Pentecost: The Holy Spirit as Source
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. (Acts 2:1-4)
Most enigmatic of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the focal point of the feast day celebrated this past Sunday. Called Pentecost because it occurred fifty days after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Easter), the feast of Pentecost is known in Armenian as Հոգեգալուստ/Hokekalusd, meaning “the coming of the Spirit.” Biblical in its origin, the original event celebrated on the feast day is recorded early in the Book of Acts, ten days after the Ascension (Համբարձում/Hampartzum) of Jesus. Christ Himself had told the apostles that they would “be baptized wit the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:5). Effectively, after Christ’s return to heaven, the Holy Spirit is the Person of the Trinity who strengthened the apostles, and by extension, Christians through the ages. Christians believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all continue to act in the world. Yet the events of Pentecost suggest that the Holy Spirit is a powerful actor and source for everyday Christian life.
At the same time, the Holy Spirit is perhaps the least agreed upon or understood of the Holy Trinity. The earliest Trinitarian controversies were focused on Christological questions—who exactly, was this person Jesus Christ? How could He be both God and man? Famous heresies like Arianism denied the full divinity of Jesus Christ. Arianism and other early heresies led to the convening of the Council of Nicaea in 325, whose document of faith, while modified slightly at later councils, was so important that we still call the Creed which Armenian Christians and most ancient Christian denominations recite each week the Nicene Creed. Included in the confessions of faith of the Nicene Creed include statements about the Holy Spirit—though, during Badarak, you will notice that the section of the Nicene Creed devoted to the Holy Spirit is shorter than the long confession regarding Christ, His natures, and His ministry.
After these earliest Christological controversies, some of which led to major schisms in Christendom—including the break between the Armenian Apostolic Church with its sister “Oriental Orthodox Churches” from the churches that accepted the Council of Chalcedon in 451—there were also major controversies over the Holy Spirit. While there are Biblical invocations of the Holy Spirit (including from Jesus, such as the one quoted above), the inclusion of the Holy Spirit as the Third Person of the Trinity was a fraught proposition for some. Though the First Council of Constantinople in 381 declared the divinity of the Holy Spirit in response to those who were unsure, to this day there remain so-called “non-Trinitarian” Christians who reject the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Even after the divinity of the Holy Spirit was explicitly affirmed, a major controversy known as the Filioque Controversy separated the Eastern Orthodox churches from the Catholic West. While the version of the Nicene Creed Armenians recite is slightly different from both, the Eastern Orthodox versions states that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father,” while the Catholic version says that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” This technical language of procession has to do with the interaction between the three persons of the Trinity and has other consequences for theology. Hence, while writers revered across Christendom, such as St. Augustine, have been clear about the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the details have caused and continue to cause a great deal of controversy.
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The Colorful Sundays and Pentecost, sermons and meditations on the Lectionary readings by Patriarch Shnork Kalustian, who was the 82nd Armenian Patriarch and Constantinople and served for a time in the Eastern Diocese. Included are meditations of Pentecost. In Armenian. |
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By Rene Pache and translated by J.D. Emerson. A book on the theology of the personhood of the Holy Spirit, one of the major questions about the Holy Trinity. |
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Though not widely read in the Armenian Christian tradition, St. Augustine is one of the pillars of early Christianity. This collection of his works includes “On the Holy Spirit,” his important Trinitarian defense. |
It remains clear from the story of Pentecost in the Book of Acts, however, that the Holy Spirit is a central source for a vibrant Christian life. In the Pentecost events, the Holy Spirit comes to the apostles in the form of tongues of fire and is the direct and immediate source of the apostle’s ability to speak different languages. St. Paul writes about the ability of speaking in tongues and the ability to interpret tongues in I Corinthians. While the connection between the multiple languages spoken by the apostles at Pentecost and speaking in tongues is less strong in the Armenian Apostolic Church than in other Christian denominations, the power of the Holy Spirit as a source is apparent in both activities. Not just a source of vague inspiration, these episodes demonstrate that the Holy Spirit is the source of specific talents associated with speaking, preaching, and interpreting the Word of God.
Another famous Pauline passage, Galatians 5:22-23, discusses the fruits of the spirit, enumerated as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Here, as with Pentecost or speaking in tongues, the Holy Spirit is the source of commendable behaviors, of right conduct, and of the tangible ways we might all fulfill the commandment to love one another. In the classical Greek tradition, different virtues, excellent behaviors, opened the road to the perfect life of human happiness. Here, with the “fruits of the spirit,” Christian thinking at the outset develops its own set of “virtues,” often inimical to the classical Greek ones. For the fruits of the spirit, the Christian virtues, are not discussed as mere ends in the themselves or as tools to achieve human happiness in this life, but rather as the blessed conduct that follows from drawing upon the source of the Holy Spirit. Christian thinking in the West, most notably Thomas Aquinas, connected the classical Greek virtues to the Christian virtues suggested here as having their source in the Holy Spirit.
Alasdair MacIntyre, in his now-classic After Virtue, suggests that this Christian and Greek articulation of virtue has come undone. In addition to the unraveling of a coherent concept of virtue, MacIntyre traces a number of other transformations. From the perspective of our conversation here, we could say that the idea of the spirit, let alone the Holy Spirit, has also fragmented. In English, we often see the “Holy Spirit” named the “Holy Ghost,” which seems to suggest a loss of coherence around who the Holy Spirit is. Likewise, the idea of spirit, once linked directly the Holy Spirit, can be used to describe the “spirit” of a particular culture or group, the “spirit of the laws” in Montequieu’s famous phrase, or the “spirit of the times.” In other words, we use the word “spirit” today to mean many different things. Yet Pentecost reminds us that the Holy Spirit, true divinity and part of the Holy Trinity, is the source of Christian learning, Christian communion, and Christian virtue.
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An older study of St. Paul based on lectures by James S. Steward. The book introduces important elements of St. Paul’s thinking. Among the ideas St. Paul discussed were the “fruits of the spirit” and “speaking in tongues,” both associated with the Holy Spirit. |
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This classic study by Alasdair MacIntyre lays out the transformations of classical Greek virtues in their encounter with Christianity and then modern philosophy. A major text in what has become known as “virtue ethics,” it offers suggestive ideas about tradition, ethics, and the role of Christianity in modern life. At St. Nersess. |
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“The Armenian Spirit,” a publication of the Armenian Church Youth Organization of America (ACYOA). The title plays on both the explicitly Christian and the broader use of the term “spirit.” |
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