Preservation of Dogma in the Church (3)

By Professor Mikhail Nikolaevich Skaballanovich

The Christological heresies of the 4th-6th centuries and the series of councils they sparked raised the question of tradition in a new light. Only now was the inadequacy of Holy Scripture alone in resolving dogmatic disputes fully realized, and the need to appeal to the entirety of tradition for this purpose became evident. In other words, it was only now that the Church’s dogmas were being preserved. All conciliar creeds were essentially appeals to tradition against the distortion of Scripture, a distortion that could not be eliminated in any other way. At the same time, a new feature of tradition now emerged: its so-called paternity, in addition to the apostolicity established in the 3rd century: people began to inquire not only about the apostles’ views on the truths of the faith, but also about the ancient fathers.

The first to draw attention to this aspect of tradition was St. Athanasius the Great. “Look again at the most original tradition, at the teaching and faith of the universal church, the faith that the Lord transmitted, the apostles preached, the fathers observed.”102 And St. Athanasius repeatedly exhorts “to keep a good conscience before the fathers,”103 and reproaches heretics for “separating from the fathers.”104

The priests themselves Books are included in the canon to such an extent because “according to the tradition of the Fathers, those who were from the very beginning eyewitnesses and servants of the Word are recognized as divine.”105

Not all the Fathers of this period, like those of the preceding one, recognized the same importance for tradition. St. Cyril of Jerusalem is now approaching the opinions on this subject of St. Cyprian, and is he so alone? “What is not written, we will not inquire about” is the principle of St. Cyril.106 He forbids the reading of non-canonical books even at home.107

On the contrary, St. Basil the Great is one of the most energetic champions of tradition. The well-known classical passage on “dogmas and sermons preserved in the church (χυρυγμάΐων)”108, although it concerns primarily ritual tradition, is aimed at proving what is expressed in the doxology “Glory “To the Father”… the dogma of the equal honor of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son and for the first time clearly clarifies the need for the ideological preservation of dogmas alongside the external, verbal: “The apostles and fathers preserved the veneration of the sacraments through secrecy and observance in silence. For in general, that which is proclaimed aloud to the people and to everyone they meet is no longer a sacrament. This is the reason why other things, not set forth in Scripture, have been handed down, lest the effortless knowledge of dogmas, through habit, become easily despised by many. Dogma is one thing, and preaching another. Dogma is hushed up, while preaching is made public. But the form of silence is the obscurity which Scripture employs, making the meaning of dogmas, for the benefit of the reader, difficult to understand.”109 “Ancient dogmas inspire a certain reverence and respect for their age, as if for some gray hair.”110.

And Gregory the Theologian, in the very spirit of his theology, could not help but value tradition for the same reason, for the ideological preservation of dogmas within it. “Christ is the destroyer of the letter and the perfecter of the spirit.”111. “Oh, if only we, to our last breath, with great boldness, would preserve this faithful deposit of the holy fathers, who lived closer to Christ and to the original faith.”112. Is it possible to do without tradition in the face of heretics who “play with the words of the Bible as if they were dice?”113.

Gregory of Nyssa advances the idea that dogma is preserved by tradition in a logically defined form. “We preserve the faith preached by Christ and the apostles, pure and unchangeable to the letter, as we received it, recognizing as extreme blasphemy and impiety even the slightest distortion of the transmitted sayings.”114

St. John Chrysostom dwells on the question, raised back in the 3rd century, about the relationship between tradition and scripture and their comparative importance in the matter of preserving dogma: “In reality, we should have no need of the help of Scripture, but should lead such a pure life that instead of books, the grace of the Spirit would serve our souls, and like ink, our hearts would be all written with the Spirit — For He did not converse with Noah, and Abraham and his descendants, as well as with Job and Moses, through scripture, but from His own womb, finding their minds pure — And nothing written was delivered by God to the apostles, but instead of Scripture, the grace of the Spirit was promised. “He,” He said to them, “will remind you of all things.” It is also worthy of blame that we have need of Scripture and do not draw to ourselves the grace of the Spirit.”115 Given such premises, St. Chrysostom’s view of tradition must be the highest, and one can say that it reaches its zenith in him and Blessed Augustine: “Tradition is, seek nothing else.”116

