Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« According to the diversity and perfection of the sanctifying gifts, diverse degrees are also to be admitted in the visible mission and inhabitation of the Holy Spirit. According to this diversity of degrees, some of the holy Fathers distinguished the mission and inhabitation of the Holy Spirit for the New Testament, namely in those sanctified by the grace of baptism, from the participation of the same Spirit in the saints of the Old Testament; but it cannot be admitted that, by the common opinion of the holy Fathers, the inhabitation of the Spirit and the adoption of sons was simply denied for the time of the Old Testament ».

In this thesis, which we wish to be regarded as a kind of appendix, we ask whether and how a distinction between sanctification in the Old and in the New Testament must be admitted. The inquiry, moreover, seemed opportune on account of the opinion of Petavius, a certainly most weighty theologian, who thought that the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit and — what is still harsher — the adoption of sons in the just of the Old Testament must be denied. This opinion, already in itself scarcely reconcilable with the nature and character of sanctifying inhabitation, we shall refute by an explanation of the testimonies on which Petavius alone rests.

Just as in the natural omnipresence of God, which follows from the attribute of immensity, the inexistence in all creatures, if it is considered simply according to the divine essence, can be said to be the same; but the inexistence is most diverse according to power and presence, that is, according to operation and governance; so the supernatural inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in those sanctified by grace is indeed in all of them; but it has degrees as diverse as the degrees of holiness and of the gifts of grace are diverse. Both of these are evident from the very nature of inhabitation which we have set forth.

For how great indeed is the diversity, not only between the inhabitation of God in the blessed comprehensors, unto vision and fruition now complete, and in the wayfarers, unto fruition begun and in disposition; but also in the manifold degrees of the beatific vision, and in the wayfarers, from the lowest degree of sanctifying grace up to a greater and greater perfection of holiness and of charisms without limit?

Hence, 1°. The Holy Spirit is invisibly sent not only in the bestowal of first grace, that is, in the justification of the sinner, but also in the bestowal of second grace, that is, in the increase of sanctifying grace. For in second grace there is a new title and, as it were, a new bond of the presence of the lover in the beloved (Suarez l. XII. c. 5. n. 16. sq.). That this mission in the simple increase of grace is properly so called, some indeed deny (Ruiz disp. 109. sect. 4); but all acknowledge that in a peculiar second sanctification too, by which one, although already an adoptive son of a lower degree, is constituted in a new, as it were, order and state of the sons of God and of the kingdom of grace, the Holy Spirit is properly sent and inhabits in a new manner ¹. Hence, namely in the sacraments, which are called by Dionysius consecratory, by which Christ specially consecrates and constitutes in a peculiar dignity as member, soldier, minister of Christ the priest, and therefore seals with an indelible character (see Tract. de Sacram. in genere th. XIII.), there is a peculiar mission and a new inhabitation of the Holy Spirit through sacramental grace. Therefore the Fathers acknowledge that in those regenerated and illuminated through baptism the Holy Spirit inhabits in a certain manner in which He does not dwell in catechumens, although they would already have been justified; and in which He did not dwell even in the saints of the Old Testament. In the sacrament of Chrism, moreover, there is a certain continuation of the mission of the Holy Spirit first made to the disciples at the first Pentecost of the New Testament. In sacred Ordination there is a mission of the Holy Spirit from the principal end indeed of the sacrament unto priestly power, but by this very fact also unto inhabitation through the corresponding sacramental grace. From this foundation of the diversity of degrees and gifts we can explain the inhabitation in the saints of the Old Testament and reconcile certain sayings of the holy Fathers, from which the inhabitation of the Spirit and the adoption as sons for the Old Testament seemed to Petavius to have to be simply denied.

