shewed a disposition to prefer them for symbolical
purposes. ' A.vdXr)-^i'i was capable of misinterpretation;
it will be remembered that it is used in a doubtfully
orthodox sense by the Docetic author of the Petrine
Gospel". An assumption into heaven might mean
' de uel. uirg. i, de praescr, 1 3 ; the word see Pss. of Solomon (ed.
adu. Prax. z. Ryle and James), iv. 20, n.
' Akhmtm Fragment, p. 10. On

72 The prevalent form free from ambiguity.
nothing more than the return of the higher nature of
Christ to the Father or the exaltation of His human
spirit, and Irenaeus, it will have been observed, is care
ful to guard himself against these misconceptions by
describing the assumption of Christ as eWa/a/co?. It may
have been for this reason that the Creeds, with remark
able unanimity, fall back upon the other group of
expressions, which, while equally scriptural, left no
room for doubt. The original Roman Creed, so far as
we can discover, used the unambiguous phrase'; and
the suggestion that its authors possibly regarded
ascendit in caelos as merely another presentation of
resurrexit a mortuis is not justified by the arguments
which Harnack has produced. The legend which
assigned the two clauses to two Apostles'-^ is nearer the
truth than the latest criticism, in so far as the former
emphasises what the latter fails to recognise, that the
Resurrection and the Ascension are historically distinct
although closely related events. This fact was present
to the mind of the writer of the fourth Gospel when he
represented the Lord as saying to the Magdalen after
His resurrection, Oi/Vo). . .dva^e^t)Ka^ , and it was certainly
not hidden from the teachers of the Western Church,
when towards the middle of the second century they
confessed that Jesus Christ both "rose from the dead"
and "ascended into heaven,"
' Ascendit seems to be without ^ Hahn, p, 48: Thomas dixit...
variant ; dva^dvra answers to it in resurrexit a mortuis. Jacobus dixit
Marcellus and the Athelstan Psalter, ascendit ad caelos.
dveXBbvra in the St Gall and Corpus ^ John xx, 17.
MSS,

VII.

There is another group of controverted points in
the Apostles' Creed which remains to be examined. It
belongs to the third paragraph of the Creed, and the
three points it includes relate to the character and the
privileges of the Church.
Credo... sanctam ecclesiam. So the Old Roman Creed '
was content to confess. " Holy Church," if not a New
Testament phrase, is certainly in harmony with New
Testament teaching (i Pet. ii. 9, i Cor. iii. 17), and it
appears in the earliest literature of the second century'.
At Rome it must have been familiar before the middle '
of the second century; in Hermas the Church, an im
posing figure in the imagery of the Shepherd, is thrice
entitled rj dyla {uis. i. i. 6, 3. 4; iv. i. 3), Tertullian
{adv. Marc, v, 4) quotes Marcion's text of Gal, iv, 27 in
the form "quae est mater nostra in quam repromisimus
"sanctam ecclesiam"," The words seem to bear witness
that in Marcion's time the catechumens already con-
' See e,g. Ign, Trail, i iKKXriiriq. ^ The same reading appears in
dytg. ry oila-rj iv TpdXXea-iv, and the Ephrem's commentary on the
anti-Montanist writer ApoUonius in Pauline Epistles recently published
Euseb, ff.E.v.iS Iti Si Kal Qep.lo-av in Latin by the Mechitarist fathers
...iTbXpirioe...^Xaa-<pijp.^a-ai...eis rbv of San Lazzaro; cf, Harris, Four
Kipiov Kal rois dirooriiXovs Kal r^v Lectures on the Western Text, p.
dylav iKkXr)(riav. 19 f.

74 ' Catholic ' not in the Old Roman Creed,
fessed their belief in the Holy Church. We may there
fore be fairly certain that sanctam ecclesiam stood in the
Roman Creed during Marcion's residence at Rome'.
On the other hand, ' catholic ' as a symbolical term is
neither Roman nor Western. Outside the Creed it is of
frequent use in Christian Latinity from the end of the
second century. Tertullian not only employs catholicus
freely, but combines it with ecclesia {adv. Marc. iv. 4), and
the translator of the Muratorian fragment has it in the
same connexion. Nevertheless sanctam ecclesiam catholi
cam does not appear in a Western Creed before the latter
part ofthe fifth century, and probably never made its way
into the true Creed of the Roman Church; when adopted
in Gaul, it was doubtless an importation from the East,
where its use was at this time all but universal". The
indifference which Rome manifested to so ancient and
widespread a term may possibly have been due to the
comparative independence of the great mother Church
of the West. She did not feel herself in need of the
support which the scattered Churches of the East de
rived from the thought of the solidarity of the Christian
brotherhood. It may be suspected that Rome was
never in hearty sympathy with the idea of the Church's
catholicity; when she borrowed the word, it was
narrowed in her use of it into a sense alien to that which
it had borne on the lips of the first teachers of the Faith.
' Catholic ' is not a word of Biblical origin ; KadoXiKo<i
' I.e. during the episcopate of however, for KaBoXiKy reads Kai
Anicetus (Iren, iii, 4, 3), or, roughly dirocrroXiKy, Hahn, p, 67), in the
speaking, in the sixth and seventh Epiphanian creeds, and finally in the
decades of the second century, ' Constantinopolitan ' creed, where
'¦^ It is in the Creed expounded it is supplemented by ' apostolic '
by St Cyril of Jerusalem, cat. (eis ixlav dylav KaBoXiKav Kal diro-
xviii. 26, in that of the Consti- otoXikyjv iKKXri<rlav).
tutions (vii, 41, where one MS,,

though early applied to the Church in East and West. 75
appears neither in the LXX. nor in the text of the
New Testament'; its Latin representative finds no place
in the Vulgate, or, apparently, in the older Latin
versions. Yet the word lay ready for use in the pages of
the later Greek writers, and had been adopted by Philo".
As applied to the Church, it meets us for the first time
in the letters of Ignatius, who writes to the Smyrnaeans
(c, 8), "Wheresoever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic
" Church." It is singular that its next appearance is in
the circular letter of the Church of Smyrna, addressed
on occasion of the martyrdom of Polycarp "to all the
" congregations {rrapoiKiai^) of the holy and catholic
"Church in every place V The phrase is thus a true
product ofthe sub-apostolic age; and if it gained admis
sion into the Western Creed at a relatively late date, it
can claim to have been known to the Churches of Asia
Minor before the Roman Creed had taken its earliest
form. Professor Harnack, however, contends that the words
"Catholic Church," as used in the fifth century, had
drifted away from their original meaning. " Originally
"it meant nothing more than the 'universal' Church,
" the whole Christian community called of God on earth.
" The idea of applying it to the concrete, visible Church
"was not yet thought of... But after the end of the
" second and the beginning of the third century, the word
"'Catholic' took a second meaning, which gradually
" came to be regarded in the West as of equal authority
' 'KaBbXov occurs in Acts iv. i8 ; xxviii. "^
KaeoXi(c6s only in the headings of the "See Lightfoot's note on Ign.
'Catholic' Epistles as represented Smyrn. i (ii. p. j,io).
by the later uncial MSS. Comp. ^ The word occurs thrice in this
Westcott, Epp. of St John, p. relativelyshortletter(Lightfoot, /,<:,).

^6 The ' Catholic Church ' not an abstraction
"with the first. It described the visible, orthodox
" Churches which, under definite organisation, had
"grouped themselves round the Apostolic foundations,
" and especially round Rome, as distinguished from the
" heretical communities."
There are three points in this statement which
need separate examination. In the first place we
are told that the Catholic Church, as conceived by
writers of the second century, was not a 'concrete, visible'
body. It was, we must suppose, an invisible abstraction,
realised by a mental process, but possessing as yet no
tangible form. This is true of the Church in the same
sense as it is true of every world-wide society which
cannot be presented to the eye in its completeness ; but
it is no less true of the later Catholic Church than of its
earliest beginnings. On the other hand the units which
compose the Catholic Church were as concrete and visible
in the days of Ignatius as in those of Cyprian. When
Ignatius argues that the Bishop is the centre of the
particular Church, as Jesus Christ is of the whole Society,
he certainly means by the Catholic Church the aggregate
of all the Christian congregations, which were visible
and concrete bodies. It is difficult to discover any
essential difference between this conception and that
which prevailed after the second century. "The Church
" is called 'Catholic'," writes Cyril of Jerusalem, "because
" she extends through the whole world, from one end of
"the earth to the other'." The earliest expositions of
catholicam after its introduction into the Western Creed
' catech. xviii, 23 KaBoXiKi] p.iv KaBoXiKds Kal dveXXiirws diravra...
ovv KaXeirai Sid rb Kard irdo-rjs etvai (3) Sid rb irav yivos dvBpwiriov els
rijs olKovfiivris dirb wepdrwv 7^s iios eioi^eiav virordooeiv ..,(^) Sid rb
irepdruv. He adds other less perti- KaBoXiKQs laTpeieiv...dirav rb rdv
nent reasons : (2) Sid rb SiSdoKeiv d/xapriibv elSos.

