Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

concentrated upon Italy, North Africa, Gaul, Spain, and that period of Church history when the Arian controversy had ceased in the East, and had become active in the West. A few dates will suffice to describe this period.

Shortly after A.D. 400, when the Arian dispute had died out in the East, or had passed into other forms and other names, the barbarian nations of north-east Europe invaded and established themselves within the Roman empire of the South and West. These invaders were not idolaters; the labours of Arian missionaries in the East had given them a Christianity of the Arian type before they broke in upon the empire. Ecclesiastically, therefore, we are to conceive those barbarian invasions of the empire as Arian invasions of the Latin Church, and in the four countries we have named we are to picture the domination of various Arian monarchies. Gradually, in the course of about two centuries, the Catholic cause recovered its sway. For in the first place its divines were enormously superior. In letters and theology the Arians of the West are barely discoverable. They held the field by their political position alone, so that, when that position was lost, all was lost. Thus it has come to pass that we can trace the gradual fall of Western Arianism, in a great measure, by a few shocks of arms. The first distinct brightening of the Catholic cause was in 496, when Clovis, the pagan king of the Franks, embraced the faith with all his people. The first great blow fell on Western Arianism in 507 by the famous victory of the Catholic Clovis over the Arian Visigoths of Southern

Gaul, in the battle of Vouglé, near Poictiers. The next occurred in 534, when the Arian Burgundian power in the South-east of Gaul was broken by the Catholic Franks. In 541 the Arian Vandals of North Africa were exterminated by the armies of the Catholic Emperor Justinian I. In 553 the Arian Gothic monarchy of Italy fell by the arms of the same emperor, although soon afterwards, in 563, the Lombards poured into Italy, and Arianism resumed its sway. But of all this series of dates the most interesting is 589, when there occurred a memorable instance of national conversion from Arianism to Catholicism without a conquest or a battle-field. This was in Spain, where at a great council held at Toledo, under King Reccared, it was resolved to abandon Arianism and adopt the Catholic Creed. This was the deathblow to Western Arianism. In 590 the Lombard monarchy in Italy became Catholic, and then as a political power Arianism was dead. By about 650 Arianism among the Lombard people had become extinct. The outside limits, then, of Western Arianism may be fixed as A.D. 400-650, and it is within this period we should expect to find some signs of the Athanasian Creed. There lived within it in the West the following theologians: Augustine bishop of Hippo in North Africa (395-430); Victricius bishop of Rouen, A.D. 401; Hilary bishop of Arles in South Gaul (429-449); Vincentius presbyter of Lerins in South Gaul (ob. c. 450); Vigilius of Thapsus in North Africa, c. 484; Cæsarius bishop of Arles, 502-542; Venantius Fortunatus bishop of Poictiers (ob. c. 600). Some of these have been

suggested for the authorship of the Creed, not on any direct evidence, but because they were capable men and the Athanasii of their day. Waterland (Works, iii. 117) gives a tabular view of the candidates for this honour, his own opinion strongly inclining to Hilary, while some others rather favour Vigilius. But it may be worth suggesting whether any single person was likely to have composed a form which was to be adopted as a public profession of faith, and whether it is not more probable that a conclave of bishops took the responsibility of it.

To find the earliest historical traces of the Creed, we must go back to the third council of Toledo,—that conversion council of 589. Having met for the express purpose of abjuring Arianism, this assembly prefaced its proceedings by a confession of faith, which, as we read it, reminds us, in its tone and the flow of its language, of the Athanasian Creed, though there is little echo of its diction. The Nicene Creed was also recited in both its forms (Hard. iii. 467).

In 633 the fourth council of Toledo met, and now in the confession of its faith the language of the Athanasian Creed is at times distinctly discernible. Thus: "Believing a Trinity in the diversity of Persons, and declaring a unity in the Divinity, we neither confound the Persons nor separate the substance. We say that the Father was created or begotten by none. We assert that the Son was not created but begotten by the Father. But we profess that the Holy Ghost was neither created nor begotten, but proceeding from (ex) the Father and the Son." (Here, by the way, is the Filioque nearly two centuries

[ocr errors]

before Charlemagne.) "Equal to the Father as touching (secundum) His Divinity, inferior to the Father as touching His manhood. ... This is the faith of the Catholic Church: this confession we preserve and hold; which whosoever shall most firmly guard shall have everlasting salvation" (Hard. iii. 575).

Either the Creed was then existing and these expressions were drawn from it, or the Creed was afterwards framed with the help of this Confession.

The earliest historical evidence that the Creed had been formulated seems to bring us into France; for a canon exists, attributed to a council at Autun about A.D. 670, enjoining on all the clerical body to learn by heart The Faith of St. Athanasius. But there is a dispute as to whether the canon was framed by that council (Sw. Cr. 269; Om. A.C. 60; D.C.B. iv. 526). No trace of the Creed is met in Italian or African Church history during this period, and the impression left on the mind is, that, even if it should have been composed earlier, it was at all events receiving its final form and taking a prominent place in Spain and France about the seventh century. We seem to discern some special reason for it. The official renunciation of Arianism in Spain in 589 must have created a necessity for indoctrinating the people at large in their new faith, and for putting forth the Catholic doctrine in a pointed, popular, and liturgic form.

From A.D. 800 and onwards this Creed gradually won its way into regular use in the Western Church; but it was never formally adopted by any general council, as the Nicene Creed was. In 930 it was added to the Roman Church service; and that late

date suggests that the Creed did not spring up in Italy.

In the Sarum Breviary the Athanasian Creed was recited every day at Prime (P. & W. ii. 46, 53). The Primer of 1539 contains a version substantially the same as that now in use. In 1549 the First Prayer Book adopted it, directing it to be used on six festivals,

Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity. In 1552 seven Saints' Days were added for its use, viz., Matthias, John the Baptist, James, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Jude, Andrew. The recitation thus occurs thirteen times a year, or once a month on an average.

The title ever since 1549 has been Quicunque vult, and the rubric has always called the Creed "This Confession of our Christian faith."

§ 75. The Athanasian Creed, its Structure and Contents. This Creed, comprising forty-two clauses, without the Gloria, is occupied principally with expounding the Trinity (vv. 3-28) and the Person of Christ (vv. 29-37), summarising afterwards, like the other Creeds, the facts of our Lord's death, resurrection, etc.

The Father and the Holy Ghost are not separately treated of. The Holy Trinity and Christology are the two grand subjects. The doctrines of the Trinity and the Person of Christ are expounded again in the first and second of the Thirty-Nine Articles; that of the Holy Ghost in the fifth.

It may be noted that, while the Double Procession of the Holy Ghost is recognised, the word consubstan

« PoprzedniaDalej »