On the Trinity 2-1 part 8/9

But much has already been said about this in connection with many similar problems, indeed in the first book, in the tenth chapter, and in this present book, in the fourteenth chapter.

If, then, eternal life, which concerns the Father and the Son, is knowledge, and the Spirit has also been shown to be both life and the Spirit of God,

then he too exists as the only true God, always conceived together with the Father, as his Spirit.

Therefore in the chapter set forth he taught that one and the same knowledge, and not a different one, follows upon one eternal life.

And the Evangelist too, saying, 'By this we know that God abides in us, from his Spirit which he has given us,' shows that the Spirit is remembered together with the Father and is present together with him.

And that the Son too is never conceived apart from the Holy Spirit is quite evident:

for the Father says to him:

'My Spirit, which is upon you'; and he himself says:

'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.' And Paul too, signifying the common possession of the Godhead and the fact that the Holy Spirit is always spoken together with the sense of Scripture, even if he is never mentioned by name, writes:

'Being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.' At other times, again, he makes mention of the Holy Spirit either alone or together with the Father.

I think it necessary, then, that they should rather speak as the all-wise Moses did:

'If I have found favor in your sight, show me your very self,'

'that I may see you knowingly'; so that at last they might come to know the Trinity that is undivided in nature and in accord.

For, as it seems, they do not yet know with certainty what many prophets and kings desired to see and hear, and did not obtain,

whereas we not only hear, but also see, as he says in Luke.

They are equally in error also concerning what is written in Luke:

'No one knows the Son except the Father;'

'nor does anyone truly know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal him'; and elsewhere:

'Not that anyone has seen God, except him who is from God.' For they suppose that the expression 'no other knows' excludes the divine Spirit from divine knowledge,

not noticing that the utterance 'except him who is from God' does not exclude the Spirit from seeing and knowing the Father, inasmuch as Paul too wrote similarly concerning him:

'The Spirit which is from God'; and the Son having said:

'The Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God;'

'for who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that is in him? So too no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God'; and again:

'because God knows what the mind of the Spirit is.' Now it is not one who does not see God, nor is present with him, that searches God;

and it is not one who does not know him, nor is of the same Godhead, that knows the things of God;

for it is impossible to know the things of God as God himself knows them, and to possess a knowledge equal to his, without being of the same essence and knowledge as he.

But that which knows the things of God, being also present upon the Son, knows also the things of the Son.

'No one knows the Father, or the Son,' then, is said with reference to created beings; nor indeed do they see him as he truly is,

for neither is the capacity for comprehension present equally in all, since not all are equally worthy,

nor, even among those in whom it is present, does it exist equally for each.

For, according to Paul's word:

'To one is given the word of wisdom, to another this or that;'

and according to the Gospel, to whomever more is given, from him more will be required.

'He searches the depths of God' — does this mean as one who is ignorant?

No; rather he added that he knows the things of God. For the servant does not know what his master does. And that 'searching' is not always identical with 'seeking' the sayings themselves make clear.

For when it is prophesied, 'searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating,' this signifies to seek and to learn, similarly to the one who says:

'Search the Scriptures.' But when the Apostle writes concerning God the Father:

'But he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to God's will'; or as it says in the thirtieth psalm:

'For the Lord seeks out truth'; or in the seventh:

'God, who tries the hearts and reins'; or elsewhere:

'He searches the inmost chambers of the belly' — this means not the examining and learning of something, but the encompassing of the heart entirely, such that nothing whatsoever ever thought or conceived within it escapes notice,

which things the knower of hearts knows even without any tracking down.

For if the whole of knowledge were assigned to 'searching,' then God too would, according to their logic, be found to be searching as one ignorant, and this word spoken by him in Zephaniah — which is expressed by way of a metaphor drawn from human affairs — would bring him into disrepute:

'I will search Jerusalem with a lamp.' Such an expression yields a great indication of his power.

The divine Spirit of God, then, searches, not as one who is ignorant, but as the Spirit of God united to him in nature.

Hence the Psalmist, not separating him from the essence and knowledge of God the Father, but rather persuading us that he subsists hypostatically as his wisdom, equally with the Only-begotten, prayed:

'Take not your Holy Spirit from me' — the one, he says, that reveals to me the unseen and hidden things of your wisdom.

And also the most beneficial words of Christ spoken in John:

'When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from my Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness concerning me'; and again:

'But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and remind you of all that I have said to you.' They do not receive these words without distortion, casting their vote against the Holy Spirit.

