31. Now the blessed Apostle Paul in
revealing the secret of these heavenly mysteries, most difficult to
human comprehension, has preserved a clear enunciation and a carefully
worded caution in order to shew that these diverse gifts are given
through the Spirit and in the Spirit (for to be given through the
Spirit and in the Spirit is not the same thing), because the granting
of a gift which is exercised in the Spirit is yet bestowed through the
Spirit. But he sums up these diversities of gifts thus:
Now all these things worketh one and the same Spirit, dividing to
each one as He will 1 Cor. xii. 11.. Now,
therefore, I ask what Spirit works these things, dividing to each one
according as He wills: is it He by Whom or He in Whom there is
this distribution of gifts Hilary’s
interpretation of this passage is not strictly Trinitarian. His
view is that there are two Divine Persons at work, the Father and the
Son, and that Both are embraced under the common name of
‘Spirit.’ Compare ii. 30, and the exegesis of St.
John iv. 24, which follows.? But if any
one shall dare to say that it is the same Person which is indicated,
the Apostle will refute so faulty an opinion, for he says above, And
there are diversities of workings, but the same God Who worketh all
things in all. So there is one Who distributes and another in
Whom the distribution is vouchsafed. Yet know that it is always
God Who worketh all these things, but in such a way that Christ works,
and the Son in His working performs the Father’s work. And
if in the Holy Spirit thou confessest Jesus to be Lord, understand the
force of that threefold indication in the Apostle’s letter;
forasmuch as in the diversities of gifts, it is the same Spirit, and in
the diversities of ministrations it is the same Lord, and in the
diversities of workings it is the same God; and again, one Spirit that
worketh all things distributing to each according as He will. And
grasp the idea if thou canst that the Lord in the distribution of
ministrations, and God in the distribution of workings, are this one
and the same Spirit Who both works and distributes as He will; because
in the distribution of gifts there is one Spirit, and the same Spirit
works and distributes.