Basil: letters, hexaemeron - II. WORKS
If the Lord did not indeed conjoin the Spirit with the Father anti Himself in baptism, do not223 let them lay the blame of conjunction upon us, for we neither hold nor say anything different. If on the contrary the Spirit is there conjoined with the Father and the Son, and no one is so shameless as to say anything else, then let them not lay blame on us for following the words of Scripture.
25. But all the apparatus of war has been got ready against us; every intellectual missile is aimed at us; and now blasphemers’ tongues shoot and hit and hit again, yet harder than Stephen of old was smitten by the killers of the Christ.224 And do not let them succeed in concealing the fact that, while an attack on us serves for a pretext for the war, the real aim of these proceedings is higher. It is against us, they say, that they are preparing their engines and their snares; against us that they are shouting to one another, according to each one’s strength or cunning, to come on. But the object of attack is faith. The one aim of the whole band of opponents and enemies of “sound doctrine”225 is to shake down the foundation of the faith of Christ by levelling apostolic tradition with the ground, and utterly destroying it. So like the debtors,—of course bona fide debtors.—they clamour for written proof, and reject as worthless the unwritten tradition of the Fathers.226 But we will not slacken in our de fence of the truth. We will not cowardly abandon the cause. The Lord has delivered to us as a necessary and saving doctrine that the Holy Spirit is to be ranked with the Father. Our opponents think differently, and see fit to divide and rend227 asunder, and relegate Him to the nature of a ministering spirit. Is it not then indisputable that they make their own blasphemy more authoritative than the law prescribed by the Lord? Come, then, set aside mere contention. Let us consider the points before us, as follows:
26. Whence is it that we are Christians? Through our faith, would be the universal answer. And in what way are we saved? Plainly because we were regenerate through the grace given in our baptism. How else could we be? And after recognising that this salvation is established through the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, shall we fling away “that form of doctrine”228 which we received? Would it not rather be ground for great groaning if we are found now further off from our salvation “than when we first believed,”229 and deny now what we then received? Whether a man have departed this life without baptism, or have received a baptism lacking in some of the requirements of the tradition, his loss is equal.230 And whoever does not always and everywhere keep to and hold fast as a sure protection the confession which we recorded at our first admission, when, being delivered “from the idols,” we came “to the living Gods”231 constitutes himself a “stranger” from the “promises”232 of God, fighting against his own handwriting,233 which he put on record when he professed the faith. For if to me my baptism was the beginningof life, and that day of regeneration the first of days, it is plain that the utterance uttered in the grace of adoption was the most honourable of all. Can I then, perverted by these men’s seductive words, abandon the tradition which guided me to the light, which bestowed on me the boon of the knowledge of God, whereby I, so long a foe by reason of sin, was made a child of God? But, for myself, I pray that with this confession I may depart hence to the Lord, and them I charge to preserve the faith secure until the day of Christ, and to keep the Spirit undivided from the Father and the Son, preserving, both in the confession of faith and in the doxology, the doctrine taught them at their baptism.
Chapter XI
That they who deny the Spirit are transgressors.
27. “Who hath woe? Who bath sorrow?”234 For whom is distress and darkness? For whom eternal doom? Is it not for the trangressors? For them that deny the faith? And what is the proof of their denial? Is it not that they have set at naught their own confessions? And when and what did they confess? Belief in the Father and in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, when they renounced the devil and his angels, and uttered those saving words. What fit title then for them has been discovered, for the children of light to use? Are they not addressed as transgressors, as having violated the covenant of their salvation? What am I to call the denial of God? What the denial of Christ? What but transgressions? And to him who denies the Spirit, what title do you wish me to apply? Must it not be the same, inasmuch as he has broken his covenant with God? And when the confession of faith in Him secures the blessing of true religion. and its denial subjects men to the doom of godlessness, is it not a fearful thing for them to set the confession at naught, not through fear of fire, or sword, or cross, or scourge, or wheel, or rack, but merely led astray by the sophistry and seductions of the pneumatomachi? I testify to every man who is confessing Christ and denying God, that Christ will profit him nothing;235 to every man that calls upon God but rejects the Son, that his faith is vain;236 to every man that sets aside the Spirit, that his faith in the Father and the Son will be useless, for he cannot even hold it without the presence of the Spirit. For he who does not believe the Spirit does not believe in the Son, and he who has not believed in the Son does not believe in the Father. For none “can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost,”237 and “No man hath seen God at any time, but the only begotten God which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”238
Such an one hath neither part nor lot in the true worship; for it is impossible to worship the Son, save by the Holy Ghost; impossible to call upon the Father, save by the Spirit of adoption.
