Holy Ghost

HOLY GHOST

The third person in the Trinity. I. The Holy Ghost is a real and distinct person in the Godhead.

1. Personal powers of rational understanding and will are ascribed to him, 1Co 2:10-11. 1Co 12:11. Eph 4:3.

2. He is joined with the other two divine persons, as the object of worship and fountain of blessings, Mat 28:19. 2Co 13:14. 1Jn 5:7.

3. In the Greek, a masculine article or epithet is joined to his name Pneuma, which is naturally of the neuter gender, Joh 14:26; Joh 15:26; Joh 16:13. Eph 1:13.

4. He appeared under the emblem of a dove, and of cloven tongues of fire, Mat 3:1-17 : Act 2:1-47 :

5. Personal offices of an intercessor belong to him, Rom 8:26.

6. He is represented as performing a multitude of personal acts; as teaching, speaking, witnessing, &c. Mar 13:11. Act 20:23. Rom 8:15-16. 1Co 6:19. Act 15:28; Act 16:6-7. &c. &c. &c. II. It is no less evident that the Holy Ghost is a divine person equal in power and glory with the Father and Son 1:1-17. Names proper only to the Most High God are ascribed to him; as Jehovah, Act 28:25, with Is. 6: 9. and Heb 3:7; Heb 3:9. with Exo 17:7. Jer 31:31; Jer 31:34. Heb 10:15-16. God, Act 5:3-4. Lord, 2 Cor 3: 17, 19. “The Lord, the Spirit.”

2. Attributes proper only to the Most High God are ascribed to him; as Omniscience, Psa 139:7. Eph 2:17-18. Rom 8:26-27. Omnipotence, Luk 1:35. Eternity, Heb 9:14.

3. Divine works are evidently ascribed to him, Gen 1:2. Job 26:13. Psa 33:6. Psa 104:30.

4. Worship, proper only to God, is required and ascribed to him, Is. 6: 3. Act 28:25. Rom 9:1. Rev 1:4. 2Co 13:14. Mat 28:19. III. The agency or work of the Holy Ghost is divided by some into extraordinary and ordinary. The former by immediate inspiration, making men prophets, the latter by his regenerating and sanctifying influences making men saints. It is only the latter which is now to be expected. This is more particularly displayed in,

1. Conviction of sin, Joh 16:8; Joh 9:1-41 :

2. Conversion, 1Co 12:1-31 : Eph 1:17-18. 1Co 2:10; 1Co 2:12. Joh 3:5; Joh 6:1-71 :

3. Sanctification, 2Th 2:13. 1Co 6:11. Rom 15:16.

4. Consolation, Joh 14:1-31

5. Direction, Joh 14:17. Rom 8:14.

6. Confirmation, Rom 8:16; Rom 8:26. 1Jn 2:24. Eph 1:13-14. As to the gift of the Holy Spirit, says a good writer, it is not expected to be bestowed in answer to our prayers, to inform us immediately, as by a whisper, when either awake or asleep, that we are the children of God; or in any other way, than by enabling us to exercise repentance and faith and love to God and our neighbour.

2. We are not to suppose that he reveals any thing contrary to the written word, or more than is contained in it, or through any other medium.

3. We are not so led by, or operated upon by the Spirit as to neglect the means of grace.

4. The Holy Spirit is not promised nor given to render us infallible.

5. Nor is the Holy Spirit given in order that we may do any thing, which was not before our duty.

See TRINITY, and Scott’s Four Sermons on Repentance, the Evil of Sin, Love to God, and the Promise of the Holy Spirit, p. 86-89; Hawker’s Sermons on the Holy ghost; Pearson on the Creed, 8th article; Dr. Owen on the Spirit; Hurrion’s 16 Sermons on the Spirit.

Fuente: Theological Dictionary

Holy Ghost

(Anglo-Saxon: gast)

The Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. He is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son and proceeds alike from Both, as from one common principle. He is the personal infinite term of the eternal act of mutual love of the Father and the Son; hence His name of Spirit or Holy Ghost, as the issue or term of God’s eternal love or act of will. He is also called the Spirit of Truth, the Creator Spirit, the Sanctifier, as the gifts of creation (or recreation, or regeneration), of revelation, and of sanctification are the outpourings of God’s love, and so appropriated to the Spirit of Love, though all eternal Divine effects belong to the common or united action of the Three Divine Persons. He is called Dove, as in this form He descended visibly upon Christ at the Jordan (Mark 1), the dove being a symbol of innocence and of peace. Jesus promised that the Spirit of Truth would “teach you all things and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.” (John 14) See also:

fruits of the Holy Ghost

gifts of the Holy Ghost

novena to the Holy Ghost

Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary

Holy Ghost

I. SYNOPSIS OF THE DOGMA

The doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning the Holy Ghost forms an integral part of her teaching on the mystery of the Holy Trinity, of which St. Augustine (De Trin., I, iii, 5), speaking with diffidence, says: “In no other subject is the danger of erring so great, or the progress so difficult, or the fruit of a careful study so appreciable”. The essential points of the dogma may be resumed in the following propositions:

The Holy Ghost is the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. Though really distinct, as a Person, from the Father and the Son, He is consubstantial with Them; being God like Them, He possesses with Them one and the same Divine Essence or Nature. He proceeds, not by way of generation, but by way of spiration, from the Father and the Son together, as from a single principle.

Such is the belief the Catholic faith demands.

II. CHIEF ERRORS

All the theories and all the Christian sects that have contradicted or impugned, in any way, the dogma of the Trinity, have, as a logical consequence, threatened likewise the faith in the Holy Ghost. Among these, history mentions the following:

In the second and third centuries, the dynamic or modalistic Monarchians (certain Ebionites, it is said, Theodotus of Byzantium, Paul of Samosata, Praxeas, Noëtus, Sabellius, and the Patripassians generally) held that the same Divine Person, according to His different operations or manifestations, is in turn called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; so they recognized a purely nominal Trinity. In the fourth century and later, the Arians and their numerous heretical offspring: Anomans or Eunomians, Semi-Arians, Acacians, etc., while admitting the triple personality, denied the consubstantiality. Arianism had been preceded by the Subordination theory of some ante-Nicene writers, who affirmed a difference and a gradation between the Divine Persons other than those that arise from their relations in point of origin. In the sixteenth century, the Socinians explicitly rejected, in the name of reason, along with all the mysteries of Christianity, the doctrine of Three Persons in One God. Mention may also be made of the teachings of Johannes Philoponus (sixth century), Roscellinus, Gilbert de la Porrée, Joachim of Flora (eleventh and twelfth centuries), and, in modern times, Günther, who, by denying or obscuring the doctrine of the numerical unity of the Divine Nature, it reality set up a triple deity. In addition to these systems and these writers, who came in conflict with the true doctrine about the Holy Ghost only indirectly and as a logical result of previous errors, there were others who attacked the truth directly:

Towards the middle of the fourth century, Macedonius, Bishop of Constantinople, and, after him a number of Semi-Arians, while apparently admitting the Divinity of the Word, denied that of the Holy Ghost. They placed Him among the spirits, inferior ministers of God, but higher than the angels. They were, under the name of Pneumatomachians, condemned by the Council of Constantinople, in 381 (Mansi, III, col. 560). Since the days of Photius, the schismatic Greeks maintain that the Holy Ghost, true God like the Father and the Son, proceeds from the former alone.

III. THE THIRD PERSON OF THE BLESSED TRINITY

This heading implies two truths:

The Holy Ghost is a Person really distinct as such from the Father and the Son; He is God and consubstantial with the Father and the Son.

The first statement is directly opposed to Monarchianism and to Socinianism; the second to Subordinationism, to the different forms of Arianism, and to Macedonianism in particular. The same arguments drawn from Scripture and Tradition may be used generally to prove either assertion. We will, therefore, bring forward the proofs of the two truths together, but first call particular attention to some passages that demonstrate more explicitly the distinction of personality.

A. Scripture. In the New Testament the word spirit and, perhaps, even the expression spirit of God signify at times the soul or man himself, inasmuch as he is under the influence of God and aspires to things above; more frequently, especially in St. Paul, they signify God acting in man; but they are used, besides, to designate not only a working of God in general, but a Divine Person, Who i&neither the Father nor the Son, Who is named together with the Father, or the Son, or with Both, without the context allowing them to be identified. A few instances are given here. We read in John, xiv, 16, 17: “And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with, you for ever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive”; and in John, xv, 26: “But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall give testimony of me.” St. Peter addresses his first epistle, i, 1-2, “to the strangers dispersed . . . elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, unto the sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”. The Spirit of consolation and of truth is also clearly distinguished in John 16:7, 13-15, from the Son, from Whom He receives all He is to teach the Apostles, and from the Father, who has nothing that the Son also does not possess. Both send Him, but He is not separated from Them, for the Father and the Son come with Him when He descends into our souls (John 14:23).

Many other texts declare quite as clearly that the Holy Ghost is a Person, a Person distinct from the Father and the Son, and yet One God with Them. In several places St. Paul speaks of Him as if speaking of God. In Acts 28:25, he says to the Jews: “Well did the Holy Ghost speak to our fathers by Isaias the prophet”; now the prophecy contained in the next two verses is taken from Isaias 6:9-10, where it is put in the mouth of the “King the Lord of hosts”. In other places he uses the words God and Holy Ghost as plainly synonymous. Thus he writes, I Corinthians 3:16: “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” and in 6:19: “Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you . . . ?” St. Peter asserts the same identity when he thus remonstrates with Ananias (Acts 5:3-4): “Why hath Satan tempted thy heart, that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Ghost . . . ? Thou hast not lied to men, but to God.” The sacred writers attribute to the Holy Ghost all the works characteristic of Divine power. It is in His name, as in the name of the Father and of the Son, that baptism is to be given (Matthew 28:19). It is by His operation that the greatest of Divine mysteries, the Incarnation of the Word, is accomplished (Matthew 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35). It is also in His name and by His power that sins are forgiven and souls sanctified: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them” (John 20:22-23); “But you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11); “The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us” (Romans 5:5). He is essentially the Spirit of truth (John 14:16-17; 15:26), Whose office it is to strengthen faith (Acts 6:5), to bestow wisdom (Acts 6:3), to give testimony of Christ, that is to say, to confirm His teaching inwardly (John 15:26), and to teach the Apostles the full meaning of it (John 14:26; 16:13). With these Apostles He will abide for ever (John 14:16). Having descended on them at Pentecost, He will guide them in their work (Acts 8:29), for He will inspire the new prophets (Acts 11:28; 13:9), as He inspired the Prophets of the Old Law (Acts 7:51). He is the source of graces and gifts (1 Corinthians 12:3-11); He, in particular, grants the gift of tongues (Acts 2:4; 10:44-47). And as he dwells in our bodies sanctifies them (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19),so will and them he raise them again, one day, from the dead (Romans 8:11). But he operates especially in the soul, giving it a new life (Romans 8:9 sq.), being the pledge that God has given us that we are his children (Romans 8:14-16; 2 Corinthians 1:22; 5:5; Galatians 4:6). He is the Spirit of God, and at the same time the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9); because He is in God, He knows the deepest mysteries of God (1 Corinthians 2:10-11), and He possesses all knowledge. St. Paul ends his Second Epistle to the Corinthians (13:13) with this formula of benediction, which might be called a blessing of the Trinity: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the charity of God, and the communication of the Holy Ghost be with you all.” — Cf. Tixeront, “Hist. des dogmes”, Paris, 1905, I, 80, 89, 90,100,101.

B. Tradition. While corroborating and explaining the testimony of Scripture, Tradition brings more clearly before us the various stages of the evolution of this doctrine.

As early as the first century, St. Clement of Rome gives us important teaching about the Holy Ghost. His “Epistle to the Corinthians” not only tells us that the Spirit inspired and guided the holy writers (viii, 1; xlv, 2); that He is the voice of Jesus Christ speaking to us in the Old Testament (xxii, 1 sq.); but it contains further, two very explicit statements about the Trinity. In c. xlvi, 6 (Funk, “Patres apostolici”, 2nd ed., I,158), we read that “we have only one God, one Christ, one only Spirit of grace within us, one same vocation in Christ”. In lviii, 2 (Funk, ibid., 172), the author makes this solemn affirmation; zo gar ho theos, kai zo ho kyrios Iesous Christos kai to pneuma to hagion, he te pistis kai he elpis ton eklekton, oti . . . which we may compare with the formula so frequently met with in the Old Testament: zo kyrios. From this it follows that, in Clement’s view, kyrios was equally applicable to ho theos (the Father), ho kyrios Iesous Christos, and to pneuma to hagion; and that we have three witnesses of equal authority, whose Trinity, moreover, is the foundation of Christian faith and hope.

The same doctrine is declared, in the second and third centuries, by the lips of the martyrs, and is found in the writings of the Fathers. St. Polycarp (d. 155), in his torments, thus professed his faith in the Three Adorable Persons (“Martyrium sancti Polycarpi” in Funk op. cit., I, 330): “Lord God Almighty, Father of Thy blessed and well beloved Son, Jesus Christ . . . in everything I praise Thee, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee by the eternal and celestial pontiff Jesus Christ, Thy well beloved Son, by whom, to Thee, with Him and with the Holy Ghost, glory now and for ever!”

