When he comes to speak of the Holy Ghost, Servetus unhappily forgets
what is due to the discussion of a subject that has engaged the serious
thoughts of so many pious men. He would seem to have seen some portions
of the catholic Christian dogma as so unreasonable that they were even
open to ridicule; and this leads him to the use of improper language.
The Holy Ghost, he maintains, is never spoken of save confusedly in
the Scriptures, the term being applied variously now to an angel, now
to the soul of man, and again to nothing more than wind or breath
(Ib. f. 22, a.). The Hebrew word _Ruach_, of which spirit or wind is
a translation, has indeed a still greater variety of meanings. On a
subject so indefinite and undefined as the Holy Spirit, we cannot
wonder that Œcolampadius in one of his letters should declare he can
make nothing of what Servetus says on the matter--‘_dicit nescio
quid_--he says I know not what.’ This much, however, we do make out
as our author’s opinion, viz.: that the Holy Spirit is nowhere spoken
of in Scripture as a distinct and independent entity, but always as a
motion, an agency, an afflatus of God or the power of God,--a view in
which he certainly had Melanchthon as his predecessor: ‘_Nec aliud
spiritus sanctus est nisi viva Dei voluntas et agitatio._’ (‘Loci
Theol.’ p. 128, ed. 1521.)
Referring to the dogma of the ‘Two Natures,’ Servetus holds that this,
too, is founded in error. ‘To speak of the _Nature_ of God,’ he says,
‘is absurd; for the word nature can only apply to something created,
something born (from the Latin _natus_). But God is from Eternity. For
my own part,’ he proceeds, ‘I never take nature to signify aught but
the thing to which the term is applied--the nature of a thing is the
thing itself. To use the word nature in connection with the name of God
is, therefore, to speak of God himself. And so of the Son of God: that
which was an idea, image, or type of the Son in the mind of God, when
the Word was made flesh, became or was Christ, Reality then superseding
Idea (‘De Tr. Er.’ f. 92). There was consequently no aggregate of two
natures or two different things in Christ; he was one entity or person,
in the usual sense of the word.’ Servetus very inconsistently, as it
seems at first sight, often speaks of the man Jesus as God. But he can
do so only on the same ground as Cyrus in the Bible, Augustus Cæesar,
and other rulers, are called _Dii_ or _Divi_--gods. The Son of God,
to Servetus, in conformity with the pantheistic idea, can only be an
aspect or _Mode_ of the One God. If this be not his meaning, I know not
what it is.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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