Session 4: Development of the Canon and Creeds
Session 4: Development
of the Canon and Creeds
Introduction
The Church developed
an understanding of what constituted God’s written Word. The canon included Those
books that had been used in the churches with blessing and profitable
instruction. The writings the church accepted as canonical were attached to the
authority of an apostle.
We will look at
the “School of Alexandria,” which Articulated Christian faith using Greek
philosophy.
The first five
ecumenical councils are still considered Normative by most Christians. They
formed the basis for the Articles of Faith. What was decided at these councils
defined and preserved the faith of the New Testament. However, the language in
which it
expressed this
faith was not altogether clear and needed to be refined.
Objectives
At the end of this lesson, participants should
• understand the formation of
the official canon in the Early Church
•
explore the connection between the formation of The canon and the development
of
Christian orthodox thought
• understand the unique
challenges involved in formulating the canon
• explore ways we ought to
affirm, highlight, and perpetuate the canon of Scripture in
ministry
today
• review the common arguments of
the apologists and show their importance in the
development
of Christianity
•show
how Greek philosophy influenced Christian thinking
•
show the historical developments leading toward the Nicea-Constantinople (381)
and
Chalcedon (451) creeds
•
understand historically the human and divine nature of Christ in the doctrine
of the
Trinity
•
note the origins of the Articles of Faith of many denominations in early
council decision
Prepare Before Class
A. Read: Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, chapters
6, 10, and 11
Write a Big
Idea paragraph from your reading.
B. Read the following articles and give a one paragraph
answer to the question asked.
1
Development of the Canon
How
can we help people to distinguish between the inspired nature of the
Word
of God and other “inspirational” writings?
2.Reason
and Revelation: Early Church Apologetics
What are the ways in which the Christian church in your
culture today has
used contemporary thought
3.
The First Five Councils and Early Creed
What
role does an understanding of tradition have within the Wesleyan-holiness and
broader evangelical heritage?
C. Write in your journal. Reflect on and respond to the
following:
AUGUSTINE’S CONFESSIONS, READING
4
ARTICLES:
1. Development
of the Canon
Refer to Resource 4-1 in the Student Guide.
In classical Greek the word “canon” signified “a straight rod”
or “a carpenter’s rule.” Those books are canonical that Christians have regarded
as authentic, genuine, and of divine authority and inspiration.
Why was a canon of the Bible necessary? As long as the
apostles were alive, there was no pressing need for a canon of Scripture. But
following the deaths of these apostles it became necessary that their writings
be gathered together, in order to preserve their messages
to the churches from corruption.
Another reason a canon was necessary was to preclude the
possibility of additions to the number of inspired works. Numerous writings
were extant and purporting to be inspired. But which of these were really
inspired?
Development of the Old Testament Canon
About 200 B.C. rabbis translated the Old Testament from
Hebrew to Greek, a translation called the Septuagint (abbreviation: LXX). The
LXX ultimately included 46 books. The early Christians used the LXX as their
Scriptures. About A.D. 100, Jewish rabbis met at the Council of Jamniah and
decided to limit their canon to 39 books, since only these could be found in
Hebrew.
About A.D. 400, Jerome translated the Bible from Hebrew and
Greek into Latin—called the Vulgate. He knew the Jews had only 39 books, and he
wanted to limit the Old Testament to these, so he left out seven books: Tobit, Judith,
First Maccabees, Second Maccabees, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus),
and Baruch. He called these books apocrypha, that is, “hidden books.” But Pope
Damasus wanted all 46 traditionally used books included in the Old Testament.
So the Vulgate had 46 books. Martin Luther translated the Bible from Hebrew and
Greek to German. He assumed that since Jews wrote the Old Testament, their list
of 39 books was the correct canon. He put the extra seven books in an appendix
that he called, like Jerome, the Apocrypha. In 1546 the Roman Catholic Council
of Trent affirmed the
canonicity of
all 46 books.
Development of the New Testament Canon
Refer to Resource 4-2 in the Student Guide
It was some time after Christ before any of the books contained
in the New Testament were actually written. Founders of churches such as Paul,
often unable to visit them personally,desired to communicate with their
converts for purposes of counsel, reproof, and instruction. Thus arose the Epistles.
Within a short time books related to other apostles began to
appear. The first and most important work of the apostles was to deliver a
personal testimony to the chief facts of the life of Christ. Their teaching was
oral at first, and it was not their intention to create a permanent record. Several
committed this oral gospel to writing (Lk 1:1-4). Thus the Gospels came into existence,
two by apostles themselves (Matthew and John), and two by friends and close companions
of the apostles (Mark, a protégé of Peter, and Luke, the companion of Paul).
