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| That the word “in,” in as many senses as it bears, is understood of the Spirit.
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Chapter XXVI.
That the word “in,” in as many senses as it
bears, is understood of the Spirit.
61. Now, short and
simple as this utterance is, it appears to me, as I consider it, that
its meanings are many and various. For of the senses in which
“in” is used, we find that all help our conceptions
of the Spirit. Form is said to be in Matter;
Power to be in what is capable of it; Habit to be
in him who is affected by it; and so on.1229
| 1229 cf.
Note on Chapter iii. p. 4. In the Aristotelian philosophy,
εἶδος,
or Forma, is the τὸ
τί ἦν
εἶναι, the essence or formal
cause. cf. Ar., Met. vi. 7, 4.
εἶδος δὲ
λέγω τὸ τί ἦν
εἶναι
ἑκάστον καὶ
τὴν πρώτην
οὐσιαν. Δύναμις, or
Potentia, is potential action or existence, as opposed to
ἐνέργεια,
actus, actual action or existence, or ἐντελέχεια. cf. Ar., Met., viii. 3, 9, and viii. 8, 11.
Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph. i. 178–180. | Therefore, inasmuch as the Holy
Spirit perfects rational beings, completing their excellence, He is
analogous to Form. For he, who no longer “lives after
the flesh,”1230
but, being
“led by the Spirit of God,”1231
is called a Son of God, being “conformed to the image of the
Son of God,”1232
is described as
spiritual. And as is the power of seeing in the healthy eye,
so is the operation of the Spirit in the purified soul.
Wherefore also Paul prays for the Ephesians that they may have their
“eyes enlightened” by “the Spirit of
wisdom.”1233
And as the
art in him who has acquired it, so is the grace of the Spirit in the
recipient ever present, though not continuously in operation.
For as the art is potentially in the artist, but only in operation
when he is working in accordance with it, so also the Spirit is ever
present with those that are worthy, but works, as need requires, in
prophecies, or in healings, or in some other actual carrying into
effect of His potential action.1234
| 1234 ἐν
ἄλλοις τισι
δυνάμεων
ἐνεργήμασι.
The Benedictine translation is in aliis miraculorum
operationibus.” It is of course quite true that
δύναμις is one of
the four words used in the New Testament for miracle, and often has
that sense, but here the context suggest the antithesis between
potential and actual operation, and moreover non-miraculous (in the
ordinary sense) operations of the Spirit need not be excluded; in a
deep sense all His operations are miraculous. ἐνέργημα is an
uncommon word, meaning the work wrought by ἐνέργεια or
operation. |
Furthermore as in our bodies is health, or heat, or, generally,
their variable conditions, so, very frequently is the Spirit in the
soul; since He does not abide with those who, on account of the
instability of their will, easily reject the grace which they have
received. An instance of this is seen in Saul,1235
and the seventy elders of the children of
Israel, except Eldad and Medad, with whom alone the Spirit appears
to have remained,1236
| 1236
Numb. xi. 25,
26, LXX. and R.V.
“did so no more” for “did not cease” of
A.V. | and, generally,
any one similar to these in character. And like reason in the
soul, which is at one time the thought in the heart, and at another
speech uttered by the tongue,1237
| 1237 The
distinction between the λόγος
ἐνδιάθετος,
thought, and the λογος
πορφορικός, speech, appears first in Philo. II. 154. On the use of the term
in Catholic Theology cf. Dr. Robertson’s note on
Ath., De Syn. § xxvi. p. 463 of the Ed. in this
series. Also, Dorner, Div. I. i. p. 338, note. | so is the
Holy Spirit, as when He “beareth witness with our
spirit,”1238
and when He
“cries in our hearts, Abba, Father,”1239
or when He speaks on our behalf, as it is
said, “It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of our Father
which speaketh in you.”1240
Again, the Spirit is conceived of, in relation to the distribution
of gifts, as a whole in parts. For we all are “members
one of another, having gifts differing according to the grace that
is given us.”1241
Wherefore
“the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee; nor
again the head to the feet, I have no need of you,”1242
but all together complete the Body of
Christ in the Unity of the Spirit, and render to one another the
needful aid that comes of the gifts. “But God hath set
the members in the body, every one of them, as it hath pleased
Him.”1243
But
“the members have the same care for one
another,”1244
according to the
inborn spiritual communion of their sympathy. Wherefore,
“whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or
one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with
it.”1245
And as
parts in the whole so are we individually in the Spirit, because we
all “were baptized in one body into one
spirit.”1246
62. It is an extraordinary statement, but it
is none the less true, that the Spirit is frequently spoken of as the
place of them that are being sanctified, and it will become
evident that even by this figure the Spirit, so far from being
degraded, is rather glorified. For words applicable to the body
are, for the sake of clearness, frequently transferred in scripture to
spiritual conceptions. Accordingly we find the Psalmist, even in
reference to God, saying “Be Thou to me a champion God and a
strong place to save me”1247
and
concerning the Spirit “behold there is place by me, and stand
upon a rock.”1248
Plainly
meaning the place or contemplation in the Spirit wherein, after
Moses had entered thither, he was able to see God intelligibly
manifested to him. This is the special and peculiar place of
true worship; for it is said “Take heed to thyself that thou
offer not thy burnt offerings in every place…but in the place
the Lord thy God shall choose.”1249
Now what is a spiritual burnt
offering? “The sacrifice of praise.”1250
And in what place do we offer
it? In the Holy Spirit. Where have we learnt this?
