論聖靈 第 1 章

PROLEGOMENON. (From Cave.) Paschasius, a deacon of the Roman Church, flourished at the beginning of this century, in the year 501. During the Roman schism that raged in the year 498, he strenuously defended the party of Laurentius against Symmachus, and stubbornly championed his cause until his death. He died in the year 512. On this occasion Gregory, or whoever is the author of the Dialogues, relates to us a most charming tale about Paschasius's soul being burned in the flames of Purgatory. There survives Paschasius's Letter to Eugippius, prefixed to the Life of St. Severinus, in Surius for January 8 and in Baronius at the years 496. There are also held the Two Books on the Holy Spirit, against Macedonius (Cologne, 1539, octavo; Helmstadt, 1613; and in the Library of the Fathers, vol. VIII, p. 806).

Casimir Oudin utterly denies that these are Paschasius's, and contends that they should be attributed to Faustus of Riez. Indeed, his reasons do not seem altogether contemptible, and may be seen in his own work, Supplement, p. 107. Since, however, these most choice and splendid books (to use Gregory's words) rest on Gregory's testimony, who expressly attributes them to Paschasius the deacon (and certainly Oudin himself acknowledges that the Dialogues have the greatest authority in this matter), to say nothing now of Sigebert of Gembloux (Chapter 17), they are not rashly to be denied to our Paschasius. Nor do the titles of certain manuscript codices stand in the way, which, set there by the carelessness of copyists, not seldom deceive incautious readers:

especially since Gennadius (Chapter 85) has handed down that Faustus wrote a book on the Holy Spirit. And Trithemius himself, whom Oudin cites as a witness on his own side, splendidly ascribes these very books, which Gregory mentioned, to our Paschasius; although, being engaged in another matter, he incautiously attached the opening words of this work to that single book which Faustus wrote on this subject. THE TWO BOOKS OF PASCHASIUS THE DEACON ON THE HOLY SPIRIT. PREFACE. The catholic faith has been spread throughout the whole world by the patriarchs and the prophets and the dispensers of grace, the Holy Spirit prompting it.

This apostolic solicitude and perfection, just as it had spread it abroad through the holy pages, so through the Creed it gathered it together with wondrous brevity, and arranged it, as it were through diverse kinds of remedies, into one body, and as if from countless aromatic spices compounded a precious ointment, whose odour filled all the ends of the earth with the power of spiritual fragrance, so that in the very ascent of the universe the power of truth might appear. And because it is fitting that we repeat the first elements of the Christian tradition to those who err, as it were to little ones and the ignorant (concerning these see Ambrose, Book I on Abraham, chapter...),

and Prudentius's Psychomachia), in this perfection of the Creed both the unity is evidently disclosed, and the trinity, while the thrice-repeated confession to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, renders one homage of belief. In which words also the sacred number of three hundred and eighteen priests, springing forth, condemned the errors 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 if from this number the frailty of a few turned aside, yet it did not dissolve the mystery of the universal number. And therefore we have called it a sacred number, because three hundred, by Greek reckoning, show the sign of the cross, but eighteen show the adorable name of Jesus.

In this number, therefore, and mystery, in which holy Abraham also triumphed over countless nations, the piety of the elders confounds the enemy of the faith under the one preaching of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: whence also it is to be understood that those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit under eternal damnation, or those baptized without the profession of the Creed, or those who lied in the very Creed and font, before 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 the Word itself. Any of men can believe Him. But to believe in Him, you shall know that you owe to majesty alone. But this very thing is also another: it is one thing to believe God, another to believe in God.

Even the devil is said to believe that God exists, according to the Apostle: For even the demons believe and tremble. But to believe in God is not proved except in him who has piously hoped in Him. To believe in God, therefore, is to seek Him faithfully, is to pass over into Him with one's whole love. I believe in Him, that is to say, I confess Him, I worship Him, I adore Him, I hand over and pour my whole self into His right and dominion. In the reverence of this profession are contained all the homages owed to the divine name. CHAPTER ONE. That we ought to believe the Catholic Church not as we believe in the Holy Spirit, but with the preposition removed.

But you object and say that God cannot at once be shown in this clause where we say: I believe also in the Holy Spirit, because there follows: I believe in the holy catholic Church. First, I know not how Macedonius dares to name the catholic Church, who, an exile from the catholic Church, is shut out from salvation, made of the number of those concerning whom it is said: The wicked walk in a circle. Therefore you say: I believe in the holy catholic Church. By thus supplying a tiny thing, that is a single syllable, do you strive to weave underneath a vast darkness? We believe the Church as the mother of regeneration; we do not believe in the Church as in the author of salvation.

For since the whole Church confesses this concerning the Holy Spirit, can it indeed also believe in itself? Therefore, since it behoves us to believe especially in the Trinity alone, and the doctrine of the aforesaid Fathers, celebrated throughout the whole world, confirms this, either remove this syllable from the name of the Church, or else assert with manifest profession from the Scriptures that you believe in the Church, teach it by testimonies, prove it by divine oracles, and convince us, putting aside the presumption of your own words. Let us take from the sacred volumes in every way what is to be believed, from whose fount the very series of the Creed has been derived and subsists. Whoever believes in the Church believes in a human being. For man does not begin from the Church, but the Church began to be from man.

Withdraw therefore from this persuasion of blasphemy, lest you reckon that you ought to believe in some human creature: since by no means is one to believe in an angel or in an archangel. For these things which follow in the Creed after the name of the Holy Spirit are received at the close of the Creed with the preposition removed, that we may believe the holy Church, the communion of saints, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, life eternal. Let us believe in God, that is, that we confess these things to be deposited from God and to stand fast in God. For the inexperience of some has dragged and snatched this preposition, as if from a near and neighbouring clause, into what follows, and superfluously and imprudently added it.

