Probably framed against the Gnostics especially. 127 One of the But a further ground presents itself, for the employment of this article, in the very specific form in which it is now worded, even during the apostolic age. In a former portion of this inquiry, I had occasion to remark, that not only St. John, the latest of the sacred writers, but that St. Paul, too, alludes to the existence of those wild fancies, with which the Gnostic theory was beginning to corrupt the Church. Some brief outline was also given of the general features of this source of extravagant errors. most attractive principles seems to have been that which solved the knotty question of the origin of evil. Among the thirty Æons, who occupied the original Pleroma, or sphere of pure Deity, Sophia (wisdom) was fabled to have produced, through intense desire to comprehend the greatness of the gozáτwę, or first father, a monstrous birth, Achamoth." This marvellous offspring was cast out of the heavenly space, and became the author of matter, and the mother of him whom they described as the Creator of the world, and whose imperfect and corrupt work it had been the province of certain Eons to correct. Their scheme of reformation was easily made a counterpart to the history of man's redemption; and, indeed, the foundation story itself seems to have been framed with a similar design against the scriptural account of the fall of man, and the bringing in of sin and death into the world. Harmlessly absurd as all this may seem to us, yet we know that St. Paul and St. John feared lest it might deceive the very elect, and that many Christians And if so, of were bewildered in their faith by it. Weighing, then, with this view, the exact expression of the first article of the Apostles' Creed, in what period of the Church would it be more naturally framed than in the first? Contrary to these "endless genealogies" and "false oppositions, "128 it asserts that God is one and indivisible. opposition to the notion, that the "first father" took no part in the government of the world, but left it to lower emanations, God is called arrogάTwę, "all-mighty, or "all-governing;" and the impious fancy of a separate and evil creator, is condemned by the assertion, that it is He who is maker of heaven and earth." Apostolical origin. 127 Irenæi, Lib. II. C. 10. "Deum impie contemnunt non credentes, quoniam ex his quæ non erant, quemadmodum voluit, ea quæ facta sunt ut essent omnia fecit sua voluntate, quod enim dicunt ex lachrymis Achamoth humectam prodiisse substantiam," &c. Achamoth is a Hebrew word, signifying Wisdom. Irenæus elsewhere laments the success of the Valentinians, &c., in seducing Toùs μὴ ἑδραίαν τὴν πίστιν εἰς ἕνα θεὸν Πατέρα παντοκράτορα διαφυλάσσοντας: and recommends the use of the Creed as a safeguard against these seductions, (see Lib. I. C. 1.) For a full account of these heresies his work may be consulted. 128 'Avrilσes, meaning, doubtless, the 129 In pairing off of the ons, who were described as coupled, or set off in pairs. With reference to the same notion we may interpret an expression in Origen, (Dialog. 2,) when, speaking of the supreme Being, he adds, os ráνTWY xgαTE, ῳ ἀντίκειται οὐδέν. 129 Some of the early heretics asserted, that the creation was the work of angels; but, probably, under every variety of expression they meant the same thing substantially, emissions or emanations from the source of all-pervading Deity. See Irenæus, Lib. II. C. 9, and Epiphanius, and Theodoret, as referred to in King's History of the Apostles' Creed, p. 85. Article. Art. II. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was The Second conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried, He descended into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead, He ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. Christ. That an Article specifying belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of Belief in God, was likely to have been framed by the apostles themselves, may be inferred from the confession of the eunuch to Philip, before alluded to. Perhaps, indeed, the whole of the first clause of this second Article may have stood originally as we now have it; for 66 that Jesus was the Christ," was, we know, the very terms of that John ix. 22. faith for which the Jews threatened their believing brethren with vengeance; and Martha's confession of faith to Jesus himself is substantially the same, differently worded, "Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God." So also Peter's, "Thou Matt. xvi. 16. art the Christ, the Son of the living God." sprang very earliest Errors. No article of the Christian religion could, indeed, have more Directed required an early specification, and peculiar enforcement. The against the prejudice which it opposed, was the very bed of tares, which around the tender plant of Christianity, it was the Jewish prejudice; and that, therefore, against which the earliest converts, who were Jews, and living among Jews, would require to be most studiously guarded. The particular clauses which follow, might have been gradually added, as occasion demanded; but this must have been as old as Christianity itself. It is worthy