The late Father Ian Ker edited Selected Sermons by Newman for the Paulist Press "Classics of Western Spirituality" series. In the section of his Introduction titled "The Influence of the Greek Fathers", Father Ker highlights the impact they had on Newman's thought as demonstrated by excerpts from the Parochial and Plain Sermons and other works. The second area he identifies is Newman's emphasis on the Resurrection (the Ascension?) and Pentecost.
As he did when considering the "high Christology" Newman learned from the Greek Fathers, Ker notes that Newman was doing something different:It was not until the second half of the twentieth century that Western theology began to regard the resurrection as more than simply the proof that Christ was divine and through his crucifixion he had conquered sin and death. . . . (p. 30)
Father Ker contends that in Newman's time the focus was on the crucifixion and that both Catholic and Protestant theologians in the nineteenth century thought "the resurrection not so much essential to redemption. as a kind of happy conclusion to the real drama that took place on the cross." (p. 30) Reading the Greek Fathers made Newman see that Our Lord's Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Pentecost are "one single divine act unfolding in several closely connected stages", a view commonly accepted by modern theologians. (p.31)
Ker quotes Newman's essay "The Theology of St. Ignatius [of Antioch]" (the second century Apostolic Father and martyr) from 1839 to show what Newman learned:
It would seem then to be certain, that Ignatius considers our life and salvation to lie, not in the Atonement by itself, but in the Incarnation; but neither in the Incarnation nor Atonement as past events, but, as present facts, in an existing mode, in which our Saviour comes to us; or, to speak more plainly, in our Saviour Himself who is God in our flesh, and not only so, but in flesh which has been offered up on the Cross in sacrifice, which has died and has risen. The being made man, the being crucified in atonement, the being raised again, are the three past events to which the Eternal Son has vouchsafed to become to us what He is, a Saviour; and those who omit the Resurrection in their view of the divine economy, are as really defective in faith as if they omitted the Crucifixion. On the Cross He paid the debt of the world, but as He could not have been crucified without first taking flesh, so again He could not, as it would seem, apply His atonement without first rising again. Accordingly, St. Ignatius speaks of our being saved and living not simply in the Atonement, but . . . in the {248} flesh and blood of the risen Lord, first sacrificed for us, then communicated to us.
In the same way, Father Ker notes that Newman, influenced by Greek Fathers (like Saint Basil the Great and Saint John Chrysostom for example), saw that after the Resurrection and the Ascension, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was a necessary part of our salvation, and, quoting a passage from PPS "Righteousness not of us, but in us", says "Newman's theology of the work of the Holy Spirit in Christ's redemption is eloquently comprehensive" (p. 32):
But there is another ground for saying that Christ did not finish His gracious economy by His death; viz. because the Holy Spirit came in order to finish it. When He ascended, He did not leave us to ourselves, so far the work was not done. He sent His Spirit. Were all finished as regards individuals, why should the Holy Ghost have condescended to come? But the Spirit came to finish in us, what Christ had finished in Himself, but left unfinished as regards us. To Him it is committed to apply to us severally all that Christ had done for us. As then His mission proves on the one hand that salvation is not from ourselves, so does it on the other that it must be wrought in us. For if all gifts of grace are with the Spirit, and the presence of the Spirit is within us, it follows that these gifts are to be manifested and wrought in us. If Christ is our sole hope, and Christ is given to us by the Spirit, and the Spirit be an inward presence, our sole hope is in an inward change. As a light placed in a room pours out its rays on all sides, so the presence of the Holy Ghost imbues us with life, strength, holiness, love, acceptableness, righteousness. God looks on us in mercy, because He sees in us "the mind of the Spirit," for whoso has this mind has holiness and righteousness within him. Henceforth all his thoughts, words, and works as done in the Spirit, are acceptable, pleasing, just before God; and whatever remaining infirmity there be in him, that the presence of the Spirit hides. That divine influence, which has the fulness of Christ's grace to purify us, has also the power of Christ's blood to justify. {138}
Newman further describes how through the Holy Spirit
Christ Himself vouchsafes to repeat in each of us in figure and mystery all that He did and suffered in the flesh. He is formed in us, born in us, suffers in us, rises again in us, lives in us; and this not by a succession of events, but all at once: for He comes to us as a Spirit, all dying, all rising again, all living. We are ever receiving our birth, our justification, our renewal, ever dying to sin, ever rising to righteousness. His whole economy in all its parts is ever in us all at once; and this divine presence constitutes the title of each of us to {140} heaven; this is what He will acknowledge and accept at the last day. He will acknowledge Himself,—His image in us,—as though we reflected Him, and He, on looking round about, discerned at once who were His; those, namely, who gave back to Him His image. . . . .
If you go back to the first post in this series on Father Ker's commentary on Newman and the influence of the Greek Fathers, you can see how these themes are related: from the Incarnation to the Crucifixion; from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection; from the Resurrection (and Ascension) to Pentecost.
Next week's topic, the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit, certainly builds upon this one.
Saint Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us!
Saint Basil the Great, pray for us!
Saint John Chrysostom, pray for us!
Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!