XIII. Continuation of the Same Word (Part 2)

The beginning of Thy words is truth, and all the judgments of Thy righteousness endure forever (Psalm 118:160), cried the Father of God David, having been sanctified in his mind by the word of the Comforter.

And just as they are accustomed to call any proposition and teaching invented outside of Aristotle's teaching false and deceptive, so he who without fear teaches contrary to the sayings of the Lord and the decrees of the blessed fathers, especially in matters of piety and the confession of the Orthodox faith, should be considered by them and called a heretic and a flatterer. Now they have become so mad that they not only consider themselves to have the authority to change the utterances of the Lord, but they are not afraid to lie against the Evangelist John, and, being proud of their audacity to do everything, they falsely say that Blessed John, with a special intention, said that the Spirit proceeds alone from the Father, in order to assure the Apostles of the right to reason about the Father, Whom they did not yet know for certain. They do not know, accursed ones, that the holy Gospel of John was written many years after the descent of the Comforter upon the blessed Apostles, when they were all alike, to the extent of the acceptability of human nature, abundantly enriched with the knowledge of the ineffable Mysteries of God, through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, after which they all alike magnified the Most High, and throughout the whole world openly and purely preached Him, and not covertly or divinationly, not like the Jews through the prefigurations. Thus, as it should have been, the greatness of God was preached by means of shadows and divination, because of the debility of the listeners and their infantile constitution; here the Holy Trinity is preached clearly and purely, without divination. Now the Lord says: He who has seen Me has seen the Father; likewise: I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me (John 14:9, 10). Likewise, about the Holy Spirit, many words of the Lord explain and show Him to be God, equal in all things and of one essence with the Father and the Son. But the Latins, being asked by the Orthodox why they invented the addition "and from the Son," say that they do it prudently, in order to show that the Son is equal to the Father in all things and omnipotent. Such is the indifferent and senseless answer of the Latins. And they do not understand that it is possible to prudently compose any rule and teaching about this, regarding which the conciliar divine dogmas were not first established, or where this foresight does not refer to the most important subject of faith, and does not harm the divinely inspired teaching about divine dogmas and apostolic commands. A reliable witness to what has been said is Blessed Cyril, who at the third holy council confirmed the sacred exposition of the faith by the strictest legal provisions, among which he says this: "If anyone changes any of the holy and divine dogmas of the fathers, then this should not be called foresight, but a crime and deviation from dogma, and impiety against God." Blessed Chrysostom, wishing to instill in us the greatest fear of divine words, says: "As on a royal coin, if anyone destroys even a small part of the royal image, he makes the entire coin false, so it is in the true faith: whoever changes the slightest thing in it damages it all." Following this, the divine Isidore of Pelusium says: "Those who dare to take away or add anything to the divinely inspired words are afflicted by one of two things: either they do not believe that the Holy Scriptures were spoken by the Holy Spirit, and are unbelievers; or they consider themselves wiser than the Holy Spirit, and this means nothing else than that they are possessed by demons." Therefore, we should not say a word against these, who are called demon-possessed and unfaithful by the blessed father; for what profit can any one ever gain from such? But in order that falsehood may not boast against the truth, I have deemed it necessary, O wise Theodore, to rise up with the help of God against the destruction of the chapters of Nicholas, in which he expressed his impiety against the truth, and which I will try to expose with the help of God with the words of true love, and not by means of deceit, as he everywhere turns out to do, perverting with falsehood the outward folly, rather than the wisdom of this passing age. pure and immaculate divinely inspired teaching.

