On Faith

The teacher of the church is like a physician: the church has many and various afflictions, and he gives each of the sick the poultice that the affliction requires. For example, some came into the church’s surgery seized by the swelling affliction of pride; taking the plaster of humility, they healed the swelling affliction of pride. Others … by the afflictions of the soul … quenched the sickness. Others, goaded to lust by the afflictions of the flesh, ran to it; and these too, taking the plaster of self-control, bound themselves round with chastity. Come then, beloved: since the teacher who spoke before healed the souls of the sick with the threefold faith, let us too follow in his footsteps. I think that many of those standing here also wish to hear about faith—not because they need it themselves, for they are healthy, but because they wish to heal the sick through it. For there are many who are healthy themselves but cannot heal the sick by their own means. So, beloved, although I intended to break open the text just now read to you in the Gospel and … to give those present to drink with the Spirit itself, I postpone that, and do what I promised. For we who are disciples … of the Apostle must become all things to all, so that we may win all. And I beg you, even if we slip in our expressions, to grant us pardon; for those who speak extempore often slip, since the mind is not sufficient both to contemplate the Scripture and to adorn the discourse. And you yourselves, present here the inner man of your heart in all purity, so that each of you may not only hear what is said, but also see it, and learn the force of each thing. First, then, faith toward God is a thing incomprehensible, intangible, unseen, …, honored and worshipped in silence. Faith begins from the Father, comes to the Son, and is completed in the Spirit. Faith is the seat of the soul, the foundation of life, an immortal root; and of faith the living root is the Father, the unfading branch is the Son, the immortal fruit is the Holy Spirit. A Trinity simple, uncompounded, inexpressible, indescribable, undivided in agreement, in power, in working, in Godhead, in greatness; divided in hypostases and names, united in deeds and powers. A Trinity existing before the ages, not having begun to be from a beginning, but without beginning, timeless, ageless, immortal, endless, not growing nor diminishing; a Trinity not now found out to be worshipped, but worshipped from the ages by angels in the heavens, glorified by the fathers on earth, honored by the prophets, proclaimed by the apostles, magnified by the church until now. And let us begin, beloved, from the heavens; let us begin to show the one lordship, worship and greatness of the Trinity. Three times the highest angels and powers, the cherubim and …, singing with … mouth, crown the glory in one lordship. Abraham the patriarch, being under the oak of Mamre in his tent, beheld three angels …: one lordship, equality of the Trinity in the angels. Three angels, and oak and tent and Abraham: and cross and church and the seed of human beings. Abraham himself went a journey of three days to offer up his son Isaac as a whole burnt offering to God. A three-day journey and Isaac offered whole: the three-day passion of the Only-begotten through the cross. And that Abraham beheld the mystery of Christ in Isaac, the Lord bears witness, saying: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it and was glad.” Moses too goes a journey of three days to sacrifice to God. So he says to Pharaoh: “We will go a journey of three days to sacrifice to the Lord our God.” And Sarah, taking three measures of fine flour, made the hidden cakes; three measures of fine flour and Sarah and hidden cakes: the threefold faith, and the church kept in the hidden place of the hearts of human beings. Laban watered three rods; three rods and water and sheep. Jonah spent three days and three nights in the sea monster; three days and nights, Jonah and the monster: of the Only-begotten in Hades. And that this is so, let him say: “As Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” The Ninevites too fasted three days and lived; three days and fasting and the Ninevites living: the light-bearing Trinity, abstinence from evils, and the life of the world. Three times Elijah the prophet poured the water over the logs and the limbs of the ox, and brought down fire from heaven upon them; and water and logs and limbs of the ox and heavenly fire: threefold baptism, and cross, and the members of Christ, and the radiance from heaven. Three times a day Daniel too, opening the windows of his house toward the east and praying, obtained his request, the mystery teaching that we must open the eyes of the soul and make intercession to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit toward the east. Three undefiled youths, thrown into the furnace of fire, themselves suffered nothing, but burned up the Chaldeans; three undefiled youths and furnace and Chaldeans: the incorruptible Trinity, and judgment, and demons destroyed. Blessed Paul hands down three virtues to the church, saying, “Faith, hope, love”: faith in the Father, hope in the Son, and love the fulfilment of the law; for “the fruit of the Spirit is love.” Paul himself too besought the Lord three times, saying: “For this I besought the Lord three times.” And notice the wisdom of the man, gathered in a very plain word: he did not say, “I besought the Lord a third time,” but “three times”: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three hypostases, but one lordship. “Three times,” he says, “I was beaten with rods”: that is, “I confessed three hypostases, but once for all I set up my soul as a pillar in one agreement upon the stone of confession of the faith