An analogy may help to illustrate this distinction. Suppose a despotic ruler in some island were to put up a notice that anyone walking along a certain part of the coast would be arrested and shot; this might well be called uncharitable. But now, suppose the notice was that, owing to their being quicksands along that part of the coast, anyone walking there would be drowned; this might be untrue, but it could scarcely be called uncharitable. So in regard to the Creed. Its warnings (whether true or false) are in no sense uncharitable; and it no more consigns men to perdition (as it is sometimes called) for denying the faith, than a doctor consigns men to die of fever for drinking bad water. In each case they merely state what they believe will (unfortunately) be the result.
Its warnings are also quite different from the Let him be anathema of St. Paul, as well as from some of the Psalms, where the writer does not merely state that the wicked will be miserable, but prays that they may be so.[480] This no doubt seems uncharitable, but there is nothing like it in the Creed.
[480] E.g., Gal. 1. 8-9; Ps. 69.
What the Creed says is that holding, or holding fast,[481] the Catholic Faith, especially the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, is necessary to salvation (vv. 1, 28, 29, 42); and that those who do not keep (or hold fast) this Faith will perish everlastingly (v. 2). The word keep, it should be noticed, implies previous possession, since a man cannot keep what he never had; so these verses are inapplicable to heathens, infidels, or even nominal Christians who have never really held the Faith. They refer only to apostates—to those who, having once held the Faith, do not keep it.
[481] It is so translated in the revised version, issued in November, 1909, by a Committee, under the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Moreover, there can be little doubt that the apostasy here referred to was not that due to intellectual doubt, but to giving way, under persecution. For the Gothic conquerors of Southern Europe, where the Creed was composed about the fifth century, were Arians, and they much persecuted the Catholics. So a statement of what the Catholic Faith really was (in opposition to Arianism) might well contain warnings as to the great danger of abandoning it under trial and persecution. In the same way Christ warned His followers that if they denied Him before men, He would also deny them before His Father.
And a time of persecution is distinctly implied in the Creed itself. For in ver. 30 we are told that it is not enough to believe the faith, it must be publicly confessed; and even in ver. 1, the holding or holding fast, suggests a temptation to surrender. Compare the passage: Thou holdest fast my name, and didst not deny my faith:[482] where in the Latin translation (the Vulgate) the same word is used for hold fast, as occurs in the Creed.
[482] Rev. 2. 13, 25; 3. 11; 2 Tim. 1. 13.
Next as to the meaning of to perish. This is no doubt much disputed, both here, and in the similar passage in the Gospel, where Christ says that all who believe on Him shall not perish, but have eternal (or everlasting) life; which certainly implies that those who disbelieve, or cease to believe, shall perish, and shall not have everlasting life, i.e., shall perish everlastingly.[483] But whatever Christ meant by these words, the Creed means too, neither more nor less. Taken by themselves, they seem to point to the destruction of the wicked; or perhaps only to their failure to obtain the joys of heaven, without actually ceasing to exist.
[483] John 3. 16.