THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH

Introduction

 

A member of the Oriental Orthodox family of Churches, the Church of Ethiopia Shares with them the Church believes, is derived from the apostolic heritage and borne witness to in the New Testament against the background of the Old Testament. It has been expounded by the fathers of the Church both in the ancient Councils and in their teaching. It continues as a living reality in the Church in its life of worship, preaching and discipline. In a word, then the Church of Ethiopia is a community which has inherited and which holds to the historic Christian faith as it has been handed down through the centuries.

 

To write an essay an essay on the faith of the Church as a chapter in a book is not an easy task. What is attempted here is, therefore, only to give a brief introduction to the faith of the Church of Ethiopia .

As a living reality, the faith is preserved by the Church pre-eminently in its liturgy. Even here it is the celebration of the Holy Eucharist that constitutes in a very significant sense the centre of the faith.

 

The Creeds

The Service of the Holy Eucharist proper begins with the recital of a Creed. In the Ethiopian Orthodox Church there are two credal statements in use. One of them is a fairly long profession which is be lived to be of Apostolic organ, and the other is the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. The saying of the confession of the Faith at the beginning of the Eucharistic Service signifies that the worship is meant only for the those who accept the faith affirmed in it.

The ideas emphasized in the Creed of the Apostles may be noted here briefly.

• God is one. He is the maker of all things and the "Father of our Lord and our God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." Although eternal and transcendent, He reveals Himself and exercises his supreme authority over all creatures.
• With the one God the Father is the one God the son who s born of the Father before all creation and is co-equal with the Father. The son, in the last days, "took flesh from our laday Mary, the Holy Virgin, without the seed of man, and grew like man yet without sin or evil."

He suffered, died in the flesh, rose from the dead on the third day, ascended into heaven to the Father who sent Him. He sent to us the Holy Spirit, who proceeds

• from the Father, and who is co-eternal with the Father and the son. All this he did for our salvation.
• All creatures of God are good and there is nothing in them to be rejected. Marriage and propagation of children are pure and underfiled, "because God created Adam and Eve to multiply". There is in our body a soul which is immortal and which does not perish with the body.
• There is the resurrection of the dead, the righteous and sinners, and a judgement which everyone will be recompensed according to his deeds.
• Christ is not in the least degree inferior because of the Incarnation. He is unchangeably God the Word who became man for our salvation in reality. To Him be glory, praise and thanksgiving.

The other Creed is well-known and therefore does not need to be given in summary here. Both Creeds are based on an affirmation of faith in God, the Incarnation, and Human Salvation.

God the Holy Trinity

God is the only eternal Being. Beyond time, space and all limitations, he abides without a beginning and without an end. "Thou hast no beginning," says in prayer the Ethiopian priest who celebrates the Anaphora of St. John, "but thou bringest all things to their end. Infinite art thou, but for all things thou didst set bounds."

 

God is the Creator of all that exists. Having made them all, he continues to sustain them. The Lord is high, says the Anaphora. Yet "all were created through his grace, and all live through his kindness". Perfect in Himself, he continually imparts perfection to his creatures. Individuals as well as the entire historical process are ultimately under his control. God is not a passive perfection or an abstract ideal, but a dynamic reality who is ever active in bringing all that exists to the final destiny which he has for each of them as well as for the whole created realm.

 

God is one in three and three in one. The unity of God is not conceived in the sense of an arithmetical digit nor of a solitary condition, but in that of an all-inclusive perfection. So the one God is also eternally three. He is, affirms the Anaphora, "three names and one God; three persons and one essence".

 

The unity of God is confessed as the unity of Godhead- Melekot as the word is used in Ethiopia . the one Godhead is shared equally and eternally by the three persons - Akal as they are referred to in Ethiopia . As in other parts of the Christian world, in Ethiopia also three were men who tried to interied to interpret the doctrine in various ways. There were, for instance, persons who refused to accept the personal distinctions in the one Godhead and others who insisted that the three persons were three Gods. Both these views were rejected by the Church.

