Dialogues on the Holy Trinity 1 part 22/23

{A.} Tell me, then, who could ever cast the Holy Spirit, which is in and from the essence of God the Father, outside of that essence? Would not the height of all recklessness be reached, if one merely conceived such a thing in his mind? For I myself would suppose that only those who have slipped from right reasoning and the best judgment could think in such a way.

But come, let us speak of the things of God and of the Spirit.

This too you yourself will agree is wise and necessary.

{A.} Tell me, then, what we should understand by the glory of God, and what by the power of his natural activity. {B.} I say that the glory of God consists in rising above the nature and measure of everything created, and in existing in a manner that is not created;

and by his natural activity, the ability to create out of things that are not, and to call the things that are not as though they were, to sustain in good order the things that exist so that they continue to be, to give life, to sanctify, and to instill wisdom, most fittingly, in those capable of receiving it.

{A.} We must, then, if you agree, put to the test the argument concerning the Holy Spirit.

For those who hold cold and puerile opinions about him could learn, in no other way than this, that he is by no means among lesser things, but rather among those in which the Son too exists -- the Son who is in the form and equality of God the Father;

and it could, in every way, be demonstrated to us that he is, rather, essentially of equal weight with him and of equal power in his activity.

{B.} Come then, proceed to this nobly, trusting in God who says:

'Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it.' {A.} Well then (for I will ask), would the power to deify those who are not gods by nature be fitting for a created and made nature? {B.} I myself would not say so.

For surely that which is lesser could never raise anything up to that which so far surpasses it.

And beyond this, to consider that point as well would belong to your most excellent mind.

For if participation in a creature knows how to deify what is created, how would not the converse also be true? For then truly to partake of him who is God by nature would harm rather than benefit.

But creation could never be conceived as deifying; rather this power belongs to God alone, who instills into the souls of the saints, through the Spirit, participation in his own distinctive property, through whom, having become conformed to the Son who is Son by nature, we are called both gods, after him, and sons of God.

For that we are sons, as it is written, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out:

'Abba, Father.' If, then, to be able through oneself to deify is something greater and better than belongs to the nature of a creature, who — if he has a mind not corrupted — will number the Holy Spirit among the things that have come to be, or how could that which makes gods be called something created? {B.} I do not see how.

...this attribute would attach, O Hermias — and quite reasonably so — to a created and made nature, but would certainly stand at a great distance from God.

For true indeed is what is sung to God, that 'all things are your servants.' {A.} That, then, which knows how to strip servitude from what is servile, and to dignify it with the glories of freedom, and is able to do this of itself, will have already departed beforehand from the measure befitting a servant, and will belong to the highest and free nature.

For thus it would become active toward others as well, imparting a good that is its own and essentially inherent in it — namely, freedom.

{B.} I would agree that you speak rightly.

{A.} Let the blessed Paul, then, cry out:

'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 from the Lord, the Spirit.'

'Now the Lord is the Spirit;'

'and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.' And indeed, elsewhere too:

'For you did not receive a spirit of servitude again unto fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption,' he says, 'in whom we cry, Abba, Father.' And freedom would surely altogether accompany the glory of sonship.

And indeed, our Lord Jesus Christ, since he resolved to honor the holy apostles with dignities above nature, inasmuch as they were soon to become partakers of the holy and free Spirit, already called them both friends and free.

'For I no longer,' he said, 'call you servants;'

'you are my friends.' Since, then, the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there freedom must be sought, it must therefore have sprung from a free nature; and that through whom and in whom creation gains the glory of freedom, thrusting away and escaping the shame of servitude, could not be conceived as being ranked with creation and numbered among the things that have come into being.

{B.} But, I suppose, they would say that the Spirit, performing a ministering service, conveys to the saints the things that come from God.

{A.} They will then reckon, as is reasonable, that freedom — that great dignity above creation — is one of the things ministered through him;

for whatever has been brought forth into being is a servant.

{A.} That very thing which serves, then, is not free by nature, if indeed it serves nothing for itself, but rather conveys to certain persons the grace that comes from another;

or is it not necessary that what serves and mediates be understood as not being itself the very thing that is ministered? {B.} It is necessary.

{A.} How then is the Lord the Spirit, if, deprived of free glory, it has surely by no means escaped the measure of servitude and the yoke? And if he exists in the natural glory of Godhead, he no longer serves — far from it — but rather distributes freedom to us also as an innate good.

