Letter 597

To Zenodorus the Decanus [a minor official]. You read with pleasure the writings of John, bishop of Constantinople [John Chrysostom]; and so from them I now write to you the very thing you asked. "The Holy Spirit, then, was seen descending upon Jesus as a dove." For in us, through baptism, there dwells a first-fruit and a pledge of divinity; but in Christ dwells the whole fullness of divinity. And do not suppose that Christ, not possessing the Spirit, was receiving it; for he himself was sending it down from above as God, and he himself was receiving it below as man. From himself, therefore, it was descending into himself, from his divinity into his humanity.

Τοῖς λόγοις Ἰωάννου τοῦ Κωνσταντινουπόλεως ἐπισκόπου ἡδέως ἐντυγχάνεις· ἐξ αὐτῶν δὴ γράφω σοι νῦν ὅπερ ἐζήτησας. « Ὤφθη τοίνυν τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον καταβαῖνον ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ὡς περιστερά. » Ἐν ἡμῖν μὲν γὰρ διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσματος ἀπαρχή, καὶ ἀῤῥαβὼν θεότητος κατοικεῖ, ἐν Χριστῷ δὲ πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς θεότητος. Καὶ μήτοι νόμιζε, ὅτι μὴ ἔχων Χριστὸς ἐλάμβανε τὸ Πνεῦμα· αὐτὸς γὰρ τοῦτο ἄνωθεν ἀπέστελλεν ὡς Θεός, καὶ αὐτὸς κάτωθεν αὐτὸ ὡς ἄνθρωπος ὑπεδέχετο. Ἐξ αὐτοῦ οὖν εἰς αὐτὸν κατ- ήρχετο, ἐκ τῆς θεότητος αὐτοῦ εἰς τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα αὐτοῦ.