In the American culture, especially in the last century where we have twisted Jefferson’s separation of church and state to mean exactly the opposite of what he meant,* speaking about religion and, especially, theology and dogma is uncomfortable and difficult. A knee-jerk reaction is to ask: Why is the writing of St. Ambrose (and his steadfast arguments over dogma concerning the Holy Spirit) so important? Why can’t we just get along? Isn’t being a good person enough?
Recently, a survey was done that demonstrates that this attitude is overwhelmingly prevalent among American Catholics. Here is a response from Fr. Barron, a Catholic apologist, that does a very good job of explaining why doctrine (a much more palatable word than dogma, which I think is more the accurate term) is so vitally important:
To place what Fr. Barron is saying in context of St. Ambrose, note this passage from the fifth chapter of the first book of On the Holy Spirit:
Good, then, is the Spirit, but good, not as though acquiring but as imparting goodness. For the Holy Spirit does not receive from creatures but is received; as also He is not sanctified but sanctifies; for the creature is sanctified, but the Holy Spirit sanctifies. In which matter, though the word is used in common, there is a difference in the nature.
Goodness comes from God — imparted by the Holy Spirit, our contact point and source of communion with God. If we get rid of God, or even if we have an improper understanding of God (and therefore a dysfunctional relationship with Him), we get rid of the source of goodness. Therefore, being a good person is not only not enough, but becomes impossible.
When one takes into consideration Fr. Barron’s examples of both the ancient and modern (communist, fascist, atheistic) worlds where the Christian God is absent and the complete disregard these worlds have for entire classes of human beings, it puts into perspective the radical change brought about by the Nativity and the Incarnation of Christ. As St. Ambrose points out above, all good in the world comes from God. It is an external reality imparted by God.
The coming of Christ changes this dynamic completely. By uniting Himself to human nature, He makes humanity the temple of God, capable of housing the Holy Spirit. Thus goodness can now be internal — gushing forth from a human nature united to the divine.
In other words, what St. Ambrose is arguing about is vitally important. We cannot just get along and be good people without God, without Christ or without the Holy Spirit.
*Jefferson wrote these words in defense of a group of Baptists in Rhode Island, where they were a religious minority. He was arguing that it was right and proper for them to be Baptists in the public sphere. A separation of church and state allows their religion to mix with their politics and their ability to be bold about speaking their own beliefs in the political sphere. Thus, when modern Americans use the words separation of church and state to try and remove any symbols or discussion of religion from the public sphere they are actually doing the very thing Jefferson was writing against.
For a series of blogs that is ostensibly an exercise for the Nativity Fast, there has been very little in terms of actually speaking about Christmas since I began meditating on the writings of St. Ambrose. I would be remiss, therefore, if I didn’t discuss his use of Isaiah 9:6 — a verse strongly associated with Christmas — in the fifth chapter of the first book of his treatise On the Holy Spirit:
This good gift is the grace of the Spirit, which the Lord Jesus shed forth from heaven, after having been fixed to the gibbet of the cross, returning with the triumphal spoils of death deprived of its power, as you find it written: ‘Ascending up on high He led captivity captive, and gave good gifts to men’ (Ps. 67[68]:18). And well does he say ‘gifts,’ for as the Son was given, of Whom it is written: ‘Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given’ (Isa. 9:6); so, too, is the grace of the Spirit given. But why should I hesitate to say that the Holy Spirit also is given to us, since it is written: ‘The love of God is shed forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Who is given to us’ (Rom. 5:5). And since captive breasts certainly could not receive Him, the Lord Jesus first led captivity captive, that our affections being set free, He might pour forth the gift of divine grace.
Growing up, I despised Christmas. I hated the fights that would inevitably erupt over the trimming of the tree. I hated the disappointment of seeing gifts fall short of their imagined expectation. I hated the emphasis America placed upon a feast that ought to play second fiddle to the Resurrection. Even today it is difficult to stomach the advertising we see associated with Christmas, the horrific behavior of shoppers on Black Friday and the characterization of St. Nicholas as the head of some secret high-tech corporation whose job it is to deliver presents around the world every December 24th.