Blessed Augustine also has a similar view of tradition. “Whoever relies on faith, hope, and love and holds them inviolably has no need of the Scriptures, even to reprove others.”117 “I would not even believe the Gospel if I were not compelled to do so by the authority of the universal church.”118 In Augustine, we find the first attempt at a formal, logical definition of tradition, which St. Vincent undertook in more detail. “That which the whole Church holds inviolably, and which was not introduced by councils, but has always been preserved within her, we rightly believe that it was handed down from the apostles.”119 Finally, Vincent of Lirins (abbot of the Lirins monastery in Gaul, † c. 450) wrote a special book on tradition, about which the previous fathers had spoken only in passing; We have in mind his Commonitorium (“Reminder”), in which Vincent, combining the views of his predecessors, especially St. Irenaeus, Tertullian and St. Athanasius120, gives a purely scientific (although somewhat formalistic) definition of tradition. Based on the question of how to avoid heresy and remain steadfast in the faith, Vincent considers it necessary to protect the faith with the authority of Holy Scripture (divinae legis anctoritate), and secondly, with the tradition of the universal church (ecclesiae catholicae traditione). No matter how perfect (perfectus) the first source of Christian knowledge, in “holy Scripture, in its very sublimity, not everyone understands it in the same sense”; Each of the heretics, who “scour all the books of the divine law,” “irrigating their malicious eruptions with the aroma of heavenly words,” understands it differently, “so that almost as many heads as there are, so many meanings can apparently be extracted from it”121. Therefore, true Christians “must ensure that the Holy Scripture is interpreted in accordance with the traditions of the whole Church and according to the rules of dogmatic teaching”122. Tradition is “reason,” “the feeling of the Church” (intelligentia ecclesiastica, sensus ecllesiasticua)123. “In the universal church let us hold to that which is everywhere, always, and has been believed by all (id teneamus, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est)124, because only that is truly and properly universal, as the very meaning of the word shows, which, if possible, embraces everything in general. And we will be faithful to this rule only on condition that we follow universality, antiquity, and agreement (universitas, antiquitas, consensio)”125. In the case of an important theological perplexity, “it is necessary to analyze and compare the opinions of the fathers who lived at different times and steadfastly remained in the communion of faiths: art. one universal church, who were respected teachers; “And if it turns out that not just one or two, but all of them together unanimously contained, wrote, taught something of this kind with a living voice, openly, frequently, and invariably, then we too must believe this without any doubt”126. But “these unanimous judgments of the ancient holy fathers must be followed not with regard to all minor questions concerning Holy Scripture, but mainly only with regard to the rule of faith”127. However scientific this definition of tradition may be, it is not free from ambiguities and omissions; the range of theological questions for the resolution of which one must turn to the “consent of the fathers” is not outlined in general terms; this “consent” itself is far from always verifiable, because matters here cannot, of course, be decided by a simple majority of votes. One cannot fail to note also the sharpness with which Holy Tradition is contrasted here with Holy Scripture; Both were first explicitly called two completely independent forms of revelation—an idea subsequently adopted by scholasticism and still dominating dogmatics today, but foreign in such decisiveness to the Eastern Fathers, not only the ancients (see above in Ignatius the God-Bearer and John Chrysostom), but also, for example, to St. John of Damascus: “The law and the prophets, the evangelists and apostles, the pastors and teachers spoke by the Holy Spirit.”128

It should be noted, however, that the questions unresolved by St. Vincent are hardly solvable by ordinary, logical means. But they were resolved historically—in the history of the Symbol.

The Symbol was a pan-Church attempt to systematize and resolve those theological questions raised by the history of Church life and thought, the answers to which had to be sought in the invisible depths of sacred tradition. No matter how adequately these questions were resolved there for the believing consciousness of every true Christian, one could still be content with vaguely conscious thoughts until it became necessary to express them in words. When the “confession of faith,” however prompted, required words, particular caution was necessary lest another thought be inserted into them. Thus arose the first need for verbal formulas for individual dogmas and their entirety—a need generated and nurtured by the danger of heresy, which had always threatened the Church, beginning from the earliest apostolic times.

It is not surprising that the symbol, if not destined, could have appeared during the apostolic era.

