The Glory Be
A traditional Catholic prayer
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Albrecht Dürer
1511, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
About this painting
In Latin
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Where it comes from
Dürer paints the Father crowned, holding the Cross with the Son upon it; the Dove burns in a small white sun above them, and the saints crowd in on both sides to look. This is the lesser doxology, said at the end of every psalm in the Divine Office except in times of mourning: it is left out in the last three days of Holy Week and in the Office of the Dead, and the psalms end bare. The Synod of Vaison in 529 ordered its second half, “As it was in the beginning”, to be said in Gaul, noting that Rome, the East and Africa already said it against the Arians; a line about eternity was insisted on in a quarrel of time. Three lines, and all that crowd behind them, at the end of every psalm and of ours.
Adrian Fortescue, “Doxology”, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 5 (1909): newadvent.org
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Peter Paul Rubens
c. 1620, KMSKA, Antwerp
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The traditional prayers · The Rosary
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