THE history of
the Athanasian Creed is one of the most difficult subjects in Patristic literature.
It
is agreed that it was not written by S. Athanasius, and that it was written
in Latin.
All the Greek MSS. are plainly translations from a
Latin text. Beyond this limit of agreement nothing is settled.
Having collected
my facts, I propose to follow the method which I have used above, and arrange
them, proceeding from the obscure to the obvious; treating first of the modes
of thought in the period in which its origin should be sought, of its internal
evidence, and of the evidence of some possible quotations in the fifth century,
with the light which these throw on the question of authorship.
We
shall then be prepared to trace the diverging lines of external evidence,
broadening out from the sixth to the ninth century, and to discuss the merits
of rival theories as to the origin of the creed.
Between the death of S. Athanasius in 373, and the death of
S.Augustine in 430, which marks the close of the great creed-making epoch
in early Church history, theological thinking had not come to a standstill.
On the one hand, Macedonianism, the following of Macedonius, semi-Arian Bishop
of Constantinople, had spread to some extent.
His denial of the divinity
of the Holy Spirit was a necessary corollary to Arian propositions, and
reappeared whenever Arianism took hold of a people.
Thus Niceta of Remesiana
found it an active heresy at the end of the fourth century along the banks
of the Danube, probably through the influence of the Gothic Arian Bishop
Ulphilas.
But this heresy never attained an independent existence, and with
the decline of Arianism its fate was sealed.
On the other hand, Apollinarianism,
the denial of the Lord's human soul, had found expression in statements more
crude than any which the learned Apollinaris, himself an aged confessor,
had ventured to formulate.
It was with great pain that his old allies
in the Arian controversy felt constrained to attack and condemn his error.
S.
Athanasius never mentions him by name in the treatise which he is said to
have written against his teaching.
The strong point in the new
heresy was its pleading for reverence, what S. Hilary called "an irreligious
solicitude about God."
Apollinaris thought that the consubstantial Word,
taking the place of the human mind in the Incarnate Christ, would alike preserve
the unity of His Divine personality, and the truth that He was impeccable,
since the human mind, being changeable and moved by impulse, is therefore
capable of sinning.
A wide propaganda was established, and a large supply
of tracts and hymns were put into circulation, which were read and sung by
people of devout minds with a tendency to mysticism, who could not detect
the drift of such teaching.
Later adherents to the theory denied that the
Lord had even an animal as distinguished from a reasoning soul.
They conjectured
the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, even more thoroughly destroying
the idea of His true Manhood to preserve His Divinity from taint of fleshly
sinfulness.
The answer to this phase of error was given unhesitatingly by
the teachers who followed S. Athanasius.
They affirmed the perfectness of
both natures, Manhood and Godhead, in Christ.
Thus only can we believe
in Him as the Redeemer of our whole nature, though we agree that He was impeccable,
for in His Divine personality He could not sin.
This thread of argument,
taken up in the East by the Cappadocian Fathers, in the West by S. Ambrose
and S. Augustine, is stated with precision in the second part of the Quicunque.
The
perfectness of the human nature which Christ assumed consists in the possession
of a reasoning soul and human flesh.
It was a truly human life
which He consecrated in suffering and death.
At the same time, in the mystery
of His Divine nature He was "God of the substance of His Father, begotten
before all worlds."
Thus Arianism was forever excluded from
the domain of Christian thought.
As a confession in these words of the main
truth for which S. Athanasius contended, the Quicunque deserves to
be dignified by his name, which has been attached to it certainly from the
seventh century.
The Quicunque introduces, however, a new word, "person" (persona),
to express the eternal distinction (ὑπόστασις)
of the Son from the Father and the Holy Spirit, which represents a definite
advance from the position gained for thought by S. Athanasius, confirming
rather than contradicting his speculation, and helping to explain it.
He
had affirmed that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit were distinct
in working (ἀλλὸς καὶ ἀλλὸς καὶ ἀλλὸς),
but how to express this Trinity in Unity as consisting in Triune Personality
he knew not, because he had no word for Personality.
The first part of the Quicunque, which develops such a theory of Divine Personality, owes nearly as much to S. Augustine as the second part to S. Athanasius. But there is one marked exception, which tends to prove the Gallican rather than African origin of the formulary, the use of the term " substantial Augustine preferred to use "essentia," and in his book On the Trinity actually condemned it. He says (de Trin.), vii. 5. 1: "In Deo substantia proprie non dicitur," but admitted it in some of his later writings, e.g., c. Max. ii. 1. He would even use "substantia " as a synonym for "persona" (ὑπόστασις). This was to revive the old misunderstandings between Eastern and Western theologians, which came to a head at the Council of Alexandria in 362, when, as we have seen [P.100, supra.], S. Athanasius mediated between them, showing that the Western use, una substantia (= μία οὐσία), was not Sabellian, and that the Greek use, τρεῖς ὑπόστασις ( = (tres personae), was not Tritheistic.
The acute mind of S. Hilary of Poitiers had also been exercised
on the problem.
It is not surprising that such difficulties should arise
while theological language was in the making.
His use of persona was
indeed occasional and somewhat tentative, but his use of substantia =
essentia = οὐσία was
consistently maintained in Gaul, and may be regarded as a Gallican contribution
to the Quicunque.
S. Hilary's explanation of these terms was an appeal to the philosophy of common sense.
"A person" is one who acts. [De Trin.iv.21.]
"Substance" is that in which a thing subsists.[De Synodis, 12; "Essentia est res quae est, uel ex quibus est et quoe in eo quod maneat subsistit. Dici autem essentia, et natura, et genus, et substantia uniuscuiusque rei poterit. Proprie autem essentia idcirco est dicta, quia semper est. Quae idcirco etiam substantia est, quia res qua est, necesse est, subsistat in sese."]
Headers of the English Psalter cannot fail so to understand the words "a wicked person" (Ps.ci.4), or "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect" (Ps.cxxxix.16).
This explanation is quite distinct from that suggested by Tertullian in
the third century,
and by Faustus of Riez in the fifth.
Both of them had
been trained as lawyers, and not unnaturally carried legal ideas into theology.
To a lawyer a "person" is a theoretical owner of
rights and property;
"substance" is the aggregate of rights and
property.
