On the Trinity

Reconciliation through Christ and Faith§1

Christ's Agency and the Knowledge of God§2

2The Son is the true and free light and teaching for all; and he mystically demonstrates this to them, which they are ignorant of, through the ever-present memory of the many-fold exodus from Egypt within them. Thus, the noble Son of God testifies by his own nature to being free from above and not to have the character of a sister to the creation—for everything produced is a slave to the one who brought it into being, and the created thing is a slave to the creator—and he says to Peter: 'From whom do the kings of the earth receive taxes or customs?' (Matt 17:25). 'From their sons or from strangers?' Answering, 'From strangers,' Jesus said to him; 'therefore the sons are free. But so that we do not scandalize them, having gone into the sea, cast a hook, and the first fish that comes up, opening its mouth, you will find a coin. Taking that, give it to them instead of me and you.' (Matt 17:27). These things regarding these matters. But others still persist.

Concerning those who mythologize that the Father made the Son through the agency of creation: Blasphemously contending and mythologizing, they say that the Father made a Son most necessary to serve him regarding the rest of the creations, no longer understanding that this depends upon their own speculative reasoning—envy and sloth and other material things. For it is necessary indeed to see even these things. For if it is good to create—just as it is good and only proper and only exceptional of the divine abundant nature, so that he might also be glorified by the created—instead of having created all things through himself, did he perhaps feel pity in some way? And if indeed it is great for those being created to be carried along by the greater—if, according to them, the Father is greater than his own Son the Word—would he have been flattered by those glorifying his making through another? And if indeed they have not fled from all things at once, both pride and weakness, in making the produced through a mediator—the one making it through himself being greater in glory than the one making it through another—for he is not yet obeying the ever-existing by the rains, and as long as he is not yet permeated, he receives fitting measures and does not have in him anything lacking; not only is the proud one proud, but if he were already shown all that he would have authority and from...

And Jesus says to Lazarus, having died, 'Come out.' And to another, 'Your sins are forgiven you'; and to another, 'I command you. Come out of it.' But the fact that God does these things through another, according to the understanding of those men, demonstrates the God the Father, for whom the lawful Paul, having been inspired by the divine Spirit, guarantees to the believers among the creators of gods.

Furthermore, he also calls 'atheists' those who before this knew only God and the Father, being outside of the Son, because he does not complete the work in works, writing in one way that 'you remember that once you were among the Gentiles in the flesh, those called uncircumcised by the so-called circumcision in the flesh of human making, because at that time you were without Christ, being alienated from the hope of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and being atheists in the world' (Ephesians 2:12). And in another way, 'but at that time, not knowing God, you served gods which are not gods by nature—but now, having known God, rather having been known by God, how do you turn back again to the weak and poor elements, to which you desire again to serve from above?' (Galatians 4:8-9).

But truly, the message concerning Christ and the Holy Spirit is an ever-new salvation of the elder law, not declining into old age, and the ecclesiastical institution leads more forward because of its perfection and because it has neither lawlessness troubling it nor is it less or greater. For he writes by word or manner with this matter, having written that 'I became so... pursuing the church with zeal, having become blameless according to righteousness in the law; but whatever things were gains to me, these I have counted loss for the sake of Christ. But indeed I also consider all things loss because of the surpassingness of the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord, for whom all things were lost to me, and I count them as rubbish, so that I may gain Christ' (Philippians 3:6-8).

To the Romans: 'For if he who comes preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive' (2 Corinthians 11:4). So then, for what purpose, having given up and having thought in such a way, has he again written his own words of sharp divine knowledge? To the Corinthians, the second time, that if anyone is reconciled to the Son, he has been reconciled to God, and that in Christ there is a covenant with the world; and it has: 'as if God were in Christ'...

The Freedom of the Sons and the Error of the Myth-Makers§3

3reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and having established among us the word of reconciliation. Therefore we intercede for Christ as the God entreating through us. We pray on behalf of Christ: 'be reconciled to God.'

And again, as he used to preach all other things, he cried out loudly that even what seemed difficult was made easy to Christ because of his philanthropic economy, all glory and strength overflowing, doing this by work, so that one might not overlook the unbegotten, unmixed, and unchangeable divinity of the one from the glorious passion, lest a scripture of pride should offend. And he was saying such things: 'not to judge anything in you except Jesus Christ and this one crucified' (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:2). And to the Romans: 'the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe' (Rom 3:22).

Each is justified by God through the faith he speaks of toward the Son. And to the Galatians: 'knowing that no man is justified by works of the law except through faith in Jesus Christ, and we believed in Jesus Christ so that we might be justified from the faith of Christ and not from works of the law, because no flesh shall be justified by works of the law' (Gal 2:16). And he explains also to others that 'neither circumcision avails nor uncircumcision, but a new faith working through love' (Gal 5:6).

Of the word deepening the mind, it is to be developed. Therefore he intends to teach that the appearance of Christ is something new and that the only faith was found for all men; according to which he leaves no place, neither in Judaism nor in Hellenism. And this could be understood also according to: 'behold, the old things have passed away, all things have become new' (Rev 21:5). And so that it may be understood, he who knows God ceases to say that the circumcision is not perfect.

And the Son took up into salvation and teaching for all the true and free light; and he presents this to some of them as being mystically unknown through the inward memory of the exodus from Egypt. Therefore, the venerable Son of God bears witness to his own nature to the freedom from above, and not as a sister having the creation—for everything produced is a slave to the one who brought it into being, and the created thing is a slave to the one who created it.

He says to Peter: 'From whom do the kings of the earth receive taxes or custom? From their own sons or from others?' Answering: 'From others,' Jesus said to him, 'so then the sons are free. In order that we might not scandalize them, having gone into the sea, cast a hook and the first fish coming up, Peter, and having opened its mouth, you will find a stater. Taking that, give it to them instead of me and you.' (Matthew 17:25-27). These things indeed concerning these. But they still do not cease.

Concerning those mythologizing that the Father made the Son by the ministry of creation. 8.1 Dealing blasphemously and mythologizing, they say that the Father made a Son most necessary to minister to Him regarding the rest of the creatures, no longer understanding how this depended on this speculative word of theirs: envy and sloth and other material things. 8.2 For it is necessary indeed even to see these things. For if it is good to create—just as it is good and only proper and only exceptional of the divine abundant nature, so that he might also be glorified by the one who receives it—instead of having created all things through Himself, did He somewhat grow weary? 8.3 And if indeed it is great for those being created to be carried along by the greater, if according to them the Father is greater than His own Son the Word, did He court those glorifying Him for His making through another? 8.4 And if indeed they have not fled from all things at once, both pride and weakness, the making of the proceeding through a mediator makes the one doing it through Himself appear greater in glory than the one doing it through another. 8.5 For not being the ever-existing, He obeys the waves, and as long as He is not yet passing through, He receives the fitting measures and does not have in Him anything lacking; not only is the proud one proud, but he would already be shown to be lacking in all things and in authority. And when Jesus says to Lazarus, having died, 'Come out' (John 11:43), and to another, 'Your sins are forgiven you' (Mark 2:5), and to another, 'I command you, come out of him'—the fact that God does these things through another, according to their mind, shows the God the Father, whose thoughts are your workings, is not able to pass through all things by Himself without the help of the one through whom or in whom He acts.

The Incomprehensibility of Divine Generation§4

4But he treats the Son as if he were an insensate instrument. How will he not suffer a great fall and, with hands folded, opposing such wild slanders, withdraw, knowing that he might not become a defendant before the divine Judge and the hearing of an unappealable grace?

Concerning those things of which the heretics say: 'When was the Son begotten and when did the Spirit proceed?' and the rest. Even with so many and so clear proofs, and the Scripture warning 'not to allow diverse and strange teachings' and to flee 'empty vanities,' the heterodox ones attempt to establish their religion from the writings, being at a loss; as if they were drinking here and there the word being scattered to each, having composed various sophisms poorly and having studied them much, putting forward those in which these things are: 'Therefore, all things, he says, are not from God?'

To which it must be answered: but the Son is not from Him by way of begetting, nor the Spirit by way of procession, according to the Spirit of God; nor is He of such operations, or so viewed as to be worthy of being established. Then: 'When, therefore, was the Son begotten and the Spirit proceeded?' Then, when the Father was not begotten. For indeed He is from Him, but not with Him. And just as it is unlawful to seek in a place, since neither the begetter nor the begotten is circumscribed—so also not in time. For the Son is God and the Word of the Father, but He is for the doing. Likewise also the Spirit.

How, he says, was He begotten? This—even if it was written concerning the Son: 'From the womb before the Morning Star I brought you forth' (Psalm 110:3), and concerning the Holy Spirit: 'A Spirit proceeds from me,' and if David sings: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of His mouth all their powers' (Psalm 33:6), and if Job says: 'A divine spirit made me, and the breath of the Pantokrator teaches me' (Job 33:4), and if the Lord teaches: 'The spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father' (John 15:26), and if Paul writes that it is the very Spirit of God as being their own to men—yet all this exceeds the mind, for the same Apostle writes to the Corinthians: 'Thanks be to God, who always triumphs over us in Christ and made the fragrance of the knowledge manifest through us' (2 Corinthians 2:14), as if not all knowledge is ours because of the uncontainable God, but something like a veil.

As if they were being carried by a breeze. And again, regarding Him: 'we see through a mirror and in an enigma' (1 Cor 13:12). And most appropriately. 'For the glory of the Lord hides the Word' (Proverbs 25:2), according to the divine explicit, a Word surpassing all created perception, unutterable and infinite.

Not only because of the uncontainable. But because the eternal and prior to all creation, if it were not revealed by the Scriptures, was unknown to creation. And again, to the same people, the second point is called to this: 'we shall not boast in the immeasurable, but according to the measure of the rule, which God has distributed to us, to reach even unto you' (2 Corinthians 10:13). And in the first epistle he says: 'If anyone thinks he has learned something, he has not yet learned to know as God should know' (1 Corinthians 8:2).

What is the difference between generation and procession? Since the manner is unknown, so too is the difference, if indeed it is permitted for one to hear or speak this, for it is daring to assign a cause to the Cause, which yields a cause and an intellect above all. But to marvel at the divine and to consider the concept concerning Him to be a fearful awe is safe.

'Therefore, wanting, says he, did God generate, or not wanting?' But we must forewarn of their aim and thus answer. The aim, then, is that they might make an antithesis from one word to the other, against the pure. For, intending to strike at 'not wanting he generated'—and no one answers this to them—they say: 'So then, what God does not want, remains generating the Son, with the necessity of nature surrounding him unheedingly.'

Or, if the 'wanting he generated' is given to them, they lead to this: 'So then the generation of the Son has escaped from the paternal will, providing existence to him creatively.' But this answer proves unstable. For the God who generates and the Father precedes both the will and the non-will and every concept, as does the Son, the 'radiance of His glory'; and nothing is a middle between Him and that from which He is conceived.

Similarly also the 'image of God.' And again, the Son is an existence not beginning and not ceasing, whether through the will or non-will. He therefore generated in accordance with will and intellect by nature. But even this proposal of theirs is amidst absurdities. For it presumes that to want is a passion of desire, while not to want is to act.

Will and Generation§5

5And, by necessity and force, along with the will being pre-conceived and before that the thought of the Father's hypostasis—which possesses all and in every way—the radiance is co-subsistent.

9.21 To this, if they believe that all things came from the will of the Father through the Son, the will does not pre-exist. For it is absurd and impossible that the Creator not subsist and afterwards receive the creating through him. 9.22 But this too is full of irrationality. For if he says: 'I am and I am not changed' (Malachi 3:6), how can the unchangeable nature subsist changes according to the hypostases, not standing in the identity of the persons, but moving and falling? 9.23 Even this too. If it is true, as indeed it is true, 'whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does' (cf. John 5:19), the Son will also make another Son, so that he might do all things likewise to the Father. 9.24 But if he did not make and does not make, then he is not a creature, nor is his paternal will reckoned as such. 9.25 Let me say something else; if the Savior says: 'The will of him who sent me, so that everyone seeing the Son and believing in him may have eternal life' (John 6:40), the Son is not from the will, but the one seeing him. 9.26 For the will is found with the Son even there. 9.27 But one could drive this logic away from them entirely, not only from the things previously said but also from the things to be brought against them by us — that is, if a similar question is answered back to them: 'Did the Father ever exist by willing or not?' For the equals of what they studied will answer them: to the 'not by willing,' that his subsisting happened to him incidentally, nature's necessity turning him unwilling to this; and to the second, that before the willing he was not — for his existence will be referred up into his will, since, according to their babblings, it drives him creatively into hypostasis. 9.28 Similarly another thing, he will only say different from him before: 'God wills the immortal...'

Is it also good or unwilling? For the same things will be brought forth. It is better, if one answers them briefly, that nothing happens to the perfect God and nothing is left lacking in him.

And just as the will does not precede the paternal existence, immortality, and goodness, so also not the generation; and one can sing all such things regarding the thought concerning God. And regarding created things, David sings in Psalm 104:24 with a trembling psalm: 'Our God is in heaven; and on the earth, all that he willed he did' (Psalm 115:3), and 'all things in wisdom you made' (Psalm 104:24), that is, in the Son, and not in the will. And in Psalm 119: 'You held the hand of my right side, in your counsel you led me and with glory you received me' (Psalm 73:24), and in 1 Chronicles: 'for wrath is in his mind and life is in his will' (Psalm 30:5), and in 2 Samuel: 'Lord, in your will grant to my beauty strength' (Psalm 30:7), and in Psalm 118: 'save me, because he willed me' (Psalm 18:19).

For indeed, the manner in which, the Father existing immortal and good, wills to be these things and is willing these things, is not because—so that I may phrase it this way—having the will, he was not indeed unwilling; likewise, the will is not the cause of the being born. Regarding us, however, there is something from the energy of God and something from the will upon us to have; for indeed, we are brought to exist from soul and body and to be rational not by our own will, but by the will of God. For how could we ever, not being, have the capacity to will or not to will? But we have in our own choice to be good or bad, and being skilled by practice or unskilled by laziness.

And they have come to this main point, not being unsettled in their theory by accepting the words 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matt 3:17), since from that very thing they had a firm anchor of the right faith. But now they say that 'in whom I am well pleased' shows the Son to be a creature.

The Unchanging Essence and the Names of the Trinity§6

6Indeed, regarding his becoming human, the meaning has been fully explained. For when it was said to him, 'I am the Son of God,' they answered back, 'Blasphemer!'; the Father affirmed him, saying, 'This one alone is my genuine Son.' For the 'this' and the 'beloved' and the being named 'Son' with the article signify this: in this, he says, I was well-pleased that through his becoming human, salvation might be provided for you.

And if someone were to take 'I was well-pleased' regarding his divinity, their sophistry is invalidated; since not every word spoken by God, and especially regarding the Word of God, constitutes a meaning according to cosmic custom. Furthermore, if he had been speaking regarding the Son as already existing, 'in whom I was well-pleased,' the cause of his existence would not be found in the good pleasure.

So that it becomes clearer what is signified by such a word, let us use the witness of the one singing in Psalm 140: 'For the Lord is well-pleased with his people.' But the good pleasure did not come before the people, but with them. For then he is well-pleased in them and sends both peace and grace, when they worship him rightly; but when they do not worship rightly, the opposite is prophesied now: 'When he struck them down, then they sought him' (Psalm 78:34); and in Psalm 84: 'The strength of their arms did not save them, but your right hand and your arm and the light of your face, because you were well-pleased with them,' repeating 'the right hand and arm of God' and 'the light of his face' regarding the Son; and in Psalm 103: 'Remember us, Lord, in the good pleasure of your people.'

Regarding the saying: 'If the unbegotten God is wholly generative, he did not generate essentially' and that 'If his essence was changed into a generation, the essence of God is not immutable.' For them, this too is placed as being appropriate and full of errors in such words: 'If the unbegotten God is wholly generative, the one begotten did not come to be generated essentially, his whole essence having the capacity to generate, but not to be generated.'

But let them hear that 'if light is wholly generative, the radiance does not generate essentially, but receives from without, his whole essence having the capacity to generate, but not to be generated.' If, however, the light does not receive the radiance from without, but generates it from his whole essence without distinction. Text ends abruptly..

God acquired the Son from without, but he begat him from the whole hypostasis without distinction, as incorporeal. Therefore he is truly Father.

Again, they come, pursuing everywhere the opposite order of the Scripture: 'if the essence of God, having been transformed, is called a generation, his essence is not unchangeable, having worked the transformation into the property of the Son.' But no one even permits them to say this. For Scripture, having mentioned these things as belonging to others, opposes every heretic with great difficulty.

For if the light, having been transformed, becomes a radiance, the light is not unchangeable, having worked the transformation into the property of the radiance. But if the light has begotten a radiance not having been changed, remaining itself light and having the radiance naturally from it perfectly, and God remains unchangeably God, becoming Father of his own radiance, not having acquired it from without, but having begotten it perfectly from the essence.

Concerning those babbling that 'the essence of the Son is changed from the name of the Father.' Repeating the same things and even to the utmost distorting the beauty of the truth, they maliciously assert this also: of whom the names are different, it is necessary that their essences also be changed. For they say: 'the word Father does not signify the Son, nor does the name Son signify the Father's hypostasis.'

Let them hear, first, that if the divine hypostases were revealed by any symbol, not using a suitable designation, would he not have signified both the Father and that he has a Son by using any symbol? Or, by naming the Son and the Spirit as designations, would he not have spoken of both the Son and the Spirit, and that the Son has a Father, and that the Spirit is the Spirit of God?

Another thing they say, that regarding the Holy Trinity—except for calling the Father the truly existing one, and calling the naturally begotten one the Only-begotten, and the Spirit of God being called exactly that which it is called, happening to be of the Father—all the other names he has made the same, such as God, Lord, Holy, Just, Good, Light, Life. But surely, regarding the blessed Trinity alone, whose names are the...

The Nature and Agency of the Word§7

7Regarding these, the essence has become one, so that that which is characterized by the similar follows the similar. By the true and eternal light, toward the true and eternal light, and by the truly missing...

"I am God, and there is no other besides me. A just and savior there is none besides me. Turn to me and you shall be saved, you who are from the uttermost parts of the earth. I am God, and there is no other. By myself I swear: righteousness shall proceed from my mouth, and my words shall not turn aside, for every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess God" (Isa 45:22), which is to say, to know God or "to confess to God" (Isaiah 45:23). Therefore, God and Father is not before the Son, not by the unoriginate, not by the essence, not by the glory, but by equality, unless perhaps by the word of fatherhood. For regarding the words of the only-begotten Son, the divinely inspired Paul, writing to the Romans, clarified thus, having said: "For we shall all be presented at the judgment seat of Christ, just as it is written: 'I live, says the Lord, that every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God'" (Rom 14:11).

Similarly, the theologian John said in the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things came through him, and without him did not become one thing that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it" (John 1:1-5). And in the Revelation: "The one who is, and who was, and who is coming, the Lord our God, the Almighty" (Rev 1:8).

The "the one who is" signifies the eternally existing divine hypostasis, just as we have said elsewhere. For the expression is indefinite, whence God said "the one who is" as his own name. The "was in the beginning" makes pre-existence pre-existence and makes very clearly the absurdity and falsehood of "was when he was not." For the word "was" is absolute. But in the Roman style, the absolute consists of two words; unintelligible, it is interpreted: more than perfect. So now it is required to conceive him as supra-temporal or unoriginate. For if anyone were to say that the one who was not in the beginning, he was once an uncaused beginning. And again, how can time, which was not yet being, be a measure for the one who made it to be? "Was with God" presents that which has a Son.

Regarding God the Father, the indwelling of nature, and that from which he was—if it is proper to say so—the self-begotten Father, the Son from him co-exists with him.

The phrase 'was with God' (John 1:1) should be understood robustly, that according to God he was without beginning, unbegotten, uncontained, good, immortal, and all-ruling. For if he does not possess this regarding the overflowing wisdom, he will not possess it regarding the source from which the wisdom flows. But he possesses it regarding both. For the Word of John is manifest, certain, and unsearchable, looking only toward the divine. The phrase 'was God the Word' (John 1:1) establishes that the Word is of the essence, and that he is such a God as that Word is; and again, the uncaused. The phrase 'all things came through him, and without him nothing came into being' (John 1:3) demonstrates him, as has already been said, not merely as creator, but that he was not even created. For if not even one created thing received being apart from him, it is evident everywhere that he himself did not come into being, but was divinely begotten. For it is impossible for existence to reach from non-being to being through those things which have been granted essence and immortality by the whole and the rational. For nothing can make a created thing essential, or immortal, or rational; rather, from an essence produced from non-being by God, he creates the soulless and irrational, perhaps a statue or something else. But to cause non-essence to go forward or to reveal it as ensouled and rational is the unique and exceptional property of the one all-powerful and self-sufficient divine nature.

The Father made through him as light through an inherent radiance, and as mind through a word. The phrase 'in him was life' (John 1:4) discloses that he is without beginning, being the life of the one and highest nature, and in no way being the cause of all things from non-existing things. Therefore he also says, 'I am the life, I am the light' (John 14:6). He strives to honor the unbegotten by saying 'was' so many times, so that through the continuity of such a voice, he might either open the deaf ears of the heretics or leave no pretext regarding 'he was when he was not' in the coming universal and unshakeable judgment. The phrase 'and the life was the light of men' (John 1:4) teaches the same things again. For he says: this is...

The Son as Pantokrator§8

8Unbegotten life is the substance of the generated nature of men.

15.20 The saying, 'and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it' (John 1:5), does not admit the opinions of the heretics. For it declares both secretly and very sharply—as if anyone had perceived a prior time or an untimely moment or an eternal age—that it shines eternally as an inseparable radiance of God, and never did the darkness of non-existence overcome it.

15.21 The 'Almighty' (Rev 1:8) requires no interpretation. For it shows that he has an undivided kingdom toward God the Father and His Holy Spirit, and that he is 'God over all' (Romans 9:5).

15.22 The 'one coming' (2 Thess 2:8) signifies the Son who is about to come a second time and 'to judge the living and the dead' (Acts 10:42).

15.23 Thus the Baptist John also establishes that since 'the One Who Is' (Exod 3:14) is said concerning the Son, he declares to the Lord: 'You are' instead of 'that one who is', whom I myself, being in the desert of the wilderness and through the fluttering, having recognized as being in the Virgin the God, worshipped, 'or are we waiting for another?'.

15.24 And in the first epistle, John the friend and apostle of the Lord writes: 'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have touched, concerning the Word of life—and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and announce to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—that which we have seen and heard, we announce to you also, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ' (1 John 1:1-3).

15.25 Attend again to the multitude of the 'was', and how those not confessing according to nature that he is the Son co-ruling with God do not have the fellowship of salvation with the Father or the Only-Begotten.

15.26 For toward this faith delivered to us in the mystagogy of the illumination by the Lord of all is the fellowship which Peter wrote: 'that you might become partakers of the divine nature' (2 Pet 1:4). For the creature, being under time, is not a divine nature.

15.27 And remember in these things that since he said 'our fellowship' 'with the Father and with His Son', he spoke in equal terms, and not 'through His Son'.

15.28 And Amos

And the prophet, prophesying 'Pantokrator', names the Son similarly, saying: 'He who builds up his ascent into heaven and lays the foundation of his promise upon the earth, the one calling the water of the sea and pouring it upon the face of all the earth, Lord, God, Pantokrator, let that be his name.'

David also sings concerning an ascent: 'God has ascended in shouts of joy, the Lord in the sound of a trumpet' (Ps 47:5). Both these things are about the Son. For the Father neither descended nor ascended, as the apostle interprets, writing thus: 'And what is this "ascended", if not that he also descended first? He is the one who descended and the one who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things,' as he says that, having ascended above all, he is also carrying all things above, together with the Father who begot him, who is unbegotten.

For this is manifest to one having understood, from which even the noetic powers differ, since they are found to be measured creatures in heaven, but not above the heavens, nor are they able to fill all things. And Wisdom similarly proclaims him 'Pantokrator', saying: 'This will act against them instead of their insolence, because they mocked and magnified themselves against the Lord the Pantokrator. The Lord will appear upon them, and the Lord will destroy all the gods of the nations of the earth, and each will prostrate himself from his place' (Wisdom).

And Malachi likewise speaks from the face of the Master: 'For from the rising of the sun and to its setting my name shall be glorified among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name and a pure sacrifice. For great is my name among the nations, says the Lord Pantokrator. But you profane it' (Mal 1:11). For the memory of both the appearance and of being glorified among the nations shows the Son, whose name the Jews profane along with the worshipers of creatures. And this very sequence intends for him to be Pantokrator, since he is the icon and the only-begotten, having been endowed with Pantokrator, and in this also he is to be understood as the icon of the Pantokrator.

And Paul writes to the Hebrews: 'Who, being the radiance of the glory of the Father' (Heb 1:3), that is, co-ruler and consubstantial. For so that the incomparable might be shown somewhat through a parable, even if thus much it might be received into the mind, which is above the mind,

The Eternal Nature of the Son§9

9I will say—the great and only great thing compared by a small thing—as at once from the sun and from the nature of the sun, and from the whole disk, indivisibly and without separation and equally, the whole light is co-manifested and co-operates and co-provides heat to those receptive of sensation. And the light of the pre-existing essence, being immediately and not later poured out and co-proceeding and co-woven, manifests its quality entirely within itself.

