Throughout the earlier books of the New Testament we find constant references to the Spirit as a presence abiding with the Church. As used most frequently, the term simply means inspiration, the influence of God on individual Christians. This sense was derived directly from the Old Testament. Jahveh’s messengers to his people are there often described as filled with his spirit, as inspired by him for their mission. Naturally the early Church believed that this inspiration was continued under the new dispensation, and that the apostles, its leaders, were filled with the spirit of God to enable them to perform their work. But a new feature was introduced into the belief; the Church held that not merely leading Christians but all Christians were thus filled with the spirit of God. This was the natural consequence of the Messianic prophecies. Among the glories of the Messianic times, the prophets often included, as the result of the reconciliation of Jahveh and Israel, the resting of the inspiration of God on all his people, all being his servants just as they were themselves. Of course the early Jewish Christians applied these prophecies to themselves, and believed that the spirit of God rested on all the people of his true Israel, the Christian Church.
But in the early books of the New Testament we also find the term “spirit” used in a sense applicable only to a distinct being. St. Paul, in a remarkable passage, speaks of the Spirit as interceding with God for man.[98] In order to understand the origin of this belief of the early Church that the spirit of God, as a distinct being, sustained it in its struggle with the world, it must be remembered that the Jewish Christians regarded Christianity as a movement from among the unconverted Jews similar to the movement of ancient Israel from among the Egyptians. They continually looked for analogies between their circumstances and what was related of the exodus from Egypt. An angel was believed to have led the Israelites against their enemies,[99] and the Church would naturally expect a corresponding representative of God to watch over its progress. But by the prophets the name “spirit” had been given to this angel;[100] and so the early Christians, believing that the spirit of God rested on the Church, personified it vaguely and made it a divine representative abiding continually with them. They regarded it as the substitute for the personal presence of Christ which had come to them immediately after his death. And thus the belief in the Holy Spirit was connected with the expectation of the second advent; it had come when Christ had left the Church, and when he returned its mission would be ended.
When the expectation of the second advent was abandoned, and a stay on earth after his death was assigned to Christ, the Church’s ideas of the Spirit underwent a further development. As it was the substitute for his presence, it could only have come after his ascension. Just as the ascension had been imagined as a suitable close of Christ’s stay on earth, so now a solemn ceremony was imagined to mark the entrance of the Spirit on its mission. The day of Pentecost, the recognized anniversary of the delivery of the law on Mount Sinai, appeared the fittest time for this ceremony.[101] As the founding of the law was regarded as the true beginning of the life of Israel, the coming of the Spirit seemed to match it and to form the true beginning of the life of the Christian Church. The construction of this tradition, as we have it in the Acts of the Apostles, was one of the last results of the influence of Judaism on Christianity.
At about the same time this influence was shown in another doctrine in connection with the belief in the Holy Spirit. I have already said that, when the mainly Pagan dogma of the miraculous conception of Christ was created, Jewish Christianity was able slightly to spiritualize it. By making the Spirit the agent on the divine side of that conception, the dogma was as far as possible purified from its taint of grossness.
Until after the time of the Nicene Council, the general belief in the Holy Spirit remained in this vague undefined form. The Church regarded it as a personified influence, and gave it little attention. In the Nicene Creed there is no dogma of the Trinity; only two persons of the Trinity as yet existed. In the fully developed Creed merely vague language is applied to the Spirit; it is spoken of as a distinct being, but its union with the Father and the Son is not asserted. The phrase, “Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son,” shows, as Feuerbach points out,[102] how loose an idea of personality was attached to it, and is very different from the precise terms in which the Creed defines the production of the Son. The subsequent dispute between the Eastern and Western Churches in reference to the “filioque” of the Latin form of this Creed rendered it impossible for Christian theology to remain satisfied with the Nicene definition of the Spirit. Always regarded as divine, there was now a natural tendency to declare it to be God. A mystery of three in one was a puzzle no more perplexing than a mystery of two in one. And so the Holy Spirit was included in the divine Government, and the dogma of the Trinity was complete.
The full doctrine of the Trinity, philosophically expressed, is this. God the Father is God the absolute, incomprehensible and unapproachable by created things. God the Son is part of God the relative, the creator and saviour of the world. God the Holy Spirit is the rest of God the relative, the sustainer and guide of the world. Thus it is evident that the third person of the Trinity philosophically has no existence; its functions are only carved out of those of the second. And this philosophical non-existence of the third person has its reflection in theology. In spite of the Athanasian Creed, the Holy Spirit is only a shadow in Christian belief. Intellectually the sincere Christian is convinced of the existence of God the Father; emotionally he is convinced of the existence of God the Son; but of the existence of God the Holy Spirit he is not convinced at all, and he asserts it merely in the empty forms of traditional dogma.
We have now dealt with all the chief dogmas of Christianity. The Atonement, the Incarnation, the full doctrine of the Trinity, and the more important of the circumstances believed to be connected with the life and death of Christ—in fact, all the dogmas of the Creeds, have passed under our review. Only minor doctrines, in regard to which there are differences of opinion among Christians, remain to be noticed.