On the Trinity 2.17–2.25

And so that we may keep about his all-surveying Spirit the same views that we hold about God the Father, not saying … more royal or more secure, unless the Trinity fights alongside, being near to all and the helper of all (“For a horse is a false hope for safety,” it says, “but the Lord is near to those who fear him; and a giant will not be saved by the greatness of his strength”): Scripture shows that he is always present with the Father and works together with him, and helps us in each thing, and puts strength in us, and that his appearing is equal in honor to the presence and teaching of the Son, and his teaching is in harmony with it. Indeed God and the Father, promising to Zerubbabel the undivided, alone secure, and invincible help of himself, his Word, and his Spirit, … the divine hypostases neither … nor stand apart from one another, said through Haggai the prophet: “And now be strong, Zerubbabel, says the Lord, and be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and let all the people of the land be strong; for I am with you, says the Lord Almighty, and my Spirit stands in your midst.” And through Isaiah he gently … those who do not walk in his name and that of his Spirit, speaking thus: “Woe, children! You have made a counsel, not through me, and covenants, not through my Spirit.” And again Isaiah says of those who offended against the divine might of the Spirit: “They disobeyed, and provoked the Holy Spirit, and he was turned to enmity against them.” For the Holy Spirit is beyond wrath and enmity and all such things; and he is not shaken or stirred, being a Spirit of gentleness, and good, and of the first, impassible, and almighty nature; rather he himself heals those who are angry and enraged, and removes inflammation from the whole creation, and brings peace in its place, as is clear to those who understand that everyone who has been persuaded by his words has lived gently. And as it was written in many places, “They embittered God and the Father, and he was angry with them,” and as he says in Psalm 105, “But they embittered him in their counsel,” so now in like manner he prophesies about his Spirit, because the Godhead, authority, and power are unvarying. And Micah likewise laments … “the house of Jacob provoked the Spirit of the Lord.” And David, bearer of the Spirit, confessing the equal honor and equal power of his Spirit with the Father, and that without the Holy Spirit nothing whatever of good things exists for creation, prayed: “Your good Spirit will lead me in a level land”; and “Establish me with a governing Spirit,” that is, make me firm with your ruling Spirit that has authority, so that I may thus be able both to be cleansed from sin and not to fall away from prophecy. And in the Gospel the Master, teaching the apostles that the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the salvation that would come from it to creation, would not be less than his own appearing, but equal and the same, because of the one Godhead and operation, says: “It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, he will not come, the Holy Spirit.” And presenting the Holy Spirit’s teaching as in harmony with his own, he said: “When the Holy Spirit comes, he will teach you and remind you of all that I said to you”; and, “It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of the Father who speaks in you.” But if the Spirit of the Father is equal in honor to the Father, as has been shown, and equal in honor to the Son too, as is agreed, it is clear that the divine hypostases have an equal relation to one another as well. For things equal to the same thing are certainly also equal to one another; and the Son is equal to the Father, and the Spirit equal to the Son; clearly, then, he is likewise equal to the Father too. Since he himself, then, said that the divine Spirit speaks in the apostles, Paul, because of the sameness of nature and teaching, insists that Christ speaks in him, writing: “Since you seek proof of the Christ who speaks in me.” And it must be noted that all these things show that the appearing of the Spirit took place with his own authority; and in Luke, as was said before, [he] said to them: “But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” And this was [the power] of the divine Spirit.

Clothed with this strength, … the doors no longer … while the disciples hid for fear of the Jews, and that Peter, the chosen one, … [de]nied the Lord, who had made him key-bearer of the heavens; but the twelve alone, and they not gathered in one place, stood against well-nigh the whole world, crying out against whole peoples: “We cannot but speak what we have seen and heard.” They also arrayed themselves against all the devil’s deception, and took away from men’s souls the mist that [lay on them] before, “so that they might know well both god and man.” And by the laying on of hands [they healed] various diseases … and even the handkerchiefs from their skin worked cures. And Paul wrote to the Romans: “In believing, so that you may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.” And Peter with boldness overcame the devil, and proclaimed the divine substance of the Holy Spirit, saying to Ananias: “Why has Satan tempted your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?” For who was the one lied to? He told, adding: “You have not lied to man but to God.” For no one was held in respect by them who was a slave to money, or breathed injustice, or did not look on what is chaste, or was not sincerely disposed toward the consubstantial Trinity, even if he happened to have mounted the first thrones of the world and held the highest offices in his hands. They looked down even on the royal purple itself, and were above money, having the undiminished treasure of the Holy Spirit. And they also spoke in other tongues, “as,” it says, “the Spirit gave them to utter”; and the Galileans understood the speech of Parthians, Medes, Persians, and other men of other tongues, and also the Greek and Ausonian tongue; and they became many-voiced, and were shown to be such as we shall be found in the age to come, freed from the bonds of this world, according to Paul’s word: “Where there is no Greek, barbarian, Scythian; but Christ is all in all.” And it is quite plain that he said “Christ is all in all” because of the sameness of substance of the Trinity; since where do we seek the …

