Sermons 157

The authors of all cures assert, dearly beloved, that the diverse benefits of medicine are suited to diverse pains, and that each several benefit affords something peculiar to each several infirmity; so that they teach that swellings ought either to be checked with the knife, or softened by the compounding of a salve: that hidden ailments are better tracked down by potions, that the cold parts of bodies are fed with hot things, the hotter tempered with the colder. But I in the work of divine instruction think otherwise. For if you review that Epistle written to Timothy, you will find that under one medicine, and by the excision of a single wound, many maladies can be cured.

But what that wound is, in which diverse infirmities meet and work deadly pains, the holy apostle Paul evidently set forth, saying: 'The root of all evils is covetousness: which some coveting have erred from the faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows' (1 Tim. 6:10). It must be treated, therefore, dearly beloved, by what work, by what labour so great a forest of crimes ought to be hewn down. But first you ought to recognize the causes of all the vices that run together from every side, this one thing, and to inquire diligently whence each several thing descends, whither it goes, what of deformity, what of pain it presents. For the greatest hope of recovering health is to know the source of the sickness. The root of all evils is covetousness.

And truly, dearly beloved, if we consider the several things by which from the beginning the human condition has prostituted its life to the zeal of possessing, there is nothing of evils which covetousness does not either conceive, or bring to birth, or feed, or nourish. For from this kindling-wood we see the causes of hatreds sprout up, hence the battles of crimes to arise, hence fraternal battle-lines to be drawn up, hence the covenants of friendships to be dissipated. Let no one, therefore, assign to the several infirmities the guilt of a pain proper to itself. For although all the vices stand under their own names, yet they hang upon the wickednesses of others. We see, then, pride composed of the swelling of vanity, and even the humblest man moved by the contagion of arrogance.

If you should perchance suddenly behold him set among his equals, you judge him to be other than he was, so puffed up does he walk in words, and with swelling countenance you may see him carry his neck toward heaven, and by the benefit of poverty long fortify the closed pathway of his tongue with the weight of words; and to such a degree does he dispose the words of his fastidious mouth, that when he himself wishes to speak, he will not that another be heard. But these things, although grave in themselves, are proved to be animated by the enticements of covetousness. When the pomp of riches ceases, you will not so easily find one who labours under the envy of pride. The root of all evils is covetousness. Let us run through the several things, if it seem good, and you will find with how many evils the vice of covetousness sprouts. Behold, a neighbourhood is frequently armed for strife:

whence is this, save that this man perchance thinks to overstep the boundaries, and plots to seize the turf of another's right? Why does that sentence not meet his eyes: 'Pass not beyond the boundaries which thy fathers have set' (Prov. 22:28)? Behold, in this place first arises a contention over property: and while each man fosters his own covetousness with words, he kindles the goad of strife. Afterward, out of contention grows litigation: and would that this alone might suffice covetousness! That which is graver is this, that while no one wishes to make loss of the calumny he has begun, it comes to a brawl. Servants are armed, kinsmen are incited, and one man's breast is set against another for the gain of another. Fury, hired by wine, is animated, and blood shed becomes the price of possession.

Afterward the forum is opened by the laws; and while a place for vengeance is sought, homicide is redoubled. We see also frequently battle-lines composed by covetousness, while either this man wishes to appear richer, or that man blushes to be poorer. And while these vie among themselves, the fellowship of a neighbouring possession is meanwhile imperilled, while each seeks to be the first to invade, and plots how he may possess it free of charge. So it comes to pass that while covetousness seeks increase, another's patrimony totters. Why do these men not consider that sentence which says: 'Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee; and these things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?' (Luke 12:20)?

And truly there is nothing more foolish than to seek doubtful things and to acquire perishable ones. For what do riches profit a man, which are gathered together only to this end, that they may perish? Certainly, when you die, the turf enlarged by avarice remains; the enlarged possession is left behind; and although it be poured over into another's power, yet it shall preserve the testimony of its own crime. In this place must always be pondered that prophetic word: 'Woe to him that joineth house to house' (Isa. 5:8). But you say: 'I read that parents ought to lay up treasure for their children' (2 Cor. 12:14). From this very sentence you can recognize what your dutifulness has profited. Behold, to another pass the ornaments of your riches, and with you remains the odium of your persuasion. With another has settled the pomp of your goods, and with you the penalty has migrated.

It is a kind of folly to have made gain for others, and prepared punishment for oneself. For the Apostle thus says: 'They that will be rich fall into temptation and into the snare of the devil' (1 Tim. 6:9). But not even after a long interval does the heavenly sentence of strictness put forth its power. For in some manner the increments of the vices succeed by degrees toward a certain vengeance for past deeds. In short, this man with parricidal mind either upbraids his father's life, or awaits his mother's death. Perhaps the cause of a due inheritance defends him from this crime. It is true: but although he be a lawful heir, yet not without the vice of covetousness does he plot the wing of the succession. In short, he would wish to be the only one, if he could:

now he thinks on his father's death, now he sighs after his brother's life. This is not without a great crime of impiety. For whoever of men feeds his soul with the expectation of a parent's death, succeeds to the inheritance with the crime of parricide. In this place, by the impulse of covetousness, hatreds are nourished among co-heirs. Not yet is the funeral carried out, and already the good faith of the testament is voided by an interpretation of the law. One disputes about the father's signature, another despairs of the brother's person. This one alleges that the writing does not stand by witnesses, that one asserts that the testament does not agree with the dates. So the estate totters in the collision of lawsuits; and what the avarice of the parents acquired, the covetousness of the children loses. Hear the Scripture saying:

'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods' (Exod. 20:17). It cannot be enumerated in how many ways covetousness rages. Behold, where a testament is produced, at once there is thought of forgery. It is asked who heard the mute man speaking, who knew the dead man ordaining his heirs. Nor is it difficult, what is worse, for anyone to find persons either joined in crime or bought with a price. This wretch imitates the wicked signature of another. So the writing which the testator did not draw up, covetousness composes, with the pen often repeating it. The root of all evils is covetousness.