But in none of the canonical books, on which the text of the Creed depends, have we received that we ought to believe in the Church as we believe in the Holy Spirit and in the Son. And therefore, since every creature is alien from this honour, He in whom we are commanded to believe is God. This word of divinity the voice of the Lord Saviour specifically assigns, saying thus: Believe in God, and believe in me. And again: He who believes in me, believes not in me, but in Him who sent me (John XIV, 10 and 12). CHAPTER II. That Christ was not begotten but created by the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as He is God.

But since the catholic Church confesses, 'He was conceived of the Holy Spirit,' the Macedonians are at this point to be asked whether they reckon the Holy Spirit to be the creator or the father of the Redeemer. If perchance they answer 'father,' since they have already said at the beginning of the Creed, 'I believe in God the Father almighty,' they will confusedly confess that He has two fathers. But if they assert Him to be the creator, as the truth holds, they will be compelled, even by necessity, to pronounce Him God of the universe together with us. And therefore through the prophet Isaiah, as through His own trumpet and from His own temple He speaks, while He pre-signified two substances in Christ:

Drop down dew, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just one; let the earth be opened and bring forth a Saviour: I the Lord have created Him (Isaiah XLV). For the man assumed from Mary was the operation of the Holy Spirit, not a portion; nor begotten by Him, but created. He was conceived by power, not by substance; by operation, not by participation; by virtue, not by genus. CHAPTER III. On the unity to be asserted by the testimonies of the prophets. The catholic faith venerates the threefold majesty under the confession of one divinity. Receive one divinity from the sacred volumes. Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God is one God (Deut. VI); and, You shall adore the Lord your God and serve Him only; in the psalms, doing wonders, You are God alone. Likewise:

You alone are most high over all the earth. Through Isaiah also: God of Israel, who sits upon the Cherubim, You are God alone of all the kingdoms of the earth (Isaiah XLV). Likewise: I am the Lord, the first and the last, I am (Isaiah XLI). Likewise: I am the Lord, this is my name; I will not give my glory to another (Isaiah XLII). But 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 (John VIII). 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 (Isaiah XLIII). Which pertains specifically to Christ the Saviour of the human race. Likewise:

Thus says the Lord your redeemer, and your former from the womb: I am the Lord who makes all things, who stretched out the heavens, alone established the earth, and there was none with me (Isaiah XLIV): which pertains to Jesus, and properly regards Him as maker and redeemer. Of whom the evangelist records: All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing (John I). Likewise: There is no God beyond me, and there is no Saviour besides me (Isaiah XLV). Likewise: I am the first and the last; my hand founded the earth, and my right hand measured out the heavens (Isaiah XLVIII). Just as Jesus Christ in another place evidently asserts of Himself, saying: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (Revelation XXI).

In these testimonies the Holy Spirit also is contained, in which the unity of every substance is so to be confessed, that in them is also to be believed to inhere the distinct property of the Persons, and an undivided plurality. CHAPTER IV. On the Trinity, and that even the liberal arts have passed over concerning the three Persons. Since therefore we have shown one deity of the Word, let us now teach three things in one Deity: three names, not three kingdoms; three appellations, but not three powers; three hypostases or subsistences, but not three substances. It is manifest that even secular wisdom understood that the multitude of all secular things is enclosed within the reckoning of three persons. What are these three? That is: I, You, He.

Therefore, as we have said, the liberal studies also perceived, by instruction borrowed from spiritual disciplines, that there are only three persons in things, and to them it evidently appeared that neither could the second person fulfil perfection, nor could the third be transcended, because fullness, tending toward the third number, proves the duality to be half-complete; but the perfection consummated in three rejects a quaternity. These things, then, having been passed over with a light mention, let us rather assert by sacred testimonies that the Trinity subsists in unity without change. But you say: Why do you offer me the words of unity and Trinity, which you do not find in the canonical reading?

It is no wonder if he who does not merit to enter the inner sanctuaries dreads and flees even the testimony of truth. For what is so close, so natural, so proper, as that from 'one' unity, from 'three' Trinity, should first be named by catholic definitions? The words that depend on what precedes are not to be discussed in isolation; nor indeed is it consistent that those things be declared foreign which are born from 'one' and 'three,' that is, from the property of a manifest beginning. Note that neither of these terms is presumptuous, but derivative. These terms antiquity discovered from the time of the primitive Church, authority brought forth, long age confirmed. CHAPTER V. 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 was borne over the waters (Gen. I). The Father the author, the coeval beginning, the Holy Spirit poured out over the waters. Over the waters, therefore, the eminence of the One ruling was borne; even then, I believe, prefiguring the gifts of baptism. In the making of man also, the threefold repetition of the deity demonstrates the work to be that not of one, but of three persons. For thus we read: And God said, Let us make man to our image and likeness. Note the sentence simple in the proposition, 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 operates?

Observe how three times the name of God is named in the creation of man. 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, one divinity is repeated three times. In which place understand evidently the mystery also of the Trinity. Behold, the image of God and the likeness is given to each man by three, and yet is recognized to be one. God said, Let us make.

