«QUICUMQUE VULT». – Symbol entered into the Roman Breviary under the name of the Athanasian Creed, because for some time it was believed to be a composition of St. Athanasius.
The Latin text, transmitted by manuscripts from the 8th century, is the original, while the Greek text is a translation. Modern criticism is in agreement on this point; opinions differ, however, in determining the date of composition and the author. The ancient opinion, which attributed it to St. Athanasius already in the 7th century, has been discarded. Scholars then attempted to discover the true author among the Latin Fathers. In the 17th century, J. Anselmi was the first to suggest Vincent of Lérins; this opinion was taken up and strengthened two centuries later by G. D. W. Ommancy; and although it was challenged from the outset by B. Montfaucon, it has nonetheless left its mark up to the present day. Others have suggested Honoratus of Arles (d. 429), Hilary of Arles (d. 449), Fulgentius of Ruspe (d. 533), Caesarius of Arles (d. 542), Martin of Braga (d. c. 580), Eusebius of Vercelli (d. c. 371), and Ambrose of Milan (d. 397).
A decisive step in determining the time and place of the disappearance of the Creed was taken by Dom G. Morin, who pointed to Caesarius of Arles as the first witness to this formula of faith, setting the terminus ante quem as the year 542. Thanks to the recent discovery (1940) of the opuscule *Excerpta Vincti Ilinensis*, it can now be stated with greater precision that some characteristic articles of the Q. V. are originally found in that writing. This substantially confirms the opinion that Lérins was the cradle of the Q. V. Vincent of Lérins is thus ahead of all the Fathers who might be compared with regard to the formulas that came to enrich the Q. V. Notably, the most characteristic part on Christology is included in what is most personal to Vincent in his *Excerpta*. He is therefore the most immediate precursor of the Q. V. Moreover, certain evidence of the existence of the Creed is found in a homily of St. Caesarius of Arles, and his immediate precursor is St. Vincent of Lérins. Thus the limits within which the Q. V. was gradually elaborated lie between 542, the year of the death of St. Caesarius, and the years 434–410, the date of the publication of the *Excerpta*. It may not be too venturesome to place this date in the second half of the 5th century.
In the liturgy, the Q. V. is read at Prime on the feast of the Most Holy Trinity and on minor Sundays after Epiphany and Pentecost, when in the Sunday Office no commemoration is made of a double or an octave.