Works 2

CHAPTERS OF THE FIRST BOOK. I. That the Holy Spirit is altogether to be understood plainly concerning the head of the faith, that is, concerning the Creed. II. That we ought to believe the catholic Church, not into the Church as into the Holy Spirit, but with the preposition removed. III. That Christ was not begotten but created by the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as He is God. IIII. Concerning unity, to be maintained by prophetic testimonies. V. Concerning the Trinity: that even the liberal disciplines perceived three persons. VI. That when the Son is called the face of the Father, He is acknowledged coeternal with the Father. VII. That the Spirit of the Father is the same as the Holy Spirit. VIII. Concerning the finger of God. VIIII. That it is no detriment to the deity of the Holy Spirit that He seems to be neither unbegotten nor begotten. X.

That the Holy Spirit is the bestower of the perfect charisms. XI. That from the Acts of the Apostles the assertion of the Trinity is repeated, where Christ also is asserted to have been sent against the Novatians for the granting of penance. XII. That it is proper to God to sanctify the creature. XIII. That the Holy Spirit is not local. THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS ALTOGETHER TO BE UNDERSTOOD PLAINLY CONCERNING THE HEAD OF THE FAITH, THAT IS, CONCERNING THE CREED. The catholic faith, by the Holy Spirit's inspiration, has been diffused throughout the whole world through the patriarchs and prophets and the dispensers of grace.

This the apostolic solicitude and perfection, just as it had spread it abroad through the sacred pages, so gathered it together into the saving song of the Creed with wondrous brevity, and disposed it, as it were scattered kinds of remedies, into one body, and, as from countless spices, compounded a precious ointment, whose fragrance has filled all the ends of the earth with the power of its spiritual sweetness, so that in the very assent of the whole world the power of the truth may appear. And because it is fitting that, for those who err as little children and are ignorant, we should repeat the first elements of Christian tradition, in this perfection of the Creed both unity is clearly disclosed and the Trinity, since the thrice-repeated confession renders to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one homage of belief.

In which words also the sacred number of the three hundred and eighteen priests condemned the emerging error of Arius and Macedonius, saying: 'I believe in God the Father, I believe in His only Son our Lord, I believe also in the Holy Spirit.' For even though the frailty of a few has deviated from this number, it has not dissolved the mystery of the universal number. And therefore we have called it a sacred number, because three hundred in the Greek reckoning or numeral notation shows the sign of the cross, and eighteen the adorable name of Jesus. In this number, then, and mystery, in which also holy Abraham triumphed over countless nations, the piety of the elders confounded the enemy of the faith under one proclamation of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Whence also it is to be understood that those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit under eternal damnation were either baptized without the perfection of the Creed, or lied to themselves in the very Creed and font, before which every man, renouncing the devil, confesses: 'I believe also in the Holy Spirit.' 'I believe,' I say, 'also in the Holy Spirit.' Let us recognize the privilege of this very word. You can believe any man whatever; but to believe into Him you should know that you owe to the Majesty alone. But this very thing too is one matter — to believe that God is — and another to believe into God. That God is, even the devil is said to believe, according to the Apostle: 'For the demons also believe and tremble.' But to believe into God is proved of no one save him who has piously hoped in Him.

To believe in God, therefore, is to seek Him faithfully and to pass over wholly into Him with all our love. So when I say 'I believe in Him,' this is to say: I confess Him, I worship Him, I adore Him, I hand over and pour my whole self into His right and His dominion. In the reverence of this profession are contained all the acts of homage owed to the divine Name. II. THAT WE OUGHT TO BELIEVE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, NOT 'IN' THE CHURCH AS 'IN' THE HOLY SPIRIT, BUT WITH THE PREPOSITION REMOVED. But you object and say that God cannot at once be shown by this word when we say 'I believe also in the Holy Spirit,' because there follows 'I believe in the holy catholic Church.'

First, I do not know how Macedonius dares to name the catholic Church, he who, stripped outside the catholic communion, has been shut out from salvation and made one of that number of whom it is said: 'The wicked walk round about.' You say, then: 'I believe in the holy catholic Church.' Why, by inserting one tiny thing, that is, into a single syllable, do you strive to weave in so vast a darkness? We believe the Church as the mother of our regeneration; we do not believe in the Church as in the author of salvation. For since the whole Church confesses this of the Holy Spirit, can the Church possibly believe even in herself?

Therefore, since the teaching of the fathers I have mentioned, celebrated throughout the whole world, confirms that we ought to believe 'in' the Trinity alone in a special sense, either remove this syllable from the name of the Church, or else, by an open profession, assert from the Scriptures that you believe 'in' the Church, teach it by testimonies, and prove it by the divine oracles with the presumption of your own words removed. Let us take from the sacred volumes in every way what things are to be believed, from whose fountain the very sequence of the Creed is drawn and subsists. Whoever believes 'in' the Church believes in a human thing. For man is not from the Church, but the Church began to be from man.

Withdraw, then, from this persuasion of blasphemy, whereby you suppose that you must believe 'in' some human creature, since one must by no means believe even in an angel or an archangel. For those things which follow in the Creed after the name of the Holy Spirit look back, with the preposition removed, to the closing clause of the Creed, so that we believe the holy Church, the communion of saints, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, and life everlasting to be 'in' God, that is, that we confess these things to have been ordained by God and to stand firm in God. For the ignorance of certain people has dragged and snatched this preposition over into the following clause, as if from a neighbouring and adjoining sentence, and imprudently added it out of excess.

But in no canonical writings, on which the text of the Creed depends, do we find that we ought to believe 'in' the Church as 'in' the Holy Spirit and the Son. And therefore, since every creature is a stranger to this honour which belongs to the Holy Spirit, He in whom we are commanded to believe here is God. This word the voice of the Lord and Saviour assigns in a special sense to the Godhead, saying thus: 'Believe in God and believe in me,' and again: 'He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in Him who sent me.' III. THAT CHRIST WAS NOT BEGOTTEN BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, AS THOUGH THE SPIRIT WERE GOD, BUT CREATED. But since the catholic Church confesses 'conceived by the Holy Spirit,' the Macedonians must here be asked whether they judge the Holy Spirit to be the creator or the father of the Redeemer.

