On the Holy Spirit (in Jerome's Latin translation) 35–47

For when we men speak to another about something, we first conceive what we want in the mind without speech. Then, wanting to transfer it into the other's understanding, we set in motion the organ of the tongue and, striking it like a plectrum against the strings of the teeth, we send out a vocal sound. As, then, we strike the tongue against palate and teeth and shape the struck air into various utterances so as to communicate what we know to others, so the hearer must offer open ears, closed by no defect, and attend to what is said, so as to know what is uttered as the speaker knows it. But God, of a simple, uncompounded and spiritual nature, has neither ears nor the organs by which the voice is sent out; a solitary and incomprehensible substance, he is composed of no limbs or parts. The same is to be understood of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

So whenever we read in the Scriptures, "The Lord said to my Lord", and elsewhere, "God said, Let there be light", and anything similar, we must take it in a way worthy of God. For the Father does not announce his will to the Son as one who does not know it, since the Son is wisdom and truth, and all that the Father speaks, subsisting as wise and true, he has in wisdom and in substance. So the Father's speaking and the Son's hearing, or conversely the Son's speaking and the Father's hearing, signify the same nature and agreement in Father and Son. The Holy Spirit too, who is the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of wisdom, cannot, when the Son speaks, hear what he does not know, since he is the very thing that is uttered by the Son, that is, proceeding from the truth, a Comforter flowing from a Comforter, God from God, the Spirit of truth proceeding. Finally, so that no one should separate him from the will and fellowship of the Father and the Son, it is written: "For he will not speak from himself, but as he hears he will speak." Similar to this the Saviour says of himself: "As I hear, I judge"; and elsewhere: "The Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father doing." For if the Son is one with the Father, not in the sense of Sabellius, who confuses the Father and the Son, but according to the lack of distinction of essence or substance, he can do nothing without the Father, since separated beings have different works; but seeing the Father working, he too works, not in second rank, working after him. For the works of the Father and of the Son would begin to be different if they were not done equally. And it is written: "For whatever he does," undoubtedly the Father, "the Son does likewise." If, then, when the Father and the Son work, not in an order of first and second but in the same time of working, all things that are made subsist as the same and not unlike, and the Son, who cannot be separated from the Father, can do nothing of himself, so the Holy Spirit too, in no way separated from the Son because of their fellowship of will and nature, is not believed to speak from himself, but he speaks all that he speaks according to the word and truth of God. The Lord's following words confirm this view: "He will glorify me," that is, the Paraclete, "because he will receive of mine." Here again, "receive" must be understood as befits the divine nature.

As, then, the Son in giving is not deprived of what he bestows, nor gives to others at his own loss, so the Spirit does not receive what he did not have before. For if he received what he did not have before, then when the gift was transferred to another, the giver would be left empty, ceasing to have what he gave. As, then, we understood above when discussing incorporeal natures, so now too the Holy Spirit's receiving from the Son must be recognized as what belonged to his own nature, signifying not a giver and a receiver but one substance. For the Son too is said to receive from the Father the very things by which he subsists. For the Son is nothing other than what is given him by the Father, and the substance of the Holy Spirit is nothing other than what is given him by the Son. These things are said so that we may believe that the nature of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity is the same as that of the Father and the Son.

Since every human word can describe nothing but bodies, and the Trinity of which we are now speaking surpasses all material substances, no word can properly fit it and signify its substance; everything we say is said catachrestically, that is, by an improper use of words, both of all incorporeal beings and above all when we speak of the Trinity. So the Holy Spirit glorifies the Son by showing him and bringing him into the open for those who are worthy, with a pure heart, to understand and see him, and to know the radiance of the substance and the image of the invisible God. Again, the image itself, showing itself to pure minds, glorifies the Father, making him known to those who do not know him; for he himself says: "He who sees me sees the Father also." The Father too, revealing the Son to those who have earned to reach the goal of knowledge, glorifies his Only-begotten, showing his greatness and power. And the Son himself, giving the Holy Spirit to those who have prepared themselves to be worthy of his gift, and opening up the loftiness of his glory and the power of his greatness, glorifies him. Then, adding an explanation, after saying "he will receive of mine", he at once added: "All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said, he will receive of mine and announce it to you," saying in effect: Although the Spirit of truth proceeds from the Father, and God gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask him, yet since all that the Father has is mine, the Spirit of the Father himself is mine and will receive of mine. But beware, when these things are said, lest you slip into a serious fault of understanding and think that there is some thing or possession that is held by the Father and the Son. Rather, what the Father has by substance, that is, eternity, unchangeableness, incorruption, unchangeable goodness subsisting from himself and in himself, the Son has the same. And, to add more, whatever the Son himself subsists as, and whatever belongs to the Son, the Father has the same. Away with the snares of the dialecticians, and let sophisms be driven from the truth, which seize an occasion for impiety from pious preaching and say: "Then the Father is the Son, and the Son the Father." For if he had said, "All that God has is mine," impiety would have had an occasion for invention, and the lie would have seemed plausible. But since he said, "All that the Father has is mine," by the name "Father" he declared himself the Son; being Son, he did not claim fatherhood, although he too, by the grace of adoption, is the father of many saints, according to what we read in the Psalms: "If your sons keep"; and again: "If his sons forsake my law." But in this saying and with this sense set forth, it follows that what we said above belongs to the Father the Son also has, and what belongs to the Son the Holy Spirit also has. For he says: "He will receive of mine, and therefore he will announce to you the things to come." For through the Spirit of truth certain knowledge of the future is granted to holy men. That is why the prophets, filled with this same Spirit, foretold in their minds and saw as if present the things that were to follow. Let this suffice, enough and more than enough according to the poverty of our ability, on the present chapter of the Gospel. If the Lord has revealed more to some, and they have been brought near the truth and can see it better, let us yield the better place to their discussion, which he who is the Spirit of truth supports; and we ask those who will read to pardon our lack of skill and forgive our zeal, which longs to offer to God all it could, even if it could not fulfil its wish.

Let us set out also a testimony from the Apostle's Epistle to the Romans, and examine what seems to us in it to fit the present subject. "That the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in you, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit think the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor can it be. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit lives because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who dwells in you. So, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery again in fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, in whom we cry: Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are sons of God. And if sons, then heirs: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him." In this chapter of the Apostle very much is shown about the fellowship the Spirit has with the Father and the Son. For the Apostle says that the divine righteousness of the spiritual law is fulfilled in those who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. The apostolic word describes as walking according to the flesh one who, joined to the body by the vices of the flesh through pleasures, does all the works of the flesh and the body. But one who walks according to the Spirit is one who, walking in the precepts of God's law and the Gospel, follows the order of spiritual commands. For as it is the vice of the fleshly to mind the things of the flesh and think of bodily things, so, on the contrary, it is the virtue of the spiritual always to think of heavenly and eternal things and to deal with the things of the Spirit. But the mind of the flesh, joined at once to death, kills those who walk and think according to the flesh; while the mind of the Spirit grants to those who have it tranquillity of mind, peace, and eternal life. When they possess it, they will have under their feet all disturbances and kinds of vices, and the very demons who try to suggest them. Since, then, the mind of the flesh is joined to death, it is hostile to God; for it makes enemies of those who have lived by its laws, being always opposed and resistant to God's will and law. Nor can one who is in the mind of the flesh keep God's precepts and be subject to his will. As long as we serve pleasures, we cannot serve God. But when we have put tickling luxury under our feet and, transferring ourselves wholly to the Spirit, are no longer in the flesh, that is, in the passions of the flesh, then we shall be subject to God. For the Apostle's word is not about this flesh in which we live, in whose little vessel our soul is contained, since all the saints, surrounded by body and flesh, pleased God; but rather about what is committed against God's command in human society, of which it is said, "You shall love the Lord your God," and, "What you do not want done to you," and so on. But you, he says (undoubtedly the disciples of Christ, who have received the mind of the Spirit, and life and peace), are not in the flesh, that is, in the works of the flesh, nor do you commit its works, since you have the Spirit of God in you. And the same Spirit is the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, leading and joining one who has him in himself to the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why in what follows it is written: "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his."

Again, in the present passage we learn the fellowship the Holy Spirit has with God and with Christ. In the Epistle of Peter too the Holy Spirit is shown to be the Spirit of Christ: "Searching," he says, "and inquiring", that is, the prophets, of whom he had been speaking just before, "what time and what kind of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating, testifying beforehand to the sufferings in Christ and the glories decreed to follow; to whom it was revealed that they were serving not themselves but us in the things that have now been announced to you through the Holy Spirit." This Holy Spirit is also called the Spirit of God, not only in the present passage but in many other places, as there: "No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God." Then, after he says, "If anyone does not have the Spirit of God, he is not his", it is added: "But if Christ is in you"; and it is most plainly shown that the Holy Spirit is inseparable from Christ, since wherever the Holy Spirit is, there Christ is too, and from wherever the Spirit of Christ departs, Christ likewise withdraws. "For if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his." If someone takes the converse of this conditional, he can say: If anyone is Christ's, so that Christ is in him, the Spirit of God is in him. The same must likewise be applied to God the Father: if anyone does not have the Spirit of God, he is not his. And again, if someone takes the converse, saying: If anyone is God's, the Spirit of God is in him. Hence it is written: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?" And in the Epistle of John: "By this it is known that God is possessed by some, when the Spirit whom he gave remains in them." From all these the indissoluble and undivided substance of the Trinity is shown.

