§ 128. The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

The decision of Nicaea related primarily only to the essential deity of Christ. But in the wider range of the Arian controversies the deity of the Holy Ghost, which stands and falls with the deity of the Son, was indirectly involved. The church always, indeed, connected faith in the Holy Spirit with faith in the Father and Son, but considered the doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit as only an appendix to the doctrine concerning the Father and the Son, until the logical progress brought it to lay equal emphasis on the deity and personality of the Holy Ghost, and to place him with the Father and Son as an element of equal claim in the Trinity.

The Arians made the Holy Ghost the first creature of the Son, and as subordinate to the Son as the Son to the Father. The Arian trinity was therefore not a trinity immanent and eternal, but arising in time and in descending grades, consisting of the uncreated God and two created demi-gods. The Semi-Arians here, as elsewhere, approached the orthodox doctrine, but rejected the consubstantiality, and asserted the creation, of the Spirit. Thus especially Macedonius, a moderate Semi-Arian, whom the Arian court-party had driven from the episcopal chair of Constantinople. From him the adherents of the false doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit, were, after 362, called Macedonians;¹⁴¹⁴ also Pneumatomachi,¹⁴¹⁵ and Tropici.¹⁴¹⁶

Even among the adherents of the Nicene orthodoxy an uncertainty still for a time prevailed respecting the doctrine of the third person of the Holy Trinity. Some held the Spirit to be an impersonal power or attribute of God; others, at farthest, would not go beyond the expressions of the Scriptures. Gregory Nazianzen, who for his own part believed and taught the consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son, so late as 380 made the remarkable concession:¹⁴¹⁷ "Of the wise among us, some consider the Holy Ghost an influence, others a creature, others God himself,¹⁴¹⁸ and again others know not which way to decide, from reverence, as they say, for the Holy Scripture, which declares nothing exact in the case. For this reason they waver between worshipping and not worshipping the Holy Ghost,¹⁴¹⁹ and strike a middle course, which is in fact, however, a bad one." Basil, in 370, still carefully avoided calling the Holy Ghost God, though with the view of gaining the weak. Hilary of Poictiers believed that the Spirit, who searches the deep things of God, must be divine, but could find no Scripture passage in which he is called God, and thought that he must be content with the existence of the Holy Ghost, which the Scripture teaches and the heart attests.¹⁴²⁰

But the church could not possibly satisfy itself with only two in one. The baptismal formula and the apostolic benediction, as well as the traditional trinitarian doxologies, put the Holy Ghost on an equality with the Father and the Son, and require a divine tri-personality resting upon a unity of essence. The divine triad tolerates in itself no inequality of essence, no mixture of Creator and creature. Athanasius well perceived this, and advocated with decision the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit against the Pneumatomachi or Tropici.¹⁴²¹ Basil did the same,¹⁴²² and Gregory of Nazianzum,¹⁴²³ Gregory of Nyssa,¹⁴²⁴ Didymus,¹⁴²⁵ and Ambrose.¹⁴²⁶

This doctrine conquered at the councils of Alexandria, a.d. 362, of Rome, 375, and finally of Constantinople, 381, and became an essential constituent of the ecumenical orthodoxy.

Accordingly the Creed of Constantinople supplemented the Nicene with the important addition: "And in the Holy Ghost, who is Lord and Giver of life, who with the Father is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets."¹⁴²⁷

This declares the consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost, not indeed in words, yet in fact, and challenges for him divine dignity and worship.

The exegetical proofs employed by the Nicene fathers for the deity of the Holy Ghost are chiefly the following. The Holy Ghost is nowhere in Scripture reckoned among creatures or angels, but is placed in God himself, co-eternal with God, as that which searches the depths of Godhead (1 Cor. ii. 11, 12). He fills the universe, and is everywhere present (Ps. cxxxix. 7), while creatures, even angels, are in definite places. He was active even in the creation (Gen. i. 3), and filled Moses and the prophets. From him proceeds the divine work of regeneration and sanctification (John iii. 5; Rom. i. 4; viii. 11; 1 Cor. vi. 11; Tit. iii. 5-7; Eph. iii. 16; v. 17, 19, &c). He is the source of all gifts in the church (1 Cor. xii). He dwells in believers, like the Father and the Son, and makes them partakers of the divine life. Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is the extreme sin, which cannot be forgiven (Matt. xii. 31). Lying to the Holy Ghost is called lying to God (Acts v. 3, 4). In the formula of baptism (Matt. xxviii. 19), and likewise in the apostolic benediction (2 Cor. xiii. 13), the Holy Ghost is put on a level with the Father and the Son and yet distinguished from both; he must therefore be truly divine, yet at the same time a self-conscious person.¹⁴²⁸ The Holy Ghost is the source of sanctification, and unites us with the divine life, and thus must himself be divine. The divine trinity tolerates in itself nothing created and changeable. As the Son is begotten of the Father from eternity, so the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. (The procession of the Spirit from the Son, on the contrary, is a subsequent inference of the Latin church from the consubstantiality of the Son, and was unknown to the Nicene fathers.)

The distinction between generation and procession is not particularly defined. Augustine calls both ineffable and inexplicable.¹⁴²⁹ The doctrine of the Holy Ghost was not in any respect so accurately developed in this period, as the doctrine concerning Christ, and it shows many gaps.