miller2016

vigiliae christianae 70 (2016) 101-113

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VigiliaeChristianae

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101

Book Reviews

∵Thomas L. Humphries, Jr.

Ascetic Pneumatology from John Cassian to Gregory the Great (Oxford Early Christian Studies), Oxford: Oxford University Press 2013, xviii + 237 pp., ISBN 978-0-19-968503-5, £ 65.00 (hardback with jacket).

Thomas Humphries’ Ascetic Pneumatology from John Cassian to Gregory the Great is one of the most recent contributions to the scholarship addressing the theology of the Holy Spirit in early Christianity. Humphries focuses on fifth and sixth century Latin pneumatology but wishes to depart from previ-ous narratives that emphasize the double procession of the Spirit. Instead, Humphries argues that, following the pro-Nicene victory in the fourth century pneumatological debates, theologians developed pneumatologies that inex-tricably linked the work of the Spirit to anthropology. The resulting theology emphasized the Spirit’s role in the reformation of the human person. When fifth and sixth century thinkers applied this understanding of the Holy Spirit to their respective ascetical systems, the result was an “ascetic pneumatology.” The study traces these two themes from John Cassian through Leo the Great and several figures associated with the Council of Orange, concluding with Gregory the Great.

Humphries begins his study by pointing out that Cassian develops a pneu-matology of six aspects in conjunction with his understanding of the ascetic life. Cassian begins from a pro-Nicene standpoint and maintains that the Holy Spirit is the guide for reading Scripture, the former of virtue, the reformer of thoughts, the reformer of affections, and the giver of ecstatic contemplation. Constant appeals to the primary text illustrate Cassian’s belief that the Holy Spirit purifies human thoughts and desires, which leads to ecstatic contempla-tion, most often through the spiritual understanding of Scripture. In outlining each of these activities of the Spirit, however, Humphries does not connect Cassian’s thought to his predecessors to the extent that Cassian’s theology war-rants. For example, Humphries fails to note the role Origen ascribes to the Holy Spirit in interpreting the spiritual meaning of Scripture (PArch Praef.8; ComRm 6.7.18) or the role Evagrius attributes to the Holy Spirit in reforming thoughts

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and bestowing prayer (On Prayer 62). Highlighting such influences would have shown the degrees to which Cassian appropriates and diverges from previous thought. Nevertheless, the two chapters offer a detailed demonstration of how Cassian relates the Holy Spirit to anthropology and his ascetical system.

While Cassian wrote for ascetics, Humphries notes that Leo the Great, the subject of the third chapter, applies his pneumatological concerns to the laity. Leo agrees with Cassian that the Holy Spirit forms virtue, but he also differs in several respects. Leo does not focus on the Spirit’s role as a reformer of human desire and, thus, articulates a different understanding of how the Spirit works. Leo’s intended audience directs his attention to the way in which the Holy Spirit operates in the daily life of lay Christians, that is, through liturgical prac-tice, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Intended audiences play a key role in chapters four through six, in which Humphries examines the pneumatologies of three different groups associated with the Council of Orange—Prosper of Aquitaine, a group of Lérinian monks, and a group of Scythian monks led by John Maxentius. Humphries shows how each pneumatology utilized Augustine in a different way in order to argue against certain groups deemed heterodox. His analysis allows him to demon-strate that the Council of Orange is indebted to both Prosper and the Scythian monks, even though it was led by the Lérinian Caesarius of Arles. Despite their mutual source in Augustine, the three groups demonstrate three different Augustinianisms.

The first Augustinianism is Prosper’s, whose pneumatology builds on Augustine’s teaching of the will. In writing against the Pelagians, Prosper argues that the Holy Spirit is the agent who reforms the human will—the Spirit is ope-rative in baptism and works with the human will to form a spiritual will that conforms to God. Chapter five is devoted to a group of Lérinian monks, which begins with Vincent of Lérins and moves through Faustus of Riez to Caesarius of Arles. Humphries points out that the Lérinians appropriate Augustine’s first exegetical rule of On the Trinity to argue against the Arians. Since their prin-ciple concern was refuting the Arians, Humphries writes, the Lérinians do not discuss the role of the Holy Spirit in the reformation of the human person. In chapter six Humphries states that Maxentius and the Scythian monks, fol-lowing Augustine, articulate a pneumatology that attributes the reformation of the human will to the Holy Spirit. Humphries also discusses the Scythians’ reception in Fulgentius of Ruspe, who couples the Scythian understanding of the Spirit to a more intricate understanding of Augustine’s Trinitarian theo-logy. In so doing, Fulgentius refutes the Arians and Nestorians by demonstra-ting the divinity of the Spirit, relating the Spirit to the incarnate Christ, and

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connecting the Spirit’s role in the reformation of the will to an Augustinian understanding of the Spirit as the love between Father and Son.

Augustine is again influential in Gregory the Great, the subject of chap-ters seven and eight. Humphries argues that Gregory follows the contours of Cassian’s pneumatological thought united to Augustinian language. Gregory also teaches that the Holy Spirit forms virtue, reforms human thoughts and desires, and leads a person to contemplation. Like Cassian, Gregory argues that contemplation usually happens through the reading and hearing of Scripture, which is guided by the Holy Spirit. Gregory highlights the movement from the human person to God in love through the reformation of desire inspired by the Spirit. This leads to Humphries’ conclusion that Gregory is the height of Latin pneumatology when viewed from the perspective of the reformation of desire.

There is much to commend in Ascetic Pneumatology as expounding the varia-tions of pneumatological thought in the fifth and sixth centuries. Humphries contextualizes each of the theologies, allowing the author’s intended audience to help guide his reading of the texts. He provides insightful analysis of the primary texts, allowing him to give concise summaries of the major points of each theological system. He ably points out the different issues that guide the theology of the thinker; for example, he highlights the different ways that the theologians conceive of human interiority and how this affects their pneuma-tologies. His close readings also help him to draw connections between thin-kers, such as his explanations of the different ways in which Augustine was received during the period.

However, the relationships between each of the theologies within the study is unclear. Humphries attempts to draw connections using two main themes—the Holy Spirit’s role in the reformation of the human person and ascetic pneu-matology—but he himself admits that some of the theologies do not fit these categories. For example, Leo’s pneumatology has little to do with the transfor-mation of the inner person (59), Prosper’s is not related to any sort of asceti-cism (98), and the Lérinians’ pneumatology is concerned with neither (126). The two themes, therefore, seem only to loosely connect several pneumatolo-gies, rather than being dominant threads running through fifth and sixth cen-tury Latin pneumatology. As a result, the middle chapters, while containing penetrating insights into the subject of each chapter, seem only tangentially related to the first and last parts of the book.

The somewhat fragmentary nature of the study, however, should not detract from the fact that the book offers detailed description and analysis of fifth and sixth century Latin pneumatology based on close readings of primary texts. Humphries has covered a wide range of material with special attention to

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context and the intended audiences of each theologian. The result is a correc-tive to previous studies emphasizing pneumatology’s relation to the filioque controversy and a greater appreciation for the role of anthropology in pneu-matological thought. The work is an important contribution to the field of pneumatology and should be the starting point for those interested in Latin pneumatology in the fifth and sixth centuries.

Micah M. MillerEmory University

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