Chapter XVI.
Recapitulation of what was said of the Catholic Faith
and of divers Heresies, Chapters xi–xv.
[41.]
But
now that we may
refresh our remembrance of what has been briefly said concerning either
the afore-mentioned heresies or the Catholic Faith, let us go over it
again more briefly and concisely, that being repeated it may be more
thoroughly understood, and being pressed home more firmly
held.
Accursed then be Photinus, who does not receive the
Trinity complete, but asserts that Christ is mere man.
Accursed be Apollinaris, who affirms that the Godhead of
Christ is marred by conversion, and defrauds Him of the property of
perfect humanity.
Accursed be Nestorius, who denies that God was born of
the Virgin, affirms two Christs, and rejecting the belief of the
Trinity, brings in a Quaternity.
But blessed be the Catholic Church, which worships one
God in the completeness of the Trinity, and at the same time adores the
equality of the Trinity in the unity of the Godhead, so that neither
the singularity of substance confounds the propriety of the Persons,
not the distinction of the Persons in the Trinity separates the unity
of the Godhead.
Blessed, I say, be the Church, which believes that in
Christ there are two true and perfect substances but one Person, so
that neither doth the distinction of natures divide the unity of
Person, nor the unity of Person confound the distinction of
substances.
Blessed, I say, be the Church, which understands God to
have become Man, not by conversion of nature, but by reason of a
Person, but of a Person not feigned and transient, but substantial and
permanent.
Blessed, I say, be the Church, which declares this unity
of Person to be so real and effectual, that because of it, in a
marvellous and ineffable mystery, she ascribes divine attributes to
man, and human to God; because of it, on the one hand, she does not
deny that Man, as God, came down from heaven, on the other, she
believes that God, as Man, was created, suffered, and was crucified on
earth; because of it, finally, she confesses Man the Son of God, and
God the Son of the Virgin.
Blessed, then, and venerable, blessed and most sacred,
and altogether worthy to be compared with those celestial praises of
the Angelic Host, be the confession which ascribes glory to the one
Lord God with a threefold ascription of holiness. For this reason
moreover she insists emphatically upon the oneness of the Person of
Christ, that she may not go beyond the mystery of the Trinity (that is
by making in effect a Quaternity.)
Thus much by way of digression. On another
occasion, please God, we will deal with the subject and unfold it more
fully.
480
Now let us return to the matter in
hand.
480
Anrtelmi, who
ascribed the Athanasian Creed to Vincentius, thought that document a
fulfilment of the promise here made.
Nova de Symbolo Athanasiano
Disquisitio
.—See Appendix I.