in the regeneration, shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. The solution is therefore provided through the Scriptures themselves, as the Savior says: "And then I will render to everyone according to his deeds." And elsewhere: "They that have done good shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment." The Apostle also says: "For we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." It is therefore up to those who receive these things to make themselves worthy to sit at the right or left hand of the Lord, and not up to Him who is able to grant it, even if the request were unjust.
B In regard to the passage, "Who is God besides the Lord? and who is God besides our God?" it has been sufficiently demonstrated that the Scriptures did not say these things and the like concerning the Son, but rather concerning those who are called gods, though they are not. From these Scriptures we have often demonstrated that the Son is called both God and Lord in the Old and New Testaments. David makes this point clearer, saying: "Who is like unto thee?" and he added: "Among the gods, O Lord." And Moses says: "The Lord alone did lead them, and there was no strange god with them," even though the Savior was with them, as the Apostle says: "For they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ." Jeremiah likewise says: "The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, shall perish from under the heaven." Indeed, the Son is not among these; for He is the creator of all things. Therefore, these things—as well as what was just said: "I am God the first, and I am after these things, and besides me there is no God"; and, "Before me there was no other God formed, neither shall there be after me"; and, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord thy God is one Lord"—and all such things, must be understood as not referring to the Son.
AGAINST EUNOMIUS
BOOK FIVE
ON THE HOLY SPIRIT, THAT HE IS NOT A CREATURE
That the things which are common to creatures have nothing in common with the Holy Spirit, and that those things which D are proper to the Spirit have nothing in common with the creature, from which it is inferred that the Spirit is not a creature.
A That which is common to the Father and to the Son is also common to the Spirit; for in those characters in which God the Father and the Son are described in Scripture, in the same are the Holy Spirit B also described, from which it is inferred that the Spirit is of the same divinity as the Father. That which belongs solely to the Father as God, and not as Father, and to the Son as God, and not as Son [(75)], these things belong solely to the Spirit, and no longer to the creature; so that those [(76)] unshared names and things which have nothing in common with the creature belong only to the Trinity, from which it is inferred that the Trinity is consubstantial. Whatever is created [(77)] is susceptible to turning and change, according to the Prophet who says to God:
Thou who makest all things [(78)], and changest them.
But the Spirit is not susceptible to either turning or changing: therefore the Spirit is not a creature. Since the creation is divided into two parts, into things corporeal and incorporeal, the change pertaining to it is also divided. For bodies are indeed subject to change in their substance, since the corruptible world changes into incorruption according to Scripture [(74)], and our mortal bodies acquire immortality, or things not yet corrupted will be corrupted [(79)]; but incorporeal and rational beings admit to change C according to operation or will, according to that word,God did not spare the angels who sinned [(75)].
If, therefore, of things that were made, some admit to change in substance, others in judgment, but the Holy Spirit admits to neither change nor alteration [(80)] either in substance or in operation: therefore the Spirit is not a creature. Every creature when it is sanctified is holy; but the Holy Spirit is not of those things which are sanctified, but of those which sanctify; therefore He is not a creature. Nothing created is holy by essence; for that which is holy in essence does not need external sanctification. That which has been made needs external sanctification, when it has become worthy to receive [(81)] sanctification; but the Spirit does not need sanctification, because He is holy by D essence; therefore He is not a creature. Every creature is a slave to the Creator, according to the Prophet who thus speaks to God:All things are Thy slaves [(82)];
but the Spirit, being slave, is set free or adopted...for the Spirit cries in our hearts: Abba, Father; wherefore thou art no longer a slave, but a son 77; there B fore He is not a creature. No creature is communicable to the rational soul in such a way as to dwell in it essentially. But the Holy Spirit dwells in it, according to him who says: We are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in us. He is not, therefore, a creature. Every rational creature is capable of virtue and vice. But the Spirit is not capable of either of these. Therefore, the Spirit is not a creature. And all things which show one and the same operation of the holy and blessed Trinity prove the same thing.
That the Spirit is Creator.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament announces the work of His hands 79; and in another place: And the works of Thy hands are the heavens 80. And as to who those incorporeal hands of the incorporeal God might be, which fashioned the firmament and the heavens, the Prophet himself interprets when he says: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their virtue by the Spirit of His mouth 81. But just as the word in God is not a spoken word, but living and subsistent, and active in all things; so in God there is not a spirit that is diffused, nor air that is dissolved, but a sanctifying power, essentially, existentially, and substantially present. Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me 82. And this passage has the same meaning as the one previously cited. For the divine Spirit, says Job, is He who made me 83. And explaining the other hand, Solomon says: O God of my fathers and Lord of Thy mercy, who hast made all things in Thy word, and by Thy wisdom hast constructed man 84. But Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God 85, which, according to the method of tropology, is the creative hand. Furthermore, Scripture attributes our entire nature to the operation of the Spirit, and calls Him the renovator of the creation unto incorruption: Thou shalt take away their spirit, and they will fail, and they will return to their dust; Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth 86. Nor indeed does He send Himself; but he calls the sending a descent for the sake of the work, not a passing from place to place. Since the Spirit of the Lord
has filled the inhabited earth, and that which holds all things has knowledge of the voice 89. And the angel said to Mary: The Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee; therefore also that which is born is of the Holy Spirit. A That which is from someone is either from Him by way of creation, as in the text, "One God the Father, from whom are all things;" or by way of generation, according to the text, "I came forth from the Father;" and "From the womb, before the day-star, I have begotten thee." Not that God has a womb, but because genuine and not spurious offspring are accustomed to be born from the womb of parents, God has spoken of Himself as having a womb in begetting, for the confusion of the impious, so that, even if they consider their own nature, they may learn that the Son is the genuine fruit of the Father, as if coming from His womb. That which is from someone, then, is either by way of creation, or by way of generation, or naturally from Him, as our activity is from us, or like the radiance of the sun from the sun itself. B If, therefore, the supermundane 91 body of Christ is from the Holy Spirit, it cannot be His offspring, because "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Nor, again, is it from Him as His activity, because in a simple and incorporeal nature, an activity admits of the same definition of substance 92. It remains, therefore, that it is from Him as His creature. But even that finger of God which transformed the dust in Egypt into living creatures, and first displayed the birth of animals, was the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth. For while three evangelists relate that the Lord said to the Jews: "But if I in the Spirit of God cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you" 94; Luke says that He said: "But if I in the finger of God cast out demons, then the kingdom of heaven has come upon you" 95. C Therefore, the signs also performed through Moses in Egypt, which were wrought by the finger of God 93, and the wondrous signs of God, were brought to completion with the Spirit. The Spirit is called the finger of God in these signs, both those under Moses and those of the Lord, not because He is some small power dwelling with God, like a finger to a body, but because He is one of those gifts of His that are given by distribution, namely, the gift of signs and D
A of healings, one of them; and not the whole of the gifts of the Spirit, which he calls a finger (94). For to one indeed, through the Spirit, is given the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to another gifts of healings, in the same Spirit (95); to another prophecy; to another the discerning of spirits; to another kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues. And all these the one and the same Spirit works, dividing them severally to each as He wills. One might say (96) that all these, and whatever other gifts of the Spirit there are, happen to be His body, and that each one of the gifts is a finger. And do not overlook this use of the expression (97). For, having said that the Spirit works all these as He wills, he said of God the selfsame thing: "And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God who works all things (98) in all." If God works all things as He wills, and the one and same Spirit works all these things, dividing them severally to each as He wills, how is there a diversity of substance, where an identity of operation is recognized? For if the substances were different, the operations B must also have been different, according to the most impious Eunomius. The Savior, however, bearing witness to the same authority and power in the Spirit, said: "The Spirit breathes where He wills" (1).
