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25. But now of the clouds, and voices, and lightnings, and the
trumpet, and the smoke on Mount Sinai, when it was said, "And
Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended
upon it in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a
furnace; and all the people that was in the camp trembled; and when
the voice of the trumpet sounded long and waxed louder and louder,
Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice." And a little
after, when the Law had been given in the ten commandments, it
follows in the text, "And all the people saw the thunderings, and
the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain
smoking." And a little after, "And [when the people saw it,]
they removed and stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick
darkness where God was, and the Lord said unto Moses," etc. What
shall I say about this, save that no one can be so insane as to
believe the smoke, and the fire, and the cloud, and the darkness,
and whatever there was of the kind, to be the substance of the word and
wisdom of God which is Christ, or of the Holy Spirit? For not
even the Arians ever dared to say that they were the substance of God
the Father. All these things, then, were wrought through the
creature serving the Creator, and were presented in a suitable economy
(dispensatio) to human senses; unless, perhaps, because it is
said,"And Moses drew near to the cloud where God was," carnal
thoughts must needs suppose that the cloud was indeed seen by the
people, but that within the cloud Moses with the eyes of the flesh saw
the Son of God, whom doting heretics will have to be seen in His own
substance. Forsooth, Moses may have seen Him with the eyes of the
flesh, if not only the wisdom of God which is Christ, but even that
of any man you please and howsoever wise, can be seen with the eyes of
the flesh; or if, because it is written of the elders of Israel,
that "they saw the place where the God of Israel had stood," and
that "there was under His feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire
stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness," therefore
we are to believe that the word and wisdom of God in His own substance
stood within the space of an earthly place, who indeed "reacheth
firmly from end to end, and sweetly ordereth all things;" and that
the Word of God, by whom all things were made, is in such wise
changeable, as now to contract, now to expand Himself; (may the
Lord cleanse the hearts of His faithful ones from such thoughts!)
But indeed all these visible and sensible things are, as we have often
said, exhibited through the creature made subject in order to signify
the invisible and intelligible God, not only the Father, but also
the Son and the Holy Spirit," of whom are all things, and through
whom are all things, and in whom are all things;" although "the
invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly
seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal
power and Godhead."
26. But as far as concerns our present undertaking, neither on
Mount Sinai do I see how it appears, by all those things which were
fearfully displayed to the senses of mortal men, whether God the
Trinity spake, or the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit
severally. But if it is allowable, without rash assertion, to
venture upon a modest and hesitating conjecture from this passage, if
it is possible to understand it of one person of the Trinity, why do
we not rather understand the Holy Spirit to be spoken of, since the
Law itself also, which was given there, is said to have been written
upon tables of stone with the finger of God, by which name we know the
Holy Spirit to be signified in the Gospel. And fifty days are
numbered from the slaying of the lamb and the celebration of the
Passover until the day in which these things began to be done in Mount
Sinai; just as after the passion of our Lord fifty days are numbered
from His resurrection, and then came the Holy Spirit which the Son
of God had promised. And in that very coming of His, which we read
of in the Acts of the Apostles, there appeared cloven tongues like as
of fire, and it sat upon each of them: which agrees with Exodus,
where it is written, "And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke,
because the Lord descended upon it in fire;" and a little after,
"And the sight of the glory of the Lord," he says, "was like
devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of
Israel." Or if these things were therefore wrought because neither
the Father nor the Son could be there presented in that mode without
the Holy Spirit, by whom the Law itself must needs be written; then
we know doubtless that God appeared there, not by His own substance,
which remains invisible and unchangeable, but by the appearance above
mentioned of the creature; but that some special person of the Trinity
appeared, distinguished by a proper mark, as far as my capacity of
understanding reaches, we do not see.
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