If the Canaanite woman, by a sudden cry and unexpected faith, with Christ's help, both received what she asked and wrested even what was being refused (Matt. 15); if the Ethiopian eunuch, passing by, found on the way the mystery of the life-giving font and seized it in transit (Acts 8); if Cornelius the centurion reached Christ before he entered the baptism (Acts 10); if the thief in the very moment of death broke into paradise (Luke 23) — then who will deny to you also, in the instant of time, the life you seek? Therefore from faith receive faith, and that you may be able to know the mystery of faith, labour as time advances. Moses calls heaven and earth to the law; what shall the priest call upon, being about to bring forth grace? He said:
'Give ear, O heaven, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth' (Deut. 32). I say: Give ear, O God, I will speak; and let man hear the words of my mouth. He said: 'Let my speech be awaited like the rain, and let my words come down like the dew.' I say: Let your Spirit come like the dew, and let your grace flood like a river, and let there now be a wave of the heavenly Word leaping up unto life everlasting. He said: 'Because I have invoked the name of the Lord, give greatness to our God.' I say: Because I have invoked faith, give belief to your God.
And since the vessels of our bodies have been overhauled by the fasting of Lent, it is necessary that we now declare the pact of faith, the symbol of the heavenly commerce, so that, secure across all the seas of the world, through the faithless waves of this age, we may gather profits that will remain for the ages. Receive therefore faith, await the reality; for he in whom faith does not go before in the seed, in him the reality does not follow in the fruit. 'Seal yourselves.' The word creates hearing, hearing conceives faith, faith gives birth to belief, belief nourishes confession, confession bestows perpetual salvation. Hence it is that with my mouth and yours it meets together: thus faith clasps itself, thus belief embraces itself; thus salvation greets itself with the kiss of confession. 'I believe in God the Father almighty.'
This utterance confesses and opens the whole sacrament of the Trinity. It says 'God,' not 'gods,' because the Christian faith believes one God in Trinity: it knows the Father, knows the Son, knows the Holy Spirit; it does not acknowledge gods. The Godhead is threefold in persons, but one Godhead in Trinity: the Trinity is distinct in persons, not divided in substance: God is one, yet in Trinity; God is alone, yet not solitary; the Godhead is neither divided by the Trinity nor confounded by the unity. This the faith perceives when it says, 'I believe in God.' At once it added, 'the Father.' He who believes the Father to be, confesses the Son; he who believes the Father and the Son, let him not perceive ages, nor reckon degrees, nor suspect times, nor seek a conception, nor be aware of a birth-pang:
he who believes God has confessed things divine, not human. But the heretic says: How is he Father, if he does not precede? How is he Son, if he does not come after? How does he who begets not give a beginning? How does that which is begotten not take its origin from the begetter? This reason teaches, this nature proves. You err, heretic: this human reason holds, not divine reason; this the nature of the world receives, not the nature of the Godhead. By this human frailty is conceived and conceives, is brought forth and brings forth, is begotten and begets, receives a beginning and gives an end, undergoes death and pours it back, and keeps in its offspring whatever belongs to its condition and nature. But God the Father did not beget in time, for he knows not time; he gave no beginning, who knows no beginning;
nor did he transmit an end, who has no end: but he so begot the Son from himself that all that was in himself might be and remain in the Son. The honour of the begotten is the honour of the begetter; the perfection of the begotten is the form of the begetter; the diminishing of the begotten reveals an injury to the begetter. But hearing these things, heretic, do not say, How can these things be? You said 'God,' you believed 'Father,' you confessed 'almighty': if you doubt, you have lied; I believe you if you say 'how not,' if you dispute. If you think it impossible, you have taken away the very Omnipotent you confessed; but let us, who confess the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit of one majesty and glory, now speak of the faith concerning the Lord's body. 'And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.'
