On Holy Pentecost (complete)

Every day is bright, bearing the sun’s ray and adorned with the common light; for so the Master, having beautified creation, brought it forth. But a festal day has more for gladness, for it displays a double beauty … displaying. Such is today’s feast too, illuminating the body’s visible eye and enlightening the mind’s spiritual eye with the rays of the Word. For today is one of the three notable feasts, those … in the law and celebrated through the grace of the gospel. On this day, according to the Old Testament, the law was given; on this day, according to the new grace, the coming of the Spirit was given. On this day Moses received the tablets of the law; on this day the choir of the apostles received the grace of the Spirit in place of the tablets given through Moses. For the blessed Moses says (so attend carefully): “In the third month after they had gone out of the land of Egypt, the Lord said to Moses: Go down and testify to the people, and they shall purify themselves today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will appear.” Attend carefully. In the first month [they went out of] Egypt, and it was the fourteenth of the first month. Count the fourteenth day, and after it the days that complete the month, that is, seventeen, and the thirty of the second month. And on the forty-eighth day, of the second month, God said, “[Testify] to the people today and tomorrow, and on the third day, of the [third] month, I will appear.” Thirty, then, of the second, seventeen of the first, and three of the third. And see the agreement of the events. When God appeared on Mount Sinai, he appeared as burning fire; when the Holy Spirit appeared to the apostles, he flew down in the form of fire: “For there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them.” And just as, brothers, when God appeared under the Old Testament there were many terrors attending him (for gloom and whirlwind and trumpet and thunder surrounded the mountain), to prepare the people for [the coming] of the lawgiver; so also when the Holy Spirit was about to come, so that the suddenness of his presence might not lead those receiving him to carelessness, but that they might learn the dignity of the Spirit, who came gloriously, just as gloom and whirlwind went before on the mountain, so it happened also with the Spirit: “When the day of Pentecost had fully come, there came a sound as of a rushing violent wind”; and then the Holy Spirit appeared and shook the house, being divided, not dividing his nature but dividing his workings. For the Spirit is not divided, but divides the gifts, as Paul testifies: “All these the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each individually as he wills.” The honour of authority which Paul gave to the Father, saying, “God himself is the one who works all things in all,” he gave in the same words to the Spirit too, saying, “All these the one and the same Spirit works.” But the Holy Spirit was called Paraclete; why, if not because he exhorts people, that is, consoles them? This is the idiom of Scripture: the Apostle calls consolation exhortation. And he exhorts not as one second to God but as God; for to exhort is proper to God, for the Apostle says, so that you may not [think the name] of the Paraclete …: “as God exhorting through us.” And so that, brothers, Paul may not be thought to be introducing something strange in doctrine by presenting God as exhorting human beings, take the proof of an ancient testimony. The prophet Isaiah says to Jerusalem, “He who named you will comfort you.” Consider, then: the Father exhorts you, the Son exhorts you; for he says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to comfort all who mourn.” And besides, the Saviour, wishing to show the Spirit’s equal honour, says … another; but he would not be “another” unless a different one had been named before. The Holy Spirit, then, appears in the form of tongues of fire. Why tongues? Because of the usefulness of preaching. For since they needed a tongue to fill the ends of the world through preaching, which the Holy Spirit was going to work, he takes that form in accordance with the gift. And besides, because of an ancient story. For since then the giants … God, sending [confusion], divided their evil concord, he now sends workings of tongues, to join together the divided world. And it was a strange thing: tongues cut the world apart, tongues joined the world together, tongues through preaching. And why of fire? Since impiety had run wild like a forest and [covered] the whole world … for it is he who says, “I came to cast fire on the earth,” fire that does not destroy; for God’s fire does not burn but sanctifies. For this reason one of the cherubim was sent to Isaiah, holding a coal of fire from the altar, and when he laid it on his lips he said to him, “Behold, I have taken away your lawless deeds and your sins.” Celebrating, then, this feast of the coming of the Holy Spirit reverently, let us send up glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, … the coming of the Spirit, in the forgiveness of sins. For where the Holy Spirit is, there is forgiveness; for the Lord says, “Receive the Holy Spirit; if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.” The Holy Spirit is proclaimed as the one who sets free; just as the Father sets free and the Son sets free, the Holy Spirit sets free; but a slave cannot grant freedom, for what he does not have he does not bestow. For this reason, so that you may learn the common freedom of [the