Annotatio CLXVIII

”By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the spirit of his mouth.” — Psalm 32:6

Ambrose, Bishop of Compsa, in book 4 of the Annotations on the same [Cajetan], condemns Thomas Cardinal Cajetan, [on the ground] that he alone of all denies that this passage pertains to the person of the Holy Spirit¹ — from which all catholic expositors gather the mystery of the divine Triad, saying that by “the Lord” is to be understood the Father, by “the Word” the Son, and by “the Spirit of his mouth” the Holy Spirit the Paraclete. But if you attentively read Cajetan’s commentaries, you will recognize that an explanation of this kind is neither impugned, nor rejected, nor denied, but only passed over in silence. And it is far another thing to deny and to be silent, than to impugn and to omit. Nor is it to be wondered at, if Cajetan — who in the commentaries on the Psalms professes only the elucidation of the letter — omitted the exposition of the Trinity (which almost all confess to be mystical); or if, expounding according to the bare letter, he said that “the Spirit of the Lord’s mouth” is called the very Word of God, and the command [of God] named after the human manner. For the Greek interpreter Euthymius also — who illustrated this passage from the various and diverse interpretations of the Greek Fathers — before he touched the mystical sense, expressed the historical understanding (which Cajetan followed) in these words: “These expressions seem to signify the same: ‘By the word of the Lord’ and ‘by the spirit of his mouth.’ For God said, ‘Let it be,’ and it was made; and it was done. Moreover, the word of the mouth is the breath [spirit] beating the air; and such as is the breath of the mouth, beating the air, such is the word itself.” Then, subjoining the mystical sense, he says: “But, according to a higher sense — whereby we may say that blessed David here philosophizes concerning the holy Trinity — by ‘the Lord’ understand the Father, and the Son by ‘the Word,’ and by ‘the Spirit of his mouth’ the Holy Spirit.”