The Development of Creeds

THE Church's Creeds, then, were gradually developed out of the baptismal formula, fresh clauses being added from time to time to expand the profession of belief required in each Person of the Godhead-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Something more, however, should be said as to the causes which led to this development. These causes were apparently two in number. First, there was the natural desire for clearness and precision, which would lead almost insensibly to additions being made in the course of catechetical instruction, and from this there would be a tendency for them to find their way into the text of the Creed employed in this instruction, and repeated before the Baptism in the manner described above. Thus the simple expression of belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, required some amplification if it was to be rendered intelligible to converts new to the faith. What, for instance, was meant by belief in the Son'? Who is He, and what is to be thought of Him? 'The Son' would naturally be explained as referring to Him who is called in Scripture God's 'only' or ' only begotten' Son, and an identification of Him with

the historic Jesus' of the Gospels and 'Jesus Christ our Lord' of the Epistles would naturally follow. So the clause would be made to run ‘and in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord.' In the same way it would be felt that in the course of catechetical instruction an outline of the main facts concerning the earthly life and manifestation of Jesus Christ would be a necessity, and thus a considerable number of statements regarding His birth, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension would be introduced quite simply and naturally without any more precise reason than the desire to instruct the candidates in the elements of the faith. This was almost certainly the main cause of the growth of Creeds in the early days of the Church.

But, besides this, a second cause was at work, for there is no doubt that the rise of false teaching brought home to the Church from the first the necessity of emphasising certain articles of the Creed, and that words and phrases were introduced with the express purpose of guarding against the intrusion of those who held heretical views. That this danger was present and had to be guarded against even before the close of the apostolic age is evidenced by the emphasis which S. John lays on the reality of the human nature which our Lord took at the Incarnation. 'Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.'1 Even in his days it is clear that there was false teaching on the Incarnation, and that it was found necessary to guard against the Docetic 1 I S. John iv. 2.

heresy, or the view that our Lord had not really 'come in the flesh,' but that the humanity was a mere appearance or phantom, and that therefore there had been no true suffering or death, and therefore no real resurrection. In the early part of the second century this error was a formidable one; and consequently we find that Ignatius of Antioch (c. 115), in summing up the articles of the faith, attaches the greatest weight to the reality of the Incarnation, the Passion, and the Resurrection. In writing to the Church of Tralles he gives the following charge :

'Be ye deaf, when any man speaketh to you apart from Jesus Christ, Who was of the race of David, Who was the Son of Mary, Who was truly born and ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth; Who, moreover, was truly raised from the dead, His Father having raised Him, Who in the like fashion will so raise us also who believe on Him-His Father, I say, will raise us-in Christ Jesus, apart from Whom we have no true life.'1

This passage does not stand alone; similar ones are found in the Epistles of Ignatius to the Magnesians and Ephesians, as well as in that to the Church of Smyrna, in which he writes as follows:

'Fully persuaded as touching our Lord that He is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, but Son of God by the Divine will and power, truly born

1 Ad Trall. 9, 10.

of a virgin and baptized by John that all righteousness might be fulfilled by Him, truly nailed up in the flesh for our sakes under Pontius Pilate and Herod the Tetrarch . . . that He might set up an ensign unto all the ages through His resurrection, for His saints and faithful people, whether among Jews or among Gentiles, in one body of His Church. For He suffered all these things for our sakes [that we might be saved]; and He suffered truly, as also He raised Himself truly; not as certain unbelievers say, that He suffered in semblance, being themselves mere semblance.' 1

These and similar passages show us how short summaries of the faith were arising and taking shape in formula-like sentences; while they also indicate how particular clauses might need enlarging and emphasising if erroneous beliefs were to be excluded.

Another example may be given with reference to the first article in the Creed: 'I believe in God the Father.' The Gnostics of the first and second centuries in many cases drew a distinction between the Supreme God and the Demiurge or Creator to whose work they attributed the existence of the world. They imagined also a number of intermediate beings, through whom the gulf between the Infinite and the universe was bridged over. Under these circumstances it became necessary for the Church in admitting members to insist not only on the unity of the Divine Nature, but also on the fact that the Supreme

1 Ad Smyrn., I, 2; cf. Ad Magn., II, and Ad Eph., 7, 18, 20.

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God was the Creator of all things, and indeed-to guard against possible evasion-that He was the Creator not only of heaven and earth, but of all things visible and invisible. Consequently, instead of the simple statement of belief in the Father,' in Whose name the Lord had commanded that men should be baptized, an expression of belief was required in one God, the Father Almighty (or Allsovereign), Maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible.'

It is probable also that the definite statement of belief in the resurrection of the flesh' was added to the Creed with a view to exclude the Docetic Gnostics of the second century, in whose systems this doctrine was denied or explained away.

Similarly, though at a later date, under the influence of heresy, other portions of the Creed were enlarged. In the fourth century this cause of amplification became more marked than ever, and, as will be shown later on, the very full statement of our Lord's essential Godhead which we now read in the Nicene Creed was deliberately inserted with the object of excluding Arianism from obtaining a footing in the Church; and subsequently an ampler statement concerning the Person of the Holy Spirit than had previously been required was placed in the third paragraph of the Creed, to guard against the recognition of those who denied the Divinity or Personality of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.

It will readily be understood that these causes for