During the first century after the Resurrection many other
Christian books were being written. For example, the Didache was written
about A.D. 70, First Clement about 96, the Epistle of Barnabas about
100, and the seven letters of Ignatius of Antioch about 110.
In about 140, Marcion eliminated the Old Testament as Christian
scriptures and included only 10 letters of Paul and two-thirds of Luke’s
Gospel—deleting references to Jesus’ Jewishness—in his canon.
Marcion’s “New Testament”—the first to be compiled—forced
the Church to decide on a core canon. The Church’s first core canon included
the four Gospels andthe letters of Paul. Twenty books were readily and universally
accepted as genuine, and therefore called
homologoumena (acknowledged). These 20 books were:
• the four Gospels
• the Acts
• the Epistles of Paul—not
including Hebrews, which was later widely attributed to him
• the first Epistle of John
•
Peter
According to one list, compiled at Rome about 200, the Muratorian
Canon, the New Testament consisted of:
• the four Gospels
• Acts
• the 13 letters of Paul—Hebrews
not included
• First and Second John
• Jude
• the “Apocalypse of Peter”—not
included in the eventual canon
For a time particular churches disputed the other seven books: Hebrews, 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter,
Jude, James, and Revelation. Therefore
these books were called antilegomena
(disputed). The question at issue with regard
to the antilegomena was whether they were really written by the men who were
called their authors.
Hebrews bore no name of its author and differed in style
from the acknowledged letters of Paul. Second Peter differed in style from
First Peter. James and Jude called themselves “servants” and not “apostles.”
The writer of Second and Third John called himself an “elder” or “presbyter”
and not an “apostle.” Jude mentioned apocryphal stories. For these reasons
these books were not immediately allowed their place in the canon. Eventually,
however, they were accepted as
genuine. During the reign of Diocletian (302), persecutors
of the church demanded that Scripture
should be given up. The question became urgent: what did
constitute “Scripture” for the Christians?
The earliest existing list of the 27 books of the New Testament
in exactly the number and order the Church presently has them was written by
Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, in his Easter letter of 367. By the end of the
fourth century virtually all the churches accepted
these as authoritative.
Kelly, Early
Christian Doctrines, 56-60.
The Council of Florence in 1442 recognized the 27 books,
though it did not declare them unalterable. At the Council of Trent, the Roman
Catholic Church reaffirmed the full list of 27 books as traditionally accepted.
In his translation of the Bible from Greek into German, Luther
removed Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation from their normal order and placed
them at the end, stating that they are less than canonical. But universally,
Protestants agreed with the conclusions of the Councils of Florence and Trent,
as well as the Early Church, in considering the present 27 books of the New
Testament, along with the 39 books of the Old Testament, as the inspired and
authoritative Word of God.
The Apocryphal Books
Jews carefully distinguished the apocryphal writings from
the canonical Scriptures. The full Apocrypha contains 14 books: First and
Second Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the rest of Esther, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch,
the Song of the Three Children, the Story of Susannah, Bel and the Dragon, the
Prayer of Manasses, and First and Second Maccabees.
Some of the Fathers of the Christian church quoted from a
few of these books, but their titles were not included in any list of canonical
writings during the first four centuries after the birth of Jesus. Divine
authority is claimed by none of the writers, and by some it is virtually
disowned—Second Maccabees 2:23; 15:38. The books contain statements at variance
with other
parts of Old Testament history—Baruch 1:2, compared with
Jeremiah 43:6-7.
These books were placed between the Old and New Testaments
in Roman Catholic Bibles. In the Church of England some parts of the Apocrypha
were read “for example of life and instruction” but not to “establish any
doctrine.” No Protestant churches accepted these writings as a rule of faith.
From a historical point of view they are of value in showing the condition of
the
Jewish people, and relating certain events that intervene
between the closing of the Old Testament and the opening of the Christian era.
Conclusion
The canon of the Bible was established by the church. Christians
understand that it was established with the guidance of the Holy Spirit based
on which scriptures were used as authoritative guides to moral and doctrinal
issues the church faced. Three centuries of
church history sealed the selection.
Both Irenaeus and Tertullian contributed to the view that
the appeal to the Bible alone was not enough, since the Scriptures could be
interpreted differently. This, they feared, could lead to heretical teachings. Rather,
they argued for the need to interpret the Bible within the living tradition of
the church, which they and early Christians believed had actually preceded and
given birth to the canonical scriptures. This living tradition
or “rule of faith” came to be known as the “consensus fidelium”—the consensus
of the faithful— with the understanding that a belief or way of interpreting Scripture
must have been accepted everywhere, always, and by all people.
