Against the Jews, Pagans, and Arians (Sermon on the Creed)

Contents

Reading pages: 1–12 · 13–22

1. 1After the night vigil the preacher explains to those about to be baptized that renouncing the devil means casting off the works of darkness and believing in God means putting on the armor of light.
2. 2The devil, a proud angel who fell, envied Adam and stripped him of chastity, temperance, love, and immortality, binding all his descendants with him.
3. 3Pleading the case of the human race, an orphan in debt to the devil, before the apostles, the preacher gives their verdict: renounce the devil, his pomps, and his angels.
4. 4At the judgment the devil will claim as his own any baptized person who after renouncing him went back to the circus, theater, and amphitheater, so the candidates must keep their profession.
5. 5God the almighty Father has a Son equal to himself, God from God, day from day, light from light, yet one God, one day, one light.
6. 6The Son is light from light with the Father, one light, against the Manichaeans and the Arians; if David and Sirach could not comprehend even the soul or the creation, no one can search out God’s Wisdom.
7. 7The Arian who cannot count the raindrops or his own hairs presumes to dispute about God’s Wisdom and calls the Son less, though even a wise man rejoices to leave a son like himself.
8. 8Christ’s words “The Father is greater than I” refer to his human nature, in which he was less even than the angels, while in the form of God he is equal to the Father.
9. 9The Son, equal to the Father in divinity, was born of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, a unique miracle in which God and flesh were joined in one Christ.
10. 10At Christ’s birth angels and a star rejoiced and the Magi adored him, while Herod and the Jewish leaders plotted his death and Herod killed the infants, whom Christ received into eternal life.
11. 11The preacher summons witnesses from the Jews’ own Law and prophets to Christ, beginning with Isaiah’s virgin and the passage he attributes to Jeremiah on God seen on earth.
12. 12Daniel testifies that anointing would cease when the Holy of holies came, and that the stone cut without hands would become a mountain, the Christ whom Peter confessed.
13. 13Moses, David, and Habakkuk are called as witnesses: the prophet like Moses, the Lord at God’s right hand, and Christ known “in the midst of two living creatures” at the manger, on the cross, and at the Transfiguration.
14. 14Simeon, Zechariah and Elizabeth, and John the Baptist bear witness to Christ, John even in the womb and at the Jordan.
15. 15Witnesses from the Gentiles are called: Virgil’s “new offspring sent from heaven” and Nebuchadnezzar, who saw one like the Son of God in the furnace.
16. 16The Sibyl is called as a third Gentile witness: her acrostic verses on the judgment spell “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior,” and other verses foretell his passion and resurrection.
17. 17Heaven, sea, earth, and the underworld all bore witness to Christ, and creation itself trembled at his death, yet the Jews who killed him refused to believe.
18. 18The Jews’ malice served salvation, and their dispersion with the prophetic books witnesses to Christ against the pagans; then (chapter 19) the Holy Spirit is confessed equal to Father and Son against the Arians, who rebaptize.
19. 20True faith and salvation are found only in the Catholic Church; the heretic will rise to damnation, while (chapter 21) the faithful will enter a life of truth, peace, and joy without fear.
20. 22The way to eternal life is the whole Christ, head and body, Christ and the Catholic Church; the Arian church is a harlot posing as the bride, called to return, while the true mother patiently bears her persecution.