If perhaps they answer that He is the Father, then, since already at the beginning of the Creed they have said 'I believe in God the Father almighty,' they will confusedly confess Him to have two fathers. But if they assert Him to be the creator, as the truth holds, then by necessity they will be compelled to proclaim with us the Lord of the universe. And therefore, through the prophet Isaiah, as through His own trumpet and out of His own temple, He speaks, when He foreshadowed the two substances in Christ: 'Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down the Just One; let the earth be opened and bring forth a Saviour: I the Lord have created Him.' For the man taken up from Mary was a work of the Holy Spirit, not a portion of Him, nor begotten by Him, but created.

He was conceived by power, not by substance; by operation, not by participation; by might, not by kind. IV. ON THE UNITY, TO BE ASSERTED BY PROPHETIC TESTIMONIES. The catholic faith venerates the threefold Majesty under the confession of a single Godhead. Receive one Godhead from the sacred volumes: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God'; and: 'Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve'; and again: 'I am the Lord, and there is no God besides me'; and in the Psalms: 'Who doest wonders, thou art God alone'; likewise: 'Thou alone art the Most High over all the earth.' Through Isaiah too: 'O God of Israel, who sittest upon the Cherubim, thou art God alone of all the kingdoms of the earth'; likewise: 'I the Lord, the first and the last, I am He'; likewise:

'I am the Lord, this is my name; my glory I will not give to another.' And that you may know this testimony to pertain to Christ, that is, 'the first and the last,' He said of Himself in another place: 'I am the beginning, who also speak to you'; likewise: 'Before me there was no God, and after me there shall be none. I am the Lord, and there is no Saviour besides me' — which pertains in a special way to Christ, the Saviour of the human race; likewise: 'Thus saith the Lord thy redeemer, and thy former from the womb: I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens, that alone establish the earth, and there is none with me' — which properly looks to Jesus as maker and redeemer, of whom the Evangelist recalls: 'All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing'; likewise:

'There is no God besides me, and there is no Saviour apart from me'; likewise: 'I am the first and I am the last; my hand also hath founded the earth, and my right hand hath measured the heavens' — just as Jesus Christ in another place plainly asserts of Himself, saying: 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.' In these testimonies the Holy Spirit also is contained, in which the unity of the divine substance is so to be confessed regarding the Holy Spirit that in them there must also be believed to be the distinct property of the Persons and their undivided plurality. V. THAT EVEN THE LIBERAL DISCIPLINES PERCEIVED SOMETHING OF THE TRINITY, OF THREE PERSONS.

By God's own words, therefore, we have shown one Godhead; now let us teach three in one Godhead: three names, not three kingdoms; three appellations, but not three powers; three essences or subsistences, but not three substances. It is clear that even secular wisdom understood that the whole multitude of ages is enclosed within the reckoning of three Persons. What are these three? That is: I, thou, he.

Therefore, as we have said, even the liberal studies, having borrowed their instruction from spiritual disciplines, perceived that there are only three Persons in reality; and it plainly appeared to them that neither does a second Person satisfy perfection, nor can a third be surpassed, since the fullness that tends toward the third number proves the pair to be but half-complete, while the perfection consummated in three rejects a fourth. These things, then, having been passed over with a light mention, let us rather by sacred testimonies assert that the Trinity subsists in unity. But you say: Why do you bring me the words 'unity' and 'trinity,' which you do not find in canonical reading? No wonder, if he who does not deserve to enter the inmost sanctuary of salvation trembles at and flees even the doorway of the truth.

For what is so near, so natural, so proper, as that from 'one' a 'unity,' from 'three' a 'trinity,' should be named according to the catholic definitions of the fathers? Words are not to be examined out of themselves when they depend on what precedes; nor indeed does it follow that those things should be judged foreign which are born from 'one' and 'three,' that is, from the very property of a manifest beginning. Take note that each of these terms is not presumptuous but derivative. These names, which antiquity discovered from the time of the primitive Church, authority brought forth, and long age confirmed. VI. THAT WHILE THE SON IS CALLED THE FACE OF THE FATHER, HE IS RECOGNIZED AS COEVAL WITH THE FATHER. Receive the Trinity from the sacred volumes: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth, and the Spirit of God moved over the waters.'

The Father is the author, the Son the coeval beginning, the Holy Spirit poured out over the waters. Over the waters, then, the eminence of the Lord was borne even then — foreshadowing, I believe, the gifts of baptism. In the making of man too, the threefold repetition of the Godhead shows that it is the work not of one Person but of three. For thus we read: 'And God said: Let us make man to our image and likeness.' Note the sentence, simple in the proposal, manifold in the response. 'And God said: Let us make man.' What else is this but that the substance of unity speaks and the power of the Trinity works? Observe how in the creation of man the name of God is named three times over. For thus we have it in Genesis: 'And God said:'

Let us make man'; and again: 'God created man'; and thirdly: 'God blessed him.' God said, God made, God blessed. On account of the three Persons the one Godhead is repeated three times. And in this place understand plainly also the mystery of unity. Behold, the image and likeness of God is given to each single man by three, and yet is discerned to be one. 'God said: Let us make.' Attend diligently: while one speaks and not one makes, and while again He mingles the plural with the singular — nor does He say 'to our images and likenesses,' nor indeed 'to my image and likeness' — He commends the unity by the singular, the Trinity by the plural. And so, in that He says 'Let us make according to ours,' the number of Persons is unfolded; but in that He says in the singular:

'to the image and likeness,' the undivided Godhead is gathered into one substance. When God had appeared to Abraham at the door of his tent, and out of one three had wondrously offered themselves to his eyes, he, aware of the Majesty, adored one in three. In the Psalms too the unity is absolutely designated in its own Persons: 'Cast me not away,' he says, 'from thy face, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.' Behold, the prophet, beseeching the Father, dreads no less the offence of the Holy Spirit than of the Father and the Son. 'Cast me not,' he says, 'away from thy face.' The Son, just as He is understood as the image of the Father, so also as the face of the Father. And therefore we read: 'Philip, he who sees me sees also the Father'; likewise: 'Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy face?'

