Bicknell on Article V: Of the Holy Ghost

One of the new Articles added in 1563 by Archbishop Parker, based upon the Lutheran Confession of Wirtemburg. Its addition may be due to the revival of ancient heresies by the Anabaptists, or simply to a desire for greater completeness.

§ 1. As we have seen, in the Old Testament the Spirit of God is simply God in action. His distinct personality is not yet fully recognized. The Old Testament conception has hardly been transcended in such passages as Lk. 1% ‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee,’ and the teaching of John Baptist (Mk. 18, etc.) ‘ He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.’ But in the teaching of Christ and of the New Testament generally language is used which implies clearly that He is both Divine and a Person. His divinity can hardly be questioned. ‘ Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost ’ is the sin that ‘hath never forgiveness’ (Mk. 39, etc.). To ‘lie to the Holy Ghost ’ is to ‘lie to God’ (Acts 5*4), It is the presence of the Spirit that makes the Christian the temple of God (1 Cor. 31644 617), On the other hand His per- sonality was less quickly grasped. The word wvetua * in itself

*The attempt to distinguish between 76 7vefua as meaning the Person and mvetua without the article as meaning His gifts or operation, though great

names can be quoted in its favour, seems to have no real foundation. See Chase, Confirmation in the Early Church.

may mean ‘wind,’ or ‘spirit’ or ‘spiritual influence.’ It is used alike of the Person of the Holy Spirit and of the gifts that He bestows. It is employed also of a man’s ‘spirit,’ which is a part or aspect of his personality. Further, its use in the Old Testament and in popular heathen religious thought tended to a certain vagueness. In its current use it might mean no more than a divine influence or endowment or one of the minor deities of polytheism. But the language of Scripture goes beyond this. It speaks about Him as a Person. Christ can designate Him ‘another Advocate’ comparable to but not identical with Himself (Jn. 1426, 156). He is to perform personal actions, to ‘teach’ and ‘bear witness.’ So in St. Paul’s writing He ‘maketh intercession with groanings that cannot be uttered’ (Rom. 87627), He ‘divides gifts severally as He will’ (1 Cor. 1211, cp. the whole passage). He can lead men (Gal. 51%) and be grieved (Eph. 4°°). Further, in baptismal formula (Mt. 281) and Trinitarian passages (cp. 2 Cor. 13) He is placed on a level with the Father and the Son, in a way that would be impossible, if He were no more than a divine influence. We could not speak of ‘The Father, the Son and the Wisdom or the Power.’ The substitution of any such divine attribute shows at once the Personality of the Spirit.

For N.T. teaching, see Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament.

§ 2. When we turn to the early Church, the general mind of the Church is perfectly clear. We find a vigorous belief in the Holy Spirit expressed in her life and worship. She baptized in the three-fold Name and required of candidates for baptism an acknowledgement of the Holy Spirit no less than of the Father and the Son. She included the Holy Spirit in her doxologies. In the hymn of praise that is put into the mouth of the martyr St. Polycarp, glory is given to the Holy Spirit, together with the Father and the Son. Whether actually spoken at the time of martyrdom or not, the words probably represent a familiar eucharistic thanksgiving. At the same time the doctrine of the Holy Spirit was not yet formulated in the language of theology. The presence and power of the Holy Spirit was a fact of Christian experience rather than an object of study and definition.*

language of the early Church was in fact on the whole in advance of its doctrinal system. Men like Origen still had intellectual difficulties in reference to the

So we are not surprised to find that in the first attempts to think out the position of the Holy Spirit there is not only a certain vagueness and indecision but also a real confusion of thought and the employment of language that in a later age would have been condemned as heretical. Thus Hermas appears to identify the Holy Spirit with the preexistent divine nature of Christ.* The apologists, Justin and Aristides, in their anxiety to emphasize the doctrine of the Logos, minimize the work and place of the Spirit.f Origen’s speculations show how the Church was feeling after a clearer understanding of the mode of the Spirit’s assistance but had not yet attained it.t

