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provided for the Arian controversy, they repeatedly silenced, or vanquished, the fierce and illiterate successors of Ulphilas. The consciousness of their own superiority might have raised them above the arts and passions of religious warfare. Yet, instead of assuming such honourable pride, the orthodox theologians were tempted, by the assurance of impunity, to compose fictions, which must be stigmatized with the epithets of fraud and forgery. They ascribed their own polemical works to the most venerable names of Christian antiquity; the characters of Athanasius and Augustin were awkwardly personated by Vigilius and his disciples;[1] and the famous creed which so clearly expounds the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation is deduced, with strong probability, from this African school.[2] Even the scriptures themselves were profaned by their rash and sacrilegious hands. The memorable text which asserts the unity of the Three who bear witness in heaven[3] is condemned by the universal silence of the orthodox fathers, ancient versions, and authentic manuscripts.[4] It was first alleged by the Catholic bishops whom Hunneric summoned to the conference of Carthage.[5] An allegorical interpretation, in the form, perhaps,
- ↑ Compare the two prefaces to the Dialogue of Vigilius of Thapsus (p. 118, 119, edit. Chiflet). He might amuse his learned reader with an innocent fiction; but the subject was too grave, and the Africans were too ignorant.
- ↑ The P. Quesnel started this opinion, which has been favourably received. But the three following truths, however surprising they may seem, are now universally acknowledged (Gerard Vossius, tom. vi. p. 516-522. Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. viii. p. 667-671). 1. St. Athanasius is not the author of the creed which is so frequently read in our churches. 2. It does not appear to have existed, within a century after his death. 3. It was originally composed in the Latin tongue, and, consequently, in the Western provinces. Gennadius, patriarch of Constantinople, was so much amazed by this extraordinary composition that he frankly pronounced it to be the work of a drunken man. Petav. Dogmat. Theologica, tom. ii. l. vii. c. 8, p. 687.
- ↑ 1 John, v. 7. See Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau Testament, part i. c. xviii. p. 203-218, and part ii. c. ix. p. 99-121, and the elaborate Prolegomena and Annotations of Dr. Mill and Wetstein to their editions of the Greek Testament. In 1689, the papist Simon strove to be free; in 1707, the protestant Mill wished to be a slave; in 1751, the Arminian Wetstein used the liberty of his times, and of his sect. [The text is now universally rejected by critical scholars; and it has been recently (1897) accepted as authentic by the Vatican. The question is accordingly settled.]
- ↑ Of all the Mss. now extant, above fourscore in number, some of which are more than 1200 years old (Wetstein ad loc). The orthodox copies of the Vatican, of the Complutensian editors, of Robert Stephens, are become invisible; and the two Mss. of Dublin and Berlin are unworthy to form an exception. See Emlyn's Works, vol. ii. p. 227-255, 269-299; and M. de Missy's four ingenious letters, in tom. viii. and ix. of the Journal Britannique. [The text did not appear in Jerome's Latin version.]
- ↑ Or, more properly, by the four bishops who composed and published the profession of faith in the name of their brethren. They style this text, luce clarius (Victor Vitensis de Persecut. Vandal, l. iii. c. 11, p. 54). It is quoted soon afterwards by the African polemics, Vigilius and Fulgentius.
