{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050690.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050690.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050690.htm","text":"Chapter 18.\u2014By \u201cBreath\u201d Is Signified Sometimes the Holy Spirit.\nHow, again, does he know whether the repetition of the idea in the sentence, \u201cwho giveth breath to the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk over it,\u201d may not be understood of only one thing under two expressions, and may not mean, not the life or spirit whereby human nature lives, but the Holy Spirit? For if by the \u201cbreath\u201d the Holy Ghost could not be signified, the Lord would not, when He \u201cbreathed upon\u201d His disciples after His resurrection, have said, \u201cReceive ye the Holy Ghost.\u201d 2355 Nor would it have been thus written in the Acts of the Apostles, \u201cSuddenly there came a sound from heaven, as if a mighty breath were borne in upon them; and there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.\u201d 2356 Suppose, now, that it was this which the prophet foretold in the words, \u201cwho giveth breath unto the people upon it;\u201d and then, as an exposition of what he had designated \u201cbreath,\u201d he went on to say, \u201cand spirit to them that walk over it.\u201d Surely this prediction was most manifestly fulfilled when they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. If, however, the term \u201cpeople\u201d is not yet applicable to the one hundred and twenty persons who were then assembled together in one place, at all events, when the number of believers amounted to four or five thousand, who when they were baptized received the Holy Ghost, 2357 can any doubt that the recipients of the Holy Ghost were then \u201cthe people,\u201d even \u201cthe men walking in the earth\u201d? For that spirit which is given to man as appertaining to his nature, whether it be given by propagation or be inbreathed as something new to individuals (and I do not determine which of these two modes ought to be affirmed, at least until one of the two can be clearly ascertained beyond a doubt), is not given to men when they \u201cwalk over the earth,\u201d but whilst they are still shut up in their mother\u2019s womb. \u201cHe gave breath, therefore, to the people upon the earth, and spirit to them that walk over it,\u201d when many became believers together, and were together filled with the Holy Ghost. And He gives Him to His people, although not to all at the same time, but to every one in His own time, until, by departing from this life, and by coming into it, the entire number of His people p. 323 be fulfilled. In this passage of Holy Scripture, therefore, breath is not one thing, and spirit another thing; but there is a repetition of one and the same idea. Just as \u201cHe that sitteth in the heavens\u201d is not one, and \u201cthe Lord\u201d is not another; nor, again, is it one thing \u201cto laugh,\u201d and another thing \u201cto hold in derision;\u201d but there is only a repetition of the same meaning in the passage where we read, \u201cHe that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.\u201d 2358 So, in precisely the same manner, in the passage, \u201cI will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession,\u201d 2359 it is certainly not meant that \u201cinheritance\u201d is one thing, and \u201cpossession\u201d another thing; nor that \u201cthe heathen\u201d means one thing, and \u201cthe uttermost parts of the earth\u201d another; there is only a repetition of the self-same thing. He will, indeed, discover innumerable expressions of this sort in the sacred writings, if he will only attentively consider what he reads. 2360\n[It is the parallelism of Hebrew poetry to which Augustin here appeals: and that soundly, although the interpretation of \u201cspirit\u201d in the passage in hand, which is suggested in the chapter, is untenable.\u2014W.]","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on the...","type":"page"}