Annotation VI

”For that which is born in her is of the Holy Ghost.” — Matthew 1:20

On the Holy Spirit.

The author of the Opus imperfectum on Matthew, in homily 1, explaining this passage, seems to assert that the Holy Spirit was, in Christ’s conception, in place of seed — speaking thus: “The Only-begotten God being about to enter the Virgin, the Holy Spirit went before, so that — the Holy Spirit going before — Christ might be born in sanctification according to the body, the divinity entering in place of seed.” This opinion Augustine, in Sermon 191 On the Season, seems to attack in these words: “We do NOT say — as certain most wicked men suppose — that the Holy Spirit was in place of seed, but [that the conception was] wrought by the power and virtue of the Creator.” St. Thomas, in the third part of the Summa Theologica, question 32, article 2 — citing the former opinion under the name of Chrysostom, but the latter under the name of Jerome — reconciles the two thus: he says that Chrysostom, by the term “seed,” did not understand the substance of seed (which is wont to be transmuted in the conception of a fetus, and which in Christ’s conception Jerome deservedly abhors), but wished to signify the agent power of the Lord’s incarnation — which was the Holy Spirit himself — the angel saying to Mary, “The power of the Most High shall overshadow thee” [Luke 1:35].