I commend your love of learning and your willingness to labor, my dear and most honored brother Amphilochius. I have been especially pleased by the attentive and sober judgment with which you insist that none of the expressions used about God, in whatever form of discourse they occur, should be left without careful examination. You have listened well to the Lord’s exhortation, “Everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds”; by your diligence in asking, you seem capable of stirring even the most reluctant person to share what he has.
What I admire still more is that, unlike many people today, you do not raise questions merely to test someone, but in order to discover what is actually true. There is no shortage now of people who listen in order to catch us out and who press us with questions. It is very difficult, however, to meet a soul that truly loves learning and seeks truth as a cure for ignorance. Most questions are like a hunter’s snare or a soldier’s ambush: the deception is hidden and carefully prepared. Those who put arguments forward do so not to gain something useful from the answers, but so that, if the replies do not agree with what they already want, they may think themselves furnished with a just pretext for conflict.
If, as it is written, “wisdom will be counted as wisdom even when a fool asks for it,” how highly should we value the “understanding hearer” whom the prophet places beside the “wonderful counselor”? Surely such a person deserves every commendation. We should encourage him to advance, join him in his zeal, and labor with him in everything as he presses toward perfection.
Not to hear theological expressions carelessly, but to try to trace the meaning in every word and even every syllable, is not the habit of those who are idle in the pursuit of godliness. It belongs to those who know the goal of our calling: that, so far as human nature is capable, we are to become like God. But likeness does not come without knowledge, knowledge does not come without teaching, and teaching begins with speech; and syllables and words are the parts of speech. The examination of syllables, then, is not beside the point.
Nor should questions be ignored simply because they may appear small. Truth is difficult to track down, and we must follow its traces from every direction. Just as mastery of an art grows through small additions, so also does growth in godliness. Anyone being introduced to knowledge must despise nothing. If someone disregards the first elements because they seem insignificant, he will never reach the mature accomplishments of wisdom.
“Yes” and “No” are only two short words, yet these little expressions can contain the greatest good, truth, or the farthest limit of wickedness, falsehood. Why speak only of “Yes” and “No”? There has even been a martyr who, by nothing more than a nod of the head in testimony for Christ, was judged to have fulfilled the whole duty of godliness. If this is so, what theological expression is so small that, according as it is used rightly or wrongly, it cannot tip the balance greatly in one direction or the other? If not one iota or one stroke of the Law will pass away, how can it be safe for us to pass over even the smallest matters?
The very points you have asked us to clarify are therefore both small and great: small because they are uttered in an instant and so may easily be despised, but great because of the force of what they signify. They are like the mustard seed: very small among garden seeds, yet when it receives proper care, the power sown within it unfolds and it rises to a considerable height.
If someone laughs when he sees us, in the Psalmist’s phrase, “meditating” over syllables, let him reap the barren fruit of his laughter. We must not surrender to human reproach or let contempt defeat us and so abandon the inquiry. Far from being ashamed because these matters are small, I would consider myself greatly honored if I could attain even a tiny part of their true worth; and I would say that the brother who investigates them with me had gained no small benefit.
Seeing, then, that a very great contest lies within these little words, I do not shrink from the labor, because I hope for the reward. I believe the discussion will bear fruit for me and bring lasting benefit to those who hear it. So now, with the Holy Spirit himself—if I may put it this way—I will proceed to the explanation. And, if you agree, to set the discussion on its proper course I will return briefly to the beginning of the question.
Recently, while I was praying with the people and completing the doxology to God the Father in both forms—at one time, “with the Son, together with the Holy Spirit,” and at another, “through the Son, in the Holy Spirit”—some of those present objected. They said that I was using strange expressions and, moreover, expressions that contradicted one another.
You therefore asked that a clear account be given of the force of these syllables, chiefly for the benefit of those people themselves, or, if they are altogether incurable, at least for the protection of those who may encounter them. I will therefore speak briefly, so far as possible, first laying down a principle on which the discussion can agree.