The Definition of Faith

The holy, great and ecumenical synod, assembled by the grace of God and by the religious decree of the most religious, faithful and mighty sovereign Constantine, in this God-protected and royal city of Constantinople, New Rome, in the hall of the imperial palace called Trullus, has decreed as follows. [a]

The only Son and Word of God the Father, who was made man, in all things like us but without sin, Christ our true God, has declared expressly in the words of the Gospel, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” And again, “My peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” Our most gentle sovereign, the champion of orthodoxy and the opponent of evil doctrine, reverently led by this divinely spoken teaching of peace, has called together this holy and ecumenical assembly of ours and has united the judgment of the whole church. So this holy and ecumenical synod of ours has driven away the impious error that had prevailed for some time until now. Following closely the straight path of the holy and approved fathers, it has piously given its full assent to the five holy and ecumenical synods. That is: to the synod of the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers who assembled at Nicaea against the raging Arius; the next, at Constantinople, of the hundred and fifty God-inspired men, against Macedonius, the opponent of the Spirit, and the impious Apollinaris; also the first at Ephesus, of two hundred venerable men, called together against Nestorius the Judaizer; and the one at Chalcedon, of six hundred and thirty God-inspired fathers, against Eutyches and Dioscorus, hated by God. And in addition to these, to the last, that is, the fifth holy synod, assembled in this place against Theodore of Mopsuestia, Origen, Didymus and Evagrius, and against the writings of Theodoret against the Twelve Chapters of the celebrated Cyril, and the letter said to have been written by Ibas to Maris the Persian. In this the synod renews in all things the ancient decrees of religion and chases away the impious doctrines of irreligion. And this holy and ecumenical synod of ours, inspired by God, has set its seal to the creed put forth by the three hundred and eighteen fathers and religiously confirmed again by the hundred and fifty, which the other holy synods also gladly received and ratified for the removal of every soul-destroying heresy. [b]

The Nicene Creed of the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers. “We believe…,” and the rest of the creed. The Creed of the hundred and fifty holy fathers assembled at Constantinople. “We believe…,” and the rest of the creed. [e]

The holy and ecumenical synod further says: This pious and orthodox creed of the divine grace would be enough for the full knowledge and confirmation of the orthodox faith. But the author of evil, who in the beginning made use of the serpent and through it brought the poison of death on the human race, has not given up. In the same way now he has found suitable instruments for working out his will. We mean Theodore, who was bishop of Pharan; Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter, who were archbishops of this royal city; and also Honorius, who was pope of Old Rome; Cyrus, bishop of Alexandria; Macarius, who was lately bishop of Antioch; and Stephen, his disciple. He has actively used them to raise up for the whole church the stumbling blocks of one will and one operation in the two natures of Christ our true God, one of the Holy Trinity. In this way, in new terms, he has been spreading among the orthodox people a heresy like the mad and wicked doctrine of the impious Apollinaris, Severus and Themistius, and craftily trying to destroy the completeness of the incarnation of the same our Lord Jesus Christ, our God, by blasphemously representing his flesh, endowed with a rational soul, as having no will or operation. Therefore Christ our God has raised up our faithful sovereign, a new David, having found him a man after his own heart, who, as it is written, “has not let his eyes sleep nor his eyelids slumber” until he found, by this holy synod of ours gathered by God, a perfect declaration of orthodoxy. For, according to the saying spoken by God, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” This present holy and ecumenical synod faithfully receives and greets with uplifted hands the suggestion sent by the most holy and blessed Agatho, pope of ancient Rome, to our most pious and faithful emperor Constantine, which rejected by name those who taught or preached one will and one operation in the divine plan of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our true God. It has likewise adopted the other synodal suggestion, sent to his God-taught Tranquility by the council held under the same most holy pope, made up of a hundred and twenty-five bishops beloved of God, as being in harmony with the holy Council of Chalcedon and with the Tome of the most holy and blessed Leo, pope of the same Old Rome, which was addressed to Saint Flavian, and which that council called the pillar of the right faith, and as agreeing also with the synodal letters written by the blessed Cyril against the impious Nestorius and addressed to the Eastern bishops. [f]

Following the five holy ecumenical councils and the holy and approved fathers, we define with one voice that our Lord Jesus Christ must be confessed to be true God and true man, one of the holy and life-giving Trinity, which is of one substance, perfect in deity and perfect in humanity, true God and true man, subsisting of a rational soul and a human body; of one substance with the Father as touching his Godhead, and of one substance with us as touching his manhood; in all things like us, sin only excepted. He was begotten of his Father before all ages according to his Godhead, but in these last days, for us men and for our salvation, he was made man of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, strictly and properly the Mother of God according to the flesh. He is one and the same Christ our Lord, the only Son, to be acknowledged of two natures, without confusion, without change, without separation, and without division. The distinctive features of neither nature are lost by the union; rather, the properties of each nature are preserved, coming together in one person and in one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same only Son of God, the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ. So the prophets of old have taught us, and so our Lord Jesus Christ himself has instructed us, and the creed of the holy fathers has handed it down to us. Defining all this, we likewise declare that in him there are two natural wills and two natural operations, without division, without change, without separation, and without confusion, according to the teaching of the holy fathers.

And these two natural wills are not contrary to each other (God forbid!), as the impious heretics assert. Rather, his human will follows, not resisting or reluctant, but subject to his divine and almighty will. For it was right that the flesh should be moved, but subject to the divine will, as the most wise Athanasius says. For as his flesh is called and is the flesh of God the Word, so also the natural will of his flesh is called and is the proper will of God the Word, as he himself says: “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me.” Here he calls the will of his flesh his own will, since his flesh was also his own. For as his most holy and immaculate flesh, which had a soul, was not destroyed because it was deified, but remained in its own state and nature, so also his human will, though deified, was not done away with, but was rather preserved. As Gregory the Theologian says: “His will,” that is, the Savior’s, “is not contrary to God, but wholly deified.”

We glorify two natural operations, without division, without change, without confusion, and without separation, in the same our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God: that is, a divine operation and a human operation. So the divine preacher Leo most clearly asserts: “For each form does, in communion with the other, what belongs properly to it: the Word doing what belongs to the Word, and the flesh what belongs to the flesh.” [k] For we will not admit one natural operation in God and in the creature, just as we will not raise what is created into the divine essence, nor bring the glory of the divine nature down to the place that suits the creature.

We recognize the miracles and the sufferings as belonging to one and the same person, but to the one or the other of the natures of which he is and in which he exists, as Cyril admirably says. So, keeping the natures without confusion and without division, we make this whole confession briefly. We believe our Lord Jesus Christ to be one of the Trinity, and after the incarnation our true God, and we say that his two natures shone forth in his one subsistence. In it he both performed the miracles and endured the sufferings through the whole of his life lived out in the divine plan of salvation, and that not in appearance only, but in very deed. This is because of the difference of nature that must be recognized in the same person. For though they are joined together, each nature wills and does what is proper to it, and does so without division and without confusion. So we confess two wills and two operations, coming together most fittingly in him for the salvation of the human race. [l]

These things, then, have been set out by us with all diligence and care. We define that no one is permitted to bring forward, or to write, or to compose, or to think, or to teach a different faith. Whoever presumes to compose a different faith, or to put forward, or teach, or hand on any different creed to those who wish to turn to the knowledge of the truth from the Gentiles or the Jews or from any heresy, or to bring in a new phrase or invented expression to overturn what has now been determined by us: all these, if they are bishops or clergy, are to be deposed, the bishops from the episcopate and the clergy from the clergy; but if they are monks or laymen, they are to be anathematized.