The Holy Spirit in Creation
The role of the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters, imparting generative force to all creation. The Hebrew merachephet refers to a bird hovering over eggs, cherishing and animating them; so the Holy Spirit brooded over the waters, imparting generative force for all creatures and heavens. Jerome, Basil, Theodoret, Athanasius, and nearly all Fathers prove from this the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
Chapter I (The Six Days of Creation)
-
Verse 2: And the earth was without form and void
— The Spirit of the Lord is the Holy Spirit, breathing a warm breeze upon the waters; Jerome, Basil, Theodoret, Athanasius, and nearly all Fathers prove from this the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
"Thirdly, most fittingly and fully, the Spirit of the Lord is the Holy Spirit proceeding from God the Father and the Son, and by His own power, presence, and might breathing a warm breeze upon the waters."
-
Verse 2: And the earth was without form and void
— The Hebrew merachephet refers to a bird hovering over eggs, cherishing and animating them; so the Holy Spirit brooded over the waters, imparting generative force for all creatures and heavens.
"the Hebrew is merachephet, which, as St. Basil, Diodorus, and Jerome testify in the Hebrew Questions on Genesis, refers to birds when, hovering over their eggs and chicks, they gently balance themselves with a light beating of their wings, fluttering and flitting about, and then brood over them, breathe warmth upon them, cherish and animate them."
-
Verse 2: And the earth was without form and void
— Allegorically, the Holy Spirit is signified as brooding over the waters of baptism, bringing us to birth and regenerating us.
"Allegorically, the Holy Spirit is here signified as brooding, as it were, over the waters of baptism, and by them bringing us to birth and regenerating us, says St. Jerome, Epistle 83 to Oceanus."