03 — On the Holy Spirit
St. Basil’s treatise On the Holy Spirit (De Spiritu Sancto, 375) is the decisive patristic defense of the Spirit’s full divinity and the single most influential text behind the pneumatological article of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. This section treats both the treatise as a whole — its occasion in a controversy over a single word of the doxology, its argument, and its famous reserve — and its twenty-seventh chapter, the locus classicus of the Orthodox theology of unwritten Tradition.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)
By the time Basil wrote, the Nicene cause had largely prevailed regarding the Son, but a new party — the Pneumatomachoi (“Spirit-fighters,” or Macedonians) — conceded the Son’s divinity while denying it of the Holy Spirit. On the Holy Spirit, written at the request of Basil’s disciple Amphilochius of Iconium, answers them by argument from worship and Tradition rather than bald assertion, defending the Spirit’s right to be glorified with the Father and the Son while never once flatly writing “the Spirit is God.” That reserve — economy or evasion, depending on the reader — became itself a topic, defended by Gregory of Nazianzus and impatiently surpassed by him in turn. The two content files treat the treatise’s two great legacies: the doxology controversy and the road to Constantinople 381; and Chapter 27 (66) on unwritten tradition, which carries this collection’s single verified PG anchor, On the Holy Spirit 27.66 [PG 32:188].
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| On the Holy Spirit (De Spiritu Sancto) | The treatise of 375: the doxology controversy (“with” vs. “in” the Spirit) and Amphilochius’ request; the argument from conumeration, baptism, and the Spirit’s works; Basil’s reserve in never writing “the Spirit is God,” defended as economy by Gregory of Nazianzus (Oration 43) and surpassed in Oration 31; and its role at Constantinople 381. |
| Unwritten Tradition (Chapter 27.66) | The locus classicus on unwritten apostolic tradition, quoted from NPNF II/8 [PG 32:188]: written vs. unwritten “delivered in a mystery”; the examples (sign of the cross, eastward prayer, epiclesis, blessing of water and chrism, threefold immersion, renunciation of Satan); what Basil does and does not claim; and its role in the Orthodox theology of Tradition. |
Why It Matters
On the Holy Spirit is where Basil’s method — God known in His operations and worship, not comprehended in His essence — is brought to bear on the last great Trinitarian question of the fourth century. The treatise gave the Council of Constantinople both the substance and very nearly the words of its confession of the Spirit; and Chapter 27, written to justify a single liturgical preposition, became a foundation stone of how the Orthodox Church understands Tradition itself.
See Also
- Against Eunomius — the epistemology (God known from His operations) that On the Holy Spirit applies to the Spirit
- Ousia and Hypostasis — the Trinitarian grammar completed at Constantinople 381
- Holy Tradition — the pan-Orthodox treatment of paradosis, with which Chapter 27 must remain consistent
- The Holy Trinity — the Cappadocian Trinitarian synthesis
References
- Basil of Caesarea. On the Holy Spirit (De Spiritu Sancto). 375. Trans. Blomfield Jackson, NPNF II/8.
- Hildebrand, Stephen M. (trans.). St. Basil the Great: On the Holy Spirit. Popular Patristics Series 42. Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011.
- Rousseau, Philip. Basil of Caesarea. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.