A New ‘Age of the Holy Spirit’ is Hopefully Dawning – by Sandra Principe, August 9, 2021
Introduction: Vision of a Figure Symbolic of the Holy Spirit
In the chapel of St. Michael’s Boys School in my neighbourhood, back in September 1994, the following memorable vision happened. As I came to understand later, the appearance was that of the Holy Spirit and prophetic in more ways than one.
One Tuesday evening in early September 1994, during the holy Feast of Rosh Ha-Shanah, [1] I was in attendance, as usual, at the weekly devotions held in St. Michael’s Boys’ School by Father Faye, a priest of the Basilian order of teaching priests. At that time, this Toronto ‘cenacle of prayer’ was part of the worldwide ‘Marian Movement of Priests,’ and Father Faye had attracted a loyal following of regular attendants, including myself, an Anglican whom he welcomed into his group.
That particular evening, fatigued from my long day’s work at the hospital and preoccupied with the supper I had missed, I was tempted to leave early. But I felt I had to remain since I arrived late and had to take a seat at the front of the congregation. After an hour of physical and mental restlessness, I began to relax. By the time the communion began, I was simply sitting there, casting casual glances around as I tried not to stare too directly at the priest’s activities over the altar.
There suddenly appeared over the altar scene, a figure from another dimension. It was high above the priest, who shifted between reading the words of the liturgy and ceremonially uncovering and preparing the cup and the vessel holding the sacred wafers.
This human-like figure was so tall that he reached the ceiling. He stood with his hands at his waist, the skirts of his long, dark robe of sapphire-blue descending in folds over our heads. In my astonishment, I could not help gazing in wonderment at his presence among us. Who could this heavenly being be?
Then I saw this blue-robed figure fashioning something with his hands. His fingers were busily making something. There emerged from his hands the splendour of many elongated beams of light. At first, these light beams looked as if they bent over at odd and different angles. Then, I saw that it was an umbrella-like construction that reached out over the whole congregation. I understood that each light beam extended, one into the heart of each person. [2] Everyone in the congregation received a spiritual blessing that evening, even if they did not partake of the Eucharist.
In September 1994, I could not name the awe-inspiring figure I saw in the chapel. Though a Being of the Spirit, he looked like a person standing high over the altar as the priest performed the Eucharist. I kept hoping to see, and sometimes faintly saw, his renewed appearance in other churches. Recently, I became aware of him appearing to me individually during this Covid-era while I watch the performance of the Eucharist online. I felt his presence especially during the Sunday morning service from the Anglo-Catholic Church, St. Thomas’s.
Using symbolic interpretations, he directed me to explore his identity further. I did this by examining readings of the 4th century theologians St. Basil the Great and his brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa, each of whom wrote a treatises On the Holy Spirit. At that time of their writing, the Holy Spirit was affirmed by the Nicene-Constantinople Creed in 381 CE as the Third Person of the Holy Trinity – a distinctive Divinity in his own right. More on these theological affirmations later.
As I suggest in this paper, and because of various visions, I recently came to believe that, during this Covid-time, we are entering another ‘New Age of the Pentecostal-like Spirit.’ Light-beams from Spirit-realms are descending towards us. This is happening universally and includes more than the small Christian group featured in my chapel vision. The Holy Spirit is among us in new ways, not limited to the closed-down churches. In little semblances of visions, I have seen spiritual entities pouring vitalizing energy into the heads of school children while they sleep. (I do not know if these spirit-soul helpers of goodwill and extraordinary intelligence come from the deceased or the living.) The bright, creative minds of the youngest generation must contend with necessary changes we must make to save this earthly Creation. The Lord God may be sending these new spiritual inspirations through such unseen agencies because He hopes to shape us into a new planetary people. This recalls what the Lord God said to Moses that he wanted the Israelites to become a Holy People, a new ‘Kingdom of Priests.’
As I reflect deeply, I wonder – where have we gone wrong up to today? I want to affirm that God is truly with us today. I feel deeply consoled whenever I think upon the Words of the Lord to the ancient prophet Hosea.
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son… It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them…. My heart recoils within me. My compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger … for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst..” (Hosea, Ch. 11)
Reading Kevin Madigan’s Medieval Christianity (2015:249-150), I was struck by the profound thoughtfulness of Joachim of Fiore, a 12th century monk, writing about Judaic-Christian biblical history. He conceived of the Old Testament writings as the Age of the Father; with time that age gave rise to the Age of the Son, which “reach[ed] fruition in Christ.” To Joachim, the fullness of the Age of the Holy Spirit arrived in the 6th century.
Joachim saw the first age lasting from Adam through Old Testament history, including the building of the Hebrew nation, peopled with priests. Its theme was that of ‘the married.’ One sees this theme highlighted in the beautiful Song of Songs, King Solomon’s Wedding Song. It celebrated the love of two young people anticipating their marriage through metaphors of growth and nature in spring. However, the Song of Songs does not mention the challenges faced by Adam and Eve expelled from the Garden of Eden. Christian theologians allegorized the Song of Songs. The chaste girl became the prospective ‘Bride’ of Christ, giving herself to the Church as a nun. To them, this is symbolic of the purity of the innermost ‘Soul,’ which is thought of as ‘She.’
