On Faith and the Creed

1Since it is written, and confirmed by the most robust authority of apostolic teaching, that the righteous person lives by faith, and since this faith demands from us the service of both heart and tongue—for the apostle says, "With the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved" (Romans 10:10)—we must be mindful of both righteousness and salvation. For we are destined to reign in everlasting righteousness, and we cannot be saved from this present wicked age unless we also strive for the salvation of our neighbors and profess with our mouth the faith we carry in our heart. We must take pious and careful watch that this faith cannot be violated in us in any part by the deceitful cunning of heretics.

Now the catholic faith is known to the faithful in the creed and committed to memory, in as brief a form of words as so great a matter allows. Its purpose is that for beginners and infants—those who have been reborn in Christ but are not yet strengthened by the most diligent and spiritual study and knowledge of the divine Scriptures—what they are to believe should be set down in few words, while for those advancing and rising to divine teaching with the firm foundation of humility and love, it would need to be expounded in many words. Under those very few words set down in the creed, many heretics have tried to hide their poisons. Divine mercy has resisted them, and still resists them, through spiritual men who have merited not only to receive and believe the catholic faith in those words, but also to understand and know it by the Lord's revelation. For it is written, "Unless you believe, you will not understand" (Isaiah 7:9).

But an exposition of the faith serves to fortify the creed—not so that it should be handed over in place of the creed to those who are attaining God's grace, to be memorized and recited, but so that the things held in the creed may be guarded against the snares of heretics by catholic authority and a more fortified defense.

2Some people have tried to persuade others that God the Father is not almighty. They have not dared to say this outright, but their own traditions show that this is what they think and believe. When they say there is a nature that almighty God did not create, and that he used it to build this world—which they admit is beautifully ordered—they deny that God is almighty. They do not believe he could have made the world unless he used some other nature that already existed and that he himself had not made. They are following the habit of seeing carpenters, house builders, and other workmen, who cannot complete their work unless they are helped by material already prepared. In the same way, they think the maker of the world could not be almighty if he could not build the world unless some nature not made by him helped him as material.

But if they admit that almighty God is the maker of the world, they must confess that he made what he made from nothing. For nothing can exist whose creator he is not, since he is almighty. Even if he made something from something else—as he made the human being from mud—he did not make it from something he himself had not made, because he had made the earth, from which mud comes, from nothing. And if he made heaven and earth itself—that is, the world and everything in it—from some matter, as it is written, "You made the world from unseen matter" (Wisdom of Solomon 11:17), or even from formless matter, as some manuscripts have it, we must in no way believe that this matter from which the world was made—however formless, however unseen, in whatever way it existed—could have existed through itself as coeternal and coeval with God. Whatever mode it had, so that it could exist in some way and receive the forms of distinct things, it had only from almighty God. It is by his gift that a thing exists not only when it is formed, but also when it is formable.

The difference between formed and formable is this: what is formed has already received form, while what is formable can receive it. But the one who gives things form also gives them the very possibility of being formed, because from him and in him is the most beautiful unchangeable form of all things. Therefore he alone is the one who gives to any thing not only that it is beautiful, but also that it can be beautiful. For this reason it is most rightly believed that God made all things from nothing. Even if the world was made from some matter, that matter itself was made from nothing, so that by God's most ordered gift there first came to be the capacity of forms, and then whatever was formed was formed. We have said this so that no one thinks the statements of the divine Scriptures contradict each other, since it is written both that God made all things from nothing and that the world was made from formless matter.

3Therefore, since we believe in God the Father almighty, we must hold that no creature exists that was not created by the Almighty. And because he created all things through the Word—the Word who is also called the truth and the power and the wisdom of God, and who is commended to our faith under many other names as Jesus Christ our Lord, that is, our liberator and ruler, the Son of God—for that Word through whom all things were made could be begotten by none except the one who made all things through him—we believe also in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God the Father, that is, his unique one, our Lord.