St. Epipodius spoke more distinctly still (Ruinart, “Acta mart.”, Verona edition, p. 65): “I confess that Christ is God with the Father and the Holy Ghost, and it is fitting that I should give back my soul to Him Who is my Creator and my Redeemer.”

Among the apologists, Athenagoras mentions the Holy Ghost along with, and on the same plane as, the Father and the Son. “Who would not be astonished”, says he (Legat. pro christian., n. 10, in P.G., VI, col. 909), “to hear us called atheists, us who confess God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Ghost, and hold them one in power and distinct in order [. . . ten en te henosei dynamin, kai ten en te taxei diairesin]?”

Theophilus of Antioch, who sometimes gives to the Holy Ghost, as to the Son, the name of Wisdom (sophia), mentions besides (Ad Autol., lib. I, n. 7, and II, n. 18, in P.G., VI, col. 1035, 1081) the three terms theos, logos, sophia and, being the first to apply the characteristic word that was afterwards adopted, says expressly (ibid., II, 15) that they form a trinity (trias).

Irenæus looks upon the Holy Ghost as eternal (Adv. Hær., V, xii, n. 2, in P.G., VII, 1153), existing in God ante omnem constitutionem, and produced by him at the beginning of His ways (ibid., IV, xx, 3). Considered with regard to the Father, the Holy Ghost is his wisdom (IV, xx, 3); the Son and He are the “two hands” by which God created man (IV, præf., n. 4; IV, xx, 20; V, vi, 1). Considered with regard to the Church, the same Spirit is truth, grace, a pledge of immortality, a principle of union with God; intimately united to the Church, He gives the sacraments their efficacy and virtue (III, xvii, 2, xxiv, 1; IV, xxxiii, 7; V, viii, 1).

St. Hippolytus, though he does not speak at all clearly of the Holy Ghost regarded as a distinct person, supposes him, however, to be God, as well as the Father and the Son (Contra Noët., viii, xii, in P.G., X, 816, 820).

Tertullian is one of the writers of this age whose tendency to Subordinationism is most apparent, and that in spite of his being the author of the definitive formula: “Three persons, one substance”. And yet his teaching on the Holy Ghost is in every way remarkable. He seems to have been the first among the Fathers to affirm His Divinity in a clear and absolutely precise manner. In his work “Adversus Praxean” lie dwells at length on the greatness of the Paraclete. The Holy Ghost, he says, is God (c. xiii in P.L., II, 193); of the substance of the Father (iii, iv in P.L., II, 181-2); one and the same God with the Father and the Son (ii in P.L., II, 180); proceeding from the Father through the Son (iv, viii in P.L., II, 182, 187); teaching all truth (ii in P.L., II, 179).

St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, or at least the Ekthesis tes pisteos, which is commonly attributed to him, and which dates from the period 260-270, gives us this remarkable passage (P.G., X, 933 sqq.): “One is God, Father of the living Word, of the subsisting Wisdom. . . . One the Lord, one of one, God of God, invisible of invisible. . .One the Holy Ghost, having His subsistence from God. . . . Perfect Trinity, which in eternity, glory, and power, is neither divided, nor separated. . . . Unchanging and immutable Trinity.”

In 304, the martyr St. Vincent said (Ruinart, op. cit., 325): “I confess the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father most High, one of one; I recognize Him as one God with the Father and the Holy Ghost.”

But we must come down towards the year 360 to find the doctrine on the Holy Ghost explained both fully and clearly. It is St. Athanasius who does so in his “Letters to Serapion” (P.G., XXVI, col. 525 sq.). He had been informed that certain Christians held that the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity was a creature. To refute them he questions the Scriptures, and they furnish him with arguments as solid as they are numerous. They tell him, in particular, that the Holy Ghost is united to the Son by relations just like those existing between the Son and the Father; that He is sent by the Son; that He is His mouth-piece and glorifies Him; that, unlike creatures, He has not been made out of nothing, but comes forth from God; that He performs a sanctifying work among men, of which no creature is capable; that in possessing Him we possess God; that the Father created everything by Him; that, in fine, He is immutable, has the attributes of immensity, oneness, and has a right to all the appellations that are used to express the dignity of the Son. Most of these conclusions he supports by means of Scriptural texts, a few from amongst which are given above. But the writer lays special stress on what is read in Matthew 28:19. “The Lord”, he writes (Ad Serap., III, n. 6, in P.G., XXVI, 633 sq.), “founded the Faith of the Church on the Trinity, when He said to His Apostles: ‘Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’ If the Holy Ghost were a creature, Christ would not have associated Him with the Father; He would have avoided making a heterogeneous Trinity, composed of unlike elements. What did God stand in need of? Did He need to join to Himself a being of different nature? . . . No, the Trinity is not composed of the Creator and the creature.”

A little later, St. Basil, Didymus of Alexandria, St. Epiphanius, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Ambrose, and St. Gregory of Nyssa took up the same thesis ex professo, supporting it for the most part with the same proofs. All these writings had prepared the way for the Council of Constantinople which, in 381, condemned the Pneumatomachians and solemnly proclaimed the true doctrine. This teaching forms part of the Creed of Constantinople, as it is called, where the symbol refers to the Holy Ghost, “Who is also our Lord and Who gives life; Who proceeds from the Father, Who is adored and glorified together with the Father and the Son; Who spoke by the prophets”. Was this creed, with these particular words, approved by the council of 381? Formerly that was the common opinion, and even in recent times it has been held by authorities like Hefele, Hergenröther, and Funk; other historians, amongst whom are Harnack and Duchesne, are of the contrary opinion; but all agree in admitting that the creed of which we are speaking was received and approved by the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, and that, at least from that time, it became the official formula of Catholic orthodoxy.

IV. PROCESSION OF THE HOLY GHOST

We need not dwell at length on the precise meaning of the Procession in God. (See TRINITY.) It will suffice here to remark that by this word we mean the relation of origin that exists between one Divine Person and another, or between one and the two others as its principle of origin. The Son proceeds from the Father; the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son. The latter truth will be specially treated here.

A. That the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father has always been admitted by all Christians; the truth is expressly stated in John, xv, 26. But the Greeks, after Photius, deny that He proceeds from the Son. And yet such is manifestly the teaching of Holy Scripture and the Fathers.

(1) In the New Testament

(a) The Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9), the Spirit of the Son (Galatians 4:6), the Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:7). These terms imply a relation of the Spirit to the Son, which can only be a relation of origin. This conclusion is so much the more indisputable as all admit the similar argument to explain why the Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of the Father. Thus St. Augustine argues (In Joan., tr. xcix, 6, 7 in P.L., XXXV, 1888): “You hear the Lord himself declare: ‘It is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you’. Likewise you hear the Apostle declare: ‘God hath sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts. Could there then be two spirits, one the spirit of the Father, the other the spirit of the Son? Certainly not. Just as there is only one Father, just as there is only one Lord or one Son, so there is only one Spirit, Who is, consequently, the Spirit of both. . . Why then should you refuse to believe that He proceeds also from the Son, since He is also the Spirit of the Son? If He did not proceed from Him, Jesus, when He appeared to His disciples after His Resurrection, would not have breathed on them, saying: ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost’. What, indeed, does this breathing signify, but that the Spirit proceeds also from Him?” St. Athanasius had argued in exactly the same way (De Trinit. et Spir. S., n. 19, in P.G., XXVI, 1212), and concluded: “We say that the Son of God is also the source of the Spirit.”

(b) The Holy Ghost receives from the Son, according to John 16:13-15: “When he, the Spirit of truth, is come he will teach you all truth. For he shall not speak of himself; but what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak; and the things that are to come, he shall shew you. He shall glorify me; because he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it to you. All things whatsoever the Father hath, are mine. Therefore I said, that he shall receive of mine, and shew it to you.” Now, one Divine Person can receive from another only by Procession, being related to that other as to a principle. What the Paraclete will receive from the Son is immanent knowledge, which He will afterwards manifest exteriorly. But this immanent knowledge is the very essence of the Holy Ghost. The latter, therefore, has His origin in the Son, the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son. “He shall not speak of Himself”, says St. Augustine (In Joan., tr. xcix, 4, in P.L., XXXV, 1887), “because He is not from Himself, but He shall tell you all He shall have heard. He shall hear from him from whom He proceeds. In His case, to hear is to know, and to know is to be. He derives His knowledge from Him from Whom He derives His essence.” St. Cyril of Alexandria remarks that the words: “He shall receive of mine” signify “the nature” which the Holy Ghost has from the Son, as the Son has His from the Father (De Trinit., dialog. vi, in P.G., LXXV, 1011). Besides, Jesus gives this reason of His assertion: “He shall receive of mine”: “All things whatsoever the Father hath, are mine Now, since the Father has with regard to the Holy Ghost the relation we term Active Spiration, the Son has it also; and in the Holy Ghost there exists, consequently, with regard to both, Passive Spiration or Procession.

(2) The same truth has been constantly held by the Fathers

This fact is undisputed as far as the Western Fathers are concerned; but the Greeks deny it in the case of the Easterns. We will cite, therefore, a few witnesses from among the latter. The testimony of St. Athanasius has been quoted above, to the effect that “the Son is the source of the Spirit”, and the statement of Cyril of Alexandria that the Holy Ghost has His “nature” from the Son. The latter saint further asserts (Thesaur., assert. xxxiv in P.G., LXXV, 585); “When the Holy Ghost comes into our hearts, He makes us like to God, because He proceeds from the Father and the Son”; and again (Epist., xvii, Ad Nestorium, De excommunicatione in P.G., LXXVII, 117): “The Holy Ghost is not unconnected with the Son, for He is called the Spirit of Truth, and Christ is the Truth; so He proceeds from Him as well as from God the Father.” St. Basil (De Spirit. S., xviii, in P.G., XXXII, 147) wishes us not to depart from the traditional order in mentioning the Three Divine Persons, because “as the Son is to the Father, so is the Spirit to the Son, in accordance with the ancient order of the names in the formula of baptism”. St. Epiphanius writes (Ancor., viii, in P. G., XLIII, 29, 30) that the Paraclete “is not to be considered as unconnected with the Father and the Son, for He is with Them one in substance and divinity”, and states that “He is from the Father and the Son”; a little further, he adds (op. cit., xi, in P.G., XLIII, 35):” No one knows the Spirit, besides the Father, except the Son, from Whom He proceeds and of Whom He receives.” Lastly, a council held at Seleucia in 410 proclaims its faith “in the Holy Living Spirit, the Holy Living Paraclete, Who proceeds from the Father and the Son” (Lamy, “Concilium Seleuciæ”, Louvain, 1868).

However, when we compare the Latin writers, as a body, with the Eastern writers, we notice a difference in language: while the former almost unanimously affirm that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and from the Son, the latter generally say that He proceeds from the Father through the Son. In reality the thought expressed by both Greeks and Latins is one and the same, only the manner of expressing it is slightly different: the Greek formula ek tou patros dia tou ouiou expresses directly the order according to which the Father and the Son are the principle of the Holy Ghost, and implies their equality as principle; the Latin formula expresses directly this equality, and implies the order. As the Son Himself proceeds from the Father, it is from the Father that He receives, with everything else, the virtue that makes Him the principle of the Holy Ghost. Thus, the Father alone is principium absque principio, aitia anarchos prokatarktike, and, comparatively, the Son is an intermediate principle. The distinct use of the two prepositions, ek (from) and dia (through), implies nothing else. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Greek theologians Blemmidus Beccus, Calecas, and Bessarion called attention to this, explaining that the two particles have the same signification, but that from is better suited to the First Person, Who is the source of the others, and through to the Second Person, Who comes from the Father. Long before their time St. Basil had written (De Spir. S., viii, 21, in P.G., XXXII, 106): “The expression di ou expresses acknowledgment of the primordial principle [ tes prokatarktikes aitias]”; and St. Chrysostom (Hom. v in Joan., n. 2, in P.G., LIX, 56): “If it be said through Him, it is said solely in order that no one may imagine that the Son is not generated”: It may be added that the terminology used by the Eastern and Western writers, respectively, to express the idea is far from being invariable. Just as Cyril, Epiphanius, and other Greeks affirm the Procession ex utroque, so several Latin writers did not consider they were departing from the teaching of their Church in expressing themselves like the Greeks. Thus Tertullian (Contra Prax., iv, in P.L., II, 182): “Spiritum non aliunde puto quam a Patre per Filium”; and St. Hilary (De Trinit., lib., XII, n. 57, in P.L., X, 472), addressing himself to the Father, protests that he wishes to adore, with Him and the Son “Thy Holy Spirit, Who comes from Thee through thy only Son”. And yet the same writer had said, a little higher (op. cit., lib. II, 29, in P.L., X, 69), “that we must confess the Holy Ghost coming from the Father and the Son”, a clear proof that the two formulæ were regarded as substantially equivalent.