On the Forgiveness of Sins
It is proper to God to forgive sins, He Himself saying: "I am He who blots out your sins"; and, "If your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow; and if they be red like crimson, I will make them white as wool." Since, then, God the child of God (2) Jesus forgives sins to the paralytic, saying: "Son, your sins are forgiven," for which C He was thought by the Jews—who did not know Him to be God—to be blaspheming, saying that, "This man blasphemes; it belongs to no one to forgive sins but to God alone." But the Lord, breathing upon the holy apostles, said: "Receive the Holy Spirit; if you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven them" (5). If, therefore, it belongs to no one to forgive sins—as indeed it does not—except to God alone (6), and the Spirit forgives D
then the Spirit is God. And He is of the same operation with the Father and the Son. "Teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. xxviii, 19). He commands that the nations, once they have believed and been taught, be baptized in the name of the Trinity. But Peter, to the Jews who had conspired in the killing of Christ and were being led to repentance, said: "Repent, brothers (7), each one of you, of your wickedness and of your evil way; and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved" (Act. ii, 38)—as if the Son could perform in the washing of regeneration the same things that the Father and the Spirit perform. But the Lord said to the apostles, "To wait for the promise of the Father, which you heard: for John indeed baptized with water unto repentance; but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit" (Act. i, 4, 5). If, therefore, the Holy Spirit is able to perform in the apostles the same things that the name of the Father and of the Son performs in those who have believed from the Gentiles, and the name of the Lord Jesus in those Jews who had repented (for no one would say that the apostles had received less grace through the laver than those from the Gentiles, since they themselves had received the grace in the Holy Spirit (9)), how is the Spirit, who is also of the same operation, not of the same substance with the Father and the Son? B
That the power of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is the same.
"Go into Damascus, and it will be told you there" (Act. xxii, 10). The Lord, appearing from heaven to Paul, said this because He had appointed him a herald of the Gospel to the whole world. But as he entered Damascus, Ananias said: "Brother Saul, look up: the God of our fathers has prepared you" (Act. xxii, 13-14). And lest the word be thought to concern Christ, he adds: "That you might do His will and know the Just One, Jesus" (Act. xxii, 14-15). Paul himself, certainly committing this calling and ordination to writing, said: "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, a called apostle" (Rom. i, 1). C Then he says something else besides the calling: "Set apart for the D Gospel of God" (Rom. i, 1). Now the Acts of the Apostles have taught us that it is the Spirit who set him apart. For, he says, as the apostles were fasting and praying, "the Holy Spirit said: Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them" (Act. xiii, 2). But if the Lord God of the fathers indeed chooses him whom He had prepared, and the Son indeed calls him, while the Spirit sets the same man apart, using the authority of his nature; how is there a diversity of substance in the Trinity, in which an identity of operation is found?
A “My words,” says Solomon, “are spoken by God,” and Paul, “by Christ: since,” he says, “you seek proof of Christ speaking in me.” Nothing less, however, does the Spirit speak in the Apostles. For, he says, the Apostles spoke as the Spirit gave them utterance. And, “It is not you who speak,” the Savior said to them, “but the Spirit of the Father, who is in heaven, who speaks in you.” The Spirit also speaks in the prophets. For “Would to God,” Moses said, “that all this people might prophesy, when the Lord gives his Spirit upon them.” And the new prophet of the New Testament, Agabus, cried out, saying: “Thus says the Holy Spirit,” which the prophets of the Old Testament were accustomed to cry out: “Thus says the Lord God.” And Paul, gathering together these things spoken by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, said: “All Scripture is God-breathed.” B But if the Spirit speaks in the Apostles and in the prophets, and all Scripture is God-breathed, tell the impious: How is the Holy Spirit not God, since his Scripture is God-breathed?
That neither vision nor oracle occurs separately from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The prophet Isaiah said: “I saw the Lord Sabaoth sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the seraphim were standing around him, six wings to one.” And after a few words he says: “And the Lord said to me: Go and say to this people: With hearing you will hear, and will not understand; and seeing you will see, and will not see. For the heart of this people has been C thickened,” etc. So far as concerns the very context and series of the prophetic writing, it is the Father who is over all who was seen and gave the oracle to the prophet. However, the son of thunder, having spoken marvelous things, and having said things more terrible than thunder, whose own peculiar expression is not that, “There was not,” but this, “The Word was,” declared the Son to be the one who was seen and who gave the oracle to the prophet. For he says in his own book: “For this reason the Jews could not believe in Jesus, because Isaiah said of them: Their eyes have been blinded, and their heart has been hardened, so that they might not see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and turn, and I heal them.” These things Isaiah said, when he saw his glory. But Paul declared that vision and that prophecy to be of the Spirit, saying: D “Rightly did the Holy Spirit speak through the prophet Isaiah to your fathers: With hearing you will hear, and will not understand; and seeing you will see, and will not perceive; for the heart of this people has been thickened.” The prophet introduces the person of the Father, in whom the Jews believed; the evangelist...
that of the Son; and Paul, that of the Spirit; naming them collectively one Lord Sabaoth. The discourse concerning the hypostasis is distinguished by them, while the thought concerning one God remains undivided in them.
That those things which are made according to the image participate in the Creator: and this comes to be through the Spirit.
B If those who are poorly wise against themselves understood these things and obeyed them well, they would not alienate the Spirit from the Godhead, lest they cut themselves off from the Godhead, and separate the world from God, and displace God from His own creation. For all things that were made by God, and yet fail of the Creator’s glory according to the created nature, would be wretched if they did not participate in the Godhead. But such a discourse concerning God is unworthy, if it be said that He looks upon a creature that is naked and, as it were, empty of Himself. But neither is the creature so wretched, nor is God so powerless, that He should not send down His holy participation upon the works of His hands. Therefore, He willed from the beginning to make man in His own image. Now, the image that is produced, as it is transferred from the archetype, receives the likeness into the matter, and becomes a participant in the character C through the conception and hand of the craftsman being impressed upon it. Thus the painter, thus the sculptor, thus he who fashions a golden or bronze statue, takes the matter, looks to the archetype, takes the form of the thing he has contemplated, and imprints this upon the matter. But if men cannot fashion matters into a likeness unless they participate in their idea, how could a creature ascend to the likeness of God unless it were made a participant in the divine character? But the divine character is not like the human, but living, and a truly existing image which brings forth images, and of which as all things become participants, they are constituted images of God. The image of God is Christ, who, he says, “is the image of the invisible God” D; but the image of the Son is the Spirit, and those who become participants of Him are made sons conformed to the image, according to that which is written: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
A
That the Holy Spirit is not a possession of God, nor a creature.
How then will the Spirit bear witness with your spirit, according to the Apostle, that you are a son of God, if He Himself is alien to the glory of the Son? How will He cry in you, “Abba, Father,” unless it is truly a participation from the Son, and not His possession, sent forth by Him, like the human spirit or the spirit of the wind, which they are accustomed to say who separate the Spirit from the Godhead, but rather the eternal Spirit of God and of the Son, existing and known in the divine majesty? For your spirit is not Christ, nor is the spirit of the wind the Lord, nor is the unclean spirit (for some have dared even to bring this forward): but the Holy Spirit is named Christ and Lord. Indeed, as we just reminded ourselves, the Apostle says: “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His: but if Christ be in you”: B by which words he affirms that the indwelling of the Spirit is the indwelling of Christ; and he says again: “But the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Therefore, the Spirit of the Lord is Lord; hence He is not a possession or a creature of the Lord, but an image, as was said before.
That the Spirit is the true and natural image of God and of the Lord.
And He is a true image, not from a divine image, as we are. For this reason, since He expresses the image, He is not therefore expressed by an image, and since He is the ointment, He is not therefore anointed. But the Spirit, as John says, is the ointment in us. And why did I say, in us? For already even in the Lord Himself according to the flesh, “Jesus,” he says, “of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power.” Christ, therefore, is so called because of the Spirit and the anointing which takes place in the Spirit. The anointing of the Lord, then, and the name Christ, and those who are called Christians from Him, are not therefore by means of anything alien to the Godhead. For one would truly have to lament if the name of our salvation also began from a creature, and were derived from a creature, and if we had adoption through a servant. A C creature does not sanctify a creature, but all things are sanctified by the one Holy One, who says concerning Himself: “I sanctify myself.” And He sanctifies through the Spirit, as has been demonstrated beforehand. The Spirit, therefore, is not a creature, but the character of the holiness of God, and the fountain of sanctification for all. “We were called,” as the Apostle teaches, “in the sanctification of the Spirit.” He renews us, and again makes us images of God, and through the laver of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit D
A we are adopted by God. Man is again a new creation, participating in the Spirit, of which he had been deprived and had grown old. Man is again the image of God, having fallen from the divine likeness and having been compared to irrational beasts and made like them, made like to the irrational creatures in regard to death. For, as it says, “As the death of the one, so is the death of the other.” But it says, “He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwells in you.”
