From my article on the Athanasian Creed (which will appear in a companion to the Lutheran Service Book)

Since Trinity Sunday is fast approaching, I thought I would post a portion of an article I had written introducing the Athanasian Creed. There was much that I learned in researching this topic that I had not been taught in the seminary. One thing that I didn't include in my article: this creed is a masterpiece of Latin prose, as can be seen in the way that it consistently follows the rigid metrical rules for ending clauses in Ciceronian era prose while it also still conforms to the dictates of contemporary 5th century prose, whose cadences were based on accentuation rather than syllable quantity. That in itself was a remarkable feat. If you want to read more, you'll have to buy the book.

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.

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[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 6:1 (1979), 5-6.

[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: Yale University Press, 2003), 324.

[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.

The Myth of Consubstantiation

In 2009 I purchased a copy of Nathan Feldman’s Pocket Dictionary of Church History—overall, an impressive work that had an uncanny ability to cover a broad range of material to define terms concisely and accurately. More recently I purchased Jeffrey Burton Russell’s Exposing Myths about Christianity, which attempts to defend Christianity from its detractors without taking any one particular side in intramural discussions but offering arguments for all sides.

Both works, however, failed miserably in their discussion of the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. Feldman writes under the entry entitled “consubstantiation”: “Martin Luther developed the Eucharistic doctrine known as consubstantiation, which in time became closely identified with Lutheranism….Thus, for Luther there is a ‘real physical presence’ of Christ in, under, and around the Communion elements, but the bread and wine do not change in substance as in the Roman Catholic view of transubstantiation.” Russell makes the same error (p. 297): “Luther condemned transubstantiation and substituted the idea of ‘consubstantiation,’ in which the consecrated bread and wine are both bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ. Both interpretations depend on Aristotelian philosophy, so neither is a necessary way of defining how Christ is present.”

There are three major errors involved. The first is that “consubstantiation” is the term used to define the Lutheran doctrine. I have been a Lutheran for nearly half a century and that of the more confessionally attuned variety. (I’m a Missouri Synod Lutheran.) The term was never used in my confirmation instruction nor was it to be found in the Synodical Catechism, either of 1943 or 1986. In all my seminary education I may have heard the term once or twice, and then it was the sainted Dr. Robert Preus uttering the term with contempt and saying, “How can non-Lutherans say that we believe in consubstantiation? Don’t they read anything?”

Perhaps this was just an oddity of my experience. But if you look at the great Lutheran treatises on the Lord’s Supper written in the twentieth century, you would again and again notice the absence of the term. John Stephenson’s book on the Lord’s Supper in the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics series fails to mention it. So too does Hermann Sasse’s work, This is My Body, a serious examination of Luther’s thoughts on the sacrament. You will not find the term in Werner Elert’s The Structure of Lutheranism or Edmund Schlink’s Theology of the Lutheran Confessions, and other such surveys of Lutheran doctrine. Nor will you find it mentioned in Lutheran dogmatics (such as Francis Pieper’s Christian Dogmatics) or, if it does merit mention in passing, it is stated with disapproval. If consubstantiation is Lutheran doctrine, Lutherans have been keeping it a good secret.

Is the problem that modern Lutherans don’t know their history? Could it be that the term was used by earlier Lutheran dogmaticians and has since died in obscurity? An examination of Philip Melanchthon’s Loci or Martin Chemnitz’s Loci—two early Lutheran dogmatics—will prove that idea wrong. Nor will you find John Gerhard, the greatest Lutheran dogmatician of the age of orthodoxy, giving his imprimatur to the term. In fact, he heartily disapproves of it in his Harmony of the Gospels (chapter 171, leaf 784):

Quando veram, realem et substantialem corporis (et sanguinis) Christi praesentiam nos credere profitemur, nequaquam vel impanationem, vel incorporationem, vel consubstantiationem, vel physicam inclusionem, vel localem praesentiam, vel delitescentiam corpusculi sub pane, vel essentialem panis in corpus conversionem, vel durabilem corporis ad panem extra usum coenae affixionem, vel personalem panis et corporis unionem statuimus. (Emphasis in original)

When we confess that we believe in the true, real, and substantial presence of the body (and blood) of Christ, in no way do we imagine either an impanation or consubstantiation or a physical confinement or a local presence or the hiding of a particle underneath the bread or the conversion of the essence of the bread into the body or the permanent joining of the body to the bread outside the use of the supper or a personal union of the bread and the body. (My translation)

If any of the Lutheran dogmaticians of the seventeenth century were to use such quasi-Aristotelian terminology as consubstantiation, it would have been John Gerhard. But he explicitly rejects that term.

