What are the most important gifts and talents endowed by the Holy Spirit?

It is possible to subdivide the different gifts of the Spirit as gifts of salvation, gifts of encouragement, and gifts of evangelism and martyrdom. But in practice, it is difficult to separate these gifts from one another. The individual believer’s life is one of indivisible unity; and our salvation, in its essence, is becoming one with the Father, being his children in Christ Jesus, by the Holy Spirit. We cannot partition off the different aspects of our lives: our Church life; our personal behavior; our witness to the Gospel of Christ; and our love for all humanity and service towards them by all holy means. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to draw boundaries that separate the gifts of salvation, encouragement, and evangelism and testimony. St. Augustine says, “without the spirit of faith no one will rightly believe, without the spirit of prayer no one will profitably pray; not that there are so many spirits, ‘but in all these things one and the same Spirit works, dividing to every one according as he will’ (1 Cor. 12:11).”⁸³²

St. Ambrose says, “‘In many ways and in diverse manners, God spoke to the fathers in the prophets’ (Heb. 1:1). And the Wisdom of God said: ‘I will send prophets and apostles’ (Luke 11:49). And ‘To one is given,’ as it is written, ‘through the Spirit, the word of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to another faith, in the same Spirit; to another, the gift of healings, in the one Spirit; to another, the working of miracles; to another, prophecy’ (1 Cor. 12:8–10). Therefore, according to the Apostle, prophecy is not

831 Fifty Spiritual Homilies of St. Macarius the Egyptian , trans., A. J. Mason (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1921) Homily 1.10–11: pp. 9–10, amended.

832 St. Augustine of Hippo, Letters Volume IV (165–203) Letter 194 To Sixtus (FOTC 30:312–313).

only through the Father and the Son, but also through the Holy Spirit, and therefore the office is one, and the grace one. So you find that the Spirit also is the author of prophecies.”⁸³³

The following gifts are mentioned in the book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord” (Isa. 11:2). When the Lord Christ came to us and become the representative of all humanity, the Holy Spirit, who is not foreign to Him, descended upon Him, for He is His Spirit. The descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ differs from His descent upon us. For Christ, it is a hypostatic dwelling; the Spirit and Christ are one in essence with the Father, and their unity is infinite. For us, it is a grace granted to us in Christ Jesus insofar as our nature can bear it, and for the work of our ongoing renewal.

On the feast of Pentecost, St. John Chrysostom spoke about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, saying, “Every gift among the gifts we enjoy unto the salvation of our souls — is it not received through the work of the (Holy) Spirit? Through this work we are freed from servitude and called to liberty. Through it we become children of God by His adopting us. And above all, if I may say so, we are renewed, putting off the burden of our repulsive sins. Through it we see before us the ranks of the priests. Through it our Teacher brings us joy. From Him we receive gifts of prophecy, gifts of healing, and all the other gifts with which the Holy Spirit ornaments the Church of God. This is what the apostle Paul proclaims when he says, ‘But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills’ (1 Cor. 11:12). He says, ‘as He wills’ and not ‘as He commands.’ And he says, ‘distributing’ and not ‘dividing,’ showing that these gifts are His own and that He does not submit to the authority of another. The apostle Paul testifies that this authority is the authority of the Father while at the same time, it is attributed to the Holy Spirit. He says of the Father, ‘But it is the same God who works all in all’ (1 Cor. 12:6); and of the Holy Spirit, ‘But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills’ (1 Cor. 11:12). Behold the perfection of this authority. If the (divine) nature is one, then there is not the slightest doubt regarding the authority; and if there is an equality of honor, the power and authority are also one.”

St. Gregory of Nazianzus describes the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as being the spring from which our goodness flows, saying, “He is called the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ … and Himself the Lord, the Spirit of Adoption, of Truth, of Liberty; the Spirit of Wisdom, of Understanding, of Counsel, of Might, of Knowledge, of Godliness, of the Fear of God. For He is the Maker of all these, filling all with His Essence, containing all things, filling the world in His Essence, yet incapable of being comprehended in His power by the world; good, upright, princely, by nature not by adoption; sanctifying, not sanctified; measuring, not measured; shared, not sharing; filling, not filled; containing, not contained; inherited, glorified, reckoned with the Father and the Son; held out as a threat; the Finger of God; fire like God [the Father]; to manifest, as I take it, His consubstantiality; the Creator-

833 St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Holy Spirit 2.13.143 (NPNF II/10:133) amended.

Spirit, Who by Baptism and by Resurrection creates anew; the Spirit That knows all things, That teaches, That blows where and to what extent He wills; That guides, talks, sends forth, separates, is angry or tempted; That reveals, illumines, quickens, or rather is the very Light and Life; That makes Temples; That deifies [grants us to partake of God]; That perfects so as even to anticipate Baptism (as in the case of the Centurion Cornelius, Acts 10:9), yet after Baptism to be sought as a separate gift; That does all things that God does; divided into fiery tongues; dividing gifts; making Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers; understanding manifold, clear, piercing …”⁸³⁴

St. Basil the Great says, “since no one has the capacity to receive all spiritual gifts, but the grace of the Spirit is given proportionately to the faith of each, when one is living in association with others, the grace privately bestowed on each individual becomes the common possession of his fellows … He who receives any of these gifts does not possess it for his own sake but rather for the sake of others.”⁸³⁵

He also says, “Already, the Spirit has been considered as the whole that exists in the parts, according to the distribution of gifts, for we are all members of each other, ‘having gifts that differ according to the grace of God given to us’ (Rom. 12:5). On account of this, ‘the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; or, again, the head cannot say to the feet, “I have no need of you”’ (1 Cor. 12:21). Rather, all things together fill up the body of Christ in the unity of the Spirit, and from their gifts they exchange with each other a necessary help, for God has placed the members in the body, each one of them, as he wished (see 1 Cor. 12:18); and yet the members have the same care for each other (see 1 Cor. 12:25), according to the spiritual communion and fellowship that exists among them. On account of this, ‘if one member suffers, all the members suffer together; if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice together’ (1 Cor. 12:26). As the part is in the whole, we are one in the Spirit, because we all were baptized in one body, into one Spirit.”⁸³⁶

And, “Through the Holy Spirit comes the restoration to paradise, the ascent to the kingdom of heaven, the return to adopted sonship, the freedom to call God our Father and to become a companion of the grace of Christ, to be called a child of light, to participate in eternal glory, and generally, to have all the fullness of blessing in this age and in the age to come.”⁸³⁷

834 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Select Orations of Gregory Nazianzen 31.29 Fifth Theological Oration (NPNF II/7:327) amended.

835 St. Basil of Caesarea, The Long Rules Q. 7 (FOTC 9:250; PG 82:323).

836

St. Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit , trans., Stephen Hildebrand (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011) 26.61: p. 100.

837 St. Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit , trans., Stephen Hildebrand (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011) 15.36: p. 68.