Montanism in the latter half of the second century with its revival of prophecy brought to the front the reality of the Person and power of the Holy Spirit. The movement was an exaggera- tion of a neglected truth. It is significant that Tertullian, perhaps under Montanist influence, was the first to formulate the relation of the Spirit to the Father and the Son in language approaching that of later theology. He even speaks of ‘ One substance in three who cohere together.’§ But here as in his general manner of formulating the doctrine of the Trinity, Tertullian was in advance of his age.

relation of the Spirit to the other Persons of the Holy Trinity ; but they could nevertheless associate His name in their prayers and praises with those of the Father and the Son. The worship of the Trinity was a fact in the religious life of Christians before it was a dogma of the Church. Dogmatic precision was forced upon the Church by heresy, but the confession and conglorification of the ‘lhree Persons arose out of the Christian consciousness, interpreting by its own experience the words of Christ and the Apostles and the primitive rule of faith.’ * #.g. Sim. IX. i. 1.

• #.g. Justin assigns the miraculous conception to the Word Himself, A pol. i.

{ Origen raises the question in this form. Is the Spirit to be regarded as dyevynrés like the Father, or yevyynrés like the Son, or is He to be ranked among the yevnrd, that is, the beings who have come into existence through the Logos? He is feeling his way to the later doctrine that the Holy Spirit is not like the Father the source of Godhead, nor like the Son ‘ begotten of the Father,’ but proceeds from the Father through the Son. As yet he had no technical language in which to express his thought. In placing the Spirit in the third class, among the yevyrd, he laid himself open to the charge of ranking Him among the creatures, but this was not in the least his intention, as is clear from his language elsewhere. See Bethune-Baker, pp. 201-204, or Swete, op. cit. p. 127 fi.

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§ 3. The fmal statement that the Holy Spirit is ‘of one sub- stance with the Father and the Son’ was a secondary product of the Arian controversy. Arius had taught that the Holy Spirit was a creature, infinitely dissimilar both in essence and glory to the Father and the Son. If the Son was a creature and not divine in the full sense, the Holy Spirit whom He sent must be even more creaturely and less divine. But for the time the Arians did not press this point. The centre of controversy was the Person of the Son. The Council of Nicaea was content only to reaffirm belief in the Spirit. But in 359 news was brought to Athanasius of certam Arians who had come to accept the Nicene doctrine of the Son, but still regarded the Holy Spirit as a creature, ‘one of the ministering angels and superior to the angels only in degree.’ These men he named ‘ Tropici,’ because they treated as TpoT al or metaphors all passages of Scripture that contradicted their own view. He also speaks of them as rvevuatouayovrtes whence they became commonly known as ‘ Pneumatomachi.’ Against them he wrote the letters to Serapion setting forth the consubstantiality of the Spirit. At the Synod of Alexandria in 361 an anathema was directed against those who ‘say that the Holy Spirit is a creature and separate from the essential nature of Christ.’ Meanwhile similar views were being put forth at Constantinople ; about the year 360 Macedonius, the bishop of Constantinople, while accepting the divinity of the Son, denied that of the Spirit saying that he was only a minister and a servant. His followers became known by the name of Macedonians. For the time Macedonianism was a real danger to the Church. At a Roman Synod in 369 the appeal of the Macedonians was rejected and the full doctrine of the Trinity affirmed. In 381 at the Council of Constantinople Macedonianism was expressly con- demned. This was an inevitable result of the defeat of Arianism. The controversy about the divinity of the Holy Spirit did not involve any fresh issue which had not been already considered. The doctrine of the Spirit was worked out by the Cappadocian Fathers. There had never been any real doubt as to His divinity in the Church at large. A creature would not be included in the Trinity. Christians were convinced that His working within their own souls proved Him to be not less than divine. But the Church did not wish to speculate. Even St. Cyril of Jerusalem, writing about 348, after a full exposition of the work of the Holy