Since Nicholas posites, as it were, two foundations of his theology—the twofold giving of the Holy Spirit, which took place before the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles on the day of Holy Pentecost, and thus strengthens to convince those who hear the simply divine scriptures that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally in hypostasis from the Son, then from here we should begin, and then expose the other grounds which the Latins falsely invented on their own behalf against the apostolic truth. In none of the ancient theologians and teachers, whose teaching has swept from end to end of the universe, will you find this teaching, no matter how much you search, but on the contrary, you will find that everyone contradicts this and, as alien, rejects it. I am very surprised that Nicholas, being intelligent, as I have heard, and skilled in the verbal sciences, does not understand that he is building his house on such small and manageable foundations. I call them small not in essence and not in dignity — no, but in the mind of him who planned to erect on them a huge tower, equal in importance to the Babylonian one. Whoever, having read even once the commentary of the Holy Fathers on the Gospel, does not clearly understand that just as before the salvific sufferings the gifts and authority given by the Saviour to His holy disciples, so also after the resurrection the grace of the Spirit inspired by them (John 20:22), were private gifts, together with the blessings of the most perfect grace of the Comforter that was to descend upon them, as well as the providential providence foreseen from afar foreseen by God, to the rejection and destruction of the heresy that will subsequently arise, recognizing the Holy Spirit as created and alien to the Divinity of the Father and the Son. Thus, the gifts granted to them at that time were private gifts, and this is evident from what the Lord said in one place: "Behold, I give unto you power to tread upon the serpent, and upon the scorpion, and over all the power of the enemy" (Luke 10:19); and again: heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons (Matt. 10:8); and in another place: "Receive ye the Holy Spirit: whom ye shall forgive sins, they shall be forgiven" (John 20:22, 23), and so on. These are spiritual gifts, which contain power, now to forgive sins, now to cast out demons and heal infirmities. And that these were private gifts flowing from the fullness of the Saviour and acting at a certain time, and not a significant outpouring of the Spirit from the Son, as the Latins would like to prove, is evident from many circumstances, and especially from the fact that it does not appear that they (before the final inspiration of the Holy Spirit) forgave anyone of their sins, but on the contrary, they fled and hid themselves, for the sake of Jewish fear, for they were not yet fully clothed with power from above, wherefore some turned to fishing, forgetting for a short time the commandments of the Saviour. After the descent of the Paraclete, nothing of the kind happened to them, but, clothed with His absolutely irresistible power, they boldly rushed into the whole universe, like lions convinced of power, or like winged eagles. How can one say, or at least think once, that the gift of the Spirit given or breathed in at that time serves as proof that the Holy Spirit proceeds essentially from the Son, that is, hypostatically? Those who philosophize in this way, of necessity, must admit one of two things: either that then the disciples received the Spirit halfway, or completely and perfectly. Both are equally impious, not only to speak, but also to think, for the Holy Spirit, both in essence and in power, is always undivided in Himself and equal in power, as true God and equal in all things to the Father and the Son, except in attribute. To this they will turn out to be philosophizing and something even more inappropriate. If they believe that the essence of the Spirit was then bestowed upon the disciples by a sensual breath, and not the power to work miracles, then they, without realizing it, recognize the Spirit as subject to outline, since He poured out through the sensual bodily lips of the incarnate God, the Word, as through a trumpet. What will be more wicked than this wisdom, Lord Theodore? For it is clear that everything that is subject to outline has a beginning and is subject to time, and is in no way, or very little, different from the ministering spirits. And will not the heresy of Macedonius arise again, if we accept that the Spirit then breathed upon the disciples was not some spiritual gift, spiritually communicated from the fullness of Jesus, but a hypostatic procession to be delineated, as the Latins philosophize? About this the divine John Chrysostom, in his 87th discourse, commenting on the holy Gospel of John, says as follows: "Some say that by a breath Christ did not impart the Spirit to the disciples, but only made them capable of receiving Him. For if Daniel was horrified when he saw the angel, what would not the disciples have experienced if they had received this ineffable grace without having been prepared for it beforehand? Therefore, he says, Christ did not say, "You have received the Holy Spirit," but—receive. He will not sin in the least if he says that they then received a certain power and spiritual grace, but not in such a way as to raise the dead and create powers, but only to forgive sins, for the gifts of the Spirit are different; wherefore He added, "Whosoever ye shall forgive their sins, they shall be forgiven," showing by this what kind of gift He gives them. After that, after forty days, they received the power to work miracles; and therefore He says, "Ye shall receive the power which the Holy Spirit hath come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto Me." And they became witnesses after they had received the grace of the fiery Spirit and the manifold gift." Thus speaks the divine Chrysostom about the power then given by the breath, following in this the divine Paul, who says: "The division of gifts is the essence, and that is the Spirit; and the division of the ministries is the essence, and this is the Lord (1 Cor. 12:4, 5), and so on.

