"Accept No Substitutes!"

Creeds: what are they good for? This site is constructed around the famous 'Apostles Creed,' a compact, easy-to-remember outline of what Jesus' Apostles taught, that originated in the earliest days of the Christian movement. This Sunday I've asked the Apostle Paul and Cyril of Jerusalem to explain why these short, ancient summaries of Christianity are important.


Hold tight to the outline [υποτυπωσιν, "sketch, outline") of healthy teaching you learned from me, through the faith and love of Christ Jesus. Guard that precious deposit entrusted to you, through the Holy Spirit who lives within us. 

2nd Letter to Timothy 1.13-14 (my own translation)

_________________

In learning and professing the faith, you must accept and retain only the Church’s tradition, confirmed as it is by the Scriptures. Although not everyone is able to read the Scriptures, some because they have never learned to read, others because their daily activities keep them from such study, still so that their souls will not be lost through ignorance, we have gathered together the whole of the faith in a few concise articles. 

I charge you to retain this creed for your nourishment throughout life and never to accept any alternative, not even if I myself were to change and say something contrary to what I am now teaching, not even if some angel of contradiction, changed into an angel of light, tried to lead you astray. For even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which you have now received, let him be accursed in your sight. 

So for the present be content to listen to the simple words of the creed and to memorize them; at some suitable time you can find the proof of each article in the Scriptures. This summary of the faith was not composed at man’s whim, the most important sections were chosen from the whole Scripture to constitute and complete a comprehensive statement of the faith. Just as the mustard seed contains in a small grain many branches, so this brief statement of the faith keeps in its heart, as it were, all the religious truth to be found in Old and New Testament alike. That is why, my brothers, you must consider and preserve the traditions you are now receiving. Inscribe them across your heart. 

Observe them scrupulously, so that no enemy may rob any of you in an idle and heedless moment; let no heretic deprive you of what has been given to you. Faith is rather like depositing in a bank the money entrusted to you, and God will surely demand an account of what you have deposited. In the words of the Apostle: I charge you before the God who gives life to all things, and before Christ who bore witness under Pontius Pilate in a splendid declaration, to keep unblemished this faith you have received, until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

You have now been given life’s great treasure; when he comes the Lord will ask for what he has entrusted to you. At the appointed time he will reveal himself, for he is the blessed and sole Ruler, King of kings, Lord of lords. He alone is immortal, dwelling in unapproachable light. No man has seen or ever can see him. To him be glory, honour and power for ever and ever.

Cyril of Jerusalem (AD 313 - 386)
Instructions to Catechumens 5.12-13

Christian Copyright

Cyprian of Carthage

It's really too bad that we didn't register 'Christian' and 'Christianity' as trademarks back in ancient Rome (actually, I don't think Rome had the concept yet). Christianity was a thing back then. In other words, Jesus of Nazareth taught certain specific things that he passed on to those who followed him, and told them to tell the world. And we know what those teachings were; they haven't been lost.  

In our time though almost any belief or teaching can be called -- and is called -- "christian" by those inclined to do so.This isn't a new phenomenon, though. Cyprian of Carthage grumbled about it just 200 years after Jesus' time, pointing out that it's rather important to get it right.

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How can a man say that he believes in Christ, who does not do what Christ commanded him to do? Or whence shall he attain to the reward of faith, who will not keep the faith of the commandment? He must of necessity waver and wander, and, caught away by a spirit of error, like dust which is shaken by the wind, be blown about; and he will make no advance in his walk towards salvation, because he does not keep the truth of the way of salvation.

Cyprian of Carthage (200 - 258)
“On the Unity of the Church,”

Was Early Christianity Fundamentalist?

"So this authentic, original, scripture-based, fully fleshed out, no-holds-barred, steaming hot, deep-enough-for-an-elephant, gentle-enough-for-a lamb Christianity that this blog tries to explain, is it... you know... fundamentalism?  Would accepting it make me a fundamentalist?"

Well, no.

Fundamentalism and the original, 'classic' stuff are two different kettles of fish.


