Indeed, a parable happened to them, that while fleeing from the smoke, they fell into the flames. Avoiding the duality, they introduce a Sabellian confusion, in order only to prove, as they say, that the Son is equal to the Father in all things, not understanding, most wise, that the fact that they are trying to prove about the Son, on the other hand, serves to diminish the Holy Spirit. They say that if we do not confess the Son to give up the Spirit in the same way as the Father, then we will not recognize Him as equal to the Father; for He Himself says: Everything that the Father has is My essence, including that I give up the Spirit. Consequently, the Spirit also proceeds from Him. In this regard, it would be fair to ask Nicholas: Do you also recognize the Holy Spirit in all things as equal to the Father, and do you consider Him in all things equal to Him, and a participant in all that the Father has, on an equal footing with the Son, or not? But I know well that he fully admits it. that He has all these things: as theology says the Father, so is the Son, so is the Holy Spirit. What, then, do you say, is the Holy Spirit recognized as active as the Father? If so, then he must be recognized as begat the Son, that he might be equal in all things to the Father. And if he admits this, will he not introduce two Fathers for the Son? If this is not permitted, then in your opinion the Spirit will be in many ways less than the Father, as having not that which belongs to the Father. But this is obviously inappropriate and alien to the truth. And consequently it is even more inappropriate that what was said somewhere by the Son to the Father: "All My essence is Yours, and Yours is Mine," should be attributed to attributes. The most special attribute of the Son is to beget, and the attribute of the Father is not to beget. What then (according to the words quoted), shall we reverse these attributes, and acknowledge the Father to be begotten, and shall we acknowledge the Son both begotten and unbegotten, and the Father not only unbegotten and begetting, but also begotten? This is what your wisdom introduces, saying: "Everything that the Father has belongs also to the Son, and just as it is characteristic of the Father to send forth the Spirit, so it is characteristic of the Son, and you do not dare to say that this attribute is not common to Them, for the Saviour Himself said: All that is Mine is Yours, and Yours is Mine; this is how clear it is that this attribute is common to Them.

Such is Nicholas's artistic teaching, the kindest Theodore! It is truly like a spider's web and children's games, before which it is very good and very useful to plug one's ears, and to adhere to the words of Gregory the Theologian, spoken by him in answer to the Macedonians, who asked him about the origin of the Son and the Spirit, what could be the way of the origin of both, and how they, proceeding like from the Lord, are of one essence. "Say," he said to them, "how the Father is unbegotten, and then I will prove the birth of the Son and the procession of the Spirit. You have gone mad, striving to penetrate into the mysteries of God, you who do not know for sure what is under your feet." And again: "Give me," he says, "another God and another nature of God, and I will present to you the same Trinity with the same names and appurtenances. And since God is one, and the highest nature is one, where can I get your likeness? Are you looking for it in the lower and in what is around you? But this is very shameful, and not only shameful, but also very insane, to take from the lower an assimilation to the higher, and to investigate the nature of the incomprehensible, such as God, and to search for the living in the dead, that is, to seek that which belongs to the light in darkness."

If Nicholas had seen this and wished to hear it devoutly, the kindest Theodore, he would not have boldly and by means of geometrical formulas to test the incomprehensible, and the apostolic saying: "For His invisible essence from the creation of the world is thought of by the creatures" (Romans 1:20)—he would not have understood it very indecently, as if the Apostle commands us to test the incomprehensible nature by such formulas. And how then does Paul, who has said this, in his Epistle to the Romans denounce the wickedness of the Greeks, that they have deceitfully ascribed the glory of the invisible God to stones and trees and to innumerable animals, and, wishing to show that they have not understood the greatness of God, although God has shown it to them, he says thus: The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. For the understanding of God is manifest in them: for God hath manifested unto them: for His invisible essence from the creation of the world is thought of by creatures, and His eternal power and divinity (Rom. 1:18-20), and so on. This saying is explained by the divine Chrysostom as follows: "Having said above that the Greeks rejected the mind of God, he now confirms this, saying that the Creator is preached by the well-being of creatures, just as David says: The heavens shall declare the glory of God, but the firmament declares His hand to creation (Ps. 18, 2). Know then that the things of God are incomprehensible as His essence, and the other is understood as everything that surrounds His being, that is, goodness, wisdom, power, divinity, majesty, and the like, His invisible being. Of this Paul says that this can be understood only through the consideration of creatures. And so, to the Greeks He revealed about Himself that which can be understood, that is, that which is around His being, and which is invisible to the eyes of the senses, but comprehensible to the mind from the well-being of creatures." Thus says the divine Chrysostom.

