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SERMON 58 A Third on the Creed1 he one who looks for faith does not look for reason ; the one who asks for divine things puts human ones aside. The one who is born of God as Father transcends nature; and the one who is deemed worthy of the Author of time owes nothing to time. Now look, devoted offspring of faith, we see that you want to be born before you are conceived; to carry off the kingdom of heaven before submitting to the narrow confines of the womb; to be so intent upon the joys of your Father that you bypass the anguish of your Mother; and you do not consider it a premature birth, which you believe is mature through Christ.2 Thus Paul the apostle is born mature through faith, who proclaims that he is prematurely born through time.3 So, accept the faith by faith alone, and do not look for an explanation of that very faith to be revealed to you. So that you for your part do not have to provide an explanation, you have in your haste kept it securely enclosed within the faith. Today the faithfulness of your Creator invites you, my children, to faith; he fulfills the pledge he had promised before receiving your pledge of faithfulness; and this he has rendered to human affairs, as he had once promised verbally through the prophet: “Open your mouth wide,” he says, “and I shall fill it.”4 That is: “Open wide in professing, and I shall fill it with the mystery of what you profess, I shall enrich it with mystical words, and fill it with all the eloquence of the secrets of heaven.” And truly, children , whatever the one who listens and responds professes out 221 1. Regarding the term symbolum for the “Creed,” see Sermon 56, n. 1. 2. See Sermon 56, n. 7. 3. See 1 Cor 15.8. 4. Ps 80.11 LXX; Ps 81.10. 222 ST. PETER CHRYSOLOGUS of obedience, this is thanks to the grace of God, who gives and teaches. 2. Therefore, as you are about to receive the Creed, that is, the pact5 of life, the pledge6 of salvation, and the indissoluble bond of faith between you and God, prepare your hearts, not a piece of paper; sharpen your understanding, not your pen; and write out what you have heard, not with ink, but with your spirit at your service.7 Recognize that the eternal and heavenly secret cannot be entrusted to perishable, corruptible tools, but it must be placed in the safe of the soul itself, in the very library8 of the spirit within you, so that no profane investigator, nor the power of the enemy may find anything to dissect and tear apart.9 Otherwise what has been bestowed for the salvation of the person who professes and believes may become the ruin of the one who despises it and is ignorant of it. But when the prophet says to you: “Open your mouth wide, and I shall fill it,”10 may you be able to respond: “In my heart I have hidden your eloquence, so that I may not sin against you.”11 3. I believe in God the Father Almighty.12 The one who has professed the Father also professes the Son, because without the Son, he cannot be called Father. And because there can be no increase or addition to God, the Son always was, because the Father also always was. The Son cannot have a beginning, be5 . On the Creed as a pact, see also Augustine, Sermon 212.1 (FOTC 38.117), and Niceta of Remesiana, An Explanation of the Creed 13 (FOTC 7.53). 6. On the Creed as a pledge, see also Augustine, Sermon 214.12 (FOTC 38.142). 7. See Sermon 56.5, nn. 17 and 18. 8. The use of the term bibliotheca (“library”) to refer to the human “memory” among early Christian authors is discussed in A. Mundó, “Bibliotheca: Bible et lecture du carême d’après saint Benoît,” Revue Bénédictine 60 (1950): 77, n. 2. 9. On the topic of being foolishly inquisitive and with some of the same terminology , see Ps.-Augustine, Sermon 122.3 (PL 39.1990). 10. Ps 80.11 LXX; Ps 81.10. 11. Ps 118 (119).11. 12. For the entire text of the Creed of Ravenna, as well as of other creeds from Italy and Remesiana (in the...

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