On the Trinity

That those who believe in the … escape, therefore, the charge of holding the opinion that there are created gods, … guarantees. Further, he also calls godless those who before this knew God the Father alone, without the Son (since the Son is not ranked among the things made), writing in one place: "Remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands, were at that time without Christ, alienated from the hope of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world"; and in another: "But then, not knowing God, you served those who by nature are not gods; but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elements …" … to the older law the ever new saving proclamation that does not decline into old age, the proclamation about Christ and the Holy Spirit; and he holds the church's ordinance to be superior, because it is perfect and has neither … nor anything finer or greater … "… as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness that is in the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I count it as loss for Christ's sake. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ our Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ"; and to the Romans: "For if someone comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or you receive a different Spirit from the one you received …" And what was he looking to, and what did he have in mind, when he wrote once more things that belong to a pure knowledge of God: to the Corinthians, in the second letter, that if anyone is reconciled to the Son, he has been reconciled to God, and that the world's agreement with God is in Christ? It runs: "That is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." And again, as all the other things which … he proclaimed, boasting greatly that even what seems to be a reproach to Christ, because of his loving dispensation, teems with all glory and strength, … doing this in deed, so that one who from the glorious passion does not discern the uncreated and pure … Godhead … Scripture … might be found liable. And he said such things as these: "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified"; and to the Romans: "But the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and upon all who believe", he says … each one from God … And to the Galatians: "Knowing that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, we too have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no flesh will be justified." And elsewhere too he explains that "neither circumcision … but faith working through love". Since the argument goes deep, its sense must be unfolded. He wishes to teach, then, that the appearing of Christ discovered a new and the only faith for all men, in which it has left no place either to Judaism or to Hellenism. And this … according to "Behold, new things have come …" … the true and free light, the Son; … unknown to some of them … because of the memory of polytheism from Egypt still ringing in their ears. The venerable Son of God, then, bears witness that his own nature is free from above, and that he does not have creation as a sister, as it were. For everything brought into being is a slave of the one who brought it into being. … "from their sons? … then the sons are free … that we may not … the sea … take the fish … take that …" …

On those who tell the myth that the Father made the Son for the service of creation. … they say that the Father made the Son as most useful, to serve him with respect to the rest of the creatures. They no longer perceive that on this … of their conjectural reasoning there hang envy and sloth and other material passions; for these too must surely be looked at. For if creating is good (as indeed it is good, and alone proper and alone distinctive of the divine, ungrudging nature, so that it may also be glorified by …), why did he not create everything through himself, but, so to speak, shrank from the work? And if it is a great thing for creatures to be made by the greater … (if indeed, according to them, the Father is greater than his own Son, the Word), then he begrudged those who would glorify him a making by himself. And if … is not wholly free of arrogance and weakness together … the one who produces something through himself displays greater glory than the one who makes through another; for not yet … obeys the nods of the one who always is, and … not yet brought to completion, and fitting measures, and has nothing lacking in anything … but already … all things would be shown, as many as … substance … alone … arrogant … the same … to make through another. According to their mind, this shows God the Father, whose thoughts are deeds, unable to accomplish the universe through himself without the help of the one through whom, or in whom, he makes; and the Son as some lifeless instrument. How will anyone not spit hard at this, and, raising his upturned hands against such savage blasphemies, withdraw, afraid that he may become liable before the divine court even for having heard them against his will?

On what the heretics say: "When was the Son begotten, and when did the Spirit proceed?", and the rest. Though there are so many and such clear proofs, and Scripture warns against various and strange … utterances, the heterodox, at a loss to establish the tenets of their religion from the Scriptures, like drunken men, here and there … the argument on each point, put forward things devised by them with evil art and long rehearsed, among which are these: "Are not all things, then," he says, "from God?" To which we must answer: Yes, but not by way of begetting, as the Son is, nor by way of procession, as the Spirit of God is; nor do they belong to such activities, nor were they counted worthy of such admirable modes of existence. Then: "When, then, was the Son begotten?" Then, when the Father was not begotten. For even to inquire after him … and as unlawful; for in place … since … and the begotten … in time. For the Son and Word would be God … the Spirit … And concerning the Holy Spirit: "The Spirit goes forth from me"; and if David sings, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the breath of his mouth all their host"; and if Job says, "The divine Spirit is what made me, and the breath of the Almighty is what teaches me"; and if the Lord teaches, "The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father"; and if Paul writes that he is the Spirit of God, as in men the … "by the word of the Lord the heavens, and their host" … nevertheless this surpasses every mind, as the same apostle writes to the Corinthians: "But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us makes known the fragrance of the knowledge", as though we shared not in the whole of the knowledge, because it cannot be contained, but only in a kind of image or breath of it. And again: "We see through a mirror and in a riddle" the things concerning him. And with good reason; for "The glory of the Lord hides a word", according to the divine saying, since it lies beyond all created perception in a way that is ineffable and infinite; not only because it is too great to bear, but because what is before the ages and before all creation, had it not been revealed by the Scriptures, … to creation. And again to the same people, in the second letter: "We will not boast beyond measure, but according to the measure of the rule which God apportioned to us as a measure, to reach even to you." And in the first letter he says: "If anyone thinks he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know." … "But we have not …" … the difference between the begetting and the procession … as the manner is unknown, so also is the difference, if indeed it is permitted even to hear or to speak of this very thing. For to assign causes to what is beyond every cause and understanding is rash; but to marvel at the Divine, and to hold that the thought of him is fearful and a matter for fear, is safe. "Did God beget willing," he says, "or not willing?" But we must first state their aim, and so answer. The aim is that, before simple people, from either expression … If one says, "He begot not willing" (though no one gives them this answer), they say: "Then God, not willing it, endured begetting the Son, the necessity of nature forcing him to this against his will." And if they are granted, "He begot willing", they infer: "Then the begetting of the Son depends on the Father's will, which gives him existence as a craftsman does." But the following answer is the most sensible. The God and Father who begot precedes will and unwillingness and every thought, and so does the radiance, which … can be conceived only together with the one from whom it is. Likewise also the image of God. And again the Son is a first existence, neither beginning nor ceasing, prior to will or unwillingness. He begot, then, in a nature that is beyond counsel and mind. But this proposition of theirs too is full of absurdity. For it presupposes, for willing, the passion of desire; and for not willing yet acting, the force of necessity; and with this it conceives the will first, and before the will the thought of the Father's hypostasis, which in every way and altogether has the radiance existing with it. Besides, if they believe that all things came into being from the will of the Father through the Son, the will does not exist before the Son. For it is impossible and inconceivable that … not … For if he himself says, "I am, and I have not changed", how could the unchangeable nature undergo change, not standing in the identity of the persons according to the hypostases, but moving and shifting? Further, this too: if it is true, as indeed it is, that "whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does likewise", the Son too will make another son, so that he may do all things like the Father; but if he has not made one and does not make one, the Son is not a creature, nor does the Father's will precede him. And I would say something else: if the Savior says, "This is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life", it is not the Son who is from will, but the one who sees him. For here too the will is found after the Son. And one could reject this argument of theirs altogether more quickly, not only by what has been said but also by what we shall add: that is, if one asks them a like question in return: "Does the Father exist by having willed it, or not?" For the very things they rehearsed will confront them in equal measure: against "not having willed", that his existence came about contrary to his intent, the necessity of nature turning him to it against his will; and against the second, that he did not exist before the will. For his existence will be traced back to his will, which, according to their babblings, drives him into being as a craftsman would. Likewise another question, differing only in wording from the one before: "Is God immortal and good by will, or not by will?" For the same consequences will follow. But one will do better to answer them briefly that nothing accrues to the all-perfect God and nothing is lacking to him; and that just as will does not precede the Father's existence, immortality and goodness, so neither does it precede the begetting; and that all such questions are out of tune with right thought about God. Concerning created things, they should know that David sings in the 113th psalm: "Our God, in heaven and on earth, has done all things whatever he willed"; and "In wisdom you made all things", that is, in the Son, and not in will. And in the 72nd psalm: "You held my right hand; by your counsel you guided me, and with glory you received me"; and in the 29th: "For wrath is in his anger, and life in his will"; and in the 25th: "In your will you granted strength to my beauty"; and in the 17th: "He will deliver me, because he willed me." For just as the Father, being immortal and good, wills to be these things and, willing, is these things, without the will being, so to speak, the cause … the will is the cause. In our case, however, we have some things from God's activity and some from the will that is in our power. For it is not by our own will but by God's that we acquire being composed of soul and body, and being rational. For we who did not yet exist, how could we will or not will? But by our own choice we have being good or bad, and knowledgeable by diligence or ignorant by laziness. They have come to this point because they do not accept with exact contemplation the words "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased"; for otherwise they would have had from this a firm anchor of right faith. But as it is, they say that "in whom I am well pleased" shows … the whole sense of it inclines toward … For since, when he said, "I am the Son of God", they retorted, "You blaspheme", the Father cast his vote for him: "This one alone is my genuine Son." For "this", and "beloved", and his being called "Son" with the article, show this. "In this one," he says, "I was well pleased that salvation should be procured for you through his becoming man." And even if one takes "I am well pleased" of his Godhead, their sophism is made void; for not every expression spoken by God, especially about God the Word, carries a meaning of worldly usage. Then, if he said "in whom I am well pleased" of the Son who already existed, good pleasure is not found to be the cause of his existence. To make clearer what such an expression shows, let us use as witness the one who sings in the 149th psalm: "For the Lord is well pleased with his people." But the good pleasure did not come about before the people, but after it. For he was well pleased with it, and sent peace and grace, when it served him rightly; but when it did not serve him rightly, the opposite, as he now prophesies: "When he killed them, then they sought him"; and in the 43rd psalm: "Their arm did not save them, but your right hand, and your arm, and the light of your face, because you were well pleased with them": right hand and … of his face, naming the Son. And in the 105th psalm: "Remember us, Lord, in your good pleasure toward your people."

On the saying, "If the unbegotten God is generative at all, he did not beget from his substance"; and, "If his substance was changed into an offspring, the substance of God is not unchangeable." … put in these words: "If the unbegotten God is wholly generative, the one begotten was not begotten from his substance, since his whole substance has begetting, not being begotten." But let them hear: if light is wholly generative, it does not beget its radiance from its substance but takes it on from outside, since its whole substance has begetting, not being begotten. But if light does not take on its radiance from outside, but begets it from its whole substance without interval, neither did God acquire the Son from outside, but begot him from his whole hypostasis without interval, since he is incorporeal. Hence he is truly Father. Again they add, everywhere pursuing the order contrary to Scripture: "If the substance of God, by being transformed, is called offspring, his substance is not unchangeable, since the change has produced the Son's being his own." But no one grants them leave to say this either; for the Scripture mentioned refutes these things as alien to Christians, … every heretic … If light, by being transformed, becomes radiance, light is not unchangeable, since the change produces the radiance's being its own. But if light has begotten radiance without being changed, remaining light itself and having the radiance from itself, perfect and of one nature with it, then God too remains God unchangeably, being Father of his own radiance, not having taken it on from outside, but having begotten it perfect from his substance.

On those who talk nonsense, saying that because of the name "Father" his substance differs from that of the Son. Going round and round the same things on the same subjects, and to the very end counterfeiting the beauty of the truth, they say this too, with no love for God: "Things whose names are different must also differ in substance." For he says: "The word 'Father' does not signify the Son, nor again does the name 'Son' show the hypostasis of the Father." Let them hear, first, that if the divine hypostases had not been made known by corresponding titles, what sign could anyone use, without saying the title "Father", to make known both the Father himself and that he has a Son? Or, without naming the titles "Son" and "Spirit", how would he address the Son himself or the Spirit, and show that the Son has a Father, and that the Spirit is the Spirit of God? Second, that in the case of the holy Trinity, apart from the one who truly is Father being called Father, and the Only-begotten God being so named, being exactly what he is called, the Father's Son, all the other names are the same: God, Lord, holy, righteous, good, light, life. Is it not then the opposite: in the case of the blessed Trinity alone, those whose names are the same have also one substance, so that it follows that like is characterized by like? For to the true and eternal light, in relation to the true and eternal light, and to the …

… "that to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear by God", that is, shall acknowledge God, or shall confess to God. The God and Father, then, is not before the Son: not in being without beginning, not in substance, not in glory, but on an equal footing; except, perhaps, by reason of fatherhood. For the inspired Paul made clear that these are the words of the only-begotten Son when he wrote to the Romans as follows: "For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, as it is written: As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." Likewise John the theologian said in the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men; and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it"; and in the Apocalypse: "Who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Lord our God, the Almighty." "Who is" signifies the eternal being of the divine hypostasis, as we have said elsewhere too; for the expression has no limit; hence God said that his own name is "He who is". "In the beginning was" makes plain and very clear the absurdity of "when he was not", which is to be shunned. For the word "was" is indefinite … "In the beginning was the Word" … does not condemn those who say these things … "when he was not" … more than perfect. So it now requires that he be understood as above time, or without beginning. For he who was in the beginning, or whatever one might call a beginning, never at any time, without cause, was not. Or again, how can time, which did not yet exist, be the measure of the one who made it? "Was with God" presents the kinship of nature that the Son has with God the Father, and that from the moment the self-existent Father was, if it is right to speak so, the Son who is from him exists with him. "Was with God" could also be firmly understood to mean that he was as God is: without beginning, uncreated, uncontainable, good, immortal, king of all. For if it is not so with this wisdom that has sprung forth, it will not be so with the spring that poured the wisdom forth either. … firm, and free of idle curiosity, and looking to the divine alone, is the aim and the God-given word of John. "The Word was God" establishes that the Word is substantial and is God, such as is that God whose Word he is; and again that he is without cause. "All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being" shows him, as has already been said, all but the Creator; and also that he was not created. For if not a single created thing received its being without him, it is surely clear to everyone that he himself did not come into being, but was begotten in a divine manner. For it is impossible that the one who gave existence to the universe, and substance and immortality to rational beings, should have come from non-being into being. For nothing created can give substance, or immortality, or make rational beings; but from substance already brought by God out of non-being, gold or silver or bronze or iron or wood or stone, it fashions perhaps a lifeless and irrational statue, or something else; but to bring forth a substance that did not exist, or to make it living and rational, is proper to and distinctive of the one all-powerful and self-complete divine nature alone. The Father made all things through him as light through its own radiance, and as mind through word. "In him was life" teaches further that he is without beginning, being the life of the one supreme nature, and, when nothing at all existed, the cause of what exists. Hence he himself says, "I am the life"; "I am the light". And John is lavish with testimonies to his being without beginning, saying "was" so many times, so that by repeating such a word he might either open the deaf ears of the heretics, or that nothing about "There was when he was not" might in the future catholic and unalterable … "the life was the light of men" teaches the same things again. For he says: This uncreated life is what holds together the created nature of men. "And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it" does not tolerate the opinions of the heretics. For it shows, covertly and very sharply, that whatever one may suppose, a time before time, or a momentary instant, or an age before the ages, he shines eternally as the inseparable radiance of God, and the darkness of non-existence never overtook him. "The Almighty" needs no interpretation. For it shows that he holds the kingship undivided with God the Father and his Holy Spirit, and is God over all. "Who is to come" shows the Son, who is to come a second time and judge the living and the dead. … that "who is" is said of the Son, John the Baptist shows when he says to the Master: "Are you" (instead of: Are you the one who is, whom I myself, while I was in the womb of the barren woman, recognized as God while you were in the womb of the Virgin, and worshiped by leaping?) "or are we to look for another?" And in his first epistle John, the friend and apostle of the Lord, writes: "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon and our hands have touched, concerning the word of life (and the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us), what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." Note again how many times "was" is used; and that those who do not confess that he is Son by nature, without beginning together with God, have no fellowship of salvation with the Father or with the Only-begotten. For it is with this faith, handed down in the mystagogy of illumination by the Master of all, that we have the fellowship of which Peter wrote: "that you may become partakers of the divine nature". For what is a creature and subject to time is not divine nature. And remember with regard to this … with the Father and with his Son, equal in honor, and not "through his Son". And Amos, prophesying, likewise names the Son Almighty, saying somewhere thus: "He who builds his ascent into heaven and founds his promise upon the earth; who calls the water of the sea and pours it out upon the face of all the earth: the Lord God the Almighty is his name." Of this ascent David too sings: "God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet." … these things about the Son. For the Father neither descended nor ascended, as the apostle explains, writing thus: "What does 'he ascended' mean, except that he also first descended? He who descended is the very one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things." As being above all things, he says, rising over and surpassing them together with the Father who begot him, since he is uncreated. For it is plain that he understood it so, from the fact that the intellectual powers too, since they are measured creatures, are in heaven, but not far above the heavens, nor do they fill all things. And Zephaniah likewise proclaims him Almighty, saying: "This shall be theirs in return for their insolence, because they reproached and magnified themselves against the Lord Almighty. The Lord will appear against them, and the Lord will utterly destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth, and they shall worship, each from his own place." And Malachi accordingly says, in the person of the Master: "For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name has been glorified among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord Almighty; but you profane it." For the mention both of the appearing and of being glorified among the nations … the Jews profane it, together with the worshipers of creatures. And the very sequence of thought requires that he be Almighty, since, being the image and the Only-begotten of the Almighty, he must also in this respect be understood as the image of the Almighty. And Paul writes to the Hebrews: "Who, being the radiance of the glory of the Father", that is, without beginning together with him and consubstantial. For in order that what is beyond the mind may be shown to the mind by things not altogether unlike it, I will say (comparing the great, and the only great, with something small) that at one and the same time there is the sun, and from the nature of the sun and from the whole disk … and without interval and in equal measure the whole light gives warmth to those capable of sensation; and the light poured out immediately, not later, from the substance of what sends it forth, going forth with it and subsisting with it, displays in itself the whole of its quality. But if, for those who say "when he was not", there was a time when the radiance was not, where is the hypostasis of the light that radiates it? For this will surely slip away together with that. And indeed Daniel too said in prophecy: "And light was with him", instead of: the Son was with the Father. For this especially shows the incomparable greatness of the Godhead, that the Father impassibly begot him who is without beginning and rules together with him, and is at the same time perfect and exactly like him. For it is proper to a creature and not to a creator, to the changeable and not to the unchangeable, to one under judgment and not to the judge, to one made alive and not to the giver of life, to one under sin … For if he, before any other activity had yet taken place, made the ages, which are made up of times, and set a beginning for all things, and nothing can be conceived before the times and the ages except the incomprehensible and truly only first and first-working nature, which alone is without beginning and eternal, and has no inferiority to any other, how is he not to be believed to have been begotten without beginning from the hypostasis of the Father, and not from his activity? For where nothing marks off time, there is no before and after; but he who is not subject to time is without beginning, and he who is without beginning is uncreated. For just as there is no uncreated time, so there is no creation without time; it has time as its measure … all things are measured by the Creator as secondary, but he himself by nothing, since he is without beginning and God by nature. The same is to be seen with regard to the Holy Spirit as well. For it is not written "when he proceeded", but "he proceeds". And how is Life itself made alive, or the true Light enlightened? There was, then, at that time, divine light and eternal life always, and so the truthful and great God speaks of himself. There was no time when the Father did not have the radiance of his glory, and the imprint of his hypostasis, and the image of his goodness, and the power and wisdom and righteousness of God (all of which Paul testifies that the Only-begotten himself is), and then afterwards, which it is not fitting to say, acquired it in some way. But if he had them, the Only-begotten, who is these things, always was. For neither can the one who is these things ever be conceived outside God, nor God apart from the one who is these things for him. And the Only-begotten is these things not as a habit or an aptitude, but substantially, as has been said before. And if at the beginning of the making of the world the first trees came into existence together with their fruits (and it is nothing strange that the fruit rose together with the root), how is it impossible that in the beginning the all-capable Father was fruitful of his own Son, and that the radiance at once shone forth together with the glory of his hypostasis? Just as, then, his birth below in becoming man is not to be compared with any other birth (for it was from a virgin, without flux and without injury, which our nature does not have), so also his birth above is incomprehensible beyond all measure and different from every birth; and we must neither disbelieve it, nor is it safe for us, who cannot tell it, to search out or explain the manner. How a virgin gave birth and remained a virgin … nor our own … in "He who turns". For instead of "He who turns" … we knew, certainly not that of God as well, which is incomprehensible even to the heavenly powers. Therefore the prophet says in amazement, about the birth below: "He is also a man, and who will know him?", meaning: no one; and about the birth above: "Who will declare his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth": calling, most mystically, his begetting "generation", his existence "life", and his being lifted beyond measure above the earth and surpassing every mind "is taken away from the earth". For above every time that anyone may conceive, after circling much in thought, he stands endlessly highest, incomparably better than every quantity, his substance beyond comprehension, and altogether out of sight on every side, encompassing himself and having nothing outside himself; and the multitude of angels and the whole people of the heavenly orders give way before this great incomprehensibility of his. They cry out thus: David in the 17th psalm, "He made darkness his hiding place, and around him is his tent"; the song of Habakkuk, "His virtue covered the heavens"; and Matthew: "No one," he says, "knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son." For what is born of creation is begotten by the union of one thing with another, and is not of one nature with what begot it; nor does it come forth perfect at once and without passion. With the Godhead it is the reverse. For since creation is of such a kind, the Author of generation is the opposite, and these things belong to the blessed Trinity alone. For it would not be incomprehensible if it were comprehended; nor a mystery, if it were known; nor divine, if it were contained; nor the Creator of all, if it were from a point in time; nor uncompounded and without parts, if it were like bodies. For just as, when we hear of the Father, "From everlasting to everlasting you are", and "His truth reaches to the clouds", we do not set limits to him but believe in his eternity (for the age is not his contemporary), so we ought to think also of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; for it is the one nature that rules over all, to which these all-honored hypostases belong. The same is sung of the Son: "You are the same, and your years will not fail." And if it is no small thing that it is written of the Father, "He who is before the ages", no small thing either is what was declared in prophecy of his Son, that he is "God before the ages"; and it is plain that he is beyond comprehension, as will be shown not much later. And just as the Father has immortality, or rather is himself immortality, so the Son is eternal life; and it is the same thing. And as the Father is called "One God", so the Son is named Only-begotten, God the Word, and "one Lord Jesus Christ". And as James writes of him, "There is one lawgiver and judge, who alone is able to save", so the Spirit is praised by Paul, writing to the Corinthians and the Ephesians, as "one", and "the same", and "alone"; so that by this very number, as it were, if one may put it so, these blessed hypostases are shown to bear the oneness, or rather the singleness, of the Father's Godhead. And if "God" and "Lord" are true of the Father, they are not false of his Son and of his Spirit either. For as we have recalled in many places, the Old Testament … said: "The Lord said to my Lord"; and "The Lord from the Lord"; and "God made man according to the image of God"; and "Who is God except the Lord?"; and "Who is God except our God?" And in the New Testament John said what has already been quoted; Thomas said, "My Lord and my God"; and Paul, "Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom"; and again, "as from the Lord, the Spirit"; and "May the Lord grant to the household of Onesiphorus to find mercy from the Lord." And Job: "The divine Spirit is what made me"; and "The divine Spirit that is in my nostrils." And to say "divine" or "God" is the same thing in Scripture, as they teach: Paul, writing to the Romans, "his eternal power and divinity"; and the Acts, "we ought not to think that the divine is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man"; and Peter in his second epistle, "that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature". And as the Father is incomprehensible, so the riches of Christ are unsearchable … God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he … "To me, the very least of all men, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." But also "of his greatness there is no end", nor "of his understanding any number", according to David; nor any "limit of his peace", according to Isaiah. And "Your incorruptible spirit," it says, "is in all things"; and "The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world." For no one would be found so thick-witted and sluggish as not to perceive from these plain and pure testimonies the boundlessness of the Only-begotten and of the all-holy Spirit, and that what the apostle wrote about both hypostases is of equal weight and in like words: I mean both what he says of the Father: "God who is over all, and through all, and in all"; and "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, he who is blessed for ever, knows that I am not lying"; and what was written to the Romans about the Son: "Who is God over all, blessed for ever. Amen"; and besides, "the fullness of him who fills all in all". Again, what was declared about the Father is similar, "that God may be all in all", to what was declared about his Son: "Where there is not Greek and Jew, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all." And elsewhere: "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is one Lord." And concerning the Spirit, both according to what was said of him just now, and in that all things are to be understood of him, it is due to him to be all that the Father is, as his Spirit, except, of course, being Father. For in this too, and in all things, he portrays God, as it declares: "By this we know that he is in us, from his Spirit, whom he has given us." And of equal force with what is sung of God the Father, "You alone are Most High over all the earth", is what was declared in prophecy of the Son in the 86th psalm, "Mother Zion, … in her, and the Most High himself has founded her"; and what is said of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel, "You will receive power from on high when the Holy Spirit has come upon you." And just as the Father is great, among other things, because he knows the Son, so the Son too is great because he knows the Father. Likewise the Holy Spirit. For it says: "So also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God." And no different from what Paul wrote to the Hebrews about the Father, "For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things", is what was declared of the Son, "All things came into being through him", and of the Spirit, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their host." These glorious hypostases, then, honored equally with God the Father, as having received by lot the rule over all things … "By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit" … how could they in all things be under God …? For just as it is impossible that the Father should not be Father without beginning and truly (for he did not have this name in time, nor as something added), so it is impossible that the Son and Word, and his Spirit, should not be from his hypostasis without beginning and by nature; for at the same moment as the Father (let it be allowed to speak so), without interval, the one was begotten and the other proceeded. And so he has not been deprived of being Father of the offspring, nor of having his Spirit proceeding from him; and because he is Father he differs from the Son and his Spirit neither in time nor in substance. For if later … which is alien to the Godhead, along with God's being found at some time not called Father, or not being Father, as not yet having begotten. And the apostle, writing to the Hebrews, presenting the beginninglessness and incomprehensibility of the begetting of the Son of God, writes about Melchizedek: … "having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God." He was made like him in that he was not given a genealogy, as it was the custom of the tribes of Israel to do for those held in honor among them, because he was a type and a kind of outline of the Master, who above is without mother and without time, and below is without father and from a point in time. And yet Melchizedek became a distinguished priest, so that Abraham was blessed by him and gave him tithes of the spoils, as the same apostle says: "See how great this man was, to whom Abraham gave a tenth of everything"; and again: "And, so to speak, even Levi, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham", that is, through his forefather Abraham. "For he was still," he says, "in the loins of his father" (Levi, the descendant of Abraham, from whom the tithing to the Lord is understood in general) "when Melchizedek met him" (that is, met Abraham). What, then, is the intent of their empty talk, and where is its absurdity? Consider: all who wish to speak of a beginning also confess an end; and by asserting a coming into being they also accept the death that follows from it; and by supposing that he came into being from nothing, or from something unlike the divine substance, they declare him at once mortal and a stranger to the shared Godhead of the Father; which, merely to say, let alone to believe, is full of every godlessness. But against "In the beginning was the Word" they have their supposedly strong arguments. "'Was'", he says, "is written of creation too. For it runs: 'In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth; and the earth was invisible and unformed'; and, 'There was a man of Armathaim Sipha.'" But "In the beginning was" has nothing in common with "In the beginning he made", any more than the Creator with the creature. For "was", said of creation, is said and believed only … for creation was after it came into being from nothing. For he first said that he made it, and then added "was", so that it might not be thought to have come into being of itself. But of God the Word it signifies what is beyond any beginning. For "in the beginning," he says, "was"; and "was God"; and "in the beginning was" excludes his being from nothing. And they bear witness, on the Son's being before the ages and the maker of the ages, as follows: Paul, writing to the Hebrews: "In many parts and in many ways God spoke of old to the fathers by the prophets; in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the ages." He inherits, then, what is his own, as their maker; and it is impossible to conceive a beginning of the Son, for in him and through him is every beginning. And David, singing in the 73rd psalm of the one without beginning: "But God is our king before the ages; he has worked salvation in the midst of the earth." He means Golgotha, naming it the most central place, as it were the center of the world under heaven; there the Son, by his divine foreknowledge, worked salvation for us before the age in his becoming man; and in deed, when out of goodness the impassible one suffered for us, as he knew and willed, and came, so to speak, to the heart of the earth; as Ezekiel too prophesies thus: "This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations"; and in the 118th psalm: "For ever, Lord, your word abides in heaven." And the Master himself, shutting the heretics out altogether, said of himself: "Truly, truly, I say to you, before the ages came to be, I am." And concerning his being the Creator of all things bodiless and bodily, not a servant or a go-between, and at the same time without beginning, besides the testimonies already set out, David too sings in the 113th psalm: "Our God is in heaven and on earth; he has done all things whatever he willed." He did not say, "whatever he was commissioned to do". Who, then, would deny that all things run together without delay at the mere nod of the self-determining and all-powerful substance of the Monad? And in the 101st psalm: "In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; and they will all grow old like a garment, and like a cloak you will roll them up, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not fail"; that is, you are without beginning and without end. And Paul writes the same, to the Ephesians, "in God who created all things", and to the Colossians, "for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities; all things were created through him and for him …" Otherwise: if he is before all things, alone from the Alone, and in a unique way, he was begotten ineffably before every activity, and is Son of the Father substantially. For he who is before all things, and governs every nature in a way beyond nature, must be none of all these things; nor can he be conceived as a creature by comparison with the things brought into being by him, which hold every difference from him. Otherwise: one whom anyone would declare to be the maker of everything made, and the bearer of all creation, and would name the image of God and the Son, attending to the truth and fully persuaded by the divine oracles, how could he, unless he were mad, also confess him to be a thing made, or less than God who bears all things, or as having someone earlier than himself? Concerning his being called God and Lord, the prophets declare it: Malachi, saying thus: "The Lord whom you seek will come to his temple, and the angel of the covenant whom you desire. Behold, the Lord comes; and who will endure the day of his coming? Or who will stand at his appearing?" The beginning of the saying shows his dispensation in the flesh; what follows shows his fearful and loving second coming. And Isaiah, crying out in the way that those who share in a joy are accustomed to announce it to those who have not yet heard what has happened: "A child is born to us, and a Son is given; and his name is called Angel of great counsel, Wonderful, Counselor, God, Mighty, Ruler, Prince of peace." This God the Word … "And behold, a ladder set up on the earth, whose top reached to heaven; and the angels of God were going up and down on it; and the Lord stood firmly on it, and said: I am the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac; do not fear; the land on which you sleep, I will give it to you and to your offspring; and I will be with you, and will keep you in every way that you go, and will bring you back in safety to your father's house; and your offspring will spread abroad to the south and the sea and the north and the east." By the ladder the cross was prophesied, by which the faithful go up to the heavenly dwellings; and the God who stood firmly on the ladder is the very one who was willingly nailed to the cross for us. And after other things: "Jacob," it says, "made a vow: If the Lord God is with me, and keeps me in this way that I go, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and brings me back in safety to my father's house, then the Lord shall be my God; and this stone which I have set up as a pillar shall be to me a house of God; and of all that you give me I will give the tenth to you." Then, having prospered with Laban, he saw, at the breeding of the flocks, again in a vision, the God who had appeared to him earlier; and he told it thus: "The angel of God said to me in my sleep: Jacob, lift up your eyes and see the rams and the he-goats mounting the sheep and the she-goats; for I know all that Laban will do to you. I am the God who appeared to you on the way by which you came, where you set up a pillar to me and made a vow to me there." And in Egypt the same Jacob asks the blessing of this Angel and great God for the sons of Joseph, saying: "The God to whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac were pleasing, the God who has fed me from my youth to this day, the Angel who delivers me from all my evils …"

On those who say that the Father is incomparable with the Son and greater than he; and that the image is one thing and God another; and that man too is written to be the image and glory of God. And on the testimony that the Father differs from the Son in nothing. They assign incomparability and being greater to the Father because he is unbegotten, and unlikeness to the Son because he has being begotten, dragging down once more what concerns the most ineffable Godhead to the products of our own nature, and thinking that intelligible realities are made like the flux of matter. For the things above the heavens all transcend every mind and every thought … But above all he was born without beginning, existing and working together with his own true Father, as light with the disk of the sun. And he has it, as the Scriptures too bear witness, that he is God, Lord, holy, Creator, incorruptible, life, light, and all that the Father is. And he ought rather to have likeness and equality from the many names than unlikeness from the one. And how did Adam and Eve, who were not begotten and had no father, come to be equal in nature to us who are from them? Or what comparison at all have they made of what they call the unlike? Or by what measuring have they arrived at "stronger" and "greater"? Scripture … does not define the holy and beginningless one by nature … the first and the next? And these two things are clear: that what is greater is not at all necessarily of another substance, and that comparatives in general are said of things of the same substance, not of things of different substances. Nor could they say anything to the point even by guesswork, since not even about the incomparable and the greater … Not in size or any bulk; for God the Word is removed from all magnitude, composition and shape (as are the Father and his Holy Spirit), being himself contained by nothing, but containing all things; for he is also, as their maker, the beginning of all magnitudes. For where is magnitude in the highest, the supremely incorporeal and superior hypostases? Nor with respect to being without beginning … of his glory, and not having God before him. For it says: "In the beginning was the Word." And God is not measured together with time, nor the maker with the thing made; since necessity would require them (which it is dangerous even to think) first to posit a time before the beginningless and incomprehensible God and Father, and so to compare. Men are accustomed to call greater those who have come earlier in birth by time, as Isaac decreed: "The greater shall serve the lesser." Nor as cause; for he is not his cause. For the only-begotten Son too has been shown to be without beginning; otherwise the Father would be greater than he in the same way as he is greater than we, which God forbid that anyone should say or hear. Nor with respect to substance and likeness; for he is from him as "the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth", and as "the imprint of his hypostasis", being an imprint in all respects, and as "the image of God", which whoever has seen has seen the Father. For in him dwells "all the fullness of the Godhead"; and the testimony "Let us make man according to our image and likeness" draws this in too. Nor by intensification of a quality; for the divine and ineffable hypostases are not qualities; quality is in bodies, but they are incorporeal and intelligible. But it cannot even be thought of them that there is something finer than the fine and better than the finer, in the way that Paul's words speak about something else: "Now these three remain: faith, hope, love; but the greater of these is love"; for because of its intensity in virtue he assigned the greater to love. "For having loved," he says, "we believe; and having believed, we hope to reign with Christ." For if "One God" is true, and "that you may become partakers of the divine nature", not "natures", then the absolutely good has been shown to be one, I mean the Godhead. Nor with respect to equality; for it is written that God the Son is "great and over all", "making himself equal to the Father", and "swearing by himself", since he has no one greater. Nor with respect to power. For it is written: "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God"; and "Whatever the Father does, the Son also does likewise." Nor with respect to glory or any dignity. "For if they had known," he says, "they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." And it is the will of the Father, according to John, "that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father." In what respect, then, is the "greater" left? The apostle, checking the impious suppositions of the heretics about the only-begotten Son and God, and proclaiming the identity of his nature with his Father's, and also his being without beginning together with him, wrote, as was said above, "Who, being the radiance of the glory of the Father", and added, "and the imprint of his hypostasis". And again he wrote to the Colossians and to the Hebrews: "Who is the image of the invisible God." And in the Gospel according to John, the Son, presenting his own substance as sealed with the Father's imprint, said: "For on him the Father, God, has set his seal"; and clearly the seal subsists together with the archetype, being of the same form and showing perfectly and truly in itself the archetype's nature. For the seal, like the imprint, signifies likeness and genuineness; otherwise it would be time to say that the Father too is not uncreated and incomparable, if indeed he is imaged and imprinted by what is created and unlike. Not understanding rightly these divine oracles, which need no interpretation, but distorting them, and fighting God's words with human notions, they say: "God is one thing and the image of God another, as a man is one thing and the image of a man another"; and in a way they liken the living and active God the Word to a motionless image. But he is, in substance and in all respects, the most unerring and beginningless image of the Father, and not in form and shape, as the statue molded or carved, without breath and not self-moving; nor in appearance and color, like the artificial, imitative, voiceless image. For these do not show the prototype by nature, nor indeed in all other respects. A son of man is indeed an image of the substance of his own father; but he happens to differ from him in age, or appearance, or mind, or power, or rank, or in several of these, or in something else. But God the Word images the simple, uncompounded and unvaried Godhead of the Father without variation and exactly, in all respects, by nature and without beginning. For one may not think that he is the image of God in one respect and not in another; nor indeed can there be an image of what is incomparable, nor can the true, the archetypal, the greater, the self-determining and the incomparable appear through what is unlike, or smaller, or under authority. Nor again can the natural form of the creator be perceived through the creature. For no nature shows another nature in itself; and the Father is even found to have been without hypostasis, when the heretics do not grant that he has the imprint of his hypostasis. Nor does the invisible, uncompounded and shapeless God have an imitative image such as they suggest. And the words that follow plainly undo their views: "He did not count being equal to God a thing to be grasped." Moses too gives an account of a natural image thus: "Adam begot Seth according to his form." Seth was of necessity not of a different substance from Adam; and yet he called the form and likeness of substance an image. "But of man too," he says, "it is written that he is the image and glory of God." But nowhere, my friends, is man or any other thing made written to be the radiance of God's glory and the imprint of his hypostasis; and it is one thing for man to be the image of God, that is, as the thing crafted is of the craftsman, as a stool of the carpenter (for Solomon says, "From the creatures, by analogy, their Maker is seen"); and another thing … to be the radiance of glory, and the imprint of the hypostasis, subsisting and most truthful. For he says: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father"; but whoever has seen a man has not seen God, as one who has looked at the stool has not seen the carpenter. Moreover, the image of the only invisible God must of necessity be that invisible image alone, and not man, who is visible and made "according to the image". So the Son is neither like any other (for it is written, "Who shall be likened to the Lord among the sons of God?"), nor unlike his own Father: "For I and the Father," he says, "are one." But those who apply to him the notion of a created image … to the one who fashioned a lifeless image to be worshiped. And God justly cast Adam out of paradise for his disobedience; but the Son brought in the thief, and with him Adam and the whole of our common race, being altogether equal in Godhead, goodness and lordship to the one who had cast him out. Where is it written that the Father is incomparable with his own Only-begotten? Or that his Son, the Creator and judge of all, is a creature with respect to his divine nature, which is infinite and exalted above all? Or at all that there was a time when he was not? Or where did the Father specifically say, "I created a Son for myself", or the Son, "I was created by the Father", which is dreadful and to be shunned even to hear, let alone to say? These things are found nowhere at all in the divine and spiritual Scripture. On the contrary, all the words of the Only-begotten about his Godhead are those of one comparing himself with the Father, and uniting himself … has ever been called "child" or "offspring" with respect to the infinite birth above, which nothing at all can describe; lest anyone imagine something small, or something that gives grounds for suspicion; but "Son", because he is perfect, and was begotten without beginning, and is of a nature unvarying from the Father's. And all the sayings that some think small with respect to the Godhead, including "The Father who sent me is greater than I", have been uttered in the sacred books because of his loving and ineffable becoming man, which took place for us and on our behalf; because of which it is also written that he was made lower than the angels, according to the apostle's letter: "But we see Jesus, made for a little while lower than the angels because of the suffering of death." I think, then, and I am not altogether mistaken, that he spoke of the Father and of himself, showing the goodness and the consubstantiality of both, when he said: "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree rotten and its fruit rotten; for by the fruit," he says, "the tree is known." … dare to say that … the Holy Spirit is the first creature; and Macedonius says this of the Spirit only. May the holy and consubstantial Trinity turn upon them the weight of recalling such desperate and condemned words; but we, setting out the divine Scriptures, will show how the first creature of God came to be. The first creature, lifted up, was cast from the heavens like lightning, as the very one who created it well, and afterwards justly cast it down, beheld it, as he says in the Gospel; and he speaks thus in Job: "But behold, the beast beside you eats grass like oxen; behold, its strength is in its loins, and its power on the navel of its belly. It set up its tail like a cypress, and its sinews are … of cast iron. This is the beginning of the Lord's formation, made to be mocked by the angels." So it says that the devil is the first creature, who made himself to be mocked by the holy angels because of the unholiness and malice of his choice. And the Son, who also created him, would not be after him; nor indeed was the Spirit of God created.

On the holy Trinity. And that because of the sameness of substance the same names are said of both hypostases, except fatherhood and sonship and the procession of the Spirit; for this is proper to each hypostasis individually. And that sometimes the Father, sometimes the Son, sometimes the Spirit is placed first. And that both the threefold and the single are shown in Scripture. From all that has been said, then, it has been established that their views are in every way foreign to the truth. For it is the work of sophistry to invent arguments, but of wisdom to search the Scriptures with reverence and with fitting acceptance. It remains necessary, then, … having come, and having washed out, as the saying goes, their briny ears with the drinkable intelligible water of the Holy Spirit, to show that the Scriptures, because of the sameness of the Godhead, sometimes name one of the divine hypostases and sometimes the three, and assign the good equally to each of them. So when Moses says, "Hear, Israel: the Lord our God …", he signifies the one Godhead, and by "Lord", then "God", and again "Lord", the Trinity, from whom every good in the world and above the world has come and will come to men. And again: "God said, Let there be a firmament. And God made the firmament. And God saw that it was good." It must be noted that it both names three hypostases, calling each God, and shows the concord and the co-operation of the one who spoke, the one who made, and the one who praised. And again God commands Moses, it says, saying: "Speak to Aaron and his sons: Thus you shall bless Israel: The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you; the Lord lift up his face upon you and give you peace." To show three persons, he did not say once, "The Lord bless you and shine upon you and give you peace", but named the Lord a third time. And so when they prophesy: Haggai, bringing a divinely uttered word in the person of the Father, which runs thus: "Be strong, Zerubbabel, for I am with you, and my good Word, and my Spirit is in your midst"; and Isaiah, saying that the sending was of equal honor, coming from the equally honored and self-complete hypostases, and showing in a brief saying their whole communion, when he cries: "And now the Lord, the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit." For he did not name "Lord" a second time without reason, but … the hypostases, and to show the one Godhead and will. And David (for he too lends help on such a point) fills everything with song and shows what faith he held, in these words: in the 17th psalm, "Who is God except the Lord? And who is God except our God, the God who girds me with power?"; and in the 58th, "You, God, are my helper. My God, his mercy will go before me; my God will show me among my enemies"; and in the 95th, "Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth; sing to the Lord, bless his name." For by naming "Lord" or "God" three times he indicated the Trinity. And also she who prayed, in the books of Kingdoms, … the Trinity … Sabaoth; for "Adonai" in the Hebrew tongue is interpreted "Lord"; and again in the Greek tongue she said "Lord"; and the third time she said in Hebrew "Eloi Sabaoth"; she called upon a Trinity, and taught us too not to believe and glorify otherwise. And by the water-carriers too he indicated that the three all-praised hypostases act everywhere in all things with equal power and equal honor. And if you wish, I will make the point in question known to you once more from a divine voice. For in the book of Genesis, at the building of the tower, the God and Father revealed the blessed hypostases, saying to his own Son and his Holy Spirit: "Come, let us go down and confuse their tongues there, so that they may not understand, each one, the voice of his neighbor." And Moses, showing, I think, the equality of the Trinity, set forth one vine on three stems, saying that no one stem was more deeply rooted than another, so that no one should think that this hypostasis takes precedence over that, but that we should all believe that the three are joined in one Godhead. For this reason the inspired Scripture also forbade making steps at the altar at which the Trinity is glorified, so that men might not mark off the divine hypostases, as by steps, as being in some inferiority. And, in a word, the Old Testament, bearing the type of the New, speaks mystically and with the greatest forethought, hinting rather than stating in many places, and in the same places stating more than hinting the mystery revealed later; so as neither to strike the uninitiated, who were not yet steady and able to receive the vision of God, with a sudden assault, nor to deprive them altogether; for the one would have been inexperience, the other inhumanity. And often what here may perhaps be hard for us to reach, it has given the solution of through another scripture. But the New Testament speaks no longer as in shadow and behind a veil, but clearly and expressly, as these testify: Paul writing to the Romans, "Since God is one"; to the Galatians and the Corinthians, "God is one". And again to the Corinthians, in the second letter: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." Here, because of the sameness of the Godhead, he mentioned the Son first, then the Father, then his Holy Spirit; and he spoke of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit with Father and Son, of the one Godhead and glory and kingdom; for what other fellowship is there in God? To the Ephesians: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." Then to the same: "For this reason I bow my knees to the God and Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." Here again likewise, because of the equal honor of the hypostases, after the Father he mentioned the Spirit first, and then the Son. And again to the Corinthians: "I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf." And to the Hebrews: "For if the word spoken through angels proved firm, and every transgression and disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? It was declared at first through the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard, while God bore witness with signs and wonders and various powers and distributions of the Holy Spirit according to his will." By "the Lord" the Son is shown; by "God", the Father; and then also the self-determination and almighty power of the Holy Spirit. And the Son showed the one Godhead by saying, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except one, God"; and the three hypostases, equal in honor and equal in power, by his teaching about baptism; not saying … testing, examining … the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ … "Why do you call me good?" He showed that he too is good, equally with the Father, and that his goodness shines forth from the Father's goodness, and that he is shown to be good, begotten from the good. "For if," he says, "you know me to be good, and do not attach the word to 'teacher' (as in 'Well done, good servant'; and 'The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good'; and 'Samuel was good with God and with men'; and 'Saul, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, was good, taller than all Israel from the shoulders upward'; and 'A living dog is good, more than a dead lion'), take nothing away from the first-working good, but acknowledge me as God, not other than the Father in Godhead, since otherwise the first good would no longer be found to be one. For you have read somewhere," he says, "that 'It is good to trust in the Lord rather than to trust in man.' For to cleave to God is good; and I have always urged you to follow me, as one who is good, and to walk behind me." Therefore he did not say, "No one is good except one, the Father", but "No one is good except one, God"; as he also says somewhere else, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do my words?" For creation, he says, has goodness by participation, imitating according to its own capacity, if it is right to say so, the innate and perfect goodness of God, and being preserved by it; and the existence of the good in it is its sharing in God's goodness, cleaving to him by obedience and by love for him. For it is written: "Those who keep themselves far from you shall perish"; and "God is far from the impious"; and "Salvation is far from sinners." It is clear that this is by relation and disposition, because of opposition to the good and slowness toward virtue, and not by place. And that he too is good, since he is by nature one with the good Father, he himself says in Matthew: "Is your eye evil because I am good?" And again: "Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her." By the good portion he meant himself. And men who are not obscure, but deeply conversant with the divine Spirit, proclaim it along with him; among the others who follow them are these: the sacred psalmist in the 117th psalm, "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good"; and in the same, "The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him"; and Isaiah, "The Lord is a good judge to the house of Israel." And that the Holy Spirit of God is good, the David already mentioned sings in the 24th psalm: "Your good Spirit will lead me on level ground." Besides these, if eternal life is good, and so are the words of the Son (for he said, "The words that I … to you are spirit and are life"), and if the sanctification of the Holy Spirit is good, and his working in illumination (for he is named along with them as working with them), and further the distribution of the heavenly gifts, then the Son and the Holy Spirit are certainly good. We were taught not only by hearing; we have also beheld, as far as is possible, the distinctness of the hypostases of the venerable and consubstantial Trinity: the Father saying from the heavens, "This is my beloved Son"; his Only-begotten being baptized on earth; and his one and only Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove and remaining upon the only-begotten God and Son himself. And a treasure of David in the … psalm confirms this, that the … was being testified to as Son. The saying is known to all; it runs: "Truth has risen from the earth, and righteousness has looked down from heaven." Likewise, because there is no difference of Godhead in the awesome and undefiled Trinity, the oracles sometimes show the Father with the Son, as when David says, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand", and Paul, "Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ"; and sometimes they join the Father with the Holy Spirit, as when Haggai prophesies, "For I am with you, says the Lord Almighty, and my Spirit stands in your midst"; and again … in the saying. For since the heterodox sometimes say, when the Spirit is mentioned with the Father, that some power without hypostasis is meant, the present saying is guarded against this. And Isaiah: "And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit"; and again: "There the deer met and saw one another's faces; they passed by in number, and not one of them perished; one did not seek the other; for the Lord commanded them, and his Spirit …" … "and the Spirit of God dwells in you?" And again: "The love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit"; and again: "But God has revealed it to us through his Spirit." At other times they name the Son alone, as when Isaiah prophesies, "And now, Lord, you are our father, and we are clay, all of us the work of your hands"; and Paul to the Galatians, "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." At other times they proclaim the Only-begotten with the Holy Spirit, as when Paul writes to the Corinthians, "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 to the Romans, "I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit"; and again, "For if someone comes and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or you receive a different Spirit from the one you received." And at other times Scripture mentions the Holy Spirit alone, as when Isaiah prophesies, "They disobeyed and provoked the Holy Spirit"; and again, "The Spirit came down from the Lord and guided them." And Paul writes to the Corinthians, "The fleshly man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God"; and as Stephen says in the Acts, "You resist the Holy Spirit." And again: "We are witnesses of these words, and so is the Holy Spirit", just as we commonly say, "We alone are here, and God." And … of the Spirit, saying: "When he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all the truth." And the Acts likewise bear witness about him: "While Peter was pondering the word, the Holy Spirit said to him: Rise, go down, and go with them without hesitating, for I have sent them." And again: "Thus says the Holy Spirit: Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them." And again the Holy Spirit said to Peter: "Rise, go to the house of Cornelius." And once more the Acts of the Apostles, in their elegance, give scope to such an argument; for they contain: "Then … him." And further: "For Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to the people." Likewise the equal weight and equal power of the all-honored hypostases is signified also in that the Master, God the Word, through his all-praised word about baptism mentioned before, preserved for himself and for the Holy Spirit equality of honor with the Father. Because of this the sacred books sometimes mention the Father first, and then the Son or the Holy Spirit; and sometimes they mention the Son first, because the nature is undivided and the theology admits no difference; as when Job says, plainly showing the Trinity: "As the Lord lives, who has so judged me, and the Almighty who has embittered my soul, while my breath is still in me, and the divine Spirit that is in my nostrils." The Holy Spirit who gives me life, he means, and still makes me breathe. And as when Paul writes to the Thessalonians in the second letter, "Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, comfort your hearts." And to the Galatians: "Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father." And to the Corinthians, as said before: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit." And the Savior says: "I and the Father will come and make our dwelling with him." Sometimes they name the Holy Spirit first, and afterwards the Father or the Son, as when David sings: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? And from your presence where shall I flee?" And Job, showing his gratitude, says: "The divine Spirit is what made me, and the breath of the Almighty is what teaches me." And as Paul writes in his first epistle to the Corinthians: "There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and varieties of service, but the same Lord; and varieties of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all." Sometimes they speak of two hypostases without naming them, as when Zechariah says, "The Lord said to the devil: The Lord rebuke you, devil." And this was shown above at greater length.

On the fact that what is said now of the Father is said at another time of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit, because the Trinity exists in one Godhead. Knowing, then, the glorious Trinity in one Godhead, and that its theology is shared, the sacred teachers declare at other times, some of them, of the Son or of the Holy Spirit what they have just now said of the Father; not contradicting themselves, but so that we too may know this very point, the chief point of the right faith, and that whichever hypostasis we mention, we have in every case included the others too in our faith, since they are inseparable. The truthful interpreters of God must of necessity speak truly, and those who … the simple and true faith must be pure of any opinion that denies the truth. For it is not lawful, they say, for the impure to touch the pure; and they were pure, and strangers to every false opinion. We shall find this at once in the vision of God that Isaiah saw. And why should I not first recall that whole passage as it stands? He says: "I saw the Lord Sabaoth sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the house was full of his glory. And seraphim stood around him; six wings to the one, and six wings to the other; and with two wings they covered their faces, and with two their feet, and with two they flew; and they cried one to the other: Holy, holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth; heaven and all the earth are full of his glory." "You will hear with your ears and will not understand; and seeing you will see and will not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and they have shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart, and turn, and I heal them." And among other things he adds: "And my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Sabaoth", "to me one of the seraphim", and what follows. The Lord Sabaoth and King who was seen, then, this Isaiah knows to be God the Father himself; but Paul, in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, declared it to be the Holy Spirit, speaking thus: "Well did the Holy Spirit speak to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, saying: Go to this people and say to them: You will hear with your ears and will not understand", and the rest as above. And John in the Gospel determined that it is the Son of God; for he said: "Though Jesus had done so many signs, they could not believe, because Isaiah said: He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart and turn, and I heal them." And at once he adds: "Isaiah said these things when he saw his glory", that is, the glory of the Son of God. So much, then, on this. But hear also other things of the same force: David in the 94th psalm, singing on the lyre in the person of God the Father thus: "Your fathers tested me, and saw my works forty years. Therefore I was angry with this generation, and said: They always go astray in their heart; and they did not know my ways. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest." Paul, writing to the Hebrews, assigns the words of the same psalm to the Holy Spirit, in this way: "As the Holy Spirit says," he writes, "If you hear my voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing, where your fathers tested me, and saw my works forty years." And Stephen, in the Acts of the Apostles, shaming the Jews from the same Scripture, said: "Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you." Likewise, that … led them out of Egypt … "and there was no foreign god with them." And Jeremiah likewise: "And you did not say," he says, "Where is the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, who led you through the wilderness?" But Isaiah says that it was the Holy Spirit who led them: "For he led them through the deep," he says, "like a horse through the wilderness, and they did not grow weary; and like cattle through a plain. The Spirit came down from the Lord and guided them." And Paul teaches that Christ was their guide: "For they drank," he says, "from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ." In agreement with which Jude too writes in his catholic epistle: "For the Lord Jesus, having once saved a people out of Egypt, afterwards destroyed those who did not believe him." Here, then, the attempt of those who say that the venerable Son and the divine Spirit are creatures is refuted in two ways: from the fact that what indicates the one infinite nature has been declared of each hypostasis, and from the words placed beside it, "there was no foreign god with them", that is, none of another substance. In the same way Moses says: "There shall be no portion or inheritance for the Levites in the land; the Lord himself is their portion"; and Jeremiah: "He who formed all things," he says, "he is the inheritance of Jacob; the Lord is his name"; and David in the 15th psalm: "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup." But Paul writes to the Ephesians that the Holy Spirit is the inheritance: "In whom," he says, "having believed, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance." Likewise Paul writes to the Corinthians: "There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and varieties of service, and the same Lord; and varieties of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all." And showing the … he mentions the Spirit, then the Son, and so the Father; and he who has just said that God works all things adds a little later: "All these the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each individually as he wills"; clearly and expressly presenting him as God, consubstantial with the Father and the Son, and at the same time self-determining. One may hear God the Father saying in Isaiah, "And my glory I will not give to another"; and John saying, "That all may honor the Son as they honor the Father" (for he already knew clearly that the glory is not given back to the Only-begotten and the Holy Spirit as to beings of another substance); and again Mark, saying from Christ: "For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." Matthew, setting out the same passage, did not say "in the glory of the Father" but in that of the Son, writing thus: "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory." And in John he says: "Glorify me with the glory that I had with you before the world existed."