Spirit discourages all speculation about His Person. ‘ Be not over-curious about His nature or hypostasis. Had it been revealed in Scripture we should have spoken of it ; what is not written, let us not venture to touch. It is sufficient for sal- vation to know that there is a Father, a Son, and a Holy Spirit.’ * The Macedonian controversy that began not many months later obliged the Church to formulate her position. On the development of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit see : Bethune Baker, ec. xiii. Swete, H.D.B., ‘Holy Spirit.’ (Fuller patristic quotations will be found in his book, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church.) Article ‘ Holy Spirit’ in the Dictionary of the Apostolic Age.

§ 4. What then is meant by the language of the Article, which speaks of the Holy Spirit as ‘ proceeding from the Father and the Son’? The technical term ‘proceeding’ is used, simply because it is the language of Scripture.

(i) In Jn. 15° Christ says ‘ When the Advocate is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth (ékropevera) from the Father, He shall testify of me.’ Even under the Old Testament revelation men would have been prepared to assert that the Spirit of God in some sense proceeded from God. But the New Testament makes it clear that the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was a gift of the Ascended Christ. He was sent not only by the Father but by the Son. ‘I (éy) will send unto you’ (cp. 167, Acts 233), Further, Scripture calls Him not only the Spirit of God but the Spirit of Christ Himself (Ro. 8°, Gal. 4%, Phil. 179, 1 Pet, 14014), and even the Spirit ‘ of Jesus ’ (Acts 16”), using our Lord’s human name. In the coming of the Holy Spirit Christ Himself comes. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ dwells in the Church and in the hearts of believers (Jn. 141618, Eph. 316-17), It is through the reception of the Spirit that Christians are ‘in Christ.’ This truth, that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit not only of God the Father but of Christ lies behind the difficult passage 2 Cor. 31718, ‘ Now the Lord is the Spirit : and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with unveiled face reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Spirit which is the Lord’

• Cat. xvi. 24.

(R.V. mg. cafarep aro Kuptov zvevuaros), The presence and power of the Spirit known in the Church since Pentecost are the very presence and power of Jesus Christ. In other words the new revelation of the Spirit is made as a sequel of the Incarnation. ‘The Holy Ghost is mainly revealed to us as the Spirit of the Incarnate.’ * He is not simply the Spirit of God in His absolute and eternal existence, nor the Spirit of God as putting forth the energy of creation, He is the Spirit of God Incarnate. Through Him we share the saving power of Christ’s victorious humanity. By His coming the perfect human life of our Ascended Lord is bestowed upon us. This great truth is safeguarded by the asser- tion that He proceeds not from the Father only but from the Father and the Son.

(i) But the words as used in the Article mean more than this. So far we have thought only about the ‘Economic Trinity,’ z.e. God as active in redemption, God in His dealings with the world. But we cannot but believe that the ‘Temporal Mission ’ of the Holy Ghost, as it is called, 7.e. His descent as the Spirit of God Incarnate, corresponds to something within the ‘Essential Trinity,’ that it rests upon and springs out of a relation within the eternal being of God. About the eternal life of God we can know nothing except in so far as it is outlined in the Incarnation. But we feel that the historical revelation of God through Jesus Christ as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, must depend upon distinctions and relations within the being of God. When we strive to express such distinctions and relations we can only do so in language borrowed from the manner of the Incarnation. Thus we speak of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity as Son, and the Third as Spirit. Further, if in time the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, we can only express His relationship to the Father and the Son in eternity by the use of the same language. For we have and can have no other. Accordingly, Catholic theologians have always taught that the Father is alone the underived source of Godhead (dvapxos) and the Son derives His being by eternal generation from the Father. Further, from the first it was held that the procession of the Spirit, like the generation of the Son,