But if he has truly slipped from being God by nature, he will indeed be enrolled among servants and ministers;

and he will minister what belongs to another, and will convey to the worthy that which is greater than himself.

For, I suppose, he will yield the victory to those things which are from God.

We ourselves, then, would henceforth already be better than the Holy Spirit, being gilded with a glory surpassing his.

Or do I not seem to you to state these things most excellently, even if these arguments should strike us with the greatest astonishment? {B.} Very much so.

{A.} But let us also proceed, tracking the truth through other considerations.

When the kings of the earth choose certain suitable persons — namely, those of their own blood and family — to adorn with their own honor, and to crown with royal renown, in what manner would they do this most excellently and most fittingly? {B.} By exalting them, surely, with the very highest honors.

{A.} That royal honor and glory, then, crowned with which one would surpass both himself and others — would you reckon it greater and superior to the one honored, or perhaps equal, or even lesser? {B.} Greater and superior, clearly;

for thus it truly makes the one honored resplendent.

For surely that which falls short of someone's glory and comes behind it, if it should somehow accrue to him, would not render him more splendid, but would rather bring him down to something more shameful.

For this is how the matter stands, and you think rightly.

...the Holy [Spirit], but rather serves in a ministerial capacity the grace belonging to another — how then has Christ been anointed unto kingship, the Spirit being received as the anointing? For, it says, 'Jesus of Nazareth, God anointed with the Holy Spirit.' And thus the wise John also writes to us:

'And as for you, the anointing which you received from him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you, but as his anointing teaches you concerning all things.' It is also possible to inquire of Christ himself, through the voice of the Psalmist, who cries out somewhat as follows, interpreting the glory that comes from being anointed:

'But I have been established king by him.' Tell me, does a servile spirit make one a master? Does royal dignity have as its own nature that which, according to them, is not free? Away with such ill counsel!

For I can scarcely bear it any longer, having encountered, as it were, the vomit of our opponents' arguments.

For it was necessary, indeed necessary, that those who think rightly should perceive the free and royal dignity of the Spirit, even from this.

For concerning those who are justified by faith, the great Paul said to us:

'Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies;'

'who is the one who condemns?' Having attributed to the divine nature alone, which is above all things, the power to justify certain persons and to make them elect, he ascribes this very matter to the nature and glory of the Spirit.

'And we were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest;'

'but you were washed,' he says, 'but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.' {B.} Does the Spirit, then, justify sinners as God does? {A.} Most certainly, my friend.

For it would befit God alone to be able to release from transgressions and the record of debt those who are held fast, and no other of existing things could do this.

That the Spirit is God and from God according to nature has already been demonstrated by us through lengthy discourses, and it will be demonstrated again hereafter, if I may not seem tiresome in this at least.

For that which looks toward benefit could in no way take on the appearance of causing grief, at least among the more reasonable.

{A.} Godless, therefore, and deprived of a hope befitting holiness, do those remain in the world, according to the Scriptures, who have worshiped the creature rather than the Creator and Maker.

{A.} But now, having known God, and being known by God, we have come to know the Father and God of all, through the Son, in the Spirit.

And our Savior himself is witness, speaking concerning himself:

'My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life;'

'and I know my own, and my own know me.' But concerning the Spirit, he says to the holy disciples:

'But when the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness concerning me.' Is he not then clearly God, the one known as God and dwelling in us, not as a creature and thing made and held fast by the servitude that binds us, but as the Spirit who is free by nature and belongs to the very truth itself — or rather is truth itself by union with the Son?

For the Spirit is the truth, according to the Scriptures, and the truth is Christ.

{B.} Is, then, the natural identity with the Son — namely, that the Spirit is God — sufficient for us as proof and full assurance? {A.} Yes, since, the Father being one God, the Son is God, and the Son being one Lord, the Father is Lord.

For since the Holy Spirit thus flows together with, and exists and is conceived in, both the Father and the Son, the mind of those who believe will proceed straight toward the truth, and will surely not fail to attain right understanding.

For the divinely-inspired Isaiah, concerning those of the blood of Israel, says:

'The Spirit came down from the Lord,' he says, 'and guided them;'

'thus you led your people to make for yourself a name of glory.' And the great Moses, knowing the Spirit to be Lord and God, speaks somewhat as follows:

'The Lord alone led them, and there was no foreign god with them.' And he addressed those of Israel in song, saying:

'Remember, do not forget, how much you provoked the Lord your God in the wilderness.' And again, indicating who this Lord and God was that was provoked, the prophet says:

'not an ambassador nor an angel, but the Lord himself saved them, because he loved them and spared them.'

