Question 13 · God and the Trinity

Is the Holy Spirit a person, and is he God?

What the sources show

Athenagoras c. 177The Spirit is God

From the second century Christians named the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit together in worship and in defending their faith, as Athenagoras does about 177. ¹

Spirit-fighters (Tropici), as Athanasius reports c. 359 · Athanasius of Alexandria c. 359 · Gregory of Nazianzus c. 380

In the fourth century some said the Spirit was a creature. Athanasius answered that this breaks the Trinity apart, and Gregory of Nazianzus said plainly that the Spirit is God and of one substance with the Father. ²³⁵

Gregory of Nazianzus c. 380 · Basil of Caesarea c. 375 · Council of Constantinople c. 381The Spirit is God

The council of Constantinople in 381 confessed the Spirit as Lord and giver of life, worshipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son. Its text is listed below as a gap. ⁴⁵⁶

The answers given:

ApostolicBefore NicaeaNicaea and afterMiddle AgesReformation to today

Scroll through the centuries, or tap a dot. J K move between witnesses.

Before Nicaea

150–325

177c. AD

The Spirit is God

Athenagoras fl. c. 177 ADPlea for the Christians 10.5

Who would not be amazed to hear people called atheists who speak of God the Father, and God the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and who show both their power in unity and their distinction in order?

Romans called Christians atheists for refusing the gods. Athenagoras answers with a threefold God.

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Nicaea to Chalcedon

325–451

359c. AD

The Spirit is God

Athanasius of Alexandria c. 293/298–373 ADLetters to Serapion 1.2

Either there is no Trinity but a pair, plus creation; or, if there is a Trinity, as indeed there is, how can they rank the Spirit of the Trinity with the creatures that come after the Trinity? That is to divide and dissolve the Trinity again. So those who think wrongly about the Holy Spirit do not think rightly about the Son either.

Written against a group in Egypt who said the Spirit was a creature, a kind of angel. The letter's heading names them.

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359c. AD

A creature

Spirit-fighters (Tropici), as Athanasius reportsLetters to Serapion 1.2

A letter to Serapion, bishop of Thmuis, against those who blaspheme and say that the Holy Spirit is a creature.

The heading of Athanasius's first letter names the view he answers. Later the "Spirit-fighters" around Macedonius held a similar view; the council of 381 rejected it.

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375c. AD

The Spirit is God

Basil of Caesarea c. 330–379 ADOn the Holy Spirit 15.35

For if the Lord, in handing down the saving baptism, clearly commanded his disciples to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, not disdaining fellowship with him, while these men say that he must not be ranked with the Father and the Son, how do they not plainly set themselves against the ordinance of God?

Written in 375 against the Pneumatomachians ('Spirit fighters'). The whole argument of these chapters (15 to 19) is that the Spirit is ranked and glorified with the Father and the Son; the baptismal formula is Basil's anchor. Quoted from the PG 32 scan (poor OCR, which often reads kappa as chi); the wording is checked against Johnston's 1892 edition.

Full English of this work is being translated · Source text

380c. AD

The Spirit is God

Gregory of Nazianzus c. 329/330–390 ADOration 31, On the Holy Spirit 10

What then? Is the Spirit God? Certainly. Then is he of one substance? Yes, if he is God.

Gregory preached this in Constantinople the year before the council of 381. He notes that Scripture reveals the Spirit's divinity more gradually than the Son's (31.26).

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381c. AD

The Spirit is God

Council of ConstantinopleCreed of Constantinople Article on the Holy Spirit

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified together, who spoke through the prophets.

The creed's answer to the Spirit fighters: it does not call the Spirit God in so many words, but confesses him as Lord and giver of life, worshipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son. Text as read at Chalcedon, printed by Bright (1892).

Full English of this work is being translated

How this page was made

Every early quote was read in its Greek or Latin and translated for this page by Claude (Opus 5.5) on 13 October 2026. Each line names the printed edition it was read from. A quote marked indirect does not state the answer outright; read its note. A writer's silence is never counted as an answer.