ightly changed in Rome about 200-220."
While up till then, in Rome as everywhere else, it had read [Greek:
pisteuo eis hena theon pantokratora], it was now changed in [Greek:
pisteuo eis theon patera pantokratora]. This hypothesis, with regard to
the early history of the Roman Symbol, presupposes that the history of
the formation of the baptismal confession in the Church, in east and
west, was originally a uniform one. This cannot be proved; besides, it
is refuted by the facts of the following period. It presupposes
secondly, that there was a strictly formulated baptismal confession
outside Rome before the middle of the second century, which likewise
cannot be proved; (the converse rather is probable, that the fixed
formulation proceeded from Rome.) Moreover, Zahn himself retracts
everything again by the expression "more or less stereotyped form;" for
what is of decisive interest here is the question, when and where the
fixed sacred form was produced. Zahn here has set up the radical thesis
that it can only have taken place in Rome between 200 and 220. But
neither his negative nor his positive proof for a change of the Symbol
in Rome at so late a period is sufficient. No sure conclusion as to the
Symbol can be drawn from the wavering _regulae fidei_ of Irenaeus and
Tertullian which contain the "unum"; further, the "unum" is not found in
the western provincial Symbols, which, however, are in part earlier than
the year 200. The Romish correction must therefore have been
subsequently taken over in the provinces (Africa?). Finally, the formula
[Greek: theon patera pantokratora] beside the more frequent [Greek:
theon pantokratora] is attested by Irenaeus, I. 10. 1, a decisive
passage. With our present means we cannot attain to any direct knowledge
of Symbol formation before the Romish Symbol. But the following
hypotheses, which I am not able to establish here, appear to me to
correspond to the facts of the case and to be fruitful: (1) There were,
even in the earliest period, separate _Kerygmata_ about God and Christ:
see the Apostolic writings, Hermas, Ignatius, etc. (2) The _Kerygma_
about God was the confession of the one God of creation, the almighty
God. (3) The _Kerygma_ about Christ had essentially the same historical
contents everywhere, but was expressed in diverse forms: (a) in the form
of the fulfilment of prophecy, (b) in the form [Greek: kata sarka, kata
pneuma], (c) in the form of the first and second advent, (d)