SPIRITO SANTO

HOLY SPIRIT. - Name of the third Person of the Holy Trinity. The Catholic doctrine on the Holy Spirit is summarized in the encyclical *Divinum illud munus* of Leo XIII (15 May 1895), and, as regards the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit, completed by the encyclical *Mystici Corporis* of Pius XII (29 June 1943).

I. REVELATION

In the Old Testament there are numerous texts that seem to refer to the Holy Spirit (Spirit of Jahweh, Spirit of God): e.g., in Gen. 1:2; 41:38; Ex. 31:3; Num. 27:18, and more frequently in the prophetic books. Isaiah announces the Spirit’s effect upon the Messiah (Is. 41:1; 42:1 ff.; especially 11:1-2, a text that became classical for the enumeration of the gifts of the Holy Spirit) and upon all His people (Is. 32:15; 44 ff.), as later expressed by Ezekiel (Ez. 37:12) and Joel (Joel 2:28-29). The value of these testimonies is variously assessed. Some, like A. Palmieri (*DThC*, V [1913], col. 683), find in them a clear revelation of the Holy Spirit, though reserved to a few. Generally, it is held that the Old Testament texts, considered in themselves, are but a shadowing forth of the Christian mystery: the inspired authors themselves could not have known the full meaning of the words inspired in them by God, a meaning that is revealed only in the light of the New Testament. Indeed, on the day of Pentecost, St. Peter quoted the text of Joel (Acts 2:17), and many Fathers and writers of the first five centuries readily based themselves on the authority of the Old Testament (*J. Lebreton, Histoire du dogme de la Trinité*, I, 6th ed., Paris 1927, pp. 552-58). Yet even they, to complete the ancient texts, relied upon those of the New Testament, where the Holy Spirit is explicitly spoken of, so that St. Thomas could rightly attribute the revelation of the Holy Spirit to the teaching of Jesus Christ (*Summa Theologiae*, II-II, q. 174, a. 6).

In the New Testament, from the Synoptics to the Gospel of St. John, passing through the Acts, the Epistles of St. Paul, and the Apocalypse (*J. Lebreton, op. cit.*, I, pp. 330-41, 373-78, 422-42, 471-72, 529-40), the word πνεῦμα = Spirit often recurs, sometimes used in a broad and generic sense, at other times determined by the article or by subsequent appellations to designate concretely the Holy Spirit: the Spirit (τὸ πνεῦμα), the Holy Spirit (τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα), Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, Spirit of the Son, Spirit of Him who raised Jesus, Spirit of truth, Spirit of wisdom, Paraclete, Promised by the Father, Love, Gift. These last two designations, along with that of Holy Spirit, remain as the proper names par excellence of the third Person (cf. St. Thomas, *Summa Theologiae*, I, q. 36, a. 1; q. 37, a. 1; q. 38, a. 1 and 2).

The New Testament offers a broad doctrine on the Holy Spirit, which can be reduced to the following points:

1) The divinity of the Holy Spirit. Apart from the so-called “Johannine comma” (1 Jn. 5:7), whose significance remains a matter of debate (*cf. T. Ayuso, Nuevo estudio sobre el «Comma Johannaeum»*, in *Biblica*, 28 [1947], pp. 83-112, 216-35), the great Trinitarian texts should be consulted, where the Holy Spirit is placed on the same level as the Father and the Son and distinguished from Them. Such are the command given to the Apostles: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19); the theophany at the Jordan: “And the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form, as a dove, and a voice came from heaven, ‘Thou art My beloved Son; with Thee I am well pleased’” (Lk. 3:22; *cf.* Mt. 3:16-17; Mk. 1:10-11); the distribution of graces: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one” (1 Cor. 12:4-6); as well as the formula of blessing with which St. Paul takes leave of the faithful of Corinth: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen” (2 Cor. 13:13). To these texts many others should be added, especially the words of Christ on the Paraclete at the Last Supper (Jn. 15-16).

