On the Trinity 3.38–3.42

And the all-profitable syllables of Christ uttered in John, “When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from my Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me”; and again, “The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and remind you of all that I have said to you”: these they do not receive without distortion, passing sentence against the Holy Spirit. For instead of understanding “Paraclete” either because it is called upon as God by creation, or because it consoles creation and instills cheer and peace (for the words for comfort and for consolation are synonyms, [as in “…] … comforted his [people]”; and the [psalm] in the person [of the one who received] consolation: “[O Lo]rd, according to the multitude of my pains in my heart, your comforts have gladdened my heart”; and again, “You have given gladness to my heart”; and as Paul [writes] to the Thessalonians, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God the Father, comfort your hearts”), instead of understanding it thus, they say it was named Paraclete because it pleads on behalf of creation; and they add that it is also sent. But first, the name Paraclete is common to the Holy Spirit and to the Son, as is their nature; as John has written in the Catholic Letters: “I write these things to you so that you may not sin; but if we do sin, we have a Paraclete with God, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins.” Observe meanwhile that, having said, “a Paraclete with God, Jesus Christ,” he assigned authority to the Paraclete, as being himself the one appealed to; for “he,” it says, “is the propitiation”; so as both to show the Paraclete’s self-determination and to refer the propitiation to the one Godhead. And again in the Gospel, from the Master: “If you love me, keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees it nor knows it; but you know it, for it abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you.” Having said “another Paraclete,” not according to substance but according to [hypostasis …]; [and by saying, “whom I will se]nd to you from my Father, the Spirit of truth,” he presented the three hypostases, and showed that the coming of the Holy Spirit came about by one good pleasure and concord, as was said before also on the text “The Father has given me a commandment what to say and what to speak,” and concerning the Holy Spirit, “He will not speak on his own.” For as the Son, when sent, was not separated from the Father, so neither was the Holy Spirit. And the addition “Spirit of truth” teaches that it is truly the Spirit of God, and not like the ministering spirits. And “who proceeds from the Father” signifies that it shone forth from the Father’s hypostasis without beginning and consubstantially; for every procession is accomplished through what is equal and alike; and in an especially consubstantial way came about, from God, the generation of the Son and the procession of his Spirit. And “He will teach you all things and remind you of all that I have said to you” is a charge not to disbelieve the Holy Spirit, as was said above, when it came after the ascension of Christ and taught. For its teaching, he says, will not be out of tune with my mind and teaching, since it is united and joined [with me] in the Godhead; and the teachings of the holy Trinity are common, as are the gifts for salvation; and in the way I said, “The Father has given me a commandment what to say and what to speak,” it is because of concord …; I say the same about the Holy Spirit, that “From [what is mine it will take” …] … [by saying,] “If you love me, keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete,” he all but showed that he himself too is named Paraclete; and [said in effect]: if you do not keep my commandments, you are unworthy of the visitation of the Holy Spirit, which is in tune with my own appearing. And the words, “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees it nor knows it; but you know it,” showed that the worldly, that is, the heretics, cannot receive it, because they do not see it with the eyes of faith, nor know it, since they do not glorify it as God; but those who confess it to be God have it abiding with them. And having “He will give you,” and, “It abides with you and will be in you,” signified that the Holy Spirit, since it is God, is present everywhere, above and below; for if it both abides with us and will be in us, and fills all things, according to the Wisdom that says, “The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world,” how was it sent to us? And that even while he was saying these things it was with him, as consubstantial, he himself again persuaded them by breathing on the faces of the apostles and saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” as was said before. And “I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you” taught that, just as the Spirit of God was in all even before its known coming, so after the ascension the Son is too, the hypostases being in one uncircumscribed Godhead and will; not that he himself is both [the Son] and the Spirit of God (as Montanus thought, who leans above all on this part of Scripture, neither seeing nor hearing that one speaks about another and yet another person: “I will ask the Father, and he will send another Paraclete”), but as being present with the Spirit, subsisting in himself, as the Father too always is everywhere; not, however, as having already come a second time, whereas he often signified the second coming that will be at the judgment. And well does he say, “He will bear witness about me.” The truth, he means, about the truth, and the Lord about the Lord, as he said about the Father, “And the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”

