On the Trinity 2.7

On the divine operations and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The oracles, then, having shown with great generosity the divine and supreme nature of the Holy Spirit, which is above life and above mind, reveal also his most caring divine operation, which matches it, in this way:

1. That he gives life, since he is the Spirit of God, who gives life to all things; according to Paul, the trumpet of the faith, who writes to the Romans: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”; and again: “He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you”; and to the Corinthians: “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to consider anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” By “letter” he meant the Mosaic law, which prescribes an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and punishes one who lives foolishly; and by “the Spirit gives life” he meant the Holy Spirit of God, who has made us no longer under law but under grace, and has charged us not to repay evil for evil, but rather to return good for evil. “For if,” he says, “your enemy is hungry, feed him”; and again to the same: “The first Adam became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving Spirit”; and to the Galatians: “He who sows to the Spirit will reap from the Spirit eternal life”; and according to John, speaking from the Savior: “It is the Spirit who gives life.” Showing this very thing, that he will work the resurrection together with God, as his Spirit, Ezekiel prophesies: “Thus says the Lord to these dry bones: Behold, I will bring into you the Spirit of life, and I will put sinews upon you, and bring up flesh upon you, and spread skin over you, and I will put my Spirit upon you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” That which is life in its substance, then, and the life-giving power, has neither beginning, nor end, nor alteration; and what is not subject to these is God by nature and in truth, since he possesses from himself the distinctive attributes of God the Father. For nothing created can be the cause of life or show life in itself; and all things deprived of the divine Spirit are dead; “for in him we live and move and are,” as the Acts of the Apostles said. For if all things that come into being are also corruptible, and things that are corrupted undergo [the loss] of life, how could they bestow on others the things of which they themselves are in need? We are given life, then, by the Holy Spirit, as also by him who said: “I am the resurrection and the life.”

2. That, because of the identity of the Godhead and the one operation, the Scriptures say that Jesus Christ in the form of the servant was raised sometimes [by the Father, sometimes by himself, sometimes by the Spirit], thus. The Acts: “This man God raised on the third day.” John, from the Savior: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But he was speaking of the temple of his body”; and again: “I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again.” Peter in the first Epistle: “Christ died once for sins on our behalf, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.”

