Apostles' Creed: and its Early Christian Context

206 Pages·2009·1.02 MB·English

THE APOSTLES’ CREED
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THE APOSTLES’ CREED
THE APOSTLES’ CREED AND
ITS EARLY CHRISTIAN
CONTEXT
PIOTR ASHWIN-SIEJKOWSKI
Published by T&T Clark International
A Continuum Imprint
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval
system, without prior permission from the publishers.
Copyright © Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski, 2009
Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
ISBN-10:HB:0–567–00175–X
PB: 0–567–32821–X
ISBN-13:HB:978–0–567–00175–7
PB: 978–0–567–32821–2
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
1 I Believe in God 7
2 The Father Almighty, Creator of
Heaven and Earth 16
3 And in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord 26
4 Who was Conceived by the Holy Spirit,
Born of the Virgin Mary 35
5 Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was
Crucified, Dead and Buried 47
6 He Descended into Hell; on the Third
Day He Rose Again from the Dead 56

7 He Ascended into Heaven, and Sits at
the Right Hand of God the Father Almighty 67
8 From Thence He shall Come to Judge
the Living and the Dead 76
9 I Believe in the Holy Spirit 87
10 The Holy Catholic Church
[The Communion of Saints] 97
11 The Forgiveness of Sins 108
vi Contents
12 The Resurrection of the Flesh 119
13 And Eternal Life. Amen 130
Conclusion 141
Glossary of Theologians, Early Christian Documents
and Theological Terms Cited in the Book 147
Chronology of Quoted Documents and Theologians 158
Resources on the Internet 162
Notes 163
Bibliography 189
Indices of Ancient Theologians and Documents 196
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my special gratitude to a group of friends
whose generous assistance enabled me to write this book. They are:
Alyson Barr, Fr Philip Bevan, Howard Cattermole, Rev Dr Allan
Jenkins, Penny Francis, Kevin Norris, Rev Neil Summers, Martin
Warner and Shirley Wallis. They all kindly gave their time in order
to help me edit my manuscript, and they also provided invaluable
comments on the first draft of my book. I am also most grateful to
the very supportive staff from the library of the University of
Chichester, who provided me with all necessary literature during
my work on this project. I also wish to express my gratitude to
Thomas Kraft, my editor, for his interest in this project. My special
gratitude belongs to my wife Sarah, who, as always, was enormously
patient and supportive, although the revision of this manuscript
has happily coincided with the first months in the life of our
daughter, Anna Elizabeth.
I dedicate this book to the memory of my dear friend, Rev Peter
Gooderick (1926–2007), who was an excellent Anglican parish
priest and a great companion with whom I had endless theological
debates. I miss him and those conversations very much.
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Introduction
This book is an outcome of two kinds of inspiration. First, my aca-
demic interest in the history of early Christian doctrine, my real joy
in teaching ‘Patristic Theology’ at the and
addressing the students’ questions, prompted me to prepare a
basic ‘guide-book’ through the complex labyrinth of early Chris-
tian thought. Secondly, my parish ministry in Richmond Team
Ministry (Richmond/Surrey) inspired me to offer an introduction
that would explain the crucial message of the Apostles’ Creed and
its early Christian context. The Apostles’ Creed, so popular in the
Anglican liturgy, provides a perfect gate to open the amazing, rich
and colourful ‘garden’ of early Church theology. One of its com-
mentators calls it ‘the creed of creeds’1 in the Western Church, and
it was admired for its simplicity and brevity by Luther and Calvin,
and also by both Roman Catholics and Anglicans.2
I have also been thinking of a way to introduce the Creed and
its difficult jargon to a much wider group of readers even than my
students and parishioners. However, I am aware that there will be a
number of Christians for whom this Creed is incomprehensible,
even irrelevant. For them the Apostles’ Creed could be put on a
shelf of the British Library to gather dust, and not many people
would notice its disappearance from the liturgy. Against this way of
thinking, I would like to argue that the theological content of this
specific Christian confession may still inspire our faith, and at the
very least challenge our intellect. It may stir up a new desire to
know more about the history of Christianity. The early Christian
theologians are not mummified, static saints or villains from
Madame Tussaud’s Museum of Wax Figures. Some of them were
later labelled ‘heretics’, but I treat them with respect. All of them,
1