the Holy Spirit

HOLY SPIRIT, THE, a term which developed from the use of the word "spirit" (spiritus in the Vulgate), to translate the Hebrew roach, Greek 7rv61.1a. Etymology and usage suggest that the common meaning of the three terms is the "blowing" of the wind and the "breathing" of man. This is the physical basis of the remarkable and influential duality of meaning in the three terms—their inclusion of both supernatural and natural aspects of human life and experience. (Primitive thought knows no natural explanation of the wind, and the power or mystery of the wind made it a typical example of the supernatural, lending its name to similar phenomena or agencies.) The usage of the three terms, however, also shows characteristic differences, due to those of the Hebrew, Greek and Roman peoples. Ruach becomes a theological term denoting the personal energy of God ; pneuma, in philosophy or medical science, a permeating principle ; spiritus, at any rate in its modern equivalents, has tended more and more to denote personal, especially religious, experience—a development which makes the English equivalent one of our most subtle and inter esting words (more than a score of different meanings may be found in the New English Dictionary, s.v.).

The Old Testament.—The Hebrew word, ruach, began its long history not by denoting an element of human personality, after wards transferred to God, but as a divine activity, subsequently transferred to man. Critical study of the Old Testament shows that roach is not used of the human breathing or with psychical predicates before the exile, whereas from the earliest period it does denote the wind, conceived as a superhuman activity. It was natural, therefore, to use the term of any powerful and mysterious agency, acting on man from without, and of any abnormal dis play of energy by man himself. At this stage the use is non-moral and comprehensive as to source, not being confined to energies controlled by Yahweh. Only as Israel came to conceive Him as omnipotent and as acting according to ethical standards did ruach, the characteristic expression of His energy, move towards the conception of "the Holy Spirit." This full term occurs three times only (Ps. li. I Is. lxiii. 1o, r r ), but the noun alone develops the conception of ethical majesty pari passe with the conception of Yahweh Himself (the adjective "Holy" originally denoted not moral character but the "numinous," that aspect of the divine which separates it from the human).

The divine activity expressed by roach is the source of the most varied phenomena, ranging from Samson's outbursts of physical energy without moral purpose (Jud. xiv. 6, 19, xv. 14) to Ezekiel's conception of the changed heart as the spring of moral obedience (xxxvi. 26, 27). In the earlier "prophesying" (e.g., .I Sam. xix. 18-24), prominence is given to the physical phenomena ascribed to the Spirit; in the later development of ethical prophecy these sink into the background, without being wholly lost, as we may see from Ezekiel. The outpouring of the prophetic Spirit upon all without distinction is a sign of the "Messianic" age (Joel ii. 28, 29) ; this is a more external parallel to the inwardness of the "New Covenant" of Jeremiah (xxxi. 31-34), when all shall know Yah weh. Through the whole development of a thousand years roach denotes the transcendent, not the immanent, energy of God. The nearest approach to immanence is that from the exile onwards the term roach denotes the breath or breath-soul or inner life of man, naturally with the suggestion of its divine origin. This is an important fact for the Pauline usage of pneuma; the use of the same term to denote the super-normal energy of God and the normal life in man was an implicit assertion of kinship between the human and the divine. Yet we must not press this too far within the Old Testament, because of the sharp antithesis there made between God and man (as in the contrast of Spirit and flesh in Is. xxxi. 3) . Even when God is said to be omnipresent by His Spirit (Ps. cxxxix. 7) there is no suggestion of an immanent per meating principle such as is developed in the Greek use of pneuma. The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament is a personal, yet unhypos tasized, activity of God, almost always concerned with human life.

Between the Testaments.

