Around the same time, in the presence of the bishops, who at their bidding were holding a plenary council of all Africa at Hippo Regius, I, then a priest, delivered a discourse On Faith and the Creed. At the most earnest urging of some of those who loved us more intimately, I put that discourse into a book, in which the subjects themselves are treated in such a way that the connected sequence of words handed down to be memorized by those preparing for baptism is nevertheless not produced.

In this book, when the resurrection of the flesh was being discussed, I said: the body will rise again according to the Christian faith, which cannot deceive. To anyone who finds this incredible, he is attending to what the flesh is now and is not considering what it will be, because at that time of the angelic change it will no longer be flesh and blood but only a body, and the rest, where I discussed the changing of earthly bodies into heavenly bodies, since the Apostle said, when speaking of this matter: flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50). But whoever takes these words so as to suppose that the earthly body such as we now have is changed by the resurrection into a heavenly body in such a way that neither these members nor the substance of the flesh will remain, is without doubt to be corrected, being reminded of the body of the Lord, who after the resurrection appeared in the same members not only to be seen with the eyes but even to be handled with the hands, and who confirmed in words too that he had flesh, saying: handle me and see, for a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you see that I have (Luke 24:39).

From this it is clear that the Apostle did not deny that the substance of the flesh would be in the kingdom of God, but that he used the name flesh and blood to refer either to people who live according to the flesh or to the very corruption of the flesh, which then certainly will not exist at all. For when he had said: flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God, it is rightly understood that he immediately added, as though explaining what he had said: nor will corruption possess incorruption (1 Cor 15:50). On this matter, which is difficult to argue persuasively to unbelievers, whoever reads the last book of The City of God will find that I have treated it as carefully as I could.

This book begins thus: Since it is written.

1. Since it is written, and confirmed by the most robust authority of apostolic teaching, that the just man lives by faith (Rom 1:17), and since this faith demands of us a service both of the heart and of the tongue—for the Apostle says: with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Rom 10:10)—we ought to be mindful both of righteousness and of salvation. For, destined as we are to reign in everlasting righteousness, we cannot be saved from the present evil age unless we too, striving for the salvation of our neighbors, also profess with our mouth the faith we carry in our heart. And lest this faith be in any part violated in us by the deceitful cunning of heretics, we must take care with devout and watchful vigilance.

Now the catholic faith is made known to the faithful through the Creed and committed to memory, in as brief a form of words as the matter has allowed: so that for beginners and infants, those who have been reborn in Christ and are not yet strengthened by the most diligent and spiritual treatment and knowledge of the divine Scriptures, what is to be believed might be set down in a few words, while what would have to be expounded in many words is for those who are making progress and who are rising to the divine teaching with the firm strength of humility and love.

Under these very few words, then, set down in the Creed, many heretics have tried to conceal their poison; but divine mercy has resisted them and continues to resist them through spiritual men, who have been granted not only to accept and believe the catholic faith in those words, but also, by the Lord's revealing, to understand and know it. For it is written: unless you believe, you will not understand (See Isa 7:9).

But the treatment of the faith serves to fortify the Creed: not so that it should itself be handed over in place of the Creed to be committed to memory and recited by those receiving the grace of God, but so that it may guard the things retained in the Creed against the snares of heretics by catholic authority and a stronger defense.

2. For some have tried to convince others that God the Father is not almighty—not that they have dared to say this, but they are shown to hold and believe it in their teachings. For when they say that there is a nature which almighty God did not create, but out of which he nevertheless fashioned this world, which they grant to be beautifully ordered, they thereby deny that God is almighty, in that they do not believe he could have made the world unless, in fashioning it, he made use of some other nature, which already existed and which he himself had not made: this comes, of course, from the bodily habit of seeing carpenters and builders of houses and craftsmen of every kind, who cannot bring the work of their art to completion unless they are helped by material prepared beforehand. Thus they understand that the maker of the world is not almighty, if he could not have fashioned the world unless some nature not fashioned by him, serving as matter, were to help him.

Or if they grant that almighty God is the maker of the world, they must necessarily confess that he made what he made out of nothing. For there cannot be anything of which he, being almighty, was not the creator. For even if he made something out of something, as he made man from clay, he certainly did not make it out of what he himself had not made; for the earth from which the clay comes he had made out of nothing.

