De trinitate

It is of no created power, but only of the uncreated, both the things mentioned and to create substance out of non-existence, both irrational and rational, to give life, to forgive sins, and to call creation his own, and to know the Father from equality, as he is known by him, and to work equally with the Father, and to be in the Father and the Father in him equally, to be served by angels, and what surpasses these, to be witnessed as the only-begotten son and God and light from light and eternal life and truth and savior, and to be present everywhere and all things to be established in him, and the kingdom of heavens and the divine peace as belonging to him to be given ungrudgingly to all, and to those who believe and call upon him to provide assurance of perpetual salvation. For those who call the true son of God and the holy and life-giving spirit a creature and not unoriginate do not believe in these hypostases, even if they say they believe; perhaps they do not even believe in the Father. For they transgress the commandment of the Father who commands: "Hear, my people, and I will speak to you, Israel, and I testify to you, if you hear me: there shall not be in you a new god, nor shall you worship a foreign god," that is, one that never existed or is of a different substance, and "You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone," and "You shall have no other gods besides me," and "Cursed is everyone who places his hope in a man," that is, in a creation. And this is from the Son who says in Matthew: "No one can serve two masters," that is, two natures or sovereignties.

in Paul writing to the Romans: "they worshipped and served the creation rather than the creator." And this from the lawgiver Moses: "he who sacrifices to alien gods shall be stoned, except to the Lord alone." A recent and alien god is one who is not consubstantial with the God and Father and who at some time 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 wound both the will of the Father, who says "I will not give my glory to another," meaning to one of a different nature, while wishing the Son to be honored like himself, and the tradition of the Son, suffering similarly to those who call Christ himself with their mouth but strike him with their hands and cry out: "prophesy for us, Christ, who struck you?" and who also say thus: "we believe as Moses and the prophets," but crucify the one prophesied. When therefore both God the Father together with the only-begotten God is disobeyed, and faith in a creature is useless, being able to harm rather than save, let them consider whether they have a faith that is without danger, denying salvation; for one who believes rightly must be saved; for it is good, they say, to be saved, the rest is another matter. And the children of Macedonius, as they do not preserve the glory of the Holy Spirit, so also they do not preserve that of the only-begotten, saying he is of like essence to the Father and not consubstantial, as if to be understood that he is of another similar essence.

Thus it remains for the heretics either to change in their religions the name of the Father, as if the Father is not truly present among them, and also that of the only-begotten Son, and of the Spirit of God, as if this does not exist—may the holy, venerable, and by us glorified consubstantial Trinity forgive us—and to change above all their own name, and neither to be called Christians or spiritual ones, nor to be disposed as if they themselves are those same kindred sons of their own fathers, or not to separate the true Son and his Holy Spirit from the Father's divinity and glory. For it is characteristic of Jews to honor only the Father, and of Greeks to worship a multitude of great and small, temporal and heteroousian demons.

How one ought to understand the theological statements of the scriptures. And I, unworthy though I am, was impelled to contend for the theological statements concerning the only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit, in no way even in thought diminishing the ineffable glory concerning God and Father—for it is not unknown, even if it has not been declared before both of the said divine hypostases, that nevertheless both hypostases are from him by nature connaturally, that of the Son generatively, that of his Spirit processively—but rather repudiating the utterly destructive interpretations of the heretics and maintaining, by means of those things by which they seem, contrary to scripture, to...

honor the Father, through these they both grieve him and insult his only-begotten Son and the Spirit.

And this concerning the same.

The orthodox must know that even concerning a small work of God—if one dares to call it a small work of God—those who wish to treat it need words, and works before words, and faith before both of these, and much reverence and the highest understanding, so that, having been deemed worthy to know through these that even the small is not graspable by the intellect, but surpasses human attempts infinitely—for if it is a work of God, even if it seems small, it is great as being of God: "How could one grasp great things with small labors? It is ignorant," they say, "even to wish such things"—much more does the comprehension of the ineffable God himself, surpassing even the perception of archangels, cause them to withdraw from dangerous inquiries, leaving these to be known by God alone, and with the apostle they say: "I believed, therefore I spoke." And they should understand the theological statements of the Scriptures thus: that when they speak from one person, it is because of the one nature and will; when from both, it is to indicate the distinct subsistence of the holy and pure Trinity. For when Isaiah says: "I am the Lord, I stretched out the heaven and made firm the earth," and again: "I am and there is no other God besides me," it is because of the one divinity and harmony, as previously stated. When the Holy Spirit seems not to be mentioned, it is because it is included in God, whose Spirit it is. When the Master hands down the mystagogy and says:

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, because of the equal honor and equal power and consubstantiality and the distinctness of the hypostases; when what is now said concerning God and Father is elsewhere recalled concerning the only-begotten or the Holy Spirit, because of the reasons previously stated; when they teach that the same works cause both hypostases to perform the same activity differently, because of what was said before; when each hypostasis, being able to create and make everything, God and Father willed that all things subsist through the Son and God, and that they be sanctified through the Holy Spirit, because of the one will of the Trinity and because all good things are shown to be supplied from it, and because we send up to it common and equal thanksgiving and doxology; when they use the same names for the blessed Trinity, such as "God," "Lord," "holy," "righteous," "good," and all such things—except that "the Father" is alone and always Father, and "the true Son and God" is without beginning Son and God, and "the Holy Spirit" is without beginning one and the same Spirit of God—because of the communion of nature and kingdom and all things; this is so for it alone; when they speak in secret, because the mystery of faith is always guarded, being revealed only to the faithful; when they say that God the Father begets, the Son Word is begotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeds, because they understand theologically that from the hypostasis of the Father they have come forth and are united without beginning and without passion, not in a manner similar to creatures. When he says:

The one who sent me, the Father, is greater than I," and all that is considered small with respect to divinity, because of his ineffable and voluntary economy for our sake and on your behalf. For in the divinity, neither smallness nor not being everywhere has any place. When the Son says, "My Father has given me a command, what I should say and what I should speak, and I did not speak from myself," and concerning the Holy Spirit, "He will not speak from himself," and all such things, it is because of the harmony of the divine hypostases and because the teachings and gifts of the blessed Trinity are common and not discordant like those of humans. Concerning the Holy Trinity being incomprehensible. Those who strive to be a temple, even in some measure worthy of the Holy Spirit dwelling in the faithful, since once the inaccessible light shines upon them, they glorify, as the Lord in the mystagogy of baptism decreed with equal honor, both the self-existent God and Father and the beloved and only-begotten Son Logos, who coexists with him from him, and the aforementioned Holy Spirit, which alone proceeded from his hypostasis without beginning and without interval; not disbelieving in the consubstantiality of the Trinity, but not seeking the manner and difference of generation and procession; since this is unknown, ineffable, and fearful even for the heavenly liturgical powers to contemplate; and how the Holy Trinity subsists together with itself without beginning, always being in the same way and according to the same things; and what it is like, sitting on the eternal throne, to gaze into abysses and to be heard while silent and to hear those who are silent; and to know the future before what is to be done.

and by word, and swifter than word, and by will alone to bring everything into being; and before one discerns in the heart, only faithfully and justly, to grant the verdict immediately upon the request; and to adapt every occasion for beneficence; and to be slow to anger, but ready for well-doing; and to be provoked by our transgression, but to remit punishment through its own philanthropy; moreover, it is incomprehensible how it has one will, and speaks and provides itself in common; and it visits not so much the good condition of bodies, but the crushed heart itself. And indeed this also: how it is invisible and unencompassed even by seraphic eyes, uncircumscribed by word and place, indivisible in power, intangible, without magnitude, without learning, without breadth, without form; all-seeing, all-hearing, and the hope of all; brighter than the great abundance of heavenly light, and higher than any height that cannot be spoken, and more intelligent than any mind by infinite reason. For how should the things of the Trinity not be incomprehensible to all, when it itself is the originator of all and above all intellectual and even intelligible creation, after which there is absolutely nothing beyond, but rather all things are under it, and through it and under its feet as creations? For the Father, having willed, first began; the only-begotten Son created; and the Spirit of God sanctified and perfected by its sanctification, enlightened, empowered, and gave life; existing whole in all and in each, and wholly participated in and contained by all through goodness; and not divided, nor passing or changing.

but always breathing upon all alike, and not partially, and preserving its own immaculate purity from bodies, and divinely illuminating all things and everywhere multiplying sanctification, love, peace, wisdom, joy, security, and every good, which have shone forth hypostatically from the paternal source; through whom and for whom God and Father approaches us, with whom he is both in the heavens and remains with us; each divine hypostasis being able independently to do all things perfectly, but in order to show the co-operative and unvarying character both of their essence and of the worship, glory, and thanksgiving that ought to be rendered by us, for this reason the creation was filled by the holy Trinity in common. Therefore, representing that creation is ordered triadically, he sings: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their powers." For he called "Lord" God the Father, and "word" the only-begotten Son, through whom and

by whom they were created, while "Spirit" is the hypostatic Holy Spirit of God, by whom they were sanctified and empowered. For it is the divine name, the all-ruling and supreme dignity, which is remembered and glorified together with the Father and the Son; the sanctifying and life-giving one that imparts heavenly light; the one that preserves each thing in its identical continuance; the one that resounded to prophets and apostles, and strengthened martyrs to withstand tyrannical cruelty; the one that renews and liberates as Lord, and makes us sons of God as the Spirit of adoption; the one that puts to flight with its illumination the hordes of demons and shames the adversary; the one that opens for us the gates of the heavens, and leads to the entrance of salvation, and makes us participants in the polity and hymnody of angels; the one that becomes for us a path leading to the heavenly God and Father himself; the self-determined and surpassing, most tranquil manifestation; the fruitful, infinite, and salvific power; the immeasurable, incomparable, and venerable hypostasis; the undefiled, esteemed, and all-holy glory; the divine grace that fills what is lacking and heals what is weak; the ineffable and eternal goodness; the source of inexhaustible gifts and the procession of every good mind; the true revelation of future and unknown things; the salvific seal and the divine anointing, the pledge of eternal goods, by whom every creation, visible and invisible, rational and non-rational, is empowered; by whom we have divine regeneration, remission of lawlessnesses, covering of sins, and kinship with God.

a crown for the righteous and a reception of good things; a heavenly abode and unceasing life, and an eternal inheritance of the kingdom of God; of which communion the participant obtains through regeneration the good things mentioned and becomes a partaker of the divine nature according to the catholic epistles. For he who has partaken of the incorruptible and eternal illumination remains ageless in the intelligible part, in youth and gentleness, and is made like the one who alone possesses immortality and dwells in inaccessible light. For the hierophants of the old and new covenant know that the Holy Spirit is of the one supreme divine nature. At once, then, they testify:

Concerning the Holy Spirit being of God; and concerning heretical opposition. First, that the Spirit is of God and from God, even if not after him, and knowing only the things of God, and being over all, they say the following: Moses in Genesis from the person of God: “My Spirit will not remain among these men forever because they are flesh.” Haggai similarly from the divine voice: “I am with you, and my Spirit stands in your midst.” Zechariah similarly: “But hear my words, and receive my laws, which I command in 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 into your mouth, will not cease from your mouth nor from the mouth of your seed,” calling his seed the faithful, whom he also called to adoption. And again from the Son:

The spirit of the Lord is upon me." These things have been accomplished in the economy. Matthew spoke thus: "So that what was said through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying: Behold my son, whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul has delighted; I will place my spirit upon him." And again from the Father: "For a spirit will go forth from me." And in Ezekiel the Most High Father calls our spirit "your" spirit, but the Holy Spirit he names as his own, since it proceeds from him according to nature: "And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit; and I will remove the stony heart from your flesh, and I will give you a fleshy heart, and I will give my spirit in you." And in Joel: "I will pour out from my spirit upon all flesh." And that these things have been fulfilled, Paul wrote to Titus: "When our saving grace appeared, not from works which we had done, but according to his great mercy, having regenerated us through the bath of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ." And when did he pour it out? When Christ, breathing upon them, said: "Receive the Holy Spirit." And the phrase "he poured out" is well said, since water flows from him consubstantially, and a divine ointment, as will be shown by us opportunely in the appropriate places. And the phrase "upon all flesh." For these words apply to the substance of the Holy Trinity which is participated in common, but not to a created, unparticipated rational nature; for it is nowhere written nor is it plausible to say: "I will pour out from the archangel," but "from my spirit," and not even thus absolutely, but "upon all flesh.

And David, beseeching, cries out: "Do not take away your holy spirit from me," and again: "Your holy spirit will guide me on a straight path." And Matthew, from the Son: "It is not you who are speaking, but the spirit of my Father speaking in you," which is: not you, the created ones, but the uncreated spirit of God. And Paul writes, in the first letter to the Corinthians: "Things which the eye has not seen, and the ear has not heard, and have not entered into the heart of a man; things which God has prepared for those who love him, but to us God has revealed through his spirit. The spirit investigates all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man within him? So also, no one knows the things of God, except the spirit of God. But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit that is from God, so that we may see the things granted to us by God." He called the good things "prepared" by God, because "the spirit" "revealed" as a co-giver; and "his spirit" by way of contrast with our spirit. And, securing again the point that it should not be thought of as an angel or another created spirit, he added: "We have not received the spirit of the world"—that is, created—"but the spirit that is from God"—that is, from what remains, the spirit that has proceeded from the hypostasis of God; and as it alone knows the things of God, as Lord, and having likewise the same nature in relation to the Father. For

Slave," as it says in the Gospel, "does not know what his master does." But he did not say, as in the case of man, that which dwells "in God," lest the simple God be thought composite. And to the Ephesians: "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by 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; but if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, that one is not his." And to the Galatians: "That you are sons, God 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 saying "spirit of God," and the addition of "my" and "your," clearly indicated that it is both uncreated and God, having a name not adventitious, but from being naturally that which it is also called. And that it is written "spirit of the Son" likewise manifested its communion of nature with him, and so that it not be thought a creature of his. For how could the Son have created for his own Father, as if he did not have it from himself beforehand, that which is and is written as spirit of God? Which is not only blasphemous, but also foolish. "Spirit of Christ" could be understood, that is, power of Christ, in the way that "Christ" is said to be "power of God and wisdom of God.

