the great mass even of Christian believers); but it does mean to exclude from heaven all who reject the divine truth therein taught. It requires every one who would be saved to believe in the only true and living God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one in essence, three in persons, and in one Jesus Christ, very God and very Man in one person.

The damnatory clauses, especially when sung or chanted in public worship, grate harshly on modern Protestant ears, and it may well be doubted whether they are consistent with true Christian charity and humility, and whether they do not transcend the legitimate authority of the Church. They have been defended by an appeal to Mark xvi. 16; but in this passage those only are condemned who reject the gospel, i. e., the great facts of Christ's salvation, not any peculiar dogma. Salvation and damnation depend exclusively on the grace of God as apprehended by a living faith, or rejected in ungrateful unbelief. The original Nicene Symbol, it is true, added a damnatory clause against the Arians, but it was afterwards justly omitted. Creeds, like hymns, lose their true force and miss their aim in proportion as they are polemical and partake of the character of manifestoes of war rather than confessions of faith and thanks to God for his mighty works.1

IV. INTRODUCTION and USE.-The Athanasian Creed acquired great authority in the Latin Church, and during the Middle Ages it was almost daily used in the morning devotions.2

The Reformers inherited the veneration for this Symbol. It was formally adopted by the Lutheran and several of the Reformed Churches, and is approvingly mentioned in the Augsburg Confession, the Form of Concord, the Thirty-nine Articles, the Second Helvetic, the Belgic, and the Bohemian Confessions.3

'It seems very hard,' says Bishop Jeremy Taylor, 'to put uncharitableness into a creed, and so to make it become an article of faith.' Chillingworth: The damning clauses in St. Athanasius's Creed are most false, and also in a high degree schismatical and presumptuous.'

2 J. Bona, De divina Psalmodia, c. 16, § 18, p. 863 (as quoted by Köllner, Symbolik, I. 85): 'Illud Symbolum olim, teste Honorio, quotidie est decantatum, jam vero diebus Dominicis in totius cœtus frequentia recitatur, ut sanctæ fidei confessio ea die apertius celebretur.'

3

It is printed, with the two other œcumenical Creeds, in all the editions of the Lutheran 'Book of Concord,' and as an appendix to the doctrinal formulas of the Reformed Dutch Church in America. It was received into the 'Provisional Liturgy of the German Reformed Church in the United States,' published Philadelphia, 1858, but omitted in the revised edition of 1867.

Luther was disposed to regard it as 'the most important and glorious composition since the days of the apostles."

Some Reformed divines, especially of the Anglican Church, have commended it very highly; even the Puritan Richard Baxter lauded it as 'the best explication [better, statement] of the Trinity,' provided, however, 'that the damnatory sentences be excepted, or modestly expounded.'

In the Church of England it is still sung or recited in the cathedrals and parish churches on several festival days, but this compulsory public use meets with growing opposition, and was almost unanimously condemned in 1867 by the royal commission appointed to consider certain changes in the Anglican Ritual.3

The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, when, in consequence of the American Revolution, it set up a separate organization in the Convention of 1785 at Philadelphia, resolved to remodel the Liturgy (in the Proposed Book'), and, among other changes, excluded from it both the Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds, and struck out from the Apostles' Creed the clause, 'He descended into hell.' The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, before consenting to ordain bishops for America, requested their brethren to restore the clause of the Apostles' Creed, and 'to give to the other two Creeds a place in their Book of Common Prayer, even though the use of them should be left discretional." In the Convention held at Wilmington, Del., October 10,

1'Es ist also gefasset, dass ich nicht weiss, ob seit der Apostel Zeit in der Kirche des Neuen Testamentes etwas Wichtigeres und Herrlicheres geschrieben sei' (Luther, Werke, ed. Walch, VI. 2315).

The rubric directs that the Athanasian Creed 'shall be sung or said at Morning Prayer, instead of the Apostles' Creed, on Christmas-day, the Epiphany, St. Matthias, Easter-day, Ascension-day, Whitsunday, St. John the Baptist, St. James, St. Bartholomew, St. Matthew, St. Simon and St. Jude, St. Andrew, and upon Trinity Sunday.'

