CHAPTER II - THE FAITH IN APOSTOLIC TIMES

I. What we look for in the epistles of the New Testament

Many attempts have been made to extract a formal Apostles' Creed from the New Testament by comparison and combination of various passages. However ingenious, they always fail to prove more than this - that there was an outline of teaching (τύπος διδαχῆς Rom.vi.17) upon which apostolic preachers and writers were agreed.  Their message was of Jesus crucified and risen from the dead, of repentance, of baptism for the remission of sins, of faith in His name as the motive power of moral conduct, of confession of that faith as the condition of spiritual health.

"For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Rom.x.10.)

This was their gospel for the man in the street. Those who followed them, and desired to know more of the mystery of Christ, found that all future instruction was based upon this foundation. All that could be told of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, who went about doing good, led up to the supreme act of self-sacrifice on the cross as the highest revelation of Divine love. In this sense it is true that "the cross is the best compendium of the gospel history." (Zahn, Das ap. Symbol., 1893, p.101.) It is the keynote of the sermons of S. Peter and S. Paul. When S. Luke wrote for Theophilus "of the things most surely believed among us," he could appeal to his friend's remembrance of catechetical instruction as carrying on echoes of the same deep tone. Through the centuries to come this must be the vantage ground of faith—

And thou must love me who have died for thee!

There is no lack of historical illustrations outside the beaten track.  The rude caricature of a figure with an ass's head crucified, which was discovered some years ago on the Palatine Hill at Rome, with the rudely traced inscription, "Alexamenos worships his God," witnesses more eloquently than many words to the faith which to the world seemed foolishness, but has outlived the memory of its persecutors.

To Christians the cross was not the symbol of defeat but of victory. They believed that the power of Christ's resurrection gave them courage to seek the fellowship of His sufferings.

I will endeavour to prove that this teaching was summed up in an act of confession of faith, which was required from all the baptized, and possessed the character of an historic faith even in its most primitive and simple form, "Jesus is the Lord." Faith in the person of Christ alone leads to belief of His words in the Baptismal Formula:

Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost
(Matt.xxviii.19).

These simplest elements of apostolic preaching are the seed-thoughts out of which grew the later creeds.

II. the evidence of admitted Pauline epistles

Our task is in some ways made easier by the intense glare of criticism, which, like a brilliant searchlight, has been cast over every line in early Christian documents. But it is also made more responsible. No chain is stronger than its weakest link.  It is therefore advisable to discuss first the evidence of documents of recognised authenticity.

In the four admitted epistles of S. Paul we find stated the whole series of doctrines to which we have referred as the groundwork of apostolic preaching. They would suffice as the basis of all future discussion in this chapter. Their dates are known. They link the generation of Paul of Tarsus to the generation of Ignatius of Antioch. They link the thoughts of men who were contemporaries of the Lord Jesus, with the new thoughts of men who had grown up since the destruction of Jerusalem; when "the sect everywhere spoken against" had made converts even in Caesar's palace, and planned the evangelisation of the world. These are the Epistles to the Corinthians and Galatians, written, as is generally held, in the year AD 57, and the Epistle to the Romans, written in the spring of the following year.

In the words, "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, save in the Holy Ghost" (1 Cor..3), faith is traced to its source, and its proper object is stated as a personal act of trust in a Divine person. Yet more clearly is the high aim of faith stated in the earnest exhortation:

If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved (Rom.x.9). 

There is no limitation here to the fulness of the apostle's Messianic hope. He traces back the prediction of " this word of faith," (Dr. Robertson, Athanasius, p. x., shows that in this remarkable passage Κύριον Ἰησοῦν - Kyrion 'Isoun = αὺτὸν = Κύριον = 'הוח (Joel ii. 32). which is the staple of his preaching, to the lips of the prophet Joel (chap.ii.32). He implies that the Lord Jesus is one with the Lord Jehovah, on whose name the prophet bade men call. We may compare the teaching in 1 Cor.i.2, where he tries to stop factious disputes by reminding the Corinthians of the larger life of Christendom among those who "call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place."

Well might he turn upon his foes, found even in "the household of faith," Judaisers among his Galatian converts, with the declaration that his one theme of boasting is " the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal.vi.14).  "The rule" by which he exhorted the Galatians to walk (ibid. 16) was the confession of faith in Christ crucified, in whom there is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision.