or a symbol of subjection to Rome. yj
are entirely in harmony with this view, " What," asks
a Gallican writer, " is the Catholic Church, but the people
" who have been dedicated to God throughout the world .?
" As different members make up the completeness of the
" human body, so a variety of races and nations, agreeing
" in one faith, form the one body of Christ'." The Catholic
Church as conceived by the teachers of the fourth and
fifth centuries was neither more nor less concrete than
the Church of the Ignatian age.
Harnack is on still more doubtful ground if he means
to suggest that in the West the word 'Catholic' graduaUy
became the symbol of the organisation which grouped
the Churches round the See of Rome, and ended in their
subjection to the Papal supremacy. That the Churches
of the West even in the second century had begun to
look up to Rome with the reverence which was thought
to be due to the foundation of St Peter and St Paul is
familiar to every one who has read Irenaeus and
Tertullian; "ad hanc enim ecclesiam propter potentiorem
"principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam","
expresses the feeling of the Church of South Gaul about
A.D, 1 80, whilst from Carthage at the end of the century
there comes an equally clear note : " percurre ecclesias
"apostolicas... si... Italiae adiaces, habes Romam, unde
"nobis quoque auctoritas praesto est'." That this ten
dency existed is matter of fact ; that it affected the
sense of the word 'catholic,' or influenced its introduction
into the Creed, has not been proved. Evidence is wanting
' S, Faustini tract, de Symb. (in de se corpus integrum reddunt, sic
Caspari alte u. neue Quellen, p. i']2 et uariae gentes diuersaeque nationes
sq.) : quae est ecclesia catholica, in unam fidem conuenientes unum
nisi dicata Deo plebs per omnem de se Christi corpus efiiciunt,
diffusa mundum? nam sicut diuersa ^ Iren, iii. 3, 2,
hominis membra, uariis ministeriis ^ Tertull, de praescr. 36,
sibi congrua, capiti suo militant ac

78 Why the name was limited

to shew that Irenaeus and Tertullian, Cyprian and
Augustine, understood the Catholic Church to mean
the aggregate of the Churches which recognised the
supremacy of Rome. The phrase came from the East,
where the influence of the Roman Bishops was less
directly felt than in Africa and Gaul ; it was used by
Western writers to comprehend the whole Christian
brotherhood throughout the world ; the earliest expositors
of the Apostles' Creed manifest no desire to employ it
as a vehicle for enforcing Roman claims. Under these
circumstances it is unreasonable to prejudice the phrase
by reading into it a tendency which it does not appear
to have reflected until a much later age'.
One point remains in Harnack's indictment. He
reminds us that the word ' catholic ' became after the
second century a synonym for ' orthodox,' and that the
Catholic Church was limited to those Christian societies
which were regarded as retaining the Apostles' faith.
Here the Berlin Professor is on solid ground. The
growth of heresy and the gradual separation of
heretical minorities from the great body of the faithful,
led to a secondary application of the word 'catholic'
Catholics were contrasted with heretics, the Catholic
Church with the sects which had parted from it. Perhaps
the earliest genuine example of this change is to be
found in the Muratorian fragment, which excludes from
' Hamack selects Cyprian as a oneness of the Episcopate which
conspicuous leader in the movement represents Christ, Comp, ep. 66. 8
by which " the idea [of catholicity] scire debes episcopum in ecclesia
was developed in this direction." esse et ecclesiam in episcopo... ec-
The selection of Cyprian's name will clesia quae catholica una est, scissa
seem unfortunate to those who re- non [est] neque diuisa, sed [est]
member his independent attitude utique conexa et cohaerentium sibi
towards Stephen, Cyprian's idea inuicem sacerdotum glutine copulata,
of catholicity is that of an organic This is only the view of Ignatius
union of Churches, resting on the more fully worked out.

to orthodox Churches and Christians. 79
the canon certain heretical apocrypha "quae in catho-
" licam ecclesiam recipi non potest." As we proceed, the
secondary sense becomes frequent. The letter of Pope
Cornelius (f 2 5 2), which has been preserved by Eusebius
{H. E. vi. 43), complains that his rival Novatian was
ignorant that ' a Catholic Church could have but one
' Bishop.' ' Who are you .¦' ' the martyr Pionius was
asked by the examining magistrate. ' A Christian.' ' Of
•' what Church .? ' ' Of the Church Catholic'.' "When you
" are abroad in foreign cities," Cyril charges his catechu
mens, "do not enquire simply for the Church, for the
" heretical sects venture to call their dens by that name ;
"but ask for the Catholic Church"." St Pacian, when
the Novatianists asked why he called himself a Catholic
and was not content to be known as a Christian, replied
"'Christian' is my name, 'Catholic' my surname; the
" latter distinguishes me from others who bear the same
" name, but are not of the same family'," This limita-
' Ruinart, act. mart. sine. p. 191 iKKXr/ota. rovro ydp ISiKbv ovoiia
post haec Polemon...ait ad Pionium, rvyxdvei t^s d7ias rainjs Kal /Miyrpbs
Quis uocaris ? Pionius ait, Christi- -rnxdv dirdvnov, K.r.X.
anus. Polemon : Cuius ecclesiae ? ' ad Symphr. Novat. ep. i, 3, 4,
Pioniusait, Catholicae. The BoUan- The Novatianists urged that the name
dist Acts (Febr, i, p, 44) add "nulla was not primitive; "sed sub apostolis,
est enim est alia apud Christum," inquies, nemo cathoUcus uocabatur.
The Acts represent Polemo as ad- esto, sic fuerit, uel illud indulge (yo«,
dressing similar questions to two leg. indulgeo). cum post apostolos
other martyrs, Pionius suffered in haereses exstitissent...nonne cogno-
the Decian persecution, March 12, men suum plebs apostoiica postula-
250, The Acts have survived only bat?...ego forte ingressus populosam
in a Latin dress, but the story of the urbem hodie, cum Marcionitas..,et
examination has the ring of genuine- ceteros eiusmodi comperissem qui se
ness, and is given in substantiaUy Christianos uocarent, quo cognomine
the same form by both recensions, congregationem meae plebis agnos-
2 catech. xviii. 26 Kav irore iin- cerem, nisi catholica diceretur?...
Siipi-§s iv irbXeoi, M dirXUs i^ira^e ' Christianus ' mihi nomen est, ' catho-
iroO rb KvpiaKbv ion (Kal ydp al licus ' uero cognomen ; illud me
XoiTrai Tuc doe^dv alpioeis KvptaKh nuncupat, istud ostendit ; hoc prober,
TO. iavrQv oT-qXaia KaXeiv iirixei- inde significor." Pacian was Bp of
povoi), iiriSi irov ianv dirXCis ij iKKXij- Barcelona in the second half of the
ala^ dXXd irov ionv -rj KaBoXiK-ij fourth century.

8o ' Catholic ' at once comprehensive and exclusive.
tion of the magnificent phrase of Ignatius was doubtless
deplorable, but it was necessary. Everywhere in the
third century there were Christians and Christians ; the
Churches which held to the Apostolic tradition were
parted by an impassable gulf from the disciples of
Valentinus and Basilides ; yet the latter recognised
the Gospels, and passed as members of Christ. But
' Catholics ' they could not be called, for heresy was
essentially partial and local, and limited to the few'.
Nothing was more natural than that the name which did
not fit heretics should become the distinctive property
of the majority, and thus the mark of orthodoxy which
attached itself to tenets, societies, individuals, and even
buildings which were used in the worship of the Apostolic
Church. It may readily be admitted that this secondary
meaning was present to the thoughts of the generation
which defined the Holy Church of the Western Creed to
be ' catholic' Catholicam, as understood in the fifth
century, was exclusive as well as comprehensive ; it
embraced all Christian communities which held fast by
the Apostolic doctrine and discipline, but shut the door
against those who rejected either. Neither the Arian
nor the Donatist could claim to belong to a Church
which was defined as Catholic, Possibly it was the
exclusiveness of the term quite as much as its com
prehensiveness which commended it to the post-
Augustinian Church, "Know," writes Nicetas, "that
^ Lightfoot, I.e. (p. 311): "The the minority, and not ofthe vulgar
truth was the same everywhere, herd of Churchmen; cf. Iren, iii,
'quod semper, quod ubique, quod 15, 2 eos qui sunt ab ecclesia..,
ab omnibus.' The heresies were ' communes ecclesiasticos' ipsi di-
partial , scattered , locahzed, isolated , " cunt.
The early heretics gloried in being

