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

When I was living in Babylon [that is, Rome], a tenant of the woman of easy virtue clothed in purple, and lived under the law of the Quirites, I wanted to babble something about the Holy Spirit and to dedicate the little work I had begun to the bishop of that same city. And behold, that pot which in Jeremiah is seen after the rod, from the face of the north, began to boil; and the senate of the Pharisees cried out together, and not a single scribe, not even a counterfeit one, but the whole faction of ignorance conspired against me, as if a battle of doctrines had been proclaimed against it. At once I returned to Jerusalem, as if by the right of return from captivity; and after the hut of Romulus and the games of the Lupercalia I looked upon the lodging of Mary and the cave of the Saviour. So, my brother Paulinian, since the bishop Damasus mentioned above, who first urged me to this work, now sleeps in Christ, I am now helped by your prayers as well as by those of Paula and Eustochium, handmaids of Christ whom I revere; and the song which I could not sing in a foreign land I now murmur here in Judaea, called forth by you, thinking this place far more august, which gave birth to the Saviour of the world, than that which gave birth to the murderer of his brother. And to confess the author in the title: I preferred to be the translator of another man's work rather than, as some do, a shapeless little crow decking myself out in another's colours. Some time ago I read a certain man's little books on the Holy Spirit, and, as the Comic poet says, I saw Latin that was not good made out of good Greek. Nothing there was argued with logic, nothing manly and taut that would draw the reader to assent even against his will: everything was flabby, soft, glossy and pretty, painted with perfumes gathered from here and there. But my Didymus, who has the eye of the bride in the Song of Songs and those lights which Jesus commanded to be lifted up to the white fields, looks far higher, and has restored to us the ancient custom by which a prophet is called a Seer. Certainly whoever reads him will recognize the thefts of the Latins and will despise the little streams once he begins to drink from the springs. He is unskilled in speech but not in knowledge, expressing the apostolic man by his very speech, as much by the light of his thought as by the simplicity of his words.

All divine matters ought to be attended to with reverence and great care, but above all what is said of the divinity of the Spirit, especially since blasphemy against him is without pardon, so that the punishment of the blasphemer extends not only through the whole present age but into the age to come. For the Saviour says that for one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit there is no forgiveness, "neither in this age nor in the age to come." So all the more must we attend to what account the Scriptures give of him, so that the error of blasphemy may not creep up on anyone, even through ignorance. It would have been better for a faithful and fearful man, who measures his strength, to pass over the greatness of the present question in silence and not draw a matter full of danger into his own peril. But since some, by rashness rather than by the right way, raise themselves even to heavenly things and boast things about the Holy Spirit that are neither read in the Scriptures nor used by any of the ancient churchmen, we have been compelled to yield to the very frequent urging of the brothers, and to prove by the testimonies of the Scriptures what our view of him is, so that those who set forth contrary views may not, through ignorance of so great a doctrine, deceive those who without careful examination are at once drawn over to the opponents' opinion.

The name "Holy Spirit", and the substance that the name itself points to, are wholly unknown to those who philosophize outside sacred Scripture. For both the notion of him and the term are found only in our own writings, in the New as well as the Old. David, a man of the Old Testament, who had become a sharer in him, prayed that he might remain in him, saying: "Do not take your Holy Spirit from me." And God is said to have stirred up the Holy Spirit in Daniel while he was still a boy, as one already dwelling in him. In the New Testament too, those men who are reported to have pleased God are full of the Holy Spirit. John, sanctified while still in his mother's womb, leaps for joy; and Jesus, rising from the dead, breathed into the face of the disciples and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit." The volumes of the divine Scriptures are full of such sayings; I have refrained from collecting the whole mass of them in this work, since it is not hard for any reader to find similar ones for himself from those we have cited.

Let no one suppose that there was one Holy Spirit in the holy men before the coming of the Lord and another in the apostles and the other disciples, as if a single name stood for different substances. We can produce testimonies from the divine writings that the same Spirit was in the apostles and in the prophets. Paul, in the epistle he writes to the Hebrews, citing a testimony from the book of Psalms, records that it was spoken by the Holy Spirit: "And as this Holy Spirit says: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts," and so on. At the end of the Acts of the Apostles also, disputing with the Jews, he says: "As the Holy Spirit spoke through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, saying: You will hear with your ears and not understand." Paul did not write this as one who had a different Holy Spirit, about one who was a different Spirit in the prophets before the Lord's coming, but about the one of whom he himself was a sharer, and all who were borne along in the faith of perfected virtue. That is why he mentions him with the article, as if testifying that he is unique and one: he does not say simply Πνεῦμα ἅγιον, that is, "Holy Spirit", but with the addition of the article, τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, that is, "this Holy Spirit". And he records that Isaiah prophesied using the articled expression διὰ τοῦ Πνεύματος τοῦ ἁγίου, that is, "through this Holy Spirit", and not simply Πνεῦμα ἅγιον. Peter too, in the speech in which he was persuading those present, says: "The Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit (that is, τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον) spoke through the mouth of David concerning Judas," showing that the same Spirit worked both in the prophets and in the apostles.

We shall treat this more fully in what follows, when we begin to show that not only did the Word of the Lord come to the prophets but also the Holy Spirit, because he too is possessed inseparably with the only-begotten Son of God. The very name "Holy Spirit" is not an empty title but points to an underlying essence, partner of the Father and the Son and wholly foreign to creatures. For since creatures are divided into visible and invisible, that is, corporeal and incorporeal, the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the soul and the mind and produces speech, wisdom and knowledge, is not of the corporeal substances; nor is he of the invisible creatures. For all these are capable of receiving wisdom and the other virtues and sanctification; but this substance of which we now speak produces wisdom and knowledge and sanctification. Nor can any strength be found in the Holy Spirit, or any working of sanctification and virtue, that he holds from something outside himself, since a nature of that kind is changeable. But the Holy Spirit, by the confession of all, is unchangeable, the sanctifier in divine knowledge and the giver of all good things; and, to put it briefly, he himself subsists in the good things that are bestowed by the Lord. For Matthew and Luke, describing the same passage of the Gospel, one of them says: "How much more will the heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?" and the other: "How much more will your heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" From this it appears that the Holy Spirit is the fullness of God's gifts, and that what is given by God does not subsist without him, since all the benefits received from the grace of God's gifts flow from this spring. What is good by substance cannot receive goodness from outside, since it gives goodness to others. So it is clear that the Holy Spirit is foreign not only to corporeal but also to incorporeal creatures, since other substances receive this substance of sanctification, while he is not only incapable of receiving a sanctification foreign to himself, but is moreover its giver and creator. Those who enjoy communion with him are called sharers in the Holy Spirit, sanctified, of course, by him. For it is plainly written: "And outraging the Spirit of grace", undoubtedly of one who sinned after receiving him. If he was sanctified through communion with the Holy Spirit, it is shown that he had been a sharer in him, and that the Holy Spirit is the giver of his sanctification. The Apostle too, writing to the Corinthians and listing those who are to attain the kingdom of heaven, adds: "And such some of you were; but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God," asserting that the Spirit of God is none other than the Holy Spirit. And he confirms the same in what follows, saying: "No one speaking in the Spirit of God says, Jesus is anathema; and no one says, Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit," confirming that the Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit.

If, then, he is a sanctifier, he is shown to be of an unchangeable, not a changeable, substance. But the divine oracles hand down most plainly that only the substance of God and of his only-begotten Son is unchangeable, while they proclaim the whole substance of creatures to be alterable and changeable. Therefore, since the substance of the Holy Spirit has been shown to be not alterable but unalterable, he will not be consubstantial with the creature. Otherwise a creature too would be unchangeable, if it were ranked with the Father and the Son, having the same unalterableness. For everything that is capable of receiving a good from outside is separated from this substance; and all creatures are of that kind. God, being good, is the source and beginning of good things: he makes good those to whom he gives himself, being good not because made so by another but by subsisting; therefore he is one who is received, not one who receives. The only-begotten Son too, his wisdom and sanctification, does not become wise but makes others wise; he is not sanctified but sanctifies. So he too is one who is received, not one who receives. Since, then, the invisible creation, which is customarily called the rational and incorporeal substance, is not something received but something that receives (for if it were received, it would not be capable of receiving any good, subsisting simple in itself, and also a receiver of another good), it has the good by participation, and it is to be understood not among the things that are had by others but among those that have others, the Father and the Son being had rather than having, and the creature having and not being had. Let us consider the Holy Spirit too in the same way: if he too is holy by participation in another's holiness, let him be numbered with the other creatures; but if he makes the saints capable of himself, let him be ranked with the Father and the Son. That the Holy Spirit is received by others and does not receive others we have set forth, as we could, both now and in our volume On the Sects, and it is very easy to confirm our argument from the whole of Scripture. The blessed Apostle, writing to the Ephesians, says: "In whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance." If some are sealed with the Holy Spirit, taking on his form and likeness, the Holy Spirit is among the things that are had, not those that have, those who have him being impressed with his seal. Writing to the Corinthians [Ephesians] also, the same apostle says: "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, in whom you were sealed," testifying that those who had received communion with the Holy Spirit are sealed. For just as one who takes up a discipline and a virtue receives into his mind the seal and, so to speak, the figure of the knowledge he has taken up, so one who becomes a sharer in the Holy Spirit becomes, through communion with him, both spiritual and holy.