15.36 But, regarding those words, 'there was when there was not' the radiance, where is the radiance-emitting hypostasis of the light? For it must have certainly slid along with that. And indeed Daniel, prophesying, said: 'and light was with him' (Daniel 2:22) instead of 'the Son with the Father'. 15.37 For this most demonstrates the unmixed and great nature of the divinity, that the Father begat it co-beginning and co-existing, and at once perfect and unchangeable and impassible.

15.38 For it is a property of a creature and not of a Creator, turnable and not unchangeable, under judgment and not unjudgeable, being made alive and not making alive, under sin and not of God, not to be thus begotten and born. 15.39 For if he himself, before any other energy having become, 'made the ages' (Hebrews 1:2), which are composed of times, and laid a beginning to all things, and nothing can be understood before the ages and aeons except the incomprehensible and truly only first and primordial nature, which alone exists, being without ties to another, how is it not believed that he is begotten without beginning from the hypostasis of the Father and not from energy, since he is the only one being without beginning and eternal and having no ties to another?

15.40 For time not defining, there is not before and after, but he who is not under time is without beginning, and he who is without beginning is uncreated. 15.41 For just as there is no time ungenerated, so also no creation is timeless, but time has a measure; for with it also time has come to be. And appropriately all things are measured from the Creator as second things, but he himself is measured by nothing, since...

Indeed, the God who is without beginning and is by nature. 15.42 The same things are considered regarding the Holy Spirit. For it has not been written 'he proceeded', but 'he proceeds'. How can life itself be made life-giving, or the true light be made light-giving? 15.43 Thus the divine light and 'eternal life' (John 1:4) were always, and the truthful and great God calls himself so. 15.44 It is impossible that the Father did not possess that which Paul testifies the same Only-begotten possesses: 'a radiance of glory and a character of his hypostasis and an icon of goodness and power and wisdom and justice of God' (Hebrews 1:3), rather, what was not fitting to say, he later took on in a certain way. 15.45 For if he had possessed them, he would have always been the Only-begotten being these things. 15.46 For neither the one being these things outside of God, nor God without his being, can ever be conceived of these things. But the Only-begotten possesses these, not as a possession or an attribute, but essentially, as has been said before. 15.47 If even at the beginning of the cosmogony the first trees stood together with their fruits—and it is nothing paradoxical, if the fruit grew together with the root—how is it impossible that the fruitful Father, from the beginning, was not without his own Son, and immediately burst forth with the radiance from the glory of his hypostasis? 15.48 Just as his downward birth through incarnation is not compared to any other birth—for from a virgin it is incomparable, being without a man, which our nature does not have—so also the upward birth exists as incomprehensible, surpassing every other birth and transforming all. And it is not necessary to disbelieve, nor is it safe for us to seek or to explain the manner, those unable to say how a virgin gave birth remaining a virgin, nor to know our own birth. 15.49 For where even the one according to us we know, we do not by all means know the one of God, which, being incomprehensible with heavenly powers, turns out to be so. 15.50 Therefore, with astonishment the prophet says concerning the downward birth: 'and he is a man and who...'

The text ends abruptly mid-sentence.

The Unity of the Divine Hypostases§10

10Will anyone know Him? Instead of 'no one'. Regarding the divine: 'Who will explain His generation, since His life is taken from the earth?' The generation is the begetting, the life is existence, and the phrase 'taken from the earth' is a most mystical way of calling Him one who transcends immeasurably from the earth and surpasses every mind.

For because He has become everything to all, He is one whom anyone, having circled much with the intellect through all time, finds to be infinitely highest, incomparably better in quantity than all, unsearchable in essence, and everywhere inaccessible—having enveloped Himself and having nothing of Himself outside. Even the multitude of angels and the whole host of heavenly ranks cry out in this way: David in Psalm 18 says, 'He set darkness as His secret covering and His tabernacle around Him'; and Habakkuk says, 'His excellence covered the heavens'; and Matthew says, 'no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son' (Matt 11:27).

For that which is born of creation through the union of one with another is not of the same nature as the begetter, nor does it emerge immediately and impassively perfect. Regarding divinity, the same applies. Since creation is such, the creator is the opposite of His own works, not similar to them, as only the blessed Trinity knows this.

For if He were not incomprehensible, He would be grasped; nor a mystery, if He were known; nor divine, if He could be reached; nor the creator of all, if He were from time; nor uncomposed and undivided, if He were in relation to bodies.

Just as those hearing about the Father say, 'You are from age to age' (Ps 90:2) and 'Your truth is unto the clouds' (Psalm 36:5), we do not set limits upon Him, but believe in His eternity; for the age does not dwell with Him. We ought to think the same regarding the Son and the Holy Spirit, because of the one prevailing nature into which these blessed hypostases exist.

The same melody applies to the Son: 'You are the same, and your years will not fail' (Ps 102:27). And although what is written of the Father is small, 'who is from the ages' (Psalm 55:19), what is said of His Son is not small, that He is 'the eternal God'. It is clear He is unsearchable, as will be shown shortly. And just as the Father...

Not merely 'immortality', but rather He is immortality itself; in this same way the Son is 'eternal life', and is the very same thing. Just as the Father is said to be 'one God', so the Son is called monogenes, God, Word, and 'one Lord Jesus Christ'.

And just as James writes concerning Him, 'there is one lawgiver and judge, able alone to save' (James 4:12), so the Spirit, according to the hymns written by Paul to the Corinthians and Ephesians, is called 'one' and 'the same' and 'only'; so that by this numerical expression, as it is said, these blessed hypostases demonstrate the single or unique nature of the Father's deity. And if 'the God and Lord' is true of the Father, it is without falsehood also of His Son and of the Spirit.

For as we have often recalled, the older Testament, having preserved equal value, has spoken: 'The Lord said to my Lord' (Psalm 110:1), and 'The Lord rained down from the Lord', and 'God made man in the image of God' (Genesis 1:26), and 'Who is a God beside the Lord, and who is a God besides our God?'. And in the New Testament, John said what has already been said; Thomas said, 'My Lord and my God' (John 20:28); and Paul said, 'the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty' (2 Corinthians 3:17), and again, 'as from the Lord Spirit' and 'may the Lord find grace for Onesiphorus's house'. And Job said: 'A divine spirit made me', and 'a divine spirit surrounds me with rays'.

It is the same in Scripture to say 'divine' or 'God', as Paul teaches the Romans: 'His eternal power and deity' (Romans 1:20); and the Acts say: 'we ought not to suppose that the divine is like gold or silver or stone, or an artifice of human thought' (Acts 17:29); and Peter in the second epistle: 'that you might become partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4).

And in whatever way the Father is incomprehensible, so also the riches of the Christ, according to Paul, turn out to be unsearchable. For he says: 'To me, the least of all men, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ' (Ephesians 3:8). But also 'there is no end to His greatness' and neither 'is there a number to His wisdom' according to David, nor 'a limit to His peace' according to Isaiah.

The Unoriginate Hypostases§11

11And 'your incorruptible thing is a spirit in all things', he says, and 'the spirit of the Lord has filled the inhabited world'. For no one would be found so thick and dull who does not realize the infinity of the Only-begotten and the All-holy Spirit from these unerrant and pure testimonies.

And I say that what is written by the Apostle concerning both Hypostases is equal in weight and concord, both the things discussed concerning the Father: 'God over all and through all and in all' (Rom 11:36), and 'the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ knows, he who is blessed forever, that I do not lie' (2 Corinthians 11:31); and the things written to the Romans concerning the Son: 'the one who is God over all, blessed forever, Amen' (Rom 11:36). To this also is added 'the fullness of him who fills all in all' (Eph 1:23).

Again, the things used concerning the Father are similar: 'so that God may be all in all' (1 Cor 15:28), but concerning his Son: 'where there is neither Greek nor Jew, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but all in all is Christ' (Col 3:11). And differently: 'that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and on earth, and every tongue should confess that one Lord is Jesus Christ' (Phil 2:10-11).

Concerning the Spirit, according to the things spoken briefly about him and what he is required to perceive in everything, as much as the Father is, as his Spirit, though apart from being Father. For he portrays God both in this and in all things, by which he argues: 'in this we know that he is in us, from his own Spirit, which he gave to us' (1 John 4:13).

And equal to that which was sung concerning God the Father: 'you alone are the most high over all the earth' (Psalm 83:18) is what was used concerning the Son in the 6th Psalm: 'Mother Zion says: man and man became in him, and the Most High himself founded her' (Ps 87:5); and that concerning the Holy Spirit in the Gospel: 'you shall receive power from on high, the Holy Spirit coming upon you' (Luke 24:49).

And just as the Father is great in relation to the others, that he knows the Son, so also the Son is great because of knowing the Father; similarly also the Holy Spirit. For he says: 'thus also the things of God no one knows, except the Spirit of God' (1 Cor 2:11). And undeviating from what was written by Paul to the Hebrews concerning the Pa—

The manner of the Son is oracled: 'for it was fitting for him, through whom all things and by whom all things' [John 1:3]; 'all things came into being through him' [John 1:3]; and concerning the Spirit: 'by the word of the Lord the heavens were established and by the breath of his mouth all the powers of them' Psalm 33:6.

15.75 Thus, the glorious hypostases, having been endowed equally with the Father, as having inherited his unmixed and incomparable divine nature which is over all, how could they be counted among all things under God, since they are numbered as creatures?

15.76 For just as it is impossible for the Father not to be unoriginate and truly to be Father—for he did not have this name by time or by imposition—so it is impossible for the Son the Word and his Spirit not to be unoriginate and by nature to be from his hypostasis. For at once, Father—forgive me for speaking thus—the one was begotten and the other proceeded inseparably.

15.77 And being Father of the Only-begotten and having his Spirit proceeding from himself is not lacking. And because he is Father, he does not differ from the Son and his Spirit either by time or by essence. For if he begat later, he would have been changing or turning, which is foreign to divinity, along with finding God at one time not being called or not being a Father as if having become one.

15.78 And the apostle, presenting to the Hebrews the unoriginate and incomprehensible nature of the generation of the Son of God, writes concerning Melchizedek: 'without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, made like the Son of God' Hebrews 7:3.

15.79 And he was made like—since he was not genealogized, as was the custom to do with the tribes of Israel concerning those honored among them—because he is a type and a certain pattern of the Lord, who is indeed without mother and without time above, but without father and from time below.

15.80 Even though Melchizedek became a manifest priest, so that it was a joy to receive from him Abraham and to present to him tithes of all things, as the same apostle says: 'Behold this man, from whom Abraham received a tenth' Hebrews 7:4. And again: 'And, so to speak, through Abraham and Levi the one who receives tithes receives tenth parts,' that is, through the forefather Abraham. 'For still,' he says, 'he was in the loins of the father'—Levi, the descendant of Abraham, from whom the...

The Creator and Center of All§12

12The meeting with the Lord was thought of generally—that is, with Abraham—the Melchizedek. What then is the will of their empty-headedness and how is it absurd? For they say whoever wishes to call Him the Beginning, and confess the end, and promise to the generation, and accept death from this generation; and they suppose that which comes from non-existence or from the dissimilarity of the divine essence to have become mortal and at the same time foreign to the composition of the Father, which is merely said, not even honored, as a mediator of all ungodliness.

But are their things then strong against the 'In the beginning was the Word' (John 1:1)? It was written also concerning creation, he says, the 'was'. For it has 'In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth, and the earth was formless and void' (Gen 1:1-2), and 'there was a man of Ramathaim-Ziphah' (1 Samuel 1:1). There is nothing common to the 'In the beginning was' and the 'In the beginning God made', nor to the creator in relation to the creation. For the 'was' concerning the creation is said and believed only regarding the flowing and passing time.

For the creation was after the non-existent came to be. For he said in advance that He made it, and then he added the 'was', so that it might not be thought automatic. But concerning the God the Word, it signifies the super-beginning. For 'In the beginning', he says, 'was' and 'was God' (John 1:1), and the 'In the beginning was' pushes out from non-existence.

But they testify concerning the being of the Son as eternal and maker of the ages thus: Paul, writing to the Hebrews: 'Long ago God, speaking in many parts and many ways, to the fathers by the prophets, in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the ages' (Heb 1:1-2); so he inherits his own things both as maker of them and as true Son; and he was appointed heir as having become man. And to the Corinthians in the first epistle: 'For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ' (1 Cor 3:11), that is, it is impossible for a beginning of the Son to be devised. 'For in him and through him' is every beginning.

And David in the 84th psalm, singing about the ruler: 'Our God, the eternal King, worked salvation in the midst of the earth' (Psalm 74:12). And he says the Golgotha, the middle place and such like.

A center which names him under heaven; in whom, by his divine foreknowledge, the Son worked out salvation for us through the incarnation, and in fact, when the impassible one suffered through goodness as he knew and willed for our sake, and reached, as they say, 'to the heart of the earth' (Ezekiel 28:26: 'I have set her, Jerusalem, in the midst of the nations'). And in the 119th Psalm: 'Forever, Lord, your word remains in heaven' (Psalm 119:89). And the Lord himself, utterly excluding the heretics, said concerning himself: 'Amen, amen, I say to you, before the ages were, I am' (John 8:58).

Regarding the establishing of all things as creator, both incorporeal and corporeal, but not as subordinate or mediator, and in this also as without beginning, according to the testimonies already set forth; and David in the 33rd Psalm sings: 'Our God in heaven and on earth did all that he willed' (Psalm 115:3). He did not say: 'all that was permitted.'

Who then would deny that the self-determining and all-determining Monad exists, the one who acts by his own will and has all things rushing together by his pure, intrinsic breath, without necessity? And in the 89th Psalm: 'You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. And all of them will grow old like a garment, and like a cloak you will roll them up, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not fail' (Psalm 102:25), instead of 'you are without beginning and without end.'

And Paul writes the same to the Ephesians: 'in God who created all things' (Ephesians 3:9), and to the Colossians: 'because in him all things were created, those in the heavens and those on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things consist' (Colossians 1:16-17). For he who essentially depicts God and the one before all things in divinity, no one surpasses or is elder than him, just as no one is subject to or later than the one who is after all things.

And in another way: if he is before all things, alone from alone and by alone, absolutely generated before every activity, and is essentially the Son of the Father. For it is necessary...

Jacob's Ladder and the Uncomparable Father§13

13That the one existing before all things and super-abundantly presiding over every nature is nothing of the all, nor is any creature to be understood by comparison of those things having come from him, and having received from him every change. And otherwise: if anyone were to call the maker of every creature the one bearing all creation and the image of God and naming him Son, paying attention to the truth and being informed by the divine oracles, how could he confess this one to be a creature or something smaller than the one bearing all things to be God or having existed before, unless he were mad?

Concerning the prophecy of calling God and angel, Malachi says thus: 'The Lord whom you seek shall come into his temple, and the angel of the covenant whom you desire. Behold, the Lord comes, and who will endure the day of his entrance? Or who will stand at his appearing?' (Malachi 3:1-2). The beginning of the word signifies the economy, but the following signifies his fearsome and philanthropic second appearance. And Isaiah cries out in the manner of those who rejoice, announcing to those who have not yet perceived what has come to pass: 'A child was born to us, a son was given, and his name is called the angel of great counsel, wonderful counselor, mighty God, authority, prince of peace' (Isaiah 9:6).

Jacob calls this God 'the angel' when, having slept while traveling to Mesopotamia, he saw a dream. For he says: 'And behold, a ladder standing upon the earth, the head of which reached into heaven. And the angels of God were ascending and descending upon it, and the Lord stood upon it and said: I am the Lord the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac. Do not fear; the land upon which you lie, I will give to you and to your seed. And I will be with you and will deliver you in every way that you go, and I will turn you back with safety to the house of your father. And your seed shall be multiplied upon l—' (Genesis 28:12-15).

...sea, and north, and east." The cross was prophesied through the ladder, upon which the faithful ascend to the heavenly dwellings, while God Himself, having voluntarily been nailed to the cross for our sake, stands upon the ladder. And with other things: "Jacob said, 'If God is Lord with me and preserves me in the way that I go, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and turns me back with safety to the house of my father, and he shall be Lord to me; and this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be a house of God. And from all things which you shall give me, I will give to you a tenth'" (Gen 28:20-22).

Then, having become many possessions with Laban, he saw in a vision again the God seen above him in the greenery of the pastures. And he recounted thus: "The angel of God said to me in a dream: 'Jacob, lift up your eyes and see the rams and the goats ascending to the sheep and the goats; for I know what Laban will do to you. I am the God who was seen to you in the way that you were going, where you set a pillar for me and made a vow to me there'" (Gen 31:11-13).

And in Egypt, the same Jacob asks the sons of Joseph this angel and the blessing of the "great God," saying: "The God in whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac were pleased, the God who has nourished me from my youth until this day, the angel who delivers me from all my evils" (Gen 48:15-16).

Concerning those saying, that "the Father of the Son is incomparable and greater," and that "one is an image and another is God," and that "and man was written as an image of God and glory," and concerning the testimony that the Father does not differ at all from the Son. And they attribute the incomparable and the greater to the Father because of the unbegotten, but to the Son the dissimilar because of having the begotten, drawing again the things concerning the most unspeakable divinity into the results of our own nature and the...

The Incomparability of the Son§14

14They think that the intelligible things are made similar to the flows of matter. For the heavenly things surpass all mind and all thought, while the earthly and lowly things are subject to becoming and passing away in time. But especially, the Son was begotten without beginning, co-existing and co-working with his own true Father, like light to the solar disk. And the fact that God, Lord, Holy, Creator, Imperishable, Life, Light, and all that the Father is, exists, is testified from the Scriptures. And it is more fitting to have the similar and equal from the many than the dissimilar from the one. How is it that Adam and Eve, not having been begotten and not having had a father, have become equal in nature to those from them? Or what simple comparison have they made, saying the 'dissimilar,' or how, having measured, have they arrived at the 'greater and larger'? For Scripture neither defines the holy and unbegotten, one and indivisible Trinity by nature, nor again distinguishes for it the first and the second. But these two things are being made manifest: that the greater is not in any way heterousios, and that the comparative terms apply to those of the same substance, not to those of different substance. Nor would one say it is opportune even by imposition, not even concerning the 'incomparable and greater.' Not according to size or any volume; for the God Word has withdrawn from all magnitude and simplicity, and from all bulk, composition, and form, just as the Father and his Holy Spirit, being contained by nothing, yet containing all. Because he is also the beginning of all magnitudes, like a creator. For where is size in the most sublime, supersubstantial, and superior hypostases? Nor even according to the unbegotten. For he co-exists with the Father as an 'emanation of his glory' and not having God before him. For he indeed says: 'In the beginning was the Word' (John 1:1). And God the Creator is not measured by time relative to the creation. Since it is necessary for them to require—which is a dangerous thought to conceive—a time prior to the unbegotten and incomprehensible God and Father, and thus to compare. But men are accustomed to call 'greater' those who have preceded in time in generation, according to Isaac who ordains: 'the greater shall serve the less.' Nor as a cause. Text ends abruptly.

He is not the cause of it. For the only-begotten Son was shown to be without beginning, since he is greater than both himself and us in the same way, which would be impossible to say or even to hear.

Nor is he greater according to essence and similarity. For from him it is said, 'as the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth' (John 1:14), and as 'the character of the hypostasis,' being a character toward all things, and as 'the image of God,' whom 'he who has seen has seen the Father' (John 14:9). 'For in him dwells all the fullness of deity' (Colossians 2:9). And this is drawn out by the testimony of 'let us make man in our image and according to our likeness' (Genesis 1:26).

Nor is he greater according to a distinction of quality, since the divine and unsearchable hypostases are not qualities; for quality belongs to bodies, but they are incorporeal and intellectual. But it is not even possible to think about them in terms of comparison, as if the beautiful were more beautiful than the lovely, similarly to the voice of Paul speaking concerning another: 'But now these three remain, faith, hope, love; but the greatest of these is love' (1 Corinthians 13:13). For through the distinction toward virtue, he gained the 'greater' through love. For, he says, having loved, we believe, and having believed, we hope to reign with Christ.

For if the 'one God' (1 Corinthians 8:6) and 'that you may become partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4) and not of natures, is true, and it has been demonstrated that the whole thing is one, I say: the deity. Nor is he greater according to equality, because it is written that the Son is 'God,' great and 'over all' (Romans 9:5), 'making himself equal to the Father' (Philippians 2:6) and 'swearing by himself, since he has no greater' (Hebrews 6:13).

Nor is he greater according to power. For it is written: 'the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:24), and 'all things as the Father does, the Son also does in the same way' (John 5:19). Nor is he greater according to glory or any honor. 'For if we had known,' he says, 'we would not have crucified the Lord of glory' (1 Corinthians 2:8). And it is the will of the Father, according to John, 'that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father' (John 5:23).

According to what, then, remains the greater and the dissimilar? As it was shown, according to nothing. And indeed the apostle, preventing the impious suppositions of heretics regarding the only-begotten Son and God, yet preventing the identity of nature toward his Father, and furthermore proclaiming the without-beginning, having written as was said above: 'who being the radiance of the glory of the Father' (Hebrews 1:3) brought forth: 'and the character of his hypostasis.'

And

The distinction between image and essence§15

15Again, regarding the Colossians and the Hebrews, it is written: 'who is the image of the invisible God' (Col 1:15). And in the Gospel according to John, the Son, presenting his own essence to be stamped with a Fatherly character, said: 'for this God the Father has stamped' (John 6:27).

This makes manifest the co-existence of the seal with the archetype, being of like-nature, and in itself showing perfectly and truly the unity of nature of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For the seal, just like the character, signifies that which is similar and undefiled.

Since it is a time to speak, and it is not improper or incomparable to have the Father as the archetype, even if he is being imaged and characterized by a created and dissimilar thing. These divine things, not understanding correctly the words of unsearchable interpretation, but twisting them and contending with human thoughts against the words of God, say: 'another God and another image of God, just as another man and another image of a man.'

And in a certain way they represent the living and active God-Logos as a motionless image. But in essence and in every respect, he is an unerring and sovereign image of the Father, and not according to form and shape, like a statue carved or sculpted, breathless and not self-moving, nor according to kind and color, like an artificial and imitative silent image. For these things do not even according to nature, nor indeed in all other respects, manifest the Prototype.

For indeed the Son is an image of his own Father's essence of a man; but it happens to deviate in age or kind or mind or power or dignity or related things or something else. But the God-Logos unerringly and precisely images in all respects the simple, undivided, and unlike Fatherly divinity, naturally and sovereignly.

For it is not possible to think, as if he were an image of God according to something and deviates from something; nor indeed does he become an 'incomparable' image; nor is it possible through the dissimilar or the lesser or the subordinate that the true and archetypal and greater and self-determining and incomparable might be shown; nor again through the creature can the natural form of the creator be understood. For indeed no other nature demonstrates the other within itself. But even the Father is found to have become without hypostasis, when the heretics do not teach the character.

Not of his hypostasis. But even the invisible, uncomposed, and formless God does not possess an image such as those they claim is imitative. And he clearly dissolves their argument and their induction, saying: 'To be equal to God was not considered a robbery.' And Moses also leads forward concerning a natural image, saying thus: 'Adam begat Seth according to his image' (Gen 5:3). Yet Seth was not necessarily of a different substance from Adam, yet he called the image and likeness of the essence an 'idea'.

But also concerning man, he says, it has been written, that he is 'an image and glory of God'. But nowhere, O you ones, has it been written that man or any other creature is to be 'an emanation of the glory of God and a character of the hypostasis'. It is something else to be a man as an image of God, that is, the thing made of the maker, just as Solomon says concerning the product of a carpenter: 'The maker is perceived in a likeness to the things created'; but it is something else to be, according to the same form and identical and co-ruling, an emanation of glory and a character of hypostasis, in-dwelling and unerring. For he says: 'He who has seen me has seen the Father' (John 14:9). But he who has seen a man has not seen God, just as he who has seen the product has not seen the carpenter.

But it is also necessary that for the only invisible God, that image is to be only invisible, and not the visible man according to the image. Therefore, the Son is not like any other: for he writes, 'Who shall be conformed to the Lord?' (Psalm 89:6). Nor is he unlike his own Father: 'For I and the Father are one' (John 10:30), he says. And those who take the concept of the creator's image upon him, they resemble Nebuchadnezzar, worshipping an unconscious image made by someone.

And God justly cast out Adam through the disobedience from the paradise; but the Son brought in the thief, and Adam with him, and the whole common race, as being altogether equal in divinity and goodness and lordship to the one who cast them out. Where has it been written that 'the Father is incomparable' to his own Only-begotten? Or that his Son is the creator and judge of all, according to his divine nature and the infinite nature of all things removed from them, is a 'creature'? Or altogether that at no time 'he was' (John 1:1)? Or where did the Father say privately, 'Create a son for me,' or the Son say?

Refutation of the Error regarding the Devil and the Trinity§16

Theophany and the Unity of the Trinity§17

17“May the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord make his face shine upon you and have mercy on you, may the Lord lift up his face upon you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26). In order to show three persons, he did not say once: “the Lord bless you and shine upon you and give you peace,” but a third time he named him “Lord.”