But we must not understand that Word as we understand our own words, which are produced by voice and mouth, strike the air, and pass away, lasting no longer than their sound. That Word remains unchangeably. For it was said of him when Scripture spoke of wisdom: “Remaining in herself, she renews all things” (Wisdom of Solomon 7:27). He is called the Word of the Father because through him the Father becomes known. Just as when we speak true words, we act so that our mind becomes known to the hearer, and whatever secret we carry in our heart is brought to another's knowledge through signs of this kind, so wisdom whom God the Father begot is most fittingly named his Word, because through her the most hidden Father becomes known to worthy souls.

4But between our mind and our words, by which we try to show the mind itself, there is a very great distance. We do not beget sounding words; we make them. And for making them, the body lies beneath as matter. Yet there is a very great difference between mind and body. God, however, when he begot the Word, begot what he himself is—not from nothing, and not from some already made and created matter, but from himself, what he himself is. This is what we too are attempting when we speak, if we carefully consider the impulse of our will—not when we lie, but when we speak the truth. What else are we trying to do except to bring our very mind, if it can be done, into the mind of the hearer to be known and seen? So that we ourselves remain in ourselves and do not withdraw from ourselves, and yet we bring forth a sign by which knowledge of us comes to be in another—so that, as far as our ability allows, a kind of second mind is brought forth from the mind, through which it makes itself known. We do this by trying with words and with the very sound of the voice and with facial expression and bodily gesture—with all these devices, desiring to show what is within, because we cannot bring forth such a thing itself. And therefore the mind of the speaker cannot become fully known. This is also why there is room for lies. But God the Father, who both willed and was able to make himself known most truly to minds that would know him, begot for the purpose of making himself known that which he himself is who begot—who is also called his power and wisdom, because through him he worked and ordered all things. Of him it is said for this reason: "She reaches from end to end mightily, and she orders all things sweetly" (Wisdom of Solomon 8:1).

5For this reason the only Son of God was neither made by the Father—since, as the evangelist says, all things were made through him (John 1:3)—nor begotten in time, because God is eternally wise and has his wisdom with him eternally. Nor is he unequal to the Father, that is, less than him in any way, because the apostle also says: though he was in the form of God, he did not think it robbery to be equal to God (Philippians 2:6). By this catholic faith, then, those are shut out who say the Son is the same as the Father, because this Word could not be with God unless it was with God the Father, and he who alone exists has no equal. Also shut out are those who say the Son is a creature, even if not such a creature as the rest of creatures are. For however great a creature they say he is, if he is a creature, he was created and made. To found is the same as to create. Although in Latin usage we sometimes say 'create' for what is really 'beget,' Greek distinguishes the two. What we call a creature they call ktisma or ktisis. And when we want to speak without ambiguity, we do not say 'create' but 'found.' Therefore if the Son is a creature, however great he may be, he was made. But we believe in him through whom all things were made, not in him through whom the other things were made. For here we cannot understand 'all things' in any other way than as whatever things have been made.

6But since the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), that same wisdom begotten from God deigned also to be created among human beings. This is what the text means: “The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways” (Proverbs 8:22). For the beginning of his ways is the head of the church, which is Christ clothed with humanity, through whom an example of living was given to us—that is, the sure way by which we might reach God. We could not return except through humility, since we fell through pride, as was said to our first creation: “Taste, and you will be like gods” (Genesis 3:5).

Therefore our restorer himself deigned to show in his own person the example of this humility—that is, of the way by which we had to return. He did not consider it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Philippians 2:6-7), so that he might be created as a human being in the beginning of his ways—the Word through whom all things were made.

For this reason, according to what he is as the only Son, he has no brothers; but according to what he is as the firstborn, he deigned to call all brothers who, after his primacy and through his primacy, are reborn into God’s grace through the adoption of sons, as the apostolic teaching commends. The natural Son, then, was born unique from the very substance of the Father, being what the Father is—God from God, light from light. But we are not light by nature; we are illuminated by that light so that we can shine with wisdom. For it says, “He was the true light, which illuminates every person coming into this world” (John 1:9).

