36. On every side, where anxiety might be felt, approach is barred to the arguments of heretics lest it should be declared that there is any difference in the Son. For those are anathematized who say that there are three Gods: because according to God’s true nature His substance does not admit a number of applications of the title, except as it is given to individual men and angels in recognition of their merit, though the substance of their nature and that of God is different. In that sense there are consequently many gods. Furthermore in the nature of God, God is one, yet in such a way that the Son also is God, because in Him there is not a different nature: and since He is God of God, both must be God, and since there is no difference of kind between them there is no distinction in their essence. A number of titular Gods is rejected; because there is no diversity in the quality of the divine nature. Since therefore he is anathema who says there are many Gods and he is anathema who denies that the Son is God; it is fully shewn that the fact that each has one and the same name arises from the real character of the similar substance in each: since in confessing the Unborn God the Father, and the Only-begotten God the Son, with no dissimilarity of essence between them, each is called God, yet God must be believed and be declared to be one. So by the diligent and watchful care of the bishops the creed guards the similarity of the nature begotten and the nature begetting, confirming it by the application of one name.

36. Deus non nisi unus est; quatenus dicantur plures. Fides superior unam Patris ac Filii substantiam praedicat.---Ex omni autem parte, qua se circumagere 0508B sollicitudo potuit, haereticorum ingeniis aditus obstruitur, ne quid esse diversitatis praedicetur in Filio. Anathematizat namque eos, qui tres deos dicant: quia secundum 484 naturae veritatem, numerum nuncupationum substantia ista non recipit, nisi ut in hominibus atque Angelis solet, cum nomen tribuitur ex honore meritorum, naturae tamen inter eos et Deum differente substantia; et idcirco dii plures sunt. Caeterum in natura Dei Deus unus est; ita tamen, ut et Filius Deus sit, quia in eo natura non differens sit: et cum Deus ex Deo sit, non potest non uterque Deus esse, quorum per generis indifferentiam non discernatur essentia. Numerus autem nominis in nuncupatione respuitur; quia non est in naturae qualitate diversitas. Cum igitur anathema 0508C sit deos dicens, et anathema sit Filium Deum denegans; absolute ostenditur unius ad utrumque nominis unitatem de proprietate indifferentis esse substantiae: cum in confessione innascibilis Dei patris et unigeniti Dei filii, neutro a se dissimilitudine essentiae differente, uterque cum Deus sit, Deus tamen unus et credendus sit et praedicandus. Sollicita itaque multum diligentique cautela episcoporum fides munit naturae genitae et gignentis indifferentiam nominis unione confirmans.