refers not only to His mission but to His essential life, that He derives His being from the being of God. Some theologians taught that the Spirit like the Son received His Godhead immediately from the Father alone. But the majority saw that just as His temporal mission was from the Father through the Son, just as the Holy Spirit who descended at Pentecost was the Spirit not only of the Father but of the Son, so within the eternal life of God He received His being not directly from the Father, but mediately through the Son. The Divine Essence was conceived as eternally passing from the Father through the Son into the Spirit. We may doubt whether there is any primary reference to this in Scripture at all. The words of Jn. 1614 where the Spirit is said to receive the things of Christ, just as Christ received all that is the Father’s, would seem to refer primarily to the economic Trinity, though no doubt they hint at an eternal relationship.

(ii) The dispute between East and West has centred not on the fact of the ‘double procession ’ but on the manner in which it is expressed. St. Augustine formulated it in the words ‘ pro- ceeding from the Father and the Son’ and this became the common language of the West. The Constantinopolitan Creed—our so- called Nicene Creed—had always said only ‘ Who proceedeth from the Father.’ The Church of Spain, in its conflict with Arianism on the one hand and Sabellianism on the other, was the first to introduce St. Augustine’s language into confessions of faith. The words ‘ Proceeding from the Father and the Son ’ had appeared in a profession of faith put forth by a Council of Toledo in 447. It used to be supposed that they were first inserted into the Creed at the Council of Toledo in 589. This, however, is doubtful. Those who denied the double procession were indeed anathematized, but evidence seems to show that the text of the Creed was kept pure by the Council. Their inter- polation into the actual Creed was probably the work of copyists, under the influence of the anathema. For a long time the addition remained unobserved and awakened no controversy. It did not become a matter for public debate till the time of Charles the Great. Even then Pope Leo III, though he accepted the double procession, deliberately rejected the addition to the Creed and set up in St. Peter’s copies of it without the addition.

It is clear, however, from the protests of the Franks that the interpolated form had spread to Gaul and the question of the procession had begun to arouse controversy. A dispute had arisen at Jerusalem between Greeks and Latins over the use of | the new form of the Creed. Rome herself did not accept the addition till after the final breach between East and West. It is usually supposed that it was introduced by the influence of the Emperor Henry IT, in 1014, along with the custom of repeating the Creed at Mass. The arguments of the Eastern Church against the language ‘ from the Father and the Son’ were partly theological, partly historical. It has been argued that it implies two independent sources of Godhead and so breaks up the unity. This is untrue. The Western Church means no more by it than Eastern theologians mean when they use the language ‘from the Father through the Son.’ St. Augustine was most careful to guard against any violation of the unity of the Godhead. Again, it has been objected that it was inserted irregularly. This is partly true. We may reply, however, that the insertion was originally quite accidental and was very useful in dealing with heresy. To set it aside now would run the risk of appearing to deny the truth that it protects. All that the Western Church claims is to repeat the clause in a sense that is perfectly orthodox. We do, however, admit that the clause has not Catholic authority: that it is unfortunate that any addition was made and still more unfortunate that, if any addition was judged to be necessary, it was not made in the form that would have been acceptable to East and West alike, namely ‘ from the Father through the Son.’* In itself it is certainly inadequate to justify any rupture between East and West. We must remember, however, the real causes of division are to be found elsewhere, in political rivalry and jealousy between Rome and Constantinople.

On the question of the double procession, see : Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church, c. 1x.

For a full account of the Filioque controversy : Burn, Nicene Creed, c. 3.

Quick, Hssays in Orthodoxy, c. vi. should also be read. For the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification, see below, p. 266 ff.

• Certain modern Greek theologians, however, would seem to be unwilling to use the words to denote more than the temporal mission from the Son.

Notes

• Op. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church, p. 159. ‘ The devotional
• Moberly, Atonement and Personality, p. 194. Cp. The whole passage, pp. 194-205. See also Milligan, The Ascension of Our Lord, Lect. IV. esp. pp.