A Chap. XIX. Concerning those who say: Why is the Holy Spirit not clearly called God, just as the Son is called God? And concerning the fact that "God" and "Lord" are the common name for the holy Trinity, just as the divinity and lordship are one. Chap. XX. The earthly man does not possess the Holy Spirit, but the believer who has attained baptism does; and such a person can, according to the measure of our nature, look upon the glory of the Holy Spirit with the eye of the soul. Chap. XXI. Concerning those who say that God is glorified in the Holy Spirit, but not the Holy Spirit Himself. And concerning the passage: "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit." And concerning the fact that to regenerate through baptism is greater and more honorable than to be glorified or worshipped. Chap. XXII. Concerning the fact that, because of the perfection of faith in the Holy Spirit and the Son, the Church is greater than the Synagogue. Chap. XXIII. And concerning the doxology. Chap. XXIV. Concerning the heretics who oppose us and misinterpret the Scriptures. In the same place, concerning not disregarding the Fathers. Chap. XXV. Epilogue, or recapitulation. Chap. XXVI. Concerning the threat defined by God against those who do not acknowledge His Son and the Holy Spirit. Chap. XXVII. Concerning how even the wise men and leaders of the Greeks acknowledge in their own writings the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit with God, and His procession from Him.
BOOK TWO
C Cap. I. That the holy Trinity is incomprehensible. Those who strive to be a temple to some degree worthy of the Holy Spirit who dwells within the faithful—since they have once had the inaccessible light shine upon them—glorify and honor [the Trinity] equally, just as the Lord commanded in the mystical institution of baptism: both the unbegotten God and Father, and the beloved and only-begotten Son, the Word, who co-exists from Him, and the aforementioned Holy Spirit, who alone has processed from His hypostasis eternally and continuously. They do not deny faith in the consubstantiality of the Trinity, but they do not investigate the mode and difference of the generation and procession; for this is unknown, ineffable, and fearful to contemplate even to the heavenly powers that serve God. Nor do they inquire into the mode by which the holy Trinity has existed in itself from eternity, D and how it remains always the same and in the same way, and being what it is, dwelling upon its eternal throne, it can look into the abysses, be heard while silent, and hear those who are silent; and know things that are to be before they happen; and produce all things by a word, or rather more quickly than a word, and by sheer will alone; and before you consider in your heart what to ask, provided you ask faithfully and justly, [it] grants the petitions immediately, and arranges for all a time to have benefits conferred upon them; and is slow to anger, but ready to do good, and is angered because of our own faults, but forgives because of its own love of
A furthermore, it is incomprehensible how the Trinity possesses a will, and how It speaks, and how It bestows Itself in common, and how It searches out not so much the good state of bodies, but the contrite heart itself. And moreover, how is It invisible, and to Seraphic eyes incomprehensible; ineffable and in place uncontainable; in power indivisible, intangible, and without magnitude; without depth, without breadth, without form? 50 It is the overseer of all things, the hearer of all things, and the hope of all things; It is brighter than celestial light beyond measure, and higher than every height that words cannot express, and more intellectual than every mind in infinite reason. For how could the things of the Trinity not be incomprehensible to all, when Itself is the Creator of all things, and is set above every intellectual and indeed every intelligible creature; after which there is absolutely nothing, but all things are rather under It, and through It, and under Its feet, as things created? For the Father, having taken pleasure, initiated; the Only-Begotten created; and the Spirit of God sanctified; and by His sanctification He perfected, illuminated, strengthened, and vitalized, existing wholly in all and in each, and being participated in and received by all in entirety through goodness; and not being divided, nor passing over, nor undergoing change, but always breathing upon all things equally, and not in part, and keeping His own purity unpolluted by bodies, and doing all things divinely.
Book 2.
B For how could the things that pertain to the Trinity not be incomprehensible to everyone, since Itself is the creator of all things, and is exalted as far as possible above every intelligent, and indeed intelligible, creature, and after It there is nothing at all further, but all things rather are under It, and on account of It, and under Its feet [(32)], inasmuch as they are created? For the Father began by being well-pleased, the Unigenitus created, and the Spirit of God sanctified, and by sanctifying, He perfected, illuminated, strengthened, and made alive, being whole in all and in each. C (31) Magnitude… expers. In Greek, *amegethes*. But that censor, of whom I spoke in note 65, page 59, and page 84, concludes from the fact that our Theologian calls God *amegethes* that he is not Didymus. But (with peace to his own statement) Didymus is revealed as the author of this work all the more by this very fact. For it is peculiar to Didymus to call God *amegethes*, so that although I have fallen upon innumerable places of the Fathers who attribute magnitude to God, I have found no one hitherto who clearly calls Him lacking in magnitude. D (32) Sub pedibus ejus. This translation seems inappropriate and harsh, especially to Latin ears, by which all things are said to be "under the feet of the Trinity." Didymus perhaps refers to Isaiah VI, 2, or I Cor. XV, 27. Nevertheless, in the book *On the Holy Spirit* number 39, he speaks thus: "They will have even the demons themselves under their feet." And a little later: "But when we have subjected luxury, which tickles us, to our feet." Moreover, Christ is also said to have struck the demon with the foot of His divinity in a homily not yet published (a), which in the Nanian codex of the twelfth century is inscribed thus: "Sermon of our holy Father Gregory Thaumaturgus onto all the saints"; for there these things exist: "Olim quidem Jacobus…" that is, "Formerly indeed Jacob saw a ladder reaching unto heaven, and fixed there, and the angels of God ascending and descending: but now, on account of man, He who is the lover of men and benign became man, striking him who is the enemy of mankind and inhuman with the foot of His divinity, and carrying man in the hand of His kindness (or dignity, which is Christ), He caused the ether, impassable to human feet, to be trodden."
A existing, and entirely participated in and received by all on account of his own goodness, yet not divided, nor migrating to another, nor undergoing mutation, but always inspiring all in the same manner, though not partially, and keeping his own purity uncontaminated by bodies, and illuminating all things in a divine way, and everywhere increasing sanctification, charity, peace, wisdom, joy, security, and every good thing, as one who emanated and shone forth subsistently from the paternal fountain: through whom, and on account of whom, God and Father is present with us, with whom the Spirit himself is in heaven, and remains with us; for each divine person is able to do all things perfectly without the need of any, but in order that the joint-activity and unchangeability of their essence might be shown, as well as the worship, glory, and thanksgiving which ought to be rendered by us, for this reason the creation was completed in common by the holy Trinity. B Therefore, demonstrating that the creation has been arranged in a Trinitarian manner, he sings: "By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the powers of them by the Spirit of his mouth." For he called God the Father "Lord"; the Word, the only-begotten Son, through whom and from whom they were created; and the Spirit, the subsistent holy Spirit of God, by whom they were sanctified and strengthened. For this is the divine name, the omnipotent and excelling dignity, which is mentioned and glorified together with the Father and the Son; which is sanctifying, and life-giving, and the Bestower of heavenly light; which guards the persistence of each thing in its identity; which sounded in the prophets and apostles, and strengthened the martyrs to resist tyrannical cruelty; which renews and sets free as Lord, and makes us sons of God as the Spirit of adoption; which drives away the hosts of demons by illumination, that is, by baptism, and puts the adversary, or Satan, to shame; which opens the gates of heaven to us, and leads us to the entrance of salvation, and makes us participators in the angelic life and hymnody; which becomes for us a path leading to the heavenly God and Father himself; it is the self-determining and excelling most serene manifestation; the fertile, and infinite, and saving power; the unmeasured, and incomparable, and venerable subsistence; the undefiled, and esteemed, and most holy glory; the divine grace, which fills up what is lacking, and heals the weak; the ineffable and eternal goodness; the fountain of never-failing gifts, and the procession of the intellect of every good; the true manifestation of things future and unknown; the saving seal, and the divine chrism; the earnest C of eternal goods; by whom every creature, visible and invisible, rational and irrational, is strengthened; by whom all things are illuminated, and everywhere abound with sanctification, love, peace, wisdom, joy, security, and every good thing, inasmuch as it shone forth subsistently from the paternal fountain. Through whom, and through whom alone, God the Father draws near to us, with whom, and in whom, he is in the heavens, and stays with us; although each divine person is able to do all things perfectly without needing anything, yet that the joint-activity and unchangeableness of their essence might be shown, as well as the worship, glory, and thanksgiving which must be offered by us, for this reason the creation was completed in common by the holy Trinity. D Therefore, demonstrating that the creation was adorned in a Trinitarian way, he sings: "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the host of them by the Spirit of His mouth." For he called God the Father "Lord"; the Word, the only-begotten Son, through whom and from whom they were created; but the Spirit, the subsistent holy Spirit of God, by whom they were sanctified and strengthened. For this is the divine name, the omnipotent and excelling dignity, which is commemorated and glorified together with the Father and the Son; the sanctifying, and life-giving, and communicative of heavenly light; the protecting of each for remaining in identity; the one that sounded in the prophets and apostles, and strengthened the martyrs to withstand tyrannical cruelty; the one that renews and liberates as Lord, and makes us sons of God as the Spirit of adoption; the one that drives away the hordes of demons by the illumination, that is, by baptism, and puts the adversary, or Satan, to shame; the one that opens the gates of the heavens for us, and leads to the entrance of salvation, and makes us workers and participants in the angelic life and hymnody; the one that becomes a path for us leading to that very heavenly God and Father; the self-determining and surpassing most serene manifestation; the fertile, infinite, and saving power; the un-great, incomparable, and venerable subsistence; the undefiled, esteemed, and most holy glory; the divine grace, that which fills what is lacking and heals the weak; the ineffable and eternal goodness; the fountain of never-failing gifts, and the procession of every good mind; the true manifestation of things future and unknown; the saving seal, and the divine anointing; the earnest of eternal goods; through whom every creature, visible and invisible, rational and irrational, is empowered; through whom...
of which is divine regeneration, and the remission of iniquities, and the covering of sins, and the reconciliation to God; a crown for the just, and the attainment of good things; a heavenly dwelling, and life unending, and the eternal inheritance of the kingdom of God; he who partakes A of whose communion through regeneration obtains the aforementioned goods, and, according to the Catholic Epistles, is a partaker of the divine nature. For he who has partaken of incorruptible and eternal illumination remains ageless in spirit according to the inner man, in youth and gentleness, and is made like unto Him who alone has immortality and dwells in light inaccessible. For the sacred heralds of the Old and New Testaments know that the Holy Spirit is of the highest, single, divine nature. Immediately, therefore, they testify:
CHAPTER II. That the Holy Spirit is of God. And concerning the heretical objection.
First, that He is the Spirit of God and from God—even if not after Him—and alone knows the things of God, and is over all, they say the following: Moses, indeed, in Genesis, from the person of God: "My Spirit B shall not remain in these men forever, because they are flesh." Haggai likewise from the divine voice: "I am with you, and My Spirit stands in your midst." Zechariah likewise: "Nevertheless, hear my words and receive my statutes, which I command in my Spirit to my servants the prophets." Isaiah, from the Father to the Son: "My Spirit, which is upon thee, and the words which I have given into thy mouth, shall not fail out of thy mouth, and out of the mouth of thy seed"; calling those he has called to adoption his seed; and again from the person of the Son: "The Spirit C ... [alt-version omitted] D
of the Lord is upon me." And that these things were fulfilled in the economy, Matthew said thus: "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying: Behold my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him." And again from the person of the Father: "For the Spirit shall go forth from me." And in Ezekiel, the most high Father calls our spirit, our spirit; but the Holy Spirit, he calls his own proper one, inasmuch as it proceeded from him by nature: "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you." And again in Joel: "I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh." And Paul wrote that these things were fulfilled to Titus: "When the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour appeared, B not by works which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the laver of regeneration, and renovation of the Holy Ghost, whom he hath poured forth upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ." But when did he pour it forth? When Christ, breathing upon them, said: "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." It is rightly said, "he poured forth": he poured it forth, clearly, as water [flowing] from himself consubstantially, and as divine ointment, as will be opportunely demonstrated by us in suitable places. It is also well said, "Upon all flesh": for such expressions of this kind correspond to the essence of the holy Trinity, which essence is entirely communicable; yet they do not befit created, incommunicable rational nature: for it is nowhere written, C nor is it probable to say, "I will pour out from an archangel," and not even then so absolutely, but: "upon all flesh." And David also, suppliant, cries out: "Take not thy holy Spirit from me"; and again: "Thy good Spirit shall lead me into the right land." And Matthew from the person of the Son: "For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you"; which is to say: Not you who are created, but the uncreated Spirit of God. And Paul also writes, to the Corinthians in his first Epistle: "Which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man..."
what things God hath prepared for them that love Him; but to us God hath revealed them through His Spirit." The Spirit searcheth all things, even the depths of God. "For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, save the Spirit of God." We, however, have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God; that we may know the things that are given to us by God.> He says that the good things prepared by God were revealed by the Spirit as a co-bestower; and [explains] His Spirit, by way of contrast to our own spirit. And guarding against it again, so that it might not be thought A of as an angel or another created spirit, he added: "We have not received the spirit of the world" (that is, a generated one), "but the Spirit which is from God"; that is to say, deriving from what remains, [the Spirit] which proceeds from the hypostasis of God; and as He alone knows the things of God, as Lord, and likewise possessing the same nature toward the Father. For the "servant," as is said in the Gospel, "knoweth not what his lord doeth." Nor, indeed, did he speak as of a man when he said, "Residing in God," lest the incomposite God be thought to be composite. And to the Ephesians: "Grieve not the holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." And to the Romans: "You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwelleth in you; if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is not His." And to the Galatians: "And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." And to the Philippians: "For I know that this shall turn to my salvation, through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ." Look, therefore, how even the mere calling Him "the Spirit of God," and the addition of the definite article, "of mine" and "of thine," has clearly indicated that He is also unBcreated, and not the spirit of the world, but the uncreated Spirit of God.
C But Paul writes in his first Epistle to the Corinthians: "Which eye (60) hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him; but to us God hath revealed them through His Spirit." The Spirit (61) searcheth all things, even the deep things of God. "For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? So also the things of God no man knoweth, save the Spirit of God. We, however, have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we may know the things which are given to us by God." He says that the good things prepared by God have been revealed by the Spirit as a co-bestower. And he opposes His own Spirit, that is, God's, to our spirit. And in order to establish this again as certain—that He is not to be considered as an angel, or some other created spirit—he subjoined: "We have not received the spirit of the world," that is, a made or created thing, "but the Spirit which is from God," that is (supplying what is implicitly understood), "which proceeds from God's hypostasis." He adds, moreover, that He alone understands the things of God, as Lord and possessing the same nature with the Father; for "the servant," as it is in the Gospel, "knoweth (62) not what his lord doeth." Nor did he speak as if of a man when he said, "Who dwelleth in God," lest the incomposite God should be thought to be composite. But to the Ephesians: "Do not (63) grieve the holy Spirit of God, in whom you have been sealed for the day of redemption"; to the Romans (64) also: "You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; if, however, the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. If any man, however, hath not the Spirit of Christ, this man is not His"; and to the Galatians: "But because (65) you are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father"; and to the Philippians: "For I know (66) that this will turn out for me for salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ." Now, indeed, in the adduced testimonies [Christ, and to God]... Then follows after this what he says: "If any, however, hath not the Spirit of God [reading with our codex: Spirit of Christ], this man is not His," and it is inferred: "If, however, Christ is in you," and it is most manifestly demonstrated that the holy Spirit is inseparable from Christ: because wherever the holy Spirit shall have been, there also is Christ; and from wherever the Spirit of Christ shall have departed, from thence likewise departs Christ: for if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, this man is not His. To which, if any one should assume the contrary, he can say: If any man is of Christ, so that Christ is in him, in this man is the Spirit of God [more correctly our codex: Christ]. This is likewise to be understood of God the Father: If any man hath not the Spirit of God, this man is not His. To which, again, if any one assumes the contrary, saying [so that the sense may be whole, it must be read with our codex: to which if one assumes the contrary, he will say]: If any man is of God, in this man is the Spirit of God.
A And the name "God" which he possesses was not added to him from elsewhere, but he possesses it from the fact that he exists naturally as it is spoken of him. Moreover, that it is written, "The Spirit of the Son," B similarly declares his communion of nature with him, and so that he might not be thought his creature. For how could the Son have created that which is and is written "the Spirit of God" for his own Father, as though he did not possess this before that from himself? This is not only blasphemous, but also foolish. But the "Spirit of Christ" should be understood as the power of Christ, in the way that it has been said: "Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." For since these blessed hypostases proceeded from the one Father by nature, and not by creative operation, they are referred back to the same one. For lest anyone should suspect that he has a beginning or an end, but rather, from the procession which is according to his nature, may believe truly that he is the Spirit of God, having been breathed forth without beginning, and not having been made, as is the case with the other ministering spirits; the Lord teaching in the Gospel according to John, says: C "The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father." He did not say, "is created." For every generation and procession is accomplished through equals and those who are similar; but especially and in a more excellent way is the generation and procession from the one Father according to the unity of his own divinity. But in the case of creatures, the prototype precedes in time; but in God it is not so, but they subsist together, and proceed together. And John, agreeing with the Lord, has also proclaimed the equality and the unchangeable nature of the Holy Spirit toward the Father, showing that he comprises, as one might say, the whole uncircumscribed God the Father, and is found among the faithful, saying: "For in this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because of his Spirit which he has given to us." In the same way as the Son has said: "He who has seen me has seen the Father," and, "I came forth from the Father." For nothing that possesses any deficiency in substance, or in time, or in glory, at all, can manifest the whole truth, or happen to be of the same form and equal D value.
A to be known with the truth itself; nor indeed can anyone attain the true participation of the deity through a creature: but the Holy Spirit is given, not by the divisions of fragmentation, but by the principle of participation, and because it cannot be conceived that He dwells in us in such a way as to be of a different nature or disposition from the Father. Moreover, the B Son of Thunder at the same time showed that where the Holy Spirit is, there the God Father is, whose Spirit He is: which God Himself also foretold beforehand, saying: "I will dwell in them, and I will walk; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." As it again reveals the contrary: if anyone does not have the Spirit of God as true God, he does not have the Father either; and among those with whom He is not, there is nothing true, nor safe, nor firm. Conversely, whoever speaks about Him, even if he happens to be a heretic, if he is asked about what kind of spirit he is discussing, he says: "the holy [one]"; and if the questioning is urged upon him again, "what holy one," he must, for the clearest manifestation, say: "the Spirit of God," since the others are not essentially His.
