case. But it would require several times the sum of money recommended for the traveling expenses of this synod, if all the members were in attendance; it would take the members from work which they could not well leave; it would, in this particular case, require the use of four, if not five, different languages or dialects, doubling the confusion of former Canadian legislative experience. And if it be merely or chiefly the American missionaries who are to be convened, then the reply is obvious, they cannot be a synod in the sense of our church standards. In our own early history, it was many years before a synod was held, and it may be supposed that in our missionary churches for a good many years to come presbyteries can perform all needful supervision.

The only other question to which we shall now refer in a few words, grows out of the relations and interaction of presbyteries on the ground, which are connected with churches at home holding the same views of doctrine and order. In some countries northern and southern Presbyterian missionaries occupy the same or neighboring stations; in others the Reformed (Dutch), the Scotch, and the American Presbyterian missions are neighbors. It is evidently desirable to unite the native churches, whenever it is practicable, in common ecclesiastical bonds; and yet, it is also desirable that they should, for a time, maintain their relations with the parent churches; while the foreign members of presbyteries ought not to be separated from the church at home. How shall these differing features of the case be happily ordered? To solve this question requires careful study. We may suggest that much depends on the spirit with which it is considered at home and abroad; in some cases, nothing can probably be done at present. As to practical measures, wisdom from above will be given when the time shall come for taking action. In the meantime, not much will suffer by delay. Perhaps, it will appear eventually that a two-fold organization can be advantageously effected, all of the foreign and the native members being included in both. Certain matters should be reserved to each, so that they could go on harmoniously in separate grooves. First, a general affiliation with the mother church during the days of native feebleness. as already advocated; second, a local organization on some basis not inconsistent with the former; some general

method of this kind would, perhaps, answer the purpose. If not, some better way will in due time appear.

Here we end this paper. It has treated of questions of method and external order, but our interest in these questions is owing to their close connection with the spiritual welfare of the church in unevangelized countries.

Art. VIII. THE UTRECHT PSALTER AND THE ATHANASIAN CREED.

By Rev. FREDERIC VINTON, Librarian of Princeton College.

EVERY reader of the Book of Common Prayer perceives the noble eloquence of much of its phrase. Comparatively few, however, are aware of the high antiquity of some petitions and formulas therein contained. From the frequent prefixing of Latin rubrics, they may infer that the originals belong to that older church, still reverenced in great part of Europe. But many do not suspect that the hymns and creeds they so often rehearse have come down unchanged from the early ages of Christianity, and are the product of pens famous in their day, but long since lost sight of, across the gloomy sea of the middle age. The veneration, or the presumption, of prelatists has claimed for some of these precious fragments antiquity and dignity to which they are not entitled. It is not surprising, indeed, that formulas held sacred from infancy should be defended with spirit against innovators in the English church. So remote is the period to which they must be referred, and so various the judgments of men claiming the recondite learning involved, that intelligent persons may well remain in doubt. Yet, some of those formularies are so evidently the fruit of polemic zeal; they exhibit such a passionate eagerness to bind the conscience to a specific conception of the trinity and of the person of Christ; and they denounce God's vengeance so promptly against such as fall short of their own extreme orthodoxy, that they have not lately carried universal assent. What is called

the Athanasian creed manifests these characteristics in so high a degree, that the candid, though zealous, mind of Tillotson, two centuries ago, thought "the church would be well rid of it." It was dismissed from the prayer-book adopted for the church in America by the convention of Episcopal clergy who fixed the liturgy after the revolution. The ground of so doing was no lukewarmness about the trinity (almost the sole subject of this symbol), but a sense of unreasonableness in the damnatory clauses which fence its front, its flank, and its rear. This creed surpasses all others in the exactness of its philosophy, and the anxiety of its definitions, while yet it employs expressions not to be clearly understood. Yet it begins, "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith; which faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." And after arguing the trinity and the incarnation in thirty-three out of thirtyseven of its clauses, it ends by saying "this is the catholic faith, which, except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved." Such audacity of assertion has no parallel in the Scriptures, and is foreign to all modern usage. Disestablishment in Ireland has lately led the English friends of prelacy to consider how to secure a lengthening of tranquillity at home. Some have wisely thought that their fortress would be made safer if they abandoned such an advanced bastion as the Athanasian creed. Its defenders have opposed the proposition to abstain from reading it, according to the rubric, by insisting on its honorable antiquity. None, indeed, are now so bold as to invoke for it the shelter of the venerable name it bears. But, it is maintained that it can be traced to the fifth, or certainly the sixth, century, and the erudition of Ussher is appealed to in confirmation of this claim. In his treatise, De Symbolis, written 1647, the archbishop of Armagh had mentioned a Latin Psalter, in manuscript, seen by him in the library of Sir Robert Cotton, at Westminster, to which was appended the Athanasian creed. This manuscript "he judged to come up to the age of Gregory the Great," who died A. D. 604.* But Dr. Waterland, writing