If the Holy Spirit himself were one of the creatures, he would at least have a circumscribed substance, like everything that has been made. For even if invisible creatures are not circumscribed by place and boundaries, they are nevertheless bounded by the particular character of their substance. But the Holy Spirit, since he is in many, does not have a circumscribed substance. For when Jesus sent out the preachers of his teaching, he filled them with the Spirit, and breathing into their faces he said: "Receive the Holy Spirit," and "Go, teach all nations," as though he were sending all to all nations. For not all the apostles set out to all the nations alike; some went to Asia, some to Scythia, and others were scattered among other nations, according to the dispensation of the Holy Spirit whom they had with them, just as the Lord said: "I am with you always, to the end of the age." With this agrees also: "You will receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." If, then, these men, placed at the farthest ends of the earth for the testimony of the Lord, were separated from one another by very great distances, and yet the Holy Spirit was present with them as an indweller, having an uncircumscribed substance, angelic power is shown to be wholly different from him. For an angel who was present, for example, with an apostle praying in Asia could not at the same time be present with others placed in other parts of the world. But the Holy Spirit is present not only to men separated from one another but also dwells with every angel, principality, throne and dominion; and as, sanctifying men, he is of another nature than men, so, sanctifying other creatures, he is other than their substance, since every creature is made holy not by its own substance but by communion in a holiness other than itself.

The angels are indeed called holy in the Gospel, when the Saviour says that the Son of Man will come in his majesty and the Father's and that of the holy angels. And in the Acts of the Apostles Cornelius is written to have received an answer from a holy angel, to call Peter, Christ's disciple, to himself. But the angels are holy by participation in the Holy Spirit and by the indwelling of the only-begotten Son of God, who is holiness, and by communion with the Father, of whom the Saviour says: "Holy Father". If, then, the angels are holy not by their own substance but by participation in the holy Trinity, the substance of the angels is shown to be other than the Trinity. For just as the Father who sanctifies is other than those who are sanctified, and the Son is other than those whom he makes holy, so the Holy Spirit is of another substance than those whom he sanctifies by his bounty. But if the heretics propose that the angels are holy by the nature of their own constitution, they are forced in consequence to say that they are consubstantial (ὁμοούσιοι) with the Trinity and holy unalterably by substance. If, avoiding this, they say that the angels are of one nature with the other creatures, yet do not have the same holiness as men have, they will necessarily be led to say that men are of a much better substance, since men have holiness through communion with the Trinity, while the angels, holy by their own nature, are strangers to it. But the hope of perfect men, coming to the fulfilment of holiness, is to become equal to the angels. For it is the angels who give help to men, not men to angels, ministering salvation to them and announcing to them God's more generous benefits. From this it is clearly shown that the angels are more honourable and much better than men, through a closer, so to speak, and fuller reception of the Trinity.

So, since the Holy Spirit is other than the things he sanctifies, he is not of one nature with the other creatures that receive him. And if he is of another nature than creatures and subsists in his own essence, he is shown to be uncreated and unmade. Many Scriptures prove beyond doubt that he is of a nature other than all created things. Some are said to be full of the Holy Spirit; but no one, either in the Scriptures or in [common speech], is said to be full of a creature. Neither Scripture nor common speech claims this, that you should say someone is full of an angel, a throne or a dominion; this expression befits the divine nature alone. We do say that some are full of virtue and learning, as in "He was filled with the Holy Spirit", meaning nothing other than that they are full of complete and perfect virtue. It is written of John: "And he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb"; and again: "Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit"; and after other things: "And Zechariah his father was filled with the Holy Spirit." No doubt John too prophesied. In the Acts of the Apostles also it is reported of many believers who had come together: "They were filled with the Holy Spirit." But although the Holy Spirit can be shared, like wisdom and learning, he does not possess the substance of knowledge in empty names; rather, through a nature that sanctifies and fills all things with good things, he himself subsists as good; and in accordance with this some are said to be filled with the Holy Spirit, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles: "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness." For just as one who is full of some discipline and possesses it perfectly can speak of it learnedly and precisely, so those who have received the Holy Spirit fully, so as to be filled with him, speak the word of God with boldness, because the Holy Spirit, being present, supplies a voice worthy of God. Hence someone says with authority: "Thus says the Holy Spirit"; and the Apostle says: "But be filled with the Holy Spirit"; and in many places of the Acts of the Apostles the Lord's disciples are written to have been full of the Holy Spirit: "Look out, brothers, seven men from among you of good testimony, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom"; and of Stephen: "But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God"; and of the chosen vessel it is said: "But Saul, who is also Paul, full of the Holy Spirit, looked at him and said"; and of all the believers together it is noted: "The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit." But the presence of an angel, or of any other excellent nature that has been made, does not fill the mind and understanding, since it too is filled from elsewhere. For just as one who receives from the fullness of the Saviour is made full of wisdom and power and righteousness and the word of God, so one who is full of the Holy Spirit is at once filled with all God's gifts: wisdom, knowledge, faith and the other virtues. He, then, who fills all creatures that can receive virtue and wisdom is not one of the things he fills. From this it follows that he is of another substance than all creatures. We have said elsewhere too that in the substance of the Holy Spirit the fullness of the divine gifts is also understood.

In short, it is impossible for anyone to obtain the grace of God if he does not have the Holy Spirit, in whom, as we show, all God's gifts consist. That one who has him has also fully obtained the word of wisdom and the other good things, the present passage clearly shows; and a little earlier we said that the Holy Spirit is the substance of God's good things, when we set out the example: "The Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him," and "The Father will give good things to those who ask him." Nor should we think that the Holy Spirit is divided into substances because he is called a multitude of good things; for he is impassible, indivisible and unchangeable. Rather, according to his different workings and the ways he is understood, he is called by many names of good things, because he does not give himself in communion to those who share in him according to one and the same power, since he is fitted to the benefit of each one and fills with good things those with whom he judges he ought to be present. So Stephen, that first witness of the truth, worthy of his name, is called full of wisdom and the Holy Spirit, wisdom being understood as following from the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, as Scripture says: "And the apostles chose Stephen, full of faith and the Holy Spirit"; and: "Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing wonders and great signs among the people." And again of the same man: "And they could not resist the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke." For the blessed man, full of the Holy Spirit, became a sharer also in faith, which comes from the Holy Spirit, according to the saying: "To another faith, by the same Spirit." And having grace and power according to the same Spirit, he was doing signs and great wonders among the people. He abounded too, by the same Spirit, in those gifts that are called gifts of healing and powers. For these too are placed in the list of the gifts of God, given by the Spirit and according to the Spirit, in the apostle Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians. Stephen so abounded in divine grace that none of those who contradicted and disputed against him could resist the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke; for he was wise from the Holy Spirit. That is why Jesus plainly proclaims to his disciples: When you are brought before rulers and authorities, councils and synagogues, do not be anxious about what you ought to say or what you will speak at that time; for words of wisdom will be given to you by the Holy Spirit, which they cannot contradict, not even those who are very skilled in disputation.

But let us set out the testimony itself, which runs as follows: "When they bring you into the synagogues before rulers and authorities, do not be anxious how or what you will answer; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that same hour what you ought to say." And in another Gospel: "Settle it, then, in your hearts not to prepare beforehand how you will answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which they will not be able to contradict or answer." Since the Holy Spirit gives the apostles words against those who opposed the Gospel, it is clearly shown that the word of wisdom and of knowledge is understood as contained in his substance. How the Saviour in that hour gives his disciples a mouth and wisdom that cannot be contradicted, not even by those thought most eloquent among men, it is not the time to discuss now, since we have now set out to show that the gifts of the virtues are always understood to be contained in the Holy Spirit, so that one who has him is held to be full of God's gifts. That is why in Isaiah God himself says to someone: "I will put my Spirit upon your seed, and my blessings upon your sons." For no one ever receives God's spiritual blessings unless the Holy Spirit has come first. For one who has received the Holy Spirit will in consequence have the blessings, that is, wisdom and understanding and the rest, of which the Apostle writes: "For this reason we too, from the day we heard, have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, walking worthily of God." He says that those who walk worthily of him in works and words and prudence are filled with the will of God, who puts the Holy Spirit upon them so that they may be filled with wisdom and understanding and the other spiritual good things. Wisdom and understanding, which are in the Holy Spirit, are given by God. "The Lord," it says, "will give wisdom, and from his face come wisdom and understanding"; whereas the wisdom that comes from men is not spiritual but fleshly and human. Of this the Apostle writes: "Not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God have we conducted ourselves in the world," calling fleshly wisdom that which subsists in bodily matters from human thought. But spiritual and intellectual wisdom, concerned with invisible and intellectual things, gives its presence to those who receive it through the working of the Holy Spirit. In many other places too the Apostle records that God's gifts dwell in the substance of the Holy Spirit, as in that saying: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope and in the power of the Holy Spirit."

