Letters to Serapion

The letter of your holy affection was delivered to me in the desert. Although the persecution pressing on us was bitter, and there was a great search by those who seek to kill us, yet “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” comforted us through your letter too. For as I remembered your affection and all the genuine brothers, I seemed to have them present with me then. So I was very glad as I held your letter; but when I read it, I began to be disheartened again because of those who have once made it their practice to fight against the truth. For you wrote, beloved and truly most dear, grieving yourself, that some, though they have left the Arians because of their blasphemy against the Son of God, nevertheless think against the Holy Spirit, saying that he is not only a creature but even one of the ministering spirits, and differs from the angels only in degree. This is a pretended fight against the Arians, but a real contradiction of the pious faith. For as those, by denying the Son, deny the Father too, so these, by speaking ill of the Holy Spirit, speak ill of the Son too. And the two parties have divided between them the opposition to the truth, so that, the one thinking against the Word and the other against the Spirit, they hold the same blasphemy against the holy Triad. Seeing these things, then, and reflecting much, I became disheartened that the devil has again found sport in those who act out his madness; and I had decided to keep silent at such a time. But at the urging of your holiness, and because of their heterodoxy and satanic rashness, I have written this letter briefly, and even this with difficulty, only so that you too, taking occasion from it, may add what is lacking according to the understanding you have, and the refutation of the impious heresy may be complete.

This notion too is not foreign to the Arians. For having once denied the Word of God, they naturally speak the same ill of his Spirit too. So there is no need to say anything more to them; what has been said against them before is enough. But to those who have been deceived about the Spirit it is fitting to speak, examining the matter “in some manner,” as they themselves would say. For one might marvel at their folly: not wishing the Son of God to be a creature, and thinking rightly in this, how have they endured even to hear that the Spirit of the Son is a creature? For if, because of the oneness of the Word with the Father, they will not have the Son himself be one of the originated things, but think—as is true—that he is the creator of the things made, why do they call the Holy Spirit a creature, who has the same oneness with the Son that the Son has with the Father? And they did not know that, as by not dividing the Son from the Father they preserve that God is one, so by dividing the Spirit from the Word they no longer preserve the one Godhead in the Triad, splitting it and mixing into it a foreign nature of another kind, and making it equal with the creatures. And this again shows that the Triad is no longer one, but composed of two different natures, because of the Spirit’s being of another essence, as they have fabricated for themselves. What sort of theology is this, composed of creator and creature? For either it is not a Triad but a Dyad, with creation besides; or, if it is a Triad, as indeed it is, how do they rank the Spirit of the Triad with the creatures that come after the Triad? For this again is to divide and dissolve the Triad. So, thinking wrongly about the Holy Spirit, they do not think rightly about the Son either. For if they thought rightly about the Word, they would think soundly about the Spirit too, who proceeds from the Father, and, being proper to the Son, is given by him to the disciples and to all who believe in him. And going astray in this way, they do not have a sound faith about the Father either. For those who oppose the Spirit, as the great martyr Stephen said, deny the Son too; and denying the Son, they do not have the Father either.

From where, then, do you get the pretext for such daring, that you do not fear what was said by the Lord: “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness either in this age or in the age to come”? For the Arians, although they did not understand the Word’s coming in the flesh and what was said on account of it, nevertheless took a pretext from it for their heresy, and so were convicted as God-fighters and truly as people talking idly from the earth. But you, how were you deceived? From whom did you hear it, or what is the manner of your error? “We have read,” they say, “in the prophet Amos, where God says, ‘For behold, I am he who makes firm the thunder and creates spirit, and announces to men his Christ, who makes dawn and mist, and treads upon the high places of the earth; the Lord God Almighty is his name’; and from this we were persuaded by the Arians, who say that the Holy Spirit is a creature.” Then, you have read what is in Amos; but what is said in the Proverbs, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works,” have you not read it, or have you? And this you interpret according to the truth, so as not to say that the Word is a creature; but the text in the prophet you do not interpret, but simply on hearing “spirit” you supposed that the Holy Spirit is said to be a creature? Yet in the Proverbs it is plainly Wisdom who says, “He created me”; and nevertheless, rightly, you interpret the text, so as not to number creative Wisdom among the creatures. But the text in the prophet has no mark referring to the Holy Spirit; it is said simply of “spirit.” How, then, when there is a very great variety concerning spirits in the Scriptures, and the text can have its own correct meaning, do you, as though contentious or harmed by the bite of the Arian serpent, suppose that the Holy Spirit is spoken of by Amos, only so as not to forget to think him a creature?

Tell us, then, whether anywhere in the divine Scripture you find the Holy Spirit called simply “spirit,” without the addition of “of God,” or “of the Father,” or “my,” or “of Christ himself” and “of the Son,” or “from me,” that is, from God, or without the article, so that it is said not simply “spirit” but “the Spirit,” or this very name, “the Holy Spirit,” or “Paraclete,” or “of truth,” that is, of the Son, who says, “I am the truth”—so that, on hearing simply “spirit,” you should suppose it to be the Holy Spirit? Let those cases now be set aside where people who have already received him are spoken of again, and where those who first learned about the Holy Spirit afterwards, by way of resumption and reminder, are not ignorant of whom they are hearing, even when only “the Spirit” is said—especially since even so it is said with the article. And in general, without the article or the aforesaid addition, the Holy Spirit would not be signified. An example is what Paul writes to the Galatians: “This only I wish to learn from you: did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” What had they received but the Holy Spirit, who is given to those who believe and are reborn through the washing of regeneration? And writing to the Thessalonians, “Do not quench the Spirit,” he was speaking to those who knew what they had received, so that they might not through negligence quench the grace of the Spirit kindled in them. And in the Gospels, when the evangelists say of the Savior in a human way, because of the flesh he took, “And Jesus, full of the Spirit, returned from the Jordan,” and “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness,” it has the same sense. For Luke had said before, “Now when all the people were baptized, and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form, like a dove, upon him.” And it was plain that when “the Spirit” was said, the Holy Spirit was signified. So among those with whom the Holy Spirit is, even if only “the Spirit” is said, without the addition to it, there is no doubt that the Holy Spirit is signified, especially when it has the article.

But you, tell us what was put to you: whether you have found anywhere in the divine Scripture the Holy Spirit called simply “spirit,” without the addition to it that we mentioned, and apart from the observation we made. But you could not say so; for you will not find it written. Rather, in Genesis it is written, “And the Spirit of God moved above the water,” and a little later, “My Spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh”; and in Numbers Moses says to the son of Nun, “Are you jealous for my sake? Who would grant that all the Lord’s people were prophets, when the Lord gives his Spirit upon them!” And in Judges, of Othniel: “And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel.” And again: “And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah.” And of Samson: “The boy grew,” it says, “and the Lord blessed him,” and “The Spirit of the Lord began to go out with him,” and “The Spirit of the Lord leapt upon him.” And David sings: “Do not take your Holy Spirit from me”; and again in the hundred and forty-second psalm: “Your good Spirit will lead me on level ground; for your name’s sake, O Lord, you will give me life.” In Isaiah it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.” And before this it was said: “Woe, apostate children! Thus says the Lord: You have made a plan not through me, and covenants not through my Spirit, to add sins upon sins”; and again: “Hear these things: not from the beginning have I spoken in secret; when it came to be, I was there; and now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.” And a little after, he says thus: “And this is my covenant with them, said the Lord: my Spirit, which is upon you”; and again, in what follows, he adds: “Not an elder nor an angel, but the Lord himself saved them, because he loved them and spared them; he himself redeemed them, and took them up, and lifted them up all the days of old; but they disobeyed and provoked his Holy Spirit, and he turned to be their enemy.” And Ezekiel says thus: “And the Spirit took me up and brought me into the land of the Chaldeans, to the captivity, in a vision, in the Spirit of God.” And in Daniel: “God stirred up the holy spirit of a young boy named Daniel, and he cried out with a loud voice: I am innocent of the blood of this woman.” And Micah says: “The house of Jacob provoked the Spirit of the Lord.” And through Joel God says: “And it shall be after these things that I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.” And through Zechariah again it is the voice of God saying: “But receive my words and my statutes, which I command by my Spirit to my servants the prophets”; when also, accusing the people, the prophet said a little later: “And they made their heart disobedient, so as not to hear my law and the words which the Lord Almighty sent by his Spirit by the hands of the former prophets.” These few things we have gathered and said from the Old Testament.

Ask too about what is in the Gospels and what the apostles wrote, and you will hear how there too, though there is a very great variety of spirits, the Holy Spirit is named in a special way, not simply “spirit,” but with the addition we spoke of. When the Lord, as I said before, was baptized in a human way because of the flesh he bore, the Holy Spirit is said to have descended upon him; and giving the Spirit to the disciples he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”; and he taught them, “The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things.” And a little later he said of the same: “When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me”; and again: “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you”; and a little later: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” And completing in this the whole theology and our perfection, by which he joined us to himself and through himself to the Father, he commanded the disciples, “Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; and, having promised to send him to them, “he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem”; and a few days later, “When the day of Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all together in one place; and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a rushing violent wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting; and there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed, and they sat upon each one of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” From then on, through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, the Holy Spirit was given to those who were reborn. And one Agabus prophesied in him, saying, “Thus says the Holy Spirit”; and Paul said, “In which the Holy Spirit has made you bishops, to shepherd the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood”; and when the eunuch had been baptized, “the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip.” And Peter wrote: “Obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls; concerning this salvation the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating, when he testified beforehand to the sufferings of Christ and the glories after them.” And John wrote: “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” And Paul writes to the Romans: “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you”; and to the Corinthians: “For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him? So also no one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God. But we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we might know the things freely given to us by God”; and a little later: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”; and again: “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God”; and again: “All these are worked by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills”; and again: “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” See how he writes to the Galatians too, saying: “that the blessing of Abraham might come in Christ Jesus, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith”; and again: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” And to the Ephesians he spoke thus: “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption”; and again: “eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” And to the Philippians he wrote boldly: “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice; yes, and I will rejoice. For I know that this will turn out for my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my eager expectation and hope that I shall not be put to shame in anything”; and again: “For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus.” And to the Thessalonians he testifies: “Therefore whoever disregards this disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you”; and to the Hebrews thus: “The Holy Spirit indicating that the way into the holy places has not yet been opened while the first tabernacle is still standing”; and again: “How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as common the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?”; and again: “For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the Spirit …

See how the Holy Spirit is made known throughout the divine Scripture. What, then, did you see of this kind in the prophet? For what the prophet now calls “spirit” does not even have the article, so that you might at least have a pretext. But you simply dared to devise figures of speech for yourselves and to say that the spirit said to be created is the Holy Spirit himself, though you could have learned from studious men about the difference between spirits. For a man’s spirit too is spoken of, as David sings: “By night I communed with my heart, and my spirit was vexed”; and Baruch, praying, says: “A soul in distress and a weary spirit cries out to you.” And in the song of the three young men: “Bless the Lord, you spirits and souls of the righteous.” And the apostle writes: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God; and if children, then heirs”; and again: “No one knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him.” And in the letter to the Thessalonians he prays: “May your spirit and soul and body be kept whole and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The winds too are called spirits: thus in Genesis, “And God brought a wind upon the earth, and the water subsided”; and in the story of Jonah, “And the Lord raised a wind upon the sea, and there was a great storm on the sea, and the ship was in danger of breaking up.” And in the hundred and sixth psalm it is written: “He spoke, and a stormy wind arose, and its waves were lifted up”; and in the hundred and forty-eighth psalm: “Praise the Lord from the earth, you dragons and all deeps, fire, hail, snow, ice, stormy wind, which do his word”; and in Ezekiel, in the lament over Tyre: “In the heart of the sea, in much water, your rowers brought you; the south wind shattered you.”

And if you read the holy Scriptures, you too will find that the sense contained in the divine words is called “spirit,” as Paul writes: “who has also made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit; for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” For the text is engraved in letters, but the sense in it is called spirit. So too “the law is spiritual,” so that, as he said again, we may serve not in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the spirit. And he himself, giving thanks, said: “So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin.” And Philip, wishing to turn the eunuch from the letter to the spirit, said: “Do you understand what you are reading?” Caleb too is attested in Numbers as having such a spirit, God saying: “But my servant Caleb, because another spirit was in him and he followed me, I will bring him into the land into which he went.” For speaking with a different mind from theirs, he became pleasing to God. God urged the people to have such a heart, saying through Ezekiel: “Make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.” These things being so, and so great a difference concerning spirits having been shown, you would have done better, on hearing of a spirit being created, to think of one of those mentioned above—such as that of which it is written in Isaiah: “Aram has made an agreement with Ephraim; and his soul was shaken, and the soul of his people, as a tree in a forest is shaken by the wind.” Such too was “The Lord raised a wind upon the sea,” because of Jonah. For the winds follow the thunder, as with the rain in the time of Ahab, as it is written: “And it came to pass meanwhile, …”

“But since the oracle mentions Christ,” they say, “it follows that the spirit spoken of must be understood as nothing other than the Holy Spirit.” So then, you have observed that the Holy Spirit is named together with Christ; but where did you learn to divide him in nature and estrange him from the Son, so that you say Christ is not a creature but call the Holy Spirit a creature? For it is absurd to name together and glorify together things unlike in nature. What fellowship, or what likeness, has the creature with the creator? Otherwise it is time for you to number with the Son, and join to him, the creatures made through him. It would be enough, then, to understand what is written as concerning the wind, as has been said; but since you make a pretext of the mention of Christ in the text, it is necessary to look carefully at what is said, to see whether we may not find a more fitting sense for the spirit that is said to be created. What, then, is “announcing his Christ to men” but his becoming man? And this is equivalent to saying, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel,” and to the other things written about his coming. And when the coming of the Word in the flesh is announced, what spirit should one understand as created but the spirit of men, which is created anew and renewed? For this too God promised through Ezekiel, saying: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will give you; and I will take away the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh; and my Spirit I will put within you.” When was this fulfilled, if not when the Lord came and renewed all things by grace? See, in this text too the difference between the spirits is shown: our spirit is the one being renewed, … while the other God says is his own, in which ours too is renewed; as the psalmist says in the hundred and third psalm: “You will take away their spirit, and they will fail and return to their dust. You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.” And if we are renewed in the Spirit of God, then the spirit now said to be created is not the Holy Spirit, but ours. And if, because all things came to be through the Word, you rightly think that the Son is not a creature, how is it not blasphemous for you to call the Spirit a creature, in whom the Father through the Word perfects and renews all things? And if, because it is written simply that spirit is created, they fabricated for themselves the idea that this is the Holy Spirit, they ought now to be persuaded that what is created is not the Holy Spirit, but our spirit, which is renewed in him; for which David too prayed, singing: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Here it is said to be “created”; but earlier he formed it, as Zechariah says: “Who stretches out the heaven and lays the foundation of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him.” For what he formed before, this, when it had fallen, he created anew, himself coming to be in the creature, when the Word became flesh, “that,” as the apostle said, “he might create the two in himself into one new man,” “created after God in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” For he did not speak as if another man had been made besides the one made in the beginning after the image, but counseled them to take up the mind created and renewed in Christ; which again is shown through Ezekiel, who says: “Make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit; and why will you die, house of Israel? For I do not desire the death of the one who dies, says Adonai the Lord.”

Since, then, the spirit that is created has this meaning, the thunder that is made firm might fittingly be understood as the faithful word and the unshaken law of the spirit. For wishing James and John to be its ministers, the Lord called them Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder; and John, at any rate, truly cries out from heaven: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” For before, the law had a shadow of the good things to come; but when Christ was announced to men and came, saying, “It is I who speak; here I am,” then, as Paul said, “his voice shook the earth, he having promised before: Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven. And this ‘yet once more’ indicates the removal of the things that are shaken, so that the things that are not shaken may remain. Therefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we serve God acceptably.” And the kingdom which he calls unshaken, David sings of as made firm: “The Lord reigns; he has put on majesty; the Lord has put on strength and girded himself; for he has established the world, which shall not be shaken.” So the text in the prophet signifies the coming of the Savior, in which we too were renewed, and the law of the spirit remains unshaken. But these men, who are truly Tropici, have come to terms with the Arians and divided with them the blasphemy against the Godhead, so that those call the Son a creature and these the Spirit; and they have dared, as they themselves say, to invent figures for themselves once more, and to misinterpret the apostle’s text as well, which he wrote well to Timothy, saying: “I charge you before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels that you keep these things without prejudice, doing nothing by partiality.” They say that, since he named God and Christ and then the angels, the Spirit must be numbered with the angels, and be of their rank himself, and be an angel greater than the others. First, then, this discovery belongs to the impiety of Valentinus, and these men have not escaped notice uttering his views. For he said that when the Paraclete was sent, the angels of his own age were sent with him; and then, by bringing the Spirit down to the level of the angels, they rank the angels with the Triad. For if, according to them, the angels come after Father and Son, plainly the angels belong to the Triad, and are no longer “ministering spirits” …

What, then, is this great folly of theirs? Where in the Scriptures, again, did they find the Spirit called an angel? I must say the same things as before. He was called Paraclete, and Spirit of adoption, and Spirit of holiness, and Spirit of God, and Spirit of Christ; but nowhere angel, nor archangel, nor ministering spirit, as the angels are. Rather, he too, together with the Son, is ministered to by Gabriel, who says to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” Since the Scriptures do not call the Spirit an angel, what defense could these men have for such irrational daring? When even Valentinus, who sowed this malice in them, named the one Paraclete and the others angels—though, most senseless as he was, he too ranks the Spirit with the angels as being of their age and sent at the same time. “But see,” they say, “in the prophet Zechariah it is written, ‘Thus says the angel who speaks in me’; and it is plain that he means that the one speaking in him, the Spirit, is an angel.” But they would not have said this if they had attended to the reading. For Zechariah himself, when he saw the vision of the lampstand, says: “And the angel who spoke in me answered and said: Do you not know what these are? And I said: No, lord. And he answered and said to me: This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying: Not by great power nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.” It is very plain, then, that the angel who spoke to the prophet was not the Holy Spirit; he himself was an angel, while the Spirit is the Spirit of God Almighty; and he is ministered to by an angel, but is inseparable from the Godhead and proper to the Word. And if they make a pretext of the apostle’s text because the elect angels are named after Christ, let them say which of all these is the one ranked with the Triad. For they are not all one in number. Or which of them is the one who descended into the Jordan in the form of a dove? For thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads are those who minister. Or why, when the heavens were opened, was it not said, “And one of the elect angels descended,” but “the Holy Spirit”? Or why did the Lord, when discoursing to the disciples about the consummation, say, making a distinction, “The Son of Man will send his angels”? And before this it was said, “The angels ministered to him”; and again he himself says, “The angels will come out.” But to the disciples, giving him, he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”; and sending them he said, “Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” For he did not rank an angel with the Godhead, nor did he join us to himself and to the Father in a creature, but in the Holy Spirit, whom, when he promised him, he did not say he would send an angel, but “the Spirit of truth, who … from the … is given.”

Moses, at any rate, knowing that the angels are creatures, while the Holy Spirit is united to the Son and the Father, when God said to him, “Go, go up from here, you and your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, into the land which I swore to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, saying, To your seed I will give it; and I will send my angel before your face, and he will drive out the Canaanite,” refuses, saying, “If you yourself do not go with us, do not bring me up from here.” For he did not want a creature to lead the people, lest they learn to worship the creature rather than God who created all things. Indeed, declining the angel, he begged God himself to lead them. And when God promised and said to him, “This word too which you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor before me, and I know you above all,” it is written in Isaiah: “Who brought up from the land the shepherd of the sheep? Where is he who put the Holy Spirit in them, who led Moses by the right hand?” And a little later he says: “The Spirit came down from the Lord and guided them. Thus you led your people, to make for yourself a glorious name.” Who does not see the truth from these words? For when God promised to lead them, see, he no longer promises to send an angel, but his Spirit, who is above the angels, and it is he who leads the people. And it is shown that the Spirit is not one of the creatures, nor an angel, but is above creation, united to the Godhead of the Father. For God himself, through the Word, in the Spirit, led the people; so throughout all the Scripture he says: “I brought you up out of the land of Egypt; you are witnesses whether there was a foreign god among you besides me.” And the saints address God: “You led your people like sheep,” and “The Lord led them in hope, and they did not fear.” To him they also offer the hymn, saying: “To him who led his people through the wilderness, for his mercy endures forever.” And the great Moses continually relates: “The Lord God, who goes before your face.” So the Spirit of God would not be an angel nor a creature, but proper to his Godhead. For when the Spirit was among the people, God, through the Son, in the Spirit, was among them.

