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whose is the humiliation of those from him. But I also suspect your insatiability, lest having taken the greater you divide the nature, using the greater in all things. For the greater is not according to nature, but according to cause. For nothing of the same substance is greater or less in substance. I want to prefer the Son to the Spirit, as Son; but baptism, which perfects me through the Spirit, does not allow it. But are you afraid of being reproached for tritheism? You keep the good thing, the union in the three; hand over the battle to me. Let me be the shipbuilder, you use the ship. And if there is another shipbuilder, take me as the architect of the house; you dwell in it with safety, even if you have toiled not at all. You will sail no less prosperously, or inhabit the house, though I am the one who constructed these things, even if you have labored not at all on them. Do you see how great the graciousness is? Do you see the goodness of the Spirit? The war is mine, let the victory be yours. Let me be struck, but you be at peace, praying with the one who fights for you; give a hand through faith. I have three stones with which I will sling at the foreigner. I have three inbreathings, after the manner of the son of the Sareptan woman, with which I will give life to 36.421 the dead. I have three pourings over the pieces of wood, with which I will consecrate the sacrifice, raising fire with water, a most paradoxical thing; and I will cast down the prophets of shame, using the power of a mystery.

44. What need have I of longer speeches? For the time is for teaching, not for contradiction. I testify before God and the elect angels, you shall be baptized with this faith. If you have been enrolled otherwise than as my word demands, come, and be re-enrolled. I am not an unskilled calligrapher of these things, writing what I have been written, and teaching what I have also learned, and have kept from the beginning unto this old age. Mine is the risk, and mine the prize, as the steward of your soul, and the one perfecting you through baptism. But if you are so disposed, and have been marked with good letters, guard for me what has been written, in changeable times remaining unchangeable concerning an unchangeable matter. Imitate Pilate for the better, who wrote badly, since you have been written well. Say to those who would persuade you otherwise: What I have written, I have written. For I would be ashamed if, while evil remains unbending, the good should be most easily bent; for it is right to be easily moved toward the better from the worse, but immovable toward the worse from the better. If you are baptized thus, and according to this discipleship, Behold, I will not restrain my lips, behold, I lend my hands to the Spirit. Let us hasten our salvation, let us rise up for baptism; the Spirit throbs, the perfecter is eager, the gift is ready. But if you still limp, and do not accept the perfection of the Godhead, seek your own baptizer, or submerser. But I have no time to cut the Godhead, and make you dead at the time of regeneration; so that you may have neither the gift, nor the hope of the gift, having shipwrecked your salvation in a small matter. For whatever you take away from the three of the Godhead, you will have destroyed the whole, and for yourself, perfection.

45. But as yet there is no imprint in your soul, neither of a worse letter, nor of a better; but today must you be written, and imprinted by us for perfection? Let us go into the cloud; give me the tablets of your heart; I become for you a Moses, even if it is bold to say; I inscribe with the finger of God a new decalogue; I inscribe a concise salvation. 36.424 But if any heretical and irrational beast is here, let it remain below; or it will be in danger of being stoned by the word of truth. I will baptize you, making you a disciple, into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And the one common name of the three is the Godhead. You will know both by the figures and by the words, that as you send away all atheism, so you are enrolled with the whole Godhead. Believe that the entire world, both as much as is visible and as much as is invisible, came into being from non-being by God, and is administered by the providence of its maker, and will receive change for the better. Believe that there is no substance of evil, nor kingdom, either without beginning, or from itself

