Faith of Our Fathers - Part 1

The local historian G.R. Balleine was also a clergyman, and in 1940, at the outbreak of the Second World War, he penned a series of 52 lessons around the Apostle’s Creed. Balleine being first a foremost a historian, there’s a lot of history there that I’ve never come across before, and I have studied church history quite a lot.

He’s also master of the pithy anecdote or illustration to bring something to life, which is why Frank Falle says the original history, flowing freely, is a better book to read that its more worthy revisions. Joan Stevens was a fair historian, but she could not write nearly as well as Balleine, who has an almost intimate chatty style.

I’m hoping to put some or all of this book online on Sundays.

Faith of Our Fathers – Part 1
By GR Balleine

The Creed in the English Church

(a) This year our subject is the Apostles' Creed, or rather the truths enshrined in it. Let us look at it quietly ourselves before we begin to teach it. It is impossible to exaggerate the Importance that our Church has always attached to this ancient form of words.

In the earliest days, when the missionaries were winning the North Country, the Venerable Bede translated it into English, in order that every convert might learn it by heart. The Canons of the Anglo-Saxon Church constantly decreed that everyone must be taught the Creed : " He who refuseth to learn the Creed is not a good Christian." Throughout the whole of the Middle Ages no one was allowed to stand as a godparent, unless he could say the Creed without mistake.

(b) When the Reformation gave us our English Prayer Book, the importance of the Creed was even further emphasized. Before every adult Baptism the candidate declares of the Creed, " All this I steadfastly believe." At every infant Baptism the sponsors promise that the child will believe the Creed, and at the ' end are exhorted : " Chiefly ye shall provide that he may learn the Creed."

In the Catechism the child recites the Creed as " the articles of his belief," which he thinks himself " bound to believe." The Confirmation rubric runs : " None hereafter shall be confirmed but such as can say the Creed." Every time the Church meets for Morning or Evening Prayer, " then shall be sung or said the Apostles' Creed by the minister and the people." The clergyman visiting a sick Churchman is instructed to say : "I shall rehearse to you the articles of our Faith that you may know whether you do believe as a Christian man should or no," and what he repeats is the Apostles' Creed.

The Evolution of the Creed.

(a) Where did this Creed come from ? Most of us have heard the legend that the Twelve Apostles composed it, just before they separated, each contributing one clause, a story illustrated in many a mediaeval painting : but there is not the smallest probability that this idea is true. The Creed had been in use for six hundred years before this story was heard of. It first appears in the works of Pirminius, a Frankish Bishop of the middle of the eighth century.

(b) Like so many of the Church's greatest writings the Creed is anonymous. In its earliest form it was probably composed about the year 150 by some obscure Roman catechist to help him in his work of preparing candidates for Baptism. Every convert was baptized " in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." It was necessary therefore to explain to him what these words meant. It was desirable that he should confess his belief in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. So our catechist drew up a brief statement for him to recite before Baptism.

(c) Before long this statement came to be used with the Bishop's approval at all Roman Baptisms. "At Rome," said Augustine later, " a public profession of faith is made from a platform in full sight of the faithful."

(d) By the year 200 this Roman Creed had been borrowed by the North African Church. Tertullian calls it the Rule of Faith, the Watchword which the African Church shared with the Roman : and, like the Paternoster or the To Deum, it was generally known by its first Latin word, credo, I believe. Men spoke of " the Credo," from which came later our English name " the Creed."

(e) This early Creed was considerably shorter than the one we use to-day. It ran:-

"I believe in God, the Father Almighty ; and in Jesus Christ, His Son, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, and buried, Who on the third day rose from the dead, ascended into Heaven, sitteth on the right hand of the Father, from whence He cometh to judge the quick and the dead ; and in the Holy Ghost, the resurrection of the flesh."