The traditional way to start a post like this is to pull your Merriam-Websters dictionary off the shelf and copy out their definition, so here is what they say:

fun·da·men·tal·ism

a often capitalized :  a movement in 20th century Protestantism emphasizing the literally interpreted Bible as fundamental to Christian life and teaching


There's more to it of course, but that's a place to start. Authentic, historic Christianity (see this and this for what that is), however, is different from fundamentalism in a host of ways. Here are 10:

10 Differences

 

Historic Christianity (HC) - Longevity: two millennia
Fundamentalism (F) - Longevity: since the 1895 Niagara Conference

HC - A faith shared worldwide by believers for 20 centuries in diverse generations and cultures
F - A particular crisis between parties within North American Protestantism

HC - Has lived though and beyond hundreds of alleged "modernities"
F - A defensive response to particular challenges of nineteenth-century "modernity," especially Darwinism and rising secular humanism

HC - A catholic (i.e., universal) and orthodox (i.e., right belief) faith established through authoritative texts tested in many cultures
F - A truncated orthodoxy is cast in terms of the crisis of modernity, lacking in the whole fabric of historic, orthodox belief

HC - Confident through historical change based on historic experience
F - Often expecting the worst from the human future

HC - Recognition of metaphor and varieties of expression of inspired doctrine in scripture
F - Single legitimate interpretation of each text

HC - Texts  viewed within historic contexts
F - Texts viewed apart from historic contexts

HC - Focuses on the meaning of scripture
F - Focuses on the historicity of scripture

HC - A work of the Spirit leading Christ's disciples "into all truth" (John 16.13 ) until they reached a consensus
F - A literal approach to scripture

(Adapted from Classic Christianity, Thomas Oden, pp. xxiv - xxv)


I have some friends who really dislike fundamentalists, but I don't feel that way. After all, as I've mentioned, I used to be a fundamentalist myself so I definitely sympathize. But it is a recent and rather constricted approach to trying to understand Jesus and the Bible. My point here is just that even though fundamentalism may get a lot of press, it's not the way Christianity has always been, and certainly not the way it was in the early church.

Gregory of Nyssa, one of those early Christians who helped unpack Jesus' teachings, once wrote, "Those who handle the text in too literal a manner have a veil cast over their eyes, whereas those who turn to contemplate the God of whom the Scriptures speak receive the revelation of divine glory which lies behind the letter of the text," (Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius, 7.1).

The Standard Model

Faithfully passing on the teaching

While talking yesterday about everybody's favorite segment, "Theologian Thursday," I said that the theologians Authentic Light gives a platform to are those who base their ideas on what was

"taught by Christ to his Apostles, passed on by them to the Christian Movement, and it's ramifications largely unfurled and explained by around AD 400... the consensus reached by the Christian Movement doing the hard work of theology during that time." 

In other places I've mentioned that this site essentially teaches the Apostle's Creed or a deposit of faith that was filled in as time went by.

Behind each of those descriptions is a bit of history that I'd like to spell out for you in case you've ever wondered. It's nothing very complex but is important to realize. In one sentence: You can trace a smooth, direct line through history from Jesus teaching in the1st century to what the Christian Movement was teaching in the 5th.

By "smooth" I don't mean easy; there was plenty of debate and controversy. But they are the same profound "doctrines" -- Jesus' doctrines -- once they have been unpacked.

Jesus, humanly speaking, was a 1st century Palestinian Jew whose deeds and words as Messiah have that fact as their background. He taught his Apostles who faithfully handed it on to the Christian Movement. We can see those same teachings being elaborated in the New Testament and on through the first several centuries until a consensus on most questions was reached.

This "Standard Model" Christianity is the authentic light that we teach here -- as will all the theologians who visit.

To put it differently

Here are the same points elaborated a bit for people who like elaborated points:

1. Jesus of Nazareth did not exist in a vacuum. Instead he lived in a specific time and situation (namely 2nd Temple Judaism in early 1st century Palestine) carrying out the role of Messiah of Israel. What this background was like has been nailed down to a high degree of detail by historical research, and in this atmosphere a good number of silly ideas about him could, frankly, never have happened. On the other hand, the general situation described in the Gospels fits that time like a glove. Therefore his life, death, resurrection, and teaching must be understood against that backdrop if you want to know how people originally took him.

2. Like any good rabbi, Jesus taught his way by word and deed to his students, the Apostles. Unlike most rabbis, he specifically ordered them to teach it to the rest of the world. History shows that the "Easter Event" (fancy scholar talk for his resurrection) brought the Christian Movement into being, and Jesus' teaching was faithfully passed on to them.

