St. Bonaventure: The Psalter of Our Lady

[Stone]

THE CREED

Whosoever will be saved, should before all things have a firm faith about the Virgin Mary.

And if he keep not this faith w r hole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.

For alone Mary has conceived remaining always a Virgin ; she alone has put down all heresies.

Let him be confounded and blush, the Jew who said that Christ was born of Joseph.

Let the Manichean be confounded who said that Christ has an imaginary body.

Let him be cursed, who said that Jesus has taken his body otherwise than through Mary.

For the same Son, who is the only Son of the Father in the divine ordinance, is the true only Son of the Virgin Mary.

In the heavens he is without mother, upon earth he is without father.

For as the reasonable soul and flesh, united, is born one man ; so the Christ, God and man, is truly born of Mary.

He has clothed his flesh with the flesh of the Virgin, for it became him thus to save the human race.

He who, according to his divinity, is equal to the Father, according to his humanity, is inferior to the Father;

Conceived in the bosom of the Virgin Mary, by the annunciation of the angel, and by the operation of the Holy Spirit, nevertheless, the Holy Spirit is not his father.

He is come into the world without the Virgin Mary buffering in her flesh, because he was conceived without her having pleasure in the flesh.

His mother fed him from her paps filled by heaven.

The angels surrounded him at his birth, and announced to the Shepherds this great joy.

He has been adored and has received presents from the Magii; he has been made to fly into Egypt by Herod.

He has been baptized in Jordan by John; he has been delivered, then scourged, crucified; he is dead, and he has been buried.

He is raised with glory, and he is ascended into the heavens.

He has sent his Holy Spirit upon his disciples and upon his mother, whom he has at length himself raised to heaven;

She there Sits at the right hand of her Son, never ceasing to pray for us.

This is the faith of the Virgin Mary, and no one, if he does not believe it faithfully and firmly can be saved.

Amen.