Son] and the Spirit, the Saviour says of himself, “If the Son does not set you free, you are slaves.” He has assigned freedom to himself. Again, Paul says, “So we are reflected as from the Lord, the Spirit; for the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Sometimes he is called the Holy Spirit, and sometimes … “and it sat upon each one of them,” not divided in nature … sometimes the Spirit of the Son, and sometimes the Spirit of the Father, not proclaimed in confusion, but expressing the inseparability of the divine substance. The Son calls him the Spirit of the Father: “Do not be anxious,” he says, “about what you will say; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of the Father.” The Son says “Spirit of the Father”; Paul says “Spirit of the Son,” for he speaks thus: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” The Spirit too gives life; for he says, “As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he wills.” You have seen the Father and the Son giving life; see again the Apostle too, or rather the Lord himself saying through him, “It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing.” And I will use a still shorter argument. The ordinations of the churches are ascribed by Paul sometimes to the Father, sometimes to the Son, and sometimes to the Spirit. For example, when he speaks of the Father ordaining the ranks in the church, he says, “God has set in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers,” and so on. Here he ascribed the ordinations to the Father, because it is he who has authority and appoints. Elsewhere again the same Paul ascribes them to the Son, for he says, “He who descended is the same who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things; and he himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as pastors and teachers.” See the authority through the word. He did not say, “And he himself served,” but “gave,” by his own authority, … what the Father wills, the Son wills, and what the Son wills, the Father too approves. What, then, he ascribed to the Father and to the Son, the same Paul again attributes to the Holy Spirit, the ordinations, when he summoned the presbyters of Ephesus and said to them (it is Paul who said those things who utters these too): “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has set you as bishops, to shepherd the church.” See the agreement of the word. He did not say of the Father “set” and of the Spirit “appointed,” but in the same word: God the Father “has set” in the church, and the Holy Spirit “has set” in the church. The Father legislates in the church; the Father legislates as king of the ages, concerning whom David says, “I desired to do your will, O my God, and your law is in the midst of my heart.” The Father, then, legislates, and the Son legislates. Hear Paul saying: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” He showed the Father legislating, he showed the Son legislating; and the same Paul, giving the dignity of legislation to the Holy Spirit as well, or rather not giving but rendering it, says, “For the law of the Spirit of life has set me free in Christ Jesus”: not that there are three lawgivers, for there is one law and one lawgiver, one God, even though he is proclaimed in three persons. “And how,” he says, “can the Father be called God, and the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, and not three Gods?” Where the things of nature are common, the things of dignity are common too. For example, God calls by one name things divided into multitudes from one nature; and when he is angry with human beings, he calls all mankind subject to his anger one man; and when he is reconciled to the world, he speaks as to one man. For example, God brings a flood because of sins, and says, “My Spirit shall not remain in these men … I will blot out man whom I have made.” And yet it was not one, but countless myriads; but by the name of the nature he called all as one, the whole world as one man, because of the common substance. “What is man, that you remember him, or the son of man, that you visit him?” says David; not that he visited one, for he raised up the whole world. I will use one short saying spoken through Moses: Pharaoh went out against the sea and underwent the punishment of the divine law. Pharaoh falls with countless chariots in the sea, and many men were sunk with him, and many horses. But Moses, knowing that the nature of all human beings is one, says, “Let us sing to the Lord, for he has been gloriously glorified; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.” He named the multitudes of men one rider because of the communion of substance. If, then, among human beings, where the things of knowledge … where the forms of shape are different (for there is not one, nor an equal mind, but different tongues, different words), because of the common nature the whole world is called one man; where the dignity is undivided, one kingdom, one proper power, … I call the Trinity one God. If, by saying God and God and God, I say three Gods, then if I say Lord and Lord and Lord, do I say three Lords? By no means. For the Apostle calls the Father Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord; as David too: “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand.” And if “the Lord to the Lord,” the Apostle says, “The Lord is the Spirit.” If, then, the Father is Lord, and the Son is Lord, and the Spirit is Lord, how do you, O Apostle, lawgiver of the truth, advocate of piety, [cry] to the