We therefore add to our faith in eternal realities the earthly mission of our Lord, which he deigned to carry out and administer for us for our salvation. For according to what he is as the only Son of God, it cannot be said of him: he was and he will be, but only: he is. Because what was no longer is, and what will be is not yet. He therefore is unchangeable, without any condition of times or variation.

And I do not think that the name he revealed to his servant Moses comes from any other source. For when Moses asked him—if the people to whom he was being sent should despise him—by whom he should say he had been sent, he received this answer from the one speaking: “I am who I am.” Then he added: “This you shall say to the children of Israel: He who is has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14).

7From this point I am confident it is now evident to spiritual souls that no nature can be contrary to God. For if he is—and this word can properly be said of God alone, since what truly is remains unchangeably, because what is changed was something that no longer is, and will be something that is not yet—then God has nothing contrary to him. If someone asked us what is contrary to white, we would answer: black. If someone asked what is contrary to hot, we would answer: cold. If someone asked what is contrary to fast, we would answer: slow, and so on with similar cases. But when the question is what is contrary to that which is, the right answer is: that which is not.

8But because of his earthly mission, as I said, our changeable nature was taken up by that unchangeable wisdom of God for our salvation and restoration, through the working of God's kindness. So we add faith in the temporal deeds beneficially done for us, believing in that Son of God who was born through the Holy Spirit from the virgin Mary. For by God's gift—that is, by the Holy Spirit—such great humility of so great a God was granted to us that he deigned to take up the whole human in the womb of the virgin, inhabiting the mother's body intact and leaving it intact. Heretics plot against this earthly mission in many ways. But whoever holds the catholic faith, believing that the whole human was taken up by the Word of God—that is, body, soul, and spirit—is well fortified against them. Since this taking up was done for our salvation, we must beware that, when one believes any part of us does not belong to that taking up, it does not belong to salvation. And since a human being, apart from the shape of the limbs which is distributed differently among different kinds of animals, does not differ from a beast except by the rational spirit, which is also called the mind, how can that faith be sound whereby one believes that God's wisdom took up what we have in common with beasts, but did not take up what is illuminated by the light of wisdom and is proper to a human being?

9We must also detest those who deny that our Lord Jesus Christ had a mother on earth, Mary. His earthly mission honored both sexes, male and female, and showed that God's care extends not only to the one he took up but also to the one through whom he took him up—by being a man, and by being born of a woman. Nor does what he said force us to deny Christ's mother: "Woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come" (John 2:4). Rather, it warns us to understand that according to his divinity he had no mother, for he was preparing to reveal the person of his majesty when he turned water into wine. But he was crucified according to his humanity, and that was the hour which had not yet come when he said, "What have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come"—that is, the hour in which I will acknowledge you. For then, as a man crucified, he recognized his mother and most humanely entrusted her to his beloved disciple. Nor should it trouble us that when his mother and brothers were announced to him, he answered, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" and so on (Matthew 12:48). Rather, let it teach us that when parents hinder our ministry—the ministry by which we serve the word of God to our brothers and sisters—we ought not to acknowledge them. For if anyone thinks Christ had no mother on earth because he said, "Who is my mother?", then that person is forced to deny that the apostles had fathers on earth, since Christ commanded them, saying, "Do not call anyone father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven" (Matthew 23:9).

10Nor should the thought of a woman's inner parts weaken this faith of ours, as if the generation of our Lord must be rejected because the unclean ones think it unclean. For "the foolishness of God is wiser than men" (1 Corinthians 1:25), and the apostle speaks most truly when he says, "all things are clean to the clean" (Titus 1:15). Those who think this way ought to look at the rays of this sun, which they certainly do not praise as a creature of God but worship as a god. Those rays are poured out everywhere through the stench of sewers and every kind of horror, and they work in these places according to their nature, yet they are not soiled by any contamination from them—even though visible light is by nature more closely joined to visible filth. How much less, then, could the Word of God, which is not bodily or visible, be polluted by a woman's body, where he took up human flesh together with soul and spirit? Through these intervening parts the majesty of the Word dwells more hidden from the frailty of the human body. From this it is clear that the Word of God could in no way be stained by a human body, since not even the human soul itself is stained by it. For the soul is not stained by the body when it rules the body and gives it life, but when it desires the body's good mortal things.