Since these blessed hypostases came forth from one Father by nature and not by a creative energy, they are referred back to that same one. For in order that no one might suspect that he has a beginning or an end, but might truly believe, from his procession according to his nature, that he is the Spirit of God, breathed forth without beginning and not created, like one of the other ministering spirits, the Lord teaches in the Gospel according to John, saying: "The Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father." He did not say "is created." For every generation and procession is accomplished through equals and similars; but especially the generation and procession from the one Father in the unity of his own divinity is different. But in the case of creatures, the prototype precedes in time; in the case of God, it is not so, but they subsist together and have come forth together. And John, in agreement with the Lord, proclaimed the Holy Spirit's equality and identity with the Father, and that, as a partial grace, it encompasses the whole, as one might say, the infinite God the Father, and shows that it is found as a partial grace among the faithful, saying: "For in this we know that we remain in him, and he in us, from his Spirit, which he gave us." In the same way the Son said: "He who has seen me has seen the Father," and "I came forth from the Father." For nothing that has any diminution in essence or time or glory can fully reveal the whole truth or be of the same kind and have equal knowledge; nor could anyone obtain a share of true divinity through a creature.

The Holy Spirit is given not by divisions of cutting, but by the principle of participation, and so that He may be understood to dwell in us not as being of a different nature or of a different mind from the Father. And "the son of thunder" showed at the same time that where the Holy Spirit is, there the God Father is present, whose Spirit He is; which the God Himself also proclaimed beforehand, saying: "I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they will be my people." As again the opposite makes clear, that if someone does not have the Spirit of God as true God, he does not have the Father either; and where He is not present, there is nothing true, nothing secure, nothing steadfast. Conversely, whoever speaks about Him, even if he happens to be a heretic, if asked about which Spirit he is speaking, says: "the Holy"; and if again a question is put to him, "which Holy," he is compelled to say for the clearest indication: "the Spirit of God," since the others are not substantially His. But heretics, becoming depraved for themselves and for their hearers, with violent attempts slander those who are better than us and themselves and vastly superior, and who have given oracles concerning the Holy Spirit as saints; to whom one must not legislate contrary things. For they say verbatim as follows: "When therefore God says: 'my servant Isaiah,' and, 'my firstborn son Israel,' does the syllable 'my' show that the human nature has something in common with the nature of God? Just as, then, he says, He said this as being the cause of their existence, so also He called their ensoulment 'my Spirit.'" If they had any regard for truth and precision, they would not have stumbled so greatly.

First, by saying "Isaiah" and "Israel" he indicated they were human beings; but he added "my" to them as a special designation, as belonging to him by their actions. He called Isaiah "servant," that is, slave, and Israel "firstborn," as the first to begin serving him, and being in the disposition and care of God toward him in the order of a son. So "my" when said by God of the true Son and the true Spirit indicates the kinship of nature; but in the case of all others, it signifies a difference according to lordship or faith. Just as we are accustomed to say, in the case of those consubstantial with us, "my son, my spirit," but in the case of others, "my field, my horse," and also "my God." For just as the hypostatic Word of the divine nature is not shown to be Son and Only-begotten and Word of God, Christ, by being simply and absolutely spoken, but by having the syllable "my" and "your" attached. As when God says, "This is my beloved son," and again, "my good Word," and "I have prepared a lamp for my Christ"; and we acclaim, "your Son, your Only-begotten, your Christ." Nor indeed does the fact that it is written homonymously or synonymously about us, "sons of men, how long will you be heavy-hearted?" draw the Son of God down to the homonymy of divinity.

Thus the Holy Spirit—not the mere utterance of "Spirit," but the fact that it is joined to the name either as "my" from God or as "your" from creation, or even the term "holy" or "imperishable" or "eternal"—indicates that it proceeds from the paternal hypostasis. Nor does the homonymous use of the terms for the liturgical spirits and our own spirits, whether holy or eternal, draw it away from being by nature the true Spirit of God. For even in the very riddles concerning it, some indication of its divine nature and power is invariably found. Creatures, on the other hand, received the holy and eternal according to their own nature, not possessing these things from themselves once and for all by nature. Moreover, do not these heretics themselves stand accused by their own testimony, in that they accept "my" in reference to the Son of God, and "holy" and "eternal" without qualification, as announcing an identity of the divine nature? Furthermore, in the proofs set forth, he did not call our ensoulment "Spirit," but his own Holy Spirit. For while we have our own spirit, the Spirit of God was also given to us. For the Father said, "My Spirit will not remain in these men," and the Son said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." It is clear that those who already had their own spirit were being spoken to concerning the divine Spirit. Therefore, just as the Son is the Word of God, filially generative, so the Holy Spirit is spiritually processive and not creatively. And just as there is no variation of essence, power, and glory between the only-begotten Son and God the Father, but every difference, if it is proper to say this, from creation, so also with the one divine Spirit.

Therefore, it is more just not even to hear the heretical teachings, let alone to accept them. Concerning the fact that the divine nature of the Holy Spirit is signified by various names.

What we stated from the beginning is secondarily attested by the Scriptures: that there are various God-befitting names for the Spirit of God, conveying much other elevated significance and a relation superior to all, continuous with the Father and the Son and surpassing the most fitting interpretation, contributing to the doctrines at hand; and further, some of them unfold his divine nature, others his authoritative power, and they console our inability to attain to him worthily either by verbal interpretation or by mental contemplation, and they provide confidence to call him without risk consubstantial with God and to believe in his sanctification. And we find none of the other spirits deemed worthy to be called by these names; but that which alone and by nature possesses these is none of all things, but God. The names are these: Holy Spirit, as is written everywhere; Spirit of holiness, and sanctifying, as Paul writes in Romans: "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son, who was born from the seed of David according to the flesh, who was designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness," and again: "so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable,

hallowed in the Holy Spirit,” and elsewhere: “But we must always give thanks to God concerning you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as a first offering for salvation in the sanctification of the Spirit and the faith of truth.” Spirit of power and love and prudence, as Paul wrote in the second epistle to Timothy: “For God did not give you a spirit of slavery, but a spirit of power and love and prudence,” and to the Romans: “But I exhort you, brothers, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit,” and elsewhere: “Now the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,” similar to “God is love,” and to “He transferred into the kingdom of the son of his love,” and “Just as Christ loved the church,” and again: “of the son of God who loved me,” similar also to “From now on you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the power of the Father,” and to “I knew a power that came forth from me.” Spirit of wisdom and understanding, spirit of counsel and might, spirit of knowledge and piety, spirit of fear of God, spirit of judgment and burning, as Isaiah prophesies, and as Wisdom says: “For the spirit of wisdom is philanthropic,” and as Moses narrates in Exodus: “Behold, God called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, from the tribe of Judah, and filled him with a divine spirit of wisdom and understanding and knowledge,” and according to Baruch: “You have abandoned the fountain of wisdom,” and as the Proverbs teach.

God founded the earth with wisdom and prepared the heavens with intelligence, as Isaiah said concerning God the Father: "He himself, being wise, brought evils upon them." And concerning the Only-Begotten, Paul said: "Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God." And another: "I will bless the Lord who made me intelligent." A spirit of meekness, as Paul admonishes the Galatians: "Brothers, if a person is overtaken in some transgression, you who are spiritual should correct such a one in a spirit of meekness." A spirit of discipline, that is, of wisdom. For wisdom says: "A spirit of discipline will flee from deceit and will withdraw from foolish thoughts." A spirit of adoption, as Paul sent to the Romans first: "For those who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. For you have received a spirit of adoption, in which we cry, 'Abba, Father'; this same spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." A spirit of promise, according to the same apostle writing to the Ephesians: "In whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the spirit of the promise, the holy one, which 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 the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith." A spirit of faith and revelation, according to the same apostle to the Corinthians, declaring in the second epistle: "Having the same spirit of faith," and again:

God revealed to us through his Spirit." This is similar to what he declared to the Romans: "God is faithful, through whom you were called into communion with his Son," and to what was said by Moses in Deuteronomy: "And you shall know today that the Lord your God, this God is the faithful God," and to the psalmist: "The Lord is faithful in all his words and holy in all his works." A governing spirit, a righteous spirit according to David in the fiftieth psalm confessing: "Strengthen me with a governing spirit"; similarly to the psalmist in the thirty-second: "For the word of the Lord is righteous and all his works are in faith," and to Moses saying: "The Lord our God is righteous and there is no injustice in him." A spirit of grace, as the apostle writes to the Hebrews: "He who trampled the Son of God and insulted the spirit of grace," for the same wrote concerning the Father: "By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace is toward me," and concerning the Son: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." A spirit of truth, as John from the Savior proclaims: "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 forever," and again in his first epistle: "And the spirit is that which bears witness that the spirit is the truth," similar to the Son saying: "I am the truth." A divine spirit and a breath of the Almighty and a philanthropic spirit, according to the phrasing of Job and the passage of Moses mentioned a few lines earlier in this chapter.

the Holy Spirit was also praised and called light, in and by which we are illuminated, as when the apostle writes: "that he might give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation, in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened," and as David sings: "because 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 was marked upon us, Lord." For what else could the Spirit be, which proceeds from the Father or from the light? Concerning whom John sang in his first epistle: "God is light," and in the Gospel about 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." And it is no wonder, if being one and always the same, it is glorified by different appellations. For since his ineffable divinity is beyond the grasp of mortal words, we, hymning the energies that come to us according to our capacity, make use of different names as well. But those who advocate the doctrine of Macedonius, being more adherents of their own heresy than of the truth, see nothing that agrees with the words of the scriptures. For they rashly fabricate myths with the very words, saying that one should not attend to homonymies or synonymies or similar expressions. For, they say, the name "good" of God is conjoined with "one God," but in the case of the Holy Spirit, the name "good" is not coupled with "one God." And again: "good," they say, is written to be also of man, as when it says: "make good, Lord, to the good," and:

The good man brings forth good things from the good treasure." Similarly, he says, good things are called by the same name even inanimate objects, as when the prophecy says: "If you are willing and listen to me, you will eat the good things of the earth." But it is also said of things that are supposedly non-substantial: "It is good to confess to the Lord." Likewise, he says, "holy" is called both a man and a power of God, he says, and a worm, as it is written: "The caterpillar, my power, the great," and also the Savior: "The powers of the heavens will be shaken." And this I say, that not paying attention to homonymies and similar expressions has reason in the case of things that are different in form and different in substance, but not in the case of the Holy Spirit and that of which it is the Spirit, nor yet of the Son. For Scripture, adding its own safeguard to homonymies or synonymies, combines the syllable "my" or "your" or the word "holy" or "good"; that is, either it says from God: "my Spirit," or from David and from us: "your good Spirit will lead me." Therefore, one must be persuaded by what is far more beneficial, I mean the aforementioned scriptural testimonies, and know that the Holy Spirit has homonymy or synonymy and similar expressions with God and his only-begotten Son, who are hymned with similar names, not with creatures because of the homonymy sometimes found in them. For even if we were to grant that these share a name or expression with God, they do not share in substance or in the energy of power and sanctification. For these do not exist at all by nature.

By comparison with evil, the good, and with sin, that is, passion, the holy is ordained; for what is not excessively evil and sinful, that is, impassioned, is here called good and holy. For just as evil and sin, that is, passion and weakness, are not found in the one Holy Spirit, since it is unbegotten, so in none of the begotten things are the good, the holy, and the powerful found in perfection, but by participation; but where these are not at all in perfection, there the unbegotten is not at all. For where there is darkness, there is no light; and "where there is night, there is no day. Whence" it is also said to Hermes, surnamed Trismegistus, "it is impossible for the good to be in generation, but only in the unbegotten. Just as participation in all things is given to matter, so also is participation in the good." Therefore, the Holy Spirit is similar and equal to the divinity of the Father and the Only-begotten; and from the judgment of such things it is shown that it is by nature holiness, goodness, and power, since it is one from the one. For according to their contentiousness, neither would the most good and gracious Son by nature still be good, since he does not have "one God" conjoined. Nor indeed would the most philanthropic and wholly gracious Father and the Son have the aforementioned titles of divinity as distinctive marks; but through them they would be degraded, as is the custom of heretics to speak, to those who are homonymous with us. Be gracious, O Holy Trinity. —But the Son, they say, being co-begotten, has goodness innate, and all the other things that the Father has. —But also the Holy Spirit, being co-processed, is by nature good, and all that God the Father is.

If then their discussion were about ordinary or worldly matters, it would be fitting for them to fabricate certain myths and, with Aristotelian cleverness, as it were, and with skill in words, like Eunomius, to twist the matter and obscure the truth. But now Paul teaches: "Unless you believe, you will not understand," and "The wisdom of men is folly before God." And one must not cleverly manipulate 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 mockeries of heretics, who have come to think basely, extend beyond the hearing. But those who employ such things will labor and act endlessly, somewhat like those who attempt to mock this light, which derives its power from the inaccessible light, and to defile it with words. One must believe that the teaching from the saints is able to produce a greater glory than that from humans. It therefore befits us to reproach them for not, through an excess of goodwill toward their own heresy, dragging down, as far as they can, the divine to the results of creatures by their sophistries, and through these to engender a love of destruction in the simpler and more inexperienced, and to lead them into a desire for greater sins. Concerning the heretics who say: God is spirit, and how is the Holy Spirit spirit of the Spirit? And again: Are not the angels, they say, from God and holy and spirits of God?

