18. And those who curse say that they are filled with wine (Acts 2:13). The truth was spoken, but with mockery. The wine is truly new, the grace of the New Testament. But this is the new wine of the Spiritual Grape, which has already borne fruit many times in the Prophets, and has blossomed perfectly in the New Testament. For just as the material vine, always remaining the same, at a certain time brings forth new fruits: so this Spirit, always remaining such as He is, and having worked many times in the Prophets, has now shown something new and wonderful. For grace was also communicated to the Fathers, but here it abounds. For there they partook only of the Holy Spirit, and here they were completely baptized with it.

19. But Peter, who had the Holy Spirit and knew whom he had in him, say, "Men of Judaism" (Acts 2:14), to whom the Prophet Joel is known, but who do not understand what is written in him: "For it is not because you do not perceive, these drunkards are (15). They were drunk, not with what you suppose, but with what is written: "They shall drink of the fat of Thy house, and I shall drink with a stream of sweetness" (Psalm 35:9). Drink in sober rapture, which mortifies sin and quickens the heart, an ecstasy contrary to bodily rapture: for this produces forgetfulness of what was known, and this imparts knowledge of unknown things. They got drunk, having drunk the wine of the Spiritual vine, which says of itself: "I am the vine, but ye are the birth" (John 15:5). But if you do not believe me, then understand the truth of my words from time itself: "For there is an hour of the day of the day" (Acts 2:15). For at the third hour, according to Mark, the Crucified One has now sent down this grace at the third hour. For there is no other grace of the Crucified One, but another of Him who is now active; but He who was crucified and promised now fulfills His promise. But if you want to have a testimony, then listen, says Peter: This is what was spoken by the Prophet Joel: and it shall come to pass according to this, saith the Lord, that I will pour out of my Spirit (Joel 2:28). Through the word pouring out, an abundant gift is depicted: for God giveth the Spirit beyond measure. The Father loves the Son, and all is given in His hand (John 3:34-35). He gave Him the power to give and grace of the All-Holy Spirit, to whom He pleases. I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy (Acts 2:17, Joel 2:28); and then, Both on my handmaids and on my handmaids, in their days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy" (Acts 2:18, Joel 2:29). The Holy Spirit does not look at persons: He does not seek external advantages, but the piety of the soul; and let not the rich be exalted, and let not the poor be discouraged; only prepare each one for the reception of heavenly grace.

20. Much has already been said to you, and perhaps your ears are weary: but still more has been abandoned, and verily, in order to expound the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, a third is needed, many teachings are needed; but forgive me: for although I have now extended my word on account of the approach of the Holy Feast of Pascha, yet I could not offer all the testimonies that should have been offered from the New Testament; I have not yet cited many testimonies from the Acts of the Apostles, where it is narrated how the grace of the Holy Spirit worked in Peter and in all the Apostles together; nor are many testimonies from the Epistles of the Council and of Paul, the fourteen Epistles: of all these Scriptures, like flowers from a great meadow, let us now try to collect testimonies, at least not many, in order to remember them.

21. By the power of the Holy Spirit, by the will of the Father and the Son, Peter became with the unten, and lifted up his voice (Acts 2:14), (for it is said:) "Lift up thy voice with might, preach good tidings to Jerusalem" (Isaiah 40:9), by the spiritual network of his words he caught about three thousand souls: so much grace worked in all the Apostles, that the very Jews who crucified Christ believed in so many numbers, they were baptized in the name of Christ and constantly continued in the teaching of the Apostles and in prayers. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Peter and John, when they entered the temple to pray at the ninth hour of the day, at the red gates, in the name of Jesus, healed a lame man from birth, who was forty years old (Acts 3:1, 2, 12). (that what has been said may be fulfilled:) then the lame shall leap like a deer (Isaiah 35:6); spiritual teaching was caught by five thousand people who suddenly believed; and the Princes of the people and the High Priests who had gone astray were rebuked, not by their wisdom, for they were unlearned and simple people, but by the work of the Holy Spirit; for it is written: "Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to them" (Acts 4:8). And through the twelve Apostles the grace of the Holy Spirit acted so powerfully in those who believed, that with them, as heart and soul were one, so the use of possessions was common; and since the owners of estates and houses reverently paid the price for the property they sold, there was no one poor among them. When Ananias and Sapphira dared to lie to the Holy Spirit, they received a worthy execution.

22. And by the hands of the Apostles there were banners and miracles among many people (Acts 5:12). And so much spiritual grace was poured out on the Apostles, that they were terrible, for all their meekness. For no one dared to cling to them from the rest, but their people were magnified (13); And the believers of the Lord are added, and a multitude of men and women (14). The streets were filled with the sick lying on beds and beds, so that the coming Peter would not be overshadowed by his shadow from them (15). And a multitude came down from the surrounding cities to this Holy Jerusalem, bringing the sick and suffering from the unclean spirits, who were all healed (16) by the power of the Holy Spirit.

23. Likewise, the twelve Apostles, having been cast into prison by the Bishops, were miraculously led out of it during the night by an angel, and were brought from the temple to them to the judgment seat; then they fearlessly rebuked them in their word to them about Christ. To this they added that God also gave the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32): and having been beaten, they went rejoicing (41)" and did not cease to teach and preach the good news of Christ (42).

24. Not only in the twelve Apostles did the grace of the Holy Spirit work, but also in the firstborn sons of this once barren Church, i.e. in the seven deacons. For they were chosen, as it is written: "Filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom" (Acts 6:3); worthy of his name, Stephen, one of them, the firstfruits of the martyrs, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit (5), working great signs and wonders among people (8); but he conquered those who contended with them; For I cannot resist wisdom and the Spirit, who spoke (10). And when he was slandered and brought to the judgment seat, he shone with an angelic light: for all those who sat in the assembly beheld him, and saw his face as the face of an angel (15). And when with a wise answer He denounced the stiff-necked Judas, men with uneducated hearts and minds, who had always stubbornly resisted the Holy Spirit, then he saw the heavens opened, and saw the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, he saw not by his own power, but, as the Divine Scripture says, "He is filled with the Holy Spirit, having looked up to heaven, having seen the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 7:55).

