A Profession of Faith

If we acknowledge a homeland, let us also blush for its fault; for to me the city into which I have been renewed is my region or homeland. Let nothing of earthly kinships be ascribed to me, which I remember I have renounced. Whoever it is that judges me faithless by reason of kinship with a province, let him know that he himself is the faithless one; for he has either forgotten, or thinks slippery, that which he knows to have been confessed in baptism: for without doubt he does not abandon earthly kinship, who refutes me on the ground of a paternal error. Certainly, according to the ordinance of human action, the father makes the homeland. How is a homeland on earth said to be mine, to whom by heavenly precept it is not permitted to call, or to have, a father on earth? Do you wish, that by clear examples through me this be proved to you, who blame the province for its error?

Did not the Novatians, dissenting from the Catholics on this ground, contract the leprosy of a shameful heresy by a perverse judgment, because they believed that even a past series of sins ought to be ascribed also to those who came after, and hated not so much the heresy as the people? If for the fault of one the whole generation of a province is to be anathematized, let that most blessed disciple also be condemned, that is, Rome, from which now not one, but two or three, or even more heresies have sprouted; and yet none of them could either hold or move the chair of Peter, that is, the seat of the Faith. Let all the provinces also finally be condemned, from which the various rivulets of error have flowed. That vessel of election and teacher of the Gentiles, when Eutychus fell from the third floor, erring, I believe, somewhat concerning the Trinity, restored the warmth of faith, and gave back life, that is, granted pardon.

We, perhaps still sitting in the window, that is, in the way of light and the splendor of faith, are condemned by judges too severe, not from examination but from suspicion: not knowing that with what judgment they shall have judged, it shall be judged of them, and that whoever shall say to his brother, Racha, shall be guilty of the fire of hell. For Racha is interpreted "empty." And who is empty, but he whose inward parts lack the truth of faith, and is like sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal? He who had seen Christ but one night said to his fellow tribesmen: Does our law judge a man, unless it first hear what he does? And do these, who for so many years have been followers of the Lord, judge before they hear and know that whereby they judge?

If sentence is to be given before knowledge, why did the lawgiver command that, before the priest enters and sees whether the house is torn by the leprosy of a curious or tinkling heresy, it should not be judged unclean? Let it not, I beg, most blessed brother, be thought ill of the province. For it does not escape your discernment, that when at the coming of the Lord's ark the head of Dagon was broken into a hundred pieces along with both his feet, his spine is described as having remained whole. For we understand the head of Dagon, or his feet, to be the members of the world, that is, the east and the west; in which parts, under the presence of the law, all the perversity of errors has been crushed. It shall be yours to judge what is the middle of the spine, in which the joining of the knots still remains undissolved. Why then, I ask, is my province sought out? I am a pilgrim, as were all my fathers.

Yet if it is greatly sought where I was born, let my confession be accepted, which I answered at the birth of baptism: for it was not my homeland that gave me confession, but confession that gave me a homeland; for I believed, and I received. Nor let the Samaritan condition darken me; for, questioned at the well, I believed in Christ, and cleansed from the leprosy of unbelief, I acknowledged him. Yet, since the ordinances of apostolic teaching move us to give to all who ask us a reason for the faith and hope that are in us, let us not delay to show your blessedness, who are the builder of that very edifice, the rule of our faith.

But lest this very thing arouse a suspicion of unbelief, that I am somewhat slow in answering what is asked: we believe that God is: what he was, he was; what he was, he shall be, never other, ever the same: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit: one God, and one Son from the Father, the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son. This substance is of one Trinity, and these three have one will. Neither is the one who communicates greater, nor the one who receives lesser: nor is there a second after the first, nor a third from the second; for so the prophetic institutions have taught us, saying: You shall not go up by steps to my altar. For we suppose the altar to be, as it were, a certain base of Faith, whence the nourishments of the vital food are partaken; for the altar, from the property of its name, is nothing else than the lofty knowledge of sublime things.