11But if they wanted to avoid stains on the soul, they should rather have dreaded these lies and sacrileges.

Yet our Lord's humility in being born was a small thing for our sake; he also deigned to die for mortals. For he humbled himself, made subject all the way to death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:8), so that none of us—even if we could manage not to fear death—would shudder at some kind of death that people consider most disgraceful.

We believe therefore in him who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried. The judge's name had to be added for the sake of knowledge of the times. And when that burial is believed, it calls to mind the new tomb, which would bear witness to the one about to rise to newness of life, just as the virgin's womb bore witness to the one about to be born. For just as no other dead person was buried in that tomb, neither before nor after, so in that womb nothing mortal was conceived, neither before nor after.

12We also believe that on the third day he rose from the dead, the firstborn for the brothers who were to follow, whom he called into the adoption of sons of God and whom he deigned to make sharers and co-heirs with himself.

13We believe that he ascended into heaven, the place of blessedness that he also promised to us when he said, “They will be like the angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30), in that city which is the mother of us all, the eternal Jerusalem in heaven (Galatians 4:26). Yet some people are usually offended—either impious Gentiles or heretics—that we believe an earthly body was taken up into heaven. The Gentiles, for the most part, try to deal with us by the arguments of the philosophers, saying that nothing earthly can exist in heaven. They do not know our Scriptures, and they do not know how it was said, “A natural body is sown; a spiritual body rises” (1 Corinthians 15:44). It was not said as if the body is turned into spirit and becomes spirit, because even now our body, which is called natural, has not been turned into soul and become soul. Rather, a spiritual body is understood as one so subjected to the spirit that it is suited to a heavenly dwelling, with all fragility and earthly stain changed and converted into heavenly purity and stability. This is the change about which the apostle also says, “We will all rise, but we will not all be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51). He teaches that this change is not for the worse but for the better when he says, “And we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52). But where and how the Lord’s body is in heaven is a most curious and superfluous question to ask; we must simply believe that it is in heaven. It is not for our fragility to examine the secrets of the heavens, but it is for our faith to think sublime and honorable things about the dignity of the Lord’s body.

14We also believe that he sits at the right hand of the Father. But this does not mean we should think of God the Father as bounded by human shape, so that when we think of him a right or left side comes to mind. Nor should we suppose that when the Father is said to sit, he does so with bent knees. Otherwise we fall into the sacrilege for which the apostle curses those who changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of a corruptible human (Romans 1:23). It is wicked for a Christian to set up such an image of God in a temple; it is far more wicked to set it up in the heart, where the temple of God truly is, once it has been cleansed of earthly desire and error. So we must understand “at the right hand” as meaning in the highest blessedness, where justice, peace, and joy are. In the same way, the goats are placed at the left (Matthew 25:33), that is, in misery, because of the labors and torments of wickedness. Therefore when God is said to sit, this does not signify a position of bodily parts but judicial power. That majesty is never without this power, always giving to each what each deserves, although at the final judgment the unmistakable glory of the only Son of God, the judge of the living and the dead, will shine far more openly among human beings.

15We also believe that he will come from there at the most fitting time and will judge the living and the dead. Whether these names mean the just and the sinners, or whether those whom he will find on earth before death at his coming are called the living, and the dead are those who will rise again at his arrival, this earthly mission is not merely as that generation according to God is, but it also was and will be. For our Lord was on earth, and now he is in heaven, and he will be in glory as judge of the living and of the dead. For he will come just as he ascended, according to the authority contained in the Acts of the Apostles. From this earthly mission, then, he speaks in Revelation, where it is written: These things says he who is and who was and who is to come (Revelation 1:4).

