and celebrated Fathers. Its occurrence in this MS. is especially noticeable, as the Herovall Collection has, among its contents, the Autun Canon enjoining its recitation. Paris, 1451, which also contains a Gallican Collection, is determined, as regards its date, by the chronological notes at its commencement, to the early part of the Pontificate of Leo III., preceding the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor, which took place on Christmas Day, A.D. 800. Leo's Pontificate commenced at the end of A.D. 795. The Athanasian Creed is the first in order of the documents in this manuscript, immediately succeeding the chronological notes, and has for its title, "Exemplar fidei chatolicae Atanasii episcopi Alexandriae ecclesie." It will be observed that in these three MSS. the Quicunque is expressly attributed to St. Athanasius; and thus they witness to the fact, of which, indeed, there exist, independently of them, abundant proofs, that at and about the commencement of the ninth century it was held to be the work of that great defender of the Faith. And this fact, while on the one hand it is no proof that the Quicunque was really penned by him, on the other is a clear and irresistible proof that at that epoch it was not a new or unknown document, but one of considerable antiquity and of established repute. Manifestly these MSS. present an insuperable difficulty in the way of the acceptance of Dr. Swainson's theory, according to which our Creed did not assume its present complete form until nearly A.D. 870; for in each of them it appears whole and entire, as we now have it, barring a few varieties

of reading. Indeed, he acknowledges the difficulty, but does not abandon his theory; and, unable to disprove the early date assigned to the manuscripts, he takes comfort in the hope "that the labours of the Palæographical Society will give its members materials to form their judgment on a surer basis." A plainer confession of the weakness of his case there could not be. As a member of that society, I have not yet discovered that its labours are likely to help him in his difficulty.

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The very interesting Psalter contained in Paris, 13,159, is also proved, by evidence of the most clear and reliable nature, to have been written between the accession of Leo III. to the Papacy and the coronation of Charlemagne as emperor; for the Litanies at the end include petitions for Pope Leo and for Charles, King of the Franks and Lombards and Patrician of the Romans. The authorities of the MS. department at Paris, moreover, assign it to that epoch. The Athanasian Creed is found in the usual place after the Canticles. Dr. Swainson's perplexity respecting this manuscript, which is obviously fatal to his theory, has been already alluded to. There are really no grounds for his suggestion that the Litanies are not contemporaneous with the preceding part of the book. But if they were not so, the preceding part, including the Quicunque, must be set down to an earlier date.

These four manuscripts were unknown to Waterland; their testimony, therefore, to the antiquity of "The Nicene and Apostles' Creeds,' p. 449.

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the Creed is new, as well as important. My knowledge of the Paris MSS. is derived from my own examination of them on three different occasions. Reifferscheid and the Ballerini are my authorities in respect of the Vatican Codex.

Paris, 4858, belonging to the close of the eighth century, is another proof of the existence of the Athanasian Creed prior to the succeeding century. It contains a fragment only of the Creed-some of the commencing verses; but this is owing evidently to the mutilation to which the MS. has been subjected. Much of the volume must have been destroyed, including the remainder of the Quicunque.

The futile attempts of Dr. Lumby and Dr. Swainson to prove the MS. in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, marked O 212, to be later than the eighth century, have been noticed. The belief that it is not later rests, it will be remembered, on the high palæographic authorities of Montfaucon, Muratori, and the present librarian, Dr. Ceriani.

I have passed over in silence on the present occasion the Vienna Psalter, which is recorded to have been presented by Charlemagne to the Church of Bremen, and has been assigned by competent palæographers to the latter part of the eighth century, because I have nothing to add to what I have previously said upon the subject.1

The earliest MS. of the Creed in existence, or known to be so (for who can say that an earlier may

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'Athanasian Creed: Examination of Recent Theories respecting its Date and Origin,' pp. 202–226.

not be in existence, as yet undiscovered ?), appears to be that at Milan, which Montfaucon, with whom the present librarian seemingly agrees, assigned to the eighth century, and Muratori to the seventh. But it does not follow, be it remembered, from the fact of no MS. of the Creed being known to which an earlier date than the eighth or seventh century can be appropriated, that therefore the Creed itself was not composed before, and much before, that date. If I may be permitted to repeat what I have before said, we do not conclude, from the fact of our possessing no manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures earlier than the fourth century, that the Scriptures were not written till then; nor from the fact of our possessing no copy of Virgil earlier than the same or the preceding century, that the poems of Virgil were a work of that age. We are not, then, driven to the conclusion that the Quicunque was a production of the eighth or the seventh century, in order to account for the non-existence of any earlier MS. containing it. The phenomenon may be sufficiently accounted for by the vast loss and destruction of ancient MSS., which unquestionably have resulted, in the course of the last thousand years, from a variety of causes, including the ravages of war and fire, carelessness, ignorance, cupidity, damp. Thousands of copies of the Athanasian Creed, earlier than the eighth century, may have perished, and, I believe, have perished. The wonder is that we possess so many as we do belonging to that and the succeeding century.

In these remarks, no mention has been made of the

Utrecht Psalter, the date of which has been recently the subject of much controversy among palæographers, some maintaining that it was written as early as the sixth century, but others, and indeed the majority, denying that it could be earlier than the end of the eighth or the beginning of the ninth. Could the former opinion be relied upon with any degree of certainty, this MS. would alone serve to establish the great antiquity of the Quicunque, which it contains. But the wide diversity of opinion respecting its age existing among persons best qualified to form a judgment upon the subject, forbids my appealing to it for the purpose of my argument. The MSS. which I have noticed are sufficient to prove that the Athanasian Creed, so far from being the production of the ninth century, was composed long before that period.

(b.) Next let us consider the evidence of the most ancient Commentaries upon the Athanasian Creed. Of these four appear in the Appendix; and three out of the four are, to the best of my knowledge, now printed for the first time. These four Commentaries were entirely unknown to Waterland; and I desire to draw attention to them, in their obvious bearing upon our subject, as illustrating the early history of the Quicunque, and supplying new and additional proof of its antiquity.

The Paris Commentary has been shown to have been drawn up not later than the ninth century, and not earlier than the seventh; the Bouhier in the eighth; the Oratorian at the beginning of the eighth

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