Anti-Arian Works 13 part 6/11

For review the Gospel, and you will find that our very Redeemer, this prayer being completed, entered into the garden, and was immediately seized by the hands of the Jews. Yet after the supper in which He gave His disciples the sacrament of His body and blood, the Savior poured out this prayer for His faithful: showing that we especially ought to pray this at the time of sacrifice, which He Himself, establishing the rule of sacrificing, deigned as the supreme High Priest to ask. But this which we petition—that is, that in the Father and the Son we may be one—we receive through the unity of spiritual grace, which the blessed Apostle bids us carefully to preserve, saying: 'Supporting one another in charity, careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.'

We ask therefore that the Holy Spirit may come, not according to the substance of His immense divinity, but according to the gift of His undivided charity. For if you suppose the Holy Spirit to come from place to place, it follows that you should also confess the coming of the Father and the Son from place to place. For the Son of God says: 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him' (John 14:23). The Father and the Son therefore come to him who loves them, who yet are not loved save by him in whom they deign to dwell. For God is charity (1 John 4:8); and God is loved with charity: then therefore is God loved, when He is possessed.

For just as the eye, unless it has received light, will not see the light itself at all; so God then begins to be loved by man, when man has begun to be visited by the Lord. How then do the Father and the Son come to him who loves them, by whom they could not be loved if they were not in him; save that they are worthily said to come when they accumulate, by the increase of a better progress, the grace which they bestow? They come therefore to him who loves them, not by drawing near to the man in whom they already were, but by increasing in the man the gifts of theirs which they had given. So also the Spirit is said to come, while He is asked for by the faithful, when He deigns either to confer or to increase the gift of charity and of unanimity.

In which gift especially, and, so to speak, properly, the Holy Spirit is recognized. For He can bestow any other thing whatever through omnipotence, and yet not be present Himself through grace; but He shows His very self to be present through grace, when He grants charity. Whence, though a man speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not charity, he shall be as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal; and though he have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though he have all faith, so that he could remove mountains, but have not charity, he is nothing; and though he distribute all his goods to feed the poor, and deliver his body to be burned, but have not charity, it profits him nothing (1 Cor.

12:1ff.). But who would deny all those things to be gifts of the Holy Spirit, since the Apostle testifies that they are given through the Spirit? But none of these profits where charity is not. For the Holy Spirit gives all those things even to those in whom He Himself does not dwell; but from those to whom He grants charity He does not depart. Holy Church therefore, while in the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ she prays that the Holy Spirit be sent to her, petitions surely the gift of charity, by which she may be able to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:3): and because it is written, 'Love is strong as death' (Cant.

8:6), she petitions, for the mortifying of her members which are upon the earth, that charity by which she remembers her Redeemer who died freely for her. The Holy Spirit therefore sanctifies the sacrifice of the Catholic Church: and thus the Christian people abides in faith and charity, while each of the faithful, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, worthily eats and drinks the body and blood of the Lord for this reason, that he both holds the right faith concerning his God, and by living well does not forsake the unity of the ecclesiastical body. FRAGMENT XXIX. Why in the blessing of the font the Holy Spirit is besought. What the double spirit of Elias is; what the manifold spirit; what in the Apocalypse the seven spirits before the throne of God.

The Holy Spirit is of His own free will. What it is for the Son to be sent by the Father; what it is for the Holy Spirit to be sent by the Father and the Son. The Son, as man, was sent by the Father and by the Holy Spirit. And so in the blessing of the font we do not ask that the Holy Spirit be sent as though we sought His local coming; but knowing that in God the Father is naturally the origin of the Holy Spirit, we ask of God the Father Himself the bounty of the spiritual gift, calling His gifts by His name; which we do not without the authority of Holy Scripture. For there are many examples of these terms in the canonical books, in which the gifts of the Holy Spirit are recognized to be called by His name.

For we read that, when holy Elias was to be taken up into heaven, he said to Eliseus that he should ask whatever he wished, before he was taken from him. And Eliseus said: 'I beseech thee that thy double spirit may be in me' (2 Kings 2:9). Wherein indeed we see a spiritual gift called by the name of spirit. For that simple nature of the Holy Spirit, remaining in itself (as it is, always full and unchangeable), is neither diminished nor increased. It is indeed said in the book of Wisdom: 'The Holy Spirit, one only, manifold' (Wisd. 7:22). But this, that He is called manifold, is found not in Himself, but in His gifts.

