In that case, all who accept a revelation without professing to understand its content would require to be ranked as mystics; the fierce sincerity of Tertullian's credo quia ab-' surdum, Pascal's reconciliation of contradictions in Jesus Christ, and Bayle's half-sneering subordination of reason to faith would all be marks of this standpoint.
This gives the utmost possible effect of finality to the whole Credo, and contrasts admirably with the coldly formal instrumental end of the Resurrexit three movements further back.
Obviously the greatest difficulty in any elaborate instrumental setting of the Credo is the inevitable anti-climax after the Resurrexit.
Accordingly, Palestrina and his great contemporaries and predecessors treated the Gloria and Credo in a style midway in polyphonic organization and rhythmic breadth between that of the elaborate motet (adopted in the Sanctus) and the homophonic reciting style of the Litany.
Anselm's motto, Credo ut intelligam, marks well the distance that has been traversed since Tertullian's Credo quia absurdum est.
