TODAS LAS VOCES

 

INDEX

1. Abstract

2. Introduction: The question of the deity of the Holy Spirit after the post - Nicene debate for Logos

3. Gregory Nazianzen drew attention to the opinions that existed for the Holy Spirit that era

4. The pneumatology of Gregory Nazianzen

5. The use of Bible by Gregory Nazianzen as proof for the deity if the Holy Spirit

6. Conclusions

7. Bibliography and notes

1. ABSTRACT

 

Gregory of Nazianzen had to confront with courage the heretical teaching about the divine nature of Holy Spirit. Through his works, he identifies The Holy Spirit as the third Person of the Triune God. One can see that the Bible clearly teaches that the Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit just as the Son, originates from the Father, is coeternal with the Father and illuminates the whole creation. The third Person of Trinity deserves to be worshipped as God and deifies people in their baptism. Gregory wonders: “For if He is not to be worshipped, how can He deify me by Baptism? But if He is to be worshipped, surely, He is an Object of adoration, and if an Object of adoration He must be God; the one is linked to the other, a truly golden and saving chain. And indeed, from the Spirit comes our New Birth, and from the New Birth our new creation, and from the new creation our deeper knowledge of the dignity of Him from Whom it is derived” (orat. 31). Gregory underlined the divinity of Holy Spirit and also explained the soteriological goal of this teaching, because: “If he has the same rank as I have, how can he make me God, or how can he join me with deity” (orat. 31).

 

Key words: Gregory Nazianzen, Holy Spirit, Triune God, Bible, Baptism, Second Ecumenical Council, Pneumatology.

2. Introduction: The question of the deity of the Holy Spirit after the post - Nicene debate for Logos

 

            A major heresy that arose in the fourth century and denied the divinity of Jesus Christ was Arianism. Arius (256-336), a priest of Alexandria, denied that there were three distinct divine Persons in God. For Arius, there was only one Person, the Father. According to Arian’s theory, the Son was created, If the Father begot the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence: and from this it is evident, that there was a time when the Son was not. It therefore necessarily follows, that he had his substance from nothing”[i].

Christ was thus a son of God, not by nature, but only by grace and adoption[ii]. This theory logically emptied the doctrine of the Incarnation of God in Christ of all meaning: if God did not become man, then the world has not been redeemed and the faith itself eventually dissolves. Arianism was formally condemned in 325 by the first ecumenical Council of Nicaea, which formulated and promulgated the original version of the Nicene Creed; but Arianism and Semi-Arianism nevertheless continued to prevail in its original form in many areas for more than a century. Arianism was combated by the great St. Athanasius of Alexandria (296-373) among others; but the heresy nevertheless persisted, especially among the barbarians, for several centuries[iii].

 

Some years later after the First Ecumenical Council, the heresy of Pneumatomachians, “fighters against the Spirit” appeared who denied the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit with the Father in the divine Trinity. Generally, although Arius’ argument for the uniqueness of the Father’s ousia implied that the Spirit, like the Son, was not the Father’s ontological equal, the real dispute was between pro-Nicenes and a faction of Homoeousians called Pneumatomachians who were followers of Macedonius of Constantinople[iv].

 

He and his followers denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit: the Spirit was declared by them not to proceed from the Father but to be a creation of the Son. The Holy Spirit is a divine energy diffused throughout the universe, and not a person distinct from the Father and the Son. So he underlined with emphasis that the Holy Spirit is not consubstantial with the Father and the Son in divinity. If the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and was sent by the Father and the Son, and was a messenger, He is not equal with Them. Therefore, He is subordinate to Them[v].

 

Since this heresy had spread throughout the Eastern Churches, 150 Bishops were assembled in Constantinople in 381. At this great Council, the Holy Fathers quoting from the Old and New Testaments officially proclaimed, that even though the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father, He is equal with the Father and the Son in nature, divinity and glory[vi]. After explaining this at great length, they ascertained the divinity of the Holy Spirit and they vehemently condemned Macedonius and his heretical teaching[vii]. The defence of the deity of the Spirit was based mostly on the theology of Gregory of Nazianzen.

 

3. Gregory Nazianzen drew attention to the opinions that existed for the Holy Spirit that era

 

A formal doctrine of the Holy Spirit was not articulated until the early in the third century. On this point, there was scriptural silence. In his forty first oration On Pentecost[viii], Gregory Nazianzen dealt with the same subject of his Fifth Theological Oration, the question of the Deity of the Holy Ghost, but proceeded to establish the point by quite a different set of arguments from those adopted in the former discourse[ix].