And if he had made heaven and earth themselves—that is, the world and all that is in it—out of some matter, as it is written, you who made the world out of unseen matter (Wis 11:17), or even unformed, as some copies have it, in no way is it to be believed that the very matter out of which the world was made, however unformed, however unseen, in whatever manner it existed, could have existed of itself, as though coeternal and coeval with God. Rather, whatever measure it had, by which it existed in any way at all and was able to receive the forms of distinct things, it had only from almighty God, by whose bounty there exists not only whatever is formed but also whatever is formable.

Now between what is formed and what is formable there is this difference: that what is formed has already received form, while what is formable is able to receive it. But he who bestows form on things also bestows the power to be formed; for from him and in him is the most beautiful and unchangeable form of all things; and therefore he alone it is who grants to anything not only that it should be beautiful but also that it should be able to be beautiful.

For this reason we most rightly believe that God made all things out of nothing: because, even if the world was made out of some matter, that very matter was itself made out of nothing, so that by God's most orderly gift the first capacity for forms might come to be, and then whatever things are formed might be formed. We have said this, however, lest anyone suppose that the statements of the divine Scriptures contradict one another, since it is written both that God made all things out of nothing and that the world was made out of unformed matter.

3. Believing, then, in God the Father almighty, we ought to think that there is no creature which has not been created by the Almighty. And since he created all things through the Word, which Word is also called the Truth and the Power and Wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24), and is intimated by many other names by which the one commended to our faith is the Lord Jesus Christ, our Liberator, that is, and our Ruler, the Son of God; for that Word through which all things were founded could not have been begotten except by him who through it founded all things.

We believe also in Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Father's Only-begotten, that is, his only Son, our Lord. Yet we ought not to understand that Word as we do our own words, which, brought forth by voice and mouth, pass away upon the beaten air and last no longer than they sound. For that Word abides unchangeably; for of it, when Wisdom was spoken of, it was said: abiding in herself she makes all things new (Wis 7:27). And it is called the Word of the Father because through it the Father is made known. Therefore, just as by our words we bring it about, when we speak the truth, that our mind is made known to the hearer, and whatever we carry secretly in our heart is brought forth by signs of this kind to the knowledge of another, so that Wisdom which God the Father begot, since through it the most hidden Father is made known to worthy minds, is most fittingly named his Word.

4. But between our mind and our words, by which we try to show that same mind, there is a very great distance. For we do not beget the sounding words but make them; and in making them the body lies beneath as matter. And there is a very great difference between mind and body. God, however, when he begot the Word, begot what he himself is; neither out of nothing, nor out of any matter already made and founded, but out of himself begot that which he himself is. For this is what we too try to do when we speak, if we carefully consider the longing of our will—not when we lie, but when we speak the truth. For what else do we strive for than to bring our very mind, if it can be done, into the mind of the hearer to be known and perceived: so that we ourselves indeed remain in ourselves and do not depart from ourselves, and yet bring forth such a sign by which our thought may come to be known in another, so that, as far as the capacity is granted, a kind of second mind may be brought forth from the mind through which it makes itself known?

This we do by trying both with words, and with the very sound of the voice, and with the face, and with the gesture of the body—desiring by so many devices to display what is within: but because we cannot bring forth anything of that kind perfectly, the mind of the speaker cannot become thoroughly known; and hence too there is room for lies.

But God the Father, who most truly both willed and was able to make himself known to minds that would know him, begot for the making of himself known that which he is who begot it: who is also called his Power and Wisdom, because through him he wrought and arranged all things; of whom for this reason it is said: he reaches mightily from one end to the other, and orders all things sweetly (Wis 8:1).

5. Therefore the only-begotten 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, since God, being eternally wise, has his Wisdom eternally with him; nor is he unequal to the Father, that is, in any way less; for the Apostle too says: who, though he was established in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal to God (Phil 2:6). By this catholic faith, then, those too are excluded who say that the Son is the same as the Father; because this Word could not be with God unless it were with God the Father, and he who is alone is equal to none.

Those too are excluded who say that the Son is a creature, though not such as the other creatures are. For however great a creature they may call him, if he is a creature, he has been founded and made.

For to found is the same as to create; although in the usage of the Latin language "to create" is sometimes said for what is "to beget," yet the Greek distinguishes the two. For we call "a creature" what they too name a creature: and when we wish to speak without ambiguity, we do not say "to create" but "to found."

