How Did We Get From the Bible to the Creeds?

Published Apr 2, 2024, 4:00 PM

Welcome to season six of Enter the Bible, a podcast where we share "Everything You Wanted to Know about the Bible...but were afraid to ask."

Jennifer Wojciechowski joins co-hosts Katie Langston and Kathryn Schifferdecker. Wojciechowski is an assistant professor of church history and has been teaching at Luther Seminary since 2019. Before this, she taught in the religion department at Augsburg University.

Today our theologians will be answering the listener-submitted question, "How Did We Get From the Bible to the Creeds?"

Do you have Bible questions you would like answered? Go to our website at https://enterthebible.org/about to get started.

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ag2icJnKU-8

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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast, where you can get answers, or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible. But we're afraid to ask. I'm Katie Langston,

And I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker, and we have as our special guest today, one of our colleagues here at Luther Seminary, professor Jenny or Jennifer. Wojciechowski . Uh, almost as bad as, uh, Schifferdecker. Or maybe, uh, at least as complicated. Uh, so. Jenny. Jenny is, uh, an assistant professor of Church History here at Luther Seminary and the author of a book called "Women and the Christian Story: A Global History," a recent book of hers. Uh, and she teaches, uh, well, she teaches a lot here at Luther Seminary, but one of the classes she teaches is about women in in the church. So, uh, thank you so much for being with us, Jenny. Thanks for agreeing to answer some listener questions with us today.

Well thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here today.

Well, so one of the questions that we've had, uh, from listener, um, and once again, we say this every time, but if you have a question that you would like us to address on the podcast, feel free to go to enterthebible.org and you can, uh, you can submit your question there. We can't cover all the questions, but we do as many as we can. So the listener question that came in was this, uh, "The Apostle's Creed states, 'I believe' while the Nicene Creed states 'we believe'. Is there a significance, historical, theological or otherwise, to this difference?" Now, we've kind of, uh, expanded that question a bit, um, to talk since this is Enter the Bible. We wanted to talk about, uh, the, the connection between Bible and creed. So we kind of generalize that question to this. "How did we get from the from the Bible to the creeds?" And here we're talking primarily about the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed, though we might mention the Athanasian Creed as well. Uh, so, uh, these, these three, uh, great creeds, uh, of the church. So, Jenny, we're going to throw it to you like, uh, maybe start with, um, the more general question, like, how did the creeds come about? How did we get from the New Testament, Old and New Testament, the Bible at the early church to, uh, to these creeds?

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, and so I'm going to focus right now on the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed. Um, and because they kind of have different starts, um, they came about differently. Um, but they're both really important for Christianity. So. The Apostle's Creed, um, comes from something called the old Roman Creed. And the old Roman Creed, um, comes out of, um, like a baptism sort of formula. Alright? So in the early church, the process of becoming Christian was three years long. All right. It was a three year catechesis. And you were generally an adult when you became a Christian. And then when you actually get baptized, you're asked a series of questions, right? Do you believe in the Father? Do you believe in the Son? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit? And so this creed emerges out of this. All right. It's Trinitarian in in structure. Um, whereas the Nicene Creed actually emerges out of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in response to the big heresy in the early church, Arianism. And so, yes. Dun dun dunn!

Um, just, uh, just a couple of, um, uh, definitions so...

Yes.

What is an ecumenical council and what is Arianism for our listeners who might not know those things?

Yes. All right. So in the early church, um, you know, because often my students will ask me this, you know, why don't we just use the Bible? Why don't we? So for the first 300 years, there was a lot of figuring things out, right? When you generally when you read the Bible, do you come away with a really firm grasp of Trinitarian theology or the incarnation? Usually people have some. Yeah, we can debate that, right. But people were debating it. Right, right. And so this big, big debate is around the incarnation, the nature of Christ. All right. There was a priest named Arius, and Arius started teaching. He started teaching that there was a time when the son was not. That Jesus was created. He was God's first and greatest creation, but that he was a creature, right? And and I mean, he was he was a great publicist. He set it to music. People were like walking around singing jingles, like there was a time when the son was not. And it really took off.

