XI. He wrought first in the heavenly and
angelic powers, and such as are first after God and around God.
For from no other source flows their perfection and their brightness,
and the difficulty or impossibility of moving them to sin, but from the
Holy Ghost. And next, in the Patriarchs and Prophets, of whom the
former saw Visions of God, or knew Him, and the latter also foreknew
the future, having their master part moulded by the Spirit, and being
associated with events that were yet future as if present, for such is
the power of the Spirit. And next in the Disciples of Christ (for
I omit to mention Christ Himself, in Whom He dwelt, not as energizing,
but as accompanying His Equal), and that in three ways, as they were
able to receive Him, and on three occasions; before Christ was
glorified by the Passion, and after He was glorified by the
Resurrection; and after His Ascension, or Restoration, or whatever we
ought to call it, to Heaven. Now the first of these manifests
Him—the healing of the sick and casting out of evil spirits,
which could not be apart from the Spirit; and so does that breathing
upon them after the Resurrection, which was clearly a divine
inspiration; and so too the present distribution of the fiery tongues,
which we are now commemorating. But the first manifested Him
indistinctly, the second more expressly, this present one more
perfectly, since He is no longer present only in energy, but as we may
say, substantially, associating with us, and dwelling in us. For
it was fitting that as the Son had lived with us in bodily
form—so the Spirit too should appear in bodily form; and that
after Christ had returned to His own place, He should have come down to
us—Coming because He is the Lord; Sent, because He
is not a rival God. For such words no less manifest the Unanimity
than they mark the separate Individuality.