All these things, and above all the Master’s saying “I will ask the Father,” which is unimpeachable and ought not to be understood according to worldly usage, Macedonius passed over, and he ran to “he will send” and rejoiced at it. Let him have, as answer to such sayings about the Holy Spirit, the answer that he himself, when asked, will give about the holy Scriptures concerning the Son; knowing this above all, that the one who speaks or sends is by no means always greater than the one who hears or is sent; rather someone is often found sending one equal and of equal honor; and it is not unusual among men that a craftsman of every art is even better than the one who seems to give him instructions or to send him. Then, that the only-begotten God the Word too was sent by the Father, and by the Spirit, as he himself says in Isaiah: “I am the first, and I am forever; my hand founded the earth, and my right hand made firm the heaven.” And after other things he adds, “And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.” So the Spirit of God the Father is not sent as apostles or prophets are sent, but as his Spirit; and not by change of place, since neither is the Father, of whose hypostasis it is the Spirit, circumscribed by limits.

Further, belittling the things that concern the Holy Spirit and debasing them to their own harm, they reproach it with another act of divine love for humankind, which Paul [records, writing to the Galatians: “Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son] into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” “Sent forth” signifies the concord, as was said before; and its crying in our hearts “Abba,” which is interpreted “Father,” shows the tender mercy of the Holy Spirit, which gives us intimacy with God the Father, in that it has spoken this word in our place and on our behalf, since we were then still infants, fed on milk, and without boldness of speech, both because of the ancient disobedience and the forsaking of the living God, and because of the evil indifference of our way of life and our being found unworthy to break out in such an address; just as the Son too in the economy took upon himself for our sake all that is ours. Indeed, through what follows too … and we inherit heavenly things. For immediately after saying, “Abba, Father,” he adds: “So you are no longer a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God,” that is, through the Holy Spirit, who cries out for us. And that the word mentioned is said on our behalf, the same [apostle] wrote to the Romans: “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, in whom we cry, Abba, Father.” For since, as has often been said, all salvation has been given us in common by the holy Trinity, the Father called us to adoption; the Only-begotten …, and permitted us to call God our Father; and the Holy Spirit dwelt in us and taught us, having said, “Abba.” “It will teach you,” he says, and, “It will guide you into all the truth.” And besides, it regenerated us, set us free from sin and death, sanctified us, and by its own goodness showed us to be sons of God. Accordingly, before being regenerated by it through illumination, it is not fitting even to say, “Our Father who art in heaven.” Besides, it cries in our hearts, “Abba,” teaching the deaf ears of the heretics that it is God who dwells in the faithful, according to the saying, “I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people”; [and, “Do you not know that you are] God’s temple, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” But the heretics force “All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God,” and the like, to have been said of our own spirit, not of the Holy Spirit. But the conclusion decides it, which runs: “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit [of adoption].” For, surely, already having our own spirit, we received in addition the Holy Spirit of adoption.

Being hostile and quarrelsome toward the Holy Spirit, they also take in an evil sense what the Savior said about it in John: “He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.” For it is not right to understand the things of God as one understands human things, nor to insult the divine, which is in no way like us, by the likeness of our words and notions. It will glorify me, then, he says, in that it will teach you the same things as I; and I, what [I heard from] the Father; and in that from its own ineffable majesty it will display the greatness of my Godhead, which is beyond magnitude; and not in this way only, but also as it is written, “A son glorifies a father,” and, “The glory of the sun is the light,” and as I said, “Glorify me, Father,” and he answered me, “I have glorified you, and I will glorify you again.” For it does not praise as creation does, since they do not stand apart from one another in Godhead and honor; nor does it declare as one receiving, it which always dispenses the divine gifts to us purely from itself and is not separated from the Father in nature. For just as the Son, in giving, is deprived of nothing and not emptied, so the Holy Spirit does not receive what it does not have, nor speak having heard, it which alone, according to Paul, knows the things of God; rather it is itself that puts wisdom and understanding into [others] …; nor is it taught by another, it which breathes wisdom and the knowledge of prophecy into the pure; for such things are said about the ineffable Trinity in a way beyond [us, mys]tically. Accordingly the Savior said of himself too, “As I hear, I judge”; and John said about him: “Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal that God is true; for he whom God has sent speaks the words of God,” that is, agrees. And the Holy Spirit too is glorified, both through its fellowship in all things with the Father and the Son, and through what the Son threatens concerning it: “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.”

