Exposition of our Universal Faith - Expositio Fidei Chatolice (Catholicae) - Isaac the Jew - Ambrosian ms. - Caspari

Steven Avery

Administrator
Isaac the Jew (circa 366-378 AD)

• [The Unadorned Trinity] There also survive two short confessions of faith from Isaac ("Fides Isatis" and "Confessio fidei Catholicae"), a converted Jew who was involved in the disputes between Damasus and Urbinus in the mid-370s, only to suffer exile to Spain where he may have reverted to his ancestral faith. (Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, 2014, p. 99)

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• [Turner] But by far the most important of Dom Morin's recent contributions to patristic studies is his article in the second number for this year of the Revue d'Histoire et de Littérature Religieuses (Paris, 1899), entitled L'Ambrosiaster et le juif converti Isaac, contemporain du pape Damase. Ambrosiaster, as is well known, is the name given, for purposes of convenience, to the author of a commentary on St. Paul's Epistles which Augustine used as 'saint Hilary's,' which the early middle ages attributed to St. Ambrose, and for which modern scholars have suggested one name after another. It is certain that this writer was a contemporary of Pope Damasus (366-384): it is all but certain [PAGE 155] that he lived and wrote at Rome, and that to him belongs also the Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti, printed in the appendix to the first part of the third volume of the Benedictine Augustine. It is certain that he was not either a bishop or a deacon, for he almost equalizes the office of bishop and priest, and he attacks the iactantia Romanorum Leuiiarum: Dom Morin shows further that the arguments for his being a priest are less cogent than those which make him out a layman, and illustrates lay interest in theology from the examples of Ambrosiaster's contemporaries, Tyconius and Marius Victorinus (he might have added from the next half century Marius Mercator)'. He was also, and this Dom Morin is the first to point out, unusually well informed in all that pertained to Judaism. He is acquainted with Jewish legends about the sepulchre of Moses and the demons who served Solomon, and with Jewish apocrypha like the Apocalypse of Elias and the book of Jannes and Jambres, from both of which he supposes St. Paul to borrow. He knows the customs of the synagogue, the right of the seniores to be consulted, the appointment of masters to teach the children, the being seated at disputations — whether on chairs, on benches, or on the ground, according to rank. Dom Morin then reminds us that history tells us of a converted Jew, of the name of Isaac, who played a not unimportant part in the troubles at Rome which accompanied the rival elections in 366 of Damasus and Ursinus. Isaac was a leader of the party of Ursinus, and carried on for many years a campaign which all but culminated in the condemnation of Damasus in the civil courts. The Pope was saved by the Emperor's intervention. Isaac was banished to Spain (c. 378 A. D.), and in chagrin at his ill success fell back into Judaism. But if Isaac was the Ambrosiaster of the Commentary, it is easy to understand, what has hitherto been so unintelligible, why Jerome nowhere alludes to his work even when commenting on the same epistles: the faithful henchman of Damasus boycotted the apostate Jew. It only remains to add that Isaac is mentioned as a theological author by Gennadius of Marseilles, and that a fragment on the Trinity and Incarnation preserved in a Paris MS of canons, under the name Fides Isatis ex ludaeo, 'of Isaac the ex-Jew,' presents striking similarities of language with Ambrosiaster and the Quaestiones. On a review of these arguments it seems hardly premature to say that Dom Morin has solved one of the great problems of patristic literature. [PAGE 156] Such, at any rate, is the opinion of Dr. Zahn as expressed in the Theologisches Literaturblatt for July 7.

(Turner, Review of Morin "L'Ambrosiaster", vol 1 (1900), 154-156).
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23949335

HIT:

● [Exposition of our Universal Faith]
We believe in the one God according to the scripture, are to be believed, do not be like the Jews, or heretics, on its own, but in the mystery of the Trinity, that is, so that we would believe that the Father is not the Son, and certainly we do believe that the Son is not the Father, and certainly the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, because the Father is ingenerate, the Son is certainly generated from the Father without beginning, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and receives from the Son. As the Evangelist testifies, that it is written, "there are three, that are witnessing in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one in Christ Jesus." He did not say, "One in Christ Jesus" ["unus" masculine nominative singular] And in the Gospel it says, "Go ye, [...] baptizing the nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." And again, that the Lord himself said, "I and the Father are one." And in the Psalms we read, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand." And in the Gospel of John this is said, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." Saying, therefore, that the Word is God, that is: the Son who is with the Father. By naming God twice he designated God the Father and Son as persons.