That the Spirit is of divine nature, since He Himself performs the works of God.
He who renews the creature, who transforms corruption into incorruptibility, who makes us a new creature remaining for eternity—who shall separate Him B from the creating God and the Son? How can something outside the Godhead recover the creature of the Godhead, rendering it new and incorruptible? Of what other did God stand in need in order to recover His own creature that had fallen away? Let the impious argument be consigned to silence, which affirms that the creature that has grown old and corrupted is the work of God, but contends that that which is no longer growing old or being corrupted is renewed by a creature. Let not a creature be glorified above God. But it is glorified above God if the things that were dissolved by death and corruption, and which God made through the Son, become immortal and incorruptible through a creature. But C the Spirit is that divine power which always perfects all things that were made from God through the Son, just as He is of the new creation, concerning which it is said: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation”; so also in the case of the old one, which was from the beginning. Therefore it says: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the Spirit of His mouth.” The Word is living, in whom the heavens were made. This same is the God Word, about whom John cries: “All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made.” The Spirit shows the vivifying power to be life, as it is written: “The Spirit is life,” which perfects the heavenly powers; this same One, being glorified with the Father and the Son. For God does not create by the D prolationship of words, even if according to human custom the utterances of God are called pronounced words; nor are the heavens adorned by the outpouring of an airy spirit. For the Spirit is joined to the living Word for the purpose of creating; He is a living power and a divine nature, which has shone forth ineffably from the ineffable mouth, in an ineffable manner and by an insufflation sent forth to man, and according to
A the pattern taught by the Lord, it is again restored by Him through inflation; for the present renewal must concur with the initial newness. He formed it, then, having breathed upon it, not being another than the One who breathed from the beginning, but the very Same, through whom God gave the inflation, then indeed with the soul, but now to the soul. Thus God creates, not by the motion of bodily hands, but by the operation of the living Word and the communication of the life-giving Spirit. And if all things were made in the Spirit from the beginning, and are renewed again in the Spirit, one and the same operation of God through the Son in the Spirit is clearly manifest; nor does the Trinity admit of division, but according to the true teaching of Paul: *There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are diversities of ministries, and the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God, who worketh all in all.* And after having enumerated all the divine operations, *All these*, he says, *worketh one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He wills.*
That the Spirit, being glorified together with God, is shown not to be a creature, but of the divine nature. B No creature has authority over the works of God, nor does it work regarding them; the action of the Creator is one thing, and the action of creatures is another. Angels behold the face of the Father who is in heaven, as the Savior says, and this is their great glory and blessedness. But they are the works of God, according to the passage: *Who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire.* God creates them, but does not work through them; rather, He sanctifies them, and works in them, even as in holy men. They also announce the things of God, just as men do. Wherefore we do not glorify angels together with God, any more than we do human beings. For we do not account the benefits conferred through them as their own, but as coming from God, who works in them. But the Spirit C is glorified with God and the Son, inasmuch as the divine operation is also completed through Him. *For the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ*, says Paul, *and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.* And the chief point of our salvation, and the perfect tradition concerning the Godhead, for the sanctification of those who are baptized, is to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And that the holy Trinity is glorified in the same divine works D is a testimony of one Godhead;
that neither does the Father act without the Son, nor the Son without the Spirit.
That as the Son is to the Father, so is the Spirit to the Son.
For this reason, the Son is the Word of God, and the Spirit is the utterance of the Son. For He says, "upholding all things by the word of His power." And since He is the utterance of the Son, He is therefore of God. "The sword," He says, "of the Spirit, which is the word of God." But the Word of God and the utterance is living and active. Do not fall into human similitudes with me, but everywhere contemplate something greater regarding God, taking the example of the word for the demonstration of a single operation; for even your own mind investigates all things through the word.
Why the Spirit is not also called son of the Son.
Not because He is not from God through the Son, but so that the Trinity might not be thought an infinite multitude, if one were to suspect it, as happens among men, to have sons from sons. But you say: If the Son is the image of God, and the Spirit is the image of the Son, and if the Son is the Word of God, and the Spirit is the utterance of the Son, why is the Spirit not called the son of the Son? For you have used this as a most powerful argument for impiety. For you bid me understand Him as either Son or creature. And because He is not named son, for this reason you blasphemously call the Cause of creation, He who sanctifies and deifies creation, He who is glorified by the name of Lord and God, He who fulfills divine operations, a creature. B Since therefore the appellation of son seems to you unworthy, as if He were alien from the Son and the Father, consider how He makes those who are sanctified to be sons. But if you, through the Spirit, are a son of God, how is the Spirit alien to sonship? If you, through the Spirit, are god, how is the Spirit alien to deity? You will surely ask in turn: Why then did He not receive the name of son? For you disdain to attend to the things that have been said, but you demand the reason for that which has not been said, just like the Sadducee who, not accepting the resurrection, but curiously investigating the manner of the resurrection, rejects what has been said because of what has not been said. C But if we keep silence, as those who do not wish to curiously investigate the things of God, you think the glory of the divine Spirit is overcome because the appellation of son is not applied to Him, as if the same could not be asked of you. For if you confess that countless sons are made by adoption through the Spirit, why is the Spirit not even by adoption called son, it being better, surely, among those who are made sons by grace through D
A adoption to be called son, especially since he is more excellent than those whom he adopts as sons by his gift, and therefore should rather not be diminished by this appellation? We, however, shall answer this for ourselves as best we can. As for you, since the same question presses upon you as well, it would be enough to be silent. B We say, therefore, that if anyone had said "son from Son," he would have brought the Trinity of the Godhead into the suspicion of a multitude among those who heard it. For it was easy to surmise that if a son had been begotten from the Son, then from him again another would have been begotten, and again another, and so on, continuing to a multitude. C It is for this very reason that the Apostle clearly proclaimed the Spirit to be from God, saying: "We have received the Spirit which is from God" (I Cor. II, 12). And he made it clear that he appeared through the Son, naming him the Spirit of the Son as well as of God, and calling him the mind of Christ, just as he had also spoken of the Spirit of God, even as [he speaks of] the spirit of a man. But he refrained from naming him the son of the Son, so that God might be one Father, always remaining Father, and being eternally what he is; and one Son, begotten by eternal generation, who is Son, true God, from the Father without beginning, always being what he is, God the Word and Lord; and one Holy Spirit, truly Holy Spirit, according to that which is written, who is glorified together with the Father and the Son, who is also called the Spirit of the mouth by the prophet David (Psal. XXXII, 6), and whom we are taught to be the finger of God, when the Lord says in the Gospel: "But if I by the finger of God cast out demons" (Luc. XI, 20). These things have been said, and are rightly said, just as they are, to those who, without curious investigation, believe in God and the Word and the Spirit, there being one Godhead, which alone is to be worshipped. And let there be no introduction of a multitude anywhere, but let each in the Trinity be recognized as one: one Father, one Son, one Holy Spirit.
That even without the Spirit being called son, it is clear that he exists from God, and how human examples are to be adapted to the Godhead and not rejected, is also evident. For we are not going to have any less understanding that the Spirit exists from God, when we hear him called the Spirit of his mouth. But even this name suffices to declare his existence which is from God. For neither "son" nor "generation" is peculiar to the Godhead, but is brought in from human likeness.
