Luther was disposed to regard it as 'the most important and glorious composition since the days of the apostles."

Some Reformed divines, especially of the Anglican Church, have commended it very highly; even the Puritan Richard Baxter lauded it as 'the best explication [better, statement] of the Trinity,' provided, however, that the damnatory sentences be excepted, or modestly expounded.'

In the Church of England it is still sung or recited in the cathedrals and parish churches on several festival days,2 but this compulsory public use meets with growing opposition, and was almost unanimously condemned in 1867 by the royal commission appointed to consider certain changes in the Anglican Ritual.3

The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, when, in consequence of the American Revolution, it set up a separate organization in the Convention of 1785 at Philadelphia, resolved to remodel the Liturgy (in the Proposed Book'), and, among other changes, excluded from it both the Nicene and the Athanasian Creeds, and struck out from the Apostles' Creed the clause, 'He descended into hell.' The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, before consenting to ordain bishops for America, requested their brethren to restore the clause of the Apostles' Creed, and 'to give to the other two Creeds a place in their Book of Common Prayer, even though the use of them should be left discretional." In the Convention held at Wilmington, Del., October 10,

Es ist also gefasset, dass ich nicht weiss, ob seit der Apostel Zeit in der Kirche des Neuen Testamentes etwas Wichtigeres und Herrlicheres geschrieben sei' (Luther, Werke, ed. Walch, VI. 2315).

The rubric directs that the Athanasian Creed 'shall be sung or said at Morning Prayer, instead of the Apostles' Creed, on Christmas-day, the Epiphany, St. Matthias, Easter-day, Ascension-day, Whitsunday, St. John the Baptist, St. James, St. Bartholomew, St. Matthew, St. Simon and St. Jude, St. Andrew, and upon Trinity Sunday.'

By nineteen out of the twenty-seven members of the Ritual Commission. See their opinions in Stanley, 1. c. pp. 73 sqq. Dean Stanley on that occasion urged no less than sixteen reasons against the public use of the Athanasian Creed. On the other hand, Dr. Pusey has openly threatened to leave the Established Church if the Athanasian Creed, and with it the doctrinal status of that Church, should be disturbed. Brewer's defense is rather feeble. Bishop Ellicott proposed, in the Convocation of Canterbury, to relieve the difficulty by a revision of the English translation, e. g. by rendering vult salvus esse, desires to be in a state of salvation,' instead of 'will be saved.' Others suggest an omission of the damnatory clauses. But the true remedy is either to omit the Athanasian Creed altogether from the Book of Common Prayer, or to leave its public use optional.

·

Bishop White (of Philadelphia): Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, New York, 2d ed. 1836, pp. 305, 306.

1786, the request of the English prelates, as to the first two points, was acceded to, but the restoration of the Athanasian Creed was negatived.' As the opposition to this Creed was quite determined, especially on account of the damnatory clauses, the mother Church acquiesced in the omission, and granted the desired Episcopal ordination.'

In the Greek Church it never obtained general currency or formal ecclesiastical sanction, and is only used for private devotion, with the omission of the clause on the double procession of the Spirit.2

1 White's Memoires, 26, 27. Bishop White himself was decidedly opposed to the Creed, as was Bishop Provost, of New York. The Archbishop of Canterbury told them afterwards: 'Some wish that you had retained the Athanasian Creed; but I can not say that I feel uneasy on the subject, for you have retained the doctrine of it in your Liturgy, and as to the Creed itself, I suppose you thought it not suited to the use of a congregation' (1. c. 117, 118). 2 Some Greeks say that the words et Filio (ver. 23) are a Latin interpolation, others that Athanasius was drunk when he wrote them. Most Greek copies omit them, and read only

àñò той жатρоç. Montfaucon, Athan. Opera, II. 728.

THIRD CHAPTER.

THE CREEDS OF THE GREEK CHURCH.

General Literature.

Orthodoxa Confessio catholicæ atque apostol. ecclesiæ orientalis a PET. MOGILA compos., a MELETIO SYRIGO aucta et mutata, gr. c. prof. NEOTARII curav. PANAGIOTTA, Amst. 1662; cum interpret. lat. ed. LAUF. NORMANN, Leipz. 1695, 8vo; c. interpret. lat. et vers. german, ed. K. GLO. HOFMANN, Breslau, 1751, 8vo. Also in Russian: Moscow, 1696; German by J. LEONH. FRISCH, Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1727, 4to; Dutch by J. A. Senier, Haarlem, 1722; in Kimmel's Monumenta, P. I. 1843.