This man, to confirm the fraud, arms falsehood with perjury; that man sometimes sets his corrupted breast against another's lawsuits. So under the vice of one single covetousness a substance is both acquired and torn to pieces. Where is that which the Scripture says: 'A false witness shall not be unpunished' (Prov. 19:5)? To whom shall we think this to be imputed, that among those whom we hear to have sometimes taken part in crimes, even the innocent are called into accusation? For suspicion frequently comes into the inquiry; and although the guilt of theft resides with one, the odium of encroachment passes over to another. So while increase of substance is sought, even things well acquired are torn to pieces. Thus it comes to pass that sometimes falsehood descends from covetousness, and from falsehood poverty.

The root of all evils is covetousness. Whence comes it that we often see legions standing armed against one another? What else is it but that the one seeks to seize what belongs to another, while the other guards what he has seized? From this it comes that contention is sometimes made for the power of empire, and men strive out of ambition for primacy. All things would surely stand in peace, if the lust to rule did not carry a man away. The root of all evils is avarice. Let us ask whose vice it is that a man's life is entrusted to a thin plank, and that men make trial of doubtful chances upon the deep.

Is it not to be ascribed to covetousness, when at the onset of a storm the sailors' cry accuses the high sea? Does it not recur to the malice of covetousness, when the shipwrecked body is dashed against jagged rocks, and limbs swollen with water are cast by the sea's wave upon unknown shores? Never surely would the sailor have entrusted himself to a ship, had not the greed of gain incited his desire to sail.

In short, a man is borne over the waves by his vow to quadruple his money; gold is carried out that perjury may be brought back with falsehood. For no business is ever transacted without fraud, where a thing is bought cheaper for this sole purpose, that it may be sold dearer. Wherefore even if the voyage prospers quietly according to men's wishes, it is not without shipwreck, since between seller and buyer, by unjust weights or measures, someone either wrongs or is wronged. Why then do these men not consider that saying which declares: As you have measured, it shall be measured to you (Matth. VII, 2)? We blush to speak of those things, dearly beloved, which are done at the prompting of luxury, whose traffic descends from covetousness.

Frequently, then, conjugal chastity is cheapened by a valuation in money, and a virginity long uncontaminated, prostituted for a small weight of gold, has lost the pledge of its integrity. So great in some is covetousness, that chastity is put up for sale and finds a price for its own defilement. For money is diligently weighed out for the corruption of the body, as though something worthy were being purchased. Wretched indeed is he who takes more counsel for covetousness than for chastity. To have condemned the grace of a promised inheritance is to have suffered the loss of integrity. See how unlike is the traffic of covetousness under one and the same crime: this one gave money to buy corruption; that one lost her chastity to gain money. For nothing is done without covetousness, as often as sin is committed.

For if you remove the cult of ornaments, you will suffer no shipwreck in the defilement of the body. Let the desire for gold cease, and neither does conjugal faith perish, nor does virginal integrity blush. The root of all evils is avarice. Here one man is convicted of treachery; there another, an informer, is accused of another's crime. Who can doubt that the weight of proffered money has broken into the secret of the heart? Nothing stands shut that gold and silver do not open; nothing is hidden that is not made known when money searches it out. Whence perilously is the trust of conscience committed to those over whom covetousness holds sway. Integrity would surely keep its whole secret, if traitorous money had no entrance into another's house. The root of all evils is covetousness.

Behold, our Lord and Saviour Himself fulfilled the outcome of His willing Passion through the vice of another's covetousness. We read that the condemnation of our Redeemer was purchased for thirty pieces of silver. But just as you have seen betrayal come from covetousness, so ought you to recognize condemnation descending from betrayal. The betrayed was indeed led to punishment, but the betrayer runs to the noose. Behold what fruit covetousness has: the money of condemnation, laid up for the purchase of a burial place, that is, assigned to a grave. Understand therefore in what state is the guilt of covetousness, when the price of betrayal has come to condemnation. For the apostle Peter also says: May your money be with you unto perdition (Act. VIII, 20).

Perhaps some one of the foolish and the avaricious may flatter himself with an opinion on this matter, and put forward what he hears, that his money will migrate with him. We take nothing away from his wishes on this side. It will indeed come with you, not, as you suppose, for the adornment of the body, but for a testimony of your falsehood. Yet this reckoning does not apply to those whom mercy accompanies. One cause awaits those whom their money, to be spent upon the poor, commends to the Lord by generous giving; another awaits those whom wealth stored up through crime accuses. To the latter it is reckoned unto punishment, but for the former it is prepared unto the kingdom, as the Lord thus says: Come, children, possess with me the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. I was hungry, and you gave me to eat;

I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was naked, and you clothed me (Matth. XXV, 34-36). Let each one of you therefore, dearly beloved, be content with that quality of money which acquires the grace of salvation, not that which kindles a cause of condemnation. Let us therefore chastise covetousness in the first place, if we wish to conquer the error of all the vices. Let no one covet another's goods, and there is no one who labours under the ill-will of enmities; let no one attack a partnership, and there is no contest over encroachment. Let each be content with his own, and there is no dispute over a possession seized. Despise gold, and the murder prepared for it vanishes;

nor are parricidal hatreds sown, if the eye of covetousness be chastised. There is nothing over which an heir need blush, if a man come content to the moderate share of his portion. Let there be none who seeks the increase of money, and no one accuses another of the guilt of betrayal. If you seek no gain, you will suffer no shipwreck in the tempest; and when idle you guard the secrets of your little field, you will look on another's peril untroubled. To avoid these things, dearly beloved, step by step is perhaps difficult, and it is laborious to meet at once many enemies through diverse errors. We must therefore seek a shortcut of the war, and the author of the strife must be sought out, that our fight may be with him from whom the wrong proceeded.

For without doubt you will be able to conquer legions arrayed in arms, if you can master the tyrant. And he has ended the whole cause of the war who has overcome the author of the fight. Let us therefore draw up the battle-lines of the virtues against the prepared legions of crimes. But above all, with faith aiding us, let us fight against that very thing which is the head of the war, that is, covetousness. So will the victory over that stain of the vices of which we have spoken be not difficult, its mother being taken captive. The burden of your vows concerning me has been laid upon me; and though for the present, as it is written, absent in body, yet present in spirit and mind I come to you (I Cor. V, 3; Coloss. II, 5).

And I show, as I think, no small measure of duty and of love to your charity, in that I trust that you too walk in the spirit, not in the flesh, since the Apostle says: Whoever are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you (Rom. VIII, 8, 9). Nor do I truly hold a way unknown to spiritual men, if I set forth the care of your edification in the discourses of an epistolary utterance, having before my hands the pre-eminent example of the most blessed Paul, whom we desire to follow, even though we are not able to attain to him. For although the comparison with him admits us in nothing, yet to you the obedience of those whom he teaches is to be matched.

So that, with the teaching set in due order: with the ROMANS (Rom. I, 8), desiring your faith to be proclaimed in all the world; with the CORINTHIANS (II Cor. VI, 6), corrected by a second amendment, with peace entire and charity unfeigned, you may, as it is written, salute one another with a holy kiss (I Cor. XVI, 20; II Cor. XIII, 12). With the GALATIANS (Gal. IV, 10, 30, 31), rejecting the observance of months and seasons and days, renouncing the world and following God, you may understand yourselves to be sons not of the bondwoman but of the free. That, in the word of truth, remaining with the EPHESIANS (Ephes. I, 13; IV, 5), you may know one Lord, one faith, one God the Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all. With the PHILIPPIANS (Philipp. II,

14, 15), blameless and sincere, doing all things without murmuring and hesitations, that you may shine as lights in the midst of a crooked generation. With the COLOSSIANS (Coloss. III, 16), the word of Christ dwelling in you abundantly, you may teach one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. With the THESSALONIANS (I Thess. IV, 1, 3; V, 17), following the will of God, abstaining from fornication, praying without ceasing, proving all things, holding fast that which is good. Thereafter, pursuing the order of the precept with all diligence: that if any will not work, neither let him eat (II Thess. III, 10). For He Himself is the bread that came down from heaven (Joan. VI, 51, 59);

with whom it befits no one to be mingled, unless he practise the works in which He delights. So that TIMOTHY may be a pattern for you, who, even after long drinking water, was bidden to use a little wine to sustain his stomach (I Tim. V, 23), not to oppress it: for although he is instructed by twofold admonitions, unless a man be sober, he cannot fulfil his ministry (II Tim. IV, 5). So that the example of TITUS may form you, that you ought not only to be sober, but also continent; for to the pure all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure (Tit. I, 8, 15). Finally, this conclusion of the apostolic teaching completed the whole sum of the mystic number, the purification of a body cleansed, since nothing is so near to God as for a man not to be corrupted.

Let us therefore attend more circumspectly to what follows after these things. A servant once a fugitive returns to his master, and his condition is changed by conversion (Philem.). Begotten in the apostolic bonds, the unprofitable one advances to usefulness; and not only into a brother, but even into a most beloved brother, he rises by the loftiness of a joined name to a rank of souls united; nor does he merely deserve the bond of appellation, but also the affection of love. For to this is chaste purity, nourished by sobriety, brought by the Lord's favour, that what the sparing use of wine cured in Timothy, what abstinence and continence purged in Titus, this grows unto a most indulgent liberty in ONESIMUS. These things are both to be carried out by the learned, and to be acknowledged by the unlearned;

for as it is written, ignorance too is death (I Cor. XIV, 38), and faith without works is dead (Jac. II, 26). A twofold reckoning of observance to be applied rests upon you: the care of knowing, with the labour of fulfilling; since, as to those things which are prescribed in the divine oracles, not only to do them, but even to be ignorant of them, is sin. Finally, taking the HEBREWS as an example of consummate perfection, I instil the contempt of present things for the love of heavenly rewards.

So that if perchance anyone should either lay upon you the weight of persecution, or plunder all that is yours, you too may follow with a like affection of holy imitation that noble and singular testimony which Paul uttered from his venerable mouth in their exceptional praise, when he says: For you had compassion on the prisoners, and took the plundering of your goods with joy (Hebr. X, 34). To men reborn through faith, and sanctified according to the form of the Gospel in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and through this confession hoping for the heavenly kingdom, the Apostle said that nothing is more useful than that they should have care for good works. For thus he writes to Titus:

And I will that you affirm these things, that they who believe in God may be careful to maintain good works. These things, he says, are good and profitable to men. But avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain (Tit. III, 8-9). In writing these things the blessed Apostle already then foresaw that there would be men who, through curiosity and unprofitable questions, would neglect the care of good works, and would destroy the peace which the Lord had left to His Church. For men who, while they strive to be high-minded, are not permitted to understand humble things, forgetting the Apostle's saying, Be not high-minded, but fear (Rom. XI, 20), thus, while they presume upon things unlawful, have lost even things lawful.

These are they who, when they cannot gather and grasp by their sense even the fabric of heaven and earth, yet contend to grasp and measure the very Creator and Fashioner, God; and Him whom they ought, through the greatness of His works and the immensity of such great things, simply and solely to adore, they subject to questioning; and they dispute about the quality of His mystery and about its quantity, saying: How great is the Father? Of what sort the Son? Of what kind the Holy Spirit? O man, not yet knowing yourself, do you dare to measure things divine? And indeed, I say nothing of Sabellius the Patripassian, who dared with foolish presumption to say that the very One who is the Father is the Son; that He is also the Holy Spirit: and that there is a Trinity in name only, not also in truth;

nor subsist in persons, but in appellation alone: and so he confounds the whole, when he feigns that the Father Himself took a body and suffered. I say nothing of Photinus, who, hearing of the incarnation of the only-begotten Son of God, His humility, and that Passion which is salvation-bearing for us, thought Him to be man only; but denied Him to be God, whom he ought to have acknowledged from those very works: forgetting the saying of the Apostle who says: That whereas Christ was in the form of God, He took the form of a servant; that to us, as to servants of sin, He might give the most true liberty (Philip. II, 6-7). And to the Corinthians: You know, he says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for our sakes He became poor, though He was rich, that by His poverty you might be rich (II Cor. VIII, 9).

I say nothing, then, of Sabellius or of Photinus, because from nearly all the churches they have received a sentence worthy of their error. Concerning this heresy, which now calumniates the Catholic faith, you have asked me to say a few words; concerning this heresy assuredly which arose with Arius as its author. For he was not content with the Gospel utterances and the preachings of the apostles, which surely proclaim Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit: nor did he deign to believe, as is fitting, that the Father has a Son, and the Son truly has a Father: but when the unhappy man extended himself and wished to inquire how and in what manner God was able to beget, not apprehending the manner, because it cannot even be comprehended, he fell into error, so as to deny both the Father and the Son.

For he denies the Father in this, that he says He could not beget of Himself a proper and true Son: and the Son he denies in this, that he says He was made from elsewhere and from things non-existent, rather than begotten; and that He is a certain creature, which for the sake of love merited to be called Son;

but that He is not truly the Son who is begotten of the Father; and hence it is that he devised Him to be of another substance, lest He should at all be believed to be the true Son of the Father. Against this his perversity, therefore, and his new doctrine, the Nicene Synod was convened, where, all the Scriptures being collated and gone through, the truth was made manifest, was written down. For, in short, the Son whom Arius had said to be from elsewhere and not of the Father, nor of the substance of the Father, that is, of that very thing which is God, our holy Fathers professed to be born of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, born not made, of one substance with the Father; that surely no diversity may be believed in the Son.

Truly indeed, if He is the true Son of God, and is truly begotten of God the Father, He must not be believed to be of another substance, save that of Him whose Son He is, so that as the Father is God, so may the Son be God; and as the Father is light, so may the Son be light. But this very profession, whereby the Son is believed to be of the same substance, offends some, and the holy profession is wrested by calumnies. For they interpret the saying 'of one substance' as though we said the Father is divided; and that the Son is a part of the Father; and that God the Father is diminished in the Son: or at any rate that by an efflux and derivation the Son retains the unity of the paternal substance.

Which be it far, not only from Christian minds, but even from Christian ears, that any such thing should come into our thought. But we so believe the Son to be of one substance, that we believe the Father to be perfect in His eternity, and remaining also in His impassibility, to have so begotten the Son that He experienced no suffering or diminution of His nature and of His majesty, but that, Himself perfect, He begot of Himself the perfect One, before all ages, the true, almighty Son, through whom indeed all things were made, without whom nothing was made: so that the true Father of His only-begotten Son, and the true Son of the Father, may be believed, not confused, but distinct; the Son nevertheless having in Himself all things that are the Father's, even as He Himself says in the Gospel:

All things that the Father has are mine (Joan. XVI, 15). What are all those things? Surely virtue, surely power, goodness, incorruption, glory, and eternity, even as the Father has. But if these were not in the Son, I fear to say it, the Father would seem to have degenerated in the Son. And if this be so, that the Son should be esteemed degenerate, how is there the same honour, the Lord Himself saying, that all should honour the Son even as they honour the Father (Joan. V, 23)? This the Lord requires, this the faithful render: nor is one scandalized at the humility of the Son, the Saviour, nor at His words which He spoke according to man; nor at the sufferings which for the salvation of the world He deigned to fulfil:

but through these very things they feel that they owe more of grace, more of honour to Christ: so that even if it were not commanded in the Gospel that all should honour the Son even as they honour the Father, the more faithful would do this of their own accord: because He who deigned to humble Himself ought to be exalted, as it is written, He that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Luc. XIV, 11). But when the Father says, This is my Son, hear ye Him (Matth. III, 17), and the Son says, That all should honour the Son even as they honour the Father (Joan. V, 23), what blindness of minds is it, that, honour being neglected, insults should be devised?

What forgetfulness of hope is it, to esteem Christ weak and lesser and contemptible, who conferred upon us fortitude and greatness and glory according to the will of His Father? Believe me: the honour of the Son is the dignity of the Father; as much as you offer to the only-begotten, so much the more will you amplify the glory of the Father. The good Father does not envy the Son His glory; for all the glory of the Son runs back to the Father. This is the Catholic sense, this the devotion of the faithful, this the zeal of the saints. According to these things they understand all the sayings and deeds of the Saviour, and understanding, they speak of them. Nor are they at all hindered in this devotion by those things which seem to show the Lord's will: as, for instance, The Father is greater than I (Joan. XIV, 28);

and, I came not to do my own will (Joan. VI, 38); and, The Son can do nothing of Himself (Joan. V, 19); and many other things of this kind: all of which do not weaken the Son, nor depreciate Him, but distinguish Him from the Father. Since these too are set down for this end, that His true divinity may not be denied: I came forth from God the Father (Joan. XVI, 28); and, I am in the Father, and the Father in me (Joan. X, 38); I and the Father are one (Ibid., 30); and, He that sees me, sees also the Father (Joan. XIV, 9); and, As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He will (Joan. V, 21). But neither do those things scandalize the faithful soul, in which the Lord is reported to have hungered, slept, wept; and then, sorrowful even unto death, the cross, the Passion, the burial:

since for this end they were written and done, that both examples of endurance might be furnished, and His true incarnation might be known. For in that the Lord is said to have hungered, understand the assumption of a true body. But in that with five loaves and two fishes He feeds five thousand men, recognize His true divinity. Assuredly, when He says: I am the living bread that came down from heaven (Joan. VI, 41), it does not fall within our sense that bread should be believed to hunger. So too is it to be understood of sleep, since as by the sleep of the body the truth is known, so by that which immediately commands the winds and the waves, His true divinity is proved. For in that He shed tears over Lazarus, the suspicion of a phantasm is removed;

for tears are the humours of a true body. But in that He says, Lazarus, come forth (Joan. XI, 43), and immediately he who already stank, the earth opening itself, came forth alive, it is a great token of His divinity. For that also which He says, My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Matth. XXVI, 38), can from this very resurrection of Lazarus be understood, how it ought to be taken: for the divinity did not fear death, but through the sorrow of the soul indicated a human affection. The cross likewise, the Passion, and the burial, are dispelled by one or another saying of the Lord, lest impotence or infirmity be ascribed to Him. When He says to the Jews, Destroy this temple, He surely meant His own body: and I will raise it up in three days (Joan. II, 19).