On the fact that, because they are consubstantial and equal in power, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit dwell in the faithful. And against the objection of the heterodox. We shall find the consubstantiality of the Trinity further, and that all things are possible to it without variation, if we understand that it alone, being beyond what is immaterial and invisible, can be shared in according to substance and can fill the temple it has created; and to it not only the fact but also the word belongs. For unchangeableness follows upon being shared in, and upon this being uncreated, which is also being without beginning. Nothing created, as far as the usage of the Scriptures goes, can be shared in by way of participation, or fill a man substantially, but only by way of a habit, good or bad. For we say metaphorically that some are filled with virtue and knowledge, and are able to bring forth with understanding the rewards of virtue and knowledge, like those who have received a pure share of the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is testified, then, that the Father, the Son and the Spirit dwell in us, as when Paul writes to the Corinthians in the second letter, from Jeremiah: "For we are the temple of the living God, as God said: I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people"; and again: "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" and "Do you not know that your bodies … whom you have from God?" And 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, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." And as when the Master says in John: "The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; but you know him, for he remains with you and will be in you"; and again: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him." This will be still plainer to one who considers that the all-powerful God the Word, when he willed it, both remained unchangeable and was carried in the womb by the Virgin. But they object again, saying: It is written, of course, of Ananias, "Why has Satan filled your heart?", and of Judas, that "Satan entered into him." To them it must be said that Satan fills, not by being shared in, nor as if riding upon the soul, but by deceiving … and making it a by-work of his own wickedness, the one who does not heed the words "Do not let your foot be moved, and he who keeps you will not slumber"; in the way he filled Elymas, his son, by the suggestion of satanic action. For Paul says to him, who was abominable in mind and deeds, full of diabolical wickedness and outwitting the saints, so that his father, the author of evil, seemed to dwell in him: "O full of all deceit and all villainy, son of the devil." And further, as he filled the false elders in the case of the most modest Susanna with a licentious mind; it runs thus: "And the two elders came, full of their lawless intent." And so as not to weary the ear with a great crowd of words, we pass over much that we could say on this and will say briefly: if this argument of theirs prevails, see that you do not think it any great thing that the divine serenity dwells in the faithful, but rather that it has this glory in appearance only.

On the fact that, because their nature and substance do not vary, the Trinity speaks in the faithful. That the divine hypostases speak equally in the saints also proclaims that their nature and authority do not vary. For Zechariah, not the prophet but the father of John, said that the Lord God of Israel had spoken through the prophets. And Paul likewise wrote to the Hebrews: "In many parts and in many ways God spoke of old to the fathers by the prophets; in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son." And to the Corinthians he wrote of the Son: "Since you seek proof of the Christ who speaks in me." And the Savior teaches in Matthew: "For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you."

On the fact that, for the same reason, namely the consubstantiality of the Trinity, it is written that we live to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. That it is written that we live to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit also teaches us to see this most plainly; as when Paul discourses in his letter to the Romans: "Consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord"; and again: "so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Christ, who died for them and was raised"; and to the Galatians: "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit …"

On the fact that, for this reason, the law from above is written to be the law of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. For the reason we have stated, the law from above too is written to be the law of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; as the sacred psalmist says in the 36th psalm, "The law of his God is in his heart"; and in the 39th, "To do your will, O God, I desired, and your law in the midst of my belly." And as Paul writes to the Galatians, "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ"; and to the Corinthians in the first letter, "To those outside the law I became as one outside the law, not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ, that I might win those outside the law"; and to the Romans, "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death." And again, hinting at the New and the Old Testament, he says: "But now we have been released from the law, having died to that by which we were held, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter"; and again: "For we know that the law is spiritual."

On the fact that, for the same reason of the consubstantiality in the Trinity, we are called men of God, or Christians, or spiritual. For this reason, then, we are called men of God, or Christians, or spiritual, by those who say: the widow, "… you, man of God?"; and again, "Now I know that you are a holy man of God"; the Shunammite to her husband about Elisha the prophet, "Behold, a great man of God comes to us"; the histories of the Kingdoms, "And a man of God came out of Judah and prophesied against the altar in Bethel"; the sacred psalmist in the title of the 89th psalm, "A prayer of Moses, the man of God"; Paul, writing to Timothy in the second letter, "that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work"; the Acts, "For a whole year they met together in the church, and the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch"; Paul, discoursing to the Corinthians in a letter, "Now concerning spiritual things, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that when you were Gentiles, to the mute idols … no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit"; and again, "The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God (for they are folly to him), and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned; but the spiritual man judges all things, and is himself judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ"; and again, "Brothers, if a man among you is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."

On the fact that, for the same reason of the consubstantiality of the Trinity, what Scripture now says belongs to the Father it says at another time belongs to the Son or to the Holy Spirit. Scripture, showing one Godhead and lordship, says at another time that what it now says belongs to the Father belongs to the Son or to the Holy Spirit; as when the Savior says to the Jews in Matthew, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." And as when the celebrated Paul writes, to the Philippians, "For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ"; and to the Galatians, "And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions …" … "the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this … and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised"; and again, "The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him"; and again, "Be zealous for spiritual things." Further, writing to the Corinthians in the first letter, he declared that the Church too, which is understood together with the glory offered up in it and the bloodless worship offered in it, is God's, thus: "Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God"; and again, "We have no such custom, nor do the churches of God." And again, writing to the Ephesians, "… church, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she might be holy and blameless." For if he did not think so, let someone explain what the prophet Haggai means when he says, "The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former"; that is, the glory of the Church of Christ, and of the praise of God in it, compared with the synagogue of the Jews, in which God the Father alone was proclaimed God and glorified. Accordingly, then, he says that the Gospel is now God the Father's, writing to the Romans, "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God"; and again, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel; for it is the power … of God is revealed in it …; the righteous shall live by faith"; and to the Corinthians in the second letter, "because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge." And now he writes that it belongs to the only-begotten God, to the Corinthians, in the first letter, "But we have not made use of this right, but we endure everything rather than put any obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ"; and in the second, "When I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ"; and again, "glorifying God for the submission of your confession to the gospel of Christ"; and to the Romans, "For God is my witness, whom I serve in the gospel of his Son." And he said that the sacred ministry too is performed sometimes for God the Father and sometimes for God his only-begotten Son, writing to the Corinthians, in the first letter, "Let a man regard us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found faithful"; and in the second, "commending ourselves in everything as ministers of God"; and again, "Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a madman: I am more." And …

… presenting all things, the one divine peace that has no limit, of which Isaiah cried out, "Lord our God, give us peace; for you have given us all things; Lord, we know no other besides you": he gives it with authority as his own, because the nature and the lordship are shared. For he said: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you." Therefore not least Paul too said that both the uncreated hypostases supply this God-given gift without difference, writing to the Romans somewhere thus: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." And the saying "All that the Father has is mine" has given us to discern that this is so. For it is understood thus, if one may speak of rank where God is concerned. "Is the Father God?" he says. "So am I; for I am his only-begotten, true and beloved Son. Is the Father Lord? I too am Lord of all, and heir of a living Father, master of the inheritance. I inherit what is my own, both as its maker and as his true Son; and I was appointed heir as one who became man. Is the Father Creator and King? I am. For I told you that there was a king who went to make a marriage feast for his son, the king. Is the Father unchangeable? So am I. For it was prophesied of me: You are the same, and your years will not fail. Is the Father impassible? I am, so that those who share in me partake of impassibility. Is the Father without beginning? I am. For there was no time when he did not have the name of Father, and the subsisting radiance of his glory, and the imprint of his hypostasis, and the image of the Godhead, that is, me. Is the Father life and light and goodness and power and wisdom and truth, and all that is worthy of God? I am, as you have already heard. And indeed I am Savior, making the sun rise on the righteous and on sinners, and not returning evil for evil. Is the Father loving toward mankind? I am; seeing that for your sake I emptied myself, taking the form of a servant, and bore with you when you struck me, spat on me, mocked me and crucified me." He said, then, that all the Father's things are his, so as to give nothing more to God the Father than only being Father of a Son who is without beginning together with him and subsists together with him. The words "All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them" also persuade us to believe so. For if this was not said because of the natural relation, and the Son was not glorified substantially with all the Father's things; if there is not one kingdom and lordship; then, according to heretical reasoning, there is … is not under the Father's authority but under the Son's. And again: "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me." "When I speak of my own divine glory," he means, "saying that I and the Father are one, you disbelieve; but there is the Father who bears witness to me that I am glorified by nature, being his beloved and true Son, and your God and Master." Then he says: "Father, glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you." Here too equal honor and glory are kept for the divine hypostases. For in whatever way we suppose that the Father glorifies his Son, in that way he himself is glorified by him. And again he adds: "And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed." It is dreadful to hear that he who has glory without beginning with his own Father (for this is what "the glory that I had before the world existed" means) is not glorified by the heretics. And what was this glory? That, I think, of which Mark also spoke: "When the Son comes in the glory of his Father"; that is, he has the Father's glory, and in it he will come the second time. And those whose glory is one do not have one Godhead and another, nor one kingdom and another, nor one worship and another. Hence he instructs them beforehand: "Believe in God, believe also in me; in my Father's house are many dwelling places." For since the Godhead, he means, has no difference, you must have one knowledge of faith concerning the Trinity, so that you may dwell in those thrice-blessed courts, which are fitting and sufficient for all. Not only the things of a teacher, at any rate, but also those of God he grants, when he says: "Your sins are forgiven you"; here too you notice his self-determination, that he does not intercede as with a greater, but forgives as sovereign. And Matthew, contributing his part to the theology of the only-begotten Son, said: "No one knows the Father except the Son; nor does anyone know the Son except the Father." How, then, do these people contend, as if they knew, that the Father is incomparable, his Son unlike him, and his substance unbegottenness … that nothing of another nature has a knowledge equal to that of a being of different substance? And Paul writes likewise to Timothy in the first epistle: "I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time, he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see; to him be eternal honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." The heretics have decided to assign to the Father alone "the only Sovereign, and King of kings", and the rest. But just as he spoke of both the ever-remembered hypostases, "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus", so he sang the rest too of both of them, as of one in Godhead. For he was not ignorant, as these people are, of "All that the Father has is mine"; and "that all may honor the Son as they honor the Father"; and "This is the true God and eternal life"; and "This is our God; no other shall be reckoned beside him"; and "This is my beloved Son"; but … "at the proper time he will display, he who is the blessed and only Sovereign". It is clear that the Son will display his own appearing when he comes the second time. Observe, then, that because of the equal honor of Father and Son he assigns the first glory to him. And to the Romans: "For his invisible attributes, since the creation of the world, are clearly perceived, being understood through the things that are made, both his eternal power and divinity." And this does not tend toward his being a thing made. For it is not by understanding the Creator as created that his eternity and Godhead, that is, the Godhead that is always and ever the same, is made known. And to the Philippians: "Who, being in the form of God, did not count being equal to God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." What is found unequal in this equality? For he did not seize, he means, did not take, being equal by nature to God the Father. And indeed he who was not emptied by another but emptied himself showed himself to be sovereign master and at the same time eternal. For if he came to be in the form of a servant, it is beyond dispute that before this happened he did not continue among things made, but was in the free nature of the Father. Since it was not possible to be seen … form; and he thrust away the burdens of the servant and gave the beginning of a brighter life; whence it was also recognized who he was who was without beginning. And the other things written to the same Philippians, showing to the unintelligent that the Son is already in some way preeminent and surpassing together with his own Father, I have already spoken of before, in chapter 7. But nothing prevents establishing this from the ancient Scripture too; for one must not treat theology as a side matter. God says, then, in Isaiah: "Your new moons and sabbaths and feasts my soul hates. You have become a surfeit to me; I will no longer forgive your sins; even if you make many prayers, I will not listen to you; for your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, become clean; remove your sins from your souls …" … he hates their feasts, that is, their worship, as falling short of the most perfect knowledge of God; and he commands them to be baptized, so as to receive the faith according to the Master's rule concerning baptism. And elsewhere Paul assured us, crying out in so many words, that the Son has no one greater than himself. For when God had said to Abraham in Genesis, "Offer me your son as a sacrifice", and he had readily done so and was about to bring the knife down, an angel of the Lord called him, saying: "Abraham, do not lay your hand on the boy, nor do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, and you have not spared your beloved son for my sake." Then, when a ram had been found for the sacrifice in place of Isaac, and the sacrifice had been completed by Abraham, in intention through the boy and in slaughter through the ram, "the angel of the Lord," it says, "called him a second time from heaven, saying: By myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not spared your beloved son for my sake, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and … all the nations in you, because you obeyed my voice." And this was neither the Father nor a ministering angel. For a minister does not swear by himself, or bless, or say, "You have not spared your beloved son for my sake"; nor does he dare to stop the sacrifice being offered to God, nor has he authority to accept it. But it was the only-begotten God the Word who had asked for the sacrifice, granting Abraham his only son, as Paul explains, writing to the Hebrews thus: "For when God made a promise to Abraham" (what he promised he also did), "since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying: Surely I will bless you." And to the Romans he explains once more that the Son swears by himself: "For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, as it is written: As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." And his sitting at the right hand of the Father, and further the evangelist's declaring with a God-inspired tongue that the seat fitting for the Son is the Father's bosom: if these do not signify sameness of substance and equal honor, and that the only-begotten God and Son must be worshiped together with the Father and his Spirit, but what is written about God must be taken in a human way, which must not be done, then according to them the one at the right hand, who has the divine, ineffable bosom as his many-eyed cherubic throne, is the greater and more glorious, which God forbid! For David sings of the Father in the 109th psalm, "The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand"; and Paul explains to the Hebrews, "Who, being the radiance of the glory of the Father and the imprint of his hypostasis, and upholding all things by the word of his power, after making purification for sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high"; and the evangelist, "The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known."

Likewise the theology concerning the Son: that in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead; and that he is great God and over all, beside whom no other shall be reckoned; and true God; and eternal life; and only Master; and only worker of wonders; and Most High; and King; and Ruler; and Christ all in all; and the rest. So much was enough on these matters. But the initiates of divine things, zealous for what belongs to the all-provident Trinity, do not rest; they speak of the Son in terms still lofty and such as they use of the Father: that in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead; that he is great God and over all, beside whom no other shall be reckoned; and true God; and eternal life; and the true light; and only Master; and only Most High; and only worker of wonders; and great King; and Lord of all; and Creator; and Ruler; and of his peace there is no limit; and Savior; and Christ all in all; and blessed for ever; and that great is the … only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he … among whom Christ is praised as uncreated God); and that he acquires the people for himself by his own Godhead, because he is consubstantial with the Father. Thus, then, speak about these things the saints whom we shall now mention, to whom God, according to the 15th psalm, has made known the paths of life. David, praying in the 7th psalm: "Arise, Lord my God, by the command you have given, and an assembly of peoples shall surround you; and over it return on high." You perceive that the prophet knows him as Lord and God, and entreats him, saying: Arise for your becoming man, in the way you foreordained when you said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." For "over this", he says, the assembly that surrounds … in the 45th: "God, the great Lord, and a great King over all the earth"; in the 49th: "From the rising of the sun to its setting; out of Zion, the perfection of his beauty; God will come manifestly"; in the 67th: "Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered", and "Make a way for him who rides upon the west; the Lord is his name"; in the 81st: "Arise, O God, judge the earth." Observe how each word kindles his glory and suffices to persuade us that he is of the substance of the Father's Monad; and that the great writer calls God the one who was laid in the tomb, not without life, so that together with the living he might save also those who had departed from human affairs, and prophesies that he rises from the tomb to judge those who after so much and such great benefaction … he calls the last times. For in them he appeared manifestly in this visible world. And in the 76th: "Your way is in the holy place; what god is great like our God? You are the God who alone works wonders." Here too he praises the incarnate God the Word, who loved to spend his time in the temple of the Jews, and taught, and worked wonders. And in the 117th: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; God is the Lord, and he has shone upon us." If with reason the Lord who appeared to us (and this is the Son) is, in the prophet, great God, and blessed, that is, glorified, and great King, and only worker of wonders, then without reason is he supposed by the heretics to be less than his own Father. For it is not possible that the same one should in truth hold the first place according to the prophecy and the second according to them. And if we inquire of the same psalmist, we shall learn that he knows that the Son, like the Father, is the God of the forefathers. For in the 46th psalm he cried: "God reigns over the nations; God sits upon his holy throne; the rulers of the peoples are gathered with the God of Abraham." They were assembled with the God who became man, of whom it is sung in the 2nd psalm: "Why did the nations rage, and the peoples plot vain things? The kings of the earth stood by, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Christ." And Isaiah, praising him as incomparable, like God the Father, cries: "From of old we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen a God besides you." For we have seen no other God than the one born of the Virgin Mary in his saving becoming man; nor have we heard any other than the one to whom God the Father bore witness: "This is my beloved Son"; and again, as was said before: "A child is born to us, a son also is given, whose government is upon his shoulder; and his name is called Mighty God, Ruler, Prince of peace, Father of the age to come." And after other things he adds: "And of his peace there is no limit." The Son of God, he says, having become man, was born a child and given to us, himself bearing upon his shoulder the beginning of this his birth below; that is, being himself his own beginning, in that he was born without flux of a Virgin and ineffably made flesh from her, with no intercourse with a man supplying the beginning. And his name is Mighty God, Ruler. He did not say "subject", but revealed his nature, his power, his sovereign authority. Knowing this name, David sings: "Let them know that your name is Lord; you alone are Most High over all the earth", saying "alone" because of the one Godhead. And he called him Father of the age to come, though he is also the Creator of the past ages, because from the time of the dispensation he became widely known to men. He called him Father, then, of the created nature, not of the uncreated; for the Father of the uncreated and consubstantial Son is one. And showing the measurelessness of his Godhead he said: "Of his peace there is no limit." And Jeremiah, or Baruch (for the book of the two is one), speaks of him with solemnity: "This is our God; no other shall be reckoned beside him. He found out every way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel whom he loved. After this he appeared on earth and lived among men." If, then, it is not understood in a way fitting to God that the present scripture was spoken thus because of the sameness of the Godhead of both the ineffable hypostases, it remains … is not compared with his Son. The argument of those who slander God the Word as less and as a servant has therefore fallen and vanished altogether. For how could another be incomparable with the Son, "beside whom no other shall be reckoned"? And again: "Gods who did not make the heaven and the earth, let them perish from the earth; the Lord, who made the heavens by understanding, he is the living and true God"; as though there were no other true Godhead except that of the genuine Son of God, through whom and by whom the heavens too were brought forth together with the whole world. And Paul, the most eminent of men, keeping the same sequence as the prophets, renders the words fitting to him, writing … "hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works." For by declaring "of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ" he shows that he does not hold second place in substance, and that he is without beginning in relation to the great God the Father. For even from what is plain one can see that if the Son is small, how will the Father be great? If there was a time when God the Word was not, there was a time when the name of Father did not exist. May he be gracious to us, who dare to say such things because of the folly of others; for reverence, they say, is a good habit for those who practice it. And through … the consubstantial and good Godhead, the cause of all, to have been allotted. For it is proper to a creator and not to a thing created to die for his own work, if one must speak so; and proper to a beloved Son, who has Godhead and kingdom not different from the Father's, to acquire the people for himself. And this great and true interpreter, bringing his argument to show at once that he is a loving and saving God, and at the same time that it was by his own entreaty, and not by yielding to a superior Godhead, that he came to be with us as one of us, without change and without sin, says: "But when the kindness and love for mankind of God our Savior appeared, not because of works which we had done, but according to his great mercy." And to the Colossians he both reproves and lays the foundation of the first theology concerning him, writing, as has already been said in the chapter On the Consubstantial: "Why according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ Jesus? For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily", that is, substantially. For he is by nature fullness, being in substance the Father's Godhead itself. "For he did not count being equal to God a thing to be grasped"; but we, out of his fullness, through his goodness, received the grace that we did not have by nature, as slaves; according to John, who says: "And from his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace"; that is, the grace of regeneration in place of the grace we lost when we disregarded the first law given about the one tree. "For you are no longer under law," he says, "but under grace"; and again: "For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to him." These words too follow from what went before. For since the Father is in the Son and the Son is by nature in the Father, as everything akin is in some way inseparable from that to which it is joined, well is it said in the passage under discussion, though very deeply and not in a way easily grasped by all, that all things are reconciled through him and to him; so that what was declared of the Father, "from whom are all things", fits the Son as well, if indeed both what has now been said and "in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead" are sound. And writing to Timothy he spoke of him in the highest terms of theology, and from both expressions taught that in Godhead he is not of a nature other than the Father's. For he spoke thus: "Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory." For this Creator and benefactor of all would not yet have been clearly evident to all; he was found manifest when, for the salvation of all, he became so of his own will, and as one of all. Hence he was "justified in the Spirit", that is, declared, or rather confirmed, even by those who had not known him in the time before, to be true God; and he says this not without testing, but by the very movement of our soul, as common usage is to say: "So-and-so was justified as being truly the son of this man, having given proof of his descent"; and at another time: "So-and-so was justified in governing well." And so that the word may appear more credible, he holds that he was seen also by angels, to whom, because of his divine infinity and formlessness, he was invisible before that time, like the only invisible God; and that he was hymned by them: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men"; and that he was preached in this whole universe and believed: that he who shone forth timelessly from the ineffable light was born ineffably, in the later times, of the Ever-Virgin, out of love for mankind, displaying in himself all that is the Father's; and that he who encompasses all things ascended in glory, in which he always was with God. And worthy of belief too is he himself of whom the word speaks, bearing witness to his own Godhead and lordship, and saying in Matthew to the devil, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God", and in John to the apostles, "You call me Lord and Teacher, and you say well, for so I am." And Thomas, having touched the marks of the nails, which the Savior in his love for mankind had received for us from us, was not troubled, nor did he lower his supreme opinion of him. For he knew that it belonged only to the … nature, and not to a created one, not only to suffer for its own creatures, but also to grant what we call universal and general salvation, and that eternally. So, taking greater courage from this, he offers him firm faith and acclaims him: "My Lord and my God." And in the Catholic Epistles too they wrote, speaking of the Son in terms equal to and in the same words as the Father, as was said before: John, great among theologians: "And we know," he says, "that the Word of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know the true God; and we are in the true one, in the Son of God, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." "Seek no other God in substance," he means, "nor Son of God. For I have twice said to you of him 'true': that he is true Son and true God, having given understanding to those worthy to receive it; so that they may know that he was truly begotten, and truly is …" … who has been allotted the Father's Godhead that is over all and through all and in all, writing somewhere thus to those everywhere: "For certain men have crept in (who were long ago marked out for this condemnation), ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny the only Master and our Lord Jesus Christ." And Peter too, the chief among the apostles, is seen in the Acts saying: "The Word that he sent to the sons of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ: he is Lord of all." Where, then, or how, or when, with so many … [ch. 28] On the fact that the Son makes every good thing rise; and that he is the sun of righteousness, and healing, and the treasure of wisdom and knowledge, and light; and that those who believe in him and are not offended at him become sons of light. Those, at any rate, who have sung of him, showing us in various ways his Godhead and that he presides perfectly over his own works, teach that he is the giver of every good, and a light good in form and doing good, and an intelligible sun, brightening with the unceasing light that comes from himself the eyes of souls that do not wander and are able to receive it, and leading them into the intelligible watchtower, and making them see what before, because of sin, they could not see by themselves; or even making the whole complete man like light, as the sun makes like itself the bodies it comes upon; and further that he is healing, and a treasure of wisdom and knowledge, inexhaustible and all-sufficient. And those who are sincerely disposed toward him, as toward his Father, become sons of light, as they become sons of God the Father; as when they proclaim it: Malachi, "For you who fear my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, and healing in its wings"; Peter in his second epistle, "until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." He meant, I think, the illumination that is to rise upon souls from his second appearing, and to brighten all that is held fast by darkness. And elsewhere: "And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." And Zechariah prophesied: "If there is anything good, it is his; and if anything fair, it will come from him." And Paul said of him to the Colossians, "In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge"; and to the Romans, "For the Scripture says: Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame; for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, rich toward all who call upon him; for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." What name of the Son, then, do they call upon, who say that he, the glorious victor, the Savior of heaven and earth and sea, is neither uncreated God nor Son consubstantial with the Father? And John … "believe in the light, that you may become sons of light." For after death, he means, there is no repentance; as David too sings, "In Hades who will confess you?"; and again, from the Savior: "Go and tell John what you see and hear: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, and the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached to them; and blessed is whoever is not offended in me." And what does he say of those who are led astray and those who lead astray? Isaiah foretold it: "My people, those who call you blessed lead you astray and confuse the path of your feet. But now the Lord will stand up for judgment, and will set his people for judgment. The Lord himself will come into judgment with them; but you, why have you set fire to my vineyard?" The Lord himself will come into judgment with the teachers and rulers, not as one to be judged by another, but as one who will convict them, as he declares in another place: "Come, and let us reason together, says the Lord": what things, he means, came to you from me, and what things have been done by you to me and to my servants. For he calls the world, or the people, his vineyard, which the expounders among the heretics and the Jews have made liable to the fire of Gehenna through blasphemous teaching; and the rulers, not making his concerns their own but misusing their authority, have wronged it in various and diverse ways. For something of the same kind was said by the same prophet in the person of the Master: "Who is it that contends with me? Let him stand against me. And who is it that contends with me? Let him come near to me"; that is, if anyone has just things to say, fortified by works, let him oppose me, for I wish it, and let him come near with his words. Some read it thus: "Who is it that contends with me? Opposite"; that is, let him stand opposite me and far off, as one who has no good provisions and is therefore unworthy to be compared with me and to touch the most pure judgment seat. For to the worthy, if they obtain good things, there is no grudging; for it has been prepared for them.

On the fact that the Son of God is judge of the living and the dead, granting forgiveness of sins; and that in no one else is there salvation. For he is the judge of the living and the dead, that is, of the righteous and of sinners, who grants forgiveness of sins to those who believe in his name, and saves us by his own glory and gift; and in no one else is there salvation; since he is by nature merciful and Savior, in nothing inferior to the merciful and saving God and Father, as the other Scriptures declare, and in particular Micah, saying: "Who is a God like you, taking away iniquities and passing over unrighteousness?" And Peter in the Acts, thus: "And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name." We have him, then, praised as "appointed by God" because of his saving becoming man, in which he came to seek and to save the lost; because of which it is also written: "For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son." And he is called judge as one exalted above creatures. For a creature does not judge, but is subject to law and to judgment. And again: "This is the stone … the head of the corner; and there is salvation in no one else." He also sends a second catholic letter, which contains among other things this about him: "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and virtue, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature." Therefore James too said in his general letter: "There is one lawgiver and judge, who is able to save and to destroy." And what need is there of a multitude of Scriptures for this, when even Samaritans, in John, that exact speaker of God, simple men only, utter such words? "For they say: the Savior of the world, the Christ"; he who says gently, "Take heart, child; your sins are forgiven."

On the fact that, because of the equal honor of the Trinity, the Father reveals the Son to us and draws us to him; and again the Son himself and the Holy Spirit bring us to the Father. At the same time, also on Peter's confession; and that there is repentance. For in order that it may be shown in every way that the blessed Trinity … the Father reveals his own Son, and draws us through himself to him, and transfers us into his kingdom; and again the Son and the Holy Spirit bring us to God the Father. For God would not have transferred us to one of another substance, or greater, nor to things lower than his own, like scepters. The New Testament, then, has perfected the Old, through faith in the Son and the divine Spirit. And they speak thus: God the Father in Isaiah, to the Son: "Behold, proselytes will come to you through me, and will sojourn with you, and will flee to you for refuge"; and the Son in John: "No one can come to me unless the heavenly Father draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day." … "the Christ, the Son of the living God", he said: "Blessed are you, Peter Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it; and I will give you the keys of the heavens; and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in the heavens, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in the heavens." O how much faith can do! even the confession that the only-begotten God the Word is the true Son of God and not a creature. Peter did not hesitate when he saw God dwelling on earth in flesh and blood; for this is the meaning of "Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you." He recognized the branch of God, of one nature and co-eternal with him; in it he honored the self-existent and beginningless root that had revealed it to him; he believed in his oneness of Godhead with the Father; he was called blessed by the only blessed Master. On this rock the churches were built, against which the gates of Hades, that is, the reasonings of heretics … of the heavens; so that for those who believe (as Peter himself is seen to have just answered, and as he heard from Christ together with the other apostles), baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, he might open the way into the kingdom of God; and for those who do not so believe, he might shut the thrice-blessed and most longed-for entrance. For by this very confession for which he was called blessed, he himself was approved for this belief, just as those who say the opposite were blamed and cast out. Having spoken the truth, then, and confessed him to be the Son of God, that is, genuine and consubstantial, he heard a like name in return: "Bar-Jonah", which is interpreted "son of Jonah". And Peter was certainly not of another substance from the one who begot him. Besides this he received authority, or rather all received it through him, not to give up on those who fall, but to receive them when they repent. For no one is without sin except the one who entrusted this authority to Peter; for this is the meaning of "Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in the heavens" … inhumanity. And Paul too follows what has been set out, writing to the Galatians: "But when God, who set me apart from my mother's womb, was pleased to reveal his Son in me"; and to the Colossians: "giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light; who has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins"; and to the Corinthians: "God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord"; and to the Ephesians: "And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father."

On the fact that there is no end to the kingdom of the Only-begotten. And so that the heretics who say that after the general resurrection the Son is to hand over the kingdom to the Father may be put to shame, the Scriptures proclaim that the Son's rule is without end, thus: Gabriel, in Luke, bringing the good news to the Theotokos: "And the Lord God," he says, "will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Israel for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." And very truly; for if he gives it back, in what kingdom of his, and when, shall we reign with him? And Paul, writing to the Ephesians: "Every sexually immoral or impure or covetous person, that is, an idolater, has no inheritance in …" … he means the kingdom after the resurrection. When, then, according to them, does he hand over the kingdom? And to Timothy, in the second epistle: "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word." It is clear that he speaks of the kingdom that he holds undivided and without succession with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and into the age to come. And to the Hebrews: "Of the angels he says: He who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire; but of the Son: Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever." And David in the 44th psalm: "… lawlessness; therefore, O God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions." Observe again that his kingdom is without end and his Godhead without beginning. And because of his ineffable becoming man he added "your God". And in the 144th: "Your kingdom is a kingdom of all the ages, and your dominion is in every generation and generation." And in the 10th psalm: "The Lord will reign for ever and ever." And the Son, as Lord, gave Peter the keys of the kingdom (not of the present age, for we have not yet obtained it, but of the age to come, in which the heretics conjecture that he hands it over), so that those who believe his kingdom to be without beginning and without end might be received, and those might be thrust out, as was said a little before, who do not cry out with Nathanael: "You are the Son of God, you are the King of the Christians." And the prophecy of Isaiah that says, "My eyes have seen the King, the Lord Sabaoth", Paul ascribed to the Spirit of God, and John to the Only-begotten, as was said before, because the Godhead and the one kingdom without succession are shared. For how is it possible that one should rule and the other, as among men, be at leisure, when the Father is in the Son, and the Son remains in the Father, and when the Spirit proceeds from the Father and remains with the Son in a divine manner?

On the glorifying of the Son of God himself. Accordingly, consider also concerning his glory what the saints bear witness to once more, "of whom," it says, "the world was not worthy"; teaching us, who by grace have been called sons on earth, to glorify the only-begotten Son, who is from the hypostasis of the Father, with glory equal to the Father's, and to look to the glory that he had with the Father before the world existed, the Father who does not begrudge the Beloved; for the Divine is free from envy and from every passion. David, in the 71st psalm, which by common consent he prophesied about Christ, says: "His name shall be blessed for ever; his name endures before the sun, and before the moon, for generations of generations; and in him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed; all the nations shall call him blessed. Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wonders; and blessed be the name of his glory for ever, and for ever and ever; and the whole earth shall be filled with his glory. So be it." "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel", he said, meaning glorified, or praised. For God is blessed by his works, that is, glorified; and he himself blesses his own creatures, that is, sanctifies them. And it must be noted that he too is called God of Israel, that is, God of the fathers, as his Father is called. And in the 85th psalm, showing the almighty and all-powerful nature of the Only-begotten, and that he ought to be glorified, he sings: "All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, Lord, and shall glorify your name; for you are great and do wonders; you alone are God"; and in the 18th: "The heavens declare the glory of God." How? By showing, from the greatness and beauty given to them, that the one who created them, who is God the Word, is unsurpassable and glorified. For "by the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their host." … the testimony of the Holy Spirit. And in the 23rd: "Lift up your gates, O rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting gates, and the King of glory shall come in." He bids the creation below lift up the gates at his becoming man, and the creation above at his ascension. And in the 116th: "Praise the Lord, all nations, and let all the peoples praise him." And Isaiah: "You shall see a king with glory." And Ezekiel: "Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place"; and "This is the vision, the likeness of the glory of the Lord." Then Paul: "Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man"; and again to the Romans: "Therefore he gave them up in the desires of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves; for they exchanged the glory of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen." And who is the Creator of all, whom he says is blessed for ever, if not the Only-begotten? And who are those who have exchanged his glory? Those who say, "Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit"; who also say that he is a creature, and do not glorify him even as eternal King. Then he says to the same people: "so that they are without excuse; for although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but became futile … their senseless heart." And who is the God who was known and yet not acknowledged by heretics and Jews and Greeks, if not God the Word, who appeared in the flesh? And to the Corinthians, in the first letter, showing that he is by nature the Lord of glory, he writes thus: "For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory"; and elsewhere: "so that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father", meaning that he exists in the very glory of the Father. And further: "For we see Jesus, made lower because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor …" But he also calls him glory, since he is by nature the radiance of the Father's glory, in the words: "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory." He said "God" with reference to the ineffable incarnation, and "Father" with reference to the beginningless begetting. And again John: "We have beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." And again in Mark, from the Savior: "When the Son comes in the glory of his Father", showing that his glory is equal in honor with the glory of the Father; and in Matthew: "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all his angels with him." And once more John, establishing that he is in glory and that glory is owed to him by all, said: "Though Jesus had done so many signs, the Jews did not believe in him, so that the word spoken through Isaiah might be fulfilled: You will hear with your ears and will not understand." And in between he adds: "He said these things when he saw his glory, and spoke of him." And Peter, in the first epistle: "Insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, rejoice, so that you may also rejoice and exult when his glory is revealed"; and in the second: "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and virtue"; meaning that the glory of the Only-begotten, the glory of his nature, of his miracles, of his kingdom, and of the very praise given to him, is like and equal to the glory of the Father, from whom he was begotten by nature and without interval, and he has all things in himself as Only-begotten; so that even when he became flesh he underwent no change or lessening. So also the three young men, burning not with the Babylonian flame but with longing for their Creator and benefactor, and attending less to the furnace around them than to the Gehenna prepared for the worshipers of creatures, urged creation to glorify the one who appeared with them in the furnace, of whom it is written: "And the appearance of the fourth is like a son of God"; "Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord, … for ever." And when the Lord-killers, it says, were vexed with the children and the crowds because they glorified Jesus as God, saying, "Hosanna in the highest; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord", he reminded them of the Scripture that says, "Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have prepared praise", applying this saying to himself and showing that glory is not unfittingly brought to him. And angels too, it says, said at his birth: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace." … fitting and owed to him, but not to a creature, as the saints set down below write: David in the 94th psalm: "Come, let us worship and fall down before him, and weep before the Lord who made us; for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand"; and in the 21st: "All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before him; for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he rules over the nations." What, then, will they say, who assign the names separately, "God" to the Father and "Lord" to the Son, when they hear here that the Lord is worshiped and rules and that the kingdom is his? And again in the 9th psalm: "And I will worship you, Lord, my strength"; and in the 131st: "Let us worship at the place where his feet stood." Paul, writing from the song of Deuteronomy: "And when he brings the Firstborn into the world, he says: And let all the angels of God worship him." And the evangelist: "The magi said," it says, "We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him"; and again: "Behold," it says, "a leper came and worshiped him"; and again in Matthew it says: "The wind ceased; and those in the boat worshiped him, saying: Truly you are the Son of God", and not, he means, in the way we are, who have been called sons by a generous gift. And: "A ruler worshiped him." And after his resurrection, it says, on the mountain, "the apostles, seeing him, worshiped him."

On faith in God the Father. Just as, then, when Scripture, to all appearance, says many things about the Son that are greater than what it says about the Father, and shows him to be Almighty, and maker of the ages, and Creator of all; and true God, having no God before him; and above all, and great God and over all, beside whom no other shall be reckoned; and sitting at the right hand of the Father, and being in his bosom; and that he is eternal life, and the true light, and Lord of all, and only Master and Ruler; whose peace has no limit but surpasses all understanding, and whose kingdom has no end; and that in no one else is there salvation; and that the Father draws the worthy to the Son: just as, then, the Father, or his Spirit, is not thought to be inferior in anything (God forbid!), in the same way, when it speaks lofty things of the Father, the Only-begotten or the Holy Spirit ought not to be reckoned less or unlike. For it belongs to no created power, but only to the uncreated, to do the things mentioned: to create substance out of nothing, and rational substance; to give life; to forgive sins; to call creation one's own; to know the Father equally, as one is known by him; to work equally with God the Father; to be in the Father, and to have the Father in oneself equally; to be served by angels; and, surpassing these, to be the only-begotten Son, and God, and light from light, and eternal life, and truth, and being, and to have all things established in oneself; and to grant ungrudgingly to all the kingdom of heaven and the divine peace as one's own; and to give to those who believe and call upon him security for everlasting salvation. For those who call the true Son a creature, and not without beginning, … God, and perhaps not even in the Father. For they transgress the commandment, on the one hand, of the Father who commands: "Hear, my people, and I will speak to you, Israel, and I will testify to you. If you listen to me, there shall be no new god among you, nor shall you worship a foreign god"; that is, one who once did not exist, or one of another substance. And: "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve"; and: "You shall have no other gods besides me"; and: "Cursed is everyone who puts his hope in man", that is, in a thing made. And on the other hand, the commandment of the Son, who says in Matthew: "No one can serve two masters", that is, two natures; or: "They worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator." And of Moses the lawgiver: "Whoever sacrifices to foreign gods, except to the Lord alone, shall be stoned." And a new and foreign god is one who is not consubstantial with God the Father, and once did not exist. And those who say, "Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit", do not glorify the Son or the Spirit of God. For they send up glory to one through another in another, or rather to neither; and they violate, on the one hand, the will of the Father (who says, "My glory I will not give to another", that is, I will not give it to one of another nature, and who wills that the Son be honored equally) … calling, but striking him with their hands and crying, "Prophesy to us, Christ: who is it that struck you?"; who also said, "We believe as Moses and the prophets", but crucified the very one who was prophesied. When, then, God the Father too is disobeyed together with the only-begotten God, and faith in a creature is useless, able to harm rather than to save, let them consider for themselves whether they have a faith free of danger, when they deny salvation; for one must be saved by believing rightly; for to be saved, they say, is good, and the rest is another matter. And the children of Macedonius, just as they do not keep the glory of the Holy Spirit, so they do not keep that of the Only-begotten either, calling him of like substance with the Father and not consubstantial, so that he is understood to be of another, similar substance. So it remains for the heretics either to change the name of the Father in their rites, since for them he is not in truth Father, and also the names of the only-begotten Son and of the Spirit of God, as though they did not exist (may the holy and venerable consubstantial Trinity, whom we glorify, forgive us for saying it), and above all to change their own name, and neither be called Christians or spiritual nor regard themselves as sons of the same kind as their own fathers; or else not to estrange the true Son and his Holy Spirit from the Godhead and glory of the Father. For it is the way of the Jews to honor the Father alone, and the way of the Greeks to revere a multitude of demons, great and small, temporal and of different substance.

How the theological statements of the Scriptures must be understood. I, the unworthy one, have been led to join in the contest on behalf of the theology concerning the only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit, without harming even in thought the ineffable glory of God the Father (for it is not unknown, as if it had not been made known before both the divine hypostases spoken of; but nevertheless both hypostases are from him by nature, sharing his nature, that of the Son by begetting, and that of his Spirit … setting aside their interpretations, and establishing that by the very means by which they seem, contrary to Scripture, to honor the Father more, they both grieve him and insult his Only-begotten and his Spirit.

And this too on the same subject. The orthodox, then, must know that even concerning a small work of God (if one may dare to call any work of God small), those who wish to treat of it have need of words, and of works before words, and of faith before … the highest; so that, being counted worthy through these to know that even the small is not to be grasped by thought, but itself infinitely surpasses human things (for if it is a work of God, even if it seems small, it is great, as God's; "and how could one grasp great things by small labors? It is folly even to wish it," as they say), they may know that much more does the understanding of the ineffable God himself surpass even the perception of archangels; and leaving the search into these things to God alone, they may say with the apostle, "I believed, and so I spoke"; and may understand the theological statements of the Scriptures thus. When they speak from one person, it is because of the one nature and will; when from both, because … and again: "I am, and there is no other God besides me", because of the one Godhead and concord, as was said before. When the Holy Spirit seems not to be mentioned, it is because he is included with God, whose Spirit he is. When the Master, handing down the mystagogy, says, "Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit", it is because of their equal honor, equal strength and consubstantiality, and the distinctness of the hypostases. When what is said now of God the Father is recorded elsewhere of the Only-begotten or of the Holy Spirit, it is for the reasons given before. When they teach in various ways that both hypostases do the same works and the same activity, it is for the reason given before. When, though each hypostasis was able to create and to make all things, God the Father was pleased that all things should come into being through the Son and God and be sanctified through the Holy Spirit, it is because of the one will of the Trinity, and to show that all good things are supplied from it, and so that we may offer up to it common and equal thanksgiving and praise. When they use the same names for the blessed Trinity, such as God, Lord, holy, righteous, good, and the like (except that the Father alone is, and is always, Father; and the true Son is Son and God; and the Holy Spirit is, without beginning, the one and the same Spirit of God), it is because of their communion in nature and kingdom and all things; and this belongs to the Trinity alone. When they speak in veiled terms, it is because the mystery of the faith is always guarded, being revealed to the faithful alone. When they say that God the Father begot …

[Contents of Book 2.] Chapter 1. That the holy Trinity is incomprehensible to both the invisible and the visible creation; that it is present to all; and that all creation is its common work. Chapter 2. That the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God the Father, as our own spirit is ours, and has proceeded from him consubstantially. And against a heretical teaching. Chapter 3. That the Spirit of God has various names, which signify his divine nature and power. And against a heretical opinion. Chapter 4. On the heretics who say: “God is Spirit; how then is the Holy Spirit the Spirit of the Spirit?” And again: “Are not the angels, then,” they say, “from God, and holy, and spirits of God?” Chapter 5. On those who say: “Since the Word of God is Only-begotten,” he says, “what shall we call the Spirit?” And that the Son is attested as only-begotten, the Holy Spirit as one and only; and again the Son as Word, the Holy Spirit as Utterance. And on comparison. And that there is no example … Chapter 6. That everything proper to the Godhead is attested of the Spirit, as follows: 1. That he is not, as the heretics say, the first creature, but God; for the first creature is Satan. 2. That he fills the world and holds all things together. 3. That he is incorruptible. 4. That he is eternal. 5. That, being unchangeable, he admits neither virtue nor vice. 6. That he is holy by nature, and sanctifies and justifies. 7. That he is participated in substantially; and this is proper to God alone. 8. That he is good, himself the begetter of the goodness, truth, wisdom, and love found in creation; and that in him is understood every good gift and every perfect present. 9. That he loves humankind. 10. That he is free by nature and not a slave; and that as God and Lord he sets free and makes sons of God. 11. That he commands and does not serve. 13. That he does not lie, which is proper to God alone. 14. That he is truth, because he does not disagree with the one Godhead. 15. That no one knows the things of God except the Holy Spirit; and that, because of his equality with the Father, God in turn knows the things of the Holy Spirit. 16. That no one sees God the Father except the Son alone and the Holy Spirit. And against those who say: “Is it not written, then,” he says, “that the angels see the face of the Father?” 17. That the Holy Spirit makes creation worthy of adoption, while he himself proceeds from the hypostasis of God. 18. That he does not sing hymns as the rest of creation does, since he is among those to whom hymns are sung. 19. That he is named together with the Father and the Son. And on a heretical objection. 20. That he shares with God the Father and his only-begotten Son in the names, as he does in the substance. 21. That he is one, and not many as creatures are. 22. That because of his consubstantiality and his being without beginning he is written to be water of life, from the … 23. That the Savior was anointed with the Holy Spirit; but if the Spirit were a creature, the Uncreated would not have been anointed with his own handiwork. And that we too have his anointing. Chapter 7. On the divine operations and gifts of the Holy Spirit, as follows: 1. That he gives life. 2. That because of the identity of the Godhead and the equal operation it is written that Christ, who willingly suffered for us in the flesh, was raised sometimes by the Father, sometimes by himself, sometimes by the Holy Spirit. And against a heretical exposition. 3. That he creates and raises from the dead. At the same point, that to sanctify is to create, and more necessary than to create. And against a heretical exposition. 4. That he sanctifies and justifies. 5. That he bestows salvation. 6. That he frees from death and forgives sins. 7. That he works together with the Father and the Son. And that Christ worked signs and wonders and cast out demons in the power of the Spirit, because the Godhead is inseparable. 8. That, like God the Father, the Holy Spirit too is styled God and Master. 9. That together with Christ he will judge all things. 10. That Paul, in the power of the Spirit … 11. That it was by the power of the all-holy Spirit that the heavens were opened and seen by the holy Stephen. 12. That he knows beforehand. Chapter 8. On the Holy Spirit’s own authority, as follows: 1. That he gives the gifts on his own authority, as he wills, and blows where he has chosen. And against … 2. That he appointed the prophets and apostles, sent them on his own authority, and made them speak as he willed. 3. That he gives laws and commands with declarations, as God. And against those who say that it was also written of an angel: “Thus says the angel.” 4. That together with the Father he sends and guides on his own authority. And against those who say: “God guides to himself, but the Spirit to the truth.” Chapter 9. That the Holy Spirit is consubstantial with the Father and the Son, and is also signified as almighty. At the same point, on the … Chapter [10]. That the Holy Spirit is attested to be God and Lord and glorified. And a refutation of the Macedonian teaching. … sits on the … throne, and sends forth power. And that Paul knows him to be the Lord Sabaoth seen by Isaiah. And against the Macedonian opinion. And that he dwells in us. And that the heretics tamper with the divine Scriptures. … us in baptism; and as Master sets free; and makes us sharers of divine glory, and sons and heirs of the Father, co-heirs and brothers of the Son, glorified together with him. And that baptism is of no benefit to those who do not believe that the Holy Spirit is God. At the same point, that there is one glory of the sun, and another of the moon and the stars. … who bring forward the words “Unless someone is born of water and Spirit.” … that the waters were sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and the salvation that comes from baptism was prepared for us in advance. And that the Israelites obtained salvation from what was once an image of baptism, and much more those who are now baptized and blessed. … especially at baptism to make mention of the Holy Spirit alone, and of his seal, which we have. … the Israelites: in honor and glory of the holy Pascha of Christ, the day of Unleavened Bread; and in honor and glory of the august coming of the Holy Spirit, their day of Pentecost; and that the assemblies of the churches and … and of the martyrs’ shrines were foretold by the feast of Tabernacles. … and that he always works together with God the Father and strengthens us. And that his appearing and his teaching are equal in honor with the Son’s and in harmony with it; and that David, who bore the Spirit, prays to be established by him. … [the apostles], armed with the power of the Spirit, alone withstood the world and the devil, speaking and understanding every tongue. And on the eunuch who said: “Look, water; what prevents me from being baptized?” … is plainly called God, and not the Holy Spirit too? And that “God” and “Lord” is a name common to the holy Trinity, as the Godhead and the lordship are one. Chapter 20. That the earthly man does not have the Holy Spirit, but the believer who has been counted worthy of baptism has him; and that he can, to the measure of our nature, behold with the eye of the soul the glory of the Holy Spirit too. … God is glorified in the Spirit, but not the Holy Spirit. And on the words “No one can say ‘Lord Jesus’ except in the Holy Spirit.” And that to regenerate by baptism … than to be glorified or worshiped, greater and … the Holy Spirit and the Son by faith, that the church is greater than the synagogue. … of the heretics who interpret the Scriptures. At the same point, on not disregarding the Fathers. … threat against those who reject his Son and the Holy Spirit. … wrote of the Holy Spirit’s consubstantiality with God, and of his proceeding from him.

[Chapter 1.] That the holy Trinity is incomprehensible.

Those who are eager to be a temple, worthy in some measure at least, of the Holy Spirit who dwells in the faithful, having once for all the unapproachable light shining within them, glorify, as the Master taught in the mystery of bap[tism] … God and Father, and the beloved and only-begotten Son, the Word, who coexists with him and is from him, and the Holy Spirit named with them, who alone proceeded from his hypostasis without beginning and without interval. They do not disbelieve the consubstantiality of the Trinity, yet they do not inquire into the manner of begetting and of procession and the difference between them; for to the heavenly ministering powers too this has remained unknown, unspeakable, and fearful even to consider, as has the question how the holy Trinity coexists with itself without beginning, always the same and in the same way; and how, seated on the eternal throne, it can look upon the abysses, and be heard while silent, and hear those who are silent; and know what is to come before it is done; and bring all things into being by a word, and faster than a word, and by willing alone; and, before a person has thought the matter through in his heart, provided only that he asks faithfully and justly, give its verdict on the request at once, and fit the right time for kindness to everyone; and be slow to anger but ready to do good; and be provoked by our faults but forgive out of its own love for humankind … [incomprehensi]ble to it is also how it has one will, and speaks, and bestows what is common to itself; and how it looks after not so much the good health of bodies as the broken heart itself. And this too: how it is invisible, and cannot be grasped by the eyes of the seraphim, cannot be contained by reason or place, is indivisible in power, intangible, overseeing all things, hearing all things, and the hope of all; far brighter than the light of heaven, higher than every height by more than can be said, and more intelligent than every mind by an infinite measure. For how could the things of the Trinity fail to be incomprehensible to all, when it is itself the maker of all things, and highest above all intellectual, and indeed intelligible, creation, beyond which there is nothing at all, while all things are rather under it, and through it, and under its feet, as its works? For the Father, being well pleased, began; the Only-begotten created; and the Spirit of God sanctified, being whole in all and in each by his sanctification, and wholly shared and received by all, out of goodness; not divided, not moving from place to place, not changing, but always breathing upon all alike and not in part, and keeping his own purity undefiled by bodies; and all things in a divine way … of heaven he beheld, and the angels of God ascending and descending. But now, having become man for the sake of man, the Lover of humankind, having kicked away the inhuman one with the foot of his Godhead, and having lifted up man with the hand of his kindness, [trod] the untrodden ether with human feet … love, peace, wisdom, joy, security, and every good, as having shone forth hypostatically from the Father’s fountain. Through him and because of him God the Father draws near to us; with him the Father is in heaven and also remains with us. Each divine hypostasis is able to do all things perfectly without need of another; but in order to show that their substance is one in working and without difference, and so too the worship, glory, and thanksgiving that we owe them, creation was therefore brought to completion by the holy Trinity in common. So, to show that creation was ordered by the Trinity, he sings: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their powers.” … the only-begotten Son, through whom and by whom they were created; and by “Spirit” the Holy Spirit of God, existing as a hypostasis, by whom they were sanctified and strengthened. For he is the divine name, the almighty and surpassing dignity, named and glorified together with Father and Son; the one who sanctifies, gives life, and imparts heavenly light; the one who preserves each thing in its abiding identity; the one who sounded in the prophets and apostles, and strengthened the martyrs to withstand the cruelty of tyrants; the one who renews and sets free as Lord, and makes us sons of God as the Spirit of adoption; the one who by his illumination drives off the swarms of demons and the … and makes us sharers in the life and the hymn-singing of the angels; the one who becomes for us a path leading up to the heavenly God and Father himself; the free, surpassing, and most serene manifestation; the fruitful, boundless, and saving power; the immeasurable, incomparable, and august hypostasis; the undefiled, choice, and all-pure glory; the divine grace that fills up what is lacking and heals what is weak; the ineffable and everlasting goodness; the fountain of unfailing gifts and the source from which every good thought proceeds; the true revelation of things to come and unknown; the saving seal and the divine anointing; the pledge of the … through whom we have divine rebirth, forgiveness of lawless deeds, the covering of sins, and close kinship with God; a crown for the righteous and the receiving of good things; a heavenly dwelling, endless life, and the eternal inheritance of the kingdom of God. Whoever shares in his fellowship through rebirth obtains the good things just named and, as the Catholic Epistles say, is a sharer in the divine nature. For one who has received the incorruptible and everlasting illumination remains ageless in the intelligible sense, in youth and gentleness, and is made like him who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light. For the sacred seers of the Old and New Testament know that the Holy Spirit belongs to the one supreme divine nature. At once, then, they testify:

That the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. On a heretical objection.