For the Spirit of God is called manifold in the old books, just as in the apostolic Epistles the wisdom of God is called manifold (Eph. 3:10): which nevertheless is manifold not in itself, but in its bounties. Which blessed Peter most manifestly showing, says: 'Every one, according as he has received grace, ministering the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God' (1 Pet. 4:10). One therefore and simple is the nature of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; according to which nature, both the Wisdom of God and the Spirit of God are simple. But having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us (Rom.

12:6), the Wisdom of God and the Spirit of God, whom we have known to be simple in His nature, we find to be manifold in His bounties. And blessed John too, in the Apocalypse, calling the spiritual gifts by the name of spirit, says: 'John to the seven churches which are in Asia: grace to you and peace from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before His throne' (Rev. 1:4). Here indeed, saying seven spirits, he meant to be understood one Spirit, the giver of sevenfold grace; whom Isaias, enlightened by His grace, recognized as the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and fortitude, the Spirit of knowledge and piety, and the Spirit of the fear of God (Isa. 11:2).

Wherever therefore in the Apocalypse of blessed John seven spirits are named, let seven gifts of the one Holy Spirit be recognized. But if perhaps here in the seven spirits you do not believe it to be that very sevenfold grace of spiritual gifts, but suppose rather seven distinct spirits differing in their own persons: tell us whether you deem them equal to the Holy Spirit—that is, to the Paraclete of whom we now treat—or lesser, or greater. Or perhaps can you make one of those seven to be this Holy Spirit? For if you should call those whom you think seven spirits equal to the Holy Spirit, then without doubt you will name not seven, but eight holy spirits of one dignity.

What cause then was there that blessed John should wish grace for the churches from those seven spirits, and should have removed from them the grace of the Paraclete Spirit, when in the book of the Acts of the Apostles it is written that, when blessed Peter was speaking the word of faith to Cornelius and the rest who were with him, 'the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word, and the faithful of the circumcision who had come with Peter were astonished, because on the nations also was poured out the grace of the Holy Spirit' (Acts 10:44, 45)? Did blessed John perhaps know the grace of this Holy Spirit to be lesser, and therefore for the churches which were in Asia besought grace from the other seven spirits?

Whereas surely if there were eight spirits, he ought to have besought at once from all those spirits the gift of spiritual grace for the churches, so that of those whom you assert to be equal there might be no separation of bounty. But if you say those seven spirits are lesser than the Paraclete, again it is asked why blessed John willed the grace of lesser spirits to be given to the faithful, and did not seek the grace of the greater? Since surely he can be the giver of the better grace who is also of the higher nature. But if you pronounce those seven spirits to be greater than the Holy Spirit, what cause is there that, they being passed over, the Holy Spirit alone with the Father and the Son is named in baptism, who also is called by the Apostle the Spirit of the adoption of sons (Rom.

8:15)? Since without doubt those whom you say are seven spirits, being according to your opinion both better in nature and more in number, ought to have been named with the Father and the Son in the sacrament of baptism; who both by plurality of number and by dignity of nature could bestow a more excellent and more abundant grace upon those being reborn. It ought therefore, if it were as you say, that holy baptism be given not in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, but in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the seven spirits. A like rule ought to have been observed also in baptism, if one of those seven spirits were the Holy Spirit. But if you feel or say that this is to be done, attend to Christ whose rule you contradict.

Or perhaps, in order to show the Holy Spirit lesser than the Father and the Son, do you exclude Him from the sacrament of baptism, and introduce there another Spirit of God? For some of you are wont, when they begin to be convinced concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit, since it is certain that men are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (according to the rule of the Lord and Savior), to turn to this perversity, so as to say that it is not this Paraclete Spirit, but another Spirit of God, in whose name believers receive the sacrament of baptism; whom without doubt they prefer to the Paraclete Spirit. But if this is so, tell us whether you believe this Spirit to be of the Father alone, or of the Son alone, or of both?

But if you say this Spirit is of the Father alone, without doubt you proclaim Him greater than the Son. We ask therefore whether you say this Spirit to be at least of one nature with God the Father? But if you say the nature of God the Father and of this Spirit is one, it is necessary then that you prefer Him to the Son of God. But if this is so, then according to your view the order of names was ill placed by Christ in the sacrament of baptism. For if He is not of one nature with God the Father and His Spirit, the name of the Son ought not to be inserted between the name of the Father and of the Holy Spirit; since the natural unity teaches that the name of the Father and of the Holy Spirit ought to be joined together.

But nevertheless here it behooves you to remember that upon the baptized Jesus the Paraclete Spirit (of whom we now treat) descended. Consider therefore, lest you should have to call Him greater who descended upon Christ in the Jordan, than that other whom you now suppose to be given to the faithful in holy baptism. But in all things the supreme divinity convicts and refutes you. For God the Father testifies that He gave His Spirit upon the Son; which, said through Isaias, the holy Evangelist sets forth in the person of Christ with these words: 'That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaias the prophet, saying: Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my Spirit upon Him' (Matt. 12:17;

Isa. 42:1). Which He also took care to intimate at His baptism, saying: 'And Jesus, being baptized, forthwith came up out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and coming upon Him' (Mark 1:10; cf. Matt. 3:16). Do you see that it is the very Spirit of God, whom you irreverently blaspheme and strive to diminish? Or do you perhaps say that this too is indeed the Spirit of God, but that nevertheless it is another Spirit of God who is named with the Father and the Son in the sacrament of baptism? But (as I said above) from the fact that this Spirit descended upon Christ, He ought not by you to be esteemed lesser than that Spirit, but greater.

Next I ask whether that Spirit whom you say to be the Spirit of God is one, common to the Father and the Son, or is said to be of the Father alone? For if this Spirit of the Father and the Son is one, and the same Spirit is of one nature with the Father, surely He is of one nature also with the Son. Of one nature therefore, and of one divinity, are the Father and the Son; because the one Spirit of both has one nature with the Father and the Son. But if you say this one Spirit to be of the Father alone, and not also of the Son, attend to what the Apostle says: 'But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His' (Rom. 8:9); and either deny that you are Christ's, if His Spirit is not in you;

or say that not the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but the Father and the Son, and two spirits, dwell in you. But since no man can serve two masters (Matt. 6:24), how will you be able justly to assert yourselves servants of four masters? Or do you say that the Father with His Spirit is one master, and the Son with His Spirit another master? But even so you wish to be servants of two masters, so long as you will not confess the Father and the Son to be one Lord. But neither will you be able to be servants of the Father and the Son, until you believe in the one lordship of the Father and the Son: and thereby, so long as you call the Father and the Son two masters, and yet cannot serve two masters, you will be deprived not of servitude, but of salvation.

Wherefore, Fabianus, acknowledge the majesty of the Holy Spirit, and cease now to blaspheme Him: who indeed for this reason is besought to come to bless the font, that He may grant the gift of the adoption of sons, having bestowed the remission of sins. For He comes in the bounty of His gifts, while He Himself does not cease to fill the world. But the Father sends Him, because He proceeds from the Father: yet He sends Him by the origin of majesty, not by the command of an order. And thus the Holy Spirit, who is everywhere whole, comes, just as the Son was wont to come with God the Father. The mission therefore of the Holy Spirit is the bestowal of an invisible gift, not a personal appearing: because neither is the mission itself understood as local, where He who is sent is found by nature immense.

That you may evidently recognize His mission in His gifts, attend to that which blessed John said in the Apocalypse, that seven spirits of God were sent through the whole world (Rev. 5:6): whereas he himself said in the Gospel that our Savior promised to send, not seven spirits from Himself and from the Father, but one Paraclete, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father (John 15:26). Could blessed John then have forgotten his own Gospel, so as to say there that one Spirit was promised, and here that seven spirits were sent? Or ought the Lord Himself not to have given all seven spirits to the apostles, whom He was appointing princes of His Church? Or do you assert that these seven spirits also were sent to the apostles?

which the holy authority in no way permits you to say. For on the day of Pentecost the apostles received that very Holy Spirit whom the Lord had promised them; and they testified that one and the same Holy Spirit was given to all the faithful and obedient to God, saying: 'And we are witnesses of these words, and the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to all who obey Him' (Acts 5:32). One and the same Spirit is given to all the faithful, of whom the Apostle says, 'And we have all been made to drink of one Spirit' (1 Cor. 12:13).