In the legal sense, a slave, who has no rights,
has no personality, while a corporation has both "personality" and "substance."
Thus
we understand the words (Luke xv.13) "he wasted his substance," or
the phrase "a substantial farmer."
Thus Tertullian
(adv. Prax. 7): "Filius ex sua persona profitetur patrem"; (ib.): "Non ius eum substantiuum habere in re per substantiae proprietatem, ut res et persona quaedam uidere possit (scil. Logos)."
These passages show how his legal training coloured his conception of the term persona in his Latin Bible.
[Adv.Prax, 6 (Prov.viii.30); "Cottidie oblectabar in persona eius";
adv.Prav.14 (Lam.iv.20): "Spiritus personae eius Christus Dominus>."
In both cases the LXX. has πρόσωπον.]
By
themselves they might be used to show that Tertullian's method in speaking
of distinctions between the Divine Persons was "the method of Juristic
fictions." [Harnack, D.G. ii. p.307.]
But there are others which might point to a simpler
explanation of the terms: [Seeberg, D.G. i. p.87.] -
adv. Hermog.
3: "Deus substantiae ipsius (Christi) nomen est diuinitatis."
Apol.21:"Hunc
ex Deo prolatum didicimus et prolatione generatum et idcirco Filium Dei et
Deum dictum ex unitate substantiae."
Faustus, in his book On the Holy Spirit, explains that "to persons it belongs to subsist each one properly by himself," though not unnaturally he afterwards reverts to the legal phrase, persona res iuris.
This question of definition has a wider range than the mere
historical problem, whether the use made of these terms in the Quicunque points
to a Gallican or African origin.
Before we can discuss in the sequel the
usefulness of this creed, we must make out what these terms meant at the
time of their introduction into Christian formularies.
We inherit them
also in the Collect and Special Preface for Trinity Sunday, as in the first
of the Thirty-nine Articles.
Our theology would not be simplified by rejection
of this creed.
Too much has been made sometimes of S. Augustine's caution
that we should use the term
"person" to express distinctions in the Godhead, not as a satisfactory
explanation, but only that we should not remain altogether silent.
It is
only of the term that he is shy, and that probably because of the danger
of taking it in a bold legal sense.
He does not shrink from following
out the train of thought to which a philosophical explanation of it leads,
from a most elaborate analysis of self-consciousness, or from explaining
the doctrine of the Trinity by such analogies.
As Mr. Illingworth has
so clearly shown in his lectures on the doctrine of Personality, men can
only obtain more accurate knowledge of the mysteries of Divine Being by more
accurate analysis of the mystery of their own being.
S. Augustine followed
out a train of thought already suggested by S. Hilary, and those writers
who condemn Augustinian speculation most loudly, ignore the theological preparation
made for them, which proves them to be the crown of a long series, and not
merely the rash deductions of an isolated thinker.
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At the beginning of the fifth century there were in existence
in Gaul a number of private professions of faith, relics of a time of restless
unsettlement when heresies abounded.
Some of them were written in self-defence,
some of them simply in the ordinary course of teaching.
The history of the
Church in Gaul at that period is at many points obscure, and it is difficult
to estimate how widely they were used or even known.
But it is
important to take account of them before discussing the history of the Quicunque, since
some of them are found grouped with it in many collections of canons and
expositions.
Their relation to its history has never been fully investigated,
because until recently they have not been critically edited.
Their
importance consists in the fact that they show the same trend of thought
towards fuller teaching on the Trinity and Incar?nation.
The most important is the so-called " Faith of the Romans," which
will come again under our notice as containing a quotation from the Apostles'
Creed.
It is attributed to Phaebadius, Bishop of Agen, during the last
half of the fourth century.
Its further interest for us consists in
its clear teaching that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three Gods,
but one God;
that the Son is not created, but begotten;
that we venerate
the Holy Spirit as God, not unbegotten nor begotten, not created nor made,
but of the Father and the Son always in the Father and the Son co-eternal.
The Father begetting the Son did not diminish or lose the fullness of His
Deity.
In dealing with the incarnation, the author states clearly
the facts against Apollinarianism.
It was incorporated in a book On
the Trinity [This work, formerly
ascribed to Vigilius of Thapsus, is now ascribed by Morin to an unknown theologian
of the fourth century.?Ben. Rev.1898.] which became widely
popular under the name of Athanasius, and in this way the profession got
the name "Libeling Fidei S. Athanasii," by which Hincmar of Rheims
called it in the ninth century.
Probably it was by association with it in
MSS. containing this book that the Quicunque also got the name "Faith
of S. Athanasius."
In collections of creeds the most common name is "The
Faith of the Romans, or the Roman Church."
This name points to early
use in Rome, and the opinion is confirmed by the fact that a long quotation
from it is found in the apocryphal Acts of Liberius (p.215 infra).
It
is worthwhile to dwell on these points, because they throw light on the history
of a kindred form known as the Creed of Damasus, a full account of which
I must reserve for Chapter X.
At this moment I will only point out that it
belongs to this period, and is found in a MS. of the sixth century.
It
is partly dependent on the Fides Romanorum, and deals in the same
way with the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation.
Victricius, Bishop of Rouen, presented another confession of great interest to Pope Innocent I. in 403. We know it only from the references in a letter written to him by his intimate friend, Paulinus of Nola. He was accused, it would seem unjustly, of a leaning to Arian or Apollinarian heresy, and wrote to the Pope to defend himself, expressing his faith in a co-eternal Trinity, of one divinity and substance, and in the incarnation as the assuming of full manhood in body and soul. [Paulinus, Ep.37.5.] There is a parallel passage in his book, de Laude Sanctorum, which I will print with it.
| VICTRICIUS, de Laude Sanctorum, c.iv. |
|---|
| Confitemur Deum Patrem, confitemur Deum Filium, confitemur Spiritum Sanctum Deum. Confitemur quia tres unum sunt. Unum dixi; quia ex uno, sicut Filius de Patre ita Pater in Filio; Sanctus Spiritus uero de Patre et Filio: ita et Pater: et Filius in Spiritu Sancto. Una Deitas, una substantia ... quia ut tres ex uno, ita unitas in tribus. Sic confitemur quia sic credimus indiuiduam Trinitatem, ante quam nihil potest attingi nec mente concipi. |
Paulinus, Ep.37.