The only formal statement in these passages is the simple confession that "Jesus is the Lord." But the teaching about the life of holiness which He had lived, the institution of the Holy Communion "the same night that He was betrayed," His death and resurrection, leaves out no essential element in the story of the Gospels' evidence, and as such is more valuable, because it assumes that these Churches in Galatia and Corinth and Rome were in possession of the traditional story of the life of Christ. Inferences are drawn which would be utterly unintelligible to us were we not in possession of the key to their explanation. (Thus Zahn, op. cit. p.64, suggests that Gal.iv.4, "born of a woman," in that context implies a reference to the miraculous birth.)

From these foreshadowings of an historic faith, which give a summary of the teaching about the Lord Jesus, we turn to the theological arguments that the apostle connects with them.

To us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, ... and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things (1 Cor.viii.6). 

Our thoughts are led by "the same Spirit," who teaches us to confess "the same Lord," up to faith in "the same God," who worketh all in all (1 Cor..4-6). The final benediction expresses a similar train of thought:

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all (2 Cor.i.13).

Thus we find blended in the teaching of S. Paul the thoughts, which are unfolded in the later Apostles' Creed, of the mystery of Divine life, and of the life which Jesus, the Son of God, lived under human conditions. If all the rest of the New Testament had perished, we might still have pointed to these Epistles to explain alike its Trinitarian framework and its Christological tradition.

THE EARLIEST CONFESSION

(The numerals refer to the numbering of the divisions and clauses of the Apostles' Creed adopted throughout.)

III. the epistles of his captivity

The Epistles to the Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians, which were written during S. Paul's imprisonment at Rome, cannot be said to add much to our information as to a form of creed, which the apostle can be said to have used. There is the constant repetition of the title Lord Jesus Christ to confirm the supposition that this was his one formula. There is the evidence of several Trinitarian sentences, which may be compared with the benediction (2 Cor.i.13), and as clearly point to the words of the Lord in the Baptismal Formula for their origin. As before, he leads the thoughts of his readers up from the " one Spirit," in whom they are united, to the " one Lord " and " one God " and Father of all (Eph.iv.4-6).  Conversely, he gives thanks to "God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," having heard of the "faith" of the Colossians "in Christ Jesus," and their "love in the Spirit" (Col.i.3, 4, 8).  The importance of these epistles consists in the development of S. Paul's Christological teaching, but this belongs to the sphere of dogmatic theology, and we cannot discuss it. Our profound interest is aroused by his teaching of the Gospel of Creation, as we might call it, the eternal purpose of the incarnation, in Col.i.15-18. That teaching is developed when he writes to the Philippians of the humiliation to which the Son of God must stoop in taking our nature upon Him, his Gospel of the Incarnation (Phil.ii.5-11). And it is completed in His Gospel of the Ascension, when he writes to the Ephesians (i.20-23) that He who was nailed to the cross had raised our manhood to the throne of heaven

Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.

The active mind of the apostle had not been warped by imprisonment, and the justification of the great thoughts that crowded upon him may be found in the moral influence that his epistles exert to this day.

IV. the acts and the pastoral epistles

The same keynote is struck in the sermons of S. Peter in the Acts. On the day of Pentecost he assumes that the gift of the Holy Spirit is the fulfilment of the word of the Lord by the same prophet Joel, whose words S. Paul used to emphasize the mystery of Divine life in Christ. He asserts in the same way that Jesus is the Lord, the Christ, whom the Jews crucified, of whose resurrection the apostles are witnesses, who has ascended (Acts ii.33).  On these historical facts he bases an appeal that his hearers should repent and be baptized for the remission of sins.  In chapter iii., having laid stress on the same points, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, God's Son, he adds that He will come again.  In chapter i., S. Paul's sermon at Antioch in Pisidia covers the same ground. A Saviour, Jesus, the Son of God, was crucified, raised, through whom is preached forgiveness of sins. It is interesting to note here the reference to Pilate

(ver.28: "Though they found no cause of death in Him, yet desired they Pilate that He should be slain"),

which occurs in one of the four sermons of S. Peter. Apart from the question of the formula used in baptism, which can be discussed separately on its own merits, there can be no doubt as to the Trinitarian belief of the author of the Acts.  The whole book has been called "the Gospel of the Holy Spirit."

