§1Quoniam scriptum est et apostolicae disciplinae robustissima auctoritate firmatum. quia iustus ex fide uiuit, eaque fides officium a nobis exigit et cordis et linguae — ait enim apostolus: corde creditur ad iustitiam, ore autem confessio fit ad salutem — oportet nos esse et iustitiae memores et salutis, quandoquidem in sempiterna iustitia regnaturi a praesenti saeculo maligno salui fieri non possumus, nisi et nos ad salutem proximorum nitentes etiam ore profiteamur fidem, quam corde gestamus: quae fides ne fraudulentis calliditatibus haereticorum possit in nobis aliqua ex parte uiolari, pia cautaque uigilantia prouidendum est.
Since it is written, and confirmed by the most robust authority of apostolic teaching, that "the just lives by faith," and that this faith demands from us a duty of both heart and tongue — for the apostle says: "With the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" — we ought to be mindful of both justice and salvation. For since we are to reign in eternal justice, we cannot be saved from the present evil age unless we, striving also for the salvation of our neighbors, profess with our mouth too the faith that we carry in our heart. And lest this faith be violated in us in any part by the deceitful craftiness of heretics, we must provide with pious and cautious vigilance.
est autem catholica fides in symbolo nota fidelibus memoriaeque mandata quanta res passa est breuitate sermonis: ut incipientibus atque lactantibus eis, qui in Christo renati sunt, nondum scripturarum diuinarum diligentissima et spiritali tractatione atque cognitione roboratis paucis uerbis credendum constitueretur, quod multis uerbis exponendum esset proficientibus et ad diuinam doctrinam certa humilitatis atque caritatis firmitate surgentibus.
Now, the Catholic faith is known to the faithful in the Creed, and committed to memory with as much brevity of speech as the subject matter allowed; so that for those who are beginners and babes, who have been reborn in Christ and are not yet strengthened by the most diligent and spiritual treatment and knowledge of the divine Scriptures, what would have to be expounded in many words to those who are making progress and rising to divine teaching with a certain firmness of humility and love, might be established in a few words to be believed.
sub ipsis ergo uerbis paucis in symbolo constitutis plerique haeretici uenena sua occultare conati sunt: quibus restitit et resistit diuina misericordia per spiritales uiros, qui catholicam fidem non tantum in illis uerbis accipere et credere, sed etiam domino reuelante intellegere atque cognoscere meruerunt.
Therefore, under those very few words established in the Creed, most heretics have attempted to conceal their poisons. But divine mercy, through spiritual men, has resisted and does resist them—men who have deserved not only to accept and believe the Catholic faith in those words, but also, by the Lord's revelation, to understand and know it.
scriptum est enim: nisi credideritis, non intellegetis. sed tractatio fidei ad muniendum symbolum ualet: non ut ipsa pro symbolo gratiam dei consequentibus memoriae mandanda et reddenda tradatur, sed ut illa, quae in symbolo retinentur, contra haereticorum insidias auctoritate catholica et munitiore defensione custodiat.
For it is written: "Unless you believe, you will not understand." But the treatment of faith serves to protect the Creed; not so that it itself should be handed down, to be committed to memory and repeated, instead of the Creed by those who obtain the grace of God, but so that it may guard those things which are retained in the Creed against the snares of heretics with Catholic authority and a more fortified defense.
§2Conati sunt enim quidam persuadere deum patrem non esse omnipotentem; non quia hoc dicere ausi sunt, sed in suis traditionibus hoc sentire et credere conuincuntur.
For certain people have attempted to persuade that God the Father is not omnipotent; not because they dared to say this, but in their traditions they are convicted of thinking and believing this.
cum enim dicunt esse naturam, quam deus omnipotens non creauerit, de qua tamen istum mundum fabricauerit, quem pulchre ordinatum esse concedunt, ita omnipotentem deum negant, ut non eum credant mundum potuisse facere, nisi ad eum fabricandum alia natura, quae iam fuerat et quam ipse non fecerat, uteretur; carnali scilicet consuetudine uidendi fabros et domorum structores et quoslibet opifices, qui, nisi adiuuentur parata materia, ad effectum suae artis peruenire non possunt, ita intellegunt fabricatorem mundi non esse omnipotentem, si mundum fabricare non posset, nisi eum aliqua non ab illo fabricata natura tamquam materies adiuuaret.