When, then, he says, "If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin", meaning a body no longer serving vices and lust but dead to sin, not stirred to vices and in no way alive to sin: after the body has become dead to sin, Christ, present in those who have put their bodies to death, shows the Spirit of life through righteousness, whether the correction of works by immortal virtues or faith in Jesus Christ, in those who live according to faith. Then the Apostle uses another, a conditional syllogism, which the dialecticians call, more expressively, an axiom (ἀξίωμα), and says: "If the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you." Does he not seem to you to say that if the Spirit of him who raised Christ Jesus, that is, the Spirit who is the Spirit of the same Jesus Christ, dwells in you, your mortal bodies too, together with your immortal souls, will consequently be given life by him who raised Christ Jesus from the dead, the prince and firstborn of the resurrection? And we to whom so great a gift has been granted by God through the Spirit are debtors to the Spirit, not to the flesh, to live according to it. For one who lives according to the flesh will die that death which follows sin. "For sin, when it is completed, brings forth death," according to James. And Ezekiel too writes that the soul that sins will die. For it is now separated from life, which is placed in the mind of the Spirit.

But if anyone rises above the life of the flesh and by the Spirit puts to death the works of the flesh, he will live, counted among the sons of God with eternal life, and directed into the right way because of the Holy Spirit, who is also called the Spirit of God. "For if you live according to the flesh," he says, "you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live"; and in what follows: "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." Again, reviving and comforting those to whom he was speaking, and calling them to hope for better things, he says: "For you did not receive again a spirit of slavery in fear," that is, you do not keep yourselves from vices like slaves, from fear and terror of punishment, because you have the Spirit of adoption given you by the Father, that is, the Holy Spirit, who is called the Spirit of God, of Christ, of truth and of wisdom. And if this Spirit adopts as sons of God those in whom, by his condescension, he comes to dwell, I leave to you the understanding of what follows about his power. In this Spirit of adoption those who have had God as Father cry out, as the passage shows: "In whom we cry, Abba, Father"; the Spirit himself, who adopts us as sons, bearing witness, by the share in himself that our spirit possesses, that we are sons of God. It follows that God, as a father, has bestowed on us the riches of an inheritance, spiritual gifts, and that we are fellow heirs of Christ, because by his grace and kindness we are called his brothers. We shall be heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ if we suffer with him, so that we may earn to be glorified with him through the fellowship of his sufferings.

But since this too has been set out as far as we could, let us set out a chapter of the prophet containing some things about the Holy Spirit, so that we may be taught about faith in him and understanding of him not only from the New but also from the Old Testament. For we said earlier that the grace of the Holy Spirit was present in all the saints, both those who lived after the coming of our Lord and those before, that is, the patriarchs and prophets, and filled them with various gifts and powers. For just as those who raised the standard of righteousness, both before and after his coming, possessed the grace of the one God and his Only-begotten and attained knowledge of the truth, so they will possess the grace of the Holy Spirit too, since we have shown above in many places that the Holy Spirit is inseparable from the Father and the Son. It is written, then, in the prophet: "I remembered the mercies of the Lord and his powers in all that he has rendered to us. The Lord is a good judge to the house of Israel; he brings upon us according to his mercy and according to the multitude of his righteousness. And he said: Are they not my people, sons, and they will not transgress? And he became their salvation out of all their tribulation; not an envoy, nor an angel, but he himself saved them, because he loved them and spared them. He himself redeemed them and took them up and lifted them up all the days of the age. But they did not believe, and they provoked his Holy Spirit, and he was turned to enmity against them. He himself fought against them, and he remembered the days of old: he who brought up from the earth the shepherd of the sheep, who put his Holy Spirit in them, gathering Moses with his right hand."

Those who have often received God's benefits, knowing that they obtained them by his grace and mercy rather than by their own works, speak as if all with one consent and of one mind: "I remembered the mercies of the Lord." For thinking of the gifts they often received from him through Moses, they give thanks, and together with his mercy they remember also the Lord's powers, whether the wonders he often did for them among the peoples, or the benefits to the soul by which they were instructed through the law and the prophets and his saving precepts; for in the Scriptures the word "power" signifies both. They say that they remember his mercy and powers in all that he rendered to them, not according to their righteousness but according to the mercy and goodness of him who is judge to the house that sees, to the mind that with a pure heart beholds the Lord. For this is the meaning of Israel, translated from the Hebrew language into ours: a mind seeing God. For although the judge sometimes brings torments and tortures on those who deserve judgment, yet one who looks more deeply into the causes of things, seeing the purpose of the goodness of him who wishes to correct the sinner, confesses that he is good, saying: "Bringing upon us according to his mercy." For if the Lord should mark the iniquities of those he judges, who will stand? But since there is propitiation with the Lord, our Lord and Saviour brings upon us according to his mercy everything that advances us toward salvation. And bringing according to his mercy, and doing this in judgment, he gives to us with justice what he has bestowed with the goodness of mercy mixed in.

