II

CREDO in Deum Patrem omnipotentem…et in Iesum Christum unicum Filium eius…et in Spiritum Sanctum. The theology of the Creed forms its framework. The three articles just cited are distinguished from the rest by the fresh act of faith with which each is introduced (credo in…et in…et in). Thus the Baptismal Creed is seen to rest upon the Baptismal words. It was the answer of the Church to the Lord’s final revelation of the Name of God. “As we are baptized, so (writes St Basil) must we believe1.”
The theology of the Apostles’ Creed begins with the confession of Divine Fatherhood. It may be open to doubt whether this truth was directly recognised in the earliest form of the Roman Creed. Marcellus begins. ‘I believe in God Almighty,’ and Tertullian’s statements of the Rule of Faith exhibit the same omission. Yet ‘Patrem’ stood in the Creed as it was known to Novatian and to Cyprian, and the Acts of Perpetua2 seem to give it a place in the African Creed of the writer, who has been thought to be Tertullian himself. It is fair then to assume that the word established itself in symbolical use before the end of the second century.
But Harnack warns us that when the second century professed its faith in God the Father, it did not necessarily attach to that Name the significance which it bore upon the lips of Christ and in the Epistles of St Paul. The Name itself is not common in the Christian literature of the time, and when it is used, it refers as a rule to the paternal relation of God to the Creation. Therefore the author of the Creed “did not probably attribute the same meaning to the word as it bears in Matt. 11:25 ff., Rom. 8:15, ” although “he does not stand in the way of such a meaning.”
A creative paternity is ascribed to God in the New Testament itself. He is the Father of “the lights” of heaven (James 1:17) and of “the spirits” of men (Heb. 12:9); “we are also His offspring” (Acts 17:28)1. The early post-apostolic Church seized upon this conception and gave it new prominence, for it supplied her with an answer to Gnosticism, and a doctrine of God’s relation to the world which Paganism was half prepared to accept. It appears in Clement of Rome: “Let us look (he writes) to the Father and Creator of the whole world2.” It is especially frequent, as we might expect, in the early apologists. Christians are baptized, Justin tells the pagan world, “in the Name of God the Father and Lord of the Universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost3.” “God is a Spirit,” Tatian explains, “a Being Who, Himself invisible and intangible, has become the Father of things sensible and visible1.” Theophilus states expressly that God is called Father, “because He existed before the Universe2.”
Further, it is true that, as Harnack says, the Church of the second century laid special stress upon the sovereignty of God over the creation He has made. The conception of a supreme Lord (δεσπότης) is more frequent during this period than that of an universal Father. This conception, also, came from Scripture, perhaps chiefly from the Greek Old Testament. It occurs indeed in the New Testament, especially in passages which are coloured by Jewish ideas (Luke 2:29, Acts 4:24, 29, 2 Pet. 2:1, Jude 4); but the post-apostolic Church probably received it from the lxx., where δεσπότης frequently represents אֲדנָֹי or even יְהוָה. In the Wisdom Books, for which the early Church entertained a high esteem, the word is specially used to denote the relation of the Creator to the Universe as its supreme Governor (Wisd. 8:3, Sir. 36:1); “Lord of all creation” appears in 3 Macc. 2:2 as a recognised form of invocation.3 The Church took over the conception from the Synagogue, and there was abundant reason why in her first struggles with the world she should rejoice in a truth which reminded her where her strength lay. The Creed reflects this truth in the word ‘Almighty,’ for omnipotens is παντοκράτωρ rather than παντοδύναμος, not so much the ‘Almighty’ as the ‘All-Ruler4.’ It is therefore quite possible and even probable that the combination Pater Omnipotens points in the first instance to the relation of God to the world which He has created, and over which He exercises sovereign rights, and Harnack has done good service by directing attention to an aspect of the words which was certainly primitive, but in these days is too often left out of sight.
