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11. It is, then, for this reason nowhere written, that the
Father is greater than the Holy Spirit, or that the Holy Spirit is
less than God the Father, because the creature in which the Holy
Spirit was to appear was not taken in the same way as the Son of man
was taken, as the form in which the person of the Word of God
Himself should be set forth not that He might possess the word of
God, as other holy and wise men have possessed it, but "above His
fellows;" a not certainly that He possessed the word more than they,
so as to be of more surpassing wisdom than the rest were, but that He
was the very Word Himself. For the word in the flesh is one thing,
and the Word made flesh is another; i.e. the word in man is one
thing, the Word that is man is another. For flesh is put for man,
where it is said, "The Word was made flesh;" and again, "And
all flesh shall see the salvation of God." For it does not mean
flesh without soul and without mind; but "all flesh," is the same as
if it were said, every man. The creature, then, in which the Holy
Spirit should appear, was not so taken, as that flesh and human form
were taken, of the Virgin Mary. For the Spirit did not beatify the
dove, or the wind, or the fire, and join them for ever to Himself
and to His person in unity and "fashion." Nor, again, is the
nature of the Holy Spirit mutable and changeable; so that these
things were not made of the creature, but He himself was turned and
changed first into one and then into another, as water is changed into
ice. But these things appeared at the seasons at which they ought to
have appeared, the creature serving the Creator, and being changed
and converted at the command of Him who remains immutably in Himself,
in order to signify and manifest Him in such way as it was fit He
should be signified and manifested to mortal men. Accordingly,
although that dove is called the Spirit; and in speaking of that
fire, "There appeared unto them," he says, "cloven tongues, like
as of fire, and it sat upon each of them; and they began to speak with
other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance; in order to show
that the Spirit was manifested by that fire, as by the dove; yet we
cannot call the Holy Spirit both God and a dove, or both God and
fire, in the same way as we call the Son both God and man; nor as we
call the Son the Lamb of God; which not only John the Baptist
says, "Behold the Lamb of God," but also John the Evangelist
sees the Lamb slain in the Apocalypse. For that prophetic vision was
not shown to bodily eyes through bodily forms, but in the spirit
through spiritual images of bodily things. But whosoever saw that dove
and that fire, saw them with their eyes. Although it may perhaps be
disputed concerning the fire, whether it was seen by the eyes or in the
spirit, on account of the form of the sentence. For the text does not
say, They saw cloven tongues like fire, but, "There appeared to
them." But we are not wont to say with the same meaning, It
appeared to me; as we say, I saw. And in those spiritual visions of
corporeal images the usual expressions are, both, It appeared to me;
and, I saw: but in those things which are shown to the eyes through
express corporeal forms, the common expression is not, It appeared to
me; but, I saw. There may, therefore, be a question raised
respecting that fire, how it was seen; whether within in the spirit as
it were outwardly, or really outwardly before the eyes of the flesh.
But of that dove, which is said to have descended in a bodily form,
no one ever doubted that it was seen by the eyes. Nor, again, as we
call the Son a Rock (for it is written, "And that Rock was
Christ"), can we so call the Spirits dove or fire. For that rock
was a thing already created, and after the mode of its action was
called by the name of Christ, whom it signified; like the stone
placed under Jacob's head, and also anointed, which he took in order
to signify the Lord; or as Isaac was Christ, when he carried the
wood for the sacrifice of himself. A particular significative action
was added to those already existing things; they did not, as that dove
and fire, suddenly come into being in order simply so to signify. The
dove and the fire, indeed, seem to me more like that flame which
appeared to Moses in the bush, or that pillar which the people
followed in the wilderness, or the thunders and lightnings which came
when the Law was given in the mount. For the corporeal form of these
things came into being for the very purpose, that it might signify
something, and then pass away.
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