Christianity Before the Apostles' Creed

1962 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold Ehrhardt

Not so long ago a little treatise on the Apostles' Creed was edited by the late Dom R. H. Connolly, and established as the property of Ambrose of Milan. In this treatise the statement may be found that “when therefore the holy Apostles all came together they compiled a short formula of the faith so that we might shortly be instructed about the whole course of the faith.” We are not concerned here with the question on what occasion the holy Apostles did come together. Apocryphal traditions know of several such meetings of the Apostles, usually with the Virgin Mary, and it was presumably one of these which was in the mind of the great bishop of Milan. The significant fact is rather that he denied here that Christianity ever went through a pre-credal period. His great authority could not fail to make a lasting impression, especially upon the Western Church. It is evidently on the basis of this his assertion that we find, in the orations of Pseudo-Augustine, a Creed that is divided as follows: “Peter said: ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.’ Andrew said: ‘And in Jesus Christ his only son our Lord.’ James said: ‘Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of Mary the virgin.’ John said: ‘Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.’ Thomas said: ‘He descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead,’ ” and so on till at last Matthias finishes with the words, “and the life everlasting. Amen.”

2011 ◽  
Vol 18 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 334-350
Author(s):  
Vernon K. Robbins

AbstractExploring the emergence of creedal statements in Christianity about non-time before creation, called precreation rhetorolect, this essay begins with the baptismal creed called the Roman Symbol and its expansion into the Apostles’ Creed. These early creeds contain wisdom, apocalyptic, and priestly rhetorolect, but no precreation rhetorolect. When the twelve statements in the Apostles’ Creed were expanded into the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, the first three statements added precreation rhetorolect. God the Father Almighty not only creates heaven and earth, but God creates all things visible and invisible. Jesus Christ is not only God’s only Son, our Lord, but the Son is begotten from the Father before all time, Light from Light, and true God from true God. Being of the same substance as the Father, all things were made through the Son before he came down from heaven, the Son was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became human. With these creedal additions, a precreation storyline became the context for a lengthy chain of argumentation about belief among fourth century Christian leaders.


2011 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 269-285
Author(s):  
Robin Le Poidevin

The central doctrine of traditional Christianity, the doctrine of the Incarnation, is that the Second Person of the Trinity lived a human existence on Earth as Jesus Christ for a finite period. In the words of the Nicene Creed, the Son is himwho for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.


Author(s):  
Ying-shih Yü

By tracing the development of the worldly transformation of the idea and cult of immortality, this article demonstrates that ancient Han Chinese gradually came to perceive the worlds between the living and the dead not as two mutually exclusive realms, though not exactly as identical either. Such a perception also reflects their world view of the human, Heaven and Earth as an integrative unity.


1988 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. E. B. Cranfield

The affirmation that Jesus Christ ‘was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary’ is beset by many problems and difficulties, and to deny or try to ignore their existence is bad theological scholarship. But it is also bad theological scholarship — though this is sometimes in danger of being overlooked —to refuse to consider seriously and with as open a mind as possible any evidence or any rational argument, whether historical or theological, which can be adduced as in any way supporting this affirmation of the Apostles' Creed. It seems to me that neither those who accept the historicity of the Virgin Birth nor those who reject it have a monopoly of prejudice. I cannot here attempt anything like a full or systematic discussion of this difficult and controversial subject. The best I can do is to set down briefly and as clearly as I can a few reflections as a very modest contribution to the on-going debate.


1971 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-196
Author(s):  
W. D. Sherman

In their manual based upon The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Richard Alpert, Ralph Metzner and Timothy Leary discuss the signs of the ‘Third Bardo’ existence in a psychedelic experience in the vocabulary of Ken Kesey's fiction:Where Tibetans saw demons and beasts of prey, a Westerner may see impersonal machinery grinding, or depersonalizing and controlling devices of different futuristic varieties. Visions of world destruction and hallucinations of being engulfed by destructive powers, and sounds of the mind-controlling apparatus of the ‘combine's fog machinery’, of the gears which move.In his two novels, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Sometimes A Great Notion, Kesey has described that sense of the disintegration and death and ultimate rebirth of the ego which lies at the heart of the LSD ‘trip’. Both books are literary metaphors for psychedelic experiences.


Perichoresis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Hartog

Abstract Scholars have long noted Ignatius of Antioch’s statements of high christology. Jesus, who as God appeared in human form (Eph. 19.3), is ‘God in man’ (Eph. 7.2) and is ‘our God’ (Eph. inscr.; 15.3; 18.2; Rom. inscr.; 3.3; Polyc. 8.3). Jesus Christ is included in such ‘nas-cent trinitarian’ passages as Eph. 9.1 and Magn. 13.1-2. Yet further treasures remain to be mined, and the specific vein I will explore is the integration of Ignatius’ high christology with his ethics. His paraenesis is rooted in ‘the mind of God’, also described as ‘the mind of Christ’ (Eph. 3.2; Phld. inscr.), who is ‘the God who made you so wise’ (Smyrn. 1.1; cf. Eph. 17.2). Ignatian moral instruction combines ‘the will of God and Jesus Christ’ (Trall. 1.1), ‘the honor of the Father and the honor of Jesus Christ’ (Trall. 12.2), and ‘the love of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Phld. 1.1). Believers are to be ‘imitators of God’ (Trall. 1.2) as well as ‘imitators of Jesus Christ’ (Phld. 7.2). Ignatius even prayed that he would be ‘an imitator of the suffering of my God’ (Rom. 6.3; cf. Eph. 10.3). Ignatian exhortation thus merges an imitatio Christi with an imitatio Dei. Arising from his particular experiences and specific circumstances, Ignatius’ contextualized paraenesis elevates the Son to an authoritative status parallel to that of the Father. The interplay of christology and ethics also underscores a multi-leveled understanding of ‘unity’ and a multivalent use of ‘flesh and spirit’.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-171
Author(s):  
Nāṣir Al-Dīn Abū Khaḍīr

