The Athanasian Creed: Full Text in English and Latin

The Athanasian Creed, called from its first Latin words the Quicumque vult ("Whosoever will be saved"), is the third of the Church's great creeds, beside the Apostles' and the Nicene. It sets out with exact care the two central mysteries of the Catholic faith, the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God, and it was said for centuries at Prime in the Roman Breviary; under the rubrics of the 1962 books it is said there on Trinity Sunday. Below is the full text in English and in Latin, with its history, its meaning line by line, and the Church's reading of its solemn warnings.

The Athanasian Creed: full text in English

This is the traditional English version, as it stands in the Iter Fidei prayer book. It is long, about forty verses, and it should be read slowly, as a confession of faith rather than a lesson.

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith:
which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
And the Catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity,
neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.
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 coeternal.
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 uncreated, nor three incomprehensibles, but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible.
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.
For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord, so are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say, There be three Gods, or three Lords.
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.
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 another; none is greater, or less than another: but the whole three Persons are coeternal together, and coequal.
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.
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation, that he also believe faithfully the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For the right faith is, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.
God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man, of the substance of his mother, born in the world.
Perfect God, and perfect man: of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his manhood.
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.
One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.
For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ.
Who suffered for our salvation: descended into hell: rose again the third day from the dead.
He ascended into heaven, he sitteth at the right hand of God the Father almighty: from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
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.
This is the Catholic faith: which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.

The Athanasian Creed in Latin (Quicumque vult)

The Latin text, as printed in the Roman Breviary:

Quicumque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est, ut teneat catholicam fidem:
Quam nisi quisque integram inviolatamque servaverit, absque dubio in aeternum peribit.
Fides autem catholica haec est: ut unum Deum in Trinitate, et Trinitatem in unitate veneremur.
Neque confundentes personas, neque substantiam separantes.
Alia est enim persona Patris, alia Filii, alia Spiritus Sancti:
Sed Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti una est divinitas, aequalis gloria, coaeterna maiestas.
Qualis Pater, talis Filius, talis Spiritus Sanctus.
Increatus Pater, increatus Filius, increatus Spiritus Sanctus.
Immensus Pater, immensus Filius, immensus Spiritus Sanctus.
Aeternus Pater, aeternus Filius, aeternus Spiritus Sanctus.
Et tamen non tres aeterni, sed unus aeternus.
Sicut non tres increati, nec tres immensi, sed unus increatus, et unus immensus.
Similiter omnipotens Pater, omnipotens Filius, omnipotens Spiritus Sanctus.
Et tamen non tres omnipotentes, sed unus omnipotens.
Ita Deus Pater, Deus Filius, Deus Spiritus Sanctus.
Et tamen non tres Dii, sed unus est Deus.
Ita Dominus Pater, Dominus Filius, Dominus Spiritus Sanctus.
Et tamen non tres Domini, sed unus est Dominus.
Quia, sicut singillatim unamquamque personam Deum ac Dominum confiteri christiana veritate compellimur: ita tres Deos aut Dominos dicere catholica religione prohibemur.
Pater a nullo est factus: nec creatus, nec genitus.
Filius a Patre solo est: non factus, nec creatus, sed genitus.
Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et Filio: non factus, nec creatus, nec genitus, sed procedens.
Unus ergo Pater, non tres Patres: unus Filius, non tres Filii: unus Spiritus Sanctus, non tres Spiritus Sancti.
Et in hac Trinitate nihil prius aut posterius, nihil maius aut minus: sed totae tres personae coaeternae sibi sunt et coaequales.
Ita ut per omnia, sicut iam supra dictum est, et unitas in Trinitate, et Trinitas in unitate veneranda sit.
Qui vult ergo salvus esse, ita de Trinitate sentiat.
Sed necessarium est ad aeternam salutem, ut Incarnationem quoque Domini nostri Iesu Christi fideliter credat.
Est ergo fides recta, ut credamus et confiteamur, quia Dominus noster Iesus Christus, Dei Filius, Deus et homo est.
Deus est ex substantia Patris ante saecula genitus: et homo est ex substantia matris in saeculo natus.
Perfectus Deus, perfectus homo: ex anima rationali et humana carne subsistens.
Aequalis Patri secundum divinitatem: minor Patre secundum humanitatem.
Qui, licet Deus sit et homo, non duo tamen, sed unus est Christus.
Unus autem non conversione divinitatis in carnem, sed assumptione humanitatis in Deum.
Unus omnino, non confusione substantiae, sed unitate personae.
Nam sicut anima rationalis et caro unus est homo: ita Deus et homo unus est Christus.
Qui passus est pro salute nostra: descendit ad inferos: tertia die resurrexit a mortuis.
Ascendit ad caelos, sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis: inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos.
Ad cuius adventum omnes homines resurgere habent cum corporibus suis: et reddituri sunt de factis propriis rationem.
Et qui bona egerunt, ibunt in vitam aeternam: qui vero mala, in ignem aeternum.
Haec est fides catholica, quam nisi quisque fideliter firmiterque crediderit, salvus esse non poterit.