First, that he is the Spirit of God, and from God, though not after him; that he alone knows the things of God; and that he comes upon all. They say as follows. Moses in Genesis, speaking in the person of God: “… [shall not remain in] these men forever, because they are flesh.” Haggai likewise, from the divine voice: “I am with you, and my Spirit stands in your midst.” Zechariah likewise: “But hear my words and receive my ordinances, which I command by my Spirit to my servants the prophets.” Isaiah, from the Father to the Son: “My Spirit, which is upon you, and the words which I have put in your mouth, shall not fail from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your seed”; by “his seed” he means those who are from the Son. [And the Son says:] “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” That these things were fulfilled in the dispensation Matthew stated thus: “So that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying: Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased; I will put my Spirit upon him.” And again, from the Father: “For a Spirit shall go forth from me.” And in Ezekiel the most high Father calls our spirit our spirit, but names the Holy Spirit as his own, inasmuch as he proceeded from him by nature: “And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit; and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh; and I will put my Spirit within you.” And in … upon all flesh.” And Paul wrote to Titus that these things have been accomplished: “When the saving grace of our [God] appeared, not by works which we ourselves had done, but according to his great mercy, he gave us new birth through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ.” And when did he pour him out? When Christ breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The words “poured out” are well chosen, since the Spirit proceeded from him consubstantially like water, and like a divine ointment, as we shall show at the proper time in the fitting places; and so is “upon all flesh.” For these expressions suit the substance of the holy Trinity, which is participated in by all together, but not a created rational nature that cannot be participated in. For it does not say anywhere “… of an angel,” nor so unrestrictedly, but “upon all flesh.” And David too cries out in supplication: “Do not take your Holy Spirit from me”; and again: “Your good Spirit shall lead me in a level land.” And Matthew, from the Son: “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of my Father who speaks in you”; that is, not you who are created, but the uncreated Spirit of God. And Paul too writes, to the Corinthians in the first Epistle: “What eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and has not entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him, God has revealed to us through his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might see the things freely given to us by God.” He said that the Spirit revealed the good things prepared by God, as one who gives them together with him; and he said “his Spirit” in contrast to our spirit. And again, to make sure that the Spirit would not be thought of as an angel or some other created spirit, he added: “We have received not the spirit of the world” (that is, one that has come into being), “but the Spirit who is from God”; that is, by elimination, the one who proceeded from the hypostasis of God; and that he alone knows the things of God, as Lord, and as having the same nature as the Father. For “the servant,” as he says in the Gospel, “does not know what his master is doing.” But he no longer said, as in the case of man, “who dwells in God,” so that the uncompounded God might not be thought compounded. And to the Ephesians: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption”; and to the Romans: “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you; and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his”; and to the Galatians: “Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father”; and to the Philippians: “For I know that this will turn out for my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” Observe, then, how merely calling him “Spirit of God,” and the addition of the article “my” and “your,” also showed with perfect clarity that he is unc[reated] … but from his being by nature that which he is also called. And his being written “Spirit of the Son” likewise showed his fellowship of nature with the Son, so that he should not be thought the Son’s creature. For how could the Son have created for his own Father, as though the Father had not had him from himself before this, that which both is and is written to be the Spirit of God? That is not only blasphemous but also foolish. “Spirit of Christ” could be understood as “power of Christ,” in the way that Christ is called the power of God and the wisdom of God. For since these blessed hypostases came forth from the one Father by nature and not by a creative operation, they are referred back to that same One. So that no one might suspect that the Spirit has a beginning or an end, the Lord says in the Gospel according to John: “The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father.” He did not say, “is created.” Every begetting and procession is accomplished by means of things equal and alike; but above all and in a distinctive way, the begetting and the procession from the one Father are in accordance with the unity of his Godhead. Yet among creatures the original precedes in time, but with God it is not so: they subsist together with him and have come forth together with him. In harmony with the Lord, John too proclaimed that the Holy Spirit is equal to the Father and without difference from him, comprehending, so to speak, the whole of the uncircumscribed God the Father; and he shows that he is found among the faithful, saying: “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, by his Spirit, whom he has given us”; just as the Son said: “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” and, “I came forth from the Father.” For nothing at all that is inferior in substance, or in time, or in glory can show forth the whole truth, or be of the same kind, or have equal knowledge; nor could anyone obtain a share in true Godhead through a creature. But the Holy Spirit is given, not by being cut into parts, but by way of participation, and so that he might not be thought to dwell in us as of a different nature or a different mind from the Father. At the same time the son of thunder showed that where the Holy Spirit is, God the Father, whose Spirit he is, is present; which God himself also proclaimed beforehand, saying: “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” And again its opposite makes plain that if anyone does not have the Spirit of God as true God, he does not have the Father either; and among those with whom he is not, there is nothing true, nothing safe, nothing firm. Conversely: anyone at all who speaks of him, even if he happens to be a heretic, if asked what spirit he is talking about, says, “the Holy one”; and if the question is put to him again, “which Holy one?”, he must say, to make it perfectly plain, “the Spirit of God,” since the others are not his by substance.

But the heretics, making trouble for themselves and their hearers, with violent arguments slander those who are better than both us and them and far superior, the saints who spoke oracles about the Holy Spirit, against whom no law contrary to them may be laid down. For they say, word for word, as follows: “When God says, then, ‘My servant Isaiah,’ and, ‘Israel, my firstborn son,’ does the syllable ‘my’ show that human nature has something in common with the nature of God? So, just as he said this,” he says, “as the cause of their existence, so too he called their animating principle ‘my spirit.’” If they had any regard for truth and precision, they would not stumble so badly. For first, by the very words “Isaiah” and “Israel” he indicated men; and he added “my” to them in a special sense, as belonging to him by their deeds. He called Isaiah his servant, that is, his household slave; and Israel his firstborn, as the first to begin to worship him, and as standing in the rank of a son by his disposition toward God and by God’s care. So the word “my,” when spoken by God of the true Son and the true Spirit, shows kinship of nature; but in the case of all others, that they belong to him by lordship or by faith. So we too are accustomed to say, of those who are of the same substance as we are, “my son,” “my spirit”; but of other things, “my field,” “my horse,” and indeed also, “my God.” For just as it is not the bare and unqualified use of the words “Word” and “Christ” that shows the hypostatic Word of the divine nature to have been begotten from the hypostasis of God, but their having the syllable “my” and “your” joined to them (as when God says, “This is my beloved Son,” and again, “My good word,” and, “I have prepared a lamp for my Christ,” while we praise him with “Your Son,” “Your Only-begotten,” “Your Christ”); and just as the fact that it is written of us, homonymously or synonymously, “Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart?” does not by the sameness of name drag the Son of God away from his Godhead: so with the Holy Spirit, it is not his being called simply “Spirit,” but the attaching to the name of “my,” as from God, or “your,” as from creation, or of the word “holy,” or “incorruptible,” or “eternal,” that shows that he has proceeded from the Father’s hypostasis. Nor does the fact that the ministering spirits and our own spirits are called by the same name, whether holy or eternal, drag him away from being by nature the true Spirit of God. For even in the riddling expressions about him one finds, without fail, some indication of his divine nature and power. Creatures received holiness and eternity in addition to their own nature, and do not have these at all by nature from themselves. Otherwise these very heretics would be found accusing themselves, since they accept “my” of the Son of God, and “holy” and “eternal,” simply as announcing identity of the divine nature. Then, besides this, in the proofs set out above it was not our animating principle that he called spirit, but his own Holy Spirit. For when we already had our own spirit, the Spirit of God too was given to us. For the Father said: “My Spirit shall not remain in these men”; and the Son: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Plainly, then, it was to those who already had our own spirit that these words about the divine Spirit were spoken. Therefore, as the Son, the Word of God, is begotten in the manner of a son, so the Holy Spirit proceeds in the manner of a spirit, and not by way of creation. And as there is no difference whatever of substance, power, and glory between the only-begotten Son and God the Father, but every difference, if it is right to say so, between him and creation, so too with the one divine Spirit. Therefore not even to listen to the doctrines of the heretics …

That the divine nature of the Holy Spirit is signified by various names.

What we said at the beginning, the oracles attest in the second place: that the Spirit of God has various names befitting God, names which carry much further exalted meaning, a relation superior to all things and continuous with the Father and the Son, and higher than the most fitting … and which further unfold, some his divine nature, others his sovereign power; which console our weakness in attaining worthily to him, whether by the interpretation of words or by the contemplation of the mind; and which give us the freedom to call him, without danger, consubstantial with God and to trust in his sanctification. And we find none of the other spirits counted worthy to be called by these names. But that which alone and by nature is these things is none of all the things that exist, but God. The names are these. Holy Spirit, as is written everywhere. Spirit of holiness, and sanctifying, as Paul writes to the Romans: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was declared Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness”; and again: “So that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit”; and elsewhere: “But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as firstfruits for salvation, in sanctification of the Spirit and faith in the truth.” Spirit of power, and of love, and of self-discipline, as Paul wrote in the second Epistle to Timothy: “For God did not give you …” (for what is proper is not included in what is common), but each one, as one from the beginning, God the Word has made manifest. … [of lo]ve and of self-discipline”; and to the Romans: “I appeal to you, brothers, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit”; and elsewhere: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace”; which is like “God is love,” and “He transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love,” and, “As Christ loved the church,” and again, “of the Son of God who loved me”; and like “From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the power of the Father,” and, “I know that power has gone out from me.” Spirit of wisdom and understanding; Spirit of counsel and strength; Spirit of knowledge and godliness; Spirit of fear … for Spirit of wisdom”; and as Moses relates in Exodus: “Behold, God has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and has filled him with a divine Spirit of wisdom and understanding and knowledge”; and according to Baruch: “He has forsaken the fountain of wisdom”; and as Proverbs teaches: “God founded the earth by wisdom, and prepared the heavens by understanding”; just as Isaiah said of God the Father: “He in his wisdom brought evils upon them.” And of the Only-begotten Paul said: “Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God”; and another: “I will bless the Lord who gave me understanding.” Spirit of gentleness; [Spir]it of adoption, as Paul wrote first to the Romans: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, Abba, Father; the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” Spirit of promise, according to the same apostle, writing to the Ephesians: “In whom you also, having believed, were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance”; and to the Galatians: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a [tree] … so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” Spirit of faith and of revelation, according to the same apostle, declaring to the Corinthians in the second Epistle: “Having the same Spirit of faith”; and again: “But God revealed to us through his Spirit.” Similar to this is what he declared to the Romans: “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son”; and what was said by Moses in Deuteronomy: “And you shall know today that the Lord your God, he is God, the faithful God”; and the Psalmist: “The Lord is faithful in all his words and holy in all his works.” Guiding Spirit, upright Spirit, according to David, making confession in Psalm 50; as the Psalmist says in Psalm 32: “For the word of the Lord is upright,” [a misplaced line from Rom 8:15 follows in the scan: “… you received a spirit of slavery again to fear, but you rece[ived]”] … Moses saying: “The Lord our God is upright, and there is no unrighteousness in him.” Spirit of grace, as the Apostle writes to the Hebrews: “He who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and insulted the Spirit of grace.” For the same apostle wrote, concerning the [a repeated line from Deut 32:4 follows in the scan: “and there is no unrighteousness in him; righteous and holy is the …”] Father: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me”; and concerning the Son: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Spirit of truth, as John announces from the Savior: “If you love me, keep my commandments; and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth”; and again in his first Epistle: “And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth”; which is like the Son’s saying, “I am the truth.” Divine Spirit, and breath of the Almighty, and loving toward humankind, according to the words of Job, and the words a few lines earlier in the … [na]med also light: the Holy Spirit, in whom and by whom we are enlightened, as when the Apostle writes: “That he may give you a Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your heart having been enlightened”; and as David sings: “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we shall see light”; that is, in your Son, the radiance of your glory, your Holy Spirit. And: “The light of your face has been signed upon us, O Lord.” For what else could the Spirit be, who [proceeds] from the Father, or from the … in the first Epistle: “God is light”; and in the Gospel concerning the Only-begotten: “He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world”; and, “I am the light, I am the life.” Nor is it any wonder that, though he is one and always the same, … [since] his unspeakable Godhead is … to mortal words, we too use various names as we praise, as far as we can, the operations he performs toward us. “And I will ask … that he may remain with you.”

But those who champion the doctrine of Macedonius, belonging to their heresy rather than to the truth, see nothing that agrees with the words of the oracles. With quibbling words they spin tales, saying that one ought not to … “For in the case of God,” he says, “the name ‘good’ is joined with ‘one God’; but in the case of the Holy Spirit, ‘one God’ is not joined to the name ‘good.’” And again: “A man too,” he says, “is written to be good, as when it says, ‘Do good, O Lord, to the good,’ and, ‘The good man out of the good treasure brings forth good things.’ And likewise,” he says, “lifeless things are called good by the same name, as when he prophesies: ‘If you are willing and listen to me, you shall eat the good things of the land.’ And also … to give thanks to the Lord.’ Likewise,” he says, “a man too is called holy. And the worm too,” he says, “is called a power of God, where it is written, ‘The caterpillar, my great power’; and the Savior says, ‘The powers of the heavens will be shaken.’” Now this (I mean not attending to homonyms and similar expressions) has some reason in the case of things of different kind and different substance, but not in the case of the Holy Spirit and of him whose Spirit he is, and indeed of the Son as well. For Scripture adds its own safeguard to the homonyms, … or the word “holy” or “good”; that is, either it says, as from God, “my Spirit,” or, as from David and from us, “Your good Spirit” … God, and his only-begotten Son, who are praised with the same names, not toward creatures because of the homonymy sometimes found among them. For even if we grant that these share some name or word with God, still they do not share his substance or the operation of power and sanctification. For they do not have these by nature at all; rather, the good is so called by comparison with evil, and the holy by comparison with sin or passion; for what is not very evil and sinful, or subject to passion, is here called good and holy. For as evil and sin, or passion and weakness, are not found in the one Holy Spirit, since he is unoriginate, so in none of the things that have come into being is the good and holy and powerful found in perfection, but only by participation; and where these are nowhere in perfection, there the unoriginate is nowhere. For where there is darkness, there is no light at all; and where there is night, there is no day. Hence (as was said also by Hermes, surnamed Trismegistus) “it is impossible for the good to exist in what comes into being, but only in the unoriginate. And as participation in all things has been given to matter, so too in the good.” The Holy Spirit, therefore, is like and equal to the Godhead of the Father and of the Only-begotten; and from the judgment of such things it is shown that he is by nature holiness, goodness, and power, since he is one from the One. For by their wrangling not even the Son, who is most good and gracious by nature, will be good any longer, since he does not have “one God” joined to him; nor indeed will the Father, most loving toward humankind and wholly gracious, and the Son have the names of the Godhead mentioned above as distinctive; rather, through these names they will be brought down, so to speak, as the heretics are accustomed to talk, to us who share the name. Be gracious, holy Trinity! “But the Son,” he says, “having been begotten together [with the Father’s nature], has goodness implanted in him, and all the other things the Father has.” But the Holy Spirit too, having proceeded together with him, is good by nature, and has all that God the Father has. Now if their discussion concerned ordinary matters or the affairs of daily life, it might well sometimes be needful for them to fabricate some tales and, with Aristotelian cleverness, as they suppose, and skill in argument, as Eunomius does, to … the matter and to overshadow the truth; but now … “you shall not understand”; and, “The wisdom of men is foolishness with God.” And one must not use sophistries against the oracles concerning the glorious Spirit, which are greater than human reasonings. For blame does not harm the Holy Spirit; nor do the reproaches and jibes of the heretics, who have taken to thinking basely, go further than the ear; but those who … somewhat like those who try to mock this light, which has its strength from the unapproachable light, and to defile it with their words. One must believe that the teaching that comes from the saints can produce a greater opinion than that which comes from men. It is fitting, then, for us to rebuke them, so that they do not, by excess, bring the divine down to the level of the products of creatures by their sophistries, and through these beget a love of perdition in the simpler and less experienced, and lead them on to the desire of greater sins.

[ch. 4] On the heretics who say: “God is Spirit; and how is the Holy Spirit the Spirit of the Spirit?” and the rest.

But they reject what is simple, straightforward, and complete; and in ignorance of the sacred words, [rejecting] the purpose by which God the Father wills his Spirit to be ranked together with him, as he does his only-begotten Word, and which secures the Spirit’s being set apart from creation and above it, which is also why he is hymned with the thrice-holy, they say: “How is the Holy Spirit the Spirit of the Spirit?” That this is written has been shown; but the how lies beyond our mind and reason, and beyond the knowledge of angels too. For as God the Word was begotten from him who is Spirit, so the Holy Spirit came forth from him and with him; and his incomprehensibility is shown above all in this, that what appears, and is, impossible for creation is possible with him. For otherwise what difference is there between the uncaused and life-giving nature and the nature that was created and is given life? It cannot be that the Spirit is not consubstantial and equal in honor with him from whom he is; and therefore he is also holy by nature. “Are not the angels, then,” he says, “from God, and holy, and spirits of God?” They are from God in that they came into being at his command, as all things did; holy, after being sanctified, as men are; spirits, in that they are bodiless relative to us. They are not called spirits of God, or from God, or proceeding from the Father, or divine, or spirits of truth, or spirits of holiness; but ministering angels and heavenly bodies, because they are infinitely distant from and inferior to the uncreated Spirit of God, according to the experienced Apostle who writes: “Earthly bodies and heavenly bodies.” For as the spirits of the winds are not on the level of the angels, so the angels are not on the level of the Holy Spirit of God. For they were created; they did not proceed from the hypostasis of God the Father. They do not give us new birth, they do not deify, they do not forgive sins, they do not give life, they do not create, they do not sanctify, they do not judge, but are even judged (“For you,” he says, “will judge angels”). Nor are the powers of the heavens in them. They are not uncircumscribed by place, nor immeasurable in extent. For Gabriel, when speaking with Daniel, or announcing the good news to the Virgin Theotokos, was not also in heaven in his substance, as he was in his thought, but at that time was on earth only. Nor are they beyond the reach of the ages; for “he who makes his angels spirits,” it says, “and his ministers a flaming fire.” They do not do a single one of the things done by the Holy Spirit; rather, they even minister to him, as the archangel Gabriel showed when he served … [the Spirit] Holy will come upon you.” Nor, then, is man their temple, as he is the temple of God, and of his Spirit, and of the only-begotten Son. They are not included together with God. Theirs is not one angelic hypostasis, but one hard to number. But the Holy Spirit, shining beyond all, came forth timelessly, in unity of nature and of form, from the … and formless hypostasis of the Father, and is called divine; and he is one, existing uniquely; holy by nature, and the Spirit of God, and none of all the things that exist, but God, being both in heaven and with us, the cause for all of all good things … not departing from being seated together with the Father, and spreading out everywhere, and containing, and dwelling in all things without mingling; entering into our thoughts and those of beings invisible to us, and examining all things exactly, though he knows all things; sounding without voice, and hearing from within the souls that cry out in silence; pitying all souls in all things without delay, and strengthening them, and giving unspeakable joy to natures everywhere; embracing the structure of this universe and holding all things under himself; enlightening with a wondrous light, and doing good by his boundless operation and goodness; leading those of better disposition to a more perfect goal, and not depriving those that are worse and live amiss of his royal, harmonizing, and undivided protection, but setting them in longing for, and reflection upon, the consubstantial Trinity, the giver of all goods; and to all who cultivate … while being set apart from all things, thus: … to one in Spain, to another in another place, as far as the end of the earth, assigned by him, he imparted his unerring and genuine wisdom; not coming to this one now and to another later; not breathing more upon one and less upon another, but shining upon each, together and distinctly, always alike, as the Lord too said: “I am with you all the days until the end of the age.” Otherwise, since they transfer to God the Father the theology concerning the Spirit found in John, where he said, “God is Spirit,” saying that it is so written because he is Spirit; and further, since it is also written, “The Spirit of our face, Christ the Lord,” then … not so; nor is the Holy Spirit thought of together with the other spirits. For he is not an archangel. For Michael and Gabriel and those like them are archangels; and not even heretics would say that the Holy Spirit of God is ranked after them. Where, then, or with what kind of creatures do they think it right to rank him? For after God we have been taught by the Scriptures no other rational nature than the many spirits and our own bodies. Further, they sophistically infer from the passages cited: “The Father and the Son are written ‘true,’ but the Spirit ‘truth,’” as if this were out of tune with that. But it is the same, as was shown in the first book, and the one does not differ from the other.

On those who say: “Since the Word of God is Only-begotten, what shall we call the Spirit?” and the rest.

To this the heretics, most intricate and most shifty in speech (I do not know whether in their purpose too, though certainly in this as well), strangers to the simpler and truer teaching, … [from Jeru]salem as far as Illyricum, having established for God churches of countless members … and likewise of the rest. “God the Word was called Only-begotten because the Holy Spirit is not from the hypostasis of the Father. Otherwise he would not have been called Only-begotten, and the Holy Spirit would have been called his brother.” So they say, unlike even themselves; but the truth answers them. He is written “Only-begotten” both because he alone was begotten from the hypostasis of the Father, and did not proceed as the Holy Spirit did; and to shut out the blasphemies of heretics who call him a creature and a son as we are. And the Holy Spirit too is written to be one and only, both because he alone proceeded, in a single way, from the hypostasis of God the Father, and was not begotten as the Son was; and because he is not a creature as the others are … the Spirit is of the substance of the Father, and is not separated from his union with the One; nor does he have any inferiority toward him, or any other more closely of one nature with him, or nearer to God, than himself; nor does he allow himself either to be called a number, since he is of the substance of the Unity, or to be ranked with the things brought into being, since he is among those who brought all things into being, together with the Father and the Son. The one Holy Spirit, then, cannot be unlike the one Father or the one Son, nor like the multitude of spirits. For just as, since there is one God and Father and one true Son, all of us who are in his image have been called, through his goodness and generosity, gods and sons, though we are not so in truth, according to the words, “I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High,” so, since there is one and only [Spirit of God, the others are] not by nature spirits of God.

Not looking or considering how they may appear to the theologians, while saying something that hangs together they do not hesitate to bring in other harmful things as well. And let no one blame me, before hearing the whole argument, if I call their statements harm. For he will find that what they utter is directly opposed to the mind of the God-inspired men, who had it as a gift from God to excel in this matter. For they say: “If the Holy Spirit is God, he is either Father or Son; but if he is neither of these, he is not God, as the other spirits are not.” They must be answered thus. Just as the Father is God, not because he is Father, but because he is of the divine nature; and the Son, not because he is the son of some chance person, but because he is of the divine nature; so the Holy Spirit too is God, not simply because he is Spirit, but because he is neither … because he is the one and only Holy Spirit of God. And [although it is written], “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve,” we believe that the only-begotten Word is God equally with the Father, and we worship and serve him; and we are disposed in the same way toward the Holy Spirit. For by that very rule given concerning incorruptible baptism, on which hangs the order of our whole life and religion, by which we were commanded to rank him with the Father and the Son, we were also commanded to worship him together with them, to glorify him together with them, and to serve him. For this is the reasonable service of which Paul wrote thus: “That you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing to God, your reasonable service.” And just as, when the Apostle declared in an oracle that God alone is wise and has immortality, we believe that the Son likewise has immortality and is wise, since he is without difference in substance from the Father and is his Word and eternal life, as Scripture writes, so too concerning the Holy Spirit. For he does not have immortality and wisdom by grace, or as a gift, as the ministering spirits do, but possesses them by nature; for he is the Spirit of wisdom. That is why it is written: “No one knows the things of the only wise except his Spirit.” For if they grant that these things are not so, they will either misrepresent God the Word or be seen to act contrary to the Scriptures. For nothing is ranked with the Trinity in one Godhead: neither the spirits, because they are called spirits, not to mention the unholy ones; nor men, because they are called gods, for we are not gods in truth. And if they do not suppose that “to the only wise God” and “who alone has immortality” tell against them, they will not be able to use sophistry against the Holy Spirit from anything to the contrary. For these words were spoken thus by Paul because the Son is the Word of God and the Holy Spirit his Spirit, and they belong to him inseparably by nature and are referred to one Godhead; as is said even by those outside: “One God, self-fathered, from whom all these things come.” As, then, Paul spoke of the Father to the Romans, so John said of the Son: “The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father”; and of the Holy Spirit Paul taught the Corinthians: “To another gifts of healing by the one Spirit”; for oneness is proper to the divine nature that is not multiplied. And as it is written that the Son was begotten, and he testifies, saying, “I came forth from the Father,” so it is written, and the same one said, “The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father,” or “proceeded.” And just as the Son, being God and Lord, is the Son of God and Lord, so the Holy Spirit, being God and Lord, is the Spirit of God and Lord. And just as the Son is written “Word” because he coexists with the Fa[ther] … [it is writ]ten “Utterance of God,” and “Spirit of his mouth,” and “Breath of the Almighty,” since he shone forth from him, subsisting together with him; so that no one should suppose that he is outside the Godhead of the Father or of his Word. For the utterance belongs to the word, and the word to the mind; and the saying is fulfilled: “The one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” And as the Son is shown to be without difference from the Father, where it is written, “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” so too the Holy Spirit, by the words: “By this we know that God is in us, by his Spirit whom he has given us.” Since the Father is true God, it is altogether necessary, then, that he who shows him by his own manifestation is also true God, equal to him. And just as all things came into being through the Son, so all things were sanctified and strengthened by the Spirit. For the apostles say: “Master, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, who spoke through the Holy Spirit by the mouth of David your servant.” And just as the Only-begotten is shown to be equal in power and like the Father, and having authority, according to the words, “Whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does likewise,” so too is the Spirit of God, according to the words, “All these are worked by one and the same Spirit.” And as Christ said of himself, “No one knows the Father except the Son,” so the like is said of the Holy Spirit too: “No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.” And just as the Son was called, from his work of announcing, “Angel of great counsel,” so too with the Holy Spirit. For it says: “But we have received the Spirit of God, that we might see the things freely given to us by God.” And most like to “Christ the firstfruits” is the text that says, “And having the firstfruits of the Spirit.” And of equal weight with “And may the Lord sanctify you, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of redemption” is “that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” And equal in balance with “He who set me apart from my mother’s womb, through his grace, to reveal his Christ in me” is “God revealed it through his Spirit.” And of equal force with “Examine yourselves, whether Christ is in you” is the saying, “We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God.” And “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” is equal to what John wrote: “If we love one another, God abides in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, by his Spirit whom he has given us”; and to “I and the Father will come and make our dwelling with him.” And just as the Holy Spirit is given through the Father and the Son, according to the words, “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh,” and, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” so Christ is given through the Holy Spirit, according to Paul writing to the Ephesians: “That he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell.” And we may take as like and equal “The word of the Lord came to such-and-such a prophet,” and “The Lord said,” and “Thus says the Lord Almighty,” with what Peter said in the Acts, “The Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand,” and with what Paul said in Rome to the Jews, “The Holy Spirit spoke well.” And equal in honor with “the eternal God” is what Paul proclaimed: “who offered himself through the eternal Spirit.” And comparable with “No one can receive the Holy Spirit except from the Lord” and “Receive the Holy Spirit” is “No one can say ‘Lord Jesus Christ’ except in the Holy Spirit.” And “being guided by the Holy Spirit into the truth,” that is, being guided by the Holy Spirit into the true faith, is the same as being guided by Christ the Master, who decrees: “Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And of equal strength with the text that says, “Are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?” is the writing, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” And like in wording to “You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created” is “You will send forth your Word, and it will melt them.” And on a level with saying, “The Lord bears witness to my soul that I do not lie,” is the writing, “The Spirit of truth, [who] proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me,” and, “The Spirit testifies to me in every city, saying.” And likened to the Master’s word that says, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves,” is “So these, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia.” And equal to the writing, “If you seek proof of Christ who speaks in me,” is the writing that “they told Paul through the Spirit not to go up to Jerusalem.” And akin to “The Son is eternal life” is what he himself said: “The water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life. Now this he said about the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive”; and akin to “For we have become partakers of Christ” is “For it is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit.” And very like are what is said in the Acts thus, “There appeared to the apostles tongues as of fire, distributed, and they sat upon each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,” and what was said by John, “He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire,” to what was declared by Moses, “God is a consuming fire,” and by Isaiah, “Behold, the Lord will come like fire.” And in harmony with the saying, “You were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of sins, in the circumcision of Christ,” is what is written: “Circumcision of the heart, in the Spirit.” And if it is fitting that Peter’s words should be said of God: “Let each repent of his wickedness and of his evil way, and be bap[tized]” … then his Spirit is without difference from God; and [this is shown] also from the Master’s saying to the disciples, in these very words: “Wait for the promise of the Father, which you heard, that John baptized with water for repentance, but you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit.” For this shows nothing other than what his other instruction about illumination shows: that the Holy Spirit works and is able to do the same things as the name of the Father and of his Son, since he is of the same Godhead. And the preaching of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is without difference and equally to be revered, as Paul writes to the Romans: “For if one who comes preaches another Jesus whom we did not preach, or you receive a different Spirit” … “For I will not dare to speak of anything except what Christ has worked through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God,” [which is like] “The Father who abides in me does the works. Believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me.” For observe that, as the Father does, so too his Spirit abides with Christ, being inseparable in the divine nature; and that the divine works are done by the ineffable Trinity with one mind; and that, just as the Father, existing in his own hypostasis, is imaged in the Only-begotten because of the sameness of the Godhead, that is, of the substance, in the same way the Only-begotten is imaged in the one Holy Spirit. And how many other things are reported about the divine Spirit, [the Spirit] of the Father and of his only-begotten Son! Some of them are contained in various places of this book, through which the course of the argument has passed. Otherwise, when asked in turn, will they not say that Eve and the children born of her are from Adam? And how is it that the children are written to have been begotten, while she was called neither his child nor the sister of those born? Since, then, it is not possible to show, by comparison with creatures, the unique and incomparable … nature, which remains invisible to the mind and does not allow itself to be approached by hearing and words. For even if some small likeness is found, like a shadow, as it were, the greater part escapes, leaving the one who draws the comparison somewhere below. For an example can in no way be an identity; and it is safe to say only those things that the Scriptures have taught to our measure.

That the Spirit of God the Father is written to be one and only, because he is separated by nature from the other spirits but joined to the Father and his Son by reason of the substance, Paul explains, writing to the Corinthians in the first Epistle: “To another gifts of healing by the one Spirit”; and again: “All these are worked by one and the same Spirit, distributing to each one individually as he wills”; and again: “We were all made to drink of one Spirit”; and to the Ephesians: “For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father”; and again: “Being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit”; that is, to take great care not to separate him from the supreme and self-complete Unity and substance. And that he has also been named “Utterance” they testify thus. Paul, writing to the Ephesians: “Taking up the whole armor of God, and [the breastplate] of righteousness, and the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Utterance of God.” Matthew too mentioned this sword, saying in the person of Christ: “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword”; meaning not a blade, but the indescribable wisdom of the Holy Spirit, which goes beyond peace and cuts through hardened hearts. And to the Hebrews: “Upholding all things by the Utterance of his power.” By what Utterance? David prophesied: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their powers.” And again Paul: “For it is impossible 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 Utterance of God.” And Peter: “For all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass; the grass has withered, and the flower has fallen, and its beauty has perished; but the Utterance of God remains forever”; just as he sings of the Son in Psalm 118: “Forever, O Lord, your Word abides in heaven.” … [of the hypo]stases he hands down most mystically.

That everything proper to the Godhead is attested of the Holy Spirit.

Next, then, they declare in their oracles, concerning the pure and unspeakable nature of the Holy Spirit, the same sort of things as concerning God the Father, who rules over all, and the Son, who is beyond all and Lord of all, because he is not of a different substance, nor less in power and glory. … and to what is created. For whatever a creature has, it has as a gift bestowed by the Trinity in one Godhead; and each thing can always be recognized from what belongs to it, both what it is and what it is not, whether it is God by nature or a creature. For example:

1. Creation has being, though it did not exist in the beginning. And in Job it was shown which is its first work among rational beings: for it speaks of the devil, who by his conduct belied his nature. But that the Holy Spirit, as the breath of the Almighty, is a creature, or has any beginning at all, is nowhere written. For a work could not have existed before the creating Spirit, and above all such a work, which showed itself, by its own choice, worthless, ungrateful, and profane. And since Scripture neither says that there is, of the divine … [hypo]stases, a first and an after, what dispute remains as to their being in the one unoriginate Godhead and equality of honor?

2. Nothing created fills the world, or holds all things together, or is in all things; rather, even the intellectual powers have a limit and a defined quantity; for these things belong to the Godhead alone. But the greatness of the Holy Spirit is indissoluble, … and is always everywhere, through all and in all; filling the world and holding it together according to the Godhead, but uncontainable according to its power; measuring, but not measured. “For God does not give the Spirit by measure,” as the Savior says in John; and according to Wisdom, which has: “For you love all things that exist, and loathe none of the things you have made; for you would not have formed anything if you hated it. How would anything have endured if you had not willed it, or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved? You spare all things, because they are yours, O Master, lover of souls, and your incorruptible Spirit is in all things.” Hence we rightly name God Father of all, though he is not our Father by nature, as he is of his Only-begotten. And again: “The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together has knowledge of every voice”; that is, he has embraced the invisible and the visible creation, the intelligible and the sensible, and nothing at all is without a share in his everlasting oversight; for this is what “holding all things together” shows. And he hears every voice, it says, since as God he is always everywhere in all things, bringing all material disorder round into fitting order, and sparing and caring for the things made by him, since he is by nature providence and wisdom, pervading all things, as the Father is. For who is it who has such knowledge? Isaiah too speaks thus: “The Spirit of knowledge and godliness”; and David sings: “Where shall I go from your face? And where shall I flee from your Spirit?” And the Master, teaching that the Godhead of the Holy Spirit is not circumscribed by place, but is at once in heaven and on earth, always having supplied and always supplying all sufficiency to creation, said in John: “If you love me, keep my commandments; and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, so that the Spirit of truth may be with you, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; but you know him” … by which he steers the universe … and the paths are the particular administrations through which he passes, as it were, through all things, so that it may become known that [he is] of the one infinite nature present everywhere. And such testimonies declare him [so]; they handed down equal things about each of the pure hypostases: Jeremiah, setting it out from God the Father: “I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord”; David, singing of the Son in Psalm 144: “And of his greatness there is no end”; Paul, proclaiming of the same: “He who descended is the same who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.”

[3.] … admits corruption, the turning, which we call also change, as the prophecy says: “He who makes all things and transforms them.” The wise among those outside, having heard this, say: “Dissolving them into themselves, and making them grow again out of themselves.” The bodiless rational creation has the corruption that comes by choice: God gave it an abiding nature, and established it forever and forever and ever; but it brings on its own ending, and is corrupted by this very thing, so that from this it loses, as it were, being called eternal. For whatever goes out of itself, that is, is changed, this is thereafter the death of what it was before; as when wickedness becomes goodness, it is put to death by the very thing by which it departed from goodness; and conversely, goodness by wickedness. For there are some that [were meant] always to stand by the first boundary, even if this was not denied them … [as the apost]les [say] these things: Peter: “For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them into Tartarus in chains of gloom and has kept them for the judgment of the great day, and did not spare the ancient world”; and Jude: “And angels who did not keep their own dominion, but abandoned their proper dwelling, he has kept in everlasting chains under gloom.” The bodily and rational creation undergoes alteration: in disposition, as Judas lost his sanctification, and as Paul writes, “But the widow who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives,” though she is still passing her life among men; and in substance, as it first comes to an end and then passes over into immortality. “For this corruptible,” it says, “must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” The non-rational creation undergoes turning and ceases to be; as when light turns to darkness and water to blood, it was prophesied: “This is the change of the right hand of the Most High”; and elsewhere: “Heaven and earth,” it says, “will pass away.” For it was prophesied that there will be [new] heavens and a new earth. And truly, everything that has received a beginning will also have an end. But the Holy Spirit, since he is of the unspeakable, eternal, and incorruptible nature that rules over all, and is always the same and in the same way; since he alone knows and does the things of God; and since he guards all things, both rational beings and those perfect in faith, and the non-rational, up to the limit given to the non-rational of abiding in their identity, is by nature and by choice incapable of turning and change, which is to say incorruptible. And what is unchangeable, or incorruptible, is at once without beginning, without end, and beyond the ages. And what is without beginning is a creator and not a creature. Therefore Wisdom says, properly, “Your incorruptible Spirit is in all things”; and Peter, “in the incorruptible [ornament] of a gentle and quiet Spirit.” For so too the Father, who is always equal and like to himself, admitting neither a slackening toward the worse nor an advance toward the better, is described by James: “With whom there is no variation or shadow of turning”; and by Paul: “To the incorruptible, invisible, only wise God”; in the same way the Son too was attested in Psalm 101: “But you, O Lord, remain forever”; and again: “In the beginning, O Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; and they will all grow old like a garment, and like a cloak you will roll [them up].”

4. Creation does not possess eternity absolutely and by its own completeness: first, because it does not have this from itself, but obtained it for the time following from when it came into being, by the gift of God, who alone exists of himself and beyond the ages. For being good, he creates; [and] presiding over his own work, he bestows eternity on it as a gift; second, because of the causes explained in the preceding heading. But because the Holy Spirit of God, creator and good, works all things eternally, and is never himself brought to an end, while he is able to bring to an end the things made by him, he has been praised with this title. You may learn it, if you will listen to me, from this: Paul writes thus to the Hebrews: “Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God.” He means Christ the Master, who in his august incarnation offered himself through the Holy Spirit on our behalf to his own Father. And Peter too sounds in agreement, as has already been mentioned: “But the Utterance of God remains forever.” For here he calls the Spirit of God the Utterance of God. And [Paul], because of the identity of the Godhead, mentioning the Father … in praise: “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” he says, “who is blessed forever, knows”; and again: “Jesus Christ, yesterday and today the same, and forever.” But it is not to be borne, it is not to be borne by hearing, what those who are averse to the theology of the Holy Spirit have laid down on this heading too. For out of prejudice they carry themselves off to the ends of the earth; and undiscerning love is not wont to bear witness to exact inquiry; still, nothing prevents us from hearing that very sophistry of theirs, for so they will be condemned still more. It runs thus: “Not if something is homonymously called eternal can it be called God; but if one is God, he is the maker of eternal things. [Long] ago God spoke in the prophets; in the last of the days he has spoken to us in a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the ages. For if anything called eternal ought to be named god, there will be infinitely many gods. For it is written: ‘And be lifted up, you eternal gates’; and again, ‘They remembered eternal years’; and again, ‘Like eternal sheep’; and, ‘These will rise to eternal punishment’; and elsewhere, ‘Those in the dust of the earth will rise, some to eternal life, and others to eternal shame.’ Are punishment and shame, then, gods? Do you see into what great absurdity and impiety the homonymy of ‘eternal’ falls?” A swell of confusion floats on the surface of their thoughts and words, and is mixed up with them; but the following dissolves it. As we mentioned just now, even if the other things happen to have the name “eternal,” they alone had it not apart from time; rather, they also have corruption, the turning that comes from their own will, and their “eternal” is altogether unlike the divine eternal; just as the one called holy, whether angel or man, is not holy in a way like and equal to the Holy Spirit of the holy ones; for he is wholly holiness and eternity itself. Let them attend, then, to the grandeur of speech with which “eternal” has been proclaimed of the Holy Spirit, and how Scripture added to it that wonderful thing which surpasses everyone’s grasp, I mean that he who made the ages offered himself through the Holy Spirit to his own true Father on our behalf. Let them consider also that all the powers of the heavens are in the Holy Spirit, surely as in one who creates together with the Creator who has no need; and that the oracles we have brought forward for this heading foretold the end of the eternal gates and sheep that the heretics mentioned, not opportunely but artfully. And let the difference be plain to them between what is eternal without beginning and unchangeably, and what is eternal from a point in time and changeably; and that this difference is not slight, nor only in substance and other beauty, but a total otherness. And let this too be known: that the Holy Spirit has his share in the judgment concerning the eternal with God the Father, who empowered all things, and with the Son, not with creatures. And let them loose their worse opinion and choose the better … worthy; and let them act better for the time after this, for there is no grudging; and from the very things by which they harmed themselves in making their boastful complaint, let them carry off from there the benefit of repentance. For if this word was used of God the Father and the Son as indicating something befitting God, it may be taken equally and in the same way of the Spirit of God. That is one point; another is that none of the eternal things they mentioned is called divine, or Holy Spirit proceeding from God, or one thing and not a multitude; nor is it ranked with the Father and the Son for the divine initiation and the divine gift, nor, not to say much, has it been counted worthy of any other honor that belongs to the Godhead. Another point besides these: God the Father was pleased that all things should be created through his Son, the Word. And what reproach, as they dream, comes to his all-holy Spirit from not creating, if, according to them, he is not ineffably a fellow worker with the Creator, as the Father is? But that every operation and gift, creative, good, and perfect, belongs to his only-begotten Son, the Word, and to the one Holy Spirit, and is common to them, and that all are referred back to the One from whom and with whom these blessed hypostases came forth ineffably, anyone would most easily learn who quietly examined the oracles full of wisdom, both those mentioned in various places of this book and those in the one before it. And Paul too, being more than human, declared this plainly, affirming it to the Corinthians: “But you were washed, you were justified, you were sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Observe, then, observe: if the name of the Son is divine, as indeed it is divine, then wholly so is the name of the Holy Spirit; for he indicated one name of them both. And that, as the Holy Spirit created ineffably together [with them] in the beginning, so now too he re-creates. For “being washed” signified being created anew. And to Titus: “Having given us new birth through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” And no less does the sacred Psalmist expect us to know that those who already exist in their first coming-to-be are now created, spiritually, in the divine pool. For he says: “A people being created will praise the [Lord]” … and they do not differ from one another in Godhead and power, and they alone can be united by nature, ranked together, and everywhere thought of together with the One, who himself has both—not as one whose hypostases they are—as hypostases from himself without beginning, equally, alike, ineffably united, and continuous.

Further, in addition to what has been said: every plea of these heretics is of the same kind, as it is of the same wording, as the present shifting sophistry of theirs, as we shall learn by experience shortly from the headings themselves. For if perhaps some word, such as “eternal” or “good,” which carries a divine indication concerning the Trinity in unity and belongs to it wholly and perfectly, happens to have been said somewhere of a creature, with the mention that befits a creature, they say nothing (for what could they say?) about God the Father and his Son; but at once they most foolishly bring the Holy Spirit down into creation, instead of most fittingly referring to God and the Only-begotten those whom the theologians have most fittingly praised in like and equal terms with the Holy Spirit. Let only these words of ours, then, which cannot be shaken and suffice for the whole contest with the heretics, stand; or let them show (which is grievous even to say) that a beginning or an end of the Holy Spirit has been declared somewhere in the oracles; or at all that he had some path toward corruption, as angelic and human choice has; or else let them have, as the saying goes, “an ox on the tongue.” So much about them; I will pass to the subject from the beginning.

5. The rational creation is capable of virtue and vice, as we find among the bodiless beings, as we said before, the approved angels within virtue and those cast out within vice; and among bodies, as we ourselves are. But the divine Spirit, being above virtue and glory, or rather himself the fountain of the highest virtue, is capable of none of these, as neither is the Father nor the Son. And if he is not capable of them, he is not of a different will either; and if so (for he does all that the Father wills), neither is he of a different substance. And from this, then, it is concluded both that he is not a creature, but stands without difference toward God the Father and his Son; and that we know from him God, from whom he proceeded by nature, and that he is in us, as it is written.

6. Creation is sanctified and justified by God, who is holy by nature; for it is capable of receiving sanctification and justification, not of bestowing them. But the Holy Spirit, since he stands apart from creation and is joined by nature to him from whom he has proceeded (concerning whom we were also taught in the mysteries that “every good gift and every perfect present is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning”); and since he cares for all things and takes forethought even for the guilty, sanctifies, justifies, makes wise, and bestows every form of heavenly virtue; but he himself is nowhere found to have any aptitude for being sanctified, justified, or made wise by another (as neither has the self-existent Father nor his Son, who is of the same nature); and he is “Spirit of holiness,” meaning holy by nature and of himself; and “divine Spirit,” meaning God by nature; and “breath of the Almighty,” meaning consubstantial with the Almighty, breathed forth from his hypostasis. So even one such name alone shows that he is both consubstantial with God the Father and sanctifying, and cannot be contained even by reason. Therefore Paul, who was able both to speak and to set out patterns of the faith, introduced this, setting forth at once this very heading which we are now pursuing, and also the Holy Spirit’s sharing with God the Father in the great gifts and in the rebirth in baptism; and further, that the name “God” is one and equal for the Trinity, and that, when invoked, it always works with equal power … “but you were justified, you were sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Therefore those who share in him, that is, those who are counted worthy to be sanctified, justified, and made wise by him, are called, as the same apostle teaches the Hebrews, “partakers of the Holy Spirit.” And to the Ephesians he writes: “In whom you also, having believed, were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” For it is plain that those who are sealed, that is, sanctified, participate, but are not participated in. For if the Holy Spirit, or the Son, were a creature, what need would there be for the creature to sanctify and to make the fullness, when God the Father had sanctified sufficiently? We at any rate who are created, knowing that this anointing belongs to one uncreated, do not bestow sanctification from ourselves, but say: “May God sanctify you.” And I will go on to another acknowledged and strong argument, after which not even those who have practiced shamelessness will be able to do so. The Master of the universe, having given his command concerning God the Father and himself in absolute terms, “Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son,” did not simply add “and of the Spirit,” but added “Holy.” So he mentioned him not merely without lowering him, but even raising him up, because the Spirit is by nature that which the self-complete hypostases are, which the one name signified, with which the Spirit himself was named together; and correspondingly, because the Holy Spirit is constituted that which the Father and his Son are in Godhead, with whom he was mentioned; as is, the saying goes, plain even to a blind man. But this belongs to a fuller theology; so that it may easily be believed that to be called, and to be by nature, holy and righteous, and indeed to sanctify and justify one’s own creatures, belongs to the Godhead alone, like things have been sung of the Father, as when the Son himself says in John: “Holy Father, keep them in your name”; and again: “Sanctify them in your truth; your Word is truth”; and again: “Righteous Father.” And as when they prophesy: Ezekiel, “And let them know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them”; David in Psalm 10, “The Lord is righteous and has loved righteousness; his eyes have seen uprightness” … “and yours, and they are under you.” And as when Paul writes, to the Thessalonians: “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly”; to the Romans: “It is God who justifies; who is he who condemns?”; to the Hebrews: “That the virgin may be holy in body and spirit”; as though it were possible that she, by her own turning, should not be holy, or by virtue be sancti[fied] … [and by] “body” the active operation, according to Isaiah, who prophesies: “And those who err in spirit shall know understanding”; that is, those who err in action or in disposition. And of the Son, as when he is praised: “One holy, one Lord Jesus Christ”; and as the Acts say: “They killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One”; and as Peter said: “Christ died once for sinners, the righteous for the unrighteous.” From such oracles, then, if they wished to act rightly, they ought to have been led to hymn the Spirit as God. This they do not do; instead they say: “The angels were not sanctified, and yet they are holy”; not attending to the fact that angels too, as men, were sanctified (which by God … of men, and of those who share in him, …

7. Creation cannot be participated in substantially by the rational soul, so as to dwell in it; for to be participated in this way is proper to God alone. But the Holy Spirit can be participated in substantially, as can the Father and the Son, as was said in the first book. For here too, once the Father dwells in the worthy, what need would there be, if not because of the unity of the divine nature and its fullness toward us, for the Son and the Holy Spirit to enter with him and come in with him? Certainly no one would ever choose to say that a multitude of gods, as it were, dwells in us, but [would say] that the three hypostases are one, in accordance with the one unity of Godhead.

8. Creation has goodness by the gift of the Trinity in one Godhead, which is goodness itself. And it is secondary to have something good by participation, to one’s own measure, compared with being by nature the first and measureless good itself. And the good found in creation is not woven together or ranked with the creating, original, and one good, which all things desire, while it desires nothing; even if it is said in the Gospel, “Well done, good servant,” and, “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good.” For it does not speak, so to say, of the good that is in the heart and is good in the proper sense, but of the good that is yoked to creation and befits it. For that good multiplies and bestows goodnesses on its own works, so that from it each existing thing may be preserved and remain in the rank in which it was allotted to be; and it is itself the one good, the cause for all of all good things; through it the good below is done; and it preserves all things to which it is present, just as evil, which arises from our choice, destroys. Perceiving this, those outside too say: “The wicked have this very great good in themselves: when they attempt to harm others, they themselves are the first to reap the fruit of their own wickedness.” But the Holy Spirit, as was said before, being self-sufficient good, and wholly good always toward all, and not second to the one and first good, received equal [honors], as was shown in the first book; and as Ezra, who spoke freely toward the divine goodness, knowing that even if he stumbled he would suffer no harm from it, prophesied: “And you gave your good Spirit to instruct them.” And Matthew and Luke, signifying that the Spirit is by substance the divine goodness itself, and that in him every good gift and every perfect present is understood, wrote, the one: “How much more will the Father from heaven give good things to those who ask him?”, and the other: “How much more will the Father from heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” For it is proper to a changeable, that is, a created, substance to be made good, or sanctified, or made wise by another, and not … in Isaiah, showing that no one will ever receive his spiritual blessings who has not first been found filled with the wisdom and understanding of the Holy Spirit, he said: “I will put my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessings upon your children.” In keeping with this Paul wrote: “For this reason,” he says, “we too, from the day we heard, have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, walking worthily of the Lord.” It is plain that he means “of the divine Spirit.” For that the kingdom above, which has no end, is understood together with the Spirit of God, as not foreign to him because of …, he confirms in the same Epistle, writing: “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Nor did this escape Peter. For in his defense to those who blamed the meeting he had with Cornelius, he said: “If then God gave them the same gift, granting the Holy Spirit, as he did to us at the beginning, who was I to be able to hinder God?” And again: “And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, giving the Holy Spirit just as he did to us; and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.” That is: the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, one might say his irresistible and abundant visitation, is the cause of prophecy, of renewal, of heavenly goods, and of perceiving the beauty of divine truth. For as the Apostle holds: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.” Hence he writes again: “For the love of God has been poured out in our hearts in the Holy Spirit.” Since, then, there is one goodness in … just as there is one truth, righteousness, and wisdom (I mean the one above), according to the words, “You are mighty, O Lord, and your truth is round about you” (which is the only-begotten God), and according to the words, “To the only wise God,” many truths, righteousnesses, and wisdoms are multiplied for us from above, according to the words, “The Lord seeks out truths,” and, “The Lord is righteous and has loved righteousnesses,” and, “A multitude of the wise is the salvation of the world,” and, “Walking with the wise, you will be wise.” It is clear, then, that the Spirit of God, in his very existence, is the good Spirit, and the Spirit of wisdom and of truth, and the Spirit of God the Father, invisible and uncompounded.

[9.] … for this belongs properly to the consubstantial Trinity alone. For the Father loves humankind: “not angry with us to the end, nor wrathful forever, nor dealing with us according to our sins, nor repaying us according to our iniquities,” according to Psalm 102; and as Solomon says: “You spare all things, because they are yours, O Master, lover of souls,” as has been said; so that for these reasons he is called our Master and Father, his care being blended with his power. For there is no title more proper to God than Father, lover of humankind, good, and holy. The Son loves humankind, who for our sake, the works of his august and intelligible hands, “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” as the Apostle writes to Titus: “… of God our Savior appeared.” And whoever renders to him all that befits the only-begotten God goes away having received more than he hoped. The Holy Spirit of God loves humankind, according to Wisdom, which says: “For the Spirit of wisdom is a lover of humankind, and will not acquit the righteous.” For he did not overlook human nature as it perished, but came down by himself, … us, and bestowed the divine gifts, and from the beginning took such care for what is in [God’s] image that, as a token of his surpassing goodness, he has this name too. For great are the elements, heaven, earth, sea; and great is the rational creation, that of the angels and of every power above the world; [but for] man the Trinity has as its name of goodness “lover of humankind.”

[10.] … “… yours.” But the Holy Spirit is not only not written to be a slave, but also, as Master and free by nature, wherever he is and upon whomever he comes, he bestows the freedom that he has. For only things made are brought under the yoke of slavery; and what is not a slave is not a thing made; and what is not a thing made is God by nature. For “the slave is nothing compared with the free-born race,” as those outside too have said. A faithful witness of these things is the Apostle, writing to the Corinthians in the second Epistle: “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom”; to Timothy: “For God did not give us a spirit of slavery, but a Spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline”; to the Romans: “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again to fear, but a Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, [Abba], Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son.” Just as, then, we were set free by the Son, hearing, “You are no longer a slave but free,” and, “the freedom with which the Son set you free,” so, because of the identity of substance and lordship, we are set free by the Spirit, through the words already mentioned: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

11. Creation, both intellectual and sensible, serves, and does not command of itself; as it says of the angels: “Mighty in strength, doing his word.” But the Holy Spirit of God commands the prophets and apostles with his own authority, as God and Master, as will be shown in the chapters below.

[12.] … and of the all-powerful divine strength, but it does not strengthen. For it received the power sufficient for itself, and it has no strength to impart it to its fellow servants. But the Spirit of God strengthens with his fruitful, nourishing, and unfailing strength, since he is creator and not creature. For the Savior says in the Acts: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you”; as though, without his coming, we have no power toward God and no hope. One must observe, besides this, first, that the coming of the Holy … [and second] that he did not come as his own messenger, but was announced beforehand by the great God and Savior himself. And so again he says: “But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” And this was the power of the Holy Spirit. And Paul writes to the Romans words that no one finds it easy to admire or interpret worthily, especially in passing: “I have, then, my boast in Christ Jesus toward God. For I will not dare to speak of anything except what Christ has worked through me, by word and deed, to bring the Gentiles to obedience, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

13. Creation does not always speak the truth, but by its own … as among the fleshless, the devil; and among those in the flesh, as it is written: “Every man is a liar,” and, “You will destroy all who speak falsehood.” Those outside too wrote: “For the Father, God, will be no helper of liars.” And among the saints, as Paul said of the apostles: “But when I saw that they were not walking straight toward the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all” what he said. For truly, never to lie belongs to the divine nature alone. Therefore he wrote to the Hebrews: “So that,” he says, “by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie” … [the nature] of the Holy Spirit, sharing in nature with the Father and the Son, shares with them in everything, and indeed in not lying. For he is the Spirit of truth of God, as was said before, speaking by the one will of the Father, of the Son, and of himself, and not speaking from himself, as the Son testified of him, saying: “He will not speak from himself.”

14. Creation has nothing that is called “truth,” because there is one divine truth, as there is one holiness and one goodness, from which we confess that these come to each of us. But the Holy Spirit is called “truth,” as the Father and the Son are, since he is of the same one Godhead, having nothing divided or discordant. The Son testifies concerning the Father and himself, saying: “Father, your Word is truth”; and again: “I am the life and the truth.” And concerning the Holy Spirit …

15. Creation does not know the things of God; for they surpass it; and no creature, not even that of the approved [angels], dares to set out toward such knowledge; since to know the things of God is altogether impossible for a nature that is not of the same nature and does not possess the same knowledge as God; as the Savior taught, saying in John: “The servant does not know what his master is doing”; and as Peter wrote: “The things which are now announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, into which angels long to look.” But that the Holy Spirit knows them, as God consubstantial, the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians, as was said before. And again, presenting the greatness of the Spirit and his equality with the Father, … he writes: “But he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit.” For just as, saying something great about the Father, he said that he knows the mind of the Spirit, so, presenting the Holy Spirit’s fellowship of nature and will with him, and his equality of dignity and power, he wrote that the Spirit alone knows the things of the Father, and searches his depths, and those unknown thoughts of his which must be revealed, when they should be, to the worthy. And as for Peter’s having written, as was said before, “The Spirit was sent from heaven,” let it be understood in the way in which “The Son was sent” is understood. For as he was sent as Word, so the Spirit was sent as utterance and Spirit of God. And because of knowing that the things from Christ, or of the Holy Spirit are said, are said also by … For he is not ignorant, nor is he sent as a slave; nor does he speak, or act, or come of himself, as one opposed to God.

