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128 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,
glory" (Psalms. Ixxxiii, 12). Thus, also, it is God alone who can
grant justification.
It is God "
that justifieth the wicked" (Prov.
xvii, 15). Now both these attributes appertain to the Holy
Ghost.
" The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by
the Holy Ghost, who is given to us" (Romans, v, 5). Didimus (25)
makes a reflection on this : The very expression, he says,
"
poured
out," proves the uncreated substance of the Holy Ghost; for
whenever God sends forth an angel, he does not say, I will
"
pour out" my angel. As to justification, we hear Jesus says to
his :
disciples
" Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; whose sins you
shall forgive, they are forgiven" (John, xx. 22, 23). If the
power of forgiving sins comes from the Holy Ghost, he must be
God. The Apostle also says that it is God who operates in us
the good we do ;
"
the same God who worketh all in all"
(I. Cor.
xii, 6). And then in the llth verse of the same chapter he says
"
that this God is the Holy Ghost : But all those things one and
the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as he
will." Here then, says St. Athanasius, the Scripture proves that
the operation of God is the operation of the Holy Ghost.
12. Fifthly St. Paul tells us that we are the temples of God.
" Know you not that you are the temple of God"
(I. Cor. iii, 16).
And then further on in the same Epistle he says that our is body
know you not that your
"
the temple of the Holy Ghost : Or
members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in
you"
(vi, 19). If, therefore, we are the temples of God and of the
Holy Ghost, we must confess that the Holy Ghost is God, for if
the Holy Ghost were a creature, we would be forced to admit
that the very temple of God was the temple of a creature. Here
are St. Augustin s (26) words on the subject :
"
If the Holy Ghost
be not God, he would not have us as his temple for if we
would build a temple to some Saint or Angel, we would be cut
off from the truth of Christ and the Church of God, since we
would be exhibiting to a creature that service which we owe to
God alone. If, therefore, we would be guilty of
sacrilege, by
erecting a temple to any creature, surely he must be true God
to whom we not only erect a temple, but even are ourselves his
(25) Dydim. /. de St. San. (27) St. Augus. in I. Cor. c. 6 ; Coll.
cum Maximin. in Arian.