What is the Athanasian Creed?

A creed, or symbol, is a short summary of the faith that the Church requires her children to believe. The Apostles' Creed is the creed of Baptism; the Nicene Creed is the creed of the councils, sung at Mass. The Athanasian Creed is different in kind: it is less a list of articles than a careful statement of how the faith is to be held, so that no error can slip in. It answers the questions the early heresies raised about God and about Christ, and it answers them in short, balanced sentences that leave no room for doubt.

It has two parts. The first (from "And the Catholic faith is this" to "must thus think of the Trinity") is about the Holy Trinity: one God in three Persons. The second (from "Furthermore, it is necessary" to "who suffered for our salvation") is about the Incarnation: one Christ, true God and true man. The opening and closing verses frame the whole with a warning that this faith is necessary for salvation.

Who wrote the Athanasian Creed, and when?

The creed bears the name of St Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria (died 373), the great defender of the divinity of Christ against the Arians; his life and combats are told in our page on St Athanasius. The name was given because the creed is a faithful summary of the doctrine he fought for, and for a thousand years it was commonly believed to be his own work.

It is not. Athanasius wrote in Greek, and the creed was composed in Latin. Its language, and the errors it answers (it refutes the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies of the fifth century about the person of Christ), place it in the Latin West, most probably in southern Gaul, in the late fifth or early sixth century. The earliest clear witness to it is St Caesarius of Arles, in the sixth century. Its author is unknown. This does not lessen its authority: the Church received it, set it in her Office, and has treated it for well over a thousand years as a standard of the true faith, by the same consent that gave authority to the Apostles' Creed, which also was not written down by the Apostles' own hands.

When is the Athanasian Creed used?

For centuries the Athanasian Creed was recited in the Roman Breviary at Prime, the first of the little Hours of the Divine Office, on Sundays, chiefly the Sundays after Epiphany and after Pentecost when the Office was of the Sunday. The simplifications of the rubrics in the 1950s reduced its use, and under the rubrics of 1960, which govern the books of 1962, it is said at Prime once a year, on Trinity Sunday, the first Sunday after Pentecost. Priests and religious who pray the traditional Office meet it there; laymen who follow the Office in a breviary or in the app say it with them.

It is not part of the Mass. But nothing prevents its use as a private prayer, and many Catholics say it on Trinity Sunday or on the feast of St Athanasius (2 May), or keep it as an act of faith to be read when the mind is troubled about the mystery of God.

What the Athanasian Creed teaches

One God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity

The first part guards against two opposite errors. One confuses the Persons, as if Father, Son and Holy Ghost were only three names or masks of one person (the error of Sabellius). The other divides the substance, as if they were three gods, or as if the Son and the Holy Ghost were lesser beings (the error of Arius). The creed shuts both doors at once: "neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance."

Then it walks through the divine attributes one by one. The Father is uncreate, the Son uncreate, the Holy Ghost uncreate; and yet "not three uncreated... but one uncreated." So with eternal, almighty, God and Lord. Each Person is wholly God, and yet there are not three Gods. The Persons are distinguished only by their origin: the Father is of none, the Son is begotten of the Father alone, the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son. "None is afore, or after another; none is greater, or less than another: but the whole three Persons are coeternal together, and coequal."

The line "The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son" is the Latin West's ancient confession that the Spirit proceeds from both, the doctrine expressed in the Nicene Creed by the word Filioque. The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches the same, adding that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one principle.

One Christ, perfect God and perfect man

The second part turns to the Son made man. Christ is "God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man, of the substance of his mother, born in the world." He is "perfect God, and perfect man," with a rational soul and human flesh. Against those who divided Christ into two persons, the creed says He is "not two, but one Christ"; against those who blended His natures into one, it says He is one "not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person." The comparison it uses is a homely one: as soul and body make one man, so God and man is one Christ.

The creed then confesses the work of redemption in the words of the older creeds: He suffered, descended into hell, rose the third day, ascended, sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead, when all men shall rise with their bodies and give account for their deeds.

"He shall perish everlastingly": the warning clauses

The verses that open and close the creed are its most quoted and its most misunderstood: "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith," and "This is the Catholic faith: which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved."

They are not harsh additions; they are the plain words of Our Lord: "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned" (St Mark xvi. 16, Douay-Rheims), and of St Paul: "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews xi. 6). Faith is not a private opinion about God; it is the first gift by which we come to Him, and to reject the truth God has revealed, knowingly and wilfully, is to turn away from Him.

The Church has always read these clauses with her whole teaching. The Catechism of St Pius X, which teaches that no one can be saved outside the Church, also teaches that one who is outside her through no fault of his own, who is in good faith, seeks the truth sincerely and does the will of God as best he knows it, is not on that account lost; such a soul is united to the soul of the Church.

Pope Pius IX taught the same in his encyclical Quanto conficiamur moerore (1863) regarding those in invincible ignorance. The creed speaks of those who will not keep the faith: it condemns the refusal of the truth, not the misfortune of never having heard it. For the believer, its warning is a summons to treasure the faith, learn it, and keep it "whole and undefiled."

The Athanasian Creed vs the Nicene Creed

The three creeds teach one faith, at three depths. The Apostles' Creed states the articles simply, as a baptismal profession. The Nicene Creed, from the councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), defines against Arius that the Son is "consubstantial with the Father." The Athanasian Creed goes further into the how: it sets out the equality and distinction of the Persons in detail, and it adds a full statement on the two natures of Christ, which the Nicene Creed does not contain. The Nicene Creed is sung at Mass; the Athanasian Creed belongs to the Office. And unlike the other two, it does not begin "I believe," but with a warning, and it is written in the third person, as a rule of faith.

Is the Athanasian Creed Catholic? Lutheran and Anglican use

The Athanasian Creed is Catholic in origin, Latin in language, and has been prayed in the Roman Office for over a thousand years. At the Reformation, the Lutheran and Anglican communions kept it, because it was so universally received: the Lutheran confessions count it among the three ecumenical creeds, and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer appointed it for certain feasts. That is why so many searches for it come from Lutheran or Anglican readers. It does not follow that they hold the whole of the faith it professes: the creed's last words, "This is the Catholic faith," refer to the faith of the Church that composed it. On how the Catholic Church differs from these communions, see our comparison of Catholic and Lutheran belief.

The Athanasian Creed PDF

We do not offer a PDF: the complete text is above, in English and Latin, and the page prints as it is. Rather than a printed sheet, keep it in the Iter Fidei app, with the Breviary in which it is said at Prime, in Latin and English, offline. Join early access here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the Athanasian Creed say?

It says that the Catholic faith is to worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, without confusing the Persons or dividing the substance; that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are each God and yet not three Gods but one; and that our Lord Jesus Christ is one Person, perfect God and perfect man, who suffered, rose, ascended and will come to judge the living and the dead.

Is the Athanasian Creed used in the Catholic Church?

Yes. It is the creed of the Roman Breviary, said at Prime; under the rubrics of 1960 that govern the traditional Office, it is said on Trinity Sunday. It is also a permitted and fruitful private prayer.

Why was the Athanasian Creed written?

To protect the faith in the Trinity and in the Incarnation against the heresies of the early centuries: Arianism, which denied the full divinity of the Son, and the errors about the person and natures of Christ condemned at Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451), the council that received the Tome of Pope St Leo the Great. Its precise wording leaves no opening for those errors.

How many verses are in the Athanasian Creed?

About forty. Editions number it as forty to forty-four verses, depending on how the lines are divided; the text is the same.

Why is the Athanasian Creed important?

Because it states with unique precision the two mysteries on which the whole faith rests, the Trinity and the Incarnation. Whoever reads it carefully learns not only what to believe about God and Christ, but what errors to avoid.

What does "uncreate" and "incomprehensible" mean in the creed?

"Uncreate" means not made, without beginning: each divine Person is God, not a creature. "Incomprehensible" here translates the Latin immensus, "immeasurable": God cannot be contained or measured by any place or limit. The old English word is not a claim that God cannot be understood at all, but that He has no bounds.

The Iter Fidei app carries the Breviary, the creeds and the traditional prayers, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version: St Mark xvi. 16; Hebrews xi. 6. Breviarium Romanum, Symbolum Athanasianum at Prime; Rubrics of the Roman Breviary and Missal (1960). Catechism of the Council of Trent, Part I, Articles 1, 3 and 8. Catechism of St Pius X, On the Church. Pius IX, encyclical Quanto conficiamur moerore (1863).