The Pastoral Epistles add personal touches to this general exhortation of large crowds. S. Paul reminds Timothy (1 Tim.vi.12) of the confession before many witnesses which he had made, presumably at his baptism. He calls it the beautiful confession (καλὴν ὁμολογίαν) to which Christ Jesus has borne witness before Pontius Pilate, and charges him before God, who quickeneth all things, to keep this commandment undefiled, irreproachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is one of the most important passages in the New Testament, certainly the one most often commented on. Perhaps the simplest explanation of the confession (ὁμολογία), which the Lord witnessed, is to say that it consisted in the avowal that He was a King (John xviii.36). It may be contrasted with the Baptist's declaration that he himself was not the Christ. The word confession here, as elsewhere, points attention to the fact that He confessed, rather than any form of words.   The root-idea is that of a transaction. (Kattenbusch, ii. p. 343, n. 12.)

Justin Martyr connects it with the idea of worship (προσκύνησις - proskynesis). This is exactly parallel to the use of S. Paul in Rom.x.9, when the prophecy quoted leads on to the thought of prayer.  In the Martyrium S. Ignatii, which is dependent on 1 Tim.vi.12, ἡ καλὴ ὁμολογία is referred not to the creed, but to the martyrdom of one who witnesses by bloodshedding.  It does not seem possible to extract more from the words than that Timothy was to make a similar confession of Christ as King and Lord. Mention of Pilate was included in S. Paul's teaching, not necessarily in his creed.

Again, in the Second Epistle he reminds Timothy (i.13) of " the form of sound words" which he had taught him. His thoughts seem to pass back from the time of Timothy's ordination to be a herald and teacher of the gospel, and from the perils of present warfare (ii.3), to the equally troublous times when he himself had been driven from Antioch and Iconium and had come to Lystra (iii.11), to find this apt pupil so ready to receive instruction.

Hold the pattern of healthful words, which thou hast heard from me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus
(i.13).

Remember (μνημόνευε) Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel"
(ii.8).

He bids him pass on this teaching heard among many witnesses (ii.2) to faithful men, whom he is to put in remembrance (ὑπομίμνησκε - hypomimneske) in his turn (ii.14). These are explicit references to an outline of teaching, which (as we have gathered from the context) had been taught by S. Paul from the beginning of his first missionary journey.  It included faith in God, who quickeneth all things, in Christ Jesus, of the seed of David, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, and is coming again to judge the quick and dead. (Zahn, op. cit., p. 40, begging to be excused for the anachronism, calls the former passage traditio, the latter redditio, of the faith. Undeniably we see here the germ of the later practice, but we must guard against including in S. Paul's Creed all that he desired to teach by way of explanation.)

It is indeed natural that these hints of a form of teaching should be more explicit in letters that refer to Timothy's personal history.

The Epistle to Titus has more general references to "God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour" (i.4), the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us (ii.13, 14). The Holy Spirit is mentioned in connection with baptism (iii.5), but this passage does not lead to any conclusion as to a Trinitarian form of creed, because the characteristic contrast of the Persons "of God ... and of Christ Jesus," found in 1 Tim.vi.13, is lacking.
(Haussleiter, Zur Vorgeschichte des ap. Glaubensbekenntnisses, p. 35, n. 65.) 

From these passages it may be gathered that S. Paul's teaching always followed certain lines, but the only trace of a fixed form of confession is the bare "Jesus is the Lord."

(c.f.vi.3: Εἴ τις ἐτεροδιδασκαλεῖ, καὶ μὴ προσέρχεται ὑγιαίνουσι λόγοις τοῖς τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.)

V. S. John's epistles

To this primitive form, however, we have testimony from an unexpected quarter, the Eunuch's Confession:

I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,

which has been interpolated in the text of Acts viii.37.  Irenaeus knew it in this form. (Iren. iii. 12. 8 (p. 485, ed. Stieren):

"Credo Filium Dei esse Jesum."

The Cod. Laudianus (scec. vii.) has

"Credo in Christum, Filium Dei"

= πιστεύω εὶς τὸν Χριστὸν τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ, a catena of the twelfth century: πιστεύω τὸν υἱὸν τὸυ Θεοῦ εἷναι Ιησοῦν Χριστόν.) Apparently it represents the form of Baptismal Confession in the Church of Asia Minor, whence Irenaeus drew his tradition. And the evidence of the Johannine Epistles confirms this suggestion:

Whosoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God (1 John iv.15).

Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John v.5).  

Haussleiter (p.20.) points out that in the first of these quotations the expression ὃς ἂν ὁμολογήσῃ is to be distinguished from the much more common expression ὃς ὁμολογεῖ (cf. 1 John iv.2).  The aorist tense points to a single definite act, to the confession from which the divine indwelling is dated.

In the second case the context shows the drift of thought. Jesus has been proved to be the Christ historically by (διὰ) water and blood, His baptism and crucifixion. He now works in the Church, not only in (ἐν) the water of baptism, but also by cleansing in His blood. Thus the writer leads up to the thought of the Baptismal Confession:

This is the victory that overcame (ἡ νικήσασα) the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh (νικῶν) the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

The aorist again points to the single moment of baptism. (Cf. Westcott, Epistles of S. John, ad loc.) 

The evidence of the Epistle to the Hebrews is of a similar kind.

"Having therefore a great high priest, who is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession" (iv.14).

The other passages in which the author speaks of a confession (ὁμολογία) are less definite. 
Jesus is called " the Apostle and High Priest of our confession " (iii.1). This at all events implies confession of Him by this name. And in another passage, where the main thought is still the lifting up of their thoughts to Jesus "within the veil," he bids his hearers hold fast "the confession of their hope" (x.23).  

It seems strange that Kattenbusch (ii. p. 343, n.12.) should quote these verses to illustrate the use of ὁμολογία in cases where no form was implied. He seems to have in his mind only the form of teaching given to Timothy, which, of course, differs from that before us. It is the parallelism to the Johannine Epistles, which redeems it from vagueness. 

This simple creed: "I believe that Jesus is the Lord (or the Son of God)" is the first historic faith of the Church, but it does not stand alone. It leads on our thoughts to the Baptismal Formula.

VI. the baptismal formula (S. Matt.xxviii.19)

The early history of the Baptismal Formula is obscure and needs fuller investigation.  Some critics have dealt with it capriciously, asserting offhand that it is not a word of the Lord, and that the primitive formula was Christological rather than Trinitarian—
"in the name of Jesus (or the Lord Jesus)." They appeal to the following passages: Acts ii.38, viii.16, x.48, xix.5; Rom.vi.3; Gal.iii.27. Further, they maintain that this more primitive formula lasted on till the days of Cyprian (Ep. 73), though it was eventually superseded.

We are free to discuss this as a question of literary history without dogmatic bias, because theologians of unimpeachable repute, from S. Ambrose to Thomas Aquinas, have maintained that the two formulae were equally orthodox.
Irenaeus himself has said:

"In Christi enim nomine subauditur qui unxit et ipse qui unctus est et ipsa unctio in qua unctus est."(Adv. Haeres. iii. 18. 3 (p. 519, ed. Stieren).)

And Ambrose (De Spu. Sco. i, 4. 43.) follows on the same lines.  On the other hand, critics writing from a Unitarian standpoint have interpreted the Trinitarian formula as expressing faith in God, in Jesus, and the gift of an impersonal Spirit.

It seems strange that the text of S. Matthew does not show any unsettlement in MSS. or Versions if xxviii.19 did not form part of primitive oral teaching. It has been suggested (Haussleiter, op, cit.) that " into the name of the Son" stood at first alone, and has been added to in the same way as the form of the Lord's prayer given in its shortest form in S. Luke has been enlarged. As regards some of the added words in the Lord's prayer, there is no difficulty in supposing that the Lord Himself gave it in a longer and shorter form, the outline remaining unchanged. As regards the doxology, which is traced to the liturgical use of the prayer, and was added to be as it were the Church's thanksgiving for the prayer, there is marked unsettlement in the texts of both Gospels.  Perhaps the earliest witness to it outside the New Testament is the Old Roman Creed itself, which, as we shall see, may be dated with some confidence from the year AD100.

The Didache shows dependence on the Gospel of S. Matthew at other points, so that it is not worthwhile in this connection to contend for an earlier date than AD 120. It has in c.7:

Now concerning baptism, baptize thus: Having first taught all these things, baptize ye into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, in living water. And if thou hast not living water, baptize into other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm (water). But if thou hast neither, pour (water) thrice upon the head into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

In c.9 we find the direction:

Let none eat or drink of your Eucharist, except those baptized into the name of the Lord.