Cum ergo fides et confessio tua, ut credimus atque confidimus coaeternam Trinitatem, unius diuinitatis et substantiae et operis et regni esse testetur; cumque Patrem Deum et Filium Deum et Spiritum Sanctum Deum, ut est qui est et erat et uen turus est ... quod ita ut ipse a Deo doctus es, doces unitatem Trinitatis sine confusione iungens, et Trinitatem ipsius unitatis sine separatione distinguens, ita ut nulla alteri persona conueniat, et in omni persona trium Deus unus eluceat; et tantus quidem Filius quantus et Pater, quantus et Spiritus Sanctus; sed semper quisque nominis sui proprietate distinctus, indiuiduam retinet in uirtutis et gloriae aequalitate concordiam.Certi autem sumus, quod et Filium Dei ita praedicas, ut eundem et Filium hominis confiteri non erubescas; tam uere hominem in nostra natura quam uere Deum in sua; sed Filium Dei ante saecula, quia ipse est Dei Uerbum Deus, qui erat in principio apud Deum, aeque Deus co-omnipotens et cooperator Patris. ... Et hoc Uerbum, pietatis immensae mysterio, caro factum est et habitauit in nobis. Non autem caro tantum corporis nostri, sed homo totus, et corporis nostri et animae assumptione, animae autem rationalis, quae iuxta naturale opificium Dei habet insitam mentem; alioquin in tenebris Apollinaris errabimus, si hominem assumptum a Deo animam mentis humanae uacuam, qualis est pecorum et iumentorum, dicamus liabuisse; et eum hominem, quem suscepit Dei Filius, necesse est ea ueritate, quae ueritas est et qua creauit hominem, totum susceperit, ut opus suum plena salute renouaret.
The so-called "Creed of Bacchiarius" deals
with precisely the same problems, and shows how eagerly they were discussed
at the beginning of the fifth century.
Bacchiarius was probably a Spanish
monk who had come into Gaul while there was widespread suspicion of Priscillianism,
and was made to defend himself before some Gallican bishops from complicity
in such heresy.
He too asserts the etrnal distinctions in the Divine
relationships of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, their unity in substance,
power, and will.
In words which resemble the parallel clauses of the Quicunque, he
elaborates the teaching of the scriptural terms, "begotten" and "proceeding."
Pater Deus et Filius Deus, sed non idem Pater, qui Filius, sed idem creditur esse Pater, quod Filius. Et Spiritus Sanctus non Pater ingenitus, sed Spiritus ingeniti Patris. Filius genitus ... Pater enim unus ingenitus, Filius unus est genitus, Spiritus Sanctus a Patre procedens Patri et Filio coaeternus. ...
Itaque Spiritus Sanctus nec Pater esse ingenitus nec Filius genitus aestimetur, sed Spiritus Sanctus, qui a Patre procedit; sed non est aliud, quod procedit, quam quod unde procedit. Si persona quaeritur, Deus est. Haec per hoc tripertita coniunctio et coniuncta diuisio et in personis excludit unionem et in personarum distinctione obtinet Unitatem. Sicque credimus beatissimam Trinitatem, quod unius natures est, unius deitatis, uniua eiusdemque uirtutis atque substantiae, ne inter Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum sit ulla diuersitas, nisi quod ille Pater est et hic Filius et ille Spiritus Sanctus, Trinitas in subsistentibus personis, Unitas in natura atque substantia.
He confesses the truth of the incarnation in the taking of human flesh and soul, and the dependent truth of the future resurrection of men in their bodies. He concludes with statements on the origin of the soul, the nature of the devil, marriage, and the canon of Holy Scripture.
To these professions we must also add the creed of the heretic Pelagius, which, with the exception of one passage on free will, is a document of great dogmatic value, and so fully orthodox that it has been ascribed both to Jerome and Augustine.
He explains the Greek terms ὁμοούσθιον and ὑπόστασις, asserting the equality of the Divine Persons in the Trinity of one substance and eternity, in which there are no grades, "nihil quod inferius superiusue dici possit."
"Atque ut, confundentes Arium, unam eandemque dicimus Trinitatis esse substantiam et unum in tribus personis fatemur Deum, ita, impietatem Sabellii declinantes, tres personas expressas sub proprietate distinguimus, non ipsum sibi Patrem, ipsum sibi Filium, ipsum sibi Spiritum Sanctum esse dicentes, sed aliam Patris aliam Filii aliam Spiritus Sancti esse personam.
"Sic autem confitemur in Christo unam Filii esse personam, ut dicamus, duas esse perfectas atque integras substantias, id est, deitatis et humanitatis, quae ex anima continetur et corpore."
Leporius, a native of Treves [One
MS. of Cassian, de Incarnatione, i.2 (ed. Petschenig), i.e., Cod. lat. Paris. 14,860,
preserves the reading ex maxima Belgarum urbe.], who became
a priest at Marseilles, fell at this time into a heresy something like
the error of Nestorius regarding the two natures in Christ.
He was, however,
converted by S. Augustine, with whom he stayed for a time at Hippo.
On
his return to Gaul he presented a confession to the Bishops of Marseilles
and Aix, in which he made full amends for his error by a precise statement.
Confitemur Dominum ac Deum nostrum lesum Christum, unicum Filium Dei, qui ante saecula natus ex Patre est, nouissimo tempore de Spiritu Sancto et Maria semper uirgine factum hominem, Deum natum; et confitentes utramque substantiam, carnis et uerbi, unum eundemque Deum atque hominem inseparabilem pia fidei credulitate suscepimus, et ex tempore susceptae carnis sic omnia dicimus, quae erant Dei, transiisse in hominem, ut omnia quae erant hominis, in Deum uenirent, ut hac intelligentia Uerbum factum sit caro, non ut conuersione aut mutabilitate aliqua coeperit esse, quod non erat, sed ut pot.entia diuinae dispensationis Uerbum Patris, nunquam a Patre discedens, homo propre fieri dignaretur, incarnatusque sit unigenitus secreto illo mysterio, quod ipse nouit (nostrum namque est credere, illius nosse), ac sicut ipse Deus Uerbum totum suscipiens, quod est hominis, homo sit, et adsumptus homo totum accipiendo, quod est Dei, aliud quam Deus esse non possit. ...
