The Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son — Article 2: The Positive Teaching of Revelation (1. The Scriptural Argument)

ARTICLE 2: THE POSITIVE TEACHING OF REVELATION

1. Scriptural Argument

Sacred Scripture expressly mentions only the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father.¹ But this does not argue that there is no Scriptural warrant for the dogma of His Procession from the Son. On the contrary, the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son can be proved by a threefold argument based on Biblical texts.

a) In the New Testament the Holy Ghost is represented not only as “the Spirit of the Father,” but likewise as “the Spirit of the Son.”² These phrases can have but one meaning, viz., that He proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father. For “Spiritus Filii” expressing as it does a relation (spiritus alicuius), can only mean “spiramen Filii” or “spiratus a Filio,” that is to say, the Holy Ghost is the spiration or breath of the Son. This conclusion cannot consistently be denied by those who, like the Greek schismatics, find themselves constrained to admit that the only reason why the Holy Ghost can be called “Spiritus Patris”³ is that He proceeds from the Father. If this be true, it must a pari be concluded that He can be called “Spiritus Filii” only for the reason that He proceeds also from the Son, — a conclusion which is fortified by the Scriptural phrase Filius Patris (or Filius Dei), which evidently expresses a procession of the one from the other. It was but natural, therefore, for the Greek⁴ as well as for the Latin⁵ Fathers to employ this text as an argument for the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son.

The schismatics object that the Scriptural term “Spiritus Filii” has its justification in the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, from whom alone, they claim, the Holy Ghost proceeds. But this is a mere evasion. Is not the Holy Ghost, too, consubstantial with the Father, from whom alone proceeds the Son? Yet we could not without heresy call Christ “Filius Spiritus Sancti” because the Son does not proceed from the Holy Ghost. Hence the inevitable conclusion that the Holy Ghost is “Spiritus Filii” only because He proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father.

b) A still stronger argument can be drawn from what is known as the “Mission” of the Holy Ghost. Missio, in its abstract sense, signifies “the procession of one from another by virtue of some principle and for the purpose of accomplishing some task.”

The three essential notes of any mission, be it divine or human, are: (1) A real distinction between the sender and the person sent, for it is obvious that no being can send itself. (2) A certain dependency of the “sent” in regard to the “sender.” (3) A relation on the part of the “sent” to some terminus (place or effect). It follows that every “missus” enters into a twofold relation: a relation to the sender (mittens) as his terminus a quo, and a relation to the goal of his mission, which constitutes his terminus ad quem. In applying the concept of “mission” to the Divine Persons we must first purge it of all human imperfections. In the Divinity any influence of the “Sender” on the “Sent,” other than the relation of origin, would be repugnant to the Essence of the Triune God. The eternal Procession of one Divine Person from another may be called Internal Mission (missio ad intra). The Temporal Mission is external and merely reflects the internal.

We know as the result of a complete induction that Holy Scripture invariably represents the Father as “sending,” never as “sent”; the Son both as “sending” and as “sent”; and the Holy Ghost always as “sent,” but never as “sending.” Inasmuch as the Father sends the Son as well as the Holy Ghost, it is a patent conclusion, admitted also by the schismatic Greeks, that the Son and the Holy Ghost proceed from the Father. But the Bible distinctly teaches that the Holy Ghost is sent not only by the Father, but also by the Son.⁶ Consequently, the Holy Ghost proceeds not only from the Father, but also from the Son. This Scriptural argument is so simple and convincing that it was often employed by the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, both Greek and Latin.⁷ Thus St. Fulgentius teaches: “Filius est a Patre missus, quia Filius est a Patre natus, non Pater a Filio; similiter etiam Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et Filio legitur missus, quia a Patre Filioque procedit — The Son is sent by the Father, because the Son is begotten by the Father, not the Father by the Son; similarly we read that the Holy Ghost is sent by the Father and the Son, because He proceeds from the Father and the Son.”⁸

c) The principal Scriptural argument for our present thesis is based on John XVI, 13 sqq. “Cum autem venerit ille Spiritus veritatis, docebit vos omnem veritatem. Non enim loquetur a semetipso, sed, quaecumque audiet, loquetur et, quae ventura sunt, annuntiabit vobis. Ille me clarificabit, quia de meo accipiet et annuntiabit vobis. Omnia quaecumque habet Pater, mea sunt. Propterea dixi: quia de meo accipiet [λήψεται, other codices have λαμβάνει] et annuntiabit vobis — But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth, for he shall not speak of himself; but what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak; and the things that are to come, he shall shew you. He shall glorify me; because he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it to you. All things whatsoever the Father hath, are mine. Therefore, I said that he shall receive [receives] of mine, and shew it to you.”