3. That he creates the great creature, man, and raises from the dead, and gives life, and … [after the flood caused by hu]man lawlessness the Holy Spirit renewed the earth again and warmed it into life without labor and, as it were, of itself, since he is a fellow creator and equal worker with God, the master craftsman who brought it into being in the beginning; as we are allowed to know from what these men have declared. Job: “The divine Spirit is he who made me; and the breath of the Almighty is he who teaches me.” David in Psalm 103: “You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.” The Apostle confirms this, writing the second time to the Corinthians: “So if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” And in Psalm 32: “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm …” … [crea]tor and good God, the Spirit of God, remaining forever, supplies an abiding friendship to creation, and with indissoluble … and supports all things by his own power; and that it is unlawful to call a creature him who creates and strengthens the creatures of God. For, mystically presenting him as working together with God and consubstantial with him, being his Spirit and finger, as was shown in the first book, [David] prophesies in Psalm 8: “For I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers.” And Moses in Genesis [presents] God the Father saying to the Son and his Holy Spirit: “Let us make man in our image and likeness, and let them rule over the things on the earth.” For God did not take angels or other spirits as fellow workers or counselors, since the servant does not know what his master is doing. Nor is he ever found to have taken a creature along with him for the work of creation (as David sings in Psalm 32: “He who alone fashioned their hearts”; and in Psalm 138: “My bone was not hidden from you, which you made in secret”; and as Paul writes to the Romans: “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”; that is, no one of creation; for the “who,” being broad, makes this plain). By not saying “Make,” but “Let us make,” he showed that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not assistants, but of one power and will; and by adding “in our image and likeness,” that the Trinity has one substance; and that this was not said to the angels, who have the image and likeness, infinitely and incomparably less (if it is not dangerous to say this, as a man), of the formless, shapeless, and ineffable Trinity. Therefore the same writer of the world’s making added: “And God made man; in the image of God he made him; male and female he made them; and he blessed them”; and again, “God saw that it was good”; in which words again the perfection, harmony, ordering power, and entire generosity of the self-complete and creative Trinity are signified mystically. For Moses, or rather God who sounded in him, did not think these things fit for theaters and for the crowd, but only for as many as would not transgress against them. For “God made,” that is, the Son, “man in the image of God,” that is, of the Father, “he made him; and God saw,” that is, the Spirit, “that it was good; and he blessed them,” that is, he sanctified them. And “in the image,” as it seems to me, must be understood thus: that from the divine breath we have the immortal spirit, and a mind that is always running and steering toward what it should, and wise speech pleasing to him who gave it, which, with faith, can become the cause of childbearing, of life, of the raising of the dead, and of the moving of mountains; and besides this, that we have received a share also in his goodness. [A misplaced line from Rom 8:11 follows in the scan: “… will give life also to our mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in us.”] And [Paul], announcing to the Hebrews that the ages came into being, and creation was established, by the Holy Spirit, and … calling the Spirit the Utterance of God, as has already been mentioned, writes: “By faith we understand that the ages were framed by the Utterance of God, so that what is seen did not come into being from things that appear”; and again: “Upholding all things by the Utterance of his power.” And the Psalmist: “In wisdom you have made all things,” that is, in your Spirit and your Son. How, then, is the divine Spirit not without beginning, and creator, and properly God? He who is inseparable from him who breathed him forth and from the creating Son; by whom the ages, and whatever is created, were brought into being; who bears and governs all things by his own power; who, immediately upon the coming into being of heaven, earth, and sea, was borne upon the water and made it life-bearing and life-nourishing. For just as the saying in Job about the Son, “Who alone stretched out the heaven,” does not remove from the work of creation the Father, from whom are all things and in whom all things hold together (for how else could these things be true?), so neither is it holy to thrust the Spirit of God, the Spirit of wisdom, power, and holiness, out of being a fellow creator with God. And what greater proof of this could be found than that the Spirit of God, in each one’s baptism, renews and sanctifies, and [restores] to the better and first [state], so that he is mentioned together [with God], as when the Apostle cries out concerning those who through rebirth have been made complete and expect to enjoy the greatest achievement of all: “That you may become according to the image of him who created you”; and as David too prophesies in Psalm 101: “A people being created will praise the Lord.” If he did not have fellowship of substance, lordship, and operation with the Father and with the Son, “through whom all things came into being,” he would not renew and sanctify. Therefore Christ, together with the all-holy Spirit, after the resurrection, re-creating and sanctifying man, who had been corrupted by disobedience, breathed into the faces of the disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”; fulfilling the prophecy of Nahum, which, out of irrepressible longing for the immeasurable beauty of the event, tells what was to come as already happening: “He has come up from the earth who breathes into your face and delivers you from affliction.” And that to sanctify, which the divine Spirit by nature does, is also to create, David testifies, singing: “Create a clean heart in me, O God”; that is, sanctify me, so that I may be renewed, having been corrupted by sin; for how could another heart have been created for him? And he says with it: “And renew an upright Spirit within me”; meaning, grant me your venerable Spirit, who surpasses all things. “So that,” he says, “appearing pure by his sanctification, I may become his worthy temple. For only through his oversight and that of your Son, and you yourself, Master, set your mark on us, and we receive the healing of all evils, and come to firm hopes of every eternal good.” For it is plain to us that David asks that he be renewed in him; for how could the Spirit, who was already his, be renewed, as though only now coming upon him? Moreover, Scripture, knowing that to sanctify is greater and more necessary than to create, said of the wretched Judas, who lost his sanctification: “It would have been good for that man if he had not been born”; since, it means, he did the most unprofitable thing of all, and sold the Master for no wrong, and exchanged life for silver. And indeed, concerning the servant’s form in the ineffable dispensation, of which John says, “And the Word became flesh,” and Paul, “He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” Solomon said, “Wisdom has built herself a house”; and Matthew, because of the sameness of the divine nature and operation, set it out thus: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was thus: when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” And the angel too said: “For that which is begotten in her is from the [Holy] Spirit”; [and the archangel: “The Holy Spirit will come upon] you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the holy one who is born will be called Son of the Most High.” It must be remembered, then, that because of the heretics’ idle chatter … then birth. For mocking our [Scrip]tures they say: “Is Christ, then, the son of the Spirit?”; not hearing these things faithfully, nor what he said to the apostles: “You do not know of what Spirit the Son of Man is.” If, then, because the Father is true God, his operation is for that reason divine in every way and altogether, then, since the operation of the Holy Spirit is seen to be equal and like to it, for that reason he too is true God. For otherwise, if the Father’s operation were better than that of the Son or of the Spirit, why did the Spirit or the Son work toward us at all, bringing in the inferior power, if indeed they are unlike, as the heretics say? But if the fullness of the Son and of the Spirit is useful and saving, the Son or the Spirit will be unlike in nothing. For neither would the Most High, who is rich in mercy, have borrowed from one inferior and poorer, nor would we have been worked upon in two ways and unequally. And indeed, what reason is there that man should be, say, the maker and creator of good or evil things, but the Spirit not be this? But man does this or that by God’s permission; and from a substance prepared beforehand by God, he makes some lifeless thing he wishes, but not the substance itself, as we have already said. But the Spirit both acts with his own authority and brings substance into being out of nothing, since he is the fellow worker and the breath of the Almighty. Therefore God in Ezekiel, showing that our spirit is renewed, but the Holy Spirit renews, and that he is not simply a spirit but properly his own, declares as follows: “And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit; and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh; and I will put my Spirit within you.” But they, making light even of these divine words, and being at a complete loss for just arguments, have finally resorted to the arts from outside, and try to transfer to other and other things what has been said so clearly. For they say in these very words: “He who created the dead alone raises those who die. For a painter would not repair the ruined work of an architect, nor a hunter that of a shipwright, nor a runner that of a builder; but an architect repairs an architect’s work, and a shipwright a shipwright’s. But the Holy Spirit,” he says, “neither raised the dead nor created; for human nature was created once,” he says, “in Adam, and neither another beside it nor many times. Indeed Eve too was created together with Adam in the common principle of nature, but was formed afterward.” But we, the orthodox, since to create and to raise the dead are above all the marks of divine power, confess that the Holy Spirit, who has done these things, is God; for “by the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their powers”; and since from the beginning, when all things were being created, he was present and was inseparably joined in Godhead and operation, for this reason he is also present and mentioned together when they are renewed. For, as these very men have said, to renew belonged to no other substance, that is, nature, than to that of the one who created. Concerning those who exist and conduct their lives as though they did not exist, but are now created spiritually and in a more divine way, David and Paul proclaim, as was said before, and as we shall find in many places. For all time would fail me if I wished to mention all of them in every place. If, then, the Scriptures did not think one way and those men another, first they would at some time have taken to heart the divine writings mentioned in this book and in the one before it; for what would they say, on hearing these things, that he who gave these oracles was teaching? Second, they would have reckoned that, just as when the Son created the Father is co-maker by his good pleasure, so too is his Spirit; and they would not have brought the things of the blessed Trinity, unmixed with all things, into a comparison with things unlike it, which need one another’s help and the help of time, and do not fulfill their purpose readily and blamelessly in every respect; a Trinity which has even left us makers of words and repairers of materials; saying things which they ought never to have said. For what are we, or how great are we, compared with God the Father, who once willed that all things should come into being through his Son, the Word? Certainly of him who was of the seed of David and Abraham and of the root of Jesse according to the flesh, it has been proclaimed, as was said just now: “For that which is begotten in her is from the Holy Spirit”; so that from this too it might be acknowledged that the sanctifying Spirit was a fellow worker with the beneficent Creator. That is why it is also written: “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness”; since the guiding Spirit was with him, as God with God, and as holding all things together and present everywhere, with him on whom all things are established, who is in all things and fills the … [according to them,] neither is the Father creator, or raiser of the dead. For all things came into being through the Son without toil. For toil is a passion, and passion is a road toward corruption. And not denying that the Master took flesh without sin from the nature of Adam, that is, from the Virgin, or from ours, we say these things; or rather we even confirm this by saying that he was begotten from the Holy Spirit. Since, as has been said, the Spirit of God, who is before the ages and before the world, was also present in the beginning with the maker of our nature, not as with one in need of help, but in sameness and equality of Godhead and will, and as light not cut off from light. Either, then, Macedonius, stand with the saints, who do not name the divine Spirit a creature, but [say he has] proceeded … [rather than saying,] as you are accustomed to, that he is less than God in nature but greater than the angels, having been allotted some intermediate nature and rank, … who have declared it in oracles (for their words have rightly been honored before God above yours and those of Arius); and not as the law of art and sophistry allows, since you may with confidence let go … your own words about the divine Spirit, whose divine nature you could not have contemplated even in some small degree, even if you had eyes of the mind as many and such as Scripture has given the cherubim (for who can lay hold of the unseen and uncontainable Godhead?); either condemn your own impiety, or willingly … to us the first place …

