About this text
The Twelve Chapters on the Faith stand under Gregory Thaumaturgus's name in the third-century Neocaesarean tradition; later Latin presentation is disclosed.
Gregory Thaumaturgus, Twelve Chapters on the Faith, in a fresh English translation: twelve brief condemnations of false teaching about Christ, each with a short explanation, ending with praise of the Father and the Holy Spirit and a warning against quarrels over words.
Gregory Thaumaturgus (c. 213–c. 270) wrote this treatise to defend the orthodox understanding of Christ against positions that either deny the createdness of Christ's body or confuse his flesh with his divinity. The work is organized as a series of chapters, each of which anathematizes a specific error and briefly argues against it.
The first two chapters set out two claims. First, Christ's body is created, not uncreated, because what is uncreated cannot suffer, be wounded, or be touched, yet the risen Christ showed the nails and the wound made by the lance, and his body able to be touched, to the disciples, entering through closed doors. Second, Christ's flesh is not consubstantial with the divinity, since consubstantiality means identity of nature and eternal existence, whereas the flesh exists in time. In both cases Gregory affirms that Christ is truly God and truly man: when he was otherwise God, he was recognized as man; and when he was truly man, God was nevertheless demonstrated from his own works. The other ten chapters condemn, in turn, the views that Christ was a man taken up like one of the prophets, that he was conceived from a man's seed, that the Son before the ages and the Son of the last times are two, that the one who suffered was someone other than the Word, that Christ was saved rather than the Savior, that he is divided into a perfect man and God the Word, that he is changeable, that he took only part of a man, that his body lacked soul or mind, and that he came only in appearance. The work closes with praise of the Trinity and a warning against quarrels over words.
A reader will meet Christ as the central figure, presented as true God and true man, whose body is created and whose divinity is eternal. Gregory cites Philippians 2:6-7 on Christ emptying himself and taking the form of a servant, and he alludes to resurrection appearances involving the nails, the lance wound, a body able to be touched, and entering through closed doors.
English translated from the Latin column of the Opera omnia print (Paris, 1622) for all twelve chapters; Chapters III-XII were read from the page images (printed pp. 3-8, PDF pp. 27-32). Vossius's scholia are left out; marginal variants are noted, not adopted. In Chapter IX the print reads 'corruptible in flesh' where its margin gives 'incorruptible'; the printed reading is translated. ANF 6 was consulted only as a sense check for Chapters I-II.
Printed text used
- Translated from Opera omnia, Greek and Latin (Paris: Sonnius, Morel and Cramoisy, 1622), page images
- Also checked Archive DjVu machine-read text
- Translated from Latin Capita I-II
Where the prints differ
- Cap. I interpretatio — machine-read text of clavorum / lancea / palpandum / clausis ianuis restored from the facing column and the John 20 scene; not invented doctrine.
We have not yet re-checked this work against its source. We made this study translation with AI help. No scholar has yet certified it as faithful and complete. Open Latin on any section, or the Latin source link, to see the source text. It is not a critical edition.
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