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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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88 Pages
Page 42
38. Moreover, from the things created at the beginning may be learnt the fellowship of the Spirit with the Father and the Son. The pure, intelligent, and supermundane powers are and are styled holy, because they have their holiness of the grace given by the Holy Spirit. Accordingly the mode of the creation of the heavenly powers is passed over in Silence, for the historian of the cosmogony has revealed to us only the creation of things perceptible by sense. But do thou, who hast power from the things that are seen to form an analogy of the unseen, glorify the Maker by whom all things were made, visible and invisible, principalities and powers, authorities, thrones, and dominions, and all other reasonable natures whom we cannot name. [1034] And in the creation bethink thee first, I pray thee, of the original cause of all things that are made, the Father; of the creative cause, the Son; of the perfecting cause, the Spirit; so that the ministering spirits subsist by the will of the Father, are brought into being by the operation of the Son, and perfected by the presence of the Spirit. Moreover, the perfection of angels is sanctification and continuance in it. And let no one imagine me either to affirm that there are three original hypostases [1035] or to allege the operation of the Son to be imperfect. For the first principle of existing things is One, creating through the Son and perfecting through the Spirit. [1036] The operation of the Father who worketh all in all is not imperfect, neither is the creating work of the Son incomplete if not perfected by the Spirit. The Father, who creates by His sole will, could not stand in any need of the Son, but nevertheless He wills through the Son; nor could the Son, who works according to the likeness of the Father, need co-operation, but the Son too wills to make perfect through the Spirit. "For by the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath [the Spirit] of His mouth." [1037] The Word then is not a mere significant impression on the air, borne by the organs of speech; nor is the Spirit of His mouth a vapour, emitted by the organs of respiration; but the Word is He who "was with God in the beginning" and "was God," [1038] and the Spirit of the mouth of God is "the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father." [1039]
[1034] cf. Col. i. 16.
[1035] hupostaseis, apparently used here as the equivalent of ousiai, unless the negation only extends to archikas. cf. note on p. 5.
[1036] Contrast the neuter to on of Pagan philosophy with the ho on or ego eimi of Christian revelation.
[1037] Ps. xxxiii. 6.
[1038] John i. 1.
[1039] John xv. 26.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/holy-spirit.asp?pg=42