Nicholas further says that if the Son had the Spirit in Himself, He would not have given Him; but if, as having Him essentially, He bestows Him on the worthy, it means that He also emits Him everlastingly. Against this we answer thus: the Son has in Himself the whole Spirit, but in the sense of the unity of essence and nature, and not as the cause of the hypostatic procession. For this attribute belongs to the Father alone. According to all theologians in general, the whole Father is the Son in everything, and the Son is all in the Father; but it does not follow that the Father is born of the Son, since He is wholly in Him. Likewise, the Son is essentially in the Spirit; but it does not follow from this that He is born of the Spirit, which we will never allow ourselves to say as long as we have right wisdom. If it is impious to admit such notions of the Father and the Son only because they are essentially in each other, then it is also impious and blasphemous to speculate about the Spirit, that He proceeds also from the Son, because the Son has all of Him in Himself.

It remains, therefore, to say that the gift of spiritual gifts was poured out by the Son, with the permission of the Father, upon the sacred disciples through the autocratic coming of the Holy Spirit. Proof of this is the appearance of tongues, which denoted the division not of essence, but of gift. But the Son does not receive from Himself, but from the Father, as Blessed Peter says in the Acts: "And the promise of the Holy Spirit is received from the Father, which is poured out, as ye now see" (Acts 2:33). You hear the difference in expressions: having received, he says, he pours out, and does not let him out. The concept of "pouring out" is very different from the concept of "emitting". The word to emit shows the origin of a being according to hypostasis, just as to be born in relation to the hypostasis of the Son; and to pour out, and to be sent, and to flow out, and so on, serves as an indication of the actions of the Paraclete and the gifts. An irrefutable witness to this is the author of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who established a distinction between all this, and He ascribed the outpouring of the Spirit to the Father alone, especially, as the only source of the Godhead for Those who are from Him, as St. Dionysius says. The Spirit of truth, saith the Lord, proceedeth from the Father (John 15:26); but that he might give and send, he appropriated both to himself and to the Father: "I will pray the Father," he says, "and he will give you another Comforter" (John 14:16). And again: "And the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father shall send in My name" (John 14:26). He does not say here of Himself that He will send Him out, just as He says where He says: "When the Comforter comes, I will send Him also" (15:26). Notice, then, the difference between "emit" and "send," and how criminal it is to confuse the two. For when it was necessary to teach theology about the hypostatic procession of the Holy Spirit, then the Saviour was pleased to reveal it to us with the words: Who proceeds from the Father, speaking in the present tense, and thereby showing that He proceeds from the Father eternally; and where he shows the giving of gifts, which is the good will of the Father and the Son, he no longer uses the expression "to give," and says not in the present tense, but in the future: "He will send and give," since the epistle occurs at certain times, for the confirmation and sanctification of those who are worthy of such grace. And while the Saviour knows and establishes the difference between the procession and the epistle, Nicholas and his like-minded people are not ashamed to say that there is no difference between the procession and the epistle, and that these expressions are identical. Just as the hypostasis of the Spirit is not sent by the Son, so His Divinity is not poured out and given by Him, as the Latins wish, but He descends by Himself in a sovereign and autocratic manner, by the grace of the Father and the Son, and fulfills with His gifts those who are worthy of His coming.

