Chapter 28 [XVI]—Why the Holy Ghost is Called the Finger of God.

“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”114    2 Cor. iii. 17. Now this Spirit of God, by whose gift we are justified, whence it comes to pass that we delight not to sin,—in which is liberty; even as, when we are without this Spirit, we delight to sin,—in which is slavery, from the works of which we must abstain;—this Holy Spirit, through whom love is shed abroad in our hearts, which is the fulfilment of the law, is designated in the gospel as “the finger of God.”115    Luke xi. 20. Is it not because those very tables of the law were written by the finger of God, that the Spirit of God by whom we are sanctified is also the finger of God, in order that, living by faith, we may do good works through love? Who is not touched by this congruity, and at the same time diversity? For as fifty days are reckoned from the celebration of the Passover (which was ordered by Moses to be offered by slaying the typical lamb,116    Ex. xii. 3. to signify, indeed, the future death of the Lord) to the day when Moses received the law written on the tables of stone by the finger of God,117    Ex. xxxi. 18. so, in like manner, from the death and resurrection of Him who was led as a lamb to the slaughter,118    Isa. liii. 7. there were fifty complete days up to the time when the finger of God—that is, the Holy Spirit—gathered together in one119    Acts ii. 2. perfect company those who believed.

CAPUT XVI.

28. Spiritus sanctus cur dictus sit digitus Dei.---Dominus autem Spiritus est; ubi autem Spiritus Domini, ibi libertas (II Cor. III, 16, 17). Hic autem Spiritus Dei, cujus dono justificamur, quo fit in nobis utnon peccare delectet, ubi libertas est; sicut praeter hunc Spiritum peccare delectat, ubi servitus, a cujus operibus abstinendum est: hic Spiritus sanctus per quem diffunditur charitas in cordibus nostris, quae plenitudo legis est, etiam digitus Dei in Evangelio dicitur (Luc. XI, 20). Unde quia et illae tabulae digito Dei conscriptae sunt, et digitus Dei est Spiritus Dei per quem sanctificamur, ut ex fide viventes per dilectionem bene operemur; quem non moveat ista congruentia ibidemque distantia ? Dies enim quinquaginta computantur a celebratione Paschae, quae occisione figuratae ovis per Moysen fieri praecepta est (Exod. XII), in significationem utique futurae Dominicae passionis, usque ad diem qua Moyses legem accepit in tabulis digito Dei conscriptis: similiter ab occisione et resurrectione illius qui sicut ovis ad immolandum ductus est (Isai. LIII, 7), quinquaginta diebus completis, congregatos in unum fideles digitus Dei, hoc est, Spiritus sanctus implevit (Act. II, 2-4).