Oration 31 1 part 1/2

And thus he escaped those who would stone him, passing through the midst of them.

For the Word is not stoned, but rather hurls stones, when it wills, and slings beasts—that is, arguments that wickedly assail the mountain.

What, they say, would you say about the Holy Spirit? Whence do you bring in to us a strange and unscriptural God? This even those who are moderate concerning the Son already say.

For just as one finds with roads and rivers—they branch apart from one another, and then come together again—

so it happens here too, on account of the abundance of impiety, that those who differ in other respects converge in others, so that one cannot even clearly know what is in agreement and what is in conflict.

Now the discourse about the Spirit has something difficult about it, not only because men, having grown weary in the arguments concerning the Son, wrestle the more hotly against the Spirit—

for they must at all costs commit some impiety, or else life is not livable for them—

but also because we ourselves, worn out by the multitude of questions, suffer the same thing as those with poor appetites, who, when they are sickened at one of their foods, become disgusted at all food alike—so we become disgusted at every argument alike.

Nevertheless, let the Spirit grant it, and the word will run, and God will be glorified.

Now to examine and distinguish carefully in how many senses either "spirit" or "holy" is understood and spoken of in the divine Scripture, together with the testimonies suited to such contemplation, and what beyond these the conjunction of both—I mean the Holy Spirit—signifies in its proper sense, we shall leave to others, who have philosophized on these matters both for themselves and for us, even as we have done these things for them.

We ourselves will turn to what follows in the discourse.

Now those who are vexed, as though we were introducing the Holy Spirit as a strange and interloping God, and who fight hard for the letter, let them know that there they are fearing a fear where there is no fear; and let them clearly understand that their love of the letter is a cloak for their impiety, as will be shown a little later, when we refute their objections to the best of our ability.

But we are so confident in the deity of the Spirit, which we hold in honor, that we will begin our theology from this very point, applying to the Trinity the same terms, even if to some it seems too bold.

He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world—the Father.

He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world—the Son.

He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world—the other Paraclete.

Light, and Light, and Light; but one Light, one God.

In your light shall we see light.

And now we have both beheld and proclaim, receiving from the light of the Father the Son as light, in the light that is the Spirit—a concise and unencumbered theology of the Trinity.

Let him who sets at naught set at naught, let him who acts lawlessly act lawlessly.

We proclaim what we have understood.

We will go up onto a high mountain and cry aloud, if we are not heard from below.

We will exalt the Spirit; we will not be afraid.

But if we shall indeed be afraid, it will be by keeping silence, not by ceasing to proclaim.

If there was a time when the Father was not, there was a time when the Son was not.

If there was a time when the Son was not, there was a time when the Holy Spirit also was not.

If the One existed from the beginning, so also did the Three.

If you cast down the One, I dare to say: do not set even the Two on high.

For what benefit is there in an imperfect deity? Or rather, what deity is there, if it is not perfect? And how is it perfect, if it lacks something for its completion? And it does somehow lack, if it does not possess the Holy One.

And whatever this deity is conceived to be, let someone tell me.

Or if it is the same deity, how is it not so from the beginning?—as though it were better for God to be at some time imperfect, and apart from the Spirit.

If the Spirit was not from the beginning, then it is ranked with me—and even if a little before me.

For by time we are cut off from God.

If it is ranked with me, how does it make me God, or how does it join me to deity? Rather, let me philosophize for you about it a little from higher up.

For concerning the Trinity we have already treated before.

As for the Holy Spirit, the Sadducees thought it did not exist at all;

for they believed in neither angels nor resurrection;

I do not know on what grounds, having spat upon the so many testimonies about it in the Old Testament.

Of the Greeks, the more theologically minded, and those who came nearer to us, had some imagination of it, as it seems to me;

but they differed regarding the name, calling it Mind of the Universe, and the Mind from without, and such things.

Of the wise among us, some supposed it to be an activity, some a creature, some God; while some did not know which of these it was, out of reverence for Scripture, as they say, since Scripture clearly declared neither.

