Understanding the Apostles' creed

Front matter

UNDERSTANDING

DONALD McFAYDEN

Professor Donald McFayden as born in Ontario, Canada. He ook his B.A. Degree at the Uniersity of Toronto in 1896, and his .A. at Harvard in 1901. He then spent several years in study in the Harvard Divinity School, the niversity of Marburg, Germany, and the University of Cambridge,

Foreword

IT was a quiet Sunday afternoon in early spring. The setting sun poured through the west window of the church upon the chancel. The second lesson—as it chanced it was the second half of the sixth chapter of St. Matthew—had just been read. The organ breathed and we sang, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word.” Then, still standing on our feet, we each began, “I believe . . .”

For some reason or other, the Historian’s imagination was unusually active that afternoon; and as his lips recited the familiar words, his thoughts ran back over the centuries. He recalled that for a millennium and a half at least people had been pronouncing these identical sentences, in Greek, in Latin, or in their own mother tongue—laymen, women, and little children, as well as priests. For the Apostles’ Creed has always been peculiarly the layman’s creed. Luther, Calvin, Knox, Cranmer, and Wesley, no less than Thomas Aquinas, all learned it in childhood and prescribed that it be taught to the young. From the second century to the present, it has formed the basis of catechetical instruction in Western Christendom. Throughout the Middle Ages every Christian not of the Eastern Church was taught his Credo at his mother’s knee vil

FOREWORD along with his Paternoster, and habitually recited it in his or her daily prayers. It was men’s constant recourse when faced by trouble, danger, or death. They believed it to be the Apostles’ own summary of the Christian Faith. The myth regarding its apostolic authorship has long been exploded; nevertheless it veils a truth. The Apostles’ Creed is indeed a summary of the gospel in its most primitive form, and carries us back to the dawn of Christianity. As he recited the Creed that Sunday afternoon, the Historian realized, not it should be said for the first time, that he was engaging in a sacramental act; that he was professing the common faith of Christians in all ages, and that he was sharing in the communion of saints. Then he remembered that the continuance of this sacrament was imperiled; that, for the majority of Protestants at least, it actually no longer existed. Even in his own communion, the Episcopal Church, the sense of its value was apparently waning, as evidenced by the proposal, emanating from men for whom he had the highest respect, that the use of the Apostles’ Creed should be made permissive only. He well understood the motives which were leading to the Creed’s disuse: the intellectual difficulties involved and the very real objections to the continued employment of an outworn and uncomprehended formula. But it seemed to him that the ideal solution lay, not in the abandonment of the most venerable of all the Church’s symbols, but in the spread of intelligence as to its use and significance. He decided, therefore, that Sunday

Vill

FOREWORD afternoon to lay aside certain investigations on which he was engaged and to attempt a modest contribution to that end.

After a much longer delay than he antictpated— delay occasioned by his professional obligations—the book is now complete. Its writer begs that it be not judged as a contribution to the scholarship of the subject. Church History has not been in recent years the field of his special study, and he has relied almost solely upon the recognized secondary authorities. His aim is a humbler one: to place before the general reader an account of the oldest and in many ways the most interesting of the Christian creeds, its historical background and the thrilling experiences and earnest conflicts which gave it birth; and to explain, if the reader be interested, how one professional scholar at least, despite the fact that he is daily exposed to all that is best in what we call the ‘‘modern mind,” nevertheless can repeat its ancient phrases con amore.

ee ix

Contents

CHAPTER - PAGE 1—THE HISTORY OF THE APOSTLES’ CREED 1

The central place accorded the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments by sixteenth-century Protestantism—Medieval precedents for this—Baptismal symbols and their uses—The Apostles’ Creed an enlargement of the Old Roman Symbol—How it developed and how it attained to universal acceptance in Western Christendom—Text of the Old Roman Symbol—The evolution of the Old Roman Symbol and the problem as to its date— How a creed should be interpreted—Plan of this book.

II—THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF PRIMITIVE GHRIS FIANTEY= Ay SCIENTIFIC “(2.7 7. 28