which is called the Symbol (or Creed °). And | Almighty. To our Almighty Father, it is quite
O Ne isEe CREED:
A SERMON PO vlith: CAChECHUMENS.
[DE SYMBOLO AD CATECHUMENOS.]
1. RECEIVE, my children, the Rule of Faith, | were in Him, He should not be worthy to be which is called the Symbol (or Creed °). when ye have received it, write it in your!impossible to sin. heart, and be daily saying it to yourselves; before ye sleep, before ye go forth, arm you with your Creed. The Creed no man writes so as it may be able to be read: but for rehearsal of it, lest haply forgetfulness obliterate what care hath delivered, let your memory be your record-roll:? what ye are about to hear, that are ye to believe; and what ye shall have believed, that are about to give back with your tongue. For the Apostle says, '' With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.''3 For this is the Creed which ye are to rehearse and to repeat in answer. These words which ye have heard are in the Divine Scriptures scattered up and down: but thence gathered and reduced into one, that the memory of slow persons might not be distressed; that every person may be able to say, able to hold, what he believes. For have ye now merely heard that God is Almighty? But ye begin to have him for your father, when ye have been born by the church as your Mother.
And | Almighty. To our Almighty Father, it is quite
He does whatsoever He will: that is Omnipotence. He does whatsoever He rightly will, whatsoever He justly will: but whatsoever is evil to do, He wills not. There is no resisting one who is Almighty, that He should not do what He will. It was He Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, invisible and visible. Invisible such as are in heaven, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, archangels, angels: all, if we shall live aright, our fellow-citizens. He made in heaven the things visible; the sun, the moon, the stars. With its terrestrial animals He adorned the earth, filled the air with things that fly, the land with them that walk and creep, the sea with them that swim: all He filled with their own proper creatures. He made also man after His own image and likeness, in the mind: for in that is the image of God. This is the reason why the mind cannot be comprehended even by itself, because in it is the image of God. To this end were we made, that over the other creatures we should bear rule: but through sin in the first man we fell, and areall come into an inheritance of death. We were brought low,. became mortal, were filled with fears, with errors: this by desert of sin: with which desert and guilt is every man born.s This is the reason why, as ye have seen to-day, as ye know, even little children undergo exsufflation, exorcism; to drive away from them the power of the devil their enemy, which deceived man that it might possess mankind. It is not then the creature of God that in infants undergoes exorcism or exsufflation: but he under whom are all that are born with sin; for he is the first ° of sinners. And for this cause by reason of one
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.'' God is Almighty, and yet, though Almighty, He cannot die, cannot be deceived, cannot lie; and, as the Apostle says, *' cannot deny Himself.'' How many things that He cannot do, and yet is Almighty! yeatherefore is Almighty, because He cannot do these things. For if He could die, He were not Almighty; if to lie, if to be deceived, if to do unjustly, were possible for Him, He were not Almighty: because if this
22 Codex. 42 Tim. ii. 13. I Symbolum. 3 Kom. x. to.
5 Gen. i-iii, 6 Princeps.