Chapter XII
Against those who assert that the baptism in the name of the Father alone is sufficient.28. Let no one be misled by the fact of the apostle’s frequently omitting the name of the Father and of the Holy Spirit when making mention of baptism, or on this account imagine that the invocation of the names is not observed. “As many of you,” he says, “as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ;”239 and again, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death.”240 For the naming of Christ is the confession of the whole,241 shewing forth as it does the God who gave, the Son who received, and the Spirit who is, the unction.242 So we have learned from Peter, in the Acts, of “Jesusof Nazareth whom God anointed with the Holy Ghost;243 and in Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me;”244 and the Psalmist, “Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”245 Scripture, however, in the case of baptism, sometimes plainly mentions the Spirit alone.246
“For into one Spirit,”247 it says, “we were. all baptized in248 one body.” And in harmony with this are the passages: “You shaft be baptized with the Holy Ghost,”249 and “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.”250 But no one on this account would be justified in calling that baptism a perfect baptism wherein only the name of the Spirit was invoked. For the tradition that has been given us by the quickening grace must remain for ever inviolate. He who redeemed our life from destruction251 gave us power of renewal, whereof the cause is ineffable and hidden in mystery, but bringing great salvation to our souls, so that to add or to take away anything252 involves manifestly a falling away from the life everlasting. If then in baptism the separation of the Spirit from the Father and the Son is perilous to the baptizer, and of no advantage to the baptized, how can the rending asunder of the Spirit from Father and from Son be safe for us?253 Faith and baptism are two kindred and inseparable ways of salvation: faith is perfected through baptism, baptism is established through faith, and both are completed by the same names. For as we believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, so are we also baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; first comes the confession, introducing us to salvation, and baptism follows, setting the seal upon our assent.
Chapter XIII
Statement of the reason why in the writings of Paul the angels are associated with the Father and the Son.
29. It is, however, objected that other beings which are enumerated with the Father and the Son are certainly not always glorified together with them. The apostle, for instance, in his charge to Timothy, associates the angels with them in the words, “I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels.”254 We are not for alienating the angels from the rest of creation, and yet, it is argued, we do not allow of their being reckoned with the Father and the Son. To this I reply, although the argument, so obviously absurd is it, does not really deserve a reply, that possibly before a mild and gentle judge, and especially before One who by His leniency to those arraigned before Him demonstrates the unimpeachable equity of His decisions, one might be willing to offer as witness even a fellow-slave; but for a slave to be made free and called a son of God and quickened from death can only be brought about by Him who has acquired natural kinship with us, and has been changed from the rank of a slave. For how can we be made kin with God by one who is an alien? How can we be freed by one who is himself under the yoke of slavery? It follows that the mention of the Spirit and that of angels are not made under like conditions. The Spirit is called on as Lord of life, and the angels as allies of their fellow-slaves and faithful witnesses of the truth. It is customary for the saints to deliver the commandments of God in the presence of witnesses, as also the apostle himself says to Timothy, “The things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men;”255 and now he calls the angels to witness, for he knows that angels shall be present with the Lord when He shall come in the glory of His Father to judge the world in righteousness. For He says, “Whoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God, but he that denieth Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God;”256 and Paul in another place says,” When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his angels.”257 Thus he already testifies before the angels, preparing good proofs for himself at the great tribunal.
30. And not only Paul, but generally all those to whom is committed any ministry of the word, never cease from testifying, but call heaven and earth to witness on the ground that now every deed that is done is done within them, and that in the examination of all the actions of life they will be present with the judged. So it is said, “He shall call to tile heavens above and to earth, that he may judge his people.”258 And so Moses when about to deliver his oracles to the people says, “I call heaven and earth to witness this day;”259 and again in his song he says, “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak, and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth;”260 and Isaiah, “Hear, O heavens. and give ear, O earth;”261 and Jeremiah describes astonishment in heaven at the tidings of the unholy deeds of the people: “The heaven was astonished at this, and was horribly afraid, because my people committed two evils.”262 And so the apostle, knowing the angels to be set over men astutors and guardians, calls them to witness. Moreover, Joshua, the son of Nun, even set up a stone as witness of his words (already a heap somewhere had been called a witness by Jacob),263 for he says, “Behold this stone shall be a witness unto you this day to the end of days, when ye lie to tile Lord our God,”264 perhaps believing that by God’s power even the stones would speak to the conviction of the transgressors; or, if not, that at least each man’s conscience would be wounded by the force of the reminder. In this manner they who have been entrusted with the stewardship of souls provide witnesses, whatever they may be, so as to produce them at some future day. But the Spirit is ranked together with God, not on account of the emergency of the moment, but on account of the natural fellowship; is not dragged in by us, but invited by the Lord.
