But here too we must take note that not even now did he say, 'The words that I speak are the Spirit,' but, without the article, making clear that these are not the hypostasis of the Spirit, but are filled with the energy of the divine Spirit, and that through them the life-giving energy of the Spirit is supplied.
And so, when, having breathed, he said, 'Receive Holy Spirit,' he said precisely this: that this breath is filled with the divine Spirit's authority to loose and to bind.
And toward this end now the discourse, and by us too the words of the Lord are declared: 'With my lips,' he says, 'I have declared all the judgments of your mouth.'
But they are also searched out and meditated upon and kept and practiced and pondered—as many things as he brings down to whom the Spirit is the One who interprets the things of the Spirit, but not through the Spirit; and how great too is the difference of the Lord's words: commandments, laws, testimonies, ordinances, judgments.
) 'and as the Lord spoke through his holy prophets, to show mercy,' says Zacharias; and 'upon Jonah the son of Amathi came the word of the Lord,' and 'the word that came to Isaiah,' and at one time to one and at another to another, and 'the Lord said to Moses' and to this one or that one, and to as many as it is not even easy to number.
What then? Were all these the Holy Spirit, and did it not speak through the prophets, according to what is written, but was it itself spoken through them, or spoken to them?
But if these things, spoken bodilessly from the bodiless God, were not the Holy Spirit, much more were the words of Christ, brought forth bodily, not (the Holy Spirit).
If, then, even though it is altogether impossible, let it nevertheless be granted that the breath was not of the flesh but of the Godhead of the Son; or rather, that we may set down the very thing said by the Latins, let it be granted that that intelligible thing was signified by the Savior through the sensible.
The eyes of the angels then beheld the soul of man conjoined to sense and flesh, and beheld another god—not only made upon the earth through divine goodness (p.)
) divine, the same being mind and flesh, but on account of the excess of this (goodness) also formed according to the grace of God, so that the same one is flesh and mind and spirit, and has the soul completely according to the divine image and likeness, as being a unity in mind and word and spirit.
But the envious eye saw, and the arch-evil serpent did not endure it; he held out so long, I think, only that he might mix the more potent poison under his tongue, and as it were prepare and blend with guile, with a sweet word, the venom (entering) through the hearing; he came on, he charmed, he wounded—oh, both my own readiness and that one's malice!—he poured the poison into the soul, he put to death what was living from there, the body, I mean; he darkened the soul that was living of itself; we were stripped of the divine beauty, deprived of the divine form, we cast away the light, we corrupted our likeness to that uppermost Light; we put on gloom as a garment, alas, and as a double cloak we were clothed in darkness.
But he had mercy freely—that I may not lengthen the discourse—he whose nature is goodness and the mercy that comes from it; and for my sake, the fallen one, he came down and became, as the apostle says, 'a life-giving Spirit,' that, having given life, he might renew the darkened image.
And so, now accomplishing this and showing that this is the very one who at the beginning created (man) through a breath, he breathes upon the disciples, and through his own word manifests the gift; not saying again, 'I put in a soul,' but 'a Spirit,' and a divine Spirit—again, by the impartation of the gifts of grace, I fashion the soul.
'It,' he says, 'joining (the soul),' as that one would have said, 'to my spirit, and that mine should as it were breathe with me, and have by grace, through the conjunction with me, the authority to loose and to bind that belongs by nature to the divine Spirit.'
But do you see how this breath intimates the Spirit as present and accomplishing the renewal of the human soul unto the better—which we believe to be accomplished from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit—but gives spirit and Holy Spirit, yet according to the gift and the power and the grace and the energy, which is the binding and loosing of the sins of men, not the very hypostasis of the all-holy Spirit?
1:538
Παροὐδενόςγάραὕτηλαμβάνεσθαιδύναται
因為這(位格)是不能從任何人領受的。
For this (hypostasis) can be received from no one.