God, the giver of good things, will render the hope he promised in the power of the Holy Spirit to those who have him; he fills with joy and peace those who, possessing an untroubled and calm mind, have hearts that are glad and tranquil from every storm of disturbance. And those who have obtained the good things just mentioned in the power of the Holy Spirit will also attain right faith in the mystery of the Trinity. In another place of the same epistle he says: "The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." By asserting that righteousness, that is, all virtue, and the peace we spoke of above, are joined to the joy of God in the Holy Spirit, he proves most plainly to those who could hear him that these good things are nothing other than the substance of the Holy Spirit. Since, then, these good things come to men from the bounty of the Holy Spirit, the calling of the Gentiles, which he brought in through the teaching of the Gospel, is made acceptable and sanctified in the Holy Spirit; for in this too the Holy Spirit, making them sanctified and accepted, is the substance of God's good things. And one who is full of him does all things according to reason, teaching rightly, living blamelessly, showing signs and wonders truly and perfectly; for he has the strength of the Holy Spirit as a treasure supplying him and the cause of the fullness of all good things. Peter, the disciple of the Lord Jesus, knew that the bestowal of the Holy Spirit is the nature of God's gifts. For he says to those who reproached him for going in to Cornelius: "If, then, God gave them the same grace, giving the Holy Spirit, as he did to us at the beginning, who was I that I could hinder the Lord?" And further, to his own: "God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith." With this sense agrees also what is said in many places, that the Holy Spirit is given by the Lord: "Jacob my servant, I will uphold him; Israel my chosen, my soul will receive him; I have put my Spirit upon him"; and again: "Who gives breath to the people upon it," no doubt the earth, "and spirit to those who walk on it." We showed above that the Spirit of God is not one and the Holy Spirit another. Paul also says: "The love of God has been poured out in your hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to you"; and that saying: "How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" This Spirit is also said to have been poured out by God upon all flesh, so that those who receive him may prophesy and see visions, according to Joel, who speaks in the person of God: "I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy." For the pouring out of the Spirit is the cause of prophesying and of seeing the meaning and the beauty of truth. The very word "pouring out" proves the uncreated substance of the Holy Spirit. For God does not send an angel or another creature in this way: does he say, I will pour out of my angel, or principality, or throne, or dominion? This expression fits only things that are shared by others, as we said now and a little earlier of the love of God, which has been poured out in the hearts of those who have received the Holy Spirit: "The love of God has been poured out in your hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to you." The Saviour too, since he also is one who is received, is said to be poured out like ointment: "Your name is ointment poured out." For just as ointment held in a vessel has the substance of its fragrance but is prevented from spreading far because it is shut up inside the vessel, but when the vessel is poured out it sends its sweet smell far off, so the fragrant name of Christ, before his coming, was found only among the people of Israel, shut up, as it were, in the vessel of Judaea: "God is known in Judaea," it says, "his name is great in Israel." But when the Saviour shone forth in his flesh, he extended his name to the whole earth, or rather to every creature, fulfilling what is written: "How wonderful is your name in all the earth!" To which the Apostle accordingly says: "For no other name has been given under heaven by which we must be saved"; and the Psalmist says to the Lord: "You have magnified your holy name above all things." Then was fulfilled: "Your name is ointment poured out." The word "pouring out" signifies a generous and rich abundance of the gift.

So when one or two people somewhere receive the Holy Spirit, it is not said, "I will pour out of my Spirit", but only when the gift of the Holy Spirit overflows to all nations. And to Titus the Apostle recalls the salvation brought about for the Gentiles: "Not by works of righteousness that we have done, but through the washing of the second regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly." Here too the word "pouring out" shows the generous bestowal of the Spirit. From all this we are taught that the substance of the Holy Spirit is one that is received, and therefore uncreated. He calls a substance "received" which is taken in by many and gives them a share in itself; but a "receiving" substance is one that is filled by communion with another substance, and, receiving something else, is not itself received by another. For to what is received, unchangeableness follows at once, and to what is unchangeable, eternity; just as, on the contrary, to what receives, changeableness follows, and to what is changeable, createdness. Nothing among creatures, then, is unchangeable, and for that reason nothing is everlasting. Not only is the rational element in men changeable and created; the same changeableness is found in all creatures. For the divine oracles show the changes and falls of angels too. For although the multitude of angels and of the other excellent powers persevere in blessedness and holiness, yet since beings that have the same nature have been changed, it is clearly shown that they remain in their first state not through the unchangeableness of their substance but through more careful service in the Lord. For beings of equal rank cannot have different natures. Since the whole human race is mortal, individual men are mortal; so conversely, if any of the higher beings are immortal, there is no doubt that all those placed in the same genus and species are immortal.

Since this is so, if even one angel has been shown to be changeable, all will be changeable, even if those persevering in blessedness have not changed; just as all human bodies are divisible, though not all are divided, since some of them, having undergone division, show the nature of the rest that are like them. With this set out, the Holy Spirit is shown to be of another substance than both the visible and the invisible creatures. If this is true, some most impiously number the Holy Spirit among all things, saying that in the statement that all things were made by God through the Word, the making of the Holy Spirit is also signified. For the Holy Spirit has been shown to be not one among all things but, by his substance, something other, beyond all things, on both counts. For if creation, as we showed above, is divided into corporeal and incorporeal, and the Holy Spirit was created, he will certainly be either a visible or an invisible creature, that is, corporeal or incorporeal. But he will not be a body at all, as we said before, since he teaches and gives knowledge and is received by the mind and the soul. Nor will he be an invisible creature, as we argued a little earlier. That is why the Apostle too, in the epistle he wrote to the Hebrews, shows that he is other than all angels, saying: "To which of the angels did he ever say, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to serve for the sake of those who were to receive salvation?" And after other things: "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Having first been spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God bearing witness with signs and wonders and various powers and distributions of the Holy Spirit according to his will." When he says, "To which of the angels?" it is taken as if he said, "To none", signifying by the name of angel the substance of all invisible creatures. For to none of the angels, nor to any other rational creature, did God say, "Sit at my right hand." So the statement declares in general that "Sit at my right hand" was said to no creature; and this is said of creation in general. And speaking of all invisible creatures, he says that they are ministering spirits; which is why he added: "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to serve?" For although not all invisible creatures individually have been sent, yet since others of the same kind and rank have been sent, in a way they too are sent potentially, sharing the same substance as those sent. Just as, then, the Lord is other than all creatures, the Lord through whom that great salvation first began to be spoken, which the Apostle does not want us to neglect when he says, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which, having first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard?", and as God, who bears witness to this salvation with signs and wonders, is other than all the ministering spirits, so also the Holy Spirit, by whose distributions according to his will God bears witness, distributing him not by cutting him into parts but by communion to those to whom he has decided to give him, is himself of a substance other than those among whom he is poured out and shared.

Since, then, we have shown according to the sense of the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit is other, beyond all creation, some who want to show that he was created use, in vain and indeed impiously, the testimony that reports that all things were made through the Word, so that the eternal substance too would be included in "all". And since, to prove his creation, they also appropriate the prophetic saying in which God says, "I create spirit", we must show that in this too they are wholly strangers to the understanding of the truth. For the prophet's statement was not about the Holy Spirit, as is understood from the order and context of the words. The prophet Amos says in the person of God: "Prepare to call upon your God, O Israel; for I am he who makes firm the thunder and creates spirit and announces his Christ to men, who makes the dawn and the mist and goes up on the high places of the earth: the Lord God Almighty is his name." For God, who had said beforehand that he founds and makes spirit, also said that he makes the thunder firm and makes the dawn and the mists. If, then, we keep to the narrative already given, that is, to thunder and dawn and clouds, we must keep the same order of narrative in the case of spirit too, so that what God says is this: That you may call upon me, who am God, who provide for all things, who am creator of all, who make firm the thunder and found the wind, who make the dawn and the mist for certain benefits of men: prepare to call upon me, O Israel, so that when you are prepared to call upon me and have prayed to me, who appoint the things mentioned, you may enjoy favourable seasons and the bestowal of other good things, while I supply you year by year with everything according to the order of nature, so that the year may run fruitfully, the hours pass in their proper spaces, the thunder roar in its season, and a healthy breeze blow with timely winds. But if the thunder and the dawn and the mist and the creation of the spirit are understood allegorically, they will signify not the substance of the thing but a figurative interpretation.

But if, on the other side, someone objects that this is clearly said of the Holy Spirit because what follows is added to the creation of the spirit, "and announces his Christ to all men" (in the Hebrew it reads, "announces his speech to man", namely that he who is creator of all himself also inspires the prophets and through them makes his will known to men), the answer to this too is that certain heretics falsely claim another, besides the Creator, as the Lord and Father of the Saviour, most impiously preaching this; and they do not foresee that their wicked supposition is struck down by God, who says: I, who make firm the thunder and create the wind and make and govern the other parts of the world, announce my Christ to men. For this work of my providence is above all my works, that I should be the cause not only of outward things but also of those that serve the profit of the soul and the benefit of the mind. I think that the saying "I create spirit" is put as if it said "creating the wind". For God by his ordering leads these blasts, which are produced by the movement of the air, according to what we read elsewhere: "Who brings out the winds from his storehouses." And it is well that in the sentence itself he does not say, "who created", but "who creates spirit". For if the statement were about the substance of the Holy Spirit, he would certainly have said "who created"; for he does not always create the same thing. But here, consistently, it is said of the wind, "who creates", because the winds were not made once for all, but in their very existence are made every day. Nor is it without reason that the created spirit is now named without the article, which in Greek signifies singularity, since it is not holy; whereas the Holy Spirit is almost always named with the article, as in αὐτὸ τὸ Πνεῦμα, that is, "the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit"; and elsewhere, τὸ ζῳοποιοῦν, that is, "he it is who gives life". And again: "So also no one has known the things of God except τὸ Πνεῦμα," that is, "the Spirit of God": τὸ γὰρ Πνεῦμα, that is, "for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God." And there are many other passages that could be excerpted from the sacred Scriptures. Where the Holy Spirit is rarely named without the article, it must be understood that he is named with an addition signifying his greatness. He is indeed sometimes named without the article when not he himself but participation in him is shown, as for example "the spirit of Elijah" and "walk by the Spirit", and any similar sayings.