3. From there you can trace a smooth progress of those teachings being elaborated and explained. You can see this happen throughout the New Testament, out into the 2nd century after the first generation of Christians had died out, and through the following centuries until most of the big questions had been settled through prayer, discussion, debate, and peer review finally leading to a consensus.

Lost History?

 Some groups have the belief that somewhere along the way something awful happened that radically corrupted Christ's Movement into a "false church." I used to belong to one of those groups. We liked to quote a book whose name I forget to the effect that, "And so [after the last Apostle died, around AD 96] a curtain fell over church history for 100 years. When it rose again a very different church had taken its place."

But this is untrue. No curtain fell and we have at least as much information on what happened during the 2nd century as we do concerning the first, when the New Testament was being written. In fact, while writing this post I just the idea of putting up a list of all the Christian writings from AD 96 through AD 196.

My point is that the history of the 2nd century shows that same smooth progress of elaboration and explanation of Jesus' original teachings as had happened in the first. The only thing that had truly changed by AD 200, which was already changing when "the curtain came down," was how the church was governed now that the Apostles were gone. But then, that would make a good subject for another post!

Introducing Theologian Thursday

Today I'm starting a new feature here at Authentic Light called Theologian Thursday! Don't all cheer at once.

Every Thursday I will haul in a famous theologian and have her or him discuss a topic that is -- or should be -- important to people interested in following Jesus of Nazareth. I know this sounds thrilling and I'll have a ready-made audience (Note: sarcasm) but I probably ought to explain it a little anyway.

As we've discussed elsewhere, Jesus entrusted his movement with a series of revelations -- God communicating with humans throughout history -- of which he himself is the ultimate one. His revelation -- his life, death, resurrection, and teaching -- is the key to understanding all the other revelations that came before. The things God revealed over time to Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah and all the rest are only fully grasped by looking at them through the lens of the appearance of the Messiah -- through the lens of Jesus and what he himself revealed about God. He explained this plainly to his apostles before he left (Gospel of Luke 24.26-27 and 44-48), and he gave examples throughout his career (see basically the entire Gospel of Matthew for that).

But what he didn't do is write a detailed, systematic, exhaustive explanation of his doctrines or a complete commentary on the Old Testament. Instead he left us with the revelation embodied basically in the Bible. He left us the Holy Spirit "who will lead you into all truth" (Gospel of John 16.13). And he left us... theologians.

Why Theologians?

Theologians are a little like scientists: the data a scientist studies is the universe and they just have to take it the way it is, rough edges, mysteries and all, and do the hard work needed to understand it.

A theologian's data is God's revelation encapsulated in the Bible. It's presented to us in a wondrous hodge-podge of history dealing with family squabbles, history dealing with geopolitical squabbles, laws, poems, philosophical discussions, prophetic announcements, erotic songs, letters, laments over fallen cities and fallen people. And above it all, Jesus Christ. Theologians are the people who dedicate their lives to understanding and explaining it all.

On Theologian Thursdays I'll be bringing in the cream of the crop (living and dead), the acknowledged experts in their fields and let them take the floor. I'm using a very wide definition of  a "theologian" that includes not just scholars but regular preachers, authors, hymn writers, mystics, and just regular people who studied, thought, prayed, and contributed something about God and what he has revealed to humanity. Also, there's no time limit: these theological musings may be one brief paragraph or stretch into the blog equivalent of pages and pages (not usually though).

What We're Looking For

Some theologians, like some car repairmen, are better than others. Some are only good on one subject and not terribly impressive or downright misleading in other areas. And of course some are just awful, no matter what their advertising may say.

As you've probably guessed if you've read this blog for a while, my criteria for picking theologians is ordinary, everyday, garden variety Christianity. Or to put it another way, the stuff that was taught by Christ to his Apostles, passed on by them to the Christian Movement, and it's ramifications largely unfurled and explained by around AD 400. That doesn't mean we'll only invite theologians from that era, just that we want people who teach the consensus reached by the Christian Movement doing the hard work of theology during that time. To put it a third way, simple, historical, authentic Christianity. Fortunately (providentially?), there are and have been many around who teach that.

First Up

Our first Thursday theologian, who will be posted about 2 hours from now, is Dr. Georgia Harkness on providence and a God who is personal.

