Every christian man should by right know both his Pater noster and his
Creed. With the Pater noster he should pray, with the Creed he should
confirm his faith. We have spoken concerning the Pater noster, we will now
declare to you the faith which stands in the Creed, according to the wise
Augustine's exposition of the Holy Trinity.
There is one Creator of all things, visible and invisible; and we should
all believe in him, for he is true and God alone Almighty, who never either
began or had beginning; but he is himself beginning, and he to all
creatures gave beginning and origin, that they might be, and that they
might have their own nature, so as it seemed good to the divine
dispensation. {277} Angels he created, which are spirits, and have no body.
Men he created with spirit and with body. Cattle and other beasts, fishes
and birds he created in flesh without soul. To men he gave an upright gait;
the cattle he let go bending downwards. To men he gave bread for
sustenance, and to the cattle grass.
Now, brethren, ye may understand, if ye will, that there are two things:
one is the Creator, the other is the creature. He is the Creator who
created and made all things of naught. That is a creature which the true
Creator created. These are, first, heaven, and the angels which dwell in
heaven; and then this earth with all those which inhabit it, and sea with
all those that swim in it. Now all these things are named by one name,
creature. They were not always existing, but God created them. The
creatures are many. The Creator, who created them all, is one, who alone is
Almighty God. He was ever, and ever he will continue in himself and through
himself. If he had begun and had origin, without doubt he could not be
Almighty God; for the creature that began and is created, has no divinity;
therefore every substance that is not God is a creature; and that which is
not a creature is God.
God exists in Trinity indivisible, and in unity of one Godhead, for the
Father is one, the Son is one, the Holy Ghost is one; and yet of these
three there is one Godhead, and like glory, and coeternal majesty. The
Father is Almighty God, the Son is Almighty God, the Holy Ghost is Almighty
God; but yet there are not three Almighty Gods, but one Almighty God. They
are three in persons and in name, and one in Godhead. Three, because the
Father will be ever Father, and the Son will be ever Son, and the Holy
Ghost will be ever Holy Ghost; and neither of them will ever change from
what he is. Ye have now heard concerning the Holy Trinity; ye shall also
hear concerning the true Unity.
{279} Verily the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, have one Godhead,
and one nature, and one work. The Father created nothing nor creates,
without the Son, or without the Holy Ghost. Nor does one of them anything
without the others; but they have all one work, and one counsel, and one
will. The Father was ever, and the Son was ever, and the Holy Ghost was
ever One Almighty God. He is the Father, who was neither born of nor
created by any other. He is called Father, because he has a Son, whom he
begot of himself, without any mother. The Father is God of no God. The Son
is God of God the Father. The Holy Ghost is God proceeding from the Father
and from the Son. These words are shortly said, and it is needful for you
that we more plainly expound them.
What is the Father? The Almighty Creator, not created nor born, but he
himself begot a Child coeternal with himself. What is the Son? He is the
Wisdom of the Father, and his Word, and his Might, through whom the Father
created and disposed all things. The Son is neither made nor created, but
he is begotten. He is begotten, and yet he is coeval and coeternal with his
Father. It is not with his birth as it is with our birth. When a man begets
a son, and his child is born, the father is greater and the son less. Why
so? Because when the son waxes the father grows old. Thou findest not among
men father and son alike. But I will give thee an example, whereby thou
mayest the better understand the birth of God. Fire begets brightness of
itself, and the brightness is coeval with the fire. The fire is not of the
brightness, but the brightness is of the fire. The fire begets the
brightness, and it is never without the brightness. Now thou hearest that
the brightness is as old as the fire of which it comes; allow therefore
that God might beget a Child as old and as eternal as he himself is. Let
him who can understand that our Saviour Christ is in the Godhead as old as
his {281} Father, thank God therefore and rejoice. He who cannot understand
it shall believe it, that he may understand it; for the word of the prophet
may not be rendered void, who thus spake, "Unless ye believe it ye cannot
understand it." Ye have now heard that the Son is of the Father without any
beginning; for he is the Wisdom of the Father, and he was ever with the
Father, and ever will be.