 

God is eternally Father, eternally Son, and eternally Holy Spirit. "The Father Begat His son without days or hours; and when he begat him, his Father was not separated from Him." Beyond time, God is the eternal one. That one is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. No one of the three Persons is prior to the other two in time. "The one was not before the other," says the Anaphora, "and the Second was not before the Third." But "we proclaim that the Father lived with his Son, and that the Son lived with His Father before creation, and before the heavens and earth were made."

 

In the one co-eternal and co-equal Trinity, the Father is the eternal source of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son is born of , and the Holy spirit proceeds from, the father. While affirming that the Son and the Holy spirit derive each of them His respective Being eternally to help Him in His work before the world was created, and the existence of the Holy spirit is not to contribute wisdom and work."

It is not with the Deity as it was with Abraham who was older than Isaac, or with Isaac who was older than Jacob, but the Father is not older than the Son, neither is the Son older the Son, neither is the Son younger than His Father.

 

The Father is different from the Son and the Holy spirit only in that He alone is Father. the Son alone is Son, and the Holy spirit alone dwells in us and makes God known to us. So the priest who celebrates knoweth the depth of Thy oneness. He taught thy unity, and helped to know Thy Trinity." The one Godhead is, therefore, in the Father in perfection. From Him the same Godhead is received in perfection by the Son thought His eternal generation; and from the Father again the same Godhead in perfection is derived eternally by the Holy Spirity. It is affirmed at the same time with equal force that "the Father is not greater than the Son, and the Son is not less than His Father," and the Holy Spirit is not greater or less than either the Father or the Son. Thus the unity of God is affirmed by confessing that the Godhead is one, and that the Godhead is one, and that the Godhead is eternally in the Father. The Son and the Holy Spirit.

 

There is also another equally important emphasis regarding divine unity. This lies in the affirmation that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are eternally and inseparably together. In everything that the Father does, the Son and the Holy spirit are there with Him; in all the things that the Son does, the Father and the Holy spirit are there with Him; and in all activities of the Holy spirit, the Father and the Son are also with Him. It is affirmed that "the Father, being Father, doth not give orders to the Son; and the Son, being son, is not exalted; and the Holy Spirit is equal. But the divine Father, Son and Holy spirit are one God, one kingdom, one authority, and one government."

 

If we may put the emphasis in our words, the term "Father" with reference to God signifies the divine reality which originates everything; the Son indicates the divine reality implying all that is originated; and the Holy Spirit signifies the divine reality which dwells in creatures relating them both individually and corporately to God. the eternal God, as we have noted already, is the all-inclusive perfection. He creates all things; He sustains them; and he guides them to a final destiny.

 

Infinite love, God creates and sustains the world and all that there is in it. In his love God the Father sent His Only son into the world in order to accomplish its salvation; in the same love God the Son came and worked out the world's salvation; in the same love again God the Holy Spirit perfects the salvation thus given. All these are manifestations at different levels of the same activity of God in relation to the world.

 

The Incarnation

The incarnation of God the Son is primarily for the salvation of the world. Salvation means the restoration of the world to its direct and unimpeded relation with God.

 

As God made it, the world was very good. But evil came there in it. God who made the world is ever concerned and active to save it from the clutches of evil and restore it to the destiny for which it has been created. Incarnation is God's supreme act in saving the world.

 

God the Son entered the earthly realm of existence in a unique way by taking over Himself a perfectly real human life.

As creation is the work of God, redemption is also God's work.

God who created the world made man as the crown of creation. Made in God's image and endowed with creaturely freedom and autonomy, man seeks God and reflects on His being and nature. Through the wrong exercise of man's feewill there came on him and the world at large misery and suffering as well as sin and evil. the salvation o the world, therefore, requires pre-eminently the healing of man. It is this healing which the Incarnation is believed by the Church to have aimed to accomplish.

 

In the Incarnation, God the Son united to Himself real and perfect manhood. Conceived in her womb by Mary the Virgin through the work of the Holy Spirit, He was born in the world as a real man. At the very moment of His conception, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, a personal manhood was formed in the Virgin's womb in union taken from the human mother and was born as perfect God and perfect man in the real sense.

