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| How the Holy Spirit is Called Love, and Whether He Alone is So Called. That the Holy Spirit is in the Scriptures Properly Called by the Name of Love.
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Chapter
17.—How the Holy Spirit is Called Love, and Whether He Alone is
So Called. That the Holy Spirit is in the Scriptures Properly
Called by the Name of Love.
27. We have sufficiently spoken of
the Father and of the Son, so far as was possible for us to see
through this glass and in this enigma. We must now treat of the
Holy Spirit, so far as by God’s gift it is permitted to see Him.
And the Holy Spirit, according to the Holy Scriptures, is neither
of the Father alone, nor of the Son alone, but of both; and so
intimates to us a mutual love, wherewith the Father and the Son
reciprocally love one another. But the language of the Word of God,
in order to exercise us, has caused those things to be sought into
with the greater zeal, which do not lie on the surface, but are to
be scrutinized in hidden depths, and to be drawn out from thence.
The Scriptures, accordingly, have not said, The Holy Spirit is
Love. If they had said so, they would have done away with no small
part of this inquiry. But they have said, “God is love;”996
so that it
is uncertain and remains to be inquired whether God the Father is
love, or God the Son, or God the Holy Ghost, or the Trinity itself
which is God. For we are not going to say that God is called Love
because love itself is a substance worthy of the name of God, but
because it is a gift of God, as it is said to God, “Thou art my
patience.”997
For this is
not said because our patience is God’s substance, but in that He
Himself gives it to us; as it is elsewhere read, “Since from Him
is my patience.”998
For the usage of words itself in
Scripture sufficiently refutes this interpretation; for “Thou art
my patience” is of the same kind as “Thou, Lord, art my
hope,”999
and “The
Lord my God is my mercy,”1000
and many like texts. And it is not
said, O Lord my love, or, Thou art my love, or, God my love; but it
is said thus, “God is love,” as it is said, “God is a
Spirit.”1001
And he who
does not discern this, must ask understanding from the Lord, not an
explanation from us; for we cannot say anything more
clearly.
28. “God,” then, “is love;”
but the question is, whether the Father, or the Son, or the Holy
Spirit, or the Trinity itself: because the Trinity is not three
Gods, but one God. But I have already argued above in this book,
that the Trinity, which is God, is not so to be understood from
those three things which have been set forth in the trinity of our
mind, as that the Father should be the memory of all three, and the
Son the understanding of all three, and the Holy Spirit the love of
all three; as though the Father should neither understand nor love
for Himself, but the Son should understand for Him, and the Holy
Spirit love for Him, but He Himself should remember only both for
Himself and for them; nor the Son remember nor love for Himself,
but the Father should remember for Him, and the Holy Spirit love
for Him, but He Himself understand only both for Himself and them;
nor likewise that the Holy Spirit should neither remember nor
understand for Himself, but the Father should remember for Him, and
the Son understand for Him, while He Himself should love only both
for Himself and for them; but rather in this way, that both all and
each have all three each in His own nature. Nor that these things
should differ in them, as in us memory is one thing, understanding
another, love or charity another, but should be some one thing that
is equivalent to all, as wisdom itself; and should be so
contained in the nature of each, as that He who has it is that
which He has, as being an unchangeable and simple substance. If all
this, then, has been understood, and so far as is granted to us to
see or conjecture in things so great, has been made patently true,
I know not why both the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit
should not be called Love, and all together one love, just as both
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is called Wisdom, and
all together not three, but one wisdom. For so also both the Father
is God, and the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, and all three
together one God.
29. And yet it is not to no purpose
that in this Trinity the Son and none other is called the Word of
God, and the Holy Spirit and none other the Gift of God, and God
the Father alone is He from whom the Word is born, and from whom
the Holy Spirit principally proceeds. And therefore I have added
the word principally, because we find that the Holy Spirit proceeds
from the Son also. But the Father gave Him this too, not as to one
already existing, and not yet having it; but whatever He gave to
the only-begotten Word, He gave by begetting Him. Therefore He so
begat Him as that the common Gift should proceed from Him also, and
the Holy Spirit should be the Spirit of both. This distinction,
then, of the inseparable Trinity is not to be merely accepted in
passing, but to be carefully considered; for hence it was that the
Word of God was specially called also the Wisdom of God, although
both Father and Holy Spirit are wisdom. If, then, any one of the
three is to be specially called Love, what more fitting than that
it should be the Holy Spirit?—namely, that in that simple and
highest nature, substance should not be one thing and love another,
but that substance itself should be love, and love itself should be
substance, whether in the Father, or in the Son, or in the Holy
Spirit; and yet that the Holy Spirit should be specially called
Love.
