A prayer for sins would never have been enjoined upon the sinner, if remission were not to be granted to the one who prays. But penitence also then profits the sinner, if he performs it in the catholic Church: to which, in the person of blessed Peter, God granted the power of binding and loosing, saying: Whatsoever you shall bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed also in heaven (Matt. 16:19). At whatever age, therefore, a man performs true penitence for his sins, and, God enlightening him, corrects his life, he will not be deprived of the gift of pardon; because God, as he says through the prophet, does not will the death of him who dies, but that
he should turn from his evil way, and his soul should live (Ezek. 33:11). Nevertheless, no man ought, under the hope of God's mercy, to remain longer in his sins, since not even in his own body would anyone, under the hope of future health, wish to lie sick longer. For such as neglect to withdraw from their iniquities, and promise themselves pardon from God, are sometimes so forestalled by God's sudden wrath that they find neither a time for conversion nor the benefit of remission. Therefore holy Scripture kindly forewarns each one of us, saying: Delay not to be converted to the Lord, and put it not off from day to day: for his anger will come suddenly, and in the time of vengeance he will destroy you (Sir.
5:8). Blessed David also says: Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts (Ps. 95:8). With whom blessed Paul also agrees in these words: Take heed, brethren, lest perhaps there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, departing from the living God: but exhort one another every day, while it is called Today, that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Heb. 3:12-13). Hardened, therefore, lives either he who is not converted, despairing of the pardon of his sins, or he who so hopes for the mercy of God that up to the end of the present life he remains in the perversity of his crimes. The sin against the Holy Spirit.
Accordingly, loving the mercy of God and fearing his justice, let us neither despair of the remission of sins, nor remain in sins: knowing that the equity of the most just Judge will exact all the debts of all men which the mercy of the most clement Redeemer has not remitted. For just as mercy receives and absolves the converted, so justice will repel and punish the hardened. These are they who, sinning against the Holy Spirit, will receive remission of sins neither in this world nor in the world to come.
Now the reason the intellectual soul of man is a spirit is that it may seek out, recognize, and discern both the time of its works—for which it is to receive in judgment what the divine justice has appointed—and the time of that same retribution, in which it will no longer be permitted either to change its works or to entreat earnestly for the remission of its sins from the divine mercy. But the other spirits of all animals, in which there is no understanding, because some of them draw their origin from the earth and some from the waters (for from the waters are the creeping things and the flying things, but from the earth arose certain that creep and certain that walk), are spirits only so long as they live in bodies.
For the soul which has not been made divinely capable of reason both begins and ceases to live with its own flesh: because when it gives no life to the body, neither does it itself live; and so, in a wondrous manner, although the soul is the cause of living to all flesh, yet the irrational spirit lives only so long as it is able to remain in the flesh, and when it is separated from its flesh, it is extinguished. Thus it comes to pass that, although it is itself the life of its own flesh, yet it cannot live once it has ceased to supply life to the flesh; and if there is no flesh to which it can give life, it too straightway will not possess it.
Therefore neither is eternity given to the irrational spirits, nor is any judgment prepared for them, in which either blessedness for good or damnation for evil deeds should be rendered to them. And for this reason no discrimination of works will be required in them, because they received divinely no faculty of understanding. Therefore their bodies are not to rise again, because there was in their very souls neither equity nor iniquity, for which either eternal blessedness or punishment should be repaid to them. Those animals of the present age, then, run through the course and order appointed to them according to the incomprehensible will of the Creator—animals which will render no account of their own deeds, because they are not rational.
