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LETTERS TO SERAPION ON THE HOLY SPIRIT (1:15–33)
Introduction
The Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit were penned ca. 357, during Athanasius's third exile (356–362), which he spent in the refuge of monastic communities in the desert of Egypt. They were written in response to a request made to him by his friend and supporter the bishop Serapion of Thmuis, who a few years earlier, in 353, was head of a delegation that had traveled to Milan to plead the cause of Athanasius. Serapion alerts Athanasius to the existence of a group of Christians who accepted the doctrine of the full divinity of the Son but shirked from extending that confession to the Holy Spirit. Using the language of Aetius and Eunomius, this group maintained that the Holy Spirit was “unlike” (anomios) to the Father and the Son in being. Aside from the general observation that the Scriptures do not directly refer to the Spirit as God, the scriptural warrants offered on behalf of this doctrine were Am 4:13 (“I am the one who establishes thunder and creates spirit and declares to people his Christ” (LXX)) and 1 Tim 5:21 (where the apostle exhorts, “I charge you in the sight of God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels that you observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing by partiality”). The first of these played an analogous role with regard to the doctrine of the Spirit, as did Prov 8:22 with regard to that of the Son; here, it was the Spirit that was claimed to be described as “created.” The verse from Paul's Letter to Timothy was taken as an indication that the Spirit was an angel or “servant,” as seems to be indicated also in Heb 1:14: “Are they not all ministering spirits sent to serve, for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”
Athanasius's response takes the form of a long letter, followed by two shorter ones which essentially summarize the contents of the first one. The first half of the first letter (1–14) deals with the scriptural texts used by those who deny the divinity of the Spirit. With regard to Am 4:13, Athanasius examines an array of scriptural texts in which reference is made to “spirit” in order to conclude that there are two distinct significations of the term in its scriptural usage: without the definite article, it refers to the human spirit or to wind or breath; with the definite article, it refers to the divine Spirit. Since the text of Am 4:13 refers to “spirit,” without the definite article, the reference is not to the Holy Spirit, and those who mistakenly understand it thus are forcing a figurative interpretation, or “trope,” onto the passage. Never at a loss for derogatory names for his opponents, Athanasius thus styles them “Tropici.” Turning to 1 Tim 5:21, Athanasius points out that the text does not actually name the Spirit at all, and then launches into a demonstration that the scriptural depiction of the Spirit is in decisive contrast to that of angels.
The second half of the first letter (15–33), which is excerpted here, takes up the main theological argument of the “Tropici,” that if the Spirit is not a creature, he must be a “brother” or “son” of the Son. Behind the seeming facetiousness of that argument, there is a concern that the uniqueness of the Son as “only-begotten” would be compromised by the assertion that the Spirit too fully shares in the divine being. Nevertheless, Athanasius exploits the seemingly indiscriminate application of the human analogy by his opponents in order to underscore his own conviction that theological reasoning by necessity includes an apophatic dimension: “God is not like a human being” (16). Yet, while guarding against the indiscriminate projection of human categories onto the divine, a “pious” use of reason has recourse to the scriptural symbolism (paradeigmata) by which the divine mystery is revealed to human beings. As he did with reference to the Son in earlier treatises, Athanasius now extends his analysis of scriptural symbolism to the Spirit in order to demonstrate that the Scriptures align the Spirit, in his person and work, with the Father and the Son. Moreover, the Spirit's work in creation and salvation can only be identified with divine agency, a fact that is sacramentally dramatized by the invocation of the Spirit, along with the Father and the Son, in the rite of baptism. With this defense of the Spirit's divinity, Athanasius's doctrine of God has become utterly conflated with the category of “Trinity” (trias), a term that is used here with notably greater frequency than in his earlier works which deal more narrowly with the question of the divinity of the Son. The significance of this treatise with regard to the development of the Christian doctrine of God lies primarily in the fact that it is the first thorough attempt to deal with the question of the divinity of the Spirit. Athanasius's arguments were to have a marked influence on later treatments of this issue, notably those of Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus, and they constitute a foundational phase in a trajectory of reflection that comes to resolution in the affirmation of the Spirit's divinity by the Council of Constantinople of 381.
The text of the Letters to Serapion, not available in a critical edition, can be found in Migne's Patrolgia Graeca 26:529–576.
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15. {565C} It seems to me that such is the sense of the divine sayings, which refutes the slander of these irrational people against the Holy Spirit. But they maintain their steadfast contention against the truth, as you have written, and no longer drawing upon the Scripture (for they find nothing there) but spewing out from the overflow of their own hearts (cf. Mt 12:34), they again assert: “If it is not a creature nor one of the angels, but proceeds from the Father, {568A} then it is itself also a son, and thus it and the Word are two brothers. And if it is a brother, how then is the Word ‘only-begotten’? And how is it that they are not the same, but one is named with reference to the Father, and the other is named with reference to the Son? And how, if it is from the Father, is it not said to be begotten also, or to be Son, but only ‘Holy Spirit’? But if the Spirit is the Son's, then the Father is grandfather of the Spirit.”
That is how they make sport, these dishonorable people, prying around and intending to fathom the depths of God, which no one knows except the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:10–11), who is the one maligned by them. We should no longer answer them, according to the injunction of the apostle (cf. Titus 3:10), but, after the admonition of our preceding words, we should shun them as heretics. Or, we should ask them questions on a par with those which they ask, and {568B} demand an answer from them, as they demand from us. Let them say then whether the Father is from a father, and whether another has been begotten along with him, such that they are brothers from one father—what are their names and who, in turn, is their father and grandfather and who are the ancestors of these? But they will say that there are none. Let them say, then, how is he Father if he is not himself begotten from a Father? Or how was he able to have a Son, without having himself been begotten as a son? I know that these questions are impious! But since they make sport of such matters, it is right to make sport of them, if only so that such an absurd and impious enquiry may cause them to become aware of their own mindlessness. For these conjectures have no basis in reality; far from it! It is not fitting to enquire in this way about divinity. God is not as a human being (Num 23:19), so that anyone should dare to ask human questions about him.