'He himself redeemed them, and took them up, and exalted them all the days of old; but they disobeyed, and provoked his Holy Spirit, and he turned to become their enemy.' Does he not, then, clearly in these very words call the Holy Spirit — who came down and guided those who had been redeemed — Lord and God, and not something foreign? How then could that which is neither essentially separated from him nor foreign to him, but is his own, be of a different nature from God? Tell me, when some provoke the Spirit, in what manner do they anger God? Or how could God hold hostile thoughts toward those against whom the Spirit seems to be set in opposition? {B.} You yourself might explain;

for it belongs to you, as it were, to say this too.

{A.} I would say, then, that the Spirit is God by union with God, and that the Spirit is Lord by natural identity with the Lord;

and this would immediately become most manifest, if one should choose to proceed also through other considerations.

And indeed, since God is not subject to place and boundaries, quantity and measures (for these things would rather befit created beings;

for he is without quantity, without limit, and without magnitude,

and the Divine is not conceived as occupying a position determined by place, since it is altogether incorporeal) — the Spirit too will be seen to shine forth with the properties distinctive of the divine nature, being believed, together with the Father and the Son, to fill all things and to be in all things.

For God, who is all in all, said somewhere through one of the prophets:

'Do I not fill heaven and earth?' says the Lord. And applying this same reality to the Son, Paul writes to us:

'Where shall I go from your Spirit? And from your presence where shall I flee? If I ascend into heaven, you are there;

if I go down into Hades, you are present.' Therefore, if there is no place where the Spirit is not, and since the Spirit fills all things, and he who fills all things is God — according to what has been well said by someone, that 'the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and that which holds all things together has knowledge of the voice' — how then could it remain hidden and unclear that the Spirit is God by natural union with God? And if he also holds all things together, how could he be created or made, seeing that he encloses within himself, as it were, every form and kind of being — of created being, that is — and clearly shows that which holds them together to be other than all things? But that which is not among all things but outside the totality will naturally be superior to created beings, and transcends the nature of those that are filled and comprehended by it.

And that which is above creation is now God.

Or is what I say not true?' {B.} 'I agree;

yet know that they will again say that the Spirit is created and made.

For somewhere God says — as one of the ancients has declared:

'I am the Lord who establishes thunder and creates wind, and declares to men his anointed one, who makes the dawn and the mist, and treads upon the heights of the earth.' {A.} Now surely, my friend, what has just been brought forward would in no way harm the glory of the Holy Spirit, unless one had a feeble and corrupted mind.

For 'spirit,' named simply and without qualification, would not in every case and altogether signify the Holy and Divine Spirit;

otherwise I would say that their blasphemous argument was not at all implausible;

but it is used equivocally, and applied to very many things which, in respect of nature, are divided into unlikeness to one another.

For an angel is spirit, and indeed also the soul of man, and the worldly and airy movement is spirit.

Then why, having neglected to examine precisely and carefully distinguish, on each occasion, what is meant, have they resolved with stale deceptions to wrong him who is above creation and, by union with the One who is Creator by nature, is himself a fellow-creator? For the prophet — or rather, God through him — did not say that he brought his own into being as 'spirit'; far from it —

for we shall maintain that it is not so;

by decree, being able to secure for themselves and for others the attainment of royal thrones, and to hold a conspicuous rule, and to wield scepters — yet God who is above all fastens all dominion upon himself, showing that the whole creation is governed by his own ordinances and nods, saying: 'I am the Lord who establishes thunder,' while sending forth upon the things in the world the courses of the winds.

'For thus I create the wind,' and, making clear the proclamation of whomever I should choose to be my anointed one — that is, of the one anointed for kingship and allotted to rule —

not without my will, but by my commands, dawn and mist come to pass — that is, night and day, and light and darkness.

Since, then, let them say: what is common between thunder and the Holy Spirit, and what between dawn and mist, in relation to that which is from God and in God?

Is this argument not evident? {B.} 'It seems so.'

For the utter incongruity and incompatibility of the things named will vote against the unseemliness of their opinion.

And yet the sacred Scriptures affirm that God took dust from the earth, and that he honored man, as it were, by his own handiwork wrought with his own hands — if indeed he who says the following speaks truly:

'Your hands have made me and fashioned me.' {B.} 'Indeed, this thing is true.'