For is God concerned about oxen? (1 Cor. 9:9). But men, because they were made rational, are to render an account to God both of themselves and of all the things which they received for the use of the present life, and according to the quality of their deeds they will receive either punishment or glory. For we must all be made manifest before the tribunal of Christ, that each one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he has done, whether good or evil (2 Cor. 5:10): namely, at that time when, according to the utterance of our very Creator and Redeemer: All who are in the tombs shall hear his voice; and they shall come forth—those who have done good, unto the resurrection of life; but those who have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment (John 5:28-29).
namely, that those who have done evil may go into eternal burning, ever to burn with the devil the prince of all evils, but those who have done good may go into eternal life, to reign without end with Christ the King of all ages. Now those will reign with Christ whom God, by his gratuitous goodness, predestined to the kingdom. For because he prepared them, by predestining them such, to be worthy of the kingdom, he assuredly prepared them, according to his purpose, to be called that they might obey; he prepared them to be justified, that, having received grace, they might rightly believe and live well; he prepared them also to be glorified, that, made co-heirs of Christ, they might possess the kingdom of heaven without end. Baptism is not to be repeated.
To which kingdom, at diverse times, through the sacraments which Christ instituted for faith in his incarnation, those attained whom God saved freely, with no preceding merit of good will or good work. And just as, from that time when our Saviour said: Unless one is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5), no one can, apart from the sacrament of baptism—except those who in the catholic Church shed their blood for Christ without baptism—receive either the kingdom of heaven or eternal life.
For whether in the Catholic Church, or in any heresy or schism whatsoever, if anyone receives the sacrament of baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he receives an entire sacrament; but he will not have salvation, which is the power of the sacrament, if he has held that sacrament outside the catholic Church. Therefore he ought to return to the Church, not that he may receive again the sacrament of baptism, which no one ought to repeat in any baptized person, but that in catholic fellowship he may receive eternal life, for the obtaining of which he can never be fit who has remained a stranger to the catholic Church while possessing the sacrament of baptism. Who, even if
he gives lavish alms, and even sheds his blood for the name of Christ, because in this life he did not hold the unity of the catholic Church, he will not have eternal salvation. For where baptism can profit anyone, there alms too can profit. But baptism, indeed, can exist outside the Church, yet it cannot profit except within the Church. The catholic Church. In the catholic Church alone, therefore, can there profit anyone both the receiving of baptism, and works of mercy, and the glorious confession of the name of Christ: if only within the catholic Church one lives well.
For just as, apart from the fellowship of the catholic Church, neither baptism can profit anyone, nor works of mercy—except perhaps that one may be more mildly (or: less) tormented, not, however, that he may be reckoned among the sons of God—so within the catholic Church eternal life is not acquired by baptism alone, if after baptism one lives ill. For even those who live well ought unceasingly to persist in works of mercy: knowing that, though light, they nevertheless daily contract some sins, for which even the holy and just ought always in this life to say to God: Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors (Matt. 6:12).
And these sins, the more frequently they creep up upon men even in things lawful and granted by God, and the more the body is filled with stronger foods, and the heart of man is entangled with carnal acts and affections, so much the more frequent is the fault contracted in this mortality. Abstinence. Therefore the humble servants of Christ, who desire to serve their Lord without hindrance and without harm to the soul, do not at all seek marriage, and abstain from flesh and wine, insofar as the health of the body permits. Not because it is a sin either to have a spouse, or to partake of wine or flesh: for the blessed Apostle also says:
For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer (1 Tim. 4:4-5). Marriage too, in the first men, God both instituted and blessed (Gen. 2:22). On account of which the Apostle says: Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled (Heb. 13:4). Therefore the servants of God, in that they abstain from flesh and wine, do not flee these things as though they were unclean, but pursue the institutes of a purer life; and in that they do not have marriage, they do not deem the good of nuptials to be a crime, but do not doubt that perpetual continence is better than good nuptials: most especially at this time, when it is said of continence:
He who is able to receive it, let him receive it (Matt. 19:12); but of nuptials it is said: He who does not contain himself, let him marry (1 Cor. 7:9). For in the one, virtue is raised up by exhortation; in the other, infirmity is relieved by a remedy. Wherefore, because weakness must always be provided for, therefore, if it should first befall anyone to be deprived of a spouse, if he should wish to enter into a second, or even a third, marriage, he will have no sin from them, if he keeps them chastely—that is, if one man and one woman, joined lawfully at least, keep faith, so that neither he in any way unites with a woman besides his wife, nor she with a man besides her husband.
