There is one God in Three Per­sons
Life of Athana­sis 290–373 A.D.
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This tract is sim­ply a brief expla­na­tion of the life of Athana­sius, the actual creed that he wrote, and some clar­i­fi­ca­tions by me (David Cox). Although I do not endorse all the ancient creeds, con­fes­sions, nor dec­la­ra­tions, espe­cially those giv­ing sup­port to Catholi­cism, I did find this creed an extremely detailed and care­ful dec­la­ra­tion of the Trin­ity that all fun­da­men­tal Bible believ­ing Chris­tians should con­sider because the word­ing is very precise.

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Athana­sius was a dea­con in the church of Alexan­der, bishop of Alexan­dria. He attended the Nicene Coun­cil. After­wards he was the bishop of Alexan­dria after Alexan­der died in 328 A.D. He was per­se­cuted for his posi­tion of defend­ing the Trin­ity and the Deity of Jesus Christ. His dec­la­ra­tions on the Trin­ity are very clear, and very far reach­ing. Even though these dec­la­ra­tions are not Scrip­ture, they are very well worded and stud­ied to com­mu­ni­cate the Bible truths.

The Life of Athanasius

(290–373 A.D.)

Athana­sius, which means “immor­tal,” was born in Egypt, in the city of Alexan­dria, in the year 295 A.D. When he was an ado­les­cent, he stud­ied law and the­ol­ogy. He retired from that for a time into a desert to live a soli­tary life, and he made friends with some monks in the desert; after which, he returned to the city, and decided to ded­i­cate his life totally to the ser­vice of God.

It was in the time of Arius, he was cho­sen to be the sec­re­tary of Alexan­der. Arius con­fused the faith­ful with his hereti­cal inter­pre­ta­tion that Christ was not God in his nature.

In order to con­sider this ques­tion, there was held a coun­cil (one of the first ecu­meni­cal ones) in Nicene, a city in Asia Minor. Athana­sius was then a dea­con, and accom­pa­nied Alexan­der, the bishop of Alexan­dria, to the coun­cil, and by his doc­trine, genius, and courage, he defended the uni­ver­sal truth of God and refuted the heretics and Arius in these debates.

The Creed of Athanasius

Whoso­ever will be saved, before all things it is is nec­es­sary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except every­one 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 co-eternal.

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.

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 both God and Lord, so we are 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 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.

Fur­ther­more, it is nec­es­sary to ever­last­ing sal­va­tion that he also believe rightly 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 in 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 on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty,  from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

At whose com­ing all men shall rise 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, he can­not be saved.

Amen.

Clar­i­fi­ca­tions by David Cox

We should under­stand that in this same time that the Chris­t­ian Church was attacked by the false doc­trines of Arius on the nature of Jesus Christ, the church was attacked on the issue of the local, tem­po­ral author­ity of the church, specif­i­cally the human author­ity of the Pope set as divine author­ity. Even though Alexan­der and Athana­sius were very clear on the nature of Christ, they did not see the issue of the Catholic Church’s pre­sump­tion of God’s author­ity, which is the old heresy of the Nicol­i­tians in Rev 2:6, 15, which is men who wish to enslave and dom­i­nate the peo­ple of God.

Also by this time the false idea of sal­va­tion by works had entered. We should be very clear here that the Bible teaches that works are a cor­rect and nor­mal (essen­tial) out­work­ing of true sal­va­tion, and the lack of good works in the life of the believer is an indi­ca­tion that some­thing is very wrong in his under­stand­ing and Chris­t­ian faith (prob­a­bly he is not saved).

But the Bible teaches that true faith pro­duces works, and good works will never pro­duce true faith (Titus 3:5; Eph 2:8–9).

Even though we see these errors in these men, and the “Catholic Church” that they refer to is not all who are truly saved, but it is an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of a local, human church (“Apos­tolic Roman “Catholic Church”) which has gone fur­ther and fur­ther into error from this time. That being the case, the under­stand­ing of Athana­sius and Alexan­der on the Trin­ity against Arius is very accu­rate to the Bible.