B. Proceeding both from the Father and the Son, the Holy Ghost, nevertheless, proceeds from Them as from a single principle. This truth is, at the very least insinuated in the passage of John, xvi, 15 (cited above), where Christ establishes a necessary connection between His own sharing in all the Father has and the Procession of the Holy Ghost. Hence it follows, indeed, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the two other Persons, not in so far as They are distinct, but inasmuch as Their Divine perfection is numerically one. Besides, such is the explicit teaching of ecclesiastical tradition, which is concisely put by St. Augustine (De Trin., lib. V, c. xiv, in P.L., XLII, 921): “As the Father and the Son are only one God and, relatively to the creature, only one Creator and one Lord, so, relatively to the Holy Ghost, They are only one principle.” This doctrine was defined in the following words by the Second Ecumenical Council of Lyons [Denzinger, “Enchiridion” (1908), n. 460]: “We confess that the Holy Ghost proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, not as from two principles, but as from one principle, not by two spirations, but by one single spiration.” The teaching was again laid down by the Council of Florence (ibid., n. 691), and by Eugene IV in his Bull “Cantate Domino” (ibid., n. 703 sq.).

C. It is likewise an article of faith that the Holy Ghost does not proceed, like the Second Person of the Trinity, by way of generation. Not only is the Second Person alone called Son in the Scriptures, not only is He alone said to be begotten, but He is also called the only Son of God; the ancient symbol that bears the name of Saint Athanasius states expressly that “the Holy Ghost comes from the Father and from the Son not made not created, not generated, but proceeding “. As we are utterly incapable of otherwise fixing the meaning of the mysterious mode affecting this relation of origin, we apply to it the name spiration, the signification of which is principally negative and by way of contrast, in the sense that it affirms a Procession peculiar to the Holy Ghost and exclusive of filiation. But though we distinguish absolutely and essentially between generation and spiration, it is a very delicate and difficult task to say what the difference is. St. Thomas (I, Q. xxvii), following St. Augustine (Do Trin., XV, xxvii), finds the explanation and, as it the were, the epitome, of the doctrine in principle that, in God, the Son proceeds through the Intellect and the Holy Ghost through the Will. The Son is, in the language of Scripture, the image of the Invisible God, His Word, His uncreated wisdom. God contemplates Himself and knows Himself from all eternity, and, knowing Himself, He forms within Himself a substantial idea of Himself, and this substantial thought is His Word. Now every act of knowledge is accomplished by the production in the intellect of a representation of the object known; from this head, then the process offers a certain analogy with generation, which is the production by a living being of a being partaking of the same nature; and the analogy is only so much the more striking when there is question of this act of Divine knowledge, the eternal term of which is a substantial being, consubstantial within the knowing subject. As to the Holy Ghost, according to the common doctrine of theologians, He proceeds through the will. The Holy Spirit, as His name indicates, is Holy in virtue of His origin, His spiration; He comes therefore from a holy principle; now holiness resides in the will, as wisdom is in the intellect. That is also the reason why He is so often called par excellence, in the writings of the Fathers, Love and Charity. The Father and the Son love one another from all eternity, with a perfect ineffable love; the term of this infinite fruitful mutual love is Their Spirit Who is co-eternal and con-substantial with Them. Only, the Holy Ghost is not indebted to the manner of His Procession precisely for this perfect resemblance to His principle, in other words for His consubstantiality; for to will or love an object does not formally imply the production of its immanent image in the soul that loves, but rather a tendency, a movement of the will towards the thing loved, to be united to it and enjoy it. So, making every allowance for the feebleness of our intellects in knowing, and the unsuitability of our words for expressing the mysteries of the Divine life, if we can grasp how the word generation, freed from all the imperfections of the material order may be applied by analogy to the Procession of the Word, so we may see that the term can in no way befittingly applied to the Procession of the Holy Ghost.

V. FILIOQUE

Having treated of the part taken by the Son in the Procession of the Holy Ghost, we come next to consider the introduction of the expression Filioque into the Creed of Constantinople. The author of the addition is unknown, but the first trace of it is found in Spain. The Filioque was successively introduced into the Symbol of the Council of Toledo in 447, then, in pursuance of an order of another synod held in the same place (589), it was inserted in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. Admitted likewise into the Symbol Quicumque, it began to appear in France in the eighth century. It was chanted in 767, in Charlemagne’s chapel at Gentilly, where it was heard by ambassadors from Constantine Copronymnus. The Greeks were astonished and protested, explanations were given by the Latins, and many discussions followed. The Archbishop of Aquileia, Paulinus, defended the addition at the Council of Friuli, in 796. It was afterwards accepted by a council held at Aachen, in 809. However, as it proved a stumbling-block to the Greeks Pope Leo III disapproved of it; and, though he entirely agreed with the Franks on the question of the doctrine, he advised them to omit the new word. He himself caused two large silver tablets, on which the creed with the disputed expression omitted was engraved to be erected in St. Peter’s. His advice was unheeded by the Franks; and, as the conduct and schism of Photius seemed to justify the Westerns in paying no more regard to the feelings of the Greeks, the addition of the words was accepted by the Roman Church under Benedict VIII (cf. Funk, “Kirchengeschichte”, Paderborn, 1902, p. 243).

The Greeks have always blamed the Latins for making the addition. They considered that, quite apart from the question of doctrine involved by the expression, the insertion was made in violation of a decree of the Council of Ephesus, forbidding anyone “to produce, write, or compose a confession of faith other than the one defined by the Fathers of Nicæa”. Such a reason will not bear examination. Supposing the truth of the dogma (established above), it is inadmissible that the Church could or would have deprived herself of the right to mention it in the symbol. If the opinion be adhered to, and it has strong arguments to support it, which considers that the developments of the Creed in what concerns the Holy Ghost were approved by the Council of Constantinople (381), at once it might be laid down that the bishops at Ephesus (431) certainly did not think of condemning or blaming those of Constantinople. But, from the fact that the disputed expression was authorized by the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, we conclude that the prohibition of the Council of Ephesus was never understood, and ought not to be understood, in an absolute sense. It may be considered either as a doctrinal, or as a merely disciplinary pronouncement. In the first case it would exclude any addition or modification opposed to, or at variance with, the deposit of Revelation; and such seems to be its historic import, for it was proposed and accepted by the Fathers to oppose a formula tainted with Nestorianism. In the second case considered as a disciplinary measure, it can bind only those who are not the depositaries of the supreme power in the Church. The latter, as it is their duty to teach the revealed truth and to preserve it from error, possess, by Divine authority, the power and right to draw up and propose to the faithful such confessions of faith as circumstances may demand. This right is as unconfinable as it is inalienable.

VI. GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST

This title and the theory connected with it, like the theory of the fruits of the Holy Ghost and that of the sins against the Holy Ghost, imply what theologians call appropriation. By this term is meant attributing especially to one Divine Person perfections and exterior works which seem to us more clearly or more immediately to be connected with Him, when we consider His personal characteristics, but which in reality are common to the Three Persons. It is in this sense that we attribute to the Father the perfection of omnipotence, with its most striking manifestations, e.g. the Creation, because He is the principle of the two other Persons; to the Son we attribute wisdom and the works of wisdom, because He proceeds from the Father by the Intellect; to the Holy Ghost we attribute the operations of grace and the sanctification of souls, and in particular spiritual gifts and fruits, because He proceeds from the Father and the Son as Their mutual love and is called in Holy Writ the goodness and the charity of God.

The gifts of the Holy Ghost are of two kinds: the first are specially intended for the sanctification of the person who receives them; the second, more properly called charismata, are extraordinary favours granted for the help of another, favours, too, which do not sanctify by themselves, and may even be separated from sanctifying grace. Those of the first class are accounted seven in number, as enumerated by Isaias (11:2-3), where the prophet sees and describes them in the Messias. They are the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety (godliness), and fear of the Lord.

The gift of wisdom, by detaching us from the world, makes us relish and love only the things of heaven. The gift of understanding helps us to grasp the truths of religion as far as is necessary. The gift of counsel springs from supernatural prudence, and enables us to see and choose correctly what will help most to the glory of God and our own salvation. By the gift of fortitude we receive courage to overcome the obstacles and difficulties that arise in the practice of our religious duties. The gift of knowledge points out to us the path to follow and the dangers to avoid in order to reach heaven. The gift of piety, by inspiring us with a tender and filial confidence in God, makes us joyfully embrace all that pertains to His service. Lastly, the gift of fear fills us with a sovereign respect for God, and makes us dread, above all things, to offend Him.

As to the inner nature of these gifts, theologians consider them to be supernatural and permanent qualities, which make us attentive to the voice of God, which render us susceptible to the workings of actual grace, which make us love the things of God, and, consequently, render us more obedient and docile to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost.

But how do they differ from the virtues? Some writers think they are not really distinct from them, that they are the virtues inasmuch as the latter are free gifts of God, and that they are identified essentially with grace, charity, and the virtues. That opinion has the particular merit of avoiding a multiplication of the entities infused into the soul. Other writers look upon the gifts as perfections of a higher order than the virtues; the latter, they say, dispose us to follow the impulse and guidance of reason; the former are functionally intended to render the will obedient and docile to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost. For the former opinion, see Bellevüe, “L’uvre du Saint-Esprit” (Paris, 1902), 99 sq.; and for the latter, see St. Thomas, I-II, Q. lxviii, a. 1, and Froget, “De l’habitation du Saint-Esprit dans les âmes justes” (Paris, 1900), 378 sq.

The gifts of the second class, or charismata, are known to us partly from St. Paul, and partly from the history of the primitive Church, in the bosom of which God plentifully bestowed them. Of these “manifestations of the Spirit”, “all these things [that] one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as he will”, the Apostle speaks to us, particularly in I Corinthians 12:6-11; I Corinthians 12:28-31; and Romans 12:6-8.

In the first of these three passages we find nine charismata mentioned: the gift of speaking with wisdom, the gift of speaking with knowledge, faith, the grace of healing, the gift of miracles, the gift of prophecy, the gift of discerning spirits, the gift of tongues, the gift of interpreting speeches. To this list we must at least add, as being found in the other two passages indicated, the gift of government, the gift of helps, and perhaps what Paul calls distributio and misericordia. However, exegetes are not all agreed as to the number of the charismata, or the nature of each one of them; long ago, St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine had pointed out the obscurity of the question. Adhering to the most probable views on the subject, we may at once classify the charismata and explain the meaning of most of them as follows. They form four natural groups:

Two charismata which regard the teaching of Divine things: sermo sapientiæ, sermo scientiæ, the former relating to the exposition of the higher mysteries, the latter to the body of Christian truths. Three charismata that lend support to this teaching: fides, gratia sanitatum, operatio virtutum. The faith here spoken of is faith in the sense used by Matthew 17:19: that which works wonders; so it is, as it were, a condition and a part of the two gifts mentioned with it. Four charismata that served to edify, exhort, and encourage the faithful, and to confound the unbelievers: prophetia, discretio spirituum, genera linguarum, interpretatio sermonum. These four seem to fall logically into two groups; for prophecy, which is essentially inspired pronouncement on different religious subjects, the declaration of the future being only of secondary import, finds its complement and, as it were, its check in the gift of discerning spirits; and what, as a rule, would be the use of glossololia — the gift of speaking with tongues — if the gift of interpreting them were wanting? Lastly there remain the charismata that seem to have as object the administration of temporal affairs, amid works of charity: gubernationes, opitulationes, distributiones. Judging by the context, these gifts, though conferred and useful for the direction and comfort of one’s neighbour, were in no way necessarily found in all ecclesiastical superiors.

The charismata, being extraordinary favours and not requisite for the sanctification of the individual, were not bestowed indiscriminately on all Christians. However, in the Apostolic Age, they were comparatively common, especially in the communities of Jerusalem, Rome, and Corinth. The reason of this is apparent: in the infant Churches the charismata were extremely useful, and even morally necessary, to strengthen the faith of believers, to confound the infidels, to make them reflect, and to counterbalance the false miracles with which they sometimes prevailed. St. Paul was careful (I Corinthians 12, 13, 14) to restrict authoritatively the use of these charismata within the ends for which they were bestowed, and thus insist upon their subordination to the power of the hierarchy. Cf. Batiffol, “L’Eglise naissante et le catholicisme” (Paris, 1909), 36. (See CHARISMATA.)

