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126 | Identifying a Counterfeit Gospel (for iTunes)
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The early church faced a lot of heresies in their first 500 years. Arianism, Gnosticism, and Docetism threatened the church's teaching and forced them to refine their teaching to match the gospel. In this episode, you'll journey through three major creeds and five major councils!
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Transcript
Introduction to Verity Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity Podcast. I'm your host, Felicia Mason-Heimer, and I am here to teach you how to know what you believe, to live it boldly, and to communicate it graciously to the world around you. I believe that women are ready to go deeper in their faith than ever before, and they don't have to go to seminary to do it. I am so glad you're here, and I hope you'll join me on this journey because every woman is a theologian.
Early Church History: Creeds and Councils
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello, friends, and welcome back to Verity Podcast. We are in Episode 3 of our Church History series, Studying the Early Church, from AD 33 to AD 500. And today we're talking about the creeds and the councils.
00:00:45
Speaker
So when I was thinking about how to break down this entire series, I thought, you know, when you're looking at a 500 year chunk of church history, there's just so much to cover. And if you listen to last week's episode on the world of the early church, you know, I was trying to race through all of this context, all of this history. And I mentioned several of the councils and creeds along the way. But this week, we're going to do a deeper dive into those councils and look at some of the creeds that our churches are still saying during worship.
00:01:15
Speaker
today. So we're going to start with the Apostles Creed. The Apostles Creed is something that most of us are familiar with, but if you're not familiar, it's simply a statement of faith or a statement of beliefs summing up Christian fundamentals.
The Apostles Creed: History and Interpretation
00:01:32
Speaker
And this one was probably taken from something called the Old Roman Creed, which we don't have written down, but was likely the origin of the Apostles Creed and developed sometime in the first or second century. So very, very early.
00:01:45
Speaker
as a way to summarize what Christians hold to. So this is the oldest creed in the church, and it's called the Apostles Creed because a sixth century tradition attributes the 12 articles of the creed to the 12 apostles. So the idea is that one of the apostles submitted one of the statements in the creed so that you have 12 statements and 12 apostles. It's probably not true, but it's an interesting legend.
00:02:12
Speaker
Essentially, the Apostles' Creed sums up the rule of faith transmitted from the Apostles. So what they were teaching to early converts is summed up in the Apostles' Creed, the bare-bones basics, as we might say.
00:02:27
Speaker
When this creed was passed down through the middle ages, monks in the middle age would actually recite the creed as a part of their daily liturgy, as they went about their prayers or about their work. And it's also one of the most unifying ecumenical creeds. So when we look at the next creed, the Nicene Creed, we'll see that this is actually the most accepted creed, but this one is its foundation and the basis for it.
00:02:52
Speaker
Now it's a short little statement, so I'm actually going to read it right here, and it will probably sound pretty familiar.
00:02:59
Speaker
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and buried. He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
00:03:25
Speaker
I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen. So this particular creed sums up the essentials, talking about the life of Jesus, his ministry, his nature a little bit, and then talks about his death, burial, resurrection and his coming judgment.
00:03:51
Speaker
It's interesting that this is the kind of thing that was summarized in Hebrews 5 and 6. When it talks about moving on from the elementary teachings of the faith, the things listed as elementary teaching line up very well with the Apostle's Creed.
00:04:04
Speaker
Now, you might have some questions about what you heard in that creed. One of the things that often comes up is Holy Catholic Church. What does that mean? Does that mean the Roman Catholic Church? Well, actually, no, because at the time that the Apostles Creed was developed, there was no Roman Catholic Church. There was only the whole church across Israel and Africa and Egypt and India and Europe. So there was no one
00:04:29
Speaker
Roman Catholic Church. So what does Catholic mean? Well, Catholic means universal or global. The word is taken from two Greek words, meaning according to the whole. So when it says holy Catholic Church, it simply means the holy global church, referring to all Christians. The other part of the creed that is puzzling to many people is a section that says Jesus descended into hell in the Catholic tradition. So Roman Catholic tradition. And this is taken directly from the Catholic catechism.
00:04:58
Speaker
The idea is that Jesus experienced death and his soul joined others in the realm of death. And so the catechism points out that he descended there as savior and then preached the good news to the spirits imprisoned there.
