Works 2 part 6/8

And therefore He here speaks the truth, because He speaks not of His own, that is, not of Himself, but of the things of the Father and the Son which are to be spoken. He shall receive, He says, of mine, and shall announce it to you (John 16:14). And to show that this—to receive from Himself—is also to have taken from the Father, He said: Therefore I said, He shall receive of mine, because all things that the Father has are mine (John 16:15). You see, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is not separated from the Father and the Son, while He speaks those things which are known to be proper to the Father and the Son. But the Son too professes something of the same kind, when He says: For I do not speak of myself (John 14:10), but the things I have heard from my Father, these I have made known to you (John 15:15).

Which sentence shows the Son and the Holy Spirit, even if He be less than the Father (as you falsely suppose), yet equal to itself—which you impiously flee from. For if neither presumes to speak anything by His own authority, they in no way excel one another in any honor of dignity. XXXVI. Hear yet more plainly, however, how they are held equal to the Father. The Son therefore says: The works which I do, these bear witness of me (John 10:25); and again: I do nothing of myself, but the Father remaining in me, He does the works (John 14:10). How does He now say the works which He does are His own, and how a little later not His own? But, wishing surely to demonstrate the power of one nature, He referred the efficiency of the works to be performed to the unity of the paternal dignity.

So that, while the work is of the Father and the Son, and the work of the Son is the Father's (because whatever the Father does, the Son also does likewise), from the common work of deeds the communion of nature may be recognized. As, therefore, He calls His own works not His own—which nevertheless are proved to be His; so too He testifies that He speaks words not His own, which assuredly are known to be His. And what is true of the Son, infer this also of the Holy Spirit, who thus speaks not of Himself, for the sake of demonstrating the deity of one nature, in such a way that nevertheless the things He speaks may be believed to be His and not foreign. And they spoke, Luke says of the apostles, with various tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them to utter (Acts 2:4). And in the Gospel:

For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you (Matt. 10:20). He therefore has His own authority of speaking, who grants to others the free faculty of speaking. Arius said: By what authorities of Scripture will you be able to teach that the Holy Spirit is God, whom I confess to be a creature? Athanasius said: By this especially is it declared that the Holy Spirit is God, because He is everywhere and contained by no place, as the prophet says to the Father: Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit (Ps. 138:7)? And he admonishes: The Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world (Wis. 1:7). For to be everywhere, and at one and the same moment to fill the heavens, the earth, the seas, and the lower regions (as David says:

If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there; and if I descend into hell, Thou art present (Ps. 138:8))—this is proper not to a creature, but to the whole God. XXXVII. Finally, because He is of an uncompounded, that is, of a simple nature. For every creature, as far as pertains to the order of nature, is composite. If therefore you are able to show the Holy Spirit composed of a diversity of forms, then at last it will follow that no one would dare to doubt that He is a creature. But then it will be necessary that, if He is a creature, you teach Him to be common with the rest—with angels, or archangels, or powers and principalities—and to be one of them;

and thus to demonstrate that He is not unique and singular—which you will assuredly in no way be able to demonstrate (with the prophets and apostles prevailing and crying out against you on every side). Solomon indeed speaking thus: The Holy Spirit is simple, unique, and so forth (Wis. 7:22). And the Apostle attesting: One Spirit (Eph. 4:4). And again: But all these things one and the same Spirit works (1 Cor. 12:11). And once more: For through Him, he says, we have access in one Spirit (Eph. 2:18). Do you see, therefore, that He who is of a unique and simple nature is God rather than a creature? Finally, if He is a creature and not God, by what benefit of usefulness is the regeneration of the life-giving font celebrated in His name?

Baptize, says the Lord, the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). For what can it avail us, if He is not God? What, I ask, is this creature which possesses one name together with the Father? If you do not name Him in baptism, the whole mystery will seem in vain, the sacrament will not be perfect. For in vain do you use the name of the Father and the Son, if He is not named. That a creature, therefore, cannot be a creatress, is to no one at all in doubt. XXXVIII. But that this Spirit is Creator, the divine Scriptures everywhere proclaim; as we read in the book of Job: It is the divine Spirit that made me (Job 33:4).

For the Holy Spirit is designated as working the whole of creation generally: as David more evidently declares, saying: For I will behold the heavens, the works of Thy fingers (Ps. 8:4)—namely, of the Word and of the Holy Spirit. For that the finger is the Holy Spirit, whose work is the fabric of the heavens, the holy prophet sings with sacred mouth, and the Lord plainly demonstrated in the Gospel, saying: If I by the finger of God cast out demons, the kingdom of God has come upon you (Luke 11:20). By which finger the law of God is reported to have been written on the two stone tablets, as we read in Exodus: Moses, it says, received the two tablets written by the finger of God (Exod. 31:18).

(Isaiah 31:18) Whence it is shown that this Holy Spirit is the giver of the law, whose law frees men from sins, according to the proclamation of Paul who bears witness: 'The law of the Spirit of life hath freed me from the law of sin and of death' (Rom. 8:2). The might of His power even the magicians of Pharaoh marvellously confess, saying: 'This is the finger of God' (Exod. 8:19). Moreover, that the Holy Spirit is the Creator, the prophet David declares more plainly, saying: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the Spirit of His mouth' (Ps. 32:6). And again: 'Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created' (Ps. 103:30). And that the powers of the heavens are the angels, no one doubts.

Who also, according to the testimony of the Apostle, gaze most reverently upon this Spirit as the author of their own origin; for thus he says: 'The things which by the Holy Spirit have been sent unto you from heaven, upon which the angels long to look' (1 Pet. 1:12). XXXIX. If He were not God, He would not have an authority proper to Himself for doing what He wills. But since, in the dispensation of the sacrament, He uses the liberty of His will and does not await the command of one who orders, it is evident that He is not a creature but God. For the Apostle, when he was speaking of the diversities of heavenly gifts, at last added: 'But all these worketh one and the same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will' (1 Cor. 12:11). And again:

'The Holy Spirit,' he says, 'distributes to all according to His own will' (Heb. 2:4). And the Lord in the Gospel says: 'The Spirit breatheth where He will' (John 3:8). If He is not God, how does He give life? For the Apostle says: 'The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life' (2 Cor. 3:6). And again, concerning God: 'He shall quicken also your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you' (Rom. 8:11). And the Lord in the Gospel: 'It is the Spirit that giveth life' (John 6:64). Whence in Ezekiel also He is called the Spirit of life: 'The Spirit of life,' he says, 'was in the wheels' (Ezek. 1:20). Concerning whom the Lord, in the same prophet, says to the bodies of mortals: 'Behold, I will bring my Spirit into you, and ye shall live' (Ezek. 37:5).

Therefore He who bestows life is God. For if He were not God, how is He proclaimed as one who is to come to judge the world? Since the Lord says in the Gospel: 'When the Spirit, the Paraclete, is come, He shall convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment' (John 16:8). XL. Hear another argument by which it may be made clear that the Holy Spirit is God. The Father calls the faithful into His grace, the Son calls, the Holy Spirit calls. But if He were a creature, He would not have an authority of calling equal and like to that of the Author. For concerning the Father the Apostle says: 'But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me into His grace' (Gal. 1:15). And of Christ, speaking to the Romans: 'Among whom are ye also,' he says, 'the called of Jesus Christ' (Rom. 1:6).

Concerning the Holy Spirit, Luke says in the Acts of the Apostles: 'As they (that is, the apostles) were fasting and ministering, the Holy Spirit said: Separate me Paul and Barnabas for the work to which I have called them' (Acts 13:2). That the Holy Spirit is also the revealer of mysteries the same Scripture testifies: 'Rising up,' it says, 'Agabus signified by the Spirit that there should be a great famine' (Acts 11:28). And again: 'While Peter thought on the vision, the Holy Spirit said: Behold, three men seek thee. Arise, go down, and go with them, doubting nothing, for I have sent them' (Acts 10:19).

But lest, by heaping many testimonies into one, the discourse of our pursuit be drawn out at length, I briefly gather all together. What then seems to thee, most excellent judge? Is not the Holy Spirit God—He who is uncompounded, who is one and singular, who is Creator and Giver of life, who possesses one name together with the Father and the Son, who forgives sins, who sanctifies, who dispenses the graces of charisms according to His own will, who reveals mysteries, who gives the law, who by His own authority calls unto grace, who judges the world, who condemns the tempters with their own, in whom the impious blaspheme irremissibly? If such a one as this is not God, let it be shown what more He could have who is God. XLI. Arius said:

