Brief thoughts on THE CREEDS
Obviously the creeds
are the result of
masses of theological ping-pong work back and forth in the churches and discussion (and
war!) over centuries. Ecumenical
Councils put their
findings into creeds- seven, though not
all crucial. They were all defensive of existing beliefs, orthodoxy worked
out in clear words. They do not initiate or introduce new teaching. Also they
are basic statements about Christ, and little about God. First here is
background.
The church developed between east and west, Antioch and Alexandria. Alexandria in the west is sometimes suspected
of Gnostic infiltrations, so that the Codex Vaticanus and Siniaticus – two of
the three major MS from which originally the Greek text was taken, (used for the AV)
that is the ‘Nestle’ text of the inter-linear publication, did not
(e.g.) publish the last chapter of Mark’s Gospel. That passage very strongly
supporting Christ’s Deity,
did not fit their outlook. There are now hundreds of Mss and
those with Antiochian pedigree do support that chapter. The age of a Ms is no guarantee that it is free from error as even less
old MS may have been copied from much earlier copies. This is a science,
textual criticism. (The first academic stuff I studied ready for the ministry when I was 17).
But these MS seem to run in ‘families’ and there is criteria to
judge.
In early times, obviously who Jesus was, what He was, would
have to be a matter of discussion, producing a variation of ideas. Was He
Man, God, or
both? Man has body soul and mind. How
did God take up manhood? Various heresies to fit God into man either mutilated
(reduced) Christ’s Deity or His Manhood.
(E.g. Appollarinius said the Divine was the animating principle of
spirit in Christ- making Christ was less
than man, and it was condemned at the
381 First Council of Constantinople.) Other
creeds speak of perfect man and perfect God, two natures in one person. This of
course led to more and more discussion right to this day with modern theology
which I need not say anything about here.
Gnostic teaching. The word
Gnostic means ‘knowledge’ and comes from the mystery religions where
‘knowledge’ – a secret formula was imparted at the initiating rituals of various
cults. Paul speaks ironically of
‘knowledge’ as the Corinthians boasted of it. To Gnostics material things and
the flesh were the work of an evil deity, (a Demiurge) and humans were sparks
of an ineffable unreachable Deity coming down to man in a series of gradations,
to be imprisoned in vile flesh. Gnostics fasted, to reduce the vileness of the
body. (Gnosticism has become a general
term for various theological fashions, and we Pentecostals were labelled
gnostic sometimes.)
The sole issue really at the First Nicaean Conference 325 called together by
the Emperor Constantine, recently become a Christian. It was not about Gnosticism
but about the eternal co-equality of the Son with the Father. Already there were beliefs in the OT of God’s
three apparently distinct activities, which made it difficult as Jesus would be
four. But these points were ironed out
as time went by.
Now the Nicaean (or Nicea) creed led to the Cappodocian Declaration
expressing in less technical terms the Deity of Christ. The Athanasian
creed -
which was not produced by an Ecumenical (world Council) but in the
western church in Gaul – France, speaks
of the three Persons of the Trinity as equal, (as said by Augustine, late 4th
century) and it is a Trinitarian account of Creation. I have turned up this
Athanasian creed quote:
“The Godhead of the
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one, the glory equal, the
majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father
is, such is the Son and such is the Holy Ghost.”