A Similarly, too, regarding the mention of the Spirit. The divine Scripture makes use of this with respect to the divine Spirit, setting forth that it is from God in a different way, since it was not necessary that this also be indicated by the same likeness, as has been said before. B But you, like the faithless, set yourself in opposition to the divine teaching, hastening toward blasphemy. And because the procession of the Spirit from God is not called a generation, for this reason you also do away with the procession of the Spirit from the mouth of God; and because he is not named "son," for this reason you do not even believe that he is the Spirit of God's mouth, but that he is an operation of the hands of God. Despising human analogies, you overturn the divine dogmas which are understood from them, whereas it was necessary to hear the divine utterances with fear, and to receive with piety everything that is said, rather than arguing against piety in the most foolish manner. C God generates, not as man; yet he generates truly. And the offspring that is from him, he brings forth—a Word, not human; he truly brings forth a Word from himself. And he sends forth the Spirit via his mouth, not in the human manner, since the mouth of God is not corporeal; rather, the Spirit is from him, and from nowhere else. D God works with hands, but not corporeal ones; yet he works, not by bringing forth creatures from himself, but by effectively giving them existence, just as a human who works with his hands does not bring forth the work from himself. Do not shift the boundaries of the divine utterances by calling the Spirit of the Son a creature; nor inquire regarding the Son why he is not called Spirit; nor regarding the Spirit, why he is not called Son; nor speak blasphemy with a cursing mouth by calling the Son or the Spirit a creature. The Son of God is a holy fruit from the Holy One, eternal from the Eternal, the provider of the Holy Spirit for the formation and configuration of the creation. He who overturns the Son has taken away the beginning of the creation of all things. For the Word of God, through whom all things were made, is the beginning of the subsistence of all things. He who removes the Spirit cuts away the perfection of the things that are being made. For the things that are being made [receive their perfection] by the emission and passing—
of the Spirit. That which proceeds from God does not proceed in time, even if it brings forth creatures in time. The Word is always, even before He was shown by Moses—speaking as it were in a human manner A in order that the creation which was made through Him might be interpreted according to a human pattern. The Spirit is always, even before Moses described Him as being breathed upon [us] and communicated, describing by a bodily figure the vivification that takes place through Him.
That, if one does not say that the Spirit is from God, neither [does he say] the Word [is].
1. But you are cutting off the signs of intimacy and the interpretations of divine conjunction, namely the names of the Word and of the Spirit; and you admit only those things which signify an external and disparate nature, such as the operation of the hand and the creation of works. For if you do not believe that the Spirit went forth from the mouth of God, neither would you believe the Word. For David also, glorifying the Word and the Spirit together, said that the heavens were made firm B by the word of the Lord, and all their power by the Spirit of His mouth. And Moses, when he showed that the works were made by the Word, indicated that they are also vivified by the Spirit in the creation of man according to the image.
How then could those things which are inseparable be separated, the Word of God and the Spirit from God through the Son? And if the Spirit is disbelieved, the Word is also disbelieved. Hear Paul saying that our formation which is according to God is accomplished in the Spirit: "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Therefore, through the Word and in the Spirit is the creature according to the image.
But you say, "God makes the Spirit, and He makes [it] through the Son." And it seems to you that the saying, "All things were made by Him," also embraces the Spirit. Does the Trinity, therefore, appear to you as a duality? For if the Spirit is with all things, how can He be with the Father and the Son? But if the Spirit is not with the Father and the Son, how is the Trinity [a] Trinity? And how is the baptism of the whole world sanctifying, if it is in the Trinity? But you also say that He is numbered with the water, as if He were a creature, just as the water is; for you say that the Lord says, "Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit." And this is still a small matter. But you also...
A rank the divine Spirit with the fire of Gehenna, together with the water. What height of impiety did this leave untouched, if you attribute the worth of water to the Holy Spirit, since water is sanctified by the descent of the Spirit? For it seemed right to you to equate that which is sanctified with that which sanctifies, and you do not tremble to count Him with God the Son in the same operation and glory, while you privately divide the one operation and glory. And because He uses water for the purification of bodies, for that reason you have deemed the Spirit worthy of the same honor as the water. And yet, you do not say that the medical art, though it uses materials, is equal in dignity to the materials, but rather that it is the master of those materials; but the divine Spirit, who uses water for the cleansing of the stains of sin, you have cast down to the disgrace and humility of water—of water, which is granted even to the impious for common use; of water, by which all the defilements of the body are washed away. But if you have also considered the nature of fire, what a thing have you dared to imagine? I marvel at such madness, unless you truly do not fear the fire. B Christ baptizes the worthy of sanctification in the Spirit; but as for the unworthy, He sends them into the fire, handing over those who are alien to the good to the evil. Because of this, therefore, the good and the bad appear to you to be siblings, coreate, and partners. And although we demonstrate the same operations of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, you do not see the union; and when the Spirit is proclaimed separately in the glory of God, you do not understand the divine glory in Him; for the apostles say: "Thus says the Holy Spirit," just as the prophets used to say, "Thus says the Lord." Moreover, they call the tempting of the Lord the tempting of the Spirit, when Peter says to those who tempted [Him]: "Why has it been agreed among you to tempt the Spirit of the Lord?" and to the same ones: "You have not lied to men, but to God."
2. And when the apostles say: "It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us," they do not rank themselves with the power of the Spirit, but subject themselves [to Him], as if they were then instructed by Him, and as if they perceived one knowledge C of themselves and of the Spirit, and one authority.
the knowledge and understanding of themselves and of the Spirit, and one power, you exert yourself to bring down the Spirit to the level of a creature; just as if you were to claim that God is made equal to Moses, when you hear: *The people believed the Lord, and Moses his servant.* A Yet the difference between the Master and the servant is manifest; which the writer, in showing, said: *Moses his servant.* For God is believed in as Master and as the One who sent Moses; but Moses is believed in as a servant who was sent. So, indeed, the laws given to the Church seemed to come from the Spirit as Master, while those precepts published through the apostles came to them as ministers. But the Spirit is not a servant. For, he says, *The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.* And Israel, inasmuch as they were trained with fear, is led by the precepts of the Spirit as a servant; but the Church of the Christians, B being sanctified by love, is adopted. Therefore Paul says: *For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.* And one who has received the condition of a servant is not established as a son from a servant, nor does he dare to address God as Father because of the participation of a servant; nor does a servant work whatsoever things are God’s, as he himself wishes. Nor, if the Spirit were a servant and a creature, would the singer of the hymns C have said that his presence pervades all things, calling him the face and the hand of God, and saying: *Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy face? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I descend into hell, thou art there. If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.* For it is the Spirit that has filled all things, according to what is written: *For the Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world,* says Solomon. Wherefore also, since the Spirit is known through seven operations, D which Isaiah recounted, Zechariah also called the Spirit of the Lord seven eyes, speaking thus: *These are the eyes of the Lord that look upon the earth.* And that which is said: *I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord,* signifies the fulfilling that is effected through the divine Spirit; just as also through Zechariah [Haggai] God says: *I am with you, and my Spirit standeth in the midst of you.* But other, more numerous things of the same kind have been said before, by which it is clear that it is the Spirit who fills the creation. Who, therefore, does not sense the divine glory of the Spirit when he hears: *Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?* And again: *I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord.*
I see that the universal presence in all things is ascribed to both God and the Spirit, running together into one and the same reality. But you, when you are unable to conceive or call the Spirit uncreated in such things, you say that God Himself is called spirit. However, God does not dwell in the creature by Himself, nor could anyone accept that God is the Spirit of God, clearly hearing the Apostle writing such things about Him who dwells in us: *For God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him? So the things also that are of God no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that is of God, that we may know the things that are given us by God.* B
3. Therefore, if anyone is unable to accept that God is the Spirit of God (even though he sees Him so conjoined with the glory of God, as the spirit of a man is with the man), let him not, by twisting words into an opposite sense, say that God Himself is the Spirit of God. *My Spirit*, he says, *which is upon thee*: he indicated not God, but the Spirit which is from God. *The Spirit of the Lord is upon me: because he hath anointed me.* He has called the Spirit of unction the Spirit of the Lord. The divine Spirit is one; let no one say there are more than one, even if God is called a spirit by the Lord. He has indicated the Father by the name of Spirit, because He is incorporeal. For just as the Spirit is God, according to the saying, *You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you*; so also God is Spirit, with the Trinity not being dissected, nor separated according to nature, C so that the names are not separated either. Wherefore, since there is one God, God is also the Son by paternal nature and paternal name; and since there is one Lord, the Son, the Father is Lord, being called by the name of the image, as its prototype and begetter. So also the Spirit is Lord, having the name from the Lord, from whom He is also given; and the Lord is spirit from the image: since God also is called spirit from Him. Yet we must not therefore make three gods, nor three lords, nor three spirits, but recognize the unity of the Trinity in the communion of names. Although you have reached such a point of madness, as to say that the Spirit is separated and disjointed D from the Father and the Son.
