have given way to the criminal folly involved in forging a new creed. Though he does not make Charlemagne a perfect Christian, he does a good service by bringing out the excellences of his character, and the real nobleness of mind which he undoubtedly possessed his sagacious rule and iron will, but at the same time his filial reverence for the Holy See.

It is not necessary to justify all the acts of Charlemagne, nor would it be necessary to lay aside the Athanasian symbol, even if it could be proved that it was a composition of the Emperor alone. There are many things in use in the church the authorship of which cannot be settled, or at least has not been settled up to this day. We should not be disposed to give up the "Veni sancte Spiritus," if it could be proved to have been the work of King Robert : we recite it because it comes to us on another ground, not that of authorship or of beauty. So in the same way the symbol of St. Athanasius, even if it were the work of Charlemagne, wilk retain its place in the divine office in spite of its supposed origin. But, then, that origin cannot be proved. At present, however, there is no reason shown why we should change even its name. We and our fathers have received it as the "Symbolum S. Athanasii," and the designation is a thousand years old, by the confession of its adversaries. It is not very reasonable to suppose that so important a summary of Christian doctrine should have been accepted in ignoranee, and its name supplied by hazard or by fraud. Nor can we imagine any state of circumstances which could have helped it into the divine office, if its origin be, what Mr. Ffoulkes would have us believe, a fraudulent forgery.

"As long, therefore, as this creed cannot be shown to be of later date, or of another source, as long as it cannot be shown that there is in it or its history that which forbids us to cling to the time-honoured tradition that he, if not the author, gave it at least his sanction, I will not deem it a duty to call it by any other name; but if the interest the present question has excited should be the occasion of revealing to us anything more of its obscure origin, I shall have no difficulty in accepting whatever may be in store for us " (p. 65).

These observations of Father Jones are most just; for what right has anybody to suggest the abandonment of the creed, on the ground that he thinks it a forgery of somebody? Let us have some proof of the assertion, for most assuredly we ought to have something better to rest on than the guesses of men who do not believe the doctrine it contains, and who, for that very reason, perhaps, are too ready to discredit a writing which is inconvenient for them, and at variance with the opinions which they think they hold.

It seems to be admitted that the word or words, "Filioque" in the Nicene Creed had not received the sanction of the Pope for some time after that creed had been so "interpolated," to use the words of Mr. Ffoulkes. But how, where, and when the change was made is a matter not quite so clear. We know that the chaplains of Charlemagne used the creed in its new form, and that it had been so used also in Spain for some 200 years before Charlemagne. Beyond this, the words "Filioque" in the Creed have not been traced; nevertheless, it would be rash to say that the insertion was made for the first time in Spain, because there is no appearance of novelty about that insertion, and, for all we know, the Spanish bishops may have used the creed in its present form all their lives.

We know that Spanish bishops, when they recited the Nicene Creed, did so for the express purpose of disowning the Arian heresy; but Mr. Ffoulkes, in his many writings, tells us that Charlemagne's intentions were of another kind. His object was to place a barrier between the East and the West, and to make the division between the Latins and the Greeks the more distinct. But we need not believe in this malignity of the Emperor, for it is not proved, and Mr. Ffoulkes does not say that there is any evidence of it beyond this, that on his hypothesis it accounts for facts he does not apparently understand himself. The notion gravely put forth by him is this, that Charlemagne forged the Athanasian Creed for the purpose of defending the insertion of the "Filioque" in the Nicene Creed. These are his words as quoted by Father Jones :

:

"This effect" [the creed or its use] " was deliberately planned by Charlemagne, and planned for a twofold purpose. First, to justify the interpolated creed to the Pope, and convict the Greeks of error in rejecting it; and, secondly, to substitute 'the Catholic faith of Athanasius' in the West as a standard of orthodoxy for that of Nicæa." P. 17.

This most singular notion is dissected by Father Jones, and we shall leave it in his hands, for nothing can be added to his exposure of its absurdity. Mr. Ffoulkes, we believe, belongs to the school of culture and historical research, and we poor Catholics, who hold the Creed as our fathers held it before us, are generally objects of pitiless scorn to that school. But still, we think that we have never yet shown so many signs of intellectual weakness as our censors have shown, for if we do cling to beliefs which they reject, there is nothing contemptible in that; we are so far the more respectable; for it is assuredly more respectable to hold what we have been taught than to give way to all the new discoveries which men think they make, the great bulk of which, in the course of time, is invariably found to be new mistakes, or old mistakes clumsily revived.