16. Creation does not see God the Father as he is; for this is uncontainable and unbearable for another nature; and to it applies the saying, “No one shall see my face and live.” But the Scriptures say sometimes that the Son alone, sometimes that the Holy Spirit alone, sees or knows God the Father, since the Trinity is in a unity of Godhead; as when the Savior says in John: “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.” And the Son is from God by nature by way of begetting, and the Holy Spirit by way of procession. And again: “For no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son reveals him.” And as when Paul, as was said before, writes specifically about the Holy Spirit to the Corinthians. And as Isaiah prophesies: “Spirit of wisdom and understanding, Spirit of knowledge and godliness.” “Is it not written, then,” he says, “in Matthew, from the Savior: ‘See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven’?” Yes; but they see, not how great and of what kind God is, but as far as they can contain. But the Only-[begotten and the Holy Spirit, being of the same God]head, see the immeasurable and formless God as he is.

17. The rational creation, when it becomes worthy of renewal and adoption, is counted worthy of these by the all-powerful grace of the Holy Spirit; since he is not a creature but God, such as he who created things in the first place.

18. All creation, visible and invisible, is commanded by name by the three young men, Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, when they were put in the Babylonian furnace, to sing hymns to God and exalt him above all forever; and further, the cherubim and the divine throne, by which the seraphim are here understood, glorify him, since they too are part of creation. For the same young men said: “Blessed are you who sit upon the cherubim”; and again, instead of mentioning the seraphim: “And blessed are you on the throne of your kingdom, and praised and exalted above all forever.” Likewise creation is bidden to praise the Lord by David too, moved by the Holy Spirit, in Psalm 102 and in Psalm 148. But the Holy Spirit, like the Son, was not mentioned with them; since he too is not a creature but a creator; nor is he among those who sing hymns, but among those to whom hymns are sung, even by the seraphim themselves, who stand around the divine tribunal with great fear and cover themselves with their wings, and in turn [cry] three times “Holy,” because of the three hypostases, and once “Lord,” because of the one lordship; which shows above all the Godhead of the all-praised Spirit. But the Macedonians, on their guard and, as it were, afraid that they might ever say anything fitting about him, … giving themselves leave without right, and on this heading too, brandishing every kind of weapon, their unbridled words, saying with quibbling: “It is written,” he says, “‘Praise the Lord, for a psalm is good; let praise be sweet to God’; and, ‘It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing to your name, O Most High.’ But nowhere, of course, do we find, ‘Praise the Holy Spirit.’” They must be answered thus: If you take the texts you have brought forward as concerning the Father, you cast out the Son; and if as concerning the Son, the reverse; since the Holy Spirit too both is Lord and is written as Lord, and it is not clear of which hypostasis “Lord” is now written. Consider, then, whether you have not used [these texts] against yourselves. But that the Holy Spirit does not sing hymns, since he is not a creature, but is hymned together [with them], because he is the Spirit of God, is easier to learn both from his being ranked with him and from the fact that the three young men and the sacred Psalmist bid all creation by name to sing hymns, but not … he is above them in substance. And if so, how did some boldly dare to call him … of the order of the angels? For if, as the heretics say, he is of a nature between God and the angels, and more honored and higher than all, then, since he is above all one, they ought either to have bidden him to sing hymns by himself, or at least to have named him first and included the others generally with him; not, as they arrogantly conjecture, the reverse.

19. Creation is not numbered together with God. For what does a being in diminution have in common with him who is wholly …, a being that came into being, with him who made it? But the all-honored Spirit, as God, is named either together with the Father and the Son, as when the Master gives the rule concerning baptism, and as when the Apostle writes the second time to the Corinthians, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all”; or with one of their hypostases; or he is also mentioned on his own, as was said in the first book. But the Macedonians, starting from the choice of Valentinus, who was cast out and rejected, who turned Manichaean, and who, among his other absurd fabrications, madly called the divine Spirit a coeval of the angels, say: “Paul wrote to Timothy: ‘I charge you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels’; but he passed over the Holy Spirit in silence, as having, of course, ranked him with the angels.” But this thought comes out of the abundance of their own heart. For even if at times there is no specific mention of the Holy Spirit, he is included together with God the Father, since he is his Spirit by nature. That is why there are times when either God the Father himself is not mentioned in word, but in faithful thought, while the Son and the Holy Spirit are mentioned; or the reverse. Even Valentinus, who ought not to be mentioned, called the sanctifying Spirit Paraclete, as Christ the Master [is called] Paraclete, from his being called upon … of Scripture do we find angels mentioned together with God for creation, or the mysteries, or doxology. But the Holy Spirit’s fellowship with the Godhead Paul wrote to the Corinthians in the second Epistle: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit”; and elsewhere: “If there is any fellowship of the Spirit.” The sacred Psalmist, then, cries out in these words the difference between the unoriginate Word and the divine Spirit on the one hand and the ministering spirits on the other, and that they are not of their rank, but that by these self-complete hypostases, and through them, and on their account, God the Father created the angels in them, and that all things are perfected and held together: “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their powers.” For one must understand by “Word” him through whom all things are; by “Spirit of the mouth of the Lord,” the Holy Spirit; by “powers of the heavens,” both their very structures and indeed angels, principalities, authorities, and powers. And again: “He who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming fire.” And the Apostle too fights against them, crying: “We were made to drink of one Spirit.” For as it is impossible for the radiance to be separated from the light, or wisdom from the wise, that is, the Son from the Father, so too the Holy Spirit from him whose Spirit he is, as the breath we breathe is from us. Without noticing it, then, through the very arguments by which they unseasonably disagree with us, … and it returns to the unshakable house of the beginning, from which they leapt away, they make trouble for the Apostle, who, on their account, in the words before us, bore witness before the uncreated nature and the created … “[a spectacle to the world and to angels] and to men,” and, “I call heaven and earth to witness this day,” and, “Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth.”

20. Creation has names that do not share in the names spoken of God, as it does not share his nature. But the Holy Spirit shares in the names of God, because he shares in his nature too; except that the Father alone is called Father, because he alone begot in hypostasis; and the Son is called Son, and not Father, of the uncreated nature, because he was truly begotten but did not beget. As when Scripture names the Spirit himself Lord, as ruling over all things, and sharing in the … himself holy by nature, and as sanctifying creation; incorruptible, good, love, wisdom, understanding, as it has also named God; power, … righteous, from the things by which he justifies, being himself sinless; Paraclete, as also the Son; fire, from his appearing to the apostles in fiery tongues; as Moses says of the Father, “Our God is a consuming fire,” and John of the Son, “He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire”; and all such things.

21. Creation has nothing that exists in one hypostasis, that is, in one person. For there are many angels and archangels; the seraphim likewise; the cherubim are not one thing; principalities and authorities are spoken of, powers, dominions, and thrones, in the plural; heavens, men, and the other works. For the sun and moon too share with the multitude of the stars, both in nature and in fieriness, as the first book covered this more thoroughly. But the Holy Spirit, as not numbered with creation, the oracles have proclaimed to us to be one and the same.

22. Creation is not written to be the water of life; for it did not have everlasting life of itself, as God, who lives without beginning, has. But the [her]alds praise the Holy Spirit as being this, as proceeding by nature from the immortal and life-giving fountain of the Father, not created. For just as we said in the first book that the light does not bring its own brightness into being but begets it, so here, that the fountain does not bring into being the water that comes from it, but has it proceeding from it and consubstantial. For no one brings into being his own son or his own spirit; for then he would no longer be a father, nor have a spirit. Jeremiah, in the person of God: “The heaven was astonished at this, and the earth shuddered at this; for my people have done two evil things. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns, which will not be able to hold water.” The prophet sets out the mystery in a mystical way. For he called God the fountain; and the living water the Holy Spirit, who in the pool cleanses all our sins, and who by nature cannot be torn away from the intelligible fountain, as the stream from springs cannot. Isaiah likewise: “I will give water in thirst to those who walk in [a waterless land; I will put my Spirit upon] your [seed], and my blessings upon your children; and they shall spring up among water like grass, and like willows by flowing water.” And this has a spiritual division through hidden expressions. For to those, he says, who are in ignorance of baptism, and for this reason walk in a waterless land, “I will put my Spirit,” who can make the pool [a source of life] for them, like water-loving plants, and “like the tree planted by the streams of waters, which will give its fruit in its season, and its leaf will not fall.” And the sacred Psalmist, making the truth, which is in fact something hidden, in some way hidden in speech too because it must be so, sings in Psalm 35: “For with you is the fountain of life”; and in Psalm 147: “[He will blow] his Spirit, and the waters will flow” … “gladdening the great city of God”; and this is the whole inhabited world. For, if I may so put it, what each city is to men, the world is to the Almighty. Baruch, lamenting the people who were in the land of the Chaldeans, who did not have the Holy Spirit, cries: “Why is it, Israel, that you are in the land of your enemies? You have grown old in a foreign land, you have been defiled with the dead, you have been counted with those in Hades. You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom; if you had walked in the way of God, you would dwell in peace forever”; calling God the fountain, and the Holy Spirit wisdom. John, from the Son to the Samaritan woman: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, Give me [a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you] living [water]”; meaning the immortal streams of the pool of the Holy Spirit. For that all these things were said about the Spirit of God, the evangelist just mentioned has explained word for word. For when the Savior said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water,” he at once added: “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed [in him] were to receive.”

[23.] … is anointed in baptism. The Savior, as God, was anointed with his all-holy Spirit, uncreated as he is, above his fellows, us. For if the Spirit were a creature, the Uncreated would not have been anointed with his own handiwork. The witnesses are those written below. Isaiah, speaking from the Savior: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.” David: “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.” Why “therefore”? Because, being God not made with hands, he was anointed by God, uncreated and without beginning. And he said “your God” because of his birth from the Virgin. Peter in the Acts: “You know the word that came throughout all Judea and Samaria, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John preached: Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power.” The Acts: “They were gathered together in truth in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.” And the Song of Songs explains this thus: “Your name is ointment poured out; therefore the maidens have loved you.” It says that the name of ointment belongs to Christ, that is, the name of the Paraclete; since both hypostases share in the name, and in themselves give off the fragrance of the nature of God the Father. By the maidens it means the churches, in which he is glorified, of which David too spoke in Psalm 67: “Princes went before, joined to [singers, in the midst of maidens playing timbrels]”; so saying because of the renown of their faith, and because they make the whole earth resound with readings and psalmody. And to each of them, in the Song, the Bridegroom himself, fair in his beauty, speaks chastely: “Behold, you are fair, my companion; behold, you are fair.” And again he sings, as it were, a wedding song: “Come from Lebanon, bride; come from Lebanon; you will come and pass through from the beginning of faith.” And that we too receive an anointing in our renewal, John writes in the first Epistle: “And you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.” As the Savior was in the dispensation, he says, so you too have an anointing from the Holy Spirit. And that this saving gift too has been given us in common by the blessed Trinity, they teach thus. Isaiah: “And the Lord of hosts will make for all the nations on this mountain: they will drink wine, they will be anointed with ointment on this mountain. Hand all these things over to the nations.” For by the mountain he foretold the church of God, because of the height of its faith; by the wine, the Master’s saving blood; by the ointment, that with which, when we have been sanctified, we are anointed by the priest. John in the same first Epistle, concerning Christ: “And you, the anointing which you have … [you have no need] that anyone teach you, but as his anointing teaches you about all things.” And Paul in the second to the Corinthians: “Now he who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God, who has also sealed us and given the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts.”

On the divine operations and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The oracles, then, having shown with great generosity the divine and supreme nature of the Holy Spirit, which is above life and above mind, reveal also his most caring divine operation, which matches it, in this way:

1. That he gives life, since he is the Spirit of God, who gives life to all things; according to Paul, the trumpet of the faith, who writes to the Romans: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”; and again: “He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you”; and to the Corinthians: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to consider anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” By “letter” he meant the Mosaic law, which prescribes an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and punishes one who lives foolishly; and by “the Spirit gives life” he meant the Holy Spirit of God, who has made us no longer under law but under grace, and has charged us not to repay evil for evil, but rather to return good for evil. “For if,” he says, “your enemy is hungry, feed him”; and again to the same: “The first Adam became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving Spirit”; and to the Galatians: “He who sows to the Spirit will reap from the Spirit eternal life”; and according to John, speaking from the Savior: “It is the Spirit who gives life.” Showing this very thing, that he will work the resurrection together with God, as his Spirit, Ezekiel prophesies: “Thus says the Lord to these dry bones: Behold, I will bring into you the Spirit of life, and I will put sinews upon you, and bring up flesh upon you, and spread skin over you, and I will put my Spirit upon you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” That which is life in its substance, then, and the life-giving power, has neither beginning, nor end, nor alteration; and what is not subject to these is God by nature and in truth, since he possesses from himself the distinctive attributes of God the Father. For nothing created can be the cause of life or show life in itself; and all things deprived of the divine Spirit are dead; “for in him we live and move and are,” as the Acts of the Apostles said. For if all things that come into being are also corruptible, and things that are corrupted undergo [the loss] of life, how could they bestow on others the things of which they themselves are in need? We are given life, then, by the Holy Spirit, as also by him who said: “I am the resurrection and the life.”

2. That, because of the identity of the Godhead and the one operation, the Scriptures say that Jesus Christ in the form of the servant was raised sometimes [by the Father, sometimes by himself, sometimes by the Spirit], thus. The Acts: “This man God raised on the third day.” John, from the Savior: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But he was speaking of the temple of his body”; and again: “I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again.” Peter in the first Epistle: “Christ died once for sins on our behalf, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.”

3. That he creates the great creature, man, and raises from the dead, and gives life, and … [after the flood caused by hu]man lawlessness the Holy Spirit renewed the earth again and warmed it into life without labor and, as it were, of itself, since he is a fellow creator and equal worker with God, the master craftsman who brought it into being in the beginning; as we are allowed to know from what these men have declared. Job: “The divine Spirit is he who made me; and the breath of the Almighty is he who teaches me.” David in Psalm 103: “You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.” The Apostle confirms this, writing the second time to the Corinthians: “So if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” And in Psalm 32: “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm …” … [crea]tor and good God, the Spirit of God, remaining forever, supplies an abiding friendship to creation, and with indissoluble … and supports all things by his own power; and that it is unlawful to call a creature him who creates and strengthens the creatures of God. For, mystically presenting him as working together with God and consubstantial with him, being his Spirit and finger, as was shown in the first book, [David] prophesies in Psalm 8: “For I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers.” And Moses in Genesis [presents] God the Father saying to the Son and his Holy Spirit: “Let us make man in our image and likeness, and let them rule over the things on the earth.” For God did not take angels or other spirits as fellow workers or counselors, since the servant does not know what his master is doing. Nor is he ever found to have taken a creature along with him for the work of creation (as David sings in Psalm 32: “He who alone fashioned their hearts”; and in Psalm 138: “My bone was not hidden from you, which you made in secret”; and as Paul writes to the Romans: “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”; that is, no one of creation; for the “who,” being broad, makes this plain). By not saying “Make,” but “Let us make,” he showed that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not assistants, but of one power and will; and by adding “in our image and likeness,” that the Trinity has one substance; and that this was not said to the angels, who have the image and likeness, infinitely and incomparably less (if it is not dangerous to say this, as a man), of the formless, shapeless, and ineffable Trinity. Therefore the same writer of the world’s making added: “And God made man; in the image of God he made him; male and female he made them; and he blessed them”; and again, “God saw that it was good”; in which words again the perfection, harmony, ordering power, and entire generosity of the self-complete and creative Trinity are signified mystically. For Moses, or rather God who sounded in him, did not think these things fit for theaters and for the crowd, but only for as many as would not transgress against them. For “God made,” that is, the Son, “man in the image of God,” that is, of the Father, “he made him; and God saw,” that is, the Spirit, “that it was good; and he blessed them,” that is, he sanctified them. And “in the image,” as it seems to me, must be understood thus: that from the divine breath we have the immortal spirit, and a mind that is always running and steering toward what it should, and wise speech pleasing to him who gave it, which, with faith, can become the cause of childbearing, of life, of the raising of the dead, and of the moving of mountains; and besides this, that we have received a share also in his goodness. [A misplaced line from Rom 8:11 follows in the scan: “… will give life also to our mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in us.”] And [Paul], announcing to the Hebrews that the ages came into being, and creation was established, by the Holy Spirit, and … calling the Spirit the Utterance of God, as has already been mentioned, writes: “By faith we understand that the ages were framed by the Utterance of God, so that what is seen did not come into being from things that appear”; and again: “Upholding all things by the Utterance of his power.” And the Psalmist: “In wisdom you have made all things,” that is, in your Spirit and your Son. How, then, is the divine Spirit not without beginning, and creator, and properly God? He who is inseparable from him who breathed him forth and from the creating Son; by whom the ages, and whatever is created, were brought into being; who bears and governs all things by his own power; who, immediately upon the coming into being of heaven, earth, and sea, was borne upon the water and made it life-bearing and life-nourishing. For just as the saying in Job about the Son, “Who alone stretched out the heaven,” does not remove from the work of creation the Father, from whom are all things and in whom all things hold together (for how else could these things be true?), so neither is it holy to thrust the Spirit of God, the Spirit of wisdom, power, and holiness, out of being a fellow creator with God. And what greater proof of this could be found than that the Spirit of God, in each one’s baptism, renews and sanctifies, and [restores] to the better and first [state], so that he is mentioned together [with God], as when the Apostle cries out concerning those who through rebirth have been made complete and expect to enjoy the greatest achievement of all: “That you may become according to the image of him who created you”; and as David too prophesies in Psalm 101: “A people being created will praise the Lord.” If he did not have fellowship of substance, lordship, and operation with the Father and with the Son, “through whom all things came into being,” he would not renew and sanctify. Therefore Christ, together with the all-holy Spirit, after the resurrection, re-creating and sanctifying man, who had been corrupted by disobedience, breathed into the faces of the disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”; fulfilling the prophecy of Nahum, which, out of irrepressible longing for the immeasurable beauty of the event, tells what was to come as already happening: “He has come up from the earth who breathes into your face and delivers you from affliction.” And that to sanctify, which the divine Spirit by nature does, is also to create, David testifies, singing: “Create a clean heart in me, O God”; that is, sanctify me, so that I may be renewed, having been corrupted by sin; for how could another heart have been created for him? And he says with it: “And renew an upright Spirit within me”; meaning, grant me your venerable Spirit, who surpasses all things. “So that,” he says, “appearing pure by his sanctification, I may become his worthy temple. For only through his oversight and that of your Son, and you yourself, Master, set your mark on us, and we receive the healing of all evils, and come to firm hopes of every eternal good.” For it is plain to us that David asks that he be renewed in him; for how could the Spirit, who was already his, be renewed, as though only now coming upon him? Moreover, Scripture, knowing that to sanctify is greater and more necessary than to create, said of the wretched Judas, who lost his sanctification: “It would have been good for that man if he had not been born”; since, it means, he did the most unprofitable thing of all, and sold the Master for no wrong, and exchanged life for silver. And indeed, concerning the servant’s form in the ineffable dispensation, of which John says, “And the Word became flesh,” and Paul, “He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” Solomon said, “Wisdom has built herself a house”; and Matthew, because of the sameness of the divine nature and operation, set it out thus: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was thus: when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” And the angel too said: “For that which is begotten in her is from the [Holy] Spirit”; [and the archangel: “The Holy Spirit will come upon] you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the holy one who is born will be called Son of the Most High.” It must be remembered, then, that because of the heretics’ idle chatter … then birth. For mocking our [Scrip]tures they say: “Is Christ, then, the son of the Spirit?”; not hearing these things faithfully, nor what he said to the apostles: “You do not know of what Spirit the Son of Man is.” If, then, because the Father is true God, his operation is for that reason divine in every way and altogether, then, since the operation of the Holy Spirit is seen to be equal and like to it, for that reason he too is true God. For otherwise, if the Father’s operation were better than that of the Son or of the Spirit, why did the Spirit or the Son work toward us at all, bringing in the inferior power, if indeed they are unlike, as the heretics say? But if the fullness of the Son and of the Spirit is useful and saving, the Son or the Spirit will be unlike in nothing. For neither would the Most High, who is rich in mercy, have borrowed from one inferior and poorer, nor would we have been worked upon in two ways and unequally. And indeed, what reason is there that man should be, say, the maker and creator of good or evil things, but the Spirit not be this? But man does this or that by God’s permission; and from a substance prepared beforehand by God, he makes some lifeless thing he wishes, but not the substance itself, as we have already said. But the Spirit both acts with his own authority and brings substance into being out of nothing, since he is the fellow worker and the breath of the Almighty. Therefore God in Ezekiel, showing that our spirit is renewed, but the Holy Spirit renews, and that he is not simply a spirit but properly his own, declares as follows: “And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit; and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh; and I will put my Spirit within you.” But they, making light even of these divine words, and being at a complete loss for just arguments, have finally resorted to the arts from outside, and try to transfer to other and other things what has been said so clearly. For they say in these very words: “He who created the dead alone raises those who die. For a painter would not repair the ruined work of an architect, nor a hunter that of a shipwright, nor a runner that of a builder; but an architect repairs an architect’s work, and a shipwright a shipwright’s. But the Holy Spirit,” he says, “neither raised the dead nor created; for human nature was created once,” he says, “in Adam, and neither another beside it nor many times. Indeed Eve too was created together with Adam in the common principle of nature, but was formed afterward.” But we, the orthodox, since to create and to raise the dead are above all the marks of divine power, confess that the Holy Spirit, who has done these things, is God; for “by the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their powers”; and since from the beginning, when all things were being created, he was present and was inseparably joined in Godhead and operation, for this reason he is also present and mentioned together when they are renewed. For, as these very men have said, to renew belonged to no other substance, that is, nature, than to that of the one who created. Concerning those who exist and conduct their lives as though they did not exist, but are now created spiritually and in a more divine way, David and Paul proclaim, as was said before, and as we shall find in many places. For all time would fail me if I wished to mention all of them in every place. If, then, the Scriptures did not think one way and those men another, first they would at some time have taken to heart the divine writings mentioned in this book and in the one before it; for what would they say, on hearing these things, that he who gave these oracles was teaching? Second, they would have reckoned that, just as when the Son created the Father is co-maker by his good pleasure, so too is his Spirit; and they would not have brought the things of the blessed Trinity, unmixed with all things, into a comparison with things unlike it, which need one another’s help and the help of time, and do not fulfill their purpose readily and blamelessly in every respect; a Trinity which has even left us makers of words and repairers of materials; saying things which they ought never to have said. For what are we, or how great are we, compared with God the Father, who once willed that all things should come into being through his Son, the Word? Certainly of him who was of the seed of David and Abraham and of the root of Jesse according to the flesh, it has been proclaimed, as was said just now: “For that which is begotten in her is from the Holy Spirit”; so that from this too it might be acknowledged that the sanctifying Spirit was a fellow worker with the beneficent Creator. That is why it is also written: “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness”; since the guiding Spirit was with him, as God with God, and as holding all things together and present everywhere, with him on whom all things are established, who is in all things and fills the … [according to them,] neither is the Father creator, or raiser of the dead. For all things came into being through the Son without toil. For toil is a passion, and passion is a road toward corruption. And not denying that the Master took flesh without sin from the nature of Adam, that is, from the Virgin, or from ours, we say these things; or rather we even confirm this by saying that he was begotten from the Holy Spirit. Since, as has been said, the Spirit of God, who is before the ages and before the world, was also present in the beginning with the maker of our nature, not as with one in need of help, but in sameness and equality of Godhead and will, and as light not cut off from light. Either, then, Macedonius, stand with the saints, who do not name the divine Spirit a creature, but [say he has] proceeded … [rather than saying,] as you are accustomed to, that he is less than God in nature but greater than the angels, having been allotted some intermediate nature and rank, … who have declared it in oracles (for their words have rightly been honored before God above yours and those of Arius); and not as the law of art and sophistry allows, since you may with confidence let go … your own words about the divine Spirit, whose divine nature you could not have contemplated even in some small degree, even if you had eyes of the mind as many and such as Scripture has given the cherubim (for who can lay hold of the unseen and uncontainable Godhead?); either condemn your own impiety, or willingly … to us the first place …

4. But let us return again to the subject from the beginning: that he sanctifies and justifies, as we said before.

5. That he bestows salvation even on those who have gone astray; which belongs to the almighty substance alone. For without God it is impossible for a creature to do anything, “not even so much as to open the bright circle of the eyelids.” For the Apostle said to the Philippians as follows: “For I know that this will turn out for my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” Just as it is sung of the Father in Hosea: “You shall know no one besides me; and there is no one who saves besides me”; and of the Son in the Acts: “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

6. That he frees from death and forgives sins, since from the root of the Father’s substance he bears as fruit immortality and mercy. But a creature cannot be sinless, or do either of these things of itself. For none of the spirits, as was shown before, is sinless; nor perhaps, by hyperbole of speech, is the nature that is not rational. For even the heaven itself and the sun are not blameless compared with the purity of God. For even if apostles are seen at times to have done some such thing, they did not prevail by their own power, but by the power of him who said, “In my name you will do greater things than these,” and by that of the Spirit of the Father, who spoke in them; as Paul teaches the Romans: “For the law of the Spirit in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death.” And the Master in John, giving back to us the Holy Spirit, whom we had lost through the ancient disobedience, breathed into the faces of the disciples and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Here the free authority of the ever-remembered Spirit is so great that he both forgives sins by himself, and in his name and power the apostles, and all who believe in him, grant forgiveness of sins. And that to expiate sinners belongs to God alone the glorious words of God show: “I,” he says, “am he who blots out your sins …” “… [though they be as] crimson, I will make them white as snow; and though they be as scarlet, I will make them white as wool.” And the Savior, as Son of God, said to the paralytic: “Child, your sins are forgiven”; and, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”

7. That he works together with God the Father, who needs nothing and gives all things, and with his Son, and bestows all things on all together with them, not putting it off until tomorrow, since he has being that is uncreated together with them, and reigns together with him, and has received as his portion the Godhead of him from whom he came forth, subsisting together with him. And that Christ, who has all authority and all power, did the signs and wonders and cast out demons with the power of his own most august Spirit, as the sacred initiates have explained. Micah: “Thus,” he says, “says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray.” And a little later he adds: “For there will be none who listens to them, unless I fill [them with] strength in the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might.” He said, then, that the Lord makes strength in the Spirit of the Lord, in order to show both the Trinity and the bond of its nature. And he hints at the judgment, in which there is no longer repentance, nor anyone who listens: “For in Hades,” he says, “who will give thanks to you?” … “I will make … with the divine Spirit.” And Paul, the most approved of the apostles, to the Ephesians: “For this reason I bow my knees to God the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell”; and to the Romans: “I have, then, my boast in Christ Jesus toward God. For I will not dare to speak of anything except what Christ has worked through me, by word and deed, to bring the Gentiles to obedience, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Hypostases alike in nature are worthy of like honor; hence this saying too is close to “Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Matthew, from the Savior: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” And as he works together in illumination, it is impossible, then, for them to be one in harmony and operation if the substance were not one; and for this reason the Master says at one time, “The Father who abides in me does the works,” and at another, as has just been said, “I cast out demons by the Spirit of God.” And for this reason Paul too said, “by the power of the Holy Spirit,” confessing that it was by the divine operation of the Trinity that they raised the dead: he himself Eutychus, Peter [Tabitha] …

8. That, as God the Father, so also the Holy Spirit gives oracles, being signified as God and Master; as Luke relates: “There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him into his arms and blessed God and said: Now you are letting your servant depart, O Master, according to your word, in peace; for my eyes have seen your salvation.” The Holy Spirit, then, gave the oracle; Simeon received Christ into his arms according to the oracle; he blessed the one who had given the oracle, that is, he glorified the Holy Spirit, having seen the salvation of the oracle reach its fulfillment; and he called the one who gave the oracle God and Master. … [“Do you think] that I have given you oracles [otherwise] than that you might appear righteous?” But those who have trained themselves to fight against the true Spirit of God, gathering from every part of the subject things that serve other matters and not theology, to overshadow the truth, and not receiving accurately what befits the divine mystery and suits the subject, bring forward on this heading too words that are unacceptable concerning the divine, saying up and down, as though it were a great and clear heading, that cold and deceptive saying: “From such testimonies,” he says, “the Holy Spirit is brought down to the nature of an angel, since angels too are seen giving oracles.” And so [they turn] the correct meanings of the Scriptures, by their own absurd arguments, into reversals … [as it is written in the] Acts: “Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man, well spoken of by the whole nation of the Jews, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to his house and to hear words from you.” You would have done much more profitably if you had been silent and sewn up your mouths from slander. But we, referring this heading too to the more perfect aim, giving good cheer to those who will read it, and instilling more orthodox zeal, say: As a creature has no fellowship of nature with the uncreated nature, so neither of giving oracles. For the one announces, without knowing it, whatever he may be moved by the Holy Spirit to say; but [the Spirit], since he knows all the things of God, as Paul affirms, gives oracles in a divine way, as the Father does, whatever he sees with the sleepless eyes of the Godhead that the Father and the Son will, and not as a servant, as the angel in attendance does. “For the servant does not know what his master is doing”; and one of a different substance cannot possess the same knowledge as one who is of another substance; for to each nature its own knowledge and memory belong; and even what has been known by the nature that has come into being sometimes flies away with time. Hence here too the unreasonable men have willfully left out, in the battle of argument, the beginning of the passage. For it runs: “While Peter was pondering [the vision, the Spirit said to him]: Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise, go down and go with them without hesitating, because I have sent them. And Peter went down to the men and said: Behold, I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason you have come? And they said: Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous man,” and the rest, as set out above. So, before good judges, it is plain that here too the angel learned the oracle from the Holy Spirit. For a distinguished mark of Godhead is to foretell without error; and this for the good of the hearers, so that by taking precautions they may be saved. Then do you not think that, in introducing such things, you are in a way envious of creation, and finding fault, as it were, with him who out of generosity adorned his own works with the expressions used of himself? As though he did not … but rather showed it worthy of praise, and brightened his works as he is accustomed. And we, even if the Holy Spirit’s giving oracles brings a certain divine majesty to the whole subject, and is sufficient taken by itself as testimony, nevertheless have brought forward not only this but a multitude of other lofty and indisputable proofs; and if you attend to them without hostility, you will surely be more speechless than fish. Paul too refutes your sophistry most clearly, writing to the Ephesians: “To me, the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to enlighten all as to what is the dispensation of the mystery hidden from the ages in God, who created all things, so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and authorities in the heavenly places through the church.” Consider, then, how far the nature of angels is removed from knowing anything of the future of itself, and from giving oracles; for it learns the great things even through the church of God in this world, which we are. And toward persuasion on this point, what he wrote to the Colossians may help: “This mystery, hidden before the ages and from the generations, which has now been made manifest to his saints.” For before this, he says, it was known to God alone. Besides this, there is what Peter declared, in these words, about the things that brought benefit to all men, I mean those concerning the unspeakable dispensation, as was said before: “Into which,” he says, “angels long to look.” [If] they had some innate knowledge, they would not have longed even to peer into them. But since they do not have it, they fall, in a way, like men, into an excessive desire for those things whose knowledge is not within their reach. For it is natural, too, for things easy to find to be overlooked, and rarer things to be prized. And indeed some of them are bound to this, not by their own choice, but by the common principle of their nature (I do not say all). “For if,” he says, “God did not spare the angels who sinned,” what innate knowledge of the future, or authority to give oracles as God does, can they have? But if they neither know of themselves nor give oracles by their own authority, as the matter proves itself even without any argument, and you have gone over to blame and accusation because the word alone is predicated in common, … you have acted … and without consideration; and it is not fitting for us, because certain others [are said to] give oracles and to be good, to say the opposite [of the Spirit]. Shall I tell you something else too? Take care that it was not the Savior, the Holy of holies, whom [Scripture] called the angel who gave the oracle to the centurion. For Scripture is seen to use this name covertly of him with much and divine emphasis, because in the dispensation he announced the Father’s will as Son and Word. For it did not say by name, as it usually does, “Michael,” “Gabriel,” or “so-and-so.” What, then, of all our words could anyone reasonably find fault with? And what blame could he lay on the faith of the orthodox, which has nowhere any need of correction? And how is it not worthy of belief that the Holy Spirit gives oracles royally, that is, divinely, but the angels not …? As it says, “[it is hard] to hold the tiller for one who has no skill in steering”; so it is hard to teach one in whom the grace of the divine Spirit, which works the salvation of men with the Father and the Son, is not present, and who cannot know the security found even in the riddles of the oracles, and that which comes from the knowledge of faithful men … and without varied choice there is no utterance of speech. But I know clearly, O approved angels of God, who dwell in the heavenly light, that you, as blameless and perfect, were not displeased at what I have said on account of the angels who are like you in nature, though not in the praiseworthiness of their will; angels whom blame has followed from the beginning, as it has the heretics who bring forward, as they ought not, the things just mentioned; who, of all, seem to you most unpersuadable in their contest against the truth. For my argument is on behalf of the divine Spirit, who enlightens all things and bestows on creatures divine things that rival those of the Father and his Only-begotten; who sanctified you too, and is glorified together by you with the Father and the Son through the thrice-holy hymn. Or rather, you even nodded assent when I praised this Spirit as one and only, of the hypostasis of God, and God; and you would perhaps have wished (for in this part my book is keeping festival), out of your exceeding [love for the] Trinity, that the words spoken from the meaning of the Scriptures by many, and now by me, were your own, and that silence might never be laid upon them, and that all men might spend their leisure from affairs on such a subject. For this reason, then, by the highest judgment, you, holy Michael, were appointed to command the bodiless hosts, and were honored with, as it were, an intellectual girdle, and are a kind of fragrance of the all-holy and compassionate Trinity who rules over all; and you, holy Gabriel, were chosen, as discreet and faithful, to serve the mystery of the unspeakable dispensation; and each of the others, without even asking, has been honored with a God-given gift such as others do not have, and such as we do not have; but we too with one such as you do not have. For God the Word did not become an angel for the sake of the angels who sinned, but for the sake of men in sin [he became man] … as he knows and willed, from the Virgin, and according to her flesh and that of all of us, remaining what he was, and is, and will be, one and the same. “For one,” it says, “is holy, one Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father.” And so, as he ascended from earth to heaven, he will come a second time, with ten thousand times ten thousand, and more, and he will judge and act according to his love for humankind. That is why, after the churches, houses of prayer to God too, named after you, O well-pleasing pair of archangels, have been built, not only in the cities but also privately in alleys, in houses, and in fields, adorned with gold and silver, or even ivory; and men go even to places far from the land that bore them, places that are, as it were, halls of success, … when they must accomplish a long road, of many days in succession, sometimes a hard one, expecting to experience from you greater goodwill in intercession, and a share from God in the good things bestowed for doing well. For in his holy churches, and houses of prayer, and martyrs’ shrines, as in other heavens, he has set forth his unfailing good things; and from the things which he himself, the King of kings and Lord of lords, has given and gives daily to each, from these he receives the unbloody sacrifice, offered piously and holily, and has all the honors that come from men. And I think that in the matters against the heretics and in those of theology even the irrational animals, nay, the very stones, join their voices with ours in eagerness. For what does not love for God accomplish? Or to whom does the true affection of the heart give way? For you know (let everything be said with God) that, with you and with the saints of our own nature interceding, I have so conducted myself that no one up to this day has chosen to bring a suit, as it were, or a charge of slander against me on behalf of you, our intercessors, who have honors among all according to your measure; nor called me by name to a contest and judgment about this, though there are those who make accusations of things that are not; nor has anyone tried to convict me of having heard arguments and praised what is not good, or of having ever been negligent at all and, with unbecoming slackness, put off resisting as far as I could; rather, on the contrary, many say that I have always come forward vigorous and calm in such matters, whether to give satisfaction or to receive it. For I rightly count it the greatest and eternal gain for myself, and for those who come from me, and for those with us, to choose every toil, if need be, and danger, on behalf of him who made us and saves us, and who for this reason has the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to judge and to show love for humankind. Knowing, then, as chosen worshipers of the all-holy Trinity and intercessors for the human race, [and] after it nothing … of what is owed to those who plead with me, to it, which bestows wise thoughts and expressions that both please it and benefit us; and then to you too, and “then” in so far as it is fitting, having ranked the created nature, as is seemly, to be mentioned after the uncreated, intercede specially for me, and for those from me, and with me, and for all (for you were not permitted to grant us more than this), that my purpose in this may be kept unshaken, and that all my prayer, which the most good, self-complete, and undivided Trinity, who alone knows all things and brings them to a happy end and without limit, knows, may be received; and that we may be counted worthy, with all our children, all our household, all our kin, and all our friends (the orthodox are our friends), together with you and all the saints, to praise it with the thrice-holy hymn in the heavens forever, to the endless ages of ages; and to obtain its promised kingdom, unending and undivided, in which we believe, by its grace. Amen. Amen. Amen. … as though the contests were not of piety and faith, but of choice of colors and of race … for the hearts of lovers … and is quenched … then again to be stretched.

[9.] That the Holy Spirit, as God and Creator, will judge all things together with Christ. For whose is it to judge, if not his who has fellowship of Godhead and kingship with him who made them? As the prophets foretell. Isaiah: “A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall come up from the root; and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness; and the Spirit of the fear of God shall fill him. He shall not judge according to appearance, nor convict according to speech; but he shall judge with judgment for the lowly, and convict the proud, and deliver the lowly of the earth, and he shall strike the earth with the word of his mouth [and with the Spirit through his lips he shall slay the ungodly].” By the rod and the flower from the root of Jesse he means him who sprang from it in the incarnation, and strengthened the world under the sun with his own fragrance; upon whom we saw in the Gospels the Holy Spirit resting; and we wait to see him as judge, with the Holy Spirit, at his second coming. For this is what is meant both by “With the Spirit through his lips he shall slay the ungodly,” and by what was said elsewhere by the same prophet: “By the Spirit of judgment and by the Spirit of burning.” And David in Psalm 138 says: “Where shall I go from your Spirit? And where shall I flee from your face?” “Where shall I go” and “Where shall I flee” carry a broad meaning; for it signifies that the Holy Spirit is present everywhere and is judge. “For it is truly a fearful thing,” according to the Apostle, “to fall into the hands of the living God,” who says in Psalm 49: “I will convict you and set your sins before your face.” And the prophecy of Micah mentioned a little earlier also contributes to this heading. And what stronger proof of this could anyone name than the Savior’s saying in John about the Holy Spirit: “When he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and concerning righteousness and concerning judgment”?

10. That by the surpassing power of the Holy Spirit Paul, in Cyprus, struck blind with a word Elymas the sorcerer, who was making war on the saints and corrupting the truth. For Scripture, showing that the power was the Spirit’s, says in these very words: “Then Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to him: Behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind, not seeing the sun.” For truly it was not [possible] for him, not having the … of the Spirit, … [to take away] by a word the sight of one who lived with … and trusted in demons.

11. That by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit the heavens were opened and seen by him who bound on himself the double crown of apostleship and martyrdom. For it says: “Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, saw the heavens opened.” So that what was said by an ancient applies: “And from heaven the boundless ether burst open.”

12. That he knows beforehand, as the Father and the Son do; and to know the future exactly belongs to the divine nature alone. For creation offers everything from itself as conjecture, and foresees without error or deviation only that which the Holy Spirit teaches it. For with his divine rays he not only illumines the powers in heaven but also brightens the eyes of our souls, and shows … allows … out of his own goodness and love for humankind, creation at times to pick out the things that contribute to what is useful for human nature; which things our material nature sometimes ascribes, not to him who supplied them through the medium of creation, but to creation itself. The testimonies from the Acts of the Apostles concerning the foreknowledge of the Spirit are these. From Peter to the Jews: “Men, brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.” He said “had to” well; for every word of God alone does not fail of fulfillment. And from Paul: “The Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me.” And through the prophet Agabus he announced beforehand, being good, a famine that would come upon the whole world under heaven because of men’s offenses, as in the case of Nineveh, so that, taking warning, they might escape the evil by repentance. And this happened many years later, under Claudius. And in the Gospel Christ says of the Spirit: “And he will declare to you the things that are coming”; that is, the things to come.

On the foreknowledge and free authority of the Holy Spirit.

After the divine nature and operation of the Spirit of God, then, [the oracles] speak most clearly of his free author[ity] …

1. That he does and bestows all things, not as a servant but with his own authority, the gifts, as he wills, all that the ineffable, superessential, and only nature could bestow; and he works whatever he wishes, and breathes where he has chosen; and he wills what the Father and the Son will, and breathes likewise where the Father and the Son also wish; fulfilling the one ungrudging will of the Father, and of the Son, and of himself; and leaving nothing, not even the things that have only a dim life, bereft of his providence. For presiding over his own making, since he is goodness itself and since he is a fellow worker with the good Creator, he oversees all things and distributes gifts. For “in the one who is good no envy ever arises about anything”; rather, he shows his authority by benefits. And for this reason we say that the Trinity has one will, and one authority and power. And those whose willing, authority, and operation are one have, then, one Godhead also. For that which works all things by its own authority, and is present in each individual thing, belongs to the one and pure nature that is over all, which lacks nothing in any respect and does nothing that it does not will; nor indeed does it do anything that is not pleasing to the Father and the Son. And in the way in which, along with the other proofs, the saying “Whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does likewise” shows the Son to be unvarying in relation to the Father, so also, among other things, the Holy Spirit’s working and bestowing all things as he wills, and breathing where he has chosen, [shows it of him]. For presenting this, and clearly proclaiming the Spirit as God, the Apostle wrote: “That we may see the things freely given to us by God.” And the same writer could again be a faithful witness to all these things, writing to the Corinthians in the first Epistle: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord; and there are varieties of operations, but the same God who works all things in all. But to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings in the one Spirit, to another operations of powers, to another prophecy, to another discernment of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues. But all these the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each one individually as he wills.” One must not … the equality of the Holy Spirit in all things: first, that he mentions him first, then the Son, and after that the God and Father who works all things in all; second, that having said above that God works all things in all, he adds, setting out one harmonious testimony about the Father and his Spirit: “But all these the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each one individually as he wills”; so as to show from this that the Holy Spirit is God with free authority. He did not take in hand anything unfitting, nor make an innovation in the order, nor miss what is right; but he kept the knowledge of the faith unharmed and the purity of theology, and did not insult the undivided nature and dignity, as those do who [do] not … the Son and the Holy Spirit. For he did not reverse the sequence of the names simply and of himself; rather Christ, who spoke in him, wiping out the suspicion of malicious and perverse hearts, teaches in various ways the truth of the Trinity, equal in power, equal in honor, and consubstantial: at one time saying through the same Paul, “But it is the same God who works all things in all”; at another, saying through the Evangelist, “Baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; and now through Paul, as was said before: “But all these the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each one individually as he wills.” And he supports this point in the Epistle to the Hebrews too, which reads thus: “God also bearing witness with signs and wonders and various powers and distributions of the Holy Spirit according to his own will.” And the Lord’s sayings in John read: “The Spirit breathes where he wills”; and “The Spirit is the truth.” And it is fitting, he says, [to praise him] in the first rank of the Godhead, and not to hymn him in the second, so that you may have security for your life. For what does good is wont to be thanked and served; which even those outside managed to say without guile: “The …” … the self-determining, he says, is better than the subordinate, then man too, being self-determining, would be shown among you to be superior to the Holy Spirit. Alas for these dreadful things! … the truth and what is fitting; and simply setting at naught the oracles that were uttered with fitting dignity, turning the argument wherever it seems good to them, and presenting themselves as flourishing in their own aim, stringing the argument together without drawing breath, and as victors over all, with a pious-looking irony they tear apart, as they suppose, orthodoxy.

The Macedonian’s statement, supposedly addressed to an orthodox man, goes like this: “God works; the Holy Spirit also works; and from ‘works’ and ‘works’ you wanted the Holy Spirit and God to be equal in honor and equal in power. But I pass over the fact that physicians and all men use ‘to work’ of things of different kinds, differing in nature and definition, whether of hot waters, or of foods, or of herbs; I show only this, that the divine word has used it also of the opposing power, since the Apostle said of the Antichrist: ‘Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with all signs and lying wonders.’ See then,” he says, “since the word ‘to work’ is used homonymously or synonymously of many things, to what you have brought down the Holy Spirit; and you did not reckon that God made and worked the world from what is not into being, but the Holy Spirit [works] a distribution of gifts among the things created by God. For it is written: ‘Distributing to each individually as he wills’; not bestowing.”

And how, O Macedonian, is this not contrary to the conceptions of theology? How is the hypocrisy not caught in the act straight away? For first, since all agree that the word ‘works’ is predicated of different substances and things, why, when the question concerned the divine and manifest operation of the Holy Spirit, did you bring forward what you brought forward, and by it insult rather than praise the Spirit of God? Next, one must attend not to the word ‘works’ being used homonymously or synonymously of the Divine, of herbs, and of Satan, but to the persons and to the difference of the operation; and one must judge the words and matters concerning the divine Spirit by reference to God, who was praised with the word ‘to work’, as stated above, and not by reference to earthly things and to the demon who was cast down. For the Holy Spirit is mentioned with the reverence fitting to God throughout the whole context about him found in each passage, but creatures and the demon in a manner worthy of themselves. What we do not say … the demon’s hostility, but of the Holy Spirit … you bring down, as far as in you lies, the incomparable glory of God the Father, who was praised with like expressions in divine matters, and of his Spirit; and, as was to be expected, you have unawares ranked yourself among those who think soundly. But note rather that in the passage before us the Holy Spirit was mentioned first, in a manner befitting God, before God the Father and the Son; and reckon from this that the venerable Trinity in unity has no difference, and that it works together with itself ineffably. Then consider that to each one the divine gifts mentioned are given through the Holy Spirit and from the Holy Spirit; of which no gift of divine bounty is left outside as its own; and he who does not obtain them, as given by God, is more wretched than the wretched, and he who is not so helped neither helps others but even harms them; and that the one and the same Spirit works all these things, that is, makes and bestows them. And he who works in these will work in all things, and is without need; and he who is without need is impassible; and the impassible is God. Or if it is said of God the Father, “The Lord mighty in battle,” and “God is known in Judea,” and the like, will he not be thought mighty, active, and manifest in other things? Consider likewise that the words that declare “according to his will” and “He distributes to each individually as he wills” unveil all his divine free authority, of one mind with the Father and the Son; and that both God the Father bears witness with them with signs and wonders, and the Savior, saying, “The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father,” and “The Spirit is the truth,” and Peter, who plainly proclaims the Holy Spirit to be God to Ananias thus: “Why is it that you agreed together to lie to the Holy Spirit? You have not lied to man but to God.” And know this too, that you did not escape notice when you cunningly left out, in your vain and harmful little work, or rather your blasphemy, what precedes in the divine text. For it contains this: “The one and the same Spirit”; and so it adds what you alone brought in perversely: “Distributing to each individually as …” … revealing with his own authority the heavenly goods. It is not a mark of right judgment and faith, besides misinterpreting the oracles, to mutilate them as well. For that it contains “of which also the same Spirit” prevents you both from separating him from identity with the One, most high, who steers all things (for this most incomprehensible and uncontainable One differs not in the least in Godhead, except only in the principle of fatherhood; because he proceeded from him by nature, and not by creative operation), and from saying, “If ‘Spirit of God’ and ‘Spirit of Christ’ are written, two Spirits will be understood.” It was said not far above for what reason it was so declared.

Do not be unaware either that the oracles set out do not mean that the person who gives is one and the one who distributes another, as in the case of men, who can neither know all things nor act without toil, and therefore some give without discrimination while others distribute after exact examination, lest either the givers not have enough, or those served gain nothing themselves. For God, who is without cause, impassible, ever-moving, all-sufficient and ungrudging, who gives not according to what we are worthy to receive (for we are not worthy of any good from works), but according to what is fitting for him to give; knowing all things and able for all things, as has been said even among the Greeks: he always supplies; and not now yes, now no; nor sometimes more and at other times less; but continually, in the same way and likewise, in full concord (how could it be otherwise?) with his own Son, the Word, and his one Holy Spirit. For none of the things that are is rejected by him; since indeed he makes the sun rise on the righteous and on sinners alike, and supplies to those who worked at the eleventh hour the same wage that he agreed on with those who dig and tend the vines from dawn. Nor is anything to be feared by him, so that through want, or through not giving richly … is found, so that he might begrudge this one being made equal to … its partakers he has mercy on, at another time not. For being good by nature, he always has mercy … those belonging to him (which it is not even holy to say, except of wicked suppositions and hypostases); nor has he let go of that with which he will be angry. “For you spare all things,” it says, “because all are yours, O Master, lover of souls; and your incorruptible Spirit is in all things.” If these things are not so, what is left for you to sophisticate? As again, when the Son or the Holy Spirit is said to give divine gifts, it is clear that it is by the Father’s good pleasure; for how could it be otherwise? Listen then to Paul teaching the Romans: “Because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us”; and “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”; and again: “He then who supplies the Spirit to you and works powers among you”; and to the Corinthians, the first: “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are no longer under law”; and to the Galatians: “For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Therefore here too he said first: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit,” that is (by ellipsis and contraction of expression), the Spirit who gives; and so he added: “The one and the same Spirit, distributing to each individually as he wills,” so as to show that he himself both gives and distributes, clearly of one mind with the One whose Spirit he is, and to whom all things are referred, as was written to the Romans: “For from him and through him and to him are all things.”

Attend also to all the other things that the oracles have said of him. For if you had attended to all of them, and if you had believed God the Father himself, and his only-begotten Son, and also so many saints, whose eyes of understanding were as wakeful as the Cherubim’s, and whose contribution, made in deed, and teaching, and the faith received from them, we accept rightly, the more we revere and honor them; and if at the beginning you had not followed in part the shield-bearers of Arius, whom may we neither name nor learn of, blushing for them, as men who put on you [the na]me of bishop, you who before this were a deacon of the orthodox and apostolic Church: you would not have made the comparison of what is said about the Holy Spirit with what is said about creatures, nor given more suspicion to your fellows in impiety, nor used abuse, not to say blasphemy, that overcomes moderation; and you would have known that he was present together and worked together ineffably … subsistent. But God and the Father was pleased once, as was said above, to bring all things from non-being [into being] through the Son, the Word, while the Father himself and his sanctifying Spirit are conceived together with him (how could it be otherwise?) in the creating; but in the case of men, or even angels, there is need of many persons and hands to do anything perfectly and masterfully. He who decreed that he be mentioned together in our regeneration of baptism guarantees these things; for he too is mentioned as present together, acting together, and not lowered from the ineffable nature. So then these things are thus and not otherwise; and I shall nevertheless pass over saying more.

“But God distributes through the Spirit, as he creates through his Word.” This does not cast him out of the Godhead, any more than it does the Son; on the contrary, even through these things it shows him to be God. Since to those created through the Son the goods for salvation, proclaimed everywhere, are supplied through the Holy Spirit. For the one depends on the other: that what has been created should also be deemed worthy of the flowing abundance of the divine gifts from heaven; and everywhere not to have come into being is preferred to having come into being and failing to obtain the inexhaustible goods from above; which, even when given, are not seen, just as the Giver too, who suffices through the ages, is in a way unknown. For eye has not seen them, nor ear heard, nor have they yet come into thought; and beauty is set before the knowledge of those who gather it, so that faith may somehow draw near to what is fitting; for where the truth itself, or exactness, is not yet attainable, one must look to what is possible. An unerring voice, then, said of one who came to have no share in these: “It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” You have yourself, then, already brought yourself under accusation, and turned upon yourself the charge you chose against us; and you seemed no different from those who beat the air, being led on to stitch together, as the saying goes, certain perplexities, and between divine matters and narratives foolishly to bring into the midst, when need did not require it, other material things, and indeed the adversary, the one who was cast out and who suggests the sort of things you said. Much … the name of the diaconate … and none of the Christians who have studied the Scriptures rightly and without partiality, and to whom it belonged straightway to excel in the grace given by the divine Spirit, would accept you in what you have worked out to the harm of souls. For according to your attempt, perhaps every Scripture that shows theology will be cast out.

And come, if these things are not true, “But if also through the Spirit …”, nevertheless let us consider this quietly and moderately, in this way. For I shall make it plain precisely, and not simply from doubtful proofs but from agreed ones, and I shall teach easily, and you will learn. Paul, who had a most blessed zeal, hotter than fire, as the saying goes, for our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, writes that Christ became a minister. And this benefactor himself said plainly of himself: “I have received a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak”; and “I do nothing of myself.” And elsewhere it is said: “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” And yet we understand that these things are written thus faithfully and in a manner fitting God, because of the one will of the Holy Trinity, and because all things are referred to the Father. As, therefore, no variation of Godhead is conceived in the Son (for he does not minister as one different in nature to another, nor through inferiority of power, but as the Son, the Word, to a true Father; nor does he receive a commandment as one ignorant of what is needful and of the Father’s will, but as was said before), so also with the divine Spirit. And in the way in which the things of God the Word are referred to God the Father, in this way and no other are those of the Holy Spirit. So that by the very things by which the heretics exalted their pride, they would raise against themselves the charge of arrogance and false belief.

Their impious and unfitting slander did not stop there. For trying to muddy the undefiled glory concerning the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, as though no good came to them from him, and at the same time to bring us under a charge, these very men, who have taken certain men as teachers, do not shrink from this novelty too, word for word: that when we take the text that declares “The Spirit breathes where he wills” as of divine dignity, we bring him down to human nature, since after other words it has: “So will be everyone who is born of the Spirit.” But they themselves, he says, neither raise the Spirit to divine dignity nor drag him down to the nature of the rest; for he holds the middle rank, being neither God nor any one of the rest. And who would not indict them for such daring? Come then, pay attention; I shall speak briefly. Above all, he did not say, “So is man,” man simply, but “So will be everyone who is born of the Spirit”; that is, he who has been deemed worthy to be born again in the divine font and to become (as … “He himself gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak” … nature. And these things are like “Let us make man according to our image and likeness,” and “That you may become according to the image of him who created us.” And as the Most High Father and his Son are not dragged down to human nature by these holy words, which are beyond us, so neither is the Holy Spirit by the sayings mentioned before and by his kindnesses toward us. Then they think, which is worse still, that the Holy Spirit is neither God nor any one of the rest. It remains to think of him as non-existent. And put otherwise: if he is not God, as they assert, he falls under the common definition of creatures. But no such evidence is found in the Scriptures, nor has it been declared that he is of an intermediate nature; … he proceeds from the Father, and is a divine Spirit. It remains that he is God, from the words of Peter and Paul, and from the whole sense of the Scriptures and the word “proceeds.” For being without limit, it [declares] most divinely the eternity and inseparability of his nature from him from whom he ineffably comes forth. And this too: if he is none of the other things, as indeed this is true of them, he is God. Besides: if nothing created is found in a single hypostasis, as was shown in the first book, while the Holy Spirit is one and alone, of the substance of the Henad, that is, of the Monad; so then they would be seen to be deceiving by what they wrote, even if they seem clever at saying whatever they wish, and let nothing of their haughtiness against us be produced even among themselves; for human boasts are quickly refuted. A wise man has pronounced thus about each of them: “Do not be overly wise, lest you be confounded.” And Stephen in the Acts reproaches them somewhat thus: “Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.” By their fathers he meant Arius and Macedonius, the destructive pair. I come then to another heading.