Therefore, if the Son is a creature, however great he may be, he has been made. But we believe in him through whom all things were made, not in him through whom the rest were made; for here we cannot understand all things in any other sense than whatever things have been made.

6. But since the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), that same Wisdom which was begotten of God deigned also to be created among men. To this pertains that saying: the Lord created me in the beginning of his ways (Prov 8:22). For the beginning of his ways is the head of the Church, which is Christ clothed with manhood, through whom an example of living might be given to us, that is, a sure way by which we might come to God. For we who had fallen through pride could not return except through humility, as it was said to our first parent: taste, and you will be as gods (See Gen 3:5).

Of this humility, then—that is, of the way by which we had to return—our Restorer himself deigned to display the example in himself, who did not count it robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:6–7); so that man might be created in the beginning of his ways, the Word through whom all things were made. Therefore, according to what he is as Only-begotten, he has no brothers; but according to what he is as Firstborn, he deigned to call brothers all who, after him and through his primacy, are reborn into the grace of God by the adoption of sons, as the apostolic teaching commends.

The natural Son, then, was born of the very substance of the Father as his only Son, being that which the Father is: God from God, Light from Light; we, however, are not light by nature, but are illumined by that Light, so that we may be able to shine with Wisdom. For that, he says, was the true Light, which enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1:9). We add, therefore, to the faith concerning eternal things also the temporal dispensation of our Lord, which he deigned to carry out and minister for us for our salvation. For according to what he is as the Only-begotten Son of God, it cannot be said: he was, and: he will be; but only: he is: because what was, now is not; and what will be, is not yet. He, then, is unchangeable, without the condition of times and without variation. And I think it is from no other source that he intimated to his servant Moses such a name of his own. For when Moses asked him, if the people to whom he was being sent should despise him, by whom he should say he was sent, he received as answer the words: I am who am. Then he added: this you will say to the children of Israel: 'he who is has sent me to you.' (Exod 3:14)

7. From this I am confident it is now clear to spiritual minds that no nature can be contrary to God. For if he it is—and this word "is" can properly be said of God alone (for what truly is abides unchangeably, since what is changed once was something that now is not, and will be something that is not yet)—then God has nothing contrary to him. For if it were asked of us what is contrary to white, we would answer black; if it were asked what is contrary to hot, we would answer cold; if it were asked what is contrary to swift, we would answer slow; and so for all such things. But when it is asked what is contrary to that which is, the right answer is: that which is not.

8. But since, through the temporal dispensation, as I have said, for our salvation and restoration, by the working of God's kindness, our changeable nature was taken up by that unchangeable Wisdom of God, we add the faith concerning the temporal things wrought for our benefit on our behalf, believing in him, the Son of God, who was born through the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary.

For by the gift of God—that is, by the Holy Spirit—so great a humility of so great a God has been granted to us, that he deigned to take up the whole man in the womb of the Virgin, dwelling in the maternal body whole and leaving it whole. Against this temporal dispensation the heretics lay snares in many ways.

But whoever holds the catholic faith, so as to believe that the whole man was taken up by the Word of God—that is, body, soul, and spirit—is sufficiently fortified against them.

Indeed, since this taking-up was carried out for our salvation, we must beware lest, if anyone believes that some part of us does not belong to this taking-up, it should not belong to salvation. And since man, apart from the form of his members, which is allotted differently to the different kinds of living things, differs from a beast only by a rational spirit, which is also called mind; how can the faith be sound by which it is believed that the Wisdom of God took up that part of us which we have in common with the beast, but did not take up that part which is illumined by the light of wisdom and which is proper to man?

9. Those too are to be detested who deny that our Lord Jesus Christ had Mary as a mother on earth, since that dispensation honored both sexes, both male and female, and showed that there belongs to God's care not only the one whom he took up, but also the one through whom he took it up—by being a man and by being born of a woman. Nor does what was said by him compel us to deny Christ's mother: what is it to me and to you, woman? my hour has not yet come (John 2:4). Rather, it admonishes us to understand that, according to his divinity, he did not have a mother—he whose person of majesty he was preparing to display by turning the water into wine. But in that he was crucified, he was crucified according to his manhood; and that was the hour which had not yet come, when it was said: what is it to me and to you? my hour has not yet come—that is, the hour in which I shall acknowledge you.

