On the Trinity 2.8

On the foreknowledge and free authority of the Holy Spirit.

After the divine nature and operation of the Spirit of God, then, [the oracles] speak most clearly of his free author[ity] …

1. That he does and bestows all things, not as a servant but with his own authority, the gifts, as he wills, all that the ineffable, superessential, and only nature could bestow; and he works whatever he wishes, and breathes where he has chosen; and he wills what the Father and the Son will, and breathes likewise where the Father and the Son also wish; fulfilling the one ungrudging will of the Father, and of the Son, and of himself; and leaving nothing, not even the things that have only a dim life, bereft of his providence. For presiding over his own making, since he is goodness itself and since he is a fellow worker with the good Creator, he oversees all things and distributes gifts. For “in the one who is good no envy ever arises about anything”; rather, he shows his authority by benefits. And for this reason we say that the Trinity has one will, and one authority and power. And those whose willing, authority, and operation are one have, then, one Godhead also. For that which works all things by its own authority, and is present in each individual thing, belongs to the one and pure nature that is over all, which lacks nothing in any respect and does nothing that it does not will; nor indeed does it do anything that is not pleasing to the Father and the Son. And in the way in which, along with the other proofs, the saying “Whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does likewise” shows the Son to be unvarying in relation to the Father, so also, among other things, the Holy Spirit’s working and bestowing all things as he wills, and breathing where he has chosen, [shows it of him]. For presenting this, and clearly proclaiming the Spirit as God, the Apostle wrote: “That we may see the things freely given to us by God.” And the same writer could again be a faithful witness to all these things, writing to the Corinthians in the first Epistle: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord; and there are varieties of operations, but the same God who works all things in all. But to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings in the one Spirit, to another operations of powers, to another prophecy, to another discernment of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues. But all these the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each one individually as he wills.” One must not … the equality of the Holy Spirit in all things: first, that he mentions him first, then the Son, and after that the God and Father who works all things in all; second, that having said above that God works all things in all, he adds, setting out one harmonious testimony about the Father and his Spirit: “But all these the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each one individually as he wills”; so as to show from this that the Holy Spirit is God with free authority. He did not take in hand anything unfitting, nor make an innovation in the order, nor miss what is right; but he kept the knowledge of the faith unharmed and the purity of theology, and did not insult the undivided nature and dignity, as those do who [do] not … the Son and the Holy Spirit. For he did not reverse the sequence of the names simply and of himself; rather Christ, who spoke in him, wiping out the suspicion of malicious and perverse hearts, teaches in various ways the truth of the Trinity, equal in power, equal in honor, and consubstantial: at one time saying through the same Paul, “But it is the same God who works all things in all”; at another, saying through the Evangelist, “Baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; and now through Paul, as was said before: “But all these the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each one individually as he wills.” And he supports this point in the Epistle to the Hebrews too, which reads thus: “God also bearing witness with signs and wonders and various powers and distributions of the Holy Spirit according to his own will.” And the Lord’s sayings in John read: “The Spirit breathes where he wills”; and “The Spirit is the truth.” And it is fitting, he says, [to praise him] in the first rank of the Godhead, and not to hymn him in the second, so that you may have security for your life. For what does good is wont to be thanked and served; which even those outside managed to say without guile: “The …” … the self-determining, he says, is better than the subordinate, then man too, being self-determining, would be shown among you to be superior to the Holy Spirit. Alas for these dreadful things! … the truth and what is fitting; and simply setting at naught the oracles that were uttered with fitting dignity, turning the argument wherever it seems good to them, and presenting themselves as flourishing in their own aim, stringing the argument together without drawing breath, and as victors over all, with a pious-looking irony they tear apart, as they suppose, orthodoxy.

The Macedonian’s statement, supposedly addressed to an orthodox man, goes like this: “God works; the Holy Spirit also works; and from ‘works’ and ‘works’ you wanted the Holy Spirit and God to be equal in honor and equal in power. But I pass over the fact that physicians and all men use ‘to work’ of things of different kinds, differing in nature and definition, whether of hot waters, or of foods, or of herbs; I show only this, that the divine word has used it also of the opposing power, since the Apostle said of the Antichrist: ‘Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with all signs and lying wonders.’ See then,” he says, “since the word ‘to work’ is used homonymously or synonymously of many things, to what you have brought down the Holy Spirit; and you did not reckon that God made and worked the world from what is not into being, but the Holy Spirit [works] a distribution of gifts among the things created by God. For it is written: ‘Distributing to each individually as he wills’; not bestowing.”

