9. Therefore also the Holy Spirit came as a dove, a simple and joyous creature, not bitter with gall, not cruel in its bite, not violent with the rending of its claws, loving human dwellings, knowing the association of one home; when they have young, bringing forth their young together; when they fly abroad, remaining in their flights by the side of one another, spending their life in mutual intercourse, acknowledging the concord of peace with the kiss of the beak, in all things fulfilling the law of unanimity. This is the simplicity that ought to be known in the Church, this is the charity that ought to be attained, that so the love of the brotherhood may imitate the doves, that their gentleness and meekness may be like the lambs and sheep. What does the fierceness of wolves do in the Christian breast? What the savageness of dogs, and the deadly venom of serpents, and the sanguinary cruelty of wild beasts? We are to be congratulated when such as these are separated from the Church, lest they should lay waste the doves and sheep of Christ with their cruel and envenomed contagion. Bitterness cannot consist and be associated with sweetness, darkness with light, rain with clearness, battle with peace, barrenness with fertility, drought with springs, storm with tranquillity. Let none think that the good can depart from the Church. The wind does not carry away the wheat, nor does the hurricane uproot the tree that is based on a solid root. The light straws are tossed about by the tempest, the feeble trees are overthrown by the onset of the whirlwind. The Apostle John execrates and severely assails these, when he says, “They went forth from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, surely they would have continued with us.”33    1 John ii. 19.

IX. Idcirco et in columba venit Spiritus sanctus: simplex animal et laetum, non felle amarum, non morsibus saevum, non unguium laceratione violentum, hospitia humana diligere, unius domus consortium nosse; cum generant, simul filios edere, cum commeant, volatibus invicem cohaerere, communi conversatione vitam suam degere, oris osculo concordiam pacis agnoscere, legem circa omnia unanimitatis 0506C implere. Haec est in Ecclesia noscenda simplicitas, haec charitas obtinenda, ut columbas dilectio fraternitatis imitetur, ut mansuetudo et lenitas agnis et ovibus aequetur. Quid facit in pectore christiano luporum feritas et canum rabies et venenum lethale serpentum et cruenta saevitia bestiarum? Gratulandum est cum tales de Ecclesia separantur, ne columbas, 0507A ne oves Christi saeva sua et venenata contagione praedentur. Cohaerere et conjungi non potest amaritudo cum dulcedine, caligo cum lumine, pluvia cum serenitate, pugna cum pace, cum foecunditate sterilitas, cum fontibus siccitas, cum tranquillitate tempestas. Nemo existimet bonos de Ecclesia posse discedere: triticum non rapit ventus, nec arborem solida radice fundatam procella subvertit; inanes paleae tempestate jactantur, invalidae arbores turbinis incursione evertuntur. Hos execratur et percutit Joannes apostolus dicens: Ex nobis exierunt, sed non fuerunt ex nobis: si enim fuissent ex nobis, mansissent utique nobiscum (I Joan. II, 19).