Bede

English

And rightly, having first declared that in the beginning, that is, in the Son, the Father made heaven and earth, he brought in mention of the Holy Spirit too by adding, 'And the Spirit of God was borne above the waters,' so as to signify that the power of the whole Trinity together worked in the creation of the world.

Fresh draft (Claude), approved by Wilson Pruitt · cc-by

Latin

PL 91, col. 16C · pd

Notes

Bede has no bird and no Syrian on this verse: his 1:2 is Trinitarian (K3). Included here because Rabanus copies this sentence verbatim and it becomes the Glossa's spine.

Threads

• ← parallel · Basil of Caesarea
  Expletor and the same argument from the shape of the sentence, three centuries and a language apart: Basil, that no other spirit is meant but the Holy, who is the completer of the venerable Trinity; Bede, that having first declared that in the beginning, that is in the Son, the Father made heaven and earth, Scripture brought in mention of the Holy Spirit too, so as to signify the power of the whole Trinity together in the creation of the world.
• ← cites · Augustine
  Bede's sentence is Augustine's triad with the two halves welded: 'in principio, id est in Filio, Pater fecit coelum et terram' and then the Spirit added 'ut totius simul Trinitatis in creatione mundi virtutem significaret'. The riddle has become a demonstration, and the word aenigma is gone.
• ← cites · Rabanus Maurus
  PL 107:447C copies Bede's 'totius simul Trinitatis in creatione mundi virtutem cooperatam esse signaret' verbatim.
• ← echoes · Glossa ordinaria (school of Laon)
  'Tota ergo Trinitas hic operata intelligitur, Deus, Pater scilicet; principium, Filius; Spiritus Dei, Spiritus sanctus' compresses Bede's 'totius simul Trinitatis in creatione mundi virtutem cooperatam' (PL 91:16C) as relayed by Rabanus (107:447C); unlabelled in the margin.