A Commentary On

Quicunque Vult

commonly called

The Creed of Saint Athanasius

The Athanasian Creed was developed in the fourth century and “remains the most readily accessible summary of classical orthodoxy.”[1] It “represents the high point which ancient theology reached in its search for systematization.”[2] The Creed is highly regarded by Anglicans, who affirm this great Ecumenical Creed, alongside the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. It is traditional in Anglican churches to recite the Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday.

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.

The Creed begins by strongly asserting the link between right belief and salvation. It is necessary not only to give intellectual assent to the Catholic Faith, but also to hold to it. We don’t just accept the Catholic Faith; we cling to it for life and hope. By Catholic we mean “universal,” and the Catholic Faith is the true revelation of God believed by Christians in all times and places.

The clause about perishing everlastingly refers to those who knowingly and willfully reject the essential truths taught in this Creed. Remember the baptismal formula given by Christ in Matthew 28:19-20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Athanasius “made much of [this] formula, suggesting that if one did not accept the deity of the Holy Spirit, how could the work of baptism then have its full effect?”[3]

And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity,

Note again that the Catholic Faith is not just about intellectual assent. We worship one God in Trinity. “Only in the context of knowing God do we know the Trinity, yet to know the Trinity is the sum of Christian wisdom and experience.”[4]

neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.

“We are not to confuse the Persons in the manner of the Sabellians, because each has his own distinctiveness which can neither be merged nor swapped with another. At the same time, we must not divide the Substance (Nature).”[5] We reject the notion that the Son or the Spirit are merely parts of God the Father.

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.

“Each Person possesses the Godhead, which is the same for all not merely in quality but in quantity. There are not three equal gods but there is only one God, whose three Persons each share the divinity fully. The light with which they shine is equal, so that it cannot be said that one Person leaves the others in the shade. The power by which they rule is co-eternal, so that none can claim superiority over the others by virtue of priority.”[6]

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.

The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate.

The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost

incomprehensible.

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, nor three uncreated, but one uncreated, and

one incomprehensible.

“The characteristics of God are attributes held in common by each of the three together. They are not aspects of a divine Substance which are parceled out to the Persons or which the Persons merely manifest. Each of the three is uncreated in his own right, and it is in knowing them that we perceive this truth about them.”[7]

When we say that God is “incomprehensible,” we mean that he is beyond our control. It is of course possible for us to know God personally, and to know facts and truths about God. (Otherwise, we would not be able to make assertions about God as we do in this Creed!) However, we cannot fully understand God, or contain or limit him in any way.

The attributes of God, that he is uncreated, incomprehensible, and eternal, “are not shared by the three in a way that human beings might share characteristics with each other. God is one, and in discerning his attributes we discern the unity which the three Persons manifest to perfection.”[8]

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.

This section lists the three divine titles: Almighty, God, and Lord. These are titles, not attributes. “The Trinity is God in his Glory and Lord in his Majesty, his Being and his Kingdom being united in the one object of our worship… What God does in his Kingdom will always be in perfect harmony with what God is in his Being.”[9]

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 three Gods, or three Lords.

God has provided means to enable us to affirm and protect orthodoxy. The first is “the Christian verity,” which refers to the revelation of God in Scripture. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16) The second is “the Catholic Religion,” which refers to the faith of the universal Church in covenant with God, which resides under His active care and protection. True Christians in all times and in all places have affirmed these essential truths about God.

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.

None of the Persons were made out of pre-existing material or created out of nothing. “The Father is not begotten, which means that there is no point of reference to which his Person must be related.”[10]

The Son, while not made or created, is begotten of the Father. The Apostle John wrote:

“In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” (1 John 4:9)

Even in the Old Testament, God reveals His only begotten Son:

“Who has ascended into heaven, or descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son's name, If you know?” (Proverbs 30:4)

That the Son is begotten means that “his Person must be related to the Father in order for us to understand him.”[11]

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Jesus Christ explained this in John 15:26:

“But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.”

The relationship of Father, Son, and Spirit was summarized by the Rev. F. W. Puller as follows:

“The Father alone is the primary Source from whom the Son proceeds, and He alone is also the primary Source from whom the Holy Ghost proceeds; but in the Eternal Spiration of the Holy Ghost the Son intervenes with a certain mediating co-operation, so that the Holy Ghost proceeds eternally from the Father through the Son, and therefore in a sense it may be said that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.”[12]

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;

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 thus think of the Trinity.