25. By the same power of the Holy Spirit, Philip, in the name of Christ, once in the City of Samaria cast out unclean spirits, which went forth with a great cry, healed the paralytic and the lame, and brought a multitude of the people who believed to Christ: and Peter and John, when they had arrived, with prayer and the laying on of hands, communicated to these believers the Holy Spirit, Whom Simon the sorcerer alone is justly honored as unworthy: but never did the same Philip, being called on the way by an angel of the Lord to convert the most reverent Eunuch of Ethiopia, and having clearly heard from the Spirit himself: "Come and cleave unto this chariot" (Acts 8:29), taught the Ethiopian and sent a preacher of Christ to Ethiopia, as it is written: "Ethiopia shall go before her hand to God" (Psalm 67:32), and having been taken by an angel; preached the Gospel in other cities.

26. Paul was filled with this Holy Spirit after he had been called by our Lord Jesus Christ: the witness of this is the pious Ananias in Damascus, who said to him, "The Lord Jesus, thou hast appeared on the way, whom thou hast come, sending me, that thou mayest see, and be filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 9:17).

But enough about him now.

27. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the supreme Apostle and having the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, Peter, in Lydda, which is now Diospolis, healed the paralytic Aeneas, in Joppa raised the virtuous Tabitha from the dead; In the upper part of the house in a frenzy he saw the heavens opened, and through the vessel descending from there, like a shroud, full of manifold and heterogeneous animals, he clearly learned not to consider any man unclean or filthy, even though he be a Greek, and when he was called by Cornelius, he clearly heard from the same Holy Spirit: "Behold, men seek thee: but arise down, and go with them, reasoning nothing, as if I were their ambassadors (Acts 10:19, 20). And in order to make it clear that even the Gentiles can be partakers of the grace of the Holy Spirit, when Peter came to Caesarea and taught about Christ, the Scriptures speak of Cornelius and those who were with him: "Yet I said these words to Peter, the Holy Spirit fell upon all that heard the word" (44), so that even of the circumcised those who came with Peter were amazed and terrified, saying: for the gift of the Holy Spirit is upon tongues (45).

28. And when the preaching of Christ began to spread in Antioch, the glorious city of Syria, Barnabas was sent to it from here, a good helper, a good man, and filled with the Holy Spirit and faith (Acts 11:24). He, seeing the many harvests of believers in Christ, brought the companion Paul from Tarsus to Antioch. And since the multitude of the people in the church were taught and gathered, it was first to be called the disciples of the Christians (26). I believe that this new name, long foretold by the Lord, was given to believers by the Holy Spirit. When great grace was poured out from God on Antioch, there appeared the Prophets and Teachers, among others Agabus. And to those who serve the Lord and fast, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart Barnabas and Saul for work, where I have called them" (Acts 13:2). And after the laying on of hands upon them, they were sent from the Holy Ghost. Thus, it is evident that the Holy Spirit, Who speaks and sends, is living, self-existent, and active, as we have said above.

29. This Holy Spirit, together with the Father and the Son, having established the New Covenant in the universal Church, has freed us from the heavy burden of law: I mean here the decrees concerning clean and unclean foods, the Sabbath and the New Moon, circumcision, sprinklings and sacrifices; for all of them, being given for a time, had the shadow of good things to come (Heb. 10:1); when the thing itself is revealed, they are justly abandoned. For when, because of a dispute that had arisen from those who asserted that it was proper to circumcise and observe the ceremonies of Moses, Paul and Barnabas were sent to Jerusalem; then the Apostles, who were here, by their written epistle freed the whole universe from all that is lawful and pro-educational. However, they did not arrogate to themselves the right to dispose of such an important matter, but in the written Epistle they confess: "It has pleased the Holy Spirit and us, to lay upon you no more burdens, except these things that are necessary: to be protected from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is strangled, and from fornication" (Acts 15:28, 29). By which scripture it was clearly shown that, although it was written by the human apostles, yet by the action of the Spirit it became a law for the universe, which law, having been accepted by Barnabas and Paul, made it valid in the whole world.

30. Having continued my speech hitherto, I ask of you, beloved, and especially of the Spirit who dwells in Paul, forgiveness, if, because of my weakness and your labor, hearers, I could not say everything. For can I relate, as it should be, the wondrous deeds, by the power of the Holy Spirit, which we call Christ's, performed by him in Cyprus over Elimus the sorcerer, in Lystra, where he healed a lame man, in Cilicia, Phrygia, Galatia, Mysia, and Macedonia, or what he did in Philippi; here I mean his preaching and expulsion in the name of Christ of the spirit of divination, and during the night, after the convulsion of the prison, salvation through the baptism of the prison guard with all his house; or what he did in Thessalonica, and in the Athens in the Areopagus that produced his preaching, or what he taught in all Achaia? Can I, as I should, relate the actions performed through Paul in Ephesus by the Holy Spirit, Whom those who dwell there, without knowing before, knew by means of Paul's teaching? For when Paul laid on his hands, and when the Holy Spirit came upon them, they spoke with tongues and prophesied (Acts 19:6). The grace of the Holy Spirit was so great in him that not only did he heal by touch, but also the handkerchiefs and towels taken from his body healed illnesses and drove out evil spirits; even those who were engaged in their work, having gathered together their books, burned them before all (Acts 19:19).