Against Eunomius 5 part 2/3

And let there nowhere creep in any notion of multitude, but let each in the Trinity be acknowledged as being one: one Father, one Son, one Holy Spirit.

That even without being called son, the Spirit is manifestly from God;

and how human examples are to be fitted to the Godhead, and not to be torn down.

For we shall not have any the less toward knowing that the Spirit subsists from God, when we hear it called the Spirit of his mouth.

Rather, even this name is sufficient to show its existence from God.

For neither is "son," nor "generation," proper to the Godhead, but it has been transferred from human likeness.

And similarly also the designation "spirit."

In this way, then, the divine Scripture has used it also in the case of the divine Spirit, setting forth in another manner that he is from God;

since it was not fitting to express this also by the same likeness, as has been said before.

But you, like the unbelievers, set yourself in opposition to the divine teaching, hastening on to blasphemy.

And because the procession of the Spirit from God has not been called a generation, on this account you also do away with the procession of the Spirit from the mouth of God;

and because it is not named son, on this account you do not believe it to be even the Spirit of the mouth of God, but a work of God's hands;

and, despising the human examples, you overturn the divine doctrines that come from them, when you ought rather to hear the divine words with fear, and to receive with reverence all that is said, and not most foolishly to play the sophist against piety.

God begets, not as a man does;

and he manifests from himself the offspring, a Word — not a human word;

and he manifests truly a Word from himself.

And he sends forth a Spirit through his mouth — not in any human fashion, since neither is the mouth of God a bodily one;

but the Spirit too is from himself, and not from elsewhere.

God works with hands that are not bodily;

and he works not by bringing forth the things created out of himself, but by giving them subsistence actively — just as the man who works with his hands does not put forth the work out of himself.

Do not, then, shift the boundaries of the divine oracles, by calling the Spirit a work of the Son;

nor inquire concerning the Son, why he is not called spirit;

nor concerning the Spirit, why it is not called son;

nor blaspheme the Son or the Spirit as a work.

The Son of God is a holy fruit from the Holy, eternal from the eternal, the bestower of the Holy Spirit, unto the subsistence and forming of the creation.

He who takes away the Son has taken away the beginning of the creation of all things.

For the beginning of the subsistence of all things is the Word of God, through whom all things came to be.

He who strips away the Spirit has cut off the perfecting of the things that are made.

For by the sending forth and impartation of the Spirit do the things that come to be come to be.

That which proceeds from God does not proceed in time, even if it renders its productions in time.

The Word exists always, even before it was indicated by Moses as though spoken in human fashion, for the sake of interpreting, after a human pattern, the creation that comes to be through it.

The Spirit exists always, even before Moses described it as breathed in and imparted, in a bodily place, when he was describing the life-giving that comes to be through it.

That, if one does not say that the Spirit is from God, neither can one say it of the Word.

But you cut off the tokens of intimacy with God, and the interpreters of the divine conjunction — the Word, the Spirit;

while you admit only these things that indicate an external and separated nature: the activity of a hand, and the making of works.

For if you do not believe that the Spirit has proceeded from the mouth of God, neither would you believe in the Word.

Since David too, glorifying together the Word and the Spirit, said that by the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power.

And Moses, who set forth the works as coming to be by the Word, also showed them to be made alive by the Spirit, in the making of man according to the image.

How then could the inseparable be separated — the Word of God, and the Spirit from God through the Son? But if the Spirit is disbelieved, the Word too is disbelieved along with it.

Hear Paul, who says that our formation according to God is perfected in the Spirit:

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

Through the Word, therefore, and in the Spirit, is the work that is according to the image.

"But God makes the Spirit," you say, "and he makes it through the Son;"

and the words "All things were made through him" seem to you to include the Spirit as well.

Then has the Trinity been demonstrated by you to be a dyad? For if the Spirit is "with all things," how is it "with the Father and the Son"? But if the Spirit is not with the Father and the Son, how is the Trinity a Trinity? And how is baptism into the Trinity sanctifying for the whole world? But you say further that it is to be numbered along with the water, as being of the creation, just as the water also is:

"Except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit."

And you also rank the divine Spirit together with the fire of Gehenna, because John says:

"He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire."

What extreme of impiety did these things leave behind, if you attach to the Holy Spirit the value of water — since by the descent of the Spirit the water is sanctified? For it seemed good to you to make the thing sanctified equal to the one who sanctifies; and you do not shudder when the Spirit is numbered together with God the Son into the same activity and glory, while you yourself cut off the one activity and glory.

and because it uses water for the cleansing of bodies, on this account you reckoned the Spirit worthy of the same honour as the water.

