The Definition of Faith

The holy, great and ecumenical synod, assembled by the grace of God and by the command of our most religious and Christian emperors, Marcian and Valentinian, Augusti, at Chalcedon, the chief city of the province of Bithynia, in the martyr’s shrine of the holy and victorious martyr Euphemia, has decreed as follows. [a]

When our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was strengthening the knowledge of the faith in his disciples, so that no one might disagree with his neighbor about the teachings of religion, and so that the proclamation of the truth might be set before all people alike, he said, “My peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” But the evil one does not stop sowing weeds among the seeds of godliness, and he is always inventing some new scheme against the truth. So the Lord, providing for the human race as he always does, has raised up this pious, faithful and zealous sovereign, and has called together to him the chief rulers of the priesthood from every part. In this way, with the grace of Christ our common Lord inspiring us, we may drive every plague of falsehood away from the sheep of Christ and feed them with the tender leaves of truth. And we have done this with one unanimous consent. We have driven away false teachings and renewed the unerring faith of the fathers. We have published to all the Creed of the three hundred and eighteen, and have added to their number, as their peers, the fathers who received the same summary of religion. Such are the hundred and fifty holy fathers who afterward assembled in great Constantinople and confirmed the same faith. Moreover, we keep the order and every form relating to the faith that was observed by the holy synod held earlier at Ephesus, whose leaders were Celestine of Rome and Cyril of Alexandria, of holy memory. And we declare that the statement of the right and blameless faith made by the three hundred and eighteen holy and blessed fathers assembled at Nicaea in the reign of Constantine of pious memory is to have first place. We declare that what the hundred and fifty holy fathers decreed at Constantinople is also to be in force, for uprooting the heresies that had then sprung up and for confirming this same catholic and Apostolic faith of ours. [b]

The Creed of the three hundred and eighteen fathers at Nicaea. We believe in one God, and so on. [d] Also, the Creed of the hundred and fifty holy fathers who were assembled at Constantinople. We believe in one God, and so on.

This wise and saving formula of divine grace was enough for the perfect knowledge and confirmation of religion. For it teaches the complete truth about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and it sets out the incarnation of the Lord to those who receive it faithfully. But some who set out to make void the preaching of the truth have, through their own particular heresies, given rise to empty babblings. Some of them dare to corrupt the mystery of the Lord’s incarnation for us, and refuse to use the name Mother of God for the Virgin. Others bring in a confusion and mixture, foolishly imagining that the nature of the flesh and of the Godhead is all one, and maintaining that the divine nature of the only Son is made capable of suffering by the mixture. So this present holy, great and ecumenical synod, wishing to shut out every scheme against the truth, and teaching what has remained unchanged from the beginning, has decreed first of all that the faith of the three hundred and eighteen fathers is to be kept inviolate. And because of those who fight against the Holy Spirit, it confirms the teaching about the substance of the Spirit given afterward by the hundred and fifty holy fathers who assembled in the imperial city. They made this teaching known to all, not as though they were bringing in something their predecessors had lacked, but to make plain in writing their faith about the Holy Spirit against those who were trying to do away with his sovereignty. [e]

And because of those who have set out to corrupt the mystery of the plan of salvation, and who shamelessly pretend that the one born of the holy Virgin Mary was a mere man, it receives the synodical letters of the blessed Cyril, pastor of the church of Alexandria, addressed to Nestorius and to the Easterners. It judges them suitable for refuting the frenzied folly of Nestorius, and for instructing those who long with holy eagerness to understand the saving creed. And to confirm the orthodox teachings, it has rightly added to these the letter of the president of great and old Rome, the most blessed and holy Archbishop Leo, addressed to Archbishop Flavian of blessed memory to do away with the false teachings of Eutyches. It judges them to agree with the confession of the great Peter, and to be, as it were, a common pillar against those who believe wrongly. For it opposes those who would tear the mystery of the plan of salvation apart into a pair of Sons. It shuts out from the sacred assembly those who dare to say that the Godhead of the only Son can suffer. It resists those who imagine a mixture or confusion of the two natures of Christ. It drives away those who fancy that his form of a servant is of a heavenly substance, or of some substance other than the one taken from us. And it anathematizes those who foolishly talk of two natures of our Lord before the union, but imagine that after the union there was only one.

Following the holy fathers, we teach with one voice that the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, is to be confessed as one and the same person. He is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, made up of a rational soul and a human body. He is of one substance with the Father as touching his Godhead, and of one substance with us as touching his manhood, made like us in all things, sin alone excepted. He was begotten of his Father before the ages as touching his Godhead; but in these last days, for us human beings and for our salvation, he was born into the world of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, as touching his manhood. This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, must be confessed to be in two natures, united without confusion, without change, without division, without separation. The distinction of the natures is in no way taken away by the union; rather, the particular property of each nature is preserved, and both are united in one person and subsistence. He is not separated or divided into two persons, but is one and the same Son, the only Son, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets of old spoke about him, as the Lord Jesus Christ has taught us, and as the Creed of the fathers has handed down to us. [h]

These things, then, having been set out by us with the greatest accuracy and care, the holy ecumenical synod defines that no one is to be allowed to bring forward a different faith, or to write it, or to put it together, or to devise it, or to teach it to others. As for those who dare either to put together another faith, or to bring forward, teach or hand on a different creed to people who wish to turn to the knowledge of the truth from the Gentiles, or from the Jews, or from any heresy whatever: if they are bishops or clergy, let them be deposed, the bishops from the office of bishop and the clergy from the clergy; but if they are monks or lay people, let them be anathematized. [j]

After the definition had been read, all the most religious bishops cried out: “This is the faith of the fathers! Let the metropolitans sign it at once! Let them sign it at once, in the presence of the judges! Let what has been well defined suffer no delay! This is the faith of the apostles! By this we all stand! This is what we all believe!” [k]