 

He drew attention to some groups of “Christians” who rejected the personhood as well as the divinity of the Holy Spirit are. To them the Holy Spirit was not God[x]. The Holy Spirit is spoken of as a “force”, or as “power” emanating from God, rather than as God himself[xi]. He was thought of as a creature[xii]. He was denied not only by the Arians but also by those referred to as “Spirit-fighters (Pneumatomachoi)”, who accepted the deity of the Son but denied the deity of the Spirit. The Arians and the Pneumatomachoi influenced by Origen, were the major opponents Gregory had to face in proclaiming that the Holy Spirit was none other than God himself[xiii]. Origen, an Alexandrian theologian had a conflicted view of the Holy Spirit. On the one hand he taught that the Spirit “was made by the Word, and that the Word is the elder of the two”[xiv], and on the other hand he supported that the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity[xv]. He also recognized that the apostolic teaching did not detail how the Holy Spirit is a full member of the Trinity[xvi], as an individual substantial entity and not an abstraction. The Spirit is not the energy, or wisdom, of God, but an active and real substance, represented in the Holy Bible as acting personally[xvii]. Origen stated that:

 

“The God and Father, who holds the universe together, is superior to every being that exists, for he imparts to each one from his own existence that which each one is; the Son, being less than the Father, is superior to rational creatures alone (for he is second to the Father); the Holy Spirit is still less, and dwells within the saints alone. So that in this way the power of the Father is greater than that of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and that of the Son is more than that of the Holy Spirit, and in turn the power of the Holy Spirit exceeds that of every other holy being”[xviii].

 

On the other hand, he attributed the work of creation and sanctification to the Spirit, as well as placing the Spirit in the realm of the divine rather than in the realm of the creation. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is worthy of equal honor to the Son and the Father[xix]. Taken to its logical conclusion, the Spirit cannot be co-equal with the Father since He also had a beginning. So, from this part of his writing, Arians would teach that it was the Son who created the Holy Spirit, borrowing from Origen’s concept of subordinationalism[xx].

 

Others thought that the Spirit belonged to a “third-thing” that is neither God nor a creature, but a composite or a mixture[xxi]. Of course, some Christians supported that the third Person of the Triune God was God, but few of them expressed it in public. Gregory belonged to the group who were willing to champion the position that the Holy Spirit is God[xxii]. For him, the Holy Spirit is fully God, just as the Son is fully God[xxiii]. This hesitancy and ambiguity in the early church about the deity of the Spirit made it easy for the Pneumatomachians to continue their quest to depreciate the Holy Spirit. To Gregory, the deity of the Holy Spirit needed to be openly and forcefully confessed, since the doctrine and the life of the Church depended on it[xxiv].

 

But there was another group of “Christians” who neither honored the Holy Spirit as God, because something like that was not referred in Scripture, nor thought of Him as a creature. They preferred to stay silent regarding the deity of Spirit[xxv]. So, they repeated Eustathius Bishop of Sebastia’s words: “I can neither admit that the Holy Spirit is God, nor can I dare affirm him to be a creature”[xxvi].

 

Generally, it could be said that there were many and different opinions about the Holy Spirit, mainly in the third and fourth century because as some trinitarian scholars argued, the biblical koine Greek language of the New Testament allowed the Holy Spirit to be understood as an impersonal force or influence more readily than it does the Son[xxvii]. Of course it should not be ignored that the usage of the word “paraclete” (par£klhtoj) for the Holy Spirit[xxviii] which can be translated as advocate, intercessor, counsellor or protector, and the Holy Spirit's essence and action was characterized by truth, as all three persons of the Trinity are linked with truth, are seen as arguments that the Holy Spirit is a divine person; especially that Jesus calls Him another counselor, in this way expressing that the Holy Spirit is similar to Himself in regard to our counselor. This form of the word is unquestionably passive and properly means “one called to the side of another”; the word carries a secondary notion concerning the purpose of the calling alongside: to counsel or support the one who needs it. This Counselor, or Paraclete, is God the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity who has been “called to our side.” He is a personal being, and He indwells every believer.

