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| The Holy Spirit Also is Equal to the Father and the Son in All Things.
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Chapter 5.—The Holy Spirit
Also is Equal to the Father and the Son in All Things.
7. Wherefore also the Holy Spirit
consists in the same unity of substance, and in the same equality.
For whether He is the unity of both, or the holiness, or the love,
or therefore the unity because the love, and therefore the love
because the holiness, it is manifest that He is not one of the two,
through whom the two are joined, through whom the Begotten is loved
by the Begetter, and loves Him that begat Him, and through whom,
not by participation, but by their own essence, neither by the gift
of any superior, but by their own, they are “keeping the unity of
the Spirit in the bond of peace;”611
which we are commanded to imitate
by grace, both towards God and towards ourselves. “On which two
commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”612
So those
three are God, one, alone, great, wise, holy, blessed. But we are
blessed from Him, and through Him, and in Him; because we ourselves
are one by His gift, and one spirit with Him, because our soul
cleaves to Him so as to follow Him. And it is good for us to cleave
to God, since He will destroy every man who is estranged from
Him.613
Therefore
the Holy Spirit, whatever it is, is something common both to the
Father and Son. But that communion itself is consubstantial and
co-eternal; and if it may fitly be called friendship, let it be so
called; but it is more aptly called love. And this is also a
substance, since God is a substance, and “God is love,” as it
is written.614
But as He is
a substance together with the Father and the Son, so that substance
is together with them great, and together with them good, and
together with them holy, and whatsoever else is said in reference
to substance; since it is not one thing to God to be, and another
to be great or to be good, and the rest, as we have shown above.
For if love is less great therein [i.e. in God] than wisdom,
then wisdom is loved in less degree than according to what it is;
love is therefore equal, in order that wisdom may be loved
according to its being; but wisdom is equal with the Father, as we
have proved above; therefore also the Holy Spirit is equal; and if
equal, equal in all things, on account of the absolute simplicity
which is in that substance. And therefore they are not more than
three: One who loves Him who is from Himself, and One who loves Him
from whom He is, and Love itself. And if this last is nothing, how
is “God love”? If it is not substance, how is God
substance?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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