Christ's manifestation in the flesh. If "mystery" is to bear the New Testament sense, it means not a wholly inscrutable secret, but one partly made known.

"In all time of our wealth." This is not in the Latin, and occurs first in the English of 1544. The Primer of 1535 has felicity for wealth (Burt. p. 127). Wealth therefore is used in the sense of well-being.

"Set it forth and shew it accordingly," i.e., according to that good understanding of it which God is asked to grant.

"The Lords of the Council." First in 1544. The Privy Council seems intended.

"Maintain truth." First in 1544. The Latin version of 1560 has "custodiat veritatem." If this means the truth as held by the Church, the office of magistrates in maintaining it is to see that the friends of the truth are not overborne in their legal rights by the enemies of it, and that those who use illegal methods to overthrow it shall be checked by the firm hand of justice. Magistrates, in the exercise of their office as dispensers of law, can do no more than that, but they are bound to do as much. Further on God Himself is besought to bring "in viam veritatis" all such as have erred and are deceived.

"To all nations unity, peace, and concord." The first appearance of this intercession in 1544 exactly harmonises with some expressions in the King's letter of that year (§ 26).

"Fruits of the Spirit." In Gal. v. 22 it is "fruit of the Spirit."

"Kindly fruits of the earth." This is the rendering (first in the Litany of 1544) of the Latin "fructus

terræ," kindly being thrown in as an amplification. The exact idea it was intended to convey does not appear very obvious. Dr. Trench (English, Past and Present) quotes passages to show that in the language of that period kindly fruits of the earth would mean such fruits as the earth according to its kind and nature was appointed to produce. In the Book of Common Prayer in Eight Languages (Bagster) the word kindly (where it is translated at all) is represented in the following renderings: τοὺς ὡρίμους τῆς yês кaρποús, terræ fructus genuinos, die lieben Früchte der Erde. Perhaps the cognate Teutonic tongue may afford some help. As kind in German (allied to kin) is a child, kindly may be considered as here answering to kindlich, childlike, so that kindly fruits would express the idea of offspring fruits.

"That takest away the sins of the world" (Qui tollis peccata mundi), another plural like the one noticed above, for the biblical singular (John i. 29), and the cause, probably, of a frequent misquotation.

"Deal not with us after our sins, . after our iniquities." "Secundum," according to.

"O God, we have heard with our ears,” etc. Psalm xl. 1.

In the prayer "We humbly beseech Thee," the clause "for the glory of Thy name" takes the place of "omnium Sanctorum tuorum intercessionibus," standing in the Sarum Use.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CREEDS.

§ 67. The Grounds of their Reception.-While the history and antiquity of the Creeds are matters of the utmost interest and importance, the ultimate grounds of their reception are of another kind, in the view of the Church of England, which says, the Creeds "ought thoroughly to be received and believed; for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture" (Art. VIII.)

§ 68. Their General Titles.- CREED, the modern popular title, is from credo, the first word of the Apostles' Creed, in Latin. A more formal title is Symbol, from symbolum and ovμßoλov, employed in very ancient times when Credo as a title was unknown. It first occurs among the letters of Cyprian (ob. 258), where one from Bishop Firmilian (Ep. 75, ed. Oxon.) mentions a certain baptism at which the usual forms were all observed, and the "Symbolum Trinitatis was not omitted. The word is explained in A Short Catechism, set forth by authority in 1553: "A symbol is... a sign, or mark, privy token, or watchword, whereby the scholars of one camp are known from their enemies. For this reason the abridgment of the

faith whereby the Christians are known from them that be no Christians is rightly termed a symbol."

§ 69. The Apostles' Creed, its History.-St. Peter (Acts x. 38-43), addressing a Gentile company who were seeking instruction from him, summarises the facts of Christ's life and the Church's faith as based on them in a manner which strongly resembles the Apostles' Creed. As time went on and the Church extended, the formulation of such a summary for incipient disciples would become a simple necessity, especially when heresies began to appear, which was very early.

Some such formulary must have been in the eye of Irenæus bishop of Lyons, while writing his work on "Heresies," c. A.D. 180. Referring to the Church in opposition to heretical perversions, he writes (Iren. Hær. i. 1, § 10):

"The Church, though dispersed through the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus the Son of God, Who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, Who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and His [future]. manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father, 'to gather all things in one,' and to raise up anew

all flesh of the whole human race (Clark's translation).

This summary is substantially, and expressed in the indirect form, the Creed which we now profess.

The earliest textual appearance of the Apostles' Creed occurs in Epiphanius, in his work on "Heresies," written c. A.D. 376. He records it as the form in which Marcellus, bishop of Ancyra, in Galatia, declared his faith to Julius, bishop of Rome, whom he was visiting for the purpose of vindicating himself from the charge of heresy, in the year 338 (D.C.B. iii. 809), or 341 (Heurtley). The Greek text may be seen in Epiphanius (Hær. lxxii. cap. 3 in P.G. xlii. 385), and Heurtley (De Fide et Symbolo, 1884, p. 34). It runs thus:

“ Πιστεύω οὖν εἰς Θεὸν παντοκράτορα· καὶ εἰς Χριστὸν Ιησοῦν τὸν Υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ, τὸν Κύριον ἡμῶν, τὸν γεννηθέντα ἐκ Πνεύματος Αγίου και Μαρίας τῆς Παρθένου, τὸν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου σταυρωθέντα καὶ ταφέντα, καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστάντα ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, ἀναβάντα εἰς τοὺς οὐρανοὺς, καὶ καθήμενον ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ Πατρὸς, ὅθεν ἔρχεται κρίνειν ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς· καὶ εἰς "Αγιον Πνεῦμα, ἁγίαν ἐκκλησίαν, ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν, ζωὴν αἰώνιον.”

Reasons for concluding that this was the Roman edition of the Apostles' Creed will appear further on.

The next earliest form of the Apostles' Creed, the Aquileian, occurs in the writings of Rufinus, a priest of Aquileia, in the north of Italy, who c. 390 put forth an exposition of it under the title Commentarius in Symbolum Apostolorum (P. L. xxi. 335). Each section of his comment is headed by a clause of the