And for this reason they neither worship nor dishonor it, being disposed somewhere in the middle concerning it—or rather, exceedingly wretchedly.

And of those who have supposed it to be God, some are pious only as far as thought, while others dare to be pious even with their lips.

And I have heard others, wiser, measuring out the deity, who confess that there are, as we do, three subjects of contemplation, but separate them from one another to such a degree that they make the one unlimited both in essence and in power;

the second unlimited in power but not in essence;

and the third circumscribed in both.

In another way they imitate those who name a craftsman, a fellow-worker, and a minister, and who consider that the order in the names is a sequence of grace and of the realities.

But for us there is no argument with those who have supposed it does not exist at all, nor with those who talk nonsense among the Greeks;

for may we not be anointed in our discourse with the oil of sinners.

But with the others we shall reason thus.

The Holy Spirit must be supposed to belong either among those things subsisting by themselves, or among those contemplated in another;

of which the experts in these matters call the one substance, the other accident.

If then it is an accident, this would be an activity of God.

For what else would it be, or of what? For this rather, in some way, even escapes composition.

And if it is an activity, it will clearly be acted upon, not act; and at the same time as it is acted upon, it will cease.

How then does it act, and speak these things, and set apart, and grieve, and is provoked, and all that clearly belongs to one who moves, not to motion itself? But if it is some substance, and not among the things about a substance, it will be supposed to be either a creature or God.

For something in between these—either partaking of neither, or composed of both—not even those who fashion goat-stags could conceive.

But if it is a creature, how do we believe in it, or are we perfected in it? For it is not the same thing to believe in something and to believe about it.

For the one belongs to deity, the other to any thing whatever.

But if it is God, then it is not a creature, nor a thing made, nor a fellow-servant, nor in any way one of the lowly names.

Let the slings be sent forth, let the syllogisms be woven.

It is either altogether unbegotten or begotten.

And if it is unbegotten, there are two without beginning.

But if begotten, then subdivide again:

either this is from the Father, or from the Son.

And if from the Father, there are two sons and brothers.

And make them twins for me, if you like, or the one elder and the other younger;

since you are so very fond of the corporeal.

But if from the Son, he says, then God has appeared to us as a grandson too;

than which what could be more paradoxical? These things, then, the wise do, who are eager to do harm but unwilling to write the good.

But for my part, if I saw that the division was necessary, I would have accepted the realities, not fearing the names.

For just because the Son is Son according to a certain higher relation—since we could not otherwise indicate his being from God and his being of one essence than thus—it does not therefore follow that we must consider all the lowly appellations of our own kinship necessary, and transfer them to the divine.

Why this argument—because he is named God, and Father? And is the deity therefore something female, as far as the appellations go? And is the Spirit neuter, because it is not generative? And if this too is played out for you—that God, consorting by his own will with himself, according to the old fancies and myths, begat the Son—then there has been brought in to us some male-female God of Marcion and Valentinus, the one who fashioned the new aeons.

But since we do not accept your first division—the one supposing nothing in between unbegotten and begotten—at once your brothers and grandsons will be gone, together with the august division, dissolved along with it as when some intricate bond of the first principle is loosed, and they will have withdrawn from theology.

For where, tell me, will you place the Proceeding One, who appears in the midst of your division, and is introduced by a theologian greater than you—our Savior? Unless you have struck that saying out of your Gospels, on account of your third testament: "The Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father."

Inasmuch as it proceeds from there, it is not a creature;

inasmuch as it is not begotten, it is not a Son;

and inasmuch as it is in the middle between unbegotten and begotten, it is God.

And thus, escaping the nets of your syllogisms, it has appeared as God, mightier than your divisions.

What then is the procession? You explain the unbegottenness of the Father, and I will give a natural account of the begetting of the Son and the procession of the Spirit—and we shall both be driven mad, prying into the mysteries of God.

