Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« That the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit unto our sanctification, and the inhabitation in the sanctified, and thence the participation in the divine nature, is taught in the Scriptures and declared most distinctly by the holy Fathers, so that the formal participation in the divine nature is to be understood as an assimilation through infused grace, as an effect of the indwelling Holy Spirit, whereas the relative participation is a union with the divine person Himself who dwells in us ».

We suppose as certain that sanctification is wrought through the supernatural gifts of created grace, which are something ontological inhering in the soul, ennobling it in itself and in all its faculties, and raising it to a supernatural manner of its own being¹ and to a supernatural state and power of acting, so that the rational creature through these gifts bears a likeness of the divine nature and life above all exigencies and powers of all substantial creatures, namely of the nature both angelic and human. Of these things this is not now the place to speak, but we take them from the Treatise on Justification (see Suarez, de Gratia l. VI. VII.; Ripalda, de Ente supernatur. l. VI. disp. 132. and the others). But that by virtue of sanctifying grace the Holy Spirit Himself is communicated and conjoined in a special manner with the just is likewise beyond doubt from the doctrine of the Scriptures, from the catholic understanding of the holy Fathers, and the consensus of the theologians.

I. The Scripture teaches expressly: 1.° that the person of the Holy Spirit Himself is communicated to us. For on the one hand it exhibits a Paraclete distinct from the Father and the Son, who is given to us that He may remain in us; on the other hand it shows the internal communication of the Holy Spirit as cause and the communication of the gifts of grace as effect, conjoined indeed but distinct. « And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever.... you shall know Him, because He will abide with you and will be in you (παρ' ὑμῖν μένει καὶ ἐν ὑμῖν ἔσται) » Io. XIV. 16. « The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to us » (ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐκκέχυται ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν διὰ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου τοῦ δοθέντος ἡμῖν) Rom. V. 5. Although therefore spirit often signifies the habitual disposition of the soul, and good spirit the supernatural disposition through the gifts of grace, nevertheless in these places it evidently signifies the person Himself who is the author of graces, communicated to us. Moreover, in all the places to be adduced let it be kept before the eyes, what has been shown elsewhere, that the Spirit with the epithets Holy Spirit, Spirit of the Father, Spirit of the Son, etc. is a name not absolute but personal and proper to the third person in the Trinity (above p. 11. 365).

2°. This mission into our hearts and communication is of such a kind that the divine person makes His abode in us and dwells in us as lover and beloved in the beloved and the lover, as protector and guardian and bestower of the gifts of grace, as the Spirit of our adoption unto sons of God, as cause and fountain of supernatural life, as seal and pledge of the promised full and beatific possession of God, as God in a rational temple consecrated to Himself according to the whole nature of man. « But he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him ». The manner of this love and manifestation Christ the Lord, questioned by the Apostles, declares thus: « My Father will love him, and We will come to him and will make our abode with him » (καὶ μονὴν παρ' αὐτῷ ποιησόμεθα) Io. XIV. 21. sqq.; 1. Io. III. 24. (cf. above p. 12. see Athanas. ad Serap. I. n. 31.; Cyrill. in Io. p. 830. 831). « But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you (οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν).... But if the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you.... He will quicken also your mortal bodies, because of His Spirit that dwells in you (διὰ τοῦ ἐνοικοῦντος αὐτοῦ Πνεύματος ἐν ὑμῖν).... For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.... you have received the Spirit of adoption of sons, in which we cry: Abba (Father); for the Spirit Himself gives testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God.... Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmity; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit Himself asks for us with unspeakable groanings » Rom. VIII. 9-27. « And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father » Gal. IV. 6. « In whom (Christ) believing, you were signed with the holy Spirit of promise (ἐσφραγίσθητε τῷ Πνεύματι τῆς ἐπαγγελίας τῷ Ἁγίῳ), who is the pledge (ἀρραβών)² of our inheritance » Eph. I. 13. 14.; 2. Cor. I. 22.; V. 5. « Know you not that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God (τοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν Ἁγίου Πνεύματος, ὃ ἔχετε ἀπὸ Θεοῦ), and you are not your own? » 1. Cor. VI. 19. « You are the temple of the living God, as God says: Because I will dwell in them and will walk among them (ὅτι ἐνοικήσω ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ ἐμπεριπατήσω), and I will be their God and they shall be My people.... and I will be a Father to you and you shall be to Me sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty » 2. Cor. VII. 16. sq.; 1. Cor. III. 16. 17.