From the Lord himself in the words “The true worshippers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”1251
| 1251
John iv. 23. With this
interpretation, cf. Athan., Epist. i. Ad
Serap. § 33, “Hence it is shewn that the Truth is
the Son Himself…for they worship the Father, but in Spirit
and in Truth, confessing the Son and the Spirit in him; for the
Spirit is inseparable from the Son as the Son is inseparable from
the Father.” | This place Jacob saw and said
“The Lord is in this place.”1252
It follows that the Spirit is
verily the place of the saints and the saint is the proper place for
the Spirit, offering himself as he does for the indwelling of God,
and called God’s Temple.1253
So
Paul speaks in Christ, saying “In the sight of God we speak in
Christ,”1254
and Christ in
Paul, as he himself says “Since ye seek a proof of Christ
speaking in me.”1255
So also in
the Spirit he speaketh mysteries,1256
and again
the Spirit speaks in him.1257
63. In relation to the
originate,1258
| 1258 ἐν
τοῦς
γενητοῖς, as
in the Bodleian ms. The Benedictine
text adopts the common reading γεννητοις,
with the note, “Sed discrimen illud parvi
momenti.” If St. Basil wrote γεννητοῖς,
he used it in the looser sense of mortal: in its strict
sense of “begotten” it would be singularly out of
place here, as the antithesis of the reference to the Son, who is
γεννητός,
would be spoilt. In the terminology of theology, so far
from being “parvi momenti,” the distinction is
vital. In the earlier Greek philosophy ἀγένητος and
ἀγέννητος
are both used as nearly synonymous to express unoriginate
eternal. cf. Plat., Phæd. 245 D.,
ἀρχὴ δὲ
ἀγένητόν,
with Plat., Tim. 52 A., Τουτων δὲ
οὕτως
ἐχόντων
ὁμολογητέον
ἓν μὲν εἶναι
τὸ κατὰ
ταὐτὰ εἶδος
ἔχον
ἀγέννητον
καὶ
ἀνώλεθρον.
And the earliest patristic use similarly meant by γεννητός
and ἀγέννητος
created and uncreated, as in Ign., Ad Eph. vii., where our
Lord is called γεννητὸς
καὶ
ἀγέννητος,
ἐν ἀνθρ ?πω
Θεὸς, ἐν
θανάτῳ ζωὴ
ἀληθινή.
cf. Bp. Lightfoot’s note. But “such
language is not in accordance with later theological definitions,
which carefully distinguished between γενητός
and γεννητός,
between ἀγένητος
and ἀγέννητος;
so that γενητός,
ἀγένητος,
respectively denied and affirmed the eternal existence, being
equivalent to κτιστός,
ἄκτιστος, while
γεννητός,
ἀγέννητος
described certain ontological relations, whether in time or in
eternity. In the later theological language, therefore, the
Son was γεννητός
even in His Godhead. See esp. Joann. Damasc., De Fid.
Orth. i. 8 (I. p. 135, Lequin), χρὴ γὰρ
εἰδέναι ὅτι
τὸ ἀγένητον,
διὰ τοῦ
ἑνὸς ν
γραφόμενον,
τὸ ἄκτιστον
ἢ τὸ μὴ
γενόμενον
σημαίνει, τὸ
δὲ
ἀγέννητον,
διὰ τῶν δύο
νν
γραφόμενον,
δηλοῖ τὸ μὴ
γεννηθέν; whence
he draws the conclusion that μόνος ὁ
πατὴρ
ἀγέννητος
and μόνος
ὁ υἱ& 232·ς
γεννητός.”
