A introduce errors; for those indeed who deny that God is from God, and who confess the Son in name only, but in deed and truth abolish His subsistence, do thereby renew Judaism. For when they confess the Word, they compare Him to the word conceived in the mind; and when they speak of Wisdom, they say it is like the habit that dwells in the soul of the learned. And for this reason they declare that there is one person of the Father and of the Son, just as a man is called one, not divided from the word and wisdom that exist within him. Yet the evangelist right from the beginning cries out: *And the Word was God*, granting a proper subsistence to the Son. For if the Word were in the heart, how could He be understood as God? Or how could He be *with God*? Since neither is the word in a man a man, nor is it said to be *with* him, but *in* him. For it is neither living nor subsistent; but the Word of God is life and truth. And our word, at the same time that it is uttered, no longer exists; but regarding the Word of God, what does the Psalm say? *For ever, O Lord, Thy Word abides in heaven*.
B 2. From there comes this war; but from elsewhere, what is the nature of this struggle against the truth? They grant His subsistence and acknowledge that the Son has a proper person, and the Father a proper one; but they introduce an inequality of nature. And they grant the name of the Son in voice only, but in truth they reduce Him to a creature, not fearing the voice of the Lord, who pre-announced Himself to him who was eager to behold the vision of the Father. *For he who has seen me*, He says, *has seen the Father*. But this voice, to those who judge rightly, shuts the mouths of both sides' blasphemies. For He does not say that He Himself is the Father, a thing which clearly distinguishes the persons in the saying: *He who has seen me*. For hereby He points out His own proper person; C but when He adds: *has seen the Father*, He looks to the paternal person and clearly distinguishes Him from Himself. The same thing He does also where He says: *If you had known me, you would have known my Father also*. For these things do not indicate a confusion of persons, but demonstrate the likeness of the Godhead, which is devoid of any distinction. But let the adversaries also hear these very words: that he who is deemed worthy of the fellowship of the Son is not deprived of the Father. For the Begetter did not beget an alien, but one such as He Himself is. Hear, O Anomoean: *I and the Father are one*. Hear and thou, O Sabellius: *I and the
A Father went forth, and to Him I go. And let each of you heal your own wound from the evangelical doctrine. And you, indeed, receive the unity according to the changelessness of the nature; but you, receive the *I went forth from Him, and to Him I am going* according to the difference of persons. Let us therefore agree on these points, and let us be at peace, and let us lay aside the long war against piety, having cast away those sharpened weapons of impiety, and having forged spears into ploughshares, and swords into sickles. Do not you say it alone, but follow Him who says: *I am not alone, because the Father who sent me is with me*. Another, therefore, is the Father who sent, and another the Son who was sent. And again, *I*, He says, *bear witness of myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness of me*. And: *In your law*, He says, *it is written that the testimony of two men is true*. Number, if you please, the persons. *I*, He says, *am He who bears witness*. One. *And the Father who sent me bears witness concerning me*. Two. And I do not number so boldly, but the Lord Himself taught, saying: *In your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true*. But you, who fight against God with another kind of impiety, who say that the Son is dissimilar in nature B to God, who do not grant equality, who introduce an interval of life, revere Paul who says: *Who is the image of the invisible God*; and grant to the living image that it should be in all things similar to the archetypal life. Confess that the Father is the maker of the Son, not of a creature. And in the true confession of the Father, grant the equality of honor of the Begotten toward Him, calling to mind the testimony of the evangelist, that He called God His own Father, making Himself equal to God. But that equality which He has with the Father is understood according to nature, not according to a measurement of bodily magnitude. But how did He not think it robbery to be equal to God, if, as you blaspheme, He was never equal? How, again, was He in the form of God, who, as you say, was never similar?
3. Such, indeed, is the conflict on both sides regarding us; but what is the truth? Do not you be afraid to confess the persons: but say Father, say also Son, not attributing two names to one thing, but learning from each appellation a proper meaning. For it is a great wickedness not to accept the teachings of the Lord, who clearly distinguishes D for us another person from [the Father]
For if I go away, he says, I will ask the Father, and He will send another Paraclete to you. Therefore, the Son is the one who asks, the Father is the one who is asked, and the Paraclete is the one who is sent. Is it not then clearly shameless of you, when hearing "I" concerning the Son, "He" concerning the Father, and "another" concerning the Holy Spirit, to mix everything together, to confound everything, and to attribute all the appellations to one thing?
