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Objection 1: It would seem that it was unbecoming when Christ was
baptized for the Father's voice to be heard bearing witness to the
Son. For the Son and the Holy Ghost, according as they have
appeared visibly, are said to have been visibly sent. But it does not
become the Father to be sent, as Augustine makes it clear (De
Trin. ii). Neither, therefore, (does it become Him) to
appear.
Objection 2: Further, the voice gives expression to the word
conceived in the heart. But the Father is not the Word. Therefore
He is unfittingly manifested by a voice.
Objection 3: Further, the Man-Christ did not begin to be Son of
God at His baptism, as some heretics have stated: but He was the
Son of God from the beginning of His conception. Therefore the
Father's voice should have proclaimed Christ's Godhead at His
nativity rather than at His baptism.
On the contrary, It is written (Mt. 3:17): "Behold a voice
from heaven, saying: This is My beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased."
I answer that, As stated above (Article 5), that which is
accomplished in our baptism should be manifested in Christ's baptism,
which was the exemplar of ours. Now the baptism which the faithful
receive is hallowed by the invocation and the power of the Trinity;
according to Mt. 28:19: "Go ye and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost." Wherefore, as Jerome says on Mt. 3:16,17:
"The mystery of the Trinity is shown forth in Christ's baptism.
our Lord Himself is baptized in His human nature; the Holy Ghost
descended in the shape of a dove: the Father's voice is heard bearing
witness to the Son." Therefore it was becoming that in that baptism
the Father should be manifested by a voice.
Reply to Objection 1: The visible mission adds something to the
apparition, to wit, the authority of the sender. Therefore the Son
and the Holy Ghost who are from another, are said not only to
appear, but also to be sent visibly. But the Father, who is not
from another, can appear indeed, but cannot be sent visibly.
Reply to Objection 2: The Father is manifested by the voice, only
as producing the voice or speaking by it. And since it is proper to
the Father to produce the Word---that is, to utter or to
speak---therefore was it most becoming that the Father should be
manifested by a voice, because the voice designates the word.
Wherefore the very voice to which the Father gave utterance bore
witness to the Sonship of the Word. And just as the form of the
dove, in which the Holy Ghost was made manifest, is not the Nature
of the Holy Ghost, nor is the form of man in which the Son Himself
was manifested, the very Nature of the Son of God, so neither does
the voice belong to the Nature of the Word or of the Father who
spoke. Hence (Jn. 5:37) our Lord says: "Neither have you
heard His," i.e. the Father's, "voice at any time, nor seen
His shape." By which words, as Chrysostom says (Hom. xl in
Joan.), "He gradually leads them to the knowledge of the
philosophical truth, and shows them that God has neither voice nor
shape, but is above all such forms and utterances." And just as the
whole Trinity made both the dove and the human nature assumed by
Christ, so also they formed the voice: yet the Father alone as
speaking is manifested by the voice, just as the Son alone assumed
human nature, and the Holy Ghost alone is manifested in the dove, as
Augustine [Fulgentius, De Fide ad Petrum] makes evident.
Reply to Objection 3: It was becoming that Christ's Godhead
should not be proclaimed to all in His nativity, but rather that It
should be hidden while He was subject to the defects of infancy. But
when He attained to the perfect age, when the time came for Him to
teach, to work miracles, and to draw men to Himself then did it
behoove His Godhead to be attested from on high by the Father's
testimony, so that His teaching might become the more credible.
Hence He says (Jn. 5:37): "The Father Himself who sent
Me, hath given testimony of Me." And specially at the time of
baptism, by which men are born again into adopted sons of God; since
God's sons by adoption are made to be like unto His natural Son,
according to Rm. 8:29: "Whom He foreknew, He also
predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son."
Hence Hilary says (Super Matth. ii) that when Jesus was
baptized, the Holy Ghost descended on Him, and the Father's voice
was heard saying: "'This is My beloved Son,' that we might
know, from what was accomplished in Christ, that after being washed
in the waters of baptism the Holy Ghost comes down upon us from on
high, and that the Father's voice declares us to have become the
adopted sons of God."
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