Anti-Arian Works 13 part 3/11

In vain, then, have you multiplied for yourself superfluous words, wishing to show the apostles to be servants not only of Jesus Christ, but also of Christ. Since indeed the same is Christ who is Jesus Christ, having both natures in one person, in whom the divine and human substance remains undivided and unconfused. FRAGMENT XV. Neither 'Spirit' without an adjunct, nor 'Holy Spirit,' is in the Scriptures called Father or Son. The same is the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, who is the Paraclete. At least now acknowledge that the apostles and prophets preached the Spirit the Paraclete, that is, the Holy Spirit, to be the very Spirit of God. That, then, which the Apostle set down: 'Who serve the Spirit of God' (Phil.

3:3), he taught that service is to be rendered to none other than the Holy Spirit, that is, the Paraclete. But this passage we cannot, as you suppose, take of God the Father, or of God the Son. For although the Father too is Spirit, yet never is the Father or the Son found called 'Spirit' absolutely — that is, without some addition of a name. For even in that which was said: 'God is a Spirit' (John 4:24), there is added the word 'God'; and in that in which the Son is called Spirit, we find Jeremiah to have said: 'The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord' (Lam. 4:20). But the Father and the Son are not found named 'Spirit' absolutely, as we find in the case of the Holy Spirit. As in that place where the Apostle says:

'I beseech you, therefore, brethren, through our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the charity of the Spirit' (Rom. 15:30), he speaks manifestly of the Holy Spirit; and again: 'In whom you also are built together into a habitation of God in the Spirit' (Eph. 2:22). And the apostle Jude says: 'These are they who separate themselves, sensual men, not having the Spirit' (Jude 19). But so, when 'Spirit' is said absolutely, it is not to be understood except as the Holy Spirit; just as also when 'Father' only is said, we understand none but God the Father; and when 'Son' only is said, we can understand none but Christ alone. Which rule, promulgated by the divine Scriptures, we hold by their oracles;

which, when it names the Father, shows that none other than God the Father is to be understood; and, naming only the Son, showed that Christ is to be acknowledged; and, naming only the Spirit, taught that the Holy Spirit is to be received: at least in those places where either the human spirit is not to be understood, or, by the human spirit itself, some creature inferior to it. As is that which the Apostle says: 'The body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit liveth because of justification' (Rom. 8:10). And that which the Lord said through the prophet: 'The Spirit shall go forth from me, and every breath I have made' (Isa. 57:16). For he showed what he called spirit, when he said also 'breath.'

But he called man's spirit 'breath' for this reason, because it is written that 'God breathed into the face of man the breath of life, and man was made into a living soul' (Gen. 2:7). Other similar things are found, in which not that uncreated one, but any spirit — whether rational or irrational, yet created — is intimated. But whenever the Spirit is named with honor (as is that which the Apostle says: 'By the charity of the Spirit' (Rom. 15:30), and whatever things are similar), it is not permitted in these to understand any but the Holy Spirit; that Spirit assuredly of whom our Savior said: 'Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men; but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven' (Matt. 12:31).

But in this place we ought to know that it is the genitive case, that is, 'of this Spirit'; not the nominative, as very many are deceived in thinking. Which is found distinguished in the Greek, where it is said not to Pneuma, but tou Pneumatos. Finally, the Greek codex of the Gospel has thus: he de tou Pneumatos blasphemia ouk aphethesetai. Where the Son of God, to show who is the Spirit whose irremissible blasphemy he pronounced, added these words (v. 32): 'And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but he that shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to come.'

Therefore not only when 'Spirit' is set down absolutely, but also when 'Holy Spirit' is named by the apostles, nowhere is the Father or the Son found to be signified, but that Spirit is signified who is properly called in the Trinity the Holy Spirit: whom the Son of God himself undoubtedly shows, saying: 'Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' (Matt. 28:19). We do not, therefore, deny — as pertains to nature — that the Father too is Spirit, and the Son Spirit, and the Father holy, and the Son holy: for one is the nature of the Trinity, and one is its natural holiness. But nevertheless, as pertains to the property of the person, nowhere is the Holy Spirit found so set down;

so that by the same name either the Father or the Son should be understood: except that Spirit properly the Paraclete, who is assuredly neither Father nor Son, but the one and the same Spirit of the Father and of the Son. FRAGMENT XVI. We are the temple, and the sacrifice, and the priests of the Holy Spirit as of the Father and of the Son. Nothing, however, prejudices the divinity of the Holy Spirit, whom blessed Paul most certainly shows to be God, when he said that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, 'whom you have from God' (1 Cor. 6:19). Where you can in no way point out the person of the Father; since the blessed Apostle said that we have the Holy Spirit 'from God.'