Yeah.

All right.

What time period are you talking about here? Like.

Um, kind of late. Two hundreds, early three hundreds. Or it really comes to a head in like the 320' s. All right. And the church is all in a fight over the nature of Christ. Was God? Was Christ created or not?

Meaning is Christ God or not? Right? Isn't that sort of like what's at the heart of that?

Yes.

Like is the son like uh like us? Maybe cooler and better, but, or is the son a person what later became understood to be a person of the Trinity, right?

Right. Is Jesus like a demigod? Is Jesus like kind of like God, but not really God? Is Jesus of a similar substance or the same substance of God? We get into all these questions around around substance and things and, and part of it comes from kind of a platonic influence in Christianity of if God the Father is supposed to be unchanging and immovable, how does Jesus fit in there? And so if you're really influenced by this Platonist idea of an unchanging God, then Jesus as a creature, as more of a demigod that can connect humanity with God the Father, seems to make a lot of sense. All right. And this belief really takes off. And so people start fighting. And, you know, Christians like to write angry letters at each other.

They did that even back then, huh?

Oh, oh yes. We've got some scathing letters from the early church. Yes, um, it's a time honored tradition.

Thank God they didn't have Twitter. Or whatever we're calling it now X yeah. Keep going, keep going.

You mean X Katie? Um, and so the Emperor was able to call this ecumenical council. All right. The first one ever because Christianity had been illegal for the first 300 years, and then it became legal. And so we could have these fights in the open now. We can really discuss this. And so he called bishops from all around the empire, and they met at a town called Nicaea, which was like a resort town not too far from Constantinople, which was the capital of the empire at that point. He had moved the capital from Rome to Constantinople. And I actually just want to take a moment to remark on how bizarre this would have been. All right. We had major prosecutions, alright, about 20 years prior to this, and a lot of these people would have been like tortured. Okay. And by the state. And now they're getting an all expense paid vacation to a resort town to, like, pound out some, like, issues of theology together. Think about that.

And so all these bishops come to deal with the Arian issue. There's other issues too, the dating of Easter and different things like that, and how to remit lapsed Christians and things. But the big, big issue is Arianism, huh? And so, you know, you get everyone together and there's this impassioned group for Arianism that Jesus is created. There's this impassioned group that, no, no, Jesus is God. Jesus was not created. And most people were like, we want to compromise. What changed? The Aryan physician Aryan actually was not a Arius was not allowed to talk because he was not a bishop. He was a priest. So he had somebody else speak for him. Yeah, yeah, he couldn't even talk. And what changed was that the position was actually explained. And suddenly everyone sort of went wild. And at this council you have like, it's like 300 bishops or something, right? We don't know the exact numbers, but something like that. And you have bishops yelling "Heresy! You lie! Blasphemy!" Against Arius. And so most of them went from "we want to compromise" to "we want to condemn this in a very, very clear fashion."

Uh, so like they didn't understand all the implications or what Arius was really saying before.

Yes. They didn't really understand what he was saying. And once they realize that he was saying that Jesus was a creature, they were like, oh no, no, no, no. Because this fundamentally changes the faith, right? If Jesus isn't God. What does that mean for Christianity?

It means, you know, I mean, let's I mean, let's actually ask that question, like, not rhetorically, but like, yes, if Jesus isn't God, what does that mean for Christianity?

So the phrase, the Nicene phrase, the kind of the Orthodox position is the incorruptible, must become corruptible for the corruptible to become incorruptible. God has to become like us so we can become like God so we can be saved.

Then that's Athanasius, right?

Mhm. Yep. On the defender of the, uh, the Nicene faith. Yes.

That's a beautiful book, by the way. And it's, it, it's relatively readable, especially if you get like a good translation. I remember reading it in seminary and being like oh this is very lovely. This is it's a very lovely book, I think on the.

So the name of the book again.

"On the Incarnation" by Athanasius. I think everyone should read it. It's a very beautiful book. It's little. Slender.