It is only since I have paid close attention to the hymnody of the Orthodox Church and the writings of the Church Fathers that I have learned to love this great Christian feast. This quote from St. Ambrose is a perfect example of why I am now able to look beyond the ridiculousness exhibited by the culture around me and see the beauty of a Child born unto us, a Son that is given unto us.
Note what St. Ambrose juxtaposes the Nativity with — the Cross and the Holy Spirit. Observe that on Christmas day, while Christians around the world are heralding the Incarnation of Christ, the Orthodox Church sings this during the Ninth Ode of the Christmas Canon:
Herod ascertained the exact time the star appeared; by the guidance of which the wise men with gifts in Bethlehem worshipped Christ; by Whom they were directed to go to their country by another way, abandoning that terrible, ridiculous infanticide.
In case we miss this, the Orthodox Church reads Matthew’s account (2:13-23) of Herod’s horrible crime the Sunday after the Nativity. On those years where Christmas falls on a Sunday (as it does this year) and the Sunday after the Nativity is superseded by the the Circumcision of Christ and St. Basil, the Orthodox Church reads this pericope on the 26th — the day after Christmas.
It is a reminder that though the Nativity is one of the most monumental moments in all of human history, the Incarnation in and of itself does not complete the salvific work of God. The great enemy death still holds sway. The sting of death will not be blunted without crucifixion.
St. Ambrose also reminds us of what it is that God accomplishes by sending His Son to the Cross:
And since captive breasts certainly could not receive Him, the Lord Jesus first led captivity captive, that our affections being set free, He might pour forth the gift of divine grace.
God’s plan for our salvation goes deeper than either the Cross or the Resurrection. There is a reason why we celebrate Ascension and Pentecost every year. The Risen Christ ascends into heaven with our humanity to sit at the right hand of the Father in glory and in perfect communion with the Holy Spirit. Our very nature is then prepared and readied to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit Himself — to become the tabernacle of God.
In our fallen nature — ripped away from God — we are incapable of being the dwelling place of God. Yes, we can have contact with Him — this is shown by the prophets, through whom the Spirit spoke — but we are incapable of crossing the divide that humanity created when we knew a world without God. Renewed in the Risen Christ, however, we are united with the New Adam — the new humanity — that sits at the right hand of God. We are therefore able to fulfill the image and likeness of God within us — we are able to become like Christ and experience the indwelling of the Spirit.
In turn, it is the Spirit that descends upon us and the gifts we set forth. It is because of this descent that we are able to partake of Christ Himself, in the Body and the Blood and thus experience the foretaste of the love of God the Father.
All this is made possible by the Nativity. This is why I have learned to love Christmas, to learn to love crying out:
In the middle of the second century A.D., a Syrian Christian by the name of Tatian produced the Diatessaron (from the Greek meaning one through four). It was his attempt to create a single composite gospel by combining and harmonizing the texts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This work was ultimately rejected by the Church. Indeed, St. Irenaeus, in the third book of his Against the Heresies, insists on four Gospels:
It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is scattered throughout all the world, and the ‘pillar and ground’ (1 Tim. 3:15) of the Church is the Gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh. From which fact, it is evident that the Word, the Artificer of all, He that sits upon the cherubim, and contains all things, He who was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit.
Note that last line — bound together by one Spirit. If we limit ourselves to one Gospel or attempt to harmonize the four into one, we limit God’s ability to speak to us through Scripture. Consider the following passage from the fifth chapter of the first book of St. Ambrose’s On the Holy Spirit:
The Holy Spirit, through Whom the things that are good are ministered to us, is never evil. Whence two evangelists in one and the same place, in words in differing from each other, have made the same statement, for you read in Matthew: ‘If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children; how much more shall your Father, Who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him.’ (7:11). But according to Luke you will find it thus written: “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?’ (11:13). We observe, then, that the Holy Spirit is good in the Lord’s judgment by the testimony of the evangelists, since the one has put good things in the place of the Holy Spirit, the other has named the Holy Spirit in the place of good things. If, then, the Holy Spirit is that which is good, how is He not good?
If St. Ambrose were limited to just one Gospel (harmonized or no), he would be unable to make this comparison and therefore this argument on the goodness of the Holy Spirit. This goodness is revealed by having two different voices speak about the same thing. The Spirit reveals Himself through this diversity and thus demonstrates the unity of the Gospel. In turn, this reveals the unity and diversity that exists, not only within the Church, but in the Godhead — one in essence and in three persons. Amen.
