Glory Be (Doxology) - Traditional Wording
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.
The Gloria Patri, also known in English as the Glory Be to the Father or, colloquially, the Glory Be, is a doxology, a short hymn of praise to God in various Christian liturgies. It is also referred to as the Minor Doxology (Doxologia Minor) or Lesser Doxology, to distinguish it from the Greater Doxology, the Gloria in Excelsis Deo.
The earliest Christian doxologies are addressed to the Father "through" (διὰ) the Son, or to the Father and the Holy Spirit with (μετά) the Son, or to the Son with (σύν) the Father and the Holy Spirit.
The Trinitarian doxology addressed in parallel fashion to all three Divine Persons of the Trinity, joined by and (καί), as in the form of baptism, Matthew 28:19, became universal in Nicaean Christianity, which was established as the official faith of the Church with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380.
Roman Rite Latin version
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto,
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.
Glory 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.
This differs from the Greek version because of the insertion of "sicut erat in principio", which is now taken to mean "as it (glory) was in the beginning", but which seems originally to have meant "as he (the Son) was in the beginning", and echo of the opening words of the Gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word".
In 529, the Second Synod of Vasio (Vaison-la-Romaine) in Gaul said in its fifth canon that the second part of the doxology, with the words "sicut erat in principio", was used in Rome, the East, and Africa, and ordered that it be said likewise in Gaul. Writing in the 1909 Catholic Encyclopedia, Adrian Fortescue, while remarking that what the synod said of the East was false, took the synod's decree to mean that the form originally used in the West was the same as the Greek form. From about the 7th century, the present Roman Rite version became almost universal throughout the West.