age. In addition, that experimental view of religion which the Reformers preached, when they emphasized the work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart, was clearly foreshadowed in the writings of Colet.

The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in this period will be illustrated by twenty-eight writers apportioned approximately to their several centuries thus: one to the thirteenth, ten to the fourteenth, ten to the fifteenth, and six to the sixteenth. There is also one writer taken from the Eastern Church, between which and the Church of the West a wider gulf than ever can be seen. In this case, however, the chronological grouping of sources has but little significance as showing any varied interest in the subject under review. During the thirteenth century the great Scholastics had already written extensively on the Doctrines of the Holy Spirit and the Trinity, while the mass of the sixteenth-century contributors still remain to be considered in connexion with the Reformation itself. Nevertheless it is possible that even more might have been written on these doctrines in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had not the Doctrine of the Atonement consumed much argumentative energy during the former, and a sacramentarian development of Scholasticism during the latter.

II

DECADENT SCHOLASTICISM

THE edifice of the Schoolmen, which had received no real strength from its Aristotelian buttresses, was shaken to its foundations during the early part of this period by certain of its professed upholders. First among these is the Englishman ROGER BACON (1214–1294), whose aim cannot in point of fact be defined as pro-ecclesiastical or pro-Scholastic in actual practice. Philosopher, mathematician, and natural scientist, he displayed a knowledge so extensive as in those days to be regarded as magical, and he applied his great learning in part to the exposition of dogma. His physicotheology is seen in the Opus Majus, his principal work, written during his first imprisonment at the request of Pope Clement IV. In the fourth part, under the head of mathematical science, he observes that the Trinity is symbolized by the form of a triangle, each of its angles being distinct and yet embracing the whole space. It is impossible,' he urges, 'for the blessed Trinity and the Unity of Essence to be more adequately represented by the example of a rational creature than by means of geometry.' For again in a single triangle there is a unity of essence together with a distinction between the three angles which contain this essence or the whole space within the triangle. These are nevertheless distinct angles even while embracing the whole, and such geometrical truths point to similar truths not in human life but only in God. Euclid speaks of erecting an equilateral triangle upon a given line; in the same figure, then, given the Person of the Father, the fact of a Trinity of equal Persons in the Deity can also be appreciated.1

Part vii. treats the subject of moral philosophy from various standpoints, and of these the theological is of interest as reviewing the Doctrine of the Trinity. Moral philosophy sets forth this doctrine as a truth arrived at through

1 1 Chap. v., on Mathematicae in Divinis Utilitas (ed. J. H. Bridges, Oxford, 1897).

'The metaphysician,'

revelation rather than through reason. continues Bacon, has been able to teach sufficiently that God is, that He is naturally (naturaliter) comprehended, that He is of infinite power, that He is One, and that He is Threefold (trinus). But how in that case there may exist a Trinity he has not been able fully to explain; and for that reason this must be verified here.' Accordingly the statement is made that there exists a Blessed Trinity-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.' Anticipations of a Divine Trinity there have been before Christ in the teachings of Plato, Porphyry, and Aristotle, though naturally they are merely anticipations. These pre-Christian philosophers had conceptions of a second Person in the Deity, but, adds Bacon, the existence of a Holy Spirit was not so easily understood by them, ' for it is more difficult to understand the procession of the Holy Spirit from two distinct Persons than the generation of One of Them from Another.' The Christian Doctrine of the Trinity, however, is presented in a short statement to the effect that there are three Persons in the one Godhead, equal in love and in power; that the Son and the Holy Spirit derive from the Father; that the Personality of Each is distinct and real; and that no fourth Person is at all possible. The very Nature of God, which is Love, demands a plurality of Persons within It for the purpose of Its own self-expression; and this is a truth which mathematics can illustrate, though not prove.

DUNS SCOTUS.

The beginnings of division between theology and philosophy, between the Church and Scholasticism, as illustrated by Bacon's treatment at the hands of Bonaventura, the General of his Order, are intensified by Duns Scotus (1266–1308), one of the most brilliant of the Schoolmen. Joining the Franciscan Order, he studied at Oxford, then lectured there and, from 1304, at Paris on theology and philosophy. Attracted as he was by Nominalism, he brought to bear upon the labours of his predecessors that rational tendency which promoted the Thomist and Scotist controversy and prepared the way for the Nominalism of Occam. His practical mind criticized the speculative outlook of Aquinas, holding the basis of theology to be essentially practical. He was unorthodox in reference to the method of demonstrating theological truth,

but not so in reference to the truth itself; and, while he emphasized the personal distinctions within the Deity more than Aquinas had done, the strict Catholicism of his teaching was never called in question.

