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OTHERWISE, as the heretics say, God would i be in the Lord Jesus Christ
as in a statue or in an instrument, i.e., He would dwell as it were in a
man and speak as it were through a man, and it would not be He who dwelt
and spoke as God of Himself and in His own body: and certainly He had
already thus dwelt in the saints and spoken in the persons of the saints.
In those men too, of whom I spoke above, who had prayed for His advent, He
had thus dwelt and spoken. And what need was there for all these to ask for
what they already possessed, if they were seeking for what they had
previously received? Or why should they long to see with their eyes what
they were keeping in their hearts, especially as it is better for a man to
have the same thing within himself than to see it outside? Or if God was to
dwell in Christ in the same way as in all the saints, why should all the
saints long to see Christ rather than themselves? And if they were only to
see the same thing in Jesus Christ, which they themselves possessed, why
should they not much rather prefer to have this in themselves than to see
it in another? But you are wrong, you wretched madman, "not understanding,"
as the Apostle says, "what you say and whereof you affirm": for all the
prophets and all the saints received from God some portion of the Divine
Spirit as they were able to bear it. But in Christ "all the fulness of the
Godhead" dwelt and "dwells bodily." And therefore they all fall far short
of His fulness, from whose fulness they receive something: for the fact
that they are filled is the gift of Christ: because they would all
certainly be empty, were He not the fulness of all.
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