How is Nicholas not ashamed to slander Blessed Paul, as if he advises us by means of geometrical formulas to investigate and search for the ineffable and incomprehensible divine greatness? Where can we find anything like this in his God-speaking words? On the contrary, if you search carefully, you will find that he forbids it. Where? In the same epistle. Contemplating with his mind the divine providences from the beginning of the world, and finding their variety incomprehensible, he exclaimed: O depth of the riches and wisdom and understanding of God! for His judgments have not been tried, and His ways have not been searched (Romans 11:33). He recognizes the destinies of God and His ways as untried and unexplored: will the divine nature allow you, Nicholas, to investigate by earth-measuring forms? How was it that you were not afraid to slander the preacher of the truth so boldly? Which of the divine men from the beginning of the world has studied the Divinity by means of written outlines, and understood, and taught to his successors? Of Abraham and Moses, these divine men, we know that through the contemplation of goodness and the well-being of the visible, they came to know the Creator, believed in Him, and were vouchsafed great blessings and gifts from Him, and Abraham became a patriarch and a model of faith and love for the truly existing God; Moses, on the other hand, is appointed by God as the leader and teacher and lawgiver of the Jewish people, as having come to know the truly existent God and Creator of all things, Who appeared in a new miraculous way in the bush, and not by earth-measuring figures, rectangular and non-rectangular, and by other similar strange inventions introduced by Nicholas, alien to the pious and Orthodox faith, and peculiar to the spiritual and creeping reason and earthly research. And what is higher and beheld above us came to us from whence did it come to us?—By grace, from the Father of lights, as St. Dionysius says. Therefore, it is proper to investigate and explain this not as an intemperate mind desires, but as established by the prophets and apostles taught the mysteries by the divine grace of God, and then by the divinely inspired fathers and teachers.

Teach us to be careful only not to destroy (the well-known teaching) with deceitful words. It is not important to be defeated by words; but to alienate oneself from God is evil, for He is the hope of all. But let (someone) test the meaning of the scripture in relation to the indescribable nature as he wishes. Let us truly see what will come of it, and find that they are beheaded by their own swords, like Goliath David, that is, by the mighty word of truth. Look carefully with your mind, and you will understand that you have lied unrighteously to yourself (Psalm 26:12), according to the divine David.

Nicholas chose the form of a regular triangle, as more appropriate than other outlines to explain the equality of the hypostases of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as having three equilateral angles. And above he places the Father, and below at both corners the Son and the Spirit. Thus, having depicted the three hypostases with three corners and circling their circles, he wants to depict the beginninglessness and infinity of the divine nature, since the circle, according to him, has neither beginning nor end. And he likens the Holy Spirit to the compass, saying that just as the compass, having established itself at a certain point and being turned in a circle, makes a circle, so the Spirit, having departed from the Father, reaches the Son, and if it abides here and does not return to the hypostasis of the Father, then the Trinity will remain imperfect. In this lies all the wisdom of the wondrous Nicholas, which at first seems praiseworthy, since this image well represents the beginninglessness and infinity of God, but a little later, he himself, and no one else, humiliated it, showing that it should, in justice, be recognized as a child's game. Who does not justly admit that it is a child's game, and not a philosophical exercise, to assert that the circle depicted by a human hand and compass, beginning from a point and time, precisely and decently denotes the beginninglessness and incomprehensibility of the Godhead? Who among those who reason will not laugh and say to the inventor of this: "Human! If you have finally decided not to obey the truth and those divine men and faithful servants of God who taught it before you and us, but are more willing to adhere to earth-measuring figures and false teaching, then why do you not learn the truth from these very beloved figures, but also in relation to them you are lawless and need to distort the meaning of the triangle? This triangle and the right-angled form, according to the philosophy of Pythagoras, have the same meaning as the ternary number. They designate the Trinity by numbers, and figuratively by a right-angled triangle they denote the composition of the being of everything, since the right-angled form has the same meaning as the ternary number, as those who experience in this say. The beginning of this number is unity, which therefore has received the upper corner of the triangle. Why do you distort the meaning of your triangle, and turn its lower corners upwards and the upper corners downwards? If God the Father is the fault, the beginning and source of the Godhead for Those Who are from Him, as the divine Dionysius and all the holy teachers and preachers in general say, and the Divinity is believed and glorified by all the pious as one, which is also triune, one in nature, and triune in hypostases, just as the equilateral triangle shows the perfect equality of the God-giving hypostases, equal to each other in everything. Equality we must understand very decently in everything according to nature, except for unbirth, birth, and procession. In these properties alone, the Trinity is inseparably divided, and by them the life-giving hypostases are cognized separately. What need is there to confess that the Spirit, having once departed from the Father, comes to the Son, and moreover again proceeds from the Son and returns to the Father? Is it only so that the Father would not be forsaken from the Spirit? But let us not have such philosophizing about the indivisible Being! Although this blessed and incomprehensible nature is seen to be divided ineffably and above all comprehension by hypostases, it remains in itself essentially inseparably. And how this happens, and why it is so theologianized, is known only to Him, and no created mind can contain it until the knowledge "of the part" ceases and the perfect comes.

