Dialogues on the Holy Trinity 1 part 21/23

for some, having plunged into unbridled audacity and now employing, as it were, naked shamelessness, say that the Spirit of God is created and made.

Others again, refining, as it were, the coarseness of this blasphemy, blush, quite fittingly, at this opinion, but, shaping their argument about it toward a more sophisticated deception, say that he is not God, yet, ignorantly bringing him down from the highest essence, believe that he is of one kind with it, and carve out for him a certain distinct, intermediate nature, which neither attains to the highest rank, and yet has been allotted and has received as its portion to be raised far above the measure of creation.

{B.} And what, then, could such a nature be, which is neither God nor yet creation? For I think there is absolutely nothing intermediate.

For there is one absolute distinction that separates, in nature, God from creation, and among the things believed to exist, one could discern nothing else except these two alone.

Or do you yourself think that something beyond these ought to be admitted? {A.} Not at all, my friend --

for the divinely inspired Scripture says that all things were made through the Son:

so that, if anything among all beings should by nature be set apart from this, it would also escape the lowliness that belongs to having been made, and would, by the superiority of its own nature, be recognized as being God;

and the converse, I suppose, would likewise not depart from the truth for us.

For if something is not God by nature, it will certainly, without exception, be among the things made.

Let them, therefore, either raise the divine and Holy Spirit on high and confess him to be essentially unconnected with creation, or, dragging him down from the highest and supreme thrones, let them reckon him among the things made.

For no place or rational category of another nature has slipped in between for us, one that would deny kinship with both.

How is it not utterly stale for him to hold an opinion on this matter, seeing that very many things known to us, even though they belong among creatures, possess in themselves a uniformity of kind? For there is one sun, and one moon;

and there is no other earth besides the one that exists;

and again, the nature of all water is one, preserving its uniformity of kind, even if it should seem, in its qualities, to differ.

It is, then, a charge of ignorance and of a childish mind, for some to imagine that they gild the Holy Spirit and crown him with the lower reputations belonging to a lesser rank by such frigid sophistries, and to dare to enclose him within the measures of creation -- as though he were not separated from it, and set above it, by an incomparable superiority, just as, indeed, are also the Father and the Son -- but were violently and impiously forced into a crouching and sinking nature that finds for itself no place at all among the things that exist.

Where has the Holy Spirit been named God? {A.} But tell me, where has he been said to be of the same kind as the things made, when he is arrayed with and numbered together with the Father and the Son, and shown together with them for the confession of the one Godhead that is above all things? Or has not the Savior commanded the holy apostles to teach this very mystery? For, he says, 'Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.' Indeed, the blessed Paul also asked some of those who had believed:

'Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?' And when they denied this, and had openly declared:

'We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit,' he rebuked them, saying:

'Into what then were you baptized?' -- knowing that faith could not come to be aright, nor could it ever be in proper condition, unless the confession it brings forth were made in full regard to God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Thus did those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and became servants of the Word hand it down;

thus have the Fathers instructed us, and it befits the wise to know what is written:

'Do not remove the ancient boundaries which your fathers set.' There is, then, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, according to the Scriptures.

For we have been baptized into one Godhead and one Lordship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- not as into a plurality of gods, nor indeed as those who serve creation -- lest that which the true proverb speaks of should happen to us: 'A dog that returns to its own vomit,' and, 'A sow that, having washed, wallows in the mire.' For we, who have been set apart from serving creation instead of the Creator, and who, through faith clearly directed toward the one who is by nature and truly God, make it our boast and our hope of salvation to have laid aside the ancient and profane error -- if we do not confess that the Spirit belongs, in essence, fittingly among the thrones of the true Godhead, then where, pray, and from whence do we go? Be well assured, I am utterly at a loss to conceive it, and I am unable to say --

or rather, it would become clear, and very easily indeed.

For we seem to have fallen off the high road, and to have wandered no less than before; and Paul, it seems, has deceived us, speaking as follows:

'But then, not knowing God, you were enslaved to those who by nature are not gods;

but now that you have come to know God—or rather, to be known by God—how is it that you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you wish to be enslaved once more? For how at all could we have come to know the true God in his very essence, unless his Spirit is confessed as God together with God the Father?' {B} Yes, he says, we have come to know God as the Father and the Son, but not indeed the Spirit as well.

{A} But we shall not make use of teachers who have corrupted their own mind, nor shall we give heed to spirits of error, according to the Scriptures;

but rather we shall believe that his Spirit is in God and exists in him essentially, just as the human spirit is in a human being;

and just as, if someone should happen to name to us either Peter or John, he would surely thereby also signify their own spirit within them, and would be making a designation of the whole living being;

in the same manner, I think, in the case of the Father and the Son.

