I. We confess and believe the holy and undivided Trinity, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to be one Lord, naturally of one substance, of one nature, and also of one majesty and power; and we profess the Father indeed to be not made, not created, not begotten. For He Himself drew His origin from no one, from whom both the Son received His nativity and the Holy Spirit His procession. He is therefore the fount and origin of the whole Godhead. He is also the Father of His own essence, who from His ineffable substance ineffably begot the Son, and yet begot nothing other than what He Himself is; God of God, light of light. II. From Him, therefore, is all fatherhood in heaven and on earth.
We confess also that the Son was born of the substance of the Father without beginning before the ages, and yet was not made. For neither did the Father ever exist without the Son, nor the Son ever without the Father; and yet not as the Son is of the Father, so is the Father of the Son, because the Father did not receive His generation from the Son, but the Son from the Father. The Son therefore is God of the Father. But the Father is God, yet not of the Son. The Father indeed is the Father of the Son, not God of the Son. But He, the Son of the Father, is also God of the Father, equal nevertheless in all things, the Son to God the Father, because He did not at some time begin to be, nor did the Son cease to be of one substance with the Father; thus He is believed, that He is also called homoousion to the Father, that is, of the same substance with the Father:
for OMO in Greek means 'one,' but USIA means 'substance,' which two joined together sound forth 'one substance.' For not out of nothing, nor out of another substance, but out of the womb of the Father, that is, out of the substance of the same, is the Son to be believed begotten, or to be of the same nature. III. Eternal therefore is the Father, eternal also the Son; but if the Father always was, He always had the Son, to whom He was Father; and on this account we confess the Son to be born of the Father without beginning. Nor do we name this same Son of God, for the reason that He is begotten of the Father, a little portion of a dissected nature. But we assert that a perfect Father begot a perfect Son without diminution, without dissection, because it belongs to the Godhead alone not to have an unequal Son.
This Son of God is also by nature the Son, not by adoption, whom God the Father is to be believed to have begotten neither by will nor by necessity, because no necessity has place in God, nor does will anticipate wisdom. IV. The Holy Spirit also, whom as the third person in the Trinity we have believed to be one God, equal with God the Father and the Son, of one substance, of one nature, yet not begotten or created, but proceeding from both, to be the Spirit of both. This Holy Spirit also is believed to be neither unbegotten nor begotten. Lest, if we should call Him unbegotten, we should speak of two fathers, or if begotten, we should show that we preach two sons.
Yet He is called the Spirit not of the Father only, nor of the Son only, but at once of the Father and of the Son. For He does not proceed from the Father into the Son, or from the Son proceed to the sanctifying of the creature, but He is shown to have proceeded from both at once, because He is acknowledged to be the charity, or the holiness, of both. This Holy Spirit, therefore, is believed to be sent by both, as the Son is by the Father, yet He is not held to be less than the Father and the Son; just as we also testify that the Son, on account of the assumed flesh, is less than the Father and the Holy Spirit. V. This is the holy Trinity, as the related narrative requires to be believed, which can be both called and believed not threefold, but a triad (ternitas).
Nor ought it rightly to be said that in one God there is a Trinity, but that the one God is Trinity in the relative names of the persons: the Father is referred to the Son, the Son to the Father, the Holy Spirit to both; and although these three are called persons relatively, yet they are believed to be one nature, that is, substance. Nor, as we preach three persons, do we so preach three substances, but one substance, yet three persons. VI. For that the Father is, He is not from Himself, but is referred to the Son. Likewise the Holy Spirit is not from Himself, but is referred relatively to the Father and the Son, in that He is preached the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.
Likewise, when we say 'God,' it is not said with reference to something, as the Father with reference to the Son, or the Son with reference to the Father, or the Holy Spirit with reference to the Father and the Son, but 'God' is said specially with reference to Himself. For even if we were questioned about the single persons, it is necessary that we confess God. God therefore is the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, said singly; yet not three Gods, but there is one God. VII. Likewise, the Father is omnipotent, and the Son omnipotent, and the Holy Spirit omnipotent, said singly; yet not three omnipotents, but one omnipotent. Just as also one light and one principle is preached.
Singly, therefore, each person is confessed and believed to be full God, and all three persons one God; and there is in them one undivided and equal majesty, deity, and power, neither diminished in the single persons nor increased in the three. VIII. For nothing is lacking when each person is singly called God, nor is anything more when all three persons are declared one God. This holy Trinity, therefore, which is the one and true God, neither departs from number, nor is comprehended by number. For in the relation of the persons number is discerned. But in the substance of the Godhead, what is unnumbered is not comprehended.
