The Spirit, the World and the Trinity: Origen’s and Augustine’s Understanding of the Gospel of John

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How come that ancient Christian authors elaborated a theology of the Holy Spirit? This innovative study tackles this question by analysing how the exegesis of the Gospel of John shaped the Trinitarian and soteriological agency of the Holy Spirit in the theologies of two of the most important Christian authors of all times: Origen and Augustine. Overall, it proposes a re-evaluation of some of the most debated doctrines of the two authors such as subordinationism in Origen and the understanding of Gods essence in Augustine, showing that the Johannine Father-Son-Spirit relation and the dichotomy between God and the world represent the foundation on which Origen and Augustine built their pneumatologies. The heuristic comparison proposed in this book is focused on the three large themes towards which Origen and Augustine represent opposite approaches: the understanding of the immanent Trinity, the dualism between God and the world, and the proper role of the Holy Spirit. On the one hand, Origen puts forward a paradigm of participation to explain the oneness and threeness of God, and of transformation to explain human participation in God. On the other, Augustine refers to God's self-relation through a paradigm of identity, and to salvation of humankind as an act of separation of the wicked world from the saved. These two trinitarian and soteriological constructions are shaped by a different understanding of the Gospel of John: while Origen's theology mostly smooths the gospel's dualism between God and the world by interpreting God's salvific act as a gradual spiritualisation of the world, Augustine tends to accentuate the Gospel's dichotomies by radicalising the Johannine dualism. Acknowledgments Abbreviations Table of Contents Introduction I.1 John and the Spirit in Origen and Augustine. Issues and Questions of a Heuristic Comparison I.1.1 The Commentaries on John’s Gospel and the Spirit I.1.2 The World and the Spirit in the Gospel of John I.1.3 State of the Art and Methodology I.1.3.1 Which Origen and Which Augustine Are We Comparing? I.1.3.2 Comparative Scholarship I.1.5 The Three Theological Questions I.2 The Sources I.2.1 ‘Ωριγένους τῶν εἰς τὸ κατὰ ’Iωάννην Εὐαγγέλιον ἐξηγητικῶν. Scholarship, Dating and Textual Problems I.2.2 Aurelii Augustini In Iohannis Evangelium Tractatus. Scholarship, Dating and Textual Problems Part A.: The Spirit in God II. The Spirit in God: Origen II.1: Proceeding from the Father: The Trinitarian Problem and the Ontological Relation between the Father and the Son II.1.1 Divergent Scholarship II.1.2 To What Extent Does Origen Have a Doctrine of the Trinity? II.1.3 The Father and the Son: Subordinationism Conclusions II.2: The Spirit as One of the All Things Made Through the Logos: According to Origen, Is the Spirit a Creature? II.2.1 The Spirit as God in God II.2.2 The Spirit as a Creature in God Conclusions III. The Spirit in God: Augustine Introduction III.1 Augustine’s Trinity in Contemporary Scholarship III.2 Hermeneutical Problems in Studying the Trinity in the Tractates on John III.3 God as Ontological Stability: Being and Idipsum III.4 Trinitarian Relationships: The Son, the Quod Habet Hoc Est and the Problem of God’s Attributes III.4.1 The Relation of Identity III.4.2 Generation, Arianism, Subordinationism III.5 The Holy Spirit: The Procession, the Filioque and their Ontological Implications Conclusions Part B.: The Spirit and the World IV. The Spirit and the World in Origen Introduction IV.1 Noetic and Perceptible Cosmos: The Concept of the World in the Commentary on John IV.1.1 Turning the Perceptible into the Noetic: The World in the Spiritual Gospel IV.1.2 The ‘Lamb of God Who Takes Away the Sins of the World’: The Salvation of the Cosmos IV.1.3 The ‘Light of the World’: The Participation of the Son in the Cosmos IV.1.4 ‘You Are of This World, I Am Not of This World’: The Noetic and the Perceptible Cosmos IV.1.5 Reconstructed Dualism: The Two Worlds, Their Participation in God and the Body IV.2 The Holy Spirit in the Cosmos: the ‘Matter’ of the Noetic Ascent IV.2.1 Father, Son and Holy Spirit: The Worldly Works of a Unified Trinity IV.2.2 The Logikoi and the Son IV.2.2.1 Participation and Contemplation IV.2.2.2 The Son in the Cosmological Order IV.2.3 The Pneumatikoi and the Spirit IV.2.3.1 The Participation in the Spirit IV.2.3.2 Human Spirit and Divine Spirit IV.2.4 The ‘Material of the Gifts from God’: The Holy Spirit as the Substratum of the Noetic Ascent IV.2.4.1 The Spiritual Substratum IV.2.4.2 The Spiritual and the Noetic IV.2.4.3 The Spirit in the Cosmos Conclusions V. The Spirit and the World in Augustine Introduction V.1 Dilectores Mundi Mundus Dicuntur: The Ambiguity of the Concept of Mundus/Saeculum in the Tractates on John V.2 Spiritus/Caritas vs Mundus/Saeculum. The Opposition between Mundus Creatus and Mundus Recreatus V.2.1 Augustine’s Dualism: Between John and Mani V.2.2 Mundus Creatus: The ‘Image Within’ as Opposed to the World in a Dualistic Framework V.2.3 Mundus Recreatus: The Recreation of the Lost Image V.2.3.1 The Grace of Creation and the Grace of Re-creation V.2.3.2 The Original Creation, the World and the Newness of the Spirit V.3 The Proprium of the Spirit: Christ, the Holy Spirit and the World as Massa Damnationis V.3.1 Unity and Relationship in God: The Inseparability of the Works of the Trinity V.3.2 Augustine’s Trinitarian Gospel: Christ’s Proprium in Relation to the World V.3.2.1 The Son of God; the Son of Man; the World V.3.2.2 The Predestination of Christ V.3.2.3 The Final Judgement V.3.3 Augustine’s Trinitarian Gospel: The Holy Spirit’s Proprium and the Absolute Irreconcilability between the Spirit and the World V.3.3.1 Holy Spirit: Love and Grace V.3.3.2 Holy Spirit: Unity and Communion V.3.3.3 The Spirit and the World Conclusions Part C.: VI.Origen and Augustine: A Comparison VI. The Holy Spirit, the Trinity, the World and the Gospel of John: A Comparative Analysis VI.1 The Grounds and Aims of the Comparison VI.2 The Spirit in God: Origen’s and Augustine’s Understanding of the “Immanent” Trinity in Their Commentaries on John VI.2.1 The Generation of the Son VI.2.2 The Procession of the Spirit VI.3 The Spirit and the World: The Relationship between the Trinity and the World in Origen and Augustine VI.3.1 ‘He Was in the World; yet the World did not Know Him’ VI.3.2 The Spirit in the World Bibliography Primary Sources Secondary Sources Biblical References Works of Augustine and Origen Ancient and Medieval Authors Modern Authors