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Two Forgotten Creeds
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
Extract
For the modern theologian there is an all-encompassing bond of perfectness in the New Testament in the doctrine of the Logos, found in the Johannine gospel and epistles. It links together the christology of the Synoptic writings, Mark, Matthew, Luke-Acts, and that of the epistles. It combines the primitive doctrine of Jesus the faithful “Servant” of God, glorified and exalted to God's right hand—a doctrine of “apotheosis,” as Baur called it—with the Pauline doctrine of “incarnation,”—Christ a pre-existent being, agent of creation, in the form and likeness of God, but self-emptied and abased, made for a little while lower than the angels, that for the suffering of death he might be made eternally higher than they, heir and lord of the creation. In the one—the Petrine christology, as we may call it because it is mainly represented in the speeches of Peter in Acts 2–5—the residence in heaven is an episode. God has taken up his faithful Servant for a short interval to his own right hand, delivering him out of the power of death, that, when his people have repented of their wicked rejection of him, he may send him again as the Christ, to restore the kingdom to Israel and reign forever on the throne of David in the renewed and glorified Jerusalem. In the other christology—the Pauline—the residence on earth is the episode. The drama's beginning and ending is in heaven. Viewed thus “under the aspect of the eternal” the brief period of abasement, poverty, and suffering, undertaken for the “reconciliation” of the animate world, is scarcely a moment of time. For our sakes the eternal Son of God “became poor,” he emptied himself and took upon him the form of a slave, and became obedient unto death, yea, even the (slave's) death of the cross; but therefore also “God highly exalted him and gave him the Name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1913
References
1 Harnack (Sitzungsberichte of the Berlin Academy, 1909) takes exception to the general critical judgment which pronounces Clement a Jew. Harnack, however, would not deny that his religious ideas show in marked degree their Jewish schooling.
2 With Mk. 4 11 f. compare Rom. 11 8.
3 Irenaeus, Haer. i, 30 13, iii, 11 7.
4 Hermas, Vis. ii, 4.
5 Hermas, Vis. ii, 3. Eldad and Modat was an apocryphal romance of which little is now known. Its characters were taken from Num. 11 27.
6 The doctrine of Christ as the gate (πύλη note θύρα “door”) plays an important part in early Christian apologetic (cf. Hegesippus' account of the martyrdom of James in Euseb. H. E. ii, 23 8). The reference is to Ps. 118 20. “This is the gate of the Lord, the righteous shall enter in by it.”
7 Barn. 5 5. In Irenaeus the utterance of God in Gen. 1 26 is said to be addressed to “his Wisdom.”
8 Hermas, Sim. v, 2–7; cf. Mk. 12 1–8 and Is. 5 1–7.
9 The preceding chapter relates to the fast which Hermas has been observing, and which he calls “keeping a station.” The Shepherd has applied to it doctrine reminding us of Is. 58 and Mk. 2 18–22.
10 Mt. 25 14–30 and parallels.
11 Wisdom 1 6, 7 23–27.
12 Compare Clement's interpretation in ch. 29 of Dt. 32 8 f. (LXX).
13 That is, the six archangels “that were created first of all, unto whom the Lord delivered all his creation to increase and to build it, and to be masters of all creation” (Vis. iii, 4). Hermas' heavenly court has points of strong resemblance to the Mazdean. Alongside of Ahura and Mithras stand the six Amesha-spentas and the host of Fravashis.
14 The original Greek of the so-called Apostles' Creed has “I believe in the resurrection of the flesh” (σαρκός), not “body” (σώματος).
15 Harnack, in his recent reconstruction of the primitive Aramaic source Q, notes as the most astounding fact in connection with it, that it yields “no trace of that which in Mark is the chief theme, Jesus' death and resurrection.” Sprüche und Redeu Jesu, p. 171.
16 Since this article was placed in the editor's hands an important study by J. v. Walter, of Breslau, of the christology of Hermas as exhibited in the passage here considered (Sim. V.), has appeared in the Zts. f. utl. Wiss. xiv 2 (1913). Von Walter explains the inconsistencies as due to later supplementation by the author. Sim. V 6 4b–7 was added to obviate the objection to the parable which would be felt by any orthodox reader of Heb. 1–2, that the slave (Jesus) was placed on a lower rank than the angels. In this interpretation the slave is only “the flesh” in which the holy, pre-existent Spirit dwelt, and which served it, whereas the parable both calls the slave himself the Son of God, and speaks only of his service to “the people” in obedience to “the Lord.” If this reasoning be admitted, we have still further interesting evidence of the clash of christological opinion before the introduction of the logos-doctrine as a solvent. In fact the very pages of Hermas in themselves considered will exemplify the collision between apotheosis doctrines and incarnation doctrines.