The Creeds of A.D. 325 Antioch, Caesarea, Nicaea

T. Evan Pollard

doi:10.1017/S0036930600051930

The Creeds of A.D. 325 Antioch, Caesarea, Nicaea

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009

T. Evan Pollard

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The Letter of the Synod of Antioch contained in a Syriac MS. of the eighth or ninth century (Codex Parisinus Syriacus 62), to which Edward Schwartz first drew attention in 1905, has thrown light on the period immediately preceding the Council of Nicaea and on the proceedings of the Council itself. After much initial controversy, mainly between Schwartz and von Harnack, this document is now generally accepted as authentic.

The Synod of Antioch, of which nothing was hitherto known, appears to have assembled in order to settle the difficulties which had arisen in the Church at Antioch after the death of Bishop Philogonius (ca. A.D. 322), one of three Bishops whom Arius described as ‘unlearned heretics’; Eustathius, Bishop of Beroea, was appointed to fill the vacancy. The Synod was attended by at least fifty-nine bishops from Syria and Palestine, forty-nine of whom also attended the Council of Nicaea a few months later.

Type: Research Article
Information: Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , August 1960 , pp. 278 - 300

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930600051930 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1960

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^{page 278 note 1} Nachrichten von der Kgl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschqften zu Göttingen, 1905.

^{page 278 note 2} For a survey of the controversy between Schwartz and von Harnack vide Cross, F. L., ‘The Council of Antioch in A.D. 325’ in Church Quarterly Review, Vol. CXXVIII (1939), 49ff.Google Scholar

^{page 278 note 3} Opitz, H.-G., Urkunden zur Geschichte des arianischen Streites 318–328, Urk. I.Google Scholar

^{page 278 note 4} Is it possible that, in giving its firm decision against Arianism, the Synod sought to forestall any possibility of an adverse decision by the imperially sponsored Council at Nicaea?

^{page 279 note 1} Opitz, Urk. 18 (40, 6–10); the translation is made from Schwartz' Greek translation published by Opitz. I am grateful to Professor David Hubbard, of Westmont College, California, and Professor Robert B. Laurin, of California Baptist Theological Seminary for assistance with the Syriac text.

^{page 279 note 2} Opitz, Urk. 18 (40, 16f); Cod. Par. Syr. 62 also contains a letter of the Emperor announcing the change of the venue of the Council from Ancyra to Nicaea; vide Urk. 20.

^{page 279 note 3} Urk, 22 (42, 5–8).

^{page 279 note 4} ibid. (43, 4).

^{page 280 note 1} Urk. 22 (43, 26–44, 4).

^{page 280 note 2} Zahn, T., Marcellus von Atuyra, 18Google Scholar, quoted by Burn, A. E., The Council of Nicaea, 42.Google Scholar

^{page 280 note 3} Early Christian Creeds, 205–62.

^{page 280 note 4} cf. Hort, F. J. A., Two Dissertations, 54–72Google Scholar; Burn, A. E., Introduction to the Creeds, 76ffGoogle Scholar, and The Council of Nicaea, 20ff; von Harnack, A., in Hauck's Realencyclopaedie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, Vol. XI, 15ff.Google Scholar

^{page 280 note 5} op. cit., 218.

^{page 280 note 6} ibid., 225.

^{page 281 note 1} Quotations of the credal statement follow the translation given by J. N. D. Kelly, op. cit., 20gf.

^{page 281 note 2} Kelly calk it ‘this tortuous compilation’, op. cit., 210.

^{page 282 note 1} Elsewhere in the NT (Luke 7.12, 8.42, 9.38 and Heb. 11.27)it refers to only sons or daughters.

^{page 282 note 2} op.cit., 210.

^{page 282 note 3} Opitz, Urk.6.

^{page 282 note 4} Kelly, op. cit., 210, note 2, quoting Schwartz, , Zur Geschichte des Athanasius VI, in N.G.G. (1905), 288Google Scholar.

^{page 282 note 5} Opitz, Urk. 14.

