Against Eunomius 5 part 1/3

That the things common to creation are not shared by the Holy Spirit, and the things proper to the Spirit are not shared by creation—from which it is gathered that the Spirit is not a creature.

That the things common to the Father and the Son are likewise common to the Spirit;

that in those things by which God the Father and the Son are characterized in the Scripture, by these same things the Holy Spirit also is characterized—from which it is gathered that the Spirit is of the same Godhead with the Father.

That the things belonging to the Father alone as God, and not as Father, and to the Son as God, and not as Son—these belong to the Spirit alone, and no longer to creation; so that the names and realities not shared with creation are common to the Trinity alone—from which it is gathered that the Trinity is consubstantial.

Everything that is originate is receptive of turning and change, according to the Prophet who says to God:

'He who makes all things and transforms them.'

But the Spirit is receptive neither of turning nor of transformation.

Since creation is divided into two—into bodies and incorporeal beings—the turning that pertains to it is likewise divided.

And bodies admit of turning according to substance—the corruptible world passing over into incorruption, according to the Scripture, and our mortal bodies being made immortal, or those not yet corrupted [being destined] to be corrupted;

but the incorporeal and rational beings admit of turning according to activity, that is, according to disposition, as in the saying: 'He did not spare the angels who sinned.'

If, then, of originate things, some are receptive of turning according to substance, others according to disposition, but the Holy Spirit is receptive of neither turning nor alteration, whether according to substance or according to activity—

Every creature that is sanctified is holy [by participation];

but the Holy Spirit is not among those sanctified, but among those who sanctify.

Nothing created is holy according to its substance;

for that which is holy according to substance has no need of sanctification from without.

The originate thing, then, has need of sanctification from without, whenever it becomes worthy to attract sanctification to itself;

but the Spirit has no need of sanctification, because it is holy according to substance.

Every creature is a servant of the Creator, according to the Prophet who thus says to God:

but that which is a servant cannot extend freedom and adoption to another, since it has not itself obtained these according to substance;

but the Spirit extends freedom and adoption;

for the Spirit cries in our hearts:

'so that thou art no longer a servant, but a son.'

No creature is participable by the rational soul, so as to dwell in it essentially.

But the Holy Spirit dwells in it, according to him who says:

'We are a temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in us.'

Every rational creature is receptive of virtue and of vice.

But the Spirit is receptive of none of these.

And as many things as show one and the same activity of the holy and blessed Trinity:

'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands';

'the heavens are the works of Thy hands.'

And what could be the incorporeal hands of the incorporeal God, which fashioned the firmament and the heavens? The Prophet himself interprets, saying:

'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their host.'

But just as in God there is no uttered word, but a living and subsisting one, effective of all things;

so in God there is no spirit that is diffused, no air that dissolves, but a sanctifying power, having its own substance, really existing, subsisting in its own hypostasis.

'Thy hands made me and fashioned me.'

And this saying has the same meaning as the one before.

'For the divine Spirit,' says Job, 'is that which made me.'

And making clear the other hand, Solomon says:

'O God of the fathers and Lord of Thy mercy, who made all things by Thy word, and by Thy wisdom fashioned man.'

Now Christ is 'the power of God and the wisdom of God,' which is the creative hand, according to the manner of figurative interpretation.

Moreover, by the working of the Spirit He set up our whole nature, and the word [of Scripture] declares the Spirit to be the renewer of the creation unto incorruption:

'Thou wilt take away their spirit, and they will fail and return to their dust;

Thou wilt send forth Thy Spirit, and they will be created, and Thou wilt renew the face of the earth.'

But surely He does not send forth Himself;

rather, He calls 'sending' the condescension to His work, not a passing from place to place.

'For the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together has knowledge of [every] voice.'

'The Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee;'

'therefore also that which is born is of the Holy Spirit.'

That which is from another is from it either creatively, as in 'One God the Father, of whom are all things';

or generatively, according to the saying 'I came forth from the Father';

and the saying, 'From the womb before the morning star I begot thee.'

Not that God has a womb, but since genuine offspring, and not spurious ones, are by nature begotten from the womb of their parents, God named Himself as having a womb in begetting, to shame the impious—so that, having considered their own nature, they might learn that the Son is the genuine fruit of the Father, as coming from His womb.

That which is from another, then, is from it either creatively, or generatively, or naturally—as our activity is from us, or as the radiance of the sun is from it.

