Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| What is Said Relatively in the Trinity.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter 11.—What is Said
Relatively in the Trinity.
12. But whereas, in the same
Trinity, some things severally are specially predicated, these are
in no way said in reference to themselves in themselves, but either
in mutual reference, or in respect to the creature; and, therefore,
it is manifest that such things are spoken relatively, not in the
way of substance. For the Trinity is called one God, great, good,
eternal, omnipotent; and the same God Himself may be called His own
deity, His own magnitude, His own goodness, His own eternity, His
own omnipotence: but the Trinity cannot in the same way be called
the Father, except perhaps metaphorically, in respect to the
creature, on account of the adoption of sons. For that which is
written, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord,”583
ought
certainly not to be understood as if the Son were excepted, or the
Holy Spirit were excepted; which one Lord our God we rightly call
also our Father, as regenerating us by His grace. Neither can the
Trinity in any wise be called the Son, but it can be called, in its
entirety, the Holy Spirit, according to that which is written,
“God is a Spirit;”584
because both the Father is a spirit
and the Son is a spirit, and the Father is holy and the Son is
holy. Therefore, since the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are
one God, and certainly God is holy, and God is a spirit, the
Trinity can be called also the Holy Spirit. But yet that Holy
Spirit, who is not the Trinity, but is understood as in the
Trinity, is spoken of in His proper name of the Holy Spirit
relatively, since He is referred both to the Father and to the Son,
because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit both of the Father and of the
Son. But the relation is not itself apparent in that name, but it
is apparent when He is called the gift of God;585
for He is the gift of the Father
and of the Son, because “He proceeds from the Father,”586
as the Lord
says; and because that which the apostle says, “Now, if any man
have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His,”587
he says
certainly of the Holy Spirit Himself. When we say, therefore, the
gift of the giver, and the giver of the gift, we speak in both
cases relatively in reciprocal reference. Therefore the Holy Spirit
is a certain unutterable communion of the Father and the Son; and
on that account, perhaps, He is so called, because the same name is
suitable to both the Father and the Son. For He Himself is called
specially that which they are called in common; because both the
Father is a spirit and the Son a spirit, both the Father is holy
and the Son holy.588
| 588 [The reason which Augustin here assigns, why the name
Holy Spirit is given to the third person—namely, because
spirituality is a characteristic of both the Father and Son, from
both of whom he proceeds—is not that assigned in the more
developed trinitarianism. The explanation in this latter is, that
the third person is denominated the Spirit because of the peculiar
manner in which the divine essence is communicated to
him—namely, by spiration or out-breathing: spiritus
quia spiratus. This is supported by the etymological
signification of
πνεῦμα, which is breath; and
by the symbolical action of Christ in
John
xx. 22, which suggests the eternal spiration, or out-breathing
of the third person. The third trinitarian person is no more
spiritual, in the sense of immaterial, than the first and second
persons, and if the term “Spirit” is to be taken in this the
ordinary signification, the “trinitarian relation,” or personal
peculiarity, as Augustin remarks, “is not itself apparent in this
name;” because it would mention nothing distinctive of the third
person, and not belonging to the first and second. But taken
technically to denote the spiration or out-breathing by the Father
and Son, the trinitarian peculiarity is apparent in the
name.
And the epithet
“Holy” is similarly explained. The third person is the Holy
Spirit, not because he is any more holy than the first and second,
but because he is the source and author of holiness
in all created spirits. This is eminently and officially his work.
In this way also, the epithet “Holy”—which in its ordinary
use would specify nothing peculiar to the third person,—mentions
a characteristic that differentiates him from the Father and
Son.—W.G.T.S.] | In order,
therefore, that the communion of both may be signified from a name
which is suitable to both, the Holy Spirit is called the gift of
both. And this Trinity is one God, alone, good, great, eternal,
omnipotent; itself its own unity, deity, greatness, goodness,
eternity, omnipotence.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