The subsequent Palestinian Juda ism made no fresh contribution to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, but tended to limit the activity to prophecy and to regard the Torah (Pentateuch) as the Spirit's characteristic work. Thus the Spirit belonged to the past or to the future (Ps. Sol. xvii. 42), rather than to the present, which was conscious of the lack of theprophetic impulse (Ps. lxxiv. 9, I. Macc. iv. 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41; the Second Temple was said to lack the ark, the fire, the Shechinah, the Spirit, the Urim and Thummim). A new influence, however, came into Alexandrian Judaism through its use of the Greek term pneuma (used by the Septuagint to translate ruach). The Stoic Posidonius had described God as pneuma, with the qualities of both intelligence and fire, formless yet capable of unlimited trans formation; the Stoics generally explained the bodily senses as due to the immanent activity of pneuma, which might be described as the "material" out of which the psyche or soul is composed. The Wisdom of Solomon continues this Stoic doctrine of imma nence, and blends the idea of the Spirit of God with that of "Wisdom" (vii. 22, c f . i. 4-7, ix. 57);here, perhaps, we may first speak of a "hypostasis" of the Holy Spirit, i.e., of a divine attri bute endowed with separate existence. Philo has largely absorbed the content of "Wisdom" and "Spirit" into his characteristic term, "Logos"—a fact which should remind us how elastic were these mediatorial ideas in New Testament times. It is clear that the doctrine of the Spirit did not take anything like so distinctive a place in contemporary Judaism, Palestinian or even Alexandrian, as in the Christian life of the New Testament. It is also clear that the suggestion of immanence in the Greek term pneuma might deeply affect its connotation when used to render ruach, though this Hellenistic influence can easily be exaggerated (as by Leise gang) . The Hebrew connotation of roach remains fundamental in regard to transcendent personal activity and to ethical content.

The New Testament.

Jewish faith expected the Messiah to be endowed with the Holy Spirit (Is. xi. r seq.; Ps. Sol. xvii. 39 seq.), and this faith is reflected in the Synoptic account of Jesus, whose birth, baptism and ministry of power are directly linked to the Spirit's activity. He wages war with the demonic world in the power of the Spirit (Mt. xii. 28), and at "Pentecost" this power is consciously realized as resting upon His disciples (Acts ii. 4, 17 seq.) . The abnormal physical and psychical phenomena which seem to have accompanied baptism in primitive Christianity were ascribed to the Holy Spirit, and corresponded in some degree with those of early "prophecy" in the Old Testament. It was the Apostle Paul who ethicized this conception and transformed it in a way comparable with that of the eighth century prophets; to him, intelligible and "edifying" prophecy was worth infinitely more than the unintelligible gift of "tongues," which needed an inter preter (I Cor. xiv.) (see TONGUES, SPEAKING WITH). The charis mata or gifts of the Spirit (I Cor. xii. 4 seq.) were bestowed within, and for, the community; hence "love" was the highest of them all. The fruit of the Spirit was that of the Christlike charac ter (Gal. v. 22, 23) . To be "in Christ" was to be a new creation of the Spirit of Christ. Paul drew no clear distinction between the activity of the risen Christ and that of the Holy Spirit, as we may see from the alternations of Rom. viii. 9–i I ("Spirit of God, of Christ, Christ in you, indwelling Spirit"—all with the same con notation of experience). The whole of the Christian experience, as Paul conceived it, can be gathered within the formula of Eph. ii. 18 : "through Christ, we have our access in one Spirit unto the Father." The supreme work of the Holy Spirit is to create the Christian fellowship. The Fourth Gospel develops this concep tion in the light of the experience of the Church during the first century. The Holy Spirit is represented as continuing the work of Christ in and through the Church, as another "Paraclete" or "Helper." The world will be convinced of sin, righteousness and judgment (xvi. 8–ii) through the presence of the Spirit with the community of disciples.

So far, nothing has been said of the metaphysical basis of this experience, i.e., what it implies as to the Godhead. We shall find in the New Testament no explicit teaching as to the Trinity, but simply such data of thought and experience as may be held to require such a doctrine to explain them. The two clearest refer ences are those of the benediction (TI. Cor. xiii. 14) and the bap tismal formula (Matt. xxviii. 19). But the former gives us no more in reality than the reversed line of approach of Eph. ii. i8; the grace of Christ springs from the love of God and operates through the fellowship (of man with God and man with man) created by the Holy Spirit ; the baptismal sentence does not carry us further than this "intensive" line of God's approach to man and man's approach to God. We are hardly warranted in saying more of St. Paul's doctrine of the Godhead than that, for him, the real presence of God, as known through Christ, "the Lord the Spirit" (II. Cor. iii. 18), was inwardly experienced by the believer who had been baptized in the Spirit (I. Cor. xii. 13) and had thus entered the fellowship (Phil. ii. 1). This real presence of God is personally experienced and conceived, and the New Testament data warrant us in asking whether God as Spirit can be conceived as other than personal. But the metaphysical questions were not faced by the New Testament believers; they belong to the next period of the history of the doctrine.