'But when you turn away your face, they will be troubled;

you will take away their breath, and they will fail, and return to their dust.

'You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.' {A.} The reshaping, then, and the return of what has been corrupted toward renewal and reformation, would reasonably be — and it seems to me rightly so — a work of the very same nature and activity as that by which what was fashioned ineffably in the beginning also appears to have come into being.

{A.} How then could that through whom and in whom God is active concerning creation, and is seen to be the maker of all things, be itself something generated and created? For it is time for us now, in a way, to say that if they will maintain that the matter stands thus, they will — even unwillingly — confess that the activity of God is created.

And what follows from this? A blasphemy hateful to God, contradictory opinions, and the charges of ignorance carried to its extreme.

For someone, I think, having disregarded the good order befitting wise men, will say: 'My friend, the Divine, properly and primarily, is simple and uncomposite — not conceived of as being composed, as it were, out of a nature and an activity that are naturally other than itself, but as being one single whole together with whatever it is believed to possess essentially.'

Therefore, if it should be said that he has a created and made activity that is properly his own — that is, the Spirit — then he himself would altogether also be created, since his activity is nothing other than himself.

Is this argument not hateful and detestable, and does it not incline greatly and impiously toward asserting that he has been made? {B.} 'By all means indeed.'

{A.} This opinion would also lead them into another absurdity.

{B.} 'What sort of absurdity do you mean?' {A.} God has been named 'Lord of hosts,' and this hymned title is surely altogether true.

'For how could it not be?' {A.} If, then, anything is subordinate to the highest and divine nature, it would not have its own inherent power;

but rather, as it seems to me, power comes upon each of the things empowered as from a fountain, namely God — just as, of course, wisdom also comes, and whatever else he is the giver of.

'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth, all their host.' Tell me, then: that which establishes the heavens, and is the whole power of the things that exist — would it be God rather than creation? {B.} 'I myself say it is God, and quite reasonably so.'

For I would by no means concede to created things that they have no need whatsoever of God, and that they are rather able of themselves to secure and provide the means by which they might be preserved and rightly hold together, even though by nature they are prone to fall into corruption.

{A.} The Spirit, then, establishes the heavens, not by producing in them a participation in some created and made substance, but by bestowing his own power as the very activity of God.

For to hold existing things together rightly, and to make firm, unto continuance, that which by nature is prone to corruption and which suffers of itself a tendency to relapse into nothingness — this would be indicative of the very substance that governs this whole universe.

And indeed the divinely-inspired Paul persuades us that the nature of God, whatever it may be, can be moderately envisioned and understood from his effects, saying:

'For his invisible things are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made — both his eternal power and divinity — so that they are without excuse, because, having known God, they did not glorify him as God, or give thanks, but became futile in their reasonings.' His eternal power and divinity, then, will bring forth the beauty of the divine nature into view, as it were, more clearly manifest.

Or if they will say that it is not so, let them themselves answer, and show us the reason why the maker of all things contrives and grants to created things their being well-disposed, and their being perfectly ordered unto good arrangement, through their partaking of the Holy Spirit.

But indeed, the test concerning this — which would be carried out by us — would show that this is not true;

therefore the contrary will prevail.

{A.} And why do we not say that human nature and its origin was raised up to the perfection most fitting for it only then, when through the Spirit it wove upon itself the divine image? And indeed this is not without evidence, if one were to reflect upon the fall of its nature, and its reformation unto well-being.

{A.} And that all things, through all things, come to be through the Son in the Spirit, and indeed that the Father's activity is manifested in all things — how is it not easy to see this from what has already been said? For it suffices, as proof, that the heavens are established by the Word of the Lord, and that their whole strength is in the Spirit, according to what was well sung of old.

Nevertheless, I shall still bring forward Christ working wonders through the activity of the Spirit;

for it is written that 'Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee'; and I will show him also, somewhere, rightly rebuking the Jews who had babbled unholy things and sharpened their coarse tongue against him;

for they said, 'This man does not cast out demons except by Beelzebul, the prince of demons'; and after other things:

'But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.' Now, the begetting of the Only-Begotten from God the Father must be confessed to be beyond all mind and beyond speech such as ours;

but since he became flesh and tabernacled among us, he displayed the activity of his God-befitting authority even while being man.

Therefore he says, as one who has entered into measures like ours:

'But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.' This is nothing other than saying: 'The God-befitting authority and power has come down also to men, since I, having become like you for your sake, work wonders through the Spirit.'

