there sparingly given, here lavishly bestowed; yet not displayed before the resurrection of the Lord, but imparted through the resurrection of Christ. 7. For I will ask, He said, the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, that he may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. And: When that Advocate is come whom I will send unto you from my Father, the Spirit of truth who proceedeth from my Father. And: If I go not away, that Advocate will not come unto you; but if I go away, I will send him unto you. And: When the Spirit of truth is come, he will direct you into all truth. 8.
And since the Lord was about to depart into the heavens, He was of necessity giving the Paraclete to the disciples, lest He should in some way leave them as orphans—which least became Him—and forsake them without an advocate and a certain guardian. 9. For this is He who confirmed their souls and minds, who distinguished the evangelical mysteries, who in them was the illuminator of divine things; strengthened by whom, for the name of the Lord they feared neither prisons nor chains, nay rather they trampled upon the very powers of the world and its torments, being now armed indeed and strengthened through Him, having in themselves the gifts which this same Spirit distributes and dispenses to the Church, the bride of Christ, as it were certain ornaments. 10.
For this is He who establishes prophets in the Church, instructs teachers, directs tongues, works powers and healings, performs marvelous works, supplies discernments of spirits, contributes governments, suggests counsels, and arranges and orders whatever other gifts of the charismata there are, and therefore makes the Church of the Lord on every side and in all things perfect and complete. 11.
This is He who, in the manner of a dove, after the Lord was baptized, came upon Him and remained, dwelling in Christ alone, full and entire, nor mutilated in any measure or portion, but bestowed and sent with all His own overflowing abundance, so that from Him the rest might be able to obtain a certain foretaste of the graces, the whole Holy Spirit remaining in Christ as in a fountain, so that from Him the veins of gifts and works might be drawn, the Holy Spirit dwelling abundantly in Christ. 12. For this, prophesying long before, Isaiah said: And the Spirit of wisdom and understanding shall rest upon him, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness, and the Spirit of the fear of God shall fill him. 13.
This same and selfsame Spirit also in another place from the person of the Lord Himself: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me, he hath sent me to preach good tidings to the poor. 14. Likewise David: Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. 15. Concerning this the apostle Paul: For he who hath not the Spirit of Christ, this man is none of his; and: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 16. This is He who works the second birth from the waters,
a certain seed of the divine generation, and the consecrator of the heavenly birth, the pledge of the promised inheritance, and as it were a certain bond of eternal salvation, who makes us the temple of God and renders us His house, who intercedes with the divine ears for us with unutterable groanings, fulfilling the offices of advocacy and exhibiting the duties of defense, given as an inhabitant for our bodies and as the worker of holiness, who, working this in us unto eternity and unto the resurrection of immortality, leads forth our bodies, while He accustoms them in Himself to be mingled with heavenly power and to be associated with the divine eternity of the Holy Spirit. 17.
For in Him and through Him our bodies are taught to advance toward immortality, while they learn to govern themselves with moderation according to His decrees. 18. For this is He who lusts against the flesh, because the flesh fights against Him. 19. This is He who restrains insatiable desires, breaks immoderate lusts, extinguishes unlawful fires, conquers blazing impulses, casts out drunkenness, drives back avarice, flees from luxurious revelings, binds together loves, restrains affections, drives back sects, sets forth the rule of truth, refutes heretics, spits out the wicked, and guards the Gospels. 20. Concerning this likewise the Apostle: For we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God. 21. Concerning this he exults and says:
But I think that I also have the Spirit of God. 22. Concerning this he says: And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. 23. Concerning this he reports: But the Spirit manifestly says, that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, to doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared. 24. Set in this Spirit, no one ever says, 'Anathema, Jesus,' no one has denied Christ to be the Son of God or repudiated God the Creator, no one brings forth any words of his own against the Scriptures, no one establishes other and sacrilegious decrees, no one writes down divergent laws. 25. Whoever shall blaspheme against this One, has no remission, not only in this age,
but also not in the age to come. 26. He in the apostles renders testimony to Christ, in the martyrs displays the steadfast faith of religion, in the virgins encloses the admirable continence of sealed love, in the rest guards the uncorrupted and uncontaminated laws of the Lord's teaching, destroys heretics, corrects the perverse, convicts the unbelieving, exposes the dissemblers, corrects the wicked also, and guards the Church uncorrupt and inviolate in the holiness of perpetual virginity and truth. XXX. 1. And these things indeed concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, let them be said by us briefly and set down concisely, and not stretched out in a long disputation.
For they could have been more broadly extended and produced with a fuller disputation, since for testimony that the true faith stands thus, the whole of both the Old and the New Testament could be adduced. 2. But because the heretics, ever struggling against the truth, are wont to draw out a controversy of the sincere tradition and the catholic faith, being scandalized at Christ, in that He is asserted to be God even through the Scriptures, and that this is believed by us to be so, it is rightly to be disputed by us—so that all heretical calumny may be removed from our faith—concerning the fact that Christ is also God, in such a way that it may not hinder the truth of Scripture, nor yet our faith, by which the one God is both promised through the Scriptures and held and believed by us. 3.