VII. FRUITS OF THE HOLY GHOST

Some writers extend this term to all the supernatural virtues, or rather to the acts of all these virtues, inasmuch as they are the results of the mysterious workings of the Holy Ghost in our souls by means of His grace. But, with St. Thomas, I-II, Q. lxx, a. 2, the word is ordinarily restricted to mean only those supernatural works that are done joyfully and with peace of soul. This is the sense in which most authorities apply the term to the list mentioned by St. Paul (Galatians 5:22-23): “But the fruit of the Spirit is, charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity.” Moreover, there is no doubt that this list of twelve — three of the twelve are omitted in several Greek and Latin manuscripts — is not to be taken in a strictly limited sense, but, according to the rules of Scriptural language, as capable of being extended to include all acts of a similar character. That is why the Angelic Doctor says: “Every virtuous act which man performs with pleasure is a fruit.” The fruits of the Holy Ghost are not habits, permanent qualities, but acts. They cannot, therefore, be confounded with the virtues and the gifts, from which they are distinguished as the effect is from its cause, or the stream from its source. The charity, patience, mildness, etc., of which the Apostle speaks in this passage, are not then the virtues themselves, but rather their acts or operations; for, however perfect the virtues may be, they cannot be considered as the ultimate effects of grace, being themselves intended, inasmuch as they are active principles, to produce something else, i.e. their acts. Further, in order that these acts may fully justify their metaphorical name of fruits, they must belong to that class which are performed with ease and pleasure; in other words, the difficulty involved in performing them must disappear in presence of the delight and satisfaction resulting from the good accomplished.

VIII. SINS AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST

The sin or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is mentioned in Matthew 12:22-32; Mark 3:22-30; Luke 12:10 (cf. 11:14-23); and Christ everywhere declares that it shall not be pardoned. In what does it consist? If we examine all the passages alluded to, there can be little doubt as to the reply.

Let us take, for instance, the account given by St. Matthew which is more complete than that of the other Synoptics. There had been brought to Christ “one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb: and he healed him, so that he spoke and saw”. While the crowd is wondering, and asking: “Is not this the Son of David?”, the Pharisees, yielding to their wonted jealousy, and shutting their eyes to the light of evidence, say: “This man casteth not out devils but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.” Jesus then proves to them this absurdity, and, consequently, the malice of their explanation; He shows them that it is by “the Spirit of God” that He casts out devils, and then He concludes: “therefore I say to you: Ever sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not he forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.”

So, to sin against the Holy Ghost is to confound Him with the spirit of evil, it is to deny, from pure malice, the Divine character of works manifestly Divine. This is the sense in which St. Mark also defines the sin question; for, after reciting the words of the Master: “But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost shall never have forgiveness”, he adds at once: “Because they said: He hath an unclean spirit.” With this sin of pure downright malice, Jesus contrasts the sin “against the Son of man”, that is the sin committed against Himself as man, the wrong done to His humanity in judging Him by His humble and lowly appearance. This fault, unlike the former, might he excused as the result of man’s ignorance and misunderstanding.

But the Fathers of the Church, commenting on the Gospel texts we are treating of, did not confine themselves to the meaning given above. Whether it be that they wished to group together all objectively analogous cases, or whether they hesitated and wavered when confronted with this point of doctrine, which St. Augustine declares (Serm. ii de verbis Domini, c. v) one of the most difficult in Scripture, they have proposed different interpretations or explanations.

St. Thomas, whom we may safely follow, gives a very good summary of opinions in II-II, Q. xiv. He says that blasphemy against the Holy Ghost was and may be explained in three ways.

Sometimes, and in its most literal signification, it has been taken to mean the uttering of an insult against the Divine Spirit, applying the appellation either to the Holy Ghost or to all three Divine persons. This was the sin of the Pharisees, who spoke at first against “the Son of Man”, criticizing the works and human ways of Jesus, accusing Him of loving good cheer and wine, of associating with the publicans, and who, later on, with undoubted bad faith, traduced His Divine works, the miracles which He wrought by virtue of His own Divinity. On the other hand, St. Augustine frequently explains blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to be final impenitence, perseverance till death in mortal sin. This impenitence is against the Holy Ghost, in the sense that it frustrates and is absolutely opposed to the remission of sins, and this remission is appropriated to the Holy Ghost, the mutual love of the Father and the Son. In this view, Jesus, in Matthew 12 and Mark 3 did not really accuse the Pharisees of blaspheming the Holy Ghost, He only warned them against the danger they were in of doing so. Finally, several Fathers, and after them, many scholastic theologians, apply the expression to all sins directly opposed to that quality which is, by appropriation, the characteristic quality of the Third Divine Person. Charity and goodness are especially attributed to the Holy Ghost, as power is to the Father and wisdom to the Son. Just, then, as they termed sins against the Father those that resulted from frailty, and sins against the Son those that sprang from ignorance, so the sins against the Holy Ghost are those that are committed from downright malice, either by despising or rejecting the inspirations and impulses which, having been stirred in man’s soul by the Holy Ghost, would turn him away or deliver him from evil.

It is easy to see how this wide explanation suits all the circumstances of the case where Christ addresses the words to the Pharisees. These sins are commonly reckoned six: despair, presumption, impenitence or a fixed determination not to repent, obstinacy, resisting the known truth, and envy of another’s spiritual welfare.

The sins against the Holy Ghost are said to be unpardonable, but the meaning of this assertion will vary very much according to which of the three explanations given above is accepted. As to final impenitence it is absolute; and this is easily understood, for even God cannot pardon where there is no repentance, and the moment of death is the fatal instant after which no mortal sin is remitted. It was because St. Augustine considered Christ’s words to imply absolute unpardonableness that he held the sin against the Holy Ghost to be solely final impenitence. In the other two explanations, according to St. Thomas, the sin against the Holy Ghost is remissable — not absolutely and always, but inasmuch as (considered in itself) it has not the claims and extenuating circumstance, inclining towards a pardon, that might be alleged in the case of sins of weakness and ignorance. He who, from pure and deliberate malice, refuses to recognize the manifest work of God, or rejects the necessary means of salvation, acts exactly like a sick man who not only refuses all medicine and all food, but who does all in his power to increase his illness, and whose malady becomes incurable, due to his own action. It is true, that in either case, God could, by a miracle, overcome the evil; He could, by His omnipotent intervention, either nuillify the natural causes of bodily death, or radically change the will of the stubborn sinner; but such intervention is not in accordance with His ordinary providence; and if he allows the secondary causes to act, if He offers the free human will of ordinary but sufficient grace, who shall seek cause of complaint? In a word, the irremissableness of the sins against the Holy Ghost is exclusively on the part of the sinner, on account of the sinner’s act.

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On the dogma see: ST. THOMAS, Summa Theol., I, Q. xxxvi-xliii; FRANZELIN, De Deo Trino (Rome, 1881); C. PESCH, Pælectiones dogmaticæ, II (Freiburg im Br., 1895) POHLE, Lehrbuch der Dogmatik, I (Paderborn, 1902); TANQUEREY, Synop. Theol. dogm. spec., I, II (Rome, 1907-8). Concerning the Scriptural arguments for the dogma: WINSTANLEY, Spirit in the New Testament (Cambridge, 1908); LEMONNYER, Epîtres de S. Paul, I (Paris, 1905). Concerning tradition: PETAVIUS, De Deo Trino in his Dogmata theologica; SCHWANE, Dogmengeschichte, I (Freiburg im Br., 1892); DE REGNON, Etudes théologiques sur la Sainte Trinité (Paris, 1892); TIXERONT, Hist. Des dogmes, I (Paris, 1905); TURMEL, Hist. de la théol. positive (Paris, 1904).

J. FORGET Transcribed by W.S. French, Jr.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia

Holy Ghost

( ), the third person in the Trinity, proceeding from the Father and the Son, and equal with them in power and glory (see 10th Art. of Religion, Church of England, and 9th of Methodist Episcopal Church). For the significations of the original words rendered in the English version by Spirit, Holy Spirit, Holy Ghost, SEE SPIRIT. The Scriptures teach, and the Church maintains,

I. the Procession;

II. the Personality; and

III. the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. For the offices of the Holy Ghost, SEE SPIRIT, SEE HOLY; SEE PARACLETE; SEE WITNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

I. PROCESSION of the Holy Ghost. The orthodox doctrine is, that as Christ is God by an eternal filiation, so the Holy Ghost is God by an eternal procession. He proceedeth from the Father and from the Son. When the Comforter is come whom I will send you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me (Joh 15:26). He is the Spirit of the Father, he is the Spirit of the Son: he is sent by the Father, he is sent by the Son. The Father is never sent by the Son, but the Father sendeth the Son; neither the Father nor the Son is ever sent by the Holy Ghost, but he is sent by both. The Nicene Creed teaches, And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified. The Athanasian Creed, The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. The article of the Church of England says, The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God. The term spiration was introduced by the Latin Church to denote the manner of the procession. When our Lord imparted the Holy Ghost to his disciples, he breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost (Joh 20:22).

During the first three centuries there was nothing decided by ecclesiastical authority respecting the relations of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. The Nicene Creed (A.D. 325) declared only that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father ( ), and the Greek fathers generally adhered to this view; so Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril of Alexandria, and others. Epiphanius added to the formula, , the explanatory clause, (Joh 16:15). John of Damascus represents the Spirit as proceeding from the Father through the Son, as Novatian had done before him, relying on Joh 15:26. With this modification, the formula adopted at the Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381), and appended to the Nicene Creed, was retained in the Greek Church. But there were many in the Latin Church who maintained that the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Father only, but also from the Son. They appealed to Joh 16:13, and to the texts where the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ, e.g. Rom 8:9 sq. To this doctrine the Greeks were for the most part opposed. It prevailed, however, more and more in the Latin Church; and when, in the fifth and sixth centuries, the Arians, who then prevailed very much in Spain, urged it as an argument against the equality of Christ with the Father, that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father only, and not from the Son, the Catholic churches of that region began to hold more decidedly that the Holy Spirit proceeded from both (ab utroque), and to insert the adjunct Filioque after Patre in the Symibolum Nicaeno-Constantinopolitanum. In this the churches of Spain were followed, first by those of France, and at a later period by nearly all the Western churches. But as the Eastern Church still adhered substantially to the more ancient formula, it accused the Western Church of falsifying the Nicene symbol; and thus at different periods, and especially in the 7th and 9th centuries, violent controversies arose between them (Knapp, Theology, 43; Hey, Lectures on Divinity, vol. 1). The true causes of these dissensions were, however, very different from those which were alleged, and less animated, it seems, by zeal for the truth than by the mutual jealousies of the Roman and Byzantine bishops. But, however uncertain the reason that provoked these disputes, they terminated in the 11th century in an entire separation of the Eastern and Western churches, continuing to the present time. The addition of the word filioque to the creed of the Western Church first appears in the acts of the Synod of Braga (A.D. 412), and in the third Council of Toledo (A.D. 589). See Procter, On Common Prayer, p. 234; Harvey, History of the Three Creeds, p. 452; and the article SEE FILIOQUE.

The scriptural argument for the procession of the Holy Ghost is thus stated by bishop Pearson: Now the procession of the Spirit, in reference to the Father, is delivered expressly in relation to the Son, and is contained virtually in the Scriptures.

1. It is expressly said that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father, as our Savior testifieth, When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me’ (Joh 15:26). This is also evident from what has already been asserted; for inasmuch as the Father and the Spirit are the same God, and, being thus the same in the unity of the nature of God, are yet distinct in the personality, one of them must have the same nature from the other; and because the Father hath already been shown to have it from none, it followeth that the Spirit hath it from him.

2. Though it be not expressly spoken in the Scripture that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son, yet the substance of the same truth is virtually contained there; because those very expressions which are spoken of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Father, for the very reason that he proceedeth from the Father, are also spoken of the same Spirit in relation to the Son, therefore there must be the same reason presupposed in reference to the Son which is expressed in reference to the Father. Because the Spirit proceedeth from the Father, therefore it is called the Spirit of God,’ and the Spirit of the Father.’ It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you’ (Mat 10:20). For by the language of the apostle, the Spirit of God’ is the Spirit, which is of God, saying, The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God; and we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God’ (1Co 2:11-12). Now the same Spirit is also called the Spirit of the Son’ for because we are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts’ (Gal 4:6). The Spirit of Christ:’ Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his’ (Rom 8:9); Even the Spirit of Christ which was in the prophets’ (1Pe 1:11). The Spirit of Jesus Christ,’ as the apostle speaks: I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ’ (Php 1:19).

If, then, the Holy Ghost be called the Spirit of the Father’ because he proceedeth from the Father, it followeth that, being called also the Spirit of the Son,’ he proceedeth also from the Son. Again: because the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father, he is therefore sent by the Father, as from him who hath, by the original communication, a right of mission; as, the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send’ (Joh 14:26). But the same Spirit which is sent by the Father, is also sent by the Son, as he saith, When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you.’ Therefore the Son hath the same right of mission with the Father, and consequently must be acknowledged to have communicated the same essence. The Father is never sent by the Son, because he received not the Godhead from him; but the Father sendeth the Son, because he communicated the Godhead to him: in the same manner, neither the Father nor the Son is ever sent by the Holy Spirit because neither of them received the divine nature from the Spirit; but both the Father and the Son send the Holy Ghost, because the divine nature, common to the Father and the Son was communicated by them both to the Holy Ghost. As, therefore, the Scriptures declare expressly that the Spirit proceedeth from the Father, so do they also virtually teach that he proceedeth from the Son (Pearson, On the Creed),

II. PERSONALITY of the Holy Ghost.

1. Definition and History of the Doctrine. A person is a thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection; a singular, subsistent, intellectual being; an intelligent agent. As personality implies thought, reason, reflection, and an individual existence, distinct from that of other beings, when we speak of the personality of the Holy Ghost we mean his distinct and individual existence as an intelligent and reflecting being. He is represented throughout the Scriptures as a personal agent, and the earlier Christian writers so speak of him, though without any aim at dogmatic precision. It is the habit of some writers, opposed to the orthodox doctrine, to assert that not only was the doctrine of the Holy Ghost not precisely defined in that early period, but that it was not received. On the contrary, the thorough investigations of recent times show plainly that the ante- Nicene fathers, with the exception of the Monarchians, and perhaps Lactantius, agreed in the two fundamental points that the Holy Ghost, the sole agent in the application of redemption, is a supernatural divine being, and that he is an independent person; closely allied to the Father and the Son, yet hypostatically different from them both (Schaff, Ch. History, 1, 80). The first positive and dogmatic denial of the personality and deity of the Holy Ghost seems to have been made by Arius, who applied the doctrine of subordination here, and placed the same distance between the Son and the Spirit as between the Father and the Son. According to him, the Holy Spirit was only the first of created beings, brought into existence by the Son as the organ of the Father. Later anti-Trinitarians represent the Holy Spirit simply as an operation of the divine mind, as the exerted energy of God, or as an attribute only of the divine activity.

