After becoming Orthodox, but after being unable to revert to Futurism, I began to entertain in my mind revisions to the Creed so as to make it compatible with “realized” eschatology.
One of those “revisions” I came up with, which I thought would not alter orthodox theology, was to instead of Whose kingdom will have no end, to recite Whose kingdom has no end. Often, when praying alone, this was the way I uttered that part of the Creed.
If Christ is king now, I reasoned, and if the kingdom of heaven is…in heaven, to be fully enjoyed after our physical death, but overlapping with earth now through the portal of our hearts, being within us (Luke 17:21), making us His stewards on earth; then the kingdom is now and everlasting, therefore it has no end. To say that (after his second coming) it will have no end, is to imply that the kingdom is not yet, that Christ is not a king yet. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that millions of Christians, and technically futurists at that, as members of national and canonical churches, professed and still profess this part of the Creed exactly this way.
Last month I was shocked to discover that the original Slavonic version of the Nicene Creed, which was the official version of the Russian Orthodox Church until the 1650s, instead of having the familiar “Whose Kingdom will have no end,” it read, you guessed it:
Whose Kingdom has no end.
This way is how the Creed first came to the Southern Slavs in the 800s with the translation of Saints Cyril and Methodius and this is the way it entered into the Kievan Rus, what is today Ukraine, Belarus and European Russia, in the 900s. There were other differences, in the Creed and liturgical practice in general, but they do not concern eschatology.
Eventually these differences were ended, by bringing all Slavic Creeds that were under the jurisdiction of Constantinople, into full accordance with the Greek, as it came to be understood over time. By the mid seventeenth century only the church of the Tsardom of Russia, which was autocephalous since 1598, retained the original Creed. By this time Russia had just retaken most of Ukraine from Poland, and Ukraine, being ecclesiastically under Constantinople, followed the revised rules and Creed. The czar and the Russian patriarch decided to end this divergence and bring the Tsardom into liturgical unity within itself and with the rest of the Orthodox realm. At the same time, there were also ulterior political motives. Russia was the only remaining independent Orthodox nation and the czar was seen as the natural leader of the Orthodox world. This was a time when the concept of the Third Rome was in full swing. Many of the Orthodox Patriarchs, who were subject to the Muslims and were dependent on Russian support, strongly encouraged the czar to proceed with the reform. Thus reform came about and the resulting schism of the Russian church into Old Believers and New Believers, as each party called the other.
Back to our creedal subject. The original Creed had for points of divergence with the one we now know:
- Isus instead of Iisus (with double i), as the name of Jesus
- begotten, but not made, instead of begotten, not made
- whose kingdom has no end, instead of whose kingdom will have no end
- the Holy Spirit, the true Lord…, instead the Holy Spirit, the Lord…
The literature on this Schism is substantial. Most of it is either favorable to the winning side of the reformers, or coming from secular sources, therefore either neutral or derogatory in general, as its considers the changes trivial and the reaction to them fanatical. Little is written from the losing side of the Old Believers. I was impressed to find out that virtually all discussion from these majority sources leaves out the eschatological point #3 above. The other three points are borderline irrelevant, theologically, and or revolve around the question of a literal vs dynamic approach to translation. I wouldn’t die for them, as many Old Believers chose to do, and I would certainly not kill for them, as the rulers of the reform sometimes did. Point #3 is different, it goes beyond. It is not irrelevant. It also seems to require a dynamic translation. Discussing point #3 creates too many awkward moments and it seems that the established churches and debaters prefer to avoid it.
To better understand the historical context and the unavoidable nuances of the linguistics involved, I strongly encourage you to read my translation of deacon Valery Timofieiev’s article, written from the Old Believers’ perspective. Most of my comments here are based on that article, but I felt that a new, less technical version was needed. Keep in mind that in Slavonic, as in Greek and Latin, the literal translation of that part of the Creed would be To Whose kingdom there will be no end. To keep it simple and familiar, I used here the traditional Whose kingdom will have no end, something that could not be done when translating the source without destroying much of its sense. Finally, Timofieiev’s original article and the original website that hosted it, are down since 2008. The site’s URL alleges as reason:
mass spammers’ attacks and lack of resources to develop the site.
http://www.npj.ru/drz/faithsymbol2
The article survives only in forums where other people have reposted it.
