Article 2 — Whether ‘Gift’ is the proper name of the Holy Spirit?

Objection 1: It would seem that Gift is not the proper name of the Holy Spirit. For the name Gift comes from being given. But, as Isaiah says (9:16): A Son is given to us. Therefore to be Gift belongs to the Son, as well as to the Holy Spirit.

Obj. 2: Further, every proper name of a person signifies a property. But this word Gift does not signify a property of the Holy Spirit. Therefore Gift is not a proper name of the Holy Spirit.

Obj. 3: Further, the Holy Spirit can be called the spirit of a man, whereas He cannot be called the gift of any man, but God’s Gift only. Therefore Gift is not the proper name of the Holy Spirit.

On the contrary, Augustine says (De Trin. iv, 20): As ‘to be born’ is, for the Son, to be from the Father, so, for the Holy Spirit, ‘to be the Gift of God’ is to proceed from Father and Son. But the Holy Spirit receives His proper name from the fact that He proceeds from Father and Son. Therefore Gift is the proper name of the Holy Spirit.

I answer that, Gift, taken personally in God, is the proper name of the Holy Spirit.

In proof of this we must know that a gift is properly an unreturnable giving, as Aristotle says (Topic. iv, 4)—i.e., a thing which is not given with the intention of a return—and it thus contains the idea of a gratuitous donation. Now, the reason of donation being gratuitous is love; since therefore do we give something to anyone gratuitously forasmuch as we wish him well. So what we first give him is the love whereby we wish him well. Hence it is manifest that love has the nature of a first gift, through which all free gifts are given. So since the Holy Spirit proceeds as love, as stated above (Q. 27, A. 4; Q. 37, A. 1), He proceeds as the first gift. Hence Augustine says (De Trin. xv, 24): By the gift, which is the Holy Spirit, many particular gifts are portioned out to the members of Christ.

Reply Obj. 1: As the Son is properly called the Image because He proceeds by way of a word, whose nature it is to be the similitude of its principle, although the Holy Spirit also is like to the Father; so also, because the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as love, He is properly called Gift, although the Son, too, is given. For that the Son is given is from the Father’s love, according to the words, God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son (John 3:16).

Reply Obj. 2: The name Gift involves the idea of belonging to the Giver through its origin; and thus it imports the property of the origin of the Holy Spirit—that is, His procession.

Reply Obj. 3: Before a gift is given, it belongs only to the giver; but when it is given, it is his to whom it is given. Therefore, because Gift does not import the actual giving, it cannot be called a gift of man, but the Gift of God giving. When, however, it has been given, then it is the spirit of man, or a gift bestowed on man.