For then, crucified as a man, he acknowledged his human mother, and most humanely commended her to his most beloved disciple. Nor should that move us, that when his mother and his brothers were announced to him, he answered: who is my mother, or who are my brothers? (See Matt 12:48)

But rather let our ministry teach—the ministry by which we minister the word of God to the brethren—that when parents stand in the way they ought not to be acknowledged. For if anyone should suppose, on this account, that Christ did not have a mother on earth because he said, who is my mother?, he would necessarily be forced to deny also that the apostles had fathers on earth, since he commanded them, saying: call no one your father on earth; for one is your Father, who is in heaven (Matt 23:9).

10. Nor let the thought of a woman's womb diminish this faith for us, as though for that reason such a generation of our Lord should seem to be rejected, because filthy minds think it filthy. For the Apostle most truly says both that the foolishness of God is wiser than men (1 Cor 1:25), and that to the pure all things are pure (Titus 1:15). Those, then, who think this should consider the rays of the sun, which they certainly do not praise as a creature of God but worship as God: these rays are diffused everywhere through the stench of sewers and through whatever horrible things there are, and operate in them according to their nature, and yet are not thereby made foul by any contamination, even though visible light is by nature more closely joined to visible filth. How much less, then, could the Word of God—not corporeal nor visible—be polluted by a female body, in which it took up human flesh together with soul and spirit, by whose interposition the majesty of the Word dwells more secretly apart from the frailty of the human body?

Hence it is manifest that the Word of God could in no way be defiled by a human body, by which not even the human soul itself is defiled. For the soul is not defiled by the body when it rules and gives life to it, but when it desires its mortal goods. And if they wished to avoid the stains of the soul, they would rather dread these lies and sacrileges.

11. But the humility of our Lord in being born was a small thing for us: it was added that he should deign also to die for mortals. For he humbled himself, being made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Phil 2:8); so that none of us, even if he could not fear death, should shrink from any kind of death which men consider most disgraceful. We believe, then, in him who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and buried. For the name of the judge had to be added, for the sake of knowing the time. And when that burial is believed, there comes the remembrance of the new tomb, which would furnish a testimony to one rising again to newness of life, as the Virgin's womb did to one about to be born. For just as in that tomb no other dead person was buried, neither before nor after, so in that womb nothing mortal was conceived, neither before nor after.

12. We believe also that he rose again from the dead on the third day, the firstborn among the brothers who will follow him, whom he called into the adoption of sons of God, whom he deigned to be his fellow sharers and coheirs.

13. We believe that he ascended into heaven, that place of blessedness which he also promised to us, saying: they will be as the angels in heaven (Matt 22:30), in that city which is the mother of us all, the eternal Jerusalem in heaven. Now it is wont to give offense to certain people, whether impious pagans or heretics, that we believe an earthly body was taken up into heaven. But the pagans for the most part are eager to argue with us by the arguments of the philosophers, so as to say that something earthly cannot be in heaven. For they do not know our Scriptures, nor do they know how it was said: a natural body is sown, a spiritual body rises (1 Cor 15:44).

For it was not said as though the body were turned into spirit and became spirit; since even now our body, which is called natural, has not been turned into soul and become soul. Rather, a spiritual body is understood to be one that is so subject to the spirit that it is fit for a heavenly dwelling, with all earthly frailty and corruption changed and converted into heavenly purity and stability. This is the change of which the Apostle likewise says: we shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed (1 Cor 15:51). And he teaches that this change comes about not for the worse but for the better, when he says: and we shall be changed (1 Cor 15:52).

But where and how the Lord's body is in heaven, it is most idle and superfluous to inquire; only it must be believed to be in heaven. For it is not for our frailty to discuss the secrets of the heavens, but it is for our faith to hold high and honorable thoughts concerning the dignity of the Lord's body.

14. We believe also that he sits at the right hand of the Father. Yet we must not therefore suppose that God the Father is, as it were, circumscribed by a human form, so that, to those thinking of him, a right or left side should occur to the mind; nor must we suppose that the very fact that the Father is said to sit comes about by the bending of knees, lest we fall into that sacrilege in which the Apostle execrates those who exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of corruptible man (Rom 1:23).

