“I Believe… In the Holy Christian Church”:

Reflections on the Apostles’ Creed

 

Walter Sundberg

 

   When faithful Lutherans of a certain age (say, the other side of forty) recite the Apostles Creed, following the present version in the Lutheran Book of Worship, they often find themselves uncomfortable when they come to the phrase, “I believe. . . in the holy catholic Church.”  As children, these church members learned to say “Christian Church,” not “catholic” and, even though the present version has been in use for twenty-five years, they can’t help but wonder if they are pledging allegiance to a form of the faith opposed to their tradition.  If they dare raise a question about this version of the Creed, however, they are told by their pastors in no uncertain terms that they are wrong to be suspicious; that “catholic” with a small “c” means universal and has nothing to do with Rome; and that in this ecumenical age, Lutherans should let go of their old tradition and recite the ancient text in the proper wording used by Christians all over the world.

 

   Are Lutheran lay people wrong to be suspicious of the wording of the Apostles Creed?  I do not think so.  In fact, I would argue in favor of returning to the old practice of confessing, “I believe… in the holy Christian Church.”  I realize full well that such a position is not popular nowadays but I will nevertheless try to make the case by looking at the Creed from an historical perspective.

 

The Text of the Creed is not Fixed

   The earliest source for what we know as the Apostles Creed is the so-called “Roman Creed” that dates from around 200 AD.  In the Roman Creed, as quoted by the Latin theologian Tertullian, who is a chief source for the original text, there is no phrase or sentence asserting belief in the church.  Rather, the focus is entirely on the Trinity.  In later versions of this creed, when the article on the Holy Spirit is expanded to include belief in the church, the initial phrasing employed is, “I believe in the holy church”; no use is made of the word “catholic” as a modifier.  The addition of the word “catholic” to describe the church does not appear before the fifth century and then only gradually becomes fixed in the Latin text.

 

   This does not end the matter of textual variations, especially when the Creed is translated into the vernacular.  In Germany in the fifteenth century, the Latin phrase “Credo… in sanctam ecclesiam catholicam” (I believe in the holy, catholic church) is rendered in German, “Ich glaube an… ein heilige christliche Kirche” (“I believe in… a holy Christian church”).  This translation was made not to be anti-Catholic—the Reformation was still a century away!—but rather to speak plainly to common folk and to identify the church, rightly, as something beyond the visible institution of Rome.  This translation was taken up and defended by Martin Luther in the Reformation and it appears in the Book of Concord as the accepted vernacular version of the Creed and thus became customary among Lutherans.

 

   In Luther’s Large Catechism, we see how this plain speech works.  As he exposits the Third Article of the Creed (“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church…”) Luther has this to say:  “This is the sum and substance of this phrase:  I believe that there is on earth a little holy flock or community of pure saints under one head Christ.  It is called together by the Holy Spirit in one faith, mind, and understanding… Further we believe that in this Christian church [my emphasis] we have the forgiveness of sins…”  “Christian church” is indeed the right phrase.  If one replaced it with the phrase “catholic church,” thus sticking to the strict wording of the Latin text, it would not read correctly as one could then not help but think of Rome.

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   Why is this?  Why does the word “catholic” always make one think of Roman Catholic?  Here again history can be our guide.

 

The Word “catholic” implies Episcopal Government

   The word “catholic,” derived from the Greek, does indeed mean universal.  But as a modifier defining the church, “catholic” took on a different meaning as early as the second century in the work of the so-called Apostolic Fathers.  The very first use of the phrase “catholic church” in church history is in the Letter of St. Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans.  Writing around the year 110 AD, St. Ignatius declares:  “Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, there is the universal (katholike) Church.  In this famous and important passage, the notion of the catholicity or universality of the church is brought into conjunction not only with the Lord Jesus, but with the office of bishop.  The catholicity of the church is grounded in Christ and episcopal government—which is, of course, what any theology of episcopacy always asserts.  To be catholic, the church must have the proper form of government.  As this teaching develops over the centuries, especially in the Latin West, it leads to what G. C. Berkouwer calls “the radical institutionalizing of the mystery of redemption,” epitomized in Papal teaching of the High Middle Ages:  "We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff" (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam, 1302).  The famous phrase of Cyprian, writing in the middle of the third century, extra ecclesiam nulla salus (“outside of the church there is no salvation”) was transformed into the assertion:  extra ecclesiam catholicam nulla salus—“outside of the Catholic Church there is no salvation.”  And “Catholic” in the Middle Ages meant the authority of the Pope.

 

   This exclusive ideological claim was on the part of Rome was rejected by the Reformers and by Protestantism in general.  It is no wonder that for many Lutherans, the use of the word “catholic” is troubling.  It is no wonder that in the Book of Concord, and especially in the Small and Large Catechisms, the vernacular version of the Apostles Creed asserts, “I believe. . . in the holy Christian Church.”

 

   Which brings us to one final matter:  The authority of the Apostles Creed as an ecumenical symbol of the church.

 

The Creed is not in Universal Use

   In 1438, representatives of the Orthodox and Roman Churches met in Ferrara, Italy in an effort to end the Great Schism between East and West that began in 1054 and involved a dispute over the text of the Nicene Creed.  To get around this dispute, the Roman representatives invoked the Apostles Creed.  They believed, following a pious legend told by the Latin theologian Rufinus that the Creed had been composed by the twelve Apostles after Pentecost and thus became the possession of the true church.  Marcus Eugenicus, metropolitan of Ephesus and leader of the Greeks at the meeting, objected.  He realized that the intent of the Romans was to use the Creed to assert the authority of the Pope and the superiority of the western church.  “We do not possess,” said Eugenicus, “and have never seen this creed of the Apostles.  If it had ever existed, the Book of Acts would have spoken of it.”  Eugenicus argued that since the Creed cannot be found in the Bible, the Orthodox want nothing to do with it.  The ecumenical meeting at Ferrara soon broke up without resolution of the schism.  The Greeks did not recognize the Apostles Creed and do not do so to the present day.  Many churches in the western tradition share it; but they are only a portion of all Christians.

 

   The Apostles Creed is not an ecumenical symbol in universal use around the world as some would have us believe.  Ecumenism cannot be the basis of its authority.  What commends the Apostles Creed is not the number of churches that recite it, but the authenticity of its content.  Insofar as its content conforms to the gospel of Jesus Christ in the Holy Scriptures, the Creed may be accepted as true.  This is because it is to Christ alone and Scripture alone that we give our allegiance and by which we measure the truth of our witness.  The Apostles Creed is not meant to point us to some dream of the universal church as an institution with a particular form of government, but to Christ and the Bible, which stand beyond the church and rule over it.  Metropolitan Eugenicus back in the fifteenth century was right to question the Creed on the basis of the Bible.  As we confess the Apostles Creed today, we do so only because it has the warrant of Holy Scripture.

 

Walter Sundberg is Professor of Church History at Luther Seminary and

a member of the WordAlone Theological Advisory Board

 

 

 

“Episcopal Government” defined:

 

The form of church government in which bishops oversee a diocese or region, as in Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism