Confessing the Trinity
This week, as in most places throughout the Church, we read the Athanasian Creed instead of the Nicene Creed. While the creed’s nomenclature suggests it was written by St. Athanasius, this is highly unlikely. For one, the creed first appears in southern Gaul around the fifth century, within the sermons of Caesarius of Arles. Additional problems include the fact that we first encounter it in Latin, whereas Athanasius wrote in Greek; it addresses theological issues that didn’t arise until after Athanasius (died 373); and it was unknown in the Greek world (Eastern Christianity) until the twelfth century.
Despite its unclear beginnings, following the fifth century, the creed continued to grow in popularity in the Western Church. By the time of the Reformation, it was received into the formularies of the Anglican and other Protestant Churches. For Anglicans, we continued with the late medieval practice of reciting the creed during or after Morning Prayer, though principally on High Holy days (see the rubrics of 1549). However, when the first American BCP came about, it was removed. Not only was it removed, but if you compare the 1928 and 1662 BCPs, you would notice that Article VIII in the 39 Articles has been altered to remove mention of the Athanasian Creed. So, why have the traditional American BCPs removed the Athanasian Creed and any mention of it? Simply because there were many who found some of the language too harsh and dogmatic (i.e., “This is the Catholic Faith: which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.”) Its mention was again restored in the 1979 and 2019 BCPs in the appended section titled “historical documents.”
We might ask, what do we lose by leaving it out? We lose the synthesis of the Church’s historic language in how we discuss the Trinity. Thereby, we miss the language that provides important critiques against the heresies of Arianism, Sabellianism, and Nestorianism. Or, perhaps to put it positively, by leaving it in, we gain the language passed down to us by the Church to articulate who God has revealed himself to be. We receive important Christological distinctions present in the First Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon that we otherwise would miss. The fence of orthodoxy is made clear, and we are brought into the confession and faith of the Church since the fifth century. And lastly, while Athanasius may not have penned the exact words, they ring with the profound truth displayed in Athanasius’s Letter to Serapion:
Light, splendour, grace in the Trinity and from the Trinity.
It will not be irrelevant to examine the ancient tradition and the doctrine and the faith of the Catholic Church, which, as we know, the Lord handed down, the apostles preached, and the fathers preserved. For on this tradition the Church is founded, and if anyone abandons it, he cannot be a Christian nor have any right to the name.
And so the Trinity, which is recognized in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is holy and perfect, and has no adulteration of that which is foreign or external. Nor is it compounded of creator and created matter, but it is endowed with the complete power of creating and energizing; its maturity is also consistent with itself and undivided, and its energy and activity is one. For the Father makes all things through the Word in the Holy Spirit, and in that way, the unity of the Holy Trinity is preserved. Thus, in the Church, one God is preached, who is ‘above all things and through all things and in all things’. Yes, certainly, ‘above all things’ as the Father, the first principle and origin; and truly ‘through all things’, that is through the Word, and finally ‘in all things’ in the Holy Spirit.
When Saint Paul was writing to the Corinthians about spiritual matters, he traced all things back to one God the Father as to the fountain-head in these words: ‘Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord: and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one.’
The gifts which the Spirit distributes to individuals are given by the Father through the Word. For all things which belong to the Father likewise belong to the Son: so that those things which are given by the Son in the Spirit, are true gifts of the Father. Similarly, when the Spirit is in us, the Word by whom we receive him is also in us, and in the Word is also the Father, and this is the meaning of the text: ‘We (that is, my Father and I) will come to him and make our home with him.” For where there is light, there also is brilliance, and where there is brilliance, there the power and the glory of the light shines out.
Paul also, in the second letter to the Corinthians, gives the same teaching in these words: ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.’ For grace and the gift which is given in the Trinity is given by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. For just as grace is given from the Father through the Son, so within us the fellowship in the gift cannot be brought about except in the Holy Spirit. If we have received the Spirit, then we have the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit himself.
God's Peace,
Fr. Aaron