For both those who say that Jesus Christ is God the Father Himself, as well as those who would have Him to be only a man, have seized from there the origins and causes of their error and perversity, because, when they observed that it is written that there is one God, they thought they could not otherwise maintain this proposition, unless they supposed that one must believe Christ to be either only a man, or else certainly God the Father. For thus they have been accustomed to gather together their calumnies, so that they may strive to approve their own error. 4. And indeed those who say that Jesus Christ is the Father put forward this: if there is one God, but Christ is God, then Christ is the Father, because there is one God;
if Christ be not the Father, since Christ the Son is also God, two gods would seem to be introduced contrary to the Scriptures. 5. But those who contend that Christ is only a man gather thus from the opposite side: if the Father is one and the Son another, but the Father is God and Christ is God, then there is not one God, but two gods are introduced equally, the Father and the Son; and if there is one God, consequently Christ is a man, so that fittingly the Father may be the one God. 6. In very truth, as if between two robbers, the Lord is crucified—just as He was once nailed—and thus receives the sacrilegious revilings of these heretics from both sides. 7.
But neither the holy Scriptures nor we ourselves furnish to those men the cause of their ruin and blindness, if there are things plainly set down in the midst of the divine writings which they either will not see or cannot see. 8. For we both know and read and believe and hold fast that there is one God who made heaven together with earth, since we have known no other, nor shall we ever be able to know one, seeing that there is none. 9. 'I am God,' He says, 'and there is none righteous and saving besides Me.' 10. And in another place: 'I am the first and the last, and besides Me there is no God. Who is like Me?' 11. And: 'Who has measured heaven with His span and the earth with His fist? Who has weighed the mountains in a scale and the forests in a balance?' 12. And Hezekiah: 'That all may know that Thou alone art God.' 13.
The Lord Himself, moreover, says: 'Why do you ask Me concerning what is good? One God is good.' 14. The Apostle Paul too says: 'Who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light; whom no one among men has seen, nor can see.' 15. And in another place: 'But a mediator is not of one; God, however, is one.' 16. But just as we hold and read and believe this, so we ought to pass over no part of the heavenly Scriptures, since indeed we ought in no way to refuse those marks of Christ's divinity which are also set down in the Scriptures, lest by corrupting the authority of the Scriptures we be held to have corrupted the integrity of the holy faith. 17.
Let us therefore also believe this—since it is most worthy of faith—that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is our Lord and God, for 'in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and God was the Word. This was in the beginning with God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.' 18. And: 'My Lord and my God.' And: 'Whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever.' 19. What then shall we say? Does Scripture set forth two Gods? How then does it say that God is one? Or is Christ also not God? How then was it said to Christ, 'My Lord and my God'? 20.
Unless, therefore, we hold all this with its proper reverence and lawful argument, we shall deservedly be believed to have given occasion of stumbling to the heretics—not indeed from any fault of the heavenly Scriptures, which never deceive, but from the presumption of human error, by which they have chosen to be heretics. 21. And first of all, this must be turned back upon those who presume to raise against us a controversy of two Gods. 22. It is written—which they cannot deny—that there is one Lord. What then do they hold concerning Christ? That He is Lord, or that He is not Lord at all? But that He is Lord they do not at all doubt. Therefore, if their reasoning is true, there are now two Lords. How then, according to the Scriptures, is there one Lord? 23. And Christ was called the one Master.
But we also read that the Apostle Paul is a master. Therefore there is now not one master; for according to this reasoning we gather that there are two masters. How then, according to the Scriptures, is Christ the one master? 24. In the Scriptures one good is said to be God, but in the same Scriptures Christ also is set down as good. Therefore, if they conclude rightly, there is not one good, but even two good ones. How then, according to the faith of the Scriptures, is one declared to be good? 25.
And if they do not think that, by any reasoning, it can be prejudicial to the fact that there is one Lord through the fact that Christ also is Lord, nor to the fact that there is one master through the fact that Paul also is a master, nor to the fact that there is one good through the fact that Christ also is called good—then by the same reasoning let them understand that it cannot prejudice the fact that there is one God, that Christ also is declared to be God. XXXI. 1. God therefore is the Father, the founder and creator of all things, alone knowing no origin, invisible, immeasurable, immortal, eternal, one God, to whose greatness, nor majesty, nor power anything—I will not say can be preferred, but cannot even be compared. 2.
From Him, when He Himself willed it, the Word, the Son, was born—who is apprehended not in the sound of stricken air, nor in the tone of a voice forced out of the inward parts, but is recognized in the substance of a power put forth by God; whose sacred and divine nativity's hidden mysteries neither apostle learned, nor prophet discovered, nor angel knew, nor creature understood; they are known to the Son alone, who knew the secrets of the Father. 3. He therefore, since He is begotten of the Father, is always in the Father. And I say 'always' in such a way that I prove Him not unbegotten, but begotten. But He who is before all time must be said to have been always in the Father. For no time can be assigned to Him who is before time.
