De Sanctissima Trinitate Confessio

Confession on the Most Holy Trinity. I. We confess and believe that the holy and undivided Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is one Lord, naturally of one substance, of one nature, and also of one majesty and power; and we profess that the Father indeed is not made, not created, not begotten. For He Himself derived origin from no one, from whom the Son received birth and the Holy Spirit procession. He is therefore the source and origin of the whole Divinity. He is also the Father of His own essence, who ineffably begot the Son from ineffable substance, yet begot not something other than what He Himself is: God from God, light from light. II. From Him, therefore, is all paternity in heaven and on earth. We also declare that the Son, born from the substance of the Father without beginning before the ages, is not made. For neither did the Father ever exist without the Son, nor did the Son ever exist without the Father, and yet the Father is not from the Son as the Son is from the Father, because the Father did not receive generation from the Son, but the Son from the Father. The Son is therefore God from the Father. The Father, however, is God, but not from the Son. The Father is indeed the Father of the Son, not God from the Son.

But the Son is of the Father, and God from the Father, yet the Son is equal to God the Father in all things, because He did not at some time begin to be, nor did He cease. The Son is believed to be of one substance with the Father, so that He is also called *homoousion* with the Father, that is, of the same substance as the Father: for *OMO* in Greek means "one," and *USIA* means "substance," and the two together signify one substance. For the Son is to be believed to have been begotten, or to be of the same nature, not from nothing, nor from another substance, but from the Father's womb, that is, from His substance. III. Therefore the Father is eternal, and the Son is eternal; for if the Father always was, He always had a Son to whom He was Father, and on this account we confess the Son to have been born from the Father without beginning. Nor do we call the same Son of God a portion of a divided nature because He was begotten from the Father. But we assert that the perfect Father begot the perfect Son without diminution, without division, because it belongs to the divinity alone not to have an unequal Son. This Son of God is Son by nature, not by adoption, and God the Father is to be believed to have begotten Him neither by will nor by necessity, because no necessity is contained in God, nor does will precede wisdom.

IV. We also believe the Holy Spirit, whom we hold to be the third person in the Trinity, one and equal with God the Father and the Son, to be God of one substance, of one nature, yet neither begotten nor created, but proceeding from both, to be the Spirit of both. This Holy Spirit is believed to be neither unbegotten nor begotten. For if we were to say unbegotten, we would be speaking of two fathers; or if begotten, we would be proclaiming two sons. He is called, however, not the Spirit of the Father alone, nor of the Son alone, but simultaneously the Spirit of the Father and the Son. For He does not proceed from the Father into the Son, nor from the Son to sanctify the creature, but is shown to have proceeded from both at once, because He is acknowledged to be the love or holiness of both. Therefore this Holy Spirit is sent by both, just as the Son is believed to be sent by the Father, but He is not considered lesser than the Father and the Son, just as we testify that the Son, on account of His assumed flesh, is lesser than the Father and the Holy Spirit.

V. This is the holy Trinity, as the related account holds it to be believed, which can be called and believed not as triplex, but as ternitas. Nor should it rightly be said that the Trinity is in one God, but that one God is the Trinity, and in the relative names of the persons, Father is referred to the Son, the Son to the Father, the Holy Spirit to both; and although they are called three persons relatively, yet one nature, that is, one substance, is believed. Nor do we proclaim three substances as we do three persons, but one substance and three persons. VI. For what the Father is, He is not from Himself, but is relative to the Father. Likewise, the Holy Spirit is not from Himself, but is referred relatively to the Father and the Son in that He is proclaimed the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Again, when we say "God," it is not said in relation to something, as Father is to Son, or Son to Father, or Holy Spirit to Father and Son, but "God" is said especially in an absolute sense. For even if we were asked about each person individually, we must confess God. Therefore, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit is said individually, yet not three Gods, but one God.

