On the Holy Spirit

I praised your love of learning and the industry of your character, and I was delighted beyond measure by the attentive and sober quality of your mind, by which you think it necessary to leave unexamined no expression of all those that are used about God in every need of speech, my dear friend, most honoured of all to me, brother Amphilochius. For you have listened well to the Lord's exhortation, "Everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds"; and by your diligence in asking you would, I think, rouse even the laziest to share what he has. But this I admire in you still more: that you do not put your questions to test us, as most people do now, but in order to find out the truth itself. For there is now a great abundance of people who eavesdrop on us and question us; but to come upon a soul that loves learning and seeks the truth as a cure for ignorance is very hard. For like a hunters' snare and an ambush of soldiers, the questions of most people keep their deceit hidden and prepared: they put forward arguments not to gain anything useful from them, but so that, if they find answers that do not agree with their own desire, they may seem to have a just pretext for war.

But if "to the fool who asks, wisdom will be reckoned," how highly shall we value the "intelligent hearer," whom the prophet yoked together with the "wonderful counsellor"? Surely it is right to count him worthy of every welcome and to lead him further on, sharing his zeal and toiling through everything with him as he presses on to perfection. For not to listen carelessly to theological expressions, but to try to track down the meaning hidden in each word and each syllable, is the mark not of those who are idle in piety but of those who know the goal of our calling: that what is set before us is to become like God, as far as is possible for human nature. But there is no likeness without knowledge, and knowledge does not come without teaching. Speech is the beginning of teaching, and syllables and words are the parts of speech. So the examination of syllables has not fallen outside our goal. Nor, because the questions are small, as they might seem to someone, are they for that reason worth overlooking; but since the truth is hard to hunt, we must track it from every side. For if the grasp of piety, like the arts, grows by small additions, those who are being introduced to knowledge must despise nothing; for if someone overlooks the first elements as trifling, he will never lay hold of the perfect things of wisdom. "Yes" and "no" are two syllables; yet the best of goods, truth, and the furthest limit of wickedness, falsehood, are often contained in these small words. And why do I say this? Before now someone who merely nodded his head in bearing witness for Christ has been judged to have fulfilled all piety. If this is so, what theological expression is so small that, whether it is used rightly or wrongly, it does not tip the scale greatly one way or the other? For if "not one iota or one stroke will pass from the law," how could it be safe for us to pass over even the smallest things? The things you yourself asked us to examine are both small and great: small in the brevity of their utterance, and perhaps for that reason easily despised; great in the force of what they signify, like the mustard seed, which, though it is the smallest of the seeds of shrubs, when it is given fitting care rises to a sufficient height, as the power sown within it unfolds. And if anyone laughs when he sees our—to speak with the psalm—"prating" about syllables, let him know that he is reaping a useless fruit of his laughter; but let us, neither yielding to the reproaches of men nor defeated by their disparagement, not abandon the search. For I am so far from being ashamed of these things as small that, if I should reach even a small fraction of their worth, I would congratulate myself on having been counted worthy of great things, and I would say that the brother who searches with us had gained no small profit from it. Seeing, then, a very great contest in small words, I do not shrink from the toil in hope of the rewards, believing that the discussion will bear fruit for me and that its benefit will be lasting for those who hear. Therefore now, with the Holy Spirit himself, so to speak, I will set out on the explanation. And, if you wish, so that I may set myself on the road of the discussion, I will turn back a little to the beginning of the problem.

Recently, as I was praying with the people and completing the doxology to God the Father in both ways—now "with the Son, together with the Holy Spirit," now "through the Son, in the Holy Spirit"—some of those present objected, saying that we had used strange expressions which were, at the same time, opposed to each other. You asked, chiefly for the benefit of those very people, or, if they are wholly incurable, for the safety of those who meet them, that some clear teaching be set out about the force of these syllables. We must speak briefly, then, giving the discussion an agreed starting point.

The petty precision of these men about syllables and words is not a simple matter, as might seem to someone, nor does it lead to a small evil; it holds a deep and shadowy design against piety. For they are eager to show that the way Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are spoken of is unlike, so that from this they will have an easy proof also of the difference in their nature. For they have an old sophism, devised by Aetius, the champion of this heresy, who wrote somewhere in his letters that things unlike in nature are spoken of in unlike ways, and conversely that things spoken of in unlike ways are unlike in nature. And as witness to his argument he drew in the Apostle, who says: "One God and Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things." As the expressions are to one another, he says, so also will the natures signified by them be; but "through whom" is unlike "from whom"; therefore the Son too is unlike the Father. On this disease hangs the prating of these men about the terms before us. Hence to God the Father, as a special inheritance, they assign "from whom"; to God the Son they have set apart "through whom"; and to the Holy Spirit "in whom"; and they say that this use of the syllables is never interchanged, so that, as I said, along with the difference of expression the difference of nature may also be shown. But it has not escaped notice that in their subtlety about words they are preserving the force of their impious argument. For they want "from whom" to signify the maker, "through whom" the assistant or the instrument, and "in whom" to show the time or the place; so that the maker of all things may be thought no more venerable than an instrument, and the Holy Spirit may appear to contribute to existing things nothing more than what place or time contributes.

They were led into this deception, however, also by the observation of outsiders, who assigned "from which" and "through which" to things separate in nature. For these think that "from which" shows the matter, and "through which" presents the instrument, or in general the subordinate service. Or rather—for what prevents us from taking up their whole account and briefly exposing both its incoherence with the truth and these men's disagreement with the outsiders themselves?—those who have spent their leisure on vain philosophy, explaining the nature of cause in many ways and dividing it into its proper meanings, say that some causes are principal, some cooperating or joint causes, and some hold the place of "that without which not." To each of these they also assign a peculiar expression, so that the maker is signified in one way and the instrument in another. To the maker they think "by which" is fitting; for they say it is properly said that the bench was made by the carpenter. To the instrument, "through which"; for, they say, it was made through the adze and the auger and the rest. Likewise they posit "from which" as proper to the matter, for the product is from wood; and "according to which" shows the design, or the model set before the craftsman. For either he first sketched the construction in his mind and so brought his image into effect, or he looks to a model already set out and directs his work to its likeness. "On account of which" they want to belong to the end, for the bench was made on account of people's use of it; and "in which" presents the time or the place. For when was it made? In this time. And where? In this place. Even if these contribute nothing to what is made, yet without them nothing can be made; for those who act need both place and time. Having learned and admired these observations, drawn from vanity and empty deceit, these men transfer them even to the simple and untechnical teaching of the Spirit, to the belittling of God the Word and the setting aside of the Holy Spirit. For the expression that outsiders set apart for lifeless instruments, or for wholly menial and lowly service—I mean "through which"—this they did not hesitate to transfer to the Master of all things; and they, Christians, are not ashamed to assign to the creator of the universe the expression used for a saw or a hammer.

We, for our part, acknowledge that the word of truth also uses these expressions in many places; but we say that the freedom of the Spirit is by no means enslaved to the pettiness of outsiders; rather, it varies its expressions to suit the needs of each occasion as it arises. For "from which" does not always signify matter, as they think; rather, Scripture more usually uses this expression of the supreme cause, as in "One God, from whom are all things," and again, "But all things are from God." Yet the word of truth also often uses this term of matter, as when it says, "You shall make the ark from incorruptible wood"; and, "You shall make the lampstand from pure gold"; and, "The first man was from the earth, made of dust"; and, "You were formed from clay, as I also was." But these men, in order, as we said, to present the difference of nature, have laid down the rule that this term belongs to the Father alone. They took the starting points of their observation from outsiders, but did not follow them precisely in everything: to the Son, in keeping with their rules, they applied the name of instrument, and to the Spirit that of place—for they say "in the Spirit" and "through the Son"—but to God they gave "from whom," here no longer following the foreigners but passing over, as they say, to apostolic usage, as it is said, "But from him you are in Christ Jesus," and, "But all things are from God." What, then, is the conclusion of this technical theory? The nature of a cause is one thing, that of an instrument another, and that of a place another. Therefore the Son is alien in nature to the Father, since the instrument too is alien to the craftsman; and the Spirit is alien, inasmuch as place or time is separated from the nature of instruments or of those who handle them.

Such, then, are their views. We shall show what we proposed: that the Father did not take "from whom" and throw "through whom" to the Son, nor, in turn, does the Son, as their rules would have it, refuse the Holy Spirit a share in "from whom" or "through whom," as their novel allotment has decreed. "One God and Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things." These are not the words of one laying down rules but of one distinguishing the hypostases. For the Apostle spoke this way not to introduce a strangeness of nature, but to present the notion of Father and Son without confusion. That the expressions are not set against each other, and do not, like ranks in war drawn up against an opposing line, set at war the natures to which they are attached, is clear from this: blessed Paul brought both together on one and the same subject, saying, "For from him and through him and to him are all things." That this refers to the Lord anyone would say who pays even a little attention to the intent of the passage. For the Apostle first set out from the prophecy of Isaiah, "Who has known the mind of the Lord? And who became his counsellor?", and then added, "For from him and through him and to him are all things." That this was said by the prophet about God the Word, the creator of all creation, you may learn from what comes before it: "Who measured the water with his hand, and the heaven with a span, and all the earth with a handful? Who set the mountains in a balance and the glades on a scale? Who has known the mind of the Lord, and who became his counsellor?" For "who" here does not signify the wholly impossible but the rare, as in, "Who will rise up for me against the evildoers?", and, "Who is the man who desires life?", and, "Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord?" So too here: "Who is the one who knows the mind of the Lord and shares his counsel?" "For the Father loves the Son and shows him all things." He it is who holds the earth together and has grasped it in his hand; who brought all things into order and arrangement; who gave the mountains their balance and the waters their measures, and allotted to all things in the world their proper order; who encompasses the whole heaven with a small part of his whole power, which the prophetic word figuratively named a span. Hence the Apostle fittingly added, "From him and through him and to him are all things." For from him comes to existing things the cause of their being, according to the will of God the Father. Through him all things have their continuance and constitution, since he created all things and measures out to each created thing what is needed for its preservation. That is why all things are turned toward him, looking with irresistible longing and unspeakable affection to the author and giver of life, as it is written, "The eyes of all hope in you"; and again, "All things wait for you"; and, "You open your hand and fill every living thing with good pleasure."

If they object to this interpretation of ours, what argument will save them from plainly running into themselves? For if they will not grant that the three expressions—"from him," "through him," and "to him"—are said of the Lord, they must necessarily assign them to God the Father. And from this their observation will plainly collapse, for not only "from whom" but also "through whom" is found applied to the Father. If this shows nothing lowly, why ever do they set it apart for the Son as inferior? But if it always indicates service, let them answer us: the God of glory and Father of Christ is the servant of what ruler? So they are overturned by their own arguments, while our position will be kept strong on both sides. For if the view prevails that the passage is about the Son, "from whom" will be found to suit the Son; and if someone insists on referring the prophet's words to God, he will again grant that the expression "through whom" befits God, and each will have equal dignity, since both are used alike of God. And so, either way, they will appear equal in honour to each other, being applied to one and the same person. But let us return to our subject.

Writing to the Ephesians, the Apostle says: "But speaking the truth in love, let us grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together through every joint of its supply, according to the working in the measure of each single part, makes the growth of the body." And again, in the letter to the Colossians, it is said to those who do not have the knowledge of the Only-begotten: "holding fast the head"—that is, Christ—"from whom the whole body, supplied through the joints and ligaments, grows with the growth of God." For that Christ is head of the church we have learned elsewhere, when the Apostle says, "And he gave him as head over all things to the church"; and, "From his fullness we have all received." And the Lord himself says, "He will take from what is mine and declare it to you." In general, to one who reads carefully, the uses of "from whom" will prove to be many and various. For the Lord too says, "I perceived power going out from me." Likewise we have observed "from whom" used of the Spirit in many places. "The one who sows to the Spirit," it says, "will reap from the Spirit eternal life"; and John: "By this we know that he is in us: from the Spirit whom he has given us"; and …

We must now show that Scripture admits the expression "through whom" alike of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For the Son it would be superfluous to bring testimonies, both because it is well known and because our opponents themselves maintain this very point; but we show that "through whom" is used also of the Father. "God is faithful," it says, "through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son"; and, "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God"; and again, "So you are no longer a slave but a son; and if a son, also an heir through God"; and, "Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father"; and Isaiah says, "Woe to those who make deep counsel, and not through the Lord." One may also cite many testimonies of this expression for the Spirit: "But to us," it says, "God revealed it through the Spirit"; and elsewhere, "Guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit"; and again, "For to one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom."

We can say the same things about the syllable "in": Scripture has admitted its use also of God the Father. In the Old Testament: "In God," it says, "let us do mightily"; and, "In you is my praise continually"; and again, "In your name I will rejoice." In Paul: "In God, who created all things"; and, "Paul and Silvanus and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father"; and, "if somehow I may at last succeed, in the will of God, in coming to you"; and, "You boast in God." And there are more than can easily be counted. But our aim is not a display of many testimonies but a refutation, to show that their observations are unsound. I will pass over showing that this usage is applied to the Lord or to the Holy Spirit, since it is well known. But this must be said: for an intelligent hearer, the argument from the contrary is a sufficient refutation of what they propose. For if, by their reasoning, the difference in expression showed a varied nature, let the sameness of the expressions now shame them into confessing that the essence is invariable.