But the gifts of grace of the Spirit, its natural powers and energies—in no way separated from it—are received by those worthy to be energized by the Spirit, who, on account of being united to it and anointed with its energy (for Christ alone, the only one, was anointed by the whole Anointer, according to him who said, 'Christ on account of the Godhead'—not by an energy that sanctifies, as in the case of the other anointed ones, but by the presence of the whole Anointer); these, then, by being united, through the divine energy from thence, and by becoming instruments of the Spirit and through themselves manifesting it, are said to receive, and the Holy Spirit is said to be given to them through the Son—and, if you will, also from the Son.
And this the Lord showed by breathing and saying to the disciples, 'Receive Holy Spirit,' as the divine Damascene too taught us; for, having said that 'we do not say the Spirit is from the Son, but we name it Spirit of the Son, and confess that it has been manifested and imparted to us through the Son,' he at once added: 'For he breathed and said to the disciples, Receive Holy Spirit.'
Is it not quite clear that the Damascene Father, from this breath, understood and demonstrated that the Holy Spirit is not also from the Son, but is only manifested and imparted through him?
() But the Latins, in derangement of mind, understand and dogmatize in a manner opposed to that one; for they do not perceive that these gifts of grace and the energies, according to which the Holy Spirit is supplied through the Son, are given not from the Son only, but also from the most high Father himself.
And not from the Father and the Son only, but also through it and from it, the Holy Spirit itself; for 'I will pour out from my Spirit upon all flesh,' God said through Joel; of which outpouring there belongs, assuredly, also the Spirit given to the disciples by Christ through the breath; and 'to one,' he says, 'is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom, and to another a word of knowledge,' and all the things that are subsequently enumerated to Paul, the chosen vessel of the gifts of grace, who was also blessed through the Spirit with the surpassing greatness of revelations; wherefore he also says, 'But to us God has revealed it through his Spirit'—not only the things unknown to the fathers renowned for virtue and piety, but even things surpassing the very knowledge of the angels; and 'these things we know,' says John, the most theological of the apostles, 'from the Spirit which we have received from him.'
And, simply, every supply of good things upon the creation gushes forth from it; and there is, says Basil the Great, no gift at all coming to the creation without the Holy Spirit; who also, having enumerated all things—the gifts and the gifts of grace and the energies of the Spirit—then says: 'All these things the Holy Spirit has eternally; but that which gushes forth from God is hypostatic, while the things gushing forth from it are its energies.'
Does, then, the Holy Spirit proceed even from itself, since () from it and through it is every supply of good things, in which assuredly is also the authority to loose and to bind, which the Lord granted to the disciples through the breath?
Common, then, to the sole holy and adorable Trinity are both the divine powers and the energies, through which God dwells in and walks among the worthy according to the promise, being through them both active and made known.
Of which divine energies not only the Father and the Son but also the Holy Spirit is theologized as fountain, as Basil the Great too says, writing in his refutative chapters On the Holy Spirit: 'But what are the energies of the Spirit?'
And again: 'In the Holy Spirit all things are perfect: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, wisdom, understanding, counsel, security, piety, knowledge, sanctification, redemption, faith, workings of powers, gifts of healings, and as many things as are similar to these; having nothing in itself that is acquired, but possessing all things eternally, as Spirit of God and shining forth from him, having the cause for itself as its own fountain and gushing forth thence.'
1:552
Πηγήδέκαίαὐτότῶνπροειρημένωνἀγαθῶν
它自己也是前述那些美善之事的泉源。
And it too is a fountain of the aforesaid good things.
Wishing, therefore, to show himself consubstantial in respect of the Godhead with the Father and the Spirit, our Lord Jesus Christ himself gives to the disciples, by grace, this natural energy of the Godhead—just as the Father earlier () granted certain of such energies to the prophets; and the Holy Spirit too, having descended after the ascent of the Savior, itself also gave such energies to the disciples, being itself too thereby shown consubstantial with the Father and the Son.
Common, then, and many, to the sole holy and adorable Trinity are the divine gifts toward us from it, and the giving of these; but the procession of the Holy Spirit is one, and proper to the Father, and before the ages.
But that I may set the seal upon the defense and that every contradicting mouth may be stopped, I will put forward as witness of the truth the very Word of truth himself, speaking the present discourse in unison with us, in agreement with those before us.