And again He says, I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again (Joan. X, 18). If He raises up the temple of His own body, if there is power of laying down the soul through the Passion and of resuming it through the Resurrection, the opinion of infirmity ceases in Christ, where the sublimity of so great power is declared. All things therefore are to be piously understood; all are to be handled with honour; both are to be confessed in the Lord; and the form in which He always was, and the form of a servant, which was assumed for the sake of servants, is to be believed; and the passion according to the flesh, and the impassibility according to the divinity; lest we be judged either impious or ungrateful. For he who denies the Son of God, according to that which He is, to be impassible,

and says that He is unlike God the Father, this man is impious. And he who disdains to confess His sufferings according to the flesh, is ungrateful. Let us therefore glory in the cross of Christ, as Paul was wont to glory: But God forbid, he says, that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal. VI, 14). Let us confess the unity, that we be not separated: For if we are dead with Him, says the Apostle, we shall also live with Him: if we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us (II Tim. II, 11-12). If we believe not what He Himself says, I and the Father are one, He remains faithful, He cannot deny Himself; because He is in the glory of God the Father; because He lives with the Father; because He reigns with the Father in one and the same dominion.

As the Apostle says, when he was speaking of every unchaste and unclean and covetous person, There shall be, he says, no heir in the kingdom of Christ and of God (Eph. V, 5); he called it one kingdom, as much of Christ as of God; because there is one will of the Father and the Son; one co-operation; one grace, finally, and one and the same governance: as the same teacher of the Gentiles instructs, writing: Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. And again: But may God Himself and our Father, and the Lord Jesus, direct our way unto you (I Thess. III, 11). He did not say 'direct' (plural), lest he should introduce a diversity of the Father and the Son, either of will or of power; but he said 'direct' (singular), that he might rather demonstrate the unity.

With this faith, therefore, and in these same words, let us also pray that the one grace of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the one peace, one governance also, may ever both protect and direct us. These few words in place of a little commentary, since you asked that they be written to you, I could not refuse. I am confident that to faithful souls, though they are brief, they will be able to afford the full gladness of God. Here ends the book of Nicetas the bishop On the Rule of Faith. Here begins his book On the Power of the Holy Spirit. It follows that I set forth, according to the capacity of my mind, what I hold concerning the third Person, that is, the Holy Spirit: since I understand that many doubt especially about this.

And although it is rash to dispute about Him who is joined to the Father and the Son in confession, according to the Lord's tradition and our confession in baptism, yet because many hold divergent views, and a reason is required of us, it must of necessity be rendered; nor rendered from anywhere else, save from the fountains of the divine Scriptures. But I am certain that ears pre-occupied and minds weighed down by another opinion can with difficulty be appeased: for a prejudice is pernicious. For this is in human nature, that if something evil has been whispered to us about some good man, and a lying messenger has forestalled the knowledge of the truth, we lay aside with difficulty and toil the opinion once received, even if we are taught by suitable witnesses.

Which I suspect will now happen to many, who, forestalled by the perverse interpretation of teachers, have believed the Holy Spirit to be a creature, and have despised Him as a minister. Let us return therefore to our purpose. In the Nicene treatise it was set down, according to the form of the creed, We believe also in the Holy Spirit. Which surely sufficed for the faithful, because in that assembly there had been a question about the Son, not about the Holy Spirit. And would that, as it had been handed down, they who afterwards introduced the question about the Spirit had simply believed the Holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son! as, for instance, the Macedonians, or those who share in this curiosity. For while these too inquire, of what sort is the Holy Spirit also? Whence is He? How great is He? Was He born? Or was He made?

thus again they rent the people, and truly, according to the Apostle's saying (I Tim. I, 4), introduced an interminable question into the Churches. Ought they not rather to have honoured, together with the Father and the Son, Him whom they had once believed to be holy and holy by birth, than to have associated Him with creatures? But still they bring in questions, and by tortuous interrogations they contend to strip of faith any who are simple. And I think it doubtful to no one that an evil interrogation hurls the one questioned, unless he be wary, unknowingly into blasphemy. And hence it is that Paul forewarns: See that no man rob you through philosophy and vain deceit (Coloss. II, 8). For the rebels question concerning the Holy Spirit: Was the Holy Spirit born, or unborn?

Behold two snares stretched out on the right and on the left: for into whichever part you wish to extend the foot of your reply, you will be caught. If you say, He was born, he will say that He is then no longer the only-begotten Son of God, since another also has been born. If you say, He was not born, he will say to you, then there will also be another unbegotten Father: and now there is no longer one God the Father, of whom are all things. But when he has blocked the way of reply on either side, he now leads you as if by a straight course into the pit, so as to say: If then the Spirit was neither born of the Father, nor unbegotten, it remains that He be called a creature. What shall the faith of the Church do amid these clauses?

Shall it acquiesce in tortuous philosophy, and against the opinion of all the Scriptures, both of the Old and of the New Testament, believe the holy Spirit of God to be created, whom it could nowhere read to be a creature? Be it far. It will do far better, if, spurning human conclusions of this kind and the bonds of interrogations, it turn itself to the words of its Lord. For He Himself in the Gospel says whence the Holy Spirit is; He Himself sets an end to the question, He who has no end. He says therefore to the apostles: I will send you from the Father the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth (Joan. XV, 26). But whence is He? You do not know. If you wish to know, hear Him saying: He proceeds from the Father. What now is fitting, brethren? To hear Christ, or men?

Christ did not say that the Holy Spirit was made, but only this, that He proceeds from the Father. Our adversaries say that He was made and created. I judge it were better to believe these things as Christ the Lord revealed them than as human presumption has contrived them. But if we should ask them from what source they can prove that the Holy Spirit was made, since they have no sure and clear testimony from the Scriptures, they take up that saying in the Gospel: 'All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made' (John 1:3). They therefore say: If all things were made through Him, then the Holy Spirit too must be believed to have been made among all things. This is no fit proof, but rather a scrupulous piecing-together. I ask, then:

the mouth of John, who spoke these things — in what Spirit did it speak? Was it not in the Holy Spirit? If then it spoke in the Spirit, it was surely the Spirit Himself who spoke. Now He was speaking of those things which were made through Him, namely all that is established in the multitude and order of creatures; the Holy Spirit was not speaking of Himself, as though He too were to be believed made from nothing among the rest of the creatures. And the blessed apostle Paul is witness to this matter, who enumerates by name those things that were made through Christ. 'In Him,' he says, 'were created all things that are in the heavens and that are on the earth, visible and invisible; whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers:'

all things were created through Him and in Him' (Col. 1:16). Did he anywhere among all the things heavenly and earthly name the Holy Spirit as well? And surely he would have named Him first of all, had he known Him to be created or made like the rest. But if you insist on understanding so harshly the saying, 'all things were made through Him,' so as not to except the Holy Spirit, I ask what you think of what the prophet David says to God the Lord: 'all things serve Thee' (Ps. 118:91). Do you say that the Holy Spirit serves among all things, or do you call Him a servant, who surely is not a servant but the Lord who frees the creature from servitude? That the Holy Spirit is Lord, Paul writing to the Thessalonians says thus:

'May the Lord direct your hearts in the love of God and the patience of Christ' (2 Thess. 3:5). Without doubt he called the Spirit Lord, of whom the Saviour Himself had also said to the apostles that 'He shall direct you into all truth' (John 16:13). Still more plainly does Paul teach, saying: 'The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty' (2 Cor. 3:17). And to the Romans: 'You have not received,' he says, 'the spirit of bondage again in fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption' (Rom. 8:15). If He is the Spirit of adoption, and makes men sons of God, how is He set in a servile condition, since a servant cannot lawfully set free? 'Because,' he says, 'you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts crying out:'

'Abba, Father.' 'And if a son, then an heir through God; therefore he is now no longer a servant, but a son' (Gal. 4:6-7). If Christ makes me free and a son and heir of the divinity that bears His own name, I shall be impious if I should call Him a servant who makes me free. Moreover the liberty of the Spirit is manifested also in this, that the Apostle says: 'One and the same Spirit works all things, dividing to each severally as He wills' (1 Cor. 12:11). Where a voluntary distribution is proclaimed, no condition of servitude can be seen. For in a creature servitude is to be understood; but in the Trinity, lordship and liberty.

Therefore if that which is said in the psalm, 'all things serve Thee,' pertains to the creatures and not to the Holy Spirit, then this saying also, 'all things were made through Him,' does not enclose the Holy Spirit among all things; for He who proceeds from the Father is nowhere read to have been made from any matter or from nothing. It is enough, then, for the faithful to know this: that the Son indeed is begotten, but the Spirit is proceeding from the Father; and let us use those very words which the divine Scripture willed us to use.

But he who loves life, and knows the Author of life, and has received Him in the shared honour of the three Names in the sacrament of baptism — let him not there seek an end where it is certain there was no beginning, in which he has believed. We believe therefore that the Holy Spirit the Paraclete proceeds from the Father; but that He is not the Son, nor the Son of the Son, as they are wont foolishly to inquire; but the Spirit of truth, whose procession, of what kind or how great it is, is granted to no one to know. For concerning the incomprehensibility of the Spirit Himself the Lord also said in the Gospel: 'For the Spirit breathes where He wills, and you hear His voice, but you know not whence He comes or whither He goes' (John 3:8). This Spirit we know to be in His own true person;

the fountain of sanctification, the light of souls, the distributor of graces. This Spirit sanctifies, is not sanctified; enlightens, is not enlightened; nor can any creature without this Spirit either attain to eternity or be named truly holy. I dare to say: the very temple of the Lord — that is, the body which He took from the Virgin — was assuredly furnished by the Spirit Himself. And the angel Gabriel said to Mary: 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; and therefore that which is born of thee is of the Holy Spirit' (Luke 1:35). Behold, that very temple in which the Word of the Lord dwelt we find sanctified by the Spirit. And although the Lord Himself says of Himself, 'Whom the Father sanctified and sent into this world' (John 10:36);

and again, 'For the Son of God can sanctify both His own body and all things' (John 17:19): yet in order to manifest to the world the power and property of the Holy Spirit, at the time of His baptism He Himself received the Holy Spirit into His own body in the form of a dove, so that truly, according to the Apostle's saying, all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily; from which fullness the apostles afterward receive grace for grace, the Lord Himself breathing upon the face of the apostles and saying: 'Receive the Holy Spirit; if you forgive anyone's sins, they shall be forgiven; if you retain anyone's, they shall be retained' (John 20:22-23). And since it is written, 'Who can forgive sins but God alone?' (Luke 5:21):

behold, the apostles are shown to forgive sins in the power of Christ. Thus it has become known how great is the sanctification of the Spirit, where it is shown applied to the Lord's own body; and known too is the power of the Spirit, when He forgives sins. Let us come, then, to His other powers and works, that it may be recognized what and how great the Holy Spirit is. For just as the Father and the Son are recognized only through their works, as the Lord Himself says, 'or believe My works' (John 10:38), so also the Holy Spirit cannot be more fully known as to what He is except through the marks of His works. Let no one therefore grow anxious when we bring forward headings concerning the power of the Holy Spirit; let no one close his ears when the divine words are recited:

the heavenly testimonies ought to be believed more than earthly fictions. What then is it that we intend? Assuredly, to bring the tradition back to the Lord's own signs. For if we are reborn in the name of the Father and of the Son not without the Holy Spirit, if we are sanctified not without the Holy Spirit, and set out toward eternity, we desire to show that not only in baptism but also in all other works the Holy Spirit has worked and ever works together with the Father and the Son. And yet this alone would suffice: that He is found to cooperate in the sacrament of baptism; for from this the other things too are understood not to have been created without the Spirit.