Since, then, from what I have recalled and from many other things it has been shown that the Holy Spirit is not a creature, and he is nowhere numbered among created things but always placed with the Father and the Son, let us now see what lack of difference he has from each of them. At the end of the second epistle he writes to the Corinthians, Paul says: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you all." The present passage shows that there is one reception of the Trinity, since one who has received the grace of Christ has it both through the ministry of the Father and through the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. For it is given by God the Father and by Jesus Christ, according to the saying, "Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ", the Father not giving one grace and the Saviour another. For he describes it as given by the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, made complete by the communion of the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit himself is called grace, according to the saying: "And outraging the Spirit of grace, by whom he was sanctified." In Zechariah too God promises that he will pour out, that is, most abundantly bestow on Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and mercy. For when someone has received the grace of the Holy Spirit, he will have it as given by God the Father and by Jesus Christ our Lord. Since, then, there is one grace of the Father and the Son, made complete by the working of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity is shown to be of one substance. In another place too: "The love of God be with you all," which is both given and confirmed by the Trinity. For the Saviour says: "He who hears my words and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him." For the Saviour's love toward those who are loved is not one thing and the Father's love another. For God loves unto salvation, since "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." Likewise the Son, who is life, loves those whom he wants to become better, so as to give them life and salvation. That is why he says that he loves the one who is loved by the Father. And of him it is set down in the prophet: "And he himself will save them, because he loved them."

That this love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, as are joy and peace, which are supplied by the Father and the Son, the Apostle testifies, saying: "The fruit of the Spirit is joy, peace, love." This love has been poured out in the hearts of believers through the Holy Spirit: "For the love of God," he says, "has been poured out in your hearts in the Holy Spirit." For everyone who has communion with the Holy Spirit has communion by participation in him, according to the saying: "And the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you all." And in another place: "If there is any communion of the Spirit." When he has the wisdom and word of God and truth in all things, he will also have fellowship in holiness in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: "God is faithful, through whom you were called into the communion of his Son." John too writes of the Father: "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have communion with him." And again: "Our communion is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ." Whoever, then, has communion with the Holy Spirit at once has communion with the Father and the Son. And one who has the love of the Father has it from the Son, bestowed through the Holy Spirit. And one who shares in the grace of Jesus Christ has the same grace, given by the Father through the Holy Spirit. In all things it is proved that the working of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is the same. And those whose working is one have also one substance; for things that are consubstantial (ὁμοούσια) with the same substance have the same workings, and things that are of another substance, unlike in substance (ἀνομοούσια), have discordant and different workings.

The unity of the Trinity is taught not only from what we have set out but from countless other passages, a few of which we shall again set down in their order. Peter, rebuking Ananias because, in selling a field whose whole price he said he had offered, he had kept back part of it by fraud, proved the unity of the Holy Spirit with God, not in number but in substance, saying: "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart, so that you lied to the Holy Spirit and kept back part of the price of the field? While it remained, did it not remain yours, and when sold, was it not in your power? Why have you put this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God." If one who lies to the Lord lies to the Holy Spirit, and one who lies to the Holy Spirit lies to God, no one can doubt that the Holy Spirit shares with God. And just as holiness subsists in God, in the same way deity is understood in the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit, whom we have said to be of the same nature as the Father, also does not differ from the divinity of the Son, for the Saviour says to the disciples: "When they bring you into the synagogue before rulers and authorities, do not be anxious how or what you will answer; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that hour what you ought to say. Settle it in your hearts not to prepare your answer beforehand; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which they will not be able to resist or contradict." In these words, saying that they should not be anxious about what to answer their opponents, because in that same hour they would be taught by the Holy Spirit what to answer, he at once added what the ground of their confidence is: "Settle it," he says, "in your hearts not to prepare your answer beforehand; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which they will not be able to resist or contradict." For having said that at the time of answering they would be taught by the Holy Spirit what to answer, he says in what follows: "For I will give you a mouth and wisdom," and so on.

From this it is shown that the wisdom given to the disciples by the Son is the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, and the teaching of the Holy Spirit is the Lord's teaching, and that the Holy Spirit shares one nature and will with the Son. And since it was shown above that the Spirit is by nature a partner of the only-begotten of God and of God the Father, and the Son and the Father are one, according to the saying "I and the Father are one", the Trinity has been shown to be undivided and inseparable by nature. In another Gospel too it is said: "For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you." If, then, the Spirit of the Father speaks in the apostles, teaching them what they ought to answer, and what is taught by the Spirit is wisdom, which we can understand as nothing other than the Son, it plainly appears that the Spirit is of the same nature as the Son and as the Father, whose Spirit he is. And the Father and the Son are one. Therefore the Trinity is joined in unity of substance.

Through another example from the Scriptures too, the unity, nature and power of the Trinity are shown. The Son is called the hand, the right hand and the arm of the Father. As we have often taught, these terms show the lack of difference of one nature. The Holy Spirit is also called the finger of God, according to his union with the nature of the Father and the Son. For in one of the Gospels, against those who disparaged the Lord's signs, saying, "He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons", the Saviour asks: "If I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." Another evangelist, describing this same passage, presents the Son as saying: "But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God." From this it is shown that the finger of God is the Holy Spirit. If, then, the finger is joined to the hand, and the hand to him whose hand it is, the finger too is undoubtedly referred to the substance of him whose finger it is.

But beware lest, cast down to low things and forgetting the subject now under discussion, you paint in your mind the differences of bodily limbs and begin to imagine for yourself sizes and inequalities and the other larger or smaller members of bodies, saying that the finger differs from the hand, and the hand from him whose hand it is, by many inequalities; for Scripture is now speaking of incorporeal things, wishing to show only the unity of substance, not its measure. For as the hand through which one does and works everything is not divided from the body, and is in him whose hand it is, so the finger is not separated from the hand whose finger it is. So when you think of God, reject inequalities and measures, and understand the unity of the finger and the hand and the whole substance: the finger by which the law was written on tablets of stone. Through another Scripture too it is very easy to show the proof of our faith. God alone is called wise: not receiving wisdom from another, nor called wise through participation in some other wisdom. For many are called wise, not by their own nature but by sharing in wisdom. But God, not made wise by sharing in another's wisdom or from elsewhere, is called the only wise, begetting wisdom and making others wise. This wisdom is our Lord Jesus Christ, who is called the power of God and the wisdom of God. The Holy Spirit too is called wisdom: for in the ancient books it is reported that Joshua son of Nun was filled by the Lord with the spirit of wisdom. As, then, God alone is wise, not receiving wisdom from elsewhere but making others wise and begetting wisdom, he alone is wise, apart from all who are called wise by sharing his name ("The multitude of the wise is the salvation of the world"; and "Those who know themselves are wise"; and again "When you are with the wise, you will be wise"); so too the Holy Spirit, not receiving wisdom from elsewhere, is called the spirit of wisdom; for his very subsistence is the spirit of wisdom, and his nature is nothing other than the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of God, on which we have already argued at length in our book On the Sects. So, not to repeat the same things needlessly, let us be content with that earlier discussion.

Since, then, the Spirit of wisdom and truth is inseparably with the Son, he too subsists as wisdom and truth. For if he were a receiver of wisdom and truth, he might at some time sink so low as to cease to have what he had received from elsewhere; but, subsisting himself as wisdom and truth, he is not separated from the Father, who alone is proclaimed by the words of the Scriptures as wise and as truth. We see that the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as he is the spirit of wisdom and truth, has the same circle of unity and substance with the Son, and again that the Son does not differ from the substance of the Father. Since the Son is the image of the invisible God and the form of his substance, all who are shaped and formed according to this image or form are brought into the likeness of God, attaining such a form and image according to the strength of human progress. Likewise, since the Holy Spirit is the seal of God, those who receive the form and image of God, sealed by him, are led in him to the seal of Christ, full of wisdom and knowledge, and of faith besides. "For there are distributions of workings, but it is the same Spirit who works all in all." So while the Father works the manifold fullness of gifts, the Son multiplies it as it subsists through the Holy Spirit. "For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit," and the other gifts listed by the Apostle, to which is added: "All these are worked by one and the same Spirit, distributing to each as he wills."

So when we speak of the working and, so to say, distributing nature of the Holy Spirit, let us not be led away by those who say that the Holy Spirit is an activity of God and not a substance. From very many other places too the subsisting nature of the Holy Spirit is shown, as in what the apostles write: "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us"; for the phrase "it seemed good" signifies not an activity but a nature, especially since something similar is found of the Lord: "As it seemed good to the Lord, so it was done." Again, his words are very often read, as in this: "While they were fasting and ministering," that is, the disciples of Christ, "the Holy Spirit said: Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." This voice, a sign of divinity and authority, shows a substance not created but uncreated. For the Holy Spirit did not call Barnabas and Paul to some other work that is not the Father's and the Son's, since the ministry which the Spirit entrusted and handed over to them is the ministry of the Father and the Son. Paul says to the Galatians: "For he who worked in Peter for the apostleship of the circumcision worked also in me for the Gentiles," and in Barnabas. For they were sent together to the nations by the authority of the Holy Spirit. And with Christ also working in the apostles, the ministry of the Spirit was fulfilled, so that the apostles themselves confess that they speak in Christ and what they saw with their own eyes, and that they became ministers of the Word, that is, of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. And so, as possessing a primacy in the priesthood, they were appointed by Christ as initiators into the faith, when he said: "Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." And as the Apostle writes most rightly: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." Who will not be compelled by the truth itself to accept the lack of difference of the holy Trinity, since there is one faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the washing is given and confirmed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit?

