Section 2 — ¶11 [33] – 11 [35]

11 [33] If, then, it is obligatory to approach in argument and consider the greater things, from this let us contemplate the divine power of the Holy Spirit. We have found three creations to be named in Scripture. One, and the first, is the production from non-existence to existence. The second is the alteration from the worse to the good. The third is the Resurrection of the Dead. In these you will find the Holy Spirit to be a fellow worker with the Father and the Son. The substantiation of the Heavens. And what does David say? ‘By the Word the Lord founded the Heavens and by the Spirit of his mouth is all of their strength.’ Again, man is created through baptism: ‘For if one is in Christ he is a new creation.’ And what does the Saviour say to the disciples: ‘Going out, make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ Do you see even here the Holy Spirit present together with the Father and the Son? What then might you also say concerning the Resurrection of the Dead, when we shall depart and return to our dust? For we are earth and we will depart to the earth, and he will send forth the Holy Spirit and he will create us and renew the face of the earth. For what the holy Paul called ‘resurrection’, this same thing David called ‘renewal’. [34] Again, let us hear him who was ravished up to the Third Heaven. What does he say? ‘For you are the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you.’ Every temple is a temple of God. If we are a temple of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is God. He also says ‘the Temple of Solomon’, but as of him who built [it]. If we are in that sense temples of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is God—‘God who has made all things’—; if, however, in the sense [of the Holy Spirit] as worthy of worship and abiding in us, let us confess that it is God: ‘You will bow down to the Lord your God and to him only will you offer worship.’ [35] If, then, they reject the use of the expression ‘God’, let them learn of what this name is significant. For he is named ‘God’ from ‘to have placed or to see all things’.[1] If, then, he is called ‘God’ from ‘to have placed or to see all things’; and [if], on the other hand, the Spirit knows all things of God, as the spirit which is in us [knows] all the things which pertain to us; then the Holy Spirit is God. And, again, if the sword of the Spirit is the word (rema) of God, the Holy Spirit is God. For of that one is the sword, of whom it is also called the word (rema).[2] And if he [sc. the Son] is called ‘the Right Hand’[3] of the Father—for ‘The Right Hand of the Lord did [acts of] strength;’ and ‘Your Right Hand, Lord, has broken enemies;’ and the Holy Spirit on the other hand is the finger of God according to the saying ‘If I cast out the demons in the finger of God,’ (which very thing has been written in another Gospel ‘If I cast out the demons in the Spirit of God;’) then the Holy Spirit is of the same nature as the Father and the Son.

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[1] The author is providing an etymology of ‘Theos (God)’ from ‘tetheikenai (to have placed) or theasthai (to see) all things’.

[2] This rather elliptical passage seems to mean this: The Holy Spirit is God because the property of being the ‘sword of the Spirit’ is transferred to being the ‘sword of God’ through the identification by the scriptural text of ‘sword of the Spirit’ with the ‘word (rema) of God’. Hence, the Holy Spirit is of the same substance (homoousios) as God.

[3] Cf.: KG II, 12: ‘The right of the Lord is also called hand, but his hand is not also called right. And his hand receives increase and decrease, but that does not also occur to the right.’ KG II, 89: ‘He who alone is seated ‘at the right’ [Mark 16, 19] of the Father, alone has the gnosis of the right of the Father.’ KG IV, 21: ‘The unction either indicates the gnosis of the Unity or designates the contemplation of beings. And if more than the others Christ is anointed, it is evident that he is anointed with the gnosis of the Unity. On account of that, he alone is said ‘to be seated at the right’ [Mark 16, 19] of his Father, the right which here, according to the rule of the gnostics, indicates the Monad and the Unity.’ It should be clear that many of the concepts of Layer 3 have direct connections to the doctrines of the Kephalaia Gnostica, and that a presumption of orthodoxy is unwarranted for To the Caesareans….