To the modern (especially American) mind, change is a good thing. Given that our own origin comes out of rebellion and revolution, it should come as no surprise that our heroes tend in the direction of the rebel and the outsider rather than the authority figure (Star Wars and the Twilight series immediately come to mind). Even when they are an authority figure (say, like Dirty Harry or Michael Weston of Burn Notice) they tend to work outside the system in order to do good.
In contrast, change, especially when it comes to the Orthodox Christian understanding of God, has a negative connotation. Though we can change into a state of grace through our relationship with God, this is not the normal change we see in fallen creation. Note how St. Ambrose, in the fifth chapter of On the Holy Spirit, characterizes change in fallen creation:
Every creature, then, is subject to change, not only such as has been changed by some sin or condition of the outward elements, but also such as can be liable to corruption by a fault of nature
Through sin, creation has moved from being declared very good by God into being fallen. Humanity has moved from being made in the image and likeness of God into being fallen. Our condition as sinful and fallen creatures has the direct consequence of disease, decay and death. Change in the fallen world, therefore, is associated with these kinds of movements:
youth into old age
health into disease
life into death
It is particularly vital that we understand that God does not and cannot change in contrast to change in fallen world. Note how St. Ambrose insists:
Every creature, therefore, is capable of change, but the Holy Spirit is good and not capable of change, nor can He be changed by any fault, Who does away the faults of all and pardons their sins. How, then, is He capable of change, Who by sanctifying works in others a change to grace, but is not changed Himself.
If God were capable of change, it would be possible for Him to go from being good to being evil; from being eternal to being finite; from being immortal to being mortal. If God were capable of change, then Christians everywhere would be wasting their time. What good does it do to seek to unite ourselves to something that might change from immortality into mortality? Our salvation would be worthless.
The irony is that positive change is possible, but in a way that the modern world (which desires so much to change) has largely rejected. We are made in the image and likeness of God. We are created to be able to become like God. This positive change, however, requires that we have an intimate relationship with God so that we know what it means to be like Him. Amen.
I plan to spend a few days on Chapter 5 of On the Holy Spirit by St. Ambrose because it is beautiful. This beauty has made me realize something that I should have done long before today — the works of St. Ambrose can be found online here. Chapter 5 of On the Holy Spirit can be found here.
In the first paragraph of Chapter 5, St. Ambrose writes:
For as we are children through the Spirit, because ‘God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, Abba, Father; so that thou art now not a servant but a son’ (Gal 4:6, 7;) in like manner, also, every creature is waiting for the revelation of the sons of God, whom in truth the grace of the Holy Spirit made sons of God. Therefore, also, every creature itself shall be changed by the revelation of the grace of the Spirit, ‘and shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God’ (Rom 8:19, 21)
Note the implication of the role of humanity in creation: all of creation is waiting for the revelation of God through us. The Holy Spirit descends upon us at the baptismal rite where Orthodox Christians are sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit Himself. In us, this grace and sanctification can be revealed in the way we use and interact with creation. We may either use what has been given to us by God to give glory to God — to give creation back to God and therefore deliver it from the bondage of corruption — or we can shirk our role within creation and allow it to wallow in its subjugation to sin.
To put this another way, we are made in the image and likeness of God. Since He is the Creator of all things, we are invited by Him to be co-creators. This can be seen in Genesis 2:19 when God invites Adam to name all the creatures of the earth. There is a reason why wheat and grapes do not become the Body and Blood of Christ. These are given to us by God. We rework them with our hands — we co-create. Wheat becomes bread. Grapes become wine. These are offered to God and they are sanctified and changed by the Holy Spirit through our participation in God’s salvific work.
What is important to understand, and what St. Ambrose makes clear, is that it is not just humanity, nor just wheat and grapes that are capable of being sanctified. Christ came to save all creation. We, therefore, are tasked with sanctifying all that which we touch and encounter. God is revealed to all creation through the sons of God, forged and created by the descent of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
On Wednesday, I quoted Matthew 12:32, possibly one of the harshest and most difficult verses to understand in all of Scripture:
He who shall blaspheme against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him, but he who shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit shall never be forgiven, either here or hereafter.