Jesus is the Revelation

What does it mean to say, as Ignatius of Antioch did here two Sundays ago, and as the Christian Movement has always taught, that Jesus of Nazareth himself is the revelation? And not simply "a" revelation like the 10 Commandments or the words of the Prophets, but "the" revelation -- the ultimate revelation.

As you read through the Jewish scriptures you learn three very important things (among many). First, that God has decided to reveal himself to humans beings. He's been doing it from the very beginning (Genesis chapters 1-3) and certainly no one made him. Communicating with humans at all is a pure, raw, free choice by God.

A second thing we find is that God has revealed himself via history. We might prefer, in our theological fantasies (if there are such things), that God had imparted all of his truth in a single, dispassionate, abstract, crystal-pure burst of light. Instead what we know of God, his goals and plans, his moral standards, what he requires from us, and what we can expect from him have all been communicated to us through his words and actions on the 'stage' of historical events. The Bible is the inspired (i.e., written in a partnership of God and humans) record of those actions and what they mean. There was a time when the Bible had not been written, but there never was a time when God was not revealing himself.

Story Telling

And third, we learn that in revealing himself, God told a story. There is a story arc to the Bible. It begins with God being the origin of everything. It tells about the humans he created to reveal himself to, their disobedience of God, and the fundamental disharmony that fell on the world as a result -- a disharmony later called "sin." The story goes on to tell of a great flood in reaction to sin, and then of a man named Abraham who was selected to live up to a unique commission:

"I will use you to bless

    all the people on earth."

(Genesis 12.3, ERV) 

From there we learn of the nation descended from him with the same commission and how they ultimately failed and were crushed by foreign nations. But not before producing a singular King whose dynasty was destined to issue in a man who would rescue Israel and the world, deal with sin, proclaim a new law "written on people's hearts," and inaugurate the Kingdom of God. The one, in other words, who would finally fulfill that commission. As the 1st century neared this rescuer came to be called "Messiah" -- "the specially commissioned one," the man with ceremonial oil poured on his head, as was done to kings and priests. In Greek, Messiah is "Christ."

So when we say Jesus of Nazareth himself, in his own person, is the Christian revelation, we mean he is the climax of all that had gone before as God had revealed himself to humanity. Jesus is the spear tip of all God had been doing to set things right since the beginning of time.  Or as St. Peter realized, he is, "the Messiah, the Son of the Living God," 

One Other Point

There is one other point: As Jesus went about doing his job as Messiah it became increasingly apparent that things said only of God or done only by God in the Jewish Scriptures, were being done and described of him. "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father too," (John 14.9 ERV).  Very early on the life and actions of Jesus were realized to be those of God.  Messiah turned out to be much more than was even expected, and those who looked for him expected quite a lot.  

I've pointed out previously that the vast bulk of the Apostle's Creed is just a summary of Jesus' life. There is a reason for that.  Jesus himself  is the revelation because his words, life, death, and resurrection are the best possible way to grasp what God is really like. He is the ultimate self-revealing of God.

After 50 or 60 years of turning this over in his mind St. John described it concisely, "No one has ever seen God. The only Son is the one who has shown us what God is like. He is himself God and is very close to the Father," (John 1.18 ERV).

"...One Heart and One Soul..."

Irenaeus of Lyon

Meditation for a Sunday Morning

"There is one body and one Spirit, and God chose you to have one hope. There is one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. There is one God and Father of us all, who rules over everyone. He works through all of us and in all of us."

(Letter to the Ephesians chapter 4 verses 4 - 6, ERV)

___________________

Irenaeus was a leader, thinker, and writer in the early Christian Movement. He had grown up in the church at Smyrna (in today's Turkey) led by Polycarp, a legend in the early church. Polycarp had been a student of John the Apostle himself, and he passed on stories and teachings from John and other "elders" in the Movement. Irenaeus absorbed it all with the fabulous mind he had. As an adult he moved east to Lyons, France where he cared for the Movement's outpost there and handed on the 'deposit of faith' as he had heard it from Polycarp, who had received it from St. John the Apostle who received it from... Well, I imagine you can see what makes Irenaeus so important in the history of the Christian Movement.

In his guest-blog today, Irenaeus describes what was in the revelation Jesus entrusted his Apostles with, and how carefully it was handed on.