“But let that be so,” they say themselves; “why, then, did the apostle, after Christ, not name the Holy Spirit, but the elect angels?” One might ask them the same thing: Why did Paul not name archangels, nor cherubim, nor seraphim, nor dominions, nor thrones, nor anything else, but only elect angels? Because he did not name them so, are the angels then not archangels, or are there only angels, and no seraphim or cherubim, no archangels, nor dominions, no thrones, no principalities, nothing else? But this is to impose a necessity on the apostle—why he wrote not this way but that—and to be ignorant of the divine Scriptures, and so to go astray from the truth. For see, in Isaiah it is written: “Draw near to me and hear these things: Not from the beginning have I spoken in secret …” … the people … the Lord, “and believed God and Moses his servant”: will they then number Moses with God, and after God will they understand not the Son, but only Moses? And what if they hear the patriarch Jacob too, blessing Joseph and saying, “God who has nourished me from my youth to this day, the angel who delivers me from all evils, bless these children”? Since he named an angel after God, is the angel then before the Son, or is the Son numbered among angels? Yes, they will understand it so again, having a corrupt heart. But the apostolic faith is not such, nor would any Christian at all endure these things. For the holy and blessed Triad is indivisible and united to itself; and when the Father is spoken of, his Word too is present, and the Spirit who is in the Son. And if the Son is named, the Father is in the Son, and the Spirit is not outside the Word. For there is one grace, which is from the Father and is fulfilled through the Son in the Holy Spirit; and there is one Godhead, and one God, who is over all and through all and in all. So too Paul, having said, “I charge you before God and Christ Jesus,” knew that the Spirit is not divided from the Son, but is himself in Christ, as the Son is in the Father; and he rightly added the elect angels, so that, since the charge was being given to the disciple, he, knowing that what is said by God is spoken through Christ in the Spirit, while the angels minister in our affairs, overseeing the actions of each, might keep the teacher’s exhortations, having those who watch over what is said as witnesses. Or perhaps also because of those who always behold the face of the Father who is in heaven …

Such, then, appears to me to be the sense of the divine oracles, refuting the slander of these irrational men against the Spirit. But they, as you write, persisting in their contentiousness against the truth, now no longer from the Scriptures (for they find nothing there), but belching forth from the abundance of their own heart, say again: “If he is not a creature nor one of the angels, but proceeds from the Father, …” … and his subsistence are known. But they could not say it, when even Solomon, who partook of wisdom more than all, seeing that it was impossible for men to find out these things, said: “He has also put the whole age into their heart, so that man may not find out the work that God has done from the beginning to the end.” Since they cannot find them out, then, do they not even confess that they exist? Yes, they will confess it, though they have a corrupt mind. So one might rightly say to them: O senseless and all-daring men, why do you not rather stop prying into the holy Triad, and only believe that it is, having as your teacher in this the apostle, who says, “For one must first believe that God is, and that he becomes a rewarder of those who seek him”? For he did not say how he is, but only “that he is.” But if they are not ashamed even so, let them say how the Father is, so that in this way they may learn how his Word is too. “But it is absurd,” they will say, “to ask such things about the Father.” Then let them hear that it is absurd to ask such things about his Word too.

Since such an undertaking, then, is superfluous, or rather madness, let no one ask such things any longer, but let him learn only what is in the Scriptures. For the illustrations found in them on this matter are sufficient and adequate. The Father, then, is called fountain and light: “They have forsaken me,” he says, “the fountain of living water”; and again in Baruch: “Why is it, Israel, that you are in the land of your enemies? You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom”; and according to John: “Our God is light.” And the Son, in relation to the fountain, is called river: “The river of God is full of water”; and in relation to the light, radiance, as Paul says: “who, being the radiance of his glory and the impress of his hypostasis.” Since, then, the Father is light and the Son his radiance (for we must not hesitate to say the same things about them often), one may see in the Son the Spirit too, in whom we are enlightened: “that he may give you,” it says, “the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your heart being enlightened.” And when we are enlightened by the Spirit, it is Christ who enlightens in him: “For he was,” it says, “the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world.” Again, since the Father is fountain and the Son is called river, we are said to drink the Spirit; for it is written, … Let us now look at what is said about the Holy Spirit in the divine Scriptures themselves, and, as approved money-changers, distinguish whether the Spirit has anything proper in common with the creatures, or is proper to God, so that we may call him either a creature, or something other than the creatures, proper to, and one with, the Godhead in the Triad. Perhaps in this way they may be put to shame, when they learn how far the blasphemous words they have invented are out of tune with the divine oracles.

The creatures, then, came to be from nothing, having a beginning of their coming to be; for “in the beginning God made the heaven and the earth” and all that is in them. But the Holy Spirit is said to be from God: “For no one,” it says, “knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him; so also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. But we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.” What kinship, then, judging by what has been said, has the Spirit with the creatures? For the creatures were not; but God is He who is, from whom the Spirit too is. And what is from God would not be from what is not, nor a creature, lest, according to them, he too from whom the Spirit is should be thought to be a creature. Who, then, will put up with such fools, who also say in their heart, There is no God? For if, as no one knows the things of a man except the spirit that is in him, so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit who is in him, how would it not be blasphemous to call a creature the Spirit who is in God, who searches even the depths of God? For such a person will learn from this to say that the spirit of a man is outside the man himself, and that the Word who is in the Father is a creature. Again, the Spirit is, and is called, the Spirit of holiness and renewal; for Paul writes: “declared Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord”; and again he says: “But you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God”; when also to Titus … of God. For this reason those in whom he comes to be are deified; and if he deifies, there is no doubt that his nature is God’s. And still more plainly, for the overthrow of this heresy, it is sung in the hundred and third psalm, as we said before: “You will take away their spirit, and they will fail and return to their dust. You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.” And Paul writes to Titus: “through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ.” And if the Father, through the Word, in the Holy Spirit, creates and renews all things, what likeness or kinship has the Creator with the creatures? Or how at all could he in whom all things are created be a creature? For the blasphemy against the Son follows on such a slander, so that those who call the Spirit a creature say that the Word too, through whom all things are created, is a creature. The Spirit is called, and is, the image of the Son: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” So, since even according to them the Son is confessed not to be a creature, neither would his image be a creature. For as the image is, such must be the one whose image it is. Hence the Word is rightly and fittingly confessed not to be a creature, since he is the image of the Father. So whoever numbers the Spirit with the creatures will surely number the Son with them too, slandering the Father as well in this by his slander against the Father’s image.

The Spirit, then, is other than the creatures, and has rather been shown to be proper to the Son and not foreign to God. And as for that clever question of theirs, “If the Spirit is from God, why is he not also called Son?”—it has already been shown above to be rash and daring, and it is shown to be so no less now. For even if he was not called Son in the Scriptures, but Spirit of God, he is said to be in God himself and from God himself, as the apostle wrote. And if the Son, because he is from the Father, is proper to his essence, necessarily also … And if no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God who is in him, and if with God, as James said, “there is no variation or shadow of turning,” then the Holy Spirit, being in God, would rightly be unchangeable and invariable and incorruptible. But the nature of originated and created things is changeable, since it is outside the essence of God and has come into existence from nothing. “For every man,” it says, “is a liar”; and “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”; “and the angels who did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling he has kept in eternal bonds under gloom for the judgment of the great day.” And in Job: “If he puts no trust in his holy angels, and charges his angels with something crooked; and the stars are not pure before him.” And Paul writes: “Do you not know that we shall judge angels, to say nothing of the things of this life?” Indeed, we have heard that the devil, though he was in the midst of the cherubim and had become a seal of likeness, fell from heaven like lightning. But if the creatures have such a nature, and such things are written about angels, while the Spirit is the same and unalterable and shares the Son’s unchangeableness, remaining always unchangeable with him, what likeness has the unchangeable with things that change? For it would be plain that he is neither a creature nor of the essence of the angels at all, since they are changeable; but he is the image of the Word, and proper to the Father. Again, the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world. So David sings: “Where shall I go from your Spirit?” And again in Wisdom it is written: “For your incorruptible Spirit is in all things.” But all originated things are in places divided off: sun and moon and stars in the firmament, clouds in the air; and for men he set the bounds of the nations; and the angels are sent out for ministries: “And the angels came to stand before the Lord,” as is written in Job; and “Jacob the patriarch dreamed, and behold, a ladder set up on the earth, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.” But if the Spirit fills all things, and in the Word is present in the midst of all, while the angels are inferior to him in this, and are present where they are sent, there is no doubt that the Spirit is neither one of the originated things nor an angel at all, as you say, but is above the nature of the angels.

Again, from these things too one may see that the Holy Spirit is partaken of and does not partake (for we must not hesitate to say the same things). “For it is impossible,” it says, “for those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God,” and what follows. But the angels and the other creatures partake of the Spirit himself; for this reason they can also fall away from what they partook of; but the Spirit is always the same, for he is not one of those who partake, but all things partake of him. And if he is always the same and is partaken of, while the creatures partake of him, the Holy Spirit would be neither an angel nor a creature at all, but proper to the Word, given by whom he is partaken of by the creatures; otherwise it is time for them to call the Son too a creature, of whom we have all become partakers in the Spirit. And again, the Holy Spirit is one, but the creatures are many. For the angels are thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads; and the luminaries are many, and thrones and dominions and heavens and cherubim and seraphim and archangels are many; and in short the creatures are not one, but all are many and different. But if the Holy Spirit is one, while the creatures are many and the angels many, what likeness has the Spirit with originated things? And it is not unclear that the Spirit is not one of the many, nor an angel either, but being one—or rather, being proper to the Word, who is one, and proper to God, who is one—he is of the same essence. These things, then, said about the Holy Spirit even taken by themselves, show that he has nothing in common or proper by nature and essence with the creatures, but is other than originated things, and proper to, and not foreign from, the essence and Godhead of the Son, through which, being of the holy Triad, he puts their senselessness to shame.

But let us look, besides these, at the very tradition and teaching and faith of the catholic church from the beginning, which the Lord gave, the apostles preached, and the fathers kept. For on this the church has been founded, and whoever falls away from it would neither be, nor any longer be called, a Christian. There is, then, a holy and perfect Triad, confessed as God in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, having nothing foreign or mixed in from outside, nor composed of creator and originated, but wholly belonging to the one who creates and makes; and it is like itself and indivisible in nature, and its activity is one. For the Father does all things through the Word in the Holy Spirit; and in this way the oneness of the holy Triad is preserved; and in this way one God is preached in the church, “who is over all and through all and in all”: “over all” as Father, as beginning and fountain; “through all” through the Word; “in all” in the Holy Spirit. And it is a Triad not in name only and in an imagined form of speech, but a Triad in truth and in existence. For as the Father is He who is, so his Word too is He who is, and God over all. And the Holy Spirit is not without existence, but exists and truly subsists. And the catholic church neither thinks less than this, lest it fall in with the present Jews who follow Caiaphas, and with Sabellius; nor does it devise more, lest it roll into the polytheism of the Greeks. And that this is the faith of the church, let them learn how the Lord, when sending the apostles, commanded them to lay this foundation for the church, saying, “Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And the apostles went and taught so; and this is the preaching to the whole church under heaven.

