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

To his Brother Gregory, concerning the difference between and .has Its subsistence of the Father. The Son, Who declares the Spirit proceeding from theFather through Himself and with Himself, shining forth alone and by only-begetting fromthe unbegotten light, so far as the peculiar notes are concerned, has nothing in commoneither with the Father or with the Holy Ghost. He alone is known by the stated signs. ButGod, Who is over all, alone has, as one special mark of His own hypostasis, His beingFather, and His deriving His hypostasis 2037 from no cause; and through this mark He ispeculiarly known. Wherefore in the communion of the substance we maintain that thereis no mutual approach or intercommunion of those notes of indication perceived in theTrinity, whereby is set forth the proper peculiarity of the Persons delivered in the faith, eachof these being distinctively apprehended by His own notes. Hence, in accordance with thestated signs of indication, discovery is made of the separation of the hypostases; while sofar as relates to the infinite, the incomprehensible, the uncreate, the uncircumscribed, andsimilar 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 greatnessof 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 novoid interval wherein it may travel between Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for there is nothinginserted between Them; nor beyond the divine nature is there anything so subsisting as tobe able to divide that nature from itself by the interposition of any foreign matter. Neitheris there any vacuum of interval, void of subsistence, which can make a break in the mutualharmony 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 mentalperception 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 mentionof the Spirit alone, embraces also in this confession Him of whom He is the Spirit. Andsince the Spirit is Christ’s and of God, 2038 as says Paul, then just as he who lays hold on oneend of the chain pulls the other to him, so he who “draws the Spirit,” 2039 as says theprophet, by His means draws to him at the same time both the Son and the Father. And ifany one verily receives the Son, he will hold Him on both sides, the Son drawing towards139The sense in which the Son is both “after the Son” and “with the Son” is explained further on by St. Basil, wherehe says that the three Persons are known in consecution of order but in conjunction of nature.2037 ὑποστῆναι.2038 Rom. viii. 9; 1 Cor. ii. 12.2039 Apparently a mistaken interpretation of the LXX. version of Ps. cxix. 131, εἵλκυσα πνεῦμα="I drewbreath.” A.V. and R.V., “I panted.” Vulg., attraxi spiritum.429