And just as when a Persian prophet speaks divinely, bearing a voice from the person of the Father having such a saying: “Be strong, Zerubbabel, because I am with you; and my good word and my spirit are in your midst” (Haggai 2:4); and Isaiah, saying that his mission has become similar to the similar ones of the self-existent hypostases, and in a few words indicating all their communion, cries out: “And now the Lord, the Lord has sent me and his spirit” (Isaiah 48:16). For he did not simply name a second time “Lord, Lord” and thus “his spirit,” but so that he might also show the hypostases and the one divinity and will.

And David also, for he himself rises by such a heading and makes all his songs full and proclaims, in what way he had faith according to these words: in Psalm 17: “Who is a god beside the Lord, and who is a god besides our God? The God who girds me with power”; in Psalm 58: “You are my God, the one who takes hold of me. My God, his mercy himself will come to my aid. My God will show me in my enemies”; in Psalm 95: “Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth, sing to the Lord, bless his name”; for having named a third time either Lord or God, he demonstrated the Trinity.

But also Hannah, praying toward the kingdoms, called upon the Trinity saying: “Adonai, Lord, Eloi Sabaoth” (1 Samuel 1:11). For “Adonai” is interpreted with the Hebrew voice as “Lord”; and again with the Greek voice he said “Lord.” And a third time in Hebrew he said “Eloi Sabaoth,” which is: God of hosts, or of powers. And now also Elijah...

The Thessian, in the third history of kings, having prayed to revive the son of the Sidonian widow who was dead, breathed a third time into him and thus raised him up, showing not only through this that he himself in prayer called upon the life-giving Trinity, but also teaching us to believe and glorify no other way.

And encouraging the water-bearers to 'dip twice' and 'dip thrice', he indicated that the three highly-praised hypostases work equally and similarly everywhere in all things.

And if you wish, I will once again make known to you from a divine voice that which is moving. For in the book of Genesis, at the tower, God and Father spoke the blessed hypostases toward his own Son and his own Holy Spirit, saying: 'Come, let us descend and let us pour out their tongues there, so that each might not hear the voice of his neighbor' (Genesis 11:7).

And Moses, as I think, showing the equality of the Trinity, set forth one vine in three stocks, saying that this other stock is nowhere more advanced, so that no one might think this hypostasis to precede that one, but that we all believe the three are joined in one divinity.

For this reason also the God-breathed Scripture forbade making steps at the altar, in which the Trinity is glorified, so that the divine hypostases might not be defined as being men according to some sort of gradation.

And simply the Old Testament, bearing a type of the new, discourses mystically and in anticipation, rather alluding in many things than stating in one; and stating more than alluding to the mystery revealed later, so that it might neither strike the unhearing and not yet stable and receptive of theophany with a blunt blow, nor perhaps cause complete harm; for the one was of infinity, and the other of inhumanity. And often also whatever was expressed here to us obscurely,

The Goodness of the Son§18

18Through another writing the solution was provided. The new writing no longer speaks as in shadow and veil, but clearly and explicitly, as these testify: Paul, writing to the Romans: 'if indeed God is one' (Rom 3:30), and to the Galatians and Corinthians: 'God is one' (Galatians 3:20; 1 Cor 8:6). And again to the Corinthians the second thing: 'the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit with all of you' (2 Corinthians 13:14).

Here, because of the sameness of divinity, he first mentioned the Son, and so the Father, then his own Holy Spirit. And he spoke of the communion of the Holy Spirit with Father and Son of the one divinity and glory and kingship. For what other communion is there upon God? To the Ephesians: 'one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all' (Eph 4:4-6). Then to the same: 'for this reason I bend my knees to the God and Father, from whom every family is named in the heavens and on earth, so that I may give to you, according to the wealth of his glory, power to be strengthened through his own Spirit, so that the Christ may dwell in the inner man through faith in the hearts' (Eph 3:16-17).

Thus again, similarly, because of the equal dignity of the hypostases, after the Father, he first mentioned the Spirit and so the Son. And again to the Corinthians: 'I urge you also, brothers, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit, to contend with me in the prayers to God' (Romans 15:30).

And to the Hebrews: 'if indeed the word spoken through angels became firm, and every transgression and disobedience received just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which having begun to speak through the Lord, was made firm to us by those having heard, God co-testifying with signs and wonders and various powers and distributions of the Holy Spirit according to his will' (Heb 2:2-4).

Through the Lord, therefore, the Son has been revealed, and through God the Father, and then also the self-determining and almighty Holy Spirit. And the Son showed the one divinity by saying: 'Why do you call me good? No one is good except one, God' (Mark 10:18), and the three equal and equal-powered hypostases...

The argument continues through the teaching regarding baptism. In 18.36, by not saying 'do not call me good' in a testing manner to the legalist, but asking 'why do you call me good?', he showed that he himself is good equal to the Father, and his goodness shines forth from the Father's goodness, being shown to be good having been born from the Good.

In 18.37, 'For if you know me to be good,' he says, 'do not entangle the teacher with the word' like 'Well done, good servant' (Luke 19:17), and like 'The good man brings good out of the good treasure of the heart' (Luke 6:45), and like 'Samuel was good with God and men' (1 Sam 2:26), and 'Saul, son of Kish, from the tribe of Benjamin, was better than all Israel by a head and above' (1 Sam 9:2), and 'The good dog lives above the dead lion' (Eccl 9:4). 'Do not withdraw from the primary Good, but recognize me as God, not another in the divinity of the Father, but in the hypostasis.'

In 18.38, for the divinity of both is one; since the first is no longer found to be a single good. 'For it was once read,' he says, 'as "It is good for you to trust in the Lord or to trust in man"' (Psalm 118:8). 'For to cling to God is good.' And 'I urged you always to follow me as good and to walk after me' (Luke 9:23).

In 18.39, therefore he did not say 'No one is good except one, the Father', but 'No one is good except one, God', just as in another place he says 'Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do my words?' (Luke 6:46).

In 18.40, for creation, he says, has goodness by participation, imitating, if it is permitted to say, the innate and perfect goodness of God and being saved through it. And there is an existence of that which has goodness in itself, participating in the goodness of God, clinging to Him through obedience and through love toward Him.

In 18.41, for it was written 'Those who distance themselves from you shall perish' (Psalm 73:27), and 'God is far from the ungodly' (Proverbs 15:29), and 'Salvation is far from sinners' (Psalm 119:155).

In 18.42, it is clear that this is in relation and disposition through the opposition toward the good and the degree toward virtue, but not in place.

In 18.43, since he himself is also good, being one by nature with the Good Father, he himself says in Matthew, 'Or is your eye evil because I am good?' (Matthew 20:15); and again, 'Mary chose the good portion, which shall not be taken from her' (Luke 10:42). And he said 'the good portion'.

Scriptural Proofs for the Trinity§19

19Himself. And they preach by the Spirit. They are not visible men, but they have conversed greatly with the divine Spirit. And these are among the others of their company: the Psalmist in a certain Psalm says: 'Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good' (Ps 106:1). And in the same: 'Let all who fear the Lord say, that He is good' (Psalm 118:4). And Jeremiah lamented: 'The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul seeking Him' (Lam 3:25). And Isaiah: 'The Lord is a good judge to the house of Israel' (Isa 30:18).

Because also the Holy Spirit of God is good, the one mentioned by David in Psalm 143 sings: 'Your good Spirit shall lead me in a level land' (Ps 143:10). In addition to these, if the eternal life and the words of the Son are good—for He said: 'I am the life' (John 14:6), and again: 'The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life' (John 6:63)—and if the sanctification of the Holy Spirit and the energy in the illumination are good (for it is remembered as a co-worker), and also the distribution of the heavenly gifts, then the Son and the Holy Spirit are in every way good.

We were not taught by hearing alone, but we have also seen how the distinct properties of the hypostases of the incorrupt and consubstantial Trinity enter in: of the Father from heaven saying: 'This is my beloved Son' (Matt 3:17), of His Only-begotten being baptized on earth, and of His one and only Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove and remaining upon Him, the Only-begotten God and Son. For a Davidic treasure is confirmed in this Psalm, that the one incarnated from among our wombs was attested as Son by God the Father. And the word is known to all, having here: 'Truth has risen up from the earth, righteousness has bowed down from the heavens' (Ps 85:11).

Likewise, because there is no difference in deity, the words sometimes manifest the Father with the Son in the awesome and unblemished Trinity, as when David says: 'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand' (Ps 110:1), and Paul: 'Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ' (Rom 1:7). And sometimes they join the Father with the Holy Spirit, as when Haggai prophesies: 'For I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, and my Spirit has stood in the midst' (Hag 2:4).

"of you", and again: "not in great power nor in strength, but in my spirit," says the Lord Almighty (Zechariah 4:6). It must be applied to the word. For since the heretics, while the Spirit is being mentioned with the Father, claim that an unsubstantial power is being shown, the preceding word stands securely. And Isaiah: "and now the Lord has sent me and his spirit" (Isaiah 48:16); and again: "there the deer met and gave each other their faces. In number they came, and not one of them perished. The one did not seek the other, because the Lord commanded them and his spirit gathered them together" (Isaiah 34:16).

And Paul to the Corinthians: "do you not know that you are the temple of God and the spirit of God dwells in you" (1 Corinthians 3:16), and again: "the love of God is poured out in your hearts through the holy spirit" (Romans 5:5), and again: "but God has revealed to us through his spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:10). At other times they name only the Son, as when Isaiah prophesies: "and now, Lord, you are our Father, and we are all works of clay of your hands" (Isaiah 64:8); and Paul to the Galatians: "for as many as were baptized into Christ, have clothed themselves with Christ" (Galatians 3:27).

At other times they proclaim the only-begotten with the holy spirit, as when Paul writes to the Corinthians: "but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God" (1 Corinthians 6:11), to the Romans: "I say the truth in Christ, I do not lie, my conscience bearing witness to me in the holy spirit" (Romans 9:1), and again: "for if indeed the one coming preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or you receive another spirit, which you did not receive" (2 Corinthians 11:4).

And at other times he reminds us of the holy spirit, as when Isaiah prophesies: "they rebelled and provoked the holy spirit" (Isaiah 63:10), and again: "a spirit came down from the Lord and led them" (Isaiah 63:14); and Paul writes to the Corinthians: "but a natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God" (1 Corinthians 2:14). And just as Stephen declares in the Acts: "you resist the holy spirit" (Acts 7:51), and again: "we are witnesses of these words and the holy spirit" (Acts 5:32), just as we have become accustomed to say: "we alone are here and God is also."

The Unity of the Trinity and the Vision of Isaiah§20

20And the Savior alone mentions the divine Spirit according to John, saying: 'But when He comes, that Spirit of truth, He will guide you into all the truth' (John 16:13).

And the deeds likewise testify to this: 'And while Peter was deliberating concerning the word, the Holy Spirit said to him, Stand up, go down, and walk with them without any hesitation, because I have sent them' (Acts 10:19); and again: 'These things the Holy Spirit says: Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the work, whom I have called' (Acts 13:2); and again the Holy Spirit said to Peter: 'Stand up, go' (Acts 10:20) to the house of Cornelius.

And again the apostolic deeds, being elegant, provide a demonstration by such a word; for they contain: 'Then Paul, having been filled with the Holy Spirit, said to him' (Acts 13:9), and also: 'For Peter, having been filled with the Holy Spirit, said to the people' (Acts 4:8).

Similarly, the equal-balance and equal-power of the all-divine hypostases is signified, and in the Word, the Lord God, through His most-praised voice having been foretold for the baptism, the equal-honor to Himself and to the Holy Spirit for keeping the relation toward the Father; through which the holy books sometimes first mention the Father and thus the Son or the Holy Spirit, and sometimes first remember the Son because of the indivisibility of nature and the indistinguishability of theology; as when Job declares the Trinity boldly: 'The Lord lives, who has thus judged me, and the Almighty, who has afflicted my soul; indeed, my breath is still remaining, but a divine spirit surrounds me in my nostrils' (Job 27:2-3). He says that He is the one making alive with a Holy Spirit and still breathing, making it so.

And as when Paul writes to the Thessalonians the second time: 'And our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God and Father will exhort your hearts' (1 Thess 3:11), and to the Galatians: 'Paul, an apostle, not from man nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father' (Gal 1:1), and to the Corinthians, as is previously stated: 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit' (2 Cor 13:13).

And the Savior says: 'We will come, I and the Father, and we will make a dwelling with Him alone' (John 14:23).

First they name the Holy Spirit, and then the Father or the Son, as when David sings: 'Where shall I go from your spirit, and from your face where shall I flee?' (Ps 139:7). And Job, showing his good conscience, says: 'A divine spirit made me, and the breath of the Almighty teaches me' (Job 33:4). And as Paul writes in the first epistle to the Corinthians: 'There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and diversities of ministries, but the same Lord; and diversities of operations, but the same God who works all in all' (1 Cor 12:4-6). Sometimes they speak homonymously concerning two hypostases, as when Zechariah says: 'The Lord said to the devil: The Lord will rebuke you, devil' (Zechariah 3:2). And it was shown more clearly through many examples.

Concerning what has now been said about the Father, sometimes it is said about the Son or about the Holy Spirit because the Trinity exists in one divinity. In one single divinity, the hierophants, knowing the glorious Trinity and its theology being common, sometimes speak about the Father, sometimes others about the Son or about the Holy Spirit, not opposing one another, but because we also know this very thing to be the opportune part of the right faith; and just as whatever hypostasis we remember from everything, we also received the other with faith, as inseparable.

But it is necessary for the truthful ones, who deny the truth of glory, to be truthful in teaching the simple and truly true, that is, the goodness of God. For they say it is not right for the impure to touch the pure; but those were pure and strangers to all false glory. And we shall find this immediately in the theophany which Isaiah saw. And why not first mention the whole of that place as it is?

So he says: 'I saw the Lord Sabaoth sitting upon a high and exalted throne, and the house was full of his glory. And seraphim were standing around him; six wings to the one and six wings to the one; with two wings they covered the faces, with two they covered the feet, and with two they were flying; and one was crying to another: Holy, holy' (Isa 6:1-3).

Isaiah's Vision and Scriptural Witnesses§21

21“Holy Lord of Sabaoth, the heaven is full of his glory and all the earth.” (Isa 6:3). He says other things: “He said to me: say to the people: by hearing you shall hear and you shall not understand, and seeing you shall see and you shall not perceive. For the heart of this people has become thick, and with their ears they have heard heavily and their eyes they have blinded, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn and I might heal them.” (Isa 6:9-10). And among others he brings forward: “and the king Lord Sabaoth I saw with my eyes. And he was sent to one of the seraphim” (Isaiah 6:5-6) and the following.

Having seen thus the Lord Sabaoth and king, Isaiah knew that this one is God the Father (Isa 6:5). And Paul in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, finding the Holy Spirit to be, declared thus, interjecting: “The Holy Spirit spoke well to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet, saying: Go to this people and say to him: by hearing you shall hear and you shall not understand” (Acts 28:25) and the following, as it is written. And John in the Gospel distinguished the Son of God to be. For he said: “Because he has made so many signs, they were not able to believe, since Isaiah said: He has blinded their eyes and made heavy their heart, so that they might not see with their eyes and understand with their heart and turn and I might heal them” (John 12:37-40). And immediately he brings forward: “And Isaiah said these things when he seen his glory,” (John 12:41) that is, of the Son of God. These things indeed are somewhat about these matters.

But hear also other things of the same power, of David in Psalm 95, singing from the person of God the Father with the lyre thus: “Your fathers tested me and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was vexed with this generation and said: They always err in heart. But they did not know my roads. As I swore in my anger: they shall not enter into my rest” (Ps 95:7-11). Paul, writing to the Hebrews from the same psalm by the Holy Spirit, clarifies this way: “As it was said,” he says, “the Holy Spirit: Today if you hear my voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion on the day of temptation, in which your fathers tested me and saw my works for forty years” (Heb 3:7-8). And Stephen, in the Acts, spoke to the Jews from the same threatening scripture: “Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers and you do” (Acts 7:51). Similarly, Moses says that the Hebrews were led out of Egypt in Deuteronomy: “For the Lord,” he says, “was alone with them, and” (Deuteronomy 32:12).

Refuting the distinction of substance through Scripture§22

22"...and God was not a stranger among them." Jeremiah likewise says: "And you have not said, 'Where is the Lord, the one who brought you up from the land of Egypt, the one who guided you in the wilderness?'" (Jeremiah 2:6). Isaiah says that the Holy Spirit has guided: "For He led them through the deep, as a horse through the desert without tiring, and as livestock through a field, a spirit came from the Lord and guided them." (Isaiah 63:13-14). And Paul teaches that Christ has become their guide: "For they drank from a spiritual following rock, and the rock was Christ." (1 Corinthians 10:4). To this, Jude also writes universally: "For once the Lord Jesus, having saved a people out of Egypt, a second time destroyed those who did not believe in Him." (Jude 1:5).

There, therefore, the attempt of those who call the seventh Son and the Divine Spirit a creature is twice refuted, as is the use of 'another hypostasis' as a pretext to mark the one infinite nature as being different, and the claim that 'God was not a stranger among them,' that is to say, of a different substance. In the same manner Moses says: "There shall be no inheritance or lot for the Levites in the land; the Lord Himself is their inheritance." (Numbers 18:20). And Jeremiah says: "He who formed all things is Himself the inheritance of Jacob; the Lord is His name." (Jeremiah 10:16). And David says in the 14th Psalm: "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup." (Psalm 16:5).

Paul also writes to the Ephesians that the Holy Spirit is the inheritance: "In whom," he says, "having believed, we were sealed with the Spirit of the promise, the Holy Spirit, who is the pledge of our inheritance." (Ephesians 1:13-14). Similarly, Paul writes to the Corinthians: "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of activities, but the same God who works all things in all." (1 Corinthians 12:4-11).

By demonstrating the identity of the Divinity, He recalls not only the Spirit first, then the Son, and thus the Father, but also, having just said that God works all things, He leads into: "And all these things works the one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to each one individually as He wills." (1 Corinthians 12:11). He clearly and explicitly presents Him as God, consubstantial with the Father and the Son at once, and as self-determining. One has heard also of God and the Father from Isaiah saying...

“And I will not give my glory to another” (Isa 42:8); and John said: “that all may honor the Son as they…§23–24

24…of God dwell in you?” and: “Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit in you, whom you have from God?” (1 Cor 3:16; 6:19). And to the Ephesians: “that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” (Eph 3:16-17).

And as when the Master says in John: “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; but you know him, because he abides with you and will be in you” (John 14:17). And again: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23).

And this will be still clearer to the observer: that the almighty divine Word, willing it, both remained unchanged and was carried in the womb by the Virgin.

But they again raise objections, saying: “It is written, allegedly, concerning Ananias: ‘Why has Satan filled your heart?’ (Acts 5:3); and concerning Judas, that ‘Satan entered into him’ (John 13:27).” To them it must be said that he fills the one who does not attend to “Do not let your foot be moved, and he who keeps you will not slumber” (Psalm 121:3; LXX 120:3) — not by being partaken of, nor by riding upon the soul as it were, but by deceiving, and working in the treacherous manner of malice, and making his own wickedness a mere side-show. In the same way he filled Elymas his son with the prompting of a satanic deed. For Paul says to him — being filthy in mind and in deeds and full of devilish wickedness and deceiving the saints, as it seems […].

The Unchangeable Nature and the Life in the Trinity§25

2521. Concerning speaking of the Trinity among the faithful, because of the unchangeable nature and essence. And speaking equally of the divine hypostases among the saints proclaims the unchangeability of nature and authority. For Zechariah—not the prophet, but the father of John—said that the Lord God of Israel has spoken through the prophets (Luke 1:70). And Paul similarly sent to the Hebrews: 'God, having spoken many times and in many ways of old to the fathers in the prophets, has spoken to us in this last age in His Son' (Hebrews 1:1-2). And to the Corinthians he wrote concerning the Son: 'since you seek the testing of the Christ speaking in me' (2 Corinthians 13:3). And the Savior according to Matthew teaches: 'for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father is the one speaking in you' (Matthew 10:20).

22. Concerning the fact that it is written that we live by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit through the same Word, which is the consubstantiality of the Trinity. What is written—that we live by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—teaches this to be seen most clearly; just as when Paul reasons with the Romans in letters: 'you consider yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord' (Romans 6:11). And again: 'that those who live may no longer live for themselves, but for Him, Christ, who died for them and was raised up' (2 Corinthians 5:15); and to the Galatians: 'if we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit' (Galatians 5:25).

23. Concerning the fact that through this Word, the law from above is written to be of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Because of whom we said it is the Word, and the law from above is written to be of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, just as the Psalmist says in Psalm 40: 'the law of his God is in his heart,' and in Psalm 39: 'to do your will, O God, I have desired, and your law is in the midst of my womb' (Psalm 40:8; 39:8). And as Paul writes to the Galatians: 'Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ' (Galatians 6:2).

And to the Corinthians in the first epistle: “To those without law I became as without law — not being without God’s law, but under Christ’s law — that I might win those without law” (1 Cor 9:21). And to the Romans: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2). And again, hinting at the new and the old covenant, he says: “But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that by which we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter” (Rom 7:6); and again: “For we know that the law is spiritual” (Rom 7:14).

24. Concerning our being called men of God or Christians or spiritual ones, on account of the same cause of consubstantiality in the Trinity. So then, on this account we are called either men of God or Christians or spiritual ones. For thus the widow in Zarephath says to Elijah the Tishbite: “What have you to do with me, man of God?” (1 Kings 17:18); and again: “Now I know that you are a holy man of God” (1 Kings 17:24). And the Shunammite to her husband concerning the prophet Elisha: “See, a great man of God is coming to us” (2 Kings 4:9). And the royal histories: “And a man of God came from Judah and prophesied against the altar in Bethel” (1 Kings 13:1). And the Psalmist in the inscription of the 89th Psalm: “A prayer of Moses, the man of God” (Ps 89 LXX).

And Paul, writing to Timothy a second time: “that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:17). And the Acts: “And it happened that they were gathered together in the church for a whole year, and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch” (Acts 11:26). And Paul, speaking to the Corinthians in an epistle: “Now concerning spiritual things I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers. You know that when you were Gentiles you were led to the speechless idols, as you were led away. Therefore […].”

The Glory of the Church and the Gospel of God§26

26I make known to you that no one can say 'Lord Jesus' except in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3), and again. 'But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot know, because they are being judged spiritually. But the spiritual man judges all things, while he himself is judged by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, which directs him? But we have the mind of Christ' (1 Cor 2:14-16). And again: 'Brothers, if even a man is caught in some transgression, you who are spiritual should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, watching yourself, lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ' (Gal 6:1).

Regarding the reason for the Trinity through their shared essence, what now speaks of the Father, at another time speaks of the Son or of the Holy Spirit. The Scripture, declaring one deity and lordship, now speaks of the Father, and at another time asserts that it is the Son or the Holy Spirit; just as when the uninspired Paul writes to the Philippians: 'For they all seek their own, not those of Jesus Christ' (Phil 2:21), to the Galatians: 'But those of Jesus Christ crucified the flesh with its passions and desires' (Gal 5:24), and to the Corinthians: 'For the love of Christ constrains us, judging this: that he died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose for them' (2 Cor 5:14-15). And again: 'But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him' (1 Cor 2:14); and again: 'But desire the spiritual things' (1 Corinthians 14:1).

Furthermore, regarding the Church, which is conceived with the glory ascending within it and the bloodless worship being brought to it, writing first to the Corinthians, he announced that it belongs to God thus: 'Become without stumbling to Jews and Greeks and to the Church of God' (1 Cor 10:32), and again: 'We do not have such a custom, nor do the churches of God' (1 Corinthians 11:16). But writing again to the Ephesians, he taught that it is Christ's, saying thus: 'That he might present to himself the church without blemish, having no spot or wrinkle or anything of this kind, but that it might be holy and immaculate' (Eph 5:27). If—

For since it did not seem so to him here, someone will interpret what the prophet Haggai intends by saying, 'the glory of this house shall be greater than the first' (Haggai 2:9), that is, of the Church of Christ and the glorification within it, compared to the synagogue of the Jews, in which God alone was theologized and glorified.

Therefore also the Gospel, writing to the Romans, says that it is now of God the Father: 'Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, a called apostle, set apart for the gospel of God' (Romans 1:1); and again: 'For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For the righteousness of God is revealed therein; and the just shall live by faith' (Romans 1:16-17); and to the Corinthians the second instance: 'that I preached to you the gospel of God freely' (2 Corinthians 11:7); but in the first instance he writes to the Corinthians that it turns out to be of the only-begotten God: 'but we have not used that authority, but we endure all things, so that we may not cut off anything by the gospel of Christ' (1 Corinthians 9:12); and the second: 'having come into Troas for the gospel of Christ' (2 Corinthians 2:12/contextual); and again: 'glorifying God in the submission of your confession unto the gospel of Christ' (1 Corinthians 9:12); and to the Romans: 'For God is my witness, whom I serve in the gospel of His Son' (Romans 1:9).

