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56. Now, when we have spoken of Jesus Christ, the
only Son of God our Lord, in the brevity befitting
our confession of faith, we go on to affirm that we
believe also in the Holy Spirit, as completing the
Trinity which is God; and after that we call to mind
our faith "in holy Church." By this we are given to
understand that the rational creation belonging to
the free Jerusalem ought to be mentioned in a
subordinate order to the Creator, that is, the
supreme Trinity. For, of course, all that has been
said about the man Christ Jesus refers to the unity
of the Person of the Only Begotten. Thus, the right
order of the Creed demanded(110) that the Church be
made subordinate to the Trinity, as a house is
subordinate to him who dwells in it, the temple to
God, and the city to its founder. By the Church here
we are to understand the whole Church, not just the
part that journeys here on earth from rising of the
sun to its setting, praising the name of the
Lord(111) and singing a new song of deliverance from
its old captivity, but also that part which, in
heaven, has always, from creation, held fast to God,
and which never experienced the evils of a fall.
This part, composed of the holy angels, remains in
blessedness, and it gives help, even as it ought, to
the other part still on pilgrimage. For both parts
together will make one eternal consort, as even now
they are one in the bond of love--the whole
instituted for the proper worship of the one
God.(112) Wherefore, neither the whole Church nor any
part of it wishes to be worshiped as God nor to be
God to anyone belonging to the temple of God--the
temple that is being built up of "the gods" whom the
uncreated God created.(113) Consequently, if the
Holy Spirit were creature and not Creator, he would
obviously be a rational creature, for this is the
highest of the levels of creation. But in this case
he would not be set in the rule of faith before the
Church, since he would then belong to the Church, in
that part of it which is in heaven. He would not have
a temple, for he himself would be a temple. Yet, in
fact, he hath a temple of which the apostle speaks,
"Know you not that your body is the temple of the
Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from
God?"(114) In another place, he says of this body,
"Know you not that your bodies are members of
Christ?"(115) How, then, is he not God who has a
temple? Or how can he be less than Christ whose
members are his temple? It is not that he has one
temple and God another temple, since the same apostle
says: "Know you not that you are the temple of God,"
and then, as if to prove his point, added, "and that
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" God therefore
dwelleth in his temple, not the Holy Spirit only, but
also Father and Son, who saith of his body--in which
he standeth as Head of the Church on earth "that in
all things he may be pre-eminent"(116) --"Destroy
this temple and in three days I will raise it up
again."(117) Therefore, the temple of God---that is,
of the supreme Trinity as a whole--is holy Church,
the Universal Church in heaven and on the earth.
57. But what can we affirm about that part of the
Church in heaven, save that in it no evil is to be
found, nor any apostates, nor will there be again,
since that time when "God did not spare the sinning
angels"--as the apostle Peter writes--"but casting
them out, he delivered them into the prisons of
darkness in hell, to be reserved for the sentence in
the Day of Judgment"(118) ? 58. Still, how is life
ordered in that most blessed and supernal society?
What differences are there in rank among the angels,
so that while all are called by the general title
"angels"--as we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews,
"But to which of the angels said he at any time, 'Sit
at my right hand'?"(119) ; this expression clearly
signifies that all are angels without exception--yet
there are archangels there as well? Again, should
these archangels be called "powers" [virtutes], so
that the verse, "Praise him all his angels; praise
him, all his powers,"(120) would mean the same thing
as, "Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his
archangels"? Or, what distinctions are implied by the
four designations by which the apostle seems to
encompass the entire heavenly society, "Be they
thrones or dominions, principalities, or powers"(121)
? Let them answer these questions who can, if they
can indeed prove their answers. For myself, I confess
to ignorance of such matters. I am not even certain
about another question: whether the sun and moon and
all the stars belong to that same heavenly
society--although they seem to be nothing more than
luminous bodies, with neither perception nor
understanding. 59. Furthermore, who can explain the
kind of bodies in which the angels appeared to men,
so that they were not only visible, but tangible as
well? And, again, how do they, not by impact of
physical stimulus but by spiritual force, bring
certain visions, not to the physical eyes but to the
spiritual eyes of the mind, or speak something, not
to the ears, as from outside us, but actually from
within the human soul, since they are present within
it too? For, as it is written in the book of the
Prophets: "And the angel that spoke in me, said to
me..."(122) He does not say, "Spoke to me" but "Spoke
in me." How do they appear to men in sleep, and
communicate through dreams, as we read in the Gospel:
"Behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in his
sleep, saying..."(123) ? By these various modes of
presentation, the angels seem to indicate that they
do not have tangible bodies. Yet this raises a very
difficult question: How, then, did the patriarchs
wash the angels' feet?(124) How, also, did Jacob
wrestle with the angel in such a tangible
fashion?(125)
To ask such questions as these, and to guess at
the answers as one can, is not a useless exercise in
speculation, so long as the discussion is moderate
and one avoids the mistake of those who think they
know what they do not know. |