Το

This is the notion put before us by Mr. Ffoulkes to account for the existence of the Athanasian Creed. The Emperor Charlemagne wished to remove out of sight, or out of memory, the Nicene Creed, which is said or sung so frequently in the Mass, and to which the people had become used. accomplish his purpose he forges, or procures the forgery, of another creed ; but he does not get rid of the old creed, nor replace it by the new; and Mr. Ffoulkes has not shown that any attempt whatever was made to change the Liturgy. Then, again, the Athanasian Creed which the Emperor wished to substitute for the Nicene Creed, was never used in the Mass anywhere; whether it was used at all in the public offices of the Church in the time of Charlemagne is a matter about which men have doubted. Then, again, it is very difficult for ordinary people to see what Charlemagne could possibly gain by the use of the Athanasian Creed when he had interpolated the Nicene Creed for his purposes. It would most assuredly have been easier for him to do his work, whatever it was, by means of the "interpolated" Creed, with which the people were familiar, and among whom the "interpolation" excited no trouble and, so far as we know, no surprise.

The discussion about the origin of the Athanasian Creed is, in one sense, a dishonest one; for it is carried on chiefly by men who wish to get rid

of the doctrine as well as of the form. Mr. Ffoulkes, in his "Christendom's Divisions," Part II. p. 551, says that Charlemagne, by his "interpolation" had "well nigh succeeded, as Photius has well shown, in committing the Church to a formal denial of the first article of the Christian faith." A little further on he asks this question, and by that question he plainly shows that he does not hold the Catholic doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Ghost, or that he does not know what that doctrine is.

"As it is," he asks, "who can deny that the original procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father has been imperilled by including it in the same proposition with His derivative procession, however eternal from the Son?"

The words printed in italics are so printed by Mr. Ffoulkes. He certainly does not hold the Catholic doctrine that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one source. This dislike to the doctrine is a fact which is more or less hidden from view; but it is a fact, and people must not be surprised if they are told that this dislike is the true fount from which the river of their disputations runs.

Mr. Ffoulkes has admitted that the Athanasian Creed did not take the world quite by surprise, and that there is a "resemblance between it and the known formularies of the age of Charlemagne." That is quite true, and Father Jones has taken the pains to show that there were many formulæ of the kind. He has pointed out that as early as A.D. 676 or 677, a synod held in Autun speaks of the "Symbolum S. Athanasii;" but he, we think too generously, yields that synod to the objections made by Mr. Ffoulkes, though he says that, "from the time of the Brothers Ballerini the genuineness of this canon and its date have been looked on as settled." Father Jones will allow us to quarrel with him on this point, and, we trust, the more readily, because he admits that he cannot "see anything in Mr. Ffoulkes's observations to suggest a single serious difficulty with regard to it."

Difficulties have been made about the origin of the Apostles' Creed, but we cannot give it up because learned men cannot agree about its origin. And no good reason has yet been shown why we should be careless about the Athanasian. The latter is a summary of doctrine unsurpassed for its terseness and clearness. It is true, and it is of very little importance, that we do not know who wrote it, or when. Even if it could be shown to have been written some centuries after the death of St. Athanasius, it can make no difference whatever, for it is quite certain that the use of it in the Church is not grounded on the fact of authorship, but on its reception; and if Mr. Ffoulkes could show that the reception of it was brought about by forgery, fraud, or violence, he could do nothing towards getting rid of it, until he first gets people to disbelieve the doctrine which is set forth in it.

"There can be no doubt," says Father Jones, "that the Creed was put forward in the early part of the ninth century as the work of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria; that it was put forward as an approved and familiar exposition of the Catholic faith, and that authority was claimed for it on this ground. That it was put forward as having come down from former generations, and that those who so used it did not anticipate, nor did its use excite surprise, comment, or opposition. That it was put forward in the most public manner, by the most learned and respected doctors and prelates, in

synod and in controversial works, for use in the Divine Office, and in the instruction of the faithful. There is no need to prove this point by quotations, for they are found in almost every treatise on this subject, and are not questioned by any. I conclude, therefore, that it is neither probable nor credible that it was then an entirely new or unknown document, or that there was no reason of any kind for attributing it to St. Athanasius."-P. 31.

This is a most just and sensible summing up of the whole controversy; it describes a condition of things which nobody can reasonably question, and to the argument derived from it, Mr. Ffoulkes and his friends ought to furnish an answer if they can find one.

