on well enough without any special ritual. But without righteousness they perish! The Church, therefore, which insists most upon righteousness, and least upon other things, is the best Church. The Church which insists solely upon righteousness is the only Church that will not pass away.

4I

The Athanasian Creed.

IN

I.

N what I am going to say to you this morning about the Athanasian Creed, I shall confine myself entirely to facts-facts which you can all, if you please, verify for yourselves.

(B)

I. The Creed was not written by Athanasius. This is now admitted by all scholars, even the most orthodox, for the following reasons. (a) There is no trace of such a creed in any of the older MSS. of the works of Athanasius. Athanasius himself disclaims as superfluous the use of any creed except the Nicene. (y) There is no evidence of the existence of such a creed before, at any rate, the end of the eighth century. Its authorship has been attributed to a great

number of different writers; but on this point nothing definite has been proved. The Creed is not an original composition, but a compilation of sentences, taken chiefly from the writings of St Augustine. How the name of Athanasius came to be attached to it I do not know. One of our highest ecclesiastical authorities, Dr Swainson, declares that it was an intentional and deliberate attempt to deceive and to procure for the Creed more respect than it would otherwise have obtained." This may be so; for Athanasius always had a great reputation as an orthodox theologian-he has been called indeed the father of orthodoxy. But even if the Creed were produced under his name in the honest conviction that it really represented his views, the fact remains that he was not its author. This does not, however, necessarily detract from its value. For Athanasius himself lived after the time when, according to the orthodox view, inspiration had ceased, and he was therefore just as liable to error, just as far from being infallible, as any subsequent writer.

The strongest objection to the Creed, ecclesi

astically speaking, is the fact that it has never been sanctioned by any Ecumenical Council. Indeed, of the four councils whose authority alone is recognised by the Church of England, the last two-those, viz., of Ephesus and Chalcedon-solemnly prohibited the composition of any other creed than the Nicene. In the minutes of the Council of Ephesus we find the following remarks: "The holy synod has determined that no person shall be allowed to bring forward or to write any other creed, besides that which was settled by the holy fathers who assembled in the city of Nicea with the Holy Ghost. But those who shall dare to compose any other creed, or to exhibit and produce any such, if they are bishops or clergymen, they shall be deposed; but if they are of the laity, they shall be anathematised." The Council of Chalcedon repeated the same prohibition. It is difficult to see how the recitation of the Athanasian Creed can be reconciled with that submission which our Church professes to the authority of these great Ecumenical Councils.

Well, that is the first point. The Athanasian

Creed was not written by Athanasius; and its author, whoever he was, composed it in opposition to the highest ecclesiastical authority.

In

II. The Athanasian Creed was written in Latin. In that language it is much simpler than it appears to be in English. The word person is a translation of the Latin word persona. Now persona has three meanings. (a) It stands first for an actor's mask. The word is derived, as you see, from per, through, and sonare, to sound. ancient times actors wore masks, and these masks were called persona, because the actor's words sounded or were uttered through them. (B) The word persona means the character which any one assumes, or the part which he plays, either on or off the stage. The persona of an actor are the characters in his répertoire. And just as the same actor assumes many characters upon the scenic stage, so we all have to play many parts in actual life. Every individual in existence has more than one persona. You, for example, are a member of a family; that is one persona, it is one character in which you appear, one part which