00:05:15
Speaker
This idea that Jesus descended into hell, preached the good news to those who were imprisoned there, most likely Old Testament saints, is taken from 1 Peter 3, 19, which says, after being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits.
00:05:32
Speaker
So the idea in the Roman Catholic tradition is that when Jesus died, he went to hell. He went to Hades, Sheol, the grave. He preached the good news to the spirits imprisoned there.
00:05:45
Speaker
whether they were righteous or unrighteous. They're in like what's called Abraham's bosom in Jewish tradition. They're just waiting for judgment and he preached the gospel to them. But in Protestant tradition, the descended into hell phrase is taken to mean he died or passed into the grave. So that word for hell, shale, the grave, when he died, he passed into the grave for three days and then he rose again. He did not preach the gospel to anyone who was in hell.
00:06:14
Speaker
So the Apostle's Creed sums up the basics of Christianity for the early church. But what needs to be clarified, and we'll get to this in a minute, is the relationship of Christ and God and the nature of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Refinement of Creeds: Addressing False Teachings
00:06:29
Speaker
At this juncture in the early church, it's simply accepted. It's pretty straightforward. It's pretty simple. But as time goes on, confusion,
00:06:38
Speaker
false teaching, people who are trying to kind of meld together Gnosticism and Christianity or come up with new ideas about Jesus' nature. These present challenges to the church. In the first
00:06:53
Speaker
500 years of the church is this journey of refining Christian teaching and saying, oh, nope, that's not it. Oh, that's not it either. Nope, you're wrong over here. This is what we believe. This is what was handed down from the apostles. And as you're going to learn as we get into some of these councils and learn about what was happening, these are imperfect bishops, church leaders who are participating in this.
00:07:20
Speaker
And I think when you look at church history and you study it out, it can be a little alarming at first to realize just how flawed some of the people involved in the church really were. But here's the thing I come back to. When we have an inflated view of ourselves and our own propensity to sin, it's very easy to look at people in history, to look at people in the Bible and think, well, I would never do that. I would never sin in that way.
00:07:49
Speaker
And really, a lot of us would. A lot of us do make similar decisions, maybe not as boldly, maybe not as openly, but the heart is the same. We make decisions that have an impact on our faith, on our community, on our church, on our relationships.
00:08:08
Speaker
And we make decisions out of selfishness or out of selfish ambition or pride. And that's ultimately at the root of every negative thing that we see in church history. So when we have a right view of our own propensity to sin, we can have a better understanding of why people made the choices they made in history.
00:08:25
Speaker
Yes, they should know better, right? They're super close to the gospel. They're involved in the church. But unless somebody stays grounded in the true gospel and in relationship with God, understanding that they are deeply loved and seen and known and sharing that with others, they will very easily be led astray into power politics, into manipulation and selfish ambition. And that's what we see later on.
00:08:51
Speaker
So that's a little rabbit trail away from the Apostles Creed, but that's our foundation stone here is the basics of Christianity and what is taught about Jesus, about God, about the Holy Spirit, telling the story of Jesus' ministry and the communion of the saints, forgiveness of sins and resurrection, eternally with God.
The Nicene Creed and Christ's Divinity
00:09:10
Speaker
So the next council and creed I want to talk about is the Nicene Council. The Nicene Council helped shape and form the Nicene Creed. And this creed is extremely important. It is the most famous and influential creed, and it improved the language of the Apostles Creed. So as I said earlier,
00:09:31
Speaker
What was happening in these first 500 years is we had these doctrines handed down from the apostles taught by Jesus. And the early church is having to refine how they present those doctrines. They're having to refine their theology, their rational thinking about the gospel. Theology is thinking about God, the study of God. And so they're having to argue, OK, Jesus is fully divine and he's fully human. He's not one or the other.
00:09:59
Speaker
And so in the Apostles Creed, that really isn't explicit. It just says, you know, there's Jesus, there's God, there's the Holy Spirit. The Nicene Council settled the question of how Christians can worship one God in three persons. And another author put it this way. The Nicene Council settled the fact that Christ is fully divine. That was what was under question.