Here the writer seems to think rather of the new relationship into which the baptized is brought than of any form of words used.

The evidence of Justin Martyr (Apol. i.61) is no less definite, to the effect that the act of baptism was done

in the name of the Father of all things and our Lord God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

On the other hand, all the references to baptism in (or into) the name of the Lord Jesus might refer either to the confession made by the baptized or to the new relationship to Christ into which they were brought on becoming His members.

There are two prepositions used.
"In" (ἐν) refers to the sphere of remission of sins wrought by the power of the name of Christ, as the sick were healed by His name.  This is S. Peter's word in Acts ii.38 and x.48. "Into" (εἰς) denotes purpose, the desire to bring the baptized within the range of that power.  The disciples of John, whom S. Paul met at Ephesus (Acts xix.3), told him that they had been baptized "into (εἰς) the baptism of John." This does not mean that John used the formula, "I baptize into the name of John." We gather from S. Paul's reply that he said "for repentance." The disciples of John seem to have confessed themselves such, just as Corinthian partisans labelled themselves disciples of Cephas or another. We do not need to suppose that S. Paul's words to them (1 Cor.i.12-15) imply that they baptized into the name of Cephas or Apollos, or Christ or Paul. Why should not the words which follow, "they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus," refer to their confession that they would now be Jesus's disciples? The fact that S. Paul took pains to instruct them about the Holy Spirit seems to imply some mention of His work in the form used (i.e. the Trinitarian formula?).

The other passages generally quoted in this connexion refer obviously to the benefit of baptism, the death unto sin in Rom.vi.3:

"Know ye not, that as many of us as were baptized into Christ [Jesus] were baptized into His death?"

and the life into righteousness in Gal.iii.27:

"As many of you as were baptized into Christ put on Christ."  

Such arguments by themselves would appear inconclusive, if we could not appeal to an unbroken traditional use of the Trinitarian formula, witnessed to by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian.

Attention has been called to the sevenfold vow of renunciation of various kinds of sin, which a conservative sect, the Elchasaites, made the candidate promise. (Ap. Hippolytus, ix. 15. Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, p. 337.) It does not follow that they did not, like ourselves, add a vow of faith.  We know so little about them that we may well be cautious in arguing from their practice as to the practice of the Catholic Church, which it might resemble as little as the peculiar ceremonies of the Salvation Army.

This brings us to the letter of Cyprian to Jubaianus (Ep. 73) on the rebaptism of heretics in the year AD256.  This is made the court of final appeal in this question, because it is argued that we have here proof that the practice of baptizing "in the name of the Lord" still lasted on in the Church. The question has been discussed most thoroughly by the late Archbishop Benson in his book on Cyprian. He writes:

"There seem to have been in Africa some who understood baptism 'in the name of Christ' to be sufficient without the Trinal Invocation. This was evidently very rare, if ever it was more than an exception." (p. 405.) 

There is an important document to be read with Cyprian's letter, the anonymous tract "On Rebaptism,"  (Printed by Routh, Rel. Sacr. V. 291. The only MS. Known, formerly at Rheims, has now disappeared. I spent some time looking for it in 1897.) an able statement of the Catholic case against Cyprian. This was possibly the actual enclosure sent by Jubaianus to which Cyprian replies. The author does not say a word about any section of the Church as using any but the Trinal Invocation, which is not only "true and right, and by all means to be observed in the Church," but is "also wont to be observed." It is for heretical, not orthodox, baptism "in the name of Jesus" that lie pleads that "it might have a sort of initial virtue capable of subsequent completion."

Stephen, Bishop of Rome, maintained the same view in the "one harped-on quotation,"which we find in the letter of Cyprian to Jubaianus (Ep. 73), and in the letter of Firmilian (Ep. 75).

"Those who are wheresoever and howsoever baptized in the name of Jesus Christ obtain grace of baptism."

"Stephen uses ' baptized in the Name of Christ' in the New Testament sense as equivalent to Christian baptism." He illustrates the use from the passage of Origen quoted above, and asserts that Firmilian expressly assumes (Ep. 75. 11) that Stephen would require the Symbolum Trinitatis, even though his principles would (as he supposes) allow, if it were correct in that point and in the interrogations, a baptism by a demoniac or a demon.