The Dogmatic

early uncertainties as to the extension of monotheism are illustrated by the Shepherd of Hermas, who does not distinguish the pre-existent Son of God from the Holy Spirit, and no trinitarian formula was reached by the Apologists. Meanwhile, the growing emphasis on the more external aspects of the Church, the ministry, and the sacraments provoked the interesting Montanist reaction—an attempt to re vive the New Testament "life in the Spirit." Sabellius (fl. 2 I 5 ) regarded the Holy Spirit as a "mode" of the one God (Monarchi anism) . Origen (185-254) held the Holy Spirit to be the highest of the spiritual beings brought into existence through the Son, though he refrains from using the term ktisma (creature) ; the work of the Spirit is essentially the sanctification of believers. Tertullian—a Montanist—was the first to deal at all adequately with the doctrine of the Trinity. But during the ante-Nicene pe riod there is no settled "Doctrine of the Holy Spirit" : thought on the subject is fluid and unformed. At the Council of Nicaea (325) it is significant that whilst the Father and the Son receive careful and elaborate definition, there is but the bare mention of the Holy Spirit in the third place, without any definition at all. But when the homoousia (identity of nature with the Father) of the Son had been successfully asserted in the Arian Controversy, the result was transferred, without any corresponding discussion, to the Holy Spirit, as the third hypostasis of the Godhead (Synod of Alexandria, 362). Moreover, as the interpretation of Christ in terms of the divine Logos (creative reason or word in the world) tended to fall into the background, that of Christ as Son taking its place, functions hitherto often ascribed to the Logos, came to be ascribed to the Spirit ; the conception of the Spirit there fore became more prominent. The only controversy dealing directly with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit was that known as the "Macedonian," which was hardly more than the closing phase of the Arian Controversy. The orthodox doctrine of the Church was due to the three "Cappadocians" (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzum and Gregory of Nyssa) ; the three hypostases were distinguished by the conception of the Father as "ingenerate," the Son as "generate," and the Spirit as proceeding from the Father through the Son. The Council of Constantinople (381), which repudiated Macedonianism, described the Holy Spirit as "Sover eign and Lifegiving, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son is together worshipped and glorified : Who spake by the prophets." Its decisions were confirmed at the Council of Chalcedon (451).

The Western Church, at least from Tertullian's time, had asserted that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, as Augustine definitely argued in the interest of the unity of the Godhead. The Eastern Church, which regarded the Son and the Spirit as in some sense subordinate to the Father, taught that He was the only source of the Spirit. Consequently, the in sertion of filioque in the Creed, for the first time at the third Council of Toledo (589), created a formal issue between the West and the East which has contributed to their lasting separation. The Eastern position is expressed by John of Damascus (7oo from the Father and communicated through the Son . . . we do not speak of the Spirit as from the Son." Scholasticism, concerned with the philosophic defence and elab oration of the faith, contributed no really new feature to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The Council of Trent claimed the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit for the traditions of the Church as equal in authority to that of the Scriptures (including the Apocrypha). Justification was regarded as the infu sion of righteousness through the Holy Spirit, mediated through the whole system of the Church. On the other hand, the mysticism of the Middle Ages, by its endeavour after a more direct fellowship with God, paved the way for that re-discovery of the activity of the Spirit in Christian experience which characterized the Reform ation. The Theologia Germanica, for example, forming a direct and important link with Luther, brings us back to the realization of the indwelling presence of God through the surrender of the will to Him.

Augustine had laid the foundation of the Western doctrine of grace, which he held to be the activity of the Holy Spirit, inspiring faith, love and the whole experience of regeneration; but this was bound up with his doctrine of the Church and the sacraments. Luther also made faith and all its sequel to be the gift of the Holy Spirit, but for him the "Word" was the essential link in the chain of divine causality. Melanchthon linked with the Word and the Spirit the co-operation of the human will. Calvin emphasized the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit as confirming the authority of the Spirit's utterance in Scripture. It is this emphasis on the Scriptural, in contrast with the predominantly "sacramental," con ception of grace—i.e., the mediation of the Spirit through the "Word" of God—which gives to the Protestant doctrine its char acteristic features. Quietism (Molinos) and Pietism (Spener and Francke) on the continent, Quakerism and Methodism in Eng land, may all be viewed as a return to the emphasis on Christian experience and on the Holy Spirit as its direct interpretation, as against contemporary intellectualism. The modern appeal to Christian experience as the basis of theological reconstruction began with Schleiermacher, who, in accordance with his Sabellian izing doctrine of God, identified the Holy Spirit with the spirit of the Christian community.

