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Christian Documents Index.

Creed of Saint Athanasius

Also known as the "Quicunque Vult"

The doctrine of the trinity is so profoundly counterintuitive for most Christians that unless they simply repeat approved formulas word for word, they find it difficult to state it in a form that does not risk falling into doctrinal error. The following tortuous statement of this doctrine, attributed to Saint Athanasius (famed especially for his opposition to Arian heresy), is an example of the difficulty.

Scholars have long doubted that Saint Athanasius (296±-373) had much to do with this text, in fact, but he would probably have approved of it, and much of the same text was found in a manuscript dating to the early 400s, so it clearly comes from his world.

The Athanasian Creed, as it is called, has been used in Western Christian liturgy, particularly in southern Europe, since at least the VIth Century.

The text strikes me as interesting because it provides a detailed (read: tortuous) description of the difficult doctrine of the Trinity, confirming my general suspicion that Christians in the early Middle Ages could make no more rational sense of it than most modern Christians can.

The English translation of the following text is reproduced from the Book of Common Prayer, published by a decree of the English Parliament in 1549 and still the official manual of liturgy for the Church of England. (The original English spelling and punctuation are retained. Line numbers are added to facilitate citation or discussion.)

In an instructional paragraph preceding the text we are told that

Upon … [enumerated Church holidays] shall be sung or said at Morning Prayer, instead of the Apostles' Creed, this Confession of our Christian Faith, commonly called the Creed of Saint Athanasius, by the Minister and people standing.

As an indication of how seriously doctrinal purity has been taken, note the opening lines (§§1-2), and then the sentence at the end (§43): "This is the Catholick Faith: which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved." ("Catholic" here means "universal," not "Roman Catholic"; the usage is not uncommon among Protestants, although today the word is capitalized only when it means Roman Catholic.)

Politically incorrect as it has become for Christians to insist that theirs is the exclusive road to salvation, that was exactly the position of the early Church (and for that matter of many schismatic groups). Unlike other widely used credal statements, this one makes that very explicit.

Also unlike many other widely used credal statements, this one has become increasingly unpopular in recent years, preserved more by the sanctity of its age than by the logic of its arguments, the elegance of its prose, or the appeal of its conclusion.

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