論三位一體 第 1-1 章 第 10/12 段

But the Macedonians, being on their guard and as it were fearful lest they should ever be seen speaking fittingly about him, or lest, having uttered unfitting things, it should escape their notice, without any justice permit themselves to trespass also upon this very chapter, brandishing weapons of every kind — their unrestrained arguments — and saying, snatching at the text: 'it is written,' he says,

'Praise the Lord, for a psalm is good;'

'may praise to God be sweet'; and:

'It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing psalms to your name, O Most High.' But nowhere, so they claim, do we find it written:

One must answer them thus:

If you take the words you have just quoted as referring to the Father, then you exclude the Son;

but if of the Son, the opposite follows, since the Holy Spirit also both is and is written to be Lord, and it is unclear concerning which hypostasis the word 'Lord' is now written.

Consider, then, whether you have not used it against yourselves in the opposite way.

That the Holy Spirit does not sing hymns, since he is not a creature, but is hymned together with God, precisely because he is God's Spirit, is easier to learn both from the fact that he is ranked together with him, and from the fact that the three youths and the sacred psalmist command all creation to hymn by name — yet by no means do they name the Spirit of God, as the saints are accustomed to name things.

For if, as the heretics say, he is of a nature intermediate between God and the angels, and more honorable and higher than all things, then, since he is above all singularly one, it was necessary either to command him by himself to sing hymns, or at least to name him first and then generally include the rest along with him;

but by no means the opposite, as they arrogantly conjecture.

That he is named together with the Father and the Son;

and concerning the heretical objection.

Creation is not numbered together with God.

For what indeed is common between that which exists in diminishment and him who is supreme over all and beyond all excess, or between that which came into being and its maker? But the all-honored Spirit, as God, is named together with the Father and the Son, as when the Master gives the formula concerning baptism, and as when the Apostle writes the second time to the Corinthians:

'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all'; or together with one of their hypostases;

or even is mentioned alone by himself, as has been said in the first book.

But setting out from the disposition of the outcast and rejected Valentinus, who Manichaeized, and who, along with his other absurd mythical fabrications, madly declared the divine Spirit to be a peer in age with the angels, the Macedonians, taking their start from him, say:

'I charge you before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels' — but the Holy Spirit, since he supposedly ranked him with the angels, he passed over in silence.

But this notion of theirs arises from the abundance of their own heart.

...to the Father, since he is by nature His Spirit — for this very reason it is that, at times, God the Father himself was not mentioned in word but was understood in the mind of faith, while the Son and the Holy Spirit were mentioned, or else the reverse was the case.

seeing that Valentinus — though he ought not even to be mentioned — named the sanctifying Spirit 'Paraclete,' just as the Master Christ was also called 'Paraclete' from the fact of being called upon;

and he called those who are sanctified as ministers 'angels.'

Nowhere in Scripture do we find angels mentioned together with God with reference to creation, or the imparting of the mysteries, or doxology.

But Paul, in his second epistle to the Corinthians, has written of the Holy Spirit's communion with the Godhead:

'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit'; and elsewhere:

'If there is any communion of the Spirit.' The sacred psalmist, then, proclaims the distinction of the unbegotten Word and the divine Spirit from the ministering spirits, and that they do not belong to the same order as those, but that the angels were created by these self-complete hypostases, and through them and for their sake — as also through God the Father — and that all things are perfected and sustained in them, in words such as these:

'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.' For by 'word' one must understand him through whom all things came to be, by 'breath of the Lord's mouth' the Holy Spirit, and by 'the powers of the heavens' both the very constitutions of the heavens themselves, and indeed the angels and principalities and authorities and powers.

'Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming fire.' The Apostle also contends against them, crying out:

'We were all made to drink of one Spirit.' For just as it is impossible for the radiance to be separated from the light, and wisdom from the wise one — that is, the Son from the Father —

so too the Holy Spirit cannot be separated from him whose Spirit he is, just as we cannot be separated from that which we breathe.

They have therefore deceived themselves, in that by the very arguments with which they untimely refuse to agree with us, they return to that unshakeable house which stands from the beginning.

— that very house from which they leapt away — and they weave troubles for the Apostle, who, for their sake, bore witness in the words set down by him before both the uncreated nature and the created, in a manner somewhat similar to him who said:

'I have sinned against God and men'; and:

'I call heaven and earth to witness this day'; and:

'Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth.' That he shares, just as in essence, so also in names, with God the Spirit and with his Only-begotten Son; creation has no communion of names with the names spoken of God, just as it has none of nature.