A You have reached the point of separating and removing the Spirit from the Father and the Son, so that you even say that eternal life in the Father and the Son was announced without the Spirit, because the Lord says: "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John XVII, 3). If, therefore, the Spirit seems to you to be excluded for this reason, go ahead and confer the baptism of life without the Spirit! But if you inherit life in the Spirit, how can you dream of eternal life without the Spirit? "If anyone," he says, "does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His" (Rom. VIII, 9). How, then, will you live forever, if you are not Christ's? But you would not be Christ's if you did not have His Spirit. B But why, you say, did he not add: "That they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent, and the Holy Spirit"? It is not by separating the Spirit from the duality, O you men, but on the contrary by uniting Him and showing the inseparable Spirit in the Father and the Son. For when Paul says: "As many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ" (Gal. III, 27), he surely did not introduce sanctification without the Father, but in the Son he also indicated the Father. And when he says: "For God has revealed them to us through His Spirit" (1 Cor. II, 10), he has not excluded the Son, who says: "Neither does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him" (Matth. XI, 27). For if, even without naming the Father, he nevertheless indicates the Begetter along with the name of the Son, and if, without naming the Son, he indicates the Begotten Himself along with the paternal name, so too where the Spirit is not named, He is understood in Him who imparts and confers Him. C Or, when the apostles say: "Thus says the Holy Spirit" (Act. XXI, 11), shall we assume that the Holy Spirit alone gives us laws and predicts future things, and that the legislation and prophecy do not originate from the Father through the Son? And when it is said that the holy child was born of the Holy Spirit (Matth. I, 20), shall we assume that the Spirit came to the subsistence of the infant without the Word, even though John says that, "The Word became flesh" (John I, 14)?
A Indeed, by all things it is clear that the Spirit is in the Word, and the Word is in the Spirit; the union 14 according to the Godhead is not divided. For the enumeration of the three names distinguishes individual subsistences 15, and signifies them, but the declaration according to one name possesses the unity of the Trinity; as it is written: "From him, and through him, and in him are all things" 16; it gathered into one name both the idiom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. For there is one God, from whom are all things; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things; and one Holy Spirit, in whom are all things, according to that which is said: "You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you." So that also the saying, "In God we live, and move, and exist," is clearly a property of the Spirit signified in God. B Assuredly, by a creature is a creature not contained, nor does it live and exist, and need itself to be stayed by the power of the Creator; by whose operation in the creature God is glorified, being called himself, "he in whom we live, and move, and exist." But the Spirit is truly divine, sustaining all things that are from God and through the Son in their existence. Wherefore he also bestows the maintenance of existence upon those who participate in him. And we live again in him, we who previously were being corrupted because of our separation from him. Since there are many things which one might say that signify both God in the creature, and the creature in God, which are indicative of the Spirit, we shall be content with what has been said, as with specimens of many others; when we have shown to those who are in error, that their impiety against the Spirit falls back upon God, if indeed they would strive to acknowledge that the glory of the Spirit is the glory of God.
That the identity is not from equivocation, but divine unity is known from nature
C 1. But the spirit, he says, is also spoken of a man, as that: "You will take away their spirit, and they will fail" 22. It is said also the spirit of God, as that: "My spirit shall not remain among these men" 23. And by the spirit of wind, for example, that: "His spirit shall blow, and waters shall flow" 24; and a man may find many other such things. 1. D But the spirit, he says, is also spoken of a man, as that: "You will take away their spirit, and they will fail." And the Spirit of God, as that: "My Spirit shall not remain" 19 among these men. And also that which is of the wind; as that: "His spirit shall blow, and waters shall flow," and many other things.
A Verily, one might hear this more rightly, if one were to consider the divine thoughts in a pious manner, saying in response to the opposition of the adversaries: if someone were to think that identity is introduced by homonyms, what would he do, when many things are said or called entities? Yet this belongs to the one Lord and true God, saying: "I am who I am" [Exod. iii, 14]. But many are called fathers, and gods, and progenitors, and wise, and powerful, and creators, which by nature belong to God alone forever. And in the same way, those things are called unbegotten which are not yet begotten, but are about to be begotten or to come into being; just as the resurrection of the dead, not yet having happened, is unbegotten B and future, or as a ring about to be made from iron is unbegotten in the nature of the iron, or as when fire is made from water or stone, or any other matter, the fire is likewise so created. Again, by "unbegotten" we understand that which in no way and nowhere exists. If one says a thing is non-existent, he has abolished the substance and the existence of the essence. A thing that neither exists nor subsists signifies a nature not existing and which is absolutely not at all. But if one says that something exists and subsists, he has signified an existing substance. But he who says "unbegotten God," or "the unbegotten" with the article, having set "God" before it or having added the same name again, has not abolished the substance, nor the existence of God, but says that this is not begotten; C but certainly he does not signify that God’s substance was created. But because he did not abolish the existence of God, it does not immediately follow that he has signified what the substance of God is. I do not say quality or quantity, as those men who utter vain things promise to demonstrate; but this: how the designation of the "unbegotten" voice demonstrates the substance of God. But the "how" of a thing, and that which it is, what kind of thing it is or what it is, happens to be much more obscure, as being something existing beyond the reach of any created nature. For if his judgments are a great abyss, as the Prophet says [Ps. xxxv, 7], and his ways are unsearchable, then by all means they are also D inscrutable, according to the Apostle [Rom. xi, 33]; how much more so is he himself, whose judgments and ways are such? And it is no wonder if God himself is such, since the things that are his are such. For if the things which God has prepared for those who love him, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they ascended into the heart of man, as it is written [1 Cor. ii, 9]; how much more would someone say that the nature of God himself, who prepared such things, is more ineffable to those who believe in him piously and simply?
A Moreover, many words are used of the one eternal Word of God, who is also preached as God in the Gospel, through whom all things were made. And many are called sons of God in Scripture, according to the passage: "I have begotten and exalted sons"; and again: "Israel is my firstborn son." However, being adopted by the true God through a certain character of adoption, these are adoptive sons and not true ones, for things derive their origin from nature and truth. But if he who is generated from him essentially by nature is not a son, according to the rejection of these people who speak of a dissimilar substance, where will those who are sons by adoption be found? B But the most ignorant people impiously ascribe to the Deity things that are spoken in a human manner; and, taking the Scriptures—which are expounded in many and various ways—in a single sense, they fall, not allowing themselves to be led aright. For the ways of the Lord are straight, and the just shall walk in them, but the impious will stumble in the smooth ways. And what is wondrous is that the very things from which those who are sound in faith derive benefit, damage those who are diseased concerning idle questions and strifes of words, as the Apostle said. That it is a sickness of the soul to inquire evilly and curiously concerning God, and especially to do so with unbelief, is clear to everyone. For if they do not believe God himself, the most holy, when he tells of things that concern himself, how will they listen to his prophets or apostles when they speak in the divine Scriptures concerning him and those who are to place their hope in him? For he who comes to God must believe that he is. To believe; indeed, not to inquire with incredulous curiosity as to what he is—lest I say what he is not. For that which is, was, and is, and will be forever; and he grants being to all things, as one who is God by nature. Why then do you disbelieve, O man? You do not believe that God has a Son of his own, and you ask how God generated? C But if you inquire about the "how" in the case of God, you would altogether also inquire about the "where," as in a place, and the "when," as in time. But if it is absurd to inquire such a thing concerning God, it would be still more absurd not to believe. Perhaps you are not yet ashamed to persist in unbelief. For you seek not that you may find faith, but that you may find a pretext for unbelief. This is true according to that which is written: "Wisdom will not enter into a malevolent soul." But Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. The blessed Abraham was called, and is, the friend of God. He is a friend because of faith, a friend because of obedience to God; but you are an enemy because of unbelief and disobedience to God. Abraham believed God; he believed as he was, and did not disbelieve as you do. Therefore he D
himself is a friend, but you are enemies for that very reason. The enemies of the Lord have lied to Him A, as it is written, in that they say that He who is by nature the Son of God was made a son by adoption and grace, and call the Creator a creature, and the Maker a thing made, and say that He who is always in the Father was at one time not, and affirm that the Son, who is from God who is, was made out of nothing. And not only do they lie against God and the Son, opposing God and Christ, but they do not cease to oppose the Spirit, refusing to call the Spirit of God Lord, resisting the divine Scriptures with stiff neck and uncircumcised heart. But why do you oppose this noble faith and saving confession: God, Word, Spirit; Father, Son, and Spirit? The Son is not a foreigner, nor is the Spirit of God and the Son alien; They are not divided by places, not encompassed by ages, not measured by intervals. B The Son was never lacking to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but the same Trinity is always immutable and unchangeable. The Father is not the Son, but the Father is the Genitor of the Son, as a father to a son, as power to one who is powerful, as the wise One who has begotten Wisdom, as a hypostasis is to its own character. But the Son is always Son, as existing always as the form of God, as the Son is the natural image of God.