But heretics, becoming burdensome and troublesome C to themselves and to their hearers, attack with violent attempts the saints who are better than us and them, and who excel to the greatest degree, and who have written about the Holy Spirit—those to whom it is not permitted to decree things contrary. For they say word for word thus: "When therefore God says: 'My child Isaiah,' and 'My firstborn son Israel,' does the syllable 'my' show that the human nature has something in common with the nature of God?" Just as, he says, He said this as being the cause of them existing, so also He called their living principle "my Spirit." But if there were in them any account of truth and accuracy, they would not have stumbled into such great errors. For, first of all, by the very fact of uttering "Isaiah," and "Israel," He indicated human beings; but He added "my" to them in a special way, as they are related to Him by their deeds. And He called Isaiah a child, that is, a servant; but Israel the firstborn, as having been the first to begin to serve Him, and being in the D disposition of a son by the concern and care of God. Wherefore "my," when said by God in the case of the true Son and the true Spirit, indicates the appropriation of nature; but in the case of all others, it refers to Him by way of mastery or faith; just as we are accustomed to say, in the case of those who are of the same essence as us, "My son, my spirit"; but in the case of others, "My field, my horse," but also, "My God." For in the same way that the subsistent Word of the divine nature—not simply and loosely [referred to as] "mine"—
"—is shown to be born from the hypostasis of God, not only because he is named Son, and Only-Begotten, and Word of God, and Christ, but B because we see attached to these appellations the words "my" and "your" (as when God says, "This is my beloved Son," and again, "My good Word," and, "I have prepared a lamp for my Christ"; or when we ourselves acclaim, "Your Son, your Only-Begotten, your Christ"); and just as the homonymy of deity does not draw away the Son of God, not even because [a text] is written about us homonymously or synonymously, "Sons of men, how long will you be heavy-hearted?"; so also the Holy Spirit is not merely called Spirit, but [is shown to have] the word "my" (when from God) or "your" (as from the creature) or "holy," or "incorruptible," or "eternal" joined to the name, [which] signifies that He has proceeded from the paternal hypostasis; nor does the fact that ministerial [spirits] and our own spirits are also called holy or eternal draw Him away from being the true Spirit of God by nature. For even in those very riddles concerning Him, there is found in every case some manifestation concerning His divine nature and power. For creatures received what is holy and eternal in relation to their own nature, not at all having these from themselves by nature. Since, then, these very heretics are caught accusing themselves, [by accepting] that the "my" spoken concerning the Son of God, and "holy," and "eternal" are taken simply as announcing the identity of the divine nature; furthermore, besides these points, [the Scripture] did not name our soul "spirit" in the preceding proofs, but His own Holy Spirit. For since we possess our own spirit, [55 A] there was given to us also that of God. For the Father said, "My Spirit shall not remain among these men," and the Son said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." It is clear, then, that to those already possessing our own spirit, the discourse was about the divine Spirit. Just as, therefore, the Son is the Word of God, productively in the manner of a Son; so also the Holy Spirit is, in a spiritual manner, processional, and not creatively. And as there is no difference of essence, and power, and glory in the Only-Begotten Son in relation to God the Father, but rather every difference—if it is permitted to say this—[exists] in relation to the creation; so also [it is] in the case of the one divine Spirit. Therefore, not even to listen to the heretics—[by] not even D accepting what they say—is more just.
A
CHAPTER III. That the divine nature of the Holy Spirit is gathered from the various names of the Holy Spirit.
As we said at the beginning, the divine oracles testify in the second place that there are various and diverse names for the Spirit of God, suited to the divine majesty. These names not only contribute to the matters set before us a sublime character and significant emphasis, but they also express a relationship that is elevated above all things, not separated from the Father and the Son, and better than any interpretation, however magnificent. Furthermore, some of these names express His divine nature, while others express His proper power, and they console our impotence, as we are unable to attain to Him by our own merit either through the explanation of texts or the contemplation of the mind. They encourage us to call Him consubstantial with God confidently and without danger of error, and to believe that He is sanctifying. B We do not find that any of the other spirits were deemed worthy to be called by these names. But He who exists in this way uniquely, singularly, and by His own nature is not at all from the number of all others, but is God. These are the names I have mentioned:
Holy Spirit, as it is read everywhere in Scripture; Spirit of sanctity, and [the one] sanctifying, as he writes to the Romans: "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh, who was designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness"; and again: "That the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified in the Holy Spirit"; and elsewhere: "But we ought to give thanks to God always concerning you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits for salvation, in sanctification of the Spirit, and belief in the truth." C Spirit of power, and of love, and of self-control, as Paul wrote in the second Epistle to Timothy: "For God did not give you..."
A For we did not receive the spirit of slavery, but the Spirit of power, and of love, and of self-control. And to the Romans: "I entreat you, brothers, through our Lord Jesus Christ, and through the love of the Spirit." And elsewhere: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace." Similar to that [is the saying]: "God is love," and [the statement]: "He transferred [us] into the kingdom of the Son of his love." And, "Just as Christ loved the Church"; and again: "Of the Son of God who loved me." Similar also to that [is the passage]: "Henceforth you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power of the Father," and to that: "I perceived power going forth from me."
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and piety, the Spirit of the fear of God, the Spirit of judgment and burning—as Isaiah prophesies. And as Wisdom says: "For the Spirit of wisdom is philanthropic." And as Moses recounts in Exodus: "Behold, God has called by name Bezalel, son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and filled him with a divine Spirit of wisdom, and understanding, and knowledge." And according to Baruch: "You have abandoned the fountain of wisdom." And as the Proverbs teach: "God by wisdom founded the earth, but [he] prepared the heavens with apprehension." Just as Isaiah said concerning God the Father: "He himself, being wise, brought evils upon them." Concerning the Only-Begotten, Paul said: "Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God." And another says: "I will bless the Lord who has instructed me."
The Spirit of gentleness, as Paul admonishes the Galatians: "Brothers, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a Spirit of gentleness." The Spirit of discipline—that is, of wisdom. For Wisdom says: "The Spirit of discipline will flee deceit, and will withdraw from foolish thoughts." B
C D
A Spirit of adoption, as Paul first wrote to the Romans: "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father; the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." The Spirit of promise, according to the same Apostle writing to the Ephesians: "In whom also having believed, you were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise, who is the earnest of our inheritance;" and to the Galatians: "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree; that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith."
The Spirit of faith and revelation, according to the same [Apostle], manifesting it to the Corinthians in his second Epistle: B "Having the same Spirit of faith;" and again, "But God has revealed [it] to us through his Spirit." He signified something similar to the Romans: "Faithful is God, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son;" and what was said by Moses in Deuteronomy: "And you shall know this day, that the Lord your God, he is God, the faithful God;" and what the Psalmist sings: "The Lord is faithful in all his words, and holy in all his works."
The Spirit is also "principal" or "governing," and a "right" Spirit, as David confesses in the fiftieth Psalm. Likewise, as the Psalmist sings in the thirty-second: "For the Word of the Lord is right." C D
A Turn Moses says: « Right (30) is the Lord our God, and there is no iniquity in Him. » The Spirit of grace, as the Apostle writes to the Hebrews: « He who (31) has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has done despite to the Spirit of grace. » For the same Apostle indeed wrote, regarding the B « principal [Spirit], » as I have already said. Thus in Irenæus himself, Book 1, ch. 41, where the ancient interpreter has, « both principal, and royal, » the Greek text of Irenæus has καὶ ἡγεμονικὸν, καὶ βασιλικόν. And a little later, where « principal » is read, Irenæus in Greek said ἡγεμονικήν. But whether the reading ὑπέρτερον πρωτεῖον, that is, « superior primacy, » or ὑπερτέραν ἡγεμονίαν, be more probable, and sound better to Greek ears, let those who are versed in the Greek Fathers judge. For my part, I would read neither ὑπέρτερον πρωτεῖον, that is, « superior primacy, » nor ἐξαίρετον πρωτεῖον, that is, « excellent primacy. » But if Irenæus used the word ἡγεμονίαν, that is, « principal-ity, » the term there signifies not merely primacy, but the direction and government of the whole Church. And so, what David says, « A principal Spirit, » is termed by Didymus in the commentary on the Psalms at verse 13 of Psalm L, ἄρχον καὶ ἡγεμονεῦον, that is, « ruling and governing. » And Cyprian, too, in epistle 55, calls the Roman Church « the principal Church. » Therefore, this is what Irenæus means: That to the Roman Church, διὰ τὴν ὑπερτέραν ἡγεμονίαν, that is, « because of the superior government which it possesses, » of necessity every Church ought to hold. You will perhaps think little of my reading and interpretation, Justin Febronius; for by what other name I should address you, I do not know, save by that which you yourself have feigned. But we are in no way moved by his clamors, who, although he acknowledges a primacy in the Roman bishop, restricts the authority conferred upon him by Christ within such narrow limits that he seems to reduce it almost to nothing, and to take away from him almost all administration of the universal Church. He, in dedicating the volume to the supreme Pontiff Clement XIII, calls him the first vicar of Christ on earth, as if there were any other vicar of Christ on earth in the sense in which such is the successor of Peter. He confidently asserts (p. 257 of the second edition) that the custom by which bishops today, acknowledging the author and source of their name and honor, are accustomed to call themselves « by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See, bishops, » was not yet in use in the XIV century; although in the year 1270, the holy Benvenuto, bishop of Osimo (Vol. V of the Camaldolese Annals, p. 213, App.), called himself by that title, when he began thus: « Benvenuto, by the grace of God and the Apostolic See, bishop of Osimo: » and soon added: « By the authority of God, and of the Apostolic See, and of the Blessed Leopardus. » Furthermore, in that same XIII century, Gerard, Archbishop of Nicosia, assumed a similar title, as may be seen in Vol. XV of the Councils. He says (p. 258) that by this very formula, « by the grace of God and the holy See, » the archbishops in Gaul first used it in the years 1351 and 1365, on account of those rights which it pleased the pontiffs to attach to the archiepiscopal pallium: although neither St. Benvenuto, nor the prelate of our city who is unseen by Febronius, was an archbishop in the year 1343, but a bishop; and yet Beltramino in that year is called « Bishop of Bologna by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See » in a monument which exists on p. 387 of the Appendix to the book printed at Bologna, which is inscribed: *Memorie istoriche concernenti le due Canoniche di S. Maria di Reno e di S. Salvatore*. And in App. Vol. V of the Camaldolese Annals, p. 513, Thomas, Bishop of Forlì, speaks in the same manner in the year 1355. He determines from Pithou (p. 203) that « bishops for the first eight centuries did not seek the confirmation of any synod or its decrees from the Roman See; » but on page 388, he himself, the circumscriber of his own opinion, says that they « sought the Council of Chalcedon » from Leo I, C by the word of confirmation, [seeking] the ratification of those things which had been done against the will of the legates; and that the Sixth Council in its synodical epistle wrote these things to Pope Agatho: « Which (doctrine) we ask your paternal holiness to confirm again by honorable rescripts. » He says (p. 231) that Innocent III, [acting] from a persuasion contrary to sacred Scripture, to all antiquity, to the definitions of councils, and to the observance of the universal Church, wrote these words: « Greater causes of the Church, especially those concerning articles of faith, are to be referred to the See of Peter, » etc.; although many centuries before, St. Innocent I had replied to the Africans in this manner: « That whatever, even though it were transacted in separate and remote provinces, they should not deem that it ought to be concluded before it came to the knowledge of this (namely, the Roman) See, so that any just sentence might be confirmed by the authority of this [See] in its entirety. » When Cyprian exhorted some who were about to sail to Rome, after a schism had occurred in the City (that is, in Rome), « that they should acknowledge and hold to the matrix and root of the catholic Church, » [Febronius] confidently affirms (p. 183) that Cyprian is not to be understood as calling the Roman Church « the matrix and root of the catholic Church, » as interpreters have thought, but that « matrix and root of the catholic Church » is nothing other than catholic unity, for the reason that Cyprian elsewhere calls the catholic Church a matrix—as if, forsooth, « matrix » were simply the same as « matrix and root of the catholic Church; » or as if it had not been necessary to exhort Christian men to acknowledge the catholic unity which they had long known from the Creed; or as if in the book *On the Unity of the Church*, Cyprian did not openly teach that the origin of *that same* unity begins from one Peter, and that the Church was built upon that one. He who finally, when he had written these things in his « singular book, » not to mention other things, boasts of himself, and introduces a bookseller at the beginning speaking thus: « After the first edition of this Work had been exhausted with unusual speed, » etc. But, as he says, even boys are puffed up with new shoes; yet no one is ignorant that in our age (alas!) perverse and truly most destructive books are sent to the press again in a short time, and a third, or even more often: as we have recently seen happen in the work of Helvétius, and in the most foul and especially impious booklets which are sold secretly under the name of Voltaire, while in the meantime the works of so many holy Fathers, so many most learned theologians, jurists, and philosophers are hardly printed once in a century. For as Jerome rightly says, the much greater part is of those turning over Milesian fables than the books of Plato. Now I have digressed, perhaps unexpectedly, and while I think to make a pitcher, my hands have fashioned a wine jar. See the notes to section 78 b. D
A For it is written of the Father: "I am what I am, and His grace which is in me"; and of the Son: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." [He is the] Spirit of truth, as John proclaims [the words] of the Savior: "If you love me, keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth." And again in his first Epistle: "And it is the Spirit that testifies, because the Spirit is truth"; just as the Son says of Himself: "I am the truth." He is a divine Spirit, and the breath of the Almighty, and a lover of men, according to the phrase of Job and the statement of Moses mentioned a few verses back in this chapter. The Holy Spirit was also called light, in whom and by whom we are enlightened, as when the Apostle writes: "That He may give to you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation, in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened"; B and as David sings: "For with Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light we shall see light," which means: In Thy Son, who is the radiance of Thy glory, we shall see Thy Holy Spirit. And: "The light of Thy countenance has been marked upon us, O Lord." For what else could the Spirit be, who proceeds from the Father, or from the light? Concerning whom John chanted in his first Epistle: "God is light"; and in the Gospel concerning the Only-Begotten: "He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world"; and: "I am the light, I am the life." It is no wonder, if He, being one and always existing in the same manner, is glorified by various appellations. For because mortal language is incapable of grasping His ineffable deity, we, in our attempt to hymn according to our capacity the energies that occur within us, make use of diverse names. C
Indeed, it is clearly written: "Doing despite to the Spirit of grace," for there is no doubt that he who has sinned after having received it, if he has been sanctified through the communion of the Holy Spirit, is shown, etc. But our manuscript has it a little differently, namely: "Finally... sanctified by Him, as it is clearly written: 'And doing despite to the Spirit of grace, in whom he was sanctified,' there is no doubt that," and the rest. Number, however: "For the Spirit Himself was called grace, according to that: 'Doing injustice [our manuscript, doing despite] to the Spirit of grace, in whom he was sanctified.' Also, in Zechariah," and the rest. Finally, number 65: "Nor shall any mercy and pardon be reserved for him who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and done injustice [our manuscript, and despite] to the Spirit of His grace, in whom he was sanctified." D
A Those who profess the dogma of Macedonius, becoming followers of their sect rather than of the truth, see nothing that is consonant with what the divine oracles teach. For they are deceived by empty words, B claiming that one ought not to pay attention to homonyms, or synonyms, or similarities of expression. For they say that when Scripture attributes the name "Good" to God, it is immediately joined with "one God." But when it speaks of the Holy Spirit, the name "Good" is not joined with "one God." And again, they say "Good" is written of man as well, as when we read: "Do good, O Lord, to the good," and, "The good man out of the good treasure brings forth good things." Similarly, they say, things are called "good" homonymously, even inanimate things, as when the prophet says: "If you are willing and obey me, you shall eat the good things of the land." But it is said even of things that have no subsistence, as in the words: "It is good to give thanks to the Lord." Similarly, they say, a human is also called "holy." And the power of God, they say, is called a worm, as it is written: "The locust, my great power." And the Savior says: "The powers of the heavens shall be shaken." And this argument (I mean, not to pay attention to homonyms and similarities of expression) has validity in the case of things of different kinds and different substances; C it does not, however, hold for the Holy Spirit, nor for Him whose Spirit He is, and certainly not for the Son. For Scripture, providing its own security when it makes use of homonyms or synonyms, frames them with the syllable "my" or "your," or the word "holy" or "good"—that is to say, either as when it speaks from the person of God, "My Spirit," or as from the person of David and ourselves: "Your good Spirit will guide me." It is therefore necessary to believe those to whom it is much more useful to give credence, namely the recorded testimonies of Scripture: and to know that the Holy Spirit has the homonym or synonym and the similarities of expression in common with God and His only-begotten Son, who are celebrated with the same names, and not with creatures, because of the homonymy that is sometimes found in them. For these things, even if we grant that they share a name or word with God, do not share in essence nor in energy.
A For these things do not exist by nature as such, nor do they exist once and for all. It is rather by comparison with evil that what is good is defined, and by comparison with sin—that is, with passion—that what is holy is set in order. For that which is not exceedingly evil or sinful, that is, passionate, is termed "good and holy" in this context. For just as wickedness and sin, which is to say passion and weakness [58 α], are not found in the one Holy Spirit, inasmuch as He is unbegotten, so in nothing that is begotten is goodness and holiness and power found in a perfect way, but only by participation. And where these are nowhere present in a perfect way, there the unbegotten is nowhere present. For where there is darkness, there is no light, and where there is night, there is no day. Hence, it is said—and it was expressed also by Hermes, who is called Trismegistus—that it is impossible for the good to exist in the realm of generation; it can exist only in the unbegotten. And just as participation in all things is granted to matter, so too is B participation in the good.
Therefore, the Holy Spirit is equal and similar to the Godhead of the Father and the Only-Begotten. It is shown even from the judgment of such things that He Himself is holiness, goodness, and power by nature, inasmuch as He is one from the One. For if we attend to the reasoning of those people, which is full of cavil and stubbornness, then toward their disputation, neither the All-Good Son, who is kind by nature, will any longer be good, since He does not possess the united statement, "One God," nor will the most benevolent and wholly kind Father and the Son possess the aforementioned marks of the Godhead. Nay, they will even be debased by these very terms, as the C heretics are accustomed to speak, to the condition of us humans who are homonymous with them. Be propitious, O Holy Trinity. But the Son, he says, being co-begotten, has goodness as an innate quality, and all other things that the Father has. Yet also the Holy Spirit, being co-proceeding, is good by nature, and has all that God the Father has. If, then, their discussion were about trivial or secular matters, there would be times when it would be right for them to need to invent certain fables, and with Aristotelian sophistication and the art of rhetoric—as Eunomius does—to twist the matter and obscure the truth. D
the Holy Spirit proceeds in the same way, such that the nature that is good is co-existent with Him from whom He proceeds, and is all things that God the Father is. Furthermore, if they were to discourse concerning matters of any kind, however trivial, or about worldly A affairs, they might be able to construct some fables cleverly and, with Aristotelian acumen and the art of rhetoric, as Eunomius did, pervert the matter and obscure the truth. But here the case is not so; for Paul teaches us: “If you will not believe, you shall not even understand,” and: “The wisdom of men is foolishness before God.” Nor is it right to handle the divine oracles, which speak of the glorious Spirit and are above human reasonings, with captious sophistries: for slander does not harm the Holy Spirit, nor do the insults and jeers of heretics, who think wrongly, go beyond the ears: but those who employ such things will suffer eternally, and they act in a way similar to those who attempt to cast slurs upon this light, which has its power from the unapproachable light, and to sully it with their words. But we must believe the teaching that comes from the saints, as being able to produce greater glory than that which comes from men. It is, therefore, fitting for us to reproach those who, through an excessive love for their own heresy, drag down, as far as they are able, the divine nature by their sophistries to the level of the effects of created things, and by these means give birth to a love of destruction in the simpler and more inexperienced, and lead them on to a desire for greater sins. B
CAP. IV. Concerning the heretics who say: Spirit is God; but how can the Holy Spirit be the Spirit of Spirit? and the rest.
