25.

Here perhaps some one may ask, "whether the Holy Ghost only forgiveth sins, and not the Father and the Son also?" I answer, Both the Father and the Son forgive them. For the Son Himself saith of the Father, "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you." ¹ And we say to Him in the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father, which art in heaven." ² And amongst the other petitions we ask this, saying, "Forgive us our debts." ³ And again of Himself He saith, "That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins." ⁴ "If then," you will say, "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit forgive sins, why is that impenitence which shall never be forgiven, said to relate only to the blasphemy of the Spirit, as though he who should be bound in this sin of impenitence should seem to resist the gift of the Holy Spirit, because by that gift is wrought the remission of sins?" Now on this point, I will also ask, Whether Christ only cast out devils, or the Father and the Holy Spirit also? For if Christ only, what means His saying, "The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." ⁵ For so it is said, "He doeth the works," as if the Son doeth them not, but the Father who dwelleth in the Son. Why then in another place doth He say, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." ⁶ And a little after, "For what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." ⁷ But when in another place He says, "If I had not done amongst them the works which none other man did," ⁸ He speaks as if He did them alone. Now if these things are so expressed, as that nevertheless the works of the Father and the Son are inseparable, what must we believe of the Holy Spirit, but that He also worketh equally with them? For in that very place, from which this question arose which we are discussing, when the Son was casting out devils, He yet said, "If I in the Holy Spirit cast out devils, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." ⁹