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A Catechetical Address on the Nicene Creed?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2011

D. H. Williams
D. H. Williams*
Affiliation:
Baylor University
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Extract

The anonymous “Incipit fides Nicaena” is a unique, though much ignored, Latin text from the later fourth century. Its only critical edition, from a sole ninth century codex, was first prepared in 1913 by Cuthbert H. Turner, under the title of Commentarius in Symbolum Nicaeanum.1 Turner's version was reprinted in the first volume of the Patrologiae Latinae Supplementum (1958).2 There has been almost no further scholarly work done on this text since Turner's edition, nor has it been translated into any European language.3 As a result, no questions have been asked about the bearing of this work on post-Nicene doctrinal history as our understanding of the Nicene-“Arian” conflicts has been reformulated over the last two decades. In this essay, I want to address this gap in our understanding, although it must be said that there are more questions than answers raised by the existence of this small document. Specifically, we will see how this unique text sheds light on the theological influence that the Nicene Creed began to have in western churches in the second half of the fourth century. An attempt will also be made to demonstrate how this primitive explanation of the Creed offers an indication of its own approximate date and context.

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 104 , Issue 2 , April 2011 , pp. 217 - 232
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2010

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References

1 Ecclesiae occidentalis monumenta iuris antiquissima. Canonum et conciliorum graecorum interpretationes latinae [= EOMIA] (Oxford: Clarendon, 1899–1939) 1:2:1:330–47 (Appendix 10). Edited from the ninth century Codex Vatican Regina 1997. Translations of the Commentarius are my own.

2 PLS 1:220–40. The size of the text in the PLS amounts to 21 columns.

3 With minor exceptions in Williams, D. H., Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Nicene-Arian Conflicts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995) 94–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mehlmann, J., “De Tertulliani quibusdam operibus ab ignoto auctore commentarii in Symbolum Nicaenum citatis,” SacEr 18 (1967–1968) 344–69Google Scholar.

4 See Jorg Ulrich, “Nicaea and the West,” VC 51 (1997) 10–24; Brennecke, Hans, Hilarius von Poitiers und die Bischofsopposition gegen Konstantius II (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1984) 216–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Williams, D. H., “Another Exception to Later Fourth Century ‘Arian’ Typologies: The Case of Germinius of Sirmium,” JECS 4 (1996) 335–57Google Scholar.

5 De synodis 63; PL 10:523B: “qui perfectam atque apostolicam fidem conscientiae professione retinentes, conscriptas fides huc usque nescitis.” (You, who preserve the entire apostolic faith through a familiar confession, have been ignorant of written creeds until now.)

6 The creed was officially ratified and publicly issued as “orthodoxy” at Constantinople, January 360. While it had been commonplace in the east to describe the Son as “like” (homoios) the Father in all things, the employment of homoios or similis in the late 350s was intended to eliminate the Nicene homoousios and other ousia-based credal terminology.

7 The actions taken at the Council of Paris in 361 demonstrate as much. S. Hilarii episcopi Pictaviensis opera (ed. Alfred L. Feder; CSEL 65; Vienna: Tempsky, 1916) 43–46.

8 I.e., Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate and Adversus Ursacium et Valentem; Ambrose, De fide; Lucifer of Cagliari, De non parcendo in deum delinquentibus; Gregory of Elvira, De fide; De trinitate (of uncertain authorship, often attributed to Eusebius of Vercelli; CCSL 9).

9 EOMIA 1:2:1:353; Pietri, Charles, Roma christiana: Recherches sur l'église de Rome, son organisation, sa politique, son idéologie de Miltiade à Sixte III (311–440) (Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome 224; 2 vols.; Rome: École française de Rome, 1976) 1Google Scholar:731 n. 3.

10 The accusation of non-scripturality is one of the earliest and more frequent complaints against the Creed (Athanasius, , Decr. 1Google Scholar and 18).

11 John 8:42b is “for I proceeded and came from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.” Turner inserted the biblical citations.