The Modern Approach.

This brief summary of the history has shown that the orthodox doctrine of the nature of the Holy Spirit was substantially reached in the fourth century, as the result of the transference of the hypostasis doctrine of the Logos to the third "Person" of the Holy Trinity. On the other hand, the doctrine of the work of the Holy Spirit largely fell into the back ground till the Reformation. The Protestant emphasis on Chris tian experience as of "supernatural" origin was accompanied by such a contemporary development of philosophic thought as has made possible a new conception of the nature of Spirit. The static conception of "substance" gave place to the dynamic conception of "subject"; the experience of the (personal) "subject" reveals a unity of objective-subjective factors which may be held to imply both the transcendence and immanence of God. The larger out look of the modern world on nature and history has given a new background to the activity of the Holy Spirit, and theologians are coming to realize that the special activity within Christian ex perience must be related to the whole working of the Spirit of God in the universe. The endeavour to recover the New Testament consciousness of a direct fellowship with God through Christ, in reaction from a too external emphasis on the authority of Bible or Church, is leading to doctrinal re-statement in the light of these new categories and data.

It may be argued that the real presence of God (as known through Christ) in the heart of the believer or the Christian community, implies the "personality" of Spirit (God as Spirit). Moral and religious surrender to God has this significant feature— the individuality of the believer is not absorbed, but raised to new powers when he is brought to say, "My life is hid with Christ in God." This suggests that at higher levels of personality or "Spirit" there may be inclusion without absorption, and that the individu ality of the "Jesus of history" is not lost but raised to fulness of being in the exalted "Christ of experience." The Spirithood of God becomes the primary category for a doctrine of the God head, unifying the divine purposes of creation, redemption and sanctification and the divine activities to these ends. We have no experience of triple-centred personality; but our own partial achievement of personality, marked by sociality as well as individ uality, points forward to more inclusive and complex conceptions of Spirit which would safeguard the Christian "values" and justify them ontologically=the values which were safeguarded by the ancient hypostasis doctrine. The formulation of such a concep tion is interwoven with the theological doctrine of mediation and the philosophical problem par excellence, i.e., the relation of time and eternity.

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit, therefore, is of the greatest importance to the Christian Church. It is the guarantee that Christian experience originates ab extra whilst involving the moral response of the believer. It links that experience with its historical origin in the Person and Work of Christ whilst guaranteeing the continuity of Christian experience and the progressive and con tinuous character of revelation; it points to the ultimate nature of God. The transforming activity of spirit in man, by which new meanings and therefore new facts are created, suggests that some of the great problems of theology, such as those connected with the doctrine of Atonement, may find their solution in a more com prehensive and adequate doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:H.

Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes (2nd Bibliography:H. Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes (2nd ed., 1899) ; K. F. Nosgen, Geschichte der Lehre vom heiligen Geiste (1 899) ; K. v. Lechler, Die biblische Lehre vom heiligen Geiste 1904) ; I. F. Wood, The Spirit of God in Biblical Literature (19o4) ; K. F. Nosgen, Das Wesen and das Wirken des heiligen Geistes (1905 1907) ; H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament (19o9) ; P. Volz, Der Geist Gottes (191o) ; A. L. Humphries, The Holy Spirit in Faith and Experience (191I) ; W. T. Davison, The Indwelling Spirit (191I) ; H. B. Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church (1912) ; T. Rees, The Holy Spirit in Thought and Experience (bibliography), (1915) ; E. de W. Burton, Spirit, Soul and Flesh (1918) ; B. H. Streeter (ed.), The Spirit (1919) • H. Leisegang, Der heilige Geist (1919) ; R. B. Hoyle, "Spirit (Holy)," in the Encycl. of Religion and Ethics (Vol. XI.) with extensive bibliography (192o) ; H. Watkin-Jones, The Holy Spirit in the Mediaeval Church (192 2) ; H. Leisegang, Pneuma Hagion (1922) ; E. Schaeder, Das Geistproblem der Theologie (1924) ; R. Winkler, Das Geistproblem (1926) ; R. B. Hoyle, The Holy Spirit in St. Paul (1927) ; C. E. Raven, The Creator Spirit (1927) ; H. Wheeler Robinson, The Christian Experience of the Holy Spirit (1928) .

(H. W. R.)