 

Also, there were some other reasons that delayed the development of the dogmatic teaching of the Holy Spirit. In particular, a teaching about the deity of the Holy Spirit was not widely accepted until the fourth century, for the following reasons: i. the deeds of the Holy Spirit could be attributed to an impersonal force from God[xxix], ii. second - century heretics were associated with treating the Holy Spirit as a person and, iii. early church writers such as Irenaeus of Lyon[xxx] and the apologist Athenagoras[xxxi], made statements contradicting the current trinitarian view of the Holy Spirit. Generally, in fact they were making an arduous effort to draw a real and absolute distinction between “Logos” and “Spirit”, because of the very extensive use which was made of the concept of “Logos”[xxxii].

 

Professor Brown explained that: “The attempt to develop an understanding of the Holy Spirit consistent with the trinitarian passages came to fruition at Constantinople in 381. There were a number of reasons why the personhood of the Holy Spirit took longer to acknowledge than the Son: i) the term pneuma, breath, is neuter in general and impersonal in ordinary meaning[xxxiii]; ii) the distinctive work of the Holy Spirit, influencing the believer, does not necessarily seem as personal as that of the Father and in addition, those who saw the Holy Spirit as a Person, were often heretical, for example, the Montanists[xxxiv]; iii) many of the early theologians attributed to the Logos or Word, the revelatory activity later theologians saw as the special, personal work of the Holy Spirit”[xxxv].

 

4. The pneumatology of Gregory Nazianzen

 

Gregory is a saint in both Eastern and Western Christianity. In the Roman Catholic Church, he is numbered among the Doctors of the Church[xxxvi]; in Eastern Orthodoxy and the Eastern Catholic Churches he is revered as one of the Three Holy Hierarchs, along with Basil the Great and John Chrysostom[xxxvii]. He is also one of only three men in the life of the Orthodox Church who have been officially designated “Theologian” by epithet, the other two being St. John the Theologian (the Evangelist), and St. Symeon the New Theologian[xxxviii]. Gregory's most significant theological contributions arose from his defense of the doctrine of the Trinity. He is especially noted for his contributions to the field of pneumatology—that is, theology concerning the nature of the Holy Spirit[xxxix].

 

Gregory was one of the first theologians who supported the position that the Holy Spirit is a distinct person of the Triune God, so He is God. In 372, he emphasized that we should worship God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, three hypostases, but in one essence, glory and light[xl].

 

Gregory realized that the term “God” was not reserved for the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures in a clear manner, but this was not cause for the refusal of the deity of the Holy Spirit because he insisted that Holy Spirit was God: “Over and over again you turn upon us the silence of Scripture. But that it is not a strange doctrine, nor an afterthought, but acknowledged and plainly set forth both by the ancients and many of our own day, is already demonstrated by many persons who have treated of this subject, and who have handled the Holy Scriptures, not with indifference or as a mere pastime, but have gone beneath the letter and looked into the inner meaning, and have been deemed worthy to see the hidden beauty, and have been irradiated by the light of knowledge. We, however in our turn will briefly prove it as far as may be, in order not to seem to be over-curious or improperly ambitious, building on another's foundation. But since the fact, that Scripture does not very clearly or very often write Him God in express words (as it does first the Father and afterwards the Son), becomes to you an occasion of blasphemy and of this excessive wordiness and impiety, we will release you from this inconvenience by a short discussion of things and names, and especially of their use in Holy Scripture”[xli].

 

We should not forget that in Nicene dogmatic theology there are the words “Trinity” and “homoousios” which are not in the Holy Bible as the terms themselves, but we can find them periphrastically in Scriptures. By this way Gregory answered to the argument of the believers in the refusal of the Holy Spirit’s deity: “Where did you get this strange, unscriptural ‘God’ you are bringing in?”[xlii].

 

He explained that the Holy Spirit is equal with the Son and the Father, and they are called with one name as God. On the other hand the essence of these three persons, who are not separable from one another as to be neither divided in nature, nor so contracted as to be circumscribed by a single person, is creative, and originating, and unchangeable. Only was the essence of the creatures created, and subject and changing[xliii]. This is the great difference between the Creator and creation. And of course, the God Spirit as real God has all the common characteristics of the other two persons of the Holy Trinity, the Father’s causality, and the word’s Sonship[xliv]. But Gregory underlined that the Holy Spirit is not God’s creature nor unequal to the Father, because this was something that Arians[xlv] said about the Son and, by extension, to the Spirit. Additionally, the cappadocian father explained that it should not be regarded the Spirit as another way for the presentation of God Father as Sabellian[xlvi] taught[xlvii].