of notice, too, that a change appears in the form of expressing belief in Jesus Christ, not only in the Nicene Creed, but in some other of the oldest Creeds, (as, for instance, in one of Irenæus,) which corresponds with what we should expect in a later period of the apostolic history. It is, "in one Lord Jesus Christ:" the addition of the term " one," being obviously rendered afterwards necessary, by the fancies of Cerinthus, and the like, that Christ was, first, the Son of the Demiurgus, and that, secondly, on him one of the thirty Eons descended at his baptism, in the shape of a dove.150 To the rise of the Gnostic heresy we may, indeed, attribute the three subsequent clauses, without being able to determine, whether all did or did not belong to the Creed of the apostles' days. They would, certainly, not be inappropriate to the latter portion of that period. That Christ, the Son of God, was conceived by the Son of God. Holy Ghost;" that is, in the words of St. Luke, was "called the Luke i. 35. Son of God," because the Holy Ghost came upon the Virgin Mary, and the power of the Highest overshadowed her," was obviously 130 Irenæi, Lib. I. C. 25; and, again, Lib. III. C. 18, where he argues against the notion thus, "Si alter quidem passus est, alter autem impassibilis mansit; et alter 66 quidem natus est, alter vero, in eum qui Virgin. His death. 66 levelled against this heresy just noticed; so, too, that He was Born of the born of the Virgin Mary," that is, was really man as well as God, and not the Son of the fabled Demiurgus; that He "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried," all specify those several particulars which were inconsistent with the union of a superior Eon with Christ during his ministry, and his separation from Him on the cross; the favourite speculation of the Docetæ. It not a little confirms this view, that we find the earliest Fathers opposing, principally, these very errors, and in similar language. The Creed asserts, that Jesus Christ was 'born of the Virgin Mary;"Ignatius, that "He was of Mary truly born, truly of the race of David, according to the flesh,' truly born of a Virgin :' and Origen, "that he was born in reality, and not in appearance only." Again, the Creed asserts, that 66 He suffered under Pontius Pilate; Ignatius, that "He was really persecuted under Pontius Pilate."133 In Ignatius we read, that "he really suffered, not as some unbelievers assert, that he suffered only in appearance: in Origen, "he suffered in truth," "and not by a phantom. Correspondence with the early Fathers. Origen. Ignatius. Descent into 99 66 66 131 66 132 134 and "' 135 The descent into hell was certainly not one of the original articles of the Creed; and when used, was first employed only as an equivalent expression for the term "buried," which was omitted.186 It was afterwards, however, adopted to denote something distinct from it, as both appear in the later creeds; or, what is more probable, the ejected Why added. term "buried" was now replaced; and this nevertheless retained, because it contained the expression of a doctrine frequently set forth in the early Fathers, in opposition to the Gnostic heretics. These, according to Irenæus,157 denied the salvation of the body, and maintained, that the souls ascended into the heavens, unto their determined place, from whence they shall no more return unto their bodies." So that it might have reference to the real power of death over Christ, as over all men; in opposition to this notion of the reunion of a particle of the Divine essence with its parent source. 131 Ep. ad Trall. Sec. 9. 135 In Proœm. Lib. Ispi pv. So, too, "138 tum, dicis, ut veram carnem Christi, mortemque non perfunctoriam probet confessio sepulturæ." The specification of the time, by the expression "under Pontius Pilate," was, doubtless, to destroy the claims of any false pretenders of any other period; such as those alluded to in the speech of Gamaliel, recorded in the Acts, ch. v. 36, 37. 136 In the Creed of the Church of Aquileia; see Bishop Pearson on the Creed, Art. V. 137 Lib. I. C. 23, and in other passages. 138 The interpretation put on the phrase by the framers of our articles in the reign of Edward VI. was, "that the body of Christ lay in the grave until his resurrection; but his Spirit, which he gave up, was with the spirits which were detained in prison or in hell, and preached to tion. iv. 33. The rising from the dead, is a point so often specified and made pro- Resurrecminent in the preaching and teaching of the apostles, that we should certainly expect to find it in a creed of their composing. Whatever occasioned them so to distinguish the doctrine in their discourses and writings, might be equally good reason for appointing it a place in their formulas of faith. Although witnesses of all Christ's course of ministry, yet we know, that they are in Scripture emphatically called "witnesses of the resurrection;" and the sum of their Acts i. 22; preaching is described by St. Luke, as "Jesus and the resurrec- Acts xvii. 18. tion.' We plainly gather from Scripture, too, that there was good reason for a particular enforcement of this great doctrine, because it was above all