Caro igitur proficit in Uerbum, non Uerbum proficit in carnem, et tamen uerissime Uerbum caro factum est; sed, ut diximus, solum proprie personaliter, non cum Patre aut Spiritu Sancto naturaliter, quia unigenitus Deus, Deus uerus, qui cum Patre et Spiritu Sancto unus est in natura alter est in persona. Non enim ipsum Patrem dicimus esse, quem Filium; nec iterum eundem Filium dicimus esse, quem Patrem; aut rursus Spiritum Sanctum Patrem uel Filium nuncupamus; sed distinguentes personas in suis proprietatibus Patrem Deum Patrem proprie nominamus, et Filium Deum Filium proprie dicimus, et Spiritum Sanctum Deum Spiritum Sanctum proprie confitemur.
Et cum ter numero dicimus Deum et Deum et Deum, non tres credimus Deos sed unum omnipotentiae suae trinitate perfectum. Nascitur ergo nobis proprie de Spiritu Sancto et Maria, semper uirgine, Deus homo lesus Christus Filius Dei, ac sic in alterutrum unum fit uerbum et caro, ut manente in sua perfectione naturaliter utraque substantia sine sui praeiudicio et humanitati diuina communicent et diuinitati humana participent; nec alter Deus, - alter homo, sed idem ipse Deus, qui et homo, et uicissim idem ipse homo, qui et Deus, lesus Christus unus Dei Filius et nuncupetur et uere sit. Et ideo agendum nobis semper est et credendum, ut Dominum leaum Christum Filium Dei, Deum uerum, quem cum Patre semper, et aequalem Patri ante saecula confitemur, eundem a tempore susceptae carnis factum Deum hominem non negemus, nec quasi per gradus et tempora proficientem in. Deum, alterius status ante resurrectionem, alterius post resurrectionem, eum fuisse credamua, sed eiusdem semper plenitudinis atque uirtutis. ...Sed quia Uerbum Deus in hominem dignanter hominem suscipiendo descendit, et per susceptionem Dei homo ascendit in Deum Uerbum, totus Deus Uerbum factus est totus homo. Non enim Deus Pater homo factua eat nec Spiritus Sanctus, sed unigenitus Patris; ideoque una persona accipienda est carnis et Uerbi, ut fideliter sine aliqua dubitatione credamus, unum eundemque Dei Filium inseparabilem semper geminae substantiae etiam gigantem nominatum. ...
By the study of these confessions we are brought
into contact with fresh and vigorous minds working out for themselves formulae
in which to express new aspects of the central truth guarded by the Nicene
Creed.
From that vantage ground they discerned new aspects of
the doctrine of God, and felt constrained to use them.
If it is true
to say that we know only in part, and therefore wrongly, it is also true
that the very knowledge of our imperfection makes us eager to correct, to
improve.
We may paraphrase the words of the great Gallican teacher, S. Hilary:
"We are compelled to attempt what is unattainable, to climb where we cannot reach, to speak what we cannot utter; instead of the mere adoration of faith, we are compelled to entrust the deep things of religion to the perils of human understanding." [De Trin.ii.2.]
The opening years of the fifth century were indeed a time of
trouble and rebuke to all citizens of the old Roman Empire.
That the
fair provinces of Gaul should be overrun by barbarian armies almost without
resistance, seemed a direct judgment of God upon the deep-seated sores of
misgovernment and foul licentiousness, which crushed the spirit and drained
the strength of the provincials.
The famous treatise On the Government
of God, written by Salvianus, priest of Marseilles, lays bare the real
root of widespread misery in social corruption, and preaches faith in the
one living God as the only hope.
Together with many other thoughtful
and religious men, Salvianus sought rest in retirement from the world, and
seems to have entered for a time the famous monastery of Lerins. [Hil. Arelat, Vita S. Honor, c.4.]
At the beginning of the fifth century (c. 426),Honoratus, the founder of this monastery, had gathered round him a remarkable band of men; Hilary, who became his successor as abbot, and afterwards as Bishop of Aries; Vincentius, author of the famous Commonitorium ; Lupus, who became the saintly Bishop of Troyes, and with Germanus of Auxerre, preached so successful a mission against the Pelagian error in Britain; Faustus, who in his turn became abbot, and finally Bishop of Riez, one of the ablest theologians of the day.
On a neighbouring island lived Eucherius, sometime high in the civil service of the empire, with his wife and sons, who became in their time bishops. He himself became Bishop of Lyons, and it was no empty compliment when Claudianus Mamertinus called him "by far the greatest of the great bishops of his age."
In Appendix A I have reprinted, with some slight alterations, the parallels to the Quicunque in the writings of Vincentius and Faustus, which I collected for my former book.
The parallels in the Commonitorium of Vincentius have been held by many writers to be quotations of the creed. Some, from Antelmi (1693) to Ommanney (1897), hold that they prove that he was the author. I prefer to discuss them in connection with the internal evidence of the creed, because there is no positive proof that they are quotations or he the author. But, regarded as parallels, they are close enough to warrant the conjecture that there is some relation between them and the creed, and it is easier to believe that Vincentius used the creed, than that anyone in a subsequent generation or century, of less exact scholarship, picked out his phrases and wove them into a document of this kind. [Swainson, Hist. Creeds, p.224.] It has been argued that "there is no appearance that Vincentius was quoting any particular document." [The Ath. Creed, p.xcii.] This is true, but it does not exclude the supposition that he quoted phrases of the Quicunque by memory. If he had seen it written out, he would not think of it as an important document, in the sense in which he regarded the letter of S. Capreolus read at the Council of Ephesus, of which he speaks (c. 42), as important. The intrinsic merits of the creed, regarded as a sermon or private profession of faith, not Synodical sanction or connection with the name of Athanasius, would give it authority. He would only receive it as approved by his judgment, and possibly as recommended by his regard for the author.
Again, it is important to note the differences which distinguish
these Vincentian parallels from the Quicunque.
They are strongly anti-Nestorian.
Vincentius says (c. 12) that Nestorius wished to make "two Sons of God," and
quotes the title "Mother of God," which became a test phrase in
the controversy, but is not found in the Quicunque, where we find unus
est Christus, not Filius.