Clypeus orthodoxae fidei, sive Apologia (Ασπις ὀρθοδοξίας, ἡ ἀπολογία καὶ ἔλεγχος) ab Synodo Hierosolymitana (A.D. 1672) sub Hierosolymorum Patriarcha Dositheo composita adversus Calvinistas hæreticos, etc. Published at Paris, Greek and Latin, 1676 and 1678: then in HARDUINI Acta Conciliorum, Par 1715, Tom. XI. fol. 179-274; also in KIMMEL's Monum. P. I. 325-488. Comp. also the Acts of the Synod of Constantinople, held in the same year (1672), and publ. in Hard. 1. c. 274-284, and in Kimmel, P. II. 214–227. Confessio cathol. et apostolica in oriente ecclesiæ, conscripta compendiose per METROPHANEM CRITOPULUM. Ed, et, lat. redd. J. HORNEJUS, Helmst. 1661, 4to (the title-page has erroneously the date 1561). CYRILLI LUCARIS: Confessio christ. fudei græca cum additam. Cyrilli, Geneva, 1633: græc. et lat. (Condemned as heretical.)

Acta et scripta theologorum Wirtembergensium et patriarchæ Constantinop. HIEREMLE, quæ utrique ab a. 1576 usque ad a. 1581 de Augustana Confessione inter se miserunt, gr. et lat. ab iisdem theologis edita, Wittenb. 1584, fol. This work contains the Augsburg Confession in Greek, three epistles of Patriarch Jeremiah, criticising the Augsh. Conf., and the answers of the Tübingen divines, all in Greek and Latin. E.J. KIMMEL and H. WEISSENBORN: Monumenta fidei ecclesiæ orientalis. Primum in unum corpus collent, variantes lectiones adnotavit, prolegomena addidit, etc., 2 vols., Jenæ, 1843-1850. The first part contains the two Confessions of Gennadius, the Confession of Cyrillus Lucaris, the Confessio Orthodoxa, and the Acts of the Synod of Jerusalem. The second part, which is added by Weissenborn, contains the Confessio Metrophanis Critopuli, aud the Decretum Synodi Constantinopolitanæ, 1672. Kimmel d. 1846. W.GASS: Gennadius und Pletho, Aristotelismus und Platonismus in der griechischen Kirche, nebst einer Abhandlung über die Bestreitung des Islam im Mittelalter, Breslau, 1844, in two parts. The second part Contains, among other writings of Gennadius and Pletho, the two Confessions of Gennadius (1453) in Greek. By the same: Symbolik der griechischen Kirche, Berlin, 1872.

R. W. BLACKMORE: The Doctrine of the Russian Church, being the Primer or Spelling-book, the Shorter and Longer Catechisms, and a Treatise on the Duty of Parish Priests. Translated from the Slavono-Russian Originals, Aberdeen, 1845.

$ 11. THE SEVEN ECUMENICAL COUNCILS.

The entire Orthodox Greek or Oriental Church,' including the Greek Church in Turkey, the national Church in the kingdom of Greece, and the national Church of the Russian Empire, and embracing a membership of about eighty millions, adopts, in common with the Roman communion, the doctrinal decisions of the seven oldest oecumenical Councils, laying especial stress on the Nicene Council and Nicene Creed. These Councils were all summoned by Greek emperors, and controlled by Greek patriarchs and bishops. They are as follows:

The full name of the Greek Church is the Holy Oriental Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church,' The chief stress is laid on the title orthodox. The name Ipairóç, used by Polybius and since as equivalent to the Latin Græcus, was by the Greeks themselves always regarded as an exotic. Homer has three standing names for the Greeks: Danaoi, Argeioi, and Achaioi; also Panhellenes and Panachaioi. The ancient (heathen) Greeks called themselves Hellenes, the modern (Slavonic) Greeks, till recently, Romans, in distinction from the surrounding Tarks. The Greek language, since the founding of the East Roman empire, was called Romaic.