Diligently attend: while One speaks and not one makes, and while again He mingles the plural with the singular, He does not say 'to our images and likenesses,' nor certainly 'to my image and likeness,' He commends unity by singularity, Trinity by plurality. And so, in that He says, 'Let us make man to our image,' the number of the persons is unfolded; in that He says singularly 'to image and likeness,' the undivided divinity is gathered into one substance. When God had appeared to Abraham at the door of his tent (Gen. XVIII), and three of them had wondrously offered themselves to his eyes, in the three he, conscious of the majesty, adored One. In the psalm also unity is absolutely designated for His persons:

Cast me not away, He says, from Your face, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me (Psalm L). The Son, as the image of the Father, is so also received as the face of the Father. And therefore we read: Philip, he who sees me, sees the Father also (John XIV). And again: Whither shall I go from Your Spirit, and whither shall I flee from Your face? Note in the faith of perfect confession the mystery of the Trinity. The prophet speaks to the Father, professes the Son to be the face of the Father, and likewise professes the Holy Spirit diffused through all things. Of the Son the Lord also speaks to Moses: My face shall go before you (Exod. XXXIII). Which name, that is 'face,' pertains both to the substance of unity and to the eternity of majesty.

But as for the fact that they think Him lesser because He was born, what is it for God to have been born of God, except to have naturally existed from God? But you say: If He is from Him, He is younger. Behold, the arm is born from the body, and the face from its own head, yet it is not the case that the face is lesser than its own head, or the arm later than its own body. If therefore any head was ever older, then presume to assert the Father older than His own image, which consists in the perfect likeness and equality of Christ. So therefore the Son does not know how to be distinguished from the Father in power or in time, just as the face cannot be separated from the head, or be found younger than its own head. CHAPTER VI. That the Spirit of the Father is the very Holy Spirit. But you say:

Show me that the Holy Spirit subsists in His own essence. Wherever or as often as I read, either 'the Spirit of the Father,' or 'my Spirit,' or 'the Spirit of God,' I see, you say, that the person is to be referred not to the Holy Spirit, but to the Father. First, they heap up this blasphemy of their impiety, when they say, on the one side or the other, that the Holy Spirit of God is to be believed either a creature, or else the Father Himself. Rightly does he who does not confess the Holy Spirit slide down with a confounded mind even to the insult of the Father. Surely, if a thing made, it cannot pertain to the substance of the Father. But if you think it to be the paternal power, how do you presume to humble Him even to the injury of a thing made?

But we shall prove by clear testimonies that the Spirit of God is spoken of not properly of the Father, but properly of the Holy Spirit. We read in Isaiah that upon the Lord Jesus there descended the Holy Spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and piety (Isaiah 11). Concerning this Spirit of the Lord, therefore, who descended upon the Saviour with a sacred infusion, the Son says through Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me' (Isaiah 61). And the evangelist Matthew: 'Behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove' (Matthew 3). Moreover, that this Spirit of God, which the Saviour received in baptism, was the Holy Spirit, Luke the evangelist taught plainly, saying:

'Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan' (Luke 3). We read in the prophet Joel: 'In those days I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh' (Joel 2). That what He says, 'of my spirit,' was said of the Holy Spirit is manifest, because when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles on the sacred solemnity of Pentecost, then the apostle Peter alleged this testimony from the prophet. That this Spirit of the Father is the same Holy Spirit, the evangelists taught in differing words but with harmonious truth. For when Matthew said: 'For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you' (Matthew 10),

the same one openly set forth that this Spirit of the Father is the Holy Spirit, saying: 'What is given you, that speak: for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit' (Mark 13). And Luke likewise showed that this Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit, saying: 'Be not anxious how or what you shall say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that hour what you ought to say' (Luke 12). Accordingly, then, whenever you read of either the Spirit of the Father or the Spirit of God, you must of necessity confess, laying aside error, that it is to be referred specially to the Holy Spirit.

Likewise also Isaiah had announced that the Holy Spirit is one in the glory of the Trinity, when he says: 'I saw the Lord sitting upon a high throne, and the seraphim stood, and they cried one to another, Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts' (Isaiah 6). And in what follows he says: 'And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: Go, and you shall say to this people: Hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive.' This Lord of hosts, who through an assumed appearance was seen by the prophet or spoke in the prophet—who he was, the apostle Paul shows in the Acts of the Apostles, saying: 'Well did the Holy Spirit speak through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers:'

'Hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive' (Acts, last chapter). Let us at least believe Paul, that most renowned herald of truth, that the Holy Spirit was that God of hosts whom Isaiah saw, and who spoke through Isaiah. But because it resounds with a threefold repetition, 'Holy, holy, holy,' let us see whether this honour does not regard the Trinity. When Isaiah says, 'I saw the Lord of hosts,' he is acknowledged to proclaim 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 has blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart' (John 12; Isaiah 6). Isaiah said these things when he saw the grace of the Son of God, and spoke concerning Him.

But that which the same Isaiah says, 'And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Go and tell 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, therefore, that 'Holy, holy, holy'—this utterance celebrates together the whole Trinity? And just as in these three words there is no dissimilarity, no difference, so in the truth of the Trinity there can be no discord. CHAPTER VII. On the finger of God. But you say: From this the Holy Spirit is acknowledged 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 Spirit of God, or by the finger of God, cast out demons,' you must know that this demonstrates not a diminution of grace, but a unity of substance; not a discrepancy of honour, but a concord of operation. What then? Because the Holy Spirit is sometimes called a finger, is He therefore sometimes believed to be lesser than the Son and the Father? Flee the error of this persuasion; take heed lest sometimes in this designation of 'finger' it embraces both the Father and the Son. We remember that it was not said of one finger, when we read: 'For I will behold your heavens, the works of your fingers' (Psalm 8). But you say that in the 'fingers' only the Son and the Holy Spirit are signified, under a certain duality.