For it is wickedness for a Christian to set up such an image of God in a temple; much more wicked is it in the heart, where the temple of God truly is, if it be cleansed from earthly desire and error. At the right hand, then, is to be understood as said in this way: in the highest blessedness, where there is righteousness and peace and joy; just as the goats are placed at the left hand—that is, in misery, on account of their iniquities, toils, and torments.

Therefore the fact that God is said to sit signifies not the position of members but the power of judgment, of which that majesty is never devoid, always assigning what is due to those who are worthy; although in the last judgment the undoubted splendor of the only-begotten Son of God, the judge of the living and the dead, will shine forth far more manifestly among men.

15. We believe also that from there he will come at a most fitting time and will judge the living and the dead. Whether by these names the righteous and sinners are signified, or whether those whom he will then find on earth before death are called the living, while the dead are those who will rise again at his coming, this temporal dispensation not only is, as that generation according to his divinity is, but also was and will be. For our Lord was on earth, and now is in heaven, and will be in splendor as the judge of the living and the dead. For he will come just as he ascended, according to the authority contained in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 1:11). And so it is from this temporal dispensation that he speaks in the Apocalypse, where it is written: thus says he who is, and who was, and who is to come (Rev 1:8).

16. The divine generation of our Lord and his human dispensation having thus been set in order and committed to faith, there is added to our confession, to perfect the faith we have concerning God, the Holy Spirit, of no lesser nature than the Father and the Son, but, so to speak, consubstantial and coeternal; because this Trinity is one God: not so that the Father is the same as the Son and the Holy Spirit, but so that the Father is the Father, and the Son is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and yet this Trinity is one God, as it is written: hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God (Deut 6:4).

Yet if we are questioned about each one, and it is said to us: Is the Father God? we will answer: God. If it is asked whether the Son is God, we will answer the same. Nor, if such a question is asked about the Holy Spirit, ought we to answer that he is anything other than God; while taking the most vehement care not to understand it in the way it was said of men: you are gods (Ps 82:6 (81:6)). For they are not gods by nature, whoever they are that have been made and founded by the Father through the Son by the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the Trinity itself is signified when the Apostle says: since from him, and in him, and through him are all things (Rom 11:36). Therefore, although when questioned about each one we answer that the one in question is God, whether the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, yet no one should suppose that three gods are worshiped by us.

17. Nor is it any wonder that these things are said of the ineffable nature, since something of the same kind happens even in those things which we perceive with our bodily eyes and judge by our bodily sense. For when questioned about a spring, we cannot say that it is itself the river; nor when questioned about the river can we call it the spring; and again, the drink which is from the spring or the river we can call neither river nor spring; yet in this trinity we name it water, and when asked about each one singly, we answer singly that it is water.

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, no other answer is given; and in that drink there can be no other reply: yet we call these not three waters, but one. Of course, we must beware lest anyone think of the ineffable substance of that majesty as he thinks of this visible and corporeal spring or river or drink.

For in these, the water which is now in the spring goes out into the river and does not remain in itself; and when it passes from the river or the spring into the drink, it does not remain there whence it is taken. And so it can come about that the same water now belongs to the name of spring, now to that of river, now to that of drink: whereas in that Trinity we have said it cannot come about that the Father himself is sometimes the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit.

Just as in a tree the root is nothing but the root, the trunk is nothing other than the trunk, and we can call the branches nothing but the branches: for what is called the root cannot also be called both trunk and branches; nor can the wood that belongs to the root be, by any passing-over, now in the root, now in the trunk, now in the branches, but only in the root: while that rule of the name remains, that the root is wood, and the trunk is wood, and the branches are wood; and yet they are not called three woods, but one.

Or if these have some dissimilarity, so that they can not absurdly be named three woods—indeed they can be called three woods, on account of the difference of firmness—this at least all concede: that if three cups are filled from one spring, they can be called three cups, but cannot be called three waters, but altogether one water; even though, when questioned about each cup, you answer that there is water in any of them: although here there is no passing-over, as we said in the case of the spring into the river.

But these corporeal examples have been given not on account of any likeness to that divine nature, but on account of the unity even of visible things, so that it might be understood that it can come about that certain three things obtain one singular name not only singly but also together; and that no one should wonder or think it absurd that we call the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God, and yet that there are not three gods in this Trinity, but one God and one substance.