16. {568C} As I said before, one should be silent about these things and not pay any attention to such people. But in order that our silence may not provide them with an occasion for their brazenness, let them hear this: Just as we cannot speak of a father of the Father, so we cannot speak of a brother of the Son. As is written above, there is no other God than the Father. Nor is there another Son, for he is only-begotten (Jn 1:14; Jn 1:18, 3:16, 3:18; 1 Jn 4:9). Therefore the Father is one and unique, and he is Father of one and only Son, and it is only in the Godhead that the Father and the Son have always been and forever are Father and Son. Among human beings, {568D} if one is called father, he is nevertheless the son of another {569A} and if one is called son, he yet becomes the father of another. Thus, the names of father and son do not retain their proper significations among human beings. So Abraham, being the son of Nahor, became the father of Isaac and Isaac, being the son of Abraham, became the father of Jacob. This is the way of human nature, for human beings are parts of one another. Each one who is begotten retains a portion of his father, so that he himself may also become father of another.
But it is not so in the case of the Godhead. God is not like a human being (Num 23:19), nor does he have a partitive nature. Therefore, he does not beget the Son by way of partition, so that the Son may also become father of another, since the Father himself is not from a father. Neither is the Son a part of the Father. Therefore, he does not beget as he himself was begotten, but is whole image (eikōn) and radiance of the whole. {569B} It is only in the Godhead that the Father is properly (kyriōs) Father and the Son properly Son; in their case, the Father is always Father and the Son always Son. Just as the Father could never be Son, so also the Son could never be Father. And just as the Father will never cease to be uniquely Father, so also the Son will never cease to be uniquely Son. So it is madness to speak and even to think in any way of a brother of the Son, and to name the Father a grandfather. Neither is the Spirit called Son in the Scriptures, so as to be considered as a brother, nor is it called a son of the Son, lest the Father be conceived as a grandfather. But the Son is said to be Son of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son is said to be Spirit of the Father. Thus, there is one Godhead of the Holy Trinity, unto which there is also one faith.
17. {569C} That is also why it is madness to call the Spirit a creature. If it were a creature, it would not be ranked with the Triad, the whole of which is one God. It is sufficient to know that the Spirit is not a creature, nor is it counted among the things that are made. For no alien thing is intermixed with the Triad, but it is indivisible and homogenous with itself (homoia heautē). This much suffices for the faithful and this is the extent to which human knowledge attains, at which point the cherubim make a covering with their wings (cf. Isa 6:2). The one who seeks further and wishes to enquire beyond these things is disobeying him who says, “Do not be overwise, lest you be ruined” (Eccl 7:16). For the things that are handed down by faith should be understood not by human wisdom (cf. 1 Cor 2:13) but by the hearing of faith (cf. Gal 3:2). For what {572A} discourse can suitably interpret the things that are above originated nature? Or what hearing can understand what it is not possible for human beings to either hear or speak?
Paul spoke in this vein about what he heard (cf. 2 Cor 12:4); but about God himself, he said: “How unsearchable are his ways! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” (Rom 11:33–34). Thus Abraham did not pry and interrogate the one speaking to him, but “he believed and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Rom 4:3). Thus also Moses was called a faithful servant (Heb 3:5). But if those who think like Arius are unable either to understand or to believe in the indivisible and Holy Trinity, because wisdom will not enter into their crafty souls (Wis 1:4), let them not distort the truth on that account, nor let them say that what they cannot understand cannot be.
{572B} Indeed, their attitude has brought them to a most absurd end. Because they cannot understand how the holy Triad is indivisible, the Arians make the Son one with the creation, while the Tropici count the Spirit together with the creatures. But they should have either kept complete silence because of their lack of understanding—the former not counting the Son with creatures, nor the latter, the Spirit—or they should have acknowledged what is written and joined the Son to the Father and not divided the Spirit from the Son, so as to preserve truly the indivisibility and homogeneity of the nature (homophyes) of the Holy Trinity. Having learned these things, they should not have been presumptuous nor enquired in doubt as to how these things can be, so as to invent evil notions for themselves even if the one they ask is at a loss for words. {572C} For it is impossible for any of those who have come into being (tois genētois), and especially for us human beings, to speak appropriately of the things that are ineffable. But then it is even more presumptuous to invent new terms other than those in the Scriptures for the things of which we cannot speak. Such an attempt is madness, on the part of both the one asking and the one who even thinks of answering. The one who enquires in this way even about the things that are originated should not be considered to be in possession of his right mind.
18. Let those who are so facile in speaking about everything dare to answer and say how the heaven is constituted and from what material and what is its composition or how does the sun exist and each of the stars. But there is nothing remarkable {572D} about refuting their senselessness by referring to the things that are above, while we do not even know how is the nature of the trees here below, or the coming together of the waters or how is the formation of living beings and {573A} their constitution. But they cannot say, since even Solomon, who attained a share of wisdom surpassing all, saw that it is impossible for men to find out these things, and said, “He put eternity into their hearts, yet without humanity's being able to discover the work which God has made from the beginning to the very end” (Eccl 3:11).