00:10:21
Speaker
Now, as I mentioned in last week's episode on the world of the early church, Constantine called the council, but he did not do this to create a Bible or create Christianity or come up with any doctrines himself. He had nothing to do with the doctrinal part of this. He called the council and there's a real reason for this.
00:10:39
Speaker
He needed to stabilize his empire. There was a controversy coming alive in the churches, and it's called the Aryan controversy. We're going to learn about Arius in a second and what he was up to. But the controversy caused the cities in the Roman Empire to be disturbed by riots. And there were these battles between the different sides. Bishops were being exiled and they were being replaced by Aryan bishops. So teaching a different doctrine about Jesus' deity.
00:11:08
Speaker
And so with all of this conflict in the empire, Constantine says, you know what, you guys need to get together and figure your stuff out. I want you to call a council of all of these bishops. And so they do. They get together and together they hash out what Arius is teaching about Jesus and what the gospel truly teaches. So let's talk about Arius a second.
00:11:30
Speaker
Arius was publicly proclaiming a theory that Jesus was not God. He said he was essentially this glorified prophet or a celestial servant of the true Most High God, who alone is almighty. He's the creator. He's the first of all things.
00:11:45
Speaker
If that sounds familiar, it's because it should be. This is the same teaching that we hear in Mormonism and Jehovah's Witness theology. It's the same kind of thing we'll hear sometimes in Gnosticism. This is one of those age old heresies that likes to resurface with a new dress on, so to speak.
00:12:06
Speaker
So Arius is teaching this and Arius didn't start out as a heretic. Arius started out studying the work of Origen, a church father who came before him. And as he's studying this, he's thinking, oh, I'm reading Origen's writing and he takes a little bit of his work and he expands on it and he goes way further than Origen did.
00:12:26
Speaker
Arius was a popular priest in Alexandria. He was well-liked. And he taught that the son was begotten of the father. So he is the son of the father. But there must have been a time when the son did not exist. So a time before he was begotten. So if Jesus is the firstborn of all creation, as scripture says, then he's a creature. He's like God, but he isn't God. He's not equal with God.
00:12:54
Speaker
Arius had a bishop over him and his name was Alexander and Alexander pointed out that Origen also said that father is an internal attribute of God. So this means that it's not possible to be a father without having a son, right?
00:13:10
Speaker
And the fact that God is eternally a father means that he also eternally has a son. This is Alexander's argument. He also argued that God is perfect. He doesn't change. So how could God change from not being a father to being a father? And this is taken from Zondervan Academic.
00:13:28
Speaker
The main difference between this Creed and the Apostles Creed then had to do with the relationship between Jesus and the Father. They had to kind of hammer out who Jesus is and explain that Jesus is forever and eternally one substance with the Father. He's not sub to the Father. He's not eternally submitted to the Father. He's equal to the Father.
00:13:54
Speaker
And so at the Nicene Council, they rejected the Arian view and affirmed that the Father is not, quote unquote, more God than the Son. God is God in Trinity. And so this council refined the Nicene Creed, created it, and then in the Council of Constantinople in 381, they refined it even further.
00:14:17
Speaker
So at this council, we're going to move to the next council. We just did Nicene Council. Now we're at the Council of Constantinople and there were multiple of these, but this is the one in 381 A.D. The Council of Constantinople updated the creed to reflect the deity of the Holy Spirit and Christ's humanity. Pause. Remember that the Nicene Council focused on Christ's divinity.
The Council of Constantinople: Emphasizing Divinity and Humanity
00:14:40
Speaker
He is God. He's equal with God.
00:14:42
Speaker
But when we get to the Council of Constantinople, they realized they had another thing they had to hash out, and that is the deity of the Holy Spirit and also Christ's humanity. So at Constantinople, the council bishops who are there add to the creed that the Holy Spirit is the, quote, Lord and giver of life who proceeds from the Father.
00:15:04
Speaker
So you might notice this is actually different from how the Creed states it today. Today, the Nicene Creed says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Pause. Let's read the Nicene Creed because this one, it's longer, but it's not extremely long. It's readable. And I think that it will help give a little picture of what we're dealing with here.