2. That he appointed the prophets and apostles to shepherd the rational flock and to care for it; and with his own authority sent them, and made them speak as he willed, in likeness to the Father and the Son, since he is the Spirit of God, existing by procession, not by making, and since he is the unadulterated Spirit of wisdom and understanding, ruling together with the Father, who governs all things, and the Son. But the nature of a creature is not of this rank. That these things are true is proved by the books of Moses, which say: “Who will grant that all the people be prophets, when the Lord gives his Spirit upon them?” and by the apostolic Acts, which say things like this: “There appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and it 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 to utter”; and again from the divine Paul: “The Holy Spirit spoke well to your fathers through the prophet.” And again, having summoned the presbyters of Ephesus to Miletus, he says: “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of the Lord, which he obtained with his own blood”; and again: “They went through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and when they came to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them.” So that he [let them] speak everything, but did not let them go to some place, for their benefit; doing the same as the Son, who said: “Do not carry a bag, or a staff, or sandals.” And again the apostles and the presbyters say: “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no further [burden] than these necessary things: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is strangled, and from sexual immorality; if you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.” What seems good to one who is under authority, and not a lord, no one accepts; but whatever seems good to a king and to those appointed by him is law, bringing praise to the obedient and danger to the disobedient. “For disobedience,” it says, “works death, but obedience eternal life.” “For a king is the mightier when he is angry with a lesser man …” As, then, a king is accustomed [to send] his laws … [to those] to whom he has given the reins of the governed, and they bring them to the knowledge of all, shaping [them] by what the king has decreed and threatening danger to transgressors: so also the apostles, whom God appointed first, knowing the free authority of the Spirit and his consubstantiality with the Father, wrote: It seemed good, it says, this and this to the Holy Spirit, as king, ruler, and guardian of the race; and to us, as appointed to preside over the faith and the churches. “But from these,” it says, “[if you do not keep yourselves,] you will suffer the opposite.” For they remembered the Savior having said to them in the Gospel according to Mark … to be small, the heading we are now pursuing, but to believe that the Holy Trinity has the same will, command, and operation, from which it follows that it also has the same Godhead: Paul, who first was a man learned in the law and a persecutor, and later was shown to be an initiator into the unspeakable dispensation itself, declares things in harmony about the Father and the Son, writing to the Corinthians, the first: “And those whom God appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers”; and elsewhere: “I say, not I but the Lord, that a wife should not be separated from her husband”; and to the Galatians: “When God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles”; and elsewhere: “Just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts.” And no less the Savior deigned to say to the disciples: “I chose you.”

3. That he legislates and commands authoritatively what is fitting to each of the works, as a king who has taken up a gentle and lawful rule, and awards boundless peace to the whole heaven and world, and has joined the ruling with the caring. To lay down laws and to judge belongs only to the nature that is queen of the universe; but it belongs to a made thing to be under law and judgment. For Paul, the vessel of election, defined this, as we have already said, writing: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”; and so do the apostolic Acts, which read: “While Peter was pondering the word, the Spirit said to him: Behold, three men are seeking you. But rise, go down, and go with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them”; and again: “The Spirit said to Philip: Go up and join this chariot”; and again from Agabus the prophet: “Thus says the Holy Spirit: The man whose belt this is they will bind thus”; and Paul: “Behold, now I go bound by the Spirit”; which is like “Thus says the Holy Spirit: Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them”; similar to “But the Lord said: Go into the city, and there you will be told what you must do.” And again the Spirit said to Peter: “Rise and go to the house of Cornelius.” And indeed in the Epistles Paul writes to Timothy … “But the Spirit expressly says.” See then not only that by such a word Paul again showed the Spirit to be a lawgiver (for by the word “expressly” those who laid down laws in the world also …), but that other testimonies too show the equality of the Holy Spirit’s nature with the Father, and his authority. For in like manner of God also the Lord [said] to him: “Arise and go into …”

Zechariah, he says, also said of an angel, when he saw the vision of the lampstand: “The angel who spoke in me.” So the Holy Spirit can supposedly be understood as an angel. But their meanness is disposed of at once. For the angel did not speak from himself, nor his own words, but what he was commanded by God and his Spirit he spoke as a minister. The passage reads thus: “And I asked and said to the angel who spoke in me, saying: What are these things? And the angel who spoke in me 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.” Next, the Son and the Spirit were called angels at the oak of Mamre, when the glorious Trinity appeared to Abraham, because they announced things unknown. Besides, of the angelic multitude none, with his own authority and from his own impulse, sent saints, or made them proclaim oracles, or ordain a law, or say at all what he himself wished. Nor do angels know the concordant counsels of the ineffable and gracious Trinity, nor do they comprehend the power of its divine help; but they serve its tranquil nod, and propitiate it with prayers, with mouths that are never silent and a voice that never ceases.

4. That with God the Father his Holy Spirit sends and guides with free authority; for the sending into the pious path of life, and the guiding, and kindness toward all, is truly a work of love for mankind of the all-wise and most good Trinity. And those whose guidance and serenity are the same have the same substance also. And this receives most manifest proof through the works. For when God said to Moses, “I send with you my angel before your face, and he will cast out the Canaanite,” this great Moses, knowing very well that the angels are creatures but the Holy Spirit is God, entreated, saying: “If you yourself do not go with us, do not bring me up from here.” And when the Almighty answered him in these words, “This word also that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor before me, and I know you above all,” Isaiah, showing the identity of the concordant Trinity in one Godhead, said in these very words that the divine Spirit led them: “He 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 shortly after he adds: “The Spirit came down from the Lord and guided them; so you led your people, to make for yourself a name of glory.” See then here also that he did not say that the Holy Spirit was sent, but that he came down with authority and royally. And again, mentioning both divine hypostases with equal honor, he has declared: “And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.” Hence Moses is found often extolling: “The Lord God who goes before your face.” And [giving] thanks … his people in the desert, for for ever …; showing that there is [no] difference in substance, power, will, and glory between himself and his only-begotten Word and his one Holy Spirit, he says throughout almost the whole of Scripture: “I brought you up from the land of Egypt. You are witnesses whether there was a foreign god among you besides me.” And he who … to the Most High Father and his Holy Spirit …

… my … And I think that it was for this reason alone that he spared them and commanded them to come to Job, so that he might pray for them: clearly on account of the words that bear on him, because they said blamelessly and very fittingly, from what source I do not know: “The divine Spirit that made me, and the breath of the Almighty that teaches me”; and in a short saying described great power, and the creative nature that wards off evil. Did Elihu, then, stop his theology here? And yet he expressly added much about the almighty God the Father, to which nothing need be objected. For he said: “For he who is above mortals is eternal”; and again: “If there be a thousand death-bearing angels, not one of them shall wound him, if he resolves in his heart to turn to the Lord”; and again: “He will pray to the Lord, and it will be acceptable to him”; and again: “Save my soul from going down to corruption, and my life shall see light. Behold, the Mighty One works all these things.” So his words are good on the matters concerning God and his Spirit, but in error on the rest. For indeed Job too, having named the Holy Spirit divine, as was said before, received so great a praise from God. Reckon then that even if you do not accept the testimony of Elihu, the sacred heralds who called the Holy Spirit divine suffice even so; and even one of them, bearing witness, is worthy of belief; and that often the demon, wishing to deceive, mixes with the lie, as bait, some truth known to the one he is speaking with. Indeed in the Gospel we hear the devil conversing with the Lord of all from the divine Scriptures, weaving holy texts into his unholy reasonings and words, and saying, to tempt him: “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you.” And indeed the demons too speak of God better than the Arians, who ordained your heresiarch Macedonius, and after him Marathonius: “What have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of the living God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” And James, showing that faith without works is dead, and conversely, and that the one works together with the other, and from both comes what is perfect, openly proclaims: “You believe that God is one? You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.” Moreover the Samaritan woman too, after what she said at first, having been rebuked by Christ, who wills all to be saved, spoke the second time faithfully, and not as a Samaritan; and she was deemed worthy of praise and of mercy together. And perhaps many other such things might be found by those who spend more labor on these matters. You see, then, that you, O Macedonian, do not even believe about the Holy Spirit as Elihu did; but every sober reasoning about him has flowed away from you; and because of the diminution you work upon his divine substance, and because you are not a full partaker of his grace, are his eternal gifts scarce for you? But enough of these things.

Now to what [Paul says] writing to the Corinthians: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.” Observe how he called the Spirit of God God, dwelling in man’s temple, which he named the temple of God; as he says elsewhere: “What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God said: I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” And as he writes to Timothy: “Guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.” And as it is in the Gospel, as was said already: “… from his Spirit, which he has given us.” Indeed, as from two hypostases, he says in Isaiah: “I am, and there is no other.” As also from the Son he said in the Gospel: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him”; and to the Hebrews: “But Christ over his house, whose house we are”; and the sacred psalmist: “But you dwell among the holy, the praise of Israel.” I think he called the whole rational nature of the faithful the holy dwelling of the uncircumscribed God. It has therefore all but been shown that the Holy Spirit is God; but also equal and like to the Father and the Son, … Son: in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Paul saying, “Christ as Son over his house, whose house we are”; and again, “In these last days …”; in the Gospels, about himself: “If then the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” It is clear, then, that here too he indicates him by not adding whose Son he is; and not as the Jews might speak of Absalom, and of what he secretly plotted against his father. For he did not confess [him] when he died, he who had forbidden his killing and had mourned his death; … by having man as a temple equally and likewise; and that he who is the house of the Father has also the Son who is in him, and the Spirit of God; as again he who has been deemed worthy of the visitation of the Son, or of the Spirit, by all means has the Father as well.

And again in the same second Epistle: “Or do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a price. Glorify God, then, in your bodies.” Having said that the bodies of the faithful are the temple of the Holy Spirit, he admonished them to glorify God in their bodies, clearly the Holy Spirit. And by saying that he is from God, he teaches that he proceeds from him by nature. And this again also shows that man is his temple equally with the Father and the Son. Likewise in the same second Epistle: “For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant, not being lifted (because it is abolished in Christ). But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 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 he named the Holy Spirit Lord so many times, and as bestowing freedom on those to whom he appears, and as having glory in himself. The whole interpretation of the passage is as follows. The Jewish observances of the old covenant, he says, still remain, not uncovered and recognized by some as having been abolished in Christ, who said: “I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it”; that is, either to make it cease, or to fill up what was lacking. But when someone turns to the Lord, and passes from the type to the truth, from the law to grace, according to “You are not under law but under grace,” he casts off that veil which, as it were, covered him; doing like Moses, who removed the veil from his face when he was deemed worthy to converse with the invisible God, [the veil that he put on because the glory] from the divine appearance … the eyes of those who gazed at him. And that the Lord here is the Holy Spirit … with unveiled face, and no longer bowed beneath the yoke of slavery, we behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord who dwells in us, going from the glory of the Spirit to the glory of the Father.

Let us go on also to what follows: “If all prophesy,” he says, “and an unbeliever or an outsider comes in, he is convicted by all, he is examined by all, the secrets of his heart are made manifest; and so, falling on his face, he will worship God, declaring that God is really among you.” The Holy Spirit, then, who speaks and works in those who prophesy and in the saints, and who supplies the gifts, is here too plainly named God who is worshiped. And it must be noted that also worship… deems fit to write; and the words go like this: “Now may the God of endurance and of hope grant you to be of the same mind with one another, according to Jesus Christ; that with one accord, with one mouth, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Who then is the God who grants us to think thus about the Father and his Only-begotten, but the Holy Spirit? For it remains for us to understand him. But to the Thessalonians likewise: “Now may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the endurance of Christ.” So that the Holy Spirit is the Lord who directs into the love of God and the Father, and into the endur[ance …] … “… and abound in love toward one another and toward all, just as we do toward you, so as to establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” What Lord, then, is it who makes us abound and establishes us in holiness before the Father and the Son, but the Holy Spirit? And he charges them not to drive away, through some drunken excess or negligence, his eternal grace kindled in us, writing: “Do not quench the Spirit.” And again, declaring him God, and … he says: “He who rejects [this] rejects not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit …” … plainly presenting the Holy Spirit as God and Lord, he threatened, in these very words, a certain man named Ananias: “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the price of the land? While it remained, did it not remain yours, and when it was sold, was it not in your power? You have not lied to men but to God.” And immediately he says this to Sapphira, the wife of Ananias: “Why is it that you agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord?” This is like “You shall not tempt the Lord your God,” and what was written by James: “For God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” And John, proclaiming the Spirit God, as was said above: “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” For as God is Spirit, so also his Holy Spirit is God; and as God is, and is called, what his Spirit is, so also the Holy Spirit is what he is whose Spirit he is, that is, God without beginning. And we must, he says, worship the Holy Spirit with our whole spirit, without hesitation, with truth, and not with lips only and bare words. But if the Macedonians should say that “in the [Spirit]” … not that the Spirit too is worshiped, they will be compelled to say that “in the Son” [means] not that the Son too [is worshiped]. For he himself said: “I am the truth”; and even from this saying these blessed hypostases will have no difference.

Isaiah, prophesying about the Church and those in it who are schooled in the wisdom of the Spirit, recounts from God somewhat thus: “Behold, I prepare for you carbuncle as your stone, and sapphire as your foundations; and I will make your battlements jasper, and your gates crystal stones, and your wall choice stones, and all your sons taught by God.” This prophecy the Savior recalled in John, saying: “It is written in the …” And Paul writes to the Thessalonians in agreement with these: “For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.” And both speak of the Holy Spirit, as again in John the Master says: “He will teach you, and remind you of all things.” If then those who are taught by the Holy Spirit are called “taught by God,” let the reader understand what the Holy Spirit is, hearing also: “God taught me wisdom”; and again: “God taught me from my youth.” And Scripture is also called God-breathed and divine, because the Holy Spirit, who breathed it, is God, according to Paul writing to Timothy the second time: “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable.” And again Peter writes in the second catholic [epistle]: “For prophecy was never borne by the will of man, but holy men spoke from God, borne along by the Holy Spirit.” And the Acts of the Apostles contain this: “Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to the people” what he said. Each one, then, of the things declared in the Scriptures about the divine Spirit is sufficient proof of his likeness in all respects to the Godhead of God the Father and the Son.

But those who consider the mind of Macedonius more excellent than the simplicity of the Scriptures, and want to show it to be more honorable than our unadulterated faith, speaking against the Holy Spirit, have written abuse even about his indwelling in us, in these very words: “Things said allegorically, or by appellation, or metaphorically, or homonymously must not be taken for doctrinal precision. For ‘temple,’” he says, “is also the one in Jerusalem, made of lifeless material, and that was the first to be named a temple; homonymously, then, men also. And a dwelling house is supposedly a ‘temple’ too, from dwelling and living in it. ‘For Nebuchadnezzar was,’ he says, ‘in the temple of his kingdom.’” And again: “If men by nature are a temple by appellation, then not truly.” And again: “Since, then,” he says, “we have also been called sheep, are we that by nature?” And again: “He who bought us back,” he says, “is the one who died for us; and he who buys back does not buy back what belongs to another.” So they argue, helplessly and irrationally, in a way that no one, not even of those able to reason a little, would accept. For in comparing the God-uttered sayings concerning the Godhead itself, which is not to be despised, and concerning the rational works of his hands, ourselves, they bring cattle and lifeless building into the midst, and make sport, as it were, of fearful texts and matters, and through these supposedly simple and easy words they call [people] into their own pit, like those who hook fish with a little bait. But we, showing on every side that throughout our whole life, as we at least think, we have taken the greatest care not to utter anything at random or with hatred against anyone, and that we have shunned even reasonable abuse, have come … those of the sober-minded … have heard from the Scriptures, and to persuade the others, as far as in us lies, no longer to hold the judgment or faith they hold. For we who are deemed worthy to have dwelling in us the subsistent Spirit of God, who fills all things, are named his temple neither by homonymy or synonymy, nor by allegory, nor by metaphor, but properly and in truth. Hence the Apostle, speaking not to the temple in Jerusalem and the things that the heretics used as an image, but to the faithful, and showing clearly that the Holy Spirit is God, said: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” And to the Hebrews: “We are partakers of the Holy Spirit.” For if [we are] a temple of the Holy Spirit, it is not as those called a temple of God [in some other sense], [but] as [the temple] of God, that we have been so named. And God the Father, who possesses us as Master, dwells in us (for a temple befits God alone), and likewise with him his only-begotten Son and his one Holy Spirit. And in the way in which God and the Father, even though it is not written that he bought us back with his own blood, is our Master, so also is his Holy Spirit. For it follows from the things said to circumscribe the Godhead of the Holy Spirit that they must likewise be taken of God the Father too. Who then would be persuaded … Paul and the other saints, or Macedonius and Arius, who repented in pretense? For if they have any regard for the saints, how did they fail to notice … [that they do not] deign to say and think the same as they? But if the one think one way and these another (and this is indisputable from what has been shown; for they did not utter the sayings set out by comparing the rational temple, made according to the image of God, the work of his hands and the fairest of things on earth, contemptuously and mockingly with walls and cattle, as these insolent men do, or by judging it to be one and the same with them), this is not the part of Christians, nor of men otherwise wise; nor would anyone ever suppose that those who teach such things speak the truth. But one who learns that they truly hold this view, how will he not think himself the wiser if he flees the doctrines of heretics and is persuaded by those who are far better, I mean the saints, or, to speak more truly, by the words of God himself? For no one, even if he were utterly inexperienced in the Scriptures, would say that all those excellent and famous men said these things from their own judgment alone, and not that God converses with us through their voice and teaches both other things greater than human understanding, and that in the faithful God himself, and his only-begotten Son, and his one Spirit dwell alike and equally, undefiled. Refuting, therefore, and casting away their sophistical drivel, and that they should not blas[pheme] … in Psalm 104 he charges them: “Do no harm to my prophets.” But enough about those who are in no way friends of God, who has given men even the gift that comes from homonymy …

Since it has been established, then, that the Holy Spirit is God and that he prompted the prophecies, it is time now to pass on to Zechariah, not the prophet with the sickle, but the father of John, who also judged that he who spoke in the prophets is God and Lord of Israel. Let me set out the very words he spoke: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and wrought redemption for his people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old.” And the sacred psalmist, who never departed from doctrinal teaching, agrees with these, saying in Psalm 84: “I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me”; and in the second book of the history of the Kingdoms he declared of what Lord and God this longed-for inspiration was, saying: “The Spirit of the Lord spoke in me, and his word was upon my tongue.”

That the Holy Spirit sits on the throne of the Cherubim and sends forth power. And that Paul knows him to be the Lord of Sabaoth who appeared to Isaiah. And against the Macedonian mind. And that he dwells in us. And that the heretics tamper with the divine Scriptures.

In the most exact singer mentioned before, then, who abounds in all that is needful, in Psalm 109, which was spoken wholly in the person of the Father to the Son, the Holy Trinity is declared, equal in honor, and the Spirit as Lord sending forth power and sitting together with the Father and the Son, plainly rather than in riddles. It seemed good to me, for a ready proof, to write out in order the whole of the sacred [psalm] thus: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet. The Lord will send forth to you a rod of power from Zion; rule in the midst of your enemies. With you is the dominion in the day of your power, in the splendors of the saints. From the womb, before the morning star, I begot you. The Lord has sworn, and will not repent: You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at your right hand.” For if the Father says to the Son, “Sit at my right hand,” and “The Lord will send forth to you a rod of power,” and “You will rule over your enemies,” and “The Lord has sworn,” and “The Lord at your right hand,” who is it who sends him the rod, and is Lord, if not, finally, the Holy Spirit? So that the Son is found to be at the right hand of the Father, and to have the Spirit of God at his right hand. And it must be remembered that here the Spirit also swears, as one who has none greater, as the Son does when he says, “I swear by myself,” as was mentioned in the first book. But in Psalm 61 too the same David is seen to announce the Holy Trinity, when he sings: “Once God has spoken; these two things I have heard.” And what two? He adds: “That power belongs to God, and to you, O Lord, mercy.” For who is the God who said, “That power belongs to God”? And to whom does he say, “And to you, O Lord, mercy”? And in the case of Daniel, too, in the judgment about Susanna, it says: “God stirred up the Holy Spirit, Daniel”; here too showing that the Holy Spirit is God. For it adds: “And he judged the elders, being filled with the Holy Spirit.”

We would find also Elisha, the most notable among the prophets, deeming it right to know the Holy Spirit as God. His request to Elijah, asking to inherit the Holy Spirit together with the sheepskin, runs thus: “Let the Spirit that is upon you be upon me doubly. And he said: You have asked a hard thing (that is, you have sought great things). Nevertheless, if you see me taken up, it shall be so for you; but if you do not see, it shall not be.” He saw him, then, and cried out: “Father, father, the chariot of Israel and its horseman.” When therefore he “struck” the Jordan with Elijah’s sheepskin, “and the water was not divided” as it had been for Elijah, seeking his own request and the promise given, he no longer said … “[Where is the God] of Elijah, apphō, the double …?” revealing that the Holy Spirit is God, and teaching at the same time that it is the same to say God or Holy Spirit, and conversely. Apphō is a brotherly form of address. And what does Ezekiel prophesy, when, the heavens having been opened to him, he saw a vision of God and the Cherubim? “And when the living creatures stood,” he says, “the wheels stood; and when they rose, they rose; for the Spirit of life was in the wheels”; that is, seated upon the Cherubim. And a little further down he says: “This is the living creature that I saw beneath the God of Israel, and I knew that they are Cherubim.” Having said above that the Spirit is above the Cherubim, further down he said that they are beneath God, that is, the Spirit … the Spirit of God [is] Lord, mighty, and helper. For having said of him that he went with Samson and prospered him, so that he displayed a power greater than human nature, they did not say afterward that the Spirit who empowered him had departed from him, and that for this reason he had grown weak, but the Lord. The passages read thus: “The Spirit of the Lord began to go with Samson”; and again: “The Spirit of the Lord leaped upon him, and a lion’s whelp [came] to meet him; and the Spirit of the Lord prospered him, and he tore it apart as a kid of the goats”; and again: “The foreigners,” it says, “shouted, and ran to meet him” (that is, Samson); “and the Spirit of the Lord prospered him, and the ropes became as when [flax] smells fire.” But when at last, together with his hair, he laid aside his strength too, and reaped from his folly his own ruin, loving beyond measure, as he should not, a foreign woman, Delilah, “He awoke,” it says, “from his sleep, and said: I will go out and shake myself, and do as always. And he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.” For Moses also, having experience of the might of this Lord, said: “How shall one pursue a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless the Lord had delivered them up, and God had given them over?”

And the King, the Lord of Sabaoth, who appeared to Isaiah seated on a throne high and lifted up, in a house filled with glory, and [hymned] by the Seraphim, … [Isaiah] knows to be the Father, and John the Son; but Paul in the Acts, because of the identity of the Godhead, declared him to be the all-wise Spirit, thus: “The Holy Spirit spoke well to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, saying: Go to this people and say to them: You shall indeed hear and never understand,” and what follows. But the heretics, proceeding according to their purpose from the beginning, and leading their own aim and argument into the abyss, leap upon this oracle too, and contradict as usual, without good reason, and try to bind and join impiety to impiety, I mean their second and third words to their first, putting forward the argument that nothing wonderful, nothing proper to Godhead, is found concerning the Holy Spirit from Paul’s saying, “The Holy Spirit spoke well to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, saying: Go to this people and say to them” this and that; because, he says, the same things are often reported as said now in the person of God, now in the person of the prophet or of an angel: as, he says, when John says of this passage, “These things Isaiah said when he saw his glory”; and as the Savior said in Matthew, “Isaiah prophesied well, saying: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me”; and as Paul said in another chapter, “As David speaks of the blessedness: Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered”; but he did not say, he says, “As God says through David.” And elsewhere: “And God came to Balaam by night and said to him: If these men have come to call you, rise and follow these men; but the word that I speak to you, this you shall take care to do”; and he did not say to him, he says, “What God said to you,” but “What I say to you.”

Such are the evils in which their affairs stand; and let them not pride themselves as victors. But we, fearing that we might seem to some to use, as they do, the irony of a real sophist, shall take the greatest care for the truth, straight from almost the first syllable to the very end, in refuting them. Know, then, you who are familiar with the meaning of prophecy and with the … prophesied what he commanded him to say word for word; for he who prophesies [for] God is not his own prophet. So that through Isaiah, or from Isaiah (for it is the same thing to say), the mighty voice of him who appeared to him, whom Paul proclaimed to be the Holy Spirit, was announced, when he saw his glory; yet he did not utter it by his own authority, even if it was said somewhere that “Isaiah said,” and not “God the Father, or the Son, or his Spirit, through Isaiah.” Nor indeed were the apostles mistaken, who had been brought up in the Scriptures straight from childhood, and were entrusted with the preaching of the new grace, and who had, through the goodness of the Trinity in unity, what no other man [has] yet … But John too, as they say, is plain even to a blind man in having understood that the Son of God said these things; and Paul, the Holy Spirit. For these blessed hypostases command, and the nature of angels and of all things yields. … because of the unvarying Godhead in relation to the Father, from whom they came forth, and all things are referred to him. This one point, then, is held; and another, that what other could be seen … prophesied [in the] person of God the Father, could seem to be ascribed to him as the speaker? And of what condemnation is he not worthy, who dares to counterfeit the truth about the higher [nature], and wishes to outdo John and Paul, who were neither ignorant nor … wholly out of order with the universe, but ordered with and in harmony with the first, generative, and incomparable nature. For what good thing is not always through him and from him, and also from the only-begotten Son, by the good pleasure of God the Father? When, then, the Hymnist says, “Do not take your Holy Spirit from me”; and Paul, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” and adds, “Into what then were you baptized?” if indeed you were not baptized into the Holy Spirit; and the only-begotten God, “It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, he will not come, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father”; and “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you”; and God the Father in Haggai, “I am with you, says the Lord Almighty, and my Spirit stands in your midst”: what shall we say they are asserting, if not that they uttered these things handing down his divine nature and the participation in him, and sanctification, and creative power, which cleanses our life and, as it were, makes it shine, and helps in all things? And when again God the Father says, “Woe, children! You have made a counsel, not through me, and covenants, not through my Spirit,” does he not fittingly blame the wretchedness and misery of the Arians, Eunomians, and Macedonians in their heresy? Besides this we would say that “These things Isaiah said,” and “As David says,” were written so that the divine ordinance might be seen, through which saint it was proclaimed. And about the angel in the story of Balaam we shall say this much: what concerns him has no likeness to what was said properly of the divine Spirit, or of the Son, by Paul and John. For the angel who was sent announced what God had promised to make known to Balaam at a time to come; but he was not understood to be God himself, as the Son and the Holy [Spirit] … [what was revea]led to Isaiah by him who sits on the divine throne and is in light unspeakable and glory incomparable. Here too, then, they try to show that our views are worthless and theirs august, and worthy of more zeal and faith. They work a kind of mingling and concord of the Divine with creatures, and bring down together, without knowing it, the divine conceptions of him who is always the same, those of God the Father himself and of his only-begotten Son; and they hint that Isaiah perhaps sat on the heavenly throne and commanded himself, “Go to this people and say to them” what he was commanded to say. We for our part are frankly astonished if they do not yet perceive the absurdity and weakness of their own opinions, and how ridiculous they are to think such things about God and to twist plain things as though they were hard to decide. And we think we are not mistaken in holding that the long-suffering God, showing those of their sort that there remains to them neither ground for contradiction nor occasion for defense, said through Ezekiel: “If I am Father, where is my glory?” But so much for this; we must go on to what our discourse set out for.

Let us see what Paul says again, writing to the Philippians: “Look out for the mutilation; for we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus.” The Holy Spirit, then, is God, receiving every sacrifice offered up, together with the Father and the Son; for it is plain that worship is owed to God alone. But see, you heretical crows, how they have tried to corrupt the divine sayings by the change of one letter: for some of them have made it “who worship God by the Spirit,” so that the worship might not be shown to be offered to the Spirit of … Just as also, when Paul wrote in the Epistle to the Corinthians, “But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you,” they changed it and made it “because of his Spirit who dwells in you,” so that he might not be shown to be life-giving and creative. And when he wrote to the Romans, “His eternal power and divinity,” they made it “Godhead”; it is the same; but nevertheless, in order to narrow the proofs about the Spirit of great name, those that show him to be God from his being called a divine Spirit. And when the prophet Amos said in the person of the Holy Spirit, “Behold, I who make firm the thunder,” they removed the “I,” so that the voice might not be shown to be the Holy Spirit’s, but the Father’s, or the prophet’s. But it is not the Father and God’s, because it has “announcing his Christ to men,” and does not say “my Christ,” as he says in a psalm: “I have prepared a lamp for my Christ.” And in many places they are seen to have wounded [the text] on purpose, and thereby to have destroyed, as far as in them lies, the exact discernment of the corrupted places. And this would not yet be dreadful, though it is very dreadful, if books thus falsified by them had not come down [to us], and [books] of such tampering.

On the Holy Spirit's renewing us in baptism; and setting us free as Master; and making us partakers of divine glory, and sons and heirs of the Father; and the rest. And on baptism being of no profit to those who do not believe that the Spirit is God; and that there is one glory of the sun, another of the moon, and another of the stars.

But so much is enough on these things, so that the discourse may not wander far in digression. Let us return again to the munificent Godhead of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, then, renews us in baptism, as God, together with the Father and the Son, and brings us back from unsightliness to the original beauty, and fills us with his grace, so that we can no longer make room for anything unlovely; and he sets us free from sin and death; and from earthly men, that is, from dust and ashes, he makes us spiritual, and partakers of divine glory, and sons and heirs of God and the Father, conformed to the image of the Son, and his fellow heirs, and brothers who will be glorified together and reign together with him; and in place of earth he gives us heaven again, and bestows paradise ungrudgingly; and he makes us even now more honored than angels; … of the Holy Spirit, the restoration to paradise; the ascent to the kingdom of heaven; the [restoration] to adoption … and with the divine streams of the font he quenches the great unquenchable flame of Gehenna. For men have two births, one from our body, the other from the divine Spirit. And about each of these both the name and the account itself [are given]. John: “But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name; who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God.” As many, he says, as believed in Christ received power to become children of God, that is, of the Holy Spirit, and to acquire a kinship with God of which the angels were not deemed worthy. For showing that the God who begets is the Holy Spirit, he added from Christ: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you: You must be born from above. The Spirit breathes where he wills, and you hear his voice, but you do not know where he comes from and where he goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” By saying, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God,” and “You must be born from above,” he signified that even if [they are baptized] into the na[me] … where their worm does not die and the fire is not quench[ed] … and are not [baptized] equally and likewise into the same Godhead of the Holy Spirit, since they do not have what is perfect, and have received the three immersions in vain, by changing after baptism the equal honor of the Trinity in their doxology and transgressing their own confessions, they cannot be deemed worthy of the kingdom of heaven; but as avowed transgressors they hear from the saints what was prophesied in Psalm 80: “The enemies of the Lord lied to him”; and from the Son, as it is in Psalm 17: “Foreign sons lied to me”; and in Psalm 100: “Those who commit transgressions I hated; a crooked heart did not cleave to me”; and from the Holy Spirit, as was written to the Romans … “I have begotten sons and raised them up, but they have rejected me” … [knowing] God, they did not glorify him as God. And after other words: Who exchanged the glory of God for a lie. And in Isaiah: “I have begotten sons …”; “In the greatness of your power your enemies will lie to you.”

And he said, “One must be born of water,” because the washing away of the body’s filth in baptism is a token of those who are being re-created by the Holy Spirit. For visibly the font gives birth to our visible body, with priests ministering; but spiritually the Spirit of God, invisible to every understanding, baptizes into himself and regenerates body and soul together, with angels serving. For the Baptist too, historically and in keeping with “of water and the Spirit,” said of Christ: “He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire.” For the human vessel, being of earthenware, needs first the cleansing from water, then the spiritual fire that makes it firm (for God is a consuming fire), and so the Holy Spirit who perfects and renews it; since the spiritual fire knows how to water, and the water how to recast. Proof of this is Paul, writing to the Corinthians the second time: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels.” And by saying, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit,” he taught in brief that the man who has not received baptism is fleshly, that is, without share in heavenly light (for it is clear that the flesh is understood, as long as it lives, together with its own soul); but the baptized man is spiritual, that is, a partaker of immortal life. And by saying, “The Spirit breathes where he wills,” he shows his free authority and almighty power. And by saying, “And you hear his voice, but you do not know where he comes from and where he goes,” he shows that he was not then conversing with Nicodemus alone, but was also accusing beforehand Arius, Eunomius, and Macedonius, who hear the voice of the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures and do not know how he comes, having proceeded without beginning from the Father, he who is always present everywhere, and goes to him, as his Spirit, inseparable in Godhead. For he came forth from him ineffably by nature, and is turned back toward him; and he has his procession from the Father, as proceeding from him; but [his return] only toward the Father, as being one and the same [with him]; and having come forth, he returns to the one who begot, as being of one and the same substance, and unable to come to be outside coexistence with the Father. And by saying, “So is everyone who is born of the Spirit,” he teaches that the Spirit of God begets a spiritual man, and he is called spiritual from that state, as one born of a man is called a man. The Singer, at any rate, exclaims over such a one: “Your youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s,” and “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered.”

And Paul, establishing that he possesses by nature the name of God, wrote to Titus, as was said above: “Having regenerated us through the washing of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit”; and to the Romans: “But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry: Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God; and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ”; and to Timothy in the second Epistle: “For God did not give us a spirit of slavery, but of power and of lo[ve …]” … that he is speaking of the [divine] Spirit is clear also from his saying, “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption.” For having already, of course, our own [spirit], we received also God’s. And this is clear also from his adding that “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit.” See, then, how wonderfully he declares the Holy Spirit to be Master. For he who is not a slave is free; and he who sets free is a master; for no one gives to another what he himself does not have. And he who leads to adoption and inheritance is God, having communion of substance and lordship with him of whose adoption and inheritance he deems us worthy. He writes of Christ as heir, as Son by nature; but of us, as … fellow heirs of Christ, because of his … love. And he cries in us on our behalf: “Abba,” which is “Father”; since we are neither genuine sons, as he is a genuine Spirit, and are besides without boldness for such a cry: “For who that is mortal by birth could come face to face with the great God, or speak a word?” And to the Galatians, about those who have been baptized, he says: “You are no longer a slave but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” And to the Corinthians he writes the same: “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.” Observe, then, from these sayings too, that redemption, sanctification, and justification are not given without the name of the divine Spirit.

And again in the Acts, it says, he asked certain disciples: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And when they answered, “We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit,” he said: “Into what then were you baptized?” as though they had had no profit from not believing and being baptized equally into the Holy Spirit, as they had believed into the Father and the Son. And further the Acts declare baptism unprofitable without the visitation of the divine Spirit and his sanctification, in words like these: “Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For he had not yet fallen upon any of them, but they had only been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.” For its saying, “But they had only been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus,” and that they received the Spirit afterward, shows not only that the knowledge of the Spirit as God was lacking to them …; but also that with the Son and the Spirit the Father and God is present together, and is mentioned together, and does good together, even if he is sometimes not named individually; or again, even if the Son or the Spirit is passed over in silence in speech, though not in faith, he is present together, and is mentioned together, and saves together with God and the Father. And again: “And while staying with them, [he char]ged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which you heard from me: that John baptized with water, but you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now”; and again from Peter, about those baptized in Caesarea: “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as on us at the beginning; and I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said: John baptized with water, but you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit.” Those, then, who [are] baptized in the bare name of the Holy Spirit, and not as in the name of God and the Spirit of God, who is his Spirit by nature, … hope.

For going down into the font, by the good pleasure of God and the Father, we are stripped of our sins by the grace of his Spirit, putting off the old man, and by his royal power we are regenerated and sealed; and coming up, we put on Christ the Savior, an incorruptible robe, equal in honor to the Holy Spirit who regenerated and sealed us (“For as many of you,” it says, “as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ”); and we receive back the image and likeness of God of which Scripture speaks, which we received through the divine inbreathing and lost through sin; and we are found again such as we were made in the first-formed man … the image and likeness; so that Paul’s writing about the baptized fits: “That you may become according to the image of him who created you”; and “As we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly.” And the same writer will persuade [us] about this, writing again, to the Romans: “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers”; and to the Ephesians: “And when we were dead in trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up together and seated us together in the heavenly places.” Who gave these things, or when? The Father, with our being renewed by his Holy Spirit. For as at first we were created by the blessed Trinity, according to “Let us make man,” so the second time we are saved by it, so that we may glorify the Trinity alike. But without being regenerated in baptism by the Spirit of God, and sealed with sanctification, and becoming his temple, no one has obtained the heavenly goods, even if he was found blameless in the rest of his life. But those too who happened to bear witness as martyrs before baptism, washed in their own blood, were thus given life by the Holy Spirit of God. Therefore a man who speaks sacred things cries, at once exhorting and bearing witness: “Come to him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed.” For the true light, and the cause of sensible light, and the glory that shines out everywhere, is the venerable Spirit, of whom he sings again: “For your commandments are light upon the earth.” Of this he teaches also in Psalm 28: “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thundered; the Lord is upon many waters”; … [into sins] both voluntary and, often, involuntary we fall, because of the weakness of nature … “The earth shook.” For by the waters he signifies baptism, in which, at the hands of the priests, there is much working, as the same writer sings; by the thunder he hints at the grace of baptism, which has reached everywhere and is received with fear; by the wheel, the unstable and strange life; by the lightnings, the godly beauties of those being enlightened; and by the shaking of the earth he shows that humanity was moved with eagerness to the knowledge of God.

And when the Master was baptized in the dispensation, in order to kill the dragon who took the Jordan into his mouth on the waters, as Job relates in a riddle, and [to destroy] our sin, and to make [us] tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy, and at the same time to teach all that rebirth is salvation for men, the Holy Spirit was present, as was the Father. For the one bore witness from heaven … “his lightnings to the world; [the earth] saw and was shaken” … the heads of the dragons and of the dragon upon … against which the dragons work, and their leader, as it is written, reigning in the waters … and [to] the genuineness of his own offspring; and the Holy Spirit, when the heavens were opened to him, as to a king and to one higher than the nature of angels, came down and remained upon the Son of God. For it says: “Behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove.” Consider, then, what the Holy Spirit is, since he makes his own temple, us, sit together with the Most High God, be glorified together, and reign together, and when he remains upon the only-begotten God; and whether the heretics speak piously in saying that he does not reign together with God the Father. Yet let it not be thought that the Holy Spirit of God sits together, is glorified together, and reigns together with God in the same way as we creatures, who hope for such great things in so great a nakedness of good works; but as his Spirit, and by nature God and King, and sitting with him eternally, and full of undefiled glory. For creatures will be deemed worthy of these things by grace after the resurrection, enjoying the goods of the kingdom, but not being kings. For Scripture knows one glory of the sun, another of the moon and stars, and among these again a different glory. “For star,” it says, “differs from star in glory.” And the eye is more honored than the other members of the body; yet it too is body; so that we, renewed, enjoy divine kinship so far as the power of our nature allows, as they say.

And Peter, extolling baptism as divine, since the Holy Spirit who re-creates us is God, uttered through the first Epistle a universal proclamation, declaring this: “Having been born again, not of [perishable] seed … abiding.” For he feared him who commanded in the Gospel according to Mark: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” And what is the preaching? “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Which Paul too kept when he wrote: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” This spiritual communion [Peter shows] also [in] … “that you may become partakers of the divine nature.” And who are the unbe[lievers, but those] who do not keep the equal honor of the Holy Trinity? To whom he gave charge again through Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians: “There are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ; but even if an angel from heaven should preach to you otherwise than what you have been taught, let him be accursed. And again I say: If anyone preaches to you contrary to what you received, let him be accursed.” By the tradition not to be transgressed he meant his divine command spoken before, not that of the Arians, Eunomians, and Macedonians, who received this name from those whose opinion they followed, and who, despising the divine proclamations, made their prating a law; nor of the others … “Whatever counsels of the immortal God he reveals, these hold most securely, mortal as you are; and let not your mind, deceived by deceitful men, …”

… the saying, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit.” But these men, hunting for words, and belittling to their own hurt what concerns the Holy Spirit, say: “So then water is equal in power and glorified together with the Holy Spirit, since it is written: Unless one is born of water and the Spirit.” But this is to accuse themselves, as men who find fault with Christ, who spoke these things well, and who slander what not even Momus could slander; it is certainly not proper to Christians. For the water was not mentioned as ranked together with the Holy Trinity, but as the discourse required, and as elsewhere mortal things were mentioned together with the immortal God. For it is written: “I have sinned against heaven and before you”; and again: “The people believed God and Moses his servant”; and again: “All the people feared God and Samuel”; and again: “And there was a sword for the Lord and for Gideon.” And the reflection to be woven onto these is timely and worthy of the right faith. For if, according to Paul, we are baptized into the death of Christ and into Christ, the water was rightly joined in speech with the Spirit. For from the side of the Savior water and blood flowed together, as the spear and the soldier well know. Besides, if, as Paul wrote, to the Corinthians: “All ate the spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed, and the rock was Christ”; and again: “And all were made to drink one Spirit”; and to the Hebrews: “For it is impossible 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 the Holy Spirit has been extolled as the word of God the Father): then fittingly Christ and the Holy Spirit are in the water, and never with anyone are Christ and the Holy Spirit without the baptismal water. Where, then, the divine mystery has been ordained as of the Son of God, so also of the divine Spirit, and both these blessed and self-complete hypostases have borne equal witness, how are these things too not an abundance of proofs of their consubstantiality? I think, then, that it was for this reason too that he changed water into wine, and wine better [than the first], and supplied gladness to the wedding feast: wishing to teach in a hidden way that he also transferred water to the immortal use of baptism, and through baptism filled up for men what was lacking of faith, with the divine Spirit, in concord with God and the Father. For [those who had] the shadow of the divine … of the Son and of the Spirit of God, because of the knowledge of these pure hypostases, the righteous barely obtained after much toil. For the font of the Trinity is a workshop for the salvation of all believing men; and it frees those who wash in it from the serpent’s bite, and becomes the mother of all, remaining a virgin by the Holy Spirit. For in it, as has been said, we receive all the gifts of the distribution, and there the gifts of paradise are signed over, and he who made our soul takes it as a bride for himself, according to Paul, who writes: “I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” And what, in brief, … [to call] the Father in the heavens, we learn to call [him so] on earth, fearing no one. And this is what is sung in Psalm 26: “My father and my mother have forsaken me” (for, he says, Adam and Eve did not remain immortal), “but the Lord has taken me up.” And he gave me, he says, the font as mother, the Most High as father, and as brother the Savior who was baptized for us. Now, then, I know that I have truly been born and saved together, when I no longer hear, “Weep for the dead, for the light has failed,” but the longed-for voice: “[Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-lade]n, and I will give you rest,” having anointed, washed, and clothed each one with my whole self, undivided, and fed him with my body and blood.

On the waters’ having been sanctified by the Holy Spirit from the foundation of the world, and the salvation through baptism having been prepared beforehand for us. And on the Israelites’ having obtained salvation from what was once the image of baptism; and much more those who are now bap[tized] …

And indeed the time has come for the discourse to gather, in part, proofs proper to the divine Spirit and to immortal baptism from the older covenant too, and to write them as best I can. I shall begin a little further back. The undivided and ineffable Trinity, foreseeing from eternity the slipperiness of human life, together with bringing the liquid substance out of nothing, prepared for men the … in the waters … and what lies above imparts its own quality, so to speak, to what lies beneath, and all underlying matter is wont somehow to seize on the property of what lies upon it. Hence baptism takes place indiscriminately in any water, even in the sea, when necessity requires, since the nature of waters is one and all of it has been sanctified. How sea water is found salty, though it belongs to the one kind of waters, I shall, God willing, set out in another treatise. It is enough for the heading now in hand to mention both Moses, the writer of the world’s making, who explains word for word thus: “And the Spirit of the Lord was borne upon the waters”; and David, bearer of the Spirit, who sings: “The Lord upon many waters.” This is shown too, in no small way, by the Holy Spirit’s having come upon the streams of the Jordan when the Master was baptized, and having remained upon him. And he appeared at that time in the form of a dove, since this creature is innocent and lacks gall. “For be innocent,” it says, “as doves.” And if some help must also be provided for this argument from the number gathered from the name of the bird mentioned, it too indicates somehow the uncircumscribed nature of the Holy Spirit … [letters,] which are shown by alpha and omega; and these letters are the beginning and end of all the letters.

And the flood, then, which cleansed the world of ancient injustice, foretold, as it were in a hidden way, the cleansing of sins from the divine font; and the ark itself, which saved those who entered it, was an image of the venerable Church and of the good hope we have from it; and the dove, which brought an olive branch into the ark and announced the appearance of the land, signified the visitation of the Holy Spirit and the reconciliation from above; for the olive is a symbol of peace. But also the Red Sea, which received the Israelites and freed them from the evils … inflicted on them in Egypt by Pharaoh and his army, and indeed the whole account of their journey from Egypt, was a type of the salvation in baptism. For Egypt signified the world, in which, living not well, we fare badly; the people, those now being enlightened; the waters, which mediated safety for the people [omega and alpha; for its number is eight hundred and one], signified baptism; Pharaoh and his soldiers, Satan and his servants; and Moses, by making the bitter water useful with the rod, foretold universal salvation. For he bore the type of Christ; the rod, of the cross; the bitter water, of the blessed water of the font, which once seemed unprofitable to unbelievers, but was found by believers to be for every refreshment, and “like the dew of Hermon that comes down on the mountains of Zion.”

And the book of the Kingdoms too gives us an abundance of testimony for this, itself hinting in a mystery at things like those before us, in the saying and account written below: “Elisha,” it says, “went with them; and they came to the Jordan, and cut down trees. And behold, as one was felling the beam, the iron fell into the water; and he cried out: Alas, master, and it was borrowed. And the man of God said: Where did it fall? And he showed him the place. And he broke off a stick and threw it there, and the iron floated; and he said: Lift it up for yourself. And he stretched out his hand and took it.” For by Elisha, the man of God, who asked, “Where did the axe fall?” was shown God who came to be with men, who long ago said, “Adam, where are you?”; by the one person who was felling the wood and showed the place where the axe fell, Adam, who answered the God who cannot be eluded, “I am naked, and I hid,” and by such a word showed the place where he hid in shame; and further the plant was shown that he touched when he should not have; by the iron that fell into the unseen depth was signified the strength of human nature, which fell from the light because it laid its hand on the tree of life; by saying that it was borrowed, that the first-formed man had by God’s gift the strength that he let go, and that he had to give back to the giver such as he had received it; by the wood that was taken and thrown down at the place that held what was sought, the much-hymned cross; by the Jordan, immortal baptism; for in the Jordan he who made the Jordan deigned to be baptized for us. By the iron’s floating on the waters and coming to the one who had lost it, that through enlightenment one is carried up to the heavenly height, receives the former grace, and recovers the ancient homeland; by “He stretched out his hand and took it,” that one must know that he who comes to enlightenment must believe himself, and lift up, that is, glorify, in the way in which he has been commanded to be baptized, and stretch out his hands rightly now to God, which once, by reason of the common natural union with Adam, he laid not rightly on the plant of life. And of one who wishes to deny that this passage too is a prophecy about baptism, it is right to demand what is the use of such words and narratives, with a view to which the sacred writer set them down.

And the same prophet, having made the bitter and barren water of the spring in Jericho gentle and fruitful, by [ordering] salt and water to be put into a new jar, [signified] faith and the profit from it; and by the water that had no quality having become fruitful and pleasant to all, he foretold that those who come to baptism … and lay down their burdens, and put on the gift of the new grace, and enjoy participation in the saving Spirit and adoption. It seems to me well [said] that the same [prophet], teaching beforehand the most ineffable wealth and propitiation of the Holy Spirit in the baptismal waters, and that the spiritual providence over all extends to all who turn back and to all human lives, so that none who is willing is found rejected, sent Naaman the Syrian, the leper, the foreigner, who begged him to visit him, to be immersed seven times in the Jordan; so that by the voice of the Lord upon the waters the affliction might be dissolved from him, and he might return wholly to the pure and holy form of the soul. He told him to be baptized seven times either so that the foreigner might know that on the seventh day God rested from his works and blessed what he had made in the six (hence the seven-branched lamp was one of the treasures of the synagogue), and that the number seven is a number of fullness and perfect; or rather because it hinted at the divine Spirit. For Isaiah listed the completeness and … in words like these: “A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall come up from it; and there shall rest upon him the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness, the Spirit of the fear of God.” One might rightly refer to these also the hidden meanings of Zechariah, which say thus: “For behold, I bring my servant the Dawn; for the stone that I have set before the face of Joshua, upon the one stone are seven eyes.” God said these things to Joshua the high priest: [I will bring], he says, my servant Zerubbabel to the power of the kingdom, from which he will be like the Dawn, shin[ing] … just as also the third utterance, to look to what is more perfect and more divine? so that we may learn … making the discourse continuous and unbroken, he names Zerubbabel a stone, on which the face of Joshua was fixed, giving him the help of his prayers, and receiving from him in return the peace that comes from the kingdom. And having said in the middle, “I dig a pit, says the Lord Almighty, and I will search out all the iniquity of that land in one day; and each will call his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree,” that is, “I bring death on the enemies through the generalship of Zerubbabel, so that all, freed from every disturbance and living in abundant plenty, may invite one another to feasts”; and having mentioned also a golden lampstand, that is, … from us, but raised even to the things above us (for by the gold the pure and precious is understood, for gold does not rust); and having said that there is a bowl on top of it, that is, the divine grace that shines on all things from on high, and seven lamps, meaning the abundance and perfection of the spiritual gift; besides these, seven pourers above, that is, the unquenchable and lasting character of the flow from there; and two olive trees, which are understood either as priesthood and kingship, or as two peoples, or houses of God, that of the Israelites once and that of the Christians; and having roused the prophet, and for a more exact understanding of what was to be shown … “nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty. Who are you, O great mountain, before Zerubbabel, to make straight? And he will bring out the stone of the inheritance, equality of grace.” Here he calls the enemy, to whom he speaks, a mountain, [saying] that such spiritual grace will surround the stone of the inheritance, Zerubbabel, against whom you rush face to face as an adversary, as he succeeds in the battles, that he will seem to be wholly grace itself. And shortly after, confirming this further, he prophesies thus: “And they shall rejoice, and shall see the stone of tin in the hand of Zerubbabel. These seven are the eyes of the Lord that look upon all the earth.” The seven eyes, then, that look upon all creation are the wonderful gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned before. He called it a stone of tin, since with tin damaged vessels, of iron and bronze, are mended and filled up, and tin is a uniting thing. Some say too that with skill it separates in the crucible the genuine from the counterfeit in gold, silver, or bronze. I think that what was likewise said in a mystery by Solomon, “Wisdom built herself a house, and set up seven pillars,” seeks to indicate what was announced to the Virgin by Gabriel, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” which also shows that the angels minister to him; and that the divine Spirit is the one who gives subsistence to the universe, and illumines lives with ineffable enlightening, together with the Father and the Son, in inexpressible union and concord. Teaching us, then, that those being enlightened are deemed worthy of him, the Apostle engraved a letter to the Galatians with words like these: “This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” Nor does David pass these things by in silence. For plainly joining the nature and concord of the Son, begotten light from light, and of the Holy Spirit, proceeding truth from truth, he sings, in Psalm 42: “Send forth your light and your truth”; and in 147: “He will send forth his Word and melt them; he will breathe his Spirit, and waters will flow.” To which Paul’s saying corresponds: “We were all made to drink one Spirit.” … and should we marvel the more? I shall remind [you] of his very words, which run thus: “In those days living water shall go out from Jerusalem.” And the “living water,” which goes forth from the Jerusalem above, surely also begets living men.

Besides those mentioned, we would find also the pool in Jerusalem called in Hebrew Bethesda, admittedly an image of baptism, but not itself the truth; for the image is judged for a time, but the truth for eternity. Therefore the water in it was moved by an angel once a year, and healed only the one who went down first, and a bodily affliction, not one of the soul as well; … the appearance of the Son and the Holy Spirit, both every day, or rather every hour, and more truly unceasingly, frees all who go down, and from every sin, for ever; and for the many, varied, irregular, and hard-to-loose conditions of soul and body the cure is found to be one, and no old pain, within or without, follows any longer in any way. Besides this, it shows all to be brothers and firstborn by grace; and to those very ones to whom, by worldly law, earthly property is not entrusted because of the insecurity of their years, whether few or many, the whole divine wealth is found securely deposited … “and I shall lack nothing; in a place of green pasture, there he made me dwell; by the water of rest he nourished me”; and, “You prepared a table before me, in the face of those who afflict me. You anointed my head with oil, and your cup that inebriates me is most excellent.” And the angel himself who stirred the water was a forerunner of the Holy Spirit; in the likeness of which angel John was called the messenger of the Lord, and became the forerunner of the Master, and baptized in waters. And the anointing too, with which Aaron was anointed by Moses, and indeed all of the priestly horn, who were called “anointed” from the anointing, bore a type of the sanctified anointing which we receive. For even if this runs over the body, still it profits the soul. For only let faith in the thrice-blessed Trinity come into our heart, and a spiritual word into our mouth, and the seal of Christ on our forehead; only let [one] receive baptism, and let the anointing strengthen [him]: at once the Trinity, which by nature gives good things, is found gracious; … worldly things depart, and bodily passions of every kind are put out of the way; all faults are forgiven, our names [are written] in books that cannot be blotted out, the heavenly goods are entrusted to us; so that, through its unspeakable readiness and forethought and its will always to be first in all good things, even such a resolve of ours is anticipated by it, or begun beforehand.

