Old Lutherans

We find the appellation “Symbols” or “Symbolic Writings,” very anciently employed in the Christian church, in the ordinary sense of Confession of Faith. The Apostolic Confession of Faith especially was so denominated. In the commencement of his Exposition of the Apostolic Symbols, Ruffinus gives the following illustrations:

Historians relate that this custom prevailed also in civil wars. As the nature of their arms, the sound of their voices, as well as the rules and usages of warfare, were all the same,—to guard against surprise,—every prudent general gave to his soldiers certain symbols,—which in Latin are called signa or indica,—so that, if anyone approached, of whom some suspicion was entertained, on being questioned, he might give a symbol, showing whether he were a friend or a foe.

And this too is the sense of the term in the Greek language. For συμβολον [sumbolon] from συμβαλλειν [sumballein], in the sense of measuring of comparing one thing with another, and then of conferring about and agreeing upon something, is by original agreement a fixed sign, from which we may infer or understand something,—a signal, a token—, a watchword, a formulary in the mysteries, an agreement between two parties. And even in the absence of all direct authority, showing that Christian antiquity, on account of this collective signification, applied this term to ecclesiastical use, yet we find the word employed among them in a variety of senses; and the idea which we now connect with the words “Symbols” and Symbolic Writings,” entirely depends upon the original signification of the word συμβολον, as well as upon its derivation. Ruffinus says in another place, that it is a sign by which to distinguish those who preach Christ truly according to Apostolic principles. Ambrose calls it signet of the heart and the consecration of our warfare; and Chrysologus adopts the latter signification, where he says:

We are taught even by human custom, to name that compact or agreement, which contains the hopes of approaching or future gain, a Symbol;

but Maximus Taurinensis prefers the former sense,—that a Symbol is a token or sign by which we discriminate between the faithful and the treacherous. Augustine gives us this explanation:

A Symbol is a brief but comprehensive rule of faith,–brief in the number of words, but comprehensive in the weight of sentiments.

[. . .]

This term was introduced into the Evangelical church by Dr. Martin Luther in his writings: “The three Symbols, or Confession of the faith in Christ, unanimously employed in the Church, 1538.” We likewise find it used by Melanchthon in his “System of Doctrine;” even earlier indeed in the oath prescribed for the Doctors of Divinity, by the new statutes of the university of Wittenberg, 1533. The preface to his Corpus Julium designates the Augsburg Confession by this name: “The article of which Confession serve at this time as a correct, beautiful, pure and invincible Symbol of the reformed churches.” And not only the preface to the Book of Concord denominates the same writing next to “the old, acknowledged Symbols,” “A Symbol of Faith likewise,” but the Formula of Concord also, in the Epitome, section 4, and the Declaration, section 2, distinguishes it by the same expression; and we learn here especially on the next page, what idea the Evangelical church connected with that term. For it is here expressed with distinctness, that these Symbols are no private writings, but books, written, approved, and received, in the name of the churches which confess one doctrine and one religion; just as in the Formula of Concord, Part II., after an enumeration of the chief subjects of the Book of Concord,—the Augsburg Confession, the Apology, the Articles of Smalcald, and the two Catechisms of Luther,— they are denominated “public and approved writings,” and thus they are placed by the side of the old, acknowledged Symbols, as an enlargement and extension of them. Now here the general custom is manifest,—by the term Symbol, the Confession of Faith is expressed with comprehensive brevity, as confession-formal; by the term Symbolic Writing or Book, is implied the fuller explanation, establishment, and decision of system of doctrine in the church.

2.) Symbols have arisen simultaneously with the church. The Lord, indeed, has not established his church upon Symbols, but upon his own Word. From this the church derives her confessions, as evidences how she understands and explains the divine Word. From the iniquity of man it could not fail, that contradictory opinions should arise in the church herself, and proceed from external controversy to internal disquietude, because the church, in her temporal condition, has false Christians and hypocrites in her midst; she was soon obliged, therefore, to establish Symbols for the purpose of giving evidence of her Faith, of refuting false accusations, and of rejecting pernicious errors, and in accommodation to the progress of time, to institute new Symbols, without rejecting the old, not for the purpose of establishing new doctrines, but for the purpose of acknowledging anew the old Symbols,—those truths derived from the Fathers—, and of providing them with new defenses against encroaching errors. This origin of the Symbols of the church will fully manifest itself from what follows. The simple form of Baptism extended at the same time with the church, in the Apostolic Symbol, to a confession of Baptism; this to the Nicene Confession, comprising only a few more propositions, and according to the necessities of the times in reference to the demands of the faith, to the Athanasian, more copiously developed and accurately defined. From that time the church, on the one hand, found no external occasion for a new declaration of her faith; on the other, still less did she find it an internal duty. But when she began to reflect on these things, she discovered that human innovations in the church were the real sources of her difficulties, (Augsburg Confession, Art.26, &c.,) and recovering herself from these difficulties, she began to purify and reestablish herself, and to perceive that it was her first and most important duty, to acknowledge her faith and her doctrine publicly; here, according to the demands of the time, arose her extended, new confessions, all which partly referred back to the first Symbols, as the basis of an attachment superadded, partly extending the structure further towards its completion, the foundation of which was derived from the Word of God. Thus every Symbol took the impressions of the time, and of the historic circumstances out of which it grew; and each affords not only a general, but even a specific, account of the reasons for its establishment.