The Church of the Nazarene is indebted to John Wesley and
the Church of England for its understanding of the canon and its appreciation
of the continuity of the Old and New Testaments. The Church of the Nazarene affirms
the salvation-centeredness of the 66 canonical books of Scripture. Nazarenes
confess that the Scriptures are given by divine inspiration and inerrantly
reveal “the will of God concerning us in all things necessary
to our salvation, so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be
enjoined as an article of faith.” That is to say, all doctrines are to be
judged by Scripture.
2. Reason and Revelation: Early Church Apologetics
Refer to Resource 4-4 in the Student Guide.
Throughout its history the church has expressed the gospel
in ways that secular culture might understand. Evangelism begins with that
which is common in language and thought, bringing the message of redemption
through Christ to bear on present human conditions. Without some way of
speaking to culture, the gospel is “veiled,” and the church stands isolated within
its own walls, unable to address human needs with the gospel of Christ. It
loses its dynamic mission if it cannot speak intelligibly. The task of
mediating and speaking the gospel in ways that culture can stand is “apologetics.”
The aim of the apologists was to find prophecies or anticipations
of Christ in Gentile writers. The apologists sought to find in history and
literature persons and events that were “types” of Christ.
The Hellenistic worldview, shaped by Greek philosophers such
as Plato, flourished in the Roman
Empire—especially in Alexandria. This northern African city
was a key intellectual center in the empire. One key concept was Logos, which
Greek philosophers described as both reason and the creative force of the world.
Christian theologians attached their own understandings of Christ as the Logos
of God to the philosophers’ understandings.
Justin Martyr (100-165)
Refer to Resource 4-5 in the Student Guide.
Justin Martyr was born in Samaria to pagan parents. Early in
life, Justin traveled widely, searching for the true philosophy. He pursued
Stoicism, Pythagoreanism,
Aristotelianism, and Platonism.
Finding Christian philosophically and intellectually persuasive,
he was converted about the age of 30. After about 135 he taught in Ephesus and
then, after 155, in Rome. He considered himself a philosopher and wore the robe
of a philosopher. He found in Christianity the highest philosophical truth, but
sought to establish a relationship between Christianity and pagan
philosophy, between the Son of God and the cosmos. Three of
his works remain. Dialogue with Trypho the Jew defended the
Christian faith based upon Scripture. Justin’s first and second Apologies,
addressed to the Roman Senate, defended the Christian faith against persecution.
Wherever truth appeared, Justin believed, it belonged to
Christians. “Whatever things are rightly said among all men are the property of
us Christians.” There was an all-embracing truth in the meaning of existence
that transcended not only culture but also religion. Likewise, wherever truth
was found it was in principle included in Christianity. Wherever men and women
lived according to the Logos, or reason, they were Christians—whether
they called themselves that or not. Thus, pagan philosophers, though apart from
God’s manifestation in Christ, participated within the Logos. To Platonism,
Christianity added the truth that the Logos was the Son.
In his First and Second Apology, Justin talked
about truth in Socrates, and about how that indicated the prevenient work of
the Logos. Socrates had knowledge, for the Logos was “in every person” even before
becoming incarnate in Christ. Plato, Justin said, taught rightly about God
creating the world through the Logos. Those who lived by reason, as these philosophers
did, must be considered Christians since reason was the Logos, and the Logos
was Christ. Likewise, any who lived not by reason, whether before or after
Christ, were enemies of Christ. Plato, the
Stoics, pagan poets, and historians all saw truth very well
through their “participation of the seminal Divine Logos.”
Justin described how useful the concept of the Logos was,
since the Greeks themselves saw the Logos working throughout and within the
cosmos. However, Justin found it impossible, given Greek understandings of the
Logos, to identify it with the redemptive work of
God in Christ. Justin gave a higher power, authority, and
divinity to the Father than to the Son. “The first power after God the Father
and Lord of all things is the Word, who is also his Son, who assumed human
flesh and became man.” The Logos was the first “work” or generation of God as Father,
and as such could not be thought of as identical with God. Christians worshiped
the Son after God the Father, said Justin. The Logos was of
one essence with God, but was not the God. The Logos became human in order to share
human suffering, that human beings might be healed.
Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, aimed more to Jewish than
to Hellenistic concerns, describes nevertheless in Greek terms how God had
begotten of himself a certain rational power as a beginning before all other creatures.
This power had various titles, including Glory of the Lord, Son, Wisdom, Angel,
God, Lord, and Logos. It was called the Logos because it revealed to
men and women the discourses of the Father. The Logos was
distinct from the Father, Justin said, as it was generated from the Father
according to His power and will. The metaphor Justin used was fire. He showed
that in substance and in number the Father
remains the same and undivided.
