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.”⁹²⁴

924 1 Tim. vi. 20.  The intellectual championship of Basil was chiefly asserted in the vindication of the consubstantiality of the Spirit, against the Arians and Semi-Arians, of whom Euonomius and Macedonius were leaders, the latter giving his name to the party who were unsound on the third Person of the Trinity, and were Macedonians as well as Pneumatomachi.  But even among the maintainers of the Nicene confession there was much less clear apprehension of the nature and work of the Spirit than of the Son.  Even so late as 380, the year after St. Basil’s death, Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat. xxxi. de Spiritu Sancto, Cap. 5, wrote “of the wise on our side some held it to be an energy, some a creature, some God.  Others, from respect, they say, to Holy Scripture, which lays down no law on the subject, neither worship nor dishonour the Holy Spirit.”  cf. Schaff’s Hist. of Christian Ch. III. Period, Sec. 128.  In Letter cxxv. of St. Basil will be found a summary of the heresies with which he credited the Arians, submitted to Eusthathius of Sebaste in 373, shortly before the composition of the present treatise for Amphilochius.

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.”⁹²⁵

925 Acts v. 29.

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,”⁹²⁶

926 Matt. xxviii. 19.

927 The word used is συνάφεια, a crucial word in the controversy concerning the union of the divine and human natures in our Lord, cf. the third Anathema of Cyril against Nestorius and the use of this word, and Theodoret’s counter statement (Theod. pp. 25, 27).  Theodore of Mopsuestia had preferred συνάφεια to ἕνωσις; Andrew of Samosata saw no difference between them.  Athanasius (de Sent. Dionys. § 17) employs it for the mutual relationship of the Persons in the Holy Trinity:  “προκαταρκτικὸν γάρ ἐστι τῆς συναφείας τὸ ὄνομα.”

If the Lord did not indeed conjoin the Spirit with the Father and Himself in baptism, do not⁹²⁸

928 μηδέ.  The note of the Ben. Eds. is, “this reading, followed by Erasmus, stirs the wrath of Combefis, who would read, as is found in four mss., τότε ἡμῖν, ‘then let them lay the blame on us.’  But he is quite unfair to Erasmus, who has more clearly apprehended the drift of the argument.  Basil brings his opponents to the dilemma that the words ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost’ either do or do not assert a conjunction with the Father and the Son.  If not, Basil ought not to be found fault with on the score of ‘conjunction,’ for he abides by the words of Scripture, and conjunction no more follows from his words than from those of our Lord.  If they do, he cannot be found fault with for following the words of Scripture.  The attentive reader will see this to be the meaning of Basil, and the received reading ought to be retained.”

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.⁹²⁹

929 Χριστοφόνοι.  The compound occurs in Ps. Ignat. ad Philad. vi.

930 1 Tim. i. 10.

931 Mr. Johnston sees here a reference to the parable of the unjust steward, and appositely quotes Greg. Naz. Orat. xxxi, § 3, on the heretics’ use of Scripture, “They find a cloak for their impiety in their affection for Scripture.”  The Arians at Nicæa objected to the ὁμοόυσιον as unscriptural.

932 cf. Ep. cxx. 5.

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”⁹³³

933 Rom. vi. 17.

934 Rom. xiii. 11, R.V.

935 The question is whether the baptism has been solemnized, according to the divine command, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  St. Cyprian in his controversy with Stephen, Bp. of Rome, represented the sterner view that heretical baptism was invalid.  But, with some exceptions in the East, the position ultimately prevailed that baptism with water, and in the prescribed words, by whomsoever administered, was valid.  So St. Augustine, “Si evangelicus verbis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti Marcion baptismum consecrabat, integrum erat Sacramentum, quamvis ejus fides sub eisdem verbis aliud opinantis quam catholica veritas docet non esset integra.”  (Cont. Petil. de unico bapt. § 3.)  So the VIII. Canon of Arles (314), “De Afris, quod propria lege sua utuntur ut rebaptizent, placuit, ut, si ad ecclesiam aliquis de hæresi venerit, interrogent eum symbolum; et si perviderint eum in Patre, et Filio et Spiritu Sancto, esse baptizatum, manus ei tantum imponantur, ut accipiat spiritum sanctum.  Quod si interrogatus non responderit hanc Trinitatem, baptizetur.”  So the VII. Canon of Constantinople (381) by which the Eunomians who only baptized with one immersion, and the Montanists, here called Phrygians, and the Sabellians, who taught the doctrine of the Fatherhood of the Son, were counted as heathen.  Vide Bright’s notes on the Canons of the Councils, p. 106.  Socrates, v. 24, describes how the Eunomi-Eutychians baptized not in the name of the Trinity, but into the death of Christ.

936 1 Thess. i. 9.

937 Eph. ii. 12.

938 The word χειρόγραφον, more common in Latin than in Greek, is used generally for a bond.  cf. Juv. Sat. xvi. 41, “Debitor aut sumptos pergit non reddere nummos, vana supervacui dicens chirographa ligni.”  On the use of the word, vide Bp. Lightfoot on Col. ii. 14.  The names of the catechumens were registered, and the Renunciation and Profession of Faith (Interrogationes et Responsa; ἐπερωτήσεις καἰ ἀποκρίσεις) may have been signed.

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