From the present chapter the error of the heretics must be refuted, who, separating goodness from justice, invented one God who is good and another who is just. For see, here the same God is both good and judge, rendering according to his mercy and his justice, and subsisting as good and just alike. In vain, then, pretending a wicked doctrine, do they maintain that the God of the Gospel is good and the God of the Old Testament just; for in very many other places, and now in the prophet's words, God is written "a good judge", and, on the contrary, as they do not wish, in the Epistle of the apostle Paul (who is certainly a preacher of the New Testament) God is called a just judge: "There is laid up for me," he says, "the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the just judge, will render to me on that day." So, though they do not wish it, the God of the New and of the Old Testament is the same, the maker of things visible and invisible, the Saviour too in the Gospel plainly testifying that the Father is just and good: "Just Father, the world has not known you." And in another place: "No one is good but God alone." And in the old law too God is called just in one place and good in another. In the Psalms: "The Lord is just," it says, "and loves righteousness." And on the other hand in Jeremiah: "The Lord is good to those who wait for him." Again in the Psalms: "How good is the God of Israel to those who are upright in heart!" These things have been said in passing against the heretics. But it is time to follow the prophet's order as set out, which runs thus: "And he said", undoubtedly the Lord, "Are they not my people, sons, and they will not transgress?" They were not, he says, like those who were begotten and exalted and despised him who begot them. "And he became their salvation", that is, of those of whom the Lord says, "Are they not my people, sons, and they will not transgress?" For the very fact that they did not transgress or despise the Father became salvation for them; or, because they were called sons, he became for them the cause of salvation. This salvation, bestowed by Christ the Lord, is confirmed also by the voice of the angel to the shepherds: "Behold, I bring you good news of great joy, which will be for all the people; for to you is born this day a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David." He became for all who believe in him the occasion of eternal salvation, and he is the Saviour of the world, who came to seek what was lost. And he is the one of whom the choir of saints sings: "Our God is a God of saving."

Since, then, it was God who gave eternal salvation, it is said, "Not an envoy, nor an angel", that is, no prophet, no patriarch, not Moses the lawgiver saved them. For all those I have named could act as envoys to the Lord on behalf of the people. Moses, interceding with him for the sinning people, said: "If you forgive them their sin, forgive." But he begged for pardon fasting forty days, and moved God's mercy by affliction of soul. Yet none of these envoys can be a saviour, since he himself needs him who is the true giver of salvation. For the angels too, although they are spirits and are sent to various ministries for the sake of those who will receive salvation, are not the authors of salvation, but interpret and announce him who is the fountain of salvation. That is why it is said, "Not an envoy, nor an angel, but the Lord himself saved them": for no other reason than this, "because he loved them and spared them". He is said to spare them as his own creatures, according to what is written elsewhere: "But you spare all things, Lord, lover of souls, because they are yours; for you do not hate what you have made." That is why the Father, not sparing his own Son for their salvation, handed him over to death, so that through the death of his Son, destroying him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, he might redeem all who were held by him in the bond of captivity. Hence it is added: "He himself redeemed them and took them up and lifted them up." For he takes up and lifts up those who are saved, and raises the redeemed on high on the wings of virtues, by instruction and knowledge of the truth, not for one day or two but for all the days of eternity, dwelling in them and with them, and giving them life to the end of the age, and being the author of their salvation. And in all the days of the age, enlightening their hearts, he does not let them remain in the darkness of ignorance and in error. And this, I think, is what is written: that they are lifted up "all the days".

But since, being changeable and slipping into vices of their own will, after such great benefits they did not believe God, and abandoned his precepts, and embittered the Holy Spirit of God, who had given them many good things, they fell into a sin like that of those who, after they were begotten and exalted, despised their Father. Or perhaps the same people are described now who were described before, since there too it is said to them after their sin: "You have forsaken the Lord and provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel"; and now, that "they did not believe and embittered his Holy Spirit." From the present passage, then, the fellowship of the Spirit with the Lord is shown. One who forsakes the Lord, and is unbelieving, and provokes the Holy One of Israel to anger, also embitters his Holy Spirit. The same indignation at sinners is ascribed both to the Holy Spirit and to the Holy One of Israel. Hence in what follows too the bond of the Trinity is shown by similar words, since Scripture says that the Lord was turned to enmity against those who embittered his Holy Spirit and handed them over to everlasting torment, after they had blasphemed against his Holy Spirit not by word but by deeds. He, then, who "was turned to enmity against them, fought against them" and subjected them to many and long torments, so that they obtain pardon of sins neither in this present time nor in the future. For they embittered his Holy Spirit and blasphemed against him.