From these and similar sources, the udfcrent clauses of what is commonly called tire Apostles' Creed to have sprung. For, though it was long believed to be the composition of the apostles, its claims to such an inspired origin are now universally rejected. Of its great antiquity, however, there can be no doubt ; did whole of it, as it stands in the English liturgy, having been generally received as an authoritative confession in the fourth century. Towards the end of that century, Rutinus wrote a commentary on it, which is still extant, in which he acknowledges, that the clause respecting Christ's descent into hell was not admitted into the creeds either of the Western or the Eastern churches ; and that the epithet " catholic," was not at that time ap plied in it to the church. Its great simplicity and con ciseness, besides, prove it to have been considerably earlier than the council of Nice, when the heretical speculations of various sects led the defenders of the orthodox faith, to fence the interests of religion with more complicated and cumbrous barriers.
The Roman or Western Confession, previous to the fourth century, seems to have been the same with that formerly quoted from Tertullian, with the addition of the articles from the Baptismal Creed, concerning the Holy Spirit. remission of sins, and the church. But that of the Oriental churches, in consequence probably of that philosophising spirit, which most unhappily in duced many of their divines to attempt the explana tion of subjects aLogether beyond the reach of human comprehension, employed various expressions with re gard to the divinity and filiation of Christ, which ap pear to have been for some time peculiar to itself, but which were afterwards adopted in substance by the Nicene fathers.
In the celebrated council at Nice, in which Arianism was not only condemned but proscribed, the confession established as the universal standard of truth and orthodoxy runs thus : " We believe in one God, Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible ; and in one Lord Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father, or essence of the Father, before all ages, God of God, Light of Light,' true God of the true God, begotten not made, consubstantial or coessential (44.0:0-doc) with the Father ; by whom all things were made ; who for us men, and for our salvation, descended from heaven, and became incarnate by the Holy Spirit, of the virgin Mary ; and was made man, was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered, and was buried ; and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead, of whose kingdom there will be no end : And in the Holy Spirit who spake by the prophets: And in one holy, universal, and apostolical church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins. I expect the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to conic."
It were endless to specify the particular shades of dif ference by which the Arian confessions, (the number of which amounted nearly to twenty in the space of a very few years), were distinguished from each other. Suffice it to say, that while they agreed generally in substance, especially in rejecting the Nicene term ;,,,..581-ded, as ap plied to the Son, their variations of expression concern ing the nature of his subordination to the lather, were so astonishingly mil ute, as almost to bid defiance to any attempt which might be made, at this distance of time, to determine in c hat their real and essential differences consisted.
Macedonius having denied not only the divinity but the personality of the Holy Spirit, maintaining that he is only a divine energy diffused throughout the universe, a general council was called at Constantinople, A. D. 3S1, in order to crush this rising heresy. The confes sion promulgated on this occasion, and which " gave the finishing touch to what the Council of Nice had left imperfect, and fixed in a full and determinate manner the doctrine of the Trinity, as it is still received among the generality of Christians," exactly coincides with the Nicene confession, except in the article respecting the Spirit, which it thus extends,—" And in the I loly Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who is adored and glorified toge ther with the Father and the Son." Subsequent to this, and probably towards the middle of the 5th century, the creed which bears the name of Athanasius, appears to have been composed. That it was not the work of this distinguished opposer of Ari anism, is established by the most satisfactory evidence. No traces of it arc to be found in any of his writings, though they relate chiefly to the very subject of which it is an exposition ; and so far from its being ascribed to him, not the least notice is taken of it, by any of his con temporaries. Its language, besides, concerning the Spirit, is so similar to that of the Council of Constanti nople, but still more precise and explicit, that there can be no doubt of its having been written posterior to the time of that assembly. Yet Athanasius died in the year 373. Accordingly, it has been, with great probability of truth, attributed, particularly by Dr Waterland, to Hilary, Bishop of Arles, who is said, by one of his bio graphers, to have composed an Exposition of the Creed ; a title which certainly is more appropriate and charac teristic of it, than that of Creed simply, by which it is now so universally known. Its contents we need not mention, as it is to be found in almost every copy of the English liturgy ; and, indeed, is frequently used in the episcopal service. We shall only notice farther, that its damnatory clauses have long been the subject of just regret ; and that definite and minute as its statements are, it has clone nothing whatever to settle the controversies which have been agitated on the subject of the Trinity.