Athanasius of Alexandria

In his own words on Baruch

• Baruch 3:1

  You might have known, by consulting with learned persons, that there are different meanings of the word spirit. The Scripture, in fact, also speaks of the "spirit of man [a person]," as David sings, "I spoke with my heart by night, and my spirit was afflicted." And Baruch prays, saying, "An anguished soul and a saddened spirit raises its cry to you." And in the canticle of the three young men, "Spirits and souls of the just, bless the Lord." For his part, the apostle writes, "The Spirit attests to our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, we are also heirs." And, "No one knows what is in a person except the spirit of the person that is within him." Moreover, in the letter to the Thessalonians he prays "that your whole spirit, soul and body would be kept irreproachable at the coming of Jesus Christ our Lord." Winds are also called "spirit," as for example in Genesis, "And God made a spirit sweep over the earth, and the waters subsided." And in the book of Jonah, "the Lord brought a great spirit over the sea and made a great tempest in the sea, so that the ship was in danger of breaking up." Also in Psalm 106 it is written, "He spoke, and a hurricane spirit was stirred up over the waves." And in Psalm 148, "Praise the Lord from the earth, fish of the sea and the abyss, fire, hail, snow, ice and tempest spirit, that carry out his word." And in Ezekiel, in the lamentation over Tyre, "Your oarsmen brought you to the heart of the sea, into deep waters. The spirit of the east smashed you." If you were also to read the sacred Scriptures, you would find that the meaning itself of the divine words is also called "spirit," as when Paul writes, "He has made us fit to be ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit: the letter in fact kills, but the spirit gives life." "Letter" is that by which an expression is materially composed, but the spiritual meaning contained in it is called "spirit."

  LETTER TO SERAPION 1:7.1-1:8.1

• Baruch 3:12

  The Father is called source and light: "They have abandoned me, the source of living water." And in Baruch, "How is it, Israel, that you are in the land of your enemies? You have abandoned the source of wisdom." And according to John, "Our God is light." The Son, in relation to the source, is called a river: "The river of God is full of waters." In relation to light, he is called splendor, as Paul says, "He is the splendor of the glory and the imprint of his being." The Father is thus light and the Son his splendor (we need not fear repeating the same things often, especially in these matters). Now, it is possible to see in the Son also the Spirit, in whom we are enlightened, "that he would give you," it is said, "the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation, in the knowledge of him, by enlightening the eyes of the heart." Enlightened then by the Spirit, it is Christ who enlightens in him. It is said, in fact, that "he was the true light that enlightens every person who comes into the world." Analogously, then, if the Father is the source and the Son is called river, we drink of the Spirit, as it is written, "We have all been given to drink of the one Spirit." But, at the same time, drinking of the Spirit we drink of Christ: "They drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ."

  LETTER TO SERAPION 1:19.2-5

• Baruch 3:12

  If God is and is called the fountain of wisdom and life … as in the book of Baruch it is written, "You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom," this implies that life and wisdom are not foreign to the essence of the fountain but are proper to it. Nor were they at any time without existence but always existed. Now the Son is all this, who says, "I am the life," and, "I Wisdom dwell with prudence." Is it then irreligious to say, "Once the Son was not," for it is the same thing as saying, "Once the fountain was dry, destitute of life and wisdom." But then it would cease to be a fountain.

  Discourses Against the Arians 1.6.19

• Baruch 4:20

  Paul reasonably has said, "his eternal power and godhead," thereby signifying the Son. He said this while accusing the Greeks of contemplating the harmony and order of the creation without reflecting on the framing Word within it (for the creatures witness to their own Framer) so as through the creation to apprehend the true God and abandon their worship of it. And where the sacred writers say, "who exists before the ages," and, "by whom he made the ages," they thereby as clearly preach the eternal and everlasting being of the Son, even while they are designating God. Thus, if Isaiah says, "The everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth," and Susanna said, "O everlasting God," and Baruch wrote, "I will cry unto the Everlasting in my days," and shortly after, "My hope is in the Everlasting, that he will save you, and joy is come to me from the Holy One," yet as the apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says, "who being the radiance of his glory and the expression of his person," and David too in the psalm, "And the brightness of the Lord be on us," and, "In your light shall we see light," who has so little sense as to doubt of the eternity of the Son?

  Discourses Against the Arians 1.4.12:2-5