56. Let us then examine the points one by
one. He is good by nature, in the same way as the Father is good,
and the Son is good; the creature on the other hand shares in goodness
by choosing the good. He knows “The deep things of
God;”
1 Cor. ii. 10,
11. the creature
receives the manifestation of ineffable things through the
Spirit. He quickens together with God, who produces and preserves
all things alive, In
1 Tim. vi.
13, St. Paul writes
τοῦ
θεοῦ τοῦ
ζωοποιοῦντος
πάντα. In the text St.
Basil writes τὰ
πάντα
ζωογονοῦντος.
The latter word is properly distinguished from the former as
meaning not to make alive after death, but to engender
alive. In Luke
xvii. 33, it is
rendered in A.V. “preserve.” In Acts vii. 19, it is “to the end
they might not live.” On the meaning of
ζωογονεῖν
in the lxx. and the Socinian arguments based on its use in
Luke xvii.
33, cf.
Pearson, On the Creed, Art. V. note to p. 257 Ed.
1676. and together with
the Son, who gives life. “He that raised up Christ from the
dead,” it is said, “shall also quicken your mortal bodies
by the spirit that dwelleth in you;”
Rom. viii.
11.
and again “my sheep hear my voice,…and I give unto them
eternal life;”
John x.
27–28. but “the
Spirit” also, it is said, “giveth life,”
2 Cor. iii.
6. and again “the Spirit,” it is
said, “is life, because of righteousness.”
Rom. viii.
10. And the Lord bears witness that
“it is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth
nothing.”
John vi. 63. How then
shall we alienate the Spirit from His quickening power, and make Him
belong to lifeless nature? Who is so contentious, who is so
utterly without the heavenly gift, cf.
Heb. vi. 4. and unfed by
God’s good words, who is so devoid of part and lot in eternal
hopes, as to sever the Spirit from the Godhead and rank Him with the
creature?