致塞拉皮翁論聖靈 第 1 章 第 5/5 段

and read it to those who belong to the faith, but refute those who contentiously blaspheme;

that perhaps, even though late, having repented, they may wash from their own soul the ill-will that has arisen in them.

For it is good for them, according to what is written, to leap away and not to linger;

lest, persisting, they hear the word spoken by the Lord:

“Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age, nor in the age to come.”

I have also read the letter now written by your Reverence, and, greatly marveling at the shamelessness of the heretics, I perceived that nothing so fits to be said concerning them as the Apostle's injunction:

The aforesaid things, then, would have sufficed;

it would have sufficed that, having received so many proofs, they should cease from their blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

but again they act shamelessly, so that they show that, having practiced wrangling over words, and henceforth fighting against the Spirit, they will after a little while be dead through their irrationality.

Indeed, even if someone should reply to their present questions, they will be no less inventors of evils;

their only aim being that, though seeking, they may not find, or, though hearing, they may not understand.

What sort, then, are their clever questions? If the Holy Spirit is not a creature, then, they say, He is a Son, and the Word and He are two brothers.

Then they add, as you write:

If the Spirit receives from the Son, and is given by Him (for so it is written), they immediately infer:

Then the Father is a grandfather, and the Spirit is His grandchild.

Who, on hearing such things, will still consider them Christians, and not rather Greeks (pagans)? For Greeks talk among themselves in just such ways against us.

Who would wish to answer such folly of theirs? For my part, after much deliberation and seeking a fitting reply to them, I found none other than that which was given to the Pharisees of old.

For just as the Saviour, when they questioned Him maliciously, questioned them in return, that they might perceive their own evil intent, so, since these men too ask such questions, let them tell us themselves—or rather, let them answer when questioned in the same way as they question.

For since, as we say, they perhaps do not understand their own inventions, then perhaps, on hearing them, they will recognize their own folly.

If the Holy Spirit is not a creature, as has been shown in what precedes, but is in God and is given from God,

then it too is a Son, and they are two brothers, it and the Son;

and if the Spirit belongs to the Son, and the Spirit receives all things from the Son, as He Himself said, and He breathed and gave it to the disciples (for you too confess these things), then the Father is a grandfather, and the Spirit is His grandchild.

For the very things you demand of us by your questioning, it is just that you too be asked from the same.

If, then, you deny what is written, you can no longer be called Christians;

but it is just that we Christians should be questioned by you;

yet if you read the same Scriptures as we, it is necessary that you too be questioned by us about the same things in like manner.

Tell us, then, and do not delay: Is the Spirit a Son, and is the Father a grandfather?

But if, reasoning as the Pharisees of old did, you too say among yourselves:

If we say that He is a Son, we shall hear:

Where is it written? And if we say:

He is not a Son, we fear lest they say to us:

How then is it written, 'We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God'? But if, contending thus among yourselves, you also say, 'We do not know,' then the one questioned must likewise be silent to you, persuaded by Him who says:

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you become like him;

but answer a fool according to his folly, lest he appear wise in his own eyes. And the answer most fitting for you is silence;

that you may recognize your own ignorance.

Again, then, it is just that you be questioned thus from your own premises.

For the prophets of old prophesied when the Word of God came to them.

And besides this, since all things came to be through the Word, and without Him came to be not even one thing, and God by wisdom founded the earth, and made all things in wisdom (and it is written, as has been shown in what precedes:

'You shall send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created'), then either the Spirit is the Word, or God has made all things in two—in both Wisdom and the Spirit.

And how does Paul say, 'One God, from whom are all things, and one Lord, through whom are all things'? And again:

Since the Son is the image of the invisible Father, and the Spirit is the image of the Son (for it is written:

'Those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son'), then according to this the Father is a grandfather.

And since the Son came in the name of the Father;

'But the Holy Spirit,' says the Son, 'whom the Father will send in My name'—then in this way too the Father is a grandfather.

What say you to these things, you who utter everything so glibly? Why do you reason among yourselves? Or, seeing yourselves at a loss, do you blame such questions? But first condemn yourselves (for it is you who are accustomed to ask such things), and be persuaded by the Scriptures, and being at a loss to speak, learn at last:

In the Scriptures the Spirit is not named a Son, but the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God.

And just as the Spirit is not named a Son, so neither is it written concerning the Son that He is the Holy Spirit.

Is it, then, because the Spirit is not named a Son, nor that the Spirit is a Son, that the faith is discordant with the truth? God forbid!

But rather each of the things signified has its own proper meaning.

For the Son is the proper offspring of the substance and nature of the Father, and this is what is signified.

And the Spirit, called the Spirit of God and being in Him, is not foreign to the nature of the Son, nor to the Godhead of the Father.

Indeed, when the Father sends the Spirit, the Son breathes and gives it to the disciples;

since all things that the Father has belong to the Son. And when the Word came to be in the prophets, they prophesied by the Spirit, as it is written and has been shown:

'By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their power.' Thus the Spirit is not a creature, but is proper to the substance of the Word, proper also to God, and is said to be in Him.

For one must not shrink from saying the same things again.

Even if the Holy Spirit was not named a Son, yet He is not outside the Son;

for He is called the Spirit of adoption;

and since Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, it is consequently said concerning the Spirit:

He is the Spirit of wisdom and the Spirit of power. For when we partake of the Spirit, we have the Son, and having the Son, we have the Spirit, crying in our hearts, 'Abba, Father,' as Paul has said.

But if, because the Spirit is of God and is written to be in Him,

for 'no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God which is in Him'; and the Son too has said:

'I am in the Father, and the Father in me'—why is not the same name given to this One and to that, but the one is the Son and the other is the Spirit? If anyone questions thus, such a one must be mad, searching out the unsearchable, and disregarding the Apostle, who says:

'For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counsellor?' And besides, the things which God has named, who will dare to rename? Else let him supply this in the case of created things.

These things being thus shown, anyone would be mad who asks, Is the Spirit, then, also a Son? Nor, because it is not so written, let anyone on that account exclude it from the nature and propriety of God;

but as it is written, let him believe, and not say:

Where, then, is God, and how does He exist? Else for the rest he will hear:

'The fool has said in his heart:

There is no God.' For the things delivered to faith have a knowledge that is not to be over-curiously examined.

The disciples, accordingly, when they heard, 'baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,' did not over-curiously inquire why the Son is second and the Spirit third, or why there is a Trinity at all;

but as they heard, so they believed;

and they did not ask as you do:

Is the Spirit, then, a Son? Nor, when the Lord said the Spirit after the Son, did they ask:

Is the Father, then, a grandfather? For they did not hear 'into the name of a grandfather,' but 'into the name of the Father,' and this faith they proclaimed everywhere, reasoning rightly.

For there was no other way to speak than as the Saviour said:

namely, Himself as Son, and the Spirit as Holy;

nor is it lawful to alter the order as it was arranged, just as also in the case of the Father.

For just as it is not permitted to speak otherwise concerning Him than that He is Father, so it is impious to ask whether the Spirit is a Son, or the Spirit a Son.

Will anyone, then, even after these things, dare on hearing 'Son' and 'Spirit' to say:

Is the Father, then, a grandfather, or is the Spirit, then, a Son? Yes, they will dare—the Eunomians, the Eudoxians, and the Eusebians.

For having once put on the mask of the Arian heresy, they will by no means hold their tongue from impiety.

For who delivered these things to them? Who taught them? But none from the divine Scriptures;

rather, out of the abundance of their heart came forth such madness.

For if, because the Spirit is not a creature (for this has been shown), you ask, Is the Spirit, then, a Son?—it is time, having learned that the Son is not a creature (for through Him the things that came to be were created), to ask, Is the Son, then, a Father? Or even thus:

Is the Spirit, then, the Son, and is the Son Himself the Holy Spirit? But reasoning in such ways, they will be outside the Holy Trinity, and will be judged atheists, altering the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit;

transferring it, as they please, into the likeness of human generation, naming grandchildren and grandfathers, and fashioning for themselves the theogony of the Greeks.

But this is not the faith of the Church; rather, as the Saviour said, it is into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit;

the Father, indeed, who cannot be called a grandfather, and the Son who cannot be called a Father, and the Holy Spirit named in no other way than thus.

In this faith there is no speaking by way of interchange;

but the Father is always Father, and the Son always Son, and the Holy Spirit always is and is called Holy Spirit.

For in the case of human things it is not so, even though the Arians fancy such things.

For as it is written, 'God is not as man,' so one might say, 'Men are not as God.'

For in the case of men, the father is not always a father, nor the son always a son.

For the same man who becomes a father of a son was himself born the son of another; and the son, being the son of a father, becomes the father of another.

Abraham, accordingly, being the son of Nahor, became the father of Isaac;

and Isaac, being the son of Abraham, became the father of Jacob.

For each, being a part of his parent, is begotten as a son, and himself also becomes the father of another.

But in the case of the Godhead it is not so, since God is not as man.

The Father, accordingly, is not from a Father;

wherefore neither does He beget one who shall become the father of another;

nor is the Son a part of the Father, wherefore neither is He an offspring with a view to begetting a Son.

Whence, in the case of the Godhead alone, the Father, being properly and alone Father, is and was and ever is.

And the Son is properly and alone Son.

And in their case stands fast the statement that the Father is always Father, and that the Son is always Son, both being and being so called;

and the Holy Spirit too is always Holy Spirit;

this we have believed to be of God and to be given from the Father through the Son.

For thus the Holy Trinity remains unchangeable, known in one Godhead.

Therefore he who asks, Is the Spirit, then, a Son?—as though the name could be altered—is deluded, and brings madness upon himself.

And he who asks, Is the Father, then, a grandfather?—devising a name for the Father—goes astray in his heart.

To make further answer, then, to the shamelessness of the heretics is not safe;

for it is to contend against the apostolic exhortation;

but rather to give counsel, as he himself enjoined, is good.

These things suffice for the refutation of your foolish talk.

No longer make sport with the Godhead.

For it is characteristic of those who play games to ask about things not written, and to say:

Then is the Spirit a Son, and the Father a grandfather? Thus laugh the one in Caesarea and the one in Scythopolis.

It is enough for you to believe that the Spirit is not a creature, but is the Spirit of God, and that in Him is the Trinity—Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit.

And one must neither name the name 'Father' upon the Son, nor is it permitted to say that the Spirit is the Son, nor that the Son is the Holy Spirit;

but it is as has been said, and one is the Godhead in this Trinity, and one is the faith, and one is the baptism that is given in her, and one is the perfection, in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom and with whom be glory and might to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, unto all the ages of ages.