On the Holy Spirit 9.22–14.33

Now let us examine what our common notions about the Spirit are: both those that we have gathered about him from the Scriptures and those we have received from the unwritten tradition of the fathers. First, then, who, on hearing the titles of the Spirit, is not lifted up in soul and does not raise his thought to the supreme nature? For he is called Spirit of God, and "the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father," "right Spirit," "guiding Spirit." "Holy Spirit" is his proper and distinctive name, and it is above all the name of what is incorporeal, purely immaterial and without parts. That is why the Lord, teaching the woman who thought God was to be worshipped in a place that the incorporeal cannot be contained, says, "God is spirit." It is not possible, then, on hearing "Spirit," to picture in the mind a circumscribed nature, or one subject to changes and alterations, or at all like the creation; rather, rising in our thoughts to the highest, we must think of an intelligent essence, infinite in power, unlimited in greatness, unmeasured by times or ages, ungrudging of the good things it has. To him all things turn that need sanctification; him all desire that live by virtue, as though watered by his breath and helped toward their own proper and natural end. He perfects all others, and himself lacks nothing; he lives not as one renewed but as the giver of life; he does not grow by additions but is full at once, established in himself and present everywhere. He is the source of sanctification, a light for the mind, providing through himself to every rational power a kind of clarity for finding the truth. Unapproachable by nature, he can be received through his goodness; he fills all things with his power, but is shared only by the worthy; he is not shared in one measure, but distributes his working in proportion to faith. Simple in essence, manifold in powers; wholly present to each, and wholly everywhere. He is divided without being affected and shared in wholly, like a sunbeam, whose grace is present to each who enjoys it as though to him alone, and yet it lights up land and sea and is mingled with the air. So too the Spirit, present to each one capable of receiving him as though to him alone, sends forth grace sufficient and complete for all; those who share in him enjoy him as far as their own nature allows, not as far as he is able to give.

The Spirit's close union with the soul is not an approach in space—for how could you draw near bodily to what is incorporeal?—but the removal of the passions, which came upon the soul afterwards from its love of the flesh and estranged it from its close relation to God. Only when one has been cleansed from the stain contracted through wickedness, has returned to the beauty that belongs to it by nature, and has, as it were, restored through purity the ancient form to the royal image—only so is it possible to draw near to the Paraclete. And he, like the sun, taking hold of an eye that has been cleansed, will show you in himself the image of the invisible; and in the blessed vision of the image you will see the unspeakable beauty of the archetype. Through him hearts are lifted up, the weak are led by the hand, those who are advancing are made perfect. Shining on those cleansed from every stain, he makes them spiritual through communion with himself. And as bright and transparent bodies, when a ray falls on them, become brilliant themselves and give off another gleam from themselves, so souls that bear the Spirit, illumined by the Spirit, become spiritual themselves and send forth grace to others. From this come foreknowledge of the future, understanding of mysteries, grasp of hidden things, distributions of gifts, the heavenly citizenship, the dance with the angels, joy without end, abiding in God, likeness to God, and the highest of all things desired: to become god. Such, then—to cite a few out of many—are our notions of the Holy Spirit, which we have been taught to hold concerning his greatness, his dignity, and his workings by the very oracles of the Spirit. Now we must turn to the gainsayers and try to refute the objections raised against us from "knowledge falsely so called."

"The Holy Spirit," they say, "ought not to be ranked with the Father and the Son, because of the strangeness of his nature and the inferiority of his dignity." To them it is right to answer with the words of the apostles: "We must obey God rather than men." For if the Lord, in handing down saving baptism, clearly commanded the disciples to baptise all the nations "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," not disdaining fellowship with him, while these men say that he must not be ranked with the Father and the Son, how are they not plainly resisting God's ordinance? If they say that such ranking together does not indicate any fellowship and conjunction, let them tell us what we ought to think it is, and what other mode of conjunction they have that is more intimate. And indeed, if the Lord did not join the Spirit to himself and the Father in baptism, let them not blame us for joining them either; for we neither think nor say anything different. But if he is joined there with the Father and the Son, and no one is so shameless as to say otherwise, let them not blame us either for following what is written.