… or the Father might be thought to have become man. … and about the Holy Spirit he made mention dimly and at the same time clearly, so that they, being enlightened in their sight little by little for the understanding of the divine oracles, and, according to Paul, going “from glory to glory,” might be able to learn the three self-complete hypostases. And this is what is found in Psalm 17: “A people whom I did not know served me; at the hearing of the ear they obeyed me.” Indeed David, knowing that at that time the Father alone was known, and in one place, sang: “God is known in Judea”; but … of the Word of God, and he was believed, the New Covenant began both to proclaim him more clearly as God, and, little by little, according to the capacity of those receiving it, again quietly to supply the knowledge of the Holy Spirit. For to those just called to the knowledge of the truth, whose minds were not practiced in its contemplations, such a most perfect faith seemed somehow hard of access. And why need we be at a loss about this, when we have as proof those who have sunk down into the abyss and to this day do not believe even in the Godhead of the Only-begotten? Paul does not leave these things without witness, writing to the Corinthians the first time: “And I, brothers, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to fleshly; as to infants in Christ I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able; nor are you able even now, for you are still fleshly”; and to the Hebrews: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the elements of the beginning of God’s oracles; and you have come to need milk, not solid food. For everyone who partakes of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is an infant; but solid food is for the perfect, who because of practice have their senses trained to distinguish good and evil.” The Father, then, suffices, who says that he is his own Spirit; and the Son suffices, who decreed that the whole world be gathered into unity of faith through one name, but three hypostases of equal honor. For if the name of the Father is God, it is quite clear that what the Father is (that is, God), this both the Son and the Holy Spirit of God are. Which the Seraphim also show, saying “Holy” three times and “Lord” once. And elsewhere too, teaching nothing other than this, the Son said about himself to those who did not believe in him as true God: “I have come in the name of my Father (that is, God such as he is), and you do not receive me (that is, you do not believe me); if another comes in his own name, you will receive him,” hinting at the Antichrist. But of the Holy [God, then, being thus known in Judea …] Spirit he says: “The Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name.” And as, introducing the union and bond of the highest and uncircumscribed divine peace, he said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” and “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” and “The Father who dwells in me,” and “The Spirit came down,” it says, “from heaven and remained upon Christ”: so here he showed one name, saying that he himself had come in the name of the Father, and the Holy Spirit in his name; and [he showed it] by commanding to baptize “into the name,” and not “into the names,” since the Trinity has one name, “God,” and one substance and glory. And he who does not have the Spirit does not have the Son either; and he who does not have the Son does not have the Father either; and such a man is altogether godless, as the one on the opposite side is most blessed. For they say: “Happy is he who has enjoyed God’s wise …, himself bearing in his breast God unshaken.” … “… your name in all the earth!” and again: “You have magni[fied] …” This one name, then, the Old Covenant too indicated, when God came down to Jacob and wrestled with him. For he says: “Why do you ask my name? And it is wonderful.” Which David hymns, singing: “O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful is [your] name …” … “you have magnified your holy name over all”; he who ceased to say: “In Israel alone.” “For there is no other …” … “… this, my name? It too is to be wondered at.” And Zechariah says: “And the Lord shall be king over all the earth in that day. The Lord shall be one Lord, and his name one, encircling all the earth and the desert”; and again the sacred Psalmist: “Let them be put to shame and confounded for ever, and let them know that your name is Lord; you alone are Most High over all the earth.” For if anyone restricts “God,” and “Lord,” and “alone Most High” to one hypostasis, he casts out the other. And one can perceive this from our natural impulse and custom too. For when we pray, whether we say “Lord, have mercy,” or “O God, help,” or both together, we do not miss the mark; for we include … in one turn … let them try by force to annul the great written and unambiguous proofs set out about the Spirit of God, or let them say themselves how they call the Son God and good, as we do, when the Scriptures say, “God is one,” and “No one is good but one, God”; or how they call the Father holy and Lord, when they hear, “One holy, one Lord, Jesus Christ,” and again, “Now the Lord is the Spirit.”