But then, since they cannot discover these things, do they profess that they do not exist? Indeed, they are bound to profess this, for their minds are corrupted. Therefore, it is fitting for someone to say to them: “You mindless and completely presumptuous people! Why don't you rather stop prying into the Holy Trinity, and simply believe that it exists? You have as a teacher in this regard the apostle, who says, ‘It is necessary first to believe in God, that he exists, and that he rewards those who seek him’ (Heb 11:6).” He did not {573B} say, “how he exists,” but “that he exists.” But if they are not subdued by this, let them say how the Father exists, that they may learn accordingly how his Word exists. But it is absurd, they will say, to enquire in this way about the Father. Therefore it is absurd, let it be said to them, to enquire in this way about his Word.
19. Therefore, since such an attempt is futile and a surplus of madness, let no one ask such questions any more, or else learn only what is in the Scriptures. For the symbols (paradeigmata) in the Scriptures which pertain to these questions are sufficient and adequate. Thus, the Father is called “Fountain” and “Light”: “They have forsaken me,” it says, “the fountain of living water” (Jer 2:13). And again in Baruch {573C}: “How is it, Israel, that you are in the land of enemies? You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom” (Bar 3:10, 12). And according to John, “Our God is light” (1 Jn 1:5). But, in relation to the fountain, the Son is spoken of as the river: for “the river of God is filled with waters” (Ps 65:10). Relative to the light, he is called radiance, as Paul says: “who is the radiance of his glory, and the reflection of his being (hypostaseōs)” (Heb 1:3). Thus, the Father being light, while the Son is his radiance (for we cannot shrink from saying the same things about them many times), we can also see in the Son the Spirit, in whom we are enlightened: “that he may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him,” it says, “enlightening the eyes of your heart” (Eph 1:17). But when we are enlightened by the Spirit, {573D} it is Christ who in the Spirit enlightens us. For “he was the true light,” it says, “who enlightens every human being who comes into the world” (Jn 1:9). So, again, while the Father is fountain, and the Son is called river, we are said to drink of the Spirit. For it is written {576A} that “we have all been given to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor 12:13). But when we are given to drink of the Spirit, we drink Christ; for “they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ” (1 Cor 10:4). And again, while Christ is the true Son, we are made into sons when we receive the Spirit: “For you have not received,” it says, “the Spirit of slavery that leads back to fear. But you have received the Spirit of sonship” (Rom 8:15). But when we are made sons by the Spirit, it is clearly in Christ that we receive the title of “children of God”: “For to those who did accept him, he gave power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12). Then again, while the Father, as Paul says, is the “only wise one” (Rom 16:27), the Son is his wisdom: “Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). But, the Son being wisdom, when we receive the Spirit of wisdom, we attain Christ {576B} and become wise in him. Thus it is written in the one-hundred-and-forty-fifth psalm: “The Lord sets prisoners free; the Lord grants wisdom to the blind” (Ps 146:7– 8). And when the Spirit is given to us (for the Savior said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn 20:22)), it is God who is in us. Thus John has written: “If we love one another, God remains in us. In this we know that we remain in him and he in us, in that he has given us of his Spirit” (1 Jn 4:12–13). But when God is in us, the Son also is in us, as the Son himself says: “The Father and I will come and make our dwelling with him” (Jn 14:23). Moreover, the Son is life (for “I am the life” (Jn 14:6) he says), and we are said to be made alive in the Spirit: for “the one who raised {576C} Jesus Christ from the dead,” it says, “will also bring to life your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you” (Rom 8:11). But when we are made alive in the Spirit, Christ himself is said to live in us: “I have been crucified with Christ,” it says, “I live, yet it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:19–20). And again, as the Son said that whatever works he did were accomplished by the Father—“The Father,” he says, “who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or else, believe me because of the works themselves” (Jn 14:10–11)—so also, Paul said that the works that he accomplished in the power of the Spirit were the works of Christ: “I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, for the sake of the obedience of the Gentiles, {576D} by word and work, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom 15:18–19).
20. Such being the correlation (sustoichia) and the unity of the Holy Trinity, who would dare to separate the Son {577A} from the Father, or the Spirit from the Son or from the Father himself? Or who would be so presumptuous as to say that the Trinity is unlike (anomion) and heterogenous (heterophyē) with respect to itself, or that the Son is of a different being (allotrioousion) than the Father, or that the Spirit is foreign to the Son? But how can this be? If one were to enquire and ask again: How can it be that when the Spirit is in us, the Son is said to be in us, and when the Son is in us, the Father is said to be in us? Or, how is it really a Trinity if the three are depicted (semainetai) as one? Or how is it that when one is in us, the Trinity is said to be in us? Let such an enquirer begin by separating the radiance from the light, or wisdom from the one who is wise, or else let him say himself how these things can be. But if this cannot be done, then how much more is it the presumption of insane people to enquire into these things with respect to God?
Divinity is not handed down to us by demonstration of words, as it says (cf. 1 Cor 1:17), {577B} but in faith and through pious reasoning undertaken with reverence. For if Paul preached about even those things which concern the saving cross “not in words of wisdom but in the demonstration of the spirit and power” (1 Cor 2:4), and in paradise “he heard ineffable things which no one may utter” (2 Cor 12:4), who can expound on the Holy Trinity itself? Yet one may remedy one's perplexity first of all through faith and then by recourse to the terms previously mentioned, which is to say: “image” and “radiance,” “fountain” and “river,” and “subsistence” and “expression.”