16So when the faith has been set in order and handed over, and the divine begetting of our Lord and his human earthly mission have been joined to our confession about God, the Holy Spirit is added to complete the faith. He is not less in nature than the Father and the Son, but is, so to speak, consubstantial and co-eternal with them, because this Trinity is one God. It is not that the Father is the same as the Son and the Holy Spirit, but that the Father is Father, the Son is Son, and the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit, and this Trinity is one God, as it is written: "Hear, Israel: the Lord your God is one God" (Deuteronomy 6:4). Yet if we are asked about each one individually and someone says to us, "Is the Father God?" we will answer, "God." If it is asked whether the Son is God, we will answer the same. And if such a question is asked about the Holy Spirit, we must not answer that he is anything other than God, while being very careful not to take this the way it was said of human beings: "You are gods" (Psalm 82:6). For those who are made and created by the Father through the Son in the gift of the Holy Spirit are not gods by nature. The Trinity itself is what the apostle means when he says: "For from him and through him and in him are all things" (Romans 11:36). Therefore, although when asked about each one individually we answer that the one in question is God—whether Father, Son, or Holy Spirit—let no one suppose that three gods are worshipped by us.

17And it is no wonder that such things are said about the ineffable nature, since something similar happens even with the things we see with bodily eyes and judge by bodily sense. For when we are asked about a spring, we cannot say that it is the river; and when we are asked about the river, we cannot call it the spring. Again, the drinking water that comes from the spring or the river we can call neither river nor spring. Yet in this trinity we name water, and when we are asked about each one separately, we answer 'water' for each. For if I ask whether there is water in the spring, the answer is water; and if I ask whether there is water in the river, nothing else is answered; and in that drinking water there can be no other answer. Yet we do not say there are three waters, but one.

Of course, one must beware lest anyone think of the ineffable substance of that majesty as being like this visible and bodily spring or river or drinking water. For in these, the water that is now in the spring flows out into the river and does not remain in itself; and when it passes from the river or the spring into the drinking water, it does not stay where it was taken from. So it can happen that the same water now belongs to the name of spring, now to the name of river, now to the name of drinking water. But in that Trinity we have said it cannot happen that the Father himself is sometimes the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit.

In a tree, the root is nothing but root, and the trunk is nothing other than trunk, and we can call the branches nothing but branches. For what is called root cannot also be called trunk and branches; and the wood that belongs to the root cannot by some passage be now in the root, now in the trunk, now in the branches, but only in the root. Yet the rule of the name remains: the root is wood, the trunk is wood, the branches are wood, and still they are not called three woods, but one.

Or if these have some dissimilarity, so that they could without absurdity be named three woods—since they can indeed be called three woods because of the difference in their solidity—then certainly everyone grants this: if three cups are filled from one spring, they can be called three cups, but they cannot be called three waters. They are altogether one water, even though when asked about each cup individually you would answer that there is water in any one of them, although no passage takes place here as we said happens from the spring to the river.

But these bodily examples have been given not because of any likeness to that divine nature, but because of the unity that exists even among visible things. They are given so that it may be understood that it is possible for some three things to obtain a singular name not only one by one, but even all together. Then no one should be amazed or think it absurd that we call God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and yet not three gods in this Trinity, but one God and one substance.

18Learned and spiritual men have written many books about the Father and the Son, in which they have tried, as far as human beings can speak to human beings, to suggest how the Father and the Son are not one person but are one thing, and what the Father is in his own right and what the Son is. The Father is the begetter, the Son is the begotten; the Father is not from the Son, the Son is from the Father; the Father is the Son's beginning—which is why he is called the head of Christ, though Christ too is a beginning, but not of the Father—while the Son is the Father's image, though in no respect unlike him and entirely equal without any difference. Those who want to explain the whole profession of the Christian faith at greater length than we do treat these matters more fully.