The Creed, according to its original purpose, which it still lacks, could have been a confession of faith at baptism. Several passages in the Epistles of the Apostles apparently show that in the time of the Apostles, baptism was preceded by a confession (ομοληία – public exposition) of faith. The most important of these passages are: in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “let us draw near with a true heart to the message of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our bodies washed with pure water (a clear reference to baptism), that we may hold fast the confession (ομοληίαv) of our hope without wavering”129; in the Epistle to Timothy: “you have confessed the good confession before many witnesses”130; and according to the Apostle. According to John, anyone who has anointing (χρισμα) is thereby initiated into wisdom and knowledge. 131 It is self-evident that the content of this confession was no longer only the content of the entire faith, but also of the so-called catechumenate. As far as the New Testament allows us to see, this confession had a purely Christological character. This is evident from the fact that baptism itself is called performed in the name of the Lord. 132 From this designation, one cannot conclude, as German church historians do, that the baptismal formula itself consisted of the invocation of the name of Christ, and not of the Holy Trinity. Particularly instructive in this regard is the passage from 1 Cor.: “But ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” 133 Baptism is performed with a relationship to the name of Christ, whereas illumination occurs in the Spirit without the mention of His name. Apostle John defines the commandment (εντολή) by its religious aspect, as faith in the name of the Son of God, Jesus Christ134. And the case with the disciples of Apollos135 does not say that those being baptized were instructed regarding the Holy Spirit, but that he who has not received chrismation has no sense of the Holy Spirit. Also, the expression in the Epistle to the Hebrews, “confession of hope,”136 does not prove much that the confession was about hope, because Christ is our hope. The object of confession in apostolic times is clearly indicated in the same epistle: “the apostle and saint of our confession, Jesus Christ.”137 Christ, the messenger of God exalted above the angels, as He is described in chapter 1 of Hebrews, and Christ, who became like a man, as He is described in chapter 2 of Hebrews, this is the object of confession at baptism in apostolic times. From the fact that some kind of confession of faith at baptism undoubtedly existed among the apostles, it certainly does not follow that the Creed, now used in the Roman Catholic Church under the name Apostles’ Creed, belongs to the apostles. This Creed is somewhat shorter than the Nicene Creed, but is not so simple and straightforward that it could have originated with the apostles. Its claim to apostolic origin was rejected at the Council of Florence by its Orthodox members, who said: “We do not have and do not see the symbol of the apostles”138. This antiquity is defended for this symbol by Rufinus († 410), who in his commentary on this symbol restores its original form by separating the additions made to it in comparison with the Aquileian symbol and proves that in this form, critically purified by him, this symbol came, in its letter, from the hands of the apostles, that they, before they had to disperse to preach in different countries, jointly compiled it so that it would serve for each of them as a guide for preaching (did they need such external guidance under divine inspiration?) and protection from disagreements, that the apostles only decided not to write it down, but to preserve it only orally like a military password, so that the enemies of the faith would not recognize it and abuse it. That the symbol of apostolic origin in its pure form was preserved only in the Roman Church, Rufinus explains by the fact that in the Eastern Church It required many additions in view of the heresies that arose there, from which the ancient Roman Church was freer.139 The authenticity of the so-called Apostolic Creed would only be beyond doubt if all its expressions and concepts could be found, even in echoes, in apostolic or apostolic writings. But, apart from the fact that, as we have seen, the confession under the apostles was to have an exclusively Christological character, the Apostolic Creed, as we shall see later, contains a number of terms developed by later theology.

Thus, the question of the composition and form of the Apostles’ Creed remains open even with the existence of a symbol bearing such an honorable name. The most reliable way to reconstruct this symbol would be from the apostolic writings. Indeed, in one place in Chapter 3, we apparently find a fragment from the apostles’ confession of faith at baptism. This passage is in 1 Corinthians: “For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins (υ᾿ πε᾿ ρ) according to the scriptures140, and how he was buried, and how he rose (εγήγερται) on the third day according to the scriptures, and how he was seen of Cephas, then of the eleven.”141 Here the quotation ends, as the quoting õτι ceases. The non-Paulian expression “eleven” (Greek: Οι᾿ δωδςκα) and the mention of “was buried,” which was not required by the train of thought, clearly reveal the quotation; “Christ” and “also” are insertions. The connection in which this passage stands also makes it clear that not the entire confession of faith is cited here, but a part of it that has to do with the question treated in chapter 15 of 1 Cor. (about the resurrection of the dead). In other places of the epistles, one can think of other excerpts from the confession of that time (under the apostles). The following expressions can be recognized as such, with more or less validity: 1) “sending his Son,” 2) “his servant (παῖδα)”142; “being of (γενομε᾿ νου έκ) the seed of David”143; 3) anointing “with the Holy Spirit and power”, connected, perhaps, with baptism144; 4) “under Pontius Pilate (έπί Ποντίου Πιλάτου)”145; “having ascended (πορευθείς) into heaven”146; 5) sitting at the right hand (έν δεξιᾶ or έξ δεξίῶν) of God or the Majesty in the heavens or heavenly (τῆς μεγαλωσύνης έν τοῑς ​​ουρανοῑς or έπουρανίοις)147 “the angels and authorities and powers who submitted to him”148; 7) “who wants to judge the living and the dead”149. It is possible that in the confession in connection with Christ, God the Father was also mentioned. for example, with definitions such as “He who created (κτίσας) all things through Jesus Christ”150, “the living (ζῶν) and true”151 and “the quickener (ζωοπιοῶν) of all things”152. The list of historical facts was accompanied by an expression of faith in the sovereignty of Christ: “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”153. This refers to the oral confession of Jesus as Lord. Similarly, the passages: “every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”154 “no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.”155 sees in this the essence of Christian confession. It is less possible that the confession also concerned the upcoming act of baptism and its main gifts—the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit—or that it concerned the Holy Spirit in general.156