3. And the Spirit is called the image of the Son C, and the finger of God, and the spirit of God, and the Word and spirit of His mouth, and the good spirit, and the upright (spirit), and the governing (spirit), and the spirit of power; and the Spirit of God is called Lord and God, just as the Word is. For if, together with God and the Word, the Spirit confirms the powers of the heavens, how is He alien? Those who have received Him are the temple of God, and He is called the spirit of the mouth of God, and is shown to be the cause of creation together with the Word; He who accomplishes all things as God, as He wills, as says the Apostle, the Spirit of adoption, the cause of freedom, who breaths divinity where He wills, whom the Lord of all clearly names the Spirit of truth; who descended from heaven upon Him in the form of a dove; who sanctifies the Lord’s flesh with power; who fills the world; who is present to all as God, and is always with God D inseparably; who knows all that is of God, just as the spirit in us knows our things, I mean the human spirit that is in us. For thus He says: "And no one knows the things of God, except the Spirit of God." And again the Savior says: "No one recognizes who the Son is, except the Father, nor does anyone recognize the Father, except the Son, and he to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him." This, to them,
A is equivalent to that. "For God," he says, "has revealed it to us through his Spirit." See, therefore, how at one time the Father reveals the Son, and at another time the Son reveals the Father, and at another time the Spirit reveals the Son and the Father likewise. So the whole of the Godhead is manifest to you, and the invocation is made now in the Father, now indeed in the Son and Spirit. The Apostle clearly solves the prophetic question for you, and does not allow that the Godhead should be supposed to be a single person, on account of the expressions that are thought to indicate this. For even he, although he clearly proclaims the person of the Son everywhere as creative, nevertheless refers all creation back to the person of the Father. For is it not he who says: "One God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him"? And since he B has likewise clearly spoken of "one and one" here, and has testified that all things happen through the Son, he says "one" to the Romans, and adds that all things happen through him, not only from him. Wherefore the duality indicated in the duality, or even the trinity in the trinity, will be openly testified in the same Apostle just as in the prophets, that they do not abolish the duality; or rather, when they proclaim the Trinity, they are asserting the unity, but, knowing the unity of the Divine Being, they proclaim the three in one person.
4. And from the beginning, indeed, in the creation of the world, it is accepted that God spoke to the Son and the Spirit, since Moses represented him as conversing more after the manner of men and saying: "Let us make man in our image and likeness." C For to whom does he say, "Let us make," if not to the Word and only-begotten Son, through whom all things were made, according to the evangelist, and to the Spirit, of whom it is written: "And the divine spirit formed me"? But even if it does not expressly say of whom or to whom he is speaking, yet it is evident that he is not speaking of himself alone, when he says: "Behold, Adam has become as one of us." And again: "Come, let us go down and confuse their tongues," so that you may perceive them being counted together. Nor is it...
indeed permitted for anyone to dare to rank angels A in equal honor with the Creator and Lord, nor again is it possible to conceive of one person in God, since it is said: "As one of us," and, "Come, let us descend and confuse them." It is also evident what is said regarding the destruction of Sodom; that which is: "The Lord rained sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven," and similarly what is mentioned in the prophets from the person of God: "I overturned them," he says, "as God overturned Sodom and Gomorrah." And elsewhere God speaks more mercifully: "I will save them in the Lord their God," which is not unlike the apostolic expression which says: "May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord in that day." What then of Zorobabel and the wisdom of Zorobabel? Does it not seem to you to indicate B the hypostasis and life of the Truth clearly and not obscurely, when he says: "All the earth calls upon the truth, and heaven blesses it, and all works are shaken and tremble"? But what is the Truth, if not the Word of God and the Son, through whom all things exist? "For I," he says, "am the way, and the truth, and the life." Now there is no truth unless it is that which is naturally and eternally begotten from the True One himself. Therefore he adds, saying: "Blessed be the God of the Truth, who is the Father of the Truth, Christ." Christ is the Truth, whom every breath worships and trembles before. Therefore, that the Word is living, and a perfect person, and the Spirit likewise, the points just made are sufficient to teach. Humans describe many other forms C regarding God, yet we do not for that reason suppose God to be a human, as for instance if we hear of a face, eyes, ears, hands, and feet. Nor does he mean to say of God that he sits in heaven as if on a throne, nor that the earth is trodden upon corporeally as the footstool of his feet, but rather that it is subject to the divine power. Likewise, if you hear of a womb regarding God, do not be disturbed as though thinking of something corporeal, but by conceiving of something spiritual, you will speak of something better, namely the generative power of God itself being openly revealed to you from him. So, too, when you hear of the hands of God, recognize clearly his power of acting: by the ear, the faculty with which he is endowed for hearing: by the eyes, the power of seeing: D by wings, the power of protecting. And all other things individually
preserve their own most accurate understanding of God, especially among those who believe rightly. Names, therefore, are in use among men for the knowledge and distinction of substances, or even of things, and of those things which are conceived of in relation to substances. Therefore, let not "womb" in God cause you to marvel at the novelty of the term, since neither "hand" nor the other things related above cause you to tremble. Likewise let not "generation" in God render you astonished, nor any of those who hear it.
5. But if anyone fears that affection exists in God who begets, he may also fear movement, and labor, and the assumption of matter, and the use of tools in the Creator. For these things are present in men who are creators. But if these things are not present in God, then neither is affection present in begetting. For it is impossible that a nature devoid of affection should fall into affection. Why, then, does one fear a fear where no fear exists? God, when He begets by nature from Himself, is not subject to affection; God forbid! Nor does He labor when He creates something, or the universe, out of nothing; God forbid, nor let it be said! But if you shun the one, you must also shun the whole; if you shun the whole, you must likewise shun the one. If you shun the one in a human manner, shun the whole as well; but if the whole is not shunned in a human manner, then neither is the one. For if God creates those things which are from nothing by His will, He fulfills the whole without labor; and this is not incredible to us. But it will seem more credible to all that God, by a divine nature and in a manner befitting God, has begotten from Himself a genuine Son, equal in honor, equal in glory, a sharer of the same throne, a consiliarius, a co-worker, consubstantial with the Father and God, and not of a different substance, nor alien to His sole divinity. If otherwise, then He is not to be worshiped either. For it is written, "You shall worship no strange god," B nor are we commanded to acknowledge any recent god. Therefore, do not say that there is an addition of a deity, nor that the Son was silent among the ancients while He has been revealed to us, if you confess that the Son is the Word, the Creator of all things. For the Fathers knew the Word, they worshiped the Word of God, and with the Word, the Spirit. And do not separate Him from Him who says: "I am God alone, and there is none beside me," lest you be forced to blaspheme the Son, as if He were not God; nor separate Him from Him who says: "I alone stretched out the heaven," C lest you also cease to call the Son the Creator; for He who stretched out the heaven is not separated from the glory of the only God. Therefore, in the Son, recognize the Father; in the Father, glorify the Son. Do not divide the indivisible; do not tear asunder that which cannot be torn. For even if you wish to do so, they are not torn apart. Even if heretics are torn asunder, the Trinity is not torn asunder; D but It is what It is, even if it does not seem so to others. For the holy Trinity is a bond, and It is to be worshiped in one and eternal glory, holding the same and one sole divinity everywhere.