18. Concerning the Father and the Son, indeed, learned and spiritual men have discoursed in many books, in which they have tried to intimate, as far as men could to men, both how the Father and the Son were not one person but were one, and what the Father properly is, and what the Son: namely, that the one is begetter, the other begotten; the one is not from the Son, the other is from the Father; the one is the beginning of the other, whence he is also called the head of Christ, although Christ too is a beginning, but not of the Father; while the latter is the Image of the former, although in no part unlike and altogether equal without distinction.

These matters are treated more at length by those who wish to expound the profession of the whole Christian faith not so briefly as we do.

And so, insofar as he is Son, he has received from the Father that he should exist, whereas the Father did not receive this from the Son; and insofar as, by ineffable mercy, in a temporal dispensation, he took up man—that is, a changeable creature, to be changed for the better.

Many things are found said of him in the Scriptures in such a way that they have driven into error the impious minds of the heretics, who wish to teach before they know, so that they suppose him not equal to the Father nor of the same substance—such as these: since the Father is greater than I (John 14:28); and: the head of woman is man, the head of man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God (1 Cor 11:3); and: then he himself will be subject to him who subjected all things to him (1 Cor 15:28); and: I go to my Father and your Father, my God and your God (John 20:17); and some others of this kind.

All these have been set down not to signify an inequality of nature and substance, lest those other passages be false: I and the Father are one (John 10:30); and: he who has seen me has also seen my Father (See John 14:9); and: the Word was God (John 1:1)—for he was not made, since all things were made through him—and: he did not count it robbery to be equal to God (Phil 2:6); and the rest of this sort. Rather, those passages were set down partly on account of the administration of the man he took up, in respect of which it is said: he emptied himself (Phil 2:7); not because that Wisdom was changed, since it is altogether unchangeable, but because it willed to become known to men so humbly: partly, then, on account of this administration were those passages written of which the heretics make their false charges; partly because the Son owes to the Father what he is, owing to the Father this too, that he is equal or on a par with that same Father, whereas the Father owes to no one whatever he is.

19. Concerning the Holy Spirit, however, there has not yet been so full and careful a discussion by the learned and great expositors of the divine Scriptures, that it might easily be understood what is also his own property, that property by which it comes about that we can call him neither Son nor Father, but only the Holy Spirit; except that they preach that he is the gift of God, so that we may believe that God gives a Gift not inferior to himself.

They take care, nevertheless, to preach that the Holy Spirit is not begotten of the Father as the Son is—for Christ is the only Son—nor is he, as it were, the grandson of the most high Father; and yet that what he is he owes to none but the Father, from whom are all things: lest we set up two beginnings without a beginning, which is utterly false and most absurd, and proper not to the catholic faith but to the error of certain heretics.

Some, nevertheless, have dared to believe that the Holy Spirit is the very communion of the Father and the Son—their "deity," so to speak, which the Greeks call theotes (deity)—so that, since the Father is God and the Son is God, the deity itself, by which they are joined to each other, both the one by begetting the Son and the other by cleaving to the Father, is made equal to him by whom it is begotten.

This deity, then, which they would also have understood as the mutual love and charity of the two for each other, they say is called the Holy Spirit. And they support this opinion of theirs with many proofs from the Scriptures; whether by that which was said: since the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Rom 5:5); or by many other such testimonies, and by the very fact that through the Holy Spirit we are reconciled to God: whence too, when he is called the Gift of God, they would have it sufficiently signified that the love of God is the Holy Spirit. For we are not reconciled to him except through love, by which we are also called sons of God: no longer under fear like servants, because perfect love casts out fear; and we have received the Spirit of freedom, in whom we cry: Abba, Father (Rom 8:15).

And because, reconciled and recalled into friendship through love, we shall be able to know all the secrets of God, therefore it is said of the Holy Spirit: he himself will lead you into all truth (John 16:13). For this reason too the confidence in proclaiming the truth, with which the apostles were filled at his coming, is rightly attributed to love; because diffidence belongs to fear, which the perfecting of love shuts out. And therefore he is called the Gift of God, because no one enjoys what he knows unless he also loves it. But to enjoy the wisdom of God is nothing other than to cleave to it by love; nor does anyone abide in what he perceives except by love; and therefore he is called the Holy Spirit, since for the sake of abiding whatever things are sanctioned are sanctioned, and there is no doubt that holiness is named from "sanctioning." But the upholders of this opinion make most use 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): since God is Spirit (John 4:24). For here he speaks of our regeneration, which is not from the flesh according to Adam, but from the Holy Spirit according to Christ.