Bp. Lightfoot, Ap. Fathers, Pt. II. Vol. II. p. 90, where
the history of the worlds is exhaustively discussed. At the
time of the Arian controversy the Catholic disputants were chary
of employing these terms, because of the base uses to which their
opponents put them; so St. Basil, Contra Eunom. iv.
protests against the Arian argument εἰ
ἀγέννητος ὁ
πατὴρ
γεννητὸς δὲ
ὁ υἱ& 232·ς, οὐ
τῆς αὐτῆς
οὐσιας.
cf. Ath., De Syn. in this
series, p. 475, and De Decretis, on Newman’s confusion of
the terms, p. 149 and 169. | then, the Spirit
is said to be in them “in divers portions and in divers
manners,”1259
while in
relation to the Father and the Son it is more consistent with true
religion to assert Him not to be in but to be
with. For the grace flowing from Him when He dwells in
those that are worthy, and carries out His own operations, is well
described as existing in those that are able to receive Him.
On the other hand His essential existence before the ages, and His
ceaseless abiding with Son and Father, cannot be contemplated
without requiring titles expressive of eternal conjunction.
For absolute and real co-existence is predicated in the case of
things which are mutually inseparable. We say, for instance,
that heat exists in the hot iron, but in the case of the actual fire
it co-exists; and, similarly, that health exists in the body, but
that life co-exists with the soul. It follows that wherever
the fellowship is intimate, congenital,1260
and inseparable, the word with is more expressive,
suggesting, as it does, the idea of inseparable fellowship.
Where on the other hand the grace flowing from the Spirit naturally
comes and goes, it is properly and truly said to exist in,
even if on account of the firmness of the recipients’
disposition to good the grace abides with them continually.
Thus whenever we have in mind the Spirit’s proper rank, we
contemplate Him as being with the Father and the Son, but
when we think of the grace that flows from Him operating on those who
participate in it, we say that the Spirit is in us. And
the doxology which we offer “in the Spirit” is not an
acknowledgment of His rank; it is rather a confession of our own
weakness, while we shew that we are not sufficient to glorify Him of
ourselves, but our sufficiency1261
is in the
Holy Spirit. Enabled in, [or by,] Him we render thanks to our
God for the benefits we have received, according to the measure of
our purification from evil, as we receive one a larger and another a
smaller share of the aid of the Spirit, that we may offer “the
sacrifice of praise to God.”1262
According to one use, then, it is
thus that we offer our thanksgiving, as the true religion requires,
in the Spirit; although it is not quite unobjectionable that any one
should testify of himself “the Spirit of God is in me, and I
offer glory after being made wise through the grace that flows from
Him.” For to a Paul it is becoming to say “I think
also that I have the Spirit of God,”1263
and again, “that good thing which was committed to thee keep
by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.”1264
And of Daniel it is fitting to say
that “the Holy Spirit of God is in him,”1265
and similarly of men who are like these
in virtue.
64. Another sense may however be given to
the phrase, that just as the Father is seen in the Son, so is the Son
in the Spirit. The “worship in the Spirit” suggests
the idea of the operation of our intelligence being carried on in the
light, as may be learned from the words spoken to the woman of
Samaria. Deceived as she was by the customs of her country into
the belief that worship was local, our Lord, with the object of giving
her better instruction, said that worship ought to be offered “in
Spirit and in Truth,”1266
plainly meaning by
the Truth, Himself. As then we speak of the worship offered in
the Image of God the Father as worship in the Son, so too do we speak
of worship in the Spirit as shewing in Himself the Godhead of the
Lord. Wherefore even in our worship the Holy Spirit is
inseparable from the Father and the Son. If you remain outside
the Spirit you will not be able even to worship at all; and on your
becoming in Him you will in no wise be able to dissever Him from
God;—any more than you will divorce light from visible
objects. For it is impossible to behold the Image of the
invisible God except by the enlightenment of the Spirit, and
impracticable for him to fix his gaze on the Image to dissever the
light from the Image, because the cause of vision is of necessity seen
at the same time as the visible objects. Thus fitly and
consistently do we behold the “Brightness of the glory” of
God by means of the illumination of the Spirit, and by means of the
“Express Image” we are led up to Him of whom He is the
Express Image and Seal, graven to the like.1267
| 1267
cf. note on § 15. So Athan. in Matt.
xi. 22. Σφραγὶς
γάρ ἐστιν
ἰσότυπος ἐν
ἑαυτῷ
δεικνὺς τὸν
πατέρα. cf.
Athan., De Dec. § 20, and note 9 in this
series, p. 163. cf. also Greg. Nyss., In Eunom.
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