But rejecting the simple, straightforward, perfect, and filling the intention of the sacred words with ignorance, according to which God the Father wills his Spirit to be ranked with him, as the only-begotten Word, and secures its being set apart from creation and its superiority, for which reason it is also thrice-holy-hymned, they say: How is the Holy Spirit the Spirit of the Spirit? That this is written has been shown; but the how lies beyond the understanding and reason of us, and even beyond the knowledge of angels. For as the Father exists as his parent, the Word God was born from him; so from him and with him the Holy Spirit was manifested. And in this especially is shown his incomprehensibility, in that what appears and is impossible for creation is possible for him. For what is the difference between the uncaused and life-giving nature and the created and life-receiving one? It is not possible for the Spirit not to be consubstantial and of equal honor with that from which it comes. Therefore it is also holy by nature. So then, they say, are not the angels from God and holy and spirits of God? Those are from God in that they have come into being by his command, as all things; holy after being sanctified, as humans; spirits, in that they are incorporeal relative to us; not called spirits of God or from God or proceeding from the Father or divine or spirits of truth or spirits of holiness; but angels, ministers, and heavenly bodies because they are infinitely distant and fall short of the uncreated Spirit of God, according to the experienced apostle who writes: "earthly bodies and heavenly bodies.

For just as the spirits of the winds are not according to them, nor are they themselves according to the Holy Spirit of God. For they were created, but they did not proceed from the hypostasis of God and Father; they do not regenerate us, they do not deify us, they do not forgive sins, they do not give life, they do not create, they do not sanctify, they do not judge, but rather they are judged. For it says, "You will judge even angels." Nor are the powers of the heavens among them. They are not circumscribed by places nor immeasurable by intervals. For Gabriel, speaking to Daniel or announcing the good news to the God-bearing virgin, was not also in heaven in essence, as in thought, but at that time he dwelt only on earth. Nor are they uncircumscribed by the ages; for it says, "He who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a blazing fire." They do not do any one of the things done by the Holy Spirit, but they also minister to him, as the archangel Gabriel showed, serving the God-bearing Mary and saying, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you." Therefore, neither is man their temple, as he is of God and of his Spirit and of the only-begotten Son. They are not included together with God. There is not one angelic hypostasis, but it is even hard to number. But the supremely luminous Holy Spirit came forth consubstantially and uniformly from the ineffable, super-essential, pre-essential, universal, and formless paternal hypostasis timelessly, and is called divine; and it is one, not multiplied, good, ungrudging, inaccessible, uncircumscribed by all intellections, infinitely powerful, unselectable, existing uniquely.

and is by nature both holy and spirit of God, and is none of all things, but is God in heaven and also present with us, cause of all good things to all; present to the whole immaterially, formlessly, without change; not departing from being ineffably seated together with the Father, and being extended everywhere and pervading, and dwelling unmixed in all; and entering into the thoughts of us and of those invisible to us, and examining all things, although knowing all; and sounding silently, and hearing souls crying out within in silence, and pitying all without delay, and strengthening, and giving ineffable joy to natures everywhere; containing the constitution of this universe, and holding all things under himself; and illuminating with divine light and benefiting by his boundless energy and goodness; leading those of better disposition to a more perfect goal, and not depriving those that are worse and behave erringly of his royal, harmonious, and undivided protection, but placing them in desire and awareness of the consubstantial triad that supplies all goods; and assisting all who cultivate good works, while being so exalted above all that, when one of the apostles was living in India, another in Spain, and another in another place as far as the ends of the earth assigned to him, he imparted to each his own unerring and unadulterated wisdom; not coming now to one and later to another, nor breathing more upon one and less upon another, but shining upon each simultaneously and together and separately always in like manner, as also the Lord who said:

I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age." Since they—because they transfer the theology concerning the Spirit found in John, where he said, "God is Spirit," to God the Father, claiming that because He is Spirit it is written thus, and further, since it is also written, "Spirit of our face, Christ the Lord"—will they then number both the Father and the Son, as Spirit, among the other ministering spirits? If this is not so, then neither is the Holy Spirit conceived of as among the other spirits. For He is not an archangel. Michael and Gabriel and those like them are archangels; but after them, not even heretics would say that the Holy Spirit of God is ranked. Where then, or among what creatures, do they judge it to be placed? For after God, we have not learned from the Scriptures of any other rational nature besides the many spirits and, according to us, bodies. Further, they sophistically adduce from the preceding: the Father and the Son are "true," but the Spirit is written as "truth," as if this were discordant. But it is the same, as has been shown in the first discourse, and this does not differ from that. Concerning those who say, "Since the Word of God is only-begotten, what shall we call the Spirit?" and concerning the Son being witnessed as only-begotten. The Holy Spirit is one and only; and again, the Son is Word; the Holy Spirit, utterance. And concerning comparison; and concerning there being no paradigm of the incomparable essence.

To these things the most variegated and versatile in argument—I know not whether also in opinion—but certainly those who are alien to the simpler and truer teaching, the heretics, often twisting the same words, say: "The Word of God was called 'only-begotten' because the Holy Spirit is not from the hypostasis of the Father. For if he were, he would not have been called only-begotten, but the Holy Spirit would have been called his brother." They thus disagree even among themselves, but the truth is against them. "Only-begotten" is written both because he alone was begotten from the hypostasis of the Father and not emanated, as the Holy Spirit is, and because it excludes the blasphemies of heretics who say he is a creature and a son as we are. And the Holy Spirit is written as one and only, both because he alone and uniquely emanates from the hypostasis of God the Father and is not begotten, as the Son is, and so that he not be suspected of being a creature, like the other spirits. For the one is not two, nor is the Spirit alien to the essence of the Father, nor is it separated from union with the one; nor does it have a lesser status relative to him, nor is there another more connatural or more godlike than itself; nor does it suffer being called a number, being of the unitary essence, nor being ranked among derivative beings, since it is among those that produce all things together with the Father and the Son. Therefore the one Holy Spirit can be neither unlike the one Father or the one Son, nor like the multitude of spirits.

For just as there is one God and Father and one true Son, and we are all called gods and sons according to the image, through his goodness and ungrudgingness—not being so in truth—according to the saying, "I said: you are gods and sons of the Most High, all of you," so, there being one and only Holy Spirit of truth, many spirits are spoken of, which are not by nature spirits of God. They, not seeing and not considering how they might appear to agree with the theologians in saying something, do not hesitate to add other harmful things. And let no one blame me, before hearing the whole argument, if I call their words harmful. For he will find that they speak directly opposing the opinion of the divinely inspired men, who had the distinction in this matter as a gift from God. For they say: if the Holy Spirit is God, then it is either Father or Son; but being neither of these, it is not God, just as the other spirits are not. We must therefore answer them thus: just as the Father is God not because he is father, but because he is of divine nature, and the Son is not because he is a son of any chance being, but because he is the Son and Word of God and necessarily belongs to his divine nature, so also the Holy Spirit is God not simply because it is spirit, but because it is the one and only Holy Spirit of God, and is established in his divine nature, as was said before. And just as, when we hear, "God is one" and "You shall worship your Lord God, and serve him alone," we equally believe that the only-begotten Word is God with the Father, and we worship and serve him, so also we are disposed concerning the Holy Spirit.

For to him, to whom we were commanded in the definition given concerning the incorruptible baptism, upon which the whole establishment of our polity and religion depends, we were commanded to rank him with the Father and the Son, and to worship him together with them, and to glorify him together with them, and to minister to him. For this is the rational worship, which Paul wrote as follows: "that you may present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, the rational worship." And just as, when the apostle declared that God alone is wise and possesses immortality, we believe that the Son likewise possesses immortality and is wise, since he is identical in essence with the Father and exists as his Word and eternal life, as he writes, so also concerning the Holy Spirit. For he does not possess immortality and wisdom by grace or gift, like the ministering spirits, but possesses them by nature; for he is the Spirit of wisdom. Therefore it is written: "No one knows the things of the only wise one, except his Spirit." For if they should maintain that these things are not so, they will either reject the Word of God, or they will seem to act contrary to the Scriptures. For nothing is ranked with the Trinity in one divinity, neither the spirits because they are called spirits, even if we do not mention the profane ones, nor men because they are called gods; for we are not so in truth. But if they do not think that the passages "to the only wise God" and "only he who possesses immortality" oppose them, they will not be able to contrive anything from any source against the Holy Spirit.

For these things were thus spoken by Paul, because the Word of God is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit, and they are inseparably united with him in nature, and are brought back to one divinity, as is also said among the outsiders: "One God, self-fathered, from whom all these things came to be." Just as Paul wrote concerning the Father to the Romans, Galatians, and Timothy: "One is God," so John spoke concerning the Son: "The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father." And concerning the Holy Spirit, Paul taught the Corinthians: "But to another, gifts of healings in the one Spirit;" for the unity of the divine and unmultiplied nature is proper. And just as it was written that the Son was begotten, and he says, bearing witness: "I came forth from the Father," so it was written, and the same said: "The Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father," that is, 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 in the manner in which the Son is written as Word because he coexists with the Father, in the same manner the Holy Spirit is written as "Word of God" and "Spirit of his mouth" and "Breath of the Almighty," since he shone forth from him as co-subsistent; so that no one might suppose that he is outside the divinity of the Father or of his Word. For the word is proper to the Word, and the Word to the Mind; and it is fulfilled: "The one God and Father of all, and over all, and through all, and in all." And just as the Son is shown to be indistinguishable from the Father, as he writes:

He who has seen me has seen the Father.” Likewise also the Holy Spirit, through the words which declare: “In this we know that God is in us, from his Spirit which he gave us.” Therefore it is absolutely necessary, since the Father is true God, that the one who shows him by his own manifestation is also true God and equal to him. And just as all things came to be through the Son, so all things were sanctified and empowered by the Spirit. For the apostles say: “Master, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all things in them; who through the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of your servant David, is an image.” And just as the only-begotten is indicated as equal in power and similar to the Father, and as having authority, according to the saying: “Whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does,” so also the Spirit of God, according to: “All these things the one and the same Spirit works.” And just as Christ said concerning himself: “No one knew the Father except the Son,” so also concerning the Holy Spirit the similar is said: “No one knew the things of God except the Spirit of God.” And in the way that the Son was called the angelic “angel of great counsel,” so also concerning the Holy Spirit: for it says: “But we received the Spirit of God, that we might know the things granted to us by God.” And most similar to: “Christ is the firstfruits,” is the saying: “And having the firstfruits of the Spirit.” And equal to: “May the Lord sanctify you, that you may be pure and blameless until the day of redemption,” is: “That the offering of the nations may be acceptable, sanctified in the Holy Spirit.” And equivalent to saying:

He who separated me from my mother’s womb, through his grace to reveal in me his Christ,” the saying: “God revealed through his Spirit.” And equivalent to saying: “Test yourselves, whether Christ is in you,” is the statement: “But we did not receive the spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God.” And equal is the saying: “Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” to that written by John: “If we love one another, God remains in you. In this we know that we remain in him and he in us from his Spirit which he gave us,” and to the saying: “I and the Father will come, and we will make a dwelling with him.” And just as through the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit is given according to the saying: “I will pour out from my Spirit upon every flesh” and according to the saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit,” so through the Holy Spirit Christ is given according to Paul writing to the Ephesians: “That he may give to you, according to the wealth of his glory, to be strengthened in power through his Spirit, for Christ to dwell in the inner man.” We might also take in a similar and equal manner the saying: “A word of the Lord came to such and such a prophet” and the saying: “The Lord said” and: “Thus says the Lord Almighty” to that spoken by Peter in the Acts: “It was necessary for the scripture to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold” and to that by Paul in Rome to the Jews: “The Holy Spirit spoke well through Isaiah the prophet” and to the saying: “The Spirit says explicitly” and: “Thus says the Lord Almighty.” And equivalent to the saying: “God is eternal” is that proclaimed by Paul:

He who offered himself through the eternal spirit.” And comparable to: “No one can receive the Holy Spirit except from the Lord” and to: “Receive the Holy Spirit” is: “No one can say Lord Jesus Christ except in the Holy Spirit.” And identical is: “To be led by the Holy Spirit to the truth,” that is, to be led by the Holy Spirit to the true faith, with being led by the Lord Christ who decrees: “Baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” And equivalent to the saying: “Shall we not envy the Lord? Are we not stronger than he?” is the writing: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in which you were sealed for the day of redemption.” And similar 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 matching the saying: “The Lord bears witness to my soul that I do not lie” is the writing: “The spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, that one will bear witness concerning me.” And:

The Spirit bears witness to me, saying in every city.” And comparable to the dominical saying: “Behold, I send you, as sheep among wolves,” is: “These then, sent out by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia.” And it is equivalent to write: “If you seek proof of the Christ speaking in me,” as to write: “They said to Paul through the Spirit: Do not go up to Jerusalem.” And akin to: “The Son is eternal life” is what was said by him: “The water which I will give him will become in him a spring of leaping water into eternal life. This he said concerning the Holy Spirit, which those believing in him were about to receive,” and to: “For we have become partakers of Christ” is: “For it is impossible for those once enlightened, having tasted the gift of the heavenly, and having become partakers of the Holy Spirit.” And very similar is what is said in the Acts in this manner: “Tongues as of fire were seen by the apostles, dividing and settling upon each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,” and what was said by John: “He himself will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire,” to that oracularly uttered by Moses: “God is a consuming fire,” and by Isaiah: “Behold, the Lord will come as fire.” And it agrees with the saying: “You were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, in the stripping off of the body’s sins in the circumcision of Christ,” that it is written: “Circumcision of the heart in the Spirit.” And if it is fitting that the voice of Peter be spoken concerning God:

Each one will repent of his wickedness and of the evil way and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and will be saved." Therefore the Spirit is identical to God, and from the fact that the Master said to the disciples in these very words: "Await 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 indicates nothing other than what his other mystagogy concerning baptism also shows, namely that the Holy Spirit effects and is capable of the same things as the name of the Father and his Son, since they belong to the same divinity. And the proclamation of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is identical and equally venerable, as Paul writes to the Romans: "For if the one who comes proclaims another Jesus, whom we did not proclaim, or you receive a different Spirit, which you did not receive." The same indication is also found in: "For I dare not say anything that Christ did not accomplish through me for the obedience of the nations by word and deed in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit of God," and in: "The Father remaining in me, he himself does the works. Believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me." For observe that just as the Father, so also his Spirit remains with Christ, being inseparable from the divine nature; and that the divine works are performed unanimously by the ineffable Trinity; and just as the Father, being in his own hypostasis, is imaged in the Only-begotten, because of the identity of the divinity, that is, of the essence, in the same way the Only-begotten is in the one Holy Spirit.

