The Divinity of the Holy Spirit is supported by a passage of St. John. This passage was, indeed, erased by heretics, but it is a vain attempt, since their faithlessness could thereby more easily be convicted. The order of the context is considered in order that this passage may be shown to refer to the Spirit. He is born of the Spirit who is born again of the same Spirit, of Whom Christ Himself is believed to have been born and born again. Again, the Godhead of the Spirit is inferred from two testimonies of St. John; and lastly, it is explained how the Spirit, the water, and the blood are called witnesses.

59. Nor does the Scripture in this place alone bear witness to the θεότης, that is, the Godhead of the Holy Spirit; but also the Lord Himself said in the Gospel: “The Spirit is God.”¹³⁰⁵

1305 S. John iii. 6. See below § 63, n. 4.

1306 “The charge is an admirable illustration of the groundlessness of such accusations of wilful corruption of Scripture. The words in question have no Greek authority at all, and are obviously a comment.” Westcott on S. John v. 6.

1307 Auxentius, a Cappadocian, was ordained priest a.d. 343 by Gregory, the violent opponent of St. Athanasius. After the synod of Milan a.d. 355, when the bishop of that see, Dionysius, having refused to renounce Athanasius and the Nicene faith, was banished, Auxentius was forcibly intruded as bishop, and, in spite of the efforts of St. Hilary of Poitiers and other Catholics, maintained his position till his death in 374.

1308 The reference must be to the synods of Sirmium. In one held a.d. 351, against Photinus, there was a great attempt to make the semi-Arians appear orthodox, and St. Hilary accepted, while St. Athanasius rejected, their formula. Another synod was held a.d. 357, when the aged Hosius was tormented into accepting a formula, called by St. Hilary the “Sirmian blasphemy.” Another, no less injurious to the faith, was held in 358, by the desire of Constantius. During this time—but forgeries and the loss of some patristic writings make the history of the whole period somewhat uncertain—dates the weakness of Liberius, so that St. Ambrose may well speak of nutantibus sacerdotibus. See Hefele, Conc. Geschichte, I. on the Sirmian synods; Athanasius, Vol. IV. in this series, p. 464 ff.; Dict. Chr. Biog. III. 171, art. “Hosius;” Socrates, H. E., in this series, Vol. II. pp. 56, 57, 58.

60. And you have indeed been able to blot out the letters, but could not remove the faith. That erasure betrayed you more, that erasure condemned you more; and you were not able to obliterate the truth, but that erasure blotted out your names from the book of life. Why was the passage removed, “For God is a Spirit,” if it did not pertain to the Spirit? For if you will have it that the expression is used of God the Father, you, who think it should be erased, deny, in consequence, God the Father. Choose which you will, in each the snare of your own impiety will bind you if you confess yourselves to be heathen by denying either the Father or the Spirit to be God. Therefore your confession wherein you have blotted out the Word of God remains, while you fear the original.

61. You have blotted it out, indeed, in your breasts and minds, but the Word of God is not blotted out, the Holy Spirit is not blotted out, but turns away from impious minds; not grace but iniquity is blotted out; for it is written: “I am He, I am He that blot out thine iniquities.”¹³⁰⁹

1309 Isa. xliii. 25.

1310 Ex. xxxii. 32.

62. You are, then, convicted by your own confession that you cannot say it was done with wisdom but with cunning. For by cunning you know that you are convicted by the evidence of that passage, and that your arguments cannot apply against that testimony. For whence else could the meaning of that place be derived, since the whole tenour of the passage is concerning the Spirit?

63. Nicodemus enquires about regeneration, and the Lord replies: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again by water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”¹³¹¹

1311 S. John iii. 5.

1312 S. John iii. 6. This is the full reading of the passage according to St. Ambrose, referred to above in § 59.

1313 S. John iii. 7, 8.

64. Who is he who is born of the Spirit, and is made Spirit, but he who is renewed in the Spirit of his mind?¹³¹⁴

1314 Eph. iv. 23.

1315 Tit. iii. 5.

1316 Acts xi. 16.

65. I ask, however, why, if there be no doubt that we are born again by the Holy Spirit, there should be any doubt that we are born of the Holy Spirit, since the Lord Jesus Himself was both born and born again of the Holy Spirit. And if you confess that He was born of the Holy Spirit, because you are not able to deny it, but deny that He was born again, it is great folly to confess what is peculiar to God, and deny what is common to men. And therefore that is well said to you which was said to the Jews: “If I told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you heavenly things?”¹³¹⁷

1317 S. John iii. 12.

66. And yet we find each passage so written in Greek, that He said not, through the Spirit, but of the Spirit. For it stands thus: ἀμήν, ἀμήν, λέγω σοι, ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἐξ ὓδατος και Πνεύματος, that is, of water and the Spirit. Therefore, since one ought not to doubt that “that which is born of the Spirit” is written of the Holy Spirit; there is no doubt but that the Holy Spirit also is God, according to that which is written, “the Spirit is God.”

67. But the same Evangelist, that he might make it plain that he wrote this concerning the Holy Spirit, says elsewhere: “Jesus Christ came by water and blood, not in the water only, but by water and blood. And the Spirit beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth; for there are three witnesses, the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three are one.”¹³¹⁸

1318 1 John v. 6, 7, 8.

68. Hear how they are witnesses: The Spirit renews the mind, the water is serviceable for the laver, and the blood refers to the price. For the Spirit made us children by adoption, the water of the sacred Font washed us, the blood of the Lord redeemed us. So we obtain one invisible and one visible testimony in a spiritual sacrament, for “the Spirit Himself beareth witness to our spirit.”¹³¹⁹

1319 Rom. viii. 16.

E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH