The Athasian Creed
Here is an English translation of the full text of the Athanasian Creed. Got the translation from here. Learn it, love it, live it.
Whoever wishes to be saved, needs above all to hold the Catholic faith; unless each one preserves this whole and inviolate, he will without a doubt perish in eternity.
But the Catholic faith is this, that we venerate one God in the Trinity, and the Trinity in oneness; neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance; for there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit; but the divine nature of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one, their glory is equal, their majesty is coeternal.
Of such a nature as the Father is, so is the Son, so also is the Holy Spirit; the Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, and the Holy Spirit is uncreated; the Father is infinite, the Son is infinite, and the Holy Spirit is infinite; the Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, and the Holy Spirit is eternal; and nevertheless there are not three eternals but one eternal; just as there are not three uncreated beings, nor three infinite beings, but one uncreated, and one infinite; similarly the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, and the Holy Spirit is almighty; and yet there are not three almighties but one almighty; thus the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and nevertheless there are not three gods, but there is one God; so the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Spirit is Lord; and yet there are not three lords, but there is one Lord; because just as we are compelled by Christian truth to confess singly each one person as God, and also Lord, so we are forbidden by the Catholic religion to say there are three gods or three lords.
The Father was not made, nor created, nor begotten by anyone. The Son is from the Father alone, not made nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
There is, therefore, one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits; and in this Trinity there is nothing first or later, nothing greater or less, but all three Persons are coeternal and coequal with one another, so that in every respect, as has already been said above, both unity in Trinity, and Trinity in unity must be venerated. Therefore, let him who wishes to be saved, think thus concerning the Trinity.
But it is necessary for eternal salvation that he faithfully believes also the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Accordingly, it is the right faith, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God is God and man. He is God begotten of the substance of the Father before time, and He is man born of the substance of His mother in time: perfect God, perfect man, consisting of a rational soul and a human body, equal to the Father according to His Godhead, less than the Father according to humanity.
Although he is God and man, yet He is not two, but He is one Christ; one however, not by the conversion of the Divinity into a human body, but by the assumption of humanity in the Godhead; one absolutely not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. For just as the rational soul and body are one man, so God and man are one Christ.
He suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, on the third day arose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead; at His coming all men have to arise again with their bodies and will render an account of their own deeds: and those who have done good, will go into life everlasting, but those who have done evil, into eternal fire.
This is the Catholic faith; unless every one believes this faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved. Amen.
Does this creed seek to define the capital-C Catholic faith? I ask because I believe the creed is recited in liturgical Protestant churches, and non-liturgical Protestants -- including evangelical Baptists such as myself -- would agree with the creed in totality or very nearly so.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus descended into Hell. While I Peter 3:19 could be read that way, it's a difficult passage that doesn't mention Hell specifically, and there are a few passages that argue against the claim, most prominently His statements on the cross.
"It is finished" implies that His work of substitutionary atonement was complete, and His words to the believing thief beside Him point to a different destination than Hell: "today you'll be with Me in paradise."
And even if I strongly agreed with the claim that Jesus descended into Hell, I'm not certain that the belief is absolutely essential for salvation.
I think the early creeds are useful summaries of Christian orthodoxy, but they should always be subordinated to the teachings of Scripture. Their utility to us depends on their fidelity to God's written word, and on the subject of what's important regarding Easter, I personally defer to the apparent creed that Paul taught.
"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared..." - I Cor 15:3-5a
Here, Paul does not claim that Christ descended into Hell, and he DID claim that Christ acted "in accordance with the Scriptures," the authority of which we ought to affirm, if not because it's necessary to be saved, at least because it's an important safeguard against error and because deference to Scripture is an act of emulating Christ Himself.
Yes, this creed is an expression of the Catholic Faith, and has been used in Catholic liturgy.
ReplyDeleteI have never read or heard anything that suggested Christ's descent into hell is anything but de fide dogma.
Let me add:
DeleteA creed isn't a definition of the Faith. We say it is a "symbol of the Faith," a term the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this way: "The Greek word symbolon meant half of a broken object, for example, a seal presented as a token of recognition. The broken parts were placed together to verify the bearer's identity. The symbol of faith, then, is a sign of recognition and communion between believers. Symbolon also means a gathering, collection or summary. A symbol of faith is a summary of the principal truths of the faith and therefore serves as the first and fundamental point of reference for catechesis."