For, I think, he calls, quite fittingly, 'the kingdom of God' that most God-befitting activity in the Holy Spirit, or perhaps even the Spirit himself, altogether according to that saying spoken to us:

'The kingdom of heaven is within you.' Since, then, the Son — even though he is God — works great deeds in the Spirit, and calls that most mighty and irresistible authority, worked in him and through him, a divine kingdom, how, tell me, could this be said to have been made, and not rather to be, in every way and altogether, among the better things — the things in which the maker of all is thought of by both ourselves and the powers above? For then he has been glorified in a creature, and has gained for himself the glory of being able to do all things.

And yet, why did the Only-Begotten, even though he had become like us, deem it fitting to be believed, on the basis of the excellence of the deeds he performed and through which God worked upon us in the Spirit, to be by nature also of equal working with the One who begot him, and indeed, on this account, also consubstantial with him? For he says: 'If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me;'

'but if I do, even though you do not believe me, believe the works.' Since, then, the divine nature is recognized from the surpassing brilliance of the deeds accomplished, and these were accomplished through the activity of the Spirit, how could that which works together with God, and creates together with him, and gives life together with him, still be a creature in need of life? For is it not true that the very ability to give life would befit only that which is truly life according to nature, that is, God? {B.} 'I agree;'

for it is written concerning him:

'Who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light.' {A.} Since, then, God alone possesses immortality from himself and in his own nature, and is believed to be life, how could the Spirit be life-giving — even though, according to them, he belongs among the things that are given life — unless he has escaped being a creature? But indeed, it is not so;

for the Spirit is life-giving, yet by no means a partaker of, or in need of, life from another;

therefore the things devised against him by those who fight against God are, after all, nothing but deception and false speech.

Having received this opinion, we shall walk on the straight path, freeing our mind from every inclination and bias toward anything unseemly and perverse, and being initiated solely by the sacred Scriptures, and beholding from there the pure glory of the Spirit, we believe that he is God, and of God — not adorned with certain foreign or extraneous goods, but existing by nature as such, being all that God is.

And indeed, we must everywhere attend to the words of the apostles: 'In God we live and move and have our being.' Now concerning God the Father, the most wise Paul says to Timothy:

'I charge you before God, who gives life to all things.' And Christ, instructing the sister of Lazarus in this mystery, said:

'I am,' he says, 'the resurrection and the life.' And concerning the Holy Spirit:

'The flesh profits nothing; it is the Spirit that gives life.' Since, then, God the Father gives life to all things, and the Son is life, and the Spirit is that which gives life, who could cut off and banish from life its own life-giving power, and not thereby make life to be something other than what it is believed to be — or rather, no longer life at all? For that which is by nature deprived of the ability to give life — how could it still be thought of as life? {B.} 'They say the Spirit is life-giving in the sense that he ministers to creatures the life that comes from God, yet is not life itself.'

{A.} But those who are thus afflicted with such spurious corruption of mind could hardly be accepted as lawgivers and definers of things beyond mind and reason, having introduced what merely seems right to themselves as though it were something irrefutable;

rather, they will submit, together with us, to the sacred and divine Scriptures, which clearly proclaim that the life-giving and holy Spirit of the life that is according to nature is not a minister of life from another, but is life itself.

For here again, somewhere, the blessed Paul said:

'But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies, through his Spirit who dwells in you.' The Spirit of life according to nature, then, would surely, in every respect, be nothing other than life itself, according to what is blamelessly correct in reasoning.

For how could that which has as its root and, as it were, its fountain, the pure nature of God — beyond all that is generated — not be life? For that it proceeds from the very essence of God the Father is not without evidence, and it will lie open for those who are truly sound in mind to see easily, from what has been clearly said:

He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you. For the Spirit that has taken up its abode in our hearts, being life-giving, belongs properly to God.

But if we grant that what is proper to God and from him by nature could be deprived of life — supposing it has life only as something imported — how would it not be considered potentially dead? For whatever is capable of undergoing this, one might say, even if it has not yet actually undergone it, is, like everything that seems to have been merely inserted, or is truly adventitious, not free from the suspicion of falling away, but stands in fear of collapse.

For it is not grounded in the laws of nature, nor does that which has been cast upon those who once received it — as though by way of accident, and like a dye applied to the surface — possess an unshakable foundation.

B. It is settled, then, that the Spirit is life — by nature, evidently, and not by participation.