But neither can you in any way demonstrate the person of the Son in the name of the Holy Spirit, which the Apostle above distinguished, saying: 'Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ?' (1 Cor. 6:15). In this, therefore, the Apostle evidently shows the Holy Trinity, naming Christ, that is, the Son of God, naming also the Holy Spirit, naming nonetheless also God, that is, the Father, from whom we have that same Holy Spirit (which you have vainly inserted with your lies, but we have him from God): in whom assuredly we for this reason recognize true deity, because we make him a temple not of stones and wood, but we ourselves are his temple.

And assuredly he who dwells in a temple not made by hands is God most high, blessed Stephen saying that 'the Most High dwelleth not in things made by hands' (Acts 7:48). Whence, when he had said this, and the same most blessed martyr had subjoined that testimony which says: 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: what house will you build me? saith the Lord' (Isa. 66:1); after a little he added: 'You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit, as your fathers did, so do you also' (Acts 7:51). One, therefore, is the Most High God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who dwells not in things made by hands; but, through the grace which he bestows on us, has mercifully made us a temple for himself.

And not only a temple, but also a sacrifice. For our very bodies (which we have sufficiently shown above to be the temple not of the Father alone, nor of the Son alone, nor of the Holy Spirit alone, but of the Trinity itself, the one God, namely of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit), that we may offer them to God as a living victim, the blessed Apostle teaches, saying: 'I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God' (Rom. 12:1). But in so far as anyone offers a victim to God, in so much does he spiritually discharge the office of a priest. Whence blessed Peter too showed that we are at once the temple, and the priests, and the victims, saying:

'And you, as living stones, are built up into a spiritual house, into a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ' (1 Pet. 2:5). Because he himself was made a priest for us, and offered himself for us, as the Apostle says: 'An oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness' (Eph. 5:2). But what we offer through Christ according to the humanity of the Son alone, we offer to the same supreme Trinity at once. Worthily, therefore, do we owe latreia to the Holy Spirit, whose temple we know our bodies to be: and from this we spiritually present to him those same our bodies as a living victim.

But of him whose temple we are, and to whom we offer our bodies as a sacrifice, it is necessary that we owe him priestly service. Hence it is that the Catholic Church, which is the one temple of the Holy Trinity, that is, of the one God, does not cease to offer spiritual sacrifice to that same Holy Trinity, the one God: because it most certainly knows that it owes priestly service to that Trinity, the one true and good God. FRAGMENT XVII. The Holy Spirit is no less the one and true God than the Father and the Son. For he does not do military service to the true and living God, nor serve the living and true God, whoever strives to build a temple in the bodies of men not to the living and true God, but to an uncertain god.

But such a building is certainly not one that comes from God. And how, then, could he say above of those whom he called the temple of the Holy Spirit: 'You are God's building' (1 Cor. 3:9)? Now therefore you must hold to one of two things: either you acknowledge that the temple of the Holy Spirit was built in us by God, and from this recognize that the Holy Spirit is the true God; or, if you do not believe that this is God's building, you must profess Paul to be a liar. But if you refuse to heed this proclamation of Paul, you yourself will remain utterly estranged from the truth; yet Paul will not be a liar, who, full of the truth, cries out: 'I speak the truth in Christ Jesus; I lie not, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit' (Rom. 9:1).

