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The New Testament books are all authoritative and canonical. The other works ascribed to the Apostles (whether Gospels, epistles, liturgies) are not, either due to being destitute of external historical evidence, or spurious internal evidence derived from their contents.
However, one piece (or production) which favors a claim to apostolic origin and genuineness due to no specific internal proof of spuriousness, which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, Symbolum Apostolicum. It is the doctrine of the Roman Church that this Creed was composed of the apostles under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and was possessed of the same direct, divine, spiritual, canonical authority of Scripture. Protestants denied it was composed by the apostles or had any authority, but they admitted it contains sound doctrine accorded and established by Scripture.
The Lutherans and Anglican churches adopted it with the Nicene and Athanasian creeds as part of their symbolical profession of faith.
The Westminster divines subjoined it to the catechisms, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer with an explanatory statement: it was annexed because of the apostles' composition of canonical Scripture, but it summarizes the Christian faith and it was anciently received in the churches of Christ.
However, not really possessed of great antiquity, since it was not in the present form until the very end of the 4th century and the beginning of the 5th, since received by the Roman Western Church has as its Creed the Symbolum Romanum. It was never received by the Oriental or Greek churches. The Tractarians; such as John Henry, Cardinal Newman; advocated and embraced the Apostles' Creed as apostolic and canonical. Mosheim said anyone with the least knowledge of antiquity knows this is false. The reasons Newman and other Tractarians asserted the Creed being composed by the apostles were these: 1, the habit of a strong Popish learning without much examination; 2, the influence of unscrupulous Popish conversationalists. These men held in common with the Church of Rome the subject of tradition and rule of faith. Their motives were the following: one, the breakdown of the Protestant assignation of the Scriptural monopoly of infallibility by introducing of one other document not in Scripture, but handed down by tradition, that is, the apostolicity of the Apostles' Creed; two, another motive, they being enemies of the doctrines of grace -- the great doctrines of the Reformation -- were glad of a pretense introducing a document as an inspired summary of fundamental Christian doctrines in which the great Protestant doctrines were not explicitly stated.
Some early Protestant writers, such as the Magdeburg Centuriators, acquiesced to apostolic origin to defend themselves as departing from the apostolic faith. Even Calvin speaks as to no great objection to concede apostolic origin. Cunningham ascribes this to his human weakness. Calvin attached a significance to the Creed because of the doctrine, which he apparently attached importance, of Christ ascending into Hell after death and sharing somewhat in their torments. Calvin says the ancients with one accord ascribed it to the apostles, and Newman uses this apostolic origin to equate it with Scripture.
To another main section, we come to the history of the Creed: 1. No notice of the present form until the end of the 4th century, 2. No evidence antecedently the apostles drew up and committed to writing any informal creedal summary of faith. The precise facts are these: 1., Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, in a letter about 380 A.D. speaks of the "Creed of the Apostles," which the Roman Church always preserved and corrupted; 2., He does not assign it apostolic origin, 3., He might call it the Apostles' Creed because it summarizes the apostles' teaching.
Ruffinus, in his "Exposition upon the Creed," 15 years later near the end of the century, is the first to ascribe it to the apostles. Circumstances in his work throw doubt on his major position. He describes it as a tradition of his forefathers, tradunt majores nostri, which intimated this is not asserted in the writings of the ancient works now lost, as those preserved. He tells of the apostles assembling and preparing a common summary of the Christian faith, before dispersing to spread the Gospel over the world, to prevent diversity in future teaching-"ne forte alii ab aliis abducti diversum aliquid his qui ad fidem Christi invitabantur, exponerent." They met under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and added a part each thought appropriate-"conferendo in unum quod sentiebat unusquisque." The story is very improbable in respects of motive and process of composition. Ruffinus' writing later unadorned and improved in a sermon falsely attributed to Augustine and published in the fifth century, which assigns different parts given in statements of Peter saying this, Andrew that, etc.. Pope Leo the Great, in the middle of the filth century, repeats the story, ascribing a clause to each of the 12 apostles, but without specifying individual authors. From this time since, the Creed in its present form generally held as an article of faith in the Western churches. Though so late as the middle 15th century, the Council of Florence, the Greeks maintained this Creed always unknown in the Eastern Churches. This is the evidence from antiquity of the Creed in its present form and in support of its apostolic origin. Some of the fathers, not as ancient as Ambrose and Ruffinus, have told of an oral Creed handed down by memory and tradition, but even if true, the transmission is not identical in substance and words we have now.