For instead of understanding 'Paraclete' either as one who is besought as God by creation, or as one who consoles it and instills gladness and peace,

for the words 'consolation' and 'comfort' are synonymous —

as in, 'And he has comforted the lowly of his people'; and the voice speaking on behalf of those deemed worthy of that comfort says:

'Lord, according to the multitude of my sorrows within my heart, your consolations have gladdened my soul'; and again:

'You have put gladness in my heart.' And as Paul prays for the Thessalonians:

'may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, comfort your hearts.' But instead of understanding it thus, they say that he was named 'Paraclete' because he intercedes on behalf of creation,

and they add that he is also sent.

But first of all, the name 'Paraclete' is common to both the Holy Spirit and the Son, just as their nature is also common;

as John has thus written, in the Catholic Epistles:

'These things I write to you, that you may not sin;'

'but if we do sin, we have a Paraclete with God, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins.' Now observe carefully that in calling Jesus Christ 'Paraclete with God,' he assigned authority to the Paraclete, as one who is himself besought,

'for he himself,' it says, 'is the propitiation' — so that in this way he might both show the self-determining authority of the Paraclete, and refer the propitiation back to the one Godhead.

And again in the Gospel, from the Master's own mouth:

'If you love me, keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, that he may remain with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither beholds him, nor knows him;'

'but you know him, for he abides with you, and will be in you.'

'I am coming to you.' In saying 'another Paraclete,' he means not another according to essence, but another according to hypostasis.

Moreover, the Son's foretelling, 'I will send you from my Father the Spirit of truth,' set forth the three hypostases, and showed that the coming of the Holy Spirit took place by one good pleasure and one accord, just as was likewise said before in the chapter, 'The Father has given me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak'; and concerning the Holy Spirit it was said beforehand, 'He will not speak from himself.'

For just as the Son, when sent, is not severed from the Father, so neither is the Holy Spirit.

And the addition, 'Spirit of truth,' teaches that he is truly the Spirit of God, and not like the ministering spirits.

And the statement, 'who proceeds from the Father,' signifies that he came forth from the paternal hypostasis without beginning and consubstantially;

for every procession is accomplished through things equal and alike.

And in a distinctive manner the begetting of the Son from God, and the procession of his Spirit, took place consubstantially.

The saying, 'He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you,' is a command not to disbelieve the Holy Spirit, who, as has been said above, came after the ascension of Christ and teaches.

For, he says, his teaching will not be discordant with my mind and doctrine;

since he is also united with and inseparably joined to the Godhead;

for the teachings of the Holy Trinity are common, as are the gifts unto salvation;

And in the way I said, 'The Father has given me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak,' I likewise affirm concord regarding the Holy Spirit also, that 'He shall receive of mine, and shall declare it to you.' And by saying, 'If you love me, keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter,' he all but declared that he himself too is called Comforter, and that, he says, 'if you do not keep my commandments, you are found unworthy of the visitation of the Holy Spirit' — a visitation which is not at odds with my own appearing.

As for the writing, 'The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold him, nor know him;'

'but you know him' — he showed that the worldly, that is, the heretics, cannot receive him, because they do not behold him with the eyes of faith, nor do they know him, since they do not glorify him as God;

but those who confess him to be God have him abiding with them.

And the fact that it says, 'He will give him to you,' and, 'He abides with you, and shall be in you,' signified that the Holy Spirit, being indeed God, is present everywhere, both above and below;

for if he abides with us and is in us, he also fills all things, according to Wisdom which says:

...the faces of the apostles, and having said:

'Receive the Holy Spirit,' as has been said before.

And as for, 'I will not leave you orphans;'

'I am coming to you,' he taught, that just as the Spirit of God was present in all things even before his acknowledged coming, so also after the ascension the Son is present, the hypostases subsisting in one uncircumscribed Godhead and will — he himself not being both at once, that is, both the Son and the Spirit of God, as Montanus supposed, who leans especially on this part of Scripture, neither seeing nor hearing that one person speaks about another, and concerning yet another person;

'I will ask the Father, and he will send another Comforter;'

but rather as being present together with the Spirit, subsisting distinctly in his own hypostasis, just as the Father also is always everywhere.

Not, however, that he has already come a second time in the sense in which he often signified his second coming that is to be at the judgment.