Here the Creed summarizes the previous sections before moving on to the doctrine of the Incarnation.

Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Only Jesus Christ can be our Savior because only He is both God and man. Only a man could pay the ransom for mankind, but only God could fulfill the righteous requirements of the divine law. The Apostle Paul wrote,

“For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all.” (1 Timothy 2:5)

If one does not believe in the Incarnation, one does not have a Mediator before God.

For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;

The right Faith “exists and is true, whatever our attitude toward it might be… The right Faith is a call to commitment, urging us not merely to believe its truth but to confess and proclaim it to the world.”[13]

The Son of God has always been the Son. “The second person of the triune Godhead has eternally existed as the Son. In other words there was never a time when He was not the Son of God, and there has always been a Father/Son relationship within the Godhead.”[14] However, in the Incarnation, the Eternal Son of God became man:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” (John 1:1,2)

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance of his Mother, born in the world;

“In his divine nature, Jesus is God, sharing the Substance of his Father but not begotten of it… The Son is begotten of the Father’s Person, not of his Nature… Before all worlds means simply outside time, with the added assurance that the Son was fully existent at the moment of creation.”[15]

“In his human nature, the Son is born of a Virgin, from whom he acquires his manhood. Mary is not the mother of the divine Substance, but only of the human, though the child in her womb was truly the Son of God… It should be noted that begotten (genitus) is paired with born (natus) to bring out both the similarity and the difference between the heavenly generation and the earthly one.”[16]

Perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting;

Since Christ is perfect Man, he has a human soul and a human body. However, Man is “more than just a compound of two substances; he [has] a reality in his own right. To put it another way, he subsisted as Man and did not merely exist as soul and flesh lumped together.” [17]

Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his Manhood.

Christ’s divine equality and human inferiority to the Father is beautifully expressed in Philippians 2:5-11:

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Who although he be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ;

One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God;

“The notion that God and Man are joined in Christ would have sounded perfectly correct to Nestorius, but Nestoriansism is excluded by the insistence that the union involved a taking of Manhood into God.”[18]

One altogether; not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person.

“The idea that Manhood was somehow deified is excluded by [this] statement which rules out a confusion of Substance and focuses on the Person as the subject of unity.”[19]

For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ;

Just as a man subsists in a unity of soul and body, so Christ subsists in a unity of God and Man. “His Person unites the two natures in the same way that our persons unite the two elements of our one nature in a functioning subsistence which has a reality and identify of its own.”[20]

Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead.

Here the Creed affirms Scriptural truths from the life of Christ:

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” (1 Peter 3:18)

“For You will not leave my soul in Hades, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.” (Acts 2:27)

“He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:4)

He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

Christ “has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.” (1 Peter 3:22)

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.

The final judgment is described in Revelation 20:12-13:

“And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works.”

Although we are saved by faith through grace, our works are judged by God. “What these lines mean is that God expects a work of sanctification in our lives as the inevitable fruit of salvation. Our works manifest what we are; and when God discloses them, it will become apparent where we have put our trust. Then judgment will be pronounced, and the great separation between good and evil will be consummated forever.”[21]

This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.

“The Faith must be held faithfully. In other words, the spirit of right believing must be one with the Spirit of right belief.”[22]

All Scripture Quotations from the New King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Gerald Bray is the Anglican Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School and teaches church history, historical theology, and Latin. Before coming to Beeson in 1993, he lectured in theology and philosophy at Oak Hill College in London. A prolific author, Dr. Bray has published many scholarly articles and books, including The Doctrine of God in the Contours of Christian Theology series (of which he is also the general editor) and Creeds, Councils, and Christ (Christian Focus Publications). His book, Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present (IVP), was voted as one of the ten books every pastor should read. He has also written three volumes in the Ancient Christian Commentary Series (IVP) and has edited both the Anglican Canons 1529-1947 (Boydell and Brewer) and Tudor Church Reform (Boydell and Brewer) which contains the Henrician Canons of 1535 and the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum. He is currently editing the convocation records of the Churches of England and Ireland from the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Dr. Bray is an ordained minister in the Church of England.