But as for those who reject things that are simple, and straight, and perfect, and who fill themselves with ignorance, let the reader judge what that which is written, which follows immediately, strictly means for them. Indeed, for fear that the passage might be too perplexing and obscure, I have been compelled to add something in the translation. C D
C God the Father wills that His Spirit be associated with Him just as the only-begotten Word, and He secures [the truth] that He is removed from the creation and surpasses it, wherefore He is also called "Holy" in the trisagion. They say: "How can the Holy Spirit be the Spirit of Him who is Spirit?" That this is written, has been shown; but the "how," it belongs to a mind and reason beyond our own, and indeed beyond the knowledge of the angels. For just as the God Word was begotten of Him, while the Father Himself was Spirit, so too the Holy Spirit shone forth from Him and with Him; and it is shown most of all in this that He is incomprehensible, in that what is impossible for the creature is possible for Him. D For what is the difference between the uncaused and life-giving nature, and that which is created and given life? Yet the Spirit cannot be other than consubstantial and equal to Him from whom He is; therefore He is also holy by nature. Are, then, the angels, they say, not from God, and holy, and spirits of God? They are indeed from God, insofar as they were made by His command, like all things; they are holy after having been sanctified, just as men are; and they are spirits insofar as they are incorporeal with respect to us. But they have never been called "spirits of God," or "from God," or "proceeding from the Father," or "divine," or "spirits of truth," or "spirits of holiness." Instead, they are ministering angels or servants, and celestial bodies, because they are infinitely distant from the uncreated Spirit of God and fall short of Him, according to the experienced Apostle who writes: "There are earthly bodies, and heavenly bodies" (1 Cor. XV). A For just as the spirits of the winds are not like them, so neither are they like the Holy Spirit of God. For they themselves were created, yet they did not proceed from the hypostasis of God the Father; they do not regenerate us, they do not make us sons of God, they do not remit sins, they do not give life, they do not create, they do not sanctify, they do not judge, but on the contrary, they are judged ("For you," He says, "shall even judge angels"). Nor are the powers of the heavens among them. They are not uncircumscribed by places, and immeasurable by distances. For Gabriel, speaking to Daniel or bringing glad tidings to the Theotokos Virgin, was not also in heaven in essence, as he was in mind; but at that time he dwelt only on earth. Nor are they incomprehensible to the ages; for "Who makes," He says, "His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire" (Ps. CIII, 4). They do none of the things which are done by the Holy Spirit, but they themselves minister to Him, as the archangel Gabriel showed, having served B in the mystery of the Economy.
A toward the Theotokos Mary, and having said: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee.” Therefore, man is not their temple, as he is B of God, and of His Spirit, and of the Only-begotten Son. They are not included C together with God. There is not just one angelic D hypostasis, but an innumerable multitude. But the super-resplendent Holy Spirit, congenially and in a unified way, proceeded timelessly from the ineffable, supersubstantial, pre-substantial, universal, and formless paternal hypostasis, and is called divine. He is one, not multiplied, good, abundant, inaccessible, circumscribed by no intelligence, possesses infinite power, is ineffable, existing in a singular and unique way, and is by nature both holy and the Spirit of God, and is nothing of the things that are; but He is God, A being in heaven and dwelling with us, the cause of all good things to all; present, indeed, to all things incorporeally, without form, and without changing shape; not departing from being ineffably established with the Father, and being extended everywhere, and holding all things, and dwelling in all things without mixing; and treading into our thoughts and the thoughts of those invisible to us, and examining all things, although knowing all things B; and silently echoing, and listening to souls crying from within in silence.
[Translation continued]
...to describe these things, even if they are long. Thus, therefore, matters stand: Truly the Holy Spirit himself, if He were one of the creatures, would at least have a circumscribed substance, like all things that have been made; for even if invisible creatures are not circumscribed by place and limits, yet they are limited by the property of their substance. The Holy Spirit, however, while being in many places, does not have a circumscribed substance; for Jesus, truly, having sent the preachers of His doctrine, filled them with the Spirit; and breathing into their face, “Receive,” He said, “the Holy Spirit” (John xx, 22); and: “Go, teach all nations” (Matt. xxviii, 19), as if He were sending all to all nations. For not all the apostles went forth equally to all nations, but some to Asia, some to Scythia [our codex has Syria for Scythia], and others were dispersed to other nations, according to the dispensation of Him whom they had with them, the Holy Spirit, just as also the Lord saying: “I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age” (ibid. 20). Corresponding to this is also that: “You shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you [our codex: the Holy Spirit coming upon you]; and you shall be witnesses to me... even to the extremity of the earth” (Acts i, 8). If, therefore, these, established at the extreme limits of the earth for the sake of testimony to the Lord, were distant from one another by the longest spaces, yet the Holy Spirit, the inhabitant, was present to them, having an uncircumscribed substance, it is demonstrated that the angelic virtue is wholly alien to this. For an angel, indeed, who was present, for example, to the Apostle praying in Asia [our codex: staying], could not at the same time be present to others established in other parts of the world. But the Holy Spirit is present not only to men separated from Himself, but also stands as an inhabitant to each and every angel, principality, throne, and dominion.
A of all [60 a] natures, tenderly pitying all without delay [ἀμελλητί] and strengthening them, providing ineffable joy to each nature; encompassing the structure of this whole universe and holding all things under Himself; illuminating with his divine light, and Benefactor through His own boundless energy and goodness; leading the better disposed toward a more perfect goal, and not depriving those who are worse and behaving amiss of His own royal, concordant, and indivisible protection; but establishing them in desire and contemplation of the consubstantial Trinity, the provider of all good things, and assisting all who work for what is good, while being separate from all things, so that B C not to be numbered by census: but God existeth in heaven and with us, and in us [(89)], accomplishing all good things in all, present to all indeed immaterially, without form, without transfiguration; but never ceasing to remain ineffably with the Father, and as it were to sit, and being diffused everywhere, and comprehending, and inhabiting in all without commixtion, insinuating Himself even into our thoughts and those of the beings who are invisible to us, and accurately scrutinizing all things, even though He knows all things, and sounding without a voice, and hearing souls crying out silently within, and pursuing them all with mercy without delay [(90)] in all things, and strengthening [our manuscript possesses: but how does the Father not consist in a place, since He is beyond all nature of bodies]: so also the Spirit of the truth is in no way enclosed by the limit of places, since He is incorporeal, and, to speak more truly, excelling [our manuscript more correctly: exceeding] every rational creature. And He teaches similar things in segment 66 of this work, which we are now publishing. But so far is Didymus from wishing the Holy Spirit to be in many places, that he openly teaches that the angels themselves not only do not exist in places, but are not even in a place. Although they are not circumscribed, he says, by place and boundaries, nevertheless they are limited by the property of their substance. And in number 26: Just as we separate places and the movements of places from incorporeal beings; so also we distinguish utterances (I say, within and without) from the nature of intellectual beings: because the former belong to bodies that receive touch and possess vastness. He speaks therefore of those substances which he maintains are not in a place, which have nothing in common regarding this matter with the body of Christ: for this, although it is set to exist in countless and I might almost say infinite places, yet it is not only limited by the property of substance, but is also circumscribed by place and boundaries. For God is not uncircumscribed from the fact that He is present in infinite places, but from the fact that He is so present everywhere that He is not limited by the property of substance; but if a creature were imagined to exist simultaneously in infinite places, in all those places it would possess a certain magnitude, for example, or intelligence, or ignorance, etc., in a word, it would be limited by the property of its own substance. Behold, therefore, to what the entire argumentation of this great theologian must at last be reduced in my own judgment (that I may embrace everything in one syllogism). He holds a substance to be uncircumscribed, which Holy Scriptures testify to be such, that it stands as an inhabitant with many (not in places, Albertine) but with holy men and angels existing everywhere, whether on earth or in the heavens, in that very way in which the Son of God does, whose substance you Macedonians confess to be uncircumscribed. But the Scriptures testify that the Holy Spirit is such. Therefore, the Holy Spirit has an uncircumscribed substance.
A to one of the apostles living in India, to another in Spain, and to another in yet another place, even to the ends of the earth, distributed by Him, He imparted His own unerring and unadulterated wisdom; not appearing to one now and to another later, nor breathing more upon one and less upon another, but simultaneously and equally shining forth upon each one both together and individually, even as the Lord Himself said: “I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the age.” For do not suppose—since they transfer the theology found in John regarding the Spirit, where he said, “God is Spirit,” to the God and Father, saying that it is written in this way because He is Spirit—that it is also written, “Christ the Lord is the Spirit of our presence”; thus both the Father and the Son, inasmuch as He is Spirit, strengthen the others. B C D
[alt-version omitted] [index: entries preserved]
A And if this is not so, then the Holy Spirit is not conceived of as being among the other spirits. For He is not an archangel. For Michael, and Gabriel, and those like them, are archangels; and even the heretics would not say that the Holy Spirit of God is ranked after them. Where, then, is it finally that they decide He is to be ranked, or with what creatures? For after God, we have not been taught by the Scriptures of any other rational nature, except that of the many spirits and of bodies such as ours. Furthermore, they sophistically infer from the premises: "The Father and the Son are called 'True,' but the Spirit is written as 'Truth,'" as if this were discordant. But it is the same thing, as has been demonstrated in the first discourse, and this does not differ from that.
C CAP. V. Of those who say: Since God the Word is the Only-Begotten, by what name shall we call the Spirit? and the rest.
Contra these the most inconsistent and most fickle heretics—men of shifting speech (and I do not know if they are not also so in their minds)—men who are certainly, as I know for a certainty, aliens to the simpler and truer doctrine, D and who frequently repeat the same words, say: "The God Word was called Only-Begotten, since..." B ...distributed in another region even to the ends of the earth, he imparted his own infallible and uncontaminated wisdom—by no means present to one A now and to another at another time; nor breathing and inspiring more into one and less into another; but shining forth always in a similar manner, both to all conjointly and to each one separately; just as the Lord also said, who said: "I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world." Otherwise, when those heretics refer that sentence written in John, "Spirit is God," to God and the Father, on the grounds—as they say—that the Spirit is the Father Himself; and since it is also written, “Christ the Lord is the Spirit of our face,” would it not follow that the Father and the Son, inasmuch as the name Spirit applies to them, should be numbered among the other ministering spirits? But if this cannot be said, then not even the Holy Spirit comes into the census of other spirits. For He is not an archangel; for Michael and Gabriel, and those who are like them, are archangels; and beneath these, not even the heretics would say the Holy Spirit of God is placed. What place, then, is left for Him? Or with what creatures do they think He must be placed? For the Scriptures teach that there is no other rational nature after God, except for the many spirits and bodies of the kind we possess. Furthermore, they sophistically infer from the premises: "Pater and Filius are called 'the Truth' in the Scriptures; but the Spirit is called 'Truth,'" as if this were different from that. But in truth, each is one and the same, as was shown in the first B [i.e., treatise or book], nor does this locution differ from that.
...the Apostle Paul, who from Jerusalem even unto Illyricum established very numerous churches for God... and likewise each one of the other disciples. Therefore, I congratulate the Catholics and the illustrious nation of the Spaniards, because our theologian provides them with a new monument, by which their opinion and tradition is more confirmed. C ...the word "sanctification" [or in our codex, "holiness"] and "goodness" is equally referred to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, just as the very appellation of "Spirit" is. For both the Father is called Spirit, as there: "Spirit is God." And the Son is Spirit. "The Lord," he says, "is the Spirit." But the Holy Spirit is always considered under the appellation of "Holy Spirit." But these last things in our codex are thus: as there: "Spirit of God." And the Son is Spirit. "The Lord," he says, "is the Spirit." And the Holy Spirit is always considered under the appellation of "Spirit" [the codex more correctly omits the word "Holy" here, which crept into the published copies]. Indeed, when I was reading with our codex, "Spirit of God," unless the manuscript codex consented to the printed book next in number 58 on this matter; for both have: as we have said before [the codex adds here, "already"], where we also added this: "Spirit is God." Shall we suspect that "Spirit of God" should be read here also? For my part, I would prefer to read: "Spirit is God."
A Repeating the same words many times, they say: "The God Word was called Only-Begotten, because the Holy Spirit does not exist from the hypostasis of the Father. Since he himself would not have been called Only-Begotten, but the Holy Spirit would have been called his brother." They say this, and contradict themselves, while the truth is unlike them. The Scripture called the Son Only-Begotten, both because he alone was begotten from the hypostasis of the Father, and did not proceed, as the Holy Spirit; and also to exclude the blasphemies of the heretics, who say that he is a creature and a son, as we are. And it is written that the Holy Spirit is one and alone, both because he proceeded unitarily and solely from the hypostasis of God and the Father, and was not begotten as the Son; and also so that he would B not be suspected as a creature, as are the other spirits. For the one does not belong to another, nor is the Spirit separated from the essence of the Father, nor from the union with it; nor does he have, in relation to that [essence], either subjection, or anything more agreeable to himself, or nearer to God. Nor can he be called a number, since he pertains to the unity of essence, nor be placed among produced things, since he is with the Father and the Son the Creator of all things. The one Holy Spirit, therefore, cannot be unlike one Father or one Son, nor like the multitude of spirits. For just as, although there is one God and Father, and one true Son, yet all of us who are to his image because of his goodness and bounty have been called gods and sons, although in reality we are not, according to that text: "I said: You are gods and all sons of the Most High"; C so, although there is one and only Holy Spirit of truth, many spirits are spoken of, which are not by nature spirits of God. Not seeing and considering how they might appear to be saying something consistent with the theologians, they do not hesitate to bring forth other harmful things. And let no one blame me before hearing all that I am about to say, if I call their contentions harmful. For he will find that they speak in direct opposition to the opinion of the God-bearing men, who had the excellence of this gift from God. For they say: "If the Holy Spirit is God, he is either the Father or the Son. But if he is neither of these, he is not God, just as the other spirits are not." One must therefore answer them as follows: Just as the Father is God, not because he is Father, but because he is of divine nature; and the Son, not because he is a son of someone random, but because he is the Son-Word of God, and necessarily exists of his divine nature; so also the Holy Spirit is God, not simply because he is Spirit, but D [because] he is of the divine nature of God, from whom he proceeds.
And just as, having heard, "The Lord your God you shall worship, and him only shall you serve," we believe and worship and serve the Only-begotten Word as God, on an equal footing with the Father; so too are we disposed concerning the Holy Spirit. For we are ordered, in the rule given to us regarding the incorruptible baptism—upon which the constitution of our entire way of life and religion depends—to join him to the Father and to the Son; we are also ordered to worship him together with them, to glorify him, and to minister to him. For this is the rational B service of which Paul wrote thus: "That you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, your rational service." And in the same way as, when the Apostle proclaimed that God alone is wise and has immortality, we believe that the Son likewise possesses immortality and is wise, as he is the Father’s Only-begotten Word, being without alteration in essence compared to the Father and existing as his eternal life—even as he writes—so also we hold concerning the Holy Spirit. For he does not possess immortality and wisdom by grace or by gift, as do the ministering spirits, but he possesses C them by nature; for he is the Spirit of wisdom. Therefore it is written: "No one knows the things of the only wise God, except the Spirit of Him." For if they should grant that these things are not so, they will either be subverting the Word of God or will appear to be acting against the Scriptures. For nothing is joined as an equal to the Trinity, which is a single Godhead; neither are the spirits [joined to it] by reason of being called spirits, even if we do not call them "profane," nor are men [joined to it] by reason of being called gods; for we are not truly such in reality. But if they do not think that the statements "To the only D wise God" and "Who alone has immortality" stand in opposition to these truths, they will not be able to offer any clever objection against the Godhead of the Holy Spirit from the contrary. For these things were spoken thus by Paul, because while the Word of God is the Son, the Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit; and these two hypostases are by nature the same with Him, and they coalesce into one Godhead: as is also said among the pagans: "One God, self-father, from whom all these things originated." As, therefore, Paul concerning the Father to the Romans, to the Ga-
and to Timothy A he writes, saying: «One is God.» Thus, concerning the Son, John said: «The Only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father»; but concerning the Holy Spirit, Paul taught the Corinthians: «And to another, gifts of healings in the one Spirit»; for unity is proper to the divine and undividable nature. And just as it is written that the Son was begotten, and He Himself bearing witness says: «I went forth from the Father,» so it is written, and He Himself said: «The Spirit of truth, who proceeds (or went forth) from the Father.» And just as the Son, being God and Lord, is the Son of God and Lord, so the Holy Spirit, being God and Lord, is the Spirit of God and Lord. And in the way that the Son B is written as the Word because He coexists with the Father, in the same way also the Holy Spirit is written as the Word (Dictum) of God, and the Spirit of His mouth, and the Breath of the Almighty, because He, subsisting together with Him, shone forth from Him, so that no one might suspect Him to be outside the deity of the Father or of His Word. For the Word (Dictum) is proper to the speech, or discourse, and the discourse to the mind; and that saying is fulfilled: «One God and Father of all, and over all, and through all, and in all.» And just as the Son is shown to be unchangeable from the Father, as He writes: «He who has seen Me has seen the Father,» in the same way also the Holy Spirit, through those things by which C He says: «In this we know that God is in us, from His Spirit whom He gave to us.» It is therefore absolutely necessary, since the Father is the true God, that He who shows Him by the manifestation of Himself alone should also be the true God equal to Him. And just as all things were made through the Son, so all things were sanctified and strengthened by the Holy Spirit. For the apostles say: «Master, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them: who by the Holy Spirit, [and] by the mouth of David Thy servant, didst speak.» And just as the Only-begotten is signified as equal in power and similar to the Father and an authority, according to the text: «Whatever the Father does, these also the Son does likewise,» in the same way also the Spirit of God [is signified], according to the text: «And all these things works the one and...»
same Spirit.» B And just as Christ said of Himself: «No one knows the Father, except the Son,» so also concerning the Holy Spirit it is said similarly, that «The things of God no one knows, except the Spirit of God.» And in the same way that the Son was called the angelic [one], «the Angel of Great Counsel,» so also [it is said] concerning the Holy Spirit. For the Scripture says: «But we have received the Spirit of God, that we might know the things that have been graciously given to us by God.» And most similar to the statement: «Christ, the first-fruits,» is that which says: «And having the first-fruits of the Spirit.» And equal in force to the text: «And the Lord sanctify you, that you may be sincere and without blame unto the day of redemption,» is that: «That the offering of the Gentiles might become acceptable, sanctified in the Holy Spirit.» And equivalent to saying: «He who separated me from my mother's womb, through His grace, to reveal in me His Christ,» is that: «God revealed [it] by His Spirit.» And equal in power to saying: «Test yourselves, C if Christ is in you,» is the claim: «But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God.» And of equal value is the saying: «Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?» with that written by John: «If we love one another, God abides in us. In this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because of His Spirit whom He has given to us;» and with that: «We will come, I and the Father, and will make our abode with him.»