Let us now hear concerning the Holy Ghost, what he is. He is the Will and
the true Love of the Father and of the Son, through whom all things are
quickened and preserved, concerning whom it is thus said, "The Spirit of
God filleth all the circumference of earth, and he holdeth all things, and
he hath knowledge of every speech." He is not made, nor created, nor
begotten, but he is proceeding, that is going from, the Father and from the
Son, with whom he is equal and coeternal. The Holy Ghost is not a son, for
he is not begotten, but he proceeds from the Father and from the Son; for
he is the Will and Love of them both. Christ spake of him thus in his
gospel, "The Spirit of comfort whom I will send unto you, the Spirit of
truth, which proceedeth from my Father, will bear testimony concerning me."
That is, He is my witness that I am the Son of God. And the right faith
also teaches us, that we should believe in the Holy Ghost: he is the
quickening God, who proceeds from the Father and from the Son. How proceeds
he from him? The Son is the Wisdom of the Father, ever of the Father; and
the Holy Ghost is the Will of them both, ever of them both. There is
therefore one Father, who is ever Father; and one Son, who is ever Son; and
one Holy Ghost, who is ever Holy Ghost.
Ever was the Father, without beginning; and ever was the Son with the
Father, for he is the Wisdom of the Father; ever was the Holy Ghost, who is
the Will and Love of them both. The Father is of no other, for he was ever.
The Son is begotten of the Father, for he was ever in the bosom of {283}
the Father, for he is his Wisdom, and he is of the Father all that he is.
Ever was the Holy Ghost, for he is, as we before said, the Will and true
Love of the Father and of the Son; for will and love betoken one thing:
that which thou wilt thou lovest; and that which thou wilt not, thou lovest
not.
The sun which shines over us is a bodily creature, and has, nevertheless,
three properties in itself: one is the bodily substance, that is the sun's
orb; the second is the beam or brightness ever of the sun, which illumines
all the earth; the third is the heat, which with the beam comes to us. The
beam is ever of the sun, and ever with it; and the Son of Almighty God is
ever of the Father begotten, and ever with him existing, of whom the
apostle said, that he was the brightness of his Father's glory. The heat of
the sun proceeds from it and from its beam; and the Holy Ghost proceeds
ever from the Father and from the Son equally; of whom it is thus written,
"There is no one who may hide himself from his heat."
Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, may not be named together, but yet they
are nowhere separated. The Almighty God is not threefold, but is Trinity.
The Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God: not three
Gods, but they all three one Almighty God. The Father is also Wisdom of no
other wisdom. The Son is Wisdom of the wise Father. The Holy Ghost is
Wisdom. But yet they are all together one Wisdom. Again, the Father is true
Love, and the Son is true Love, and the Holy Ghost is true Love; and they
all together one God and one true Love. In like manner the Father is ghost
and holy, and the Son is ghost and holy undoubtedly; nevertheless the Holy
Ghost is specially called Holy Ghost, that which they all three are in
common.
There is so great likeness in this Holy Trinity, that the Father is no
greater than the Son in the Godhead; nor is the {285} Son greater than the
Holy Ghost; nor is one of them less than the whole Trinity. Wheresoever one
of them is, there they are all three, ever one God indivisible. No one of
them is greater than other, nor one less than other, nor one before other,
nor one after other; for whatsoever is less than God, that is not God; that
which is later has beginning, but God has no beginning. The Father alone is
not Trinity, nor is the Son Trinity, nor the Holy Ghost Trinity, but these
three persons are one God in one Godhead. When thou hearest the Father
named, then thou wilt understand that he has a Son. Again, when thou
sayest, Son, thou knowest, without doubt, that he has a Father. Again, we
believe that the Holy Ghost is the Spirit both of the Father and of the
Son.