Joachim associated the Age of the Son with priests and also scribes, one thinks. He saw this began during the reign of 7th century King Josiah of Judea. Josiah became angry when told of the discovery of a long-lost scroll – The Book of Moses. [3] Consequently, Judean scribes, editors and historians began compiling and revising all the writings that constitute the Torah. As mentioned, Joachim saw that the whole Age of the Son “reach fruition” in Christ. Later Christian scholars read and interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures, where they found Christ’s incarnation fulfilled ancient promises of the ‘Word of God.’ This was the new salvation offered by Christ to both Jews and Gentiles.
To Joachim, the age of The Holy Spirit was also The Age of the Monk. He believed it took shape in the 6th century when St. Benedict established a monastery governed by his rules. The monks, who were not all priests, dedicated their lives to God. In retreating from the world to engage in prayer and work, they felt enfolded by the monastery. Usually, these monasteries were remotely located in a rural or wilderness landscape. [4]
During my university studies on the early Christian centuries, we students examined radicalizing ideas of Pseudo-Dionysius, who wrote in the 6th century. This Greek Christian mystic recommended the via negative, away of approaching God by entering what became known as the Darkness of ‘the Cloud of Unknowing.’ The exercise recalled the courage of Moses ascending the fiery mountain in Sinai. Dionysius preferred this apophatic method of searching for God to the endless recitations of the Divine Praise, predominant in liturgy and churches. (I have no idea if Joachim was acquainted with Dionysius’ writings.) [5]
Joachim thought that the Age of the Holy Spirit would be realized by new ‘spiritual men,’ “contemplatives and preachers” (Madigan (2015:249). Madigan also reports that Joachim thought he could foresee when the Age of the Holy Spirit/Monk would end. Of it, Joachim wrote, “This could be the end of the world.” I had much to contemplate because by 1240, “Franciscans in very high places read Joachim with profound fascination.” They became “zealous for the practice of absolute poverty by the rule of St. Francis” (Madigan 2015:250). Such idealism is much at odds with our economic philosophies today.
During today’s pandemic, we are re-living the afflictions and impoverishments of the 6th century, which witnessed Apocalyptic-scale volcanic upheavals, weather disturbances, famine, starvation and plague. (‘Justinian’s plague’ was blamed on the entry of the Eastern Emperor’s army into the West. ) St. Gregory the Great described disasters of the late- 6th century. Rome became depopulated, in large part due to the aggressions of incoming Gothic barbarians. Additionally, dislocations caused by warfare and armies on the move spread plagues. (This happened again in the early 20th century during the 1918 outbreak of Spanish Flu.)
Beginning in the Dark Age and lasting into Medieval times, monasteries, abbeys and convents enabled people to survive in an orderly and harmonious fashion. Monks tilled the soil of newly-cleared woodlands and created self-sustaining communities away from congested, urban settings. They offered hospitality to travellers and healthcare to the sick and infirm. Their herbal gardens were a rich source of natural remedies. One sees in those holistic institutions a model of the wealth-sharing we read about in Acts 2, a lifestyle adopted by the Jewish-Christians after Pentecost. “All who believed were together and held all things in common….. distributing from the sale of possessions proceeds to any in need” (Acts 2:44-47)
Today we are rethinking how our institutions have been organized along industrial production lines, where economic enrichment benefits the rich more than the poor. In the 19th century, farmers came from the field to work in factories. Monasteries closed down, and land clearances drove out the peasantry in favour of sheep enclosures. People who migrated into the cities to find factory work faced severe poverty, under-nourishment and early death from hard work, illnesses and crowded housing. Industrialists have consistently domesticated people for the workforce (like the slave plantations in the New World), as though they were herding animals. The industrialized Western economies promoted hiring immigrants to keep labour costs and wages as low as possible.
But increasingly, our awareness of issues such as the cultural genocide experienced by native people challenges this system. This is where I paused to think upon how our economically enriching institutions detrimentally affected native people, their culture, beliefs and environment. Here in Canada, First Nations people struggle to preserve and protect the basic ecological welfare of all life proximate to them, from lakes and rivers, forests and rocky wildernesses. They revere these things as sacred, like Genesis’ idea of the “Goodness” of the Creation.
Here is one example of industrializing and assimilating native peoples into the workforce. In the late-19th century, the first Canadian Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, sent one of his bureaucrats to the United States to study an industrial school that trained Native Americans for the workforce. MacDonald took this model and used it to build Canada’s residential schools. First Nations children were taken and segregated from their families, tribes and lands for ten years of their lives to “take the Indian out of the Indian.’ Those children suffered death, malnutrition, and every kind of abuse. They lost their identities because the schools renamed them, as well as their language. It was cultural genocide.
Marx and Engels wrote a tract in 1846 on the progression from communal to state-feudal-private ownership of the means of production. Their description of the first form, of tribal ownership, corresponds with the practices of First Nations people today. People lived, say Marx and Engels by hunting and fishing, rearing beasts or agriculture. This model pre-supposes “a great mass of uncultivated stretches of land.” [6] The tribal lifestyle still has its attractions for those seeking to live harmoniously in respect for the Natural World, God’s wonderful Creation.