Since therefore Paul taught the truth, and by saying that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit made known to the faithful His most certain Godhead, whoever denies the true and certain Godhead of the Holy Spirit should recognize that he in no way belongs to the Church of the living God, which Paul calls the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15). This holy Church knows itself to be the temple of that one God whom it acknowledges to be God by nature, and for this reason knows His divinity to be true and certain—casting off, of course, the worship of false gods, which, precisely because they are not gods by nature, cannot possess a certain Godhead. Accordingly, since that Godhead is certain which is natural, those who are not gods by nature do not possess a certain Godhead;

and those who do not have a certain Godhead have none at all. But the true faith does not hesitate to render worship (λατρεία) to the one true God, which it knows is not owed to any other god; nor can it establish a temple in the bodies of the faithful, or offer a sacrifice to any god who is not God by nature. For it knows that this service is owed to that God who alone commands that He be worshipped, and who alone is to be honored spiritually by the faithful with temple, priesthood, and sacrifice. Worthily, therefore, the holy Church believes and confesses the Holy Spirit to be true God, and together with the Father and the Son one God; and recognizing itself to be the temple of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, it understands the Godhead to be one Trinity, to which Trinity it humbly renders one service.

FROM BOOK V. ON THE IMAGE OF GOD. FRAGMENT XVIII. The Son does not imitate the Father, nor does He do things like Him, but the very same things. Man is said to be made in the image of God, because he is an image of the divine Trinity in memory, understanding, and will. For in a superior reality can be found the pattern of a good work. For insofar as there is a parity of nature together with power, to that extent we see imitation to be absent, but we find unity of work. But there a pattern is set forth where an inequality either of nature or of power is found. Hence it is that the Son of God, showing that He has one nature with the Father, and for this reason equal power in operation, said: 'Whatsoever the Father does, these same things the Son also does likewise' (John

5:19). Since therefore He does the same things, no pattern of anything superior is found; and since He does them likewise, no sign of a different operation is discovered. Nor can that saying be referred to a pattern where He says: 'The Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what He has seen the Father doing' (ibid.). For He said this as a sign of one nature and power, not as a pattern of imitation. For He added, saying: 'Whatsoever the Father does, these same things the Son also does likewise'; whereas He would surely have said that He does 'such things,' not 'the same things,' if He had wished to display in Himself the imitation of the Father's work. But the Father does nothing in which He may furnish a pattern to the Son, who made all things that He made through the Son.

Now the Father would show the Son something to imitate only if there were some work which He had not made through the Son. But there is nothing which the Father made or makes except through the Son. There is therefore one operation of the Father and the Son in all things. Accordingly, the Son in acting sees the Father acting, not by imitation, but by the natural unity of power and work. When He does the same things, it is not imitation but unity of work; and when He does them likewise, it is not disparity but natural equality. But imitation, which pertains to a pattern, the blessed Apostle plainly shows to be found only in those who are diverse and unequal, whether in natures or in wills.

For he indicated that those over whom Timothy then presided were unequal in will, although he knew them to be equal in nature, in that he says to him: 'Be an example to the faithful, in word, in conduct, in charity, in faith, in chastity' (1 Tim. 4:12). For unless he knew and willed Timothy to be superior to the rest in all these things, he would in no way have commanded him to be an example to the faithful; and he desired those to be built up by his example whom he knew to be unequal in will and virtue. He likewise exhorts that Titus too be presented as an example to the faithful, saying: 'In all things show thyself an example of good works' (Tit. 2:7). Demonstrating something of the same kind even in himself, he says: 'Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ' (1 Cor. 11:1).

Now the Apostle said this because Christ left us an example, that we should follow His footsteps (1 Pet. 2:21). But the way to understand the Trinity, insofar as it can be understood, is to be sought there, where we have been made in the image of God, and where, as far as we can, so long as we walk by faith and not by sight, we now see, with the difficulty of great labor, through a glass in a riddle. For God, just as He has bestowed on men in Himself the example of good works, so has He placed in men the testimony of the knowledge of Himself; that when His image is regarded, knowledge may be grasped of Him whose image it is. For if there were no sign of divine knowledge present in created things, the blessed Apostle would not have said:

