Once a year, need it or not, cowboys
would take a bath—or so the legend goes. And once a year, need it or not,
Lutheran congregations are forced to recite the Athanasian Creed. Those who
find the annual recitation on Trinity Sunday to be a burdensome chore might
well consider that from the days of Charlemagne the Athanasian Creed was to be
learned by heart by the clergy and recited at Prime every Sunday. That was not
enough for the Cluniac monks, who sang it daily.[1]
Only at the dawn of the twentieth century did it get reduced in Roman circles
from Prime on every Sunday to Prime on the Sundays after the Epiphany and
Pentecost. By the middle of the same century it had been further reduced to
Prime on Trinity Sunday only.[2]
Anglican usage showed a similar deterioration of use, although it has been
waning in those circles for the past two centuries.[3]
Prime, of course, was one of the
daily offices sung first by monks and later by all clergy. As one of the more
minor offices, it was less likely to be attended by laity than Matins or
Compline. Thus, through most of the centuries of its use, the Athanasian Creed
has been something pastors confessed repeatedly in their devotional life so
that it could shape their preaching, while lay people have not used it as much.
History would suggest, therefore, that we should not expect the Athanasian
Creed to be an integral part of the average lay person’s thinking or devotional
life. A wiser practice would be to encourage pastors (and perhaps elders and
commissioned ministers of religion) to recite the Athanasian Creed more
frequently than once a year (perhaps weekly) while expecting lay people to make
use primarily of the Apostles’ Creed in their daily devotions (as Luther
suggests) and the Nicene Creed at the Sunday Divine Service. By praying the
Athanasian Creed, pastors would imbibe its rich Trinitarian and Christological
language, which would help shape their preaching. This practice would not
abolish the annual recitation of the Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday, but it
might be a better way to steep pastors in the creed’s rich doctrine of the
Trinity and enable them to communicate its theology to the laity they shepherd.
Who wrote the Athanasian Creed?
Certainly not Athanasius, as it is never referred to by him or his
contemporaries or even any later person in the Greek-speaking church, at least
not until centuries later. Those who read Latin will recognize instantly that
it is too Latinate in its phraseology and structure to be a translation of a
Greek original. There are clear verbal parallels between the creed and the
writings of Ambrose of Milan (†397), Augustine of Hippo (†430), Fulgentius of
Ruspe (†533), and theologians of southern France such as Vincent of Lérins (†
ca. 450), Faustus of Riez († ca. 490), and Caesarius of Arles (†542).[4]
But verbal parallelism is not in and of itself determinative. These theologians
may have borrowed language from the creed, or the creed may have borrowed
language from the theologians, or the creed may have been written by one of
them.
When G. Friedrich Bente wrote his
historical introduction to the Athanasian Creed as part of the Concordia Triglotta, he could do no more
than suggest its origin in southern France
between 450 and 600, which was as far as the scholarly consensus at that time
was willing to go.[5] It was
recognized by then that the Trinitarian language is drawn from that of
Augustine’s treatise on the Trinity, although the creed seems to reflect
Augustinianism rather than the hand of Augustine himself.[6]
The focus of the creed is largely anti-Arian, but directed at a more moderate
form of Arianism than the original Arianism, which would indicate that it was
directed more against the Goths, such as had settled in Spain and France. Given
the many parallels between the creed and theologians of southern France , that provenance seems more likely.
However, in 1931 the eminent
French-Belgian patristic scholar Germain Morin discovered a collection of
sermons of Caesarius of Arles that included the Athanasian Creed. This proved
that not only had Caesarius been familiar with the creed, but that he had
promoted it as well and thus the creed must have been written before his death
in 542.[7]
It is an intriguing possibility that Caesarius himself may have been the
author, but it is unlikely, given some stylistic and minor theological differences
between Caesarius and the creed. J.N.D. Kelly argues for the following: “the
connexion [sic] of the creed with the monastery at Lérins, its dependence on
the theology of Augustine, and, in the Trinitarian section, on his
characteristic method of arguing, its much more direct and large-scale
indebtedness to Vincent [of Lérins], its acquaintance with and critical
attitude towards Nestorianism, and its emergence at some time between 440 and
the high noon of Caesarius’ activity.”[8]
Two objections are commonly raised
against the Athanasian Creed. The first is its damnatory clauses. Liberal
Protestantism, Pietism, and even much of Evangelicalism have objected to the
notion that a person could be condemned for failing to uphold certain dogmas.[9]
Thus, Samuel Schmucker proposed dropping the Athanasian Creed when he offered
his American Platform for amending
the Augsburg Confession.[10]
Most serious Lutherans, though, will recognize that the Scriptures themselves
condemn those who teach contrary to the gospel (Galatians 1:8).[11]
The second objection is that it teaches a salvation by works. But this
objection does not hold up under scrutiny. The language is biblical (John 5:29)
and does not contradict the notion that we are saved by faith in Christ apart
from our works. It is only by faith in Christ that anyone can do good works. On
the Last Day, Christ will point to our good works to demonstrate that we had
true faith, while he will point out the lack of good works to demonstrate that
the unbelievers had no faith (Matthew 25:31-46). Moreover, this creed was
promoted by Caesarius of Arles, who was a firm opponent not only of Pelagianism
(overt works-righteousness) but also semi-Pelagianism and organized the Synod
of Orange in 529 to condemn it; nonetheless, he saw no false doctrine in the
creed on this topic but rather promoted it instead, as we have seen.
[1]
John Norman Davidson Kelly, The
Athanasian Creed (Evanston: Harper & Row Publishers, 1964), 43; Robert
L. Wilken, “Introducing the Athanasian Creed,” Currents in Theology and Mission
[2]
Kelly, 49.
[3]
Kelly, 7, 49-51; Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo:
Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the
Christian Tradition [hereafter Pelikan, Credo]
(New Haven , CT
[4]
Kelly, 24-34.
[5]
Concordia Triglotta [hereafter Triglotta] (St. Louis, MO: Concordia
Publishing House, 1921), 14.
[6]
Pelikan, Credo, 435-436.
[7]
Germain Morin, “L’Origine du symbole d’Athanase: témoignage inédit de s. Césaire
d’Arles,” Revue Bénédictine 14
(1932): 207-219; cf. Kelly, 35-37.
[8]
Kelly, 123.
[9]
Pelikan, Credo, 488-497.
[10]
Pelikan, Credo, 324-325.
[11]
Pelikan (Credo, 76-78) rightly notes
that pharmacists have to follow prescriptions faithfully to a doctor’s intent
or else be barred from their profession; the damnatory clauses in the creed
serve a similar function for theologians. Wilken, 9, also points out the need
for a church still struggling with a pagan environment to delineate sharply
between the God Christians worship and the pagan concepts of deity.