During this pandemic time, many of our lives have become like those of the Medieval monks, with our movements and social contacts severely limited. We live in seclusion, unable to travel beyond set boundaries, and we rely on other, essential workers for the necessities of life. Our economies have shrunk; many turn to the charitable offerings of others. Concerned governments deliver pay-outs to the needy and unemployed. Most of us use technology to stay electronically and socially connected. We attend virtual services online because religious institutions are closed but without the benefit of the sacraments. All over the world, young students and children are educated from home and through computers.
But even now heavenly agents are being sent by God, and the meaningfulness of this ‘spiritualizing’ invigorates the imaginations and hopes of the young, diversely so, as I suppose.
Biblical instances of heavenly salvation at times of great peril
The following section illustrates I think, that throughout Judeo-Christian history, in times of crisis, the Lord God intervenes and brings salvation.
The foundations of the Old Testament rest upon tales of the Lord God’s deliverance of the Hebrew people. The earliest from the Patriarchal Age (Joachim’s Age of the Fathers) began with Abraham. He and his family were guided away from their homeland in Ur, Mesopotamia, when the civilizing order of the ancient Sumerians was undergoing collapse (ca 2000 BCE). Abraham settled in the land of Canaan, where he had first encountered the righteous king, Melchizedek, [7] who offered him hospitality at ‘Salem.’ This is the ancient site of Jerusalem that would become King David’s Zion, God’s Holy City.
Later, the Israelites, children of Israel (the new name the angel gave Jacob), relocated to Egypt because of a famine. There, they were eventually enslaved. The Lord God proudly declaimed in different parts of Exodus, as in the First Commandment, Exodus 20:2, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.” They never forgot this deliverance. And, in time, the tribes of Israel re-established themselves in Canaan.
But by the 6th century, the Babylonians were about to destroy Jerusalem. Its temple would be burned to the ground. The young priest Ezekiel (an exemplar of Joachim’s Age of the Son, the priests) recorded prophetic visions of coming troubles in a distant Jerusalem. To Ezekiel, already a Judean exile in Babylonia, God sent some spectacular visions. [8] While “in the spirit,” Ezekiel visited the city of Jerusalem, and one incident captured the terror and the horror its people were facing. He saw, “the man clothed in linen with a writing case in his hand, to whom the Lord said: “ Go through the city, through Jerusalem. And put a mark upon the foreheads of those who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it… “ (Ezekiel 9:4).
The meaning of the marking of the righteous’ foreheads, which is the Hebrew term Tau or taw, was revived among 1st century Judeo-Christians. Franciscan archaeologist, FR. Bellarmino Bagatti ( 2004) explicates the ‘Taw’ symbol or sign from Ezekiel 9:4. As Bagatti records the above, God said “Kill and exterminate but do not touch those with a tau on the forehead..” (2004: 38). Judaeo-Christians thought of the Tau as the “cross of Jesus’ (2004:139). They developed the custom of “signing oneself as a sacred rite, making the sign of the cross, and wearing the cross as a necklace..” Bagatti notes (2004:147), they transformed the Tau into their “salvific cross,” its meaning lost to the Jews, who once used it to anoint priests.
Jesus’ words, quoted in the Gospel ‘Apocalypses,’ as in Matthew Ch. 24, warned his followers to escape when they saw the sign of the ‘desolating sacrilege’ (presumably a reference to Daniel 9). Bagatti refers to a more specific warning from Jesus, mentioned in the writings of the 3rd century church historian Eusebius of Palestine. Eusebius wrote:
“The Christians of the Jerusalem community, through a prediction revealed to notable people of this church, had received a warning to emigrate from there before the outbreak of the war [Jewish War against Rome, 66-70 CE] and to go to a region in the Perea called Pella [north Jordan today]” (Bagatti, 2004:7).
Bagatti describes the considerable influence that Judaeo-Christians had as linguistic sources for Christian Gentiles reading Hebrew Scriptures, authors like Origen, for example (2004:82). Eusebius, an authority on Origen, said: “Origen learned the Hebrew tongue.” Bagatti notes that Origen’s Hebrew teacher, a Judeo-Christian, suggested that, “The two seraphim described in Isaiah 6:3, who called out ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of hosts,’ should be understood of Jesus and the Holy Spirit….” This idea, however, suggested the subordination of Jesus and the Holy Spirit to the enthroned Godhead. In the ensuing centuries, there was much theological debate over the relationship of Christ the Son to the Father, and in that debate, many disregarded the Holy Spirit as a member of the Holy Trinity.
More Interpretations by ‘Symbolic Theology
As in dream analysis, deciphering meanings may take one into the vision’s different spheres of references. Ultimately, I realized the visionary figure in 1994 had been conveying some Trinitarian traditions, truths, prophetic and otherwise. Later I realized that the vision in the chapel had anticipated September 11, 2001. Then I began to reflect upon what we now understand to be seemingly unreconcilable contradictions in our age.
Regarding September 11, 2001, anyone could interpret the symbolism of that destructive event through the lens of Revelation, 13:11-18. It was an attack by airplanes on the Twin Towers of New York. The motivation of Bin Laden’s Islamic extremists was to wreak destruction on the city, which was to them symbolical of vice and financial corruption. They were casting blame for these ‘Harlotries’ (as in Revelation) on the American West because it relied on the oil-riches of Saudi Arabia, another regime they perceived as corrupted by wealth. Fiery explosions resulted in smoke-filled skies and great towers crumbling into dust and rubble. It was world-changing. Of course, it was mere ‘symbolic destruction’ because the Americans rebuilt the trade complex. But that singular event instigated a war with the Middle East that is still ongoing.