Since, then, the church has this foundation of the faith, let them tell us again and answer: Is it a Triad or a Dyad? If it is a Dyad, then let the Spirit be numbered by you with the creatures. But then your mind is not directed to one God, who is “over all” and “through all” and “in all.” For you do not have “in all,” since you divide the Spirit from the Godhead and estrange him from it; and your initiation, which you think you perform while thinking in this way, is not entire, as it should be when it is into the Godhead. For a creature is mixed into it; and you too, like the Arians and the Greeks, confess as God the creation together with God who created it through his own Word. Being so disposed, what hope have you? Or who will join you to God, when you do not have the Spirit of God himself, but that of creation? And what daring and heedlessness is yours, that you bring the Father and his Word down to the creatures, and in turn make the creature equal to God? For this is what you do by imagining the Spirit to be a creature and ranking him in the Triad. And what madness of yours is this, that you think God unjust, since not all angels or all creatures, but one of them, is numbered with God and his Word? For according to you, once the Spirit is an angel and a creature and is ranked in the Triad, not one but all the created angels ought to be ranked with it, and it should no longer be a Triad but some countless multitude of godhead; so that in this too your supposed initiation, divided here and there, may become unstable through its variety. Such are the ends of you and of the Arians, who reason against the Godhead and worship the creature rather than God who created all things.

Such absurdities, then, befall you from calling it a Dyad. But if it is a Triad, as indeed it is, and it has been shown to be indivisible and not unlike, then its holiness must be one, and its eternity one, and its unchangeable nature one. For as the faith handed down concerning it is one, and this joins us to God; and as whoever takes away anything from the Triad and is baptized in the name of the Father alone, or in the name of the Son alone, or in Father and Son without the Spirit, receives nothing, but remains empty and uninitiated, both he and the one who seems to give it—for the initiation is in the Triad—so whoever divides the Son from the Father, or brings the Spirit down to the creatures, has neither the Son nor the Father, but is godless and worse than an unbeliever, and anything rather than a Christian; and rightly so. For as the baptism given in Father and Son and Holy Spirit is one, and the faith in it is one, as the apostle said, so the holy Triad, being the same with itself and united to itself, has in itself nothing of originated things; and this is the indivisible oneness of the Triad, and the faith in it is one. But if, according to the invention of you Tropici, it is not so, and you have dreamed of calling the Holy Spirit a creature, then your faith is no longer one, nor your baptism one, but two: one into Father and Son, and another into an angel who is a creature; and nothing of yours is secure or true any longer. For what fellowship has the originated with the creator? Or what oneness have the creatures below with the Word who made them? Knowing this, the blessed Paul does not divide the Triad as you do, but, teaching its oneness, he wrote to the Corinthians about spiritual gifts, and sums up all things into the one God and Father, saying: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of ministries, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who works all things in all.” For what the Spirit distributes to each, these are supplied from the Father through the Word. For all that is the Father’s is the Son’s; and so the gifts given by the Son in the Spirit are the Father’s gifts. And when the Spirit is in us, the Word who gives him is in us too, and the Father is in the Word; and so it is as was said: “I and the Father will come and make our home with him.” For where the light is, there is the radiance too; and where the radiance is, there too is its activity and its luminous grace. And teaching this again, Paul wrote once more to the Corinthians, in the second letter, saying: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” For the grace and gift that is given is given in the Triad, from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. For as the grace given is from the Father through the Son, so there could be no fellowship of the gift in us except in the Holy Spirit. For in partaking of him we have the love of the Father, and the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit himself.

From these things too, then, the activity of the Triad is shown to be one. For the apostle does not mean that the things given are given differently and separately by each, but that what is given is given in the Triad, and that all things are from one God. That, then, which is not a creature, but is united to the Son as the Son is united to the Father, which is glorified together with Father and Son and confessed as God with the Word, and which works what the Father works through the Son—how does one who calls it a creature not commit open impiety against the Son himself? For there is nothing that does not come to be and is not worked through the Word in the Spirit. This is sung in the Psalms too: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their host”; and in the hundred and forty-seventh psalm: “He will send out his word and melt them; he will breathe his Spirit, and the waters will flow.” And we were justified, as the apostle said, “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” For the Spirit is inseparable from the Word. Indeed, when the Lord says, “I and the Father will come,” the Spirit comes in with them, no otherwise than as the Son will dwell in us, as Paul writes 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 …” And when the Son is in us, the Father is too, since the Son says, “I am in the Father and the Father in me.” Therefore too, when the Word comes to be in the prophets, they prophesy in the Holy Spirit himself. When, at any rate, Scripture says, “And the word of the Lord came to” such and such a prophet, it is shown that he prophesies in the Holy Spirit. For in Zechariah it is written: “But receive my words and my statutes, which I command by my Spirit to my servants the prophets”; and a little later, accusing the people, he said: “And they made their heart disobedient, so as not to hear my laws and the words which the Lord Almighty sent by his Spirit by the hands of his former prophets.” And Peter said in the Acts: “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand.” And the apostles together cried out thus: “Master, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David your servant, said.” And Paul, when he was in Rome, spoke boldly to the Jews who came to him: “The Holy Spirit spoke well through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers.” And to Timothy he wrote: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the sound faith, giving heed to deceitful spirits.” Therefore too, when the Spirit is said to come to be in some, it is understood that the Word is in them, giving the Spirit. When, at any rate, the prophecy “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh” was being fulfilled, Paul said, “according to the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ to me”; and to the Corinthians he wrote: “Or do you seek proof of Christ speaking in me?” But if it was Christ who spoke in him, plainly the Spirit who spoke in him was Christ’s; and indeed, with Christ speaking in him, he said again in the Acts: “And now, behold, I am going bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing what will befall me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that bonds and afflictions await me.” Hence, when the saints say, “Thus says the Lord,” they speak in no other way than in the Holy Spirit; and speaking in the Spirit, they say these things in Christ. And when Agabus too in the Acts says, “Thus says the Holy Spirit,” it is in no other way than that, the Word having come to him, the Spirit enabled him to speak and to testify to what awaited Paul at Jerusalem. Indeed, when the Spirit again testified to Paul, it was Christ himself who spoke in him, … so that the testimony that comes from the Spirit is the Word’s. So too, when the Word came upon the holy Virgin Mary, the Spirit came in with him, and the Word in the Spirit formed and fitted …

So it is shown in harmony from the divine Scriptures that the Holy Spirit is not a creature, but proper to the Word and to the Godhead of the Father. For in this way the teaching of the saints is gathered into the holy and indivisible Triad, and this is the one faith of the catholic church. But the irrational myth-making of the Tropici is out of harmony with the Scriptures and in harmony with the irrationality of the Ariomaniacs; and it is likely that they put on this act to deceive the simple. But thanks be to the Lord that, as you write, they have not escaped notice while covering themselves with their pretended opposition to the Arians. For they are hated by those too, because they call only the Spirit a creature, and not the Word as well; and they have been condemned by all, as truly fighting against the Spirit, and as soon to become dead, being bereft and empty of the Spirit. For, according to the blessed apostle, being unspiritual men, they could not receive the things of the Spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned; but those who think the things of the truth discern all things, while they themselves are discerned by no one, since they have in themselves the Lord, who reveals to them in the Spirit both himself and, through himself, the Father.

I, then, though I am living in the desert, yet because of the shamelessness of those who have turned aside from the truth, and without caring about those who wish to laugh at the weakness and lowliness of the demonstration in my words, have written briefly and sent it to your piety, earnestly begging that, when you read it, you correct some things and pardon what is weakly said. For I have handed it on in accordance with the apostolic faith handed down to us by the fathers, devising nothing from outside; but what I learned, I have engraved in harmony with the holy Scriptures. For this too agrees with what was set forth above for confirmation from the holy Scriptures; and it has not been devised from outside, but the Lord Jesus Christ himself, through himself, taught the Samaritan woman, and through her us, the perfection of the holy Triad, which is indivisible and one Godhead. The Truth himself bears witness, as he says to the Samaritan woman: “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; for the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” It has been shown, then, from this that the Truth is the Son himself, as he says, “I am the truth”; about whom the prophet David too called out, saying, “Send out your light and your truth.” The true worshipers, then, worship the Father, but in Spirit and truth, confessing the Son and in him the Spirit. For the Spirit is inseparable from the Son, as the Son is inseparable from the Father. The Truth himself bears witness, saying: “I will send you the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, whom the world cannot receive”—that is, those who deny that he is from the Father in the Son. One must, then, in imitation of the true worshipers, confess the truth and run to it. But if even after this they neither wish to learn nor are able to understand, let them at least cease from their slanders and not divide the Triad, lest they be divided from life; and let them not number the Holy Spirit with the creatures, lest, as the Pharisees of that time ascribed the works of the Spirit to Beelzebul, these too, daring the like, suffer with them the punishment that has no pardon, both here and hereafter. … I have done this too, confident that, since you have a good conscience, if anything has been left out in these things too, you will supply it.

These things being shown in this way, whoever says that the Son is a creature is impious. For he will be compelled to call a creature also the gushing fountain, and a creature the Wisdom, the Word, in whom are all the things that are the Father’s. Besides, from the following too one may see the rottenness of the heresy of the Ariomaniacs. Those to whom we are like, and with whom we have identity, are also of the same essence with us; men, at any rate, being alike and having identity, are of the same essence with one another. For the same things belong to all: being mortal, corruptible, changeable, from nothing. And angels with one another, and all the other things, are likewise of one nature with one another. Let these busybodies, then, search whether there is any likeness of the creatures to the Son, or whether they can find in originated things what is in the Son, so that they may dare to call the Word of God a creature. But they will not find it, these men who are rash in everything and go astray about piety. For among the creatures nothing is almighty, and none is ruled by another; for each is God’s own work. “The heavens declare the glory of God”; “the earth is the Lord’s, and its fullness”; “the sea saw and fled.” And all things are slaves of the one who made them, doing his word and obeying his command. But the Son is almighty, as the Father is; and this is written and has been shown. Again, among the creatures nothing is unchangeable by nature. For some of the angels did not keep their own rank; and “the stars are not pure before him”; and the devil fell from heaven, and Adam transgressed, and all things are subject to change. But the Son is unchangeable and unalterable, as the Father is. And Paul recalled this from the hundred and first psalm, saying: “And you, Lord, in the beginning founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all grow old like a garment, and like a robe you will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not fail.” And again he says: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

And again, all originated things were not, and came to be. For he made the earth as nothing; and he is the one “who calls the things that are not as though they were”; and they are things made and creatures, and for this reason they have a beginning of coming to be. For “in the beginning God made the heaven and the earth,” and all that is in them; and again, “My hand made all these things.” But the Son is He who is, and God over all, as the Father is; and this has been shown so; and he is not one who is made, but one who makes; not one who is created, but one who creates and makes the works of the Father. For through him the ages came to be, and all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be; and, as the apostle taught concerning what is in the psalm, he in the beginning founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of his hands. And again, none of the creatures is God by nature; but each of the things that came to be is called what it came to be: one heaven, another earth; some luminaries, others stars; others sea and deeps and four-footed beasts; and finally man; and before these, angels and archangels, cherubim, seraphim, and powers, principalities, authorities, dominions, paradise; and so each remains. And if some were called gods, it was not by nature but by participation in the Son. For so he himself said: “If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came.” Therefore, not being gods by nature, some at times change, and hear: “I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High; but you die like men.” Such was the one who heard: “But you are a man, and not God.” But the Son is true God, as the Father is. For he is in the Father, and the Father in the Son; and John wrote it, as has been shown; and David sings: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom”; and the prophet Isaiah cries out: “Egypt has labored, and the merchandise of the Ethiopians, and the Sabeans, tall men, shall come over to you, and shall follow after you bound in fetters, and shall worship you, because God is in you; for you are the God of Israel, and we did not know it.” Who, then, is God in whom God is, but the Son who says, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me”?