Not only in theology are the uses of the expressions interchanged; often they even take each other's place in what they signify, when one takes over the meaning of the other. For example, "I have gotten a man through God," says Adam, meaning the same as "from God"; and elsewhere, "All that Moses commanded Israel through the command of the Lord"; and again, "Is not the interpretation of them through God?"—Joseph, speaking about the dreams to those in prison, clearly said "through God" instead of "from God." And conversely Paul has used the preposition "from whom" instead of "through whom," as when he says "born from a woman" instead of "through a woman." For elsewhere he clearly distinguished this for us, saying that it belongs to a woman to have been made from the man, and to a man to be born through the woman, when he says, "For as the woman is from the man, so the man is through the woman." Yet here, at once showing the variety of usage and correcting in passing the error of some who think that the Lord's body was spiritual, he preferred the more emphatic expression, in order to show that the God-bearing flesh was formed from the human lump. For "through a woman" would suggest the notion of a birth merely passing through her, while "from the woman" sufficiently indicates the community of nature between the child and her who bore him. He is not contradicting himself anywhere, but showing that the expressions easily pass over into each other's place. Since, then, even where "through whom" was defined as properly used [the other expression is substituted], how [can they] set the terms apart?

Nor can they take refuge in the plea of ignorance, since they take up the argument so technically and maliciously. For they are plainly angry with us because we complete the doxology to the Only-begotten with the Father, and do not separate the Holy Spirit from the Son. Hence they call us innovators, revolutionaries, inventors of phrases—and what term of reproach do they not use? I am so far from being vexed by these insults that, if their loss did not cause us grief and unceasing pain, I might almost have said that I am grateful to them for the blasphemy, as bringers of blessedness. For "Blessed are you," it says, "when they revile you for my sake." What they are indignant about is this. "The Son," they say, "is not with the Father but after the Father; therefore it is consistent to offer glory to the Father through him, but not with him. For 'with him' indicates equality of honour, while 'through whom' presents subordinate service. Nor is the Spirit to be ranked together with the Father and the Son, but under the Son and the Father: not co-ordinated but subordinated, not numbered with them but numbered under them." With such technicalities of words they pervert the simple and unelaborate character of the faith. So what pardon could they obtain for inexperience, who by their own meddlesomeness do not allow even others to remain inexperienced?

Let us first ask them this: in what sense do they say the Son is "after" the Father? As later in time, or in order, or in dignity? In time, no one is so foolish as to say that the maker of the ages holds second place, since no interval intervenes in the natural conjunction of the Son with the Father. Indeed, even by human ways of thinking one cannot say that the Son is later than the Father, not only because the two are thought of together by virtue of their relation, but because those things are called later in time which are at a smaller distance from the present, and those earlier which are further from the present. For instance, the events of Noah's time are earlier than those of Sodom, because they are further removed from the present; and the latter are later than the former, because they seem somehow nearer to the present. But to measure the being of the life that transcends all time and all ages by its distance from the present—how is this not, besides impiety, the utmost folly? As if God the Father, compared with God the Son, who exists before the ages, would surpass him in the same way in which things subject to coming into being and passing away are said to be earlier than one another! No, a pre-eminence of the Father reaching further back is inconceivable, because the begetting of the Lord transcends absolutely every thought and every notion. John well enclosed our mind within fixed bounds by two words, when he said: "In the beginning was the Word." For "was" is something thought cannot get beyond, and "beginning" something imagination cannot pass over. However far you run back upward in thought, you do not get beyond the "was"; and however you strain to see what lies beyond the Son, you will not be able to rise above the "beginning." It is pious, then, to think of the Son in this way, together with the Father.

But if they conceive of some lowering of the Son in relation to the Father, as in a place lying below, so that the Father sits above and the Son is thrust down to the next place below, let them confess it, and we will be silent; the plain statement at once shows its absurdity. For those who do not grant that the Father pervades all things do not even keep consistency in their reasoning, since the mind of sound people believes that God has filled all things; nor do they remember the prophet who says, "If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to Hades, you are present"—they who divide up and down between Father and Son. But, to say nothing of refuting the ignorance of those who assign place to incorporeal things, what can excuse their fight and opposition against the Scriptures, shameless as it is—"Sit at my right hand," and "He sat at the right hand of the majesty of God"? For "the right hand" does not indicate the lower place, as their argument has it, but a relation of equality. The right hand is not taken bodily (for then there would also be something left-handed about God); rather, the word presents the magnificence of the Son's honour by the honourable names of the seat of dignity. It remains, then, for them to say that this expression shows an inferiority of dignity. Let them learn, then, that "Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God," and that he is "the image of the invisible God" and "the radiance of his glory," and that "God the Father has sealed him," having stamped his whole self upon him. These testimonies, then, and all those akin to them throughout Scripture—shall we say that they are humbling, or rather that they proclaim, like public announcements, the majesty of the Only-begotten and his equality of glory with the Father? And let them hear the Lord himself clearly presenting his glory as equal in honour to the Father's, when he says, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father"; and again, "When the Son comes in the glory of the Father"; and, "that they may honour the Son as they honour the Father"; and, "We beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father"; and, "The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father." Taking none of these into account, they assign to the Son the place set apart for enemies. For the Father's bosom is a fitting seat for a son, while the place of the footstool belongs to those who must be made to fall down. We, then, since we are pressing on to other things, have touched on the testimonies in passing; but you may at leisure gather the proofs and behold the height of the glory and the surpassing power of the Only-begotten. Yet to a well-disposed hearer even these are not small—unless someone understands "the right hand" and "the bosom" in a fleshly and lowly way, so as to circumscribe God in a place and to fashion for him a shape, a form, and a bodily posture, which are far removed from the notion of the simple, infinite, and incorporeal—except that the lowness of such a notion applies alike to the Father and the Son. So the one who argues such things does not lower the dignity of the Son but brings upon himself the judgment for blasphemy against God. For whatever he dares against the Son he must transfer to the Father. The one who assigns the upper place to the Father as a seat of precedence, and says that the only-begotten Son sits below, will have all the bodily accidents following from his own imagining. But if these are the fantasies of men struck with wine and deranged in mind by frenzy, how is it pious for those taught by the Lord himself that "whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father" not to worship and glorify with the Father him who is joined to him in nature, in glory, and in dignity? For what shall we say? What just defence shall we have before the fearful and common tribunal of all creation, if—when the Lord clearly promises that he will come in the glory of the Father, and Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and Paul testifies in the Spirit about Christ that he is at the right hand of God, and the Father says, "Sit at my right hand," and the Holy Spirit testifies that he sat at the right hand of the majesty of God—we bring down him who shares the throne and the honour from the relation of equality to a lower one? For I think that standing and sitting suggest the fixity and complete stability of his nature—just as Baruch, showing the immovable and unchangeable character of God's way of being, said, "You are enthroned for ever, and we are perishing for ever"—while the place at the right hand shows equality of honour in dignity. How then is it not reckless …

"But to say 'with him'," they say, "is utterly foreign and unusual, whereas 'through him' is most proper to the language of Scripture and well worn in the usage of the brotherhood." What, then, do we say to this? Blessed are the ears that have not heard you, and the hearts that have been kept unwounded by your words! But to you who love Christ I say that the church knows both usages and rejects neither as destroying the other. For when we contemplate the majesty of the nature of the Only-begotten and the pre-eminence of his dignity, we testify that the glory is his with the Father; but when we consider the supply of good things to us, or our own access and appropriation to God, we confess that this grace is worked for us through him and in him. So "with whom" is the proper expression of those who give glory, and "through whom" the special expression of those who give thanks. It is false, too, that the expression "with whom" is foreign to the usage of the devout. For all whose steadiness of character led them to prefer the dignity of antiquity to novelty, and who kept the tradition of the fathers unadulterated, have used this expression, in country and in city alike. It is those who are sated with what is customary and scorn the old as stale who welcome innovations, just as in clothing the lovers of finery always prefer the changed fashion to the common one. So you may see that even now the speech of country people is old-fashioned, while the words of these skilled men, practised in disputes about words, are branded by the new wisdom. What our fathers said, then, we too say: that the glory is common to the Father and the Son; therefore we offer the doxology to the Father with the Son. But it does not suffice us that this is the tradition of the fathers; for they too followed the intent of Scripture, taking their starting points from the testimonies that we set before you from Scripture a little earlier. For "the radiance" is thought of with the glory, and the image with the archetype, and the Son always together with the Father, since not even the sequence of the names, let alone the nature of the realities, admits separation.

So when the Apostle gives thanks to God through Jesus Christ, and again says that through him he has received grace and apostleship for the obedience of faith among all the nations, or that through him we have obtained access into this grace in which we stand and boast, he is setting out his benefits toward us: now conveying the grace of good things from the Father to us, now bringing us through himself to the Father. For in saying, "Through whom we have received grace and apostleship," he shows the supply of good things from that source; and in saying, "Through whom we have obtained access," he presents our reception and appropriation to God, which comes about through Christ. Is, then, the acknowledgment of the grace he works toward us a diminishing of his glory? Or is it truer to say that the recounting of his benefits is a fitting theme for doxology? That is why we find that Scripture does not hand the Lord down to us by a single name, nor only by those that show his Godhead and greatness. Now it uses names that characterise his nature—for it knows "the name that is above every name," the name of the Son, and calls him true Son, and only-begotten God, and power of God, and wisdom, and Word. And again, because of the manifold grace toward us which, out of [the riches of] his goodness, he provides to those in need according to his manifold wisdom, it designates him by countless other titles, calling him now shepherd, now king, and again physician, and the same one bridegroom, and way, and door, and spring, and bread, and axe, and rock. For these do not present his nature but, as I said, the manifold variety of his working, which, out of compassion for his own creature, he provides to those in need according to the particular need. Those who have fled for refuge to his care, and through patient endurance have achieved a readiness to share, he calls sheep; and he acknowledges that he is the shepherd of such as listen to his voice and do not heed strange teachings: "For my sheep," he says, "hear my voice." He is king of those who have already risen higher and need lawful governance; and door, because he leads out to worthy deeds through the rightness of his commands, and again gives safe shelter to those who take refuge, through faith in him, in the good of knowledge. Hence: "If anyone enters through me, he will go in and go out and find pasture." And rock, because he is a strong and unshakable safeguard for the faithful, firmer than any bulwark. In these cases "through him" has its most fitting and clearest use, when he is called door and way. But as God and Son, he has the glory with the Father and together with the Father: "that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God"—so they proclaim to us.

For through him comes every help for souls, and for each kind of care some particular name has been devised. When he presents to himself the blameless soul, which has no spot or wrinkle, as a pure virgin, he is called bridegroom; but when he takes it ruined by the evil blows of the devil and heals it, sorely sick as it is with sins, he is named physician. Do such cares of his for us, then, bring our thoughts down to something lowly? Or, on the contrary, do they not produce amazement at the great power and, at the same time, the love for humankind of the Saviour, that he both endured to sympathise with our weaknesses and was able to come down to our weakness? For heaven and earth and the vastness of the seas, the creatures that live in the waters and the animals of the land, the plants and stars, the air and the seasons, and the varied ordering of the universe, do not establish the surpassing greatness of his strength so much as the fact that God, the uncontainable, was able impassibly, through the flesh, to grapple with death, so that by his own suffering he might grant us freedom from suffering. And if the Apostle says, "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us," he does not suggest by such an expression some lowly service, but the help worked "in the might of his strength." For he himself bound the strong man and plundered his goods—that is, us, whom the devil had used for every evil working—and made them vessels useful to the Master, made ready for every good work out of the preparation of what lies in our power. So we have obtained access to the Father through him, having been transferred from the dominion of darkness to a share in the inheritance of the saints in light. Let us not, then, think of the economy through the Son as a service compelled by servile lowliness, but as a voluntary care, worked out of goodness and compassion, according to the will of God the Father, for his own creature. For so shall we be pious: testifying to his perfect power in all that is accomplished, and never separating him from the Father's will. So too, when the Lord is called "way," we are carried up to a higher notion, not to the one taken at first sight. For by "way" we understand the advance to perfection, in order and sequence, through the works of righteousness and the illumination of knowledge, always reaching out for what lies ahead and straining forward to what remains, until we arrive at the blessed end, the knowledge of God, which the Lord grants through himself to those who have believed in him. For our Lord is truly a good way, without byways or wandering, leading to the truly good, the Father. For "no one comes," he says, "to the Father except through me." Such, then, is our ascent to God through the Son.

