Sermons & Letters 53

CHAP. I. — Today's festivity, dearly beloved, venerable throughout the whole world, that coming of the Holy Spirit consecrated, who after the resurrection of the Lord flowed in upon the apostles and the believing people on the fiftieth day, even as was hoped (Acts II, 1). And it was hoped for, because the Lord Jesus had pledged that He would be present (Luke xxiv, 49; Acts I, 4), not that He should then for the first time begin to be the inhabitant of the saints, but that He might both more fervently kindle and more copiously inundate the breasts consecrated to Him; heaping up His gifts, not beginning them, nor new in operation because richer in bounty. For never was the majesty of the Holy Spirit separated from the omnipotence of the Father and of the Son;

and whatsoever the divine governance works in the ordering of all things, comes from the providence of the whole Trinity. There is there one benignity of mercy, one severity of justice; nor is there anything divided in action, where there is nothing diverse in will. What things therefore the Father illumines, the Son illumines, the Holy Spirit illumines; and although the person of the one sent is distinct, distinct that of the one sending, distinct that of the one promising, there is manifested to us at once both unity and Trinity: so that the essence may be understood to have equality, and not to admit solitude, and to be of the same substance, and not of the same person. CHAP. II.

— That therefore, with the cooperation of the inseparable Godhead preserved, the Father does certain things, the Son certain things, the Holy Spirit properly performs certain things, is the disposition of our redemption, is the reason of our salvation. For if man, made to the image and likeness of God (Gen. i, 26), had remained in the honour of his nature, and, deceived by diabolical fraud, had not through concupiscence swerved from the law set for him, the Creator of the world would not become a creature: nor would either the Eternal undergo temporality, or the Son, equal to God the Father, God, assume the form of a servant and the likeness of sinful flesh. But because through the envy of the devil death entered into the world of earthly things (Wisd.

ii, 24), and human captivity could not be loosed otherwise, unless He should take up our cause who both would become true man without loss of His majesty, and alone would not have the contagion of sin; the mercy of the Trinity divided among itself the work of our reparation: so that the Father should be propitiated, the Son should propitiate, the Holy Spirit should enkindle. For it behoved that those who were to be saved should also do something for themselves, and, with their hearts turned to the Redeemer, should depart from the dominion of the enemy: since, as the Apostle says, God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father (Gal. iv, 6). Now where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (2 Cor. III, 17). And, No man can say the Lord Jesus, but in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. xii, 3). CHAP.

III. — If therefore, dearly beloved, under the guidance of grace, we faithfully and wisely come to know what is proper to the Father, what to the Son, what to the Holy Spirit in our reparation, and what is common, we shall without doubt so receive those things which for us were humbly and bodily done, that we may think nothing unworthy of the one and same glory of the Trinity. For although no mind suffices to think of God, no tongue to speak of Him, yet however much that is which is attained by human understanding concerning the essence of the Father's Godhead, unless it is one and the same when it is thought of either concerning His Only-begotten or concerning the Holy Spirit, it is not piously discerned, but too carnally beclouded, and even that which seemed to be fittingly perceived concerning the Father is lost:

for one departs from the whole Trinity, if in it unity be not held. But by no reasoning is that truly one which is diverse by any inequality. CHAP. IV. — When therefore we direct the keen edge of the mind to confess the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, let us repel far from the soul the forms of visible things and the ages of temporal natures, far the bodies of places and the places of bodies. Let there depart from the heart whatever is extended by space, whatever is bounded by an end, and whatever is neither always nor everywhere nor whole. Let the thought conceived concerning the Godhead of the Trinity understand nothing by distance, seek nothing by degrees:

and if it has perceived anything worthy of God, let it dare to deny this there to no person, as though it more honourably ascribed to the Father what it does not attribute to the Son and the Spirit. It is not piety to prefer the Begetter to the Only-begotten; the reproach of the Son is an injury to the Father; what is taken from the one is detracted from both. For since to them both eternity is common and Godhead, neither is the Father esteemed omnipotent nor immutable, if He either begot one less than Himself, or profited by having what He did not have. CHAP. V. — The Lord Jesus indeed says to His disciples, as was recited in the evangelical lesson: If ye loved Me, ye would surely rejoice, because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I (John xiv, 28); but those ears which have more often heard: I and the Father are one (John

x, 30) and He that seeth Me, seeth also the Father (John XIV, 9), receive it without difference of Godhead, nor do they understand this of that essence which they have known to be co-eternal with the Father and of the same nature. To the holy apostles also, therefore, in the incarnation of the Word, the human advancement is commended, and those who were troubled at the announcement to them of the Lord's departure are incited to eternal joys by the increase of their own honour: If ye loved Me, He says, ye would surely rejoice, because I go to the Father (Ibid., 28);

that is, if with perfect knowledge ye saw what glory is conferred upon you through this, that being begotten of God the Father I am also born of a human mother, that I, the Invisible, presented Myself visible, that I, the Eternal, received the form of a servant in the form of God: Ye would rejoice, because I go to the Father. For to you this ascension is granted, and your lowliness, to be placed above all the heavens at the Father's right hand, is exalted in Me. But I, who am with the Father what the Father is, remain undivided with My Begetter, and thus coming from Him to you I do not withdraw, even as, returning to Him, I do not forsake you. Rejoice therefore, because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

For I have united you to Myself, and have become the Son of Man, that ye might be able to be the sons of God. Whence, although I am one in both, yet in that whereby I am conformed to you, I am less than the Father; but in that whereby I am not divided from the Father, I am even greater than My very self. The nature therefore which is less than the Father, let it go to the Father, that there the flesh may be where the Word ever is; and let the one faith of the catholic Church, which does not deny Him to be less according to His humanity, believe Him equal according to His Godhead. CHAP. VI. — Let there be despised, therefore, dearly beloved, the vain and blind cunning of heretical impiety, which flatters itself with a perverse interpretation of this sentence: and, when the Lord says: All things that the Father hath are Mine (John

XVI, 15), it does not understand that it takes away from the Father whatsoever it dares to deny to the Son, and so is foolish in these things which are human, as to suppose that on this account the paternal things were lacking to the Only-begotten, because He took upon Himself our things. Mercy did not diminish power in God, nor is the beloved reconciliation of the creature a defect of eternal glory. What the Father hath, the Son also hath, and what the Father and the Son have, the Holy Spirit also hath, because the whole Trinity together is one God. But this faith no earthly wisdom found out, nor did human opinion persuade it, but the Only-begotten Son Himself taught it, the Holy Spirit Himself instituted it; concerning whom nothing is to be thought otherwise than concerning the Father and the Son.

For although He is not the Father, is not the Son, yet He is not divided from the Father and the Son; and as He has His own person in the Trinity, so He has one substance in the Godhead of the Father and of the Son, filling all things, containing all things, and with the Father and the Son governing all things, to whom is honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. CHAP. I. — Today's festivity, dearly beloved, consecrated to the descent of the Holy Spirit, there follows, as ye know, the solemn fast, which, wholesomely instituted for the healing of souls and bodies, is to be celebrated by us with devout observance.

For when the apostles were filled with the promised power, and the Spirit of truth had entered into their hearts, we do not doubt that among the other heavenly mysteries of doctrine, this discipline of spiritual continence was first conceived from the teaching of the Paraclete: that minds sanctified by fasting might become fitter for the chrisms to be conferred upon them. There was present to the disciples of Christ the protection of omnipotent aid, and the whole Divinity of the Father and of the Son presided over the princes of the nascent Church in the presence of the Holy Spirit. But against the pressing assaults of persecutors, against the threatening roarings of the impious, the contest was not to be waged by strength of body nor by fullness of flesh; since this most of all corrupts the inward parts of man, that the outward delights him;

and the rational soul becomes so much the purer, the more the substance of the flesh has been afflicted. CHAP. II. — These teachers therefore, who imbued all the sons of the Church with their examples and traditions, began the first campaign of Christian warfare with holy fasts: that, being about to fight against spiritual wickednesses, they might take up the arms of abstinence, wherewith they might cut down the incentives of vices. For the invisible adversaries and incorporeal enemies will not be strong against us, if we have been immersed in no carnal desires. The desire indeed of doing harm is perpetual in the tempter, but it will be unarmed and ineffectual, if it find in us nothing whereby it may fight against us.

But who, girt about with this frail flesh and placed in this body of death, even he who has profited much and mightily, is so already secure of his own salvation that he should believe himself a stranger to the peril of all allurements? Although divine grace grant to His saints a daily victory, yet it does not take away the material for combat, since this very thing also is of the mercy of the Protector, who willed that there should always remain to the mutable nature something to be conquered, lest it should grow proud over a finished battle. CHAP. III. — Therefore after the days of holy gladness, which we have spent in honour of the Lord rising from the dead and thereafter ascending into the heavens, and after the reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the custom of fasting has been wholesomely and necessarily ordained:

so that if perchance amid the very joys of the festivities a negligent freedom and disordered licence has presumed anything, it may be chastised by the censure of religious abstinence: which is also on this account the more zealously to be pursued, that those things which on this day were divinely conferred upon the Church may abide in us. For being made the temple of the Holy Spirit, and watered with a greater abundance than ever of the divine river, we ought to be conquered by no concupiscences, to be possessed by no vices, that the dwelling-place of virtue may be defiled by no contamination. CHAP. IV. — And this, indeed, with the Lord ruling and aiding, is possible for all to obtain, if by the purification of fasting and by the bounty of mercy we strive both to be freed from the filth of sins and to be fruitful in the fruits of charity.

For whatsoever is expended upon the food of the poor, upon the healing of the weak, upon the ransom of captives, and upon any work of piety, is not diminished but increased, nor can that ever perish with God which faithful benignity has bestowed, since whatever it gives for relief, it lays up for itself unto reward. For blessed are the merciful, for God shall have mercy upon them (Matt. v, 7); nor shall there be memory of offences where the testimony of piety has been present. On the fourth day of the week, therefore, and on the sixth let us fast; but on the Sabbath let us keep vigil at the shrine of the most blessed apostle Peter, by whose prayers we trust to be freed both from spiritual enemies and from bodily foes.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.