But he also said that the sacred liturgy is sometimes performed for God the Father and sometimes for God His only-begotten Son, having written to the Corinthians the first: 'Thus let a man reckon us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God; that which is required in stewards, that one be found faithful' (1 Corinthians 4:1-2); the second: 'in everything presenting ourselves as ministers of God' (2 Corinthians 6:4); and again: 'Are they ministers of Christ? I speak foolishly; rather, I do' (2 Corinthians 11:23).

...'Who has believed in the Lord and been encouraged? Or who has endured the fear of Him and been forsaken? Or who has called upon Him and been disregarded?' (Sirach 2:10). For He, as even those outside say, 'is persuaded by God, and greatly moved by Him.' Therefore, certainly, nothing is unacquired or being worked in oneself by another, from which...

The Unity of Glory and Nature§27

27He presents all good things as being drawn toward the one divine peace, which has no limit, about which Isaiah cried out: 'Lord our God, give us peace; for you have given us all things. Lord, besides you we know no other' (Isaiah 26:12). This is given by Him through His power because of the shared nature and lordship. He said: 'Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you' (John 14:27).

Therefore, Paul also did not fail to provide this God-giving word to both the unbegotten hypostases without distinction (Rom 1:7), writing thus to the Romans: 'Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.' We are also provided the recognition of this in the same way by that: 'All that the Father has is mine' (John 16:15).

For these things are not understood ignorantly regarding creation, but are understood regarding the divine worth, if one is to say they belong to God. For the Father, he says, is God. I am also; for he is his only-begotten, true, and beloved Son. The Father is Lord. I am also lord of all and heir of the living Father, possessing the inheritance. And I inherit his own things, this as the maker of them, and this also as a genuine Son. And I was made heir as one having become man.

The Father is Creator and King. I am. For I said to you as, 'There was a king who went out to make marriages for his son the king' (Matt 22:2). The Father is unchangeable. I am also. For it has been prophesied concerning me: 'You are the same, and your years shall not fail' (Psalm 102:27). The Father is impassible. I am, so as to let those who share in me partake of impassibility.

The Father is without beginning. I am. For there was not a time when the hypostatic radiance did not have the name of the Father and of his glory, and the 'character of the hypostasis' and the 'image of the deity,' which is me. Life and light and goodness and power and wisdom and truth and whatever is worthy of God, the Father is. I am, as you have heard by those who have perished.

And indeed I am also Savior, 'raising the sun upon the righteous and the sinners' (Matt 5:45) and not bringing 'evil for evil.' The Father is Philanthropic. I am, wherefore for your sake 'I emptied myself, having taken the form of a slave' (Phil 2:7), and being struck and spat upon and mocked and crucified by you.

We were not misled. All the things he said happen to be in accordance with the Fathers, so that he gives nothing more to God the Father than only being the father of a co-ruling and co-existing Son. Thus he persuades one to believe also that: 'All that is mine is yours, and all that is yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them' (John 17:10).

For if it were not said thus through the natural relation, and if the Son had not been essentially glorified in all the Fathers, unless kingdom and lordship are one, then—according to the logic—it would be heretical, that there is something accomplished not by the authority of the Father, but by the authority of the Son. And again: 'If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me' (John 8:54).

He says, speaking about his own divine glory, that 'I and the Father are one' (John 10:30), do not disbelieve; rather, there is the Father witnessing for me, that according to nature I am glorified, being his beloved and true Son, yet being God and Lord of you. Then he says: 'Father, glorify your Son, so that your Son also may glorify you' (John 17:1). Equal honor and glory have been preserved thus for the divine hypostases. For in whatever way we conceive of the Father glorifying his Son, by that same way he himself is glorified by him.

And he proceeds again: 'And now glorify me, Father, with the glory I had with you before the world existed' (John 17:5). It is terrible to hear, that he who has glory independently from his own Father—for this is what it means: to have had glory before the world existed—is not glorified according to the heretics. And what was this glory? Which, as I think, Mark also said: 'When the Son comes in the glory of his Father' (Mark 8:38), instead of: he possesses the Father's glory and in it he will come a second time.

Of which glory, being one, divinity, kingdom, and worship have been established, not one and another. Therefore he commands beforehand: 'Believe in God, and believe in me. In my Father's house there are many mansions' (John 14:1-2). He says, 'that they may know one faith concerning the Trinity, not having a difference of divinity, so that you may dwell in those three-blessed courts, all in harmony and sufficiency.'

Not only, indeed, those he led, but also, providing things of God, he says: 'Your sins are forgiven you' (Luke 7:48). You pay attention likewise to his authority, that as if...

Equality of Father and Son§28

28He does not act as an ambassador to a greater one, but forgives like an autocrat.

Matthew, contributing himself to the theologies concerning the only-begotten Son, said: 'No one knows the Father except the Son, nor does anyone know the Son except the Father' (Matt 11:27). How then do these people contend as if they knew the Father to be incomparable, his Son to be unlike him, and the essence to be unbegotten? They leave nothing exceptional in the knowledge of God the Father and the only-begotten God, nor do they consider that one who possesses nothing of a different nature possesses knowledge equal to the homoousion. Paul similarly writes to Timothy in the first epistle: 'I charge you before God who gives life to all things and Jesus Christ who bore the good confession in the presence of Pontius Pilate, to guard the unblemished command, without reproach, until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, which the blessed and only powerful one and King of kings and Lord of lords, the only one having immortality and dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or is able to see, to whom be honor and glory for the ages of ages. Amen' (1 Timothy 6:13-16).

For it has seemed fitting to the heretics to give this to the Father alone: 'the only powerful one and King of kings' and the following. Just as regarding both of the eternal hypostases he said: 'I charge you before God and Christ Jesus,' so he sang regarding both of them as one in divinity and the following. For he did not ignore like these: 'all that the Father has is mine' (John 16:15), and: 'that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father' (John 5:23), and: 'this is the true God and eternal life' (1 John 5:20), and: 'this is our God; no other shall be reckoned against him' (Baruch 3:35), and: 'this is my beloved Son' (Matt 3:17).

But rather, the things set forth are directed more toward the Son. For it says: 'to guard the command until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, which the blessed and only powerful one will show in his own times.' It is clear, therefore, that the Son will show his own appearance when he comes a second time. Thus, it allows that he also grant him the first glory. To the Romans: 'for his invisible things from...'

The eternal power and divinity of the one understood through the works of the world as being created. Because of the equal value of Father and Son, it does not fall short toward a creature. For the eternity and divinity of the Creator is not to be understood in the Begotten; that is, the divinity possessing the same things always. Regarding the Philippians: 'who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be snatched, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave' (Phil 2:6).

What of this equality is found unequal? For he did not snatch, he says, he did not take to be equal in nature to God and Father. And indeed, he who was not emptied by another, but having emptied himself, simultaneously showed himself to be a Master and eternal. For if he became in the form of a slave, it is indisputable that he did not remain so, but before this happened, he was in the free paternal nature, in creatures. Since it was not possible to be seen, he descended unchangeably and invisibly until the form of a servant. And he cast off the things of the servant and gave the beginning of a more radiant life; whence and he who was without beginning was known.

And the other things sent to the same Philippians, that he already somehow holds the Son before and above his his own Father as far as he decides toward the irrational, it has already been spoken to me additionally in Chapter 7. And nothing prevents setting this up from the ancient Scripture; for it is necessary not to use theology as a pastime. Therefore God says through Isaiah: 'My soul hates your new moons and your Sabbaths and your feasts. Let them be for me a stench; I will no longer bear your sins. Even if you fill out the prayer, I will not listen to you; for your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, take away your sins from your souls' (Isa 1:15-16).

You see, then, that even philanthropy reaches the threat, insofar as he is not yet exchanging them and not being angry for a long time, but rather not knowing how to be angry at all. And he hates their feasts, which is the religion, as being left behind from the most perfect knowledge of God; and he is exhorted to be baptized so as to receive the faith toward the masterly boundary concerning baptism. And Paul also has assured us elsewhere, having cried out by word, not...

The Divinity of the Son§29

The Divinity of the Son in Prophecy§30

30"Creator" and "Ruler" and "His peace has no limit" and "Savior" and "Christ is all in all" and "Blessed forever," and that "great is the mystery of godliness," are clear; for among the Christians, Christ is praised as an unbegotten God, and that by his own divinity "he acquires the people," because he has consubstantiality with the Father.

Thus, the saints who are now to be remembered by us speak concerning these things, to whom God, according to Psalm 19, "made known the ways of life." David, in Psalm 67, prays: "Arise, O Lord my God, by command, which I have decreed, and let a gathering of peoples surround you, and return to the heights on account of this."

One perceives, as the prophet sees, that he knows the Lord and God, and he petitions him, saying "Arise" upon your unutterable becoming-human, in the manner which you foretold: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19).

For on account of this, they say, of which salvation is surrounding us: "The nations shall surround you by faith; and you, from whence you came, shall return unseparatedly"; and in Psalm 45: "Great God, Lord, and great King over all the earth." And in Psalm 44: "From the risings of the sun even to the settings, the splendor of his beauty is from Zion; God shall come visibly"; and in Psalm 67: "Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered," and "Make way for him who has set foot toward the west; Lord is his name"; and in Psalm 69: "Arise, O God, judge the earth."

Behold, how each word lifts up the glory concerning him and suffices to persuade that he exists as the essence of the Father's unity; and that the great writer calls God he who was placed in the tomb not without life, so that he might save both the living and those departed from human affairs, and he prophesies rising, judging those who have thought wisely regarding so much and such a great blessing.

Know, however, that "the west" refers to the last times; for in them this spectacle has visibly appeared to this world.

And in Psalm 69: "In the holy is your way. Who is a great God like our God? You are the God who does wonders alone." Here the incarnate God-Word is praised without words, he who entered into the Jewish temple and taught and worked wonders.

And in

Regarding the root: 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; great God, Lord, and appeared to us' (Psalm 118:26-27). 27.12 If it is logical according to the prophet that the Lord who appeared to us is 'great God' and 'blessed' (that is, glorified), and also 'great King' and 'only wonder-worker,' and is the Son—it is not logical according to the heretics to imply he is lesser than his own Father. 27.13 For it is not possible for the same person to possess these things first according to the prophecy, and second according to them.

27.14 If indeed we ask of the same Psalmist, we shall learn that just as the Father is known, so also the Son exists as the God of the forefathers. 27.15 For in the 44th Psalm he has cried out: 'God has reigned over the nations. God sits upon His holy throne; rulers of peoples have been gathered with the God of Abraham' (Ps 47:8). 27.16 But they were gathered together with the God who became man, concerning whom it is sung in the 2nd Psalm: 'Why did the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ' (Ps 2:2).

27.17 But Isaiah cries out to Him without comparison as the God the Father: 'From eternity we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen a God besides You' (Isa 64:4). 27.18 For we saw no other God than the one born according to the saving incarnation from the Virgin Mary, nor did we hear of any except the one attested by God the Father: 27.19 'This is my beloved Son' (Matt 3:17).

27.20 And again, as was foretold: 'A child was born to us, a Son was given, whose rule is upon His shoulder; and His name is called Mighty God, Ruler, Prince of Peace, Father of the age to come' (Isa 9:6). 27.21 He leads further with other things: 'And of His peace there is no limit.'

27.22 The Son, he says, having become man, was born as a child and was given to us, bearing upon His own shoulder the rule of this His downward birth, that is to say: He himself being the rule, having been born of a virgin and from her unspeakably having been made flesh, not granting the rule of a man's union. 27.23 And His name is: 'Mighty God, Ruler.' 27.24 He did not say 'one who has authority,' but revealed His nature, His power, His sovereignty. 27.25 Knowing this name, David sings: 'Let them know that Your name...'

The Fullness of Deity and the Economy of Salvation§31

31Lord: 'you alone are most high over all the earth' (Psalm 83:18), saying 'alone' because of the one divinity. He called him Father of eternity, being the creator of even the past ages, because he was known by men much more through the temporal aspect of the economy.

Therefore, he called him Father, as a creator and not of uncreated nature; for one is the Father of the uncreated and consubstantial Son. And to demonstrate his divinity, he said something simple: 'there is no limit to his peace.'

And Jeremiah, or rather, for the book of Baruch is one of both, solemnly speaks about him: 'This is our God; no other shall be reckoned against him (Baruch 3:35). He found every way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his child and to Israel, the one beloved by him; after these things he appeared upon the earth and walked among men.'

If, therefore, it is not conceived in a God-befitting manner that the present scripture was spoken thus because of the shared divinity of both the unutterable hypostases, it remains to say, effectively blaspheming, that the one who created is God and Father, but not our God, and is not comparable to his Son.

Thus, the word of those who slander has fallen away and spread, making the God the Word smaller and a subordinate. For how could another be incomparable to God, 'to whom no other shall be reckoned against him'?

And again: 'gods, who did not make heaven and earth, destroyed upon the earth; Lord, who made the heavens in wisdom, he is the living and true God' (Jeremiah 10:11), as if there were another divinity that is not true, except that of the genuine Son of God, through whom and from whom and by whom the heavens were also provided for the whole world.

And Paul, the preeminent of men, following the same sequence, gives words fittingly concerning him, writing to Titus: 'awaiting the blessed hope and the appearance of the glory of the great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people of his own, zealous for good works' (Titus 2:13).

For through the being called 'the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ,' it is made manifest that he does not have a second-rank status in essence, and the distinction of the unoriginate toward the great God the Father.

For according to appearances it is possible to conclude that if the Son is small, how will the Father be great? If the Word God 'was when he was not' (John 1:1), he was when the name of the Father did not exist. Let it be gracious to us that we dare to say such things because of the ignorance of others. 'For piety is a beautiful habit', they say, 'for those using it'.

But through the saying 'of the one giving himself for us, in order that he might cleanse for himself a people of his own possession' (Titus 2:14)—not for another in order that he might cleanse a people—it follows what has been mentioned. For it signifies that he himself, the one single, self-possessing and good deity, who is the cause of all, has been determined. For it is a peculiar thing for a creator, indeed, not to surpass his own creation, if it must be said so of his own work; but for the deity of a beloved Son, having no difference from the Father, to acquire the people for himself.

And this great and true interpreter leads the argument to demonstrate that he is at once a philanthropic Savior God, and at once, as he himself veiled himself and did not show himself as superior in deity, to become with us as one of us, through a change and through sin, he asserts: 'When indeed the kindness and the philanthropy of our Savior God appeared, not because of the works which we ourselves did, but according to his great mercy, he saved us through the bath of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit'.

And he also reproaches the Colossians and makes a disparagement of the primary theology concerning him by the writings, as it has already been said in the chapter 'on the consubstantial': 'Why according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ Jesus? For in him dwells all the fullness of deity bodily' (Colossians 2:9), that is, essentially. For he also is by nature a fullness, the Father's deity existing in essence.

For 'being equal to God was not considered a robbery' (Philippians 2:6); but we received from the fullness because of his goodness. Which we by nature as slaves did not have, John saying: 'And from his fullness we all have received, and grace for grace' (John 1:16), that is, the grace of the rebirth instead of the grace which we were cast away from, striking at the first law given upon the single stock. 'For no longer,'

The Manifestation of the Son's Divinity§32

32He says, 'you are under law, but under grace' (Rom 6:14); and again, 'because in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile all things to himself' (Col 1:19-20).

These things follow the previous ones. For the Father being in the Son and the Son in the Father by nature, just as every relative is inseparable as he becomes of his own kin, even if distinguished by hypostasis, the argument on the moving ground is good, even if not very deeply, but not to all clearly: 'through him and to him to reconcile all things' (Col 1:20), as it is fitting to harmonize the Son with that which was said concerning the Father: 'from whom all things' (1 Corinthians 8:6), if what has been said now and then is held soundly; 'in whom dwells all the fullness of deity' (Col 2:9).

And having written to Timothy, he theologized about him to the end, and from both expressions he taught that the Son is not, in respect of deity, other than the paternal nature. For he said such as this: 'unquestionably great is the mystery of piety: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, was preached to the Gentiles, was believed in the world, was taken up in glory' (1 Tim 3:16).

For this creator and benefactor of all things was not yet clearly manifest to all, when he became willing through the salvation of all and as one of all. Therefore, 'was justified in the spirit,' that is, he was shown or confirmed even by those who had ignored him in later time to be a true God; and this, he says, is not without reason, but by that movement of our soul, as common custom has it to say: 'he who was thus justified was truly the Son of this one,' providing a proof of lineage; and at other times: 'he who was thus justified ruled well.'

And so that the argument might appear more convincing, it is said he was deemed worthy even of angels, to whom, because of his divine infinity and unseeability, he was invisible before that time, similarly to the 'only invisible God,' and to be hymned by them: 'glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, in men goodwill' (Luke 2:14); and it has been preached in all this and believed, that he who shone out unceasingly from the unspeakable light, and through philanthropy was ineffably begotten from the eternally virgin in later times, expressing all the Fatherly things in himself, has ascended.

speaks without profanity

For when this maker and benefactor of all things was not yet clearly manifest to all, he was found to have become manifest, since he became willing through the salvation of all and as one of all. Hence “justified in the spirit” — that is, he was shown or confirmed to be true God even by those who had not known him in the time before; and this, he says, not without scrutiny, but by that very movement of our soul, as common usage says: “such-and-such was justified as being the true son of such-and-such,” providing proof of lineage; and at another time: “such-and-such was justified to rule well.”

And so that the argument may seem more convincing, he was deemed worthy to be seen even by angels, to whom he was invisible before that time on account of his divine infinity and formlessness — as to the “only invisible God” — and to be hymned by them: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, among men good will” (Luke 2:14); and he was preached in all this world and believed: that he who shone forth timelessly from the ineffable light was unspeakably born of the ever-virgin in later times through philanthropy, expressing all the paternal things in himself; and that he ascended in glory to the One who encompasses all, with whom he was ever together with God.

And trustworthy himself, the one about whom the discourse is, bearing witness to his own divinity and lordship and saying in Matthew to the devil: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (Matt 4:7); in John to the apostles: “You call me: the Lord and the teacher; and you say well; for I am” (John 13:13). And Thomas, touching the marks of the nails which the Savior as philanthropist had for our sake from us, was not disturbed nor did he let down his highest glory concerning him.

For he knew that it belonged only to the imperial, infinitely powerful and most good nature — and not to a created one — to suffer not only for its own creatures but also to grant the universal salvation of which we speak, and that eternally. Therefore, emboldened even more from this, he brings to him his steadfast faith and acclaims: “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).

And in the Catholic Epistles too, theologizing the Son equally and in like terms with the Father, they wrote, as was foretold: John, the great one among theologians: “And we know,” he says, “that the Word of God has come and has given us understanding, that we may know the true God; and we are in the true one, in Jesus Christ the Son of God. This is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). “Seek no other god or Son of God in respect of essence,” he says. For I have said the “true” to you twice concerning him, that he is both “true Son” and “true God,” giving understanding to those worthy to receive; so that you may know that he has truly been begotten and truly is consubstantial with the God who begot him.

And Jude, one of the twelve, defined him as the sole possessor, who portioned out the paternal divinity over all and through all and in all, writing in this way to those everywhere: “For certain men have slipped in, ungodly, long ago marked out for this judgment, turning the grace of our God into licentiousness and denying the only Master and Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). But Peter too, the chief among the apostles, appears to have said in the Acts: “the word which he sent to the sons of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ — he is […].”

The Name of the Son and the Judgment of the Leaders§33

33Lord. Therefore, how or when could you be inserted into such clear, equal, and incomparable oracles of the Father? 28.n Concerning the bringing forth of all good by the Son and being 'sun of righteousness and healing' (Mal 4:2) and 'treasure of wisdom and knowledge' (Col 2:3) and 'light', and the believers becoming 'sons of light, not stumbling in him'.

28.1 For those having hymned about him differently, demonstrating to us his divinity and his perfect presiding over his own works, teach that he is the provider of every good and a light that is good-looking and good-making and an intellectual sun, by whom the eyes of the unerring and receptive souls are made brilliant by the light from himself, and leading them into an inward contemplation and making them see things which they had not previously seen through sin by themselves, or even making the whole complete man light-like, just as the sun makes the bodies in which it arises sun-like; and furthermore, that he also is an unexhaustible and all-sufficient healing and 'treasure of wisdom and knowledge'.

28.2 And those sincerely disposed toward him become sons of light just as they do concerning his Father, as sons of God the Father, just as Malachi proclaims: 'the sun of righteousness shall rise for you who fear my name, and healing in his wings' (Mal 4:2); 28.3 and Peter in the second epistle: 'until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts' (2 Pet 1:19); 28.4 and he was saying, I think, that the one from his second appearance is about to rise to the souls as a light and making everything held by darkness shine brightly; 28.5 and also elsewhere: 'and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you' (Isaiah 60:1); 28.6 33 And Zechariah prophesied: 'if there is anything good, of him, and if there is anything beautiful, it will be from him' (Zechariah 9:17). 28.7 And Paul to the Colossians about him said: 'in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden' (Col 2:3), but to the Romans: 'for he says', he says.

“The Scripture says: ‘Everyone believing upon it will not be ashamed’ (Romans 10:11). For there is no distinction of Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is of all, rich toward all who call upon him. For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom 10:12-13).”

What name do they call upon the Son, those not saying he is uncreated God or the Son consubstantial with the Father, but calling him the fine net, the savior of heaven and earth and sea? And John similarly says concerning him: “As you have light, believe into the light, so that you become sons of light” (John 12:36).

For after death, he says, there is no repentance, as David sings: “And in Hades, who will confess to you?” (Psalm 6:5). And again from the Savior: “Having gone, announce to John what you see and hear: the blind see again, the lame walk, and the dead are raised, and the poor are evangelized; and blessed is he who is not scandalized in me” (Matt 11:4-6).

For what will he say concerning the erring ones and those who lead astray? Isaiah foretold: “My people, those blessing you lead you astray and trouble the path of your feet. But now the Lord will be established for judgment and will set the people for judgment. The Lord himself will come for judgment with the elders of the people and with his rulers. But you, what have you done to my vineyard?” (Isaiah 3:12-14).

And the Lord himself will come for judgment with the teachers and rulers, not as he himself is to be judged by another, but as one who will convict them, just as he speaks in another part: “Come, let us examine, says the Lord, what things have come to be from me to you and what things have come to be from you to me and to my servants” (Isa 43:26).

For he says “vineyard” regarding the world or the people, whom the heretical and Jewish interpreters made guilty through blasphemous teaching regarding the fire of Gehenna, while the rulers, not owning what belongs to him and having made use of the authority, wronged in various and diverse ways.

The Trinity's Equality and Divine Drawing§34

34In this way, it is also said to the same prophet from the Lord's person: 'Who is the one judging me? Let him stand against me; and who is the one judging me? Let him draw near to me' (cf. Isaiah/Malachi allusion); instead of: if anyone has the right to speak, strengthened by works, let him be brought forward to me willing to do this and let him approach the words.

28.16 But some read it thus: 'Who is the one judging me? Against'—this is to say, both facing and from a distance—'let him stand to me' as one not having good provisions and for this reason being compared to me and to test the purest step as unworthy. 28.17 For to those worthy, if they should happen to be of the good, there is no envy; for they are prepared.

29. On the matter of the Son of God being the 'judge of living and dead' providing forgiveness of sins, and that 'in no other is salvation'. 29.1 For He himself is 'the judge of living and dead', that is, of the righteous and the sinners, the one providing forgiveness of sins to those believing in his name and saving us by his own glory and gift.

29.2 And 'in no other is salvation', since his nature is propitiatory and savior, in no way inferior to the propitiating and saving God and Father, as the other scriptures exhort and indeed Micah says: 'Who is a god like you, who removes iniquity and overcomes iniquities?' (Micah 7:18).

29.3 And Peter in the Acts says thus: 'And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify, that he is the one appointed by God as judge of living and dead. By this all the prophets testify, that everyone believing in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name' (Acts 10:42).

29.4 We have him then spoken of favorably, appointed by God because of his saving incarnation, in which he came 'to seek and to save the lost' (Luke 19:10). Through which also it is written, 'for the Father does not judge anyone, but has given all judgment to the Son' (John 5:22); 29.5 but as a judge having been removed from the created things.

29.6 For the creation does not judge, but is subject to law and judgment. 29.7 And again: 'This is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, and has become the head of the corner. And in no other is salvation' (Acts 4:11-12).

29.8 But also the second letter sends universally, having this among other things about him: 'how all things of his divine power are toward life and piety...'

Since a special glory and virtue have been granted through the knowledge of Him who called us, through which the greatest and most precious gospels have been granted to us, so that through them we might become partakers of the divine nature. Therefore also James, in general terms, said: 'One is the lawgiver and judge, who is able to save and to destroy' (James 4:12).

What, then, is the need for a multitude of scriptures for this? And the Samaritans, according to John the accurate divine seer, being men of good discernment, who did not reject the voices: 'For we ourselves have heard and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world, the Christ' (John 4:42), who says, he says, gently: 'Be of good courage, child, your sins are forgiven you' (Matthew 9:2).

Concerning the revealing of the Son by the Father through the equality of the Trinity and drawing us to Him, and again the Son and the Holy Spirit presenting us to the Father. In the same way also concerning the confession of Peter, and that it is repentance.

For so that it might be demonstrated through all things the equality of the blessed Trinity regarding all things, the Father reveals to us His own Son and draws us through Himself to Him and admits us into His kingdom; and again the Son and the Holy Spirit present us to God and Father. For God would not have transferred us into a different substance or a greater, nor into subordinates like His own scepter.