12 The ending of this sentence is reconstructed by Turner: “and because the Son was manifested to the Jews, it is said that ‘he came from God'” (John 8:42; EOMIA 1:2:1:332)

13 The Commentarius clarifies that Christ was the “neighbor.”

14 “Refinement” or “sophistication,” used in the negative sense here akin to “knavery.”

15 Roger Gryson and Charles Pietri have identified this same Urbanus with the Urbanus who was present at Niké in 359 when that assembly drafted the formula that became the basis of the Ariminum Creed. “Eusebio et Ypatio conss. VI Idus Octobris” in Hilary, Collectanea antiariana parisina A 5.3 (CSEL 65:85–86). See Gryson, Roger, Le Prêtre selon Saint Ambroise (Louvain: Édition orientaliste, 1968) 175Google Scholar, and Charles Pietri, Roma christiana, 1:731 n. 3.

16 This unidentified council lamented to the emperor that “the bishop of Parma, who was ejected from the church according to our judgment, nevertheless retains his see shamefully.” Lanzoni, Francesco, Le origini delle diocesi antiche d'Italia. Studio critico (Rome: Poliglotta Vaticana, 1923) 444Google Scholar. A rescript from the emperor Gratian to the vicarius Aquilinus echoes this complaint of the Roman council and emphasizes the need for more severe measures: “The bishop of Parma … by the judgment of the holy synod (sanctorum praesulum) was ejected from the church which he disturbed, anticipating the empty glory of a more severe sentence; if there was anything your predecessor of devoted vigor should have done, he ought to have expelled him well beyond the boundaries [of the city].” “Gratianus et Valentinianus Augg. Aquilino vicario,” 13.6–7 in Epistolae imperatorum, pontificum, aliorum inde ab a. CCCLXVII usque DLIII datae. Avellana quae dicitur, (ed. Otto Guenther;Vienna: Tempsky, 1895) CSEL 35:55–56. Urbanus's deposition was likewise the subject of protest by fellow Homoians at the council of Aquileia in 381; see Scholia 344v, 82; Scripta Arriana Latina (ed. Roger Gryson;Turnholt: Brepols, 1982) CCSL 87:188.

17 Roma christiana, 1:733.

18 Jerome, Lucif. 19; PL 23:172B–C.

19 Hilary of Poitiers, Contra Auxentium 15 (PL 10:618B–C).

20 D. H. Williams,“Monarchianism and Photinus as the Persistent Heretical Face of the Fourth Century,” HTR 99 (2006) 213–15.

21 “[T]he Spirit is the third person, whom he sent from the Father when he ascended, he who gave certain power to fulfill the faithful, making them declare his wonders” (qui conplens fideles virtutes loqui fecit; ch. 19).

22 Tertullian, , Prax. 6Google Scholar: “Wisdom, established as a second person;” ibid., 9: “the Lord used this word regarding the person of the Paraclete”; ibid., 14.10: “The spirit of his [the Father's] person [is] Christ the Lord. If Christ therefore is the spirit of the Father's person, rightly has his Spirit pronounced him whose the person is, namely, his Father” (Spiritus personae eius Christus dominus. Ergo si Christus persona paternae spiritus est, merito spiritus cuius persona erat, id est patris eius). Zeno of Verona speaks of the “only-begotten” and “Unbegotten,” and that they are two personae. Zenonis Veronensis Tractatus (ed. Bengt Loefstedt, Turnholt: Brepols, 1971) CCSL 22:177, lines 37–38). But the use of persona in the Nicene Creed is not in keeping with the version of the fourth century.

23 Prax. 7.10: “Whatever therefore the substance of the Word was, that I call a Person, and for it I claim the name of Son: and while I acknowledge him as Son I maintain he is another beside the Father” (quaecunque ergo substantia sermonis fuit, illam dico personam et illi nomen filii vindico, et dum filium agnosco secundum a patre).

24 Comm. 7: “Thus the apostle upholds the reality (res) of these two and announces he is the Son of God in honor, as well as upholds the Son of man in [his] suffering. And by this, just as it proved his nature (naturam) as the Son of God so he was most manifestly made man.”