When therefore the blessed John says that seven Spirits of God were sent throughout the whole earth, he wished to show how the one Spirit of God is sent, not in himself (who is everywhere always boundless), but in the bounty of his gifts. He said therefore that seven Spirits of God were sent throughout the whole earth, in order to show that upon the Church spread everywhere throughout the earth the sevenfold grace of the Holy Spirit has been conferred by his bounty. And so the Holy Spirit, who both bestows and preserves charity in the Church, also sanctifies both the sacrifice and baptism by the working of divine power. Therefore our baptism is not (as you say) of no moment and of no substance.

For baptism, which is given in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, when it is given within the Catholic Church, contains in itself both the form of godliness and its power. The form of godliness is conferred by the visible washing; but the power of godliness is poured in by the gift of true faith and charity. But heretics and schismatics, departing from the Church, have lost the power of godliness, because they did not hold the true faith nor keep ecclesiastical charity; yet the form of godliness, which is the visible sacrament of the washing, they did not lose when they went out from the Church. But it remained in them as a testimony to their condemnation, not as a help to salvation.

This therefore they gave outside the Church, which once received they in no way lost, that is, the visible sacrament of baptism. And this baptism is not to be said to lack the form of godliness among heretics on the ground that it does not there possess the power of godliness; rather, to the form of godliness must be restored that power which the Catholic unity alone possesses, in which there is both the truth of right faith and the unbroken fellowship of charity. This one body of the Church one Spirit gives life to. On account of which the blessed Paul says: One body, and one Spirit (Ephes. iv, 4). In this one body, so long as each several member remains, both the form is found present and the life.

But from this Body every member that has been cut off, whether by unbelief or by animosity, retains the form but lacks life. For a member which is separated from the body loses indeed the invisible life, yet does not lose the visible form. You say that from this it is shown that the Holy Spirit is subject and lesser, because he himself is not asked to descend or to come, if he is in his own power and of free will. And how does Fabianus deny freedom of will to the Holy Spirit, which the apostle Paul especially assigns to him, saying: Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (II Cor. iii, 17)?

Is freedom of will then denied by you, Fabianus, to the Holy Spirit, who is given to us for this very end, that through him the freedom of our will may be restored by a gratuitous gift? For who ever, without the grace of the Holy Spirit, was able to be free from the deadly bondage of sin? Who, I ask, without the gift of the Holy Spirit, could in any degree aspire to the beginnings of an inner liberty regained? O wickedness! how far human rashness casts itself down by its pride! and while it strives to leap forth into insult against its Creator and Deliverer, it does not heed the benefits of the divine goodness. For the Son of God says: If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed (John viii, 36).

But in that we are set free, we are made sons of God, because being freed from sin, and made servants to God (Rom. vi, 22), in which we receive the gift of divine adoption, in that very thing indeed we receive the grace of liberty. And the blessed Apostle says: For you have not received the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba, Father (Rom. viii, 15). How then does man dare to take away liberty from the very Spirit of adoption, when without that Spirit he can neither recover the liberty he has lost nor is able to obtain that which is conferred? And what is worse, you dare, Fabianus, to say that free will is indeed not lacking to man, and yet that the Holy Spirit is not of free will. The Apostle says to us:

For you have been called unto liberty, brethren; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by the charity of the Spirit serve one another (Gal. v, 13). Behold, the charity of the Spirit has caused us to be called unto liberty: how then is that same Spirit denied to be of free will? But since that Spirit convicts the world of sin, and of justice, and of judgment (John xvi, 8); when for this sin you shall come to judgment, then you shall experience the free will of the Holy Spirit. You say meanwhile that the Holy Spirit is lesser and subject, because he is not asked to descend, to come, to send and direct himself: yet you do not deny that the Son was sent by the Father, on account of which you attempt to assert that he is lesser.