And to speak in sum, keeping of course the reverence [due] between truth and shadow, the image of baptism itself always enlightened all the Israelites of that time, and saved them, and showed that the salvation given is common to the consubstantial Trinity, as Paul, learned in the law, wrote in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: “For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed, and the rock was Christ”; and as they prophesy, Ezekiel: “Thus says the Lord: I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be cleansed from all your sins; and I will give my Spirit in you, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” And David: “You will sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed; you will wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.” For by the sprinkling of hyssop he means the Jewish purification, which is customary among them to this day; and by “whiter than snow,” the enlightenment of Christians, baptism. And Isaiah: “All who are written for life in Jerusalem shall be called holy; for the Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and will cleanse the blood from their midst.” And so that Peter might show in the first Epistle that, if the baptism that once took place in shadow saved, how much more does that which takes place in truth make us immortal and divine, he wrote thus: “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you also, not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the pledge of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.” By “pledge toward God” he means the confession of [faith and being baptized] into the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, according to the Lord’s word. Isaiah, then, again cries out to those who do not believe in the Holy Spirit, and through … “you shall be righteous, says the Lord. You who thirst, go to the water; and as many as have no money, go and buy, and eat without money and price wine and fat.” He called the Holy Spirit and the streams of his font water; by wine and fat he signified then the things of the Jewish offering, but now the immortal communion of the Lord’s body and blood; which, together with the renewal, we at once buy, laying down faith and not money, and at once receive as a gift. And that he calls the Holy Spirit water, and indeed the water of his baptism, John also testifies from the Savior, saying: “He who believes in me, as the Scripture said, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.” And immediately he added to the saying: “This,” he says, “he said about the Spirit, which those who believed were to receive.” And that we are justified freely, though unworthy, through the surpassing goodness of the Trinity, Paul’s word to the Romans has shown: “For all have sinned,” he says, “and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Blessing those deemed worthy of this gift, the Lord said to the disciples in Luke: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it; and to hear what you have heard, and did not hear it.” But we spiritual men not only see and hear, but are also freely enlightened by the Holy Spirit and enjoy [the gift], partaking of the body of Christ and tasting the immortal spring.

In many places, then, Scripture is seen, not least in the case of holy baptism, to mention the Holy Spirit alone and his saving …, because of the identity of substance and operation with the Father and the Son … to the first image … Proofs of these are such as when the Savior says: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth”; and again: “You will be baptized in the Holy Spirit.” And as when Paul writes, to the Corinthians: “We were all baptized in one body into one Spirit, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free; and we were all made to drink one Spirit”; and to the Ephesians: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption”; and again: “In whom, having believed, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise”; which David prophesied when he sang: “The light of your face has been marked upon us, O Lo[rd] …” … so he who is baptized in the Holy Spirit [is] wholly … For the sign on the forehead [is] the communion of the Godhead … reaching … And understand the light of God’s face also as the stamp of his hypostasis, and the image of the invisible God himself. Which light … If, then, we are sealed and baptized equally into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, then the Trinity is in one Godhead and kingdom. For we do not receive these things in the case of creatures, nor does God take up the name or seal of a creature together with his own, as though he could not save alone.

Those, then, who come over to orthodoxy, even if they happen to have been baptized, are baptized (for we do not say re-baptized, since they do not have the true baptism): the Eunomians, because they make one immersion, saying that they are baptized only into the death of the Lord; and the Phrygians, because they do not baptize into the three holy hypostases, but believe that the same one is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And those who come over from every heresy are anointed, since they do not have the holy chrism. And the bishop alone, by grace from above, performs the anointing.

We find that, just as the Israelites kept the day of Unleavened Bread as a type, in honor and glory of the holy and thrice-longed-for Pascha of Christ, so they also celebrated in an image the day of Pentecost among them, in honor and glory of the saving and venerable coming of the Holy Spirit. And not only this, but by the feast of Tabernacles they mystically foretold the assemblies of the holy churches and of the martyrs’ shrines, which lead us through faith and good conduct to the heavenly tents; of which he who pitched them said: “Make friends for yourselves by the mammon of unrighteousness, so that when you fail they may receive you into the heavenly tents.” For the boundless brightness of these feasts has never ceased. And looking to it the Singer sang to God on the all-harmonious ten-stringed [harp]: “You will bless the crown of the year of your goodness.” For the crown, being round, circles back on itself from every side, having neither beginning nor end.

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.”

For truly, since darkness has no communion with light, nor those deprived of divine knowledge with those illumined by it, it is fittingly written of those who hold false beliefs: “They did not know the Spirit, nor understand; they walk about in darkness.” And justly do they write about them: John, that “In the last time scoffers will come, walking according to their own ungodly desires. These are those who cause divisions, psychical, not having the Spirit”; and Paul, to Timothy: “But the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience”; and to the Hebrews: “Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the word of two or three witnesses; how much worse punishment, do you think, will he deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and counted common the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and insulted the Spirit of grace?”; and to the Ephesians: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” And the Master in Matthew [threatens] the one caught in blasphemy of the Holy [Spirit with] punishment, not only in the present age but also in the one to come, so that we may guard ourselves exceedingly against committing such a sin even in ignorance, saying: “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven them; … 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 one to come.” And what other word against the Holy Spirit is there, or what other blasphemy about him is understood, than not to confess him God, consubstantial with the Father and the Son and without beginning together with them? For “to blaspheme” is said specifically of God. And he determined that blasphemy against the Son of Man is forgiven, but that against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven; showing this: that [it is not forgiven] to one who does not believe, even at a late hour, that he proceeded from God the Father consubstantially; for to one who has come to know it, it is forgiven. For he says: in the case of the Son they at least have words as a pretext, even if not a reasonable one; but about the Holy Spirit they have no excuse. Therefore Wisdom too, proclaiming the divine Spirit as God and threatening from him those who blaspheme him, says: “For the Spirit of wisdom loves mankind, and will not hold the blasphemer guiltless for his lips; because God is witness of his inmost feelings, and a true overseer of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue; because the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together has knowledge of [every] voice.” For those who disbelieve his Godhead, as the Apostle writes to Timothy in the first Epistle, are made like Hymenaeus and Alexander, “who made shipwreck concerning the faith, and were handed over to Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme.” Fittingly; for they did not want the Holy Spirit to blow favorably on them, and they rejected his illumination, firmer than any anchor, and they did not bear to have his and Christ’s perfect steering, depriving themselves of the glory fitting to God and of equal honor. For indeed, as was said by Eli in the first [book] of the Kingdoms: “If a man sins against a man, they will also pray for him to the Lord; but if he sins against the Lord, who will pray for him?” And “the Lord is the Spirit,” as Paul wrote.

One should listen too (for no harm comes from it, but even benefit) to verses among the Greeks, whose authors received a moderate perception of the ranking together of the Son, the Word, and of the Spirit with God the Father, and saw that these names are fitting and true; and that the almighty Holy Spirit is not separated from God the Father, not in nature, not in power, not in glory, any more than the Only-begotten is; but both proceeds from him in no lesser measure, and remains with him, filling all things with his own supreme and boundless grace and power, according to the good will common to him with the Father and the Son. The verses of an oracle are these:

“The Spirit, proceeding from the immortal God the Father, from there, whence it went forth, remaining steadfast, in no way … but remaining in the most holy bosom of God the Word, accomplishes all things, whenever the divine primal mind devises them; and to all created things it brings grace, beneath which all …”

And again: “So that the Trinity may hold all things together, in all things …”

Of Orpheus, the first theologian among the Greeks: “For all things, under the great help of the immortal God …”

Of Plato the comic poet, who floridly in the [lines] written below … the Trinity, from which the universe came to be and is preserved:

“For God is one, the Father, the most high, who by the Word, all-wisely, and by the Spirit set firm all things as they slipped, and drawing them from the depth of error into light, out of long disorder …”

… of three discourses. When someone asked the Good Daemon about the thrice-holy Spirit, he gave this oracle: “If there were not some providence of the Lord of all, so as to reveal this word to me, such a love would not have possessed you either, that you should inquire about this. But now hear the rest of the discourse. Of this Spirit, of which I have often spoken before, all things have need. For bearing all things, it gives life to all things according to their worth and nourishes them; and it hangs from the holy spring, a helper to spirits, and always [the cause] of life to all, being one and fruitful.” And again, subjecting the many, who are not exact in knowledge, to the nobler judgment, concerning the self-complete Trinity, which is always undefiled, immeasurable, ineffable, and the same, about which there is no man who can contemplate anything worthy of its great transcendence, he pronounces this: “For it is not possible to impart such mysteries to the uninitiated; but hear with the mind. There was only one intellectual light before intellectual light, and there is always a luminous mind of mind; and there was nothing else but the unity of this. Being always in itself, always …” And among other things he adds: “Outside this there is no god, no angel, no daemon, no other substance. For he is Lord and Father of all, and God, and spring, and life, and power, and light, and mind, and Spirit, and all things are in him and under him.” By “mind from mind,” and “intellectual light from intellectual light,” and further “Spirit,” by which he encompasses all things, he indicates God the Father, the Only-begotten, and his one Holy Spirit; as Wisdom says: “The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world.” And [by excluding] angels and daemons, and those spoken of by the Greeks [as gods] who do not exist, [he showed] the undivided authority, the one creative principle of all things.

And Porphyry too, though not at all sober-minded about what is truly divine, but full of bitterness against it, so to speak, nevertheless, setting out Plato’s opinion, and somehow constrained by the truth, or perhaps out of respect for Plato, saw fit to say this: “… the substance of the divine proceeded; that there is the highest God, the Good, and after him, second, the Creator, and third the soul of the world; for the divinity proceeded as far as soul.” … unable … the theology, since, making the present explanation neither according to the appetitive … nor according to its pervading impulse, he dimly [called] the one and saving Holy Spirit of God soul; yet not the soul of man, but the one that pervades the whole world. You have, then, the wise men of those outside too bearing witness that the three blessed hypostases [are] in one Godhead, and were not manifested at different times; but when the first [was], then together with it and from it the second and the third [were], co-eternally, as the radiance with fire. And let something also be set down from our own side, according to natural reason, bearing witness to the beginningless procession of the one divine Spirit and to his consubstantiality with the only-begotten God the Word. It is this: a word is not begotten or brought forth unless breath moves with it and goes forth together with it. And there are many such sayings from Greek books, and they are not to be rejected; but [those] still … recorded … will be brought forward by us [another time], if it seems good to God.

For I and my own, as those know who … my remembrance of the beginningless and blessed Trinity, which is always the same and in the same state, which always gives good things, and neither takes away nor reproaches, in these daily gatherings … sharing … (let all things be said and done and planned in silence …), giving everything to myself and to my own (for it, being the cause of all, has need of nothing except our benefit), worshiping and glorifying it, and praising it according to the power I have; or I said that those who do not take pains either to learn or to teach something wise about it wrong themselves greatly. And now, believing as usual that those things alone are stable and sure which it leads, raising the eyes of my mind together with my body, I beseech on behalf of myself and of those from me, and of those who are and will be from them, and indeed on behalf of all, obeying the Savior who commanded [us], praying in Psalm 70: “In you, O Lord, I have hoped; let me never be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me. Be to me a protecting God and a strong place, to save me; for you are my firmness and my refuge. My God, deliver me from the hand of the sinner, from the hand of the transgressor and the unjust; for you are my endurance, O Lord; Lord, my hope from my youth. On you I have leaned from the womb; from my mother’s belly you are my protector. In you is my praise continually. I became as a wonder to many, and you, O Lord, my strong helper …” … good, and to whom is all the hope of all always, and apart from whom there is nothing at all: may we be delivered from the sins committed by us in soul and body, in knowledge and in ignorance, in word and deed, here and “when you prevail in judging” the hidden things of men; and from those who are burdensome in the world, and from the demon who always envies the good and stands opposed, and from every evil and unclean spirit, and from the Antichrist, who hates the good, whose time, full of dreadful struggle, as events prove, has already drawn near; so that no one, either of those now or of those who will be found then, may perish. So may every evil be put out of the way, and may public and private affairs be governed well and quietly according to your ungrudging will, which loves souls; and from now on may a pious and private dwelling in each city, or rather in the country, be choiceworthy and desirable to all; and may it be granted to everyone, as to the holy fathers and those before them, to sail, to travel, to stay at home, to farm, to attend festivals diligently, to speak gracious and fitting words, as he loves and wishes, freely; and, greater than these, that I may remember you without distraction and soberly, and make you the beginning and end of every matter, and share as I can with those in need, beginning with my kin and my household, and receive from you the loan back in the future, and eternal life besides. “For fasting,” it says, “and prayer deliver from death; but almsgiving is above both.” For as those outside also say: … So may there be in us besides freedom from the disease of pride and conceit, and from being a boaster; through which inescapable passions the most hostile Satan [fell] from the light above and slid down into the darkest recesses of Tartarus; and he who was brought up under the law, and fasted, and tithed his possessions, had his hope from this for a while in the world, as far as [it is recorded] in the sacred writings. And may it further be granted me to keep away from strife, to live among books, and to be inseparable, with a pure conscience, from the church’s assemblies, in which you are set before all in a more particular way; … thus it will be no longer reproached and spat upon, but, as of old and long ago, praised: due proportion, which was at the beginning the teacher of virtue and of all knowledge. And may the coming way of life appear more temperate than the ancient, as much as … [Chris]t’s legislation. And may a sweet and bright light rise; and good government and peace will be deep through all land and sea, in every way and manner; and the stream of the Nile full, and great plenty; and great and manifold scarcity of those eager for office; and may one no longer lament over another; and may I be able to keep the law I set for myself, in due season, with grace and dignity of life and words; and may our affairs turn out on every side, for all our children, all our household, all our kin, and wholly, better than our prayer and better than before. And all these things, yes, yes, yes, will have been and will be accomplished; so that what is [said] in Isaiah may work for ever: “I am he who speaks: I am present as spring upon the mountains, as one who brings good news of good things; for I will make heard …”

… the soul, which by itself is impassible in the intelligible realm; yes, and its own choice, that is, its longing for knowledge. For the body, holding the soul shut up within itself as in a blind prison, leads it away through material passions from the [thoughts] of God …; and so it tries to master what is better by nature, and better by as much as the immortal is better than the mortal. But the desire of its own choice, that is, again, of knowledge, draws the soul to want to know something, and it sets out toward this; yet having no right guide for the journey, or having kept company with … men, it wanders and is at a loss, and in the end, putting in at whatever opinion it happens upon, it takes this up without understanding; and so it has become most pitiable and wretched, having hunted down ill-mindedness under the impression and opinion of good knowledge. For that all of us human beings by nature reach out for knowing is shown, as Aristotle says, by our desire for the senses too, which leads us on to itself beyond what we need. At any rate we sometimes desire to see or to do something even when what is seen or done is not at all necessary, but even harmful. That these things are so … [the apostles], having thought it fitting to speak in this way. James, of glorious memory: “This wisdom is not coming down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic.” And he adds: “For the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and of good fruits of works, impartial, sincere.” And further he calls the common herd “double-minded,” those of mankind who have no pure knowledge and no steady choice of soul, saying this: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands …” … who are victorious in virtue, from whom not one of the precious things escapes, he speaks, so as to restrain the licentiousness of men who are not such, and to share with others too the good things which they themselves have, in these very words: “Brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, let him know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” No less Peter too, teaching how the soul, though it is impassible, at times becomes full of passions, and turning us to remember our departure from this life, wrote: “Abstain from the desires of the flesh, which wage war against the soul.” And Solomon the son of David says: “As the faces of men are not alike, so neither are the hearts of men like one another.” There come to my mind also the words of the great champion Paul, which he spoke in this way: “The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him”; and again: “The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one.”

But, as I was saying, this choice, and the body as well, are often apt to drag the soul down to the passions; yet at times they also contribute to it (I mean to the soul itself) not a few good things: the body, the knowledge of sensible things and its other service; its choice, the blessedness that comes from good counsel and right belief. So too, in turn, the soul, when it lives well with the body, and masters it, and turns toward God, and is filled with his thoughts, gives more and nobler things. For the earthly part it strives to render as if impassible, adorning it with sweat and endurance and all the labours of virtue, steering it, and through the experience of painful things rousing it to the God-fearing life; and its own choice, and its faith, it keeps from stumbling, and it makes the man more than man, advancing him by faith and words to what is venerable, inclining toward supplication of the Trinity, and making the benefit of these its food. For if we consider the soul, it is its nature to be adorned and nourished by nothing other than words and faith. For a human being has two kinds of food, the one from farming and the one from words and faith; but the one gives the body to exist and to endure, the other gives souls to excel others, and through faith and words all the rest of life is set right as well. One can detect that this is not otherwise by going over it with the mind, since upon such a person at once shines and works together the Son who rides upon all things, … despising those who think …; he who sowed reason, the most precious of all things, in the soul in which he made his Holy Spirit dwell through the breathing. Hence it is admirably said by those outside, in a certain verse: “Everywhere is reason, wherever there is man.” But so much for that.

The heretics, however, breathing nothing pure, and paying no attention to the lofty testimonies, gifts, and mighty works recorded concerning the redeeming God the Word, the author of the coming-into-being of all things, attach to his Godhead the words concerning his most ineffable and most unchangeable incarnation, made out of love for humankind, words which they consider mean; and from the very things by which they ought both to discern the glory of God and to praise his love for humankind all the more, by these they are caught being carried outside the truth and are led on to insult their Benefactor and Savior. Their concern is not how they may propitiate him as Judge, but how they may show him to be under judgment, as a creature, even after his session in heaven …. And often things either not said about him or by him, or spoken in riddles under concealment, [they have taken] as said against him or by him …, prizing a rotten and feeble mind; presenting themselves as no better than irrational animals to this most longed-for Master, who leads those who obey him, without force, into the one undivided kingdom of the Father, of himself, and of the Holy Spirit, and who in his tender care for us exhorts: “Do not be like horse and mule, which have no understanding.” For irrational animals, he says, whose soul is the blood that comes from matter (according to the one who said in Genesis, “Its blood is its soul”), bend down toward the earth, always … for the belly alone … and looking at the things on high, and toward the [city] above, and regarding himself as in an inn in the world, each day [ready] for his departure from it; and for this reason the wise man is simple in faith and in judgment. For it is plain to everyone that truth, which is by nature akin to simplicity, is always stronger than all art through words and in words. But the technical arguments seem to stir up trouble and to be troubled, those that abound in … of theological contemplation, as the Greeks too in alien …. For they call him God and Lord and Son, but no longer [call him], as God and Lord, uncreated, without beginning, sovereign, and equal to God the Father, nor, as only-begotten Son, consubstantial with the one who begot him; though these things declare and reveal the equal honor and equal power of the holy Trinity in his divine teaching about baptism, and in many other places, as has been said. But like the Greeks they set up [gradations] of substances and of glory, according to their own notions, among the three divine and consubstantial hypostases, and so they think about the Son and the Holy Spirit of God. Such things even the accursed and abominable demons, who through the wickedness of their own will were shown to be useless and good-hating creatures, shudder to hear, let alone to say.

The discourses containing the teaching about God have been sufficiently completed, though there are countless other proofs which have not been mentioned, so that readers might not shrink back because of their number, nor the writer seem long-winded and verbose. For if “the word of truth is simple by nature,” as the esteemed among the Greeks say, and for this reason the Divine alone might fittingly be called Truth, it is plain that the account concerning God the Word too is simple and free from all perverse elaboration. But so that the divine statements may be easily surveyed, because of the problems of the heretics that are now to be discussed, come, let us string together their argument in a partial and concise recapitulation, even though we are going to repeat ourselves; still, because it is useful, and so that what concerns them may be refutable by all from every side, as far as possible. For those who have set out [to build] lay up suitable materials, and then set these beside each place that is about to be worked, so that each of those engaged in the handiwork may have them before their eyes and at hand; and so they begin the work. And once again entrusting the whole to God, who stills the waves and gives fair sailing and sets all things right, by whose grace (which he is accustomed to supply even to sinners and to those narrow in speech, I mean particularly myself) I have come forward to this … I will speak, with the children whom he has given me, and the children of the children, for whose sake we labour while we live; and moreover I shall receive the grace for all whom he knows. For his is a golden oracle: “Whatever you ask in my name, you will receive”; and, “[Open wide] your mouth, and I will fill it”; and, “It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of my Father who speaks in you.” Concerning him, and having been granted perception by him, those outside also say: “For human understanding is truly not sufficient to say anything about God unless it receives divine help and power”; as Diagoras of Melos too somewhere said: “God, before every mortal work, directs the mind to move.” I shall begin where it is fitting to begin.

1. If, then, Scripture does not lie (and it certainly does not lie) when it says that God the Word is true God and true Son of God, as it does in many places — as the Father says, “This is my beloved Son”; and as John writes, “And we are in the true Son of God, Jesus Christ; he is the true God and eternal life”; and as Jeremiah prophesies, “Gods who did not make the heaven and the earth, let them perish from the earth; the Lord, who made the heavens with understanding, he is the living and true God” — then it is surely plain that he is by nature and properly God, uncreated, without beginning, and in every respect exactly like God the Father. For no cause of the nature of a true God is found, nor is a true God said to be made, nor is a true Son thought of as of another substance. And the fact that it says, “This is my Son,” and, “This is the true God,” excludes seeking another genuine Son, or another who is properly God. And in another way: if he is true God and Son, then according to the generation above he has a Father but does not have a God; according to the generation below he has a God but [does not have] a father …, not to set out on an untrodden path, being wholly a man; and those outside too declared: “Believe in God and revere him, but do not search.” And again: “God is immortal, ageless, begetting himself, ever young, not made; he himself is the begetter of truth, he himself wise and true.” … God, he spoke thus: “And truly the race of God is ever faithful.” For since he himself is the begetter of truth, he could not be grasped by human understanding unless that understanding, filled with his truth, kindled from it a light for itself for its inquiries.

2. If God is one, as Moses says, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God is one Lord”; and the Son too is praised as only-begotten God and one Lord Jesus Christ, wholly consubstantial and equal in honor with God the Father, one and another in hypostasis, but one in Godhead and in concord. For in this [we see] the Greeks, once again under an unseen necessity and against their will, turned round toward the truth, and in this part holding a disposition that agrees in voice and mind with ours, proclaiming in writing and expressly: “There is one God; he himself is lord over all, most high, and he was born the first begetter of all, and root, and beginning.”

3. If the name “Father” is always God’s, and the names “Son” and “Only-begotten” are the Son’s, then he is a natural and true Son, and without beginning, and not a son in our way. For the Only-begotten has by nature no brother of the same Father, nor is he called father before he has been born ….

4. If the Son is fittingly called the Word of God, he coexists with the one who begot him, being properly related to him by nature, and having been begotten impassibly and without beginning. For the Father cannot be conceived without his subsistent Word; nor indeed is the Word created, but he is begotten impassibly. In parallel: if the Son is rightly written to be the Word and Wisdom of God, and through him all things came to be, then he was not created by the Word of God, but begotten from his womb. For the Word of God is one; and in what other Word could he have been created? These things even the choicest of the Greeks declare: “For the offspring of God bring forth things unspeakable”; “and he is above all passion and nature.”

5. If the Son is, as has been shown, eternal life itself and the true light, he did not begin to be and to live. And in parallel, if the Father too is these things, he differs from him in nothing, not even in thought.

6. If the Son is said to be the power and wisdom of God, he is co-eternal, without beginning, with the one who begot him; for there was not a time when the Father existed without these, nor is it fitting to say that, not having them, he later acquired anything. And those who learned something from the wisdom outside, seeing no second form, no second time (if it is right to say so) of the existence of the Godhead, said to the best of their ability: “God immortal himself bears all things; he himself is his own begetter, and root, and end, and son.”

7. If he saves equally with the Father, being Savior, and moreover makes wise, makes true, justifies, sanctifies; and if whatever the Father does, these the [Son] does likewise, he appears not unlike him.

8. If the Only-begotten is the radiance of the glory and the stamp of the hypostasis and the image of God, who is formless, invisible, and without beginning, as Paul writes to the Hebrews; and if he speaks truly when he says, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” “I and the Father are one,” then he is consubstantial, co-eternal, equal, and exactly like God the Father. For light from light is not begotten of another substance, nor later; and “stamp of the hypostasis” shows the sameness and exact likeness of nature, glory, and almighty rule; and a rational image signifies what is equal and like; and whoever sees a creature does not see the uncreated. For he said that the hypostases are one in Godhead, and in a unity of substance he distinguished the persons as two.

[9.] … nor did he beget in a way subject to passion, but as light begets its radiance, impassibly and without separation; for he is incorporeal. And the wise men outside believed, as far as their weakness allowed, thus: “For God immortal is not born from birth-pangs, nor from a womb; he is from himself, being both begetter and son.”

10. If every creature is changeable, but the Only-begotten is unchangeable, then he is not a creature.

[11.] … [no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom] the Son reveals him, while the Son knows him with no one revealing it to him, then he is not created, but begotten ….

12. If the Scriptures know him as equal to the Father — for Paul writes, “He did not count being equal with God a thing to be grasped,” and, “In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead”; and the evangelist says that “the Son made himself equal to God”; and if Jeremiah calls him God, beside whom no other will be reckoned, and Isaiah calls him God, mighty, holder of authority — how, according to the heretics, does he fall short, and how is he not equal to the Father in all things?

[13.] … considers the [new] preaching, that concerning Christ and the Holy Spirit, superior, because it contains what is perfect, as was shown in the thirtieth discourse; it is fitting that the Son and the Spirit in every way and altogether fall short of God the Father in nothing.

14. If Paul enjoins those who believe in the Son to escape the charge of creature-worship, and moreover calls those godless who before this had known only God the Father apart from the Son, then God the Word is not a creature.

15. If the Jews, having disbelieved Christ when he made himself equal to God, and having crucified him for this reason, were condemned, while Christians, having believed, have become higher than they, then the Son is not less than his own Father in anything.

16. If being praised as “great God” is a prerogative of the only God, and Paul proclaims, “of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,” and David, “Who is like you among the gods, O Lord?” then [the Father] is not more exalted than the Son, nor incomparable with him.

17. If the same Paul does not number him with the created gods, but ranks him with the Father, writing to the Corinthians, “For although there are many so-called gods and many lords, in heaven and on earth, yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” then he will not be ranked among things made, but will be glorified together with the Father.

18. If the Son is the maker of all things, and of the ages themselves, as has been written, he is before every activity; and one who is before every activity was not made. For nothing created is thought of as before the ages or before activity, but only the uncreated Trinity in unity. And in another way: if he is the author of the coming-into-being of all that exists, he is not created as these things are. For in no respect can the Creator be, or ought he to be, similar to creatures. Nor does a creature give being by making, or bring a rational being to completion.

19. If he was in the beginning, God with God, he himself has no other beginning, being older than every beginning; otherwise one must necessarily assign a beginning to the Father too. For “he was,” it says, “in the beginning, God with God.” But there is no beginning of the one Godhead which is in the beginning.

20. If it is beyond the reach of every mind how the Virgin bore without flux and remained a virgin again, much more unattainable is how God the Father, self-existent, has without beginning and without passion begotten the Son, whole from his whole self, in equal measure.

21. If, having formed us, he made us free, appointing judgment on good and evil action, how does he who gave this to us, who according to the prophecy is God, mighty, holder of authority, not himself have it?

22. If Peter is to be believed when he says in the Acts that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name, then the name “God” and “only-begotten Son of God” is a true name for him; for a false name profits nothing.

23. If the God who does not lie speaks truly — he who destroys those who speak lies, as the sacred psalmist says — when he says in the Theologian’s Gospel, “All that the Father has is mine,” and, “Mine are yours, and yours are mine,” then he is God, Lord without beginning, whose kingdom is without end, and all that the Father is, having received nothing from him according to the divine nature, but according to the form of the servant taken later. As for what concerns the truth that ever reigns above and that below ….

[24.] … not a [stranger], but a genuine Son. And if not a servant, but a Son, he is God without beginning. For a son is begotten, not created; and of the created things that are under time it is written, “All things are your servants.”

25. If Paul said of the Father, as of something great (and it truly is great and belongs to God alone), “Who is over all and through all and in all,” and he himself has written the same of the Son, “From them, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever. Amen”; and the evangelist says, “He who comes from above is above all,” then he does not stand apart in anything, nor fall short of the Father. And it is worth observing how reverently the theologians of the Greeks, who heard much, read not a little, and saw a great deal, regard these things. For they say: “All things are full of God; he is the end and the beginning of all, bearing all, and dissolving, and from them increasing again.”

26. If creation is written to be the Son’s own (for it says, “He came to his own”; and again, “My sheep hear my voice”; and to Peter, “I will give you the keys of heaven”), and it does not belong to a creature that the whole divine creation is its own, or to give authority to open heaven, or rather to say this without danger, [then] he shares the lordship with the Almighty ….

27. If the immortal is not superior to God the Word, and if neither God nor soulless flesh ever needs food or sleep, then the ineffable incarnation was not without a soul; nor indeed should agony, the desire for food, sleep, and such things be ascribed to the Godhead.

28. If, as it is written, he sits at the right hand of the Father as true God, equal in honor, and his only-begotten Son, then he shares the throne, possessing the kingdom undivided and boundless, and he and the Spirit of God share it with the Father. For how could the one God be worshiped before the one eternal throne, while the Trinity is present on one throne, the worship being made toward the east and the glory being sent up? For that where the Father is, there his Spirit is too, found seated with him and worshiped together with him, as belonging to the royal nature that rules all, has been proclaimed from many texts, and from the Scripture that says, “For by this we know that God is in us, from his Spirit, whom the Son has given us.” For our own spirit is not meant; for having that already, we received the Holy Spirit of God.

29. If it is the Father’s will that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father, he exists in equal glory and in one property with the Father; and they do not act piously who either alter his glory or suppose that he differs from him in anything.

30. If he is worshiped by angels, how is he not worthy to be worshiped by men too? And if he is worshiped, he is not a creature.

31. If God the Father is in him, and he equally in the Father, and the Spirit of God abides with him, as has been shown, then the Trinity is equal and alike; and no one can have, or worship, or glorify the Father who does not equally have his Son and his Spirit, and equally worship and glorify them.

32. If the Son and the Holy Spirit give law and set free from sins and from death (“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” it says, “has set me free from the law of sin and death,” Paul cries), then these hypostases belong to the first and one almighty and life-giving nature. For a creature cannot do these things of itself.

33. If it is rightly written that the Son is Savior and that the Holy Spirit supplies salvation, [the Spirit] is unchangeable and uncreated, as the Son and the Spirit are both unchangeable. For what is changeable cannot save those who have fallen, being created and not sinless.

34. If we who are created are made sons by the Son, as those who initiate us into the mysteries say (Paul: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father”; John: “But to all who received him he gave power to become children of God”), then these hypostases in no way fall short of true Godhead. For how will the Son be made a son in himself, or through himself, or in his own Spirit?

35. If Paul says that the Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of God,” as ours is ours, and if God likewise calls it “his Spirit,” he is impious who does not call it God, co-eternal and consubstantial with the Father. For there was not a time when he was without his Spirit, nor is it fitting to think that it came to him later or from outside, or that the Spirit of the uncreated is a created spirit; rather, it has ridden with him upon the cherubic throne, and is worshiped and glorified together with him, as has been said, since it is his inseparable Spirit.

36. If creation is receptive of holiness, wisdom, goodness, and every perfect virtue (for it is changeable), but the Holy Spirit is not receptive but bestowing (for it is unchangeable), then it is Creator, and not itself a thing created in its existence, according to what was said before.

[37.] … has knowledge [that can be lost], but the Spirit neither had it from outside nor is its nature to cast knowledge away, but rather to reveal the things of the wisdom and knowledge of God, and it belongs to the Father in substance; therefore the Spirit is not a creature. And let us listen also to the Greek wise sayings on this, which run thus: ….

38. If the servant does not know what his lord is doing, but the Spirit knows the things of God, according to the Apostle, then it is not separated from him in nature and in concord, but is confessedly God and Master, having knowledge equal to God’s, which is impossible and out of the question for any created being.

39. If the Scriptures know this [Spirit] as one and only, as they know the Son too as only-begotten, it is not created like the multitude of spirits, but belongs to the unique divine substance. Therefore it alone is properly and strictly, and is called, the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of God, and the Spirit that is from God, and the Spirit who proceeds from the Father; and from its being in all, as God is, we know that God is in us.

40. If the Trinity has been equally attested to be truth, goodness, and holy, it is in one Godhead, having nothing divided. For the unchangeable divine truth, goodness, and holiness is one. For creation has these by participation, and changes in them by its own choice, now speaking truth and now lying, now becoming good and now becoming evil. On this too the choicest of those outside appear to have said: “For such is the mind of earthly men, as [the father of men and gods brings upon them each day].”

41. If, as it is written, the Holy Spirit renews us in baptism and sets us free from sin and death, and we are its temple just as we are God the Father’s, then as Creator and fellow-worker with the Creator it creates anew, as Master it sets free, and as God it dwells within. And one who is these things cannot be a thing made like things made; nor is it right to say this, or in silence to endure hearing it.

42. If, together with God the Father and his Son, the Holy Spirit through baptism re-forms us to the first image, and through participation is the cause for us of adoption and of becoming gods, of making sons or making gods, how is it not itself true God?

[43.] … with God the Father, and the Spirit is mentioned; therefore, as equal in honor and equal in power with the Father and the Only-begotten, it is God.

44. If it is attested [that the Spirit sent] the prophets and apostles [as do the] Father and the Son, it has done these things as God, in agreement in all things with the Father, and as one who foreknows and is Master of creation.

45. If what is now said of the Father or of the Son is at another time recorded of the Holy Spirit, it is impossible, out of the question, that it should not belong, with no difference, to the one self-complete Godhead and will and glory of the Father and the Son. For things equal to the same thing, they say, are also equal to one another.

46. If none of the heavenly powers can bestow heavenly gifts, but the Spirit of God grants by its own authority what only the divine nature can give, then it is all-sufficient God, and holds authority even over the things in heaven, and is consubstantial with the Father and the Son.

47. If nothing invisible or visible is called divine and truth in the sacred writings except the Father, and his Holy Spirit, and the Only-begotten, … is of the substance.

[48.] … of all things in things made, the powers of the heavens are in the Spirit of God, it cannot be a thing made, but a fellow-worker and equal worker with the Creator.

49. If it fills the world and contains all things, according to the Wisdom that says this, [it is] Creator, of the one supreme, venerable, incomprehensible, unapproachable, untouchable, and formless substance; and it is not circumscribed by place, but it has encompassed this universe.

50. If Scripture does not divide the Trinity in nature, nor define in it a first, second, and third nature, what argument do they have against those who believe that it is united in substance but distinguished in the properties of the hypostases?

51. If the devil was shown in Job to be the first creature, [then] the Spirit is not a creature, but of the substance of the Monad. For they would not say that the devil was created before it, and that he once obtained the higher rank and the divine Spirit the lower.

52. If, just as the Passover was from the beginning [celebrated] even by the Jews for the glory and worship of God, so also Pentecost for that of the Holy Spirit, how is it not co-eternal with him, God ever to be remembered?

53. If the oracles mention to us the seal of the Holy Spirit just as the seal from the Father and the Son, it is not among things made, but in equal honor and thanksgiving. For [no one would put] the seal of a thing made together with the seal of God …, as being by itself unable to save.

54. If every blasphemy is forgiven to men, but that against the Spirit of God is unforgivable, then it is not a lesser God. And it is blasphemy not to call it God. For the blasphemy is carried up also to the Almighty, whose breath it is.

55. If the heretics keep inviolate both the command of the Father, who says, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him,” and the Son’s tradition concerning baptism, why do they not confess the Trinity as inseparable in nature, equal in honor and equal in power, and [baptize] with equal honor? For he taught one name, that is, the name of the one Godhead, but three hypostases, keeping for each its equality of honor.

Let these points, then, stand as proved. The first problem of the heretics, the most impious and most blunt, is what is written in the Proverbs of Solomon: “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he founded me; in the beginning, before he made the earth, and before he made the depths, before the springs of the waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, and before all the hills he begets me.” By this problem they try to force the conclusion that the Creator and Benefactor is a creature. But the understanding of this Scripture too is stronger and more persuasive than their wish. For if all the heads set out above, and those arranged in the first book, are true and prevail, as indeed they are, having received the clearest testimony from the divine oracles, how is it not among the most unholy and most impossible things to take in this way divine matters shown under concealment? Is it not then plain … became so [proud] and self-willed against God, who even after such great sins pardoned and had compassion, as he always does toward all, and toward him too. But if he has, as indeed he has, some perception of what happens here, or of what is said by those who think otherwise, I think that even before the appointed day that has no evening he contradicts them, blames them, and opposes them, teaching that he never even entertained such a suspicion about him. For he says that he knows, since he sought wisdom above a kingdom, obtained it, and received the kingdom as an addition; and indeed that he heard from his father David that the Lord, as life-giver and life, did not begin to be according to the generation above, and that, as life-giving and eternal light shining forth from the paternal light co-subsistently and consubstantially, he was not enlightened by another; but that he himself spoke about the wisdom in the world: that in speech, in generalship, in medicine, in architecture, and in short the wisdom present in every marvelous science in all wise men.

And truly, if anyone is willing to examine soberly and piously what precedes and what follows “The Lord created me,” he will quickly, immediately, and on the spot find ample refutation. For he placed first: “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, and good understanding is for all who practise it”; and again: “By me kings reign, and rulers write righteousness; by me great men are magnified, and by me tyrants hold the earth.” … Without wisdom, he says (which is the prudence, good sense, and excellence of speech imparted to us from above), nothing that is needed is accomplished; for the many fine thoughts escape the one who is deprived of it. But the man who has a share in it both fears God as he should and does what is pleasing to him, and gives law to man; and this one masters that one, and has gained many times over; and not only does he take pleasure in speaking and acting himself, but he also brings to their senses those who listen to him, or who learn his works in deed. And in what follows he set out these things here and there: “[The Lo]rd made uninhabited lands and the inhabited heights of the earth under heaven. When he prepared the heaven, I was present with him; when he marked out his own throne upon the winds, when he made strong the clouds above, and when he set firm the springs of the earth under heaven, when he set for the sea its limit.” Now he who made the earth from no earth, and skilfully fashioned the circling orbs of the heavens from no heavens, and the sun that completes its swift courses and shines everywhere in heaven and on earth, and in short brought all things to light by a word, is the only-begotten Son, the Word of God, who is praised as the power of God and the wisdom of God; and being these things of his Father, who is without beginning and is truly his Father, he has no beginning, as they teach: John saying, “All things came to be through him”; Paul writing to the Hebrews, “But of the Son he says, Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever.” And a little after he says, “And you, Lord, in the beginning founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands.” So it is not he, but another person, who has said all these things and “The Lord created me.” Then he added: “And the waters shall not pass his mouth.” So then, speaking as the wisdom that was created, he is explaining about the intelligible mouth of God the Word, the Creator. And again: “When he made strong the foundations of the earth, I was beside him, fitting things together; I was the one in whom he delighted daily; and I rejoiced before him at all times, when he rejoiced at having completed the world, and rejoiced in the sons of men.” For the Son, the Word, the Creator, who foreknew all things and had the power for them beforehand, … the repentance of those …, having completed all things, delighted in the wisdom present in his creatures, and rejoiced in it, glorying in his own work; and it too rejoiced before him. Then after other things he says: “For my goings forth are the ways of life, and favor is prepared from the Lord. But those who sin against me will act impiously against their own souls, and those who hate me love death.” … steering by wisdom, they plot against themselves and find a death worthy of their own folly and lack of discipline. And so that even the blind, as the saying goes, may not doubt that our interpretation is sound: the created wisdom says, about him of whom John said, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” “Wisdom built herself a house and set up seven pillars.” Of this house the Master himself said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

And Solomon, showing more and more that he is not discussing the creative wisdom, goes on in what follows thus: “Son, if you become wise, you will be wise for yourself and for your neighbors; but if you turn out bad, you alone will bear …” … “… will be wise, and will use the fool as a servant”; and again: “The wise in heart receives commandments”; and, “This one brings forth wisdom from his lips. Strike a heartless man with a rod; the wise will hide perception”; and again: “Wisdom bears prudence for a man”; and again: “The mouth of the righteous drips wisdom”; and, “The tongues of the wise heal”; and, “He who walks with the wise will be wise”; then next: “You will seek wisdom among the wicked and will not find it”; and after other things: “The wisdom of the clever will know their ways; the fear of the Lord is instruction and wisdom”; and again: “Nests are more desirable than gold, and nestlings of prudence than silver.” If, according to the heretics, who break off the head of the Christian faith, or rather choose to scrape it away as far as it lies with them, the creative Wisdom said this, whom shall we take to be her nestlings? And again: “One lacking sense has no need of wisdom”; and again: “Wisdom is an ornament for young men”; and again: “The fear of the Lord is the offspring of wisdom.” What offspring will they give to the Creator here too, if he said of himself, “The Lord created me”? And in what follows he says: “With wisdom a house is built, and with understanding a city is set upright”; then: “A wise man is better than a strong one.” … for when he mentions the wisdom of God the Father, the only-begotten and true Son, the Word, in these very Proverbs, he cries out in extraordinary terms, as if in amazement: “God taught me wisdom, and I have known the knowledge of the holy; I understand holy things. Who has gone up to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the winds in his bosom? Who has wrapped up all the water in a garment? Who has taken hold of all the ends of the earth? What is his name? Or what is the name of his child, that you may know?” And the words “before all the hills he begets me” he speaks as of the created wisdom in us: that it is begotten in the manner of a thing made and, so to speak, is born each day together with each wise man. For the Son of God was begotten co-subsisting with [the Father], as Word and radiance and stamp of his hypostasis; but he is not still being begotten. And not only this: the book also has the name “Proverbs,” as not always meaning what appears, but rather signifying one thing through another thing or person; and [there is the fact] that Solomon is a maker of proverbs, not a prophet … creation; and the most wise son of Sirach says: “Wisdom was created before all things, and understanding of prudence from eternity”; and he adds to this: “With the faithful she was created with them in the womb, and with men she made her nest as an eternal foundation”; and the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians the first time in this way: “For since,” he says, “in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe”; and, “God has made foolish the wisdom of the world.” And Job too mentions this wisdom thus: “But where was wisdom found? And what is the place of understanding?” and elsewhere: “The wisdom of the poor man is despised”; and, “This one of the …” … understood “The Lord created me” to have been said in the person of created wisdom. For the Savior, who gives subsistence to all things, often speaks taking up the person of creatures: as when, in the person of the Church once persecuted by Paul, he says, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” and to those who did good, “I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink”; and the like. … goodness, and, as the apostle Jude said, the only Master, spares all and makes his own the sins committed against the works of his hands. And indeed we shall find other things said in human terms about the unattainable Divine: as when it writes in parables, “There was a man, a householder”; and again, “There was a man who had a vineyard”; and when it compares the heavenly kingdom to a grain of mustard seed and to seed.

But even if it must be conceded that Solomon did not write in the person of the wisdom in us, still it must be understood as said in the person of the wise and incomprehensible incarnation, and in no way of the beginningless and unseeable nature of the only-begotten God. For he did not say “He created me” absolutely, … and having come to be not for himself but for others, that … he himself is the guide both of wisdom and of the wise (how else can one understand it?), of those for whose sake and after whose likeness he came to be. So, conversely, they are found in a certain way to be what he is, he who for their sake came to be after their likeness. Accordingly, being in the form of God, he took the form of a servant; and we came to be according to the image of him who created us, as Paul taught. Or perhaps he used the word “created” here in place of “established” or “appointed,” at the time when he was at once upon the cherubim and in the manger; as, showing in riddles the things of his incarnation, he foretold: “But I was established as king by him on Zion, his holy mountain”; and as the hymnist sings: “The Lord reigned, he clothed himself with majesty”; although he pre-existed eternally as King of those who reign, having incomprehensible majesty. Likewise he did not say “in the beginning” or “before the beginning of his ways,” but “as the beginning of his ways,” so that again what is foretold is the beginning of his incarnation, and not the nature of his beginningless Godhead. For when men had lost the way that leads to God, he became for us in the economy a new and living way; and just as because of the economy in the flesh he said, “I am the way,” and again, “No one comes to the Father except through me,” that is, unless he walks through faith in my incarnation, so because of it he also said, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways.” For he was born from the hypostasis of the Father without beginning and ineffably; and from the undefiled Virgin: in that he foreknew all things as God and predetermined the economy, before the age (as they write: Paul to the Colossians, “This mystery, hidden from the ages and from the generations, has now been revealed to his saints”; Peter in his first Letter, about Christ, “foreknown before the foundation of the world, but made manifest in the last times”), but in actuality when he dawned from on high upon those who once sat in darkness and the shadow of death; when he was called, figuratively, a stone; when he became the beginning of ways and our foundation. To this foundation and stone they bear witness thus: Paul writing to the Corinthians the first time, “For no one can lay a foundation other than the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” He received the beginning of being called Christ Jesus in the incarnation. Hence in Luke the angel gives his name as of something future, saying to the Virgin, “You will have a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High”; and after other things, “Therefore also the child to be born …” … [to the] Romans: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense; and everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” And the Acts of the Apostles: “This,” it says, “is the stone that was despised by you, the builders, which has become the head of the corner; and there is salvation in no one else.” Observe that if the holy Trinity did not have one Godhead and power, salvation would not be with the Father either. May the holy Trinity be gracious to us. And indeed Daniel too saw a stone cut from a mountain without hands (that is, the one born of Mary without …) … image, that is, the world, from the grossness of mind and the vulgarity with which it lived.

And why do we marvel if a saving deed beyond reason and mind came about before the ages by divine foreknowledge? For the Apostle says that we too were created and saved before the ages by this unspeakable foreknowledge and power, writing thus to the Ephesians: “He chose us for himself before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, having predestined us for adoption”; and to Timothy: “According to the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before eternal times, but has now been made manifest through the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ.” For the Holy Spirit, who knows and can do all things, is accustomed to foretell many things: things that are going to happen as if already done, and things done as if still happening or yet to be; and not least he declared the things of the unspeakable economy as past before they happened: as when the Master, not yet become flesh, says in the twenty-first Psalm, “They dug my hands and my feet”; and again, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots”; and in the hundred and seventeenth, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner, and it will be marvelous in our eyes”; and Isaiah: “A child has been born to us.” He speaks of what was not yet born. And again: “He was led like a sheep to slaughter,” though the lamb had not yet been born of Mary. And again: “We saw him, and he had no form nor beauty.” Yet it was many generations later that he was seen so, in the saving passion. And elsewhere: “Your new moons and your sabbaths and your feasts my soul hates.” But he hated them much later, when he had become man and made the New Covenant with us. And it narrates past things as present, as has been said, as when it says, “Who makes his angels spirits,” in place of “who made”; and, “Who founds the earth on its firm base,” that is, “who founded.” For these reasons it is necessary to refer the proverb set out, if not to the wisdom in our pursuits, at least to the Master’s sinless incarnation, and in no way to the Son, the Word of the ineffable divine nature, through whom, and from whom, and in whom all things were set in order. For to say “The Lord created me” and to add “But before all the hills he begets me” is the same as saying: “Me, who am from him co-subsistently, he created later, in that by his will I shared sinlessly in the nature of men, as was said a little before; but before all the hills he begot me impassibly, without beginning, and ineffably,” because the Godhead is above the incorporeal. For “before” is altogether indefinite in its case; and moreover the conjunction “but” shows this. For if he created, how did he beget? And if he begot, how did he create? One might call a creature the offspring of its creator, as we have heard that we are sons of the Most High; but what is truly offspring could never be called a creature of the one who begot it. For to this day we know of no such thing being said. So it is found from every side that the wisdom in the best pursuits is the one that said, “The Lord created”; or else, by a forced interpretation, the one who became conformed to humanity. For by the decree of divine foreknowledge he came to be before all creation; and [Scripture] calls humanity “creation” by an extended use, as it also so names the wisdom in the world, in the words in which Paul says, “Be subject to every human creation for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors as sent by him.” … or [that one] “made” a bishop, or a clergy, or a camp, it does not signify that a substance was brought forth from non-existence, though it uses the same word, but it calls those who already exist, or matter already subsisting, into some order or such an arrangement. And the Hymnist prayed for a part already present in him as though it were yet to be given him, crying, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” And the most holy Paul writes in agreement with this, and plainly: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; behold, the old has passed away; all things have become new”: not by being newly created, but by shining forth henceforth. And elsewhere: “That he might create the two into one new man,” in place of “bring together.” See whether what is said to those renewed in baptism can also help us: “Put on the new man, created according to God,” and whatever oracles of this kind one may find by searching. And it is written metaphorically also of parents: “He made sons and daughters”; and, “I have acquired a man through God”; and yet it speaks of begetting, not of making. And if by concession “The Lord created me” must be taken of God from God, let it be recalled again, and let it be said and believed by us again and again, that it was for this reason he added, “But before all the hills he begets me,” so as to cancel “He created me.” For in oracles what comes second, as finer and firmer, everywhere puts an end to what came before.

Contending against these heretics, who say nothing trustworthy or true and follow no orderly teaching, he who received the gift of theology from the much-longed-for and forbearing Savior, of whose mercy the earth is full, and who teaches what view one must hold about him, put forth a doctrine common to all men: “In the beginning was the Word,” that is, without beginning, which is uncreated. The “was” cannot be passed beyond, permitting no non-existence to be thought of before it, as was said also in the first book. “And the Word was with God,” in place of: he was incomparable, like the Father, uncreated, and he existed beholding within his unattainable Godhead. For “he was with this one” is understood not only as “he was together with this one,” but also comparatively, “he was like this one.” “And the Word was God,” that is, without cause; for a cause of God is out of the question and impossible. “All things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be,” in place of: he himself is uncreated; for once [for all] every created thing [came to be] through him, as through the uncreated maker ….

Besides these irrefutable points there is another counter-argument too, against which no one will be able to say anything, even in thought, by way of attack. Aquila, one of the translators, rendered this Scripture, which in Hebrew reads “Adonai kanoni” [qānānî], thus: “The Lord acquired me”; though even he did not render it with strict propriety; for precisely it is translated, “The Lord hatched me,” that is, “bore me.” For “hatched” or “leapt forth” is said properly of things that leap forth from an egg, not of things created; and … what leaps forth from the nest is not of another substance. So both in wording and in sense their problem departs from the truth. And some have rightly understood “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways” to have been said of the Church, in which the way of truth and wisdom is proclaimed, which the Apostle also called the body of Christ, writing thus [to the Colossians: “I fill up what is lacking of the afflic]tions of Christ in my flesh for the sake of his body, which is the Church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship of God given to me”; and to the Corinthians in the first Letter: “Our members are members of Christ. Shall I then make the members of Christ members of a harlot? Never!” [and: “… all the members of the] one [body], though many, are one body; so it is with Christ.” So even if, by an economy one can hardly look upon, Scripture knows the Church as his body and us created beings as his brothers, still, as only-begotten and true Son of the most high God, he is in no way included in the constitution of the multitude of creatures. Nor does any other Scripture contain such a word; rather, all of it is filled with him: that he is true God and truly only-begotten Son. But [the argument] was carried off, as if swept by some current. Let us turn, then, to another head.

… and to show their own [opinion] more venerable through the same texts. For he is shown, he says, to be created, and to hold the name “only-begotten Son” and “God” as something feigned, as it were, and spurious, from what Paul wrote to the Colossians about him: “Firstborn of all creation.” For if he is firstborn, he is not only-begotten, but firstborn in relation to those created after him; and if he is only-begotten Son, how is he firstborn? Having said first that the depth of this oracle is beyond their perception, and that Paul spoke things he did not know [of himself], and believed what he spoke, since it was a prompting of the true wisdom, which made all these things manifest, we shall write out this whole passage and so proceed to its interpretation, not needing conjectures, nor explaining by probabilities things brighter than light, but stating what these men, willingly or unwillingly, overlooked, and what we see can fight on the side of our argument. The Letter runs thus: “Giving thanks to God the Father, who called us to the share of the inheritance of the saints, who rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins; who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things were created, in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities; all things were created through him and for him; and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together; and he is the head of the body, the Church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent; for in him it pleased all the fullness to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, making peace by the blood of his cross, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”

See then with understanding how the Scripture has been prepared to explain things contrary to the heretics, and how each word sends out, as it were, rays of thoughts about the incarnation of God; and that it first called him Son and image of God, and then firstborn and head of the body of the Church, and firstborn from the dead, who made peace by the blood of his cross for things visible and invisible, and all the fullness of [what is] above the incorporeal; so that we might in some way worthily understand both his nature, which is from God the Father and incomparable in relation to him, and his incarnation and ensoulment from the Virgin and after her likeness, perfect and unified. For what else could you understand among all the words set out, and in all things holding together, being reconciled, and being made peace through him and for him, except that through his unchangeable and sinless incarnation for our sake and on our behalf we are turned back to the knowledge of his uncreated Godhead? He is called Only-begotten, then, since according to the birth above, which is without flux, he has no other brother by nature besides him …; [firstborn, not as having been] created … of it (for then he would have been called first-created), but as, by foreknowledge (as was mentioned in the head before this), born of the holy Virgin before every created thing; and he would be both firstborn and Only-begotten of all creation, ineffable, according to the divine writing; just as the same one is also named firstborn from the dead, not because he died before them, but because, having been raised from the dead, he first gave us universally the assurance of the resurrection, to us who by his grace and gift have been counted worthy of sonship with God the Father and of brotherhood with him. For “I,” he said, “am the life and the resurrection.” And Paul too pointed out the very time in which he, having resolved in his goodness to count us worthy to enjoy forever participation in the light above, free from toil, became firstborn of all creation, in the words: “The old has passed away; behold, all things have become new.” And other words of his both thrust away this heretical notion, which tries to sophisticate against Paul, as though he had written such things, and against him who made and possesses all things, as though such words had been uttered about him, a thing hard both to invent and to hear; and they show expressly that “firstborn of all creation” was said in place of “of all humanity.” For he calls humanity creation, as was said in the previous head in these very words: “Be subject to every human creation for the Lord’s sake, whether …” … “[first]born from the dead”: that the same Paul taught the Corinthians in the first letter he wrote to them, “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then those who belong to Christ at his coming, then the end.” One might use this too rightly. For in such lofty words one must not consider one thing only, nor the lesser, but the better; for in what concerns God, the truth lies in the better. [Thus:] that he has been named firstborn of all creation because of those who are born of God in divine baptism by the adoption of the Holy Spirit, and because all that we are and possess we have received from him, as the same [Apostle] again says in teaching: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” As even the children of the Greeks, leaving aside their other contradictions, declare: “All the most high gifts are of the immortal God, and above all among mortals the great blessing of truth.”