He uses the term humanitas freely,
and in c.20 writes Deus Uerbum assumendo et habendo carnem, but seems
to shrink from the compound phrase assumptio humanitatis.
I think
we may trace this to his fear of a Nestorian interpretation of the words.
In
c.17 he argues against the theory that
"postea in eum (the Man Christ) assumentis Uerbi persona descenderit; et licet nunc in Dei gloria maneat assumptus, aliquamdiu tamen nihil inter ilium et ceteros homines interfuisse uideatur."
The idem, idem in the following parallel (c.13) to clause 29 shows a train of thought foreign to the Quicunque, though it is found in the context of the parallel passage in Augustine, Enchiridion, 35:
The greater part of
this c.13 is taken up with confutation of Nestorian statements.
In the
same way I would explain the variation in the following parallel
to clause 34:
Aug.: "non confusione naturae sed unitate personae." Quic."non confusione substantiae sed unitate persona;." Vinc.: "non corruptibili nescio qua diuinitatis et humanitatis confusione sed integra et singulari quadam unitate personae."
The word substantia (= natura) was used freely by Augustine (In Joh. Tract. 78), as in the well-known Ambrosian hymn, "Precede de thalamo tuo geminae gigas substantiae." Elsewhere it is used freely by Vincentius, but he seems to substitute diuinitatis et humanitatis in this sentence as if he would prefer the plural substantiarum to the singular of the Quicunque form, and adds the epithet singularis to sharpen his sentence against Nestorianism.
The parallels in writings of Faustus show the same trend of
thought. T
he epithet simplicem (personam) in Ep. 7
corresponds to Vincentius's use of singularis.
And his use of pariter in
the parallels to clause 28, which is found also in Vincentius, though it
is doubtful whether it stood in the original text of the Quicunque (see
p. 187), corresponds to S. Cyril's phrase Θεὸς ὁμοῦ καὶ ἄνθροπος in anti-Nestorian sentences.
[Ommanney, Diss. p.411, quotes a sentence from the contemporary
Latin translation of S. Cyril's Apology for the Twelve Chapters, in
which pariter is used with a similar purpose.]
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We are now in a position to discuss the internal evidence of
the Quicunque from a wider point of view than has hitherto been attained.
It
is not enough to pick out certain test phrases and argue that they were inserted
against this or that heresy, or that certain modifications would have been
introduced if the creed had been written after a certain date.
Such reflections
are useful as affording, so to speak, a key to the problem of date;
but we
ought also to examine the wards of the lock in which the key turns, to be
sure that they correspond.
We obtain this wider knowledge by com?paring the
creed with these other professions of faith, which we have traced to the
beginning of the fifth century.
Standing as they do, midway between the
teaching of Augustine and the parallels in Vincentius, they afford valuable
corroboration of Waterland's opinion, that the Quicunque belongs to
Apollinarian times, i.e. before the condemnation of Nestorius in 431.
In regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, these professions
are less Augustinian than the Quicunque.
They offer no parallels
to the characteristic method of ascribing to each of the three persons in
the Trinity the same attributes, "uncreate, eternal, omnipotent,"
while asserting in each case that they are one uncreate, one eternal, one
omnipotent.
Though S. Ambrose had written cautiously on these lines, it was
only in the fifth book of Augustine On the Trinity that they were
fully developed.
Since then such balanced antitheses have become a commonplace
of Christian thought, though sometimes weakened by a writer like Fulgentius [Appendix
C.], who adds the word God, "one eternal God."
This is,
as Waterland [P.214.] says, "a
very insipid and dull way of expressing it."
On the other hand, these professions agree closely with the Quicunque in carefully distinguishing the persons, while they retain the Gallican terminology, una substantia. Pelagius and Bacchiarius lay similar stress on the scriptural terms for the Divine relationships, "begotten," "proceeding," and main?tain their coequality as excluding grades of superiority in the Godhead.
In regard to the doctrine of the Incarnation, there is even
more marked agreement of phraseology in opposition to Apollinarianism.
The
main thesis of the Quicunque in its second part (cl.30) is the perfectness
of the two natures in Christ, and the unity of His Divine-Human person is
taught in relation to the Apollinarian error respecting the natures rather
than the Nestorian puzzle respecting the mystery of their union.
The phrase perfectus Deus perfectus homo comes from
a doubtful treatise of Athanasius, c. Apol. i. 16; cf. Orat. iii.
41.
The nearest parallel in Augustine is Serin. 238:
"Aduersus Arium, ueram et perfectam Uerbi diuinitatem;
aduersus Apollinarem, perfectam hominis in Christo defendimus ueritatem."
Leporius writes: "Manente in sua perfectione naturaliter utraque substantia" Pelagius sums up in a sentence the argument of the Quicunque (ell. 24-35):
"Sic autem confitemur in Christo unam Filii esse personam, ut dicamus, duas esse perfectas atque integras substantias, id est, deitatis et humanitatis, quae ex anima continetur et corpore."
And not only does Pelagius proceed to condemn Apollinaris by name, but he also condemns other unnamed teachers who had recently introduced a fresh development of that error teaching a confusion of Godhead and Manhood (Hahn3, p.290).
Thus it is plain that the author of the Quicunque used both phrases and arguments which were in current use before the rise of Nestorianism.
The mere repetition of such phrases in documents of the Nestorian
period, such as the Union Creed of the Antiochenes, proves nothing
against the priority of the Quicunque, unless it can be proved that
its teaching on the "Unity of Person" is either the main point
in the argument or distinctly directed against Nestorian denial of such unity.
In the section clauses 32-35 the subject that Christ is "God and man" is
explained to refute the theory of confusion of substance, and illustrated
by the analogy of the union of soul and flesh in one man.
Both in the
explanation and in the illustration the "unity of His person" is
postulated, but it is not put forward as if it was specially endangered.
Nor is it guarded by the test phrases which were found so useful against
Nestorius.
"There is not a word of the Mother of God, or of one Son only, in opposition to two sons, or of God's being born, suffering, dying: which kind of expressions the creeds are full of after Nestorius's times, and after the Council of Ephesus."
[Waterland, p.149.]
It has been suggested that the error of Leporius was of a similar kind, and we certainly find in his confession the statement:
"Nec alter Deus, alter homo, sed idem ipse Deus, qui et homo, et uicissim idem ipse homo, qui et Deus."
