DOXOLOGY, an ascription of glory to God (Gr. 800Xoyia, a praising). The name is applied specially to the Gloria in excelsis Deo (known as the Greater Doxology) and the Gloria Patri (the Lesser Doxology, usually called "the doxology" simple) ; but also, more generally, to the Tersanctus ("Holy, Holy, Holy," often called Trisagion, though that is strictly the name of the Greek invocation beginning "AyLos o 9E6s), to the Alleluia of Rev. xix. and of many of the Psalms, to the last clause of the Lord's Prayer as found in Matt. vi. 13, and to such passages of glorification as Rom. xvi. 27, Eph. iii. 21, etc.
The Greater Doxology, in a slightly different form from that now used in the Greek Church, is given in the 4th century Apos tolical Constitutions (vii. 47) ; and a very similar form is found in the Alexandrine Codex (5th century). The translation into Latin is traditionally attributed to St. Hilary of Poitiers (d. 367). The date of its introduction into the public services of the church cannot be determined precisely. In the Eastern Church it was used in the morning office apparently as early as the 4th century, but has never formed part of the Liturgy. In the West, where it is used in the Mass, Pope Symmachus (498-514) is said in the Liber Pontificalis to have ordered it to be sung on Sundays and festival days; it is mentioned in the Gregorian Sacramentary, but not in the Gelasian. Until the 11th century its use was confined to bishops, and to priests at Easter and on their installation. In the English prayer book it comes near the end of the communion of fice, but is not in either the morning or evening service. It is also used in the Protestant Episcopal and Methodist Episcopal churches of America, as indeed in most Protestant churches at the Eucharist.
The Lesser Doxology, or Gloria Patri, in its present form, is the result of the Arian controversies concerning the nature of Christ. There is no trace of its use in the first three centuries ; and the second clause, "As it was in the beginning," etc., first appears in A.D. 529, when the 2nd council of Vaison asserted its use as already established in the East propter haereticorum astutiam, and or dered its adoption throughout the West. In the Western Church the Gloria Patri is repeated at the close of every psalm, in the Eastern Church at the close of the last psalm. This last is the op tional rule of the American Episcopal Church.
Metrical doxologies are often sung at the end of hymns, and the term has become especially associated with the stanza beginning "Praise God from whom all blessings flow," with which Thomas Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells, concluded his morning and evening hymns.