For this reason, if mention was made of the Holy Spirit in this passage, when it was said: since God is Spirit, it must be observed, they say, that it was not said, "since the Spirit is God," but: since God is Spirit; so that the very deity of the Father and the Son was here called God, which is the Holy Spirit. To this is added another testimony which the Apostle John gives: since God is love (1 John 4:8).

For here too he does not say, "love is God," but: God is love; so that the very deity is understood to be love. And as for the fact that, in that enumeration of things connected with one another, where it is said: all things are yours, but you are Christ's, and Christ is God's (1 Cor 3:22–23); and: the head of woman is man, the head of man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God (1 Cor 11:3), no mention is made of the Holy Spirit—this, they say, belongs to the point that in things which are connected with one another the connection itself is not usually counted.

Hence in that passage too those who read more attentively seem to recognize the Trinity itself, when it is said: since from him, and through him, and in him are all things (Rom 11:36). From him, as from him who owes to no one what he is; through him, as through the Mediator; in him, as in him who contains—that is, joins them together by union.

20. This opinion is contradicted by those who judge that this communion—which we call either deity or love or charity—is not a substance; and they ask that the Holy Spirit be expounded to them as a substance, and do not understand that it could not have been said, God is love, unless love were a substance. For they are led astray by the habit of corporeal things; since, if two bodies are joined to each other so as to be placed side by side, the joining itself is not a body; inasmuch as, when those corporeal things that had been joined are separated, no such joining is found: nor yet is it understood to have departed and migrated, as those bodies do.

But let such people make their heart clean, as far as they can, that they may be able to see that in the substance of God there is nothing of that kind, as though one thing there were substance and another were something that befalls the substance and is not substance; but whatever can be understood there is substance.

But these things can easily be said and believed: how they stand, however, cannot be seen at all except by a pure heart. Therefore, whether this opinion be true, or whether it be something else, the faith must be held unshaken, that we call the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God; and yet not three gods, but this Trinity one God; not diverse in nature, but of the same substance; not so that the Father is sometimes the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit, but the Father always Father, and the Son always Son, and the Holy Spirit always Holy Spirit. Nor let us rashly affirm anything about invisible things as though we knew it, but as believing it; since they cannot be seen except by a cleansed heart: and if anyone sees them in this life in part, as has been said, and in a riddle (1 Cor 13:12), he cannot bring it about that the one to whom he speaks should also see, if that person is hindered by the filth of his heart. But blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8). This is the faith concerning God our founder and renewer.

21. But since love has been commanded us not only toward God, when it was said: you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with your whole mind (Matt 22:37), but also toward our neighbor; for you shall love, he says, your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:39); unless this faith holds together a gathering and fellowship of people, in which brotherly love is at work, it is less fruitful.

21. We believe also in the holy Church, that is, the Catholic Church. For both heretics and schismatics call their congregations churches. But heretics, by thinking false things about God, violate the faith itself; while schismatics, by wicked divisions, leap apart from brotherly love, although they believe what we believe. Therefore neither do heretics belong to the Catholic Church, since she loves God; nor do schismatics, since she loves her neighbor. And so she easily forgives the sins of her neighbor, because she prays that her own be forgiven by him who reconciled us to himself, blotting out all that is past and calling us to a new life; which life, until we attain it in its perfection, we cannot be without sins: yet it matters of what kind they are.

22. We need not now treat of the difference among sins, but it must be altogether believed that in no way are the sins we commit forgiven us, if we are ourselves implacable toward forgiving sins. And so we believe also in the forgiveness of sins.

23. And since there are three things of which man consists—spirit, soul, and body—which again are spoken of as two, because often the soul is named together with the spirit; for a certain part of it, 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 the soul; lastly, the body itself, since it is visible, is the lowest part of us. Now this whole creation groans and is in travail until now (Rom 8:22); yet it has given the firstfruits of the spirit, because it has believed God and is now of good will. For this spirit is also called the mind, of which the Apostle says: with the mind I serve the law of God (Rom 7:25). And he likewise says in another place: for God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit (Rom 1:9).