By nineteen out of the twenty-seven members of the Ritual Commission. See their opinions in Stanley, 1. c. pp. 73 sqq. Dean Stanley on that occasion urged no less than sixteen reasons against the public use of the Athanasian Creed. On the other hand, Dr. Pusey has openly threatened to leave the Established Church if the Athanasian Creed, and with it the doctrinal status of that Church, should be disturbed. Brewer's defense is rather feeble. Bishop Ellicott proposed, in the Convocation of Canterbury, to relieve the difficulty by a revision of the English translation, e. g. by rendering vult salvus esse, 'desires to be in a state of salvation,' instead of 'will be saved.' Others suggest an omission of the damnatory clauses. But the true remedy is either to omit the Athanasian Creed altogether from the Book of Common Prayer, or to leave its public use optional.

Bishop White (of Philadelphia): Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, New York, 2d ed. 1836, pp. 305, 306.

1786, the request of the English prelates, as to the first two points, was acceded to, but 'the restoration of the Athanasian Creed was negatived.' As the opposition to this Creed was quite determined, especially on account of the damnatory clauses, the mother Church acquiesced in the omission, and granted the desired Episcopal ordination.1

In the Greek Church it never obtained general currency or formal ecclesiastical sanction, and is only used for private devotion, with the omission of the clause on the double procession of the Spirit.2

1 White's Memoires, 26, 27. Bishop White himself was decidedly opposed to the Creed, as was Bishop Provost, of New York. The Archbishop of Canterbury told them afterwards: 'Some wish that you had retained the Athanasian Creed; but I can not say that I feel uneasy on the subject, for you have retained the doctrine of it in your Liturgy, and as to the Creed itself, I suppose you thought it not suited to the use of a congregation' (1. c. 117, 118). 2 Some Greeks say that the words et Filio (ver. 23) are a Latin interpolation, others that Athanasius was drunk when he wrote them. Most Greek copies omit them, and read only άлò той патρòс. Montfaucon, Athan. Opera, II. 728.

THIRD CHAPTER.

THE CREEDS OF THE GREEK CHURCH.

General Literature.

Orthodoxa Confessio catholicæ atque apostol. ecclesiæ orientalis a PET. MOGILA compos., a MELETIO SYRIGO aucta et mutata, gr. c. præf. NECTARII curav. PANAGIOTTA, Amst. 1662; cum interpret. lat. ed. Laur. NORMANN, Leipz. 1695, Svo; c. interpret. lat. et vers, german. ed. K. GLO. HOFMANN, Breslau, 1751, 8vo. Also in Russian: Moscow, 1696; German by J. LEONII. FRISCH, Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1727, 4to; Dutch by J. A. Senier, Haarlem, 1722; in Kimmel's Monumenta, P. I. 1843.

Clypeus orthodoxæ fidei, sive Apologia ('Aonis op‡odoķías, ǹ àñoλoyia kai ëλerxos) ab Synodo Hierosolymitana (A.D. 1672) sub Hierosolymorum Patriarcha Dositheo composita adversus Calvinistas hæreticos, etc. Published at Paris, Greek and Latin, 1676 and 1678: then in HARDUINI Acta Conciliorum, Par. 1715, Tom. XI. fol. 179-274; also in KIMMEL'S Monum. P. I. 325–488. Comp. also the Acts of the Synod of Constantinople, held in the same year (1672), and publ. in Hard. 1. c. 274-284, and in Kimmel, P. II. 214–227. Confessio cathol. et apostolica in oriente ecclesiæ, conscripta compendiose per METROPHANEM CRItopulum. El et. lat. redd. J. HORNEJUS, Helmst. 1661, 4to (the title-page has erroneously the date 1561).

CYRILLI LUCARIS: Confessio christ. fidei græca cum additam. Cyrilli, Geneva, 1633: græc. et lat. (Condemned as heretical.)

Acta et scripta theologorum Wirtembergensium et patriarchæ Constantinop. HIEREMLE, quæ utrique ab a. 1576 usque ad a. 1581 de Augustana Confessione inter se miserunt, gr. et lat. ab iisdem theologis edita, Wittenb. 1584, fol. This work contains the Augsburg Confession in Greek, three epistles of Patriarch Jeremiah, criticising the Augsb. Conf., and the answers of the Tübingen divines, all in Greek and Latin. E. J. KIMMEL and H. WEISSENBORN: Monumenta fidei ecclesiæ orientalis. Primum in unum corpus collegit, variantes lectiones adnotavit, prolegomena addidit, etc., 2 vols., Jenæ, 1843-1850. The first part contains the two Confessions of Gennadius, the Confession of Cyrillus Lucaris, the Confessio Orthodoxa, and the Acts of the Synod of Jerusalem. The second part, which is added by Weissenborn, contains the Confessio Metrophanis Critopuli, and the Decretum Synodi Constantinopolitanæ, 1672. Kimmel d. 1846. W. Gass: Gennadius und Pletho, Aristotelismus und Platonismus in der griechischen Kirche, nebst einer Abhandlung über die Bestreitung des Islam im Mittelalter, Breslau, 1844, in two parts. The second part contains, among other writings of Gennadius and Pletho, the two Confessions of Gennadius (1453) in Greek. By the same: Symbolik der griechischen Kirche, Berlin, 1872.