But the preparation for war against us has been made ready, and every mind is bent against us, and the tongues of blasphemers shoot at us, striking harder than the Christ-killers once struck Stephen with stones. But let it not escape them that, while the war has us as its pretext, the truth of what is happening looks higher. So they prepare their engines and ambushes against us, supposedly, and urge one another to help, each according to his skill or strength. But it is the faith that is being warred against; and the common aim of all the adversaries and enemies of sound teaching is to shake the firm foundation of faith in Christ by razing the apostolic tradition to the ground and destroying it. That is why, like those debtors who are—supposedly—honest, they clamour for proofs from written documents, dismissing the unwritten testimony of the fathers as worth nothing. But we will not give way on the truth, nor betray the alliance through cowardice. For if the Lord handed down the ranking of the Holy Spirit with the Father as a necessary and saving doctrine, and they do not think so, but divide him and tear him away and move him to the ministering nature, how is it not true that they make their own blasphemy more authoritative than the Master's legislation? Come, then, let us lay aside all contentiousness and consider together the matter at hand in this way.

How are we Christians? Through faith, anyone would say. And in what way are we saved? Plainly by being born again through the grace given in baptism. For how else? Then, having recognised that this salvation is established through the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, shall we throw away the pattern of teaching that we received? It would surely be worth great groaning if we should now be found further from our salvation than when we first believed—if we now deny what we then accepted. The loss is equal whether one departs without baptism or receives one lacking any single thing handed down by tradition. And whoever does not keep at every moment the confession we deposited at our first entrance, when, turning from idols, we came to the living God, and does not cling to it throughout his whole life as a safe protection, makes himself a stranger to the promises of God, fighting against his own handwriting, which he deposited in the confession of faith. For if baptism is for me the beginning of life, and that day of regeneration the first of days, it is clear that the most precious word of all is the one uttered in the grace of adoption. Shall I, then, betray the tradition that brought me into the light, that granted me the knowledge of God, through which I, until then an enemy through sin, was shown to be a child of God—turned aside by these men's plausible talk? No: I pray for myself that I may depart to the Lord with this confession; and I urge them to keep the faith inviolate until the day of Christ, and to keep the Spirit undivided from the Father and the Son, preserving the teaching given at baptism both in the confession of faith and in the ascription of glory …

Whose is the woe? Whose the affliction? Whose the distress and darkness? Whose the eternal condemnation? Is it not the transgressors'? Is it not theirs who have denied the faith? And what is the proof of their denial? Is it not that they set aside their own confessions? And what did they confess, and when? To believe in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, when, renouncing the devil and his angels, they uttered that saving word. What title, then, befits them among the children of light? Are they not called transgressors, since they broke faith with the covenant of their salvation? What, then, shall I call the one who denies God? And the one who denies Christ? What else but a transgressor? And the one who denies the Spirit—what name would you have me give him? Is it not this same one, since he has transgressed the covenant with God? Since, then, the confession of faith in him brings the blessedness of piety, and the denial subjects one to the condemnation of godlessness, how is it not fearful to set it aside now—not from fear of fire, sword, cross, scourges, wheel, or rack, but misled only by the sophistries and seductions of the fighters against the Spirit? I testify to every man who confesses Christ but denies God that Christ will profit him nothing; to the one who calls on God but rejects the Son, that his faith is vain; and to the one who refuses the Spirit, that his faith in the Father and the Son will come to nothing—a faith he cannot even have unless the Spirit is present with it. For whoever does not believe the Spirit does not believe in the Son, and whoever has not believed the Son does not believe in the Father. For "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit"; and, "No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known." Such a man has no share in true worship either. For it is not possible to worship the Son except in the Holy Spirit, nor to call upon the Father except in the Spirit of adoption.

And let no one be misled by the fact that the Apostle often omits the name of the Father and of the Holy Spirit when he mentions baptism, nor think for that reason that the invocation of the names need not be observed. "As many of you as were baptised into Christ," he says, "have put on Christ"; and again, "As many of you as were baptised into Christ were baptised into his death." For the naming of Christ is the confession of the whole, since it shows God who anointed, the Son who was anointed, and the Spirit who is the anointing, as we have learned from Peter in the Acts: "Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit"; and in Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me"; and from the Psalmist: "Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions." Yet the Apostle sometimes appears to mention the Spirit alone in connection with baptism. "For we were all baptised," he says, "in one body into one Spirit." In agreement with this are the words, "But you will be baptised in the Holy Spirit," and, "He will baptise you in the Holy Spirit." But no one would on that account call that baptism complete in which only the name of the Spirit was invoked. For the tradition given in the life-giving grace must always remain inviolate. He who redeemed our life from corruption gave us a power of renewal whose cause is unspeakable and kept in mystery, but which brings great salvation to souls; so that to add anything or take anything away is plainly a falling away from eternal life. If, then, in baptism the separation of the Spirit from the Father and the Son is dangerous for the one who baptises and useless for the one who receives it, how can it be safe for us to tear the Spirit away from the Father and the Son? Faith and baptism are two ways of salvation, grown together with each other and indivisible. For faith is perfected through baptism, and baptism is founded through faith, and each is fulfilled through the same names. For as we believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, so also we are baptised into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The confession goes first, leading us in to salvation; baptism follows, setting the seal on our assent.