Who, these things being so and being written so, does not see that, since the Son has nothing like the creatures, while all that is the Father’s is the Son’s, the Son would be of the same essence as the Father? For as, if he had any likeness to the creatures and some kinship with them, he would be of the same essence with them, so, being foreign in essence to originated things, and being the proper Word of the Father, not other than he, since all that is the Father’s is his own, he would rightly be of the same essence as the Father. For so the fathers too understood it, and confessed at the council of Nicaea that the Son is of the same essence as the Father and from the essence of the Father. For they saw clearly that a created essence could never say, “All that the Father has is mine.” For, having a beginning of coming to be, it does not have “he who is” and “he was” eternally. And for this reason, since the Son has these, and all the things of the Father mentioned above are the Son’s, the essence of the Son must not be created, but of the same essence as the Father. And besides, a created essence could not in this respect be receptive of what is proper to God. And proper to him are the things by which God is known, such as “Almighty,” “He who is,” “unalterable,” and the others mentioned above—lest God himself, according to the senseless, should appear to be of the same essence as the creatures, by having what the creatures too can have.

And in this way too one might refute the impiety of those who say that the Word of God is a creature. Our faith is in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, as the Son himself says to the apostles: “Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And he spoke in this way so that from what we know we might understand also about what has been mentioned. As, then, we would not call fathers makers but begetters, and no one would call us creatures of our fathers, but sons by nature and of the same essence as our fathers, so, if God is Father, he is certainly Father of a Son who is so by nature and of the same essence. Abraham, at any rate, did not create Isaac but begot him; while Bezalel and Oholiab did not beget but made all the works in the tabernacle. And a shipbuilder and a house-builder do not beget what they make, but each works at it, the one the boat, the other the house. But Isaac does not make Jacob, but begets him by nature and of the same essence; and Jacob likewise Judah and his brothers. As, then, one would be mad to say that the house is of the same essence as the builder, and the boat as the shipbuilder, so one might fittingly say that every son is of the same essence as his own father. If, then, there is Father and Son, the Son must be Son by nature and in truth; and this is to be of the same essence as the Father, as has been shown from many things. Indeed, concerning the things made: “He spoke, and they came to be; he commanded, and they were created”; but concerning the Son: “My heart has uttered a good Word.” And Daniel knows the Son of God, and knows the works of God; and he saw the Son bedewing the furnace; but when speaking of the works—“Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord”—he listed each of the creatures, but did not number the Son with them, knowing that he is not a work, but that through him the works came to be, while he is hymned and highly exalted in the Father. As, then, God is revealed through him to those who know, so through him the blessing and the hymn and the glory and the power are confessed to the Father, through him and in him, so that such a confession may be acceptable, as the Scriptures say. From many things, then, and from these too, it has been shown and is shown that whoever says the Word of God is a creature is impious. … so that we may not go astray by understanding one thing for another, as the Arians have done. As, then, knowing him to be the Word, we know that “all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be,” and “by the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm,” and “he sends his word and heals all”; and knowing him to be Wisdom, we know that God by wisdom founded the earth, and the Father made all things in wisdom; and knowing him to be God, we have believed that he is the Christ. For “your throne, O God,” David sings, “is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your fellows.” And in Isaiah he himself says of himself: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.” And Peter confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” So, knowing that he became man, we do not deny what is said of him in a human way, such as hungering, thirsting, being struck, weeping, sleeping, and finally accepting on the cross death for our sake; for all these things are written about him. So too the Scripture did not hide “he created,” which fits men, but said it. For we men were created and made. But as, on hearing “he hungered,” “he slept,” “he was struck,” we do not deny his divinity, so, on hearing “he created,” it would follow to remember that, being God, he was created man. For being created is proper to men, as are the things mentioned above, hungering and the like.

For that saying too, which was well spoken but is badly understood by them—I mean, “Concerning that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels, nor the Son”—has a good sense. For they think that from his saying “nor the Son” he shows himself to be ignorant, and so to be a creature. But it is not so—far from it! For as in saying “He created me” he spoke in a human way, so in saying “nor the Son” he spoke in a human way. And the reason for his speaking so is a sound one. For since he became man, as is written, and ignorance is proper to men, as hunger is (for they know nothing unless they hear and learn), for this reason, having become man, he displays also the ignorance of men: first, to show that he truly has a human body; then, so that, having the ignorance of men in his body, he might redeem and cleanse humanity from all things and present it perfect and holy to the Father. What pretext will the Arians find any longer? What will they devise next to murmur about? They were condemned for not knowing “The Lord created me for his works,” and they have been shown not to understand “Concerning that day no one knows, not even the angels, nor the Son.” For as in saying “he created” he signifies what is human, that he became man and was created, while in saying “I and the Father are one,” and “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” and “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” he signifies his eternity and his being of the same essence as the Father; so in saying “No one knows, not even the Son,” he again speaks as man, for ignorance is proper to men. But when he says, “No one knows the Father except the Son, nor the Son except the Father,” he knows much more the originated things. The disciples, at any rate, said to the Lord in John’s Gospel, “Now we know that you know all things.” It is very plain, then, that there is nothing he does not know, since he is the Word through whom all things came to be. And since that day too is one of all things, it will certainly come to be through him, even if the Arians burst ten thousand times with their own ignorance.

You will perhaps wonder how it is that, when you asked me to abridge the letter written about the Holy Spirit and set it out briefly, you see me as though I had dropped that subject and were writing against those who are impious toward the Son of God and call him a creature. But you will not blame me, I know well, if you learn the reason; rather your piety will approve it, seeing that it is reasonable. For since, as the Lord himself said, “The Paraclete will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak; for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you”; and he breathed on the disciples and gave him to them from himself; and so the Father poured him out upon all flesh, as it is written—for this reason it is fitting that the Son of God should be spoken and written of first, so that from the knowledge concerning the Son we may be able to have rightly the knowledge concerning the Spirit too. For the very property that we have known the Son to have in relation to the Father, we shall find the Spirit to have in relation to the Son. And as the Son says, “All that the Father has is mine,” so we shall find all these things to be in the Spirit too, through the Son. And as the Father pointed out the Son, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” so the Spirit is the Son’s: “For he has sent forth,” says the apostle, “the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” And what is remarkable: as the Son says, “What is mine is the Father’s,” so the Holy Spirit, who is said to be the Son’s, is the Father’s. For the Son himself says: “When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me”; and Paul writes: “No one knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that dwells in him; so also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God who is in him. But we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.” And throughout the divine Scripture you will find that the Holy Spirit, who is said to be the Son’s, is said to be God’s; and this we wrote in what went before. If, then, the Son, because of his property in relation to the Father, and because he is the proper offspring of his essence, is not a creature but of the same essence as the Father, so neither would the Holy Spirit be a creature—and whoever says so is impious—because of his property in relation to the Son, and because it is from the Son that he is given to all, and what he has is the Son’s.

These things, then, are sufficient to persuade even the most contentious person no longer to call a creature the Spirit of God, who is in God and searches the depths of God, and is given from the Father through the Son; lest from these he be compelled to call the Son too a creature—the Word, the Wisdom, the Impress, the Radiance, whom whoever sees sees the Father—and then hear: “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either.” For such a person will soon say, like the fool, “There is no God.” Nevertheless, so that the refutation of the impious may be shown from more arguments, it is good to show, from the things by which the Son is shown not to be a creature, that the Spirit too is not a creature. The creatures are from nothing and have a beginning of being: “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth,” and what is in them. But the Holy Spirit is, and is said to be, from God, as the apostle said. And if the Son, since he is not from nothing but from God, would rightly not be a creature, then necessarily neither is the Holy Spirit a creature, since he is confessed to be from God. For the creatures are from nothing …

And again, the Spirit is called, and is, anointing and seal. For John writes: “And the anointing which you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you; but as his anointing,” his Spirit, “teaches you about all things”; and in the prophet Isaiah it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me”; and Paul writes: “In whom also, having believed, you were sealed”; and again: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” And the creatures are anointed and sealed in him. But if the creatures are anointed and sealed in him, the Spirit would not be a creature; for that which anoints is not like the things anointed. For this anointing is the breath of the Son, so that whoever has the Spirit says, “We are the aroma of Christ.” And the seal impresses the Son, so that the one who is sealed has the form of Christ, as the apostle says: “My little children, for whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you.” And if the Spirit is the fragrance and form of the Son, it is very plain that the Spirit would not be a creature; since the Son too, being in the form of the Father, is not a creature. For as whoever has seen the Son sees the Father, so whoever has the Holy Spirit has the Son, and having him is a temple of God, as Paul writes: “Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?”; and John says: “By this we know that we abide in God and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” And if the Son, being in the Father, in whom the Father also is, was confessed not to be a creature, then necessarily the Spirit too is not a creature; for the Son is in him, and he in the Son. Therefore whoever receives the Spirit is called a temple of God. Again, it is good to see this too: if the Son of God is Word, as the Father is one—“For there is one God, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ”—for this reason he is called and written only-begotten Son; but the creatures are many and various: angels, archangels, cherubim, principalities, authorities, and the rest, as has been said. If, then, because the Son is not one of the many but is one, as the Father is one, he is not a creature, then certainly the Spirit too (for we must take the knowledge of the Spirit from the Son) would not be a creature. For he is not one of the many, but he too is one. …

And the apostle knows this, saying: “All these are worked by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills”; and a little later: “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, and were all made to drink of one Spirit.” And again, since we must take the knowledge of the Spirit from the Son, it would be fitting to bring the proofs from him too. The Son, then, is everywhere, being in the Father, and the Father being in him. For he rules and holds together all things, and it is written that “in him all things hold together,” whether visible or invisible, “and he is before all things.” But the creatures are in places divided off: sun and moon and the other luminaries in the firmament, angels in heaven, and men upon the earth. … but being in the Father, he is everywhere, and being outside all things, he is not a creature; consequently neither would the Spirit be a creature, since he is not in places divided off, but fills all things and is outside all things. For so it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world.” And David sings: “Where shall I go from your Spirit?”—since he is not in a place, but outside all things, yet in the Son, as the Son is in the Father. For this reason he too is not a creature, as has been shown. And besides all these things, from the following the Arian heresy will be condemned still more, and again the knowledge concerning the Spirit will be gained from the Son. The Son, then, is Creator as the Father is: “For what I see the Father doing,” he says, “these things I also do.” All things, at any rate, “came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be.” And if the Son, being Creator as the Father is, is not a creature, and if, because all things are created through him, he is not one of the things that are created, then plainly the Spirit too is not a creature, since it is written of him too in the hun…

This being so written, it is plain that the Spirit is not a creature, but is in the act of creating. For the Father creates all things through the Word in the Spirit, since where the Word is, there the Spirit is too; and the things created through the Word have their strength to be from the Spirit, from the Word. For so it is written in the thirty-second psalm: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their host.” Indeed, the Spirit is so indivisible from the Son that one cannot doubt it from what is said. For when the Word came to the prophet, the prophet spoke in the Spirit the things that came from the Word. So it is written in the Acts, when Peter says: “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand”; and in Zechariah, when the Word came to him, it is written: “But receive my words and my statutes, which I command by my Spirit to the prophets.” And a little later, accusing the people, … to hear my laws and the words which the Lord Almighty sent by his Spirit by the hands of the former prophets.” And when Christ spoke in Paul, as he himself said, “Do you seek proof of Christ speaking in me?”, he had no less the Spirit supplying him with speech. For so he himself writes: “according to the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ to me.” And again, with Christ speaking in him, he said: “Except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me.” For the Spirit is not outside the Word, but, being in the Word, is through him in God; so that the gifts are given in the Triad. For in their distribution, as he writes to the Corinthians, it is the same Spirit and the same Lord and … who gives all things.

