Excerpt from Apostles' Creed

INTRODUCTION

THE APOSTLES' CREED Notwithstanding the earlier labours of Laurentius Valla and Erasmus, the writer who may be described as the pioneer in the branch of investigation which deals with the origin of the creeds in the ancient Church is Usher, De Romanae ecclesiae symbolo apostolico vetere aliisque fidei formulis tum ab occidentalibus tum ab orientalibus in prima catechesei et baptismo proponi solitis Diatriba, 1647. Next come the names of Vossius, Pearson, Witsius, King, and Bingham. Walch collected the "Rules of Faith and the Symbols" in his Biblioth. Symbol. vetus, in 1770. His work was superseded in 1842 by Hahn' s Bibliothek. During the last forty-three years a fresh interest has been given to this field of labour by Heurtley' s Harmonia Symbolica (1858). More particularly since the year 1866, Caspari, a second Usher, has, by his various works, enormously increased the material for a study of this subject, and he has also sifted the material with the most critical care, Ungedruckte, unbeachtete und wenig beachtete Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufsymbols and der Glaubensregeln, 3 Bde., 1866-69-75; Alte und neue Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufsymbols and der Glaubensregeln, 1879. His labours enabled Hahn' s son to make a new work of his father' s Bibliothek in 1877. Among German scholars, von Zerschwitz, System der Katechetik, 2 Bde., 2te Auf. 1872, the present writer in the second edition of the Realencyclopädie and in the first volume of his Dogmengeschichte, Zahn, Das apostolische Symbolum, and above all, Kattenbusch, have taken a share in these investigations. In 1894 the last-named writer issued the first volume of a great monograph upon the Creed, which justifies the eagerness with which its continuation is awaited. Among English scholars may be mentioned Harvey, The History and Theology of the Three Creeds, 1854; Foulke, The Athanasian Creed . . . with other Inquiries on Creeds in General, 1872; Lumby, The History of the Creed, 1873; Hort, Two Dissertations, 1876; and, above all, Swainson, The Nicene and Apostles' Creed, London, 1875. The relation of the old Roman symbol to the Formulas of Faith in the pre-Catholic period has been treated by the present writer in his Patr. App. Opp. 2. edit. 1, 2, 1878 (cf. A. Harnack, Das apostol. Glaubensbekenntniss, 26te Auf. 1893). Reference should also be made to the text-books on the History of Dogma. In the controversies periodically occurring over the Apostles' Creed a great number of brochures regularly appear which need not be enumerated here.

The first to place the three creeds, the Apostolic, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan, and the Athanasian, side by side, as a full expression of the ecumenical confessions in the Church (with the addition of the Te Deum Laudamus) was probably Luther. Certain it is that it was only after his time, that is, after the second half of the sixteenth century, that Protestants first spoke definitely of the three ancient symbols. Yet it is also certain on the other hand that in the West these very three symbols had been in use in the churches, and had enjoyed great consideration, at least as much as five centuries earlier. Köllner, Symbolik, 1. ed. 1837, p. 5. In the strict sense of the word, however, the predicate "ecumenical" applies only to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, for in the Eastern Church neither the Apostolic nor the Athanasian confession of faith has at any time received official recognition. Gass, Symbolik d. griech. Kirche, 1872, pp. 116 ff.; Kattenbusch, Das apost. Symbol. Bd. 1. S. 1, 1894. Indeed, the Eastern Church has at no time traced any creed to an Apostolic origin, or designated any as Apostolic in the strict sense of the word. Cf. the testimony of Archbishop Marcus Eugenicus at the Council of Florence, in 1438, as given by Sylvester Sguropolis, Hist. Concil. Florent. sect. 6. c. 6, p. 150, edit. Rob. Creyghton, 1660: hemeis oute echomen, oute oidamen sumbolon ton apostolon. Vide Caspari, Ungedruckte . . . Quellen z. Gesch. des Taufsymbols, 2. 1869, S. 106 ff. In the West, on the other hand, the three symbols form part of the confessional writings of the main Church, and the shortest of them (Symbolum minus) bears the very name "Apostolicum." But we also find the name "Apostolic" here and there established and in use in the West as a designation of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed; Caspari, ibid. 1. 1866, S. 242, n. 45; 2. 1869, S. 115, n. 88; 3. 1875, S. 12, n. 22. nor is this only among Greeks who had become latinised. The three chief churches of the West possess the Symbolum Apostolicum in a form which agrees in all essential points ("Textus Receptus"). We shall therefore have to begin by treating of the origin of the creed in this form.

