Explores the historical development of Trinitarianism, situationally driven by the challenges of Arianism, as seen in Christology at the First Council of Nicea (325 AD) and Pneumatology at the First Council of Constantinople (381-383 AD). Includes the examination of developing Pneumatology post-Nicea, and how Arianism came to be seen as threatening, not just the divinity of Christ, but that of the Holy Spirit, thus leading to Constantinople’s pneumatological affirmations.
OUTLINE
The paper begins with a brief overview of biblical sources and the Trinitarian development of patristic thought prior to Nicea, referring to “Section One: Before Nicea” of Stanley M. Burgess’ The Spirit & the Church: Antiquity that examines the Apostolic Fathers, Early Apologists, heretical groups, Polemicists, and Later Apologists.
The paper proceeds with Nicea’s context with an historical overview of the Arian movement and its major challenges to the Church Catholic.
The next section addresses Trinitarian developments after Nicea, foremost the continuing intensive Arian controversies, with Arianism increasingly revealed to implicitly challenge the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Henry Barclay Swete’s survey will be used to mention increasing pneumatological developments including Eusibius of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Didymus the Blind, Basil of Caesarea, and others.
The considerations of First Constantinople will be examined primarily regarding its Nicene anti-Arian conclusions that necessarily brought forth the full affirmation of the Holy Spirit’s divinity, thus explicitly linking Christology and Pneumatology as essential elements of Trinitarianism—as expressed in First Constantinople’s Nicene additions that came to be generally accepted. This development thus pairs First Nicea and First Constantinople as key markers, the latter flowing from the former, as mutually supportive in the development of Trinitarian doctrine.
The presentation will close with brief consideration of subsequent developments in both Pneumatology and overall Trinitarianism.
Stanley M. Burgess, The Spirit & the Church: Antiquity (Peabody, MA: Henrickson Publishers, 1984), 12-91.
Henry Barclay Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church: A Study of the Christian Teaching in the Age of the Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1966, reprint of the original 1912 edition with permission of Macmillan and Company, London), 163-273.