VII.

Argument:  When we must speak carefully, there is most need of grammar.  In

theology, we must speak carefully.  Therefore the Holy Spirit has his own

grammar.

Response:  The Holy Spirit has his own grammar.  Grammar is useful

everywhere, but when the subject is greater than can be comprehended by the

rules of grammar and philosophy, it must be left behind.  In grammar, analogy

works very well:  Christ is created.  Therefore Christ is a creature.  But in

theology, nothing is more useless.  Wherefore our eloquence must be

restrained, and we must remain content with the patterns prescribed by the

Holy Spirit.  We do not depart [from grammar] without necessity, for the

subject is ineffable and incomprehensible.  A creature, in the old use of

language, is that which the creator has created and distinguished from

himself, but this meaning has no place in Christ the creature.  There the

creator and the creature are one and the same.  Because there is an ambiguity

in the term and men hearing it immediately think of a creature separate from

the creator, they therefore fear to use it, but it may be sparingly used as a

new term, as once Augustine spoke, moved by the greatest joy:  "Is this not a

marvelous mystery?  He who is the Creator, wished to be a creature."  This is

to be forgiven the holy Father, who was moved by surpassing joy to speak

thus.  He speaks, however, of the unity, not of a separation, as the grammar

implies, and yet, as I have said, this kind of speech is to be used

sparingly, and our joy must be restrained, lest it give birth to errors.  And

the Fathers are to be forgiven, because they spoke thus because of surpassing

joy, wondering that the Creator was a creature.  It is not permissible to use

such words among the weak, because they are easily offended, but among the

learned and those firmly rooted in this article, it does not matter how you

speak, and I am not harmed if you say:  Christ is thirst, humanity,

captivity, creature.