For the name "altare," divided by syllables and taken from its ending, signifies and sounds a "high thing." We ought not to ascend to this Faith by steps, lest by thinking unequally we should make a passage from the lower to the higher; but we should enter by an equal step of our heart, so that we may hold the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be of one substance, one power, one virtue. For "Father" is the principal name of the divinity in itself, which is believed, and which is called: God the Father, God the Son from the Father, not from himself, but of the Father. God the Father, and God the Son: but the Father is not the same as the Son; yet the Father is believed to be the same thing that the Son is. And the Holy Spirit is not the unbegotten Father, but the Spirit of the unbegotten Father.

The Son is begotten, the Spirit is not the Son, but is himself the Spirit, upon whom the Spirit was sent from the Father by the Son. And so, since the Father is unbegotten, whose the Spirit is, it would be said carelessly that the Holy Spirit is unbegotten, lest two unbegotten, or two Fathers, be reckoned by unbelievers. The Son of the Father, begotten before the ages by the Father, cannot have another begotten as consort; that he may be believed only-begotten, and two begotten not be said. For the Father is the one unbegotten, the Son is the one begotten, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, coeternal with the Father and the Son; since there is one work, and one operation of will in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The Father unbegotten, the Son begotten, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, coeternal with the Father and the Son; but the one is born, the other proceeds, as it is read in the Gospel of blessed John: The Spirit who proceeds from the Father, he shall announce to you all things. And so let the Holy Spirit be reckoned neither as the unbegotten Father, nor as the begotten Son; but as the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father. But that which proceeds is not other than that whence it proceeds. If person is sought, he is God. This threefold conjunction and conjoined division both excludes union in the persons, and maintains unity in the distinction of the persons.

And so we believe the most blessed Trinity; that it is of one nature, one deity, one and the same virtue and substance; nor is there any diversity between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, except that the one is the Father, and the other the Son, and the other the Holy Spirit; a Trinity in subsisting persons, a Unity in nature and substance. We believe also that the Son was born in the last days of the Virgin and of the Holy Spirit, and took on the flesh of human nature and a soul.

In which flesh he both suffered and was buried, and rose again from the dead, we believe and confess; and in that very same flesh in which he lay in the tomb, after the resurrection he ascended into heaven, whence we await his coming for the judgment of the living and the dead: the Virgin also, of whom we know he was born, we hold to be a Virgin before childbirth, and a Virgin after childbirth, lest we be reckoned partakers of the Helvidian error.

We confess also the flesh of our resurrection to be whole and perfect, this very flesh in which we live in the present age, and by which we are either governed by good arts, or subjected to evil works, so that in it we may either, for our evils, endure the torments of punishment, or, for our good deeds, acquire the rewards of the good: nor, as some most absurdly say, do we assert that another flesh shall rise instead of this one, but this very same, with no member at all amputated from it, nor any part of the body cut away. This is the treasury of our Faith, which, sealed by the ecclesiastical Symbol which we received in baptism, we guard. So before God we believe with the heart: so before men we confess with the lips; that our knowledge may create faith in men, and our likeness may render testimony to God.

This is the staff of our defense, with which we strike the mouths of those who murmur against us, who bark at us as we pass along the way of this age, from the yoke of custom, not from zeal of reason. This is the shield of our faith, with which we repel and avoid the poisoned darts of detracting words and suspicions, lest the speech of the enemy, which is aimed to wound, find in us some exposed member bare of the protection of faith. But let us be silent about these things, since our present care is not to strike back, but only to avoid, the enemy.

Now indeed, if it is also asked of us how we feel concerning the soul, we believe it to have been made, just as we read in the prophet Jeremiah, spoken through King Zedekiah, saying: As the Lord liveth, who made us this soul. But if it is asked whence it was made, I confess that I do not know, because I recognize that I have nowhere read it: and therefore I am not ashamed of my ignorance, since I am not taught by reading; nor do I fear danger, because I do not presume upon what I do not read, lest I be found a transgressor of the prophetic precepts, which commands that blood not be eaten, adding, that the blood of all flesh is the soul. For what is it to eat blood, but to dispute about the soul?