Some early fathers spoke of a canon or rule of faith meaning a brief, comprehensive summary of the leading doctrines of Christianity. But they give us a creed agreeing in substance with the present Creed, but not in any means identical with it.
This above applies particularly in the second century to Irenaeus and Tertullian who has given us two entirely different summaries of the faith received in the Christian church. Origen and Gregory Thaumaturgus, in the third century, each has given us one such Creed or summary; but although agreeing in substance, differing in form from the Creed, has to prove no such apostolic document or brief summary of Christian faith that was then known and adopted. Absence of all references in the proceedings and discussions connected with and in the formation of the Nicene Creed gives conclusive proof that church in general in the 4th century knew nothing of any Creed as apostolic and authoritative. This is confirmed by the fact the Nicene Creed, like the creeds or summaries of faith of Irenaeus' and Tertullian's was but an amplification of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, with the specified condemnation of Arianism. It was not until the Council of Constantinople in 381AD when our present Creed was becoming known through the ascendancy of the Church of Rome. At this time, along with a full profession of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, articles were added to the Nicene Creed, not immediately connected with the confession of the Trinity, which still form the conclusion of the Creed. This full profession of the divinity of the Holy Spirit was in opposition to the heresy of Macedonius. The diversities of ancient creeds or summaries furnished no evidence of any Creed, written or oral, which was of an apostolic composition during the first four centuries.
Another conclusive point is the Creed containing the two articles, in the express testimony of Ruffinus, of the descent in Hell and the communion of the saints, were not found in the Creed of the Roman Church or of the Eastern churches even at the end of the 4th century. While the creeds of some other churches contain these articles, they lacked other articles found in the Roman and Oriental churches.
Rome's only plausible reply is there is no material variation in substance of the early creeds. This is not the point though. The only question is: was the present Creed a production of the inspired apostles? The evidence says no. Yet the Roman Trent catechism stated the apostles not only composed the Creed and gave it the name of symbolum, but exacts the Church's subjects to believe it.
Laurentius Valla, a pre-Reformation writer in the end of the 15th-century, maintained the Creed not apostolic and not composed until the time of the Council of Nice. Erasmus, in his preface to his Annotations doubted the Creed's authenticity. The Faculty of Theology at Paris censured this nescientia. Dupin, a Romanist writer, fair and candid, held there was no proof of apostolic origin of the Creed.
Spurious attempts at countenancing the canonicity and apostolic origin of the Creed have been initiated by the statements there are references in Scriptures to the very documents we call the Apostles' Creed. Although this idea is repudiated by candid Roman writers, Anglican Tractarians, but Dr. Newman said Paul quotes from the Creed and supports this with 1st Corinthians 15:3. Paul stated he received his doctrine from a revelation of Jesus Christ.
There are clear intimations in Scripture that before men were admitted by baptism into communion of the visible church three things occurred: they were instructed in the leading doctrines of Christianity, they made a profession of faith in Christ in the Trinity (in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit), and they had to answer some questions put to them. Therefore, even the early Christians had to learn and study doctrine.
There are two things about creeds in general: many fathers speak of a creed or rule of faith comprised of an apostolic commission to baptize in the name of the Trinity and moreover, all earlier creeds were just amplifications or explanations of the three persons.
There were some conclusions: the answer to the claim of Romanists as to the same substance as the Apostles' Creed -- these professions were taught at different periods and churches, although same in substance, they varied in periods and churches. There was no form recognized as having apostolic authority, and no church to impose an authoritorial form a on other churches of Christ in the first three centuries. We cannot trace the early creeds' growth, but we have good grounds of additions to them guarding against errors and heresies and renouncing these. This is a template or principle to unfold or explain the history of all creeds and confessions to the present day.
No doubt is cast on the Apostles' Creed as to this principle, but it was the creed used commonly by the Roman Church. We cannot trace all the changes in the history of it, that is, to the Creed, but we do know two important things: one, Christ's descent to Hell and the communion of the Saints added in the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century; two, we have no positive evidence of Christ's descent into Hell had previously existed in any church except the church of Aquileia. Attempts at tracing the creeds by the additions since the Apostolic Age by timing the references to the heresies answered are not a subject of practical importance. This is true for two reasons: one, the heresies have long had no support; two, and even if the Creed had any presupposing authority, it did not and does not give any explicit decisions now dividing Christian churches.
