third day according to the Scriptures; and that he appeared to Cephas... to all the Apostles (1 Cor. xv. 3 ff.). In close connexion with the exhortation " to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," he writes: "there is one body, and one Spirit . . one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all" (Eph. iv. 3-6). In 1 Tim. iii. 16 he appears to quote a lyric creed or hymn of the mystery of the faith (cf. 1 Tim. iii. 9, "the mystery of the faith"): "Confessedly great is the mystery of godliness-He who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory." In 2 Tim. i. 13 f. he urges Timothy to "hold the pattern of sound words which thou hast heard from me . . . and guard the good deposit which was committed unto thee." In these Epistles to Timothy and Titus there is a grave concern for the maintenance of "sound" doctrine and tradition (cf. 1 Tim. i. 10f., ii. 5-7, iv. 1, vi. 1, 3-5, 12, 13, 20, 21; 2 Tim. ii. 23, iii. 14, iv. 3; Tit. i. 13 f., ii. 2, 7, 8), a fear of speculation and controversy in the Church, and a dread of factious or heretical teaching (Tit. iii. 10). Plainly the instinct to stereotype the articles of faith is actively at work.

In Hebrews a distinction is made between the rudiments of religion, the first principles of Christ, which the Jew possessed in common with the Christian, viz. "repentance from dead works, faith in God, baptismal doctrine, layingon of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment" (vi. 1 f.), and mature or perfected doctrine. In v. 12 allusion is made to "the first principles of the oracles of God" as matter of elementary knowledge.

In 1 John much stress is laid upon the duty of confessing Christ: "every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which confesseth not Jesus is not of God" (iv. 2 f.); "whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him and he in God' (iv. 15; cf. v. 1). His true humanity and His Divine Sonship are

thus the distinctive themes of a Christian confession (cf. 2 John vv. 7-10).

Jude speaks of "the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints" (ver. 3) as threatened by antinomian heresy "denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ" (ver. 4)-suggesting that "faith" had become a term denoting doctrine as well as a vital activity of the soul, and that "the Faith" was becoming a familiar term for the Christian Tradition.

It is thus apparent that the element of confession is present in every stratum of New Testament Scripture, and that the facts of Christian tradition and of Christian experience were from the outset distinguished from Hebrew and Gentile rudiments, and formulated in brief statements, one at least of which was lyric in form, perhaps a canticle of the earliest Church. Sincerity, spontaneity, candour, religious qualities on which the Master had laid unbounded stress, lent variety to the forms assumed by individual confession; but as the Apostolic teaching tended towards an essential unity of type, so the faith of the Apostolic Church tended to express itself with a certain uniformity also. To be a member presupposed baptism and acknowledgment of conversion and of the experienced power of faith in Christ. Baptism implied regeneration, new sonship to God, faith in God the Father: it implied faith in Jesus as Christ or Saviour, the unique Son sent to earth from the bosom of the Eternal Father it implied experience of the Divine Spirit of adoption and sanctification, for it was not by water merely, but spiritual, and with inward power from above. Over-against the ancient rule of life, the Law given by Moses, there was now set an experience of renewing grace and saving truth by Jesus the Christ, not servant but Son of the Living God (John i. 17). To know God as Father and the Son whom He has sent into the world to save, is life eternal (John xvii. 3). "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost," constitutes the utmost benediction of

the Apostle Paul (2 Cor. xiii. 14). "To us there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ," is another summary from the same mind (1 Cor. viii. 6), supplemented by the explanation "no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. xii. 3). The later Church could not mistake the creed foundation laid down for it by the first age. Experience of God as Father, Son, and Indwelling Spirit, and faith in the Triune name, was bound up with the simplest act of Baptism.1

1 Cf. Prof. Harnack's discussion of the Origin of the Trinitarian Formula in The Constitution and Law of the Church, tr., Lond. 1910; Appendix ii.

CHAPTER V.

THE CREEDS OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH.

THE APOSTLES' CREED, THE NICENE CREED, THE TE DEUM, AND THE QUICUNQUE VULT.

