of its testimony to the antiquity of the Creed. And thus much may be asserted with safety, that it could not have been composed later than the seventh century, the MS., in which a portion of it is preserved, belonging to the eighth. We do not know what was the document found by the writer of the Paris MS. at Trèves, whether it contained the whole Sermon or only the fragment which he transcribed; nor yet how long it had been there, nor how long before it was written, nor yet whether it was the autograph, i. e. the original copy, in whole or part, or a copy from that, or one of a succession of copies. It is very improbable that it was the autograph. The writer of the Paris MS. does not seem to have considered it a recent contemporary document. Some period must have elapsed-we may reasonably believe not less than fifty years-between the composition of the Sermon and the time when the scribe met with this fragment of it at Trèves. And while the Sermon must thus be a work of the seventh century at the latest, there is some internal evidence which points to the sixth century as the more probable era of its production. According to the preacher or homilist, the article of the Apostles' Creed respecting our Lord's session at the right hand of the Father at the time of his preaching the Sermon was as follows: ad dexteram dei patris sedet'; for he refers his hearers to these words as just delivered to them in the symbol or Apostles' Creed—' sicut vobis in symbolo traditum est.' But in the seventh century this article of the Creed is generally found with the word omnipotentis annexed to it. Dr. Heurtley says1: 'We do not meet with Dei Patris omnipotentis till it occurs in the Creed of Eusebius Gallus, nor again till it occurs in the Creeds of the Codex Bobiensis in the middle of the seventh century. From that 1 Harmonia Symbolica, p. 138.

time it may be considered established.' The Creed of Eusebius Gallus, by the way, is referred to the sixth century the Creeds of the Codex Bobiensis are contained in a Gallican Sacramentary found by Mabillon in the Monastery of Bobio in North Italy. If he is right in assigning the MS. to the middle of the seventh century, the type of the Creed which it presents cannot be of a later date, and may have been used earlier. The usual earlier form is 'ad dexteram Patris.' 'Ad dexteram Dei Patris' is very unusual. Hahn, in his Bibliothek der Symbole, cites three instances of it, one of which occurs in St. Augustine's Sermo in Redditione Symboli, ccxv. It occurs also in the discourse on the Apostles' Creed previously noticed as contained in two Paris MSS. No instance seems to be known of this article being used in the seventh century or after without omnipotentis. Nor is the occurrence of the words' ad inferna descendens,' in obvious reference to the Apostles' Creed, inconsistent with the hypothesis that this Sermon was a work of the sixth century, inasmuch as 'descendit ad inferna' was an article of the Aquileian Creed in the time of Rufinus, and appears also in a Spanish Creed of the sixth century, and in the Creed as expounded by Caesarius, Bishop of Arles, in the same century, and as commented on by Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poictiers, in the latter part of the same century. Nor can a later date be assigned to the Creed printed by Blanchini from a Verona MS., in which this article is also found.

Thus we arrive at the conclusion that the Sermon, a fragment of which is preserved in the Latin MS. No. 3836 of the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, and which adapts and modifies much of the language of the Athana1 See Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, pp. 25, 28, 35, 42.

sian Creed on the subject of the Incarnation, was certainly not composed later than the seventh century, and probably belongs to the sixth.

5. In the Confession of Faith, which was composed and promulgated by the Fourth Council of Toledo A.D. 633, several expressions occur bearing an obvious resemblance to the Athanasian Creed, viz.: Nec personas confundimus nec substantiam separamus. Patrem a nullo factum vel genitum dicimus; Filium a Patre non factum, sed genitum asserimus; Spiritum vero Sanctum nec creatum nec genitum, sed procedentem ex Patre et Filio profitemur: ipsum autem Dominum Iesum Christum Filium Dei... ex substantia Patris ante secula genitum—aequalis Patri secundum divinitatem, minor Patre secundum humanitatem—perferens passionem et mortem pro nostra salute descendit ad inferos.-Haec est Ecclesiae Catholicae fides, hanc confessionem servamus atque tenemus, quam quisquis firmissime custodierit, perpetuam salutem habebit 1.' I used to be of opinion that the resemblance between these expressions of the Confession of Faith of the Fourth Council of Toledo and the corresponding passages of the Quicunque was nothing more than the result of both Confessions of Faith giving utterance to the common terminology of Catholicity. More mature consideration has convinced me of the correctness of Waterland's view, that the relationship between the two confessions is of a much closer nature, the Toledan being drawn from the Athanasian. My grounds for this conclusion are as follows:— Firstly, in two of the above instances the terminology is of too unusual and peculiar a nature to be set down as the common language of Catholicity. Thus in the words 'perferens passionem et mortem pro nostra salute' of the 1 1 Labbe, Concilia, tom. x. p. 615. Florentiae, 1764

