XIV.
The Mystery of the Incarnation
The confession affirms that Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man, born of the seed of Abraham and David by the power of the Holy Spirit.
XIV. We believe that Jesus Christ, being the wisdom of God and his eternal Son, took on our flesh, so that he might be God and man in one person, even a man like us, capable of suffering in body and in soul, except insofar as he was pure of every stain.1 And as for his humanity, he was the true seed of Abraham and of David, although he was conceived by the secret power of the Holy Spirit.2
Rejection of Christological Errors
The church explicitly rejects historical heresies and the specific errors of Servetus regarding the nature of Christ.
In this we detest all the heresies that formerly troubled the Churches, especially the diabolical imaginings of Servetus, who attributes an imaginary divinity to the Lord Jesus by saying that he is the idea and pattern of all things and calling him a personal or figurative Son of God; and finally, he invents for him a body made of three uncreated elements, thus mixing and destroying both natures.3
Read the original French
XIV. Nous croyons que Jésus-Christ étant la sagesse de Dieu, et son Fils éternel, a revêtu notre chair, afin d’être Dieu et homme en une personne, même homme semblable à nous, passible en corps et en âme, sinon en tant qu’il a été pur de toute macule. Et quant à son humanité, qu’il a été vraie semence d’Abraham et de David, bien qu’il ait été conçu par la vertu secrète du Saint-Esprit. En quoi nous détestons toutes les hérésies qui ont anciennement troublé les Eglises; et notamment aussi les imaginations diaboliques de Servet, lequel attribue au Seigneur Jésus une divinité fantastique, d’autant qu’il le dit être idée et patron de toutes choses, et le nomme Fils personnel ou figuratif de Dieu; et finalement lui forge un corps de trois éléments incréés, ainsi mêle et détruit toutes les deux natures.
Notes
- 1 ↩passible is the technical term: able to suffer. sinon en tant que marks the sole exception to his likeness to us: he was without stain of sin.
- 2 ↩French vertu here means power, not moral virtue; its sense is related to Latin virtus.
- 3 ↩fantastique here means unreal or merely ideal, not ‘excellent’. Servet is Michael Servetus. patron is pattern/model, not a sponsor. Fils personnel ou figuratif keeps Servetus’s own terms.
French Confession of Faith (Confession de La Rochelle / Gallican Confession) companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit