On the Creed:

 1. Receive, my children, the Rule of Faith, which is called the Symbol (or Creed ). And when ye have received it, write it in your heart, and be daily

 2. Of this, then, ye have now received, have meditated, and having meditated have held, that ye should say, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.” Go

 3. For this reason we believe also in His Son, that is to say, God the Father Almighty’s, “His Only Son, our Lord.” When thou hearest of the Only Son

 4. We do not bring in two Gods as some do, who say, “God the Father and God the Son, but greater God the Father and lesser God the Son.” They both are

 5. The Father doeth what He will, and what He will doeth the Son. Do not imagine an Almighty Father and a not Almighty Son: it is error, blot it out w

 6. But this Only Son of God, the Father Almighty, let us see what He did for us, what He suffered for us. “Born of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Ma

 7. What next? “Suffered under Pontius Pilate.” He was in office as governor and was the judge, this same Pontius Pilate, what time as Christ suffered.

 8. He was begotten before all times, before all worlds. “Begotten before.” Before what, He in Whom is no before? Do not in the least imagine any time

 9. Of His cross what shall I speak, what say? This extremest kind of death He chose, that not any kind of death might make His Martyrs afraid. The doc

 10. Scripture saith, “Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord.” When we read what great trials Job endured, it makes o

 11. “He ascended into heaven:” believe. “He sitteth at the right hand of the Father:” believe. By sitting, understand dwelling: as [in Latin] we say o

 12. “Thence He shall come to judge the quick and dead.” The quick, who shall be alive and remain the dead, who shall have gone before. It may also be

 13. It follows in the Creed, “And in the Holy Ghost.” This Trinity, one God, one nature, one substance, one power highest equality, no division, no d

 14. It follows after commendation of the Trinity, “The Holy Church.” God is pointed out, and His temple. “For the temple of God is holy,” says the Apo

 15. “Forgiveness of sins.” Ye have [this article of] the Creed perfectly in you when ye receive Baptism. Let none say, “I have done this or that sin:

 16. In three ways then are sins remitted in the Church by Baptism, by prayer, by the greater humility of penance yet God doth not remit sins but to

 17. We believe also “the resurrection of the flesh,” which went before in Christ: that the body too may have hope of that which went before in its Hea

13. It follows in the Creed, “And in the Holy Ghost.” This Trinity, one God, one nature, one substance, one power; highest equality, no division, no diversity, perpetual dearness of love.34    Charitas Would ye know the Holy Ghost, that He is God? Be baptized, and ye will be His temple. The Apostle says, “Know ye not that your bodies are the temple within you of the Holy Ghost, Whom ye have of God?”35    1 Cor. vi. 19 A temple is for God: thus also Solomon, king and prophet, was bidden to build a temple for God. If he had built a temple for the sun or moon or some star or some angel, would not God condemn him? Because therefore he built a temple for God he showed that he worshipped God. And of what did he build? Of wood and stone, because God deigned to make unto Himself by His servant an house on earth, where He might be asked, where He might be had in mind. Of which blessed Stephen says, “Solomon built Him an house; howbeit the Most High dwelleth not in temples made by hand.”36    Acts vii. 47, 48 If then our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, what manner of God is it that built a temple for the Holy Ghost? But it was God. For if our bodies be a temple of the Holy Ghost, the same built this temple for the Holy Ghost, that built our bodies. Listen to the Apostle saying, “God hath tempered the body, giving unto that which lacked the greater honor;”37    1 Cor. xii. 24 when he was speaking of the different members that there should be no schisms in the body. God created our body. The grass, God created; our body Who created? How do we prove that the grass is God’s creating? He that clothes, the same creates. Read the Gospel, “If then the grass of the fields,” saith it, “which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, God so clotheth.”38    Matt. vi. 30 He, then, creates Who clothes. And the Apostle: “Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but a bare grain, as perchance of wheat, or of some other corn; but God giveth it a body as He would, and to each one of seeds its proper body.”39    1 Cor. xv. 36–38 If then it be God that builds our bodies, God that builds our members, and our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost, doubt not that the Holy Ghost is God. And do not add as it were a third God; because Father and Son and Holy Ghost is One God. So believe ye.

CAPUT V.

13. Spiritum sanctum esse Deum. Sequitur in Symbolo, Et in Spiritum sanctum. Ista Trinitas unus Deus, una natura, una substantia, una potentia, summa aequalitas, nulla divisio, nulla diversitas, 0635 perpetua charitas. Vultis nosse quod Deus est Spiritus sanctus? Baptizamini, et templum ejus eritis. Apostolus dicit, Nescitis quia corpora vestra templum in vobis est Spiritus sancti, quem habetis a Deo (I Cor. VI, 19)? Templum habet Deus: nam et Salomon rex et propheta jussus est aedificare templum Deo. Si aedificaret templum soli, aut lunae, aut stellae alicui, aut alicui angelo, nonne damnaret illum Deus? Quia ergo templum aedificavit Deo, ostendit se colere Deum. Et unde aedificavit? De lignis et lapidibus: quia dignatus est Deus facere sibi per servum suum domum in terra, ubi rogaretur, ubi memoraretur . Unde dicit beatus Stephanus: Salomon aedificavit illi domum, sed Altissimus non in manu factis templis inhabitat (Act. VII, 47 et 48). Si ergo corpora nostra templum est Spiritus sancti, qualis Deus est qui aedificavit templum Spiritui sancto? Sed Deus. Si enim templum Spiritus sancti sunt corpora nostra, ille Spiritui sancto aedificavit templum, qui et corpora nostra. Attendite Apostolum dicentem, Deus temperavit corpus, ei cui deerat majorem honorem dans (I Cor. XII, 24); cum loqueretur de diversis membris, ut non essent scissurae in corpore. Deus creavit corpus nostrum. Herbam Deus creavit, corpus nostrum quis creavit? Unde probamus quia herbam Deus creat? Qui vestit, ipse creat. Evangelium lege: Si ergo fenum agri, ait, quod hodie est, et cras in clibanum mittitur, Deus sic vestit (Matth. VI, 30). Ille ergo creat, qui vestit. Et Apostolus: Stulte, quod seminas non vivificatur, nisi moriatur : et quod seminas, non corpus quod futurum est seminas, sed nudum granum, ut forte tritici, aut alicujus caeterorum; Deus autem illi dat corpus quomodo voluerit, et unicuique seminum proprium corpus (I Cor. XV. 36-38). Si ergo Deus corpora nostra aedificat, si Deus membra nostra aedificat, et corpora nostra templum sunt Spiritus sancti; nolite dubitare Deum esse Spiritum sanctum. Et nolite addere quasi tertium Deum; quia Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus unus est Deus. Sic credite.