On the other hand, do not use the separation of the persons as an opportunity for impiety. For even if they are two in number, they are not disjointed in nature; nor does the one who speaks of two introduce alienation. There is one God, because there is one Father; and one God is the Son, and there are not two gods, since the Son has identity with the Father. For I contemplate no other divinity in the Father, and another in the Son; nor one nature for the former and another for the latter. Therefore, so that the property of the persons may be made clear to you, count the Father separately, and the Son separately; but so that you are not split into a multitude of gods, confess one essence in both. Thus Sabellius falls, and the Anomoean will be crushed.
4. But when I say one essence, do not think of two divided from one, C but of the Son subsisting from the principle of the Father, not both Father and Son emerging from one superior essence. For we do not call them brothers, but we confess Father and Son. And the identity of the essence exists because the Son is from the Father, not made by a command, but begotten from the nature; not divided from the Father, but shining forth perfect from the perfect, while He remains perfect. And do not run around concerning me, as many of you who have not followed what is said perfectly, or who have gathered around us with intent to slander, not seeking to take any profit from us, but watching to snatch at something of what we say, in order to say as you run about: "He preaches two gods, he announces a multitude of gods." There are not two Gods, for there are not two fathers. He who introduces two principles preaches two gods. Such is Marcion, and whoever is similar to him in impiety.
And again, he who says that the Begotten is of a different essence from the Begetter also speaks of two gods, introducing a multitude of gods because of the dissimilarity of the essence. For if there is one unbegotten divinity and one begotten, you are the one who preaches a multitude of gods, since you say that the Unbegotten is contrary to the Begotten, and clearly posit the D essences as contrary; provided that the "ingeneracy" is the essence of the Father, and the "generacy" is the essence of the Son. Thus you say there are not only two gods, but that they are also at war with one another; and what is most terrible, you do not attribute the fight to a choice of mind, but to a natural discord, which can never come to a peaceful agreement. But the doctrine of truth has avoided the things that are at odds from both sides. For where there is one principle, and one is that which is from it, and one is the archetype...
and one is the image, the concept of unity is in no way weakened A. For because the Son exists from the Father by way of generation, and naturally expresses the Father within Himself, as an image He possesses the unchangeable likeness, but as a derivative (22), He preserves the consubstantiality. For neither does a person in the marketplace who gazes at the royal image, and calls the figure on the panel the king, confess two kings, the image and the person whose image it is; nor, if he points to the figure painted on the panel and says, "This is the king," has he deprived the archetype of the title of king. Rather, he has confirmed the honor to the latter through his confession of the former. For if the image is king, it is surely much more likely that he who provided the cause for the image to exist is also king. But here, wood and wax and the skill of the painter make the image corruptible, a likeness of a corruptible thing, and an artificial representation of him who is depicted; but there, when you hear "image," understand the radiance of the glory. And what is the radiance, and what is the glory? The Apostle himself immediately interpreted it, when he added (24), "And the character of his substance" (Hebr. 1, 3). Therefore, the substance is the same as the glory, and the character is the same as the radiance. Wherefore, with the glory remaining perfect and in no way diminished, the perfect radiance proceeds. And thus the concept of the image, accepted in a way worthy of God, shows us the unity of the Godhead. For this one is in that one, and that one is in this one. Because this one is such as that one is, and that one is such as this one is. Thus the two are united, in that they do not differ, nor is the Son to be understood according to another species and a foreign character. Again, therefore, I say: One and one, but the nature is undivided, and the perfection excludes all imperfection. Therefore there is one God, since through both one species is regarded, which is fully shown in both C. But I see that you have long been impatient with our discourse, and I think I can almost hear you saying that by lingering on items that are already confessed, I am not touching upon the much-discussed questions. For the ears of all are now pricked up to hear something about the Holy Spirit. And for my part, I would very much like to hand on to the hearers, just as I simply received it through tradition, and just as I faithfully and candidly assented to it; so that I might not always have to be rendering an account of the same things, but that, having convinced my students through a single confession, I might have them—since you have stood around us, being judges rather D than...