30. Just as sometimes all the
utterances of the Old Testament together in the Holy Scriptures are
signified by the name of the Law. For the apostle, in citing a text
from the prophet Isaiah, where he says, “With divers tongues and
with divers lips will I speak to this people,” yet prefaced it
by, “It is written in the Law.”1002
And the Lord Himself says, “It
is written in their Law, They hated me without a cause,”1003
whereas
this is read in the Psalm.1004
And sometimes that which was given
by Moses is specially called the Law: as it is said, “The Law and
the Prophets were until John;”1005
and, “On these two commandments
hang all the Law and the Prophets.”1006
Here, certainly, that is specially
called the Law which was from Mount Sinai. And the Psalms, too, are
signified under the name of the Prophets; and yet in another place
the Saviour Himself says, “All things must needs be fulfilled,
which are written in the Law, and the Prophets, and the Psalms
concerning me.”1007
Here, on the other side, He meant
the name of Prophets to be taken as not including the Psalms.
Therefore the Law with the Prophets and the Psalms taken together
is called the Law universally, and the Law is also specially so
called which was given by Moses. Likewise the Prophets are so
called in common together with the Psalms, and they are also
specially so called exclusive of the Psalms. And many other
instances might be adduced to teach us, that many names of things
are both put universally, and also specially applied to particular
things, were it not that a long discourse is to be avoided in a
plain case. I have said so much, lest any one should think that it
was therefore unsuitable for us to call the Holy Spirit Love,
because both God the Father and God the Son can be called
Love.
31. As, then, we call the only Word
of God specially by the name of Wisdom, although universally both
the Holy Spirit and the Father Himself is wisdom; so the Holy
Spirit is specially called by the name of Love, although
universally both the Father and the Son are love. But the Word of
God, i.e. the only-begotten Son of God, is expressly called
the Wisdom of God by the mouth of the apostle, where he says,
“Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”1008
But where
the Holy Spirit is called Love, is to be found by careful scrutiny
of the language of John the apostle, who, after saying, “Beloved,
let us love one another, for love is of God,” has gone on to say,
“And every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He
that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.” Here,
manifestly, he has called that love God, which he said was of God;
therefore God of God is love. But because both the Son is born of
God the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father,
it is rightly asked which of them we ought here to think is the
rather called the love that is God. For the Father only is so God
as not to be of God; and hence the love that is so God as to be of
God, is either the Son or the Holy Spirit. But when, in what
follows, the apostle had mentioned the love of God, not
that by which we love Him, but that by which He “loved us, and
sent His Son to be a propitiator for our sins,”1009
and
thereupon had exhorted us also to love one another, and that so God
would abide in us,—because, namely, he had called God Love;
immediately, in his wish to speak yet more expressly on the
subject, “Hereby,” he says, “know we that we dwell in Him,
and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit.” Therefore
the Holy Spirit, of whom He hath given us, makes us to abide in
God, and Him in us; and this it is that love does. Therefore He is
the God that is love. Lastly, a little after, when he had repeated
the same thing, and had said “God is love,” he immediately
subjoined, “And he who abideth in love, abideth in God, and God
abideth in him;” whence he had said above, “Hereby we know that
we abide in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His
Spirit.” He therefore is signified, where we read that God is
love. Therefore God the Holy Spirit, who proceedeth from the
Father, when He has been given to man, inflames him to the love of
God and of his neighbor, and is Himself love. For man has not
whence to love God, unless from God; and therefore he says a little
after, “Let us love Him, because He first loved us.”1010
The
Apostle Paul, too, says, “The love of God is shed abroad in our
hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.”1011
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