'He will testify concerning me.' Truth, he says, testifies concerning Truth, and Lord concerning Lord, in the same manner as he spoke concerning the Father:

'And the Father who sent me testifies concerning me.' All these sayings — and before all of them, the Master's saying, 'I will ask the Father,' which is beyond reproach and ought not to be understood according to worldly custom — Macedonius passed over, and ran to, and rejoiced in, the word 'he will send.'

But let him have, as an answer to such sayings concerning the Holy Spirit, the very answer he himself, if questioned, would give on account of the holy Scriptures set down concerning the Son;

knowing this too, that above all, the one who speaks, or sends, is not necessarily greater than the one who hears, or is sent;

but often one is found sending an equal, one of equal honor;

and it is not unreasonable that, among men, the craftsman skilled in every art should even be superior to the one who seems to say something to him, or to send him.

Furthermore, that the only-begotten God the Word himself was also sent by the Father, or by the Spirit, as he himself says through Isaiah:

'I am the first, and I am forever;'

'my hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand established the heaven.' And after other things he adds:

'And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.' So the Spirit of God the Father is not sent in the manner of the sending of apostles or prophets, but as being his own Spirit;

nor indeed does he move from place to place, since the Father, of whose hypostasis he is the Spirit, is not circumscribed by bounds either.

Still further diminishing, and to their own harm falsifying, the truths concerning the Holy Spirit, they reproach him also regarding another divine act of loving-kindness which Paul wrote of, saying:

'God has sent forth his Spirit into our hearts, crying:'

'Abba, Father.' And the word 'sent forth' [signifies] the concord [of the Trinity];

and the crying in our hearts, 'Abba,' which is interpreted 'Father,' represents the tender compassion of the Holy Spirit, who grants us intimacy with God and the Father, in that he has uttered this cry in our stead and on our behalf — we who at that time were still infants, and fed on milk, and unable to speak boldly, both because of the ancient disobedience and the forsaking of the living God, and because of the wicked negligence of our life and our being found unworthy to break forth into such an address;

just as the Son also, in the economy, took upon himself all that is ours for our sake.

Indeed, in what follows he also called the Holy Spirit God, and showed that through his aforesaid cry we are set free, adopted as sons, and become heirs of the things of heaven.

For immediately after saying, 'Abba, Father,' he adds:

'So then you are no longer a slave, but a son;'

'and if a son, then also an heir through God' — through the Holy Spirit who cries out in us.

And that the aforesaid cry is uttered in our stead, the same apostle wrote to the Romans:

'But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live;'

'for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God;'

'for you did not receive again a spirit of slavery unto fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, in whom we cry:'

For since, as has often been said, all our salvation has been granted to us in common by the Holy Trinity, the Father called us unto adoption;

and the only-begotten, true, and genuine Son called us brothers;

and he permitted us to call God our own Father;

and the Holy Spirit dwelt within, resounded, and taught, having said, 'Abba.'

'He himself,' it says, 'will teach you,' and, 'will guide you into all truth.' Moreover, he also regenerated us, and freed us from sin and death, and sanctified us, and by his own goodness made us manifest as sons of God.

Therefore, before being regenerated by him through illumination, it is not even fitting to say:

'Our Father who art in heaven.' And besides this, he cries 'Abba' in our hearts, teaching the deaf ears of the heretics that it is he himself who dwells in the faithful,

as God, according to the word, 'I will dwell in them, and walk among them;'

'and I will be their God, and they shall be my people' — according to the Apostle who writes:

'Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?' But the heretics [take] the saying,

'As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God,' and such like sayings, they force to be understood as spoken concerning our own spirit, not concerning the Holy Spirit.

But the sequel judges this, for it reads:

'For you did not receive again a spirit of slavery unto fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption.' For certainly, already possessing our own spirit, we additionally received the Holy Spirit of adoption.

Being maliciously and contentiously disposed toward the Holy Spirit, they wickedly misconstrue also what was said by the Savior concerning him in John:

'He will glorify me, for he will receive of mine, and will declare it to you.' For it is not lawful to understand the things of God in the same way as human things, nor to insult the divine, which in no way resembles us, by the likeness of our own words and concepts.

'He will glorify me, then,' he says, insofar as he will teach you the very things that I teach;

and I, the things which the Father has heard.

and insofar as, from his own ineffable majesty, he will also demonstrate the immeasurable greatness of my own divinity;

and not only in this way, but also as it is written:

'A son glorifies his father'; and, 'The glory of the sun is its light'; and as I said:

'Glorify me, Father'; and he answered me:

'I have glorified you, and will glorify you again.' For he does not praise as creation does;

since they are not separated from one another in divinity and honor;

nor does he, who dispenses to us the divine gifts always purely of himself, declare them by receiving them, since he is not divided in nature from the Father.