How easy it would have been to insert a clause of this kind in the Quicunque if it had been desired to labour this point. It is just this turn which we find given to the parallels in Vincentius and Faustus.
The illustration from the constitution of man (cl.35) was used by S. Ambrose, and more freely by S. Augustine, before Nestorianism was thought of. It threw no light on the problem of personality, either suggesting the true view that the manhood assumed was impersonal, or that its personality was annihilated, according to the dangerous logic of Faustus, "persona personam consumere potest."
The teaching on the two nativities "ante saecula ... in hoc saeculo" finds a parallel in Augustine's Enchiridion (420), c. 35, in a chapter that certainly anticipates the arguments against Nestorianism, insisting on the unity of person with denial of two Sons. But this fact points the contrast to the Quicunque. Augustine may have had Leporius in his mind, who in his recantation quoted the two nativities to lead up to "unum eundemque Deum atque hominem." Pelagius, however, quotes the nativities with reference only to the perfectness of the natures. And this is the natural conclusion from clause 29 of the Quicunque, which leads up to the same point, "perfectus Deus perfectus homo," and lacks the "idem" "idem" so often inserted by Vincentius.
While the doctrine of the Two Natures is thus clearly defined
for practical purposes, it is not elaborated in the way which became necessary
after the rise of Eutychianism.
Eutyches, whose difficulty may have been
accentuated by the poverty of the Syriac language, was unable to distinguish
accurately between "nature" and
"person," and felt driven to deny the duality of the natures, after
their union in Christ.
He confessed that He, who was born of the Virgin Mary,
was perfect God and perfect man, but had not flesh consubstantial with ours.
Thus he virtually denied the true manhood, and it became necessary to enlarge
dogmatic statements to exclude his theory of One Nature.
There is no
indication that such need was felt by the author of the Quicunque, who
might so easily have inserted teaching that Christ is consubstantial with
us in one nature, as He is consubstantial with the Father in the other.
Such
phrases were used in Gaul by Cassian [De Incarn.vi.13.] in
430, before the rise of Eutychianism.
They did not need to be invented, only
to be applied. Another argument to prove that the Quicunque is pre-Eutychian
has been founded on the change of reading in clause 33, from accusatives carnem, Deum ;
to ablatives carne, Deo.
Thus the creed would be made to condemn
Eutychian teaching of a change of Godhead in the flesh, and that the manhood
was assumed into God in such a sense as to be absorbed into the Divine nature,
teaching which would be to some extent favoured by the accusatives. [Waterland, p.144. I take this opportunity of withdrawing the mistake
in this connexion on p.Ixxiv. of my book, The Athanasian Creed, pointed
out by a kind critic in the Tablet.]
And it is also an acknowledged
fact that Catholic writers, after the rise of this heresy, shrank from using
the illustration of clause 35, "as the reasonable soul," etc.,
which the Eutychians misused, pleading for one nature in Christ, as soul
and body make one nature in man.
On these grounds it seems to me reasonable to support Waterland's
opinion that the Quicunque was written before the condemnation of
Nestorius in 431.
And I am glad to claim the support of Kattenbusch [Theol.
Lit. Z, March 6, 1897.], who has studied minutely the whole
question, and lays stress on the fact that beside the phrase of Leporius, "Jesus
Christus unus Dei Filius,"
clause 33 of the creed is, so to speak, unbiased, expressing a mode of thought
which was disturbed by Nestorius, and had to be defended against him with
new phrases.
Ommanney's arguments, in his careful chapter on the date
of the creed [Diss. pp.350-374.], are defensible
against Waterland only on the assumption that the main argument of clauses
32-35 is to uphold the unity of Christ's person against the Nestorian denial,
which I venture to think is mistaken.
And I am confident that further consideration
of the evidence of contemporary Gallican Creeds will finally establish the
soundness of Water-land's judgment.
There is one more point in the internal evidence which deserves
special mention, the reference to the descent into hell.
This was rare in
forms of the Apostles' Creed at that time, but was common in the writings
of Catholic teachers (Hilary, de Trin.; Aug. Ep. 164, etc.)
before 431, and supplied a useful argument against the Apollinarian denial
that the Lord had a human soul.
top
These conclusions from the internal evidence of the creed may be confirmed by the suggestion that it was written with the special object of meeting the errors of Priscillianism.
Priscillian was a wealthy Spanish layman, who was unquestionably devout, and was well read in the Scriptures. But he had had no theological training, and was not, to say the least, a clear thinker. He quotes Hilary of Poitiers again and again without understanding his argument. With the best intentions such a man might fall into heretical modes of expression. We may charitably trace to this cause the Sabellian and Apollinarian teaching, which he gives so confidently as gospel truth. He professed all the time to use and interpret in their primitive sense Church formularies, such as the Baptismal Formula and the Apostles' Creed. When we find him, however, making "Holy Church" precede "Holy Spirit" in the creed, we cannot but doubt his belief in the personality of the Holy Spirit. This doubt is not removed by the following passage from the same treatise,
Tract II.§45:
"In nomine Patris et Fili et Spiritus Sancti, non dicit autem 'in nominibus' tamquam in multis, sed in uno, quid unus Deus trina potestate uenerabilis omnia et in omnibus Christus est sicut scribtum est:
Abrahae dictae sunt repromissiones et semini eius; non dicit 'et seminilus' tanquam in multis, sed quasi in uno 'et semini tuo' quod est Christus. ... Nobis enim Christus Deus Dei Filius passus in carne secundum fidem symboli baptizatis et electis ad sacerdotium in nomine Patris et Fili et Spiritus Sancti tota fides, tota uita, tota ueneratio est."
With this passage we may compare a fragment of esoteric teaching, his Benedictio super fideles, which begins with a quotation from Hilary's prayer, "Sancte Pater, omnipotens Deus," but falls away from the lines of his thought in the following sentence:
"Tu enim es Deus, qui ... unus Deus crederis, inuisibilis in Patre, uisibilis in Filio et unitus in opus duorum Sanctus Spiritus inueniris."