25 Hilary, , De synodis 9Google Scholar: “Propter hanc piam in Ecclesia intelligendam proprietatem personae Patris et Filii, timens ne quando idem intelligatur Filius et Pater, similem non dicat etiam juxta essentiam Patri: anathema sit”; PL 10:498A; “non tamen damnum personae affert”; PL 10:498B; “Et Pater solus atque unus idem atque ipse haberet et Spiritus sancti nomen et Filii: idcirco tres substantias esse dixerunt, subsistentium personas per substantias edocentes, non substantiam Patris et Filii diversitate dissimilis essentiae separantes”; PL 10:505A. Novatian, , De trinitate 11Google Scholar: “Quasi homines enim in illo fragilitates considerant, quasi Dei virtutes non computant; infirmitates carnis recolant, potestates divinitatis excludunt”; PL 3:904A.

26 EOMIA 1:1:2:346.

27 EOMIA 1:1:2:334.

28 EOMIA 1:1:2:335.

29 EOMIA 1:1:2:341.

30 Codex Theodosianus 16.5, 6. In response to Ambrose of Milan's Fid. 1–2, the Homoian bishop Palladius of Ratiaria blamed Ambrose for having obtained immunity from charges of impiety through a “special order” of the emperor, so that “no catholic or doctor of the truth is heard if they speak against you” (Paris Latinus MS 8907, 337v, 44–45; CCSL 87:174).

31 Another Homoian, Palladius of Ratiaria, refused to accept Ambrose's charges of “Arianism” (Fid. 1–2). A later apology was penned in defense of the Homoians who were wrongly condemned as “Arians” at Aquileia (381) Scholia, 337r, 50–51 (Gryson, , Scripta Arriana Latina, 274Google Scholar).

32 Hilary, , De synodis 11Google Scholar: “But since there are some or many persons who are disturbed by [the term] substance, which is called ousia by the Greeks, or what is more precisely understood, homoousion, or what is called homoiousion, there should no mention made whatsoever, nor should anyone preach about the cause or reason [for this term] because it is not contained in the divine Scriptures” (Quod vero quosdam aut multos movebat de substantia, quae graece usia appellatur, id est [ut expressius intelligatur], homousion, aut quod dicitur homoeusion, nullam omnino fieri oportere mentionem; nec quemquam praedicare ea de causa et ratione quod nec in divinis Scripturis contineatur; PL 10:488A).

33 T. D. Barnes speculates that Athanasius wrote this letter to Liberius, the new bishop of Rome in 352/353. Athanasius and Constantius: Theology and Politics in the Constantian Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993) 117. Although no addressee is named, the letter is written to another bishop who requested information concerning the actual events at Nicaea (De decretis 2.3) presumably because the documents exposing Arius' views were presently being circulated.

34 Decr. 1 (PG 25:416A) and 18 (PG 25:447A)

35 The exception would have been those bishops who were present at Serdica 343.

36 Epistula Ad Candidum 1A. 5.

37 Adversus Arrium 1A. Prol. 3.

38 De synodis 72 (PL 10:527B–C).

39 Both of these documents appear in the so-called third book of Hilary's Adversus Ursacium et Valentem in Collectanea antiariana parisiana (Historia Fragmenta) A 1 (CSEL 65:43–46) and B 4 (CSEL 65:156–59).

40 The evangelistic missions of Eusebius of Vercelli and Hilary of Poitiers throughout the West were an important part of informing and converting the post-Ariminum West to Nicene theology. See D. H. Williams, “The Anti-Arian Campaigns of Hilary of Poitiers and the Liber Contra Auxentium,” Church History 61 (1992) 7–22.

41 E.g., the author uses dicit or dixit a great deal, uses quia (“that”) instead of the accusative, sometimes uses the accusative and an infinitive for indirect speech (and sometimes not), uses prepositions oddly (e.g., exinde), uses de frequently to mean “about” or “concerning” in sentences that contain a double accusative instead of accusative and the genitive (such as patrem cuius filium), uses nec ut with the subjunctive, and uses dispotatio instead of disputatio (ch. 7.109).