And medicine, which uses materials, you do not call equal in worth to the materials, but as having mastery over the materials;

yet the divine Spirit, which uses water for the cleansing away of the filth of sin, you have cast down to the disrepute and lowliness of the water —

water, which is set apart for common use even of the impious;

water, by which all the defilements of bodies are cleansed away.

And if you also consider the matter of the fire, what manner of thing have you dared to conceive? I marvel at your senselessness, if indeed you do not truly fear the fire.

Christ baptizes in the Spirit those who are worthy of sanctification;

but those who are unworthy he sends away to the fire, delivering over to evil those who are alien to the good.

On this account, then, good and evil appear to you to be brethren, made of the same creation, and partners.

And though we point out the same activities of Father and Son and Holy Spirit, you do not see the unity; nor, when the Spirit is proclaimed by itself in the glory of God, do you understand the divine glory belonging to it, when the apostles say, "Thus says the Holy Spirit," as the prophets say, "Thus says the Lord."

And when they call the tempting of the Spirit a tempting of the Lord, as when Peter says to those who tempted him:

"How is it that you have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord?" and to the same persons:

"You have not lied to men, but to God."

And if the apostles say:

"It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" — not ranking themselves alongside the authority of the Spirit, but subordinating themselves, as being supplied by it at that time, as though declaring one knowledge and judgment of themselves and of the Spirit, and one authority — you forcibly drag the Spirit down into the creation;

just as if you should also assert that God is equal to Moses, hearing that "The people believed the Lord, and Moses his servant."

But the difference between Master and servant is plain;

which the writer also pointed out when he said:

"Moses his servant."

For God is believed in as Master and as the one who sent Moses;

but Moses, as a servant who was sent.

In this same way, then, the ordinances given to the Church seemed good to the Spirit in a masterly manner, while the commands uttered through them seemed good to the apostles in a ministerial manner.

"For the Lord," it says, "is the Spirit;"

"and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

And Israel is held in servitude by the commands of the Spirit, being admonished with fear; but the Church of Christians is adopted as sons, being sanctified through love.

"For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."

Surely he who has received that which is a servant is not constituted a son out of a servant, nor does he boldly call God Father through participation in a servant;

nor does the servant work all the things of God, as it wills.

Nor would the hymn-singer have said that the presence of the Spirit — if it were a servant and a creature — pervades all things, calling it the face and the hand of God, and saying:

"Where shall I go from your Spirit? and from

your presence where shall I flee? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there;

if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there."

"If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;"

"even there shall your hand lead me, and your right hand shall hold me."

For it is the Spirit that has filled all things, according to that which is written:

"For the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world," says Solomon.

Wherefore also, since the Spirit is known according to its seven activities, which Isaiah declared, Zechariah too called them the seven eyes of the Spirit of the Lord, speaking thus:

"These are the eyes of the Lord that look upon the earth."

"Do not I fill heaven and earth? says the Lord" — this signifies the filling that is through the divine Spirit;

just as also through Zechariah God says:

"I am with you, and my Spirit remains in the midst of you."

And many other such things besides have been declared beforehand, concerning the Spirit being the one that fills the creation.

Who then does not perceive the divine glory of the Spirit, when he hears the words, "Where shall I go from your Spirit?" and again:

"Do not I fill heaven and earth? says the Lord."

I see the universal presence over all things, which is spoken of both of God and of the Spirit, running together into one and the same.

But you, in such matters, being unable to conceive or to say that the Spirit is uncreated, say that God himself is called spirit.

But neither does God dwell in the creation through himself, nor could anyone admit that the Spirit of God is God himself, when he clearly hears the Apostle writing such things concerning the one who dwells in us:

"For God has revealed them to us through his Spirit."

"For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God."

"For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God none has known, save the Spirit of God."

"But we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God."

If, then, in these passages no one could understand the Spirit of God to be God (although he beholds it so united to the glory of God as the spirit of man is to the man), let no one force the assertion that the Spirit of God is God himself.

"My Spirit," it says, "which is upon you;"

this has made plain not God, but the Spirit that is from God.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me."

It has called the Spirit of anointing the Spirit of the Lord.

Let no one speak of more than one, even though God is called spirit by the Lord.

By the designation "spirit" he has made plain that the Father is incorporeal.

For just as God is Spirit, according to the saying, "You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you,"

so also God is the Spirit, the Trinity not being cut apart nor its nature divided, so that even the names are not separated.

