Churches probably on the fourth Sunday of Lent; to be "given back" the following Sunday, when
138 SAINT A UGUSTINE - SERMONS hope at the end for the resurrection of your bodies;7 not to suffer pain and grief, which is what the wicked are going to rise again to, nor to enjoy what the flesh desires, as silly people think, but as the apostle says, it is sown embodying the soul, it will rise again embodying the spirit (1 Cor 15:44). Then the body will be so subordinate to the spirit enjoying the beatific vision, so adapted with a marvelous felicity to enjoying every facility,8 that no longer will it weigh down the soul (Wis 9:15), nor require any sustenance because it will experience no wear and tear. But it will abide in eternal life, where eternity itself will be life for our spirit together with the body.
Keep the Symbol in your memory
2. So now, I have paid my debt to you with this short sermon on the whole Symbol. When you hear the whole of this Symbol,9 you will recognize this sermon of mine briefly summed up in it. And in no way are you to write it down, in order to retain the same words; but you are to learn it thoroughly by hearing it, and not write it down either when you have it by heart, but keep it always and go over it in your memory.10 After all, everything you are going to hear in the Symbol is already contained in the divine documents of the holy scriptures, from which you regularly hear extracts as the need arises.11
But the fact that the Symbol, put together and reduced to a certain form in this way, may not be written down, is a reminder of God's promise, where he foretold the new covenant through the prophet, and said, This is the covenant which I will draw up for them after those days, says the Lord; putting my laws into their minds, I will write them also on their hearts (Jer 31:33). It is to illustrate this truth that by the simple hearing of the Symbol it is written not on tables,12 or on any other material, but on people's hearts. The God who has called you to his kingdom and his glory will ensure that it is also written on your hearts by the Holy Spirit, once you have been bom again by his grace; so that you may love what you believe, and faith may work in you through love.13 In this way may you please the Lord God, the giver of all good things, not out of fear of punishment like slaves, but out of a love of justice like free people. So this is the Symbol which has already been imparted to you as catechumens through the scriptures and sermons in church, but which has to be confessed and prac¬ ticed and made progress in by you as baptized believers.
NOTES
1. The Creed, or Symbol, was "handed over" to those to be baptized at Easter, in the African Churches probably on the fourth Sunday of Lent; to be "given back" the following Sunday, when the Lord's prayer was next "handed over."
2.1 have to keep the term "symbol" here, because he goes on to explain it. I suppose it was the usual commercial word for any kind of contract.