Take note, unbeliever, of the mystery of the perfect confession of the Trinity. The prophet speaks to the Father, confesses the Son to be the face of the Father, and likewise attests the Holy Spirit diffused through all things. Of the Son, moreover, the Lord speaks even to Moses: 'My face shall go before thee.' Which name, that is, 'face,' pertains both to the substance of unity and to the coeternity of the Majesty. But as for their supposing Him to be lesser because He was born — what is it for God to be born of God, except to have naturally come forth from God? But you say: 'If He is from Him, He is younger than He.' Behold, the arm is born from the body and the face from its own head, and yet the face is not established to be younger than its head, nor the arm later than its body.

If, then, any head was ever older than its own face, then presume to assert that the Father is older than His own image, which consists in the perfect likeness and equality of Christ. So, then, the Son knows not how to be separated from the Father either in power or in time, just as the face cannot be parted from the head nor can ever be found younger than its own head. VII. THAT THE SPIRIT OF THE FATHER IS THE SAME AS THE HOLY SPIRIT. But you say: Show me that the Holy Spirit subsists in His own essence. Wherever or however often I read either 'the Spirit of the Father' or 'my Spirit' or 'the Spirit of God,' I see, you say, that it must be referred not to the Person of the Holy Spirit but to that of the Father.

First, from this they pile up the blasphemy of their impiety, when they say that the Holy Spirit of God must be believed to be either a creature or else the Father Himself. Rightly does he who does not confess the Holy Spirit slide down, with confused mind, even to insult of the Father. Assuredly, if the Spirit is a thing made, He cannot pertain to the substance of the Father. But if you suppose Him to be the paternal power, how do you presume to humiliate Him to the injury of being a thing made? But we shall demonstrate by clear testimonies that the 'Spirit of God' is said not of the Father but properly of the Holy Spirit. We read in Isaiah that upon the Lord Jesus there descended the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and piety.

Of this Spirit of the Lord, therefore, who descended upon the Saviour by a sacred infusion, the Son says through Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me'; and the Evangelist Matthew: 'Behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending upon Him like a dove.' And that this Spirit of God, whom the Saviour received in baptism, is manifestly the Holy Spirit, the Evangelist Luke fully taught, saying: 'Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan.' We read in the prophet Joel: 'In those days I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.'

That He says 'of my Spirit' is manifestly said of the Holy Spirit, because, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles on the sacred solemnity of Pentecost, then the Apostle Peter took up that testimony from the prophet. Moreover, that the Spirit of the Father is the same as the Holy Spirit, the Gospels taught in differing words but with harmonious truth. For when Matthew had said, 'For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you,' Mark openly set forth that this Spirit of the Father is the Holy Spirit, saying: 'What shall be given you in that hour, that speak; for it is not you that speak, but the Holy Spirit.'

And Luke likewise showed that this Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit, saying: 'Be not solicitous how or what you shall say; for the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that hour what it behoveth you to say.' According to these things, therefore, as often as you read either 'the Spirit of the Father' or 'the Spirit of God,' you must, laying aside your error, confess that it is to be referred in a special sense to the Holy Spirit. Likewise Isaiah too numbers the Holy Spirit as one in the glory of the Trinity, when he says: 'I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the Seraphim stood and cried one to another: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts.' And in what follows he says: 'And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Go, and thou shalt say to this people:'

you shall hear indeed and shall not understand, and seeing you shall see and shall not perceive.' Who this Lord of hosts was — who was seen by the prophet through an assumed form, or who spoke in the prophet — Paul shows in the Acts of the Apostles, saying: 'Well did the Holy Spirit speak through the prophet Isaiah to our fathers: you shall hear indeed and shall not understand, and seeing you shall see and shall not perceive.' Let us believe at least Paul, the most renowned herald of the truth, that that Lord of hosts, whom Isaiah saw and who spoke through Isaiah, was the Holy Spirit. But since with a threefold repetition it leaps forth 'holy, holy, holy,' let us see whether this honour looks back to the whole Trinity. When Isaiah says:

'I saw the Lord of hosts,' he is recognized as proclaiming the Father to the Jews. John the Evangelist is proved openly to assert the Son, saying thus: 'Therefore they could not believe in Jesus, because Isaiah said: He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart. These things Isaiah said, when he saw the glory of the Son of God and spoke of Him.' But that same thing which Isaiah says, 'And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Go, and say to this people, seeing you shall see and shall not perceive' — this Lord the Apostle Paul, as we have said, confirms to be the Holy Spirit.

You see, then, that this cry 'holy, holy, holy' celebrates together the whole Trinity; and just as in these three words there is no dissimilarity, no difference, so in the power of the Trinity there can be no distance. VIII. ON THE FINGER OF GOD. But you say: From this the Holy Spirit is plainly recognized to be lesser, because He is called the finger of God. It is not so. But when you hear it said of the Holy Spirit, 'If I by the finger of God cast out demons,' know that not a diminution of glory but a unity of substance is being shown, and not a disparity of honour but a concord of work. What then? Because the Holy Spirit is sometimes called the finger of God, is He therefore believed to be lesser than the Son and the Father?

Flee the error of this persuasion; see whether at times in this designation of 'finger' Scripture comprehends both the Father and the Son. Let us remember that it is not said of one finger, when we read: 'For I will behold thy heavens, the works of thy fingers.' But you say that in the 'fingers' this is signified only of the Son and the Holy Spirit, under a certain duality. Lest you attempt to assert this of two Persons only, in another place Isaiah speaks of the Trinity by the number of three fingers alone, saying: 'Who hath weighed the mass of the earth with three fingers?' What is more evident concerning the unity of the Trinity, what is clearer? Did He not here, in three fingers, weigh out the equality of a single power upon a certain scale of mystery?

Therefore, as has been said, since you are already instructed concerning the fellowship of the work, do not doubt concerning the equality of the power. In saying, then, 'Who hath weighed the mass of the earth with three fingers,' He wished here to speak in a special sense of the cooperation of power and of the unity of substance, which is proved to be one and the same in the three fingers. But no less, in the prophet Isaiah, note the proper Person of the Holy Spirit under the distinction of the Trinity, where the Son, speaking of Himself, 'I am the first and I am the last,' consequently added: 'And now the Lord hath sent me, and His Spirit.' One, then, in Person is God the Father, another the Spirit of God the Father.