Therefore this alone introduces number, that they are mutually distinct from one another; and in this alone they lack number, that they are referred to themselves. For so does one natural name befit this holy Trinity, that in the three persons it cannot be plural. On this account, according to that which is said in the sacred Scriptures, 'Lord, our Lord, and great is His power, and of His wisdom there is no number' (Ps. 146:5). Nor, because we say these three persons to be one God, shall we be able to say that the Son is the same as the Father, or the same who is the Holy Spirit to be the Father or the Son. IX.
For He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son Himself who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit Himself who is either the Father or the Son; yet He Himself is the Father, which the Son is; He Himself is the Son, which the Father is; the Holy Spirit Himself is what the Father and the Son are, that is, by nature one God. For when we say that He is not the Father who is the Son, it refers to the distinction of persons. X. But when we say that He Himself is the Father, which the Son is, He Himself the Son, which the Father is, He Himself the Holy Spirit, which the Father and the Son are, it is shown to pertain to the nature by which He is God, or to the substance. As to substance they are one, for we distinguish the persons, we do not separate the Deity.
We acknowledge therefore the Trinity in the distinction of persons, we profess the unity on account of nature or substance. These three, then, are one—by nature, that is, not by person; nor yet are these three persons to be considered separable, since none of them is believed ever to have existed before another, none after another, none without another, or to have done anything at any time. For they are found inseparable both in that which they are, and in that which they do; thus between the Father who generates and the Son who is generated, or the Holy Spirit who proceeds, we believe there to have been no interval of time, by which either the begetter might at some time precede the begotten, or the begotten be wanting to the begetter, or the proceeding Spirit appear later than the Father or the Son.
On this account, therefore, this inseparable and unconfused Trinity is both preached and believed by us. These three persons, then, are spoken of according to what the elders define, that they may be known, not that they may be separated. For if we attend to that which Sacred Scripture says concerning Wisdom: 'She is the splendor of the eternal light' (Wis. 7:26; Heb. 1:3), just as we see the splendor inseparably inhere in the light, so we confess that the Son cannot be separated from the Father. Therefore these three persons of one and inseparable nature, just as we do not confound, so we by no means preach to be separable.
Since the Trinity itself has deigned thus evidently to show us this, that even in these names by which it willed the persons to be severally known, it does not permit one to be understood without another: neither is the Father acknowledged apart from the Son, nor is the Son found without the Father. For the very relation of the term forbids the persons to be separated, which, even while it does not name them together, it together intimates. And no one can hear any one of these names without being compelled to understand the other also. XI. Since, therefore, these three are one, and the one is three, yet there remains to each person its own property.
For the Father has eternity without nativity, the Son has nativity with eternity, but the Holy Spirit has procession without nativity with eternity. Of these three persons we believe that the person of the Son alone, for the deliverance of the human race, assumed true man without sin from the holy and immaculate Virgin Mary, of whom by a new order and a new nativity He was begotten, because intact Virginity knew no manly intercourse, and, fruitful through the Holy Spirit, supplied the material of the flesh. This childbearing of the Virgin is neither gathered by reason nor shown by example. For if it is gathered by reason, it is not marvelous. If it is shown by example, it is not singular.
Nor yet is the Holy Spirit to be believed the Father of the Son, for the reason that Mary, overshadowed by the same Holy Spirit, conceived, lest we should seem to assert that the Spirit is the Father of the Son, which is impious to say. In which marvelous conception, with Wisdom building for herself a house, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Nor yet was the Word itself converted and changed into flesh, so as to cease to be God, which it had willed to be man. But the Word was so made flesh, that there is there not only the Word of God and the flesh of man, but also the rational soul of man; and this whole is both called God on account of God, and man on account of man.
In which Son of God we believe there to be two natures, one of Divinity, the other of humanity. XII. Which the one person of Christ so united in itself, that neither could the Divinity ever be sundered from the humanity, nor the humanity from the Divinity. Therefore perfect God, perfect Man in the unity of person, Christ is one. Nor yet, because we have said there to be two natures in the Son of God, shall we plead that there are two persons in Him, lest a quaternity, which God forbid, should seem to accede to the Trinity. XIII. For God the Word did not take up the person of man, but the nature, and into the eternal person of the Divinity He took up the temporal substance of the flesh.