Justin sometimes described God in personal ways as the
Creator, and at other times in less personal ways as Being. This reflected the
Hebrew and Hellenistic tension in his thought. The Logos was the principle of the
self-manifestation of God and became incarnate only in Jesus as the Christ.
Because of this, Christianity is the supreme religion. Christianity embraced
all the
best and highest cultural expressions of reason. The Logos
incarnated was the culmination not only of the yearnings of Hebrew prophets but
of Greek philosophers. Wherever it existed, the Logos was the self-manifestation
of God. In becoming Christ—flesh— the Logos itself is transformed, not
“adopted.” Justin realized the Greek mind had difficulty understanding how an
eternal principle such as the Logos could become flesh. Their polytheistic and mythological
orientation gave them no trouble seeing God as human, but the issue was how
Christ could
claim supremacy. Greeks could accept that the Christ could
contain some element or characteristic of God, but not deity itself. Justin’s
answer to these problems, centered in his Logos Christology, attempted to
provide reasons for Christ’s supremacy. In Christ, Justin
affirmed that God himself, who had always been partially
revealed to human beings through the eternal Logos, became human.
Yet, in his attempt to identify Jesus with the eternal Logos
of the Greeks, Justin fell short of affirming his full divinity. The Father, for
Justin, retained precedence above the Logos. Justin was “subordinationist,”
thus, in his Christology. Justin’s apologetics did not spare him the wrath of pagans.
In particular, he was opposed by Junius Rusticus, a prominent Roman politician
in the time of Marcus Aurelius. The state required that Justin sacrifice to the
gods. When Justin refused, and confessed his faith, he was condemned by
Rusticus, scourged, and beheaded.
Clement of Alexandria (d. c. 211/216)
Refer to Resource 4-6 in the Student Guide.
To Clement, philosophy was a preparation, “paving the way
for the one who is perfected in Christ.” God was in everything good, and in
everything good one could find God. Philosophy was a schoolmaster or “tutor to
bring the Hellenic mind to Christ.” Greek philosophy was similar to the Old Testament.
Both were “tributaries” leading into the “river” of Christianity. To the
Gentiles, Socrates played the same function as Moses. One could see the
“unknown Jesus,” Clement believed, in Plato’s Republic.
The Logos was the unifying principle of Clement’s theology.
In it he tried to reconcile not only Hebrew and Hellenist thought, but also grace
and nature. He drew sources from Platonism, Philo (the Jewish philosopher who
had, in turn, been influenced by the Stoics), and the New Testament. Clement
defined the deity of Christ in keeping with the Logos Christology. He strove
after a life lived perfectly according to the Logos: a logikan life. His
emphasis was on a state of
being rather than a state of accomplishment.
The Logos brought order to the universe. God himself remained
remote. God is defined in Clement more by what He is not than by what He is.
The only positive statement regarding God was that He existed. Only through the
Logos did God emerge into relationship. The Logos was the bond between God and
the cosmos. The Logos existed before the creation and before the
Incarnation. Its existence allowed the Greeks and other ancients
to understand the world. Yet the Logos stood independent of the world processes
The Logos is God, to Clement, and deserving of humanity’s
love and praise. Yet the Logos’s mediatory position involved subordination.
Clement sometimes suggested two Logoi, one in the Father and the other distinct
from Him. The Logos/Christ, to Clement, was impersonal. It could be described
as power, wisdom, or the activity of God. Though impersonal, these qualities were
not altogether metaphysical. They related to how God communicated to the cosmos.
Only through the Logos did God’s solitude and absoluteness become related to
the world.
The Logos was the basis for education in the world. The
Logos gave rise to both the philosophy of the Greeks and the Law of the
Hebrews, the intelligence of the Greeks and the will and love of the Hebrews.
The Logos continued to reprove, reward, draw, and harmonize creation in the
direction of God. In the Logos there was both light and joy, the Savior and the
Physician.
In the Logos the incomprehensible God is made comprehensible.
This is the ongoing, eternal, and preexisting work of the Logos. The begetting
of the Son is the first step by which God willed to limit His own infinity.
In his Exhortation to the Greeks, Clement interacted with
the philosophers. Greek understandings about God, Clement believed, must have
come in part from some unrecorded historical connections with the Hebrews long
before the coming of Christ. In Plato he found the highest conceptualization of
God. God was, as Plato described, Infinite or the Mind above the Infinite.
Plato was correct, said Clement, in saying that God was indescribable. Clement
also appreciated the Greek and Stoic ideal of the contemplative life. “There is
a certain divine effluence instilled into all men without exception,” Clement
wrote, “but especially into those who spend their lives in thought.” Only the
Logos or reason, which is the “Sun of the soul,” can show human beings the true
God.