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οὗ ἡ τῶν ἐξ αὐτοῦ ταπείνωσις. Πρὸς δὲ καὶ ὑφορῶμαι τὴν σὴν ἀπληστίαν, μὴ τὸ μεῖζον λαβὼν διχοτομήσῃς τὴν φύσιν, κατὰ πάντα τῷ μείζονι χρώμενος. Οὐ γὰρ κατὰ τὴν φύσιν τὸ μεῖζον, τὴν αἰτίαν δέ. Οὐδὲν γὰρ τῶν ὁμοουσίων τῇ οὐσίᾳ μεῖζον ἢ ἔλαττον. Θέλω τὸν Υἱὸν προτιμῆσαι τοῦ Πνεύματος, ὡς Υἱόν· καὶ οὐ συγχωρεῖ τὸ βάπτισμα τελειοῦν με διὰ τοῦ Πνεύματος. Ἀλλὰ δέδοικας, μὴ τριθεΐαν ὀνειδισθῇς; Ἔχε σὺ τὸ ἀγαθὸν, τὴν ἐν τοῖς τρισὶν ἕνωσιν· ἐμοὶ τὴν μάχην παράπεμψον. Ἔασόν με ναυπηγὸν εἶναι, σὺ χρῶ τῇ νηί. Καὶ εἰ ναυπηγός ἐστιν ἕτερος, ἐμὲ λάβε τῆς οἰκίας ἀρχιτέκτονα· σὺ ταύτην οἴκει μετὰ ἀσφαλείας, καὶ εἰ μηδὲν ἐμόχθησας. Οὐχ ἧττον εὐπλοήσεις, ἢ οἰκήσεις τὴν οἰκίαν, ἐμοῦ τοῦ ταῦτα κατασκευάσαντος, εἰ καὶ μηδὲν περὶ ταῦτα πεφιλοπόνηκας. Ὁρᾷς τὴν εὐγνωμοσύνην ὅση; ὁρᾷς τοῦ Πνεύματος τὴν χρηστότητα; Ἐμὸς ὁ πόλε μος, ἔστω σὸν τὸ ἐκνίκημα. Ἐγὼ βαλλοίμην, σὺ δὲ εἰρήνευε, τῷ προπολεμοῦντι συνευχόμενος· χεῖρα δί δου διὰ τῆς πίστεως. Ἔχω τρεῖς λίθους οἷς σφενδονήσω τὸν ἀλλόφυλον. Ἔχω τρεῖς ἐμπνεύσεις, κατὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ τῆς Σαραφθίας, αἷς ζωοποιήσω νε 36.421 νεκρωμένους. Ἔχω τρεῖς ἐπικλύσεις κατὰ τῶν σχιδάκων, αἷς καθιερώσω τὴν θυσίαν, ὕδατι πῦρ ἐγείρων, τὸ παραδοξότατον· καὶ τοὺς προφήτας κα ταβαλῶ τῆς αἰσχύνης, μυστηρίου δυνάμει χρώ μενος.

