There is actually some asymmetry in 41. But as far as I know this creed has no real authority. I could just as well cite a recent creed from three PCUSA.
If we take a look at the actual evidence, I think you will agree that
Quincunque Vult, also known as the Athanasian Creed, has rather more authority than any recent creed when viewed from an ecumenical perspective; indeed, in terms of importance it is rivaled only by the Apostles’ Creed and exceeded only by the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381, more commonly referred to as the Nicene Creed.
It has authority in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Church of England and most of the Anglican Communion, as well as the Anglican Church in North America (but historically not the Episcopal Church*) and in most Lutheran churches, and is also traditionally included in Greek Orthodox Horologia (service books containing the ordinary, that is to say, the invariable portions, of the Divine Office, and in Russian / Ukrainian Psalters (on which
A Psalter for Prayer is based, although the actual Psalter is the
Jordanville Psalter, which is the
Coverdale Psalter corrected against the Septuagint).
Liturgically,
Quincunque Vult is most frequently used on Trinity Sunday, in Lutheran, Anglican and traditional Latin Rite Roman Catholic liturgies, and is also recited on the third Sunday of the month by members of the Roman Catholic religious order Opus Dei, among other uses. It also historically was recited during Prime, a use which continued until the Renaissance.
Additionally, as far as authority is concerned,
Quincunque Vult is commended in the Augsburg Confession, the Formula of Concord, the Second Helvetic Confession, the Belgic Confession, the Bohemian Confession and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (where it is enumerated as one of the three official creeds in Article VIII.
Indeed, because it is included for catechtical purposes in Eastern Orthodox prayer books, we can say that
Quincunque Vult is actually more widely accepted than the Apostles’ Creed, which is only used in the Western Church, where the liturgiological consensus indicates it was derived from a third century Baptismal liturgy (this explains why as a Creed it is lacking in features the Nicene Creed and Quincunque Vult have, such as a firm and obvious refutation of Arianism, although to its credit, the Apostles’ Creed does contain a confession of belief in the Harrowing of Hell, although unfortunately this is not explicit enough, leading to some misinterpretation, and some Protestant denominations deleted that clause, although fortunately not the majority of Anglican churches, thanks to Article III of the Articles of Religion.**
Suffice it to say, by virtue of its broad acceptance, including its liturgical use among the Roman Catholics, in almost every province of the Anglican Communion, and in the Lutheran churches, and Eastern Orthodox significant authority, arguably than the
There is actually some asymmetry in 41. But as far as I know this creed has no real authority. I could just as well cite a recent creed from three PCUSA.
It has authority in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Church of England and most of the Anglican Communion, as well as the Anglican Church in North America (but historically not the Episcopal Church*) and in most Lutheran churches, and is also traditionally included in Greek Orthodox Horologia (service books containing the ordinary, that is to say, the invariable portions, of the Divine Office, and in Russian / Ukrainian Psalters (on which A Psalter for Prayer is based, although the actual Psalter is the Jordanville Psalter, which is the Coverdale Psalter corrected against the Septuagint).
Liturgically,
Quincunque Vult is most frequently used on Trinity Sunday, in Lutheran, Anglican and traditional Latin Rite Roman Catholic liturgies, and is also recited on the third Sunday of the month by members of the Roman Catholic religious order Opus Dei, among other uses. It also historically was recited during Prime, a use which continued until the Renaissance.
Additionally, as far as authority is concerned,
Quincunque Vult is commended in the Augsburg Confession, the Formula of Concord, the Second Helvetic Confession, the Belgic Confession, the Bohemian Confession and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (where it is enumerated as one of the three official creeds in Article VIII.