○ Latin: Expositio Fidei Catholicae (Chatolice)
Credimus unum deum secundum scripturam esse credendum, non sicut Iudaei aut haeretici, solitarium, sed in mysterio trinitatis, id est patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum, tres personas, non tamen tres deos. Personas autem sic dicimus, ut non divinitatem haeretico sensummembris, sicut hominem, conponamus, quia divinitas quae est incorporalis tam inmensa est, tam inextimabilis, ut intra se omnia contineat, ipsa autem circumscribi non possit, sed ut patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum unum et indivisium esse ita in divinitate ac virtute <credamus>, ut tres in personis, id est ut patrem credamus non esse filium, filium vero credamus non esse patrem, spiritum autem sanctum nec patrem esse nec filium; quia pater est ingenitus, filius vero sine initio genitus a patre est, spiritus autem santus processit a patre et accipit de filio, sicut evangelista testatur, quia scriptum est: "Tres sunt, qui dicunt testimonium in caelo : pater, verbum et spiritus, et haec tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu." (1 John 5:7) Non tamen dixit: "Unus est in Christo Iesu." Et in evangelio dicit: "Ite, baptizate gentes in nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti." (Matthew 28:19) Et denuo ipse dominus dicit: "Ego et pater unum sumus." (John 10:30) Et in psalmis legimus: "Dicit dominus domino meo : Sede a dextris meis." (Psalm 110:1) Et in evangelio Iohannis sic dicit: "In principio erat verbum, et verbum erat apud deum, et deus erat verbum." (John 1:1) Deum ergo dicendum verbum, id est filium qui est apud patrem. Deum bis nominando deum patrem et filium designavit personas.
(CCSL 9:347, Lines 1-26)
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Hi Professor Ayres,

Greetings!
I have a question from Augustine and the Trinity p. 99-100

If the Ambrosian ms. is Isaac the Jew around AD 370-375 (Turner said this is certain as well in 1900) involving Damsus and Urbinus disputes, then we have a full heavenly witnesses, 1 John 5:7, citation likely before Priscillian's in Liber Apologeticus. In the Confessio fidei Catholicae.

That would modify a lot of textual scholarship, which tries to focus on Priscillian as the first one. (And his text is quirky!)

Does that make sense ?

Thanks!

Steven Avery
Dutchess County, NY USA
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
Some notes to help figure out if this is a powerful 4th century evidence, before Priscillian, with a full Heavenly Witnesses.

Isaac the Jew (circa AD 366-378)
As the Evangelist testifies, that it is written, "there are three, that are witnessing in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one in Christ Jesus."
Expositio Fidei Catholicae (CCSL 9:347, Lines 1-26)

https://purebibleforum.com/index.php?threads/isaac-the-jew-ambrosian-ms-caspari.2147/
two short confessions of faith from Isaac ("Fides Isatis”and ”Confessio fidei Catholicae"), disputes between Damasus and Urbinus in the mid-370s (Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, 2014, p. 99)
Augustine and the Trinity
https://books.google.com/books?id=LpyG7YnkqokC&pg=PA99

... It is certain that this writer was a contemporary of Pope Damasus (366-384):
(Turner, Review of Morin”L'Ambrosiaster", vol 1 (1900), 154-156).
https://books.google.com/books?id=gzdKAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA154
https://archive.org/details/journaltheologi02unkngoog/page/154/mode/2up

[Exposition of our Universal Faith]
Expositio Fidei Catholicae
(CCSL 9:347, Lines 1-26)
sicut evangelista testatur, quia scriptum est: ”Tres sunt, qui dicunt testimonium in caelo : pater, verbum et spiritus, et haec tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu.”
Westcott had said "Africa in the last quarter of the fifth century"

RGA p. 37-38
The second is the Expositio fidei chatolice, an orthodox creed written probably in Spain in the fifth or sixth century, in which this symbolum occurs as part of the wording of the Johannine comma.48

