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Philoxenes of Mabbug (?-c.523)
Bishop in Syria
Homily 3, 52-56

"I believe! Help my unbelief"

Incline your ear and hear, open your eyes and see the marvels that faith discloses. Form for yourself new eyes, create hidden ears, you are summoned to hear hidden things…, you have been called to see spiritual realities… Come and see what as yet you are not and be renewed as you enter the new creation.

Wisdom was with your Creator in his first works (Pr 8:22), but in the second creation it was faith that accompanied him, in this second act of giving birth he took faith as his helper. Faith accompanies God in all things and he does nothing without her. It would have been easy to bring you to birth without her in the water and the Spirit, yet he does not cause you to be born in the second birth until you have recited the symbol of faith, the creed. He could have renewed you and from ancient made you new, yet he neither changes nor renews you before receiving faith in surety from you. Faith is demanded from someone who is baptized, and it is then that he receives the treasures of the water. Without faith, all is common, but when faith is there then common things appear glorious. Without faith, baptism is simply water; without faith, the life-giving mysteries are just bread and water; without the eye of faith, the old man appears simply what he is; without the eye of faith, the mysteries are common things and the wonders of the Spirit are worth nothing.

Faith looks, reflects and secretly considers the power hidden in things… For see: you bear in your hand the portion of the mystery that, naturally speaking, is common bread; faith sees it as the body of the Only-begotten… The flesh sees bread, wine, oil, water, but faith forces our sight to look spiritually at what it only sees corporally, that is to say to eat the Body instead of bread, to drink the Blood instead of wine, to see the baptism of the Spirit instead of water and the power of Christ instead of oil.