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7. But being proved wrong so far, men betake themselves to saying,
that he who sends is greater than he who is sent: therefore the Father
is greater than the Son, because the Son continually speaks of
Himself as being sent by the Father; and the Father is also greater
than the Holy Spirit, because Jesus has said of the Spirit,
"Whom the Father will send in my name;" and the Holy Spirit is
less than both, because both the Father sends Him, as we have said,
and the Son, when He says, "But if I depart, I will send Him
unto you." I first ask, then, in this inquiry, whence and whither
the Son was sent. "I," He says, "came forth from the Father,
and am come into the world." Therefore, to be sent, is to come
forth forth from the Father, and to come into the world. What,
then, is that which the same evangelist says concerning Him, "He
was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew
Him not;" and then he adds, "He came unto His own?" Certainly
He was sent thither, whither He came; but if He was sent into the
world, because He came forth from the Father, then He both came
into the world and was in the world. He was sent therefore thither,
where He already was. For consider that, too, which is written in
the prophet, that God said, "Do not I fill heaven and earth?"
If this is said of the Son (for some will have it understood that the
Son Himself spoke either by the prophets or in the prophets),
whither was He sent except to the place where He already was? For
He who says, "I fill heaven and earth," was everywhere. But if
it is said of the Father, where could He be without His own word and
without His own wisdom, which "reacheth from one end to another
mightily, and sweetly ordereth all things?" But He cannot be
anywhere without His own Spirit. Therefore, if God is everywhere,
His Spirit also is everywhere. Therefore, the Holy Spirit, too,
was sent thither, where He already was. For he, too, who finds no
place to which he might go from the presence of God, and who says,
"If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I shall go down
into hell, behold, Thou art there;" wishing it to be understood
that God is present everywhere, named in the previous verse His
Spirit; for He says," Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or
whither shall I flee from Thy presence?"
8. For this reason, then, if both the Son and the Holy Spirit
are sent thither where they were, we must inquire, how that sending,
whether of the Son or of the Holy Spirit, is to be understood; for
of the Father alone, we nowhere read that He is sent. Now, of the
Son, the apostle writes thus: "But when the fullness of the time
was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the
law, to redeem them that were under the law." "He sent," he
says, "His Son, made of a woman." And by this term, woman,
what Catholic does not know that he did not wish to signify the
privation of virginity; but, according to a Hebraism, the difference
of sex? When, therefore, he says, "God sent His Son, made of a
woman," he sufficiently shows that the Son was "sent" in this very
way, in that He was "made of a woman." Therefore, in that He was
born of God, He was in the world; but in that He was born of
Mary, He was sent and came into the world. Moreover, He could not
be sent by the Father without the Holy Spirit, not only because the
Father, when He sent Him, that is, when He made Him of a woman,
is certainly understood not to have so made Him without His own
Spirit; but also because it is most plainly and expressly said in the
Gospel in answer to the Virgin Mary, when she asked of the angel,
"How shall this be?" "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and
the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." And Matthew says,
"She was found with child of the Holy Ghost." Although, too, in
the prophet Isaiah, Christ Himself is understood to say of His own
future advent, "And now the Lord God and His Spirit hath sent
me."
9. Perhaps some one may wish to drive us to say, that the Son is
sent also by Himself, because the conception and childbirth of Mary
is the working of the Trinity, by whose act of creating all things are
created. And how, he will go on to say, has the Father sent Him,
if He sent Himself? To whom I answer first, by asking him to tell
me, if he can, in what manner the Father hath sanctified Him, if
He hath sanctified Himself? For the same Lord says both; "Say ye
of Him," He says, "whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into
the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of
God;" while in another place He says, "And for their sake I
sanctify myself." I ask, also, in what manner the Father delivered
Him, if He delivered Himself? For the Apostle Paul says both:
"Who," he says, "spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up
for us all;" while elsewhere he says of the Saviour Himself, "Who
loved me, and delivered Himself for me." He will reply, I
suppose, if he has a right sense in these things, Because the will of
the Father and the Son is one, and their working indivisible. In
like manner, then, let him understand the incarnation and nativity of
the Virgin, wherein the Son is understood as sent, to have been
wrought by one and the same operation of the Father and of the Son
indivisibly; the Holy Spirit certainly not being thence excluded, of
whom it is expressly said, "She was found with child by the Holy
Ghost." For perhaps our meaning will be more plainly unfolded, if
we ask in what manner God sent His Son. He commanded that He
should come, and He, complying with the commandment, came. Did He
then request, or did He only suggest? But whichever of these it
was, certainly it was done by a word, and the Word of God is the
Son of God Himself. Wherefore, since the Father sent Him by a
word, His being sent was the work of both the Father and His Word;
therefore the same Son was sent by the Father and the Son, because
the Son Himself is the Word of the Father. For who would embrace
so impious an opinion as to think the Father to have uttered a word in
time, in order that the eternal Son might thereby be sent and might
appear in the flesh in the fullness of time? But assuredly it was in
that Word of God itself which was in the beginning with God and was
God, namely, in the wisdom itself of God, apart from time, at what
time that wisdom must needs appear in the flesh. Therefore, since
without any commencement of time, the Word was in the beginning, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God, it was in the Word
itself without any time, at what time the Word was to be made flesh
and dwell among us. And when this fullness of time had come, "God
sent His Son, made of a woman," that is, made in time, that the
Incarnate Word might appear to men; while it was in that Word
Himself, apart from time, at what time this was to be done; for the
order of times is in the eternal wisdom of God without time. Since,
then, that the Son should appear in the flesh was wrought by both the
Father and the Son, it is fitly said that He who appeared in that
flesh was sent, and that He who did not appear in it, sent Him;
because those things which are transacted outwardly before the bodily
eyes have their existence from the inward structure (apparatu) of the
spiritual nature, and on that account are filly said to be sent.
Further, that form of man which He took is the person of the Son,
not also of the Father; on which account the invisible Father,
together with the Son, who with the Father is invisible, is said to
have sent the same Son by making Him visible. But if He became
visible in such way as to cease to be invisible with the Father, that
is, if the substance of the invisible Word were turned by a change and
transition into a visible creature, then the Son would be so
understood to be sent by the Father, that He would be found to be
only sent; not also, with the Father, sending. But since He so
took the form of a servant, as that the unchangeable form of God
remained, it is clear that that which became apparent in the Son was
done by the Father and the Son not being apparent; that is, that by
the invisible Father, with the invisible Son, the same Son Himself
was sent so as to be visible. Why, therefore, does He say,
"Neither came I of myself?" This, we may now say, is said
according to the form of a servant, in the same way as it is said,
"I judge no man."
10. If, therefore, He is said to be sent, in so far as He
appeared outwardly in the bodily creature, who inwardly in His
spiritual nature is always hidden from the eyes of mortals, it is now
easy to understand also of the Holy Spirit why He too is said to be
sent. For in due time a certain outward appearance of the creature was
wrought, wherein the Holy Spirit might be visibly shown; whether
when He descended upon the Lord Himself in a bodily shape as a dove,
or when, ten days having past since His ascension, on the day of
Pentecost a sound came suddenly from heaven as of a rushing mighty
wind, and cloven tongues like as of fire were seen upon them, and it
sat upon each of them. This operation, visibly exhibited, and
presented to mortal eyes, is called the sending of the Holy Spirit;
not that His very substance appeared, in which He himself also is
invisible and unchangeable, like the Father and the Son, but that
the hearts of men, touched by things seen outwardly, might be turned
from the manifestation in time of Him as coming to His hidden eternity
as ever present.
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