cripture, for the Rationalists
would claim their interpretation of the Bible to be as trustworthy as his
own; nor could he appeal to the confessions, for his opponents openly
repudiated these as antiquated conceptions of a less enlightened age. His
only hope of giving any real guidance to the confused and distressed
laity of his church thus appeared to depend on the possibility of
discovering an expression of Christianity so authoritative that the most
learned perverter of the faith could not repudiate it and so plain that
the humblest believer could understand it. In his anxiety it even seemed
to him that the Lord had failed adequately to provide for His little ones
if He had not supplied them with such a shield against the storm of
confusing doctrines.

"Being greatly distressed with the thought that all humble Christians
must either fall into doubt concerning their only Savior and His Gospel
or build their faith on the contradictory teachings of learned
theologians," he wrote, "I perceived clearly the pressing need of the
church for a simpler, more dependable and authoritative statement of that
word of God which shall never pass away than all the book-worms of the
world could ever produce. But while my anxiety for the distressed laity
of my church grew and I sought night and day for a clear testimony of
Jesus that would enable them to try the spirits whether they be of God, a
good angel whispered to me: 'Why seekest thou the living among the dead?'
Then the scales fell from my eyes, and I saw clearly that the word of God
which I so anxiously sought could be no other than that which at all
times, in all churches and by all Christians has been accepted as a true
expression of their faith and the covenant of their baptism, the
Apostolic Creed."

In his search for an effective means of arming the laity against the
confusing claims of the Rationalists, Grundtvig thus came to place the
Creed above the Bible, or rather to assert that the two should stand side
by side, and that all explanations of the latter should agree with the
plain articles of the former so that every Christian personally could
weigh the truth or error of what was taught by comparing it with his
baptismal covenant.

Grundtvig supported his "great discovery" with passages from the Bible
and the church fathers, especially Irenaeus. He advanced the theory that
Jesus had taught the Creed to His disciples during the forty days after
His resurrection in whi