Basil: letters, hexaemeron - II. WORKS

12. And it is not only in the case of the theology that the use of the terms varies,72 but whenever one of the terms takes the meaning of the other we find them frequently transferred from the one subject to the other. As, for instance, Adam says, “I have gotten a man through God,”73 meaning to say the same as from God; and in another passage “Moses commanded ... Israel through the word of the Lord,”74 and, again, “Is not the interpretation through God?”75 Joseph, discoursing about dreams to the prisoners, instead of saying “from God” says plainly “through God.” Inversely Paul uses the term “from whom” instead of “through whom,” when he says “made from a woman” (A.V., “of” instead of “through a woman”).76 And this he has plainly distinguished in another passage, where he says that it is proper to a woman to be made of the man, and to a man to be made through the woman, in the words “For as the woman is from [A.V., of] the man, even so is the man also through [A.V., by] the woman.”77 Nevertheless in the passage in question the apostle, while illustrating the variety of usage, at the same time corrects obiter the error of those who supposed that the body of the Lord was a spiritual body,78 and, to shew that the God-bearing79 flesh was formed out of the common lump80 of human nature, gave precedence to the more emphatic preposition.

The phrase “through a woman” would be likely to give rise to the suspicion of mere transit in the generation, while the phrase “of the woman” would satisfactorily indicate that the nature was shared by the mother and the offspring. The apostle was in no wise contradicting himself, but he shewed that the words can without difficulty be interchanged. Since, therefore, the term “from whom” is transferred to the identical subjects in the case of which “through whom” is decided to be properly used, with what consistency can these phrases be invariably distinguished one from the other, in order that fault may be falsely found with true religion?

Chapter VI

Issue joined with those who assert that the Son is not with the Father, but after the Father. Also concerning the equal glory.

13. Our opponents, while they thus artfully and perversely encounter our argument, cannot even have recourse to the plea of ignorance. It is obvious that they are annoyed with us for completing the doxology to the Only Begotten together with the Father, and for not separating the Holy Spirit from the Son. On this account they style us innovators, revolutionizers, phrase-coiners, and every other possible name of insult. But so far am I from being irritated at their abuse, that, were it not for the fact that their loss causes me “heaviness and continual sorrow,”81 I could almost have said that I was grateful to them for the blasphemy, as though they were agents for providing me with blessing. For “blessed are ye,” it is said, “when men shall revile you for my sake.”82 The grounds of their indignation are these: The Son, according to them, is not together with the Father, but after the Father. Hence it follows that glory should be ascribed to the Father “through him,” but not “with him;” inasmuch as “with him” expresses equality of dignity, while “through him” denotes subordination. They further assert that the Spirit is not to be ranked along with the Father and the Son, but under the Son and the Father; not coordinated, but subordinated; not connumerated, but subnumerated.83

With technical terminology of this kind they pervert the simplicity and artlessness of the faith, and thus by their ingenuity, suffering no one else to remain in ignorance, they cut off from themselves the plea that ignorance might demand.

14. Let us first ask them this question: In what sense do they say that the Son is “after the Father;” later in time, or in order, or in dignity? But in time no one is so devoid of sense as to assert that the Maker of the ages84 holds a second place, when no interval intervenes in the natural conjunction of the Father with the Son.85 And indeed so far as our conception of human relations goes,86 it is impossible to think of the Son as being later than the Father, not only from the fact that Father and Son are mutually conceived of in accordance with the relationship subsisting between them, but because posteriority in time is predicated of subjects separated by a less interval from the present, and priority of subjects farther off. For instance, what happened in Noah’s time is prior to what happened to the men of Sodom, inasmuch as Noah is more remote from our own day; and, again, the events of the history of the men of Sodom are posterior, because they seem in a sense to approach nearer to our own day. But, in addition to its being a breach of true religion, is it not really the extremest folly to measure the existence of the life which transcends all time and all the ages by its distance from the present? Is it not as though God the Father could be compared with, and be made superior to, God the Son, who exists before the ages, precisely in the same way in which things liable to beginning and corruption are described as prior to one another?

The superior remoteness of the Father is really inconceivable, in that thought and intelligence are wholly impotent to go beyond the generation of the Lord; and St. Jn has admirably confined the conception within circumscribed boundaries by two words, “In the beginning was the Word.” For thought cannot travel outside “was,” nor imagination87 beyond “beginning.” Let your thought travel ever so far backward you cannot get beyond the “was,” and however you may strain and strive to see what is beyond the Son, you will find it impossible to get further than the “beginning “. True religion, therefore, thus teaches us to think of the Son together with the Father.

