This is my second attempt to attack the text. If any one has a better interpretation to give, and can consistently with true religion amend what I say, let him speak and let him amend, and the Lord will reward him for me. There is no jealousy in my heart. I have not approached this investigation of these passages for strife and vain glory. I have done so to help my brothers, lest the earthen vessels which hold the treasure of God should seem to be deceived by stony-hearted and uncircumcised men, whose weapons are the wisdom of folly.

8. Again, as is said through Solomon the Wise in the Proverbs, He was created; and He is named Beginning of ways of good news, which lead us to the kingdom of heaven. He is not in essence and substance a creature, but is made a way according to the œconomy. Being made and being created signify the same thing. As He was made a way, so was He made a door, a shepherd, an angel, a sheep, and again a High Priest and an Apostle, the names being used in other senses. What again would the heretics say about God unsubjected, and about His being made sin for us? For it is written But when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him. Are you not afraid, sir, of God called unsubjected? For He makes your subjection His own; and because of your struggling against goodness He calls himself unsubjected. In this sense too He once spoke of Himself as persecuted — Saul, Saul, He says, why do you persecute me? on the occasion when Saul was hurrying to Damascus with a desire to imprison the disciples. Again He calls Himself naked, when any one of his brethren is naked. I was naked, He says, and you clothed me; and so when another is in prison He speaks of Himself as imprisoned, for He Himself took away our sins and bare our sicknesses. Now one of our infirmities is not being subject, and He bare this. So all the things which happen to us to our hurt He makes His own, taking upon Him our sufferings in His fellowship with us.

9. But another passage is also seized by those who are fighting against God to the perversion of their hearers: I mean the words The Son can do nothing of Himself. To me this saying too seems distinctly declaratory of the Son’s being of the same nature as the Father. For if every rational creature is able to do anything of himself, and the inclination which each has to the worse and to the better is in his own power, but the Son can do nothing of Himself, then the Son is not a creature. And if He is not a creature, then He is of one essence and substance with the Father. Again; no creature can do what he likes. But the Son does what He wills in heaven and in earth. Therefore the Son is not a creature. Again; all creatures are either constituted of contraries or receptive of contraries. But the Son is very righteousness, and immaterial. Therefore the Son is not a creature, and if He is not a creature, He is of one essence and substance with the Father.

10. This examination of the passages before us is, so far as my ability goes, sufficient. Now let us turn the discussion on those who attack the Holy Spirit, and cast down every high thing of their intellect that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. You say that the Holy Ghost is a creature. And every creature is a servant of the Creator, for all are your servants. If then He is a servant, His holiness is acquired; and everything of which the holiness is acquired is receptive of evil; but the Holy Ghost being holy in essence is called fount of holiness. Therefore the Holy Ghost is not a creature. If He is not a creature, He is of one essence and substance with the Father. How, tell me, can you give the name of servant to Him Who through your baptism frees you from your servitude? The law, it is said, of the Spirit of life has made me free from the law of sin. But you will never venture to call His nature even variable, so long as you have regard to the nature of the opposing power of the enemy, which, like lightning, is fallen from heaven and fell out of the true life because its holiness was acquired, and its evil counsels were followed by its change. So when it had fallen away from the Unity and had cast from it its angelic dignity, it was named after its character Devil, its former and blessed condition being extinct and this hostile power being kindled.

Furthermore if he calls the Holy Ghost a creature he describes His nature as limited. How then can the two following passages stand? The Spirit of the Lord fills the world; and Whither shall I go from your Spirit? But he does not, it would seem, confess Him to be simple in nature; for he describes Him as one in number. And, as I have already said, everything that is one in number is not simple. And if the Holy Spirit is not simple, He consists of essence and sanctification, and is therefore composite. But who is mad enough to describe the Holy Spirit as composite, and not simple, and consubstantial with the Father and the Son?