3°. Now if these things are so, if the Holy Spirit communicated to us is distinguished from the gifts of grace as author from effect, and if He is the divine person Himself in Himself, who in the manner which the Scriptures themselves declare is given and sent to us and dwells in us, from these very things our participation (κοινωνία) in the divine nature is understood, which the Scriptures also expressly declare: « by whom (δι' ὧν) He has given us most great and precious promises, that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature » (ἵνα διὰ τούτων γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως) 2. Pet. I. 4. The communication and participation, κοινωνία, μετοχή, μέθεξις, as far as the present matter is concerned, is to be considered in a threefold way. a) Communication is said of the intimate union and possession of some thing in the manner in which it can be possessed by its own nature, as is the communication κοινωνία of the body and blood of Christ in the faithful, 1. Cor. X. 16.; in an analogous sense friends, and more closely husband and wife, are called κοινωνοί: « thy partner and the wife of thy covenant » LXX. κοινωνός σου³ καὶ γυνὴ διαθήκης σου Mal. II. 24. Next follows the signification by which b) κοινωνία is called a participation in the goods of another. Every created being is in some sense a participation in the divine being, inasmuch as it is from God as exemplary and efficient cause, or inasmuch as it both has its origin from God by creation and is some adumbration of divine perfection; but, with such natural participation supposed, and indeed the supreme one which is in created spirits, revelation manifests to us a participation above all dignity and exigency of created substances. Such supernatural participation is a perfect assimilation to the divine nature itself through sanctifying grace, which affects the soul and transforms it as a supernatural quality. « The participation in the divine nature » therefore embraces two things: the formal but analogical participation in the divine nature, i.e. the supernatural assimilation to the divine nature⁴, and, with this disposition supposed and thereby as it were the bond, the participation συγγενικήν (Cyrill. dialog. VII. T. V. P. I. p. 643), namely the intimate union with the very substance of the divine nature. « Deification, says Dionysius, is the assimilation and union with God, as far as is possible » ἡ πρὸς Θεὸν ἀφομοίωσις τε καὶ ἕνωσις Hierarch. eccles. c. 1. § 3.; c. 2. § 1. In both these senses, just as we are partakers κοινωνοὶ of the divine nature, so the communication κοινωνία of the Holy Spirit is spoken of, 2. Cor. XIII. 13; and we are called partakers μέτοχοι of the Holy Spirit, Heb. VI. 4.

A clearer declaration of the matter is that, just as the face of Moses sensibly took on splendor from his converse with God, so we through the Holy Spirit are transformed into the image of God, 2. Cor. III. 7. 18.; and that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is, and then our divine filiation, which does not yet appear, shall be made manifest, 1. Io. III. 2. To the same also belongs the sealing and expression of the image of God through the Holy Spirit, which we mentioned a little before. See Athanas. ad Serap. ep. I. n. 23. To these can be added c) the signification that many, namely all the holy, are partakers of the divine nature in the said manner, and are so united among themselves with God and in God, that the principle of unity is God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit dwelling in the faithful as living members of Christ, Io. XVII. 21. 23. See Gregor. Nyss. T. I. p. 849. 850; cf. s. Bonavent. comp. theologicae verit. c. 9.

In all the places of Scripture the inhabitation of the sanctifying Spirit is indeed exhibited as connected with the sanctifying gifts, but as distinct from them, as the supreme summit of the love of God toward His creature. Moreover, the inhabitation and abiding of God, or of the divine person considered distinctly, in His creature does not simply designate the presence of God, but (omnipresence being supposed) always signifies a special relation and union of God with the creature, which union places something real not indeed in God but in the creature (cf. de Incarn. th. XXXIII). Omnipresence, on the hypothesis of an existing creature, follows necessarily from the divine immensity; inhabitation, however, is from free love.

II. With the Scriptures there is now to be compared the explanation of the holy Fathers and the catholic understanding of the truth with which we are dealing. We shall adduce a few things out of many, not so much to prove the matter itself confusedly, as to lay foundations, as hitherto from the testimonies of Scripture so also from the doctrine of the Fathers, for some understanding of this inhabitation and union.