For when they say that there is a nature which the omnipotent God did not create, yet out of which He fashioned this world, which they admit is beautifully ordered, they so deny the omnipotent God that they do not believe He could have made the world unless He used, to fashion it, another nature which had already existed and which He Himself had not made; following, of course, the carnal habit of seeing carpenters and builders of houses and any artisans who, unless they are aided by prepared material, cannot reach the effect of their art. Thus they understand that the Maker of the world is not omnipotent if He could not fashion the world unless some nature not fashioned by Him aided Him as material.
ac si omnipotentem deum fabricatorem mundi esse concedunt, fateantur necesse est ex nihilo eum fecisse quae fecit.
But if they admit that the omnipotent God is the Maker of the world, they must necessarily confess that He made from nothing the things which He made.
non enim aliquid esse potest, cuius creator non esset, cum esset omnipotens, quia etsi aliquid fecit ex aliquo, sicut hominem de limo, non utique fecit ex eo, quod ipse non fecerat, quia terram, unde limus est, ex nihilo fecerat.
For there cannot be anything of which He was not the creator, since He is omnipotent. For even if He made something out of something, as He made man from clay, He certainly did not make it out of that which He Himself had not make, because the earth, from which the clay is, He had made from nothing.
et si ipsum caelum et terram, id est)mundum et omnia, quae in eo sunt, ex aliqua materia fecerat, sicut scriptum est: qui fecisti mundum ex materia inuisa, uel etiam informi, sicut nonnulla exemplaria tenent, nullo modo credendum est illam ipsam materiam, de qua factus est mundus, quamuis informem, quamuis inuisam, quocumque modo esset, per se ipsam esse potuisse tamquam coaeternam et coaeuam deo; sed quemlibet modum suum, quem habebat, ut quoquo modo esset et distinctarum rerum formas posset accipere, non habebat nisi ab omnipotente deo, cuius beneficio est res non solum quaecumque formata, sed etiam quaecumque formabilis.
And even if He had made heaven and earth themselves, that is, the world and all things that are in it, out of some material, as it is written: "Who made the world out of invisible material," or even "unformed," as some manuscripts hold, it is in no way to be believed that that very material out of which the world was made, however unformed, however invisible, in whatever way it existed, could have existed by itself as co-eternal and co-eval with God; but whatever measure of its own it had, so that it might exist in any way and could receive the forms of distinct things, it had only from the omnipotent God, by whose benefit there exists not only whatever is formed, but also whatever is formable.
inter formatum autem et formabile hoc interest, quod formatum iam accepit formam, formabile autem potest accipere.
Now, between the formed and the formable there is this difference, that the formed has already received form, while the formable can receive it.
sed qui praestat rebus formam, ipse praestat etiam posse formari, quoniam de illo et in illo est omnium speciosissima species incommutabilis, et ideo ipse unus est, qui cuilibet rei non solum, ut pulchra sit, sed etiam ut pulchra esse possit adtribuit.
But He who bestows form upon things, Himself also bestows the capacity to be formed, since from Him and in Him is the most beautiful and immutable form of all things, and therefore He alone is the one who attributes to any thing not only that it be beautiful, but also that it can be beautiful.
quapropter rectissime creditur omnia deum fecisse de nihilo: quia etiam si de aliqua materia factus est mundus, eadem ipsa materia de nihilo facta est, ut ordinatissimo dei munere prima capacitas formarum fieret, ac deinde formarentur quaecumque formata sunt.
Wherefore it is most rightly believed that God made all things from nothing; because even if the world was made from some material, that same material was made from nothing, so that by the most orderly gift of God the first capacity for forms might come to be, and then whatever is formed might be formed.
hoc autem diximus, ne quis existimet contrarias sibi esse diuinarum scripturarum sententias, quoniam et omnia deum de nihilo fecisse scriptum est et mundum esse factum de informi materia.
Now we have said this, lest anyone should think that the opinions of the divine Scriptures are contrary to themselves, since both that God made all things from nothing is written, and that the world was made from unformed material.