So, insofar as he is the Son, he received from the Father that he exists, while the Father did not receive this from the Son. And insofar as he took up a changeable human being—a creature that was to be changed for the better—through his ineffable mercy in his earthly mission, many things are found said about him in the Scriptures in such a way that they have driven the impious minds of heretics, who wanted to teach before they learned, into error. They have made the heretics think that he is not equal to the Father and not of the same substance as him. Such statements are these: “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28), and “The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3), and “Then he himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him” (1 Corinthians 15:28), and “I am going to my God and your God” (John 20:17), and several others of this kind.

All of these were set down not to signify an inequality of nature and substance—otherwise these would be false: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and “Whoever has seen me has seen my Father” (John 14:9), and “The Word was God” (John 1:1)—for he was not made God, since all things were made through him—and “He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped” (Philippians 2:6), and other such statements. Rather, those statements were set down partly because of the administration of the man he took up, which is why it says: “He emptied himself” (Philippians 2:7)—not because that wisdom was changed, since it is entirely unchangeable, but because he willed to become known to human beings in such a lowly way. So partly because of this administration those things were written about which the heretics make false accusations, and partly because the Son owes to the Father that he exists, and in owing this he also owes to the Father that he is equal to or on a par with the Father. But the Father owes nothing of what he is to anyone.

19But the Holy Spirit has not yet been discussed as fully and carefully by the learned and great interpreters of the divine Scriptures so that what is proper to him can be easily understood—the property by which it comes about that we cannot call him either Son or Father, but only Holy Spirit—except that they proclaim him to be the gift of God, so that we believe God does not give a gift inferior to himself. The learned interpreters maintain, however, that the Holy Spirit is not begotten, as a Son from the Father—for Christ alone is the only Son—nor from the Son, as a grandson of the supreme Father, and yet that he owes what he is to no one except the Father, from whom all things come, so that we do not set up two principles without beginning, which is utterly false and absurd and belongs not to the catholic faith but to the error of certain heretics.

Some, however, have dared to believe that the Holy Spirit is the very communion of the Father and the Son and, so to speak, the deity—which the Greeks call theotēs—so that, since the Father is God and the Son is God, the deity itself, by which they are joined to each other—the one by begetting the Son, the other by clinging to the Father—is equated to him from whom he was begotten. They say, then, that this deity, which they also want to be understood as the love and charity of both toward each other, is called the Holy Spirit, and they support this opinion of theirs with many proofs from the Scriptures: whether from what is said, “because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5), or from many other such testimonies, and from the very fact that through the Holy Spirit we are reconciled to God. For this reason, when he is called the gift of God, they want it to be sufficiently signified that the Holy Spirit is the love of God. For we are not reconciled to him except through love, by which we are also called children of God, no longer under fear as servants, because perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18), and we have received the spirit of freedom, in which we cry out: “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). And because, having been reconciled and called back into friendship through love, we will be able to know all the secrets of God, for this reason it is said of the Holy Spirit: “He will lead you into all truth” (John 16:13). For this reason also the confidence for preaching the truth, with which the apostles were filled at his coming, is rightly attributed to love, because lack of confidence is attributed to fear, which perfect love casts out. And therefore he is called the gift of God, because no one enjoys what he knows unless he loves it. But to enjoy the wisdom of God is nothing other than to cling to it by love, and no one remains in what he perceives except by love. And therefore he is called the Holy Spirit, because whatever things are hallowed are hallowed in order to remain, and there is no doubt that holiness is named from hallowing.