Μ∆ʹ. Τί μοι δεῖ μακροτέρων λόγων; ∆ιδασκαλίας γὰρ ὁ καιρὸς, οὐκ ἀντιλογίας. Μαρτύρομαι ἐνώπιον τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ τῶν ἐκλεκτῶν ἀγγέλων, μετὰ ταύτης βαπτισθήσῃ τῆς πίστεως. Εἰ μὲν ἄλλως ἐγγέγραψαι, ἢ ὡς ὁ ἐμὸς ἀπαιτεῖ λόγος, δεῦρο, καὶ μετεγγράφηθι. Ἐγὼ τούτων οὐκ ἀφυὴς καλλιγράφος, γράφων ἃ γέγραμμαι, καὶ διδάσκων ἃ καὶ μεμάθηκα, καὶ τετήρηκα ἐξ ἀρχῆς εἰς τήνδε τὴν πολιάν. Ἐμὸς ὁ κίνδυνος, ἐμὸν καὶ τὸ γέρας, τοῦ τῆς σῆς ψυχῆς οἰκονόμου, καὶ τελειοῦντός σε διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσματος. Εἰ δὲ οὕτως ἔχεις, καὶ καλοῖς ἐνεσημάνθης τοῖς γράμμασι, φύλασσέ μοι τὰ γεγραμμένα, ἐν καιροῖς τρεπτοῖς ἄτρεπτος μένων περὶ ἀτρέπτου πράγματος. Μίμησαι τὸν Πιλᾶτον ἐπὶ τὸ κρεῖττον, κακῶς γράφοντα, καλῶς γεγραμμένος. Εἰπὲ τοῖς μεταπείθουσί σε· Ὃ γέγραφα, γέγραφα. Καὶ γὰρ ἂν αἰσχυνοίμην, εἰ, τοῦ κακοῦ μένοντος ἀκλι νοῦς, τὸ καλὸν ῥᾷστα μετακλίνοιτο· δέον εὐμε τακινήτους μὲν εἶναι πρὸς τὸ κρεῖττον ἀπὸ τοῦ χεί ρονος, ἀκινήτους δὲ πρὸς τὸ χεῖρον ἀπὸ τοῦ βελτίονος. Εἰ οὕτως βαπτίζῃ, καὶ κατὰ ταύτην τὴν μαθητείαν, Ἰδοὺ τὰ χείλη μου οὐ μὴ κωλύσω, ἰδοὺ κίχρημι τὰς χεῖρας τῷ Πνεύματι. Ταχύνωμεν τὴν σωτηρίαν, ἀναστῶμεν ἐπὶ τὸ βάπτισμα· σφύζει τὸ Πνεῦμα, πρό θυμος ὁ τελειωτὴς, τὸ δῶρον ἕτοιμον. Εἰ δὲ σκάζεις ἔτι, καὶ μὴ καταδέχῃ τὸ τέλειον τῆς θεότητος, ζήτει σὸν βαπτιστὴν, ἢ καταβαπτιστήν. Ἐμοὶ δὲ οὐ σχολὴ τέμνειν θεότητα, καὶ νεκρόν σε ποιεῖν ἐν καιρῷ τῆς ἀναγεννήσεως· ἵνα μήτε τὸ χάρισμα ἔχῃς, μήτε τὴν ἐλπίδα τῆς χάριτος, ἐν ὀλίγῳ ναυαγήσας τὴν σωτη ρίαν. Ὡς ὅ τι ἂν ὑφέλῃς τῶν τριῶν τῆς θεότητος, τὸ πᾶν ἔσῃ καθῃρηκὼς, καὶ σεαυτῷ τὴν τελείωσιν.

ΜΕʹ. Ἀλλ' οὔπω τύπος οὐδεὶς ἐν τῇ σῇ ψυχῇ, οὔτε χείρονος γράμματος, οὐδὲ βελτίονος· σήμερον δέ σε γραφῆναι δεήσει, καὶ παρ' ἡμῶν τυπωθῆ ναι πρὸς τελειότητα; Εἴσω τῆς νεφέλης χωρήσωμεν· δός μοι τὰς πλάκας τῆς σῆς καρδίας· γίνομαί σοι Μωσῆς, εἰ καὶ τολμηρὸν εἰπεῖν· ἐγγράφω δακτύλῳ Θεοῦ νέαν δεκάλογον· ἐγγράφω σύντομον σωτηρίαν. 36.424 Εἰ δέ τι θηρίον αἱρετικὸν καὶ ἀλόγιστον, κάτω μει νάτω· ἢ κινδυνεύσει λιθοβολούμενον τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας. Βαπτίσω σε μαθητεύων, εἰς ὄνομα Πα τρὸς, καὶ Υἱοῦ, καὶ ἁγίου Πνεύματος. Ὄνομα δὲ κοινὸν τῶν τριῶν ἓν, ἡ θεότης. Γνώσῃ καὶ τοῖς σχήμασι καὶ τοῖς ῥήμασιν, ὡς ὅλην ἀποπέμπῃ τὴν ἀθεΐαν, οὕτως ὅλῃ θεότητι συντασσόμενος. Πίστευε, τὸν σύμπαντα κόσμον, ὅσος τε ὁρατὸς, καὶ ὅσος ἀόρατος, ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων παρὰ Θεοῦ γενόμενον, καὶ προνοίᾳ τοῦ ποιήσαντος διοικούμενον, δέξασθαι τὴν εἰς τὸ κρεῖττον μεταβολήν. Πίστευε, μὴ οὐσίαν εἶναί τινα τοῦ κακοῦ, μήτε βασιλείαν, ἢ ἄναρ χον, ἢ παρ' ἑαυτῆς