[Image]  [Hi-Res Image]

Page 50

A Study of Spinoza, 2d ed., London, 1883; A. B. Moss, Bruno and Spinoza, London, 1$85; A. Baltzer, Spinoza's EntuncklungsBarg inabesordere nach aeinen Briefer peachildert, Kiel, 1888; J. Caird, Spinoza, Edinburgh and London. 1888, new ed., 1901; J: Stern, Die Philosophic Spirozas, Stuttgart, 1890: R. Worms, La Morale de Spinoza, Paris. 1802; G. J. Bollard, Spinoza, ib. 1399; E. Ferri~re,1 a Doctrine de Spinoza, ib, l$99; S. Rappaport, Spinoza and Schoperhauer, Berlin, 1899; R. Wahle, Kurze Erkliirurg der Ethik von Spinoza, Vienna, 1899: J. Zulawaki, Das Problem der Causalitdt bei Spinoza, Bern. 1899; J. D. Bierens de Hann, Levensleer tsar de bepirseler roar Spinoza, The Hague, 1900; J. H. von Kirchmann, Erlauterungen zu Benedict von Spinozas Ethik, Leipsic, 1900; H. H. Joachim, A Study of the Ethics of Spinoza, Oxford, 1901; B. Auerbach, Spinoza, Stuttgart, 1903; R. A. Duff, Spinoza's Political and Ethical Philosophy, Glasgow, 1903; J. Iveraeh, Descartes, Spinoza, the New Philosophy, Edinburgh, 1904; E. E. Powell, Spinoza and Religion, Chicago, 1908; W. Prumers, Spinozas Reliyiorsbegri$', Halls, 1906; J. A. Picton, Spinoza, a Handbook to the Ethics, London and New York, 1906; A. Wen zel, Die Weltanschauung Spirozas, Leipaic, 1907; F. Erhardt, Die Philosophic des Spinoza im Lichte der Kritik, ib. 2908; J. Stern, Die Philo.·ophie Spinozaa, 3d ed., Stuttgart, 1908; K. Fischer, Geschichte der neueren Philosophic, vol. ii., 5th ed., Heidelberg, 1909.

SPIRIT OF GOD, BIBLICAL VIEW OF: According to the final Old-Testament presentation, the Spirit of God is the divine power which proceeds from God in creation and preservation in nature and in human historical life, especially in Israel. This power of God is active at the precise point where energy is manifested, i.e., the Spirit of God is the immediate cause of all kinds of change; it comes and goes, it is given or withdrawn wholly according to the divine will. Special attention is directed to unusual forms of human action which are attributed to this Spirit-heroism, genius, prophetic utterance, singular personal consecration, in a word, all rare individual physical and religious phenomena. In their suddenness, strangeness, involuntariness, irresistibleness, and in their results they seem to reveal a more than human power. Religious psychology had not yet distinguished the form from the ultimate source of these experiences. The obverse of thin conception appears in the belief in the influence and possession of men by evil spirits, and later by Satan as the prince of demons. For the history of this belief one would need to trace the development of the notion of the power of discarnate good and evil spirits over men in its varied stages of unfolding from animism through polytheism up to ethical monotheism (see COMPARATIVE RELIGION, VI.). The conception of the good Spirit of God influencing men differs from the Greek and other national ideas of divine possession, (1) in the concentration 6f the entire divine activity in one personal source, and (2) in the aim to which the activity is directed -furtherance of the theocratic ideals.. Distinctive redemptive functions are rarely attributed to the Spirit of God in the Old Testament.

The New Testament has no elaborated doctrine of the Spirit of God. There is material for the personal and trinitarian aspect of the Spirit, but the time was not ripe for the theological construction of the Gonstantinopolitan Greed (q.v.). On the other hand, many allusions imply that the Spirit is an influence or a form of the action of God or of Christ (see HOLY SPIRIT, L). In the New Testament, how-

ever, one discovers several lines of development in the idea of the Spirit. (1) The tendency to hypostatize the divine power of action appears already in the Old Testament (of. Isa. xliv. 3, xlviii. 16, lxi. 1; Gen. i. 2; Ps. li. 11), and is part of that movement of thought which was accelerated by Aryan influences, in which God becomes metaphysically elevated above the world, while his withdrawal and isolation are compensated for by the introduction of intermediary beings and forces by which his will was effected. Moreover, before the close of the apostolic age the Spirit has begun to be differentiated from the Father and the Son. (2) "Whereas in the, entire Old Testament and in many portions of the New Testament the Spirit is conceived of as transcendent, intermittent, and frequently miraculous in action, yet side by side with this earlier and common notion, in the later writings of Paul and John -not in the Synoptics-the Spirit is presented as an immanent and abiding personal power. For this change no other occasion need be sought than that which springs from the, permanent necessities of Christian experience-a continuous inner redemptive influence by which the follower of Christ is quickened and empowered for every good work. (3) This idea of the immanence of the Spirit of God completes itself in the removal of the divine activity from the region of nature whether of the physical world or of the human soul, and in the entire reference of it to the ethical and spiritual life.

Ci. A. BECICWITA.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: The reader should consult the works on Biblical theology given in the article on that subject, especially the works of H. Schultz, Duff, and Bennett on the Old Testament, and of Beyschlag, Holtzmann, Adeney, Stevens, and Could on the New; the subject is treated also, more or less fully, in the literature given under HOLY SPIRIT (q.v.). Consult further: C. A. Beckwith, Realities of Christian Theology, pp. 277-286, Boston, 1908; H. H. Wendt, Die Begrifl'e Fleiach and Geist im biblischer Sprachgebrauch, Goths, 1878; H. Gunkel, Die Wirkungen dc! hell%pen Geistea reach der . . . Anachauting der apnstolischer Zeit and der Lehre des Paulus, Gdttingen, 1888; K. von Lechler, Die bibliache Lehre vom heiligen Geiste, Leipsie, 1899; I. W. Wood; The Spirit of God it Biblical Literature, New York, 1904. Further discussions will be found in the various works on systematic theology (see Doable, DOGMATICS).

SPIRITUAL CONTENTMENT: The harmony of ,personal feeling with outer conditions; selfsatiafaction being the harmony of personal feeling with inward conditions. Contentment presupposes that the means for the satisfaction of the necessities of life are inadequate (Prov. xvii. 1), and signifies a willingness not to suffer the inner equanimity to be disturbed by the scantiness of outward means '(Phil. iv. 11-12; I Tim. vi. 6). While such contentment may be natural; and conditioned by climate, social order, racial instinct, or national circumstances, it may also be acquired as a cultured relig ious and ethical state of life, and as such it is a requirement of Christian religiousness (Matt. vi. 25-34; I Tim. vi. 8; Heb. xiii. 5). Discontent is unworthy of the Christian, who must remember that, though all is his (I Cor. iii. 21-22), he can not lose his soul to the world since he belongs to Christ. Religiously it is the inner result of the piety produced by the theistic contemplation of God, which obtains quietude and peace of soul through its conviction of the