Frequently the holy Fathers teach in the sanctified a participation in the Holy Spirit and a participation in the divine nature. Indeed they expressly distinguish the participation of the divine person Himself, considered as it were terminatively, which is a special union and relation to the divine person, from the formal but analogical participation in the divine nature through the inherent gifts of grace, which flow from the indwelling Spirit into the soul and adorn it, and are both the effect and the binding bond of the same indwelling Spirit⁵. On the text of Paul adduced, 1. Cor. XII. 4: « there are divisions of graces, but the same Spirit » etc., Athanasius comments thus. « The things which the Spirit distributes to each one are given by the Father through the Word; for all things which are the Father's are also the Son's, whence those things which are given by the Son in the Spirit are the Father's gifts. And when the Spirit is in us, the Word giving Him is also in us, and in the Word is the Father, and so that saying comes to pass: We will come, I and the Father, and will make our abode with him, as has been said. For where light is, there also is its splendor (ἀπαύγασμα); and where splendor is, there also is its power and splendid grace (ἡ τούτου ἐνέργεια καὶ χρυσοειδὴς χάρις). Which Paul again teaching wrote in the epistle 2. Cor.: the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the charity of God and the communication of the Holy Spirit be with you all. For grace and the gift which is given in the Trinity is given by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. For just as grace given is from the Father through the Son, so the communication of the gift cannot be made in us except in the Holy Spirit. Made partakers of Him (τούτου γὰρ μετέχοντες), we have the Father's charity and the Son's grace and the Spirit's communication. From these things therefore one power (ἐνέργεια) of the Trinity is shown. For the Apostle does not signify that gifts are given as diverse and divided from the individual persons, but that the gifts are given in the Trinity, and all things are from the one God..... Indeed when the Lord says: We will come, I and the Father, the Spirit comes at the same time, in no other way than as the Son is to dwell in us (συνέρχεται τὸ πνεῦμα οὐκ ἄλλως ἢ ὡς ὁ υἱὸς ἐν ἡμῖν οἰκήσων).... But when the Son is in us, the Father is also present at the same time, the Son saying: I am in the Father and the Father in Me » Athanas. ad Serap. ep. I. n. 30. 31.

Here you have described both the inhabitation of the persons and a certain order of the inhabiting persons (for the participation of the Holy Spirit is proximately said to be in us), of which we shall speak a little later, and, distinctly, grace and the gifts as the effect of one common efficiency of the three persons.

Still more clearly does St. Basil describe the connection of the indwelling Spirit and of infused grace. « The power and nature of the Spirit, of what sort it is, will become more manifest and more open, if we consider how He contains and by His own will moves the saints and the whole rational nature. For He gave Himself to the whole multitude of the heavenly Virtues and to the multitude of the just, and every hypostasis of the just, both the great and the small, both angels and archangels, has been sanctified... And through Him each of the saints is a god; for it was said to them by God: I said, you are gods.... But He who is the cause to the gods that they are gods must needs be the Spirit, divine and from God. For as that which is the cause to burning things that they burn must needs be burning, and that which is the cause to saints that they are saints is necessarily holy; so too He who is the cause to gods that they are gods must needs be God ⁶. Thus indeed so great a good and divine possession is the Spirit (θείου κτήματος ὄντος τοῦ Πνεύματος).... And the life which the Spirit imparts into the hypostasis of another is not separated from Him. But just as the heat of fire is one thing, that which inheres in the fire itself, and another, that which it imparts to water or to another thing of this sort, so too the Spirit both has in Himself life itself (τὴν ζωήν); and those who are partakers of Him live divinely (θεοπρεπῶς), having divine and heavenly life (ζωὴν)..... The Spirit has nothing adventitious in Himself, but has all things sempiternally as the Spirit of God and shining forth from Him (πεφηνώς), having the principle itself as His fountain, and gushing forth from it (πηγάζον). But He Himself is also the fountain of the aforesaid goods (the gifts of grace); yet He, gushing forth from God (πηγάζον), is in Himself subsisting (cf. th. XL.); and the things which flow forth from Him are His efficiencies. This Holy Spirit God poured out upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ; He poured out, He did not create; He bestowed, He did not make; He gave, He did not found » St. Basil. contr. Eunom. l. V. T. I. p. 321. sq. He has similar things elsewhere.

« The union of the Spirit with the soul (οἰκείωσις πρὸς ψυχὴν) does not come about by approaching according to place... This One, shining upon those who have been cleansed from every stain (ἐλλάμπων), renders them spiritual through communion with Himself; and just as bodies that are bright and translucent, when a ray falls upon them, become themselves also resplendent and pour forth another gleam from themselves; so souls which have the Spirit in themselves (πνευματοφόροι) and are enlightened by the Spirit become themselves also spiritual, and emit grace into others (in their own way): hence foreknowledge of future things, comprehension of hidden things, distributions of gifts (ministerial), heavenly conversation, the dance with angels, joy never to be ended, abiding in God, assimilation to God, and that which is the supreme of desirable things, that you become a god (analogically) » on the Holy Spirit c. 9. n. 23. cf. ibid. n. 22. 38.