of the Trinity.” “Three times,” he says, “I was shipwrecked”: that is, “The cargo of my Jewish sins I sank in the fountain of baptism, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Three measures of meal, and the kingdom of heaven likened to a woman who took and hid a little leaven, and leavened the whole lump; three measures of meal, a little leaven, and a woman leavening: it is wisdom, which through the body of Christ turns all humanity to faith in the Trinity. Setting, as it were, a seal on all these mysteries, our Lord handed down to his disciples one baptism in three immersions of the body, saying: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” We will readily show one working; and when one working of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit has been shown, it is wholly necessary that one essence also be believed; for those whose working is one, their essence too is one. Let us begin, then, to speak about the making of the world, about adoption, about freedom, about the establishment of heaven and earth, and in a word about every work and the other needs of our life, occasions accomplished by Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Let us begin from the first things and come to the second, and so preserve our discourse in order. The Father made the heaven, not without Word and Spirit: “For by the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power.” The Father filled the whole inhabited earth, as it is written: “… the heaven …” and the Son too … For “all things came into being through him, and without him nothing came into being.” Hear Wisdom saying of the Spirit: “The Spirit of the Lord has filled the inhabited world.” What then? The greatest of the creatures, man, did not come into being by the Father alone, but with the Son working with him and the Holy Spirit completing: “For let us make,” he says, “man according to our image and likeness.” “Let us make”: not “I shall make,” nor “you shall make,” nor “he shall make,” but “Let us make.” For if he had said, “You make,” he would have shown the Son as an assistant; but teaching the equality of honor he says, “Let us make man.” The will is common, the act common, and the thing formed common. And that Father and Son and Holy Spirit made man, David bears witness to me, saying to God: “Your hands made me and fashioned me.” Not you alone made me; not your hand alone made me, which is your Only-begotten. “Your hands made me,” that is, the Word and the Spirit. As if he said: “The wisdom of the Word formed me, and the understanding of the Spirit made me, with you completing it.” Likewise Job says to God: “Your hands fashioned me and made me.” And indeed the heavens and the power of the heavens came into being through him: David says, “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their power”; and in the prophet Hosea, “Whose hands created the host of heaven.” For here too he signifies that the host of the heavens was created through Spirit and Word. “Let us make man according to our image”: not “according to our images,” but “Let us make man according to our image”—“let us make” in the plural, but “according to our image” in the singular. And so that no one might suppose that man came into being according to the image of the Father alone, he added “our.” And for this reason, since that first-born image of Adam, made hostile by the transgression, needed renewal and cleansing, it is renewed in baptism not in the name of the Father alone, but also of the Son and the Holy Spirit, since it came into being so from the beginning. Indeed the Father seals in baptism, as Paul says: “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who anointed us and sealed us.” And the Holy Spirit seals too: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Sealed in our hearts by Father and Spirit, we are not transformed into two images, but into one, that of his Son. From these it is gathered that the “one” belongs to Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Sealed in our hearts, we become conformed to the Son, and an image of God, as Paul cries out, saying: “For a man ought not … , since he is the image and glory of God.” Much more is the Holy Spirit an image of God. The Son is great, and the Holy Spirit too is boundless: “Great is our Lord, and great is his strength” (for Christ is the power of God), “and of his understanding there is no number”—that is, the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding. The Father is peace: “Behold, I will turn toward them like a river of peace.” The Son too is peace, as Paul says: “He himself is our peace, who has made both one.” The Holy Spirit too is peace: “The fruit of the Spirit,” it says, “is love, peace.” The Father is a fountain: “For with you is the fountain of life.” The Son too is a fountain: “For they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water.” And if the Holy Spirit were not also a fountain, Paul would not have said, “And we were all baptized in the same Spirit.” But it can be learned more completely from the Lord’s words that the Holy Spirit is compared to a fountain: for Jesus came and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink water”; and, “As the Scripture said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” “Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive.” The Father is light: “For God is light.” The Son too is light: “For I am the light of the world.” The Spirit too is light; for otherwise Paul would not have said, “Do not quench the Spirit.” But since some regard this as forced, let David say it specifically: “In your light we shall see light”—the Holy Spirit. The Father frees the one enslaved to sin; the Son frees, for he said to the Jews, “If the Son sets you free, you will be truly