2) The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is likewise affirmed. The Holy Spirit is called “Spirit of the Father” (Mt. 10:20); “Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:12), precisely because He eternally proceeds from the Father, as is expressly stated in the discourse at the Last Supper: “When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness to Me” (Jn. 15:26).

As regards the procession from the Son, some among Catholics too readily assert that it is not formally, but only virtually, found in the New Testament. Thus, in ancient times, the Archbishop of Milan, Peter the Grossolano, in his Constantinopolitan disputation of 1113 (*PL* 162, 915 D), and more recently A.-M. Dubarle (*in Russie et chrétienté*, 4th series, 2 [1950], pp. 234-42), who goes so far as to exclude from the literal sense of Scripture not only the procession of the Holy Spirit, but also the eternal generation of the Son. Yet already St. Hilary of Poitiers (*De Trinitate*, VIII, 20: *PL* 10, 250) wrote concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son in the Gospels: “The Lord did not leave this in doubt.” With him, many Greek and Latin Fathers find it expressed in the words: “God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts” (Gal. 4:6); “If any one does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him” (Rom. 8:9; *cf.* Acts 5:9; 16:15; 2 Cor. 3:17; Phil. 1:19). In the light of these texts, St. Basil marvels how Eunomius could refuse to admit the procession “from Both”: “How then does the Spirit attribute the cause to the Only-begotten alone... when the Apostle speaks now of the Spirit of Christ, now of the Spirit of God?” (*Contra Eunomium*, II, 34: *PG* 29, 652). Among the Latins, it suffices to recall St. Augustine: “Nor can we say that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son; for it is not without reason that He is called the Spirit of the Father and of the Son” (*De Trinitate*, IV, 29: *PL* 42, 908; *cf. Tract. in Joannem*, 99: *PL* 35, 1888 sq.). Clearer and more conclusive, and therefore more frequently cited by those who expound the New Testament doctrine on procession, are the words of Jesus Christ: “He will glorify Me, because He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine; therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and declare it to you” (Jn. 16:14-15; the Greek, in verse 15, uses the present: ἐκ τοῦ ἐμοῦ λαμβάνει). St. Hilary of Poitiers uses this testimony to demonstrate that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (*De Trinitate*, VIII, 20: *PL* 10, 251-52), and it becomes the classical argument during the anti-Photian controversy. Texts are also cited where the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit is spoken of (Jn. 14:16; 14:26; 15:26; 16:7; Lk. 24:49; Acts 2:33; Tit. 3:6), which presupposes the dependence, as regards the origin of the Person sent, upon the One who sends. A compendium of all the New Testament doctrine on the procession of the Holy Spirit is the phrase of the Apocalypse, which depicts the Holy Spirit as “a river of water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev. 22:1; *cf. J. Lebreton, op. cit.*, I, p. 538).

3) The Holy Spirit is especially attributed with the work of sanctification: in the discourse at the Last Supper (Jn 14–16), Jesus spoke to His Apostles of the Holy Spirit, who was to remain perpetually with them and bring to completion the work of spiritual renewal which He had begun, an office which, by special titles, belongs to the Holy Spirit, namely, the bestowal of grace: “Caritas Dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris per Spiritum Sanctum, qui datus est nobis” (Rom 5:5), and with it the gift of divine sonship (Rom 8:15–16). But together with these gifts, the Holy Spirit Himself is given as the preeminent gift, who dwells within us: “An nescitis quia membra vestra templa sunt Spiritus Sancti, qui in vobis est, quem habetis a Deo?” (1 Cor 6:19; cf. Rom 8:11; 2 Cor 6:16). This sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit does not pertain solely to individual believers, but also to the life of the Church in particular, through sacramental graces, beginning with Baptism (Jn 3:5), as Leo XIII teaches in his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, adopting the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas: “As the heart exercises a hidden influence, so is the Holy Spirit compared to the heart, which invisibly unites and vivifies the Church” (Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 8, a. 1 ad 3).