The soul, however, when it still seeks the goods of the flesh, is called flesh. For a certain part of it resists the spirit, not by nature, but by the habit of sins. Hence it is said: with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin (Rom 7:25). This habit has been turned into a nature according to the mortal generation that follows upon the sin of the first man. And therefore it is written: and we too were once by nature children of wrath (Eph 2:3)—that is, of vengeance, through which it has come about that we serve the law of sin. But the nature of the soul is perfect when it is subject to its own spirit, and when it follows God, who follows after. Therefore the natural man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14).

But the soul is not subjugated to the spirit for good action as quickly as the spirit is subjugated to God for true faith and good will: rather, its impulse, by which it flows down into carnal and temporal things, is sometimes more slowly reined in.

But since the soul too is cleansed, recovering the stability of its nature when the spirit rules—the spirit which is its head, and whose head is Christ—we must not despair that the body too will be restored to its proper nature: but, of course, not so quickly as the soul, just as the soul is not restored so quickly as the spirit; rather, at the opportune time, at the last trumpet, when the dead will rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed (1 Cor 15:52).

And therefore we believe also in the resurrection of the flesh; not only because the soul is restored, which is now called "flesh" on account of its carnal affections, but also this visible flesh which is by nature flesh, which has received the name "soul" not on account of its nature but on account of carnal affections; this visible flesh, then, which is properly called flesh, must without doubt be believed to rise again.

For the apostle Paul seems to point it out, as it were, with his finger, when he says: this corruptible must put on incorruption (1 Cor 15:53). For when he says this, he points, as it were, his finger at it. But what is visible can be pointed out with the finger; for even the soul can be called corruptible, since it is itself corrupted by vices of conduct. And when one reads, and this mortal must put on immortality (1 Cor 15:53), the same visible flesh is signified, because at it again, as it were, a finger is pointed. For the soul too can be called both corruptible, on account of vices of conduct, and likewise mortal. For the death of the soul is to apostatize from God: which, as its first sin in paradise, is contained in the Sacred Letters.

24. The body, therefore, will rise again according to the Christian faith, which cannot deceive. To anyone who finds this incredible, he is attending to what the flesh is now and is not considering what it will be: because at that time of the angelic change it will no longer be flesh and blood, but only a body. For when the Apostle was speaking of flesh, he said: one is the flesh of cattle, another of birds, another of fish, another of serpents; and there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies (1 Cor 15:39–40). For he did not say, "and heavenly flesh"; rather he said, both heavenly and earthly bodies. For all flesh is also a body, but not every body is also flesh: first, among these earthly things, since wood is a body but not flesh; while of a man or of cattle there is both a body and flesh; but among heavenly things there is no flesh, but simple and shining bodies, which the Apostle calls spiritual, and which some call ethereal. And therefore that saying does not contradict the resurrection of the flesh: flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God (1 Cor 15:50); rather, it declares what that which is now flesh and blood will be.

Whoever does not believe that this flesh can be converted into such a nature must be led to faith by steps. For if you ask him whether earth can be converted into water, on account of their nearness it does not seem incredible to him.

Again, if you ask whether water can be converted into air, he answers that this too is not absurd; for they are near to each other.

And if you ask about air, whether it can be changed into an ethereal—that is, a heavenly—body, the very nearness now persuades him.

Since, then, he grants that it can come about by these steps that earth is converted into an ethereal body, why does he not believe that, when the will of God is added—by which a human body was able to walk upon the waters—this can come about most swiftly, in the way it was said, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor 15:52), without any such steps, just as smoke is for the most part converted into flame with wondrous swiftness?

For our flesh is certainly from the earth; and the philosophers, by whose arguments the resurrection of the flesh is more often opposed—the arguments by which they assert that no earthly body can be in heaven—grant that every body can be converted and changed into every body. And when this resurrection of the body has come about, freed from the condition of time, we shall fully enjoy eternal life with ineffable love and stability, without corruption. For then will come to pass that which is written: death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your sting? where, O death, is your striving? (1 Cor 15:54–55)

25. This is the faith which, in a few words, is given to be held in the Creed by new Christians.

These few words are known to the faithful, so that by believing they may be subject to God, being subject may live rightly, by living rightly may cleanse their heart, and with a cleansed heart may understand what they believe.