Also called the Quicunque Vult from its opening Latin words ("Whosoever wishes"). Traditionally attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria (296-373), but almost certainly written in Latin in Gaul in the 5th or 6th century — long after Athanasius. The creed is the most rigorous short statement of Trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy ever composed. Its 44 articles unpack two doctrines: the Trinity (articles 1-28) and the Incarnation (articles 29-44), and it frames the whole with warning clauses: whoever does not hold these truths "cannot be saved."
The Athanasian Creed is unflinching. Specimen lines: "We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance." "The Father is God; the Son is God; and the Holy Spirit is God. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God." "Perfect God and perfect man... who although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ." These are not diplomatic formulas — they are theological precision instruments. The creed has mostly dropped out of modern evangelical use, which has impoverished us; it is exactly the kind of detail that refutes modern heresies (modalism in some Oneness Pentecostal streams, subordinationism in Jehovah's Witnesses, social trinitarianism in some recent evangelical writing). Lutherans still confess it on Trinity Sunday; the 1662 Book of Common Prayer appoints it for thirteen days a year. Its warning clauses make modern readers uncomfortable — but the creed is only repeating what Jesus Himself said about faith and judgment.