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134 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,
speaking of the operations, ad extra, to which the three Divine
Persons concur in the same manner.
" Whosoever is blessed in
Christ," says St. Ambrose (2),
"
is blessed in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, because there is
one name and one power ; thus, likewise, when the operation of
the Holy Ghost is pointed out, it is referred, not only to the Holy
Ghost, but also to the Father and the Son."
19. They object, thirdly, that the primitive Christians knew
nothing of the Holy Ghost, as we learn from the Acts of the
Apostles, when St. Paul asked some newly-baptized, if they had
"
received the Holy Ghost, they answered : We have not so much
as heard if there be a Holy Ghost" (Acts, xix, 2). We reply that
the answer to this is furnished by the very passage itself, for, St.
Paul hearing that they knew nothing of the Holy Ghost, asked
them :
"
In what, then, were ;"
you baptized
and they answered,
"
in John s No Baptism." wonder, then, that they knew nothing
of the Holy Ghost, when they were not even as yet baptized with
the Baptism instituted by Christ.
20. They object, fourthly, that the Council of Constantinople,
speaking of the Holy Ghost, does not call him God. We answer
that the Council does call him God, when it says he is the Lord
and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, and who, with
the Father and the Son, should be adored and glorified. And
the same answer will apply, when they object that St. Basil (or
any other Father) has not called the Holy Ghost God, for they
have defended his Divinity, and condemned those who called him
a creature. Besides, if St. Basil, in his sermons, does not speak
of the Holy Ghost as God, it was only an act of prudence in
those calamitous times, when the heretics sought every occasion to
chase the Catholic Bishops from their Sees, and intrude wolves
into their places. St. Basil, on the other hand, defends the
Divinity of the Holy Ghost in a thousand passages. Just take
one for all, where he says, in his Fifth Book against Eunomius,
"
tit. 1 : What is common to the Father and the Son is likewise
so to the Holy Ghost, for wherever we find the Father and the
Son designated as God in the Scripture, the Holy Ghost is
designated as God likewise.
(2) St. Amb. /. 1, de Sanc/c. 3.