If, then, the supramundane body of Christ is of the Holy Spirit, yet it is not possible for it to be His offspring, because 'that which is born of the flesh is flesh,'

'and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.'

Nor again is it from Him as His activity, because in the case of a simple and incorporeal nature, the activity admits the same account of substance [as the substance itself].

It remains, then, that it would be from Him as His creature.

But also 'the finger of God' that changed the dust into living creatures in Egypt, manifesting anew the original generation of living things, was the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth.

For whereas the three evangelists say that the Lord said to the Jews:

'But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you';

Luke says that He said:

'But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of the heavens has come upon you.'

Therefore the signs done through Moses in Egypt also, which were done by the finger of God, and the marvellous signs of God, were accomplished together with the Spirit.

Now in these signs done by Moses and in those of the Lord, the Spirit is called 'the finger of God'—not because it is some small power coexisting with God, as a finger [is small] in relation to a body, but because the gift of signs and healings is one among His gifts apportioned [severally]; the one [gift], and not the whole [range of] gifts of the Spirit, He calls a 'finger.'

'For to one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings in the same Spirit, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues.'

'But all these things the one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each one severally as He wills.'

One might say that all these, and as many other gifts as there are of the Spirit, are as it were a body of His, and each single one of the gifts is a 'finger.'

And do not overlook this useful point of the expression.

For having said that the Spirit works all these things 'as He wills,'

the same [Apostle] said also concerning God:

'And there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who works all things in all.'

If, then, God works all things as He wills, and the one and the same Spirit works all these things, dividing to each one severally as He wills, how is there a difference of substance where an identity of activity is recognized? For if the substances were different, the activities also would have to be different, according to the most impious Eunomius.

And witnessing to the same supreme authority and power in the Spirit, the Saviour said: 'The Spirit blows where it wills.'

It is proper to God to forgive sins, since He Himself says:

'I am He who blots out thy sins';

and, 'Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make [them] white as snow;

and though they be as crimson, I will make [them] white as wool.'

And since Jesus, who is God, the Child of God, forgives sins to the paralytic, saying:

'Child, thy sins are forgiven thee'—on which account He was thought to blaspheme by the Jews who did not know Him to be God, who said, 'This man blasphemes';

for [they said] it belongs to none to forgive sins except God alone.

But the Lord, breathing on the holy apostles, said:

'If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.'

If, then, it belongs to none to forgive sins—as indeed it does not—except God alone, and yet the Holy Spirit forgives [them] through the apostles;

the Holy Spirit, therefore, is God, and of the same activity as the Father and the Son.

'Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'

He says that the nations, having believed and been made disciples, are baptized in the name of the Trinity.

And Peter, to the Jews who had consented to the death against Christ and had repented, said: 'Let each one repent, brothers, from your wickedness and from the evil way, and let him be baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus, and he shall be saved';

as though the Son were able to work the same things, in the regeneration of the washing, which the Father and the Spirit work.

And the Lord said to the apostles, that they should 'await the promise of the Father, which you heard';

'for John baptized with water unto repentance, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit.'

If, then, the Holy Spirit is able to work the same things in the apostles which the name of the Father and of the Son [works] upon the believers from among the nations, and the name of the Lord Jesus [works] upon the Jews who repented (for no one could say that the apostles partook of the grace through the washing less than those from the nations, because they received the grace in the Holy Spirit)—

how is the Spirit not of the same substance as the Father and the Son, being also of the same activity? Because the authority of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is the same.

'Go into Damascus, and there it shall be told thee'—since 'thou art a vessel of choice unto me'—the Lord said, appearing from heaven to Paul, that He had appointed him a herald of the Gospel to the world.

And as he was entering into Damascus, Ananias said:

'The God of the fathers has appointed thee.'

And lest the word be supposed [to be] concerning Christ, he adds:

'to do His will, and to know the Just One, His Jesus.'

And he indeed, putting in writing the calling and the appointment, said:

'Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, a called apostle.'

Then he says yet another thing in addition to the calling:

'separated unto the Gospel of God.'

And that the Spirit was the one who separated [him], the Acts of the Apostles taught.

'For as the apostles were fasting,' it says, 'and praying, the Holy Spirit said:

Separate to me Barnabas and Paul for the work to which I have called them.'

But if the Lord, the God of the fathers, chooses him whom He appointed, and

the Son called [him], and the Spirit separates the same one, using the authority of [its] nature—

how is there a difference of substance in the Trinity, in which an identity of activity is found? 'My words,' Solomon says, 'were spoken by God';

and Paul [says his were spoken] by Christ:

'For since you seek a proof,' he said, 'of Christ speaking in me.'