Now the Church, although scattered over the whole civilized world to the end of the earth, received from the apostles and their disciples its faith in one God, the Father Almighty, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the seas, and all that is in them, and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was made flesh for our salvation, and in the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed the dispensations of God—the comings, the birth of a virgin, the suffering, the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily reception into the heavens of the beloved, Christ Jesus our Lord, and his coming from the heavens in the glory of the Father to restore all things, and to raise up all flesh, that is, the whole human race, so that every knee may bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, to Christ Jesus our Lord and God and Saviour and King, according to the pleasure of the invisible Father, and every tongue may confess him, and that he may execute righteous judgment on all.

The spiritual powers of wickedness, and the angels who transgressed and fell into apostasy, and the godless and wicked and lawless and blasphemers among men he will send into the eternal fire. But to the righteous and holy, and those who have kept his commandments and have remained in his love, some from the beginning [of life] and some since their repentance, he will by his grace give life incorrupt, and will clothe them with eternal glory.

Having received this preaching and this faith, as I have said, the Church, although scattered in the whole world, carefully preserves it, as if living in one house. She believes these things [everywhere] alike, as if she had but one heart and one soul, and preaches them harmoniously, teaches them, and hands them down, as if she had but one mouth. For the languages of the world are different, but the meaning of the [Christian] tradition is one and the same. Neither do the churches that have been established in Germany believe otherwise, or hand down any other tradition, nor those among the Iberians, nor those among the Celts, nor in Egypt, nor in Libya, nor those established in the middle parts of the world.

Irenaeus of Lyons (early 2nd century – c. AD 202)
Against All Heresies book 1 chapters 10 sections 1 - 2 (written about AD 180)

Ignatius Deploys the Christian Revelation

Ignatius of Antioch is executed in Rome

I've been talking lately about the Christian revelation or the "deposit" of Faith given once and for all to Christ's people, and I've identified it to an extent with the words of that marvelous little poem, the Apostles' Creed. But if you're checking up on me you will know that the Apostles Creed didn't reach the form we're used to until the early AD 700's. Just like our understanding of what Jesus revealed, the words we use to describe and remember it also developed over time. And we can trace that development all the way back to the days of his Apostles.

As we discussed the other day, the Apostle's Creed doesn't lay down rules, it tells a story. After the last Apostle died, one of the earliest places we find that main middle part of the story about Jesus is in a letter by a man named Ignatius. He was the main leader of the Christian Movement in the large Syrian city of Antioch and now found himself in chains on the way to a gory execution in Rome.

Along the way, dedicated leader that he was, he wrote 7 letters to groups of Christians in the towns he passed through. This was in AD 107 or a little later -- about 10 years after John had passed on (To find out when John died, click on Irenaeus, Against Heresies book 2 chapter 22 section 5). He wasn't trying to teach these people the basics of their Faith (they were already Christians, after all), but was more concerned with a fake Christian teaching called "Docetism."  It claimed that Jesus hadn't really been human -- that he only pretended to eat, drink, sleep, and other human things.

So in his Letter to the Trallians he used part of the Christian revelation to show that the Messiah actually was quite a real human being. If you remember how the Apostles Creed goes, it might sound a little familiar:

"So pay no attention, if anyone speaks to you apart from Jesus Christ, who was of the race of David, who was the Son of Mary, who was truly born and ate and drank, was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was truly crucified and died in the sight of those in heaven, those on earth and those under the earth, who was truly raised from the dead. His Father raised him and in the same way will raise us too who believe on Him. His Father will raise us in Christ Jesus, apart from whom we do not have true life."

(Letter to the Trallians chapter 9 verses 1 - 2)

For 'Meditation for a Sunday Morning' our guest blogger will be Irenaeus of Antioch. He will go into more detail on how the Christian Movement summed up Christ's revelation in his day.

The Purpose of Authentic Light

Justin Martyr in his
Philosopher's robe

This is the fourth and final post of my beginning-of-the-year "housekeeping" series. The other three can be found here, here, and here. This one will be about what Authentic Light's purpose is, what I'm hoping to accomplish here.

In the first half of the 2nd century, there was a man named Justin whom I admire quite a lot. He was a philosopher who had been a follower of Plato until he met an old man as he was walking by the sea one day. He continued to wear his philosopher's robe but from that day on he taught what he considered the ultimate philosophy: Christianity. He once described what he did this way:

“I live over a man named Martinus at the Timiotinian Bath... If anyone wanted to visit me, I communicated the teachings of truth to them.”