Therefore the new covenant has fulfilled the old through the faith into the Son and the divine Spirit. And thus the God the Father says in Isaiah to the Son: 'Behold, those who come near shall come to you through me, and they shall reside with you, and upon you they shall take refuge' (Isaiah 54:15); and the Son in John: 'No one is able to come to me, unless the Father who is in heaven draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day' (John 6:44).

And again, regarding Peter saying, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God' (Matthew 16:16), he said: 'Blessed are you, Peter, son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in the heavens. And I say to you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the heavens, and whatever you shall bind upon the earth shall be bound in the heavens, and whatever you shall loose upon the earth shall be loosed in the heavens' (Matthew 16:17-19).

The Unending Kingdom of the Son§35

35How great is the faith and the confession that the true Son is God and not a creature, the only-begotten God the Word.

Peter did not hesitate seeing God indwelling on earth in flesh and blood; for this is that 'flesh and blood did not reveal to you' (Matt 16:17). He recognized the consubstantial and participating branch of God; in this he honored the root which was revealed to him, being self-begotten and unoriginated; he believed in his unity with the Father regarding divinity. He was made blessed by the only blessed Master. The churches were built upon this rock, whose 'gates of Hades' (Matt 16:18)—that is, the arguments of heretics—did not prevail; the keys of the heavens were handed to him, so that for those believing—as Peter himself seems to answer perfectly and as he heard from Christ along with the other apostles: 'baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' (Matt 28:19)—they might be opened in the kingdom of God; but for those not thus glorifying the tri-blessed and most desirable entrance, he shall shut it.

For by this, by which he was made blessed, he himself accepted this glory, whereas those speaking against him were caught and cast out. Having truthfully confessed him as the Son of God, that is, genuine and consubstantial, he heard something nearby: 'Bar Jonah', which is interpreted: 'Son of Jonah' (Matthew 16:17). Peter was by no means of a different substance to the one who begot him. Along with these things he received authority, and rather all through him, not to forbid those stumbling, but to receive those repenting. For no one is without sin, except he who permitted this authority to Peter, for this is: 'whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in the heavens' (Matt 18:18). He then cast off the inhumanity of Nauatus and Sabbatius.

And Paul, writing to the Galatians, follows these things: 'But when God, who set me apart from my mother's womb, was pleased to reveal his Son in me' (Gal 1:15); and to the Colossians: 'giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us for the portion of the inheritance of the saints in light, who has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom...' (Col 1:13).

Therefore, 'the redemption, the forgiveness of sins' (Colossians 1:14), and to the Corinthians: 'God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord' (1 Cor 1:9), and to the Ephesians: 'and having come, he preached peace to you, the distant and peace to the near, because through him we both have the access in one Spirit to the Father' (Eph 2:17-18).

Concerning the fact that there is no end to the kingdom of the Only-begotten. And so, to be ashamed of heretics saying that after the general resurrection the Son is to hand over the kingdom to the Father, he proclaims that the power of the Son is without end, in this way: Gabriel, being announced by Luke regarding the Theotokos: 'and the Lord God will give to him the throne of David his father, and he will reign over the house of Israel forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end' (Luke 1:32-33), says. And most truly; for if they are restored, in what kingdom of his and when shall we reign with him?

And Paul, writing to the Ephesians: 'every fornicator or unclean person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God' (Eph 5:5). Nevertheless, he speaks of the kingdom after the resurrection. When then, in fact, according to them, does he hand over the kingdom?

And to Timothy in the second epistle: 'I testify before God and Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearance and his kingdom: preach the word' (2 Tim 4:1). It is clear, then, that he speaks of a kingdom which he possesses indivisibly and without succession with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and into the coming age.

And to the Hebrews: 'and to the angels he says: He who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire; but to the Son: Your throne, O God, is unto the age of ages' (Heb 1:7, 8). And David in the 45th Psalm: 'Your throne, O God, is unto the age of ages; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You loved righteousness and hated iniquity. For this reason God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness among your companions' (Ps 45:6-7). Behold again his kingdom as boundless and his divinity as without beginning.

The Glory of God and the Witness of Creation§36

36Because of his inexpressible becoming-man, he brought forward 'thy God' (31.11). And in Psalm 144, 'thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion is in all generations' (31.12). And in Psalm 92, 'the Lord shall reign for ever and ever' (31.13). And to Peter, the Son gave the keys as Lord of the kingdom—not of this present age, for we do not yet possess it, but of the one to come, in which the heretics claim he is to be handed over, believing that his kingdom is to be received as something without ruler and without end, while those who do not cry out, as was said before regarding Nathanael: 'you are the Son of God, you are the King of the Christians' (John 1:49) (31.14). And the prophecy of Isaiah saying: 'I saw the Lord Sabaoth, the King, with my eyes' (Isaiah 6:5) (31.15). Paul indeed dedicated this by the Spirit of God, but John to the Only-begotten, because of the shared divinity and the single, non-transferable kingdom (31.15). For how can it be admitted, one ruling and the other being as a mere pastime among men, when the Father remains in the Son and the Son in the Father, and whenever the Spirit proceeds from the Father and remains with the Son divinely (31.16)?

Concerning the glorification of the Son of God (32.ν). Truly, let us also look at his glory, just as the saints testify again, saying of whom 'the world was not worthy' (Hebrews 11:38), teaching us those called sons by grace on the earth, to glorify the Only-begotten Son from the hypostasis of the Father in equality, and to look toward the glory which he had with the Father before the world existed, with the Beloved who does not envy (32.1). For the divine is free from flattery and all passion (32.2). David in Psalm 105, whom we confess prophesied about Christ, says: 'his name shall be blessed for ever: his name shall endure before the sun, and before the moon generations of generations. And all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed in him, and all the nations shall call him blessed. Blessed indeed is the Lord our God of Israel, who does wonders alone, and blessed is the name of his glory for ever and ever, even unto the age of ages' (32.3).

And the whole earth shall be filled with his glory. May it be so. 'Blessed is the Lord God of Israel' (Psalm 72:18) he said, instead of 'being glorified' or 'being praised'. For God is blessed by his works, that is, he is glorified; but he himself blesses the resident creatures, that is, he sanctifies them. It should be noted, as also the God of Israel, that he is the God of the fathers, just as his father was carried up.

And in the Psalm, presenting the almighty and all-powerful nature of the Only-begotten and how he ought to be glorified, he sings: 'All the nations, as many as you have made, shall come and worship before you, Lord, and shall glorify your name, because great you are and doing wonders; you are the only God' (Psalm 86:9-10). And in the nineteenth Psalm: 'The heavens declare the glory of God' (Ps 19:1). How? By showing from the greatness and unexceeding beauty given to them, and glorifying the Creator, who is the God Word. For 'by the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the breath of his mouth their powers' (Ps 33:6). Therefore, they do not feel shame concerning the witness of the glory of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

And in the twenty-third Psalm: 'Lift up your gates, O rulers, and be lifted up, everlasting gates, and the King of glory shall enter in' (Ps 24:7). He exhorts the lower creation to lift up the gates in his incarnation, and the upper in his ascension. And in the fifteenth Psalm: 'Praise the Lord, all you nations, and let all the peoples extol him' (Psalm 117:1). And Isaiah: 'You shall see a king in glory' (Isaiah 33:17). And Ezekiel: 'Blessed is the glory of the Lord from his place' (Ezekiel 3:12) and 'this vision is the likeness of the glory of the Lord' (Ezekiel 1:28).

Then Paul: 'Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for a likeness of an image of corruptible man' (Rom 1:23). And again to the Romans: 'Wherefore he handed them over to the desires of their hearts to uncleanness, so that their bodies might be dishonored among themselves, who exchanged the glory of God in falsehood, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever; Amen' (Rom 1:24-25). And who is the Creator of all, whom he says is blessed for...

Witnesses to the Glory of Christ§37

37The ages, if not the Only-begotten? Who are those who have exchanged his glory? They are those saying, 'glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit,' who also glorify him as a creature and not even as an eternal king.

Then he says to the same people, 'in order that they might be without excuse, because having known God, they did not glorify him as God or gave thanks, but were made vain in their reasonings, and their foolish heart was darkened' (Romans 1:20). But what is the God who has been known yet not fully known by heretics and Jews and Greeks, if not the Word of God who appeared in the flesh?

And he shows to the Corinthians in the first letters that the Lord of glory is by nature himself, thus writing: 'for if we had known, we would not have crucified the Lord of glory' (1 Cor 2:8), and also: 'that in the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bend and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father' (Phil 2:10-11), instead of saying: he exists in that paternal glory.

And again: 'for we see Jesus, him who was humbled, being crowned with glory and honor through the passion of death' (Hebrews 2:9). This is said out of order. For he says: we see Jesus, whom some think is being humbled through the passion of death, being crowned with glory and honor.

But he also calls him glory, even though being naturally a radiance of the paternal glory, through which he writes: 'the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory.' And he said God of the unspeakable incarnation, and Father of the unoriginate generation.

And again John says: 'we have beheld his glory, a glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth' (John 1:14). And again from Mark, from the Savior: 'when the Son comes in the glory of his Father' (Mark 8:38), presenting it as if his own glory is equal to the glory of the Father; but according to Matthew: 'when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him' (Matt 25:31). And again...

Indeed, John, establishing that He is in glory and that glory is owed to Him from all, said: 'And yet, despite so many signs performed by Jesus, the Jews did not believe in Him, so that the word spoken through Isaiah might be fulfilled: You shall indeed hear by hearing, and you will not understand' (Isa 6:9). 32.35 And he proceeds: 'These things He said when He had seen His glory, and He spoke about Him' (John 12:41). 32.36 And Peter, in the first epistle: 'Rejoice according to how you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also rejoice in the revelation of His glory, exulting greatly' (1 Pet 4:13); 32.37 in the second: 'as all things pertaining to divine power have been granted to us for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence' (2 Pet 1:3) instead of: 'the glory of the Only-Begotten, that of nature, that of wonders, that of the kingdom, and that of doxology itself, is similar and equal to the glory of the Father, from whom He has naturally and without separation been begotten, and He holds all things in Himself as the Only-Begotten, so that even having become flesh, He did not undergo any change or diminution.' 32.38 In this way also the three youths were not being consumed by the fire of Babylon, but were being consumed by longing for the Creator and Benefactor; rather than paying attention to the furnace surrounding them, prepared for the idol-worshippers in Gehenna, they submitted themselves to the Creation to give glory to the One appearing with them in the furnace, concerning whom it has been written, 'the vision of the fourth was like a Son of God' (Dan 3:25): 32.39 'Bless the Lord, all His works, O Lord; praise and exalt Him forever' (Prayer of Azariah 1:35). 32.40 And while they were being reviled, he says, and while they were being struck against the children and the crowds because they were glorifying Jesus as God, saying, 'Hosanna in the highest; blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord' (Matt 21:9), he reminded them of the saying of the Scripture: 'Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies You have perfected praise' (Ps 8:2), applying this word to himself and showing that glory is not to be brought to Him inappropriately. 32.41 And angels, he says,

Equality of the Son and Spirit with the Father§38

38They said at his birth: 'Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth.'

A summary concerning worship. We have seen, therefore, him being glorified, we have seen him also being worshipped. Both are fitting and owed to God, not to a creature, just as the submissive saints write. David in Psalm 95:6-7 says: 'Come, let us worship and bow down to him, and let us weep before the Lord who made us, for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.' And in Psalm 72: 'All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before him, for the kingdom belongs to the Lord and he himself is ruler of the nations.' What then will those say who assign the name 'God' separately to the Father, and 'Lord' to the Son, while they include here the Lord to be worshipped and to rule and his being the kingdom? And again in Psalm 29: 'And I will worship you, Lord, my strength.' And in Psalm 132: 'Let us worship toward the place where his feet stood.' Paul writes from the song of Deuteronomy: 'When he brings the firstborn into the inhabited world, he says: and let all the angels of God worship him.' And the evangelist says, 'the magi said: we saw his star in the east and we came to worship him.' And again, 'behold,' he says, 'a leper came and worshipped him.' And again according to Matthew he says: 'the wind ceased. And they in the ship worshipped him, saying: truly you are the Son of God,' and not, he says, those called sons by a cheap gift among us. And: 'a certain ruler worshipped him.' And after his resurrection on the mountain he says: 'the apostles, having seen him, worshipped him.'

A summary concerning faith toward God the Father. Therefore, according to the Scripture, saying much more or about the Father, it says much about the Son, declaring him almighty, and creator of the ages, and creator of all things, and true God, and not having a God before him, and over all, and a great and above all God, to whom no other will be reckoned, and sitting at the right hand...

Being in the bosom of the Father, and being the eternal life, the true light, Lord of all, only Sovereign and Authority, whose peace has no limit but exceeds all understanding, whose kingdom is unending, who alone is salvation, and who draws the worthy toward the Son; the Father is not considered in any way inferior—may it never be—to His Spirit.

One who theologizes about the Father in such an equal manner ought not to consider the Only-begotten or the Holy Spirit as lesser or unlike. For no creature has the power—only the Uncreated—to do the things mentioned: to create essence out of non-existence, both irrational and rational, to give life, to forgive sins, to call creation His own, to know the Father from equal things as He is known by Him, to be equal to the Father, to be in the Father and the Father in Him by equality, to be ministered to by angels, and for the Only-begotten to be testified as even surpassing these: God, Light from Light, Eternal Life, Truth, and Savior, being everywhere present and all things being established in Him, and for Him to possess the kingdom of heaven and divine peace, to grant it unshakeably to all, and to provide security in the continuous salvation to those who call upon Him.

For those who call the true Son of God and the Holy and life-giving Spirit 'creature' and 'not without a ruler' do not believe in these Hypostases, even if they say they believe; perhaps they do not even believe in the Father. For they transgress the command of the commanding Father: 'Hear, my people, and I will speak to you, O Israel; and I testify to you, if you listen to me: there shall not be among you a strange god, nor shall you worship a god other than the true one' (Deuteronomy 6:4, 14) instead of the truth that there is never a non-existent or heterousian one; and 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone shall you serve' (Deuteronomy 6:13); and 'There shall not be to you other gods besides me' (Exodus 20:3); and 'Cursed is everyone who puts his hope in man' (Jeremiah 17:5), that is, in a work of art. This is what the Son says in Matthew: 'No one can serve two masters' (Matthew 6:24), that is, two natures or two lordships; and in Paul to the Romans...

Understanding Scriptural Theology§39

The Incomprehensibility of the Holy Trinity§40

40The master, having handed over, says: 'baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' (Matt 28:19), because of the equal, equally-powerful, and consubstantial nature and the clarity of the hypostases. When what is now said concerning God and Father is remembered differently concerning the Only-begotten or the Holy Spirit, it is because of the reasons previously stated. When the hypostases teach differently that the same works perform the same energy, it is because of what is said before. When God and Father has pleased, each hypostasis being able to create and do all things, to sustain all things through the Son and God, and to sanctify through the Holy Spirit, it is because of the single will of the Trinity and the showing that all beautiful things are supplied from it, and because it sends to us thanksgiving and doxology common and equal to itself. When the same names are used for the blessed Trinity, such as 'God', 'Lord', 'Holy', 'Just', 'Good' and such things—except that 'the Father' is alone and always Father, and 'the true Son and God' is the Son and God without beginning, and 'the Holy Spirit' is the one and the same Spirit of God without beginning—it is because of the communion of nature, kingship, and all things. This, however, is upon it alone: when they discourse in secret, because the mystery of the faith is always kept to be revealed only to the faithful. When they say the Father God begat, the Son the Word being begotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeding, it is because of the divine thinking from the hypostasis of the Father as being without beginning and without passion, and having already preceded and being unified, not as near to creatures.

When he says, 'the Father who sent me is greater than I' (John 14:28) and whatever has been thought to be small regarding divinity, it is because of his inexpressible and voluntary economy for our sake and on behalf of you. For upon divinity, neither the small nor the non-omnipresent has place. When the Son says, 'My Father has given me a commandment, what shall I say and what shall I speak, and from myself I have not spoken' (John 12:49), and concerning the Holy Spirit, 'he will not speak from himself' (John 16:13) and such things, it is because of the harmony of the divine hypostases and because the teachings and gifts of the blessed Trinity are common and not different...

Those striving to be a temple, however worthy of the Holy Spirit dwelling in the faithful, as having once received the inaccessible light shining in them, glorify equally—as the Master established in the mystery of baptism—the self-generated God and Father, and the beloved and only-begotten Word Son co-existing with Him, and the mentioned Holy Spirit proceeding from His only hypostasis unoriginally and without distinction.

They do not disbelieve in the consubstantiality of the Trinity, nor do they seek a way or difference of generation and procession; because even regarding the heavenly liturgical powers, He has established this as unknown, inexpressible, and fearsome to remember; and how the Holy Trinity, having itself existed unoriginally, always possesses likewise and in such ways; and how, being seated upon the eternal throne, it looks upon the abysses, and while silencing, hears, and while hearing, remains silent; and knowing the future before the actual; and by word, and even more than word, by the mere will to lead all things; and before one scratches in the heart, it immediately provides the vote upon the request; and it accords all things at all times for benefit; and to be slow for wrath, but ready for goodness; and to be angry through our deficiency, but to remit the punishment through its own philanthropy.

And moreover, it is still incomprehensible how it has one will, and speaks, and provides common things of itself; and it overshadows not so much for the well-being of bodies, but the crushed heart itself. And indeed also this, how it exists invisible and ungraspable by seraphic eyes, uncontainable by word and place, undivided in power, unsearchable, immeasurable, simple, and unyielding; all-seeing, all-hearing, and the hope of all; far more luminous than heavenly light, and higher than all height, as much as cannot be said, and more intellectual by an infinite word than every mind.

For how could the things of the Trinity not be incomprehensible to all, when it is the creator of all and higher than all noetic, and even more so than noetic creation, beyond which is absolutely nothing, and all things...

The Work of the Spirit and the Divine Nature§41

The Spirit as Uncreated Revealer§42

42They say that He, knowing only the things of God and being present over all, is such: 2.2 Moses in Genesis speaks from the face of God, saying, 'My spirit shall not remain in these men forever because they are flesh.' Haggai similarly speaks from a divine voice, 'I am with you, and my spirit has stood in your midst.' 2.3 Zechariah similarly says, 'But listen to my words, and receive my statutes, which I command by my spirit to my servants the prophets.' 2.4 Isaiah speaks of the Son from the Father, 'My spirit is upon you, and the words which I have given into your mouth shall not fail from your mouth and from the mouth of your seed'; he calls them 'seed', whom he also called to sonship. 2.5 And again from the Son, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.' To complete these things in the economy, Matthew said thus, 'So that what was said through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled, saying: "Behold my servant whom I have loved, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased; I will put my spirit upon him."' 2.6 And again from the Father, 'For a spirit shall proceed from me.' 2.7 And in Ezekiel, the Most High Father names our spirit 'your' spirit, but names the Holy Spirit his own, since it has proceeded from him according to nature: 'And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit; and I will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh, and I will give my spirit in you.' 2.8 And in Joel, 'I will pour out from my spirit upon all flesh.' 2.9 And Paul wrote to Titus that these things have been accomplished: 'When the grace of our salvation appeared, not according to works which we ourselves did, but according to his great mercy, having regenerated us through the bath of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ.' 2.10 And when did he pour out? When Christ, breathing, was saying, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.' And also the 'poured out', since water from him proceeds similarly and divine myrrh, which will be shown to us in the fitting places at the right time. 2.11 And the 'upon all flesh.' For these words fit the shared essence of the Holy Trinity, not the unshared created rational nature; for not...

...

What is written does not say, 'I will pour out from the archangel,' but 'from my spirit,' and not in such a broad manner, but 'upon all flesh.' David, entreating, cries, 'Do not take your holy spirit from me' (Psalm 51:11), and again, 'Your holy spirit shall guide me in a straight path' (Psalm 143:10). Matthew says from the Son, 'It is not you who speak, but the spirit of my Father speaking in you' (Matthew 10:20), which is to say: not you the creatures, but the uncreated spirit of God.

Paul also writes to the Corinthians in the first epistle, 'What eye has not seen, and what ear has not heard, and what has not come up upon the heart of man: what God has prepared for those who love him, which God has revealed to us through his spirit. The spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For what does a man know of the things of the man, if not the spirit of the man that is in him? In the same way, no one knows the things of God, if not the spirit of God. But we have not received a spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God, so that we may know the things granted to us by God' (1 Corinthians 2:9-12).

The 'prepared' good things from God, he said, that 'the spirit' 'revealed' as a companion; and 'his spirit' by antithesis to our own spirit. And securing again that it not be thought of as an angel or some other created spirit, he brought forward: 'we have not received a spirit of the world'—that is, a generated one—'but the spirit which is from God'—that is, from the remaining essence, the one proceeding from the hypostasis of God; and as it alone knows the things of God, as Lord, and having likewise toward the Father according to nature. For the 'servant,' as it says in the Gospel, 'does not know what his lord does' (John 15:15).

No longer, however, did he speak as if regarding the man who dwells 'in God,' so that the uncomposed God might be thought of as composite. To the Ephesians: 'Do not grieve the holy spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption' (Ephesians 4:30); to the Romans: 'you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if the spirit of God dwells in you; but if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he is not his' (Romans 8:9); to the Galatians: 'because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying Abba Father' (Galatians 4:6); to the Philippians: 'for I know that...'

The Spirit as Uncreated God§43

The Divine Names of the Holy Spirit§44

44That calling him the true Son and the true Spirit denotes the appropriation of nature by God: but regarding all other things, it differs by lordship or by faith; just as we are accustomed to say regarding those who are of the same substance to us, 'my son, my spirit,' but regarding others, 'my field, my horse,' yet also 'my God.'

For the manner of the hypostatic Logos of the divine nature is not shown to have become Son and only-begotten and the Word of God, Christ, by simply and unattachedly speaking, but by having the syllable of 'my' and 'your' joined together. As when God says, 'This is my beloved Son' (Matt 3:17), and again, 'my good Word,' and, 'I prepared a lamp for my Christ'; and we say, 'your Son, your only-begotten, your Christ.'

Nor does it being called by the same name or by a similar name regarding us—'sons of men, how long will you be heavy-hearted?' (Psalm 4:2)—bring forth the Son of God through the homonymy of divinity; likewise, the Holy Spirit does not simply being called 'Spirit,' but the joining to the name, or as being from God the 'my,' or as being from the creation the 'your,' or even the word 'holy' or 'incorruptible' or 'eternal,' denotes that he proceeds from the Father's hypostasis; nor does the speaking of the liturgical things and our spirits or holy or eternal things by the same name bring forth that he is by nature the true Spirit of God.

For in the riddles concerning him, some declaration of his divine nature and power is always found. But the creatures received the holy and eternal toward their own nature, not possessing these things by nature from themselves.

Since even these heretics are found arguing against themselves, that the 'my' regarding the Son of God and the 'holy' and the 'eternal' they simply accept as announcing the identity of the divine nature? Furthermore, in these matters, he did not name our soul 'spirit' in the proofs provided, but his own Holy Spirit. For having our own spirit, the Spirit of God was given to us. For the Father said, 'My Spirit shall not remain in these men' (cf. Genesis 6:3), and the Son: 'Receive the Holy Spirit' (John 20:22). It is clear.

And, as it was said concerning the divine Spirit, that it is like our own indwelling Spirit. Therefore, just as the Son, the Word of God, is paternally generative, so the Holy Spirit is spiritually proceeding and not by creation. And just as there is no change in essence, power, or glory for the only-begotten Son in relation to God the Father—though any difference, if it is permissible to say so, exists in relation to creation—so also with the one divine Spirit.

Thus, it is more righteous not even to hear the heretics and to approach listening to these things. Concerning how the divine nature of the Holy Spirit is signified by various names. What we have said from the beginning, the words testify a second time: that there are various God-befitting names for the Spirit of God, having laid upon them much other emphasis and a relation surpassing all, contributing to the present theorems continuously and more excellently than the most appropriate interpretation, to both the Father and the Son.

And still replenishing both his divine nature and his authentic power, and comforting our weakness regarding our ability to reach him either by the interpretation of words or by the contemplation of the mind, and providing boldness to call him without danger consubstantial with God and to believe in his sanctification. And we find nothing of the other spirits privileged to be called by these names; but these things, which alone exist by nature, are not one of the many things, but God.

And these names are these: Holy Spirit, as it is written everywhere; Spirit of holiness, and Sanctifier, as he writes to the Romans: 'Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness' (Rom 1:1-4). And again: 'that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified in the Holy Spirit' (Rom 15:16), and likewise: 'we must always thank God for all of you, beloved brothers, because God chose you as a firstfruit for salvation in the sanctification of the Spirit and in the faith of truth' (2 Thessalonians 2:13). Spirit of power and of love and of self-control, as Paul in the second epistle to...