In addition, we know that in numbers, one gives birth to two, while two gives birth to four, not one. By what sense do you say that two serve as producers of one? How then will the equality of all three God-originating hypostases endure, if the Spirit proceeds from origins greater than the Son? Both in essence and in the fact that the Most Blessed Trinity is equal in the vicinity of the being, so in the sequence of the God-originating hypostases they are equal, and only in one way is each hypostasis composed: the Father by not being born of anyone, the Son by being born of the Father, the Spirit by proceeding also from the Father; but if also from the Son, as you say, where

For he (Arius), grossly deceived by the meaning of birth, said that if he was born, it means that he was not born before his birth, and if he were not before his birth, he is therefore not eternal. He did not understand that in the case of God the birth is understood to be without beginning, eternal and indivisible, just as the procession of the Spirit is ineffable and not transitory, in which you, having stumbled, came up with the idea that if it proceeds from the Father, then it comes to the Son, and from there again to the Father, and thus, moving in a circle, completes the Holy Trinity, Which you were not afraid to liken to a circle. And there will be, in your opinion, first, the distance between the divine hypostases that are apart; for to move towards this, and then from that to pass on to the first, gives an idea of the distance in place, although you do not want to confess this folly, being ashamed of your teaching. Secondly, it turns out no less than that the Spirit, having separated from the Father, makes a great movement towards the Son, and therefore the Father remains without the Spirit during this time. Thirdly, it turns out that the Son is not essentially and inseparably united with the Father, since it is necessary to pass to Him. Oh, what a delusion these inappropriate fabrications represent!

This is not how you should have understood and reasoned about the highest glory, the kindest Nicholas! But it would be necessary, having understood only one difference between the incomprehensible and inscrutable divine majesty and our weakness, which we crawl on the earth like ants and food like a mosquito, to seek our salvation with all diligence, and to accept the divine in silence, and to keep it intact, as we received from the divine apostles and our divinely inspired fathers, experiencing nothing more, what they have taught us, as our holy father Basil, who is called the Great by the loftiness of his teaching and infallible theology, commands us, saying: "We beseech you in every way not to seek from us what you want to hear, but to accept that which is pleasing to the Lord and in accordance with the Holy Fathers." Do you hear the divine teacher who says that we should not experience what we please? Would it be pleasing to the Lord, and in accordance with the Scriptures, to philosophize contrary to the teaching of the Lord, who theologizes in the Gospel of John, that the Spirit proceeds from the Father? And is not your teaching, which you invented yesterday and recently and added to the sacred confession of faith, contrary to the Holy Fathers? But it is also good to listen to how again (St. Basil the Great) teaches us to reason about the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit: "What you have said about the Son, that one should confess His special Person, the same must be said about the Holy Spirit, for the Father and the Spirit are not one and the same, although it is written that God is the Spirit, nor is the Son and the Spirit one and the same Person, although it is said: "If any man have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of Him" (Rom. 8:9). By this some were deceived and thought that the Spirit and Christ were one and the same. But we assert that this proves the commonality of natures, and not the confusion of persons." Do you hear how this blessed one understands that by words, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him, it is signified and confessed that the Spirit has a personal attribute and that He is of the same nature with the Only-begotten, and not, as you say, philosophizing the opposite, that He proceeds from Him? Hear also his theology: "The Father is perfect in Himself, and He is the inexhaustible root and source of the Son and the Holy Spirit." Here again he recognizes only the Father as the root and source of Those Who are from Him. If he had known that the Son is also the source of the Godhead, he would have mentioned Him together with the Father, but he did not learn this from Christ and His disciples. Hear also about the Son: "In the fullness of the Godhead is the living Word, and the perfect offspring of the Father, so also the Spirit is perfect, not a part of another, but Himself is seen as perfect and whole." This is how he honestly theologizes the Spirit, who proceeds from the Father perfect and complete, contemplated not as a part of another, but in all things equal to the Son. By the expression, "not a part of another," what else does he mean to say but that which has a hypostasis of no other than that which is of the Father, perfect as the Son, and which does not require generation from another guilt, since he who gives Him forth is perfect and inexhaustible, but is also united, says the Son to the Father, such is the union that admits of no distance and separation and of the Spirit, not cut off from the connection with the eternal. This blessed man recognizes the union of the life-giving hypostases without separation. But when you assert that the Spirit circumambulates the circle from the Father to the Son, and from Him again to the Father, do you not clearly make it clear that there is a distance between the hypostases, either in place or in time?