Protestants and Papists adhere to the Creed, but they cannot use against each other. However, Papists charged the Protestants with departing from the apostolic faith, which they defended against, and which the Papists countered with the charges that the Protestants did not believe in the holy catholic church. This the Papists did in two arbitrary and unwarranted senses: one, the holy catholic church as a subsisting thing in the Creed being a wide, extended visible society, which was united in communion in the same government, under a visible head; two, what is implied in a profession of belief implies a conviction, not only that Christ has a church on earth, but all me in are bound to believe the church in all things pertaining to the faith. This the Popish catechisms used and taught this, and Dr. Newman also.
The Protestants repudiated this and easily proved the words do not properly mean and were not used in the early church to mean anymore than a belief in the existence of the catholic church as a society in some respects one.
If people use the Creed as proof of orthodoxy, then proof of their holding its statements in a reasonable and honest sense, also they are bound to explain its meaning. But since we are of no such an appeal or commitment, we are not obligated to give any interpretation of the Creed.
Since the Creed is like any other document not possessed of any intrinsic authority, it is judged as any other unauthorized document. It may be interesting to inquire in what sense the articles of the Creed were understood at the times of their introduction. But the inquiry is purely historical and not critical to our faith.
Cunningham gives a charming anecdote about a Lutheran divine creating a work of parallel columns the Lutheran, Calvinistic, and Popish interpretations of the Creed's articles; then another writer added an Arminian or Pelagian interpretation, which could not be redargued, or disproved without a standard authoritative and explicit.
The Arians were the ones who denied the divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost and expressed approval of the Creed, using it to show professing faith in the Son and Holy Spirit was not required in the primitive Church. But the Trinity was generally held in the primitive Church of the apostles. Although some Christian writers were not precise on points used by subsequent writers, decision came in answering heresies. The Creed used all ancient creeds based on the Trinity in baptizing in the Father, the Son and, the Holy Spirit. We have Arian creeds in the fourth century which speak of the dignity of Christ in a higher strain than the Apostles' Creed. However, we cannot say the Creed excludes the Arian view with any explicitness.
These considerations show the Apostles' Creed is not entitled to too much respect and is not to be used as a summary of the leading Christian doctrines.
A document used by Arians and Papists is no real utility as a directory or a bond among the churches of Christ. It does not give any comprehensions of the scheme of Christian doctrine and the way to salvation.
Again, it is important to note, Christ's descent into Hell and the communion of the Saints were not inserted until the fourth century.
Is Christ's descent important? Does the Scripture contain or sanction it?
No reasonable doubt the statements are in terminus sanctioned by Scripture. In Acts 2:27, Peter seems to imply immediately antecedent to Christ's resurrection, the ψυχη of Christ was in Hades. Paul reference; Ephesians 4:8, 9; to this, seems to apply to His condition, so the statement to Christ in the Creed κατελθοντα εις αδην - "descendit ad infernos" -- may be a warrantably adopted. But this is not so clear or important so as to occupy a public profession of faith whether small or large.
The Church of England, however, made this the sole subject of one of her 39 Articles of Faith.
The important question is: what is the real meaning of Scriptures which seem to support Christ's descent into Hades? Calvin's position was stated, but is contradicted by "today you shall be with Me in paradise" to the penitent thief. Many exegetes think Christ plainly and truly dead in the same sense other men die, separation of the soul from the body, and He continued under the power of death for a time. The Westminster Confession states this.
There is excellent scriptural ground for Hades sometimes meaning merely the grave. The passages in Acts and Ephesians merely constitute this.
But the question is this: do we know nothing more of the condition of Christ's soul during separation from its body? Only the reply to the dying thief gives us any information.
This section is about Limbo. The Catholic Church teaches she had the sanction of some of the fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries and Augustine that Christ's descent into Hell means he went into limbus patrum, a holding place and neighborhood of Hell where all the righteous were held before the Incarnation from Adam onward, and then Christ took them to heaven.
But this is a presumptuous fable. As to the 1st Peter 3:19 verse, which is obscure and difficult, no interpretation is satisfactory. Only two plausible things: one, the preaching taking place in Noah's day; two, the preaching after His resurrection and through the apostles. If either is correct, then there is no reference to between His death and resurrection.
In Cunningham's conclusion, Cunningham regrets the Apostles' Creed defective in the leading Christian principles, and it being exalted to such a high place. It has even injured some leading principles.
Even in the third century, the doctrines of grace went little tended and understood. The fourth century was preoccupied with the Trinity and the person of Christ.
Cunningham states at the end that the Church of England exhibits an ignorance and indifference for the great principle of evangelical truth because of the undue stress on the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian creeds.
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