The Catholic Catechism’s short statement that Jesus Christ is one divine person, ‘true God and true man’, in two natures, as defined by the councils from Nicaea to Chalcedon. A statement of faith, not historical evidence.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the official compendium of Catholic doctrine, promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1992 and issued in its definitive Latin edition in 1997. Paragraphs 464–469 form the section headed “True God and True Man”, within the article on the Incarnation in the Catechism’s commentary on the Creed.
The section teaches that the Incarnation does not mean that Jesus is partly God and partly man, nor a confused mixture of the two, but that he became truly man while remaining truly God. It traces how this was defined against rival views in the early councils: Nicaea (325) on the Son’s divinity, Ephesus (431) on Mary as Mother of God, Chalcedon (451) on one person in two natures, and Constantinople II (553).
For this archive it is a statement of belief, not historical evidence. It shows how the largest Christian church formulates the doctrine about Jesus that developed in the centuries after the New Testament, and it marks the difference between what can be reconstructed historically about Jesus and what the churches confess about him.
A citation note only: the document’s text is not mirrored in this archive. Follow the link for the official text.
The full text is not reproduced on this site. It is published by the Holy See, which holds the copyright, and this archive keeps only a citation card for it. The introduction above summarises its contents; read the document itself at the official source.
Official text: Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§464–469, on vatican.va