A reliable witness to what has been said is St. John Chrysostom, who in the 15th homily of his moral teachings, properly concerning the Holy Spirit, says the following: "The Holy Spirit is by nature undivided, as proceeding from an inseparable nature; And his names are the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of life. All these are names of the pure power of the Holy and worshipped Spirit. There are other names that do not refer to nature, but to His action and power, such as His gifts, such as: the Spirit of holiness, faith, promise, wisdom, love, power, meekness, sonship, revelation, counsel, strength, understanding and godliness, the fear of God." Then he says: "This is told to us about the divine lordship of the Holy Spirit, about the difference of actions. But the heretics, not understanding that when the promises of gifts are spoken of the Holy Spirit, they refer this to nature, saying: Do you see that this is a gift of God, that God has given and the Holy Spirit has given? And they honoured the name of the gifts, and ascribed it to nature. They should know which names show nature, and which denote the grace of the Spirit." And again a little later: "One is the Holy Spirit, and another is a gift, as another is a king, and another is the gift of a king." Then, dividing the sayings about the Holy Spirit, he quotes, saying: "If you hear him say, 'I will send you the Holy Spirit,' do not attribute it to the Divinity, for God is not sent; these are names denoting actions." And again, further: "When He says, I will send you the Holy Spirit, then understand the gift of the Spirit, for the gift is sent, but the Spirit is not sent. The Saviour says to the Apostles: "Sit ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye shall be clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49), which hath come upon you by the Holy Spirit (Two 1:8). One is the power that is given, and the other is the Spirit that gives." Then, having shown that the Lord was sent from the Father and the Spirit, he concludes by saying: "The Creator of heaven says, The Lord sent Me and His Spirit. Heretics, on the other hand, take the message of the Spirit for annoyance. The Father sent, without departing, the Son sent the Spirit, without dividing or separating. Therefore, the Scriptures say: God poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Divinity is not poured out, but this shows that it is a gift, since what is poured out is not the Holy Spirit, but the grace of the Spirit of God. David says to Christ: "Grace is poured out in Thy mouth" (Psalm 44:3): grace is poured out, and not He who gives grace."

These words of Blessed Chrysostom, most honorable Theodore, are sufficient to drive away every Latin error, and to teach that the Holy Spirit, as consubstantial with the Father and the Son, is not received or poured out by the Son, but His grace, that is, the division of gifts, is both received and sent, and divinely poured out on the worthy. Thus, the Son is the giver of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and not the author of His existence and the emitter of His hypostasis; for the one source of the Godhead is His Father, according to the teaching of the holy Dionysius. The Latins, deceived by the similarity of the name of the gifts, attributed their names to the very hypostasis of the Spirit, acting in this way either with a treacherous purpose, in order to prove their teaching, or not understanding the difference between nature and gifts.

But let the great in the divine Gregory, who has the title of Theologian befitting his dignity, come out on Wednesday, and let him teach us the immutability of immovable nature, that is, hypostases. In one of his theological words, he clearly says the following: "A particularity is something unchangeable, otherwise how can it remain a particularity if it is changed and transformed. The procession of the Spirit does not pass from Father to Son in the sense of the cause of being; if this is common to both, and does not pass through, then even then it cannot be a peculiarity; for that which is general is not particular." What can be clearer or truer than this theology? He says that the procession of the Spirit does not pass from the Father to the Son, so as to be the author of existence, and if the procession of the Spirit is common to both, that is, to the Father and the Son, then this will no longer be a peculiarity. And how will the divinely inspired teaching of the holy theologians about the God-originating hypostases remain true, when Nicholas and his like-minded people very badly and ignorantly unite the unborn and the begotten into one principle? Will they not prove to be following Sabellius, as mixing unmixed peculiarities, attributing them together to the Father and the Son? This is not how one should reason, Nicholas, about the Most High Trinity, not so! You should be ashamed of the dignity of the ancient theologians and fathers, and learn from them the right and infallible path, since their authenticity is testified not only by time and their extreme wisdom, but also by their angelic life and, moreover, by the grace of the Divine Comforter that dwelt in them, which glorified them with innumerable gifts.

