His condemnation also explains why much of what Didymus composed has
also been lost. His voluminous exegetical works on most of the Old and
New Testament books have virtually all disappeared. So, too, his dogmatic
works. Besides a few fragments discovered here and there, only two works
remain – his treatise on the Holy Spirit and his three books on the Trinity.
The former was extensively used by St. Ambrose in his own work on the
Holy Spirit and survives in St. Jerome’s Latin translation; the latter is
Didymus’ principal work and has survived intact probably due to being free
of Origenism.
After a life devoted to prayer, penance and work, Didymus died peacefully
in 398 AD at the age of 85. Soon after, the catechetical school of
Alexandria moved to Side where it failed to meet success and closed
permanently.
Extracts
The Holy Spirit (Ante 381 AD)
35
“God is simple and of an incomposite and spiritual nature, having neither ears nor
organs of speech. A solitary essence and illimitable, He is composed of no numbers
and parts. This, indeed, is likewise to be accepted in respect to the Son and the
Holy Spirit.”
37
“So too the Son is said to receive from the Father the very things by which He
subsists. For neither has the Son anything else except those things given Him by
the Father, nor has the Holy Spirit any other substance than that given Him by the
Son. And on that account we do affirm those propositions according to which we
believe that in the Trinity the nature of the Holy Spirit is the same as that of the
Father and the Son.”
The Trinity (Inter 381-392 AD)
2, 6, 7
‘The creature does not participate substantially in the rational soul, as if by
indwelling in it; for so to participate is proper to God alone. But the Holy Spirit, in
His subsisting, participates substantially, as do the Father and the Son…From the
very beginning of the Father’s indwelling in those who are worthy, is it not of
necessity, in view of the unity of the divine nature and its fullness in its indwelling
in us, that the Son and the Holy Spirit join and concur in that incursion? Surely no
one would ever want to say that it is as if a multiplicity of gods were indwelling in
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