Story of Creeds and Confessions

Donald Fairbairn

Description

Creeds and confessions throughout Christian history provide a unique vantage point from which to study the Christian faith. To this end, Donald Fairbairn and Ryan Reeves construct a story that captures both the central importance of creeds and confessions over the centuries and their unrealized potential to introduce readers to the overall sweep of church history. The book features texts of classic creeds and confessions as well as informational sidebars.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• History of religions

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493418183
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 17 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Endorsements
“The story of Christian creeds and confessions is fascinating, and Fairbairn and Reeves are spectacular at exploring the story of Spirit-led, faithful wisdom throughout the centuries. Tracing the development of the Christian faith informs our own engagement with Scripture today.”
— Justin S. Holcomb , Reformed Theological Seminary and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary; author of Know the Creeds and Councils and Know the Heretics
“This volume provides a wonderful introduction to the creeds and confessions of the Christian church. It attends carefully to the various historical contexts within which these diverse texts were written and deployed and offers insightful comment on the theological claims that they advance. The result is a work that spurs the reader to greater appreciation and deeper understanding of the tradition of the church and the way in which its official texts have served at different points to express unity, continuity, and disruption. Above all, Fairbairn and Reeves witness to the desirability of taking these documents seriously not only as historical artifacts but also as ongoing witnesses, insisting that what binds Christians together is of much greater significance than what separates them.”
— Paul T. Nimmo , University of Aberdeen
“A fine guide to creeds and confessions and an engaging narrative of church history from the perspective of doctrinal development. Of special note is the material on the early church, which will help fuel and inform current Protestant interest in the patristic discussions of the doctrines of God and Christ.”
— Carl R. Trueman , Grove City College
“Fairbairn and Reeves trace in readable fashion the entire history of the church’s creeds and confessions. Animating this development, maintain Fairbairn and Reeves, is neither morals nor doctrine per se. Instead, it is the name of the triune God that led Christians through the centuries to articulate their faith in creeds and confessions. Uniting Protestant convictions, ecumenical sensitivity, and scholarly acumen, this book is a solid introduction to the common heritage of the church.”
— Hans Boersma , Nashotah House, Wisconsin
“Many churches and individual Christians who were once guided by but have forgotten about their rich heritage of creeds and confessions are beginning to ‘remember.’ And many others who were never consciously attentive to this heritage are discovering the knowledge and wisdom to be found in the creeds and confessions. Fairbairn and Reeves have provided all of these seekers with a valuable resource. They clearly and thoughtfully tell the story of the form, substance, and significance of Christian belief as this has been set forth in creeds and confessions. This is an excellent guidebook.”
— W. David Buschart , Denver Seminary
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2019 by Donald Fairbairn and Ryan M. Reeves
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-1818-3
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2016
Dedication
Donald Fairbairn dedicates this book to the memory of Lionel R. Wickham, his Doktorvater and friend, whose passing on December 17, 2017, came as the text of this book was being finalized.
Ryan Reeves dedicates this book to Zoë, Owen, and Dexter
Contents
Cover i
Endorsements ii
Half Title Page i
Title Page iii
Copyright Page iv
Dedication v
Preface ix
Abbreviations xi
1. Beginning the Story 1
Part 1: The Era of the Creeds (100–500) 17
2. The Creedal Impulse in Scripture and the Early Church 19
3. A Christian Empire and Creedal Standardization 38
4. The Nicene Creed: A Creed for the Entire Church 48
5. The Chalcedonian Definition: Explaining the Nicene Creed 80
6. The Apostles’ Creed: A Regional Creed with Traditional Authority 109
7. The Athanasian Creed: A Creedal Anomaly with Staying Power 126
Part 2: Exploring Creedal Theology (500–900) 141
8. Clarifying Chalcedon in the East 143
9. The West Charts Its Own Theological Course 160
10. Creedal Dissension and the East-West Schism 176
Part 3: From Creeds to Confessions in the West (900–1500) 193
11. Setting the Stage for Medieval Developments 195
12. Catholic Confessions in the High Middle Ages 211
Part 4: The Reformation and Confessionalism (1500–1650) 229