Let no man deceive himself so as to say or to believe that there are three
Gods, or that any person in the Holy Trinity is less mighty than other.
Each of the three is God, yet they are all one God; for they all have one
nature, and one Godhead, and one substance, and one counsel, and one work,
and one majesty, and like glory, and coeternal rule. But the Son alone was
incarnate and born to man of the holy maiden Mary. The Father was not
invested with human nature, but yet he sent his Son for our redemption, and
was ever with him, both in life and in passion, and at his resurrection,
and at his ascension. Also all the church of God confesses, according to
true faith, that Christ was born of the pure maiden Mary, and of the Holy
Ghost. Yet is not the Holy Ghost the Father of Christ; never shall any
christian man believe that: but the Holy Ghost is the Will of the Father
and of the Son; therefore is it very rightly written in our belief, that
Christ's humanity was accomplished by the Holy Ghost.
Behold the sun with attention, in which there is, as we before said, heat
and brightness; but the heat dries, and the {287} brightness gives light.
The heat does one thing, and the brightness another; and though they cannot
be separated, the heating, nevertheless, belongs to the heat, and the
giving light to the brightness. In like manner Christ alone assumed human
nature, and not the Father, nor the Holy Ghost: they were, nevertheless,
ever with him in all his works and in all his course.
We speak of God, mortals of the Immortal, feeble of the Almighty, miserable
beings of the Merciful; but who may worthily speak of that which is
unspeakable? He is without measure, because he is everywhere. He is without
number, for he is ever. He is without weight, for he holds all creatures
without toil; and he disposed them all in three things, that is in measure,
and in number, and in weight. But know ye that no man can speak fully
concerning God, when we cannot even investigate or reckon the creatures
which he has created. Who by words can tell the ornaments of heaven? Or who
the fruitfulness of earth? Or who shall adequately praise the circuit of
all the seasons? Or who all other things, when we cannot even fully
comprehend with our sight the bodily things on which we look? Behold thou
seest the man before thee, but at the time thou seest his face, thou seest
not his back. So also if thou lookest at a cloth, thou canst not see it all
together, but turnest it about, that thou mayest see it all. What wonder is
it, if the Almighty God is unspeakable and incomprehensible, who is
everywhere all, and nowhere divided?
Now some shallow-thinking man will inquire, how God can be everywhere at
once, and nowhere divided. Behold this sun, how high he ascends, and how he
sends his beams over all the world, and how he enlightens all this earth
which mankind inhabit. As soon as he rises up at early morn, he shines on
Jerusalem, and on Rome, and on this country, and on all countries at once;
and yet he is a creature, and goes {289} by God's direction. How much
ampler then is God's presence, and his might, and his visitation
everywhere! Him nothing withstands, neither stone wall nor broad barrier,
as they withstand the sun. To him nothing is hidden or unknown. Thou seest
a man's face, but God seeth his heart. The spirit of God tries the hearts
of all men; and those who believe in him and love him he purifies and
gladdens with his visitation, and the hearts of unbelieving men he passes
by and shuns.
Let everyone also know that every man has three things in himself
indivisible and working together, as God said when he first created man. He
said, "Let us make man in our own likeness." And he then made Adam in his
own likeness. In which part has man the likeness of God in him? In the
soul, not in the body. The soul of man has in its nature a likeness to the
Holy Trinity; for it has in it three things, these are memory, and
understanding, and will. By the memory a man thinks on the things which he
has heard, or seen, or learned. By the understanding he comprehends all the
things which he hears or sees. Of the will come thoughts, and words, and
works, both evil and good. There is one soul, and one life, and one
substance, which has these three things in it working together inseparably;
for where memory is there is understanding and will, and they are ever
together. Yet is none of these three the soul, but the soul through the
memory reminds, through the understanding comprehends, through the will it
wills whatsoever it likes; and it is, nevertheless, one soul and one life.
