§ 132. THE ATHAJSTASIAN CREED. 697
The Atlianasian Creed presents, in short, sentent.ous articles, and in bold antitheses, the church docti'ine of the Trinity in opposition to Unitarianism and tritheism, and the doctrine of the in(3amation and the divine-human person of Christ in op position to ^N'estorianism and Eutychianism, and thus clearly and concisely sums up the results of the trinitarian and Christological controversies of the ancient church. It teaches tlie numerical nnity of substance and the triad of persons in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, with the perfect deity and perfect humanity of Christ in one indivisible person. In the former case we have one substance or nature in three persons; in the latter, two natures in one divine-human person.
On this faith eternal salvation is made to depend. By the damnatory clauses in its prologue and epilogue the Athanasianum has given offence even to those who agree with its contents. But the original Nicene Creed contained likewise an anathema, which afterwards dropped out of it ; the anathe- ^ma is to be referred to tlie heresies, and may not be applied tc particular persons, wliose judge is God alone ; and finally, the whole intention is, not that salvation and perdition depend on the acceptance and rejection of any theological formulary or human conception and exhibition of the truth, but that faith in the revealed truth itself, in the living God, Father, Son, and Spirit, and in Jesus Christ the God-Man and the Saviour of the world, is the thing which saves, even where the understanding may be very defective, and that unbelief is the thing which condemns; according to the declaration of the Lord: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned," In particular actual cases Christian humility and charity of coui'se require the greatest caution, and leave the judgment to the all-knowing and just God.
The Athanasian Creed closes the succession of ecumenical symbols ; symbols which are acknowledged by the entire
the weightiest and grandest production of the church since the time of the Apostles- In the Church of England it is still sung or chanted in the cathedrals. The Protestant Episcopal church in the United States, on the contrary, has excluded it frois the Book of Commoi. Prayer.
693 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
orthodox Chrislian world, except that Evangelical Piotestant ism ascribes to thuin not an absolute, but only a relative author ity, and reserves the right of freely investigating and furthei developing all church doctrines from the inexhaustible fountain of the infallible word of God.
II. The Obigenistio Controveusies.
I. Epiphanius: Ilasres. 64. Several Epistles of Epipiianius, TnEOPHiLtm
of Alex., and Jerome (in Jerome's Epp. 51 and 87-100, ed. Vallarsi) The controversial works of Jerome and Rufintjs on the orthodoxy of Origen (Rufini Prsefatio ad Orig. vrfpl apx^ov; and Apologia s. invectivarum in Ilieron. ; Hieronymi Ep. 84 ad Pammachium et Oceanum de erroribus Origenis; Apologia adv. Rufinum libri iii, written 402-403, etc.)- Talladius: Vita Johannis Chrysostomi (in Chrysost. Opera, vol. xiii. ed. Montfaucon). Socrates : II. E. vi. 3-18. SozoMENDs: n. E, viii. 2-20. Tueodoret: H. E. v. 27 sqq. Photius: Biblioth. Cod. 59. Mansi: Cone. torn. iii. fol. 1141 sqq.
II. Huetiub: Origeniana (Opera Orig. vol. iv. ed. De la Rue). Doucin:
Histoire des mouvements arrives dans I'eglise au sujet d'Origdne. Par. 1700. Waloh: Historie tier Ketzereien. Th. vii. p. 427 sqq. SoiniOEOKn: Kirchengesohichte, vol. x. 108 sqq. Comp. the monographs of Redepenning and Thomasius on Oi'igen; and Neander: Der heil. Joh. Chrysostomus. Berl. 1848, 3d ed. vol. ii. p. 121 sqq. Hefele (R. C.) : Origenistenstreit, in the Kirchenlexicon of Wetzer and Welte, vol. vii. p. 847 sqq., and Conciliongescbichte, vol. ii. p. 76 sqq. O. Zookleb: Ilieronymus. Gotha, 1865, p. 238 ft'; 391 ff.
§ 133. TTie Origenistic Controversy in Palestine. Epiphanius^ Rujmus^ and Jerome, a. n. 394-399.
Between the Arian and the Nestorian controversies, and in indirect connection with the former, come the vehement and petty personal quarrels over the orthodoxy of Origen, which brought no gain, indeed, to the development of the church doctrine, yet whicli have a Ijcaring upon the history of theology, as showing the progress of ortliodoxy under the twofold aspect of earnest zeal for the pure faith, and a narrow-minded . intolerance towards all free speculation. The condemnation lof Origen was a death blow to theological science in the iGreek church, and left it to stiffen gradually into amcchanicaj traditionalism and formalism. We shall coniine ourselves, T*