By Water & Blood

Book 3, Chapter 5: How the Saviour taught concerning the Holy Spirit

And that the Holy Spirit is other than the Son, our Saviour and Lord himself taught expressly and in various ways, in the clearest words, when he said to his disciples, “If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive.” You see how he says that the Spirit, the Paraclete, is other, and another besides himself. And if, having breathed on the disciples, he said, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit,” one must not be unaware that the breathing was in some way purifying of the apostles’ souls, making them fit for the reception of the Holy Spirit.

For it is not said that he breathed into their face, nor that he breathed the breath of life, nor the Holy Spirit, as it is recorded in the case of Adam that “God breathed into his face the breath of life”; rather, it is said that he breathed first, and then said, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” And his giving the Spirit again shows that he is other than what is given; for the giver and the thing given would not be the same. Rather, the one who supplied it was the Saviour, what was given was the Holy Spirit, those who received were the apostles, and the breathing was, as I said, purifying of the apostles, or else effective of the imparting of the Holy Spirit—for it is possible to understand it either way. In any case, from these things the Holy Spirit is shown to be other than he, as also through the words that follow, in which it is again recorded that he said, “If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

To which he adds: “These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom my Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” You hear how he used the plural form—“we will come unto him, and make our abode with him”—speaking of himself and the Father, and how, in discoursing about the Holy Spirit, he said as of another, “he shall teach you all things.”

Of the same kind was also “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth.” The Paraclete, then, about whom he taught so much, was other than he. Fittingly, then, he again added, saying, “These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom my Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said.”

“For I,” he says, “have spoken these things to you for the time being; but the Spirit of truth, which my Father will also send, will teach you all things which you have not learned now, because you cannot receive them;

but he, when he comes—I mean the Paraclete—will complete the teaching, besides producing in you remembrance of the things now said by me.” And again he adds, “But when the Paraclete is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.” Through all of these he clearly establishes that the one sent by him, who is about to bear witness concerning him, is other than himself.

And he works out the argument still further through what he adds: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Paraclete will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” In saying that he would go away, he signified in these words both his passion and his ascent to the Father after it. Who, then, is so foolish as, after so many utterances, to say that the one saying these things and the one about whom he said them are one and the same—when he hears him clearly declaring that he speaks the truth, and setting out what the truth is: that unless he himself went away, the Holy Spirit would never come?

And if he declares at one time that the Father will send the Holy Spirit, and at another that he himself will, he does not, surely, teach contradictory things. For whatsoever things “he seeth the Father do,” “these also doeth the Son likewise,” and “as he heareth, he judgeth.” Therefore by the Father’s judgment, when the Father also wills it, then the Son also—† and through him the Saviour † [text corrupt]—sends to his disciples the Spirit of truth, the Paraclete, to exhort (παρακαλεῖν) and console them in the things they suffered from their persecutors while preaching the gospel;

and not only to exhort them, but also to teach them all the truth of the new covenant, which they could not receive when taught by the Saviour at the time he conversed with them about these things, because they were still enslaved to the Jewish way of life. This he fulfilled in deeds after his resurrection from the dead. After it he said to Mary, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father”; and afterward, as one who had now ascended to the Father, he appeared to the disciples, the Holy Spirit having been sent and being with him and standing ready for the ministry to which it has been appointed—at which time he also permits them to touch him.

For then “he breathed on them,” and then he gave them some part of the gift (χάρισμα) of the Holy Spirit, the part which effects the remission of sins. For “there are diversities of gifts,” of which he bestowed on them a portion at that time, while he was with them and present to them; but afterward he filled them with a greater and more perfect power. Of this he said to them in the Acts of the Apostles, “But ye shall receive power from on high, the Holy Spirit having come upon you,” when he also promised that they would be baptized in the Holy Spirit—which was itself fulfilled after his ascension, when the Holy Spirit was sent to them on the day of Pentecost, in accordance with his words.

Since the matters in this passage require fuller elaboration and clarity, this is not the time to pursue them with the precision of a full examination, since that is not what we have set before ourselves. But it was necessary to establish that the Paraclete Spirit is other than the Son. This has been demonstrated in various ways through what the Saviour himself taught, both in other places and where he said, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will declare to you all the truth:

for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” Here again he promises that his disciples will learn from the Holy Spirit the things he himself did not teach, speaking as of another in “when he is come,” and “for he shall not speak of himself,” and “he shall glorify me,” and “for he shall receive of mine.” For to suppose that the Saviour says all these things about himself is a terrible and hard-to-cure simplicity.

Rather, through these words the Saviour himself clearly taught that the Holy Spirit is other than himself: surpassing in honour and glory and privileges (πρεσβεῖα), and greater and higher than every intellectual and rational essence (οὐσία)—for which reason it has also been included together with the holy and thrice-blessed Triad—yet subordinate (ὑποβεβηκός) to him. This he established by saying, “For he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.” And from whom it will hear he makes clear, saying, “He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you”—“of mine,” that is, of my treasury; for “in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

He himself, then, as only-begotten Son, receives from the Father and hears from the Father, while the Holy Spirit is supplied from him; therefore he says, “He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.” Now the God over all is also called Spirit, as the Saviour himself taught, saying, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth”; and he will truly be himself holy of holies, and the one “who rests among the saints.” But the Son of God too is Spirit, and he also is Spirit, holy of holies, if indeed he is the image of the invisible God;

therefore it is said of him also, “Now the Lord is that Spirit,” and “The Spirit before our face is Christ the Lord.”

But since the Holy Spirit is other than the Father and the Son, the Saviour, setting forth its distinctive property (ἰδίωμα), called it Paraclete, marking it off by the title “Paraclete” from what is common in the shared name—since the angelic powers too would be spirits; for it is said, “Who maketh his angels spirits.” But none of these can be made equal to the Paraclete Spirit. Therefore it alone has been included together with the holy and thrice-blessed Triad,

since the Saviour commanded his apostles to hand on the mystery of his regeneration to all from the nations who believe in him in no other way than by baptizing “them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”—the Father exercising authority (αὐθεντοῦντος) and bestowing the grace; the Son ministering it (for “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ”); and the Holy Spirit, that is, the Paraclete, being itself what is supplied, according to the diversities of gifts within it: “For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit,” and the things enumerated with these likewise.