15. If they really conceive of a kind of degradation of the Son in relation to the Father, as though He were in a lower place, so that the Father sits above, and the Son is thrust off to the next seat below, let them confess what they mean. We shall have no more to say. A plain statement of the view will at once expose its absurdity. They who refuse to allow that the Father pervades all things do not so much as maintain the logical sequence of thought in their argument. The faith of the sound is that God fills all things;88 but they who divide their up and down between the Father and the Son do not remember even the word of the Prophet: “If I climb up into heaven thou art there; if I go down to hell thou art there also.”89 Now, to omit all proof of the ignorance of those who predicate place of incorporeal things, what excuse can be found for their attack upon Scripture, shameless as their antagonism is, in the passages “Sit thou on my right hand “90 and “Sat down on the right hand of the majesty of God”?91 The expression “right hand” does not, as they contend, indicate the lower place, but equality of relation; it is not understood physically, in which case there might be something sinister about God,92 but Scripture puts before us the magnificence of the dignity of the Son by the use of dignified language indicating the seat of honour. It is left then for our opponents to allege that this expression signifies inferiority of rank. Let them learn that “Christ is the power of God and wisdom of God,”93 and that “He is the image of the invisible God “94 and “brightness of his glory,”95 and that “Him hath God the Father sealed,”96 by engraving Himself on Him.97

Now are we to call these passages, and others like them, throughout the whole of Holy Scripture, proofs of humiliation, or rather public proclamations of the majesty of the Only Begotten, and of the equality of His glory with the Father? We ask them to listen to the Lord Himself, distinctly setting forth the equal dignity of His glory with the Father, in His words, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;”98 and again, “When the Son cometh in the glory of his Father;”99 that they “should honour the Son even as they henour the Father;”100 and, “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father;”101 and “the only begotten God which is in the bosom of the Father.”102 Of all these passages they take no account, and then assign to the Son the place set apart for His foes. A father’s bosom is a fit and becoming seat for a son, but the place of the footstool is for them that have to be forced to fall.103

We have only touched cursorily on these proofs, because our object is to pass on to other points. You at your leisure can put together the items of the evidence, and then contemplate the height of the glory and the preeminence of the power of the Only Begotten. However, to the well-disposed bearer, even these are not insignificant, unless the terms “right hand” and “bosom” be accepted in a physical and derogatory sense, so as at once to circumscribe God in local limits, and invent form, mould, and bodily position, all of which are totally distinct from the idea of the absolute, the infinite, and the incorporeal. There is moreover the fact that what is derogatory in the idea of it is the same in the case both of the Father and the Son; so that whoever repeats these arguments does not take away the dignity of the Son, but does incur the charge of blaspheming the Father; for whatever audacity a man be guilty of against the Son he cannot but transfer to the Father. If he assigns to the Father the upper place by way of precedence, and asserts that the only begotten Son sits below, he will find that to the creature of his imagination attach all the consequent conditions of body. And if these are the imaginations of drunken delusion and phrensied insanity, can it be consistent with true religion for men taught by the Lord himself that “He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father”104 to refuse to worship and glorify with the Father him who in nature, in glory, and in dignity is conjoined with him? What shall we say? What just defence shall we have in the day of the awful universal judgment of all-creation, if, when the Lord clearly announces that He will come “in the glory of his Father;”105 when Stephen beheld Jesus standing at the right hand of God;106 when Paul testified in the spirit concerning Christ “that he is at the right hand of God;”107 when the Father says, “Sit thou on my right hand;”108 when the Holy Spirit bears witness that he has sat down on “the right hand of the majesty”109 of God; we attempt to degrade him who shares the honour and the throne, from his condition ofequality, to a lower state?110 Standing and sitting, I apprehend, indicate the fixity and entire stability of the nature, as Baruch, when he wishes to exhibit the immutability and immobility of the Divine mode of existence, says, “For thou sittest for ever and we perish utterly.”111 Moreover, the place on the right hand indicatesin my judgmentequality of honour. Rash, then, is the attempt to deprive the Son of participation in the doxology, as though worthy only to be ranked in a lower place of honour.

Chapter VII

Against those who assert that it is not proper for “with whom” to be said of the Son, and that the proper hrase is “through whom.”