And so, while the Son is read to be sent by the Father and the Holy Spirit, it is plainly opened up that under the name of three Persons the Holy Spirit subsists in Himself — just as in another place the same prophet distinguishes the essence of the Trinity: 'Behold my child, I will uphold Him; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased; I have given my Spirit upon Him.' The Father calls the Son His beloved child, upon whom He gave His Spirit, of which Spirit Jesus Christ testifies with His own voice: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.' And that that Gospel word may be manifest even to the nations: 'Go,' He says, 'baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,' where under three Persons He asserts one work and one name, an undivided Majesty.

We have it, as has been said, according to Luke: 'And when Jesus was baptized, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came from heaven: Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased.' The Son, then, is declared in the body, the Holy Spirit in the appearance of a dove, the Father in the voice. But in this place there is to be understood in the dove an appearance passing over, not a substance persisting. IX. THAT IT DOES NOT DETRACT FROM THE GODHEAD OF THE HOLY SPIRIT THAT HE IS SEEN TO BE NEITHER UNBEGOTTEN NOR BEGOTTEN.

But amid these things, while we demonstrate the proper Person of the Holy Spirit, and confess the Father unbegotten, and know the Son to be only-begotten, you ask of me whether the Holy Spirit is to be confessed unbegotten, or begotten, or something else. The holy Scriptures speak of the power and Godhead of the Holy Spirit; but whether He is to be called begotten or unbegotten, they do not speak. See what darkness unbelief makes for itself. You do not wish to know what God did not wish to be unknown, and you wish to know what He did not command to be inquired into. He did not say 'begotten,' lest you believe Him to be the Son; He did not say 'unbegotten,' lest you suppose Him to be the Father; but He testified that He proceeds from the Father unto the distinction of essence, as we read: 'the Paraclete, who proceeds from the Father.'

Since these things are so, even thus acknowledge that the Holy Spirit has His own Person. That He is a third besides the two, the diversity of the name proves; that, proceeding from God, He is not third in order or degree, the unity of Majesty shows. For He who proceeds from the inmost depths of God is proved to be not the creature of God but the substance of God. Do not scrutinize how He is God, whom it is manifest to be God. Here the reason is hidden, the truth is not hidden. Why should you inquire how He is the companion and equal of the King, whom it is established to be of royal honour and lineage? An inquiry about a name is superfluous where there is no doubt about the sublimity. Therefore, because the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, He therefore says:

'But he who has not the Spirit of the Lord, he is not His'; and in another place: 'He breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit.' Whether He is unbegotten or begotten, you seek. Of this the sacred oracles have sung nothing; it is unlawful to break in upon the divine silences. What God did not believe should be indicated in His Scriptures, He willed that you should neither inquire into nor know, out of superfluous curiosity. This He judged ought to reach your conscience, which pertains to your salvation. Let us consult the holy oracles as to what is to be believed by us concerning the Holy Spirit. For this very thing — that you say the Son is begotten — would you dare to say it, unless you had learned it by the heavenly attestation from the Scriptures?

Or would you presume to assert that the Lord Christ was either brought forth from the Virgin or begotten of a coeval and coeternal Father, unless you had taken it from reading, unless you had inquired of God with divine voices? And therefore, as to how you ought to think concerning the Holy Spirit, you must return to the Apostles and the Gospels, with whom and in whom you do not doubt that God has spoken. To return, then, to your empty proposition: does the glory or substance of the Holy Spirit lie in this — whether He be proved unbegotten or begotten? For neither does it detract anything from the Son that He is not read to be unbegotten, nor from the Father that He is not held to be begotten. In words of this kind there is a property of appellation, not a diversity of power or Majesty.

'Begotten' and 'unbegotten' is a difference of Person, not of nature. When, therefore, concerning 'begotten' and 'unbegotten' you have either said or heard things useless and unnecessary and suited only to slanders, will you be content to stand at this end? Surely you will still inquire whether He is God. But when you have received from those things which are read that He is God, you will now have nothing to inquire, since, when you begin to know the strong and consummated things, you will not need to inquire into the empty and void. Where, then, the ground of usefulness and the fullness of truth is understood to be, thither let the saving intention tend. X. THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE BESTOWER OF PERFECT GRACES.

That the Holy Spirit is the bestower of heavenly graces and the dispenser of sanctifications, the very meaning of His name attests. But His magnificence was manifested even in the Old Testament. For there His grace was granted to none save certain particular ones, that is, to the patriarchs and likewise to the prophets and to the holy and the elect, so that through the very perfection of the gifts I might understand the dignity of the Giver. But as far as is most manifestly discerned in the holy Scriptures, the Father works some things by Himself, others in a special way through the Son, others through the Holy Spirit, though under the privilege of a common power. What we are seems properly to be referred to the Father, in whom, as the Apostle said, 'we live and move and are.'

But that we are capable of reason and wisdom and justice is assigned in a special way to Him who is reason and wisdom and justice, that is, to the Son. But that, being called, we are regenerated, and, being regenerated, are renewed, and, being renewed, are sanctified — through the divine oracles this is plainly ascribed to the Person of the Holy Spirit. But the sacred page speaks these things under the distinction of the undivided Trinity in such a way that, however much a diversity of work may appear in the several Persons, yet there remains in the three a unity of will.

Therefore both the Gentiles and the catechumens partake of the dispensation of the Father and of the Son; but of the sanctification and infusion of the Holy Spirit not easily, unless they have already obtained baptism, been purified and made spiritual — the apostolic ones too, and the apostles, and those prepared with their whole spirit for martyrdom. And amid these things, shall He still be judged by the impious to be a creature, He who, among the individual Trinity, obtains for the ordering of human salvation each of the more magnificent and more perfect gifts? But perhaps you say: The Holy Spirit is greater, whose works are greater and more noble. It is not so.

For it is the custom of the Trinity that, to whichever Person it commits the office of administering a matter, to that same Person it ascribes the effect when it is accomplished; and so the work may perhaps be diverse, but the purpose is common. And if in the several Persons there is a special deed, there remains in the three a general counsel; and therefore, although they have in operation a distinct task, yet they hold in the ordering one consent. After the Lord's ascension, to heap up and fulfill His benefits, the Holy Spirit is described as having descended; of whom the Saviour Himself speaks through the Gospel of John: 'That Spirit of truth, whom the Father will send in my name.' 'The Father will send,' He says, 'in my name' — plainly of the Trinity.