But if “firstborn of all creation” is to be boldly taken even of his incomprehensible Godhead, he might be understood to have been so called either as begotten before every created generation, or as the first and only Son, the Word, who brought forth and fashioned from nothing all creation that came first in creation, being the cause of all, and then also as a foundation bearing it by the word of his power, according to the psalmist: “You made all things in wisdom”; and according to the Proverb of Solomon that says: “God by wisdom founded the earth, and he prepared the heavens by understanding.” And this very part of the Letter set out decides it, which says: “Firstborn of all creation, for in him all things were created,” and, “All things were created through him and for him; and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” And for this reason alone, he says, all things [exist], the word “for” being soundly understood in place of “because” or “since”; for they would not exist, or remain unharmed, unless they had the creative Son, the Word of God, as their base and foundation, and rested upon him. Therefore he did not say “first-created,” but “firstborn”; nor, “He came to be before all things,” but, “He is before all things,” that is, without beginning. For in the ineffable nature all time is present and is there in the now, and nothing in it has passed or is to come, but it continues somehow eternally in the one time, as Plato says in the Timaeus: “Hence we do not speak rightly in the case of the ineffable nature. For we say that it was, is, and will be; but to it ‘is’ alone belongs according to the true account; and what is always in the same state, unmoved, cannot become older or younger through time, nor ‘have come to be’ now, nor ‘be’ hereafter.” And that, as we said, all things have appeared in God and from him, the Greeks too have written in testimony: “God immortal leads himself; from him are all things, and in the mind of the great God they came to light.” But the firstborn is not altogether not only-begotten; [to refer “firstborn”] to the eternal substance [in the heretics’ sense] is not right; for we say … thus he is also found firstborn without having a second-born or third-born, as begotten alone and having acquired the name from the reality. Indeed in Jeremiah too he says, from the all-holy Spirit, “And Ephraim is my firstborn.” But Ephraim was not even firstborn to his own father. Since then he himself is the truth, and the creative and untaught wisdom, it is fitting that what is written about him should keep its freedom from falsehood by an understanding worthy of God. Let him be, then, both only-begotten and firstborn; but the word “firstborn” suits him rather with reference to the economy. For if, through unspeakable love for humankind, the Holy Spirit had not regenerated us, and the only-begotten God had not, unchangeably and without flux, become, as he knows how, son of man for the salvation of men, neither would he have been named “firstborn among many brothers,” nor would we, the sons of men, have been called gods and sons of God; for no one is by nature brother of an only-begotten son. But the Maker and steward of all, the only compassionate one, … it is fitting to call him brother with respect to the birth that came about in time …; he is both our [brother] and is reckoned firstborn. For he emptied himself from infinite height for the sake of his own servants, renewed all things, and provided by his coming the beginning of a better life, and for this reason was called firstborn; yet he was in no way harmed in his divine glory, for he could not in any way be diminished or brought down to the measure of what is worse … by the force of words uttered in an extended use because of the unspeakable economy; while we, from great lowliness and darkness, were led up to glory and infinite light, having received faith in him. For each thing, whatever it is by nature, neither leaps up and is exalted by the grandeur of a word, nor indeed descends, as it were, from itself by a word’s lowliness ….

And not a little is shown together with what we have set out [by the psalm …]: “I found David my servant; with my holy oil I anointed him. For my hand will help him, and my arm will strengthen him; the enemy will gain no advantage over him, and the son of lawlessness will not again harm him. And I will cut down his enemies before him, and put to flight those who hate him. And my truth and my mercy will be with him, and in my name his horn will be exalted. And I will set his hand on the sea, and his right hand on the rivers. He will call upon me: You are my Father, my God, and the helper of my salvation. And I will make him firstborn, high above the ki[ngs of the earth” …] … with the paternal glory of the radiance, and in the last days blossoming from the root of Jesse; and even if we grant that this is said of him, the firstborn would not be understood in the customary sense. For how will he make firstborn one who is already a man (for he says, “I found David my servant”), or one who has elder brothers? And that it is customary for Scripture to announce that those who already exist become in some way what they were not, Paul, full of Christ and filled with the Holy Spirit, says somewhere thus: “You are no longer a servant, but a son.” For “no longer” signifies, for those who already exist, a change of state to something else henceforth. And again: “Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers”; in place of: God, who foreknew the descendants and sees all things past and to come as existing and present, with whom all the ages are one single measure and nothing divided, as was said a little earlier, foresaw and manifestly promised that men would be conformed to him who is eternally in the form of [God] … [who emptied] himself for us into the form of a servant, by his own gift: “No longer do I call you servants, but friends” and brothers, as it is written. For in the same way as we, the created, were called sons of God by grace, not by nature, so the Only-begotten of God, when he mingled earthly things with heavenly and a new salvation came about for us once for all, was called our brother and firstborn, not according to the nature from the Father, but according to his incarnation from the Virgin and in her likeness. It would be timely, then, to say to the heretics what was well said by those outside: “Hate falsehoods, so that truth may become your habit …”

Their third proposition is the prophecy spoken in the person of the Lord who gave subsistence to all things: “I am the beginning and the end.” From this, by unpersuasive interpretations, they refashion his existence, which is timeless and beyond the mind, into a temporal one, and they strive to have their wickedness taken for virtue. But those who, unlike these men, are not ignorant of this only-begotten God, rich in words, also possess the theology of this golden saying. For “beginning” shows that he is the cause, as being without beginning, just as God the Father is, of the constitution of all things. For whoever is the beginning has no one existing before him, as the last has no one last after him. For “beginning,” as Aristotle says in the fifth book of the Metaphysics, is said in many ways. It is said also temporally, as this day is the beginning of the year; it is said also naturally, as the seed is the beginning of the infant; and it is said also according to cause, as the sculptor is the beginning of the statue. In this way, then, we call him … but without beginning. For time runs together with the world, but before … the beginning, as cause and Creator; and the end, as [all things tend] toward him, as uncircumscribed and the only one who has immortality … [so that, after] the fullness of this universe, he remains forever and infinitely. So then the infinite cannot have a coming-into-being; and not being able to, he himself is uncreated, though he is begotten by nature from the hypostasis of God the Father, while created things have come to be from him by way of creation. Consistently with this one might understand also what Paul declared to the Colossians in this way: “And he is before all things”: not as made (God forbid!), but as begotten. For if he had not been truly and consubstantially begotten, without beginning, before all things, we would not, after his image, have been born consubstantial with the one who begot us; and if he did not exist [first], things made and provided for would not exist by creation.

Fourth, with unbridled tongue, they put forward what was said by Peter in the Acts: “Let all the house of Israel know that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” This too was written not about the divine and incomprehensible substance of God the Word, who was in the beginning, and was with God, and did not count being equal to God a thing to be grasped, but about the one from Mary, conformed to our lowliness. For the mention of the cross, and the joining of “whom you crucified” to “made,” showed that it is he of whom Scripture speaks in many places. So also when the same Peter says in the Acts: “The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied before Pilate, when he had decided to release him; but you denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life.” And Zechariah says: “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a Spirit of grace and compassion; and they will look upon me, whom they pierced, and they will mourn for him as for a firstborn.” Remembering this prophecy after the saving cross, John said: “They will look on him whom they pierced.” Of him also the angel, rejoicing with men, said: “To you is born today a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” But the one born today could never be understood to be the one who is before the ages. One must attend, then, to this marvel of the Scripture too: that angels and men celebrated the feast of one new knowledge of God, agreeing in voice and in mind with equal disposition.

We speak thus, signifying his ineffable economy by a certain way of thinking and avoiding the blasphemy that reaches to his Godhead, but not believing that the Son from the Father is one, and the one who became flesh and was crucified another; since the Godhead is never by nature divided from itself, nor changed. For the Apostle would not have thought of two when he said, “Since therefore Christ suffered for us in the flesh.” And the sacred psalmist too, at once somehow hiding this secret mystery of the economy and openly revealing it, and concealing it rather than being ignorant of it, and being ignorant of it rather than concealing it, prophesies in the hundred and eighth psalm in a manner like the word of Peter just mentioned: “And let them know that this is your hand, and you, Lord, have made it”; calling God the Word the hand of the Father, because he coexists consubstantially with the Father and all things came to be by him; and [saying “made”] because [he became] flesh unchangeably, as he knows, by the one whose hand he is. But “made” is not always understood in place of “created,” but also by relation: as when someone makes one who is already a teacher in his being the teacher of his own children, at the time when the teacher begins to teach the children; and as when someone makes a boy a soldier or an orator at the time when the boy takes up soldiering or oratory. In this sense it said of the Father and God, “He became my helper and protector for salvation”; and Isaiah: “You became a helper to every lowly city.” And the sacred psalmist in the twenty-ninth psalm: “The Lord became my helper”; and in the thirtieth: “Be to me a protecting God and a house of refuge, to save me”; and Abraham to Sarah his wife: “She became my wife”; and Paul: “Let God be true, and every man [a liar]” … “But I was established king by him on Zion, his holy mountain.” For it does not show his substance …; and he did not say simply, “I was established,” but “on Mount Zion.” For being King of all from infinity to infinity (for it says, “The Lord is king for ever and ever and beyond”; and, “Your kingdom is a kingdom of all the ages”), he seemed somehow not yet to reign over those who did not know him, but to have become king over them too in the incarnation; for this David himself asked in the ninth psalm: “Appoint, O Lord, a lawgiver over them; let the nations know that they are men”; and Micah prophesied: “And the Lord reigns from now and for ever.” And those outside too declared about this: “For God immortal is king in name, never ceasing ….”

Similar to this is also: “Receive the high priest of your confession, who is faithful to the one who made him.” For again it speaks of him who from us became conformed to us, and urges us to receive him, made high priest then for our sake, since he was in the world, and the world came to be through him, and the world did not know him, having fled from his uncreated Godhead. Consistently with this is understood also Paul’s word to the Corinthians: “From him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for you wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption; so that, as it is written, Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” For it is according to God, they say, that men are both good and wise; and the opposites of these: “For the superfluous and useless bodies …” …. For in the way that, having been set to be a light of the nations, he did not then become light in substance, but [the light] by which those who acknowledge him are enlightened (“For he was,” it says, “the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world”), so too “he was established king” and “became Lord,” though he is Lord by nature and without beginning, when the disciples, as it is written, became his servants; when the Apostle wrote, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ”; when all too [came to know] his lordship, sharing as servants in the Master’s name; as he says in Isaiah: “But to those who serve me a new name will be given, which will be blessed upon the [earth] …” … prophesies our race, of which the same says: “These are a seed blessed by God”; and, “Everlasting joy will be upon their head.” Such too is what is in the Song: “Chosen out of ten thousands,” that is, picked out: not as the only one of many sons, but since from David, or rather from the God-bearer, Christ according to the flesh was chosen out of all for the economy; and fittingly he was well pleased in him too, and it says, “Who will be likened to the Lord among the sons of God?” Or else, chosen, as Only-begotten, out of all, in the incarnation ….

Going from blasphemy to blasphemy, right after the foregoing they put forward what Paul said in speaking of God: “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God”; interpreting it syllogistically as seems good to them, that such a statement shows that he was created by the power and wisdom of God. But both the phrasing and the sense point to his incarnation. For in it, he says, he was named Christ, in likeness to those called christs before him. And if the saying must also be taken of his Godhead, it at once signifies the purity of his consubstantiality with his Father, and shows that all the paternal power and wisdom is laid up in him, as the creative Word and his true Son.

This too is a heretical affliction, to say: “If Scripture compared Christ to a vine, men to branches, and the Father to a farmer, and the vine is of the same nature as the branches and not as the farmer, then the Son,” he says, “appears to be of the same nature as us, not as God the Father.” But we, meeting their argument, say that according to the Godhead he is the fruit of the farmer’s hypostasis, while according to the flesh we are his branches; attending not least to Paul, who maintains as doctrine: “For we are the body of Christ, and members in part”; and again: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” For by such an apostolic phrase both these heretics are thrown out and those who judge that the flesh of the Master is from heaven, and not human.

Over other divine sayings too they have been at variance with the truth, and they still dispute: for instance, over the prophecy of Isaiah where the Father said, “It is a great thing for you to be called my servant”; and over what is written by Paul: “Who was designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness.” These too they cast upon his Godhead, though they were said of the servant’s form from Mary, about which the angel said to her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the holy one to be born will be called Son of God.” Further, they dispute over “The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,” assigning the whole to his Godhead. But here he says “Father” of the one who is not seen, and “God” of the one who is seen. Of him the same angel, a little before, appears at the fitting time announcing the good news with the new names mentioned, thus: “You will bear a son and call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High.” Further they dispute (for their thoughts and words are a disgrace) over this saying of the Master: “Go to my brothers and tell them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” For here too he calls him Father: his own by nature, ours by grace; and God: his own because of his new form, ours in truth; so that both what is ancient and what is new may be signified. For the Master, having condescended to his servants in all things, made his own Father, who is our God, our Father too out of goodness, though we are not sons by nature; and he called him his own God too because of his incarnation, which he proclaimed more clearly beforehand, saying, “From my mother’s womb you are my God.” For how could there be a God of his only-begotten Son, who is the true and great God? So just as he is our God in truth, and not our Father by nature, so he is truly and in substance Father of him alone, and not his God according to the generation above. And as we, having become partakers of Christ, are counted worthy to call upon the heavenly God, “Our Father who art in heaven,” so also the Beloved, having shared, as Paul says writing to the Hebrews, in blood and flesh like the children, calls the Father God. Besides, by not saying jointly, “our Father and our God,” but separately, “my Father and your Father, my God and your God,” he showed the difference between himself and us mentioned before. For he is never found to have said “our Father” of himself and men in common. But also in the Gospel according to John, concerning those who with boldness and freedom of speech confess him before men as God and only-begotten Son of God, that is, consubstantial, he promises: “And I,” he says, “will confess him before my Father,” not “before our Father.” What could be greater among good things than that we should be confessed [by him; and among evils, than to be denied, as those who have rejected] the knowledge that comes from God, as having chosen falsehood instead of truth? And “I am ascending to the Father” he said because of the economy, announcing the good news to the disciples, whom out of love he called brothers: that when the firstfruits taken from us is taken up, he who always is ascends to his truly existing Father. For indeed he says, “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, who is in heaven,” by such words signifying at once mystically and clearly that he is there by his Godhead.

And Paul wrote to the Philippians about the incomparable self-emptying of God the Word, made for us in the economy: “Let this mind be in you which was also [in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count] being equal with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” These men apply “and he bestowed on him the name which is above every name” to him who, being in the form of God and equal to God, emptied himself in taking the form of a servant and in coming to be in the lowliness of men, and disarmed the principalities and powers, not under another’s compulsion but willingly; though he is unchangeable, and though the word “therefore” signifies that it was because he had shared in flesh and blood like the children that then, and at no other time, the servile measure was highly exalted, and there was bestowed on him the name above every name, the most excellent of all; not that the Only-begotten acquired these things as gifts (he of whom the son of thunder says that he is true God and true Son of God, and Paul that before the emptying he was in the form and equality of God the Father). For very absurd consequences are brought in by this. One, that if the Son is distinguished as God in a bare name only, he will have an advantage over creation that is either small or nothing at all …, as far as the gift came into reckoning; [another,] that what is given is not established and permanent in every respect, but somehow easily lost; third, that if he is thought to have received the divine name according to his Godhead at the time when he appeared in the world, he will be found not to have had before this what he received later, but to have obtained it as a gift, or a wage, for his coming to us. But he, from infinite height, emptied himself for us into our condition; and because he is by nature Son and Word, in the form of God, equal to God, and God being in the beginning with God, neither holding the incomparable name as something brought in from outside and, as it were, spurious, nor having been honored with it later, he returned again to the height which he always was and which is supreme from the beginning, to his innate honor and glory, and to his own [session] at the right hand of his Father ….

How then did he highly exalt him and bestow on him the name above every name? I will say: because even while he bore the servant’s image, he said, “This is my beloved Son,” and willed that he be called God even then, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, as was said before. For before the Son’s appearance in the world only the things in heaven bent the knee to him and glorified him, knowing the glory of the holy Trinity, equal in Godhead; so that the seraphim cry “Holy” three times and “Lord” once, in order both to send up the hymn alike to each hypostasis and to proclaim that they have one lordship. But the things on earth and under the earth did not know him as they came to know him in the economy. From then, therefore, they too began to bend the knee to him, to glorify him, and to call him God; and in sudden crises, overtaken by the swiftness of events, not to use long prayer, nor to babble as people do, but to call out, “Christ, help!” since this name is for salvation to all. And by saying “in the likeness of men, and found in appearance,” he does not indicate that his incarnation was an apparition, as some have supposed; on the contrary, that God the Word truly bore the likeness and appearance of men. It may be understood in another way too: from his look, his dress, and his conduct each person is shown to be what he is and what he means to do. For even if he does not go about announcing it aloud, still he has nature to give the matter away, even if he says nothing. So the Savior, wishing to save us through the unchangeable incarnation, and having all that is ours apart from sin, was of necessity supposed to commit the sin that belongs to men in intention and in deeds. For the much-suffering Job cried out on behalf of all of us: “No one is sinless, not even if his life is of one hour. For what is man, that you magnified him, or that you set your mind on him, or that you visit him till morning and judge him for rest?” But he, that is, the Master, “committed no sin,” as was said before, “nor was deceit found in his mouth.” And the words “but no one, even if his life on earth is one day” … [agree with] “in the likeness and appearance of men.”

And John’s “I live because of the Father” gives them a hold nowhere. For it was said either because of the manner of the economy mentioned before, or because he has appeared as life from the paternal life, as also light from light and God from God. Accordingly we have also heard him say this in the same John: “I am the life and the light”; and again: “The Son gives life to whom he will.” If then the Father too is life and light, … for life and light are one; and “There was when he was not” does not come near to being plausible in the case of the creative life itself and of the unfailing light. And in another way: one who lives because of another could never himself be eternal life; just as one who is holy by God’s imparting is not holy in himself; but he, by his own authority, sanctifies others too, through himself and through others.

And “I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me” shows this: not that [the will] of the humanity …, but that of the Godhead. For the beloved Son has no will separated from the will of God the Father; for the Trinity has one and the same will. By this marvelous obedience of his on our behalf, then, he undid our ancient disobedience; and just as, having come down into our likeness, as he knew and willed, he suffered, so, having made us conformed to himself, he transferred us to impassibility. Hence he said, “I have come down”: of his own choice, he means, not as a subordinate; as he says likewise in another place, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” that is, not “was sent.”

And the Psalmist’s words, “Therefore God, your God, anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your fellows,” and what stands in John’s Gospel, “Whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world,” are said in the same way. For the Holy One, who rests among the holy, “the one Holy, one Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Amen,” was anointed and sanctified at no other time than when, not laying aside what he was, he became without confusion also what he was not; so as to make us partakers of himself and sanctify us, as he said: “For their sake I sanctify myself, that they also may be …”

In keeping with this is understood also what is said in the psalm, “You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your holy one see corruption,” and what is written in many places, that God raised Christ Jesus from the dead. For he did not receive the resurrection as a favor; rather he himself has given us the favor of rising again in the likeness of this resurrection of his. Indeed, teaching his equality of honor and of power with the Father in this head too, he said in Matthew and Luke, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”; and, “I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it up again.” …

And the answer to the lawyer, who, testing the Lord as a man, said, “Good teacher,” and heard, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone,” is something like this. “No one is good” refers to the race of men; “except God alone” refers to the consubstantiality of the divine hypostases. For if you know me, he says, to be good, confess me as God, equal and like, being of the Father as in goodness, so also in substance. For humanity possesses goodness by participation, but the Godhead is the summit of goodness, and life, and light, and truth, and peace, and love. And he adds: “I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who follows me may not remain in darkness.” And persuading the lawyer that this was so, he said: “Sell all that you have, and come, follow me”; which he did not do, being overcome by his own judgment, which did not have the good innate in it. His goodness has already been attested in the first book. But what could be greater as proof than that he showed his own natural goodness by deeds rather than words, according to the one who says, “Jesus began both to do and to teach”? To “do”: in emptying himself and taking the form of a servant on behalf of servants, in healing every disease and every infirmity, driving out demons, making the sea walkable for men, filling the hungry crowds in the desert, washing the feet of servants, and, for the sake of the creature of his own hands, suffering at the hands of his creature, and supplying a hundredfold good things to those who do well, and adding eternal life. To “teach”: “Sell what you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me”; and, “What you hate, do not do to another”; and, “Do not repay evil for evil”; and, “Whoever does it to one of the least of these has done it to me”; and, “Give to everyone who asks you”; and, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself”; and, “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” And how, heretic, is he not good equally with his own Father, he who pardons you for saying these things?

Having resolved to fight for their heresy by every means, they also take in a way they should not Paul’s word to Timothy that says, “To the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever. Amen”; and, “Who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light”; and the word that stands in the Gospel, “That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”; and the prophecy that declares, “I alone stretched out the heaven”; saying that the words “alone” and “true God” do not admit a second or third hypostasis, but refer to the Father alone. But the word “alone” and “one,” whenever it is said of the Trinity in Scripture, is used because the Trinity exists in a unity of Godhead and is said to have “monarchy.” Therefore this same “alone” mentions either that one hypostasis, or two together, or the three undefiled hypostases, or is used without distinction. Moreover, it was said in this way by contrast with the falsely named so-called gods, just as it always drives out the demonic rule of many, [to those] who heard, “You are gods”; so that we may no longer be enslaved under the weak, multiform, changeable, and diversely minded elements, scattering our thoughts upon this fornication, according to the one who says, “The first fornication is the devising of idols.” Besides this, the word “alone” and “one” does not fit a creature properly and absolutely, because it is something common to all or to many at once, since all have many of the same substance and the same species, as was said in the fourteenth chapter of the first book. And the words “who alone has immortality” and “to the invisible, only wise God” were written because no creature has immortality, invisibility, and wisdom from itself and in every way, but … being these things together with the Father and the Spirit, [gives] the existence of immortality and invisibility; as Paul writes to the Corinthians the first time: “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” For this reason too these words do not properly suit a thing made. For what does not have immortality from within itself is mortal in potency, and could even be extinguished, if perhaps its maker should will it, as he said in the Gospel: “Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” … for ease of learning, to work out each saying separately. Now he wrote “To the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, only wise God” after narrating many things of the world earlier in the Letter, and he added this over against the whole narrative, as will be clear to everyone who attends to the sense of the Letter. And “who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light” he wrote with reference to creation, as has been said. For eternal life and incorruption are immortality; and the words “truth” and “wisdom” are equivalent to the terms “true” and “wise”; and these belong absolutely to God alone; but the Son and the Holy Spirit are attested to be these things. And if, just as the Father creates, sanctifies, and justifies, so the Only-begotten and the Spirit of God do too, then “alone,” “true,” “wise,” “invisible God,” and “who alone has immortality” will apply properly to the Son and to the Spirit of God, as to the Father; just as the Scripture that speaks of the Only-begotten will suit [the Father] too: “This is our God; no other will be reckoned beside him.” For in all respects, if I may put it so, in which the Father differs from creation, the Son and the Spirit of God likewise differ. For how then does the Father alone have the things mentioned, if what is written about the Son and the Holy Spirit is true, and, “As the Father has life, so he has given to the [Son …]” … will show? And “That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” includes the Son as well, and shows him equal to the Father, with whom his Spirit too is understood. The sending shows the economy. And the word “I alone stretched out the heaven” is not the Father’s. Otherwise how is it true that all things came to be through the Son? Or let them know that something similar was said prophetically of the Son in Job: “Who alone stretched out the heaven, and walks on the sea as on dry ground.” For he, as is plain to all, always worked wonders, but not least in the incarnation, and walked on the water as on a plain.

The Son and the Holy Spirit are attested in this way in the other things mentioned too. Concerning the only true God: as when John in so many words declares of the Son that he is true God, and only-begotten God; Jude calls him the only Master; and the prophet says, “You are the God who does wonders; you alone are the great God”; and elsewhere: “One Holy, one Lord Jesus Christ.” And concerning the Holy Spirit: as when Paul, full of understanding, testifies that it is the Spirit of God the Father, as our spirit is ours. And again he writes: “All these are worked by one and the same Spirit, distributing to each individually as it wills.” Concerning wisdom: as when [Paul says] of the [Son], “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,” and, “In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” And David sings, “How great are your works, O Lord! You made all things in wisdom.” And as Isaiah prophesies, “And he, being wise, brought evils upon them.” And concerning the Holy Spirit: as when Isaiah [speaks of] “the Spirit of God, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness.” Concerning incorruption and immortality something has been said already, but it is not out of place to set out other texts too: as when David sings of the soul-giving Only-begotten, whose eye and hearing, justice and love for humankind preside everywhere: “You are the same, and your years will not fail”; and, “For ever, O Lord, your word abides in heaven.” And concerning the Holy Spirit, who nourishes all things and shines on them with divine rays, even upon those who fall away …: “[your incorruptible Spirit] is in all things.”

To those who say, “Are not souls and angels, then, immortal and invisible?” one must answer thus. As to immortality, first in one way: their immortality in no way shares in the primordial and infinite immortality, but is inferior to it and distinguished from it as much as the thing made from its Maker. For this reason God was said to have immortality alone, as is easy to see if we bear in mind that none of these can either create or bestow immortality, as the only invisible and eternal Only-begotten and the Holy Spirit create and make [beings] immortal. In another way: souls and angels are both immortal, by the indestructibility and incorruptibility of their substance, and mortal, by being at times corrupted in will. For through change they sometimes fall into sin, from which death comes; in this sense Paul writes, “And the self-indulgent widow is dead,” though she has not yet departed this life, as was already explained in the book on the Holy Spirit. For mortal is opposed to immortal, and correspondingly immortal to mortal; and in the case of souls and angels “immortal” is understood when, besides not admitting death, that is, not being dissolved (since they are incomposite and indestructible in existence), they also do not fall into corruption of will, that is, if they remain unchanging; and “mortal” in the opposite case. In general such people seem not to know about statements that convert, and that not everything predicated of certain things under the same name converts. For God is in every way immortal; but what is immortal is not thereby God. As to invisibility: souls and angels are invisible to the eye of our body, being outside the visible properties (I mean color, shape, size), but visible to the mind, which is the eye of the soul; since they are not unattainable, being created in their existence, but we have a conception of them. So even if they are invisible to the impression of the eye’s sense, yet they are visible to the grasp of scientific contemplation. But God, who is above the invisible and the most hidden and above every mind, is by nature such as not only not to fall under sight, or sense at all, but not even to be discerned by the mind of the angels themselves, because he is incomprehensible and unapproachable. For that God is, is known to all; but what he is, or how he exists, to contemplate … of all natural things, in the manner mentioned: “the only immortal and wise God, and invisible.”

And indeed the blameless and unimpeachable words of the Lord of all in John, which say, “As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man”; and again, “They were yours, and you gave them to me”; and again, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father”; and again …; and David’s words, “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, and the ends of the earth as your possession”; and all such things, show the unspeakable economy. And what makes this still more unassailable, and compels everyone, at least those not wholly lifeless, to agree with us, is the addition that follows at once: “because he is the Son of Man.” For he was kindly disposed toward our race, and of his own will became poor in the flesh, as Paul writes, so that we, who are subject to all kinds of harm and change through both the ancient sin and the recent ones, might become rich by his poverty; and adapting himself suitably to all, he used the language familiar to us, so that we might understand the economy, [and not be overwhelmed] by the grandeur of …, … the wonders alone displaying his beginningless and self-sufficient Godhead; so that, speaking modestly, he even says: “The foxes of the field have holes, and the birds of heaven have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” For it was not fitting that the Master should possess anything on earth as his own. And in another way [it befitted] God, for whom display and contention with men were never …, … useful, and in no way harming his most serene and all-embracing nature, but benefiting us. For he always looks not to his own height, but to the lowliness of men. I will take him as my helper when he says to Peter: “But so that we may not give offense to them, go to the sea, cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth you will find a stater; take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.” But it is not right for a man to let fall words that befit God; for a king it is especially fitting to speak modestly (for he reaps greater glory from it, and the summit of honor is referred to him), but for a subject to utter royal words is unprofitable. … his words; and if he were a creature, again the lofty things he uttered would have no place. For how could life receive life, or how could he receive authority who according to Isaiah is God, mighty, holder of authority, who by his own authority gives life and being even to those who can die, who entrusted to Peter the keys of heavenly life? For the Apostle too cries out that “he did not count being equal to God a thing to be grasped,” in place of: he did not snatch, did not receive, being equal to God the Father. But if it had indeed been said of the Son’s Godhead, they ought to understand it thus: that in the same way as God’s “having life” does not show that he possesses something other than himself, as though he did not have it without beginning, but that he himself is what he is said to have, in the same way the Son’s having received life does not signify that he does not have it by nature. For the words “as he has” and “so he has given” show this: that the Son has life just as the Father has it without receiving it; and one must take, in a manner worthy of God, both “having life” and “in himself” of the Father, and “has given him” and “to have in himself” of the Son, … and rather to behold, from the necessity of the matter, the divine authority of the Son and the one will in both. For the life which he says the Father and the Son have in themselves is the one, super-substantial substance, and not one thing found in another; hence he said, “I am the life”; so that from this too it appears that the substance of the Son is not other than the substance of the Father. For if he is the life, and the Father has the same life, what else is found but that he is consubstantial? And if he is the life, how could he receive what he is? “But if he had it,” he says, “how did he receive it?” These too are trifles. For like receives from like, not to say that sometimes even a greater receives from a lesser, and the right hand from the left; and we know that some who were allotted judgment equally have at times yielded to one of them, even one placed above them; and it is customary to say, “They gave this man alone the matter to judge,” though he had the authority, and probably more of it. Accordingly he did not say, “What he does not have, he received”; rather the same evangelist also says, “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him; but to all who received him he gave power to become children of God.” By such words he showed not only that creation is the Son’s own, but also that the Son gives to the Father those who receive him, that is, those who believe, benefiting them everywhere, both as they receive him and as they are presented to the Father himself; for though they are of the world, he makes them by his own one [grace] citizens of heaven. And how do we too offer to God again what is God’s? Or how do we send up glory to him? Do we then give him what he does not have, or what he is not? It is enough, then, to answer them that he received in the way that he became poor willingly and became a curse. For what would they say if they were asked in turn: … and the true light and immortality, how did he become poor? Or how did the blessing become a curse for our sake?

So too might be understood what was said to the apostles in John: “If you loved me, you would have rejoiced that [I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I]” … according to the Godhead, he who said, “I am in the Father and the Father in me,” and, “The Father who dwells in me does the works,” and, “He who sent me is with me”? He of whom it is attested that “he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” and that “he was in the world, and the world came to be through him”? For one who sends, sends to a place where the sender and the one sent are not. But God is present everywhere and holds all things together, having grasped creation, neither going away nor coming back again, nor exchanging one place for another. For the sacred psalmist says: “The Lord is near to those who fear him”; and again: “If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to Hades, [you are there; if I take my wings at dawn and] dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, and your right hand will hold me.” And Jeremiah: “I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord.” And the Acts: “Indeed he is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being; as even some of your own poets have said” … “The Lord is near to all who call upon him” … “For we are also his offspring”; “and he, kindly to men …” And the Master himself explains that he never stripped the heavens of his presence, just as he does not now, after the ascension, leave the earth: “For behold,” he says, “I am with you always, to the end of the age”; confirming what was said by the sacred herald in the tenth psalm, by which he proclaimed that he is on earth and also sits in heaven on the divine throne; for he says: “The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord, his throne is in heaven.” If this is so, then beyond dispute he said “I am going” and “he who sent me” as having taken the form of a servant, and because the Jews disbelieved the economy, and because he appeared in concord with God the Father; and not for this reason only, but also [to refute] those dull of mind who think of [him] as at once Father and Paraclete; and with them Mani too, who does not accept the Old Testament, but calls the Father inhuman, as having cast Adam out of paradise, and the Son alone loving to humankind, as having come of himself and saved. For how shall we owe thanks to Christ alone, since the Father too sent him? Scripture is accustomed to use the words “he who sent” and “he was sent” of the ineffable condescension; and as it was impossible for mortal speech to comprehend the uncontainable, so also it tells the story with an economy of words, so that no one might suspect that one God was opposed to another; since indeed “All things are full of God,” as has been said. To this the ever-living voice bears witness, saying, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the crowd standing around, that they may believe that you sent me”; that is: I knew that you always [hear me; but on account of the] crowd standing around, that they may believe, I said, “Father, I thank you,” that you sent me. He uttered the words in inverted order, acting cautiously, because … as also, concerning the Forerunner, who proclaimed the economy, [the evangelist] said: “There was a man sent from God”; and yet he was not sent from heaven. …

It is written that God is sent even by a man, and is named a man, while suffering no harm at all to his divine and true glory; as Moses says in Genesis: “And he crossed the brook and brought across all that he had. And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until morning. And he saw that he could not [prevail against] Jacob in the wrestling, and he said to him, Send me away, for the dawn has come up. But he said, I will not send you away unless you bless me. And he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said to him, Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name, because you have prevailed with God, and you will be strong with men. And Jacob asked and said, Tell me your name. And he said, Why do you ask my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of that place Form of God; for I saw God face to face, and my soul was saved.” And that the one who wrestled and did not tell his name is God, the pro[phecy … shows: “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac,] and Jacob, your fathers, being their God, and my name I did not make known to them.”

And how is [the Father] greater according to the Godhead than him who made himself equal to the Father, who says, “I and the Father are one,” who is attested to be true God and Son and Only-begotten, “in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead,” and “great God, beside whom no other will be reckoned,” and as sitting together at the right hand? But confessedly “greater” too extends to the incarnation, because of which he who is wholly without share in change is written by the Apostle to have been made lower even than the angels, if it is right to say so, thus: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, because of the suffering of death …” … [not in the glory of the] heavens, but in the form of a servant on earth, when he came forth unchangeably from the Virgin, he said, “The Father who sent me is greater than I”; as if he said: the Godhead, unseen by you and by every mind, is greater than my visible condescension. For he who condescended in deed, serving and not being served, bearing the form of a servant, he who was in the form of God, how would he not condescend in words too, he who is above every word? So much so that in John he reproaches those who take the words of the economy in a mean sense, saying, “I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.” And the Father too honors the Son, saying, “Sit at my right hand,” and indeed drawing the worthy to him. And this very thing, calling God Father with confidence, shows that “greater” refers to the incarnation. It is easier, too, to establish from an example that “greater” was not said according to the Godhead. For the Lord says: “Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen one greater than John the Baptist.” But he did not say that John was greater as being of another, greater nature, or above men in that respect; for all who laid claim to virtue either equalled him or fell somewhat short; nor as being stronger in power, or as having been born longer ago; for he remained in the life of this world thirty years, and there were those who surpassed him in bodily strength and in number of years. He did not call him better than men in this respect, but in prophecy, which he received in a most inspired way. And again: “But he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” He spoke of John the apostle, who was younger in years than John the Forerunner, but greater in the dignity of apostleship. “For God appointed in the Church,” as Paul writes, “first apostles, then prophets.” And he said “least in the kingdom of heaven” because the names of all the living are written in a book, and fittingly his name, as of one born later, is placed after. But some have understood this passage of the Master: least according to the form of a servant, in which he was suspected to be inferior to prophets and priests, but greater according to the Godhead. So in these respects too “greater” and “he who sent” bring no diminution to his consubstantiality with the Father. And, as was said a little earlier, one who uses refinement of words, and who always assigns first place to himself and demands honor, seems somehow to have conceit; and conceit is a kind of pride. And God has dishonored nothing more than pride; for God does not care more for the greater, but perhaps rather for the lesser. For he has the “greater” once for all as innate, even if he himself does not say it; and none of the right-minded disputes about this. For this reason he says, “If I bear witness to myself, my witness is [not true]” …. But so that this too might not be thought to come from his smallness, he says elsewhere, “Even if I bear witness [about myself, my witness is true]” … of “greater,” that it was said neither according to substance, nor power, nor the glory above. And those esteemed among the Greeks say: “God immortal, most high, dwelling in the aether …”

They did not understand, in the way that is right for the highest and incomprehensible hypostases, the words, “The Father has given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak”; and concerning the Holy Spirit, “He will not speak on his own, but will take what is mine and declare it to you”; and elsewhere, “I have not spoken on my own”; and again, “As the Father commanded me, so I do”; and again, “The word that you hear is not mine, but his who sent me”; and the like. For the Master used such words, as being the Word of the Father, wishing to show us the union of nature and the ineffable concord of the holy Trinity, and that its teachings are common, not divided. For every creature, if it is rational, has a will … [unless it] speaks the will of God. Therefore it sometimes speaks and does its own things, and sometimes those of God; and in some things it agrees with a man like itself, while in others it wills differently. But God the Word, being holder of authority and wisdom, and moreover the Holy Spirit of God, which proceeds from him and, according to the Apostle, searches his depths and alone knows the things of God, bestowing the divine gifts by authority, does not wait to hear and then to speak or act, as creatures do. For creatures are apt not only to be ignorant of God’s will, but sometimes even not to do it: as when Abraham, hesitating, says, “Lord, what if I speak?” and Moses, declining, “I am weak in voice and slow of tongue”; and, “I beg you …” [and the] Lord [was angry] …. And David too, doing his own will and numbering the people, is rebuked. And Jeremiah, having said, contrary to the purpose of the forbearing God who bears no grudge, “I am too young and cannot prophesy,” hears, “Do not say, I am too young.” And Jonah, doing his own will and not God’s, boards a ship and flees to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord who is everywhere. And Paul says of the apostles to the Galatians: “But when I saw that they were not walking straight according to the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas before them all” these things.

So that the unbelieving may be fully convinced, if indeed they ever will be, the argument must be lengthened. Before the coming of the Son of God into the world, false christs and false prophets appeared, such as Judas the Galilean, as the Acts of the Apostles has it, leading people astray and not teaching the things of God and of his law; about whom Ezekiel too prophesies: “As I live, he says to the prophets who lead my people astray, I did not send them; they spoke of themselves.” When the true Christ came, then, he was suspected of being a deceiver. For the Gospel has it that at the feast of Tabernacles the crowds were seeking Jesus, saying, “Where is he?” “And there was division about him; some said, He is good; others said, No, he leads the crowd astray.” And again the chief priests say to Pilate: “Sir, we know that that deceiver said while he was still alive, After three days I will rise.” So the Savior said of those men: “All who came before me were thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not hear them. My sheep hear my voice, and they know my voice and follow me”; and of himself: “I do not speak on my own,” as those [spoke on their own] …, clearly. And foreknowing what was to come, as God, and that after his ascent into heaven and the coming of the Holy Spirit there would again be deceivers, like Simon, like Montanus, like Mani, he secured the matter beforehand, saying, “When the Paraclete comes, the [Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father], he will remind you of my words and guide you into all the truth; he will not speak on his own”; in place of: Do not disbelieve the Holy Spirit, who says and teaches the same things as I; for it is not of another will nor of another substance. But those who say they have the Holy Spirit and do not speak my words and those of the prophets, do not believe them; nor indeed bear with Mani, who does not accept the Old Testament but condemns as inhuman the good Father, who speaks with me and does the works of love for humankind. Besides this, the Son, being the subsistent Word of God, and being in the Father and having the Father in himself, fittingly does not speak on his own; but, as was written before, … in the will of the Father; and the Holy Spirit likewise, since it is the divine Spirit. It may be understood in another way too: when the Word of the Father says, “The Spirit will not speak on his own, but will take what is mine,” the bond of the substance and of the one will of the Trinity is seen. And by his not saying, “He does not speak on his own,” but, “he will not speak,” it is shown that “he will not speak” was said with reference to a particular time and matter. Indeed, when Moses declined, as was said before, God says to him: “Choose seventy elders, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put it upon them”; and yet he did not take from the Spirit that was in Moses as one in need. Again, then, at other times Scripture attests [the Son] and the Spirit of God as holding authority, thus. Concerning the Son: as when David says, “Our God in heaven and on earth has done all that he willed”; and Isaiah, “Mighty, holder of authority”; and as when he worked divine power by his own authority and performed wonders, as was said before. Concerning the Holy Spirit: as when the Lord teaches, “The Spirit blows where it wills”; and Paul, “All these are worked by one and the same Spirit, distributing to each individually as it wills.”

They imagine that the Only-begotten lays aside the kingdom and is not an eternal king, that he is subjected to God as a kind of rival god (may he be gracious to us!), and that the Father alone is “all in all,” from what Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “When he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he has abolished every rule and authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be abolished is death. For he has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when it says, All things have been put in subjection, it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection to him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to him who put all things in subjection to him, that God may be all in all.” Here too we must direct the mind precisely to the form of the servant, if one reckons that, were he subjected in his divinity, he would have been subjected from the beginning. And moreover from the prophecy of Daniel, which reads, word for word, more or less thus: “I saw in the vision of the night, and behold, with the clouds of heaven one like a Son of Man coming, and he came as far as the Ancient of Days; and he was brought to him, and to him was given the rule and the honor and the kingdom; and all peoples, tribes, tongues will serve him; his authority is an eternal authority, which will not pass away; and his kingdom will not be destroyed.” For he calls the Father the Ancient of Days; “there was given the rule and the honor and the kingdom” shows the one conformed to our lowliness. If then they do not grant that what has been set out was said by the Apostle and by the prophet for this reason, it remains for them to strike out one or the other. For from the apostolic saying, according to them, the Son reigns now but lays it aside after the resurrection; but from the prophecy, the King of kings and Lord of lords does not yet reign now, but begins then; and after this the opposite would appear with respect to God the Father.

Besides this it is found that he was subject to the Virgin his Mother and to Joseph for the economy: willingly, clearly, and not by necessity, nor laying aside anything of his royal dignity, but rather showing by his condescension the surpassing greatness of the Godhead and the gentleness of the creative power, and arranging that we should obey our fathers. To them he said, “Why were you seeking me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” And he went down, it says, “to Nazareth, and was subject to them.” But to the Father and God, according to them, he has not yet been subjected; and Paul lied when he wrote to the Philippians, “Becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” So just as, though equal to God and existing in the form of God, he became sin and a curse, not for his own sake but for ours, so, not for his own sake but for ours, he is written to be going to hand over the kingdom and to be subjected; since out of love for humankind he became, without confusion, what we are, apart from sin, remaining one and the same. For how can the maker of all and ruler of all (and in all things, now and in what follows, the Almighty) not rule and reign in the ages to come with the Father and the Spirit, as now and always? That his kingdom is endless (for the kingdom of the Trinity is one and undivided) was attested more fully in the first book, where Gabriel is seen to have said well, “He will reign over the house of Israel for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end”; and David: “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom; you have loved righteousness …” … “your ….”

As for its being written, “That God may be all in all”: above all it has “God” without distinction; yet the same Apostle writes similar things about the Son: to the Romans, “From them is the Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all”; and to the Colossians, discussing the age to come, he says, “Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all in all”; and again, writing about the Church, he says, “Which is his body, the fullness of Christ who fills all in all”; and elsewhere, “Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever”; and again, “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess, One Lord Jesus Christ.” For if there is no error in “In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead,” and in “In him [God was] reconciling the world,” and in “In him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to himself,” and not to another, then these fighters for heresy have made plain [their hostility] to his Godhead, granting him not only no fellowship as a Son with a Father, but not even equal joint ownership as a friend with a friend. For Jehoshaphat king of Judah, showing the fellowship of friendship toward Ahab king of Israel, said: “As you are, so am I; and as your people, so my people; and as your horses, so my horses”; and to one not begotten from him he offered equal honor in his own kingdom. Likewise, it says, according to the Scripture, the disciples had all things in common and undivided because of Christ.

The heretics’ words, then, are more shameless than those of the devil. For that God-hater, not yet having learned the economy, which was made known to the angels at the same time as to us (I say “not yet” rather boldly, since it was even through us, trusting Paul, who says plainly, “So that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities”), and therefore daring to tempt him, left the matter to the authority of the Savior, saying, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down.” But these men, undoing as far as lies with them the dignity of the divine and ineffable generation, in a way pry loose the eternal throne, and, separating [him from the Father], say: “We disbelieve you when you say, I and the Father are one, and, All that the Father has is mine. And we disbelieve no less God the Father when he says, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Come down from the royal throne.” For this reason in Luke, in a parable, terrible things are declared about them. For he says to the attendants …

Wishing, I suppose, to attach to God the Word, and not to the economy, the things said in terms of human feeling, they say that he became soulless flesh; and as though the unchangeable and pure great God had repented in agony, or had come to this [incarnation] by necessity, and not willingly and gladly, or even as though he could not, had he wished, have averted from the start what concerned the cross, so, despising the Godhead that cannot be despised, they reproach him with what is reported in Matthew: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass”; and, “Save me from this hour”; and what was said on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”; and, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death”; and his weeping over Lazarus; and his resting as though wearied from the journey; and his praying; and his desire for food, and his thirst; and his sleep in the boat (alas for their bad faith!); and, “An angel of the Lord appeared, strengthening him”; and the like. Against these again stands and rises up the testimony that according to the Godhead he is equal to God; and that he emptied himself; and this, that he said with confidence, “Father”; and that he himself ensouls all things that have souls; and that he never said, as a subordinate, “In the name of God, or of my Father, let it be done,” for any of the wonders he performed, as his disciples said to the [lame man …], “In the name of Jesus Christ, rise up,” and in this almighty and glorious name did what all creation together could not do; but by his own authority he worked mighty works, forgave sins, saying royally, “Your sins are forgiven you,” snatched from Hades, [drove out] demons, [saying to one,] “Be silent, be muzzled”; rebuked the winds, and they ceased; giving Peter the keys of heaven, he said, “Whatever you loose on earth will be [loosed in heaven, and whatever you bind on] earth will be bound in heaven”; to another he commanded, “Young man, arise”; to the leper he said, “I will; be clean”; to another, “Take heart, child; your sins are forgiven you”; to another, “Rise, take up your bed and walk”; to the demon, “You mute and deaf spirit,” he says, “I command you, come out.” And not only do these things stand against them, but the scoffers’ sense of “Why have you forsaken me?” was refuted beforehand: on the one hand by the Lord himself in the same John, “[The hour is coming,] and now has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave me alone; yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me”; on the other by Paul, writing to the Hebrews that the Holy Spirit too was inseparable from him: “For if,” he says, “the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on the defiled, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Jesus, who through the Holy Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your hearts from an evil conscience?” And he offered himself to God through the Holy Spirit when he went up to the cross willingly. So one must not understand it barely, as the wording seems to show; but that here too, having condescended in all things, become poor in the form of the servant, having unchangeably reshaped himself in his speech to what is common, and keeping the whole consistency of the incarnation, and obscuring nothing of the stamp of the truth, he uttered, humbly, as the true Wisdom, what befits men, so that we too, being made like him and becoming fully conformed to him, according to the Apostle, might do what is fitting and pleasing to him, and might go from earthly things to heavenly.

What has been said about this among those outside, there is nothing like hearing from them themselves. For in this way we shall not only love still more the grand utterance of the saints among us, but also admire more and more the one Wisdom that supplies all. It runs thus: “Often they utter what mortals have strength to hear; but there are thoughts within greater than words, which one ought to look at keenly with pure eyes, traveling on another, more divine path than words.” For how could we have been fully assured that he carried our infirmities, as it is written, up to the precious cross, so as through it to provide a better state for men, unless he had first, in the way he knows, taken them upon himself and shown them? And how would it have become clear that he truly became ensouled flesh, and not in appearance — since the Manichaeans supposed that he had a body only in seeming, and the Arians that he became soulless — unless he had said, “My soul is very sorrowful,” and shown fear? For such things suit neither the Godhead nor soulless flesh. In the body only the passions destructive of the body itself are observed, not those that come upon us through a lack of useful thoughts; but anxieties over the passions are perceived in the soul. Therefore those outside too give this charge concerning …: “Flee quickly from earthly passions, flee far away, having the soul’s best eye and unswerving rays, from a pure soul and from the father’s aether …” … [he who prayed that we be delivered] from the present evil age; he who rebuked Peter when he was displeased, when he foretold that he must be crucified, and die, and rise on the third day; he who went up to the cross of his own will, and rejoiced like a giant to run his course; he who by his life-giving death put death to death and redeems all from death; whose … he raised up together with himself, and gave to the whole human nature the hope of resurrection; he who made death for him something no one fears, showed his passion to be something longed for, and caused people not to flee a noble end out of fear, but to restrain [fear] by the will of God, so that those who cling to him faithfully receive sufferings and death for his sake without grief or alarm, crying with Paul, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” For it is natural that a mortal should [fear] death on your account, even if he trusts in the virtue of his life; but that the immortal God should cast away immortality and take up fear is impossible. Rather, he tasted death in the flesh, as he knew and willed, and remained immortal, supplying life to all even then. Otherwise a partial powerlessness is ascribed to the Father because of “if it is possible”; and a fear that does not exist is charged against the Son because of “let it pass”; and his loving and self-chosen ascent to the cross appears unwilling, and his mighty and weighty descent into Hades without impulse; and John is found false when he says, “He is life,” and, “He gives life to whom he will”; and Paul when he proclaims, “He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” and, “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross,” that is, enduring even to the cross (for he did not say simply “unto death”); and the Lord when he said, “I am the light; I am the life and the resurrection,” and, “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” And for what, then, would we give thanks, as to a guardian who has the first and only authority, to one who suffered for us unwillingly and under some compulsion, like those governed by another? Or why do we celebrate the thrice-desired and most provident Pascha every year — indeed every day, or rather every hour — by faith, with fear, partaking of his body and blood? Those who have been counted worthy of the highest and everlasting mystery know what I mean; for reverence and thanksgiving are owed to one who has provided some good of his own by his own will and without repenting of it.

Someone might say that it was out of pity for those of whom he said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” that he also said, “Let this cup pass”: from them, he means, so that they might not commit so great an impiety against me, to their own harm. It is not outside the truth to understand “Let this cup pass” in this way either. Since he saw that the devil shuddered and fled when the Savior showed himself God through his wonders, but approached when he spoke things proper to humanity, he who “catches the wise in their craftiness” showed the fear of death as present in him, so that, just as the devil had already dared to tempt him and had gone back without hope, dishonored and ridiculed, so here too, thinking him again a mere man, and not God, appearing in the flesh as he knows, he might come forward in haste and bring him to be crucified, and himself, the one who schemes to wound the invincible God, might be wounded unawares and withdraw in retreat; while we, having come to life by the cross of Christ and having been redeemed by his most provident death, cry out with Paul writing to the Corinthians: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O Hades, is your sting?” In the same way the Lord’s words were not of agony, since about God the Father too (“at whom,” as a holy man said, “all things shudder and tremble before the face of his power”) Isaiah, by some secret contemplation, speaks thus: “Hear then, O house of David: is it a small thing for you to give men trouble? And how do you give trouble to the Lord? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the Virgin will conceive in the womb and bear a Son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, which means, God with us.”

But let our discourse return to where it set out. The highest impassibility, life, joy, and peace, the endurance of all things, he who gives bright days to all, does not weep for any other reason than to show, through what is seen, the compassion of his invisible Godhead. For everywhere, by words or by deeds, he mingles these dispositions, so that we, as from tracks, may set out on the hunt for an inspired understanding, and find that the whole of the economy is the work of divine tenderness. [He wept] also to reprove the mind of Lazarus’ sisters, as having nothing faithful or firm. For when he asked, “Where have you laid him?” they should have said, “You know all things, since you are the Son of God, as you foretold at a great distance from what was visible, Lazarus our friend has fallen asleep; and if you command, he will return from Hades, anticipating the common resurrection by his own; for all things are surely easy for you when you will it.” Though they should have said this, they said the opposite: “He has been dead four days; he already stinks.” We might also say to this that he wept as a king submitting to his own decrees, which say, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep,” and for this reason putting an end to our ancient lament. Nor is he weary according to the Godhead, but according to the consistency of the incarnation, he who heals the brokenhearted and gives rest to those who labor and are heavy laden, whose going forth is from the end of heaven and his circuit to the end of it; for in one who has no diminution or limit there is no weariness. For even if he is once seen seated on a colt, still he was praised as God by innocent children crying out, “Hosanna in the highest,” which is interpreted, “Save, you who are in the highest”; and by David in the forty-ninth psalm: “From the rising of the sun to its setting, out of Zion the splendor of his beauty; God will come openly.” Nor does the bread of life desire food against his will, he to whom all things look, according to the psalmist: “The eyes of all hope in you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand and fill every living thing with good pleasure”; and again, “All look to you …” … having fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish, besides women and children, and having caused twelve baskets of fragments to be left over; he who said to the devil, “Man shall not live by bread alone”; he who set before us all a self-sufficient and unfailing table, his own goodness, saying, “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst”; he who came to the fig tree as if hungry, but commanded as God that the plant should produce fruit no more, and set the deed upon the word, and showed that he himself was the one who said in the beginning, “Let the earth bring forth fruit-bearing trees.” Nor does the immortal spring thirst, except because of the economy, the spring that [gave] the Samaritan woman water of life …: [let them] remember the gospel saying: “Jesus, knowing that all was now [finished], so that the Scripture might be fulfilled, says, I thirst”; so that it is shown that the word came out not from the compulsion of thirst, but so that nothing said in the Scriptures should be left out. Nor was he overcome by sleep against his will; for he was not mastered by that affection, he who is Lord of all things and of sleep, who neither sleeps nor slumbers but guards Christians, and who remains impassible in his Godhead even in his sufferings; so that the psalmist cries out to him, “Awake, as one who sleeps, O Lord.” And the “as” does not show sleep in the full sense; for rising at once he rebuked [the winds] as God, and the winds were stilled, and the sea grew so calm … [that it could be rowed] with oars, and gave occasion for a hymn with a sailors’ song, all crying out with pleasure, “Christ, save!” For when the true life is thought of as sleeping, then all things would be thought of as dead, as not being given life. For suppose that, while it slept, death were awake, and it were granted to no one to pluck the breezes of life.