And who are these? Those who are unable to know even the things at their feet, nor to number the sand of the seas, and the drops of rain, and the days of the age, much less to walk in the depths of God and render an account of a nature so unspeakable and beyond reason.

"What then is it," he says, "that the Spirit lacks for being a Son? For if it lacked nothing, it would be a Son."

But the difference of manifestation, so to speak, or of relation to one another, has made their appellation also different.

For neither does the Son lack anything for being a Father—for sonship is not a deficiency—but he is not on that account a Father.

Otherwise the Father too would lack something for being a Son;

but these differences are not from any deficiency, nor from any inferiority in respect of essence;

rather, the very fact of not having been generated, of having been generated, and of proceeding, has named the one Father, the other Son, and the third—this very one of whom we speak—Holy Spirit, so that the distinctness of the three hypostases may be preserved within the one nature and dignity of the deity.

For neither is the Son the Father—for there is one Father—but he is whatever the Father is;

nor is the Spirit a Son because it is from God—for there is one Only-begotten—but it is whatever the Son is.

The Three are one in deity, and the one is three in distinctive properties;

so that neither may the One be Sabellian, nor the Three of the present wicked division.

What then? Is the Spirit God? Most certainly.

What then, of one essence? Yes, if indeed it is God.

"Grant me, then," he says, "from the same source, the one a Son and the other not a Son, and yet of one essence, and I will accept God and God."

Then you grant me too another God, and a nature of God, and I will grant you the same Trinity with the same names and realities.

But if God is one, and the supreme nature is one, whence shall I present to you the likeness? Or do you again seek it from things below and around you? It is very shameful—and not only shameful, but fairly futile too—to take a comparison for the things above from the things below, and for the unchanging from the fluid nature, and, as Isaiah says, to seek the living among the dead.

Nevertheless, for your sake, I will try even from here to give the discourse some help.

Now the other examples I think I will pass over—though I could say much from the natural history of animals, some things known to us, others to a few, concerning all that nature has ingeniously devised about the generation of animals.

For things are said to be generated, not only the same from the same, nor others from others, but also the same from others, and others from the same.

There are also some that in a way depart from themselves, being transferred and transformed from some animals into others, by the ambition of nature.

And indeed, of the same creature, one part is not an offspring, the other is an offspring—yet they are of one essence;

which somehow resembles the present case more closely.

But having mentioned one of our own examples, which is known to all, I will pass on to another argument.

What was Adam? A thing formed by God.

And what was Eve? A portion of that formed thing.

And what was Seth? The offspring of both.

Do then a thing formed, a portion taken, and an offspring seem to you the same? How could they not be? But are these of one essence, or what? How could they not be? It is therefore agreed that things which have come into being in different ways may be of the same essence.

I say these things not to apply forming, or cutting, or any bodily process to the deity—let none of the word-fighters fasten on me again—but contemplating in these things, as on a stage, the things conceived.

For it is not possible for any of the comparisons to attain purely to the whole truth.

"And what of these things?" they say. "For one part of the one is not an offspring, while the other is something else."

What then? Are not Eve and Seth of the same Adam? For of whom else? Or are both offspring? By no means.

But what then? The one is a portion taken, the other an offspring.

And yet both are the same as one another;

Will you then cease fighting against the Spirit, as though it must be either altogether an offspring, or not of one essence, nor God—and taking from human examples what is possible regarding our supposition? I think it is well with you, unless you have resolved to be exceedingly contentious, and to fight against what is plain.

"But who worshiped the Spirit?" he says. "Who, of the ancients or of the moderns? And who prayed to it? And where is it written that one must worship or pray to it? And from where did you get this?" The more complete answer we will give later, when we discuss the matter of what is unwritten.

But for now it will suffice to say this much:

It is the Spirit in whom we worship and through whom we pray.

"For God is Spirit," he says, "and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth."

"For what we should pray for as we ought, we do not know, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings unutterable."