Of what creature have we ever read or heard this said — that it came into this world in the name of God? He, then, of whom Christ the Lord God says, 'Unless I go, the Paraclete will not come to you,' is without doubt God, who is appointed in the place of God to confirm the gifts of God. In these two sentences, under the distinction of the Trinity, the Person also of the Holy Spirit is absolutely declared. Not without reason, therefore, is this also referred to the equality of the Godhead — that, as the Son, so also the Holy Spirit is called in the Scriptures the Paraclete. And whence shall we be able to prove this? Assuredly from the authority of the Apostle John, when he says:

'If any of us,' he says, 'shall sin, we have a Paraclete with the Father, Jesus Christ, and He is the propitiation for our sins.' 'Paraclete,' that is, 'advocate,' which looks to the Person of the Son; or else 'consoler,' which pertains to the Holy Spirit — a single expression of the Greek tongue signifies both. In the Gospel of John we have: 'And I,' He says, 'will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete.' 'Another Paraclete,' that is, of like power, of equal glory, and of the same nature. And 'another Paraclete':

if you suppose the Holy Spirit to be one of the creatures, it is unworthy that, when the same descends, a creature should confirm the benefits which the Creator conferred, and that, as though the power of the Maker had been ineffectual, the effect of an unfinished work should — however excellent the creature — nevertheless be reserved to the creature. You, then, revile the Holy Spirit with the reproach of being a creature, to whom the Son of God, by a divine testimony, made Himself equal out of His own oracle. And 'another Paraclete': by this twofold understanding recognize both the distinction of Person and the equality of substance. Here perhaps you might object:

For this reason Christ seems to have put himself on a level with the Holy Spirit under the title of Paraclete—the Spirit who is, forsooth, held to be the material of God's work and a thing made—because Jesus himself is proved to have been created from Mary. But this argument is as faithless as it is feeble. For if you suppose that Christ was likened to the Paraclete in respect of his manhood, not even this accords with the truth. For, being made a little lower than the angels and made one of us, he could not be compared with that first and heavenly and (as you assert) more excellent creature. But if Christ spoke this according to the form of God, it is certain that the thing made ought by no means to be set on a par with its Maker. And thus, if a man equates himself with this more excellent creature, it is the pride of a lesser being; if God does so, it is the wronging of a greater.

Since, therefore, this comparison is seen not to hold within the condition of a creature, it remains that both be believed to be God, and that an equality of divinity be reciprocally compared between them. For when the Saviour speaks through John: 'And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, whom this world cannot receive'—he who can be given to the whole world is manifestly the God of the world. Here too recognize a threefold Trinity. There is the Father, who is shown to be asked; the Son, who is understood to be about to ask; the Holy Spirit, who is promised as one to be sent by the Father. Note that the person of the Holy Spirit is not, as you assert, associated with kindred creatures, but in all things is joined to the Trinity in works and made equal in powers. XI.

THAT IN THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES THE ATTESTATION OF THE TRINITY IS REPEATED, WHERE CHRIST ALSO, AGAINST THE NOVATIANS, IS ASSERTED TO HAVE BEEN SENT TO GRANT REPENTANCE. In the Acts of the Apostles Peter, discoursing of the Lord Jesus, speaks thus: 'Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath poured forth this which you see and hear.' In 'the right hand' the Son is designated, in 'God' the Father, in the property of his own name the Holy Spirit. And in what follows we read: 'Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by this doth this man stand here before you whole.' Behold here too the distinction of the Trinity expressed.

Peter, bearing the Holy Spirit within himself, speaks of the Son dying in the flesh and of the Father raising him up. There likewise it is repeated by an apostolic oracle: 'And now, O Lord,' he says, 'behold their threatenings,' and: 'They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with confidence.' Note that in this passage too the Holy Spirit is contained within the Trinity. In the prayer the Father is entreated, in the word of God the Son is acknowledged, in the steadfastness of the apostles the fire of the Holy Spirit works. 'They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.' It belongs to manifest majesty to be able to pour itself into many at once by the subtlety of an incorporeal divinity, and to remain entire without diminishment. Again, when the apostles had said of Jesus:

'Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be Prince and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins. And we,' he says, 'are witnesses of these things, and the Holy Spirit, whom God hath given to all that obey him.' Understand here, under the order of the Trinity, that not only to proclaim but to grant repentance the Son is appointed by the Father, and that to those who obey there is poured in the Holy Spirit, who rewards their obedience. Stephen, in the moment of his passion, is filled with the Holy Spirit, and to him, the gates of righteousness being unlocked, the Son is revealed at the Father's right hand, even as he himself, filled with the Holy Spirit, declares: 'Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'

See how under a spectacle of the Trinity he brought forth the gifts of his passion. Peter addresses Cornelius the centurion, saying: 'Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit.' 'God anointed'—that is, power filled him, blessing poured itself in, divinity penetrated. 'How God anointed him with the Holy Spirit.' Three here evidently exist through their own properties: the gift, the giver, the one gifted; the anointing, the anointed, the ointment—just as in another place the divine word says: 'God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness.' In the manhood assumed, God is anointed and God anoints, and under the descent of the heavenly dove the power of the Father is acknowledged.

It is not lawful that the Holy Spirit, by whom Christ the Son of Man—already full of the Son of God—is filled, should be believed to be anything other than God. For if he were a creature, how could he penetrate an incorporeal nature that penetrates all things? For the Trinity contains itself, as we have it: 'I in the Father, and the Father in me,' and again: 'The Spirit searcheth even the deep things of God,' likewise: 'the Spirit, who proceedeth from the Father.' Unless this Holy Spirit were of the Father, and dwelt poured naturally into the inmost being of the Father, he could not proceed from the Father. But you ask whether the Spirit always proceeds from the Father. He is always with him, always from him, as heat from fire; so without interruption he is brought forth, in such wise that he knows how to go forth but not how to be separated.