And how, O Macedonian, is this not contrary to the conceptions of theology? How is the hypocrisy not caught in the act straight away? For first, since all agree that the word ‘works’ is predicated of different substances and things, why, when the question concerned the divine and manifest operation of the Holy Spirit, did you bring forward what you brought forward, and by it insult rather than praise the Spirit of God? Next, one must attend not to the word ‘works’ being used homonymously or synonymously of the Divine, of herbs, and of Satan, but to the persons and to the difference of the operation; and one must judge the words and matters concerning the divine Spirit by reference to God, who was praised with the word ‘to work’, as stated above, and not by reference to earthly things and to the demon who was cast down. For the Holy Spirit is mentioned with the reverence fitting to God throughout the whole context about him found in each passage, but creatures and the demon in a manner worthy of themselves. What we do not say … the demon’s hostility, but of the Holy Spirit … you bring down, as far as in you lies, the incomparable glory of God the Father, who was praised with like expressions in divine matters, and of his Spirit; and, as was to be expected, you have unawares ranked yourself among those who think soundly. But note rather that in the passage before us the Holy Spirit was mentioned first, in a manner befitting God, before God the Father and the Son; and reckon from this that the venerable Trinity in unity has no difference, and that it works together with itself ineffably. Then consider that to each one the divine gifts mentioned are given through the Holy Spirit and from the Holy Spirit; of which no gift of divine bounty is left outside as its own; and he who does not obtain them, as given by God, is more wretched than the wretched, and he who is not so helped neither helps others but even harms them; and that the one and the same Spirit works all these things, that is, makes and bestows them. And he who works in these will work in all things, and is without need; and he who is without need is impassible; and the impassible is God. Or if it is said of God the Father, “The Lord mighty in battle,” and “God is known in Judea,” and the like, will he not be thought mighty, active, and manifest in other things? Consider likewise that the words that declare “according to his will” and “He distributes to each individually as he wills” unveil all his divine free authority, of one mind with the Father and the Son; and that both God the Father bears witness with them with signs and wonders, and the Savior, saying, “The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father,” and “The Spirit is the truth,” and Peter, who plainly proclaims the Holy Spirit to be God to Ananias thus: “Why is it that you agreed together to lie to the Holy Spirit? You have not lied to man but to God.” And know this too, that you did not escape notice when you cunningly left out, in your vain and harmful little work, or rather your blasphemy, what precedes in the divine text. For it contains this: “The one and the same Spirit”; and so it adds what you alone brought in perversely: “Distributing to each individually as …” … revealing with his own authority the heavenly goods. It is not a mark of right judgment and faith, besides misinterpreting the oracles, to mutilate them as well. For that it contains “of which also the same Spirit” prevents you both from separating him from identity with the One, most high, who steers all things (for this most incomprehensible and uncontainable One differs not in the least in Godhead, except only in the principle of fatherhood; because he proceeded from him by nature, and not by creative operation), and from saying, “If ‘Spirit of God’ and ‘Spirit of Christ’ are written, two Spirits will be understood.” It was said not far above for what reason it was so declared.

Do not be unaware either that the oracles set out do not mean that the person who gives is one and the one who distributes another, as in the case of men, who can neither know all things nor act without toil, and therefore some give without discrimination while others distribute after exact examination, lest either the givers not have enough, or those served gain nothing themselves. For God, who is without cause, impassible, ever-moving, all-sufficient and ungrudging, who gives not according to what we are worthy to receive (for we are not worthy of any good from works), but according to what is fitting for him to give; knowing all things and able for all things, as has been said even among the Greeks: he always supplies; and not now yes, now no; nor sometimes more and at other times less; but continually, in the same way and likewise, in full concord (how could it be otherwise?) with his own Son, the Word, and his one Holy Spirit. For none of the things that are is rejected by him; since indeed he makes the sun rise on the righteous and on sinners alike, and supplies to those who worked at the eleventh hour the same wage that he agreed on with those who dig and tend the vines from dawn. Nor is anything to be feared by him, so that through want, or through not giving richly … is found, so that he might begrudge this one being made equal to … its partakers he has mercy on, at another time not. For being good by nature, he always has mercy … those belonging to him (which it is not even holy to say, except of wicked suppositions and hypostases); nor has he let go of that with which he will be angry. “For you spare all things,” it says, “because all are yours, O Master, lover of souls; and your incorruptible Spirit is in all things.” If these things are not so, what is left for you to sophisticate? As again, when the Son or the Holy Spirit is said to give divine gifts, it is clear that it is by the Father’s good pleasure; for how could it be otherwise? Listen then to Paul teaching the Romans: “Because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us”; and “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”; and again: “He then who supplies the Spirit to you and works powers among you”; and to the Corinthians, the first: “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are no longer under law”; and to the Galatians: “For the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Therefore here too he said first: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit,” that is (by ellipsis and contraction of expression), the Spirit who gives; and so he added: “The one and the same Spirit, distributing to each individually as he wills,” so as to show that he himself both gives and distributes, clearly of one mind with the One whose Spirit he is, and to whom all things are referred, as was written to the Romans: “For from him and through him and to him are all things.”