2°. It is true indeed that the mission and inhabitation of the Holy Spirit pertain to the New Testament, to the law of grace, in the same way as grace pertains to the New Testament, and not to the Old, if this is regarded precisely as the Sinaitic economy, which was « generating unto servitude » and only a « pedagogue » unto the law of grace (Gal. III. 24.; IV. 24.); but it is plainly false that in the time of the Old Testament grace pertaining to the proper character of the New Testament was not prepared and given to those hoping in Christ in view of the future merits of Christ; and therefore it must also be entirely conceded that the Holy Spirit was sent by an invisible mission and inhabited the saints of the Old Testament ². Likewise it is true that grace in the Old Testament, as it were, granted beforehand before the price actually paid and before the merit completed by the sacrifice of the cross, was, generally speaking, more sparing and less universal than after the merit now actually completed; and therefore, speaking universally too, it can be said that the communication and inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, according to the measure of the gifts of grace, was of a lower degree than in the New Testament. In particular, there was certainly not there a mission and inhabitation of the Holy Spirit through regeneration and consecration by sacramental grace ex opere operato. But we cannot concede that the distinction consists in this, that in the Old Testament only the effects of the Holy Spirit were in the saints, but the person itself, that is, the Holy Spirit Himself, was not joined to them οὐσιωδῶς, as He inhabits the saints of the New Testament.

Petavius, l. VIII. c. 7. n. 1-11, tries to persuade that, from the opinion of the holy Fathers that is scarcely not universal, the distinction is this, that « before the advent and death of Christ the Holy Spirit was in the saints κατ' ἐνέργειαν, i. e. only as far as operation, but afterwards οὐσιωδῶς, i. e. substantially ». Hence, from that opinion of his mentioned above, that not created grace but the substance of the Holy Spirit joined to us is the formal cause of adoptive filiation, he further judges that, according to the doctrine of the Fathers, the saints of the Old Testament were not adoptive sons of God. All of which indeed seems very difficult.

Truly, if the discourse be of the common opinion of the Fathers, neither Petavius nor anyone else has demonstrated that they acknowledged any other real distinction between the inhabitation in the saints of the Old and of the New Testament besides that which we have stated, according to the diversity of degrees and according to the properties and measure of the gifts. « When on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit filled the disciples of the Lord (doubtless οὐσιωδῶς, according to Petavius's expression), it was not the beginning of the gift but the addition of liberality; since the patriarchs and the prophets and the priests and all the saints who were in the earlier times were quickened by the sanctification of the same Holy Spirit.... so that the power of the charisms was always the same, although the measure of the gifts was not always the same » s. Leo M. serm. II. de Pentec. c. 3. Augustine asks how that is to be understood which is said in Io. VII. 39: the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified? « How is it understood, unless because that certain giving or mission of the Holy Spirit was to be after the glorification of Christ, of a kind which had never been before? For it was not that there was none before, but it had not been of such a kind. For if before the Holy Spirit was not given, filled with whom did the prophets speak?... since also of John the Baptist it was said: he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb; and Zacharias his father is found filled with the Spirit... and Mary with the Holy Spirit... Simeon and Anna with the Holy Spirit ». Will Petavius say that in all these not the person itself is understood but only the effect of the Holy Spirit, and that on the day of Pentecost at last the person itself was first sent? But Augustine knows nothing of this distinction, but recalls solely the diversity of gifts: « that giving or donation or mission of the Holy Spirit (compared therefore with the givings or donations or missions of the Holy Spirit which were even before) was to have a certain property of its own in that very advent, such as was never before; for nowhere do we read that men spoke with tongues which they did not know, the Holy Spirit coming upon them, as was then done » Aug. Trin. IV. n. 29. See Athanas. contra Arian. or. IV. al. V. n. 29. (whom Petavius himself cites n. 9. and tries in vain to explain in another sense); Hieronym. ad Hedib. q. 9. etc.

