Athanasius and the Holy Spirit: The Development of His Early Pneumatology

Athanasius of Alexandria wrote over seven dozen works, the majority of which contain at least one reference to the Holy Spirit. Yet, previous studies have primarily concentrated on Athanasius's Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit (ca. 359-361), leaving a lacuna in our knowledge of Athanasius's prior pneumatology. By exploring the period from Athanasius's election as bishop (328) to the completion of the third Oration against the Arians (ca. 345), Kevin Douglas HIll's contribution to the Emerging Scholars series, Athanasius and the Holy Spirit, seeks to fill this gap.

Hill argues that by the mid-330s, Athanasius had already begun to establish core pneumatological perspectives that would remain for the duration of his career. Through an examination of Athanasius's three Orations, Hill demonstrates the pneumatological perspectives that laid the foundation for what was to come in Serapion. Without the pneumatological perspectives that he established in the 330s and 340s, Athanasius would not have been prepared to take the next steps of confessing the Holy Spirit's divine nature and role in creating the world.