How many other things are said about the divine Spirit that do not differ from what is written about God and Father and his only-begotten Son, some of which are contained in various places of this book, through which the course of the argument has proceeded. Since they will no longer say, when asked in turn, that Eve came from Adam and the children from her? And how were some recorded as born, but she is neither his child nor a sister of those born from forgetfulness? Since it is not possible to demonstrate from a parable of creatures the unique and incomparable nature, which remains invisible to the mind, and does not endure being brought forward by hearing or words. For even if some small thing, like a shadow of a likeness, so to speak, is found, the greater part flees, leaving the one who makes the comparison somewhere below. For the example can never be identity; it is safe only to say those things which the scriptures have taught according to our measures. That therefore it is written that there is one and only Spirit of God the Father, because it is separated in nature from other spirits, but united to the Father and his Son the Word in essence, Paul teaches, writing to the Corinthians in the first epistle: "but to another gifts of healings in the one Spirit;" and again: "but all these things the one and same Spirit works, distributing to each individually, as it wills," and again: "we all were watered with one Spirit;" and to the Ephesians: "that through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father;" and again: "striving to keep the unity of the Spirit;" that is, to take great care not to separate it from the highest unity and self-sufficient essence.

And that it has also been called "word" is testified as follows: Paul, writing to the Ephesians, says: "taking up the full armor of God, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Which sword Matthew also mentioned from the person of Christ, saying: "I did not come to cast peace, but a sword"—not speaking of a blade, but of the peace-transcending, cutting wisdom of the hardened hearts of the Holy Spirit, which is the indestructible wisdom. And to the Hebrews: "for he bears all things by the word of his power." But by what word? David prophesied: "by the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their powers." And again Paul: "for it is impossible for those once enlightened, having tasted the heavenly gift and become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and having tasted the good word of God." And Peter: "because all flesh is as grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass; the grass has withered and the flower has fallen, and its beauty has perished; but the word of God remains forever." In the same way, concerning the Son, he sings in Psalm 118: "forever, O Lord, your word abides in heaven." For it delivers many most mystical things concerning the highest and most divine hypostases. Now, concerning how all things that are proper to divinity are testified concerning the Holy Spirit, thus:

Then, therefore, they prophesy concerning the pure and ineffable nature of the Holy Spirit, as they do concerning God and Father, who has authority over all, and the Son, who is beyond all and Lord of all, because it is not of a different substance nor inferior in power and glory. And none of these things is found to exist by itself in any created being. For whatever it has, it has received as a gift from the Trinity in one divinity; and each thing is naturally known from what it is, what it is and what it is not, whether it is born god or creation. For example: that it is not, as heretics claim, a first creation. But it is God; for the first creation happens to be Satan. Creation has being, not having existed from the beginning. And it was shown in Job what kind of first creation among rational beings it is; for it speaks of the devil, who falsified his nature by his manner. But the Holy Spirit, as "breath of the Almighty," is nowhere written to be a creation or to have any beginning at all. For neither would a creation have pre-existed the creative Spirit, and such a spurious, ungrateful, and profane thing appearing from its own will, while Scripture neither says that the divine Spirit has a beginning, but rather calls it "Spirit of God" and "from God" and "divine" and "holy," nor does it distinguish in the nature of the divine hypostases a "first" and "then" — what dispute remains concerning their being in the one unbegotten divinity and equal honor? For that it fills the inhabited world and holds together all things: no created thing fills the inhabited world or holds together all things, and is present in all; but also of the intellectual powers, the limit

it is, and a defined quantity; for these are unique to the divinity. But the greatness of the Holy Spirit is indissoluble, infinite, and everywhere, and through all things and in all things always; filling the world and holding it together according to the divinity, but uncontainable according to its power, and measuring, but not measured. "For God does not give the Spirit by measure," as the Savior says in John; and according to Wisdom, which says: "For you love all beings, and you abhor nothing of what you have made; for you would not have made anything while hating it. How could anything have remained, if you had not willed it, or if what was not cast by you had been preserved? But you spare all, because all are yours, O life-loving master, and your incorruptible Spirit is in all." Hence we fittingly call 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 inhabited world, and that which holds all things together has knowledge of voice;" meaning it has encompassed the invisible and visible creation, the intelligible and sensible, and nothing of all things is without a share of his eternal oversight; for this is what holding all things together signifies. And it hears every voice, he says, as God being everywhere in all things always, and turning every material disharmony into the fitting order, and sparing and caring for what has been made by him, since he himself is by nature providence and wisdom, having permeated all things, as the Father. For who has such knowledge? Isaiah speaks thus: "Spirit of knowledge and piety," and David adds: "Where shall I go from your face?

and “from your spirit where shall I flee?” And the Master, teaching that the divinity of the Holy Spirit is not circumscribed by place, but is simultaneously in heaven and on earth, always providing and being provided with 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, which the world cannot receive, does not see it, nor know it; but you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.” And so that it may be known that the one infinite nature present everywhere is also indicated by such testimonies, the same things have been handed down concerning each immaculate hypostasis: Jeremiah, expounding from God the Father, says: “I fill the heaven and the earth, says the Lord”; David, singing of the Son in Psalm 144: “And of his greatness there is no end”; and Paul, proclaiming of the same: “He who descended is the same as he who ascended above all the heavens, to fill all things.” 6. That creation is not incorruptible once for all, but admits corruption—the nourishment which we call also change, as the prophecy says: “He who makes all things and transforms them.” Having heard this, the wise men of the world say: dissolving them into themselves, and from them again increasing. For the incorporeal rational creation has corruption according to choice, since God has given it a permanent nature and established it for the age, and for the age of the age.

When it changes of its own accord and falls into a worse state, and is destroyed by this very fact, so that it loses the name "eternal" from this—for anything that departs from itself, that is, changes, finds death, even if it otherwise persists, in its own alteration. For whatever you might conceive as having come to be afterward, this is the death of the former; for example, when wickedness comes to be, goodness is put to death by that from which it departed, by goodness; and conversely, goodness by wickedness. For there are some things that always stand in their original definition, even if this is not denied to them, they do not endure it. Therefore, they declare these things in letters: Peter says, "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into chains of darkness and kept them for the judgment of the great day, and did not spare the ancient world;" and Jude says, "And angels who did not keep their own beginning, but abandoned their own dwelling, he kept in eternal chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day." But the corporeal rational creation admits of alteration: in habit, as when Judas lost his sanctification; and as Paul writes, "But the wanton widow, though living, is dead," even while still living a life among men; and in substance, as when it first ceases, then falls into immortality. "For," he says, "this perishable thing must put on imperishability, and this mortal thing must put on immortality." But the non-rational creation undergoes change and perishes, as when light changes into darkness and water into blood, as was prophesied.

This is the change of the right hand of the Most High;" and elsewhere: "Heaven," it says, "and earth will pass away." For it was prophesied that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Indeed, everything that has received a beginning also has an end. But the Holy Spirit, as belonging to the ineffable and all-ruling eternal and incorruptible nature, and always being in the same state and according to the same things, knowing and doing only the things of God, and being the guardian of all rational beings and those perfect in faith, as well as of non-rational beings, up to the limit given to non-rational beings for their persistence in identity, is by nature and choice incapable of change and alteration, which is incorruptible. That which is unchangeable, that is, incorruptible, is immediately without beginning, without end, and supereternal. That which is without beginning is creator and not creation. Therefore, Wisdom says rightly: "Your incorruptible Spirit is in all things;" and Peter: "In the incorruptible of the gentle and quiet Spirit." For just as the Father, being always equal to himself and similar, receiving neither decline toward the worse nor increase toward the better, was heard by James: "In whom there is no variation or shadow of change;" and by Paul: "Incorruptible, invisible, only wise God;" in the same way the Son was testified in Psalm 91: "But you, Lord, remain forever," and again: "In the beginning, you, Lord, founded the earth, and the works of your hands are the heavens. They will perish, but you endure; and all will grow old like a garment; and like a cloak you will roll them up and they will be changed.

You, however, are always the same, and your years will not fail. 6. That creation is not eternal once and for all and does not possess eternity in a self-complete manner, first because it does not have this from itself, but received it for the future, from the time it came into being, by the transmission of the one who alone and super-eternally exists, the self-moving God; for being good, he creates and also an end; and as he presides over his own creation, he is ambitious to bestow eternity upon it. Secondly, because of the reasons expounded in the chapter preceding this one. The Holy Spirit, however, as having eternity by nature, as is fitting for a creative and good Spirit of God to have, working all things eternally and never itself being limited, but being capable of limiting the things produced by it, was celebrated with this appellation. You would learn, if you were to follow me, in this way: Paul writes to the Hebrews thus: "Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself blameless to God." He speaks of the Lord Christ, who in his venerable incarnation offered himself through the Holy Spirit on our behalf to his own Father. And Peter also echoes consistent things, as already mentioned: "The word of God remains forever." For here he calls the Spirit of God the word of God. Indeed, Paul, when recalling the identity of the Father and the Son through the divinity, uses the same honorific term: "God," he says, "and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knows, who is blessed forever;" and again: "Jesus Christ yesterday and today.

the same for the ages.” But it is not, it is not possible to hear with the ear what those who are disposed concerning the theology of the Holy Spirit have defined in this chapter as well. For they lead themselves to the ends of the earth from preconception; and uncritical

love is not accustomed to bear witness to an accurate examination; nevertheless, nothing prevents hearing that very persuasive artifice. For in this way they would be even more condemned. It runs thus: not if something is called eternal homonymously can it be called God, but if someone is God, he is a maker of eternal things. For it is written: “God is the maker of times and ages;” and again: “Having spoken in many ways and in many manners long ago through the prophets, in the last of the days he spoke to us through a son, whom he appointed heir of all, through whom he also made the ages.” For not if something is called eternal must it be named God; there will be infinite gods. For it is written: “And the eternal gates were raised,” and again: “Eternal years were remembered,” and again: “Like eternal sheep,” and: “These will rise for eternal punishment.” And elsewhere: “Those in the dust of the earth will rise, some to eternal life, others to eternal shame.” Therefore, are punishment and shame gods? You see into how great absurdity and impiety the homonymy concerning the eternal falls. Now, with the thoughts and words of those men, brine both floats on the surface and is mixed together; but this is dissolved by the following: of the name “eternal,” as we just recalled, even if the other things received it, they did not receive it from time; but they also have corruption, a change from their own disposition, and their eternal is entirely dissimilar to the divine eternal.

just as neither the so-called holy one, whether angel or human, is similarly and equally this to the Holy Spirit of the holy ones; for it itself is holiness and eternity the whole. Let them attend, therefore, with what great utterance the eternal is spoken of the Holy Spirit, and that to this that marvelous and utterly incomprehensible thing was added, I mean that through the Holy Spirit the one who constructed the ages brought himself to his own true Father on our behalf. Let them also consider that all the powers of the heavens are in the Holy Spirit, entirely because it is co-creator with the self-sufficient creator; and that, of which the heretics inopportunely but deliberately made mention of eternal gates and sheep, the end the oracles brought forward by us to this chapter have foretold. And let it be clear to them the difference between the unbeginning and unchangeable eternal and that which is from time and changeable, and that this is not small, nor is it only about substance and another beauty, but the altogether different. Let it also be known that the Holy Spirit has the judgment concerning the eternal in relation to the God Father who strengthened all things and the Son, not in relation to the creatures; and having dissolved the worse opinion, let them choose the better; and let them marvel, instead of the present things, at what is worthy of marvel; and let them make the time after this better; for there is no envy; and from that by which they harmed themselves, having made a boastful reproach, let them also from this carry off the benefit of repentance.

If, as this expression was used to indicate something befitting God concerning the Father and the Son, it would perhaps be taken equally and similarly concerning the Spirit of God. This is one point. Another is that none of the eternal beings they mentioned is called divine, or a holy Spirit proceeding from God, that is, one thing and not a plurality; nor is it ranked with the Father and the Son in divine mystagogy and godly gift, nor has it been deemed worthy of any honor belonging to the divinity of another, to avoid speaking at length. Moreover, God and Father willed that everything be created through his Son the Word. And what reproach, as they dream, is it to his all-holy Spirit that it did not create, if indeed, according to them, it is not ineffably co-worker with the creator as the Father is? But that every energy and gift, both creative and good and perfect, of his only-begotten Son the Word and of the one holy Spirit is common to them, and that all is referred back to the one from whom and with whom these blessed hypostases ineffably appeared, one could easily learn by making some quiet examination of the sayings full of wisdom, both those mentioned in various places of this book and those in the one before it.