00:15:27
Speaker
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
00:15:51
Speaker
who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. In the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father, and he shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.
00:16:18
Speaker
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke up by the prophets. And I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.
00:16:42
Speaker
So notice that there's this edition on the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life who proceeds from the father and the son. This is a later edition. And so while the church fathers followed scripture and identifying the spirit as the spirit of Christ, the way they talked about the nature of the father, the son and the spirit was different if you were a Greek church. So an Eastern church versus a Latin Western church.
00:17:11
Speaker
So the Greek fathers would be Athanasius and the Cappadocian father, Saint Basil, Saint Gregory, and Saint Gregory of Nyssa. They said that the spirit proceeds from the father through the son. But the Latin or Western fathers like Tertullian, Saint Hilary, and Saint Augustine tended to say that the spirit proceeds from the father and the son. So it's a very subtle difference, but it is a difference.
00:17:37
Speaker
saying the spirit proceeds from the father and the son versus the father through the son. And this is called the filioque clause. This debate between the Greek church and the Roman church over this clause and the difference that it has on the relationship between the members of the Trinity was a factor in the upcoming split of the Eastern church.
00:18:01
Speaker
and the Western Church. So we're going to get there in the Middle Ages section. But in 1054, the church split between the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox. And that split remains to this day. You might find it interesting if you've ever talked to an Orthodox friend or you've talked to a Roman Catholic friend, they both will say that they are in the one true church. They both will trace their patriarch or their pope back to an apostolic
00:18:30
Speaker
person. So in the Roman Catholic Church, it's Peter. And in the Orthodox Church, it is the patriarch Mark. In both cases, they have history, they have a rich liturgy, similar in many ways in the way that they go about their ceremonies. Of course, there are many, many differences, too.
00:18:51
Speaker
All of this to say that this split in 1054 was a long time coming. It took a thousand years, but little things like this clause in the Nicene Creed and the differences between the churches and their practice, and as we'll see in a moment, the pressure of the Roman church to try to control the Eastern churches all played a factor in that future split.
New Book Offerings
00:19:18
Speaker
The Every Woman a Theologian Winter Collection is here and I am so excited for all of our new offerings. We launched the week before Thanksgiving and there is still time to place an order and grab your goodies in time for Christmas. We have some new books.
00:19:33
Speaker
such as The Sex Talk You Never Had, which is an updated and revised version of my popular book on purity, pornography, and a biblical sexual ethic called Christian Cosmo. We also have our new offering from Jeremy Jenkins of All Things All People called Should Christians Practice Yoga? This is a part of our quick theology series, a series of little booklets that are only $6 in the print version, $3 for the ebook version,
00:19:58
Speaker
and I know you're going to love Jeremy's balanced and wise approach to this topic. You can also check out Good News is Coming by my friend Preselis Perro Dominguez. This is an amazing children's book about the gospel and it's in both English and Spanish.
00:20:13
Speaker
These are just the books you guys. We also have all of our great Verity Home offerings, all of our Bible in a Year products. You've got to check it out and you can head over to FeliciaMasonheimer.com slash store slash and it will take you straight to the winter collection. We can't wait to ship out your orders. Be sure to order before December 5th if you want it in time for Christmas.
00:20:40
Speaker
Okay, so that's the Nicene Creed and the Nicene Council, followed by the Constantinople Council in 381. Now let's look at councils of Ephesus. These previous councils, or gatherings of bishops, settled the issue of Jesus as divine, and then Jesus as human, and the Holy Spirit as divine.
Council of Ephesus: Christ's Nature Debate
00:20:59
Speaker
But now at the Council of Ephesus, we're going to look at the first one in 431 AD.
00:21:05
Speaker
Christ is a unified person, so he's not mostly human or mostly divine, one or the other. Now, there are three councils at Ephesus in 431, 449, and 475. Clearly, they had some problems. But the first council is the only one considered ecumenical or church-wide.
00:21:26
Speaker
This was a major period of discussion about Christology. Christology is the theology of Jesus. And so between 400 and 500, lots of discussion about who he was, what he did, what's crucifixion for, you know, how is he divine and human?
