606. Gloria Patri
An ancient canticle which is used in the service to give a trinitarian form to Old Testament unitarianism.
The first part, “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,” was used very early in the apostolic era of the church, as the common doxology. The second part, “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end,” was added by the Western Church during the second and third centuries when the Arian controversy raised the question as to whether the God of the Old Testament is the same as the God manifested in Christ in the New Testament. The answer, incorporated in the song, was an affirmative. It was always sung after the Psalms to give them a New Testament or Trinitarian ending. This is still the chief use of the Gloria Patri, though it is attached sometimes to some other part of the service. Concerning this point, Dr. Henry Sloan Coffin says: “In view of the origin of the Gloria Patri and its long historical association with the Psalms, it is vandalism to tear it from its proper context, and attach it to something else in the service.” (The Public Worship of God, Westminster Press, p. 101).
MUSIC. For comments on Henry Greatorex see [Hymn 230].