42 Commentarii in evangelia. The title is taken from Jerome, , Vir. ill. 97Google Scholar (PL 23:697B), who says Fortunatianus “wrote briefly-worded and crude commentaries … on the Gospel” (in evangelia … brevi sermone et rustico scripsit commentarios) during the reign of Constantius.

43 Williams, , Ambrose of Milan, 95Google Scholar.

44 Gustave Bardy, “L'occident et les documents de la controverse arienne,” Revue des sciences religieuses 20 (1940) 28–63. Bardy believed that the collection was made by Arius and later found its way to the west where all or parts of it were rendered into Latin. Whoever the compiler may have been, Marius Victorinus quotes from Arius's letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia and Eusebius to Paulinus (of Antioch) as a foil to refute his opponents. Candidi Epistola 2 (CSEL 83:49–50).

45 On the influence of this letter of Arius, see Bardy, “L'Occident et les documents de la controverse arienne,” 30–31; Nautin, Pierre, “Candidus L'Arien,” in L'homme devant Dieu. Mélanges offerts au père Henri de Lubac (3 vols.; Théologie 56–58; Paris: Aubier, 1963) 1:312–14Google Scholar.

46 SC 443:36.

47 Liber contra Arianos 8 (PL 20:18C–D).

48 In the minutes of the council of Aquileia, Palladius responded to Ambrose, “You put forward an unknown letter of Arius, one dead for a long time.” Scholia 337v, 45–46 (Gryson, , Scripta Arriana Latina, 276Google Scholar) (see also 337v, 47ff).

49 EOMIA 1:1:2:336.

50 Ambrose of Milan, Explanatio symboli ad initiandos; Rufinus, Commentarius in symbolum apostolorum; Augustine, Serm. 212–215; Chrysologus, , Sermons 55–62aGoogle Scholar.

51 An important point raised by Everett Ferguson in response to an earlier version of this paper at the Development of Early Catholicism Seminar, Dallas, Texas (April 2009).

52 For polemical warnings against heretics in catechetical instruction, see Augustine, , Serm. 214.2Google Scholar: “All that you have heard so briefly you must not only believe, but also commit to memory word for word and repeat by word of mouth. But it has to be defended against people who think differently, having been taken prisoner by the devil; people who set traps for your faith in their opposition to your salvation.” Sermons 184–229z (ed. John E. Rotelle; trans. Edmund Hill; The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21 stCentury 3.6; New Rochelle, N.Y.: New City Press, 1993) 150.

53 De non parcendo in deum delinquentibus (CCSL 8:228–29).

54 “Conspicis fidem apostolicam, evangelicamque esse hanc, quae semper Filium cum Patre regnasse et regnare defendat, quae fateatur et perfectam esse divinam Trinitatem, et unam habere substantiam.” De non parc. 18 (CCSL 8:228–29) [translation mine].

55 Discussed in an unpublished paper by Antonio Piras, “Il Simbolo di Nicea secondo un'Antica Versione Latina in Lucifero di Cagliari (Parc. 18.16–36).”

56 See the preface of De fide, written in two redactions by same author between 359 and 370. Gregorii Hispaniensis De fide (ed. Manlio Simonetti; Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1975) 56–58.

57 De fide orthodoxa … Tractatus (PL 17:549A–B).

58 “Commentarius Alter in Symbolum Nicaenum.” EOMIA 1:2:1:355–63 (Appendix 10.B).

59 Piras argues Hilary's version in fragmenta was probably the archetype version for Lucifer, Gregory of Elvira, and perhaps the Tomus.

60 Fid. symb. 1.1 (CSEL 41:4).

61 “Born not made” receives the longest set of comments on any section of the creed (262 lines), followed by the next clause of the creed (243 lines). The rest of the clausal glosses (except on the Holy Spirit) range from a surprising five lines for hoc est ex substantia Patris to 139 lines for qui propter … homo factus est.

62 This clause receives four lines of commentary.