But the Holy Spirit shares in the names of God because he also shares in his nature, except that the Father alone is called Father, because he alone begat in hypostasis, and the Son is Son and not Father of the uncreated nature, because he was truly begotten but did not beget.

as when Scripture also names the Spirit himself 'Lord,' as ruling over all things and sharing in the one kingdom with the Father and the Son;

'Holy,' as being holy by nature himself, and as sanctifying creation;

'incorruptible,' 'good,' 'love,' 'wisdom,' 'understanding,' just as Scripture also styled God;

'power,' from the fact that he empowers;

'righteous,' from the fact that he justifies, being himself sinless in himself;

'Paraclete,' just as also the Son;

'fire,' from the fact that he appeared to the apostles in tongues of fire, just as Moses says concerning the Father:

'Our God is a consuming fire'; and concerning the Son, John says:

'He himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire'; and as many other such things.

That he is one and not many, unlike creatures;

Creation has nothing that exists in a single hypostasis, that is, in one person.

For angels and archangels are many, likewise the Seraphim; the Cherubim are not a single thing; principalities and authorities are spoken of in the plural, as are powers and dominions and thrones;

'heavens' is spoken in the plural, as are men and the rest of the works of creation.

But the Holy Spirit, as not being numbered among creation, the oracles have proclaimed to us to be one and the same.

That, because of his consubstantiality and beginninglessness, he is written to be the water of life, having gone forth from the paternal spring;

Creation is not written to be the water of life;

for it did not have everlasting life of itself, as God does, who lives without beginning.

But that the Holy Spirit is this water of life, the sacred preachers who will be mentioned in what follows below proclaim with praise, as proceeding connaturally from the immortal and life-generating paternal spring, not as being created.

For just as we said in the first book, that light does not bring its own radiance into being as a creature, but begets it, so also here, that the spring does not bring into being as a creature the water that comes from it, but has it welling forth and consubstantial; for no one is the creator of his own self, or of a son, or of a spirit.

since otherwise he would no longer be a father, nor would he have a spirit.

Jeremiah, speaking in the person of God:

the heaven was astonished at this, and the earth shuddered greatly at this;

for my people has done two evil things:

they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold water. The prophet sets forth this mystery in a mystical manner.

For he called God the fountain, and the living water the Holy Spirit, which in the baptismal font cleanses all our sins, and which by its nature cannot be torn away from the intelligible fountain, just as a stream cannot be torn away from its springs.

I will give water in their thirst to those who walk in a waterless place;

I will put my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessings upon your children;

and they shall spring up in the midst of water like grass, and like a willow beside flowing water. And this saying, through hidden things, contains a meaning to be spiritually discerned.

For to those, he says, who happen to be in ignorance of baptism and who therefore walk in a waterless place, I will put my Spirit upon them, which is able to make the baptismal font cause them to flourish again like water-loving plants; and:

like the tree that is planted beside the outlets of the waters;

which shall yield its fruit in its season, and its leaf shall not fall away. And the sacred psalmist, keeping the truth of the matter somewhat veiled in his words on account of necessity, sings in Psalm 35:

for with you is the fountain of life; and in Psalm 147:

he will send forth his word and melt them;

his spirit will blow, and waters will flow, gladdening the great city of God — and this is the whole inhabited world.

for, so to speak, what each city is to men, that the whole inhabited world is to the Almighty.

Baruch, lamenting the people who are in the land of the Chaldeans, who do not have the Holy Spirit, cries out:

What is it with you, Israel, that you are in the land of your enemies? You have grown old in a foreign land, you have been defiled together with the dead, you have been counted among those who go down to Hades.

You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom;

if you had walked in the way of God, you would have dwelt in peace forever — calling God the fountain, and the Holy Spirit wisdom.

John, [recording the words] from the Son to the Samaritan woman:

If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you,

'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water — meaning the immortal streams of the baptismal font of the Holy Spirit.

For that all these things were said concerning the Spirit of God, the evangelist mentioned above interpreted expressly:

for when the Savior said,

if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink;

he who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water — he immediately added:

but this he said concerning the Spirit, which those who believed in him were about to receive. That the Savior was anointed with the Holy Spirit:

But if it were a creature, would the Uncreated One have anointed himself with his own creation? And [it is shown] that we too have his anointing.

creation is anointed with created oil, sanctified through baptism.

but the Savior, as God, was anointed with his own co-uncreated, all-holy Spirit, beyond us who are mere partakers.

