RearViewMirror

This one’s for my old pal Mark (no, not you Nenadov!):

“From Athanasius we learn that the Arians believed Jesus to be dependent on the Holy Spirit for his own spirituality, growth in grace and consequent inhabitation of the Father…In contrast to the Arian position Athanasius believes that Christ’s divine being does not allow Jesus in his life among us to require or need the Holy Spirit either in his relation with his Father or in his public ministry. It is rather the divine Word who gives from himself to the Spirit and also dispenses the Spirit to us…Athanasius is not able to concede that Jesus in his own person and for his own good was in any way comforted, guided, empowered, enable, sanctified or encouraged by the Holy Spirit…Their [Arians] point is that in the Scriptures the Son’s high status is dependent on the Father’s pleasure rather than being a natural consequence of the Son’s essential divinity. If it is something he has been given then he clearly does not have it by nature, that is, from his being or essence.” [Alan Spence, Christology: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: T&T Clark, 2008), 29-30.]