And the error of the Montanists lies in these things. 1. First, that they divine that the three divine hypostases are one person; for Montanus, he says, said, “I am the Father, and the Son, and the Paraclete.” And to establish this, forsooth, they bring forward, with an understanding beyond all ignorance, what the Son said so marvelously: “I am in the Father and the Father in me”; and, “I and my Father will come and make our home with him”; and, “I and the Father are one”; and, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”; and, “The Paraclete, whom the Father will send in my name.” But all these, as was said above too, show one and one and one person, each subsisting in itself in one Godhead; and … [he did not say, “I am one”], but, “We are one.” And these very texts convict their folly and wrong belief.

2. Second, that when the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians in the first Letter, “As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away; for we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, then the partial will pass away,” they say that Montanus has come and has had the perfection of the Paraclete, that is, of the Holy Spirit; not attending to what follows. For it has at once: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I reasoned as a child; when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” That is: what we now believe to exist, hearing it from the Scriptures, we shall behold with our eyes after the resurrection and know in reality, when partial knowledge has ceased; for knowledge from hearing is a part of the knowledge of one’s own eyes and of experience. For example, now, hearing, we believe concerning the second coming of the Master, and concerning his judgment seat, and the thrice-blessed voice, “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you”; then we shall learn by sight and by experience. Now, hearing, we believe concerning the holy angels; then [we shall see] them ministering face to face …; “[what] eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and has not entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him”: then the worthy will not only see these things but will also come to enjoy them. For the heavenly things now hidden from the eye of our soul here below, the life to come will make manifest.

“But Christ said,” he says, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now; but when that one comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all the truth”; and, “He will not speak on his own, but will take what is mine and declare it to you”; and, “He will glorify me”; and again, “I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you.” So he came, forsooth, when Montanus came! Not so; God forbid! For on this senseless argument of theirs, those before Montanus are found — both those who had Christ, the apostles, who received their office from God, and had Christ speaking within them and the Spirit of God dwelling in them, and gave it to others too by the laying on of hands, according to its will, and taught with boldness, and were believed by all, and not disbelieved like Montanus; and those who heard, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” — not to have had Christ and the Holy Spirit. But the Savior’s words set out show the equality of honor of the Holy Spirit and its teaching in harmony with his own. And what “I am coming to you” means has been said above; for we had (even if only the worthy have them perfectly) both Christ, who said, “I am coming to you,” and the Holy Spirit, about whom he said, “When that one comes.” For neither was the Master doing something incomplete when after the resurrection he breathed on the faces of the apostles and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”; nor was he lying when he himself said, “For it abides with you and is in you”; nor was the Apostle, [when he wrote, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple,] and the Spirit of God dwells in you?”; nor Wisdom when it says, “The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together has knowledge of speech.” Nor were the apostles, and the saints before them, less perfect than Montanus. It appeared at Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit, which holds all things together, already was; and it was received, as the Acts have it thus: “Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit; for it had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized into the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. [Then they laid their hands on them, and they] received the Holy Spirit.” And just as the Son was always present everywhere, yet after his coming into the world was perfectly known and glorified, so too the Holy Spirit always filled all things and held them together, but after its visitation at Pentecost was more perfectly known and glorified.