Next we should say, in turn, what the supply of good things from the Father to us through him is like. All nature in creation, both this visible world and the intelligible, needs care from God in order to be held together; so the creator Word, the only-begotten God, distributing his help according to the measure of each one's need, measures out gifts that are varied and manifold because of the variety of those who receive his benefits, yet proportioned to each according to what its need requires. Those held in the darkness of ignorance he enlightens; therefore he is the true light. He judges, measuring out the recompense according to the worth of deeds; therefore he is a righteous judge. "For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son." He raises up from their fall those who have slipped from the height of life into sin; therefore he is resurrection. All this he does, working by the touch of his power and the will of his goodness. He shepherds, enlightens, nourishes, guides, heals, raises up. He gives being to what is not; he holds together what has been created. So the good things from God reach us through the Son, who works each of them more swiftly than speech could tell. For neither lightning nor the course of light through the air is so swift; nor the quick glances of the eyes; nor the movements of our own thought. Each of these falls further behind the divine working in speed than the slowest of our animals falls behind—I will not say birds, or winds, or the motion of the heavenly bodies, but—our own mind in its movement. For what extension of time would he need who "upholds all things by the word of his power," who does not work bodily or need manual labour for his creating, but has the nature of the things that come to be following his will unforced? As Judith says: "You thought, and all the things you thought stood before you." Yet, lest we be drawn away by the greatness of his works into imagining that the Lord is without origin, what does Life itself say? "I live because of the Father." And the power of God: "The Son can do nothing of himself." And the self-sufficient wisdom: "I have received a commandment what to say and what to speak." Through all these he leads us to the knowledge of the Father and refers the wonder at what is done to him, so that through him we may know the Father. For the Father is not seen from a difference in the works, as though he displayed a peculiar and separate working—for "whatever the Son sees the Father doing, these the Son also does likewise"—but he reaps the wonder at what is done through the glory brought to him by the Only-begotten, being exulted in and exalted, beyond the greatness of the works, for the maker himself, by those who acknowledge him as Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, "through whom are all things and for whom are all things." That is why the Lord says, "All that is mine is yours," since the origin of created things goes back to him; "and yours is mine," since the cause of creating comes down to the Son from there. He does not use helps for his working, nor is he entrusted with the service of each work by piecemeal commissions—that would be ministerial and fall utterly short of the divine dignity. No: the Word, full of the Father's good things, shining forth from the Father, does all things according to the likeness of the one who begot him. For if he is without variation in essence, he will also be without variation in power; and those whose power is equal surely have equal working as well. For "Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God." And so "all things came into being through him," and "all things were created through him and for him"—not as one fulfilling an instrumental or servile ministry, but as one accomplishing the Father's will creatively.

So when he says, "I have not spoken of myself"; and again, "As the Father has told me, so I speak"; and, "The word that you hear is not mine but his who sent me"; and elsewhere, "As the Father commanded me, so I do"—he uses such expressions not because he lacks choice or impulse of his own, or waits for the starting signal given by agreed tokens, but to show that his own will is joined to the Father in unity and without separation. Let us not, then, take the so-called "commandment" as an imperative word spoken through the organs of speech, laying down for the Son, as for a subject, what he must do; rather let us understand, in a manner befitting God, a transmission of will, like the reflection of a form in a mirror, passing timelessly from the Father to the Son. For "the Father loves the Son and shows him all things." So all that the Father has belongs to the Son, not accruing to him little by little, but present all at once. Among humans, the one who has been thoroughly taught a craft and has its habit firmly settled through long practice can afterwards work by himself according to the principles of knowledge stored within him; and shall the wisdom of God, the creator of all creation, the ever perfect, wise without being taught, the power of God, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," need piecemeal supervision to define for him the manner and measure of his workings? No doubt in the vanity of your reasonings you will open a schoolroom too, and have him first in a pupil's inexperience, then learning wisdom by gradual additions of lessons and advancing to perfection. From this, if you know how to keep your reasonings consistent, you will find the Son always being taught and never able to reach perfection, since the Father's wisdom is infinite, and the end of the infinite cannot be grasped. So whoever does not grant that the Son has all things from the beginning will never grant that he will reach perfection. But I am ashamed of the lowness of the notion to which the sequence of the argument has brought me down. Let us return, then, to the heights of our subject.

"Whoever has seen me has seen the Father"—not the imprint or the form, for the divine nature is free of composition, but the goodness of the will, which, concurrent with the essence, is seen to be like and equal, or rather the same, in the Father and the Son. What, then, of "having become obedient," and "He gave him up for us all"? It means that the Son has from the Father his working on behalf of humans, in goodness. But hear these words too: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law"; and, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." And pay close attention also to the Lord's words: while he instructs us about the Father in this way, he also knows how to use words of authority and mastery, saying, "I will; be cleansed"; and, "Be silent, be muzzled"; and, "But I say to you"; and, "Dumb and deaf spirit, I command you"; and the like—so that through these we may know our Master and maker, and through the others be taught about the Father of our Master and maker. So from every side the argument is shown to be true: that the Father's creating through the Son neither makes the Father's creation imperfect nor shows the Son's working to be feeble, but presents the unity of the will. So the expression "through whom" contains an acknowledgment of the principal cause; it is not adopted as a charge against the efficient cause.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What further do they say to this? For they are well supplied with many rebuttals. "We are also baptised into water," they say, "and surely we shall not honour water above the whole creation, or give it a share in the honour of the Father and the Son." Their arguments are such as might come from angry men who, because their reasoning is darkened by passion, spare nothing in retaliating against the one who has vexed them. But we will not shrink from discussing these things either. For we will either teach them, if they are ignorant, or not give way to them, if they are acting in bad faith. But let us begin a little further back.

The economy of our God and Saviour concerning man is a recall from the fall and a return to intimacy with God from the estrangement brought about by disobedience. For this reason came Christ's sojourn in the flesh, the patterns of the gospel way of life, the sufferings, the cross, the burial, the resurrection: so that man, being saved through imitation of Christ, might receive back that ancient adoption. For perfection of life, then, the imitation of Christ is necessary—not only in the examples of gentleness, humility, and patience that his life gave, but also of his very death, as Paul, the imitator of Christ, says: "being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." How, then, do we come to be in the likeness of his death? By being buried with him through baptism. What, then, is the manner of the burial, and what benefit comes from the imitation? First, it is necessary that the continuity of the former life be broken off. This is impossible unless one is born from above, according to the Lord's word. For regeneration, as the very name shows, is the beginning of a second life. So before beginning the second, one must put an end to the one before. For as with runners who turn in the double course a kind of halt and pause separates the opposite movements, so in the change of lives it was seen to be necessary that a death should stand between the two lives, ending what went before and giving a beginning to what follows. How, then, do we accomplish the descent into Hades? By imitating the burial of Christ through baptism. For the bodies of the baptised are, as it were, buried in the water. So baptism symbolically indicates the putting off of the works of the flesh, as the Apostle says: "You were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism." And it is, as it were, a cleansing of the soul from the filth that has come upon it from the mind of the flesh, as it is written: "You will wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." For this reason we do not wash ourselves, as the Jews do, at each defilement, but we know one saving baptism, since there is one death on behalf of the world and one resurrection from the dead, of which baptism is a type. For this reason the Lord who orders our life established for us the covenant of baptism, containing a type of death and of life: the water fulfils the image of death, and the Spirit supplies the pledge of life. So it has become clear to us from this what was being asked: why the water was joined with the Spirit. It is because two aims are set before us in baptism: to abolish the body of sin, so that it no longer bears fruit for death, and to live by the Spirit and have our fruit in sanctification. The water presents the image of death, receiving the body as in a tomb; the Spirit sends in the life-giving power, renewing our souls from the deadness of sin to the life that was from the beginning. This, then, is to be born from above of water and Spirit: the dying is accomplished in the water, while our life is worked through the Spirit. In three immersions, then, and with an equal number of invocations, the great mystery of baptism is accomplished, so that the type of death may be represented, and the baptised may have their souls enlightened by the handing on of the knowledge of God. So if there is any grace in the water, it is not from the nature of the water but from the presence of the Spirit. For baptism is "not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the appeal of a good conscience to God." So, preparing us for the life that comes from the resurrection, the Lord sets out the whole gospel way of life, laying down freedom from anger, patient endurance of wrong, purity from the love of pleasure, and freedom from the love of money, so that what that age possesses by nature we may achieve beforehand by choice. If, then, someone …

Through the Holy Spirit comes the restoration to paradise, the ascent to the kingdom of heaven, the return to adoption; the boldness to call God our own Father, to become a sharer in the grace of Christ, to be called a child of light, to share in eternal glory, and, in a word, to be in all fullness of blessing, both in this age and in the one to come—beholding as in a mirror, as though already present, the grace of the good things stored up for us in promises, whose enjoyment we await through faith. For if the pledge is such, how great is the perfect whole? And if the first-fruits are so great, what will the fullness of the whole be? The difference between the grace that comes from the Spirit and baptism in water is known also from this: that John baptised in water for repentance, but our Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. "I baptise you in water for repentance," he says; "but he who comes after me is mightier than I; I am not worthy to carry his sandals; he will baptise you in the Holy Spirit and fire." By the baptism of fire he means the testing at the judgment, as the Apostle says: "The fire itself will test what sort of work each one has done"; and again, "For the day will disclose it, because it is revealed in fire." And before now some, in the contests for piety, have undergone death for Christ in truth and not in imitation, and have needed none of the symbols of water for their salvation, having been baptised in their own blood. I say this not to set aside baptism in water, but to demolish the reasonings of those who exalt themselves against the Spirit, who mix what cannot be mixed and equate what cannot be compared.

Let us return, then, to our starting point: how in all things the Holy Spirit is inseparable and wholly undivided from the Father and the Son. In the passage about the gift of tongues, Paul writes to the Corinthians: "If all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider comes in, he is convicted by all, he is examined by all, the secrets of his heart become manifest; and so, falling on his face, he will worship God, declaring that God is truly among you." If, then, from the prophecy that is worked according to the distribution of the Spirit's gifts, God is recognised to be in the prophets, let these men consider what place they will give to the Holy Spirit: whether it is more just to rank him with God or to thrust him out among the creation. And Peter's words to Sapphira, "How is it that you have agreed together to test the Holy Spirit? You have not lied to men but to God," show that sins against the Holy Spirit and against God are the same. In this way too you may be taught that the Spirit is joined with the Father and the Son and undivided from them in every working. When God works the distributions of workings, and the Lord the distributions of ministries, the Holy Spirit is present with them, ordering the distribution of the gifts according to each one's worth by his own authority. "For there are distributions of gifts," it says, "but the same Spirit; and distributions of ministries, but the same Lord; and distributions of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all." "All these," it says, "the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each individually as he wills." Yet because the Apostle here mentions the Spirit first, the Son second, and God the Father third, we must not think that the order has simply been reversed. He began from our relation to them; for when we receive the gifts, we first meet the one who distributes them, then we think of the one who sent him, and then we lift our thought to the source and cause of the good things.

You may learn the Spirit's fellowship with the Father and the Son also from the things created in the beginning. For the pure, intelligent, and supramundane powers both are holy and are called holy, having their sanctification from the grace given by the Holy Spirit. The manner of the creation of the heavenly powers has been passed over in silence, for the writer of the account of the world's origin revealed the Creator to us only through the things of sense. But you, who have the power to infer the invisible from the visible, glorify the Maker in whom all things were created, whether visible or invisible, whether principalities or authorities or powers or thrones or dominions, and whatever other rational natures there may be that have no name. And in their creation, consider, I pray, the principal cause of what was made, the Father; the creative cause, the Son; the perfecting cause, the Spirit: so that the ministering spirits exist by the will of the Father, are brought into being by the working of the Son, and are perfected by the presence of the Spirit. The perfection of angels is sanctification and continuance in it. And let no one think that I am saying there are three original hypostases, or that I call the Son's working incomplete. For the origin of existing things is one, creating through the Son and perfecting in the Spirit. Neither does the Father, who works all things in all, have an incomplete working, nor is the Son's creating deficient if it is not perfected by the Spirit. For on that view the Father would not need the Son, since he creates by willing alone—yet he wills through the Son; nor would the Son need cooperation, since he works in the likeness of the Father—yet the Son too wills to perfect through the Spirit. "For by the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the Spirit of his mouth." The Word, then, is not a significant impression on the air, uttered through the organs of speech; nor is the Spirit of his mouth a vapour expelled from the organs of breathing. Rather, the Word is he who "was with God in the beginning" and "was God," and the Spirit of God's mouth is "the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father." You perceive three, then: the Lord who commands, the Word who creates, the Spirit who establishes. And what else could establishing be but perfection in holiness, since establishing shows what is unyielding, unchangeable, and firmly fixed in the good? And there is no sanctification without the Spirit. For the powers of the heavens are not holy by nature—or else they would not differ at all from the Holy Spirit—but they have the measure of their sanctification from the Spirit in proportion to their rank relative to one another. For as the burning is thought of together with the fire, and yet the underlying matter is one thing and the fire another, so also with the heavenly powers: their essence is, perhaps, an airy spirit or an immaterial fire, as it is written, "Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire"; that is why they are in a place and become visible, appearing to the worthy in the form of their own bodies. But their sanctification, being external to their essence, brings them perfection through communion with the Spirit. They keep their dignity by persevering in the good; they have free choice, but never fall away from their attendance on the truly good. So if in thought you take away the Spirit, the choirs of angels are dissolved, the governance of archangels is abolished, all things are thrown into confusion, and their life becomes lawless, disordered, and without bounds. For how could angels say, "Glory to God in the highest," if not empowered by the Spirit? For "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit, and no one speaking in the Spirit of God says 'Jesus is accursed'"—which the evil and hostile spirits would say. Their fall establishes the point that the invisible powers are free in their choice, evenly balanced between virtue and vice, and therefore in need of the Spirit's help. For my part, I say that even Gabriel foretells the future in no other way than by the foreknowledge of the Spirit, since prophecy is one of the gifts distributed by the Spirit. And the one charged to announce the mysteries of the vision to the man of desires—where did he get the wisdom to teach hidden things, if not from the Holy Spirit? For the revelation of mysteries belongs properly to the Spirit, as it is written: "God has revealed them to us through the Spirit." And thrones and dominions, principalities and powers—how could they live their blessed life unless they always beheld the face of the Father who is in heaven? But there is no beholding without the Spirit. For as at night, if you take the light out of the house, the eyes are blind, the faculties are left inactive, the worth of things goes unrecognised, and gold and iron are trodden underfoot alike through ignorance—so in the intelligible order it is impossible to maintain that lawful life without the Spirit, any more than an army's good order when its commander is absent, or a choir's harmony when its leader does not direct it. How could the seraphim say, "Holy, holy, holy," unless taught by the Spirit how many times it is pious to cry out this doxology? Whether, then, "all his angels praise God, and all his powers praise him," they do it through the cooperation of the Spirit; or whether "a thousand thousands of angels stand by him, and ten thousand myriads of ministering spirits," they fulfil their proper work blamelessly in the power of the Spirit. All that supracelestial and unspeakable harmony, both in the service of God and in the concord of the supramundane powers with one another, cannot be kept except under the governance of the Spirit. So in creation the Holy Spirit is present to beings that are not perfected by progress but are perfect from their very creation, contributing his own grace to the completion and fulfilment of their existence.