16. But their contention is that to use the phrase” with him” is altogether strange and unusual, while “through him” is at once most familiar in Holy Scripture, and very common in the language of the brotherhood.112 What is our answer to this? We say, Blessed are the ears that have not heard you and the hearts that have been kept from the wounds of your words. To you, on the other hand, who are lovers of Christ,113 I say that the Church recognizes both uses, and deprecates neither as subversive of the other. For whenever we are contemplating the majesty of the nature of the Only Begotten, and the excellence of His dignity, we bear witness that the glory is with the Father; while on the other hand, whenever we bethink us of His bestowal114 on us of good gifts, and of oar access115 to, and admission into, the household of God,116 we confess that this grace is effected for us through Him and by117 Him.

It follows that the one phrase “with whom” is the proper one to be used in the ascription of glory, while the other, “through whom,” is specially appropriate in giving of thanks. It is also quite untrue to allege that the phrase “with whom” is unfamiliar in the usage of the devout. All those whose soundness of character leads them to hold the dignity of antiquity to be more honourable than mere new-fangled novelty, and who have preserved the tradition of their fathers118 unadulterated, alike in town and in country, have employed this phrase. It is, on the contrary, they who are surfeited with the familiar and the customary, and arrogantly assail the old as stale, who welcome innovation, just as in dress your lovers of display always prefer some utter novelty to what is generally worn. So you may even still see that the language of country folk preserves the ancient fashion, while of these, our cunning experts119 in Iogomachy, the language bears the brand of the new philosophy.

What our fathers said, the same say we, that the glory of the Father and of the Son is common; wherefore we offer the doxology to the Father with the Son. But we do not rest only on the fact that such is the tradition of the Fathers; for they too followed the sense of Scripture, and started from the evidence which, a few sentences back, I deduced from Scripture and laid before you. For “the brightness” is always thought of with “the glory,”120 “the image” with the archetype,121 and the Son always and everywhere together with the Father; nor does even the close connexion of the names, much less the nature of the things, admit of separation.

Chapter VIII

In how many ways “Through whom “is used; and in what sense “with whom” is more suitable. Explanation of how the Son receives a commandment, and how late is sent.

17. When, then, the apostle “thanks God through Jesus Christ,”122 and again says that “through Him” we have “received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations,”123 or “through Him have access unto this grace wherein we stand and rejoice,”124 he sets forth the boons conferred on us by the Son, at one time making the grace of the good gifts pass through from the Father to us, and at another bringing us to the Father through Himself. For by saying “through whom we have received grace and apostleship,”125 he declares the supply of the good gifts to proceed from that source; and again in saying “through whom we have had access,”126 he sets forth our acceptance and being made “of the household of God”127 through Christ. Is then the confession of the grace wrought by Him to usward a detraction from His glory? Is it not truer to say that the recital of His benefits is a proper argument for glorifying Him? It is on this account that we have not found Scripture describing the Lord to us by one name, nor even by such terms alone as are indicative of His godhead and majesty. At one time it uses terms descriptive of His nature, for it recognises the “name which is above every name,”128 the name of Son,129 and speaks of true Son,130 and only begotten God,131 and Power of God,132 and Wisdom,133 and Word.134 Then again, on account of the divers manners135 wherein grace is given to us, which, because of the riches of His goodness,136 according to his manifold137 wisdom, he bestows on them that need, Scripture designates Him by innumerable other titles, calling Him Shepherd,138 King139 Physician,140 Bridegroom,141 Way,142 Door,143 Fountain,144 Bread,145 Axe,146 and Rock.147 And these, titles do not set forth His nature, but, as I have remarked, the variety of the effectual working which, out of His tender-heartedness to His own creation, according to the peculiar necessity of each, He bestows upon them that need. Them that have fled for refuge to His ruling care, and through patient endurance have mended their wayward ways,148 He calls “sheep,” and confesses Himself to be, to them that hear His voice and refuse to give heed to strange teaching, a “shepherd.” For “my sheep, He says, “hear my voice.” To them that have now reached a higher stage and stand in need of righteous royalty,149 He is a King. And in that, through the straight way of His commandments, He leads men to good actions, and again because He safely shuts in all who through faith in Him betake themselves for shelter to the blessing of the higher wisdom,150 He is a Door.So He says, “By me if any man enter in, ... he shall go in and out and shall find pastare.”151 Again, because to the faithful He is a defence strong, unshaken, and harder to break than any bulwark, He is a Rock. Among these titles, it is when He is styled Door, or Way, that the phrase “through Him” is very appropriate and plain. As, however, God and Son, He is glorified with and together with152 the Father, in that “at, the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”153 Wherefore we use both terms, expressing by the one His own proper dignity, and by the other His grace to usward.