A unbroken, insecable, indivisible, filling all things, containing all things, existing in all things, creating, governing, sanctifying, and vivifying. This divine and most admirable bond is not broken, according to that which is written: "A triple cord shall not be broken" (Eccles. IV, 12). With this thought, blessed Paul also, writing to those who believed rightly, said: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all" (II Cor. XIII, 13). For when all things are performed by God through Jesus Christ in the Spirit, I see an inseparable operation of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And for this reason, all the saints are temples of God, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in whom dwells one divinity, and one lordship, and one holiness of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, because of the one sanctification of baptism. B
Against those who say that it is written often concerning the Son and the Father, but concerning the Spirit only in baptism.
1. If the Father says: "In the last days I will pour out from my Spirit upon all flesh" (Joel II, 28), what shall we say concerning the Son? For it is not written of him here. But if the prophet says: "There the hinds met, and saw the faces of one another; they went past in number, and not one of them was left, because the Lord commanded them, and His Spirit gathered them" (Isa. XXXIV, 15, 16); where is the Son? If he says: "A spirit will go forth from me, and I have made every breath" (Isa. LVII, 16); where is the Son? If David says: "And take not thy Holy Spirit from me" (Psal. L, 13); where is the Son? If the same person says: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within my inward parts" (Psal. L, 12); where is the Son? If the same person says again: "And thy good Spirit shall lead me in the right land" (Psal. CXLI, 10); where is the Son? If the same says: "And with a princely Spirit establish me" (Psal. L, 14); where is the Son? C If Job says: "The divine Spirit which made me" (Job XXXIII, 4); where is the Son? If the same Job says: "There is a spirit in men, but the breath of the Almighty is that which teaches me" (Job XXXII, 8); where is the Son? If David says: "Thou shalt send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth" (Psal. CIII, 30); where is the Son? If he says: "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy face?" (Psal. CXXXVIII, 7); where is the Son? If he says: "Woe to you, rebellious children, thus says the Lord: Ye have taken counsel, not by me, and made covenants, not by my Spirit" (Isa. XXX, 1); where is the Son? If he says: "And a rod shall go forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise from the root D
A of Jesse, and it shall rest upon him—the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness, and it shall fill him with the Spirit of the fear of God"—how shall I separate the Spirit? Or if he says: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me, he has sent me to preach the gospel to the poor, to preach release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind"—how shall I separate the Spirit? And all things that it is possible to find with diligence from the Old B and New Testament concerning the Spirit and the Son and the Father. "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you; for behold, you shall conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son." And when Mary said: "How shall I know this, since I do not know a man?" the angel says to her: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you." And again, the same angel saying to Joseph: "Do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit." And again, the evangelist, interpreting what is in the prophet, says: "That it might be fulfilled which was written: Behold C my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my Spirit upon him." And in the Gospel it is written: "The Spirit breathes where he wills, and you hear his voice, but you do not know from where he comes, or where he goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." And likewise in the Gospel: "But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." And again it is written: "All sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit D has no forgiveness." And in the baptism, the Holy Spirit descended and remained upon him; but the angels, having descended, were ministering to him. So that you may know that the angels, having descended, ministered in order to show their service; but the Spirit remained upon him so that, having heard of the dwelling, you might understand the freedom of his nature. And it is written: "The Father, who remains in me, he does the works." And again it is written: "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the desert, for forty days being tempted by the devil." And again: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." And again: "I tell you the truth, it is profitable for you that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father."
A 2. But if they say: "He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak," we say to them: Neither does the Son speak on his own authority. But the Father who sent me, he says, has told me what I should say and what I should speak; for all things that the Spirit and the Son speak are oracles of God. And for this reason, *all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable*, having been spoken by the Spirit. For this truly shows that the Spirit is not a creature, since every rational creature sometimes speaks from itself, and sometimes speaks the things of God—as when Paul says: *Concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord, but I give an opinion as one having obtained mercy from the Lord.* And to those who are married I command, not I, but the Lord. And the prophet says: *O Lord, I will speak judgments to you; why is it that the wicked prosper?* And again: *Woe is me, mother, what kind of person have you born me?* Yet sometimes he says: *Thus says the Lord.* And sometimes Moses says: *I am small of voice and slow of tongue.* Yet at other times the same person says: *Thus says the Lord: Let my people go, that they may serve me.* B But the Spirit is not so. For the Spirit does not sometimes speak his own things, and at other times the things of God; for that would be the mark of a creature. But all the words of the Spirit are the oracles of God; similarly, so too are those of the Son. For this reason, neither does the Son speak on his own authority. For the Father who sent me, he says, told me what I should say and what I should speak—not that he was learning (for this would be characteristic of one who is imperfect and ignorant), but because whatever the Father speaks, he speaks through the Son in the Spirit. And again it is written: *For who knows the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God no one knows, except the Spirit of God.* And again: *For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.* C But if they say that he who searches does not know, and for that reason he searches, we will say that God also searches the hearts of men. And through the prophets he says: *I will search Jerusalem with a lamp.* And again it is written: *Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God?* And again: *Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?* And again: *But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.* And again it is written: *And such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, D
and in the Spirit of our God. A And again: *For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not wrought by me, by word and deed, in obedience of the nations, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit.* And in the beginning of the Epistles, holy Paul makes mention of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, writing thus: *Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the Gospel of God, which He had promised before by His prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning His Son, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness.* And again: *The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.* And again: *There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who works all in all.* And Job: *The Lord lives, who has so judged me, and the Almighty, who has embittered my soul: the divine Spirit, however, which remains in my nostrils.* And David: *Send out Thy light and Thy truth;* calling the Spirit light, and the Son truth. And elsewhere: *Show us, O Lord, Thy mercy, and grant us Thy salvation.*
On the Spirit
Let every soul that seeks concerning C things more divine be filled with joy, if it has such an eye that can seek and see those things which are invisible to the senses, and if, seeking in such a way, it is able, as it is written, to dwell with the One who is sought. For it is written: *If you seek, seek, and dwell with me.* But it dwells then, when it seeks with faith. For even if it happens that it does not find, yet it does not cease to dwell in the faith of the One who is sought, but says according to the blessed David: *Thy knowledge is become wonderful from me; it is strengthened, I shall not be able to attain to it;* and according to the father of the lunatic: *I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.* Having, therefore, this intention, let us seek with faith concerning the nature of the Holy Spirit, requesting from Him the knowledge of the One whom we seek. For He Himself is the one who
A is sought, and He Himself is the one who provides the knowledge concerning Himself. And as we have learned from the divine Scriptures of Him, it is He who makes the saints holy, and grants divine life to those who seek God from Him. But it is necessary that He who grants be more excellent than those who receive; for they become saints when He visits them, and they perish when He forsakes them. And He is always, being the fountain of eternal life. But what the manner of the imparting of His being is, both in all things and in each one individually, let the mind consider—having become worthy of such consideration, and having been delivered from deceit and heresy and other seductions of bewitching women. Let it approach B in a state of tranquility. And let not only the body that encompasses it, and the turbulence of the body, be tranquil for it, but also everything that surrounds us—heaven, earth, sea, and the rational beings who are in them. And let it perceive all things being filled, and the Spirit in every way standing over them, as if flowing in and poured out, and entering from everywhere, and shining within. For "the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together has knowledge of God." And He shines within all those who are worthy. For just as the rays of the sun cause a cloud to be illuminated and to shine, imparting to it a golden appearance, so also the Holy Spirit, having come into the body of a man, gave life, gave immortality, gave holiness, and raised up the one who was fallen. And that which was moved with eternal motion by the Holy Spirit became a holy living being. And man received the dignity of a C prophet, an apostle, and an angel of God, from the indwelling of the Spirit, being before this but earth and ashes.
2. The power and nature of the Spirit will become even more manifest and clearer D if we consider how He contains and leads the saints and all rational nature according to His own will. For He has given Himself to the whole multitude of heavenly powers and to the multitude of the righteous. And every substance of the righteous, both great and small, and of angels and archangels, has been sanctified. And while the substance of bodies lying about is one thing and another—with one being here and another there—and that of the other powers has something between them that separates them from one another, it is not so with the Spirit, nor does any portion of Him being partitioned out to each one make them live divinely; but all things live by the whole.