The Spirit in Scripture§45

45He wrote to Timothy: 'For God did not give you a spirit of slavery, but a spirit of power and love and self-control' (2 Timothy 1:7), and to the Romans: 'I urge you, brothers, through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit' (Romans 15:30), and to the Galatians: 'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace' (Galatians 5:22), similar to 'God is love' (1 John 4:8), and to 'He transferred us into the kingdom of the love of his Son' (Colossians 1:13); and 'just as Christ loved the church' (Ephesians 5:25), and again: 'the Son of God who loved me' (Galatians 2:20), similar also to 'you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power of the Father' (Mark 14:62), and to 'I knew a power going out from me' (Luke 8:46).

A spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and godliness; a spirit of the fear of God, a spirit of judgment and burning, as Isaiah prophesies; and as Wisdom says: 'for the spirit of wisdom is a lover of mankind,' and as Moses relates in Exodus: 'Behold, God has called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and has filled him with a divine spirit of wisdom and understanding and knowledge' (Exodus 31:2), and according to Baruch: 'You have left the fountain of wisdom' (Baruch 3:9), and as the proverbs teach: 'God established the earth by wisdom, and prepared the heavens by understanding' (Proverbs 3:19), just as Isaiah said concerning God the Father: 'He was wise in doing evil against them' (Isaiah 31:2). And concerning the Only-Begotten, Paul said: 'Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Corinthians 1:24); and another: 'I will bless the Lord who gave me understanding' (Psalm 16:7).

A spirit of gentleness, just as Paul admonishes the Galatians: 'Brothers, if even a person is caught in a transgression, you who are spiritual should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness' (Galatians 6:1). A spirit of discipline, that is, of wisdom. For wisdom says: 'the spirit of discipline will flee from guile, and will turn away from foolish thoughts.' A spirit of adoption, as—

Paul first sent to the Romans: 'For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God' (Rom 8:14). 'For you received the Spirit of adoption, in whom we cry: Abba, Father; the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God' (Rom 8:15-16).

3.12 The Spirit of promise, according to the same apostle writing to the Ephesians: 'in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the pledge of our inheritance' (Eph 1:13), and to the Galatians: 'Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written: Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree; so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith' (Gal 3:13-14).

3.13 The Spirit of faith and revelation, according to the same apostle to the Corinthians: declaring in the second epistle: 'having the same Spirit of faith' (2 Corinthians 4:13), and again: 'but God revealed to us through His Spirit' (1 Cor 2:10). This is similar to what he showed to the Romans: 'God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son' (1 Cor 1:9), and to that which was said under Moses in Deuteronomy: 'and you shall know today, that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God' (Deut 7:9), and to the Psalmist: 'Faithful is the Lord in all His words and holy in all His works' (Psalm 145:13).

3.14 The guiding Spirit, the straight Spirit, according to David in the 4th Psalm confessing: 'With a guiding spirit, sustain me' (Psalm 51:12); likewise to the Psalmist in the 122nd Psalm: 'For straight is the word of the Lord, and all His works are in faithfulness' (Ps 33:4), and to Moses saying: 'Straight is the Lord our God, and there is no injustice in Him' (Deut 32:4).

3.15 The Spirit of grace, just as the apostle writes to the Hebrews: 'He who has despised the Son of God and insulted the Spirit of grace' (Heb 10:29); for the same one also wrote concerning the Father: 'I am by the grace of God, as I am' (1 Cor 15:10), and his grace is in me; and concerning the Son: 'The grace of our Lord Jesus...'

Homonyms and the Uncreated Nature§46

46Of Christ, the spirit of truth, as John announces from the Savior: 'If you love me, you have kept my commandments; and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, so that the spirit of truth may be with you forever' (John 14:15-17). And again in his first epistle: 'And the spirit is the one testifying that the spirit is the truth' (1 John 5:6), which is similar to saying of the Son: 'I am the truth' (John 14:6).

A divine spirit and the breath of the Pantokrator and a lover of mankind, according to the phrase of Job and according to Moses mentioned a few verses earlier in this chapter. The Holy Spirit was praised and is light, in whom also we are enlightened, just as the apostle writes: 'that he might give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation, in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened' (Ephesians 1:17-18), and as David sings: 'for with you is the fountain of life; in your light we shall see light' (Psalm 36:9); that is to say, in your Son, the radiance of your glory, your Holy Spirit. And: 'The light of your face has been shown to us, Lord' (Psalm 4:6). For what else would the Spirit be, if he proceeds from the Father or out of the Light? Concerning which John sang in the first epistle: 'God is light' (1 John 1:5), and in the Gospel concerning the Only-begotten: 'was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world' (John 1:9), and: 'I am the light, I am the life' (John 11:25).

It is nothing wonderful, then, if being one and always having the same nature, he is glorified with differing designations. For his divinity, being ungraspable by the words of mortals, they praise with differing designations and with names, according to the power of the energies which come to us. As for those representing the doctrine of Macedonius, becoming more of their heresy than of the truth, nothing is happening to those looking at the logical arguments. For they are mythologically seizing upon words, as if one should not pay attention to homonyms, or synonyms, or similar expressions.

For the 'good' name of God, he says, is entwined with 'one God,' but regarding the Holy Spirit, the 'good' name is not joined with 'one God.' And again: good, he says, was written to be even a man, as he says: 'do good, Lord, to the good' (Psalm 125:4), and: 'the good man brings good things out of the good treasure' (Luke 6:45). Similarly, he says, good is the...

Evenly and without soul, as when one prophesies: 'If you will and listen to me, eat the good things of the earth' (Isaiah 1:19). But also regarding unstable things it is said: 'It is good to confess to the Lord' (Psalm 92:1). Similarly, it is said a man is called holy, and a power of God, and a worm, where it is written: 'My strength, my great power' (Joel 2:25), and the Savior says: 'The powers of the heavens shall be shaken' (Matt 24:29).

And this I say: that the argument regarding homonyms and similar words applies to heterousious things, but not to the Holy Spirit and Him whose Spirit He is, and moreover to the Son. For the Scripture adds to the homonyms or synonyms a safeguard from itself, by enclosing the syllable 'my' or 'your' or the word 'holy' or 'good'; that is, either as from God it says: 'my spirit,' or as from David and us: 'your good spirit shall guide me' (Psalm 143:10).

Therefore, it is necessary to be persuaded by those scriptural testimonies which are much more effective, and to know that the Holy Spirit has homonymy or synonymy and similar words toward God and His only-begotten Son, having mentioned those with similar names, not toward creatures because there is found sometimes a homonymy in them.

For even if we should give a name or a word to participate in God, it is not in essence or in the energy of power and sanctification. For these things do not exist at all by nature; but by comparison to the evil, the good and the sin, that is, the passion, the holy has been arranged; for the not very evil and sinful, that is, the passible, the good and holy is spoken of here.

For just as wickedness and sin, that is, passion and weakness, are not found in the one Holy Spirit, being ungenerated; so also in none of the generated things is the good and holy and powerful according to perfection, but according to participation; and where these are not anywhere according to perfection, nowhere is the ungenerated. For where there is darkness, nowhere is the light; and 'where there is night, not day.' And it is said also to Hermes Trismegistus: 'It is impossible for the good to be in generation, but only in the ungenerated. Just as participation is given to all in matter, so also to the good.' Therefore, the Holy Spirit is similar and equal to the Father and...

The Distinction of the Holy Spirit from Angels§47

47Of the only-begotten deity: and from such a judgment it is shown that he himself exists by nature as holiness and goodness and power, being one out of the one. Since against their contention, neither the most good and merciful in nature shall the Son still be good; because 'one God' does not have a unified nature. Nor indeed shall the most philanthropic and entirely merciful Father and the Son possess the aforementioned names of deity; but rather through them they shall be demoted, as it is the custom to speak to heretics, to us who are homonymous. Be merciful, O Holy Trinity.

But the Son, he says, having been co-begotten, possesses goodness by nature, and all the other things that the Father has. But also the Holy Spirit, having proceeded together, is good by nature, and all the things the God Father has.

3.30 If, therefore, their discussion was about accidental or worldly matters, it would have been well for them to have need to weave certain myths, and with an Aristotelian-seeming skill and a technique in words, like Eunomius, to twist the matter and to overshadow the truth; 3.31 but now Paul teaches: 'unless you believe, you will not understand at all' (Isaiah 7:9), and: 'the wisdom of men is foolishness with God' (1 Cor 3:19). And the words concerning the glorious Spirit ought not to be made more wise than human reasoning. For reproach does not harm the Holy Spirit, nor furthermore from hearing do the insults and the mockeries of the heretics come, to whom the evil thought has fallen upon; but those using such things will suffer endlessly and will act similarly to those attempting to mock this light, which has its strength from the unapproachable light, and defile it with their words. 3.32 And it is necessary to believe that the teaching from the saints is able to impart more glory than that from men.

It is therefore fitting for us to take care not, through an excessive goodwill, to draw down the divine which is upon them into the results of creatures by sophistries regarding their own heresy, and through these to give birth to a love of destruction to the simpler and more ignorant, and to lead forward into a desire for greater sins.

4. Regarding those heretical ones saying: God is spirit; and how the Holy Spirit is spirit of the spirit? And again: the angels, therefore, they say, are not...

Are they from God and holy and spirits of God? But while they are being sent out, they are simple, direct, and perfect, yet they corrupt the choice of sacred words through ignorance, by which the Father God willed His Spirit to be arranged with Him, as the only-begotten Word, and His being removed from creation and exceeding all is secured, wherefore also He is thrice-sung, they say; how is the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, a Spirit?

For although this is written and shown; but the 'how' exceeds the knowledge of mind and word of us, and even of angels. For just as the God-Word was begotten from Him as a Father exists, so from Him and with Him the Holy Spirit was manifested; and in this especially His ungraspability is shown, in that what is appearing and being is impossible to be by Him through creation. For what is the difference between the uncaused and life-giving nature and the created and being-made-life-giving? Nor is it possible for the Spirit not to be consubstantial and equal to that from whom he is. Therefore he is also holy by nature.

The angels, he says, are they not from God and holy and spirits of God? They are from God, in that they have become under His command, as all things; but holy after being sanctified, like men; and spirits, insofar as they are incorporeal to us.

They are not called spirits of God or from God or proceeding from the Father or divine or spirits of truth or spirits of holiness; but ministering angels and heavenly bodies because they infinitely distance and subtilize themselves from the uncreated Spirit of God, according to the writer who is an experienced apostle: 'bodies on earth and bodies in heaven' (1 Corinthians 15:40).

For just as the spirits of the winds are not according to them, neither are they according to the Holy Spirit of God. For they were created, but they did not proceed from the hypostasis of God and Father; they do not regenerate us, they do not make us gods, they do not forgive sins, they do not give life, they do not create, they do not sanctify, they do not judge, but they also are judged. For 'you,' he says, 'shall also judge angels' (1 Cor 6:3).

Nor are the powers in them of the heavens. They are not in places, undefinable and immeasurable in intervals. For Gabriel speaking to Daniel, or announcing the Theotokos...

The Unvarying Illumination of Wisdom and the Nature of the Spirit§48

48by essence, as by thought

And to him in Spain, and in another place, having been granted by him a wisdom that is simple and without wavering until the end of the earth, he imparts it; not in one way now, only to suddenly appear in another, nor more to one and less to another, breathing upon them, but always shining similarly to each one both together and distinctly, just as the one who said: 'I am with you all the days until the completion of the age' (Matt 28:20).

Since they transfer to God and Father the theology lying with John where it is said: 'God is Spirit' (John 4:24), saying because it is written that he is Spirit, and also because it is written: 'The Spirit of our face is Christ Lord' (Lamentations 4:20);—will they then also count the Father and the Son as Spirit among the other functional spirits? If it is not so, then the Holy Spirit is not understood among the other spirits, for he is not an archangel. For Michael and Gabriel and those like them are archangels; and with them, even heretics would not say that the Holy Spirit of God is ranked. Wherefore then, do they examine where he is to be ranked, or among which creatures? For after God, we were not taught from the Scriptures another rational nature, nor of the many spirits and of bodies like us.

Still, they lead us sophistically from what is set forth: that the Father and the Son are 'true,' but the Spirit is written as 'truth,' as if this were different. But it is the same, as it has been shown by the first argument, and this does not differ from that.

Concerning those saying, 'Since the only-begotten is the Word of God, what shall we call the Spirit?' and concerning the testimony that the Son is only-begotten. The Holy Spirit is one and only; and again the Son is the Word; the Holy Spirit, the Word. And concerning comparison; and concerning the fact that there is no paradigm of the incomparable essence.

Toward these things, the most varied and manifold according to the word—I do not know, if not even according to opinion—but certainly that even this, the heretics of the stranger to us of the simpler and truer teaching, frequently turning over the same words, say: 'The God Word was called only-begotten, because the Holy Spirit is not from the hypostasis of the Father. Since if he himself would not be called only-begotten, the...'

The Divinity of the Holy Spirit§49

Analogies of the Spirit's Work and Relation§50

50the Word, or so they will think according to the Scriptures. For the Trinity is not composed of something within the one divinity, nor are the spirits called spirits, if we do not speak of profanities, nor are men called gods because they are called so; for we are not in truth. If they do not realize that these things contradict: 'only the wise God' and 'alone possessing immortality,' they will not be able to be made wise by anything from the opposite of the Holy Spirit.

For these things were thus spoken by Paul, because the Word of God is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit, and he has it inseparably according to nature, and leads into one divinity, just as it is said by those outside: 'one God from whom all things came.' Just as Paul wrote to the Romans, Galatians, and Timothy concerning the Father: 'one God' (Romans 3:30; 1 Cor 8:6), so John said concerning the Son: 'the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father' (John 1:18). And concerning the Holy Spirit, Paul taught the Corinthians: 'but to another the gifts of healings in the one Spirit' (1 Cor 12:9); for the oneness of the divine and the plurality of nature are His own. And just as it was written that the Son was begotten, and the witness says: 'I came forth from the Father' (John 16:28); so it was written, and the same said: 'the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father' (John 15:26), meaning it issued forth.

And just as the Son, being God and Lord, is the Son of God and Lord, so the Holy Spirit, being God and Lord, is the Spirit of God and Lord. And in the way that it is written that the Son co-exists with the Father, the same way the Holy Spirit is written 'the word of God,' and 'the spirit of his mouth,' and 'the breath of the Pantokrator' (Job 33:4), because having been co-substanced, he shone forth from him; so that no one might suppose that it is something from the outside of the divinity of the Father or of his Word. For the word of the Word and the word of the mind are His own; and this is fulfilled: 'the one God and Father of all, and over all, and through all, and in all' (Eph 4:6).

And just as the Son is shown to be distinct from the Father, as it is written: 'he who has seen me has seen the Father' (John 14:9); likewise also the Holy Spirit, through which it is said: 'in this we know that God is in us, from his Spirit, which he gave us' (1 John 4:13). It is therefore necessary, since the true God is the Father, that a true God be equal to him and—

the one showing himself by his own manifestation. 5.13 And just as all things came to be through the Son, so all things were sanctified and empowered by the Spirit. For the apostles say: 'Lord, the one who made heaven and earth and the sea and all things in them; the one through the Holy Spirit, and the mouth of David your child is an icon' (Acts 4:24). And just as the Only-begotten is equal in power and similar to the Father and an authority, it is shown according to: 'Whatever the Father does, these things the Son likewise does' (John 5:19); likewise also the Spirit of God according to: 'And all these things the one and the same Spirit works' (1 Corinthians 12:11).

5.14 And just as regarding himself the Christ said: 'No one has known the Father except the Son' (Matthew 11:27), so also regarding the Holy Spirit it is said similarly, that: 'No one has known the things of God except the Spirit of God.' And in the manner that the Son was called the angelic one, 'messenger of great counsel' (Isaiah 9:6); so also regarding the Holy Spirit, for they say: 'But we received the Spirit of God, so that we might know the things granted to us by God.' 5.15 And similar to: 'Christ the firstfruits' (1 Cor 15:20), is the saying plainly: 'and having the firstfruits of the Spirit.' And equal to: 'And the Lord to sanctify you, so that you might be sincere and blameless for the day of redemption', is: 'so that the offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified in the Holy Spirit.' And balanced to say: 'The one who set me apart from my mother's womb, through his grace to reveal Christ in me' (Gal 1:15), is: 'God revealed through his Spirit.'

5.16 And equal to say: 'Test yourselves, whether Christ is in you' (2 Cor 13:5), is to say: 'But we did not receive a spirit of the world, but the Spirit of God.' And equal to: 'Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?' (1 Cor 3:16), is that written by John: 'If we love one another, God remains in us. In this we know that we remain in him and he in us, through his own Spirit, which he gave to us' (1 John 4:13), and to: 'We shall come, I and the Father, and we will make a dwelling with him' (John 14:23). 5.17 And just as through the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit is given according to: 'I will pour out from my Spirit upon all flesh' (Joel 2:28) and according to: 'Receive the Holy Spirit' (Acts 1:8); so through the Holy Spirit the Christ, according to Paul writing to the Ephesians: 'so that he may give to you,'

The Identity of the Spirit with Father and Son§51

51According to the wealth of his glory, he is to be strengthened in power through his Spirit, so that Christ may dwell in the inner man. We might have received in a similar and equal way: 'the word of the Lord came to this prophet' and 'the Lord said' and 'thus says the Lord of hosts', as that which was said by Peter in the Acts: 'it was necessary for the scripture to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold' (Acts 1:16); and that which was said by Paul to the Jews in Rome: 'the Holy Spirit spoke well through the prophet Isaiah' (Acts 28:25); and that which says: 'the Spirit says plainly' and 'thus says the Lord of hosts'.

It is also of equal value to: 'the eternal God' which was proclaimed by Paul: 'who has presented himself through an eternal Spirit' (Hebrews 9:14). And it is comparative to: 'no one is able to receive the Holy Spirit except from the Lord' and to: 'receive the Holy Spirit' and to: 'no one is able to say Jesus Christ is Lord except in the Holy Spirit' (1 Cor 12:3).

It is the same as: 'to be led by the Holy Spirit into the truth', that is, to be led by the Holy Spirit into the true faith, by being led by the Lord Christ who ordains: 'baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' (Matt 28:19). And it is of equal strength to the one saying explicitly: 'shall we provoke the Lord? shall we be stronger than he?' (1 Corinthians 10:22) and to the writing: 'do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption' (Eph 4:30). And it is analogous to: 'you shall send out your Spirit and they shall be created' and to: 'you shall send out your word, and it shall establish them'.

It is also similar to saying: 'the Lord testifies to my soul, that I do not lie' and the writing: 'the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me' (John 15:26); and: 'the Spirit testifies about me in the city, saying'. And it is a representation of the one saying the lordly word: 'behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves' (Matt 10:16), and: 'these then, having been sent out by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia'. And it is equal to the writing: 'if you seek the testing of the Christ speaking in me', to the writing that: 'they were saying to Paul through the Spirit: do not go up to Jerusalem' (Acts 21:4). And it is kindred to: 'the Son is eternal life' which was said by him: 'the water, which I shall give' (John 4:14).

He will be in him a spring of water leaping into eternal life. This he was saying concerning the Holy Spirit, whom the believers were about to receive through him. And it is consistent with the saying, 'for we have become partakers of Christ,' which is: 'for it is impossible for those having been once enlightened and having tasted the gift, and having become partakers of the Holy Spirit.'

It is also very similar to what is said in the actions: 'tongues as of fire appeared to the apostles, dividing, and they sat upon each one, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,' and what was said by John: 'he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire,' which is consistent with what Moses said: 'God is a consuming fire,' and what Isaiah said: 'behold, the Lord will come like fire.' And it is consistent with the statement: 'you were circumcised by a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the flesh of sins in the circumcision of Christ,' with what is written: 'circumcision of the heart in the Spirit.'

And if it is fitting to say of God the voice of Peter: 'let each one repent from his wickedness and from the evil way and let him be baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus, and he will be saved,' then for God His Spirit is likewise unchanging, and from the one who is Lord to the disciples, saying to them by name: 'receive the promise of the Father, which you heard, that John indeed baptized with water for repentance, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit.' For this signifies nothing other than what his other teaching concerning enlightenment signifies, namely that the Holy Spirit performs and is able to do the same things, which is the name of the Father and of His Son, as they possess the same divinity.

The preaching of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is also unchanging and equally valid, as Paul writes to the Romans: 'for if indeed the one coming preaches another Jesus whom we did not preach, or if you receive a different spirit, which you did not receive.' The same evidence is found in: 'for I do not dare to speak anything that Christ has not accomplished through me for the obedience of the Gentiles, in word and work, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit of God,' with: 'the Father who remains in me, He himself does the works. Believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.' For observe that just as it is with the Father, so also the...

The Word of God and the Nature of the Spirit§52

52His Spirit remains with the Christ, being inseparable from the divine nature; and the divine works are done in agreement by the ineffable Trinity; and just as the Father, being in his own hypostasis, is represented in the Only-begotten because of the unchangeable nature of the deity, that is, the essence; so too the Only-begotten is in the same manner in the one Holy Spirit.

And how many other things are brought forward concerning the divine Spirit that do not differ from what is written concerning God and the Father and his Only-begotten Son, from which some are contained in different places of this book, through which the course of the Logos came. 5.27 Since they will not yet say, having been questioned, that Eve is from Adam and the children from her; and how some were written as born, but she was neither a child of him, nor a sister of those born from oblivion; when it is not possible to show the unity and incomparable nature from a parable of creatures, the unseen remaining to the mind, but being endured by hearing and words. Even if a small thing, like a shadow of a likeness, should be found, one must flee from the more abundant, leaving the one who drives downward. For in no way can the example be one of identity; but it is only safe to say those things which the Scriptures have taught us according to our measures. 5.28 That therefore to be one and only Spirit of God the Father has been written, because it is separated in nature from the other spirits, but is joined to the Father and to his Son the Word of the essence; Paul is directed as writing to the Corinthians in the first epistle: 'but different gifts of healings in the one Spirit' (1 Corinthians 12:9); and again: 'but all these works the one and the same Spirit performs, dividing to each one individually as he wills' (1 Cor 12:11); and again: 'we were all made to drink of one Spirit' (1 Cor 12:13); and to the Ephesians: 'that through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father' (Eph 2:18); and again: 'endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit' (Eph 4:3); that is: to make much guarding so that it does not divide itself from the highest unity and self-sufficient essence. 5.29 That they are also called a word, they testify thus: Paul, writing to the Ephesians: 'having taken up the armor of God and the breastplate of righteousness and the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation and the ma-'

rejoicing in the Spirit, which is the word of God. Of which a certain sword Matthew also mentioned from the person of Christ, saying: 'I did not come to cast peace, but a sword' (Matt 10:34). Not a sword, he says, but the unsearchable wisdom of the Holy Spirit, which lies beyond the peace of the sanctified hearts. And toward the Hebrews: 'for he carries all things by the word of his power' (Heb 1:3). By what kind of word? David prophesied: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their strength' (Ps 33:6). And again Paul: 'for it is impossible for those having been once enlightened, having tasted the heavenly gift, and having become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and having tasted the good word of God' (Heb 6:4-5). Peter also: 'because all flesh is as grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass; the grass withered and the flower fell, and its beauty perished; but the word of God remains forever' (1 Pet 1:24). In the same manner concerning the Son, he sings in the Psalms: 'Forever, Lord, your word remains in heaven' (Psalm 119:89). For many things regarding the most supreme and most divine Hypostases are handed down most mystically.

Regarding all that is proper to the Divinity, testimony is given concerning the Holy Spirit thus: Then therefore they testify concerning the pure and ineffable nature of the Holy Spirit, just as concerning God who exercises authority over all, and Father, and the Son who is over all and Lord of all, because he does not have heterousia, nor is he lesser in power and glory. And nothing of these is found to exist of itself from nothing to any creature. For what he does have, he has through the zeal of the Triad in one Divinity; and each has always been such that it is possible to know from what it is, what it is and what it is not, whether it be God or a creature. For example: that it is not a creature first, according to the heretics, but God; for the first creature turns out to be Satan. Creation has being, but is not the beginning. And this was shown in Job, and what kind of thing it is in logical terms: first, a poem. For he says the devil is one who deceives nature in manner. And that the Holy Spirit is a creature, as 'the breath of the Pantokrator,' or that he is entirely a beginning, has not been written at all. For a creation could not pre-exist the creative Spirit, and such a thing...

The Omnipresence and Nature of the Spirit§53

53Having appeared from a private opinion to be unproven, ungracious, and reckless, neither the Scripture saying that the Divine Spirit is a beginning, nor the Scripture euphemistically calling it 'Spirit of God' and 'from God' and 'divine' and 'holy', nor the Scripture not distinguishing between the first and the second regarding the nature of the divine hypostases, what dispute remains concerning them being in the unbegotten one Godhead and equality? The opponent claims that it fills the inhabited world and pervades all things, and that nothing created fills the inhabited world or pervades all things, and it is found in all; but rather it is the limit of the noetic powers and a defined quantity; for only these are proper to the Godhead.

But the greatness of the Holy Spirit is indissoluble, infinite, and everywhere, and through all, and in all always; filling the world and pervading according to the Godhead, yet uncontainable according to the power, and measuring indeed, but not being measured. 'For God does not give the Spirit according to measure,' as the Savior says in John (cf. John 3:34); and according to Wisdom, having it: 'For you love all existing things, and you loathe nothing of what you have made; for you would not have fashioned something if you hated it. How then would anything remain, if you had not willed it or if it had not been preserved by you? And spare all things, for all things are yours, O life-loving Lord, and your incorruptible Spirit is in all' (Wisdom 11:24-26). From this we appropriately name God the Father of all, not being our father by nature, as the Only-Begotten is.

