Boethius
De Fide Catholica
Christianam fidem novi ac veteris testamenti pandit auctoritas; et quamvis nomen ipsum Christi vetus intra semet continuerit instrumentum eumque semper signaverit affuturum quem credimus per parturm 5 virginis iam venisse, tamen in orbem terrarum ab ipsius nostri salvatoris mirabili manasse probatur adventu.
Haec autem religio nostra, quae vocatur christiana atque catholica, his fundamentis principaliter nititur 10 asserens: ex aeterno, id est ante mundi constitutionem, ante omne videlicet quod temporis potest retinere vocabulum, divinam patris et filii ac spiritus sancti exstitisse substantiam, ita ut deum dicat patrem, deum filium, deum spiritum sanctum, nec 15 tamen tres deos sed unum: patrem itaque habere filium ex sua substantia genitum et sibi nota ratione coaeternum, quem filium eatenus confitetur, ut non sit idem qui pater est: neque patrem aliquando fuisse filium, ne rursus in infinitum humanus animus 20 divinam progeniem cogitaret, neque filium in eadem
De Fide Catholica
On the Catholic Faitha
The Christian Faith is proclaimed by the authority of the New Testament and of the Old; but although the Old scriptureb contains within its pages the name of Christ and constantly gives token that he will come who we believe has already come by his birth of the Virgin, yet the diffusion of that faith throughout the world dates from the actual miraculous coming of our Saviour.
Now this our religion which is called Christian and Catholic is supported chiefly on these foundations which it asserts: From eternity, that is, before the establishment of the world, before all, that is, that can be given the name of time, there has existed the divine substance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in such wise that our religion calls the Father God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, and yet not three Gods but one. Thus the Father has the Son, begotten of his substance and coeternal with himself after a manner that he alone knows. Him we confess to be Son in the sense that he is not the same as the Father. Nor has the Father ever been Son, so the human mind must not imagine a divine lineage
- aThe conclusions adverse to the genuineness of this tractate, reached in the dissertation Der dem Boethius zugeschriebene Traktat de Fide Catholica (Jahrbücher für kl. Phil, xxvi (1901), Supplementband) by one of the editors, now seem to both unsound. This fourth tractate, though lacking, in the best mss., either an ascription to Boethius or a title, is firmly imbedded in two distinct recensions of Boethius’s theological works. There is no reason to disturb it. Indeed the capita dogmatica mentioned by Cassiodorus can hardly refer to any of the tractates except the fourth.
- bFor instrumentum = Holy Scripture cf. Tertull. Apol. 18, 19, Adv. Hermog. 19, etc.; for instrumentum = any historical writing cf. Tert. De Spect. 5.