It is quite clear that the question at issue between Stephen and Cyprian was not one of comparing the value of two forms, but rather whether a schismatic person can baptize.  The less is included in the greater.  Since Cyprian denied the validity of heretical baptism under any circumstances, it was useless to discuss any question of forms. 
But the latter appears as a subordinate question of exegesis. Cyprian admits that the apostles baptized "in the name of Christ" only. But he assumes that this was only practised in the case of Jews who already confessed the Father. For the Gentiles, the Lord ordained that they should be baptized in plena et adunata Trinitate (Ep. 73. 18). Therefore it is too much to say that, "had he conceived ' baptism in Christ's name' to imply the disregard of Christ's ' form,' he would have been armed with an argument against Stephen which he could not have failed to use."
(Benson, p. 407.)

Who, then, were the heretics whom the author of the tract "On Rebaptism," and possibly Stephen also, had in mind as baptizing " in the name of Christ," whose baptism Cyprian would reject (to use a modern term) on the ground of "intention" rather than of form? Obviously the Marcionites. Cyprian (Ep. 73. 4) says that the epistle sent him by Jubaianus made mention of Marcion, "saying that not even such as came from him were to be baptized, as appearing to have been already baptized in the name of Jesus Christ." Indignantly he denies that the faith with Marcion is the same as with the Church. If Marcion baptized with the Lord's own words, he would not hold the same Trinity as we (c. 6). The case of those baptized in Samaria is quite different, since they were baptized within the Church (c. 8). It appears from these words that Marcion and his followers used the form "in the name of Christ." This was quite in accord with the special variations which Marcion thought fit to introduce into his system. Above all, in his interpretation of Scripture was he a literalist, and in such parts of S. Paul's writings as he accepted he would find support of texts, like Rom.vi.3, for his new form. Neither Cyprian nor the Roman theologians had a better exegesis to offer. They could only point to the common practice of the Church, and explain the apostles' divergent practice as due to special circumstances.

It is not claimed that this explanation solves all difficulties, and it is not likely that much fresh light will ever be thrown upon the question. The "charity which hopeth all things" leads theologians to accept baptism "in the name of Christ," but they do not thereby commit themselves to the position that it must be considered the primitive form, or that its use must be supposed to have been of more than sporadic growth, beginning and ending with the Marcionites at this period, as with the Bulgarians in the ninth century. 

In the Acts of Barnabas—
a Gnostic document of the second century—
occurs the phrase, Βαπτίζομαι εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ κυρίου. This seems to be the earliest witness to the Gnostic practice. It derives some confirmation from the elaborate description of the ceremonies of initiation among the Gnostics, which is given by Irenaeus.

VII. types of preaching

Before leaving the New Testament, it may be well to turn for a moment to some set types of teaching and preaching which may be distinguished from those quoted above. We may conveniently follow Harnack's methodical classification. (Hahn,³ p. 364 ; and PRE,³ Art. " ap. Symbolum.")

Thus we find teaching cast

1. in the form of a chronicle (Mark xvi.9 ff.), or
2. in the form of a chronicle with short proofs (1 Cor.xv.).
3. Sometimes the writer represents his teaching as the fulfilment of prophecy (2 Pet.i.19).

Again, we find the scheme moulded

4. on the anti­thesis κατὰ σάρκα-κατὰ πνεῦμα (1 Pet.iii.18), where the apostle has instruction of candidates for baptism in his mind. After speaking of Christ's suffering for sins, the Just for the unjust, thus founding his message on the cross, he contrasts the death in the flesh with the quickening in the spirit, speaks of the preaching to the spirits in prison and of the salvation of Noah's family in the ark as a type of baptism, leading up to the mention of "the question and answer (ἐπερώτημα - eperotema) of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven."
5. Another setting is moulded on the thoughts of the First and the Second Coming (2 Tim.iv.1), when the apostle charges Timothy thus:
   "I testify in the sight of God, and of Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and dead, both of His appearing and His kingdom".
   
6. Lastly, a passage like Eph.iv.9 is moulded on the scheme καταβάς-ἀναβάς:
   "Now this, He ascended, what is it but that He also descended (first?) into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things."  