That's pretty much what the Authentic Light blog is for: communicating simple, radical Christianity to interested parties. It's simple because in a way there's not much to it. The basics can be recited in under a minute. And it's radical because that simple teaching can (and does) change everything.

Brand Names

But there is a dizzying number of  brands of Christianity, aren't there, all clamoring for us to do it their way and subtly -- or not so subtly -- denigrating the competing brands. When people unfamiliar with the Movement Christ founded, or who have only heard bad things about it, or who had a bad experience with one brand, decide to look into Christianity for themselves, they are faced with a spinning, bewildering sea of claims and counterclaims. As St. Paul said about another type of confusion, "If some people come in who are without understanding or don’t believe, they will say you are crazy," (First Letter to the Corinthians chapter 14 verse 22, ERV).

At one time though, Christianity was one thing, and every follower of Jesus knew what it was. It was taught "everywhere, always, and by all". Christianity, at the beginning, was the deposit, the revelation we discussed yesterday. It's basic outlines can be seen throughout the New Testament and then, before the last Apostle had died, traced in the letters of Clement, Ignatius of Antioch, and Polycarp of Smyrna, and in the writings of Aristides, Athenagoras, and the noble Justin Martyr mentioned above. Plus a large crowd of others. It slowly expanded until the late 400's as more meat was put on the bones. But they were always the same bones given once and for all to the saints, expanding (changing the metaphor here) as they were unrolled and their implications realized.

Today, (giving up and mixing my metaphors with abandon) those same unrolled bones lie at the base of every Christian group -- Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox. In many churches creeds are read every Sunday, ostensibly to remind us of this. We hear them, but we often don't recognize what the words mean. And of course, that eventually gets boring, and ultimately meaningless.

But if you do learn the words, if you grasp the full meaning of that wildly, madly, powerfully, wondrous revelation (and no, it can never be fully grasped because it speaks of infinite things), you might just find yourself swept up in a revolution far bigger than yourself.

As one of my favorite theologians says, "I plan to present nothing new or original in these pages... I am dedicated to unoriginality." It is my contention that ordinary, garden variety Christianity is the most exciting thing in the world. Authentic Light is not here to argue or with a compulsion to convince anybody. All I hope to do, like Justin Martyr, is to "communicate the teachings of truth." This site is content to turn that message loose in all its rugged glory and let it work.

The Deposit

So what do we mean when we talk about the "revelation" Jesus brought or the "deposit of faith" or the faith "given once and for all to the saints," as we did yesterday? What was it that the Apostles were so busily "passing down" to the members of the Christian Movement? Yes, certainly the New Testament, but please read on for a minute to see where I'm coming from. Before word one of the New Testament was committed to writing, Jesus' emissaries were teaching this revelation face to face.

I'm taking this from my site's 'Prologue' up at the top of the page. The other red boxes break up and discuss what this Prologue says. It's fairly short and I'll expand on it in future articles, but I'd ask that you notice two things as you read it through: First, how bare-bones it is. Jesus left a lot of the work up to his Movement. Another topic for a future post, I think!

And second, notice... that it's a story! The revelation Jesus left us with did not consist of a list of rules or a detailed chart of how Bible prophecy works out. When the last Apostle died they left us with a story.

___________________

Personally, I like a religion that can be summed up in a short poem.

In ancient times, when someone decided to follow Jesus of Nazareth, they would first have this poem recited to them, line by line. And after each line they would be asked, "Do you believe this?" "Yes," they would respond, "I believe."

Then they would be baptized.

That poem, of course, is the Apostle's Creed, dating back to the earliest days of the movement Jesus founded. During the first ages of that movement, Christian documents were expensive, cumbersome, and prone to be confiscated and burned by the authorities. But, although you might not be able to carry the Bible with you, you could carry this poem (composed of artfully arranged quotes from Scripture) in your mind.

Today, whatever else they may squabble about, Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant are united on the truth of these words. Even those groups that claim to eschew creeds will usually agree with it's teachings.