After the Son of God, like rain upon the fleece, poured himself into our flesh with the whole ointment of the Godhead, he was named 'Christ' from the ointment; and of this name he alone was the author, who was so poured over and infused into man that man and God might be one God. This name of the ointment therefore he poured into us, who from Christ are called Christians; and that was fulfilled which is sung in the Song of Songs: 'Thy name is ointment poured out' (Cant. 1). 'And in Christ Jesus his Son.' That is the name of the sacrament, this of the triumph:
for as, anointed by God, he obtains his name from the ointment, so, when he restored to the world its lost salvation, he takes the name of Saviour from saving. We have already often said that 'Jesus' in the Hebrew tongue is called, in Latin, 'Saviour.' 'And in Christ Jesus his Son.' Whose Son? Surely God the Father's. When therefore you say 'in Jesus his Son,' you confess that Jesus who was born of Mary is the Son of God. Beware therefore lest you think of Christ anything more as one who was a man, but always confess him to be God, the Apostle saying thus: 'And even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer' (2 Cor. 5). 'Our only Lord.' This applies to both, for he is both the only Son of the Father and our only Lord:
others have received by grace to be sons, others to be lords; Christ alone has and possesses by nature to be Son, to be Lord. 'Who was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary' (Matt. 1:20). If, according to the evangelist, that which is born in her is of the Holy Spirit, and since God is Spirit, then let the heretic now confess God to be born of the flesh of the Virgin; and let him no longer drag the heavenly mystery, the birth of virginity, down to the conception of the world, to the injury of earthly frailty. 'Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried.' You hear the name of the judge that you may recognize the time of the passion; you hear him crucified, that from the ignominy of death you may perceive the greatness of love, and that you may know that the death which came through the tree was put to death through the tree;
and that you may believe that greater things have been restored to you through the tree of paradise than you sighed to have lost through the tree of paradise. You say 'buried,' that the confession of burial may prove Christ's flesh to be real and his death not perfunctory — that he took on death and conquered it, entered the underworld and returned, came into the domain of hell and dissolved the domain of hell: this is not frailty, but power. You confess that he rose again on the third day, that you may understand the resurrection of Christ to have been the victory of the whole Trinity. You say 'He ascended into the heavens,' that you may believe him Lord of the heavens, that you may confess him to have returned whence he had come, because, the devil overcome, death trodden down, the world set free, Christ triumphs above the heavens, who was thought to be conquered on earth.
You cry, 'He sits at the right hand of the Father,' so that, since the Godhead of Father and Son is one and their power equal, there may be in the heavenly session no injury of a left-hand seat. 'Thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead,' because at Christ's coming the dead shall rise and the living shall be set before him, that alike they may render account for the reckoning of their deeds. And since we have now spoken of the sacrament of the Lord's body, let us come to confessing the Godhead of the Spirit. 'We believe in the Holy Spirit,' whom the divine voice proclaims to us to be God when it says, 'For God is Spirit' (John 4). We believe in the Holy Spirit, whom the prophet sings as fellow-worker of Father and Son: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their host' (Ps. 32).
He is wholly God, and the whole power of God, who is proved to be the creator of the heavenly powers. 'We believe the holy Church,' which Christ so took to himself that he made her a partaker of his Godhead. 'We believe the remission of sins,' because he who through Christ and the Church has been born into a new man shall have nothing of the old fault. 'We believe the resurrection of the flesh,' that we may believe this to have been the cause of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection: that we should rise from the dead. The flesh shall rise, it shall rise as we ourselves are, so that recognition of persons may remain, so that both the martyr may take joy from the punishment of his persecutor, and the persecutor may take torment from the honour of the martyr. 'We believe the life everlasting.'
Because after the resurrection there is neither an end of the good nor of the evil. 'Seal yourselves.' The faith which we believe and teach, let us commit not with ink but with the Spirit, to the breast, not to paper; let us give it to memory, not to a book, lest human affairs violate the divine gift, lest a profane judge take up the heavenly secret, lest that which is unto life for believers should turn out unto ruin for the faithless. The sun grants not light but darkness to bleary eyes; wine restores not the strength of the feverish but weakens it; without a physician the cup of life becomes lethal — so to the faithless the sacrament of faith is destructive without faith. As the Apostle says, 'Let faith be taken from hearing, and hearing be taken from the word' (Rom. 10);
and let the pact of life, the covenant of faith, the law of salvation not cling to those who are dying, but be fixed in living senses. Were I not consoled by the sudden and unexpected conversion of blessed Paul (Acts 9), I would scarcely believe that you could so easily be changed from earthly stain into heavenly glory. For a sudden confession made him at once from a persecutor an apostle, and gave to the Church a distinguished teacher, whom it had found a raging ravager of the Christian name. No less does the example of that eunuch encourage me, whom faith snatched to grace before the chariot could recall him to India and home (Acts 8). There is added also that wonderful lesson of the thief, who seized paradise at the very moment when he was hung up to pay the penalty of his robbery (Luke
23). Wherefore, little sons, since you have so fitted the time of your regeneration that neither can we say what is necessary, nor can you hear what is fitting, entrusting faith to faith, we hand down briefly what we cannot commend more at length. For how can you learn the sacrament of the Creed while we expound it, you who are scarcely able to grasp the Creed itself in memory? This alone we warn: let no one commit to letters what he is to entrust to the heart that he may believe, the Apostle warning thus: 'With the heart it is believed unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation' (Rom. 10).
