文集 第 2 章 第 1/4 段

CHAPTERS OF THE FIRST BOOK. I. That the Holy Spirit is altogether to be understood plainly concerning the head of the faith, that is, concerning the Creed. II. That we ought to believe the catholic Church, not into the Church as into the Holy Spirit, but with the preposition removed. III. That Christ was not begotten but created by the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as He is God. IIII. Concerning unity, to be maintained by prophetic testimonies. V. Concerning the Trinity: that even the liberal disciplines perceived three persons. VI. That when the Son is called the face of the Father, He is acknowledged coeternal with the Father. VII. That the Spirit of the Father is the same as the Holy Spirit. VIII. Concerning the finger of God. VIIII. That it is no detriment to the deity of the Holy Spirit that He seems to be neither unbegotten nor begotten. X.

That the Holy Spirit is the bestower of the perfect charisms. XI. That from the Acts of the Apostles the assertion of the Trinity is repeated, where Christ also is asserted to have been sent against the Novatians for the granting of penance. XII. That it is proper to God to sanctify the creature. XIII. That the Holy Spirit is not local. THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS ALTOGETHER TO BE UNDERSTOOD PLAINLY CONCERNING THE HEAD OF THE FAITH, THAT IS, CONCERNING THE CREED. The catholic faith, by the Holy Spirit's inspiration, has been diffused throughout the whole world through the patriarchs and prophets and the dispensers of grace.

This the apostolic solicitude and perfection, just as it had spread it abroad through the sacred pages, so gathered it together into the saving song of the Creed with wondrous brevity, and disposed it, as it were scattered kinds of remedies, into one body, and, as from countless spices, compounded a precious ointment, whose fragrance has filled all the ends of the earth with the power of its spiritual sweetness, so that in the very assent of the whole world the power of the truth may appear. And because it is fitting that, for those who err as little children and are ignorant, we should repeat the first elements of Christian tradition, in this perfection of the Creed both unity is clearly disclosed and the Trinity, since the thrice-repeated confession renders to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one homage of belief.

In which words also the sacred number of the three hundred and eighteen priests condemned the emerging error of Arius and Macedonius, saying: 'I believe in God the Father, I believe in His only Son our Lord, I believe also in the Holy Spirit.' For even though the frailty of a few has deviated from this number, it has not dissolved the mystery of the universal number. And therefore we have called it a sacred number, because three hundred in the Greek reckoning or numeral notation shows the sign of the cross, and eighteen the adorable name of Jesus. In this number, then, and mystery, in which also holy Abraham triumphed over countless nations, the piety of the elders confounded the enemy of the faith under one proclamation of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Whence also it is to be understood that those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit under eternal damnation were either baptized without the perfection of the Creed, or lied to themselves in the very Creed and font, before which every man, renouncing the devil, confesses: 'I believe also in the Holy Spirit.' 'I believe,' I say, 'also in the Holy Spirit.' Let us recognize the privilege of this very word. You can believe any man whatever; but to believe into Him you should know that you owe to the Majesty alone. But this very thing too is one matter — to believe that God is — and another to believe into God. That God is, even the devil is said to believe, according to the Apostle: 'For the demons also believe and tremble.' But to believe into God is proved of no one save him who has piously hoped in Him.

To believe in God, therefore, is to seek Him faithfully and to pass over wholly into Him with all our love. So when I say 'I believe in Him,' this is to say: I confess Him, I worship Him, I adore Him, I hand over and pour my whole self into His right and His dominion. In the reverence of this profession are contained all the acts of homage owed to the divine Name. II. THAT WE OUGHT TO BELIEVE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, NOT 'IN' THE CHURCH AS 'IN' THE HOLY SPIRIT, BUT WITH THE PREPOSITION REMOVED. But you object and say that God cannot at once be shown by this word when we say 'I believe also in the Holy Spirit,' because there follows 'I believe in the holy catholic Church.'

First, I do not know how Macedonius dares to name the catholic Church, he who, stripped outside the catholic communion, has been shut out from salvation and made one of that number of whom it is said: 'The wicked walk round about.' You say, then: 'I believe in the holy catholic Church.' Why, by inserting one tiny thing, that is, into a single syllable, do you strive to weave in so vast a darkness? We believe the Church as the mother of our regeneration; we do not believe in the Church as in the author of salvation. For since the whole Church confesses this of the Holy Spirit, can the Church possibly believe even in herself?

