Ambrosiaster : The Spirit is our guarantee because he is the agent of our adoption. — COMMENTARY ON PAUL'S EPISTLES Augustine of Hippo : However, now we see obscurely but then face to face; now we see partially but then completely. But the present ability to see in the Scriptures obscurely and partially something which, nonetheless, is in accord with Catholic faith is the work of the pledge which was received by the virgin church at her bridegroom's lowly coming. She will be wed at his final coming when he will come in glory and when she will then behold face to face, for he has given to us a pledge which is the Holy Spirit, as the apostle says. — QUESTIONS 59.4 Augustine of Hippo : For this period in God's plan, in which the Lord has deigned to appear in time and visibly as a man and has given to us as a pledge the Holy Spirit, by whose sevenfold working we are given life (apostolic authority having been added like the seasoning of a few fish), what else therefore does this period in God's plan effect but the possibility of attaining the prize of the heavenly calling without [our] powers failing us? "For we walk by faith and not by sight." — QUESTIONS 61.7 John Chrysostom : "Now he that hath wrought us for this very thing is God." Hereby he shows that these things were prefigured from the first. For not now was this decreed: but when at the first He fashioned us from earth and created Adam; for not for this created He him, that he should die, but that He might make him even immortal. Then as showing the credibility of this and furnishing the proof of it, he added, "Who also gave the earnest of the Spirit." For even then He fashioned us for this; and now He hath wrought unto this by baptism, and hath furnished us with no light security thereof, the Holy Spirit. And he continually calls It an earnest, wishing to prove God to be a debtor of the whole, and thereby also to make what he says more credible unto the grosser sort. — Homily 10 on 2 Corinthians Pelagius : God has given us the Spirit as a guarantee so that we might know that he will not allow the temple of his Spirit to perish. — COMMENTARY ON THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 5 Tertullian : This is why he shows us how much better it is for us not to be sorry, if we should be surprised by death, and tells us that we even hold of God "the earnest of His Spirit" (pledged as it were thereby to have "the clothing upon," which is the object of our hope), and that "so long as we are in the flesh, we are absent from the Lord; " moreover, that we ought on this account to prefer "rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord," and so to be ready to meet even death with joy. — Against Marcion Book V Tertullian : Designated, as He is, "the Mediator between God and man," He keeps in His own self the deposit of the flesh which has been committed to Him by both parties-the pledge and security of its entire perfection. For as "He has given to us the earnest of the Spirit, " so has He received from us the earnest of the flesh, and has carried it with Him into heaven as a pledge of that complete entirety which is one day to be restored to it. — On the Resurrection of the Flesh Tertullian : What shall we say then? Has not the flesh even now (in this life) the spirit by faith? so that the question still remains to be asked, how it is that the animate (or natural) body can be said to be sown? Surely the flesh has received even here the spirit-but only its "earnest; " whereas of the soul (it has received) not the earnest, but the full possession. — On the Resurrection of the Flesh Tertullian : But if repentance is a thing human, its baptism must necessarily be of the same nature: else, if it had been celestial, it would have given both the Holy Spirit and remission of sins. But none either pardons sins or freely grants the Spirit save God only. Even the Lord Himself said that the Spirit would not descend on any other condition, but that He should first ascend to the Father. — On Baptism Theodoret of Cyrus : Since God the Creator foresaw the sin of Adam, he prepared a remedy for it. For he himself has given us the first fruits of the Spirit, so that by the miracles which the Spirit does in our midst we may be reassured that the promises of future glory are true. — COMMENTARY ON THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS 314