He himself, who is separated from nowhere, ascending from earth to the heavenly Father, charged those who had remained with him unto the end not to depart from Jerusalem, but to await the promise of the Father, 'which you heard from me,' he says.
Therefore, before the Savior's assumption, they had not yet obtained the promise; therefore the Holy Spirit was not given through the breath, for this was the promise.
When, being about to die willingly for us—oh, the magnitude of his disposition toward us!—he was not only delivering himself to the slaughter for us, but also was making (them) heirs by testament of the things belonging to him, and was opening to us and delivering the treasures, and that very One who is connatural and who has transcended all creation, the inexhaustible wealth of the Spirit; for, 'I,' he says, 'will ask the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.'
) Then again, after those sweet injunctions, after the soul-cheering words, after the exhortations to guard the wealth: 'When the Comforter comes,' he says, 'whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he shall bear witness concerning me.'
Having gone forward a little in his very words, he foretold this too at that time, out of the greatest things lovingly consoling his own: 'For it is profitable for you,' he says, 'that I should go away; for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you.'
Well done that this was brought forward after that, one might say to him who said it; for it has fallen short even in the force of what seems to you a help from the Scriptures.
For even if this too is a word of the Word of truth, yet 'to breathe' and 'to send what is from oneself' do not show alike; for he who breathes, of all necessity breathes from himself with the spirit (breath) that is from himself—which is the same as saying, with the breath that proceeds from himself.
Wherefore the Lord, () making it his earnest concern that no one, being led astray, should hold that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from him, gave the breath—which seemed rather to establish this—then, when he had refused and deferred the sojourn of the Spirit; but having foretold 'I will send,' he added 'from the Father.'
For 'even if I will send,' he says, 'yet not from myself, but having received from the Father, from whom it proceeds; for he alone sends from himself, as having this proceeding from himself, and ever having this proceeding, not only then proceeding when I myself shall send, nor sent from me without interval as it proceeds from him; for it was not after saying I will send that I added the one proceeding from him, lest the 'sometime' should be additionally conceived in the case of the Father.'
And, being about to add 'who proceeds from the Father,' I said beforehand, not 'whom I send,' but 'whom I will send,' lest the 'ever' should be co-conceived also in my case.
For to have the sending of the Holy Spirit toward the worthy is common from eternity to the Father and to the Son; but each sends in time, or rather both do, whenever it is fitting.
Therefore this too can admit of an appointed time and of future time; but to have the sending-forth in no way precedes the sending-forth (itself), nor will it ever lie in the category of promise, nor would it admit of the 'about to be'—away with the blasphemy!—which befalls those who suppose the sending-out of the Spirit from the Son to be eternal.
For it was sent to certain ones and given to the disciples from the Son, who had received from the Father in time, the sending being later in origin than the very ones receiving, and for a cause—rather, for many causes: 'that it may abide,' he says, 'with you forever,' 'that it may teach you and bring to your remembrance all things which I said to you,' 'that it may bear witness concerning me and bear witness together with you to the things concerning me,' you who bear witness from the beginning unto the end, (p.)
) 'that it may convict the world as guilty in respect of sin'—the world that named my righteousness sin; the righteousness which also cast out the very ruler of sin from the very rule of sinners, having justly condemned him, because he unjustly brought the truly righteous one under the same liability as sinners—'that it may glorify me,' having guided you into all the truth.
It was sent, therefore, from the Father and the Son in time, and to certain ones, and for a cause; but from the Father alone it proceeds, timelessly and causelessly, having him alone as its cause—the only unbegotten Father, who makes all things out of nothing on account of the common goodness of himself and of them, who has the Son begotten from the beginning and the Holy Spirit proceeding.
Or rather, have you yourself begun to lift your eyelids and to look toward the light, even if not completely, yet at least dimly perceiving the piercing and not-dim radiance, so as to grope and to see that the 'he will give' and the 'he will send,' so many times spoken, he has nowhere spoken without a cause, nor without a person who receives, on whose account it is also sent, but the only one who is both God and theologian has always rendered it conjoined to the causes—but the 'proceeding' he set down absolutely, without any cause whatsoever?