Therefore, since the teaching of the fathers I have mentioned, celebrated throughout the whole world, confirms that we ought to believe 'in' the Trinity alone in a special sense, either remove this syllable from the name of the Church, or else, by an open profession, assert from the Scriptures that you believe 'in' the Church, teach it by testimonies, and prove it by the divine oracles with the presumption of your own words removed. Let us take from the sacred volumes in every way what things are to be believed, from whose fountain the very sequence of the Creed is drawn and subsists. Whoever believes 'in' the Church believes in a human thing. For man is not from the Church, but the Church began to be from man.

Withdraw, then, from this persuasion of blasphemy, whereby you suppose that you must believe 'in' some human creature, since one must by no means believe even in an angel or an archangel. For those things which follow in the Creed after the name of the Holy Spirit look back, with the preposition removed, to the closing clause of the Creed, so that we believe the holy Church, the communion of saints, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, and life everlasting to be 'in' God, that is, that we confess these things to have been ordained by God and to stand firm in God. For the ignorance of certain people has dragged and snatched this preposition over into the following clause, as if from a neighbouring and adjoining sentence, and imprudently added it out of excess.

But in no canonical writings, on which the text of the Creed depends, do we find that we ought to believe 'in' the Church as 'in' the Holy Spirit and the Son. And therefore, since every creature is a stranger to this honour which belongs to the Holy Spirit, He in whom we are commanded to believe here is God. This word the voice of the Lord and Saviour assigns in a special sense to the Godhead, saying thus: 'Believe in God and believe in me,' and again: 'He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in Him who sent me.' III. THAT CHRIST WAS NOT BEGOTTEN BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, AS THOUGH THE SPIRIT WERE GOD, BUT CREATED. But since the catholic Church confesses 'conceived by the Holy Spirit,' the Macedonians must here be asked whether they judge the Holy Spirit to be the creator or the father of the Redeemer.

If perhaps they answer that He is the Father, then, since already at the beginning of the Creed they have said 'I believe in God the Father almighty,' they will confusedly confess Him to have two fathers. But if they assert Him to be the creator, as the truth holds, then by necessity they will be compelled to proclaim with us the Lord of the universe. And therefore, through the prophet Isaiah, as through His own trumpet and out of His own temple, He speaks, when He foreshadowed the two substances in Christ: 'Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down the Just One; let the earth be opened and bring forth a Saviour: I the Lord have created Him.' For the man taken up from Mary was a work of the Holy Spirit, not a portion of Him, nor begotten by Him, but created.

He was conceived by power, not by substance; by operation, not by participation; by might, not by kind. IV. ON THE UNITY, TO BE ASSERTED BY PROPHETIC TESTIMONIES. The catholic faith venerates the threefold Majesty under the confession of a single Godhead. Receive one Godhead from the sacred volumes: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is one God'; and: 'Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve'; and again: 'I am the Lord, and there is no God besides me'; and in the Psalms: 'Who doest wonders, thou art God alone'; likewise: 'Thou alone art the Most High over all the earth.' Through Isaiah too: 'O God of Israel, who sittest upon the Cherubim, thou art God alone of all the kingdoms of the earth'; likewise: 'I the Lord, the first and the last, I am He'; likewise:

'I am the Lord, this is my name; my glory I will not give to another.' And that you may know this testimony to pertain to Christ, that is, 'the first and the last,' He said of Himself in another place: 'I am the beginning, who also speak to you'; likewise: 'Before me there was no God, and after me there shall be none. I am the Lord, and there is no Saviour besides me' — which pertains in a special way to Christ, the Saviour of the human race; likewise: 'Thus saith the Lord thy redeemer, and thy former from the womb: I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens, that alone establish the earth, and there is none with me' — which properly looks to Jesus as maker and redeemer, of whom the Evangelist recalls: 'All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing'; likewise:

'There is no God besides me, and there is no Saviour apart from me'; likewise: 'I am the first and I am the last; my hand also hath founded the earth, and my right hand hath measured the heavens' — just as Jesus Christ in another place plainly asserts of Himself, saying: 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.' In these testimonies the Holy Spirit also is contained, in which the unity of the divine substance is so to be confessed regarding the Holy Spirit that in them there must also be believed to be the distinct property of the Persons and their undivided plurality. V. THAT EVEN THE LIBERAL DISCIPLINES PERCEIVED SOMETHING OF THE TRINITY, OF THREE PERSONS.

By God's own words, therefore, we have shown one Godhead; now let us teach three in one Godhead: three names, not three kingdoms; three appellations, but not three powers; three essences or subsistences, but not three substances. It is clear that even secular wisdom understood that the whole multitude of ages is enclosed within the reckoning of three Persons. What are these three? That is: I, thou, he.