others the one most opposed to the preconceived notions of mankind. The immortality of the soul, as taught by some of the philosophers among the Gentiles, was even inconsistent with a resurrection of the whole man; and of the Jews themselves, perhaps even the Pharisees had not quite comprehended the immortality of man to extend to a bodily resurrection. At all events, that strong bias in the Gentile world, to reject the doctrine as absurd, which caused St. Paul to be mocked at Athens, sufficiently accounts for the introduction of this clause into the earliest Creed. But, besides this need for such an article, it will be remembered, that the Scriptures themselves allude to an error, which was making progress among Christians; a notion, "that the resurrec- 2 Tim. ii. 18. tion was past already." These heretics understood the doctrine, it would seem, in a figurative sense, merely as denoting a new birth unto righteousness, and might have given rise to the clause, or furnished an additional reason for its insertion. 66 The occasion of the words which follow, and which assert the Ascension. ascension into heaven, was certainly the heresy of some Marcionites, disciples of Apelles; who introduced a variety in Marcion's view, maintaining that Christ's body, while on earth, was not a phantom, but that after he came down from heaven, he dissolved this earthly body, and created for himself a heavenly one, with which he ascended.139 Hence, Irenæus, in repeating this article in one of his creeds, expresses it by "the reception into the heavens of Jesus Christ, in the flesh."'140 The addition, too, "sitteth on the right hand Sitting at of God, the Father Almighty," might have been made only in order hand of God. to express more fully this view of the ascension, and to declare, that he who was born of the Virgin Mary, &c. ascended in the same them, as the place in St. Peter testifieth." The passage in St. Peter alluded to is chap. iii. 19, of his First Epistle. On the final revision of the articles in Queen Elizabeth's reign, this explanatory clause was omitted, in consequence, probably, of exceptions which had been taken against it. 139 Tertullian, de Præscript. adv. Hæres. C. 51. Epiphan. advers. Hæres. in Hæres. Apell. Lib. I. T. III. C. 111. 140 Irenæi, Lib. I. C. 11. Thy evoαęzov the right In like body, and has since required and assumed none other.141 manner, with a view to maintain the personal identity of Christ, as we are taught to expect him at his second coming, and not only while ascending and ascended, the further assertion might have Judgment. been made, that he, the same, "shall come to judge the quick and the dead." The particular phrase, "quick and dead," applied to the objects of his judicial appearance, may then be understood as denoting a further extension of the orthodox view, and implying that Christ, although once dead, buried, and ascended into heaven, shall come again in like manner, and with the same body; and, that not only the "quick," those who are alive at his coming, shall in their unperished bodies stand before his tribunal, but “the dead” of all ages, awaking to a real bodily resurrection. The Third The Holy Ghost. 2 Cor. v. 7. Holy I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Of the articles of faith set forth in this portion of the Creed, the first, relating to the Holy Ghost, must have been of very early date. This we may presume, without any reference to historical testimony. In no particular was the early Christian's faith so severely tried, as in embracing the doctrine of his own intimate connexion with, and influence by, that Holy Person, who, like the wind, from which he received his name, was viewless and impalpable, and only known by his effects. Hence, the necessity at first of accompanying the ceremony of baptism, when this insensible endowment takes place, with some sensible manifestation, to assure the sanctified of its reality. With the same view, the catechumen would require to be familiarized with a truth, which of all demanded the greatest effort of his faith; and the most experienced Christian, too, would need some perpetual remembrancer, to prevent oblivion or doubt of the golden rule of Christianity, we walk by faith, and not by sight." The other two articles of belief are of a later age. When the clause concerning the Church was first made use of, the point of faith expressed, was simply belief in "the holy Church;" and it was added, perhaps, by way of enlargement upon the doctrine to which it is now appended,-the belief in the Holy Ghost. as a Church that we are the temple of the Holy Ghost;society, that we perform those acts which are the appointed means of grace; and that society is therefore emphatically termed "the holy. The introduction of the term "catholic" into the sentence, may be easily accounted for, by considering the ambiguity of the term Church. It conveyed a caution, that the Church using such a creed should not confine its belief in the Divine residence, to its 66 It is -as a of certain heretics, who supposed Christ's state of glory to be one of inactivity. Affirmant carnem in cœlis vacuam sensu, ut vaginam, exempto Christo, sedere."-De Carne Christi, C. 24. |