48 Expositio fidei chatolice, in Caspari, 1883, XIV, 305: “[…] pater est ingenitus, filius uero sine initio genitus a patre est, spiritus autem sanctus processet [procedit Caspari] a patre et accipit de filio sicut euangelista testatur, quia scriptum est: Tres sunt qui dicunt testimonium in cælo: pater, uerbum et spiritus, et hæc tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu. Non tamen dixit: unus est in Christo Iesu.” The Expositio is preserved in Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana ms I 101 sup., the same eighth-century manuscript that contains the Muratorian Canon. The date and provenance of the Expositio are disputed. Caspari, 1883, 304-308, the first editor of the document, suggested that it was written in Africa around the fifth or sixth century. Morin, 1899, 101-102, suggested less convincingly that it was written by Isaac Judaeus in the time of Pope Damasus (372). A more convincing explanation was offered by Künstle, 1905b, 89-99, who suggested that it was written in Spain in the fifth or sixth century against the position of Priscillian. In support of his contention that the Expositio is Spanish, Künstle noted that the same manuscript contains a Fides Athanasii, which is identical with the eighth chapter of the De Trinitate of ps.-Vigilius, and that the whole collection of documents in this manuscript is a suite of tracts belonging to the anti-Priscillianist movement. He concluded that Isaac cannot have written the Expositio, since he lived before the comma Johanneum is first attested, though this argument seems a little circular. Further on Morin’s hypotheses, see Lunn-Rockliffe, 2007, 33-Lunn-Rockliffe, Sophie. Ambrosiaster’s Political Theology. Oxford: OUP, 2007.

Grantley -
Sure, but you still haven't dealt with Künstle's objections to Morin

Morin, G. “L’Ambrosiaster et le juif converti Isaac contemporain du pape Damase.” Revue d’histoire et de litterature religieuses 4 (1899): 97-121.

(Turner, Review of Morin "L'Ambrosiaster", vol 1 (1900), 154-156).see above
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23949335

Künstle, Karl.. Antipriscilliana: Dogmengeschichtliche Untersuchungen und Texte aus dent Streite gegen Priscillians Irrlehre. Freiburg: Herder, 1905b.

Lunn-Rockliffe, Sophie. Ambrosiaster’s Political Theology. Oxford: OUP, 2007.
https://www.amazon.com/Ambrosiasters-Political-Theology-Christian-Studies/dp/019923020X
https://www.proquest.com/docview/816241451
Dr. Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe
https://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/directory/dr-sophie-lunn-rockliffe
Worldcat - Ambrosiaster’s Political Theology
https://www.worldcat.org/title/ambrosiasters-political-theology/oclc/608348575

=========================


Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, 2014, p. 99)
https://www.amazon.com/Augustine-Trinity-Lewis-Ayres/dp/1107689287?asin=1107689287
https://www.academia.edu/11677884/Augustine_on_the_Something_or_other_to_do_with_the_Trinity

Cuthbert H. Turner, Review of Morin”L'Ambrosiaster", vol 1 (1900), 154-156


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G. Morin, L’Ambrosiaster et le Juif Converti Isaac, Contemporain du Pape Damase (Revue d'Histoire et de Literature Reliyieuses, IV (1899) pp. 97-121
( = 1-25)).

Turner, Cuthbert H. “Ambrosiaster and Damasus.” JTS 7 (1906):

Souter
A Study of Ambrosiaster
https://archive.org/details/studyofambrosias00soutuoft/page/166/mode/2up
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Contra Isaac the Jew p.5
https://archive.org/details/studyofambrosias00soutuoft/page/4/mode/2up
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
My short summary

Expositio fidei chatolice

=============================

Confessio fidei Catholicae - The Ambrosian ms. that has the Muratonian Canon. Lewis Ayres in Augustine and the Trinity (2014) p. 99-100 says this is connected to Damasus and Urbinus. Cuthbert Hamilton Turner showed this similarly in 1900, "the rival elections in 366 of Damasus and Ursinus. ... Dom Morin has solved one of the great problems of patristic literature." And Theodor Zahn agreed.

