Athanasian Creed

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The Athanasian Creed (Quicumque vult) is a statement of Christian Trinitarian doctrine and Christology which has been used in Western Christianity since the sixth century A.D. Its Latin name comes from the opening words Quicumque vult, "Whosoever wishes." It is the first creed to vocalize equality of the persons of Trinity.

Contents

[edit] Authorship

Beginning in the 9th century, the Athanasian Creed was ascribed to St. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, who lived in the 4th century. This view was contested in the 17th century and is rejected today.[1] Reasons for rejecting Athanasius as the author are: 1) The creed originally was written in Latin. 2) It is not mentioned by Athanasius or his contemporaries. 3) It appears to address Christological controversies that developed after Athanasius died.[2] Although Constantine ended imperial persecution of the Church in 315 with the Edict of Milan, the preceding centuries of oppression had prevented large-scale theological debate and uniformity. The Nicean Council institutionalized widely held beliefs and formally opposed theologically divergent doctrines. The creed was attributed to Athanasius as a sign of its intense orthodoxy of Trinitarian belief.

Most of today's historians agree that it originated in Gaul around 500. Its theology is closely akin to that found in the writing of Western theologians, especially Ss. Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, and Vincent of Lérins. J.N.D. Kelly, a contemporary patristics scholar, believes that St. Vincent of Lérin was not its author, but suggests that it may have come from the same milieu, namely the area of Lerins in southern Gaul.[3]

The oldest surviving manuscripts of the Athanasian creed date from the late 8th century.[4]

[edit] Content

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The first half of the creed confesses the Trinity (one God in three persons). With didactic repetition it ascribes divine majesty and characteristics to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each individually. At the same time it clearly states that, although all three are individually divine, they are not three gods but one God. Furthermore, although one God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct from each other. For the Father is neither made nor begotten; the Son is not made but is begotten from the Father; the Holy Spirit is neither made nor begotten but proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque).

Didactic as its content appears to contemporary readers, its opening sets out the essential principle that the Catholic faith does not consist in the first place in assent to propositions, but 'that we worship One God in Trinity, and Trinity and Unity'. All else flows from that orientation.

The Athanasian Creed is in large part a response to charges of polytheism, and attempts to rationalize the three distinct persons.

Although the Creed uses terms, such as person and substance, it does not try to define them philosophically.

Its teaching about Jesus Christ is more detailed than in the Nicene Creed, and reflects the teaching of the Council of Ephesus (431) and the definition of the Council of Chalcedon (451). The 'Athanasian' Creed boldly uses the key Nicene term homoousios ('one substance', 'one in Being') not only with respect to the relation of the Son to the Father according to his divine nature, but that the Son is homoousios with his mother Mary, according to his human nature.

The Creed's wording thus excludes not only Sabellianism and Arianism, but the Christological heresies of (so-called) Nestorianism and Eutychianism. A need for a clear confession against Arianism arose in western Europe when the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, who had Arian beliefs, invaded at the beginning of the 5th century.

The final section of this Creed also moved beyond the Nicene (and Apostles') Creeds in making negative statements about the people's fate: "They that have done good shall go into life everlasting: and they that have done evil into everlasting fire." This caused considerable debate in England in the mid-nineteenth century, centred around the teaching of Frederic Denison Maurice.

[edit] Uses

Liturgically, this Creed was recited at the Sunday Office of Prime in the Western Church; it is not used in the Eastern Church. Today the Athanasian Creed is rarely used even in the Western Church.

In Reformed circles, it is included (for example) in the Christian Reformed Churches of Australia's Book of Forms (publ. 1991). That said, it is rarely recited in public worship.

In the successive Books of Common Prayer of the reformed Church of England from 1549 to 1662, its recitation was provided for on 19 occasions each year, a practice which continued until the nineteenth century, when vigorous controversy regarding its statement about 'eternal damnation' saw its use gradually decline. It remains one of the three Creeds approved in the Thirty-Nine Articles, and is printed in several current Anglican prayer books (eg A Prayer Book for Australia (1995)). As with Roman Catholic practice, its use is now generally only on Trinity Sunday or its octave.

In Roman Catholic churches, it was traditionally said at Prime on Sundays after Epiphany and Pentecost, except when a Double feast or day within an octave occurred, and on Trinity Sunday. In the 1960 reforms, it was reduced to once a year on Trinity Sunday. It has been effectively dropped from the Catholic liturgy since Vatican II, although it is retained in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

In Lutheranism, the Athanasian Creed is -- along with the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds -- one of the three ecumenical creeds placed at the beginning of the 1580 Book of Concord, the historic collection of authoritative doctrinal statements (confessions) of the Lutheran church. It is still used in the liturgy on Trinity Sunday.

A common visualisation of the first half of the Creed is the Shield of the Trinity.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Lueker, Erwin, ed. Lutheran Cyclopedia: A Concise In-Home Reference for the Christian Family. "Ecumenical Creeds." St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1984.
  2. ^ Concordia Triglotta, Historical Introduction, St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 13.
  3. ^ J.N.D. Kelly, The Athanasian Creed, NY: Harper and Row, 1964.
  4. ^ Celia Chazelle (October 1997). "Archbishops Ebo and Hincmar of Reims and the Utrecht Psalter". Speculum 72 (4): 1056. 

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