4. But let us return again to the subject from the beginning: that he sanctifies and justifies, as we said before.

5. That he bestows salvation even on those who have gone astray; which belongs to the almighty substance alone. For without God it is impossible for a creature to do anything, “not even so much as to open the bright circle of the eyelids.” For the Apostle said to the Philippians as follows: “For I know that this will turn out for my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” Just as it is sung of the Father in Hosea: “You shall know no one besides me; and there is no one who saves besides me”; and of the Son in the Acts: “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

6. That he frees from death and forgives sins, since from the root of the Father’s substance he bears as fruit immortality and mercy. But a creature cannot be sinless, or do either of these things of itself. For none of the spirits, as was shown before, is sinless; nor perhaps, by hyperbole of speech, is the nature that is not rational. For even the heaven itself and the sun are not blameless compared with the purity of God. For even if apostles are seen at times to have done some such thing, they did not prevail by their own power, but by the power of him who said, “In my name you will do greater things than these,” and by that of the Spirit of the Father, who spoke in them; as Paul teaches the Romans: “For the law of the Spirit in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death.” And the Master in John, giving back to us the Holy Spirit, whom we had lost through the ancient disobedience, breathed into the faces of the disciples and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Here the free authority of the ever-remembered Spirit is so great that he both forgives sins by himself, and in his name and power the apostles, and all who believe in him, grant forgiveness of sins. And that to expiate sinners belongs to God alone the glorious words of God show: “I,” he says, “am he who blots out your sins …” “… [though they be as] crimson, I will make them white as snow; and though they be as scarlet, I will make them white as wool.” And the Savior, as Son of God, said to the paralytic: “Child, your sins are forgiven”; and, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”

7. That he works together with God the Father, who needs nothing and gives all things, and with his Son, and bestows all things on all together with them, not putting it off until tomorrow, since he has being that is uncreated together with them, and reigns together with him, and has received as his portion the Godhead of him from whom he came forth, subsisting together with him. And that Christ, who has all authority and all power, did the signs and wonders and cast out demons with the power of his own most august Spirit, as the sacred initiates have explained. Micah: “Thus,” he says, “says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray.” And a little later he adds: “For there will be none who listens to them, unless I fill [them with] strength in the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might.” He said, then, that the Lord makes strength in the Spirit of the Lord, in order to show both the Trinity and the bond of its nature. And he hints at the judgment, in which there is no longer repentance, nor anyone who listens: “For in Hades,” he says, “who will give thanks to you?” … “I will make … with the divine Spirit.” And Paul, the most approved of the apostles, to the Ephesians: “For this reason I bow my knees to God the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell”; and to the Romans: “I have, then, my boast in Christ Jesus toward God. For I will not dare to speak of anything except what Christ has worked through me, by word and deed, to bring the Gentiles to obedience, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Hypostases alike in nature are worthy of like honor; hence this saying too is close to “Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Matthew, from the Savior: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” And as he works together in illumination, it is impossible, then, for them to be one in harmony and operation if the substance were not one; and for this reason the Master says at one time, “The Father who abides in me does the works,” and at another, as has just been said, “I cast out demons by the Spirit of God.” And for this reason Paul too said, “by the power of the Holy Spirit,” confessing that it was by the divine operation of the Trinity that they raised the dead: he himself Eutychus, Peter [Tabitha] …

