Since the emergence of the Baptist movement in England, many have accused Baptist ministers of being unlearned, “dunces, and ignorant [of] both tongues and arts.” With the establishment of dissenting academies, such Bristol, Stepney, and Northern, learned ministry was advocated among English Particular Baptists since the beginning of the long eighteenth century. Despite recent scholarly … Read more
Many scholars (Kelly, Early Christian Creeds; Kinzig, Faith in Formulae) have discerned a developmental line from the second-century regula fidei, to the fourth-century Old Roman Symbol, to the early medieval text of T, the Apostles’ Creed, attributed to the Merovingian missionary and abbot, Saint Pirmin (Dicta Abbatis Pirminii, PL 89, 1029-1050). This text from the … Read more
This paper offers rarely seen evidence for the early theological foundations of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity by examining a 4th-century Greek inscription of King Ezana of Axum, Ethiopia’s first Christian ruler. This inscription provides the earliest internal documentary evidence for Ethiopia’s alignment with Nicene orthodoxy and its rejection of Arianism. The Greek syntax and Trinitarian formula … Read more
Sometimes, Evangelicals struggle with the divine processions for various exegetical or metaphysical reasons. I argue that the Filioque clause of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381) is theologically necessary for safeguarding the identities of all three Trinitarian Persons, and not just the Holy Spirit’s, as it renders all of their eternal relations as unique, identity-making relations. First, … Read more
Dorothy L. Sayers wrote a seminal essay—“Creed or Chaos?”—that later become a lead chapter in her book with the same title (1949). A subsequent edition (1995) carries the subtitle: “Why Christians Must Choose Either Dogma or Disaster; Or, Why It Really Does Matter What You Believe.” While appreciating Sayers’s basic concern for preserving historic Christian … Read more
It is no understatement to claim that the filioque is one of the most divisive issues in the history of Christianity. However, for Protestant Christians, particularly those within what Richard Muller calls the “Reformed Orthodoxy,” the filioque has been the default understanding of the procession of the Holy Spirit. In this paper, I will argue … Read more
The Council of Nicaea (325) is the first of the seven ecumenical councils through which the rule of faith was expounded. While the creed produced at Nicaea was expanded upon at the Council of Constantinople (381), this paper will argue that the evolution that the Nicene Creed underwent at the Council of Constantinople (381) was … Read more
An important but underrecognized aspect of the reception of Nicaea I (325) at subsequent ecumenical councils is the fifth-century concept of the “sufficiency of Nicaea.” The Acts of Ephesus I (431) contain a decree (the so-called Canon 7.00 of Ephesus) that prohibits anyone from writing a different creed as a rival to the one promulgated … Read more
Frédéric Manns affirms that Justin Martyr’s conception of the nature of the Old Testament differed from that of the Jewish community. Jewish groups held to a three-level hierarchy of decreasing authority: Law, Prophets, and Writings. In contrast, Justin Martyr held to the entire OT as equally authoritative with all of it prophetically pointing to Christ. … Read more
Early church historians generally agree on what constituted the earliest rudimentary form of the creed known as the regula fidei. However, the relationship between this proto-creed and the versions of the baptismal confession, occasionally produces some scholarly debates. For example, while some scholars like Adolf von Harnack, argue that the regula fidei was kind of … Read more