In such marriages, even if there should be some conjugal excess, which nevertheless does not violate the lawful bed, he will have some sin, but a venial one. The vow of continence. But these things pertain to those who have vowed no continence to God. As for the rest, whoever castrates himself for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, and in his heart vows continence to God, not only if he be defiled by the deadly crime (or: wound) of fornication, but even if either the man wish to take a wife, or the woman to marry, he will, according to the sentence of the Apostle (1 Tim. 5:12), have damnation, because he has made void his first faith. Just as, therefore, according to the sentence of the Apostle (1 Cor.
7:3), it is fitting that the husband render to the wife her due, and likewise the wife to the husband—because if anyone takes a wife he does not sin, and if a virgin marries she does not sin—so, according to the same Apostle's saying, he who has resolved in his heart, being firm, having no necessity but having power over his own will, and has vowed continence to God, ought to guard it unto the end with all solicitude of mind, lest he have damnation, if he should make void his first faith.
Similarly also married men, or married women, if by consent they have vowed perpetual continence to God, should know that they are held bound by their vow, and that the union of the flesh, which they at first lawfully had, is no longer due to them, but that they owe to God the continence which they vowed. For then each one will possess the kingdom of heaven, which is promised to the saints, if, forgetting the things that are behind and stretching himself forth to the things that are before, according to what is said in the Psalms: Vow, and render to the Lord your God (Ps. 76:11), he both gladly vows what he knows to be lawful and recognizes to pertain to the advancement of a better life, and speedily renders it, and in this—that he renders his vow—ever advances with a better endeavour.
For to everyone who vows to God, and renders what he has vowed, God himself will also render the rewards of the heavenly kingdom which he has promised. CHAPTER IV, OR RULE ONE. The divine nature. Hold therefore most firmly, and doubt in no way, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are naturally one God, in whose name we have been baptized. For although the name of the Father is one, that of the Son another, that of the Holy Spirit another, this is assuredly one name of nature of these three, which is called God, who says in Deuteronomy: See, see that I am God, and there is no other besides me (Deut. 32:39); and of whom it is said: Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord (Deut. 6:4);
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et, DominumDeumtuumadorabis, etillisoliservies (Ibid., 13). CAP. v, seuREG. II. UnusDeus.— 46. Firmissimetene, etnullatenusdubites, PatremetFiliumetSpiritumsanctum, idestsanctamTrinitatemessesolumnaturaliterverumDeum. Quiacumtresdeosnobiscolerenonliceat, nisiunumsolumverumDeumI, tamen, sicutPaterDeusverusdicitur, testanteApostolo, quiait : ConversiestisadDeumasimulacris, servireDeovivoetvero, etexspectareFiliumejusdecœlis, quemsuscitavitamortuisJesum (IThess. I, 9) : itaquoqueFiliumverumDeumJoannescommendatapostolusdicens :
and, You shall adore the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve (Deut. 6:13). CHAPTER V, OR RULE TWO. One God. Hold most firmly, and doubt in no way, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is, the holy Trinity, is the only naturally true God. For although it is not lawful for us to worship three gods, but only one true God, nevertheless, just as the Father is called true God—the Apostle testifying, who says: You are converted to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to await his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus (1 Thess. 1:9-10)—so also the apostle John commends the Son as true God, saying:
We know that the Son of God is come, and has given us understanding, that we may know the true God, and may be in his true Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life (1 John 5:20): who, since he is assuredly true God, is also Truth, as he himself teaches us, saying: I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Of the Holy Spirit too the apostle John says, that the Spirit is truth (1 John 5:6). And assuredly he cannot naturally fail to be true God, who is Truth. Whom Paul the apostle also confesses to be God, saying: Your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own. For you were bought with a great price;
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glorificateetportateDeumincorporevestro (1 Cor. vi, 19, 20). CAP. vi, seuREG. III. Deusæternus. — 47. Firmissimetene, etnullatenusdubites, PatremetFiliumetSpiritumsanctum, idestsanctamTrinitatemunumverumDeumsineinitiosempiternumesse. Propterquodscriptumest : InprincipioeratVerbum, etVerbumeratapudDeum, etDeuseratVerbum. HoceratinprincipioapudDeum (Joan. I, I, 2). Hæcdenuosempiternitasintimaturinpsalmoubidicitur : DeusautemRexnosterantesæcula (Psal. I. XXIII, 12); etalioloco, Sempiternaquoqueejusvirtusetdivinitas (Rom,. I, 20). CAP. VII, seuREG. IV. Deusincommtabilis. — 48.