Its retention in the English Creed. 8 1
"this one Catholic Church is planted in all the world,
"and be sure that you adhere stedfastly to her com-
"munion. There are, it is true, other Churches falsely
"so called, but you have nothing in common with them;
" heretical or schismatical bodies have ceased to be ' holy'
" Churches, for their faith and practice differ from that
" which Christ commanded and His Apostles delivered'."
Harnack congratulates himself that the Protestant
Churches of Germany replaced ' Catholic ' by ' Christian,'
in their version of the Apostles' Creed. " The Church
"of the Reformation could not," he says, "consent to
" retain an epithet " which had received an interpreta- '
tion foreign to her conceptions. As a matter of fact,
one great ' Church of the Reformation ' retains it to this
day. Our English Reformers ridiculed the absurdity of
identifying the Catholic Church with a single branch of
the Church". But their resistance to the Roman claims
did not suggest to them the expediency of abandoning
the term which had been thus abused. It remains in
the English Prayer-Book as a witness to the continuity
of the Reformed Church in England with the Church of
the early centuries. In the midst of the thousand
divisions of Christendom it points to the organic unity
of the true Body of Christ. Among the cries which
proclaim the advent of an ' undenominational ' and ' un
sectarian ' Christianity it witnesses to the preciousness of
a definite faith.
' Caspari, anecdota, p. 3S7 scito aliter agunt quam Christus dominus
unam hanc esse ecclesiam catholicam mandauit, quam apostoli tradiderunt.
in omni orbe terrae constitutam, ^ Cf. e.g. Nowell's Catechism (ed.
cuius communionem debes firmiter Parker Soc, p, 55) : dum uniuersita-
retinere, sunt quidem etaliae pseudo- tem Ecclesiae... nomine unius gentis
ecclesiae sed nihil tibi commune cum appositocontrahunt,.,insanireiudico,
iUis...quiaiamdesinuntistaeecclesiae ut qui contraria et inter se pugnantia
esse sanctae, siquidem daemoniacis uno spiritu uoluant et pronuncient.
deceptae doctrinis aliter credunt,
S. C. 6

VIII.

If the phrase ' Catholic Church ' came into the
Apostles' Creed from an Eastern source, the words which
follow are undoubtedly Western. Greek versions of
the Creed translate them by dyiwv Koivavlav, ' a joint
participation in holy things'.' This meaning is indeed
assigned to the Latin words by some writers of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries ; Peter Abelard, after
offering other explanations, adds, "Possumus et sanctorum
"dicere neutraliter, id est, sanctificati panis et uini in
"sacramentum altaris""; and a Norman-French version,
written at the end of the first quarter of the twelfth
century, renders: "la communiun des seintes choses'."
But the age which introduced the words into the Creed
shews no knowledge of this interpretation. The idea
was familiar, but it was expressed by another Latin
phrase — communio sacramentorum, which is frequent in
the writings of Augustine*. In sanctorum communio the
adjective is masculine; the words mean the "communing"
' Or rhpi rCiv dyiuv Koivavlav, or siasticoramsacramentorumueritatem
rCiv dyiwv ri}v Koiv.; one MS, has cui communicauerunt sancti,"
d7ia!' Koiv. See Heurtley, p, 82 ; ^ Heurtley, p, 93 ; Hahn, p.. 58.
Hahn, p. 61, n. ¦* E.g, .?«««, 214 malos...toIerat in
2 expos, in syvib.ap., Migne, P. L. communione sacramentorum, t, ep.
clxxviii, 629. Ivo of Chartres (ib. /'ffl?-?««z«'a», ii. 8 communione sacra-
clxii, 606) strives to combine this in- mentorum, sicut dicitis, contami-
terpretation with that which makes nantur.
sanctorum masculine : " id est, eccle-

Origin of the phrase, 'Communion of Saints! 83
or "communion of Saints," as the English Creeds have ren
dered them from the fourteenth century'. The conception
became prominent, as Harnack justly remarks, during the
Donatist controversy". The Donatists declaimed against
a Church in which a " communio malorum," a joint par
ticipation in sacraments of the evil and the good, was
not only permitted but enforced. " What communion,"
they asked with St Paul, "hath light with darkness'.'"
Augustine replied that though in the Catholic Church
the evil were mingled with the good, and the Church
was to that extent a mixed body, there was within her a
true communio sanctorum, in which the evil have no part,
and which is not impaired by their presence. The con
ception is therefore Augustinian, yet it did not claim a
place in the African Creed, or perhaps in any Creed,
until after Augustine's death. As a symbolical phrase
sanctorum communionem meets us first in a group of
homilies on the Creed of somewhat uncertain date, but,
with one doubtful exception, not earlier than the close
of the fifth century. It will be of interest to collect the
interpretations put upon the new clause in these earliest
expositions. The homily attributed to Nicetas asks,
"What is the Church, but the congregation of all
" saints ? Patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, all the
"just who have been, are, or shall be, are one Church,
"because, sanctified by one faith and life, marked by
"One Spirit, they constitute one body. Believe, then,
' Comp, Heurtley, pp, 96 — loi. offasCatholicpresbytersanddeacons
"¦' The phrase itself is earher, for and procured Church communion,
it occurs in the Acts of the CouncU ^ See Aug, c. ep. Parmenian.
of Nimes, A,d, 394: Hefele, ii. 58 ii, 37, and comp. debcipt.c. Donatist.
"sanctorum communione speciem ii, 8, v, 38 (aifjf«,), vii, 49 (malorum
simulatae religionis [sibi] impri- communione quasi contagione bonos
munt." The reference is to certain perire contendunt).
JManicheans who passed themselves
6—2

84 Its use in Gallican homilies
" that in this one Church you will attain the communion
"of Saints'." Similarly, the sermon numbered 241 in
the appendix to Augustine explains the communion of
Saints as the result of the holiness of the Church and
of her common faith". These two homilies reflect more
or less faithfully the original meaning of the phrase, for
they evidently take the words as they stand in the
Creed to be an answer to the false puritanism which was
dissatisfied with the permixtum corpus of the Catholic
Church ; the Donatist controversy is still well in sight.
But sanctorum communionem lent itself readily to another
interpretation, which circumstances made especially
welcome towards the end of the century. There was a
growing tendency to limit the title of ' Saint ' to the
departed, especially to martyrs ; and this meaning was
eagerly read into the new clause by the Church of South
Gaul. In the southern dioceses of Gaul the party of
Vigilantius was still active', and the clause when thus in
terpreted was found to offer a valuable basis for teaching
on the subject of the cultus of the holy dead. Two remark
able instances survive. A homily, attributed with much
probability to Faustus, Bishop of Riez, exhorts*, " Let us
' Caspari, anecdota i. p. 355 sq. ^ See the evidence collected in
ecclesia quid aliud quam sanctorum Caspari, alte u. neue Quellen, p.
omnium congregatio? ab exordio 274 ff. (», 141).
enim saeculi sine patriarchae...siue ^ Caspari, ffl»ecrfo& i. p. 338creda-
prophetae siue apostoli sine martyres mus et sanctorum communionem, sed
siue ceteri iusti qui fuerunt, qui sanctos non tam pro Dei parte, quam
sunt, qui erunt, una ecclesia sunt, proDeihonoreueneremur, non sunt
quia una fide et conuersatione sancti- sancti pars illius, sed ipse probatur
ficati, uno Spiritu signati, unum pars esse sanctorum. ..colamus in
corpus effecti sunt. ..ergo in hac una Sanctis timorem et amorem Dei, non
ecclesia crede te communionem con- diuinitatem Dei ; colamus merita,
secuturum esse sanctorum, non quae de proprio habent sed quae
^ The words are: " credentes ergo accipere pro deuotione menierunt.
sanctam ecclesiam catholicam, sane- digne itaque uenerandi sunt, dum
torum habentes communionem, quia nobis Dei cultum et futurae uitae
ubi est fides sancta ibi est et sancta desiderium contemptu mortis in-
communio," &c. sinuant.

of the sixth century. 85
" believe in the communion of Saints, not as though they
" shared the prerogatives of God, but for the honour of
" God ; let us do homage to the fear and love of God mani-
" fested in them ; they are worthy of our veneration, inas-
" much as by their contempt for death they induce in us
" a spirit of devotion to God and of eager longing for
" the life to come." The moderation of this language is
worthy of all praise ; but another Gallican homily, which
adopts the same interpretation of the words of the Creed,
is less tolerant: "This clause," the writer exclaims, "shuts
"the mouths of those who blasphemously refuse to
" honour the ashes of the Saints and friends of God, and
"who do not hold that the glorious memory of the
"blessed martyrs is to be cherished by doing honour
"to their tombs; such persons are false to their
"Creed, and have given the lie to the promise which
" they made to Christ at the font'." This extravagance
was due to local and temporary causes, and disappeared
with them ; but wherever the new clause travelled, the
tendencies of the age secured the transmission with it of
the later interpretation. Thus another of the homilies
on the Creed falsely attributed to Augustine (App.
Serm. 242), which seems to have been authorised in some
Gallican dioceses for use at the traditio symboW^, defines
the communion of Saints to be "the association and
" partnership in hope by which we are bound to the
" Saints who have departed in the faith we have em-
" braced"; whilst a third (^^r;;*?, 240) explains it to mean
that "whereas in this life each believer has only an
' Caspari, alte u. neue Quellen, crorum reuerentia monumentorum
p, 273 sq, "illos hie sententia ista colendam esse non credunt, in
confundit qui sanctorum et amicorum symbolum praeuaricati sunt et
Dei cineres non in honore debere Christo in fonte mentiti sunt, " _
esse blasphemant, qui beatorum ^ It is worked into the missale
martyrum gloriosam memoriam sa- Gallicanum uetus (^\i-ca.tQiiii.']ioc).

