What is the spirit of the east?

Holy Spirit

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Also known as: Holy Ghost, Paraclete
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Holy Spirit, also called Paraclete or Holy Ghost, in Christian belief, the third person of the Trinity. Numerous outpourings of the Holy Spirit are mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, in which healing, prophecy, the expelling of demons (exorcism), and speaking in tongues (glossolalia) are particularly associated with the activity of the Spirit. In art, the Holy Spirit is commonly represented as a dove.

Christian writers have seen in various references to the Spirit of Yahweh in the Hebrew Scriptures an anticipation of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The Hebrew word ruaḥ (usually translated “spirit”) is often found in texts referring to the free and unhindered activity of God, either in creating or in revitalizing creation, especially in connection with the prophetic word or messianic expectation. There was, however, no explicit belief in a separate divine person in biblical Judaism. In fact, the New Testament itself is not entirely clear in this regard. One suggestion of such belief is the promise of another helper, or intercessor (paraclete), that is found in the Gospel According to John. Pentecost, during which the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and other disciples (Acts 2), is seen as the fulfillment of that promise.

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Christianity: God the Holy Spirit

The definition that the Holy Spirit was a distinct divine person equal in substance to the Father and the Son and not subordinate to them came at the Council of Constantinople in ce 381, following challenges to its divinity. The Eastern and Western churches have since viewed the Holy Spirit as the bond, the fellowship, or the mutual charity between Father and Son; they are absolutely united in the Spirit. The relationship of the Holy Spirit to the other persons of the Trinity has been described in the West as proceeding from both the Father and the Son, whereas in the East it has been held that the procession is from the Father through the Son.

Most Catholic and Orthodox Christians have experienced the Holy Spirit more in the sacramental life of the church than in the context of such speculation. From apostolic times, the formula for baptism has been Trinitarian (“I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”). confirmation (in the Eastern Orthodox Church, chrismation), although not accepted by Protestants as a sacrament, has been closely allied with the role of the Holy Spirit in the church. The Eastern Orthodox Church has stressed the role of the descent of the Spirit upon the worshipping congregation and upon the eucharistic bread and wine in the prayer known as the epiclesis.

From the earliest centuries of the Christian church, various groups, discontented with the lack of freedom, active charity, or vitality in the institutional church, have called for a greater sensitivity to the ongoing outpourings of the Holy Spirit; among such movements were the Holiness and Pentecostal movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. Being “filled” with the Holy Spirit is seen as the corollary of one’s salvation. See also Trinity.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Melissa Petruzzello.

The Holy Spirit

The gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost “called all men into unity,” according to the Byzantine liturgical hymn of the day. Into this new unity, which St. Paul called the “body of Christ,” each individual Christian enters through baptism and chrismation (the Eastern counterpart of the Western confirmation) when the priest anoints the Christian with the words “the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

This gift, however, requires a person’s free response. Orthodox saints such as St. Seraphim of Sarov (1759–1833) described the entire content of Christian life as a “collection of the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is thus conceived as the main agent of humanity’s restoration to its original natural state through Communion in Christ’s body. This role of the Holy Spirit is reflected, very richly, in a variety of liturgical and sacramental acts. Every act of worship usually starts with a prayer addressed to the Holy Spirit, and all major sacraments begin with an invocation to the Holy Spirit. The eucharistic liturgies of the East attribute the ultimate mystery of Christ’s presence to a descent of the Holy Spirit upon the worshipping congregation and upon the eucharistic bread and wine. The significance of this invocation (in Greek epiklēsis) was violently debated between Greek and Latin Christians in the Middle Ages because the Roman canon of the mass lacked any reference to the Holy Spirit and was thus considered deficient by the Orthodox Greeks.

Since the first Council of Constantinople (381), which condemned the Pneumatomachians (“fighters against the Spirit”), no one in the Orthodox East has ever denied that the Spirit is not only a “gift” but also the giver—i.e., that he is the third person of the Trinity. The Greek Fathers saw in Genesis 1:2 a reference to the Spirit’s cooperation in the divine act of creation. The Spirit was also viewed as active in the “new creation” that occurred in the womb of the Virgin Mary when she became the mother of Christ (Luke 1:35); Pentecost was understood to be an anticipation of the “last days” (Acts 2:17) when, at the end of history, a universal communion with God will be achieved. Thus, all the decisive acts of God are accomplished “by the Father in the Son, through the Holy Spirit.”

The Holy Trinity

By the 4th century a polarity had developed between Eastern and Western Christians in their respective understandings of the Trinity. In the West God was understood primarily in terms of one essence (the Trinity of persons being conceived as an irrational truth found in revelation); in the East the tri-personality of God was understood as the primary fact of Christian experience. For most of the Eastern Fathers, it was not the Trinity that needed theological proof but rather God’s essential unity. The Cappadocian Fathers (St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and St. Basil of Caesarea) were even accused of being tri-theists because of their conception of God as one essence in three hypostases (the Greek term hypostasis was the equivalent of the Latin substantia and designated a concrete reality). For Eastern theologians, this terminology was intended to designate the concrete New Testament revelation of the Son and the Holy Spirit as distinct from the Father.