It is this poem that we present here. These are the core truths Jesus and his Apostles taught. This is what the ancient martyrs died for. This is the Authentic Light.

~~~

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried.
He descended into hell.

On the third day he rose from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Questioning Basil

An old Romanian painting of Basil
Courtesy of Țetcu Mircea Rareș

Oddly enough, out of all the stuff I've written here recently the post that generates a question is Sunday's quotation of Basil the Great about the Holy Spirit. And not so much on what he said but why we should care what he said at all. I thought it was a great question but it appeared on my personal Facebook page. So I've made it into today's post.

My response was typed during breaks while doing my real life job, so it's not the most well written, but other than cleaning up the spelling and inserting links and brief annotations for context's sake, it's the way I wrote it.

___________________

Q: What does a guy in the early 4th century that was rife with superstition and political intrigue, just a couple decades after Constantine, ignorant of quantum theory, relativity theory, etc. etc. know about the nature of God? Isn't time for a "New" conference on the nature of God?


A: My short answer to the original question about the 'guy in the early 4th century' is that he's an integral part -- one of the most integral, in fact -- of the subject of my blog. My theme is classic early, consensual, ecumenical Christianity as it developed over the first 5 centuries and that what many people take as Christianity today (fundamentalism and progressivism in particular) is only superficially like it.

My longer answer is that I'm all in favor of research into whatever relation there may be between God and quantum physics (John Polkinghorne, Theoretical physicist/Priest, has some interesting ideas there), and I would add Neuroscience too. I'm especially fascinated with the work on reproducing some mental states usually associated with deep religious experiences. And the 4th century certainly was superstitious (though not as much as is usually made out, especially for well-educated people like a Basil or an Augustine) and politics was rampant as in all ages. You might remember my view of Constantine and the intermingling of Christianity with the state -- any state [Which is that it was one of the worst things ever to happen to the Christian Movement].

Validity

But I'm not sure that affects the validity of what Basil was doing on the nature of God. The basic presupposition of Christianity is that God revealed himself supremely through 'the Christ event' [fancy theologian-speak for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus]. That's one of the things about Christianity that bothered the Romans, that it was a revealed religion, not a philosophy or even a mystery religion. Because of that it was passed down from Jesus to the Apostles to the Church at large as a deposit of faith given "once for all to the saints." [In other words, since it was a revelation and not a philosophy or nature religion, it was by its nature something you received and tried to explain, the way physicists try to explain the universe.] 

The Father-Son-Spirit aspect was there from the beginning [in Second Letter to the Corinthians chapter 13 verse 13 for instance] (though not the trinitarian theology, of course). At first there wasn't a lot of deep thought about it, [i.e., the relation of Father to Son to Holy Spirit] except by Paul and to some extent John. But as evangelism continued, they ran into educated fellows like Celsus who wanted to know how we reconciled the one God with the man Jesus, who was worshiped, called 'Lord', prayed to and various other things that usually pertain to God. 

Basil and others weren't trying to do something quantum physics would help them on, I don't think. What they wanted was to define, as well as possible from the rather spare data left by Christ and the Apostles, the inner life of God.  

So what Ignatius, and Justin Martyr,  Irenaeus and Tertullian, Theophilus of Antioch, Arius (I'd include him too) and Athanasius and on down to Basil were doing was unrolling this revelation, this deposit, puzzling out which scenario covered the data (of the revelation) most completely, and struggling to come up with words with enough precision to describe their conclusion. And then, right after they produce their best effort, you find Basil and Augustine et. al. warning that even that doesn't quite do it; it's just the best try of the greatest Christian minds of their age.

The key words they used, "Ousia" and "hypostasis," were cutting edge Greek philosophy at the time, and their work has stood up well for 2 millennia. I'm not sure we have better today.

"... Out of the holy Scriptures"

Meditation for a Sunday Morning
(Borrowed from the Creedal Christian blog, one of my favorites.)


"I now feel compelled instead to write to encourage you to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints."

Letter of Jude chapter 1 verse 3

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No doctrine concerning the divine and saving mysteries of the faith, however trivial, may be taught without the backing of the holy Scriptures. We must not let ourselves be drawn aside by mere persuasion and cleverness of speech. Do not even give absolute belief to me, the one who tells you these things, unless you receive proof from the divine Scriptures of what I teach. For the faith that brings us salvation acquires its force, not from fallible reasonings, but from what can be proved out of the holy Scriptures.

 ~ St. Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. 313-386)