Recently the Christian Church has begun to rediscover the Person and the vital work of the Holy Spirit, an elusive subject heretofore often ne glected in Christian theology. It seems appropriate, therefore, to examine afresh both the development of Spirit theology and the ongoing ministry of the Spirit throughout the history of the Church. In The Spirit and the Church: Antiquity Stanley M. Burgess recounts Christian efforts from the end of the first century to the end of the fifth century A.D. to understand the divine Third Person.