The Chalcedonian Creed

The Chalcedonian Creed This creed was the result of the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451). This creed has become the touchstone for christological orthodoxy for most Christians from the time it was written up until our own day.

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the virgin Mary, the *theotokos, according to the manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.

*"God-bearer," a term often poorly translated "mother of God." It was used to avoid the error of an adoptionist Christology by asserting that Jesus was both fully man and fully God even from conception. Thus, Mary did not bear a merely human child, who was later deified in some way, but instead bore a child that was already both fully God and fully man.