Since Christ has come, there is no need to maintain Greek
philosophy, Clement said. Through the Logos Incarnate the whole world has
become as if it were an Athens or a Greece. That which the philosophers had only
dimly perceived had become light in Christ. In Christ the divisions between
Jews and Greeks and barbarians were obliterated. In Christ humanity is united
into one. The Logos gave light to all men and women, spread truth around the
world, and brought love. In the souls of men and women the “spark of true nobility
is kindled afresh by the divine Logos.”
Clement accepted the truth of much of Hellenist philosophy,
since to him, all truth was an act of God. Philosophy in Greek culture was
analogous to the Hebrew’s Law. Thus it was a “handmaiden” leading people to
Christ. This made faith less important in
knowing truth.
Clement possessed an allegorical interpretation of Scripture.
The deeper meanings were uncovered through allegorical interpretation, though
he pointed out that the primary meaning must not be discarded, and meanings
must also be interpreted in the light of the rest of Scripture.
After his death, the church accused Clement of Arianism for reducing
the Son to a creature. Sometimes, indeed, Clement was subordinationist, but at
other times he declared the full divinity of Christ. Clement’s theology
suggested a kind of absenteeism of the sovereign God from the world. To
Clement, the immanence of God was associated with emanation. Clement lacked a
strong sense of the person of Christ and the person and work of the Holy
Spirit.
Origen (182-252)
Refer to Resource 4-7 in the Student Guide.
Origen, a student of Clement, was also an apologist from
Alexandria. Origen was born in Egypt of Christian parents. His father was
killed during persecutions in 202. The same year, Origen became head of the Catechetical
School in Alexandria. Like Clement, Origen was a faithful participant within
the church. Origen lived an ascetic life of celibacy, fasting, vigils, and voluntary
poverty. Origen’s On First Principles (220) was the first systematic theology
of Christianity. After many years of teaching, he was ordained a priest in 230.
He underwent persecution and torture under Emperor Decius in 250.
Origen’s commentaries covered almost the whole Bible. Origen
believed there were three levels in Scripture that needed to be unfolded: the
somatic or literal interpretation, the psychic or moral interpretation, and the
pneumatic or spiritual interpretation. Like Clement, Origen used allegorical
methods of interpretation.
Origen described the Logos as the inner Word and
selfmanifestation of God. The Son revealed the image of God. The Logos was the
creative power of being, in which the whole spiritual world was united, and the
unmoved universal principle effecting creation. The Logos implanted its form in
all things it created. The Logos radiated eternally the divine “abyss.” The
Logos was generated out of divine substance and was of divine substance. However,
for Origen, the Logos was less than the Father, who was autotheos, or
God in itself.
The Logos was the highest of all generated realities, but
Origen believed in contrast to his predecessors, the Son as the Logos was
eternally generated and was truly and completely divine. The Logos had a substantial
reality in the Godhead, Origen said, and was not merely the mode by which
humans understood God. The Logos was the perpetual intermediary
between God and creation, between the One and the many.
Origen clearly said the Logos of God was not a mere attribute,
nor an “entity,” but a separate “person.” The Logos takes away all in human
beings that is irrational and replaces it with that which is truly reasonable.
The Logos is the source of all that is reasonable, and dwelled in every reasonable
creature. The Logos was within every seeker. To them, the Logos reported the secrets
of the Father. He was the Messenger of the Father’s intellect.
The Logos united itself with the soul of Jesus who, like all
of humanity, in Origen’s thought, possessed an eternal spirit. Only in Jesus
was the Logos united with the human. The soul was the locus between the Logos of
God and the body. The human soul was the “bride” of the Logos. Though
incarnated, the Logos never ceased to exist also outside of Jesus, since it
existed in the form of all created things. Likewise, the Logos had spiritual
being after the Incarnation. When men and women followed the example of the Logos
they became logikoi—ones guided by meaning, reason, and creative power.
The ones who participate in the Logos are in a full state of grace. To such
human beings came, in union with Christ, a kind of “deification.”
Christological problems remained in Origen’s formulations.
The Father and Son, in his thought,
remained dissimilar. His idea that the Father remained above
the Son was subordinationist.
Origen’s descriptions of God are nearer to the passive and
transcendent God of Greek philosophy than the involved and immanent God of the
Old Testament. Origen finds affinities between his thought and the Greeks’
contemplative ideals of life removed from the world. The assumption is that the
ultimate deity of God could not stand to enter into the world. There is a realm
of the ideal where God keeps himself distant from humanity. Thus the Logos,
which Origen affirms
is eternal, serves as the Mediator. Christ alone represents
the “with-ness” of God to creation.
