Spirit, since the incarnation of the Son, and from the day of Pentecost, differs in many critical and characteristic ways from His presence and office in the world before the advent of Jesus Christ. It differs not only in exuberance of gifts and graces, nor only in its miraculous manifestations, nor again in its universality, as if what was given before in measure was given afterwards in fulness, but in a deeper way, that is, in the office which He has assumed, and in the manner of His presence,

I. And, first, the Holy Ghost came before into the world by His universal operations in all mankind, but now He comes through the Incarnate Son by a special and personal presence.

As the Son of God has both an eternal generation and a temporal mission, that is, His eternal generation from the Father,' and His temporal advent by incarnation, so the Spirit of God has likewise an eternal procession and a temporal mission from the Father and the Son. The eternal mission is the Passive Spiration, whereby the Person and relations of the Holy Ghost to the Father and to the Son are eternally constituted. And this by the Fathers and Theologians is called His eternal procession. The temporal mission of the Holy Ghost began from the day of Pentecost, when He came to us through the

2

Petav. De Trinitate, lib. viii. cap. 2.

2 Ibid., lib. vii. cap. 18. sec. 5, 6.

Incarnate Son. S. Augustine teaches that this was signified by the material breath with which Jesus breathed upon His Apostles, when He said, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost." It was the symbol and pledge of the gift which He had promised to them. It was reserved till He should be glorified. Then, on His Ascension to the right hand of God, the Holy Ghost was sent from the Father and the Son Incarnate. S. Augustine calls the day of Pentecost the Dies Natalis or Nativity of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of God had wrought before throughout the whole race descended from the first Adam. He came now by a special and personal mission to work in the children of the second Adam. The first Adam by sin forfeited for himself and for us the presence and grace of the Holy Ghost; the second Adam has restored to His children the presence and the grace which had been lost; but with this difference-the first Adam was man, the second Adam is God. The first, though sinless, was capable of sinning; the second, being God, could not sin. The Holy Ghost proceeds from the second Adam to us who are born again in the new creation of God.

What has here been stated is expressed by S. Thomas as follows:-On the question whether mission be eternal or temporal only, he says, 'It is to be said

1 S. August. De Gen. ad Lit. tom. iii. p. 260. De Trin. lib. iv. tom. viii. p. 829.

that in those things which imply the origin of Divine Persons a distinction is to be observed. For some things, by their signification, imply only the relation to their principle, as procession and going forth; and some, together with the relation to their principle, determine the end for which they proceed. Of these some determine the eternal end, as generation and spiration; for generation is the procession of a Divine Person in the Divine Nature, and spiration, taken passively, implies the procession of love subsisting (in the nature of God). Other things with the relation to their principle imply the temporal end, as mission and gift; for a thing is sent for this end that it may exist in another, and given to this end that it may be possessed. But that a Divine person should be possessed by any creature, or should be in it by a new mode of existence, is something temporal. Therefore mission and gift in things divine are predicated in a temporal sense alone; but generation and spiration are predicated only of eternity. But procession and going forth are predicated in things divine both eternally and temporally. From eternity He proceeds as God, but temporally as Man also by a visible mission; and also that he may be in man by a mission which is invisible." And further, he adds, speaking of the mission of the Holy Ghost, 'But the visible mission was fulfilled to Christ in His baptism

1 Divi Thomæ Sum. Theol., prima pars, quæst. xliii. artic. 2.

...

under the form of a dove-which is a fruitful creature-to manifest the authority of bestowing grace by spiritual regeneration which was in Christ. . . . But in the transfiguration, under the form of a shining cloud, to manifest the exuberance of His teaching. . . . But to the Apostles, under the form of breath, to manifest the power of the ministry in the dispensation of sacraments; wherefore He said to them, "Whosesoever sins you forgive they are forgiven unto them." But in tongues of fire to manifest the office of teaching, wherefore it is written, "They began to speak with various tongues." But to the Fathers of the Old Testament it was not fitting that the mission of the Holy Ghost should be visibly fulfilled, because it was fitting that the visible mission of the Son should first be fulfilled before that of the Holy Ghost, forasmuch as the Holy Ghost manifests the Son, as the Son manifests the Father. But visible apparitions of Divine Persons were made to the Fathers of the Old Testament, which, however, cannot be called visible missions, because they were not made, as S. Augustine says, to designate the inhabitation of a Divine Person by grace, but to manifest something else.'

1

After profusely expounding these articles of S. Thomas, Suarez adds the following words, which are

Divi Thomæ Sum. Theol., prima pars, quæst. xliii. artic. 7.

1

very much to our purpose: And here a distinction may be noted between the mission of the Word. . . and this mission of the Spirit; . . . that the mission of the Word is without merit given by the charity of God alone, according to the words of S. John,—" God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son:" but the mission of the Holy Ghost is given through the merits of the Word, and therefore the Spirit was not given until Jesus was glorified. Which Christ Himself also declared, saying, "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete."

II. The second characteristic difference is, that the Holy Ghost came to create the mystical body of Christ.

Until the day of Pentecost the mystical body was not complete. There could be no body till there was a Head. There was no Head until the Son was incarnate; and, even when incarnate, the completion of the body was deferred until the Head was glorified; that is, until the Incarnate Son had fulfilled His whole redeeming office in life, death, resurrection, and ascension, returning to enthrone the Humanity with which His eternal Person was invested, at the right hand of the Father. Then, when the Head was exalted in His supreme majesty over angels and men,

2

Suarez, Comment. in Primam Partem D. Thomæ, lib. xii. cap. 6, sect. 26, De Missione Personarum..