Yeah. A lot of these early texts are not as intimidating as you might think they are. I mean, as long as you're reading them in translation. Um, and so I think this really gets to the heart of the question, though, why why not just the Bible? Okay, why do we need a creed instead of the Bible? Because first, the bishops actually decided we're just going to use Scripture to try to argue this. And it didn't work. And one of the reasons it didn't work is that both sides of the conflict were using Scripture to argue their points.

But different texts, they were kind of choosing.

Exactly. They're choosing different texts. Um, so they decided they were going to use a creed. And now creeds had been floating around at this point. All right. There's creeds in different places, often having to do with baptism and kind of initiation rites into the church. And so they decided to write a creed. And we have two versions of the Nicene Creed, the one that comes out in 325, and then another one that comes out after the Council of Constantinople in 381, where we get a longer, more robust version of the Creed. And that's the creed that we recite today. Um, but in it. So I've got, I've, I've got all the creeds in front of me. I've got the different versions of the creeds in front of me. Um, but when you look at it, then, uh, thinking about this controversy, thinking about Arianism, um, the words start to take on sort of a new meaning.

Mm-hmm.

You know, the, the bit about God the Father, you know, makes sense. But then I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son born of the father before all ages, right? God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, right? Consubstantial with the father. Um, so it's kind of over and over again, you see, you know, no, Jesus is not created. Right. Um, and in the original Creed, they actually have the 325 version. Um, there's a little bit at the end. And if you say Jesus was created, and if you say these things, you'll be an anathematized by the church.

Okay.

Its very explicit in the original version.

Yeah. Well, I think that, like, um, so I grew up in a tradition that's like non-creedal and, like, kind of like looks, looks down its nose like this. If you're on YouTube, I have my glasses down and I'm looking down my nose at the creeds. Um, because if you if you, if you read them out of context, they, they don't make much sense in our context. And I remember taking early church history was one of my first classes that I took in seminary and I and, and, and, and learning about the Arian controversy and then reading the Creed and being like, that's not nonsense. That's just not like gobbledygook. That's actually saying a very important thing about a question that was in dispute at the time. And so I think it's it's very important to to know the context, to know what the, what the argument was about, um, in order to see what's at stake and to realize, oh, that's not just like some dude's making it up. That's, you know, this is this is a process of discernment and interpretation that actually has very profound implications for our faith. And I would connect that back to the Scripture. Right. Like here they are wrestling a little bit with, um, platonic questions. But correct me if I'm wrong. Um, you know, Jenny and Kathryn, but a big piece of this comes out of the scriptural witness of there being one God and one God that we worship. And so a few of the things that are at stake are like, if if Christ is, is a demigod or is a lesser god or something like that, than to worship him is idolatry, right? But they'd had these centuries of deep, deep prayer and experience of worship of Christ. So it's not just like an intellectual exercise. It's a spiritual discernment exercise that comes out of the practice of the church and does come out of the reading of Scripture as well, that there's the one God, uh, there's the one God. And then, um, uh, and then also the question of how if there is the one God. But we've discerned these experiences with the son and with the Holy Spirit, which we haven't talked about as much, because Arianism was mostly concerned with the, you know, with the question of who is the son. Um, but if we've had these experiences with the with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and as, uh, how does that how does that work within a monotheistic framework as well as sort of the platonic questions that are floating around?

By the way, just because a friend of mine once said platonic, I thought that meant not romantic. Oh.

Right.

Platonic in the academic sense is having to do with Plato and Platonism. But anyway, I just wanted to. So in case they guess. What do you mean they were.

Not right in a romantic relationship with the Lord. Although some some worship songs make you wonder.

Some worship songs. Yes, I love the mystics and it it can get a little spicy there too.

I can't, I can't eat. Anyway. All right.