For the Spirit is co-signified with each of them, and not as being a part of him, just as we also understand in the case of human beings.

{B} From what, then, he says, or how could the Spirit too be understood to be God? {A} From that which it is by nature, noble friend, and from that by which whatever it truly is according to nature is, as far as possible, made known.

For things that exist are rightly known from that by which each truly is;

and we need not make so very much of names for the necessary designation of what is known without error, even though the name proper to each thing is useful for the things that exist.

{B} The statement is obscure, and I do not understand it very well.

For I shall make quite clear, as far as I can, what is meant:

If someone should speak of a rational, mortal living being, capable of receiving mind and knowledge, what would you grant that he has thereby defined, good friend? {B} A human being, obviously.

{A} And if he should speak of a living being, adding that it is capable of neighing? {B} I would say, a horse.

{A} Then, though he kept silent about the name of each thing defined, how could you yourself say 'human being' and 'horse'? {B} Because, my friend, he defined the nature of a human being and of a horse.

{A} But if someone were to rebuke you for having distinguished things thus, and were to say that the rational living being is not a human being, nor is the one capable of neighing a horse, since the names had not been added to the definitions—would we not be right to judge that so ignorant a person ought to be called superfluous, out of his mind, and feeble-minded? {B} Certainly.

{A} But if someone should ask you why you do this, and should think it worth learning, what would you answer? {B} I would say that to find fault with what has been most correctly and skillfully defined is ignorance.

For the definition proper to each existing thing truly demonstrates what it is;

but names are often used equivocally.

{A} Is it not, then, a truer and unerring designation of existing things, when each is precisely examined by what it is by nature, rather than always by names?

For shall we not attribute incorruptibility and indestructibility, eternity and unchangeableness, to that nature which is queen over all things? {B} How could we not? {A} And what, tell me, is 'God'? {B} That very nature, fittingly so called.

{A} But incorruptibility and indestructibility are properties belonging to that nature itself;

whereas the name 'God' is common also to angels, and common to us ourselves, even though in our case it is adoptive and given by grace.

Likewise, rationality is inherent in a human being;

but the name 'human being' also belongs to things made of stone, or indeed of some other material, when they have been very skillfully carved into a shape like our own.

Come, then, let us consider whether the Spirit is God and in God, and from him by nature, inasmuch as it is essentially adorned with the properties of deity—or whether, as our opponents would have it, their denial is true and would furnish a sufficient reason why the Spirit must be excluded from consubstantiality with God, on the ground that it has not been named 'God'.

And yet in this matter too we shall refute without a struggle those who have chosen to tell false tales, employing arguments not drawn from outside contests, but taken from the sacred Scriptures, thereby freeing our own mind, as it were, from the bleary film of their stale babbling.

{A} Most clearly and quite rightly said, O Hermias;

for I think this belongs to the better and more precise portion of understanding.

Nevertheless, it is possible for those who wish to inquire further, over against our opponents, to see the Spirit also expressly called God.

For the divinely inspired and most holy Peter exposed Ananias as having stolen from the sacred offerings, and rebuked him sharply, saying, 'Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart, that you should lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land? While it remained, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your power? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God.' {B} Yes;

{A} In what way, my good man, if the Spirit is not God? {B} Because, he says, even if someone should choose to show reverence toward the saints, he shows reverence toward God.

And indeed, Christ said openly to the holy disciples:

'He who receives you receives me.' And surely we do not say, following right and necessary reasoning, that the disciples are gods by nature, even though, by receiving the saints, one is thereby receiving the Son.

By analogy, then, in like manner, perhaps, he who sins against the Spirit sins against God who sent it.

{A} But wherever the things named—those now under discussion—being naturally marked by equal and unvarying properties, necessarily bear toward one another the principle of consubstantiality, there the manner of referring honor to a superior is altogether superfluous;

rather, according to their identity in essence, both would be in both;

the one is as the other, and the other in turn as the one;

but when a natural inequality sets certain things apart so that they exist otherwise, I myself would not say that the principle of referring honor to what is superior is implausible or unfitting.

If, then, the Spirit is not consubstantial with God, then he who sins against it will not have sinned against God.

Let him seek, if he can, an actual reference of the offense to him who sent it.

But if reasoning must, even against their will, compel them all to honor the Spirit with consubstantiality toward God, then let them now finally blush at their own contrivances, since they reckon it as equal to things not consubstantial with God, even while thereby positing its consubstantiality.