For just as the Son who gives is deprived of nothing, nor is he emptied;

so the Holy Spirit does not receive what he does not already have, nor does he speak having heard it, being, according to Paul, the only one who knows the things of God;

rather, he instills wisdom and understanding, out of innate divine movements, into those worthy to receive them;

nor is he taught by another, he who breathes wisdom and the knowledge of prophecy upon the guileless.

...beyond knowledge; for his divinity is found to be above knowledge.

For such expressions are used of the ineffable Trinity only in a loose, improper sense.

Therefore the Savior also said concerning himself:

'As I hear, I judge.' And John said concerning him:

'He who has received his testimony has set his seal that God is true;'

'for he whom God sent speaks the words of God' — that is, he assents [to the Father].

The Holy Spirit is also glorified both through his communion in all things with the Father and the Son, and through what the Son declares as a warning concerning him, namely that 'every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven to men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.'

And the error of the Montanists consists in the following:

First, that they rashly divine, as it were, that the three divine hypostases are one person;

for Montanus, they say, said:

this they allegedly bring forward [as proof], interpreting beyond all plain sense what the Son wonderfully said:

'I am in the Father, and the Father is in me;' and, 'We will come, I and my Father, and will make our dwelling with him;' and, 'I and the Father are one;' and, 'He who has seen me has seen the Father;' and, 'The Paraclete, whom the Father will send in my name.' But all these sayings, as has also been said above, indicate one, and one, and one person, each individually subsisting, in one divinity and concord.

It does not say, 'I and the Father am [in the singular] one,' but, 'We are one.' And these words convict them of their folly and false doctrine.

Second, whereas the Apostle wrote to the Corinthians in his first Epistle:

'Whether prophecies, they will be abolished; whether tongues, they will cease; whether knowledge, it will be abolished;'

'for we know in part, and we prophesy in part;'

'but when the perfect comes, then that which is in part will be abolished' — they [the Montanists] claim that Montanus has come, and has possessed the perfection of the Paraclete, that is, of the Holy Spirit;

not attending to what follows [in the text].

'When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child;'

'when I became a man, I did away with the things of a child.'

'For now we see through a mirror, dimly;'

'but then face to face.'

'Now I know in part;'

'but then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.' That is:

the things which now, hearing them from the Scriptures, we believe to be true, after the resurrection we shall behold with our own sight, and shall know through the very reality, our partial knowledge having then ceased;

for the knowledge that comes from hearsay is [only] a part of the knowledge that comes from personal sight and experience.

For example, now hearing, we believe concerning the second coming of the Master, and concerning his judgment seat, and the thrice-blessed voice:

'Come, you who are blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you'; then by sight and by experience we shall learn it.

Now, hearing, we believe concerning the holy angels;

then we shall see them face to face as they minister.

Now, hearing, we believe, 'What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and has not entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him'; then they shall not only see them, but the worthy shall also come to be in the enjoyment of them.

For the things now hidden from the eye of our soul here below, in respect of the heavenly realities, the life to come will make manifest.

But Christ said, they say:

'I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now;'

'but when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all truth;' and, 'He will not speak from himself, but will take from what is mine, and will declare it to you;' and, 'He will glorify me;' and again:

'I am coming to you.' So, supposedly, he came when Montanus [appeared].

since, against this unintelligible reasoning of theirs, one finds that before Montanus there were both those who possessed Christ, and the apostles who had received their office from God, having within themselves Christ speaking and the Spirit of God dwelling, and imparting it to others also, by the laying on of hands, according to his will, and teaching with boldness, and being believed by all — and not, like Montanus, disbelieved.

'As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ' — [shall we say they] did not possess Christ and the Holy Spirit [before Montanus]?

But the aforementioned words of the Savior set forth the equality of honor, and the teaching of the Holy Spirit that is in harmony with him.

What 'I am coming to you' signifies has been stated above;

for we possessed — and those who are worthy fully possess — both Christ, who said:

'I am coming to you'; and also the Holy Spirit, concerning whom he said:

'When he comes.' For the Master was doing nothing incomplete when, after the resurrection, he breathed on the faces of the apostles and said:

'Receive the Holy Spirit;' nor was he lying, either when he himself said:

'that he abides with you, and is in you'; or when the Apostle wrote:

'the Spirit of God dwells in you'; nor did Wisdom lie, saying, 'The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world;'

'and that which holds all things together has knowledge of speech.' Nor indeed were the apostles, and the saints before them, in any way less complete than Montanus.

