36. Having thus concluded that we must reject the
word ‘creation’ from our confession of faith in God the
Only-begotten, we proceed to lay down the teachings of reason and of
piety concerning the Holy Spirit, that the reader, whose convictions
have been established by patient and earnest study of the preceding
books, may be provided with a complete presentation of the faith.
This end will be attained when the blasphemies of heretical teaching on
this theme also have been swept away, and the mystery, pure and
undefiled, of the Trinity which regenerates us has been fixed in terms
of saving precision on the authority of Apostles and Evangelists.
Men will no longer dare, on the strength of mere human reasoning, to
rank among creatures that Divine Spirit, Whom we receive as the pledge
of immortality and source of fellowship with the sinless nature of
God.