Divinity of Christ
The resolution of the Arian controversy (1.5.3) was one such moment of clarification. Yet this emphatic assertion of the divinity of Christ could be understood merely to confirm a binitarian vision of God – in other words, God as Father and Son. As the fourth-century writer Amphilochius of Iconium pointed out, the Arian controversy had first to be resolved before any serious discussion over the status of the Holy Spirit could get under way. The development of a rigorously Trinitarian theology demanded that the Holy Spirit also be recognized as divine.
Debate initially centered upon a group of writers known as the pneumatomachoi (Greek: “opponents of the spirit”), led by Eustathius of Sebaste. These writers argued that neither the person nor the works of the Spirit were to be regarded as having the status or nature of a divine person. In response to this, writers such as Athanasius and Basil of Caesarea made an appeal to the formula which had by then become universally accepted for baptism. Since the time of the New Testament (following the practice of Matthew 28:18–20), Chris- tians were baptized in the name of “the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