So that that's really helpful. Both of you I think. Uh, yeah. So so how do we get from the Bible to the creeds? Well, the creeds become a kind of lens through which to read scripture or I don't know if that's the right analogy, but, um, uh, um, something to read alongside Scripture to help interpret, uh, Scripture. And I think a point you made, Katie, is important to emphasize. Again, this isn't like a top down, uh, I'm thinking about books like The Da Vinci Code, right? Which is not as popular as it used to be, but, you know, 20 years ago or whatever. Right? It's not a big conspiracy. Right?

Right.

But the church is, you know, imposing the, the, the higher ups or imposing their view on the whole church. It, it comes from centuries of practice and of discernment and of prayer and of community worship. Is that fair to say, Jenny?

Yes, yes. And I think that's a wonderful point you make, because I often get a lot of questions being like, well, aren't the creeds exclusionary? You know, um, people have questions about that. And, and I want to point out, like in the early church, people, people there was not a set canon yet. Like, alright, there was not set doctrine yet. People wanted to know, like what was correct. Like, how should we be worshiping God? How should we be viewing God? Um, who's like a trustworthy teacher? Who isn't a trustworthy teacher? And so people really, really wanted to know. And so this was giving guidance. Um, and the creeds are a wonderful teaching tool. They are, you know, I'm Catholic, and so we recite the Nicene Creed every single week. And it just kind of is baked in you and it's it's Trinitarian, right. It's the formulas, the three parts of you know, what the Father does, what the Son does, what the Holy Spirit does. It's just in you. Um, and so I think it's not, you know, obviously, on this side of history, I can see how people look at it that way. But at the time, it was very wanted and very needed to kind of set these boundaries of, this is what the Christian faith is, because no, like, it wasn't there yet.

Yeah. Right. I mean you have to interpret .

Sorry, what Katie?

I just said you had to interpret it, right? These experiences that you had, the writings, the things that are beginning, the scriptures that are becoming authoritative in that time, like it's not like it came down on a silver platter. It's not like it ever comes down on a silver platter. I guess the exception would be when it came down on written in stone. The Ten Commandments.

Hey, let's talk about the Apostle's Creed. So you've mentioned that a bit, Jenny, but so it started as a kind of baptismal formula, right? Or a baptism service.

Yes it did. Um, you know, the.

So what time period are we talking about with the Apostle's Creed?

Okay, so the old Roman Creed is really early, like 100's , 200's . Um, and then you get a pretty set version of the Apostles Creed by 400. Um, and then the final version that we use now is more 700. T here's a few lines that got added later, like, uh, the part about, like Christ descending into hell. That's a more of a late, you know, seventh, eighth century edition. Um, and what? It's pretty similar to the Nicene Creed, though. It's much shorter. Right? Um, and the other thing that is of note is it is not an ecumenical creed. All right. So the cool thing about the Nicene Creed, it sounds like I'm trying to sell the Nicene Creed, but.

For $99.99.

Right. Right. So it's the best of the Creed? No. Um, the the cool thing about the Nicene Creed is because it was done at an ecumenical council, the Catholic Church recognizes that the Orthodox Church does. Um, so all the ancient churches recognize it. Obviously, Protestant churches do, too, as inheritors of the Western tradition. Um, but the Apostle's Creed was always a Western creed.

Oh, I didn't know that. That's interesting.

Yep. It's a it's a Latin creed. Um, interesting. So the old Roman Creed presumably came out of Rome. Um, and as I said, there was different creeds kind of floating around. There is a hilarious. There was this guy in the early church, Rufinus, and he was writing about the Apostle's Creed and taking from the Roman Creed. And he was like, well, the Roman Creed was shorter because fewer heresies popped up in Rome. Um, and which is funny just in itself. Um, but then but the other thing it tells you is why were people using creeds? To, to battle against other teachings that they were trying. So they're using it as a teaching tool. Like this is what we believe.