For if it were a creature, would the Uncreated One have anointed himself with his own creation? And the witnesses are those set down below:

Isaiah, speaking as from the Savior, says:

...is upon me, because he has anointed me; and David:

therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. Therefore, on what account? Because, being God not made with hands, he was anointed by the uncreated, unoriginate God.

He said 'your God' on account of his birth from the Virgin.

you know the word that came to pass throughout all Judea and Samaria, beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John proclaimed:

Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power; and the Acts also say:

they were gathered together in truth in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. And the Song of Songs likewise sets this forth as follows:

your name is an ointment poured out;

therefore the maidens have loved you. He says that the name of oil/ointment belongs to Christ, [namely] that of the Paraclete,

since both hypostases share in the name, and in themselves give forth the fragrance of the nature of God the Father.

By 'maidens' he means the churches, in which he is glorified, concerning which David also spoke in Psalm 67:

the princes went before, joined with the singers, in the midst of maidens playing timbrels — speaking thus on account of the loud proclamation of the faith, and because they resound to all the earth through readings and psalmodies.

And to each of them, in the Song of Songs, the Bridegroom, beautiful in comeliness, speaks with modesty:

behold, you are beautiful, my beloved; behold, you are beautiful. And again he sings, as it were, a wedding-song:

come from Lebanon, my bride;

you shall come and pass through, from the beginning of faith. And that we too receive an anointing in the renewal [of baptism], John writes in his first epistle:

and you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. Just as, he says, the Savior [was anointed] in the dispensation, so also you have an anointing from the Holy Spirit.

and that this saving gift has been granted to us jointly by the blessed Trinity, [the Scriptures] teach as follows:

and the Lord Sabaoth will make for all the nations on this mountain: they shall drink wine, they shall be anointed with ointment on this mountain;

deliver all these things to the nations. For he foretold 'mountain' [to mean] the church of God, because of the loftiness of its faith; 'wine,' the Master's saving blood; 'ointment,' that with which, once sanctified, we are anointed by the priest.

John, in the same first epistle, concerning Christ says:

and you, the anointing which you received from him abides in you;

and you have no need for anyone to teach you, but as his anointing teaches you concerning all things. And Paul, in the second epistle to the Corinthians:

Now he who establishes us together with you in Christ, and who anointed us, is God, who also sealed us and gave the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts. Concerning the Divine Operations and Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Exceedingly, then, and with great zeal, [treating] the divine and most exalted nature of the Holy Spirit, which is above life and above mind —

the Oracles, having shown it to be equal in rank [to the Father and the Son], also make manifest its most solicitous, divine activity as follows:

That it gives life. That it gives life, as being the Spirit of the God who gives life to all things, according to Paul, the trumpet of the faith, who writes to the Romans:

for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death; and again:

he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in you; and to the Corinthians:

not that we are sufficient of ourselves to reckon anything as from ourselves;

but our sufficiency is from God, who has also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit;

for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. And by 'the letter' he meant the law of Moses, which prescribes:

eye for eye and tooth for tooth, permitting the one who lives without understanding to take vengeance;

but the Holy Spirit of God gives life, having made us to be no longer under law but under grace, and having charged us not to render back

evil for evil, but rather to render good for evil;

for, he says, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; and again to the same [Romans]:

the first Adam became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit; and to the Galatians:

he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life; and according to John, speaking from [the words of] the Savior:

It is the Spirit that gives life. Showing this very thing — and that, together with God, as His Spirit, it will accomplish the resurrection — Ezekiel prophesies:

'Thus says the Lord to these dry bones:'

'Behold, I bring into you the spirit of life, and I will lay sinews upon you, and bring up flesh upon you, and stretch skin over you, and put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and know that I am the Lord.' Life, then, which exists essentially, and the life-giving power, has neither beginning, nor end, nor change.

But that which is not subject to these things is, by nature and in truth, God, inasmuch as it possesses of itself, from its own resources, the very properties peculiar to God the Father.

For nothing created can be the cause of life, or exhibit life in itself.

But all things deprived of the divine Spirit are dead.

'For in Him we live and move and have our being,' as the Acts of the Apostles declared.

For indeed, if all things that come into being are also corruptible, and things that undergo corruption are, in enduring it, deprived of life —

how then could they bestow upon others that of which they themselves stand in need? We, then, are given life by the Holy Spirit, even as by Him who said:

'I am the resurrection and the life.' Note: that, on account of the identity of the Godhead and the equal operation, it is written that Christ, who of His own will suffered in the flesh for our sake, was raised at one time by the Father, at another by Himself, and at another by the Holy Spirit.

