55. But, for my part, I cannot be content by the
service of my faith and voice, to deny that my Lord and my God, Thy
Only-begotten, Jesus Christ, is a creature; I must also deny that this
name of ‘creature’ belongs to Thy Holy Spirit, seeing that
He proceeds from Thee and is sent through Him, so great is my reverence
for everything that is Thine. Nor, because I know that Thou alone
art unborn and that the Only-begotten is born of Thee, will I refuse to
say that the Holy Spirit was begotten, or assert that He was ever
created. I fear the blasphemies which would be insinuated against
Thee by such use of this title ‘creature,’ which I share
with the other beings brought into being by Thee. Thy Holy
Spirit, as the Apostle says, searches and knows Thy deep things, and as
Intercessor for me speaks to Thee words I could not utter; and shall I
express or rather dishonour, by the title ‘creature,’ the
power of His nature, which subsists eternally, derived from Thee
through Thine Only-begotten? Nothing, except what belongs to
Thee, penetrates into Thee; nor can the agency of a power foreign and
strange to Thee measure the depth of Thy boundless majesty. To
Thee belongs whatever enters into Thee; nor is anything strange to
Thee, which dwells in Thee through its searching power.