The Holy Spirit as Living Water

We breathe. Therefore they hid themselves as through whom we are unseasonably not being gathered together, and the one in the beginning returns to the unchangeable home. Because they have leapt away, they drive things against the apostle, on account of his testifying in the words lying before him in the presence of the created nature and the creature, similarly to how one says: 'I have sinned against God and men,' and: 'I testify today the heaven and the earth,' and: 'Hear, O heaven, and be attentive, O earth.'

That because it participates, as in essence, so also in the names, the creation has no participation in the names toward those called names upon God, just as in the nature. But the Holy Spirit participates in the names of God because he also participates in the nature, except that the Father alone is called 'Father', because of being the only hypostasis to beget, and the Son 'Son' and not Father of a created nature, because of having been truly begotten but not having been begotten. Just as whenever the Scripture names even the Spirit itself 'Lord', as master of all and participating in the one kingdom with the Father and the Son; 'Holy', as being holy by nature and as sanctifying the creation; 'Incorruptible', 'Good', 'Love', 'Wisdom', 'Understanding', just as he also has characterized God; 'Power', from which he strengthens; 'Just', from which he justifies, being self-righteous; 'Paraclete', just as the Son; 'Fire', from which he appeared to the apostles in tongues of fire, just as Moses says concerning the Father: 'Our God is a consuming fire,' and concerning the Son John says: 'He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire,' and so many such things.

That he is one and not many, like the creatures. The creation does not have anything existing in one hypostasis, that is, in one person. For angels and archangels are many, the seraphim likewise, the cherubim are not one thing; principalities and powers are said, dominions and thrones; heavens in the plural, men and the rest of the creatures. For the sun and the moon participate in the multitude of the stars both in nature and in the fire-like form, as the first more actively encompasses this, as the word explains. But the Holy Spirit, as not being numbered among the creation, the words have made it clear to us that he is one and the same. That because of being consubstantial and without beginning, it has been written to be the water of life.

Having proceeded from the paternal source. Creation is not written to be the water of life, for it did not possess eternal life from itself, unlike the unoriginated, living God.

But the holy Spirit—as the preachers to be mentioned in the footnotes say—is this being one proceeding naturally from the undying and life-giving paternal source, not being created. Just as in the first word we said that light does not create its own radiance but begets it, so it is here: the source does not create the water from itself, but it has it proceeding and being consubstantial; for no one is the creator of himself, or of a son, or of a spirit, since he would no longer be a father, nor possess a spirit.

Jeremiah, in the person of God, says: 'The heavens were out of joint at this, and the earth trembled at this: because my people have done two evil things. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have hewn for themselves broken cisterns, which cannot hold water' (Jeremiah 2:12). The prophet mystically sets forth the mystery. For he called God 'a fountain' and called the holy Spirit 'living water,' who in the baptismal pool cleanses all our sins, being unable to be split apart by the nature of the intellectual fountain, just as a stream from fountains cannot.

Isaiah says similarly: 'I will give water in thirst to those going in no-water; I will pour my spirit upon your seed and my blessings upon your children; and they shall rise up in the midst of water like grass, and like a willow tree beside running water' (Isaiah 44:3). And this contains an intellectual division through hidden things. For those in ignorance, he says, happen to receive the baptism, and because of this, 'those going in no-water,' 'I will pour my spirit' is able to make the baptismal pool overflow upon them like the sprouts of plants, and: 'like the tree planted by the outlets of the waters; which will give its fruit in its season, and its leaf will not wither' (Psalm 1:3).

And the Psalmist, doing what is necessary to make the truth apparent through words, recalls in one psalm: 'for with you is the fountain of life' (Psalm 36:9), and in another: 'he sends his word and shows them; he sends his spirit and waters flow, rejoicing the great city of God' (Psalm 147:15); and this is the whole inhabited world. For so that I may say, that which for men is each city, this for the Pantokrator is...