The Athanasian Creed
The Foundation of Apostate Christendom
HERE IS THE UNSCRIPTURAL ATHANASIAN CREED UPON WHICH THE TEACHINGS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ALMOST ALL OF THE REST OF CHRISTENDOM ARE BASED. IT CONSISTS OF A RIDDLE, A TABOO AND A THREAT THAT TOGETHER MAKE UP A SPELL THAT 99% OF CHRISTENDOM REMAINS UNDER TO THIS DAY.
NOTE THAT THE WORDS LOVE AND GRACE ARE UTTERLY ABSENT FROM THIS CREED.
ITS DEMONIC PURPOSE IS TO CONCEAL AND DENY THE EVANGEL OF THE GRACE OF GOD HERALDED BY PAUL (ACTS 20:24), AND TO REPLACE PAUL’S “IDEAL TEACHING” [I TIMOTHY 4:6] THAT HE RECEIVED FROM THE GLORIFIED RISEN CHRIST WITH SALVATION BY WORKS, BELIEF IN AN “INCOMPREHENSIBLE” TRINITY OF CO-EQUAL PERSONS, AND ENDLESS TORTURE FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE IT.
BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN CODIFIED SOMETIME IN THE 5TH-6TH CENTURIES, NO ONE CAN SAY WITH ANY CERTAINTY EXACTLY WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN, WHERE IT WAS WRITTEN, OR BY WHOM IT WAS WRITTEN:
Whoever will be saved: before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Unless he keep this Faith whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. [THIS IS THE FIRST OF THE 4 EXPRESSIONS OF THE THREAT].
And the Catholic Faith is this: 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, another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one: the Glory co-equal, the Majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Ghost uncreated. 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 eternal, 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. [THIS IS THE RIDDLE: HOW CAN ONE BE THREE AND THREE BE ONE?]
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 truth to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the Catholic religion to say, there are three gods or three lords. [THIS IS THE TABOO].
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 before or after the other; none is the greater or less than another; but the whole three Persons are co-eternal together, and co-equal; so that in all things 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. [THIS IS THE SECOND EXPRESSION OF THE THREAT].
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly in 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 and 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 the taking of the Manhood into God. One altogether is Jesus Christ, 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. He suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead. He ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of the Father, God Almighty, from whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
At his coming all men shall rise again with their bodies and shall give account for their own works. They that have done good shall go to life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire. [THIS IS THE THIRD EXPRESSION OF THE THREAT].
This is the Catholic Faith. Unless a man believe it faithfully, he cannot be saved. [THIS IS THE FOURTH EXPRESSION OF THE THREAT].
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Compare the Athanasian Creed with a STATEMENT OF FAITH written in Scriptural Language.
A ROMAN CATHOLIC UNDER THE SPELL OF THE ATHANASIAN CREED
From the book The Triune God: A Historical Study of the Doctrine of the Trinity By (Father) Edmund J. Fortman, a Jesuit and devoted believer in the RCC’s mysterious trinity:
A very important document of the 5th-6th centuries is the so-called “Athanasian Creed.” Nowhere else previously can we encounter a formula so balanced, so precise, so elaborate and so ingeniously contrived. What is most amazing is the way in which this “Creed” achieved dogmatic value in the Western church equal to that of the apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, and then retained this value even after it was realized that there was no certainty about its author or date or birthplace. Even in recent dogmatic manuals in the West it was treated as a dogmatic formula of “divine and catholic faith” (p. xx).
Nowhere in Scripture are we urged concoct a creed or any other kind of religious formula to live by. We are to believe and herald the word of God.
Note that Fortman refers to the creed as “ingeniously contrived.” Is this how the truth of a statement is reckoned, by how ingeniously it is contrived? No. To contrive means “to create or bring about (an object or a situation) by deliberate use of skill and artifice.” (Artifices are “clever or cunning devices or expedients, especially as used to trick or deceive others”). The word contrive finds its origin in Middle English from the Old French contreuve, the stressed stem of controver, “to imagine, invent.”
Basically, Fortman’s language reveals that the Athanasian Creed boils down to a clever, cunning, expedient invention used as a trick to deceive others. That is precisely why it was written. As to when this creed was written, where it was written, and who wrote it, Fortman draws a blank; and he treats that lack of crucial information as a big plus for the “dogmatic value” of the creed. Definition of dogmatic: “characterized by or given to the expression of opinions very strongly or positively as if they were facts.” As if they were facts.
Paul wrote, “Now you be remaining in what you learned and verified, being aware from whom you learned it . . .“ (II Timothy 3:14).
Fortman continues to unconsciously revel in the spell:
The doctrine of the Triune God is mysterious in its origin and its content. It deals with the supreme truth and reality revealed to men by “the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18). It is a doctrine that revolves about a mystery that has fascinated and challenged the minds of men down the centuries. The New Testament writers first expressed it in their own inspired and distinctive ways. Then the Fathers of the Church, councils, bishops, popes studied, formulated, and transmitted it. Theologians pondered, developed, and systematized it. (pp. xxv- xxvi).
The apostle Paul expressly warned about such a systematized doctrine explaining that God gives evangelists, pastors, and teachers “for the upbuilding of the body of Christ, unto the end that we should all attain to the unity of the faith and of the realization of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the complement of the Christ, that we may by no means still be minors, surging hither and thither and being carried about by every wind of teaching, by human caprice, by craftiness with a view to the systematizing of the deception” (Ephesians 4:12-14).
Almost every sentence in the Athanasian Creed is utterly foreign and contradictory to the word of God. I count only two sentences out of thirty-two total that contain any scriptural phraseology at all. None of the New Testament writers “first expressed [the trinity dogma] in their own inspired and distinctive ways,” as Fortman claims. Paul, our Christ-commissioned herald, apostle, and teacher of the nations in knowledge and truth (I Timothy 2:7) revealed the “ideal teaching” (I Timothy 4:6) for the body of Christ. Some synonyms for ideal: absolute, complete, consummate, exemplary, faultless, flawless, immaculate, impeccable, indefectible, irreproachable, letter-perfect, perfect, picture-perfect, quintessential, seamless, supreme, ultimate, and unblemished.
The ideal teaching for the body of Christ contained in the epistles of Paul inspired by the glorified immortal Son of God cannot be improved upon. Paul completed the word of God (Colossians 1:25). Paul “kept the faith” (II Timothy 4:7), and his faith did not include a mysterious trinity of “co-equal persons” or endless torture for God’s own creations.
Paul wrote, “And what things you hear from me through many witnesses, these commit to faithful men, who shall be competent to teach others also” (II Timothy 2:2). He warns of “adulterating the word of God” (II Corinthians 4:2), and he specifically tells Timothy “Have a pattern (literally, stencil) of sound words, which you hear from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus” (II Timothy 1:13).
What we encounter in the Athanasian Creed is a pattern of extremely unsound words, an expression of a lack of faith in the word of God, and transference by enchantment bounded by fear into the arbitrary philosophical dictates of the Roman Catholic Church, ignorantly and eagerly embraced by the rest of apostate Christendom.
RBJ