The learned men of the ninth century-if they were the first who did so— must have had some reasons for accepting the words "symbolum Sancti Athanasii," in addition to the formula about which they did not dispute because they held the doctrines thereof. Is it likely that an order of the Emperor could carry conviction to the minds of all priests and bishops, and that they should have accepted a formula already in their hands as the work of St. Athanasius if they had not always thought so?

But Mr. Ffoulkes assumes that the creed was forged in the year 800: by that he probably means that it was reduced into its present form at that time. Now, there were bishops and priests living in those days of all ages, from twenty-four years of age to seventy or eighty, and Mr Ffoulkes asks us to believe that they all accepted the imperial decision without a murmur or a doubt. Priests in those days were like priests in these days; let the experiment be made now.

We find from Father Jones that the forgery was made in the year 800, according to Mr. Ffoulkes; that is, the forgery of the creed itself, not of the name only. It is something to have a fixed time, and we are glad it is so in this case; we also gather further from the answer of Father Jones that Mr. Ffoulkes could not assign an earlier date to the forgery, because the proofs on which he relies compel him to assume that the forgery could not have been completed before the year A.D. 800.

To this we reply, that if the forgery was made in the Court of Charlemagne in the year 800, the creed could not be known two years before, in 798, in Worcester and Canterbury. But it was known, not only then, but a long time before, in this country-perhaps ever since its conversion by St. Augustine. In the year 798 Denebert was elected Bishop of Worcester; and, as usual, had to make a profession of obedience to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ethelard, and his successors, on his consecration. In that pro-. fession-printed by Hearne in the "Textus Roffensis," p. 252, and by Messrs, Haddan & Stubbs, "Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents," vol. iii. p. 526-are to be found the following words :

Insuper et orthodoxam Catholicam Apostolicamque fidem, sicut didici, paucis exponam verbis, quià scriptum est.

1. Quicunque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est illi ut teneat Catholicam

fidem.

2. Fides autem Catholica hæc est, ut unum Deum in Trinitate et Trinitatem in Unitate veneremur.

3. Neque confundentes Personas, neque substantiam separantes. 4. Alia enim est Persona Patris, alia Filii, alia Spiritus Sancti.

5. Sed Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, una est Divinitas, æqualis gloria, co-æterna Majestas.

6. Pater a nullo est factus, nec creatus, nec genitus.

7. Filius a Patre solo est, non factus, nec creatus, sed genitus.

8. Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et Filio; non factus, nec creatus, nec genitus, sed procedens.

9. In hac Trinitate nihil prius aut posterius, nihil majus aut minus, sed totæ tres Personæ co-æternæ sibi sunt et co-æquales.

10. Ita ut per omnia, sicut jam supra dictum est, et Trinitas in Unitate Unitas in Trinitate veneranda sit.

66

Suscipio etiam decreta Pontificum et sex synodos Catholicas, &c.

Here are ten clauses of the Athanasian Creed, not successive, it is true, but taken out of it by the bishop for the purpose of expressing his orthodoxy, and it is remarkable how little change has been wrought in the formula in the course of a thousand years and more. In the first clause--we have numbered them ourselves for convenience-sake-"illi" is no longer retained. In the fourth clause we have a different arrangement of the words from that in use: enim" and "est" have changed places. In the sixth clause, Mr. Stubbs, differing from Hearne, has printed, "Pater a nullo factus est," probably on the authority of the MS. in the British Museum, which he quotes. In the tenth clause there is another change the bishop said, "the Trinity in Unity, and the Unity in Trinity is to be worshipped," but now we say, "the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity," a variety probably owing to the scribe, or, perhaps, the bishop may have trusted to his memory too much.

From this passage out of the Profession of the Bishop of Worcester in 798, we do not think that anybody can withstand the inevitable conclusion that the Athanasian Creed was at that time what it is now. That is not all, the bishop is not expressing his belief in words chosen by himself, he is repeating a well-known formula, a formula not invented by himself, but one that he had been taught "sicut didici." For our own part, we believe that the bishop was repeating a portion of the Divine Office well known to him and to all ecclesiastics, and that the Athanasian Creed in its present form had been known to him from his earliest years. We do not say that it was known to the first converts from heathenism made by St. Augustine, because we do not know; but we do say that we know of no reason why it should not have been taught in England by the first missionaries of St. Gregory the Great. Certainly, if we find the symbol in this form in the year 798, and can trace portions of it in the decrees of councils, and in professions of faith for centuries previously, we see no great difficulty in holding that it might have been in use two hundred years earlier in England, when St. Augustine, in 597, was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury.