HOLY SPIRIT. - Name of the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity. Catholic doctrine on the Holy Spirit is summarized in the encyclical of Leo XIII Divinum illud munus (8 May 1895), completed, as regards the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit, by the encyclical Mystici Corporis of Pius XII (29 June 1943).
I. THE REVELATION
In the Old Testament there are numerous texts that seem to refer to the Holy Spirit (Spirit of Yahweh, Spirit of God): for example, in Gen. 1:2; 41:38; Ex. 31:3; Num. 27:18, and more often in the prophetic books; Isaiah announces the outpouring of the Spirit upon the Messiah (Is. 41:1; 42:1 ff.; principally 11:1-2, a text that became classic for the enumeration of the gifts of the Holy Spirit) and upon all his people (Is. 32:15; 44 ff.), as later expressed in Ez. 37:12 and Joel 2:28-29. The value of these testimonies is assessed in different ways. Some, such as A. Palmieri (DThC, V [1913], col. 683), find in them a clear revelation of the Holy Spirit, though reserved to a few. It is generally held that the texts of the Old Testament, considered in themselves, are a mere foreshadowing of the Christian mystery: the inspired authors themselves could not know the full meaning of the words inspired in them by God, a meaning that emerges only in the light of the New Testament. Indeed, on the day of Pentecost St. Peter cited the text of Joel (Acts 2:17), and many Fathers and writers of the first five centuries gladly relied on the authority of the Old Testament (J. Lebreton, Histoire du dogme de la Trinité, I, 6th ed., Paris 1927, pp. 552-58). But they too had, to complete the ancient texts, those of the New Testament, where the Holy Spirit is explicitly spoken of, so that St. Thomas could rightly attribute its revelation to the teaching of Jesus Christ (Sum. Theol., 2a-2ae, q. 174, a. 6).
In the New Testament, from the Synoptics to the Gospel of St. John, passing through 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 recurs often: πνεῦμα = Spirit, sometimes used in a broad and generic sense, at other times determined by the article or by the appellations that follow to designate concretely the Holy Spirit: the Spirit (τὸ πνεῦμα), Holy Spirit (τὸ ἄγιον 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, together with that of Holy Spirit, remain as the proper names par excellence of the third Person (cf. St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 36, a. 1; q. 37, a. 1; q. 38, aa. 1 and 2).
The New Testament offers a broad doctrine on the Holy Spirit, which can be reduced to the following points: 1) divinity of the Holy Spirit. Apart from the so-called "Comma Johanneum" (I Jn. 5:7), on whose scope discussion remains open (cf. T. Ayuso, Nuevo estudio sobre el « Comma Johanneum », in Biblica, 28 [1947], pp. 83-112, 216-35), one must consult the great Trinitarian texts, where the Holy Spirit is placed on the same line as the Father and the Son and is distinguished from them. Such are the command given to the Apostles: "Docete omnes gentes, baptizantes eos in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti" (Mt. 28:19); the theophany at the Jordan: "Et descendit Spiritus Sanctus corporali specie sicut columba in ipsum et vox de caelo facta est: Tu es filius meus dilectus, in te complacui mihi" (Lk. 3:22; cf. Mt. 3:16-17; Mk. 1:10-11); the distribution of graces: "Divisiones vero Gratiarum sunt, idem autem Spiritus, et divisiones ministrationum sunt idem autem Dominus, et divisiones operationum sunt, idem vero Deus, qui operatur omnia in omnibus" (I Cor. 12:4-6); as well as the formula of blessing with which St. Paul takes leave of the faithful of Corinth: "Gratia Domini nostri Jesu Christi, et charitas Dei, et communicatio Sancti Spiritus sit cum omnibus vobis. Amen" (II Cor. 13:13). To these texts are to be added many others, principally 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" (I Cor. 2:12) precisely because he eternally proceeds from the Father, as is expressly read in the discourse of the Last Supper: "Cum autem venerit Paraclitus, quem ego mittam vobis a Patre, Spiritum veritatis qui a Patre procedit" (Jn. 15:26).
Regarding the procession from the Son, there is no lack of some among Catholics who too readily assert that it is found formally, but only virtually, in the New Testament. Thus in ancient times the archbishop of Milan Peter the Grossolano in his Constantinopolitan dispute of 1113 (PL 162, 915 D) and recently A.-M. Dubarle (in Russia 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. But already St. Hilary of Poitiers (De Trinitate, VIII, 20: PL 10, 250) wrote regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son in the Gospels: "Non enim in incerto Dominus reliquit." With him many Greek and Latin Fathers find it expressed in the words: "Misit Deus Spiritum Filii sui in corda vestra" (Gal. 4:6); "Si quis autem Spiritum Christi non habet hic non est eius" (Rom. 8:9; cf. Acts 5:9; 16:15; II Cor. 3:17; Phil. 1:19). In the light of these texts St. Basil wondered how Eunomius could refuse to admit the procession "ab utroque": "Quomodo igitur Spiritus causam Unigenito soli attribuat... cum Apostolus modo Christi, modo Dei Spiritum dicat?" (Contra Eunomium, II, 34: PG 29, 652). Among the Latins it is enough to recall St. Augustine: "Nec possumus dicere quod Spiritus Sanctus et a Filio non procedat; neque enim frustra Spiritus et Patris et Filii Spiritus dicitur" (De Trinitate, IV, 29: PL 42, 908; cf. Tract. in Joannem, 99: PL 35, 1888 f.). Clearer and more conclusive, and therefore more frequently recalled by those who set forth the New Testament doctrine on the procession, are the words of Jesus Christ: "Ille me clarificavit, quia de meo accipiet et annunciabit vobis. Omnia quaecumque habet Pater, mea sunt, propterea dixi: quia de meo accipiet et annuntiabat vobis" (Jn. 16:14-15; the Greek, at verse 15, uses the present: ἐκ τοῦ ὑμᾶς λαμβέναι). St. Hilary of Poitiers, to demonstrate that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, has recourse to this testimony (De Trinitate, VIII, 20: PL 10, 251-52), which became the classic argument during the anti-Photian controversy. One also customarily cites the texts 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 origin, of the Person sent upon the one who sends him. A compendium of the whole doctrine of the New Testament on the procession of the Holy Spirit is the phrase of the Apocalypse, which shows the Holy Spirit as a "fluvium aquae vivæ, splendidum tamquam crystallum, procedentem de throno Dei et Agno" (Apoc. 22:1; cf. J. Lebreton, op. cit., I, p. 538).
3) To the Holy Spirit is especially attributed the work of sanctification: in the discourse of 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 begun by him, which by special title belongs to the Holy Spirit, bearer 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 filiation (Rom. 15:16). But together with the gifts, the Holy Spirit himself is also given to us, as the gift par excellence, who dwells within us: "An nescitis quia membra vestra templa sunt Spiritus Sancti, qui in vobis est, quem habetis a Deo?" (I Cor. 6:19; cf. Rom. 8:11; II Cor. 6:16). This sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit concerns not only individual believers, but also the life of the Church in particular, through sacramental graces, beginning from Baptism (John 3:7), as Leo XIII teaches in the encyclical on the Holy Spirit, making his own the thought of St. Thomas: "As the heart exercises a hidden influence, so the Holy Spirit is compared to the heart, which invisibly unites and vivifies the Church" (Sum. Theol., 3a, q. 8, a. 1 ad 3).
II. THE DOCTRINE OF THE FATHERS AND OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL MAGISTERIUM
St. Irenaeus reflects the doctrine of the first Christian writers when he affirms: « Ecclesia... ab Apostolis et discipulis eorum accepit eam fidem, quae est in unum Deum Patrem omnipotentem... et in unum Jesum Christum Filium Dei... et in Spiritum Sanctum, qui per prophetas praedicavit » (Adv. Haer., I, 10, 1: PG 7, 549). In fact St. Clement of Rome, the Didache, Aristides, St. Ignatius Martyr, St. Polycarp, St. Justin, St. Theophilus of Antioch, assert the divinity of the Holy Spirit, referring to the formula and the symbol of Baptism, 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 the refutation of the first error against the divinity of the Holy Spirit, which was Sabellian monarchianism (Adv. Praxeam, 2, 30-31: PL 2, 157, 196). The peaceful possession in which the faith in the Holy Spirit stood appears 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, on the other hand, uses the phrases: « Credimus... et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem ex Patre procedentem, cum Patre et Filio adorandum et glorificandum, qui locutus est per prophetas », a more complete formula, which emphasizes the equality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and with the Son, responding to the polemics sustained in the second half of the 4th century against the adversaries of the divinity of the Holy Spirit and of his consubstantiality with the other two persons of the Most Holy Trinity. With the progress of the influence of philosophy on Christian thought there had developed, principally at Alexandria, the subordinationist tendency, crystallized first in the error of the Arians concerning the Word, then, after the triumph of orthodoxy at Nicaea, among the semi-Arians led by Eunomius and Macedonius, known under the name of pneumatomachi, 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 of Alexandria (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 », holding the Holy Spirit to be created by the Son. This drove the defenders of orthodoxy to bring to the fore the question of the procession, for which they used different expressions, yet all concordant in substance, that is, in attributing to the Father and to the Son the origin of the Holy Spirit. The Greek Antiochene writers and later the Eastern Syrians contented themselves with the Gospel words: Ex Patre procedit, which the Symbol of Theodore of Mopsuestia interpreted in an exclusive sense, as did also the Nestorians, for example Babai the Great (Liber de Unione, in Corpus Script. Christ. Orient., 61, pp. 25, 26). The Syrian Monophysites completed the Gospel formula by adding: Ex Patre procedit et ex Filio accipit, as is read in Philoxenus of Mabbug (De Trinitate, in Corp. Script. Christ. Orient., 2nd series, 27, p. 174).
But the Fathers, both Greek and Latin, had already sought other formulas to express in a more determinate manner the Gospel doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit. The oldest is: « From the Father through the Son »; in the West Tertullian already uses it (Adv. Praxeam, 4, 8: PL 2, 159, 163) and it remains down to St. Hilary of Poitiers (De Trinitate, XII, 57: PL 10, 470); in the East it is found in Origen (Comment. in Io., II: PG 14, 132), in the Cappadocians (St. Basil, Liber de Spiritu Sancto, 43, 45: PG 32, 148, 149; St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Carmina: PG 37, 632;
St. Gregory of Nyssa, Ad Ablabium quod non sint tres dii: PG 45, 133; Contra Eunomium, I, I: PG 45, 4, 16) and in St. Cyril of Alexandria (De adoratione in Spiritu et veritate, I: PG 68, 148). Alongside this formula there is found in the 4th century the other: "From the Father and the Son," which occurs in St. Gregory of Nyssa (De oratione dominica: PG 46, 1109, according to the oldest codices; cf. J. Beccos, Orat. Synodalis, 3-5: PG 141, 289), in St. Epiphanius (Ancoratus, 9: PG 43, 31) and in St. Cyril himself, who considers it identical with the other, more classical one: "Per Filium": "Si quidem est Dei et Patris et Filii, ille qui substantialiter ex utroque, nimirum ex Patre per Filium profluens Spiritus" (loc. cit.: PG 68, 148; cf. De recta fide ad reginas: PG 76, 1408). While the Greeks retained the "Per Filium," St. Augustine made the "Ex Patre et Filio" triumph in the Latin West, which he had employed in his writings (Tract. in Io. 99, 6, 8: PL 35, 1888-89; Contra Maximinum, II, 14: PL 42, 770; De Trinitate, XV, 26-27: PL 42, 1095-96, etc.).
The Symbol of pseudo-Athanasius, composed in the West in the 5th century, gives in summary the whole doctrine by then fixed by the Fathers: "Alia est enim persona Patris, alia Filii, alia et Spiritus Sancti; sed Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti una est divinitas, aequalia gloria, coaeterna maiestas... Pater a nullo est factus, nec creatus, nec genitus; Filius a Patre solo est, non factus nec creatus, sed genitus. Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et Filio, non factus nec creatus nec genitus, sed procedens" (Denz-U, 39).
