CHAPTER III.
NAME—HOLY SPIRIT. —(CONTINUED).
The name, Holy Spirit, whilst not exclusively so, still, in a very distinguished manner, belongs to the Third Person. The prosecution of this theme is of immense value as developing a more distinct idea of, and showing, in finer lines, the machinery of piety. Lack of a certain amount of technical knowledge, that should culminate in a confusing of the three Divine Persons, would betray such an indifference to religious science as could not fail to militate against one's better and more complete, at least, spiritual interests. Such knowledge is practical. To proceed with our theme: Anastase, patriarch of Antioch, says: "God is called Spirit, and God is called a holy God; the blending of the two names, however, befits the one who is properly called the Holy Ghost just as the name
Principle— sine interjecto befits the Father, and the name Son suits Him, Who, directly, proceeds from the Principle." (Lib. Dogmatic.) St. Augustine adds a link to the chain of evidence. In the sense in which we find it matter of record that "God is Spirit" (John xiv, 24,) Holy Ghost may be predicated of all (Persons of the Trinity) because the Father is Spirit and the Son also is Spirit, the Father is holy and the Son also is holy. Nevertheless, in speaking of that Holy Ghost, which is not the Trinity, but which is understood to be in the Trinity, when we say that He is properly the Holy (Ghost) He is so declared in the relative sense; that is to say, His relationship to the Father and Son is set forth, therein, because the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of both the Father and the Son. (Quinto Lib. De Trinit.) "Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of Hosts," says Isaias (vi, 3.) "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty," echoes Apocalypse (iv, 8.) "The other persons of the Blessed Trinity," says St. Ambrose, "have a proper name and the Third Person retains as proper a common name." "Although," says St. Augustine, "the Father is spirit and the Son is Spirit and the Father is holy and the Son is holy, only the Third Person is properly called the Holy Ghost." The saint goes on to give a reason for this, "because He, (the Third Person) is co-eternal with, and common to, both, (Father and Son) He is called that which is common to both." It should not waken surprise if a proper name, that is to say, in another sense than the appropriating of a common name, is not given to the Third Person as is the case with the First and Second Persons :—" As we are obliged to borrow from created objects names given to God, and know of no other created means of communicating nature and essence than that of generation, we cannot discover a proper name to express the manner in which God communicates Himself entire, by the force of His love. Unable, therefore, to express the emanation of the Third Person, by a proper one, we have recourse to the common name of Holy Ghost, a name, however, peculiarly appropriate to Him, Who infuses into us spiritual life and without Whose holy inspirations we can do nothing meritorious of eternal life. (Catech. Trent. Page 66.)
The Second Person has a proper name because His eternal birth from the Father is properly called generation, so the Person emanating from that generation is properly called the Son, and the Person from Whom He emanates, the Father. Inasmuch, however, as the Third Person proceeds from the First and Second Persons, and by what is called spiration, or their, as it were, concordant breath— not generation—we are quite at sea, when it comes to rinding an analogy or likeness, that will reflect this mode of emanation, amongst the things that are at hand or at all within our reach. The name, Holy Ghost, is, however, in a special manner, appropriate to the Third Person, from His mode of emanation from the Father and the Son, that is to say, and rudely speaking, inflation. Says St. Cyril:—" The Holy Ghost receives His name from air (breath) which we inhale and exhale, so that our respirations, aspirations, inspirations, suspirations and expirations should find, in the Holy Ghost, their source, their substance and their increase." (De Pente).
Surely, this leaves no loophole for one's escape from the all-importance of the Holy Ghost in the matter of our spiritual existence, life or death, according as we receive and cultivate Him or unfortunately banish Him from our hearts and lives.