For just as the Son is in the Spirit as in his own image, so is the Father in the Son. Thus has the divine Scripture supplied a remedy {577C} for the impossibility of explaining and grasping these matters with words by granting us such symbols (paradeigmata), so that we may be able to speak more plainly in response to the faithlessness of those who are presumptuous and so that we may be able to speak without danger and to properly conceive and believe that there is one sanctification which is from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, just as the Son is only-begotten, so also the Spirit, {580A} which is given and sent by the Son, is itself one and not many; neither is it one from among many but it is itself the only Spirit. Since the Son, the living Word, is one, so must his living energy and gift which sanctifies and illuminates be one, full, and perfect. It is said to proceed from the Father (Jn 15:26), since it shines forth and is sent and given by the Word who is confessed to be from the Father. Certainly, the Son is sent from the Father, for “God so loved the world,” it says, “that he sent his only-begotten Son” (Jn 3:16). On the other hand, the Son sends the Spirit, for “if I go,” he says, “I will send the Paraclete” (Jn 16:7). The Son glorifies the Father, saying, “Father, I have glorified you” (Jn 17:4), whereas the Spirit glorifies the Son, who says, {580B} “He will glorify me” (Jn 16:14). The Son says, “Those things which I have heard from the Father are what I speak to the world” (Jn 8:26), while the Spirit, in turn, receives from the Son; “He will take from what is mine,” he says, “and declare it to you” (Jn 16:14). The Son came in the name of the Father, whereas the Son also speaks of “the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name” (Jn 5:43).
21. Therefore, since the Spirit has the same relation of nature and order with respect to the Son that the Son has with respect to the Father, how can the one who calls the Spirit a creature escape the necessity of thinking the same about the Son? For if the Spirit is a creature of the Son, it follows that they should say also that the Son is a creature of the Father. {580C} These indeed were the fantasies of the Arians, who fell into the Judaism of Caiaphas. But if those who say such things about the Spirit pretend that they are not of a like mind with Arius, let them flee from his words and not become impious toward the Spirit. For just as the Son, who is in the Father and in whom the Father is (cf. Jn 14:10), is not a creature but belongs (idios) to the being (ousia) of the Father (and indeed you also claim to say this), so also the Spirit, who is in the Son and in whom the Son is, cannot legitimately be ranked among creatures nor separated from the Word, so as to render the Trinity incomplete.
{580D} Enough has been said to refute the evil words that have issued from the ignorance of the Tropici about the sayings of the prophet and the apostle, whose meaning they distort and so end up deceiving themselves. {581A} But let us finally look at the sayings about the Spirit in the divine Scriptures, taking them one by one, and like expert investigators let us determine well whether the Spirit has anything that belongs (idion) to creatures or whether it belongs (idion) to God. In this way, we will be able to say whether it is a creature or whether it is other than creatures and belongs to and is one with the Godhead in the Trinity. Perhaps then they will become ashamed when they learn how much the words contrived by their blasphemy are discordant with the divine sayings.
22. Creatures come into being from non-being and have a beginning of their coming into being, for “in the beginning God made heaven and earth” and everything in them (Gen 1:1). But the Holy Spirit is said to be from God, for it is said “No one knows what pertains to a human being except the spirit that is in him. Likewise, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God” (1 Cor 2: 11–12). So, on the basis of these words, what kind of kinship is there between the Spirit and creatures? Creatures used not to be, but God is the one who is (Ex 3:14), from whom also the Spirit is. But what is from God can neither be from non-being, nor a creature. Otherwise, according to their thinking, the one from whom the Spirit is will also be considered a creature. Who can stand such senseless people, who thus say in their hearts that there is no God (Ps 13:1)? For if it is true that just as no one knows what pertains to a human being except the spirit that is in him, so no one knows what pertains to God except for the Spirit that is in him, how is it not foul speech to say that the Spirit that is in God and that searches even the deep things of God (1 Cor 2:10) is a creature? On the basis of these assertions one will learn to say, {581C} on the one hand, that the spirit of a human being is extrinsic to the human being and, on the other hand, that the Word which is in the Father is a creature.
Moreover, the Spirit is and is called the Spirit of holiness and of renewal. For Paul writes: “He was established as Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness, through resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, our Lord” (Rom 1: 4). And again he says: “But you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:11). And when writing to Titus, {584A} he said: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, not because of righteous deeds that we had done but because of his mercy, he saved us through the bath of rebirth and the renewal of the holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we may be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4–7). As for creatures, however, they are sanctified and renewed, for “You will send forth your spirit and they will be created and you will renew the face of the earth” (Ps 104:30). Paul also says, “For it is impossible for those who have once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have attained participation in the Holy Spirit” (Heb 6:4).
{584B} 23. But how can that which is not sanctified by another and which does not participate in holiness but is itself participated —the one in which all of creation is sanctified—itself be one of the all? How can it belong among those who participate in it? It would be necessary, then, for those who say this to say also that the Son, through whom all things come into being, is himself one of the “all.”
The Spirit is called “life-giving.” For it says, “The one who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies, through his Spirit that dwells in you” (Rom 8:11). While the Lord is life itself and, as Peter said, “the author of life” (Acts 3:15), the Lord himself said, “The water which I will give to him will become in him a fount of water welling up to eternal life… He said this concerning the Spirit that those who believed in him were to receive” (Jn 4:14, 7: 39). {584C} But, as we have said, creatures are granted life through the Spirit. So then how can that which does not participate in life but is itself participated and in fact grants life to creatures have any kinship with things that come into being? Or how can the Spirit be in any way one of the creatures which are granted life in the Spirit by the Word?