In contrast to the ideologically-driven jihadists filled with anger – the intensity of fire their symbolic expression – the figure in my vision in the chapel in 1994 looked like Isaiah’s vision of a figure so huge and lofty that “the hem of his robe train filled the temple” (Isa. 6:1). I too, saw a gigantic Presence, though mostly the folds of his dark blue robe flowing down from the heights of the chapel. A glimpse of his countenance showed him as delicate, refined and noble. It reminded me of Andre Rublev’s portrayal of the three angels that visited Abraham’s and Sarah’s tent to bless them with a son. In my vision, the Great Being, who dispersed beams of light upon everyone present, was not angelically-winged.
Perhaps his symbolic lack of wings served to distinguish him from the angels. Indeed, in Luke 1:26-35, the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary, the forthcoming conception of her holy child, and Luke writes that this would happen “by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.” That particular identity was not clear at that time.
There were other symbolic features of my visions I continue to wonder about. Why does St. Thomas’s online service evoke the presence of the one I think of as the Holy Spirit? What is it about the liturgy of this Anglo-Catholic Church that attracted the interest of this wonderful High Dignity? Then I recalled how delighted I was in this church’s program of hymns printed in the service bulletins, which I took home with me. Often, for special feast days, hymns were selected that dated back to Medieval Times and even the Patristic centuries.[9] Contemplating St. Thomas’s faithful preservation of antique hymns, suddenly I thought, “Let me look into the 4th century ,when the Nicene Creed incorporated the Trinitarian affirmation of the Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.’ That is how the Holy Spirit wants to be thought of!
In his commentary on the intellectual strivings of the 4th century Cappadocian theologian, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Copleston, the Jesuit historian (1962:30) explains Nyssa’s ideas on ‘Symbolic Theology.’
“Nyssa, within a Christ-centric framework, thought that man’s mind is fitted to know sensible objects, and contemplating these objects can know something of God and his attributes. Thus, Copleston says, ‘symbolic theology’ is partly equivalent to natural theology in the modern sense. But these objects of knowledge are not fully real, they are illusions, except as symbols of hands immaterial reality … that reality towards which man is spiritually drawn.”
In pre-Nicene times, Clement and Origen of Alexandria, we will look at next, largely ignored Trinitarian emphasis on the equal Divinity of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son.
Pre-Nicene Theologians: Clement (150-219) and Origen (185-253)
Copleston (1962:40) writes of “The two most famous names, Clement and Origen of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, as constructing “a non-heretical ‘gnosis,’ a Christian theologico-philosophical system.” And in his history of the church, Chadwick (1993:37) mentions that non-Christian Gnosticism was prevalent in Egypt. He refers to groups founded by the Egyptian Basilides and the Platonist, Valentinus of Rome, who viewed Christ, not as physically embodied but as pure spirit. In other words, His physical appearance was an illusion. “Their Gnostic attitude to matter was that it is alien to the supreme God … Thus, they rejected “any genuine incarnation…”
What was there of Christian Gnosticism in Clement’s writing on, for instance, the First Created Angels? According to Bogdan Bucur’s paper on ‘the Angelomorphic Spirit’ (2008), he discovered passages in Clement’s notes that idealized these Seven Angels before the Throne of God. He believed these passages were influenced by Patmos’ Revelation, where the angels are equated with Zechariah’s ‘Seven eyes of the Lord..’ Bucur observes that in the second century ‘The Holy Spirit’ was a general term for the whole angelic hierarchy. I quote from Bucur on Clement’s writings (2008:179), as follows.
“In some of his texts (eg. Excerpta, 10-11:27; Ecologue 51-52:56) Clement furnishes a detailed description of the hierarchical structure of the spiritual universe. This celestial ‘hierarchy’ features, in descending order, the Face,* the seven first created angels, the archangels, finally the angels. The orienting principle of the hierarchy is ‘the Face of God, ‘ which Clement, like other Christian writers, identifies as the Logos, the Son…..Clement equates the seven proitocists with ‘the seven eyes of the Lord’ (Zechariah 3”9 and Rev. 5:6)…. They function as ‘high priests’ of the archangels, just as the archangels are ‘high priests’ of the angels… and so forth (Excerpta 27:2).
Origen, dating into the mid-3rd century, as mentioned by Bagatti, engaged in scholarly studies of the Hebrew Scriptures. He had been impressed by his teacher’s interpretation of Isaiah 6:3. This stated that the two seraphim corresponded to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Thus, a certain subordinationism crept into this interpretation of Isaiah’s two angels as pre-existent heavenly beings, who constantly adored the Godhead. I found in Chadwick (1993:104-105), that in Origen’s writing in On First Principles, he developed an allegorical treatment of the creation of the original Souls, as spirit- beings in the primordial Paradise, before they ever took on earthly incarnations. Origen supposed that most heavenly souls grew ‘cool’ to constantly adoring and praising God. The Soul of Jesus was an exception. In response to this growing coolness, the Godhead sent Souls down to earth to inhabit physical bodies. An educational experience for souls, which were still of a spiritual nature, and constantly yearn to return to God in Paradise.
Origen conceived of souls, originally pre-existing in spiritual form as something like angels. This persisted even when they began to inhabit the earthly world. Does this pertain to any ideas today?
Of relevance to our new Age of the Holy Spirit and its manifestations, I would like to mention the shamanist traditions in primal religions. In a course on world religions at the University of Toronto, we learned about the aboriginal shaman’s retrieval of ‘lost souls.’ The shaman, via his spirit-soul, explores different geographies, depths of the waters, far-flung ‘spaces’ (limbos?), where some lost soul feels isolated and cut off from the living. Today’s First Nations shamans must be hard at work making contact with the souls of the children of residential schools, who were thrown into unmarked graves and forgotten. But I am sure the Godhead-Creator of all souls would not leave them unattended if they are still in spiritual distress.
St. Gregory of Nyssa, His Neoplatonist Metaphysics
St Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, came from Caesarea in Cappadocia (now Turkey). He was born ca. 335 and died in 395 CE. According to Copleston (1962:45-51), “Nyssa’s intention was to render the mystery more intelligible by the application of dialectic, not to ‘rationalize’ the mystery in the sense of departing from dogmatic orthodoxy.” Copleston (1962:47) writes that to Nyssa, “The word ‘God’ refers primarily to the divine essence, which is one, and only secondarily to the divine Persons, who are three…” Similarly, regarding Nyssa’s ‘Platonism,’ as Copleston puts it, in Nyssa’s writing, De hominis opificio, he distinguished the heavenly, ideal man from the earthly man. He believed the ideal human being existed only in the divine idea, neither male nor female. Copleston writes of Nyssa’s ‘universals’ (in the Platonist sense), “The human being of experience is an expression of the ideal and is sexually determined … The ideal being, as it were, is ‘splintered’ or partially expressed in many single individuals.” As interpreted by Copleston, this theory outlines individual creatures proceeding from creation, or Divine Logos. The theory was adopted by the 9th century philosopher John Scotus Eriugena (discussed later), who translated De hominis opificio.
Copleston argues that God’s ideal man is realized eschatologically. Copleston says Nyssa’s concept of the Soul is not confined to any part of the body. The Soul is “A created essence, intellectual, with organic and sensitive body, power of giving life and perceiving sensible objects while instruments endure.” (1962:48) Even so, the Soul, spiritual and incorporeal, differs from the physical body that is composed of corporeal qualities like colour and quantity. Copleston writes that according to the Christian doctrine of Soul, Nyssa said it has “Likeness to God, as the work of Grace, man’s free co-operation, image implanted in Soul at baptism….” (1962:50)
Eschatologically, what of the Soul’s realization of communion with God? Recall Copleston described Nyssa’s ideas in terms of ‘symbolic theology.’ Just as in Oriental mysticism, Nyssa asserted sensible things are not real but an illusion. They are simply symbols that manifest the higher, immaterial Reality. Thus (Copleston 1962:50), when the Soul begins to feel tension over this recognition, the individual may feel some despair, which is the birth of mysticism. The Soul, meanwhile, drawn by God, leaves the natural behind. Without being able to see God, the individual enters into darkness or the so-called ‘Cloud of Unknowing.’ As the Soul advances in these struggles, it may experience ‘Ecstasy,’ which Nyssa thought of as the work of the Divine Logos or Christ. The advance of one such Soul brings grace and blessing to others. To understand this, it helps to think of a saint, like Theresa of Avila, who attained union with God in the Seventh Mansion, beautifully conveyed in her inspiring writings about her interior life.
‘On the Holy Spirit’ by Basil and Nyssa
‘On the Holy Spirit’ is the title of each treatise written by St. Basil the Great (2011) and his younger brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa (2021), whom I call ‘Nyssa’ to distinguish him from St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Their writings on the Holy Spirit impressed me because of the strength of their respective battles, Basil against the ‘Spirit-fighters,’ Pneumatomachians in Greek, and Nyssa against the Macedonians. The latter denied the deification of the Holy Spirit, saying the Holy Spirit is not part of the higher world; “It is disconnected from the Creative Force.” To the Macedonians, the Holy Spirit was simply “A divine energy diffused through the universe…not a distinct person like the Father and the Son” (2021:2). They divided the Uncreated Realms of the Godhead from this Created Realm, and with the latter they ranked the Holy Spirit.
Basil, in his treatise On the Holy Spirit (2011:68), writes glowingly of the Holy Spirit, as if glorifying how meaningful is his inspiring view of Divinity to us:
“Through the Holy Spirit comes the restoration to paradise, the ascent to the kingdom of heaven, the return to adopted sonship, the freedom to call God our Father, and to become a companion of the grace of Christ, to be called a child of light, to participate in his eternal glory, and generally, to have all fullness of blessing in this age and the age to come.”