And no less does the Spirit also speak in the apostles.

'For the apostles spoke,' it says, 'as the Spirit gave them to utter.'

And, 'It is not you who speak,' the Saviour said to them, 'but the Spirit of the Father, who is in the heavens, who speaks in you.'

And the Spirit speaks in the prophets also.

'For who would grant,' Moses said, 'that all this people might prophesy, when the Lord shall give His Spirit upon them?'

And Agabus, the new prophet of the New Testament, cried out, saying:

'Thus says the Holy Spirit.'

—just as the prophets of the Old Testament were accustomed to proclaim, 'Thus says the Lord God.'

And summing up these things spoken by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Paul said: 'All Scripture is God-breathed.'

But if the Spirit speaks in the apostles and in the prophets, and all Scripture is God-breathed, say to the impious:

How is the Holy Spirit not God, when this writing of His is God-breathed? Because neither vision nor oracle comes to pass separately from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah the prophet said: 'I saw the Lord of Hosts sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the seraphim stood round about Him; six wings had each one.'

'Go and say to this people:

Hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive.

For the heart of this people has become gross,' and what follows.

Now, so far as concerns the very position and sequence of the prophetic writing, it is the Father over all who appeared and gave the oracle to the prophet;

yet the son of thunder, who uttered extraordinary things and spoke things more fearful than the thunder—whose proper [statement] is not 'It was not,' but 'The Word was'—said that it was the Son who appeared and gave the oracle to the prophet.

For he says in his own writing:

'For this cause the Jews could not believe on Jesus, because Isaiah said concerning them:

Their eyes have been blinded, and their heart has been hardened, lest they should see with the eyes, and understand with the heart, and turn, and I should heal them.'

'These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory.'

But Paul declared the vision and the oracle to be of the Spirit, saying:

'Well did the Holy Spirit speak through the prophet Isaiah to your fathers:

Hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive;

for the heart of this people has become gross.'

The prophet brings forward the Person of the Father, of Him who is believed [on] among the Jews;

the evangelist [brings forward the Person] of the Son;

[both] naming in common one Lord of Hosts, the one who appeared.

The account concerning the hypostasis is distinguished by them, while the mind concerning the one God remains undivided among them.

That the things made according to the image partake of the Creator;

and this comes to pass through the Spirit.

But if those who in their ill-devised wisdom [reason] against themselves understood these things and rightly hearkened, they would not estrange the Spirit from Godhead, lest they cut themselves off from Godhead, and set the world apart from God, and remove God from His own creation.

For all things made by God would be wretched, and falling short of the glory of the Creator according to their created nature, if they did not partake of Godhead.

And it is an unworthy account concerning God, to suppose that He overlooks the creation, [leaving it] bare and as it were destitute of Himself.

But neither is the creation thus wretched, nor God thus powerless, that He should not send the holy impartation upon His works.

At all events, He willed from the first to make man according to His own image.

Now altogether, the image being fashioned, transferred from the prototype, takes its likeness into the matter, and has partaken of the character impressed [upon it] through the mind and hand of the craftsman.

Thus the painter, thus the stone-carver, thus he who fashions the golden or the bronze statue, took matter, looked to the prototype, took up the type of what he had contemplated, and sealed it into the matter.

But if it is impossible for materials to be stamped into a likeness for men, unless they partake of their idea;

how could the creature attain unto a likeness to God, not partaking of the divine character? But the divine character is not such as the human, but living;

and being truly an image that makes images, all things that partake of it are established as images of God.

Christ is the image of God, who is, it says, 'the image of the invisible God';

and the image of the Son is the Spirit, and those who partake of Him are sons conformed [to that image], according to that which is written: 'Those whom He foreknew and predestined,' it says, 'conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.'

That the Holy Spirit is neither a possession of God nor a creature.

How then will the Spirit bear witness with thy spirit, according to the Apostle, that thou art a son of God, if it is alien to the glory of the Son? How will it cry in thee, 'Abba, Father,' if it is not truly an impartation from the Son?—not a possession of His, sent forth from Him, like the human spirit, or the spirit of the wind, which those are wont to say who separate the Spirit from Godhead, but the eternal Spirit of God and of the Son, being and being known in the divine glory.

