And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
All Commentaries on Joel 2:28 Go To Joel 2
Fulgentius of Ruspe
AD 533
If we believe this, it is necessary that that proclamation of the blessed John the Baptist, which attributed to Christ a singular gift of the Spirit and one without measure, be interpreted. I refer to the statement “[God] does not ration his gift of the Spirit.” Since our ancestors too in us receive a measure of this gift, they profess that in Christ there abides the fullness of the Holy Spirit. For the blessed Ambrose, in the first book on the Holy Spirit, among other things, says, “I will pour out of my Spirit.” He did not say “my Spirit,” but “of my Spirit,” for we cannot take the fullness of the Holy Spirit, but we receive so much as our master divides of his own according to his will. Therefore, Saint Ambrose, showing that we receive not the fullness but of the fullness of the Spirit, that he may show that Christ has received the entire fullness of the Spirit, a little while after this says, “So too, the Father says that he pours out of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh; for he did not pour him forth entirely, but what he poured forth abounded for all.”