For to act in some way toward the saints would surely not stand on equal footing with acting toward the Holy Spirit.

But if the discussion should concern a human being, we would reasonably direct the reference to God who stands over him;

but when the Holy Spirit comes into our midst, whatever is done will be directed wholly to that very divine and ineffable nature itself, not running through a mediator to something set above it, but rather leaping up directly and without mediation to that very highest and supramundane beauty.

Therefore, on account of the identity of essence, the appellation 'Spirit,' although expressed by us third only in the order of names, is fitted to God the Father, and is likewise fitted to the Son.

For Christ said, when instructing very well the woman of Samaria:

'God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.' And Paul also writes:

'But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.' And again, 'Now the Lord is the Spirit.' {B} Is the Spirit, then, consubstantial with the Father and the Son? {A} Yes, if indeed the saints grow rich in participation in God in no other way than by receiving the Spirit.

For according to the Scriptures we are made partakers of the divine nature—are we then bound to a created and generate nature, or rather do we truly, as far as possible, partake of deity, and are thus called offspring of God? {B} If it is not possible to partake of fire apart from fire, how could anyone partake of deity apart from God? {A} Now then, that which is in us as God and fulfills the order and activity of God—could it possibly not be God? {B} In what way do you mean? {A} Consider, then, God speaking to those of old, in more ancient times:

'By this we know that he abides in us, from the Spirit whom he has given us.' For tell me, in what way was God present among the men of old, when the Spirit rested upon them? Or how could he likewise come to be in us ourselves, who possess the Spirit? For surely the Spirit, if it were of a different nature from God, could not accomplish in us the presence of the God who is God by nature.

{A} The Spirit, then, is God, and is from God by nature;

or, if they suppose in themselves that this is not so, then the word of the most wise Paul will truly be shown to be a rash rhapsody and a deception, since he wrote as follows to those who have received the Spirit and prophesy through it:

'he is convicted by all, he is judged by all; the secrets of his heart become manifest;

and so, falling on his face, he will worship God, declaring that God is truly among you.' And indeed also to the lovers of tongues he says, 'So then, he who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God.'

'For no one understands him, but in the Spirit he speaks mysteries.' For how at all could God be understood to dwell in those who prophesy through the Spirit? And in what way does one who speaks to God 'speak mysteries in the Spirit,' if his Spirit is alien to natural identity with God? {B} How right and just you speak!

{A} And in addition to these things, I would say that a very great multitude of arguments, by no means lacking in sense, stands ready to surround us, vigorously carrying us away from blasphemy against the Spirit, and setting us upon the paths of truth.

{B} What do you mean? {A} Do we not say that man has been fashioned according to the image of God

upon the earth? {B} How could it not be so? {A} And is it not the Spirit that engraves the divine image in us, and impresses upon us that supramundane beauty, as with the mark of a seal? {B} But not as God, he says, but as the minister of divine grace.

{A} Then it is not the Spirit itself, but rather the grace given through it, that is impressed upon us.

{A} It would then have been necessary for man to be called an image of grace, and not rather an image of God.

For the argument, I think, is wise and simple.

But since he had been brought into being, he was being formed toward the likeness of God, when the breath of life was breathed into him.

But having sold off his sanctification through a turning aside into baseness, he was again brought back to that original and most ancient beauty, Christ renewing what had grown old into that divine and intelligible form, and in no other way than that which had been at the beginning;

for he breathed upon the holy apostles, saying:

'Receive the Holy Spirit.' Is it not true that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation? {B} Yes.

{A} Is it not, then, true to say—or rather, is it not now necessary to understand—that if the growing old and the process of corruption caused the selling off of the image in sanctification to be a sickness, then must we not grant that, through a return to the original state, and through renewal accomplished by Christ, there is a recovery of the likeness to God? {B} Certainly.

'Receive grace through the ministry of the Holy Spirit'? But rather, in that account it was named 'the breath of life';

for the nature of the Godhead is true life, if indeed it is true that 'in it we live and move and have our being;'

But through the Savior's utterance, 'Holy Spirit,' it is truly he himself who dwells in the souls of those who believe and instills the Spirit, and through it and in it reshapes them into the form that was theirs in the beginning -- that is, into himself, or rather into conformity with his own likeness through sanctification -- thus restoring us to the archetype of the image, that is, to the character of the Father.

For the true character, understood as the very limit of exactness in likeness, is the Son himself;

and the pure and natural likeness of the Son is the Spirit, being conformed to which through sanctification, we are given the very form of God.