The "Textus Receptus" can, with a satisfactory degree of certainty, be traced back, except in certain minute details, to the beginning of the sixth, or to the end of the fifth century. But there is a strong probability that this form of the symbol was not previously in official use in any church, whether as a part of the Interrogationes de fide or the Traditio and Redditio Symboli; nay, there is no discoverable sign of the existence of this particular form before the middle of the fifth century. Kattenbusch, ibid. S. 189 ff., who curiously disputes this view, has hitherto only partly stated his reasons for dissenting from it. As it did not, at all events, come to the West from the Eastern Church, and symbols can be shown to have been in use in various provincial churches in the West during the fourth and fifth centuries which materially differ from the "textus receptus" of the Apostolicum, we may infer that it scarcely existed in its received form earlier than the middle of the fifth century, and probably did not assume its present shape, complete in every detail, before about the year 500. In that shape it appears for the first time in a sermon of Caesarius of Arles. Pseudo-Augustin. n. 244, vide Kattenbusch, ibid. S. 164 ff., cf. also Sermo 240 and 241; the texts are in Hahn' s Bibliothek der Symbole, 2te Auf. 47-49, and the symbol is in the Missale Gallicanum vetus (Hahn, з 36). The immediate predecessor of Caesarius' symbol, or, as the case may be, of the Apostolicum as we have it, is very probably that of Faustus of Rietz, about 460, but it does not admit of being satisfactorily reconstructed. Hahn, 38; Kattenbusch, S. 158 ff. On the other hand the stage succeeding that of the old Roman symbol in the direction of our Apostles' Creed is represented by the highly interesting symbol discovered by Bratke in the Berne Codex, N. 645, saec. 7. (StK. 1895, S. 153). which I regard with him as a Gallican, or, as the case may be, a Gallico-British symbol, and assign to the fourth century. It differs from the old Roman symbol only by the additions of "passus," "descendit ad inferos," "catholicam," and "vitam aeternam." These four additions all lie in the direction of our Apostles' Creed and at the same time prove that they are the four oldest additions, whilst "conceptus, etc." and "communionem sanctorum" are later. "Creatorem coeli et terrae" and "mortuus" are also earlier. That the Greek texts of the Gallicanum-textus receptus are translations, no one disputes (Hahn, зз 47b, 49). As to these texts, cf. Caspari, Quellen z. Geschichte des Taufsymbols, Bd. 3.

Against the Roman origin of the Apostles' Creed, called by modern writers the later and longer Roman symbol, inasmuch as it was undoubtedly through the influence of Rome that it in later times attained universal authority in the West, we may oppose the fact (1) that it was not found in Rome until the Middle Ages, that is to say, many centuries after its existence had been attested by Caesarius of Arles, and (2) that from the end of the fifth, or the beginning of the sixth century, until the tenth, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in Greek, and the Apostles' Creed, were used in Rome in the traditio symboli, Caspari, 3. S. 201 f., 226, 2. S. 114 f. n. 88. and that, so far as the use of a shorter symbol side by side with. the Constantinopolitan was known in Rome during the Byzantine period (the sixth to the eighth century), it was not identical with the Apostles' Creed. Our Apostles' Creed points very plainly to Southern Gaul, and to a period about the year 500. But the spread of the "textus receptus" of the Symbolum Apostolicum throughout Western Europe in the sixth century was soon accompanied by the legend of its wonderful origin. Hahn, з 46b. That a symbol of such recent origin should from the beginning bear the name "Apostolic" suggests the conjecture that it has a history earlier than the fifth century, and that another form must have preceded the "textus receptus," the attributes of which were then transferred to the new text supplanting it. The contention that this later creed or symbol traced its origin to a sumbole or "collatio" involves a confusion between sumbole, which also bears the meaning of "summa" or "brevis complexio," and sumbolon, that is, "signum," "indicium," in the sense not only of a distinction between Christians and non-Christians, or between Christians and heretics, but also in the sense of "tessera militum," a token or deed of agreement. Caspari, 2. S. 88. The name "Symbolum" is first found in the West in Cyprian; Ep. 69 ad Magnum, 100. 7. in the East, not until after the beginning of the sixth century. Caspari, 1. S. 24 f. n. 28. As to the various designations of the creed, cf. Caspari, 1. S. 21 f. n. 26, 3. S. 30; Nitzsch, ZThK. Bd. 3. S. 332 ff.; Kattenbusch, S. 1 ff., S. 37 ff.; Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Konfessionskunde, Bd. 1. S. 5 ff. The legend Hahn, з 47 f.; Köllner, ibid. S. 7 f.; Caspari, 2. S. 93 f. that each of the twelve Apostles, in a general session before their separation, contributed a phrase to the creed, was exploded even as early as Laurentius Valla and Erasmus, Monrad, Die erste Kantroverse über d. Ursprung des apost. Glaubensbekenntnisses; Kattenbusch, Apost. Symb. S. 1 ff. The Roman Catechism has nevertheless retained it. but seems to point to a confirmation of the conjecture above hazarded as to the earlier form. This conjecture, which is also suggested by a glance at the very simple contents of the creed and its clear and compact form, is strikingly confirmed by history.