18. For “through Him” comes every succour to our souls, and it is in accordance with each kind of care that an appropriate title has been devised. So when He presents to Himself the blameless soul, not having spot or wrinkle,154 like apure maiden, He is called Bridegroom, but whenever He receives one in sore plight from the devil’s evil strokes, healing it in the heavy infirmity of its sins, He is named Physician. And shall this His care for us degrade to meanness oar thoughts of Him? Or, on the contrary, shall it smite us with amazement at once at the mighty power and love to man155 of the Saviour, in that He both endured to suffer with us156 in our infirmities, and was able to come down to our weakness? For not heaven and earth and the great seas, not the creatures that live in the water and on dry land, not plants, and stars, and air, and seasons, not the vast variety in the order of the universe,157 so well sets forth the excellency of His might as that God, being incomprehensible, should have been able, impassibly, through flesh, to have come into close conflict with death, to the end that by His own suffering He might give us the boon of freedom from suffering.158 The apostle, it is true, says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”159 But in a phrase of this kind there is no suggestion of any lowly and subordinate ministry,160 but rather of the succour rendered “in the power of his might.”161 For He Himself has bound the strong man and spoiled his goods,162 that is, us men, whom our enemy had abused in every evil activity, and made “vessels meet for the Master’s use “163 us who have been perfected for every work through the making ready of that part of us which is in our own control.164 Thus we have had our approach to the Father through Him, being translated from “the power of darkness to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”165 We must not, however, regard the oeconomy166 through the Son as a compulsory and subordinate ministration resulting from the low estate of a slave, but rather the voluntary solicitude working effectually for His own creation in goodness and in pity, according to the will of God the Father. For we shall be consistent with true religion if in all that was and is from tithe to time perfected by Him, we both bear witness to the perfection of His power, and in no case put it asunder from the Father’s will. For instance, whenever the Lord is called the Way, we are carried on to a higher meaning, and not to that which is derived from the vulgar sense of the word. We understand by Way that advance167 to perfection which is made stage by stage, and in regular order, through the works of righteousness and” the illumination of knowledge;”168 ever longing after what is before, and reaching forth unto those things which remain,169 until we shall have reached the blessed end, the knowledge of God, which the Lord through Himself bestows on them that have trusted in Him. For our Lord is an essentially good Way, where erring and straying are unknown, to that which is essentially good, to the Father. For “no one,” He says, “cometh to the Father but [“by” A.V.] through me.”170 Such is our way up to God “through the Son.”

19. It will follow that we should next in order point out the character of the provision of blessings bestowed on us by the Father “through him.” Inasmuch as all created nature, both this visible world and all that is conceived of in the mind, cannot hold together without the care and providence of God, the Creator Word, the Only begotten God, apportioning His succour according to the measure of the needs of each, distributes mercies various and manifold on account of the many kinds and characters of the recipients of His bounty, but appropriate to the necessities of individual requirements. Those that are confined in the darkness of ignorance He enlightens: for this reason He is true Light.171 Portioning requital in accordance with the desert of deeds, He judges: for this reason He is righteous Judge.172 “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son.”173 Those that have lapsed from the lofty height of life into sin He raises from their fall: for this reason He is Resurrection.174 Effectually working by the much of His power and the will of His goodness He does all things. He shepherds; He enlightens; He nourishes; He heals; He guides; He raises up; He calls into being things that were not; He upholds what has been created. Thus the good things that come from God reach us “through the Son,” who works in each case with greater speed than speech can utter. For not lightnings, not light’s course in air, is so swift; not eyes’ sharp turn, not the movements of our very thought. Navy by the divine energy is each one of these in speed further surpassed than is the slowest of all living creatures outdone in motion by birds, or even winds, or the rush of the heavenly bodies: or, not to mention these, by our very thought itself. For what extent of time is needed by Him who “upholds all things by the word of His power, “175 and works not by bodily agency, nor requires the help of hands to form and fashion, but holds in obedient following and unforced consent the nature of all things that are? So as Judith says, “Thou hast thought, and what things thou didst determine were ready at hand.”176 On the other hand, and test we should ever be drawn away by the greatness of the works wrought to imagine that the Lord is without beginning,177 what saith the Self-Existent?178 “I live through [by, A.V.] the Father, “179 and the power of God; “The Son hath power [can, A.V.] to do nothing of himself. “180 And the self-complete Wisdom? I received “a commandment what I should say and what I should speak.”181 Through all these words He is guiding us to the knowledge of the Father, and referring our wonder at all that is brought into existence to Him, to the end that “through Him” we may know the Father. For the Father is not regarded from the difference of the operations, by the exhibition of a separate and peculiar energy; for whatsoever things He sees the Father doing, “these also doeth the Son likewise; “182 but He enjoys our wonder at all that comes to pass out of the glory which comes to Him from the Only Begotten, rejoicing in the Doer Himself as well as in the greatness of the deeds, and exalted by all who acknowledge Him as Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, “through whom [by whom, A.V.] are all things, and for whom are all things.”183 Wherefore, saith the Lord, “All mine are thine,”184 as though the sovereignty over created things were conferred on Him, and “Thine are mine,” as though the creating Cause came thence to Him. We are not to suppose that He used assistance in His action, or yet was entrusted with the ministry of each individual work by detailed commission, a condition distinctly menial and quite inadequate to the divine dignity. Rather was the Word full of His Father’s excellences; He shines forth from the Father, and does all things according to the likeness of Him that begat Him. For if in essence He is without variation, so also is He without variation in power.185 And of those whose power is equal, the operation also is in all ways equal. And Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom of God.186 And so “all things are made through [by, A.V.] him,”187 and “all things were created through [by, A.V.] him and for him,”188 not in the discharge of any slavish service, but in the fulfilment of the Father’s will as Creator.

