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Augustine of Hippo, On the Spirit and the Letter
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A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter,
Chapter 2 [II.]—The Examples Apposite.
Chapter 6 [IV.]—The Teaching of Law Without the Life-Giving Spirit is “The Letter that Killeth.”
Chapter 7 [V.]—What is Proposed to Be Here Treated.
Chapter 9 [VI].—Through the Law Sin Has Abounded.
Chapter 11 [VII.]—From What Fountain Good Works Flow.
Chapter 15 [IX.]—The Righteousness of God Manifested by the Law and the Prophets.
Chapter 16 [X.]—How the Law Was Not Made for a Righteous Man.
Chapter 18 [XI.]—Piety is Wisdom That is Called the Righteousness of God, Which He Produces.
Chapter 19 [XII]—The Knowledge of God Through the Creation.
Chapter 21 [XIII.]—The Law of Works and the Law of Faith.
Chapter 23 [XIV.]—How the Decalogue Kills, If Grace Be Not Present.
Chapter 27 [XV.]—Grace, Concealed in the Old Testament, is Revealed in the New.
Chapter 28 [XVI]—Why the Holy Ghost is Called the Finger of God.
Chapter 29 [XVII.]—A Comparison of the Law of Moses and of the New Law.
Chapter 31 [XVIII.]—The Old Law Ministers Death The New, Righteousness.
Chapter 32 [XIX.]—The Christian Faith Touching the Assistance of Grace.
Chapter 35 [XX.]—The Old Law The New Law.
Chapter 36 [XXI.]—The Law Written in Our Hearts.
Chapter 37 [XXII.]—The Eternal Reward.
Chapter 42 [XXV.]—Difference Between the Old and the New Testaments.
Chapter 47 [XXVII.]—The Law “Being Done by Nature” Means, Done by Nature as Restored by Grace.
Chapter 50 [XXIX.]—Righteousness is the Gift of God.
Chapter 52 [XXX.]—Grace Establishes Free Will.
Chapter 53 [XXXI.]—Volition and Ability.
Chapter 56.—The Faith of Those Who are Under the Law Different from the Faith of Others.
Chapter 57 [XXXIII.]—Whence Comes the Will to Believe?
Chapter 60 [XXXIV.]—The Will to Believe is from God.
Chapter 61 [XXXV.]—Conclusion of the Work.
Chapter 64 [XXXVI.]—When the Commandment to Love is Fulfilled.
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).