II. THE DOCTRINE OF THE FATHERS AND OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL MAGISTERIUM

St. Irenaeus reflects the doctrine of the earliest Christian writers when he affirms: “The Church... received from the Apostles and their disciples that faith which is in one God the Father almighty... and in one Jesus Christ the Son of God... and in the Holy Spirit, who was proclaimed through the prophets” (Adversus Haereses, I, 10, 1; PG 7, 549). Indeed, St. Clement of Rome, the Didache, Aristides, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp, St. Justin, St. Theophilus of Antioch, all assert the divinity of the Holy Spirit, referring to the baptismal formula and symbol, as do, for example, Origen (De principiis, I, 3, 2: PG 11, 147) and Tertullian (De Baptismo, 5: PL 1, 1314), who finds in it a refutation of the first error against the divinity of the Holy Spirit, namely, Sabellian monarchianism (Adversus Praxean, 2, 30–31: PL 2, 157, 196). The peaceful possession in which the faith in the Holy Spirit was held is evident from the brief phrase of the Apostles’ Creed: “Et in Spiritum Sanctum Paraclitum”; as well as from the formula of the Nicene Creed: “Credimus... et in Spiritum Sanctum.” The Constantinopolitan Creed, however, adds the words: “Credimus... et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex Patre procedit, cum Patre et Filio adorandus et glorificandus, qui locutus est per prophetas,” a more complete formula which emphasizes the equality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, responding to the controversies of the second half of the 4th century against the adversaries of the divinity of the Holy Spirit and His consubstantiality with the other two Persons of the Holy Trinity. With the increasing influence of philosophy upon Christian thought, there developed, chiefly in Alexandria, a tendency toward subordinationism, which first crystallized in the error of the Arians concerning the Word, and later, after the triumph of orthodoxy at Nicaea, among the Pneumatomachians led by Eunomius and Macedonius, so called precisely because they fought against the divine consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit. Against them the Fathers wrote their works on the Holy Spirit, among which stand out the letters of St. Athanasius to Serapion (Epistulae ad Serapionem, I, III, IV: PG 26, 525–608, 624–76), the treatises of St. Basil (Contra Eunomium: PG 29, 653–70; Liber de Spiritu Sancto: PG 32, 67–218) and those of his brother St. Gregory of Nyssa (De Spiritu Sancto adversus pneumatomachos macedonianos: PG 45, 1301–34; Contra Eunomium: PG 45, 243–1122), and of Didymus the Blind (De Spiritu Sancto).

Eunomius sought to support his heresy with the traditional formula on the procession of the Holy Spirit “from the Father through the Son,” considering the Holy Spirit to be created by the Son. This impelled the defenders of orthodoxy to place the question of procession in the foreground, for which they employed various expressions, yet all agreeing in substance, namely, in attributing the origin of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. The ancient Antiochene writers and later the Eastern Syrians were content with the evangelical words: “Ex Patre procedit,” which the Symbol of Theodore of Mopsuestia interpreted exclusively, as did also the Nestorians, for example, Babai the Great (Liber de Unione, in Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 61, pp. 25–26). The Monophysite Syrians completed the evangelical formula by adding: “Ex Patre procedit et ex Filio accipit,” as is read in Philoxenus of Mabbug (De Trinitate, in Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, 2nd ser., 27, p. 174).

But the Fathers, both Greek and Latin, had already sought other formulas to express in a more precise manner the evangelical doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit. The oldest is: “From the Father through the Son”; in the West it is already used by Tertullian (Adversus Praxean, 4, 8: PL 2, 159, 163) and remains until St. Hilary of Poitiers (De Trinitate, XII, 57: PL 10, 470); in the East it is found in Origen (Commentary on John, II: PG 14, 132), in the Cappadocians (St. Basil, Liber de Spiritu Sancto, 43, 45: PG 32, 148, 149), and in St. Gregory Nazianzen (Carmina: PG 37, 632).