Chapter XIV
Objection that some were baptized unto Moses and believed in him, and an answer to it; with remarks upon types.
31). But even if some are baptized unto the Spirit, it is not, it is urged, on this account right for the Spirit to be ranked with God. Some “were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.”265 And it is admitted that faith even before now has been put in men; for “The people believed God and his servant Moses.”266 Why then, it is asked, do we, on account of faith and of baptism, exalt and magnify the Holy Spirit so far above creation, when there is evidence that the same things have before now been said of men? What, then, shall we reply? Our answer is that the faith in the Spirit is the same as the faith in the Father and the Son; and in like manner, too, the baptism. But the faith in Moses and in the cloud is, as it were, in a shadow and type. The nature of the divine is very frequently represented by the rough and shadowy outlines267 of the types;but because divine things are prefigured by small and human things, it is obvious that we must not therefore conclude the divine nature to be small. The type is an exhibition of things expected, and gives an imitative anticipation of the future. So Adam was a type of“Him that was to come.”268 Typically, “That rock was Christ;”269 and the water a type of the living power of the word; as He says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.”270 The manna is a type of the living bread that came down from heaven;271 and the serpent on the standard,272 of the passion of salvation accomplished by means of the cross, wherefore they who even looked thereon were preserved. So in like manner, the history of the exodus of Israel is recorded to shew forth those who are being saved through baptism. For the firstborn of the Israelites were preserved, like the bodies of the baptized, by the giving of grace to them that were marked with blood. For the blood of the sheep is a type of the blood of Christ; and the firstborn, a type of the first-formed. And inasmuch as the first-formed of necessity exists in us, and, in sequence of succession, is transmitted till the end, it follows that “in Adam” we “all die,”273 and that “death reigned”274 until the fulfilling of the law and the coming of Christ. And the firstborn were preserved by God from being touched by the destroyer, to show that we who were made alive in Christ no longer die in Adam. The sea and the cloud for the time being led on through amazement to faith, but for the time to come they typically prefigured the grace to be. “Who is wise and he shall understand these things?”275 —how the sea is typically a baptism bringing about the departure of Pharaoh. in like manner as this washing causes the departure of the tyranny of the devil. The sea slew the enemy in itself: and in baptism too dies our enmity towards God. From the sea the people came out unharmed: we too, as it were, alive from the dead, step up from the water “saved” by the “grace” of Him who called us.276 And the cloud is a shadow of the gift of the Spirit, who cools the flame of our passions by the “mortification” of our“members.”277
32. What then? Because they were typically baptized unto Moses, is the grace of baptism therefore small? Were it so, and if we were in each ease to prejudice the dignity of our privileges by comparing them with their types, not even one of these privileges could be reckoned great; then not the love of God, who gave His only begotten Son for our sins, would be great and extraordinary, because Abraham did not spare his own son;278 then even the passion of the Lord would not be glorious, because a sheep typified the offering instead of Isaac; then the descent into hell was not fearful, because Jonah had previously typified the death in three days and three nights. The same prejudicial comparison is made also in the case of baptism by all who judge of the reality by the shadow, and, comparing the typified with the type, attempt by means of Moses and the sea to disparage at once the whole dispensation of the Gospel. What remission of sins, what renewal of life, is there in the sea? What spiritual gift is there through Moses? What dying279 of sins is there? Those men did not die with Christ; wherefore they were not raised with Him.280 They did not “bear the image of the heavenly;”281 they did “bear about in the body the dying of Jesus;”282 they did not “put off the old man;” they did not “put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him which created him.”283 Why then do you compare baptisms which have only the name in common, while the distinction between the things themselves is as great as might be that of dream and reality, that of shadow and figures with substantial existence?