And, "I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the mind also"—that is, in mind and in spirit.

To worship the Spirit, then, or to pray, seems to me to be nothing other than for it to offer prayer and worship to itself.

And who of those filled with God, and of those who well know that even the worship of the One is the worship of the Three—because of the equality of dignity and deity in the Three—would not commend this? And indeed I will not even fear that saying, that all things were made through the Son, as though the Holy Spirit too were one of all things.

For "all things that have come into being" is what is said—not simply "all things whatsoever";

for the Father is not included, nor whatever has not come into being.

Show, then, that it came into being, and then assign it to the Son, and number it with the creatures.

But as long as you do not show this, the comprehensive expression does nothing to help your impiety.

For if it came into being, it was certainly through Christ;

but if it did not come into being, how is it either one of all things, or through Christ? Cease, then, both wrongly honoring the Father against the Only-begotten—and it is a wrong honor to rob the Son, by granting him the more honorable as a creature—and the Son against the Spirit.

For he is not the maker of a fellow-servant, but is glorified together with one of equal honor.

Place nothing of the Trinity beside yourself, lest you fall from the Trinity.

Cut off from none the one nature equally to be revered, since whatever of the Three you tear down, you will have torn down the whole—or rather, you will have fallen out of the whole.

It is better to receive a small notion of the union than to dare an utter impiety.

Now our discourse has come to the very main point;

and I groan, because a question long dead, and yielded to the faith, is now being renewed;

but nevertheless it is necessary to take a stand against the word-mongers, and not to be condemned by default, since we have a case and are advocates for the Spirit.

"How is what is glorified not a plurality of first principles?" Who say this? Those more perfect in impiety, or even those of the second party—I mean those somewhat reasonable concerning the Son? For my argument is common to both, but my argument to these is particular.

Now my argument to these is as follows.

What do you say to us tritheists, you who worship the Son, even if you have stood off from the Spirit? Are you not yourselves ditheists? For if you deny worship even to the Only-begotten, you are clearly ranked with the adversaries;

and why do we deal kindly with you, as not being altogether dead? But if you do worship him, and are disposed thus far for salvation, we will ask you:

what is your defense against ditheism, if this is charged against you? If there is a reasonable answer, reply; give us too a way of answering.

For whatever arguments you use to repel ditheism, these will suffice us also against tritheism.

And thus we win, using you our accusers as our advocates;

than which what is more noble? Now what is the contest and argument common to us against both? For us there is one God, because there is one deity;

and the things from him have their reference to the One, even if three are believed in.

For neither is the one more, the other less God;

nor the one earlier, the other later;

nor is it cut by will, nor divided by power, nor is any of those things that belong to divisible things to be found here either;

but, to speak concisely, the deity is undivided in things divided;

and it is like one blending of light in three suns that cleave to one another.

Whenever, then, we look toward the deity, and the first cause, and the monarchy, what is imagined by us is one;

but whenever we look toward the things in which the deity is, and the things that are from the first cause timelessly and with equal glory, the things worshiped are three.

"But is there not also among the Greeks," they might say, "one deity, as those who philosophize more perfectly among them hold; and among us one humanity, the whole race? Yet nevertheless the gods are many, and not one, just as men too are?" But there the commonality has the unity contemplated only in thought;

while the individual instances are most widely divided from one another, in time, in passions, and in power.

For we are not only composite, but also opposed both to one another and to ourselves, not remaining purely the same even for a single day, much less for a whole lifetime, but ever flowing and changing in both bodies and souls.

And I do not know whether even the angels and all the nature above, next after the Trinity, though they are in some sense simple, are not more firmly fixed toward the good by their nearness to the highest good.

And the gods and demons worshiped by the Greeks, as they themselves say, need no accusers from us, but are convicted by their own theologians—as being subject to passions, as being seditious, as being full of so many evils and changes, and as being opposed not only to one another but also to the first causes—those whom indeed they name Oceans, and Tethyses, and Phaneses, and I know not whom;

and finally a certain god, hating his own children out of love of rule, swallowing all the rest out of insatiability, that he might become father of all men and gods—they being wretchedly devoured and vomited up.