And again: 'The Spirit of the Lord has filled the inhabited world, and the one pervading all things has the voice of knowledge;' (cf. Wisdom 1:7) instead of saying that it has taken up the invisible and visible creation, the intelligible and sensible, and nothing of all things is without his eternal oversight; for this pervading of all things demonstrates it. And he says, it hearkens to the voice of all, as God always being in all and everywhere, and bringing every material disorder into the proper order, and being sparing toward those made by him.

And even while attending to it, since He Himself is providence and wisdom by nature, having been permeated through all things, just as the Father is. For who possesses such knowledge? Isaiah says thus: 'spirit of knowledge and reverence' (Isa 11:2), and David suggests: 'where shall I go from your face? and from your spirit where shall I flee?' (Ps 139:7). And the Lord, teaching that the divinity of the Holy Spirit is not circumscribed by place, but is simultaneously in heaven and upon the earth, always providing all sufficiency and providing to creation, said according to John: 'if you love me, keep my commandments; and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, so that the spirit of truth may be with you, which the world cannot receive, it neither sees it nor knows it; but you know it, because it remains with you, and in you it shall be' (John 14:15-21).

In order that it might become known, how such testimonies manifest one single infinite nature present everywhere; they delivered the same things concerning each unmixed hypostasis: Jeremiah, explaining from God and the Father, says: 'I fill the heaven and the earth, says the Lord' (Jer 23:24); David, singing about the Son in the 40th Psalm: 'and of his greatness there is no end' (Psalm 145:3); and Paul, preaching about the same: 'he is the one who descended and the one who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things' (Eph 4:10).

6.3 That creation, though incorruptible, is not absolutely incorrupt; rather it receives corruption, the nourishment which we say, and change, as the prophecy says: 'the one doing all things and reshaping them.' The wise men from without, having heard this, say: 'dissolving things into themselves, and from them again growing.' For the incorporeal rational creation has corruption according to choice, since God alone has given it a permanent nature, and having established it unto the age, and unto the age of ages; but it, changing by its own choice, falls into a worse state, and to it...

Corruption and the Immutability of the Spirit§54

54By this being corrupted, it is as if it were perishing, such as that which is called eternal losing out of itself, that is, being changed; it finds death, even if it remains otherwise, by its own alteration. For whatever you perceive to have happened later, this is the death of the former; it is like something such as evil happening, whereby goodness is killed by it, from which it departed, by the goodness; and the reverse, goodness by evil. For there is something which, though it must always stand by the first principle, even if it did not deny this to them, does not endure.

Indeed, Peter discusses these things in the epistles: 'If God did not spare the sinned angels, but cast them into Tartarus in chains of darkness, to be kept for judgment on the great day' (2 Peter 2:4), and 'he did not spare the ancient world' (2 Peter 2:5); and Jude: 'and angels who did not keep their own dominion, but left their own habitation, he has kept in chains of darkness under gloom to be judged on the great day' (Jude 1:6). And the rational material creation receives alteration: in one respect as Jude lost sanctification; and as Paul writes: 'the woman who lives in dissipation has been made dead, though she lives' (1 Timothy 5:6); even while enduring life in man. But in essence, it is as perishing first, and then falling into immortality. 'For it is necessary,' he says, 'that this corruptible put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality' (1 Corinthians 15:53). And the irrational creation undergoes a change and passes away: as it was foretold when light turns into darkness and water into blood: 'this is the alteration of the right hand of the Most High'; and elsewhere: 'the heaven,' he says, 'and the earth will pass away' (Matthew 24:35). For it was foretold that there would be new heavens and a new earth. For everything that received a beginning truly has also an end.

But the Holy Spirit, being of that unspeakable and all-prevailing eternal and incorruptible nature, and always having it in the same way and according to the same things; only as a mode and performing the things of God; and being a guardian of all, both the rational and perfecting the faith of the irrational, and of the irrational, until the condition of abiding in identity was given to the irrational; has been made unfit for a change of nature and a change of will, which is incorruptible. For the unshakeable is indeed incorruptible, and immediately it is without beginning, without end, and surpassing eternity. And the one without beginning:

self-acting God

The Error of Heretics Regarding Eternity and the Spirit§55

55Regarding the phrase 'unto the ages of ages.' It is not possible to hear it as it is, for those who are divided concerning the theologies of the Holy Spirit have determined this as a main point. For they lead themselves to the ends of the earth by presumption; and unmeasured passion is not accustomed to testify accurately to an investigation; nevertheless, nothing prevents one from hearing that device of theirs. For if they could, they would make it even more widely known.

Thus it is here: if something is called 'eternal' by name, it is possible to call it God, but if it is merely 'everlasting,' it is the Creator of the ages. For it is written: 'God is the maker of times and ages' (Ps 90:2), and again: 'Of old God spoke in many ways and in many manners to the prophets, but at the end of the days He spoke to us in Son, whom He set as heir of all things, through whom also He made the ages' (Heb 1:1-2). For if everything called 'eternal' must be named God, there would be infinite gods. For it is written: 'Rise up, eternal gates' (Ps 24:7), and again: 'Everlasting years were remembered' (Psalm 77:5), and again: 'Like everlasting sheep', and: 'These shall rise to eternal punishment' (Matt 25:46), and elsewhere: 'Those in the dust of the earth shall rise, some to everlasting life, and others to everlasting shame' (Daniel 12:2).

Is then both the punishment and the shame God? See how much absurdity and impiety the shared name of 'eternal' falls into; it leaps upon and is swept along by the meanings and words of those people; but this is dissolved by these things: regarding the eternal name, as we have just remembered, the others, whatever they may be, did not come from time alone; but they also have the corruption of the nature of opinion, and their 'everlastingness' is altogether unlike the divine eternity; just as the one called holy, angel, or man, is similarly and perhaps this is to the Holy of Holies Spirit; for in the whole, holiness and eternity exist.

Pay attention, then, to what great clamor the 'eternal' is raised concerning the Holy Spirit, and that this wonderful and most uncontainable thing has been applied to Him, I say that He who through the Holy Spirit made the ages brings Himself to His own true Father on our behalf. Let them also consider that all the powers of the heavens are in the Holy Spirit, certainly as a co-worker with the ungraspable Creator; and that,

The heretics, not at an opportune time but in confusion, mentioned the eternal gates and thresholds, having said these things as a summary of what was brought forward to us in words. Let the difference be clear to them between the unoriginated and unchangeable eternal, and that which is from time and subject to change, and let it be known that this is not brief, nor is it only another beauty regarding essence, but is altogether transformed. Let it also be known that the Holy Spirit holds the eternal judgment toward God the Father, who strengthens all things, and the Son, not toward creatures. Having released the inferior opinion, let them embrace the better; and let them marvel, instead of what they do now, at what is worthy of marveling; and let them practice a better time after these things, for there is no envy. And having made themselves victims of the arrogant reproach of those things, they have thereby brought forth the benefit of repentance.

For if this word, as something indicating the divine, was used concerning God the Father and the Son, perhaps it might similarly be applied to the Spirit of God. One thing is this: another is that nothing of those things of which they remembered the eternal was decreed as divine, or a Holy Spirit proceeding from God—that is, one thing, and not a plurality; nor is it arranged with the Father and the Son for divine initiation and divine gift, nor of any other, lest I say too much, it was unworthy of the honor belonging to divinity. Other things toward this: God and Father pleased through His Son, the Word, to have all things created. And what an insult, as they dream, to His all-holy Spirit, from not being created! For if, according to them, it is not inexpressibly a co-worker with the Creator as the Father is? But since all energy and gift, creative and good and perfect, belongs to His only-begotten Son, the Word, and to the one Holy Spirit, and is common to them, all things are led up to the One, from whom these blessed hypotheses appeared inexpressibly along with Him; these things a person, having made himself a quiet examiner, full of the reasonings of wisdom, which are mentioned in various places of this book and those before it, could easily learn. And Paul, who is greater than men, left this clearly confirmed to the Corinthians: 'But you were removed, but you were justified, but...'

The Nature of Creation and the Holy Spirit§56

Divine Holiness and Justice§57

57He introduced, intending both this main point which we now proceed to, and also the great gifts and the participation in God the Father of the Holy Spirit in the rebirth in baptism. He also noted that the name 'God' is one and perhaps belongs to the Trinity; and likewise, being invoked, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit always work equally. He discourses to the Corinthians, writing, 'But you were washed, but you were justified, but you were sanctified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God' (1 Cor 6:11).

Therefore, those who participate in Him—that is, those deemed to be sanctified by Him and justified and made wise—are called 'partakers of the Holy Spirit' (Hebrews 6:4), as the same apostle teaches the Hebrews. And to the Ephesians he writes, 'in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise' (Eph 1:13). For it is clear that those being sealed, that is to say, being sanctified, participate, but are not participated in. For if the Holy Spirit or the Son had been a creature, where would the need be for the creature to sanctify and make the fullness, even though it had been acting without debt to God the Father?

Indeed, the creatures, knowing this anointing to be from the Creator, do not provide the sanctification from themselves, but say, 'May God sanctify you.' And I proceed to another consistent and strong right, by which even those who have studied will not be ashamed to do this. The Lord of all, having already arranged concerning God the Father and Himself, 'baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son' (Matt 28:19), did not simply lead up 'and of the Spirit,' but added 'the Holy.' So that he did not only mention Him once, but also established Him because of that being by nature what the single name signified, to which even the Spirit was associated; and likewise, because of that, the Holy Spirit is established, who is in divinity the Pa—

Even the Son is so described; what was reminded to him is, as the saying goes, evident even to a blind man. But this possesses a greater theology; so that the thing called divinity may be easily believed to be a property of God alone, and to be holy and just in nature, and moreover to sanctify and justify the creatures belonging to Him, similar to those things being praised concerning the Father, as when the Son himself says to John: 'Holy Father, keep them in your name,' (John 17:11) and again: 'Sanctify them in your truth; your word is truth,' (John 17:17) and again: 'Father, judge.' (John 17:25) And as when they prophesy, Ezekiel indeed: 'and they shall know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them,' (Ezekiel 20:12) but David in the 10th Psalm: 'The Lord is righteous, and he loved righteousness; his eyes saw uprightness,' (Psalm 11:7) and another: 'and all those led under your hands, and under you are.' And as when Paul writes to the Thessalonians: 'But the God of peace himself will sanctify you completely,' (1 Thess 5:23) to the Romans: 'God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns?' (Romans 8:33) and to the Hebrews: 'that the virgin may be holy in body and spirit,' (1 Corinthians 7:34) as if it were implying either that she is not holy in a local sense, or that she is to be sanctified in virtue. And he says here, the sixth thing 'spirit', and the practical energy 'body', according to Isaiah prophesying: 'and those wandering in spirit shall know by understanding;' (Isaiah 29:24) that is, those wandering by deed or by state.

But concerning the Son, as when he is euphemistically named: 'one holy, one Lord Jesus Christ,' and as the Acts discuss: 'they killed those who foretold the coming of the righteous' [about 60] and as Peter said: 'Christ, who died for sinners, a righteous one on behalf of the unrighteous.' (1 Peter 3:18) And from such sayings, therefore, it is necessary, if they wished to do righteous things, to be led to God by praising the Spirit; this they do not do, for they say that the angels were not sanctified, and yet they are holy.

The Goodness of the Spirit§58

The Freedom of the Spirit§59

59And he did not distinguish between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith. That is to say: the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as one might say, is the unconstrained and abundant bestowal of Him, the cause of prophecy and renewal and heavenly goods and of understanding the beauty of the divine truth. For as it seems to the apostle: 'the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace' (Galatians 5:22). Therefore he writes again: 'for the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit' (Romans 5:5). Since one goodness belongs to the Triad in unity, many goodnesses are yielded to us; just as I say that one truth, justice, and wisdom belong to the one, according to: 'You are able, Lord, and your truth is around you,' which is the only-begotten God, and according to: 'to the only wise God,' many truths, justices, and wisdoms are multiplied to us from above, according to: 'the Lord seeks truth,' and: 'the Lord is righteous and loved justice,' and: 'a multitude of the wise, the salvation of the world,' and: 'walking with the wise, he shall be wise.' It is therefore clear that, as a Spirit of God in its own existence, it has become a good spirit and a spirit of wisdom and truth and a spirit of the invisible and indivisible God and Father.

That it is not written that creation is philanthropic; for this is the peculiar property of the consubstantial Triad alone. For the Father is philanthropic: 'not being angry with us until the end, nor being wrathful forever, nor repaying us according to our sins, nor according to our iniquities,' according to Psalm 24 (Psalm 103:9-10); and as Solomon says: 'but sparing all, because all things are yours, O Lord, lover of souls,' as it has been said; and because of these things we call Him both Lord and Father, his care having been established by power. For there is no more intimate approach to God than that of Father, Philanthropist, Good, and Holy. The Son is philanthropic, who through us, by the works of his seven and intelligible hands: 'he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant;' (Philippians 2:7) as the apostle writes in Titus: 'when the kindness and the philanthropy of our Savior God appeared' (Titus 3:4). And whoever should grant to Him, whatever is fitting for the only-begotten God, departing having received more than he hoped for. The Holy Spirit of God is philanthropic according to Wisdom, who was saying: 'phil...'

For he is a man of a spirit of wisdom, and he will not justify the righteous. For he did not leave the human nature to perish; but he himself went about, having guided, having taught all truth, having renewed us, and having bestowed the divine gifts, and having established such care anew for the one according to the image, so as to have the knowledge of his transcendent goodness and to possess this as a characteristic. For great elements indeed are heaven, earth, and sea; and a great rational creation is the angels and all the supracosmic power; but the Trinity did not deign from one of these, but has the name 'lover of mankind' from the goodness toward man.

For he is free by nature and not a slave; and as God and Lord, he frees and makes us sons. Creation has become a slave to the master who made it, possessing a freedom which it does not have from itself, nor is it able to provide to itself or to others. For prophecy says: 'All things are slaves' (Psalm 119:91). It has not been written that the Holy Spirit is a slave alone, but also as a master and free by nature, where he is and where he moves about, he provides the freedom which he possesses. For works alone submit to the yoke of slavery; that which is not a slave is not a work; and that which is not a work is God by nature. And the apostle is a faithful witness of these things, writing to the Corinthians in the second epistle: 'But the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom' (2 Cor 3:17); to Timothy: 'For God did not give us a spirit of slavery, but a spirit of power and love and self-control' (2 Tim 1:7); to the Romans: 'For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but a spirit of adoption as sons, in whom we cry, Abba, Father' (Rom 8:15); to the Galatians: 'God sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son' (Gal 4:6). Just as we were freed by the Son, having heard: 'You are no longer a slave, but free' and: 'With the freedom with which the Son set you free'; so too, through the same essence and lordship, we are freed by the Spirit through the aforementioned word: 'Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.'

For he commands, and creation does not serve; whether spiritual or sensible, it serves, but it does not command from itself; just as it says concerning the angels: 'Mighty in strength, doing the word of God...'

The Truth and Equality of the Holy Spirit§60

60His. But the Holy Spirit of God authoritatively presides over prophets and apostles, as God and Lord, as it is shown in the preceding chapters. That creation is strengthened by the all-pervading and all-powerful divine strength, and not that it strengthens itself. For it received power which endures in itself, and it does not fail to impart this to its fellow-servants.

And the Spirit of God strengthens through his generative, nourishing, and inexhaustible power, because he is a creator and not a creature. For the Savior says in the deeds: 'But you will receive power, upon the coming of the Holy Spirit upon you' (Acts 1:8). Just as without his coming, there is to us no power or hope toward God. And it must be understood by this, first, that the presence of the Holy Spirit signifies that he has come by authority; second, that he did not come as a mere messenger, but was foretold by him, the great God and Savior. And again therefore he says: 'But you sit in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high' (Luke 24:49/1:8). And this was the power of the Holy Spirit.

And Paul writes to the Romans, which is to be wondered at or interpreted worthily, especially from an attack, not nothing pleasant: 'I have therefore confidence in Christ Jesus toward God. For I do not dare to speak of anything which Christ has not accomplished through me in word and deed for the obedience of the Gentiles, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit' (Romans 15:18). That it is true; whereas creation, which is the property of God alone, does not always tell the truth, but from its own opinion it has a part of turning and the possibility of lying sometimes. Just as in incorporeal beings is the devil, so in corporeal beings, as it is written: 'Every man is a liar' (Psalm 116:11), and: 'You will destroy all those who speak falsehood' (Psalm 5:6). For Father God will not lie, as those from without also have written. And in holy beings, as Paul said concerning the apostles: 'But when I saw that they were not walking straight toward the truth of the good news, I said to Cephas in the presence of all' (Galatians 2:14) what he said. For to always be without falsehood is truly of divine nature alone. Therefore he sent to the Hebrews: 'that' he says, 'through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong exhortation, we who have fled, to hold fast the fore-laid hope' (Hebrews 6:18). And the communion of the Holy Spirit,

Participating in nature with the Father and the Son, it participates in all things, and even in being without falsehood. For it is the Spirit of truth of God (John 14:17), as it was foretold, speaking by the one will of the Father and the Son and itself, and not speaking from itself, just as the Son testified to him saying, 'He will not speak from himself' (John 16:13). It is truth because it does not disagree with the one divinity. Creation has nothing called truth, because there is one divine truth, just as holiness and goodness are one, to which each of us used to reach, we confess.

And the Holy Spirit is foretold as truth just as the Father and the Son, because it is of the same one divinity, having nothing manifold or disagreeing. And the Son testifies concerning the Father and himself, saying, 'Father, your Word is truth' (John 1:14), and again, 'I am the life and the truth' (John 14:6), and concerning the Holy Spirit, as was foretold, that no one knows the things of God except the Holy Spirit, and that because of the equality toward the Father, God again knows the things of the Holy Spirit.

Creation does not know the things of God; for it surpasses it, and nothing dares to rush toward such knowledge, even if it were of the well-disposed; because to know the things of God is impossible for all things, since it does not possess the same nature and the same knowledge possessed by God, as the Savior taught, saying in John, 'The servant does not know what his master does' (John 15:15), and as Peter wrote, 'It is that which is now being announced to you by those having preached to you by a Holy Spirit sent from heaven, into which angels desire to stoop' (1 Peter 1:12).

And that the Holy Spirit knows, as consubstantial God, the apostle wrote to the Corinthians, as has been previously stated. And again, presenting the greatness of the Spirit and the equality toward the Father, he writes in a balanced way: 'But he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is' (Romans 8:27). For, saying something great concerning the Father, he said the one who searches knows the mind of the Spirit, thus presenting the participation in nature and will and the equality of value and power of the Holy Spirit; he wrote only that he knows the things of the Father and searches his depths and the unknown thoughts of Him, which it is necessary also...

The Visibility of the Father and the Trinity§61

61When the worthy must be revealed. And let Peter write, as it is foretold: the Spirit was sent from heaven; let it be understood in the same way that the Son was sent. For that word is as a word, and this both as a saying and a Spirit sent from God. And because of the knowing that things said from Christ or from the Holy Spirit are also said from the Father through the one will, such things are words. For he neither is ignorant nor is he sent as a slave, nor does he speak or do or come from himself as an opponent.

That no one sees God and Father, except the Son alone and the Holy Spirit; and toward those saying: 'It is not written, then,' he says, 'that the angels see the face of the Father?' Creation does not see God and Father in the way that He is; for this is of a different nature, incorporeal and uncontainable. And toward this is: 'No one shall see my face and live' (Exodus 33:20). But the Scriptures say, at times to see or know the Son alone, and at times the Holy Spirit alone, the God Father, because the Trinity is in a unity of divinity, just as the Savior says according to John: 'Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; he has seen the Father' (John 6:46).

And the Son is from God by nature generatively, and the Holy Spirit processionally; and again: 'Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and whoever the Son shall reveal.' And as when speaking specifically about the Holy Spirit, as was foretold, Paul writes to the Corinthians, and as Isaiah prophesies: 'Spirit of wisdom and understanding, spirit of knowledge and godliness' (Isa 11:2). It is not written, then, he says, in Matthew from the Savior: 'See, do not despise one of these little ones; for I say to you, that their angels in the heavens always see the face of my Father who is in heaven?' (Matt 18:10). Yes; but they see, not as much and as what God is, but according to how much they are able to grasp. And the only-begotten and the Holy Spirit...

makes creation worthy of adoption

The Holy Spirit and the Angels§62

62Regarding this point, they say, moving all sorts of weapons against the uninstructed, and asserting snatchingly: 'Praise the Lord, for it is a good psalm; praise is sweet to God,' (Psalm 147:1; LXX 146:1) and 'It is good to confess to the Lord and to sing to your name, exalt.' (Psalm 92:1) But nowhere do we find it written: 'Praise the Holy Spirit.'

One should answer them thus: if you accept regarding the Father the voices you have brought forward, you cast out the Son; but if regarding the Son, the opposite, then when the Holy Spirit is also called 'Lord' and it is written, and it is unclear regarding which hypostasis it is written now, 'Lord.' Consider then, whether you have not used things contrary to yourselves.

As for the Holy Spirit, because he is not a creature, it is easy to learn that he is co-praised with God, both from his being arranged with Him and from the exhortation to praise all creation by name, both the three children and the psalmist; not, however, the Spirit of God, as the saints have a habit of naming. For if, as the heretics say, he is of a nature between God and angels, more honored and higher than all, it would have been necessary, since he is especially one, either to exhort him by himself to praise, or even to name him first and generally take up the others with him; not, however, as they arbitrarily imagine, the reverse, that he is named with the Father and the Son.

And regarding the heretical opposition: creation is not numbered with God. For what is common to that which exists in diminution compared to the All-Supreme and above all existing things in excess, or to the one who made it? But the all-venerable Spirit, as God, is named with the Father and the Son, as when the master gives the rule concerning baptism, and as when the apostle writes to the Corinthians the second thing: 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you;' (2 Cor 13:13) or with one of them the hypostases; or even as a permanence, as is remembered in the first book mentioned.

From the intention of the outcast and rejected Valentinus, having become a Manichaean, and from his madly speaking with other absurd myth-making, the Macedonians say that the divine Spirit rushes toward the angels. Paul wrote to Timothy:

“I testify before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the chosen angels.” But the Holy Spirit, as you perhaps appointed to the angels, was passed over in silence. From the abundance of their own heart, this is the concept.

For even if a memory of the Holy Spirit is not at times personally generated, it is taken up with God the Father, since it is His spirit by nature; that is, when God the Father Himself was not remembered by word, but by faithful thought, and the Son and the Holy Spirit were remembered, or vice versa. Whereas Valentinus, not being obligated to remember, called the sanctifying spirit “Paraclete,” just as the Lord Christ was called “Paraclete” from the sense of being called to one's side; but he called the sanctified ministers “angels.”

In addition to this: nowhere in Scripture do we find angels being remembered together with God for creation, or for mysticism, or for doxology. But regarding the communion of the Holy Spirit with the Divinity, Paul wrote to the Corinthians in the second epistle: “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit” (2 Cor 13:13), and in others: “if any communion of the Spirit.”

Indeed, the Psalmist cries out with such words regarding the substitution of the unbegotten Word and the divine Spirit for the liturgical spirits, and the fact that there is no association of them, but rather by these self-existent hypostases and through them and by them, just as through God the Father, to create the angels and to bring all things to perfection and to sustain them: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their powers” (Ps 33:6). For it must be understood that the “Word” is that through which all things, the “spirit of the mouth of the Lord” is the Holy Spirit, and the “powers of the heavens” are both their compositions and indeed the angels and principalities and authorities and powers. And again: “Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming fire” (Ps 104:4).

And the Apostle also is conflicted toward them, crying out: “We were watered by one spirit” (1 Cor 12:13). Just as it is impossible for the radiance to be separated from the light, and the wisdom of the wise man—that is, the Son—from the Father; so also the Holy Spirit from Him, who is Spirit, as to us...

The Holy Spirit as Living Water§63

63We breathe. Therefore they hid themselves as through whom we are unseasonably not being gathered together, and the one in the beginning returns to the unchangeable home. Because they have leapt away, they drive things against the apostle, on account of his testifying in the words lying before him in the presence of the created nature and the creature, similarly to how one says: 'I have sinned against God and men,' and: 'I testify today the heaven and the earth,' and: 'Hear, O heaven, and be attentive, O earth.'

That because it participates, as in essence, so also in the names, the creation has no participation in the names toward those called names upon God, just as in the nature. But the Holy Spirit participates in the names of God because he also participates in the nature, except that the Father alone is called 'Father', because of being the only hypostasis to beget, and the Son 'Son' and not Father of a created nature, because of having been truly begotten but not having been begotten. Just as whenever the Scripture names even the Spirit itself 'Lord', as master of all and participating in the one kingdom with the Father and the Son; 'Holy', as being holy by nature and as sanctifying the creation; 'Incorruptible', 'Good', 'Love', 'Wisdom', 'Understanding', just as he also has characterized God; 'Power', from which he strengthens; 'Just', from which he justifies, being self-righteous; 'Paraclete', just as the Son; 'Fire', from which he appeared to the apostles in tongues of fire, just as Moses says concerning the Father: 'Our God is a consuming fire,' and concerning the Son John says: 'He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire,' and so many such things.

