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

To the Canonicæ.forth 2189 as plants their fruits. The mode of the divine begetting is ineffable and inconceivableby human thought. It is indeed characteristic of poor and carnal intelligence to comparethe things that are eternal with the perishing things of time, and to imagine, that as corporealthings beget, so does God in like manner; it is rather our duty to rise to the truth by argumentsof the contrary, and to say, that since thus is the mortal, not thus is He who is immortal.We must neither then deny the divine generation, nor contaminate our intelligence withcorporeal senses.4. The Holy Spirit, too, is numbered with the Father and the Son, because He is abovecreation, and is ranked as we are taught by the words of the Lord in the Gospel, “Go andbaptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” 2190 He who, onthe contrary, places the Spirit before the Son, or alleges Him to be older than the Father,resists the ordinance of God, and is a stranger to the sound faith, since he fails to preservethe form of doxology which he has received, but adopts some new fangled device in orderto be pleasing to men. It is written “The Spirit is of God,” 2191 and if He is of God, how canHe be older than that of which He is? And what folly is it not, when there is one Unbegotten,to speak of something else as superior to the Unbegotten? He is not even anterior, fornothing intervenes between Son and Father. If, however, He is not of God but is throughChrist, He does not even exist at all. It follows, that this new invention about the orderreally involves the destruction of the actual existence, and is a denial of the whole faith. Itis equally impious to reduce Him to the level of a creature, and to subordinate Him eitherto Son or to Father, either in time or in rank. These are the points on which I have heardthat you are making enquiry. If the Lord grant that we meet I may possibly have more tosay on these subjects, and may myself, concerning points which I am investigating, receivesatisfactory information from you.2189 cf. Luke xxi. 30.2190 Matt. xxviii. 19.2191 1 Cor. ii. 12.466