"But other things too," they say, "are numbered with the Father and the Son and yet are by no means glorified with them. So the Apostle included angels in the solemn charge he gave Timothy, saying, 'I charge you before God and Christ Jesus and his elect angels.' We neither separate them from the rest of creation nor allow them to be ranked with the Father and the Son." For my part, though the argument deserves no answer, its absurdity being so obvious, I say this: a man might perhaps call fellow servants as witnesses before a mild and gentle judge, especially one who shows the indisputable justice of his judgments by his fairness toward those being judged; but to be made free from slavery, to be called a son of God, and to be made alive from death, one can receive from no one else than from him who possesses kinship by nature and is free of servile rank. For how will one who is alien make others kin to God? How will he set others free when he himself is liable to the yoke of slavery? So the Spirit and the angels are not mentioned on the same footing: the Spirit is included as Lord of life, the angels as helpers of their fellow servants and faithful witnesses of the truth. For it is the custom of the saints to give God's commands before witnesses, as this same Apostle says to Timothy: "What you have received from me before many witnesses, entrust to faithful men." And here he calls the angels to witness, because he knows that angels will attend the judge when he comes in the glory of the Father to judge the world in righteousness. "For whoever," it says, "confesses me before men, the Son of Man will also confess before the angels of God; but whoever denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God." And Paul says elsewhere, "At the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his angels." For this reason he calls the angels to witness already now, preparing fitting proofs for himself for the great tribunal.

And not only he, but in general all who have been entrusted with some ministry of the word never cease to testify; they even call on heaven and earth, as though every action were done within their sight, and as though these would be present with those being judged when their lives are examined. "He will summon the heaven above," it says, "and the earth, to judge his people." Hence Moses, when he was about to deliver the oracles to the people, says, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today"; and again, in the song: "Give heed, O heaven, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth"; and Isaiah: "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth." Jeremiah even describes a kind of astonishment of heaven on hearing of the people's unholy deeds: "The heaven was astonished at this and shuddered exceedingly, because my people have committed two evils." So the Apostle too, knowing that the angels have been set over humans like tutors or guardians, called them as witnesses. And Joshua son of Nun even set up a stone as witness of his words (and before that, I think, a heap was named witness by Jacob): "For this stone," he says, "shall be among you today as a witness in the last days, when you lie to the Lord our God"—perhaps believing that by God's power even stones would find a voice to convict the transgressors; or, if not, that at least each one's conscience would be wounded by the force of the reminder. In this way, then, those entrusted with the stewardship of souls provide themselves with witnesses, whoever they may be, so as to produce them later. But the Spirit is ranked with God not because of a need of the moment, but because of fellowship by nature; he was not dragged in by us, but taken up by the Lord.