Analysis
Adolph von Harnack, a prominent German historian at the turn
of the twentieth century, remarked that syncretism was an accomplished fact in
Origen. In Origen, von Harnack says, one sees the church accommodating to the
pagan tendencies of the Gentile
world.
Ronald Nash, Jaroslav Pelikan, and other more recent historians,
however, do not look at this part of the history of the church as one of
compromise with the world. Unlike von Harnack, they do not see the church surrendering
to Platonism or Hellenism. Christian theology, as it developed as a discipline,
simply employed the intellectual curiosity of the Greeks.
While Tertullian was asking, rhetorically, “What has Athens
to do with Jerusalem?”—when it was suitable for him to do so—Tertullian used
Stoic philosophy and cited various philosophers. The principle allowed missionaries
to affirm whatever could be affirmed in the cultures and religions prevailing
around them, and to see Christianity as perfecting and fulfilling indigenous
expectations.
The apologists had a noble intention, to interpret and explain
the gospel to the Greeks. However, their reinterpretation of the Christ event,
using Logos terminology, inadequately expressed the affirmations of the church,
that God himself was the Creator, that God was in Christ reconciling the world,
and that Jesus was both fully divine and fully human. The apologists saw the
need to express Christology so as to preserve the transcendent impassibility of
God, so as not to offend Greek minds. Yet the immanence of God himselfwas
central to Old and New Testament revelation.
Wesleyanism helps on several of the issues over which the
apologists were concerned. There is a prior work of God in the world related to
the work of the Holy Spirit, who woos and lures men and women to faith in
Christ, and who works at all times and places in all people. As the apologists
considered the Logos to be within every human being, Wesleyans would say that
the Holy Spirit is striving with every man and woman to bring them to
Christ.
Any theology runs into the same challenges as faced the
apologists. The Christian gospel must not be compromised. Yet the gospel must
be spoken in ways relevant and recognizable to the people.
3. The First Five Councils and Early Creeds
Early in the church’s history, followers summarized what
they believed in short statements of faith. The church held councils to decide
questions that arose over theological and practical issues. The apostles themselves
held the first council. Almost always, later
councils were called for in response to heresies, or supposed
heresies, and schismatic movements in the church.
One cannot understand the councils and creeds apart from
understanding the heresies facing the church. The councils and creeds were
attempts to define the boundaries of orthodox Christian faith. Their concise statements
of faith were based on the Bible, but new theological concepts and categories
were used to explain what the Bible meant.
The councils chose particular words very carefully. Each
word was filled with nuances of meaning related to heretical movements and
confusions in the church. Neither the councils nor creeds were “inspired” in
the same way as the Bible. Nonetheless, they proved helpful to believers. Their
decrees gained wide acceptance. The church believed that whatever the social
and political background of the councils, their decisions were guided by the
Holy Spirit.
The Western and Eastern Churches, including most Protestants,
accept at least the first five councils as being authoritative in their
interpretations of scriptural doctrines. They cover the period between 325 and
553.
Eight councils convened before the breakup of the Eastern
and Western branches of the church, the last one taking place in Constantinople
869-870. After 869- 870 there were other councils that various sectors of the
church believe equally authoritative.
The last three councils Roman Catholics consider as binding
upon the church are the Council of Trent that met 1545-63, the First Vatican
Council that met more than three hundred years later, 1869-70, and the Second
Vatican Council, which met from 1962 to 1965.
The Apostles’ Creed
Refer to Resource 4-8 in the Student Guide.
One ancient statement of faith is called the Apostles’ Creed,
though the apostles themselves did not write it. What became known as the
Apostle’s Creed came into church history only sometime after the first Council
of Nicea, in the late fourth century, when it was referred
to by Ambrose. At the time, there was already the legend
that the apostles had composed it. Its origins may have been in Iberia or Gaul.
The Apostles’ Creed is based on the shorter Old Roman Creed
used in baptismal services in the church of Rome since the second century. The origins
of this creed, however, are uncertain. The Christological section may have come
first and may have been intended to counteract the heresies of adoptionism, monarchianism,
and docetism.
Churches from various ancient cities had forms of Trinitarian
creeds that were similar in composition. The Old Roman Creed may have been
developed first as a catechism, answering certain basic questions regarding the
faith.
The minister would have begun by asking the person desiring
to be baptized, “Do you believe in God the Father Almighty?” to which the
catechumen responded, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.”
The next question may have been, “Do you believe in Christ
Jesus, the Son of God?” to which the answer would have been, “I believe in
Christ Jesus His only Son, our Lord, who was born from the Holy Spirit and the
Virgin Mary, who under Pontius Pilate was crucified, and buried, on the third
day rose again from the dead, ascended to heaven, sits on the right hand of the
Father, whence He will come to judge the living and the dead.”