Therefore, as we have said, even the liberal studies, having borrowed their instruction from spiritual disciplines, perceived that there are only three Persons in reality; and it plainly appeared to them that neither does a second Person satisfy perfection, nor can a third be surpassed, since the fullness that tends toward the third number proves the pair to be but half-complete, while the perfection consummated in three rejects a fourth. These things, then, having been passed over with a light mention, let us rather by sacred testimonies assert that the Trinity subsists in unity. But you say: Why do you bring me the words 'unity' and 'trinity,' which you do not find in canonical reading? No wonder, if he who does not deserve to enter the inmost sanctuary of salvation trembles at and flees even the doorway of the truth.

For what is so near, so natural, so proper, as that from 'one' a 'unity,' from 'three' a 'trinity,' should be named according to the catholic definitions of the fathers? Words are not to be examined out of themselves when they depend on what precedes; nor indeed does it follow that those things should be judged foreign which are born from 'one' and 'three,' that is, from the very property of a manifest beginning. Take note that each of these terms is not presumptuous but derivative. These names, which antiquity discovered from the time of the primitive Church, authority brought forth, and long age confirmed. VI. THAT WHILE THE SON IS CALLED THE FACE OF THE FATHER, HE IS RECOGNIZED AS COEVAL WITH THE FATHER. Receive the Trinity from the sacred volumes: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth, and the Spirit of God moved over the waters.'

The Father is the author, the Son the coeval beginning, the Holy Spirit poured out over the waters. Over the waters, then, the eminence of the Lord was borne even then — foreshadowing, I believe, the gifts of baptism. In the making of man too, the threefold repetition of the Godhead shows that it is the work not of one Person but of three. For thus we read: 'And God said: Let us make man to our image and likeness.' Note the sentence, simple in the proposal, manifold in the response. 'And God said: Let us make man.' What else is this but that the substance of unity speaks and the power of the Trinity works? Observe how in the creation of man the name of God is named three times over. For thus we have it in Genesis: 'And God said:'

Let us make man'; and again: 'God created man'; and thirdly: 'God blessed him.' God said, God made, God blessed. On account of the three Persons the one Godhead is repeated three times. And in this place understand plainly also the mystery of unity. Behold, the image and likeness of God is given to each single man by three, and yet is discerned to be one. 'God said: Let us make.' Attend diligently: while one speaks and not one makes, and while again He mingles the plural with the singular — nor does He say 'to our images and likenesses,' nor indeed 'to my image and likeness' — He commends the unity by the singular, the Trinity by the plural. And so, in that He says 'Let us make according to ours,' the number of Persons is unfolded; but in that He says in the singular:

'to the image and likeness,' the undivided Godhead is gathered into one substance. When God had appeared to Abraham at the door of his tent, and out of one three had wondrously offered themselves to his eyes, he, aware of the Majesty, adored one in three. In the Psalms too the unity is absolutely designated in its own Persons: 'Cast me not away,' he says, 'from thy face, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.' Behold, the prophet, beseeching the Father, dreads no less the offence of the Holy Spirit than of the Father and the Son. 'Cast me not,' he says, 'away from thy face.' The Son, just as He is understood as the image of the Father, so also as the face of the Father. And therefore we read: 'Philip, he who sees me sees also the Father'; likewise: 'Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy face?'

Take note, unbeliever, of the mystery of the perfect confession of the Trinity. The prophet speaks to the Father, confesses the Son to be the face of the Father, and likewise attests the Holy Spirit diffused through all things. Of the Son, moreover, the Lord speaks even to Moses: 'My face shall go before thee.' Which name, that is, 'face,' pertains both to the substance of unity and to the coeternity of the Majesty. But as for their supposing Him to be lesser because He was born — what is it for God to be born of God, except to have naturally come forth from God? But you say: 'If He is from Him, He is younger than He.' Behold, the arm is born from the body and the face from its own head, and yet the face is not established to be younger than its head, nor the arm later than its body.

If, then, any head was ever older than its own face, then presume to assert that the Father is older than His own image, which consists in the perfect likeness and equality of Christ. So, then, the Son knows not how to be separated from the Father either in power or in time, just as the face cannot be parted from the head nor can ever be found younger than its own head. VII. THAT THE SPIRIT OF THE FATHER IS THE SAME AS THE HOLY SPIRIT. But you say: Show me that the Holy Spirit subsists in His own essence. Wherever or however often I read either 'the Spirit of the Father' or 'my Spirit' or 'the Spirit of God,' I see, you say, that it must be referred not to the Person of the Holy Spirit but to that of the Father.