VII. Likewise, the Father is omnipotent, and the Son is omnipotent, and the Holy Spirit is omnipotent, each individually, yet they are not three omnipotents, but one omnipotent. Just as one light and one principle are proclaimed. Therefore, each person individually is acknowledged as fully God, and all three persons together are confessed as one God, with one undivided and equal majesty, divinity, and power, which is neither diminished in the individuals nor increased in the three. VIII. For nothing is lacking when each person is individually called God, nor is there anything more when all three persons are declared one God. Therefore, this holy Trinity, which is one and true God, does not recede from number, nor is it grasped by number. For number is perceived in the relation of the persons. But in the substance of divinity, what is uncounted is not comprehended. Thus, number only indicates that they are distinct from one another, and they lack number only in that they are in themselves. For this holy Trinity has one natural name, so that in three persons it cannot be plural. On this account, it is said in sacred scripture: "Lord, our Lord, and great is his power, and of his wisdom there is no number" (Psalm 146:5). Nor, when we say that these three persons are one God, can we say that the Son is the same as the Father, or that the Father or the Son is the same as what the Holy Spirit is.

IX. For the Father is not himself the Son, nor is the Son himself the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit himself who is either the Father or the Son, although the Father is the same as the Son, the Son is the same as the Father, the Holy Spirit is the same as the Father and the Son, that is, one God by nature. For when we say that the Father is not the same person as the Son, this refers to the distinction of persons. X. But when we say that the Father is the same as the Son, the Son the same as the Father, the Holy Spirit the same as the Father and the Son, it is shown to pertain to the nature by which He is God, or to the substance. In respect to substance they are one; for we distinguish the persons, but we do not separate the Godhead. Therefore we acknowledge the Trinity in the distinction of persons, and we profess the unity on account of the nature or substance. Thus these three are one by nature, not by person, nor yet are these three persons to be considered separable, since it is believed that none ever existed before another, none after another, none without another, nor ever performed any work. For they are found to be inseparable both in what they are and in what they do; so that between the generating Father and the generated Son or the proceeding Holy Spirit, we believe there was no interval of time in which either the begetter ever preceded the begotten, or the begotten was absent from the begetter, or the proceeding Spirit appeared later than the Father or the Son.

Therefore, this Trinity is proclaimed and believed by us as inseparable and unconfused. These three persons, then, are so called according to the definitions of the greater authorities, that they may be known, not that they may be separated. For if we attend to what Sacred Scripture says of Wisdom: "the splendor of the eternal light" (Wisdom 7:; Hebrews 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, those three persons of one and inseparable nature we neither confuse, nor do we in any way proclaim them as separable. Inasmuch as the Trinity itself has deigned to show this to us clearly, since even in those names by which it wills the persons to be individually known, it does not permit one to be understood without the other: neither is the Father known without 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 when it does not name them simultaneously, it implies them together. No one, moreover, can hear any one of these names without being compelled to understand the other as well.

XI. Therefore, while these three are one, and one is three, yet each person retains 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 only the person of the Son, for the liberation of the human race, assumed true man without sin from the holy and immaculate Virgin Mary, by whom, in a new order and a new nativity, he was born, because her untouched virginity knew no male intercourse, and, fertile through the Holy Spirit, she supplied the matter of flesh. This birth of the Virgin is neither grasped by reason nor shown by example. For if it were grasped by reason, it would not be miraculous; if it were shown by example, it would not be unique. Yet the Holy Spirit is not to be believed to be the Father of the Son because Mary conceived overshadowed by the same Holy Spirit, lest we seem to assert two Fathers of the Son, which is impious to say. In which miraculous conception, as Wisdom built itself a house, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Yet the Word itself was not converted and changed into flesh, so that it ceased to be God, because it had willed to be man. But the Word was made flesh in such a way that there is not only the Word of God and the flesh of man, but also the rational soul of man, and this whole is called both God on account of God, and man on account of man.

