Friday, March 19, 2010

Symbolum Apostolorum

1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
5. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again.
6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
10. the forgiveness of sins,
11. the resurrection of the body,
12. and life everlasting.
Amen.
It is a very common mistake to suppose that the Apostles were transformed in an instant, on the Day of Pentecost, from ignorant Jewish fishermen into Saints and Doctors of the Church, or at all events that, with the exception of the necessary influence of our Lord's companionship, they were untaught in the things of God previously to the Resurrection. Against this error the very title of Father Coleridge's work on the Public Life of our Lord is an implicit protest. He calls the volumes of which the one just issued is the third, The Training of the Apostles—implying that this was the object most prominent, or at all events very prominent, in the mind of our Lord. 
During the portion of His Life treated of in the present volume this is more especially the case, and Father Coleridge gives the reason for it Hitherto our Lord had been rejected, indeed, and persecuted by His own, but now they go to further lengths. They invent the detestable calumny that all His works are done through the agency of the prince of the devils, and thus they draw away many of the people from Him, and render it desirable that He should in His Divine Wisdom retire more into private and devote.
Himself more immediately to preparing His twelve Apostles for their future work. His public teaching, both by miracle and parable and undisguised warning, at this time of His partial withdrawal from the eye and notice of the people and their rulers, turns mainly on the danger of resisting the known Truth and the almost unpardonable sin involved in turning away the hearts of the ignorant from the Light by declaring the Divine Teacher inspired by the Evil One.
Link (here) to the portion of the essay entitled The Training of the Apostles

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