THE ELEVENTH COUNCIL OF TOLEDO



SYMBOL OF FAITH (675)



[This small local Council, attended by only 17 bishops, has little 

significance today except for the beautiful confession of faith which was 

recited at its opening.  The official value of this document consists in the 

fact that in subsequent centuries it was kept in highest regard and 

considered a genuine expression of the Trinitarian faith; it is one of the 

important formulas of doctrine.  In fact, hardly anywhere is the reflection 

of the early Church on the Trinitarian mystery and on Christ expressed 

with such precision and acumen as in this Creed which sums up the 

tradition of the earlier Councils and patristic theology of the West.]



[From Neuner and Dupuis; The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal 

Documents of the Catholic Church, (New York; Alba House, 1982), pp. 

102-106. Numbers refer to Neuner-Dupuis ref. Nos., numbers in brackets 

to The Denzinger Schoenmetzer equivalents]





(The divine Trinity)



308 [525] We confess and believe that the holy and ineffable Trinity, 

Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is one God by nature, of one substance, of 

one nature as also of one majesty and power.



(The Father)



And we profess that the Father is not begotten, not created, but 

unbegotten.  For He Himself, from whom the Son has received His birth 

and the Holy Spirit His procession, has His origin from no one.  He is 

therefore the source and origin of the whole Godhead.  He Himself is the 

Father of His own essence, who in an ineffable way has begotten the Son 

from His ineffable substance.  Yet He did not beget something different 

(aliud) from what He Himself is: God has begotten God, light has 

begotten light.  From Him, therefore, is "all fatherhood in heaven and on 

earth" (cf.  Eph. 3.15 Vulg.).



(The Son)



309 [526] We also confess that the Son was born, but not made, from the 

substance of the Father, without beginning, before all ages, for at no time 

did the Father exist without the Son, nor the Son without the Father.  Yet 

the Father is not from the Son, as the Son is from the Father, because the 

Father was not generated by the Son but the Son by the Father.  The Son, 

therefore, is God from the Father, and the Father is God, but not from the 

son.  He is indeed the Father of the Son, not God from the Son; but the 

latter is the Son of the Father and God from the Father.  Yet in all things 

the Son is equal to God the Father, for He has never begun nor ceased to 

be born.  We also believe that He is of one substance with the Father; 

wherefore He is called homoousios with the Father, that is of the same 

being as the Father, for homos in Greek means 'one' and ousia means 

'being', and joined together they mean 'one in being'. We must believe that 

the Son is begotten or born not from nothing or from any other substance, 

but from the womb of the Father, that is from His substance.  Therefore 

the Father is eternal, and the Son is also eternal.  If He was always Father, 

He always had a Son, whose Father He was, and therefore we confess that 

the Son was born from the Father without beginning.  We do not call the 

same Son of God a part of a divided nature,[1]because He was generated 

from the Father, but we assert that the perfect Father has begotten the 

perfect Son, without diminution or division, for it pertains to the 

Godhead alone not to have an unequal Son.  This Son of God is also Son 

by nature, not by adoption; of Him we must also believe that God the 

Father begot Him neither by an act of will nor out of necessity, for in God 

there is no necessity nor does will precede wisdom.



[1] f. Vigilius Thaps., ContraArianos, Sabellianos etphotinianos 

dialogus, 11, 13.



(The Holy Spirit)



310 [527] We also believe that the Holy Spirit, the third person in the 

Trinity, is God, one and equal with God the Father and the Son, of one 

substance and of one nature, not, however, begotten nor created but 

proceeding from both, and that He is the Spirit of both.  C)f this Holy 

Spirit, we also believe that He is neither unbegotten nor begotten, for if 

we called Him unbegotten we would assert two Fathers, or if begotten, 

we would appear to preach two Sons.  Yet He is called the Spirit not of 

the Father alone, nor of the Son alone, but of both Father and Son.  For 

He does not proceed from the Father to the Son, nor from the Son to 

sanctify creatures, but He is shown to have proceeded from both at once, 

because He is known as the love or the sanctity of both.  Hence we 

believe that the Holy Spirit is sent by both, as the Son is sent by the 

Father.  But He is not less than the Father and the Son, in the way in 

which the Son, on account of the body which He has assumed, testifies 

that He is less than the Father and the Holy Spirit.