Among the Fathers on whose testimonies Petavius leans, Athanasius or. 2. contr. Arian. (in the Maurine edition or. I. n. 47. 50. T. I. p. 451. 455.); Chrysostom in Act. hom. 4. n. 2.; in Rom. hom. 14. n. 2. 3.; Augustine in Ps. 81. n. 1.; serm. de tempore 126. 182. 185. (which sermons, moreover, are all now rejected as spurious into the appendix) say absolutely nothing other than that we could not receive the Holy Spirit except through the merits of Jesus Christ, that He was communicated more abundantly to the Apostles than to the prophets, that adoptive filiation does not pertain to the synagogue, to the Jewish people, namely by force of the old law, but to the grace of the New Testament, which grace itself, however, was not wanting in the time of the Old Testament. Gregory Nazianzen, or. 41. al. 44. n. 11., by no means « expressly proclaims », as Petavius says, that before Christ the Holy Spirit was communicated « only as far as operation, now however οὐσιωδῶς, i. e. substantially ». But Gregory's words are these. « The Holy Spirit always indeed was and is and will be... He was therefore always participated, not participating; perfecting, not perfected by another; filling, not filled; sanctifying, not sanctified; deifying, not deified ³, Himself always one both with Himself and with those with whom He is numbered (with the Father and the Son).... goodness itself and the fount of goodness, the right, principal Spirit (Ps. 50.)... distributing graces, the Spirit of adoption, of truth, of wisdom, of understanding, of knowledge, of piety, of counsel, of fortitude, of fear, as they are enumerated (Is. XI. 12)... This Spirit first indeed worked (ἐνήργει) in the angelic and heavenly powers, and in as many as are first after God and beside God; for not from elsewhere do they have perfection and illumination and a change to malice difficult or impossible, than from the Holy Spirit; then in the patriarchs and prophets, of whom some saw God in images or knew Him, others also foresaw future things in their mind, sealed with the Holy Spirit ⁴... afterwards in the disciples of Christ, for I pass over Christ, to whom He was present not as working (οὐχ ὡς ἐνεργοῦν) but as an equal accompanying; and in these (the disciples of Christ) in a threefold way, as much as they could receive, and according to the three times ».

He distinguishes then the time before the passion of the Lord, where the Spirit was present to the Apostles for driving out diseases and demons; after the death and resurrection, when Christ breathed upon the Apostles saying: receive the Holy Spirit; finally third, « there is today's division of fiery tongues (namely on this day of Pentecost, when Gregory delivered the oration), which we celebrate. First obscurely, second more expressly, today however more perfectly, no longer present by operation as before (in healing diseases, and in the breathing of Christ); but substantially, as one might say, He came and converses. For it was fitting that, after the Son had conversed with us corporally, He (the Spirit) also should appear corporally » ⁵. Truly Nazianzen says nothing about a different mode of sanctification through the Holy Spirit in the Old and in the New Testament; rather he indicates that this mode was always the same through participation of the Holy Spirit; that the operation of the same Spirit was in the angels, in the patriarchs of the Old Testament, and in the Apostles. Then he declares the difference not between the communications in the Old and in the New Testament, but between the two earlier communications made to the Apostles for expelling demons and for remitting sins; and the third on the day of Pentecost. He says the earlier ones were such that the Spirit was present by operation, the other that in a certain way He came οὐσιωδῶς and conversed with the Apostles; but this he declares himself to mean, that the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost came σωματικῶς, i. e. in corporeal appearance and by a visible mission. He distinguishes therefore between the mission manifested only by subsequent effects, and the visible mission in fiery tongues. All of which certainly has nothing to do with the denial of the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in the just of the Old Testament.

