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38. Are we, then, to say that the Holy Spirit is the
Father of Christ's human nature, so that as God the
Father generated the Word, so the Holy Spirit
generated the human nature, and that from both
natures Christ came to be one, Son of God the Father
as the Word, Son of the Holy Spirit as man? Do we
suppose that the Holy Spirit is his Father through
begetting him of the Virgin Mary? Who would dare to
say such a thing? There is no need to show by
argument how many absurd consequences such a notion
has, when it is so absurd in itself that no
believer's ear can bear to hear it. Actually, then,
as we confess our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God from
God yet born as man of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin
Mary, there is in each nature (in both the divine and
the human) the only Son of God the Father Almighty,
from whom proceeds the Holy Spirit. How, then, do
we say that Christ is born of the Holy Spirit, if the
Holy Spirit did not beget him? Is it because he made
him? This might be, since through our Lord Jesus
Christ--in the form of God--all things were made. Yet
in so far as he is man, he himself was made, even as
the apostle says: "He was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh."(80) But since that creature
which the Virgin conceived and bore, though it was
related to the Person of the Son alone, was made by
the whole Trinity--for the works of the Trinity are
not separable--why is the Holy Spirit named as the
One who made it? Is it, perhaps, that when any One of
the Three is named in connection with some divine
action, the whole Trinity is to be understood as
involved in that action? This is true and can be
shown by examples, but we should not dwell too long
on this kind of solution.
For what still concerns us is how it can be said,
"Born of the Holy Spirit," when he is in no wise the
Son of the Holy Spirit? Now, just because God made [fecit]
this world, one could not say that the world is the
son of God, or that it is "born" of God. Rather, one
says it was "made" or "created" or "founded" or
"established" by him, or however else one might like
to speak of it. So, then, when we confess, "Born of
the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary," the sense in
which he is not the Son of the Holy Spirit and yet is
the son of the Virgin Mary, when he was born both of
him and of her, is difficult to explain. But there is
no doubt as to the fact that he was not born from him
as Father as he was born of her as mother.
39. Consequently we should not grant that whatever
is born of something should therefore be called the
son of that thing. Let us pass over the fact that a
son is "born" of a man in a different sense than a
hair is, or a louse, or a maw worm--none of these is
a son. Let us pass over these things, since they are
an unfitting analogy in so great a matter. Yet it is
certain that those who are born of water and of the
Holy Spirit would not properly be called sons of the
water by anyone. But it does make sense to call them
sons of God the Father and of Mother Church. Thus,
therefore, the one born of the Holy Spirit is the son
of God the Father, not of the Holy Spirit.
What we said about the hair and the other things
has this much relevance, that it reminds us that not
everything which is "born" of something is said to be
"son" to him from which it is "born." Likewise, it
does not follow that those who are called sons of
someone are always said to have been born of him,
since there are some who are adopted. Even those who
are called "sons of Gehenna" are not born of it, but
have been destined for it, just as the sons of the
Kingdom are destined for that.
40. Wherefore, since a thing may be "born" of
something else, yet not in the fashion of a "son,"
and conversely, since not everyone who is called son
is born of him whose son he is called--this is the
very mode in which Christ was "born" of the Holy
Spirit (yet not as a son), and of the Virgin Mary as
a son--this suggests to us the grace of God by which
a certain human person, no merit whatever preceding,
at the very outset of his existence, was joined to
the Word of God in such a unity of person that the
selfsame one who is Son of Man should be Son of God,
and the one who is Son of God should be Son of Man.
Thus, in his assumption of human nature, grace
came to be natural to that nature, allowing no power
to sin. This is why grace is signified by the Holy
Spirit, because he himself is so perfectly God that
he is also called God's Gift. Still, to speak
adequately of this--even if one could--would call for
a very long discussion. |