free”; the Spirit too frees: “For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” The law of the Spirit frees: “But the law of the … [Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin … ] of corruption.” The Father is good; the Son too is good: “Is your eye evil,” he says, “because I am good?” The Holy Spirit too is good: “Your good Spirit will lead me in a level land.” The Father is where he wills, for he has no one to whom he is subject; the Son too is where he wills, for he is free; the Spirit too is where he wills: “The Spirit blows where he wills, and you hear his voice, but you do not know where he comes from or where he goes.” The Father contains all things; the Son contains all things; the Holy Spirit too contains all things, for David says, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? And from your face where shall I flee?” The Father is almighty, as Job says: “I know, Lord, that you can do all things, and nothing is impossible for you.” The Son is almighty, as he says to the one of little faith in the Gospel: “To the one who believes,” he says, “all things are possible.” The Holy Spirit too is almighty: “For it is,” it says, “the power of God,” the Holy Spirit, “a Spirit intelligent, holy, manifold, subtle, mobile, …, clear, unharmed, keen, unhindered, beneficent, … and all-surveying.” And the Holy Spirit is not only all-surveying, but even makes human beings overseers, as Paul bears witness to me in the Acts, saying: “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.” The Father sent prophets, the Son sent prophets, the Holy Spirit too sent them, as one of the prophets, Isaiah, cries out, saying: “And now the Lord, the Lord, has sent me, and his Spirit.” Apostles were sent out by the Son: “Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves.” They were sent out by the Holy Spirit too, as it says in the Acts: “So they, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia.” The Father called the apostles, the Son too called the apostles; likewise the Holy Spirit too called them: “While they were ministering to the Lord”—who? the apostles—“the Holy Spirit said: Set apart for me Barnabas and Paul for the work to which I have called them.” “You set apart, set apart for me Barnabas and Paul. I speak as master; obey as servants.” “While they were fasting and ministering to the Lord.” Notice: “and ministering.” Where are those who say that the Holy Spirit is a ministering spirit? If the Holy Spirit is a ministering spirit, it is one of the angels and of the holy apostles; for “he makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.” But the Holy Spirit is not ministering, but ministered to: “While they were ministering,” it says, “the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me.” But it is the voice of a master: “Set apart for me Barnabas and Paul for the work to which I have called them. Now you set apart for me Paul and Barnabas; for I have already set them apart from their mother’s womb.” And since Paul was called by the Holy Spirit and set apart by the apostles for the Gospel, as he says in the first Epistle: “Paul, a servant, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God.” But now, beloved, those who devote their leisure to blasphemy, when they ought to devote it to the divine Scripture and to know the Lord and what is said—“Be still, and know that I am God”—have found another blasphemous question, and they question us, saying: “Does the Father have a throne?” And we say, Yes: “For God sits upon his holy throne.” “Does the Son too have a throne?” We say, Yes; for it is written of the Son: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” But when you hear of God’s throne, you must understand the throne in a manner fitting God, that is, authority, kingship, lordship; for Scripture speaks to us as to human beings. “But where is it written that the Holy Spirit too has a throne, so that, understanding equality of honor from the throne, we may ascribe lordship to him?” Above all, we ought not to answer such people at all on such a question. For if the servants who came from earth—I mean the apostles—were counted worthy to sit on thrones (“Behold, you twelve will sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel”), much more the Holy Spirit. In addition to this they ask, “Where is the glory of the Spirit? The Father is glorified, the Son is glorified; where is the Holy Spirit?” the unbelievers ask. Let the faithful speak, and let Isaiah bear witness: “I saw the Lord upon a high throne”—speaking of the Spirit, as will be shown shortly—“and lifted up; and the house was full of his glory. And seraphim stood around him; six wings to one, and six wings to one; and they cried, Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts; heaven and earth are full of your glory.” Pay attention here, and behold both the throne and the glory. “And the Lord said to me, Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people” of the Jews? “And he shall say to them: Hearing you will hear and not understand; for the heart of this people has grown fat, and with their ears they have heard heavily,” and the rest. Paul comes many cycles of years after the prophecy; he is in Rome, he discusses with the Jews, trying to bring them to faith in the Only-begotten; but they turned away and disbelieved. Then … of this prophecy, that it had been fulfilled. And what does he say to them? “Well did the Holy Spirit speak about you through Isaiah the prophet: Hearing you will hear and not understand,” and the rest. Behold: the one whom Isaiah calls the Lord of hosts, seated on a high throne and glorified by angels, Paul says is the Holy Spirit. Who is still mad enough to doubt that the Spirit is both Lord and God and …? To whom be glory to the ages of ages.