only modes of His manifestation. They were also called Patripassians, because their opinion seemed to involve the Father as suffering the passion of Christ. They might say on the basis of the Old Roman Creed, God the Father is one. There is only one God, who is the Father. The Son of God cannot be another God, for there is only one God. He cannot be a different person from the Father, for the Father is the only God; therefore the Son can only be the Father in another mode of manifestation.

The omis

sion of one, which could not have been ambiguous when God the Almighty was used, but which became ambiguous when Father was used, would not be a yielding up of the doctrine of the unity of God, but would be the removal of an apparent inconsistency between that unity and the doctrine of the Trinity; for while Father might be used as the title of the one God, it was also used, and by Christians, more commonly, of the first person of the Trinity as distinguished from the second and third persons. It became more and more necessary to emphasize this in the Christological and Trinitarian conflicts of the third and fourth centuries.

The phrase, Maker of heaven and earth, was not in the Roman Creed of the fourth century, as is evident from the creeds of Rufinus and Marcellus.

It is true that in the first form of Irenæus we have: toY πεποιηκότα τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ τὰς θαλάσσας καὶ πάντα tà èv aŭtois (Adv. Hær., I, 10, § 1); and in the second form, preserved only in Latin, we have: Fabricatorem cœli et terræ, et omnium quæ in eis sunt (Adv. Hær., III, 4, §§ 1, 2). But in the third form he has: où tà xávta. It

is possible that Irenæus is here, as in other articles, using an Eastern form of the Creed, but it seems more likely that he is enlarging the statement of the Creed in order to emphasize the doctrine of creation implied therein. This is certainly true of Tertullian, who, in his first form, uses mundi conditorem (De Virg., 1); in the second, attaches creation to the Son: per quem omnia facta sunt, et sine quo factum est nihil (Adv. Prax., 2); and, in the third form: nec alium præter mundi conditorem, qui universa de nihilo produxerit, per Verbum suum primo omnium demissum. It should be evident from this that there was as yet no fixed formula as to the creation. Only one of these forms resembles that of the Creed, and this uses the participle for the noun, and is much fuller in statement.

On the other hand, the earliest Oriental Creeds have the doctrine of creation in various forms. The longer form of Cyril (350) has ποιητὴν οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς, ὁρατῶν τε πάντων καὶ dopáτwv, as it appears in the Constantinopolitan Creed (381). The Nicene Creed of 325 has only távtwv ópatív te καὶ ἀοράτων ποιητήν. The later official text of the Apostles Creed, creatorem cæli et terra, does not appear in any purely Gallican formula, that is, any west of Italy, before the twelfth century; although the influence of the Nicene Creed is often seen in such phrases as: omnium creaturarum visibilium et invisibilium conditorem. However, the Psalterium Latinum et Græcum Papa Gregorii (III, 731-741) contains it, and so does the sermon of the Benedictine missionary of the middle of the eighth century.

The opinion of Burn and Kattenbusch is, that it may have come into the Roman Creed through the influence of Niceta, the Bishop of Remesiana, in Dacia, who had a great influence in Rome in the early fifth century. He wrote an exposition of the Creed, which has been wrongly attributed to Nicetas of Aquileia, entitled Explanatio Symboli (Burn, p. 254). Niceta used the Catecheses of Cyril of Jerusalem, and the phrase seems to have come from Cyril's Creed. The phrase was taken from that

Creed into the Constantinopolitan. Naturally the same influence would take it into the Roman Creed at about the same time, at the beginning of the fifth century, after Rufinus and Marcellus had passed from history.

It is, indeed, an Old Testament formula, derived from the Sabbath section of the Ten Words, and contained in the formula of prayer, Acts 424.

This phrase seems to have become common in the ritual of public prayer, as a formula of invocation or ascription.

The interpretation of this article of the Creed undoubtedly varies from time to time, as that which is implicit is made explicit in interpretation and application to special times and circumstances.

Not only all the Biblical doctrine of God in the Old Testament and the New may be considered in the basis of the credal statement, but also all legitimate consequences of these doctrines, as determined by the Church in its historical formularies and Confessions of Faith. This is the variable element. The fixed element is, that which the article meant to its authors as an explicit summary of the Biblical Faith.

CHAPTER III

JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD, OUR LORD

THE second article of the Creed expresses faith in Jesus as the Messiah of the Old Testament, and as the Son of God, and Lord God of the New Testament.

I have already given reasons for the opinion that the original form of this article corresponded with the symbol of the fish.

Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.

It is improbable that these two formulæ, that of the Creed and that of the Fish, identical in meaning, should be different in form, when they both were secret symbols; for the memory, especially of untrained people, would have been confused by even slight verbal differences. The Saviour was omitted when the salvation was described in the subordinate articles that follow, and the more comprehensive our Lord was put in its place. All this is simply the putting together of the most characteristic titles of Jesus ascribed to Him in the New Testament. The fundamental confession of Faith is that of St. Peter, the spokesman of the Apostles. This is given in the four Gospels; in the simplest and original form: Thou art the Messiah (Mark 829).

The Book of Acts and the Epistles have a large number of passages which clearly show that salvation in apostolic preaching depended simply upon

believing that Jesus was the Messiah, or Son of God, or Lord, or Saviour (Acts 236-38, 531, 837, 920, 1631, I Cor. 123, Rom. 109-10, I John 415, 51, 5). These terms all came into the Creed.

(1) Jesus Christ.

There is a difference of opinion among scholars as to the order of Jesus and Christ. The weight of evidence for the second century is Jesus Christ, and when that is added to the order of words in the Symbol of the Fish there should be little doubt that this was the original order, especially as it is the usage that prevails in the Book of Acts and the Apostolic Fathers. It is also most natural that the three predicates of Jesus should all follow Jesus, unless Christ had become a proper name.

The name Jesus was the proper name of Jesus of Nazareth, given Him at His birth, according to Luke 221, in fulfilment of the words of the angel of the annunciation, Luke 13, and especially Mt. 12, where it is explained: "for it is He that shall save His people from their sins." It doubtless, therefore, had wrapped up in it the meaning of Saviour: but in fact it is used in the New Testament and subsequently as a proper name; and, when it is necessary to emphasize and distinguish the Lord Jesus from others of the same name, He is called Jesus of Nazareth.

The term Christ is a transliteration of xpoτós, a Greek translation of the Hebrew D, Messiah. At first it is used with reference to Jesus with the definite article, as in the Gospels, the Messiah; then later, in accordance with the well-known law that by famil