A And just as the Holy Spirit is given through the Father and the Son, according to that: «I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh,» and according to that: «Receive the Holy Spirit,» so also Christ is given through the Holy Spirit, according to Paul writing to the Ephesians: «That He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell.» We might interpret in a similar and equal way the phrases: «The word of the Lord came unto this prophet,» and «The Lord said,» and «Thus says the Lord Almighty,» as compared to the passage in the Acts spoken by Peter: «The Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold,» and that spoken by Paul in Rome to the Jews: «Well did the Holy Spirit speak through Isaiah the prophet,» and the phrase: «The Spirit expressly says,» and «Thus says the Lord Almighty.» B It is equivalent to that which is called «The eternal God,» and that which was preached by Paul: «Who offered Himself through the eternal Spirit.» And it has a comparative force to the phrase: «No one can receive the Holy Spirit except from the Lord,» and to: «Receive the Holy Spirit,» just as: «No one can call Jesus Christ Lord, except in the Holy Spirit.» The same thing is meant by «being led by the Holy Spirit toward the truth,» that is to say, being led by the Holy Spirit toward the true faith, as is meant by being led by the Lord Christ, who decreed: «Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.» And equal in power to the text that says: «Do we provoke the Lord? Are we stronger than He?» is the writing: «Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.» And similar in expression to that: «You will send forth Your
Spirit, and they shall be created,» is that other: «You will send forth Your Word, and He shall melt them.» And to this passage: «The Lord is witness to my soul, that I do not lie,» there corresponds this other: «The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He shall bear witness concerning Me.» And likewise this other: «The Spirit bears witness to me in every city, saying.» And matched to that Lordly utterance: «Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves,» is the statement: «These, therefore, having been sent forth by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia.» And of equal weight is the writing: «If you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me,» to the writing which says: «They said to Paul through the Spirit: Do not go up to Jerusalem.» And kindred to the statement: «The Son is eternal life,» is that which was said by Himself: «The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water leaping up into eternal life.» This he said concerning the Holy Spirit, whom those who believe in Him were about to receive. And to the statement: «For we have become partakers of Christ,» is the statement: «For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and having become partakers of the Holy Spirit.» And the passage in the Acts is very similar to what is said here: «There appeared to the apostles cloven tongues as of fire, and they sat upon each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,» as is also that which was said by John: «He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire,» to the oracle delivered by Moses: «God is a consuming fire,» and by Isaiah: «Behold, the Lord shall come as fire.» And it is in harmony with the saying: «You were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, in the putting off of the body of sins, in the circumcision of Christ,» that it is written: «Circumcision of the heart in the Spirit.» And if it is fit that the voice of Peter should be spoken concerning God: «Let each one repent of his evil [ways], and from his wicked way, and let him be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and he shall be saved.»
A For it is evident that the Spirit is inseparable from God, as also from the Lord’s having said to the disciples, in the same expressions: «Wait for the promise of the Father, which you have heard; for John indeed baptized with water unto repentance, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit.» For this signifies nothing else than what his other teaching concerning the illumination also confirms: that the Holy Spirit works and is able to effect the same things as the name of the Father and of his Son, inasmuch as he exists of the same divinity. The proclamation of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is also B unchanging and equally venerable, just as Paul writes to the Romans: «For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive another Spirit which you have not received.» The same indication is also carried by: «For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not wrought through me for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit of God,» along with: «The Father who abides in me, he does the works. Believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me.» Observe, for, just as the Father abides with Christ, so too does his Spirit, being inseparable in the divine nature; and that the C divine works are accomplished by the ineffable Trinity with one accord; and as the Father, existing in his own hypostasis, is represented in the Only-begotten because of the immutability of the divinity—that is, of the essence—in the same way, the Only-begotten is represented in the one Holy Spirit as in an image. How many other things are reported concerning the divine Spirit, not differing from what has been written concerning God and the Father, and his Only-begotten Son! Some of these are contained in various places of this book, brought forward by us in the course of the discourse. D But if we should turn and ask them in return, whether Eve and the children whom she brought forth are from Adam, and how some were written as being born, while she was called neither his child nor the sister of those who were born? Since it is not possible to demonstrate, from the parable of created things, the monad and the incomparable...
A nature, which remains invisible to the mind, and neither suffers itself to be committed to the ears, nor uttered in words. But even if some small shadow of a likeness could somehow be found, we could never sufficiently explain it. For likeness and comparison can by no means be identity. It is safe to say only those things which the Scriptures have taught, accommodated to our grasp and measure.
Therefore, that the Scripture says there is one and only one Spirit of God the Father, because he is separated in nature from other spirits, but joined to the Father and his Son by reason of essence, Paul explains writing to the Corinthians in his first Epistle: "To another B the gifts of healing in the one Spirit"; and again: "But all these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing into each one as he wills"; and again: "We have all been made to drink in one Spirit." And to the Ephesians: "For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father"; and again: "Striving to keep the unity of the Spirit," that is, taking great care not to separate him from the supreme monad and self-sufficient essence.
That he is also called the Word C is evident from these testimonies. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, says: "Taking the armor of God, and the breastplate of righteousness, and the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." Matthew also mentioned this sword, speaking from the person of Christ: "I came not to bring peace, but a sword," not understanding a physical blade, but the ineffable wisdom of the Holy Spirit, which, more than peace, cuts into hardened hearts. And to the Hebrews: "For upholding all things by the Word of his power." By what Word? David prophesied: "By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power." And again Paul: "For it is impossible D for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good Word of God." Peter also says: "Because all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of it as the flower of grass; the grass withered, and the flower fell, and its beauty perished; but the Word of the Lord abides for ever," in the same way he sings concerning the Son in the 118th Psalm: "For ever, O Lord, thy Word abides in heaven."
have been made the Spirit’s, and have tasted the good word of God. But Peter says: A “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; the grass withered, and the flower fell off, and his glory perished; but the word of God abideth forever.” As the Psalmist says concerning the Son, in Psalm CXVII (v. 20): “Forever, O Lord, Thy word abideth in heaven.” For he transmits many things concerning the highest and most divine hypostases, to be understood in a most mystical sense.
CHAPTER VI. All things which are proper to the Deity bear witness to the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, therefore, such things are spoken in the divine oracles concerning the immortal and ineffable nature of the Holy Spirit, as are spoken concerning God and the Father, who is Lord of all, and concerning the Son, who is above all and Lord of all; because He is not heterousios, that is, of a different essence, nor of lesser power or glory. For it is discovered that no creature B possesses any of these things of itself. For whatever it possesses, it has it by the generosity of the Trinity, which is in one deity; and it is natural for each to be understood always, from what it is, as to what it is, and what it is not—whether it has come to be God, or a creature. By way of example:
1. A creature has its existence, not being its own beginning. But what its first work in the order of rational natures is, the Book of Job shows; for it calls the one who lied in his way the devil by nature. But the Holy Spirit, as the breath of the Omnipotent, is nowhere written in the Scriptures to be a creature, or to have any beginning at all. For no creature, and such a creature as manifested itself reprobate, ungrateful, and impure by its own will, could have existed C before the creative Spirit. Since, however, Scripture neither says that the Holy Spirit has a beginning, but celebrates Him as the Spirit of God, and from God, and divine, and holy, nor admits any priority or posteriority in the nature of the divine hypostases, what place is left for doubting whether they are in one uncreated deity and are to be honored with equal honor? D
A No created thing fills the universe, or contains all things, or exists in all things; but there is a limit and a definite quantity even to the intellectual powers, for these things alone are proper to the Deity. But the majesty of the Holy Spirit is indivisible, infinite, and exists always everywhere, and through all, and in all; filling the world and containing it according to its divinity, but uncontained in its power; and measuring, but not being measured. "For God does not give the Spirit by measure," as the Savior says in John; and as Wisdom teaches, saying: "For you love all things that are, and abhor nothing which you have made; for you would not have created anything if you had hated it. And how could anything have remained, if you had not willed it, or how could that which was not called by you be preserved? But you spare all, because all are yours, O Lord, lover of souls, and your incorruptible Spirit is in all things." Hence we rightly name God the Father of all, though He is not by nature our father, as He is of His Only-Begotten. B And again: "The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which contains all things has knowledge of the voice." That is, it has encompassed the invisible and visible creation, the intellectual and the sensible, and none of all things is devoid of His eternal supervision; for to contain all things means this. And every voice, He says, He hears, as God existing always everywhere in all things, and bringing every material disorder into the appropriate order, and sparing and caring for those things made by Him, inasmuch as He Himself is by nature providence and wisdom, existing through all things, as the Father. For who is he that has such knowledge? Isaiah also says thus: "A Spirit of knowledge and piety;" and David sings in response: "Where shall I go from your face? And where shall I flee from your Spirit?" C And the Master, teaching that the deity of the Holy Spirit is not circumscribed by place, but is at once in heaven and on earth, always providing and supplying every sufficiency to the creation, said in John: "If you love me, keep my commandments; and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate, that the Spirit of truth may be with you, which the world cannot receive, because it does not see it nor know it; but you know it,
A for it abides with you, and will be in you.” But B in order that it may be known that this single, infinite nature, which is present everywhere, is declared by such testimonies, the Scriptures have handed down equal truths regarding each of these immaculate subsistences. For Jeremiah, speaking in the person of God and the Father, sets this forth: “I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord.” David, singing of the Son in the 144th Psalm, says: “And of His greatness there is no end.” And Paul, preaching of the same: “He who descended is the same as He who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.”
III. The creature is not absolutely incorruptible, B but is subject to corruption, that is, to conversion, which we also call change; as the prophecy says: “Making all things and transforming them.” Following this, those who are accounted wise among the pagans also say: “Dissolving them into themselves, and again increasing them from themselves.”
For the incorporeal rational creature, as regards [its] will, is not free from corruption, since God indeed gave it a stable nature and established it unto the age and unto the age of the age; but it has changed by its own free choice and has fallen into a worse lot C and state, and from this very fact has become so corrupted that it has, as it were, lost from that time the designation by which it was called eternal. For whatever departs from itself—in whatever way this may happen—that is, is changed, finds death, even if it persists in another way, namely, its own proper mutation. For whatever you may suppose that thing to become afterwards, that is the death of the prior thing: for example, if malice becomes goodness, by that very fact that malice departs from the creature, it is killed by goodness; and conversely, goodness is killed by malice. For there are certain things which, although it was not denied to them to persist in their first state and limit, do not proceed [to do so]. Therefore, they proclaim these things in the Epistles, Peter saying: “For if God spared not the angels who sinned, but having cast them down with ropes of darkness into hell, He reserved them for the judgment of the great day, and spared not the ancient world.” And Judas: D “And the angels who did not keep their beginning, but left their own habitation, He has kept in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment.” And the bodily and rational [creature]
is able to undergo mutation: as regards habit, A such as Judas who lost his sanctification, and as Paul writes (50): “But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives,” although she still leads a life among men; but as regards substance, insofar as it first dies, and then passes to immortality. “For it is necessary,” he says [Paul] (51), “that this corruptible should put on incorruption, and this mortal should put on immortality.” The creature, however, which is devoid of reason is subjected to mutation and is corrupted: as when light is changed into darkness, and water into blood, it was foretold: “This change is of the right hand of the Most High,” and elsewhere: “The heaven,” he says, “and the earth shall pass away.” For it was foretold as to how there shall be new heavens and a new earth. For truly everything that has received a beginning will also have an end. But the Holy Spirit, B since He is of that ineffable and eternal and incorruptible nature that is sovereign over all, and always exists in the same way and in the same state; and is alone the one who knows and does the things of God; and is the guardian of all things, both of those that are rational and perfected by faith, and of those that are irrational, until the limit of perseverance in identity granted to those that are not rational; stands established by nature and by will as incapable of turning and change, which is to say He is incorruptible. Whatever, then, is unchangeable, that is to say incorruptible, is immediately without beginning, endless, and super-eternal. Whatever is without beginning is a creator, and not a created thing. Therefore, Wisdom properly says: “Your incorruptible Spirit is in all things,” and Peter: C “In the incorruptibility of a meek and quiet Spirit.” For in this way also the Father, always existing equal to Himself and similar, admitting neither a decline toward the worse nor an advancement toward the better, was heard through James: “With whom there is no variableness, or shadow of turning,” and through Paul: “To the incorruptible, invisible, only wise God”; in the same manner as the Son was attested in the Psalm 101: “And You, Lord, remain for ever”; and again: “In the beginning You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth, and the works of Your hands are the heavens. They shall perish, but You remain; and all shall grow old as a garment, and as a mantle You shall fold them up.”
A
IV. A creature is not absolutely and per se perfectly eternal: first, because it does not possess this of its own, but it obtained it from the time it was made, by participation and the gift of God, who alone and above eternity is of Himself: for since He is good, He creates, and presiding over His own creation, He munificently bestows eternity upon it; secondly, because of the reasons explained in the chapter 153 next preceding. But the Holy Spirit, since He has eternity by nature, as it befits the Creator to have, and is the good Spirit of God, working all things as one who is eternal, and Himself never to be limited, but able to limit those things which were made by Him, for this reason He was celebrated with that appellation. But if you do not agree with what I have said, you will learn that these things are true by this reasoning. Paul writes thus to the Hebrews: B “Who by the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God.” He speaks, however, of the Lord Christ, who in His venerable incarnation offered Himself for us to His own Father through the Holy Spirit. Peter also agrees with this, as has already been mentioned: “But the Word of God remains for ever.” For he calls the Spirit of God the Word of God here. Furthermore, Paul, commemorating the Father and the Son, celebrates the Son also with the same denomination of Eternal on account of the identity of the Godhead. “God,” he says, “and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knows, who is blessed for ever”; and again: “Jesus Christ yesterday and today, the same also for ever.”
But those who are ill-disposed toward the testimonies declaring the divinity of the Holy Spirit C cannot, they cannot be heard or endured in what they have determined against this chapter as well. For on account of a preconceived opinion, they lead themselves away to the ends of the earth; for thoughtless love is not accustomed to bring forward careful investigation. Nothing, however, prevents us from hearing this captious argumentation itself: for thus they will seem still more worthy of condemnation. Thus, therefore, it stands: If anything has been called eternal equivoque, it cannot immediately be called God: but he who is God is the creator of those things which are called eternal. For it was written: D “God is the maker of times and ages”; and again: “God, having spoken in many ways and in many forms of old to the fathers in the prophets, at the end of the days spoke to us in the Son, whom He appointed heir of all, through whom also He made the ages.” For if whatever is called eternal ought to be named God...
there will be innumerable gods. For it is written: “And be lifted up, A you eternal gates”; and again: “Eternal years were remembered”; and again: “As eternal sheep”; and: “These shall rise into eternal punishment”; and elsewhere: “They shall rise who are in the dust of the earth, some to eternal life, and others to eternal shame.” Are, therefore, both the punishment and the shame gods? You see into what absurdity and impiety this homonymy regarding the eternal falls. To the thoughts and words of those men, indeed, a “purgament” B adheres and is mingled; but the following dissolves this: regarding the name of the eternal, as we have just mentioned, other things—even if it so happened—arose not from time alone, but also have corruption coming from the change of their own will, and that eternity of theirs is entirely unlike the divine eternity; just as neither the one called holy, whether angel or man, is in a like and equal manner this to the Holy Spirit of holies; for He is holiness itself and eternity itself. Let them attend, therefore, with what greatness of voice it is declared that the eternal is in the Holy Spirit, and that to Him He has added that which is marvelous and most incomprehensible to all—I mean the fact that through the Holy Spirit, He who fashioned the ages offered Himself to His own true Father on our behalf.
Let them consider also that all C the powers of the heavens are in the Holy Spirit, entirely because He is a co-creator with the self-sufficient Creator; and that the heretics, not opportunely but with artificial construction, mentioned the eternal gates and the end of the sheep—the very statements brought forward by us to this chapter. And let the difference between the unoriginate and immutable Eternal, and that which is from time and mutable, be clear to them, and how this is not slight, nor only concerning the essence and the other beauty, but entirely distinct. And let this be known also, that the Holy Spirit has the judgment concerning the eternal in relation to God the Father, who strengthened all things, and to the Son, not in relation to the creatures; and having dissolved the worse opinion, let them choose the betterD.
A Let them wonder instead at the things that are truly worthy of wonder, and let them spend the time that follows in a better way. For there is no envy, and from those things where they have offered an arrogant rebuke, and have harmed themselves, let them thereupon also bring back the benefit of repentance. For if this word, as indicating something divine in majesty, was used in the Scriptures concerning God the Father and the Son, it might perhaps be understood in a similar way concerning the Spirit of God. This is one thing. Another is this: that none of the eternal things they have mentioned has been called divine, or Holy Spirit proceeding from God—that is, some one thing, not a plurality—nor is it joined to the Father and the Son for divine initiation and divine gift, nor has it been deemed worthy of any other, that I may not say many things, honor belonging to the Godhead.
Another thing in addition to these: It was the good pleasure of God and Father that all things should be created B through His Son, the Word. And what sort of reproach is it (as they weave in their dreams) to His all-holy Spirit, not to be said to have created—if indeed, according to them, He is not, in an ineffable way, a fellow-worker with the Creator, just as the Father is? But that every operation and gift of His only-begotten Son, the Word, and of the one Holy Spirit, is creative, good, and perfect, and common to them, yet is referred entirely to the One from whom and with whom these blessed hypostases ineffably shone forth, he who has quietly made some examination of the oracles full of wisdom—those mentioned in different places of this book, and those in the one before it—could most easily learn.
And Paul, raised above the common condition of men, declared this clearly, asserting to the Corinthians: C “But you were washed, but you were justified, but you were sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.” Observe then, observe, how if the name of the Son is divine, as it indeed is, that of the Holy Spirit is so as well; for in both of them He has revealed the name. And that, just as He created the Holy Spirit ineffably at the beginning, so also He now re-creates. For to be washed signified to be re-created. And to Titus: “Having regenerated us through the bath of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” None the less also the Psalmist deems it worth knowing that those who were already in existence are now created spiritually in the divine font. For he says: D “A people that is being created shall praise the Lord.”
Therefore, the hypostases that have the same honor and operation also possess the same nature, and differ from one another in nothing in terms of Godhead and power, but are only able to be conjoined, and aligned, and everywhere co-conceived with the One—He who is Himself both, and whose ineffable origin the hypostases of both possess from Himself, unoriginated, and equally, and similarly, and ineffably united, and the hypostases are continuous. Further, in addition to what has been said: every...