And Paul, who is greater than ordinary men, clearly declared this, firmly affirming to the Corinthians: "But you have washed yourselves, but you have been justified, but you have been sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God." Observe, then, observe, how if the name of the Son is divine, as indeed it is divine, then certainly also that of the Holy Spirit is divine; for he indicated a single name for both of them. And that, just as the Holy Spirit ineffably co-creates from the beginning, so now it re-creates. For "to wash oneself" signified "to be re-created." And to Titus: "having regenerated us through the bath of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit." No less does the psalmist deem it fitting to know that those already in existence are now being created in the divine font spiritually. For he says: "The people being created will praise the Lord." Therefore, the hypostases that have the same honor and activity have been allotted the same nature, and they differ from each other in nothing regarding divinity and power, but they alone can be united and ordered and everywhere conceived together with the One; who is both of them himself, not that the hypostases of both belong to him, but he has from himself, without beginning, equally, similarly, and ineffably, the hypostases united and continuous. Further, in addition to what has been said: every argument of these heretics is of the same form, just as it is also of the same wording as their now-stale sophistry currently being deployed, as we will learn shortly by experience from the very headings.

For if, by chance, some word, such as "eternal" or "good," bearing a divine indication concerning the Trinity in unity, and belonging to it wholly and perfectly, were ever spoken about a creature, with the memory owed to a creature, they say nothing—for what could they say?—concerning God the Father and His Son; but they most foolishly at once drag the Holy Spirit down to creation, instead of most fittingly raising up to God and the Only-Begotten those who have been most appropriately celebrated by the theologians in like and equal terms with the Holy Spirit. And so, of the arguments set forth by us in the chapter we are treating, which cannot be surpassed and are sufficient for the entire struggle against heretics, let them show—though it is very grievous to say—that a beginning or an end of the Holy Spirit has been prophesied anywhere; or at all, that it has had some path toward corruption, as has the angelic and human will; or let them have, as the saying goes, "an ox on their tongue." So much concerning those matters; I shall now proceed to the original subject. 6. That, as it is immutable, it is incapable of receiving either virtue or vice. Rational creation is capable of receiving both virtue and vice, as we find in incorporeal beings—according to what we said earlier—with the esteemed angels within virtue, and the cast-out ones within vice; and in bodies, as we ourselves are. But the divine Spirit, being beyond virtue and glory, or rather itself springing forth the highest virtue, is receptive of none of these things, just as neither the Father nor the Son is. And if it is not receptive, it is not of a different will; and if this is so—for it does all that the Father wills—it is not of a different substance.

From this, then, it is concluded both that it is not a creature, but is unalterably related to God the Father and his Son, and that we know God from it, from whom it naturally proceeded, and that it is also in us, as it is written. 6. For by nature holy and sanctifying and justifying, creation is sanctified and justified by the God who is holy by nature; for it is capable of being sanctified and justified, not of providing sanctification and justification. But the Holy Spirit, since it is distinct from creation, is joined to that nature from which it has proceeded, concerning which we have also been initiated, as: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, descending from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of change." And since it cares for and provides for all, even for the guilty, it sanctifies and justifies and makes wise and provides every form of heavenly virtue; but it is itself in no way found to have the capacity to be sanctified or justified or made wise by another, just as neither the self-existent Father nor his consubstantial Son is; so that on this account it is rightly acclaimed as self-holy and "spirit of holiness," that is, holy by nature and from itself; and "divine spirit," that is, God by nature; and "breath of the Almighty," that is, consubstantial with the Almighty, breathed from his hypostasis; so that even a single such name shows it to be consubstantial with God the Father and sanctifying, and not to be grasped even by reason.

Therefore, Paul, who was able to speak and set forth patterns of faith, introduced this, setting forth at once this very topic which we now treat, and at the same time the commonality of the Holy Spirit with God the Father in the great gifts and in the regeneration of baptism; and further, that the name "God" is one and equal for the Trinity, and that when invoked, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit always act with equivalent power. Writing to the Corinthians, he declares: "But you have washed yourselves, but you have been justified, but you have been sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God." Therefore, those who partake of it—that is, those deemed worthy to be sanctified by it and to be justified and made wise—are called, as the same Apostle teaches the Hebrews, "partakers of the Holy Spirit." And to the Ephesians he writes: "in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Spirit of promise, the Holy Spirit." For it is clear that those who are sealed, that is, sanctified, partake, but are not partaken of. For if the Holy Spirit or the Son were a creature, what need would there be for the creature to sanctify and to effect the fulfillment, when God the Father has already sufficiently sanctified? Indeed, we who are created, knowing this anointing of the uncreated one, do not provide sanctification from ourselves, but we say: "May God sanctify you." And I will proceed to another consistent and strong justification, after which not even those practiced in shamelessness will be able to do this. The Lord of the universe, having given separate instructions concerning God the Father and himself—"baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son"—did not simply add:

and "of the Spirit," but he added "the Holy." So that he not only did not mention it in a subordinate manner, but also in an elevated manner, because that one is by nature what the self-complete hypostases are, which the one name signified, with which the Spirit itself was also named together; and in parallel, because the Holy Spirit stands as that which the Father and his Son are in divinity, with whom it was mentioned together, as what is said is obvious even to a blind person. But this pertains to a more extensive theology; so that it may be readily believed that it is proper to divinity alone to be called and to be by nature holy and just, and further to sanctify and to justify its own creatures, similar praises are sung concerning 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 prophets speak, Ezekiel: "And let them know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them," and David in Psalm 10: "The Lord is righteous, and he loved righteousness; his eyes saw uprightnesses," and another: "And all the sanctified are under your hands, and under you." And as when Paul writes to the Thessalonians: "May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely," and to the Romans: "The God who justifies; who is the one who condemns?" and to the Hebrews: "So that the virgin may be holy in body and spirit," as it is possible that, either by her own condition she is not holy, or by virtue she is sanctified.

He says here that "spirit" refers to the state, and "body" to the practical activity, according to the prophecy of Isaiah: "And those who wander by the spirit will know understanding;" that is, those who wander by action or by state. And concerning the Son, as when it is said in praise: "One holy, one Lord Jesus Christ," and as the Acts of the Apostles speak: "They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the righteous one," and as Peter said: "Christ died for sinners, the righteous one for the unjust." And from such sayings, then, if they wished to act justly, they ought to be guided to praise the Spirit as God; this they do not do, but they claim that the angels were not sanctified, and yet they are holy; not paying attention to the fact that angels, like men, were sanctified, which is true; for they are created, or are inferior to men who have been sanctified by God and partake of him. 6. That it is substantially participable; this is proper only to God. Creation is not substantially participable by the rational soul, so as to be inhabited by it; for it is proper only to God to be participated in in this way. The Holy Spirit is substantially participable, like the Father and the Son, as was said in the first discourse. Since here too, when the Father once dwells in the worthy, as was necessary, would not the Son and the Holy Spirit also enter and run in together, because of the unity of the divine nature and the fullness that comes to us? Indeed, no one would ever choose to say that a multitude, as it were, of gods dwells in us, but that one, according to the one in the monad of divinity, the three hypostases exist.

...that it is good, self-generating the goodnesses and truths and wisdoms and loves in creation; and in it every good gift and every perfect bestowal is co-conceived. Creation possesses the good, because the triad in one divinity, which is itself the good, has imparted it to her. And it is secondary to have something by participation, according to its own measure, as good, compared to that which by nature is itself the first and immeasurable good; and the good found in creation is neither confused with nor ranked alongside the one and primal good, the creator; of which all things indeed partake, but it partakes of nothing, even if it is said in the Gospel: "Well, good servant," and "The good man brings forth the good from the good treasure of the heart." For it does not, so to speak, mean the good that is in the heart and properly exists, but that which is conjoined and fitting for creation. For that one both multiplies and bestows goodnesses upon its own works, so that from there each of the beings may be preserved and remain in the order in which it was allotted to be; and it is the one good, the cause of all good things for all; and through it the lower good is performed; and it preserves all things to which it is present, just as evil, which arises from our choice, destroys. Perceiving this, even the pagans say: "The wicked have this as the greatest good in themselves; for while they attempt to harm others, they themselves are the first to enjoy their own depravity.

The Holy Spirit, as was said before, being itself—without need—good and entirely—always—toward—all—being good, and not second to the one and first good, equal to the Father and the Son, and concerning this it received testimonies, as was demonstrated in the first discourse, and as Ezra, who spoke with boldness toward the divine goodness because he knew that even if he should err in something, suffering from it is not possible, prophesied: "And your good Spirit you gave to make them intelligent." And Matthew and Luke, indicating that the divine goodness itself is the Spirit in essence, and that in it "every good gift and every perfect bestowal" is conceived, one wrote: "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 characteristic of a changeable, that is, created, essence to be made good or sanctified or made wise by another, and not itself to exist unchangeably as these things. And God in Isaiah, showing that no one will ever receive his spiritual blessings unless he is first found filled with the wisdom and understanding of the Holy Spirit, said: "I will place my Spirit upon your seed and my blessings upon your children." Following which Paul wrote: "Therefore," he says, "we also, from the day we heard, do not cease praying and asking for you, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will, walking in all spiritual wisdom and understanding worthily of the Lord." It is clear,

that it says: "of the divine Spirit." For the eternal kingdom above is conceived together with the Spirit of God, as not being alien to it because of its interconnection with the Father and the Son. And again, through the same epistle, it is confirmed, as he writes: "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, defending himself to those who blamed the meeting he had with Cornelius, he said: "If then God gave them the same gift, providing the Holy Spirit, as also to us in the beginning, who was I to be able to hinder God?" And again: "And the heart-knowing God testified to them, giving the Holy Spirit, just as also to us; and he made no distinction between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith." That is: the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as one might say, its irrepressible and ungrudging visitation, is the cause of prophecy and renewal and heavenly goods and of contemplating the beauty of divine truth. For as it seems to the apostle: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace." Whence again he writes: "For the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit." So, while there is one goodness of the triad in unity, many goodnesses are produced for us; just as there is one truth and righteousness and wisdom, I mean the one above, according to: "You are mighty, Lord, and your truth is around you," which is the only-begotten God, and according to:

Only to the wise God" many truths and justices and wisdoms are multiplied for us from above according to: "the Lord seeks truths," and "the Lord is just and loved justices," and "a multitude of wise men is the salvation of the world," and "associating with the wise, you will be wise." It is clear, therefore, that the Spirit of God is in its very existence a good Spirit and a Spirit of wisdom and truth and a Spirit of the invisible and uncompounded God and Father. And that creation is philanthropic is not written as "philanthropic"; for this is properly an attribute of the consubstantial Trinity alone. For the Father is philanthropic: "not being angry with us to the end, nor raging forever, nor treating us according to our sins, nor repaying us according to our lawlessnesses," according to Psalm 102; and as Solomon says: "but you spare all, because all are yours, O life-loving master," as it is said; so that for these reasons he is called our master and father, his care being mingled with power. For God has no appellation more proper than that of father and philanthropist and good and holy. The Son is philanthropic, who for our sake, the works of his venerable and intelligible hands, "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave," as the apostle writes to Titus: "when the kindness and philanthropy of our savior God appeared." And whoever attributes to him what is fitting for the only-begotten God, receiving more than he hoped, departs. The Holy Spirit of God is philanthropic according to Wisdom, which speaks thus: "for the Spirit of wisdom is philanthropic, and will not acquit a righteous man." For it did not overlook the human nature perishing.

But he came through himself, guiding, teaching every truth, renewing us, and bestowing divine gifts, and placing from above such great care for that which is according to the image, so that for the recognition of his superabundant goodness he also has this appellation. For great elements are heaven, earth, sea; and great is the rational creation, that of angels and of every supracosmic power; but from none of these did he deem it worthy, but from his goodness toward man the Trinity has the name "philanthropic." 6. That it is by nature free and not a slave; and as God and Lord he frees and makes sons. Creation has become a slave of the master who fashioned it, being unable to provide freedom, which it does not possess of itself, either to itself or to others. For the prophecy says: "All things are your slaves." But the Holy Spirit is not written as a slave at all, but rather

as master and by nature free, where it is and among whom it visits, it provides the freedom which it has. For only the products are subjected to the yoke of slavery; that which is not a slave is not a product; that which is not a product is by nature God; and a faithful witness of these things is the Apostle, writing in the second epistle to the Corinthians: "But the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom," and to Timothy: "For God did not give us a spirit of slavery, but a spirit of power and love and self-discipline," and to the Romans: "For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again into fear, but a spirit of adoption, in which we cry: 'Abba, Father,'" and to the Galatians: "God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: 'Abba, Father.'

so that you are no longer a slave, but a son." Just as we were freed by the Son, hearing: "You are no longer a slave, but free," and: "by the freedom with which the Son freed you," so also, because of the identity of essence and lordship, we are freed by the Spirit through the aforementioned saying: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." 6. That creation, both intellectual and sensible, commands, not serves; it serves, not commands of itself. As it is said concerning the angels: "Mighty in strength, doing his word." But the Holy Spirit of God authoritatively commands prophets and apostles, as God and Lord, as would be demonstrated in the following chapters. 6. That creation is empowered, being empowered by the all-conquering and all-powerful divine strength, but does not itself empower. For it received power sufficient for itself, and is not able to impart it to fellow servants. But the Spirit of God empowers by his generative, nourishing, and inexhaustible strength, since he is creator and not creature. For the Savior says in the Acts: "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you," so that without his visitation we have no power or hope toward God. It must be understood, moreover, first, that the coming of the Holy Spirit is signified to have occurred by authority; second, that he did not come unannounced, but was foretold by the great God and Savior himself. And again he says: "But you sit in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." This was the power of the Holy Spirit.