Wherefore also, though God is one, the Son is God by the Father's nature and the Father's name;

and though the Lord is one, the Son, the Father is Lord, being called by the name of the image, as its prototype and begetter;

so too the Spirit is Lord, having its appellation from the Lord, from whom it is also imparted; and the Lord is, from the image, spirit;

since God too has been called spirit from him.

Surely, then, we are not on this account to make three gods, nor three lords, nor three spirits; but we are to acknowledge the unity of the Trinity in the communion of the names.

And yet you have come to such a pitch of madness, separating and setting apart the Spirit from both the Father and the Son, that you even say that eternal life in the Father and the Son has been proclaimed apart from the Spirit, because the Lord says:

"And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Therefore, if the Spirit seems to you to be excluded on this account, be baptized without the Spirit with the baptism of life;

but if you inherit life in the Spirit, how do you dream of eternal life apart from the Spirit? "If any man," it says, "has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."

How then will you live unto the age, if you should not be Christ's? And you could not be Christ's, if you have not the Spirit.

"But why," you say, "did he not add:"

"That they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent, and the Holy Spirit"? — not separating the Spirit from the dyad, O you people, but on the contrary uniting it, and showing the Spirit, which is inseparable, to be in the Father and the Son.

Since when Paul also says:

"As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ," he surely did not thereby introduce the sanctification apart from the Father, but in the Son he made plain the Father also.

"For God has revealed them to us through his Spirit" — he has not thereby excluded the Son who says:

"Neither does any man know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him."

But if, even without naming the Father, he makes plain together with the appellation of the Son also the begetter; and without naming the Son, makes plain together with the paternal name also the begotten one;

so too, where the Spirit is not named, it is understood in the one who supplies and imparts it.

Or, when the apostles say, "Thus says the Holy Spirit," shall we suppose only the Spirit to legislate for us and to foretell the things to come, and not that the legislation and prophecy take their beginning from the Father through the Son? And when the holy Child is said to have been begotten of the Holy Spirit, shall we suppose that the Spirit came, apart from the Word, into the subsistence of the infant — though John says that "the Word became flesh," and the incarnation is ascribed to the Word?

But through all this it is plain that the Spirit is in the Word, and the Word in the Spirit, the unity that is according to the Godhead not being divided.

For the taking up of the three names enumerates and presents the Trinity, but the unity of the Trinity is contained in the declaration that is according to the one name;

"Of him, and through him, and in him are all things" — he gathered into one name the property both of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

"For there is one God, of whom are all things;"

"and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things;"

and one Holy Spirit, in whom are all things, according to which it is said:

"You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you."

So that the saying "In God we live, and move, and have our being" is also clearly shown to be proper to the Spirit who is in God.

Surely the creation is not contained, and does not live and exist, in a creature — itself needing to be sustained by the power of the one who made it;

surely God is not glorified by the activity of a creature, being said to be the one in whom we live, and move, and have our being;

but in truth the Spirit is divine, sustaining in being all things that are from God and through the Son.

Wherefore also, when it is partaken of, it bestows the continuance of being.

And we who formerly were perishing through our separation from it, live again in it.

And though there are many things one might say which manifest both God in the creation and the creation in God, being indicative of the Spirit, we shall be content with what has been said, as samples of the many, having shown to those who go astray that their impiety against the Spirit reaches unto God — if indeed they should be diligent to acknowledge the glory of the Spirit as being God's glory.

That identity is not recognized from homonymy, but unity is known from the divine nature.

"But," he says, "'spirit' is also said of man;"

as in, "You will take away their spirit, and they shall fail;"

the spirit also of God, as in, "My Spirit shall not always abide among these men;"

as in, "He shall blow with his wind, and the waters shall flow;"

and one might find many other such instances.

But more correctly would he hear, who piously conjectures the divine meanings, saying against the opposition of the adversaries that, if anyone should think identity is introduced from homonyms, what will he do, seeing that many beings are spoken of or called by names that belong only to the One — for it is the saying of the one true Lord and God:

And many are called fathers, and gods, and begetters, and wise, and powerful, and creators — things which belong by nature to God alone, always.

And likewise, things not yet begotten are called "unbegotten," being about to be begotten or to come to be;

as also the resurrection of the dead, not yet having come to pass, is unbegotten, but is about to be;

or as a ring about to be made from iron, while being unbegotten in the iron;

or as when fire is to come from water or stone, or from some other material — such fire likewise comes to be.

