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

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 what? Two Gods? Thou blushest to speak it, blush to believe it. Lord God the Father, thou sayest, and Lord God the Son: and the Son Himself saith, “No man can serve two Lords.”7    Matt. vi. 24 In His family shall we be in such wise, that, like as in a great house where there is the father of a family and he hath a son, so we should say, the greater Lord, the lesser Lord? Shrink from such a thought. If ye make to yourselves such like in your heart, ye set up idols in the “one soul.” Utterly repel it. First believe, then understand. Now to whom God gives that when he has believed he soon understands; that is God’s gift, not human frailness. Still, if ye do not yet understand, believe: One God the Father, God Christ the Son of God. Both are what? One God. And how are both said to be One God? How? Dost thou marvel? In the Acts of the Apostles, “There was,” it says, “in the believers, one soul and one heart.”8    Acts iv. 32 There were many souls, faith had made them one. So many thousands of souls were there; they loved each other, and many are one: they loved God in the fire of charity, and from being many they are come to the oneness of beauty. If all those many souls the dearness of love9    Charitas made one soul, what must be the dearness of love in God, where is no diversity, but entire equality! If on earth and among men there could be so great charity as of so many souls to make one soul, where Father from Son, Son from Father, hath been ever inseparable, could They both be other than One God? Only, those souls might be called both many souls and one soul; but God, in Whom is ineffable and highest conjunction, may be called One God, not two Gods.

4. Non introducimus duos deos, quomodo quidam introducunt, et dicunt: Deus Pater et Deus Filius, sed major Deus Pater, minor Deus Filius. Ambo quid? Duo dii? Erubescis dicere, erubesce credere. Dominus Deus Pater dicis, et Dominus Deus Filius: et dicit ipse Filius, Nemo potest duobus dominis servire (Matth. VI, 24). In familia ipsius sic erimus, ut, quomodo in domo magna ubi est paterfamilias et habet filium, dicamus et nos: Dominus major, Dominus minor? Aversamini talem cogitationem. Si vobis talia feceritis in corde, idola ponitis in anima una. Prorsus repellite. Prius credite, postea intelligite. Cui autem donat Deus, ut cum crediderit, cito intelligat; Dei donum est, non humana fragilitas. Tamen si nondum intelligitis, credite: Deus unus Pater, Deus Christus Filius Dei. Ambo quid? Unus Deus. Et quomodo ambo unus Deus dicitur? Quomodo? miraris? In Actibus Apostolorum, Et erat, inquit, credentium anima una et cor unum (Act. IV, 32). Multae animae erant, fides easdem unam fecerat. Tot millia animarum erant; amaverunt se, et multae sunt una: amaverunt Deum in igne charitatis, et ex multitudine ad pulchritudinis unitatem venerunt. Si tam multas animas fecit animam unam charitas; qualis charitas est apud Deum, ubi nulla diversitas, sed integra aequalitas? Si in terris et in hominibus potuit esse tanta charitas, ut de tot animabus faceret unam animam; ubi semper inseparabilis fuit Pater a Filio, Filius a Patre, potuerunt ambo esse nisi Deus unus? Sed illae animae, et multae animae dici potuerunt, et anima una: Deus autem, ubi est ineffabilis et summa conjunctio, unus Deus dici potest, non dii duo.