Letters to Serapion 4.8–4.20

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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