Lest you attempt to assert this of two persons, in another place Isaiah speaks of the number of fingers, signifying the Trinity, saying: 'Who has weighed the mass of the earth with three fingers?' (Isaiah 40). What could be more evident concerning the unity of the Trinity, what clearer? Did he not in these three fingers weigh out the equality of one power, under a certain balance of mystery? Therefore, as has been said, since you are now instructed concerning the fellowship of operation, do not doubt concerning the equality of power; when therefore it says, 'Who has weighed the mass of the earth with three fingers,' here they intend to speak specially of the cooperation of power and of the unity of substance, which is approved to be one and the same in the three fingers. But none the less, observe in Isaiah the proper person of the Holy Spirit, under the distinction of the Trinity.

For where the Son asserted concerning Himself, saying, 'I am the first, and I am the last,' He consequently added: 'And now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit' (Isaiah 48). Therefore one in person is the Lord Father, another is the Spirit of God the Father. And so, while the Son is read to be sent by the Father and the Holy Spirit, under the name of three persons it is evidently opened that the Holy Spirit subsists of itself, just as in another place the same prophet distinguishes the proper essence of the Trinity: 'Behold my child, I will uphold him, my chosen, in whom my soul is well pleased; I have put my Spirit upon him' (Isaiah 42). The Father calls His beloved child, upon whom He has put His Spirit, concerning whom Jesus Christ testifies with His own voice:

'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me' (Luke 4). And so that this might be manifest even to the Gentiles, 'Go,' He says, 'baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' (Matthew, last chapter). Where, under three persons, one work and one name asserts an undivided majesty. We have, as has been said, according to Luke: 'And when Jesus was baptized, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came from heaven: You are my beloved Son, in you I am well pleased' (Luke 3). The Son, therefore, in the body; the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove; the Father is declared in the voice. But in this place the dove is to be understood as an appearance passing through, not a substance enduring. CHAPTER VIII.

That it does not detract from the deity of the Holy Spirit, that He seems to be neither begotten nor unbegotten. But amid these things, while we demonstrate the proper person of the Holy Spirit, and confess the Father unbegotten, and acknowledge the Son indeed only-begotten, you ask of me whether the Holy Spirit is unbegotten or begotten, or what else He is to be confessed. The holy Scriptures speak of the power and deity of the Holy Spirit; but whether He ought to be called begotten or unbegotten, they do not speak. See what darkness of unbelief he makes for himself. You do not wish to know what He willed not to be unknown; and you wish to know what He did not command to be inquired into. He did not say 'begotten,' lest you should believe Him the Son; He did not say 'unbegotten,' lest you should suppose Him the Father;

but for the distinction of essence, He testified that He proceeds from the Father, 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 beside the two, the diversity of name proves; that He is not third in order or grade, proceeding from God, 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 lies hidden, the truth does not lie hidden. Why should you ask how He is the companion and equal of the King, whom it is established to be of the same honour and lineage as the King? And inquiry concerning the name is undertaken superfluously, where there is no room to doubt concerning the sublimity.

Therefore the Holy Spirit proceeds from both; hence He says: 'But whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ, this one is not His.' And in another place: 'He breathed and said: Receive the Holy Spirit.' You ask whether He is unbegotten or begotten. The sacred oracles have sung nothing of this; it is unlawful to break in upon the divine silences. What God did not believe ought to be made known in His Scriptures, He willed you neither to make known nor to know, by superfluous curiosity. He indicated that this ought to reach your conscience, which pertains to your salvation. What you are to believe concerning the Holy Spirit, let us consult the holy oracles. For this very thing—that He said the Son is begotten—you would dare to call wicked to say, had you not learned it from the heavenly attestation of the Scriptures.

Or would you ever presume to assert that Christ the Lord was either procreated of the Virgin, or begotten of the coeval and coeternal Father, had you not taken it from the reading, had you not inquired of God by divine voices? And therefore, how you ought to agree 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. So then, to return to your superfluous proposition: is anything held in this grace or substance of the Holy Spirit, 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 sayings of this sort there is a propriety of appellation, not a diversity of power or majesty. Begotten and unbegotten is a difference of person, not of nature. When therefore you have either said or heard, concerning the begotten and the unbegotten, things useless and unnecessary and suited only to slanders, will you then be content to stand at this limit? Surely you will still ask whether He is God. When you have received from the things that are read that He is true God, you will then have nothing to ask, because when you begin to know the strong and consummate things, you will not need to inquire into the empty and void. Therefore, where the principle of usefulness and the fullness of truth is understood to be, there let the saving intention be fixed. CHAPTER IX.

That the Holy Spirit is the perfecter of graces and the bestower of gifts. That the Holy Spirit is the bestower of heavenly graces and the dispenser of sanctifications, even the very meaning of His name attests. Moreover, His magnificence is manifest even in the Old Testament. For there His grace was granted only to certain ones, that is, to the patriarchs and likewise the prophets, and to the holy and elect, so that through the very perfection of the gifts you may understand the dignity of the Giver. Indeed, as is most manifestly perceived in the holy Scriptures, the Father works some things by Himself, some things specially through the Son, some things through the Holy Spirit, although under the privilege of a common power.

That we exist seems to be properly referred to the Father, in whom, as the Apostle says, 'we live, and move, and have our being' (Acts 17). But that we are capable of reason and wisdom and justice is specially attributed to Him who is reason and wisdom and justice, that is, to the Son. But that, being called, we are regenerated, and being regenerated we are renewed, and being renewed we are sanctified—this is evidently ascribed, by the divine oracles, to the person of the Holy Spirit. But the sacred pages speak thus, under the distinction of the undivided Trinity, so that to anyone there may appear in each a diversity of operation, yet there may remain in the three a unity of will.