Indeed Basil compares the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as He is in us and perfects us and renders us spiritual, with a form, although there he regards rather the operations and effects of the Holy Spirit, which truly inhere in us as forms. « Inasmuch as the Holy Spirit has the power of perfecting rational creatures, completing the summit of their perfection (τὴν ἀκρότητα cf. Cyrill. dial. VII. p. 666. τὸ ἀκρότατον τῆς εὐλογίας), He has the account of a form. For he who now lives not according to the flesh, but is led by the Spirit of God and is called a son of God and has been made conformed to the image of the Son of God, is called spiritual. And just as the power of seeing is in a sound eye, so is the efficacy of the Spirit (ἐνέργεια τοῦ Πνεύματος) in a clean soul.... The grace flowing from Him, while the Spirit dwells in the worthy and works His own things there, is rightly said to be in those who are capable of the Spirit.... But where the grace which is from Him can come and again withdraw, it is said to inhere properly and truly » on the Holy Spirit c. 26. n. 61. 63.

St. Cyril speaks in many places of this participation, but he too no less clearly distinguishes a participation συνετικὴν, that is, the union of friendship, by which the divine person Himself is united to us, and a formal but analogical participation of the divine nature through the gift of inherent grace. The Pneumatomachi, denying the divinity of the Holy Spirit, by that very fact denied that the person Himself of the Holy Spirit is communicated to us in such a way that by reason of this union we can be called partakers of the divine nature, i. e., united to God, in that we are united to the Holy Spirit; they denied also that grace and sanctification are from the Spirit as essentially Holy, and so as from a principal cause; but they affirmed that only grace is communicated to us, and communicated by the Holy Spirit as by an external cause and one not inhabiting us, and as by a ministerial cause. Against them Cyril in the whole of dialogue VII and elsewhere by no means denies the communication of grace; but he proves that the person Himself of the Holy Spirit inhabits us, and that through this inhabitation we are συνετικῶς partakers of the divine nature, i. e., united with God Himself, and that our sanctification is from the indwelling Holy Spirit out of the Spirit's own virtue, not indeed as from a ministerial cause.

The interlocutors are Cyril A and Hermias B, who among other things dispute in this way. « A. That which imprints on us the divine image and, after the manner of a seal, insinuates the supramundane beauty ⁷, is it not the Spirit? B. But they say, not as God, but as a subminister (ὑπουργός) of divine grace. A. Therefore not He Himself but the grace which is through Him is imprinted on us? B. So it seems. A. Then man must be called the image of grace, not the image of God! » He then interprets that passage of Gen. II. 7: « He breathed the breath of life » of the communication of the Holy Spirit, and compares to it Io. XX. 22: « He breathed upon them and said, receive the Holy Spirit ». Then he proceeds: « A. But if the grace which is through Him were disjoined from the substance of the Holy Spirit ⁸, why did not blessed Moses clearly say, when the animal had been brought forth into light, that the creator of the universe breathed grace into it through the Spirit of life; and Christ to us: receive grace through the ministry of the Holy Spirit? And yet it was named there indeed (in Genesis) the Spirit of life... but by the voice of the Savior it was called the Holy Spirit, because He makes the Spirit Himself truly inhabit the souls of believers and sends Him in, and through Him and in Him reforms into the primitive form, that is, into Himself, or into His own likeness through sanctification, thus recalling us to the archetype of the image, that is, to the character of the Father. For the true character perfectly expressing the likeness is the Son Himself; the pure and natural likeness of the Son, however, is the Spirit, to whom (the Spirit) we too, being configured through sanctification, are configured to the very form of God. The apostolic discourse will persuade us of this: little children, he says, whom I again bring forth in travail, until Christ be formed in you Gal. IV. 19. But He is formed through the Spirit, who reforms us to God (like to God) through Himself. When therefore we are formed to Christ, He Himself is imprinted on us and is formed with a beautiful likeness (in us), inasmuch as through the Spirit naturally like to Him ⁹; God therefore we are reformed to the image of Christ, the ointment by which we are anointed and consecrated, the fragrance by which we are made the good odor of Christ.

is the Spirit and conforming to God, not as through ministerial grace but as giving in Himself to those who are worthy a participation of the divine nature... We are reformed into the likeness which is to the Holy Spirit or to God, through faith and sanctification and relation to Him; but, as is clear, by a relation according to participation and adventitious, although we are named partakers of the divine nature ¹⁰..... But we are called and are temples of God, nay even gods. Ask the adversaries why this, after all, if we are truly partakers of a naked grace lacking subsistence? But it is not so. For we are temples of a truly existing and subsisting Spirit; but we have been called gods also on account of Him, inasmuch as we are partakers of the divine and ineffable nature through conjunction to Him » ¹¹ Cyrill. dial. VII. T. V. P. I. p. 638. sq. See ibid. p. 594. 644. 657. 669. 672. 673.; in Io. p. 93. 810. 832.; Thesaur. 352. Most briefly does Cyril embrace the same doctrine: « that He transforms into a certain other habit (εἰς ἑτέραν τινὰ ἕξιν) those in whom He has been and has dwelt, and restores them into the newness of life — is it not easy for anyone to show from the testimonies of both the old and the new Scripture? » in Io. pr. 919.