I. The first Council of Nicæa, A.D. 325; called by Constantine M. II. The first Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381; called by Theodosius M.

III. The Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431; called by Theodosius II. IV. The Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451; called by Emperor Marcian and Pope Leo I.

V. The second Council of Constantinople, A.D. 553; called by Jus

tinian I.

VI. The third Council of Constantinople, A.D. 680; called by Constantine Pogonatus.

VII. The second Council of Nicæa, A.D. 787; called by Irene and her son Constantine.

The first four Councils are by far the most important, as they settled the orthodox faith on the Trinity and the Incarnation. The fifth Coun cil, which condemned the Three (Nestorian) Chapters, is a mere supplement to the third and fourth. The sixth condemned Monothelitism. The seventh sanctioned the use and worship of images.1

To these the Greek Church adds the Concilium Quinisextum, held at Constantinople (in Trullo), A.D. 691 (or 692), and frequently also that held in the same city A.D. 879 under Photius the Patriarch; while the Latins reject these two Synods as schismatic, and count the Synod of 869 (the fourth of Constantinople), which deposed Photius and condemned the Iconoclasts, as the eighth cecumenical Council. But these conflicting Councils refer only to discipline and the rivalry between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope of Rome.

The Greek Church celebrates annually the memory of the seven holy Synods, held during the palmy days of her history, on the first Sunday in Lent, called the 'Sunday of Orthodoxy,' when the service is made to

1 Worship in a secondary sense, or δουλεία, including ἀσπασμὸς καὶ τιμητικὴ προσκύνησις, but not that adoration or ȧλŋwn λarpɛía, which belongs only to God. See Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, Bd. III. p. 440.

2 This Synod is called Quinisexta or πvékTMη, because it was to be a supplement to the fifth and sixth œcumenical Councils, which had passed doctrinal decrees, but no canons of discipline. It is also called the second Trullan Synod, because it was held in Trullo,' a saloon of the imperial palace in Constantinople. The Greeks regard the canons of this Synod as the canons of the fifth and sixth œcumenical Councils, but the Latins never acknowledged the Quinisexta, and called it mockingly erratica.' As the dates of the Quinisexta are variously given 686, 691, 692, 712. Comp. Baronius, Annal. ad ann. 692, No. 7, and Hefele, 1. c. III. pp. 298 sqq.

reproduce a dramatic picture of an ecumenical Council, with an emperor, the patriarchs, metropolitans, bishops, priests, and deacons in solemn deliberation on the fundamental articles of faith. She looks forward to an eighth œcumenical Council, which is to settle all the controversies of Christendom subsequent to the great schism between the East and the West.

Since the last of the seven Councils, the doctrinal system of the Greek Church has undergone no essential change, and become almost petrified. But the Reformation, especially the Jesuitical intrigues and the crypto-Calvinistic movement of Cyril Lucar in the seventeenth century, called forth a number of doctrinal manifestoes against Romanism, and still more against Protestantism. We may divide them into three

classes:

I. Primary Confessions of public authority:

(a) The Orthodox Confession,' or Catechism of Peter Mogilas, 1643, indorsed by the Eastern Patriarchs and the Synod of Jerusalem.

(6) The Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem, or the Confession of Dositheus, 1672.

To the latter may be added the similar but less important decisions of the Synods of Constantinople, 1672 (Responsio Dionysii), and 1691 (on the Eucharist).

(e) The Russian Catechisms which have the sanction of the Holy Synod, especially the Longer Catechism of Philaret (Metropolitan of Moscow), published by the synodical press, and generally used in Russia since 1839.

(d) The Answers of Jeremiah, Patriarch of Constantinople, to certain Lutheran divines, in condemnation of the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession, 1576 (published at Wittenberg, 1584), were sanctioned by the Synod of Jerusalem, but are devoid of clearness and point, and therefore of little use.

II. Secondary Confessions of a mere private character, and hence not

to be used as authorities:

(a) The two Confessions of Gennadius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 1453. One of them, purporting to give a dialogue between the Patriarch and the Sultan, is spurious, and the other has nothing characteristic of the Greek system.

(b) The Confession of Metrophanes Critopulus, subsequently Patri