It would be necessary, as I said before, to follow the Fathers and not to invent anything more established, and not to select the sayings of Scripture in such a way as to attribute what is said about others with a stretch to another meaning, in order only to insist on one's own will, as Nicholas does, who, as soon as he catches any teaching either about the union of the Spirit with the Son, or showing that He is His own, as consubstantial, he immediately draws the conclusion, without further consideration, that it is precisely so (as it appears to him). Thus, having found in the holy Gospel of Luke what is written: "And Jesus returned from the Jordan with the Holy Spirit" (Luke 4:1), he clung to this saying and concludes, saying: "If Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit, it means that He is giving Him out." Look, most good Theodore, what recklessness and imprudence Nicholas has! If, because Luke said that Jesus returned from the Jordan full of the Spirit, he wants Him to proceed from Him, then, according to Nicholas's false wisdom, He should also come from Stephen the First-Martyr. For the same Evangelist says in the Acts of Stephen: "And she chose Stephen as a man, full of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 6:5); and again about him: "And Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit, having looked up to heaven, and beheld the glory of God" (7:55). What, then, because of this little saying, will he say that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from Stephen? Wouldn't it be inappropriate? But let no one, because of what I have said, think that I put Jesus on a par with Stephen in the communion of the Spirit. May such blasphemy depart from us! I know and believe that Jesus is filled with the Spirit substantially, in the fullness, and always by nature, not just when He returned from the Jordan. As for Stephen, who, though in part like Him in grace, as a partaker of the all-sanctifying Spirit, that is, of the divine gift, I have said this in order to show the senselessness of Nicholas, as he indiscreetly concludes, as he is in all his philosophies. He says that by acknowledging the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Father and the Son, he thereby introduces the inseparability of persons, not so that He proceeds from two principles, but as from one principle of two united hypostases. To this we ask Nicholas, let him answer in truth, and not only for the sake of arguments: are the two God-originating hypostases essentially united into one principle, which creates the procession of the Spirit, or does he establish union according to hypostasis? It is necessary for him to admit one of two things: either in essence or in hypostasis. II, if He says that in essence there is this special hypostatic principle of the procession of the Spirit, then in this case the Spirit Himself, as consubstantial and indivisible, gives Himself out together with Them, and He will prove to be a partner of the Father in the birth of the Son, and will be the Father of the Only-begotten, giving Himself off also, for the Most Holy Spirit is equal in all things to the Father and the Son, except in the attribute, As I have said many times. From Nicholas's proposal, it necessarily follows that the Spirit, in order to be, in his words, no less than the Father and the Son, must be partaker of the Father in the birth of the Son. But let such satanic blasphemy be directed at the heads of the ignorant, that the Holy Trinity should confess the difference in the essence of the hypostases! If Nicholas imagines the union of hypostases into one principle, then look again, most honorable Theodore, what great impiety this is! And will not the heresy of the accursed Sabellius, who in the triune reign recognized one three-named hypostasis, vegetate again in secret? But how is it possible to unite that which is understood to exist without confusion, that is, to the hypostases? If they unite and converge into one principle, then it is necessary to confess that they are either pre-eternal, or temporary, united and converge. And if it is said that the hypostases of the Father and the Son are eternally united, then they will necessarily show this one hypostasis to be complex, and thus it will not be the Trinity, but an unequal two, having one hypostasis greater and composed of two, and the other simple and smaller, and thus there will be an unequal two, distinguishing between the majority and the minority. What can be more wicked than this? If Nicholas says that this union is temporary, then look again in your mind's eye at the impiety that is secretly preached. If, out of necessity, the Filial Hypostasis comes together with the Father for the release of the Spirit, will not this be imputed to the Father as powerlessness, as if He were unable to give up the Spirit without the assistance of the Son? In this way the Father will be like a flint, which, unless struck with iron, cannot emit fire. At the same time, it will turn out that the procession of the Spirit is temporary, and not pre-eternal. All this is inappropriate and far removed from piety. Moreover, if two hypostases converge to produce one, then this proves that the hypostasis of the Spirit dwells somewhere outside them and especially from those who produce, and the question arises, which Nicholas poses: that, having produced from them, where does the Spirit go? However, Nicholas has already said in part that he is going to the Son, although he came together from the Father and the Son, as from one principle, united in hypostasis, as Nicholas desires. If we admit that the Spirit dwells somewhere outside of them and separately, then how can we believe in His eternal union with them? For in essence the Divine hypostases are united with each other and equal in everything. But Nicholas is perplexed as to what to say to this, and there is no possibility, in justice, to answer anything, for even before this the supreme divine powers —