What sort of thing is it, in truth, that the renewal and repair of man should be believed to come about with the Spirit, but the forming and creation of man to be without the Spirit? Is it doubtful to anyone that the sacrament of baptism is something greater than the very beginnings of the creature? For in baptism eternity is perfected, but in the beginning death reigned from Adam. Let us hear, then, David prophesying of the creation: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their power' (Ps. 32:6). This Word is surely to be understood as the Son, according to John's proclamation, 'through whom all things were made.' But the Spirit of His mouth is no other than He who is believed to be holy. You have then in one little verse the Lord, and the word of the Lord, and the Holy Spirit, fulfilling the mystery of the Trinity.

But if some imprudent person should wish to interpret this word, through which the heavens were established, as a command, and should likewise call the Spirit as dissoluble as air, it is necessary that he fall little by little into Judaism; for neither Photinus nor the Jews concede that anything was procreated through the substantive Word and the Spirit. But you will say: Concerning the Word it is indeed manifest that He created; what of the Spirit? Receive another testimony from that most just and most ancient Job. 'The divine Spirit,' he says, 'who made me' (Job 33:4). And David singing says to God: 'Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth' (Ps. 103:30). If creation and renewal shall be through the Spirit, then without doubt the beginning of creation too was not without the Spirit.

But those who resist the truth are wont here craftily to turn the name and person of the Spirit into the Son, wherever the Spirit is found as creator; because the Son too is Spirit, just as the Father also is Spirit. This surely is not to be conceded to their perverse argumentation, even from this very fact, that David both said 'the word of the Lord,' which is the Son, and no less proclaimed the Spirit, who is holy: the word indeed establishing the heavens, but the Spirit all their power, that is, their adornment. Let them therefore either believe, who read these things; or if they will not believe, why do they even read them? But let no one think that this belief pertains to the reproach of God the Father, since rather it looks to His glory, if He whose Word it is that is Father, or whose Spirit it is that is Author,

is said to have created all things; for He Himself creates all things, since His Word and His Spirit create. After the creation, then, let us show that the Trinity gives life. And indeed concerning the Person the Apostle testifies: 'I charge thee before God, who gives life to all things' (1 Tim. 6:13). And Christ gives life: 'My sheep,' He says, 'hear My voice; and I give them eternal life' (John 10:27). But we are given life through the Spirit, the Lord Himself saying, 'It is the Spirit that gives life' (John 6:63). Likewise Paul to the Romans: 'He who raised up Christ from the dead shall also give life to your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwells in you' (Rom. 8:11).

Behold, one life-giving of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is openly shown. The foreknowledge of all things is in God, and He is the discerner of hidden things. Although no Christian is ignorant of this, yet it must be shown from the book of Daniel. 'God,' he says, 'who art the discerner of hidden things, who foreseest all things before they come to be' (Dan. 13:42). This same foreknowledge is in Christ, as the evangelist says: 'From the beginning,' he says, 'Jesus knew who they were that should betray Him, or who were the unbelieving' (John 6:64). And that He is the discerner of hidden things is manifested from this, when, making manifest the obscure counsels of the Jews, He said: 'Why do you think evil in your hearts?' (Matt. 9:4)

Likewise God manifested that the Spirit foreknows all things, saying to the apostles: 'When the Spirit of truth shall come, He shall teach you all things, and shall announce to you the things to come' (John 16:13). He who is declared to announce the things to come will not, I think, be doubted to foreknow all things, since He Himself searches the depths of God, and knows all things that are of God. Moreover He also reveals the sacraments of God; Daniel testifies, saying: 'He is the God of gods, and the King of kings, who reveals sacraments' (Dan. 2:47). All things are revealed through Christ, as He Himself says: 'No one knows the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him' (Luke 10:22). But all revelation is in the Spirit; Paul testifies: 'To us,' he says, 'God has revealed it through His Holy Spirit' (1 Cor. 2:10).

Behold, the God who is the revelation of the one Trinity. That He is everywhere present and fills all things, Isaiah says: 'I am,' he says, 'a God at hand, and a God from afar' (Isa. — cf. Jer. 23:23). 'If a man shall be hidden in secret places, shall I not see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth?' (Jer. 23:24) But what of His own presence, who is everywhere? Christ the Saviour also says in the Gospel: 'Wherever two or three shall be gathered in My name, there am I also in the midst of them' (Matt. 18:20). And of His fullness the apostle relates: 'He who descended is the same also who ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things' (Eph. 4:10). Concerning the Holy Spirit likewise, that He is present everywhere, the prophet says in the person of the Lord:

'I am among you, and My Spirit stands in the midst of you' (Hag. 2:6). And Solomon says: 'The Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world' (Wisd. 1:7). God dwells in His saints, according to the promise which He had spoken: 'I will dwell in them and walk among them' (2 Cor. 6:16). But what does the Lord say in the Gospel? 'Abide in Me, and I in you' (John 15:4). And Paul proves this: 'Know you not that Jesus Christ is in you?' (2 Cor. 13:5) But all this is fulfilled in the indwelling of the Spirit, as John records: 'By this,' he says, 'we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given us' (1 John 3:24). Likewise the same Paul: 'Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?' (1 Cor. 3:16)

And soon he says: 'Glorify and bear God in your body' (1 Cor. 6:20). Now that the Father reproves, and the Son also reproves, and the Holy Spirit also reproves, must be proved thus. In Psalm 49 it is read: 'But to the sinner God has said: why do you declare My justices?' (Ps. 49:16) And below: 'I will reprove you, and set that before your face' (ibid. 21). David likewise praying says to God: 'O Lord, reprove me not in Thy wrath' (Ps. 6:2). And because He Himself is to come to reprove all flesh (Jude 15). But what does the Saviour say in the Gospel concerning the Holy Spirit? 'When that Paraclete comes,' He says, 'He shall reprove the world of sin, and of justice, and of judgment' (John 16:8). Foreseeing this, David cried out to God:

'Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit, and whither shall I flee from Thy face?' (Ps. 138:7) That there is to be one judgment from God through Christ, blessed Paul shows: 'when God shall judge,' he says, 'the hidden things of men through Jesus Christ our Lord' (Rom. 2:16). And that the Holy Spirit is to judge Antichrist, Paul says, when he spoke of his person: 'Whom the Lord Jesus shall slay,' he says, 'with the Spirit of His mouth' (2 Thess. 2:8). If Antichrist is slain by the Spirit of the Lord's mouth, then every creature also shall be judged by the Spirit, as Solomon says: 'Against them the Spirit of power shall take His stand, and like a whirlwind of the wind shall divide them' (Wisd. 5:23).

