Letters to Serapion

Contents

Chapters 1–2 of Letters 2 and 4 are not on the site: the scan text used lacks them.

Reading pages: 1.1–1.9 · 1.10–1.28 · 1.29–1.33 · 2.3–2.9 · 3.1–4.6 · 4.8–4.20 · 4.21–4.22

1. 1.1Writing from the desert, Athanasius answers Serapion’s report that some who left the Arians now call the Holy Spirit a creature, one of the ministering spirits.
2. 1.2Those who call the Spirit a creature divide the Triad into creator and creature, and so err about the Son and the Father too.
3. 1.3The opponents base their view on Amos 4:13, “who creates spirit,” but the text says simply “spirit,” not the Holy Spirit, and they interpret Prov 8:22 more carefully.
4. 1.4Scripture never calls the Holy Spirit simply “spirit” without an addition such as “of God,” “Holy,” or the article, unless the context has already made the reference clear.
5. 1.5Old Testament passages always mark the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God or of the Lord, or as Holy, never simply as “spirit.”
6. 1.6In the New Testament too the Holy Spirit is always marked as the Spirit of God, of Christ, the Holy Spirit, or the Paraclete.
7. 1.7Scripture uses “spirit” of the human spirit and of the winds, so Amos 4:13 need not refer to the Holy Spirit.
8. 1.8“Spirit” can also mean the spiritual sense of Scripture or a person’s disposition, as with Caleb; a created “spirit” is better taken as one of these or as wind.
9. 1.9Amos’s “creates spirit,” beside the announcing of Christ, refers to the renewal of the human spirit through the incarnation, not to the Holy Spirit, in whom we are renewed.
10. 1.10The “thunder” of Amos is the gospel word; Athanasius names his opponents “Tropici” for their figurative exegesis, and rejects their claim from 1 Tim 5:21 that the Spirit is an angel.
11. 1.11Scripture never calls the Spirit an angel; Zechariah’s speaking angel is distinct from God’s Spirit, and baptism joins us to Father and Son in the Spirit, not in a creature.
12. 1.12Moses refused to be led by an angel and was given God’s own Spirit instead; so the Spirit is above creation and belongs to God’s Godhead.
13. 1.13Paul’s naming of angels after Christ no more makes the Spirit an angel than Exodus naming Moses after God makes Moses divine; the Triad is one and indivisible.
14. 1.15When the opponents ask how the Spirit can proceed from the Father without being a Son, Athanasius answers that such things cannot be searched out; one must believe that God is, not ask how he is.
15. 1.19Scripture’s images—Father as fountain and light, Son as river and radiance—show the Spirit in the Son, in whom we are enlightened and from whom we drink.
16. 1.22The Spirit is from God, sanctifies, renews, and deifies, and is the image of the Son; so he cannot be a creature, and to call him one slanders the Son and the Father too.
17. 1.25Unlike changeable creatures and angels, who can fall and are present only where sent, the Spirit is unchangeable and fills all things, and so is proper to God.
18. 1.27Creatures partake of the Spirit and can fall, while the Spirit is partaken of and is one, not many; so he is of the same essence as the Son and the Father.
19. 1.28The church’s faith from the beginning is in one holy Triad, Father, Son, and Spirit, one in nature and activity, as Christ commanded in the baptismal formula.
20. 1.29If the Spirit were a creature, baptism into the Triad would mix a creature into the Godhead, and the Tropici, like the Arians, would be worshiping the creature.
21. 1.30Baptism and faith are one because the Triad is one; calling the Spirit a creature would make two baptisms, while Paul shows that every gift comes from the Father through the Son in the Spirit.
22. 1.31The Triad has one activity: the Father works through the Word in the Spirit, so that the prophets, the apostles, and Paul spoke in the Spirit with Christ speaking in them.
23. 1.32Scripture shows the Spirit to be proper to the Word and the Father’s Godhead; the Tropici, hated even by the Arians, are fighters against the Spirit.
24. 1.33Athanasius closes the letter: true worshipers worship the Father in Spirit and truth, and those who make the Spirit a creature risk the unpardonable sin.
25. 2.3Nothing in creation is almighty or unchangeable, as the Son is; so the Son, unlike creatures, is not of the same essence as they but is like the Father.
26. 2.4Creatures have a beginning and are gods only by participation, but the Son is the Creator, true God in whom the Father is.
