THE ATHANASIAN CREED:
The Church's Confession of the Holy Trinity
from the LCMS Commission on Worship
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In AD 313 the Emperor Constantine became a Christian and quickly granted the church a public legitimacy that it had never before enjoyed. This new freedom from external dangers was, however, soon replaced by a threat from within. Just a few years later, a new teaching appeared which claimed that Jesus was not true God. Arius, the north African priest who first proposed this theory, was extremely persuasive, and soon the controversy was so widespread that the emperor call together a council to settle the matter. Out of that meeting in AD 325 came the Nicene Creed, which clearly confesses Jesus to be true God. That creed, which was expanded in AD 381 in order to defend the divinity of the Holy Spirit, is still widely used today as a confession of the triune faith.
Despite the clarity of the Nicene Creed, the controversy continued for some time. Toward the end of the fifth century, another creed was written that marveled at the mystery of the Trinity in a way that no other creed had ever done. Though attributed to Athanasius, a fourth-century opponent of Arius, this anonymous creed clearly came at a later stage of the debate. It is divided into two distinct sections, each being prefaced by the claim that what follows is necessary for salvation.
The first section focuses on the doctrine of the Trinity. While the language almost seems tedious, there is a reason. Since the teaching that God is triune cannot be explained, the best we can so is simply repeat again and again the truth that there is only one God who is nevertheless three persons. And so we say over and over, "And yet they are not three...but one."
The second section confesses the orthodox understanding of the incarnation, that is, the teaching that God became man. Much of the language here echoes the familiar words of both the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds, leaving no doubt that Jesus Christ is true God who came for our salvation.
The Athanasian Creed proclaims that these teachings concerning the Holy Trinity and our Lord's incarnation are "the catholic faith." In other words, this is what the true church of all times and all places has confessed. More that 15 centuries later, the church still continues to confess this truth, confident that the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has given himself for our salvation.
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