R. W. BLACKMORE: The Doctrine of the Russian Church, being the Primer or Spelling-book, the Shorter and Longer Catechisms, and a Treatise on the Duty of Parish Priests. Translated from the Slavono-Russian Originals, Aberdeen, 1845.

§ 11. THE SEVEN ECUMENICAL COUNCILS.

The entire Orthodox Greek or Oriental Church,' including the Greek Church in Turkey, the national Church in the kingdom of Greece, and the national Church of the Russian Empire, and embracing a membership of about eighty millions, adopts, in common with the Roman communion, the doctrinal decisions of the seven oldest cecumenical Councils, laying especial stress on the Nicene Council and Nicene Creed. These Councils were all summoned by Greek emperors, and controlled by Greek patriarchs and bishops. They are as follows:

The full name of the Greek Church is 'the Holy Oriental Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church.' The chief stress is laid on the title orthodox. The name гpauóc, used by Polybius and since as equivalent to the Latin Græcus, was by the Greeks themselves always regarded as an exotic. Homer has three standing names for the Greeks: Danaoi, Argeioi, and Achaioi; also Panhellenes and Panachaioi. The ancient (heathen) Greeks called themselves Hellenes, the modern (Slavonic) Greeks, till recently, Romans, in distinction from the surrounding Turks. The Greek language, since the founding of the East Roman empire, was called Romaic.

I. The first Council of Nicæa, A.D. 325; called by Constantine M. II. The first Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381; called by Theodosius M.

III. The Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431; called by Theodosius II. IV. The Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451; called by Emperor Marcian and Pope Leo I.

V. The second Council of Constantinople, A.D. 553; called by Justinian I.

VI. The third Council of Constantinople, A.D. 680; called by Constantine Pogonatus.

VII. The second Council of Nicæa, A.D. 787; called by Irene and her son Constantine.

The first four Councils are by far the most important, as they settled the orthodox faith on the Trinity and the Incarnation. The fifth Council, which condemned the Three (Nestorian) Chapters, is a mere supplement to the third and fourth. The sixth condemned Monothelitism. The seventh sanctioned the use and worship of images.1

To these the Greek Church adds the Concilium Quinisextum,2 held at Constantinople (in Trullo), A.D. 691 (or 692), and frequently also that held in the same city A.D. 879 under Photius the Patriarch; while the Latins reject these two Synods as schismatic, and count the Synod of 869 (the fourth of Constantinople), which deposed Photius and condemned the Iconoclasts, as the eighth œcumenical Council. But these conflicting Councils refer only to discipline and the rivalry between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope of Rome.

The Greek Church celebrates annually the memory of the seven holy Synods, held during the palmy days of her history, on the first Sunday in Lent, called the 'Sunday of Orthodoxy,' when the service is made to

1

Worship in a secondary sense, or δουλεία, including ἀσπασμὸς καὶ τιμητικὴ προσκύνησις, but not that adoration or aλŋwn λarpɛía, which belongs only to God. See Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, Bd. III. p. 440.

This Synod is called Quinisexta or TeviкTη, because it was to be a supplement to the fifth and sixth œcumenical Councils, which had passed doctrinal decrees, but no canons of discipline. It is also called the second Trullan Synod, because it was held 'in Trullo,' a saloon of the imperial palace in Constantinople. The Greeks regard the canons of this Synod as the canons of the fifth and sixth oecumenical Councils, but the Latins never acknowledged the Quinisexta, and called it mockingly' erratica.' As the dates of the Quinisexta are variously given 686, 691, 692, 712. Comp. Baronius, Annal. ad ann. 692, No. 7, and Hefele, 1. c. III. pp. 298 sqq.