The accusation of Orosius in his Commonitorium,
[Orosius, ad Aug.:
"Trinitatem autem solo uerbo loquebatur, nam unionem absque ulla existentia aut proprietate adserens sublato 'et' Patrem, Filium Spiritum Sanctum hunc esse unum Christum docebat."]
that Priscillian
omitted the et in the Baptismal Formula, is true as to the substance
of his teaching, if not in the letter.
He never uses the word Trinity,
and it does not appear that he acknowledges the distinction of persons
in the Godhead behind the manifestation of threefold power (trina
potestas).
The same mist of vagueness obscures the outlines of his Christological teaching. The following passage is plainly Apollinarian.
Tract VI. §99:
"Denique Deus noster adsumens carnem, formam in se Dei et hominis, id est diuinae animae et terrenae carnis adsignans, dum aliud ex his peccati formam, aliud diuinam ostendit esse naturam, illudque arma iniquitatis peccato, hoc iustitiae arma demonstrat in salutem nostram uerbum caro factus."
We are not concerned here with the events of his life, his
consecration as bishop, the controversies which followed upon the propagation
of his teaching, his appeal to the Bishops of Rome and Milan, Damasus and
Ambrose, the final tragedy of his appeal to the usurper Maxentius, a suicidal
step which led to his condemnation on political rather than religious grounds.
He was, however, executed on the charge of heresy, being the first to suffer
this fate, which he had proposed for others, and many saintly minds were
grieved.
Certainly it brought no gain of peace to the Church, for he
was venerated as a martyr, and the sect increased everywhere.
We have seen,
in the case of Bacchiarius, how great was the suspicion of all monks coming
from Spain.
When language so inaccurate as the passages quoted above
was declared with vehemence to be Catholic teaching, there was need for vigilance.
And
there was need of a summary of Catholic belief on the Trinity and the incarnation,
which should lay due stress on the responsibility of the intellect in matters
of faith, and at the same time do justice to the moral aspect of these problems,
and prove that faith worketh by love, only "they that have done good
shall go into life eternal."
The Quicunque exactly meets these
requirements.
May it not have been written for the purpose?
There is another side to Priscillian's teaching on which it
is not possible to speak with any confidence, but it must be mentioned in
justice to his opponents.
I refer to his leaning towards Manicheism and Gnosticism.
Against his emphatic denial of such heresies must be set the plain proofs
of his acquaintance with many recondite forms of such errors, and with apocryphal
literature in which they are taught.
His doctrine of the elect throws
light on his setting Holy Church before Holy Spirit in the creed, and suggests
his connection with some theosophic sect.
The prominence, which he gives
to the sufferings of Christ, may be explained away, if, like Mani, he attributed
to them only a symbolical meaning. [Neander, Hist.iv.p.509
(Trans.).]
It must be remembered that the Western Manicheans of the
fourth and fifth centuries made much more parade of Christian teaching than
those of the East.
Orosius charges him with explaining S. Paul's words, Col.ii.14, "the handwriting of the ordinances," as "the bond in virtue of which the soul was imprisoned in the body, and made subject to sidereal influences." It seems to have been supposed that the powers brought the different parts of the body into relation to the signs of the zodiac, while the soul was influenced by the twelve heavenly powers, represented under the names of the twelve patriarchs. There are vague hints in Tracts VI., VIII., X. of these doctrines.
Tract VI. §111: "Inter duodecim milia signatorum patriarchum numeris mancipati."
Tract VII. §117: " Perpetua luce contecti peccatorum supplicia respuere et requiem possimus habere iustorum per lesum Christum."
Such words seem simply to imply that the soul is mystically purged by fellowship with the higher world, and enabled to defy (respuere) the punishments of sins. This is the sort of teaching, which would encourage secret immorality among those who imagined themselves safe by election. It was the suspicion of evil doing, which ruined Priscillian and his cause, however far he may have been from countenancing such conclusions. The only remedy is to proclaim, as is done with no uncertain sound both by the Creed of Damasus and the Quicunque, the doctrine of a Future Judgment, when
"all shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give account for their own works."
My conclusions from all these considerations differ but little from those of Waterland. They seem to point to the decade 420-430 as the period when the creed must have been written.
Kattenbuschwould push the date ten years further back.
[Theol. Lit. Z. 1897, p.144; "Das Charakteristische an der Formel ist ihre eigenthumlich kunstmassige Gestalt. Man kann sie eine "Dichtung" heissen. In feierlich bemessener, gravitatischer Form prazisirt sie die 'catholica fides.' Sic hat kein Metrum, wohl aber einen unverkennbaren Rhythmus. In ihrer rhetorisch plerophorischen Art spricht sie speciell den trinitarischen Gedanken vielleicht kuhner und consequenter aus, als es der Theologie noch gelaufig war. Man sieht sich ja nothwendigerweise an die Gedanken erinnert, die Augustin ausgefuhrt hat. Es kann aber ein Vorurtheil sein, wenn man meint, das Quic. setze die augustinische Trinitatsconstruktion als solche voraus. Die Formel Iasst sich fuglich auch begreifen als eine Vorlauferin der Spekulation des Augustin. Mir scheint, in der That, als ob Augustin sie bereits kenne. Nicht als ob er sie irgendwie als eine 'Autoritat, betrachte. Aber wenn sie in Lerinum entstanden sein sollte, kann sie bald auch in afrikanischen monchischen Kreisen bekannt geworden sein. Es hat fur mich mehr Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass dem Augustin einzelne ihrer Ausdrucke oder Satze im Gedachtniss gehaftet haben und ihm gelegentlich in die Feder geflossen sind, als dass der Autor der Formel aus den Stellen, die u. a. Burn nachweist, seine uberraschend ahnlichen oder geradezu gleichlautenden Wendungen geschopft haben sollte."]
He does not consider that its relationship to the theology of Augustine stands in the way. He would even regard it as antecedent to Augustine's speculations. It seems to him possible that Augustine knew it, and that the parallel passages scattered over his works represent reminiscences. It does not follow that he would regard it as an authority.
I have often wondered whether the following sentence in Augustine, de Trin. I.v.5, referred to a formal profession:
"But in this matter (i.e. the Catholic faith) some are disturbed when they hear that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and yet that they are not three Gods but one God."
I
do not know of any other passages that would bear out Kattenbusch's suggestion,
and the reference in this case seems to me too weak to bear the weight of
so important an argument.
It comes to this.