Therefore even the Gentiles and the catechumens partake of the dispensation of the Father and the Son; but of the sanctification and infusion of the Holy Spirit they do not partake, unless they have already attained the most blessed state, being purified and made spiritual and apostolic also, and prepared with the whole spirit for martyrdom. And amid these things, will He still be judged a creature by the impious—He who, with the indivisible Trinity, in the ordering of human salvation, obtains the more magnificent and more perfect gifts? But perhaps you may say: The Holy Spirit is greater, whose works are greater and nobler. It is not so. For this is the custom of the Trinity, that to whatever person the office of administering

the matter to be administered is committed, to that one is ascribed the effect of the completed work; and although the work may perchance be diverse, yet the purpose is common, and although in each there is a special deed, there remains in the three a general counsel; and therefore, although they have a distinct task in the operation, yet they hold one consent in the ordering. After the ascension of the Lord, to accumulate and fulfill His benefits, the Holy Spirit is described as having descended; concerning whom the Saviour Himself speaks through the Gospel of John: 'That Spirit of truth whom the Father will send in my name' (John 14): 'The Father will send,' He says, 'in my name'—evidently concerning the Trinity. Of what creature have we ever read or heard this said, that it came into this world in the name of God?

This one, therefore, concerning whom Christ the Lord God says: 'Unless I go, the Paraclete will not come to you' (John 16), is without doubt God, who is destined in God's place to confirm God's gifts. In these two sentences, under the distinction of the Trinity, the person also of the Holy Spirit is absolutely declared. Not without reason, therefore, is this too referred to the equality of the Divinity, that just as the Son, so also the Holy Spirit is called in the Scriptures the Paraclete. And whence shall we be able to prove this? Surely from the authority of the apostle John, when he says: 'If any of us has sinned, we have a Paraclete with the Father, Jesus Christ, and He is the propitiation for our sins' (1 John 1).

'Paraclete,' that is, 'advocate,' which regards the person of the Son, or also 'comforter,' which pertains to the Holy Spirit—one expression of the Greek language signifies both. In the Gospel of John we have: 'And I,' He says, 'will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete' (John 14). 'Another Paraclete,' that is, of like power, of the Father's glory, of the same nature. 'And another Paraclete.' If you suppose the Holy Spirit to be one of the creatures, it is unworthy that a creature should confirm the descending One with the same benefit which the Creator conferred, and that, as though the power of the Maker were ineffectual, the effect of a finished work should be reserved, however excellent, to a mere creature.

You therefore curse the Holy Spirit with the reproach of being a creature—Him whom the Son of God made equal to Himself by divine testimony and His own oracle. 'And another Paraclete'—here recognize a twofold meaning and a distinction of persons. For this reason Christ seems to have made Himself equal to the Holy Spirit under the common title of Paraclete, who is assuredly the very material and fashioning of God's work, because Jesus Himself is proved to have been created of Mary—on account of which unbelieving voice the argument is so feeble. For if you suppose Christ to be likened to the Paraclete according to His humanity, this does not even befit charity. For being made a little lower than the angels, and made one of us, surely He could not first be compared to a more excellent heavenly creature, as you assert.

But if Christ spoke this according to the form of God, it is certain that the thing fashioned ought not to be compared to the Fashioner. And if a man makes himself equal to this more excellent creature, it is the pride of a lesser one; if God, it is the injury of a greater one. Since therefore this comparison is not acknowledged to be consistent in the condition of a creature, it remains that each is to be believed to be God, and the equality of divinity is mutually compared between them. For when the Saviour speaks through John: 'And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, whom this world cannot receive' (ibid.)—He who can be given to the whole world is manifestly the God of the world. Here too recognize a threefold power.

The Father is He who is indicated as the one to be asked; the Son is understood as the one who will ask; the Holy Spirit is He who is promised, to be sent by the Father. Observe that the person of the Holy Spirit is not associated, as you assert, with kindred creatures, but is in all things joined to the Trinity in works, and made equal in powers. CHAPTER X. From the Acts of the Apostles the assertion of the Trinity is repeated, where also Christ is asserted to have been sent, against the Novatians, to grant penance. In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter, discoursing of the Lord Jesus Christ, says thus: 'Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you see and hear' (Acts 2).

In the right hand the Son, in God the Father, in the propriety of His own name the Holy Spirit is designated; and in what follows we read: 'Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, in Him this man stands before you whole' (Acts 4). Behold here too the distinction of the Trinity expressed: Peter bearing in himself the Holy Spirit, the Son dying in the flesh, and the Father raising Him up—the apostolic word being none the less repeated: 'They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with boldness' (Acts 4). Observe also in this place that the Holy Spirit is contained in the Trinity.

In the prayer the Father is asked; in the word of God the Son is acknowledged; in the constancy of the apostles the Spirit of fire operates. 'They were all,' it says, 'filled with the Holy Spirit.' It is of manifest majesty to be able to pour into very many at once, by the subtlety of incorporeal divinity, and to remain whole without diminution. Likewise, when the apostles had said of Jesus: 'Him God exalted with His right hand to be Prince and Saviour, to grant penance to Israel and remission of sins. We,' they say, 'are witnesses of these things, and the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to all who obey Him' (Acts 5).

Understand here, under the order of the Trinity, that the Son is destined by the Father not only to preach, but to grant penance, and that to those who obey, the Holy Spirit is infused, who rewards obedience. Stephen, at the moment of his passion, is filled with the Holy Spirit, and with the gates of justice unlocked, the Son is revealed at the right hand of the Father, as he himself, filled with the Holy Spirit, declares: 'Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God' (Acts 7). See how, under the spectacle of the Trinity, he set forth the gifts of his passion. Peter addresses Cornelius the centurion, saying: 'Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit' (Acts 10). God anointed, that is, His power filled, His blessing infused, His divinity penetrated.