If therefore you shall have learned by the attestation of the divine volumes that the Son was asked by the prophets to descend and to come, at least from this you will confess that he is not subject; and you will say that he is of free will and of his own power. For to whom, except to the Son whom he knew was about to descend, did the blessed prophet say: Lord, bow down thy heavens, and descend (Ps. cxliii, 5)? or whose coming did he demand, except that of the Only-begotten of God, saying: Thou that rulest Israel, give ear; thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep. Thou that sittest upon the Cherubim, appear before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasses. Stir up thy power, and come to save us (Ps. lxxix, 1, 2, 3)? Recognize therefore, in that the Father was besought, when the prophet says:

Send forth thy light and thy truth (Ps. xlii, 3); and: Command, O God, thy strength; confirm, O God, what thou hast wrought in us (Ps. lxvii, 29)—here the Son is sent by the Father; but in that the Son himself was asked by the prophets that he might come, the Son came of his own will. For the Son would never be besought by the prophets, if his coming were not in his own power. The Father therefore was besought to send the Son himself, because he begot the Son; nor yet would the Son be asked to descend and to come, if he did not naturally have one and the same power with the Father. The holy prophets therefore knew that they were asking the Son when they asked the Father; and likewise that they were beseeching the Father when they besought the Son:

and so, whether they directed their prayer to the person of the Father or to the person of the Son, they were beseeching the whole Trinity in the invocation of one person, because they knew the one substance of the Trinity. The Son therefore is sent by the Father, not the Father by the Son: because the Son is born of the Father, not the Father of the Son. Likewise the Holy Spirit also is read to be sent by the Father and the Son, because he proceeds from the Father and the Son. But because mission is not spoken of in one manner only in the Holy Scriptures, therefore in the sacrament of the Incarnation the Son was sent not only by the Father but also by the Holy Spirit: because the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, was fashioned by the working of the whole Trinity.

But in another manner the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son, who (as Aeneas says in Book I against the Greeks) naturally proceeds from the Father and the Son. For the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son, when by the Trinity itself, the one God, the effect of spiritual grace is bestowed. But in another way was the Son sent by the Father and the Holy Spirit, when, emptying himself, he took the form of a servant. For it is not the same thing to take flesh into one's own person, and for the Word to become man, as it is to confer by invisible power the bounty of some gift. For the Holy Spirit did not truly become a dove or truly become fire, when it was fitting that he be signified by the sight of such things.

But the Word became flesh, when the Only-begotten God took flesh. Yet this he did not by an alien power, but by his own; nor by his alone, because that sacrament of godliness was accomplished by the one will and power of the whole Trinity. But I marvel how you do not believe an angel to be sent by the Holy Spirit, by whom you read that the very Lord of the angels was sent. But we invoke the Father, on account of the origin and the natural and undivided unity of the Godhead. And this indeed the holy Church guards by the gift of divine inspiration. For she could not beseech the Trinity in the plural number, lest by unbelievers the Christian religion be thought to serve not God, but gods.

The holy Church therefore beseeches in her prayers the Father, whom by right belief she has known to be the origin of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And for this reason she concludes her prayers and petitions in the name of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that she may show the holy Trinity to be of one nature and majesty. But concerning the power of the Holy Spirit, which you do not fear to deny to him over creation, whereas you cannot yourself escape his power and justice, I have already answered you above. For it is manifest that he possesses the full power over all things, because he works all things, dividing to every one as he wills (I Cor. xii, 11). Do not therefore, in your pride, deny the power of the Holy Spirit, lest being condemned you feel his justice.

For the Holy Spirit is naturally Lord, because he is naturally the Spirit of the Lord; not of the Lord the Father alone, nor of the Lord the Son alone, but of the one Lord, namely of the Father and of the Son: and because he is naturally the one Spirit of the Father and of the Son, he is naturally one Lord with the Father and the Son. Who therefore does not come except when he is sent by the Father and the Son, because from that source is his voluntary power of coming, from which is his natural unity. FRAGMENT XXX. Of the ministering Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not pray for us in the manner in which the Son does. Behold again I say what I said above: Not every mission is an appearing, and especially the mission of the Holy Spirit. Whose mission it was fitting to show visibly only a second time;