Indeed, when praying for the Corinthians, he prayed in the Triad, saying: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” For in partaking of the Spirit we have the grace of the Word, and in him the love of the Father. And as the grace of the Triad is one, so the Triad is indivisible. One may see this also in the case of holy Mary herself. For the angel Gabriel, sent to announce the descent of the Word that was to take place upon her, said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” knowing that the Spirit was in the Word; and at once he added: “And the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” For “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” And since the Spirit is in the Word, it would be plain that the Spirit was also in God through the Word. And so, when the Spirit comes to be in us, the Son will come, and the Father, and they will make their home in us. For the Triad is indivisible, and its Godhead is one; and there is one God over all and through all and in all. This is the faith of the catholic church; for the Lord founded and rooted it in the Triad, saying to the disciples: “Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” If the Spirit were a creature, he would not have ranked him with the Father, lest the Triad be unlike itself, with something foreign and alien ranked with it. For what did God lack, that he should take to himself something of alien essence and be glorified together with it? Far from it! It is not so. “I am full,” he himself said. That is why the Lord himself ranked the Spirit with the name of the Father, to show that the holy Triad is not composed of different things, that is, of creator and creature, but that its Godhead is one. Having learned this, Paul taught that the grace given in it is one, saying, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” And as there is one baptism, so there is one faith; for whoever believes in the Father knows the Son in the Father, and the Spirit not outside the Son; and for this reason he believes also in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, since the Godhead of the Triad is one, being known from the one Father.

This, then, is the character of the catholic faith. And those who speak ill of the Spirit and call him a creature, if they do not repent at what has been said, let them at least be ashamed and sink out of sight at what is about to be said. If there is a Triad, and faith is in a Triad, let them say whether it is always a Triad, or there was a time when it was not a Triad. If, then, the Triad is eternal, the Spirit is not a creature, since he coexists eternally with the Word and is in him. For of the creatures it is true that there was when they were not. But if he is a creature, and creatures are from nothing, then plainly there was a time when there was not a Triad but a Dyad. And what more impious thing could anyone say? They say that the Triad is constituted by change and advancement, and was a Dyad, and waited for a creature to come into being, so that it might be ranked with Father and Son and the Triad might come to be. Far be it that such a thing should ever even enter the mind of Christians! For as the Son, being eternal, is not a creature, so, the Triad being eternal, there is no creature in it; therefore the Spirit is not a creature. For as it always was, so it is now; and as it is now, so it always was; and it is the Triad, and in it Father and Son and Holy Spirit. And there is one God, the Father, who is over all and through all and in all, who is blessed forever. Amen. I, then, as you asked, have written down these things too briefly and sent them; but you, being wise, if anything is lacking in these too, please supply it; and read it to those of the household of faith, and refute those who are contentious in slander; perhaps, though late, they may repent and wash from their soul the malice that has arisen in them. For it is good for them, as it is written, to leap away and not to linger, lest, persisting, they hear what was said by the Lord: “Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.”

Again, then, it is right that you be questioned in this way from your own premises. Since the prophets speak in the Spirit of God, and in Isaiah the Holy Spirit prophesies, as has been shown above, then the Spirit too is a Word of God, and there are two Words, the Spirit and the Son. For the prophets prophesied when the Word of God came to them. And besides, since all things came to be through the Word, and without him not one thing came to be, and “God by wisdom founded the earth,” and made all things in wisdom—and it is written, as was shown above, “You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created”—then either the Spirit is the Word, or God made all things in two, in Wisdom and in the Spirit. And how does Paul say, “One God, from whom are all things, and one Lord, through whom are all things”? And again: since the Son is the image of the invisible Father, and the Spirit is the image of the Son (for it is written, “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son”), then by this reasoning the Father is a grandfather. And since the Son came in the name of the Father, and “the Holy Spirit,” says the Son, “whom the Father will send in my name”—then in this way too the Father is a grandfather. What do you say to these things, you who say everything so readily? What do you reason with yourselves? Or, seeing yourselves at a loss, do you find fault with such questions? But first condemn yourselves (for it is you who are accustomed to ask such things), and obey the Scriptures, and, being at a loss for an answer, learn at last: the Spirit was not named Son in the Scriptures, but Holy Spirit and Spirit of God. And as the Spirit was not named Son, so neither is it written of the Son that he is the Holy Spirit. Does the faith, then, disagree with the truth because the Spirit was not named Son, nor is it said that the Spirit is the Son? Far from it! Rather, each of the things signified has its own knowledge. For the Son is the proper offspring of the essence and nature of the Father, and this is what that name signifies. And the Spirit, being called God’s and being in him, is not foreign to the nature of the Son, nor to the Godhead of the Father. For this reason there is one Godhead in the Triad, in Father and in Son and in the Spirit himself; and in the Triad itself there is one baptism and one faith. Indeed, when the Father sends the Spirit, the Son breathes and gives him to the disciples, since “all that the Father has is the Son’s.” And when the Word came to the prophets, they prophesied by the Spirit, as it is written and has been shown: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their host.”

Thus the Spirit is not a creature, but proper to the essence of the Word, proper also to God, and is said to be in him. For we must not hesitate to say the same things again. Even if the Holy Spirit was not named Son, yet he is not outside the Son; for he is called the Spirit of adoption; and since “Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God,” it is consistently said of the Spirit: “He is the Spirit of wisdom and the Spirit of power.” For partaking of the Spirit we have the Son, and having the Son we have the Spirit, crying in our hearts, “Abba, Father,” as Paul said. But if, because the Spirit is God’s, it is written also that he is in him—“For no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God who is in him”—and the Son too said, “I am in the Father, and the Father in me,” why is the same name not given to this one and to that, but the one is Son and the other Spirit? If anyone asks this, such a person would be mad, searching the unsearchable and disregarding the apostle, who says, “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” Besides, who will dare to rename what God has named? Let him rather apply himself to the things of creation, if he can. Let them say, since creation came to be at the same nod, why the one is the sun, and the other heaven and earth and sea and air. And if this is impossible for these fools (for each thing is of the kind in which it came to be), much more do the things that are above creation have an eternal permanence; and it is not otherwise than that the Father is Father, and not grandfather, and the Son is Son of God, and not father of the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit, and not grandchild of the Father nor brother of the Son.

These things being shown in this way, one would be mad to ask, “Is the Spirit, then, also a Son?” Nor, because it is not written so, let anyone on that account remove him from the nature and property of God; but let him believe as it is written, and not say, “Why thus and not thus?”—lest, reasoning such things, he begin to practice saying, “Where then is God, and how does he exist?” and then hear: “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.” For the things handed down by faith have a knowledge that is free of prying. The disciples, at any rate, hearing “baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” did not pry into why the Son is second and the Spirit third, or why there is a Triad at all; but as they heard, so they believed; and they did not ask, as you do, “Is the Spirit, then, a Son?” Nor, when the Lord named the Spirit after the Son, did they ask, “Is the Father, then, a grandfather?” For they did not hear “into the name of a grandfather,” but “into the name of the Father”; and they preached this faith everywhere, reasoning rightly. For it was not possible to speak otherwise than as the Savior spoke, calling himself Son and the Spirit Holy Spirit; nor is it lawful to interchange them otherwise than as they are ranked, as with the Father. For as one may not speak of him otherwise than as Father, so it is impious to ask whether the Spirit is Son or the Son Spirit. For this reason Sabellius was judged alien to the church, since he dared to apply to the Father the name of the Son, and to the Son the name of the Father. Will anyone, then, after this, on hearing Son and Spirit, dare to say, “Is the Father then a grandfather, or the Spirit a Son?” Yes, the Eunomiuses and Eudoxiuses and Eusebiuses will dare. For having once played the part of the Arian heresy, they will not stop their tongue from impiety. For who handed these things down to them? Who taught them? No one from the divine Scriptures; but such madness has come forth from the abundance of their heart.

For if, because the Spirit is not a creature (for this has been shown), you ask, “Is the Spirit then a Son?”, it is time for you, having learned that the Son is not a creature (for through him originated things were created), to ask, “Is the Son then Father?” Or this: “Is the Spirit then the Son, and is the Son himself the Holy Spirit?” But reasoning such things, they will be outside the holy Triad and will be judged godless, changing the names of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and transferring them as they wish, after the likeness of human generation, naming grandchildren and grandfathers, and fashioning for themselves the theogony of the Greeks. But this is not the faith of the church; rather, as the Savior said, it is into Father and Son and Holy Spirit: a Father who cannot be called grandfather, and a Son who cannot be called Father, and a Holy Spirit named in no other way than so. In this faith the names cannot be interchanged; but the Father is always Father, and the Son always Son, and the Holy Spirit always is, and is called, Holy Spirit. Among human beings it is not so, even if the Arians imagine such things. For as it is written, “God is not as man,” so one might say that men are not as God. For among men the father is not always father, nor the son always son. For the same man becomes father of a son, while he himself was born the son of another; and the son, being son of a father, becomes father of another. Abraham, at any rate, being son of Nahor, became father of Isaac; and Isaac, being son of Abraham, became father of Jacob. For each, being a part of his parent, is begotten as a son and himself becomes father of another. But in the Godhead it is not so, since God is not as man. The Father, at any rate, is not from a Father; therefore he does not beget one who will become father of another; nor is the Son a part of the Father; therefore he is not begotten so as to beget a son. Hence in the Godhead alone the Father, being properly and alone Father, is and was and always is; and the Son is properly and alone Son. And in their case it holds firm that the Father is always Father and the Son always Son, both in being and in being called; and the Holy Spirit is always Holy Spirit; and we have believed that he is God’s and is given from the Father through the Son. For in this way the holy Triad remains unalterable, known in one Godhead. So whoever asks, “Is the Spirit then a Son?” imagines that the name can be changed, and brings madness on himself. And whoever asks, “Is the Father then a grandfather?” devising a name for the Father, goes astray in his heart. To answer the shamelessness of the heretics further … [7] These things are enough to refute your foolish talk. Stop playing with the Godhead any longer. For it is the part of those who play to ask what is not written, and to say, “Is the Spirit then a Son, and the Father a grandfather?” Let the one in Caesarea and the one in Scythopolis laugh in this way. It is enough for you to believe that the Spirit is not a creature, but is the Spirit of God, and that in him the Triad is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. And one must neither give the name Father to the Son, nor may one say that the Spirit is the Son, nor that the Son is the Holy Spirit; but it is as has been said, and the Godhead in this Triad is one, and the faith is one, and the baptism given in it is one, and the initiation is one, in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom and with whom be glory and power to the Father with the Holy Spirit to all the ages of ages. Amen.

