From: MikeBzley@aol.com
Date: Sun Jul 12 1998 - 10:09:31 EDT
In a message dated 12/07/98 00:14:14 GMT, jonathan@texcel.no writes:
> What evidence is there that there was a document that comprised a "commonly
> accepted Christian Confession of Faith" in the first Century?
Dear Jonathan,
There doesn't seem (IMHO) to be a single document that provides a "commonly
accepted Christian Confession of Faith" until Irenaeus and Tertullian inter
alios tried to define it in their writings, enabling its more precise
formulation in later documents such as the Nicene and Apostles' creeds. But
it seems to me that the Council of Nicea and its predecessors were inheritors
of a tradition which was already well established when Paul and Jude (and Luke
and James) were writing. hO PISTIS (and its derivatives hOI PISTEUONTES, hOI
PISTOI and TWN PEPISTEUKOTWN) in e.g. Acts 2:44, 4:32, 6:7, 10:45, 13:8,
14:22, 16:1, 16:5, 21:20 and 21:25, I Corinthians 16:13, 2 Corinthians 13:5,
Galatians 6:10, Colossians 1:23, 1 Timothy 1:19, 3:9, 4:1, 4:6, 5:8, 5:16,
6:2, 6:10, 6:12 and 6:21, 2 Timothy 4:7, Titus 1:1 and 3:15, James 2:1 and
Jude 1:3 all seem to me to be references to 'The Faith' and 'The Believers''
in a very definite sense as meaning the indivisible teaching and body of Jesus
Christ.
To me, hO PISTIS is the shorthand for what they and others accepted as read -
'The Faith' (as received from Jesus and passed on by his apostles, into which
believers were reborn as members of Christ). It only needed to be more
carefully and legally defined when it became disputed as opposing doctrines
developed and as the state became involved in theological debate (e.g.
Gnosticism, Arianism etc). Initially it seems to have been more loosely
defined but probably more widely understood as in Paul's quotation of what
appears to be an early creed, "KURIOS IHSOUS" (Romans 10:9 and 1 Corinthians
12:3) and an apparently commonly used evangelistic slogan, "EGEIRE, hO
KAQEUDWN, KAI ANASTA EK TWN NEKRWN, KAI EPIFAUSEI SOI hO CRISTOS" (Ephesians
5:14) and what reads like an early Christian song of praise, Phillipians
2:5-11:
"CRISTWi IHSOU, hOS EN MORFHi QEOU hUPARCWN
OUC hARPAGMON hHGHSATO TO EINAI ISA QEWi,
ALLA hEAUTON EKENWSEN MORFHN DOULOU LABWN,
EN hOMOIWMATI ANQRWPWN GENOMENOS;
etc..."
I agree with David Bielby that the Didache offers further evidence for an
early, spoken and accepted, but not written (as far as we know) corpus of
doctrine for which hO PISTIS was the shorthand.
CARIS hUMIN KAI EIRHNH
Mike Beazley
Bushey, Hertfordshire, UK
CILIARCOS
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