At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies: and shall give account for their own works.
And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting: and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
This is the Catholick Faith: which, except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.
I shall now give you the history and character of this Athanasian Creed in the words of Waddington, one of the ablest Ecclesiastical Historians, I might say the ablest, for Jortin did not pretend to write a History, that the Church of England has produced. You will recollect that one of the Lectures, to be delivered at Christ Church, announces “the Athanasian Creed to be explained and defended.” Without wishing to anticipate that Lecture, hear now, and recollect then, the opposing voices of the Church.
“Before we take leave of this period, (from A.D. 600, to A.D. 800,) it is proper to mention, that the first appearance of the Creed, commonly called Athanasian, is ascribed to it with great probability. There can be no doubt that this exposition of faith was composed in the West, and in Latin; but the exact date of its composition has been the subject of much difference. The very definite terms, in which it expresses the Church doctrine of the Incarnation, are sufficient to prove it posterior to the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, or later than the middle of the fifth century.[[505]] Again, if we are to consider the doctrine of the double procession of the Holy Spirit, as being expressly declared in it, since that mystery was scarcely made matter of public controversy until the eighth century, it might seem difficult to refer a creed, positively asserting the more recent doctrine, to an earlier age. But the historical monuments of the Church do not quite support this supposition; the Creed, such probably as it now exists, is mentioned by the Council of Autun, in the year 670, and its faithful repetition by the Clergy enjoined; and we find the same injunction repeated in the beginning of the ninth age. Thus it gradually gained ground; nevertheless there seems to be great reason for the opinion, that it was not universally received even in the western church until nearly two centuries afterwards.
“Considered as an exposition of doctrine, the Athanasian Creed contains a faithful summary of the high mysteries of Christianity as interpreted by the Church of Rome. Considered as a rule of necessary faith enforced by the penalty of Eternal Condemnation, the same Creed again expresses one of the most rigid principles of the same Church. The Unity of the Church comprehended Unity of belief: there could be no salvation out of it; nor any hope for those who deviated even from the most mysterious among its tenets. And thus, by constant familiarity with the declarations of an exclusive faith, the heart of many a Romish priest may have been closed against the sufferings of the heretic, rescued (as he might think) by the merciful chastisement of the Church from the flames which are never quenched!
“It would be irrelevant in this work, and wholly unprofitable, to inquire how far any temporary circumstances may have justified the introduction of the Athanasian Creed into the Liturgy of our own Church—constructed as that Church is on the very opposite principle of Universal Charity. But we cannot forbear to offer one remark naturally suggested by the character and history of this Creed, that if at any future time, it should be judged expedient to expunge it, there is no reason, there is scarcely any prejudice which could be offended by such erasure.[[506]] The sublime truths which it contains are not expressed in the language of Holy Scripture; nor could they possibly have been so expressed, since the inspired writers were not studious minutely to expound inscrutable mysteries, neither can it plead any sanction from high antiquity, or even traditional authority; since it was composed many centuries after the times of the Apostles, in a very corrupt age of a corrupt Church, and composed in so much obscurity, that the very pen from which it proceeded is not certainly known to us. The inventions of men, when they have been associated for ages with the exercises of religion, should indeed be touched with respect and discretion; but it is a dangerous error to treat them as inviolable; and it is something worse than error to confound them in holiness and reverence with the words and things of God.”[[507]]
In reading these words the wish involuntarily arises that the temper, as well as the sound learning and philosophical spirit, of the able writer was shared by all his brethren. Yet it does sound strange to hear a dignitary of the Church of England describe a Creed of his own Church, as having its only use, during the days of Romish intolerance, in shutting up, through familiarity with its persecuting spirit, the avenues of relenting mercy in the hard hearts of priests; and now in the milder Church of England, constructed, we are told, though we had not discovered it, on the “principle of Universal Charity,” of absolutely no use whatever, so that there hardly exists even a prejudice which its erasure would offend. Yet this is the very Creed which, in the course of this controversy is to be explained and defended. If the Church of England is, indeed, founded in the principle of Universal Charity, some of its Ministers are very heretical interpreters of its spirit, and yet we must do them the justice of confessing that the Creeds and Articles of the Church are equally unfortunate expounders of the spirit of Universal Charity. Men of Christian and gentle temper interpret Articles of Faith through their own gentle spirit; but fanatics read hard formulas with different eyes. We can only wish that the religion of this excellent historian was the religion of his Church, and that his Creed was as Christian as his heart.
I have now only to mention the more modern and final form of the doctrine of the Trinity. It arose out of the still unsettled meaning of the long used word Consubstantial, which, as I have before stated, was used by many of the later Fathers, and those considered pre-eminently orthodox, as Cyril, to signify not a numerical sameness, but merely a sameness of species or nature, and so the Trinity virtually taught the doctrine of three Gods. And this conception was prevalent not only after the Council of Nice, A.D. 325, but after the later Councils of Constantinople, A.D. 381, and of Ephesus, A.D. 431. I give the history of the last transformation of the Trinity in the words, and with the authority of Cudworth:—
“It is certain that not a few of those Ancient Fathers, who were therefore reputed orthodox, because they zealously opposed Arianism, did entertain this opinion, that the three hypostases or Persons of the Trinity had not only one General and Universal Essence of the Godhead, belonging to them all, they being all God; but were also Three Individuals, under one and the same ultimate species, or specific essence and substance of the Godhead; just as three individual men, (Thomas, Peter, and John,) under that ultimate species of Man, or that specific essence of Humanity, which have only a numerical difference from one another.” ... “And because it seems plainly to follow from hence, that therefore they must needs be as much three Gods as there are Three Men, these learned Fathers endeavoured with their logic to prove, that Three Men are but abusively and improperly so called Three; they being really and truly but One, because there is but one and the same Specific Essence or Substance of human nature in them all; and seriously persuaded men to lay aside all that kind of language. By which same logic of theirs, they might as well prove also, that all the men in the world are but One Man, and that all Epicurus’s Gods were but one God neither. But not to urge here that, according to this hypothesis, there cannot possibly be any reason given why there should be as many as Three such individuals in the species of God which differ only numerically from one another, they being but the very same thing thrice repeated; and yet that there should be no more than Three such neither, and not Three Hundred, or Three Thousand, or as many as there are individuals in the species of Man; we say not to urge this, it seems plain that this Trinity, is no other than a kind of Tritheism, and that of Gods independent and co-ordinate too. And, therefore, some would think that the ancient and genuine Platonic Trinity, taken with all its faults, is to be preferred before this Trinity of St. Cyril, and St. Gregory Nyssen, and several other reputed orthodox Fathers; and more agreeable to the principles both of Christianity and of Reason. However, it is evident from hence, that these reputed orthodox Fathers, who were not a few, were far from thinking the three hypostases of the Trinity to have the same singular existent essence; they supposing them to have no otherwise, one and the same essence of the Godhead in them, nor to be one God, than three individual Men, have one common specifical essence of Manhood in them, and are all One Man. But as this Trinity came afterwards to be decried for Tritheistic, so, in the room thereof, started up that other Trinity of Persons numerically the same, or having all one and the same singular existent essence; a doctrine which seemeth not to have been owned by any public authority in the Christian Church, save that of the Lateran Council only.”[[508]]