For the creature that serveth thee, who art the Maker increaseth his strength against the unrighteous for their punishment, and abateth his strength for the benefit of such as put their trust in thee.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
The Holy Spirit did not beatify the dove or the wind or the fire, nor did he unite them to himself and to his own person so as to remain in that state forever. Otherwise the nature of the Holy Spirit would be variable and convertible, if those phenomena had not happened by a change in the creatures, but the Holy Spirit was mutably changed from one thing into another, as water changes into ice. Rather, those creatures appeared when it was fitting that they appear, because the creature serves the Creator and was changed and transformed according to the will of him who remains immutable in himself, so as to signify and reveal himself as it was necessary to signify and reveal himself to mortals. Thus, though the Scripture would call the dove the Holy Spirit and would say of the fire, "And tongues as of fire appeared, which parted and came to rest on each of them, and they began to speak in different tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance""thus indicating that the Spirit was manifested through the fire just as through the dove"we can nevertheless not say that the Holy Spirit is God and dove or God and fire in the same way that we say that the Son is God and man. - "On the Trinity 2.6.11"
