give any account of, and that is the creed which is commonly received under the name of the Athanasian Creed. Baronius is of opinion,' that it was composed by Athanasius, when he was at Rome, and offered to Pope Julius as a confession of his faith; which circumstance is not at all likely, for Julius never questioned the faith of Athanasius. However, a great many learned men have so far embraced the opinion of Baronius, as to believe this creed to be of Athanasius's composing; as Cardinal Bona, and Petavius,3 and Bellarmin, and Rivet, with many others of both communions. Scultetus leaves the matter in doubt. But the best and latest critics, who have examined the thing most exactly, make no question but that it is to be ascribed to a Latin author, Vigilius Tapsensis, an African bishop, who lived in the latter end of the fifth century, in the time of the Vandalie Arian persecution. The learned Vossius, and Quesnel," have written particular dissertations upon this subject. Their arguments are; First, because this creed is wanting in almost all the manuscripts of Athanasius's Works. Secondly, because the style and contexture of it does not bespeak a Greek, but a Latin author. Thirdly, because neither Cyril of Alexandria, nor the council of Ephesus, nor Pope Leo, nor the council of Chalcedon, have ever so much as mentioned it in all that they say against the Nestorian or Eutychian heresies. Fourthly, because this Vigilius Tapsensis is known to have published several others of his writings under the borrowed name of Athanasius, with which this creed is commonly joined. These reasons have persuaded such men as Bp. Pearson, Archbishop Usher," Hamond L'Estrange,1o Dr. Cave," Schelstrate, Pagi,13 and Du Pin, critics of the 1 Baron. An. 340. n. 11. Not. in Epiphan. Hær. 72. 12 5 Rivet. Critic. Sacr. lib. iii. c. 4. p. 240. Dissert. 2. Codice Romano. 7 Quesnel. Dissert. De variis Fidei Symbolis in antiquo 9 Usser. de Symbol. Rom. p. 1. Offices, chap. iv. p.99. 12 Schelstrat. Con. Antioch. Dissert. iii. c. 2. p. 109. in Baron. An. 340. n. 6. Du Pin. vol. ii. p. 35. Stillingfleet, Orig. Brit. c. 4. p. 227, says the first author that mentions it, is Abbo Floriacensis, An. 970. But in this he is a little mistaken. best rank, to come into this opinion, that this creed was not composed by Athanasius, but by a later and a Latin writer. Dr. Cave thinks, the first that mentions it under the name of Athanasius is Theodulphus Aurelianensis, who lived about the year 794, in the reign of Charles the Great. But in this he is a little mistaken; for the council of Autum, which was held above an hundred years before, Anno 670, not only mentioned it under that name, but ordered every presbyter, deacon, subdeacon, &c. to read it together with the Apostles' Creed,' or be liable to the bishop's censure for his omission: which implies, that it was then esteemed the genuine work of Athanasius, and as such had for some time been received in the Church. But whoever was the author of it, there never was any question made of its orthodoxy, except by the Samosatenians and Arians in these later ages of the Church. Only as Bp. Usher and others have observed, the modern Greeks now use it with some additions and alterations. For whereas it is said in the Latin copies, that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son, the Greeks now read it, from the Father, or the Father only; as Paræus has remarked in his exposition of this creed. And in the Greek copy lately brought out of the East, and published by Bp. Usher there is a long interpolation by way of addition, and explication of those words, "He was man of the substance of his mother, perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting," with some other additions of lesser note, which the curious reader may find marked out in the forementioned tract of that learned author.s To all the Creeds that have been related in this Chapter, I think it not improper to add the short account which Eusebius gives of the first preaching of St. Thaddeus to King Agbarus and the people of Edessa, which I had from the information of my learned and judicious friend Mr. Lowth, Con. Augustodun. Can. ult. Con. tom. vi. p. 536. Si quis presbyter, diaconus, subdiaconus, vel clericus, Symbolum, quod inspirante Sancto Spiritu Apostoli tradiderunt, vel Fidem sancti Athanasii præsulis irreprehensibiliter non recensuerit, ab episcopo condemnetur. Paræus, Not, in Symbol. Athanas. ad calcem Ursin. Catech. p. 124. Symbolis, p. 29. 2 3 Usser. De to whose useful conversation I owe many other curious remarks and observations, that lie scattered throughout the Antiquities of the Church. This is not indeed properly a creed, but a summary of his first sermon, or the heads of his first catechetical institution to the people;-Concerning the coming of Jesus into the world, after what manner it was; and concerning his mission, for what reason he was sent by the Father; concerning his power, and the mysteries which he spake in the world, and by what power he did these; then of his new way of preaching; of his meanness and abject estate, and the humility of his outward appearance as a man; after what manner he humbled himself, and submitted to death, and made a diminutive' appearace in his divine nature; what things he suffered of the Jews, and how he was crucified, and descended into hell, and brake down the partition that had been kept up in former ages; how he arose from the dead, and raised with