As mentioned, in the 2nd century, they tended to conceive of the angelic hierarchy as ‘the Holy Spirit’ in general, not of the Holy Spirit as a distinct personage. In Origen’s view (Isaiah 6:3), the Holy Spirit was a ‘seraphim’ or an angelic being. Basil partially corrects these views, observing that, “The mentioning of the angels is not like that of the Spirit; the Spirit is received as the Lord of life, while the angels are received as helpers of fellow slaves and faithful witnesses to the truth” (2011:60). He thought of the angels according to Ps. 103:4, ‘He makes his spirits and his ministers’ flames of fire..’ Whereas, Basil writes of angels:
“On account of this they have place and become visible, appearing to those who are worthy in the form of bodies proper to them. Still, holiness is extrinsic to their substance and brings perfection to them through the communion of the Spirit.” ((2011:72)
In Chapters 1-9 and 26-to the end, Basil dismisses Christians quibbling over prepositional usages for glorifying the Trinity, quoting varied language usage by St. Paul. In Chapter 3 (2011:31), he opined ‘That the logic-chopping of words is from pagan wisdom,’ e.g.’ from whom,’ or ‘through whom,’ or ‘by whom.’
So I asked myself: why did Basil need to eliminate grammatical/linguistic criteria for understanding the divine nature of the Trinity? One thinks Basil did not want Christians to focus simply on the correctness of particular ‘words’ employed in liturgical recitations, irrespective of the sources. This may have been an implied criticism of liturgical conventions, such as those demonstrated in the priestly orders of Joachim’s Age of the Son. But here is a hint of a philosophical movement towards the Age of the Holy Spirit, towards the more contemplative mode of experiencing the Divine.
I think Basil was encouraging Christians to reach into ‘wordlessness,’ which is a consciousness that has its understanding at another level of ‘thought,’ not necessarily verbal. Already, he was providing an opening to the Pseudo-Dionysius, who argued that the Divine Names recited in praise of God are insufficient for the person who seeks a greater knowledge of God.
Briefly, during this Covid-era, I asked myself: why this interest in the Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Trinity? What does his inclusion in and characterisation as the Third Person of the Holy Trinity mean for us today? Consulting course notes from ‘The ‘Mystery of the Trinity,’ I found Professor Graham’s discussion of the Greater Doxology, “Glory be to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.” He says this language stresses the order of divine persons as Father who sends the Son and breathes forth the Holy Spirit in their missions.”
As an analogy, the above seems intended to compare the infusion of sacramental graces with the life-giving air/oxygen we breathe as long as we live. Today, are we not in the grip of a terrible corona-virus, whose primary symptom is impaired breathing? People who contract the virus gasp for breath. This, in turn, reminds us of George Floyd’s death. He died as he gradually lost the ability to breathe.
My personal experience during the past several months of this pandemic was that I often felt short of breath. When asked, others complained of a similar experience. Was it just our anxiety that we might have Covid-19, though testing negative would deny this? Was it an empathic way of sharing with others their suffering with this terrible ailment? Whatever caused it, the physical effects of breathlessness were real. In my case, at one moment, I said to myself at the inner level: so long as the Holy Spirit is with me at times, then why am I worried? This quieted my mind/spirit and alleviated any fearfulness of getting sick and dying.
Once I had read Nyssa’s On the Holy Spirit several times, I grasped that his conception of Divinity most decidedly argued for the inclusion of the Holy Spirit as the Third member of the Trinity. Nyssa was intent on raising our thoughts to the Uncreated realm that lies so far above us. He conceived of the relatedness of the ‘Uncreated Divine’ to the ‘Created” world in which we live through his idea of a “totality.” Philosophically, Nyssa was moving Christian metaphysical thought into ‘Transcendent Realities,’ which would have appealed to contemplatives in Joachim’s Age of the Holy Spirit. He strove, by the thrust of his intellectual courage, which he projected with metaphysical thought, to fathom the unfathomable Higher Realities. He reached for the ‘Metaphysically Transcendent’ by his use of the “dialectic.” This is Copleston’s term for Nyssa’s way of thinking. It was a leap into the ‘Unknown,’ a process that went beyond mere belief and verbal affirmations.
In On the Holy Spirit, by Nyssa, the following lines opened my mind to his metaphysical contemplations on the totality of the Uncreated to the Created. Nyssa was not influenced by Anaxagorus’ idea of the evolution of the primitive human mind through nourishment from nature. However, this recalled the Spirit- fighters ranking the Holy Spirit with Creation. Nyssa’s words, printed below, spoke to the totality of things as the whole Creation of heaven and earth..
Creation entirely, in all its visible and spiritual extent, is the finished work of Divine power … we should be justified in calling all Nature which came into existence by a creation a movement of Will, an impulse of Design, a transmission of Power, beginning from the Father, advancing through the Son, and completed in the Holy Spirit.” (2021:22)
One of the great visualizing ideas of the Cappadocians was the iconography of the Three Persons of the Trinity forming three intersecting circles of light. In On the Holy Spirit, (2021:37-38), Nyssa expressed this idea in a way that conveyed the “Glory” of each One Glorifying the others. He writes: “Now the Spirit does glorify the Father and the Son…” Then, quoting John 17:4, he recalls Jesus saying to the Father, “I have glorified Thee.” Later, Jesus says, “Glorify thou me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” [i.e. Christ was the pre-existent Son, an argument against the Arians]. The Divine Voice answers, “I have both glorified, and will glorify again.” You see [says Nyssa] the revolving circle of the glory moving from Like to Like….” Nyssa concludes: “Faith completes the circle, and glorifies the Son by means of the Spirit … “, having already referred to “the majesty of the Spirit glorifying the Son.”