Nor, then, does he who is rich in mercy become poor, being without need from above …; [for Paul says] that in him all things hold together, and that every knee bows to him, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth; and that in the economy itself angels came and ministered to him, as to one always in the Father and with God. What then does “An angel of the Lord appeared, strengthening him” mean? In place of: glorifying him. For Moses too set this down, singing such a song in the desert: “Let all the angels of God worship him, and let all the sons of God strengthen him,” that is, praise him. And another Scripture confirms this, introducing angels who say, “Yours is the glory, yours the might, yours the power, yours the strength.” And those [outside] too spoke well: “All things lie under the nods of the mind of great God, the beginning and spring of life, and pre-eminent … and might and force, and the imperishable vigor of strength, and mighty power, and all-encircling necessity.” Nor, then, does the great and true God, the radiance of the Father’s glory, the living Word of God and guardian of all, pray as being inferior in Godhead; for he does not change hardships by prayer, as we do, he who by willing alone and by his presence alone procures good hope for all and anticipates our supplications by his giving of good things (for “to him,” it says, “they will pray”); but he prays because he has become what we are, without confusion and without fault, and has been eager to show this through more conspicuous acts. For he who spoke such words, and was nailed in the flesh to the cross in hands and feet, raised to the height those for whose sake such things were done, and dashed the demons down to Hades. And this is what Paul writes: “Having disarmed the principalities and the powers, he made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him.” The refutation comes from the very things they accuse. For the same [Apostle], made wise by the Spirit of Wisdom, writes, in a way sharp to the utmost, … understanding his condescension, a saying which runs thus: “Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with loud crying to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his reverence, although he was a Son, learned obedience from what he suffered.” So being shown to be the natural Son of God from both [statements], not at any other time, nor because of his own Godhead, but when he was in the flesh, because of the flesh and on behalf of the flesh, as “reverent,” that is, “sinless,” he lifted up supplications on behalf of sinners to him in whom he was and whom he had in himself, in that he was united with him in Godhead; and “from what he suffered,” having shared our flesh as his own, he learned generically, and wiped out the ancient disobedience of the flesh. It would be foolish, then, to reckon fear, or weeping, or weariness, and the other things mentioned, to the Godhead. For the Son, the Word, can do all things, except undergo these things according to his generation from the Father, as it is impossible for God to lie, as Paul writes, being displeased with such people. It runs thus: “In which it is impossible for God to lie.” … [Pressed hard, let the] heretics withdraw from what cannot be trodden, and not busy themselves with what is not lawful; for what need do they have of that? But hearing what has been set out, let them understand that some things he said in our condition, and others in his own; and let them acknowledge and worship with us his unspeakable and indescribable love for humankind, and cry out with the Apostle and with us, “The peace of God surpasses all understanding”; and, “The riches of Christ …”; “The judgments of the Lord are a great deep.” This is what the truly faithful and exact heralds say. And those outside too have advised and admonished thus: “Do not shake things unspeakable; do not search out God.”

… [the saying] about the general end, which says: “But concerning that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father”: they do not view it soundly. For Matthew, who before him went through the other words without omission, did not say that the Son is ignorant, but set out that he knows even the manner of the end, thus: “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but the Father alone. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” And the other evangelists did not mention this at all; but against this heretical contradiction the apostles provided a solution, saying in the Gospel according to John: “Now we know that you know all things”; since, he means, he is the Son, the Word of God, through whom all things came to be, among all of which is the last day too. And what was denied with forethought must be taken not in its proper sense. For just as for our sake he chose to take the form of a servant, so also to say that he does not know. He used this like a medicine, because it profits humanity not to know the answer to its question; so that, always expecting and thinking the time of judgment to be at the doors, it may be ready through works and faith to be saved. For he did not unawares create a time that he did not understand; nor again was he ignorant of his own second coming, he who is in the Father and has the Father in himself, clearly with his knowledge too; for if the Father, who knows all things, is in him, he too knows, he who beholds all things in the Father. For how could he not see, he who has the light in himself, who brought all things into order and arrangement, who knows all things before their coming into being, the maker of the times, who also set a limit to creation and fixed the number of the days of its constitution, and said, “The last day comes like a thief in the night”; and again, “It will not be in the night, so that the day may overtake you in darkness”; who foretold the signs that will be about that time, and who is to make that fearful day without evening dawn, who also [is Lord] of the judgment …; who has been shown to have treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and foretold, “There will be heresies and divisions among you,” and the betrayal of Judas, and Peter’s denial before the cock crowed, and the destruction of the temple; who foretold the false prophets that will come in the last times; who says, “No one knows the Father except the Son,” and, “As the Father knows me, so I know him”? And it is clear that [he knows] with the knowledge with which the Father knows. And if knowing the Father is one thing, and knowing the things of the Father another, it will be greater to know God the Father than to know his things, that is, the last day too, inasmuch as each one is himself greater than his own things.

Or perhaps “No one knows that day or hour, not even the Son, but the Father” can also be such as one of the Fathers among the saints, full of wisdom, taught without forced reasoning (his name was Basil): in place of, “If the Father did not know, neither would the Son know”; from which it follows: since the Father knows, it is not possible that I am ignorant; but I do not say it, he says; for I do all things according to the will of the Father; and that you should know this is not the will of the Father. For you, then, he says, I do not know, though in truth I am not ignorant; for I foretold to you through the psalmist, “Far from [my] salvation [are the words of my transgressions]”; that is, far from my Godhead are my words in the incarnation. He does so too in the case of Lazarus, foretelling, as knowing all things, “Lazarus has fallen asleep,” but asking, as knowing nothing, “Where have you laid him?” and then raising him as God. So too in the case of the woman with the flow of blood, saying, as a man who does not know, “Who touched me?” but healing her as Savior. Just as God the Father too somewhere asked Adam, as if not knowing, “Where are you?” and Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” and Moses, “What is that in your hand?” and elsewhere, “The Lord knows those who are his,” as if, forsooth, not knowing those who are not. And he said also to Abraham when he was willing to sacrifice his son to him, “Now I know that you fear God,” as if he had not known it before. And again, “Where is Sarah your wife?” That he admittedly said this too knowing, what follows shows. For when he said that she would bear, and she disbelieved because she had grown old, and smiled in the inner chamber, he said, “Sarah laughed, being inside.” Further, he said also to Lot, “I cannot do this (that is, bring the punishment on the Sodomites) until you have come there. Therefore he called the name of the city Segor”; and elsewhere, “Depart from me, workers of lawlessness; I never knew you.” And other things of his are reported that seem small with respect to Godhead, such as, “I will go down and see whether they have done altogether according to their outcry that comes to me; and if not, that I may know”; and elsewhere, “I repent that I made man”; and again, “I repent that I anointed Saul king”; and in the hundred and fifth psalm, “And he remembered his covenant, and repented according to the abundance of his mercy, and gave them into …”

They gird themselves up to the utmost, and they have [what Paul writes in the first] Letter [to the Corinthians]: “That there is no God but one. For although there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.” For, he says, “from whom” and “God” fit the Father alone, as superior in their worship, and as being, as it were, prior in time to both hypostases; but “through whom” and “Lord” fit the Son, as a subordinate holding second place, through whom all things came to be; and “in whom” fits the Holy Spirit, third in descending order; for in him, he says, all glory is sent up. They take their start for this too from Paul’s writings, in these words: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption”; and from the Letter to the Corinthians, which has this teaching: “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” But this of theirs too is nothing at all. For the interchanges of words are not for the diminution of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; for both words belong properly to each hypostasis. For if all things are from God, as is indeed true, how are all things from above through the Son? And if he knew him to be numbered among the adopted gods, why did he not mix him with the others, rather than unite him with the Father? But they are said in this way, partly so that we might not conceive a confusion of the divine hypostases, but each might be clearly distinguished; partly so as to cast out the polytheism of the Greeks by “one God, the Father”; the Jews’ rejection of Christ by “one Lord Jesus Christ”; the folly of the Montanists, who were going to worship the three all-praised hypostases as one person, by “one,” and “one,” and “one”; and the madness of Sabellius, who imagined that God the Word is without substance, like the spoken word that is dissolved and poured out into the air; thus: that the Apostle, keeping the bond of the divine peace, again brings both these words together and refers them to the one most ineffable God, writing to the Romans, “[For from him and through him and to him are all] things; to him be glory for ever. Amen”; and to the Ephesians, “One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all”; saying that “through all” is not foreign to “over all,” nor “in all” to “through all.” For the creation is not separated from the one “over all,” the creation which God the Word, “through all,” brought into being, and which the Spirit of God, “in all,” fills, holds together, sanctifies, and gives life. For this reason, following the Master’s oracle concerning baptism, writing to the same Corinthians the second time, he kept the equal honor of the Trinity, saying, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Here, [showing] the sameness of the Godhead and the simplicity of the faith, he all but places the Son before the Father, and assigns equal worship to the Holy Spirit, saying that there is unity and fellowship with him. What kind of fellowship? Of substance, of kingdom, of will, and of the glory sent up.

Let us recall the problem from the beginning. He writes, “one God, the Father,” and “one Lord Jesus Christ,” not as though the name of “Godhead” surpassed, or the name of “lordship” held first place, nor as though being called “God” fitted the Father alone, and being called “Lord” the Son alone (for the two belong to both), but so as to declare both the distinct subsistence of the hypostases and their being in one Godhead and lordship. Otherwise, according to them, if the Son is not God by nature, neither is the Father Lord (may he be gracious to us, who say such things of necessity because of their madness). But since “God” and “Lord” are the same, and the one does not differ from the other nor is in any way separated from it, Scripture places “the Lord” before “God,” as Moses says, “The Lord your God, the Lord is one”; and again, “How will one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless the Lord had given them up, and God had sold them?”; and as the psalmist says in the seventh psalm, “O Lord my God, if I have done this.” And according to Joshua the son of Nun, the service which is owed to God alone is offered to the Lord, and certainly as to God. For it has, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen for yourselves the Lord, to serve him.” One may see also from another Scripture that “the Lord” does not fit one hypostasis only. For David sings in the eighty-second psalm, “Let them be put to shame and troubled for ever …, and let them know that your name is Lord; you alone are the Most High over all the earth.” If he says this of the Father, how does Paul write, “One Holy, one Lord Jesus Christ”? and again, “The Lord is the Spirit”? But if he writes it of the Son, then, according to them, the Father is not Lord, not Most High, not holy; or they will accuse David, who sings in the hundred and ninth psalm, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand,” and in the ninety-ninth, “Know that the Lord, he is God; he made us, and not we ourselves.” He means him through whom all things came to be. And in the sixty-seventh, “Make a way for him who rides upon the west; the Lord is his name.” By “west” he means the last times; by “Lord” the one who appeared …. [And let them reproach] Isaiah too, who prophesies the Son as God and Lord alike, thus: “Behold our God; behold, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with lordship; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. Like a shepherd he will tend his flock, and with his arm he will gather the lambs.” And further James, who made this the opening of his letter, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus,” and in what follows, “and of the Lord God.” And Paul, who wrote, assuring the Romans, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Or let them agree that “God” and “Lord” are a name common to the three hypostases, as are King, and Most High, and undefiled, and incomprehensible, and holy, and whatever it is fitting to say of God; and neither is the Father estranged from lordship, even though it is written, “One Lord Jesus Christ,” and, “Now the Lord is the Spirit”; nor are the Son or the Holy Spirit thrust out of the Godhead, even though it is said, “One God, the Father.” The truth, then, is thus, as has been shown, and this is how we give glory.

But the heretics, having composed the doxology on their own authority, [give glory to] one through another in another, … [whereas the Father wills] that his Son be honored as he himself is. For they say, “Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit,” which is nowhere written joined together, but separately, by an interchange of words, for the reasons mentioned, not, however, for a doxology or any subordination. Thus in the passage set out Scripture said, “One God and Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things,” and did not add “in the Holy Spirit” or “in the Spirit.” And it often uses “through whom” in place of “with whom,” as Paul writes to the Corinthians: “For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you through many tears,” in place of “with many.” And again in the first Letter: “And when I arrive, whomever you approve, these I will send through letters to carry your gift to Jerusalem,” that is, I will send with letters. Then elsewhere, without saying “from whom” and “through whom,” Scripture says “in the Holy Spirit,” that is, together with the Holy Spirit. For in many places, instead of saying “with this one too” or “together with this one,” it has said “in this one”: as it prophesies in the sixty-fifth psalm, “I will enter your house in burnt offerings,” in place of “with burnt offerings”; and again, “He brought them out in silver and gold,” that is, with silver and gold; and again in the hundred and seventh, “You will not go out in our armies,” that is, with our armies. And the most wise Paul, writing of Christ the Savior, instead of saying, “All things hold together upon him and were created by him,” said, “All things hold together in him, and in him all things were created.” If, then, the Master’s word that says, “Baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” does not show a difference, the phrase “in the Holy Spirit” will have no difference either, both because it is said with equal honor into one name, and because it is the same to say “into the name” and “in the name.”

These things are sufficient. Yet “from whom” is found written both of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and “through whom” stands both of the Father and of the divine Spirit, and “in whom” is not reserved for the Holy Spirit, but is said also of the Father and of the Son, as the Scriptures set out below show. That “from whom” is said of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, thus. Of the Son, Paul to the Ephesians: “Who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body [makes] growth …”; [to the Colossians: “… grows with a growth] of God”; John in the Gospel …; and again from the Son: “He will take from what is mine and declare it to you”; and elsewhere, “I perceived that power went out from me.” Of the Holy Spirit, John: “He who sows to the Spirit will reap from the Spirit eternal life”; and again, “What is born of the Spirit is spirit”; and the angel, “For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” That “from whom, through whom,” and “in whom” are written together of the Father was said before. That “through whom” stands separately of the Father and of the Holy Spirit, thus. Of the Father, Isaiah, from the Father to the Son: “Behold, proselytes will come to you through me.” Observe how, because of the equal honor …; and again, “Woe to those who make deep counsel, and not through the Lord.” And in Genesis Adam says, “I have acquired a man through God”; and again, “All that Moses commanded Israel through the command of the Lord.” And Joseph says to the eunuchs, “Is not the interpretation of them through God?” And Paul too to the Hebrews: “For it was fitting,” he says, “for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the founder of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” Note how very like this is to the text set out, “One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” And to the Colossians: “[God is faithful,] through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” Remember again that God the Father calls to his own Son. And to the Romans: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, through the mercies of God”; and to the Galatians: “So you are no longer a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.” And Moses commanded the sons of Israel through [the command] …. Of the Holy Spirit, Isaiah, from the Father: “You made counsel not through me, and covenants not through my Spirit”; Paul to the Corinthians: “God has revealed to us through his Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God”; and again, “For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, … to another faith through the same Spirit.” To the Romans: “I appeal to you, brothers, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit”; and again, “He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you”; [to the Ephesians: “… that he may grant you,] according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit”; and again, “The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit”; and to Timothy, “Guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.” And the Acts say, “In the first book, O Theophilus, I dealt with all that Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.” By “the first” he means the Gospel according to Luke; for he also wrote the Acts of the Apostles.

That “in whom” was written of the Father and of his only-begotten Son, thus. Of the Father, Hosea: “And God said to him,” it says, “Call her name Not-pitied; for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel, but I will surely set myself against them; but I will have pity on the sons of Judah, and I will save them in the Lord their God.” In the song of Hannah: “My heart is made firm in the Lord; my horn is exalted in my God.” David in the hundred and seventh psalm: “And will you not go out, O God, in our armies? Give us help from affliction, for vain is the salvation of man. In God we shall do valiantly, and he will bring to nothing those who afflict us”; and again, “In God I shall leap over a wall”; and again, “In God I will praise my words.” Paul to the Colossians: “Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you for the share in the inheritance of the saints in the light, who rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom [of his beloved Son, in whom we have] redemption, the forgiveness of sins”; and again, “Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”; and again, “But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God”; and elsewhere, “One God, through whom are all things, and we unto him”; and again, “In God who created all things”; and again, “[that] at last I may have a prosperous journey in the will of God to come to you”; and again, “Pray in God”; and again, “Whoever does the truth comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been done in God.” Of the Son, Paul to the Colossians: “For in him all things were created, in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities; all things were created through him and for him; and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” To the Corinthians in the first Letter: “But you were washed, you were justified, you were sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God”; and in the second, “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him”; and again, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” To the Romans: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death”; [and, “justified freely by] his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” To the Hebrews: “In many ways God spoke of old to the fathers in the prophets; in these last days he has spoken to us in a Son.” Peter in his Letter: “And the God of all grace, who called us to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus.”

Further, the Greeks too, wise in their own conceit and beyond all stupidity, drunk with the opinion of polytheism and persuading themselves that they alone are very learned, while being more ignorant than anyone about what matters, and having no exact knowledge of the blessed Trinity in unity, … their (like the Scripture that says, “The impious man, when he falls into a depth of evils, despises”) through a self-chosen excess of reverence for demons, forsooth, and of curiosity, lean wrongly, to confirm their polytheism, or rather their godlessness, on the Apostle’s saying mentioned before, “If there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords”; and on the prophetic word that says, “You shall not revile gods,” and, “The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken”; no longer seeing these two things: first, that before the saying mentioned the Apostle wrote, “There is no God but one”; and second, that “they are so-called gods,” that is, existing not by nature but in name. For the conclusion has been left unsaid, but one must supply it, understanding the whole from the part given. It is because of things stated elliptically that he writes, “Let the reader understand.” He calls gods, then, the saints, who by grace have been counted worthy of adoption and of this title, whose citizenship, through virtue, is in heaven, according to the same Apostle; about whom the unerring God himself is seen to have said, “I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High”; and the evangelist, “If he called them gods to whom the word of God came.” And indeed Scripture hints at Moses and Aaron, neighbors of the angels, who were adorned with the name of God not only in a more general way but also in a more particular one. For God said to Moses, “Behold, I make you a god to Pharaoh”; and again of Aaron, “You will be to him as God,” that is, by your care for him. Or perhaps, in my view, it is not unlikely that the faithful and approved ministering powers of God, his well-pleasing works, I mean seraphim and dominions, powers and authorities, have been honored with this surpassing name, as we have. For the author of all things ungrudgingly shares all his own good things with those who ask him, and also with those who do not ask but are faithful and grateful and know how to remember a favor, even if they are silent. Rather, then, let them read Jeremiah prophesying about the gods of the Greeks, as beggarly as the Greeks themselves: “Gods who [did not make heaven and earth, let them perish] from the earth. The Lord made the heavens with understanding; he is the living and true God”; and David singing in the hundred and thirteenth: “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, works of men’s hands. They have mouths and will not speak; they have eyes and will not see; they have ears and will not hear; they have noses and will not smell; they have hands and will not feel; they have feet and will not walk; they will not make a sound in their throat. May those who make them become like them, and all who trust in them.”

… “[with the glory which I had before the] world was, with you”; and … [the one who] made [it], it is plain by this combination of words that he has an eternal and innate glory according to the divine [nature], which was not cast off from him; for the divine is unchangeable. Accordingly they said in these very words, the celebrated John, “And we beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten,” and Paul, ever to be remembered and well versed in these things, “For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” And in another way it is not right to think that God is glorified by his own work (for all things came to be through him, and with all things, surely, the glory they imagine as well). And all things are declared by the oracles to be works and servants of the power and wisdom of God; and the Only-begotten is the wisdom and power of God, as the creative Word. Accordingly, this God, well united [with our nature], explained in the same evangelist what “Glorify me” means, saying to the Father, “I glorified you on earth; I have finished the work that you gave me to do”; in place of: my incarnation did nothing outside your will, but all things in harmony with it. And some have understood, faithfully, that “Glorify me” was said because of the glory that accrues to the servant’s form. These things in summary form. We come to combative arguments against those who do not hear “Father,” but seize on “Glorify.” Let them say what kind of glory they have in mind. Is it the glory that we too offer to God? Let it be so, by concession, not in truth. Why then do they call the Son, who is glorified by him, a creature and less than the Father? For in the same Gospel he said, “Father, glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you”; and again, “If I glorify myself, my glory is [nothing]; it is my Father who glorifies me”; and again, from the Father, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” But is it that the lesser is glorified by the greater? And how did he keep equality of honor for himself by saying, “Glorify the Son, that the Son may glorify you”? Or shall we suppose another glory? This would be found to come from nothing. And what sense is there in the Father and the Son being glorified in the intelligible realm with a made glory?

“How then,” he says, “does he say in the Gospel according to Mark, ‘When he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels’?” This is what is said by the orthodox: that because of the sameness of the Godhead and of the kingdom he will come in the Father’s glory; that is, having glory equal to that of the one who begot him. For again in Matthew the same Lord, stating this point and showing that the glory of himself and of the Father is the same, said thus: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him.”

It is wholly foreign to the truth too that they say the Son’s nature is between the divine and the created nature, wrongly transferring to this the Scripture that rightly says, “Mediator … [between God and men, the man Christ Je]sus.” For he will then slip out of being God and true Son, which he has been proved, in the right way, to be; and he will escape also being thought, as the heretical argument has it, a thing made, which he neither is nor is written to be. And indeed this too was declared by oracle in Isaiah: “Not an envoy, not an angel, but the Lord himself saved them”; that is, not a creature, but God himself, who supplies to us the gifts fitting for him, gifts that come before our requests. The mediation, then, is in the economy; in which, having ineffably [offered] himself on behalf of the whole human race, and having brought himself to his own Father as intelligible incense, he propitiated him, and … withdrew us from idols, and united us to the knowledge of God, and gave back paradise, and led us up to heaven, joining earthly things to heavenly, as God holding authority, fitting together the separation that had come about, and bringing man back to that grace from which he had slipped; so that the Apostle, overcome by the greatness of the reconciliation, proclaims with a God-inspired tongue: “He is our peace, who has made the two one and has broken down the dividing wall of the fence”; and again, “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Some of the heretics, wholly bereft of faith, say something else that is ridiculous to suppose and much more so to say: that the gifts given to creation before the steadfast, unshakable, and loving coming of Christ the Savior into the world were bestowed by God the Father alone, without his own beneficent Son, the Word, as if, forsooth, the Son were a subordinate. But if they had part and lot with those who taught about God, “All things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be” (among which every gift came to be through him and from him, for these too are part of the things that came to be; whence it has been proclaimed, “He is Lord of all,” and, “God, mighty, holder of authority,” and, “[No other] will be reckoned …,” “the only one able to save”), they would have known that without the author of coming-into-being and giver of good things, the only-begotten Son, the Word, at once judge and redeemer, no gift has come from above; nor has any time or race of creatures been released from evils and counted worthy of providence; just as, again, nothing at all is outside his judgment. Rather each of us will undergo the fitting judgment, mercifully, and whatever more than this can be said, or thought, or not thought, from him from whom too we have received good things from the beginning, by the good pleasure of the Father and the concord of the Holy Spirit. For how is it not most unjust and most impious to say, or to suppose at all, that he created and gave law, but did not exercise providence, which is ranked before creating; and that, after all things here, he also judges those who received good things from another and lost them through their own ill counsel and folly? Or how is it not unreasonable to suppose that he made us free, as has been said many times, but did not himself have what he assigned to others according to the measure of their nature and as was fitting? I think, then, that the heretics themselves, whose words miss the truth, see that if they want to say anything against our arguments they will have nothing to say. For other men too, besides those mentioned, worthy of credit and steadfast in character, not merely men, are seen fighting against their unbearable and uncontrollable wickedness and bearing witness to the Savior, who has given joy common to all. For Zechariah cries out, distinguishing things past and to come: “If there is any good thing of his, and if any fair thing, it will be from him.” And Isaiah proclaims plainly about him: “God, mighty, holder of authority.” And following these saints, in whose words the teachings about God blossom everywhere with beauty and grace, those outside too in some way, in this part, [say things] fitting about the Creator and King of all: “For all splendid gifts to men are of God: whether anything is good and blessed, or best, or lovely, fair gifts of God are made for all.” And again: “He rules over all, and alone to all …”

And in Matthew, he says, when the mother of the sons of Zebedee, blessed in her children, asked that they might sit with him on either side, at his right and at his left, in his kingdom of heaven, … [he said, “To sit at my right hand and at my left] is not mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father” … the prize. For the facts are not always as the arrangement of the words alone has it; but sometimes it completes the sense also with reference to things not … the servant’s form; or rather in order to [prevent] God-hated claims to precedence that are not according to rank and reason; or also because she had conceit about her fortunate children, and thought her sons worthy both of apostolic primacy and of sitting together with God. For the secrets of the heart did not escape him, as John says: “But Jesus did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all men and needed no one to bear witness about man; for he himself knew what was in man.” Hear, then, what follows, and be persuaded that my understanding was not mistaken. At once [when the ten were indignant at] these two brothers, the Master said: “Among you, whoever wishes to become great will be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first will be your slave.” And how in Luke too he forbids [taking the first places] …. For it was not like the just God, who prepares what is to come according to each person’s way of life, to grant anyone an unjust or boastful request, to place the first among the last, and to grieve the apostles, who did not leave their rank and did not desire office, and with them our forefathers who pleased him before and were admired for virtue, with whom he made covenants, and to whom it is altogether likely that he promised beforehand the precedence on either side of him, into whose bosoms these men of whom we speak were also going to rest; and besides these Moses too; since he himself is Lord both of the thing requested and of all judgment, and it is he who predestined the thrones for the apostles, bringing them forward most royally and promising, “You will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Setting down, then, one incontestable rule, that no one should boast great things and ascribe them to himself, he says: “If I bear witness about myself, my witness is nothing; but there is one who bears witness …” … “is my Son.” That it was said thus for the reason mentioned alone, he himself confirms again, saying, “Even if I bear witness about myself, my witness is true”; and again, “The works themselves bear witness about me, and Moses bears witness about me.”

Such is the meaning also of what was said by the Savior in Luke: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Through his own person he commits [to the Father] the humanity that is given life by faith in him, which he deigned to call his members. Or perhaps he teaches everyone, on the one hand, to know that in this too Arius erred, supposing him to have been without a soul in the economy; and on the other, to use the same words when praying with their last breaths, gratefully confessing that the existence of us men is from our God, and our departure is back to him. What happened, then, was a law.

They extend their heretical impiety not only as far as the Only-begotten, but even to the Holy Spirit. For [they use] not only the Savior’s words set out above, “I have not spoken on my own,” and, “The Holy Spirit will not speak on his own,” and Paul’s, which has “to the only wise God,” and moreover the other texts brought forward in the book On the Holy Spirit, dismissively, so as to diminish the [dignity of the Spirit] …, but also the prophecy of Amos, as though it indicated [that the Spirit is a creature], though it makes no such suggestion about him at all, either in this part or in any other. It runs thus: “I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you became like a brand plucked out of the fire; and not even so did you return to me, says the Lord. Therefore thus I will do to you, Israel; but since I will do thus to you, prepare to call upon your God, Israel. For behold, he who makes firm the thunder and creates wind, and announces to men his Christ, who makes the dawn and the mist, and treads on the high places of the earth: the Lord God Almighty is his name.” Of the three [persons] …, one saying “I overthrew,” another of whom it says “as God overthrew,” another where it has “his Christ,” the saying is found to have been spoken fittingly and consistently not in the person of the Father, nor about his Holy Spirit, but by the Holy Spirit, who also spoke about the wind, which naturally accompanies the thunder that sounds in men’s ears. Therefore he goes on to mention dawn and mist. For how could the Father have said, “announcing to men his Christ,” and not “my Christ,” as he said in the hundred and thirty-first psalm, “I have prepared a lamp for my Christ”? Or, “his name,” when he should have said, “my name”? And if it be granted that the saying is the Father’s, the Holy Spirit appears as God Almighty. Nor does this wording suit the prophet speaking about the Father; for a man does not overthrow as God does; nor is it proper to a prophet to speak boastfully and blasphemously at once. And the facts that it has “creating wind,” not “having created a spirit,” that the making firm of the thunder is placed first and the creating of the wind second, and moreover that “creating wind” is prophesied barely, without the article and without “holy,” show through all of these that the word refers to the air. For the Holy Spirit of God is rarely [named] without “holy” or “of God” attached, or the article, or its participation; as when it writes, “the spirit of Elijah,” and, “Walk by the Spirit.” And he said “creating wind” because the air arises, when the season calls, for what is profitable to the needs for which it came to be. For we too are accustomed to say even now, “A great wind arose,” not as having been created now, but as having just been roused violently.

Prophetically, then, and with inverted order, it was said by the divine Spirit thus: “I overthrew you,” that is, the stiff-necked Jews, uncircumcised in heart, “as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,” which had inhabitants, he means, who lived without repentance, like the Jews. Therefore, “prepare to call upon your God, Israel,” whom, he says, you have not been seen to acknowledge clearly even today. He meant the only-begotten Son of God. “For [behold, he who makes firm the thunder and creates wind, who makes the] dawn and the mist, and treads on the high places of the earth: the Lord God Almighty is his name; behold, announcing to men his Christ.” When, then, and how did he announce him? When he said from on high, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” In many places one of the three divine hypostases is seen speaking about another one or about the other two, as this point was explained with many proofs in the first book. Indeed this is found a little before the prophecy of Amos mentioned; for it says, “Thus says the Lord: For three transgressions of the sons of Judah, and for four, I will not turn them back, in order to heal them. [Because they rejected] the law of the Lord …, and the vain things which they made led them astray, after which their fathers followed; and I will send fire upon Judah, and it will devour the foundations of Jerusalem.” They ought, then, if not about the wind, at least to think that the prophecy speaks about their own spirit, which the oracles often mention: as when Paul writes to the Thessalonians in the first Letter, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept whole and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”; and as when Stephen says in prayer, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”; and as Luke said in the Gospel, when the Savior raised the dead girl, “And her spirit returned.” They ought to hold this view, if they were moderate; but they did not suppose it to be this spirit, and they arrive at the extreme of blasphemy. One should also see that it has “announcing his Christ,” said of God the Father, and not “creating.” For about the things made manifest to us in a hidden way on account of the ineffable Trinity it was written, “Who is wise and will understand these things?” And it is plain who that is: the one who has understood fittingly and intelligently. For in truth it is hard for those trained in worldly or heretical learning to attend to the exactness of the Scriptures. Hence he said, “My Spirit will not remain on them, because they are flesh.” Even the wisdom outside hands down that the hidden power in these treasures, and its discernment, comes from God, as all things do, saying thus: “For God has ordained all things for men, whatever he wills, and untaught he hears all things for mortals …”

“But all things,” he says, “came to be through the Son”; if, then, it is “all things,” the Holy Spirit too. But he said “all things,” that is, created things; and nowhere is the Spirit of God written to be a creature, as neither is the Son. For a creature is a servant; and a servant neither sets free, as the Holy Spirit does, nor knows what his lord is doing, nor creates anew what was created by the Master, nor has man as a temple equally with God, nor is written to be divine. And in another way it is signified … was cast into the uttermost of the uttermost.

The Jews supposed that the Lord was not the Son of God but the son of David; he asked them about himself, whose son he is, and they answered, David’s; then he said to them, “How then does David in the Holy Spirit call him Lord, [saying, The Lord said to my Lord …]?” … making clear that David, prophesying in the Holy Spirit the one who would be his son by succession of descent according to the incarnation, calls him his own Lord according to the Godhead; as the same David says also in the histories of the Kings, “The Spirit of the Lord spoke in me.” The heretics, misunderstanding this wickedly and ignorantly at once, say that the Holy Spirit called Christ its own Lord through David. But the conclusion refutes them, which runs, “If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” He said everything with the Holy Spirit sounding within him. For he himself was necessarily ignorant of what was to come and of heavenly things; and for this reason it has “in the Holy Spirit.” But he did not prophesy everything in the person [of the Spirit, or of the Fa]ther, or of creation, but also in his own person, as in the words mentioned, and as when he says, “Against you alone have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight,” and, “In iniquities I was conceived, and in sins my mother bore me.” Otherwise one would have to take of the divine Spirit also what David himself and the other prophets say (for all spoke in the Holy Spirit): “I am the Lord your God, the Almighty,” and again, “Besides me there is no God,” and the like.

And what was said in John, “For [the Spirit] was not yet [given, because Jesus was not yet glorified]” … not all had knowledge of the Spirit of God; it was not yet known under the sun and glorified with the Father and the Son. For God’s “coming to be” for us is the knowledge of him; and we know this not when we wish, but when we gain perfection of understanding; and when, cleansed by the virtues won in struggle, we become worthy, then the Spirit itself, of its own accord, gives us its illumination. For after the resurrection the Master Christ, breathing on the faces of the apostles, said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”; and after his ascension, at Pentecost, “[there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and it] sat upon each one of them, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance,” as the Acts testify. Therefore the Master foretold to them, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” And “Jesus was not yet glorified” stands, he says, in place of: he had not yet suffered, risen, raised with himself a multitude of the dead, and been taken up. For it was not yet believed by all that he is the beloved Son of God before the ages, and he was not yet glorified as the God of the fathers; that is, the glory concerning him was not yet confirmed among all; therefore he says later, “Father, the hour has come”; that is, all that was foretold about me in the inviolable Scriptures has been fulfilled; “glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” As you understand “Jesus was not yet glorified,” then, so you should take “The Holy Spirit was not yet”; for otherwise, even if you do not say it, you will appear to hold this view no less: that what came before this … of the Spirit is older …; a bare thought, as the saying goes, running past all insensibility. Others have understood “Jesus was not yet glorified” to have been said either because of the servant’s form which he bore, since it had not yet gone up to heaven, having become for the faithful the firstfruits of all other blessedness and indeed of the ascent into heaven (for Christ is the firstfruits, as was said above); or because of us, of whom he is written to be the firstfruits according to the incarnation; as it was said, “I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth”; and that “he seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”; and again, “But our citizenship is in heaven.”

Nor is what Paul [wrote] to the Romans sound in their hands: “[The Spirit himself intercedes for] us with groanings too deep for words; and he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the saints according to God.” For he signified most of all, by having “too deep for words,” that such things are not to be inquired into; for they are incomprehensible, he says, and inexpressible; and by having “according to God,” that these things are not after our manner and must not be understood according to human usage; for it surpasses every mind and puts the nature of speech to shame. Then he did not say absolutely, “It intercedes,” or, “It intercedes against us,” and “against the saints,” but “It intercedes on our behalf,” and “on behalf of the saints.” Love for humankind is the property of the Holy Spirit, as of God. Yet since they bring forward these things in a human way, and not in a way worthy of God, … “to intercede” is said; as we are accustomed to say, “I read [literally, I met with] the book”; and one might say this more properly; for some call … for pleasure “meeting.” “To ask” is said rather than “to intercede.” And by “groanings” he means here compassions. So the Spirit of God, he says, watches over what is for our good with incomprehensible compassions; for this too, said in a hidden way, so far surpasses creation that he at once assigned to God, the knower of hearts, as something great, knowing the mind of the Holy Spirit. Then the Son too likewise intercedes for us; and yet he is great, holder of authority, and true God. For the same apostle writes about him, to the Hebrews, “Always living to [make intercession for them]”; [and to the Romans, “… It is Christ] Jesus who died, or rather who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” And that the name “Paraclete” and “interceding for us” must not be taken according to the apparent sense of the word and worldly usage can be learned from similar sayings: as when it writes of God the Father in the eighty-fifth psalm, “Work with me a sign for good, and let those who hate me see and be ashamed, because you, Lord, helped me and comforted me”; and Paul, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God the Father, comfort your hearts”; and elsewhere, “He who repents over the evils of men,” that is, who pardons or has compassion; for it is not as though he himself were the cause of the evil that he repents. And Scripture often sets down a word that here signifies one thing as though it indicated another in appearance: as when it says in Exodus, “Moses was tending the sheep of Jethro his son-in-law”; whereas, on the contrary, Jethro was the father-in-law and Moses the son-in-law. And that the invisible God is uncontainable and unattainable to every mind (which is why, in general, the divine sayings are not plain to all simply as it happens, but have a hidden sense) one can find also in the books of the philosophies outside. For they have this: “Things which it is not lawful for a mortal to take up, measuring the unmeasured …”

And the passage in John that runs, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”; and again, “Believe in God, believe also in me”: the Macedonians have pondered these very blasphemously, saying that the Holy Spirit is not mentioned, as being, forsooth, alien in nature, and for this reason excluded from being true God. But much has already been said about this in reply to similar problems, especially in the first book in the tenth chapter, and in this book in the fourteenth chapter; but it will be said now too. If, then, eternal life, which concerns the … [and the Spirit] has been proved to be life and the Spirit of God, then it too is the only true God, being always understood with the Father, as his Spirit. Therefore in the text set out he taught one knowledge, and not a different one, following on the one eternal life. And the evangelist too, saying, “By this we know that God is in us, from his Spirit which he has given us,” shows that it is mentioned together with the Father and present together with him. And that the Son is not understood without the Holy Spirit either is plain; for the Father says to him, “My Spirit which is upon you,” and he himself says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” And Paul [shows] the commonness of the Godhead, and that the Holy Spirit is named together in the sense of Scripture: “Eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” At other times, then, he mentions the Holy Spirit again, either alone or with the Father. I think it necessary, then, that they should rather say, like the all-wise Moses, “If I have found favor with you, show yourself to me; let me see you so as to know you”; so that at long last they may know the Trinity undivided in nature and in concord. For, as it seems, they do not yet know so as to know what many prophets and kings desired to see and hear and did not obtain; but we not only hear, we also see, as it says in Luke.

They have erred equally about what is written in Luke: “No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him”; and elsewhere: “Not that anyone has seen God, except he who is from God.” For they think that the words “no one else knows” exclude the divine Spirit from the divine knowledge; not attending to the fact that the saying “except he who is from God” does not exclude it from seeing and knowing the Father, since Paul likewise wrote of it, “the Spirit who is from God,” and the Son said, “the Spirit, who proceeds from the Father.” And then elsewhere Paul again, keeping silent about the Son in word but not in sense, taught that the Spirit alone sees and knows the Father, in these syllables: “The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him? So too no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God”; and again, “For God knows what is the mind of the Spirit.” But one who does not see God and is not with him does not search him; and one who does not know him and is not of the same Godhead does not know the things of God; for it is impossible to know the things of God as God knows them, and to possess knowledge equal to his, without being of the same substance and knowledge as he. And that which knows the things of God and rests upon the Son knows the things of the Son too. “No one knows the Father” (or the Son), then, is said with reference to created beings; nor indeed does anyone see him as he is; for the understanding that is possible is not in all, since not all are worthy; and in those in whom it is, it is not equal in each. For according to Paul’s word, “To one is given knowledge of wisdom,” and to another this or that; and according to the Gospel, he to whom more is given incurs greater accountability. But the heretics say, “It searches the depths of God as one that is ignorant.” But he added that “it knows the things of God.” For “the servant does not know what his lord is doing.” And that searching is not always the same as seeking, the oracles make clear. When it prophesies, “Searching what person or what time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating,” it shows seeking and learning, like the one who says, “Search the Scriptures.” But when the Apostle writes of God the Father, “And he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the saints according to God”; or when [the psalmist] says in the thirtieth psalm, “For the Lord seeks out truth”; or in the seventh, “God who tests hearts and kidneys”; or elsewhere, “Searching the inner chambers of the belly”; it shows not examining and learning, but encompassing the heart, so that nothing it ever pondered or thought escapes him; which the Knower of hearts knows even without tracking it down. For if the whole of knowledge were assigned to searching, God too would be found searching as one ignorant, and this, said by him in Zephaniah by a metaphor taken from men, would bring him discredit according to them: “I will search out Jerusalem with a lamp.” Such a word in fact gives a great indication of his power. The divine Spirit, then, searches God not as one ignorant, but as the Spirit of God united with him in nature. Hence the Psalmist, not separating it from the substance and knowledge of God the Father, but rather persuading us that it is subsistently his wisdom, equally with the Only-begotten, prayed, “Do not take your Holy Spirit from me”: the Spirit, he means, that reveals to me the uncertain and hidden things of your wisdom.

And the all-profitable syllables of Christ uttered in John, “When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from my Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me”; and again, “The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and remind you of all that I have said to you”: these they do not receive without distortion, passing sentence against the Holy Spirit. For instead of understanding “Paraclete” either because it is called upon as God by creation, or because it consoles creation and instills cheer and peace (for the words for comfort and for consolation are synonyms, [as in “…] … comforted his [people]”; and the [psalm] in the person [of the one who received] consolation: “[O Lo]rd, according to the multitude of my pains in my heart, your comforts have gladdened my heart”; and again, “You have given gladness to my heart”; and as Paul [writes] to the Thessalonians, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God the Father, comfort your hearts”), instead of understanding it thus, they say it was named Paraclete because it pleads on behalf of creation; and they add that it is also sent. But first, the name Paraclete is common to the Holy Spirit and to the Son, as is their nature; as John has written in the Catholic Letters: “I write these things to you so that you may not sin; but if we do sin, we have a Paraclete with God, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins.” Observe meanwhile that, having said, “a Paraclete with God, Jesus Christ,” he assigned authority to the Paraclete, as being himself the one appealed to; for “he,” it says, “is the propitiation”; so as both to show the Paraclete’s self-determination and to refer the propitiation to the one Godhead. And again in the Gospel, from the Master: “If you love me, keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees it nor knows it; but you know it, for it abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you.” Having said “another Paraclete,” not according to substance but according to [hypostasis …]; [and by saying, “whom I will se]nd to you from my Father, the Spirit of truth,” he presented the three hypostases, and showed that the coming of the Holy Spirit came about by one good pleasure and concord, as was said before also on the text “The Father has given me a commandment what to say and what to speak,” and concerning the Holy Spirit, “He will not speak on his own.” For as the Son, when sent, was not separated from the Father, so neither was the Holy Spirit. And the addition “Spirit of truth” teaches that it is truly the Spirit of God, and not like the ministering spirits. And “who proceeds from the Father” signifies that it shone forth from the Father’s hypostasis without beginning and consubstantially; for every procession is accomplished through what is equal and alike; and in an especially consubstantial way came about, from God, the generation of the Son and the procession of his Spirit. And “He will teach you all things and remind you of all that I have said to you” is a charge not to disbelieve the Holy Spirit, as was said above, when it came after the ascension of Christ and taught. For its teaching, he says, will not be out of tune with my mind and teaching, since it is united and joined [with me] in the Godhead; and the teachings of the holy Trinity are common, as are the gifts for salvation; and in the way I said, “The Father has given me a commandment what to say and what to speak,” it is because of concord …; I say the same about the Holy Spirit, that “From [what is mine it will take” …] … [by saying,] “If you love me, keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete,” he all but showed that he himself too is named Paraclete; and [said in effect]: if you do not keep my commandments, you are unworthy of the visitation of the Holy Spirit, which is in tune with my own appearing. And the words, “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees it nor knows it; but you know it,” showed that the worldly, that is, the heretics, cannot receive it, because they do not see it with the eyes of faith, nor know it, since they do not glorify it as God; but those who confess it to be God have it abiding with them. And having “He will give you,” and, “It abides with you and will be in you,” signified that the Holy Spirit, since it is God, is present everywhere, above and below; for if it both abides with us and will be in us, and fills all things, according to the Wisdom that says, “The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world,” how was it sent to us? And that even while he was saying these things it was with him, as consubstantial, he himself again persuaded them by breathing on the faces of the apostles and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” as was said before. And “I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you” taught that, just as the Spirit of God was in all even before its known coming, so after the ascension the Son is too, the hypostases being in one uncircumscribed Godhead and will; not that he himself is both [the Son] and the Spirit of God (as Montanus thought, who leans above all on this part of Scripture, neither seeing nor hearing that one speaks about another and yet another person: “I will ask the Father, and he will send another Paraclete”), but as being present with the Spirit, subsisting in himself, as the Father too always is everywhere; not, however, as having already come a second time, whereas he often signified the second coming that will be at the judgment. And well does he say, “He will bear witness about me.” The truth, he means, about the truth, and the Lord about the Lord, as he said about the Father, “And the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”

All these things, and above all the Master’s saying “I will ask the Father,” which is unimpeachable and ought not to be understood according to worldly usage, Macedonius passed over, and he ran to “he will send” and rejoiced at it. Let him have, as answer to such sayings about the Holy Spirit, the answer that he himself, when asked, will give about the holy Scriptures concerning the Son; knowing this above all, that the one who speaks or sends is by no means always greater than the one who hears or is sent; rather someone is often found sending one equal and of equal honor; and it is not unusual among men that a craftsman of every art is even better than the one who seems to give him instructions or to send him. Then, that the only-begotten God the Word too was sent by the Father, and by the Spirit, as he himself says in Isaiah: “I am the first, and I am forever; my hand founded the earth, and my right hand made firm the heaven.” And after other things he adds, “And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.” So the Spirit of God the Father is not sent as apostles or prophets are sent, but as his Spirit; and not by change of place, since neither is the Father, of whose hypostasis it is the Spirit, circumscribed by limits.

Further, belittling the things that concern the Holy Spirit and debasing them to their own harm, they reproach it with another act of divine love for humankind, which Paul [records, writing to the Galatians: “Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son] into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” “Sent forth” signifies the concord, as was said before; and its crying in our hearts “Abba,” which is interpreted “Father,” shows the tender mercy of the Holy Spirit, which gives us intimacy with God the Father, in that it has spoken this word in our place and on our behalf, since we were then still infants, fed on milk, and without boldness of speech, both because of the ancient disobedience and the forsaking of the living God, and because of the evil indifference of our way of life and our being found unworthy to break out in such an address; just as the Son too in the economy took upon himself for our sake all that is ours. Indeed, through what follows too … and we inherit heavenly things. For immediately after saying, “Abba, Father,” he adds: “So you are no longer a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God,” that is, through the Holy Spirit, who cries out for us. And that the word mentioned is said on our behalf, the same [apostle] wrote to the Romans: “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, in whom we cry, Abba, Father.” For since, as has often been said, all salvation has been given us in common by the holy Trinity, the Father called us to adoption; the Only-begotten …, and permitted us to call God our Father; and the Holy Spirit dwelt in us and taught us, having said, “Abba.” “It will teach you,” he says, and, “It will guide you into all the truth.” And besides, it regenerated us, set us free from sin and death, sanctified us, and by its own goodness showed us to be sons of God. Accordingly, before being regenerated by it through illumination, it is not fitting even to say, “Our Father who art in heaven.” Besides, it cries in our hearts, “Abba,” teaching the deaf ears of the heretics that it is God who dwells in the faithful, according to the saying, “I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people”; [and, “Do you not know that you are] God’s temple, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” But the heretics force “All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God,” and the like, to have been said of our own spirit, not of the Holy Spirit. But the conclusion decides it, which runs: “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit [of adoption].” For, surely, already having our own spirit, we received in addition the Holy Spirit of adoption.

Being hostile and quarrelsome toward the Holy Spirit, they also take in an evil sense what the Savior said about it in John: “He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” For it is not right to understand the things of God as one understands human things, nor to insult the divine, which is in no way like us, by the likeness of our words and notions. It will glorify me, then, he says, in that it will teach you the same things as I; and I, what [I heard from] the Father; and in that from its own ineffable majesty it will display the greatness of my Godhead, which is beyond magnitude; and not in this way only, but also as it is written, “A son glorifies a father,” and, “The glory of the sun is the light,” and as I said, “Glorify me, Father,” and he answered me, “I have glorified you, and I will glorify you again.” For it does not praise as creation does, since they do not stand apart from one another in Godhead and honor; nor does it declare as one receiving, it which always dispenses the divine gifts to us purely from itself and is not separated from the Father in nature. For just as the Son, in giving, is deprived of nothing and not emptied, so the Holy Spirit does not receive what it does not have, nor speak having heard, it which alone, according to Paul, knows the things of God; rather it is itself that puts wisdom and understanding into [others] …; nor is it taught by another, it which breathes wisdom and the knowledge of prophecy into the pure; for such things are said about the ineffable Trinity in a way beyond [us, mys]tically. Accordingly the Savior said of himself too, “As I hear, I judge”; and John said about him: “Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal that God is true; for he whom God has sent speaks the words of God,” that is, agrees. And the Holy Spirit too is glorified, both through its fellowship in all things with the Father and the Son, and through what the Son threatens concerning it: “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.”

And the error of the Montanists lies in these things. 1. First, that they divine that the three divine hypostases are one person; for Montanus, he says, said, “I am the Father, and the Son, and the Paraclete.” And to establish this, forsooth, they bring forward, with an understanding beyond all ignorance, what the Son said so marvelously: “I am in the Father and the Father in me”; and, “I and my Father will come and make our home with him”; and, “I and the Father are one”; and, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”; and, “The Paraclete, whom the Father will send in my name.” But all these, as was said above too, show one and one and one person, each subsisting in itself in one Godhead; and … [he did not say, “I am one”], but, “We are one.” And these very texts convict their folly and wrong belief.

2. Second, that when the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians in the first Letter, “As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away; for we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, then the partial will pass away,” they say that Montanus has come and has had the perfection of the Paraclete, that is, of the Holy Spirit; not attending to what follows. For it has at once: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I reasoned as a child; when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” That is: what we now believe to exist, hearing it from the Scriptures, we shall behold with our eyes after the resurrection and know in reality, when partial knowledge has ceased; for knowledge from hearing is a part of the knowledge of one’s own eyes and of experience. For example, now, hearing, we believe concerning the second coming of the Master, and concerning his judgment seat, and the thrice-blessed voice, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you”; then we shall learn by sight and by experience. Now, hearing, we believe concerning the holy angels; then [we shall see] them ministering face to face …; “[what] eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and has not entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him”: then the worthy will not only see these things but will also come to enjoy them. For the heavenly things now hidden from the eye of our soul here below, the life to come will make manifest.

“But Christ said,” he says, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now; but when that one comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all the truth”; and, “He will not speak on his own, but will take what is mine and declare it to you”; and, “He will glorify me”; and again, “I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you.” So he came, forsooth, when Montanus came! Not so; God forbid! For on this senseless argument of theirs, those before Montanus are found — both those who had Christ, the apostles, who received their office from God, and had Christ speaking within them and the Spirit of God dwelling in them, and gave it to others too by the laying on of hands, according to its will, and taught with boldness, and were believed by all, and not disbelieved like Montanus; and those who heard, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” — not to have had Christ and the Holy Spirit. But the Savior’s words set out show the equality of honor of the Holy Spirit and its teaching in harmony with his own. And what “I am coming to you” means has been said above; for we had (even if only the worthy have them perfectly) both Christ, who said, “I am coming to you,” and the Holy Spirit, about whom he said, “When that one comes.” For neither was the Master doing something incomplete when after the resurrection he breathed on the faces of the apostles and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”; nor was he lying when he himself said, “For it abides with you and is in you”; nor was the Apostle, [when he wrote, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple,] and the Spirit of God dwells in you?”; nor Wisdom when it says, “The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together has knowledge of speech.” Nor were the apostles, and the saints before them, less perfect than Montanus. It appeared at Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit, which holds all things together, already was; and it was received, as the Acts have it thus: “Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit; for it had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized into the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. [Then they laid their hands on them, and they] received the Holy Spirit.” And just as the Son was always present everywhere, yet after his coming into the world was perfectly known and glorified, so too the Holy Spirit always filled all things and held them together, but after its visitation at Pentecost was more perfectly known and glorified.

… [they say that there were to] be prophets [after] the appearing of the Master; for the Savior, he says, said, “Behold, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues.” But he says this not as they think, but of the apostles, who foretold many things to come, and of the last times, and of the kingdom in heaven; of whom some were killed, like Stephen and James; and crucified, like Peter; and scourged, like Paul. And sometimes he spoke of the martyrs, and of the wise as bishop-martyrs. And Scripture knows as prophetesses the four daughters of Philip, Deborah, Miriam the sister of Aaron, and the God-[bearer] …

3. Third, that, contriving to show both that Montanus had the perfection of the Paraclete and that Priscilla and Maximilla were prophetesses, … wrote … to Montanus. They say that [she said], “From now on all women and all generations will call me blessed”; but [Scripture] knows of no books composed in their name; and moreover the Apostle forbade it, writing to Timothy the first time, “I do not permit women to teach”; and again in the first Letter to the Corinthians, “Every woman who prays or prophesies [with her head uncovered dishonors] her head”; that is, it is not permitted to a woman shamelessly, on her own authority, to write books and to teach, and by this to dishonor her head, that is, the man; for “the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ.” And the reason that silences women is plain: since the woman’s teaching at the beginning did the common race no good. For “the man,” as the Apostle writes, “was not deceived, but the woman.” So Montanus, beyond all others, neither knew nor had the Holy Spirit, in supposing this; and that though he came more than a hundred years after the ascension of the Savior and the visitation of the Holy Spirit, having first been a priest of an idol, and so having introduced this blind heresy.

So much we contend, soberly, as far as possible, against the other heresies; but there is also another bare head fighting against the truth; we must not leave that unrefuted either.

About the soul-destroying doctrine of the Manichaeans it would be better to keep silent than, by speaking, to show how greatly human nature has stumbled with regard to the divine, and to bring to people’s hearing things which I wish those men had never pursued in deed, nor had come to us, partly by experience and partly by hearsay. For it is written: “Do not answer a fool according to his folly.” But so that no one may either fall into the evil unawares or suppose their tenets tolerable, it is necessary to touch on the doctrine so far as is enough to make its harmfulness known to those who must read this; that is, so that they may infer from what will be said the things passed over in silence, and flee far from this ruin of religion, and from ever living together with those who practise it. For physicians too do not refuse the knowledge of poisons, not so that anyone may use them, but so that, knowing them, he may avoid them.

This doctrine, then, is an outflow of the filth that came out from Simon, the Magus from Samaria, who taught that the world is the work not of God but of angels, and that there will be no resurrection; who introduced the view that intercourse with all women ought to be a matter of indifference; who was driven to such madness as to take on the name of Christ, our great God; and who for these things pays eternal punishment, having been justly cast down into the much-talked-of and gloomy Tartarus. And indeed an addition was made to the doctrine at one time by Me[nander …], who differed from Simon’s views but confirmed the shameful practice mentioned, and likewise set out that the world came to be by angels, and who dared to teach that God the Son is just, but that the good God the Father, from whom are all things, is unjust and alien to the making and providence of the world; and by Basilides, who was a disciple of this senselessness, and … having names; whence, he says, what is so called …; and by Carpocrates, who later in time strengthened these things, and, as an addition of defilement, announced that unless one fulfills one’s desire in every way, one cannot pass the principalities and powers and reach the highest heaven; and further by Valentinus, who [persuaded] … those obeying him that Christ brought his body from heaven, and who fabricated a myth like this: that Depth begot Silence; and that from her he produced a kind of Word, like the Zeus of the Greeks, and introduced thirty Aeons, whom he called gods, since, he says, it is written that Jesus was baptized when he was about thirty years old (which in no way makes his absurdity hold together); and who announced that the last of the thirty Aeons is male-female; and that this is Wisdom, which, struck by the radiance of …, fell from the heavens and was cast out of the number thirty, and groaning, bore the devil from its own groaning; and that weeping over its fall it brought the sea into being; and that, forsooth, so that the number thirty might be filled up again, the twenty-eight Aeons contributed …