A argument which these heretics bring forward is of such a kind, and likewise the cavil [157 B], expressed in the same words, as that frigid one which we are now examining, as we shall shortly discover from their very chapters and arguments by experience. For if by chance some word, such as "eternal" or "good," spoken of the Trinity which is in unity, denoting its divinity and perfectly and altogether belonging to it, happens to be spoken somewhere concerning a creature—yet with the mention that is due to a creature—they say nothing (for indeed what could they say?) concerning God the Father and His Son. But they immediately and most foolishly drag the Holy Spirit down to the creature, instead of leading Him up, as is most fitting, to God and the Only-begotten, who by theologians have most suitably been praised as being in equal and like honor with the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, since the arguments brought forward by us in the chapter in which we are engaged B cannot be overcome, and are sufficient for the whole struggle against the heretics, let them either show (though to say it is very grievous) that a beginning or an end has been prophesied anywhere in the Scriptures for the Holy Spirit; or, in general, that He had some path to corruption, as is the case with angelic and human volition; or let it be for them, as the adage goes, "an ox on the tongue." So much for them; but I shall return to the topic which I undertook from the beginning. C And observe, if it is divine, as it assuredly is, that the name of the Son is such, then the name of the Holy Spirit is altogether the same; for He has named one name for both. And observe this also, that just as in the beginning the Holy Spirit ineffably created together with the Father and the Son, so also now He creates again; for to be washed is the same as to be created again. In the Epistle to Titus, he says: D "Saving us through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit." In a similar manner, the sacred Psalmist also expresses his desire to see those who had already been generated, but are now spiritually created in the divine pool; for he says: "The people that is created shall praise the Lord." Since therefore these hypostases are worthy of the same honor and perform the same works, they possess also the same nature, and neither in deity nor in power do they differ in any way from one another. But they are able to exist simultaneously with Him who is one, and to be placed in the same rank, and to be received and understood everywhere at the same time; for He Himself has the two persons from Himself eternally, and equally, and similarly, and ineffably united and joined. Hitherto, then, concerning these matters: I, however, shall return to the argument which I had initially proposed.
A V. A rational creature is capable of virtue and of vice. Such are those among incorporeal natures, as we have said before: as regards virtue, the good angels; as regards vice, the reprobate. Among corporeal natures, we ourselves are such. But the divine Spirit, being too preeminent to be capable of virtue and opinion, or rather, being the very summit of virtue, flowing forth from Himself as from a fountain, can receive none of these things, just as the Father cannot, nor the Son. But if He is not capable of these, He is not of another’s will; and if He is not of another’s will (for He does all things that the Father wills), He is not of another substance. From B this, therefore, it is also gathered that He is not a creature, and that He differs in nothing from God the Father and His Son, and that God, from whom He naturally proceeded, is known by us from Him, because He is also in us, as Scripture says.
VI. A creature is sanctified and justified by God, who is holy by nature; for it can receive sanctification and justification, but cannot provide them. But the Holy Spirit, because He is separated from the creature, yet is joined by nature to Him from whom He proceeded (concerning whom also this mystical doctrine was handed down to us: "Every good C endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of change"), and because He cares for all and provides for all, not even excluding the guilty: for this reason, He Himself sanctifies, and justifies, and gives wisdom, and offers every kind of heavenly virtue; yet He Himself is nowhere found to have the capacity to be sanctified, or justified, or made wise by another (just as the Father, who is self-originate, is not, nor is His Son, who is of the same nature with Him). Thus, for this very reason, He is rightly praised as both Self-Holy and the Spirit of holiness—that is, holy by nature and of Himself—and D as the divine Spirit—that is, God by nature—and as the breath of the Almighty—that is, consubstantial with the Almighty, breathed forth from His substance. So that this one designation alone shows Him to be consubstantial with God the Father and sanctifying, and that He cannot be comprehended even by reasoning. Therefore, the blessed Paul, who is capable both of speaking and of setting forth types of faith, introduced this, proposing at once this chapter which we are now discussing, and also, concerning the great gifts and the regeneration in baptism, the communion of the Holy Spirit with God the Father. Furthermore, that the name "God" is one and even in the Trinity; and that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, always acting with equal efficacy when invoked.
A For in writing to the Corinthians he speaks as follows: "But you were washed, but you were justified, but you were sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God." Therefore, those who communicate with Him—that is, those who are deemed worthy to be sanctified and justified and made wise by Him—are called, as the same Apostle teaches the Hebrews, "partakers of the Holy Spirit." And he writes to the Ephesians: "In whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." For it is manifest that those who are sealed, that is, those who are sanctified, are participants, but are not participated in. For if the Holy Spirit or the Son were a creature, what need would there be, after the Father had sufficiently and abundantly sanctified, for one who was also a creature to sanctify, as if by way of supplementing and completing the work? B And so, since we know that this chrism, or unction, belongs to Him who is uncreated, we, being creatures, do not impart sanctification from our own substance, but we say: "May God sanctify you."
I shall now pass on to another similar and very strong argument, which, when I have brought it forward, will also crush the audacity of those who are practiced in the impudent method of contention. When the Lord of all was speaking absolutely concerning God the Father and Himself, He gave this command: "Baptizing [95] them into the name of the Father and of the Son," and He did not simply add, "and of the Spirit," but added, "the holy." C Thus, He not only did not mention Him in such a way as to lower Him, but He even mentioned Him in such a way as to exalt Him, because He is by nature that which the most perfect hypostases are, which the one name signifies, by which the Spirit Himself is named together with them and placed on an equal footing, because the Holy Spirit is that which the Father and His Son are in divinity—with whom He was simultaneously mentioned, as is manifest even to a blind man, as they say.
But this involves more extensive theology. In order, however, that it may be easily believed that it is the property of the Godhead alone to be called, and to be by nature, both holy and just, and furthermore to sanctify and justify its own creatures: I shall bring forward similar praises, by which the Father, likewise, as well as the Son, has been celebrated. And concerning the Father, indeed, the Son Himself says in John: "Holy [96] Father, keep them in your name"; and again: "Sanctify [97] D them in your truth; your Word is truth."
A And he says here, "spirit" B for the disposition, and "body" for the practical functioning, according to the prophet Isaiah: "And they shall know, who err in spirit, understanding"—that is to say, those who err in action or in habit. Concerning the Son, however, as when he is praised: "One holy, one Lord Jesus Christ"; and as the Acts discuss: "They killed those who had foretold the coming of the Just One"; and as Peter said: "Christ died once for sinners, the just for the unjust." From such oracles, therefore, if they wished to do what is just, they ought to have been guided toward God to praise the Spirit. This, however, they do not do, but they say that the angels were not sanctified, and yet they are holy; not adverting to the fact that angels also were sanctified just as men are (the truth being that they are created), or that they have been established as lesser than men who were sanctified by God and partakers of Him. C And the Savior says: "Father, sanctify them in your truth: your Word is truth." Clearly saying: "In me... sanctify them, in faith and in communion with me."
On the interpretation of "spirit" and "body" in the holy Scriptures
He says here, "spirit" for the disposition, and "body" for the practical functioning, according to the prophet Isaiah: "And they shall know, who err in spirit, understanding"—that is to say, those who err in action or in habit. Concerning the Son, however, as when he is praised: "One holy, one Lord Jesus Christ"; and as the Acts discuss: "They killed those who had foretold the coming of the Just One"; and as Peter said: "Christ died once for sinners, the just for the unjust." From such oracles, therefore, if they wished to do what is just, they ought to have been guided toward God to praise the Spirit. This, however, they do not do, but they say that the angels were not sanctified, and yet they are holy; not adverting to the fact that angels also were sanctified just as men are (the truth being that they are created), or that they have been established as lesser than men who were sanctified by God and partakers of Him. D Moreover, the Apostle, wishing a virgin to be holy not only in action, but also in mind—that is, not only in body, but in the internal movement of the heart—says: "That she may be holy in body and spirit," signifying the will by "spirit," and the works by "body." Consider whether this same thing in Isaiah sounds as it is written: "And they shall know, who err in spirit, understanding"—for those who err by a judgment of fault, deeming some things instead of others as good, shall receive understanding, so that their error may be corrected, and that instead of things that are base, they may choose those which are right. Also that other passage, "Your strength is a vain spirit," consider whether it demonstrates the same thing. But in these latter words, a corruption lies hidden both in the printed books and in our manuscript. For it is nowhere written in Scripture: "Your holy strength." Therefore, it must be corrected thus: "Your strength is a vain spirit." Which things are drawn from Isaiah xxxiii, 14, where the Greek edition has: "Your strength shall be in vain, the strength of your spirit," that is: "Your strength of spirit shall be vain." See also the book *Against the Manichaeans*, page 207, tome I of Canisius' *Lectiones Antiquae*.
A VII. The creature cannot substantially be participated in by a rational soul, in such a way that it inhabits it; for it is the property of God alone to be participated in thus. But the Holy Spirit is substantially participable, just as the Father and the Son, as has been said in the first discourse. B Since, therefore, the Father once and for all dwells in those who are worthy, what necessity was there, unless for the sake of the unity of the divine nature and our fulfillment, for the Son and the Holy Spirit to also enter and work together? Assuredly, no one would ever choose to say that a multitude of gods, so to speak, dwells in us, but rather that the three hypostases exist in the oneness of the Godhead.
VIII. The creature possesses the good because the Trinity, who is in one Godhead and is the Good itself, makes it a participant. But it is a lesser and lower thing to have some good by participation according to one's own measure, than to be by nature the first and immeasurable Good itself; and the good found in the creature is neither woven together with, C nor ranked alongside the Creator, the one and primary Good; which all things desire, but which itself desires nothing. Even though it is said in the Gospel: "Well done, good servant," and: "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good," it does not refer to the heart itself as the Good which is properly and essentially, but rather to that which is joined and appropriate to the creature. For that [primary Good] abounds and is generous with goodness to its own works, so that from this each of the things that exist may be preserved and remain in the order in which it was allotted to be; and it is itself the one Good, the cause of all goods for all things; and because of it, the lower good is performed; and it itself preserves all things in which it is present, just as evil, which occurs through our own choice, corrupts and destroys them. D Even those outside the faith, perceiving this, have said: "The wicked have this as the greatest evil within themselves; for, attempting to do evil to others, they are the first to enjoy their own wickedness." As for the Holy Spirit, as has been previously stated, being the Good that needs nothing of its own, and being entirely always toward all as the Good, and not a secondary good compared to the one and primary Good, [He is] equal...
to the Father and to the Son, and [we read] testimonies concerning this, as was shown in the first discourse, B and as Ezra, who spoke boldly concerning the divine goodness, because he knew that even if one should stumble, it is not possible to suffer harm from [that goodness], prophesied: "And Thou gavest Thy good Spirit to instruct them." Also Matthew and Luke, indicating that the Spirit is the divine goodness itself by essence, and that every good gift and every perfect bestowal is conceived as being in Him, the one wrote: "How much more shall the Father from heaven give good things to them that ask Him?" C And the other: "How much more shall the Father from heaven give [the] Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" For it is proper to a mutable—that is, a created—substance, to be made good, or sanctified, or made wise by another, and not to possess these things unchangeably. And God, showing in Isaiah that no one will ever receive His spiritual blessings unless he is first found full of the wisdom and understanding of the Holy Spirit, said: "I will put My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessings upon thy children." D Following this, Paul wrote: "For this cause," he says, "we also, from the day we heard, do not cease praying for you, and [are] asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, walking worthily of the Lord." It is clear that he speaks of the divine Spirit. For the everlasting kingdom on high is conceived together with the Spirit of God, as not being alien to Him, on account of the continuity with the Father and the Son. And again, he confirms it through the same Epistle, writing: "For [the] kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy..."
in the Holy Spirit." This did not escape Peter either. For defending himself to those who were accusing him regarding the encounter he had with Cornelius, he said: "If then God gave them the same gift, providing the Holy Spirit, as also to us in the beginning, who was I that I could withstand God?" And again: "And the heart-knowing God bore witness to them, having given them the Holy Spirit, even as to us, and made no distinction between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith." This is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, or as one might say, his unrestrained and abundant visitation, which is the cause of prophecy, and renewal, and heavenly goods, and the ability to perceive the beauty of divine truth. For as it seems to the Apostle: B "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace." Whence he also writes again: "For the love of God has been poured out in our hearts C through the Holy Spirit." Therefore, since the goodness in the unity of the Trinity is one, many goodnesses are born for us; just as, although truth, and righteousness, and wisdom are one (I speak of that which is on high), according to the text, "You are powerful, O Lord, and your truth is around you" (which [ 47 a ] is the only-begotten God), and according to "To the only wise God," many truths, and righteousnesses, and wisdoms are multiplied for us from above, according to: "The Lord seeks truths," and, "The Lord is righteous, and he loved righteousnesses," and, "A multitude of the wise is the salvation of the world," and, "Walking with the wise, you shall be wise." It is clear, therefore, that the Spirit of God, by his very existence, is a good Spirit, and a Spirit of wisdom and truth, and the Spirit of the invisible and uncompounded God and Father.
[alt-version omitted]
[IX] The creature is not called "lover of humankind" or "benign toward the human race" in the Scriptures; for this title belongs strictly and properly to the consubstantial Trinity alone. For the Father is a lover of humankind, who A "does not get angry with us to the end, nor remain wrathful for all time, nor does he deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities," according to the psalm, and as Solomon says: "But you spare all, because all things are yours, O Lord, lover of souls," as it is said; so that for this reason he is called both our Lord and Father, his fatherly care and solicitude being tempered by power and might. For there is no title for God more fitting than that of Father, and lover of humankind, and good, and holy. The Son is a lover of humankind, who for our sake, being the work of his august and mystical hands, "emptied himself, taking the form of a servant," as the Apostle writes to Titus: "But when the kindness and love toward humankind B (or benignity) of our Savior God appeared." And whoever ascribes to him all those things that befit the only-begotten God receives more than he hoped for. The holy Spirit of God is a lover of humankind, according to Wisdom, which speaks thus: "For the Spirit of wisdom is a lover of humankind, and will not exempt the righteous one." For he did not overlook the perishing human nature, but came by himself, leading, teaching every truth, renewing us, and bestowing divine gifts, and so great a care he took of him who was made in the image of God from the beginning, that he also has this title as a mark and evidence of his extraordinary goodness. For the elements are indeed great—heaven, earth, sea—and the rational creature of C angels and every supermundane power is also great; but the Trinity did not choose to take its name from any one of these, but from its goodness toward man—that is, its being a lover of humankind, or benign toward men—it is so called.
[X] The creature is a servant of the Lord who fashioned it skillfully, and the freedom which it does not possess from itself, it can neither provide for itself nor for others. For the prophecy says: "All things serve you."
A The Holy Spirit, however, is not mentioned in the Scriptures as a servant, but rather as Lord and free by nature; and wherever He is and to whomever He draws near, He bestows the freedom which He Himself possesses. For creatures alone are subjected to the yoke of servitude; but that which is not a servant is not a creature, and that which is not a creature is by nature God. For "there is no place for a servant in the presence of the non-servant," as outsiders have also said. A faithful witness to these things is the Apostle, writing to the Corinthians in his second Epistle: "Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom." And to Timothy: "For God has not given us a spirit of servitude, but a Spirit of power, and love, and self-control." And to the Romans: "For you did not receive a spirit of servitude again unto fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry: [75 a] 'Abba, Father.' So you are no longer a servant, but a son." Just as, therefore, we have been set free by the Son, hearing that "You are no longer a servant, but free," and "With the freedom with which the Son has set you free," so too, because of the identity of essence and lordship, we are made free by the Spirit—by B virtue of the words mentioned: "Where the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom."
XI.
The creation, both the intellectual and the sensible, serves and does not command of its own accord, just as the Scripture says regarding the angels: "Mighty in strength, doing His word." But the Holy Spirit of God commands the prophets and apostles with authority, as God and Lord, as shall be demonstrated in the chapters that follow.XII.
The creation is strengthened by the all-powerful and omnipotent divine force, but it does not itself strengthen anything. For it has received only enough power to suffice for itself, and it lacks the ability to transmit this to fellow-servants. But the Spirit of God strengthens with His own fruitful, nourishing, and indefectible power, because He is the Creator and not a creature. For the Savior says in the Acts: "But you shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you," which signifies that without His visitation, there is no power or hope for us before God. It must be noted, furthermore, that two other things are indicated by these words; first, that the presence of the Holy Spirit... C D [index: entries preserved]A signifies that it has come forth by His own authority; and second, that He did not come as a self-sent messenger, but was announced beforehand by the great God and Savior Himself. And again, therefore, He says: "But stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high." And this was the Holy Spirit. B And Paul writes to the Romans concerning things which, as is fitting, it is not easy for anyone to admire or to interpret worthily, especially when approaching them cursorily: "I have therefore confidence in Christ Jesus toward God. For I do not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not wrought through me, in word and deed, in obedience of the Gentiles, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit."
XIII. C The creature is not always truthful, but it has it as a property of its own nature to be subject to changes of disposition and to lie at times. Such among the incorporeal creatures is the devil; but concerning those of flesh, it is written: "Every man is a liar," and: "You will destroy all who speak a lie." Even the pagans wrote:
For God the Father will not be a helper to liars.
But concerning the saints, such as the apostles, Paul says: "But when I saw that they did not walk uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas before all," and what else he said. D For in truth it is of the divine nature alone never to swerve from the truth. Therefore Paul wrote to the Hebrews thus: "That," he says, "by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have a strong comfort to hold fast to the hope set before us." 140 Now the communion of the Holy Spirit, because He has a nature shared with the Father and the Son, is a communion in all things, and even in this, that He can speak nothing but the truth. For He is the Spirit of the truth of God, as was said before, speaking with the one will of the Father and of the Son and of Himself, and not speaking from Himself, just as the Son testified of Him when He said: "He will not speak from Himself."
XIV. The creature has nothing that may be denominated truth, because there is one divine truth, just as there is one divine holiness and goodness, from which we confess that these things come to each of us.
A holiness and goodness, from which we confess that these things come to us individually. But the Holy Spirit is denominated truth, just as the Father and the Son, because He is of the same one deity, having nothing manifold or dissonant. And indeed, concerning the Father and Himself, the Son testifies, saying: "Father, thy Word is truth"; and again: "I am the life, and the truth." And concerning the Holy Spirit, as was stated before.
XV. B The creature does not know the things of God; for they exceed it, and it does not dare in any way to reach or strive for such knowledge, even if it were of the number of the elect; for it is utterly impossible that what is not of the same nature, nor possesses the same knowledge with God, should know the things of God, as the Savior taught, saying in John: "The servant does not know what his lord is doing"; and as Peter wrote: "There are things which now he announces to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit, sent from heaven, into which things the angels desire to look." But the Holy Spirit does know, as consubstantial God, according to the Apostle writing to the Corinthians, as was stated before. And again, to demonstrate the majesty of the Spirit and the equality with the Father, he writes what is equivalent to him: C "But He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is." For just as when saying something great about the Father, he said that He knows the mind of the Spirit; so, to demonstrate the communion of nature and will, and the equality of dignity and power which the Holy Spirit has with the Father, he wrote that He alone knows the things of the Father, and searches His depths, and those unknown thoughts of His, which it is necessary, and when it is necessary, to manifest to those who are worthy. But let Peter’s writing, as was stated before, that the Spirit was sent from heaven, be understood in the way that the Son being sent is understood. For as He is the Word, so this was sent as the utterance and Spirit of God. And because He knows that what is said by Christ, or by the Holy Spirit, is said also by D the Father, because of the one will, such expressions are placed. Nor does He remain ignorant, or...
speak, act, or come of Himself as an adversary of God B.