Indeed, because it is included for catechtical purposes in Eastern Orthodox prayer books, we can say that
Quincunque Vult is actually more widely accepted than the Apostles’ Creed, which is only used in the Western Church, where the liturgiological consensus indicates it was derived from a third century Baptismal liturgy (this explains why as a Creed it is lacking in features the Nicene Creed and
Quincunque Vult have, such as a firm and obvious refutation of Arianism, although to its credit, the Apostles’ Creed does contain a confession of belief in the Harrowing of Hell, although unfortunately this is not explicit enough, leading to some misinterpretation, and some Protestant denominations deleted that clause, although fortunately not the majority of Anglican churches, thanks to Article III of the Articles of Religion.**
Suffice it to say, by virtue of its broad acceptance, including its liturgical use among the Roman Catholics, in almost every province of the Anglican Communion, and in the Lutheran churches, its inclusion in most of the great historic Protestant confessions of faith, and its catechetical use in Eastern Orthodox prayer books and service books, this creed possesses significant authority, arguably more than the Apostles’ Creed in terms of ecumenical scope.
In contrast, the recent confessions of faith found in
The Book of Confessions (of the PCUSA), most specifically “A Brief Confession of Faith” (also included in the 2009 hymnal
Glory to God), which is not, as the name would suggest, a shining example of brevity compared to the three generally accepted creeds (although it is brief compared to the Westminster Confession of Faith and other Reformed Confessional documents), is not recognized by the Anglican Communion, nor the Eastern Orthodox, nor the Roman Catholic Church, nor the traditional Lutheran denominations, all of which do recognize
Quincunque Vult and all of which, except the Orthodox***, use it at a minimum on Trinity Sunday.
There is one other problem that seriously impacts the legitimacy of all recent creeds, that being the canons of the Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon, which specifically prohibit modifying the Creed or composing a new Creed. This obviously does not apply to the Apostles Creed, and since the
consensus patrum based on surviving documents is that
Quincunque Vult was written as a proof of Orthodoxy to the Bishop of Rome by St. Athanasius while in exile (a story which recent scholarship indicates is inaccurate, in particular given that the original text appears to have been written in Latin, whereas St. Athanasius was a native Greek speaker), it seems reasonable to say that these two creeds were effectively grandfathered in and approved for secondary use in the Western Church, the Apostles’ Creed being used mainly in the Divine Office and in Baptism, and
Quincunque Vult on Trinity Sunday (and historically also at Prime, and on nineteen other Sundays throughout the year, according to the Book of Common Prayer; this was later curtailed).
They do not prohibit composing new hymns of a creedal nature, which is why we benefit from such classics as Ho Monogenes (Only Begotten Son) by St. Severus of Antioch, which opens the Syriac Orthodox Eucharistic liturgy, is prominently featured in the Coptic Orthodox services for Holy Week, and is also included, thanks to Emperor Justinian, in the Second Antiphon of the Byzantine Rite/Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy, and likewise in the Armenian liturgy (whose liturgy was, starting around the year 1,000, subject to heavy Byzantine and Latin influence and thus at a certain point adopted the Byzantine Rite synaxis, also known as the Liturgy of the Word or the Liturgy of the Catechumens).
* I don’t believe it was even printed in the Protestant Episcopal / ECUSA Book of Common Prayer until the 1979 edition, when it was included in a new section of Historical Documents along with the 39 Articles, which were deprecated in the Episcopal Church by that time.
** As
@Paidiske can attest, I have somewhat of a love/hate relationship with the 39 Articles of Religion, because on the one hand they keep Anglican churches within certain parameters, and the more expressly Protestant aspects of them were, through some logical and semantic gymnastics, somewhat mitigated by the Tractarians at Oxford in the 19th century, but on the other hand, I am glad that they are not used by either the Episcopal Church or the bulk of the Anglo Catholic Continuing Anglican jurisdictions in the US (of which ACNA is not a member; interestingly, in Las Vegas at least, the Episcopalians and St. George Anglican Church, a member of the Anglican Province of Christ the King have an extremely friendly working relationship).
*** It is possible that
Quincunque Vult either is or could be sung as a canticle in Western Rite Orthodoxy, perhaps on Pentecost Sunday, which is the main Trinitarian feast in Eastern Orthodoxy, but it would never be used in lieu of the Nicene Creed.