Ο
OU

I. INTRODUCTION.

UR survey of the New Testament references to confession of faith has made it evident that at the close of the Apostolic age no particular creed or confession could claim to have been exclusively or even expressly ordained for use either by Jesus or by His Apostles.1 The explicit sanction of both Master and Apostles could be claimed only for the simple confession, "I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God," or its equivalents. Baptism before the Church was the natural occasion for confession of faith, and for baptism that simple formula was at first sufficient.

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1 GENERAL LITERATURE.-A. E. BURN, Introduction to the Creeds, London, 1899 (an invaluable study), article " Creeds," in Encycl. Brit., ed. 11, 1911, and "The Athanasian Creed," in vol. iv. of Texts and Studies, 1896; E. C. S. GIBSON, The Three Creeds, 1908; articles in Hauck-Herzog, Realencycl. ed. 3, Apostolisches Symbolum," and " Konstantinopolitanisches Symbol," by HARNACK, Athanasianum" by Loors, and "Te Deum" by KÖSTLIN; H.JB. SWETE, The Apostles' Creed, 1899; A. C. MCGIFFORT, The Apostles' Creed, Edin. 1902; C. A. SWAINSON, The Nicene and Apostles' Creeds (incl. Athanasian), London, 1875; F. KATTENBUSCH, Das apostolische Symbol, 1894-1900, and Confessionskunde, 1890; T. ZAHN, Das apost. Symbolum, 1893; F. Loofs, Symbolik, Leipzig, 1902; E. F. KARL MÜLLER, Symbolik, 1896; P. SCHAFF, Hist. of Creeds of Christendom, and Creeds of Greek and Latin Churches, London and N.Y. 1877 and later; C. P. CASPARI, Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufsymbols und der Glaubensregel, Christiania, 1866, and Alte und neue Quellen, 1879; C. A. HEURTLEY, Harmonia Symbolica, 1858; B. F. WESTCOTT, The Historic Faith, 1882; J. KUNZE, Das nicänisch-konstantinopolitanische Symbol; G. D. W. OMMANNEY, The Athanasian Creed, 1897; D. WATERLAND, Critical History of Athanas. Creed, ed. E. King, Oxford, 1870; article "Te Deum Laudamus," in Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology, London, 1892, by J. WORDSWORTH; J. R. LUMBY, Hist. of the Creeds, Camb. 1887.

But, as the Church grew and attracted men who had not enjoyed the privilege of Jewish education in religion either as Hebrews or as proselytes, and who had not already made profession of the Hebrew Creed, the course of instruction, both questions and answers, preparatory to admission by baptism, had to be enlarged alike in regard to distinctive Old Testament truth-God the One, the Creator, Upholder, Revealer, Judge and in regard to distinctive Christian truth-the life and work of Jesus the Christ, the Christian Church, and the Christian Hope. Moreover, from the first, baptism in the name of Jesus, as Christ, Son of God and Lord, involved a far from narrow range of definite doctrines: it certainly implied acceptance of the distinctive teachings of the Lord and of the Apostolic estimate (religious rather than theological) of His Person and Work: it was a baptism outwardly by water, but inwardly and supremely by the Holy Spirit, the sanctifier and enlightener of men, a baptism of repentance issuing in regeneration, of reconciliation and restoration to God the Father, of the forgiveness of sins, of admission to the Church, the Lord's body. No account of the significance of even the simplest form of baptism and confession would be historically just which ignored any one of these implications. Sacramental acts are always and everywhere charged with meaning, and meaning involves the essence of doctrine. Dogma may be as authoritatively present in ceremonial acts as in Scriptures and literary definitions. Baptism, like communion in the Lord's Supper, was from the first an act eloquent of historical and doctrinal convictions as well as of personal selfsurrender and dependence, and these convictions had to do with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. At first the sense of mystic union with Christ and with the Brotherhood, only deepened by the external enmity of the Jewish Church and by the scorn and suspicion of Greece and Rome, sufficed to make Christians careless, if not unconscious, of the variety of constructions which they individually and locally put upon their Scriptures, traditions, and sacraments. But, as the gate of baptism opened wider and wider to admit