The asserters of this opinion make use especially of that testimony which is written: “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6), “because God is spirit” (John 4:24). For here he speaks of our regeneration, which is not according to Adam from the flesh, but according to Christ from the Holy Spirit. Therefore, if the Holy Spirit is mentioned in this place, when it is said, “because God is spirit,” they say it should be noticed that it was not said, “because the Spirit is God,” but “because God is spirit,” so that the deity of the Father and the Son is here called God, which is the Holy Spirit. To this is added another testimony, which the apostle John says: “because God is love” (1 John 4:8). For here too he does not say, “Love is God,” but “God is love,” so that the deity itself may be understood as love. And in that enumeration of things connected to one another, where it is said: “All things are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3:22-23), and: “The head of the woman is the man, the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3), no mention is made of the Holy Spirit, and they say this pertains to their point, because the connection itself is not usually numbered among the things that are connected. Hence in that place also those who read more attentively seem to recognize the Trinity itself, when it is said: “For from him and through him and in him are all things” (Romans 11:36)—from him, as from the one who owes his being to no one; through him, as through a mediator; in him, as in the one who contains, that is, joins together by connection.

20Some people contradict this view. They think that this communion—whether we call it deity or love or charity—is not a substance. They ask for the Holy Spirit to be explained to them according to substance, and they do not understand that it could not have been said, “God is love” (1 John 4:8), unless love were a substance. They are led astray by their familiarity with bodily things. If two bodies are joined together so that they are placed next to each other, the joining itself is not a body, since when those bodies that had been joined are separated, no joining is found. Yet it is not understood to have departed and moved away, as those bodies have. But let such people make their hearts as pure as they can, so that they may be able to see that in God’s substance there is nothing like this—as if substance were one thing there, and something else that happens to substance and is not substance. Whatever can be understood there is substance. These things can easily be said and believed, but how they actually are cannot be seen at all except by a pure heart. Therefore, whether this view is true or whether it is something else, the faith must be held unshaken: that we call God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit—not three gods, but this Trinity one God; not different natures, but of the same substance; not that the Father is sometimes the Son and sometimes the Holy Spirit, but the Father is always Father, the Son always Son, and the Holy Spirit always Holy Spirit. Let us not rashly affirm anything about invisible things as if we knew it, but as if we believed it, since they cannot be seen except by a purified heart. And if anyone sees them in this life in part, as it has been said, and in a riddle (1 Corinthians 13:12), he cannot make the person he is speaking to see them too, if that person is hindered by the filth of his heart. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8). This is the faith about God our creator and renewer.

21But since love has been commanded not only toward God, when it was said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Deuteronomy 6:5), but also toward the neighbor—for he says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)—unless this faith holds to the gathering and fellowship of human beings, in which brotherly love is at work, it is less fruitful. Therefore we believe also in the holy church, certainly the catholic church.

For heretics and schismatics call their own gatherings churches. But heretics violate the faith itself by thinking falsely about God; schismatics, however, leap apart from brotherly love by wicked divisions, even though they believe the same things we believe. For this reason neither heretics belong to the catholic church, because she loves God, nor do schismatics, because she loves the neighbor. And so she readily forgives the sins of her neighbor, because she prays to be forgiven by him who reconciled us to himself, blotting out all past things and calling us to a new life. Until we lay hold of that life in its perfection, we cannot be without sins; but it matters what kind they are.

22Nor is this the moment to discuss the differences among sins. What we must believe, entirely and without exception, is that the sins we commit will in no way be forgiven us if we remain unyielding when it comes to forgiving sins. And so we believe in the forgiveness of sins.