86 Occasion of its introduction
" individual share in the gifts of the Spirit, in eternity
"they will be the common property of all, since each
"Saint will then find in others what he lacks in him-
"self." Professor Harnack is disposed to connect the intro
duction of the words into the Creed with the growing
cultus of the Saints". The evidence is scanty, but upon
the whole we may hesitate to accept the view that
sanctorum communionem was added in the interests of
the Church party opposed to Vigilantius. Can it be
supposed that if the Bishops of South Gaul had desired
to insert a clause in the Creed with this object in view,
they would have selected so ambiguous a phrase ,¦•
And if this had been the original sense of the words
as they stood in the Creed, is it probable that it
would have been set aside by later writers in favour
of a more spiritual and liberal interpretation .' These
considerations incline us to regard the explanation
offered by Nicetas and by the Pseudo-Augustine of
Serm. 241 as representing the original acceptation of
the clause. It was anti-Donatist, not anti-Vigilantian ;
the use to which it was turned by Faustus and his
successors in South Gaul was an afterthought. We
take sanctorum commujiionem as expository of sanctam
' Serm. 242 sanctorum com?tntnio- to consider it as highly probable that
nem: id est, cumillissanctisquiinhac the words in question were actually
quam suscepimus fide deftmcti sunt, taken to mean ' communion with the
societate et spei communione tene- martyrs and the chosen saints, ' Thus
amur, 240 s. c. ; quia dona S. they were, to begin with, a continu-
Spiritus licet in hac uita diuersa sint ation and not a mere explanation of
in singulis in aetemitate tamen erunt the phrase ' Holy Catholic Church,' "
communia in uniuersis, ut quod " A good and fitting interpretation —
quisque sanctorum minus habuit in which still was not the primitive
se, hoc in aliena uirtute parti- meaning of the clause in tlie Creed —
cipet, was to be found in Augustine,"
^ His words are : " We shall have

into the Creed. 87

ecclesiam, and not as a new article of faith. In some
forms of the legend which distributes the articles of the
Creed among the Apostles, the two clauses are assigned
to the same Apostle'. A later conception of the mean
ing changed this order, and the 'Communion of Saints'
was either linked to the 'Forgiveness of Sins' as the
first of the privileges of the Catholic Church, or treated
as a separate article. The English Reformers reverted
to the original connexion, " Now would I hear thee tell,"
asks the master in Nowell's Catechism, "why after the
" Holy Church thou immediately addest that we believe
"in the Communion of Saints"; and the scholar replies,
" Because these two belong all to one thing, and are
"very fitly matched and agreeing together; for this
" parcel {pars) doth somewhat more plainly express the
"conjoining and society that is among the members of
" the Church, than which there can none be nearer"."
There is of course no reason why this "conjoining and
"society" should be limited to the living members of
the Church, The interpretation which Faustus and his
age assigned to the Communion of Saints erred by
excluding the living, not by including the departed. ,
The Church had from the most primitive times recog
nised the union of the dead members of Christ with the
living'. But the primitive Church did not confuse saint-
liness with sinlessness, or narrow the Communion of
Saints to a recognition of the honour due to the holy
' Thus, in Ps. Aug. Serm. 240 In the Bangor book s. t, follows
both the clauses are assigned to St abremissa peccatorum ; one or two
Matthew; but in Serm. 241 and in late writers treat it as a separate
scarapsus of Priminius (c. a,d, 750), article,
while sanctam ecclesiam catholicam ^ ed. Parker Soc, p, 173 f,
falls to Simon Zelotes, sanctorum ' See e,g. Heb. xii. 22, 23 jrpoir-
communionem, remissionem pecca- eXiiXiBare...irveip,a<n SiKaiav rere-
torum is allotted to Judas 'Ia/ciij3ou. Xeioifiivuiv.

88 How interpreted by tlte tradition ofthe English Church.
dead, or of the hope of blissful reunion with them in a
future state. Nor has it been proved that the words were
added to the Creed by persons who attached to them no
larger or more practical significance. In England, at
least, the Augustinian interpretation is traditional. The
Sarum ordo ad uisitandum infirmum directs the parish
priest in examining the sick lay-member of the Church
upon his faith to say, "Dearest brother, dost thou believe
"...in the Communion of Saints, that is, that all men
"who live in charity are partakers of all the gifts of
"grace which are dispensed in the Church, and that all
" who are in fellowship with the just here in the life of
"grace, are in fellowship with them in glory".?' There
is no material difference between this explanation and
that which has prevailed in the English Church since
the Reformation. ' Maskell, vion. rit. i. p. 76.

IX.

Carnis resurrectionem, the last article in the Old-
Roman Creed, is a form of words which, as Professor
Harnack contends, is neither Pauline nor Johannine.
Indeed it appears to conflict with the plain teaching both
of the Pauline Epistles and of the fourth Gospel ; for does
not St Paul write, " Flesh and blood cannot inherit the
"Kingdom of God"; and St John represent our Lord
as having said, " It is the spirit that quickeneth, the
"flesh profiteth nothing'".' Hence it is clear that "in
"her conception of the resurrection and the life ever-
" lasting as the ' resurrection of the flesh,' the post-
" apostolic Church overstepped the line commonly
"observed in the oldest preaching." This statement
is more guarded than some others with which we have
had to deal, but it conveys an impression which a careful
examination will considerably modify.
Let it be admitted at once that the form in which
this article is cast in the Western Creed is not Biblical,
unless it may claim the authority of Job xix. 26, where
Clement of Rome reads dvaarrjaei'i r-rjv adpKa p-ov^, or
' I Cor. XV. 50 irdp^ Kal alpia rairijv rijv dvavrX-^oaa-av ravra
^aaiXeiav Beov KXijpovofiTJoai oi Siva- irdvra. The LXX, has dvaar-^o-at
rai. John vi. 63 rb irvevfid ianv rb rb Sipfia piov (^"^IV) rb dvavrXovv
^looiroiovv, -rj adp^ oiK uiipeXel oiSiv. ravra (AH'^-" read au/w, for Sip/jia :
2 Clem, I Cor. 26 Kal irdXiv 'IiijS Q, L. renderings are cutis, pellis,
Xiyei Kal dvaarijaeis r^v adpKa fiOV corium, corpus ; the Latin Clement,

go ' Resurrection of the Flesh ' not in Scripture.
of Psalm xvi. 9 — a passage applied in the New Testament
only to the resurrection of Christ'. In its references to
the general resurrection the New Testament distinctly
inclines to the phrase dvdaraai'; ve/cpwv. St Paul speaks
of a resurrection ofthe body (Rom, viii, 11, i Cor, xv,
44"), but not of a resurrection of the flesh : and it is
easy to understand that his depreciatory use of adp^
may have led him to shrink from the latter phrase.
As for St John, Harnack's reference is scarcely to the
point ; the words of Christ in John vi, 63 merely deny
that the flesh has of itself any quickening or vitalising
power. The Evangelist whose keynote is the Incarna
tion of the Logos might not have been unwilling to
carry the thought of the flesh into the future life of men.
Still there is no evidence that this was done either
by St John or by any writer ofthe Apostolic age.
But if the phrase does not appear within the limits
of the Canon, " we can hardly doubt that from the very
" earliest times the resurrection of the flesh was preached
" by a few Christians, but it was not a universal doctrine."
It would have been more exact to say that while the
doctrine was in substance universaUy taught, the phrase
seems to have been unknown in the earliest times.
Barnabas (5. 6) clings to the New Testament form, iJ e'/c
veKpwv avdaraaK ; and in his classical passage on the
Resurrection (i Cor. 24 ff.) Clement of Rome does not
speak of an dvdaraa^ aapKo^, although, as we have
seen, he quotes Job xix, 26 in a translation which di-
Anecdota Mareds. ii, p, 27, gives Acts ii, 25 — 31 (cf, xiii, 35 — 37).
corpus). Trpi adpKa seems to have ^ 6 iyeipas iK veKpGiv Xpiarbv .
arisen from ^71^30 inthe next clause, 'Iijoovv ^oioiroi-^aei Kal rd Bvr/rd
where the LXX, differs considerably au/iara vixCjv. ajrelperai awfia i/zux'-
from the Heb. ~ ^"^^j iyeiperai aiop.a irvevfjiariKbv' el
' Ps,xv( = xvi), 9^ri5£ /cal 17 o-dpl ^<rriv aiip.a -j/vxiKbv, ianv Kal irvev-
p,ov KaraaKi)Viiaei iir' iXirlSi, cited in liariKbv.