XVI. The creature does not see God the Father as He is; for it is impossible for another nature to grasp or sustain this, and it is of this that one must understand the saying: « No one shall see my face, and live. » But the Scriptures say that sometimes the Son alone, and sometimes the Holy Spirit alone, sees or knows God the Father, because the Trinity exists in the unity of the Godhead; as when the Savior says in John: « Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God: He has seen the Father. » Now the Son is from God according to nature by way of generation, and the Holy Spirit by way of procession. And again He says: « For no one knows the Father, except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. » And as when Paul writes specifically to the Corinthians regarding the Holy Spirit, as was said before. And as Isaiah prophesies: « A Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of knowledge and piety. » Is it not written, then, they ask, by Matthew from the person of the Savior: « See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father who is in heaven »? Indeed; but they see, not how great and what kind of being God is, but insofar as they themselves are capable C. But the Only-Begotten and the Holy Spirit, by reason of the identity of the Godhead, see God as He is, who is without magnitude and without form.
XVII. When a rational creature attains renewal and adoption, the omnipotent grace of the Holy Spirit makes it worthy of these gifts; because He who did this is not a creature, but is God, such as He is who first created it.
XVIII. Every creature, both visible and invisible, is called by name to praise and superexalt God for ages D by the three youths, Ananias, Aza
A Furthermore, even the Cherubim and the divine throne—which in this place is understood to mean the Seraphim—give glory to God, inasmuch as they too are a part of creation. For the same children said: "Blessed art thou that sittest upon the Cherubim," and again, instead of mentioning the Seraphim: "And blessed art thou on the throne of thy kingdom, and superexalted, and super-praised unto the ages."
Similarly, by David also, moved by the Holy Spirit, in the 102nd and 148th Psalms, the creation is commanded to praise the Lord. But the Holy Spirit, like the Son, is not mentioned along with them; because He too is not a created thing, but a Creator; nor is He among those who praise, but among those who are praised, and that even by the Seraphim themselves, who stand with great fear around the divine tribunal, and veil themselves with their wings, and in alternating turns, with mouths that never grow silent and with an unceasing voice, proclaim B thrice, "Holy," because of the three hypostases; and once, "Lord," because of the singleness of the dominion; which things most especially demonstrate the divinity of the all-praised Spirit.
But the Macedonians, as if watching themselves and fearful lest they should be seen saying things that are perhaps appropriate to Him, or lest they should let slip things that are inappropriate, they push forward, of their own authority and without trial, and in this chapter they bring to bear weapons of every kind, using unbridled speech, and saying in a grasping manner: "It is written," they say, "'Praise the Lord, for the psalm is a good thing; let praise be sweet to God'; and, 'It is good to confess to the Lord, and to sing to thy name, O Most High.' But nowhere do we find written: 'Praise the Holy Spirit.'" C But answer must be made to them as follows: If you accept these passages that you have just cited as referring to the Father, you exclude the Son; but if you refer them to the Son, you exclude the Father in turn, since the Holy Spirit also is and is called "Lord" in the Scriptures, and it is uncertain as to which hypostasis the "Lord" is written here. Consider therefore whether you have not used an argument against yourselves.
That the Holy Spirit does not praise because He is not a creature, but is praised together with them because He is the Spirit of God, is easier to understand, both from the fact that He is ranked with God, and from the fact that the three children, and the Holy Psalmist, command the whole of creation to praise by name, but not D the Prophet, who was a man, but the Holy Spirit who was in him was to be considered as commanding the angels the things which are set forth. For "All his angels," he says—that is, clearly, the Lord's—"bless him." And since the Spirit commands all the angels, He is other than them according to essence. If this is so, how did certain people boldly dare to say that He is of the order of the angels, when He is altogether something other than them?
But the Spirit of God, as the saints are accustomed to naming Him—for if, as the heretics say, He is of a nature intermediate between God and the angels, and more precious and higher than all—it behooved Him, especially since He is one, either to be exhorted to praise Himself by Himself, or at least to be named first, and for the others to be taken up into Him generally; not, however, as they arrogantly conjecture, the reverse. B
XIX. The creature is not numbered with God.
For what has a thing subject to diminution in common with Him who is the highest of all, and above any exaggeration, or with that which is created, with Him who created it? But the most precious Spirit, as God, is named together with the Father and the Son, as when the Lord gives the formula regarding baptism, and as when the Apostle writes to the Corinthians in the second epistle: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all"; or He is mentioned together with one of their two hypostases; or even alone, as was said in the first book.
But the Macedonians, a sect excommunicated from that of Valentinus the one who became a Manichaean, and who, full of madness, besides other absurd myths, said that the divine Spirit was of the same age as the angels, taking their starting point from this, say: "Paul wrote to Timothy: 'I charge you before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels,' but he remained silent about the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as he was supposedly numbering Him with the angels." But this thought flows from the abundance of their own hearts. For although sometimes mention of the Holy Spirit is not made distinctly, He is nevertheless taken up together with God the Father, inasmuch as He is His Spirit by nature. This is surely the reason why, when God the Father Himself is not mentioned in express words, but in faithful understanding, yet the Son and the Holy Spirit are mentioned; or conversely: since even that abominable Valentinus, not even to be named, called the sanctifying Spirit the Paraclete, C just as the Lord Christ Himself was called Paraclete from the fact of being called upon—referring to the ministers being sanctified— D
he has named the angels. A Furthermore, we find nowhere in Scripture that angels are mentioned together with God in connection with creation, or initiation, or the discipline of baptism, or glorification. But the Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians in his second epistle, mentions the communion of the holy Spirit, or the fellowship, according to which He has a common deity with the Father: «The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the Father, and the communion of the holy Spirit.» And elsewhere: «If there is any communion of the Spirit.» The holy Psalmist, therefore, crying out with such words, makes clear the distinction between the ministering spirits and the unbegotten Word and the divine Spirit, and that they are not in the same order as these, but that through these hypostases, which are perfect by themselves, and through them and because of them—just as also because of God the Father—the angels were created and all things are perfected and conserved: B «By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their hosts.» For we must understand the Word to be He through whom are all things; the Spirit of the Lord’s mouth to be the holy Spirit; and the hosts of the heavens to be those very constitutions of theirs, and indeed the angels, and principalities, and powers, and virtues. And again: «Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming fire.» The Apostle also contends against them, shouting: «We were all made to drink into one Spirit.» For just as it is impossible for the radiance to be separated from the light, and for wisdom to be separated from the wise—that is, the Son from the Father—so too the holy Spirit [cannot be separated] from Him whose Spirit He is, just as we inhale the air that we breathe. C They have therefore failed to notice that in those things by which they untimely disagree with us, and strive to return to the unshaken house—the house from which they leaped away—they are weaving problems for the Apostle, who, on their account, has testified in those words lying before us, before the uncreated and the created nature, [and] also before God the Father, [concerning] His Church, which shall not be shaken; for it is founded upon the rock.
[...] Moreover, there were many others [present] when these things were being dictated by Didymus, not only laymen and clerics, but also bishops, who understood these scriptural locutions in such a way as to denote the holy Spirit as consubstantial with the Father and the Son, [asserting] it to be that Church of Christ which the faith teaches to be infallible; and [also] that the Macedonians no longer exist in the Church. Truly, if he had been instructed in the Febronian school rather D than in the theological one, I know not whether he could have asserted these two things with such confidence. For I ask of that personated jurisconsult—for we have already reached the point where these new jurisconsults contend that we must consult lawyers about theological matters, and that we must unlearn what we have received from the theologians, so that we may learn those things which they themselves are unteaching us—I ask of you, Justin Febronius, in what way could Didymus have shown these two things to be true? Is it from the fact that the Roman bishop, or the Roman Church, the mistress of all churches, [condemned] that Macedonian...
[said] interpretation and blasphemy? But in your judgment, the Roman pontiff, teaching all the faithful those things which are of the faith, and with him the Roman Church itself, can be mistaken. Or is it from the fact that most bishops dispersed throughout the whole world consented with the Roman prelate? But you dare to deny that this consent is infallible. Or, finally, [from the fact] that the second general synod had struck the Macedonians with anathema? But you teach that a general council is C «only conditionally infallible» (ch. 2, par. 8, no. 12): "If indeed," you say, "the Fathers, lawfully convoked, have conducted themselves in it in such a way that they ought to be said to have represented the whole Church: which, as to whether it is so in fact, is declared by the recognition or reception of the Church." Let the Macedonian, then, deny to Didymus that the Constantinopolitan Fathers conducted themselves in the way that you say. By what reasoning will he be able to be refuted? Is it from the fact that the Roman bishop, or the Roman Church, and almost all the prelates dispersed throughout the world assert that that synod so conducted itself? But all these, in your opinion, can be mistaken in matters of faith: how much more so in a fact, which consists of many facts capable only of moral certainty? Must, therefore, another general council be gathered so that we may know whether that former one conducted itself in such a way that it represented the whole Church? But regarding this, the same reasoning as before will prevail. See, Febroni, into what straits, as far as it is in you, you bring Catholics. You have driven us to this point, namely, that if we wish to follow you, we must necessarily say that Didymus, and all the Fathers of that age, while they harried the Macedonians as ‹formal› heretics, were either led by insufficiently firm reasoning, or by that hatred which you call ‹theological hatred›, having most indecently borrowed this formula from certain insignificant writers. Furthermore, Febroni, be of a lean soul, and since you value little that warning of Jerome, "I beseech thee, take care of Roman ears, D take care of the faith, which has been praised by the voice of the Apostle," consider nothing done if anything remains to be done. You have collected many things from all sides into one volume, but not everything. If you are skilled in the Greek language, procure for yourself the works of the Greek schismatics: I promise that even in one writer alone, not yet translated into Latin, you will find twenty-four heads of accusation brought against the Roman Church, of which you have not touched even one. They seem ridiculous indeed to me: but you, who are of a sharper wit, will perhaps think otherwise. And perhaps not even all those things will displease you, which others have written in favor of Photius, which in favor of Cerularius, which against the general Florentine synod, although they have been refuted six hundred times over. Stuff your book with all these, so that we may have at last, in this genre, a perfect sylloge, and one absolute in all its parts, as a receptacle for all filth and refuse.
Chapter VI: That all things which are proper to the Godhead bear witness to the Holy Spirit
A 20: *They have fled.* Didymus refutes the Macedonians; yet he never names Macedonius, or the Macedonians: indeed, perhaps he never even calls them heretics: for there is one place in the whole book where he might seem to call them so, namely no. 7, where he says: *But if the heretics have proposed,* etc., but regarding that word, *heretics*, I do not know whether it designates the Arians rather than the Macedonians. But indeed in these three books the name of Macedonius frequently occurs, and the Macedonians are frequently called heretics, and are said to be outside the Church in this place. What is the reason our theologian conducted himself so? I believe it is because he dictated that book before the second synod was held, namely at a time when the name of Macedonius had not yet become infamous, and the Macedonians, even if they were held by Didymus as blasphemers, indeed as heretics, did not yet seem to be denounced as ‹formal› heretics. But when these three books were written, that general synod had already been held, and therefore the Macedonians were now ‹formal› heretics. For Didymus, and all the other Fathers of the same age, since they were ignorant of the Febronian doctrine concerning the supreme and final judge of controversies, and they knew the second synod to be accepted and approved by the Roman Church, not in all things indeed, but in this, that which was defined by it against Macedonius, as Gregory the Great says, they therefore did not doubt that the cause was finished: nor did they think the Macedonians were to be heard any longer, if they wished to use the Febronian exception, so as to deny that the whole Church was represented by that council, which consisted of only one hundred and fifty bishops; at which the Roman pontiff had been present neither in person nor by legates; at which only one prelate from the entire West had been present; at which many Christians, clergy, presbyters, [and] bishops adhering to Macedonius were still resisting. For these things, and others of that kind, could have been objected to Didymus by them, if they could have foreseen, after about one thousand three hundred and eighty years, in those regions in which Didymus himself, along with his teacher and father in Christ, Athanasius, and his student, Jerome, were once active, that someone would arise from the bosom of the Catholic Church who would so strenuously plead the cause of all those who refuse to be subject to the judgments of the Roman Church and to synods recognized by it as general.
A holy by nature, and as sanctifying the creation; incorruptible, good, love, wisdom, understanding, as also it has called God; power, from which it strengthens; just, from which it justifies; existing as sinless in itself; Paraclete, as is also the Son; fire, from that it appeared to the apostles in tongues of fire, as Moses says concerning the Father: "Our God is a consuming fire"; and John concerning the Son: "He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire"; and such like.
B XXI. The creature has nothing existing in one hypostasis, or in one person. For angels and archangels are many; the seraphim likewise; the cherubim are not one thing; principalities and powers, virtues, and dominions, and thrones are spoken of in the plural; the heavens, men, and the rest of the created things. For the sun and the moon also share with the multitude of the stars both their nature and their likeness to fire, as has been discussed more laboriously in the first [79 b] volume. But that the Holy Spirit, since He is not to be numbered among the creation, is one and the same, the divine oracles have manifested to us.
C XXII. The creature is not written to be the water of life; for it does not have everlasting life from itself, as does the God who lives without beginning. But that the Holy Spirit is this, holy heralds to be mentioned below affirm, in that He proceeds connatural to the immortal and life-giving paternal fountain, not being created. For just as we said in the first volume, that the light does not generate its own radiance, but begets it; so here, that the fountain does not generate the water from it, but has it proceeding and consubstantial. For no one is the generator of his own son, or of his spirit; since he would no longer be father, nor have a spirit. Jeremiah from the person of God: "The heaven was astonished at this, and the earth shuddered at this: for my people have done two evil things. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water." D The prophet explains the mystery mystically. For he called God the fountain; and the Holy Spirit the living water, which cleanses all our sins in the pool, which cannot be separated by nature from the intelligible fountain, just as neither can a stream from the fountains. Isaiah likewise: "I will give water in thirst to those who walk in..."
dry land; I will put my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessings upon your children; and they shall spring up like grass amid the water, and like a willow by the running water." A This passage also contains a mystical meaning and has an allegorical explanation. For those, he says, who are ignorant of baptism and therefore walk in dry land, "I will put my Spirit," which can cause them, through the pool, to flourish again like aquatic plants, and "like a tree planted by the streams of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, and its leaf shall not wither." The sacred Psalmist, making what is true in essence somewhat obscure in words, out of necessity, sings in the thirty-fifth Psalm: "For with thee is the fountain of life." B And in the one hundred and forty-seventh: "He will send forth his Word, and he will dissolve them; his Spirit shall blow, and the waters shall flow, gladdening the great city of God." C This is the whole inhabited world. For, to speak in this way, what each city is to men, this the inhabited world is to the Almighty. Baruch, lamenting the people who were in the land of the Chaldeans, who did not have the Holy Spirit, cries out: "What is it to you, Israel, that you are in the land of your enemies? You have grown old in a strange land, you have been defiled with the dead, you have been reckoned with those who are in hell. You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom; if you had walked in the way of God, you would have lived in peace for the age of time." He calls God the fountain, and the Holy Spirit wisdom. John, from the person of the Son to the Samaritan woman: "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give me to drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water," meaning the immortal waters of the pool of the Holy Spirit. D For that all these things were spoken concerning the Spirit of God, the aforementioned evangelist interpreted in open words. For when the Savior had said: "If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water," he immediately added: "But this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive."
XXIII. The creature is anointed with created and sanctified oil in baptism.
The Savior, as God, was anointed with His altogether holy and equal Spirit, as He is Himself, the uncreated Spirit, above His fellows, that is, above us. For if the Holy Spirit were a creature, He who is uncreated would not have been anointed with his own work. The witnesses of this matter are those whom I submit. Isaiah, speaking from the person of the Savior: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me." And David: "Therefore God, your God, has anointed you."A What is the meaning of "therefore"? It is because, being God not made by hands, he was anointed by God who is uncreated and without beginning. He said, "Your God," because of his birth from the Virgin. Peter says in the Acts: "You yourselves know the word that took place throughout all Judaea and Samaria, having begun from Galilee after the baptism which John preached; Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and power." The Acts also say: "They were gathered in truth in this city against your holy child Jesus, whom you anointed." The Song of Songs also interprets this matter thus: "Ointment poured out is your name, therefore the maidens have loved you." It says that the name of the ointment is for the Christ, that of the Paraclete, since both hypostases share the name, and in themselves they emit the fragrance of the nature of God and the Father. By "maidens" he means the Churches in which he is glorified, concerning whom David also said in the sixty-seventh psalm: "The princes went before, B following the singers, in the midst of maidens playing timbrels." He spoke thus because of the proclamation of the faith and because they resound throughout all the earth in readings and psalms. The Bridegroom himself, beautiful in form, speaks modestly to each of them in the Songs: "Behold, you are beautiful, my neighbor! Behold, you are beautiful." And again, he sings as it were an epithalamium: "Come from Lebanon, bride; come from Lebanon; you shall come and pass by from the beginning of faith." That we also receive an anointing in the renewal, that is, in baptism, John writes in his first Epistle: "And you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things." As, he says, in the economy the Savior [was anointed], so you also have an anointing from the Holy Spirit. And that this saving gift is bestowed upon us in common by the blessed Trinity, they teach thus: Isaiah says, "And the Lord of Sabaoth shall make for all the nations on this mountain: they shall drink wine, they shall be anointed with ointment on this mountain. Deliver all these things to the nations." For by the "mountain" he signifies the Church of God, because of the height of the faith; by "wine," the lordly saving blood; by "ointment," that with which we are anointed having been sanctified by the priest, as he previously announced. C John in the same first Epistle concerning Christ: "And you also have the anointing..." D
received from him, abideth in you; and ye need not that any man teach you, but as his anointing teacheth you of all things. B And Paul in the second Epistle to the Corinthians saith: Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us is God, who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.
CAP. VII.
Regarding the divine operations and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Now indeed, when the oracles of the Scriptures have quite accurately shown to us that the nature of the Holy Spirit, which exists above all life and mind, is divine and supreme, they likewise declare His most provident and entheatic operation, suitable to such a nature, in this manner:
1. In that He quickeneth, as being the Spirit of God who quickeneth all things, according to Paul, the trumpet of the faith, who writes to the Romans: For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death; and again: But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead dwell in you, C he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you; and to the Corinthians: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. By "the letter" he meant the Mosaic law, which ordains an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and avenges itself on him who lives foolishly; but by "the quickening one," the Holy Spirit of God, who hath made us no longer under the law, but under grace, and commands us
A not to render evil for evil, but rather to provide good in return for evil. "For," he says, "if thine enemy hunger, feed him"; and again to the same: "The first Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam a quickening Spirit"; and to the Galatians: "He that soweth in the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting"; and according to John, speaking from the Savior: "It is the Spirit that quickeneth." A Ezekiel declares this very thing, and that together with God, as His own Spirit, He will perform the resurrection, prophesying thus: "Thus saith the Lord unto these dry bones: Behold, I bring the Spirit of life into you, and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and will stretch out skin upon you, and I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and ye shall know that I am the Lord." B Therefore, this substantial life and the quickening power has neither beginning, nor end, nor mutation; and that which is not subject to these things is by nature and in truth God, as indeed possessing the things which by excellence are attributed to God the Father from Himself. For nothing created can be the cause of life, or is able to show life in itself; but all things are dead that are deprived of the divine Spirit. "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being," as the apostolic Acts have said. And for if all things that come into being are also corruptible, and those things which are corrupted are deprived of life as they persist, how could they bestow these things upon others, of which they themselves are in need? We are made alive, therefore, by the Holy Spirit, just as also by Him who said: "I am the resurrection, and the life."
