(QUICUNQUE VULT)
[Alternate readings in brackets] Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith.
Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
And the Catholic Faith is this:That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity,
Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance [Essence].
For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.
The Father uncreate [uncreated], the Son uncreate [uncreated], and the Holy Ghost uncreate [uncreated].
The Father incomprehensible [unlimited], the Son incomprehensible [unlimited], and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible [unlimited].
The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal.
And yet they are not three eternals, but one eternal.
As also there are not three incomprehensibles [infinites], nor three uncreated, but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible [infinite].
So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty.
And yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty.
So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God.
And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord.
And yet not three Lords, but one Lord.
For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity: to acknowledge every Person by himself to be both God and Lord,
So are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion, to say, There be [are] three Gods, or three Lords.
The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.
And in this Trinity none is afore, or after other; none is greater, or less than another [there is nothing before, or after: nothing greater or less];
But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal.
So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
He therefore that will be saved must [let him] thus think of the Trinity.
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;
God, of the Substance [Essence] of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance [Essence] of his Mother, born in the world;
Perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting;
Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his Manhood.
Who although he be [is] God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ;
One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking assumption of the Manhood into God;
One altogether, not by confusion of Substance [Essence], but by unity of Person.
For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ;
Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell [Hades, spirit-world], rose again the third day from the dead.
He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God [God the Father] Almighty,
From whence [thence] he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies
And shall give account for their own works.
And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully [truly and firmly], he cannot be saved.
Athanasian Creed
Latin Version
Symbolum Quicunque
Quicunque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est, ut teneat catholicam fidem:
Quam nisi quisque integram inviolatamque servaverit, absque dubio in aeternam peribit.
Fides autem catholica haec est: ut unum Deum in Trinitate, et Trinitatem in unitate veneremur.
Neque confundentes personas, neque substantiam seperantes.
Alia est enim persona Patris alia Filii, alia Spiritus Sancti:
Sed Patris, et Fili, et Spiritus Sancti una est divinitas, aequalis gloria, coeterna maiestas.
Qualis Pater, talis Filius, talis [et] Spiritus Sanctus.
Increatus Pater, increatus Filius, increatus [et] Spiritus Sanctus.
Immensus Pater, immensus Filius, immensus [et] Spiritus Sanctus.
Aeternus Pater, aeternus Filius, aeternus [et] Spiritus Sanctus.
Et tamen non tres aeterni, sed unus aeternus.
Sicut non tres increati, nec tres immensi, sed unus increatus, et unus immensus.
Similiter omnipotens Pater, omnipotens Filius, omnipotens [et] Spiritus Sanctus.
Et tamen non tres omnipotentes, sed unus omnipotens.
Ita Deus Pater, Deus Filius, Deus [et] Spiritus Sanctus.
Et tamen non tres dii, sed unus est Deus.
Ita Dominus Pater, Dominus Filius, Dominus [et] Spiritus Sanctus.
Et tamen non tres Domini, sed unus [est] Dominus.
Quia, sicut singillatim unamquamque personam Deum ac Dominum confiteri christiana veritate compelimur:
Ita tres Deos aut [tres] Dominos dicere catholica religione prohibemur.
Pater a nullo est factus: nec creatus, nec genitus.
Filius a Patre solo est: non factus, nec creatus, sed genitus.
Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et Filio: non factus, nec creatus, nec genitus, sed procedens.
Unus ergo Pater, non tres Patres: unus Filius, non tres Filii: unus Spiritus Sanctus, non tres Spiritus Sancti.
Et in hac Trinitate nihil prius aut posterius, nihil maius aut minus:
Sed totae tres personae coaeternae sibi sunt et coaequales.
Ita, ut per omnia, sicut iam supra dictum est, et unitas in Trinitate, et Trinitas in unitate veneranda sit.
Qui vult ergo salvus esse, ita de Trinitate sentiat.
Sed necessarium est ad aeternam salutem, ut incarnationem quoque Domini nostri Iesu Christi fideliter credat.
Est ergo fides recta ut credamus et confiteamur, quia Dominus noster Iesus Christus, Dei Filius, Deus [pariter] et homo est.
Deus [est] ex substantia Patris ante saecula genitus: et homo est ex substantia matris in saeculo natus.
Perfectus Deus, perfectus homo: ex anima rationali et humana carne subsistens.
Aequalis Patri secundum divinitatem: minor Patre secundum humanitatem.
Qui licet Deus sit et homo, non duo tamen, sed unus est Christus.
Unus autem non conversione divinitatis in carnem, sed assumptione humanitatis in Deum.
Unus omnino, non confusione substantiae, sed unitate personae.
Nam sicut anima rationalis et caro unus est homo: ita Deus et homo unus est Christus.
Qui passus est pro salute nostra: descendit ad inferos: tertia die resurrexit a mortuis.
Ascendit ad [in] caelos, sedet ad dexteram [Dei] Patris [omnipotentis].
Inde venturus [est] judicare vivos et mortuos.
Ad cujus adventum omnes homines resurgere habent cum corporibus suis;
Et reddituri sunt de factis propriis rationem.