The Apostle, who was entrusted with the dispensation, distinguishes us, then, and calls some spiritual, others psychical, and others fleshly or earthy, fitting such names to each from what is greater and prevails in them. For every man has a soul, which we also call spirit, and also the spirit without subsistence that is breathed through the mouth, which we also call breath; but not every person whatever has been enriched with the Holy Spirit of God. “Spiritual,” then, he calls those who, with fitting [words] and deeds, as it were spring upward and go beyond their own nature, and … and embrace the hymning of the Holy Spirit as God, and by these things show themselves worthy of his visitation. For these alone both have him abiding with them, together with the Father and the Son, and [are] illumined by his divine light … as far as they can, those enlightened … to the one who enlightens, and partaking, as of the light, so also of the name, and receiving into themselves the communication of divine grace, flowing without hindrance; then, finally, with his wing, which came down in the bodily form of a dove, they fly up in heart, and escaping the devil’s snare, and bidding farewell to the unstable and insecure things of life, they contemplate his majesty raised above all the heavens, glorified and worshiped by the powers above together with the Father and the Son; and the more, drawn to longing for him, they come nearer to him in purpose, the more they understand the incomprehensibility of his Godhead, as men who have once acquired the eye of inner sight clean of everything that obstructs it; and him whom they cannot see as he is, nor contain wholly, because of the great inferiority of our nature, they see as far as is possible and receive because of their longing. Perceiving meanwhile that whatever great things one may say about him falls short of the exact truth, not only as far as heaven is from earth, but still much … “I said in my ecstasy: Every man is a liar”; not by fleeing the truth dear to God, but by being unable to conceive or express anything worthy of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit: not about greatness or light, for he has all things under himself, and illumines, and is in all things; not about power, for all things are established and given life by him; not about shape or quality, for he is invisible and incomprehensible, as the breath of the Almighty (for if he … is beyond the bodiless and has transcended all understanding, clearly so is the life-giving Spirit who proceeds from him); not about goodness, or eternity, or divine glory; for he is a Holy Spirit, shown forth from the holy God the Father. He speaks, then, to the spiritual thus: “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you”; and again: “Brothers, even if a man is overtaken in some trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.” And it was written of Daniel too that “an excellent spirit was in him”; and the Holy Spirit was indicated in a riddle. “Psychical” he calls Greeks, Jews, and heretics, since they fight against knowledge and do not confess the Holy Spirit of God to be God. And he writes to them somewhere thus: “Psychical, not having the Spirit”; and again: “But the psychical man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are folly to him, and he cannot know them. But the spiritual man judges all, and is himself judged by no one.” And again, showing the Holy Spirit’s communion with the one most gentle nature, he said: “If there is any communion of the Spirit.” “Fleshly” or “earthy” he calls those who are bent down to the earth; since, raging with incontinence, and lying under material passions, and always wallowing as in mud in shameful … And about these God declares in Genesis thus: “My Spirit shall not remain in these men for ever, because they are flesh”; and Paul: “As is the earthy man, so are the earthy; and as is the heavenly, so are the heavenly”; and Wisdom: “For crooked reasonings separate from God; and power, when tested, convicts the foolish; for wisdom will not enter a deceitful soul, nor dwell in a body enslaved to sin.”

It is not, as the heretics think, because God is glorified in the Holy Spirit, and all worship is offered up in him as through some instrument, that John says, “Those who worship God must worship in spirit and truth,” and Paul, “No one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit,” and the like. For above all, the Savior said “One must worship in spirit and truth,” meaning “with the whole soul and without hypocrisy,” to the Samaritan woman, who thought that God was worshiped in a defined place and said to him: “Our fathers worshiped God on this mountain.” For that worship and service are offered to the Holy Spirit as God, Paul wrote: “Who worship by the Spirit of God.” And if the real truth does not go down with them, let them hear that he said, in effect, “in the Spirit and the Son.” For he himself says in John: “I am the truth.” And as, when we worship the Father in the Son, we also worship the Son, in the same way, when we worship in the Holy Spirit, we worship him together too. And the saying, “No one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit,” shows this, that is: Heretics do not partake of the divine Spirit; and those who do not partake of him, who is united by nature with the Son, cannot worthily utter the word mentioned. For in like manner about the Father … And that glory is owed to him we have been taught not only from the Lord’s tradition mentioned before, but in various ways: as when Peter writes, “If you are reproached in the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and power has rested upon you”; and as when [the Apo]stle shows that he who appeared to Isaiah lifted up on the divine throne and … is the Holy Spirit; and as when the same writes, saying that the Spirit has communion with the Father and the Son, clearly communion of Godhead, kingdom, and glory, as was said before and will be said again: thus to the Corinthians in the second Epistle, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit”; and elsewhere he says, “If there is any communion of the Spirit.” And to the Ephesians: “Eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Observe that he said “unity” because of the union of nature with the Father. And again to the Corinthians: “Or do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you … For you were bought with a price. Glorify God, then, in your bodies,” that is, the Holy Spirit. And again, having first proclaimed, “Now the Lord is the Spirit,” he adds: “And we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord, the Spirit”; and again: “But if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stones, came in glory, so that the sons of Israel could not gaze at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which was fading, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more in glory?” This is like what was said by John: “We beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten …” … And the wise Zerubbabel says: “All the earth calls upon truth, and heaven blesses it, and all works shake and tremble”; and he calls the Holy Spirit truth, as was testified above. And the Spirit of God himself says through the Psalmist: “Those who glorify me I will glorify, and those who despise …” … [that he is wor]shiped with the Father and the Son, the forefather taught at the oak of Mamre, having welcomed and worshiped the Holy Trinity with equal honor, as was said in the first book. And Paul wrote, as was shown above among the passages on the Godhead of the Spirit, that “Falling on his face he will worship.” But the heretics, legislating against the Lord’s ordinance about baptism and against the Apostle, and making it their greater concern never to be caught not uttering something discordant against the Son and the Holy Spirit, offer up the doxology according to their own composition, as it were …