* Ussher's description of this manuscript is thus: In priore, quod Gregorii I tempore non fuisse recentius, tum ex antiquo picturæ genere colligitur, tum ex literarum forma grandiuscula, symbolum Athanasianum Fidei catholicæ præfert titulum.-Ussher, De Symbolis, Praef., 2.

of this creed in 1723, says, "There is not at this day, in the Cotton library any such manuscript of the Athanasian Creed; nor, indeed, any Latin Psalter that comes up to the age of Gregory, or near it." "These considerations persuade me, that Ussher had seen some manuscript which has, since that time, like many more, been lost or stolen from the Cotton library." The disappearance of the codex, described by Ussher, was long lamented by learned churchmen; since it was believed to be the most ancient known in Europe, containing the Athanasian Creed. Within a few years, however, the Rev. C. A. Swainson, Canon, of Chichester, guided by a description given by Prof. J. O. Westwood, of a manuscript he had seen in the library of the University of Utrecht, established the identity of that manuscript with the one described by Ussher, as seen by him in the Cotton library. The importance of this document in the renewed discussion respecting the antiquity of the Athanasian creed, led Dr. Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, with the concurrence of Lord Romilly, Master of the Rolls, to solicit from the University of Utrecht permission to make photographs of several portions of the codex. "On these photographs, at the request of Lord Romilly, an elaborate report was made by Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy, Deputy Keeper of the Public Records. In this report, after much learned argument-palaeographical, artistic, and historical-Sir Thomas arrived at the conclusion that the date of the manuscript must be placed at the close of the sixth century. The interest attaching to the opinion of so distinguished an antiquarian, led to further inquiries; which issued in an application on the part of the trustees of the British museum, to the authorities at Utrecht, to allow the manuscript to be deposited, for a time, with a view to inspection by the British Museum. This was permitted by the guardians of the Utrecht library; and thus the scholars and archeologists of England had an opportunity of examining it at leisure." Eight such experts, supposed the most competent British inquirers, reported to the trustees the result of their examination; and seven decided that the manuscript is of the ninth, or possibly of the eight, century.* So far, therefore, as Ussher's judgment,

*These reports have been reprinted in an appendix to the Psalter; and it is to these that frequent reference has been made in the course of this article.

respecting the age of the Athanasian Creed, rested upon the supposed antiquity of this manuscript, it must be held to be unsupported.*

The prima facie evidence for the antiquity of the Utrecht Psalter is, that it is written in capital letters; that these are not separated by spaces between words or sentences (unless to indicate Hebrew parallelism), and that three columns stand side by side on the breadth of each page. These characteristics, it is assumed, point unmistakably to the earliest times. But it has been proved that the occasional use of all three continued many centuries later. In the British Museum is a Latin manuscript of Cicero's Aratus, having all these peculiarities, and formerly referred to the third century, which now is proven to be of the tenth. Both the Utrecht Psalter and the Aratus are accompanied by drawings, evidently of early origin; and it is believed that, to preserve the verisimilitude of the whole, when reproduced long afterward, the ancient character was copied, as well as the ancient ornamentation. In support of this theory, it is observed that the script is not of the firm and easy character common to a scribe who writes in a hand habitual to him. Certainly it appears to great disadvantage, when compared with the steady and vigorous strokes found in the uncial letters which form the headings and first lines of the Psalms (apparently in the scribe's own hand), or in the fragments of the New Testament, appended to this Psalter, perhaps by Sir Robert Cotton: "This impression of weakness increases on examination, till it amounts to conviction, that the writing is an imitation." The presence or

* Daniel Waterland (ob. 1740), of whom Archdeacon Hare observes, that "among theologians of his time, he was the most powerful champion of the true faith," attempted to fix the age of the Athanasian Creed by arguments drawn from the period when certain heresies originated, which this creed condemns.. He refers it to the first third of the fifth century. It was the subject of a comment by Venantius Fortunatus, about A.D. 570; and, no doubt, it must have existed and gained extensive credit before it attained that honor. Waterland believes it to be of Gallican origin; finds traces of St. Augustine in its phraseology; and concludes it to be the composition of Hilary of Arles. No author of that period needed to blush if it was ascribed to him. In subtlety of thought, in dignity of expression, in concentration of meaning, it resembles the Institutes of Justinian. Its literary merit may partly account for its early and extensive reception.