For He is always in the Father, lest the Father should not always be Father, since the Father also precedes Him—for it is necessary that He be prior, in that He is Father; since He who knows no origin must of necessity go before Him who has an origin. And at the same time the Son is the lesser, in that He knows Himself to be in the Father, having an origin because He is born, and in a certain way through the Father, although He has an origin in that He is born; being near in His nativity, since He is born of that Father who alone has no origin. 4. He therefore, when the Father willed, proceeded from the Father; and He who was in the Father, [proceeded from the Father;
and He who was in the Father,] because He was of the Father, was afterwards with the Father, because He proceeded from the Father—that divine substance, namely, whose name is the Word, through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made. 5. For all things are after Him, because they are through Him. And rightly He Himself is before all things, but after the Father, since all things were made through Him who proceeded from Him, by whose will all things were made—being indeed God proceeding from God, constituting a second Person after the Father, as the Son, yet not taking away from the Father that He is one God. 6. For if He had not been born, being unbegotten and compared with Him who is unbegotten, an equality being shown in both, He would make two unbegotten ones and thereby make two Gods. 7.
If He had not been begotten, being set beside Him who was not begotten, and the two being found equal, the unbegotten ones would deservedly have rendered two Gods, and thus Christ would have rendered two Gods. 8. If He had been without origin, found like the Father and Himself the beginning of all things like the Father, making two beginnings, He would consequently have shown us two Gods also. 9. Or if He Himself were not the Son, but the Father begetting another Son out of Himself, then, deservedly set beside the Father and marked as equally great, He would have produced two Fathers, and thus would have approved two Gods also. 10. If He had been invisible, set beside the Invisible One and expressed as equal, He would have shown two invisible ones, and thus would have proved two Gods also. 11.
If incomprehensible, and if whatever else belongs to the Father were His, then deservedly, we say, He would have stirred up that controversy of two Gods which these men fabricate. 12. But now, whatever He is, He is not of Himself, because He is not unbegotten, but is of the Father, because He is begotten—whether as the Word, or as the Power, or as the Wisdom, or as the Light, or as the Son. 13. And whatever of these He is, since He is from no other source than, as we have already said above, from the Father, owing His own origin to His Father, He could not bring about a discord of divinity by reckoning two Gods, He who from Him who is one God contracted His origin by being born. 14.
By which manner, being both the Only-begotten and the First-begotten of Him who has no origin, He is the one beginning and head of all things. Therefore He has affirmed one God, whom He has proved to be under no beginning or commencement, but rather the commencement and beginning of all things. 15. But the Son does nothing of His own choice, nor does anything by His own counsel, nor comes of Himself, but obeys all the Father's commands and precepts; so that, although His nativity proves Him to be the Son, yet His compliant obedience declares Him to be the minister of the paternal will from whom He is. Thus, while He renders Himself obedient to the Father in all things, although He is also God, yet by His obedience He shows the Father, from whom He drew His origin, to be one God. 16.
And therefore He could not make two, because He did not make two origins, He who from Him who has no origin received the beginning of His nativity before all time. For since that is the beginning to the rest which is unbegotten (which God the Father alone is, who is outside of origin, from whom is He who is born), while He who is born of Him rightly comes from Him who has no origin, proving that to be the beginning from which He Himself is—even if He who is born is God, yet He shows one God, whom He who is born has proved to be without origin. 17. He is therefore God, but begotten unto this very end, that He should be God. He is also Lord, but born of the Father unto this very end, that He should be Lord.
He is also an angel, but appointed by His Father as an angel to announce the great counsel of God. 18. His divinity is so handed down that He may not seem, by any dissonance or inequality of divinity, to have rendered two Gods. For since all things are made subject to Him as to the Son by the Father, while He Himself, together with those things which are subject to Him, is made subject to His own Father, He is proved to be indeed the Son of His Father, but is found to be both Lord and God of the rest. 19. Hence, while to Him who is God all things are delivered laid beneath Him, and the Son, having received all things made subject to Himself, refers them back to the Father, He returns the whole authority of divinity again to the Father. 20.
Whence one God is shown to be the true and eternal Father, from whom alone this power of divinity was sent forth, and, having been delivered and directed also into the Son, is again rolled back to the Father through the communion of substance. 21. The Son indeed is shown to be God, to whom divinity is seen to be delivered and extended; and yet nonetheless the Father is proved to be one God, while, by a reciprocal course, that majesty and divinity gradually, sent again from that very Son, returns and is turned back to the Father who had given it—so that deservedly God the Father is the God of all and the beginning even of His own Son, whom He begot as Lord; while the Son is the God of all the rest, since God the Father set Him, whom He begot, over all things. 22.
Thus the Mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus, having from His own Father power over every creature made subject to Him, in that He is God, being found—together with the whole creation subjected to Him—in concord with His own Father and God, has briefly proved His Father to be the one and only and true God, while there abides in Him that which He was also heard to be.