"Filled with the Gifts of God": The Holy Spirit as Agent of Virtue Formation in the Participatory Pneumatology of Didymus the Blind

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the pneumatology of Didymus the Blind as expressed in

three of his writings: the Commentary on Genesis, the Commentary on Zechariah, and

On the Holy Spirit. It attends specifically to the relationship between this pneumatology

and Didymus’s concept of virtue formation. Chapters 1 and 2 provide a survey of the

state of Didymean scholarship and a sketch of his biography.

Chapter 3 identifies the concept of virtue formation that Didymus espouses in

the Commentary on Genesis and the Commentary on Zechariah, while chapter 4

describes the pneumatology of On the Holy Spirit.

Finally, chapter 5 draws together the observations of chapters 3 and 4 to

demonstrate their interconnectedness and to argue that the pneumatology which Didymus

constructs in On the Holy Spirit is, in fact, the underlying source of agency for the notion

of virtue formation that he develops in his commentaries on Genesis and Zechariah.