About to hear the form of faith, the rule of belief, the order of confession, prepare at once the hearing of both body and heart. As a spring flowing from a narrow mouth is enlarged into great streams of rivers, so the faith of the Creed, in an abbreviated word of belief, gives the widest channels. And as a root fixed deep stretches itself upward into a lofty shoot, so faith rooted in the depth of the breast is raised up into the lofty summit of belief. Therefore cleanse from your hearts the mire of faithlessness, that the pure streams of faith may run through you; cut off by the root the thickets of unbelief within you, that the sturdy plantings of your belief may grow up to the heights. And since, on the authority of the Apostle, 'with the heart it is believed unto righteousness, with the mouth confession is made unto salvation' (Rom.
10), now give in the voice of confession what you already believe in your hearts. 'I believe in God the Father almighty.' Let him who believes in God not presume to scrutinize God; it suffices to know that God is; he who inquires whence God is, how great God is, does not here know what God is. The sun darkens an importunate gaze; the forbidden approach to God is blinded. He who wishes to see God, let him learn to keep the measure of his vision; he who wishes to know his God, let him not know the gods of the nations; he who names gods contradicts God. To serve one is freedom, to serve many is captivity. The God you have confessed, believe him to be Father; that believing the Father you may learn the Son to be; saying the Son, that you may know him to be begotten of the Father;
knowing him begotten of the Father, do not inquire how he was begotten, since you have said, 'I believe in God the Father almighty.' The Almighty can do all things; and who will deny that he can do this — that he has in himself, from himself, and always with himself the Son? The generation of God has no beginning, knows no end, admits no excess, since the Begotten persists in remaining in the Begetter, the Lord himself saying, 'I am in the Father, and the Father is in me' (John 10). 'I and the Father are one' (John 10). You have confessed the Father, you have confessed the Son, you have confessed the secret of the Godhead; now confess the sacrament of the Lord's incarnation. 'And in Christ Jesus his Son.' Christ is named from the heavenly ointment, for he is infused with the whole fullness of the Godhead;
'Jesus' is a name from salvation, which name everything that is in heaven, that is in hell, trembling, with bended knee and bowed head, confesses (Phil. 2). 'And in Christ Jesus his only Son our Lord.' As the Godhead of Father and Son is one for us, so let there be one dominion for us. 'Who was born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary.' Spirit and Virgin are no earthly union, but a heavenly secret: hence it is that what is born is divine. Therefore, that he was born must be confessed; how he was born must be kept silent; because what is a secret cannot be known, what is sealed knows not to be opened, what is unique is not conveyed by example. 'Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried.' You hear the name of the judge, that you may not be ignorant of the time;
you hear him crucified, that the quality of the death may become known to you, and that you may understand what he expended for you, who for your sake took upon himself the penalty of so great a death. You hear him buried, that you may know the death was not perfunctory but true. To be unwilling to die belongs to human fear; to have risen from death belongs to divine power. Here therefore let not the hearing of death offend, where the glory of resurrection hides the injury of death. 'On the third day he rose again.' Because it belongs to man that he dies, it belongs to the Trinity that he rises. 'He ascended into the heavens,' bearing the man thither where he always remained. 'He sits at the right hand of the Father.' He sits at the right hand, because the Godhead has nothing left. 'Thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.'
He shall judge the living and the dead, because they shall rise to judgment who are thought not to exist after death, whom the pagans reckon to have perished with the world. 'I believe in the Holy Spirit,' that in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit you may believe and understand there to be one Godhead. 'I believe the holy Church,' that you may confess the Church, the bride of Christ, to be destined to remain in perpetual fellowship with Christ. 'I believe the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh.' He who does not believe the remission of sins, who does not believe the resurrection of the flesh, takes away pardon from himself; he himself withdraws his own life.
What you have heard and believed, what you have confessed, let the heart hold, let memory keep; let the paper not know it, let the scribe be ignorant of it, lest the sacrament of faith be divulged in public, lest the secret of faith be diverted to the unbeliever. May God, who has granted you both to hear and to believe the sacrament of faith, himself make you come to everlasting salvation.