The Niceo-Constantinopolitan Creed
"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of (heaven and earth, and) all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds,) only begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father; 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, [transposed to the beginning] the things in heaven and things in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down (from heaven) and was incarnate (of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary) and made man (and was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate), and suffered (and was buried), and rose again the third day (according to the Scriptures), who ascended into heaven (and sitteth on the right hand of the Father) and cometh again (in glory) to judge quick and dead (of whose kingdom there shall be no end). And in the Holy Ghost, (the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son, together is worshipped and glorified; who spake by the prophets; in one holy Catholic, Apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.)"
This last clause was not in the original Nicene creed, but was added in the Constantinopolitan. The literal rendering of the Greek is "the life of the age about to come."
The first Christians, it will be seen, said in their creeds, "I believe in the æonian life;" later, they modified the phrase "æonian life," to "the life of the coming æon," showing that the phrases are equivalent. But not a word of endless punishment. "The life of the age to come" was the first Christian creed, and later, Origen himself declares his belief in æonian punishment, and in æonian life beyond. How, then, could æonian punishment have been regarded as endless?
The differences of opinion that existed among the early Christians are easily accounted for, when we remember that they had been Jews or Heathens, who had brought from their previous religious associations all sorts of ideas, and were disposed to retain them and reconcile them with their new religion. Faith in Christ, and the acceptance of his teachings, could not at once eradicate the old opinions, which, in some cases, remained long, and caused honest Christians to differ from each other. As will be shown, while the Sibylline Oracles predisposed some of the fathers of Universalism, Philo gave others a tendency to the doctrine of annihilation, and Enoch to endless punishment.
Statements of the Early Councils
Thus the credal declarations of the Christian church for almost four hundred years are entirely void of the lurid doctrine with which they afterwards blazed for more than a thousand years. The early creeds contain no hint of it, and no whisper of condemnation of the doctrine of universal restoration as taught by Clement, Origen, the Gregories, Basil the Great, and multitudes besides. Discussions and declarations on the Trinity, and contests over homoousion (consubstantial) and homoiousion (of like substance) engrossed the energy of disputants, and filled libraries with volumes, but the doctrine of the great fathers remained unchallenged. Neither the Concilium Nicæum, A.D. 325, nor the Concilium Constantinopolitanum, A.D. 381, nor the Concilium Chalcedonenese, A.D. 451, lisped a syllable of the doctrine of man's final woe. The reticence of all the ancient formularies of faith concerning endless punishment at the same time that the great fathers were proclaiming universal salvation, as appeared later on in these pages, is strong evidence that the former doctrine was not then accepted. It is apparent that the early Christian church did not dogmatize on man's final destiny. It was engrossed in getting established among men the great truth of God's universal Fatherhood, as revealed in the incarnation, "God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." Some taught endless punishment for a portion of mankind; others, the annihilation of the wicked; others had no definite opinion on human destiny; but the larger part, especially from Clement of Alexandria on for three hundred years, taught universal salvation. It is insupposable that endless punishment was a doctrine of the early church, when it is seen that not one of the early creeds embodied it"