And an apostolic word will persuade us of this.

'My little children,' he said, 'for whom I am again in labor until Christ be formed in you.' And he is formed through the Spirit, who through himself remolds us into conformity with God.

When, therefore, we are conformed to Christ, and he himself is imprinted and rightly formed within us, as through the Spirit who is naturally like him, then the Spirit is God, transforming us into the likeness of God not as by a ministering grace, but as bestowing on the worthy, in himself, participation in the divine nature.

And that the Spirit is the true likeness of the Son, you shall hear from what the blessed Paul has written:

'Those whom he foreknew he also called to be conformed to the image of his Son.' For we are refashioned into an image conformed to the Holy Spirit, that is, to God, through faith and sanctification, and through relation to him -- a relation, clearly, that is by participation and admission into a special class, even though we have been named partakers of the divine nature.

{B.} I could find nothing to object to in what has been said.

{A.} And we have been called, and are, temples of God, and indeed gods as well -- on what account, pray? Ask those on the opposing side whether we are truly partakers of a bare and unsubstantial grace. But surely that is not the case at all.

For we are temples of the Spirit who truly is and truly subsists;

and because of this we have also been called gods, inasmuch as we have come to share in the divine and ineffable nature through union with it.

But if the Spirit that deifies us through itself is truly of an alien kind, essentially removed from the divine nature, then we have failed of our hope, adorned -- I know not how -- with boasts that come to nothing.

For how, according to the Scriptures, could we still be gods and temples of God because of the Spirit within us? For that which is itself deprived of being God -- how could it implant that reality in others? And yet we are, in truth, temples and gods.

But we must pay no heed at all to those who have gone astray.

His Spirit, therefore, is not of a different essence from God.

{B.} But if it is not of a different essence, as you say, why then, they ask, is it not itself either the Father or the Son? {A.} Do they then suppose that the Holy Spirit will reasonably fall away from the supreme nature that is above all things, simply because it is neither Father nor Son? {B.} That is more or less what they hold.

{A.} And indeed, in devising this too -- a most senseless and most impious notion -- they would be caught out, to the ruin of the more simple-minded, if one were to look closely with the reasoning of orthodoxy.

For it is not by being Father that the Father is God;

nor again is the Son God by being Son.

For tell me: would it not follow, altogether and in every way, that if 'that which begets' and 'that which is begotten' were themselves the natural Godhead, then anything whatsoever that has begotten, or has been begotten, would also, of necessity, be truly God? But such a statement is admittedly reckless.

For the Father is not God because he has begotten, nor again is the Son God because he has been begotten;

rather, the Father, being God, has begotten, and the Son, existing as God, is begotten.

There is, then, nothing any longer to prevent or exclude our believing that the Holy Spirit, being from the divine nature and naturally within it, is its own -- even though it be neither Father nor Son. But it is necessary that we inquire carefully what the nature of the Spirit is, setting aside for the present the distinctive character of the names, which is not indicative of the Godhead itself, but signifies very precisely, for each of those so named, what manner of existence we are to conceive.

For the name 'Father' indicates that he has begotten, and 'Son' makes clear that he has been begotten.

And indeed, that the Spirit is from God the Father, and also belongs properly to the Son himself -- in the manner of our own human spirit, even though it is to be conceived as truly subsisting in its own hypostasis -- this the very name 'Spirit' has made known.

{B.} What sort of nature, then, is the nature of the Spirit? {A.} It is the very nature that would also be conceived as that of the Father and of the Son;

and it is, admittedly, ineffable, and the true conception of the Godhead rises far above the measure of our own mind and reason.

Yet for those who are accustomed to see, even if only 'through a glass, darkly,' and who know 'in part,' faint rays of the vision of God nonetheless rise, flashing about the very ether of the mind, and carrying them onward to such knowledge as is attainable.

The nature that is beyond all things is, then, simple and uncompounded, yet it is broadened out by the properties of the hypostases and by the distinctions of persons and names, advancing into the holy Trinity -- save that, by natural unity and by an identity that admits no variation in any respect whatsoever, it converges into one single thing, both name and reality: 'God' -- so that in each hypostasis the whole nature is conceived, together with its own individual property, which is, evidently, that which pertains to the hypostasis.

For each one remains what it is, while, through natural union with the others, it also possesses them in its own nature.

For the Father is in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, and likewise the Son and the Spirit are in the Father and in one another.

...clearly and precisely uniting his Spirit to God, and openly teaching that our participation in God could not come about in any other way except through the Holy Spirit.

