CHAPTER X.

THE ENGLISH VERSION OF THE ATHANASIAN CREED.

As

S in the case of the Nicene Creed, so also in respect to the "Confession of our Christian Faith commonly called the Creed of St. Athanasius," it is evident that the Reformers were not content with working upon the Latin texts supplied in the mediæval service-books of England. of England. Influenced, most probably, by the belief so long entertained, that the Creed was of Eastern origin, and the composition of the Greek-speaking Bishop of Alexandria, St. Athanasius, it was not unnatural that they should look for a Greek text, as more likely to be correct than the Latin. But whatever may have been their reasons for so doing, it is certain that they placed before them a Greek text, which in some places determined the language of the English translation. Daniel Waterland (1724) was, I think, the first to make clear that our Reformers had in some places, where the Latin and Greek texts differ, followed one of the forms of the latter.* For our purpose it may suffice to notice four verses where the differences between the English and the Latin of the English Breviaries are thus accounted for.

* Critical History of the Athanasian Creed. Works, vol. iii.

(1) Verse 12 reads: "As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated," etc. In the Latin the order of the words is "non tres increati nec tres immensi"; but a Greek text, published by Bryling at Bâle (about 1540?), gives the order as in the Prayer Book. Earlier English versions, such as that commonly attributed to Wyclif, that in Hilsey's Primer (1539), and that in a Psalter printed by Whytechurch (1542?), had followed the order of the Latin. But the change in the order of the words in this verse, if it stood alone, would be hardly sufficient in itself to enable us to feel confidence that it was the Greek text that determined the English order. We must take this instance in connexion with those that follow. (2) Verse 27: "Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ." Here, again, in the use of "rightly" instead of the Latin "faithfully" (fideliter) the English follows the Greek (op¤ws). (3) Verse 40: If our Reformers had followed the Latin, our English would have run, "which except a man believe faithfully and firmly (firmiterque)." But in the Greek there is nothing corresponding to the words "and firmly"; and the words are absent from the Prayer Book.

(4) Verse 38 presents a more doubtful case. The Latin, adopting a barbarous construction, reads, "Omnes homines resurgere habent," "have to rise,"

must rise." The Greek is simply ἀναστήσονται, “shall rise again." This instance, however, might possibly be only an imperfect attempt to render

the sense of the Latin. Yet we should remember that Hilsey's Primer had read "must rise," and Whytechurch's Psalter "have to rise."* So, on the whole, this too seems to make in favour of the use of a Greek text.

We now know that the Reformers made a mistake in supposing the Greek text to be the original. But the mistake was a natural one to make, and it does not detract from our feeling of admiration for the design and intention of those who made it their object to build their work on what they believed to be the earliest and most authoritative text.†

In all the editions of the Prayer Book down to that of 1662 this creed is simply styled “this Confession of our Christian Faith." Yet the wording of the seventh (now the eighth) of our Thirty-nine Articles of Religion would lead us to think that

* See SWAINSON'S Nicene and Apostles' Creeds, etc., pp. 491, 493-5, where other less marked indications of the influence of the Greek are given.

+ Several years ago I attempted to show that the word "incomprehensible" in verse 12 is not used (as most commentators assume) in its obsolete sense of "unmeasured," "infinite" (as an equivalent of the Latin immensus), but as a translation of åкатáληπтos in its most common sense of "not to be comprehended by the intellect,” that is, in the now general, and in the sixteenth century common sense of the English word "incomprehensible." Elsewhere when our Reformers desired to translate the Latin "immensus" they used "infinite," as in the Te Deum, "The Father of an infinite majesty." Compare also the English and Latin of the first of the Thirty-nine Articles. In the English translation of the Paraphrase of Erasmus 1548 we read, "Considering that the nature of godly things is incomprehensible, yea to the highest wits of men or angels," etc. John Fryth (who perished at Smithfield in 1533) writes: "How incomprehensible are his [God's] ways." The argument is more fully set forth in a little paper by the writer, entitled Quæstiunculæ Liturgica, 1886.

while the Reformers had their scruples as to the real origin of " that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed," they were without doubts as to the origin of "Athanasius' Creed." Before, however, the last revision of the Prayer Book scholars had begun to question the view that Athanasius was its author, and it was doubtless the impression thus created that led the revisionists of 1661 to insert in the rubric the words "commonly called the Creed of Saint Athanasius."

One may inquire why, if the early Reformers believed this Creed to be the work of St. Athanasius, they did not call it in the Prayer Book "the Creed of St. Athanasius." I fear it is impossible to give an answer that is quite satisfactory. In the Sarum Breviary it had been entitled "Symbolum Athanasii when written in extenso in the office for Prime, but in frequent rubrical directions it had been referred to simply as "Quicunque," or "Psalmus Quicunque vult." I would welcome a better explanation of the action of the Reformers in dropping the name of Athanasius, and must content myself with offering the following conjecture. The motive which ruthlessly removed from the Kalendar of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. the name of every saint who cannot claim to be recorded in the New Testament may have here been at work. In Cranmer's Litany of 1544 the concluding prayer, Almighty God, which hast given us grace at this time with one accord," etc., had been styled, in the margin, "A Prayer of Chrysostome." But in the First Prayer Book this title was removed. It may

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be due to the same sentiment, rather than to critical doubts as to the authorship, that the Te Deum is not assigned, as in the Sarum Breviary, to the authorship of Ambrose and Augustine. It would seem as though the desire throughout was to base the Prayer Book on the ground of its conformity with the teaching of Holy Scripture, and not on any human authority, however venerable.

The offence given to many good Christian people by the "minatory" (or, as they are often called, "damnatory") clauses of the Athanasian Creed cannot, I believe, be ever wholly removed by any attempt at a new and more correct translation of the best authenticated Latin text. But some mitigation of the offence would, no doubt, be found in one or two obvious corrections. As early as 1636 the scholarly James Wedderburne, Bishop of Dunblane, had, in view of the approaching publication of the Book of Common Prayer for the use of the Church of Scotland, suggested certain improvements in the translation of the Athanasian Creed for the consideration of Archbishop Laud. And when the book appeared in 1637 we find one of the verses commonly objected to had been, by a closer rendering of the Latin, deprived of much of its harshness. The original of the verse that runs in the English Prayer Book, "He therefore that will be saved: must thus think of the Trinity," is "Qui vult ergo salvus esse, ita de Trinitate sentiat." The Scottish Prayer Book gave the verse, "He therefore that would be saved let him thus think of the Trinity." It would seem that even as early as 1637 the sense of “will,”