But if these are myths and certain allegories, as they themselves say, escaping the shamefulness of the account, what will they say to this: "All things have been divided into three parts," and to the fact that each one presides over some one of the things that are, being divided both by their domains and by their honors? But our case is not like this;

for "neither is this the portion of Jacob," says my theologian;

but each one of them has its relation to that which is conjoined no less than to itself, by the sameness of essence and of power.

And this is the account of the union, so far as concerns the things we have grasped.

If, then, this argument is strong, thanks be to God for the contemplation;

but if not, let us seek a stronger one.

But as for your arguments, by which you do away with our union, I do not know whether we should say they belong to one who is jesting or one who is in earnest.

For what indeed is the argument? "Things of one essence are counted together," you say;

calling "counting together" the bringing together into one number;

but things not of one essence are counted together too;

so that you will not escape saying three gods according to this argument;

but for us there is not even one danger.

You, then, have rid yourself of troubles with a single word, and have won an evil victory;

doing something like those who hang themselves out of fear of death.

For in order not to be wearied in maintaining the monarchy, you have denied the deity, and have betrayed to the enemies the very thing in question.

But I, even if some labor be required, will not give up the One who is worshiped.

And here I do not even see what the toil is.

"Things of one essence are counted together," you say;

but things not so constituted have a unitary designation.

Whence have you this, and from what dogmatists and myth-makers? Or are you ignorant that every number is indicative of the quantity of the things underlying, not of the nature of the realities? But I am so old-fashioned—or rather, so unlearned—that I name as three the things that are so many in number, even if they differ in nature;

and "one, and one, and one" otherwise the so many units, even if they are joined together in essence—looking not so much to the realities as to the quantity of the realities, of which the numbering is made.

But since you cling so excessively to the letter—though you war against the letter—take your proofs from there for me.

There are three things in the Proverbs that go forward well: the lion, the goat, and the cock;

and the king as he addresses the people in the nation, as a fourth;

not to mention the other tetrads numbered there, though divided in nature.

And I find the two cherubim of Moses numbered in the singular.

How then are those three—according to your science—being so far broken off from one another in their natures;

or these here singular, being so far of one nature with one another and conjoined? For if I should call God and mammon two lords counted into one, being so far distant from one another, I should perhaps be laughed at all the more for the counting together.

"But to me," he says, "those things are said to be counted together, and of the same essence, with which the names too are co-uttered correspondingly;

such as: three men, and three gods, not three this-and-that."

For what is the equivalence? This is the act of one legislating for names, not of one telling the truth.

Since for me too Peter, and Paul, and John are not three, nor of one essence, so long as they are not called three Peters, and three Pauls, and so many Johns.

For what you have observed regarding the more generic names, this we too will demand regarding the more specific ones, according to your own reconstruction.

Or will you be unjust, not granting what you have received? And what of John, who says in the catholic epistles that there are three that bear witness—the Spirit, the water, the blood? Does he seem to you to talk nonsense—first, because he has dared to count together things not of one essence (which you grant to things of one essence)—for who would say these are of one substance?—and secondly, because he has not responded correspondingly, but having set forth "three" in the masculine, has brought in "the three things" in the neuter, contrary to your definitions and the laws of your grammar? And yet what difference is there between setting forth "three" and then bringing in "one and one and one," or saying "one and one and one" and then designating them not "three" (masculine) but "three things" (neuter)?—the very thing which you yourself reject in the case of the deity.

And what of your "crab"—the animal, the instrument, and the constellation? And of the "dog"—the land dog, the sea dog, and the heavenly one? Do they not seem to you to be called three crabs and three dogs? Certainly so.