For if the procession of the Holy Spirit were not everlasting, his substance would appear to be local. If an incorporeal brightness, self-containing, does not penetrate one into the other without any mingling of itself, then divinity will be confounded with clay. For mingling takes away the property of the threefold essence, whereas mutual infusion shows a distinct essence, which may be seen as a mean between substance and persons. To the substance belongs that which subsists; to the persons belongs that which each singly subsists as its own. Paul addresses his disciples, saying: 'I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.'

'Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit hath placed you as bishops to rule the Church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.' How clearly is the whole Trinity designated in its own persons! He proclaims the counsel of God the Father; he affirms that the bishops were ordained by the Holy Spirit; he shows also that Christ is God, with whose blood the Church was purchased. To the Romans likewise the Trinity is set forth under the property of names: 'But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus Christ dwell in you, he who raised up Jesus from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit that dwelleth in you.'

The Father raises, the Son is raised, and because of the indwelling Spirit life is promised to the mortal bodies that are to be raised again. And in what follows: 'But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.' When he says the Spirit of God, and consequently the Spirit of Christ, note that here he designates the person of Christ under the appellation of God.

Or if here he signifies, under the appellation of God, the Father whose Spirit he is, then behold, this Holy Spirit, through the unity of substance, is declared to be the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son, and is rightly discerned to proceed from both, and is perceived to have a distinct person within the bond of the Trinity; and he who has not the Holy Spirit is shown not to have Christ either. The Holy Spirit therefore is God, and by his denial Christ too is denied; and because he said, 'No man cometh to the Father but by me,' whoever is void of the Holy Spirit is not Christ's, and has lost the way by which one arrives at the Father. XII. THAT IT IS PROPER TO GOD TO SANCTIFY A CREATURE. To the Corinthians, first epistle:

'And such indeed some of you were; but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.' Behold, here too, under 'our God'—that is, under the commemoration of the Father—the Holy Spirit sanctifies the faithful of Corinth, with Christ working together. No creature whatsoever can sanctify another: the bestowal of sanctification is the bounty of majesty alone. In this passage, 'in the name of Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God,' acknowledge three persons. To the Corinthians, second epistle: 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all'—the grace of Christ, the love of God, the communion of the Holy Spirit: he evidently expressed three persons.

Again, to the Corinthians, second epistle: 'Now he who confirmeth us with you in Christ, and who hath anointed us, is God; and who hath sealed us and given the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts.' See the unity of the undivided Trinity in its works. The Father confirms and seals us through Christ, and, being about to give himself, he already gives in the present, through himself, the Holy Spirit as a pledge. In earthly affairs the sum of earnest-money is a certain portion of the contract for which it stands surety, whereas the reckoning of a pledge exceeds the value of the thing for which it seems to be deposited. But here, since a pledge cannot be preferred to majesty, it must needs be made equal to it. For things perfect cannot be surpassed; therefore, on his own behalf, the Father grants the pledge of the Holy Spirit.

Let nothing therefore be thought half-full in the Holy Spirit, since he is compared to fullness. For he who is given in the stead of God, in the place of a pledge, may not be believed to be anything other than God. Again, to Titus: 'He saved us by the laver of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he hath poured forth upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ.' Behold, here too, under a manifest Trinity, the Father through the Son pours out an abundance of the Holy Spirit; and—what is most of all to be noted—he ascribes to the Holy Spirit himself the power of regeneration and renewal. Peter also, in his epistle, sets forth the Trinity inseparable in its persons, saying:

'According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, unto sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: grace unto you and peace be multiplied.' In the foreknowledge, the Father; in the sanctification, the Holy Spirit; in the sprinkling of the blood, Christ is shown forth. XIII. THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT LOCAL. Let us demonstrate from his powers and works that the Holy Spirit is God. Every creature, just as it is subject to the beginnings of time, so also knows itself to be local, circumscribed by fixed spaces and bounds. The Holy Spirit is confined within no limits as though he were a thing made; he must needs be held to be God by reason of the very freedom of his diffused majesty. It is the word of the Lord Saviour to the apostles:

'The Father,' he says, 'will give you the Spirit of truth, that he may abide with you for ever.' If he were local and yet abode perpetually in them, then surely he could not be elsewhere. Let us see whether his nature is determined by local limits. The Lord says to the apostles: 'You shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth.' After his ascension the Holy Spirit came upon them, and there appeared to them parted tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. Let us see why first of all the blessings of diverse tongues are bestowed—doubtless that they might be made fit for the instruction of believing peoples.

But as to its being recorded that it sat upon each one, the reason is this: that it might be understood that through the many he was not divided, but remained whole in each single one—as is the custom with fire. For kindled fire has this nature, as we know: that however many gaze upon it, however many upon a crest of purple splendour, it imparts to that many the enjoyment of its own light, and grants to that many the ministry of its own gift, and yet no less remains in its own integrity. So the power of the Holy Spirit, however much it flows out, however much the grace of divine bounty overflows into many, just as it is proved to admit no measure, so it feels no expenditure. Perceive God from the worthiness of his works.

The apostles, full of the Holy Spirit, about to dispense the treasures of salvation through all the world, carry this heavenly gift about within themselves, and transfer it to others by the laying on of hands. The gain of the receiver is wrought without loss to the giver: to those who believe it is delivered whole, and it is possessed whole by those who deliver it; by its infusion the whole world is filled; without diminution it is enlarged, without division it is dispersed.

In that most sacred night of regeneration especially, from east to west, from the rising of the sun even to its setting, from the north and from the sea, everywhere the same Spirit, one and full, works; through all things he is believed to be present by invocation, is felt by blessing; countless multitudes are washed in one baptism, and, as the Apostle said, are made to drink of one Spirit, and are reborn into the one bosom of him who adopts them. And therefore God says: 'In those days I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh' (note that he said, 'I will pour forth of my Spirit'), and he did not say, 'I will pour forth my Spirit'—that is: 'I will dispense only so much of him as the world can receive.'

You see that he goes forth from the Father, yet is not separated from the Father; he is sent forth and not lost; he is poured out and retained; and in the very fact that he is read to be 'poured out,' the greatness of his fullness is declared. The book of Genesis, at the very opening of the sacred volume, testifies: 'And the Spirit of the Lord was borne over the waters.' 'He was borne,' it says, 'over the waters.' The very word seems to assign the abundance of one filling all things and the eminence of one holding dominion. The prophet likewise celebrates this magnificence of his, circumscribed by no spaces of place, with a like attestation, saying: 'Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?'