11. If we ought to advance our argument yet further, and turn our inspection to higher themes, let us contemplate the divine nature of the Holy Spirit specially from the following point of view. In Scripture we find mention of three creations. The first is the evolution from non-being into being. The second is change from the worse to the better. The third is the resurrection of the dead. In these you will find the Holy Ghost cooperating with the Father and the Son. There is a bringing into existence of the heavens; and what says David? By the word of the Lord were the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth. Again, man is created through baptism, for if any man be in Christ he is a new creature. And why does the Saviour say to the disciples, Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost? Here too you see the Holy Ghost present with the Father and the Son. And what would you say also as to the resurrection of the dead when we shall have failed and returned to our dust? Dust we are and unto dust we shall return. And He will send the Holy Ghost and create us and renew the face of the earth. For what the holy Paul calls resurrection David describes as renewal. Let us hear, once more, him who was caught into the third heaven. What does he say? You are the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you. Now every temple is a temple of God, and if we are a temple of the Holy Ghost, then the Holy Ghost is God. It is also called Solomon’s temple, but this is in the sense of his being its builder. And if we are a temple of the Holy Ghost in this sense, then the Holy Ghost is God, for He that built all things is God. If we are a temple of one who is worshipped, and who dwells in us, let us confess Him to be God, for you shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. Supposing them to object to the word God, let them learn what this word means. God is called Θεὸς either because He placed (τεθεικέναι) all things or because He beholds (Θεᾶσθαι) all things. If He is called Θεὸς because He placed or beholds all things, and the Spirit knows all the things of God, as the Spirit in us knows our things, then the Holy Ghost is God. Again, if the sword of the spirit is the word of God, then the Holy Ghost is God, inasmuch as the sword belongs to Him of whom it is also called the word. Is He named the right hand of the Father? For the right hand of the Lord brings mighty things to pass; and your right hand, O Lord, has dashed in pieces the enemy. But the Holy Ghost is the finger of God, as it is said if I by the finger of God cast out devils, of which the version in another Gospel is if I by the Spirit of God cast out devils. So the Holy Ghost is of the same nature as the Father and the Son.

12. So much must suffice for the present on the subject of the adorable and holy Trinity. It is not now possible to extend the enquiry about it further. Take seeds from a humble person like me, and cultivate the ripe ear for yourselves, for, as you know, in such cases we look for interest. But I trust in God that you, because of your pure lives, will bring forth fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold. For, it is said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And, my brethren, entertain no other conception of the kingdom of the heavens than that it is the very contemplation of realities. This the divine Scriptures call blessedness. For the kingdom of heaven is within you.

The inner man consists of nothing but contemplation. The kingdom of the heavens, then, must be contemplation. Now we behold their shadows as in a glass; hereafter, set free from this earthly body, clad in the incorruptible and the immortal, we shall behold their archetypes, we shall see them, that is, if we have steered our own life’s course aright, and if we have heeded the right faith, for otherwise none shall see the Lord. For, it is said, into a malicious soul Wisdom shall not enter, nor dwell in the body that is subject unto sin. And let no one urge in objection that, while I am ignoring what is before our eyes, I am philosophizing to them about bodiless and immaterial being. It seems to me perfectly absurd, while the senses are allowed free action in relation to their proper matter, to exclude mind alone from its peculiar operation. Precisely in the same manner in which sense touches sensible objects, so mind apprehends the objects of mental perception. This too must be said that God our Creator has not included natural faculties among things which can be taught. No one teaches sight to apprehend color or form, nor hearing to apprehend sound and speech, nor smell, pleasant and unpleasant scents, nor taste, flavours and savours, nor touch, soft and hard, hot and cold. Nor would any one teach the mind to reach objects of mental perception; and just as the senses in the case of their being in any way diseased, or injured, require only proper treatment and then readily fulfil their own functions; just so the mind, imprisoned in flesh, and full of the thoughts that arise thence, requires faith and right conversation which make its feet like hinds’ feet, and set it on its high places. The same advice is given us by Solomon the wise, who in one passage offers us the example of the diligent worker the ant, and recommends her active life; and in another the work of the wise bee in forming its cells, and thereby suggests a natural contemplation wherein also the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is contained, if at least the Creator is considered in proportion to the beauty of the things created.

But with thanks to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost let me make an end to my letter, for, as the proverb has it, πᾶν μέτρον ἄριστον.