Its adoption an early protest 91

rectly suggests it. In Ignatius at length we meet with
a categorical assertion of the resurrection of the flesh,
but he asserts it only in reference to the Flesh of Christ.
Ignatius had a special reason for insisting on the resur
rection of the Flesh of the Lord, for this truth was
essential to his case against the Docetic teachers of his
age. The Gospel, he urges, represents the Lord not
only as having come in the flesh and suffered in the
flesh, but as having risen again in the same flesh in
which He was crucified. ' I know and believe,' Igna
tius testifies, ' that even after the Resurrection He was
'in the flesh. ..the Resurrection was, like the Passion, in
'the flesh as well as in the spirit'.' Other writers of
the same period extend this way of speaking to the
general resurrection. Docetism denied the reality of the
general resurrection, as well as of the Resurrection of
Christ. The tendency had begun to reveal itself before
the close of the Canon, and the Pastoral Epistles speak
of those who asserted that the resurrection was "past
"already" (2 Tim. ii, 18), regarding it no doubt as a
purely spiritual change. In the second century this
heresy reappeared in an aggravated form. Writing to
Philippi shortly after the martyrdom of Ignatius, Poly
carp denounces a party who denied the resurrection
and the future judgement, coupling them with those who
refused to admit the reality of the Incarnation". " They
' Smyrn. 3 iy(j> ydp Kal fj-erd ti]V 12 irdBei re Kal dvaardaei aapKiKy re
dvdaraaiv iv aapKl airbv olSa Kal Kal irvevpiariK-rj.
TTiareio) ovra' Kal ore irpbs rois irepl ^ Philipp. 7 Trds ydp Ss dv fiij
nirpov TjXBev irjyr) airois Adhere, bfioXoy-fj 'li}aovv 'S.piarbv iv aapKl
\j/riXa<j>riaari pie, Kal (Sere 8ri oiK iXijXvBivai dvrlxpiarbs ianv... Kal Ss
elpil Saif/.bviov daibpiarov Kal eiBis dv fieBoSeii] rd Xbyia rov Kvpiov wpbs
airov Tj^j/avro, Kal iirlarevaav Kpa- rds iSlas iiriBvp.las KalXiyei fiiyre dvd-
Bivres ttJ aapKl airov Kal np atpian araaiv p.T)re Kplaiv, oSros irpiorbroKos
. . ./j.erd Si rijvdvdaraaiv Kalavvi(payev ianrov'Zaravd. Comp, Hippol. v,8
a^ois Kal avviiriev uis aapKiKbs. ib. i^aXovvrai iK rSiv piviipieluv ol veKpoi'

92 against Docetic error.
"teach," Justin tells Trypho, "that there is no resurrec-
" tion of the dead, but their souls are received at death
"into heaven'," But the denial was not absolute; the
Docetic Gnostics described by Tertullian {de resurr.
carnis 19) found a place in their systems for the resur
rection of the dead, identifying it either with Baptism,
or with the spiritual awakening which they supposed to
foUow the acceptance of their principles, " Resurrectio-
"nem mortuorum- in imaginariam significationem dis-
" torquent," is the complaint of Tertullian, The faithful
were deceived by the vehemence of their protestations :
" Woe," they cried, " to him who has not risen again in
" the flesh," meaning, ' Woe to him who has not become
' acquainted with our gnosis".' But Gnostic subtilty could
find no way to evade the plain meaning of the phrase
carnis resurrectio. This form of words was non-scriptural,
but it was necessary in order to safeguard scriptural truth;
and the Church of the second century did not hesitate
to adopt it', just as two centuries afterwards the Church
of the Nicene age accepted the Homoousion in order
to protect another fundamental doctrine of the Catholic
faith. The Docetic party fell back upon the passage in
Tovrianv, iK rCiv aapidruiv rHv xoIkuv hoc est enim apud illos resurrectio,''
dvayevvrjBivres irvevpianKoi, oi aap- ^ Comp, Justin, dial. 80 iyii Si
KiKol. Kal et nvis eiaiv bpBoyviopioves Kara
' dial. 80 oJ Kal Xiyovaiv fi-rj elvai irdvra 'X.pianavoi...aapKbs dvdaraaiv
veKpiov dvdaraaiv dXXd d/J.a t^j dTro- yev-ifjaeaBai iinardpieBa. Irenaeus (i,
Bv-fjaKeiv rds tj/vxas airSiv dvaXafi^d- lo, i) attributes to the whole Church
veaBai els rbv oipavbv. Comp, Iren, the belief that Christ shall come iirl
V. 31, I, Tb...dvaarTJaai irdaav adpKa irdaijs
^ '"Uae (inquiunt) qui non in dvBpoiirbrijros. It formed part of
haccarneresurrexerit,'nestatim illos TertuUian's Rule of Faith (de uel.
percutiant si resurrectionem statim uirg. i uenturum iudicare uiuos et
abnuerint, tacite autem secundum mortuos per carnis etiam resurrec-
conscientiam suam hoc sentiunt: tionem): cf, de praescr. 13 facta...
' Uae qui non, dum in hac carne resuscitatione, cum carnis restitu-
est, cognouerit arcana haeretica': tione.

Not opposed to St Paul's teaching. 93
St Paul which is now produced by Professor Harnack.
The words ' Flesh and blood cannot inherit the king-
' dom of God ' were quoted, Irenaeus tells us, by all the
heretical sects against the teaching of the Church'.
But she had her answer ready. Irenaeus explains that
the Apostle speaks of the flesh considered apart from
the Spirit, i.e. human nature unsanctified and unrenewed".
TertuUian points out that St Paul does not say, 'the
' flesh shall not rise,' but that it shall not enter the king
dom till a change has passed over it'. Origen meets
Celsus, who ridiculed the Church-doctrine of the resur
rection of the flesh, with the rejoinder, " Neither we
"nor the sacred Scriptures assert that those who are
"long dead shall live again in their flesh, as it was,
" without having undergone any change for the better"."
Notwithstanding characteristic differences, these answers
came practically to the same point. The Church does
not affirm what St Paul denies. The ' resurrection of
' the flesh ' as it is taught in the Creed does not exclude
the thought of the great change which, as the Apostle
teaches, must pass over the material part of human
nature before it can be admitted into the perfect life.
Nevertheless it must be confessed that the phrase
which was forced upon the Church by the sophistries of
a false gnosis was used by some of the orthodox in a
' V. 9. I id est quod ab omnibus sine qua regnum Dei adire non
haereticis profertur in amentiam possunt.
suam. " <•• Cels. v, 18 oire piev ovv i/piels
^ ib. 3 i§br]ae fiij SivaaBai rijv oiire rd Bela ypd/ifmra airals ipiiai
adpKa KaB' iavTriv...§aaiXeiav kXij- aap^l, p.riSepilav iJ,era^oXijV dveiXi)-
povopiijaai Beov. (pvlais r^v iirl rb ^iXriov, ^-liaeaBai
3 de res. earn. 50 resurgunt itaque rois irdXai diroBavbvras dirb rijs 7^s
ex aequo omnis caro et sanguis in dvaSivras' b Si KiXaos avKofavrei
quahtate sua. sed quorum est adire iipids ravra Xiyav. Origen proceeds
regnum Dei, induere oportebit uim to quote St Paul.
incorruptibilitatis et immortalitatis,

94 How understood by Pseudo-Clement, Hermas, Origen ;
sense which was really un-Pauline and unprimitive. It
was innocent and right so long as it was turned against
the Docetic denial of a true resurrection of the body
or used in the interests of vigilance and purity. We
can still feel the force of the Pseudo-Clement's appeal :
"Let none of you say that this flesh is not judged
" nor rises again. Consider : wherein were ye saved,
" wherein did ye recover your sight ,' was it not in
" this flesh ,' We ought, then, to guard the flesh as
" a temple of God ; for as in the flesh ye were called,
"in the flesh ye shall also come..., in this flesh ye
"shall receive your reward'." Nor has the warning in
Hermas lost its importance : " See that the thought do
" not enter thy heart that this flesh of thine is perish-
"able... if thou defile the flesh, thou shalt not live"."
But Tertullian carries us into another region of thought
when he writes, " Resurget igitur caro, et quidem omnis
"et quidem ipsa et quidem integral" Here the in
terest is no longer ethical, and a phrase which was
chiefly valuable as a protest against a false spirituality
is pressed to the length of a crude materialism. The
evil was one which was certain to spread, and it was
not without cause that Origen complained of the views
entertained by certain otherwise excellent Christians
who imagined that the identical bones and flesh and
blood which were buried would be raised again, and
the existing form of the human body be reproduced, the
' 2 Cor. 9 Kal /iT; Xeyiroi ns vpiCov ^ sim. v, 7, -i. ^Xeire pi-qirore dvo/SS
on ailni -fj adp^ oi Kpiverai oiSi iirl ttjv KapSlav aov r-rjv adpKa aov
dviararai. yvOre' iv rivi iaioBrp-e, Tairi)v <p8aprriv etvai Kal rrapa-xp-na-ri
iv rivi dve^Xitj/are, ei p.i] iv ry aapKl air-j iv fuaapitp nvi. idv ydp piidv-ris
rairij ovres ; Sel ovv -rjp.ds us vabv ttjv adpKa aov, puavels Kal rb irveDpia
Beov (pvXdaaeiv ttjv adpKa' Sv rpbirov rb dyiov idv Si /udv-rjs rijv adpKa, oi
ydp iv T^ aapKl iKXijBrjre, Kal iv r-rj ^-rja-rj.
aapKl iXeiaeaBe...iv rair-Q r-^ aapKl ^ de res. earn. 63.
d-jroXT]\l/bp.eBa rbv fiioBbv.

by Jerome and Rufinus ; 95
hands and feet and other members returning to their
old functions'. St Paul's illustration of the seed sup
plied, as he points out, a truer conception of the mystery.
But Origen's protest did not command the assent of
the great Church teachers of the following centuries.
It was combated by Methodius", and more hotly, more
suo, by Jerome. The words of the symbol were quoted
against it. "In your exposition of the Faith," writes
Jerome in his attack upon John of Jerusalem, " when
"you deal with the Resurrection, the word 'body' is
"used nine times, and 'flesh' not once." He anticipates
the reply that 'body' and 'flesh' mean the same thing,
but he does not admit its validity, and closes the con
troversy with an appeal to the Roman Creed, "which
" ends the whole mystery of Christian doctrine with the
" words carnis resurrectionem^!' On this question Rufi
nus was at one with Jerome. His Creed accentuated its
confession of a resurrection of the flesh by prefixing
huius to carnis — possibly a relic of some early struggle of
the Aquileian Church with Docetic Gnosticism. Rufinus
interprets huius carnis as teaching the absolute identity
' Hieron, ep. 38 (ad Pammach.) Epiph. haer. 64 and Phot, bibl. cod,
dicit Origenes in pluribus locis... 234.
duplicem errorem uersari in ecclesia, ^ L.c. haec est omnis caussa cur in
nostrorum et haereticorum ; nos sim- expositione fidei tuae ad decipiendas
plices et <piXbaapKas dicere quod aures ignorautium nouies 'corpus'
eadem ossa et sanguis et caro, id et ne semel quidem ' carnem ' no-
est, uultus et membra totiusque minas...scio enim te hoc esse dictu-
compago corporis resurgat in nouis- rum : Putavi idem corpus esse quod
sima die, scilicet ut pedibus ambu- carnem, simpliciter sum loquutus,
lemus, &c. ...est, inquit, singulis quare non carnem potius nominas,
seminibus ratio quaedam a Deo ut corpus significes, et indifferenter
artifice insita quae futuras materias nunc carnem, nunc corpus ? ... in
in meduUae principiis tenet. ..sic et symbolo fidei et spei nostrae. ..omne
in ratione humanorum corporum Christiani dogmatis sacramentum
manent quaedam surgendi antiqua carnis resurreetione concluditur, et
principia. tu in tantum in corporis et iterum
^ In his treatise irepl dvaardaeois, corporis. ..et usque nouies corporis
of which fragments are preserved in uel sermone uel numero immoreris.

96 by Augustine and tlie later Western Church.
of the future with the present body. To deny this
seemed to him to be a reflexion on the power of God :
" Why," he asks, " should we take so low a view of the
"Divine omnipotence as to refuse to believe that God
" can call together the scattered dust'?" The argument
was felt to be a formidable one. Augustine in his early
lecture De fide et symbolo ventures to say, " Illo tempore
" immutationis angelicae non iam caro erit et sanguis,
"sed tantum corpus. ...in caelestibus.. nulla caro, sed
"corpora simplicia et lucida quae adpellat Apostolus
" spiritualia" ; but in the De civitate (xxii. 20) he repeats
and amplifies Rufinus's reference to the omnipotence of
God, and in the Retractations he guards against his
earlier words being understood as a denial of the preva
lent belief". Later Latin writers followed Augustine,
the only important exception being the independent
thinker of the ninth century, Johannes Scotus Erigena^
whose phUosophical mind rebelled against materialistic
interpretations of the faith.
To return to the use of the phrase in the Creed.
Its introduction into the Baptismal Creeds was doubt
less the work of the age which was occupied in refuting
Gnosticism. There is no reason to doubt that it had
established itself in the Roman symbol by the middle
of the second century. From Rome it passed to Car-
' comm. in symb. 42 cur, quaeso, imposito,
tam angustus et inualidus diuinae ^ retract, i, 17 quisquis ea sic
potentiae aestimator es ut dispersam accipit ut existimet ita corpus terre-
uniuscuiusque carnis puluerem in num quale nunc habemus in corpus
suam rationem coUigi et reparari caeleste resurreetione mutari ut nee
posse non credas?...et ideo satis membra ista nee carnis sit futura
caute fidem symboli ecclesia nostra substantia, procul dubio corrigendus
docet quae in eo quod a ceteris est commonitus de corpore domini
traditur carnis resurrectionem, uno — an argument consistently employed
addito pronomine tradidit huius c. r. by the advocates of an absolute re-
— huius sine dubio quam habet is production of the existing form.
qui profitetur, signaculo crucis fronti ' de diuin. nat. iv. 12.

Other phrases : 'Resurrection of the dead': 97
thage, and to the Churches of Italy ; no Western Creed
abandoned it or modified it in any way if we except the
addition ofthe emphatic huius by the Church of Aquileia,
In the East, on the other hand, possibly through the
influence of Origen, a change set in during the fourth
century, Et? aapKo<i dvdaraaiv stood in the ancient
Creed of Jerusalem, and it appears in the Creed of the
Apostolical Constitutions. On the other hand the ' Con-
' stantinopolitan ' Creed has TrpoaBoKWjiev dvdaraaiv ve
Kpwv, and Dr Hort notices that " aapK6<; is absent from
" all known revised Eastern Creeds'." At the present
time the Orthodox, Armenian, and Nestorian Churches
of the East agree in confessing the ' resurrection of
' the dead",' while the whole Latin West preserves in the
Baptismal Creed the original carnis resurrectionem.
The Anglican Church possesses yet a third form of
words to express the same truth. With the rest of the
Western Church and the Orthodox Eastern Church she
acknowledges the " resurrection of the dead " in the
Creed of the Eucharist ; with the unreformed Churches
of the West she retains the "resurrection ofthe flesh"
in the interrogative Creed of Baptism, But in the
Apostles' Creed of the daily offices she has substituted ,
'the resurrection of the body.' Perhaps the nearest
symbolical precedent for this phrase is to be found in
the Quicunque : " omnes homines resurgere habent cum
" corporibus suis," Corporis or corporum resurrectio was
a suspected phrase in Jerome's time ; it was thought to
savour of Origenism, if of nothing worse'. Our reformers,
' Two Dissertations, p. 91, «.-2; futuram corporum,' hoc, si bene
conf, 21^, p, 80, dicatur, pura confessio est; sed...
'^ Ib. pp, 141, 146, 149. corpus ponunt non carnem ut ortho-
^ ep. 41 (ad Pamm. et Ocean.) doxias corpus audiens camem putet,
' Credimus (inquiunt) resurrectionem haereticus spiritum recognoscat,
S, C. 7

98 'Resurrection of the body'.
who were very far from entertaining heretical views
upon the doctrine of the Resurrection, were probably
attracted to the words by their Scriptural character ;
they appeared in the Necessary Doctrine of 1543, and
when in 1552 the Creed was for the first time printed
in full in the Order for Morning Prayer, they took a
permanent place in the English Prayer-book.
Thus in the English Church the old form of words,
although not abandoned, is interpreted by a double
gloss. The resurrection of the flesh is shewn to be
equivalent to the resurrection of the dead, and to the
resurrection of the body. Yet the three forms are not
mere synonyms. Each phrase has its own contribution
to make to the fulness of the truth, while each needs •
to be guarded or supplemented by the other two. The
' resurrection of the dead ' brings before the mind the
vision of the general resurrection, at which "all that
'' are in the graves... shall come forth." The ' resurrection
' of the body ' witnesses to the restoration of the indi
vidual life. The ' resurrection of the flesh ' proclaims
the continuity of the restored life with that which has
gone before.
The tendencies of our own age are certainly not such
as to encourage the Church to abandon the oldest of
these symbolical forms. If in the second century the
Gospel of the Resurrection was ridiculed by Pagan
philosophy and frittered away by Christian heresy, there
are forces at work in these last years of the nineteenth
century which under other names and altered circum
stances are tending to the same results. There is the
same necessity for asserting in terms from which no in
genuity can escape the reality of the hope by which the
Risen Lord has " brought life and immortality to light."

APPENDIX.

7—2

Some forms of the Baptismal Creed to which reference
has been made in the foregoing pages are printed here for
the convenience of readers who do not possess the collections
of Hahn and Heurtley.