And therefore we can say that the flesh which was founded in us in Adam was compacted from the qualities of the world's substance, by God as the artificer and author; but the blood we pour at the base of the altar; that is, we leave it to Him who created it to know whence He created it. For the base of the altar is as it were a certain root of depth, to whose secret we also join the account of the soul, concerning which we cannot dispute. And therefore we do not say that the soul is a part of God, as some assert, because God is impartible and undivided and impassible: but the soul is subject to various passions, as the daily outcome of things proves.

Nor do we say that it was made from any creature, lest we make it viler than the other creatures, over which it has been established as mistress, if it act well; but that it is formed only from the will of God, whose power has no need of matter out of which to work what He wills, but His very will is the matter of those things which He commands to be made or to be. But neither do we lend our hand to that assertion, in which some take superfluous delight, believing that souls are generated by transfusion; because the blessed David contradicts this suspicion, saying: Know ye that the Lord himself is God: he made us, and not we ourselves. And elsewhere: Who fashioned their hearts one by one. Where shall this transfusion find a place, where either hearts are fashioned one by one, or it is said: he made us, and not we ourselves? Those, therefore, who say that souls are generated by transfusion are said to assert this, namely, that we ourselves make ourselves.

But this the prophetic foreknowledge rebukes, saying: He made us, and not we ourselves. Apart from the Trinity alone, therefore, we believe and confess that everything which has dominion, is done, or is moved, whether in heaven or on earth and sea, is a creature.

We do not hold that the devil was so made that he is the devil, nor that he had a proper genus of his own nature such that he was born a devil, and that this surname was given by merit, not by God: nor is he unbegotten, because he is not God; nor was the devil made, because God did not make evil, but he was made a good angel, as Scripture shows: By the good, all concupiscence was wrought in me. For I believe him to have been an evil angel in this way, as the Apostle says: There was given to me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me. And elsewhere: Unless the fugitive and the departure shall come.

Therefore he who is now a fugitive was once, in the sight of the Creator, in that lofty degree which is written by the prophets, when it is said: And thou wast the seal of resemblance, and the crown of beauty, and so forth; and elsewhere: How is Lucifer, who arose in the morning, fallen from heaven? Him we say to have received from his Maker a nature capable of good and evil, surrounded with the glory and honor of immortality; he also received the dignity of knowledge; who, lifted up in pride, believed to be his own what was not his; since he who had made him did not see a Lord. I am, he said, and there is none other besides me. Thence he was assigned to earth and ashes, as it is written: Why art thou proud, earth and ashes? And, The beginning of sin is pride. He who is assigned to Tartarus and perpetual fire is subject to perennial punishment, not immortal life.

We believe every creature of God, which has been granted by the Creator for use as food, to be good, just as it was made: and God saw that they were very good. But to abstain from these for a time, not out of superstition of religion nor abomination of God's creature, but for continence of the flesh, we hold to be useful, according to the counsel of the Apostle, who says: It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine; and when it pleases, to use it, and when it delights, to abstain, is within the power of man. We approve marriages, which have been granted by God as author; we preach continence within them; virginity, as an excellent shoot, proceeding from the exhausted root of the trunk, we extol and admire. We believe the difference between the just and sinners arises not from the ordinance of the Creator, but from the choice of the will.

We receive the penitence of sinners with the fullest faith, and regard it as a kind of second grace, as the Apostle says to the Corinthians: I wished to come to you, that you might have a second grace.

We receive the Old and New Testament with equal scale; and like a balance of weight running through its marks, so we weigh the deeds of the testimonies with a movable consideration. Nor, in emptying the trust of history, do we believe that all the deeds we read are merely allegorical; but according to Apostolic teaching we search out in them a spiritual sense, as the Lord shall give; a sense, however, which pertains to the type of Christ and the Church, or which profits for the amendment and correction of morals. And this indeed according to that which the Apostle says: All these things happened to them in figure of us.