"But even if we are baptised into him," they say, "it is not right even so for him to be ranked with God. For some were baptised into Moses, in the cloud and in the sea. Likewise it is acknowledged that faith has before now been placed even in men: 'The people believed God and Moses his servant.' Why, then," they say, "do you exalt and magnify the Holy Spirit so much on the grounds of faith and baptism, and raise him above creation, when the same things have already been attested of men?" What, then, shall we say? That faith in the Spirit is like faith in the Father and the Son, and baptism likewise; but faith and baptism into Moses and the cloud are as into a shadow and a type. Surely, because divine things are sketched beforehand in small and human things, the nature of divine things is not therefore small too, merely because the shadow-drawing of the types often signified it in advance. For a type is a showing of things expected, through imitation, indicating beforehand what is to come. So Adam was a type of the one to come; and the rock was, typologically, Christ, and the water from the rock a type of the life-giving power of the Word—"If anyone thirsts," he says, "let him come to me and drink"; and the manna a type of the living bread that came down from heaven; and the serpent set on the pole a type of the saving passion accomplished through the cross, which is why those who looked at it were saved. So too the events of Israel's departure are recorded to point to those who are saved through baptism. For the firstborn of the Israelites were kept safe, as are the bodies of the baptised, the grace being given to those marked with the blood. For the blood of the sheep was a type of the blood of Christ, and the firstborn a type of the first-formed man. Since he necessarily exists in us, passed down in the sequence of succession to the end, therefore "in Adam we all die," and "death reigned" until the fulfilment of the law and the coming of Christ. The firstborn were preserved by God, so that the destroyer should not touch them, to show that we who have been made alive in Christ no longer die in Adam. The sea and the cloud, at the time, led to faith through amazement; for the future, as a type, they signified beforehand the grace that was to come. "Who is wise and will understand these things?"—how the sea is typologically baptism, bringing about separation from Pharaoh, as this washing does from the tyranny of the devil. The sea killed the enemy within itself; here too our enmity toward God dies. The people came out of it unharmed; we too come up from the water as living from the dead, saved by the grace of him who called us. And the cloud was a shadow of the gift that comes from the Spirit, who cools the flame of the passions through the putting to death of the members.

What then? Because they were baptised into Moses typologically, is the grace of baptism therefore small? In that case nothing else of ours would be great either, if we were to disparage the dignity of each thing by pointing to its types. For then God's love for humans would be nothing great or wonderful—he who gave his only-begotten Son for our sins—since Abraham too did not spare his own son; nor would the Lord's passion be glorious, since a sheep filled the place of the offering instead of Isaac; nor would the descent into Hades be fearful, since Jonah fulfilled beforehand the type of death in three days and as many nights. The one who compares the truth with the shadow, and sets the things signified beside the types, does the same thing with baptism, trying through Moses and the sea to disparage the whole economy of the gospel at once. For what forgiveness of sins was there in the sea? What renewal of life? What spiritual gift through Moses? What putting to death of sin? Those men did not die with Christ; therefore they were not raised with him either. They did not bear the image of the heavenly; they did not carry about in the body the dying of Jesus; they did not put off the old man nor put on the new, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of him who created it. Why then do you compare the baptisms, which have only their name in common, while the difference between the realities is as great as that between a dream and the truth, or between a shadow or images and things that truly subsist?

Nor does faith in Moses show that faith in the Spirit is of little worth; rather, by their reasoning, it would diminish the confession of the God of all. For "the people believed God," it says, "and Moses his servant." So Moses is joined with God, not with the Spirit; and he was a type not of the Spirit but of Christ. For in the ministry of the law he then prefigured in himself the mediator between God and men. Moses was not a type of the Spirit when he mediated between the people and God. For "the law was given, ordained through angels, by the hand of a mediator"—that is, of Moses—at the people's request, when they said, "You speak to us, and let not God speak to us." So faith in him is referred to the Lord, the mediator between God and men, who said, "If you believed Moses, you would believe me." Is faith in the Lord small, then, because it was signified beforehand through Moses? In the same way, even if some were baptised into Moses, the grace from the Spirit in baptism is not small. And indeed I can say that Scripture commonly says "Moses" for the law, as in "They have Moses and the prophets." So, speaking of the baptism of the law, he said, "They were baptised into Moses." Why, then, do those who slander the truth by appeal to the shadow and the types make contemptible the boast of our hope and the rich gift of our God and Saviour, who through regeneration renews our youth like the eagle's? Surely this belongs wholly to an infant mind, to a child truly in need of milk: to be ignorant of the great mystery of our salvation—that, in the manner of our instruction, while being led to perfection in the training of piety, we were first taught the elements through things easier to grasp and suited to our knowledge, as he who orders our affairs leads us up, like eyes reared in darkness, by gradual habituation to the great light of the truth. For, sparing our weakness, in the depth of the riches of his wisdom and the unsearchable judgments of his understanding, he showed us this gentle and well-suited way of training: accustoming us first to see the shadows of bodies and to look at the sun in water, so that we should not be blinded by coming straight upon the sight of the unmixed light. In the same way the law, having a shadow of the things to come, and the prefiguring through the prophets, which is an enigma of the truth, were devised as training grounds for the eyes of the heart, so that from these the passage to the wisdom hidden in mystery would be easy for us. So much, then, about types. For it is not possible to linger longer on this topic, or else the digression would be many times longer than the main subject.