C II. Because of the identity of the Godhead and the one operation, the Scriptures say that, according to the form of a servant, Jesus Christ was at times raised D
by the Father, at times by himself, and at times by the A Holy Spirit, in this manner. The Acts says: "Him God raised up the third day." John, speaking from the person of the Savior, says: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But he was speaking of the temple of his body." And again: "I lay down my soul, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." Peter in his first Epistle says: "Christ B once died for sins for us, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God; being put to death indeed in the flesh, but brought to life by the Spirit."
III. Because the Holy Spirit creates the great creature, man, and raises him from the dead, and gives him life, and turns back to heaven, and renewed the earth when it was defiled by human iniquities, and the Holy Spirit warmed it again without labor, and as it were spontaneously, as being a co-creator and having equal power with the God who C founded it in the beginning as the supreme architect, as it is permitted for us to know, from those things which these writers have declared: Job: "The divine Spirit, which made me, and the breath of the Almighty, which teaches me." David in the 103rd Psalm: "Thou shalt send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth." This the Apostle confirms, writing to the Corinthians in the second Epistle: "Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creature: old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." In the 31st Psalm: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their powers by the Spirit of his mouth." Do not pass over the things that are to be heard from this; but behold that the Spirit of God, remaining always as the creator and good God, provides a lasting friendship to the creature, and has bound it with indissoluble bonds, and has made it unshakable, and supports all things by his own power; and that it is forbidden to call the creature that which creates and strengthens the creatures of God. For he is a fellow-worker and D consubstantial...
with God, as he is his Spirit and Finger, as was shown in the first book, A mystically pointing this out and proving it, just as David prophesies in the eighth Psalm: "For I will behold the heavens, the works of thy fingers." And Moses in Genesis, speaking as it were in the person of God and the Father to the Son and his holy Spirit, says: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let them have dominion over the things on earth." For God did not take angels or other spirits as fellow-workers or counselors; since a servant does not know what his master is doing. Nor will we ever find that he took a creature as a partner in creation (as David chants in the thirty-second Psalm: "Who fashioned the hearts of them one by one"; and in the one hundred thirty-eighth: "My bone was not hidden from thee, which thou didst make in secret"). And as Paul writes to the Romans: "For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" That is, no one among the creatures. For the word "who" B is of wide application and signifies this. By saying not "Make," but "Let us make," he shows that the Son and the holy Spirit are not ministering spirits, but are of one power and one will with God; and by adding "according to our image and likeness," [he signifies] that there is one essence of the Trinity. And he shows that this was not said to the angels, as those do who ignorantly and foolishly belittle and diminish (if it is lawful for a man to say this without peril) the image and likeness of the formless, figureless, and ineffable Trinity. Therefore the same cosmographer added: "And God made man; according to the image of God he made him; male and female he made them; and he blessed them." And again: "God saw that it was good," in which utterances again the perfection, concord, ornamental wisdom, and entirely C abundant nature of the self-complete and generative Trinity is signified mystically. Since Moses—or rather, God who spoke through him—did not deem these things worthy of theaters and the multitude, but only of those who would not violate them. For "God," that is, the Son, "made man; according to the image of God," that is, of the Father, "he made him, and God," that is, the Spirit, "saw that it was good, and he blessed them," that is, he sanctified them. And the phrase "according to the image," as it seems to me, must be understood to mean that from the divine breath we possess the immortal Spirit, and a mind that is ever-running and governing, unto that which is necessary, and a wise reason that is pleasing to the One who gave it, and able, with faith, to be the cause of procreation, and of life, and of the resurrection of the dead, and of the moving of mountains; D and in addition to these, that we have partaken of his very goodness.
A Then also Paul, as was said a little before, says: "He will give life even to our mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in us." And in the Epistle to the Hebrews, proclaiming that the ages were made and the creation was established by the Holy Spirit—and calling the Spirit the Word of God, as has already been mentioned—he writes: "By faith we understand that the ages were prepared by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." And again: "Carrying all things by the Word of his power." And the Psalmist says: "You made all things in wisdom," B which is to say, in your Spirit and in your Son. How then is the divine Spirit not without beginning, and a creator, and truly God? The Spirit is inseparable from Him who breathed Him forth, and from the creating Son; He who fashioned the ages, with which the heaven and the things in it, and everything that is created, were brought forth; He who carries and directs all things by His own power; He who, immediately when the heaven, the earth, and the sea were created, [84 α] was "borne over the water," and made it productive and nourishing of living things. For just as through the statement in Job concerning the Son, "Who alone stretched out the heaven," one does not remove from the work of creation the Father from whom C all things are, and in whom all things consist (for how could these things otherwise be true?), so neither is it pious to push aside the Spirit of God—the Spirit of wisdom, power, and holiness—from being a co-creator with God. And what greater proof for this could be found than that the Spirit of God at every baptism renews and sanctifies, and calls one back to the better and primary form of life? For this also signifies the
formula by which he himself is commemorated in baptism together with the Father and the Son, so that the Apostle exclaims regarding those who, through regeneration, hope to become whole and perfect and to enjoy the greatest of all gifts, the renewal: “That you may be according to the image of him who created you.” B David also prophesies in the psalm: “A people who is being created shall praise the Lord.” Unless he had a common essence, and dominion, and operation with the Father and with him through whom all things were made, namely the Son, he would not renew, nor would he sanctify. Therefore, after the resurrection, Christ, creating the man corrupted by disobedience anew together with the most holy Spirit, breathed into the faces of the disciples and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit,” C fulfilling in this way the prophecy of Nahum, which, due to the vehement and unrestrained desire that carried the prophet toward the immense beauty of the object, relates as having already happened what was to happen: “He who breathes into your face has ascended from the earth, and delivers you from tribulation.”
That sanctification (which it is the task of the Holy Spirit to afford) is a creation, David the psalmist testifies: “Create a clean heart in me, O God,” which is to say: Sanctify me, so that I may be renewed, since I have been corrupted by sin; otherwise, how could another heart have been created for him? But those things which he joins to the D preceding remarks are consistent: “And,” he says, “renew a right spirit in my inward parts,” that is, grant me your venerable Spirit, who transcends and surpasses all things, so that, being cleansed by his sanctification, I may be rendered a temple worthy of him. For from the governance and presidency of him alone, and of your Son, you also are marked upon us, O Lord, and we receive a remedy for all evils, and we have a firm hope of every eternal good. For that David requests this to be renewed in him is manifest; for how could the spirit which he already possessed come into him as if new, and be renewed? Indeed, even Scripture [85 a] knows that sanctification is a greater and more necessary thing than creation, for it says concerning the wretched Judas who had lost his sanctification: “It would have been good for him if that man had not been born.” Since, it says, he did the most inconvenient of all things, and rendered back the Master, having exchanged the Life for silver, to no evil end. And indeed, concerning the servile form in the ineffable economy, of which John says: “And the Word became flesh,” and Paul: “He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” Solomon said: “Wisdom built herself a house,” and Matthew reported the sameness of the divine nature and operation thus: “The birth of Jesus Christ was in this way: after his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” And the archangel also said: “For that which is born in her is of the Holy Spirit.”
And again: “The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; wherefore also the holy thing which is born, shall be called the Son of the Most High.” B It must therefore be remembered that the evangelist, on account of the babbling of the heretics, set the origin before the Incarnation, and then the birth. For they, seizing upon the testimonies of the Scriptures which we cite, ask us in a show of hypocrisy: “Is Christ, then, the Son of the Spirit?” They do not faithfully listen to these things, nor to what was said by Him to the apostles: “Know ye not what manner of Spirit the Son of man is.” If, therefore, because the Father is the true God, it follows that His operation is divine in every way and altogether, and since the operation of the Holy Spirit appears equal and similar to this, it follows that He too is the true God. It is fitting to say the same thing also regarding the Son. For if the operation of the Father were better than that of the Son or the Spirit—for why indeed would the Spirit or the Son operate in us at all?—they would be bringing in an inferior power if they were (as the heretics say) of a different nature. But if the filling of the Son and of the Spirit is useful and saving, the Son or the Spirit will in no respect be different. For neither would the Most High, so rich in mercy, have borrowed from one who is inferior and poorer, nor have we been operated upon in a dual and disparate way. Indeed, what reason is there to call a human being, for instance, a maker and creator of good or evil things, while the Spirit is not? But a human being, by the permission of God, may do this or that; yet he creates [85b] from the substance placed beforehand by God, building, whatever he might wish, out of non-living things—not, however, creating the substance itself, as we have already said. But the Spirit creates authoritatively, and brings into being substance from non-existence, as being a co-worker and the breath of the Almighty. Wherefore God in Ezekiel, showing that our own spirit is to be renewed, but that the Holy Spirit is the one who renews—and that He is not merely "spirit," but truly His own—declares such things: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit within you.” But those who disregard these divine utterances and remain in every perplexity of the righteous, C finally to themselves—to the question, “Know ye not what manner of spirit ye are of”...
A externally they have used these arts, and they attempt to transfer what has been so clearly spoken to other and still other things. For they say in these very words: “He who created the dead alone raises up those who are being put to death. For a painter cannot restore the work of an architect that is decaying, nor can a hunter restore the work of a shipbuilder, nor a runner that of a builder; but rather an architect is the architect of an architect, and a shipbuilder the shipbuilder of a shipbuilder.” But the Holy Spirit, they say, neither raised the dead nor created; for once, they say, in Adam was the nature of men created, and neither another besides that one, nor again many times. And indeed Eve also was created together with Adam by the common law of nature, but later was fashioned. But we, the orthodox—since to create and to raise the dead is especially a mark of divine power—confess that the Holy Spirit, having done these things, is God. For “By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and by the B Spirit of his mouth all their powers.” And since, from the beginning, when all things were being created, He was present and held existence inseparably with the Godhead and with the operation, for this reason also, when they are being renewed, He is present and is commemorated alongside them. For what these men themselves have said was not of a different essence—that is, of a different nature—but of the Creator alone to renew. Concerning, therefore, those who exist and are being governed, as though they were not then, but now are being spiritually and more divinely created, David and Paul preach, as was previously said, and as we shall find in many places. For the whole of time would fail me if I wished to mention everything everywhere. Unless, therefore, they thought otherwise in the Scriptures than they appeared to those very persons—if, first of all, they had in mind the divine C Scriptures mentioned in this book and the one before it; for what would they say, upon hearing these things, that He who used them teaches? But second, they would have reasoned that, in the way that the Father is a fellow-creator with the Son who created, by His own good pleasure, so also is His Spirit; and not toward an examination of those who are not equal, of those requiring the binding of one another and of the constraint of time, and not even fulfilling the reasoning readily and from every side faultlessly, did they bring the matters of the blessed Trinity, which is unapproachable to all and which has also lost us the restoration of reasons and materials, to the point of saying things they would surely never have uttered. For why, how great should we say it is to the God and Father who once willed for all things to subsist through the Word? Certainly, it has been proclaimed D concerning Him from the seed of David and Abraham, and from the root of Jesse according to the flesh, as has just been said: “For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit,” so that from this also it may be admitted that the sanctifying Spirit was a co-worker with the good-doing Creator. Therefore, it is also written again: “Jesus was led in the Spirit into the wilderness,” because the sovereign Spirit was with Him, as God with God, and as holding all things together and being present everywhere, with Him upon whom all things are established, and who is in all things and fills them, “A new spirit will I give within you.”
A For if not, by their line of reasoning and their method, neither is the Father a Creator, or one who raises the dead. For all things were created by the Son without toil. For toil is a passion; and passion is a path to corruption. Yet, while we do not deny that the Lord was incarnate without sin from the nature of Adam—that is, from the nature of the Virgin or from our own—we say these things, and rather, we confirm this by saying that He was born of the Holy Spirit. Since, as has been said, the pre-eternal and pre-mundane Spirit of God was present from the beginning with the Maker of our nature, not as one needing assistance, but with identity and equality of divinity and will, and as light not severed from light. B Unite yourself, then, Macedonius, to the saints, who do not call the divine Spirit a creature, but say that He has proceeded from God as His Spirit by nature; or, as is your custom to say, that He is inferior to God in nature, but greater than the angels, having obtained a middle nature and rank—since the words of those saints have been justly preferred by God over yours and those of Arius. And not as the law of technical skill and sophistry suggests, is it permitted to you, with boldness, to release your own arguments against the divine Spirit, whose divine nature you could not behold even if you had the eyes of the mind C as many and of such a quality as Scripture has given to the Cherubim. For who is able to grasp the invisible and incomprehensible divinity? Either condemn your own impiety, or willingly cede the primacy to us. For what those holy men wrote is justly and deservedly preferred before God to your statements and those of Arius, nor is it permitted to you, as the law of artificial and sophistic discipline dictates, to boldly prattle on with your own words against the divine Spirit, whose divine nature you could not see in the least, even if you possessed minds' eyes as great and such as those which Scripture attributes to the Cherubim; for who is able to grasp the invisible and incomprehensible divinity, or, condemning his own impiety, willingly yield the first place to us? D All these things. Since, indeed, not by their logic or manner of acting—what they would never have said—at any time, in the Spirit into the desert. Having.
A IV. Because He sanctifies and justifies, as we said before. B V. Because He grants salvation even to those who had erred; which belongs to the omnipotent essence alone: for it is impossible that any creature should work anything without the aid of God; not even so much as to open the circles of the eyes, though closed by the eyelids. For the Apostle said this to the Philippians: "I know, indeed, that this shall turn to my salvation, through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ." As it is sung concerning the Father in Hosea, where he celebrates Him: "Besides me thou shalt not know; and there is no savior besides me"; and concerning the Son in the Acts: "And there is no salvation in any other; for there is no other name under heaven given among men, in which it behooves us to be saved." C VI. Because He frees from death, and forgives sins, inasmuch as He is indeed the one who bears this fruit, as it were, from the root of the Father’s essence, being immortal and propitious. But a creature cannot be either impeccable, or able to do of its own power anything of these things which I have mentioned: for not even any of the spirits, as was shown before, is impeccable; nay, that I may use a hyperbole of speech, perhaps not even any irrational creature: for heaven itself and the sun, if they be compared to the purity of God, are not blameless. For even if it is clear that the apostles sometimes performed such a thing, they were not victors over death or sin by their own power, but by the power of Him who said: "In my name you shall do greater things than these," and by the power of the Spirit of the Father, who spoke in them, as Paul teaches the Romans: "For the law of the Spirit in Christ Jesus hath delivered me from the law of sin and of death." And the Lord also, in John, restoring to us the Holy Spirit, whom we had lost through the ancient disobedience, breathed into the faces of the disciples and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." So great is the power proper to the Spirit, who is always to be commemorated with praise, indicated in this passage, because He Himself both forgives sins by His own power, and in His name and by His power, both the apostles and all who believe in Him grant remission of sins. D That it belongs to God alone to propitiate those who sin, the magnificent utterances of God signify: "For I, indeed," He says, "am He that blotteth out the sins..."
from your, and, "If your sins be as purple, I will make them white as snow; and if they be as scarlet, I will make them white as wool." The Savior, too, as the Son of God, said to the paralytic: "Child, your sins are forgiven," and, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world." A
VII. That the Holy Spirit works with God the Father—who is in need of nothing and is the Giver of all things—and with His Son, and distributes all things to all, not deferring until tomorrow, inasmuch as He is of the same mind and of concordant intent, possessing an uncreated existence, and reigning together with the Father, as uncreated, and being of the same essence with Him from whom He thus proceeded and with whom He has existed from eternity, being of the same deity. And that Christ, having infinite authority and power, performed signs and wonders with the virtue of this same most august Spirit, and cast out demons, as our hierophants have explained. Micah, indeed, says: "Thus," he says, "says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray." And after a little he adds: "For there shall be no one to listen to them, unless I fill them with strength in the Spirit of the Lord, and with judgment and power." B He said, therefore, that the Lord makes strength in the Spirit of the Lord, in order to declare both the Trinity and the bond of its very nature. He indicates, moreover, that judgment in which there is no longer repentance nor anyone to listen: "For in Hades," he says, "who will confess You?" The expression, "I will fill them with strength," is equivalent to saying: "I will make great retribution with the divine Spirit." Paul, however, that most approved of the apostles, writes to the Ephesians: "For this reason I bow my knees to God the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts." And to the Romans: "I have, therefore, confidence in Christ Jesus toward God. C For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not wrought through me in word and deed, for the obedience of the Gentiles, by the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit." Being of the same nature, these hypostases are worthy of the same honor; whence also this utterance is similar to the one that says, D "Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God."
Matthew, in the person of the Savior, says: "If I by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." A And just as in illumination—that is, in baptism—He operates together with the Father and the Son, it is impossible that He should be one with them in harmony and operation, without being also one in essence. For this reason, the Lord sometimes says: "The Father who dwells in me, He does the works," and at other times, as is said now: "I by the Spirit of God cast out demons." On this account, Paul also said: "In the power of the Holy Spirit," confessing that it is by the operation of the divine Trinity that the dead were raised—by Him, Eutychus; and by Peter, Tabitha.
VIII.