And Paul writes to the Romans, things which it is not easy for anyone to admire or interpret worthily, especially in passing: "I therefore have confidence in Christ Jesus toward God. For I dare not say anything which Christ has not wrought through me by word and deed for the obedience of the Gentiles, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit." That it is unerring; which is proper only to God, for creation does not always speak truth, but from its own judgment has a share of change and of sometimes lying. As in the case of the incorporeal, the devil, and in the case of those in the flesh, as it is written: "Every man is a liar," and: "You will destroy all who speak falsehood." For "the father god will not be a helper of liars," the pagans also wrote. But among the saints, as Paul said about the apostles: "But when I saw that they were not walking straight toward the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before all" what he said. For truly, it is only of the divine nature to be always unerring. Therefore he wrote to the Hebrews: "So that," he says, "through two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge may have a strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope before us." And the communion of the Holy Spirit, sharing in nature with the Father and the Son, shares in all things, including also being unerring. For the Spirit of God is truth, as was said before, speaking with the one will of the Father and the Son and itself, and not speaking from itself, as the Son testified to it, saying: "It will not speak from itself." That it is truth, because it does not disagree with the one divinity.

Creation has nothing called truth, because there is one divine truth, just as there is one holiness and one goodness, from which we acknowledge that these things belong to each of us. The Holy Spirit is called truth, just as the Father and the Son are, since it is of the same one divinity, having nothing manifold or discordant. The Son bears witness 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, as was said earlier. And that no one knows the things of God except the Holy Spirit, and that because of its equality with the Father, conversely God knows the things of the Holy Spirit. Creation does not know the things of God; for it surpasses it, and it dares not set out for such knowledge, even if it is among the esteemed; since knowing the things of God is entirely impossible for that which is not of the same nature and does not possess the same knowledge as God, as the Savior taught when he said in John: "The servant does not know what his master does," and as Peter wrote: "There are things which he now announces to you through those who evangelized you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, into which angels desire to peer." And that the Holy Spirit knows as a consubstantial God, the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians, as was said earlier. And again, presenting the majesty of the Spirit and its equality with the Father, he writes as equal to that:

But the one who searches hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is." For just as, speaking of something great concerning the Father, he said that he knows the mind of the Spirit, so, representing the communion of nature and will with him and the equality of rank and power of the Holy Spirit, he wrote that it alone knows the things of the Father and searches his depths and his hidden thoughts, which it must reveal to the worthy and when it is necessary. And Peter, as was said before, wrote: "The Spirit was sent from heaven." Let it be understood in the same way as "the Son was sent" is understood. For that one is as Word, and this one was sent as utterance and Spirit of God. And because it is known that what is said by Christ or the Holy Spirit is also said by the Father on account of the one will, such words are set down. For it neither is ignorant nor is sent as a slave, nor does it speak or act or come of itself as an anti-god. And that no one sees God the Father except only the Son and the Holy Spirit, and to those who say: "Is it not written, then, that the angels see the face of the Father?"—creation does not see God the Father as he is; for this is unattainable and unbearable for another nature; and to it applies: "No one will see my face and live." And the scriptures say that sometimes only the Son, sometimes only the Holy Spirit sees or knows God the Father, since the Trinity is in the monad of divinity, as when the Savior says in John: "No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God.

This one has seen the Father." Now the Son is from God by nature in a generative way, and the Holy Spirit in a processional way; and again: "For no one knows the Father except the Son, and whomever the Son reveals," and as when specifically concerning the Holy Spirit, as was said before, Paul writes to the Corinthians, and as Isaiah prophesies: "Spirit of wisdom and understanding, spirit of knowledge and piety." It is 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 continually behold the face of my Father in heaven?" Yes; but they behold, not how great and of what sort God is, but insofar as they themselves are capable. The only-begotten and the Holy Spirit, because of the identity of the divinity, see in such a way as the measureless and formless God is. 6. That the Holy Spirit deems creation worthy of adoption; but it proceeds from the hypostasis of God. Rational creation, when it becomes worthy of renewal and adoption, is deemed worthy of these by the all-powerful grace of the Holy Spirit, since it is not a creature, but God, like the one who first created. 6. That it does not hymn as the rest of creation does; since it is itself among those hymned. Creation

All creation, visible and invisible, is commanded by name by the three youths Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, placed in the Babylonian furnace, to hymn and exalt God forever; and further, the Cherubim and the divine throne, which here is understood as the Seraphim, glorify, since they too are part of creation. For the same ones said: "Blessed are you, who sit upon the Cherubim," and again, instead of mentioning the Seraphim: "And blessed are you upon the throne of your kingdom, and most hymned and exalted forever." Similarly, by David, moved by the Holy Spirit, in Psalm 102 and Psalm 148, creation is commanded to praise the Lord. But the Holy Spirit, like the Son, was not mentioned together, because it too is not a creation, but a creator; it is not among those who hymn, but among those who are hymned, and even by the Seraphim themselves, who stand around the divine throne with great fear, covering themselves with their wings, and alternately responding with unceasing mouths and unceasing voice, thrice "holy" on account of the three hypostases, once "Lord" on account of the one lordship; which especially demonstrates the divinity of the all-hymned Spirit. But the Macedonians, guarding themselves and as if fearing that they might ever be seen saying something appropriate about it or inadvertently utter something inappropriate, proceed without justice, permitting themselves and this heading, moving all kinds of weapons, their undisciplined words, and claiming that it is written in a captious manner, they say: "Praise the Lord, for a psalm is good; let praise be sweet to God," and:

It is good to confess to the Lord and to sing to your name, O Most High." But nowhere do we find, as it were: "Praise the Holy Spirit." They must be answered thus: If you accept the utterances you have brought forward concerning the Father, you exclude the Son; if concerning the Son, the opposite, since the Holy Spirit is also Lord and is written as such, and it is unclear concerning which hypostasis the word "Lord" is now written. Consider, then, whether you have not used the opposite against yourselves. That the Holy Spirit is not hymned, because it is not a creature, but is co-hymned as being the Spirit of God, can be easily learned both from its being coordinated with him and from the fact that the three youths and the psalmist command all creation by name to hymn, but not the Spirit of God, as the saints are accustomed to name. For if, as the heretics say, it is of a nature midway between God and angels and more honorable and higher than all, then, since it is especially one, it should have been commanded either to hymn it by itself, or at least to name it first and to include the others generically with it; not, as they presumptuously suppose, the reverse. And that it is named together with the Father and the Son. And concerning the heretical objection. Creation is not numbered with God. For what commonality has that which is in diminution with the one who is supreme over all and beyond every excess, or the created with the creator? But the all-honored Spirit, as God, is named together with the Father and the Son, as when the Lord gives the rule concerning baptism, and as when the Apostle writes the second letter to the Corinthians.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all;" or with one of their hypostases; or even individually, as is mentioned in the first book, it is recalled. But from the preference of the outcast and rejected Valentinus, who Manichaeized and, among other absurd mythologies, madly said that the divine Spirit was coeval with the angels, the Macedonians, taking their start, say: Paul wrote to Timothy: "I adjure you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels;" but the Holy Spirit, as if he had classed it together with the angels, he passed over in silence. But this notion comes from the abundance of their own heart. For even if at some time there is no specific mention of the Holy Spirit, it is taken together with God the Father, since it is his Spirit by nature; for this reason, it happens that either God the Father himself is not mentioned by word, but by faithful understanding, while the Son and the Holy Spirit are mentioned, or the reverse. Where indeed Valentinus, who ought not to be mentioned, named the sanctifying Spirit "Paraclete," just as the Lord Christ was called "Paraclete" from being invoked; and he called the sanctified ministers "angels." Moreover, nowhere in Scripture do we find angels mentioned together with God in creation, initiation, or doxology. But Paul wrote in his second epistle to the Corinthians of the communion of the Holy Spirit with the divinity.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, and in others: "if any communion of spirit." The sacred psalmist, concerning the alteration of the unbegotten Word and the divine Spirit in relation to the liturgical spirits, and that they are not of the same order as those, but that the angels are created by these self-complete hypostases and through them and for them as also through God the Father and in them, and that all things are perfected and sustained, proclaims with such words: "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 "word" as that through which all things exist, "spirit of the mouth of the Lord" as the Holy Spirit, "powers of the heavens" as both their constitutions themselves and indeed angels and principalities and authorities and powers. And again: "He who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a burning fire." And the apostle also disputes with them, crying out: "We were given one spirit to drink." For just as it is impossible for the radiance to be separated from the light, and wisdom from the wise man, that is, the Son from the Father, so also the Holy Spirit from that of which it is spirit, as the air we breathe. Therefore they have escaped their own notice, as through what they untimely do not agree with us, and they return to the unshaken house which is in the beginnings. Whence they have recoiled, they weave arguments against the apostle, who testified on their behalf in his own words set before the uncreated nature and the created nature, somewhat similarly to the one who said: "I have sinned against God and men," and:

I testify today to heaven and earth, and: "Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth." That creation has no communion in names with the names spoken of God, just as it has no communion in substance, with God the Spirit and his only-begotten Son, so also in names. But the Holy Spirit communes in the names of God because it also communes in nature, except that the Father alone is called "Father," because he alone begot by hypostasis, and the Son is called "Son" and not Father of uncreated nature, because he was truly begotten but did not beget. As when Scripture also names the Spirit itself "Lord," as ruling over all and sharing the one kingdom with the Father and the Son; "Holy," as being holy by nature and as sanctifying creation; "Imperishable," "Good," "Love," "Wisdom," "Understanding," as it also addressed God; "Power," from which it empowers; "Righteous," from which it makes righteous, being itself sinless; "Paraclete," as also the Son; "Fire," from which it appeared to the apostles with fiery tongues, just as Moses says concerning the Father: "Our God is a consuming fire," and concerning the Son, John says: "He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire," and all such things. That it is one and not many, as the creatures are. Creation has nothing existing in one hypostasis or in one person. For angels and archangels are many, the seraphim likewise, the cherubim are not one thing, principalities and powers are spoken of, powers and dominions and thrones; in the plural: heavens, men, and the rest of the creations.

For the sun and the moon also share in the multitude of the stars, both in nature and in their fiery form, as the first discourse more thoroughly encompassed this. But the Holy Spirit, as not being numbered among creation, the oracles have proclaimed to us to be one and the same. And that because of consubstantiality and lack of beginning, it is written that the water of life proceeds from the paternal source. Creation is not written to be water of life; for it did not have perpetual life from itself, as does the God who lives without beginning. But the Holy Spirit is this, as the hierokerykes who will be mentioned in the following writings praise it, as flowing forth consubstantially from the immortal and life-giving paternal source, not being created. For just as we said in the first discourse, that light does not create its own radiance, but generates it, so here, that the source does not create the water from itself, but has it flowing forth and consubstantial; for no one is the creator of his own son or spirit; otherwise he would no longer be father, nor have a spirit. Jeremiah, from the person of God: "Heaven was amazed at this, and earth shuddered at this; that my people did two evil things. They abandoned me, the source of living water, and dug for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold water." The prophet sets forth the mystery mystically. For he called God "source," and "living water" the Holy Spirit, which in the font cleanses all our sins, which cannot be separated in nature from the intelligible source, as also the stream from sources. Isaiah similarly: "I will give water in thirst to those traveling in a waterless place.

I will place my spirit upon your seed and my blessings upon your children; and they will spring up amid water like grass, and like a willow upon flowing water. And this has a hidden intelligible division. For to those who are in ignorance, he says, of baptism and therefore "walking in a waterless place," "I will place my spirit," which is able to make the font cause them to sprout like water-loving plants, and: "like the tree planted beside the channels of the waters, which will give its fruit in its season, and its leaf will not fall off." And the psalmist, making the truth somehow invisible to the discourse because of necessity, sings in Psalm 35: "For beside you is a spring of life," and in Psalm 147: "He will send forth his word and melt them; his spirit will blow, and waters will flow, gladdening the great city of God." This is the whole inhabited world. For, so to speak, what each city is to men, the inhabited world is to the Almighty. Baruch, lamenting the people who are in the land of the Chaldeans, who do not have the Holy Spirit, cries out: "What is it to you, Israel, that you are in the land of enemies? You have grown old in a foreign land, you have been defiled among the dead, you have been counted among those in Hades. You have abandoned the spring of wisdom; if you had walked the way of God, you would have dwelt in peace for all time." He calls God "spring" 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 to drink; if you had asked him, he would have given you living water, speaking of the immortal streams of the font of the Holy Spirit. For all these things are said concerning the Spirit of God, which the aforementioned evangelist interpreted verbatim; for when the Savior said, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture said, rivers of living water will flow from his belly," he immediately added, "This he said concerning the Spirit, which those who believed in him were about to receive." And that the Savior was anointed with the Holy Spirit; but if it were a creature, would the uncreated one have been anointed with his own creation? And that we also have his anointing. Creation is anointed with created oil in sanctified baptism. The Savior, as God, was anointed with his co-uncreated all-holy Spirit, unlike us who are participants. For if it were a creature, would the uncreated one have been anointed with his own creation? And the witnesses are those written below: Isaiah speaking from the Savior, "The Spirit of the Lord

Upon me, for which reason he anointed me." And David: "For this reason your God anointed you, the oil of gladness beyond your fellows." For what reason? Because, being uncreated God, he was anointed by unoriginate God. And he said "your God" on account of his birth from a virgin. Peter in the Acts: "You know the word that occurred throughout all Judea and Samaria, beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John proclaimed: Jesus from Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit and power." The Acts: "They gathered in truth in this city, upon your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed." And the Song of Songs also expounds concerning this as follows: "Poured-out myrrh is your name; therefore maidens loved you." It says that the name of the Paraclete is "myrrh" for Christ, because both hypostases share the name and in themselves make fragrant the nature of God and Father. And it calls the churches "maidens," in which he is glorified, concerning which David also said in the sixty-seventh Psalm: "Rulers came before, holding to those singing, in the midst of maidens playing timbrels," speaking thus because of the proclamation of the faith and because they resound throughout the whole earth with readings and psalmody. And to each of them in the Song of Songs the bridegroom, beautiful in comeliness, speaks chastely: "Behold, you are beautiful, my neighbor; behold, you are beautiful." And again he sings as if an epithalamium: "Come from Lebanon, bride; come from Lebanon.

