Against Eunomius 3

{BAS.} Having at last with difficulty had his fill of the blasphemies against the Only-begotten, he has passed on to the Holy Spirit, discoursing concerning it also in a manner consistent with his whole purpose.

{EUN.} Since so much suffices us concerning the Only-begotten, it would be consistent now to speak also concerning the Paraclete;

not following the unexamined opinions of the many, but in all things guarding the teaching of the saints, from whom, having learned it to be third in dignity and order, we have also believed it to be third in nature.

{BAS.} For that he does not think one ought to abide in the simple

and unstudied faith of the many, but rather, by certain artful and sophistical arguments, to defraud the truth toward what seems good to himself, he has sufficiently shown from what he has said.

For dishonoring the opinion of the many, by which they glorify the Holy Spirit, he pretends to guard the teaching of the saints, while passing over in silence those who delivered it to him, and now doing the very thing he was shown to do in the discourses concerning the Only-begotten.

Then he says that he learned from the saints that it is third in order and dignity, but that he himself believed that it is also third in nature.

But who the saints are, and in what discourses they made this teaching, he cannot say.

Has a man become so audacious as to introduce innovations concerning the divine doctrines? For what necessity is there, if the Spirit is third in dignity and order, that it be third also in nature? For perhaps the word of true religion delivers that it is second to the Son in dignity;

but that it makes use of a third nature, we have neither been taught by the holy Scriptures, nor is it possible to infer it logically from what has been said before.

For just as the Son is second to the Father in order, because he is from him;

and in dignity, because the Father is the principle and cause by being his Father, and because through him is the access and approach to God and Father;

but in nature he is no longer second, because the Godhead in each is one;

so clearly also the Holy Spirit, even if it is subordinated to the Son both in order and in dignity (that we may concede this altogether), it would no longer reasonably follow that it is of an alien nature—this is clear from the following.

All the angels, just as they have one appellation, so they are altogether of one and the same nature with one another;

but nevertheless, some of them preside over nations, while others accompany each one of the faithful.

Yet by however much a whole nation is more honorable than a single man, by so much surely must the dignity of the angel who is ruler of a nation be greater than that of the one entrusted with the guardianship of each single person.

But that an angel is present with each of the faithful, like a kind of tutor and shepherd directing his life, no one will gainsay, who remembers the words of the Lord, who said:

“Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for their angels do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.”

“The angel of the Lord encamps round about those who fear him”;

and, “The angel who delivered me from my youth”;

And that again there are certain angels who preside over whole nations, Moses teaches us through the song, saying:

“When the Most High divided the nations, when he scattered the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of his angels.”

And the wise Daniel, in the vision of the angel, heard him saying that, “The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me”;

“and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I left him there with the prince of the king of Persia.”

And a little after, the same one says:

“And the prince of the Greeks was coming.”

But also a certain commander-in-chief of the host of the Lord is mentioned, the one who appeared to Joshua the son of Nun at the Jordan.

And again, certain legions of angels are spoken of, when the Lord said to his disciples:

“Or do you think that I cannot call upon my Father, and he will at once provide me here more than twelve legions of angels?” The commander-in-chief, then, of the angels arrayed in the legions is clearly a ruler.

To what, then, does our argument lead us? That it is not altogether the case that, if something is second and third in order and dignity, this also has another nature.

For just as in the case of the angels, one of them is a ruler and another is subject, yet all are nevertheless angels in nature;

and according to dignity there is the difference, but according to nature the communion (for indeed “star differs from star in glory,”

yet the nature of all the stars is one;

and there are many mansions with the Father, that is, differences of dignities;

yet the nature of those that are glorified is alike);

so clearly also the Holy Spirit, even if

in dignity and order it is subordinate, as they say (for we have received it, he says, as numbered third from the Father and the Son—

the Lord himself in the delivering of the saving baptism having delivered the order in what he said:

“Go, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”)—

yet that it is cast out into some third nature, apart from the Son and the Father, we have nowhere learned.

For since two things are spoken of—Godhead and creation, and lordship and servitude, and a sanctifying power and that which is sanctified, and that which has virtue by nature and that which sets itself right by choice—in which portion shall we rank the Spirit? Among the things sanctified? But it is itself sanctification.

Or among those that acquire virtue by deeds of valor? But it is good by nature.

Or among the ministering spirits? But other are the ministering spirits sent forth for service.

It is therefore not lawful to call it a fellow-servant with us, that which is sovereign by nature, nor to number with the creation that which is numbered with the divine and blessed Trinity.

For principalities and authorities and all such creation, having their sanctification from attentiveness and diligence, would not reasonably be called holy by nature.

For reaching out toward the good, according to the proportion of their love toward God, they partake also of the measure of holiness.

And just as iron, lying in the midst of fire, has not cast off being iron, but, kindled red-hot by its most intense contact with the fire and having received the whole nature of the fire into itself, has passed over both in color and in activity into the fire;

so also the holy powers, from their communion with that which is holy by nature, already possess sanctification as having permeated through their whole subsistence and as having been made of one nature with them.