Well and, and and part of it is like it's used in the, in the sort of baptismal liturgy, maybe for those who aren't familiar with the more liturgical kind of tradition, you know, there's a, there's part of the baptismal liturgy when, when you're asked the candidate for baptism is asked, do you believe in God? And they respond by reciting the word of the along with the entire body that's assemblied at the baptism that's assembled at the baptism? I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator, creator of heaven on earth. Do you believe in Jesus Christ? I believe in Jesus Christ. Right. And you recite the Creed, um, together. So that's cool to know that that even if, even if the precise elements of the creed have changed a little bit over the years, that is for a very, very, very, very long time, that's been a part of confessing the faith and and receiving baptism.

I think that that brings up a really important point too Katie that. So I've had friends who have said, well, you know, I'm not, I don't we don't recite the Creed at our church because I don't just I don't believe everything in it. Right. Like especially the virgin birth, you know, things like that.

Some of the harder parts. Right?

Yeah, yeah. And I and I just think that's a real loss because this is one of the things along with Scripture and, uh, you know, Holy Communion and other things that connect us to this great cloud of witnesses through the centuries. Right. Like this is a creed that has been recited for hundreds more than a thousand years. Uh, you know, in the case of the Nicene Creed, uh, closer to 2000 years. Right. This is something that connects us to believers across time and across space. You know, not only does it connect us in time, but it connects us to believe it was even now in Asia and Africa and, you know, South America, other places, right, that it's not just about you. Right? It's not just about you and your individual beliefs and your and your individual qualms about whatever. But it's it's about being a part of this great cloud of witnesses again in time and space.

Well, and one of the things I tell my parishioners when I, you know, because people will say to me, well, I have doubts about this. I have doubts about that. You know, it's like, well, yeah, welcome to the faith. We all have doubts about lots of things all the time, you know. But, um, but the thing about saying the Creed together and why it's beautiful, I think to say it in community is like we can believe for each other. So on a day when we're saying it together, on a day that you're having a hard time with an aspect of the Creed, like for me, sometimes, you know, I doubt sometimes the church, I'm like, really? Like in the part where we talk about the holy, Holy Catholic Church and I'm like, oh my gosh, God, you're you're relying on us human beings. Are you sure? Right. I'm just just use an example. Right. Like on the days that we doubt different aspects, the kind of the, the core tenets of the faith, we still come alongside and, and maybe someone else who just had a beautiful experience being helped by the church. They are really believing that part when I'm not believing it, and we're saying it together and we can believe with each other and for each other, um, and connecting us to each other, you know, across time and space, the body of believers, across time and space. I do want to I do want to talk. So, again, coming out of a tradition that, you know, rejects the creeds and things like this, I've always been I'm always very interested in defending the creeds. Yeah, th e Mormon tradition. But, um, you know, one of the things that you do here is that the creeds, uh, are not biblical. And I know we can't get into, like, a whole thing about it, but what what I would say and I would love to hear Jenny and Kathryn, you know, maybe what your perspective would be is like, um, the the correct the entire Nicene Creed with all of the metaphysical implications worked out, you know, or whatever. No, you won't find that in Scripture. But what you do find is, um, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit in Scripture, right? You do find people worshiping God, uh, worshiping Jesus, worshiping the Holy Spirit and worshiping the Triune God of the power of the spirit, like the the precise Trinitarian, you know, definition or whatever that we get in the creeds isn't there. But that's not to say that the concepts are not scriptural or biblical. You think that's fair to say?

Yeah. For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. I think because Scripture has many different voices, right. In many different facets and, and even things. You know, the closest thing we have probably to doctrinal literature in the Bible are the letters of Paul, right? Where he lays out, um, somewhat like a systematic theologian lays out, you know, a various tenets of the faith, but even those are written to a specific church and a specific situation. And so it's not like he's writing, um, you know, a three volume work on Christian theology, including the creeds. But so you don't get a full kind of kind of creed, uh, there. But but the creeds are based on scriptural passages, right? They don't come out of nowhere. So, as you say, we have, uh, we have Jesus praying to his father, right? We have God the Father. We have, uh, mention of the Holy Spirit, for instance, at the end of John, when when Jesus is talking about sending, uh, you know, the Paraclete or the comforter. Right? We have, uh, certainly, obviously, Jesus speaking about I am the father of one. Right. So so it's based on Scripture, even if it's not laid out systematically as it is in the creeds. That kind of faith.