(The oneness in the Trinity)



311 [528] This is the way of speaking about the Holy Trinity as it has 

been handed down: one must not call it or believe it to be threefold, but 

Trinity.  Nor can it properly be said that in the one God there is the 

Trinity, but the one God is the Trinity.  In the relative names of the 

persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the 

Holy Spirit to both.  While they are called three persons in view of their 

relations, we believe in one nature or substance.  Although we profess 

three persons, we do not profess three substances, but one substance and 

three persons.  For the Father is Father not with respect to Himself but to 

the Son, and the Son is Son not to Himself but in relation to the Father; 

and likewise the Holy Spirit is not referred to Himself but is related to the 

Father and the Son, inasmuch as He is called the Spirit of the Father and 

the Son.  So when we say 'God', this does not express a relationship to 

another, as of the Father to the Son or of the Son to the Father or of the 

Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son, but 'God' refers to Himself only.



312 [529] For, if we are asked about the single persons, we must confess  

that each is God.  Therefore, we say that the Father is God, the Son is 

God, the Holy Spirit is God ' each one distinctly; yet there are not three 

gods, but one God.  Similarly, we say that the Father is almighty, the Son 

is almighty, the Holy Spirit is almighty, each one distinctly; yet there are 

not three almighty ones, but one Almighty, as we profess one light and 

one principle.  Hence we confess and believe that each person distinctly 

is fully God, and the three persons together are one God.  Theirs is an 

undivided and equal Godhead, majesty and power, which is neither 

diminished in the single persons nor increased in the three.  For it is not 

less when each person is called God separately, nor is it greater when all 

three persons are called one God.



313 [530] This Holy Trinity, which is the one true God, is not without  

number; yet it is not comprised by number, because in the relationships 

of the persons there appears number, but in the substance of the Godhead 

nothing is comprised that could be counted.  Therefore they imply 

number only in so far as they are mutually related, but they lack number 

in so far as they are by themselves (ad se).  For this Holy Trinity has so 

much one name referring to its nature that it cannot be used in the plural 

with relation to the three persons.  This then is, in our faith, the meaning 

of the saying in Holy Scripture: "Great is our Lord, abundant in power, 

and of His wisdom there is no number" (Ps. 147 (146) 5 Vulg.).



(The Trinity in the oneness)



314 [530] However, though we  have said that these three persons are one 

God, we are not allowed to say that the same one is the Father who is the 

Son, or that He is the Son who is the Father, or that He who is the Holy 

Spirit is either the Father or the Son.  For He is not the Father who is the 

Son, nor is the Son He who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit He who is 

the Father or the Son, even though the Father is that which the Son is, the 

Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy 

Spirit is, that is one God by nature.  For, when we say: He who is the 

Father is not the Son, we refer to the distinction of persons; but when we 

say: the Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, 

and the Holy Spirit that which the Father is and the Son is, this clearly 

refers to the nature or substance, whereby God exists since in substance 

they are one; for we distinguish the persons, but we do not divide the 

Godhead.



[531]   Hence, we recognise the Trinity in the distinction of persons and 

we profess the unity on account of the nature or substance.  Thus, the 

three are one by nature, not as person.



(The undivided Trinity)



315 [531] Nevertheless these three persons are not to be considered  

separable since, according to our belief, none of them ever existed or 

acted before another, after another, without another.  For they are 

inseparable both in what they are and in what they do, because, according 

to our faith, between the Father who generates and the Son who is 

generated or the Holy Spirit who proceeds, there has not been an interval 

of time in which the one who generates would precede the one who is 

generated, or there would be no begotten one to Him who begets, or the 

Holy Spirit in His proceeding would appear later than Father or Son.  For 

this reason we profess and believe that this Trinity is inseparable and 

distinct (inconfusa).  We say, therefore, of these three persons, as our 

forefathers defined it, that they should be acknowledged, not separated.  

For if we listen to what Holy Scripture says about Wisdom: "She is a 

reflection of eternal light" (Wis. 7.26), we see that, as the reflection 

belongs inseparably to the light, so too, according to our confession, the 

Son cannot be separated from the Father.  Therefore, neither do we 

confuse these three persons whose nature is one and inseparable, nor do 

we preach that they are in any way separable.



316 [532] The Holy Trinity itself has indeed deigned clearly to reveal it to 

us: in these names by which He wanted the single persons to be known, it 

is impossible to understand one person without the other; one cannot 

conceive of the Father without the Son, nor can the Son be found without 

the Father.  Indeed, the very relationship expressed in the personal names 

forbids us to separate the persons, for, though it does not name them 

together, it implies them.  No one can hear any one of these names 

without necessarily understanding also the other. While then these Three 

are One and this One Three, each of the persons retains His own 

characteristics: The Father has eternity without birth; the Son has eternity 

with birth; the Holy Spirit has procession without birth with eternity.





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