In a previous post, I made some general notes about the Ancient Christian Doctrine (ACD) series from IVP. In this post I will now give attention to the first volume in the series, which covers the first article of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

The author and editor, Gerald L. Bray, is a reserach professor at the Beeson Divinity School, the director of research at the Latimer Trust, and is an ordained priest in the Church of England. In addition to this volume, he co-edits and contributes to the Ancient Christian Texts series and contributes to the Ancient Christian Commentary series, both of which are also published InterVarsity Press.

The major topics that Bray highlights are drawn from the section of the Creed cited above; he discusses faith and scripture, the nature of God, God as Father, God as almighty, God as creator, creation itself, and things seen and unseen. It’s hard to imagine that all those topics and their respective sub-topics fit within 150 pages, but somehow Bray was able to do it. In the introduction, Bray reminds us that the first article is the only section of the Creed that is faithful to both testaments, and even a practicing Jew can assent to it with only a few reservations about wording (xxvii). The first article is the shortest and most likely the oldest article of the Creed. With that being the case, Bray traces much of the theology from this section back to the earliest Christian writers. Of course, since the later patristic authors tended develop their theology more thoroughly, they are often cited as well.

Bray briefly tackles the subject of how well the church fathers represented the broader Christian community. He argues that H. E. W. Turner refuted Walter Bauer’s claim that the so-called heretical branches of early Christianity were the mainstream. For Bray, Turner’s word should have been the end of the story, but instead there has been a renewal of interest in this subject. He writes:

“[I]t is now necessary to defend the classical fathers of the early church against the charge that they were a small and underrepresented minority who happened to take control of the church at a key moment in its development and who were thus able to obscure the historical truth in their own interests. Fortunately, the best refutation of such ideas is the reading of the Fathers themselves. (xxxviii)

In the end, Bray argues that the “Gnostics” or “people with syncretistic doctrines” were not very influential or numerous, and so the classical church fathers and the Nicene Creed both represent authentic Christianity. This, of course, has bearing on which texts are included in the patristic commentary itself, and we shouldn’t expect non-Nicene forms of Christianity to be represented here given that it’s a work on Nicene Creed. I only make reference to this feature of the commentary because the title of the series, “Ancient Christian Doctrine,” could be understood in a number of ways.

While selecting sources for the patristic commentary, Bray sought to choose texts that not only represented the early Christian doctrine, but ones that were also valuable to spiritual formation of the modern reader. The main goal of the book is to “foster the edification of Christian believers” (xli), although Bray also notes that the book should prove helpful to scholars and others less interested with that goal.

The sampling of texts used in the commentary are easy to navigate and the selections are generally very relevant. The selections are also nicely footnoted with pointers to source material, cross references, and explanatory notes. Unfortunately, there aren’t notes on the translation of the Greek and Latin texts themselves, and those interested in the original languages will have to consult other editions. The commentary functions as a hybrid between a concordance of topics pertaining to the Nicene Creed and an anthology of primary sources of patristic authors. It’s definitely a useful volume to locate sources on the theology of the writers known as the Church Fathers. I see this this book as a helpful starting place for further inquiry.

References

• Walter Bauer, Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum (Tübingen: Mohr, 1934; ET: Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity; London: SCM, 1972).
• H. E. W. Turner, The Pattern of Christian Truth: A Study in the Relations Between Orthodoxy and Heresy in the Early Church (London: Mowbray, 1954).

The series is edited by Thomas C. Oden, who is also the general editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. There are five volumes in this series and each one deals with a different topic related to the creed:

1. Gerald L. Bray, We Believe in One God
2. John Anthony McGuckin, We Believe in One Lord Jesus Christ
3. Mark J. Edwards, We Believe in the Crucified and Risen Lord
4. Joel C. Elowsky, We Believe in the Holy Spirit
5. Angelo Di Berardino, We Believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church

The format is very helpful. At the beginning of each section, the passage of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed is given in three parallel columns in Greek, Latin, and English. Then the editor contributes a few paragraphs on the historical context of the section, and includes an overview of the following patristic commentary. The bulk of the book is the patristic commentary itself which entails English translations of numerous patristic quotations, each a paragraph or two in length. The quotations are selected based on their relevance to the cited passage of the creed. Unlike the commentaries on the Bible, the patristic authors were not necessarily commenting on the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed in their original context, but what they said was deemed relevant by the respective editors.

This series should be useful to anyone hoping to learn more about the history of interpretation of orthodox Christianity. Not only does it comment on the text, but it also functions—in a way—as a detailed theological concordance of these authors. IVP has put together a page for this series, which includes additional information for those curious about these books. Here’s the series blurb from that page:

This exciting five-volume series follows up on the acclaimed Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture to provide patristic commentary on the Nicene Creed. The series renders primary Greek, Latin, Coptic and Syriac source material from the church fathers in lucid English translation (some here for the first time) and gives readers unparalleled insight into the history and substance of what the early church believed. Including biographical sketches, a timeline of ancient Christian sources, indexes, bibliographies and keys to original language sources as well as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in Greek, Latin and English (ICET version), this series illuminates key theological essentials in the light of classic and consensual Christian faith and makes an excellent resource for preaching and teaching.

With characteristic rigor and insight, in this book Mark Noll revisits the history of the American church in the context of world events. He makes the compelling case that how Americans have come to practice the Christian faith is just as globally important as what the American church has done in the world. He backs up this substantial claim with the scholarly attentiveness we’ve come to expect from him, lucidly explaining the relationship between the development of Christianity in North America and the development of Christianity in the rest of the world, with attention to recent transfigurations in world Christianity. Here is a book that will challenge your assumptions about the nature of the relationship between the American church and the global church in the past and predict what world Christianity may look like.

Mark Noll’s books are always very good and I look foward to reading this one when I get the chance. Thanks again IVP!