^{page 283 note 1} cf. Moody, D., ‘God's Only Son: The Translation of John 3.16 in the R.S.V.’ in The Journalof Biblical Literature, Vol. LXXII (1953), 213ffCrossRef Google Scholar; Winter, P., ‘’ in Zeitschrift für Religions-und Geistesgeschichte, Vol. V (1953), 335ffCrossRef Google Scholar; Turner, C. H., ‘’ in The Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. XXVII (1926), 113ffCrossRef Google Scholar.

^{page 283 note 2} cf. Prestige, G. L., “ and Kindred Words in Eusebius and the Early Arians’ in The Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. XXIV (1923), 486ffGoogle Scholar.

^{page 284 note 1} cf. my articles, ‘Logos and Son in Origen, Arius and Athanasius’ in Studia Patristica, Vol. II, 282ffGoogle Scholar, and ‘The Origins of Arianism’ in The Journal of Theological Studies, N.S. Vol. IX (1958), 103ff.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 286 note 1} Before the Arian controversy broke out Eusebius asserted that the Logos-Son is ‘some second being’ beside God (Dem. Ev., i, 5, Iod; cf. also iv, 6, 154d; v, 3, 220a; v, 30, 255b; Hist. Eccl., i, 2, 5), who ‘stands midway between the unoriginate God and the things originated after Him’ (Dem. Ev., iv, 10, 164d). Eusebius does strive to ascribe some kind of eternity to the Logos-Son, but he is willing to go no farther than saying that the Son was begotten ‘before all ages’ (Dem. Ev., v. I, 215b, et al.). As Hendrik Berkhof remarks, ‘The eternity of the Son does not mean a co-eternity with the Father…The Father has eternity in the proper sense; the Son, as begotten, has it in a derivative sense’ (Die Theologie des Eusebius von Caesarea, Amsterdam, 1939, 75ff).

^{page 287 note 1} Opitz, Urk. 3 (5, 5–10).

^{page 287 note 2} Opitz, Urk. 19.

^{page 288 note 1} Opitz, Urk. 22 (43, 10ff).

^{page 289 note 1} I would not deny that St. Paul intends this phrase in a cosmological sense, but the overall context is soteriological. As Dr Stig Hanson remarks, discussing the whole passage from Colossians (The Unity of the Church in the NT, 109ff), ‘Creation and reconciliation have a close interrelation. …Christ is the centre of creation as well as reconciliation. There is a parallelism between these two acts, and, as the mediator of them, Christ has in both cases the same title: πρωτ;τoκoς πσης κτἰσεως (verse 15) and (verse 18).’ Discussing the former title, he says, ‘It is not primarily a question of priority or sovereignty in relation to the world … but of representation.’ For Paul, that is, Christ is the head of all creation, just as He is the head of the new creation, the Church. Paul argues, and so does John, from Heilsgeschichte to cosmology, and not vice versa, and cosmology is but the framework of Heilsgeschichte, and not the clue to it. The argument of Col. I.13ff is from the known fact of reconciliation through Christ in history to the thought that He must have been the mediator of creation at the beginning of history.

^{page 289 note 2} The Arians coupled together the two titles and . Athanasius (Or. c. Ar., ii, 62; PG, xxvi, 277) says, ‘The term μoνoγενς is used where there are no brethren, and πρωττoκoς because there are brethren. … If then He is μoνoγενς, as indeed He is, πρωττoκoς needs some explanation; if, on the other hand, He is really πρωττoκoς, then He is not μoνoγενς. For the same cannot be both μoνoγενς and πρωττoκoς except indifferent relations.’ Marcellus (Fr. 3 in Klostermann's collection at the end of Eusebius Werke, iv, CGS) says, ‘There is a great contradiction in these titles, as even the most stupid may easily see. For it is clear that μoνoγενς, if He is really μoνoγενς, cannot be πρωττoκoς as well, and πρωττoκoς, if He is really πρωττoκoς, cannot also be μoνoγενς.’ νανθρωπἠσαντα.

^{page 290 note 1} cf. the discussion of Prov. 8.22ff in the light of Col. I.13ff and Gen. 1.1 in Davies, W. D., Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 150ff.Google Scholar

^{page 290 note 2} Berkhof, op. cit., 75.