Yeah.

I don't know if you wanted to add anything to that Jenny.

I, that was beautiful answer. Yeah.

Yeah. One, one, one way of saying it that I've heard that I thought was a really nice way to put it is that is that, you know, it's it's through it's through the questions that arise, right? That we're able to hone our language and become more precise about the things that we find in Scripture and that and that the creeds are our, our ways of. Kind of, um, kind of precise ways of speaking about those things that help, you know, that help us sort of root ourselves in, in something sturdy.

Right? Precise and and concise.

Yeah. Right.

It's a, a few paragraphs of like, let's just sum up the Christian faith and a few paragraphs that we can, we can memorize and.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So two more questions and I'm afraid we'll probably have to be quick because we try to limit ourselves to 30 minutes. But um, back to that original question. Do you have any guesses about why the Apostle's Creed starts I believe and the Nicene Creed states we believe. So that's one question. The second one, before I forget, we probably should say something about the Athanasian Creed as well. So I don't know how you want to which one you want to talk about Jenny, but .

I'm not entirely sure about the I versus we. Um, I could have tried to see if I could look it up. My guess is just because of the the one coming out of the baptismal tradition and the other one being a collective project. That's my guess. But I'm not 100%. And then. Yeah. Um, and then the Athanasian Creed I read something is really funny. It was like credo scholars can only agree on two things about the Athanasian Creed. Athanasius did not write it and that it's not a creed.

So.

Amazing.

So okay, like, let's get that out of. Athanasius did not write it. He absolutely did not write it. Um, it was written.

Who was Athanasius?

Athanasius was the he was the long suffering, um, uh. Uh defender. Orthodox. Trinitarian. Nicene orthodoxy. Um, he was exiled over and over again. Uh, the Bishop of Alexandria. Um, he was a deacon, actually, during, um, the Council of Nicaea. Um, and so it very, very well respected early church father. Um, but he didn't write it. Um, and we know that because it was written long after he had died, and it was written in Latin, not in Greek. Um, and so the Athanasian Creed actually probably came out of sixth century Gaul, which is now France. Um, though we're not entirely sure who wrote it. Um, it was probably meant to like, examine and educate clergy, which is why it's so much more intense probably, than the other creeds. And, and so it's not a Creed because it doesn't start with, I believe. Right. Um, it's it's a list of like, what is the Catholic faith? Um, and so the structure is very different. And it's basically like if you want to be saved, these are the things that we believe as Catholics. And and this is this is the faith.

And we would say as Lutherans, we would also claim the the phrase catholic with the little c understanding that that's a Latin term that means universal. So we're not it's not just for Roman Catholics, but it's it's small c universal. So the word catholic actually means universal. So he's saying that for the universal Christian faith, this is, uh, a great teaching tool, especially for clergy. That's cool.

What is what's the status of the Athanasian? Not creed, not Athanasius.

Not Athanasian, not Creed. Yeah.

In the Eastern Church or in the Orthodox Church, does it have any standing?

Yeah. So it's kind of funny. Um, so the theology is pretty Western. Um, but the Eastern church was like, oh, well, if Athanasius wrote it. So there was like a time when they were dabbling with the Creed. And then when it became firmly established, he didn't write it, they just rejected it entirely. So, no, the the Eastern Church does not use the Athanasian Creed at all. But the Catholic and then Protestant churches do.

Okay, good.

Good, good. You are a storehouse of knowledge. Uh, thank you so much, Jenny. You you've brought a really good perspective and answered our questions well so. And brought in some humor, too. That's always good. Um, talking about church history, so. Well thanks so much.

This was so fun. Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, uh, if you're interested in more, we invite you to go to enterthebible.org . And look, uh, we have other podcasts. We have, uh, lots of essays and entries about, uh, the Bible and, uh, related topics. Uh, so please go there. Uh, like, if you enjoyed this podcast, like and subscribe and share it with a friend. Thank you for joining us today.