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Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 6.2 (2006) 281-282


Reviewed by
Maxwell E. Johnson
University of Notre Dame
Quodvultdeus of Carthage: The Creedal Homilies. Conversion in Fifth-Century North Africa. Translation and Commentary by Thomas Macy Finn. Ancient Christian Writers. Vol. 60. New York/Mahwah: The Newman Press, 2004. 137 + x pp. $22.95

What a delight to have in such a fine edition Thomas Finn's excellent translation of the creedal homilies of Quodvultdeus of Carthage, younger contemporary and friend of Augustine of Hippo, and a very important source for the North African Rites of Christian Initiation and for the overall religious, social, and cultural context of that period. These homilies on the North-African Creed also offer us an introduction to North-African baptismal spirituality, a spirituality rich in diverse biblical imagery. That is, although Quodvultdeus is preaching these homilies to the competentes before their Baptism at Easter, it is not only Romans 6 imagery that one finds in his approach. Rather, baptism as conception and new birth in service to Pascha is equally present, as the following quotation makes clear:

Let our Bridegroom ascend the wood of his bridal-chamber; let our Bridegroom ascend the wood of his marriage bed. Let him sleep by dying. Let his side be opened, and let the virgin Church come forth. Just as when Eve was made from the side of a sleeping Adam, so the Church was formed from the side of Christ, hanging on the cross. For his side was pierced, as the gospel says, and immediately there flowed out blood and water, which are the twin sacraments of the Church: the water, which became her bath, and the blood which became her dowry.

(37)

Such are the spiritual riches that await the reader of this text.

In addition to this, these homilies are a rich source of historical information for Jewish-Christian relationships in Carthage, for anti-Arian teaching, for Christian-pagan relationships, for ecclesiology (the Church as virginal mother), for a developing Mariology (an expanded New Eve typology), and, of course, for the state of the Creed itself in mid-fifth century North Africa. In his excellent introduction Finn provides us with a text of the Creed known to Augustine, given to the competentes at Carthage two weeks before Easter Baptism:

I believe in God, the Father omnipotent, creator of all things, and in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born from the Virgin Mary. He was crucified, died, and was buried under Pontius Pilate. But on the third day he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God the Father, from which he will come to judge the living and the dead. And [I believe] in the Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of sins, and eternal life through the holy catholic church .

(6)

It is certainly evident that Quodvultdeus had a very similar, if not identical, text, though in light of today's translation discussions in some liturgical circles about the use of "I' or "We believe," Quodvultdeus seems to waver between both wordings (compare 28, 34).

It must be underscored that these particular homilies, oriented as they are to pre-baptismal catechesis and formation, remind us of the very central importance to Christian spirituality of liturgy both in the patristic period and today. Indeed, if one wants to understand early Christian spirituality one must understand early [End Page 26] Christian liturgy since Christian life was formed, nurtured, and brought to birth and life through this liturgical formation process which included a lengthy catechumenal period leading to election as competentes (called electi or illuminandi elsewhere) and finally to the celebration of the Rites of Initiation themselves at Easter. It is no wonder that, as some have asserted, if the terminology of "Blessed Sacrament" had been used in Christian antiquity, it would have meant "Baptism," meaning, of course, the entire baptismal complex, leading from catechumenate to its culmination in...

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