Well, then, neither modern Lutheranism nor the golden age of Lutheran orthodoxy used that term for their position. But surely this must be the doctrine taught by the Lutheran confessions (the Book of Concord), right? Again, you will not even find the term mentioned, although the Formula of Concord does reject some of the same things Gerhard does (such as impanation and local presence) that are frequently equated with consubstantiation. If we can find no other source, must we conclude that Luther is the author of consubstantiation? Again you can look at all of Luther’s works—and his substantial sacramental writings have all been translated into English—and you will find that there are only two mentions of consubstantiation in the American Edition of Luther’s Works, once in a footnote (footnote 152 on volume 40, page 196) and once in an introduction (for volume 37), and in each instance merely to disabuse the reader of the notion that Luther believed in consubstantiation.

Serious non-Lutheran scholars also concur that Lutherans do not believe in consubstantiation. Richard A. Muller, himself a Reformed theologian and therefore without a Lutheran ax to grind, nevertheless writes these words about consubstantiation in his Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms (pp. 80-81):

According to the theory of consubstantiation, the body and blood of Christ become substantially present together with the substance of the bread and wine, when the elements are consecrated. This theory is frequently confused with the Lutheran doctrine of real presence. Consubstantio indicates the presence of Christ’s body according to a unique sacramental mode of presence that is proper to Christ’s body as such, and is therefore a local presence (praesentia localis, q.v.); the Lutheran view, however, argues a real, but illocal presence of Christ’s body and blood that is grounded in the omnipresence of Christ’s person, and therefore a supernatural and sacramental, rather than a local, union with the invisible elements of the sacrament….Consubstantio implies only a presence and not a union of Christ and the sacramental elements; it was taught as a possibility by Duns Scotus, John of Jandun, and William of Occam.

Muller not only points out that the nomen (name) of consubstantiation does not apply to Lutherans (the real term for the Lutheran doctrine is “the real presence”), but neither does the res (substance). And here we come to the second misunderstanding. Feldman states that the Lutheran view is that “there is a ‘real physical presence’ of Christ in, under, and around the Communion elements.” Such a definition would fit the view held by Scotus and company, but it ill fits the view of Lutherans, who do not believe in a local or “physical” presence. Moreover, while a person may believe in either consubstantiation or transubstantiation without believing in the sacramental union, the sacramental union is at the heart of the Lutheran view of the matter.

The third error (one made by Russell) is that Luther was beholden to Aristotelian philosophy in this matter. Nothing could be further from the truth. Already at the time of the Heidelberg Disputations (1518), Luther had rejected the use of philosophy in defining theology and stated that he was especially distrustful of Aristotelian metaphysics.

Well, if consubstantiation is not a Lutheran term and does not express the Lutheran doctrine, why do so many non-Lutheran books say that it is the Lutheran view? It began with John Calvin’s 1553 broadside against Lutheranism in which he accused the Lutherans of believing in consubstantiation. It was meant to be a polemical term, and in the years that followed it would often be accompanied by others such as “impanation,” “Capernaitic eating,” “artolatry,” and the like. But calling consubstantiation “the Lutheran view of the Lord’s supper” is as accurate as defining Pelagianism as “the Arminian view of salvation” or fatalism as “the Calvinist worldview.” While polemicists may speak in that manner, it is improper for those claiming to be impartial observers to describe a movement by using its enemy’s slurs and distortions.

The real doctrine that Lutherans teach about the Lord’s Supper can be described under three terms: sacramental union, oral eating, and eating of the ungodly. We speak of a sacramental union; the bread and wine are united with the body and blood of Christ, as Paul clearly teaches in 1 Cor. 10:16 and as our Lord’s words in instituting the sacrament state (“This is my body…This is the new testament in my blood”). The exact mode in which Christ can effect this sacramental union is never stated in Lutheran theology. We know that He is omnipotent and can be anywhere and everywhere He wants to be. He has more modes of presence than we can name or understand. (See Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration 102-103.) We also teach that one receives Christ’s body and blood through the eating of the bread and wine, not through ascending to heaven in a mystical experience. Because the body and blood of Christ come through the bread and wine, all who commune receive the body and blood of Christ, not just those who do so in faith. Thus, it is quite possible for the ungodly to eat and drink damnation upon themselves by receiving Christ’s body and blood without discernment, as Paul clearly warns in 1 Corinthians 11:27-30.

This is the Lutheran view in a nutshell. Don’t expect American evangelicals to grasp it—let alone explain it accurately—anytime soon.