I do not think anyone will be so senseless and mad as to think that baptism given in the name of the Father and the Son without the inclusion of the Holy Spirit is complete; or again in the name of the Father and the Holy Spirit, with the name of the Son left out; or in the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit, without putting first the name of the Father. For though someone may exist with a heart of stone, so to speak, and a mind wholly estranged, who tries to baptize so as to leave out one of the prescribed names, a lawgiver contrary to Christ, he will nevertheless baptize without completeness; indeed, he will be wholly unable to free from sins those whom he thinks he has baptized. From this it is gathered how undivided the substance of the Trinity is: that the Father is truly the Father of the Son, the Son truly the Son of the Father, and the Holy Spirit truly the Spirit of the Father and of God, and moreover of wisdom and truth, that is, of the Son of God. This, then, is the salvation of believers, and the ordering of the church's discipline is completed in this Trinity. For the Saviour sent his disciples to preach the Gospel, and the Father is said to have appointed in the church, for teaching the doctrines of truth, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, the Apostle's statement on this matter agreeing: "And as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God, who has approved our hearts." These same men, whom Christ commanded to be teachers and the Father approved, the Holy Spirit is also said to have appointed stewards and overseers in the church. For when the apostle Paul had gathered at Miletus presbyters from various places and very many churches, he said: "Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, over which the Holy Spirit has placed you as bishops, to rule the church of the Lord, which he acquired with his own blood." If, then, those whom Christ sent to evangelize and baptize the nations, the Holy Spirit set over the church, appointed by the Father's decision, no one can doubt that there is one working and approval of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and consequently the same substance of the Trinity. We must also consider this: that a creature cannot dwell in the heart and the mind, but only God and his Word in the Holy Spirit, as the Father says of certain people: "I will dwell in them and walk among them." And someone addresses him: "But you dwell in the holy place, the praise of Israel." For the maker of all creation dwells on high among the highest. And the only-begotten Son dwells in the pure mind and the heart of believers. For the Apostle says that Christ dwells by faith in the inner man, in the Spirit, writing: "That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts, in the Spirit, in the inner man." He also says of himself: "Christ lives in me"; and again: "Christ who speaks in me"; and the Saviour says: "We will come, I and the Father," no doubt to him who keeps his commands, "and make our dwelling with him." The passage runs thus: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him." In another place too the whole nature of rational creatures is called the Saviour's house.

As the Lord Jesus is over his own house, whose house we are, so the house of Christ is the temple of God, in which the Spirit of the same God dwells. Writing to the Corinthians, Paul says: "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?" If, in the house and temple in which the Father and the Saviour dwell, the Holy Spirit is at once found too, the undivided substance of the Trinity is shown. And not long after in the same epistle he says: "Do you know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, whom you have from God?" Since, then, the Holy Spirit is taught to dwell in the mind and the inner man in the same way as the Father and the Son, it is, I will not say foolish, but impious to call him a creature. For disciplines (I mean virtues and arts) and their opposites, disturbances and ignorance, and feelings can dwell in souls, not as substances but as accidents. But it is impossible for a created nature to dwell in the mind. If this is true, and the Holy Spirit, subsisting beyond any doubt, is an indweller of soul and heart, no one can doubt that he must be believed uncreated with the Father and the Son. From everything, then, that the argument has set out as it proceeds, the Holy Spirit has been shown to be incorruptible and everlasting according to the nature of the Father and the Son, and has removed all doubt and suspicion about himself, lest he be thought one of the created substances. Nor can it be doubted that he is the Spirit of God, whom the Saviour's words in the Gospel declare to go forth from the Father: "When the Comforter comes," he says, "whom I will send you, the Spirit of truth who goes forth from the Father, he will bear witness to me." He calls the coming Holy Spirit the Comforter, giving him a name from his activity, because he not only comforts those he finds worthy of himself and makes them strangers to all sadness and disturbance, but gives them an unbelievable joy and gladness, so much that one may thank God for being held worthy of such a guest and say: "You have put gladness in my heart." For everlasting gladness lives in the hearts of those in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. This Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is sent by the Son, not as in the ministry of angels or prophets or apostles, but as the Spirit of God should be sent by wisdom and truth, having an undivided nature with that same wisdom and truth. For the Son, sent by the Father, is not separated or disjoined from him, remaining in him and having him in himself. Moreover, the Spirit of truth, sent by the Son in the way described, goes forth from the Father, not passing from one place to another. That is both impossible and blasphemous. For if the Spirit went forth from place to place, the Father himself would be found in a place, and the Spirit of truth, circumscribed in a certain space like bodies, would leave one place and move to another. But as the Father, not existing in a place, is beyond all the nature of bodies, so the Spirit of truth is in no way enclosed by the limits of places, since he is incorporeal and, to speak more truly, surpasses all rational creation.

Since, then, it is impossible and impious to believe what we have described of incorporeal beings, the Holy Spirit's going forth from the Father is to be understood as the Saviour testifies that he himself went forth from God, saying: "I went forth from God and have come." And as we separate places and changes of place from incorporeal beings, so we also distinguish from the nature of intellectual beings utterances, I mean inward and outward ones, because these belong to bodies that receive making and have extension. So we must believe, by an ineffable word known only by faith, that the Saviour is said to have gone forth from God and the Spirit of truth to go forth from the Father, as the Spirit says, "who goes forth from me". For though he could have said "from God", or "from the Lord", or "from the Almighty", he touched none of these, but said "from the Father": not that the Father is other than God Almighty, for it is a crime even to think that, but the Spirit of truth is said to go forth from him according to the particular character and conception of the Parent. For although the Saviour often says that he went forth from God, he takes for himself rather from the name "Father" the particular character and, so to say, the intimacy we have often discussed, saying: "I am in the Father and the Father in me"; and elsewhere: "I and the Father are one"; and many other similar sayings that the attentive reader will find in the Gospel. This Holy Spirit, then, who goes forth from the Father, will bear witness, says the Lord, to me, bearing a testimony like that of the Father, of which he says: "The Father who sent me bears witness to me." When the Son sends the Spirit of truth, whom he called the Comforter, the Father sends him at the same time. For the Father does not fail to send when the Son sends, since the Spirit comes by the same will of the Father and the Son. The Saviour too speaks through the prophet, as will be plain to one who reads the whole passage: "And the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit"; for God sends not only the Son but also the Spirit. The apostle also says: "The things now announced to you by those who preached the Gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven." And in the book entitled Wisdom, a voice giving thanks to God is uttered by those who have obtained the divine gifts: "Who has traced out what is in heaven? Who has known your will, unless you gave wisdom and sent your Holy Spirit from on high? And so the paths of those on earth were set right, and men were taught what pleases you." And in the present reading not only is the wisdom of God, that is, his only-begotten Son, given by the Father, but the Holy Spirit too is sent.

In the Gospel itself too it is proclaimed that the Holy Spirit is given and sent by the Father, as the Saviour says: "And I will ask my Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, to be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth"; and again: "But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things." In these sayings the Father is said to give another Paraclete, but not another than the one who is sent by the Son, according to the saying: "But when that Paraclete comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth." He named him another Paraclete not because of a difference of nature but because of a diversity of activity. For since the Saviour holds the role of mediator and envoy, and as high priest makes supplication for our sins, saving for ever those who have come to God through him, since he always lives to intercede for them with the Father, the Holy Spirit has been named Paraclete in another sense, because he comforts those who are in sadness. But do not, from the different activities of the Son and the Holy Spirit, suppose that their natures differ. For in another place the Spirit, the Paraclete, is found acting as an envoy to the Father, as in this: "For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings. And he who searches hearts knows what the Spirit desires, because he asks for the saints according to God."

The Saviour too works the comfort from which the Holy Spirit is named Paraclete in the hearts of those who need it. For it is written: "And he comforted the lowly of the people." That is why one who had obtained this benefit spoke in his praise: "Lord, according to the multitude of the sorrows in my heart, your comforts have gladdened my heart" (or "have loved my soul": it is found written both ways in different copies). The Father too is called the God of all comfort, comforting those who are in tribulation, so that out of their very distress they may obtain through patience first salvation and then the crown of glory. The Spirit, then, the Comforter and holy, the Spirit of truth, is given by the Father to remain always with Christ's disciples, with whom the Saviour himself also is, saying: "For behold, I am with you to the end of the age." And since both the Holy Spirit and the Son are always present to the apostles, it follows that the Father too is with them, since one who receives the Son receives the Father also, and the Son with the Father makes his dwelling with those who have proved worthy of his coming. And where the Holy Spirit is, the Son too is at once found. For since the Holy Spirit is in the prophets, making them foretell the future and do the other things that belong to prophetic activity, the word of God is said to have come to them, so that to the customary formula of the prophets, "Thus says the Lord", is added also "The word that came to Isaiah", or to the others.

