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christian-pneumatologyfeatured in 35 works

Divinity of the Holy Spirit

The Spirit who spoke through the prophets is no servant but the Lord himself

This doctrine confesses that the Holy Spirit is fully and coequally God, to be worshiped and glorified together with the Father and the Son. Defended by Basil of Caesarea in On the Holy Spirit and affirmed at the Council of Constantinople in 381, it answered those, called Pneumatomachians or Macedonians, who denied the Spirit's full divinity. The Spirit shares the one Godhead, not a lesser or created rank.

How it traveled

  1. 1 Corinthians
    Ephesus · 67
    explains
  2. Romans
    Corinth · 67
    explains
  3. Acts
    Rome · 84
    explains
  4. John
    Ephesus · 100
    explains
  5. 1 John
    Ephesus · 100
    explains
  6. Against Praxeas.
    · 220
    explains
  7. A Treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity.
    Rome · 258
    explains
  8. Commentary on the Apocalypse of the Blessed John
    · 303
    explains
  9. De Spiritu Sancto
    Caesarea (Cappadocia) · 379
    explains
  10. The Letters
    Caesarea (Cappadocia) · 379
    explains
  11. The Catechetical Lectures of S. Cyril
    Jerusalem · 386
    explains
  12. Select Orations of Saint Gregory Nazianzen
    Nazianzus · 390
    explains
  13. Select Letters of Saint Gregory Nazianzen
    Nazianzus · 390
    explains
  14. Against Eunomius
    Nyssa · 395
    explains
  15. On the Holy Spirit
    Nyssa · 395
    explains
  16. On the Holy Trinity, and of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit
    Nyssa · 395
    explains
  17. On the Holy Spirit
    Milan · 397
    explains
  18. A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles
    Constantinople (Istanbul) · 407
    explains
  19. The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of St. John
    Constantinople (Istanbul) · 407
    explains
  20. Homilies on First Corinthians
    Constantinople (Istanbul) · 407
    explains
  21. The Commentary and Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Galatians and Ephesians
    Constantinople (Istanbul) · 407
    explains
  22. Homilies on Second Corinthians
    Constantinople (Istanbul) · 407
    explains
  23. A Commentary on the Apostles' Creed
    Aquileia · 411
    explains
  24. Jerome and Gennadius. Lives of Illustrious Men
    Bethlehem · 420
    explains
  25. Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  26. On the Holy Trinity
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  27. Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  28. The Enchiridion
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  29. A Treatise on Faith and the Creed
    Hippo Regius · 430
    explains
  30. The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus
    Constantinople (Istanbul) · 439
    explains
  31. The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen
    Constantinople (Istanbul) · 450
    explains
  32. The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret
    Cyrrhus · 458
    explains
  33. Treatise on the Incarnation (qq[1]-59)
    Paris · 1274
    explains
  34. Book First. of the Knowledge of God the Creator
    Geneva · 1564
    explains
  35. A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections, in Three Parts
    Northampton, Massachusetts · 1758
    explains

Key passages(20)

On the Holy Spirit · Ambrose of Milan

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57. First, we understand that he called the Holy Spirit the Spirit of the Lord. Then, since he mentioned first the Holy Spirit and added: “Thou hast not lied unto men but unto God,” you must necessari

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But, as I observed, the best proof to us is our familiar experience. For nothing can be more alien from a creature, than the office which the Scriptures ascribe to him, and which the pious actually fe

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Chapter XIX. Against those who assert that the Spirit ought not to be glorified. 48. “Be it so,” it is rejoined, “but glory is by no means so absolutely due to the Spirit as to require His exaltatio

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Chapter X. Against those who say that it is not right to rank the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. 24. But we must proceed to attack our opponents, in the endeavour to confute those “opposit

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Chapter XVII. Against those who say that the Holy Ghost is not to be numbered with, but numbered under, the Father and the Son. Wherein moreover there is a summary notice of the faith concerning righ

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Chapter XXII. Establishment of the natural communion of the Spirit from His being, equally with the Father and the Son, unapproachable in thought. πρὸς θεωρίαν δυσέφικτον. The Benedictine Latin is “

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Chapter XXI. Proof from Scripture that the Spirit is called Lord. 52. But why get an unfair victory for our argument by fighting over these undignified questions, when it is within our power to prov

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Chapter XXIV. Proof of the absurdity of the refusal to glorify the Spirit, from the comparison of things glorified in creation. 55. Furthermore man is “crowned with glory and honour,” Ps. viii. 5.

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Chapter XVI. That the Holy Spirit is in every conception inseparable from the Father and the Son, alike in the creation of perceptible objects, in the dispensation of human affairs, and in the judgme

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Homilies on First Corinthians · John Chrysostom

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[7.] Then to show its greatness, he saith, If the Spirit which knoweth the secret things of God had not revealed them, we should not have learned them. Such an object of care was this whole subject to

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Chapter LXXXVI. Faustus, first abbot of the monastery at Lerins, and then made bishopOn the Holy Spirit, in which he shows from the belief of the fathers, that the Holy Spirit is consubstantial and c

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Chapter CXXXIII. Amphilochius,On the Holy Spirit, arguing that He is God, that He is to be worshipped, and that He is omnipotent. Amphilochius of Cappadocia, bishop 375, died about 400.

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On the Holy Spirit · Ambrose of Milan

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170. And as there is a light of the divine countenance, so, too, does fire shine forth from the countenance of God, for it is written: “A fire shall burn in His sight.” Ps. l. [xlix.] 3. The Holy Sp

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On the Holy Spirit · Ambrose of Milan

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27. This seems, gracious Emperor, to be a full account of our right feeling, but to the impious it does not seem so. Observe what they are striving after. For the heretics are wont to say that the Hol

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On the Holy Spirit · Ambrose of Milan

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43. Nor ought it to seem opposed to this, that although subsequently mention is not made of the Spirit, He is yet believed in, and what had not been mentioned in words is expressed in belief. For when

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On the Holy Spirit · Ambrose of Milan

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60. And the Lord Himself made clear that the same Who is the Spirit of the Father is the Holy Spirit, when according to Matthew He said that we ought not to take thought in persecution what we should

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On the Holy Spirit · Ambrose of Milan

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Lev. xix. 2. 75. Since, then, the whole invisible creation (whose substance some rightly believe to be reasonable and incorporeal), with the exception of the Trinity, does not impart but acquires the

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On the Holy Spirit · Ambrose of Milan

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84. But how great is that grace which makes even the lower nature of the lot of men equal to the gifts received by Angels, as the Lord Himself promised, saying: “Ye shall be as the Angels in heaven.”

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On the Holy Spirit · Ambrose of Milan

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101. This is the oil of gladness, of which the prophet says: “God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.” Ps. xlv. [xliv.] 8. Acts x. 37, 38. 102. And well di

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On the Holy Spirit · Ambrose of Milan

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18. You see, then, that He Who went with him, Himself departed from him. The Same is, then, the Lord, Who is the Spirit of the Lord, that is, he called the Spirit of God, Lord, as also the Apostle say

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