13. The Crisis of the Reformation 231
14. Early Protestant Confessions 247
15. New Generations of Protestant Confessions 275
16. Catholic and Orthodox Responses to Protestant Confessions 309
17. Protestant Confessions in the Late Reformation 324
Part 5: Confessions in the Modern World (1650–Present) 359
18. The New Grammar of Modern Confessions 361
Conclusion 385
Index 389
Back Cover 397
Preface
In one sense, the origins of this book lie at the University of Cambridge, where both of us did our doctoral studies (Fairbairn in the late 1990s in patristics, and Reeves in the late 2000s in early modern Christianity). It was there that we developed our love for our respective periods of Christian history and the perspectives that we present here. In another sense, this book’s genesis lies with Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which brought us together in friendship. We both joined the faculty of Gordon-Conwell in 2010, even interviewing on the same day, and the years since that time have given us opportunities for collaboration in the teaching of church history and theology. It was through our teaching at Gordon-Conwell that we honed the specific ideas that dominate this book.
We believe that the story of creeds and confessions is a single story, in which the latter developments built on earlier ones, and we have tried in this book to allow the consistency of that story to shine through in the midst of the many tensions between East and West, between Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christianity, and between different Protestant traditions. Accordingly, we have sought to write with a single voice throughout the book. At the same time, it should come as no surprise that each of us has taken the lead in the area of his specialty. Chapter 1 and the conclusion to the book are the work of both of us. Chapters 2 through 10 are largely Fairbairn’s work, and chapters 11 through 18 are mainly Reeves’s.
Along the way, we have benefited from the help of many people. Special thanks are due to Robert Hosack at Baker Academic, who graciously agreed to allow Reeves to bring Fairbairn into this project, even though a contract had already been issued with Reeves as sole author. Thanks go to Aldo Mondin and Kate Hendrickson for their help reading early drafts of several chapters, and Aldo must also be thanked for his help in selecting images, maps, and other important additions to the book.
At this point, it is appropriate to write a word about where one may find the many creeds and confessions we cite in this book, because Christian creeds and confessions have been collected and printed in many different places. Throughout this book, we cite the documents from modern editions or translations, often in standard series but occasionally in less well-known places. But students and interested laypeople are likely to want a one-stop shop, a single place where they can find many of these documents. For much of the twentieth century, the best such one-stop shop (still readily available and useful) was Philip Schaff’s The Creeds of Christendom . A convenient and inexpensive one-volume edition is John H. Leith’s Creeds of the Churches . The new library standard is the monumental work of scholarship by Jaroslav Pelikan and Valerie Hotchkiss, Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition ( CCFCT ). In our footnotes, we include not only the citations of the works from which we are quoting but also references to the volume and page numbers of CCFCT where the documents may be found. Of course, many creeds and confessions are also readily available online.
D. F. and R. M. R. Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Charlotte and Jacksonville March 2018
Abbreviations ACW Ancient Christian Writers CCFCT Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition . Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Valerie Hotchkiss. 4 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. FC Fathers of the Church NPNF 1 Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers , Series 1. Edited by Philip Schaff. 1886–89. 14 vols. Reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994. NPNF 2 Nicene and Post- Nicene Fathers , Series 2. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. 1890–1900. 14 vols. Reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994. PL Patrologia Latina [= Patrologiae Cursus Completus . Series Latina]. Edited by Jacques-Paul Migne. 217 vols. Paris, 1844–64. PPS Popular Patristics Series
1 Beginning the Story
At the very heart of the Christian faith lies not an ethical system (as important as that is), nor a set of commandments (although there are many of those), nor even a set of doctrines (although they, too, are very important), but a name . Peter tells the Jewish leaders, “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Following Jesus’s command, new Christians are baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). Indeed, by calling ourselves Christians, we are naming ourselves after Christ, our Lord. The mo