As for the economies concerning man, carried out by our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ according to the goodness of God, who will deny that they were accomplished through the grace of the Spirit? Look, if you wish, at the ancient things: the blessings of the patriarchs, the help given through the law, the types, the prophecies, the brave deeds in wars, the signs done through the righteous; or at what was arranged through the Spirit concerning the Lord's coming in the flesh. For first, the Spirit was with the Lord's very flesh, becoming its anointing and present inseparably, as it is written: "On whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, this is my beloved Son"; and, "Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit." Then every working was done with the Spirit present. He was present even when the Lord was tempted by the devil: "Jesus was led up," it says, "by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted." He was with him inseparably as he worked miracles: "If I by the Spirit of God cast out demons." And he did not leave him when he had risen from the dead. For the Lord, renewing man and giving back the grace that man had lost, which came from God's breathing into him, breathed on the faces of the disciples—and what does he say? "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." And is not the ordering of the church clearly and indisputably worked through the Spirit? "For he gave," it says, "in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then powers, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, kinds of tongues." For this order is arranged according to the distribution of the gifts from the Spirit.

And anyone who reckons carefully will find that even at the time of the Lord's expected appearing from heaven the Holy Spirit will not be inactive, as some think; he will be present also on the day of his revelation, on which "the blessed and only Sovereign" will judge the world in righteousness. For who is so ignorant of the good things prepared by God for the worthy as not to know that the crown of the righteous is also the grace of the Spirit, given then more abundantly and more perfectly, as the spiritual glory is distributed to each in proportion to his brave deeds? For in the splendours of the saints there are "many dwellings" with the Father—that is, differences of rank. "For as star differs from star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead." Those, then, who have been sealed with the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption, and have kept pure and undiminished the first-fruits of the Spirit that they received, are the ones who will hear: "Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will set you over many." Likewise those who have grieved the Holy Spirit by the wickedness of their ways, or have not worked with what was given them, will be deprived of what they received, the grace being transferred to others; or, as one of the evangelists says, they will even be "cut in two" completely—the cutting in two being understood as complete estrangement from the Spirit. For the body is not divided, so that one part is handed over to punishment and the other let go—for that would be like a myth, and not the way of a just judge, that when the whole has sinned the punishment should be by halves. Nor is the soul cut in two, since the whole of it has had the sinful mind and has worked the evil together with the body. But the cutting in two, as I said, is the soul's estrangement from the Spirit for ever. For now, even if he is not mingled with the unworthy, he nevertheless seems in some way to be present to those who have once been sealed, awaiting their salvation through conversion; but then he will be cut off completely from the soul that has profaned his grace. That is why "in Hades there is no one who confesses, nor in death anyone who remembers God," since the help of the Spirit is no longer present. How then can one think that the judgment is carried out without the Holy Spirit, when the word shows that he is himself the prize of the righteous, when in place of the pledge the perfect is given, and that the first condemnation of sinners is when even what they seem to have is taken away? But the greatest proof of the Spirit's conjunction with the Father and the Son is that he is said to be related to God as the spirit in us is related to each of us. "For who among men," it says, "knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him? So also no one has known the things of God except the Spirit who is from God." So much, then, for this.

What they mean by "subnumeration," and to what meaning they apply this word, is not even easy to conceive. That it too was brought in upon us from the wisdom of the world is plain to everyone; whether it has any proper bearing on the matter before us, let us examine. These men, clever in vain things, say that some names are common and extend widely in their meanings, while others are more particular, and some have a more partial force than others. For instance, "essence" is a common name, predicated of all things, both lifeless and living alike; "animal" is more particular, said of fewer things than the former but of more than those considered under it, for it contains both rational and irrational natures. Again, "human being" is more particular than "animal," and "man" than "human being," and the individual than "man"—Peter or Paul or John. Do they, then, understand subnumeration as this division of the common into what falls under it? But I could not believe that they have been driven to such madness as to say that the God of all, like some common quality, perceptible only by reason and having its being in no hypostasis, is divided into subjects, and then to call this subdivision "subnumeration." Surely not even the melancholy-mad would say this. For besides the impiety, they establish the argument opposite to their own purpose; for things subdivided are of the same essence as that from which they are divided. But because the absurdity is so evident we seem to be at a loss for words, not knowing how to lay hold of their unreason; so that they seem to me to gain something from their folly. For as against soft and yielding bodies, which offer no resistance, one cannot deliver a vigorous blow, so neither can one come to grips with a vigorous refutation of those plainly given over to folly. It remains, then, to pass over in silence the abomination of their impiety. But love for the brothers, and the weight of the opponents' attack, do not allow us to keep quiet.

For what do they say? See the words of their arrogance: "We say that conumeration befits things of equal honour, and subnumeration things that differ for the worse." And what ever do you mean by this? I do not understand your strange wisdom. Is it that gold is numbered with gold, while lead is no longer worthy to be numbered with it, but because of the cheapness of its material will be numbered under gold? And do you ascribe so much power to number that it either raises the worth of cheap things or casts down the dignity of precious ones? Then again you will number gold under precious stones, and among these the dimmer and smaller under the more brilliant and larger. But what would they not say, those who have leisure for nothing else but to say or hear something newer? Let these arbiters of impiety henceforth be named together with the Stoics and Epicureans. For what subnumeration could there be of less valuable things under precious ones? How will a copper obol be numbered under a gold stater? "Because," he says, "we do not say that we possess two coins, but one and one." Which of these, then, is numbered under which? For each is named alike. If you count each by itself, you make them equal in honour by the like manner of counting; if you join them, you again unite their worth by counting both together. But if whatever is counted second is to be "subnumbered," it is up to the one counting to begin the count with the copper coin. But let us put off refuting their ignorance and turn to the main points of the argument.

[…] the present purpose, since their impiety has been refuted by us, as far as we were able, both there and elsewhere. But if they think that subnumeration befits the Spirit alone, let them learn that the Spirit is named together with the Lord in the same way as the Son with the Father. For the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit has been handed down alike. As, then, the Son is to the Father, so the Spirit is to the Son, according to the order of words handed down in baptism. And if the Spirit is ranked with the Son, and the Son with the Father, clearly the Spirit is also ranked with the Father. What room is there, then, to say that one is numbered with and another numbered under, when they are set in one and the same series? And in general, what thing has ever departed from its own nature by being counted? Do not things counted remain what they were by nature from the beginning, while number is applied by us as a sign indicating how many the subjects are? For of bodies we count some, measure others, and weigh others: those whose nature is continuous we grasp by measure; those that are discrete we subject to number—except those that, because of their fineness, become measurable in their turn—and weights we distinguish by the inclinations of the balance. It does not follow, then, that because we have devised signs for ourselves to know quantity, we have changed the nature of the things signified. So, as we do not "weigh under" one another things that are weighed, even if one is gold and the other tin, nor "measure under" things that are measured, so neither shall we "number under" things that are counted. And if nothing else admits subnumeration, how do they say that it befits the Spirit to be numbered under? But, sick with Greek notions, they think that things which descend by grades of dignity or by a lowering of essence are what should be numbered under.

In handing down the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Lord did not hand them down together with a number. For he did not say, "Into first and second and third," nor, "Into one and two and three"; but through holy names he granted the knowledge of the faith that leads to salvation. So what saves us is the faith, while number has been devised as a sign indicating the quantity of subjects. But these men, who gather harm for themselves from every side, use even the power of counting against the faith: though nothing else is changed by having a number added to it, in the case of the divine nature they treat number with reverence, lest through it they exceed the measure of the honour due to the Paraclete! But, most wise men, let the unattainable be above number altogether—as the ancient reverence of the Hebrews wrote the unutterable name of God in special characters, and in this way showed its pre-eminence over all things. But if we must indeed count, let us not do violence to the truth in this either. Either let the ineffable be honoured by silence, or let the holy be counted piously. One God and Father, one only-begotten Son, and one Holy Spirit: we proclaim each of the hypostases singly; and when we must count them together, we are not carried away by an ignorant way of counting into the notion of many gods.

For we do not count by addition, increasing from one to a multitude and saying "one, two, three," or "first, second, third." "For I, God, am first, and I am after these things." A second God we have never, to this day, heard of. For in worshipping God from God we both confess the distinctiveness of the hypostases and remain within the monarchy, not scattering the theology into a divided multitude, because one form, so to speak, is beheld in God the Father and God the Only-begotten, imaged in the invariability of the Godhead. For the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son, since the one is such as the other is, and the other such as the one; and in this they are one. So according to the distinctiveness of the persons they are one and one, but according to the community of nature the two are one. How, then, if they are one and one, are they not two Gods? Because a king is spoken of, and the king's image, and not two kings. For neither is the power split nor the glory divided. As the sovereignty and authority over us is one, so the glorification we give is one and not many, because the honour paid to the image passes over to the archetype. What the image is here by imitation, that the Son is there by nature. And as in works of art the likeness lies in the form, so in the divine and incomposite nature the union lies in the communion of the Godhead. One also is the Holy Spirit, and he too is proclaimed singly, joined through the one Son to the one Father, and through himself completing the much-praised and blessed Trinity. His intimacy with the Father and the Son is sufficiently shown by the fact that he is not ranked among the multitude of the creation but is spoken of singly. For he is not one of many; he is one. For as there is one Father and one Son, so there is also one Holy Spirit. He stands, then, as far apart from created nature as the singular naturally stands from things composite and plural; and he is united with the Father and the Son as closely as unit is akin to unit.

And the proofs of the community of nature come not only from this, but also from the fact that he is said to be "from God"—not as all things are from God, but as proceeding from God; not by begetting, as the Son, but as the Spirit of his mouth. Of course the mouth is not a bodily member, nor is the Spirit breath that dissolves; rather, the mouth is to be understood in a way befitting God, and the Spirit is a living essence, lord of sanctification. His intimacy with God is shown by this, while the manner of his existence is kept ineffable. He is also called the Spirit of Christ, as being united with him by nature. That is why "if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him." Hence he alone glorifies the Lord worthily. "He will glorify me," the Lord says—not as the creation does, but as the Spirit of truth, clearly showing the truth in himself, and as the Spirit of wisdom, revealing in his own greatness Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. And as Paraclete he expresses in himself the goodness of the Paraclete who sent him, and in his own dignity he shows the majesty of him from whom he came forth. There is, then, one kind of glory that is natural, as the light is the glory of the sun; and another that comes from outside, from choice, offered with discernment to those who are worthy. This too is twofold: "A son," it says, "glorifies his father, and a slave his master." Of these, the slave's glory is offered by the creation; the other, the glory of kinship, so to speak, is fulfilled by the Spirit. For as the Lord said of himself, "I glorified you on earth; I finished the work you gave me to do," so he said of the Paraclete: "He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you." And as the Son is glorified by the Father, who says, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again," so the Spirit is glorified through his fellowship with the Father and the Son and through the testimony of the Only-begotten, who says, "Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven you men; but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven."

And since, through an illuminating power, we fix our eyes on the beauty of the image of the invisible God, and through it are led up to the supremely beautiful vision of the archetype, there, surely, the Spirit of knowledge is inseparably present, supplying in himself to those who love to behold the truth the power to see the image. He does not make the showing from outside, but leads them to knowledge in himself. For as "no one knows the Father except the Son," so "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit." For it is not said "through the Spirit" but "in the Spirit"; and, "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth"; as it is written, "In your light we shall see light"—that is, in the illumination of the Spirit, "the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world." So he shows the glory of the Only-begotten in himself, and in himself he grants the knowledge of God to the true worshippers. The way of the knowledge of God, then, is from the one Spirit through the one Son to the one Father. And conversely, the natural goodness, the sanctification that is by nature, and the royal dignity pass from the Father through the Only-begotten to the Spirit. In this way both the hypostases are confessed and the pious doctrine of the monarchy does not fall away. But those who make subnumeration consist in saying "first, second, and third" should know that they are bringing the polytheism of Greek error into the undefiled theology of Christians. For the mischief of subnumeration leads to nothing else than confessing a first, a second, and a third God. But for us the order laid down by the Lord is enough; whoever confuses it will transgress no less than these men in their impiety. That the community of nature is in no way dissolved by the manner of subnumeration, as these men have erred in thinking, has been sufficiently said. But let us go along with this contentious and vain-minded man, and grant that what is second to something is spoken of as numbered under it. Let us see, then, what follows from the argument. "The first man," it says, "was from the earth, made of dust; the second man is the Lord from heaven." And elsewhere: "Not the spiritual first, but the natural, and then the spiritual." If, then, the second is numbered under the first, and what is numbered under is less honourable than that under which it is numbered, then by your reasoning the [heavenly man] is less honourable than the natural …

"Granted," he says; "but glory is by no means due to the Spirit, so that he should be exalted by us in doxologies." From where, then, could we take proofs of the Spirit's dignity, which surpasses all understanding, if his fellowship with the Father and the Son was not thought credible by them as a testimony to his rank? Still, by looking at the meanings of his names, at the greatness of his workings, and at the benefits bestowed on us, or rather on all creation, we can come to some understanding of his majesty and of his unattainable power. He is named Spirit: as "God is spirit," and "the breath of our face, Christ the Lord." Holy: as the Father is holy and the Son is holy. For to the creation sanctification was brought in from elsewhere; but for the Spirit holiness is what completes his nature. That is why he is not sanctified but sanctifies. Good: as the Father is good, and good is the one begotten of the good; he has goodness as his essence. Right: as "the Lord God is right," because he is truth itself and righteousness itself, having no turning aside or swerving either way, because his essence is unchangeable. Paraclete: as the Only-begotten is, as he himself says, "I will ask my Father, and he will give you another Paraclete." So the names are common to the Spirit with the Father and the Son, since he obtained these titles from his kinship of nature. For where else could they come from? Again, he is named guiding Spirit, Spirit of truth, and Spirit of wisdom. "The divine Spirit, who made me." And, it says, "God filled Bezalel with the divine Spirit of wisdom and understanding and knowledge." Such, then, are his names: extraordinary and great, yet not exceeding his glory.

And his workings, what are they? Ineffable in their greatness, and innumerable in their multitude. For how shall we conceive what lies beyond the ages? What were his workings before the intelligible creation? How great are the graces from him toward the creation? And what is his power toward the ages to come? For he was, and pre-existed, and was present together with the Father and the Son before the ages. So that, even if you conceive of something beyond the ages, you will find it lower than the Spirit. And if you think of the creation, the powers of the heavens were established by the Spirit—establishment being understood, clearly, as a firmness in the habit of good that is hard to dislodge. For intimacy with God, immutability toward evil, and continuance in blessedness come to the powers from the Spirit. The coming of Christ: and the Spirit runs ahead. The presence in the flesh: and the Spirit is inseparable. Workings of miracles, gifts of healings: through the Holy Spirit. Demons were driven out in the Spirit of God. The devil was brought to nothing, the Spirit being present together. Redemption of sins: in the grace of the Spirit. "For you were washed and sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit." Intimacy with God: through the Spirit. "For God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father.'" The resurrection from the dead: by the working of the Spirit. "You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth." If someone takes "creation" to mean the return to life of those who have been dissolved, how is the working of the Spirit not great, who administers for us the life that comes from the resurrection and refashions our souls for that spiritual life? Or if "creation" means the change for the better, here, of those who have fallen through sin (for it is used in this way too in the usage of Scripture, as when Paul says, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation"), then the renewal here as well, and the change from the earthly and passion-ridden life to the heavenly citizenship, which comes about for us through the Spirit, lifts our souls to the utmost height of wonder. In view of this, should we fear that we may overstep his dignity by the excess of our honors? Or the opposite: that we may bring down our conception of him to something lowly, even if we think we are uttering about him the greatest things that human thought and tongue can produce? "Thus says the Holy Spirit," as "Thus says the Lord": "Go down, and go with them, doubting nothing, for I have sent them." Are these the words of one lowly and cowering? "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." Does a slave speak so? And Isaiah: "The Lord has sent me, and his Spirit"; and, "The Spirit came down from the Lord and guided them." And do not take this guiding, again, as a lowly service. For Scripture testifies that this is also God's work: "You guided your people like sheep," it says; and, "He who guides …"

"But he also intercedes for us," he says. "So, as far as a suppliant falls short of a benefactor, so far the Spirit falls short of God in dignity." But have you not yet heard concerning the Only-begotten, that he is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us? Do not, then, because the Spirit is in you (if indeed he is in you at all), nor because he teaches and guides us when we have been blinded to the choice of what is profitable, for this reason lose the pious and holy opinion about him. For this is surely the height of ingratitude: to make the benefactor's love for humankind an occasion for thanklessness. "Do not, then, grieve the Holy Spirit." Hear what Stephen, the firstfruits of the martyrs, says, reproaching the people for their disobedience and insubordination: "You always resist the Holy Spirit," he says. And again Isaiah: "They provoked the Holy Spirit, and he was turned into enmity against them"; and elsewhere: "The house of Jacob provoked the Spirit of the Lord." Are not such things indicative of an authoritative power? I leave it to the judgment of readers what kind of conceptions one ought to have on hearing these things: as of an instrument, a subject, one of equal honor with the creation and a fellow slave with us? Or is it most grievous to the pious to let this blasphemy slip in even by a single word? Do you call the Spirit a slave? But "the slave," it says, "does not know what his master is doing"; whereas the Spirit knows the things of God as the spirit of a man knows the things in him.

"He is neither slave nor master," he says, "but free." O the dreadful insensibility, O the pitiable fearlessness of those who say this! What should I lament in them more: their ignorance or their blasphemy? They insult the doctrines of theology with human examples, and try to fit to the divine and ineffable nature the usage of this world, with its shifting differences of rank, not realizing that among men no one is a slave by nature. For either they were overpowered and brought under the yoke of slavery, as in captivities; or they were enslaved through poverty, as the Egyptians were to Pharaoh; or, by some wise and secret dispensation, the worse of the children were condemned by their fathers' word to serve the more prudent and better—which a just examiner of events would call not a condemnation but a benefit. For one who, through lack of understanding, does not have in himself what by nature rules, it is more profitable to become another's possession, so that, being directed by the reason of the one in command, he may be like a chariot that has taken on a charioteer, or a ship that has a helmsman seated at the tiller. That is why Jacob is lord of Esau by his father's blessing: so that the fool, who does not have his own guardian, the mind, might be benefited by the prudent man even against his will. And Canaan "shall be a household slave to his brothers," since he was untaught in virtue, having Ham his father without understanding. Here, then, this is how people are slaves; and those are free who have escaped poverty or war, or who do not need the guardianship of others. So that even if one is called master and another servant, yet all, both by their equal honor with one another and as possessions of him who made us, are fellow slaves. But there, what can you exempt from slavery? For they were created and at the same time their being slaves was constituted with them. For they do not rule over one another, since heavenly beings have no share in greed; but all things bow to God, rendering to him as Master the fear that is due, and as Creator the glory that belongs to him. For "a son glorifies his father, and a slave his master," and God certainly demands one of the two: "For if I am Father," he says, "where is my glory? And if I am Lord, where is my fear?" Otherwise the most pitiable of all lives would be one not placed under the oversight of the Master—such as the apostate powers are, which, because they stiffened their necks against God Almighty, throw off the bridle of slavery: not by being of a different nature, but by being insubordinate toward their Maker. Whom, then, do you call free? One who has no king? One who neither has power to rule another nor accepts being ruled? But there is no such nature among the things that exist, and to conceive this of the Spirit is manifest impiety. So if he is created, he is clearly a slave together with all things: "For all things," it says, "are your slaves"; but if he is above the creation, he is a sharer in the kingship.

And why should we, fighting from lowly ground, win a shameful victory in argument, when it is possible, by setting out more exalted things, to show beyond dispute the surpassing greatness of his glory? If we speak what we have been taught by Scripture, perhaps they will raise a great and vehement shout, and, stopping their ears and taking up stones, or whatever happens to come to hand—each of the Pneumatomachians making that his weapon—they will come at us. Yet our safety must not be valued above the truth. We have found, then, in the Apostle: "May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the endurance of Christ in afflictions." Who is the Lord who directs into the love of God and into the endurance of Christ in afflictions? Let those who enslave the Spirit answer us. For if the words were about the God and Father, it would surely have said, "May the Lord direct you into his own love"; if about the Son, it would have added "into his own endurance." Let them seek, then, what other person there is who is worthy to be honored with the title "Lord." Similar to this is the passage found elsewhere: "May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we do for you, so as to establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints." What Lord does he pray to establish the hearts of the faithful in Thessalonica blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord? Let those answer us who place the Holy Spirit with the ministering spirits sent out for service. But they cannot. Let them therefore hear yet another testimony, which quite expressly calls the Spirit Lord: "Now the Lord," it says, "is the Spirit"; and again, "as from the Lord, the Spirit." And so as to leave no occasion for contradiction, I shall set out the Apostle's very words: "For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant, not being lifted, because it is abolished in Christ. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit." What does he mean by this? That the one who sits by the bare sense of the letter and spends his time somewhere among the observances of the law has veiled his own heart with the Jewish understanding of the letter as with a curtain; and he suffers this because he does not know that the bodily observance of the law is abolished at the coming of Christ, the types having now been exchanged for the reality. For lamps are idle when the sun is present; and the law ceases and prophecies are silenced when the truth has appeared. But the one who has been able to stoop down into the depth of the law's meaning, and, parting the obscurity of the letter like a curtain, to come within the mysteries, has imitated Moses, who removed the veil when he spoke with God: he too turns from the letter to the spirit. So the obscurity of the law's teachings corresponds to the veil on Moses' face, and the turning to the Lord corresponds to spiritual contemplation. He, then, who in the reading of the law removes the letter turns to the Lord (and the Lord is here called the Spirit), and becomes like Moses, whose face was glorified by the appearing of God. For as things placed beside bright colors are themselves tinged by the radiance shed around them, so the one who has fixed his eyes clearly on the Spirit is somehow transformed by his glory into something brighter, his heart lit up, as by a light, by the truth that comes from the Spirit. And this is the meaning of "is transformed from the glory" of the Spirit "into" his own "glory": not meanly or dimly, but to the degree that …

The surpassing greatness of his nature is known not only from his having the same titles as the Father and the Son and sharing in their workings, but also from his being, like them, hard to attain in contemplation. For what the Lord says about the Father, as being beyond human thought, and what he says about the Son, the same he says also about the Holy Spirit. "Righteous Father," he says, "the world has not known you"—meaning here by "the world" not the framework made up of heaven and earth, but this perishable life, subject to countless changes. And speaking about himself: "Yet a little while," he says, "and the world will see me no more, but you will see me." Here again he calls "world" those who are bound to material and fleshly life and entrust the truth to their eyes alone, who through unbelief in the resurrection would no longer see our Lord with the eyes of the heart. And he said the same about the Spirit: "The Spirit of truth," he says, "whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; but you know him, because he remains with you." For the fleshly man, whose mind is untrained for contemplation, or rather who keeps it wholly buried, as in mud, in the mind of the flesh, is unable to look up to the spiritual light of the truth. Therefore the world—that is, the life enslaved to the passions of the flesh—does not receive the grace of the Spirit, as a weak eye does not receive the light of a sunbeam. But to his disciples, to whom he bore witness to a purity of life that came from his teachings, the Lord grants that they are already able to behold and contemplate the Spirit. "For you are already clean," he says, "because of the word that I have spoken to you." Hence "the world cannot receive him, for it does not see him; but you know him, because he remains with you." Isaiah says the same: "He who established the earth and what is in it, and gives breath to the people upon it, and Spirit to those who tread on it." For those who tread down earthly things and rise above them have been attested as worthy of the gift of the Holy Spirit. What, then, must we think of him who cannot be contained by the world, but can be seen by the saints alone through purity of heart? Or what honors are fitting for him?

Each of the other powers is believed to be in a circumscribed place. For the angel who stood by Cornelius was not at the same time with Philip; nor was the one who spoke with Zechariah from the altar at the same moment also filling his own station in heaven. But the Spirit is believed to have been at work at the same time in Habakkuk and in Daniel in Babylon, and to have been with Jeremiah in the dungeon and with Ezekiel at the Chebar. For "the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world"; and, "Where shall I go from your Spirit, and where shall I flee from your presence?"; and the prophet: "For I am with you, says the Lord, and my Spirit stands in your midst." What sort of nature, then, is it fitting to think belongs to one who is everywhere and present together with God? The nature that encompasses all things, or one enclosed in particular places, such as Scripture has shown that of the angels to be? No one would say so. Shall we not, then, highly exalt him who is divine in nature, uncontainable in greatness, powerful in his workings, good in his benefits? Shall we not glorify him? For my part, I consider glory to be nothing other than the enumeration of the wonders that belong to him. So either these men will order us not even to remember the good things that come from him, or else the recounting of what belongs to him is the fulfilment of the highest doxology. For we cannot glorify even the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and his only-begotten Son otherwise than by recounting his wonders as far as we are able.

Again, the common man "is crowned with glory and honor," and "glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good" is laid up in promises. There is also a glory belonging specially to Israel: "to whom belong," it says, "the adoption and the glory and the worship." And the Psalmist speaks of a glory of his own: "that my glory may sing to you"; and again, "Awake, my glory." There is also a glory of the sun, and of the moon, and of the stars; and according to the Apostle even "the ministry of condemnation" was "with glory." When so many things are glorified, is the Spirit alone of all to be unglorified? And yet "the ministry of the Spirit," it says, "is in glory." How then is he himself unworthy to be glorified? And great is the glory of the righteous, according to the Psalmist; but the glory of the Spirit, according to you, is none. How then is the danger not plain, that by such words men draw upon themselves the sin from which there is no escape? If the man who is being saved by works of righteousness glorifies even "those who fear the Lord," he would be far indeed from depriving the Spirit of the glory due to him. "Let him be glorified," he says, "but not with the Father and the Son." And what reason is there to devise another place for the Spirit, abandoning the one appointed by the Lord, and to deprive of fellowship in glory him who is everywhere joined with the Godhead: in the confession of faith, in the baptism of redemption, in the working of miracles, in the indwelling of the saints, in the graces given for obedience? For there is no gift at all that comes to the creation without the Holy Spirit, since not even a bare word can be spoken in defense of Christ unless we are helped by the Spirit, as we have learned in the Gospels from our Lord and Saviour. But whether anyone who shares in the Holy Spirit will agree to overlook all this, forget his fellowship in all things, and tear him away from Father and Son, I do not know. Where, then, shall we carry him and rank him? With the creation? But all creation is in slavery, whereas the Spirit sets free: "For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." And though much could be said on why it is not fitting to number the Holy Spirit with created nature, I shall put off the discussion of these matters for now. For if we were to bring forward our own arguments as the question deserves and refute the objections put forward by our opponents, we would need many words and would wear out the readers with the length of the book. So, reserving that for a separate treatise, let us keep to the matters before us.

Let us, then, consider the points one by one. He is good by nature, as the Father is good and the Son is good; but the creation shares in goodness by choosing the good. He knows the depths of God; but the creation receives the revelation of ineffable things through the Spirit. He gives life together with God, who brings all things to life, and together with the Son, who gives life. "He who raised Christ from the dead," it says, "will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you"; and again, "My sheep hear my voice, and I give them eternal life." But "the Spirit too," it says, "gives life." And again, "The Spirit," it says, "is life because of righteousness." And the Lord testifies that it is the Spirit who gives life: "The flesh profits nothing." How then shall we estrange the Spirit from his life-giving power and attach him to the nature that stands in need of life? Who is so contentious, who so without share in the heavenly gift and without taste of the good words of God, who so without portion in eternal hopes, as to rank the Spirit with the creation, separating him from the Godhead?

"The Spirit is in us," he says, "as a gift from God; and surely a gift is not revered with honors equal to the giver's." The Spirit is indeed the gift of God, but a gift of life: "For the law of the Spirit of life," it says, "has set us free." And a gift of power: "For you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you." Is he, then, for this reason to be despised? Did God not also give his Son freely to men? "He who did not spare his own Son," it says, "but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?" And elsewhere: "that we may know the things freely given us by God"—speaking of the mystery of the incarnation. So how have those who say these things not surpassed the ingratitude of the Jews, taking the excess of kindness as a pretext for blasphemy? For they find fault with the Spirit because he gives us boldness to call God our own Father. "For God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father,'" so that his voice may become the very voice of those who have received him.

"How is it, then," he says, "that Scripture nowhere hands down the Spirit as glorified together with the Father and the Son, but has carefully avoided saying 'with the Spirit,' and everywhere has preferred to glorify 'in him' as more fitting?" For my part, I would not say that the syllable "in" expresses a less honorable meaning; rather, rightly understood, it lifts the mind to the greatest height—since we have observed that it is also often used in place of "with." As in, "I will go into your house in burnt offerings," instead of "with burnt offerings"; and, "He brought them out in silver and gold," that is, "with silver and gold"; and, "You will not go out in our forces," instead of "with our forces"; and countless others like these. In short, I would gladly learn from this new wisdom what doxology the Apostle completed with the word "in," according to the form these men now bring forward as from Scripture. For I have nowhere found it said, "To you, the Father, be honor and glory through your only-begotten Son in the Holy Spirit"—which is now more habitual to them, one might say, than breathing itself. Each of these phrases can be found separately; but joined together in this arrangement they will be able to show it nowhere. So if they are precise about what is written, let them show where their phrase comes from; but if they defer to custom, let them not shut us out either.

For we, finding both expressions in the usage of the faithful, use both: we believe that glory is rendered to the Spirit equally by either, but that those who corrupt the truth are better silenced by the phrase now in question, which—having a force close to that of the Scriptures—is not so easy for opponents to attack (and it is this one that these men now dispute), and which has been adopted in place of the conjunction "and." For it is the same to say "Paul and Silvanus and Timothy" and "Paul with Timothy and Silvanus": the linking of the names is preserved equally by either way of speaking. If, then, when the Lord has said "Father and Son and Holy Spirit," I myself were to say "Father and Son with the Holy Spirit," shall I have said anything different in force? There are many testimonies to the linking of the names by the conjunction "and." "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," it says, "and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit"; and again, "I appeal to you through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit." If, then, we chose to use "with" instead of "and," what difference would we have made? I do not see any—unless someone, following frigid grammatical rules, were to prefer the conjunction as copulative and as making the union greater, and reject the preposition as not having equal force. But if we had to give account only about these things, perhaps we should not need a long defense. As it is, their argument is not about syllables, nor about this or that sound of a word, but about realities that differ very greatly in power and truth. That is why, although the use of syllables is a matter of indifference, these men try to enroll some and to drive others out of the church. But I, though the usefulness of it is plain at first hearing, will nevertheless also give the reason why our fathers not idly adopted the use of this preposition. For besides refuting the evil of Sabellius as effectively as the syllable "and," and like it setting forth the distinctness of the hypostases—as in "I and the Father will come," and "I and the Father are one"—it has, as its special advantage, the testimony to the eternal fellowship and unceasing union. For he who says that the Son is with the Father has shown at once both the distinctness of the hypostases and the inseparability of the fellowship. This can be seen in human affairs too: the conjunction "and" sets forth the sharing in an action, while the preposition "with" also indicates, in some way, the fellowship. For example, "Paul and Timothy sailed to Macedonia"; and "Tychicus and Onesimus were sent to the Colossians." From these we have learned that they did the same thing; but if we hear that they "sailed together" and "were sent together," we are further taught that they carried out the task in company with one another. Thus, while it overthrows the evil of Sabellius as no other expression does, it overthrows along with them also those who are impious in the diametrically opposite way—I mean those who divide the Son from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from the Son, by intervals of time.

Compared with the syllable "in," this is the chief difference: "with" sets forth the conjunction with one another of those who share in something, as of those sailing together, or living together, or doing anything at all in common; while "in" shows the relation to the thing in which they happen to be acting. For when we hear "sail in" and "live in," we at once think of the vessel and the house. Such, then, in common usage, is the difference between them, and more could be found by the diligent; for I have no leisure to examine matters of syllables. Since, then, it has been shown that "with" most clearly conveys the idea of conjunction, let it be at peace with you, if you please, and cease your harsh and implacable war against it. Nevertheless, though the word is so clear, if anyone likes in doxologies to link the names with the syllable "and" and to glorify "Father and Son and Holy Spirit," as we have learned in the Gospels in connection with baptism, let that be done too; no one will object. On these terms, if you agree, let us come to settlement. But they would sooner give up their tongues than accept this expression. This, then, is what stirs up the implacable, truceless war against us. "In the Holy Spirit," he says, "the doxology is to be rendered to God, not 'and to the Spirit'"; and they cling most passionately to this expression, as one that lowers the Spirit. About it, it will not be useless to speak at greater length. When they have heard what we say, I would be surprised if they did not renounce it as a traitor, a deserter to the side of the Spirit's glory.

To me, then, as I consider it, it seems that, though the expression is simple and brief, its meanings are many and various. For in as many senses as "in" is used, in so many we find it serving our conceptions of the Spirit. Form is said to be in matter, and a power in what is receptive of it, and a habit in what is disposed according to it, and many such things. Accordingly, inasmuch as the Holy Spirit perfects rational beings, completing their highest excellence, he holds the place of form. For he who no longer lives according to the flesh, but is led by the Spirit of God, and is called a son of God, and has become conformed to the image of the Son of God, is named spiritual. And as the power of seeing is in the healthy eye, so the working of the Spirit is in the purified soul. That is why Paul prays for the Ephesians that their eyes may be enlightened in the Spirit of wisdom. And as an art is in the one who has acquired it, so the grace of the Spirit is in the one who has received it: always present, but not working continuously. For an art too is in the craftsman potentially, but actually only when he works according to it. So also the Spirit is always present with those who are worthy, but works as need requires, whether in prophecies, or in healings, or in some other workings of miracles. Again, as health, or heat, or in general easily changed conditions are in bodies, so the Spirit is often in the soul, not remaining with those who through the instability of their will readily thrust away the grace they have received—such was Saul, and the seventy elders of the sons of Israel except Eldad and Modad (for with these alone of all the Spirit seems to have remained), and in general anyone like these in disposition. And as reason is in the soul, sometimes as the thought in the heart, sometimes as that uttered by the tongue, so is the Holy Spirit: at one time when he "bears witness with our spirit" and when he cries in our hearts, "Abba, Father"; at another when he speaks on our behalf, as it was said, "It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of the Father who speaks in you." Again, the Spirit is also conceived as a whole in its parts, according to the distribution of the gifts. For "we are all members of one another, having gifts that differ according to the grace of God given to us." For this reason "the eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.'" But all together complete the body of Christ in the unity of the Spirit, and render to one another the necessary benefit that comes from the gifts. For "God has placed the members in the body, each one of them, as he willed." Yet the members "have the same care for one another," in accordance with the spiritual fellowship of sympathy that exists among them. Therefore, "if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it." And as parts in a whole, we are each in the Spirit, because we "were all baptized in one body into one Spirit."

And—what is paradoxical to say, but no less true than anything—the Spirit is also often spoken of as the place of those being sanctified. And it will be seen that this way of speaking too does not diminish the Spirit but rather glorifies him. For Scripture often transfers bodily names to spiritual conceptions for the sake of clarity. We have observed, then, that the Psalmist says even of God, "Be to me a God who protects, and a strong place to save me." And about the Spirit: "Behold, a place beside me," it says, "and stand on the rock." What else does he mean by "place" but the contemplation in the Spirit, having come into which Moses was able to see God appearing to him knowably? This is the place proper to true worship. "Take heed," it says, "that you do not offer up your burnt offerings in every place, but in the place that the Lord your God will choose." What, then, is a spiritual burnt offering? The sacrifice of praise. And in what place do we offer it, but in the Holy Spirit? Where have we learned this? From the Lord himself, who says, "The true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth." Seeing this place, Jacob said, "The Lord is in this place." So the Spirit is truly the place of the saints. And the saint is a place fitting for the Spirit, offering himself for indwelling with God and being called his temple. For as Paul speaks in Christ—"For we speak before God in Christ," he says—and Christ in Paul, as he himself says, "Or do you seek proof of Christ who speaks in me?"—so also he speaks the mysteries in the Spirit, and again the Spirit speaks in him.

Thus, then, the Spirit is said to be in created beings in many and various ways; but in relation to the Father and the Son it is more reverent to say not that he is in them but that he is with them. For the grace that comes from him when he dwells in the worthy and works his own works is rightly said to be in those who are able to receive him; but his existence before the ages and his unceasing continuance, contemplated with the Son and the Father, call for the titles of eternal conjunction. For "to coexist," in the proper and true sense, is said of things that are inseparably together with one another. We say that heat is in the red-hot iron, but coexists with fire itself; and that health is in the body, but life coexists with the soul. So where the fellowship is intimate, connatural, and inseparable, "with" is the more expressive word, suggesting the idea of inseparable fellowship; but where the grace from him is of a nature to come and to go again, "being in" is said properly and truly—even if in those who have received it the grace from him often remains lasting because of the steadfastness of their disposition toward the good. So when we consider the Spirit's own dignity, we contemplate him with the Father and the Son; but when we think of the grace worked in those who share in him, we say that the Spirit is in us. And the doxology offered by us "in the Spirit" is not a confession of his dignity but an acknowledgment of our own weakness: we show that we are not sufficient to glorify of ourselves, but our sufficiency is in the Holy Spirit; empowered in him, we render to our God thanksgiving for the benefits we have received—each of us receiving more or less of the Spirit's help, according to the measure of our purity from evil, for offering sacrifices of praise to God. In this one way, then, we reverently render thanksgiving "in the Spirit." And yet even this is not free of offense, for someone to testify of himself, "The Spirit of God is in me, and made wise by his grace I offer up glory." For the saying befits Paul: "For I think that I too have the Spirit of God"; and again, "Guard the good deposit through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us"; and it is said of Daniel that "the holy Spirit of God is in him"; and of anyone like these in virtue.

A second sense, not to be rejected either: as the Father is seen in the Son, so the Son is seen in the Spirit. Worship "in the Spirit," then, suggests the activity of our mind taking place as in light, as you may learn from what was said to the Samaritan woman. For our Lord, correcting her belief—misled by the custom of her country—that worship was in a place, said that one must worship "in spirit and truth," clearly calling himself the truth. As, then, we speak of worship in the Son, as in the image of the God and Father, so also in the Spirit, as showing in himself the Godhead of the Lord. That is why, in worship too, the Holy Spirit is inseparable from the Father and the Son. For if you are outside him, you will not worship at all; and if you are in him, you will in no way separate him from God—no more than you will take light away from visible things. For it is impossible to see the image of the invisible God except in the illumination of the Spirit; and for one who fixes his gaze on the image it is impossible to separate the light from the image. For the cause of seeing is necessarily seen together with the things seen. So, fittingly and consistently, through the illumination of the Spirit we behold the radiance of the glory of God, and through the imprint we are led up to him whose imprint and seal of equal form it is.