In which Son of God we believe there are two natures, one of Divinity, the other of humanity. XII. These natures the one person of Christ has so united in itself that neither Divinity from humanity, nor humanity from Divinity can ever be separated. He is perfect God, perfect Man in the unity of person, one Christ. Yet, because we have said there are two natures in the Son of God, we shall not allege that there are two persons in him, lest a quaternity appear to be added to the Trinity, which God forbid. XIII. For God the Word did not assume the person of a man, but the nature, and into the eternal person of the Divinity he assumed the temporal substance of flesh. Likewise, when we believe the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to be of one substance, we do not say that the Virgin Mary gave birth to the unity of this Trinity, but only to the Son, who alone assumed our nature in the unity of his person. Also, the incarnation 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 only the Son received the form in the singularity of person, not in the unity of the divine nature. In that which is proper to the Son, not that which is common to the Trinity, that form was indeed brought to the unity of person, so that the Son of God and the Son of Man are one Christ, that is, Christ in these two natures consists of three substances: of the Word, which is to be referred to the essence of God alone, and of body and soul, which pertain to the true man.

Therefore he has in himself a twofold substance, of his own divinity and of our humanity. And this, because he proceeded from God the Father without defect, being born only. For we understand him as neither made nor predestined. XIV. Yet, because he was born of the Virgin Mary, he is to be believed as also predestined. Both generations in him, however, are miraculous, because he was born of the Father before the ages without a mother, and at the end of the ages he was born of a mother without a father. Yet, according to what he is as God, he created Mary; according to what he is as man, he was created from Mary; he himself is both the son of his mother Mary and the Son of the Father. XV. Likewise, because he is God, he is equal to the Father; because he is man, he is less than the Father. Likewise, he is to be believed as both greater and lesser. For in the form of God, the Son himself is greater than himself on account of the humanity he assumed, because the divinity is greater. But in the form of man, the Son himself is also greater than himself with respect to the humanity, which is understood as lesser 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 that which may be asked, the Son is believed to be both equal and lesser. Let us answer according to the form of the servant of God (Philippians 2:7): he is lesser than both the Father and the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit is not called the Father, etc. But the person of the Son alone took on flesh, through which he is believed to be lesser than those two persons.

Likewise this Son is believed to be a person inseparably distinct from God the Father and the Holy Spirit, from the man assumed from Mary. Likewise, although in the man there exists one person, with the Father and the Holy Spirit by the nature of the substance of his divinity, yet the Son is to be believed as sent not only by the Father, but also by the Holy Spirit. In that which he himself says through the prophet: "And now the Lord has sent me, and his spirit" (Isaiah 48:16). He is also understood as sent by himself, because without parables not only the will but also the operation of the whole Trinity is recognized. For he who before the ages was called only-begotten spiritually, was made first-born. Only-begotten on account of the substance of his divinity. First-born on account of the nature of the assumed flesh, in which he, having taken up the form of a man according to the evangelical truth, is believed to have been conceived without sin, born without sin, died without sin, he who alone for us was made a sinner, that is, a sacrifice for our sins. And yet he endured that same passion, his divinity being preserved, for our sins, and was judged to die, and underwent a true death of the flesh on the cross. On the third day, raised by his own power, he rose from the tomb.

XVI. By this example of our head, therefore, we confess that the true resurrection of the flesh of all the dead occurs. Nor do we believe that you will rise again in the air, or in any other flesh, as some rave, but in that flesh in which we live, stand, and move. After the completion of this holy example of resurrection, our same Lord and Savior, ascending, returned to the paternal seat, from which he never departed through his divinity. There, sitting at the right hand of the Father, he is awaited as the Judge of all the living and the dead at the end of the ages. XVII. Thence, with all the saints, he will come to render judgment, to give to each one the reward properly due, according to what each has done while placed in the body, whether good or evil (1 Cor. 5:10). We believe that the holy catholic Church, purchased with the price of his blood, will reign with him in perpetuity. Within whose bosom placed, we believe in one baptism; and we confess it for the remission of all sins. Under which faith, and the resurrection of the dead, we truly believe, and we await the joys of the future age.

We must only pray and ask that, when the Son has handed over the kingdoms to God the Father, the judgment having been completed and finished, he make us participants in his kingdom, so that we who through this faith cling to him may reign with him without end. This is the faith of our confession set forth, through which the dogma of heretics is destroyed, through which the hearts of the faithful are purified, through which also one approaches God gloriously, and, belching forth its sacrosanct flavor with a continuous collation of relations under a three-day fast, we have passed on to those things which are to be set forth on the following day.