For the sending-out that co-endures and is without cause he assigned to the Father alone; but the one that is under time and is ever conjoined with the cause, being common, he revealed to belong to himself and to the Father, (p.)
) so that, perceiving this, you may no longer blaspheme by thinking and saying that the sending-out is the same as the procession, or by inferring the latter from the former, and on this account saying that the divine Spirit has its hypostasis from the Father and from the Son.
For just as God is without cause, so also the existence of God is without cause, having as its cause the very one from whom it exists without cause, but not existing from him by reason of a cause.
And just as God is the causeless existence of God, so that which has come about by reason of a cause is common to the very causeless one and to the causeless ones existing from him.
1:589
Ὁδαὐτοῖςκοινόν, θείαςὑποστάσεωςοὐκἴδιον
但那為它們所共有的,並不是某一神聖位格所專有的。
But that which is common to them is not proper to a divine hypostasis.
Whenever, then, you hear of the Holy Spirit being sent to certain ones from the Son, or through the Son, or from both, take to mind, I pray, the going-forth that is under time and by reason of a cause, but not that going-forth from the Father which is unrelated and beyond cause and before the ages.
Have we now persuaded you, and has the light been made clear to you, or shall we yet remain joining together the demonstrations and dispelling the darkness of your ignorance?
How great and deep is this (darkness) that overshadows the pupils of your understanding, if not even now have you looked through toward the truth, and that although the 'I will give' is the same as the 'I will send.'
For since neither is that which is sent transferred locally, nor does the very one who sends stand apart from the one sent (for indeed both the sender and that which is sent through him—and, if you will, also from him—are ever both together and everywhere; for our piety is not a matter of syllables); since, then, it is not divided by place, nor is the sender and the sent encompassed by place, does not, then, the sender give?
This too the Lord himself, enlightening us, now said 'which the Father will give,' and now again 'which the Father will send,' using the understanding in both senses.
It follows that we glorify the manifestation of the Spirit as eternal; and necessarily those toward whom the manifestation is directed must also be co-eternal. To this it must be added that in this way the very subsistence of the divine Spirit and of the Son is not thereby demonstrated.
But if those men claim to infer the Spirit's subsistence from His manifestation, we for our part do not follow conjectures; rather, we have been enriched in our confession of faith by oracles spoken by God Himself.
We know too that the Holy Spirit comes and is manifested of Himself; yet we shall not therefore grant that He also proceeds of Himself. Hence, He who gives or sends the Holy Spirit does not cause Him to proceed by sending Him, but rather makes Him manifest.
For this is what the Lord Himself did: before His own ascension He manifested the Spirit in measure to His own disciples, through the grace shared among them and granted at that time in measure by them. This, I would say, was also the original cause of the human soul having been created by an inbreathing.
For since the Father who speaks and His all-powerful Word were proclaimed in the creation of all things, while the manifestation of the Spirit had not yet come about, and since it was needful that, once man came into being, none of the Persons of the Trinity—of which he was being fashioned as an initiate and earthly worshipper—should remain unknown; for this reason, to the Word and to Him who speaks (which is to say, to the Son and to the Begetter) there is added the phrase "He breathed in," disclosing the …
…the hypostasis of the Spirit; and this too the Lord did when He renewed us. For since there was a Son, the Father was thereby shown forth, and by the inbreathing the Spirit was proclaimed; whose common work is both our original fashioning and, later, the grace of our refashioning.
Thus, then, the only-begotten Son of the Father, having appeared on earth for our sake and in our likeness, before His own ascension manifested the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit in measure—intimating it through the gift bestowed by inbreathing upon the disciples, and measuring out the teaching according to the capacity of those who received it. But after His own ascension He sent Him who comes, Himself most perfectly manifesting the One who is also manifested of Himself, and who is shown forth in His own right according to His proper hypostasis.
For this reason every giving and power is common to them, yet they apportion among themselves the appointed time, each being manifested in His own right and ever manifesting the others together with Himself.
First the Father was manifested, granting to the prophets by grace the glories of the divine nature, the properties of the Godhead, and its natural and essential energies—so that He might at once show Himself subsisting in His own right and not as being from another, but Himself being the principle of the Godhead; and indeed, showing the others as well to be from Him and conjoined to Him, He is proclaimed above all as Creator by inbreathing and by word.
After Him the Son was manifested, granting by grace to His own disciples the same glories of the same nature, the properties of the Godhead, its natural and essential energies—from which come the gifts of healings, the workings of powers, and the like—so that He too might at once show Himself subsisting in His own right (for it is impossible for that which does not subsist in its own right to possess or to impart energies) and …
1:613
) οὐκαὐτόςὤνἀρχή, ἀλλαὐτόςἐξἀρχῆς
……(接前)祂自己並非本源,而是出於本源。
…not being Himself the principle, but Himself being from the principle.
And thus, while through Himself He showed forth the Father (for He is the Son), by inbreathing He bestowed the spiritual gifts and called them the divine Spirit, thereby further showing the Holy Spirit to be conjoined with Himself.
After Him the Holy Spirit was manifested, granting also by grace to the apostles the same glories of the same nature—the properties of the Godhead, its natural and essential energies.
For the kingdom of God—whose pledges the saints receive here below, as the divine Maximus says in his comments To Thalassius—is the imparting by grace of what belongs to God by nature; which man also received by grace at the very beginning, immediately upon being fashioned by God. As the divine Cyril likewise says, writing in his Epistle to Soïmos, that when God had fashioned man, He brought him forth ensouled, possessing the spiritual gifts—wisdom, righteousness, and whatever exists essentially in God; for at one and the same time the Spirit instilled life into the creature and impressed upon it His own characters in a manner befitting God.
Whenever, then, you hear him saying that the Holy Spirit is from both, as poured forth essentially from the Father through the Son, understand it piously to mean the imparting of these natural powers and energies of God—and not that he teaches the divine hypostasis of the Spirit to be poured forth.
After the Son, then, the Holy Spirit was manifested by bestowing the same powers and energies upon the worthy—so that He might at once show that He too subsists in His own right, and that, having made the disciples wise and clothed them with spiritual power, He both made them understand and proclaimed through them to all the proclamations of the Savior; through which He too is proclaimed, not after the …
…Son as to His existence, but together with the Son; nor as the Son does, but in a manner proper to Himself, subsisting from the Father alone—being naturally conjoined with Him and with the Son, inseparably and eternally—is He proclaimed.
But the reasons why the Spirit was not manifested immediately after the Father—although He too is immediately from the Father—but the Son was first manifested to the world, and why the theologians present the things of the Spirit as coming from the Son, we have rendered in the preceding discourse.
But since the works of the tri-hypostatic Godhead are common, and one of these works is manifestation, for this reason the Spirit both comes to us of Himself and is sent from the Father and the Son—by whom is also manifested the One who is manifested of Himself, just as was the Son before Him.
But if this were not so—if the mission and the sending that accords with it were not manifestation but procession—then the Son too was sent earlier by Him, namely by the Holy Spirit and by the Father; for it says, "The Lord has sent me, and His Spirit."
Consider the mission to be the good pleasure of the Father—so Gregory, surnamed "the Theologian," enjoins you—and I, for my part, consider it also the good pleasure of the Son and of the Spirit, persuaded by him and by the truth.
Since, then, the Son is also sent as God, and by both the Father and the Spirit, it would follow, according to the Latins, that He too has His begetting from both these—if indeed the Spirit is sent by both.
1:628
ΠατρόςτεκαίΥἱοῦ, παρἀμφοτέρωνἐκπορεύεταιτούτων
如此祂便是從父和子二者發出的了。
He would proceed from both the Father and the Son.
And what difference is there between regarding the mission as begetting or procession, and saying that the Spirit has the eternal power to send the Son and the Son to send the Spirit?
1:632
ἔπεμψεν, ἐπανελθώνὅθενκατῆλθεν
「祂差遣了祂」——既已回到祂從那裡降下來的地方。
"He sent Him," having returned to the place whence He had come down.