12
L'Esprit Saint identifé au Fils de Dieu ne peut donc être une réalité divine indépendante. Le terme «esprit»
désigne la presence active d'une réalité céleste dans la «figure» de l'Eglise. L'identification au Fils de Dieu
est d'ordre fonctionnelle et non ontologique.
80
Even if Henne is correct that the association of "Son" and "Spirit" is "d'ordre fonctionnelle" rather
than "ontologique," the uncertainty of this matter places these passages on the fringe of this present
study, which seeks to determine the intratrinitarian relationships based on clear passages.
*Summary: In Hermas, the Father operates in the economy of creation through the personal mediation of his
Son, who submits to the Father's will (Herm. 58:3 [Sim. 5.5.2]; 90:5 [Sim. 9.13.5]). The "divine" Holy Spirit
also operates in submission to the Father (43:17 [Man. 11.17]), but during Christ's earthly ministry we catch a
glimpse of the Spirit apparently operating in authority over the Son (58:5 [Sim. 5.5.5]).
God Came Down: Aristides (c. 125)
81
The Apology of Aristides offers very little to a study of the interpersonal relationships between
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Godhead. There are only two passages relevant to this discussion:
Apol. 15 (Syriac, 2) and 17. As this is the extent of our primary data, I will discuss each of these in turn.
According to the Syriac version, Aristides wrote in Apol. 2.4, "The Christians, then, reckon the
beginning of their religion from Jesus Christ, who is named the Son of God most High (
YLOM )hL)r hrb
);
and it is said that God came down from heaven (
)YM$ oM )hL) tXNd
) and from a Hebrew virgin took and
clad Himself with flesh, and in a daughter of man there dwelt the Son of God (
)hL)d hrb
)." It is clear
from this passage that Jesus Christ is called "Son of God," as this title appears once in both the Syriac
and Greek versions (
)hL)d )rb
= oJ uiJoV" tou' qeou'). In this case all that is asserted is a relationship of
sonship, though the context of this relationship clearly indicates a heavenly--not earthly--origin.
However, the most striking phrase, "God came down from heaven" (
)YM$ oM )hL) tXNd
) is different in the
Greek (where the passage is found in 15.1), which reads either "he came down from heaven by the Holy
Spirit" (ejn Pneuvmati &Agivw/ ajp* oujranou' katabaV") or, if the punctuation is altered, "who is named
the Son of God Most High by the Holy Spirit."
82
Robinson writes on the textual difficulties of this
passage: "The most serious change is that in the Syriac, where the word `God' is inserted as the subject
of the verbs which follow. The passage is one which was more likely than any other in the whole piece
to tempt later writers to make changes of their own. It is to be noted that here the Greek in spite of its
additions represents the original Apology much more faithfully than the Syriac does."
83
If the Greek
version is correct, we have the Holy Spirit acting in some way in the incarnation of the Son of God; if
the Syriac is correct, we have an instance where the Son of God is himself called "God." Either assertion
is consistent with other statements from approximately the same time as Aristides's writing.
Aristides concluded his Apology with the following call to repentance: "Let all those then approach
thereunto who do not know God, and let them receive incorruptible words, those which are so always
and from eternity: let them, therefore, anticipate the dread judgment which is to come by Jesus the
80
Henne, La christologie chez Clément de Rome et dans le Pasteur d'Hermas, 254.
81
Greek and Syriac texts are from Bernard Pouderon and others, Aristide: Apologie, Sources Chrétiennes (Paris: Cerf, 2003).
The English translation is that of J. Rendel Harris, ed., The Apology of Aristides on Behalf of the Christians, ed. J. Armitage
Robinson, 2d ed., Texts and Studies, vol. 1/1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893). The date of Aristides's Apology,
though not certain, is most likely 124125, though Pouderon writes, "même si nous ne rejetons pas entièrement l'hypothèse d'une
seconde redaction contemporaine du principat d'Antonin (138-161)" (Pouderon, Aristide: Apologie, 37).
82
This latter punctuation is followed by Pouderon, Aristide: Apologie, 286-87: "On reconnaît en lui le Fils du Dieu Très-Haut
dans le Saint-Esprit; descendu du ciel pour le salut des hommes et engender d'une vierge sainte."
83
Harris, ed., Apology of Aristides, 79. Since both the Greek and Armenian versions agree against the Syriac in omitting "God"
as the subject of the descent from heaven, I will conclude that the Greek reading (or something like it) was the original penned by
Aristides (for the Armenian text and French translation, see Pouderon, Aristide: Apologie, 310-11). It is suggested that the Syriac
and Armenian versions had a common Greek source, while the Greek version preserved in the Oxyrhynchos papyri had a tradition
independent of the others, rendering an agreement between the Greek and Armenian versions rather significant, despite the high
regard for the version preserved in the Syriac as a whole (Pouderon, Aristide: Apologie, 143-72).