49. If the Son is above all, through Whom
our salvation received its commencement, so that it might be preached,
certainly God the Father also, Who testifies and gives confirmation
concerning our salvation by signs and wonders, is excepted from
all. In like manner the Spirit, Who bears witness to our
salvation by His diversities of gifts, is not to be numbered with the
crowd of creatures, but to be reckoned with the Father and the Son;
Who, when He divides, is not Himself divided by cutting off Himself,
for being indivisible He loses nothing when He gives to all, as also
the Son, when the Father receives the kingdom, 1 Cor. xv. 24.
loses nothing, nor does the Father, when He gives that which is His to
the Son, suffer loss. We know, then, by the testimony of the Son
that there is no loss in the division of spiritual grace; for He Who
breathes where He wills S. John iii. 8. is everywhere
free from loss. Concerning which power we shall speak more fully
farther on.