Attend also to all the other things that the oracles have said of him. For if you had attended to all of them, and if you had believed God the Father himself, and his only-begotten Son, and also so many saints, whose eyes of understanding were as wakeful as the Cherubim’s, and whose contribution, made in deed, and teaching, and the faith received from them, we accept rightly, the more we revere and honor them; and if at the beginning you had not followed in part the shield-bearers of Arius, whom may we neither name nor learn of, blushing for them, as men who put on you [the na]me of bishop, you who before this were a deacon of the orthodox and apostolic Church: you would not have made the comparison of what is said about the Holy Spirit with what is said about creatures, nor given more suspicion to your fellows in impiety, nor used abuse, not to say blasphemy, that overcomes moderation; and you would have known that he was present together and worked together ineffably … subsistent. But God and the Father was pleased once, as was said above, to bring all things from non-being [into being] through the Son, the Word, while the Father himself and his sanctifying Spirit are conceived together with him (how could it be otherwise?) in the creating; but in the case of men, or even angels, there is need of many persons and hands to do anything perfectly and masterfully. He who decreed that he be mentioned together in our regeneration of baptism guarantees these things; for he too is mentioned as present together, acting together, and not lowered from the ineffable nature. So then these things are thus and not otherwise; and I shall nevertheless pass over saying more.

“But God distributes through the Spirit, as he creates through his Word.” This does not cast him out of the Godhead, any more than it does the Son; on the contrary, even through these things it shows him to be God. Since to those created through the Son the goods for salvation, proclaimed everywhere, are supplied through the Holy Spirit. For the one depends on the other: that what has been created should also be deemed worthy of the flowing abundance of the divine gifts from heaven; and everywhere not to have come into being is preferred to having come into being and failing to obtain the inexhaustible goods from above; which, even when given, are not seen, just as the Giver too, who suffices through the ages, is in a way unknown. For eye has not seen them, nor ear heard, nor have they yet come into thought; and beauty is set before the knowledge of those who gather it, so that faith may somehow draw near to what is fitting; for where the truth itself, or exactness, is not yet attainable, one must look to what is possible. An unerring voice, then, said of one who came to have no share in these: “It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” You have yourself, then, already brought yourself under accusation, and turned upon yourself the charge you chose against us; and you seemed no different from those who beat the air, being led on to stitch together, as the saying goes, certain perplexities, and between divine matters and narratives foolishly to bring into the midst, when need did not require it, other material things, and indeed the adversary, the one who was cast out and who suggests the sort of things you said. Much … the name of the diaconate … and none of the Christians who have studied the Scriptures rightly and without partiality, and to whom it belonged straightway to excel in the grace given by the divine Spirit, would accept you in what you have worked out to the harm of souls. For according to your attempt, perhaps every Scripture that shows theology will be cast out.

And come, if these things are not true, “But if also through the Spirit …”, nevertheless let us consider this quietly and moderately, in this way. For I shall make it plain precisely, and not simply from doubtful proofs but from agreed ones, and I shall teach easily, and you will learn. Paul, who had a most blessed zeal, hotter than fire, as the saying goes, for our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, writes that Christ became a minister. And this benefactor himself said plainly of himself: “I have received a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak”; and “I do nothing of myself.” And elsewhere it is said: “The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” And yet we understand that these things are written thus faithfully and in a manner fitting God, because of the one will of the Holy Trinity, and because all things are referred to the Father. As, therefore, no variation of Godhead is conceived in the Son (for he does not minister as one different in nature to another, nor through inferiority of power, but as the Son, the Word, to a true Father; nor does he receive a commandment as one ignorant of what is needful and of the Father’s will, but as was said before), so also with the divine Spirit. And in the way in which the things of God the Word are referred to God the Father, in this way and no other are those of the Holy Spirit. So that by the very things by which the heretics exalted their pride, they would raise against themselves the charge of arrogance and false belief.

