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4. Let us, then, continue our inquiry now in order. For under the
second head in that division the question occurred, whether the
creature was formed for that work only, wherein God, in such way as
He then judged it to be fitting, might be manifested to human sight;
or whether angels, who already existed, were so sent as to speak in
the person of God, assuming a corporeal appearance from the corporeal
creature for the purpose of their ministry; or else changing and
turning their own body itself, to which they are not subject, but
govern it as subject to themselves, into whatever forms they would,
that were appropriate and fit for their actions, according to the power
given to them by the Creator. And when this part of the question
shall have been investigated, so far as God permit, then, lastly,
we shall have to see to that question with which we started, viz.,
whether the Son and the Holy Spirit were also "sent" before; and
if it be so, then what difference there is between that sending and the
one of which we read in the Gospel; or whether neither of them were
sent, except when either the Son was made of the Virgin Mary, or
when the Holy Spirit appeared in a visible form, whether as a dove or
in tongues of fire.
5. I confess, however, that it reaches further than my purpose can
carry me to inquire whether the angels. secretly working by the
spiritual quality of their body abiding still in them, assume somewhat
from the inferior and more bodily elements, which, being fitted to
themselves, they may change and turn like a garment into any corporeal
appearances they will, and those appearances themselves also real, as
real water was changed by our Lord into real wine; or whether they
transform their own bodies themselves into that which they would,
suitably to the particular act. But it does not signify to the present
question which of these it is. And although I be not able to
understand these things by actual experience, seeing that I am a man,
as the angels do who do these things, and know them better than I know
them, viz., how far my body is changeable by the operation of my
will; whether it be by my own experience of myself, or by that which
I have gathered from others; yet it is not necessary here to say which
of these alternatives I am to believe upon the authority of the divine
Scriptures, lest I be compelled to prove it, and so my discourse
become too long upon a subject which does not concern the present
question.
6. Our present inquiry then is, whether the angels were then the
agents both in showing those bodily appearances to the eyes of men and
in sounding those words in their ears when the sensible creature
itself, serving the Creator at His beck, was turned for the time
into whatever was needful; as it is written in the book of Wisdom,
"For the creature serveth Thee, who art the Maker, increaseth his
strength against the unrighteous for their punishment, and abateth his
strength for the benefit of such as put their trust in Thee.
Therefore, even then was it altered into all fashions, and was
obedient to Thy grace, that nourisheth all things according to the of
them that longed for Thee." For the power of the will of God
reaches through the spiritual creature even to visible and sensible
effects of the corporeal creature. For where does not the wisdom of
the omnipotent God work that which He wills, which "reacheth from
one end to another mightily, and sweetly doth order all things"?
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