That the prophets had the Holy Spirit we know from God's own plain words. For he says: "Whatever I commanded by my Spirit to my servants the prophets." And the Saviour in the Gospel indicates that righteous men, and those who before his coming sang to the people of things to come, were filled with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For when he asked the Pharisees what they thought of Christ, and heard that he was the son of David, he said: "How does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand? If, then, David in the Holy Spirit calls him Lord, how is he his son?" And Peter says to those who shared his faith: "The Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand through the mouth of David concerning Judas," and so on; and again in the same book: "You who through the Holy Spirit spoke by the mouth of David your servant: Why did the nations rage, and the peoples meditate vain things?" Isaiah too, when he had been moved to prophesy by the word of God, is said to have prophesied by the command of the Holy Spirit, as is written at the end of the same Acts: "The Holy Spirit spoke well through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers, saying: Go to this people and say, You will hear with your ears," and the rest. This prophecy, which the apostle Paul affirms was uttered by the Holy Spirit, the prophet's book itself records was spoken by the Lord: "And I heard," says Isaiah, "the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people? And I said: Here I am, send me. Go," he says, "and say to this people: You will hear with your ears," and after other things the Lord himself says: "And they will turn, and I will heal them." And at once the prophet: "How long, O Lord?" For when the Lord had told the prophet to say what is written, and the prophet had answered the Lord's command, "How long, O Lord?", Paul affirms that what was said by the Lord in the prophet was spoken in the Holy Spirit. From this it is clearly shown, as we have often said already, that the will and nature of the Lord and of the Holy Spirit are one, and that in the name "Spirit" the name "Lord" is also understood. For as, in the epistle to the Corinthians, the term "God" applied to the Father and "Lord" applied to the Son neither takes lordship from the Father nor deity from the Son (for by the same reason by which the Father is Lord, the Son is also God), so the Holy Spirit too is called Lord. And if Lord, then also God, as we said a little earlier when we set out the apostle Peter's words to Ananias, who had kept back the money, because deity too is understood in the Holy Spirit.

But since the order of the inquiry began from this point, "But when the Paraclete comes, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things", come now, let us inquire from the saying itself whether we can find anything in it that agrees with what has been said. The Saviour affirms that the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father in his name, and the Saviour's proper name is "Son", since this word marks a sharing of nature and, so to speak, the particular character of the persons. In this name of the Son, the Holy Spirit sent by the Father is to be understood as not a servant, not other than the Son, and not disjoined from him. And as the Son comes in the name of the Father, saying, "I have come in my Father's name" (for it belongs only to the Son to come in the name of the Father, preserving the Son's relation to the Father and the Father's to the Son), so, on the other hand, no one else comes in the name of the Father, but, for example, in the name of the Lord, of God, of the Almighty. You will be able to see this plainly if you reread the prophets attentively. For Moses too, the great minister and servant of God, came in the name of him who is, and in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God saying to him: "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel: He who is has sent me to you"; and again: "You shall say to them: The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has sent me to you." For the sending of righteous servants, such as those of whom he said, "I will command by my Spirit my servants the prophets", was made in the name of God. And since they showed themselves worthy of God, they are said to have come in the name of God; again, advancing further and settled under the rule of the one God, they came in the name of God Almighty. But since the sons of Israel living in Egypt had learned to worship as gods those who are not, and to venerate the elements of the world with divine honour, it followed that Moses was sent to them under the name of "He who is", so that he might free them from false gods and lead them over to the true deity and to the Lord of their fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

As, then, servants who come in the name of the Lord, by the very fact that they are subject and serve, point to the Lord and convey his particular character (for they are the Lord's servants), so the Son, who comes in the name of the Father, bears the particular character and name of the Father, and through these is shown to be the only-begotten Son of God. Since, then, the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father in the name of the Son, having the Son's particular character inasmuch as he is God, though not his sonship, so as to be his son, he shows that he is joined to the Son in unity. That is why he is also called the Spirit of the Son, making sons by adoption those who were willing to receive him. "Because you are sons of God," he says, "the Father sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying: Abba, Father." This Holy Spirit, who comes in the name of the Son, sent by the Father, will teach all things to those who are perfect in the faith of Christ: all things that are spiritual and intellectual, and, to sum it all up briefly, all the mysteries of truth and wisdom. He will teach, not as a teacher and master of a discipline he has acquired from elsewhere (that belongs to those who have learned wisdom and some arts by study and diligence), but as being himself the art and teaching and wisdom, the Spirit of truth, he invisibly instils into the mind the knowledge of divine things. For the Father also teaches his disciples in this way, as one taught by him says: "O God, you have taught me wisdom"; and another boldly cries out: "You have taught me, O God, from my youth"; and so all become taught. The Son of God too, the wisdom of God and the truth, so teaches those who share in him that he teaches the discipline not by art but by nature. That is why, when the disciples are taught, they call him alone master. These same disciplines, given by the Father and the Son into the hearts of believers, the Holy Spirit ministers to those who have ceased to be merely natural. "For the natural man does not perceive the things of the Spirit," thinking what is said to be foolishness; but one who has cleansed his mind of disturbances will be filled with the disciplines of the Holy Spirit, that is, with words of wisdom and knowledge, so much that one who has received them says: "But God has revealed it to us through the Holy Spirit." And to those who have so prepared themselves God grants the Spirit of wisdom and revelation for knowledge of himself; and those who receive the Spirit of wisdom are made wise not from elsewhere but by the Holy Spirit himself, and from him they understand the Lord and whatever is of God's will, and they know that same Spirit by his own revelation, so as to know that these things have been given them by the Lord; so that one who has obtained the spirit of revelation and wisdom is fit to preach the doctrines of truth, relying not on human art but on God's, as we can hear one of them, the Apostle, saying: "My preaching and my speech were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of the power of God." The power equal to the Spirit we can interpret as none other than Christ our Lord. For he says to the disciples: "You will receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you"; and the angel says to Mary: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." So the creative power of the Most High, the Holy Spirit coming upon the Virgin Mary, fashioned the body of Christ; using it as a temple, he was born without the seed of a man.

From this it is shown that the Holy Spirit is creator, as we have already briefly shown in our book On Doctrines. And in the Psalm it is said to the Lord: "You will take away your Spirit from them, and they will fail and return to their earth. Send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth." Nor is it surprising if the Holy Spirit is the maker of the Lord's body alone, since, joined with the Father and the Son, he created by the same power all things that the Father and the Son created. For it says: "Send forth your Spirit, and they will be created." We have already often shown that the Holy Spirit is of the same working as the Father and the Son, and that in the same working there is one substance; and conversely, that things that are consubstantial (ὁμοούσια) do not have different workings. And to set down another testimony that can help us in faith in the Holy Spirit, in the Gospel the passage runs thus: "I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now. But when that Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will announce to you the things to come. He will glorify me, because he will receive of mine and announce it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said to you that he will receive of mine and announce it to you."

From these sacred words we are taught that, after Jesus had taught his disciples many things, he said: "I still have very many things to tell you," because this word, "I still have many things to tell you", is not addressed to just any newcomers wholly empty of God's grace, but to those who, though hearers of his words, had not yet attained everything. Handing on to them whatever could suffice, he put off the rest to a future time: things they could not know without the teaching of the Holy Spirit, since before the Lord's passion the Holy Spirit had not been given to men, as the evangelist says: "For the Spirit had not been given to anyone, because Jesus was not yet glorified," calling it Jesus' glorification to taste death for all. So after the resurrection, appearing to his disciples and breathing into their faces, he said: "Receive the Holy Spirit"; and again: "You will receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you." When he comes into the hearts of believers, they are filled with words of wisdom and knowledge, and, made spiritual in this way, they receive the teaching of the Holy Spirit, which can lead them into all truth. For since the hour had not yet come in which they were to be filled with the Holy Spirit when he said to them, "I still have many things to tell you", he consequently added: "but you cannot bear them now." For, still serving the type of the law, its shadow and images, they could not look upon the truth, whose shadow the law bore, and so could not bear spiritual things. "But when that one comes," he says, that is, "the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all truth," transferring you by his teaching and instruction from the death of the letter to the life-giving spirit, in which alone the truth of all Scripture lies. So the Spirit of truth himself, entering a pure and simple mind, will seal in you the knowledge of truth, and, always adding new things to old, will guide you into all truth.

Someone too, addressing his prayers to God the Father, says: "Guide me in your truth," that is, in your Only-begotten, who testifies in his own words: "I am the truth." This perfection God grants by sending the Spirit of truth to guide believers into all truth. Then, in what follows, about the Spirit of truth who is sent by the Father and is the Paraclete, the Saviour, who is also the truth, says: "For he will not speak from himself", that is, not without me, and without my and the Father's will, because he is inseparable from my will and the Father's, because he is not from himself but from the Father and me; for his very subsisting and speaking come to him from the Father and me. I speak the truth, that is, I inspire what he speaks, since he is the Spirit of truth. But speaking and saying in the Trinity must not be taken according to our custom, by which we converse and speak to one another, but according to the manner of incorporeal natures, and especially of the Trinity, which places its will in the hearts of believers and of those who are worthy to hear it: this is what saying and speaking is.

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.