...glorify God and bear Him in your body (1 Cor. 6:19-20). CHAPTER VI, or RULE III. The eternal God. — 47. Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is, the holy Trinity, is one true God, everlasting, without beginning. For this reason it is written: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God' (John 1:1-2). This everlastingness is again indicated in the psalm where it is said: 'But God is our King before the ages' (Psalm 73:12); and in another place, 'His eternal power also and divinity' (Rom. 1:20). CHAPTER VII, or RULE IV. The unchangeable God. — 48.
Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that the holy Trinity, the only true God, is by nature not only eternal but also uniquely unchangeable. For this is what He signifies when He says to His servant Moses: 'I am who I am' (Exod. 3:14). Hence also in the Psalms it is said: 'In the beginning, O Lord, You founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands. They shall perish, but You remain; and all shall grow old like a garment; and like a cloak You shall change them, and they shall be changed: but You are the same, and Your years shall not fail' (Psalm 102:26-28). CHAPTER VIII, or RULE V. God, the creator of all things. — 49.
Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that the holy Trinity, the only true God, is the creator of all things both visible and invisible. Of Him it is said in the Psalms: 'Blessed is he whose helper is the God of Jacob; his hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea and all things that are in them' (Psalm 146:5-6). Of Him the Apostle also says: 'For of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things: to Him be glory forever' (Rom. 11:36). CHAPTER IX, or RULE VI. Trinity in unity. — 50. Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit there is indeed one nature, but three persons; and that the Father alone is He who said:
'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matt. 3:17); and that the Son alone is He over whom that voice of the Father alone sounded, when the only-begotten God—who alone received flesh—was baptized in the Jordan according to the flesh; and that the Holy Spirit alone is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, who in the form of a dove descended upon the baptized Christ as He came up from the water, and who, coming on the fiftieth day after the resurrection, filled Christ's faithful gathered in one place with a distribution of fiery tongues. But that voice by which God the Father alone spoke; and that flesh in which the only-begotten God alone was made man; and that dove in whose form the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ;
and those fiery tongues (Acts 2:3), in the distribution of which He filled the faithful gathered in one place—these are the work of the whole holy Trinity, that is, of the one God who made all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. CHAPTER X, or RULE VII. The distinction of persons. — 51. Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that God the Son alone, that is, one person of the Trinity, is the Son of God the Father alone; but that the Holy Spirit, who is likewise one person of the Trinity, is the Spirit not of the Father alone, but of the Father and the Son together. For showing that He alone is begotten of the Father, the Son of God says: 'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son' (John 3:16);
and a little later, 'But he that does not believe is already judged, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God' (John 3:18). But that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son the Apostle teaches, saying: 'But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you' (Rom. 8:9). And it follows: 'But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His' (ibid.). CHAPTER XI, or RULE VIII. The Holy Spirit. — 52. Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that the same Holy Spirit, who is the one Spirit of the Father and the Son, proceeds from the Father and the Son. For the Son says: 'When the Spirit of truth is come, who proceeds from the Father' (John 15:26);
whereby He taught that this is His own Spirit, because He Himself is the Truth (John 14:6). That the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Son, the prophetic and apostolic teaching commends to us. For Isaiah says of the Son: 'He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked' (Isa. 11:4). Of Him the Apostle also says: 'Whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth' (2 Thess. 2:8). And the only Son of God Himself, signifying that this Spirit is the breath of His mouth, breathed upon His disciples after His resurrection, saying: 'Receive the Holy Spirit' (John 20:22). And of the mouth of the same Lord Jesus, John says in the Apocalypse that a two-edged sword went forth (Rev. 1:16).