Again, we conceive the unbegotten without substance to be that which in no way at all exists.

If anyone said "without substance," he did away with subsistence and the existence of being.

"Without substance" and "without subsistence" signifies a nature that does not exist nor is at all.

But he who says "having substance" and "having subsistence" has indicated the substance that truly exists.

But to say that God is unbegotten, or unbegotten with the article, having placed "God" first, or having again added the same name, did not do away with the substance nor the being of God, but says that this very being is also unbegotten;

but neither does it indicate that the substance of God was created.

But because it did not do away with the being of God, it has not thereby already indicated the "what it is" — the substance — of God.

I do not speak of quality or quantity, as those vain talkers profess to demonstrate; but this: how the naming of the word "unbegotten" shows the substance of God to be.

But the "how a thing is," and that very thing which it is — of what kind it is, or what it is — proves to be far more obscure, as being beyond all tracing out for every created nature.

For if his judgments are a great deep, as the Prophet says, and his ways past tracing out, then surely also unsearchable, according to the Apostle;

how much more he himself, whose judgments and ways are such? And it is no wonder if God himself is such, seeing that the things that are his are such.

For if the things which God has prepared for those who love him eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, according to that which is written;

how much more would one of those who believe in him piously and without prying say that the nature of God himself, who prepared such things, is more ineffable? But indeed there are also many words spoken of, yet one is the eternal Word of God, who is also proclaimed as God in the Gospel, through whom all things came to be.

And many are called sons of God in the Scripture, according to the saying, "I have begotten and raised up sons;"

"Israel is my firstborn son."

Yet by adoption and by a certain character are they adopted as sons by the true God — adopted sons and not true sons.

For from nature and from truth do realities take their origin.

But if he who by nature was begotten substantially from him does not exist, according to the denial of the Anomoeans, where shall those who are sons by adoption be found? But the most unlearned impiously attach to the Godhead the things spoken in human terms, and, taking in a one-sided way the Scriptures which were spoken in many parts and in many ways, they fall, not enduring to be rightly guided.

For the ways of the Lord are straight, and the righteous shall walk in them;

but the impious stumble in the straight ways.

And the marvel is this: that from those very things by which the sound in faith are benefited, those are harmed who are sick about questionings and idle disputes of words, as the Apostle said.

And that it is a disease of the soul to inquire badly and inquisitively about God, and especially with unbelief, is plain to all.

For if they disbelieve the things concerning the all-holy God himself;

how shall they hear his prophets or apostles, who speak in the divine Scriptures the things concerning him and concerning those who shall hope in him? For he who comes to God must believe that he is;

and not inquire in unbelief what he is.

For that which he is, was, and is, and shall be always;

and he bestows being upon all, as being God by nature.

Why then do you disbelieve, O man? You disbelieve that God has a Son of his own, and you inquire how God begot? But if you ask the "how" in the case of God, you would surely ask along with it also the "where," as in a place, and the "when," as in time.

But if it is absurd to ask such a thing in the case of God, it would be still more absurd not to believe.

Perhaps you do not yet blush, being in unbelief.

For you seek in order to find, not faith, but unbelief.

This is true according to that which is written:

"Into a soul that devises evil wisdom shall not enter."

But Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God.

The blessed Abraham both has been called, and is, a friend of God.

A friend through faith, a friend through obedience to God;

but you are an enemy through unbelief and disobedience to God.

He believed as he ought, and did not disbelieve as you do.

On this account he is a friend, but you are enemies.

The enemies of the Lord have lied to him, according to that which is written;

in that they say the Son of God by nature was made a son by adoption and by grace, and the Creator a creature, and the Maker a thing made, and him who ever is in the Father once was not, and, calling the Son who is from the existent God, they say he came to be out of nothing.

And not only do they lie against God and the Son, fighting against God and against Christ, but they also do not cease fighting against the Spirit, being unwilling to confess the Spirit of God as Lord, opposing the divine Scriptures with a stiff neck and an uncircumcised heart.

But why do you oppose this good faith and this saving confession —

Father, Son, and Spirit? The Son is not a stranger, nor is the Spirit alien to God and the Son; they are not divided by places, not taken up in successions of ages, not measured by intervals.

The Son was never lacking to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son;

but the same Trinity is ever unchangeable and unalterable.

The Son is not the Father, but the Father is the begetter of the Son, as mind is father of word, as power of the powerful, as the wise one who has begotten wisdom, as the subsistence of its own proper character.