Just a Couple Dozen Topics—That’s All

In my last post, I argued that you could reduce the content of the Book of Concord to a couple dozen topics. You can consider this blog entry to be “the footnotes” for that post. I have arranged the content in outline format since some of the topics are clearly subcategories of other topics. You’ll need to know the following abbreviations: AC = Augsburg Confession; Ap. = Apology; SA = Smalcald Articles; Treatise = Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope; SC = Small Catechism; LC = Large Catechism; and FC = Formula of Concord. The numbering system of the Apology is somewhat convoluted and varies by edition, but I have followed the Kolb/Wengert numbering system since it lines up with that of the Augsburg Confession.

 

Often these articles may touch on some other topics tangentially, such as when Luther’s comments on the mass in SA 2:2 also deal with purgatory, the invocation of saints, and other topics. I have not tried to note every such subtopic because (as I argued in my last post) there is a particular coherence in the worldview that would guarantee that a Lutheran view of the mass would be in line with the Lutheran view of purgatory and vice versa.

By the way, the picture I have chosen to illustrate this blog entry illustrates that I am not the first to think that the various topics of the confessions cohere with one another. This is a sixteenth century woodcut that portrays the various topics of the Augsburg Confession as essentially seven branches of a lampstand illuminated by the Holy Spirit and grounded on the Scriptures and Christ. If you can read German, try to enlarge the picture and give it a closer look. It packs a lot of theology into a brief amount of space. (I downloaded the picture from Wiki Commons, where I get a lot of my free, out-of-copyright-protection pictures that I post here.)

I.                   God/Trinity: AC 1; Ap. 1; SA 1; SC 2; LC 2.

II.                Sin/Anthropology of the Fallen State: AC 19; Ap. 19; SA 3:1.

A.                Original Sin: AC 2; Ap. 2; FC 1.

B.                 Free will: AC 18; Ap. 18; SA 3:1; FC 2.

III.             The Law: SA 3:2; SC 1; LC 1; FC 5, 6.

IV.             Christ/His two natures/Unity of His person: AC 3; Ap. 3; SA 1; SC 2; LC 2; FC 3, 8, 9, 12.

V.                Justification: AC 4; Ap. 4; SA 2:1; 3:13; FC 3.

VI.             Repentance: AC 12; Ap. 12; SA 3:3.

VII.          Predestination/Election: FC 11.

VIII.       Ministry/Preaching office: AC 5, AC 14; Ap. 14; SA 3:4, 10.

A.                Clerical marriage: AC 23; Ap. 23; SA 3:11.

B.                 Power of bishops and of the pope: AC 28; Ap. 28; SA 2:4; Treatise.

IX.             Sanctification/good works: AC 6, AC 20; Ap. 4, Ap. 20; SA 3:13; FC 4.

X.                The church: AC 7, AC 8; Ap. 7-8; SA 3:12.

A.                Church regulations and ceremonies: AC 15, AC 24, AC 26; Ap. 15, Ap. 24; SA 2:2; 3:15; FC 10.

B.                 Invocation of the saints: AC 21; Ap. 21; SA 2:2.

C.                 Monasticism: AC 27; Ap. 27; SA 2:3; 3:14.

XI.             The sacraments: AC 13; Ap. 13.

A.                Baptism: AC 9; Ap. 9; SC 4; LC 4; SA 3:5.

B.                 The Lord’s Supper: AC 10; Ap. 10; SA 3:6; SC 6; LC 6; FC 7.

C.                 Two kinds in the sacrament: AC 22; Ap. 22.

D.                (Private) confession and absolution: AC 11, AC 25; Ap. 11; SA 3:7-9; SC 5; LC 5.

XII.          Government and secular life: AC 16; Ap. 16; FC 12.

XIII.       The return of Christ: AC 17; Ap. 17.

Why We Need the Longer Creeds

The reader of my last two posts is probably aware that I am dwelling on a particular theme: what value is there in the oft derided “institutional church”? So far we have seen that the church will invariably develop an institutional side to it. I have also argued that creeds and confessions are an integral part of the Christian church, for believers in Christ and their teachers alike. Those who believe in a “creedless Christianity” often end up with a formula that often reads like a creed. People may try to escape creeds and confessions, but cannot.

