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Gregory Thaumaturgus
Again, when one speaks of the Holy Spirit as an object made holy,[283] he will no longer be able to apprehend all things as being sanctified in (the) Spirit. For he who has sanctified one, sanctifies all things. That man, consequently, belies the fountain of sanctification, the Holy Spirit, who denudes Him of the power of sanctifying, and he will thus be precluded from numbering Him with the Father and the Son; he makes nought, too, of the holy (ordinance of) baptism, and will no more be able to acknowledge the holy and august Trinity.[284] For either we must apprehend the perfect Trinity[285] in its natural and genuine glory, or we shall be under the necessity of speaking no more of a Trinity, but only of a Unity;[286] or else, not numbering[287] created objects with the Creator, nor the creatures with the Lord of all, we must also not number what is sanctified with what sanctifies; even as no object that is made can be numbered with the Trinity, but in the name of the Holy Trinity baptism and invocation and worship are administered. For if there are three several glories, there must also be three several forms of cultus with those who impiously worship the creature; for if there is a distinction in the nature of the objects worshipped, there ought to be also with these men a distinction in the nature of the worship offered. What is recent[288] surely is not to be worshipped along with what is eternal; for the recent comprehends all that has had a beginning, while mighty and measureless is He who is before the ages. He, therefore, who supposes some beginning of times in the life of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, therewith also cuts off any possibility of numbering the Son and the Spirit with the Father. For as we acknowledge the glory to be one, so ought we also to acknowledge the substance in the Godhead to be one, and one also the eternity of the Trinity.
Moreover, the capital element of our salvation is the incarnation of the Word. We believe, therefore, that it was without any change in the Divinity that the incarnation of the Word took place with a view to the renewal of humanity. For there took place neither mutation nor transposition, nor any circumscription in will,[289] as regards the holy energy[290] of God; but while that remained in itself the same, it also effected the work of the incarnation with a view to the salvation of the world: and the Word of God, living[291] on earth after man’s fashion, maintained likewise in all the divine presence, fulfilling all things, and being united[292] properly and individually with flesh; and while the sensibilities proper to the flesh were there, the divine energy maintained the impassibility proper to itself. Impious, therefore, is the man who introduces the passibility[293] into the energy. For the Lord of glory appeared in fashion as a man when He undertook the economy[294] upon the earth; and He fulfilled the law for men by His deeds, and by His sufferings He did away with man’s sufferings, and by His death He abolished death, and by his resurrection He brought life to light; and now we look for His appearing from heaven in glory for the life and judgment of all, when the resurrection of the dead shall take place, to the end that recompense may be made to all according to their desert.
But some treat the Holy Trinity[295] in an awful manner, when they confidently assert that there are not three persons, and introduce (the idea of) a person devoid of subsistence.[296] Wherefore we clear ourselves of Sabellius, who says that the Father and the Son are the same. For he holds that the Father is He who speaks, and that the Son is the Word that abides in the Father, and becomes manifest at the time of the creation,[297] and thereafter reverts to God on the fulfilling of all things. The same affirmation he makes also of the Spirit. We forswear this, because we believe that three persons—namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are declared to possess the one Godhead: for the one divinity showing itself forth according to nature in the Trinity[298] establishes the oneness of the nature; and thus there is a (divinity that is the) property of the Father, according to the word, “There is one God the Father;”[299] and there is a divinity hereditary[300] in the Son, as it is written, “The Word was God;”[301] and there is a divinity present according to nature in the Spirit—to wit, what subsists as the Spirit of God—according to Paul’s statement, “Ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.”[302]
Now the person in each declares the independent being and subsistence.[303] But divinity is the property of the Father; and whenever the divinity of these three is spoken of as one, testimony is borne that the property[304] of the Father belongs also to the Son and the Spirit: wherefore, if the divinity may be spoken of as one in three persons, the trinity is established, and the unity is not dissevered; and the oneness which is naturally the Father’s is also acknowledged to be the Son’s and the Spirit’s. If one, however, speaks of one person as he may speak of one divinity, it cannot be that the two in the one are as one.[305] For Paul addresses the Father as one in respect of divinity, and speaks of the Son as one in respect of lordship: “There is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him.”[306] Wherefore if there is one God, and one Lord, and at the same time one person as one divinity in one lordship,[307] how can credit be given to (this distinction in) the words “of whom” and “by whom,” as has been said before? We speak, accordingly, not as if we separated the lordship from the divinity, nor as estranging the one from the other, but as unifying them in the way warranted by actual fact and truth; and we call the Son God with the property of the Father,[308] as being His image and offspring; and we call the Father Lord, addressing Him by the name of the One Lord, as being His Origin and Begettor.
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