And the Son is ever Son, being ever the form of God, the Son being the natural image of God.

But the Spirit too has been called the image of the Son, and the finger of God, and the Spirit of God, and an utterance and a Spirit of the mouth, and a good spirit, and an upright, and a guiding, and a Spirit of power; and the Spirit of God has been called Lord and God, just as also the Word.

For if, together with God and the Word, the Spirit establishes the powers of the heavens, how is it alien? — the Spirit, of which those who have received it are the temple of God, which is also called the spirit of the mouth of God, and is shown to be a cause of creation together with the Word, that which works all things as God, as it wills, as the Apostle says; the Spirit of adoption, the cause of liberty, that which blows divinity where it wills, which the Lord of all also plainly names the Spirit of truth;

the Spirit which descended upon him from heaven in the form of a dove, which sanctified the Lord's flesh together with the power, which fills the world, which is present to all as God, and is ever inseparably with God;

that which knows all the things of God, as the spirit that is in us knows our own things — I mean the human spirit that is in us.

And the things of God none has known, save the Spirit of God.

No one knows who the Son is, save the Father; neither does any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son wills to reveal him.

This is like that, and that is of equal power with this.

"For to us," it says, "God has revealed it through his Spirit."

See therefore how at one time the Father reveals the Son, at another the Son the Father, and at another the Spirit reveals the Son and the Father likewise.

So that the whole Godhead is plain to you, the appellation coming to be at one time in the Father, at another in the Son and the Spirit.

And the Apostle clearly resolves the prophetic question for you, and does not allow you to suppose the Godhead to be one person, on account of the utterances supposed to indicate this.

Since he himself too, though everywhere clearly proclaiming the person of the Son as creative, nevertheless referred the whole creation up to the person of the Father.

For is it not he who says:

"There is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him;"

"and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him"? And having here likewise plainly said "the one" and "the one," and having testified that all things come to be through the Son, he said "one" to the Romans, and added that all things come to be "through him," not only "of him."

So that the dyad declared in a dyad, or even the triad in a triad, in the same Apostle will likewise plainly bear witness, together with the prophets, that they do not do away with the dyad;

rather, proclaiming the Trinity as a unity, but knowing the oneness of the Godhead, they proclaim the three in one person.

And from the beginning, at the making of the world, God is plainly conversing with the Son and the Spirit, as Moses set him forth conversing in a more human fashion:

"Let us make man according to our image and likeness."

For to whom does he say "Let us make," if not to the Word and only-begotten Son, through whom all things came to be, according to the evangelist, and to the Spirit, concerning whom it is written, "The divine Spirit that made me"? And even if he does not say expressly concerning whom, or to whom, he is speaking, nevertheless that he is not speaking concerning himself alone is plain, when he says:

"Behold, Adam has become as one of us;"

"Come, let us go down and confound their tongues" — so that you may understand them as being numbered together.

For no one would dare to rank the angels in equal honour with the Creator and Master; nor again is it possible to conceive one person in God, on account of the saying:

and, "Come, let us go down and confound."

And plain too is what is said concerning the overthrow of Sodom:

namely, "The Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;"

and that which is said in the prophets, similarly to these, from the person of God:

"I overthrew them," it says, "as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah."

And in another way, showing his loving-kindness, God says:

"I will save them by the Lord their God;"

which is not unlike the apostolic expression that says:

"The Lord grant to him that he may find mercy from the Lord in that day."

And what of Zerubbabel and the wisdom of Zerubbabel? Does he seem to you to set forth, in a slight and unclear manner, the subsistence and life of the Truth, when he says:

"All the earth calls upon the truth, and the heaven blesses it, and all the works shake and tremble"? But what is the Truth, save the Word and Son of God, through whom are all things? "For I am," he says, "the way, and the truth, and the life."

And there is no Truth, save that which was begotten naturally and eternally from the True One, from himself.

Blessed be the God of truth, who is the Father of the truth of Christ.

Christ is the Truth, whom every breath reveres and trembles before.

So that, that the Word is living, and a perfect person, and the Spirit likewise, what has now been said is sufficient to teach;

but there are also many other human figures used of God, and we do not on this account suppose God to be a man — as, for instance, if we should hear of a face, and eyes, and ears, and hands, and feet.

Nor does he wish to say, concerning God, that the sitting in heaven as on a throne, and the earth being trodden bodily as a footstool of his feet, are bodily; but as being subject to the divine authority.

And likewise again, if you should hear of a womb in the case of God, do not be alarmed as though conceiving something bodily;