Although all speech is liable to contradiction, and, as though by a certain shield of response, the darts of objections are repelled and rendered vain, nevertheless this question which we now press, however much Athanasius may strive with the subtlety of his wit to evade it, he will never be able—I do not say to dissolve the whole of it, but not even any particle of it—by reasonable arguments. He says that the Holy Spirit is God, which indeed he was nowhere able to demonstrate more evidently. Be it so, however, that I concede to him, against the truth of things, that the Holy Spirit may seem or be able to be God on this account, that He works such things as it befits none but God to work. Therefore he confesses God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit:

and thereby he seems to introduce three Gods—if not by open impiety, yet by the very condition of his profession; and by this he begins in some way to recall us to that error of many Gods from which we had departed. I would wish, most excellent judge (if indeed it be possible), to catch out this notable new master of his art, with the deceits of his trickeries unravelled, deluding the eyes of those who attend. For in order to escape the peril of confessing three Gods, he suddenly forges them, by an incomprehensible phantasm, so that the three appear as one, saying: 'But these three are one God.'

Again, those whom by I know not what coagulation, mingled and united, he had reduced into one God, he again shows them separated and threefold, saying: 'And this one God is a Trinity.' See, if thou art able (I beg of thee), to track out these unheard-of and unseen monsters of a most wicked imagination. For I cannot comprehend how God is now one, now tripartite; now confused out of three into one, now distinguished out of one into three; now formed by a certain composition out of parts, now divided again by I know not what derivation out of one into parts. For he says: 'There are three persons subsisting in their own substance, and they must not be mingled, lest they lose their proper state'; and according to my opinion, and rather according to that of the truth, he says:

If there is one person, let him simply confess this very thing, and let the book pass over into the doctrine of Sabellius. For what need is there, in order to delude the truth, to vary it with diverse forms and images, and so to flee Sabellius that he runs into me, and so to flee from me that Sabellius catches him? For in order to strip himself of the Sabellian impiety, the one whom he calls one, he affirms to be three. But lest I should hold him guilty in respect of the three, out of the three by I know not what artifice he forges one. Now if this faith has any plausible reason, it belongs to thy equity to judge, most excellent Probus. XLII. The judge Probus said: That the one whom thou hast called one, thou shouldst again call three; and those whom thou hast believed to be three, thou shouldst again confess to be one God—

as far as pertains to the reasoning of human sense, this seems greatly inconsequent, unless perchance we are bidden to believe this by divine authority. Wherefore, to these things so strong and so unconquerable which Arius objects, let Athanasius not delay to respond. Athanasius said: In vain hast thou seemed to weave nets of words by knots (as it seems to thee) insoluble, not understanding nor foreseeing that thou too canst be entangled in these snares of objections. For since thou pressest me about three, this question about two I refer back to thee. If thou worshippest one God, and there is no other besides the one, how dost thou bring two to the cult of veneration?

For by professing the Father to be God and the Son to be God, thou art convicted of professing either a bipartite God or two different Gods; and thereby thou renderest an impious servitude to a twin divinity—the Lord saying: 'Ye cannot serve two masters' (Matt. 6:24). But lest I too incur the mark of rashness, if I should constrain thee with an equal question concerning the divine profession—whose chief veneration demands silence rather than crafty questions—I see that I must of necessity hasten thither, that I may teach that three are one and one is three, and, if not by the reason whereby I am a man, yet by authority. Let us therefore hear the Trinity itself saying: 'Let us make man to our own image and likeness' (Gen. 1:26).

They who decree that man is to be made are three: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; but these three are one. Then it added: 'And God made man to the image and likeness of God' (ibid. 27). So that thou mayest acknowledge the Trinity, it was said in the plural, 'Let us make'; and that thou mayest not be ignorant that this Trinity is one God, it added in the singular, 'And God made man.' And again: 'It is not good for man to be alone; let us make for him a helper like to himself' (Gen. 2:18). Behold, here too it is said in the plural, 'Let us make.' But in what follows it is rendered in the singular: 'And God made man to the image of God; male and female created He them' (Gen. 5:1–2). In the deliberation three are referred to, in the work one.

so that not a diversity of will, but a unity of power may appear. XLIII. And again: 'God appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre, as he looked; and behold, three men stood before him, and falling down he worshipped, saying: If I have found grace in thy sight, pass not by thy servant' (Gen. 18:1–3). Behold, one was said to have appeared, and yet there were three; and although they were three, yet there was one. For when he says, 'If I have found grace in thy sight, pass not by thy servant,' he shows that there is one. Again, when it is said, 'Let water be brought, and let your feet be washed,' he shows that there are three. Again when he says, 'He set a table before them and they ate, but he himself stood before them under the tree' (Gen. 18:4),

he shows that there are three. And when he adds, 'But he said to him: Where is Sarah thy wife?' (ibid. 9), he shows that there is one. Again, when it says, 'The men rising thence went toward the face of Sodom, and Abraham accompanied them' (ibid.), it shows that there are three. And when it repeats, 'But the Lord said: Shall I hide from my servant Abraham what I am about to do to Sodom?' (ibid. 16), it shows that there is one. But also those sacred hymns of the heavenly powers demonstrate that one is three and three is one. For they resound with this strain: 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth' (Isa. 6:3): in that they thrice repeat 'holy,' they intimate the Trinity; in that they once say 'Lord,' they signify that this same Trinity is one God.

To this mystery also that evangelical sacrament accords, which the Lord commanded—that the nations be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). Behold, thou hast three subsisting in the one name of the Godhead. For the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is God. Concerning which name the Lord speaks to Moses in the book of Numbers, saying: 'As I live, and as my name liveth' (Num. 14:21). XLIV. For let not that also seem idle to thee, that the same Son spoke under the great mystery of the Trinity, saying: 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob' (Acts 7:32). For in that He says, 'I am,' He shows one God:

and that which He thrice repeats, 'the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,' more plainly declares the sacrament of the Trinity. Hear yet further, and behold more evidently the mystery of this secret. Isaiah says: 'I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne,' and below, 'And He said: Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us?'—doubtless for the preaching to the people of the Jews—'And I said: Behold, here am I, send me. And He said: Go, and thou shalt say to this people' (Isa. 6:1, 8, 9). When therefore He says in the singular, 'Whom shall I send,' He indicates one God; and when He adds in the plural, 'Who shall go for us,' He openly intimates the Trinity. Perceive yet a more manifest truth of this faith, if thou hast the ears of thy mind open: that the Maker of heaven and earth is the Father and the Son

and the Holy Spirit—this is more evidently declared from those things which we have already set forth above; when we taught that it was said in the plural, 'Let us make man' (Gen. 1:26), where the whole Trinity itself is understood to have fashioned man; just as the same Trinity is believed again to reform man in baptism. Or also that which the prophet says: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the Spirit of His mouth' (Ps. 32:6). And Solomon, in the person of Wisdom, declares, saying: 'When He prepared the heavens, I was present with Him; when He laid the strong foundations of the earth, I was with Him arranging all things' (Prov. 8:27, 29, 30). It stands therefore, as I have said, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit

that is, the whole Trinity, are the Creator of the world. Let us therefore hear, through the prophet Isaiah, that the three are one God. For there it is said: 'I am God who alone established the heavens, and stretched out the earth; and there is none with me' (Isa. 44:24). Wilt thou have this voice to be the Father's or the Son's? If thou believest not the whole Trinity to be one God, this saying will not stand. For He says, 'establishing the earth, and none with me.' And yet the Son was with the Father, who says: 'When He prepared the heavens, I was present, and when He laid the strong foundations of the earth, I was beside Him' (Prov. 8:27, 29, 30).

Since therefore it is clear that in the founding of the world the Father was not solitary (seeing that the Holy Spirit and the Son were present with Him, as sharers of one divinity and power), what is the meaning of His testifying that He was alone and that none other was with Him, unless that thou shouldst understand that He called Himself, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit one God—with whom no other, foreign and alien to His nature, was a God? And rightly did Moses speak concerning the sons of Israel, saying: 'He alone led them, and there was no strange god with Him' (Deut. 32:12); since indeed both the Son and the Holy Spirit were with the people, as not even this Arius can deny. But the Son and the Holy Spirit are not strange, who together with the Father are one God. XLV.

Let us, however, hear also the most blessed Paul discoursing more plainly concerning this same mystery, and confirming the three to be one God; just as it stands most fully expressed in the book which we published against Maribadus, the deacon of your abominable heresy, of which we now insert a very few things in this place. When therefore he objected that unity excludes the equality of the Trinity, and that equality repels unity, among many other things I brought forward this. Hear, said I, the Apostle, preaching this unity of the Trinity more emphatically. He says in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: 'There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord;

and there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who worketh all in all' (1 Cor. 12:4–6). Because there is a Trinity, he named three. And because the Trinity itself is one God, when he had numbered the three persons, he did not say in the plural 'who work,' but in the singular 'who worketh.' And lest, said I, by a perverse sense of understanding thou shouldst suppose him to have said this of the Father alone, who worketh all things, and not also at the same time of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, listen more diligently to what he says in what follows. For when he had enumerated the many works of divine grace, he says: 'But all these worketh one and the same Spirit' (ibid. 11). Thou discernest the Father working, the Son working, the Holy Spirit working;