The literal translation of the Creed into English, and most vernaculars, is grammatically correct as we have it; the subject verb is undeniably in the future tense. However these translations ignore two things:
- the nuances of the Greek vs other languages
- the theological context
Koine Greek, like most ancient languages, is richer than modern vernaculars, it can convey much more meanings, often with less words. These nuances are often determined by context and the context in this case, is the theology of the fathers who created that same Creed. This theology, as recorded in numerous councils and writings, stated that the kingdom of Christ has no beginning and no end, that it is boundless. It described Christ as reigning then, now and unto eternity.
Whose kingdom, as everlasting, abides in limitless ages, for He sits at the right hand of the Father, not only in this age, but also in the coming.
4th Antiochian formula of the Creed [See: 38. C 62]
We believe: that the Son reigns with the Father always, without beginning and without end, that His kingdom is not determined by any time and will never cease, for what always exists did not begin and cannot end.
Council of Serdica 343, (Theodoret. 2, 8)
Hosius of Corduba, on behalf of all the Orthodox bishops of the 1st Council, said about the Son of God:
The True God is always existing from the true God, and the Father is always existing, ruling with the Father, co-eternal with the Father, reigning with the Father.
Gelas. Vol. act. conc. nic. I. 2. XIV [13. P. 107]
Who sits at the right hand of the Father before all ages, for He did not receive from God the throne at His right hand after suffering, having been crowned then, as some think, but by His own being; He is born with, and always has, royal dignity, sits with the Father, is God and Wisdom and Power, as it is said: together with the Father he reigns and does everything according to the will of the Father, without, however, diminishing in Divine dignity.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem Fourth Catechetical Teaching [21] (IV, 7)
At the second council of Constantinople, when the final version of our Creed was fixed, the phrase Whose kingdom will have no end was explicitly directed against Marcellus of Ancyra, who taught that the kingdom of Christ is finite, that it will cease after the Last Judgment, merging with the kingdom of God the Father. In one word the kingdom of Christ will one day end. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem emphatically denounced Marcellus as a heretic, alleging that Christ kingdom is eternal with no bounds, basing his argument primarily on Daniel 7:14:
And when you hear from someone that the kingdom of Christ will have an end, hate this heresy, it is the second head of the serpent, which recently grew in Galatia [Ancyra was the capital of Galatia in Asia Minor F.P.]. Someone dared to say that after the end of the world Christ will not reign; they dare to assert that the Word, which came from the Father, and after having returned to the Father, will no longer exist. Nowadays heretics teach against Christ, while Gabriel the Archangel taught about the eternal abiding of the Savior. Listen to the testimony of Daniel read now: ‘And to Him was given power and honor, and a kingdom, and all people, tribes, and nations will serve Him: His power, is power eternal, which will not pass away, and his kingdom will not be scattered.’ Hold fast to this, only believe in this, and turn away from the heretical teaching, for you have heard very clearly about the infinity of the kingdom of Christ.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Teaching XV, 27
The above proves that the context is one with Christ reigning then, now and forever in a kingdom with no bounds of time or space.
Concerning the nuances of the Greek, Timofieiev’s linguists allege that Greek grammar, depending on the context, could allow for a verb to mean more than strictly the future tense. Context would convey in this case the implied understanding of has and will have no end, which is consistent with the father’s dogmatic statements. This seems to be supported by online dictionaries: Google translates the whole phrase in the present tense, despite the verb being clearly in the future tense. As per the above linguists, the future tense in the Slavonic is more narrow in meaning and it creates a phrase that does not allow for any other sense other than the future. Essentially, the phrase would mean that Christ’s kingdom has not come yet, that it will only come after the second coming, and only after that, His kingdom will have no end.
This, judging from the councils’ dogma, is some kind of a new heresy, alleges the deacon. If Marcellus did not doubt that Christ reigns, but asserted that His kingdom will one day end, then the reformed Creed says that Christ’s reign has not yet begun at all. The leader of the Old Believers, martyr Archpriest Avvakum, pointed this out in his petition to the Czar (spring 1664):
“And it seems to me, my sovereign, that creation is weeping, seeing its Lord dishonored, when they incorrectly say in the confession of your faith, that the Holy Spirit is king in heaven, but that Christ, the Son of God, is not. He, [the reforming patriarch] does not…confess Christ to be King now…
[15. P. 103, 105]”
The reformer’s belief that Christ is not reigning yet, and that his kingdom is sometime in the future, is not a mere assumption. It is stated in writing in their own publications. The A Brief Explanatory Prayer Book. Trinity Evangelist. Edition of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra states:
“His kingdom will have no end: after the judgment the kingdom of Christ will come, which will continue endlessly”
[47. P. 169]
From these explanations it also follows that after the second coming, as the New Believers believe, a special kingdom of Christ will come, which will have no end. Surprisingly, it turns out that the New Believers turned the heretic’s Marcellus of Ancyra old idea on its head, and if he said that the special kingdom of Christ exists now, and after the Judgment it will end, then in the revised Creed it turned out that the kingdom of Christ does not exist now and will only come after the Judgment, reasons Timofieiev.