27. 2.5Since all that is the Father’s is the Son’s, and no creature could have the Father’s properties, the Son is of the same essence as the Father, as Nicaea confessed.
28. 2.6A father begets, not makes, a son of the same essence; so God’s Son is of the same essence, and texts such as “he created” refer to his becoming man.
29. 2.9“Not even the Son knows the day” is said of Christ as man, who took our ignorance to redeem it, while as the Word he knows all things, that day included.
30. 3.1Athanasius explains why his short third letter begins with the Son: the Spirit stands to the Son as the Son to the Father, so what shows the Son is not a creature shows the same of the Spirit.
31. 3.2Like the Son, the Spirit is from God and not from nothing, so he is not a creature.
32. 3.3The Spirit is the anointing and seal that impresses Christ’s form, makes us God’s temple, and is one, not many; so he is not a creature.
33. 3.4The Son is everywhere and is Creator; the Spirit likewise fills all things and creates, so neither is a creature.
34. 3.5The Father creates through the Word in the Spirit, and the prophets and Paul spoke the Word’s message in the Spirit, so the Spirit is inseparable from the Son.
35. 3.6The grace given in the Triad is one, as the annunciation and the baptismal command show; the Lord would not have ranked a creature with the Father.
36. 3.7If the Spirit were a creature, the Triad would once have been a Dyad and grown by change; but the Triad is eternal, so the Spirit is not a creature.
37. 4.3Athanasius turns the opponents’ question (“Is the Spirit a son, and the Father a grandfather?”) back on them: Scripture names the Son and the Spirit as it does, and the Godhead of the Triad is one.
38. 4.4The Spirit is the Spirit of the Son and proper to God; why one is called Son and the other Spirit is not ours to search out, as the names of creatures are fixed by God.
39. 4.5What is handed down by faith is not to be pried into; the disciples simply believed the baptismal formula, and only heretics like Eunomius and Eudoxius ask whether the Spirit is a son.
40. 4.6Among men a son becomes a father, but in God the Father is always Father, the Son always Son, and the Spirit always Holy Spirit; the names cannot be exchanged.
41. 4.8Athanasius turns hesitantly to Serapion’s question: why is blasphemy against the Son forgiven but not blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?
42. 4.9Origen and Theognostus held that blasphemy against the Spirit is sin after baptism, citing Heb 6:4–6.
43. 4.10Origen held that the Spirit dwells only in the baptized, so their sin is against him; Theognostus that rejecting the third “boundary,” the teaching on the Spirit given to the perfected, leaves no pardon.
44. 4.12Since the Pharisees addressed by Christ were not baptized, the unforgivable blasphemy cannot simply be sin after baptism; it was their blasphemy against the Godhead itself.
45. 4.13Heb 6:4–6 forbids a second baptism, not repentance, as Paul’s readmission of the Corinthian penitent shows against the Novatianists.
46. 4.14Christ as God worked miracles and as man suffered, yet the one Lord did all things conjointly, as when his human spittle healed the blind man.
47. 4.15Those who doubt Christ’s divinity because of his body, or his body because of his miracles, can be pardoned; but those who ascribe his divine works to the devil cannot.
48. 4.16The Pharisees, like Israel with the golden calf, ascribed God’s works to another and so passed from pardonable weakness to unpardonable blasphemy.
49. 4.17Both blasphemies were against Christ himself: the lesser against his humanity, the greater, unpardonable one against his divinity, not against a Spirit greater than the Son.
50. 4.18The unpardonable blasphemy, as Mark says, was the Pharisees’ claim that Christ’s divine works came from an unclean spirit.
51. 4.19In Matt 12 “Son of Man” names Christ’s humanity and “Spirit” his Godhead, as in John 6, where the flesh he gives as food is given spiritually.
52. 4.20Doubting Christ because of his body sins against the Son of Man; ascribing his Spirit-worked miracles to Beelzebul blasphemes his Godhead.
53. 4.21Ascribing Christ’s healings to Beelzebul would make Beelzebul the author of the messianic signs foretold by Isaiah and even the creator of human nature.
54. 4.22The Pharisees, worse than Pharaoh’s magicians, and the Arians alike deny Christ’s Godhead and incur the unpardonable sin; the pious, confessing him God and man, will reign with him.