Rufinus Agrees to Explain the Creed

I have as little inclination for writing as I have ability, most faithful Bishop Laurentius, for I know well that it is no small risk to submit a slender talent to everyone’s judgment. But in your letter you rashly (forgive my saying so) call on me, by the sacraments of Christ, which I hold in the deepest reverence, to compose something for you about the faith, following the traditional and natural meaning of the creed. In this you lay on me a burden beyond my strength to bear, for I do not forget the saying of the wise, which so rightly declares that “to speak of God, even what is true, is dangerous.” Still, if you will help with your prayers the necessity your request has laid on me, I will try to say something, moved more by reverent regard for your command than by any presumptuous confidence in my ability. What I write, however, will hardly seem worth the attention of people of mature understanding. It is suited rather to the capacity of children and young beginners in Christ. [a]

I find, indeed, that some eminent writers have published treatises on these matters, written devoutly and briefly. I know, too, that the heretic Photinus has written on the same subject. But his aim was not to explain the meaning of the text to his readers; it was to twist things said simply and truthfully into support for his own teaching. Yet the Holy Spirit took care that nothing should be set down in these words that is ambiguous or obscure, or at odds with other truths. For in them that prophecy is fulfilled: “He is finishing the word and cutting it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short word upon the earth.” Our aim, then, will be first to restore and bring out the words of the apostles in their original simplicity, and second, to supply what earlier expositors seem to have left out. But so that the scope of this “short word,” as we have called it, may be made plainer, we will begin by asking how it came to be given to the churches. [b]