Moreover, they used for both Persons the verb “proceed,” corresponding to the Greek ἐκπροσέσομαι, which the Byzantines, except for St. John Damascene, employed only in speaking of the procession from the Father. This explains the astonishment aroused in Constantinople by the Greek version of the letter of St. Martin, in which they found the phrase: ἐκ τοῦ Πατρός καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ ἐκπροσέσομαι (Epistola ad Marinum: PG 91, 136), and why later Pope Zachary, in translating into Greek the Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great, where the author has: “Spiritus a Patre semper procedat et a Filio” (Dialogues, II. 38: PL 66, 204), wrote: ἐκ τοῦ Πατρός προσεύχεται καὶ ἐν τῷ Υἱῷ διαμένεται (cf. PG 102, 369). It is not a merely verbal question. To preserve the Father’s property even in the active spiration which is common to Him and the Son, the Byzantines increasingly accustomed themselves, deviating from the Alexandrian Fathers, to reserve the notion of cause = αἰτία to the Father alone, without determining the reason for the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, which Leontius of Byzantium termed διαπροσέχεσθαι εἰς as a “transvector” of the Holy Spirit (Adversus Nestorianos, II. 20: PG 86, 1485). Leontius, moreover, has many texts in favor of the correct doctrine on the procession of the Holy Spirit, collected by M. Jugie (v. processione, cit. in bibl., pp. 173–75). On the other hand, the Latins soon began in practice to forget the declaration of St. Augustine: “Ex Patre principaliter” (De Trinitate, XV: PL 42, 1081) and became rigid on the “Ex Patre Filioque,” to the point of regarding any other formula as false, not excluding the Greek: “Ex Patre per Filium,” against which the Libri Carolini inveigh ([V. ]PL 98, 117 ff.).

Photius, during his rebellion against Rome, widened the breach. In his encyclical of 867, and later in the Mystagogia, he attacked the Latin formula in the spirit of the Carolingians, not, however, to vindicate the “Per Filium,” which his uncle St. Tarasius had inserted in his profession of faith at the Second Council of Nicaea, a formula which Photius did not even mention, but to defend the formula: “from the Father alone,” thus carrying to its ultimate conclusions the false opinion which we have seen emerging among the Greeks.

In the Greek-Latin controversy over the procession of the Holy Spirit, which has lasted down to our own day, countless writers have taken part (cf. Jugie, Theol. dogm. cit. in bibl.); it is sufficient to mention the different forms the controversy has taken through the centuries. Photius gave it a dialectical tone: he multiplied endlessly the arguments of reason, summarized in the syllogisms of his disciple Nicetas of Byzantium, to highlight the absurd logical consequences of the Latin formula, namely the duality of principle and spiration and the confusion between the divine Persons; instead, he completely neglected the texts of the Holy Fathers. When, at the end of the 11th century, under Alexios I Komnenos, positive and patristic theology triumphed in Byzantium, the Fathers took first place in the discussion with the Latins, not without advantage. Indeed, the authors paid close attention to the formula: “from the Father through the Son,” which cannot be interpreted exclusively of temporal mission but also refers to the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit, chiefly in the classic text of John of Damascus: “The Spirit who proceeds from the Father through the Son” (De Fide orthodoxa, I, 12 bis: PG 94, 849). Some, such as Nicephorus Blemmydes and John Beccus, recognized in these words the Catholic doctrine; others were forced to concede to the Son a certain share in active spiration, while excluding the Catholic dogma. Thus did the patriarchs of Constantinople George of Cyprus in the 13th century and Gennadius II (George Scholarios) in the 15th; Adam Zorinkavius in the 18th century; and in the second half of the 19th century, Yanishev, Bolotov, and the other supporters of the Bonn conferences (1874–75). Finally, today the controversy, without entirely abandoning dialectical and patristic arguments, prefers above all Sacred Scripture, which was undoubtedly the main theme of the ecumenical conversations held at Le Saulchoir in January 1950 on the Filioque (Le « Filioque », in Russie et chrétiené, 4th series, 2 [1950], pp. 123–244).