As for the Gospel passage about which you wrote, forgive me, beloved, you who have a good conscience. For I am afraid even to approach it at all, lest, being unable to reach it in reasoning, and having begun to search, I should fail to grasp the deep meaning in it. I wished, then, to keep silent about it entirely and to be content with the letters written above. But guessing that you might eagerly write about it a second time, I forced myself to write down the modest understanding of it that I have learned; confident that, if we hit the mark, you will accept it because of the one who taught us; and if we do not, you will not blame us, knowing both our eagerness and our weakness. The text, then, is this. When so many signs had been done, in the Gospel, the Pharisees said, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons”; and the Lord, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste.” And having said, “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you,” he then adds: “Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven you men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven; and whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.” And you asked why the blasphemy against the Son is forgiven, while that against the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness either in this age or in the age to come.

Ancient men, then—Origen, the learned and laborious, and Theognostus, the admirable and earnest (for I read their treatises on these matters when you wrote your letter)—both write about this, saying that this is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit: when those who have been deemed worthy of the gift of the Holy Spirit in baptism run back to sinning. For this reason, they say, such people will not receive forgiveness either; as Paul says in the letter to the Hebrews: “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to renew them again to repentance.” These things they say in common, and each adds a meaning of his own.

For Origen states the cause of the judgment against such people thus: “God the Father pervades all things and holds all things together, both inanimate and animate, rational and irrational; but the power of the Son extends to rational beings alone, among whom are catechumens and Greeks who have not yet believed; while the Holy Spirit is only in those who have received him in the giving of baptism. When, then, catechumens and Greeks sin, they sin against the Son, since he is in them, as has been said; yet they can receive forgiveness when they are deemed worthy of the gift of regeneration. But when the baptized sin,” he says, “such a transgression reaches the Holy Spirit, since the one who sinned had come to be in him; and for this reason the punishment against him is unpardonable.” [11] And Theognostus himself also adds this: “Whoever has transgressed the first and second boundary would be deemed worthy of a lesser punishment; but whoever has also disregarded the third would no longer obtain pardon.” And he says that the first and second boundary is the teaching about the Father and the Son, and the third is the Word handed down at initiation and at the participation of the Spirit; and wishing to confirm this, he adduces what the Savior said to the disciples: “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them yet; but when the Holy Spirit comes, he will teach you.” Then he says: “As the Savior speaks with those not yet able to bear perfect things, condescending to their littleness, while the Holy Spirit is present with those who are being perfected—and surely no one would say from this that the teaching of the Spirit surpasses the teaching of the Son, but rather that the Son condescends to the imperfect, while the Spirit is the seal of those who are being perfected—so it is not because of the Spirit’s superiority to the Son that blasphemy against the Spirit is inescapable and unpardonable, but because for the imperfect there is pardon, while for those who have tasted the heavenly gift and have been perfected no plea or excuse for pardon remains.” That, then, is what they say.

But I, from what I have learned, think that the view of each of them needs some modest testing and consideration, in case some deeper sense lies hidden in what they have said. For it is plain that the Son, being in the Father, is in those in whom the Father is, and the Spirit is not absent. For the holy and blessed and perfect Triad is indivisible. And further, if all things came to be through the Son, and in him all things hold together, how could he be outside the things that came to be through him? And since they are not far from him, he would rightly be in all things too; so that of necessity whoever sins and blasphemes against the Son sins also against the Father and against the Holy Spirit. And if the holy washing were given into the Holy Spirit alone, it might reasonably be said that the baptized sin only against the Spirit; but since it is given into Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and in this way each of the baptized is perfected, then again those who transgress after baptism must commit their blasphemy against the holy and indivisible Triad. And this too it would be just to consider and understand. If the Lord had been speaking to men who had received the washing of regeneration—I mean the Pharisees—and had already partaken of the gift of the Holy Spirit, such a meaning would have some plausibility, as referring to men who had run back and offended against the Holy Spirit. But if they had not received the washing, but had even despised the baptism of John, how could he accuse them of having blasphemed against the Holy Spirit, of whom they had not yet become partakers? For the Lord did not say this simply as teaching, nor did he threaten the punishment against people in the future; but the Lord spoke this text at once, truly accusing the Pharisees as already liable for so great a blasphemy. And since the Pharisees were accused in this way even before receiving baptism, this text would not refer to those who transgress after the washing—especially since he accused them not simply of sins but of blasphemy. And there is a difference: the one who sins transgresses the law, but the one who blasphemes commits impiety against the Godhead itself. When earlier the Savior accused them of many offenses—that they transgressed God’s commandment about parents for the sake of money, and set aside the words of the prophets, and made the house of God a house of trade—he nevertheless exhorted them to repent. But at their saying, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul,” he called this no longer simply a sin, but a blasphemy so great that the punishment for those who dare such things is inescapable and unpardonable.

Besides, if this text was spoken about those who sin after the washing, and for them the penalty for their offenses is unpardonable, how is it that the apostle confirms his love to the man in Corinth who repented, and is in labor again for the Galatians who had run back, until Christ is formed in them again? And by saying “again” he shows their former perfection in the Spirit too. And why do we blame Novatus, who does away with repentance and says that those who sin after the washing have no pardon, if the text was spoken about those who sin after the washing? For what is said in the letter to the Hebrews does not shut out repentance for sinners, but shows that the baptism of the catholic church is one, and that there is no second. For he was writing to Hebrews; and so that they might not think, according to the custom in the law, that under the pretext of repentance there are many and daily baptisms, he therefore exhorts them to repent, but declares that the renewal through baptism is one and not a second; as he also says in another letter, “One faith, one baptism.” For he did not say that it is impossible to repent, but that it is impossible to renew us under the pretext of repentance. And there is a great difference. For the one who repents ceases from sinning, but has the scars of his wounds; while the one who is baptized puts off the old man and is renewed, being born from above by the grace of the Spirit.

As I reflect on such things, the depth of the meaning in the text appears greater to me; and for this reason, having first earnestly besought the Lord who sat by the well and walked on the sea, I go up next to the dispensation that took place in him for our sake, in case I may perhaps be able to grasp from it the sense of the reading. All the divine Scripture, then, proclaims and preaches this, especially John, saying, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” and Paul, writing, “Who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” For this reason, being God and having become man, as God he raised the dead, and, healing all by a word, also changed the water into wine; for these were not the works of a man. But as bearing a body he thirsted and was weary and suffered; for these were not proper to the Godhead. And as God he said, “I am in the Father, and the Father in me”; but as bearing a body he rebuked the Jews: “Why do you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from the Father?” And these things did not happen separately according to the character of what was done, so that the things of the body were shown without the Godhead, and those of the Godhead without the body; but all happened conjointly, and the one who did these things was one Lord, wondrously, by his own grace. For he spat in a human way, and the spittle was divine; for with it he made the eyes of the man born blind see. And wishing to show himself God, he signified this with a human tongue, saying, “I and the Father are one”; and he healed merely by willing. And stretching out a human hand, he raised Peter’s mother-in-law, who had a fever, and raised from the dead the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, who had already died.

Heretics, then, went mad according to their own ignorance: some, looking at the bodily things of the Savior, denied “In the beginning was the Word”; others, beholding the things of the Godhead, were ignorant of “The Word became flesh.” But the faithful and apostolic man, knowing the Lord’s love for humankind, marvels at the Lord in the body when he sees the signs of the Godhead; and when again he beholds the things proper to the body, he is struck with amazement, perceiving the activity of the Godhead in them. This being the faith of the church, when some, looking at the human things, see the Lord thirsting or weary or suffering, and merely talk nonsense against the Savior as against a man, they sin greatly; yet they can, if they repent quickly, receive pardon, having as their excuse the weakness of the body. For they also have the apostle granting them pardon and, as it were, stretching out a hand to them by saying, “And confessedly great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh.” And again, when some, beholding the works of the Godhead, hesitate about the nature of the body, they too sin very greatly, because, though they see him eating and suffering, they imagine an apparition; yet Christ can pardon these too if they repent quickly, because they too have as their excuse the greatness of the works, which are beyond man. But when those who seem to have knowledge of the law (such as the Pharisees then were) go beyond the ignorance and blindness of both, turn to madness, and utterly deny the Word himself who is in the body, or even ascribe the works of the Godhead to the devil and his demons, they rightly receive an unpardonable penalty for such impiety. For they … the devil as God …

Into such impiety, then, the Jews of that time had fallen, and among the Jews the Pharisees. For when the Savior was showing the works of the Father (for he raised the dead, granted sight to the blind, made the lame walk, opened the hearing of the deaf, made the dumb speak, and showed creation to be subject to him, commanding the winds and walking upon the sea itself), the crowds were amazed and glorified God; but the marvelous Pharisees said that such works were Beelzebul’s; and the fools were not ashamed to transfer the power of God to the devil. Consequently the Savior declared that they blasphemed unpardonably and inescapably. For as long as, looking at the human things, they limped in mind, saying, “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” and “How does this man know letters, having never studied?” and “What sign do you do for yourself?” and “Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe him,” he bore with them; and, since they were sinning against the Son of Man, he grieved at their hardness and said, “If you too had known the things that make for peace.” For when the doorkeeper spoke to the great Peter as about a man, and he answered as he did, the Lord pardoned him when he wept. But when, having fallen, they fell further and raved more, so as to say that the works of God were Beelzebul’s, he no longer bore with them; for they blasphemed against his Spirit, saying that the one doing these things was not God but Beelzebul. And for this reason, as men daring intolerable things, he punished them eternally. For it was as though they dared to say, seeing the order of the world and the providence over it, that creation too was made by Beelzebul, and that the sun rises in obedience to the devil, and that the stars revolve in heaven by his doing. For as these are God’s, so those works too were the Father’s; and if those were Beelzebul’s, then of necessity these too are Beelzebul’s. And where then for them is “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth”? But there is nothing strange in such madness of theirs, since the fathers of such a view, having shortly before come out of Egypt into the desert, fashioned a calf and ascribed to it the benefits done for them by God, saying, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” Because of this blasphemy, then too God … the punishment of those who dared such things, saying, “In the day when I visit, I will bring their sin upon them.” For as long as they too murmured about bread and water, he bore with them as a nurse would carry her son; but when they raved more, and, as the Spirit sings against them, “they exchanged their glory for the likeness of a calf that eats grass,” then, having dared unpardonable things, they were struck, as Scripture says, because of the making of the calf which Aaron made.

