and the one who is directed is the object acted upon. The Son, then, is beneath the Spirit and not His equal, for whatever is eternal can never be detached from what is eternal and is necessarily its peer.

He said: If the Messiah came from the Holy Spirit, as the angel Gabriel told his mother Mary, why did you call him the Word of God and His Son, yet never call him His Spirit? The angel only said to her, “What you will bear is from the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit is therefore other than the Son; had they been one and the same, Scripture would not have said that he was incarnate of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness, and that the Holy Spirit descended upon him. Why, then, do you make him part of your triad of faith, saying, “We believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”?

He said: We have also found you, O Nestorians, asserting that God possesses knowledge and wisdom—identified as the Son—and life—identified as the Spirit—both eternal, and that this knowledge and this life have an essence like the essence of God. You say that God’s knowledge itself possesses knowledge and life, and that His life, which is His Spirit, likewise possesses knowledge and life. When God the Father, according to you, saw the enemy gaining dominion over His creation and the prophets shrinking from resisting him, He sent His only and beloved Son, making him a ransom and satisfaction for all mankind. His Son, you claim, descended from heaven, took flesh through the Holy Spirit, became human, was born, grew up, and for thirty years moved among the Children of Israel as one of them, praying