First, from this they pile up the blasphemy of their impiety, when they say that the Holy Spirit of God must be believed to be either a creature or else the Father Himself. Rightly does he who does not confess the Holy Spirit slide down, with confused mind, even to insult of the Father. Assuredly, if the Spirit is a thing made, He cannot pertain to the substance of the Father. But if you suppose Him to be the paternal power, how do you presume to humiliate Him to the injury of being a thing made? But we shall demonstrate by clear testimonies that the 'Spirit of God' is said not of the Father but properly of the Holy Spirit. We read in Isaiah that upon the Lord Jesus there descended the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and piety.

Of this Spirit of the Lord, therefore, who descended upon the Saviour by a sacred infusion, the Son says through Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me'; and the Evangelist Matthew: 'Behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending upon Him like a dove.' And that this Spirit of God, whom the Saviour received in baptism, is manifestly the Holy Spirit, the Evangelist Luke fully taught, saying: 'Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan.' We read in the prophet Joel: 'In those days I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.'

That He says 'of my Spirit' is manifestly said of the Holy Spirit, because, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles on the sacred solemnity of Pentecost, then the Apostle Peter took up that testimony from the prophet. Moreover, that the Spirit of the Father is the same as the Holy Spirit, the Gospels taught in differing words but with harmonious truth. For when Matthew had said, 'For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you,' Mark openly set forth that this Spirit of the Father is the Holy Spirit, saying: 'What shall be given you in that hour, that speak; for it is not you that speak, but the Holy Spirit.'

And Luke likewise showed that this Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit, saying: 'Be not solicitous how or what you shall say; for the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that hour what it behoveth you to say.' According to these things, therefore, as often as you read either 'the Spirit of the Father' or 'the Spirit of God,' you must, laying aside your error, confess that it is to be referred in a special sense to the Holy Spirit. Likewise Isaiah too numbers the Holy Spirit as one in the glory of the Trinity, when he says: 'I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and the Seraphim stood and cried one to another: Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts.' And in what follows he says: 'And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Go, and thou shalt say to this people:'

you shall hear indeed and shall not understand, and seeing you shall see and shall not perceive.' Who this Lord of hosts was — who was seen by the prophet through an assumed form, or who spoke in the prophet — Paul shows in the Acts of the Apostles, saying: 'Well did the Holy Spirit speak through the prophet Isaiah to our fathers: you shall hear indeed and shall not understand, and seeing you shall see and shall not perceive.' Let us believe at least Paul, the most renowned herald of the truth, that that Lord of hosts, whom Isaiah saw and who spoke through Isaiah, was the Holy Spirit. But since with a threefold repetition it leaps forth 'holy, holy, holy,' let us see whether this honour looks back to the whole Trinity. When Isaiah says:

'I saw the Lord of hosts,' he is recognized as proclaiming the Father to the Jews. John the Evangelist is proved openly to assert the Son, saying thus: 'Therefore they could not believe in Jesus, because Isaiah said: He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart. These things Isaiah said, when he saw the glory of the Son of God and spoke of Him.' But that same thing which Isaiah says, 'And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Go, and say to this people, seeing you shall see and shall not perceive' — this Lord the Apostle Paul, as we have said, confirms to be the Holy Spirit.

You see, then, that this cry 'holy, holy, holy' celebrates together the whole Trinity; and just as in these three words there is no dissimilarity, no difference, so in the power of the Trinity there can be no distance. VIII. ON THE FINGER OF GOD. But you say: From this the Holy Spirit is plainly recognized to be lesser, because He is called the finger of God. It is not so. But when you hear it said of the Holy Spirit, 'If I by the finger of God cast out demons,' know that not a diminution of glory but a unity of substance is being shown, and not a disparity of honour but a concord of work. What then? Because the Holy Spirit is sometimes called the finger of God, is He therefore believed to be lesser than the Son and the Father?

Flee the error of this persuasion; see whether at times in this designation of 'finger' Scripture comprehends both the Father and the Son. Let us remember that it is not said of one finger, when we read: 'For I will behold thy heavens, the works of thy fingers.' But you say that in the 'fingers' this is signified only of the Son and the Holy Spirit, under a certain duality. Lest you attempt to assert this of two Persons only, in another place Isaiah speaks of the Trinity by the number of three fingers alone, saying: 'Who hath weighed the mass of the earth with three fingers?' What is more evident concerning the unity of the Trinity, what is clearer? Did He not here, in three fingers, weigh out the equality of a single power upon a certain scale of mystery?