And elsewhere the blessed Peter: Every word needs interpretation. Every scripture that does not agree with nor is consonant with the ecclesiastical canon we not only do not receive, but we even condemn it as alien to the truth of the Faith. We do not easily give assent to strange and unknown fables concerning the contents of the Scriptures; nor does new doctrine quickly enter the caverns of our ears, because we read of a new Virgin, another one, in secret, which we suspect to be a raw or secret doctrine; which for this reason is forbidden to be looked into, lest it deceive the hearts of men, feigned under the appearance of truth, by the beauty and sweetness of words.

That doctrine is a virgin which is known to no ecclesiastical or catholic man; but it has always grown up among women, that is, among souls, which, always learning, mingle themselves with credulous facility with every spirit of deception, taking no care whence they conceive; whereas the Lord commanded in the Law that one should be joined in marriage only from one's own tribe, that is, that understanding of the faith which descends from the seed of the fathers, that is, from doctrine, and is ennobled by the lineage and race of Abraham, who first believed while yet in uncircumcision. That doctrine is a virgin which pleases herself only in secret, and blushes to come out into public. Such a one we not only flee, but we also condemn with public voice, teaching that it is foolish to believe that which we either cannot ourselves defend, or which ought not to come to public ears.

We observe more intent fasts according to the ecclesiastical rule and discipline, so that in three seasons of the year our "masculine" element, that is, the work of virtue which surpasses other work, may appear: and if at any time fasts are proclaimed to the Church, then we desire to fast, not only from the customary use of food, but also from conversation, tales, and greetings which mix in tales. And although we feel these things, God being witness, just as we write them; yet we do not so flatter ourselves about the truth that, if perchance priests or teachers, who are the heads of the people and the pillars of the churches, approving some of the things which we have professed, should say something more correct, we would be slow to pass over into their opinion; and we remember the precept written: Ask your fathers, and they will tell you. For we are not so foolish that, to whom we submit our heads for sanctification, to them we should be unwilling to humble our hearts.

He is the Shepherd: whither he shall call, I will follow; what he shall say, I will ruminate upon; because he himself knows that an account must be rendered for my keeping. Let these be the things which for the present I have been able to bring to your attention: if any seem either to have been passed over through zeal, or still to tickle your mind, deign to ask without shame, that I may answer without delay, and either be corrected from error, or confirmed in the Faith. I call to witness every reader of the words of this profession, that if anyone shall take away from these things, God will take away from the book of life a part of the same. For as for him who shall believe us to speak one thing with our lips and hold another in our heart—as I said above, God can inspect our heart.

We ourselves have offered our lips for confession: of these things men can judge, we have given satisfaction; and thus every word of ours shall stand by two witnesses, that is, God, whose judgment upon us we invoke, if we lie; and men, whose suspicions we correct by our confession, lest they wish to sin further against us by thinking evil. If anyone, having heard these things, shall persist in unbelief, so as not to give us the assent of faith, I do not doubt that on the day of judgment he shall have a part either among the unbelieving people, or among false witnesses, and shall receive, according to the judgment of the law of Moses, the iniquity which he meditates against his brother.

For we, although we are sinners, yet on account of those three hundred golden shields which Solomon made, ought not to make bronze ones. For the shield is a figure of Faith, according to the Apostle, who says: and Taking the shield of faith. And he makes bronze ones instead of golden who, having withdrawn the truth of faith, renders only a degenerate tinkling of confession; and though he seems devout in number, yet he is found guilty by his vow, in confessing that which he does not believe. Of such men indeed the blessed Apostle is to be supposed to have spoken: Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Does it not seem to you that virtue can be perceived in gold, and mere appearance in bronze? But we desire to keep the prophetic assertion, that we may place the shields of our faith before the feet of the king's horses, who are none other than bishops or teachers, whose feet are swift upon the mountains, evangelizing peace.

For the three hundred golden shields are either the faith of the blessed Trinity, or the reckoning of all creatures, of heaven, earth, and sea: and the runners who place them before the feet of the horses are to be believed to be those who could say: I have finished my course; because, having been established by the law, we may be able to keep it even unto the end, lest Shishak king of Egypt, that is, the devil, snatch them away from the temple of our heart. May the suffrages of your prayers keep watch to Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory for ages of ages, amen.