CHAP. VI.

Of the ancient Oriental Creed.

I. We come now to the fourth and last proposition, which is this:

"That this special mode of the Filiation of "Jesus Christ by which he existed in his superior "nature before all worlds, begotten of God the "Father, and therefore God, is in express words "taught and declared in the Creed or rule of "Faith, used by the most ancient Oriental "Churches before the Council of Nice."

II. There is no doubt but that the Oriental Churches had their Creed or Creeds before the Council of Nice; Creeds, I mean more at large, and descending more to particulars, than that most ancient one mentioned by Episcopius, conceived in these words only, "I believe in God the Fa"ther, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." It is very plain from Ruffinus and Vossius, yea from Tertullian and Cyprian, and other writers of the third century, that the Roman, and other Western Churches, had their Creed, before the Council of Nice, much larger than the simple confession of

the Trinity. As it regards the Roman Church, which the other Western Churches followed, Vossius gives us the very words of Vigilius upon the subject. "The whole profess to believe in "God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ "his Son, our Lord. At this head he (Eutyches) "cavils; why does it not say, in one Jesus Christ "his Son, according to the decree of the Council "of Nice? But at Rome, even before the Council "of Nice met, from the times of the Apostles until

now, and under Celestine of blessed memory, "whom he believed to have been sound in the "faith, the Creed was the same: nor can words "do injury, where the sense remains sound.”*

But if the Roman and Western Churches had such a Creed before the Council of Nice, why not the Eastern also? Nay, such a Creed was much more necessary for those Churches, than for that at Rome, for the reason which was quoted from Ruffinus, as they were much harassed in the first centuries by heretics, who gave no trouble to the Roman Church. Besides, the Greek Anti-Nicene Writers frequently, in their writings, mention the Rule of Faith. Irenaeus, an Asiatic, who was one of those writers, gives us this Rule at large, as has been already mentioned. Likewise Euse

bius, of Cæsarea, in the Council of Nice, recited

* Lib. IV. De Eutyche.

+ Lib. I. c. 2.

a larger Confession of Faith, which the Catechumen was taught and professed in the Baptistery, before the Fathers had composed their Creed.*

III. Moreover we must conclude that the Eastern Churches did not reject their ancient Creeds, after that of the Nicene Council was published. For we see that the Roman Church retained her ancient one after the Council. And who can doubt but the Eastern Churches did the same? The decrees of the Nicene Council, being Ecumenical, were equally binding on all the Churches of Christ; so that, in this case, the Eastern and Western Churches were on an equality. Now, I am of opinion, that the Nicene Fathers had no intention to frame a new Creed, or to hand down an old Eastern one with their own additions; but only to declare the received sense of the article of the ancient Creed concerning the Son of God, against the Arians. Indeed they revise the article of the old Creed, concerning God the Father, (though not wholly), add something of it to their own concerning the Son of God, and subjoin what they thought necessary concerning faith in the Holy Spirit. But this was done, because they thought that Faith in the Son of God, could not be well explained without a profession of Faith in God the Father and in the Holy Spirit. Hence, after merely mentioning the Holy Spirit, they immediately return to the article concerning the

* Eccles. Hist. Lib. I. c. 8.

Son, which was their chief business, denouncing an anathema against those who should deny his true and eternal divinity. Besides, I will show by and by, and that by the strongest proofs, that after these words "and in the Holy Ghost" in the Creed of the Oriental Churches, many things were omitted in the Nicene Creed. In the mean while, it is certain, that the Nicene Fathers did not intend their Creed to be used afterward in the administration of Baptism; (the anathema with which it concludes being repugnant to that) but left every Church to use its former Creed. Surely, if the Holy Synod had intended that, the Roman and Oriental Churches, whose Bishops composed a great part of it, either did not understand its meaning, or despised its authority; which no sober man can imagine. For Ruffinus, in the preface to his Exposition of the Aquileian Creed expressly says that in his own time, "At Rome, "they kept up the old custom, that they who "were to receive the grace of Baptism, should

publicly, that is, in the audience of the people, "repeat the Creed," namely, the old Roman one, of which he had just been speaking before. And immediately he says, that he took upon himself the old Creed of Aquileia (which was somewhat different from that of Rome) in the grace of Baptism, having professed the faith of that Creed when baptized.

IV. These things being said by way of preface, I proceed to prove my proposition. The Churches

of Palestine were the most ancient of all others, and of them, the Church of Jerusalem had been the chief, as having been the first from which the doctrine of the Gospel was derived and propagated to the other parts of the world; hence the Constantinopolitan Fathers, in their Synodical Epistle, call it "the mother of all Churches."* Although this Church, from the first institution of Metropolitans, till the council of Chalcedon, seems to have been subject to Cæsarea as Metropolitan ; yet for the reason just mentioned, it was always highly esteemed by all the other Churches. Now of the nature of that ancient Creed of Jerusalem, and what it taught necessary to be believed concerning the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, Cyril, who had been made Bishop of that Church about A. D. 350, will best inform us. He, while a Catechist, explained this same Creed by parts to the Competentes, which being put together constitute this confession." I believe in one God, the Father

Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all "things visible and invisible: and in one Lord "Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, "begotten of the Father before all worlds, the "true God by whom all things were made; he "became incarnate and was made man, was cru"cified and buried, and arose from the dead on "the third day, and ascended into heaven, and "sat down on the right hand of the Father; and

Theodor. Eccles. Hist. Lib. I. cap. 9.