00:21:42
Speaker
So at the Council of Nicaea, God and man is confirmed in the nature of Jesus. But now the question is, how much of God is in Jesus and how much of man? So the council attempted to kind of wrestle out whether Jesus was two persons, essentially, whether he was two distinct
00:22:03
Speaker
entities, spirit being God and human being his physical body. And this came out in a debate between Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria. So for context and picturing this in your mind, Constantinople is in modern day Turkey. Alexandria is in Egypt or the Northern African Church.
00:22:29
Speaker
So let's talk about Nestorius for a minute. Nestorius promised the Emperor Theodosius II that the empire would triumph if heretics were killed. Okay, little problem right there. Nestorius was a guy who wanted to grow in his political influence as a bishop. Remember from last week's episode that for 300 years the church is massively persecuted.
00:22:53
Speaker
absolutely run out of town, killed, lit on fire, thrown to the lions, horrible persecution for 300 years. And then when Constantine comes to power, he finds it in the best interest of his kingdom to legalize Christianity, to tolerate Christianity. And at the end of his life, it is believed that he converted himself.
00:23:15
Speaker
So he legalizes Christianity in 313 AD and very quickly after that there's a complete flip where the church is now integrated into the government and bishops who are being killed and chased out of town are now in influential positions of power.
00:23:32
Speaker
well, a hundred years have passed by. And so Nestorius wants a little piece of that power. And so he's talking to the emperor saying, look, your empire will triumph if you kill all the heretics. And so he was one of the people who initiated and encouraged killing people who did not align with Orthodox doctrine. He burned Arian chapels and unfortunately, in the process of doing so, lit the city on fire, which earned him the nickname
00:24:02
Speaker
I have to tell you guys, this cracked me up so much. I think it's so funny how humanity doesn't change. Like when you think about our government officials or, you know, even pastors who make really terrible choices and get involved in politics in a negative way, and they're made fun of online or mocked online, like this, this is human nature. It was happening back then too. They're calling Nestorius the bishop.
00:24:30
Speaker
of a patriarch of Constantinople, torchy. Oh, it kills me. Okay, so he made a lot of enemies through his pride, unwillingness to listen.
00:24:42
Speaker
And he was backed by the Syrian church. The Syrian church backed him. But he also was extremely intelligent and he really emphasized Jesus' humanity. What often happens in church history is the culture surrounding a individual, the pressures that they're experiencing in their city, their culture, their immediate area, the politics.
00:25:07
Speaker
all of it influences how they communicate about their theology. So if they're living in a time where Jesus' humanity is questioned, they will probably overemphasize that issue because that's where the battle is for them.
00:25:23
Speaker
This is something that's really helpful for understanding why individuals, pastors, teachers, missionaries talk about things the way they do nowadays, too. You might feel like, well, they're not talking about this topic enough, or why are they so hard on this one issue? Well, it's probably because that's what they're seeing in their sphere of influence. That's the issue. That's the question. That's the struggle. And so this is the case for Nestorius, and he really emphasized Jesus' humanity.
00:25:51
Speaker
Cyril is down in Alexandria. He had his own side of problems. He was guilty of murdering a pagan philosopher, ordering her to be murdered. He also raised up militant monks, a la the Crusades. He also
00:26:07
Speaker
had more political experience than Nestorius. He was older. He had been in politics before he became the Patriarch of Alexandria. He was in politics for 25 years. So he had a lot more influence and experience behind him in this debate. He was also backed by the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans in the church and actively slandered Nestorius in Rome to the Patriarch or Pope
00:26:34
Speaker
Celestine. I might be mispronouncing Celestine's name. It could be Celestine. So he was in Rome and he he slandered Nestorius to the pope. So now the pope, patriarch, is pretty upset. And naturally, they want to settle this dispute, this debate about the nature of Jesus, because Cyril is saying Nestorius is not teaching accurately on Jesus' humanity and his deity.
00:27:03
Speaker
Justin Holcomb says this, that both Nestorius and Cyril believed that the empire had to hold proper ideas about Christ for the people to prosper. So they felt like a lot was at stake here. Like if they didn't take care of this, like what's going to happen? What are we going to do? The empire is going to fall apart.
