P. Redemptus Maria Valabek O.Carm., Rome
(Part 4)
In the work of St. Basil of Caesarea
The Eastern Father who explicitly addressed the person and mission of the Holy Spirit was St. Basil the Great. A short summary of his thoughts will better clarify why the church, especially in the East, has never needed renewal in its pneumatological understanding, as was the case in the West. It also clearly reveals the harmony between theology and spirituality.37 His book on the Holy Spirit was written as a response to objections against his liturgical practice of invoking the Holy Spirit. In it, he expresses his dual, yet complementary, understanding of the Spirit:
- The Spirit is Light for the mind, which divinizes the soul through increasing illumination, giving man a share in its own light, to make him "spiritual," as the Spirit itself is; – and the Spirit is also the Breath of God.38
A person, who is restored by baptism to the pure image of God lost through Adam's sin, is enabled to return to the Father through the salvific work of the Son only "in the Spirit." Only in the Spirit is a person radically sanctified (made holy) and lives the life of God. As is the case in many other theological questions, the role of the Holy Spirit is clarified in relation to the divinization of man. "Just as a person cannot separate fire from the heat it gives, nor light from brightness, neither can one separate the Holy Spirit from sanctification, revitalization, goodness, or righteousness."39 As a source of sanctification, the Spirit likens to gradual illumination of people by God, so that "to all spiritual capabilities, it seems as if it directly gives its own light, so they may arrive at truth."40 This illumination Basil compares to the rays of the sun, which reach everyone, as if they were the only one for whom it shines, and yet illuminate the whole world without any diminishing of the sun's own splendor. The Spirit sends forth rays of grace constantly and everywhere. "It is like a ray of sunshine: as if it exclusively belongs to the person enjoying it, and yet it shines on all the land and sea and illuminates the air. So too the Holy Spirit, as if to each open to him, enters solely into them, and at the same time pours a sufficient and unthinned measure of grace to all."41 Basil precisely notes that not everyone is able to receive the rays of the Holy Spirit. A specific example: in one burdened with vices of which he does not repent, the grace of prayer meets with an impenetrable barrier. On the other hand, a receptive soul, open to an abundance of miraculous and unexpected gifts of the Spirit, inadvertently shines with a brilliance that reveals the true spiritual depth of a person. "And just as pure and transparent bodies, when a ray falls on them, begin to shine and radiate, so do souls that carry the Spirit and are illuminated by the Spirit, become spiritual themselves and emit rays of grace to others."42
Again and again this bishop of Caesarea, a great practitioner, insists that a person enslaved by bodily passions cannot hope to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, just as a sick eye cannot perceive the rays of the sun. The necessity of asceticism is not merely a pious recommendation; for prayer to be genuine, asceticism is absolutely necessary.43 Because only the Holy Spirit searches the inner nature of God, it is precisely through him that creation is enabled to receive the revelation of God's mystery. The light provided by the Spirit conveys a certain knowledge that transcends ordinary knowledge. Basil does not hesitate to label this knowledge as gnosis, which "the Spirit grants to those who are worthy of it."44 However, this gnosis does not belong to the category of knowledge reserved for a small group of initiated; it is offered to all Christians without distinction. "A person dies in the water, but the Spirit pours life into us. The great mystery of baptism lies in the triple immersion with the triple invocation, so that the typos (symbol) of death may be presented and that the soul of the baptized may be enlightened with the revelation of the knowledge of God."45
Therefore, if human life is to be led in truth, the Holy Spirit must enter human life. For we discover the Truth only through the operation of the Spirit. To live a life leading to God, we must always look towards God; but we can only look at God in the Spirit. "The highest part of the soul, illuminated by the Spirit, looks towards the Son and contemplates the Father in him as in an image."46 For prayer, the enlightening action of the Holy Spirit is therefore essential; it is he who enables people to know with whom they converse in the dialogue that is prayer: the Spirit reveals to people the true glory, the intrinsic personality of Truth itself, Christ Jesus. And in this Image, the Spirit allows people to glimpse the Archetype, the Father himself.