The Spirit is spoken of as “anointing” and is “seal.” So John writes: “As for you, the anointing that you received from him remains in you, and you have no need of someone to teach you. But his anointing,” his Spirit, “teaches you about everything” (1 Jn 2:27). In the prophet Isaiah, it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me” (Isa 61:1). Paul says, “Having believed in him you have been sealed for the day of redemption” (cf. Eph 1: 13). But, as for creatures, they are sealed and anointed by the Spirit and {585A} taught everything by the Spirit. Now, if the Spirit is “anointing” and “seal,” as the one in whom the Word anoints and seals all things, what kind of likeness or commonality of identity (idiotēs) can there be between the unction and seal and those who are anointed and sealed? So, on this account also, the Spirit is not among all things, for the seal cannot be from among the things that are sealed; neither can the unction be from among the things that are anointed, but rather belongs (idion) to the anointing and sealing Word. The unction has the fragrance and breath of the one who anoints and those who are anointed, when they partake of this unction, say: “We are the fragrance of Christ” (2 Cor 2:15). The seal possesses the form of Christ who seals, while those who are sealed participate in it, and become conformed to it, as the apostle says: “My children, for whom I am again in labor, until Christ is formed in you” (Gal 4:19). {585B} When we are sealed in this way, we properly become sharers in the divine nature, as Peter says (2 Pet 1:4), and so the whole creation participates of the Word, in the Spirit.
24. Moreover, all things are said to be participants of God through the Spirit. For it says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy that one. For the temple of God, which you are, is holy” (1 Cor 3:16, 17). But if the Holy Spirit were a creature, there would not be for us any participation of God in the Spirit. Indeed, if we were merely united to a creature, we would still be foreigners to the divine nature, having no participation in it. {585C} But now that we are called participants of Christ and participants of God, it is thereby shown that the unction and seal which is in us is not of a created nature but of the nature of the Son, who unites us to the Father through the Spirit that is in him. This is what John teaches, when he writes, as has been cited above, “This is how we know that we remain in God and he in us, in that he has given us his Spirit” (1 Jn 4:13). But if we become sharers in the divine nature through participation in the Spirit, one would have to be crazy to say that the Spirit is of a created nature and not of the nature of God, {588A} for that is how those in whom the Spirit is become divinized. But if the Spirit divinizes, it is not to be doubted that it is of the nature of God himself.
And for a still clearer negation of this heresy, the psalmist sings in the one-hundred- and-third psalm, as we have previously quoted: “You will take away their spirit and they will perish and return to their dust. You will send forth your spirit and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth” (Ps 104: 29–30). And Paul writes to Titus: “Through the bath of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out richly upon us through Jesus Christ” (Titus 3:5–6). But if the Father creates and renews all things through the Son and in the Holy Spirit, what likeness or kinship can there be between creatures and the Creator? Or how can it at all be the case that the one in whom everything {588B} is created is a creature?
Such foul talk would consistently lead to blasphemy against the Son, so that those who say that the Spirit is a creature should say also that the Son, through whom all things were created, is a creature as well. For the Spirit is said to be and is the image of the Son; for “those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29). Therefore, if it is confessed even by them that the Son is not a creature, then neither could his image be a creature. For as the image is, so must be that of which it is an image. Therefore, the Son is quite fittingly and properly confessed not to be a creature, since he is the Image (eikōn) of the Father. Yet, the one who counts the Spirit among creatures will surely end up counting the Son also among creatures and uttering impropriety against the Father through this {588C} improper speech about his Image.
25. Thus, the Spirit is other than the creatures, and is shown rather to belong (idion) to the Son and to be not foreign to God. But then there is that foolish question they ask: “If the Spirit is from God, why is it not also called Son?” This question has already been shown to be rash and reckless in what we have said above, and we will equally show it to be so now. Even though it is not called “Son” in the Scriptures but “Spirit of God,” nevertheless it is said to be in God himself and from God himself, as the apostle has written (cf. 1 Cor 2:11–12). If the Son belongs (idios) to the being of the Father because he is from the Father, then necessarily {589A} the Spirit also, who is said to be from God, belongs (idion) to the being of the Son. Of course, the Lord is Son; but then the Spirit is called the Spirit of sonship (Rom 8:15). And, again, while the Son is Wisdom (1 Cor 1:24) and Truth (cf. Jn 14:6), it is written that the Spirit is Spirit of Wisdom (cf. Isa 11:2) and Truth (cf. Jn 14:17, 15:26). Yet again, while the Son is Power of God (1 Cor 1:24) and Lord of glory (1 Cor 2:8), the Spirit is said to be Spirit of Power and Spirit of glory. And that is how Scripture speaks of each of them, respectively. So Paul writes to the Corinthians: “If they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8); and in another place, “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of sonship” (Rom 8:15), and furthermore, “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal 4:6). Peter {589B} wrote: “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Pet 4:14). As for the Lord, he said that the Spirit is Spirit of Truth and Comforter (Jn 14:16), which shows that the Trinity is complete in the Spirit. Therefore, it is in the Spirit that the Word glorifies creation and presents it to the Father by divinizing it and granting it adoption. But the one who binds creation to the Word could not be among the creatures and the one who bestows sonship upon creation could not be foreign to the Son. Otherwise, it would be necessary to look for another spirit to unite this one to the Word. But that is senseless. Therefore, the Spirit is not among the things that have come into being but belongs (idion) to the divinity of the Father, and is the one in whom the Word divinizes the things that have come into being. But the one in whom creation is divinized cannot be extrinsic to the divinity of the Father.
{589C} 26. That the Spirit is above creation and other than the nature of originated beings, but rather belongs to divinity, is something that can also be gleaned from the fact that the Holy Spirit is unchangeable and inalterable. For it says, “The Holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit and withdraw from senseless thoughts” (Wis 1:5). Moreover, Peter says, “in the incorruptibility of the gentle and calm Spirit” (1 Pet 3:4). And again, in Wisdom, “For your incorruptible Spirit is in all things” (Wis 12:1). {592A} If “no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God who is in him” (1 Cor 2:11), and, as James said, “there is no alteration or shadow caused by change” (Jas 1:17) in God, then insofar as the Holy Spirit is in God, it is necessarily unchanging and invariable and incorruptible.