The last question would have had to do with the Holy Spirit
and the church, to which the catechumen responded, “I believe in the Holy
Spirit, the holy church, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh.”
Like the Old Roman Creed, often the Apostles’ Creed was used
when adults were baptized. New followers of Jesus said “I believe” to these
basic Christian beliefs. The Apostles’ Creed affirms:
I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and
earth;
And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord: who was
conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was
crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into hades; on the third day he arose again
from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God
the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the
communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and
the life everlasting. Amen.
\
The Apostles’ Creed tells about the work of God the Father,
Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. The Father, the Creed affirms, is the
Creator.
The Son is he divine-human Savior. Jesus’ divine nature is
affirmed in how He was conceived—by the Holy Spirit rather than by a human. His
divine nature is further affirmed in His rising into heaven. It is maintained
in how He now lives as God in heaven, and in how He will return to earth as
Judge.
Jesus’ humanity is shown in His being born to Mary. His
humanity also is shown in His suffering, and in His dying. The Creed mentions
that He suffered when Pontius Pilate was governor. This makes it clear that He
lived and died at a particular time and place.
Like Him, the Creed says, one day Christians also will be
raised from the dead. The Creed affirms the resurrection of bodies—“spiritual
bodies” (1 Cor 15:44)—when He comes again.
Christ was born in history. He redeems in history. He will
come again in history.
The things mentioned in the Creed’s last sentences are about
the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives life to the Church. The Church is the
fellowship of believers or “saints”—true followers of Jesus. Within the Church,
through the Holy Spirit, among the believers, one finds forgiveness for sins.
If they remain faithful, forgiving parts of His Church, the meaning is,
Christians will
have fellowship with Him and with fellow believers forever.
The Creed guarded the Church from mistaken beliefs. It
offered no ideas that were not in the Bible. But it did not answer all questions.
Such as, how was the Son related to the Father and the Holy Spirit?
The Apostles’ Creed was simpler and shorter than the Nicene
Creed, but there were similarities. Like the Nicene Creed, the Apostles’ Creed
was organized into three sections dealing with the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit. The present form used by Western churches—it is not used among
Eastern churches— dates to the early eighth century. Charlemagne popularized
its use later in the same century. It became the most widely affirmed creed
used at baptisms in the Middle Ages and made its way into regular liturgical
use.
Tradition and
Heritage
The church’s historic understanding of the Trinity—a word
that is not in the Bible—was crucial for the church. It guarded it from errors.
The doctrine of the Trinity affirmed that the One God is Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit.
Some followers had made it seem that there were three Gods.
They separated the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from each other. Others
mistakenly taught that the Son and the Holy Spirit were created beings and not
fully God.
But the church always worshiped Jesus as Lord. If Jesus were
not God, it would be wrong to worship Him. The Bible spoke of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit each as being God. Each was involved in salvation. An
angel told Mary the Holy Spirit—the “power of the Most High”—would come upon her.
The angel told her the “Holy One” to be born would be called the “Son of God”
(Lk 1:35). In this, with Jesus the Son conceived in Mary, the church saw the
work of the Father and the Holy Spirit.
The Bible also described the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at
Jesus’ baptism. The Holy Spirit descended like a dove. A voice from heaven
said, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Lk 3:22). After
His baptism Jesus was “full of the Holy Spirit” and
remained in the “power of the Spirit” even after His temptations
(4:1, 14).
After His resurrection, Jesus told His disciples, “I am going
to send you what my Father has promised.” But, He told them, “stay in the city
until you have been clothed with power from on high” (Lk 24:49). Jesus was
referring to the Holy Spirit, whom the disciples
received on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4). Again, the church
saw combined work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The church learned how to define and describe carefully the
union of the deity and humanity in the person of the Son and the Trinity. It
learned how neither to divide the person of Christ, nor confound or confuse the
human and divine natures. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit shared the divine
nature. Only Christ shared the human nature. Christ acted through both His
human and divine natures. In one sense He was omnipresent, omniscient, and
omnipotent, while, at the same time, He was localized and limited. The church
learned how to avoid both modalistic dispensationalism and tritheism. The orthodox
doctrine accepted by the church affirmed that Jesus was one person, fully God
and fully human. But the church’s wisest theologians realized that human beings
could not fully comprehend the Trinity. It remained a mystery. What is clear is
that both the Bible and Christian experience make these doctrines necessary.
Analysis
While the church draws us back to Scripture, and aims for
every belief to be Bible-based, decisions the church made long ago about what
the Bible means continue to guide and instruct us. A right understanding of
Jesus Christ and the Trinity remain crucial for the church. The conclusions of
the councils set the basis for the affirmations of faith made by many
Christians in their disciplines and Articles of Faith or religion.