himself those that slept in preceding generations; how he descended from heaven alone, but ascended with a mighty company to his Father; how he sits at the right of God the Father, and shall come again with glory and power to judge both the quick and the dead. Here are two things very remarkable in this ancient account of the first principles of Christian doctrine, viz., the divinity of our Saviour, and the descent into hell, both which are here expressed in terms, for which reason I thought it might deserve a place among the creeds of the Church. Eusebius says, " he had the account in the Syriac tongue, as it was preserved in the archives of the Church of Edessa, signed in the year 340, which, according to the computation of time then used by the Syrians of Edessa, reckoning from the first year that Seleucus began to reign in Asia, falls in with the same year that Christ - * Euseb. lib. i. c. 13. 'Εσμίκρυνεν αὐτῷ τὴν θεότητα.—κατέβη εἰς τὸν ἅδην, κ, διέσχισε φραγμον, &c. It is worth our observation to compare the Apostle's expression, Phil. ii. 7. « Εαυτον ἐκένωσε,-He made himself of no reputation, or he emptied himself," with this expression of Thaddæus,— “ ἐσμίκρυνεν αὐτῷ τὴν θεότητα, He lessened, or made a diminutive show and appearance of his godhead." For these places mutually explain one another, and are a solid proof that the divinity of Christ in the apostolical age was one of the principal articles of the Christian Faith. suffered and arose from the dead, as Valesius and Pagi1 after him have rightly computed in their observations upon this passage of Eusebius. CHA Of the Original, Nature, and Reasons of the ancient Discipline, in concealing the Sacred Mysteries of the Church from the Catechumens. SECT. 1.-The Errors and Pretences of the Romanists upon this Point. THAT which makes this inquiry a little more necessary, is the several vain pretences of the Romanists concerning the original and reasons of this discipline. Bellarmin and others urge it as a mighty argument for transubstantiation in particular, as if the concealing the mystery of the eucharist from the catechumens, was an indication of the belief of the Church concerning the real presence of Christ's body and blood, which they were so studiously careful to hide from the knowledge of the catechumens. But this is abundantly refuted by a more accurate observation of Albaspinæus, a learned bishop of the same communion, who in his book of the Ancient Polity of the Church relating to the Eucharist, as I find him cited by others, rejects this as an incompetent proof of the Romish doctrine of the real presence. For he rightly observes, "that the Ancients concealed not only the mystery of the eucharist, but also the sacrament of baptism, from the catechumens; yea, and almost all other their sacred rites and ceremonies, which in a large sense are called sacraments, as the oil of chrism or confirmation, and the ordination of priests, which were as studiously concealed from the knowledge or inspection. of the uninitiated, as the elements of the holy eucharist were." So that the bare concealing that mystery from the catechumens, could no more be an argument of transubstantiation Pagi, Critic. in Baron. An. 41. n. 3. l'Anciene Eglise, &c. lib. i. c. 2. p. 47. lib. ii. p. 703. 2 Albaspin. Police de 8 Albertin. de Eucharist. in the bread and wine in the eucharist, than it was in the waters of baptism, or any other ceremony where the same silence and caution was used. The learned Schelstrate with a subtle invention has made a more general use of this ancient practice, to palliate and excuse all the novel doctrines and practices of his own Church. He wrote a book, which he intituled Disciplina Arcani, a book highly magnified by Pagi and others of his own communion, as stopping the mouths of the Protestants, when they ask the Romanists,-" why no footsteps of their modern doctrines and practices appear in the earliest writers of the Church?"-The answer is ready upon all occasions, from this Disciplina Arcani, "that it was because these doctrines and practices were kept secret, and only handed down by tradition, not committed to writing, le t they should come to the knowledge of the uninitiated Jews and Gentiles, and the catechumens of the Church." This is the reason, he tells us, why there is no account of the seven sacraments, nor of the worship of saints or images, in the first writers of the Church. The things were really believed and practised from the days of the Apostles, as he will have it, but kept secret as the hidden mysteries of religion, which were not to be divulged to any but such as were initiated and prepared to know them. This is an artifice that would justify as many errors and vanities as any Church could be guilty of: it is but working a little with this admirable instrument and tool,called Disciplina Arcani, and then all the seeming contradictions between the ancient doctrines and practices of the Church universal, and the novel corruptions of the modern Church of Rome, will presently vanish and disappear. So that we need not wonder why men, whose interest it serves so much, should magnify this as a noble invention: when yet in truth it is only a veil and a mist cast before the reader's eyes, which may easily be dispelled by giving a true account of that ancient piece of discipline and practice, first in its original, and then in the nature, use, and reasons of it. VOL. III. 1 Pagi, Critic. in Baron. An. 118. n. 9. H |