Saint Gregory the Theologian, in his 30th Oration, explains how the phrase Whose kingdom will have no end should be understood:
Who and for what reason, will put an end to His kingdom?… however, and you do know it, His kingdom will have no end. The Son is confessed to be reigning – in one sense, as the Almighty and King, both of the willing and unwilling; but in another, as bringing us to obedience and subordinating us to his the kingdom of those who voluntarily recognize Him as King. And His kingdom, if we understand it in the first meaning, will have no end; and if we understand it in the second, will it have any end?
[8. C. 430, 431]
Saint Gregory’s explanations have the goal, as can be seen from the above passage, to prove that the now reigning Christ will always reign.
Based on the above, deacon Timofieiev believes that the original translation Whose kingdom has no end, better conveys the intent of the original Greek and is consistent with the patristic tradition, whereas the new translation Whose kingdom will have no end, is heretical and aching to millenarianism, as it states that Christ will reign in a special kingdom only after the second coming. He acknowledges that that not all New Believers think this way, but if so, why the change?
The sceptic can argue that this has no end story is a singular case of the Slavs, caused by the rules of their own language. But simple online searches crossed referenced with online translators will show that the has no end phenomenon went far beyond the Slavic world. Wikipedia in its English page of the Nicean Creed presents the Armenian version as saying:
of His kingdom there is no end.
որոյ թագաւորութեանն ոչ գոյ վախճան
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed
Google Translate translates it just the same and Wiktionary confirms that the verb is in the present tense. Evidently the Armenians, centuries before the Slavs, chose to go fully present tense.
Furthermore, if you copy from Wikipedia and paste into Google Translate the Arabic, Egyptian Arabic (Coptic influenced), Amharic (Ethiopian) and Malayalam (a Dravidian language of India) versions of the Creed, you get the following:
- Arabic—————– مملكته ليس لها نهاية —————————————— His kingdom has no end
- Egyptian Arabic — اللى مش لملكه انقضاء. ————————————— Whose kingdom has no expiration
- Amharic: ———— ለመንግሥቱ፡ ፍጻሜ የለውም። —————————- For the kingdom: there is no end.
- Malayalam ——— അവസാനമില്ലാത്ത രാജത്വമുള്ളവനു— whose kingdom has no end
Malayalam is the language of the Saint Thomas Christians of India, who trace their origin to the apostle Thomas. Traditionally and for the most part, they belong to the Church of the East and follow the Syriac (Aramaic) rite, which is still performed in the Syriac (Aramaic) language. Their script is based on the Syriac alphabet. This led me to look for the Syriac version itself, and yes:
Whose kingdom has no End
The Nicene Creed in the Syriac Psalter by W. Emery Barnes. The Journal of Theological Studies. p 441
There is a common pattern in all this. These versions are old and or peripheral. The Russian church used to be peripheral, when that no longer was the case, the Creed had to be revised. The other cases are of relatively small and or far away churches, they survived reform, just like the Book of Enoch survived in the Ethiopian church. India would be the most peripheral case, however their origin is from the very center of Christianity, the Semitic middle East, whose Syriac version suggests how this part of the Creed was understood at the very beginning. A kingdom that was then, now and forever.
If the Greek original means, in context, Whose kingdom has and will have no end, and if, in order to be consistent, many in the early church translated it in the present tense, why the subsequent “corrections” into the future? Was the Christendom of the first millennium so illiterate that it could not find good translators for a substantial portion of its body? It is not reasonable to believe so, as this translation problem works both ways, no matter which version is presumed correct. It is more reasonable to assume the influence of Futurist eschatology over the meaning of words. Early on, the Greeks allowed translations to be in the present tense, but after a few centuries, they began to demand the future tense. But the Greeks, who had no state anymore, were in no position to pressure anyone. Perhaps it was the Latins who pressured the Greeks as part of the reunion process that was going on during that time?
