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articles by omitting the articles on the Church and the remission of sins; and so it has an abrupt and unnatural conclusion. There seems to be no clear connection between faith in the Holy Spirit and the Resurrection of the flesh. There is also in the structure of a Creed to be committed to memory some significance in historic numbers. The number three gives the primal trinitarian structure. There are seven clauses for Christ and His saving acts. We should expect four more clauses for the Holy Spirit, to make up the apostolic number twelve. We should also look for some proper mediating clauses to connect the Holy Spirit with the Resurrection, and some suggestion as to the activity of the Spirit.

The three parts of the Creed all have eis and the accusative, the accusatives that follow being in explanatory apposition. That cannot be said of the relation of capxds ἀνάστασιν τὸ εἰς πνεῦμα ἅγιον. There must therefore have been some mediating clauses such as are found in early forms of the Creed. The connection is properly mediated by the Holy Church, which is inhabited by the divine Spirit, according to St. Paul; and by the Forgiveness of Sins imparted by the divine Spirit, especially in connection with Baptism.

The term Holy Church is a Roman term, which appears in Hermas (Vis., 11, 3), and in Ignatius; and which later passes over into the more common Catholic Church. It is the most natural term to follow the Holy Spirit, and to prepare for the two remaining clauses, because the Holy Church is the chief work of the Holy Spirit, both in its origination on the day of Pentecost, and as the sphere of His activity.

The Forgiveness of sins, though not attested by Irenæus and Tertullian, is yet attested by Cyprian: Credo remissionem peccatorum et vitam eternam per sanctam ecclesiam;1 and the creed of Jerusalem: and in one baptism of repentance.2

Prof. McGiffert's argument, that the Roman Church of the second century was intolerant as regards the remission of sins after baptism, has no application, because the remission of sins here is the remission connected with baptism itself, and that was greatly emphasized by the Roman Church of the second century, as we see from the apostolic father Hermas.

1 Ep. 69, 70.

2

Cyril, Catechetical Lectures, XVIII, 22.

We may therefore conclude that there were four articles connected with the Credo of the Holy Spirit, as seven with that of Christ, and one with that of God the Father.

The earliest form of the Roman Creed that has been preserved, is from the middle of the fourth century. Rufinus, a priest of Aquileia, wrote a commentary on the Apostles' Creed in the last quarter of the fourth century. He gives the creed of Aquileia, and compares it with the old Roman Creed. He states that candidates for baptism were required to recite it publicly, and that no alterations were allowed. The form had doubtless been fixed for some time, and it remained stereotyped in that form in Rome for nearly two centuries. A Greek form of the same Creed is given by Marcellus of Ancyra (341 or 337). This form of the fourth century is confirmed by the comments of Ambrose and Augustine, the Psalter of Æthelstan, and many other wit

nesses.

Many attempts have been made to distribute the twelve articles of the Creed amongst the Apostles, but they are all artificial, and they betray unoriginality by their lack of correspondence with the historical origin and proper distribution of the various clauses. The traditional belief that these articles expressed the Faith of the Apostles is sufficient to account for the assignment of the articles to them. This assignment of the Creed to the Apos

For the form, compare Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, II, pp. 47–48; Burn, Introduction to the Creeds, p. 200.

The Latin original is given by Heurtley in his De fide et symbolo, 1869, translated into English in his On Faith and the Creed, 1886.

tles corresponds with similar assignments of the Didache, or Teaching of the Apostles, the Didascalia, the Constitution of the Apostles, etc. There is behind the legend the fact that Tertullian and Irenæus regard the Creed as apostolic in its statement of the Faith.

The Apostles' Creed in its present form can be traced to 700 A. D., about which time it was probably revised officially in Rome; for the Psalter of Gregory III, and Pirminius, a Benedictine missionary, both of the middle eighth century, quote it.'

The following table gives the Apostles' Creed in its proper divisions, and distinguishes the original form, in small capitals, from the additions of the fourth century, in italics, and the final additions, in ordinary type. The original words in parentheses were subsequently omitted.

1 For details of evidence, v. Caspari, Anecdota, p. 151; Burn, Introduction to the Creeds, pp. 233 seq. For the text in Latin, Greek, and English, see Schaff, II, p. 45; for the text in Latin, Burn, p. 240.

I BELIEVE

THE APOSTLES' CREED

I IN (ONE) GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, Maker of Heaven and Earth.

II (1) AND IN JESUS CHRIST, His only Son (GOD'S SON),

OUR LORD,

(2) Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, BORN OF THE VIRGIN MARY

(3) Suffered UNDER PONTIUS PILATE, was CRUCIFIED, dead AND BURIED; He descended into hell;

(4) THE THIRD DAY He rose again (RISEN) FROM THE

DEAD;

(5) He ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN;

(6) AND sitteth (SEATED) ON THE RIGHT HAND OF God THE FATHER Almighty;

(7) FROM THENCE HE SHALL COME TO JUDGE the Quick

I believe

AND THE DEAD.

III (1) (AND) IN THE HOLY GHOST,

(2) THE HOLY Catholic CHURCH, the communion of Saints

(3) THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS,

(4) THE RESURRECTION OF THE (FLESH) body, and the

life everlasting.

Amen.

CHAPTER II

GOD THE FATHER ALMIGHTY

THE first article of the Creed was originally a confession of Faith in the one personal God of the Old Testament, and all that was implied therein. It was based on the Shema, so-called from its initial Hebrew word.

"Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one.

Therefore thou shalt love Yahweh thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength" (Dt. 64-5).

This was followed by vv.69, and then by Dt. 1113–21 and Num. 1537-41. This Shema was the Confession of Faith, the Creed of Israel, said at morning and evening worship with appropriate prayers, of the nature of ascriptions to God, called Benedictions. Josephus1 testifies that this was the custom among the Jews from remote antiquity, therefore undoubtedly in the time of Jesus, and of Jesus Himself. This Shema was also written on parchment with Ex. 131-10, 11-16, Dt. 1113-21, and put in phylacteries worn on the head and arm at prayers. It was also written on parchment with Dt. 1113-21, and placed in the Mezuzah, affixed to the right-hand door-post of the Jewish house. All these were universal customs in the time of Jesus.

1 Ant., 48, 13; cf. Schürer, Gesch. des jüdischen Volkes, II, s. 382.

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