00:27:21
Speaker
And Bruce Shelley says that, to this day, it is unclear to what extent Nestorius' teachings were actually heretical and to what extent he suffered as a victim of misunderstanding and misrepresentations. So he was condemned at this council of Ephesus. His views were condemned and the Nestorians were persecuted. So here's what's fascinating about this.
00:27:46
Speaker
They hash out Jesus' humanity, and that's a good thing. They needed to do that. The pressure of these two flawed men forced the church to deal with an issue and to move forward in refining their theology. Out of this, the Nestorians were persecuted. This is just how the church did things when it was intertwined in government. Not a good idea.
00:28:08
Speaker
But where did they go when they were persecuted? The Nestorians fled to Persia. And then from there, Nestorian missionaries went to Malabar, India, and Turkestan. Between 780 and 823 AD, missionaries from the Nestorian church came to Tibet and central China and grew and remained there until the Middle Ages when a Muslim dominance eradicated them.
00:28:36
Speaker
This is fascinating. And we'll get to this in the mission movement episode in the early church.
Spread of Christianity through Persecution
00:28:42
Speaker
But if you ever wonder, well, what was happening in Asia? When did Asia receive the gospel? Here you go. Very early. The Nestorians were forced out by persecution. It caused them to spread. And if you remember last week's episode on the world of the early church, that is almost always how the gospel has spread is persecution.
00:29:00
Speaker
It spreads and it spreads because when we are not persecuted, it can be very easy to get lazy and comfortable to look for ways to quote unquote, spread the gospel or change society through politics, thinking that that's the way to influence the world when in the gospel itself.
00:29:20
Speaker
mainly says make disciples, not change laws. Sometimes the laws are changed as a reflection of God's sovereignty and the prayers of the people. And that's a good thing. But more often than not, it's hearts that change first. So the Nestorians spread and they spread the gospel all the way to China.
Council of Chalcedon: Salvation Doctrine
00:29:42
Speaker
The next council is the Council of Chalcedon. So in this one, all the previous work of the previous councils gets kind of combined together in this very important council that decided that Christ is human and divine in one person. There were 400 bishops called to this council. Most Christians today, scholars look to Chalcedon as the foundation for the doctrine of salvation.
00:30:11
Speaker
But really what came through in this council after everything was debated, everything was hashed out, was what was talked about in the earlier councils regarding Arius and his teaching on the nature of Christ. I'm going to read to you a new definition that was formed by the 400 Bishop to supplement the Council of Nicaea. This was formed at the Council of Chalcedon.
00:30:39
Speaker
We all with one voice confess our Lord Jesus Christ, one and the same Son, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, acknowledged in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, or without separation, the distinction of natures being in no way abolished because of the union, but rather the characteristic property of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person.
00:31:08
Speaker
So when he says the distinction of natures being in no way abolished but preserved means that him being God did not make him less human and him being human did not make him less God. But even then, the council acknowledged that this is a mystery we can't fully understand. We will never fully understand it. He's fully human, fully divine, fully mystery.
00:31:35
Speaker
The next one I want to touch on, and we're getting close to the end here, is the Athanasian Creed. So we talked about the Apostles' Creed, we talked about the Nicene Creed. Now I want to talk about the Athanasian Creed. This is attributed to Church Father Athanasius, one of my faves. I love him. But it's probably not written by him. Other possible authors are Ambrose of Milan or Augustine of Hippo. Some think it was the French Saint Vincent of Laurenes.
00:32:02
Speaker
So this creed does not really show up in history until 633 AD at the fourth council of Toledo, but they believe that it was written much earlier. I won't read it to you. It's very long, but it stresses the doctrines of the Trinity that were outlined in the fourth century at Nicaea, which is where Athanasius was. And that's why it's attributed to him.
00:32:25
Speaker
because Athanasius wrote extensively to defend the Trinity and this creed emphasizes the Trinity. That's why it was attributed to him. And so everything that was said at the Council of Chalcedon, at the Council of Nicaea about the nature of Christ, about the Trinity is affirmed in the Athanasian Creed and outlined in a much more lengthy fashion.
00:32:48
Speaker
All right, let's head to our very last council in the first 500 years.