Notes:

102 Athanasius V., Epistle to Serapion.

103 Athanasius V., Epistle on the Council of Ariminum.

104 Ibid.

10539 Easter Epistle

106 Cyril Hierarch, Chapter XIII, 2.

107 Chapter IV, 3.

108 On the Holy Spirit to Amphilochius, Chapter 27.

109 Ibid.

110 Ibid., Chapter 29.

111 Gregory B., Homily 55, on Easter.

112Homily 11.

113Homily 1 on Theology.

114Gregory of Nyssa, Refutation of Eunomius, Book 2.

115Chrysostom, on Matthew, Demon. 1.

116On the Second Thessalonians, Homily 4.

117Augustine, On Christian Science, 1, 39.

118Protector of the Manichaeans, 5, 1.

119On the Baptism of the Donatists, 5, 24.

120Ponomarev, P., From the History of Holy Tradition. The Teaching on the Whole Tradition of Vincent of Lirinus. Orthodox Sob. 1906, 1, 163.

121Vincent Lear, Commonit. C. 2.

122Sar. 27.

123Sar. 23, 29.

124This thought of Vincent is the slogan of Old Catholicism, and the latter serves as the epigraph of the Old Catholic journal Revue international de theologie.

125Sar. 3.

126Vincent of Lirinus.

127Sar. 28.

128John of Damascus, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith IV, 17.

129Heb. 10:22.

1301Tim. 6:12.

1311John 2:20.

132Rom. 6:3; Eph. 4:5d.; Acts 19:5.

1331Cor. 6, 11.

1341John3, 23.

135Acts19, 1 et d.

136Eur.10, 23.

137Eur.3, 1.

138Concil. Flor. sect. 17.

139Rufin, Comm. per symbol ap. § 4. 5.

140 Wed, 1 Peter.3, 18: “about (περ`) our sins suffered.”

1411Cor.15, 3, 4.

142Gal.4, 4; Rome.8, 13; Acts 3:26; 7:27, 30.

143 Rom. 1:3; 2 Tim. 2:8; Acts 13:23.

144 Acts 10:38; 4:27; Rom. 1:4.

1451 Tim. 6:13.

1461 Peter 3:22; cf. Mark 16:19.

147 Colossians 3:1; Ephesians 1:20; Rom. 8:34; Heb.1, 3;10, 12;12.2;8. 1; 1 Peter3, 22; Acts5, 31;7, 56.

1481Peter.3, 22; Eph.1, 21;4, 8; Col.2, 10; Wed 1 Cor.15, 25.

1492Tim.4, 1; 1 Peter4, 5; Acts10, 42.

150Eph.3, 9.

1511 Sol.1, 9.

1521 Tim.6, 13.

153Rom.10, 9.

154Phil.2, 11.

1551Cor.12:3.

156 Acts 2:38: “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” At least, we often encounter in the apostolic epistles the mention of God sending the promised Spirit through the special laying on of hands at baptism. From the internal connection of both gifts (the forgiveness of sins in baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit in the sacrament, inseparably linked with baptism), it is clear that from the time of Paul, Christian baptism was defined simply as baptism “in the Spirit.” 1 Cor. 12:13: “By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body.” Acts 1:5. “John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 3:11: “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Secbr.rg, Lehrb. d Dogmengeschichte, 163–165

Source in Russian: Skaballanovich M. Preservation of dogma in the Church // Works of the Kyiv Theological Academy. 1910. No. 9. P. 17-78.