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A Creed Without an Author

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A Creed Without an Author

The Athanasian Creed is named after a man who did not write it, in a language he did not write in, about controversies that had not finished when he died. Athanasius of Alexandria wrote in Greek; this is a Latin composition, and the Greek East did not know it for centuries. The attribution collapsed under scholarly examination in the seventeenth century and has not been revived, but the name has stayed attached to the text, which is why the atlas records both.

Where it did come from is less certain. The usual placing is southern Gaul around the year 500, argued from its vocabulary, its theological affinities and its use in the circle around Caesarius of Arles. Other dates and places have been proposed, and the text names no author, no council and no occasion. It is the only widely received Christian creed with no known parentage at all.

It is also unlike the others in form. Where the conciliar creeds narrate and confess, this one analyses. Its two halves, on the Trinity and on the Incarnation, work through the possible errors in balanced rhythmic clauses, asserting each truth and immediately excluding the misreading beside it. The result reads less like a confession than like a carefully drawn boundary, and it is best understood as a teaching instrument for clergy in a period when the Christological arguments were still live in the West.

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