Carthage Council: Canonical Scriptures
00:32:52
Speaker
This is the Council of Carthage. This is a Northern African council held in 8397. And in the document, Codex Canonum Ecclesii Africani, there's a record of the ordinances from this council. And one of the most significant things that came out of this council was a list of books that were considered canonical.
00:33:15
Speaker
Note, this is before 400 AD. These are the books that the church is considering canonical, but it's not the first list that we have of canonical books. In the 300s, we have a letter from Athanasius that he sent to the churches around Easter time, and it held a list of books that very closely matches our New Testament.
00:33:37
Speaker
And then if you go back even further, there are partial lists like the Miratorian fragment that show us that the church very, very early on was holding to the Old Testament scriptures and then also to a New Testament that looked very similar to what we have today. So I'm going to read to you the section from the Council of Carthage talking about the books of the Bible.
00:33:59
Speaker
Quote, it was also determined that besides the canonical scriptures, nothing be read in the church under the title of divine scriptures. Pause. What he's saying here is besides the canon of the Bible, nothing that is called
00:34:14
Speaker
divine scriptures should be read. What's he referring to? Probably the Gnostic Gospels, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Those that are called divine but are not canonical are not to be used in the church. Okay. Quote, the canonical scriptures are these.
00:34:32
Speaker
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua the son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, four books of kings, two books of Paralepamina, Job the Psalter, five books of Solomon, the books of the twelve prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Tobit, Judith, Esther, two books of Estras, two books of the Maccabees.
00:34:53
Speaker
Of the New Testament, four books of the Gospels, one book of the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen epistles of Paul, one epistle of the same writer to the Hebrews, two epistles of the Apostle Peter, three of John, one of James, one of Jude, one book of the Apocalypse of John, or Revelation.
00:35:10
Speaker
Let this be made known also to our brother and fellow priest Boniface, or to other bishops of those parts, for the purpose of confirming that canon, because we have received from our fathers that those books must be read in the church. Let it also be allowed that the passions of martyrs be read when their festivals are kept."
00:35:26
Speaker
Okay, so if you're like, what? Who's Tobit and Judith and Nastras and Maccabees? These are the apocryphal books. And if you listen to the Canon series or read my book, How the Bible Came to Be, you'd be familiar with these. The apocryphal books were considered historical, but not inspired. And so they were included in Protestant and Catholic Bibles all the way up to about 1920, 1930, even later for some additions. The King James Version also included the apocryphal books.
00:35:54
Speaker
So these books were not considered inspired by the Jews, but they were considered historically helpful and they translated forward to the Christian community. So that would be why they're included here.
00:36:05
Speaker
So this is very similar. If you look at the table of contents in your own Bible, you can see most of these books right there. When it says four books of Kings, it's talking about Kings and Chronicles. So first, second Kings, first, second Chronicles. So you have a little bit of different language, but still the same books. And this is before 400 AD. That is crazy. I love it. It's amazing. All right. The last.
00:36:32
Speaker
Council I want to mention. I'm not going to get super in-depth on this with you, but the last council is another council of Carthage in 418 AD.
Condemnation of Pelagius: Sin and Free Will
00:36:42
Speaker
This one was to condemn a man named Pelagius. I talked about this in the Calvinism and Arminianism episode all this long time ago, but Pelagius was a monk who was really frustrated with the lack of holiness, or excuse me, he was a bishop, who was frustrated at the lack of holiness in his congregation.
00:37:01
Speaker
And he started to notice that his congregation didn't seem to care about becoming holy because they're like, I'm just a sinner. What can I do? This is just who I am. So he, again, reacting to the situation in front of him, developed a theology that basically said, well, you're not actually born sinful. You become sinful by your choices.
00:37:24
Speaker
So the reason that Pelagius came to believe this was not because he thought humanity was all that great. It was because he was concerned at their depravity, and he was trying to encourage them to take responsibility and ownership for their actions. But in so doing, he went against
00:37:41
Speaker
many fundamental doctrines of the Christian church. And so if you were to read through the canons of the Council of Carthage, May 1st, 418 AD, this was translated by Reverend Charles Joseph Heffel. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.
