Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/434



428 THE HOLY SPIRIT.

rifice of Himself: Christ, through the Holy Ghost, offered Himself without spot to God} Considering this no one can be surprised that all the gifts of the Holy Ghost inun- dated the soul of Christ. In Him resided the absolute fulness of grace, in the greatest and most efficacious man- ner possible; in Him were all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, graces gratis datm, virtues, and all other gifts foretold in the prophecies of Isaias,^ and also signified in that miraculous dove which appeared at the Jordan, when Christ, by His Baptism, consecrated its waters for a new sacrament. On this the words of St. Augustine may appropriately be quoted: "It would be absurd to say that Christ received the Holy Ghost when He was already thirty years of age, for He came to His Baptism without sin, and therefore not without the Holy Ghost. At this time, then (that is at His Baptism), He was pleased to prefigure His Church, in which those especially who are baptized receive the Holy Ghost. " ^ Therefore, by the conspicuous appa- rition of the Holy Ghost over Christ and by His invisible power in His soul, the twofold mission of the Spirit is fore- shadowed, namely, His outward and visible mission in the Church, and His secret indwelling in the souls of the just.

THE HOLY GHOST AND THE CHURCH.

The Church which, already conceived, came forth from the side of the second Adam in His sleep on the cross, first showed herself before the eyes of men on the great day of Pentecost. On that day the Holy Ghost began to manifest His gifts in the mystic body of Christ, by that miraculous outpouring already foreseen by the prophet Joel,^ for the Paraclete "sat upon the apostles as though new spiritual crowns were placed upon their heads in tongues of fire." ^ Then the apostles "descended from

1 Heb. ix. 14. Â« De Trin. 1. xv., c. 26.

Â»Isa. iv. 1; xi. 23. < Joel ii. 28, 29

Â»S. Cyril Hier. Catech. 17.