Therefore, as has been said, since you are already instructed concerning the fellowship of the work, do not doubt concerning the equality of the power. In saying, then, 'Who hath weighed the mass of the earth with three fingers,' He wished here to speak in a special sense of the cooperation of power and of the unity of substance, which is proved to be one and the same in the three fingers. But no less, in the prophet Isaiah, note the proper Person of the Holy Spirit under the distinction of the Trinity, where the Son, speaking of Himself, 'I am the first and I am the last,' consequently added: 'And now the Lord hath sent me, and His Spirit.' One, then, in Person is God the Father, another the Spirit of God the Father.

And so, while the Son is read to be sent by the Father and the Holy Spirit, it is plainly opened up that under the name of three Persons the Holy Spirit subsists in Himself — just as in another place the same prophet distinguishes the essence of the Trinity: 'Behold my child, I will uphold Him; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased; I have given my Spirit upon Him.' The Father calls the Son His beloved child, upon whom He gave His Spirit, of which Spirit Jesus Christ testifies with His own voice: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.' And that that Gospel word may be manifest even to the nations: 'Go,' He says, 'baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,' where under three Persons He asserts one work and one name, an undivided Majesty.

We have it, as has been said, according to Luke: 'And when Jesus was baptized, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came from heaven: Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased.' The Son, then, is declared in the body, the Holy Spirit in the appearance of a dove, the Father in the voice. But in this place there is to be understood in the dove an appearance passing over, not a substance persisting. IX. THAT IT DOES NOT DETRACT FROM THE GODHEAD OF THE HOLY SPIRIT THAT HE IS SEEN TO BE NEITHER UNBEGOTTEN NOR BEGOTTEN.

But amid these things, while we demonstrate the proper Person of the Holy Spirit, and confess the Father unbegotten, and know the Son to be only-begotten, you ask of me whether the Holy Spirit is to be confessed unbegotten, or begotten, or something else. The holy Scriptures speak of the power and Godhead of the Holy Spirit; but whether He is to be called begotten or unbegotten, they do not speak. See what darkness unbelief makes for itself. You do not wish to know what God did not wish to be unknown, and you wish to know what He did not command to be inquired into. He did not say 'begotten,' lest you believe Him to be the Son; He did not say 'unbegotten,' lest you suppose Him to be the Father; but He testified that He proceeds from the Father unto the distinction of essence, as we read: 'the Paraclete, who proceeds from the Father.'

Since these things are so, even thus acknowledge that the Holy Spirit has His own Person. That He is a third besides the two, the diversity of the name proves; that, proceeding from God, He is not third in order or degree, the unity of Majesty shows. For He who proceeds from the inmost depths of God is proved to be not the creature of God but the substance of God. Do not scrutinize how He is God, whom it is manifest to be God. Here the reason is hidden, the truth is not hidden. Why should you inquire how He is the companion and equal of the King, whom it is established to be of royal honour and lineage? An inquiry about a name is superfluous where there is no doubt about the sublimity. Therefore, because the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, He therefore says:

'But he who has not the Spirit of the Lord, he is not His'; and in another place: 'He breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit.' Whether He is unbegotten or begotten, you seek. Of this the sacred oracles have sung nothing; it is unlawful to break in upon the divine silences. What God did not believe should be indicated in His Scriptures, He willed that you should neither inquire into nor know, out of superfluous curiosity. This He judged ought to reach your conscience, which pertains to your salvation. Let us consult the holy oracles as to what is to be believed by us concerning the Holy Spirit. For this very thing — that you say the Son is begotten — would you dare to say it, unless you had learned it by the heavenly attestation from the Scriptures?

Or would you presume to assert that the Lord Christ was either brought forth from the Virgin or begotten of a coeval and coeternal Father, unless you had taken it from reading, unless you had inquired of God with divine voices? And therefore, as to how you ought to think concerning the Holy Spirit, you must return to the Apostles and the Gospels, with whom and in whom you do not doubt that God has spoken. To return, then, to your empty proposition: does the glory or substance of the Holy Spirit lie in this — whether He be proved unbegotten or begotten? For neither does it detract anything from the Son that He is not read to be unbegotten, nor from the Father that He is not held to be begotten. In words of this kind there is a property of appellation, not a diversity of power or Majesty.

'Begotten' and 'unbegotten' is a difference of Person, not of nature. When, therefore, concerning 'begotten' and 'unbegotten' you have either said or heard things useless and unnecessary and suited only to slanders, will you be content to stand at this end? Surely you will still inquire whether He is God. But when you have received from those things which are read that He is God, you will now have nothing to inquire, since, when you begin to know the strong and consummated things, you will not need to inquire into the empty and void. Where, then, the ground of usefulness and the fullness of truth is understood to be, thither let the saving intention tend. X. THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE BESTOWER OF PERFECT GRACES.