THE

FUNDAMENTAL CHRISTIAN FAITH

THE Christian Faith is essentially faith in Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour.

This Faith was preached by the Twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus Himself, and trained by Him for the purpose. They were specially commissioned by Jesus several times during His ministry on earth and after His resurrection, to make disciples of all nations, to teach the commands of their Lord, to baptize into His name, to celebrate the Eucharist of His body and blood, and to organize His Church for the perpetuation and propagation of the Christian Faith, and the maintenance of "unity and concord." 1

The Apostles and their associates were endowed by the Holy Spirit with charisms suited to their commission both by external theophanic manifestation on the day of Pentecost, and subsequently by His internal presence and guidance. They immediately acted, in the terms of their commission, under the guidance of the divine Spirit, in the organization of the Church and its institutions, and in the teaching and preaching of the Christian Faith.

1 V. Briggs, Apostolic Commission, in Studies in Honor of Basil L. Gildersleeve, 1902.

St. Paul, the highly educated and gifted Jewish rabbi and zealous persecutor of Christians, was converted by the christophany on the journey to Damascus into a Christian scholar and ardent missionary of the Gospel; and by our Lord's own special appointment, as well as that of the church at Antioch, commissioned as the apostle to the Gentiles. Other apostles, evangelists, and teachers were ordained by the Apostles to share in their ministry.

The primitive disciples received their Faith from the oral teaching of the Apostles and their associates, confirmed by miracles and manifestations of the divine Spirit, both objective and subjective. They were as Jews already instructed in the Old Testament Scriptures, which became to Christians as to Jews a divinely inspired and authoritative Canon.

In the latter half of the first century, written inst tion was added to the oral, at first in the epistles of St. Paul and other teachers, then in the Gospei. and other writings of the New Testament. Many o hese passed through several revisions at the hands of the Apostles and their pupils. Gradually those writings that were apostolic and divinely inspired were eliminated from others and collected as the Canon of the New Testament; the Gospels before the middle of the second century, the Epistles before the close of that century.1

The Church held to the apostolic teaching as the norm of Faith and Life, whether recorded in the Canon of the Old and New Testaments, or attested

1 Briggs, General Introduction to the Study of Holy Scripture, p. 134.

by the consensus of the churches established by the Apostles. Out of this tradition there gradually emerged a rule of Faith, a symbol or Creed, which was required of candidates for Christian baptism. This was based upon the Baptismal formula, and the Symbol of the Fish, which latter represented to primitive Christians the essential element of their Faith, Jesus Christ, God's Son, Saviour. This Rule of Faith was, therefore, essentially the same in all Christian churches throughout the world, though differing to some extent in the number of articles and in phraseology. This Baptismal Faith eventually became fixed in the form known as the Apostles' Creed, which may first be detected as the Roman Creed of the middle of the second century.

In the third century there was a great conflict of opinion as to the divinity of Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity; and therefore the Church had to define the Christian Faith over against heresies which arose with respect to these doctrines. The Council of Nicæa (325) adopted the Nicene Creed for this purpose, which at once became the Eucharistic Symbol throughout the Christian world. It was subsequently enlarged by taking up into itself the Eastern form of the Apostles' Creed, and so superseded it in the East as a baptismal symbol also. This Creed was regarded as a sufficient statement of the Christian Faith by the early Church; and is still so regarded by the Greek and Anglican Churches, if rightly interpreted in accordance with the New Testament and apostolic tradition. But its statements, as those

of all human documents, were capable of various other interpretations than the normal ones. Accordingly, when these erroneous interpretations arose in the form of serious heresies, it became necessary for the Church to rule out these heresies and to give the official, historical interpretation of the Apostolic Faith by œcumenical councils assembled for the purpose, in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries.

Another Creed was composed by some unknown author, probably of the School of Lerins in Gaul in the fifth century. Though private in its origin, it won its way to official acceptance, and was ranked with the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed during the Middle Ages in the West, and by the three great Churches of the Reformation as well as the Roman Church, as a third authoritative symbol. It adds nothing to the Faith of the Church, but puts it in a more dogmatic and Western form. It never received recognition in the East, not because of any objection to its doctrines, but because the East had no part in its composition, and it never gained any circulation there. There is no reason therefore to doubt its œcumenical character, if not in formal acknowledgment, at least in doctrinal consensus.

These three Creeds, as officially interpreted by ancient œcumenical councils, constitute the fundamental Christian Faith. They express officially the Faith of the Church in that stage of the development of its definitions which had been reached at the time they were composed. They cover the seven fundamen

centuries of the Christian Church, during which