8. That, as God the Father, so also the Holy Spirit gives oracles, being signified as God and Master; as Luke relates: “There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple. And when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him into his arms and blessed God and said: Now you are letting your servant depart, O Master, according to your word, in peace; for my eyes have seen your salvation.” The Holy Spirit, then, gave the oracle; Simeon received Christ into his arms according to the oracle; he blessed the one who had given the oracle, that is, he glorified the Holy Spirit, having seen the salvation of the oracle reach its fulfillment; and he called the one who gave the oracle God and Master. … [“Do you think] that I have given you oracles [otherwise] than that you might appear righteous?” But those who have trained themselves to fight against the true Spirit of God, gathering from every part of the subject things that serve other matters and not theology, to overshadow the truth, and not receiving accurately what befits the divine mystery and suits the subject, bring forward on this heading too words that are unacceptable concerning the divine, saying up and down, as though it were a great and clear heading, that cold and deceptive saying: “From such testimonies,” he says, “the Holy Spirit is brought down to the nature of an angel, since angels too are seen giving oracles.” And so [they turn] the correct meanings of the Scriptures, by their own absurd arguments, into reversals … [as it is written in the] Acts: “Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man, well spoken of by the whole nation of the Jews, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to his house and to hear words from you.” You would have done much more profitably if you had been silent and sewn up your mouths from slander. But we, referring this heading too to the more perfect aim, giving good cheer to those who will read it, and instilling more orthodox zeal, say: As a creature has no fellowship of nature with the uncreated nature, so neither of giving oracles. For the one announces, without knowing it, whatever he may be moved by the Holy Spirit to say; but [the Spirit], since he knows all the things of God, as Paul affirms, gives oracles in a divine way, as the Father does, whatever he sees with the sleepless eyes of the Godhead that the Father and the Son will, and not as a servant, as the angel in attendance does. “For the servant does not know what his master is doing”; and one of a different substance cannot possess the same knowledge as one who is of another substance; for to each nature its own knowledge and memory belong; and even what has been known by the nature that has come into being sometimes flies away with time. Hence here too the unreasonable men have willfully left out, in the battle of argument, the beginning of the passage. For it runs: “While Peter was pondering [the vision, the Spirit said to him]: Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise, go down and go with them without hesitating, because I have sent them. And Peter went down to the men and said: Behold, I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason you have come? And they said: Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous man,” and the rest, as set out above. So, before good judges, it is plain that here too the angel learned the oracle from the Holy Spirit. For a distinguished mark of Godhead is to foretell without error; and this for the good of the hearers, so that by taking precautions they may be saved. Then do you not think that, in introducing such things, you are in a way envious of creation, and finding fault, as it were, with him who out of generosity adorned his own works with the expressions used of himself? As though he did not … but rather showed it worthy of praise, and brightened his works as he is accustomed. And we, even if the Holy Spirit’s giving oracles brings a certain divine majesty to the whole subject, and is sufficient taken by itself as testimony, nevertheless have brought forward not only this but a multitude of other lofty and indisputable proofs; and if you attend to them without hostility, you will surely be more speechless than fish. Paul too refutes your sophistry most clearly, writing to the Ephesians: “To me, the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to enlighten all as to what is the dispensation of the mystery hidden from the ages in God, who created all things, so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and authorities in the heavenly places through the church.” Consider, then, how far the nature of angels is removed from knowing anything of the future of itself, and from giving oracles; for it learns the great things even through the church of God in this world, which we are. And toward persuasion on this point, what he wrote to the Colossians may help: “This mystery, hidden before the ages and from the generations, which has now been made manifest to his saints.” For before this, he says, it was known to God alone. Besides this, there is what Peter declared, in these words, about the things that brought benefit to all men, I mean those concerning the unspeakable dispensation, as was said before: “Into which,” he says, “angels long to look.” [If] they had some innate knowledge, they would not have longed even to peer into them. But since they do not have it, they fall, in a way, like men, into an excessive desire for those things whose knowledge is not within their reach. For it is natural, too, for things easy to find to be overlooked, and rarer things to be prized. And indeed some of them are bound to this, not by their own choice, but by the common principle of their nature (I do not say all). “For if,” he says, “God did not spare the angels who sinned,” what innate knowledge of the future, or authority to give oracles as God does, can they have? But if they neither know of themselves nor give oracles by their own authority, as the matter proves itself even without any argument, and you have gone over to blame and accusation because the word alone is predicated in common, … you have acted … and without consideration; and it is not fitting for us, because certain others [are said to] give oracles and to be good, to say the opposite [of the Spirit]. Shall I tell you something else too? Take care that it was not the Savior, the Holy of holies, whom [Scripture] called the angel who gave the oracle to the centurion. For Scripture is seen to use this name covertly of him with much and divine emphasis, because in the dispensation he announced the Father’s will as Son and Word. For it did not say by name, as it usually does, “Michael,” “Gabriel,” or “so-and-so.” What, then, of all our words could anyone reasonably find fault with? And what blame could he lay on the faith of the orthodox, which has nowhere any need of correction? And how is it not worthy of belief that the Holy Spirit gives oracles royally, that is, divinely, but the angels not …? As it says, “[it is hard] to hold the tiller for one who has no skill in steering”; so it is hard to teach one in whom the grace of the divine Spirit, which works the salvation of men with the Father and the Son, is not present, and who cannot know the security found even in the riddles of the oracles, and that which comes from the knowledge of faithful men … and without varied choice there is no utterance of speech. But I know clearly, O approved angels of God, who dwell in the heavenly light, that you, as blameless and perfect, were not displeased at what I have said on account of the angels who are like you in nature, though not in the praiseworthiness of their will; angels whom blame has followed from the beginning, as it has the heretics who bring forward, as they ought not, the things just mentioned; who, of all, seem to you most unpersuadable in their contest against the truth. For my argument is on behalf of the divine Spirit, who enlightens all things and bestows on creatures divine things that rival those of the Father and his Only-begotten; who sanctified you too, and is glorified together by you with the Father and the Son through the thrice-holy hymn. Or rather, you even nodded assent when I praised this Spirit as one and only, of the hypostasis of God, and God; and you would perhaps have wished (for in this part my book is keeping festival), out of your exceeding [love for the] Trinity, that the words spoken from the meaning of the Scriptures by many, and now by me, were your own, and that silence might never be laid upon them, and that all men might spend their leisure from affairs on such a subject. For this reason, then, by the highest judgment, you, holy Michael, were appointed to command the bodiless hosts, and were honored with, as it were, an intellectual girdle, and are a kind of fragrance of the all-holy and compassionate Trinity who rules over all; and you, holy Gabriel, were chosen, as discreet and faithful, to serve the mystery of the unspeakable dispensation; and each of the others, without even asking, has been honored with a God-given gift such as others do not have, and such as we do not have; but we too with one such as you do not have. For God the Word did not become an angel for the sake of the angels who sinned, but for the sake of men in sin [he became man] … as he knows and willed, from the Virgin, and according to her flesh and that of all of us, remaining what he was, and is, and will be, one and the same. “For one,” it says, “is holy, one Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father.” And so, as he ascended from earth to heaven, he will come a second time, with ten thousand times ten thousand, and more, and he will judge and act according to his love for humankind. That is why, after the churches, houses of prayer to God too, named after you, O well-pleasing pair of archangels, have been built, not only in the cities but also privately in alleys, in houses, and in fields, adorned with gold and silver, or even ivory; and men go even to places far from the land that bore them, places that are, as it were, halls of success, … when they must accomplish a long road, of many days in succession, sometimes a hard one, expecting to experience from you greater goodwill in intercession, and a share from God in the good things bestowed for doing well. For in his holy churches, and houses of prayer, and martyrs’ shrines, as in other heavens, he has set forth his unfailing good things; and from the things which he himself, the King of kings and Lord of lords, has given and gives daily to each, from these he receives the unbloody sacrifice, offered piously and holily, and has all the honors that come from men. And I think that in the matters against the heretics and in those of theology even the irrational animals, nay, the very stones, join their voices with ours in eagerness. For what does not love for God accomplish? Or to whom does the true affection of the heart give way? For you know (let everything be said with God) that, with you and with the saints of our own nature interceding, I have so conducted myself that no one up to this day has chosen to bring a suit, as it were, or a charge of slander against me on behalf of you, our intercessors, who have honors among all according to your measure; nor called me by name to a contest and judgment about this, though there are those who make accusations of things that are not; nor has anyone tried to convict me of having heard arguments and praised what is not good, or of having ever been negligent at all and, with unbecoming slackness, put off resisting as far as I could; rather, on the contrary, many say that I have always come forward vigorous and calm in such matters, whether to give satisfaction or to receive it. For I rightly count it the greatest and eternal gain for myself, and for those who come from me, and for those with us, to choose every toil, if need be, and danger, on behalf of him who made us and saves us, and who for this reason has the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to judge and to show love for humankind. Knowing, then, as chosen worshipers of the all-holy Trinity and intercessors for the human race, [and] after it nothing … of what is owed to those who plead with me, to it, which bestows wise thoughts and expressions that both please it and benefit us; and then to you too, and “then” in so far as it is fitting, having ranked the created nature, as is seemly, to be mentioned after the uncreated, intercede specially for me, and for those from me, and with me, and for all (for you were not permitted to grant us more than this), that my purpose in this may be kept unshaken, and that all my prayer, which the most good, self-complete, and undivided Trinity, who alone knows all things and brings them to a happy end and without limit, knows, may be received; and that we may be counted worthy, with all our children, all our household, all our kin, and all our friends (the orthodox are our friends), together with you and all the saints, to praise it with the thrice-holy hymn in the heavens forever, to the endless ages of ages; and to obtain its promised kingdom, unending and undivided, in which we believe, by its grace. Amen. Amen. Amen. … as though the contests were not of piety and faith, but of choice of colors and of race … for the hearts of lovers … and is quenched … then again to be stretched.