students, wishing to test us rather than seeking to learn anything—it is necessary for us, as if in a court of law, to set forth the counter-argument, and always to be questioned, and always to state what we have received. We exhort you, however, not to seek to hear from us in every way what is pleasing to you, but what is acceptable to the Lord, and consistent with the Scriptures, and not at variance with the Fathers. Therefore, what we were saying concerning the Son, that one must confess his own proper A person, we have the same to say also concerning the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit is not the same as the Father, because it has been written that "God is Spirit." Nor, again, is the person of the Son and of the Spirit one, because it has been said: "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His; but Christ is in you." For from this, some have been deceived into thinking that the Spirit and Christ are the same. But what do we say? Herein is displayed the close relationship of nature, not a confusion of persons. For the Father is, having being perfect and lacking nothing, the root and fountain of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and the Son is the living Word in full divinity, and the offspring of the Father, lacking nothing; and the Spirit is also full, not a part of another, but perfect and whole, B being contemplated in Himself. And the Son is joined to the Father inseparably; and the Spirit is joined to the Son. For there is nothing that divides, nor anything that cuts off that eternal connection. For no age intervenes, nor does our soul admit the conception of separation, as if the Only-Begotten were not always with the Father, or the Holy Spirit were not always co-existing with the Son.
When, therefore, we join the Trinity together, do not imagine the three as parts of one indivisible thing (for this thought is impious), but understand the common and indivisible essence of three perfect incorporeal beings. For where there is the presence of the Holy Spirit, there also is Christ’s presence; and where Christ is, there the Father is C evidently present. "Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you?" And: "If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him." Being sanctified, therefore, through the Spirit, we receive Christ dwelling in our inner man, and with Christ the Father, who takes up his abode in common among the worthy. This connection is declared also by the tradition of baptism and the confession of faith. For if the Spirit were alien in nature, how could he be numbered together [with them]? And if he had been added later, in the course of time, to the Father and the Son, how could he be ranked with the eternal nature? Those who separate the Spirit from the Father and the Son and number him D among the creatures make the baptism imperfect, and the confession of the faith incomplete. For neither is the
A Trinity a Trinity if the Spirit is subtracted. And if any one creature were added, there is no creature that would not then be numbered with the Father and the Son. For what prevents one from saying, "We believe in the Father, and the Son, and every creature"? If it is pious to believe in a part of the creation, it would surely be far more religious to include the whole of creation in this confession. But if you believe in every creature, you will believe not only in angels and ministering spirits, but also in whatever opposing powers there may be, since they too are part of the creation, and you will conclude a covenant with them in your profession of faith. Thus, the blasphemy against the Spirit leads you into impious and abominable speech. For as soon as you have said what you ought not concerning the Spirit, the abandonment of the Spirit makes this clear to you. Just as one who closes his eyes possesses darkness within himself, so he who has withdrawn from the Spirit, being removed from the Illuminator, is confounded by the blindness of his own soul.
6. But do not separate the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son; let the tradition restrain you. B The Lord taught thus, the apostles preached it, the Fathers preserved it, and the martyrs confirmed it. Be content to speak as you have been taught, and do not confront me with those subtle and captious arguments: "He is either unbegotten or begotten. If he is unbegotten, he is Father; if he is begotten, he is Son; and if he is neither of these, he is a creature." I, for my part, know the Spirit with the Father, but I do not know him to be the Father; and I have received him with the Son, but I have not heard him called the Son. But I perceive his intimacy with the Father, because he proceeds from the Father; and that with the Son, because I hear: *If any one does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his*. For if he is not in communion with Christ, how does he bring others into communion with Christ? But I also hear him called the Spirit of truth. And the Lord is the Truth. When I hear "Spirit of adoption," I am brought to conceive of the unity C of nature which he has with the Son and the Father. For how could a stranger give the right of adoption? And how could what is alien make one kin? Thus, then, I neither innovate with words, nor do I reject the majesty [of the Spirit]; but I groan and weep for those who dare to call him a creature, because through a meager sophism and a counterfeit syllogism they push themselves into the pit. For they say that our intellect perceives these three things, and there is nothing in the nature of things that does not fall under this division of beings. For, they say, it is either unbegotten, or begotten, D or created; but since it is neither the first nor the second, it is therefore the third. This "therefore" of yours creates obligations for you in the eternal judgment. Have you searched everything out? Everything to your own [word missing]
A one who brings you to trial of the son. Have you searched out all things? Have you brought all things under the divisions of your own reasonings? Have you left nothing unexamined? Have you encompassed all things with your mind, and included all things within your own comprehension? Do you know what is under the earth? Do you know what is in the deep? This is the boasting of demons:
"The measure of the sea and the number of the sand is known to me."
