received. Let your parents, who support you,31 start teaching you, so that you
SERMON 213 147 with fruit, clothe them with leaves—can the cultivator do all that? But our cultivator, God the Father, can do all these things in us. Why? Because we believe in God the Father almighty. So hold on to what I have put before you and what, as God has been good enough to grant me, I have explained.
In eight days the repetition of the Symbol
11. In eight days time you are going to give back what today you have received. Let your parents, who support you,31 start teaching you, so that you may be found ready; teaching you how you should wake up at cockcrow for the prayers which you celebrate here.32 Now we begin by giving you the Symbol here, so that you may diligently learn it by heart; but none of you must get into a state, and because of such agitation fail to give it back. Don't worry, we are your fathers,33 we aren't carrying the canes and switches of schoolteachers. If any of you get the words wrong, at least don't get the faith wrong.
NOTES
1. This sermon was probably preached several years before Sermon 212. The preacher seems a little more scrupulous about the actual words of the creed, than we found him to be in that sermon. And indeed from this sermon we can reconstruct the actual form of the creed in the Church of Hippo Regius. It is in substance the same as the apostles' creed we have today, which is the old baptismal creed of the Roman Church. But there are minor variations in detail. And on this it is to be noted that Augustine doesn't always quote it in quite the same form. His other sermons on the same topic show variations; just as he didn't always quote the Lord's prayer in quite the same way in his sermons on that subject. These sermons on the creed were all, naturally, preached in Hippo Regius.
2. Augustine actually quotes the words straight from J1 3:5, which Paul was quoting; the opening formula, "it shall come to pass," is not there in Romans.
3. Lewis & Short's Latin Dictionary informs us that it was particularly the Epidaurian snake, which wealthy Romans often kept as pets, that was known as a draco or dragon. This was almost certainly a python, the emblem of the god Aesulapius at the shrine of Epidaurus, and a python is presumably what Augustine also had in mind.
4. That is, the Cherubim and Seraphim, Thrones, Dominations, Principalities and Powers; here distinguished from angels who are, strictly speaking, only messengers—the bellhops of the heavenly court.
5. J1 3:5. 6. His key word is "hope"; they shall hope beneath the shelter of your wings. We are now saved in hope, spe, not yet in fact, re.
7. Again, Augustine quotes the prophet. Is 52:7, more fully than Paul does.
8. The handing over of the Lord's prayer, a week later; in eight days' time, according to the Roman method of counting both ends: thus tomorrow is two days after today, counting both today and tomorrow.
9. Here he seems to be adverting to the root meaning of the Greek word sumbolon, of something "put together." In Sermon 212 he referred to the word's use in common commercial language; here he goes on to allude to yet another common meaning, as a token or proof of identity, something like a passport, or password.