2. Proof of the Personality of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is represented in the New Testament not only as different from the Father and Son, and not only as the personification of some attribute of God, or of some effect which he has produced, but as a literal person (see Semler, Disp. Spiritum Sanctum recte describi personam). The proof of this is thus made out from the following texts:

(1.) From the texts Joh 14:16-17; Joh 14:26; Joh 15:26. The Holy Spirit is here called , not comforter, advocate, nor merely teacher, as Ernesti renders it, but helper, assistant, counselor, in which sense it is used by Philo, when he says, God needs no (monitor). Of the Paracletus, Christ says that the Father will send him in his (Christ’s) name (i.e. in his place) to instruct his disciples. To these three subjects similar personal predicates are here equally applied, and the Paracletus is not designated by the abstract word auxilium, but by the concrete auxiliator; so that we have the Father who sent him, the Son in whose place he comes, and the Holy Spirit who is sent. His office is to carry forward the great work of teaching and saving men which Christ commenced, and to be to the disciples of Christ what Christ himself was while he continued upon the earth. Joh 15:26, When the Paracletus shall come, whom I will send to you from the Father (I mean the Spirit i.e. teacher of truth, who proceeds from the Father), he will instruct you further in my religion; where it should be remarked that the phrase means to be sent or commissioned by the Father.

(2.) 1Co 12:4-11, There are various gifts (), but there is one and the same Spirit ( ),from whom they all proceed. Here the are clearly distinguished from the Spirit, who is the author of them. In 1Co 12:5 this same person is distinguished from Christ ( ), and in 1Co 12:6 from . In 1Co 12:11 it is said all these (various gifts) worketh one and the self-same Spirit, who imparteth to every man his own, as he will ( ).

(3.) Those texts in which such attributes and works are ascribed to the Holy Spirit as can be predicated of no other than a personal subject. In Joh 16:13 sq., he is said to speak,’ to hear,’ to take,’ etc. So in 1Co 2:10, God hath revealed the doctrines of Christianity to us by his Spirit (the before mentioned, who was sent to give us this more perfect instruction). And this Spirit searches () all things, even the most secret divine purposes ( ; comp. Rom 11:33 sq.); in his instruction, therefore, we may safely confide. The expressions, the Holy Spirit speaks, sends any one, appoints (any one for particular purpose, and others, which occur so frequently in the Acts and elsewhere, show that the Holy Spirit was understood by the early Christians to be a personal agent (Act 13:2; Act 13:4; Act 20:28; Act 21:11 sq.).

(4.) The formula of baptism, Mat 28:19, and other similar texts, such as 2Co 13:14, where Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are mentioned in distinction (ver. 35), may now be used in proof of the personality of the Holy Spirit, since the other texts upon which the meaning of these depends have already been cited. From all these texts, taken together, we may form the following result: The Holy Spirit is represented in the Bible as a personal subject, and, as such, is distinguished from the Father and the Son. In relation to the human race, he is described as sent and commissioned by the Father and the Son, and as occupying the place, which Christ, who preceded him, held. In this respect he depends (to speak after the manner of men) upon the Father (Joh 14:16) and upon the Son (Joh 14:16; Joh 14:26 : also Joh 16:14, ); and in this sense he proceeds from them both, or is sent by them both. This may be expressed more literally as follows: The great work of converting, sanctifying and saving men, which the Father commenced through the Son, will be carried on by the Father and Son, through the Holy Spirit.

The objectors to this doctrine frequently say that the imaginative Orientalists were accustomed to represent many things as personal subjects, and to introduce them as speaking and acting, which, however, they themselves did not consider as persons, and did not intend to have so considered by others; and to this Oriental usage they think that Christ and his apostles might here, as in other cases, have conformed. But, whenever Christ and his apostles spoke in figurative language, they always showed, by the explanations, which they gave, that they did not intend to be understood literally. But they have given no such explanation of the language, which they employ with regard to the Holy Spirit. We therefore fairly conclude that they intended that their language should be understood literally, otherwise they would have led their readers and hearers into error, and the more so as they well knew that their readers and hearers were accustomed to personifications (Knapp, Theology, 39).

The scriptural argument is thus logically developed by Watson.

1. The mode of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit in the sacred Trinity proves his personality. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and cannot, therefore, be either. To say that an attribute proceeds and comes forth would be a gross absurdity.

2. Many passages of Scripture would be wholly unintelligible, and even absurd, unless the Holy Ghost is allowed to be a person. For as those who take the phrase as ascribing no more than a figurative personality to an attribute, make that attribute to be the energy or power of God, they reduce such passages as the following to utter unmeaningness: God anointed Jesus with the Holy Ghost and with power;’ that is, with the power of God and with power. That ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost;’ that is, through the power of power. In demonstration of the Spirit and of power’ that is, in demonstration of power and of power.

3. Personification of any kind is, in some passages in which the Holy Ghost is spoken of, impossible. The reality which this figure of speech is said to present to us is either some of the attributes of God, or else the doctrine of the Gospel. Let this theory, then, be tried upon the following passages: He shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.’ What attribute of God can here be personified? And if the doctrine of the Gospel be arrayed with personal attributes, where is there an instance of so monstrous a prosopopceia as this passage would exhibit? The doctrine of the Gospel not speaking of himself,’ but speaking whatsoever he shall hear!’ The Spirit maketh intercession for us.’ What attribute is capable of interceding, or how can the doctrine of the Gospel intercede? Personification, too, is the language of poetry, and takes place naturally only in excited and elevated discourse; but if the Holy Spirit be a personification, we find it in the ordinary and cool strain of mere narration and argumentative discourse in the New Testament, and in the most incidental conversations. Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.’ How impossible is it here to extort, by any process whatever, even the shadow of a personification of either any attribute of God, or of the doctrine of the Gospel! So again: The Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.’ Could it be any attribute of God, which said this, or could it be the doctrine of the Gospel? Finally, that the Holy Ghost is a person, and not an attribute, is proved by the use of masculine pronouns and relatives in the Greek of the New Testament, in connection with the neuter noun , Spirit, and also by many distinct personal acts being ascribed to him, as to come,’ to go,’ to be sent,’ to teach,’ to guide,’ to comfort,’ to make intercession,’ to bear witness,’ to give gifts,’ dividing them to every man as he will,’ to be vexed,’ grieved,’ and quenched.’ These cannot be applied to the mere fiction of a person, and they therefore establish the Spirit’s true personality (Watson, Theological Institutes, 1, 637 sq.).

III. DIVINITY of the Holy Spirit.

1. The same arguments that prove the personality of the Holy Ghost, go also, to a certain extent, to establish his divinity. The direct scriptural argument may be thus summed up:

(a.) Names proper only to the Most High God are ascribed to him; as Jehovah (Act 28:25, with Isa 6:9; and Heb 3:7; Heb 3:9, with Exo 17:7; Jer 31:31; Jer 31:34; Heb 10:15-16), God (Act 5:3-4), Lord (2 Corinthians 3:17, 19). The Lord, the Spirit.

(b.) Attributes proper only to the Most High God are ascribed to him; as omniscience (1Co 2:10-11; Isa 40:13-14), omnipresence (Psa 139:7; Eph 2:17-18; Rom 8:26-27), omnipotence (Luk 1:35), eternity (Heb 9:14).

(c.) Divine works are evidently ascribed to him (Gen 2:2; Job 26:13; Psa 32:6; Psa 104:30).

(d.) Worship, proper only to God, is required and ascribed to him (Isa 6:3; Act 28:25; Rom 9:1; Rev 1:4; 2Co 13:14; Mat 28:19).

2. The argument for the personal divinity of the Spirit is developed by Watson as follows:

(1.) The first argument may be drawn from the frequent association, in Scripture, of a Person under that appellation with two other Persons, one of whom, the Father, is by all acknowledged to be divine; and the ascription to each of them, or to the three in union, of the same acts, titles, and authority, with worship of the same kind, and, for any distinction that is made, of an equal degree. The manifestation of the existence and divinity of the Holy Spirit may be expected in the law and the prophets, and is, in fact, to be traced there with certainty. The Spirit is represented as an agent in creation, moving upon the face of the waters;’ and it forms no objection to the argument that creation is ascribed to the Father and also to the Son, but is a great confirmation of it. That creation should be effected by all the three Persons of the Godhead, though acting in different respects, yet so that each should be a Creator, and, therefore, both a Person and a divine Person, can be explained only by their unity in one essence. On every other hypothesis this scriptural fact is disallowed, and therefore no other hypothesis can be true. If the Spirit of God be a mere influence, then he is not a Creator, distinct from the Father and the Son, because he is not a Person; but this is refuted both by the passage just quoted, and by Psa 33:6 : By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath (Hebrew, Spirit) of his mouth.’ This is farther confirmed by Job 33:4 : The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life;’ where the second clause is obviously exegetic of the former: and the whole text proves that, in the patriarchal age, the followers of the true religion ascribed creation to the Spirit as well as to the Father, and that one of his appellations was the Breath of the Almighty.’

Did such passages stand alone, there might indeed, be some plausibility in the criticism which resolves them into a personification; but, connected as they are with the whole body of evidence, as to the concurring doctrine of both Testaments, they are inexpugnable. Again: If the personality of the Son and the Spirit be allowed, and yet it is contended that they were but instruments in creation, through whom the creative power of another operated, but which creative power was not possessed by them; on this hypothesis, too, neither the Spirit nor the Son can be said to create, any more than Moses created the serpent into which his rod was turned, and the Scriptures are again contradicted. To this association of the three Persons in creative acts may be added a like association in acts of preservation, which has been well called a continued creation, and by that term is expressed in the following passage: These wait all upon thee, that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to dust: thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth’ (Psa 104:27-30). It is not surely here meant that the Spirit by which the generations of animals are perpetuated is wind; and if he be called an attribute, wisdom, power, or both limited, where do we read of such attributes being sent,’ sent forth from God,’ sent forth from’ God to create and renew the face of the earth?’

(2.) The next association of the three Persons we find in the inspiration of the prophets: God spake unto our fathers by the prophets,’ says Paul (Heb 1:1). Peter declares that these holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost’ (2Pe 1:21); and also that it was the Spirit of Christ which was in them’ (1Pe 1:11). We may defy any Socinian to interpret these three passages by making the Spirit an influence or attribute, and thereby reducing the term Holy Ghost into a figure of speech. God,’ in the first passage, is unquestionably God the Father; and the holy men of God,’ the prophets, would then, according to this view, be moved by the influence of the Father; but the influence, according to the third passage, which was the source of their inspiration, was the Spirit or the influence of Christ.’ Thus the passages contradict each other. Allow the Trinity in unity, and you have no difficulty in calling the Spirit, the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son, or the Spirit of either; but if the Spirit be an influence, that influence cannot be the influence of two persons, one of them God and the other a creature. Even if they allowed the pre-existence of Christ, with Arians, these passages are inexplicable. by the Socinians; but, denying his pre-existence, they have no subterfuge but to interpret the Spirit of Christ,’ the spirit which prophesied of Christ, which is a purely gratuitous paraphrase; or the spirit of an anointed one, or prophet:’ that is, the prophet’s own spirit, which is just as gratuitous and as unsupported by any parallel as the former. If, however, the Holy Ghost be the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, united in one essence, the passages are easily harmonized. In conjunction with the Father and the Son, he is the source of that prophetic inspiration under which the prophets spoke and acted. So the same Spirit which raised Christ from the dead is said by Peter to have preached by Noah while the ark was preparing, in allusion to the passage My Spirit shall not always strive (contend, debate) with man.’ This, we may observe, affords an eminent proof that the writers of the New Testament understood the phrase the Spirit of God,’ as it occurs in the Old Testament, personally.