33. But belief in Moses not only does not show our belief in the Spirit to be worthless. but, if we adopt our opponents’ line of argument, it rather weakens our confession in the God of the universe. “The people,” it is written, “believed the Lord and his servant Moses.”284 Moses then is joined with God, not with the Spirit; and he was a type not of the Spirit, but of Christ. For at that time in the ministry of the law, he by means of himself typified “the Mediator between God and men.”285 Moses, when mediating for the people in things pertaining to God, was not a minister of the Spirit; for the law was given, “ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator,”286 namely Moses, in accordance with the summons of the people, “Speak thou with us, ...but let not God speak with us.”287 Thus faith in Moses is referred to the Lord, the Mediator between God and men, who said, “Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me.”288 Is then our faith in the Lord a trifle, because it was signified beforehand through Moses? So then, even if men were baptized unto Moses, it does not follow that the grace given of the Spirit in baptism is small. I may point out, too, that it is usual in Scripture to say Moses and the law,289 as in the passage, “They have Moses and the prophets.”290 When therefore it is meant to speak of the baptism of the law, the words are, “They were baptized unto Moses.”291 Why then do these calumniators of the truth, by means of the shadow and the types, endeavour to bring contempt and ridicule on the “rejoicing” of our “hope,”292 and the rich gift of our God and Saviour, who through regeneration renews our youth like the eagle’s?293 Surely it is altogether childish, and like a babe who must needs be fed on milk,294 to be ignorant of the great mystery of our salvation; inasmuch as, in accordance with the gradual progress of our education, while being brought to perfection in our training for godliness,295 we were first taught elementary and easier lessons, suited to our intelligence, while the Dispenser of our lots was ever leading us up, by gradually accustoming us, like eyes brought up in the dark, to the great light of truth. For He spares our weakness, and in the depth of the riches296 of His wisdom, and the inscrutable judgments of His intelligence, used this gentle treatment, fitted for our needs, gradually accustoming us to see first the shadows of objects, and to look at the sun in water, to save us from dashing against the spectacle of pure unadulterated light, and being blinded. Just so the Law, having a shadow of things to come, and the typical teaching of the prophets, which is a dark utterance of the truth, have been devised means to train the eyes of the heart, in that hence the transition to the wisdom hidden in mystery297 will be made easy. Enough so far concerningtypes; nor indeed would it be possible to linger longer on this topic, or the incidental discussion would become many times bulkier than the main argument.
Chapter XV
Reply to the suggested objection that we are baptized “into water.” Also concerning baptism.
34). What more? Verily, our opponents are well equipped with arguments. We arebaptized, they urge, into water, and of course we shall not honour the water above all creation, or give it a share of the honour of the Father and of the Son. The arguments of these men are such as might be expected from angry disputants, leaving no means untried in their attack on him who has offended them, because their reason is clouded over by their feelings. We will not, however, shrink from the discussion even of these points. If we do not teach the ignorant, at least we shall not turn away before evil doers.But let us for a moment retrace our steps.
35. The dispensation of our God and Saviour concerning man is a recall from the fall and a return from the alienation caused by disobedience to close communion with God. This is the mason for the sojourn of Christ in the flesh, the pattern life described in the Gospels, the sufferings, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection; so that the man who is being saved through imitation of Christ receives that old adoption. For perfection of life the imitation of Christ is necessary, not only in the example of gentleness,298 lowliness, and long suffering set us in His life, but also of His actual death. So Paul, the imitator of Christ,299 says, “being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.”300 How then are we made in the likeness of His death?301 In that we were buried302 with Him by baptism. What then is the manner of the burial? And what is the advantage resulting from the imitation? First of all, it is necessary that the continuity of the old life be cut. And this is impossible less a man be born again, according to the Lord’s word;303 for the regeneration, as indeed the name shews, is a beginning of a second life. So before beginning the second, it is necessary to put an end to the first. For just as in the case of runners who turn and take the second course,304 a kind of halt and pause intervenes between the movements in the opposite direction, so also inmaking a change in lives it seemed necessary for death to come as mediator between the two, ending all that goes before, and beginning all that comes after. How then do we achieve the descent into hell? By imitating, through baptism, the burial of Christ. For the bodies of the baptized are, as it were, buried in the water. Baptism then symbolically signifies the putting off of the works of the flesh; as the apostle says, ye were “circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; buried with him in baptism.” And there is, as it were, a cleansing of the soul from the filth305 that has grown on it from the carnal mind,306 as it is written, “Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”307 On this account we do not, as is the fashion of the Jews, wash ourselves at each defilement, but own the baptism of salvation308 to be one.309 For there the death on behalf of the world is