Daring such things now too, the Pharisees received from the Savior a sentence such as Beelzebul, whom they suspected, already had and has, so that they will be consumed eternally together with him in the fire prepared for him. For he did not say these things making a comparison between the blasphemy spoken against himself and that against the Holy Spirit, as if the Spirit were greater and the blasphemy against the Spirit therefore carried a greater charge—far from it! For he had already taught that all that the Father has is the Son’s, and that the Spirit will take of the Son and will glorify the Son. And it is not the Spirit who gives the Son, but the Son who grants the Spirit to the disciples and through them to those who believe in him. So the Savior did not mean it in that way; but the Lord said these things as of blasphemy committed against himself in both respects, the one lesser and the other surpassing. For the Pharisees themselves were saying both things. Seeing him as a man, they reviled him: “Where did this man get this wisdom?” and “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” And beholding the works of the Father, they not only denied his divinity, but instead said that Beelzebul was in him and that the works were Beelzebul’s. Therefore, since both were said against him—the lesser blasphemy on account of his humanity, the greater on account of his Godhead—he declared that the punishment for the greater was inescapable for them. Indeed, when encouraging the disciples and saying, “If they called the master of the house Beelzebul,” he said that he himself was the master of the house, who was blasphemed in this way by the Jews.

If the Jews, in saying “by Beelzebul,” were reviling no one else but the Lord, then it is plain that what is said, “But the blasphemy against the Spirit,” is said against the Lord himself, and that the Savior spoke the whole text signifying himself. For he is the master of the whole house; for, for safety’s sake, one must not hesitate to say the same thing again. Thirsting, being weary, sleeping, being struck, eating, are proper to men; but the works which the Lord did were no longer men’s to do, but God’s. When, then, some, as I said before, seeing those things revile the Lord as a man, they would be deemed worthy of a lesser punishment than those who transfer the works of God to the devil. For such people not only throw holy things to the dogs, but compare God with the devil and say that light is darkness. That this, at any rate, was the unpardonable blasphemy of the Pharisees, Mark observed, saying: “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin—because they said, He has an unclean spirit.” And the man born blind, having received his sight, bore witness: “Since the world began it has not been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind; if this man were not from God, he could do nothing”; and the crowds, marveling at what the Lord did, said, “These are not the words of one who has a demon; can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” But those who were thought to be the stalwarts of the law, the Pharisees, who broaden their fringes and boast as knowing more than others, were not ashamed even so; but, as it is written, the wretches sacrificed to a demon and not to God, saying that the Lord had a demon and that the works of God were the demons’. And they suffered this for no other reason than to deny that the one who did these things was God and the Son of God. For if eating and the appearance of the body showed him to be man, why did they not behold from the works that he was in the Father and the Father in him? But they did not wish to; rather they had Beelzebul speaking in themselves, so that from the human things they called him a man only, while from the works, which were proper to God, they no longer confessed him as God, but deified the Beelzebul in themselves in his place, so that with him they may thereafter be punished eternally in the fire.

And the very wording of the reading seems to me to give some such indication, and to show that both blasphemies reach him, and that he spoke of himself as both “Son of Man” and “Spirit,” so that by the former he might show his bodily nature, and by “Spirit” make known his spiritual, intelligible, and most true Godhead. For he ranked the blasphemy that can receive pardon with the Son of Man, to signify his bodily nature; but he declared that the unpardonable blasphemy reaches the Spirit, so that, saying this in contrast to what is bodily, he might show his own Godhead. This same character I have seen in the Gospel according to John too, where, discoursing about the eating of his body, and seeing that many were offended at it, the Lord says: “Does this offend you? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before? It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” For here too he spoke of both about himself, flesh and spirit; and he distinguished the spirit from what is according to the flesh, so that, believing not only what appeared of him but also what was invisible, they might learn that what he says is not fleshly but spiritual. For for how many would his body have sufficed as food, that it should become food for the whole world? But for this reason he mentioned the ascension of the Son of Man into heaven, to draw them away from the bodily notion, and that they might learn thereafter that the flesh he spoke of is food from above, heavenly, and spiritual nourishment given by him. “For what I have spoken to you,” he says, “is spirit and life”; as if to say: what is shown and given for the salvation of the world is the flesh which I bear; but this, and its blood, will be given to you by me spiritually as food, so that it is distributed spiritually in each, and becomes for all a safeguard unto the resurrection of eternal life. So too the Lord, drawing the Samaritan woman away from sensible things, said that God is Spirit, so that she might no longer think of God bodily but spiritually. So too the prophet, beholding the Word who became flesh, said: “The Spirit of our face …”

So each point would be plain: whoever sees the Lord discoursing about himself, if he looks only at his bodily things and does not believe, and says, “Where did this man get this wisdom?”, sins, and blasphemes as against the Son of Man; but whoever sees his works done by the Holy Spirit and says that the one doing such things is not God and the Son of God, but ascribes them to Beelzebul, openly blasphemes, denying his Godhead. For in the Gospel text too, as has often been said, by saying “Son of Man” he shows his fleshly and human nature; so that, by saying “the Spirit,” he may make known that the Holy Spirit, in whom he worked all things, is his. Hence, when doing the works, he said: “If you do not believe me, at least believe my works, so that you may know that I am in the Father and the Father in me.” But when he was about to offer himself bodily for us, when he went up to Jerusalem for this very purpose, he said to his disciples: “Sleep now and take your rest; for behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.” For the works caused him to be believed to be true God, while his death showed that he truly had a body. Therefore he rightly called the one who was betrayed the Son of Man; for the Word is immortal and impassible, and is life itself. But the Pharisees neither believed these things, nor were they willing to see what their own sons did; hence the Lord gently refutes them again, saying: “If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” And here he said “by the Spirit of God” not as being less than the Spirit, nor as if the Spirit worked these things in him, but to make known again that he, being the Word of God, himself works all things through the Spirit; and to teach his hearers that the more they ascribe the works of the Spirit to Beelzebul, the more they slander the one who supplies the Spirit. For by saying this too he shows that it was not in ignorance but willingly that they brought themselves into such inescapable blasphemy, and are not ashamed, though they know … that these things are done by the Spirit.

How, then, while daring such things, can they still blame the Greeks for fashioning idols and calling them gods? For their own deeds are like the madness of those; or perhaps the daring of these is even greater, because, though they had received a law about this, they dishonored God by transgressing the law. And what will they do, blaspheming in this way, when they read the prophet Isaiah and hear that the signs of Christ’s coming are sight for the blind, walking for the lame, speech for the dumb, resurrection of the dead, healing of lepers, and the opening of the hearing of the deaf? Whom will they have be the one who does these? If they say God, they will convict themselves of impiety against the Lord; for what the prophet foresaw and spoke, the Lord himself, present among them, did. But if, carried away by rashness, they dare to say that those too are done by Beelzebul, I fear that, advancing little by little in impiety, and reading, “Who gave man a mouth? And who made the deaf and dumb, the seeing and the blind?” and the like, they will in their madness say again that these words too are Beelzebul’s. For to the one to whom they ascribe the grace of seeing, they must also ascribe the cause of not seeing; for the Word said that the same one does both. And surely, saying this, they will at some time think that Beelzebul is also the creator of human nature; for it belongs to the maker to have authority over what comes to be. For Moses said, “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth,” and “In the image of God God made man”; and Daniel speaks boldly to Darius, saying, “I do not worship idols made with hands, but the living God, who created the heaven and the earth and has lordship over all flesh”—unless they change their ground again and say that blindness and lameness and the other afflictions come from the Creator’s punishment, while the release from these and the benefit to the afflicted is worked by Beelzebul. But even to examine this is very foolish. For such foolish talk, with impiety, belongs to those who are mad and quite out of their minds, since not even the better things …

But the wicked ought either not to have despised him as a man because of the bodily things, or else plainly to have confessed him as true God from his works. But they did everything perversely: seeing a man, they reviled him as a man; beholding divine works, they denied his Godhead and ran to the devil, thinking that by daring such things they would be able to escape being judged by the very Word whom they insulted. The enchanters and magicians and sorcerers of Pharaoh, though they attempted a great deal, nevertheless, when they saw the signs done through Moses, gave up and turned their backs, saying that the one who did them was the finger of God; but the Pharisees and the scribes, seeing the whole hand of God at work, and beholding things done through the Savior himself more and greater than those, said that Beelzebul did them—though the magicians, whose own he was, confessed that he could not do even lesser things than these. What, then, could exceed their madness? Or who, as the prophet said, could liken anything to their impieties? For they made even the Sodomites appear righteous by comparison; and they have surpassed the ignorance of the Greeks and exceed the irrationality of Pharaoh’s magicians, and bear comparison only with the Ariomaniacs, both falling into the same impiety. For the Jews, seeing the works of the Father through the Son, ascribe them to Beelzebul; and the Arians, seeing the same works, number the Lord who does them with the creatures, saying that he is from nothing and that “he was not before he came to be.” And the Pharisees, seeing the Lord in the body, murmured, saying, “Why do you, being a man, make yourself God?”; and the Christ-fighters, seeing him suffering and sleeping, blaspheme, saying, “He who endures these things cannot be true God and of the same essence as the Father.” [23] For this reason the Lord declared that the punishment for such things would be unpardonable both for those and for these, saying, “Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.” And rightly so; for whoever denies the Son, whom will he call upon, and what propitiation can he have? Or what life or rest will he expect, who has thrust away the one who says, “I am the life,” and “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”? And since these pay such a penalty, it would be plain that those who are pious toward Christ, and worship both what is according to the flesh and what is according to the Spirit in him, neither ignorant that he is Son of God, nor denying that he also became Son of Man, but believing that “In the beginning was the Word” and “The Word became flesh,” will reign eternally in the heavens, according to the holy promises of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ himself, who says, “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” These things I have written to you briefly, from what I have learned. But take them from me not as complete teaching, but only as a starting point; and then, taking up for yourself a more exact understanding from the Gospel text and from the Psalms, bind together the sheaves of the truth, so that, as you bring them, those who say it may say: “Coming they shall come with rejoicing, bearing their sheaves,” in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father together with the Holy Spirit …