Swete: The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church

Foreword

WHEN the student of early Christian literature passes from the New Testament to the post-canonical writers, he becomes aware of a loss of both literary and spiritual power. There is no immediate change in the form of the writings; the earliest remains of the sub-apostolic age consist of letters addressed to churches or individuals after the model of the Apostolic Epistles. But the note of authority which is heard in the Epistles of St Peter, St Paul, and St John has no place in those of Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch1; and there is little evidence in the latter of the originality or the inspiration by which the leaders of the first generation were dis tinguished. The spiritual giants of the Apostolic age are succeeded by men of lower stature and poorer capacity. Nor does the fresh power of the first century altogether return to the Church in the years that follow. A higher literary standard is reached in the second century; the third is adorned by the great name of Origen; the fourth and fifth centuries can boast of an Athanasius, a Basil, a Gregory Nazianzen, a Chrysostom, an Augustine. But none of these classical authors of Christian

Cf. Ign. Rom. 4 ov% <os Herpos KOL JIcuJAos Siaratro-o/xai v/

The Holy Spirit in the ancient Church

antiquity profess to originate or to reveal; all recognize in the Apostolic writers their masters, and their best work is done in the field of New Testament exposition or in expressing New Testa ment doctrine in the terms of a later theology.

It may be asked whether it is needful to pursue the, study of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit into a period which cannot claim to teach with either the authority or the creative power of the Apostolic age. The answer is that no Christian doctrine, as it is now expressed, can be rightly understood without some knowledge of the history of Christian thought. The Christianity of the present day has not been evolved directly out of the New Testa ment, but is the product of the gradual assimilation of the original deposit by a long succession of Christian generations. Nor is this fact to be regretted. Those who accept the teaching of the fourth Gospel will not doubt that the process of assimilation has been guided as a whole by the same Power that inspired the first age. The world-long experience of the universal Church, of which her literature is the abiding record, is the best…