Wishing to prove this, they seemed to cover their feet, thus divinationly signifying the lowest and later various and incomprehensible dispensations, and that it was not possible for the created nature to fully comprehend the manifold wisdom of God contained in them, for the understanding contained in them is ineffable and untested, as the divine Apostle exclaimed, saying: "O depth of the riches and wisdom and understanding of God" (Romans 11:11). 34). But Isaiah also cried out before him, saying, "Who will understand the mind of the Lord, and who will be His counselor" (Isash 40:13). If, however, Paul recognizes the reason of what He builds for our sake and in relation to us to be untested and unsearchable, then how is it possible, and would it not be manifest madness, to dare to test the terrible and incomprehensible mysteries of Divine incomprehension and concealment, to invent figures for the incomprehensible, and to liken the uncreated, indescribable, all-perfect, and supreme of all perfection to the Trinity, to the sun's appearance and ray and warmth? — to these created objects, imperfect, and subject to description, and to exert themselves thereby to explain the incomprehensible nature, the highest of all word and reason?

But it is enough for you, Nicholas, for a cautious and infallible theology, to give you the above indications of so many and so glorious God-bearing Fathers, who preach the Holy Spirit proceeding alone from the Father, so that you too may be vouchsafed with them, as a true disciple, to glorify in the heavenly Jerusalem the Father without beginning, the Son co-originating with the Father, and the Spirit co-existent with the Father and the Son, proceeding from the Father and resting in the Son, as consubstantial with Him and proceeding from the same source. Tell me: What hinders you from obeying the theology of the Holy Spirit, which is contained in the Gospel, where it is said that He proceeds from the Father?—Do you suggest ignorance and ignorance of the writer of the Holy Gospel, or ill-temper and hatred? For if someone disobeys someone, it is for one of these two reasons. But it is not pious to think that the divine John did not know the truth concerning this, or that he who is the preacher and teacher of all truth deceived and lied. But even then again it is unseemly to think that the Evangelist, with a special intention, wrote thus for the sake of the other apostles, who still had imperfect concepts, as you unsuccessfully assert that the other disciples did not yet have a perfect conception of the Father, and that for this reason he said that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, that is, in order to convince them. This wisdom is not only false, but also blasphemous, and contains in itself a strong slander, first, against the Son, Who first made them all wise and enlightened them with teaching, and then against the Holy Spirit, Who came after Him (descended upon them), and Who equally gave them all the knowledge of the sacraments and revealed to them the theological teaching about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. How can you not call this deceit on your part, for it was impossible for you not to know that Philip's question about the Father was before the Lord's sufferings and before the disciples' perfection in the understanding of the mysteries of the Holy Trinity—that this question was made at the Last Supper, when all were still equally imperfect, senseless, and stagnant in heart, as the Saviour said to them—when the Gospel had not yet been written. For the Gospel of John was written on the island of Patmos, thirty-two years after the ascension of the Saviour.

But let us suppose, as you say, that the evangelist did so prudently, that is, in order to show the apostles that the Spirit proceeds not only from the Son, but also from the Father. Why, knowing this for certain, do you not change this in the holy Gospel, in order to avoid reproof from there? But you dare not do this, since your very conscience convicts you that your wisdom is false. If you hoped that you were right, you would have done it a long time ago. If you were not afraid to say that many were deceived by this Gospel saying, and shamelessly slander the blessed and banner-bearing Fathers of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, who taught us the sacred confession of faith, which we still preserve by the grace of Christ, then all the more would you have made a change in the Gospel long ago. But you do not dare to do this, knowing that, indeed, a heretic is one who, even if it is a little, will change anything contained in the Gospel.