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| Of the Sensible Showing of the Holy Spirit, and of the Coeternity of the Trinity. What Has Been Said, and What Remains to Be Said.
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Chapter 21.—Of the Sensible
Showing of the Holy Spirit, and of the Coeternity of the Trinity.
What Has Been Said, and What Remains to Be Said.
But with respect to the sensible
showing of the Holy Spirit, whether by the shape of a dove,560
or by fiery
tongues,561
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;562
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
profiting 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
νοερόν), 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];563
| 563 [The original is: “propter
principii commendationem,” which the English translator
renders “On account of commending to our thoughts the principle
[of the Godhead].” The technical use of “principium” is
missed. Augustin says that the phrases, “sending the Son,” and
“sending the Spirit,” have reference to the “visible
creature” through which in the theophanies each was manifested;
but still more, to the fact that the Father is the “beginning”
of the Son, and the Father and Son are the “beginning” of the
Spirit. This fact of a “beginning,” or emanation
(manatio) of one from another, is what is commended to our
thoughts.—W.G.T.S.] | 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.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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