The verse entered into the Latin using a verb in the future tense, but as in Greek, Latin grammar allows for the phrase to be understood with present tense overtones, as per Timofieiev’s sources. Google, again, seems to support this by translating the phrase in the present tense, despite the verb being clearly in the future. I don’t know how the head of Western Christendom interpreted it initially, but clearly by the late middle ages the interpretation must have been fully in the future, because all translations into the vernaculars that were made in the West, used a phrase in the future tense, including those of the Catholic Slavs. One of the accusations the Old Believers brought against the reforming Patriarch was that he was implementing Catholic innovations, because will have no end, is how the Catholics, including the Uniates, wrote their Creed.
The early post 70 A.D. church lived fully in a now but not yet worldview. The not yet part they believed it as about to come, in their lifetimes, just as Christ and the apostles had said it. They were technically Futurists, as the main eschatological events were for them in the future, but they lived as Preterists, living the kingdom now, in a spiritual manner, doing all they could to enter the kingdom of heaven upon physically dying. This was a doable position for generations, supported by miracles and the workings of the Holy Spirit. But as centuries passed, the inherent contradictions of Futurism demanded corrections. The kingdom is either now or future. Unfortunately, the corrections and adjustments tended to be on the side reason, according to the dominant Futurist mindset. Thus the implied “has no end” meaning was ignored, forgotten, eventually denied.
The problem is not lack of good translators, but of eschatology affecting meaning, as it progressed from an about to be end of the age, into a future age into the unknown. From a spiritual worldview into a materialistic one. From a mystical approach into a rational approach. I have documented how futurist eschatology has affected the meaning of other parts of the Creed here and here and here.
The shift to Will Have no End is logical, under the futurist paradigm. The original Creed has the phrase in the future tense, and any cursory analysis of Futurist eschatology shows that the kingdom is no yet. They will say “now, but not yet,” but the “now” part would be actually “in the spirit.” In this age, the kingdom is not yet, under the Futurist paradigm. The past understanding of Has no End, meaning It Is, was accepted to a large extent mystically, spiritually, not rationally. The early Christians must have intuitively felt the kingdom come, some scripture confirmed it, despite contradictory interpretation of other scripture, as per the fathers. Back then, logic and reason, was important, but second to the spirit. So the spirit won the day for several centuries. But when the national spirits became overwhelmed by reason and matter, then the “reasonable” futurist interpretation won the day. Futurism is the Achilles’ heel of true Christianity. The Christianity that is pilgrimaging in this world, which knows that the kingdom is not of this world and looks forward to that eternal kingdom as to home. True, traditional, spiritual Christianity cannot win the day with reason, because as per reason, Soon is soon, This Generation is obviously the first century generation, Not of this World means not of this physical, material realm.
Returning to the schism of the Russian church, Futurism was a key factor in causing it. The Old Believers, seeing their faith as received from their apostles and saints threatened, immediately equated the reforming Patriarch with the antichrist. What the reformers considered a technical change, the Old believers viewed as the Apocalypse. For them it was the end of the world. Millions chose to drop everything and go into the wilderness, disrupting the economy, causing thousands to die of hardships. Many chose to self immolate. Often, when the agents of the czar came to enforce the reform, whole villages shut in their churches and set themselves on fire. After all, this world, controlled by the man of sin, was about to end, wasn’t it? It was better to die a martyr and go straight to heaven. Thousands were killed, some burnt as heretics, most as insurgents in revolts in which Old Believers played an important role. The Old Believer’s leaders were as much to blame as the reformers for the fracture of Russian society, and their eschatology was a primary motivation.
This schism was another chapter in human history where the end of the world came and went, and failed to materialize. How many more of these events do we need to realize how damaging can Futurism be to the faith? How many more need to die so we can start considering that maybe, just maybe soon, about to be, this generation and not of this world mean just that?
That His kingdom won’t be, but rather is, and it has no end.
Dear credalist friends (no pun intended as I am one), you have seen that a substantial portion of Christendom formally recited this part of the Creed as Whose kingdom has no end, and that millions still do so. They are not considered heretics. The Russian church has long ago withdrawn the anathema and is now in full communion with most Old Believers, and the other listed churches were never anatemizad on this point. You have also seen that the future tense in this part of the Creed can be, and has been, interpreted as meaning a kingdom, and a King, that are not yet.
Regardless of your eschatological position, wouldn’t you agree that this part of the Creed will best serve Christ and will better reflect His teaching and those of the fathers, if it were in the present tense?
Glory to Thee o Lord, glory to Thee.
