The Harp of God
Wherefore it is fitting that ye should run together in accordance with the will of your bishop, which thing also ye do. For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the bishop as the strings are to the harp. Therefore in your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung. And do ye, man by man, become a choir, that being harmonious in love, and taking up the song of God in unison, ye may with one voice sing to the Father through Jesus Christ, so that He may both hear you, and perceive by your works that ye are indeed the members of His Son. It is profitable, therefore, that you should live in an unblameable unity, that thus ye may always enjoy communion with God.
The Humility of the Trinity
The Holy Spirit does not speak His own things, but those of Christ, and that not from himself, but from the Lord; even as the Lord also announced to us the things that He received from the Father. “The word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father’s, who sent Me.” And says He of the Holy Spirit, “He shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever things He shall hear from Me.” And He says of Himself to the Father, “I have glorified Thee upon the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me; I have manifested Thy name to men.” And of the Holy Ghost, “He shall glorify Me, for He receives of Mine.” But the spirit of deceit preaches himself, and speaks his own things, for he seeks to please himself. He glorifies himself, for he is full of arrogance.
Believers Built and Adorned by the Commandments of Christ
Christ has founded you upon the rock, as being chosen stones, well fitted for the temple of the Father, and raised up on high by Christ, who was crucified for you, by the instrument of the cross, making use of the Holy Spirit as a rope, and being borne up by faith, and led up to God by your love, walking in company with those that are undefiled. “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.” Now the way is unerring, namely, Jesus Christ. For, says He, “I am the way and the life.” And “no man cometh to the Father but by Me.” Blessed are ye who are God-bearers, spirit-bearers, temple-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, in whom also I exult that I have been thought worthy, by this Epistle, to converse and rejoice with you, because with respect to your Christian life ye love nothing but God only.
True vs. False Humanity
Two different characters are found among men—the one true coin, the other spurious. The truly devout man is the right kind of coin, stamped by God Himself. The ungodly man, again, is false coin, unlawful, spurious, counterfeit, wrought not by God, but by the devil. I do not mean to say that there are two different human natures, but that there is one humanity, sometimes belonging to God, and sometimes to the devil. If any one is truly religious, he is a man of God; but if he is irreligious, he is a man of the devil, made such, not by nature, but by his own choice. The unbelieving bear the image of the prince of wickedness. The believing possess the image of their Prince, God the Father, and Jesus Christ, by whom, if we are not in readiness to die into His passion, His life is not in us.
Heresies Regarding the Trinity
For they speak of Christ, not that they may preach Christ, but that they may reject Christ; and they speak of the law, not that they may establish the law, but that they may proclaim things contrary to it. For they alienate Christ from the Father, and the law from Christ. They also calumniate His being born of the Virgin; they are ashamed of His cross; they deny His passion; and they do not believe His resurrection. They introduce God as a Being unknown; they suppose Christ to be unbegotten; and as to the Spirit, they do not admit that He exists. Some of them say that the Son is a mere man, and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but the same person, and that the creation is the work of God, not by Christ, but by some other strange power.
Good Soul as Fountain
The souls of the good resemble fountains of the purest water; for they allure by their beauty passers-by to drink of them, even though these should not be thirsty. And they intelligence invites us, as by a word of command, to participate in those divine draughts which gush forth so abundantly in their soul.