'No continuation of the Gospel': the Nicene Creed at the Holy Communion

Having addressed the reading of the Epistle and Gospel at some length in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801), John Shepherd has strangely very little to say about the Creed:

The Rubric does not authorise the priest to say, "Here endeth the Gospel." It only directs, that after the Gospel is ended, the Creed shall be sung or said. They that are determined to account for every thing, pretend that the omission has this reason for it, that " the Creed is a continuation of the Gospel. But the Creed is no more a continuation of the Gospel, than it is of the Epistle.

There is no exploration of the historical background to the saying of the Creed at the Eucharist, nor any theological commentary on its doctrinal significance. It is the case that the various ceremonies associated with the Creed - standing, facing east, bowing at the Holy Name - have been addressed by Shepherd in his commentary on Morning and Evening Prayer. That being so, it remains the case that here in his reflections on the Holy Communion, Shepherd has - unlike in his work on Matins and Evensong - remarkably little to say about the Nicene Creed.

The absence of such commentary, however, is itself significant alongside the point Shepherd does make: the Creed is not "a continuation of the Gospel". The ecclesial function of the Creed in setting forth Christological doctrine flows from but is not itself the saving Gospel. It does not have the status ("God's word written") or function ("make thee wise unto salvation") of holy Scripture. This being so, the focus of this part of the liturgy is the proclamation of Scripture, with the saying of the Nicene Creed clearly secondary to this, not substantively different to the saying of the Apostles' Creed at Morning and Evening Prayer.

This comparison is also suggestive of a modest understanding of the Nicene Creed. In not offering a doctrinal commentary on the Nicene Creed, we might interpret Shepherd as evoking the teaching of Jeremy Taylor, that the Apostles' Creed is the sufficient "rule of the faith", with the Nicene Creed "a further explication of the articles apostolical", not offering "any new articles" because "the faith of the apostle's creed is entire".

To confess the Nicene Creed at the Communion or in the Ante-Communion, therefore, was to acknowledge its "explication" of the Apostles' Creed. This interpretation, by the way, can also explain why the Church of England bishops, responding to the newly-independent PECUSA's proposed revision of the Prayer Book, merely required that the Nicene Creed be included in the text of the liturgy, but its actual use "left discretional".

Shepherd's spare comments on the Nicene Creed in the Communion Office do invite, I think, this modest understanding of the Creed and its rightful liturgical use. Such modesty also reflects Article 8, which grounds the authority of this Creed not in conciliar decree but in "most certain warrants of holy Scripture". The Nicene Creed, therefore, follows the reading of the Epistle and Gospel, not as a "continuation of the Gospel", but as a confession dependent upon the Scriptures.

Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders. With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter. The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition). Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical). Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition. A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics". Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics. What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition. Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

'Whether the Lutheran Churches have right Ordinations and perfect succession of Bishops': Jeremy Taylor, 'Episcopacy Asserted', and Lutheran orders

Amidst the bitter controversies over episcopacy in the Three Kingdoms during the early 1640s, controversies which had become war in Scotland in 1637 and then in England in 1642, Jeremy Taylor wrote his Laudian defence of episcopal order, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy Asserted and Maintained . He proposed in this work that the non-episcopal Reformed churches could have had episcopally-ordered clergy: Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought our churches catholic and Christian. Leaving aside the reality that, for example, French Protestants would have been placed in an invidious political position if they had done as Taylor proposed, it is the reference to "the Lutheran churches" which is significant. To begin with, a large portion of the Lutheran churches - those in the German lands - were governed by a system of superintendency. It is almost inconceivable that Taylor was not aware of th...

laudable Practice

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