Pope Damasus’s Confession of the Catholic Faith, Sent to Paulinus

After the Council of Nicaea this error sprang up: certain men dared to say with profane mouths that the Holy Spirit was made through the Son. We therefore anathematize those who do not proclaim with all freedom that the Holy Spirit is of one and the same substance and power with the Father and the Son. In the same way we anathematize those who follow the error of Sabellius and say that the Father and the Son are the same. We anathematize Arius and Eunomius, who with equal impiety, though in different words, maintain that the Son and the Holy Spirit are a creature. We anathematize the Macedonians, who sprang from the root of Arius and have changed the name but not the impiety. We anathematize Photinus, who, renewing the heresy of Ebion, confessed that our Lord Jesus Christ was only of Mary. We anathematize those who maintain that there are two sons, one before the ages and another after he took flesh from Mary. We also anathematize all who maintain that the Word of God moved in human flesh in place of a rational soul. For this Word of God himself was not in his own body in place of a rational and intelligent soul, but took our soul, both rational and intelligent, and saved it, without sin. We also anathematize those who say that the Word of God is separated from the Father by extension and contraction, and who blasphemously affirm that he has no real existence of his own, or is destined to die. [a]

Those who have moved from one church to another we hold to be outside our communion until they return to the cities in which they were first ordained. If, when one man has moved from place to place, another has been ordained in his place, let the man who abandoned his own city be held deprived of his rank as bishop until his successor rests in the Lord.

If anyone denies that the Father is eternal, and the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal, let him be anathema. If anyone denies that the Son was begotten of the Father, that is, of his divine substance, let him be anathema. If anyone denies that the Son of God is true God, almighty and all-knowing, and equal to the Father, let him be anathema. If anyone says that the Son of God, while he lived in the flesh on the earth, was not in heaven and with the Father, let him be anathema. [e] If anyone says that in the suffering of the cross the Son of God bore its pain in his Godhead, and not in the rational soul and flesh that he had taken in the form of a servant, as the Holy Scripture says, let him be anathema. [f] If anyone denies that the Word of God suffered in the flesh and tasted death in the flesh, and was the firstborn of the dead, as the Son is life and the giver of life, let him be anathema. [g] If anyone denies that he sits at the right hand of the Father in the flesh he took, in which he will come to judge the living and the dead, let him be anathema. If anyone denies that the Holy Spirit is truly and absolutely of the Father, and that the Son is of the divine substance and true God from God, let him be anathema. [h] If anyone denies that the Holy Spirit is almighty, all-knowing and everywhere present, as the Son of the Father also is, let him be anathema. If anyone says that the Holy Spirit is a created being, or was made through the Son, let him be anathema. If anyone denies that the Father made all things, visible and invisible, through the Son who was made flesh, and through the Holy Spirit, let him be anathema. If anyone denies one Godhead and power, one sovereignty and glory, one lordship, one kingdom, will and truth of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, let him be anathema. If anyone denies three true persons, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, living forever, holding all things visible and invisible, almighty, judging all things, giving life to all things, creating all things and preserving all things, let him be anathema. [i] If anyone denies that the Holy Spirit is to be worshiped by all creation, as the Son is, and as the Father is, let him be anathema.

If anyone thinks rightly about the Father and the Son but does not hold rightly about the Holy Spirit, let him be anathema, because he is a heretic. For all the heretics who do not think rightly about God the Son and about the Holy Spirit are convicted of being caught up in the unbelief of the Jews and the pagans. And if anyone divides the Godhead, saying that the Father is God apart, and the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, and insists that they are called Gods and not God, on account of the one Godhead and sovereignty that we believe and know belongs to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God in three hypostases; or if anyone takes away the Son and the Holy Spirit, so as to suggest that the Father alone is called God and believed in as one God, let him be anathema. [j] For the name of gods has been given by God to angels and to all the saints. But of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, because of their one and equal Godhead, it is not the name “gods” but the name “our God” that is declared and proclaimed. This is so that we may believe that we are baptized into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and not into the names of archangels or angels, as the heretics are, or the Jews, or the foolish pagans. This is the salvation of Christians: that, believing in the Trinity, that is, in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and being baptized into the same one Godhead and power and divinity and substance, we may trust in him.

These events took place during the lifetime of Gratian.