But he [the Spirit] was manifested at Pentecost, whereas the Holy Spirit who holds all things together already existed there and then was received, as the Acts record it thus:

'Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John;'

'who, having gone down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit;'

'for as yet he had fallen upon none of them;'

'they had only been baptized into the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.'

'Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.' And just as the Son was always present everywhere, yet after his sojourn in the world was fully known and glorified, so also the Holy Spirit always filled and held together all things, but after his coming at Pentecost was more perfectly known and glorified.

Third, that in seeking to demonstrate both that Montanus possessed the perfection of the Paraclete, and that Priscilla and Maximilla were prophetesses,

they say, 'You do not believe that after the first appearing of the Master there are [any] prophets;'

but the Savior said, they claim:

'Behold, I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes;'

'and some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues.' But he does not mean it as they suppose; rather, he speaks of the apostles, who foretold many of the things to come, and of the last times, and of the kingdom in the heavens;

of whom some were killed, as Stephen and James;

and some were crucified, as Peter;

and some were flogged, as Paul.

And at times he also called the martyrs, as well as the wise, 'bishop-martyrs.'

But Scripture knows as prophetesses the four daughters of Philip, Deborah, Miriam the sister of Aaron, and the Theotokos Mary, who said, as the Gospel records:

'From now on all women and all generations will call me blessed'; but it [Scripture] knows of no books composed in their name;

indeed, the Apostle also forbade it, writing to Timothy in his first [epistle]:

'I do not permit a woman to teach;' and again, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians:

'Every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head' — that is, it is not permitted for a woman shamelessly, on her own authority, to write books and to teach, and by this to insult her head, that is, her husband;

'for the head of the woman is the man;'

'and the head of the man is Christ.' And the reason that silences women is plain;

since the teaching given by the woman from the beginning did no good, but rather harmed the whole human race.

For the man, as the Apostle writes, was not deceived, but the woman. So Montanus, beyond all others, neither knew nor possessed the Holy Spirit, though he supposed that he did.

And this too: more than a hundred years after the Ascension of the Savior and the descent of the Holy Spirit, he became first a priest of an idol, and only afterward introduced this blind heresy.

So much have we, as far as possible, soberly contended against the other heresies.

But there is also another, shameless and brazen, that wars against the truth;

nor must we leave this one, either, unrefuted.

Concerning the soul-destroying doctrine of the Manichaeans, it would indeed be better to keep silence than, by speaking, to show how grievously human nature has offended against the divine, and to bring to men's ears things which — would that those men had never even carried them out in deed, and that they had never come to us at all, some by experience and some by report!

"Answer not a fool according to his folly."

yet it is necessary to make the doctrine known to those who are bound to encounter it,

that is, so that from what is about to be said they may infer what is passed over in silence, and flee far from this ruinous religion, and from ever consorting with those who practice it.

For even physicians do not refuse to know poisons — not so that anyone may use them, but so that, knowing them, he may flee from them.

This doctrine, then, is a kind of runoff from the mire that issued forth from Simon, the Magician of Samaria, who taught that the world is not the work of God but of angels, nor that there will be a resurrection, and who introduced the notion that intercourse with any and all women ought to be treated as a matter of indifference, and who drove his madness to such a pitch that he assumed the very name of our Christ and great God;

and for these things he pays eternal punishment, having been justly cast down into the much-talked-of and murky Tartarus.

Moreover, an addition was once made to this doctrine by Menander and Saturninus, who came after Simon and, though differing somewhat from his opinions, confirmed the aforesaid shameful practice, likewise set forth that the world had been made by angels, and dared to teach that God the Son is just, but that the good God the Father, from whom all things come, is unjust and a stranger to the creation and providence of the world;

and this folly was taken up as a disciple's doctrine by Basilides, who added that there stand three hundred and sixty-five heavens, bearing the names of angels;

whence, he says, the so-called holy name Abrasax is found, when reckoned by number, to amount to three hundred and sixty-five;

and by Carpocrates, who in later times reinforced these teachings and, as a further addition of defilement, proclaimed that unless one, by every kind of sinful practice, fulfills the will of all the demons, he cannot pass by the principalities and powers, nor arrive at the highest heaven;