Their impious and unfitting slander did not stop there. For trying to muddy the undefiled glory concerning the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, as though no good came to them from him, and at the same time to bring us under a charge, these very men, who have taken certain men as teachers, do not shrink from this novelty too, word for word: that when we take the text that declares “The Spirit breathes where he wills” as of divine dignity, we bring him down to human nature, since after other words it has: “So will be everyone who is born of the Spirit.” But they themselves, he says, neither raise the Spirit to divine dignity nor drag him down to the nature of the rest; for he holds the middle rank, being neither God nor any one of the rest. And who would not indict them for such daring? Come then, pay attention; I shall speak briefly. Above all, he did not say, “So is man,” man simply, but “So will be everyone who is born of the Spirit”; that is, he who has been deemed worthy to be born again in the divine font and to become (as … “He himself gave me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak” … nature. And these things are like “Let us make man according to our image and likeness,” and “That you may become according to the image of him who created us.” And as the Most High Father and his Son are not dragged down to human nature by these holy words, which are beyond us, so neither is the Holy Spirit by the sayings mentioned before and by his kindnesses toward us. Then they think, which is worse still, that the Holy Spirit is neither God nor any one of the rest. It remains to think of him as non-existent. And put otherwise: if he is not God, as they assert, he falls under the common definition of creatures. But no such evidence is found in the Scriptures, nor has it been declared that he is of an intermediate nature; … he proceeds from the Father, and is a divine Spirit. It remains that he is God, from the words of Peter and Paul, and from the whole sense of the Scriptures and the word “proceeds.” For being without limit, it [declares] most divinely the eternity and inseparability of his nature from him from whom he ineffably comes forth. And this too: if he is none of the other things, as indeed this is true of them, he is God. Besides: if nothing created is found in a single hypostasis, as was shown in the first book, while the Holy Spirit is one and alone, of the substance of the Henad, that is, of the Monad; so then they would be seen to be deceiving by what they wrote, even if they seem clever at saying whatever they wish, and let nothing of their haughtiness against us be produced even among themselves; for human boasts are quickly refuted. A wise man has pronounced thus about each of them: “Do not be overly wise, lest you be confounded.” And Stephen in the Acts reproaches them somewhat thus: “Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.” By their fathers he meant Arius and Macedonius, the destructive pair. I come then to another heading.

2. That he appointed the prophets and apostles to shepherd the rational flock and to care for it; and with his own authority sent them, and made them speak as he willed, in likeness to the Father and the Son, since he is the Spirit of God, existing by procession, not by making, and since he is the unadulterated Spirit of wisdom and understanding, ruling together with the Father, who governs all things, and the Son. But the nature of a creature is not of this rank. That these things are true is proved by the books of Moses, which say: “Who will grant that all the people be prophets, when the Lord gives his Spirit upon them?” and by the apostolic Acts, which say things like this: “There appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them to utter”; and again from the divine Paul: “The Holy Spirit spoke well to your fathers through the prophet.” And again, having summoned the presbyters of Ephesus to Miletus, he says: “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of the Lord, which he obtained with his own blood”; and again: “They went through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and when they came to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them.” So that he [let them] speak everything, but did not let them go to some place, for their benefit; doing the same as the Son, who said: “Do not carry a bag, or a staff, or sandals.” And again the apostles and the presbyters say: “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no further [burden] than these necessary things: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is strangled, and from sexual immorality; if you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.” What seems good to one who is under authority, and not a lord, no one accepts; but whatever seems good to a king and to those appointed by him is law, bringing praise to the obedient and danger to the disobedient. “For disobedience,” it says, “works death, but obedience eternal life.” “For a king is the mightier when he is angry with a lesser man …” As, then, a king is accustomed [to send] his laws … [to those] to whom he has given the reins of the governed, and they bring them to the knowledge of all, shaping [them] by what the king has decreed and threatening danger to transgressors: so also the apostles, whom God appointed first, knowing the free authority of the Spirit and his consubstantiality with the Father, wrote: It seemed good, it says, this and this to the Holy Spirit, as king, ruler, and guardian of the race; and to us, as appointed to preside over the faith and the churches. “But from these,” it says, “[if you do not keep yourselves,] you will suffer the opposite.” For they remembered the Savior having said to them in the Gospel according to Mark … to be small, the heading we are now pursuing, but to believe that the Holy Trinity has the same will, command, and operation, from which it follows that it also has the same Godhead: Paul, who first was a man learned in the law and a persecutor, and later was shown to be an initiator into the unspeakable dispensation itself, declares things in harmony about the Father and the Son, writing to the Corinthians, the first: “And those whom God appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers”; and elsewhere: “I say, not I but the Lord, that a wife should not be separated from her husband”; and to the Galatians: “When God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles”; and elsewhere: “Just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts.” And no less the Savior deigned to say to the disciples: “I chose you.”

