Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/427

Rh conceptions of Christ were becoming known in the churches of Syria and Asia Minor. Such views seem not to have been known in those regions until the appearance of Saturninus, Cerdon and Marcion, who cannot have been active before A. D. 130. Yet on the other hand the letters appear to have been written before Marcion's literary activity began.

The last paper, on the Origin of the Apostles' Creed, by Professor Arthur C. McGiffert of Union Theological Seminary, was in his absence read by Dr. Jackson. The writer found no earlier occurrence of the Apostles' Creed than in Gaul and Spain in the sixth century, but dealt with the origin of the old Roman Symbol from which it was derived, and which may be traced to the latter part of the second century. Some have thought that it was known in Rome when Marcion came, and to Justin, but Dr. McGiffert saw no evidence of its existence before Irenaeus, and dated it at about I 50175 A. D. Devised as a baptismal confession, and as necessary for protection against heresy, it bears evidence of its time in the nature of the errors, Doketic and Gnostic, against which its phrases are manifestly directed. Much of the paper was given to an analysis of these phrases, conducted from this point of view.

The evening session, as has already been mentioned, was given, after an address of welcome by Mayor Maybury of Detroit, to the inaugural address of Professor Richard T. Ely, President of the American Economic Association, and to a similar address by Dr. James Ford Rhodes, substituted for that which had been expected from Dr. Edward Eggleston as President of the American Historical Association. Dr. Ely chose as his subject "Competition, its Nature, Permanency and Beneficence." He dwelt on the development of competition through successive stages of economic life, pointing out how, originally cruel, it had constantly risen in plane during the progress of social evolution, so that slaughter, slavery, child-labor, and many unwholesome and oppressive practices once inseparable from competition had been successively ruled out. He dwelt also upon the thought that social evolution among men brought into being, along with competition, the growing enlargement of the associated competitive group; and the larger the competitive group, the greater the scope of sympathy, benevolence and public authority. Through the selective process of competition, a permanent element of human society, we have the survival of the fit; but it is for society to create such economic conditions that only desirable social qualities shall constitute eminent fitness for survival. The beneficence of the competitive order depends on the reconcilement of the effort to secure equality of opportunity to individuals and the maintenance