Nyssa argued for the significance of the Holy Spirit because it was “The Spirit of God” that gave clear testimony to the Son. We look to Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, the Voice from Heaven declaring: “This is my Son, the Beloved… the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him … “ (Matt. 2:16-17). Nyssa asked the Spirit-fighters, “How can you confess the Son except by the Holy Spirit?
John Scotus Eriugena on the ‘Totality’ of the ‘Universe.’
The great theme of Nyssa on the ‘entirety’ of Heaven and earth was taken up by John Scotus Eiugena (ca. 800-877 CE). Drawing The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, D. Moran (2003), I see that he is regarded as “The most significant intellectual of the early monastic period … the outstanding philosopher of the Carolingian era…” Educated in Greek Christian Neoplatonist writings such as Nyssa, Basil and the Pseudo-Dionysius, he went to teach in the Palatine School attached to the court of King Charles the Bald. At the request of the king, Eriugena translated the Greek writings of Dionisius into Latin a. He worked on other translations, including Nyssa’s De hominis opifico, and was acquainted with Plato’s Timaeus.
Bertrand Russell (1945:400-407) describes Eriugena as “A Neoplatonist, an accomplished Greek scholar… He was “the most astonishing person of the ninth century; he would have been less surprising if he had lived in the fifth or fifteenth century.” Copleston sees him as the first systematic thinker, a precursor to Hegel as a philosopher in Idealist traditions. Returning to the Stanford Encyclopedia account of Eriugena’s philosophy, they say that Eriugena tried to relate cosmology to the Godhead. He wrote, “The highest principle – the immovable self-identified one … Who engendered all things and retrieves all things back into itself as the first principle.” Eriugena tried to make sense of divine revelation in Scripture, through reason and aided by the rules of the Dialectic. Russell says of Eriugena On the Division of Nature, that “Nature is not only what is, but also what is not” (1945:404). In this sense, we see that dialectically, in Eriugena’s system, all these spheres are woven together. There is no suggestion of contradiction. He devised a complex scheme to show the dialectic’s internal relations within this system. He conceived of physiologia, Latin for ‘Nature,’ in bringing together the total Universe of Being and Non-Being. The latter phrasing enabled him to distinguish Spirit from inert material forms, which he equated with non-being.
Nature, he divided into four ‘Species.’ The First is the Godhead (the Uncreated Divine), that which Creates and is not Created. Secondly, there is the Species assigned to the Primordial Causes that are akin to Plato’s Higher Forms or Nyssa’s prototypes. This Second category of Nature is That which is Created (by the First) and does itself Create. In the Platonic sense, the original archetypes give rise to pluralisms, such as those in the Third Realm (our earthly beings). Note there is a dialectical relationship between the Second and Third Divisions in Nature. Thirdly, our realm of the Division of Nature is that which is Created and does not Create– these come into being as ‘temporal effects.’
The Fourth Division is that of ‘non-being, neither Created nor Creating…. representing perishability.’ Here there is a dialectical linkage with the First Principle, for the Godhead is involved in ‘retrieving’ all things back into itself.
What is it that endures beyond the breath of life and animates the body with vitality? Is it the indwelling soul?
In Nyssa’s On the Soul and the Resurrection (2016 in English), he converses with his older sister Macrina, whom he visits after the death of their brother Basil. To his sorrow, she is at death’s door. He calls her “Teacher.” In their discourse on attaining this higher wisdom, she is like Socrates’ wise teacher, Diotima, in Plato’s Symposium. In Nyssa’s recording of his conversation with Macrina, he mentions *that the Soul is like a ‘prototype’ of the ‘image’ implanted in the human being. Here we think of Eriugena’s category for humankind, ‘the created,’ which uses the Soul to connect with the higher realm of divinely generated archetypes or prototypes.
On reading Macrina’s speech on ‘seeing Beauty’ in the images coming from the divine world, it occurred to me that the Soul, while indwelling the physical body, may be the organ of spiritual vision, a source of dream-like imagery, able to convey prophetic meaning. As quoted below from Macrina, the Soul’s faculty of critical thought is its ‘god-like part.’ She says (2016:34):
“ The speculative and critical faculty is the property of the soul’s godlike part; by these we grasp the Deity also… The Deity is in its substance very Beautiful; and to the Deity the soul will in its state of purity have affinity, and will embrace it as like itself. Whenever this happens, then, there will be no longer need of the impulse of Desire to lead the way to the Beautiful… “
There are realms of exquisite Beauty lying above this world. On any occasion when the Soul is ‘seeing,’ it may also receive prophecy, as in Isaiah, Ch. 6. Several lines of prophecy are attached to his vision. The Lord God spoke to him of apocalyptic scenes: “Cities lie waste without inhabitants … The land desolate … Vast is the emptiness of the land..” But the Lord finishes up with a beautiful idea. If the oak forest undergoes burning again and again, and the tree reduced to its stump, The Holy Seed is its stump. (Isa. 6:13). Is this a metaphor able to describe the spiritual holiness of the Indwelling Soul?
Or was that the Providence of the Lord God, fore-seeing that from the ‘Seed’ of King David’s royal lineage, there would be born to Mary of the tribe of Judah – the holy child, a Son of God – Jesus Christ?