"For what reason, then," they say, "when the syllable 'in' is properly suited to the Spirit and suffices for our every conception of him, have you introduced this new syllable, saying 'with the Spirit' and not 'in the Holy Spirit,' uttering expressions neither otherwise necessary nor customary in the churches?" Now, that the syllable "in" has not been assigned exclusively to the Holy Spirit, but is common to the Father and the Son, has been said above. And I think it has also been sufficiently said that it not only takes nothing away from the Spirit's dignity, but even leads up to the greatest height the thoughts of those who are not wholly perverted. What remains is to relate about "with": where it began, what force it has, and how it agrees with Scripture.

Of the doctrines and proclamations preserved in the church, some we have from written teaching, and others we have received handed down to us in a mystery from the tradition of the apostles; and both have the same force for piety. No one will dispute these—no one, at least, who has even a slight experience of the church's institutions. For if we were to try to reject the unwritten customs as having no great force, we would unwittingly damage the Gospel in its most vital points, or rather reduce the proclamation to a bare name. For example (to mention first the first and most common), who taught in writing that those who have hoped in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ should be signed with the sign of the cross? What writing taught us to turn toward the east at prayer? Which of the saints has left us in writing the words of the epiclesis at the showing forth of the bread of the Eucharist and the cup of blessing? For we are not content with the words the Apostle or the Gospel recorded, but we say others both before and after, as having great force for the mystery, receiving them from the unwritten teaching. We bless the water of baptism and the oil of anointing, and besides this the one being baptized himself. From what writings? Is it not from the silent and mystical tradition? And further, what written word taught the anointing with oil itself? And the threefold immersion of a person—where does it come from? And the rest of what belongs to baptism, the renouncing of Satan and his angels—from what scripture is it? Is it not from this unpublished and secret teaching, which our fathers guarded in a silence free from meddling and prying, having learned well that the sanctity of the mysteries is preserved by silence? For what the uninitiated are not even permitted to look upon, how would it be fitting to parade the teaching of it in writings? Or what did the great Moses intend in not making all the parts of the sanctuary accessible to all? He stationed the profane outside the sacred enclosures; he allowed the first courts to the purer; he judged the Levites alone worthy to be servants of the divine; and, assigning the slaughtered victims, the burnt offerings, and the rest of the sacred service to the priests, he admitted one chosen out of all into the inner sanctuary—and not even him at all times, but on one day only in the year, and he fixed for him a set hour of that day for entry, so that he might behold the Holy of Holies with awe at its strangeness and unfamiliarity. For in his wisdom he knew well that contempt lies close at hand for what is trodden and easily grasped, while eager interest is somehow naturally joined to what is withdrawn and rare. In the same way the apostles and fathers who from the beginning laid down the ordinances concerning the churches guarded the sanctity of the mysteries in what is hidden and unspoken. For what is carried out to common and casual hearing is no mystery at all. This is the reason for the tradition of unwritten things: that the knowledge of the doctrines might not, through familiarity, become neglected and contemptible to the many. For doctrine (dogma) is one thing, and proclamation (kerygma) another: the one is kept in silence, while proclamations are made public. Obscurity too, which Scripture uses, is a kind of silence, making the sense of the doctrines hard to perceive for the benefit of the readers. For this reason we all look toward the east at our prayers, but few of us know that we are seeking our ancient homeland, Paradise, which God planted in Eden toward the east. We make our prayers standing on the first day of the week, but not all of us know the reason. For it is not only that, as those who have risen with Christ and ought to seek the things above, we remind ourselves on the day of resurrection, by standing at prayer, of the grace given to us; but also that the day seems in some way to be an image of the age that is awaited. That is why, though it is the beginning of days, it is named by Moses not "first" but "one." "And there was evening," it says, "and there was morning, one day"—as though the same day recurred many times. So "one" and "eighth" are the same, showing through itself that truly one and truly eighth day, which the Psalmist also mentioned in certain titles of the psalms: the state that follows this time, the unceasing day, without evening, without successor, that endless and ageless age. Of necessity, then, the church teaches her own nurslings to offer their prayers on it standing, so that by constant reminder of the endless life we may not neglect the provisions for that removal. And the whole of Pentecost is a reminder of the resurrection awaited in the age to come. For that one and first day, multiplied seven times by seven, completes the seven weeks of holy Pentecost; for beginning from the first day it ends on the same, unrolling fifty times through the like days in between. That is why by its likeness it imitates eternity, beginning, as in a circular motion, from the same points and ending at the same. On it the ordinances of the church have taught us to prefer the upright posture of prayer, by a vivid reminder transferring our mind, as it were, from present things to things to come. And at each kneeling and rising we show by the act that through sin we fell down to earth, and through the love for humankind of him who created us we were called back up to heaven.

The day would fail me if I recounted the unwritten mysteries of the church. I pass over the rest; but the very confession of faith in Father and Son and Holy Spirit—from what writings do we have it? For if, from the tradition of baptism, in keeping with the sequence of piety—since as we are baptized so we ought also to believe—we make our confession like our baptism, let them allow us too, by the same sequence, to render glory like our faith. But if they reject the form of the doxology as unwritten, let them give us written proofs both of the confession of faith and of the other things we have enumerated. Then, when there are so many unwritten things, and they have such force for the mystery of piety, will they not allow us one word that has come down to us from the fathers—which we found remaining, from unaffected custom, in the churches that have not been perverted—a word with no small reason behind it, and contributing no slight share to the power of the mystery?

The force of each expression has been stated. It will be stated again where they agree with one another and where they differ—not fighting against each other in opposition, but each contributing its own sense to piety. "In" sets forth rather what concerns us; "with" proclaims the fellowship of the Spirit with God. That is why we use both words: by the one setting forth the dignity of the Spirit, by the other announcing the grace that is with us. So we offer glory to God both "in the Spirit" and "with the Spirit," saying nothing of our own, but, as from a rule—the Lord's teaching—transferring the word to things that are closely connected and joined to one another and that have a necessary conjunction in the mysteries. For what was numbered together at baptism we thought it necessary to join together in the faith as well; and we made the confession of faith a kind of beginning and mother of the doxology. What, then, must we do? Let them now teach us either not to baptize as we received, or not to believe as we were baptized, or not to glorify as we have believed. Let someone show either that the sequence of these with one another is not necessary and unbroken, or that innovation in them is not the overthrow of everything. Yet they do not stop dinning up and down that the doxology "with the Holy Spirit" is unattested, unwritten, and the like. It has been said that it is the same in meaning to say "Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit" and "Glory to the Father and to the Son with the Holy Spirit." So no one can reject or strike out the syllable "and," which came from the Lord's own voice, and nothing prevents the acceptance of its equivalent; how it differs from and resembles the other we showed above. The Apostle also confirms our argument, using either word indifferently, saying now, "In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God," and again, "When you and my spirit are gathered together, with the power of the Lord Jesus," thinking it makes no difference whether he uses the conjunction or the preposition for linking the names.

Let us see also whether we can devise some defense of this usage for our fathers; for those who gave the expression its beginning are more exposed to the charges than we are. Paul, then, writing to the Colossians, says, "And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision, he made alive together with Christ." Did God, then, grant to a whole people and church the life with Christ, but not to the Holy Spirit to be with Christ? If even to conceive this is impious, how is it not holy to render the confession conjoined, as the nature is? Then, how is it not the height of insensibility to confess that the saints are with Christ (since Paul, away from the body, is at home with the Lord, and having departed is already with Christ), but not to grant to the Spirit, as far as it lies with them, even an equal share with men in being with Christ? And Paul calls himself God's fellow worker in the dispensation of the Gospel; but if we call the Holy Spirit a fellow worker—through whom the Gospel bears fruit in all creation under heaven—will they here too bring an indictment of impiety against us? And, it seems, the life of those who have hoped in the Lord "is hidden with Christ in God, and when Christ, our life, appears, then they too will appear with him in glory"; but the Spirit of life himself, who set us free from the law of sin, is in no way with Christ, neither in the secret life hidden with him nor in the manifestation of the glory which we expect to be revealed in the saints? We are "heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ"; but is the Spirit disinherited and without share in the fellowship of God and his Christ? "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God"; and do we not give the Spirit even the testimony to his fellowship with God that we have learned from the Lord? But the height of folly: we hope, through faith in Christ that is in the Spirit, to be raised together with him and to sit together in the heavenly places, when he transforms the body of our humiliation from the natural to the spiritual; but to the Spirit we grant no sitting together, no glory, nothing else of what we have from him? Of all the things of which we have believed ourselves worthy, according to the unfailing gift of him who promised, do we concede none to the Holy Spirit, as though it exceeded his dignity? And it belongs to your dignity to be always with the Lord, and you expect, caught up in the clouds to meet him in the air, to be always with the Lord; but you now deny that the Spirit is with Christ?—you who treat as an outlaw the one who numbers him together and ranks him with the Father and the Son, as though he were intolerably impious!

I am ashamed to add what remains: that you expect to be glorified together with Christ ("if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him"), but you do not glorify the Spirit of holiness together with Christ, as though he were not worthy of the same things as you. And you hope to reign together with him, but you insult the Spirit of grace, assigning him the rank of a slave and a servant. And I say this not to show that only so much is owed to the Spirit in doxology, but to expose the ingratitude of those who do not grant even so much, but shun as impiety the Spirit's fellowship in glory with the Son and the Father. Who can pass over this without groaning? Is it not plain—so that even a child could recognize it—that present events are the prelude to the threatened failure of the faith? What was indisputable has become doubtful. We believe in the Spirit, and we fight against our own confessions. We are baptized, and again we do battle. We call on him as the author of life, and we despise him as a fellow slave. We received him with the Father and the Son, and we dishonor him as a part of the creation. And those who "do not know what they should pray for," if they are ever led to utter something exalted about the Spirit, as though they were reaching his dignity, curb whatever in their speech goes beyond due measure. They ought rather to lament their weakness: that we are not able to repay in words the grace of what we experience in deed. For it "surpasses all understanding" and shows up the nature of speech, which does not equal even the smallest part of his dignity—according to the saying of the book entitled Wisdom: "Exalt him," it says, "as much as you can, for he will surpass even so; and in exalting him, increase. Do not grow weary, for you will never reach the end." Truly fearful is the account you must give for such words, you who have heard from the God who does not lie that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable.

Against the charge that the doxology "with the Spirit" is unattested and unwritten, we say this: if nothing else is unwritten, let this not be accepted either; but if most of the mysteries have their place among us without being written, we shall accept this too, along with many others. And I think it apostolic also to hold fast to the unwritten traditions. "I praise you," he says, "because you remember me in everything and hold fast the traditions just as I handed them on to you"; and, "Hold fast the traditions that you received, whether by word or by letter." One of these is this present one, which those who ordained it from the beginning handed on to those after them, its use always advancing with time, and so through long custom they rooted it in the churches. If, then, like people in a court who lack proof from documents, we were to present you with a multitude of witnesses, would we not obtain from you a verdict of acquittal? I think so: "For by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established." And if we were also to show you clearly that the long course of time is on our side, would we not seem to you to be speaking reasonably in saying that this suit cannot be brought against us? For ancient doctrines are somehow awe-inspiring, having a venerable quality, as it were, from the gray hair of antiquity. I will therefore enumerate for you the champions of the expression (and the length of time is certainly measured along with them, though it goes unsaid); for it did not originate with us. How could it? We are truly men of yesterday, in the words of Job, compared with so long a time as that of this custom. For my part, if I must speak of what is my own, I keep this expression like an inheritance from my father, having received it from a man who spent a long time in the service of God, by whom I was both baptized and admitted to the ministry of the church. And searching by myself whether any of the ancient and blessed men used these expressions now disputed, I found many who are credible both by their antiquity and by the accuracy of their knowledge, not like men of the present day. Some of them joined the words in the doxology with the preposition, others with the conjunction, and they were not thought to see any difference, at least as regards the right conception of piety.

Irenaeus of old, and Clement of Rome, and Dionysius of Rome, and—what is surprising to hear—Dionysius of Alexandria, who in his second letter to his namesake, On Refutation and Defense, ended his discourse thus. I write out for you the man's very words: "Following all these," he says, "we too, having received a form and rule from the presbyters before us, giving thanks in accord with them, now also bring our letter to you to a close. To God the Father and the Son our Lord Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, be glory and might to the ages of ages. Amen." And no one could say that these words have been altered. For he would not have insisted so strongly, saying that he had received a form and rule, if he had said "in the Spirit"; for that expression is in common use. It was the other that needed a defense. Somewhere in the middle of the treatise he also speaks thus against the Sabellians: "If, because the hypostases are three, they say that they are divided, there are three, even if they do not wish it; or else let them abolish the divine Trinity altogether." And again: "For this reason, after the unity, the Trinity too is most divine." And Clement, more anciently: "God lives," he says, "and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit." And let us hear how Irenaeus, who lived near the apostles, mentioned the Spirit in his work against the heresies: "Those who are unbridled," he says, "and carried away by their own lusts, having no desire for the divine Spirit, the Apostle rightly calls fleshly." And elsewhere the same writer says: "Lest, becoming without share in the divine Spirit, we should fail of the kingdom of heaven, the Apostle cried out that flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven." And if anyone considers Eusebius of Palestine trustworthy because of his wide learning, we point out the same expressions in him too, in his Questions concerning the polygamy of the ancients. For he says this, urging himself on to the discussion: "Calling on the holy God of the prophets, the giver of light, through our Saviour Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit."

