Theorema de sacramentorum nucleo

to the Tree, as to a sign and instrument, that is attributed which is the effect of the thing signified: they are a sweet fragrance of Christ (the faithful ministers of the Church) to God, in those who are being saved, and in those who are perishing: to the latter, indeed, an odor of death unto death: but to the former, an odor of life unto life. 2 Cor. 2:15-16.

Thus Christ justifies many through the knowledge of Himself. Isa. 53:11. The same is set, of Himself indeed as a palace: by accident, as a stone of stumbling. Isa. 7:14.

Our highest good is placed in the true and ardent knowledge of Christ. Conversely, no πολυμαϑοσύνη great learning/polymathy profits those who do not know Christ.

Rightly, therefore, the holy martyr of Christ, Latimer, in that Apology of his for the defense of the Gospel, pronounced:

To be ignorant of that is to know many things without Christ:
If you know Christ well, it is enough, even if you know nothing else.

Piously also, Ignatius the martyr wrote to the Philadelphians: Ἐμοὶ ἀρχεῖα ὁ χρισός, ὅ σταυρὸς αὐτοῦ πρόσδηλον ὄλεθρον For me, the archives are Christ; his cross is an evident destruction [of death].

XV. Circumcision.

3. Can the nucleus of the Sacrament of Circumcision be called that Jesus Christ, or can it not?

Response. If Circumcision was a sign of the covenant of grace, of which Jesus Christ is the author. Gen. 17:11; if the same was sealed by the righteousness of faith. Rom. 4:11; if in Christ we ourselves also are circumcised, with a circumcision that is done without hands, while we put off the body of the flesh subject to sin through the circumcision of Christ. Col. 2:11. Then the matter itself speaks, that the Lord our Jesus Christ is also rightly called the nucleus of this Sacrament: in whom and through whom, by the power of the Holy Spirit, our heart has been circumcised together with the tongue, the lips, the ears, and everything that can be superfluous and displeasing to God.