IV. SYMBOLUM QUICUNQUE.
THE ATHANASIAN CREED.

THE LATIN ORIGINAL.
1. Quicunque vult salvus esse:
ante omnia opus est, ut teneat ca-
tholicam fidem.

2. Quam nisi quisque integram inviolatamque servaverit: absque dubio in æternum peribit.

3. Fides autem catholica hæc est: ut unum Deum in Trinitate, et

OLD TRANSLATION REVISED.

1. Whosoever will be saved: be

fore all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith:

2. Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled: without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.

3. And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in TrinTrinitatem in Unitate veneremur; ity, and Trinity in Unity;

4. Neque confundentes perso- 4. Neither confounding the Pernas: neque substantiam separan- sons: nor dividing the Substance [Essence].

tes.

5. Alia est enim persona Patris: alia Filii: alia Spiritus Sancti.

6. Sed Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti una est divinitas: æqualis gloria, coæterna majes

tas.

7. Qualis Pater: talis Filius: talis [et] Spiritus Sanctus.

8. Increatus Pater: increatus Filius: increatus [et] Spiritus Sanctus.

9. Immensus Pater: immensus Filius: immensus [et] Spiritus Sanctus.

5. For there is one Person of the Father: another of the Son: and another of the Holy Ghost.

6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal.

7. Such as the Father is: such is the Son and such is the Holy Ghost.

8. The Father uncreate [uncreated]: the Son uncreate [uncreated]: and the Holy Ghost uncreate [uncreated].

9. The Father incomprehensible [unlimited]: the Son incomprehensible [unlimited]: and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible [unlimited, or infinite].

tris, ante secula genitus: et homo ex substantia matris, in seculo before the worlds: and Man, of the Substance [Essence] of his

32. Perfectus Deus: perfectus 32. Perfect God: and perfect homo, ex anima rationali et hu- Man, of a reasonable soul and humana carne subsistens. man flesh subsisting.

33. Aequalis Patri secundum divinitatem: minor Patre secundum humanitatem.

34. Qui licet Deus sit et homo; non duo tamen, sed unus est Chris

tus.

33. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead: and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood.

34. Who although he be [is] God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ.

35. Unus autem, non conver- 35. One; not by conversion of sione divinitatis in carnem : sed the Godhead into flesh: but by assumptione humanitatis in De- taking [assumption] of the Manhood into God.

ит.

36. Unus omnino; non confusione substantia: sed unitate per

sona.

37. Nam sicut anima rationalis et caro unus est homo: ita Deus et homo unus est Christus.

38. Qui passus est pro nostra salute: descendit ad inferos: tertia die resurrexit a mortuis.

39. Ascendit ad [in] cœlos: sedet ad dexteram [Dei] Patris [omnipotentis].

40. Inde venturus [est] judicare

vivos et mortuos.

41. Ad cujus adventum omnes homines resurgere habent cum corporibus suis;

42. Et reddituri sunt de factis propriis rationem.

36. One altogether; not by confusion of Substance [Essence]: but by unity of Person.

37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man: so God and Man is one Christ;

38. Who suffered for our salvation: descended into hell [IIades, spirit-world]: rose again the third day from the dead.

39. He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of the Father God [God the Father] Al mighty.

40. From whence thence] he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;

42. And shall give account for their own works.

43. Et qui bona egerunt, ibunt | 43. And they that have done in vitam æternam: qui vero mala, good shall go into life everlasting: in ignem æternum. and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire.

44. Hoc est fides catholica: quam nisi quisque fideliter firmiterque crediderit, salvus esse non poterit.

44. This is the Catholic Faith: which except a man believe faithfully [truly and firmly], he can not be saved.

NOTES.

The LATIN text of the oldest known MS. in the Utrecht Psalter has been reproduced by Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy in his Report (London, 1873), and in the fac-simile ed. of the Utrecht Psalter (1875). It agrees nearly altogether with the text given above, but has a number of inaccuracies. I have compared also the texts of Waterland (Works, Vol. III. pp. 221 sqq.), Usher (De Romanæ Eccles. Symbolo Apost. vetere, 1647, Genev. ed. 1722, pp. 13–15), Montfaucon (in his ed. of Athanasius, Tom. II. pp. 719 sqq.), Hahn (pp. 122-125), Lumby (p. 259), and Swainson (p. 204). The numbering of verses differs: Waterland, Montfaucon, and the English Book of Common Prayer have only 40 verses by combining 19 and 20, 25 and 26, 39 and 40, 41 and 42; Walch and others make 44, the Roman Breviary 42. In my Church Hist. Vol. III. pp. 690–695, I have given the parallel passages from the fathers.

There is no authorized Greek text of the Athanasian Creed, since it was never adopted in the Oriental Church. There are several translations, which differ considerably. Usher gives a Greek version with many interpolations. Caspari (Vol. III. pp. 263–267) published for the first time two other Greek versions from MSS. in the Venetian Library of St. Mark and the Ambrosian Library of Milan.

3

The English translation is that of the sixteenth century (1548), as found in the English editions of the Book of Common Prayer, and still in use in the public service of the Church of England. My emendations are inclosed in brackets. The punctuation is adjusted to the liturgical use of this Creed.

Ver. 1.-Some copies read opus habet for opus est. Usher: τὴν ὀρθόδοξον πίστιν, orthodoxam fidem. The MS. in the Utrecht Psalter begins with a grammatical blunder: 'Incipit fides catholicam.'

Ver. 2.-On the damnatory clause, which is twice repeated, ver. 28 and ver. 44, see the Introduction, pp. 39, 41. Some MSS. read inviolabilemque; some omit absque dubio.

Ver. 3.-Usher: Orthodoxa for catholica. Compare on this verse Gregory Naz., Orat. xxiii. : μονάδα ἐν τριάδι, καὶ τριάδα ἐν μονάδι προσκυνουμένην.

Ver. 4.-Person in the sense of persona, πрóσwжоv (also vπóσraσis in the post-Nicene use of the term), i. e., character, face, manifestation, subsistence. It must not be confounded with essence or being (essentia, substantia, natura, ovoía, puoic). God is one in essence, three in persons (Deus est trinus, h. e. in essentia unus, tres habet subsistendi modos). In modern philosophical usage the term person means a separate and distinct rational individual. But the tripersonality of God is not a numerical or essential trinity of three beings (like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), for this would be tritheism; nor is it, on the other hand, merely a threefold aspect and mode of manifestation, in the Sabellian or Swedenborgian sense; but it is a real, objective, and eternal, though ineffable, distinction in the one Divine being, with a corresponding threefold revelation of this being in the works of creation, redemption, and sanctification. 1 Swedenborg was willing to adopt the Athanasian Creed if a trinity of (the one Divine) person was substituted for a trinity of persons. According to him, the Father is the Essential Divinity, the Son the Divine Humanity, the Holy Spirit the Divine Proceeding or Operation.