The bearing of this precious dogmatic text will appear from the following considerations. In the first place it is said of the Holy Ghost that he “hears” and “receives” His knowledge of “the things that are to come,” (i. e., of the future), from Christ. Being in the future tense, “audiet” and “accipiet” cannot refer to the intrinsic, eternal essence of the Holy Ghost, but solely to His future temporal manifestation ad extra. Now, one Divine Person can “hear” and “receive” from another only in so far as He does not, like the Father, possess His knowledge, and consequently His essence, from Himself (a semetipso, ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ), but receives it by way of essential communication. “Ab illo audiet,” says St. Augustine, elucidating the passage, “a quo procedit. Audire illi scire est, scire vero esse… . A quo illi essentia, ab illo scientia — He shall hear of Him from whom He proceedeth. To Him, to hear is to know; but to know is to be… . From whom His Being is, from the same is His knowing.”⁹ Christ, too, derives His divine knowledge from the Father and “hears” and “learns” from the Father, by whom He is sent. “He that sent me, is true: and the things I have heard of him, these same I speak in the world. And they understood not that he called God his Father.”¹⁰ And again: “I do nothing of myself, but as the Father hath taught me, these things I speak.”¹¹ Hence, just as Christ “hears” and “learns” from His Father only in so far as His divine nature with all the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, etc., are communicated to Him by His eternal Generation from the Father, so, too, the Holy Ghost “hears” and “receives” from the Son only in this sense that all His knowledge and His whole essence are derived through origination from Christ.¹² Consequently the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father.

In their anxiety to escape the force of this argument the adherents of Photius have not scrupled to explain the text by interpolation. For ἐκ τοῦ ἐμοῦ λήψεται they read ἐκ τοῦ ἐμοῦ [πατρὸς] λήψεται, i. e., the Holy Ghost receives His knowledge, as He receives His essence, from the Father, and hence proceeds from Him. But, as Cardinal Bessarion has observed, this construction conflicts with the rules of Greek grammar. It is untenable also for this additional reason that the context does not mention the Father at all, but speaks solely of Christ and His relation to the “Spiritus veritatis.”¹³ Hence ἐκ τοῦ ἐμοῦ is the genitive of the neuter noun τὸ ἐμόν, i. e., that which is mine. This interpretation is absolutely irrefutable in the light of John XVI, 15: “Omnia, quaecumque habet Pater, mea sunt;¹⁴ propterea¹⁵ dixi: quia de meo¹⁶ accipiet.” The context is so clear that not a single Greek Father can be adduced who took ἐκ τοῦ ἐμοῦ to be other than a neuter phrase, meaning: “He shall receive of [what is] mine.”¹⁷

For the rest, Christ Himself tells us the precise reason why and in how far the Holy Ghost “receives” from Him. “All things whatsoever¹⁸ the Father hath,” he says, “are mine; therefore¹⁹ I said that he shall receive of mine, and shew it to you.”²⁰ Accordingly, the Son has whatsoever the Father has, with the sole exception of Paternity, which is incommunicable. If, therefore, as the schismatics admit, the Father has the power of Spiration, this power, being communicable, also belongs to the Son. Therefore the Son breathes the Holy Ghost together with the Father. Consequently the latter proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father.

Anselm of Havelberg has thrown this argument into the form of a pretty sorites: “Unde illi [scil. Spiritui Sancto] essentia, inde illi audientia; et unde illi audientia, inde illi scientia; et unde illi scientia, inde illi processio — Whence He [the Holy Ghost] has His essence, thence He has His hearing; and whence He has His hearing, thence He has His knowledge; and whence He has His knowledge, thence He has His Procession.”²¹ This interpretation coincides with that of the Greek Fathers, and the schismatics cannot disavow it without stultifying themselves.²²