Page:Doctrine of the Lord in the Primitive Christian Church.pdf/13

6    DOCTRINE OF THE LORD apostles declares that “in Jesus Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”; and this great truth is embodied in nearly every one of the early writers of the Christian Church.

The earliest Christians were, most of them, not deeply indoctrinated in theology, but they were simple and sincere believers in the Lord. They were content with the simple creed of Peter, when he exclaimed, “Lord, I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (1) This seems to be as much as the Lord could reveal of Himself to men, in the state in which He found them, when He came into the world to redeem and save them, and to establish among them His Chris tian Church. As He said in the Gospel, ye be lieve in God — that is, men had been taught in the Old Testament to believe in God. Now, for the Christian faith, He adds, “ Believe also in Me.” Here is the first creed which he gives to His disci- ples: Ye believe in God, believe also in Me.

But the simple faith of the earliest Christians soon began to become more or less confused and disturbed by the Platonism, Gnosticism, and learn- ing brought to bear upon it, from the Pagan world around. Heretical errors crept into the Church itself, regarded as an external body of believers. And perhaps it is not strange that the early Christian writers should have had their views of the Lord ob- scured, sometimes by heresies, and be led to feel un certain who the Lord was, and what the relations of