HOLY SPIRIT, THE

or HOLY GHOST, or PARACLETE, in orrhodox he theology, the Third Person in e Ble ed Trinity. Foreshadowings of the Christian doctrine are foind in certain parts of the O.T. writings, as, for instance, in Gen. 1. 2, 1 Sam. xvi. 18, and Joel ii. 28 ff., quoted as a prophecy of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts ii. 17 ff. It becomes much Clearer, however, in the N.T., where the Holy Spirit is spoken of in a way that makes His Divinity distinct in such pa ages as 2 Cor. iii, 16 ff., 2 Tim. iii. 16., Gal. v. 22, etc. From other pasasges still more may be gathered. Matthew xxvill, 19, 1 Pet. i. 1-14, speak of the Holy Spirit as distinct from the Father and the Son, while His Personality is insisted on in the important pa age beginning John xiv. 16, as also in John xv. 26, ‘But when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceed eth from the Father. He shall testify of me.’ In this text we have also a reference to the question of the Proce ion of hte Holy Ghost, which caused such serious misunderstandings between the Eastern and Western churches in later centuries. The Has terns condemned the churches of the West for the addition of the Filioque clause in the Nicens Creed, and they further denied that the prece ion of the Holy Spirit was ‘from the Father and the Son.’ It must be pointed out, however, that there is probably no real doctrinal difference involved, as the West has never held that this rather unfortunate addition to the Oecumenical Creed teaches a Dual Proce ion, but rather a proce ion from the Father through the Son. This doctrine Eastern theologians would endorse. Many questions relating to the Holy Spirit are bound up with the controversies as to the Holy Trinity which occupied the mind of the Church in postNicene times. The most important reand the additions to the Nicene Creed, lay stre on the personality of the Holy Spirit.