… [they say that there were to] be prophets [after] the appearing of the Master; for the Savior, he says, said, “Behold, I send you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues.” But he says this not as they think, but of the apostles, who foretold many things to come, and of the last times, and of the kingdom in heaven; of whom some were killed, like Stephen and James; and crucified, like Peter; and scourged, like Paul. And sometimes he spoke of the martyrs, and of the wise as bishop-martyrs. And Scripture knows as prophetesses the four daughters of Philip, Deborah, Miriam the sister of Aaron, and the God-[bearer] …

3. Third, that, contriving to show both that Montanus had the perfection of the Paraclete and that Priscilla and Maximilla were prophetesses, … wrote … to Montanus. They say that [she said], “From now on all women and all generations will call me blessed”; but [Scripture] knows of no books composed in their name; and moreover the Apostle forbade it, writing to Timothy the first time, “I do not permit women to teach”; and again in the first Letter to the Corinthians, “Every woman who prays or prophesies [with her head uncovered dishonors] her head”; that is, it is not permitted to a woman shamelessly, on her own authority, to write books and to teach, and by this to dishonor her head, that is, the man; for “the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ.” And the reason that silences women is plain: since the woman’s teaching at the beginning did the common race no good. For “the man,” as the Apostle writes, “was not deceived, but the woman.” So Montanus, beyond all others, neither knew nor had the Holy Spirit, in supposing this; and that though he came more than a hundred years after the ascension of the Savior and the visitation of the Holy Spirit, having first been a priest of an idol, and so having introduced this blind heresy.

So much we contend, soberly, as far as possible, against the other heresies; but there is also another bare head fighting against the truth; we must not leave that unrefuted either.

About the soul-destroying doctrine of the Manichaeans it would be better to keep silent than, by speaking, to show how greatly human nature has stumbled with regard to the divine, and to bring to people’s hearing things which I wish those men had never pursued in deed, nor had come to us, partly by experience and partly by hearsay. For it is written: “Do not answer a fool according to his folly.” But so that no one may either fall into the evil unawares or suppose their tenets tolerable, it is necessary to touch on the doctrine so far as is enough to make its harmfulness known to those who must read this; that is, so that they may infer from what will be said the things passed over in silence, and flee far from this ruin of religion, and from ever living together with those who practise it. For physicians too do not refuse the knowledge of poisons, not so that anyone may use them, but so that, knowing them, he may avoid them.

This doctrine, then, is an outflow of the filth that came out from Simon, the Magus from Samaria, who taught that the world is the work not of God but of angels, and that there will be no resurrection; who introduced the view that intercourse with all women ought to be a matter of indifference; who was driven to such madness as to take on the name of Christ, our great God; and who for these things pays eternal punishment, having been justly cast down into the much-talked-of and gloomy Tartarus. And indeed an addition was made to the doctrine at one time by Me[nander …], who differed from Simon’s views but confirmed the shameful practice mentioned, and likewise set out that the world came to be by angels, and who dared to teach that God the Son is just, but that the good God the Father, from whom are all things, is unjust and alien to the making and providence of the world; and by Basilides, who was a disciple of this senselessness, and … having names; whence, he says, what is so called …; and by Carpocrates, who later in time strengthened these things, and, as an addition of defilement, announced that unless one fulfills one’s desire in every way, one cannot pass the principalities and powers and reach the highest heaven; and further by Valentinus, who [persuaded] … those obeying him that Christ brought his body from heaven, and who fabricated a myth like this: that Depth begot Silence; and that from her he produced a kind of Word, like the Zeus of the Greeks, and introduced thirty Aeons, whom he called gods, since, he says, it is written that Jesus was baptized when he was about thirty years old (which in no way makes his absurdity hold together); and who announced that the last of the thirty Aeons is male-female; and that this is Wisdom, which, struck by the radiance of …, fell from the heavens and was cast out of the number thirty, and groaning, bore the devil from its own groaning; and that weeping over its fall it brought the sea into being; and that, forsooth, so that the number thirty might be filled up again, the twenty-eight Aeons contributed …