Therefore the breath of His mouth is itself the sword which proceeds from His mouth. CHAPTER XII, or RULE IX. The Trinity circumscribed by no bounds. — 53. Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that the Trinity, God, is immense in power, not in mass, and that every creature, spiritual and corporeal, is contained by His power and presence. For God the Father says: 'I fill heaven and earth' (Jer. 23:24). It is also said of the Wisdom of God, which is His Son, that 'she reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly' (Wis. 8:1). Of the Holy Spirit we likewise read: 'For the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world' (Wis. 1:7). And the prophet David says: 'Where shall I go from Your Spirit, and where shall I flee from Your face?'
'If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I descend into hell, You are present' (Psalm 139:8). CHAPTER XIII, or RULE X. The person of the Son. — 54. Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that one person of the Trinity, that is, God the Son, who alone was born of the nature of God the Father and is of one and the same nature with the Father, was, in the fullness of time, according to the taking on of the form of a servant, willingly conceived in the Virgin and born of the Virgin—the Word made flesh; and that He Himself is the one who was essentially born of the Father and was essentially conceived and born of the Virgin; and that He is one, and of one nature with the Father and of one nature with the Virgin, who said of God the Father:
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Antesæculafundavitme, etanteomnescollesgenuitme (Prov. VIII , 22, et 26); dequoetiamdixitApostolusquia, cumvenitplenitudotemporis, misitDeusFiliumsuum, factumexmuliere, factumsublege (Gal. IV, 4). CAP. XIV, seuREG. XI. HumanitasChristi. — 55. Firmissimetene, etnullatenusdubites, ChristumDeiFiliumsicutdeDeoPatreplenumperfectumqueDeum, itadeVirginccmatreplenumperfectumquehominemdgenilum, idestVerbumDeum, habentemcilicetsinepeccatoveramnostrigeneriscarnemeetanimamrationalem. QuodipseDeiFiliusevidenlerostenditdicensdecarnesua : Palpateetvidetequiaspirituscarnemetossanonhabet, sicutmevidetishabere (Luc.
'Before the ages He founded me, and before all the hills He begot me' (Prov. 8:22, 25); of whom the Apostle also said that, 'when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law' (Gal. 4:4). CHAPTER XIV, or RULE XI. The humanity of Christ. — 55. Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that Christ, the Son of God, is, just as He is full and perfect God from God the Father, so also full and perfect man begotten from the Virgin mother, that is, the Word God, having assuredly, without sin, the true flesh of our race and a rational soul. This the Son of God Himself plainly shows, saying of His flesh: 'Handle and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me to have' (Luke
24:39). He also shows that He has a soul by these words, saying: 'Therefore does the Father love Me, because I lay down My soul, and take it again' (John 10:17). He shows too that He has the understanding of a soul in that He says: 'Learn of Me, for I am meek and humble of heart' (Matt. 11:29). And of Him God says through the prophet: 'Behold, My servant shall understand, and shall be exalted, and shall be very high' (Isa. 52:13). For blessed Peter too, according to the prophecy of holy David, confesses flesh and soul in Christ. For speaking of blessed David himself, he says:
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Prophetaigiturcumesset, etsciretquiajurejurandojurassetilliDeusdefructulumbiejussederesupersedemejus, providenslocutusestderesurrectioneChristi, quianequedere- lictaestanimaejusininferno, nequecaroejusviditcorruptionem (Act. II, 30, 31). CAP. xv, seuREG. XII. DivinitasChristi. — 56. Firmissimetene, etnullatenusdubites, unumatqueipsumesseDeumVerbumi, quicumPatreDeoetSpiritusanctoDeofecitomniatempora, etinmonteSinailegemMoysidedit (Exod. xxetXXI) ordinatamperangelos (Gat. III, 19), etipsumVerbumDeumcarnemfactum :
'Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn to him with an oath that of the fruit of his loins one should sit upon his throne, foreseeing this, he spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that neither was His soul left in hell, nor did His flesh see corruption' (Acts 2:30-31). CHAPTER XV, or RULE XII. The divinity of Christ. — 56. Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that one and the same is God the Word, who together with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit made all the ages, and gave the law of Moses on Mount Sinai (Exod. 20-21), ordained through angels (Gal. 3:19), and that this same Word is God made flesh:
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quiVenienteplenitudinetemporis, missusaPatreetSpiritusancto, solusfactusestexmulierequamfecit, solusfactusestsublege (Gal. iv, 4) quamdedit. CAP. XVI, seuREG. XIII. DeduabusinChriatonaturis. — 57. Firmissimetene, etnullatenusdubites, DeiVerbiiquodcarofactumestduasnaturasin- confusihiliteratqueinseparabiliterpermanere : unamveramdivinam, quamhabetcumPatrecommunem, secundumquamdicit : EgoetPaterunumsumus (Joan. x, 50); et, Quimeridet, videtetPatrem (Joan. xiv, 9); et, EgoinPatre, etPaterinmeest (lbid., 10): secundumquamkeumdicitApostolus (Ileb. i, 3), Splendoremgloriæetfiguram 525 substantiæDei;
who, when the fullness of time came, being sent by the Father and the Holy Spirit, was alone made of a woman whom He had made, and was alone made under the law (Gal. 4:4) which He had given. CHAPTER XVI, or RULE XIII. On the two natures in Christ. — 57. Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that of the Word of God which was made flesh the two natures remain unconfusedly and inseparably: one truly divine, which He has in common with the Father, according to which He says: 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30); and, 'He who sees Me, sees the Father also' (John 14:9); and, 'I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me' (ibid. 10): according to which the Apostle calls Him (Heb. 1:3) 'the brightness of glory and the figure of God's substance';
the other truly human, according to which the incarnate God Himself says, 'The Father is greater than I' (John 14:28). CHAPTER XVII, or RULE XIV. The unity of person in Christ. — 58. Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that the Word of God made flesh has one person of His divinity and His flesh. For God the Word deigned so truly to unite the full human nature to Himself, and, His divinity remaining, the Word so became flesh, that although by nature the Word is not the same thing as the flesh—because the truth of the two natures remains in Christ—nevertheless according to one person, the same Word became flesh by Him, at the beginning of the maternal conception. For God the Word did not take up the person of a man, but the nature;
and into the eternal person of the divinity He took up the temporal substance of the flesh. Christ, therefore, is one—the Word made flesh (John 1:14)—who is both of the fathers according to the flesh, and over all things God blessed forever (Rom. 9:5). One Jesus, to whom the Father also says: 'From the womb before the daystar I begot You' (Psalm 110:3): where is signified the eternal nativity before all time, without beginning; of whom the evangelist also says that His name was called Jesus, which was named by the angel before He was conceived in the womb (Luke 2:21). CHAPTER XVIII, or RULE XV. The union of the Word and the flesh. — 59.
Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that the flesh of Christ was not conceived in the womb of the Virgin without the divinity before it was assumed by the Word; but that the very Word God was conceived in the taking on of His flesh, and that same flesh was conceived in the incarnation of the Word (III Sentences, dist. 1, chapter 'Si autem'). CHAPTER XIX, or RULE XVI. Sacrifices. The sacrifice of bread and wine. — 60. Hold most firmly, and in no way doubt, that the only-begotten God, the Word made flesh, offered Himself for us as a sacrifice and victim to God for a sweet-smelling savor (Eph. 5:2): to whom, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, animals were sacrificed by the patriarchs and prophets and priests in the time of the Old Testament;