Back to Creeds of the Fourth Century

Date 359
Council Sirmium
CPG 8581
Greek Text Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der Alten Kirche (Breslau: E. Morgenstern, 1897), 204-5.
Ancient Source Athanasius, De Synodis, 8; Socrates, HE 2.37.18-24
Note The creed is titled “The Dated Creed” because of the elaborate dating attached to the beginning (Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, p. 290)

The catholic faith was published in the presence of our master, the most religious and gloriously victorious Emperor, Constantius, Augustus, the eternal and august, in the consulate of the most illustrious Flavii, Eusebius and Hypatius, in Sirmium on the eleventh of the Calends of June

We believe in One only and true God, the Father Almighty, creator and framer of all things.

And in one only-begotten Son of God, who, before all ages, and before all origin, and before all conceivable time, and before all comprehensible essence, was begotten impassibly from God; through whom the ages were disposed and all things were made; and Him begotten as the only-begotten, only from the only Father, God from God. Like to the Father who begat Him, according to the Scriptures; whose origin no one knows save the Father alone who begat Him. We know that He, the only-begotten Son of God, at the Father’s bidding came from the heavens for the abolishment of sin, and was born of the virgin Mary, and conversed with the disciples, and fulfilled the Economy according to the Father’s will, and was crucified, and died and descended into the parts beneath the earth, and regulated the things there, whom the gate-keepers of hell saw (Job 38:17) and shuddered; and He rose from the dead the third day, and conversed with the disciples, and fulfilled all the Economy, and when the forty days were full, ascended into the heavens, and sits on the right hand of the Father, and is coming in the last day of the resurrection in the glory of the Father, to render to everyone according to his works.

And in the Holy Ghost, whom the only-begotten of God Himself, Jesus Christ, had promised to send to the race of men, the Paraclete, as it is written, ‘I go to my Father, and I will ask the Father, and He shall send unto you another Paraclete, even the Spirit of truth He shall take of mine and shall teach and bring to your remembrance all things’ (John 14:16, 17, 26, 16:14)

But whereas the term ‘essence,’ has been adopted by the Fathers in simplicity, and gives offence as being misconceived by the people, and is not contained in the Scriptures, it has seemed good to remove it, that it be never in any case used of God again, because the divine Scriptures nowhere use it of Father and Son. But we say that the Son is like the Father in all things, as also the Holy Scriptures say and teach.

Translation from Athanasius, De Synodis 8 (NPNF2 vol. 4, p. 454)

Adapted by SMT

Last updated: 3-11-2011

No Responses yet