But the difference for them with respect to the Holy Spirit is this: that for the Spirit holiness is its nature, but for them being sanctified comes from participation.

And those for whom the good is something acquired and given from elsewhere belong to the mutable nature.

For the Morning Star that rose early would not have fallen, nor been shattered upon the earth, if by nature it had been incapable of the worse.

How, then, is it pious to rank it with the creation, when it is marked off from the creation by so great a measure? For the creation is naturally such as to have sanctification as a prize of progress and of good pleasure toward God, and, employing a free will by nature and able to incline either way, toward the choice of the good or the worse;

but the Holy Spirit is a fountain of sanctification.

And just as the Father is holy by nature, and the Son is holy by nature, so by nature also is the Spirit of truth holy;

wherefore it has also been deemed worthy of the special and peculiar appellation of “the Holy.”

If, then, sanctification is its nature, just as for the Father and the Son, how is it of a third and alien nature? For on this account, I think, in Isaiah the Seraphim are recorded as crying out “Holy” three times, because in the three subsistences (hypostases) the sanctification according to nature is contemplated.

And not only this name of holiness is common to it with the Father and Son, but also the very appellation of “spirit.”

“For God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

“Christ the Lord is a Spirit before our face, of whom we said:

Under the shadow of his wings we shall live.”

And the Apostle refers the appellation of “spirit” to the Lord, saying:

“Now the Lord is the Spirit.”

And from these things it is clear to everyone that the communion of names presents not an alienation of nature, but a kinship toward the Father and the Son.

And God is called good, and is good;

and the Holy Spirit also is good, not having goodness as something acquired, but as co-existing with it from nature.

Or it would be of all things most unreasonable to say that that which is holy by nature does not have its goodness by nature, but as something supervening and accruing to it from without.

And in that the Lord said, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete,” he also shows himself to be our Paraclete.

So that the appellation of “Paraclete” also contributes not a little toward the demonstration of the glory of the Holy Spirit.

And the names are such as are indicative of the greatness of the nature;

but what kind are the activities of the Holy Spirit? “By the word of the Lord,” it says, “the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all the host of them.”

As, then, God the Word is the maker of the heavens, so also the Holy Spirit furnishes to the heavenly powers the firmness and steadfastness of virtue.

“The Spirit of the Lord that made me”;

saying this, as I think, not with reference to the creation, but to the perfecting with respect to human virtue.

And Isaiah, discoursing in the person of the Lord, that is, according to his human aspect, says, “The Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.”

And again the psalm, presenting the power of the Spirit as having permeated through all things, says, “Where shall I go from your Spirit, and where shall I flee from your face?” And what kind and how great are the benefits that come to us from it? Just as the Lord himself “gave authority to those who received him to become children of God,” so also the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of adoption.

And just as our Lord is a true teacher, according to what is said:

“But do not call anyone your teacher upon the earth;

for one is your master, the Christ”;

so also that the Holy Spirit teaches all who have believed into the name of the Lord is testified by the Lord himself, who said:

“But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send, he will teach you all things.”

And just as the Father is said to distribute the workings to those worthy of the reception of the workings, and the Son to distribute the ministries in the dignities of ministry;

so also the Holy Spirit is testified to distribute the gifts of grace to those worthy of the reception of the gifts.

“For there are distributions of gifts, but the same Spirit;

and there are distributions of ministries, but the same Lord;

and there are distributions of workings, but it is the same God who works all things in all.”

Do you see how here too the activity of the Holy Spirit is ranged together with the activity of the Father and of the Son? Then also from what follows, the divinity of the nature of the Holy Spirit is yet more greatly made manifest.

For what does it say? “But all these things the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each one individually as it wills.”

It testifies to it nothing other than an authoritative and lordly power.

Wherefore in the New Testament the prophets cry out:

“Thus says the Holy Spirit.”

But the searching of the deep things of God—whence does it belong to the Spirit? “Just as,” it says, “no one of men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him;

so also the things of God no one has known except the Spirit of God.”

For just as no stranger or alien is able to scrutinize the inner reasonings of the soul, so clearly also, if anything shares in the unspeakable things with God, being neither alien nor strange to him, it is able to search out the depths of the judgments of God.

Then also life is supplied to us from God through Christ in the Holy Spirit.

For God makes alive, as Paul says:

“I charge you before God, who makes all things alive”;

and Christ gives life:

“For my sheep,” he says, “hear my voice, and I give them eternal life”;

and we are made alive through the Spirit, as Paul says:

“He who raised Christ from the dead will also make alive your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwells in you.”

But this man, audacious in all things and not crouching before the danger that hangs over those who dare to cast some blasphemous word against the Holy Spirit, declares it to be without share in the Godhead, writing thus concerning the Spirit:

{EUN.} Third in order and nature, having come into being by the command of the Father and the activity of the Son, honored in the third rank, as the first and greatest of all, and the only such thing made by the Only-begotten, falling short of Godhead and creative power.