That he is one and not many, like the creatures. The creation does not have anything existing in one hypostasis, that is, in one person. For angels and archangels are many, the seraphim likewise, the cherubim are not one thing; principalities and powers are said, dominions and thrones; heavens in the plural, men and the rest of the creatures. For the sun and the moon participate in the multitude of the stars both in nature and in the fire-like form, as the first more actively encompasses this, as the word explains. But the Holy Spirit, as not being numbered among the creation, the words have made it clear to us that he is one and the same. That because of being consubstantial and without beginning, it has been written to be the water of life.

Having proceeded from the paternal source. Creation is not written to be the water of life, for it did not possess eternal life from itself, unlike the unoriginated, living God.

But the holy Spirit—as the preachers to be mentioned in the footnotes say—is this being one proceeding naturally from the undying and life-giving paternal source, not being created. Just as in the first word we said that light does not create its own radiance but begets it, so it is here: the source does not create the water from itself, but it has it proceeding and being consubstantial; for no one is the creator of himself, or of a son, or of a spirit, since he would no longer be a father, nor possess a spirit.

Jeremiah, in the person of God, says: 'The heavens were out of joint at this, and the earth trembled at this: because my people have done two evil things. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have hewn for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold water' (Jeremiah 2:12). The prophet mystically sets forth the mystery. For he called God 'a fountain' and called the holy Spirit 'living water,' who in the baptismal pool cleanses all our sins, being unable to be split apart by the nature of the intellectual fountain, just as a stream from fountains cannot.

Isaiah says similarly: 'I will give water in thirst to those going in no-water; I will pour my spirit upon your seed and my blessings upon your children; and they shall rise up in the midst of water like grass, and like a willow tree beside running water' (Isaiah 44:3). And this contains an intellectual division through hidden things. For those in ignorance, he says, happen to receive the baptism, and because of this, 'those going in no-water,' 'I will pour my spirit' is able to make the baptismal pool overflow upon them like the sprouts of plants, and: 'like the tree planted by the outlets of the waters; which will give its fruit in its season, and its leaf will not wither' (Psalm 1:3).

And the Psalmist, doing what is necessary to make the truth apparent through words, recalls in one psalm: 'for with you is the fountain of life' (Psalm 36:9), and in another: 'he sends his word and shows them; he sends his spirit and waters flow, rejoicing the great city of God' (Psalm 147:18); and this is the whole inhabited world. For so that I may say, that which for men is each city, this for the Pantokrator is...

The Anointing and the Church§64

The Life-Giving Power of the Spirit and the Unity of Divinity§65

65The divine energy does not manifest itself in such a way as a life-giving spirit, which is God's inherent substance that gives life to all things, according to Paul, the trumpet of faith, writing to the Romans: 'for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death' (Romans 8:2); and again: 'he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his indwelling Spirit in you' (Romans 8:11); and to the Corinthians: 'not that we are sufficient to consider anything as being from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life' (2 Corinthians 3:6). By 'letter' he said the Mosaic law, which forbids: 'eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth' (Exodus 21:24) and defends against the lawless living; but the Holy Spirit of God is life-giving, having made us no longer under law, but under grace, and having guaranteed not to fail, to give 'evil for evil,' but rather good for evil. 'If,' he says, 'your enemy hungers, feed him'; and again to the same: 'the first Adam became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit' (1 Corinthians 15:45); and to the Galatians: 'he who sows into the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life' (Galatians 6:8); and according to John, saying from the Savior: 'it is the Spirit that gives life' (John 6:63). Ezekiel himself declares this very thing, and prophesies that with God, as His Spirit, He will perform the resurrection: 'thus says the Lord to these dry bones: behold, I am bringing into you a spirit of life, and I will cause nerves to come upon you, and I will cause flesh to rise upon you, and I will stretch skin over you, and I will give my Spirit upon you, and you shall live and you shall know that I am the Lord' (Ezekiel 37:12-14). Therefore, the essential life and the life-giving power has neither beginning nor end nor alteration; and do not let this fall to these by nature and truth of God.

For which is it, even as those things which are apart from the God and Father are possessed by inheritance. For no created thing can be a cause of life or show life in itself; but all things deprived of the divine Spirit are dead; 'for in him we live and move and are,' as the apostolic acts said (Acts 17:28). And indeed, if all things that come into being and are perishable, and those things which are perishing, remain without life: how could he grant these things to others, of which he himself becomes lacking? We are therefore made alive by the Holy Spirit, just as by him who said: 'I am the resurrection and the life' (John 11:25).

It has been written that because of the identity of divinity and the equal energy, as he raised Christ, who suffered in the flesh through us, sometimes the Father, sometimes himself, sometimes the Holy Spirit. And according to the heretical exposition: that because of the identity of divinity and the one energy, the scriptures say, as he raised Jesus Christ according to the form of a servant, sometimes the Father, sometimes himself, sometimes the Holy Spirit; but the actions are not so: 'God raised this one on the third day' (Acts 10:40), as John says from the Savior: 'destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But he was speaking about the temple of his own body' (John 2:19-21); and again: 'I lay down my soul, so that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again' (John 10:17-18). Peter in the first epistle says: 'Christ died once for sins on our behalf, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that he might bring us to God; having been put to death in the flesh, but having been made alive in the spirit' (1 Peter 3:18).

That he creates and raises from the dead. In the same way, that he who created is to sanctify is more necessary than the creating. And according to the heretical exposition: that the great creation creates man and raises from the dead and makes alive and returns to heaven and renewed the earth which had been corrupted by human lawlessness.

The Image and Likeness in the Trinity§66

66Again, the Holy Spirit shone forth without effort and as if spontaneously, being a co-creator and equal-worker with the Creator God who established it from the beginning, as it is fitting for us to know, from which these things were declared: Job says, 'A divine spirit made me; and the breath of the Almighty teaches me' (Job 33:4). David says in Psalm 33: 'You send out your spirit and they are created, and you renew the face of the earth' (Psalm 104:30). This is confirmed by the apostle writing to the Corinthians the second time: 'So if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new' (2 Cor 5:17). And in Psalm 77: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all the powers of them' (Psalm 33:6).

Do not let it pass by that these can be heard from the original sources; but see, because as a creator and good God, the Spirit of God, remaining for ever, provides a constant friendship to the creation and has bound it with unbreakable bonds and made it thrive. It is unshakeable and supports all things by its own power; and it is unlawful to call the one who creates a 'creation' or to call the creations the 'strengtheners' of God. For it is a fellow-worker and consubstantial with God, since it is his spirit and his finger, as it was shown in the first book, mystically representing in Psalm 84: 'For I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers' (Psalm 8:3).

And Moses says in Genesis, from God and Father toward the Son and his Holy Spirit: 'Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let them rule over those on the earth' (Gen 1:26). For God did not take angels or other spirits as co-workers or counselors: 'Since the servant does not know what his master is doing' (John 15:15). Nor is a creation ever found to have participated alongside God in creation, just as David sings in Psalm 77: 'He who formed the dwellings of their hearts' (Psalm 33:15), and in Psalm 50: 'My bone was not hidden from you, you who made it in secret' (Psalm 139:15). And as Paul writes to the Romans: 'For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become his counselor?' (Rom 11:34); that is to say, no one of the creation. For this 'who' shows a breadth. And he showed to the one God not to say 'make,' but 'let us make,' as the Son and the Holy Spirit are not subordinates, but of one power and will; and to the other God to lead in 'according to our image and likeness,' as they are one essence in the...

Just as it is said not to angels, those who are unlearned and without comparison have a diminished 'image and likeness'—if it is safe to say this regarding the unutterable, formless, and unspeakable Trinity—the cosmographer therefore brought forward: 'And God made man; in the image of God he made him; male and female he made them; and he blessed them;' (Genesis 1:26-28) and again: 'God saw that it was good.' (Genesis 1:31) In these, the perfect, harmonious, beautiful, and overflowing nature of the self-existent and generating Trinity is again mystically signified through spoken words.

Since Moses did not consider these things worthy of a theater or a crowd—for God had thundered to him—of such things as those whom he was about to lead without transgression. For 'God' made them, that is, the Son, 'man in the image of God,' that is, of the Father, 'he made him, and God saw' (Genesis 1:31), that is, the Spirit, 'that it was good, and he blessed them,' that is, he sanctified them. And the 'in the image' part, as it seems to me, is to be understood: that from the divine breath we have the immortal Spirit and a mind always thinking and governing according to what is needed, and a wise reason pleasing to the One who gave it, and capable, along with faith, to become the cause of procreation and of life and of the resurrection of the dead and the translation of mountains; in addition to these, that we have also partaken of His goodness.

Furthermore, Paul, as it was said briefly: 'He will also give life to our mortal bodies through the Spirit who dwells in us.' (Romans 8:11) And announcing that the ages have come to be and the creation was established by the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit is the word of God, as has already been remembered, he writes, approaching the subject: 'By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are apparent' (Hebrews 11:3), and again: 'for he upholds all things by the word of his power' (Hebrews 1:3), and the Psalmist: 'You made all things in wisdom' (Psalm 104:24), that is, in your Spirit and in your Son. How then is the divine Spirit, inseparable from the One who breathed it and from the Creator's Son, not without beginning, and creator, and truly God: the one who constructed the ages, through whom both heaven and that which is in it and everything that is created was provided; and the one who carries and governs all things by his own power; the one who immediately...

The Divinity of the Spirit and the Son§67

67To produce heaven, earth, and sea brought forth upon the water, being both life-producing and life-nourishing, is his work? For just as, because of what is said in Job concerning the Son, 'He who stretched out the heavens alone' (Job 9:8), the Father, from whom all things are and in whom all things consist, does not depart from creation, how else could these things be true? In the same way, one cannot drive out the Spirit of God—which is of wisdom, power, and holiness—to be a co-creator of God, a holy one.

And what greater proof could be found for this than that it renews and sanctifies in each one through baptism the Spirit of God, and calls back to the better and first form of life? This is also shown by the fact that it itself recalls, as the apostle says concerning those becoming fit through the new birth and enjoying the greatest of all things expected in every respect: 'that you might become according to the image of the one who created you' (Colossians 3:10); and it also prophesies David in the Psalm: 'the people being created shall praise the Lord' (Psalm 102:18). If it did not have a communion of essence, lordship, and energy with the Father and with the Son, 'through whom all things came to be' (John 1:3), it would not renew and sanctify.

Therefore, with the all-holy Spirit, Christ, after the resurrection, breathing into the faces of the disciples, was reclaiming and sanctifying what was corrupted by human disobedience, and said: 'Receive Holy Spirit' (John 20:22); fulfilling the prophecy of Nahum, which relates the thing happening as if already done, through the unbridled desire for the immeasurable beauty of the matter: 'The one who breathes into your face has ascended from the earth, and is lifting you out of tribulation' (Nahum 2:1).

Because that it is to create and to sanctify, which the divine Spirit is accustomed to do, David testifies, singing: 'Create in me a clean heart, O God' (Ps 51:10), that is: sanctify me, so that I might be renewed, having been corrupted by sin; for how else could another heart be created for him? And he confirms this with: 'And a steadfast spirit establish within my innermost parts' (Psalm 51:10), instead of: 'Provide me a spirit of your exceeding reverence, so that,' he says, 'being revealed pure through its sanctification, I might become worthy of your temple.' For from the oversight of Him alone and of your Son, O Lord, we receive the sound of all evils and remain firm in hope.

We become for all eternal good. For it is manifest to us that David asks for himself to be inaugurated; for how could that which was already his, a spirit coming upon him just now, be inaugurated? But even greater and more necessary is what the Scripture, knowing the difference between creating and sanctifying, says concerning Judas, the merciful one who lost his sanctification: 'It would have been good for him if that man had not been born' (Matthew 26:24), for, he says, Judas did the most disadvantageous thing of all, and he gave the Lord for nothing and exchanged life for silver.

And indeed, concerning the economy of the slave form in the unutterable mystery, where John says: 'And the Word became flesh' (Jn 1:14), and Paul: 'He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave' (Phil 2:7), and Solomon said: 'Wisdom built herself a house' (Prov 9:1); and Matthew, because of the same divine nature and energy, set it out thus: 'Now the birth of Jesus Christ was thus: when his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found having in her womb from the Holy Spirit' (Matt 1:18-25). And the archangel said: 'For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit' (Matthew 1:20), and again: 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the one being born will be called a holy Son of the Most High' (Luke 1:35).

It must be remembered, therefore, that because of heretical wanderings, the evangelist preordained the incarnation, then the birth. For dragging our scriptural proofs through the ground, they say mockingly as if in hypocrisy: 'Is the Christ then a Son of the Spirit?' Truly, not even hearing these things, nor that which was said by him to the apostles: 'You do not know of what Spirit the Son of Man is' (Luke 9:55).

If, therefore, since God the Father is true, for this reason also his energy is divine in every way and in all respects; since the energy of the Holy Spirit appears equal and similar to this, for this reason also he himself proves to be true God. And it would be appropriate to say the same concerning the Son. For if the energy of the Father is not inferior to that of the Son or the Spirit—for how at all does the Spirit or the Son work in us?—even if they bring a power that acts by hand, if they are dissimilar as the heretics say; if indeed the fullness of the Son and the Spirit is useful and salvific, the one will be in no way dissimilar.

The Renewal of the Trinity and the Role of the Spirit§68

The Power of the Spirit to Forgive§69

69To have been begotten of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, as has been said, the pre-eternal and pre-cosmic Spirit of God was present with the Creator of our nature from the beginning, not as one needing help, but with identity and equality of divinity and will, just as light is not severed from light. Therefore, Macedonian, establish this with the holy ones: they do not call the divine Spirit a creature, but say it proceeds from God as His Spirit according to nature; or, as is your custom to assert, that it is inferior to God by nature and superior to angels, having received a middle nature and rank—prove that they have spoken thus; for those things have been justly honored by the God of yours and of Arius. And not as the law of art and sophistry gives, since you have dared to leave your own words against the divine Spirit; for its divine nature, even if you had the eyes of the intellect so many and such as the Scripture gave to the cherubim, you would have been able to behold it, how much more so. For who can grasp the invisible and uncontainable divinity? Or, recognizing your own impiety, you stand apart from the first ones.

But let us return again to the hypothesis from the beginning, that it sanctifies and justifies, as we said before. That it provides salvation, and provides salvation even to those who fall; which is the sole property of the almighty essence. For without God, to do anything created is impossible. 'Nor even as to grape-harvesting with eyes circling.' For the apostle said to the Philippians such things: 'For I know that this will turn out for my salvation, through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ' (Philippians 1:19). Just as it is hymned concerning the Father in the Psalms: 'But not me, you shall not know; and saving, there is none besides me' (Hosea 13:4); and concerning the Son in the Acts: 'And in no other is salvation. For there is no other name under heaven given among men, in which we must be saved' (Acts 4:12).

that it frees from death and forgives sins, because the immortal and propitiatory Spirit bears fruit from the paternal root of essence. But it is not possible for a creature to be either sinless or one of these two things by its own nature. For none of the spirits, as has been shown, is sinless; nor perhaps, exceeding the word, is the non-existent rational being. For the heaven itself and the sun are not blameless in regard to the purity of God.

For even if they appear at times to have done such a thing as apostles, they did not succeed by their own power, but by that of the one who said: 'In my name you will do greater things than these' (John 14:12); 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' (Rom 8:2). And the Master, through John, giving to us the Holy Spirit, who had lost us through the ancient disobedience, breathed into the faces of the disciples and said: 'Receive Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain them, they are retained' (John 20:22-23). Here is so much of the authority of the unremembered Spirit: that it itself through itself forgives sins, and in its name and in its power the apostles and all who believe in it provide remission of sins.

For that only God forgives sins, glorious sayings of God indicate: 'I,' for he says, 'am he who wipes out your sins' (Isa 43:25), and: 'If your sins are as scarlet, I will make them as white as snow; if they are red, they shall be like wool' (Isa 1:18). And the Savior, as a child of God, said to the paralytic: 'Child, your sins are forgiven' (Mark 2:5), and: 'Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world' (John 1:29). That it works together with the Father and the Son; and that Christ performed signs and wonders and cast out demons through the power of the Spirit.

The Unity of Essence and the Cooperation of the Trinity§70

70He is inseparable from the divinity because he cooperates with and provides all things to all alongside the self-sufficient and almighty God the Father, not deferring it until tomorrow, since the Spirit of the Father is also co-knowing and co-knowing, possessing an uncreated being and reigning with Him, having inherited the divinity from where He proceeded as a co-inherent. Furthermore, the all-seeing and almighty Christ, together with the power of His most venerable Spirit, performed signs and wonders and cast out demons, as the hierophants explained: Michael says, 'Thus says the Lord against the prophets who mislead my people' (Micah 3:5), and shortly after brings: 'For there shall be no one who hears them, unless I fill strength in the spirit of the Lord and of judgment and of power.' Thus, he says to perform strength in the spirit of the Lord, in order to also reveal the Trinity and the bond of its nature. He alludes to judgment, in which there is no longer room for repentance or for the one who hears; 'for,' he says, 'in that abyss, who will confess to you?' And 'I will fill strength' stands for 'I will make a great retribution with the divine Spirit.' And Paul, the most tested of apostles, to the Ephesians says: 'For this reason I bow my knees to God the Father, from whom every family is named in heaven and on earth, that He may give to you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit, so that Christ may dwell in the inner man' (Ephesians 3:14-17); and to the Romans: 'I have therefore confidence in Christ Jesus toward God. For I do not dare to speak anything of which Christ did not accomplish through me, by word and deed, for the obedience of the Gentiles, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit' (Romans 15:18). Hypostases of similar nature are worthy of similar honor; therefore, this saying is close to: 'Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God' (1 Cor 1:24). Matthew says from the Savior: 'But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you' (Matthew 12:28). And as He acts in the illumination: it is impossible, then, to exist as one through harmony and energy without there being a single essence; and for this reason the Lord says at times: 'The Father who remains in me, He Himself does the works' (John 14:10); and at other times, as has now been said: 'I cast out by the Spirit of God...'

The text ends abruptly mid-sentence.

bestows an oracle

The Economy of the Mystery and Angelic Limitation§71

71A righteous man and one fearing God, being testified to by all the nations of the Jews, was informed by a holy angel that he was to be brought into his house and to hear words from you. You indeed, if you had remained silent and had shut the mouths of slanders, would have acted much more effectively.

But we, returning toward the most perfect goal and providing this summary and cheerfulness to those about to receive us, and instilling more of the orthodox zeal, say that just as no communion of nature exists in creation toward the uncreated nature, so also no such communion exists in mere information. For the one announces, and the other, not knowing, might be enabled to speak by the Holy Spirit, and from this he receives the name 'angel'; but the Holy Spirit, since He knows all things of God, as Paul confirms, informs divinely, just as the Father, seeing with the sleepless eyes of the deity what is willed, informs the Father and the Son, and not in a servile way, like a bodyguard angel. For 'the slave does not know what his master is doing' (John 15:15), nor can the one of the same substance possess the knowledge of the other being of a different substance; for to each nature, the knowledge not belonging to it and memory are co-participating in error; but even what is known by the generated nature is lost by time. Therefore, even here, the ignorant ones, rushing into the field of the battle of the Word, have gone astray.

For it is written: 'And while Peter was remembering the word, the Holy Spirit said to him: Behold, three men are seeking you. But arising, go with them, distinguishing nothing; because I have sent them.' (Acts 10:19-20). Having come down to the men, Peter said: 'Behold, I am the one you are seeking; what is the reason for which you have come?' (Acts 10:21). And they said: 'Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous man' (Acts 10:22), and the following, as it is intended. So, even before good judges, the angel's informing appears to be learned from the Holy Spirit. For to foretell with certainty is a distinguished mark of deity; and this is for the good of those hearing, so that, being made secure, they might be saved. Furthermore, do you not think that by proposing such things, one is somewhat flattering the creation, or perhaps criticizing him who has adorned his own works with the words spoken about him through abundance?

And of his grace. For from this he did not insult himself at all, but rather he showed himself to be praiseworthy, and his works were habitually made bright.

We, indeed, if we carry the matter of the Holy Spirit's endowment as something of divine dignity, and it suffices by itself for testimony, yet we brought forth not only that, but also a multitude of other high and indisputable proofs; if you attend to these without contradiction, you will certainly be less speechless than the fish. Therefore Paul most clearly exposes your trickery, having written to the Ephesians: 'To me, the least of all the saints, this grace was given in the Gentiles, to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ and to enlighten all, what is the economy of the mystery having been hidden from the ages in God the Creator, so that now might be known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places through the church the manifold wisdom of God' (Eph 3:8). Understand, therefore, how much the nature of the angels is lacking in knowing of itself things that are to come and in endowment; for even through this church of God in this world, which we are, they learn the great things. And toward persuasion, one can grasp something regarding this, which he wrote to the Colossians thus: 'This mystery which was hidden before the ages and from the generations, which has now been revealed to his saints' (Col 1:26). For before this, he says, it was known to God alone.

Toward these things, and also that which concerns the benefit of all men, of which I speak concerning the unchosen economy, this is raised by Peter to the rhetoricians, as it was foretold: 'Angels desire to look into things' (1 Pet 1:12), he says. And if they had any innate knowledge, they would not long to even stoop into it, but because they do not have it, they fall into a sort of excessive desire, like men, for those things whose knowledge is not above them. For it has become nature to overlook easily found things and to make the rarer things a matter of effort. And yet even this is not according to their nature, for by the common reason of their nature I do not say that all are obligated to some extent. 'For if,' he says, 'God did not spare having sinned angels' (2 Pet 2:4), what kind of innate knowledge of the...

The Archangels and the Incarnation§72

The Divine Reward of Intercession§73

Prayer for Trinitarian Worship and the Judgment of the Spirit§74

The Spirit as Judge and Power§75

75Waiting to see at the second appearance. For this is what both 'he will expose the ungodly by the Spirit through lips' (Isaiah 11:4) and what is said elsewhere to the same prophet: 'in a spirit of judgment and in a spirit of burning' (Isaiah 4:4) means. And David says in Psalm 139: 'Where shall I go from your Spirit? And from your face where shall I flee?' The 'where shall I go' and 'where shall I flee' have a broad emphasis; for it means to be present everywhere and that the Holy Spirit is a judge. For it is 'fearful', truly, according to the apostle, 'to fall into the hands of the living God' (Heb 10:31), he who says in Psalm 51: 'I will confess and present your sins before your face' (Psalm 50:21). And the prophecy of Michael also mentioned briefly contributes to this point. And what stronger proof could anyone say to this, regarding the Savior speaking through John about the Holy Spirit: 'He will convict the world concerning sin and concerning righteousness and concerning judgment' (John 16:8)?

For Paul, in the power of the Spirit, blinded the magician Elymas; for in the surpassing power of the Holy Spirit, Paul in Cyprus blinded the magician Elymas, who was campaigning against the saints and ravaging with the truth, by a word. For the Scripture, showing the power to be of the Spirit, says to them by names thus: 'Then Paul, being filled with the Holy Spirit, said to him: Behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind, not seeing the sun' (Acts 13:11). For truly, it is not that he, not having the all-working power of the Spirit, was saving by human magic and trusting in demons, that the seeing was extinguished by a word. For that the heavens, having been opened by the power of the All-Holy Spirit, were seen by the holy Stephen (Acts 7:56). For that the heavens, having been unfolded by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, were seen by the one with the double crowns.

The Foreknowledge of the Holy Spirit§76

76Having been refreshed by apostolic testimony and witness, he says: 'Stephen, having been filled with the Holy Spirit, saw the heavens opened' (Acts 7:55). Thus it is as has been received from of old: from heaven, therefore, is the unapproachable, spotless ether.

He is a prophet, that is, he foreknows, just as the Father and the Son do; but it belongs to the divine nature alone to know precisely the things that are to come. For creation, while it brings forward all things that are speculative from itself, sees only unerringly and without deviation that which the Holy Spirit teaches it. For by His divine rays, it not only illuminates the powers in heaven once, but also brightens the eyes of our souls, and it frequently shows in many ways the things to come, and it facilitates through its own goodness and philanthropy those things contributing to the useful for human nature, so that one might say of creation: it is such when our sleeping nature does not write its destiny through the provider by means of creation, but upon itself.

And the testimonies concerning the foreknowledge of the Spirit from the apostolic deeds are in these things. From Peter to the Jews: 'Men, brothers, it was necessary for the Scripture to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold through the mouth of David concerning Judas, the guide of those who seized Jesus' (Acts 1:16; 13:27). So indeed he said 'it was necessary'; for every word of God alone is not incomplete. And from Paul: 'The Holy Spirit testifies to me city by city, saying, that tribulations and distresses remain with me' (Acts 20:23). And through the prophet Agabus, he forewarned of a famine coming under heaven because of the failings of men, as a good thing, just as also regarding Nineveh, that if they had been made reverent by repentance they would flee the evil (Acts 11:28; Jonah 3:10), which also happened to many in later times during the reign of Claudius. And in the Gospel, Christ says concerning the Spirit: 'And He will announce to you the things that are coming,' that is, the things to come (John 16:13).