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96 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap.xxxvii acters of Athanasius and Augustin were awkwardly personated by Vigilius and his disciples ; 115 and the famous creed which so clearly expounds the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarna- tion is deduced, with strong probability, from this African school. llfi 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 11T is condemned by the universal silence of the orthodox fathers, ancient versions, and authentic manuscripts. 118 It was first alleged by the Cath- olic bishops whom Hunneric summoned to the conference of Carthage. 119 An allegorical interpretation, in the form, perhaps, of a marginal note, invaded the text of the Latin Bibles, which were renewed and corrected in a dark period of ten centuries. 120 115 Compare the two prefaces to the Dialogue of Vigilius of Thapsus [in Migne, P. L. lxii.] (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. lie The P. Quesnel started this opinion, which has been favourably received. But the three following truths, however surprising they may seem, are now uni- versally acknowledged (Gerard Vossius, torn. vi. p. 516-522. Tillemont, M£m. Ecetes. torn. 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 Constanti- nople, was so much amazed by this extraordinary composition that he frankly pro- nounced it to be the work of a drunken man. Petav. Dogmat. Theologica, torn. ii. 1. vii. c. 8, p. 687. 117 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 wiehed 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.] 118 Of all the Mss. now extant, above fourscore in number, some of which are more than 1,200 years old (Wetstein ad loc). The ortlwdox 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 torn. viii. and ix. of the Journal Britannique. [The text did not appear in Jerome's Latin version.] 119 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. I. iii. c. 11, p. 54). It is quoted soon after- wards by the African polemics, Vigilius and Fulgentius. 120 In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Bibles were corrected by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, and by Nicolas, a cardinal and librarian of the Roman church, secundum orthodoxam fidem (Wetstein, Prolegorn. p. 84, 85). Notwith- standing these corrections, the passage is still wanting in twenty-five Latin Mss. (Wetstein ad loc), the oldest and the fairest : two qualities seldom united, except in manuscripts.