'For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made' (Rom. 1:20). Hence it is that that supreme Trinity, which has no equal, impressed its image, for a testimony of the knowledge of itself, not upon any beast, nor upon any living thing that cannot grasp reason, nor upon the human body itself, but wondrously upon our inner man—where there is neither male nor female, since in the spirit no distinction of sex can be found. If therefore, with reason as your guide, you wish in some measure to know the mystery of the supreme Trinity, gaze upon the human mind, not with the eye of the body, but with the inner regard. Return to yourself, that you may recognize Him who made you. Look right into yourself there, where you have something of reason;

and at once, in its own image as in a mirror, the knowledge of the Trinity will shine forth to you. Thus it will come to pass that, in the consideration not of a begotten image but of a created one—that is, of a nature far inferior and far unequal—you may find, insofar as it can be seen through a glass in a riddle, the true unity and Trinity of the supreme Creator. For there are certain three things in the human mind which profit toward the knowledge of God, if the hardening of the human heart does not hide from itself the light of truth. And these are the three that I have named: memory, understanding, and will; which are so distinguished by their proper names that there is in them no natural diversity. For memory is one thing, understanding another, will another;

and yet, although these are truly three, the nature of the mind is not diverse but one, since these things which are three (or triple) subsist in one human mind. Therefore, though these three are found in the nature of one human mind, yet the mind itself is not divided in them, so as to have memory in one part of itself, understanding in another part, will in another; but whatever it remembers, the whole is found to remember; and whatever it understands, the whole understands; and whatever likewise the mind itself loves, the whole mind of man is known to love by its will. These things, Fabian, if you can, attend to; think on these things; consider these things with a reasoning intention; and by the consideration of the image ascend to the understanding of the truth;

and having found here a distinction of the names of the Trinity, understand there a Trinity of persons; and recognizing that in the one mind of man there is one indivisible nature of memory and understanding and will, know that in that true Divinity there remains one essence of the holy Trinity. Then indeed, in the perception of this reasoning, the knowledge of the Trinity will be granted you; which if in this life you see through a glass in a riddle, then in that life you will see face to face. For this is what the Apostle says: 'For we see now through a glass in a riddle, but then face to face' (1 Cor. 13:12). In this mirror, therefore, of the human creation, recognize the image of the Creator, if you wish afterward to know the very truth of the Creator.

Walk by this faith, that you may be able to attain to sight. In it consider also at the same time the mystery of the divine Incarnation: that you may recognize both that the substance of the whole Trinity is one, and that the assumption of flesh pertains to the person of the Son alone. For that very memory, which is in the soul of man, in order to say something, brings forth from itself a thought, and in a certain way a spiritual word is born from it. And thus that one and indivisible nature of the rational soul is found wholly to remember what it understands, and wholly to understand what it remembers, and whatever it beholds with the eye of memory, it embraces wholly in thought. And in order that this thought may be brought forth to the knowledge of others, it is carried by the bodily voice.

For that thought is nothing other than an inner speaking. Whence within itself the rational soul speaks, while it turns over in thought what is contained in the memory; and therefore it is already worthily called a word, even before it is brought forth by the body and the office of the voice. That spiritual word, then—that is, a thought formed from memory—takes on, in a certain manner, a bodily condition, when it takes on a bodily voice. And so wondrously that word both proceeds to others by the voice it has taken up, and does not depart from the memory from which it is born; nor is it subject to division; since when a single word is emitted from the mouth of the speaker, all who hear are so instructed that what all hear said once, each perceives whole, without division.

And so that word, as much as it is found in all, so much is it found in each. The whole, therefore, remains in the memory from which it is born, the whole is brought forth by the bodily voice, the whole is said once to many hearers, and the whole is found in each of the hearers no less than in all. So too the Son of God, who is the Word of God, went forth from the Father—as He Himself testifies (John 16:28)—and came into this world; yet He was also always with the Father, for 'in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John 1:1); and before He came into the world, He was in the world, and the world was made through Him (ibid., 10). For the Word, being God, was always in the world;

because through the unity of nature, just as the Father fills every creature, so also does the Son fill it. And so He neither departed from the Father when He went forth from the Father, nor did He then begin to be in the world when He came into the world. But going forth from the Father, He so remained with the Father as He always was; and coming into the world, He willed then to be present there by grace, where He could never be absent by nature. Behold, insofar as I have been able, though briefly, I have rendered the reason why we call the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit one God; and in the very image of God I have shown a certain sign of divine knowledge. In which image, indeed, memory, understanding, and will do not have single and proper persons.