But let no one, because of what has been said, think that we understand that the Holy Spirit did not essentially descend upon the holy apostles, or that He was sent from the Son. May we not have such blasphemy! But, wishing to expose the false teaching of those who, by the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the holy disciples in their time, endeavor to prove that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Son as well as from the Father, that is, in hypostasis it proceeds in essence and divinity, we say that the tongues (fiery) that appeared at that time did not signify the division of essence, but served as a testimony of various gifts, who are sovereignly shared by the Comforter, and that grace is not poured out by the essence of the Son; for the essence is one of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and by nature it is inseparable and unpoured out. About this again we must ask Nicholas: if it is inseparable, then how does the Son accept that which has in Himself unifying, as was said before? If all the God-originating hypostases are essentially united to one another, then whence is the other position, and how is that which is given received and separated while it is in the hands of the one who has received? What can be more impious than to speak and think in this way, and will not the Arian fury raise its head again, and upset everything? How can it not be utterly foolish to say that the Saviour then received from the Father the essence of the Paraclete and poured it out upon the Apostles, whereas He has in Himself inseparably, as being co-existent with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as we have said many times, that which is said to have received it? How then is it to be understood that the Saviour received, poured out, as Blessed Peter said in Acts? What has been said should be understood piously, most dear Theodore, and not crudely, in a carnal way. The Holy Trinity, indivisible in essence, is divided mysteriously and mentally by hypostatic properties, that is, by unbirth, birth and procession. But just as it is mysteriously divided by hypostases, so it is again united by its essence. The Father was pleased that through the Son the Divine Paraclete should appear to the disciples and fill them with powers and wisdom, as the Saviour had repeatedly promised them, speaking in human form, that they would receive divine instruction, that (the Spirit) would be sent and poured out, and so on. For God, in the words of St. Chrysostom, is not sent or poured out. Where will He go, Who is everywhere with the Father and the Son, and how will He be poured out, Who does not pour out all things and sanctifies them? Let us not think of the Holy Spirit, that He, too, like Gabriel and other ministering spirits, is sent to serve servilely. Away from us such a wicked fabrication! But let us understand that the favor of the Father and the Son is (for the Spirit) a divine message; for He appears and comes autonomously, making blessed and sharing His most honorable gifts with His disciples, and acts in them all according to His Lord's authority, as equal in all things to the Father and the only-begotten Son, and does not receive a command and is not sent as a slave or a lesser one.

Divine Scripture is often expressed in a bodily manner and inconsistent with the greatness of the Godhead, condescending to our weakness, and if we do not understand this properly, we can fall into innumerable inconsistencies. Such is the saying of the Saviour: I will beseech the Father, by which should be understood the expression of His strongest love for us and providence. For if anyone takes this expression literally, as it is read in the Gospel, he will find in it innumerable inappropriate concepts: first, it will turn out that the Father did not want to send the Holy Spirit before, and to speak so dishonestly and contradict Paul and John. For Paul says of the Father: "Who shall not spare His Son" (Rom. 8:32), and so on; And John: "Thus shall God love the world, for He hath also given His only begotten Son to eat for the salvation of the world" (John 3:16). Secondly, there will be such a conception of the Son that He has no power to give the Holy Spirit, which is as impious to think as that the Father and the Son do not have the same will. If He has need of prayer, then it is obvious that either He is not able to fulfill His intention by Himself, and therefore He asks the one who can; or he cannot do it at all by His own power, and therefore turns to him who has the power to do good. For which of these two reasons do we recognize the Only-begotten as praying to the Father for the Comforter to be sent down? Let him who knows speak, for the love of truth, and not for the sake of vain disputes. Let us understand what a fatal abyss opens up for those who do not attentively interpret the utterances of the Divine Scriptures, not according to the reason of the Holy Fathers. Just as by prayer we understand the Saviour's ineffable love for us, so by His acceptance of the Father's promise, by the outpouring or giving and the message, we piously understand that the coming to the disciples of the Comforter was accomplished by the common favor of the Father and the Son.