20. When then He says, “I have not spoken of myself,”189 and again, “As the Father said unto me, so I speak,”190 and” The word which ye hear is not mine. but [the Father’s] which sent me,”191 and in another place, “As the Father gave me commandment, even so I do,”192 it is not because He lacks deliberate purpose or power of initiation, nor yet because He has to wait for the preconcerted key-note, that he employs language of this kind. His object is to make it plain that His own will is connected in indissoluble union with the Father. Do not then let us understand by what is called a “commandment” a peremptory mandate delivered by organs of speech, and giving orders to the Son, as to a subordinate, concerning what He ought to do. Let us rather, in a sense befitting the Godhead, perceive a transmission of will, like the reflexion of an object in a mirror, passing without note of time from Father to Son. “For the Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things,”193 so that “all things that the Father hath” belong to the Son, not gradual accruing to Him little by little, but with Him all together and at once. Among men, the workman who has been thoroughly taught his craft, and, through long training, has sure and established experience in it, is able, in accordance with the scientific methods which now he has in store, to work for the future by himself. And are we to suppose that the wisdom of God, the Maker of all creation, He who is eternally perfect, who is wise, without a teacher, the Power of God, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,”194 needs piecemeal instruction to mark out the manner and measure of His operations? I presume that in the vanity of your calculations, you mean to open a school; you will make the one take His seat in the teacher’s place, and the other stand by in a scholars ignorance, gradually learning wisdom and advancing to perfection, by lessons given Him bit by bit. Hence, if you have sense to abide by what logically follows, you will find the Son being eternally taught, nor yet ever able to reach the end of perfection, inasmuch as the wisdom of the Father is infinite, and the end of the infinite is beyond apprehension. It results that whoever refuses to grant that the Son has all things from the beginning will never grant that He will reach perfection. But I am ashamed at the degraded conception to which, by the course of the argument, I have been brought down. Let us therefore revert to the loftier themes of our discussion.

21. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;195 not the express image, nor yet the form, for the divine nature does not admit of combination; but the goodness of the will, which, being concurrent with the essence, is beheld as like and equal, or rather the same, in the Father as in the Son.196

What then is meant by “became subject”?197 What by “delivered him up”?198 It is meant that the Son has it of the Father that He works in goodness on behalf of men. But you must hear too the words, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law;”199 and “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”200

Give careful heed, too, to the words of the Lord, and note how, whenever He instructs us about His Father, He is in the habit of using terms of personal authority, saying,” I will; be thou clean;”201 and “Peace, be still;”202 and “But I say unto you;”203 and “Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee;”204 and all other expressions of the same kind, in order that by these we may recognise our Master and Maker, and by the former may be taught the Father of our Master and Creator.205 Thus on all sides is demonstrated the true doctrine that the fact that the Father creates through the Son neither constitutes the creation of the Father imperfect nor exhibits the active energy of the Son as feeble, but indicates the unity of the will; so the expression “through whom” contains a confession of an antecedent Cause, and is not adopted in objection to the efficient Cause.

Chapter IX

Definitive conceptions about the Spirit which conform to the teaching of the Scriptures.