But if you are ignorant of many things, and the things you are ignorant of are ten thousand times more numerous than those you know, why do you not, along with everyone else, confess without shame your ignorance regarding the manner in which the Holy Spirit exists, since this has no danger in it? I, indeed, have no leisure to refute the vanity of your reasonings, nor to demonstrate how many things in the order of beings escape your comprehension; yet I would gladly ask those of you B who are present—and I affirm confidently—that you will one day repent of this godless wisdom, in that you call the Holy Spirit a creature. Are you not afraid of the unforgivable sin? Or what do you think can be blasphemed more impiously than this? For from this one utterance, all the most terrible things follow: an alienation from God according to his very nature, the humility of servitude, liturgical ministries, a privation of sanctification—since that which is fitting to his nature is lacking—and it will result for the Spirit himself that he becomes a participant in sanctification C through the distribution of grace in the same way that the rest of things which have been sanctified possess it. And just as the manifestation of the Spirit is given to us for the common good, and just as it is measured out to each according to the proportion of faith, so too will the Spirit himself be a participant in sanctification, if he is truly, according to the opinion of the Pneumatomachians, a creature.
7. But let us leave behind the folly of those who think they have comprehended all things with their own understanding and believe they are beyond refutation. Let them answer us, then. What D after all is the essence of this sensible sun? Is it one of the four elements, or is it composed of the four? But clearly it is neither earth, nor air, nor water, nor fire. For these move in straight lines; some are borne upward, others downward. For earth and water are borne downward by their weight, while air and fire move toward the upward path because of their lightness. But the sun’s motion is circular. It is not, therefore, one of the four. And certainly it is not composed of them, because composite things are held together with toil, having their constitution from opposites, and the opposites pull against one another in their motion. But the motion of the sun is tireless, and for this reason
A Quare compositus non est? But in truth, in bodies, either something is simple or it is composite. But the sun is not a simple body, for it does not move in a straight line; nor is it composite, for it does not weary in its motion. Therefore, the sun does not exist. Such are your clever divisions, which are a laughingstock to those who have eyes. Again, how do we humans see? Is it by receiving the forms of visible things, or by emitting some power from ourselves? But we neither receive the images of visible things (for how can the hemisphere of the sky be imprinted upon the tiny opening of the pupil?), nor do we emit anything from ourselves (for again, how would that which is emitted be sufficient to expand to such a vastness of the heavens?). If we neither receive the images of visible things nor emit any power from ourselves, then we do not see. What then? Shall I refute your syllogisms, or shall I pray for you that you might conclude the truth? How does your artificial way of speaking about the Spirit, which you flaunt before miserable little women or the eunuchs who are akin to women, differ from arguments of this kind? Beware of listening with a hostile and calumnious spirit. B If the Spirit is from God, how do you relegate it to the rank of a creature? You will not say that because all things are from God. For just as Christ is called God's, but is not a creature as we are (for we are Christ's, but Christ is God's), yet we are called Christ's in one way, as servants of a Master, and Christ is called God's in another way, as Son of the Father; so too with the Spirit: it is not the case that, just because all things are from God, it also is from God just as all things are. Nor, because there are ministering spirits, is the Holy Spirit immediately similar in nature to them on account of the appellation. For there is one who is truly the Spirit. C For as there are many sons, but one true Son, so even if all things are said to be from God, strictly speaking, the Son is from God, and the Spirit is from God. Since the Son went forth from the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. But the Son is from the Father by generation, while the Spirit is from God in an arcane and ineffable way. See, therefore, how great the danger is in diminishing the glory of the Paraclete. The Son does not accept the honor offered to Him when the Spirit is spurned. For He says: "He shall glorify me," not as a servant among the creatures. For if He were to glorify Him together with all others, it would not have been said, "He." But now, that reference to the one indicates a glorification more excellent than that which is exhibited by others. D For it is not as those who said, "Glory to God in the highest," but as He who said, "Father, I have glorified thee, I have finished the work which thou gavest me." And as the Father glorifies the Son, saying, "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again," so too the Son admits the Spirit into His own and the Father's communion. Otherwise, let someone show me a glory greater than this, and I grant nothing if not that he who rejects you rejects me. Why? Clearly because of the Spirit that indwells in them. So then.