one, and one the resurrection of the dead, whereof baptism is a type. For this cause the Lord, who is the Dispenser of our life, gave us the covenant of baptism, containing a type of life and death, for the water fulfils the image of death, and the Spirit gives us the earnest of life. Hence it follows that the answer to our question why the water was associated with the Spirit310 is clear: the reason is because in baptism two ends were proposed; on the one hand, the destroying of the body of sin,311 that it may never bear fruit unto death;312 on the other hand, our living unto the Spirit,313 and having our fruit in holiness;314 the water receiving the body as in a tomb figures death, while the Spirit pours in the quickening power, renewing our souls from the deadness of sin unto their original life. This then is what it is to be born again of water and of the Spirit, the being made dead being effected in the water, while our life is wrought in us through the Spirit. In three immersions,315 then, and with three invocations, the great mystery of baptism is performed, to the end that the type of death may be fully figured, and that by the tradition of the divine knowledge the baptized may have their souls enlightened. It follows that if there is any grace in the water, it is not of the nature of the water, but of the presence of the Spirit. For baptism is “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God.”316 So in training us for the life that follows on the resurrection the Lord sets out all the manner of life required by the Gospel, laying down for us the law of gentleness, of endurance of wrong, of freedom from the defilement that comes of the love of pleasure, and from covetousness, to the end that we may of set purpose win beforehand and achieve all that the life to come of its inherent nature possesses. If therefore any one in attempting a definition were to describe the gospel as a forecast of the life that follows on the resurrection, he would not seem to me to go beyond what is meet and right. Let us now return to our main topic.
36. Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise, our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our return to the adoption of sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory, and, in a word, our being brought into a state of all “fulness of blessing,”317 both in this world and in the world to come, of all the good gifts that are in store for us, by promise hereof, through faith, beholding the reflection of their grace as though they were already present, we await the full enjoyment. If such is the earnest, what the perfection? If such the first fruits, what the complete fulfilment? Furthermore, from this too may be apprehended the difference between the grace that comes from the Spirit and the baptism by water: in that Jn indeed baptized with water, but our Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost. “I indeed,” he says, “baptize you with water unto repentance; but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”318 Here He calls the trial at the judgment the baptism of fire, as the apostle says, “The fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is.”319 And again, “The day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire.”320 And ere now there have been some who in their championship of true religion have undergone the death for Christ’s sake, not in mere similitude, but in actual fact, and so have needed none of the outward signs of water for their salvation, because they were baptized in their own blood.321 Thus I write not to disparage the baptism by water, but to overthrow the arguments322 of those who exalt themselves against the Spirit; who confound things that are distinct from one another, and compare those which admit of no comparison.
Chapter XVI
That the Holy Spirit is in every conception separable from the Father and the Son, alike in the creation of perceptible objects, in the dispensation of human affairs, and in the judgment to came.
37). Let us then revert to the point raised from the outset, that in all things the Holy Spirit is inseparable and wholly incapable of being parted from the Father and the Son. St. Paul, in the passage about the gift of tongues, writes to the Corinthians, “If ye all prophesy and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all; and thus are the secrets of the heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth.”323 If then God is known to be in the prophets by the prophesying that is acting according to the distribution of the gifts of the Spirit, let our adversaries consider what kind of place they will attribute to the Holy Spirit. Let them say whether it is more proper to rank Him with God or to thrust Him forth to the place of the creature. Peter’s words to Sapphira, “How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Ye have not lied unto men, but unto God,”324 show that sins against the Holy Spirit and against God are the same; and thus you might learn that in every operation the Spirit is closely conjoined with, and inseparable from, the Father and the Son. God works the differences of operations, and the Lord the diversities of administrations, but all the while the Holy Spirit is present too of His own will, dispensing distribution of the gifts according to each recipient’s worth. For, it is said, “there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and differences of administrations, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.”325 “But all these,” it is said, “worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.”326 It must not however be supposed because in this passage the apostle names in the first place the Spirit, in the second the Son, and in the third God the Father, that therefore their rank is reversed. The apostle has only started in accordance with our habits of thought; for when we receive gifts, the first that occurs to us is the distributer, next we think of the sender, and then we lift our thoughts to the fountain and cause of the boons.