In On the Soul and the Resurrection (2016:27), Macrina restates Nyssa’s idea of the Godhead as the Entirety of things (encompassing Eriugena’s First and fourth Categories):
“Firstly, on the soul’s existing in our bodies in this present life, though different from them; and secondly, that the Divine being… though distinctly something other than visible and material substances, nevertheless pervades each one amongst all existences, and by this penetration of the whole keeps the world in a state of being; so … we need not think the soul, either is out of existence, when she passes from the world of forms to the Unseen….”
Central to this paper is my vision in 1994 of the exquisite beauty of the figure of the Holy Spirit. Ever after, I sought to understand better how humans could aspire to the Divine. It occurred to me that if our interior soul is a spiritual being, this may be an answer to what lies ahead of us, in this world, and after the death of the physical body, when we enter the greater realm of “the Unseen.”
Bibliographic Sources
The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition, Catholic Bible Press, 1993.
Fr. Bellarmino Bagatti, O.F.M. The Church from the Circumcision, History and Archaeology of the Judaeo-Christians, English Translation by Fr. Eugene Hoade, O.F.M., Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1971 edition, reprinted 2004.
Bogdan Bucur, ‘Hierarchy, Prophecy, and the Angelomorphic Spirit: A Contribution to the Study of the Book of Revelation’s Wirkungsgeschichte, JBL.127, no. 1(2008), pages 173-194.
Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, Penguin Books, Published 1967, Revised Edition 1993.
Frederick Copleston, S.J. A History of Philosophy, Vol. 2, Mediaeval Philosophy, Augustine to Bonaventure, Garden City, New York: Image Books, first published 1950, 1962 edition,
Fr. Stefano Gobbi, To The Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons, Printed in the U.S.A. by The Marian Movement Of Priests, 18th Edition of Mary’s Messages to Fr. Gobbi,1972- 1997
Donald Graham, Lectures on The Mystery of the Trinity, St. Augustine’s Seminary, University of Toronto, Winter Term: January to March 2019.
Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Greenwood, S.C. the Attic Press, Inc. First Published 1957, Reprinted 1973
Kevin Madigan, Medieval Christianity, A New History, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, ‘Feuerbach: Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook,’ (written 1845-46) in Anthropological Theory, An Introductory History edited by Jon McGee and Richard Warms, Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2000, pages 53-66.
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945, 16th printing, ‘John the Scot,’ pp. 400-407
St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, Translated and Introduced by Stephen Hildebrand, Yonkers, N.Y., St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011
St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Spirit, Monee, IL.USA, April 2021
St. Gregory Of Nyssa, On The Soul And The Resurrection, Aeterna Press, 2016,
[1] The Jewish Festival of the Trumpets, Rosh Ha-Shanah, when the Shofar is sounded in the temple, according to Encyclopedia of Judaism, “is intended to arouse the people to penance and to open the gates of heaven to prayer and mercy.”
[2] On an internet site I saw the same iconography of the Holy Spirit, imagined as at Pentecost as an umbrella design of light beams reached down into the assembly of apostles.
[3] In 2 Kings chapters 22-23, it tells of how the king sent his secretary to the High Priest in the temple to oversee the counting of the treasury. The High Priest at that time found a book – then when it was taken to the king, and he heard from this “book of the law,” “the book of the covenant,” he was in a state of wrath, for they had not been obeying these words from the time of Moses.
[4] Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy, Ch. IX, on ‘Ecclesiastical Reform in the Eleventh Century,’ saw reforms of the priesthood because “they had fallen into bad ways… simony and concubinage.” The reforms involved foundations of new monastic orders, very strict, eg the Camaldolese by the ascetic hermit, Romuald. (1945:407-411).
[5][5] Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, Ch. Two: ‘The Divine Darkness’ is devoted to Pseudo-Dionysius’ Concerning Mystical Theology sees this text was “inspired by the Holy Spirit.” His “… apophaticism constitutes the fundamental characteristic of the whole theological tradition of the Eastern Church.” ( 1973:23-26).
[6] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in ‘Feuerbach: Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook,’ point out that the division of labour in the first form of tribal ownership was patriarchal, family chieftains ruling over the tribe slaves below. There was inherent slavery in the patriarchal structure of the family, of course. Then, with state ownership, several tribes uniting, by conquests they imposed slavery, as in the slave-societies of biblical timers, particularly in the Roman Empire. Anthropology Theory (2000:56-57.)
[7] Encyclopaedia Britannica website says Melchizedek’s name was ancient Canaanite, meaning ‘My King is ‘Sedek’ .. God’s Name, or My King is Righteousness.’
[8] Ezekiel 1:26-28 saw a glorious figure, seated above the sapphire throne “something that seemed like a human form”… fire all around … splendour – “the appearance of the glory of the Lord,” who was departing the Jerusalem Temple to remain with the Jews during their exile. It was a marvelous spiritual gift to the despairing young priest Ezekiel far away from his native Jerusalem.
[9] A few examples of antique ‘hymns in English translated from the Latin: Aquinas ‘The Heavenly Word proceeding forth,’13th century; ‘Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,’ 9th century; ‘ The royal Banners forward go,’ 530-609; ‘Not a thought of earthly things,’ Greek liturgy of St. James, ca. 5th century; ‘Strengthen for service, Lord, the hands, Syrian 4th century; ‘The Eternal Gifts of Christ the King,’ St. Ambrose 340-397.
Historical Visions 