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1. Your desire for information, my right well-beloved and most
deeply respected brother Amphilochius, I highly commend, and not
less your industrious energy. I have been exceedingly delighted at the
care and watchfulness shewn in the expression of your opinion that of
all the terms concerning God in every mode of speech, not one ought to
be left without exact investigation. You have turned to good account
your reading of the exhortation of the Lord, "Every one that asketh
receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth" and by your diligence in
asking might, I ween, stir even the most reluctant to give you a
share of what they possess. And this in you yet further moves my
admiration, that you do not, according to the manners of the most part
of the men of our time, propose your questions by way of mere test,
but with the honest desire to arrive at the actual truth. There is no
lack in these days of captious listeners and questioners; but to find a
character desirous of information, and seeking the truth as a remedy
for ignorance, is very difficult. Just as in the hunters snare, or
in the soldier's ambush, the trick is generally ingeniously
concealed, so it is with the inquiries of the majority of the
questioners who advance arguments, not so much with the view of getting
any good out of them, as in order that, in the event of their failing
to elicit answers which chime in with their own desires, they may seem
to have fair ground for controversy.
2. If "To the fool on his asking for wisdom, wisdom shall be
reckoned," at how high a price shall we value "the wise hearer" who
is quoted by the Prophet in the same verse with "the admirable
counsellor"? It is right, I ween, to hold him worthy of all
approbation, and to urge him on to further progress, sharing his
enthusiasm, and in all things toiling at his side as he presses onwards
to perfection. To count the terms used in theology as of primary
importance, and to endeavour to trace out the hidden meaning in every
phrase and in every syllable, is a characteristic wanting in those who
are idle in the pursuit of true religion, but distinguishing all who
get knowledge of "the mark" "of our calling;" for what is set
before us is, so far as is possible with human nature, to be made like
unto God. Now without knowledge there can be no making like; and
knowledge is not got without lessons. The beginning of teaching is
speech, and syllables and words are parts of speech. It follows then
that to investigate syllables is not to shoot wide of the mark, nor,
because the questions raised are what might seem to some insignificant,
are they on that account to be held unworthy of heed. Truth is always
a quarry hard to hunt, and therefore we must look everywhere for its
tracks. The acquisition of true religion is just like that of crafts;
both grow bit by bit; apprentices must despise nothing. If a man
despise the first elements as small and insignificant, he will never
reach the perfection of wisdom.
Yea and Nay are but two syllables, yet there is often involved in
these little words at once the best of all good things, Truth, and
that beyond which wickedness cannot go, a Lie. But why mention Yea
and Nay? Before now, a martyr bearing witness for Christ has been
judged to have paid in full the claim of true religion by merely nodding
his head. If, then, this be so, what term in theology is so small
but that the effect of its weight in the scales according as it be
rightly or wrongly used is not great? Of the law we are told "not one
jot nor one tittle shall pass away;" how then could it be safe for us
to leave even the least unnoticed? The very points which you yourself
have sought to have thoroughly sired by us are at the same time both
small and great. Their use is the matter of a moment, and
peradventure they are therefore made of small account; but, when we
reckon the force of their meaning, they are great. They may be
likened to the mustard plant which, though it be the least of
shrub-seeds, yet when properly cultivated and the forces latent in its
germs unfolded, rises to its own sufficient height.
If any one laughs when he sees our subtilty, to use the Psalmist's
words, about syllables, let him know that he reaps laughter's
fruitless fruit; and let us, neither giving in to men's reproaches,
nor yet vanquished by their disparagement, continue our investigation.
So far, indeed, am I from feeling ashamed of these things because
they are small, that, even if I could attain to ever so minute a
fraction of their dignity, I should both congratulate myself on having
won high honour, and should tell my brother and fellow-investigator
that no small gain had accrued to him therefrom.
While, then, I am aware that the controversy contained in little
words is a very great one, in hope of the prize I do not shrink from
toil, with the conviction that the discussion will both prove
profitable to myself, and that my hearers will be rewarded with no
small benefit. Wherefore now with the help, if I may so say, of the
Holy Spirit Himself, I will approach the exposition of the
subject, and, if you will, that I may be put in the way of the
discussion, I will for a moment revert to the origin of the question
before us.
3. Lately when praying with the people, and using the full doxology
to God the Father in both forms, at one time "with the Son together
with the Holy Ghost," and at another "through the Son in the Holy
Ghost," I was attacked by some of those present on the ground that
I was introducing novel and at the same time mutually contradictory
terms. You, however, chiefly with the view of benefiting them, or,
if they are wholly incurable, for the security of such as may fall in
with them, have expressed the opinion that some clear instruction ought
to be published concerning the force underlying the syllables employed.
I will therefore write as concisely as possible, in the endeavour to
lay down some admitted principle for the discussion.
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