The Spirit, the World and the Trinity
Origen's and Augustine's Understanding of the Gospel of John
By (author) Giovanni Hermanin de Reichenfeld
In a renowned and controversial passage Origen writes: “Of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, no-one could have even a suspicion, except those who profess a belief in Christ” (De Principiis, 1,3). But 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. In particular, 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. At a closer look, one even realises that they both conceived the God-man relationship through a Johannine lens. 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 put forward a paradigm of participation to explain the oneness and Threeness of God. On the other, Augustine understands God’s self-relation through a paradigm of identity. These two Trinitarian constructions are shaped by a different understanding of the Gospel of John: while Origen’s theology mostly smooths the gospel’s dualism 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. This study will therefore clarify the two specific paradigms in the two authors’ theologies: participation/transformation in Origen and identity/separation in Augustine, showing also how these paradigms are patterned after their different understanding of the fourth Gospel.
- By (author) Giovanni Hermanin de Reichenfeld
Other Titles in this Series
Cyril of Alexandria’s Christological Exegesis
Explorations of Partitive Exegesis in the Dialogues on the Trinity
Volume 70
‘Vigilemus et Oremus’
The Theological Significance of 'Keeping Vigil' in Rome from the Fourth to the Eighth Centuries
Volume 42
The Easter Controversy of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Its Manuscripts, Texts, and Tables
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on the Science of Computus, Galway, 18-20 July, 2008
Volume 10
Analogical Identities
The Creation of the Christian Self: Volume 2: Self-catholicization, Meta-narcissism, and Christian Theology
Volume 57
Seeking the Face of God
The Reception of Augustine in the Mystical Thought of Bernard of Clairvaux and William of St Thierry
Volume 11
My God, my God why have you abandoned me
The experience of God's withdrawal in late antique exegesis, Christology and ascetic literature
Volume 43
The ‘Universal Prayer’ in the Ancient Latin Liturgies. Patristic Evidence and Liturgical Texts
Volume 56
Inventio meditativa
The Rhetoric and Hermeneutics of Meditation in Hugh of Saint-Victor, Guigo II, and Bonaventure of Bagnoregio
Volume 58
Analogical Identities
The Creation of the Christian Self: Beyond Spirituality and Mysticism in the Patristic Era
Volume 28
Friendship as Ecclesial Binding
A Reading of St. Augustine's Theology of Friendship from his In Iohannis Euangelium Tractatus
Volume 48
The Christian Topography of Early Islamic Jerusalem
The Evidence of Willibald of Eichstatt (700-787 CE)
Volume 2
Similar Books
‘For You I Study, For You I Work, For You I Live, For You I Am Ready To Even Give My Life’
Essays in Honour of Francis (Frank) J Moloney, SDB
A Late Antique Harrowing of Hell and Its Medieval Reception
Eusebius of Alexandria's Sermons 15 and 17 (CPG 5524; 5526) and their Latin Rewritings
Volume 99
Ars Prophetica
Theology in the Poetry of Twentieth-Century Hebrew Poets Avraham Halfi, Shin Shalom, Amir Gilboa, and T. Carmi
Drunk the Potion, No Whit Charmed
The Doctrine of Pure and Perfect Souls from Iamblichus to Damascius
Extracanonical Traditions and the Holy Land
Texts, Rituals, and Material Culture in Late Antique Palestine
Fear, Fear of God, God-Fearers
Philological and Historical Perspectives on the World of Ancient Judaism and Christianity
Legal Visuality
Exegesis, Ambiguity, and Dissimulation of the Donation of Constantine in the Early Modern Period
Liturgia semper reformanda
Adaptations and accommodations in the liturgy in light of canon 838 of the Code of Canon Law
Pre-Christian Religions, Rituals, and Beliefs in Central and Northern Europe
Interdisciplinary Investigations
Volume 5
Punning in Odd or Elegant Constructions in Jeremiah
The Convergence of Linguistics, Rhetoric, and Textuality in the Hebrew Text of Jeremiah
Shame in the Worlds of the Hebrew Bible and Akkadian Texts
A Linguistic Study and Its Implications
Volume 33
The Body
Lived, Cultured, Adorned: Essays on Dress and the Body in the Bible and Ancient Near East in Honor of Nili S. Fox
