Living Joints

IF SOMEONE asked you to summarize the Catholic faith, what would you say? Probably something like, “The Catholic Church teaches that God created all things except sin. Sin was humanity’s choice to disobey God which cost men and women eternal happiness with their Creator. So God, loving us and wanting us to be with him, sent his Son, who is God come to earth as a human being, to teach us about the love of God and to offer his life as a sacrifice for our sins. God is working today in the Catholic Church through the Holy Spirit and through the Sacraments, which are made visible by certain prayers and actions. Through these God comes to us to make us holy so that we can come to him.”

This sharing is a summary of our Catholic faith that highlights the main points as you see them. These main points, these supernatural truths of our faith, could be termed: Articles of Faith.

The term ‘Articles of Faith’ was first used by St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Richard of St. Victor in the 1100’s. They seem to have adapted the term articuli (‘joints’) to refer to the ‘Articles’ (articuli, joints) of Faith which hold the body of faith together, much as physical joints hold the human body together. St. Thomas Aquinas said that an Article of Faith is any supernatural truth which unites other truths to form the whole of Christian belief. Each Article helps us live a holy life to prepare for eternal life.

 

How many Articles?

 

Today the Catholic Church recognizes twelve Articles of Faith delineated in the Apostles’ Creed and its variation, the Nicene Creed. When we pray these Creeds, we profess a summary of our Catholic faith.

In St. Anthony’s time the Church agreed on the teachings of the faith, but theologians might divide or group these teachings differently to derive from them five, twenty, fifty, or more Articles of Faith. St. Anthony fixed the number at seven, and related the Articles of Faith to the seven days of creation. We might compare Anthony’s seven Articles of Faith with the twelve Articles universally recognized in the Creed.

The Creed begins: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.” These form the first three Articles of Faith: 1) God the Father as Creator 2) Jesus, divine Son of God 3) Christ’s human nature from a human mother while divinely conceived by the Holy Spirit. This last Article acknowledges Jesus’ humanity and divinity as well as the Trinity. The word ‘Lord’ implies divinity as translated from Hebrew and Greek, while Jesus (Jeshua in Hebrew), means ‘God saves,’ thus affirming Jesus as Saviour of the human race.

 

The Nativity article

 

Anthony, however, combines all three of the Creed’s Articles in what he calls the first Article of Faith, the Nativity: “On the first day God said: Be light made [Gen 1.3]. This light is the Wisdom of God the Father, enlightening every man coming into this world [cf. Jn 1.9], and dwelling in inaccessible light [cf. 1Tim 6.16].” (Sermons for Sundays and Festivals, I, p. 11; Edizioni Messaggero Padova).

Anthony’s second Article of Faith is Baptism, which would come under Article 9 of the Creed: The Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints. The Church administers Baptism, the sacrament that washes away Original (and Actual) Sin, and prepares the soul for eternal life. The second day of creation, when God created the firmament in the midst of the waters, reminded Anthony of Baptism. He likened the “lower waters” to the “unfaithful” who “seek the things that are below and daily fall short by their defects.” The “faithful” are the “waters above” for they “seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God [Col. 3.1].” (Sermons, I, pp. 12-13)

 

Further Creeds

 

Article 4 of the Creed states: “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” As a fully human being, Christ suffered pain and died. The Creed removes any basis for anti-Semitism because the crucifixion happened during history through the decision of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. Anthony calls his third Article the Passion, likening it to the third day of creation, in which “God said: Let earth bring forth the green herb [Gen 1.11]” Anthony likens the body of Christ to the earth, “dug and ploughed with the nails and the spear,” which “will give its fruits in due season.” The fruits are the heavenly kingdom, Apostles’ preaching, martyrs, confessors, and virgins (Sermons I, p. 15). This Article for Anthony implies Article 10 of the Creed which is “the forgiveness of sins” for “the body of Christ… was ground down for our sins [cf. Is 53.5]” (Sermons I, p. 15) so that we may be forgiven.

Article 5 of the Creed states, “He descended into hell. The third day he arose again from the dead.”  This hell means the place of the dead, not the damned. Jesus was truly dead. He remained in the tomb for three days. However, by his own power, Jesus rose again on the third day. Anthony’s fourth Article is the Resurrection. “On the fourth day of creation, God said: Let there be two lights in the firmament [Gen 1:14]. In the firmament which is Christ… there are two lights… the brightness of the Resurrection, which is signified by the sun, and the incorruptibility of the flesh, which is signified by the moon” (Sermons I, p. 16). Article 11 of the Creed affirms “the resurrection of the body,” not just Christ’s body, but our own. Anthony implies our resurrection in his broad Resurrection category.

 

The Ascension

 

The Ascension is Article 6 of the Creed. “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” The Incarnation perpetually united the divine and human natures of Christ. Both natures returned to heaven, where Christ continues his divine ministry. Anthony’s fifth Article of Faith is the Ascension which he likens to the fifth day of creation in which God created birds. “In the Ascension the Son of God flew like a bird up to the right hand of the Father, with the flesh he had assumed” (Sermons I, p.16).

While the Creed recognizes “I believe in the Holy Spirit” as Article 8, Anthony assigns the coming of the Holy Spirit to Article 6. (Sermons I, p.11) On the sixth day of creation, the breath of life, which God breathed into man, was the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Spirit made man not just a living body, but also a living soul (Gen. 1.26, 2.7).

The Divine Judgment is Article 7 of the Creed “He will come again to judge the living and the dead.” Our hope “And in life everlasting” is Article 12 of the Creed. The Divine Judgment and subsequent everlasting life, lived in heaven for the just, are combined by Anthony into his Article 7, the Judgment. “On the seventh day God rested from all the work which he had done [cf. Gen 2.2]. The seventh article is the coming to judgment, in which we shall rest from all our works and labors” (Sermons I, p. 11).

 

Reward of the saints

 

Thus, for Saint Anthony, the seven truths which summarize our faith are the Nativity of Jesus, Baptism, the Passion of Christ, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Holy Spirit, and the Divine Judgment. Anthony ends with a prayer, “So, dear brothers, let us ask the Word of the Father, the first principle of all creation, that in the seven days of this life, while we are living according to the body, he will make our souls to live according to the seven articles of faith. So may we be found worthy to come to him who is the life, and the Sabbath rest, and the reward of the saints; through him who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen (Sermons I, pp. 17-18).