So much so, that after using the verse in very much the same way I did (as an admonishment for anyone who would think the Holy Spirit not God), St. Ambrose feels it necessary to try to explain it:
Is an offense against the Son different from one against the Holy Spirit? For as their dignity is one, and common to both, so too is the offense. But if any one, led astray by the visible human body, should think somewhat more remissly than is fitting concerning the Body of Christ (for it ought not to appear of little worth to us, seeing it is the palace of chastity, and the fruit of the Virgin), he incurs guilt, but he is not shut out from pardon, which he may attain to by faith. But if any one should deny the dignity, majesty, and eternal power of the Holy Spirit, and should think that devils are cast out not in the Spirit of God, but in Beelzebub, there can be no attaining of pardon there where is the fulness of sacrilege; for he who has denied the Spirit has denied also the Father and the Son, since the same is the Spirit of God Who is the Spirit of Christ.
Personally, I would go farther than St. Ambrose, based on the ontology of the Holy Spirit — He is the source of our communion with God. Note how, in Psalm 50(51):11, the Prophet David begs for forgiveness after he has committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband:
Cast me not away from Your presence; and take not Your Holy Spirit from me.
The parallelism of this verse equates the very presence of God with the Holy Spirit. Therefore, if we deny the Holy Spirit, we deny our access to the very presence of God. We choose to cut ourselves off from and reject the forgiveness offered by God the Father through His Son. This is why blaspheming Christ is forgivable — we still have access to God’s forgiveness through the Spirit — but blaspheming against the Spirit is unforgivable because we have denied our access to the very presence and forgiveness of God.
Let us take a pause from St. Ambrose to look at a few things from the liturgical tradition of the Orthodox Church that demonstrate how Thanksgiving is The Great American Holiday, because it properly orients us toward God.
From the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom:
It is proper and right to sing to You, bless You, praise You, thank You and worship You in all places of Your dominion; for You are God ineffable, beyond comprehension, invisible, beyond understanding, existing forever and always the same; You and Your only begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit. You brought us into being out of nothing, and when we fell, You raised us up again. You did not cease doing everything until You led us to heaven and granted us Your kingdom to come. For all these things we thank You and Your only begotten Son and Your Holy Spirit; for all things that we know and do not know, for blessings seen and unseen that have been bestowed upon us.
Psalm 117(118):
O give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
Let Israel now say that He is good, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
Let the house of Aaron now say that He is good, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
Let them that fear the LORD now say that He is good, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
called upon the LORD in distress; the LORD answered me, and set me in an ample place, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do unto me? Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
The LORD taketh my part among them that help me; therefore shall I see what I desire upon them that hate me, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
All the nations compassed me about, but in the name of the LORD will I destroy them, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
They compassed me about, yea, they compassed me about; but in the name of the LORD I will destroy them, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
They compassed me about like bees, they are quenched as the fire of thorns; for in the name of the LORD I will destroy them, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
Thou hast thrust sorely at me that I might fall, but the LORD helped me, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
The LORD is my strength and song, and has become my salvation, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous; the right hand of the LORD doeth valiantly, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
The right hand of the LORD is exalted; the right hand of the LORD doeth valiantly, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
I shall not die, but live and declare the works of the LORD, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
The LORD hath chastened me sorely, but He hath not given me over unto death, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go into them, and I will praise the LORD, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
This gate of the LORD, into which the righteous shall enter, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
I will praise Thee, for Thou hast heard me and art become my salvation, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
The stone which the builders refused has become the head stone of the corner, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
This is the LORD’S doing; it is marvelous in our eyes, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
Save now, I beseech Thee, O LORD; O LORD, I beseech Thee, send now prosperity, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the LORD! We have blessed you from the house of the LORD, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
God is the LORD, who hath shown us light; bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
Thou art my God, and I will praise Thee; Thou art my God, I will exalt Thee, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
O give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good, Alleluia! For His mercy endureth for ever and ever, Alleluia!