III. CONTROVERSIES WITH THE BYZANTINES
The first conflict over the procession of the Holy Spirit arose between the faction of Theodore of Mopsuestia and that of St. Cyril of Alexandria. This is in fact what happened in the dispute of the latter with Theodoret of Cyrrhus (Cyril of Alex., Apologeticum contra Theodoretum: PG 76, 422), who defended the formula: "From the Father alone," a formula immediately relegated to the Nestorians alone, until it was revived by Photius in the Byzantine Church. The polemic between Latins and Byzantines in the 9th century became more troublesome. The two expressions: "from the Son," "through the Son," according to St. Cyril and according to his opponent Theodoret, are in reality equivalent; but usage began to differentiate them. In the pseudo-Athanasian Symbol specifically Latin nuances are noticeable, when in designating the two persons who are the principle of the Holy Spirit the same preposition is used: a, whereas the Byzantines increasingly use the preposition ἐξ for the Father, and διὰ for the Son.
Furthermore, it uses for both persons the verb: "to proceed," corresponding to the Greek ἐκπορεύεσθαι, which the Byzantines, with the exception of St. John Damascene, use only when 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 Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεται (Epist. ad Marinum: PG 91, 136), and why later the future pontiff Zachary, in translating into Greek the dialogues of St. Gregory the Great, where the author has: "Spiritus a Patre semper procedat et a Filio" (Dialog., II, 38: PL 66, 204), wrote: ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς προέρχεται καὶ ἐν τῷ Υἱῷ, θνημέναι (cf. PG 102, 369). This is not a purely verbal question. In order to preserve the property of the Father also in the active spiration that is common to him with the Son, the Byzantines became accustomed more and more, departing 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, whom Leontius the Byzantine called διαπορθμιστὴν, that is, "transmitter" of the Holy Spirit (Adversus Nestorianos, II, 20: PG 86, 1485). Moreover, Leontius has many texts in favor of the whole doctrine on the procession of the Holy Spirit collected by M. Jugie (v. De processione, cited in the bibliography, pp. 173-75). On the other hand, the Latins began very soon to forget in practice the declaration of St. Augustine: "Ex Patre principaliter" (De Trinitate, XV: PL 42, 1081) and became rigid about: "Ex Patre Filioque," to the point of regarding any other formula as false, not excluding the Greek one: "Ex Patre per Filium," against which the Libri carolini ([v.] PL 98, 117 ff.) inveigh.
Photius, during his rebellion against Rome, widened the dissension. In his encyclical of 867, and later in the Mystagogia, he attacked the Latin formula according to the mind of the Carolines, not indeed to vindicate the "Per Filium," which his uncle the patriarch St. Tarasius had inserted into his profession of faith at the Second Council of Nicaea — for indeed he does not even mention it — but to defend the formula: "from the Father alone," thus carrying in a single blow to its ultimate consequences the false opinion that had been seen surfacing among the Greeks.
In the Greek-Latin polemic over the procession of the Holy Spirit, which lasts to our own day, countless writers have taken part (cf. Jugie, Theol. dogm. cited in the bibliography); it is enough to mention the different forms that the controversy takes 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, in order to highlight the absurd logical consequences of the Latin formula, namely the duplicity of principle and of spiration and the confusion between the divine Persons; instead he totally neglected the texts of the Holy Fathers. When, at the end of the 11th century, under Alexius I Comnenus, 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 much attention to the formula: "from the Father through the Son," which cannot be interpreted exclusively of the temporal mission, but refers also to the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit, principally in the classic text of the Damascene: "The Spirit who through the Son proceeds from the Father" (De Fide orthodoxa, I, 12 bis: PG 94, 849). Some, like Nicephorus Blemmydes and John Beccus, recognized in these words the Catholic doctrine; others found themselves compelled to concede to the Son a certain part in the active spiration, while still excluding the Catholic dogma. Thus did the patriarchs of Constantinople George Cyprius in the 13th century and Gennadius II (George Scholarios) in the 15th century; Adam Zoirnikavio in the 18th century; and in the second half of the 19th century Janišev, Bolotov and the other supporters of the Conferences of Bonn (1874-75). Finally, today the controversy, without entirely abandoning the dialectical and patristic arguments, adheres by preference to Holy Scripture, which is undoubtedly the principal theme of the interconfessional conversations held at Le Saulchoir, in Jan. 1950, concerning the Filioque (Le « Filioque », in Russie et chrétienté, 4th series, 2 [1950], pp. 123-244).
At the same time, at an equal pace but in the opposite direction, the response of the Latins developed. At the beginning our authors entrenched themselves 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 after him 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 the Anselmian dialectic won the triumph in Magna Graecia, so too in 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, n. 116], Città del Vaticano 1945). The doctrine of the Aquinate, scattered throughout his works, carefully compiled in his opuscule Contra errores Graecorum, opened the way to the solemn definitions of 1274 at Lyon 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 virtue of 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
Beginning with St. Anselm, the so-called "Latin concept" arose in the West, around which an entire system, no less solid than complex, developed concerning the august mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Theological speculation on the Holy Spirit (v. TRINITÀ, S.MA) is framed within it.
Among the problems that our authors propose concerning the Holy Spirit, the central and most important one concerns the more profound declaration about the nature of the procession. The Greek Fathers spoke at length about the generation of the Word, but they 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). St. Augustine himself limited 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, on the other hand, expanded in illustrating the procession by way of will and love, and the intimate constitution of the single principle quad and quo of the Holy Spirit, raising and resolving a multitude of secondary questions (cf. J. Slypi, De principio spirationis in S.ma Trinitate, Lwów 1926), which abound in the books of the older theologians. The moderns deal particularly 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" (encyclical 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 resides 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).
Bibliography9 works
Jugie, De Processione Spiritus S. ex fontibus Revelat. et sec. Orient. dissidentes, in Lateranum, new series, 2 (1946, nos. 3-4); P. Galtier, Le S. Esprit en nous d'après les Pères grecs, Rome 1946; id., L'habitation en nous des Trois Personnes, ibid. 1950; A. Segovia, Equivalencia de fórmulas en las sistematizaciones trinitarias griega y latina, in Estud. eclesiast., 21 (1947), pp. 435-78; I. Trütsch, SS. Trinitatis inhabitatio apud theol. recentiores, Trent 1949. See the entries: CORPO MISTICO; DONI DELLO SPIRITO SANTO; FILIOQUE; FOZIO; GIOVANNI DAMASCENO; INABITAZIONE DI DIO NELL'LOOMO; PROCESSIONE.
Maurizio Gordillo
V. ICONOGRAPHY
The iconographic depictions of the Holy Spirit developed first of all within the complex depiction of the Most Holy Trinity, then in those of the Baptism, the Annunciation and Pentecost.
From as early as 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. As an example one may cite a Coronation of the Virgin, painted by Hans Holbein the Elder (15th century), in the Museum of Augsburg. The depictions of the Holy Spirit under the human bodily form are not, however, regular, and were definitively forbidden by the Church with the constitution of Benedict XIV of 1 October 1745. As regular depictions those symbolic ones are recognized, in which the Holy Spirit is depicted with the symbol of the dove. It is recalled that, alongside the depictions of the Most Holy Trinity under the form of three identical persons, others of a different iconographic conception were also noted, namely those in which only the Eternal Father and Christ have human bodily forms, while the Holy Spirit is represented with the symbol of the dove; thus Raphael depicted the Most Holy Trinity in a fresco in S. Severo in 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) under the form of a dove draws its origins from 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 descended from Heaven and hovering over the head of Jesus. And this from the very origins of Christian art (fresco in the cemetery of St. Callixtus: v. ill. vol. II, col. 1010). And likewise under the symbolic form of the dove the presence of the Holy Spirit was indicated by analogy in the depictions of the Annunciation, that is, from the time when, in the late Middle Ages, this divine presence was indicated in the iconographic illustrations of the sacred Mystery. The figuration of the Holy Spirit under this symbolic form must be considered as the only admissible one also for the images of the Adoration of the Holy Spirit. A painting attributed to Domenico Tintoretto, in the Gallery in Rome, gives an excellent image of this adoration. The Holy Spirit is depicted not under the form of a dove, but under that of fiery tongues only when it is a matter of illustrating the scene of its descent at Pentecost upon the Virgin and the Apostles. This practice was already established in medieval art; one sees it, for example, in a miniature of the Carolingian Bible of St. Paul, and it was maintained by the art of the Renaissance and of the Baroque age.
However, it should be noted that even in some depictions of Pentecost the symbolic form of the dove of the Holy Spirit is found, for example, in a miniature of the Syriac Evangelary of the monk Rabbula (Florence, Bibl. Laurenziana) of the year 586.