You will come and pass through from the beginning of faith." And that we also receive anointing in renewal, John writes in the first epistle: "And you have anointing from the holy one and know all things." Just as, he says, in the economy the savior, and "you have anointing from the holy" spirit. And this saving gift is commonly provided to us by the blessed Trinity, as they teach thus: Isaiah: "And the Lord Sabaoth will make for all the nations on this mountain, they will drink wine, they will be anointed with myrrh on this mountain. Deliver all these things to the nations." For "mountain" means the church of God because of the height of faith, "wine" the master's saving blood, "myrrh," with which we are anointed when sanctified by the priest, he foretold. John in the same first epistle concerning Christ: "And the anointing which you received from him remains in you; and you have no need for anyone to teach you, but his anointing teaches you about all things." And Paul in the second to the Corinthians: "And the one who confirms us with you in Christ, and God anointed us, and sealed us, and gave the pledge of the spirit in our hearts." Concerning the divine energies and provisions of the holy spirit. Very zealously, then, having displayed the divine and most high nature of the holy spirit, which is beyond life and beyond mind, the oracles also reveal its most providential divine energy, which is its equal, thus: 7. That it gives life, that it gives life, as being the spirit of the life-giving God who gives life to all things, according to Paul, the trumpet of faith, writing to the Romans:

For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus freed me from the law of sin and death;" and again: "He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit dwelling in you." And to the Corinthians: "Not that we are able of ourselves to reason anything, as from ourselves; but our ability is from God, who also made us capable 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 the one who lives without understanding.

But the life-giving holy spirit of God, which no longer places us under law but under grace, and which instructs us not to return "evil for evil," but rather to provide good for evil. "For," he says, "if 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 into the spirit will reap eternal life from the spirit." And according to John, from the Savior: "It is the spirit that gives life." Ezekiel, making this very thing clear, and that together with God, as his spirit, he will accomplish the resurrection, prophesies: "Thus says the Lord to these dry bones:

Behold, I bring into you a spirit of life, and I will give you sinews, and I will draw flesh over you, and I will stretch skin over you, and I will give you my spirit, and you will live and you will know that I am Lord." Therefore, life substantially and the life-giving power have neither beginning nor end nor alteration; that which is not subject to these is by nature and truth God, since it also possesses from itself what is exceptional to God and Father. For no created thing can be a cause of life or show life in itself; all things are dead which are deprived of the divine spirit: "For in him we live and move and have our being," as the Acts of the Apostles said. For if all things that come into being are also perishable, and things that perish are deprived of life while remaining, how could they bestow on others that of which they themselves become deficient? We are therefore given life by the Holy Spirit, as also by the one who said: "I am the resurrection and the life." 7. And because of the identity of the divinity and the equal energy, it is written that sometimes the Father raised Christ, who voluntarily suffered in the flesh for us, sometimes he raised himself, sometimes the Holy Spirit. And against a heretical exposition: because of the identity of the divinity and the one energy, the Scriptures say that sometimes the Father raised Jesus Christ in the form of a servant, sometimes he raised himself, sometimes the Holy Spirit; thus the Acts: "God raised him on the third day;" John from the Savior: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it." And he himself said about the temple of his body: and again: "I lay down my soul, so 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 back again." Peter in the first epistle: "Christ once died for our sins on our behalf, the just for the unjust, in order to bring us to God; killed in flesh, but made alive in spirit." 7. That he creates and raises from the dead. At the same time, that to sanctify is to create and is more necessary than to create. And according to the heretical exposition. That he creates the great creation, man, and raises from the dead and makes alive and returns to heaven and renewed the earth that had sunk down with human lawlessness and revived the Holy Spirit without artifice and as it were spontaneously, being co-creator and equal-worker with the original architect God who established it in the beginning, as it is permitted for us to know, from what these have set forth: Job: "A divine spirit that made me; but the breath of the Almighty, that 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." This the apostle confirms writing to the Corinthians the second time: "So that if anyone is in Christ, 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, and by the spirit of his mouth all their powers" — do not pass over what can be heard from the text itself; but see that — as creator and good God — the spirit of God, remaining forever, supplies a stable friendship to creation and bound it with indissoluble bonds and established it.

Unshaken, and it supports everything by its own power; and that it is unlawful to call a creature that which creates and empowers the creatures of God. For it is a co-worker and consubstantial with God, being his Spirit and finger, as was shown mystically in the first book, representing in the eighth psalm he prophesies: "For I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers." And Moses in Genesis, speaking from God and Father to the Son and his Holy Spirit, says: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let him rule over those on the earth." For God did not take angels or other spirits as co-workers or advisors; "since the servant does not know what his master does." Nor is it ever found that he included a creature in creation, as David sings in the thirty-second psalm: "He who fashioned their hearts in solitude," and in the one hundred thirty-eighth: "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, none of creation. For this "who" has breadth, which it reveals. And he showed, by not saying "make" but "let us make," that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not subordinates, but of one power and will; and by adding "according to our image and likeness," that the Trinity is one substance; and that this was not said to angels, who have the "image and likeness" in a diminished and unformed way, if it is safe to say this of the formless, shapeless, and ineffable Trinity, as the image of man; for which reason the same cosmographer added:

And God made man; he made him in the image of God; he made them male and female; and he blessed them." And again: "God saw that it was good." In these sayings, the perfection and harmony and orderliness and complete generosity of the self-sufficient and creative Trinity are mystically signified. For Moses—or rather the God who inspired him—did not consider these things worthy of theaters or the multitude, but only of those who 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. The phrase "in the image," as it seems to me, is to be understood as meaning that from the divine breath we have the immortal spirit and a mind that always runs and governs as it should, and a wise word pleasing to the giver and capable, with faith, of being the cause of childbearing and of life and of the resurrection of the dead and of the moving of mountains; in addition, that we have partaken also of his goodness. Then also Paul, as was said a little earlier: "He will also give life to our mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in us." And in Hebrews, proclaiming that the ages have been generated and creation has been established by the Holy Spirit, and calling the Spirit the Word of God, as was already mentioned, he writes: "By faith we understand that the ages have been fitted together by the Word of God, so that what is seen has not come from visible things," and again: "For he bears all things by the word of his power." And the psalmist:

You have made all things in wisdom," that is, in your Spirit and your Son. How then is the divine Spirit, inseparable from the one who breathed it and from the Son the creator, not without beginning, creative, and properly God—the Spirit that constructed the ages, along with which heaven and all that is in it and everything, if there is anything created, was brought forth; and that bears and administers all things by its own power; that immediately upon the coming into being of heaven, earth, and sea, was borne upon the water and made it life-giving and life-sustaining? For just as when it is said in Job concerning the Son, "He alone stretched out the heaven," this does not remove from the work of creation the Father from whom are all things and in whom all things subsist—for how could these things then be true?—so too it is not pious to exclude the Spirit of God, which is wisdom and power and holiness, from being a co-creator with God. And what greater proof for this could be found than that in each baptism the Spirit renews and sanctifies

of God and to be called back to the better and first form of life. For this also indicates that it is mentioned together, as the apostle, concerning those expected to become new from regeneration and to enjoy the greatest achievement beyond all, exclaims: "How are you to become in the image of the one who created you?" And David prophesies in Psalm 100: "The people being created will praise the Lord." If it had no communion of substance, lordship, and energy with the Father and with the Son "through whom all things came to be," it would not renew and sanctify. Therefore, together with the all-holy Spirit, Christ after the resurrection, renewing and sanctifying the human being corrupted by disobedience, breathed into the faces of the disciples and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit," fulfilling the prophecy of Nahum, which, from an irrepressible desire for the immeasurable good of the matter, describes what will happen as already happening: "He who breathes into your face has come up from the ground, and he who delivers you from distress." And that to create is also to sanctify, which the divine Spirit is naturally disposed to do, David testifies, singing: "Create a pure heart in me, O God," that is, sanctify me, so that I might be renewed, having been corrupted by sin; for how else would another heart be created in him? And this agrees with: "And renew a right spirit in my inward parts," instead of: grant me your venerable Spirit that surpasses all, so that, he says, having appeared pure through its sanctification, I may become a worthy temple of it.

For from your sole supervision and that of your son, Lord, you indicate to us, and we receive a remedy for all evils, and we are placed in firm hopes of every eternal good. For it is evident to us that David requests that it be renewed for him; for how could the spirit already present to him be renewed as if it were just then coming upon him? But also, greater and more necessary than creating is sanctifying, as Scripture, knowing this, said concerning the pitiable Judas, who lost his sanctification: "It would have been well for him if that man had never been born," because, it says, he committed the most harmful act of all and sold the Lord for no evil at all and exchanged life for silver. And indeed, concerning the servile form in the ineffable economy, about which John says, "And the Word became flesh," and Paul says, "He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant," Solomon said, "Wisdom built herself a house," and Matthew, on account of the identity of the divine nature and energy, set forth as follows: "The birth of Jesus Christ was thus: after his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit." And the archangel said, "For what is born in her is from the Holy Spirit," and again, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child born will be called holy Son of the Most High." So it must be noted that, because of heretical prattling, the evangelist placed the generation before the incarnation, and then the birth. For, ridiculing our scriptural proofs, they ask interrogatively in pretense:

Therefore, is Christ the son of the Spirit? We do not faithfully hear even these things, nor what was said by him to the apostles: "You do not know of what sort of Spirit the Son of Man is." If, then, because the Father is true God, for this reason his energy is also divine in every way and entirely; since the energy of the Holy Spirit appears equal and similar to this, for this reason it also happens to be true God. It would be fitting to speak likewise also concerning the Son. For if the energy of the Father were better than that of the Son or the Spirit, what would the Spirit or the Son even be energizing into us? And yet, would they be bringing a worse power, if they are dissimilar, as the heretics say? But if the fulfillment of the Son and the Spirit is useful and salvific, the Son or the Spirit will be dissimilar in no respect. For neither would the supreme one, rich in mercy, have borrowed from the worse and poorer one, nor would we be energized in a twofold and dissimilar manner. And indeed, what reason is there that a man, for example, is called a maker and creator of good or evil, but the Spirit is not this? But man does this or that by the permission of God; from the substance brought forth by God, he creates something inanimate, whatever he might wish, but not substance itself, as we have already said. The Spirit, however, acts authoritatively and establishes substance from non-being, being the co-worker and breath of the Almighty. Therefore, God in Ezekiel, indicating that our spirit is renewed, but the Holy Spirit renews, and that it is not simply spirit, but properly his own, decrees as follows:

And I will give you a new heart, and I will give you a new spirit; and I will remove the stony heart from your flesh, and I will give you a fleshy heart, and I will give you my spirit within you." But those who disregard even these divine utterances, and who are in utter perplexity concerning just matters, have finally resorted to external arts, and attempt to transfer what has been so clearly said to one thing and another. For they assert in these very words: The one who created the dead raises the dead alone. For a painter would not repair the work of an architect that is perishing, nor would a hunter repair that of a shipwright, nor indeed would a runner repair that of a builder; but rather an architect repairs that of an architect, and a shipwright that of a shipwright. But the Holy Spirit, they say, neither raised the dead nor created; for once, they say, in the case of Adam, the nature of human beings was created; and there is neither another nature besides that one, nor is it created many times. But even Eve was co-created with Adam according to the common principle of nature, and afterward was formed. But we orthodox, since especially the mark of divine power is to create and to raise the dead, confess that the Holy Spirit, having done these things, is God; for "by the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their powers," and since from the beginning, when all things were being created, it was present and inseparably shared in the divinity and the activity, for this reason also when they are renewed it is present and is mentioned together. For what they themselves have said, that renewal could not belong to a different substance, that is, nature, unless it belonged to that of the creator.

Concerning those who are and live as if they were not, but are now being created spiritually and more divinely, David and Paul proclaim, as was said before and as we will find in many places. For all time will fail me if I wish to mention everything everywhere. If, then, it did not seem one way to the scriptures and another to those very persons, first of all, they would at some time have considered the divine writings mentioned in this book and the one before it; for what, hearing these things, would they say the one who used them teaches? Secondly, they would have considered that, just as the Father is co-maker with the Son who creates, by his good will, so also is his Spirit; and they would not have brought the examination of unlike things that need connection with each other and with time, and that do not readily and in every respect blamelessly fulfill the conception, to the unmixed and blessed Trinity for all, which also perfected us, as makers of words and of the repair of materials, saying what they never said. For what, or how great, would we say to the God Father who once willed all things to subsist through the Son Word? Indeed, concerning the one from the seed of David and Abraham and from the root of Jesse according to the flesh, it has been proclaimed, as was just said: "For what was born in her is from the Holy Spirit," so that from this it is agreed that the sanctifying Spirit was co-worker with the beneficent creator. Therefore it is also written again: "Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert," since the governing Spirit was with him, as God with God, and as the one who holds everything together and is present everywhere to the one on whom all things are fixed, and who is in all things and fills all things.

Since according to their word and manner neither is the Father a creator or raiser of the dead. For all things came to be through the Son without toil. For toil is a passion; passion is a path to corruption. And we, not denying that the Lord was incarnated without sin from the nature of Adam, that is, from the Virgin, or from our own nature, say these things, rather we also affirm this by saying that he was born from the Holy Spirit. Since, as has been said, from the beginning the pre-eternal and pre-cosmic spirit of God was present with the creator of our nature, not as one needing assistance, but with identity and equality of divinity and will, and like light not cut off from light. Therefore, O Macedonius, either join the saints, who do not call the divine Spirit a creature, but say that it proceeds from God, as his Spirit according to nature; or, as you are accustomed to claim, that it is inferior to God in nature but superior to angels, having received some intermediate nature and rank, prove that those who have given oracles have spoken thus; for their words are justly preferred before God over yours and those of Arius. And not as the law of art and sophistry allows, may you, emboldened, let loose your own words against the divine Spirit; whose divine nature, even if you had as many and such eyes of the mind as and of the kind that Scripture gave to the cherubim, you would not have been able to behold even to some small extent. For who seizes hold of the invisible and uncontainable divinity? Either, condemning your own impiety, yield to us and stand aside from the primacy.