For this image is one that is not born but made, not begotten but created. To this end, indeed, that just as in this one image there is found a certain distinction of terms, so in that one Godhead may be recognized a distinction of persons; and that the natural unity may show the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be one God, while the property of the persons may demonstrate that the Father is one, the Son another, the Holy Spirit another. Yet the Father is another, not in that He is God, but in that He is Father; and the Son is another, not in that He is God, but in that He is Son; the Holy Spirit likewise is another, not in that He is God, but in that He is the Spirit of both the Father and the Son. The Father, therefore, is another, who (as with Theodulf,

here and below) has begotten; the Son is another, who has been born of the Father; and the Holy Spirit is another, who proceeds from the Father and the Son: yet not another God the Father, and another God the Son, and another God the Holy Spirit; but one God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For the unity does not confound the Trinity, nor does the Trinity separate the unity; because that which is distinguished in the property of the persons is shown to be one by the natural communion of the one essence. FROM BOOK VI. ON THE ONE ETERNAL. FRAGMENT XIX. The Son is coeternal with the Father. The faith of the Catholic Church is not irrational, in that it both believes and proclaims the Son to be coeternal with the Father, knowing that every god is recent in whom any beginning of existing whatsoever is found.

Now God promised this to His people, that if it would hear Him, no recent god would arise in it, and for this reason it would in no way worship a strange god. For thus it is said through the prophet: 'Israel, if thou wilt hear me, there shall be no recent god in thee, neither shalt thou worship a strange god' (Ps. 80:10). Therefore the Son is not a recent god, because He is naturally coeternal with the eternal Father; and for this reason He is worshipped by us as one God together with the Father, because He is in no way found later than the Father. When therefore the cause of the eternal nativity is sought in the Son, only the eternal substance of the Father is found; for a nature that knows no beginning of existing could not have a beginning of begetting.

But what could be more manifest for recognizing the Son as both born of the nature of the Father and naturally coeternal with the Father, than that passage of Scripture where it is said of Wisdom: 'For she is the brightness of eternal light' (Wis. 7:26)? For brightness is neither found to be foreign to the nature of the light, and just as it is not less than the light itself, so it cannot be later than it. For the eternity of the light most certainly commends the coeternity of the brightness. For, apart from the fact that each man begets a son just as he himself was begotten—and therefore is found to be prior to his own son, because he was later than his own father:

nevertheless let us have recourse to the very first man, to whom alone in the whole human race it was given that he himself was not a son, yet brought forth a son from himself, and, being unborn, had one born from himself, and, being unbegotten, was able to beget. For that natural generation preserved the unity of nature in father and son. But the nativity of the son being born had a beginning, because the substance of the begetter was not without a beginning; and so that nature truly had a beginning of being born in the son, because it was not without a beginning of existing in the begetter; whence it is manifest that in the son that nativity would be subject to no beginning, if the nature of the father did not have a beginning of existing.

Wherefore, where the natural eternity of the father is found without a beginning, there the nativity of the offspring cannot have a beginning. When therefore God the Father is called unbegotten, and God the Son begotten, just as the natural generation of the unbegotten Father causes the unity of nature to be recognized in the Father and the Son, so the natural eternity of the Father forbids any beginning of the divine generation to be understood. Both the Father and the Son, therefore, are without a beginning, and for this reason the Father and the Son are one and true principle: whence God the Father Himself says to His own Son in the psalm: 'With Thee is the principle in the day of Thy power, in the splendors of the saints; from the womb before the day-star I begot Thee' (Ps. 109:3).

What is 'the principle with Thee,' except what is said elsewhere of Wisdom, that she is from the Lord God, and was with Him always, and is before the age (Ecclus. 1:1)? Worthily therefore does the Son profess Himself to be the principle, because He knows Himself to be so coeternal with the Father the principle that, together with the same Father, He knows Himself naturally to be one principle: and in that the Son asserts Himself to be the beginning and the end (Rev. 1:6[8]), He surely confirms Himself to be without beginning and end: because just as before alpha there is no letter, so before the Son there could be no nature; therefore the Son calls Himself alpha, that He might show Himself to be the principle of things, which can be preceded by no principle.