And against the heretical exposition:

That, on account of the identity of the Godhead and the one operation, the Scriptures say that, according to the form of a servant, Jesus Christ was raised at one time by the Father, at another by Himself, and at another by the Holy Spirit:

'This one God raised on the third day.' John, from the Savior's own words:

'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.'

Now He spoke this concerning the temple of His body. And again:

'I lay down my life, that I may take it up again.'

'No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself.'

'I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.' Peter, in his first epistle:

'Christ also suffered once for sins on our behalf, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God,'

'being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.' Note: that He both creates and raises from the dead —

and, in the same sense, that to sanctify is to create, and indeed more necessary than to create.

And against the heretical exposition:

That He creates man, that great created being, and raises him from the dead, and gives him life, and returns him to heaven; and that the earth, which had collapsed together with human transgressions, the Holy Spirit renewed and revived again without labor and, as it were, spontaneously, being fellow-creator and equal in operation with God the master-craftsman who had established it in the beginning — as we are granted to know from what these witnesses have made manifest:

'The divine Spirit made me,'

'and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.' David, in Psalm 103 (104):

'You shall send forth your spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.' This the Apostle confirms, writing in his second letter to the Corinthians:

'So that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;'

'the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.' And in Psalm 32 (33):

'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the breath of His mouth all their host.' Do not pass over what can be heard here of itself:

but observe that — as Creator and good God, abiding forever — the Spirit of God bestows lasting friendship upon creation, and has bound it fast with indissoluble bonds, and has made it firm,

unshakeable, and sustains all things by His own power;

and that it is unlawful to call a creature that which creates and empowers God's creatures —

[the Spirit is] consubstantial with God, inasmuch as it is His Spirit and His finger, as was shown in the first book; and, setting this forth mysteriously in Psalm 8, David prophesies:

'When I behold the heavens, the work of your fingers...' And Moses too, in Genesis, speaking on behalf of God the Father to the Son and to His Holy Spirit, says:

'Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let them have dominion over the things on the earth.' For God did not take angels or other spirits as fellow-workers or counselors,

since the servant does not know what his master does. Nor is He ever found to have taken any creature as a partner in the work of creation, as David sings in Psalm 32 (33):

'He who fashions their hearts, each one individually;' and in Psalm 138 (139):

'My bone was not hidden from you, which you made in secret.' And as Paul writes to the Romans:

'For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?' — that is, no one among created things.

For the word 'who,' having so broad a scope, makes this evident.

Now, by not saying 'make ye' but 'let us make,' He showed that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not mere assistants, but of one power and one will;

and by adding 'according to our image and likeness,' that the Trinity is of one and the same essence;

and that this was not said with reference to angels, who possess the image and likeness in a measure incomparably and immeasurably lesser — if indeed it is safe to say even this, speaking after the manner of man, concerning the formless, shapeless, and ineffable Trinity. Wherefore the same recorder of the world's origin added:

'And God made man;'

'according to the image of God He made him;'

'male and female He made them;'

'and He blessed them.' And again:

'God saw that it was good.' In these words is once more mysteriously signified the perfection, the harmony, the ordering beauty, and the utterly ungrudging bounty of the self-complete Trinity that brings creation into being.

Since Moses — or rather God, who spoke inwardly to him — did not consider these things fit for public spectacle and for the multitude,

but rather fit only for as many as were not going to transgress against them.

For 'God made' — that is, the Son — 'man according to the image of God' — that is, of the Father — 'He made him'; and 'God saw' — that is, the Spirit — 'that it was good'; and 'He blessed them' — that is, He sanctified them.

But 'according to the image,' as it seems to me, must be understood thus: that from the divine breathing we have the immortal spirit, and a mind ever running and steering us toward what is needful, and a wise word pleasing to Him who gave it, and able, together with faith, to become the cause of child-bearing, and of life, and of the raising of the dead, and of the removal of mountains;

in addition to these, that we have also become partakers of His goodness.

Then Paul also, as was said a little before:

'He will give life also to our mortal bodies, through His Spirit that dwells in us.' And, writing to the Hebrews and proclaiming that the ages came into being and that creation was established by the Holy Spirit, and calling the Spirit 'the word of God,' as was already mentioned, he writes:

'By faith we understand that the ages were framed by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that appear.' And again:

'upholding all things by the word of His power.' And the Psalmist:

'You have made all things in wisdom' — that is, in your Spirit and your Son.

How, then, is the divine Spirit — inseparable from Him who breathed it forth and from the creating Son — not without beginning, and creator, and God in the proper sense?

