Chapter XII.
But the Holy Spirit Himself is, as has already been said, He who is of the Father and the Son: He is the one who, like the Father and the Son, fills the earth: He is the one who is proclaimed holy and good by the Son: He is the one who, like the Lord Christ, is proclaimed good and upright by the prophet David (Luke 11:13); for He says: The word of the Lord is upright, referring to the Son; and: My heart has brought forth a good word. Concerning the Holy Spirit: Renew a righteous spirit in my inner being; and: Your good Spirit will lead me on the right path (Psalm 50:14; 32:4; 43:1; 49:12; 142:10). He is the one who foresees the future as if it were present; he is the one who foretold to us the birth, miracles, persecution, passion, cross, death, burial, resurrection, ascension into heaven, and coming to judgment of Christ the Lord many years before. Just as the Father is without beginning, so too he has the Holy Spirit and the Son without beginning, coeternal, begotten from himself, not after himself. And therefore, just as the Father precedes all antiquity of times, consumes with eternity, surpasses with longevity, so too he begot the Son as his equal in power as well as in the equality we mentioned: but this power, this wisdom, this Word, which is the Son, as the Apostle will use our words (Philippians 2:6 and following), although he was in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God; but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself even to death, death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, the Son of God is called Christ because this mystery signifies his birth according to the flesh, his suffering and death. But this wondrous and singular birth, by which Christ was conceived, was accomplished by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, as the faith of the Holy Creed testifies. Therefore, here the only-begotten Son of God is found in the divine nature, also in His carnal birth through which He assumed our humanity in order to save it; for He alone is born of a Virgin who neither experienced conception from a man nor corruption from childbirth. Therefore, we confess that He was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary according to the flesh; for as it has already been said, the Archangel Gabriel had promised to the blessed Virgin Mary, saying: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and therefore the holy One who will be born from you will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). The Son of God was crucified under Pontius Pilate for our salvation, and was buried. Therefore, the flesh taken from the Virgin is true, the crucifixion is true, the burial is true, and after the third day, the resurrection is true. Therefore, the Holy Spirit, the creator and sanctifier, came to the sacred womb of the Virgin to receive flesh and form a man there, so that by the union of the Word and the man, Christ, the mediator between God and man, would be born perfectly from the first moment of his formation, without fraudulence of humanity and without corruption of divinity: to die because he was created, and to overcome the chains of death as the creator. Therefore, there must not be said any separation between the Word and the man assumed by him, because we confess one Christ, the Son of God, made up of two natures, that is, the divine and human, in a mystic and ineffable manner.