We have also found Origen, in many of his discourses on the Psalms, rendering glory "with the Holy Spirit"—a man whose conceptions about the Spirit were by no means sound in every respect; yet in many places he too, out of deference to the strength of custom, uttered pious words about the Spirit. In the sixth book, I think, of his Commentaries on the Gospel according to John, he plainly declared him an object of worship, writing word for word as follows: "The washing of water is a symbol of the cleansing of the soul, which is washed of all filth that comes from evil; but no less, in itself, for one who offers himself to the Godhead of the worshipful Trinity, it has, through the power of the invocations, the beginning and source of gifts." And again, in his Commentaries on the Letter to the Romans: "The holy powers," he says, "are capable of receiving the Only-begotten and the Godhead of the Holy Spirit." Thus, I think, the strength of tradition often led these men to contradict even their own doctrines. Nor did this form of doxology escape Africanus the historian. For in the fifth book of his Epitome of the Times he too evidently says: "For we who know the measure of those words, and are not ignorant of the grace of faith, give thanks to the Father, who has granted to us, his own, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all and our Lord; to whom be glory and majesty, with the Holy Spirit, to the ages." Now other passages might perhaps be disbelieved, or, if altered, have a forgery hard to detect, since the difference lies in one syllable; but those we have quoted at greater length both escape tampering and have a testimony easily proved from the writings themselves. And there is something else, which otherwise it would perhaps be petty to bring forward, but which, for one accused of innovation, is needed as testimony to antiquity through time; this too I will add. It seemed good to our fathers not to receive the gift of the evening light in silence, but to give thanks as soon as it appeared. Who was the father of those words of the thanksgiving at the lighting of the lamps we cannot say; yet the people utter the ancient expression, and no one has ever thought those impious who say, "We praise the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit of God." And if anyone knows the hymn of Athenogenes, which he left like a protective charm to those who were with him as he was already hastening to his perfecting by fire, he knows also what the martyrs' opinion about the Spirit was. So much for this.

And Gregory the Great, and his words—where shall we place them? Not with the apostles and prophets? He was a man who walked in the same Spirit as they, who kept in step with the footprints of the saints all his life, and who achieved the strictness of the Gospel way of life throughout his whole life. For my part I say this: surely we shall wrong the truth if we do not number that soul among those who are intimate with God, as one who shone like a great and brilliant lamp in the church of God. Through the Spirit's working with him he had a power fearful to demons, and he received such grace of speech for the obedience of faith among the nations that, having received only seventeen Christians, he brought the whole people, both of the city and of the countryside, to God through knowledge. He also changed the course of rivers, commanding them in the great name of Christ; and he dried up a lake that was a cause of war between covetous brothers. His predictions of the future were such that he fell short of none of the other prophets. In short, it would be a long task to relate the man's wonders; by the abundance of the gifts in him, worked by the Spirit in all power and signs and wonders, he was called a second Moses by the very enemies of the truth. So in every word and work that he accomplished by grace a kind of light shone out, a sign of the heavenly power that invisibly accompanied him. Even now the wonder of him is great among the people of the region, and his memory is fixed in the churches, fresh and ever new, dimmed by no length of time. So they have added to the church no action, no word, no mystical rite beyond what he left behind. For this reason many of the things performed among them seem to be deficient, because of the antiquity of their order; for those who governed the churches after him in succession would not accept, as an addition, anything devised after him. One of the things from Gregory, then, is the form of the doxology now disputed, preserved in the church from his tradition. And it is not much labor, for one who takes a little trouble, to gain full assurance of these things. Our own Firmilian also bears witness to this faith in the writings he left behind. And those who knew the great Meletius say that he held this opinion. And why must we speak of ancient things? Even now in the East do they not recognize the pious chiefly by this, distinguishing them by this expression as by a sign? And as I heard from one of the men from Mesopotamia, a man skilled in the language and unperverted in opinion, it is not even possible for them to speak otherwise in their native tongue, even if they wished, but by some native idiom they must utter the doxology through the syllable "and," or rather through words equivalent to it. And we Cappadocians too say it so in our own tongue, the Spirit having foreseen, already at the division of tongues, the usefulness of the expression. And what of almost the whole West, from Illyricum to the bounds of our inhabited world? Does it not uphold this expression?

How, then, am I an innovator and a coiner of new words, when I present as the originators and champions of the expression whole nations and cities, a custom older than all human memory, and men who were pillars of the church, distinguished in all knowledge and power of the Spirit? For this reason this warlike band has been stirred up against us, and every city and village and all the remotest places are full of slanders against us. These things are grievous and painful to the hearts of those who seek peace; but since the rewards of endurance for sufferings on behalf of the faith are great, then for this let the sword be sharpened, let the axe be whetted, let fire burn more fiercely than the Babylonian furnace, let every instrument of torture be set in motion against us: for to me nothing is more fearful than not to fear the threats the Lord has held out against those who blaspheme the Spirit. To fair-minded people, then, what has been said is a sufficient defense: that we accept an expression so dear and familiar to the saints, and confirmed by so long a custom, since from the time the Gospel was proclaimed until now it is shown to have had its place in the churches, and—what is greatest—to be pious and holy in its meaning. But before the great judgment seat, what defense shall we prepare for ourselves? That what led us to the glory of the Spirit was, first, the honor paid him by the Lord, who joined him with himself and the Father at baptism; then the introduction of each of us to the knowledge of God through such initiation; and above all, the fear of the threatened punishments, which keeps out every conception of an unworthy and lowly notion. But our opponents—what will they say? What defense will they have for their blasphemy, who neither revered the Lord's honors nor feared his threats? They are masters to decide about their own affairs, or even now to decide again. For my own part, I would pray above all that the good God may grant his peace to rule in the hearts of all, so that these men who swell with rage against us and are drawn up fiercely in battle array may be calmed in a spirit of gentleness and love; but if they have become utterly savage and untamable, that he may grant us at least to bear patiently what comes from them. In any case, for those who have the sentence of death in themselves, it is not suffering for the faith that is painful, but not being allowed to contend for it that is most grievous; just as for athletes it is not so hard to take blows in the contest as not to be admitted to the stadium at all. Or perhaps this was the "time to keep silence," according to the wise Solomon. For what use is it truly to shout into the wind, when so violent a storm holds life in its grip—a storm by which every mind of those under instruction in the word, filled with the deceit of false reasonings like an eye filled with dust, is confounded; every ear is battered by the heaviest and strangest noises; and everything is shaken and in danger of falling?

To what, then, shall we compare the present state of things? It is surely like a naval war, which men fond of sea fights and of war have started out of old grievances, having nourished a great fury against one another. Look, I pray, in this image at the fleet bearing down fearfully from either side; then, when their anger has burst out beyond remedy, they close and fight it out. Suppose, if you like, that the fleet is also tossed by a violent squall, and that darkness suddenly falling from the clouds blackens everything in sight, so that there is no longer any distinguishing friends from enemies, their signals being unrecognizable in the confusion. Let us add to the image, for vividness, a sea swelling and churned up from the depths, a torrent of rain bursting from the clouds, and the fearful surf rising from the heaving waves; then, the winds from every side crashing together, the whole fleet dashed together; and of those in the line of battle, some turning traitor and deserting in the very midst of the struggle, while others are forced at the same time to push off the vessels driven upon them by the winds, to advance against those attacking them, and to slaughter one another in the faction that envy of superiority and each man's desire to prevail himself have produced. Imagine besides a confused and indistinct din filling the whole sea there, from the howling winds, the crashing of ships, the boiling surge, and the shouting of the combatants, who utter every kind of cry at what they suffer, so that neither admiral's nor helmsman's voice can be heard, but there is dreadful disorder and confusion, the extremity of their evils, through despair of life, giving them full license to do wrong. Add to them also some incurable disease of mad ambition, so that, as the ship is already going to the bottom, the passengers do not give way to one another in the contest for first place.

Pass now, I pray, from the image to the archetype of the evil itself. Did not the Arian schism at first, having separated into a faction opposed to the church of God, seem to stand alone by itself in the ranks of the enemy? But when, after long and bitter strife, they came against us in open conflict, then the war was split into many parts in countless ways, so that, both from common enmity and from private suspicion, the hatred became irreconcilable for all. And this tossing of the churches—is it not wilder than any surge of the sea? In it every boundary of the fathers has been moved, every foundation, and every stronghold of doctrine. Everything is shaken and tottering, poised on a rotten base; falling upon one another, we are overturned by one another. If the enemy does not strike first, the comrade at one's side wounds; if one falls stricken, his fellow soldier tramples on him. We share with one another only so far as to hate our opponents in common; when the enemies have passed by, we already see one another as enemies. Besides, who could count the multitude of shipwrecks? Some sank through the attack of enemies, others through the secret treachery of allies, others through the inexperience of those at the helm. Whole churches, crews and all, have been dashed against the hidden reefs of heretical guile and destroyed; and others, enemies of the saving passion, having seized the helm, have made shipwreck concerning the faith. And the disturbances brought on by the rulers of this world—what hurricane or tempest overturns the peoples more violently than these? A truly gloomy and dismal darkness holds the churches, since the lamps of the world, whom God set to enlighten the souls of the peoples, have been driven into exile. And the excess of their rivalry with one another, while fear of the dissolution of everything already hangs over them, takes away all perception of it. For private hostility counts for more than the common and public war, since the glory of overcoming opponents is preferred to what benefits all in common, by men for whom the immediate pleasure of ambition is worth more than the rewards laid up for hereafter. Therefore all alike, in whatever way each can, lift murderous hands against one another. A harsh cry of those clashing with one another in dispute, an indistinct and confused noise from ceaseless tumults, has now filled almost every church, as men twist the straight doctrine of piety into excesses and defects. For some are carried off into Judaism through the confusion of the persons, and others into Hellenism through the opposition of the natures; neither is the divinely inspired Scripture able to mediate for them, nor do the apostolic traditions arbitrate their reconciliation with one another. There is one rule of friendship: to speak to please; and a sufficient pretext for enmity: not to agree in opinions. Likeness in error is a surer bond of partisanship than any sworn conspiracy. Everyone is a theologian, even one whose soul is branded with countless stains. Hence innovators find a great supply of fellow partisans. So self-appointed men, eager for office, are dividing among themselves the government of the churches, having thrust aside the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. And now that the Gospel ordinances have been thrown into utter confusion through disorder, there is an indescribable jostling for the chief seats, as each of those who want to shine forces himself into the leadership. A dreadful anarchy has come rioting upon the peoples from this love of rule; hence the exhortations of those in charge are wholly ineffective and idle, since each, from the conceit born of ignorance, reckons that it is not his duty to listen to anyone but rather to rule others himself.

For these reasons I judged silence more profitable than speech, since no human voice could be heard through such tumults. For if the words of the Preacher are true, that "the words of the wise are heard in quiet," it would be far from fitting in the present state of things to speak about these matters. And that prophetic saying also holds me: "He who understands will keep silence at that time, for it is an evil time"—a time when some trip others up, some leap on the fallen, and others applaud; but there is no one who out of sympathy stretches out a hand to the one who has stumbled. And yet under the old law not even one who passed by his enemy's beast of burden fallen under its load was free of blame. But it is not so now. How could it be? Love has grown cold in everyone; the concord of brothers has been destroyed, and the very name of unanimity is unknown; loving admonitions have been done away with; nowhere is there Christian compassion, nowhere a sympathetic tear. There is no one who welcomes the one who is weak in faith; but such hatred has been kindled among fellow believers toward one another that each exults more in his neighbor's falls than in his own successes. And as in epidemics even those who live by the strictest regimen suffer equally with the others, being infected with the disease through contact with those who are sick, so now we have all become like one another, carried away into zeal for evil by the rivalry that has seized our souls. Hence the examiners of failures sit unforgiving and bitter, and the judges of good deeds are unfair and hostile; and so deeply, it seems, is the evil lodged in us that we have become more irrational than the irrational animals—since they herd with their own kind, while our fiercest war is with our own.

For all these reasons, then, I ought to have kept silence; but love drew me the other way, love that "does not seek its own" and resolves to overcome every difficulty of times and circumstances. The youths in Babylon also taught us, even when there is no one who sides with piety, to do our duty by ourselves. From the midst of the flame they sang hymns to God, not reckoning the multitude of those who set the truth at nothing, but sufficing for one another, being three. So neither did the cloud of enemies make us shrink; but, placing our hope in the help of the Spirit, we have proclaimed the truth with all boldness. For it would be the most outrageous thing of all if those who blaspheme the Spirit were so easily emboldened against the pious doctrine, while we, having so great a champion and advocate, should shrink from serving the doctrine that has been preserved to us from the tradition of the fathers by an unbroken succession of memory. What roused my zeal still further was the ardor of your unfeigned love and the gravity and quietness of your character, which assure me that you will not make public what is going to be said—not because it deserves to be hidden, but so that pearls may not be thrown before swine. So much for this. As for you, if what has been said is sufficient, let this be the end of the discussion of these matters. But if it seems deficient, there is no objection to your adding to your knowledge by persevering diligently in the inquiry and asking questions without contentiousness. For the Lord will grant, either through us or through others, the completion of what is lacking, according to the knowledge supplied by the Spirit to those who are worthy of him.