[9.] That the Holy Spirit, as God and Creator, will judge all things together with Christ. For whose is it to judge, if not his who has fellowship of Godhead and kingship with him who made them? As the prophets foretell. Isaiah: “A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall come up from the root; and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness; and the Spirit of the fear of God shall fill him. He shall not judge according to appearance, nor convict according to speech; but he shall judge with judgment for the lowly, and convict the proud, and deliver the lowly of the earth, and he shall strike the earth with the word of his mouth [and with the Spirit through his lips he shall slay the ungodly].” By the rod and the flower from the root of Jesse he means him who sprang from it in the incarnation, and strengthened the world under the sun with his own fragrance; upon whom we saw in the Gospels the Holy Spirit resting; and we wait to see him as judge, with the Holy Spirit, at his second coming. For this is what is meant both by “With the Spirit through his lips he shall slay the ungodly,” and by what was said elsewhere by the same prophet: “By the Spirit of judgment and by the Spirit of burning.” And David in Psalm 138 says: “Where shall I go from your Spirit? And where shall I flee from your face?” “Where shall I go” and “Where shall I flee” carry a broad meaning; for it signifies that the Holy Spirit is present everywhere and is judge. “For it is truly a fearful thing,” according to the Apostle, “to fall into the hands of the living God,” who says in Psalm 49: “I will convict you and set your sins before your face.” And the prophecy of Micah mentioned a little earlier also contributes to this heading. And what stronger proof of this could anyone name than the Savior’s saying in John about the Holy Spirit: “When he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and concerning righteousness and concerning judgment”?

10. That by the surpassing power of the Holy Spirit Paul, in Cyprus, struck blind with a word Elymas the sorcerer, who was making war on the saints and corrupting the truth. For Scripture, showing that the power was the Spirit’s, says in these very words: “Then Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to him: Behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind, not seeing the sun.” For truly it was not [possible] for him, not having the … of the Spirit, … [to take away] by a word the sight of one who lived with … and trusted in demons.

11. That by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit the heavens were opened and seen by him who bound on himself the double crown of apostleship and martyrdom. For it says: “Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, saw the heavens opened.” So that what was said by an ancient applies: “And from heaven the boundless ether burst open.”

12. That he knows beforehand, as the Father and the Son do; and to know the future exactly belongs to the divine nature alone. For creation offers everything from itself as conjecture, and foresees without error or deviation only that which the Holy Spirit teaches it. For with his divine rays he not only illumines the powers in heaven but also brightens the eyes of our souls, and shows … allows … out of his own goodness and love for humankind, creation at times to pick out the things that contribute to what is useful for human nature; which things our material nature sometimes ascribes, not to him who supplied them through the medium of creation, but to creation itself. The testimonies from the Acts of the Apostles concerning the foreknowledge of the Spirit are these. From Peter to the Jews: “Men, brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.” He said “had to” well; for every word of God alone does not fail of fulfillment. And from Paul: “The Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me.” And through the prophet Agabus he announced beforehand, being good, a famine that would come upon the whole world under heaven because of men’s offenses, as in the case of Nineveh, so that, taking warning, they might escape the evil by repentance. And this happened many years later, under Claudius. And in the Gospel Christ says of the Spirit: “And he will declare to you the things that are coming”; that is, the things to come.