22. Let us now investigate what are our common conceptions concerning the Spirit, as well those which have been gathered by us from Holy Scripture concerning It as those which we have received from the unwritten tradition of t he Fathers. First of all we ask, who on hearing the titles of the Spirit is not lifted up in soul, who does not raise his conception to the supreme nature? It is called “Spirit of God,”206 “Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father,”207 “right Spirit,”208 “a leading Spirit.”209 Its210 proper and peculiar title is “Holy Spirit;” which is a name specially appropriate to everything that is incorporeal, purely immaterial, and indivisible. So our Lord, when teaching the woman who thought God to be an object of local worship that the incorporeal is incomprehensible, said “God is a spirit.”211 On our hearing, then, of a spirit, it is impossible to form the idea of a nature circumscribed, subject to change and variation, or at all like the creature. We are compelled to advance in our conceptions to the highest, and to think of an intelligent essence, in power infinite, in magnitudeunlimited, unmeasured by times or ages, generous of It’s good gifts, to whom turn all things needing sanctification, after whom reach all things that live in virtue, as being watered by It’s inspiration and helped on toward their natural and proper end; perfecting all other things, but Itself in nothing lacking; living not as needing restoration, but as Supplier of life; not growing by additions; but straightway full, self-established, omnipresent, origin of sanctification, light perceptible to the mind, supplying, as it were, through Itself, illumination to every faculty in the search for truth; by nature un-approachable, apprehended by reason of goodness, filling all things with Its power,212 but communicated only to the worthy; not shared in one measure, but distributing Its energy according to “the proportion of faith;”213 in essence simple, in powers various, wholly present in each and being wholly everywhere; impassively divided, shared without loss of ceasing to be entire, after the likeness of the sunbeam, whose kindly light falls on him who enjoys it as though it shone for him alone, yet illumines land and sea and mingles with the air. So, too, is the Spirit to every one who receives lt, as though given to him alone, and yet It sends forth grace sufficient and full for all mankind, and is enjoyed by all who share It, according to the capacity, not of Its power, but of their nature.

23. Now the Spirit is not brought into intimate association with the soul by local approximation. How indeed could there be a corporeal approach to the incorporeal? This association results from the withdrawal of the passions which, coming afterwards gradually on the soul from its friendship to the flesh, have alienated it from its close relationship with God. Only then after a man is purified from the shame whose stain he took through his wickedness, and has come back again to his natural beauty, and as it were cleaning the Royal Image and restoring its ancient form, only thus is it possible for him to draw near to the Paraclete.214 And He, like the sun, will by the aid of thy purified eye show thee in Himself the image of the invisible, and in the blessed spectacle of the image thou shalt behold the unspeakable beauty of the archetype.215 Through His aid hearts are lifted up, the weak are held by the hand, and they who are advancing are brought to perfection.216 Shining upon those that are cleansed from every spot, He makes them spiritual by fellowship with Himself. Just as when a sunbeam falls on bright and transparent bodies, they themselves become brilliant too, and shed forth a fresh brightness from themselves, so souls wherein the Spirit dwells, illuminated by the Spirit, themselves become spiritual, and send forth their grace to others. Hence comes foreknowledge of the future, understanding of mysteries, apprehension of what is hidden, distribution of good gifts, the heavenly citizenship, a place in the chorus of angels, joy without end, abiding in God, the being made like to God, and, highest of all, the being made God.217 Such, then, to instance a few out of many, are the conceptions concerning the Holy Spirit, which we have been taught to hold concerning His greatness, His dignity, and His operations, by the oracles218 of the Spirit themselves.

Chapter X

Against those who say that it is not right to rank the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son.

24. But we must proceed to attack our opponents, in the endeavour to confute those “oppositions” advanced against us which are derived from “knowledge falsely so-called.”219 )

It is not permissible, they assert, for the Holy Spirit to be ranked with the Father and Son, on account of the difference of His nature and the inferiority of His dignity. Against them it is right to reply in the words of the apostles, “We ought to obey God rather than men,”220

For if our Lord, when enjoining the baptism of salvation, charged His disciples to baptize all nations in the name “of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,”221 not disdaining fellowship with Him, and these men allege that we must not rank Him with the Father and the Son, is it not clear that they openly withstand the commandment of God? If they deny that coordination of this kind is declaratory of any fellowship and conjunction, let them tell us why it behoves us to hold this opinion, and what more intimate mode of conjunction222 they have.


Basil: letters, hexaemeron - II. WORKS