I consider what has been said sufficient to refute the first two chapters of Nicholas; Now I will deal with the rest of its chapters. But I wonder how Nicholas, recognizing and calling himself Orthodox in all things, was not frightened by the ineffable, incomprehensible, and eternal procession of the One from the uncreated and incomprehensible Trinity—the Most Holy Spirit, Who gives life to all things, to cite a statement which gives to His procession the meaning of creation and creation, and ranks Him (procession) among other creatures, that even to think, let alone speak and commit to Scripture, is the great impiety and offspring of the heresy of Macedon. Trying to prove that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, and finding no proof of this in the Scriptures, he interprets what is said in the Scriptures about something completely different, that is, about certain divine dispensations and creatures, insidiously and perversely, to the deception of ordinary people. He says that the Son can do nothing about Himself, except He sees the Father doing: for what He does, the Son also does (John 5:19). But, he says, the Father creates the procession of the Spirit: therefore also the Son creates; for the Father created all things by the Son, and without Him He creates nothing. Take careful notice, most honest Theodore, of this Macedonian blasphemy, and hate it, and understand that Nicholas clearly acknowledges the procession of the Spirit as created. He says that whatever the Father does, He creates by the Son; for all things, he says, were by Him; consequently the procession of the Spirit is created by Him; but if He does not do it by Him, then it is not all of Him. In this way, the Gospel of John will be false, and the Son will not be equal to the Father in all things. Oh, what an incongruity, not to say blasphemy! Oh, what unspeakable long-suffering is Thy good Comforter! Why, Nicholas, do you pervert the reason of the Gospel? Why do you not confess the truth, and deceive yourself and others with deceptive inventions, and did you not fear to attribute the word "do" spoken by the Gospel about creatures to the uncreated Divinity? Do you not hear that the Holy Scriptures everywhere use this word in relation to creation, and sometimes says: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; and sometimes: "Thou hast forsaken the God who created thee"; but sometimes: "Make Thy angels spirits" (Psalm 103:4), and again: "Thy hands have created me, and have created me" (Psalm 118:73); and again: "Thou hast created all things in wisdom" (Psalm 103:24), and many other similar things are contained in the Holy Scriptures. If the procession of the Comforter is created by the Son, how do you misinterpret that if the Son does not create, then it does not mean that all of it was, then, according to you, is not the Paraclete recognized as a creature, and is it not numbered among other creatures? You cannot say that the Comforter is different, and His procession is different, even though you, because of a great error, think so. Thus, if the Comforter is created by the Son, then it means that God is not the One Who by nature is co-existent with the Father and the Son, but a certain power created, differing in no way, or very little, from the angelic powers. But let this blasphemy be directed against those who, according to Macedonia, reduce the uncreated nature of the Comforter to the category of creatures. And these, obviously, blaspheme like him. For Macedonius, wishing to prove that the Spirit was created, changed the reading of the words of the Gospel of John, and after the words: "Nothing was," he put a full stop, and then began reading: "If it was, in that life will be." By this he, the wretched one, wanted to show that the Spirit was also created. In the same way, the Latins, wishing to show that the procession of the Spirit was created, assert that it, together with other creatures, was created by the Son. It is written, they say, that all was there, and without Him there was nothing. What can be more wicked or abominable than this? If the Spirit was created by the Son, like everything else, then the Comforter, as created and subject to time, will fully be one of the other creatures, and not God. In addition, he says: since the Apostle calls Him the Spirit of the Son, — if he says that he who does not have the Spirit of Christ, this is none of Him (Rom. 8:9), it means that he proceeds from Him; if He had not been His procession, He would not have said, "His." To this he is answered by His Holiness Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who, together with His Beatitude Pope John and the other Patriarchs, at an ecumenical council convened in Byzantium for the confirmation of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, gave over to eternal damnation every other heresy, together with the Latin infirmity. He says, "Where does Paul say that the Spirit proceeds from the Son? That he is filial, as not alien to Him, he also says, and the Church of God confesses and knows this. And what comes from the Son did not proceed from his God-speaking lips, and no pious teacher betrayed it. Paul says, "The Spirit of the Son." Why then do you not speak in the same way, but are deceitful, and bring down that which is in the mountain, and turn down the word of the preacher? He says: "The Spirit of His Son," and by this He teaches the indivisibility of nature, but does not in the least indicate the cause of the procession. He knows the union in essence, but that the Son, as one natural with the Father, produced in the hypostasis of the Spirit, he does not say this anywhere, and does not recognize him as the culprit. Is not the Father of the Son theologized by all? Is it for this reason that you will restore His birth to Him? And that the Father is called the Father of the Son, this is not because He was born of Him, but because He is of one essence with Him. And if you want to say that because you were born, then will it not turn out that the Spirit of the Son is the same expression, instead of acknowledging (the Son) as the author and the originator, He is brought down and carried away by you into the position of being tormented and dependent on another cause? The Church thelogizes both the Son, that He is the Son of the Father, and of the Father, that He is the Father of the Son, since They are of one essence, but not because the Son is theologized as begotten of the Father, for the Father is also called the Father of the Son, and vice versa. In the same way, when we theologize the Spirit, calling Him the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son, then by these expressions we manifest the complete consubstantiality of the two. We know that the Spirit is of one essence with the Father, for He proceeds from Him; but that He is of one essence with the Son because He proceeds from Him, we do not admit, for the Son is of one essence with Him, not because He is born of Him, but because both are of one indivisible Guilt before the ages, each according to His order, proceed together."