he who does not honor the Spirit does not honor the Son; and he who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father. Thus, therefore, lack of acknowledgment in regard to any one of the things believed is a denial of the whole divinity. If the Spirit is created, He is not divine. But, he says, "The divine [Spirit] is what made me." And he says, "God filled Bezalel with a divine Spirit of wisdom and discernment." Where, then, do you find the divine approaching? To the creature, or to the divinity? For if to the creature, you will also call the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ a creature; for it is written concerning Him, "Both His eternal power and divinity." But if to the divinity, then, putting an end to your blasphemy, acknowledge the worth of the Spirit. You are so senseless as not to be led even by the voice itself to the worthy concepts of the Spirit. B Indeed such an ignorant man art thou, that thou dost not allow thyself to be led even by the voice itself toward worthy notions of the Spirit.
NOTICE
198 Many things are today accustomed to be included under the name of the *Ascetica*: Prefaces, certain particular sermons, the treatise *On Faith*, another treatise *On the Judgment of God*, the *Moralia*, the *Greater Rules*, the *Lesser Rules*, and the *Monastic Constitutions*; but formerly not all these things were included in the *Ascetica*. Thus, therefore, in the age of Photius, Basil’s *Ascetic* work was restricted in such a way that it strictly comprised only the two treatises *On the Judgment of God* and *On Faith*, the *Moralia*, and the *Rules*, both the greater and the lesser. But just as almost all of Basil’s other works are called into question, so also is a great part of the *Ascetica* suspected by some of being spurious. Yet, because ancient writers make Basil the author of the *Ascetica*, or even the more fastidious critics at least easily concede some part of them to him, they do so in such a way that they deny that whatever is of chief importance is his. Nor, indeed, do these critics agree among themselves. For some are content to adjudge the *Shorter Rules* away from Basil the Great. Others, more unfair, adjudge away from him the *Lesser Rules* as well as the *Greater*, and the *Moralia*, and the treatises *On the Judgment of God* and *On True Faith*. But since it would be too long to explain the opinions of each one, and either to refute or to approve them, we shall discuss these matters in our Preface according to our custom.
It is also pleasing to say a few things about the ancient books. We found many—and these the best and most ancient—in those libraries which it was permitted to visit: in the Royal, the Colbertine, and the Coislinian libraries. Nor did we seek ornaments for our new edition from these libraries alone, but we did not deem it right to neglect foreign ones either. Therefore, I wrote to Messina, where, as soon as my letters arrived, those most learned and humane men, Dom Gregorio Arena, Prior, and Dom Dionysius Spagnoli, Lecturer of the Greek language—monks of the Order of Saint Basil the Great, both equally studious of advancing good letters and of magnifying the glory of their most holy Father—began to search through their most extensive and celebrated library most diligently. In it, pertinent to the matter, they found a short, unpublished lucubration whose title is: *Πῶς δεῖ εἶναι τὸν μοναχόν* [How a Monk Ought to Be], as well as certain additions to the *Moralia*. Besides these, those same most learned men whom I just mentioned took care to have another oration sent to me, concerning which we shall speak much more conveniently elsewhere.
Almost all things are arranged in one order as in printed books, but the *Rules* are arranged in a different order in other codices. Nor should it be passed over in silence that some of the *Shorter Rules* are missing in certain codices: but beyond the fact that these are few, there is nothing of importance in them, or anything of any moment. As far as the *Rules* are concerned, we shall take care to have them edited in the same order in which they have already been published in the Parisian edition: but we shall arrange the treatises *On the Judgment of God* and *On True Faith* differently. For these two little works are placed in the edition I just mentioned such that the treatise *On True Faith* holds the first place, and the treatise *On the Judgment of God* the second: a fact which is as much at odds with the author’s own intention as it is with the authority of ancient books, in which it is established that these two sermons are placed in reverse order—and thus in a true and proper order. I judge, however, that it happened through the fault of the workmen that the treatises I have named were placed in the Parisian edition in a place not their own; and this is all the more so, because we see them arranged in the Venetian edition in the same order as in the ancient books.