A.
WESTERN CREEDS,
P, 9,
Creed of the Prymer (cent, xiv.),
(Maskell, Monumenta ritualia, ii. 177.)
I bileue in god, fadir almy3ti, makere of heuene and of
erthe : and in iesu crist the sone of him, oure lord, oon aloone :
which is conceyued of the hooli gost : born of marie maiden :
suffride passioun undir pounce pilat : crucified, deed, and
biried : he wente doun to hellis : the thridde day he roos a3en
fro deede : he stei3 to heuenes : he sittith on the ri3t syde of
god the fadir almy3ti : thenus he is to come for to deme the
quyke and deede, I bileue in the hooli goost : feith of hooli
chirche : communynge of seyntis : for3yuenesse of synnes :
a3enrisyng of fleish, and euerlastynge lyf so be it.
Creed of the ' King's Book,'
I beleve in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and
earth ; and in Iesu Christe, his only sonne our Lorde ; whiche
was conceived by the Holy Goste, borne of the Virgine Mary,
suffred under Ponce Pylate, was crucified, dead, buried, and

I02 Western Creeds.

descended into hell; and the third day he rose agen from deth;
he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God
the Father almighty; from thens he shall come to judge the
quicke and the deade. I beleve in the Holy Goste ; the holy
Catholike Churche ; the communyon of sayntes ; the forgyve-
ness of synnes, the resurrection of the body; and the lyfe
everlastynge. Amen.

P. 10,
Interrogatory Creed of the Gelasian Sacramentary,
Inde benedicta fonte baptizas unumquemque in ordine suo
sub has interrogationes :
Credis in Deum Patrem omnipotentem ?
Resp. Credo.
Credis et in lesum Christum Filium eius unicum, Dominum
nostrum, natum et passum ?
Resp. Credo.
Credis et in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam ecclesiam, remis
sionem peccatorum, carnis resurrectionem ?
Resp. Credo.
Interrogatory Creed of the Sarum Ritus baptizandi.
Deinde interrogato nomine eius respondeant, N. Ite-m sacerdos:
N., credis in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, creatorem caeH
et terrae ?
Resp. Credo.
Item sacerdos: Credis et in lesum Christum Filium eius
unicum, Dominum nostrum, natum et passum ?
Resp. Credo.
Item sacerdos : Credis et in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam
ecclesiam catholicam, sanctorum communionem, remissionem

Western Creeds. 103

peccatorum, carnis resurrectionem, et uitam aeternam post
mortem ?
Resp. Credo.
Interrogatory Creed of the first English Book of
Common Prayer (1549),
Then shall the Priest demand of the child... these questions
following, first naming the child and saying:
* * * *
Minister. Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth ?
Answer. I believe.
Minister. Dost thou believe in Jesus Christ his only
begotten Son our Lord, and that He was conceived by the
Holy Ghost, Sec, Dost thou believe this?
Answer. I believe.
Minister. Dost thou believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy
Cathohc Church, &c.?
Answer. I believe.

P. II.
Creed of Priminius (f 758), with its legendary setting
(cf. Caspari, a-necd. p. 158 sq.).
Tunc ipsi discipuli domini reuersi sunt Hierosolyma, et
erant perseuerantes unanimiter in oratione usque ad decimum
diem quod est Pentecoste, et dicitur quinquagesimus dies
dominicus ; et in ipsa die, hora tertia, factum est repente de
caelo sonus tanquam aduenientis spiritus uehementis et impleuit
totam domum ubi erant sedentes apostoli. et apparuerunt illis
dispertitae linguae tanquam ignis, seditque supra singulos
eorum et repleti sunt omnes Spiritu Sancto, et coeperunt loqui
aliis linguis prout Spiritus Sanctus dabat eloquii illis ; et com-

I04 Western Creeds.

posuerunt symbolum, Petrus : Credo in Deum Patrem omni
potentem, creatorem caeli et terrae. lohannes : Et in lesum
Christum^ Filium eius unicum dominum nostrum. lacobus dixit :
Qiii conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria uirgine.
Andreas ait : Passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus,. mortuus et
sepultus. Philippus dixit : Descendit ad inferna. Thomas
ait : Tertia die surrexit a mortuis. Bartolomaeus ait : Ascendit
ad caelos, sedit ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis. Matthaeus
ait : Inde uenturus iudicare uiuos et mortuos. lacobus Alphaei
dixit : Credo in Spiritu Sancto. Simon Zelotes ait : Sanctam
ecclesiam catholicam ' ludas lacobi dixit : Sancto-rum com
munionem, remissionem peccatorum. Item Thomas ait : Carnis
resurrectionem'^, uitam aeternam.

P, 13.
Creed of the British Museum MS. Royal 2 A, xx.
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, et in lesum
Christum Filium eius unicum dominum nostrum, qui natus est
de Spiritu Sancto et Maria uirgine, qui sub Pontio Pilato
crucifixus est et sepultus, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis,
ascendit in caelos, sedit ad dexteram Dei Patris, inde uenturus
est iudicare uiuos ac mortuos, et in Spiritum Sanctum,
sanctam ecclesiam catholicam, remissionem peccatorum, carnis
resurrectionem, amen.
Creed of the British Museum MS, Galea A, xviii,
XltUTeuo) ets viov •aa.rkpo. TravTOKparopa, Kai ets XptUTOv
'\-f\aovv VIOV avrov rov fnovoyevij tov K-vpiov -ijpiav, ToV •yei'i'n^ei'Ta
eK Tryev/xaros aytou Kat Maptas ttjs rrapOevov, rov irrl IlovTt'oD
IltXaTOU a-ravpuiOivTa [kol] raifievTa, r-fj rpir-fj -qixipq. dvaa-ravra
' cod. Iesu Christo. ^ cod, ecclesia catholica.
^ cod. ressurectione.

Western Creeds. 105

eK v^KpQsv, dva^avTa cts tous ovpavovs, KaB-rjpivov iv Septet tov
irarpos- odiv ipxerai Kptvat ^uJvTas Kat veKpovs" Kat ets Trvevjua
aytov, ayt[av cKKXrytrtW], d(f>icnv dpapriiSv, crapKos avatrTa[o"tv],
aprjv. [The above is a transliteration from the Roman characters
in which the Greek has been written by the scribe.]

Creed of Marcellus (Epiph. haer. lxxii. 3).
IIio'Teva) ets 6eov iravroKpaTopa, Kal ets XptCTOv Irjcrovv tov
vXov avrov rov povoycvrj, tov Kvpiov -qp&v, tov yewrjOivra iK
TTve-upaTO'; dyiov Kal Maptas T^s irapBivov, rbv irrl IIovTtov
IXtXctTOv (TTavp<a6iVTa Kal Tacjiivra Kal Trj TpiTTj -qpipa dvaa-ravra
CK TOJV veKpiSv, avaySavTa ets tovs ovpavous Kat KaOijpfvov iv Sc^ta
TOV TrttTpos, o6ev epxeTat Kptvetv ^tovTas Kat veKpovs- Kat ets to
aytov TTVivpa, dyiov iKKkrjdiav, a^eo-tv apapriiav, aapKos ava(rTaaiv,
^WYjv atcovtov.

P. 14.
Creed of Cod. Laud, (Bodl. Gr. 35).
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem ; et in Christum
lesum' Filium eius unicum dominum nostrum, qui natus est
de Spiritu Sancto et Maria uirgine, qui sub Pontio Pilato
crucifixus est et sepultus, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis, ascendit
in caelos ^ sedet ad dexteram' Patris, unde uenturus est iudicare
uiuos et mortuos; et in Spiritu Sancto, sancta ecclesia, re
missione peccatorum, carnis resurreetione*.
' cod. apo Jhu. ''- cod. caelis. ^ cod. dextera.
^ cod. resurrec tionis.

io6 Western Creeds.

P-iS-
Creed of the Bangor Antiphonary,
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, inuisibilem, omnium
creaturarum uisibilium et inuisibihum conditorem. Credo et
in lesum Christum Filium eius unicum, dominum nostrum,
Deum omnipotentem, conceptum de Spiritu Sancto, natum de
Maria uirgine, passum sub Pontio Pilato'; qui crucifixus et
sepultus descendit^ ad inferos, tertia die resurrexit a mortuis,
ascendit in caelos'' seditque ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipo
tentis, exinde uenturus iudicare uiuos ac mortuos. Credo et
in Spiritum Sanctum, Deum omnipotentem, unam habentem
substantiam cum Patre et Filio ; sanctam esse ecclesiam ' catho
licam, abremissa' peccatorum, sanctorum communionem °, carnis
resurrectionem ; Credo uitam post mortem et uitam aeternam
in gloria Christi. Haec omnia credo in Deum. Amen,
P, 22,
Creed of the C, C, C, MS. 468 (saec, xv).
Ilto'Tevui cts 6eov rrarkpa iravTOKpdropa, rrovrjTrjv ovpavov Kal
•y^S" Kat Iiyo"ovv XpitTTOv vtov avTOv tov povoyevrj kov K-vpiov rjpmv,
TOV a-vX.\Tj(fi6ivTa iK Trvev'/iaros dyiov, yevv-rjOivra iK Maptas'' tijs^
rrapOivov, rraOovra iirl IIovTtov UtXaTov, (TTavpiaOivra, Oavovra^,
Kai raejiivTa, KarikOovTa ets Ta KaTwTaTa" rfj Tpirrj -qpipa. dvaa-Tavra
airo Ttov veKpwv, avcX^ovTa ets tovs ovpavovs, KaOitppcvov iv Se^ta
vtov irarpos rravToSvvdpov iKeWev ip)(6 pevov Kpivai ^covTas Kat
veKpovs. TTto-TCvo) cts TO iTvivjjia TO ttytov, aytav Ka^oXtK^v ckkXij-
o^tav, aytov KOtvuJVtav, ai^ecrtv apapriiSv, trapKos avtto-Tao-tv, ^w-rjv
atcovtov. dpijv.
[The above is a transliteration from the Roman characters
in which the Greek has been written by the scribe.J
' cod. pylato. ^ cod. discendit. ^ cod, caelis. ** cod, aecclesiam.
^ cod, abremisa. * cod. commonionem. ' cod. '^lapeias vid,
* cod, rrjv vid, ^ cod. Bavevra vid.