At the same time, in parallel but in the opposite direction, the Latin response developed. At first our authors took refuge behind biblical and patristic arguments, where victory was certain and easy, without venturing too far into the adversary’s field of dialectics. Such was the method used by the monk of Corbie, Ratramnus (v.), in his reply to Photius, and later by our controversialists, until St. Anselm devised the Latin system of the procession of the Holy Spirit, rapidly brought to completion by the scholastics of the 13th century. As at the Council of Bari Anselmian dialectics triumphed in Magna Graecia, so too at Constantinople during the 13th–14th centuries the arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas engaged the subtle intellect of the Byzantines (v. M. Candal, Nilus Cabasilas et theologia s. Thomae de processione Spiritus Sancti [Studi e testi, no. 116], Vatican City 1945). The doctrine of Aquinas, scattered through his works and carefully compiled in his opuscule Contra errores Graecorum, paved the way for the solemn definitions of 1274 at Lyons and of 1439 at Florence (Denz-U, 460, 691) on the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son as from a single principle and by a single spiration, with the addition of the substantial identity between the Greek formula per Filium and the Latin formula ex Patre Filioque.

IV. THEOLOGICAL SPECULATION

From St. Anselm onward there began in the West the so-called “Latin concept,” around which there developed an entire system no less solid than complex on the august mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Within this framework is situated the theological speculation on the Holy Spirit (v. TRINITY, s. MA).

Among the problems that our authors propose regarding the Holy Spirit, the central and most important concerns the most profound elucidation of the nature of procession. The Greek Fathers spoke at length of the generation of the Word but stopped short before the procession of the Holy Spirit, contenting themselves with saying that it is ineffable (St. Basil, Liber de Spiritu Sancto, 18, 46; PG 32, 151). Even St. Augustine confined himself to a few timid hints at the end of his great Trinitarian treatise (De Trinitate, XV, 17, 19; PL 42, 1080, 1086). The scholastics, however, expanded on the procession by way of will and love, and the intimate constitution of the single principle “that and from which” of the Holy Spirit, raising and resolving a multitude of secondary questions (cf. J. Slypij, De principio spirationis in S.ma Trinitate, Lviv 1926), which abound in the books of the older theologians. Modern authors are particularly concerned with the relations of the Holy Spirit to the faithful, examining the very nature of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the souls of the faithful, which Pius XII rightly calls an “inscrutable mystery” (encycl. Mystici Corporis: AAS, 35 [1943], p. 231), and the intimate relations between the Holy Spirit and the Church, which the Holy Spirit sanctifies, in which He dwells as a divine guest, indeed is its soul (cf. S. Tromp, De Spiritu Sancto anima Corporis Mystici, Rome 1932; Ch. Journet, L'Eglise du Verbe incarné, II, Paris 1950, pp. 472–574).

V. ICONOGRAPHY

Iconographic representations of the Holy Spirit first developed in the complex depiction of the Most Holy Trinity, then in those of the Baptism, the Annunciation, and Pentecost.

Since the 10th century, it was sometimes customary to depict the Most Holy Trinity under the human forms of three identical male persons. This practice lasted until the 16th century. An example may be cited: a Coronation of the Virgin, painted by Hans Holbein the Elder (15th century), in the Museum of Augsburg. However, depictions of the Holy Spirit in human bodily form were not regular, and were definitively prohibited by the Church with the constitution of Benedict XIV of 1 October 1745. As regular depictions, those symbolic ones are recognized, where the Holy Spirit is depicted with the symbol of the dove.

It should be noted that, alongside depictions of the Most Holy Trinity under the form of three identical persons, there were others of a different iconographic concept, namely those where only the Eternal Father and Christ have human bodily forms, while the Holy Spirit is represented with the symbol of the dove. Thus did Raphael depict the Most Holy Trinity in a fresco in S. Severo at Perugia (1504) and in the Disputation of the Most Holy Sacrament. The depiction of the Holy Spirit in the second of the Vatican Rooms (1509) in the form of a dove has its origins in the iconography of the Baptism of Christ, because the Gospel (Jn 1:32) specifies the participation of the Holy Spirit in that scene under the form of a dove descending from heaven and hovering over the head of Jesus. And this from the very origins of Christian art (fresco in the catacomb of S. Callisto: V. ill. vol. II, col. 1010). And by analogy, the presence of the Holy Spirit was also indicated in depictions of the Annunciation under the symbolic form of the dove, ever since