And indeed our Lord Jesus Christ, speaking, I think, of every faithful and good person, says, 'We will come, I and the Father, and will make our dwelling with him'; and again, 'By this we know that he abides in us, from the Spirit whom he has given us.' For one who receives the Spirit -- not as something alien and essentially cut off from him, but as that which is from him and in him and his own, and bearing an equal lordship as pertaining to him -- such a one would be enriched with God who is, by nature and in truth, indwelling and dwelling within; and thus the Spirit is so named, and is received in the rank of the Son on account of natural identity.

For there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things;

and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things. But since, according to the Scriptures, there is one Lord, 'the Lord is the Spirit.' Or is what I say not true? {B.} It is.

{A.} And it is said that, while the blessed Samson still had his hair uncut, the Spirit was present with him and contended with him in his struggles.

But when he gave himself over to pleasures for the sake of a woman, and his head was shaved bare with iron, it is said, 'the Lord departed from him.'

And when he was about to ascend into heaven, Christ addressed those who believe in him:

'I am coming to you.' And indeed also, 'Behold, I am with you all the days, until the consummation of the age.' And he sent us from heaven the Paraclete, through whom and in whom he is with us and dwells within us, pouring into us not something alien, but the Spirit that is his own and the Father's own, belonging to their very essence.

For I too will recall the divine and sacred Scripture, which speaks somewhere of the holy apostles thus: 'They attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.' {A.} What then? Does not Scripture also say that the very words of God are of the Spirit? For the divine Isaiah, recounting to us that extraordinary and most awe-inspiring vision of God, says, 'I saw the Lord of Sabaoth sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.' And having related what comes between, he says, 'I heard the Lord of Sabaoth saying:'

'Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people?' And I said:

'Go, and say to this people:'

'You will indeed hear, but never understand; and seeing you will see, but never perceive.' Now the divine John says of the Only-Begotten, 'Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory, and spoke of him.' And Stephen, that most wise man, said, addressing the Jews:

'You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit.' Is it not, then, already quite evident how, by a particular otherness according to hypostasis, we very clearly distinguish what is the Father, what is the Son, and what indeed is the Spirit? Yet by a coming-together into natural unity, all things belong to all: presence, words, participation, activity and glory, and all that adorns the divine nature --

but this too has very nearly escaped me.

{B.} What is that? {A.} For, my friend, you will hear the holy prophets crying out:

'Thus says the Lord.' And when those of our own time, who have themselves become eyewitnesses and servants of the word, initiate us into the mysteries, they say:

'Thus says the Holy Spirit.' And again it is written:

'While they were fasting and ministering to the Lord, the Holy Spirit said:'

'Set apart for me Barnabas and Paul for the work to which I have called them.' But if the Spirit is inferior in relation to God, and falls short of his essence, having suffered an alien otherness and truly being of a different nature, then would not the ministry of the evangelical and apostolic service now be counted among the better things than the ministry of the more ancient saints -- since the latter proclaimed the words that came from the Lord and God, while the former proclaimed the words of the Spirit? {B.} It would run that risk.

{A.} And yet why is it that Paul, in his writing, called that former ministry one of condemnation and death, but this present one a ministry of life and righteousness?

'the ministry of condemnation had glory, much more shall the ministry of righteousness abound in glory.' And concerning himself and the other apostles...

'for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.' Is it not, then, evident to everyone, and quite without effort, from this very passage, that the words which came from above and from God condemned the men of old and brought them down to the very depths of evils, whereas it is the words of the Spirit that now justify and give life? Or do you not yet perceive where our argument is at last carrying us? {B.} Yes indeed --

for indeed there is great fear that we might come to hold some opinion about the Spirit that is even better than what we hold about God the Father and the Son;

but if you think it good, my friend, let these matters stand thus, and let them be said to have been well spoken.

But since we say that the Spirit is God, and by nature from God, let us go on to investigate carefully whether one might see it as distinguished by the properties of the Godhead not by relation to God, but as in its own nature.

{A.} For you will not, my dear friend, establish from the outset that the Spirit is adorned merely by a relation to God, such as would apply even to us; rather, it possesses in its own nature, in abundance, the beauty of true Godhead -- just as, of course, does the Son as well, who said to the Father, 'All that is mine is yours, and yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them.' For that which is honored by a relation not according to nature altogether takes up residence in a glory that is alien to it.

And since a thing could never partake of itself, but rather is affected by a relation to something other, it is entirely necessary to say that whatever partakes is of a different nature from that which is partaken of.