The ʿUthmānic way of writing (al-rasm al-ʿUthmānī) is a science that specialises in the writing of Qur'anic words in accordance with a specific ‘pattern’. It follows the writing style of the Companions at the time of the third caliph, ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān, and was attributed to ʿUthmān on the basis that he was the one who ordered the collection and copying of the Qur'an into the actual muṣḥaf. This article aims to expound on the two fundamental functions of al-rasm al-ʿUthmānī: that of paying regard to the ‘correct’ pronunciation of the words in the muṣḥaf, and the pursuit of the preclusion of ambiguity which may arise in the mind of the reader and his auditor. There is a further practical aim for this study: to show the connection between modern orthography and the ʿUthmānic rasm in order that we, nowadays, are thereby able to overcome the problems faced by calligraphers and writers of the past in their different ages and cultures.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-113
Author(s):  
Nathalia Gleyce dos Santos Salazar

Resumo:  Apresenta-se uma discussão sobre o conhecimento e a tese dos três mundos no qual a interação entre estes nos aproxima da verdade do problema corpo-mente, tendo em vista, uma nova proposta de solução. O terceiro mundo é uma peça importante neste trabalho; sendo assim, analisaremos o que Popper designa como Mundo 3, em que ele consiste e o papel da linguagem como diferencial do ser humano. Apresentamos as críticas popperianas às correntes monistas e dualistas, ousando fazer uma crítica a Teoria do Conhecimento tradicional. Desta forma, a proposta apresentada por este filósofo da ciência diferencia-se de tudo que estava sendo feito até então, por isso, o interesse de apresentar essa abordagem pouco trabalhada de Popper. Palavras-chave: Conhecimento. Corpo-Mente. Mundo 3.Abstract: In this work, we present a discussion about knowledge and the theory of the three worlds in which the interaction between them approaches to the truth of the mind-body problem, in view of a proposed solution. The third world is an important piece in this work. Therefore, we will analyze what Popper describes as World 3, what it is and the role of language as a differential of human beings. We present Popper’s criticisms to the monistic and dualistic currents, daring to criticize the theory of traditional knowledge. Thus, the proposal of science presented by this philosopher differs from everything that was being done until then. This explains the interest in presenting this unusual approach to Popper.Keywords: Knowledge. Body-Mind.  World 3. REFERÊNCIASLEAL-TOLEDO, Gustavo . Popper e seu Cérebro. Revista da Faculdade de Letras. Série Filosofia, v. XXIII, p. 59-68, 2007.POPPER, Karl Raimund. A Lógica da Pesquisa Científica. Tradução de Leonidas Hegenberg e Octanny Silveira de Mota.  São Paulo: editora Cultrix. 2007.POPPER, Karl Raimund. Conhecimento Objetivo: uma abordagem evolucionária. Tradução de Milton Amado.  Belo Horizonte, Ed. Itatiaia Ilimitada. São Paulo, Ed. Da Universidade São Paulo, 1975._______.  O Conhecimento e o Problema Corpo –Mente. Tradução Joaquim Alberto Ferreira Gomes. Lisboa, Ed. 70. 1996.   _______. Conjecturas e Refutações: o desenvolvimento do conhecimento científico. Trad. Benedita Bettencourt. Ed. Livraria Almedina, 2006._______.  O Eu e Seu Cérebro. Karl Popper, Jonh C. Eccles;Tradução Silvio Meneses Garcia, Helena Cristina F. Arantes e Aurélio Osmar C. de Oliveira. – Campinas, SP: Papirus; Brasília, DF: Editora Universidade de Brasília. 1991.   _______. O Racionalismo Crítico na Política. Tradução de Maria da Conceição Côrte – Real. Brasília, Editora Universidade de Brasília, 2ª edição, 1994, 74p.SEARLE, John R. La construcción de la realidad social. Trad. Antoni Domènech. Barcelona: Paidós Ibérico, 1995.  


2013 ◽  
pp. 116-123
Author(s):  
Claire Bompaire-Evesque

This article is a inquiry about how Barrès (1862-1923) handles the religious rite of pilgrimage. Barrès stages in his writings three successive forms of pilgrimage, revealing what is sacred to him at different times. The pilgrimage to a museum or to the birthplace of an artist is typical for the egotism and the humanism of the young Barrès, expressed in the Cult of the Self (1888-1891). After his conversion to nationalism, Barrès tries to unite the sons of France and to instill in them a solemn reverence for “the earth and the dead” ; for that purpose he encourages in French Amities (1903) pilgrimages to historical places of national importance (battlefields; birthplace of Joan of Arc), building what Nora later called the Realms of Memory. The third stage of Barrès’ intellectual evolution is exemplified by The Sacred Hill (1913). In this book the writer celebrates the places where “the Spirit blows”, and proves open to a large scale of spiritual forces, reaching back to paganism and forward to integrative syncretism, which aims at unifying “the entire realm of the sacred”.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document