^{page 290 note 3} Alexander himself used the phrase, Urk. 14 (27, 20).

^{page 291 note 1} De Decretis, 19.

^{page 291 note 2} idem.

^{page 292 note 1} De Decretis, 20.

^{page 292 note 2} Athanasius (Hist. Ar., 42; PG, xxv, 744) says that it was Hosius who put forth the Nicene faith; Eusebius says that it was the Emperor who suggested the inclusion of the word . (Urk. 22.)

^{page 292 note 3} op. cit., 227f.

^{page 293 note 1} Bright, W., Canons of the First Four General Councils, 2nd ed., 27.Google Scholar

^{page 293 note 2} When the Bishops at Chalcedon (A.D. 451) asked for the Nicene Creed to be read, the Metropolitan of Bithynia, in whose province Nicaea was situated, was called to read it. Kelly (op. cit., 215) says, ‘The choice of this dignitary was dictated, we can be sure, by the desire to have the Greed recited in the authentic, original text.’ Similarly it seems most probable that the desire to base its formula on the most authentic Creed would dictate the choice, by the Nicene Bishops, of the Creed of the oldest Church in Christendom. Vide the excellent section in Telfer, W., Cyril of Jerusalem and Nemesius of Emesa (Library of Christian Classics, Vol. IV), 54ff.Google Scholar

^{page 293 note 3} For the most part the translation follows that by Hardy, E. R., Christology of the Later Fathers (L.C.C., Vol. III), 338. By some curious error Hardy's translation omits the phrase The Son Of God.Google Scholar

^{page 294 note 1} It is possible that the basic creed of Antioch contained the words Begotten From the Father, and the words ‘not from that which is not but’ were inserted into the phrase to exclude the Arian doctrine of the Son's creatio ex nihilo.

^{page 295 note 1} vide supra, p. 000, n. o.

^{page 295 note 2} ii, 23, I (GCS, iv, 133, 18).

^{page 296 note 1} Opitz, Urk. 6 (12, 9–10).

^{page 296 note 2} ibid., 22 (43, 15–17).

^{page 296 note 3} ibid., 19.

^{page 296 note 4} The suggestion that the Synod of Antioch was the place where this incident took place is made with forcefulness by Opitz, , ‘Euseb von Caesarea als Theologe’, in Z.N.T.W., xxxiv (1935). cf. also Berkhof, op. cit., 176.Google Scholar

^{page 297 note 1} Eusebius scarcely mentions the Holy Spirit in his writings. In Dem. Ev., and the Syriac Theophaneia the Holy Spirit is ignored, while in De Ecc. Theol., in a section entitled ‘How the Church of God believes1’, he sets forth a strange ‘Trinity’: ‘Therefore for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things … and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, who pre-exists only-begotten Son of God, and, thirdly, the Son of Man according to the flesh, which the Son of God assumed on our behalf (i, 6; GCS, iv, 65, 3ff). Cf. Berkhof, op. tit., 86ff.

^{page 297 note 2} Robertson, , Athanasius (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. iv), 75, note 5.Google Scholar

^{page 297 note 3} Urk. 22 (45, 10–14).

^{page 297 note 4} The Council of Nicaea, 54.

^{page 297 note 5} De Decretis, 23; 24; etc.

^{page 298 note 1} In an article, ‘Cosmology and the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel’, in Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. XII (1958), 147–153Google Scholar, I have argued that John 1.3 ijnot ‘cosmological’, its true meaning being ‘All God's activity ad extra takes place through the Logos’.

^{page 299 note 1} cf. my article in Studia Patristica, Vol. II; Daniélou, J., Origene, 858ffGoogle Scholar; E. von Ivanka, Hellenisches und christliches im frühbyzantinischen Geistesleben, Chapter 1.

^{page 300 note 1} cf. my article, ‘The Exegesis of John X.30 in the Early Trinitarian Controversies’, in New Testament Studies, Vol. III (1957), 334ff.Google Scholar

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