 

In his Homily for the celebration of the Feast of Pentecost, he found the chance to speak again for the deity of the Holy Spirit. He invoked the assistance of the Spirit for his preaching, he immediately picked up on the distinction between dominion and servitude that he introduced in Oration 34 “On the Arrival of the Egyptians”. By this way, he unquestionably highlighted the deity of the Holy Spirit:

 

“As for what concerns the Spirit, may the Spirit assist me and give me speech, as much as I would like; but if not that much, as much as is fitting to the occasion. And he will assist entirely as a master, but not as a slave, not awaiting a command, as some suppose. For he blows where he wills, and upon whom, and whenever and however much he wishes. Thus, we are inspired both to think and to speak about the Spirit”[xlviii].

 

Also, Gregory explained that the Holy Spirit is real God and if someone tried to cheat Him, he would blaspheme against the divine essence of the Spirit. This blasphemy was made manifest to Ananias by the apostle Peter in Acts[xlix]. In this passage of the Acts, Ananias, and his wife Sapphira lied about their proceeds from the sale of their land. So, Peter rebuked him for his lies and stated that Ananias had lied not to men, but to God[l]. If the Holy Spirit were not God, homoousios with the God Father, He could not be named as God in the above passage of Acts.

 

For Gregory, the Holy Spirit was beyond human comprehension. He always was and is and will be, without beginning, without end, but is always ranked and numbered with the Father and the Son. He is in a mutual relationship with the Father and the Son[li]. For it was not at any time fitting that the Son be lacking to the Father, or the Spirit to the Son[lii]. According Gregory's pneumatology, the Spirit, as God, is always the same as himself and as those with whom he is ranked, invisible, eternal, uncontainable, unchanging, without quality, without quantity, without form, intangible, self-moving, ever-moving, self-determining, self-powered and all-powerful[liii]. Also, he clearly put forward his position regarding the deity of the Holy Spirit by stating that all attributes belonging to God the Father – and for that matter the Son – could equally apply to the Holy Spirit[1]. At the same time if one person of the Triune God existed from the beginning, so did all three[2].

 

Finally, Gregory underlined with great emphasis and without a doubt that Spirit was God as Father and Son. We can realize God only in His revelation to us. It is only in God and through God that we can know God. It is only in the divine light that we can see the divine light. Our knowledge of God enjoys a trinitarian structure: The Father is revealed through the incarnate Son in and by the illumination and transformative presence of the Holy Spirit[3].

 

5. The use of Bible by Gregory Nazianzen as proof for the deity if the Holy Spirit

 

Although the word God is not referred to the Holy Spirit in the Bible, there are many passages that declare both directly and indirectly that the Holy Spirit is real God, homoousios with the other two persons of the Triune God, Father and Son. The indirect references for the divinity of the Holy Spirit are quite clear in the Scripture, so they can be thought of as direct testimony for the deity of Spirit.

 

It is without doubt that the Holy Spirit had a significant role in the creation of the world, in the salvation of man and in the universe generally. He had certain modes of presence in rational creatures. God revealed and reveals to us in His Word that the Holy Spirit's work has a far wider scope than this. We are taught in the Bible that the Holy Spirit has threefold work in the material universe. The creation of the latter and of man is effected through the agency of the Holy Spirit. First the Spirit acted in the angels, says Gregory:

 

“For from no other source flows their perfection and their brightness, and the difficulty or impossibility of moving them to sin, but from the Holy Ghost”[liv].

 

Then the Spirit acted in the patriarchs and prophets. To them he gave knowledge of God. To some he also gave foreknowledge of the future, allowing them to experience “future events as if they were present”[lv]. Finally the Spirit acted in the disciples of Christ, in three progressive stages: first, before Christ was glorified by the passion, the Holy Spirit distributed specific gifts of supernatural ministry, e.g., healing of the sick and exorcism of demons. In this mode the Spirit was manifested only indistinctly. Second, after Christ’s resurrection from the dead, He appeared to his disciples and breathed upon them[lvi] Gregory does not tell us how he interprets the significance of this inbreathing, but it is plainly a “more divine inspiration”[lvii]. Finally, the Spirit came down upon the disciples in fiery tongues on the day of Pentecost[lviii]. The Pentecostal outpouring represents the Spirit coming to dwell in his Church, in his very being and personhood[lix].

