Whether It Was Becoming, When Christ Was Baptized That the Father's
Voice Should Be Heard, Bearing Witness to the Son?
Objection 1: It would seem that it was unbecoming when Christ was
baptized for the Father's voice to be heard bearing witness to the
Son. For the Son and the Holy Ghost, according as they have appeared
visibly, are said to have been visibly sent. But it does not become
the Father to be sent, as Augustine makes it clear (De Trin. ii).
Neither, therefore, (does it become Him) to appear.
Obj. 2: Further, the voice gives expression to the word conceived in
the heart. But the Father is not the Word. Therefore He is
unfittingly manifested by a voice.
Obj. 3: Further, the Man-Christ did not begin to be Son of God at His
baptism, as some heretics have stated: but He was the Son of God from
the beginning of His conception. Therefore the Father's voice should
have proclaimed Christ's Godhead at His nativity rather than at His
baptism.
_On the contrary,_ It is written (Matt. 3:17): "Behold a voice from
heaven, saying: This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."
_I answer that,_ As stated above (A. 5), that which is accomplished
in our baptism should be manifested in Christ's baptism, which was
the exemplar of ours. Now the baptism which the faithful receive is
hallowed by the invocation and the power of the Trinity; according to
Matt. 28:19: "Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Wherefore, as
Jerome says on Matt. 3:16, 17: "The mystery of the Trinity is shown
forth in Christ's baptism. Our Lord Himself is baptized in His human
nature; the Holy Ghost descended in the shape of a dove: the Father's
voice is heard bearing witness to the Son." Therefore it was becoming
that in that baptism the Father should be manifested by a voice.
Reply Obj. 1: The visible mission adds something to the apparition,
to wit, the authority of the sender. Therefore the Son and the Holy
Ghost who are from another, are said not only to appear, but also to
be sent visibly. But the Father, who is not from another, can appear
indeed, but cannot be sent visibly.
Reply Obj. 2: The Father is manifested by the voice, only as
producing the voice or speaking by it. And since it is proper to the
Father to produce the Word--that is, to utter or to speak--therefore
was it most becoming that the Father should be manifested by a voice,
because the voice designates the word. Wherefore the very voice to
which the Father gave utterance bore witness to the Sonship of the
Word. And just as the form of the dove, in which the Holy Ghost was
made manifest, is not the Nature of the Holy Ghost, nor is the form
of man in which the Son Himself was manifested, the very Nature of
the Son of God, so neither does the voice belong to the Nature of the
Word or of the Father who spoke. Hence (John 5:37) our Lord says:
"Neither have you heard His," i.e. the Father's, "voice at any time,
nor seen His shape." By which words, as Chrysostom says (Hom. xl in
Joan.), "He gradually leads them to the knowledge of the
philosophical truth, and shows them that God has neither voice nor
shape, but is above all such forms and utterances." And just as the
whole Trinity made both the dove and the human nature assumed by
Christ, so also they formed the voice: yet the Father alone as
speaking is manifested by the voice, just as the Son alone assumed
human nature, and the Holy Ghost alone is manifested in the dove, as
Augustine [*Fulgentius, De Fide ad Petrum] makes evident.
Reply Obj. 3: It was becoming that Christ's Godhead should not be
proclaimed to all in His nativity, but rather that It should be
hidden while He was subject to the defects of infancy. But when He
attained to the perfect age, when the time came for Him to teach, to
work miracles, and to draw men to Himself then did it behoove His
Godhead to be attested from on high by the Father's testimony, so
that His teaching might become the more credible. Hence He says (John
5:37): "The Father Himself who sent Me, hath given testimony of Me."
And specially at the time of baptism, by which men are born again
into adopted sons of God; since God's sons by adoption are made to be
like unto His natural Son, according to Rom. 8:29: "Whom He foreknew,
He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His
Son." Hence Hilary says (Super Matth. ii) that when Jesus was
baptized, the Holy Ghost descended on Him, and the Father's voice was
heard saying: "'This is My beloved Son,' that we might know, from
what was accomplished in Christ, that after being washed in the
waters of baptism the Holy Ghost comes down upon us from on high, and
that the Father's voice declares us to have become the adopted sons
of God."
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