2

His views on the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit are concisely set forth in his commentary on the first book of the Sentences of Lombardus, written at Oxford (opus Oxoniense). In the simple and undivided Essence of the Godhead there is the Father, together with two distinct and opposite emanations, the Son, by way of Nature, and the Holy Spirit, by way of Will. The Father and the Son are one Source of the Holy Spirit. The fact, however, that the Son proceeds per modum naturae and the Holy Spirit per modum voluntatis at once suggests that Their processions could not be simultaneous, the first necessarily being before the second.* The Holy Spirit is referred to as Love, and as 'personally distinct.' He who is brought forth as Love is not begotten; and 'this Person I speak of as Holy Spirit, because the Son is not brought forth in such a manner.' Indeed, the Son, having been previously brought forth by the power of the One who begets, possesses the productive principle of the Holy Spirit before the Holy Spirit is brought forth. But this implies no conflict of productive principles, the Father and the Son breathing forth the Holy Spirit in every sense uniformly and simultaneously. In exterior activity, however, such as in the work of creation, simultaneous action is extended to the Three, who here operate as One. Yet the consideration of the interior harmony of thought and action characteristic of the Godhead never weakens the emphasis of Duns Scotus on the subject of the personal distinctions, and he continues to insist upon the distinction between generation and procession. This distinction is illustrated by the respective modes of manifestation adopted by the Son and the Spirit, thus:

7

1 Cf. Erdmann, ibid., i., pp. 485, 501. For points of difference between Aquinas and Duns see ibid., pp. 489 ff.

Ed. 1639, with expositions of the Scholia of Duns by Franciscus Lychetus.

Dist. 8, 9. 4. Sic haec conclusio: Filius prius productur a Patre quam Spiritus sanctus (Lychetus); also dist. 11, q. 1 (Lychetus). Duns upholds the Filioque again in Vol. iii. of this edition, Theorema 14, § 19. He further notes the eternal distinctions of the Deity in the scholium to dist. 25.

4 Dist. 10.

The expositor Lychetus at this point attacks Occam on several grounds, asserting that the voluntas Dei is not the principium of the Holy Spirit.

Dist. 11, q. I.

• Dist. 12, q. 3.

Dist. 13. Lychetus comments: Non proprie ignis dicitur generari. ... Modo Sp. s. non dicitur generari, quia talis productio non est per modum naturae.'

• Since the Holy Spirit did not unite to Himself the nature of a perceptible form (signum) by which His procession used to be manifested; therefore it is unreasonable that those things which are applicable to the nature of such a form should be applicable to the Holy Spirit. But the Son united to Himself human nature in the oneness of a Person; therefore those things which are spoken of the nature are truly spoken of the hypostasis (suppositum) subsisting in that nature; and therefore the Son can be called less than the Father by reason of the united nature. This is not so, however, with the Holy Spirit, because He does not have being in a special manner in such a nature, except, as it were, in form.'1 Similar opinions had already been expressed by Aquinas.

The scholium of Duns in reference to the eighteenth distinction of Lombardus is principally concerned with definitions of terms. The proprietas of the third Person of the Trinity is, he remarks, generally characterized by the name 'Holy Spirit.' Not that by the word 'Spirit' is understood merely a spiritual or an intellectual nature, for, by that interpretation, this term is common to all three Persons. But it is recognized that 'Holy Spirit' is the designation of the one Holy Will of the Father and the Son, as breathed forth by Them; and as such He is present to Himself as the Source of infinite love, and is therefore self-contained as Holy Spirit. Again, the Holy Spirit may be discerned by the term 'Gift,' relating to Him as the united Love of the Father and the Son, whereby the Father lavishes love upon the Son, and He [the Son] returns the same love.' The name Holy Spirit' signifies eternal procession, or an eternal distinction within the Godhead. It also points to a direction of operation in respect of God's creatures which is not suggested by the generation of the Son, for the Son proceeds by way of Nature and not of Gift.

Consistent with the importance which his system of philosophy attaches to the individual, Duns insists that the Persons of the Trinity are Themselves positively distinguished from One Another. The Father, for instance, is personally distinguished from the Son and the Holy Spirit by that by which He is constituted in personal Being. As to the mutual 1 Dist. 14. Accipiendo Spiritus sanctus pro spirato voluntate unica et sancta Patris et Filii, quia talis voluntas habens objectum infinitum, infinite diligibile sibi praesens est principium sufficiens producendi amorem infinitum, et per consequens per se stantem, qui "Spiritus" dicitur.'

24

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