For, whatever may be the full meaning of that difficult passage in Peter, Christ is clearly declared to have preached by the Spirit in the days of Noah; that is, he, by the Spirit, inspired Noah to preach. If, then, the apostles understood that the Holy Ghost was a Person, a point which will presently be established, we have, in the text just quoted from the book of Genesis, a key to the meaning of those texts in the Old Testament where the phrases My Spirit,’ the Spirit of God,’ aid the Spirit of the Lord’ occur, and inspired authority is thus afforded us to interpret them as of a Person; and if of a Person, the very effort made by Socinians to deny his personality itself indicates that that Person must, from the lofty titles and works ascribed to him, be inevitably divine. Such phrases occur in many passages of the Hebrew Scriptures; but in the following the Spirit is also eminently distinguished from two other Persons: And now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me’ (Isa 48:16) or, rendered better, hath sent me and his Spirit,’ both terms being in the accusative case. Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read; for my mouth it hath commanded, and his Spirit it hath gathered them’ (Isa 34:16). I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts, according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not. For thus saith the Lord of hosts, I will shake all nations and the Desire of all nations shall come’ (Hag 2:4-7). Here, also, the Spirit of the Lord is seen collocated with the Lord of hosts and the Desire of all nations, who is the Messiah [according to the usual interpretation].

(3.) Three Persons, and three only, are associated also, both in the Old and New Testament, as objects of supreme worship, and form the one divine name.’ Thus the fact that, in the vision of Isaiah, the Lord of hosts. who spake unto the prophet, is, in Act 28:25, said to be the Holy Ghost, while John declares that the glory which Isaiah saw was the glory of Christ, proves indisputably that each of the three Persons bears this august appellation; it gives also the reason for the threefold repetition, Holy, holy, holy!’ and it exhibits the prophet and the very seraphs in deep and awful adoration before the Triune Lord of hosts. Both the prophet and the seraphim were, therefore, worshippers of the Holy Ghost and of the Son, at the very time and by the very acts in which they worshipped the Father.

3. In the Apostolical Benediction, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all, Amen, the Holy Ghost is acknowledged, equally with the Father and the Son, to be the source of the highest spiritual blessings; while the benediction is, from its specific character, to be regarded as an act of prayer to each of the three Persons, and therefore is at once an acknowledgment of the divinity and personality of each. The same remark applies to Rev 1:4-5 : Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which was, and which is, and which is to come; and from the seven spirits which are before his throne’ (an emblematical reference, probably, to the golden branch with its seven lamps), and from Jesus Christ.’ The style of this book sufficiently accounts for the Holy Spirit being called the seven spirits;’ but no created spirit or company of created spirits is ever spoken of under that appellation; and the place assigned to the seven spirits, between the mention of the Father and the Son, indicates with certainty that one of the sacred Three, so eminent, and so exclusively eminent in both dispensations, is intended.

4. The form of baptism next presents itself with demonstrative evidence on the two points before us, the personality and divinity of the Holy Spirit. It is the form of covenant by which the sacred Three become our one or only God, and we become his people: Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.’ In what manner is this text to be disposed of if the personality of the Holy Ghost is denied? Is the form of baptism to be so understood as to imply that baptism is in the name of one God, one creature and one attribute? The grossness of this absurdity refutes it, and proves that here, at least, there can be no personification. If all the Three, therefore, are persons, are we to have baptism in the name of one God and two creatures? This would be too near an approach to idolatry, or, rather, it would be idolatry itself; for, considering baptism as an act of dedication to God, the acceptance of God as our God, on our part, and the renunciation of all other deities and all other religions, what could a heathen convert conceive of the two creatures so distinguished from all other creatures in heaven and in earth, and so associated with God himself as to form together the one name, to which, by that act, he was devoted, and which he was henceforward to profess and honor, but that they were equally divine, unless special care was taken to instruct him that but one of the Three was God, and the two others but creatures? But of this care, of this cautionary instruction, though so obviously necessary upon this theory, no single instance can be given in all the writings of the apostles.

5. A further argument is derived from the fact that the Spirit is the subject of blasphemy: The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men’ (Mat 12:31). This blasphemy consisted in ascribing his miraculous works to Satan; and that he is capable of being blasphemed proves him to be as much a person as the Son; and it proves him to be divine, because it shows that he may be sinned against, and so sinned against that the blasphemer shall not be forgiven. A person he must be, or he could not be blasphemed: a divine person he must be to constitute this blasphemy a sin against him in the proper sense, and of so malignant a kind as to place it beyond the reach of mercy. He is called God: Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost? Why hast thou conceived this in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God’ (Act 5:3-4). Ananias is said to have lied particularly unto the Holy Ghost,’ because the apostles were under his special direction in establishing the temporary regulation among Christians that they should have all things in common: the detection of the crime itself was a demonstration of the divinity of the Spirit, because it showed his omniscience, his knowledge of the most secret acts (Watson, Theol. Institutes, 1, 629 sq.).

See, besides the works already cited, Hawker, Sermons on the Divinity of the Holy Ghost (London 1794, 8vo); Owen, Discourses on the Spirit; Pye Smith, On the Holy Ghost (London 1831, 8vo); Christian Review, 18, 515 (on the personality of the Spirit); Neander, History of Dogmas, 1, 171, 303; Neander, Ch. History, vol. 1, 2; Kahnis, Die Lehre vom-Heil. Geist (Leipsic, 1847, 8vo); Dewar, Personality, Divinity, etc., of the Holy Ghost (London, 1848, 8vo); Fritzsche, De Spiritu. Sancto (Halle, 1840); Bchsenschtz, Doctrine de l’Esprit de Dieu (Strasburg, 1840); Hase, Evangel. Dogmatik, 175; Guyse, Godhead of the Holy Spirit (London, 1790, 12mo); Pierce, Divinity and Personality of the Spirit (London, 1805, 12mo); Heber, Personality and Office of the Spirit (Bampton Lecture, 1816); Foulkes, Divis. in Christendom, 1, 70, 101 sq.; Bickersteth, Christ. Stud. Assist. p. 453; Bull, Trinity, 1, 135 sq.; 2, 470 sq.: Wilson, Apost. Fathers; Baur, Dogmengesch. vol. 1, 2; Maonsell, Redemption, p. 156 sq.; Waterland, Works, vol. 6; Hefele, Conciliengesch. vol. 1; Milman, Latin Christ. 1, 98; Burnet, Articles of the Christian Faith, see Index; Walcott, Sacred Archaeol. p. 312; Wesley, Works, 1 34 sq.; Leidner, Philosophy, p. 99; Stillingfleet, Works, vol. 1; Smeaton, Atonement, p. 293, 296; Bethune, Lect. on Catechism, vol. 2: see Index; Hagenbach, Hist. of Doct. 1, 125, 258, 262, 453; Stud. u. Krit. 1856, 2:298; 1867, vol. 3; Mercersburg Rev. Jan. 1867, p. 464; Bib. Sac. 1863, p. 600, 877; 1864, p. 119; Am. Presb. Rev. April, 1863, p. 336; Chr. Rev. 15, 115; April, 1852, art. 4; Bullet. Theol. 1, 1868; Christian Observer, vol. 20; London Quart. Review, April, 1867, 63, 257; Ev. Ch. Reg. vol. 1; Brit. and For. Ev. Review, April, 1869; Congreg. Quart. July, 1869; Baptist Quart. Oct. 1869, p. 498; Christ. Remember. July, 1853. SEE MACEDONIANS; SEE TRINITY; SEE SOCINIANISM.

Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

Holy Ghost

the third Person of the adorable Trinity.

His personality is proved (1) from the fact that the attributes of personality, as intelligence and volition, are ascribed to him (John 14:17, 26; 15:26; 1 Cor. 2:10, 11; 12:11). He reproves, helps, glorifies, intercedes (John 16:7-13; Rom. 8:26). (2) He executes the offices peculiar only to a person. The very nature of these offices involves personal distinction (Luke 12:12; Acts 5:32; 15:28; 16:6; 28:25; 1 Cor. 2:13; Heb. 2:4; 3:7; 2 Pet. 1:21).

His divinity is established (1) from the fact that the names of God are ascribed to him (Ex. 17:7; Ps. 95:7; comp. Heb. 3:7-11); and (2) that divine attributes are also ascribed to him, omnipresence (Ps. 139:7; Eph. 2:17, 18; 1 Cor. 12:13); omniscience (1 Cor. 2:10, 11); omnipotence (Luke 1:35; Rom. 8:11); eternity (Heb. 9:4). (3) Creation is ascribed to him (Gen. 1:2; Job 26:13; Ps. 104:30), and the working of miracles (Matt. 12:28; 1 Cor. 12:9-11). (4) Worship is required and ascribed to him (Isa. 6:3; Acts 28:25; Rom. 9:1; Rev. 1:4; Matt. 28:19).

Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary

Holy Ghost

Besides referring back to the former article (See Holiness) concerning this almighty Lord, it may be proper to subjoin some of the names and offices by which God the Holy Ghost is known in Scripture. I say some, for to bring forward all is perhaps beyond the power or the province of man. Our blessed Lord, over and above the sacred names the Holy Ghost hath in common with the Father and the Son in the essence of the GODHEAD, hath graciously taught his church the special titles and appellations by which the Lord the Spirit is known. He is called the “Spirit of truth, by Jesus that leads his church into all truth.” (Joh 14:17) Jesus speaks of him as a “Witness to testify of him.” (Joh 16:26) And his servant, the apostle Paul, following the steps of his divine Master, calls the Holy Ghost by the same name. See a beautiful account of the almighty Spirit to this amount. (Rom 8:1-16) As the Holy Ghost the Comforter, the Lord Jesus most blessedly describes him. (Joh 14:16-26) Indeed, this is his great work; for under whatever divine operations the Lord the Spirit brings the people of God, the first and ultimate design of the whole, is for consolation. Hence Paul prays for the communion and fellowship of the Holy Ghost to be with the church. (2Co 13:14) And it is most blessed to every child of God, when brought into the fellowship and communion of the Holy Ghost, to discover how that almighty Comforter opens a communication between Christ and the soul, and keeps it open by the exercises of his grace; so that, while the person of the Father, or the Son, is coming forth to bless the soul, he draws forth and leads out the actings of the soul’s faith and love upon the glorious persons of the GODHEAD, and gives “a joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

The Lord Jesus also points to the person and office of the Holy Ghost, as a Leader and Guide to his chosen, Joh 16:13; as a Glorifier of Jesus, Joh 16:14; as the Remembrancer also of Jesus, Joh 14:26. And as the prophet Isaiah had been commanded to tell the church of this sovereign Lord, under his almighty offices, as acting with “a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning,” (Isa 4:4) the Lord Jesus more fully opens the nature of these heart-searching works of the Holy Ghost, in shewing that it consists in “convincing of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.” (Joh 16:8-11) In short, so many, so diversified, so constant, and so unremitting are the operations of the Holy Ghost on the hearts and minds of the Lord’s people, that it must with truth be said, that he, and he only, is the almighty minister in the church of Christ, and to him alone the who efficiency of the gospel, both in work and blessing, is committed.

And, indeed, the beautiful order in the covenant of grace, and the economy of redemption, makes it necessary so to be. For, as the whole Three persons of the GODHEAD all concurred in the vast design, and all guaranteed to each other concerning the several offices in the departments of grace, so it became essential, that in the carrying on and completing the work, each almighty person should be engaged in it in his own specific office and character. The Father gave the church; the Son redeemed the church; and God the Holy Ghost sanctifies the church. God the Father appears in the Old, Testament dispensation, holding forth the promised Saviour with all his blessings, as coming for salvation; God the Son takes up the wonderful subject under the New Testament dispensation, as thus coming and finishing all that was promised in the Old; and now that the Son of God hath finished transgression, made an end of sin, and is returned unto glory, God the Holy Ghost is come down, agreeably to Jesus’s and his Father’s most sure promise, to render effectual the whole purpose of redemption, by his divine offices in the hearts of the redeemed. And thus the church is taught to give equal and undivided praise and glory to the united source of all her mercies, in the Father’s love, the Son’s grace, and the Spirit’s fellowship.

It would be little less than the brief recapitulation of the Bible, to go over all that might be brought forward concerning the agency of God the Holy Ghost in the church. From the first awakenings of grace in the heart, until grace is consummated in glory, believers are taught to look to that Holy and eternal Spirit, for his leadings and influences in and through all. The regeneration by the Holy Ghost, in the first motions of the spiritual life, Joh 3:3; the baptisms of the Spirit, so essential in the spiritual life, 1Co 12:13; the illuminations of the Spirit, 2Co 4:6; the “indwelling residence of the Spirit,” Joh 14:16-17; the “receiving of the Holy Ghost,” Act 8:15-17; the “walking in the Spirit,” Act 9:31; the “renewing of the Ho1y Ghost,” Tit 3:5; the sealings and earnest of the Spirit, Eph 1:13; 2Co 5:5. All these, and infinitely more to the same effect, prove his sovereign and unceasing agency. But having already swollen this article beyond the usual limits, I must close these observations with only praying that holy and eternal Teacher in the church of the Lord Jesus, to grant some sweet and precious token of his grace and power, by setting his seal in the heart both of the writer and reader, that the truth of his ministry may be known, and felt, and adored, to his glory, and to our comfort and joy. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.” (Rom 15:13)

Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures

Holy Ghost

holi gost. See HOLY SPIRIT.

Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Holy Ghost

* For HOLY GHOST see under SPIRIT and HOLY, B, No. 1 (a)

Fuente: Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words

Holy Ghost

the third person in the Trinity. The orthodox doctrine is, that as Christ is God by an eternal filiation, so the Spirit is God by procession from the Father and the Son. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, says the Nicene Creed, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who, with the Father and the Son together, is worshipped and glorified. And with this agrees the Athanasian Creed, The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. In the Articles of the English church it is thus expressed: The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God. The Latin church introduced the term spiration from spiro, to breathe, to denote the manner of this procession; on which Dr. Owen remarks, As the vital breath of a man has a continual emanation from him, and yet is never separated utterly from his person, or forsaketh him, so doth the Spirit of the Father and the Son proceed from them by a continual divine emanation, still abiding one with them. On this refined view little can be said which has clear Scriptural authority; and yet the very term by which the Third Person in the Trinity is designated, Wind or Breath, may, as to the Third Person, be designed, like the term Son applied to the Second, to convey, though imperfectly, some intimation of that manner of being by which both are distinguished from each other, and from the Father; and it was a remarkable action of our Lord, and one certainly which does not discountenance this idea, that when he imparted the Holy Ghost to his disciples, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, Joh 20:22.

2. But, whatever we may think as to the doctrine of spiration, the profession of the Holy Ghost rests on more direct Scriptural authority, and is thus stated by Bishop Pearson: Now the procession of the Spirit, in reference to the Father, is delivered expressly in relation to the Son, and is contained virtually in the Scriptures.

1. It is expressly said, that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father, as our Saviour testifieth, When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me,’ Joh 15:26. And this is also evident from what hath been already asserted; for being the Father and the Spirit are the same God, and, being so the same in the unity of the nature of God, are yet distinct in the personality, one of them must have the same nature from the other; and because the Father hath been already shown to have it from none, it followeth that the Spirit hath it from him.

2. Though it be not expressly spoken in the Scripture, that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and Son, yet the substance of the same truth is virtually contained there; because those very expressions which are spoken of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Father, for that reason, because he proceedeth from the Father, are also spoken of the same Spirit in relation to the Son; and therefore there must be the same reason presupposed in reference to the Son, which is expressed in reference to the Father. Because the Spirit proceedeth from the Father, therefore it is called the Spirit of God,’ and the Spirit of the Father.’ It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you,’ Mat 10:20. For by the language of the Apostle, the Spirit of God’ is the Spirit which is of God, saying, The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. And we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God,’ 1Co 2:11-12. How the same Spirit is also called the Spirit of the Son:’ for because we are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,’ Gal 4:6. The Spirit of Christ:’ Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his,’ Rom 8:9; Even the Spirit of Christ which was in the prophets,’ 1Pe 1:11.

The Spirit of Jesus Christ,’ as the Apostle speaks: I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,’ Php 1:19. If then the Holy Ghost be called the Spirit of the Father,’ because he proceedeth from the Father, it followeth that, being called also the Spirit of the Son,’ he proceedeth also from the Son. Again: because the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father, he is therefore sent by the Father, as from him who hath, by the original communication, a right of mission; as, the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send,’ Joh 14:26. But the same Spirit which is sent by the Father, is also sent by the Son, as he saith, When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you.’ Therefore the Son hath the same right of mission with the Father, and consequently must be acknowledged to have communicated the same essence. The Father is never sent by the Son, because he received not the Godhead from him; but the Father sendeth the Son, because he communicated the Godhead to him: in the same manner, neither the Father nor the Son is ever sent by the Holy Spirit; because neither of them received the divine nature from the Spirit: but both the Father and the Son sendeth the Holy Ghost, because the divine nature, common to the Father and the Son, was communicated by them both to the Holy Ghost. As therefore the Scriptures declare expressly, that the Spirit proceedeth from the Father; so do they also virtually teach, that he proceedeth from the Son.

3. Arius regarded the Spirit not only as a creature, but as created by Christ, , the creature of a creature. Some time afterward, his personality was wholly denied by the Arians, and he was considered as the exerted energy of God. This appears to have been the notion of Socinus, and, with occasional modifications, has been adopted by his followers.

They sometimes regard him as an attribute; and at others, resolve the passages in which he is spoken of into a periphrasis, or circumlocution for God himself; or, to express both in one, into a figure of speech.

4. In establishing the proper personality and deity of the Holy Ghost, the first argument may be drawn from the frequent association, in Scripture, of a Person under that appellation with two other Persons, one of whom, the Father, is by all acknowledged to be divine; and the ascription to each of them, or to the three in union, of the same acts, titles, and authority, with worship, of the same kind, and, for any distinction that is made, of an equal degree. The manifestation of the existence and divinity of the Holy Spirit may be expected in the law and the prophets, and is, in fact, to be traced there with certainty. The Spirit is represented as an agent in creation, moving upon the face of the waters; and it forms no objection to the argument, that creation is ascribed to the Father, and also to the Son, but is a great confirmation of it. That creation should be effected by all the three Persons of the Godhead, though acting in different respects, yet so that each should be a Creator, and, therefore, both a Person and a divine Person, can be explained only by their unity in one essence. On every other hypothesis this Scriptural fact is disallowed, and therefore no other hypothesis can be true. If the Spirit of God be a mere influence, then he is not a Creator, distinct from the Father and the Son, because he is not a Person; but this is refuted both by the passage just quoted, and by Psa 33:6 : By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath (Hebrews Spirit) of his mouth. This is farther confirmed by Job 33:4 : The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life; where the second clause is obviously exegetic of the former: and the whole text proves that, in the patriarchal age, the followers of the true religion ascribed creation to the Spirit, as well as to the Father; and that one of his appellations was, the Breath of the Almighty. Did such passages stand lone, there might, indeed, be some plausibility in the criticism which resolves them into a personification; but, connected as they are with the whole body of evidence, as to the concurring doctrine of both Testaments, they are inexpugnable. Again: If the personality of the Son and the Spirit be allowed, and yet it is contended that they were but instruments in creation, through whom the creative power of another operated, but which creative power was not possessed by them; on this hypothesis, too, neither the Spirit nor the Son can be said to create, any more than Moses created the serpent into which his rod was turned, and the Scriptures are again contradicted. To this association of the three Persons in creative acts, may be added a like association in acts of preservation, which has been well called a continued creation, and by that term is expressed in the following passage: These wait all upon thee, that thou mayest give them their meat in due season. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to dust: thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth, Psa 104:27-30. It is not surely here meant, that the Spirit by which the generations of animals are perpetuated, is wind; and if he be called an attribute, wisdom, power, or both united, where do we read of such attributes being sent, sent forth from God? The personality of the Spirit is here as clearly marked as when St. Paul speaks of God sending forth the Spirit of his Son, and when our Lord promises to send the Comforter; and as the upholding and preserving of created things is ascribed to the Father and the Son, so here they are ascribed, also, to the Spirit, sent forth from God to create and renew the face of the earth.

5. The next association of the three Persons we find in the inspiration of the prophets: God spake unto our fathers by the prophets, says St. Paul, Heb 1:1. St. Peter declares that these holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, 2Pe 1:21; and also that it was the Spirit of Christ which was in them, 1Pe 1:11. We may defy any Socinian to interpret these three passages by making the Spirit an influence or attribute, and thereby reducing the term Holy Ghost into a figure of speech. God, in the first passage, is, unquestionably, God the Father; and the holy men of God, the prophets, would then, according to this view, be moved by the influence of the Father; but the influence, according to the third passage, which was the source of their inspiration, was the Spirit, or the influence of Christ. Thus the passages contradict each other. Allow the trinity in unity, and you have no difficulty in calling the Spirit, the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son, or the Spirit of either; but if the Spirit be an influence, that influence cannot be the influence of two persons,one of them God, and the other a creature.

Even if they allowed the pre-existence of Christ, with Arians, these passages are inexplicable by the Socinians; but, denying his preexistence, they have no subterfuge but to interpret, the Spirit of Christ, the spirit which prophesied of Christ, which is a purely gratuitous paraphrase; or the spirit of an anointed one, or prophet; that is, the prophet’s own spirit, which is just as gratuitous and as unsupported by any parallel as the former. If, however, the Holy Ghost be the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, united in one essence, the passages are easily harmonized. In conjunction with the Father and the Son, he is the source of that prophetic inspiration under which the prophets spoke and acted. So the same Spirit which raised Christ from the dead, is said by St. Peter to have preached by Noah while the ark was preparing;in allusion to the passage, My Spirit shall not always, strive (contend, debate) with man. This, we may observe, affords an eminent proof, that the writers of the New Testament understood the phrase, the Spirit of God, as it occurs in the Old Testament, personally. For, whatever may be the full meaning of that difficult passage in St. Peter, Christ is clearly declared to have preached by the Spirit in the days of Noah; that is, he, by the Spirit, inspired Noah to preach. If, then, the Apostles understood that the Holy Ghost was a Person, a point which will presently be established, we have, in the text just quoted from the book of Genesis, a key to the meaning of those texts in the Old Testament where the phrases, My Spirit, the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of the Lord, occur; and inspired authority is thus afforded us to interpret them as of a Person; and if of a Person, the very effort made by Socinians to deny his personality, itself, indicates that that Person must, from the lofty titles and works ascribed to him, be inevitably divine. Such phrases occur in many passages of the Hebrew Scriptures; but, in the following, the Spirit is also eminently distinguished from two other Persons: And now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me, Isa 48:16; or, rendered better, hath sent me and his Spirit, both terms being in the accusative case. Seek ye out of the book of the Lord, and read: for my mouth it hath commanded, and his Spirit it hath gathered them,

Isa 34:16. I am with you, saith the Lord of Hosts, according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not. For thus saith the Lord of Hosts, I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations shall come, Hag 2:4-7. Here, also, the Spirit of the Lord is seen collocated with the Lord of Hosts and the Desire of all nations, who is the Messiah.

6. Three Persons, and three only, are associated also, both in the Old and New Testament, as objects of supreme worship; and form the one name in which the religious act of solemn benediction is performed, and to which men are bound by solemn baptismal covenant. In the plural form of the name of God, each received equal adoration. This threefold personality seems to have given rise to the standing form of triple benediction used by the Jewish high priest. The very important fact, that, in the vision of Isaiah, the Lord of hosts, who spake unto the prophet, is, in Act 28:25, said to be the Holy Ghost, while St. John declares that the glory which Isaiah saw was the glory of Christ, proves, indisputably, that each of the three Persons bears this August appellation; it gives also the reason for the threefold repetition, Holy, holy, holy! and it exhibits the prophet and the very seraphs in deep and awful adoration before the Triune Lord of hosts. Both the prophet and the seraphim were, therefore, worshippers of the Holy Ghost and of the Son, at the very time and by the very acts in which they worshipped the Father; which proves that, as the three Persons received equal homage in a case which does not admit of the evasion of pretended superior and inferior worship, they are equal in majesty, glory, and essence.

7. As in the tabernacle form of benediction, the Triune Jehovah is recognized as the source of all grace and peace to his creatures; so also we have the apostolic formula: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Amen. Here the personality of the three is kept distinct; and the prayer is, that Christians may have a common participation of the Holy Spirit, that is, doubtless, as he was promised by our Lord to his disciples, as a Comforter, as the Source of light and spiritual life, as the Author of regeneration. Thus the Spirit is acknowledged, equally with the Father and the Son, to be the Source and the Giver of the highest spiritual blessings; while this solemn ministerial benediction is, from its specific character, to be regarded as an act of prayer to each of the three Persons, and therefore is at once, an acknowledgment of the divinity and personality of each. The same remark applies to Rev 1:4-5 : Grace be unto you, and peace, from Him which was, and which is, and which is to come; and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, (an emblematical reference, probably to the golden branch with its seven lamps,) and from Jesus Christ. The style of this book sufficiently accounts for the Holy Spirit being called the seven spirits; but no created spirit or company of created spirits is ever spoken of under that appellation: and the place assigned to the seven spirits, between the mention of the Father and the Son, indicates, with certainty, that one of the sacred Three, so eminent, and so exclusively eminent in both dispensations, is intended.

8. The form of baptism next presents itself with demonstrative evidence on the two points before us, the personality and divinity of the Holy Spirit. It is the form of covenant by which the sacred Three become our one or only God, and we become his people: Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. In what manner is this text to be disposed of, if the personality of the Holy Ghost is denied? Is the form of baptism to be so understood as to imply that baptism is in the name of one God, one creature, and one attribute? The grossness of this absurdity refutes it, and proves that here, at least, there can be no personification. If all the Three, therefore, are persons, are we to have baptism in the name of one God and two creatures? This would be too near an approach to idolatry, or, rather, it would be idolatry itself; for, considering baptism as an act of dedication to God, the acceptance of God as our God, on our part, and the renunciation of all other deities and all other religions, what could a Heathen convert conceive of the two creatures so distinguished from all other creatures in heaven and in earth, and so associated with God himself as to form together the one name, to which, by that act, he was devoted, and which he was henceforward to profess and honour, but that they were equally divine, unless special care were taken to instruct him that but one of the Three was God, and the two others but creatures? But of this care, of this cautionary instruction, though so obviously necessary upon this theory, no single instance can be given in all the writings of the Apostles.

