§ 128. THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRrT. 668
The spirit and tendency of the Nicene doctrine is edifying" it magnifies Christ and Christianity. The Arian error is cold and heartless, degrades Christ to the sphere of the creature^ and endeavors to substitute a heathen deification of the crea« ture for the true worsliip of God. For this reason also the faith in the true and essential deity of Christ has to tliis day an inexhaustible vitality, while the irrational Arian fiction of a half-deity, creating the world and yet himself created, long ago entirely outlived itself.'
§ 128. The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
The decision of Nicjea related primarily only to the essential deity of Christ. But in the wider range of the Arian controversies the deity of the Holy Ghost, which stands and falls with the deity of the Son, was indirectly involved. The church always, indeed, connected faith in the Holy Spirit with faith in the Father and Son, but considered the doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit as only an appendix to the doctrine concerning the Father and the Son, until the logical progress brought it to lay equal emphasis on the deity and personality of the Holy Ghost, and to place him with the Father and Son as an element of equal claim in the Trinity.
The Arians made the Holy Ghost the first creature of the Son, and as subordinate to the Son as the Son to the Father. The Arian trinity was therefore not a trinity immanent and eternal, but arising in time and in descending grades, consisting of the uncreated God and two created demi-gods. The Semi- Arians here, as elsewhere, approached the orthodox doctrine, but rejected the consubstantiality, and asserted the creation, of the Spirit. Thus especially Macp:donius, a moderate Semi- Arian, whom the Arian court-party had driven from the episr^opal chair of Constantinople. From him the adherents
inteipretation of many passages, and goes upon a mechanical and lifeless view of history. Comp. also the observations of W. Cunningham, Historical Theology, voL L p. 269 ff.
* Donier, 1. c. i. p. 883, justly says : " Not only to the mind of our time, b tt to
664 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
of the fjxlse doctrine concerning tlie Holy Spij-it, were, aftei 362, called Macedoxians ; ' also PisTEUMATOMAcm,* and Tkopici.
Even among the adherents of the Mcene orthodoxy an uneertamty still for a time prevailed respecting the doctrine of tlie third person of the Holy Trinity. Some held the Spirit tobe an impersonal power or attribute of God ; others, at farthest, would not go beyond the expressions of the Scriptures. Gregor}'- I^azianzen, who for his own part believed and taught the consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son, so late as 380 made the remarkable concession : * "Of the wise among us, some consider the Holy Ghost an influence, others a creature, others God himself," and again others know not w^iich way to decide, from reverence, as they say, for the Holy Scripture, which declares nothing exact in the case. For this reason they waver between worshipping and not worshipping the Holy Ghost.* and strike a middle course, which is in fact, however, a bad one." Basil, in 370, still carefully avoided calling the Holy Ghost God^ though with the view of gaining the weak. Hilary of Poictiers believed that the Spirit, who searches the deep thing? of God, must be divine, but could find no Scripture passage in which he is called God, and thought that he must be content with the existence of the Holy Ghost, which the Scriptm*e teaches and the heart attests.''
But the church could not possibly satisfy itself with only two in one. The baptismal fornmla and the apostolic henedic-
all sound reason, does it seem absurd, nay, superstitious, that an undcr-god, a finite, created being, should be the creator."
' MaKe5o^'Ial'0l. ' Xlvi-otx-arrofxayoi.
* TooTTiKoi. This name comes probably from their explaining as mere tropes (figurative expressions) or metaphors the passages of Scripture from wliich the orthodox derived the deity of the Holy Spirit. Comp. Athanas., Ad Scrap. Ep. i. c. 2 (torn. i. Pars ii. p, 649).
* Orat. xxxi. De Spiritu sancto. cap. 5 (Op. torn. i. p. 559, and in Thilo's Bib'iothcca P. Gr. dogm. vol. ii. p. 503).
' T»i' Ko^' T/aa5 (ro(pit)V oi fxif ivipynav rovro [rb Ti/fDyua S7Jo»'] vniKafioV) d 5i rrlfffia^ 01 Se &e6v.
* OuTt aifiovniv, otjrt arifta^ouiri. ' De trinitate. ii, 29 ; and xii. 56.