Et qui bona egerunt, ibunt in vitam aeternam: qui vero mala, in ignem aeternum.
Haec est fides catholica, quam nisi quisque fideliter firmiterque crediderit, salvus esse non poterit.
The Athanasian Creed, Quicunque
Advanced Information The Athanasian Creed is one of the three ecumenical creeds widely used in Western Christendom as a profession of the orthodox faith. It is also referred to as the Symbolum Quicunque because the first words of the Latin text read, Quicunque vult salvus esse...("Whoever wishes to be saved...").
According to tradition Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria in the fourth century, was the author of the creed. The oldest known instance of the use of this name is in the first canon of the Synod of Autun, ca. 670, where it is called the "faith" of St. Athanasius. Although doubts concerning the Athanasian authorship had been expressed in the sixteenth century, Gerhard Voss, a Dutch humanist, demonstrated the impossibility of reconciling the facts known about the creed with the age of Athanasius. He published his findings in 1642. Subsequent scholarship, both Catholic and Protestant, has confirmed the verdict of Voss. Among other factors the Athanasian Creed is clearly a Latin symbol, whereas Athanasius himself wrote in Greek. Moreover, it omits all the theological terms dear to Athanasius such as homoousion, but it includes the filioque popular in the West.
There have been many suggestions as to the identity of the actual author. One of the more widely held theories is that the date of the creed was ca. 500, the place of composition a south Gaul location influenced by theologians of Lerins, and the special theological issues both Arianism and Nestorianism. These conclusions disqualify Ambrose of Milan even though several eminent scholars point to him as author. Caesarius of Arles perhaps comes closest to the above specifications. However, the question of authorship and origin remains open. The earliest copy of the text of the creed occurs in a sermon of Caesarius early in the sixth century. Other manuscripts containing the creed have been dated in the latter part of the seventh and eighth centuries. In these earliest mentions it appears that its functions were both liturgical and catechetical.
The creed was counted as one of the three classic creeds of Christianity by the time of the Reformation. Both Lutheran and Reformed confessional statements recognize the authoritative character of the Quicunque (with the exception of the Westminster Confession, which accords it no formal recognition). However, the contemporary liturgical use of the creed is largely confined to the Roman and Anglican communions.
Structurally the creed is composed of forty carefully modeled clauses or verses, each containing a distinct proposition. These clauses are divided into two clearly demarcated sections. The first centers on the doctrine of God as Trinity. The precise formulation of the doctrine is designed on the one hand to exclude unorthodox viewpoints, and on the other hand to express the insights explicit in the church under the influence of Augustine's teaching. Consequently this part of the creed expresses what the church felt to be the necessary understanding of God, the holy Trinity, calling it the fides catholica. The paradox of the unity and the Trinity of God is affirmed in the face of modalism, which attempted to solve the paradox by insisting on the unity while reducing the Trinity to mere successive appearances, and the Arians, who tried to resolve the difficulty by rejecting a unity of essence by dividing the divine substance.
The second section of the Athanasian Creed expresses the church's faith in the incarnation by affirming the doctrinal conclusions reached in controversies regarding the divinity and the humanity of Jesus. The creed does not hesitate again to affirm a doctrine which in human experience is paradoxical, that in the incarnation there was a union of two distinctly different natures, the divine and the human, each complete in itself, without either losing its identity. Yet the result of this union is a single person. The creed thus repudiates the teachings that Christ had but one nature (Sabellianism), or that the human nature was incomplete (Apollinarianism), or that the divine nature was inferior to that of the Father (Arianism), or that in the union of the two natures the identity of one was lost so that the result was simply one nature (Eutychianism).
It has been said that no other official statement of the early church sets forth, so incisively and with such clarity, the profound theology that is implicit in the basic scriptural affirmation that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself." The somewhat technical case of its phraseology notwithstanding, the concern of the Athanasian Creed is to assert a conception of the Triune God which is free from anthropomorphic polytheism and a conception of the incarnation which holds in tension the vital data concerning Christ's humanity and divinity. It is this doctrinal perspective which lends significance to the clauses at the beginning and end of the two parts of the creed ("whoever wishes to be saved must think thus" about the Trinity and the incarnation). They do not mean that a believer must understand all theological details to be saved or that he must memorize the language of the creed. What is intended is the fact that the Christian faith is distinctly Christocentric, trusting in Christ as Savior. The church knows no other way of salvation and therefore must reject all teachings which deny his true deity or his real incarnation.
The creed does not specify the authority, either the Bible or church, upon which it makes its affirmations. However, it is a scriptural creed because it uses the ideas and sometimes the words of Scripture. It is a church creed because it is a consensus within the Christian fellowship. The Athanasian Creed remains a superb compendium of Trinitarian and Christological theology and offers itself as a ready outline for catechetical purposes in keeping with its original intent.
J F Johnson(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)
BibliographyJ. N. D. Kelly, The Athanasian Creed; D. Waterland, A Critical History of the Athanasian Creed; C. A. Swainson, The Nicene and Apostles' Creeds.
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