But the question remains whether this aspect of the Divine Paternity, which circumstances placed foremost in the thought of the second century, was allowed to overshadow the deeper revelation of the Baptismal Words. As a matter of fact, the early Christian writers who speak of God’s fatherly relation to Nature, speak also of His special relation to Jesus Christ and to the members of the Church. “Let us approach Him (Clement exhorts) in holiness of soul, lifting up to Him pure hands and undefiled, loving our gentle and compassionate Father, who made us an elect portion (ἐκλογῆς μέρος) for Himself (c. 29).” The homily known as the Second Epistle of Clement, a survival from the first half of the second century, abounds in references to the Father, and identifies Him with the Father of Christ (c. 3) and the Father of Christians (c. 10, 14)1. Ignatius dwells almost exclusively on His relation to our Lord, quite after the manner of St Paul (Eph. 5, Magn. 1, 3, 7, 8). In Hermas, whose practice is specially significant as that of a Roman Christian who, according to the commonly accepted view, belonged to the very generation which gave shape to the Roman Creed, God is called Father only in His relation to the Son and to the Church (uis. iii. 9. 10; sim. v. 6. 3, 4; ix. 12. 2).2 The Apologists, addressing the heathen, led them to identify the Father of the Universe with the Father of Christ. “The Almighty Creator of all things,” writes the unknown author of the Epistle to Diognetus, “sent His Son as a King might send a Royal Prince, as sending God3.” “Jesus Christ,” says Justin, “is the begotten Son of God after a manner peculiar to Himself4.”
In the face of these facts it is arbitrary to say that the deeper sense of the word was probably absent from the mind of the author of the Creed. It is more than arbitrary in view of the words that immediately follow in the Creed itself: et in Christum Iesum unicum Filium eius. Can it be believed that Patrem in the first clause of the Creed has no prospective reference to Filium in the second? Rufinus’s explanation cannot be entirely wrong, “Fili intellige Patrem1”; or Cyril’s, Τῷ εἰπεῖν ὅτι πατήρ, ἤδη ἐδηλώσαμεν ὅτι καὶ υἱὸν ἔχει2. The fourth century may have insisted on this aspect of the truth too exclusively, but the second did not overlook it.
Passing to the second article of the Creed, we are invited to enquire in what sense Jesus Christ is confessed to be the “only Son” of God.
Et in Christum Iesum unicum Filium eius: so runs the Roman Creed of the fourth century as attested by both Marcellus and Rufinus; so too the other Italian forms of the Roman Creed, e.g. those of Milan, Turin, Aquileia, Ravenna, and the later forms prevalent in Spain, Gaul, Ireland, and England3. Unicum, however, appears to have been wanting in African types of the Creed; it is not in Tertullian’s accounts of the Rule of Faith, or in the Creeds of Cyprian and Augustine. Even Novatian of Rome omits it, and, at a later time, Nicetas. Thus, although possibly present in the Roman Creed before the end of the second century, it cannot claim to have been universally admitted by the Western Churches. But, as Harnack points out, the matter is not of serious moment, for unicum, adds nothing to the sense; He who is confessed to be ‘the Son’ of God must needs be the ‘Only Son.’ It is only as authoritatively interpreting Filium that unicum is important.
There can be no doubt that unicum (for which unigenitum is occasionally substituted) represents τὸν μονογενῆ, which answers to it in the Creed of Marcellus. Tertullian indeed has “unicum Deum omnipotentem1” for ἕνα θεὸν παντοκράτορα, so that if unicum in the Roman Creed had stood before Christum, we might have understood it in the sense of unum. But unicum Filium points quite certainly either to Gen. 22:22, where the Old Latin version, as given by Cyprian, renders “Accipe filium tuum unicum,” or to the Gospel of St John; the latter being more probably the immediate source. St John’s phrase finds indeed no place in subapostolic writers: though Ignatius approaches to it when he calls our Lord the Only Son (τοῦ μόνου υἱοῦ)3. It seems to have been first seized upon by the Valentinians, who gave the name Monogenes to the Aeon Nous. The Catholic writers began, although slowly, to reclaim it; Justin uses it sparingly; it occurs once in the Smyrnean circular on the martyrdom of Polycarp; in Irenaeus at length it becomes frequent. Thus it is not unlikely that the word took its place in the vocabulary of the Church by way of protest against the Valentinian misuse of St John; and the same cause may have gained for it admission to the Creed. Valentinus taught at Rome during the episcopates of Hyginus, Pius, and Anicetus, i.e. between 140 and 160 a.d.—the very epoch to which the making of the Creed is assumed to belong. The Valentinians, or at least the Anatolic School, distinguished Monogenes from the historical manifestation, remarking that St John guards himself by writing “we beheld His glory, glory as of the only-begotten,” where the qualifying word as bars out complete identification1. If the Church of Rome admitted the word under these circumstances, it can hardly have done so except by way of protest against the Valentinian interpretation. To confess faith in Jesus Christ as the only-begotten Son, was to identify the Only-begotten with the historical Person who was born, and died, and rose again.
