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Pentecost
Ancient Creed

The Athanasian Creed

c. 5th–6th C.

A Western creed, also called the Quicunque vult from its opening words. Despite its name it was not written by Athanasius; it is a precise, almost legal statement of the Trinity and the Incarnation, composed in Latin in the West.

Full Text

The Athanasian Creed bears Athanasius's name out of respect for his defense of the faith, but it was composed in the Latin West, likely in the fifth or sixth century — long after his death, and in a language he did not write. It is the most detailed of the three creeds the Western Church received, structured in two halves: the Trinity, then the Incarnation. This entry gives its core; the full text continues at length in the same style.

On the Trinity

We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one: the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.

On the Incarnation

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 of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man, of the substance of his mother, born in the world; perfect God and perfect man… who although he is God and man, yet he is not two, but one Christ.
Translation & Variants

The Athanasian Creed opens and closes with strong statements that the catholic — universal — faith must be held for salvation. Traditions differ in how they read those clauses: some understand them as a warning against the specific heresies the creed answers, others more strictly. The creed is honored in Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican traditions; it is less used in the Reformed and Eastern Orthodox traditions.

Historical Context

Unlike the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the Athanasian Creed was never the product of a council. It emerged as a teaching document — a tool for instructing clergy and guarding the precise vocabulary that the councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon had hammered out. Its precision is the precision of those councils, distilled for memory and recitation.