If the main portion of part i.
clauses 7-19, which one has been accustomed to think of as pre-eminently
Augustinian, and which (as I have shown, p.138) distinguishes the Quicunque from
the other professions of faith quoted in this chapter, is not the fruit of
Augustine's influence upon the author, but exercised, on the contrary, a
constraining influence upon Augustine, the Church owes an unacknowledged
debt of gratitude to a mind superior to that of the great African thinker.
Surely this is an incredible hypothesis, since we find no trace of such influence
on Victricius or Vincentius.
Vincentius was possibly prejudiced
against Augustine, and we find no parallels to these clauses in the Commonitorium ;
but no prejudice, as far as we know, would exist in his mind against a Gallican
writer, and he desired to set forth the fulness of tlie Trinity (Trinitatis
plenitude), which is just what these clauses do.
The genius of Augustine
had no rivals, and we may be thankful, for the advance that he made in the
interpretation of the doctrine of Divine Personality was only won at the
cost of bitter pains, revealed to us in his heart-searching Confessions.
The supposed dependence of the author of the Quicunque on Augustine leads us to set the date of the publication of his Enchiridion, c. 420, as the earliest possible date of the Quicunque. The parallels to the second book "against Maximinus," published c. 427, are of less importance. His lectures on S. John were written in 416, and in the same year he finished his work On the Trinity.
The absence of any reference to Nestorianism gives us the lower
limit c. 430.
There is a good deal of truth in Kattenbusch's
observation, that expositions of faith must usually be assumed to be up to
date, whereas commentaries on creeds and expositions of faith tend to stop
with the latest heresy against which their authors find arguments in the
creed of their subject.
The question of authorship is not so easy to define.
There
are three modern claimants, - Victricius, Vincentius, and Honoratus.
I consider
Vigilius of Thapsus [See Appendix B.], or his double,
out of court.
The chief claim put forward for Victricius by Harvey [On the Creeds, ii.p.677.] was the fact that he was accused of Apollinarianism or something like it, and that he wrote a Confessio, which has been lost. Yet we gather from the full account given by Paulinus, and the parallel passage in the de Laude Sanctorum, that it only partially corresponded to the Quicunque; roughly speaking, to clauses 4, 6, 15, 28, 29, 30. We have no right to dogmatise on the omission of parellels to other clauses. We do not know for certain what else it contained. But on the whole we seem to be justified in rejecting the theory of his authorship, unless some MS. should be found connecting the creed with him in any more definite way.
The theory that Vincentius was the author has been ably advocated by Ommanney. Nothing that I have written about the priority of the creed to the Commonitorium need hinder one from regarding the creed as an earlier work of Vincentius. There is no question of his knowledge or of his ability. But these general considerations do not amount to proof, and there are others, which may be said to counterbalance them.
"He was a poet-theologian, and the Quicunque represents rather the grammar than the poetry of theology. His intellect was imaginative rather than analytical, and there is true poetry in his illustrations.
But his promise to treat of matters of faith in another work can only refer to a more elaborate form of the Commonitorium, equally diffuse in style, not to the terse clearly-cut sentences of the creed."
We come, lastly, to the theory of authorship which I
advocated in my book on The Athanasian Creed, and to which I still
cling with some fondness, though it has not been received with any favour.
All the available evidence, both internal and external, points to the south
of France as the home of the creed, and the parallels, not to say quotations,
in writings of Vincentius, Faustus, and hereafter Caesarius of Arles, point
to Lerins.
Nor can there be any question that the first brothers in
that famous retreat of piety and learning were men of more than average calibre,
and made their mark on their generation.
There is no reason to suppose
that their enthusiasm for their leader, so beautifully expressed in the funeral
sermon written by Hilary of Arles, was in any way misplaced or mistaken.
And
it is certain that a preacher is to some degree influenced by his congregation,
that he would be encouraged to give his best thoughts and choose his words
when addressing disciples so able and so devout as the congregation which
met in that happy island-home.
I would therefore suggest that Honoratus
was worthy to be the author of the creed, regarded as an instruction in the
faith.
And I maintain that there is some support for the theory in the
references which Hilary of Aries and Faustus make to his dogmatic teaching.
Hilarius, Vita Honorati, c.38:
"Quotidianus siquidem in sincerissimis tractatibus confessionis Patris ac Filii ac Spiritus Sancti testis fuisti: nec facile tam exerte tam lucide quisquam de diuinitatis Trinitate disseruit, cum eam personis distingueres, et gloriae aeternitate ac maiestate sociares."Faustus, In depositione S. Honorati :
"Sed et modo minus potest gaudere is ... qui patriam uel parentes illius feruore contempserit... qui fideliter sanctam regulam custodierit ab illo allatam et per ilium a Christo ad confirmationem loci istius constitutam. ... Ergo carissimi,ut adipisci possimus illa quae obtinuit sequamur illa prius quae docuit; teneamus in primis fidem rectam, credamus Patrem et Filium et Spiritum Sanctum unum Deum. Ubi enim est unitas esse non potest insequalitas, et cum Filius quia Deus est perfectus consummatus et plenua sit, prorsus minor dici non potest plenitude."
Waterland, who recognised an allusion to the Quicunque, but
inferred that Hilary was quoting his own composition, knew only the first
of these sermons.
Hilary's biographer speaks of his "admirable exposition
of the symbol," but this, in the language of the day, usually meant
a detailed exposition of the Apostles' Creed.
The Quicunque cannot
be called an exposition of that creed, for it does not comment on the articles
that it quotes.
This theory of the authorship is at least not more speculative
than others, and harmonises with my suggestion, that the creed was written
to warn men against the loose pietism of the Priscillianists.
"In such a case we are content with a probability."
We do not
receive the creed as the faith of any individual teacher, but as a form of
faith sanctioned by the usage of the Catholic Church.
We are content to trace
it to the island-home that sent forth into the world so noble a band of confessors
and martyrs.
"Peace also has its martyrs," wrote Hilary of Honoratus.
These
men were ready to die and suffer, as Faustus had to suffer, for the truths
they taught, because the creed on their lips was no mere assertion of formal
orthodoxy, because they desired with true devotion "to acknowledge the
glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship
the Unity." [Cf. my The Ath. Creed, p.xcvii.]