Western Creeds. 107

P. 61.
Creed of Aquileia (Rufin. in symb.).
Credo in Deo Patre omnipotente, inuisibifi et impassibili;
et in Christo Iesu, unico Filio eius domino nostro, qui natus
est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria uirgine, crucifixus sub Pontio
Pilato et sepultus descendit in inferna, tertia die resurrexit a
mortuis, ascendit in c4elos, sedet ad dexteram Patris; inde
uenturus est iudicare uiuos et mortuos. et in Spiritu Sancto ;
sanctam ecclesiam, remissionem peccatorum, huius carnis resur
rectionem. P, 62,
Creed of Venantius Fortunatus,
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, etin lesum Christum
unicum Filium, qui natus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria uir
gine, crucifixus sub Pontio Pilato, descendit ad infernum,
tertia die resurrexit, ascendit in caelum, sedet ad dexteram
Patris, iudicaturus uiuos et mortuos. Credo in Sancto Spiritu,
sanctam ecclesiam, remissionem peccatorum, resurrectionem
carnis, P, 84,
Creed of Faustus of Riez,
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, et in Filium eius
dominum nostrum lesum Christum, qui conceptus est de
Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria uirgine, crucifixus et sepultus,
tertia die resurrexit, ascendit ad caelos, sedet ad dexteram Dei
Patris omnipotentis, inde uenturus iudicare uiuos et mortuos,
credo in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam ecclesiam catholicam,
sanctorum communionem, remissionem peccatorum, carnis
resurrectionem, uitam aeternam.

io8 Eastern Creeds.

B,

EASTERN CREEDS.
P, 97.
Early Creed of Jerusalem,
(Collected from Cyril.)
Ilto'TeiJO/x.ev ets eva ^eov rraripa iravTOKpdropa, Troiyjrrjv ovpavov
Kai yrj';, opaTtov tc rrdvToiv Kal doparoiv^ Kal ets eva K-vpiov l7jO"ovv
Xpto"Tov, TOV vtov rov Oeov tov povoycv-rj, tov iK tov iraTpos yevvry-
pevra 6eov aXrjdivov rrpo rrdvTinv rtov attovtov" St" ov to, iravTa cyc-
vero' aapKinOivra koX ivavOpmrnjo-avra, crTavpwOivTa Kal Ta<f>ivTa,
avaaravTa ttj Tpirrj -ijpipq,, Kal dvekOovra ets rovs ovpavovs, Kat
KauLO-avTa iK Sc^ttov tov iraTpos, Kat ip^opivov iv ho^rj Kptvat
^(uvTas Kat veKpov;' ov r-rj'; j8ao-tXetas ovk co-rat TcXos. Kat cts
cv aytov rrvevpa, rbv TrapotKXrjTOv, to XaX'^orav cv rots rrpot^Tqrais'
Kal ets ev jBdirTia-jia /icravoias cts d'^co-tv apapriuiv, Kal eis ptav
dytav Ktt^oXtK^v iKKXrjcriav, Kat cts crapKos avao-rao-tv, Kat et's t,<iyrjv
atwviov, P, 97,
Creed of the Apostolical Constitutions (vii, 41).
p,€Ta Se T^v airoray7;v o-vvTao-cro'/xevos [o /SaTrrt^d/iCvos] Xcyerto
ort Kat (rvvTa(7<70/Aat roS xpio-Tui" Kat mcmijm Kal parrritppai ets
eva ayevvi^TOV povov aXrjOivov Oeov rravTOKparopa, tov ¦jrarepa rov
)(puTTOv, KTiaryjv Kal Brjpiovpybv riav dirdvToiv, i^ ov rd irdvra-
Kal cts TOV Kvptov Irjaovv rbv xptarov, rov povoyevi] avrov vtov,
TOV TrptoTOTOKOV TTaarjs KTiaeias, tov irpo atcovtov cvSoKt'ct rov Trarpcjs

Eastern Creeds. 109

yewrjOivTa ov KTiaOevra, St ov ra iravra eyevero ret ev ovpavots
Kat €7rt yi7S opard re koi dopara, tov iir ctrp^ctTcov rcuv TjpcpiSv
KareXOovra ef ovpavcov Kat adpKa exvaXa/Sovra, iK ttjs dyias rrap
Oivov Maptas yevvij^evTa, Kat iroXtrevcrotjLtcvov cjcjtcos Karct rovs
vopovs TOV Oeov Kal rrarpos avrov, Kat aravpuidevTa iirl Uovrtov
UtXctTOv Kat tiTTO^avciVTa VTrcp -qpiZv, Kal dvaa-Tavra iK t<Sv vexptov
perd to rraOeiv t-^ rpir-rj -qjiipa, Kat civeX^cjvra cts rovs ovpavovs,
Kat Ka^ccT^evra cv 8c|ta rov irarpos, Kal irdXiv ip)(opevov irrl crvv-
reXcia rov aieovos p-erci 8c)^s Kptvat Z^covras Kat vcKpoijS" ov rijs
|8acrtXetas ovk eorrat reXos. l3airTit,opai Kal ets to rrvevpa rc)
dyiov, TOVT eari tov rrapdKXrjTov, to ivepy-rjaav iv rracri rots ctTr
atcovos dyiois, varepov Se airocrraXev rrapa rov irarpos, Kara rrjV
cTrayycXtav rov atoT-rjpos ?7/Atov Kvpiov Irjaov Xpttrroi!, Kat p.eTa
rovs ctirocTTCjXovs Sc Trao-t rots Trtcrrevovo-tv ev r-fj dyia KadoXiKrj koI
diroaroXiKy iKKXrjaia- cts aapKOS avaaraaiv Kal ets ac^co-tv apap-
Ttcov Kat ets /Sao-tXet'av ovpaveuv Kat cts t,ii>7jv tov peXXovros attovos.

Creed of Constantinople,
HiaTivopev ets eva Oebv irarepa iravroKpdropa, iroirjrrjv ov
pavov Kal y^s, oparcov re irdvrwv Kal aopdriov' Kat cts eva Kvpiov
'Itjo-ovv Xpto-To'v, rov vtov rov Oeov rbv povoyev-rj, rbv iK rov
irarpbs yevvrjOevra rrpb rravrtav rcov atcovcov, <j)cos iK c^coros, 6cov
dXrjOivbv iK Oeov dXrjOivov, yevvrjOevra ov rroirjOevra, opoovaiov
rc3 irarpi, St' ov ra irdvra iyevero' rbv St' ijpas rovs avOpioirovs
Kal Sta r^v -qperepav aarrrjpiav KareXOovra eK rcov ovpavcov, Kat
crapKco^e'vra iK rrve-ijparos ayiov Kal Mapias rrjs rrapOevov, Kai
ivavOpmrr-qaavra, aravpioOevra re virep tjjjiwv irrl Uovrtov UtXarov,
Kttt Tra^o'vra, Kal Ta<j>evra, Kal dvaardvra rfj rpirrj ijpepa Kara.
Tcts ypac^cts, Kat oivcX^o'vra cts rovs ovpavovs, Kat KaOe^opevov iK
8e|tcov TOV Trarpo's, Kat TrtiXtv ipxopevov perd 86$rjs Kptvat ^eovras
Kat veKpoHs' ov r-rjs ^aaiXeias ovk earai re'Xos. Kat cts ro rrvevpa
TO eiytov T(5 Kvptov rb ^oioiroiov, to iK rov irarpbs iKiropevopevov,

IIO Eastern Creeds.

TO criiv Trarpt Kat vtco avvirpoaKVVo-vpevov Kal avvBo^a^opevov, ro
XaX-rjaav Sta tcov irpo<j)rjr£v ets jUtav ctyt'av KaOoXiK-ijv Kai airo-
aroXiKrjv iKKXrjaiav. o/xoXoyov/icv cv /Sairriapa cts a<j>eaiv apap-
rtcov 7rpoorSoKc3/i6v dvdaraaiv veKpwv, Kat ^co7;v roi? peXXovros
attovos. dprjv.

ANAfKHN IcxoN rp<^T<M X^'w n<\p<\K(\X(JON InArcoNizecOiM TH
<\nAl nAp*,Ao0eiCH xoTc Ari'oic ni'crei.

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AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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