The Nature of Spirit and the Unity of Action

Fragments on John. Regarding a certain superiority fitting for God by the name of heaven, according to 'the heaven of the heaven belongs to the Lord' (Ps 103:19), becoming later a devil while being in heaven, when he was once a holy one, he said, 'I will ascend into heaven,' as if happening below toward that heaven. Into this so-called heaven no one has ascended except only the Son of God, since also alone from there He has descended, being called the Son of Man because of the economy. And even if the angels ascending into heaven and descending by a ladder were seen by Jacob, it is not about the heaven previously mentioned that the vision is said in the Scripture.

These things are said concerning the rational beings. And since in all these things there are also things becoming worse, one understands how these things can exist in the hand of the Son, having clearly cast off the malice which they had and having taken up virtue; for one must not pay attention to what is set down as sophisms, calling everything holy. But it is not the same to not have life as to not see it; this is made clear from 'you shall see life in front of your eyes' and 'you shall by no means believe' (Jn 3:36). If someone were to seek this, what is worse? Whether not seeing life and not believing in it, or not having life but seeing it? And one might say that the one lacking either is more inferior than the one having the one. Another might say it is a lesser evil not to see life and to disbelieve in it; for there will be forgiveness to such a one having this. But rather it is to be blamed when one is not believing in life, even if he is sufficient to see it, the beauty of it drawing him toward agreement.

Since God is invisible, and the incorporeal immediately follows the invisible, God being incorporeal is therefore invisible. If this is so, the one called spirit would not be air if it were not moving; for not because the spirit manifests a body among men, it is necessary that this also be signified regarding God.

Therefore, being called light because it enlightens not sight, but intellect, not the body, but is a spiritual light; and being called love, it is not a disposition, but a loving essence that creates and provides for things; so being called spirit, it presents not wind, but an incorporeal and life-giving essence.

Everyone who has learned that God is spirit worships him spiritually with spirit and truth, no longer in a ritualistic way, the God of all things. In contrast to the letter, it says 'in spirit', while regarding the type, it says 'and in truth'; for these things were necessary until a certain time, but when the truth has come, that is the presence of Christ, all things have ceased.

Regarding what is said by Jesus: whatever he does (and it is clear that it is the Father) John 5:19, the Son likewise does, which refers to what has paradoxically happened through him in the Gospels, overseeing how the Father did these things. To what must be said: since the Son, being consubstantial with the Father, has an inseparable energy of the Father's energy, being an unquenchable mirror, whatever the Father does, the Son also acts inseparably at once, and whatever the Son works, the Father immediately leads to existence, so as not to make the Son without the Father or the Father without the Son do anything.

This view must also be applied to the created things; for it is not that the Son is of a different essence when the Father creates other things. For this would follow that there are two suns and each of the existing things is double, but the creatures do not appear to be so. Therefore, the first thing is seen as the same in the energy of the Father and the Son in the things being created.

If it is said of a dead person that they are raised and made alive, the words differ alone; for making a dead person alive and raising them is the same, and it is entirely contrary if a dead person being raised is being made alive. If ever it were said that raising is not upon a dead person but a living one, it would not be the same as making alive; for someone being raised from the...