'How God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit.' These three evidently demonstrate their own properties: the Gift, the Giver, the one gifted. The Anointing, the Anointed, the Ointment—as in another place the divine word says: 'God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness' (Psalm 45). In the assumed man God is anointed, and God anoints, and under the descent of the heavenly dove the power of the Father is acknowledged. It is not lawful that here the Holy Spirit, by whom the Son of man, Christ, already full of the Son of God, is filled, should be believed to be anything other than God. For if He were a creature, how could He penetrate into the bodily nature that penetrates all things? For the Trinity is capable of itself, as 'I am in the Father and the Father in me' (John 14). And again: 'The Spirit searches even the deep things of God' (1 Corinthians 2).

Likewise: 'The Spirit who proceeds from the Father' (John 15). Unless this Spirit were of the Father, and naturally dwelt infused in the eternity of the Father, He could not proceed from the Father. But you ask whether the Spirit always proceeds from the Father: always with Him, always from Him, just as heat from fire; so He is brought forth without intermission, in such a way that He knows to go forth, but knows not to be separated. For if the procession of the Holy Spirit were not everlasting, His substance would seem to be local; if one does not penetrate the other without commingling of itself, by the incorporeal union of His own brightness, the divinity will be confused.

For commingling takes away the property of the threefold essence, but the mutual infusion shows a distinct essence, which can be seen as a mean between substance and persons. To substance pertains that which subsists; to persons pertains that which each one properly subsists for itself. Paul addresses his disciples, saying: 'I do not shrink from declaring to you all the counsel of God. Take heed to yourselves and to the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit has placed you as bishops, to rule the Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood' (Acts 20). How lucidly is the whole Trinity designated in its own persons! He announces the counsel of God the Father;

he confirms that the bishops have been ordained by the Holy Spirit; he demonstrates also that Christ is God, by whose blood the Church has been purchased. To the Romans also the Trinity is set forth under the propriety of names: 'But if the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus dwells in you, He who raised up Jesus from the dead will also quicken your mortal bodies, on account of His Spirit dwelling in you' (Romans 8). The Father raises up, the Son is raised up, and on account of the indwelling Spirit, life is promised to the mortal bodies that are to be raised again. And in what follows: 'But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this one is not His.'

When he says 'the Spirit of God,' and in what follows 'the Spirit of Christ,' observe that here he designates the person of Christ under the appellation of God. Or if here he signifies the Father, whose the Spirit is, under the name of God—behold, here the Holy Spirit, through the unity of substance, is declared to be the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son, and is rightly known to proceed from both, and is perceived to have a distinct person in the bond of the Trinity; and he who does not have the Holy Spirit is shown not to have Christ either. The Holy Spirit, therefore, is God, who being denied, Christ also is denied, who said: 'No one comes to the Father but by me.' He who is void of the Holy Spirit is not of Christ, and loses the way by which one comes to the Father. CHAPTER XI.

That it is proper to God to sanctify the creature. First Epistle to the Corinthians: 'And such indeed you were; but you are washed, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God' (1 Corinthians 6). Behold here too, under 'our God,' that is, under the commemoration of the Father, the Holy Spirit sanctifies the Corinthian faithful, with Christ cooperating. No creature can wholly sanctify another. The bestowal of sanctification is the munificence of majesty alone. In which place, 'in the name of Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God,' acknowledge three persons. Second to the Corinthians: 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you all' (2 Corinthians, last chapter).

The grace of Christ, the charity of God, the communion of the Holy Spirit—he evidently expressed three persons. Likewise, second to the Corinthians: 'Now He who confirms us with you in Christ, and who has anointed us, is God; who also has sealed us, and given us the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts' (2 Corinthians 1). Whence in the works He confirms the unity of the indivisible Trinity, and seals us properly through Christ, and being about to give Himself, He gives already in the present the pledge, the Holy Spirit. In earthly transactions the amount of an earnest is a certain portion of that contract for which it has stood surety; but the principle of a pledge exceeds the worth of the thing for which it is seen to be deposited. Here, however, since His pledge cannot be set before His majesty, it is necessary that it be made equal.

For things perfect cannot be transcended. Therefore the Father grants the pledge of the Holy Spirit for Himself. Let nothing in the Holy Spirit ever be thought half-full above full, or full, because He is compared to fullness. For He who is bestowed in the place of God as a pledge—it is not lawful that He be believed to be anything other than God. Likewise to Titus: 'He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ' (Titus 3). Behold here too, under the Trinity, the Father manifestly poured out the abundance of the Holy Spirit through the Son. And what is especially to be observed, he ascribes to the Holy Spirit Himself the power of regeneration and renewal.

Peter also in his Epistle sets forth the unsurpassable Trinity in its persons, saying: 'According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: grace to you and peace be multiplied' (1 Peter 1). In foreknowledge the Father, and in sanctification the Spirit, in the sprinkling of blood Christ is shown. CHAPTER XII. That the Holy Spirit is not local. Let us demonstrate that the Holy Spirit is God from His powers and works. Every creature, just as it is subject to beginnings of time, so is known to be local, circumscribed by certain spaces and bounds. The Holy Spirit is enclosed by no limits as though a created thing;

He must necessarily be held to be God, by reason of that very freedom of His diffused majesty. The Lord Saviour's word to the apostles is: 'The Father,' He says, 'will give you the Spirit of truth, who shall be with you forever.' If He is local, and was abiding perpetually in them, surely He could not be elsewhere. Let us see whether His nature is to be determined by local limits. The Lord says to the apostles: 'You shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth' (Acts 1).