Are they then on that account also of one essence? Who of those with sense would say so? Do you see how your argument about counting together has collapsed for you, refuted by so many examples? For if neither are things of one essence always counted together, and things not of one essence are counted together, and the co-utterance of the names applies to both, what advantage have you of your dogmas? But I am also considering that other point, and perhaps not unreasonably.

Are not one and one composed into two? And are not two resolved into one and one? Clearly.

If then, according to your argument, the things composed are of one essence, but the things divided are of another essence, what follows? That the same things are both of one essence and of another essence.

And your sub-numberings, on which you pride yourself greatly, as though the realities lay in the order of the names.

For if this is so, what prevents, by the same argument, since the same things are both pre-numbered and sub-numbered in the divine Scripture, on account of the equal honor of the nature, that they be both more honorable and less honorable than themselves? And the same argument holds for me too regarding the term "God" and "Lord."

And further, concerning the prepositions "from whom," and "through whom," and "in whom," with which you parcel out the deity to us by technical art—giving the one to the Father, the other to the Son, the other to the Holy Spirit—

for what would you have done, had each of these been fixedly assigned to each one—when in fact all of them are applied to all, as is plain to the diligent—you introduce through these so great an inequality both of dignity and of nature? But these things suffice even for those who are not too unreasonable.

And since it is one of the hard things for you, having once leapt upon the Spirit, to be checked in your rush, but rather, like the bolder of the swine, to be contentious to the end and to push yourself onto the sword, until you take the whole blow inward, come, let us consider what argument is still left to you.

Again and often you revolve before us "the unwritten."

Now that this is not strange, nor smuggled in, but recognized and brought to light both by the ancients and by those of today, has already been shown by many of those who have treated of this matter—all who, not lazily nor carelessly engaging the divine Scriptures, but penetrating the letter and peering within, were counted worthy to behold the hidden beauty, and were illumined by the light of knowledge.

But let us too declare it cursorily, as far as is possible, lest we seem to be superfluous or more ambitious than is fitting, building upon another's foundation.

But if the fact that it is not very clearly written that the Spirit is God, nor often by name—as the Father was first and the Son later—becomes for you an occasion of blasphemy, and of this superfluous garrulity and impiety, we will cure you of this harm, having philosophized a little about realities and names, and especially according to the customary usage of Scripture.

Of realities, some are not, yet are spoken of;

others neither are nor are spoken of;

and others are both—both are and are spoken of.

Do you ask me for the proofs of these? I am ready to provide them.

In Scripture God sleeps, and is awake, and is angry, and walks, and has the cherubim for his throne;

and yet when has he become subject to passion? And when have you heard that God is a body? This is not real, but has been figured.

For we have named the things of God from our own things, as far as was attainable for us.

His being at rest from us, and as it were taking no care, for reasons known to himself, we have called "sleeping";

for our sleeping is of this sort—inactive and idle.

And his suddenly doing good by a change, we have called "waking";

for waking is the loosing of sleep, just as visitation is of turning away.

And his chastising we have made into "being angry";

for so it is with us—chastisement comes from anger.

And his now working here, now there, "walking";

for the passage from one place to another is walking.

And his resting among the holy powers, and as it were taking delight in dwelling there, "sitting" and "being enthroned";

for in nothing does the deity rest as it does in the saints.

And his swift motion, "flying";

and his oversight, "face";

and his giving and receiving, "hand";

and any other of God's powers or activities has figured for us some other one of bodily things.

Again, whence do you have "unbegotten," or "without beginning"—those citadels of yours—or whence do we have "immortal"? Show these by name, or we will set them aside, since they are not written, or we will erase them.

And you are dead from your own premises, the names being taken down from you, and the wall of refuge in which you had trusted.

Or is it plain that you have them from the things that gather these conclusions, even if these very words are not used? From what things? "I am the first, and I am after these things."

And, "Before me there is no other God, and after me there shall be none."

neither having begun, nor about to cease.

Because there is none before him, nor any cause older than he, you have called him "without beginning" and "unbegotten";