Faith to Creed: Ecumenical Perspectives on the Affirmation of the Apostolic Faith in the Fourth Century (review)

For those scholars who are engrossed in studies of the doctrinal development of the fourth century in all its historical and textual complexity, it may come as something of a surprise that the Nicene creed has in recent years become the focus of much concentrated examination and discussion within the contemporary ecumenical movement. Faith to Creedis a collection of articles written primarily by participants at a consultation on the Nicene—Constantinopolitan creed held in Waltham, Massachusetts in the autumn of 1989. The criticisms and defenses of the creed from a wide variety of denominational perspectives that appear in this volume render Faith to Creeda book well worth reading for patristic scholars, for they make us aware that our researches, which may sometimes seem hopelessly arcane and devoid of practical value even to ourselves, can influence significantly the experience of Christians in our own times and in the future.

Several of the articles in the volume are written by patristic scholars and/or deal extensively with evidence from patristic sources. John Meyendorff's keynote address and André de Halleux's article, an English translation of an article that appeared in the 1984 volume of Revue théologique de Louvain, describe the preNicene context of credal formulae and the history of the reception of the Nicene creed from 325 to 451. Meyendorff asserts that, despite the changed environment of the fourth century, creeds in this period still retained their pre-Nicene character as charismatic confessions of faith rooted in the liturgical worship of Christian communities. Thus the Nicene creed was not simply a set of propositions to be accepted, nor was it regarded as theologically exhaustive. De Halleux reiterates this point, and presents in a particularly effective way the evidence that the "Nicene faith" was not until Justinian's time coterminous with the literal text of the Nicene creed, but was thought to be expressed as well in a variety of local creeds used in catechetical and liturgical contexts. William G. Rusch is one of many contributors to this volume who believe that this phenomenon offers fruitful possibilities for divided churches to confess a common apostolic faith. His article, written from a Lutheran perspective, also emphasizes the continuity between the pre-and post-Nicene contexts for credal formulae, referring favorably to the work of patristic scholars such as R. P. C. Hanson, J. N. D. Kelly and others who argue that the emergence of orthodoxy in the form of creeds in the fourth century is part of a process by which the Church sought to exclude theological options contrary to the kerygma and express in summary form the faith of the Church reflected in Scripture, popular devotion and liturgy.

The articles by Roberta C. Bondi, Rosemary Jermann and Paulo D. Siepierski all attempt to correct the predeominantly episcopal focus of much of the study of the patristic church's doctrinal development by examining in more detail the broader context of this development in the spiritual currents of the age. All do so in an effort to help those churches who place more emphasis on Christian witness and ethics, such as the free churches growing out of the Radical Reformation, to assess more positively the creed that was often an instrument of persecution and exclusion in their denominational histories. Bondi's article considers the contribution of the monastic movement to the spiritual context for theological reflection in the fourth century. Jermann's and Siepierski's articles, both of which use Cappadocian sources, further explore the spirituality and philanthropic activity developing inside and outside the monastic milieu in the fourth century that informed attitudes towards the Nicene creed. Siepierski's article is particularly provocative because it sets a discussion of Basil...