Teaching that those who array themselves in opposition and exchange the commandment of God for their own traditions hope in vain to obtain his kingdom, the Savior said in the Gospel according to Mark to the Pharisees, who thought like the heretics: “Why do you set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition? For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and: He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the death. But you say: If a man says to his father or his mother, Corban, whatever you would have gained from me; and you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making void the word of God by your tradition.” What he says is this. The law of God, the lover of souls, … as was written before; as again it commands that children be loved by them, and not provoked to anger. But the custom of the Israelites required each of the people, dedicating himself to the temple, to bring visible things to the sanctuary according to his means, which were called Corban, which is interpreted “gift,” as being devoted to God; but they became gain for the priests. When, then, those especially who owed the necessities to their fathers were reluctant about this gift, and rightly said that it is not lawful for one who owes not to pay, especially to parents, the priests, making innovations, taught that the parents, rather than the offering of the gift … that “What we have is a gift, and whatever you receive from us, this you … from the gift already …; for we are bound,” he says, “by the word concerning a vow, which commands one who has vowed to pay.” God the Word, then, having come, who did not himself wish to be honored out of the want of parents, nor fathers to be held in less honor than sons, nor these than those, and having found the impious tradition of the priests mentioned before, …

Since, then, surpassing proofs bear witness that the Holy Spirit was manifested co-eternally from the one and highest divine nature, and has, in substance and in power, infinity, incorruptibility, free authority, goodness, holiness, and all the things mentioned before, without variation from the Father and the Son, so that from him it is known that God dwells in us; and since the Father bears witness plainly, by showing that he is his Spirit, that he is both consubstantial with him and unbegotten God; and since the Son too did not disdain, because of his communion with him in Godhead, kingdom, and glory, both to be anointed in him, and to have him abiding with him, and to announce beforehand, himself, his coming, and to assign him equal honor with himself, which the Apostle also kept, and further wrote of his communion and unity; and likewise since all the other Scriptures show that there is one divine nature, and speak of one name for the all-honored Trinity, and rank him with [the Father] in so many and so great gifts, or mention him with the Son, or even alone, in divine works and powers, and call him in an exceptional way Holy Spirit, Spirit of God, and from God, and he who proceeds from the Father, and one Spirit, and Spirit of truth, and divine Spirit, and Breath of the Almighty, which alone suffice against all heretical perversions; and since they bear witness that he makes us sons of God, and deifies, and frees, and re-creates, and deems worthy of forgiveness of sins, and gives wisdom and knowledge, and sanctifies all that has been made, and fills the world, and holds all things together, and he established [the powers] of the heavens and strengthened them, and they were opened to him as he came down, and from the foundation of the world, borne upon the waters, he sanctified them, and as Master he inspired and sent prophets and apostles, and works together with the Father and the Son, and alone knows the things of God, as the Only-begotten does, and breathes where he has chosen, and … man equally with the Father, and as the holy Pascha was kept from the beginning in honor and glory of the Godhead of the Only-begotten, so the feast of Pentecost [was kept] in honor of the Spirit, and Gabriel ministers to him as to the almighty God the Father: how, according to the heretics, is he not God who deifies us? and not Lord who frees us? and not king and glorified, he who does not [merely] hymn with creation, he who will deem us worthy to … Christ? For in all that has been said before about the divine Spirit nothing proper to creatures is found; nor was it ever granted to the heavenly powers to be mentioned together with God the Father and the Son in divine gift, or operation, or doxology. And what is not proper to things made is clearly proper to God alone; and God is not created. But those who call him a creature or a slave (for it is the same thing), and do not proclaim him as God and glorify him, are both cast out with the slavery of Hagar and condemned with that of Ham, hearing: “Cursed be Ham; he shall be a slave to his brothers”; and they are enrolled with Simon the Magus, who thought he could buy with silver the unsaleable grace of the Holy Spirit; and they hear through the book of the Acts of the Apostles: “For you have no part or lot in this matter.”