Conversely, the nature of originated and created beings is changeable insofar as it is external to the being of God and comes into subsistence from non-being. For it says, “every human being is a liar” (Ps 116:11); and “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23), while “the angels who did not cling to their own origin but deserted their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains, in gloom, for the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6). And in Job: “If he puts no trust in his holy angels (Job 15:15)…and finds fault with his angels (Job 4:18)…and the stars are not {592B} pure in his sight (Job 25:5).” So Paul writes: “Do you not know that we will judge angels? Then why not everyday matters?” (1 Cor 6:3). We have also heard that the devil, though he was “in the midst of the cherubim” (cf. Ezek 28:14) and was “the seal of the likeness” (cf. Ezek 28:12), fell from heaven like lightening (cf. Lk 10:18). If such then is the nature of created beings and such things are written even of the angels, while the Spirit is the same and unchanging and possesses the inalterability of the Son, with whom he remains inalterable forever, what kind of likeness is there between the inalterable and the alterable? It should be clear enough that insofar as the Spirit is not a creature, then neither is his being in any way that of the angels, since they are changeable while he is Image of the Word and proper (idios) to the Father.
Moreover, “the Spirit of the Lord fills the world” (Wis 1:7). So David sings, {592C} “Where shall I go from your Spirit?” (Ps 139:7). And it is also written in Wisdom, “Your incorruptible Spirit is in all things” (Wis 12:1). But all the creatures that have come into being exist in their allotted places: the sun, moon and stars are in the firmament (cf. Gen 1:17); the clouds, in the air. He has set the boundaries of the nations for people (cf. Deut 32:8). The angels are “sent for service” (cf. Heb 1:14); “and the angels came to stand before the Lord” (Job 1: 6), as it is written in Job. And “Jacob the Patriarch had a dream and, behold, a stairway rested on the ground, with its top reaching to heaven and the angels of God ascended and descended upon it” (Gen 28:12). But if the Spirit fills all things and, in the Word, is present in all things, while the angels are inferior to the Spirit {593A} and present only where they are sent, it cannot be doubted that the Spirit is not among the things that have come into being, nor is the Spirit at all an angel, as you say, but is above the nature of angels.
27. It can also be seen from the following that the Holy Spirit is participated and does not participate. (For we must not hesitate to repeat ourselves.) Scripture says: “For it is impossible that those who have once been enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift and participated in the holy Spirit and tasted the good word of God” (Heb 6:4–5), etc. But as for the angels and other creatures, they are participants of the Spirit itself. Therefore, they are capable of falling away from that which they participate. The Spirit, however, is always the same and is not among those who participate, whereas all things participate in it. But if the Spirit is always the same {593B} and is the one who is participated, while creatures participate in it, then the Holy Spirit cannot be an angel or any creature at all, but is proper (idion) to the Word, from whom the Spirit is given, and is thus participated by creatures. Otherwise, they will end up saying that the Son too, of whom we have all become participants in the Spirit, is a creature.
Moreover, the Holy Spirit is one, while creatures are many. For there are “thousands of thousands” and “myriads of myriads” (Dan 7:10) of angels and the stars are many, and so are the thrones and dominions and heavens, as well as the cherubim and seraphim, and the many archangels. In short, creatures are not one, but they are all many and diverse. But if the Holy Spirit is one, while creatures are many and angels are many, what likeness is there between the Spirit and originated beings? It is a matter without any ambiguity {593C} that the Spirit is not among the many and is not an angel, but rather is one and belongs (idion) to the one Word, and accordingly belongs (idion) to the one God and is of the same being (homoousion).
Taken even by themselves, these {scriptural} sayings about the Holy Spirit demonstrate that it has nothing in common with or proper (idion) to the nature or essence of creatures, but that it is other than originated beings and belongs to (idion) and is not foreign to the being and divinity of the Son, through which it belongs to the Holy Trinity. This puts their senselessness to shame.
28. Moreover, aside from these scriptural utterances, let us also consider the tradition and teaching and faith of the Catholic Church from the beginning, that which the Lord has given, the apostles preached, and the fathers {596A} guarded. This is the foundation on which the Church is established, and the one who strays from it is not a Christian and should no longer be called so: The Trinity is holy and perfect, confessed as God in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, having nothing foreign or extrinsic mingled with it, nor compounded of creator and created, but is wholly Creator and Maker. It is identical with itself and indivisible in nature, and its activity (energeia) is one. For the Father does all things through the Word and in the Holy Spirit. Thus the oneness of the Holy Trinity is preserved and thus is the one God “who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:6) preached in the Church—“over all,” as Father, who is beginning (archē) and fountain; “through all,” through the Son; and “in all” in the Holy Spirit. It is Trinity {596B} not only in name and linguistic expression, but Trinity in reality and truth. Just as the Father is the “One who is” (Ex 3:14), so likewise is his Word the “One who is, God over all” (Rom 9:5). Nor is the Holy Spirit non-existent, but truly exists and subsists.
The Catholic Church does not think of less than these three, lest it fall in with Sabellius and with the present-day Jews who follow Caiaphas, nor does it invent any more than these three, lest it be dragged into the polytheism of the Greeks. Let them learn that this is indeed the faith of the Church by considering how the Lord, when he sent the apostles, exhorted them to establish this as a foundation for the Church, saying: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19). {596C} So the apostles went and taught likewise, and this is the preaching that has made its way into all the Church under heaven.
