The early Christians highlighted two sources of authority when arguing against heretical movements. Scripture was obviously present throughout these arguments. Of equal importance, however, was the Rule of Faith which these writers held as the foundation of the faith and the guide to interpreting Scripture. This is a short summary of the essential teachings of the Apostles.
When arguing against the Gnostics, St. Irenaeus employs the metaphor of a mosaic of the King to highlight the importance of the Rule. The Gnostics, he says, rearrange the pieces of the mosaic to make it into a displeasing picture of a dog or a fox and try to convince others that this is, in fact, the picture of the King. The Christian, however, can use the Rule of Faith to put the pieces back in their proper order and recover the image of the King.
Tertullian begins his argument against Praxeas, a Modalist, by presenting the Rule of Faith, of which Praxeas—who claims that God is one Person—runs afoul. After restating the Rule, Tertullian makes a historical claim. “In this principle also,” he says, meaning the fact that the Rule of Faith preexists heresies, “we must henceforth find a presumption of equal force against all heresies whatsoever—that whatever is first is true, whereas that is spurious which is later in date” (Contra Praxean, II).
The question of how the Rule is transmitted among Christians is one that the early Fathers do not answer explicitly. Reasonably, however, scholars have argued that it might have been passed on through baptismal creeds which catechumens were expected to learn prior to their Baptism. Especially after the Romans offered money to those who would hand in religious texts to the authorities, Christians grew increasingly weary of writing these texts down. Instead, they were taught by word of mouth.
Interestingly, in the fourth century after the Arian controversies, the usage of the Rule of Faith diminished as the usage of the Creed of Nicaea increased. If one accepts the idea that the Rule of Faith was transmitted by means of baptismal creeds—which had small regional variances—this development makes sense. More and more churches started using the Nicene Creed as their baptismal creed. If then, the Rule was roughly equivalent to the baptismal creed, in time, the Creed of Nicaea became equivalent to the second and, therefore, to the first.
Christians today recite the Nicene Creed as the summation of the fundamentals of the faith. In doing so, they continue the ancient tradition of the Church of upholding the Rule of Faith as the crucial statement of the eternal truths of the faith which distinguish Christians in their profession.
Another interesting development occurs in the fourth century. Eusebius of Caesarea, arguing against another Modalist, Marcellus of Ancyra, puts forward what he calls the Ecclesiastical Theology. While the whole work, named the Ecclesiastical Theology, serves to expand upon this concept, Eusebius explains what he means by the phrase in chapter XIV of the first book. The Apostles, he says, encountered a group who proclaimed to be Christian, but who did not accept the deity of the Son. These they called “Ebionites; that is to say, they called them in the Hebrew language ‘poor,’ with respect to their understanding.” Likewise, “the Church fathers” rejected Paul of Samosata, who rejected the deity of the Son. The same was true for Sabellius—one of the original proponents of Modalism—who called the Father “Son.”
While it is unclear whether St. Basil of Caesarea learned this concept from Eusebius, he likewise highlights the importance of the teaching of previous generations, starting from the very Apostles. He called it ‘tradition’ (from traditio, lit. “handing down”), taking 1 Corinthians 15:3 as inspiration for the term. The rest, as they say, is history.
We can see the interrelation between these two concepts. The Rule of Faith represents a short summation of the teaching of the Apostles, while tradition represents the expanded mass of the teaching of the Apostles and their successors on the doctrines of the faith. Apostolic Christians confess both today as crucial to their reading of Scripture and the understanding of the Faith.
Gjergji Evangjeli served as the Editor-In-Chief of The Torch. He had previously served as the Executive Editor and the World News section editor. He is currently pursuing a ThM at the BC School of Theology and Ministry. Gjergji is interested in the patristic period, specifically in the apologists of the second century. He is an ardent defender of the Oxford comma.
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