Perhaps, though, the problem isn’t with having creeds and confessions, but rather insisting on particular creeds. Why cannot we all just accept something like the Apostles’ Creed and be done with it? Why do we Lutherans insist on our pastors confessing all the confessions that make up the Book of Concord rather than a much shorter creed? After all, if creeds are meant to be brief summaries of the Christian faith, the Book of Concord does not have economy of words. And even if one acknowledges the right of Lutherans to confess something like the confessions in the Book of Concord, cannot we acknowledge various other confessions used by other churches—such as the Second Helvetic Confession or the Westminster Confession or the Thirty-Nine Articles or the New Hampshire Baptist Confession—as equally orthodox, thereby meriting their adherents a right to the pulpits and altars of Lutheran churches?

First of all, we should not be intimidated by the size of the Book of Concord. At first glance, it looks as if it must have hundreds of doctrines for people to believe in. But there are only 21 doctrinal topics (and 7 matters of practice) that are addressed in the Augsburg Confession. These same topics are repeated in the Apology. Much of what the Smalcald Articles has to say can be found in the Augsburg Confession, and the Formula of Concord (the most detailed of the confessions) addressed a dozen topics that had been handled at least in a cursory fashion in earlier confessions. Thus, the number of topics to be found in the Lutheran confessions is not that large. Furthermore, if you were to print only the doctrinal statements and not the arguments for them (whether exegesis of biblical passages or appeals to history and the church fathers or refutations of opponents’ arguments), you would end up with something the size of a smallish monograph. (Of course, even though Lutherans pledge themselves only to the doctrinal content of the Book of Concord, we find it helpful to read the exegesis and argumentation for particular points of doctrine. Serious Lutherans may disagree with the exegesis of a particular passage or two, but no one who thinks that all of the exegesis in the confessions is rot and nonsense is likely to be a serious Lutheran.)

Moreover, you would find that the answers given on one topic cohere with the answers given on another. It is difficult to believe in the pervasive power of original sin, for example, and still insist that a believer can merit their salvation by their own works. It is not surprising, then, to see that Lutherans believe both that original sin retains its power in believers’ lives and that we are justified solely by grace through faith, while Rome believes that original sin is abolished by baptism and that believers can through grace attain perfection—and indeed must do so before entering heaven. Not surprisingly, Rome sees purgatory as a necessary means to get the less than perfect into heaven, while Lutherans see it as a needless idea and one that obscures salvation through faith in Christ. The answers given by each confession on original sin, justification, and purgatory line up. Thus, it would be difficult to adopt a Roman view of purgatory and original sin, but a Lutheran view of justification (or vice versa).

That also explains why we Lutherans do not accept other confessions of faith (such as those I named in the second paragraph) as equally legitimate as our own. To be sure, there are many commonalities, insofar as they all acknowledge the Trinity and the deity of Christ. Some acknowledge a similar position on justification. But one finds a serious disagreement between the Lutheran Confessions on the one hand and those of the Reformed, Arminians, and Baptists on the other hand over several key topics: the nature and use of the sacraments; baptism; the Lord’s Supper; the perfection that can be attained in the Christian life; the scope of free will; eternal predestination and the use of the doctrine of election; and the relationship of the two natures in Christ, to name a few. It isn’t merely that we disagree on a few topics, but that each confessional stance has its own overall point of view that gives rise to the disagreements on individual topics, much as Lutherans and Roman Catholics have different presuppositions that lead to their divergent views on original sin, justification, and purgatory.

We rejoice to the extent that the various major confessions—Roman, Eastern, Lutheran, Reformed, Arminian, Baptist, and Pentecostal—confess the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and other core Christian doctrines. But there are still major differences in these confessions over important topics—topics that Lutherans see as part of essential Christian doctrine. For example, we Lutherans wouldn’t like to see anyone discourage Christians by teaching them that they can achieve perfection while still here on earth. But Arminians wouldn’t like to see anyone discourage Christians by teaching them that they cannot achieve perfection while still here on earth. Lutherans find perfectionism to be a most destructive and damnable teaching, while Arminians find it to be a most comforting and encouraging teaching. To hear both messages preached from the same pulpit would confuse the ordinary Christian in the pew, especially since both Lutherans and Arminians insist that this is an important teaching, one that cannot be ignored or swept under the rug.

Our confessions remind us then that we Christians still have unfinished business. We are not yet in agreement even on important and fundamental questions, but must still work to bring about unity in teaching. The Reformation raised several questions on crucial topics, but no one answer was given by all Christians. Thus, our different confessions remind us that we can neither ignore these matters nor find agreement on them as of yet. Our divergent confessions underscore the doctrinal divisions that underlie the ecclesiastical divisions. If we want to heal the latter, we will have to deal seriously with the former. That is why ignoring later confessions and opting for only the Apostles’ Creed won’t work today.