Polarization of the Eastern and Western concepts of the Trinity is at the root of the Filioque dispute. The Latin word Filioque (“and from the Son”) was added to the Nicene Creed in Spain in the 6th century. By affirming that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only “from the Father” (as the original creed proclaimed) but also “from the Son,” the Spanish councils intended to condemn Arianism, which held that the Son was a created being. Later, however, the addition became an anti-Eastern battle cry, especially after Charlemagne, the Carolingian ruler of the Franks, was crowned emperor of the Romans in 800. The addition was finally accepted in Rome under Frankish pressure. It found justification in the framework of Western conceptions of the Trinity; the Father and the Son were viewed as one God in the act of “spiration” of the Spirit.

Byzantine theologians opposed the addition, first on the ground that the Western church had no right to change the text of an ecumenical creed unilaterally and, second, because the Filioque clause implied the reduction of the divine persons to mere relations (“the Father and the Son are two in relation to each other, but one in relation to the Spirit”). For the Greeks the Father alone is the origin of both the Son and the Holy Spirit. Patriarch Photius (9th century) was the first Orthodox theologian to explicitly spell out the Greek opposition to the Filioque concept, but the debate continued throughout the Middle Ages.

The transcendence of God

An important element in the Eastern Christian understanding of God is the notion that God, in his essence, is totally transcendent and unknowable. In this understanding, God can only be designated by negative attributes: it is possible to say what God is not, but it is impossible to say what God is. A purely negative, or “apophatic” theology—the only one applicable to the essence of God in the Orthodox view—does not lead to agnosticism, however, because God reveals himself personally—as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and also in his acts, or “energies.” Thus, true knowledge of God always includes three elements: religious awe; personal encounter; and participation in energies, which God freely bestows on creation.

This conception of God is connected with the personalistic understanding of the Trinity. It also led to the official confirmation by the Orthodox church of the theology of St. Gregory Palamas, the leader of Byzantine Hesychasts (monks devoted to divine quietness through prayer), at the councils of 1341 and 1351 in Constantinople. The councils confirmed a real distinction in God, between the unknowable essence and the energies which make possible a real communion with God. The deification of man, realized in Christ once and for all, is thus accomplished by a communion of divine energy with humanity in Christ’s glorified humanity.

Modern theological developments

Until the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks (1453), Byzantium was the unquestioned intellectual centre of the Orthodox church. Far from being monolithic, Byzantine theology was often polarized by a humanistic trend, favouring the use of Greek philosophy, and the more austere and mystical theology of monastic circles. The concern for preservation of Greek culture and for the political salvation of the empire led several prominent humanists to adopt a position favourable to union with the West. The most creative theologians (e.g., St. Symeon the New Theologian, died 1033; St. Gregory Palamas, died 1359; and Nicholas Cabasilas, died c. 1390), however, were found in the monastic party that continued the tradition of patristic spirituality based upon the theology of deification.

The 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries were the dark age of Orthodox theology. There was no opportunity for any independent theological creativity in any of the major regions of Orthodoxy—the Middle East, the Balkans, and Russia. With no access to formal theological education except in Western Roman Catholic or Protestant schools, the Orthodox tradition was preserved primarily through the liturgy, which retained its richness and often served as a substitute for formal schooling. Most doctrinal statements of this period, issued by councils or by individual theologians, were polemical documents directed against Western missionaries.

After the reforms of Peter the Great (died 1725), a theological school system was organized in Russia. Shaped originally in accordance with Western Latin models and staffed with Jesuit-trained Ukrainian personnel, this system developed in the 19th century into a fully independent and powerful tool of theological education. The Russian theological efflorescence of the 19th and 20th centuries produced many scholars, especially in historical theology—e.g., Philaret Drozdov, Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky, Vasily Vasilievich Bolotov, Evgeny Evstigneyevich Golubinsky, and Nikolay Nikanorovich Glubokovsky. Independently of the official theological schools, a number of laymen with secular training developed theological and philosophical traditions of their own and exercised a great influence on modern Orthodox theology—e.g., Alexey Stepanovich Khomyakov, Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyev, and Nikolay Aleksandrovich Berdyayev. Others, such as Pavel Florensky and Sergey Nikolayevich Bulgakov, became priests. A large number of the Russian theological intelligentsia—e.g., Bulgakov and Georges Florovsky—emigrated to western Europe after the Russian Revolution (1917) and played a leading role in the ecumenical movement.