After His ascension the Holy Spirit came upon them, and there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each one of them. Let us see why first the blessings of diverse tongues are bestowed—doubtless so that they might be made fit for the instruction of the faithful peoples. But that it is recorded to have sat upon each one—the reason for this is that it may be understood that He was not divided among the many, but remained whole in each one; but, as is the custom with fires, for this is the nature, as we know, of kindled fire, that to as many as look upon it, to as many as look upon the lock of its purple splendour, to so many it imparts the use of its own light, to so many it grants the ministry of its own gift, and none the less remains in its own integrity:

so the power of the Holy Spirit, however much it flows forth, however much the grace of divine bounty overflows upon very many, just as it is proved to receive no measure, so it has felt no expenditure. Observe God from the dignity of His works. The apostles, full of the Holy Spirit, about to dispense throughout the whole world the treasures of salvation, carry about this heavenly gift in themselves, and transfer it to others by the laying on of empty hands. To those who receive it, it is given without loss to the giver. To those who believe it is delivered whole, and whole is possessed by those who deliver it; by His infusion the whole world is filled; without straining He is dilated, without division He is dispersed.

In that especially most sacred teaching of regeneration, from the East to the West, from the rising of the sun to its setting, from the north and the sea, everywhere the same Spirit, one and full, works; He is present through all things; by invocation He is believed, by blessing He is felt; innumerable multitudes are washed by one baptism, and, as the Apostle said, are made to drink of one Spirit, and are reborn into the one bosom of Him who adopts. And therefore God said: 'In those days I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.' Observe what He said: 'I will pour out of my Spirit,' and He did not say: 'I will pour out my Spirit'—that is, only so much of Him as the world is able to receive in the dispensing.

You see that He proceeds from the Father, and yet is not separated from the Father; He is sent forth and is not lost; He is poured out and yet is retained; and in that very thing which is read of as His being poured out, the greatness of His fullness is declared. The Book of Genesis bears witness at the very beginning of the sacred volume: 'And the Spirit of the Lord was borne over the waters'; 'was borne,' it says, 'over the waters' (Gen. 1). That very expression seems to assign both the abundance of one who fills all things and the eminence of one who rules over them. With like attestation Scripture also celebrates this proper magnificence of His, circumscribed by no spaces of place, saying: 'Whither shall I go from thy spirit?' (Ps. 138).

(Ps. 138), that is, where shall I hide myself from the sight of Him whom I do not doubt to be present through all things, that is, both within and without; whose eye, penetrating the depths, I dread within the secrets of my breast; to whose presence I acknowledge that all things which He created are subject? Understand clearly what is said of Him, since He is a consuming fire, and 'there is none that can hide himself from his heat' (Ps. 18). His ineffable greatness enters, fills, and surpasses the deep places of the lower regions, the diffused expanse of the waves, the spread of the lands, the heights of the heavens. He is said to be sent by the Father and the Son, and is recognized to proceed from their substance, and to work one work with them; and therefore the Son says of Him: 'The Paraclete who proceeds from the Father' (John 15).

He did not say 'who is created by the Father,' but 'proceeds from the Father,' that is, from the fellowship of the paternal power and from the property of His nature. But from this very expression, when He is said to proceed from the Father, it is shown that He does not have a beginning together with the Father. What then is the difference, that the Son is said to be born of God the Father, and the Holy Spirit is signified to proceed? If you ask what distinguishes the one being born from the one proceeding, the difference is plainly this: that the one is born of one, the other goes forth from both. Therefore, because the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, He displays in Himself three prerogatives of deity, namely, that He is proved to subsist in His own person, to remain without any interval of time, and altogether to exist from the substance of the Father.

Therefore, when He is said to proceed, by the very property of the word He is recognized to be circumscribed by no laws of time, but to be without beginning and end. And since we read: 'I am that I am,' and 'He who is hath sent me' (Exod. 3), 'proceeds' likewise indicates the same. For 'to be' and 'to proceed' are the expression of one same eternity. Therefore that very procession, touching neither a first nor a last point, is understood to be subject to no beginning or end. We do not, then, on that account believe Him to be local, because we have learned from the reading that He is sent by the Father; for we also read of the Father and the Son that as by a certain movement they descend and come. Let us see where. 'I,' He says, 'and the Father will come, and will make our abode with him' (John 14).

And again, when the giants were striving to raise a tower into heaven, the person of the Father speaks: 'Come, and let us confound their tongues' (Gen. 11). Here, then, through the sounds of our words the effecting of things is shown to our senses. But the divine power does not undergo local motion, which neither comes by an advancing course nor departs by a slipping retreat. He who surpasses all things, whither does He withdraw? Of the Holy Spirit we have learned from the reading: 'And the Church had peace throughout all Judea, walking in the fear of the Lord, and was filled with the consolation of the Holy Spirit' (Acts 9).

And how does anyone presume to assert Him a local creature, who is proved to fill the Church of an infinite multitude, so that it is even manifest that what the Apostle says pertains to Him: 'The Father of mercies and the God of all consolation' (1 Cor. 1, i.e. 2 Cor. 1)? We have in the psalm: 'The stream of the river maketh glad the city of God' (Ps. 45). What is this stream of the river, but surely that of which the Lord says through John: 'He that believeth in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water'? This the Lord Jesus said of the Spirit whom they that believed in Him should receive (John 1, i.e. 7). Behold the magnificence of His majesty.