23And since there are three things of which a human being consists—spirit, soul, and body—these are again spoken of as two, because the soul is often named together with the spirit. For a certain part of the same soul, the rational part, which beasts lack, is called spirit. Our principal part is the spirit; next, the life by which we are joined to the body is called soul; finally, the body itself, since it is visible, is our last part. Now this whole creation groans and is in labor until now (Romans 8:22); yet it has given the firstfruits of the spirit, because it has believed God and is already of good will. For this spirit is also called mind, about which the apostle says: “With my mind I serve the law of God” (Romans 7:25). He also says in another place: “For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit” (Romans 1:9). But the soul, when it still desires fleshly goods, is called flesh and resists the spirit—not by nature, but by the habit of sins. Hence it is said: “With my mind I serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:25). This habit has been turned into nature through the mortal generation brought about by the sin of the first human being. Therefore it is written: “And we too were once by nature children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3), that is, of punishment, through which it came about that we serve the law of sin. But the nature of the soul is perfect when it is subjected to its own spirit and when it follows the spirit that follows God. Therefore the animal human being does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:14). But the soul is not subjected to the spirit for good action as quickly as the spirit is subjected to God for true faith and good will; rather, its impulse, by which it flows away into fleshly and temporal things, is sometimes reined in more slowly. But since the soul itself is also cleansed, receiving the stability of its own nature when the spirit rules—the spirit, which is its head, whose head is Christ—we must not despair that the body too will be restored to its own nature. But certainly not as quickly as the soul, just as the soul is not restored as quickly as the spirit, but at the proper time, at the last trumpet, when the dead will rise incorruptible and we will be changed (1 Corinthians 15:52). And therefore we believe also in the resurrection of the body—not only because the soul is repaired, which is now called flesh because of fleshly affections, but also this visible flesh, which is flesh by nature, whose name the soul received not because of nature but because of fleshly affections. This visible flesh, then, which is properly called flesh, must without doubt be believed to rise. For the apostle Paul seems to point at it as with a finger when he says: “This corruptible must put on incorruption” (1 Corinthians 15:53). For when he says “this,” he points his finger, as it were, at it. Now what is visible can be pointed at with a finger, since the soul can also be called corruptible; for it is corrupted by the vices of morals. And when we read, “and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53), the same visible flesh is meant, because the finger is again, as it were, pointed at it. For the soul can also be called mortal, just as it can be called corruptible because of the vices of morals. Indeed, the death of the soul is to apostatize from God: its first sin in paradise is contained in the sacred writings.

24Therefore the body will rise again according to the Christian faith, which cannot deceive. To anyone who finds this incredible, it is because he pays attention to what flesh is like now and does not consider what it will be like in the future. For at that time of angelic change it will no longer be flesh and blood, but only body. When the apostle was speaking about flesh, he said: “There is one kind of flesh of cattle, another of birds, another of fish, another of snakes. And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies” (1 Corinthians 15:39–40). He did not say “and heavenly flesh”; he said “heavenly and earthly bodies.” For every flesh is also a body, but not every body is also flesh. First, among these earthly things, wood is a body but not flesh; but a human being or a cow is both body and flesh. In heavenly things, however, there is no flesh, but simple and bright bodies, which the apostle calls spiritual, though some call them ethereal. And so what he says does not contradict the resurrection of the body: “Flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 15:50). Rather, he foretells what that which is now flesh and blood will become. Anyone who does not believe that this flesh can be changed into such a nature should be led to faith by steps. If you ask him whether earth can be turned into water, because of their nearness it does not seem incredible to him. Again, if you ask whether water can become air, he answers that this is not absurd either, for they are close to each other. And if you ask about air, whether it can be changed into an ethereal body, that is, a heavenly one, the very nearness persuades him. So what he grants can happen through these steps—that earth is turned into an ethereal body—why does he not believe that, when God’s will is added, by which a human body was able to walk on the waters, it can happen most swiftly, as it is said, “in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Corinthians 15:52), without any such steps, just as smoke is often turned into flame with marvelous speed? For our flesh is certainly from earth. Yet the philosophers, whose arguments are often used to resist the resurrection of the body, and who assert that no earthly body can exist in heaven, grant that every body can be turned and changed into every body. When this resurrection of the body has taken place, freed from the condition of time, we will fully enjoy eternal life with ineffable love and stability, without corruption. For then what is written will happen: “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O death, is your strife?” (1 Corinthians 15:54–55).

25This is the faith that is given to new Christians in a few words to be held in the creed. These few words are known to the faithful, so that by believing they may be subjected to God, by being subjected they may live rightly, by living rightly they may cleanse the heart, and with the heart cleansed they may understand what they believe.