NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

Establishment of the natural communion of the Spirit from His being, equally with theFather and the Son, unapproachable in thought.Chapter XXII.Establishment of the natural communion of the Spirit from His being, equally with the Fatherand the Son, unapproachable in thought. 116753. Moreover the surpassing excellence of the nature of the Spirit is to be learned notonly from His having the same title as the Father and the Son, and sharing in their operations,but also from His being, like the Father and the Son, unapproachable in thought. For whatour Lord says of the Father as being above and beyond human conception, and what Hesays of the Son, this same language He uses also of the Holy Ghost. “O righteous Father,”He says, “the world hath not known Thee,” 1168 meaning here by the world not the complexwhole compounded of heaven and earth, but this life of ours subject to death, 1169 and exposedto innumerable vicissitudes. And when discoursing of Himself He says, “Yet a little whileand the world seeth me no more, but ye see me;” 1170 again in this passage, applying theword world to those who being bound down by this material and carnal life, and beholding1171 the truth by material sight alone, 1172 were ordained, through their unbelief in theresurrection, to see our Lord no more with the eyes of the heart. And He said the sameconcerning the Spirit. “The Spirit of truth,” He says, “whom the world cannot receive, becauseit seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him, for He dwelleth withyou.” 1173 For the carnal man, who has never trained his mind to contemplation, 1174 butrather keeps it buried deep in lust of the flesh, 1175 as in mud, is powerless to look up to thespiritual light of the truth. And so the world, that is life enslaved by the affections of theflesh, can no more receive the grace of the Spirit than a weak eye the light of a sunbeam.But the Lord, who by His teaching bore witness to purity of life, gives to His disciples thepower of now both beholding and contemplating the Spirit. For “now,” He says, “Ye are1167 πρὸς θεωρίαν δυσέφικτον. The Benedictine Latin is “incomprehensibilis,” but this is rather ἀκατάληπτος.The “incomprehensible” of the Ath. Creed is “immensus.”1168 John xvii. 25.1169 ἐπίκηρος. The force of the word as applied to this life is illustrated by the 61st Epigram of Callimachus:Τίς ξένος, ὦ ναυηγέ; Δεόντιχος ἐνθάδε νεκρὸν εὗρεν ἐπ᾽ αἰγιαλοῖς, χῶσε δὲ τῷδε τάφῳ δακρύσας ἐπίκηρονεὸν βίον· οὐδὲ γὰρ αὐτὸς ἥσυχος, αἰθυί& 219·ς δ᾽ ἶσα θαλασσοπορεῖ .1170 John xiv. 19.1171 ἐπιβλέποντας , the reading of the Viennese ms. vulgo ἐπιτρέποντας.1172 μόνοις ὀφθαλμοῖς.1173 John xiv. 17.1174 ἀγύμναστον ἔχων τὸν νοῦν. cf. Heb. v. 14.1175 τῷ φρονήματι τῆς σαρκός. cf. Rom. viii. 6 τὸ γὰρ φρόνημα τῆς σαρκὸς θάνατος.213