3. That he legislates and commands authoritatively what is fitting to each of the works, as a king who has taken up a gentle and lawful rule, and awards boundless peace to the whole heaven and world, and has joined the ruling with the caring. To lay down laws and to judge belongs only to the nature that is queen of the universe; but it belongs to a made thing to be under law and judgment. For Paul, the vessel of election, defined this, as we have already said, writing: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”; and so do the apostolic Acts, which read: “While Peter was pondering the word, the Spirit said to him: Behold, three men are seeking you. But rise, go down, and go with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them”; and again: “The Spirit said to Philip: Go up and join this chariot”; and again from Agabus the prophet: “Thus says the Holy Spirit: The man whose belt this is they will bind thus”; and Paul: “Behold, now I go bound by the Spirit”; which is like “Thus says the Holy Spirit: Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them”; similar to “But the Lord said: Go into the city, and there you will be told what you must do.” And again the Spirit said to Peter: “Rise and go to the house of Cornelius.” And indeed in the Epistles Paul writes to Timothy … “But the Spirit expressly says.” See then not only that by such a word Paul again showed the Spirit to be a lawgiver (for by the word “expressly” those who laid down laws in the world also …), but that other testimonies too show the equality of the Holy Spirit’s nature with the Father, and his authority. For in like manner of God also the Lord [said] to him: “Arise and go into …”

Zechariah, he says, also said of an angel, when he saw the vision of the lampstand: “The angel who spoke in me.” So the Holy Spirit can supposedly be understood as an angel. But their meanness is disposed of at once. For the angel did not speak from himself, nor his own words, but what he was commanded by God and his Spirit he spoke as a minister. The passage reads thus: “And I asked and said to the angel who spoke in me, saying: What are these things? And the angel who spoke in me answered and said to me: This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying: Not by great power, nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.” Next, the Son and the Spirit were called angels at the oak of Mamre, when the glorious Trinity appeared to Abraham, because they announced things unknown. Besides, of the angelic multitude none, with his own authority and from his own impulse, sent saints, or made them proclaim oracles, or ordain a law, or say at all what he himself wished. Nor do angels know the concordant counsels of the ineffable and gracious Trinity, nor do they comprehend the power of its divine help; but they serve its tranquil nod, and propitiate it with prayers, with mouths that are never silent and a voice that never ceases.

4. That with God the Father his Holy Spirit sends and guides with free authority; for the sending into the pious path of life, and the guiding, and kindness toward all, is truly a work of love for mankind of the all-wise and most good Trinity. And those whose guidance and serenity are the same have the same substance also. And this receives most manifest proof through the works. For when God said to Moses, “I send with you my angel before your face, and he will cast out the Canaanite,” this great Moses, knowing very well that the angels are creatures but the Holy Spirit is God, entreated, saying: “If you yourself do not go with us, do not bring me up from here.” And when the Almighty answered him in these words, “This word also that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor before me, and I know you above all,” Isaiah, showing the identity of the concordant Trinity in one Godhead, said in these very words that the divine Spirit led them: “He who brought up from the land the shepherd of the sheep. Where is he who put the Holy Spirit in them, who led Moses by the right hand?” And shortly after he adds: “The Spirit came down from the Lord and guided them; so you led your people, to make for yourself a name of glory.” See then here also that he did not say that the Holy Spirit was sent, but that he came down with authority and royally. And again, mentioning both divine hypostases with equal honor, he has declared: “And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.” Hence Moses is found often extolling: “The Lord God who goes before your face.” And [giving] thanks … his people in the desert, for for ever …; showing that there is [no] difference in substance, power, will, and glory between himself and his only-begotten Word and his one Holy Spirit, he says throughout almost the whole of Scripture: “I brought you up from the land of Egypt. You are witnesses whether there was a foreign god among you besides me.” And he who … to the Most High Father and his Holy Spirit …