The Spirit as Uncreated God

This will result to me for salvation, through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Therefore, look, just as the saying 'Spirit of God' alone, and the addition of 'of' and 'your', has clearly signified this, that it is also uncreated and is God, having a name that is not acquired, but from being that which is naturally what is also attributed to it.

And the fact that it is written 'Spirit of the Son' similarly demonstrated the communion of nature toward him, so that it might not be considered a creature of his. For how could the Son have created that which is and has also been written 'Spirit of God' to his own Father, as if he did not have it from himself before this? Which is not only blasphemous, but also a lie. 'Spirit of Christ' might be understood, that is, the power of Christ, in the manner that it has been said, 'the power of Christ and the wisdom of God.' For since the blessed Hypostases themselves proceeded from the nature of one Father and not by a creative energy, they lead back to the same one.

In order that no one might suspect his being a beginning or an end, but might truly believe that it is the Spirit of God, proceeding according to his nature, breathed uncaused and not becoming, as one of the other functional spirits, the Lord teaches in the Gospel according to John, saying: 'the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father' (John 15:26). And he did not say 'is created.' For every birth and procession is accomplished through equal and similar things; but most distinctly is the birth and procession from the one Father through the union of his own divinity.

But regarding creatures, the prototype leads in time; but regarding God, it is not so, but co-essential and co-proceeded. And agreeing with the Lord, John proclaimed the Holy Spirit, which is equal and unalterable to the Father, and as a partial grace of him, encompassing, as one might say, the undefinable God the Father, and showing it as a partial grace found among the faithful, saying: 'For by this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, by the Spirit he has given us' (1 John 4:13). In the manner that the Son said: 'He who has seen me has seen the Father' (John 14:9); and: 'I proceeded from the Father' (John 16:28). For nothing at all according to essence...

not by divisions of cutting, but by the word of participation, and so that he may not be thought to dwell in us in a way foreign in nature or in mind from the Father. And the “son of thunder” showed at the same time that where the Holy Spirit is, there is present God the Father, whose Spirit he is; which God himself also proclaimed beforehand, saying: “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” As again the opposite declares, that if anyone does not have the Spirit of God as true God, he does not have the Father either; and among whom this is not, there is nothing true or safe or secure. As, on the other hand, anyone speaking of him, even if he happens to be a heretic, when asked about which spirit he speaks, says: “the holy one”; and if the question is again put to him, “which holy one,” he must say, for the clearest declaration: “the Spirit of God,” since the others are not essentially his. But the heretics, becoming troublesome to themselves and to their hearers, with violent attempts slander the saints who are better than both us and them and differ the most and have spoken of the Holy Spirit — against whom nothing contrary should be legislated. For they say literally as follows: “When God says: ‘Isaiah my servant’ and ‘Israel my firstborn son,’ does the syllable ‘my’ show human nature having something in common with the divine? As, he says, he said this because he is the cause of their being. So also he called their animation ‘my spirit.’” But if they had any word of truth and exactness, they would not have stumbled so greatly. For first, by the very saying “Isaiah” and “Israel” he showed them to be men; and he added to them the “my” by way of distinction, as belonging to him by their deeds. And he called Isaiah “servant” — that is, domestic — and Israel “firstborn,” as having first begun to worship him, and being in the rank of a son by the disposition and care of God toward him. So that the “my” concerning […].