 

Jesus Christ, the incarnate God the Son, is one Person, continuous with Godhead and continuous with manhood. In Him Godhead and manhood continue, each in its integrity and perfection, in a state of indivisible and unconfused union. On this ground the Church of Ethiopia , with the other Oriental Orthodox Churches, affirms that Jesus Christ is not two natures, but one incarnate nature of God the Word. The "one" here is not meant to ignore the dynamic continuance of either Godhead or manhood in the one Christ, but to confess a real incarnation where by God the Son entered the world of ours as a man. He is indeed God the incarnate Son even while He is found to undergo the Frailty of manhood.

 

Living as He did a life of unbroken communion with God, He was absolutely sinless. Maintaining this union in the most inward and real sense, He entered into our battle with sin and evil as a man, and fell a victim to our death. By his suffering and ignominious death on the cross He scored a victory over the forces of evil, and by his resurrection from the dead he lives eternally in his natural unity with God the Father and God the Holy spirit, and in His unbroken and indivisible union with the manhood.

 

The Ethiopian church holds to the view that he is God the Son in His incarnate state. Born of God the Father eternally as God the Son, He was born of the Virgin Mother as a real man. there are a number of affirmations in the Anphora regarding Him, some of which may be noted here.

 

They beat Him on the head as a servant and He set free from the yoke of sin as Lord of all. He suffered all. He cured the blind with His spittle and gave us the Holy Spirit by receiving the spittle of the unclean. He who forgiveth sin was accused as a sinner by them. The judge of judges was judged by them. He was crucified on the tree to destroy sin, was crucified with the sinners to enrol with the righteous. He died through His will, and was buried willingly; He died to destroy death, he died to give life to the dead; He was buried to raise those who were buried, to keep the living, to justify the impure, to justify the sinners, to gather together those who wee scattered, and to turn the sinners to glory and honour.

O Lord, Thou wast struck with the hands of a servant, beaten with sticks, pierced with a spear, and they caused Thee to drink a little gall with vinegar. While Thou west God, able to prevent them, Thou didst not prevent them, Thou didst become patient even to death; all this Thou didst accept for the love of man.

 

The Anaphora of St. Dioscorus contains the following passages bearing on the point at issue in the present context. The priest says there in prayer.

He was laid in the manger of the cattle, received the presents of His kingdom, and wept as infants do, asking for food from the breast of His mother.

 

As to suffering and death in particular, we have passages like the following.

They crucified Him on the tree, nailed Him with nails, beat Him on the head with sticks, pierced His side with a spear, to Him who gave drink to the Israeliets from a rock they gave to drink gall mixed with myrrh in His thirst.

The immortal died, died to destroy death, died to quicken the dead as He promised them with the word of covenant.

 

These and the many other passages in the Liturgy show that the manhood of Christ was absolutely real and perfect. But everywhere the emphasis is on the unity of Jesus Christ. It is affirmed that He is God the Son in His incarnate state. As regards the Incarnation, it is clearly shown that He was conceived in the Virgin's womb, and that He was born as a real man. At the very moment of His conception, thought the Holy Spirit, actual manhood was formed from the human mother in union with Himself. It is to Him who was thus conceived that the Virgin gave birth. Therefore, Jesus christ is indivisibly one. the two natures of Godhead and manhood which came into union in Him continue in the one Christ, each in its absolute integrity and perfection with its respect its dynamic reality, not in a quiescent state, so that Christ is God and man at the same time.

 

The Church of Ethiopia , with the other Oriental Orthodox Churches, has refused to accept the Chalcedonian Definition of the Faith with the affirmation that Christ is "made known in two natures." If by this expression the Churches which accept the Definition mean only that Godhead and manhood continue in the one Christ dynamically, this is the teaching of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. On the other hand, if the expression is taken in the sense that Godhead and manhood continue in Christ only in a state of moral union, there is a basic difference on this issue between the Churches of the Chalcedonian tradition and the Church Ethiopia, which should be noted.

Human Salvation