Cyril therefore, no otherwise than the other Fathers, uses this argument to demonstrate the divinity of the Holy Spirit, namely a) that not only grace and the effects of the Holy Spirit are produced in us; but the Holy Spirit Himself is intimately and in a special manner united to the just, so that on account of the union with the Holy Spirit they are called and are, by the relation of conjunction, partakers of the divine nature. b) He proves the divinity from this, that the indwelling Spirit confers grace and sanctifies not as a minister (ὑπουργός) but by His own virtue (αὐτουργός). « What therefore is perfect grace, if not the infusion of the Holy Spirit wholly made in our hearts, according to Paul's saying? How therefore will grace be true in us, if sanctification has been supplied to us through a creature, as the law also was through angels? For if the Holy Spirit does not work in us by His own virtue (αὐτουργεῖ), but, filled with sanctity from the divine essence by participation, emits into us the grace given to Him, it is manifest that the grace of the Holy Spirit is conferred on us through a creature. But this is false... The Holy Spirit therefore works in us by His own virtue (αὐτουργὸν ἄρα τὸ Πνεῦμα ἐν ἡμῖν), truly sanctifying and uniting us to Himself through conjunction to Him (ἑνοῦν ἡμᾶς ἑαυτῷ διὰ τῆς πρὸς αὐτὸ συναφείας), and rendering us partakers of the divine nature » Thesaur. T. V. P. I. p. 352. Therefore c) it can be said in the truest sense that « the Holy Spirit makes us holy through Himself and through the communication of His substance », as Petavius speaks l. VIII. c. 4. n. 8. ¹² This, however, must be understood in such a way that the Holy Spirit first sanctifies efficiently through the diffusion of the charity of God in our hearts, and that He Himself is then, as it were, terminatively the one to whom we are united by the bond of grace, charity, and friendship; and so the indwelling Holy Spirit is the supreme and divine summit of our sanctification, as SS. Basil and Cyril speak ¹³. Yet one must beware in our age, lest by an obscure manner of speaking an occasion be given for considering the Holy Spirit Himself as our formal sanctification. Of justification the cause « is, as efficient, the merciful God who freely washes and sanctifies, sealing and anointing with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance... finally, the unique formal cause is the justice of God, not that by which He Himself is just, but that by which He makes us just; namely, by which, being gifted by Him, we are renewed... each one receiving his own justice in ourselves » Conc. Trid. sess. VI. c. 7. Moreover, from all that has been said thus far it easily appears in what sense that is to be understood which the Fathers too sometimes say, that the Holy Spirit dwells in the just οὐσιωδῶς, i. e. substantively, and is united to them. See Basil. contr. Eunom. V. p. 297. cf. Gregor. Naz. or. 41. al. 44. n. 11. This is said most truly when the adverb is referred to the subject, or by reason of the terms which are united; but it would be false if it were referred to the very mode of the union; for in this sense a substantive union is nothing other than a union of substances to the unity of nature, a conjunction of which sort is repugnant for a creature with God, or to the unity of hypostasis, of which sort is the union of the human nature with the Word (cf. Tract. de Incarn. th. XX). For other Fathers see Petav. l. VIII. c. 4-7.; Thomassin de Incarnat. l. VI. c. 10-20.

The scholastic theologians hand down this doctrine with common consent and explain it more distinctly. Among others there may be consulted s. Thom. 1. q. 43. a. 3. and especially I. dist. 14. q. 2; Alexander Halens. 1. q. 73. m. 4.; s. Bonavent. I. dist. 14. a. 2.; Compend. theolog. veritat. c. 9.; then Molina in 1. q. 43. a. 3.; Suarez l. XII. c. 5., who explains this matter excellently; Lessius de perfect. divin. l. XII. c. 11.; de summo bono l. II. c. 1. n. 4.; Ruiz disp. 109. sect. 1. sqq.; Ysambert in 1. q. 43. a. 3.; Cornel. a Lapide in 2. Pet. I. 4. and in the epistles of Paul passim.