and although the three work together, it is not said of them 'who work,' but 'who worketh'; so that one God in the Trinity may be shown. Likewise, the same Apostle, naming the Son and the Father: 'Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God the Father, who hath loved us' (2 Thess. 2:15); and when he had named two, and would show that they are one, he did not say 'who have loved,' but 'who hath loved.' Nor does he say 'let them comfort,' but 'let Him comfort your hearts' (ibid. 16). Likewise: 'Now may God Himself our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you' (1 Thess. 3:11). Nor here does he say 'let them direct,' but 'let Him direct.' Thus far concerning that most mutual work I have, in the apostolic sense, taught the Trinity to be one God; let us hasten to the rest. XLVI.

That this sacrament of faith can also be most especially commended by natural examples, the Acts of the apostles teach, when Luke narrates concerning the believers: 'Now the multitude of believers had one heart and one soul' (Acts 4:32). If grace conferred this upon the faithful through the regeneration of baptism, that their many souls should be one soul, why should it not much more fittingly be believed of the Trinity that there is one God—so that what we have by grace, that the Trinity should have by nature? For if we look more diligently, we find even in ourselves something of nature which is likened to that most blessed and ineffable Trinity, although in a far different manner.

For it is not written in vain that God made man to His own image and likeness (Gen. 1:27 and 5:1). That man consists of three—that is, of body, and soul, and spirit—the Apostle is witness, saying: 'That your whole spirit, and soul, and body may be preserved entire unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ' (1 Thess. 5:23). If in a corruptible and composite nature so great a mystery of unity is found, that one are three, and three are one man, how much more beautifully and honorably is it understood of the Trinity, that there is one God—not by a mingling of confusion, but by a unity of nature?

Imbued therefore with these and very many other documents of testimonies, and with examples of things, we neither fall into Sabellius, by confessing the three to be one God; nor are we ensnared in the toils of treachery, while we frankly profess this God to be a Trinity. XLVII. The judge Probus said: Against these things which Athanasius has pursued, if anything has remained to thee to reply on the contrary side, take care to bring it forth into the midst. Arius said: There are indeed very many things which would teach the Son to be both of another nature and of an inferior power. But since elsewhere these objections against the errors of these men have been more fully set forth by our party, what need is there to repeat these same things again, and to furnish a shabby material for altercation?

If it please thee, therefore, pronounce thy sentence upon us from the disputations already held. The judge Probus said: I have already interposed above that a half-finished sentence ought not to be brought forth. It remains that, if anything has remained to you, you deign to carry it through. Arius said: Deign to pronounce upon those things which have been laid open to thy cognizance. Athanasius said: Of the remaining questions, by which Arius supposes that the Son can be shown to be less than the Father, that is the chief one, that the same Son says, 'The Father is greater than I'; which is now known to have been his aim, and to this, as to a head, all the members of the questions cleave. For that which He says, 'I came not to do my own will' (John 6:38); and 'The Son can do nothing of Himself' (John 5:19);

and 'As the Father hath taught me, so I do' (John 8:28); and 'My doctrine is not mine' (John 7:16); and 'I must work the works of Him that sent me' (John 9:4); and 'I came not of myself: He sent me' (John 8:42); and 'I am the vine, and my Father is the husbandman' (John 15:1); and 'I live because of the Father' (John 6:58). Or that He confesses Himself to be ignorant of the day (Matt. 24:36; Mark 13:32), and that He calls His Father God (John 5:18 [20:17]), and prays concerning the passing of the cup (Matt. 26:39), and complains of being forsaken on the cross (Matt. 27:46), and that He commends His Spirit to the Father (Luke 23:46)—

and if there can be any others of this kind, they all look to those things which by us, with all fear and reverence, are understood to have been said or done according to the dispensation of the flesh, by which He is made less not only than the Father, but also than the angels and men. XLVIII. And we believe ourselves so much the more indebted to His benefit, by how much we know these things to be unworthy of Him; who loved us with so great a love that, for the sake of these things so vile, so injurious, He willed to bow Himself down. For that He was made lower than the angels (Ps. 8:6), we have already, as I remember, more fully taught above, where we set down the words of the Apostle who says (Heb. 2:7): 'But this Jesus we have seen, for the suffering of death, made a little lower than the angels.'