9. But other arguments are not wanting to prove both the personality and the divinity of the Holy Spirit. With respect to the former,

(1.) The mode of his subsistence in the sacred Trinity proves his personality. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and cannot, therefore, be either. To say that an attribute proceeds and comes forth, would be a gross absurdity.

(2.) Many passages of Scripture are wholly unintelligible and even absurd, unless the Holy Ghost is allowed to be a person. For as those who take the phrase as ascribing no more than a figurative personality to an attribute, make that attribute to be the energy or power of God, they reduce such passages as the following to utter unmeaningness: God anointed Jesus with the Holy Ghost and with power; that is, with the power of God and with power. That ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost; that is, through the power of power. In demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that is, in demonstration of power and of power.

(3.) Personification of any kind is, in some passages in which the Holy Ghost is spoken of, impossible. The reality which this figure of speech is said to present to us, is either some of the attributes of God, or else the doctrine of the Gospel. Let this theory, then, be tried upon the following passages: He shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak. What attribute of God can here be personified? And if the doctrine of the Gospel be arrayed with personal attributes, where is there an instance of so monstrous a prosopopoeia as this passage would exhibit?the doctrine of the Gospel not speaking of himself, but speaking whatsoever he shall hear! The Spirit maketh intercession for us. What attribute is capable of interceding, or how can the doctrine of the Gospel intercede? Personification, too, is the language of poetry, and takes place naturally only in excited and elevated discourse; but if the Holy Spirit be a personification, we find it in the ordinary and cool strain of mere narration and argumentative discourse in the New Testament, and in the most incidental conversations, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. How impossible is it here to extort, by any process whatever, even the shadow of a personification of either any attribute of God, or of the doctrine of the Gospel! So again: The Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot. Could it be any attribute of God which said this, or could it be the doctrine of the Gospel? Finally, that the Holy Ghost is a person, and not an attribute, is proved by the use of masculine pronouns and relatives in the Greek of the New Testament, in connection with the neuter noun , Spirit, and also by many distinct personal acts being ascribed to him, as, to come, to go, to be sent, to teach, to guide, to

comfort, to make intercession, to bear witness, to give gifts, dividing them to every man as he will, to be vexed, grieved, and quenched. These cannot be applied to the mere fiction of a person, and they therefore establish the Spirit’s true personality.

10. Some additional arguments to those before given to establish the divinity of the Holy Ghost may also be adduced. The first is taken from his being the subject of blasphemy: The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men, Mat 12:31. This blasphemy consisted in ascribing his miraculous works to Satan; and that he is capable of being blasphemed proves him to be as much a person as the Son; and it proves him to be divine, because it shows that he may be sinned against, and so sinned against that the blasphemer shall not be forgiven. A person he must be, or he could not be blasphemed: a divine person he must be, to constitute this blasphemy a sin against him in the proper sense, and of so malignant a kind as to place it beyond the reach of mercy. He is called God: Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost? Why hast thou conceived this in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God, Act 5:3-4. Ananias is said to have lied particularly unto the Holy Ghost, because the Apostles were under his special direction in establishing the temporary regulation among Christians that they should have all things in common: the detection of the crime itself was a demonstration of the divinity of the Spirit, because it showed his omniscience, his knowledge of the most secret acts. In addition to the proof of his divinity thus afforded by this history, he is also called God: Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. He is also called the Lord: Now the Lord is that Spirit, 2Co 3:17. He is eternal: The eternal Spirit, Heb 9:14. Omnipresence is ascribed to him: Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, 1Co 6:19. As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God, Rom 8:14. For, as all true Christians are his temples, and are led by him, he must be present to them at all times and in all places. He is omniscient: The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God, 1Co 2:10. Here the Spirit is said to search or know all things absolutely; and then, to make this more emphatic, that he knows even the deep things of God,

things hidden from every creature, the depths of his essence, and the secrets of his counsels; for, that this is intended, appears from the next verse, where he is said to know the things of God, as the spirit of a man knows the things of a man. Supreme majesty is also attributed to him, so that to lie to him, to blaspheme him, to vex him, to do him despite, are sins, and as such render the offender liable to divine punishment. How impracticable then is it to interpret the phrase, the Holy Ghost, as a periphrasis for God himself! A Spirit, which is the Spirit of God, which is so often distinguished from the Father, which sees and hears the Father, which searches the deep things of God, which is sent by the Father, which proceedeth from him, and who has special prayer addressed to him at the same time as the Father, cannot, though one with him, be the Father; and that he is not the Son is acknowledged on both sides. As a divine person, our regards are therefore justly due to him as the object of worship and trust, of prayer and blessing.

11. Various are the gracious offices of the Holy Spirit in the work of our redemption. He it is that first quickens the soul, dead in trespasses and sins, to spiritual life; it is by him we are born again, and made new creatures; he is the living root of all the Christian graces, which are therefore called the fruits of the Spirit; and by him all true Christians are aided in the infirmities and afflictions of this present life. Eminently, he is promised to the disciples as the Comforter, which is more fully explained by St. Paul by the phrase the Spirit of adoption; so that it is through him that we receive a direct inward testimony to our personal forgiveness and acceptance through Christ, and are filled with peace and consolation. This doctrine, so essential to the solid and habitual happiness of those who believe in Christ, is thus clearly explained in a sermon on that subject by the Rev. John Wesley:

(1.) But what is the witness of the Spirit? The original word, , may be rendered, either, as it is in several places, the witness, or, less ambiguously, the testimony, or, the record: so it is rendered in our translation: This is the record,’ the testimony, the sum of what God testifies in all the inspired writings, that God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son,’ 1Jn 5:11. The testimony now under consideration is given by the Spirit of God to and with our spirit. He is the person testifying. What he testifies to us is, that we are the children of God.’ The immediate result of this testimony, is, the fruit of the Spirit;’ namely, love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness.’ And without these, the testimony itself cannot continue. For it is inevitably destroyed, not only by the commission of any outward sin, or the omission of known duty, but by giving way to any inward sin: in a word, by whatever grieves the Holy Spirit of God.

(2.) I observed many years ago, It is hard to find words in the language of men to explain the deep things of God. Indeed, there are none that will adequately express what the Spirit of God works in his children. But, perhaps, one might say, (desiring any who are taught of God to correct, soften, or strengthen the expression,) By the testimony of the Spirit,’ I mean, an inward impression on the soul, whereby the Spirit of God immediately and directly witnesses with my spirit, that I am a child of God; that Jesus Christ hath loved me, and given himself for me;’ that all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I, am reconciled to God.

(3.) After twenty years’ farther consideration, I see no cause to retract any part of this. Neither do I conceive how any of these expressions may be altered, so as to make them more intelligible. I can only add, that if any of the children of God will point out any other expressions which are more clear, or more agreeable to the word of God, I will readily lay these aside.

(4.) Meantime, let it be observed, I do not mean hereby, that the Spirit of God testifies this by any outward voice: no, nor always by an inward voice, although he may do this sometimes. Neither do I suppose, that he always applies to the heart, though he often may, one or more texts of Scripture. But he so works upon the soul by his immediate influence, and by a strong, though inexplicable, operation, that the stormy wind and troubled waves subside, and there is a sweet calm: the heart resting as in the arms of Jesus, and the sinner being clearly satisfied that all his iniquities are forgiven, and his sins covered.’

(5.) Now what is the matter of dispute concerning this? Not, whether there be a witness or testimony of the Spirit. Not, whether the Spirit does testify with our spirit, that we are the children of God. None can deny this, without flatly contradicting the Scriptures, and charging a lie upon the God of truth. Therefore, that there is a testimony of the Spirit, is acknowledged by all parties.

(6.) Neither is it questioned, whether there is an indirect witness or testimony, that we are the children of God. This is nearly, if not exactly, the same with the testimony of a good conscience toward God;’ and is the result of reason or reflection on what we feel in our own souls. Strictly speaking, it is a conclusion drawn partly from the word of God, and partly from our own experience. The word of God says, Every one who has the fruit of the Spirit is a child of God. Experience or inward consciousness tells me, that I have the fruit of the Spirit; and hence I rationally conclude, Therefore I am a child of God. This is likewise allowed on all hands, and so is no matter of controversy.

(7.) Nor do we assert, that there can be any real testimony of the Spirit, without the fruit of the Spirit. We assert, on the contrary, that the fruit of the Spirit immediately springs from this testimony; not always indeed in the same degree even when the testimony is first given; and much less afterward: neither joy nor peace is always at one stay. No, nor love: as neither is the testimony itself always equally strong and clear.

(8.) But the point in question is, whether there be any direct testimony of the Spirit at all; whether there be any other testimony of the Spirit, than that which arises from a consciousness of the fruit. I believe there is, because that is the plain, natural meaning of the text, The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.’ It is manifest here are two witnesses mentioned, who together testify the same thing, the Spirit of God, and our own spirit. The late bishop of London, in his sermon on this text, seems astonished that any one can doubt of this, which appears upon the very face of the words. Now, the testimony of our own spirit,’ says the bishop, is one which is the consciousness of our own sincerity;’ or, to express the same thing a little more clearly, the consciousness of the fruit of the Spirit. When our spirit is conscious of this, of love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, it easily infers from those premises, that we are the children of God. It is true, that great man supposes the other witness to be the consciousness of our own good works.’ This, he affirms, is the testimony of God’s Spirit.’ But this is included in the testimony of our own spirit: yea, and in sincerity, even according to the common sense of the word. So the Apostle: Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have our conversation in the world;’ where it is plain, sincerity refers to our words and actions, at least, as much as to our inward dispositions. So that this, is not another witness, but the very same that he mentioned before: the consciousness of our good works being only one branch of the consciousness of our sincerity. Consequently, here is only one witness still. If, therefore, the text speaks of two witnesses, one of these is not the consciousness of our good works, neither of our sincerity; all this being manifestly contained in the testimony of our spirit.’ What, then, is the other witness? This might easily be learned, if the text itself were not sufficiently clear, from the verse immediately preceding: Ye have received, not the spirit of bondage, but the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.’ It follows, The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.’ This is farther explained by the parallel text, Gal 4:6 : Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.’ Is not this something immediate and direct, not the result of reflection or argumentation? Does not this Spirit cry, Abba, Father,’ in our hearts, the moment it is given? antecedently to any reflection upon our sincerity, yea, to any reasoning whatsoever? And is not this the plain, natural sense of the words, which strikes any one as soon as he hears them? All these texts, then, in their most obvious meaning, describe a direct testimony of the Spirit. That the testimony of the Spirit of God, must, in the very nature of things, be antecedent to the testimony of our own spirit, may appear from this single consideration: We must be holy in heart and life, before we can be conscious that we are so. But we must love God before we can be holy at all, this being the root of all holiness. Now, we cannot love God, till we know he loves us: We love him, because he first loved us.’ And we cannot know his love to us, till his Spirit witnesses it to our spirit. Since, therefore, the testimony of his Spirit must precede the love of God and all holiness, of consequence it must precede our consciousness thereof.

12. The precedence of the direct witness of the Spirit of God to the indirect witness of our own, and the dependence of the latter upon the former, are also clearly stated by other divines of great authority. Calvin, on Rom 8:16, says, St. Paul means, that the Spirit of God gives such a testimony to us, that he being our guide and teacher, our spirit concludes our adoption of God to be certain. For our own rains, of itself, independent of the preceding testimony of the Spirit, [nisi praeunte Spiritus testimonio,] could not produce this persuasion in us. For while the Spirit witnesses that we are the sons of God, he at the same time inspires this confidence into our minds, that we are bold to call God our Father. On the same passage Dr. John Owen says, The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are the sons of God; the witness which our own spirits do give unto our adoption is the work and effect of the Holy Spirit in us; if it were not, it would be false, and not confirmed by the testimony of the Spirit himself, who is the Spirit of truth. And none knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God,’ 1Co 2:11. If he declare not our sonship in us and to us, we cannot know it. How doth he then hear witness to our spirits? What is the distinct testimony? It must be some such act of his as evidenceth itself to be from him immediately, unto them that are concerned in it, that is, those unto whom it is given. Poole on the same passage remarks, The Spirit of adoption doth not only excite us to call upon God as our Father, but it doth ascertain and assure us, as before, that we are his children. And this it doth not by an outward voice, as God the Father to Jesus Christ, nor by an angel, as to Daniel and the Virgin Mary, but by an inward and secret suggestion, whereby he raiseth our hearts to this persuasion, that God is our Father, and we are his children. This is not the testimony of the graces and operations of the Spirit, but of the Spirit itself. Bishop Pearson, in his elaborate work on the Creed, and Dr. Barrow, in his Sermons, are equally explicit in stating this Scriptural doctrine.

Fuente: Biblical and Theological Dictionary