Jesus all should genuflect.13 Let us consider whether the Spirit has this name. But it is also written: 'Go ye, baptize the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.'11 So, He has a name above every name. So, what the Father and the Son have, the Spirit also has through the oneness of the name of His nature.

(149) God has the power to raise up the dead. For, ‘as the Father raiseth up the dead, and giveth life; so the Son also giveth life to whom he will.'15 Moreover, the Spirit also raises up, through whom God raises up, for it is written: 'He shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit dwelling in you.'16 Yet, that you may not think this a weak grace, hear that the Spirit also raises up, for the Prophet Ezechiel says: 'Come, spirit, and blow upon these dead, and they will live. And I prophesied as he had commanded me; and the spirit of life came into them, and they lived, and they stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great assembly.' And below, God says: 'You shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall open your sepulchres, to bring my people out of their graves, and I shall put my spirit in you, and you shall live.'17

(150) Surely, when He mentioned His Spirit, did He name any one else besides the Holy Spirit? For neither would He have mentioned His Spirit as produced by blowing, nor would this Spirit have been able to come from the four corners of the world, because this blowing of the winds which we see is partial not universal, and this spirit by which we live is partial not universal, but it is characteristic of the Holy Spirit to be both above all and in all. Thus, according to the

13 Cf. Phil. 2.9,10.

14 Cf. Matt. 28.19.

15 John 5.21.

17 Cf. Ezech. 37.9-10; 13-14.

words of the Prophet we may observe how the bones, after the framework of the resolved members had long since been dispersed, return into the form of a revived body under the quickening of the Spirit, and how the ashes grow into their limbs, animated by a disposition to come together, before they were formed anew in the likeness of the living.

(151) Do we not in the likeness of the deed recognize the oneness of the divine power? Thus, the Spirit raises up, just as the Lord also raised at His own passion, when in the twinkling of an eye suddenly the tombs of the dead opened, and the revived bodies arose from their graves,18 and, after discarding the odor of death and being restored with the scent of life, the ashes of those who perished took on the appearance of those who are alive.

(152) So the Spirit has that which Christ has; He has then what God has, for all things that the Father has, the Son also has, and therefore He said: 'All things whatsoever the Father hath, are mine.'19

Chapter 20

(153) And that is not insignificant, our reading that a river goes forth from God. For thus you have it in the words of John the Evangelist: 'And he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street thereof, and on both sides of the river, was the tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations."1

18 Cf. Matt. 27.52.

19 John 16.15.

(154) This certainly is the river proceeding from the throne of God, that is, the Holy Spirit, whom he drinks, who believes in Christ, as He Himself says: 'If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Now this he said of the spirit." Thus the river is the Spirit.

2

(155) This, then, is in the throne of God, for the water does not wash the throne of God. Then, whatever you understand as that water, David did not say that it was above the throne of God, but above the heavens, for it is written: 'Let all the waters that are above the heavens, praise the name of the Lord." Let them praise, He said; not, let it praise. For if he had wished the element of water to be understood, surely he would have said: Let it praise, but by speaking in the plural, he wished the Powers to be understood.

(156) And what wonder is it, if the Holy Spirit is in the throne of God, since the kingdom of God itself is the work of the Spirit, as it is written: 'For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." And when the Saviour Himself says:5 'Every kingdom divided against itself shall be made desolate,' then by adding: 'But if I by the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come unto you,' He shows that the kingdom of God is held undivided by Himself with the Spirit.

(157) But what is more foolish than that anyone should deny that the Holy Spirit reigns with Christ, when the Apostle says that we shall reign together with Christ in the kingdom of Christ: 'For if we be dead with him, we shall live also with

2 John 7.37,38.

3 Ps. 148.4.

4 Rom. 14.17.

him'; but we through adoption, He through power; we by grace, He by nature.

(158) The Holy Spirit also, therefore, has participation in the kingdom with the Father and the Son, who is of one nature, of one dominion, also of one power [with them].

Chapter 21

(159) Thus, since He has participation in the Kingdom, what prevents our understanding that it was the Holy Spirit by whom Isaias was sent? For we cannot doubt, since Paul is the author, whose opinion in the Acts of the Apostles Luke the Evangelist so approved as to put in writing. Then, you have it thus, as Paul speaks: 'Well did the Holy Ghost speak to our fathers by Isaias the prophet, saying: Go to this people, and say to them: With the ear you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not understand.'1

(160) It is the Spirit, then, who sent Isaias. If the Spirit sent him, it is the Spirit surely, whom, when the King Ozias died, Isaias saw, when he said: 'I saw the Lord of Sabaoth sitting upon a throne high and elevated; and the house was full of his majesty; and the Seraphim stood round about him; one had six wings; and the other had six wings, and with two wings they covered his face; and with two they covered his feet; and with two they flew; and they cried one to another, and said, Holy, holy holy, the Lord God of Sabaoth, all the earth, is full of his glory.'

2

(161) If the Seraphim were standing, how were they

6 2 Tim. 2.11.

1 Acts 28.25-26.

flying? If they were flying, how were they standing? If we cannot comprehend this, how do we wish to comprehend God, whom we do not see?

(162) But just as the Prophets saw a wheel running within a wheel,3 which certainly has no refence to the likeness of a bodily sight, but the grace of each Testament, because the life of the saints is well rounded, and so harmonious with itself that the later parts correspond with the earlier.* The wheel, then, within a wheel is life under the Law, life under grace, on this account, because the Jews are within the Church, the Law within grace. For he is within the Church who is a Jew secretly; and circumcision of the heart is a sacrament within the Church. But that Judaea is within the Church, of which it is written: 'In Judea God is known';5 therefore, as a wheel runs within a wheel, similarly wings stood still, and wings were flying.

(163) In like manner, also, 'the Seraphim with two wings covered His face, and with two they covered His feet, and with two they flew.' For here, also, is a mystery of spiritual wisdom. The times stand, the times fly; those of past stand, those of the future fly; and just as the wings of the Seraphim, so they cover the face or the feet of God; inasmuch as in God, who has neither beginning nor end, all the course of the times, from this knowledge of its beginning and its end is at rest. So the past or the future times stand, the present fly. Do not ask about the secrets of His beginning or end, which are not. You have the present; praise, do not question.

(164) The Seraphim with unwearied voices, praise, and do you strike asunder? When they do this, surely they indicate

3 Cf. Ezech. 1.16.

4 St. Ambrose becomes so involved in his thoughts here that he does not complete this sentence.