Excellent review info from Burn:

The Ambrosiaster and Isaac the Converted Jew (1899)
Andrew Eubank Burn
https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/expositor/series5/10-368.pdf
https://archive.org/details/expositor10nicoiala/page/368/mode/2up?view=theater
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Ehrman Blog

The textual writers seem to be stuck on the idea of Priscillian as the first full heavenly witnesses evidence. Since his quote is quirky, and he was executed for sorcery or magic, this allows a type of hand-waving dismissal.

The Ambrosian ms., with the Muratonian canon, has a work Confessio fidei Catholicae, where the author is likely Isaac the Jew, writing around 370, connected with the AD 366 election dispute between Damasus and Urbanus.

[Exposition of our Universal Faith]
As the Evangelist testifies, that it is written, "there are three, that are witnessing in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one in Christ Jesus."

... sicut evangelista testatur, quia scriptum est:”Tres sunt, qui dicunt testimonium in caelo : pater, verbum et spiritus, et haec tria unum sunt in Christo Iesu.”
Expositio Fidei Catholicae (CCSL 9:347, Lines 1-26)

This identification was explained by Dom Germain Morin, and affirmed by Cuthbert Hamilton Turner and Theodor Zahn, and a superb Review by Andrew Eubank Burn.

Lewis Ayres of Durham affirms this authorship in:

Augustine and the Trinity, 2014
https://books.google.com/books?id=LpyG7YnkqokC&pg=PA99
p. 99-100.

While neither writing can be dated precisely, and both connect to Damasus, the reference from Isaac the Jew is likely earlier than Priscillian.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Compare to new note from Lewis Ayres.

Then go back to early discussions c. AD 1900.

Grantley
If you mean the Expositio fidei chatolice (Credimus unum deum secundum scripturam), Künstle already argued that Morin's attribution of this work to Isaac was untenable. I tend to think that this confession was written in Spain in the fifth or sixth century by someone who had access to Isaac's work. Do you have something more recent on the authorship of this confession? Ayres pointed out parallels between the formulations in the Expositio and those found in Augustine. With all respect to Ayres, it is equally possible that the influence ran the other way: the author of the Expositio may have been influenced by Augustine's formulation.

Ayres is quite correct that there are similarities between the formulations in the Expositio and those of Augustine. Having assumed that the Expositio was written by Isaac, he concluded that Augustine must have known the Expositio. That conclusion would make sense if Isaac's authorship were secure, but it isn't. If we suspend all assumptions about the authorship of the Expositio, it is equally possible that the similarites are due to the fact that the author of the Expositio was influenced by Augustine.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
June 26, 2022

Hi Professor Ayres,

A little follow up!

Where can I find the specific text details to show that fidei Catholicae relates to The time of Ursinus and Damasus? Is that published anywhere? Historically, it seems very important and could have its own page somewhere.

I have not seen the details fr

Dear Steven

I think you need to go back to Morin’s article from 1899 to find the arguments with reference to the texts you are interested in. The question, I think, is not whether Isaac stems from that date, but whether the works attributed to him are all his! For *my* part this is actually not hugely important. In my book I accept Morin’s arguments, but they might well be wrong. All that would mean for me is that Augustine is not quoting “Isaac” but the other way round.

Very best,

Lewis.
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
The Ursinus and Damasus Theory - fits Isaac the Jew, dates the ms.
Expositio Fidei

Dom Germain Morin
Questions on the Old and New Testament (1899)
http://books.google.com/books?id=gzdKAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA594


Dom Germain Morin (1899) - proposes theory
http://archive.org/stream/revuedhis...oks.google.com/books?id=gzdKAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA155
also Zahn

Andrew Eubank Burn (1895)
http://archive.org/stream/expositor10nicoiala#page/368/mode/2up
The Ambrosiaster and Isaac the Converted Jew (1899)
https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/expositor/series5/10-368.pdf

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Westcott

Otto Bardenhewer - Patrology: The Lives and Works of the Fathers of the Church - (1908)
http://books.google.com/books?id=miJVuXgM1acC&pg=PA441

Alan England Brooke (1912) ICCS
https://books.google.com/books?id=_ekYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA158
p. 158-159

===================================

Jülicher, Adolf. Rev. of Künstle, 1905a. Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen 167 (1905): 930-935.
http://books.google.com/books?id=UiAWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA930

Künstle, Karl. Das Comma Ioanneum. Auf seine Herkunft untersucht. Freiburg: Herder, 1905a.
-----. Antipriscilliana: Dogmengeschichtliche Untersuchungen und Texte aus dem Streite gegen
Priscillians Irrlehre. Freiburg: Herder, 1905b.

