The Christian writers of the first three centuries, furthermore, furnish
ample proof for the following facts: that from the very beginning of the
Christian Church the candidates for Baptism everywhere were required to
make a confession of their faith; that from the beginning there was
existing in all the Christian congregations a formulated confession
which they called the rule of faith, the rule of truth, etc.; that this
rule was identical with the confession required of the candidates for
Baptism; that it was declared to be of apostolic origin; that the
summaries and explanations of this rule of truth, given by these
writers, tally with the contents and in part, also with the phraseology
of the Apostles' Creed; that the scattered Christian congregations, then
still autonomous, regarded the adoption of this rule, of faith as the
only necessary condition of Christian unity and fellowship.
The manner in which Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin, Aristides, and
other early Christian writers present the Christian truth frequently
reminds us of the Apostles' Creed and suggests its existence. Thus
Justin Martyr, who died 165, says in his first Apology, which was
written about 140: "Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who
also was born for this purpose and was crucified under Pontius Pilate,
procurator of Judea, that we reasonably worship Him, having learned that
He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second
place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third." "Eternal praise to the
Father of all, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
Similar strains, sounding like echoes of the Second Article, may be
found in the Epistles to the Trallians and to the Christians at Smyrna
written by Ignatius, the famous martyr and bishop of Antioch, who died
107.
Irenaeus, who died 189, remarks: Every Christian "who retains immovable
in himself the rule of the truth which he received through Baptism (_ho
ton kanona tes altheias akline en eauto katechon, hon dia tou
baptismatos eilephe_)" is able to see through the deceit of all
heresies. Irenaeus here identifies the baptismal confession with what he
calls the "rule of truth, _kanon tes eiltheias_" _i.e._, the truth which
is the rule for everything claiming to be Christian. Apparently, this
"rule of truth" was the sum of doctrines which every Christian received
and confessed at his baptism. The very phrase "rule of truth" implies
that it was a concise and definite formulation of the chief Christian
truths. For "canon, rule," was the term employed by the ancient Church
to designate such brief sentences as were adopted by synods for the
practise of the Church. And this "rule of truth" is declared by Irenaeus
to be "the old tradition," "the old tradition of the apostles": he te
apo ton apostolon en te ekklesia paradosis. (Zahn, _l.c._, 379f.)
Irenaeus was the pupil of Polycarp the Martyr; and what he had learned
from him, Polycarp had received from the Apostle John. Polycarp, says
Irenaeus, "taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and
which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true." According
to Irenaeus, then, the "rule of truth" received and confessed by every
Christian at his baptism was transmitted by the apostles. The contents
of this rule of truth received from the apostles are repeatedly set
forth by Irenaeus. In his _Contra Haereses_ (I, 10, 1) one of these
summaries reads as follows: "The Church dispersed through the whole
world, to the ends of the earth has received from the apostles and their
disciples the faith in one God, the Father Almighty, who has made heaven
and earth and the sea and all things that are in them, and in one Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in
the Holy Spirit, who has proclaimed through the prophets the
dispensations, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the
passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily assumption
into heaven of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and His manifestation
from heaven in the glory of the Father." It thus appears that the "rule
of truth" as Irenaeus knew it, the formulated sum of doctrines mediated
by Baptism, which he, in accordance with the testimony of his teacher
Polycarp, believed to have been received from the apostles, at least
approaches our present Apostolic Creed.