 

Generally, Gregory used many verses from the Bible to prove that the deity of the Holy Spirit was not based on “the silence of Scripture”[lx]. The Pneumatomachoi insisted on the letter of the Scripture. So, they stayed in the written text and left the essence of the real meaning of the text of the Bible[lxi], “their love for the letter is but a cloak for their impiety”[lxii]. But the real interpretation of Bible gave us the ability to handle the Holy Scriptures, not with indifference or as a mere pastime, but to go beneath the letter and look into the inner meaning, and have to be deemed worthy to see the hidden beauty, and to have been irradiated by the light of knowledge[lxiii].

 

Gregory argued that the Spirit is God, although this is not testimony based on specific words of the Scriptures, but on the meaning of the text of the Bible. In order to prove his thought, he explained that many hypostatical attributes of Father and Son don’t exist as words in the Scripture’s text, but they used for the dogmatic theology as regard Father and Son by the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council (325):

 

“Again, where do you get your Unbegotten and Unoriginate, those two citadels of your position, or we our Immortal? Show me these in so many words, or we shall either set them aside, or erase them as not contained in Scripture; and you are slain by your own principle, the names you rely on being overthrown, and therewith the wall of refuge in which you trusted. Is it not evident that they are due to passages which imply them, though the words do not actually occur?”[lxiv]

 

Finally, in Gregory’s mind everyone was guilty of blasphemy in the rejection of the Spirit’s divinity, and hence, spiritually incapable of reading Scripture rightly. Christopher Beeley explained[lxv]:

 

 “Gregory realizes that the Bible does not call the Spirit ‘God’ in plain terms, and he certainly believes that the doctrine of the Spirit must be based on Scripture. But in his mind the question is not whether one’s doctrine is biblical, but how it is so, and what exactly this involves hermeneutically, theologically, and ecclesiastically”.

 

6.      Conclusions

 

The Holy Spirit is God. As God, He is homoousios with the Father and the Son. He is beyond place and time. He is the Spirit of adoption, of truth, of wisdom, of understanding, of knowledge, of piety, of counsel, of strength, of fear, through whom the Father is known and the Son glorified, and by whom alone He is known.

 

Gregory accused the Pneumatomachoi of being slaves to the letter of the Scriptures as far as the deity of the Holy Spirit was concerned, and he explained that the terms of Nicene dogmatic theology which expressed the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, or their co-eternity, or their attributive characteristics were accepted by them, although these terms were not included in the letter of the Scriptures.

 

He was aware of the different opinions for the Holy Spirit, which were supported by the Christians of his era, but he chose to characterize the Spirit as God. He stayed confident that if Christians asserted the divinity of the Spirit, they would eventually be led by the Spirit to proclaim Him as consubstantial with the Father. He fought for the recognition of the deity of Holy Spirit and he was named as theologian, because he had the dynamic purpose to spell out the clearest Neo – Nicene theology of the divine theology of the Spirit of God[lxvi]. And he concludes that “If the Holy Spirit is not God, then the baptized do not participate by grace in the divine life of the Holy Trinity”[lxvii].

7.      Bibliography and notes

 

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-Irenaeus Episcopus Lugdunensis et Martyris, Adversus haereses, PG 7, 9-1225, trans. by Al. Roberts & W. Rambaut, From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1. ed. by Al. Roberts, J. Donaldson, & A. Cl. Coxe, Christian Literature Publishing Co., Buffalo-New York 1885, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103400.htm. [access 24.3.2016].

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-Gregorius Nazianzenus, In Aegyptiorum Adventum, Oration XXXIV, PG 36, 241-256. trans. by C. G. Browne & J. E. Swallow, From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 7, ed. by P. Schaff, H. Wace, Christian Literature Publishing Co., Buffalo-New York 1894  http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310234.htm [access 18.3.2016].

-Gregorius Nazianzenus, Habita in consecratione Eulalii Doarensium episcopi, Oratio XIII, PG 35, 853-856.

Gregorius Nazianzenus, Theologica Quinta- De Spiritu Sanctu, Oratio XXXI, PG 36, 133-172, trans. by C. G. Browne & J. E. Swallow, From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 7, ed. by P. Schaff and H. Wace, Christian Literature Publishing Co., Buffalo – New York 1894, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310231.htm [access: 18.04.2016].

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