Ephesians, saying, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism”? One Lord, according to the hymn of holiness of the seraphim; for they too cry out, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord.” And if the heretics contend that the lordship of the Father is one thing and that of the Son another, I wonder how they endure to serve two lords; for it is the Saviour’s saying, “No one can serve two lords.” If you divide the authority, how do you serve the kingdom? For two dignities cannot be worshipped at the same time unless there is equality of honour; for no one does obeisance to king and governor alike. Where the dignity is of equal honour, the worship too is of equal honour. In equal dignity there is no strife; inequality stirs up strife, equality rules over peace. He did not permit you to divide the honour; for he says, “This is the will of the Father, that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father.” Honour the Father so that you may honour the Son; or rather honour the Son so that you may honour the Father. The Father makes his own the honour of the Son; the Son makes his own the honour of the Father; for the Saviour says, “He who hates me hates my Father also.” Let not the heretics think, then, that they bestow anything on [the Father] by calling him greater than the Son; for the Father does not accept the honour referred to him when the Son is insulted. And see a clear proof of the matter from the Old Scripture. The friends of Job, who came to console him, accused him of being daring and justified God. But Job said to God, “Who will give an arbiter between me and you, and I will know how many are my sins, that you have judged me so?” Job’s friends justified God, not knowing the case, and rather condemned the righteous man as a sinner, while pleading God’s cause as the one who brought the affliction. And they say to him, “You have spoken greatly, you have spoken excessively against the Almighty; and does God not disturb what is just? He brought this on you according to your sins; if your sins had not been many, you would not have been scourged.” And they seemed to plead God’s cause, but they condemned the righteous man. Did God accept those who spoke against the righteous man? If he had accepted the pleading on his own behalf while the righteous man was dishonoured, [he would accept] also honour paid to himself while the Son is dishonoured … Hear what the Lord says to Job’s friends: “Why have you not spoken rightly against my servant?” If he did not [accept] those who did not speak rightly against the servant, will he accept the one who sharpens his tongue against the Only-begotten? Away with it. Inescapable, then, is the judgment on those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Hear what the Saviour says: “Every blasphemy will be forgiven human beings, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, neither in this age nor in the age to come.” What need is there of syllogisms of begotten and unbegotten, created and uncreated? For them the tongue of heresy is sharper than a sharpened razor. But a razor, even if it is great and strongly sharpened, can shave hairs, not cut timber; but the word of truth is not a razor but an axe. For this reason John the Baptist says, “Behold, the axe is laid at the root of the trees.” He did not say a razor; for it is not smooth, like those who smooth vanity outwardly with words; but the word of God is an axe cutting down the pride of the boastful, as John testifies, saying, “Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees.” The crowd of those who speak deceit and weave heresies is a razor, as David says to Saul: “Why do you boast in wickedness, O mighty man, of lawlessness? All day long your tongue has devised injustice; like a sharpened razor you have worked deceit.” The Father legislates, the Son commands, the Spirit has authority. Hear God saying, “Those who bring good news shall come, whom the Lord has called.” I beg you, lend your ear, so that you may learn the agreement of the truth. For we do not fight with reasonings, but we follow the Scriptures. We pray to be slaves of the Scriptures, not to enslave the Scriptures to our reasonings. Faith does not accept syllogisms, not as being irrational, but as surpassing all reasoning. And so that Paul may show you that faith is armed against reasonings, he says: “For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful for God for the destruction of strongholds, destroying reasonings and every height raised up against the knowledge of God.” And if the lawless man often wins by dialectic, do not be surprised … us. The Father sends the apostles, the Son sends them, and the Holy Spirit sends them. The Saviour says to the apostles, “Behold, I send you into the world; go, make disciples of all the nations.” And it says in the Acts of the Apostles, “So they, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia.” The Father calls apostles, the Son calls apostles; the prophet says, “For from Mount Zion will come the one who brings good news, and those who bring good news, whom the Lord has called.” It belongs to God, then, to call those who bring good news … this the Spirit, speaking through the prophets, said: “Thus says the Holy Spirit: Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them.” These things have been said sufficiently by us. May the God of peace make us all grow in faith and love toward him; for to him belongs all glory, honour, and worship, with his only-begotten Son and his all-holy Spirit, now and always, and to the ages of ages. Amen.