So He is bestowed on the Church of God upon earth, so that nevertheless in the heavens He may make glad the city of God, that is, the citizens of the heavenly kingdoms, the peoples of the celestial host, the principalities, powers, and dominions; He waters them with unspeakable joys for the sake of the consciousness of eternal blessedness, and inebriates them more abundantly with the richness of gladness, and arouses the harmony of heaven in the surging torrent of His sanctification in exultation. If you suppose that such great things are bestowed through some creature, you leave nothing proper to the divine Power. If, I say, you reckon these things to be through some creature, you tend toward injury to the angels and archangels, to whom you estimate that such and so great things are granted through the bounty of a fellow-servant. CHAPTER ONE.

That no rational creature can be infused into a kindred creature. We read concerning the flowing outpouring of the Holy Spirit: 'And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan.' Who therefore, except one who is of the same fullness, could fill Him who fills all things? Of the apostles the divine word relates: 'And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And they spoke the word of God with boldness.' And a little after: For He is forbidden to fill even whole nations, and is recognized to remain inexhaustible and full in Himself. If the Spirit were created, of what angel or archangel was it ever read that, received within, he infused himself into anyone's soul?

Tell me, if you have ever read of any power and virtue among creatures which fills and possesses many things at once, and what is more, remains undiminished and undivided. It is impossible for a spiritual and rational creature ever to be able to be infused into a nature kindred to itself. And so a material thing knows not how to penetrate a material substance. God alone, in whom the Holy Spirit also is understood, simple, subtle, pure, glides into the made thing—whether angelic or human—by the power of incorporeal divinity; He alone, the penetrator of His own work, enters the hidden things of the human heart. But any celestial creature whatsoever cannot infuse itself into or fill a man to such a degree as to be able to know the hidden things of human thought.

And therefore of God alone we read: 'Thou alone knowest the hearts of men' (Prov. 6, i.e. 1 Kings 8). And again: 'For He alone knows how to discern hidden things'; and if this is proper to divinity, how much more is it a mark of majesty to search the deep things of the most high God in the person of the Holy Spirit? To the Author alone is owed this prerogative, that He should be able to enter the secret conscience. But soul can be joined to soul, or angel to angel; it cannot be infused, because of such kinds of creatures only the Holy Spirit, that is, God alone, has the capacity; for they are vessels of their own Potter, and can be filled only by Him by whom they were made out of nothing, and without whom they feel themselves to be empty.

And so the substance of the soul, inasmuch as it is corporeal matter, knows not how to be infused at all into another rational creature. For compared to the grossness of the outer man, the soul can be called incorporeal; but referred to its Author, to whom its matter is comprehensible and its making palpable, it can by Him be enclosed and bound within the body, and consigned to perpetual fire, as we read: that 'they go into eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels.' To this Author beyond doubt belongs the more perfect operation in a corporeal thing. But perhaps you say: It is manifest that even the importunate violence of demons frequently infuses itself into the men whom it had received to be tempted. It is not so:

for they can enter the hiding-places of the body, but they cannot approach the inner parts of the soul. It must therefore be understood that the crafty subtlety of the spiritual wickednesses disturbs by its incursion those parts of the members which are at times wearied by excessive wine or by the heat of fever. And so the hostile temptation knows how to creep through malice into the senses of the soul, but it knows not how to flow by nature into the soul's recesses. And therefore human minds and breasts receive such unclean spirits not by an infusion of natures, but conceive them by the perversity of their wills. It is therefore manifest that they cannot penetrate the substances of souls, whose consciences they cannot know.

But if at any time it happens that the demons know something, it is by reason of the fitness arising from perdition, not by reason of the power of nature. Therefore the divine power alone, which is also in the Holy Spirit, mingles itself, infused into and poured around rational creatures—just as in a peculiar way it rested with overflowing grace in that body of the Lord's manhood taken from Mary His mother, as the Son says of Himself: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me' (Luke 4). If, then, the Holy Spirit were a being of subject condition, as they say, it would be as impossible as unworthy of God that any creature should fill the soul or body in which the Son of God, that is, God, already dwelt; in whom now, says the Apostle, dwelt bodily the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2).

If the Holy Spirit is a creature, how can corruption possess incorruption, and the frail condition possess what is capable of majesty? If the Holy Spirit is one of a creature made from the common throng of created things, how is the creature presumed to be made equal as it were with the Creator, that is, with the Son of God—the servant with the Lord—as one lodging in the soul of the Savior; and as though the presence of the Author did not suffice for Himself in Him, does a servant come as an addition to the sum of holiness? It is not so. But the heavenly company truly acknowledges the temple as its own associate. Nor is it any wonder if in that illustrious soul of the blessed body the Son and the Holy Spirit obtain one dwelling, since heaven also is plainly common to them. CHAPTER II.

Whether, according to the opinion of the ignorant, the Holy Spirit was made incarnate as the Son was, because He too came upon Mary; or whether the Son alone was begotten of the Virgin. But it is said: If the Holy Spirit dwelt in the body and soul of the redeemed, then the Spirit Himself also will seem to have undergone incarnation. It is not so.

For before the beginnings of the creation, the body of Mary is filled by the Holy Spirit, and amid the beginnings of the creation the Son of the Virgin is conceived with the Holy Spirit cooperating; but as belonging specially to the person of the Son, to be possessed for nine months, and going forth into the light with that same Son He is infused. The Spirit's person does not assume the fellowship of that time within the secret of the virginal womb; therefore the man whom the Son of God assumes at His very beginnings, the Holy Spirit entered not as one assuming, but as sanctifier. For the One is born, the Other is infused. Of the Son of the Virgin, the soul or flesh can be called personally and specially the soul or flesh of the Son of God; but the Holy Spirit can in no way be called soul or flesh.