Harnack however contends that when the Creed calls Jesus Christ ‘the Son’ or ‘the only-begotten Son,’ it does not claim for Him a preexistent Sonship, but limits its view to His Incarnate Life. “After Nicaea these words came to be unanimously believed by the Church to refer to the prehistoric and eternal Sonship of Christ…But to transfer this conception to the Creed is to transform it. It cannot be proved that about the middle of the second century the idea ‘only Son’ was understood in this sense: on the contrary the evidence of history conclusively shews that it was not so understood.”
There can be no doubt that the Valentinians recognised in the Monogenes of the Fourth Gospel a prehistoric Being, or that they were right in this exegesis. It is equally certain that when the Church began to use the word in reference to our Lord, she used it in this sense. “He was the Only Begotten of the Father of the Universe,” writes Justin, “inasmuch as He was after a peculiar manner produced from the Father as His Word and Power1.” Justin, like Valentinus, taught at Rome in days not far removed from those which witnessed the genesis of the Creed, and his conception of the sense of μονογενής may fairly be regarded as determining the meaning of the word in the Creed.
But if we limit our enquiry to the essential point, the nature of the Sonship assigned to our Lord by writers contemporary with the Creed or anterior to it, the evidence against Harnack’s view becomes stronger. Behind Justin is Aristides, and his brief statement of the common faith includes the preexistence of the Son, “the Son of God most high is confessed…as having come down from heaven2.” Further back, we have the frequent references of Ignatius to a Sonship which lies beyond the limit of time. “Jesus Christ…came forth from one Father” (Magn. 7); is “both of Mary and of God” (Eph. 7), “of the family of David according to the flesh, Son of God by [the Divine] Will and Power” (Smyrn. 1); “was with the Father before the world was” (Magn. 6). One remark of Ignatius seems indeed to conflict with our interpretation of his testimony. He contrasts (Eph. 7) the two natures in Christ in such a manner as to predicate generation of the manhood only; the one Christ is both γεννητὸς καὶ ἀγέννητος, generate as Man, ingenerate in His Divine life.3 This denial of a Divine generation characterises an early phase of Christian thought which associated with ‘generation’ ideas inconsistent with the unchangeableness of God. The doctrine of an Eternal Generation was unknown to Ignatius, and any lower conception was felt to be unworthy of the Divine Essence. But to deny to the Eternal Logos a generation such as Ignatius had in view, was not to deny His prehistoric Sonship. The conception of a Divine Sonship was realised by the Church before the conception of a Divine generation, and Ignatius belonged to the earlier stage. “Substantially,” as Dr Lightfoot shews, Ignatius “held the same views as the Nicene fathers respecting the Person of Christ1.” He would probably have been startled by language which is freely used in pages of Justin and Tatian; it might have seemed to him precarious to speak of the Word as γεννηθείς or γεννώμενος; but he would have surely been roused to indignation had any teacher risen up to say that the Word was not already Son of God when He was with the Father, or before He was made Man.
Professor Harnack brings to his study of subapostolic writers a preconception which to his own mind has assumed the dimensions of a historical fact. Primitive Christianity, as he conceives it, had two Christologies, the one pneumatic, the other adoptianist. The former regarded the Christ as a preexistent Spirit who was made Man; the latter fixed its thoughts upon the historical Person who received from the Almighty Father a Sonship unique indeed and Divine but not essential. The former was the point of view adopted by such writers as Barnabas, Clement, the author of the Homily, Ignatius, Polycarp; the latter prevailed in circles which were regarded by these writers as heretical. But the Christology which asserted the preexistence of our Lord did not connect His preexistence with a filial relation to God. It is in Hermas that the two systems are first fused together, and the Sonship is seen to have belonged to the preexistent Christ1.
For our purpose it might suffice to point out that if the supposed fusion took place in Hermas, it was probably earlier than the formation of the Creed. But Harnack’s theory rests on evidence which is quite inadequate. It is true that the preexistence of Christ was ignored or denied in certain quarters, and His Sonship limited to the human life, or that part of it which followed the Baptism. It is also true that the earliest orthodox writers spoke of the preexistent Christ as Spirit2, and connected His Sonship more especially with the human life by which it was manifested3. Further, the Church had not yet learned to conceive of a Divine generation as involved in the fact of a Divine Sonship. All this is admitted. But it does not establish Dr Harnack’s contention. Evidence has been produced to shew that about the middle of the third century a prehistoric and premundane Sonship was ascribed by the majority of believers to Jesus Christ. There is no sufficient evidence on the other hand that during any part of the second century the Sonship was limited by orthodox Christians to the manifestation of the Word in human flesh.

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