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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 51
4. Now the proper way to direct our investigation seems to me to be as follows. We say that every good thing, which by God's providence befalls us, is an operation, of the Grace which worketh in us all things, as the apostle says, "But all these worketh that one and the self same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will." [2028] If we ask, if the supply of good things which thus comes to the saints has its origin in the Holy Ghost alone, we are on the other hand guided by Scripture to the belief that of the supply of the good things which are wrought in us through the Holy Ghost, the Originator and Cause is the Only-begotten God; [2029] for we are taught by Holy Scripture that "All things were made by Him," [2030] and "by Him consist." [2031] When we are exalted to this conception, again, led by God-inspired guidance, we are taught that by that power all things are brought from non-being into being, but yet not by that power to the exclusion of origination. [2032] On the other hand there is a certain power subsisting without generation and without origination, [2033] which is the cause of the cause of all things. For the Son, by whom are all things, and with whom the Holy Ghost is inseparably conceived of, is of the Father. [2034] For it is not possible for any one to conceive of the Son if he be not previously enlightened by the Spirit. Since, then, the Holy Ghost, from Whom all the supply of good things for creation has its source, is attached to the Son, and with Him is inseparably apprehended, and has Its [2035] being attached to the Father, as cause, from Whom also It proceeds; It has this note of Its peculiar hypostatic nature, that It is known after the Son [2036] and together with the Son, and that It has Its subsistence of the Father. The Son, Who declares the Spirit proceeding from the Father through Himself and with Himself, shining forth alone and by only-begetting from the unbegotten light, so far as the peculiar notes are concerned, has nothing in common either with the Father or with the Holy Ghost. He alone is known by the stated signs. But God, Who is over all, alone has, as one special mark of His own hypostasis, His being Father, and His deriving His hypostasis [2037] from no cause; and through this mark He is peculiarly known. Wherefore in the communion of the substance we maintain that there is no mutual approach or intercommunion of those notes of indication perceived in the Trinity, whereby is set forth the proper peculiarity of the Persons delivered in the faith, each of these being distinctively apprehended by His own notes. Hence, in accordance with the stated signs of indication, discovery is made of the separation of the hypostases; while so far as relates to the infinite, the incomprehensible, the uncreate, the uncircumscribed, and similar attributes, there is no variableness in the life-giving nature; in that, I mean, of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but in Them is seen a certain communion indissoluble and continuous. And by the same considerations, whereby a reflective student could perceive the greatness of any one of the (Persons) believed in in the Holy Trinity, he will proceed without variation. Beholding the glory in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, his mind all the while recognises no void interval wherein it may travel between Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for there is nothing inserted between Them; nor beyond the divine nature is there anything so subsisting as to be able to divide that nature from itself by the interposition of any foreign matter. Neither is there any vacuum of interval, void of subsistence, which can make a break in the mutual harmony of the divine essence, and solve the continuity by the interjection of emptiness. He who perceives the Father, and perceives Him by Himself, has at the same time mental perception of the Son; and he who receives the Son does not divide Him from the Spirit, but, in consecution so far as order is concerned, in conjunction so far as nature is concerned, expresses the faith commingled in himself in the three together. He who makes mention of the Spirit alone, embraces also in this confession Him of whom He is the Spirit. And since the Spirit is Christ's and of God, [2038] as says Paul, then just as he who lays hold on one end of the chain pulls the other to him, so he who "draws the Spirit," [2039] as says the prophet, by His means draws to him at the same time both the Son and the Father. And if any one verily receives the Son, he will hold Him on both sides, the Son drawing towards him on the one His own Father, and on the other His own Spirit. For He who eternally exists in the Father can never be cut off from the Father, nor can He who worketh all things by the Spirit ever be disjoined from His own Spirit. Likewise moreover he who receives the Father virtually receives at the same time both the Son and the Spirit; for it is in no wise possible to entertain the idea of severance or division, in such a way as that the Son should be thought of apart from the Father, or the Spirit be disjoined from the Son. But the communion and the distinction apprehended in Them are, in a certain sense, ineffable and inconceivable, the continuity of nature being never rent asunder by the distinction of the hypostases, nor the notes of proper distinction confounded in the community of essence. Marvel not then at my speaking of the same thing as being both conjoined and parted, and thinking as it were darkly in a riddle, of a certain [2040] new and strange conjoined separation and separated conjunction. Indeed, even in objects perceptible to the senses, any one who approaches the subject in a candid and uncontentious spirit, may find similar conditions of things.
[2028] 1 Cor. xii. 11.
[2029] ho monogenes theos is the reading of the Sinaitic and Vatican mss. in John i. 18. The insertion of the words oude ho uiios, adopted by R.V. in Matt. xxiv. 36, but of which St. Basil knows nothing, as appears from his argument on the difference between the statements of St. Matthew and St. Mark on this subject in Letter ccxxxvi., is supported by these same two mss.
[2030] John i. 3.
[2031] Col. i. 17.
[2032] anarchos.
[2033] agennetos kai anarchos huphestosa.
[2034] For similar statements by St. Basil, cf. De Sp. S. p. cf. also Cont. Eunom. i: epeide gar apo tou patros he arche to hui& 254;, kata touto meizon ho pater hos aitios kai arche.
[2035] cf. notes, pp. 15, 24.
[2036] meta ton hui& 231;n. So the Benedictine text with four mss. in the Paris Library, and the note. "meta tou huiou" is a reading which is inadmissible, repeating as it does the sense of the following clause kai sun auto. The sense in which the Son is both "after the Son" and "with the Son" is explained further on by St. Basil, where he says that the three Persons are known in consecution of order but in conjunction of nature.
[2037] hupostenai.
[2038] Rom. viii. 9; 1 Cor. ii. 12.
[2039] Apparently a mistaken interpretation of the LXX. version of Ps. cxix. 131, heilkusa pneuma="I drew breath." A.V. and R.V., "I panted." Vulg., attraxi spiritum.
[2040] hosper ek ainigmati. cf. 1 Cor. xiii. 12. en ainigmati or ex ainigmaton, as in AEsch., Ag. 1113=by dark hints. The bold oxymoron concluding this sentence is illustrated by Ovid's "impietate pia" (Met. viii. 477), Lucan's "concordia discors" (Phars. i. 98), or Tennyson's "faith unfaithful."
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/letters.asp?pg=51
