In the past two months, I have being digging into the early Church fathers’ writings before the Council of Nicaea(325 A.D.), with an aim of understanding the early Church’s views of the person and work of Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In this article I shared with my blog readers a writing on role of the Holy Spirit, found in chapter 25 of the Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus( c. 120- 28th of June 202 A.D), a bishop of Lyons, taught by the bishop of Smyrna Polycarp ( c.69 – 155 A.D) also claimed disciple of apostle John, and the person of the Holy Spirit found in Titus Flavius Clemens (c.150 – c. 215) of Alexandria’s exposition of Luke 3:22.

Irenaeus on the work of the Holy Spirit:

Know thou that every man is either empty or full. For if he has not the Holy Spirit, he has no knowledge of the Creator; he has not received Jesus Christ the Life; he knows not the Father who is in heaven; if he does not live after the dictates of reason, after the heavenly law, he is not a sober-minded person, nor does he act uprightly: such an one is empty. If, on the other hand, he receives God, who says, “I will dwell with them, and walk in them, and I will be their God,” such an one is not empty, but full.

Clement of Alexandria on Luke 3:22:

God here assumed the “likeness” not of a man, but “of a dove,” because He wished, by a new apparition of the Spirit in the likeness of a dove, to declare His simplicity and majesty.(From The Catena On Luke, edited by Corderius)

Source:

The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume I: The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. 1885 (A. Roberts, J. Donaldson & A. C. Coxe, Ed.). Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company.( Ireneaus Quote from Chapter XXVI p. 572 )

The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume II: Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria (Entire). 1885 (A. Roberts, J. Donaldson & A. C. Coxe, Ed.) (578). Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company.