Psalm 135 (136):
O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
O give thanks unto the God of gods, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
O give thanks to the Lord of lords, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
To him who alone doeth great wonders, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
To him that by wisdom made the heavens, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
To him that stretched out the earth above the waters, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
To him that made great lights, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
The sun to rule by day, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
The moon and stars to rule by night, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
And brought out Israel from among them, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
With a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
To him which divided the Red sea into parts, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
And made Israel to pass through the midst of it, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red sea, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
To him which led his people through the wilderness, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
To him which smote great kings, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
And slew famous kings, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
Sihon king of the Amorites, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
And Og the king of Bashan, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
And gave their land for an heritage, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
Even an heritage unto Israel his servant, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
Who remembered us in our low estate, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
And hath redeemed us from our enemies, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
Who giveth food to all flesh, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
O give thanks unto the God of heaven, Alleluia! For his mercy endureth for ever, Alleluia!
Beginning in the second chapter of the first book of St. Ambrose’s On the Holy Spirit, the bishop of Milan begins to use language that might strike the modern reader as harsh.
. . . to the impious it does not seem so.
For the heretics are wont to say . . .
How utterly confused is a course of argument which does not hold to the truth, and is involved in an inverted order of statements . . .
. . . if he persists in his perverse interpretation . . .
In our age, dominated by political correctness as it is, these phrases appear to be inappropriate and even hateful. In modern American parlance, if you have to insult your opponent, you have already lost the argument. Therefore, it is easy to dismiss St. Ambrose and other Fathers of the Church who are engaged in Apologetics. Ironically (thus far, at any rate), Ambrose is actually quite polite in comparison to some of the other Fathers (St. Athanasius comes to mind).
Judging them this way, however, is anachronistic — it unfairly places our own context over and above the context within which these words were written. Rhetoric was widely studied in the ancient world — indeed, it was very popular for rhetoricians to display their skill in public debates. Such name calling was par for the course (if not a tad bit tame, in this particular case).
Besides which, St.Ambrose is being quite truthful in his language. Those who do not accept the Holy Spirit as God are heretics and impious and whose arguments are perverse and confused. Note Matthew 12:32 and what Christ says of the Holy Spirit:
He who shall blaspheme against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven him, but he who shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit shall never be forgiven, either here or hereafter.
Finally, St. Ambrose is following a rhetorical style used by Christ Himself. Note how, in Matthew 23:13 our Lord, God and Savior addresses the Pharisees:
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither go in yourselves, neither allow you them that are entering to go in.
Therefore, especially when reading the apologetic writings of the Fathers, it is important to understand the polemical language as normative so that it does not impede our ability to understand the argument that always follows.
In modern biblical scholarship, a lot of energy is spent trying to understand author intention and historical context for each and every bit of Scripture. Read any introduction to any book of Scripture (particularly from the OT) in an annotated edition of the Bible, and therein much ink is spilled speaking of when, where and who wrote various verses, let alone entire chapters and books.
I don’t point this out to complain — there is much to learn about Scripture from such an approach. Indeed, studying the Jewish liturgical rites of the Temple at the time of Christ add an incredible depth to our understanding of the Gospel According to John, for example. I bring this up to contrast it to the exegetical approach of the Fathers of the Church, particularly those of the fourth century.
Rather than dissecting Scripture into various pieces and parts to be studied within their own context, the Fathers tend to look at the Bible as a whole. They have no qualms about juxtaposing verses from very different parts of Scripture in order to make their arguments over the nature of God. It is a methodology that might take some getting used to, but by the very fact that it is extensively used by the Fathers, it is something we need to acknowledge.
For example, in the first chapter of the first book of his treatise On the Holy Spirit, St. Ambrose juxtaposes three verses in order to speak about the divinity of the Holy Spirit. They are Psalm 118 (119):91
They continue this day according to Your ordinances, for all are Your servants.
1 Corinthians 2:10
God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
and John 15:26
When the Paraclete comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.
His argument goes something like this: If the Holy Spirit is not God, than He must be a servant of God, according to Psalm 118(119):91. When held up to 1 Corinthians 2:10 and John 15:26, however, the Holy Spirit must be God, or we must think very little of God the Father. How is it that a mere servant or a mere creature can search out the deep things of God? Surely only God can do that. How is it possible for a servant or a mere creature to not only proceed from the Father, but be intimate enough with the Son to be witness to the “full expression of the Divine Majesty” (as St. Ambrose describes it)?
The only way that all three of these verses can be true is if the Holy Spirit is God.
