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But with respect to the sensible showing of the Holy Spirit, whether
by the shape of a dove, or by fiery tongues, when the subjected and
subservient creature by temporal motions and forms manifested His
substance co-eternal with the Father and the Son, and alike with
them unchangeable, while it was not united so as to be one person with
Him, as the flesh was which the Word was made; I do not dare to say
that nothing of the kind was done aforetime. But I would boldly say,
that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, of one and the same
substance, God the Creator, the Omnipotent Trinity, work
indivisibly; but that this cannot be indivisibly manifested by the
creature, which is far inferior, and least of all by the bodily
creature: just as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cannot be
named by our words, which certainly are bodily sounds, except in their
own proper intervals of time, divided by a distinct separation, which
intervals the proper syllables of each word occupy. Since in their
proper substance wherein they are, the three are one, the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the very same, by no temporal
motion, above the whole creature, without any interval of time and
place, and at once one and the same from eternity to eternity, as it
were eternity itself, which is not without truth and charity. But,
in my words, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are separated, and
cannot be named at once, and occupy their own proper places separately
invisible letters. And as, when I name my memory, and intellect,
and will, each name refers to each severally, but yet each is uttered
by all three; for there is no one of these three names that is not
uttered by both my memory and my intellect and my will together [by the
soul as a whole]; so the Trinity together wrought both the voice of
the Father, and the flesh of the Son, and the dove of the Holy
Spirit, while each of these things is referred severally to each
person. And by this similitude it is in some degree discernible, that
the Trinity, which is inseparable in itself, is manifested separably
by the appearance of the visible creature; and that the operation of
the Trinity is also inseparable in each severally of those things which
are said to pertain properly to the manifesting of either the Father,
or the Son, or the Holy Spirit.
31. If then I am asked, in what manner either words or sensible
forms and appearances were wrought before the incarnation of the Word
of God, which should prefigure it as about to come, I reply that
God wrought those things by the angels; and this I have also shown
sufficiently, as I think, by testimonies of the Holy Scriptures.
And if I am asked how the incarnation itself was brought to pass, I
reply that the Word of God itself was made flesh, that is, was made
man, yet not turned and changed into that which was made; but so
made, that there should be there not only the Word of God and the
flesh of man, but also the rational soul of man, and that this whole
should both be called God on account of God, and man on account of
man. And if this is understood with difficulty, the mind must be
purged by faith, by more and more abstaining from sins, and by doing
good works, and by praying with the groaning of holy desires; that by
profiling through the divine help, it may both understand and love.
And if I am asked, how, after the incarnation of the Word, either
a voice of the Father was produced, or a corporeal appearance by which
the Holy Spirit was manifested: I do not doubt indeed that this was
done through the creature; but whether only corporeal and sensible, or
whether by the employment also of the spirit rational or intellectual
(for this is the term by which some choose to call what the Greeks
name noeron), not certainly so as to form one person (for who could
possibly say that whatever creature it was by which the voice of the
Father sounded, is in such sense God the Father; or whatever
creature it was by which the Holy Spirit was manifested in the form of
a dove, or in fiery tongues, is in such sense the Holy Spirit, as
the Son of God is that man who was made of a virgin?), but only to
the ministry of bringing about such intimations as God judged needful;
or whether anything else is to be understood: is difficult to
discover, and not expedient rashly to affirm. Yet I see not how
those things could have been brought to pass without the rational or
intellectual creature. But it is not yet the proper place to explain,
as the Lord may give me strength, why I so think; for the arguments
of heretics must first be discussed and refuted, which they do not
produce from the divine books, but from their own reasons, and by
which, as they think, they forcibly compel us so to understand the
testimonies of the Scriptures which treat of the Father, and the
Son, and the Holy Spirit, as they themselves will.
32. But now, as I think, it has been sufficiently shown, that
the Son is not therefore less because He is sent by the Father, nor
the Holy Spirit less because both the Father sent Him and the Son.
For these things are perceived to be laid down in the Scriptures,
either on account of the visible creature; or rather on account of
commending to our thoughts the emanation [within the Godhead]; but
not on account of inequality, or imparity, or unlikeness of
substance; since, even if God the Father had willed to appear
visibly through the subject creature, yet it would be most absurd to
say that He was sent either by the Son, whom He begot, or by the
Holy Spirit, who proceeds from Him. Let this, therefore, be the
limit of the present book. Henceforth in the rest we shall see, the
Lord helping, of what sort are those crafty arguments of the
heretics, and in what manner they may be confuted.
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