The power and operation of God
are in us, by His mercy, even here. For how is it that we are baptized? What
did we receive in baptism? It was rebirth. Unless you are born again, it
says (cf. Jn 3:5). We have put on Christ. As many of you as have been
baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Gal. 3:27). But how have we put
Him on, hypostatically or by grace? Obviously by grace! That is why He says, Both
I and the Father will come and make our abode with him (cf. Jn 14:23). Yet
the Father was not made flesh. Therefore He dwells in us by grace. The Son,
however, was made flesh. Yet even if we commune of His flesh, we do not partake
of the essence of the Godhead, but its grace. For we have received from the
fullness of the Godhead of Him who is in the flesh. Similarly, we have received
the gift of the Holy Spirit (and here I refer to those who have been ordained).
He who is appointed to read is sealed, and, when he has received the grace, he
attains the rank of a reader. For he is not able to perform the duties of a
subdeacon. Likewise a deacon is not able to perform the duties of a presbyter,
nor a presbyter, as we have said, those of the episcopal rank. (Symeon of
Thessalonica, Dialogue in Christ Against All Heresies 32, in Against All
Heresies [trans. Alexander Pino; Patristic Nectar Publications, 2024], 129)
