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| Definitive conceptions about the Spirit which conform to the teaching of the Scriptures.
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Chapter
IX.
Definitive conceptions about the Spirit which conform to
the teaching of the Scriptures.
22. Let us now
investigate what are our common conceptions concerning the Spirit, as
well those which have been gathered by us from Holy Scripture
concerning It as those which we have received from the unwritten
tradition of the Fathers. First of all we ask, who on hearing the
titles of the Spirit is not lifted up in soul, who does not raise his
conception to the supreme nature? It is called “Spirit of
God,”911
“Spirit of
truth which proceedeth from the Father,”912
“right Spirit,”913
“a leading Spirit.”914
| 914 Ps. li. 12, lxx. R.V. and A.V.,
“free spirit.” | Its915
| 915 It will be
remembered that in the Nicene Creed “the Lord and Giver of
life” is τὸ
κύριον τὸ
ζωοποιόν In A.V. we have both he
(John xv.
26, ἐκεῖνος) and
it (Rom.
viii. 16, αὐτὸ τὸ
πνεῦμα). |
proper and peculiar title is “Holy Spirit;” which is a
name specially appropriate to everything that is incorporeal, purely
immaterial, and indivisible. So our Lord, when teaching the
woman who thought God to be an object of local worship that the
incorporeal is incomprehensible, said “God is a
spirit.”916
On our
hearing, then, of a spirit, it is impossible to form the idea of a
nature circumscribed, subject to change and variation, or at all
like the creature. We are compelled to advance in our
conceptions to the highest, and to think of an intelligent essence,
in power infinite, in magnitude unlimited, unmeasured by times or
ages, generous of Its good gifts, to whom turn all things needing
sanctification, after whom reach all things that live in virtue, as
being watered by Its inspiration and helped on toward their natural
and proper end; perfecting all other things, but Itself in nothing
lacking; living not as needing restoration, but as Supplier of life;
not growing by additions; but straightway full, self-established,
omnipresent, origin of sanctification, light perceptible to the
mind, supplying, as it were, through Itself, illumination to every
faculty in the search for truth; by nature unapproachable,
apprehended by reason of goodness, filling all things with Its
power,917
but communicated
only to the worthy; not shared in one measure, but distributing Its
energy according to “the proportion of faith;”918
in essence simple, in powers various,
wholly present in each and being wholly everywhere; impassively
divided, shared without loss of ceasing to be entire, after the
likeness of the sunbeam, whose kindly light falls on him who enjoys
it as though it shone for him alone, yet illumines land and sea and
mingles with the air. So, too, is the Spirit to every one who
receives it, as though given to him alone, and yet It sends forth
grace sufficient and full for all mankind, and is enjoyed by all who
share It, according to the capacity, not of Its power, but of their
nature.
23. Now the Spirit is not brought into
intimate association with the soul by local approximation. How
indeed could there be a corporeal approach to the incorporeal?
This association results from the withdrawal of the passions which,
coming afterwards gradually on the soul from its friendship to the
flesh, have alienated it from its close relationship with God.
Only then after a man is purified from the shame whose stain he took
through his wickedness, and has come back again to his natural beauty,
and as it were cleaning the Royal Image and restoring its ancient form,
only thus is it possible for him to draw near to the
Paraclete.919
| 919 cf.
Theodoret, Dial. i. p. 164, Schaff and Wace’s ed.
“Sin is not of nature, but of corrupt will.” So
the ninth article of the English Church describes it as not the
nature, but the “fault and corruption of the nature, of every
man.” On the figure of the restored picture cf.
Ath. de Incar. § 14, and Theod.
Dial. ii. p. 183. | And He, like
the sun, will by the aid of thy purified eye show thee in Himself
the image of the invisible, and in the blessed spectacle of the
image thou shalt behold the unspeakable beauty of the
archetype.920
| 920 cf. Ep.
236. “Our mind enlightened by the Spirit, looks toward
the Son, and in Him, as in an image, contemplates the
Father.” There seems at first sight some confusion in
the text between the “Royal Image” in us and Christ as
the image of God; but it is in proportion as we are like Christ that
we see God in Christ. It is the “pure in heart”
who “see God.” | Through His
aid hearts are lifted up, the weak are held by the hand, and they
who are advancing are brought to perfection.921
| 921
“Proficientes perficiuntur.” Ben.
Ed. | Shining upon those that are cleansed
from every spot, He makes them spiritual by fellowship with
Himself. Just as when a sunbeam falls on bright and
transparent bodies, they themselves become brilliant too, and shed
forth a fresh brightness from themselves, so souls wherein the
Spirit dwells, illuminated by the Spirit, themselves become
spiritual, and send forth their grace to others.
Hence comes foreknowledge
of the future, understanding of mysteries, apprehension of what is
hidden, distribution of good gifts, the heavenly citizenship, a
place in the chorus of angels, joy without end, abiding in God, the
being made like to God, and, highest of all, the being made
God.922
| 922 Θεὸν
γενεσθαι. The
thought has its most famous expression in Ath. de Incar.
§ 54. He was made man that we might be made
God—Θεοποιηθῶμεν. cf. De Decretis, § 14, and
other passages of Ath. Irenæus (Adv. Hær. iv. 38
[lxxv.]) writes “non ab initio dii facti sumus, sed
primo quidem homines, tunc demum dii.” “Secundum enim
benignitatem suam bene dedit bonum, et similes sibi suæ potestatis
homines fecit;” and Origen (contra Celsum, iii.
28), “That the human nature by fellowship with the more divine
might be made divine, not in Jesus only, but also in all those who with
faith take up the life which Jesus taught;” and Greg. Naz.
Or. xxx. § 14, “Till by the power of the incarnation
he make me God.”
In Basil adv. Eunom. ii. 4. we have, “They
who are perfect in virtue are deemed worthy of the title of
God.”
cf. 2 Pet. i. 4: “That ye might be partakers
of the divine nature.” | Such,
then, to instance a few out of many, are the conceptions
concerning the Holy Spirit, which we have been taught to hold
concerning His greatness, His dignity, and His operations, by the
oracles923
| 923 ὑπ᾽
αὐτῶν τῶν
λογίων τοῦ
πνεύματος.
St. Basil is as unconscious as other early Fathers of the limitation
of the word λόγια to
“discourses.” Vide Salmon’s
Int. to the N.T. Ed. iv. p. 95. | of the Spirit
themselves.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
