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.