29. Since this is the foundation of the Church's faith, let them once again speak up and give an answer: Is it Trinity or Dyad? If it is a dyad, then let them number the Spirit among the creatures. But then your conception is no longer of the one God who is “over all” and “through all” and “in all” (Eph 4:6), for you do not have the “in all,” having sundered and excluded the Spirit from the divinity. Indeed, according to your own thinking, the baptismal consecration which you think that you are performing is not entirely an entrance into divinity, for you have appended {597A} a creature to the divinity. Like the Arians and the Greeks, you too call the creation “God,” along with the God who created it, through his own Word.
If this is how things stand with you, where is your hope? For who will join you to God if you do not have the Spirit of God himself but one that belongs to creation? What is this presumption and recklessness of yours, demoting the Father and his Word to the level of creatures and raising the creature to the same level as God? This is what you do in fact when you imagine that the Spirit is a creature but then count him along into the Trinity. What again is this madness of yours, “speaking iniquity against God” (Ps 75:6), to the extent that you number with God and his Word not even as much as the totality of angels or the totality of creatures, but merely one among the creatures? For if, according to you, the Spirit is an angel and a creature {597B} and is yet counted into the Trinity, then not only one but all the created angels must be counted in also. No longer then would there be a Trinity, but some innumerable throng of divinity. In that case, the consecration to which you pretend would again be fragmented every which way, and would be unstable (abebaios) because of this multiplicity. Your sacramental rites and those of the Arians are indeed of such a kind—you who pursue disputations against the divinity and worship the creature instead of God, the Creator of all (cf. Rom 1:25).
30. These are the sorts of absurdities that you run up against when you speak of God as a dyad. But if God is Trinity, which he actually is, and a Trinity which has been shown to be indivisible and not dissimilar to itself (ouk anomios), then its holiness must be one, and its eternity one, and its immutable nature. {597C} The faith in the Trinity, which has been handed down to us, is one, and it is this faith which unites us to God, whereas anyone who takes anything away from the Trinity and is baptized in the name of the Father only, or in the name of the Son only, or in the name of the Father and the Son apart from the Spirit, receives nothing but remains empty and unsanctified—both he and the one who appears to be administering the consecration. After all, it is a consecration in the Trinity! Likewise, the one who divides the Son from the Father or demotes the Spirit to the level of creatures has neither the Son nor the Father but is godless and worse than an unbeliever (1 Tim 5:8) and anything but a Christian. And this is just and right, for as the baptism given in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is one and the faith in the Trinity is one, as the apostle says (Eph 4:5), {600A} so the Holy Trinity, which is identical with itself and united with itself, has nothing of what is originated within it. This is the indivisible unity of the Trinity and faith in this Trinity is one.
But if, according to the invention of you Tropici, it is not actually so, and you have been induced by your dreams to say that the Holy Spirit is a creature, then your faith is no longer one and neither is your baptism one but two—one of them being in the Father and the Son, and another in an angel who is a creature. But at this point nothing is left secure for you and nothing true. For what kind of communion can there be between an originated being and the Creator? Or what kind of oneness can there be between the creatures below and the Word who has made them? The blessed Paul, who knew this, did not divide the Trinity, as you do, but taught its unity when he wrote to the Corinthians about the spiritual gifts {600B} and summed them all up by referring them to the one God and Father, saying: “There are different gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who. works all of them in everyone” (1 Cor 12:4–6). For that which the Spirit imparts to each is provided from the Father through the Son. Everything that belongs to the Father belongs to the Son (Jn 16:15, 17:10); thus, what is given by the Son in the Spirit are the Father's gifts. And when the Spirit is in us, the Word who gives the Spirit is also in us, and the Father is in the Word. So it is that “I and my Father will come and make our dwelling in him” (Jn 14:23), as it is said. For where the light is, there is the radiance; and where the radiance is, there is its {600C} active energy (energeia) and luminous grace. Paul taught this again when he wrote back to the Corinthians and said, in his second epistle: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor 13:13). For the gift and the grace that is given are given in the Trinity: from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Just as the grace that is given is from the Father and through the Son, so there would be among us no communion in the gift except in the Holy Spirit. For it is by our participation in the Spirit that we have the love of the Father and the grace of the Son and the communion of the Spirit itself.
31. Thus, it has been shown that the activity (energeia) of the Trinity is one. {600D} For the apostle does not mean that what is given by each {of the Trinity} is different and separate but rather {601A} that what is given is given in the Trinity, and it is all from the one God. How then is it not outright impiety against the Son himself to call a creature one who, far from being a creature, is united to the Son just as the Son is united to the Father, and who is glorified with the Father and the Son and confessed as God (theologoumenon) along with the Word, and who activates (energoun) everything that is worked by the Father through the Son? For there is nothing which is not brought into being and actuated through the Word, in the Spirit.