And He is present everywhere, being assimilated to God who sends Him forth, both in that He is, and in that He is everywhere and in all things alike. And Gabriel A when bringing the joyful message to Mary, and another elsewhere to any of the saints; and each of the prophets when prophesying; and Paul when preaching the Gospel in Rome; and James in Jerusalem; and Mark in Alexandria; and another person in another city—they were all filled with the Spirit, as no interval of space hindered the same grace from being active at the same time. And for this reason, each of the saints is a god. For it has been said to them by God: *I said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High*; and, *The God of gods*, that is to say, of the saints, *the Lord has spoken*; and, *God shall be seen in Sion*, that is to say, the God of the saints. B Now, it is necessary that He who is the cause for the gods to be gods should be the divine Spirit and should be from God. For just as for things that burn, that which is the cause of their being burning must itself be burning, and that which is the cause for the saints to be saints must necessarily be holy; so too, that which is the cause for the gods to be gods must necessarily be God. Since the Spirit is thus a good and divine possession, do not fear to believe in Him, nor to seek after Christ, who is the provider of this Spirit. For *no one can say, Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit*. And the life which the Spirit imparts into another's subsistence does not become separated from Him. But just as heat exists in fire—partly C that which is in it, and partly that which it imparts to water or to some other such thing—so too He both has life in Himself, and those who partake of Him live in a manner worthy of God, obtaining a divine and heavenly life. For He contains within Himself all things that are immortal: every mind, every angel, every soul; and since He is in a good state, He does not seek for change, nor for migration, since He has all things in Himself. But He does not seek for increase either, since He is most perfect. Wherefore, all things are also perfect in Him: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness, wisdom, understanding, counsel, steadfastness, piety, knowledge, sanctification, redemption, faith, workings of powers, gifts of healing, and whatever things D are similar to these. He has nothing in Himself that is adventitious; but He has all things eternally, as the Spirit of God, and emerging from Him, having Him as the cause and fountain of His own being, and flowing from there. He is himself also a fountain of the good things we have mentioned. But that which flows from God has an independent subsistence; whereas those things which flow from Him are His energies. This Holy Spirit God poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ; He poured it out, He did not create it; He granted it, He did not make it; He gave it, He did not form it.
their operations. This Holy Spirit God has poured out upon us in abundance through Jesus Christ: He poured Him out, He did not create Him; He bestowed Him, He did not make Him; He gave Him, He did not found Him. I say the same thing using synonymous terms: because it is necessary that you be firm on all sides. He who has learned from the Spirit what he is to say in response to those who question him, he is called a disciple of God by the prophet, who said: "And all shall be disciples of God." Therefore, that divine Spirit is abundant in a soul endowed with reason, unless by her own negligence she wishes Him to depart from her. When, however, she has approached Him and has become as it were one, she hears this: "He who clings to the Lord is one spirit." To Him be glory. Amen.
ORDER OF SUBJECTS CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME
SAINT BASIL THE GREAT, ARCHBISHOP OF CAESAREA. LIFE OF ST. BASIL. Monitum. V
CAP. I. — I. St. Basil is born at Caesarea. II. And this around the year 329. III. Concerning his ancestors. IV. Concerning his father Basil and mother Emmelia. V. Basil's boyhood training under his grandmother Macrina and then under his father. VI. He is sent to Caesarea in Cappadocia for literary studies, and this is confirmed by many proofs of reasons. V
CAP. II. — I. St. Basil is sent from Cappadocia to Constantinople. II. Thence he comes to Athens. III. He enters into friendship with Gregory Nazianzen. IV. Their studies and teachers and fellow students. V. Basil writes to Apollinaris. In what year he left Athens. X
CAP. III. — I. St. Basil returns to his homeland and gives something to the stage of the world. II. It is probable that he was baptized after his return. III. Naucratius, his brother, dies. IV. Basil embraces the monastic life and visits the monasteries of the East and Egypt. V. Detained by illness at Alexandria, he writes to Eustathius. VI. He withdraws into Pontus, with Gregory attempting in vain to call him back. XII
CAP. IV. — I. Those who deny that Basil was bound by the profession of monastic life are refuted by his own testimonies. II. It is proved that Basil left nothing remaining for himself from his own goods. III. Even a profession not pronounced in express and formal words could not be violated. IV. Gregory chose a middle path between anchorites and active ascetics. The *migades* act the same as ascetics dedicated to action among Gregory. V. Basil established a way of life in his monasteries that was a middle path between anchorites and *migades*. XVI
CAP. V. — I. St. Basil is joined in friendship with Eustathius of Sebaste. II. What kind of person Eustathius was. III. Eustathius even deceived St. Eusebius of Samosata by putting forward a show of zeal for the faith and holiness. IV. It seems he was condemned at the Council of Gangra. V. Some objections against this opinion are resolved. VI. Eustathius was not the teacher of Aetius, but of Aerius. XIX
CAP. VI. — I. St. Basil is the author of the cenobitic life in Pontus and Cappadocia. II. Before this, ascetics lived two or three together in these places. III. He writes to Gregory and tries to attract him to himself. Their way of living and occupation. IV. The labors of Basil are not contained within the limits of the monastery. V. Concerning several epistles written in seclusion. XXIV
CAP. VII. — I. Basil comes to Constantinople with Basil of Ancyra, whom he assists against the heretics. II. Grieved that Dianius had subscribed, he flees to Nazianzus. III. He writes the *Moralia*. The epistle on faith does not belong to this work. The *Moralia* were written under Constantius. IV. Concerning the epistle to Maximus, who seems to be the same as the betrayer of St. Gregory. V. Concerning several epistles written in seclusion, especially the fourteenth and fifteenth. XXVI
CAP. VIII. — I. Concerning the epistle of Emperor Julian to St. Basil. II. St. Gregory Nazianzen is created a presbyter. III. Basil is summoned by Dianius of Caesarea, and he communicates with him. Whether Basil rightly praised this man. IV. Eusebius succeeds Dianius of Caesarea under Julian. V. Julian heads toward Caesarea. Spurious epistles of Basil and Julian. VI. He extremely hates the Caesareans, and threatens Basil and Gregory. VII. It seems Basil wrote against Eunomius under Julian. Under the same emperor, two other epistles were written. VIII. The letters of St. Athanasius to Basil are to be referred to the same time. IX. It is proved that under Julian, Gregory of Nazianzus subscribed to a non-orthodox formula. X. Immediately after the death of Julian, Gregory visits Basil. XXXII
CAP. IX. — I. Basil is created a presbyter. II. Ordained in the year 364. III. Concerning his first oration and three epistles. IV. For the sake of peace, he withdraws into Pontus. V. He returns to Caesarea, in order to defend this Church upon the arrival of Valens. VI. The withdrawal is to be placed at the end of the year 364, or the beginning of 365. Return in the year 365. XXXVIII
CAP. X. — I. Basil's very close connection with Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea. II. It seems he lived in a monastery and accepted one principal Church to govern. III. Basil's authority under Eusebius in ecclesiastical matters concerning Caesarea as the metropolis. IV. What those ecclesiastical matters were. V. What Basil's part was in those things that were done after the Synod of Lampsacus. VI. It is proved that this synod was held in the year 364. XLII
CAP. XI. — I. How Basil performed the office of presbyter in the city itself. II. Concerning his 22nd and 23rd epistles. III. Basil's charity while famine raged. IV. Two testimonies of Gregory of Nyssa concerning that matter are explained. V. The famine lasted throughout the year 368. XLV
CAP. XII. — I. Basil congratulates Caesarius on having been saved among the ruins of Nicaea. He writes epistle 27 to Eusebius. II. He consoles the Neocaesareans, who were afflicted by the death of their bishop. III. Likewise the Ancyrans, due to the death of Athanasius. In the same place, concerning epistles 24 and 25, and that they pertain to Basil's death occurring at the end of the year 368 or the beginning of 369. V. With Gregory involved in troublesome business.