This operation of the Spirit signifies a certain transformation for the soul: "It is the Lord who says: 'True worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth...'" The Spirit is indeed the dwelling place of the saints, and the holy is especially a suitable dwelling for the Spirit, because a saint dedicates himself to dwell with God and is called his temple."47 Through the action of the Spirit, the soul becomes as "spiritual" as he is himself, and only in this way is the soul enabled to discover the Son and in him the Father. On the other hand, this illumination by the Spirit allows the human spirit to bring the Spirit into the world. Basil clearly considers this gradual illumination by the Spirit primarily as enlightening the mind: growth in knowledge and thus in perfection of the whole Trinity, in knowledge deeper than any other.48
The Holy Spirit is a person in the Trinity distinguished to the extent that he is "God's" ("from God"), just as is the Son. But just as the Son proceeds "from God" as his Word and Image, so the Spirit proceeds as Breath from his mouth. Basil himself warns against anthropomorphic evaluations of this image: it does not concern the mouth as a part of the body, nor the breath as air that dissipates; rather, it concerns realities worthy of God.49
This is precisely how the coming forth of the Spirit from God differs from that of the Son from the Father: the Spirit has the same relationship to the Son as the Son has to the Father.50 The question of whether the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son was not a controversial issue in Basil's time; his teaching on this matter remains impartial. In any case, it seems that Basil sees in the Spirit a kind of image of the Son, just as the Son is an image of the Father. The Spirit shows the Son: he is the reflection of the Son, by whom the Son can make himself known through the living image: through the action of the Holy Spirit, the Son shines, is revealed, seen, and speaks. This action is often expressed using "breath," which recalls Christ's own action: "When the Lord, in order to restore man and to return to him the grace received by the Breath of God, which man lost, said when he breathed on the disciples, what did he say? 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'"51 But as always, Basil sees this Breath of God particularly in the intellectual order. The Spirit glorifies the Son because he receives from what is his and announces it to humanity (cf. John 16:14). Thus this aspect of the Spirit must be seen in the context of the previously mentioned reflections on the Spirit as clear Light. "(Basil) emphasizes… the personal action of this power, which 'illuminates', this seal that 'impresses' him, this light that enables us to see itself and 'reveals' the true Light: the Word."52 "He creates a completely precise and undoubtedly original theory of the Spirit as the illuminator, and through this theory gives value and new enrichment to the doctrine of divinization."53 In the West, the perspective on the Holy Spirit took a different direction: the mystery of the life of the Trinity and the influence of this mystery on the spiritual life of the church and each Christian received less attention.54 Latin theologians base their understanding of the Trinity on the divine essence, which is communicated to each person through "procession."55 Reflection on God in three persons thus precedes reflection and catechesis on "the one God" (De Deo Uno): this was something unimaginable for the Greeks. The Latin tradition then speaks of the Spirit as "the Seal of the Trinity" (Sigillum Trinitatis) and as "the Bond of Love" (Nexus amoris) between the Father and the Son. St. Augustine built on the Latin tradition and emphasized the Spirit as the gift (donum) of God. In his later works (De Trinitate, especially books VI and XV), he emphasizes that the Spirit is the love of the Father and the Son. "The ineffable connection of the Father and his Image is therefore not without joy, without love, without happiness. That love, pleasure, bliss… Hilary briefly calls it Use (usus), and thus the Holy Spirit is in the Trinity. He is unbegotten and is the sweetness of the unbegotten and the begotten, and fills all creatures according to their ability with immeasurable wealth and abundance."56 This summary of Augustine's thought has significant undertones for application to prayer and the role of the Spirit in every authentic form of prayer, as the elements of love, pleasure, joy – filling the whole person in prayer, and not just his intellectual powers – are essential for human prayer. True prayer allows entry into a living communion with the Lord. Augustine holds that the Spirit enables entry into this living communion according to each person's capacity. From the side of the Spirit, there are immeasurable possibilities: his gifts are abundant. Each person's capacity measures the entry of these gifts into the life of the individual.
