54 REV. CHANCELLOR LIAS, M.A., ON 



Divine indwelling is connected in the Christian scheme 

 Avith the person, the work, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. 

 Into such questions it is not, therefore, my purpose 

 to enter. I confine myself to the fact, which no careful 

 reader of the sacred records will dispute, that beneath and 

 around all the facts of the Christian scheme lies the great 

 fact that God is Breath, and that the subtle pervading 

 influence emanatiug from Him is the ultimate source of our 

 salvation from the evil influences which surround us. 



The Greek philosophic divines discerned this truth, albeit 

 not too clearly. As has just been said, they were misled by 

 importing the ideas of Greek philosophy into the Christian 

 scheme. The leading principle of that philosophy was the 

 antagonism of spirit or mind to matter. Another misappre- 

 hension of theirs was the confusion of mind with spirit. 

 In Greek philosophy these two things are identical. In 

 Judaism and Christianity they are altogether distinct. The 

 one is a direct emanation from on high, altogether moral 

 and elevating in its character ; the other is the organ of 

 the soul which draws conclusions from premisses, and by 

 analogies and logical processes endeavours to arrive at the 

 truth. Thus Origen, in his De Principiis, misses the true 

 drift of Scripture teaching by endeavouring to show that 

 Spirit is independent of body. He describes it as '^^ simplex 

 Intel lectualis natura " (it is a sad pity that Ave have here the 

 less definite Latin in the place of the original Greek). He 

 says that the Holy Spirit is " intellectual existence " {suhsis- 

 tentia), and speaks of the Divine nature as " iiaiura ilia 

 simplex et tota mens."* Yet in his Comineiiiar}j on St. John 

 he takes a more scriptural view of the facts, and speaks of 

 God as being Spirit because He breathes into us the breath 

 of a Divine life, higher than Ave haA^e by nature.f His 

 instructor, Clement of Alexandria, has a noble passage which 

 looks the same Avay. " The bare volition of God," he says, 

 " was the creation of the universe. His mere Avilling was 

 followed by the springing into being of that Avhich He 

 Avilled."$ In another passage he refuses to regard God as a 



the Divine Being, or the Divine Being in the act of self-manifestation 

 "Fi-om His pleroma" (our word "fuhaess" hardly conveys any idea to 

 the mind) " we all have received." In other words each of us has a 

 share of the infinitude of the Divine perfections. 



* De Principiis, I, i, 3-6. 



t Commentary on St. John., iv, 24. 



\ Exhortation to the Heathen., ch. iv. 