Rupert the Abbot of the XIIth century, whose words Petavius cites from l. I. cc. 11. 18. 19.; l. II. c. 6. de glorificatione Trin. et process. Sancti Spiritus (Opp. T. III.), we could pass over; for however he may be understood, it will never be demonstrated from him that the opinion which we attack was the opinion of the holy Fathers. But let us see what he finally teaches. He says that there is a threefold procession of the Holy Spirit ad extra: unto creation, unto charisms freely given, namely unto prophecy, unto the remission of sins. « Before the advent of the Son of God He was given indeed in the distribution of graces (of prophecy etc.), but not also in the remission of sins ». How is that now to be understood? For plainly it is evidently false that in the Old Testament no sins were remitted, or that they were not remitted through the grace of the Holy Spirit. Rupert's sense is gathered from the three things which he teaches there. a) « Without the Holy Spirit given, no man was ever able or will be able to be saved » c. 18. Then b) not only to men living in the New Testament but also to the just who died in the Old Testament the Spirit was given in the remission of sins only when the passion of Christ was at length completed. « When Christ says: for if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you, He wishes it to be understood as if He had said: for if I do not pass through the passion of death out of this world, neither to you, nor to the more ancient ones, nor to those who are to come after you, will the Holy Spirit be given according to this gift, which is the remission of sins » l. 19. Finally c) this donation of the Holy Spirit proper to the New Testament, which is unto the remission of sins, he proves from the words of Christ: « after He went away, returning and standing in the midst of His disciples, breathing and saying: receive the Holy Spirit, He immediately added: whose sins you shall remit, they are remitted to them » c. 19. Rupert therefore does not say that in the Old Testament no one's guilt was remitted, or that this was done otherwise than with « the Holy Spirit given », but he says the contrary. But after the merit of Christ actually completed, the Holy Spirit is given in the remission of sins in a twofold way in which He was not given before; first, unto the remission of all the privations of good and of the punishments which followed from sin; thus He was not given except after the completed passion and death of Christ, even to the more ancient just, who until then were exiled from the homeland of the beatific vision of God cf. S. Th. I. dist. 15. q. 5. a. 2. ad 2. Then the Holy Spirit is given in the New Testament to the Apostles and their successors unto the power of remitting sins, and so unto the remission of sins as it were active. But what has this to do with the matter of which we treat?

Of all the Fathers brought forward by Petavius, there remains one, s. Cyril, in Io. T. IV. p. 474. 475.; Thesaur. T. V. P. I. p. 104-106. I confess that Cyril alone, if he is read separately without a prudent comparison and some of his words are taken more strictly, seems to say that which Petavius urges as the common opinion of the Fathers. Nevertheless, from the hermeneutical canon demonstrated by us elsewhere (Tract. de Tradit. th. XV.), that we should not easily interpret the Fathers in a sense alien to the common doctrine, the context of the holy Doctor is to be inspected more deeply; especially since, if the individual words of the cited places were pressed too hard, a not inconsiderably absurd sense would follow. The context is this. « After the Holy Spirit fled and flew away from humanity (nature corrupted through the sin of the first parent), He who could conform and preserve us unto the divine character, the Savior again bestows Him upon us, restoring us unto that primitive dignity, and transforming us into His own image (μετατύπτων εἰς εἰκόνα τὴν ἑαυτοῦ)... But if the matter stands thus, how was it in the prophets? Let us consider therefore, that in the holy prophets there was a certain abundant, as it were, irradiation and pre-illumination of the Spirit, which could lead unto the comprehension of future things and the knowledge of hidden things; but in those who believe in Christ we trust that not simply an illumination, which is from the Spirit, but the Spirit Himself inhabits and dwells. Whence we are rightly called temples of God, although no one of the holy prophets was ever called a temple of God ». Evidently here he establishes a distinction between the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in the faithful of the New Testament and the irradiation in the holy prophets of the Old Testament. But this he urges and confirms more strongly by the comparison of the faithful regenerated by the baptism of Christ with John the Baptist, from the words of Christ: « there has not arisen among those born of women a greater than John the Baptist, but he who is lesser in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he » Matth. XI. 11. The kingdom of heaven, he says, « is the donation of the Holy Spirit according to that: the kingdom of heaven is within you; for the Spirit inhabits in us through faith ». Whence although in perfection of justice there was not among those born of women a greater than John, yet there was wanting to him a certain mode of sanctity, which is through regeneration from water and the Holy Spirit; and to that extent the lesser among the baptized and, through the laver of regeneration, born of God, is greater than John born of woman. « Great indeed was the blessed Baptist, most outstanding in every virtue even to the very limits, so that there was nothing more, reaching unto the justice which is in us; but although he was so, yet he asked Christ saying: I ought (χρείαν ἔχω) to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? You see how, although perfect, as far as fell to men and to those born of women, he asks to be recreated (ἀναπλασθῆναι) in a certain way and regenerated through the Holy Spirit? You see how he professes something greater in the regenerated, when he says that he still needs this... Christ says therefore that even the least of the kingdom of heaven is greater than John himself, that is, even one recently baptized and not yet outstanding in works, by this alone, inasmuch as the blessed Baptist was born of woman, but this one is born of God according to the Scripture, and is made a partaker of the divine nature, having the Holy Spirit inhabiting in himself, and is called the temple of God... When therefore the divine Evangelist tells us: for the Spirit was not yet (given), because Jesus was not yet glorified (Io. VII. 39), the entire inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in men, complete in all respects ⁶ let us gather that he signifies ». Thus in Io. l. c. and in the same sentences in Thesaur. l. c.

