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On the use of the Nicene Creed in the
Services of the Church

In the Eastern Church the Nicene Creed, perhaps at first in its original form and later on in its 'enlarged' form, has, as has been mentioned above, been used in the Liturgy or Communion service since the fifth and sixth centuries. It is said that the direction of the Emperor Justin in 565-6 was that it should be sung before the Lord's Prayer, i.e. after the consecration of the elements. But there is, according to Mr. Brightman, no other trace of such a position for the Creed in an Eastern rite.1 Either, then, the historian (John of Biclarum) was misinformed, or Justin must have unsuccessfully attempted a change, as the universal position which the Creed occupies in Eastern Liturgies is early in the Liturgy of the Faithful in connection with the kiss of peace, which it sometimes precedes, as in the Syrian and Egyptian Liturgies as well as in those of the Nestorian Church, and sometimes follows, as in

1 The decree of the Council of Toledo, however, cited above on p. 159, may imply that it was from the Eastern Church that the position of the Creed in the Spanish Liturgy was adopted.

the Liturgy of Constantinople, and thus of the Greek Church generally. It also, in comparatively early times, took the place of the different local Creeds in the Baptismal service in the East, and has in later days been introduced into the Hour services, so that it has come to be the only Creed that is used by the orthodox Greek Church.1 Local Creeds with Nicene language introduced into them have, however, lingered on among some of the separate bodies of Christians in the East, as e.g. the 'Jacobite' and Maronite Churches of Syria, the Nestorians, Armenians, and Abyssinians.

In the West the Nicene Creed has never been generally adopted as a baptismal Creed, though it was used in the Traditio Symboli at Rome and perhaps in some other places from about the sixth to the tenth centuries, being recited both in Greek and Latin. This use was, however, something quite exceptional, the Apostles' Creed being regularly connected with baptism elsewhere in the West, as at Rome both before and after the dates given above. When the Nicene Creed (in its enlarged form) was first introduced into the Communion service of the Church of Spain in 589, it was ordered to be sung before the Lord's Prayer, as in the direction said to have been given twenty years earlier by Justin; and this has remained the position given to it in the Mozarabic or Spanish Liturgy ever since. Elsewhere in the West, practically as far back as we can trace it, it occupies the position familiar to us immediately after the Gospel as being a summary of

1 At the Council of Florence in 1438 the Greeks expressly disclaimed any knowledge of the Apostles' Creed.

evangelical doctrine.1 But the Anglican Communion stands alone in the West in ordering its recitation at every celebration. In the Roman Church its use is confined to Sundays and greater festivals, and this was also the Pre-Reformation use in our own country. In the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. the direction in the rubric before the Creed apparently contemplates its recitation at every Communion, but in the course of the service there is a note to the effect that 'when the Holy Communion is celebrate on the workday or in private houses: Then may be omitted the Gloria in Excelsis, the Creed, the Homily, and the Exhortation,' and at the close of the book among 'Certain Notes for the more plain explication and decent ministration of things contained in this book' there stands the following: If there be a sermon, or for other great cause, the Curate by his discretion may leave out the Litany, Gloria in Excelsis, the Creed, the Homily, and the Exhortation to the Communion.' This was omitted at the revision of 1552, and since that date there has been no provision made by the rubric for any exceptions in the use of the Creed in the public service of the Church.

In the Hour services of the West the Nicene Creed has never been given a place, but it should be mentioned that the rubrics of the American Prayer Book have since 1790 permitted the alternative use of either the Apostles' or the Nicene Creed at Mattins and Evensong.

1 Cf. S. Thomas Aquinas, Summa, p. iii. q. 83 art. 4. When the Gospel has been read, the Creed is sung, in which the people show that they give the assent of faith to the doctrine of Christ.

NOTE C

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE ENLARGED 'NICENE

CREED

THE theory which the late Dr. Hort set forth in his Two Dissertations (1876) as to the origin of the Enlarged Creed is this, viz. that the Creed familiar to us as the 'Nicene' is really 'not a revised form of the Nicene Creed at all, but of the Creed of Jerusalem' (p. 76), the revision being influenced by the Creeds of Antioch and the Apostolic Constitutions, or, it may be, lost Creeds of a similar type, and the Creed so revised containing a long insertion from the true Creed of Nicæa on the nature of the pre-Incarnate Christ. This theory has been generally accepted by scholars, but to the present writer it appears that there are weak points in it which have not received sufficient consideration, and that it may be well to draw attention to them. The theory involves not merely the addition of a certain number of clauses to the Jerusalem Creed, and the insertion of the 'Nicene' paragraph, but many substitutions and omissions, and even, in one instance, a change of the order of clauses so that it practically postulates an entire rewriting of the Creed, making the original Creed in one part at least wholly unrecognisable. This may easily be made plain by placing side by side the Creed of Jerusalem as given by S. Cyril, and the Enlarged Creed as given by Epiphanius.

THE CREED OF JERUSALEM. We believe in one God the Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth, and of

all things visible and invisible: And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, Begotten of His Father, very God, before all worlds,

THE ENLARGED CREED.

We believe in one God the Father
Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth and of

all things visible and invisible: And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, Begotten of His Father before all worlds,