sion of the holy Mother of God, and all the saints who have pleased Thee since the beginning of the world. (Aloud.) Fo holy art Thou, one God and to Thee.”
According to an unreliable tradition this formula was received during an earthquake at Constantinople, in the reign of Theo- dosius II., through a boy who was caught up into the sky and heard it from the angels. The earliest testimonies to the exist- ence of the Trisagion date from the fifth century or the latter part of the fourth. Later, the words were added, “that was crucified for us,” in order to oppose the heresy of the Theo- paschites (Ocds God, racy to suffer) who held that God had suffered and been crucified. To this was added later the words “Christ our king:” the whole reading, “ Holy God, holy Mighty, holy Immortal, Christ our king that was crucified for us, have mercy on us.” The formula thus entered into the controversy with the Monophysites, who claimed that Christ had but one composite nature. Dante introduces it into his “ Paradiso.”
‘¢ The One and Two and Three who ever liveth And reigneth ever in Three and Two and One, Not circumscribed and all things circumscribiny, Three several times was chanted by each one Among those spirits, with such melody That for all merit it were just reward.” ‘¢ Paradiso,” xiv., 28-33.
«6 When I was silent, sweetest song did flow Through all the heaven, and my lady too With them cried holy, holy, holy!” ‘¢ Paradiso,” xxvi., 67-69.
The interpretations of the symbols of the four living creatures are, of course, numerous and varied. Some of them are: the four Evangelists or Gospels; the four elements ; the four car- dinal virtues; the four faculties or powers of the human soul ; the Lord in the fourfold great events of redemption ; the four patriarchal churches; the four great apostles, the doctors of the Church; the four principal angels, ete. The best modern in- terpreters explain the four forms as representing animated nature—“ man with his train of dependent beings brought near