We note the following. a) Nowhere does Cyril say that in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit Himself did not inhabit the sanctified. Rather b) in these very places he teaches the contrary. « Since the Baptist was a partaker of the Holy Spirit (Πνεύματος Ἁγίου μέτοχος ὢν) and was filled with prophetic grace even from his mother's womb.... he strove to confirm his disciples in faith in Christ the Savior » Thesaur. p. 102. « It is easy to understand that the kingdom of heaven was prepared even for the ancient fathers, inasmuch as they are conformed to the image of His Son (Rom. VIII. 29), and therefore foreknown by God and the Father » ibid. p. 106. Likewise he proves the inhabitation of the Spirit and the transformation through the Spirit at once from 1. Reg. X. 6.: « the Spirit of the Lord shall leap upon you and you shall be changed into another man », which pertains to the Old Testament, and in the same context from 2. Cor. III. 18.: « we are transformed into the same image, as by the Spirit of the Lord », which was said for the New Testament. Cyr. in Io. p. 919. 920.

But now, Cyril acknowledges no conformity to the image of the Son, such as is named in Rom. VIII. 29., except through the inhabiting Holy Spirit; rather he judges that the image of the Son named by the Apostle is the Holy Spirit Himself, and that thus, with the Holy Spirit inhabiting the just and, as it were, imprinting a seal, they are conformed to Christ. « The pure and natural likeness of the Son is the Spirit, to which we also, configured through sanctification, are configured unto the very form of God... But that the true likeness of the Son is the Spirit, hear Paul writing: whom He foreknew and predestined to be made conformable to the image of His Son (Rom. VIII. 29) » Dialog. VII. T. V. p. 639. See the rest described by us (above p. 578. sq.). Certainly therefore Cyril thought that the Holy Spirit Himself inhabited the patriarchs and the prophets and John the Baptist unto sanctification and the impression of the image of the Son.

Nevertheless c) Cyril acknowledges a special mission and inhabitation of the Holy Spirit through the regeneration and consecration of the faithful in baptism, of which we spoke a little before, and according to this special consecration he thinks that only the saints of the New Testament are called the temple of God. Whence in the comparison of the just of the Old Testament and of those regenerated by baptism in the New Testament, Cyril does not simply deny that the person of the Holy Spirit inhabited the ancient just, nor does he simply deny to them the dignity of the sons of adoption; but nevertheless he acknowledges in those regenerated through the baptism of Christ a special dignity of grace and a special title unto that inhabitation and adoption. Which at length is reduced to the distinction of inhabitation according to the diverse degrees, and according to the diverse not only measure but also property of graces and gifts; but it does not pertain to establishing a distinction of conjunction through operation alone for the time of the Old Testament, and of inhabitation according to substance for the economy of the New Testament. Cf. S. Th. I. dist. 15. q. 5. a. 2.

THE GRACE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST AND THE CHARITY OF GOD AND THE COMMUNICATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT BE WITH US ALL. AMEN.