With these quotations we may fairly be said to have exhausted the list of New Testament passages that are in any way parallel to a formal creed. Looked at all round, they show how unsafe it is to classify scriptural names for creeds, which are purely general—
"the form of teaching," "the faith," "the deposit." They might be applied to any of these schemes. There are two in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which we have not noted. Heb.vi.1, "the word of the beginning of Christ," explains the fulfilment of the Messianic prophecies in Jesus of Nazareth. It is to be compared with the phrase in Heb.v.12, "the beginning of the oracles of God," which refers to the records in which the Messiah is foreshown. (Westcott, ad loc.) These might serve as titles for a Christian apology, but not for a creed.

VIII. the Apostolic Fathers

We turn now to the writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers, pupils and successors of the apostles.

Clement, Bishop of Rome, wrote an Epistle to the Corinthians, which gives a charming impression of the writer's character, his sweet reasonableness (ἐπιείκεια - epieikeia), but does not throw much light on our subject. There is no reference to a confession or creed, but there are two explicit statements of faith in the Trinity that express his consciousness of the distinctions between the Divine Persons.

Have we not one God and one Christ and one Spirit of grace, which was poured out upon us?
(1 Cor.xlvi.6). 

As God lives, and the Lord Jesus Christ lives, and the Holy Spirit, the faith and hope of the elect (ib. Iviii. 2).

Is it not fair to say that he claims for the Son and the Spirit a personal life, which is not absolutely identified with the life of the Father, and yet is understood to be Divine? (Swete, The Apostles' Creed, pp. 31 f.)

 A more important witness is Ignatius, the martyr-bishop of Antioch, whose letters, while they breathe a fiery enthusiasm, a passion to dare and suffer, teach "a theology wonderfully mature in spite of its immaturity," and an outline of historic faith exactly parallel to the teaching of S. Paul, who started from this same Antioch on his first missionary journey sixty years before.  

To the Ephesians, c. 18:

For our God, Jesus the Christ, was conceived in the womb by Mary, according to a dispensation, of the seed of David, but also of the Holy Ghost; and He was born and was baptized, that by His passion He might cleanse water.

To the Trallians, c. 9:

Be ye deaf therefore, when any man speaketh to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the race of David, who was the Son of Mary, who was truly born and ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth; who, moreover, was truly raised from the dead, His Father having raised Him, who in the like fashion will so raise us also who believe on Him—
His Father, I say, will raise us—
in Christ Jesus, apart from whom we have not true life. 

To the Smyrnaeans, c. 1:

I have perceived that ye are established in faith immovable, being as it were nailed on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, in flesh and in spirit, and firmly grounded in love in the blood of Christ, fully persuaded as touching our Lord that He is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, but Son of God by the Divine will and power, truly born of a virgin and baptized by John, that all righteousness might lie fulfilled by Him, truly nailed up in the flesh for our sakes under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch (of which fruit are we—that is, of His most blessed passion); that He might set up an ensign unto all the ages through His resurrection, for His saints and faithful people, whether among Jews or among Gentiles, in one body of His Church. 

An interesting point is his use of the Pauline phrase " of the seed of David." It would be a necessary element in the first preaching to the Jews, but in the next generation dropped out of the creed of the Church, which was predominatingly Gentile.  

I have not attempted to piece together a complete creed on the model of the later historic faith from all the passages in the Ignatian Epistles. (Kattenlusch has expressed his conclusion clearly (ii. p. 318), where he says that Ignatius is formally dependent on himself alone, and that the parallels to the Old Roman Creed are accidental, except so far as they are in content un­avoidable. See the note 81.) There is no need to strain the evidence.  It concerns us only to know that Ignatius expressed his faith in the Trinity, in the Son and in the Father and in the Spirit (ad, Magn. 13), in the same order as S. Paul uses 2 Cor.i.13, which is, as Lightfoot shows,
"a natural sequence. Through the Son is the way to the Father (John xiv.6): this union with the Father through the Son is a communion in the Spirit." (Apost. Fathers, II. ii. 137 n.)

For the same reason we will not linger over the Christological teaching, in which Ignatius seems almost to anticipate Athanasius by his clear-cut antitheses (ad Eph. 7):

There is one only physician, of flesh and of spirit, begotten and unbegotten, God in man, true Life in death, Son of Mary and Son of God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord.  