(f) Two hundred years later (c. A.D. 400) Rufinus wrote a Commentary on the Creed, and by this time new clauses had been added. It ran:-

"I believe in God the Father Almighty ; and in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord, born of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, and buried, Who on the third day rose from the dead, ascended into Heaven, sitteth on the right hand of the Father, from whence He cometh to judge the quick and the dead ; and in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh."

(The new clauses are printed in italics.)

(g) From Rome this Creed spread to other cities, but the Churches that borrowed it did not hesitate to make additions to it. Many of these have long since dropped out of use. Some were quite small expansions : e.g. " rose alive from the dead " (Toledo), " ascended victorious " (Auxerre), " the forgiveness of all sins " (most Spanish creeds). 

Some were of greater bulk : e.g. " I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of the Universe, King of the Ages, immortal and invisible " (Carthage), " I believe in God the Father Almighty, invisible and unable to suffer " (Aquileia). 

For the disappearance of some we may be devoutly thankful : e.g. the savage Carthaginian, " to judge the quick and the dead, and to condemn the wicked to perpetual fire," and Aquileia's unconscious contradiction of St. Paul's teaching, when it proclaimed its belief in " the resurrection of this flesh."

(h) Some however of these new clauses gradually won general acceptance : North Africa's declaration that God is " Maker of Heaven and Earth " : Gaul's insertion of the words conceived and suffered : Ravenna's description of the Church as Catholic : Aquileia's clause, " He descended into Hell " : Dacia's phrase, " the communion of saints " : and Carthage's magnificent ending, " the life everlasting." 

By the middle of the sixth century we find Caesarius, Bishop of Arles, using every clause that we use, except " Maker of heaven and earth " : but we have to wait another two hundred years before we meet in South Germany with a version of the Creed which is word for word the same as that which we use to-day.

Three Warnings

(a) This brief historical sketch makes it clear that the Creed has grown very gradually and been frequently revised. This slow growth is a guarantee that every statement has been carefully sifted, and has had to satisfy many critical minds. But it makes us hesitate before we assert that this is necessarily the final and complete statement of Christian truth. 

What the Church has so often altered in the past the Church may revise once more. Nor is it necessary even to wait for a General Council. The earlier revisions have all been made by individual Churches; and our English Church may some day see fit to alter the wording of some of the phrases, specially perhaps, " He descended into Hell " and ".the resurrection of the body." The American Prayer Book already allows the words, " He went into the place of departed spirits " to be substituted for the phrase, " He descended into Hell." This point must not however be unduly stressed.

A Creed that has survived such tremendous upheavals of thought as those caused by the Reformation and the discoveries of Copernicus and Darwin, a Creed that is accepted alike by Catholics and Protestants, Churchmen and Non conformists, must be acknowledged to have worn extraordinarily well.

(b) Again it is well to remember that no Creed can ever be entirely adequate. All religious thought is thinking in metaphor, an attempt to express in earthly language truths that are far too great for any human words. Thus, when we say that our Lord " sitteth on the right hand of God," we certainly do not mean that for nineteen centuries He has been in a sitting posture, and we know that God has no right hand, but is an all-pervading Spirit " without body or parts." The whole phrase is a metaphor, the meaning of which we must try to determine in a later lesson. 

Again, when we call our Lord the " Son " of God, we are drawing an illustration from earthly family life, which cannot exactly correspond to the relations between the first and second Persons of the Blessed Trinity. Even when we explain the Trinity to mean Three Persons yet One God, we are using the language of earthly arithmetic in a sphere where probably the laws of mathematics cease to have any meaning. 

The best of creeds must always be written in some human language, and human words were only coined to describe the things of this earth, and must prove inadequate to express all that we believe about God.

(c) A third point to remember is that Christianity is not a creed but a life. A barren orthodoxy is one of the least beautiful things in existence. A creed that does not express itself in action, and inspire us to noble deeds, is utterly useless. " Faith without works is dead." Even the most theological of all the confessions that have gained the name of creeds, the so-called " Creed of St. Athanasius," acknowledges at the end that it is " they that have done good works " who " shall go into life everlasting."