was, as we have seen, conceived as mainly intellectual. The reason for this is because the Holy Spirit brings the gift of Christ, and is his Spirit;[1] 'he shall bear witness of me' and 'he shall take of mine and shall declare it unto you'.[2] In this way also Christianity gives a new meaning to the words of Isaiah.
Wisdom then, Σοφία, Sapientia, I would suggest, is the moral aspect of the mind, akin to the holy and exalted personifications in the Wisdom books of the later Hebrew scriptures. We always instinctively associate goodness with the word. 'He is so wise ' could not be well said of an intellectual rascal. Wisdom, then, is the power of appreciating Goodness.
Understanding in the Septuagint is Σύνεσις, 'comprehension, understanding, judgement, per-
- ↑ So S. Paul: 'The Spirit of God,' I Cor. 211; 'The Spirit of Christ' Rom. 89; 'The Spirit of Jesus Christ', Phil, 119; 'The Spirit of God's Son,' Gal. 46.
- ↑ John 1526, 1615.
the Third Person as Will and, since the Will of God is always a loving will, therefore as Love, ' duae processiones: una per modum intellectus, quae est processio Verbi; alia per modum voluntatis, quae est processio Amoris ' (Summa Theologica, Pars I, Q. xxxvii, Art. i). The tres personae are tres proprietates, 'three essential and eternally distinct attributes,' as Dr. Rashdall paraphrases—it three subsistences (Summa, ibid.xxix. 2)—Power, Wisdom, and Will; just as there are three elements in human personality, since all personality must be power having both reason and will.