That is: where shall I hide myself from the sight of him whom I doubt not to be present through all things, that is, both within and without; whose eye, penetrating the depths, I dread within the secret of my breast; to whose presence I know that all things which he founded are subject; of whom, since he is a consuming fire, I clearly understand what is said: 'Nor is there any that can hide himself from his heat'—whose unspeakable greatness enters, fills, and exceeds the depths of the underworld, the diffusion of the floods, the expanse of the lands, the heights of the heavens. He is said to be sent by the Father and the Son, and to proceed from their substance, and is discerned to work one work with them; and therefore the Son says of him: 'the Paraclete, who proceedeth from the Father.'

He did not say 'is created by the Father,' but 'proceeds from the Father'—that is, out of the fellowship of the Father's power and out of the property of his nature. But from the very expression, when he is said to proceed from the Father, it is shown that he has no beginning apart from the Father. And what is it that the Son is said to be born of God the Father, while the Holy Spirit is signified to proceed? If you ask what difference there is between the one born and the one proceeding, the difference is plainly this: that the one is born of one, the other goes forth from both. Therefore, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father shows in him three prerogatives of deity—namely, that he is proved to subsist in his own person, and to abide without any interval of time, and altogether to exist out of the substance of the Father.

Therefore, when he is said to proceed, by the very property of the word he is known to be circumscribed by no laws of time, but to be without beginning and end. And because we read: 'I am who I am,' and: 'He who is hath sent me,' the word 'proceeds' likewise indicates this. For 'to be' and 'to proceed' are the expression of one and the same eternity. Therefore that very procession, touching neither a first nor a last, is understood to be subject to no beginning or term. Let us not then believe him to be local because we perceive from the reading that he is sent by the Father; for of the Father and the Son too we read that, by a kind of motion as it were, they descend and come. Let us see where. 'I,' he says, 'and my Father will come, and will make our abode with him.'

And again, when the giants strove to raise up a tower into heaven, the person of the Father declares: 'Come, let us go down and confound their tongues.' Here, therefore, through the sounds of our words, the effectings of things are shown forth to our senses. But local motion the divine power does not suffer, which neither comes by an advancing course nor departs by a receding lapse. For he who exceeds all things, whither does he withdraw? Of the Holy Spirit we have learned from the sacred reading: 'And the Church had peace throughout all Judaea, walking in the fear of God, and was filled with the consolation of the Holy Spirit.'

And how, amid all this, does anyone presume to assert him to be a local creature, who is proved to fill a Church of infinite multitude—so that it is manifest that what the Apostle says pertains to him: 'the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation'? We have in the psalm: 'The stream of the river maketh glad the city of God.' What is this stream of the river? That one, doubtless, of whom the Lord says through John: 'He who believeth in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.' This the Lord Jesus says of the Spirit, whom they that believed in him were to receive. See the magnificence of majesty. Thus he is bestowed upon the Church of God on earth, in such wise that he yet makes glad the city of God in the heavens.

The city of God—that is, the citizens of the heavenly kingdoms, the peoples of the supernal host, the principalities, powers, and dominions—he waters with unspeakable joys according to their consciousness of eternal blessedness, and inebriates them yet more overflowingly with the abundance of gladness, and stirs up the harmony of heaven in a rushing torrent of exultation of his own sanctification. If you suppose that such and so great things are bestowed through some creature, you leave nothing proper to the divine power. If, I say, you reckon that these things are bestowed through some creature, you tend toward the wronging of angels and archangels, to whom you reckon that such and so great things are granted through the bounty of a fellow-servant. THE CHAPTERS OF THE SECOND BOOK. I. That no rational creature can be poured into a kindred creature. II.

Whether, according to the opinion of the unlearned, the Holy Spirit was incarnate like the Son—since he too came upon Mary—or whether only the Son was born of the Virgin. III. The objection of Macedonius, whereby he impiously asserts the Holy Spirit to be a more excellent creature. IV. Macedonius, asserting a duality, denies that the Holy Spirit has his own proper person. V. The objection that the saying which we read, 'Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit,' testifies that water and the Holy Spirit alike are a creature. VI. Wherein it is asked whether the appellation of the Holy Spirit is to be thought a surname or a name. VII. That the Holy Spirit is proved by evident testimonies to fill the prophets especially, and alike to be believed and called God. VIII.

Wherein it is shown that the temple of God is the temple of the Holy Spirit. IX. Wherein, against the Novatians, God granted repentance unto life to the Gentiles—who, forsooth, is shown to be God the Holy Spirit by the very order of the reading. X. Wherein, in the first epistle to the Corinthians, the Holy Spirit is declared to be God by the distributions of powers. XI. It is to be observed that just as he speaks of one God, so he speaks of one Holy Spirit—which could in no way be said of a common creature, or of one who 'divideth to each severally as he will.' XII. Wherein he says that those who have been made a temple of the Holy Spirit ought so to advance that they may deserve to bear God in their body. SECOND BOOK. THAT NO RATIONAL CREATURE CAN BE POURED INTO A KINDRED CREATURE.

We read concerning the abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit: 'And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan.' Who, then, save one who was of the same fullness, could fill him who fills all things? Of the apostles the divine word relates: 'And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with confidence,' and a little after: 'because upon the nations the grace of the Holy Spirit was poured out.' He is declared to fill whole nations, and is discerned to remain inexhaustible and full within himself. If the Holy Spirit is created, of what angel or archangel was it ever read that, received within, he poured himself into any soul?

Tell me, if you have ever read of any power or virtue among creatures that fills and possesses many at once, and—what is greater—remains undiminished and undivided. It is impossible for a spiritual and rational creature ever to be able to be poured into a nature kindred to itself. Thus a material thing knows not how to penetrate a material substance. God alone, in whom the Holy Spirit too is understood—simple, subtle, and pure—glides into a work whether angelic or human by the power of an incorporeal divinity; and he alone, the penetrator of his own work, enters the hidden things of the human heart. But any heavenly creature whatsoever cannot so pour into or fill a man as to be able to know the secrets of human thought.

