The reception of doctrine? Theologies of the Holy Spirit between Nicaea of 325 and Constantinople of 381

Abstract

This article explores the development of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit between AD325 and AD381 through a hermeneutical lens. After presenting an in-depth reading of Jauss’s Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, the study examines Basil’s On the Holy Spirit (c. 374) as a crucial instance of reception at work, before concluding by interpreting the Constantinopolitan Creed as a moment of creedalised reception – a crystallisation of what the Spirit had already enacted in the community’s life.
Contribution: This article demonstrates that doctrinal development is not merely the revision of ideas, but the unfolding of a response to the living God: a pneumatological history of reception in which doctrine remains a living and life-giving witness to the Spirit who continues to lead into truth.