For that the Father is good, the Son good, and the Holy Spirit good, is thus proved. Of the Father indeed the Only-begotten said in the Gospel: 'None is good but one God' (Matt. 19:17). But of Himself: 'I am the good shepherd' (John 10:11). Of the Spirit likewise David singing says: 'Thy good Spirit shall lead me into the right way' (Ps. 142:10). And as it is said of the Son, 'Right is the word of the Lord' (Ps. 32:4), so also of the Spirit it is said: 'Renew a right spirit within my bowels' (Ps. 50:12). But who could pass over in silence that dignity of the Holy Spirit? For the ancient prophets cried out: 'Thus says the Lord.' This voice Christ at His coming recalled to His own person, saying: 'But I say to you.' And the new prophets, what do they cry?

as Agabus prophesying in the Acts of the Apostles says: 'Thus says the Holy Spirit' (Acts 21:11). And again, the apostle Paul was called and sent by God the Father and by Christ (Gal. 1:1), not by men nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father. But in the Acts of the Apostles it is read that he was separated and sent by the Holy Spirit. For thus it is written: 'And the Holy Spirit says, Separate to Me Barnabas and Paul for the work to which I have called them' (Acts 13:2). And a little after: 'They therefore, being sent by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia' (ibid. 4). But lest anyone should esteem the Holy Spirit as something contemptible because He is called the Paraclete: the Paraclete is 'advocate' or 'consoler' according to the Latin tongue;

which appellation is also common to the Son of God, as John teaches: 'These things,' he says, 'I write to you, that you may not sin. But if anyone should sin, we have a Paraclete as advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the just' (1 John 2:1). For the Lord Himself too, when He says to the apostles, 'The Father will send you another advocate,' surely, when He names another Paraclete, thereby also manifests Himself as a Paraclete. But neither is this name of Paraclete foreign to the Father: for it is a name of beneficence, not of nature. Paul, finally, writes to the Corinthians: 'Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us' (2 Cor. 1:3); which in Greek is said 'Paraclete.'

And when the Father is called consoler, and the Son consoler, and the Holy Spirit consoler, yet one consolation of the Trinity is bestowed on us. 'But you have been washed,' he says, 'and sanctified and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God' (1 Cor. 6:11). But perhaps these gentle and good things do not rouse the soul to understand the power of the Holy Spirit; let us bring forward a few of the terrible things. Ananias had sold a possession, as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, and the disciple had reserved for himself a suppressed part of the money; the rest he laid down before the feet of the apostles as if it were the whole. He offended the Holy Spirit, whom he had thought he was escaping. But what did most blessed Peter say to him at once?

'Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart, that you should lie to the Holy Spirit?' (Acts 5:3) And at once he says: 'You have not lied to men, but to God.' And thus, struck by the power of Him to whom he had wished to lie, he expired. What here does blessed Peter wish the Holy Spirit to be understood to be? And surely it is clear when he says: 'You have not lied to men, but to God.' It is manifest, therefore, that he who lies to the Holy Spirit lies to God; and he who believes in the Holy Spirit believes in God. So too the wife of Ananias, who had been an accomplice in the falsehood, was made a partner in death. Something similar, nay, stronger, the Lord shows in the Gospel, saying: 'Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men;'

but whoever shall speak blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to come' (Matt. 12:32; Mark 3:28-29; Luke 12:10). A terrible sentence! He says that the sin is irremissible for him who has blasphemed against the Holy Spirit. Compare with this sentence that which is written in the book of Kings: 'If a man sinning shall sin against a man, they shall pray for him; but if he shall sin against God, who shall pray for him?' (1 Sam. 2:25) Therefore, because to sin against the Holy Spirit and to sin against God is the same inexpiable crime, they will now be able to observe how great is the majesty of the Holy Spirit; against whom if anyone shall stand in rebellion, he shall be thrust into perpetual punishments.

I could bring forward more testimonies from the divine Scriptures which would manifest, according to the sacrament of baptism, the Trinity of one operation and power. But because in these too the understanding is full for the wise, I pass over many. I will therefore make a recapitulation, and say: if the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father; if He frees; if He sanctifies; if He is Lord, as the Apostle said; if He was with the Father and the Son; if He gives life; if He has foreknowledge, as the Father and the Son have; if He reveals; if He is everywhere; if He fills the whole world; if He dwells in the elect; if He reproves the world; if He judges; if He is good; if He is right; if of Him it is cried, 'Thus says the Holy Spirit'; if He appoints prophets; if He sends apostles;

if He is consoler; if He washes and justifies; if He slays those who tempt Him; if he who has blasphemed against Him has no remission, neither in this world nor in the world to come — which surely is proper to God; if these things are so, nay rather because they are true, why is it asked of me that I should say what the Holy Spirit is, since through the greatness of His works He manifests what He Himself is? Surely He is not a stranger to the sanctity of the Father and the Son, who is not a stranger to the power of their works:

in vain is the name of divinity denied to Him whose power cannot be denied; in vain am I forbidden to venerate Him together with the Father and the Son, whom by very truth I am compelled to confess together with the Father and the Son. If He confers on me, together with the Father and the Son, remission of sins, confers sanctification and eternal life, I shall be too ungrateful and impious if I do not render Him glory together with the Father and the Son. Or if He is not to be worshipped together with the Father and the Son, then neither is He to be confessed in baptism. But if He must by every means be confessed, according to the word of the Lord and the tradition of the apostles, lest the faith be half-full and imperfect, who shall be able to restrain me from His religion and veneration? For in whom I am bidden to believe, Him too I shall devoutly supplicate.