And therefore we read of God alone: 'who alone knowest the hearts of men,' and again: 'for he himself knoweth the secrets of the heart.' If to know the secrets of man is proper to divinity, how much more is it a mark of the highest majesty in the person of the Holy Spirit to search the deep things of God. To the Author alone is this prerogative owed—to be able to enter the secret of consciences. Soul indeed may be joined to soul, or angel to angel, but cannot be poured in, because such kinds of creatures are capable only of the Holy Spirit, that is, of God alone; because they are the vessels of their own potter, and can be filled only by him by whom they were made out of nothing, and without whom they are perceived to be empty.

Thus the substance of the soul, being as it were a corporeal matter, knows not how to be poured wholly into another rational creature. For compared with the grossness of the outer man, the soul may be called incorporeal; but referred to its Author, to whom its matter is comprehensible and its make palpable, by whom it can be shut up and bound within the body and consigned to perpetual fire—as we read, 'that they go into everlasting fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels'—to this Author, undoubtedly, by the right of a maker, it is corporeal. But perhaps you will say: it is manifest that even the importunate violence of demons frequently pours itself into the men whom it has received to be tempted. It is not so.

For they can enter the hiding-places of the body, but cannot approach the inner parts of the soul. It must therefore be known that the crafty subtlety of the spiritual wickednesses disturbs by its assault those seats of the members which are sometimes wearied by too much wine or by the burning of fevers. And so the hostile temptation knows how to creep, through malice, into the senses of the soul, but knows not how to flow, by nature, into the recesses of the soul. And therefore human minds and breasts receive such unclean spirits not by an infusion of natures, but conceive them by the depravity of the wills. It is manifest, therefore, that they cannot penetrate the substances of souls whose consciences they cannot know.

But if at any time it should befall the demons to know, it is from the betrayal of connivance, not from the power of nature. Therefore the divine power alone, which is also in the Holy Spirit, mingles itself, poured into and poured around rational creatures—as it especially rested with overflowing grace in that body of the Lord's manhood taken from the Virgin his mother, as the Son of God himself says: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.' If, therefore, the Holy Spirit were a thing made of subject condition, as they say, it were as impossible as it were unworthy of God that that creature should fill a soul or body in which the Son of God, that is, God, was already present—in which, as the Apostle says, the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily.

If the Holy Spirit is a creature, how can corruption possess incorruption, and a frail condition possess what is capable of majesty? If the Holy Spirit is one of the common throng of created things, how does a creature presume, together with the Creator—that is, together with the Son of God as though on equal terms, a servant together with the Lord—to share one lodging in the soul of the Saviour, and, as though he were not sufficient to himself therein, does the Author's servant come to the crowning of holiness? It is not so. Rather, the heavenly college recognizes the temple as a fellow to itself; nor is it any wonder if, in that illustrious soul of the blessed body, the Son and the Holy Spirit obtain one habitation, seeing that heaven too is manifestly common to them. II.

WHETHER, ACCORDING TO THE OPINION OF THE UNLEARNED, THE HOLY SPIRIT WAS INCARNATE LIKE THE SON—SINCE HE TOO CAME UPON MARY—OR WHETHER ONLY THE SON WAS BEGOTTEN OF THE VIRGIN. But it is said: if the Holy Spirit dwelt in the body and soul of the Redeemer, then he too will seem to have undergone incarnation. It is not so. For before the beginnings of the creation the sacred body of Mary is filled by the Holy Spirit, and amid the beginnings of the creation the Son of the Virgin is conceived with the Holy Spirit cooperating; but he is poured in to be possessed for nine months especially by the person of the Son, and to come forth into the light together with him—of which term of time, at least, the person of the Holy Spirit did not receive the fellowship within the secret of the virginal womb.

The manhood, therefore, which the Son of God took upon himself at its very beginnings, the Holy Spirit entered not as one who took it up but as one who sanctified it; within it, just as the manhood bore itself as consort of Christ, so Christ bore himself as its Author. For the one is born, the other is poured in. Of the Son of the Virgin the soul or flesh may be called personally and specially the soul or flesh of the Son of God, but in no way that of the Holy Spirit. In him in whom the Son of God, that is, the God of glory, is said to have been crucified, the Holy Spirit can in no way be said to have suffered in him. Therefore there is a diversity of works, not a diversity of substances. For just as we cannot say that either the Father descended in the likeness of a dove, or that the Son spoke in the voice of the Father when he said:

'This is my Son'—so we cannot assert of the Holy Spirit that he was either born of the Virgin, or specially conversant in the flesh of the Redeemer, or crucified in his passion, or restored to the body in the resurrection, or exalted into the heavens in the ascension. To the work and person of the Son these things must needs be assigned; but to be ascribed to the Holy Spirit—although the unity of will be preserved—they do not befit. Amid these things Macedonius asserts that the Holy Spirit is a creature.

Whence let him begin, if he will—provided that he presume to do nothing by his own words, nor overstep the track of the sacred law by a disputation alien to the holy pages, but bring forward, if he can, authority from the testimonies in all things, which may prevail both in number and in force against the faith of the whole world. There is need of great and undoubted allegations and of copious and very evident proofs, that anyone may convince us that he is one out of the number of creatures whom all the kingdoms of the earth celebrate together with the Father and the Son as of the same honour and glory, whom the Catholic Church, regenerated in him, acknowledges to be her Creator. And rightly: him whom she perceives to be her Restorer, she does not hesitate to believe to be her Author. III.

THE OBJECTION OF MACEDONIUS, WHEREBY HE IMPIOUSLY ASSERTS THE HOLY SPIRIT TO BE A MORE EXCELLENT CREATURE. 'A creature,' you say, 'I call him, but one more excellent than all creatures.' We have said beforehand that we should order our proceeding not by our own persuasions but by Catholic oracles. Since, then, we are treating of God, let the prophet, the apostle, the evangelist answer us. You say he is a creature more excellent than all creatures. Show in what books you have read these words concerning the Holy Spirit. Not, I think, in the old, nor will you teach it in the new. Since, therefore, you are unable to produce it, while you do not set forth your own case, you confirm ours; while you do not prove him a creature, even with us silent you demonstrate him to be the Creator.