Likewise, although we believe the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit to be of one substance, yet we do not say that the Virgin Mary begot the unity of this Trinity, but only the Son, who alone assumed our nature into the unity of His person. The Incarnation also of this Son of God is to be believed to have been wrought by the whole Trinity, because the works of the Trinity are inseparable. Yet the Son alone received the form in the singularity of the person, not in the unity of the Divine nature.
As to that which is proper to the Son, not that which is common to the Trinity, that form has been brought to bear upon the unity of the person, so much so that the Son of God and the Son of Man are one Christ; that is, Christ exists in these two natures with three substances: of the Word, which must be referred to the essence of God alone, and of body and soul, which pertains to the true man. He has therefore in himself a twofold substance, that of his own divinity and that of our humanity. This too is so by reason of the fact that he came forth from God the Father, being only begotten, without defect. For he is not received by us as made, nor as predestined. Yet through this, that he was born of the Virgin Mary, he must also be believed to be predestined.
Yet both generations in him are wondrous: for he was begotten of the Father before the ages without a mother, and at the end of the ages he was generated of a mother without a father. Yet inasmuch as he is God, he created Mary; inasmuch as he is man, he was created of Mary; he himself is at once the Father of Mary his mother, and her Son. Likewise, in that he is God, he is equal to the Father; in that he is man, he is less than the Father. So too he must be believed to be both greater and lesser. For in the form of God the Son himself is greater than himself on account of the humanity assumed, because the divinity is greater. But in the form of man the Son himself is greater than himself with respect to the humanity, which is received as less than the divinity.
Thus according to the divinity, which is equal to the Father, he himself and the Father are greater than the man whom the person of the Son alone assumed. Likewise, in regard to what may be asked—how the Son is believed to be both equal and lesser—let us answer: according to the form of God the servant (Phil. 2:7), he is less than both the Father and the Holy Spirit, since the Holy Spirit is not called Father. But the person of the Son alone took flesh, through which he is believed to be less than those two persons. Likewise this Son is believed to be a person inseparably distinct, from God the Father and the Holy Spirit, in respect of the man assumed of Mary.
Likewise, since in the man there exists one person, while with the Father and the Holy Spirit there is the nature of his divinity by substance, yet the Son is to be believed to have been sent not only by the Father but also by the Holy Spirit, in that he himself says through the prophet: 'And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit' (Isa. 48:16). He is also understood to be sent by himself, in that—without parables—not only the will but also the working of the whole Trinity is acknowledged. For he who before the ages was called the only-begotten in a spiritual sense, became the firstborn. He is the only-begotten on account of the substance of the divinity.
He is the firstborn on account of the nature of the flesh assumed, in which, in the form of the man taken up, according to the truth of the Gospel, he is believed to have been conceived without sin, born without sin, and to have died without sin—he who alone was made a sinner for us, that is, a sacrifice for our sins. And yet he endured that very passion, his divinity remaining unharmed, for our offences; and being condemned to die, he received upon the cross the true death of the flesh. Likewise on the third day, raised by his own power, he rose from the tomb. By this example, then, of our Head, we confess that there shall be a true resurrection of the flesh of all the dead.
We do not believe, as certain men rave, that you will rise again in some airy or any other kind of flesh, but in this very flesh in which we live, subsist, and move. When the example of this holy resurrection had been accomplished, the same Lord and Saviour of ours, by ascending, sought again the paternal throne, from which by his divinity he had never departed. There, seated at the right hand of the Father, he is awaited at the end of the ages as Judge of all the living and the dead. Thence he will come with all his saints to execute judgment, to render to each the recompense properly due, according as each, while placed in the body, has done, whether good or evil (cf. 2 Cor. 5:10).
We believe that the holy catholic Church, purchased with the price of his own blood, shall reign together with him for ever. Established within her bosom, we believe in one baptism; and we confess it for the remission of all sins. Under this faith and the resurrection of the dead we truly believe, and we await the joys of the age to come. This alone we must pray for and seek: that when, judgment having been accomplished and ended, the Son shall have delivered up the kingdom to God the Father, he may make us partakers of his kingdom, so that we who cleave to him through this faith may reign with him without end.
This is the faith of our confession here set forth, by which the dogma of the heretics is destroyed, by which the hearts of the faithful are cleansed, by which also one draws near to God in glory. Having tasted of his most holy savour during the three-day fast of days, in continual sharing of these discourses and pouring them forth, we have passed on to those things which are appended to be expounded on the following day.