Despite there being three different authors, three different genres, three different contexts, all three verses speak to each other. There is an internal logic that can be discerned throughout Scripture about God and His creation. Thus, if something can be stated in the Psalms about God and His creation, it must hold true in the Gospels and the Epistles and vice versa.
This is the exegetical style of the Fathers. I expect that we shall see more of it as we move forward in the treatise of St. Ambrose On the Holy Spirit.
St. Ambros’ treatise On the Holy Spirit is written in the form of a letter to the Emperor Gratian, who reigned from A.D. 375 to 383 and, through the influence of Ambrose, was a champion of the Nicene faith over and against both Arianism and its off-shoots as well as paganism. Written in A.D. 381, it coincides with the Second Ecumenical Council which affirmed that the Holy Spirit is God “even as the Father and Son are God: who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and together glorified.” These words echo those of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed that Orthodox Christians recite at every Divine Liturgy — the section on the Holy Spirit being added to the Creed at the Second Ecumenical Council, convened at Constantinople.
Ambrose begins the First Chapter of his letter to Gratian by complimenting the Emperor on his decision to restore the Basilica to the Church. One might be tempted to chalk this compliment up to what we today crudely call “brown-nosing;” however, Ambrose insists that this decision had its source in the grace of the Holy Spirit:
So, then, we have received the grace of your faith and the reward of our own; for we cannot say otherwise than that it was of the grace of the Holy Spirit, that when all were unconscious of it, you suddenly restored the Basilica. This is the gift, I say, this the work of the Holy Spirit, Who indeed was at that time preached by us, but was working in you.
He uses this compliment to launch into a defense of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Thus, he argues that the inspiration for the restoration of the Basilica to the Church did not come from a mere creature (as Arianism and its off-shoots would claim) but God Himself.
This is particularly important to realize today, on the Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple when we sing this Kontakion:
The whole world is filled today with joy and gladness on the Theotokos’s auspicious and resplendent feast, whereon with great voice it cries out: In truth, she is the heavenly tabernacle.
The tabernacle is the tent that God instructed Moses to make in order to house the ark of the covenant. Both the Temple and Orthodox Churches are modeled after the tabernacle. The narthex is where the Hebrews would bring their sacrifices. The nave (where, today, the Orthodox Christian laity worship) is where the sacrificial altar for the burnt and liquid offerings was — where only the priests were allowed. The altar, behind the iconostasis, is where the Holy of Holies was — where the ark of the covenant was — and could only be entered once a year. The tabernacle was where God resided — specifically where the ark was.
According to the Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, Ioakim and Anna present their daughter Mary to the Temple when she was three years old as a temple virgin. Therein she enters the Holy of Holies in preparation for her role as the Mother of God.
Historically there were two Temples — the first built by Solomon which was destroyed by the Babylonians, and the second built after the Babylonian Exile. The second Temple — the one Mary entered — did not house the ark.
Thus, in her role as the Mother of God — the womb wherein the Incarnate God resided — she is the new ark. She is, as the Kontakion declares, the heavenly tabernacle. This is why most Orthodox Christian Churches have the icon of the Platytera — the Theotokos as a throne whereupon the Christ-child sits — behind the altar. This would be where that ark of the covenant would be in the architecture of the tabernacle.
This reality — in truth, she is the heavenly tabernacle — happens through the descent of the Holy Spirit, whereupon the Incarnate Christ comes to reside in her womb. This same reality happens during every Divine Liturgy. The Holy Spirit descends upon Orthodox Christians and the Gifts. The Gifts become the very Body and very Blood of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. Then, Orthodox Christians partake. In that moment, we participate in the reality of the Theotokos-as-heavenly-tabernacle because just like her, the Holy Spirit descends and Christ resides in us.
If the Holy Spirit is not True God, of one essence with the Father and the Son this reality is not possible. If the Holy Spirit, through His descent upon us and the gifts, is our source of communion, His being merely a creature and not God would only grant us access to that which we already have — creation. We would have no access to God. Christ’s Incarnation and Crucifixion would be rendered meaningless.
This is why St. Ambrose and the Fathers of the Second Ecumenical Council insisted that the Holy Spirit is God — so that we, like the Theotokos herself, could be a tabernacle of God Himself. Amen.