But if you wish to understand this of the Jews who crucified the Lord and Saviour and therefore embittered the Holy Spirit, what is written, "he himself fought against them", must be referred to that understanding, that they were handed over to the Romans when the wrath of God came upon them to the end. For in the whole world and in all regions they alone are exiles from their homeland and wander in a foreign land, possessing neither their ancient city nor their own dwellings; they have received what they did to the prophets and to their Saviour. For since they were bloodthirsty and always gripped by insane fury, they not only killed the prophets and stoned those sent to them, but, going on to the summit of impiety, they betrayed and crucified the Lord and Saviour, who had deigned to come down to earth for the salvation of all; and therefore they were driven out of the city which they had stained with the blood of the prophets and of Christ. In this sense, then, we must understand that they were fought against by the Lord, not for a short time but for all the age to come, to the end of the world. For, as we said, fugitives and captives, they wander among all nations, possessing no city and no land of their own. Yet since he who fought against them is by nature kind and merciful, he gives them a place for repentance if they are willing to turn to better things. That is why it is said, "He remembered the days of the age." For remembering future times, he has opened the closed door to them in part, so that after the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, then all Israel (whoever is worthy of this name) may be saved. For although they burst out into such rashness as to kill him who had been sent for their sake, saying, "His blood be on us and on our children", yet God raised up from the earth him in whose heart he had remained three days and three nights, the shepherd of his sheep. For the passage runs: "Who brought up from the earth the shepherd of his sheep."

That the shepherd of the sheep of God, now described in the prophet's words, is the Lord, we learn more plainly in the Gospel, the Saviour himself testifying: "I am the good shepherd, and I lay down my life for my sheep." And again: "My sheep hear my voice." After all this the prophet says: "Where is he who put his Holy Spirit upon them?" He marvels from how great happiness to how great miseries they have come, and in a way he says: He who had redeemed them, who had put his Holy Spirit in them, dwelling with them, where is he now? Where has he gone? He has forsaken them, because they forsook him first and provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger. God had once put his Holy Spirit in them, while they were still good and strove to obey his precepts. For the Holy Spirit is put only into those who, abandoning vices, follow the choir of virtues and live according to them and by them in the faith of Christ. But if, as negligence gradually creeps in, they begin to slide toward worse things, they stir up against themselves the Holy Spirit who dwells in them, and turn to enmity him who had given him. Something like this the Apostle too says, writing to the Thessalonians: "For God did not call us to uncleanness but to sanctification."

"Therefore whoever despises", or, as the Greek has it better, "whoever transgresses", "transgresses not against man but against God, who has given his Holy Spirit in you." For in these words God, calling to sanctification through faith, that is, so that believers might become of the Holy Spirit, gave them the Holy Spirit. And as long as they kept God's commands, the Holy Spirit whom they received remained in them. But when they fell through slippery love and slid into uncleanness, they despised, or transgressed against, the Lord who had given them the Holy Spirit, so that they should not serve uncleanness but be sanctified. So those who have committed these things will pay the penalty, as despising not a man but God. And to know that the Holy Spirit who is given to believers is Lord, let us learn from the words of the prophet Isaiah himself, who presents the Lord saying to someone: "My Spirit is in you, and I have put my words in your mouth." The present passage shows that one who has received the Spirit of God possesses with him the words of God too, namely words of knowledge and wisdom. And in another place of the same prophet God says: "I have put my Spirit upon him." He, then, who put his Holy Spirit in them records that Moses was sanctified by his right hand, whether that famous man, the initiator into God's mysteries, of whom the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, "Moses my servant", or his Law, which is written in the Old Instrument. For I remember having often read that "Moses" is used for the law, as in the Apostle: "To this very day, when Moses is read." And Abraham says to the rich man placed in torment: "They have Moses and the prophets." And there it is clearly proved that "Moses" signifies not the man mentioned above but the law.

And what is the right hand of God that led Moses, if not our Lord and Saviour? For he is the right hand of the Father, through whom he saves and exalts and does mighty deeds, as is said of God elsewhere: "His right hand and his holy arm have saved for him." And again: "The right hand of the Lord has done mighty deeds; the right hand of the Lord has exalted me; I shall not die but live, and tell the works of the Lord." That this voice is uttered in the person of the Lord's Man, whom the only-begotten Son of God deigned to assume from the virgin, is clearly proved by the passage itself, since he is the right hand of God, as is written in the Acts of the Apostles: that he was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, born of the Virgin, the Holy Spirit coming upon her and the power of the Most High overshadowing her. Of him David prophesied in the Spirit that, rising from the dead, he was taken up into heaven, lifted up by the right hand of God. It is written there thus: "Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that he was not abandoned in hell, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this gift on us, which you see and hear; for David did not ascend into heaven." No one doubts that the Lord Jesus is the one exalted by the right hand of God and rising from hell, as he himself testified in the words of Scripture. He, then, who rose from the dead says: "I lay down and slept, and I rose, because the Lord raised me up."

He, then, taken up into heaven by the word of God, is proclaimed to have been lifted up by the right hand of God of which we spoke above, and to have received the promises of the Holy Spirit from the Father, and to have poured him out on believers, so that they spoke in the tongues of all peoples the great deeds of God. For the Lord's Man too received communion with the Holy Spirit, as is written in the Gospels: "Jesus, then, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan"; and in another place: "Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee." These things we must take, without any cavilling, in a sense of piety concerning the Lord's Man, who is the whole Christ, the one Jesus, Son of God: not that he is one and another, but that we speak of one and the same as if of another, according to the nature of God and of man; and because God the Word, the only-begotten Son of God, admits neither change nor increase, since he is the fullness of all good things.

Enough and more has been said on the prophet's testimony; let us go on to the rest, so that, as we know that the Father and the Son make men holy and good by communion with themselves, so it may be taught that the Holy Spirit too makes believers good and holy by participation in himself, and from this that he is of one substance with the Father and the Son. It is said to the Lord in the Psalms: "Your good Spirit will lead me into the right land." We know that in some copies it is written, "Your Holy Spirit." In Ezra, without any ambiguity, he is called the good Spirit: "You gave your good Spirit to make them understand." That the Father sanctifies, the Apostle writes, saying: "May the God of peace sanctify you completely." And the Saviour says: "Holy Father, sanctify them in the truth, because your word is truth", plainly meaning: in me, who am your Word and your truth, sanctify them by faith and fellowship with me. And elsewhere God is called good: "No one is good but God alone." We have also shown above that the Son sanctifies, Paul agreeing in these words: "For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one", meaning by him who sanctifies Christ, and by the sanctified those who can say: "Christ became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification." He is also called the Spirit of sanctification. Hence it is said to him: "And all the sanctified are under your hands, and they are under you." Our Lord Jesus Christ is good and was begotten of a good Father, and of him we read: "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good." Let those give thanks who either beg from him pardon for sins or thank his clemency for benefits bestowed. The Holy Spirit too sanctifies those he deigns to fill, as has already been shown above, when we showed that he can be shared and received by many at once. And now in the present testimony of Paul he is shown as the giver of sanctification, when he says: "But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose us as firstfruits for salvation, in the sanctification of the Holy Spirit and faith in the truth." For in this place too God's gifts are understood to be in the Spirit, since in the sanctification of the Spirit faith and truth are possessed together.

Since, then, we have said these things rightly and piously and according to the truth, the terms holiness and goodness are applied equally to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as is the very name "Spirit". For the Father is called Spirit, as there: "God is Spirit"; and the Son is called Spirit: "The Lord," it says, "is the Spirit." But the Holy Spirit is always reckoned under the name of Holy Spirit; not that he is placed with the Father and the Son only because they share the name "Spirit", but because, being one nature, they possess one name too. But since the word "spirit" signifies many things, we must briefly list the things to which the name is applied. Wind is called spirit, as in Ezekiel: "The third part you shall scatter to the spirit", that is, to the wind. And if you choose to take literally what is written, "With a violent spirit you will shatter the ships of Tarshish", spirit there means nothing other than wind. Solomon too, among many other gifts, received this from God, that he should know the violence of spirits, showing that what he received here was nothing other than knowing the rushing blasts of the winds and the causes on which their nature depends. The soul too is called spirit, as in the Epistle of James: "As your body without the spirit is dead", and so on. Here most plainly spirit means nothing other than the soul. In this understanding Stephen too, calling his soul spirit, says: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And as to what is said in Ecclesiastes, "Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes downward?", it must be considered whether the souls of beasts too are called spirits. It is also said that there is another spirit in man, besides the soul and besides our spirit, of which Paul writes: "For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him?" For if anyone wishes to argue that the soul is signified here by spirit, who is the man whose thoughts and hidden things and secrets of the heart no one knows except his spirit? For it is utterly foolish to want to understand this of the body alone.

But if someone tries to slip in with clever fraud, claiming that these words are written of the Holy Spirit, he will cease to assert the lie if he considers the words themselves carefully. For it is written thus: "For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him? So also no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God." For as man is one thing and God another, so the spirit of man, which is in him, is distinguished from the Spirit of God, who is in him, whom we have often shown to be the Holy Spirit. And in another place too the same Apostle, distinguishing the Spirit of God from our spirit, says: "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit", meaning that the Spirit of God, that is, the Holy Spirit, bears witness to our spirit, which we have just said is the spirit of man. To the Thessalonians also he says: "May your spirit, soul and body be kept whole." For as the soul is one thing and the body another, so the spirit is other than the soul, which in its own place is specifically named. He prayed that it might be kept whole with the soul and body, since it is incredible and blasphemous that the Apostle should pray that the Holy Spirit be kept whole, who can receive neither diminution nor increase. So, as we said, the Apostle's word testifies here about the human spirit.

The higher, rational powers, which Scripture usually calls angels and powers, are also called by the name of spirit, as there: "You who make your angels spirits"; and elsewhere: "Are they not all ministering spirits?" I think that what is written in the Acts of the Apostles also belongs to this sense: "The Spirit of the Lord caught up Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more", that is, an angel of the Lord, lifting Philip on high, carried him to another place. Other rational creatures too, sliding of their own will from good to evil, are called most wicked spirits and unclean spirits, as there: "When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man"; and in what follows: "He takes seven other spirits more wicked than himself." Demons too are called spirits in the Gospels. But this too should be noted: the opposing spirit is never signified by "spirit" simply, but with some addition, as "unclean spirit" and "spirit of a demon"; whereas those spirits that are holy are called simply spirits, without any addition.

