The problem of Christology as always in all Christological and Trinitarian struggles, is salvation, and from this point of view you must understand them; from this point of view they become meaningful. even in the moments of greatest confusion and in the expressions of greatest abstraction.

The Christ who performs this work is not understandable to the human mind except through the Divine Spirit. Only through the Spirit can we come in unity with the Christ. This implies that the Spirit of Christ must be as Divine as Christ Himself is. When after the Nicaean decision groups arose which denied the Divinity of the Spirit, they were called semi-Arians. Athanasius fought against them and said: they are wrong. they want to make the Spirit into a creature but if the Spirit of Christ is a creature. then Christ also is a creature The Spirit of Christ is not the human spirit of the man Jesus. as a historical individual; the Spirit of Christ is not a psychological function; but the Spirit of Christ is God Himself in Him and. through Him. in us. In this way the Trinitarian formula which in Nicaea was left open with respect to the Spirit. becomes filled up.

The same thing which was said about the Son is now said about the Spirit. In order to be able to unite us with Christ. the Spirit must be Divine as Christ Himself is Divine – and not partly Divine. not .half-Divine. but fully Divine.

One of Athanasius’ supporters was Marcellus, in whom the Monarchianistic tradition entered the discussion. He was a man always in intimate friendship with Athanasius, always accepted by him, although finally, after Athanasius’ death, condemned by the more Origenistic theologians who didn’t like his Monarchianistic trends. His emphasis was on monotheism. Before the creation, God was a mona a unity without differentiation. His Logos was in Him, but was in Him only as a potential’ power, only as a possibility for creation, but not yet as an actual power. Only with the creation does the Logos proceed and become the acting energy of God in all things, through Whom all things have been made. In this moment something has happened – the Divine monas has become broader; it has become a duas, the unity has become a duality. In the incarnation, in the act in which the Logos took on flesh – not became flesh but took on flesh – the second “economy” is performed. An actual separation has occurred between Father and Son, in spite of the remaining potential unity, so that it is now possible for the “eyes of faith” to see the Father in the Son. And then a further broadening of the monas and of the duas occurs. when after the resurrection of Christ the Spirit becomes a relatively independent power in the Christian Church.