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===================================

Witness of God is Greater

Kunstle disagrees and that is Grantley's approach

Lewis Ayres says go back to Morin, explained in the English of Turner.
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
This is before Caspari 1883
Are there two Expositio fidei catholicae?


The Nicene and Apostles' Creeds: Their Literary History; Together with an Account of the Growth and Reception of the Sermon on the Faith Commonly Called "The Creed of St. Athanasius." (1875)
Charles Anthony Swainson
https://books.google.com/books?id=6uRVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA273

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Nos Patrem, et Filium, efc Spiritum sanctum confitemur, ita in Trinitate perfects, ut et plenitudo sit Divinitatis, et uuitas potestatis. Nani tres Deos elicit qui Divinitatem separat Trinitatis. Pater Deus, Filius Deus, Spiritus sanctus Deus, et tres unum sunt in Christo JesiL Tres itaquc Persona1, sed una lKitestas. Ergo diversitos piures facit; unitas
 

Steven Avery

Administrator
ICCS
https://books.google.com/books?id=_ekYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA158

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Where is Priscillian attacked?

============================


Lewis Ayres (the procession part, not the heavenly witnesses part)
https://books.google.com/books?id=LpyG7YnkqokC&pg=PA100

Isaac, exp. (CCSL 9. 347): ‘id est ut patrem credamus non esse filium, filium vero credamus non
esse patrem, spiritum autem sanctum nec patrem esse nec filium; quia pater est ingenitus, filius
vero sine initio genitus a patre est, spiritus autem sanctus processit a patre et accipit de filio’.
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Latin - these may be the full texts

Kirchenhistorische anecdota, veröffentl. von C.P. Caspari. I. Lateinische Schriften
Caspari (1883)
https://books.google.com/books?id=icoUAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA304

Karl Kunstle (partial?)
https://books.google.com/books?id=baufuOZpsw4C&pg=PA90

Swainson
https://books.google.com/books?id=6uRVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA273

Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche (1897)
August Hahn
https://books.google.com/books?id=cD8zAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA331
heavenly witnesses on p. 332

Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 8 (1907)
The Codex Muratorianus
Edgar Simmons Buchanan
https://books.google.com/books?id=3D9KAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA544
https://ur.booksc.me/book/42498087/d6ef3e
p. 537-545

CCSL Volume
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
COMPARING THEORIES

Isaac the Jew 4th century-
(Or another writer near Rome in the Damasus-Ursinus period)
Morin, Zahn and Turner
Burn
Lewis Ayres

Spain 5th century -
Kunstle

https://books.google.com/books?id=baufuOZpsw4C&pg=PA90
Künstle, 1905b, 89-99, who suggested that it was written in Spain in the fifth or sixth century against the position of Priscillian. In support of his contention that the Expositio is Spanish, Künstle noted that the same manuscript contains a Fides Athanasii, which is identical with the eighth chapter of the De Trinitate of ps.-Vigilius, and that the whole collection of documents in this manuscript is a suite of tracts belonging to the anti-Priscillianist movement. He concluded that Isaac cannot have written the Expositio, since he lived before the comma Johanneum is first attested, though this argument seems a little circular.
Grantley

Ask info
Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe
https://books.google.com/books?id=f...-AyI4KBDoAXoECAgQAw#v=onepage&q=isaac&f=false
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Mike

the reason why those works are together in one book is because it was regular practice to copy apologetics like works into a single book and use it for reference when needed. That started way back in the era of Charlemagne (in the West). So, again, these are facts that support our position even more so. One would expect to find the opposite if the verse was condemned as "arian" and/or "corruption" (i.e., it would not be in such a book).

good site : it gives you a table of contents view of the book. See what I mean.
https://www.mirabileweb.it/manuscript/milano-biblioteca-ambrosiana-i-101-sup--manuscript/4475
 
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