I wouldn't say there's anything about the doctrine of Christ's descent into hell as such that is absolutely essential for salvation. I think the point is that the doctrine is part of the Catholic Faith, so you can't not hold the doctrine and still hold the Catholic Faith. The error of not believing the doctrine doesn't lie in being factually incorrect about the historical details of the activities of Jesus' spirit between His death and His resurrection -- as Pauli's links show, Catholic theologians are fuzzy on the details themselves -- but in creating a faith in Christ apart from His Church. (I write, obviously, from the perspective of the Catholic Church from which the Athanasian Creed comes; we'd have to back up a few steps to get to the point where we begin to disagree.)
As for the Biblical support for the doctrine, that just plops us down into the question of authoritative reading of Scripture. 1 Peter 3:9 does in fact [he asserts gratuitously] teach the doctrine, it's obscurity being reflected in the theological fuzziness on the details of the descent, not in doubt over the fact of the descent. The words from the Cross in no way argue against the doctrine, any more than they argue against the Resurrection. The creed in 1 Cor 15 doesn't mention the descent, and neither does the Nicene Creed recited at Catholic Masses on Sundays and feast days.
I've heard sometimes the translated of "descendit in inferna" (Apostles' Creed) as "descended to the dead". Because the church teaches that he didn't experience the effect of damnation, eternal separation from God, etc. So "hell" in this instance is more like the greek "Hades" or the Hebrew "Sheol" -- abode of the dead. Here's a good page on Catholic Answers explaining the common Catholic viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteSorry, meant to write "descendit ad inferna".
ReplyDeleteJust looked up the Latin for the Athanasian Creed and found that the line is slightly different: descendit ad inferos. Inferos explicitly means "the dead, the place down below"; my Latin dictionary shows that inferna is basically having the same root. I'm not a Latin scholar, but we know that the words have parted ways in English and grown off in slightly different directions.
To put it in sidewalk English, Christ descending to limbo, "the lower parts of the Earth", hell, Hades, Sheol or wherever was all part of kicking the Devil's ass and letting the good souls out.
Here is a longer discussion of the subject I just came across.
That link is MUCH closer to what I've heard from Protestant teachers, thanks.
ReplyDeleteThere remain serious enough disagreements that I doubt there will be any sort of full reconciliation.
(I believe the chief issue will always be whether the Apostles' authority was uniquely preserved in Scripture or whether it was also passed down through capital-T Tradition, and most other disagreements follow from this one. I can certainly see how belief in the latter leads to Catholicism and the conclusion that other faiths are "less than" Catholicism. Taking the former road, I find the unique summit of faith to be the sort of evangelicalism of John Stott, where a lot of now-lukewarm, mainstream congregations cling to something other than the Bible's clear teachings.)
But, important as the remaining disagreements are, I'm always struck by how much common ground is shared by devout Catholics and devout evangelicals. We all can affirm the two great mysteries of the gospel, the Trinity and the Incarnation, three Persons in one Being, and two natures in one Person.
Theologically liberal Protestants cannot, neither can the essentially polytheistic Mormons, nor can Muslims and other unitarians who claim to respect Jesus as a wise man or prophet but who deny what Jesus claimed about Himself.
I think I've shared this before, a while back...
Years ago, I was at a tailgate with old college friends. My old roommate (and my best man, and vice versa) and his nominally Christian wife organized it, and I ran into a devout Catholic couple who I hadn't seen in years. They met while at school, got married, and by then had two kids.
Having grown significantly in my faith through family tragedy, I found that I could talk MUCH more openly with the Catholics I very rarely see than with my roommate's wife. In a very real sense, it was a family reunion, and it took almost no time at all to see that we have the same Father.
(The first link, that is; haven't had time to check out the second link.)
ReplyDeleteSecond one -- I skimmed it and there's some weird stuff in it. Then I realized the guy is a Jesuit. I found it in a search of the words inferos and inferna.
ReplyDelete