{BAS.} But the one who says this seems not even to have believed that the

Godhead dwells in us, when John says concerning God:

“By this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us”;

“Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” and again:

“In whom the whole building, being fitly framed together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

If, then, God is said to dwell in us through the Spirit, how is it not of manifest impiety to call the Spirit itself without share in the Godhead? And if we name as gods those who are perfect according to virtue, and the perfecting is through the Spirit, how does that which makes others gods itself fall short of the Godhead? But surely it is not even pious, just as in the case of men, so also in the case of the Spirit, to say that the Godhead has been honored as participable by it, and not as co-existing with it by nature.

For he who is made a god by grace belongs to the mutable nature, sometimes from inattentiveness even falling away from the better.

But this plainly conflicts with the tradition of the saving baptism.

“Go,” it says, “baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

For baptism is the seal of the faith, and the faith is the assent to the Godhead.

For one must first believe, then be sealed by baptism.

But our baptism is, according to the tradition of the Lord, into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit;

with no created thing, nor any servant, ranged together with the Father and the Son, inasmuch as the Godhead is completed in the Trinity.

But everything outside of these is a fellow-servant, even if some be exceedingly preferred above others by surpassing degrees of dignity.

And do not again bring me these clever arguments;

{EUN.} If it is not a created thing, then it is either an offspring, or unbegotten.

But one God is without beginning and unbegotten.

It remains, then, that it be named a created thing and a thing made.

{BAS.} But I, if I were to define all things as comprehensible to our knowledge, would perhaps be ashamed to confess ignorance;

but as it is, countless things are hidden—not only of those laid up for us in the age to come, nor of those now existing in the heavens, but not even of the things present in our own body is the apprehension clear and beyond dispute.

For instance, concerning sight: whether, receiving the images of visible things, we thus make our perceptions;

and how the image of vast mountains, of the immense earth, of the boundless sea, and even of the heaven itself, is contained within the small measure of our pupil;

or whether, sending out something from ourselves, and this drawing near to visible things, we thus have perception of them; and what this is and how great, so as to suffice for spreading over earth and sea, and to traverse the space between earth and heaven, and to strike upon the heaven itself, moving with such speed that in an equal time both the surrounding body and the stars in heaven are apprehended.

And what need is there to speak of the rest? But even the very movements of the mind—whether the soul is by nature such as to create or to beget them—who could accurately say? What wonder, then, if also concerning the Holy Spirit we without shame confess our ignorance, yet render the doxology indisputably attested to it? For that it is above the creation, the things delivered through the Scriptures sufficiently present to us, since indeed it is impossible that the sanctifying and the things sanctified, the teaching and the things taught, the revealing and the things in need of revelation, should be of the same nature.

But no one is so utterly outside of right thinking as to dare to call anything “unbegotten” besides the God of all; and yet neither “Son,” since the Only-begotten is one.

What, then, must we call it? Holy Spirit, and Spirit of God, and Spirit of truth, sent forth from God, supplied through the Son, not a servant, but holy, good, sovereign;

a life-giving Spirit, a Spirit of adoption, knowing all the things of God.

Thus indeed also in the Trinity the principle of the Monad will be preserved, while we confess one Father, and one Son, and one [Holy Spirit].

But they bring forward demonstrations that the Holy Spirit is spoken of as a created thing: one from the prophet who says:

“He who establishes the thunder, and creates the wind/spirit”;

and another from the Gospel, that “All things came into being through him.”

But we are convinced that the prophetic word refers not to the Holy Spirit, but to this common breath, the wind of the air.

For it did not say, “He who created the wind,” but “He who creates the wind.”

For just as the thunder is not in any bodily subsistence, created once for all, but is naturally such as to come into being and to be dissolved, ever being worked according to the will of God for the fear of men, so also the wind;

now it comes into being, the air flowing like a river;

again it ceases, that which before was in motion becoming still, according to the will of him who manages all things for the salvation and constitution of the universe;

so that through the whole creation, from thunders and winds and the rest of the creative work, the Creator is announced.

“He who establishes the thunder, and creates the wind,” it says;

“And declaring to men his Christ.”

For just as the heavens declare the glory of God to those able from them to reckon up the craftsmanship of the Creator, so also the sounds of thunder and the movements of the winds proclaim their Creator.

And perhaps this might even be a prophecy, referring to the incarnation of the Lord;

when the voice that came from heaven seemed to the hearers to be thunder, which God the Father sent forth, so that through it he might declare the Christ to men;

and the winds that were stirred up, and stirring the sea, then ceasing at the command of the Lord, clearly themselves also declared his Christ to men.

But the saying “All things came into being through him” in no way presents to us that the Holy Spirit is created, as though the Spirit were numbered among the all.

For if the Holy Spirit is one and only, how can that which is of unique nature be included together with all? And let no one suppose that the denial of the Spirit's being a created thing is an abolishing of its subsistence (hypostasis).

For it belongs to a pious mind to be reverently cautious in ascribing to the Holy Spirit the things passed over in silence in the holy Scriptures, but to be convinced that the experience of it and its accurate apprehension are laid up for us in the latter age, when, having passed beyond the seeing of the truth through a mirror and in a riddle, we shall be deemed worthy of the face-to-face vision.