For thy spirit is not Christ;

neither is the spirit of the wind Lord;

neither is the unclean spirit [Christ or Lord] (since some have dared to bring this forward too);

but the Holy Spirit is named both Christ and Lord, since the Apostle says (as we have just now mentioned), 'But if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, this one is not His';

Christ declaring the indwelling of the Spirit;

'But the Lord is the Spirit;'

'and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.'

So that the Spirit of the Lord is Lord;

therefore it is not a possession or creature of the Lord, but an image, as was said before.

That the Spirit is a true and natural image of God and of the Lord.

not [derived] from a divine image, as we are.

For this reason, while forming images, it is not itself formed into an image, and the anointing is not [itself] anointed.

And the Spirit is an anointing upon us, as John says.

And why did I say, 'upon us'? For already [it was] also upon the Lord Himself, according to the flesh.

'Jesus,' it says, 'who was from Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power.'

Christ, therefore, [is so called] on account of the Spirit and the anointing that is in the Spirit.

Not, then, through that which is alien to Godhead [comes] the anointing of the Lord, and the name 'Christ,' and those who from Him are called Christians.

For one might truly lament, if even the name of our salvation began from a creature, and is derived from a creature, and if through a servant we have the adoption.

Creation does not sanctify creation, but all things are sanctified by the one Holy One, who says concerning Himself:

And He sanctifies through the Spirit, as was demonstrated beforehand.

The Spirit, therefore, is not creation, but the character of the holiness of God, and a fountain of sanctification to all.

We were called in the sanctification of the Spirit, as the Apostle teaches.

This renews us, and again manifests us as images of God; and through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit we are adopted unto God.

[There is] again a new creation, partaking of the Spirit, of which it had grown old [when] deprived.

[There is] again the image of God—man, having fallen from the divine likeness, and been compared to senseless beasts, and made like to them, made like to the irrational ones according to death.

'For as the death of the one,' it says, 'so the death of the other.'

'But now,' it says, 'He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit that indwells in you.'

That the Spirit is a divine nature, being the perfecter of the works of God.

That which renews the creation, and changes corruption into incorruption, that which works us into a new creation abiding unto the age—who shall separate it from the Creator, God and the Son? How does that which is outside Godhead

save the creation of Godhead, working it [into something] new and incorruptible? Of what other [helper] did God have need, in order to recover His own creation that had been dissipated? Let the impious account be silent—that which asserts the creation that had grown old and become corrupt to be a work of God, but assigns the [creation] no longer growing old nor being corrupted to the renewal [wrought] through a creature.

Let not creation be glorified above God.

But it is glorified above God, if [things] that were dissolved by death and corruption—which God wrought through the Son—are made immortal and incorruptible through a creature.

But the divine Spirit is ever the perfecter of all things that come into being from God through the Son—just as it is [the perfecter] of the new creation, concerning which it is said:

'If anyone is in Christ, [he is] a new creation';

so also [it is the perfecter] in the case of the ancient [creation] at the beginning.

'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their host.'

The Word is living, in whom the heavens came into being.

This same one is God the Word, concerning whom John cries:

'All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being.'

The Spirit shows itself to be life, the life-giving one, according to that which is written:

The Spirit is life, that which brings the heavenly powers to perfection.

This same one is glorified together with the Father and the Son.

For neither does God create by the utterance of words, even if in a more human manner the oracles of God are named [as if they were] uttered words;

nor are the heavens adorned by the pouring forth of airy breath.

For the Spirit, ranged together with the living Word for creating, is a living power and a divine nature—ineffable, having come forth from the ineffable mouth, sent ineffably also at the in-breathing into man, and again restored by Him through in-breathing, according to the pattern bodily taught by the Lord;

for the renewal now and the concurrence [of operation] must run together with the newness at the beginning.

He therefore formed [man] by breathing in, being no other than He who breathed in from the beginning, but the very one through whom God gave the in-breathing—then [breathing] together with a soul, but now [breathing] into a soul.

Thus God creates, not by the movement of bodily hands, but by the activity of the living Word, and by the impartation of the life-giving Spirit.

If, then, at the beginning all things were made in the Spirit, and again are renewed in the Spirit;

one and the same activity of God through the Son in the Spirit is manifestly apparent;

and the Trinity does not admit of division, but according to the true teaching of Paul:

'There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit;'

'and there are diversities of ministries, and the same Lord;'

'and there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who works all things in all.'

And having enumerated all the divine operations, 'But all these things,' he says, 'the one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each one severally as He wills.'

That the Spirit, being glorified together with God, is shown to be no creature, but of the divine nature.

