Sermon 214A

Sermon 214/A

Augustine in explanation of the Creed

[1Clearly, even believing pertains to knowing.

[2] We do not believe everything we know, but we know everything we rightly believe.

[3We know by seeing, we know by believing.

[4For if a fellow citizen speaks with me and contradicts me, being of the same region and province, so as to provoke me, as though I were ignorant because I have not seen it, I ask him how he knows that Alexandria exists, which he has not seen, or that so many cities exist in which he has never been, which, however, he knows to exist so well that he would even confidently swear if challenged.

[5Behold, I return the question: How do you know that Alexandria exists? He will say: I believed. I will respond: Whom did you believe? What else will he say but that he believed people? Therefore, you believed in Alexandria from those who saw it, I believed in God from those who prophesied. If you think rightly, if you weigh the importance of testimonies, I believed more suitable ones than you. For you believed those about Alexandria who, being there, could see it present to themselves, I believed those who said things which are now happening before they were to be.