During the past two hundred years the authorship of this formula has led to great discussion and its reading has led to much bitter and heated controversy in Anglican and Protestant churches. Many contended for its retention in Protestant services and many rejoiced at its partial exclusion, its truncated revision and clamoured for its rejection everywhere from service. Controversy led to the study of its origin. In 1872 a Protestant author, Ffoulkes, maintained that it was not composed by St. Athanasius (296-373) but by Paulinus of Aquileia (A.D. 800). But the literature of the age of Charlemagne proves that this creed had at the beginning of the ninth century an antiquity of at least more than a century (Ommaney, _History and Structure of the Athanasian Creed_, Oxford, 1897). Scholars, basing their opinions on words found in the _Expositio Fidei Fortunati_, date the origin of this symbol from the fifth century. It contains certain expressions which a writer subsequent to the Council of Chalcedon (451) would have been most unlikely to employ, and omits certain expressions which such a writer would have been most unlikely to omit. However, it is likely that the creed dates from the fifth century. Who its author was, is quite doubtful. It was not St. Athanasius, it may have been St. Hilary of Aries, or St. Vincent of Lerins, or some local bishop in southern France, "But let us only suppose that the real author was some local bishop--or the theologian employed by some local bishop--and that it was composed in the first instance for purely local use in some district of southern France--then does not the difficulty disappear, and are not the facts of its silent and gradual adoption suitably explained? Not coming from an author of wide reputation, it would not at first have attracted much attention and would have been used only in the locality of its origin; from there its use would have spread to neighbouring districts; as it got more known it would have been more widely adopted, and the compactness and lucidity of its statements, and the enthusiasm-inspiring character of its style would have contributed to make it highly prized wherever it was known. Then would come speculation as to its authorship, and what wonder if in uncritical times an Athanasian authorship was first guessed, then confidently affirmed and believed?" (Father Sydney F. Smith, S.J., _The Month_, October, 1904). This opinion is only one of several held by Catholic scholars. Dom Morin holds strongly, and gives very good reasons for his view, that it was written by Martin of Braga between the years 550 and 580. It was written, he says, for the people of Galicia in Spain, who had been recently converted from Arianism (_Journal of Theological Studies_, April, 1911). It was adopted into Gallican liturgy and office about 980, and in the Roman office only when the Curial Breviary was adopted.