38. Moreover, from the things created at the beginning may be learnt the fellowship of the Spirit with the Father and the Son. The pure, intelligent, and supermundane powers are and are styled holy, because they have their holiness of the grace given by the Holy Spirit. Accordingly the mode of the creation of the heavenly powers is passed over in Silence, for the historian of the cosmogony has revealed to us only the creation of things perceptible by sense. But do thou, who hast power from the things that are seen to form an analogy of the unseen, glorify the Maker by whom all things were made, visible and invisible, principalities and powers, authorities, thrones, and dominions, and all other reasonable natures whom we cannot name.327 And in the creation bethink thee first, I pray thee, of the original cause of all things that are made, the Father; of the creative cause, the Son; of the perfecting cause, the Spirit; so that the ministering spirits subsist by the will of the Father, are brought into being by the operation of the Son, and perfected by the presence of the Spirit. Moreover, the perfection of angels is sanctification and continuance in it. And let no one imagine me either to affirm that there are three original hypostases328 or to allege the operation of the Son to be imperfect. For the first principle of existing things is One, creating through the Son and perfecting through the Spirit.329 The operation of the Father who worketh all in all is not imperfect, neither is the creating work of the Son incomplete if not perfected by the Spirit. The Father, who creates by His sole will, could not stand in any need of the Son, but nevertheless He wills through the Son; nor could the Son, who works according to the likeness of the Father, need co-operation, but the Son too wills to make perfect through the Spirit. “For by the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath [the Spirit] of His mouth.”330 The Word then is not a mere significant impression on the air, borne by the organs of speech; nor is the Spirit of His mouth a vapour, emitted by the organs of respiration; but the Word is He who “was with God in the beginning” and “was God,”331 and the Spirit of the mouth of God is “the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father.”332 You are therefore to perceive three, the Lord who gives the order, the Word who creates,and the Spirit who confirms.333 And what other thing could confirmation be than the perfecting according to holiness? This perfectingexpresses the confirmation’s firmness,unchangeableness,and fixity in good. But there is no sanctification without the Spirit. The powers of the heavens are not holy by nature; were it so there would in this respect be no difference between them and the Holy Spirit. It is in proportion to their relative excellence that they have their meed of holiness from the Spirit. The branding-iron is conceived of together with the fire; and yet the material and the fire are distinct. Thus too in the case of the heavenly powers; their substance is, peradventure, an aerial spirit, or an immaterial fire, as it is written, “Who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire;”334 wherefore they exist in space and become visible, and appear in their proper bodily form to them that are worthy. But their sanctification, being external to their substance, superinduces their perfection through the communion of the Spirit. They keep their rank by their abiding in the good and true, and while they retain their freedom of will, never fall away from their patient attendance on Him who is truly good. It results that, if by your argument you do away with the Spirit, the hosts of the angels are disbanded, the dominions of archangels are destroyed, all is thrown into confusion, and their life loses law, order, and distinctness. For how are angels to cry “Glory to God in the highest”335 without being empowered by the Spirit? For “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost, and no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed;”336 as might be said by wicked and hostile spirits, whose fall establishes our statement of the freedom of the will of the invisible powers; being, as they are, in a condition of equipoise between virtue and vice, and on this account needing the succour of the Spirit. I indeed maintain that even Gabriel337 in no other way foretells events to come than by the foreknowledge of the Spirit, by reason of the fact that one of the boons distributed by the Spirit is prophecy. And whence did he who was ordained to announce the mysteries of the vision to the Man of Desires338 derive the wisdom whereby he was enabled to teach hidden things, if not from the Holy Spirit? The revelation of mysteries is indeed the peculiar function of the Spirit, as it is written, “God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.”339 And how could “thrones, dominions, principalities and powers”340 live their blessed life, did they not “behold the face of the Father which is in heaven”?341 But to behold it is impossible without the Spirit! Just as at night, if you withdraw the light from the house, the eyes fall blind and their faculties become inactive, and the worth of objects cannot be discerned, and gold is trodden on in ignorance as though it were iron, so in the order of the intellectual world it is impossible for the high life of Law to abide without the Spirit. For it so to abide were as likely as that an army should maintain its discipline in the absence of its commander, or a chorus its harmony without the guidance of the coryphaeus. How could the Seraphim cry“Holy, Holy, Holy,”342 were they not taught by the Spirit how often true religion requires them to lift their voice in this ascription of glory? Do “all His angels” and “all His hosts”343 praise God? It is through the co-operation of the Spirit. Do “thousand thousand” of angels stand before Him, and“ten thousand times ten thouSand” ministering spirits?344 They are blamelessly doing their proper work by the power of the Spirit. All the glorious and unspeakable harmony345 of the highest heavens both in the service of God, and in the mutual concord of the celestial powers, can therefore only be preserved by the direction of the Spirit. Thus with those beings who are not gradually perfected by increase and advance,346 butare perfect from the moment of the creation, there is in creation the presence of the Holy Spirit, who confers on them the grace that flows from Him for the completion and perfection of their essence.347