With the independence of the Balkans, theological schools were also created in Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania. Modern Greek scholars contributed to the publication of important Byzantine ecclesiastical texts and produced standard theological textbooks. The Orthodox diaspora—the emigration from eastern Europe and the Middle East—in the 20th century contributed to modern theological development through their establishment of theological centres in western Europe and America.

Orthodox theologians reacted negatively to the new dogmas proclaimed by Pope Pius IX: the Immaculate Conception of Mary (1854), which held that Mary was conceived without sin, and papal infallibility (1870), which held that, under certain conditions, the pope cannot err when teaching on matters of faith and morals. In connection with the dogma of the Assumption of Mary, proclaimed by Pope Pius XII (1950), which held that Mary was raised to heaven in both body and soul, the objections mainly concerned the presentation of such a tradition in the form of a dogma.

In contrast to the trend toward social concerns evident in Western Christian thought since the late 20th century, Orthodox theologians have generally emphasized that the Christian faith is primarily a direct experience of the kingdom of God, sacramentally present in the church. Without denying that Christians have a social responsibility to the world, they consider this responsibility as an outcome of the life in Christ. This traditional position accounts for the remarkable survival of the Orthodox churches under the most contradictory and unfavourable of social conditions, but to Western eyes it often appears as a form of passive fatalism.

What is the spirit of the east?

Spiritual Meaning of

That by the land of the sons of the east are signified the truths of love, thus the knowledges of truth which tend to good, may be seen from the signification of sons , as being truths (AR 489, 491, 533, 1147, 2623); and from the signification of the east , as being love (AR 101, 1250, 3249). Their land is the ground in which they are. That the sons of the east are those who are in the knowledges of truth and good, and consequently in the truths of love, may be seen also from other passages in the Word. As in the first book of Kings :—

The wisdom of Solomon was multiplied more than the wisdom of all the sons of the cast, and than all the wisdom of the Egyptians ( 1 Kings 4:30);

where by the wisdom of the sons of the east are signified the interior knowledges of truth and good, thus those who are in them; but by the wisdom of the Egyptians is signified the memory-knowledge of the same, which is in a lower degree. By the Egyptians are signified memory-knowledges in general, (AR 1164, 1165, 1462).

Thus saith Jehovah, Arise ye, go up against Kedar, lay waste the sons of the east. Their tents and their flocks they shall take they shall take their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels ( Jer . 49:28, 29).

That by the sons of the east are here meant those who are in the knowledges of good and truth, is evident from the fact that they were to take their tents and flocks, also their curtains and all their vessels, and likewise their camels; for by tents are signified the holy things of good (AR 414, 1102, 2145, 2152, 3312); by flocks , the goods of charity (AR 343, 2566); by curtains , holy truths (AR 2576, 3478); by vessels , truths of faith and memory-knowledges (AR 3068, 3079); by camels , memory-knowledges in general (AR 3048, 3071, 3143, 3145). Thus by the sons of the east are signified those who are in these things, that is, who are in the knowledges of good and truth.

[5] That the wise men from the east who came to Jesus at His birth were of those who were called the sons of the east , is evident from the fact that they were in the knowledge that the Lord was to be born, and that they knew of His advent by a star which appeared to them in the east, concerning which things we read in Matthew :—

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him ( Matthew 2:1, 2).

That from ancient times such a prophetic knowledge had existed among the sons of the east, who were of Syria, is evident from Balaam’s prophecy concerning the Lord’s advent, in Moses :—

I see Him, but not now I behold Him, but not nigh there shall arise a star out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise up out of Israel ( Num. 24:17).

That Balaam was from the land of the sons of the east, that is, from Syria, is evident from these words:—

Balaam uttered his enunciation and said, Balak hath brought me from Syria, out of the mountains of the east ( Num. 23:7).

Those wise men who came to Jesus at His birth are called magi, but wise men were so called at that time, as is evident from many passages; such as ( Gen. 41:8; Exod. 7:11; Dan. 2:27; 4:6, 7; 1 Kings 4:30);

and from the Prophets throughout.

[6] That in the opposite sense the sons of the east signify the knowledges of evil and falsity, thus those who are in them, is evident in Isaiah :—

The envy of Ephraim shall depart, and the enemies of Judah shall be cut off they shall fly on the shoulder of the Philistines toward the sea and together shall they spoil the sons of the east ( Isa . 11:13, 14).

Against the sons of Ammon. Behold I have delivered thee to the sons of the east for a possession, and they shall set their ordinances in thee ( Ezek . 25:3, 4).

And in the book of Judges :—

When Israel sowed, Midian came up, and Amalek, and the sons of the east; they came up against him ( Judges 6:3).

Midian denotes those who are in falsity because not in the good of life (AR 3242); Amalek , those who are in falsities with which they assault truths (AR 1679); the sons of the east , those who are in the knowledges of falsity.