Toledan confession, and in the obviously corresponding expression of the Quicunque, passus pro salute nostra,' we find a terminology, which I believe I may assert with safety is all but peculiar to these two Confessions of Faith. In other confessions, with one exception, where any mention is made of the saving benefits of Christ's work, it is made in connexion with His mission into the world and Incarnation, not His Passion, and we have propter salutem nostram not pro salute nostra. In the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds we say for us men and for our salvation. He came down from heaven and was incarnate,' &c.; and the language of the Union Creed of the Antiochenes, A. D. 433, and of the Synod of Constantinople, A. D. 448, was the same. The Creed of the Western Church, or Apostles' Creed, simply mentions the fact of our Lord's Passion under Pontius Pilate. Confessions of Latin doctors assert with the Greek Creeds, that He came down from heaven, 'propter nostram salutem,' or the like. So that of Auxentius of Milan, the Damasi Symbolum, the Fides Romanorum. In one only can I find exactly the same phrase, viz. in the Confession of Pelagius I, which has 'pro nostra salute passum2. The other instance of doctrinal terminology peculiar wellnigh to the Confession of the Fourth of Toledo and the Quicunque is in the words 'descendit ad inferos, which occur in both. It has been already mentioned that in the seventh century the article of the Descent into Hell had found its way generally into the Creed of the West, but differently expressed, in the form, namely, 'descendit in inferna,' or 'ad infernum,' or 'ad inferna.' The only Confession of Faith in which 'descendit ad inferos' appears,

1 δι ̓ ἡμᾶς τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν σωτηρίαν; in the Latin translation, 'propter nos homines et salutem nostram.'

2 See Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, pp. 78, 83, 137, 139, 197, 204, 270.

besides the two we are specially referring to, is Irish-it appears in the Antiphonary of Bangor, which is preserved in an Irish MS. of the eighth century belonging to the Ambrosian Library at Milan1. The fact of this peculiar terminology being found in these two confessions points clearly to the existence of a close connexion between them -closer than that of a common Catholicity. Either the Quicunque must have drawn from the Toledan Confession or the Toledan Confession from the Quicunque. That the latter was the case we are led to believe by the commencing words of this very Toledan Confession, in which the bishops and doctors, by whom it was formulated and subscribed, affirm it to be in accordance with the Divine Scriptures and the doctrine or teaching which we have received from the holy Fathers'.' And I am confirmed in this belief by finding, on a closer examination of the Toledan Confession of Faith, that besides the expressions bearing an evident resemblance to the language of the Athanasian Creed it contains others, clearly derived, as from their sources, from two other ancient Confessions of Faith, which are distinct documents, though possessing much in common, the one sometimes described in MSS. as 'Fides Romanae ecclesiae,' sometimes as 'Fides Romanorum,' sometimes attributed to Augustine, sometimes to Athanasius, the other commonly known as Damasi Fides,' but frequently attributed to St. Jerome in ancient MSS. These two Confessions, together with the Athanasian Creed, are found in a series of twelve ancient Confessions of Faith which appears in two MSS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Latin 2076 and 2341; the Athanasian Creed being de

1 Hahn, p. 41.

''Secundum divinas Scripturas et doctrinam, quam a sanctis Patribus accepimus.'