39. But when we speak of the dispensations made for man by our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ,348 who will gainsay their having been accomplished through the grace of the Spirit? Whether you wish to examine ancient evidence;—the blessings of the partriarchs, the succour given through the legislation, the types, the prophecies, the valorous feats in war, the signs wrought through just men;—or on the other hand the things done in the dispensation of the coming of our Lord in the flesh;—all is through the Spirit. In the first place He was made an unction, and being inseparably present was with the very flesh of the Lord, according to that which is written, “Upon whom thou shall see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, the same is”349 “my beloved Son;”350 and “Jesus of Nazareth” whom “God anointed with the Holy Ghost.”351 After this every operation was wrought with the co-operation of the Spirit. He was present when the Lord was being tempted by the devil; for, it is said, “Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted.”352 He was inseparably with Him while working His wonderful works;353 for, it is said, “If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils.”354 And He did not leave Him when He had risen from the dead; for when renewing man, and, by breathing on the face of the disciples,355 restoring the grace, that came of the inbreathing of God, which man had lost, what did the Lord say.? “Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever ye retain, they are retained.”356 And is it not plain and incontestable that the ordering of the Church is effected through the Spirit? For He gave, it is said, “in the church, first Apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues,”357 for this order is ordained in accordance with the division of the girls that are of the Spirit.358
40. Moreover by any one who carefully uses his reason it will be found that even at the moment of the expected appearance of the Lord from heaven the Holy Spirit will not, as some suppose, have no functions to discharge: on the contrary, even in the day of His revelation, in which the blessed and only potentate359 will judge the world in righteousness,360 the Holy Spirit will be present with Him. For who is so ignorant of the good things prepared by God for them that are worthy. as not to know that the crown of the righteous is the grace of the Spirit, bestowed in more abundant and perfect measure in that day, when spiritual glory shall be distributed to each in proportion as he shall have nobly played the man? For among the glories of the saints are “many mansions” in the Father’s house,361 that is differences of dignities: for as “star differeth from star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead.”362 They, then, that were sealed by the Spirit unto the day of redemption,363 and preserve pure anti undiminished the first fruits which they received of the Spirit, are they that shall hear the words“well done thou good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things.”364 In like manner they which have grieved the Holy Spirit by the wickedness of their ways, or have not wrought for Him that gave to them, shall be deprived of what they have received, their grace being transferred to others; or, according to one of the evangelists, they shall even be wholly cut asunder,365 —the cutting asunder meaning complete separation from the Spirit. The body is not divided, part being delivered to chastisement, and part let off; for when a whole has sinned it were like the old fables, and unworthy of a righteous judge, for only the half to suffer chastisement. Nor is the soul cut in two,—that soul the whole of which possesses the sinful affection throughout, and works the wickedness in co-operation with the body. The cutting asunder, as I have observed, is the separation for aye of the soul from the Spirit. For now, although the Spirit does not suffer admixture with the unworthy, He nevertheless does seem in a manner to be present with them that have once been sealed, awaiting the salvation which follows on their conversion; but then He will be wholly cut off from the soul that has defiled His grace. For this reason “In Hell there is none that maketh confession; in death none that remembereth God,”366 because the succour of the Spirit is no longer present. How then is it possible to conceive that the judgment is accomplished without the Holy Spirit, wherein the word points out that He is Himself the prize367 of the righteous, when instead of the earnest368 is given that which is perfect, and the first condemnation of sinners, when they are deprived of that which they seem to have? But the greatest proof of the conjunction of the Spirit with the Father and the Son is that He is said to have the same relation to God which the spirit in us has to each of us. “For what man” it is said, “knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.”369
On this point I have said enough.
Chapter XVII
Against those who say that the Holy Ghost isnot to be numbered with, but numbered under, the Father and the Son. Wherein moreover there is a summary notice of the faith concerning right sub-numeration.
Basil: letters, hexaemeron - II. WORKS