SPIRIT 



SPIRITUALISM 



645 



when the Spirit is to be poured out on all (Joel, 

 ii. 28). 



In the New Testament the Spirit is throughout 

 'the Holy Spirit,' and is now also the 'Spirit of 

 Christ,' the doctrine being conditioned by tne two 

 great facts, the coining of Christ, and His return 

 to the Father. The Synoptists deal almost ex- 

 clusively with the Spirit's influence on Christ Him- 

 self, especially in the miraculous conception of His 

 humanity, and in the descent at His oaptism, by 

 which He is equipped for His office. But the fulfil- 

 ment of the predicted baptism by Christ with the 

 Holy Spirit (Matt. iii. 16, &c. ; cf. Joel, ii. 28) is 

 found in the Acts in the outpouring of the Spirit 

 at Pentecost, and subsequently, by which not only 

 the apostles, but disciples generally, are endowed 

 with 'tongues' and other miraculous gifts of wit- 

 ness-bearing to Christ. All this, and the similar 

 teaching of Peter and the author of the Hebrews, 

 still runs largely on Old Testament lines. But in 

 Paul and John, along with these representations, 

 distinct developments are found. All the epistles 

 of Paul contain his characteristic doctrine of the 

 Spirit as the principle of the new life, in its be- 

 ginning and progress. As such, the Spirit is the 

 witness of sonship, the ground of fellowship with 

 Christ, and of every Christian grace, and the 

 earnest of complete salvation. Those so consecrated 

 form the church, the temple of God, the body of 

 Christ. John touches on Paul's view (John, iii. 

 5). But his special contribution is the farewell 

 words of Christ (xiv. 16, 17, 26 ; xv. 26 ; xvi. 7-14), 

 where the Spirit as the Paraclete (Advocate or 

 Comforter) is first expressly presented as a person, 

 proceeding from the Father, and to be sent after 

 Christ's departure, that as the Spirit of truth He 

 may confirm and complete the revelation already 

 given in the Son. Thus, while the personality is 

 implied in the baptismal formula (Matt, xxviii. 

 19) and the apostolic benediction (2 Cor. xiii. 14, 

 and other passages ), it comes clearly out only 

 in the ' He ' of this latest writer of the New 

 Testament. 



After apostolic times the church's faith in the 

 Spirit was for long simply that of the baptismal 

 formula held without dogmatic definition. Mon- 

 tanism, with its conception of the Spirit as still 

 operating in the manner of the apostolic age, called 

 attention to the subject. But it was as comple- 

 mentary to the doctrine of the person of Christ, the 

 starting-point of the Trinitarian dogma, that the 

 Spirit doctrine was elaborated, at first incidentally, 

 then directly. The reply to the Gnostic emanation 

 theories, and to the Sabellian view of the Trinity 

 as merely modes of God's manifestation, helped to 

 draw out the church's mind on the Spirit's essential 

 deity and personality, though, in distinguishing 

 the persons, Origen and others unduly subordinated 

 the Son, and especially the Spirit. The doctrine 

 was directly handled after the middle of the 4th 

 century, when Arianism, which carried this sub- 

 ordination to the extreme in denying the deity of 

 the Son, was explicitly extended to the Spirit by 

 Eunomius, and diverted thereto bv the Semi-Arians, 

 hence called Pneiimatoniochi. Against their view 

 that the Spirit is only a creature Athanasius and 

 others brought the consnbstantiality of the Spirit 

 into line with that of the Son, and in 381 the Coun- 

 cil of Constantinople added to the Irnre Nicene pro- 

 fession of faith in the Holy Spirit ' the Lord, and 

 giver of life, who prooeedeth from the Father, who 

 with the Father and Son together is worshipped and 

 glorified, who spake by the prophets.' From that 

 day to this almost all the divergencies from the 

 church doctrine of the person have been of the 

 Sahellian order. It remained to define the essential 

 relation of the Spirit to the Son. Western theology 

 tended to emphasise the unity of essence in the 



Trinity, Eastern the Father as the fountain of 

 godhead. Accordingly the doctrine of the Spirit's 

 eternal procession from the Father and the Son 

 (Filioyue), fully developed by Augustine, rooted 

 itself in the West, while in the East the procession 

 was held to be from the Father only, or from the 

 Father through the Son. At or before the Synod of 

 Toledo in 589 the Filioque was inserted in the Creed 

 of Constantinople, and this interpolation became one 

 of the main causes of the schism between East and 

 West. The churches of the Reformation accepted 

 the procession from the Son, which as recently as 

 1875 was discussed at the Bonn conference between 

 Easterns, Anglicans, and Old Catholics. But Pro- 

 testantism was long naturally occupied rather 

 with the Spirit's work. From strong interest in 

 the latter peculiar views have sometimes emerged, 

 not least in the religious movements of the 19th 

 century, which has seen Montanism revived in 

 Irvingitism. 



The dogmatics of the Spirit, in its two divisions 

 of the person and the work, encounters the two 



reat problems of theology. In exhibiting the 

 pint's work in conviction, regeneration, and 

 sanctification, and also in inspiration, the relation 

 of the Spirit's activity to man's falls to be deter- 

 mined. See CALVIN, ARMINIUS, JANSEN, WILL, 

 and INSPIRATION. All progressive dogmatics not 

 rationalistic addresses itself more and more to a 

 thorough-going recognition of both factors. As 

 for the Trinitarian problem, which has come again 

 to the front, a stricter biblical theology has some- 

 what narrowed the basis of dogmatics, so far as 

 the Scripture evidence of the Spirit's personality is 

 concerned. And it is now more clearly recognised 

 that not the ontplogical or essential, but the eco- 

 nomic, Trinity i.e. the Trinity in relation to man 

 is presented in Scripture, even the ' proceedeth ' 

 of John, xv. 26, being understood as temporal, not 

 eternal. All the more does theology feel called 

 upon to rise to the ontological Trinity, and labours, 

 especially in Germany, to deduce it from the idea 

 of the Divine self-consciousness, the Divine love, 

 &c. Philosophy itself takes similar paths. Many, 

 however, who call themselves Trinitarian are so 

 only in a pantheistic or Sabellian sense, and regard 

 the Spirit as merely a divine energy, or, with 

 Schleiermacher, as God operative in the church. 



Literature. (1) Patristic: Athanasius, Epistolce ad 

 Serapiunem. ; Didymus Alex., Basil the Great, and 

 Ambrose, De Spiritu Sancto ; Gregory Nazianzen, 

 Orationet de Theologia, v. ; Augustine, De Trinitate, 

 iv. v. xv., Tractatus in S. Joannem, and Contra 

 Maximinum. (2) Modern : Owen, Pne umatologia ( 1674 ), 

 still, though prolix, the profoundest of the numerous 

 English works ; Heber, Personality and Office of the 

 Comforter ( Bampton Lectures, 1816 ) ; Burton, Testi- 

 monies of the Anti-Nicene Fathers to the Dirinily of the 

 Bain Ghost ( Works, vol. ii. 1831 ) ; Hare, Mission of the 

 Comforter ( 1846 ; 4th ed. 1877 ) ; Kalmis, Die Lehre vom 

 Heiliijen Geiste (Halle, 1847 historical ); Cardinal Man- 

 ning, Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost (1865) and 

 Internal Hfitsion of the Holy Ghost ( 1877 ) ; Swete, Early 

 History of the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Cainb. 1873) 

 and History of the Doctrine of the Procession ( 1876 ) ; 

 Stneaton, Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Cunningham 

 Lectures, 1882). For the different departments of tlie 

 subject reference should also be made to the standard 

 works on biblical theology, the history of doctrines, and 

 dogmatics. See also the articles CHRIST, TRINITY. 



Spirit-fresco. See MURAL DECORATION. 



Spirit-level. See LEVELLING. 



Spiritualism (on the Continent usually termed 

 Spiritism) is the name applied to a great - 

 varied series of abnormal or pre- 

 ter-normal phenomena purport- 

 ing to be for the most part caused 

 by spiritual beings, together with the belief thence 

 arising of the intercommunion of the living and 



and 



Copjrlght 1892, 1897, >iiit 

 1900 In the r . S. l.y J. II. 

 Llpplnootl Compaoj. 



