HOLY GHOST, in Christian theology, the third person of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is a distinctively Christian one, but foreshadowings of it are believed by some to be found in the Old Testament. Thus the Spirit of Jehovah is the active divine principle in nature (Gen. i, 2; Ps. civ) and the gener ator of the higher energies of the human soul (1 Samuel xvi, 13) especially of the prophetic faculty, while the prophets look forward to the Messianic age as the special time for the full manifestation of the Spirit. But it is• in the New Testament that we find the bases of the doctrine of the Spirit's personality. The early Christians saw its work in the form of ex traordinary gifts, as at the day of Pentecost (Acts ii, 4; x, 44) whop inaugurated the new dispensation; for Saint Paul it is the principle of the divine life in the (Rom. Inn, 10), the begetter of all the spiritual graces (Gal. v, 22). But the Spirit's proper personal ity is most clearly found in the Gospel of John (xiv, 16-26), though it seems to be already im plied in Matthew (xxviii, 19). Yet the early
Church did not forthwith attain to a complete doctrine; nor was it, in fact, until after the essential divinity of Jesus had received full ecclesiastical sanction that the personality of the Spirit was explicitly recognized, and the dOctrine of the Trinity formulated. Rational istic writers have usually endeavored to reduce the being of the Spirit to the presence of the moral faculty in man, but this is to put the matter lower than the facts warrant. It is better to regard the Spirit as the agency which, proceeding from the Father and the Son, dwells in the church• as the witness and power of the life therein. If we realize this energy as im plying the presence of God Himself, the divin ity and personality would seem to become intel ligible and credible. (For the question as to whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, or from the Father and the Son, which ultimately brought about the separation of the Greek and Roman churches, see GREER