It has therefore God's likeness in itself, because it has three things in
it inseparably working. Yet is the man one man, and not a trinity: but God,
Father and Son and Holy Ghost, exists in a trinity of persons and in the
unity of one Godhead. Man exists not {291} in trinity as God, but he has,
nevertheless, the likeness of God in his soul, by reason of the three
things of which we have before spoken.
There was a heretic called Arius, who disputed with a bishop who was named
Alexander, a wise and orthodox man. The heretic said, that Christ the Son
of God could not be equal to his Father, nor so mighty as he; and said,
that the Father was before the Son, and took example from men, how every
son is younger than his father in this life. Then said the holy bishop
Alexander in opposition to him, "God was ever, and ever was his Wisdom of
him begotten, and the Wisdom is his Son, as mighty as his Father." Then the
heretic got the emperor's support to his heresy, and proclaimed a synod
against the bishop, and would bend all the people to his heresies. Then the
bishop watched one night in God's church, and cried to his Lord, and thus
said, "Thou Almighty God, judge right judgement between me and Arius." On
the morrow they came to the synod. The heretic then said to his companions,
that he would go forth for his need. When he came to the place and sat, all
his entrails came out, while he was sitting, and he sat there dead. Thus
God manifested that he was as void in his inside as he had before been in
his belief. He would make Christ less than he is, and diminish the dignity
of his Godhead; when a death was given him as ignominious as he was well
worthy of.
There was another heretic who was called Sabellius. He said, that the
Father was, whenever he would, Father; and again, when he would, he was
Son; and again, when he would, was Holy Ghost; and was therefore one God.
Then this heretic also perished with his heresy.
Now again, the Jewish people who slew Christ, as he himself would and
permitted, say that they will believe in the Father, and not in the Son
whom their forefathers slew. Their belief is naught, and they will
therefore perish. For our redemption Christ permitted them to slay him. All
{293} mankind could not have done it, if he himself had not willed it; but
the Holy Father created and made mankind through his Son, and he would
afterwards through the same redeem us from hell-torment, when we were
undone. Without any passion he might have had us, but that seemed to him
unjust. But the devil undid himself, when he instigated the Jewish people
to the slaying of Jesus, and we were redeemed by his innocent death from
the eternal death.
We have the belief that Christ himself taught to his apostles, and they to
all mankind; and that belief God has confirmed and established by many
miracles. First Christ by himself healed dumb and deaf, halt and blind, mad
and leprous, and raised the dead to life: after, by his apostles and other
holy men, he wrought the same miracles. Now also in our time, everywhere
where holy men rest, at their dead bones God works many miracles, because
he will with those miracles confirm people's faith. God works not these
miracles at any Jewish man's sepulchre, nor at any other heretic's, but at
the sepulchres of orthodox men, who believed in the Holy Trinity, and in
the true Unity of one Godhead.
Let everyone know also, that no man may be twice baptized; but if a man err
after his baptism, we believe that he may be saved, if with weeping he
repent of his sins, and, according to the teaching of his instructors,
atone for them. We are to believe that the soul of every man is created by
God, but yet it is not of God's own nature. The matter of a man's body is
from the father and from the mother, but God creates the body from the
matter, and sends a soul into the body. The soul is nowhere existing
previously, but God creates it forthwith, and sets it in the body, and lets
it have its own election, whether it shall sin, whether it shall eschew
sins. Nevertheless it ever needs God's support, that it may eschew sins,
and again come to its Creator through good deserts; for no man doeth
anything good without God.
{295} We are also to believe that every body which has received a soul
shall arise at doomsday with the same body that he now has, and shall
receive the reward of all his deeds: then will the good have eternal life
with God, and he will give a meed to everyone according to his deserts. The
sinful will be ever suffering in hell-torment, and their torment will also
be measured to everyone according to his deserts. Let us therefore merit
eternal life with God through this faith, and through good deserts, who
existeth in Trinity One Almighty God ever to eternity. Amen.
* * * * *