Chalcedonian Definition of the Faith

The text below is in the Acta of the Council of Chalcedon and has a long preamble that quotes the Nicene Creed and is at pains to say that the assembled bishops are making no improvisation in the faith and that they condemn Nestorius and Eutyches.

As translated by the Scholiast from the text printed by Drobner, The Fathers of the Church, pp. 487-88

And so, following the holy fathers, we all with one voice teach to confess the one and same son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and the same perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man[1] of a reasoning soul and a body, of one substance with the Father according to the divinity and the same of one substance with us according to the humanity. Through all things like us except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father according to the divinity, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from Mary the Virgin God-bearer[2] according to the humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, understood in two natures[3] without confusion, without change, without division, without separation[4] with the difference of the natures at no point removed through the union, but rather the property of each nature preserved and coming together into a single person[5] and a single subsistence[6] not dispersed or divided into two persons[7], but one and the same Son, Only-begotten, God, Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets beforehand and he our Lord Jesus Christ taught about himself and as the creed[8] of our Fathers teaches.

[1]anthropos, a human being, not gender-specific; man sounds so nice, though …

[2]Theotokos, trad. ‘Mother of God’

[3]en duo physesin, the most controversial point of the argument

[4]the famous ‘Chalcedonian’ adverbs: ἀσυγχύτως ἀτρέπτως ἀδιαιφέτως ἀχωρίστως

[5]πρόσωπον

[6]ὑπόστασις

[7]πρόσωπα

[8]σύμβολον

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