The Library
1693 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
301–400
5 works
c. 359–361
Greek
Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 296 – 373
Written from hiding in the desert to a bishop who had reported a group willing to confess the Son fully but not the Spirit. Athanasius argues that a created Spirit would break the Trinity into unlike parts, and that since we are made divine by the Spirit, the Spirit cannot be a creature.
c. 375; survives in Jerome's Latin
Greek, surviving in Latin
Didymus the Blind · c. 313 – 398
By a man blind from the age of four who ran the catechetical school at Alexandria and had the scriptures read aloud to him until he knew them entire. The argument turns on participation: the Spirit is shared in and never shares in anything, and only what is uncreated can be participated without being diminished.
375
Greek
De Spiritu Sancto
Basil the Great · c. 330–379
An argument built on prepositions: Basil defends worshipping the Spirit with the Father and the Son, appealing to the church's unwritten liturgical practice as evidence of what it has always believed.
381
Greek
The Council of Constantinople
The Nicene confession expanded to state the Spirit's divinity and lordship, and to add clauses on the church, baptism, and the life of the world to come.
381
Latin
Ambrose of Milan · c. 339–397
A Latin presentation of the Greek case for the Spirit's divinity, written for the emperor Gratian and drawing openly on Basil and Didymus.
5 of 1693 works