It should be known too that the name "spirit" also means a man's will and the intention of his mind. For the Apostle, wanting a virgin to be holy not only in deed but in mind, that is, not only in body but in the inner movement of the heart, says: "That she may be holy in body and spirit", meaning the will by spirit and deeds by body. Consider whether what is written in Isaiah has the same meaning: "And those who err in spirit will know understanding." For those who by an error of judgment think some things good in place of others will receive understanding, so that their error may be corrected and they may choose what is right instead of what is perverse. See whether this too shows the same: "One strength of your spirit." And above all, the word "spirit" signifies in the holy Scriptures a higher and mystical understanding, as there: "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life", calling letter the simple narrative, plain according to the history, and spirit the holy and spiritual knowledge of what is read. In this sense fits also: "We are the circumcision, who serve the Lord in spirit and do not trust in the flesh." For those who do not cut the flesh by the letter but circumcise the heart by the spirit, removing from it everything superfluous that is close and friendly to generation, are truly circumcised in spirit, Jews in secret, and true Israelites in whom there is no guile. Passing beyond the shadows and images of the Old Testament, as true worshippers they worship the Father in spirit and truth: in spirit, because they have passed beyond bodily and lowly things; in truth, because, leaving types and shadows and patterns, they have come to the substance of truth itself; and, as we have already said, despising the lowly and bodily simplicity of the words, they have reached a spiritual knowledge of the law.

For the present, according to the capacity of our understanding, we have touched on how many things "spirit" signifies; in due time, if Christ grants it, we shall discuss what each signifies. Sometimes our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, the Son of God, is also called Spirit: "For the Spirit of wisdom is kind." And in another place: "The Lord is the Spirit", as we said before, where we also added, "God is Spirit", not by a mere sharing of the name but by a fellowship of nature and substance. For as it sometimes happens that things whose substance is different are called by a common word, and these are called homonyms (ὁμώνυμα), so with things whose nature and substance are the same, equality of nature is joined to the sharing of the word, and the discipline of the dialecticians calls these synonyms (συνώνυμα). Therefore the word "Spirit", and any other that is usually used in the Trinity, for example "holy", "good", and the like, of which we spoke a little before, is a synonym.

We have necessarily come round to these points so that, since the name "spirit" is scattered frequently in the divine Scriptures, we may not slip on the name but take each instance according to the variety of places and meanings. So, examining with all zeal and care where and how the word "Spirit" is used, let us crush the sophisms and deceitful snares of those who assert that the Holy Spirit is a creature. For reading in the prophet, "I am he who makes firm the thunder and creates spirit", through ignorance of the manifold use of the word in this matter they thought that the Holy Spirit was shown by this word, whereas here the name "spirit" means wind. And hearing in Zechariah that the Lord said that he is the one who creates the spirit of man within him, they thought that the Holy Spirit was signified in this chapter too, not noticing that the name "spirit" signifies the soul of man, or the spirit which we have already said is in man. So, as we said before, let us consider how each thing is said, lest through ignorance we fall into the pit of error. For in other matters an error arising from a shared word brings confusion and shame to the one who erred; but a slip into falsehood about heavenly and divine things leads to eternal punishment and Tartarus, especially when one who has once been deceived refuses to come to his senses but shamelessly defends his error. It was fitting, too, and the size of the volume required, that the discourse should come to an end.

But since a question arises against what we argued above, which we passed over then so as not to break the thread of the discourse and set an impious dispute in the midst of pious preaching, I think it necessary to answer it as proposed and leave to the reader's judgment what he thinks of it. When we argued above that no creature can fill the soul or mind of a man by substance, but only the Trinity, since the mind is filled by created things only by way of activity, error of will, or virtue, our question arose as if overturning that statement: that a created substance, which in the Scriptures is called Satan, enters into some and is said to fill the heart of some. For to the man who, while professing otherwise, kept back for himself half the price of the field he had sold, the apostle Peter said: "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart?" And the Saviour himself says of Judas that Satan entered into him. To this we shall reply afterwards. For now let us discuss the text "Why has Satan filled your heart?", how Satan fills someone's mind and the governing part of the heart: not by entering into him and into his mind, and, so to speak, going in through the entrance of the heart, since this power belongs to the Trinity alone; but as a cunning, wicked, false, and fraudulent deceiver, he draws the human soul into the feelings of wickedness through the thoughts and incitements to vices of which he himself is full. So Elymas the magician too, a son of the devil, subsisting in malice and wickedness, full of all guile and malice, is written to have Satan as his father, this will having been turned in him, as it were, by habit of vice into nature. So the apostle Paul, rebuking and reproving him, says: "O you full of all iniquity and all guile, son of the devil, enemy of the righteousness of God." For because he was crafty and cunning, and had taken into himself every guile of deceit, he is called a son of the devil, since the devil filled his whole governing part with fraud, iniquity and all malice, deceiving and beguiling him so much that Satan himself was thought to have filled his soul and to dwell in the man whom he had prepared as his minister and servant for all the deceits of his perversity.

As to the second example we had set out, that Satan entered into Judas, this must be said. The devil, observing by certain movements and signs of action to which vices Judas's heart was most inclined, caught him open to the snares of avarice; and, having found the door of greed, he put into his mind how he might get the money he desired and, for the sake of gain, become the betrayer of his master and Saviour, exchanging piety for silver and receiving the price of the crime from the Pharisees and Jews. This occasion of thought gave Satan room to enter his heart and fill him with a most evil will. So he entered not by substance but by activity, since to enter into someone belongs to that nature alone which is shared by many. So the devil is not shareable; he is not creator but subsists as a creature. That is why, being alterable and changeable, he fell from holiness and virtue. We said above that what is shareable (μετοχικόν), that is, what is received by participation, is incorruptible and unchangeable, and consequently eternal; and that what can be changed has been made and has a beginning; and that what is incorruptible is everlasting both backward and forward. So the devil does not fill anyone, as some think, by participation in his nature or substance, nor does he become his indweller; but he is believed to dwell in the one he has filled through fraud, deception and malice. By this deceit he also entered the elders who turned to cruelty against Susanna, filling their souls with the fire of lust and the late pleasure of old age. For it is written: "And the two elders came, full of wicked thought." With these snares he also filled the whole people of the Jews, as the prophet says of it: "Woe, sinful nation, people full of sins, most wicked seed, lawless sons." For the devil is the wicked seed, and his sons, because of their iniquity and fullness, are called sinners. And if he is not received by participation of substance by those who are named his sons in the Scriptures (for it has often been shown that this is impossible in creatures), neither can anyone else receive him by participation of substance, but only by taking on a most deceitful will. For we have said that the activity and pursuit not only of good works but also of evil ones are found in creatures, but that only the nature and substance of the Trinity can enter into others.

The proposed question has, I think, been answered fully. But since it seems silly and foolish to answer fatuities and to want to refute whatever comes into the mouths of the impious (for it is not so much impiety to propose wicked things as to want to discuss wicked things with an opponent), I pass over what they usually throw out, crying out against us with sacrilegious audacity: "If the Holy Spirit is not created, he is either the brother of God the Father, or the uncle of the only-begotten Jesus Christ, or the son of Christ, or the grandson of God the Father, or himself the Son of God, and then the Lord Jesus Christ will no longer be only-begotten, since he has another brother." Wretched and pitiable men, not perceiving that about incorporeal and invisible things one may not argue according to the nature of corporeal and visible things! Brother or uncle, grandson or son, are names of bodies and words of human weakness. But the Trinity goes beyond all these designations. And whenever it falls under any of them, it is spoken of in our names and inadequate words, not according to its own nature. Since, then, holy Scripture says no more about the Trinity than that God is the Father of the Saviour and that the Son was begotten by the Father, we must think only what is written. And once it has been shown that the Holy Spirit is uncreated, we must consequently understand that he whose substance is not created is rightly joined with the Father and the Son.

Let these things suffice for the present, said according to the poverty of our speech, showing my fear at having dared to speak of the Holy Spirit. For whoever blasphemes against him will not be forgiven, neither in this age nor in the age to come; and no mercy or pardon will be reserved for one who has trampled on the Son of God and outraged the Spirit of his grace, in whom he was sanctified. This must be understood of God the Father too. For one who blasphemes against him and acts impiously will be tormented without pardon, with no one interceding with the Lord for him, as it is written: "But one who sins against the Lord God, who will pray for him?" And one who denies the Son before men will be denied by him before the Father and his angels. So, since no pardon is granted to those who blaspheme against the Trinity, every care and caution must be taken so that, discussing it even in a short and small treatise, we do not slip. Rather, if anyone wishes to read this volume, we ask that he cleanse himself from every evil work and from wicked thoughts, so that with an enlightened heart he may understand what is said, and, full of holiness and wisdom, forgive us wherever the result has not fulfilled our wish, and consider only with what intent each thing was said, not in what words it was expressed. For as we boldly claim for ourselves, according to our conscience, a sense of piety, so, as far as speaking of it is concerned, we simply confess that rhetorical charm and eloquence, in the sequence and texture of the discourse, are far from us. For our aim, discussing the holy Scriptures, was to understand what is written, and not to be unaware of the inexperience and measure of our speech.