early Confessions

[Steven Avery]

Taken from shorter summary, which should be coming out of the private realm shortly .

Confessio fidei Catholicae (circa AD 370)
Symboli Apostolici et Athanasii Enarratio (c. AD 350-400) - maybe not strictly a SOF
Explanatio Fidei ad Cyrillum (circa AD 400-425) Marcus Celedensis
Expositio fidei catholicae: Clemens Trinitas (4th or 5th century)
An Exposition of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith against the Arian Heresy (AD c. 400-500)
Council of Carthage - AD 484

Would be good to add any Greek confessions that have three are one.


Confessio fidei Catholicae (circa AD 370)

[Exposition of our Universal Faith] As the Evangelist testifies, that it is written, "there are three, that are witnessing in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one in Christ Jesus."
Expositio Fidei Catholicae (CCSL 9:347, Lines 1-26)

Confessio fidei Catholicae - Isaac the Jew -The Ambrosian ms. that has the Muratonian Canon. Lewis Ayres in Augustine and the Trinity (2014) p. 99-100 says this is connected to Damasus and Urbinus. Cuthbert Hamilton Turner showed this similarly in 1900, "the rival elections in 366 of Damasus and Ursinus ... Dom Morin has solved one of the great problems of patristic literature." And Theodor Zahn agreed.

Symboli Apostolici et Athanasii Enarratio (c. AD 350-400)
Codex Veronensis LIX (57) Also known as Pseudo-Athanasian enarratio in symbolum apostolorum (CPL 1744a)

Let us see now, whether the faithful Disciples, after they received, preserved. John replies to us on behalf of all, the one who, while reclining on friendly terms in the breast of our Lord, is able to understand the secrets of the whole doctrine; who alone asked the Lord what the other Apostles longed to know; who, after the Lord had been seized, entered the hall of the priest, as one who was not going to deny, who while receiving you [him?] of the mother as a beloved proxy for the Lord [John 19:26] was loved who hurrying on came to the tomb of the Lord before even Peter. ”There are three,” he says,”who bear witness in heaven, Father, Word and Spirit, and these three are one.”
Pseudo-Athanasian enarratio in symbolum apostolorum (CPL 1744a)
(Pseudo-Athanasius & Bianchini, 1744, p. 38-40. Translation by Rosalinda MacLahlahn via correspondence dated 18 September 2019)

Explanatio Fidei ad Cyrillum (circa AD 400-425) Marcus Celedensis

● Letter 17. So we have one Father and one Son of his the true God, and one Holy Spirit, the true God, and these three are one, one divinity and power and kingdom. But these are three persons, not two, not one, not as a result of revelation or combination or fusion, but always reminding divine persons. Faith in them is given by baptisms, from them remission of sin is granted, and eternal life is hoped for without the least doubt. By a true belief in the Trinity the holy and blessed patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs earned glory in martyrdom and obtained hope of eternal life, and have obtained their lot in the kingdom of heaven by an inheritance that is not to be doubted.
(Marcus Celedensis, Epistola XVII. Marcus' exposition of the faith to Cyril III, Migne Latina, PL 30, 181C-D; CPL 633, nr. 1746.)

Expositio fidei catholicae: Clemens Trinitas (4th or 5th century)

The merciful Trinity is one divinity. That is why Father and Son and the Holy Spirit are one source, one substance, one force, one power. We say that the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, not three gods, but we profess one mercifully. For, naming three persons, we profess with a Catholic and apostolic voice that only one is the substance. Therefore, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and "the three are one" . Three, neither confused nor separated, but distinctly united and uniquely distinct; united in substance, but distinct in names, united in nature, distinct in people, equal in divinity, similar in majesty, agree in the Trinity, participants in splendor. They are one, in such a way that we must not doubt that they are also three; there are three, in such a way that we must say that they cannot be separated from each other.
(Formula”Clemens Trinitas", 4-5th century; Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, 1908, p. 14) ”Fides catholica Sancti Augustini episcopi”)
check if Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Latin 2341 is exactly Clemens Trinitas

An Exposition of the Catholic and Apostolic Faith against the Arian Heresy (AD c. 400-500)

We confess the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a perfect Trinity, so that there shall be both a fulness of Divinity and a Unity of power. For he who separates the Godhead of the Trinity, speaks of Three Gods The Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Ghost God, and the three are one (unum) in Christ Jesus. There are therefore three Persons, but one Power.
(Appendix ad opera S. Leonis Magni. CAPITULUM XXXVII.; Migne Latina, PL 56.582)

Council of Carthage - AD 484

Eugenius - Confession of Faith for the 400+ bishops - Liber fidei catholicæ
And so, no occasion for uncertainty is left. It is clear that the Holy Spirit is also God and the author of his own will, he who is most clearly shown to be at work in all things and to bestow the gifts of the divine dispensation according to the judgment of his own will, because where it is proclaimed that he distributes graces where he wills, servile condition cannot exist, for servitude is to be understood in what is created, but power and freedom in the Trinity. And so that we may teach the Holy Spirit to be of one divinity with the Father and the Son still more clearly than the light, here is proof from the testimony of John the evangelist. For he says: 'There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.' Surely he does he not say 'three separated by a difference in quality' or 'divided by grades which differentiate, so that there is a great distance between them?' No, he says that the 'three are one.'
(Victor Vitensis, Historia persecutionis Africae provinciae; Migne Latina, PL 58.227C)
[Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Academia Litterarum Vindobonensis, vol. vii, p. 60.]

 

[Steven Avery]

Priscillian could be considered a confession of faith.

c. AD 380 – Priscillian

● Tractate 1: For who is that who, reading the Scriptures and believing "in one faith, one baptism, one God," (Ephesians 4:5-6) does not condemn the foolish doctrines of the heretics who, while they want to put divine things in the same class with the human, divide the substance united in the power of God and break up the venerable greatness of Christ in the tripartite foundation of the church with the crime of the Binionites, because it was written: "I am God and there is no other who is just but me," (Isaiah 45:21) and "there is no savior besides me," (Hosea 13:14) and "I am the first and I am after this and besides me there is no god;" (Isaiah 44:6) [and] "who is like me?;" (Isaiah 44:7) and likewise in another passage: "I am and before me there was no other and after me there shall be no similar to me; I am God and besides me there is nobody who may save;" (Isaiah 43:10-11) and Moses says again: "The Lord is our God, the only God," (Deut 6:4) and Jeremiah declares: "this is our Lord and no other but him shall be considered, who found all the way of wisdom and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved; after this he was seen on earth and lived with men"? (Baruch 3:36-38) He is that who was, is and shall be, and appeared as "the Word" from eternity, "was made flesh, dwelled in us and," (John 1:14) after being crucified, since death had been conquered, was made heir of life; and by rising on the third day, as he was made the type of future, he showed the hope of our resurrection, and by ascending to the heavens he built the path for those who came to him, while he was "all in the Fathers and the Father in him," (cf. John 14:11) so that what was written might be manifested: "Glory to God in the highest peace on earth to people of good will;" (Lk 2:14) [and] as John says: "There are three who testify on earth, the water, the flesh (body), and the blood, and these three are in one, and there are three who testify in heaven, the Fathers, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one in Jesus Christ."

(Priscillian "Tractates" in Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum edited by Schepss 1889, vol 18, p. 5-6)

Liber Apologeticus "
[Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Academia Litterarum Vindobonensis, vol. xviii, p. 6.]