CHAPTER VI.

RECEPTION AND USE.

THE Quicunque vult has during the whole course of its history been received in the Western Church as a Creed. This is shown in the first place by the earliest titles applied to it, 'Fides Catholica,' 'Fides Catholica Sancti Athanasii,' or the like, or simply 'Fides.' No Latin word so accurately represents what we mean by a Creed as 'Fides—a formulated statement of truths necessary to be believed. It would be superfluous to adduce examples of its being so used. This also is shown by the fact that from the twelfth century it has been very commonly entitled, and particularly in Breviaries, 'Symbolum,' in such headings as 'Symbolum Athanasii.' In the Ambrosian rite, as already mentioned, it is entitled simply 'Symbolum.' Another and still more cogent evidence of the reception of our document as a Creed is found in the judgement of theologians who place it in the category of Creeds; as of Honorius of Autun at the beginning of the twelfth century, who reckons four Creeds, the Apostles', the Nicene, the Constantinopolitan, and the Athanasian1; of Beleth at the end of the same century, who also reckons four, the Athanasian being named second in order; of Alexander Hales, Joannes Januensis, Durandus in the thirteenth, of Ludolphus Saxo at the beginning and Above, I. i. 29.

1

Above, I. i. 24.

2

Wyclif at the end of the fourteenth, or the author of the Wycliffite Commentary, all of whom reckon three Creeds only, the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian 1. It is perfectly true that it is also spoken of, though comparatively seldom, as 'sermo,' 'libellus,' 'hymnus,' 'psalmus '2; but there is nothing in these terms inconsistent, as appears to be sometimes thought, with the belief that our document has been received by the Church as a Creed and should be so received and regarded by us now. The first two, 'sermo' and 'libellus,' are terms of wide application, and each of them may be used of any brief writing, or document, or formulary. In the Paris Bibliothèque Nationale MS. of the eighth century, Latin 3836-the same codex which contains the Trèves fragment—a Confession of Faith is headed 'Eiusdem sermo'3: and in Rufinus' Commentary on the Apostles' Creed we find the Creed itself referred to as 'sermo,' where after quoting the Articles, 'Ascendit ad caelos, sedet ad dexteram Patris, inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos,' the commentator continues, Consequenti brevitate in fine sermonis haec continentur'; and what is yet more remarkable, in two instances single articles are so described, thus: In Ecclesiae Romanae symbolo non habetur additum, Descendit ad Inferna, sed neque in Orientis Ecclesiis habetur hic sermo,' and ' Ultimus sermo iste, qui Resurrectionem carnis pronunciat, summam totius perfectionis succincta brevitate concludit.' And if the Quicunque was entitled 'hymnus' and 'psalmus,' because it was sung in the service of the Church as a hymn and psalm, it does not

1 Above, I. i. 31, 33, 34 and 35; also I. iv. 24.

2 See chap. iv. in this Part.

Early History of the Athanasian Creed, by G. D. W. Ommanney, p. 400. * De Fide et Symbolo, edidit Carolus A. Heurtley, Editio tertia, 1884, pp. 142, 153, 164.

follow that it was not at the same time esteemed as a Creed. The latter term, viz. psalm, does not appear to have been used in reference to it prior to the thirteenth century.

I cannot refrain from adding the remark, that when persons exclude the Athanasian Creed from the category of Creeds on the ground that it never received the sanction of an Oecumenical Council, they forget that by this hard and fast rule they are equally excluding from the same category the Apostles' Creed, and the Creed which we recite in the Communion Service, now commonly, but inaccurately, called the Nicene Creed.

The Quicunque being thus received as a Creed was used in consequence in a twofold manner, as a formulary of faith, a confession before God with thanksgiving of the Catholic Faith, especially as regards the great revealed truths of the Trinity and Incarnation, which are its principal subject-matter, and also as a formulary and instrument of instruction in the same faith.

Of the first of these uses we possess abundant and interesting evidence in a vast number of manuscript Psalters written in all the principal countries of Western Christendom at dates ranging from the close of the eighth century to the end of the fifteenth, to which our document is subjoined, together with the Canticles of the Old and New Testaments wont to be said or sung in Divine service, the Lord's Prayer and the two other Creeds being sometimes but not always added, the Te Deum always. And the reason why it was thus subjoined to the Psalter together with the Canticles is obvious. It was together with them recited in the worship of the Church. For it must be borne in mind that these manuscript Psalters were the devotional books of our Christian forefathers, and are

therefore most interesting, real memorials of their worship, in which, being dead, they yet speak. Some of the earliest and most important I have expressly referred to above1, probably at too great a length for the patience of many; I cannot say I have described them; and I have mentioned what were the Canticles usually found in them. Another thing to be borne in mind with respect to the ancient manuscript Psalters now extant is that, numerous as they are, they are but few compared with the whole number of books of the same class which once existed, the great bulk of which have perished from a variety of causes-decay, neglect, damp, war, fire, ignorance, and fanaticism.

Concurrent with this evidence of the Psalters, there is a wellnigh continuous testimony to the use of the Athanasian Creed in Divine worship in incidental historical notices, in episcopal charges and admonitions and conciliar decrees, enjoining its observance, and that under pain of canonical censure in the event of disobedience 2.

And, when in order to avoid the great inconvenience of using a multiplicity of books in the celebration of Divine worship, the Breviary was constructed in which the various Offices, with all their component elements of prayers and psalms and hymns and canticles and lessons, were arranged in one book, our document was appropriated to the Office for Prime-the hour at which it had been recited previously. This appears to have taken place in the eleventh century, the close of which produced the earliest Breviary extant ".

The precise date when the Athanasian Creed began to be recited in Divine service cannot be determined with certainty. To argue from the fact of there being extant at 1 Part I. chap. iii.

2 See above, I. i. 17, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 28, 29, 31, 33; also I. ii. 3, 5, 6, 7,

10, 11, 12.

Above, I. iii. 27.

present no Psalters containing it earlier than the close of the eighth century that it could not have been so recited before that epoch would be very precarious, for this reason, that, though there are no Psalters of an earlier date, so far as we know, now existing, which contain it, still there may have been and probably were many originally, which have perished in the course of time in the great wreck of ancient documents, already alluded to. How very possible this is we shall be better able to realize if we consider that a MS. of the Quicunque of the eighth century, which was preserved at Paris so late as the last century, is now lost to us1. Moreover, the use of the Athanasian Creed in the Church's worship was clearly not a new thing in the ninth century; and what was then such a general practice, at least in Gaul and Germany, could not have been the instantaneous product of the age: it is more likely to have been the result of a gradual growth and extension of the use during a previous period of some duration. And there are some indications of this. Florus the Deacon, writing to Hyldrad the Abbot about A.D. 830, speaks of the insertion of the Quicunque in Psalters as a long-established, recognized usage. The Utrecht Psalter, which contains our document, is described by Sir E. M. Thompson as 'written in the beginning of the ninth century,' and at the same time is asserted by him to be an exact copy of an older codex 3. At the time when the Oratorian Commentary was drawn up, i. e. about A. D. 700, the Quicunque was recited here and there in Churches, as we know by the express statement of the Preface1. And this guides us to fix the middle of the seventh century as the 2 Above, I. i. 12.

Above, I. iii. 2.

3 Handbook of Palaeography, by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, pp. 64 and 189.

'Illud fidei opusculum, quod passim in ecclesiis recitatur.' See Appendix H.