This is what is sung in the psalms: “By the word of the Lord, the heavens were established and by the breath (pneumati) of his mouth all their power” (Ps 33: 6). And in the one-hundred-and-forty-seventh psalm: “He will send his word and melt them; he will pour forth his spirit and the waters will flow” (Ps 147:18). And we are justified, as the apostle says, “in the name of our Lord {601B} Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:11). The Spirit indeed is inseparable from the Word. So when the Lord says, “I and the Father will come” (Jn 14:23) the Spirit also comes with them and dwells in us no differently than the Son, as Paul writes to the Ephesians: “that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell {in your hearts through faith}” (Eph 3:16–17). But if the Son is in us, so is the Father, as the Son says: “I am in the Father and the Father in me” (Jn 14:10). So when the Word comes to the prophets, they prophesy in the Holy Spirit itself. Therefore, when Scripture says, “the Word of the Lord came” to a certain prophet, it indicates that he is prophesying in the Holy Spirit. {601C} In Zechariah it is written, “Only receive my words and my ordinances, which I decree in my spirit to my servants, the prophets” (Zech 1:6). And when rebuking the people, a little later on, he said: “They have made their hearts disobedient so as not to hear my laws and the words which the Lord of hosts has sent by his spirit through the former prophets” (Zech 7:12). In Acts, Peter said, “Brothers, the Scriptures which the Holy Spirit had spoken beforehand had to be fulfilled” (Acts 1:16). And the apostles cried out together: “Master, who has made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them, who spoke by the holy spirit through the mouth of your child, {604A} our father David” (Acts 4:24–25). And when Paul was in Rome, he spoke boldly to the Jews who approached him, saying, “Well did the holy Spirit speak to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet” (Acts 28: 25). To Timothy, he wrote, “the Spirit says explicitly that in the last times some will turn away from the sound faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits” (1 Tim 4:1). Therefore, when the Spirit is said to be in someone, it is understood that the Word is in that person, giving the Spirit. So when the prophecy was being fulfilled, “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh” (Joel 2:28), Paul said, “according to the support of the Spirit of Jesus Christ which is in me” (Phil 1:19). And to the Corinthians he wrote, “Are you looking for proof of Christ speaking in me?” (2 Cor 13:3). But if it was Christ who was speaking {604B} in him, then clearly the Spirit that was speaking in him was Christ's Spirit. So when Christ was speaking in him, he again said, in Acts, “But, now compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem. What will happen to me there I do not know, except that in one city after another the holy Spirit has been testifying to me that imprisonment and hardships await me” (Acts 20:22–23).
Therefore, when the saints say, “Thus says the Lord,” they are not speaking otherwise than in the Holy Spirit; and, speaking in the Holy Spirit, they speak these things in Christ. When Agabus says, in Acts, “Thus says the Holy Spirit” (Acts 21:11), this does not happen otherwise than by the Word's coming to him and it is thereby that the Spirit enables him to speak in the Spirit and to testify to what is about to happen to Paul in Jerusalem. {604C} Certainly, when the Spirit gave testimony to Paul (cf. Acts 20:23), Christ himself was speaking in Paul, (605A) insofar as the testimony issued from the Spirit of the Word. Thus it was that when the Word came to the holy Virgin Mary, the Spirit also entered with him (cf. Lk 1:35), and the Word, in the Spirit, fashioned and joined a body to himself, wishing to unite creation to the Father and to offer it to the Father through himself and to reconcile all things in his body, “making peace among the things of heaven and the things of earth” (cf. Col 1:20).
32. The divine Scriptures thus unanimously demonstrate that the Holy Spirit is not a creature but belongs to (idion) the Word and to the divinity of the Father. This is the consensus of the teaching of the saints on the holy and indivisible Trinity and this is the one faith of the Catholic Church. But the extremely irrational mythmaking of the Tropici is discordant with the Scriptures and consistent rather with the irrationality of the Ariomaniacs. {605B} It is just like them to dissemble in order to deceive the simple. But thanks be to the Lord that, as you write, they have not been able to veil themselves with their feigned controversy with the Arians. Although they are hated by the Arians because they say that only the Spirit is a creature and not also the Word, they are also condemned by everyone as people who make war against the Spirit. They are indeed close to death, desolate and bereft of the Spirit. In the words of the blessed apostle, they are natural people (physikoi anthropoi) who were incapable of receiving what pertains to the Spirit of God because these things are judged spiritually (cf. 1 Cor 2:14–15). But those who attend to the things that belong to the truth “judge all things and are not themselves subject to judgment by anyone” (1 Cor 2:15), having within them the Lord {605C} who, in the Spirit, reveals himself to them and, through himself, reveals the Father.
33. As for me, although I am residing in the desert, I have written briefly to your reverence because the shamelessness of those who have deviated from the truth has stirred me to disregard those who would wish to ridicule the weakness and lowliness of my exposition. I strongly urge that when you read this, you may correct what requires correction and excuse what is inadequately expressed. What I hand down to you is in accordance with the apostolic faith handed down to us by the fathers and I have invented nothing extraneous to it. I have expressed what I have learned, which is in conformity with the holy Scriptures and is consistent with the passages from the holy Scriptures that have been cited previously as confirmation.
{605D} It is not an invention brought in from the outside, but the Lord Jesus Christ himself personally taught the Samaritan woman—and through her, he teaches us—the perfection of the Holy Trinity as one inseparable Godhead. The Truth herself gives witness when she says to the Samaritan woman: “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming, {608A} and is now here, when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth. And indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and Truth” (Jn 4:21, 23–24). It is clear from this passage that Truth is the Son himself, for he says, “I am the Truth” (Jn 14:6). It is he who was invoked by the prophet David when he said, “Send out your light and your truth” (Ps 43: 3). Therefore, the true worshippers indeed worship the Father, but in Spirit and Truth, confessing the Son and in him, the Spirit. For the Spirit is inseparable from the Son, as the Son is inseparable from the Father. Truth herself gives witness when she says, “I will send you the Paraclete, {608B} the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father (Jn 15:26), whom the world cannot receive (Jn 14: 17)”— that is to say, those who deny that the Spirit is from the Father and in the Son.
It is necessary therefore to confess and cling to the Truth, according to the model of true worshippers. As for those who after all this are still unwilling to learn and incapable of understanding, let them at least cease from foul speech and not separate the Trinity, lest they be separated from life. Let them also not number the Holy Spirit among creatures, so that they may not be like the Pharisees of another time who attributed the works of the Spirit to Beelzebub (cf. Mt 12:24), matching their presumption and suffering with them the punishment which is unpardonable both here and hereafter.