These are ante-Nicene phrases, and there is no advantage in trying to read into them the precise meanings of post-Nicene statements. It is, after all, natural to leave room for growth and development.

From Ignatius we turn to his friend and pupil, Polycarp, the pupil also in earlier days of the Apostle John. Polycarp was a man of very different mould, unoriginal in the extreme, but on that very account a better witness to the tradition, which it was his to pass on from the first generation of Christian hearers to the third. He is the link between S. John and the young generation of Christian apologists, Justin Martyr, Melito, Aristides, who were coming to the front when he paid his historic visit to Rome and celebrated the Holy Communion for Bishop Anicetus. At that time Irenaeus, his old pupil in Asia Minor, was beginning to attract attention by his lectures on heresies in this capital of the Old World, the centre of its commerce and of its speculations. Writing to the Philippians, Polycarp lays stress (c. 2) on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, in words taken from the First Epistle of S. Peter. This was part of his teaching, but there is no proof that his confession included more than we have gleaned from the First Epistle of S. John. In c. 7 he urges confession of Jesus Christ come in the flesh, and the witness of the cross, in words which are an echo of 1 John iv.2-4.

Polycarp's death in AD 155 marks the close of the apostolic age. He had lived on past the day of small things, to see the Catholic Church exerting a worldwide influence, and to testify that this influence stands or falls with loyalty to the faith of Christ. 

Something remains to be said about the Didache, to which reference has been made more than once. Without attempting to review the reviews of the many theories as to its origin and history, I will only claim for it the date defended by Lightfoot (S. Ignatius, i. 739.) and Zahn (Forschungen, iii. 278.)—AD80-130. It seems to be a Jewish manual of advice on conduct worked up by a Christian writer, who records details of value as to the administration of Holy Baptism. It belongs to a period of undeveloped Church organisation, and the only trace of a formal creed contained in the reference to those baptized into the name of the Lord (c. 9) agrees with the early Pauline confession. 

The prayer (c. x. 2):

"We thank thee, Holy Father, ... for the knowledge and faith and immortality which Thou hast made known to us through Jesus Thy servant,"

seems to contain a reminiscence of S. Peter's sermon (Acts iii.13, 26) or the prayer (Acts iv.27, 30).

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH (c. 110)

IX. conclusions

We arrive at the conclusion that the so-called Apostles' Creed did not exist in apostolic times. At the same time, we are free to admit that the substance of its teaching was primitive. The Ignatian Epistles, which form the connecting-link between the Pastoral Epistles and the apologists of the second century, prove that instruction was given in Antioch on all the points characteristic of the teaching of the developed creed, the miraculous birth, the crucifixion, the resurrection. The following reconstruction of an Apostolic Creed, (Baumer, p.156.) while it represents the general teaching of the first decade of the second century, is obtained by arbitrary selection of phrases:-

It is interesting to contrast Harnack's reconstruction of "an oldest creed," which he is careful to explain "is not a creed that was ever used or ever likely to be used." (Hahn,³ p. 390.)  

Πιστεύω εἰς (ἕνα) Θεὸν παντοκράτορα, καὶ εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν, τὸν υἱον αὐτοῦ, τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν, τὸν γεννηθέντα διὰ (ἐκ) παρθένου, τὸν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου παθόντα (σταυρωθέντα) καὶ ἀναστάντα (ἐκ νεκρών), καθήμενον ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ θεοῦ, ὅθεν (ἐν δόξῃ) ἔρχεται κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκροὺς, καὶ εἰς τὸ πνεῦμα ἁγιον [sic]. 

The utter uncertainty of all such speculations may leave us content with the moderate anticipations with which we approached the evidence, expecting only to find seed-thoughts, and finding them in the Baptismal Formula and the simple confession,

Jesus is the Lord.

At first hearing, such conclusions may sound thin and poor, but we may well ask seriously whether we have any right to expect more. If the growth of the kingdom is compared by Christ to the growth of a seed growing secretly, we must expect to find the early history of creeds obscure. The seed of a garden plant contains in it the promise of bud and flower, but it is only through the hidden working and secret chemistry of nature that it is transformed. To look, then, for the twelve articles of the Apostles' Creed in the New Testament, is like looking for the sprouting of a seed while we keep it in a paper packet.

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