On Faith and the Creed

​From this, I trust it is now clear to spiritual minds that no nature can be contrary to God. For if He is, and this word can properly be said of God alone—for that which truly is remains immutably, since that which changes was something which it no longer is, and will be what it is not yet—God has nothing contrary to Him. For if it were asked of us what is contrary to white, we would answer black; if it were asked what is contrary to hot, we would answer cold; if it were asked what is contrary to swift, we would answer slow, and other similar things. But when it is asked what is contrary to that which is, it is rightly answered: that which is not.

​But through the temporal dispensation, as I said, since by the working of God’s benevolence for our salvation and restoration our mutable nature was assumed by that immutable wisdom of God, we add the faith in temporal things wholesomely done for us, believing in that Son of God who was born through the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Maria. For by the gift of God, that is, by the Holy Spirit, so great a humility of so great a God was granted to us, that He deigned to assume the whole man in the womb of the virgin, inhabiting the maternal body whole, leaving it whole. Against which temporal dispensation heretics lay snares in many ways. But whoever holds the catholic faith, so as to believe that the whole man was assumed by the Word of God, that is, body, soul, and spirit, is sufficiently fortified against them. For since this assumption was performed for our salvation, we must beware lest, when one believes some part of ours not to pertain to this assumption, it may not pertain to salvation. And since man, except for the form of the limbs, which is distributed diversely to diverse kinds of living things, does not differ from a beast except by the rational spirit, which is also called mind, how is that faith sound by which it is believed that the wisdom of God assumed that of ours which we have in common with the beast, but did not assume that which is illustrated by the light of wisdom and which is proper to man?

​Moreover, those also are to be detested who deny that our Lord Jesus Christ had a mother Mary on earth, although that dispensation honored each sex, both male and female, and showed that not only he whom He assumed, but also she through whom He assumed, pertains to the care of God, by bearing a man, by being born of a woman. Nor does that which was said by Him: “What is there to me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come,” force us to deny Christ’s mother, but rather admonishes us that we should understand that according to God He did not have a mother, according to whose majesty He was preparing to show His person by turning water into wine. But that He was crucified, He was crucified according to man; and that was the hour which had not yet come when it was said: “What is there to me and to you? My hour has not yet come,” that is, in which I may recognize you. For then, crucified as man, He recognized His human mother and commended her most humanely to His beloved disciple. Nor should that move us which, when His mother and brothers were announced to Him, He answered: “Who is my mother, or who are my brothers?” and so forth; but rather let it teach us that in our ministry, by which we minister the Word of God to our brothers, when parents hinder us, they ought not to be recognized. For if anyone should think for this reason that He did not have a mother on earth, because He said: “Who is my mother?”, he must of necessity be forced to deny also that the apostles had fathers on earth, since He commanded them, saying: “Call no man your father on earth; for one is your Father, who is in heaven.”