Surely the creation has no authority over the works of God, nor does it operate upon them; rather, the activity of the Creator is one thing, and that of the things created is another.

The angels behold the face of the Father who is in heaven, as the Saviour says, and this is their great glory and blessedness.

But they are works of God, according to the saying:

"Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire."

God works them; he does not work through them;

but he also sanctifies them and works in them, just as in holy men, who likewise proclaim the things of God as men do.

Therefore we do not glorify the angels together with God, just as neither do we so glorify men.

For we do not reckon the benefits wrought through them to be their own, but God's, who works in them.

But the Spirit is glorified together with God and the Son, inasmuch as the divine activity is also fulfilled through him.

"For the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," says Paul, "and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all."

And the chief point of our salvation, and the perfect tradition concerning the Godhead, lies in the sanctification of those who are baptized: namely, to baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

And that the Holy Trinity is glorified in one and the same divine works

is a witness to the one Godhead; for neither does the Father act apart from the Son, nor the Son apart from the Spirit.

For as the Son stands in relation to the Father, so does the Spirit in relation to the Son.

For this reason the Son is the Word of God, and the Spirit is the utterance of the Son.

"For," it says, "upholding all things by the word of his power."

And since it is the utterance of the Son, for this reason it is also of God.

"The sword," it says, "of the Spirit, which is the word of God."

And the Word of God is also a living and active utterance.

Do not, I pray, descend to human likenesses, but everywhere conceive what is greater in the case of God, taking the example of the word as a demonstration of the one activity;

since your own mind too accomplishes all things through speech.

Why is the Spirit not also a son of the Son?

Because it is not from any failure to be from God through the Son, but lest the Trinity be supposed to be an infinite multitude, being suspected of having sons from sons as among men.

If the Son is the image of God, and the Spirit the image of the Son; and if the Son is the Word of God, and the Spirit the utterance of the Son —

why then is the Spirit not called son of the Son? For you used this as your strongest argument toward impiety.

For you require us to conceive it either as a Son or as a creature.

And because it is not named a son, you therefore blasphemously declare to be a creature that which is the cause of creation, that which sanctifies and deifies the creation, that which is glorified by the name of Lord and God, that which fulfils the divine activities.

Since, then, it appears to you unworthy of the appellation of son, as being alien to the Son and the Father, consider how it makes sons of those who are sanctified.

But if you are a son of God through the Spirit, how is the Spirit a stranger to sonship? If you are a god through the Spirit, how is the Spirit alien to deity? You will retort again:

"But why has it not received the name of son?" For you do not deign to attend to the things that have been said, but you demand the reason for what has not been said — like the Sadducee who, not accepting the resurrection, busies himself with the manner of the resurrection, and rejects what is said because of what is not said.

And even if we keep silence, being unwilling to pry into the things of God, you suppose that the glory of the divine Spirit has been overcome, because the appellation of son is not applied to it — as though you could not be required to answer the very same thing.

For if you confess that countless men become sons by adoption through the Spirit, why is the Spirit not at least called son even by adoption, since it is surely nobler than those adopted by grace through it, and on this very account ought all the more not to be diminished on account of the appellation? Yet we too will answer concerning this, as far as we are able, before our own selves.

Since toward you it would have sufficed even to keep silence, seeing that the same question presses upon you as well.

We say, then, that to speak of a son from the Son would have led men who heard it to a suspicion that the Trinity of the Godhead was a multitude.

For it would have been easy to suppose that, if a son had been begotten from the Son, then from this one again another might have been begotten, and again another, and so on in succession to a multitude.

On this account, indeed, the Apostle plainly proclaimed that the Spirit is from God, saying: "We have received the Spirit which is of God."

And he made it clear that it has been manifested through the Son, naming it the Spirit of the Son, just as of God, and calling it the mind of Christ, just as also the Spirit of God, as it is of man.

But he guarded against calling it son of the Son, in order that there might be one Father, God, ever remaining Father and being eternally what he is; and one Son, begotten by an eternal generation, the true Son of God who is without beginning together with the Father, ever being what he is, God the Word and Lord;

and one is also the Holy Spirit, truly the Holy Spirit, according to that which is written, who is glorified together with the Father and the Son, and who is also called "the Spirit of his mouth" by the prophet David;

and whom we are taught to be also the finger of God, in the Gospel where the Lord says:

"But if I by the finger of God cast out demons..."

These things have been said, and it is well, as it stands for those who believe without prying into God and Word and Spirit, who are one Godhead, the only one to be worshipped.