Primary source · Koine Greek
On the Holy Spirit (De Spiritu Sancto)
Basil the Great · AD 375
What this text is
Basil’s defence of the full divinity of the Holy Spirit — occasioned by a quarrel over a doxology — arguing that the Spirit is to be glorified together with the Father and the Son, a cornerstone of the doctrine affirmed at Constantinople in 381.
Interlinear passages
Word-for-word glosses of the original; the complete public-domain translation is linked below.
The contested doxology (ch. 1)
ΔόξαGloryτῷto theΠατρὶFatherμετὰwithτοῦtheΥἱοῦSonσὺνtogether withτῷtheἉγίῳHolyΠνεύματι.Spirit
Public-domain translations
Blomfield Jackson (NPNF, 1895)
‘Glory to the Father with the Son, together with the Holy Ghost.’ …We are bound to number the Spirit with the Father and the Son, and in no wise to separate Him, in the confession of faith, from the Father and the Son.
Manuscript witnesses
Basilian corpus manuscripts
10th c. onwardOn the Holy Spirit in the great Byzantine Basil collections.
Patrologia Graeca, vol. 32 (Migne)
1857Standard pre-critical text of the corpus.
Provenance
Caesarea of Cappadocia, AD 375, to Amphilochius of Iconium
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- Basile de Césarée: Sur le Saint-Esprit (SC 17 bis)Benoît Pruche, 1968Critical edition with French translation.
- On the Holy Spirit (Popular Patristics 42)Stephen Hildebrand, 2011Faithful modern translation.