00:37:57
Speaker
When he translated it, he translated all of the canons that were produced. There's 19 canons, and these are just basically little sections or paragraphs describing what was talked about at the council and what was decided. But for instance, canon one is, if any man says that Adam, the first man, was created mortal so that whether he sinned or not, he would have died, not as the wages of sin, but through the necessity of nature, let him be anathema. Anathema means let him be excommunicated or separated from.
00:38:27
Speaker
What's being said here is that Pelagius was teaching that Adam wasn't created immortal and then lost his immortality through sin. He was created mortal and he would have died anyway, whether he sinned or not. So like Pelagius was teaching stuff about sin nature and human nature that was going against everything the church had ever taught about original sin, about
00:38:51
Speaker
you know, needing redemption about Christ's Atonement. It affected so many different doctrines that it became a major issue that the church had to confront in 418 AD.
00:39:04
Speaker
Pelagius had an extreme version of what we would call freewill theology. He took it so far that basically you are the master of your own destiny and God gave you this will so you can just do whatever you want. Oftentimes, Arminians are mistakenly called Pelagian or semi-Pelagian, taking from Pelagius' teachings when that is not what Arminians believe or teach.
00:39:32
Speaker
I want to make that note. I go more into that in the Calvinism and Arminianism episode. But that was dealt with at the Second Council of Carthage in 418 AD. All right, you guys, this is a lot of information. I know that this whole series is just a lot that we're talking about. But in this episode, what we looked at was how the church identified counterfeit gospels and confronted them.
00:39:56
Speaker
And I hope it encourages you to know that this is not new. Like this is not something that the church is just now facing. False teaching everywhere. It's always happened. It's always been around. It's always divided the church. It's even upset countries and nations and kingdoms. It's even gotten to the point where it affected pagan kings.
00:40:16
Speaker
This kind of false teaching had to be faced and had to be wrestled with and people got really upset, angry, divided from one another over it in order to preserve what Jesus taught. Going back to the word of God, back to the gospels, back to the testimony of the apostles, back to what does the ecumenical church, the global church, what do we overall see in scripture and how can we fight for that?
00:40:44
Speaker
It's not a matter of like, oh, well, you know, Cyril was not not a great guy and he was bossy. And so he won at the council.
00:40:54
Speaker
There's an element of his sinfulness. There's an element of that impact and his persecution of Nestorius. But the theology that Nestorius was promoting, even if he was misrepresented, the theology that they ended up dealing with and confronting was flawed. Was Nestorius possibly ill treated in the process? Absolutely. But look what happened out of that. Nestorius helped spread the gospel to China.
00:41:21
Speaker
Because deep down, I'll be honest, I don't think that Nestorius theology on this was as wrong as he was presented. I think that he was misrepresented. But through that, the council dealt with a theological issue that had to be dealt with. And so as we look at these unhealthy movements in church history, these unhealthy people and their sins and the grievous things they do, what you can come back to is, but how
Recognizing False Teachings in the Gospel
00:41:48
Speaker
did God redeem it?
00:41:50
Speaker
Where is the scarlet thread of redemptive history that pulls through this, the same way that thread of redemption pulled through David's sin with Bathsheba, his sin against Bathsheba, against Uriah? How does this pull through the story of Solomon and all of his sin or through the judges? When we see God redeeming, restoring, continuing to strive with people through church history, when we recognize our own propensity to sin and see that we're not so much better than these people,
00:42:19
Speaker
We can see the goodness of God and His striving and seeking and carrying the Gospel forward even when we didn't deserve it. So yes, today we're still having to identify counterfeit Gospels. We're still having to keep an eye out for the new Arians and the new Gnostics and be aware of what they're teaching. That's why.
00:42:40
Speaker
It's not about memorizing what's evil in the world or constantly paying attention to the latest false teaching. It's about knowing the gospel so well, so truly, that when a false one comes along, you can't help but recognize it.
00:42:57
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Verity Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, would you take the time to leave us a review? It helps so many other women around the world find out about Verity and about every woman a theologian as a ministry and a shop. We appreciate you, and I hope you'll be back next week as we continue to go deeper into God's word and the heart of Jesus Christ.