The Church of the Nazarene, in language still in debtedto
the early councils, affirms the “Triune God” in the first article of faith:
We believe in one eternally
existent, infinite God, sovereign of
the universe; that He only is God, creative
and administrative, holy in nature, attributes,
and purpose; that He, as God is Triune in
essential being, revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In support of this theology, the church finds these scriptures
helpful: Genesis 1; Leviticus 19:2;
Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Isaiah 5:16; 6:1-7; 40:18-31; Matthew
3:16-17; 28:19-20; John 14:6-27; 1
Corinthians 8:6; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Galatians 4:4-6; and
Ephesians 2:13-18.
The origins of this statement were in John Wesley’s Methodist
Articles of Religion, based upon the Church of England’s article which reads:
There is but one living and true
God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom,
and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and
invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance,
power, and eternity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
The Church of the Nazarene affirms, regarding Jesus Christ:
We believe in Jesus Christ, the
Second Person of the Triune Godhead; that He was eternally one with the Father;
that He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary, so
that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say the Godhead and manhood, are
thus united in one Person very God and very man, the God-man. We believe that
Jesus Christ died for our sins, and that He truly arose from the dead and took
again His body, together with all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s
nature, wherewith He ascended into heaven and is there engaged in intercession
for us.
The church finds these scriptures helpful in understanding
the person and work of Jesus Christ:
Matthew 1:20-25; 16:15-16; John 1:1-18; Acts 2:22-36; Romans
8:3, 32-34; Galatians 4:4-5; Philippians2:5-11; Colossians 1:12-22; 1 Timothy
6:6-14,16;Hebrews 1:1-5; 7:22-28; 9:24-28; 1 John 1:1-3; 4:2-3, 15.
And the Church of the Nazarene affirms, regarding theHoly
Spirit:
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Third Person of the Triune Godhead, that He is ever present and efficiently
active in and with the Church of Christ, convincing the world of sin,
regenerating those who repent and believe, sanctifying believers, and guiding
into all truth as it is in Jesus.
The scriptures that the church finds supportive of this understanding
of the Holy Spirit include John 7:39;14:15-18, 26; 16:7-15; Acts 2:33; 15:8-9;
Romans8:1-27; Galatians 3:1-14; 4:6; Ephesians 3:14-21; 1Thessalonians 4:7-8; 2
Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter1:2; and 1 John 3:24; 4:13.
AUGUSTINE’S CONFESSIONS, READING 4
BOOK THREE
The story of his student days in Carthage, his discovery of
Cicero’s Hortensius, the enkindling of his philosophical interest, his
infatuation with the Manichean heresy, and his mother’s dream which foretold
his eventual return to the true faith and to God.
CHAPTER I
1. I came to Carthage, where a caldron of unholy loves was
seething and bubbling all around me. I was not in love as yet, but I was in
love with love; and, from a hidden hunger, I hated myself for not feeling more intensely
a sense of hunger. I was looking for something to love, for I was in love with
loving, and I hated security and a smooth way, free from snares. Within me I
had a dearth of that inner food that is yourself, my God—although that dearth
caused me no hunger. And I remained without any appetite for incorruptible
food—not because I was already filled with it, but because the emptier I became
the more I loathed it. Because of this my soul was unhealthy; and, full of
sores, it exuded itself forth, itching to be scratched by scraping on the
things of the senses. Yet, had these things no soul, they would certainly not inspire
our love. To love and to be loved was sweet to me, and all the more when I
gained the enjoyment of
the body of the person I loved. Thus I polluted the spring of
friendship with the filth of concupiscence and I dimmed its luster with the
slime of lust. Yet, foul and unclean as I was, I still craved, in excessive
vanity, to be thought elegant and urbane. And I did fall precipitately into the
love I was longing for. My God, my mercy, with how much bitterness didst you,
out of
your infinite goodness, flavor that sweetness for me! For I
was not only beloved but also I secretly reached the climax of enjoyment; and
yet I was joyfully bound with troublesome tics, so that I could be scourged
with the burning iron rods of jealousy, suspicion, fear, anger, and strife.
Preparation for Session 5
A. Read: Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, chapters
12 and 16
Write a Big
Idea paragraph from your reading.
B. Read the following articles and give a one paragraph
answer to the question asked.
1 Ministry
in the Early Church
How
does ministry today compare with ministry in the Early Church?
2.Monasticism
in the Early Church
What is the ideal of holiness expressed through monasticism?
3.
The Expansion of the Church in Western Europe
What
methods or strategies were used to expand the Church is Western Europe?
C. Write in your journal. Reflect on and respond to the
following:
AUGUSTINE’S
CONFESSIONS, READING 5
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