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have been present to the minds of those who are responsible for it. It does not touch the case of the Filioque clause at all, and it is to be hoped that we have heard the last of this objection, which was due to an entire misconception of the terms and purpose of the canon, but which has been raised not only to the addition to the Constantinopolitan Creed, but also to the use made by the English Church of the (so-called) Athanasian Creed.

It may be urged

(3) One more objection remains. that the clause was inserted in the creed irregularly, without any proper ecclesiastical authority, and that it is beyond the competence of any one branch of the Church to add in this manner to a creed of the universal Church.

There is some force in this objection, and considerable weight might be attached to it, had the clause been in the first instance an intentional addition, though even so, its insertion might plausibly be defended by the treatment which the original Nicene Creed received after its acceptance by the whole Church at Nicæa. Local branches of the Church certainly did add to it without incurring censure, or having fault found with their action, for additional clauses on the Incarnation, as well as those in the latter part of the creed, were current for a considerable time before they could claim any proper and regular ecclesiastical sanction,1 and any objection to the Filioque on the score of irregularity would at one time have equally applied to them. But in the case of the Filioque the objection is still more effectually removed by the further consideration that the "addition" was unintentional, and that it was not discovered to be an addition, nor called in question for more than two centuries after the Council of Toledo, to which it has 1 See below on Article VIII. p. 320.

been traced. The Western Church does not seem ever to have made any public use-at least on a wide scale— of the creed without the clause; and to have omitted it at a comparatively late date would have looked very much like a repudiation of the doctrine contained in it. The clause, when rightly understood, as has been already shown, expresses a real truth of Scripture, which the Western Church had been for centuries accustomed to teach in the formula now found in the creed. It was impossible for her to alter the form which she publicly used without thereby endangering the doctrine. It was clearly an act of unwarrantable tyranny on the part of the Latins to attempt to force the acceptance of the clause on the Greeks, as was actually done by Pope Nicholas III. (A.D. 1277).1 The Greeks had never received it, and were accustomed to express the doctrine by a different formula. To them its adoption would have seemed a change of doctrine in the direction of heresy. But it is too much to ask the Latins to give up the use of the clause, since they would thereby practically disown the doctrine which it contains. A parallel case is afforded by the difficulty connected with the word hypostasis in the fourth century, and the treatment which this received at the Council of Alexandria indicates the proper solution of the difficulty connected with the varying forms of the creed in the East and the West. There was a difference of phraseology between different portions of the Church as regards an important matter of faith. But so soon as it was discovered that, in spite of varying language, the meaning of both parties was identical, it was felt that a difference of phraseology was, after all, but a minor inconvenience, which might well be endured without causing any schism in the Church, and it was agreed that both parties might keep to their own traditional mode of 1 See Milman's Latin Christianity, vol. vi. p. 412,

expressing the doctrine which they both held in common. So also, if Greeks and Latins are really at one in the doctrine, it is possible to look forward to the day when similar wise counsels may prevail, and the acceptance of the Constantinopolitan Creed, either with or without the Filioque, may be admitted as a basis for intercommunion between the long-estranged branches of the Church in the East and West.

ARTICLE VI

De Divinis Scripturis, quod suffi

ciunt ad salutem.

Scriptura sacra continet omnia quæ ad salutem sunt necessaria, ita ut quicquid in ea nec legitur, neque inde probari potest, non sit a quoquam exigendum, ut tanquam Articulus fidei credatur, aut ad salutis necessitatem requiri putetur.

Sacræ Scripturæ nomine eos Canonicos libros Veteris et Novi Testamenti intelligimus, de quorum autoritate in Ecclesia nunquam dubitatum est.

De nominibus et numero librorum Sacræ Canonicæ Scripturæ Veteris Testamenti.

Genesis.

Of the Sufficiency of the Holy

Scriptures for Salvation.

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite necessary to salvation.

In the name of holy Scripture we do understand those Canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.

Of the names and number of the canonical books.

Prior Liber Para- Genesis.
lipom.

Secundus Liber Exodus.
Paralipom.

Primus Liber Esdræ. Leviticus.

Secundus

Exodus.

Leviticus.

Numeri.

Deuteron.

Esdræ. Liber Hester.

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Liber Numbers.

Deuteronomy.
Joshua.
Judges.
Ruth.

The First Book of Chronicles.

The Second Book of Chronicles.

The First Book of Esdras.

The Second Book of Esdras.

The Book of Esther, The Book of Job.

The Psalms.

The Proverbs.

Prior Liber Samuelis. Ecclesiastes vel Con- The First Book of Ecclesiastes or the

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Oratio Manasses.

Hester.

Liber Sapientiæ.

Liber Jesu Alii

Sirach.

Liber

Machabæorum.

Jesus the Son of
Sirach.

Manasses.
The First Book of

The rest of the Book The Prayer of of Esther. Prior Liber Macha- The Book of Wisdom. bæorum. Secundus

The Second Book of
Maccabees.

Maccabees.

Novi Testamenti omnes libros (ut vulgo recepti sunt) recipimus, et habemus pro Canonicis.

ment,

All the books of the New Testaas they are commonly received, we do receive and account them for Canonical.

The original Article of 1553 contained only the first paragraph of our present one, and that in a slightly different form: "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is neither read therein, nor may be proved thereby, although it be some time received of the faithful as godly, and profitable for an order and comeliness: yet no man ought to be constrained to believe it as an article of faith or repute it requisite to the necessity of salvation." The words in italics were omitted in 1563, and the language of the following sentence slightly changed. At the same time Archbishop Parker added the remaining part of the Article, with the exception of the complete list of the books of the Apocrypha, which was only added at the final revision in 1571, when the present title was

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