The Baptismal Creed having been mentioned in the two previous chapters, in
the one as a guide in the interpretation of Scripture, in the other as
embodying (to a certain extent) Primitive Tradition, it appears natural to
bring forward in the next place such notices of it as Irenæus furnishes.
We find, then, that it was customary at baptism to rehearse to every
person the rule of faith held throughout the Catholic Church; in other
words, the Creed(364). This, indeed, was not uniform in language, but the
same points appear to have been adhered to, and to have been stated in
much the same order. Irenæus, indeed, does not distinctly copy any creed:
but he rehearses all the chief points of it in two different passages,
which I will give at length; these being the first clear traces we have of
the primitive creed.
The first is as follows(365):—
“For the Church, although spread throughout the world, even to the utmost
bounds of the earth, and having received from the Apostles and their
disciples the faith in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and
earth, and the seas, and all that in them is: and in one Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, who was incarnate for our salvation: and in one Holy Ghost,
who through the prophets preached the dispensations, and the advents, and
the birth of a Virgin, and the Passion, and the resurrection from the
dead, and the ascension into heaven in flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus
our Lord, and his coming from heaven in the glory of the Father, to gather
together all things in one, and to raise from the dead all flesh of all
mankind; that according to the good pleasure of the invisible Father,
every knee may bow to Christ Jesus, our Lord and God and Saviour and King,
of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and
every tongue may confess to him; and that he may execute just judgment
upon them all, and send into eternal fire the spirits of wickedness, and
the angels that sinned and were in rebellion, and the ungodly and unjust
and lawless and blasphemous amongst men; and bestowing life upon the just
and holy, and those who have kept his commandments and remained in his
love, some from the beginning and some after repentance, might give them
incorruption and clothe them with eternal glory: having received this
preaching and this faith, as we said before, the Church, though dispersed
throughout the world, keeps it diligently,” &c.
This passage strikes us at once as containing fragments of a creed the
same as that of Nice, repeated in portions in the same order, although the
general arrangement of the creeds is departed from.
The other passage is this(366):—
“But what if the Apostles had not left us any writings? must we not have
followed the order of that tradition which they delivered to those to whom
they entrusted the Churches? Which order is assented to by those many
barbarous tribes who believe in Christ, who have salvation written by the
Spirit in their hearts without paper and ink, and diligently keep the old
tradition; believing in one God, the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all
that in them is, by Christ Jesus the Son of God: who for his most
exceeding love toward his own handywork, submitted to be born of the
Virgin, himself by himself uniting man to God, and suffered under Pontius
Pilate, and rose again, and was received up in glory, and will come again
to be the Saviour of those who are saved, and the judge of those who are
judged, and sendeth into eternal fire those who pervert the truth, and
despise his Father and his coming.”
The order of the creed is better preserved in this than in the other, but
it is not so full in its statements.
There is one other allusion to the opening words of the creed(367).