Expositio super symbolum Apostolorum

Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

This article was composed by James the son of Alphaeus, who is also called the brother of the Lord, and who was the first bishop of Jerusalem.

Suffered,

he is said, according to his human nature, because he suffered in his human nature in such a way that he did not suffer in his divine nature. For just as a ray of the sun is poured around a tree, yet when the tree is wounded the ray remains unhurt, so the Son of God, indeed still more subtly, suffered in the flesh, while his divinity remained unhurt.

This is said against the heresy of certain people who said that Christ did not truly suffer, because, since his human nature was united to the divine, just as he could not sin in his human nature, so too he could not suffer.

Hilary seems to have held this heresy, who in the book On the Trinity says that Christ felt no pain in his passion. Some, however, refer Hilary's words to the effect of punishment, that is, to sin, affirming that Hilary said this not because Christ did not feel pain, but because he had in himself no cause of punishment, that is, no fault.

Claudius, however, in the book On the Soul, says that Hilary erred in two things, speaking thus: Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, although among the noblest kinds of his disputations, is believed to have erred in two things, namely in this, that he asserted that Christ felt no pain on the cross, and that the soul is transmitted by propagation; although in life he endured the pen of censure, nevertheless after death he does not suffer any diminishment of his merits, because in death he was led to repentance. It follows:

Under Pontius Pilate,

because, when Pilate was procurator of Judea, under the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Christ suffered. He was called Pontius either from the island of Pontus or from the region of Pontus.

Crucified.

This is said against the heresy of the Nicolaitans, who assert that Christ, born of the Virgin, did not truly die, but that another man was substituted in his place on the cross. It follows:

Died.

This is said against the Jews, who say that if he was Christ, he could not die. But in the Gospel it is said that, crying out with a loud voice, he gave up his spirit,¹ saying, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."²

And was buried,

because in the same Gospel it is read that he was laid by Nicodemus and Joseph in a tomb which Joseph had hewn out of rock, where no one had yet been laid.³ To this article is reduced that article of the Nicene Creed, "Crucified also for us." For truly his crucifixion benefited us especially.