Because just as God and Father, so also the Holy Spirit is said to *chrematize*, that is, to deliver oracles or give divine responses, which signifies that He is God and Lord. B Thus Luke says: "There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him." And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he should see the Christ of the Lord. And he was led by the Spirit into the temple. And it happened, when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for Him according to the custom of the Law, that he took Him into his arms and blessed God and said: "Now you are dismissing your servant, Master, according to your word, in peace, because my eyes have seen your salvation." C Therefore, the Holy Spirit *chrematized*—that is, gave a response from above; and Simeon took into his arms the Christ promised to him by that *chrematism*, and blessed the One who was the author of the *chrematism*—that is, he glorified the Holy Spirit, having seen the salvation that he had received as the fulfillment of the oracle; and he called the One who had *chrematized* God and Lord. Furthermore, God the Father *chrematized* when He said to Job: "Do you think D that I have *chrematized* to you otherwise, or that you might appear righteous?" But they who are trained to fight against the true Spirit of God—since they gather, at every opportunity, for the sake of obscuring the truth, things that were said about other matters and that do not pertain to theology or to the manner in which we ought to speak of God—do not receive those things that are appropriate to the divine mystery in a simple and sincere sense, nor do they apply them to the proposed argument; but contrary to...A truth, they drag them toward their own views. For it is written, he says, in the Apostolic Acts: "Cornelius the centurion, a just man and one who fears God, and well-witnessed by the entire nation of the Jews, received a *chrematismos* [divine admonition] from a holy angel, 'to send for you to his house and to hear words from you.'" You, then, if you had held your peace and stitched shut your calumnious mouths, would have acted much more profitably. But we, directing this chapter also toward a more perfect goal—and as it were reverting to it, and preparing the cheerfulness of spirit in those who are to read these things, and injecting into them a greater orthodox zeal—we say that just as there is no communion of nature between the created and the uncreated nature, so neither does there intervene any communion of *chrematismos*. For the angel indeed announces all that which he is compelled to say by the Holy Spirit by whom he is moved—even should that thing be unknown to him; and from this he has the name "angel." The Holy Spirit, however, as one who knows all the things of God, as Paul B asserts, gives *chrematismos* in a divine manner, just as the Father does—whatsoever things He sees with the sleepless eyes of the Godhead that the Father wills, and the Son as well, and not as a minister, just as the attendant angel. "For the servant does not know what his Lord is doing," nor is it possible for one who is heterousios—that is, of a different substance—to possess the same knowledge as He who is by nature other than himself. For to every nature there follows the knowledge and memory appropriate to it; but even it happens at times to the created nature that in the long passage of time that very thing which had been known to it slips away and flies off. Wherefore these perverse men have C deliberately omitted the beginning of the passage in the struggle of the argument. For it runs: "And while Peter was pondering about the word, the Holy Spirit said to him: 'Behold, three men are seeking you. But arise, go with them, doubting nothing, because I have sent them.' And Peter, having gone down to the men, said: 'Behold, I am he whom you seek; what is the cause for which you are present?' And they said: 'Cornelius the centurion, a just man,'" and the rest as it is set forth. So that before honest judges it is evident, even here, that the angel learned the oracle from the Holy Spirit. For a distinguishing mark of the Godhead is to foretell with certainty; and this is for the good of those who hear, so that they may be secured and saved. Then do you not think, by suggesting such things, that you are both disparaging the creation, and in a way finding fault with the Creator who, D out of abundance, adorned His own works with the words spoken concerning Him—as if such a matter and His grace must follow? For from this, he slanders himself,
A and indeed he showed it is rather something worthy of praise, and he habitually gladdened his works. But we, even if the uttering of revelations [chrematizein] by the Holy Spirit brings a certain divine dignity to the whole subject—and it is enough if taken by itself as a testimony—nevertheless we have brought forward not only that, but a multitude of other high and indisputable proofs. If you attend to these without animosity, you will certainly be more speechless [90 a] than fishes. Paul, therefore, refutes your captious reasoning most clearly, writing to the Ephesians: "To me, the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for all, what is the dispensation of the mystery hidden from the ages in God, who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places through the Church." Consider, therefore, how far the nature of angels is removed from knowing anything of the future by itself, and from uttering revelations, since it learns these great things even through the Church of God in this world, which is what we are. And for conviction regarding this, one may also grasp what he wrote to the Colossians as follows: "This mystery, which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been manifested to His saints." For before this, he says, it was known to God alone. Furthermore, what concerns the benefit brought to all people—I mean those regarding the ineffable dispensation—these things have been declared to them by Peter in the words, as was said before: "Into which," he says, "the angels desire to look." If they had some innate knowledge, they would not yearn to even look into them. But since they do not have it, they fall into an overwhelming, human-like longing for those things of which the knowledge is not theirs to obtain. For it is natural that things easy to find are disregarded, while rarer things are valued. And indeed, this is not a matter of their own will, but they are beholden to the common law of their nature (I do not say all of them). [90 b] "For," he says, "if God did not spare the angels who sinned, what innate knowledge of future things, or authority to utter revelations as God does, can they have?" For if they do not know these things of themselves, nor do they utter revelations by their own authority—as is the case, and the matter is self-evident even apart from any constitution—but because the term is applied generally, you have provocatively and thoughtlessly engaged in blame and accusation, and have done nothing towards [the matter] B or against those sent by Cornelius to him, by having adorned it. C And so, while it is acknowledged even by upright judges that the angel learned even here from the Holy Spirit the things which he uttered as revelations—that is, revealed—the preeminent character and mark of divinity is to foretell infallibly, and to do so in such a way that it redounds to the benefit and utility of those who hear, so that they may take heed to themselves and be saved. Therefore, while you bring forward interpretations and commentaries of this kind, do you not reflect that you are both, in a way, jealous of the creature itself, and that you slander Him who, for the sake of liberality and munificence, honored and adorned His own creatures with those very words which were spoken of Him? Since, with this kind of work—by which I mean the revelation of the Holy Spirit or His heavenly admonition—the grace of Him who accompanies it is also present. For from this very revelation, He not only does no dishonor to Himself, but even shows Himself worthy of praise and, as is His wont, gladdens His works. We indeed, even though we could have confirmed the divine amplitude and majesty of the Holy Spirit in this whole disputation from the mere fact that He Himself utters revelations—that is, He founds oracles, or gives responses, or reveals from heaven—and even this alone, taken by itself, sufficiently demonstrates and testifies to it: yet we have brought forward not only this argument, but also many others—brilliant, sublime, and free from any doubt—from the Scriptures. To these, if you attend without aversion and disgust, you will become, as they say, more mute than fishes. D Now, indeed, even Paul, writing to the Ephesians, most clearly dissolves and refutes your captious argument: "To me, the least of all the saints, was given this grace, to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ among the Gentiles, and to enlighten all, what is the dispensation of the mystery hidden from the ages in God, who created all things: so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, through the Church." Observe, therefore, how alien it is to the nature of angels to know anything of what is to come by themselves and to utter revelations—that is, to reveal—when He [makes it known] even through the Church of God which is in this world (this Church indeed...)
A is the subject). For one might not say, if they happen to mention God the Father, that it is proper for us to say the contrary. Shall I tell you something else? See whether the angel who gave an oracle to the centurion did not mean the Holy of Holies, the Savior. For in this name, the Scripture appears to indicate Him in a hidden manner with great emphasis and divine [authority], because it announced in the economy as the Word-Son the paternal will. For it did not say by name, as it is accustomed to say: Michael, Gabriel, or someone else.
What then, out of all our words, could anyone reasonably blame? And what would anyone charge against the faith of the orthodox, which has no foundation from which to be corrected? And how is it not worthy to believe that the holy Spirit speaks royally, that is, divinely? But B the angels [speak] ministerially, that is, as servants? How difficult it is, then, by your favor, to hold the rudders, as it is said, when one does not possess the skill of a pilot; thus it is equally difficult to teach [when one] does not possess the grace of the divine Spirit, which works out the salvation of men together with the Father and the Son, nor is it the possession of the knowledge of the stability found even in the riddles of the divine oracles [91 a], nor the answer given from the wisdom of believing men; and for one without whom there is no utterance of argument, [but only] an eristic, argumentative, and varied preference.
I know clearly, O esteemed ones, and you angels of God who dwell in the heavenly light, that you—as blameless and perfect—were not vexed at the things said by me on account of the angels [who are] like you in nature, though not in the praiseworthy [quality] of their mind, to whom blame has followed from the beginning, as also to those heretics who bring into the middle, in a way they should not, the things just mentioned; who appear to you especially as being somewhat unpersuasive in the struggle against the truth. C For my argument is in defense of the divine Spirit, who enlightens all things and is zealous for divine things to the creatures; who is equivalent to the Father and His Only-begotten, who has sanctified you, and is glorified together by you, along with the Father and the Son, through the thrice-holy hymn.
Or rather, you also assented, when I praised this Spirit as [a distinct] hypostasis of God, and one, and only; and you might perhaps have wished (for the book makes a festival for me in this part), by the abundance of your favor toward the venerable and consubstantial Trinity, that these were your words which were spoken by many out of the understanding of the Scriptures, and now by me, and that silence might never be imposed upon them, and that all men might spend their leisure from [secular] matters on such a subject. Therefore, for this reason, by the most supreme judgment, you, for your part, D
A O holy Michael, were chosen to command the incorporeal hosts, and you were honored with a girdle that is, as it were, intellectual, and you exist as a certain fragrance of the all-holy and merciful Trinity, which is mistress of all. But you, B O holy Gabriel, were chosen to minister to the mystery of the ineffable economy, as one silent and faithful. And another, having been honored with a God-given gift, receives something that others—and we—have not; and we, in turn, have what you have not. For God the Word, not on account of the angels who sinned, became an angel, but on account of men who were in sin, he became man—unchangeable, without confusion, without sin, ineffably, as he knew and willed, from the Virgin; and he became in his flesh both hers and ours, remaining what he was, and is, and shall be, one and the same. "For there is," he says, "one holy, one Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father." And thus, just as he ascended from earth into heaven, he will come a second time, with the angelic, approved phalanxes of ten thousand times ten thousand ministering to him, and he shall judge and shall act according to his philanthropy. Wherefore, after the churches, also houses of prayer to God, named for your intercession, O approved pair of archangels, have been founded not only in cities, but also in private byways, and houses, and fields, C adorned with gold and silver, or even with ivory; and men, even those in territories far beyond the places that bore them, having the houses of prayer set forth as if they were the town halls of achievements, do not hesitate to cross a long sea, if need be, and at times to complete a difficult journey of many days in succession, as they hope to obtain more favor from your intercession, and a participation in the good things contested for on behalf of the good from God. For in his holy churches, and houses of prayer, and shrines, as in other heavens, he has set forth his unfailing good things; and from these things which this King of kings and Lord of lords himself has given and gives daily to each, he accepts the bloodless sacrifice offered piously and holily, and has all the honors from men. I think that even against the heretics, and concerning theology, and even the irrational animals, and indeed the very stones themselves, respond to us with zeal. For what does he who loves God not do? Or to whom does he yield the true filter of the heart? For you know (and with God be all things spoken), that I have acted among you and the saints who have come from our nature who intercede, in such a way that no one, up to this day, has had to choose to act, as it were, in litigation or accusation over you, our intercessors, who have honors in proportion to your measure before all; nor have you called me to a contest and trial over this, D even though there are those found who accuse things that are not; but not even has anyone attempted to disprove me, as if I had heard of matters— you, O holy Michael, supreme judge chosen to command the incorporeal hosts, and honored as if with a spiritual girdle, and you exist as a certain sweet fragrance of the most holy and merciful Trinity. You truly, O holy Gabriel, as a silent and faithful guardian of the secret, were chosen as a messenger to provide ministry to the mystery of the ineffable Incarnation. But others have been adorned with other gifts given to you by God, even without asking; of which gifts some have not been honored with some, and with others we have not been honored; but we also have been adorned with some, with which you have not been honored. For God the Word, not on account of sinning angels [did he become] an angel, but on account of sinning men, [he became] man, without change, without confusion,
the sinless one, ineffably, as he himself knew and willed, from the Virgin, and was made with flesh like unto the flesh of the Virgin herself and of us all, remaining what he was, and is, and shall be, one and the same. “For one,” he says, “is holy, one is Lord Jesus Christ in the glory of God the Father.” And as he ascended from earth into heaven, so he shall come again, with myriads of myriads of hosts of good angels ministering unto him: and furthermore he will then judge, and act according to his own benevolence toward men. A Therefore, after the churches, there are also oratories B which, O gracious pair of archangels, bear your name; they are erected to God not only in cities, but also in villages, privately, and in homes, and in fields, and they are adorned with gold, and silver, or even ivory: and men travel to places even far removed from the region in which they were born, C because oratories set up in them are like so many prytanea D or town halls, in which those who have made vows find them fulfilled: nor does it weary them, if need be, to cross a long sea, and [undertake] a journey of many days thereafter, and one sometimes difficult and burdensome, inasmuch as they expect to experience from you greater benevolence in interceding for them, and to become more copiously partakers of the good things which God most beneficially bestows [alt-version omitted]
upon all whom He alone knows, and who brings all things to a good and infinite end; and that the self-sufficient and indivisible Trinity may see fit to receive us—and may we be deemed worthy, together with our whole family, our whole household, our whole kin, and all our friends (for the Orthodox are our friends), along with you and all the saints—to glorify It with the thrice-holy hymn in the heavens for the endless ages of ages; and to attain the grace of Its promised, and by us believed, never-ending and indivisible kingdom. Amen. Amen. Amen. A For in His holy churches, and oratories, and martyr-shrines, as in other chapels, He has benevolently proposed His good things; and from these things which here the King of kings himself, and Lord of lords, has both given, and daily gives to each, He receives from them the bloodless sacrifice piously and holily offered, and He has all the gifts that can be given by men. But as to those things which we have said against the heretics, and those concerning the unity of the Trinity, I think that even the irrational creatures, nay, the very stones, would promptly agree with us. For what does not love achieve when it is directed toward God? Or to whom does true heart-love yield? B For as you know (and may all things be said with God’s favor), I have conducted myself among you, and with all the holy ones who were of our own nature and who intercede for us, in such a way that until this day no one has brought against me any charge of reproach on your behalf, who are our intercessors and who possess honors among all according to your measure; and no one has called me by name into contention or judgment regarding this matter; although there are not wanting those who even falsely accuse. Yet not one has attempted to refute me, as if I had listened to discourses against God the Word and the Holy Spirit, and perhaps out of reverence, or from fear of the speaker, had nodded in agreement and praised things that were not right, or that...
as if I had ever at all neglected, or been sluggish, against what is proper, in opposing them to the best of my ability.ity. On the contrary, many say that I have always come forward in public regarding such matters with great force and voice, and without agitation, to either initiate or sustain a dispute. For I consider it the greatest and eternal profit for myself, and for those who are of me, and those who are with us, to undergo every labor strenuously—and, if need be, danger—for the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who made us and saves us, and is about to judge us, and will, for the sake of his own goodness, treat us with kindness. Since, therefore, you know, as chosen worshippers of the most holy Trinity, and as legates and intercessors for the human race, that I have in nothing been wanting in my duty toward that [Trinity] which, after this, is owed to you as the cause of all things and the one that vivifies all things—insofar as you intercede for me before that same Trinity, from whom wise thoughts and expressions, pleasing and acceptable to it and useful to us, and thereafter also pleasing to you, are supplied—and I speak all the more willingly, insofar as it is appropriate that created nature be placed after uncreated, and thus be fittingly commemorated by us: pray particularly for me, and for those who have sprung from me, and for those who are with me, and for all (for it is not granted to you that you provide us anything more than this), that I may remain immovable in my conviction regarding this matter, and that all my prayers—which He knows, who alone knows all things, and to whom all things fruitfully cede for eternity, the best and in itself perfect and indivisible Trinity—may be acceptable and kindly heard; and B that we, with all our children, with our whole house, with our whole family, and with all our friends [for our friends are the orthodox], together with you, and with all the saints, may deserve to praise Him, singing the trisagium hymn in the heavens for infinite ages of ages, and to attain, through His grace, His kingdom, which is promised to us and believed in by us as interminable and indivisible. Amen. Amen. Amen.
IX. But now it is time to return to the proposed argument. A For the Holy Spirit is about to judge all things together with Christ, as God and Creator. For whose is it to judge, if not His who has communion of Deity and kingly dominion with Him who made them? As Isaiah prophesies: "There shall go forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall ascend out of the root; and the Spirit of God shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and piety; and the Spirit of the fear of God shall fill Him. He shall not judge according to opinion, nor shall He reprove according to speech. But He shall judge the humble with judgment, and shall reprove the haughty, and shall deliver the humble of the earth, and shall strike the earth with the word of His mouth, and in the Spirit He shall slay the impious with His lips." He calls a rod and a flower from the root of Jesse Him who sprang from it as if a shoot in the Incarnation, and by the sweetness of His own fragrance strengthened the earth: upon whom we have also seen the Holy Spirit resting in the Gospels; whom, finally, B the rod and flower from the root of Jesse signifies, him who germinated from it in the Incarnation, and strengthened the world with His own fragrance, upon whom we have seen in the Gospels the Holy Spirit resting; a judge [who judges] by unanimous vote.
A We wait to see Him along with the Holy Spirit at His second coming. For this is signified both by those words, "In the Spirit He shall slay the impious through His lips," and by what is said elsewhere by the same prophet: "In a Spirit of judgment, and in a Spirit of burning." David also says in the 137th Psalm: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? And from your face where shall I flee?" The expression "Where shall I go" and "Where shall I flee" carries a broad emphasis; for it signifies that the Holy Spirit is present everywhere and exists as a judge. For it is truly "terrible," as the Apostle says, "to fall into the hands of the living God," who in the 49th Psalm says: "I will reprove, and set thy sins before thy face." And the prophecy of Micah, mentioned a little before, confirms this same chapter and argument. But what stronger proof could one bring forward for this, than that which is derived from the fact that the Savior speaks thus about the Holy Spirit in John: "He coming shall reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment"?
X. B Because in the supreme power of the Holy Spirit, that Elymas the magician, an enemy of the saints and a corrupter of the truth, was blinded by a word from Paul in Cyprus. For Scripture, in order to show that that power is of the Holy Spirit, speaks in these words: "Then Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to him: Behold the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind not seeing the sun." For in truth it could not be that Paul, unless he had possessed the power of the Spirit—which works all things—could have extinguished a man’s sight with a word, a man devoted to incantations and trusting in demons.
XI. C Because by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit it came about that he who was crowned with the double crown of apostleship and martyrdom beheld the opened heavens. For the Scripture says: "Stephen, being full of the Holy Spirit, saw the heavens opened." So that what was said by the ancient poet was true of him: "From heaven then the boundless ether was rent asunder."
XII. D Because He foreknows, even as the Father and the Son; but to know the future with precision is a thing of the divine nature alone. For whatever the creature foreknows for itself, it obtains and brings forth led by conjectures; and it foresees that alone infallibly, and without any danger of deception, which the Holy Spirit has taught it. For with His divine rays He not only illuminates the heavenly powers, but also the eyes of our souls, and shows
illuminating the eyes of souls, suggests A future things in various ways, and by His own goodness and kindness grants that the creature should sometimes speak those things which are helpful and useful to human nature: which things, indeed, our material nature sometimes attributes not to Him who granted those things through the mediation of the creature, but to the creature itself. The testimonies concerning the foreknowledge of the Spirit, taken from the Apostolic Acts, are these. From the person of Peter to the Jews: “Brethren, it was necessary that the Scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became the guide of those who apprehended Jesus.” Rightly, therefore, did he say, “it was necessary;” for only the word of God is such that it cannot fail to be fulfilled. And from the person of Paul: “The Holy Spirit testifies in every B city to me, saying that bonds and tribulations await me.” And through Agabus the prophet, He foretold that there would be a famine of grain in the land because of the sins of men, as being good, just as He had also done in Nineveh, so that they, struck with fear, might escape the evil through repentance. And this famine did indeed occur much later in the time of Claudius. Furthermore, in the Gospel, Christ says concerning the Spirit: “And He shall announce to you those things that are to come;” that is, the future things.
CAP. VIII. On the foreknowledge and power which the Holy Spirit possesses in Himself.
Post the divine nature and power or operation of the Spirit of God, the oracles of the Scriptures describe, most clearly and in every way, the authority which He possesses in Himself and His voluntary distribution of gifts.
I. Because He does not do all things as a minister, but with authority, and, as He wills, He administers the gifts, whatever that ineffable, supersubstantial, and unique nature bestows: and whatever He wills, C He performs, and He breathes where He wills. D