...that he sanctifies and justifies. But let us return again to the original hypothesis, that he sanctifies and justifies as we previously said. ...that he bestows salvation, that he bestows salvation even to those who have fallen away; which belongs to the pantocratoric essence alone. For without God, for a creature to accomplish anything is impossible. "Not even so much as to spread the luminous circles 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." As it is sung concerning the Father in Hosea: "But me you will not know; and there is no savior except me." And concerning the Son in the Acts: "And there is no salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given among men in which it is necessary to be saved." ...that he frees from death and forgives sins, that he frees from death and forgives sins, since indeed from the paternal root of essence it bears fruit, the immortal and propitious. But for a creature it is not possible either to be sinless or to do any of these things from itself. For not even any of the spirits, as was previously shown, is sinless; nor, perhaps, by an excess of reason, is that which is not rational. For even heaven itself and the sun, compared to the purity of God, are not blameless. For if even apostles ever appear to have done something of this sort, they did not prevail by their own power, but by that of the one 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 freed me from the law of sin and death." And the Lord, in John, restoring to us the Holy Spirit, which we had lost through the ancient disobedience, breathed upon the faces of the disciples and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of some, they are forgiven; if you retain those of others, they are retained." Here the authority of the ever-memorable Spirit is so great that it itself grants remission of sins through itself, and in its name and power the apostles and all who believe in it provide remission of sins. That it belongs to God alone to propitiate those who sin, glorious sayings of God indicate: "I," it says, "am the one who blots out your sins," and: "If your sins are like purple, I will whiten them like snow; if they are like scarlet, I will whiten them like wool." And the Savior, as a child of God, said to the paralytic: "Child, your sins are forgiven," and: "Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the

of the world's sin." And that he works together with the Father and the Son; and that Christ performed signs and wonders and cast out demons through the power of the Spirit, because of the inseparability of the divinity, and that he works together with the self-sufficient and all-giving God the Father and his Son and jointly provides all things to all, not putting it off until tomorrow, since the Spirit of the Father is of like mind and like knowledge, having its being inalienably and reigning together with him, and having received as its lot his own divinity, from which it also came forth in a co-subsistent manner. And that the all-sovereign and all-powerful Christ, together with the power of his most august Spirit, performed the signs and wonders and cast out demons, as the hierophants have expounded: Micah says, "Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray," and a little later he adds, "because there will be no one to listen to them, unless I fill them with strength in the spirit of the Lord and of judgment and of power." So he said that the Lord makes strength in the spirit of the Lord, in order to indicate both the Trinity and the bond of its nature. And he hints at the judgment, in which there is no longer repentance or anyone to listen; for, he says, "In Hades, who will confess to you?" And "I will fill with strength" means "I will make a great requital together with the divine Spirit." And Paul, the most esteemed of the apostles, in his letter to the Ephesians says:

For this reason I bend my knees before God the Father, from whom every fatherhood in the heavens and on earth is named, that he may grant you to be strengthened by the power of his glory through his Spirit, that Christ may dwell in your inner man." And to the Romans: "I have confidence, therefore, in Christ Jesus toward God. For I dare not speak of anything that Christ has not wrought through me, in word and deed, for the obedience of the nations, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit." The hypostases that are similar in nature are worthy of similar honor; hence this saying is also similar to: "Christ is 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 cooperates in the illumination; it is impossible, therefore, for there to be unity in harmony and activity without the substance being one; and for this reason the Lord says sometimes: "The Father who abides in me, he does the works;" and sometimes, as now said: "I cast out demons by the Spirit of God." For this reason also Paul said: "by the power of the Holy Spirit," confessing that by the divine activity of the Trinity they raised the dead, he himself Eutychus, and Peter Tabitha. 7. That just as God the Father, so also the Holy Spirit is designated, signified as God and Lord. That just as God the Father, so also the Holy Spirit is designated, signified as God and Lord, as Luke says: "There was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Symeon; and this man, righteous and devout, awaiting consolation for 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 saw the Christ of the Lord. And he was led by the Spirit into the temple. And it happened that when the parents brought the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he himself received him into his arms, and blessed God and said: “Now you release your servant, O Master, according to your word in peace, because my eyes have seen your salvation.” So the Holy Spirit gave the oracle; Simeon received Christ into his arms according to the oracle; he blessed the one who gave the oracle, that is, he glorified the Holy Spirit, having seen the fulfillment of the oracle’s salvation; and he called the one who gave the oracle God and Lord. And God the Father gave an oracle to Job, saying: “Do you think that I have given you an oracle otherwise than that you might appear righteous?” But those who have trained themselves to fight against the true Spirit of God, everywhere in the argument, the things that in others

things and not contributing to theology, gathering them to obscure the truth, and not receiving what is fitting for the divine mystery accurately, nor adapting them to the subject, nor applying them to this main point, they bring forward unacceptable divine words, up and down, as a great and clear main point, saying that cold and deceptive word: that, they say, from such testimonies the Holy Spirit is brought down to the nature of an angel, which they themselves appear to have become. And thus they drag the correct meanings of the Scriptures from their own absurd arguments into perversities. For it is written, they say, in the Acts of the Apostles: "Cornelius the centurion, a just man and fearing God, and testified to by the whole nation of the Jews, was instructed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and hear words from you." You, then, if you had kept silent and sewn up your mouths against slanders, you would have acted much more advantageously. But we, referring this main point to the more perfect goal and providing encouragement to those who will encounter it, and instilling greater orthodox zeal, say that just as there is no communion of nature between a creature and the uncreated nature, so also there is none of instruction. For one announces, but the other, not knowing, would be activated by the Holy Spirit to speak, and from this he has the name "angel.

The Holy Spirit, knowing all things of God, as Paul affirms, acts divinely, like the Father, seeing with the sleepless eyes of the divinity what the Father and the Son will, and not ministerially, like a guardian angel. "For the slave does not know what his master does," nor can one of a different essence possess the same knowledge as one of another essence; for by nature each essence is accompanied by its own knowledge and memory; but also what is known by a created nature sometimes slips away with time. Hence here too the ignorant have deliberately omitted the beginning of the passage in the argument of the discourse. For it says: "While Peter was pondering the saying, the Holy Spirit said to him, 'Behold, three men are seeking you. But arise and go with them, without any hesitation; because I have sent them.' And Peter, going down to the men, said, 'Behold, I am the one you seek; what is the reason for which you are present?' And they said, 'Cornelius the centurion, a just man,'" and so on, as it stands. So that before good judges, even here the angel appears to have learned the oracle from the Holy Spirit. For a distinctive mark of divinity is to foretell securely; and this for the good of the hearers, so that they may be secured and saved. Then do you not think that by introducing such things you are somehow slandering creation, and reproaching, as it were, the one who, out of generosity, adorned his own works with the words spoken about him? Since his grace certainly follows such a thing.

For from this he did not at all insult himself, but rather showed himself praiseworthy, and he enhanced his works in his customary manner. But we, even if the fact that the Holy Spirit bears a title brings some divine dignity to the whole subject, and it suffices by itself when taken as testimony, nevertheless we have brought forward not only this, but also a multitude of other lofty and indisputable proofs. If you attend to these without antipathy, you will certainly be more voiceless than fish. Therefore Paul also very clearly refutes your specious argumentation, writing to the Ephesians: "To me, the least of all saints, this grace was given to proclaim among the nations the unfathomable wealth of Christ and to enlighten all as to what is the economy of the mystery hidden from the ages in God who created all things, so that now through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly realms." You understand, then, how far the nature of angels is removed from knowing anything of future events by itself and from bearing a title, since even through the Church in this world

of God, which we are, learns the great things. For persuasion, it can also contribute something to this, and what he wrote to the Colossians as follows: "This mystery, hidden before the ages and from the generations, which has now been revealed to his saints." For before this, he says, it was known to God alone. In addition, what was said by Peter concerning those who brought benefit to all men—I mean those concerning the ineffable economy—has been spoken in these words, as was previously stated: "Into which," he says, "angels desire to peep." For if they had some innate knowledge, they would not long to even peep into it, but since they do not have it, they fall into an excessive, as it were, human-like passion for those things, the knowledge of which it is not possible for them to obtain. For it is natural that things easily found are otherwise overlooked, while rarer things are pursued. And indeed, this is not according to their own judgment, but by the common principle of their nature—I do not say that all are subject to this, but some. "For if," he says, "God did not spare even angels when they sinned," what innate knowledge of the future or authority to act, as God has, can they possess? But if these do not know by themselves nor act according to their own authority, as the matter is self-evident even without any demonstration, then because you have only cited the phrase in a general sense to bring blame and accusation, you have acted rashly and without consideration, and not in accordance with the matter itself. For even if some others were to call God father, for instance, that he is called so and is good, it is not fitting for us to say the opposite.

Let me also say something else to you: "See whether he called the angel who appeared to the centurion—the holy of holies—'Savior'? For the Scripture seems to use this name covertly, with great and divine emphasis, concerning him, because in the economy he announced the paternal will as Son and Word. For it did not name him explicitly, as it usually says: Michael, Gabriel, or so-and-so." What, then, from all our words could anyone reasonably censure? What could anyone blame in the faith of the orthodox, which has nothing from anywhere to be faulted? And how is it not worthy of belief that the Holy Spirit is designated in a royal or divine manner, while the angels are designated in a liturgical or ministerial manner? As difficult, then, as it is, as he says, to hold the tiller for one who has no skill in steering, so difficult is it to teach for one to whom the grace of the divine Spirit—which works together with the Father and the Son for the salvation of men—is not present; nor is there knowledge of the certainty found even in the enigmas of the Scriptures, nor of the answer given by the knowledge of faithful men; and without a contentious, contradictory, and varied disposition, there is no utterance of speech. But I know clearly, O honored ones and angels of God who dwell in the heavenly light, that you, as blameless and perfect, were not vexed at what was said by me, because of those angels who are like you in nature, not in praiseworthiness of judgment, to whom from the beginning blame has attached, and who especially appear to you as some who are unconvincing in the contest against the truth.

For my argument concerns the divine Spirit that illuminates all things and strives to make the divine gifts of the Father and his only-begotten Son equally present to creatures, the Spirit that has sanctified you and is glorified together with you along with the Father and the Son through the thrice-holy praise. Moreover, you have also assented when I acclaimed this Spirit as one and only of the hypostasis of God and as God; and you would perhaps have wished me to celebrate in this part of the book due to the excess of your goodwill toward the venerable and consubstantial Trinity, and that the words spoken by many and now by me from the meaning of the Scriptures should be yours, and that silence should never be imposed upon them, and that all men should spend their leisure from affairs on such a subject. Therefore, by the highest judgment, you, O holy Michael, were appointed to rule over the incorporeal hosts and were honored with a kind of noetic girdle, and you exist as a certain fragrance of the all-holy and merciful Trinity that governs all; and you, O holy Gabriel, were chosen to minister to the mystery of the ineffable economy, as one discreet and faithful; and another has been honored with a different, God-given gift, not even having asked for it, such as neither others nor we have; but we also have a gift such as you do not have. For the God Logos did not become an angel because of the angels who sinned, but became man because of men in sin, without change, without confusion, without sin, ineffably, as he knew 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," he says, "one is holy, one is Lord Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father." And thus, as he ascended from earth to the heavens, he will come a second time, served by angelic, approved phalanxes of countless myriads, and he will both judge and act according to his philanthropy. Therefore, after the churches, prayer houses were also named after your appellation, O well-pleased pair of archangels, established not only in cities but also in alleys, private homes, and fields, adorned with gold and silver or even ivory. And men, even to the most remote places of their native land, which have prayer houses set forth as, so to speak, treasuries of achievements, do not hesitate to traverse a long sea, if need be, or to complete a journey of many successive days, sometimes a difficult one, as they will experience greater goodwill from you regarding the embassy, and participation in the goods zealously offered for the good from God. For in his holy churches and prayer houses and martyria, as in other heavens, he has set forth his inexhaustible goods. And from these, this same king of kings and lord of lords has given and daily gives to each, and from these he accepts a bloodless sacrifice piously and holily offered, and he receives all honors from men. I think that even against heretics and in matters of theology, the irrational animals, nay even the stones themselves, would join us in eagerness. For what does love for God not do? Or to what does a true affection of the heart yield?

You know, then, that with God let everything be said thus, that I have acted with you and with the saints born of our nature interceding, so that no one up to this day has chosen to bring a kind of suit or accusation of slander against me on behalf of you, our ambassadors, who hold honors commensurate with your measure before all; nor has anyone summoned me by name to a contest and judgment concerning this matter, even though those who accuse me of things that do not exist are found; but no one has attempted to refute me as having heard words against the Word of God and the Holy Spirit and, perhaps out of shame or fear of the speaker, having assented and praised things that are not good; or as having ever been negligent and, in a slothfulness not befitting, set aside the duty to oppose to the best of my ability. On the contrary, many have said that I have always come forward vigorous and gentle in such matters, either to give or to receive justice. For I consider it the greatest and eternal gain for myself, for those from me, and for those with us, to choose every labor, if necessary, and danger on behalf of the one who made us and saves us, and to judge and to exercise philanthropy for his sake, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Knowing, therefore, that you are chosen servants of the all-holy Trinity and ambassadors of the human race, nothing after that cause and life-giver of all has been left lacking in me of the reverence due to you who advocate for me with this one who supplies thoughts and wise expressions pleasing to her and benefiting us; and then also to you; and by so much "then" as is fitting, after the uncreated nature, to make orderly mention of the created nature.