Annotation LVI

”Whoever shall speak a word against the Son, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him.” — Matthew 12:32

On the sin against the Holy Spirit.

Origen, in the Tomes on Matthew, expounding this, left it written thus: “The Father penetrates into all things and contains all things — animate, inanimate, rational, irrational; but the power of the Son extends itself over the rational alone, insofar as they are [rational]. Among which rational [beings] are the pagans, who blaspheme, faith not yet [being] received. But the Holy Spirit unfolds himself over those alone who have been made partakers of him by the grace of baptism. When, therefore, the pagans sin by blasphemy, they sin against the Son, because he is in them; yet they can obtain pardon. But when the baptized — upon whom the gift of regeneration has been conferred — sin, an iniquity of this kind extends itself against the Holy Spirit: because, since they were contained in the Holy Spirit, they commit an offense, and therefore their fault is unpardonable.” Athanasius, in the book which he wrote on this passage, disapproves these things on two counts: both because the external works of the Trinity are so far undivided that wherever the Father is, there are the Son and the Holy Spirit; and because these [statements] incline toward the inhuman dogma of Novatus.

Theognostus, in the book on the same words of the Gospel published by him, following Origen, himself also taught that those who sin against the Son are those who offend before baptism, and are therefore worthy of pardon, because they have not yet received the grace of the Holy Spirit; but that those who sin after baptism receive no expiation, because — since they have received the gift of the Holy Spirit — no excuse or plea for pardon is left them. Athanasius, in the same volume, hisses off this opinion — as favoring the Novatianists — from the catholic assertions.