Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith. Whoever does not keep it whole and undefiled will without doubt perish eternally. And the catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance.
For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Holy Spirit is another. But the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one: the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit: the Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Spirit uncreated; the Father infinite, the Son infinite, the Holy Spirit infinite; the Father eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Spirit eternal.
And yet there are not three Eternals, but one Eternal, just as there are not three Uncreated or three Infinites, but one Uncreated and one Infinite. In the same way, the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy Spirit almighty; and yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty.
So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God. So the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord; and yet there are not three Lords, but one Lord. Just as we are compelled by the Christian truth to acknowledge each distinct person as God and Lord, so also are we prohibited by the catholic religion to say that there are three Gods or Lords.
The Father is not made nor created nor begotten by anyone. The Son is neither made nor created, but begotten of the Father alone. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, neither made nor created nor begotten, but proceeding.
Thus, there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. And in this Trinity none is before or after another; none is greater or less than another; but the whole three persons are coeternal with each other and coequal, so that in all things, as has been stated above, the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity is to be worshiped. Therefore, whoever desires to be saved must think thus about the Trinity.
But it is also necessary for everlasting salvation that one faithfully believe the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is the right faith that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is at the same time both God and man. He is God, begotten from the substance of the Father before all ages; and He is man, born from the substance of His mother in this age: perfect God and perfect man, composed of a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father with respect to His divinity, less than the Father with respect to His humanity.
Although He is God and man, He is not two, but one Christ: one, however, not by the conversion of the divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of the humanity into God; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.
For as the rational soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead, ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, God Almighty, from whence He will come to judge the living and the dead.
At His coming all people will rise again with their bodies and give an account concerning their own deeds. And those who have done good will enter into eternal life, and those who have done evil into eternal fire. This is the catholic faith; whoever does not believe it faithfully and firmly cannot be saved. Amen.
Athanasian Creed, the third of the œcumenical or General Creeds, also called Symbolum Quicunque, from the opening Latin word “Quicunque vult salvus esse, anti omnia opus est, ut teneat Catholicam fidem” (Whosoever will be be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic (true Christian) faith. It is not the work of the great Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria (d. 371), though our Book of Concord ascribes it to him. It was originally written in Latin, not in Greek, the language of Athanasius. Not before the eighth century is his name connected with it, and then only as an uncertain tradition. Hilarius of Arles (429) and Vigilius of Tapsus (484) are mentioned by some in connection with its origin. But its author is not known. The Church Historian Gieseler holds, that it had its origin in Spain, about the seventh or eighth century. Others think that it originated in France about the fifth century. (See Koellner’s Symbolik.)
It presents the Catholic faith over against the heretical teachings of Arianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, etc., setting forth particularly the doctrines of the Trinity and the Person of Christ. But the orthodox Christian faith is here presented not so much in the form of a confession,—the term “We believe” is not used—but rather in the form of brief, pithy comprehensive doctrinal statements, to be used as the basis for fuller instruction on those points. Albertus Magnus describes the relation of the three General Creeds in this way: The Apostolic Creed “ad fidei instructionem,” the Nicene “ad fidei explicationem,” the Athanasian “ad fidei defensionem.” It may be said that it holds a similar place among the three ancient Creeds as the Formula of Concord does among the Confessions of the Reformation Era.
The Lutheran Church always held this Creed in very high estimation and embodied it in her Book of Concord as the third of the three General or œcumenical Symbols (Tria Symbola Catholica or Œcumenica). Luther himself had a high opinion of it. “I doubt,” he says in his commentary to the prophet Joel, “if since the days of the apostles anything more important and more glorious has ever been written in the Church of the New Testament.”
Even in the Liturgical Service of the Lutheran Church a place is assigned to this Creed by a number of our Agenda and Cantionals, especially in the Matin, as one of the Canticles, alternating with the Te Deum or the Benedictus, or in place of the third Psalm; on Sunday (Wittenberg 1533; Braunschweig Wolfenbuettel, 1543); on Saturday (Elector John Casimir of Saxony, 1626). The Pomerania Agenda of 1563, and the Cantional of Lucas Lossius (1553, 1579) furnish appropriate chants for it. It was sung antiphonally, closing with the Gloria Patri. Now and then it is even appointed for the main service (Communio), to be recited after the Gospel at the Altar (Hessia, 1574), especially on Trinity Sunday (Schwaebisch Hall, 1615).
Adolph Spaeth, The Lutheran Cyclopedia, 1899, 26.