[the Spirit] who constructed the ages, together with which the heaven and the things in it, and everything whatsoever is created, were brought forth;

and who bears and governs all things by His own power;

who, from the very moment heaven, earth, and sea came into being, was borne upon the water, making it life-generating and life-nourishing? For just as, because it is said in Job concerning the Son:

'He who alone stretched out the heaven' — does not thereby exclude from the work of creation the Father, from whom are all things and in whom all things consist (for otherwise how could these very statements still be true?) — so likewise it is not right that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of wisdom and power and holiness, should be excluded from being fellow-creator with God.

...of God? And is it not fitting that creation should be recalled to the better, original form of life? For this too is shown by the fact that the Spirit is commemorated together with the Father and the Son, as when the Apostle cries out concerning those who, through regeneration, are expected to be made whole and to enjoy that greatest of all attainments:

'that you may be conformed to the image of Him who created you.' David also prophesies this, in Psalm 101 (102):

'The people who are being created shall praise the Lord.' If, then, He had no communion of essence, lordship, and operation with the Father and with the —

Son, through whom all things came into being, He would not renew and sanctify creation.

Wherefore Christ, together with the all-holy Spirit, after the resurrection, re-creating and sanctifying man who had been corrupted through disobedience, breathed upon the faces of the disciples and said:

'Receive the Holy Spirit' — fulfilling the prophecy of Nahum, which, moved by an uncontainable longing for the immeasurable goodness of the event, describes what was yet to come as though it were already being accomplished:

'He who breathes into your face, and delivers you from affliction, has come up from the earth.' And that to sanctify is also to create — which the divine Spirit is by nature accustomed to do — David bears witness, singing:

'Create in me a clean heart, O God' — that is:

'Sanctify me, that I may be renewed,' having been corrupted by sin:

For how could another heart have been created for him? And he adds to this:

'And renew a right spirit within my inmost parts' — instead of saying:

'Grant me your Spirit who surpasses all things and is worthy of worship, so that,' he says, 'having been shown pure by its sanctification, I may become a temple worthy of it.'

For it is only through the oversight of the Spirit and of your Son that you yourself, Master, make yourself known to us; and we receive healing for all evils, and come to stand in firm hopes of every eternal good.

For it is plain to us that David is asking for it to be renewed in him:

For how could the Spirit already belonging to him be renewed as though it were only now coming upon him? But Scripture, knowing that to sanctify is greater and more necessary than to create, said concerning the pitiable Judas who lost his sanctification:

'It would have been good for that man if he had not been born' — since, it says, he did the most calamitous of all things, betraying the Master though he had suffered no wrong from him, and exchanging his life for pieces of silver.

And indeed, concerning the form of a servant assumed in the ineffable economy, John says:

'And the Word became flesh'; while Paul says:

'He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.' Solomon said:

'Wisdom built a house for herself.' And Matthew, on account of the sameness of the divine nature and activity, set it forth thus:

'Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way:'

'When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.' And the archangel said:

'For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.' And again:

'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;'

'therefore the holy child to be born will also be called the Son of the Most High.' It must be remembered, then, that because of heretical cavils the evangelist placed the genealogy (genesis) before the account of the incarnation, and only afterward the birth (gennesis).

For, mocking our scriptural proofs, they say, in a questioning manner, with feigned innocence:

'Is Christ, then, the son of the Spirit?' — not even faithfully hearing these words, nor that which he himself said to the apostles:

'You do not know of what spirit the Son of Man is.' If, then, because the Father is true God, his activity is for that reason wholly and in every way divine;

since the activity of the Holy Spirit appears equal and like to this, therefore it too is truly God.

And it would be fitting to say the same likewise concerning the Son.

For otherwise, if the Father's activity were better than that of the Son or the Spirit, what then would the Spirit or the Son have accomplished in us at all, since they would be bringing to bear an inferior power — if indeed they are unlike, as the heretics say? But if the fulfilling work of the Son and the Spirit is beneficial and salvific, the Son or the Spirit will in no respect be unlike the Father.

nor has he borrowed from one poorer than himself, nor have we been worked upon in a twofold and dissimilar manner.

And indeed, what sense does it make to call man, for instance, the maker and craftsman of good things or of evil things, and yet say the Spirit is not this? But man does this or that by God's permission:

and from the substance already provided by God he fashions whatever lifeless thing he wishes, yet not the substance itself, as we have already said.

But the Spirit acts with sovereign authority of its own, and brings substance into being out of things that are not, being a fellow-worker and the breath of the Almighty.