The Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son — Article 2: The Positive Teaching of Revelation (2. Patristic Argument; 3. Theological Argument)

2. Patristic Argument

The Greek schismatics freely admit that the Latin Fathers unanimously teach the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. Note that, in making this admission, they inadvertently condemn their own attitude; for it is absurd to imagine that the Latin Church, which for eight centuries together with the Greek formed the one true Church of Christ, should have harbored a disgraceful heresy during all that time. But even if we put this consideration aside, we can convict the Greeks out of the mouths of their own Fathers. We shall confine ourselves to establish this point here. The argument from Tradition, so far as it rests on conciliar decisions and the usage of the primitive Church, has already been developed in a previous Section of this treatise.¹

a) One of the most authoritative of the Greek Fathers is St. Athanasius (†373). He expressly teaches that “the Holy Ghost holds the same relation to the Son as to the Father,” and that consequently the total substance of the Father is communicated to the Holy Ghost “through the mediation of the Son.”² Christ’s breathing upon the Apostles he explains as a symbol of the “Procession” of the Holy Ghost from the Son. “The Son breathed the Holy Ghost into the Apostles’ countenance and said: ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost,’ in order that we might learn that the Spirit given to the Disciples is from the fulness of the Godhead; for in Christ, says the Apostle, the whole plenitude of the Godhead indwells corporeally.”³ For this reason he designates the Son as “the fountainhead (or source) of the Holy Ghost.”⁴ These and many similar phrases are merely equivalent terms signifying the “Procession” of the Holy Ghost from the Son.

b) St. Basil’s attitude on the question of the “Filioque” may be gathered from his constant teaching that the Holy Ghost proceeds “from the Father through the Son.”⁵ He furthermore affirms that “the divine dignity comes to the Holy Ghost from the Father through [His] Only-begotten Son.”⁶ In a famous passage, which gave rise to acrid disputes at Florence, in 1439, St. Basil says that the Spirit holds His place after the Son, “because He holds from Him His being, and receives from Him and communicates to us, and depends entirely on that principle (or cause).”⁷ “Dignitate [i. e., secundum originem] namque Spiritum secundum esse a Filio [cum habeat esse ab ipso atque ab ipso accipiat et annuntiet nobis, et omnino ab illa causa dependeat] tradit pietatis sermo.”⁸ The bracketed clause, which definitely asserts the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son,⁹ was vigorously impugned by the Greeks, who claimed that it was spurious. But, as Dr. Bardenhewer points out, “that these are the genuine original words of Basil is proved by good arguments, extrinsic and intrinsic. But even were they the words of a forger, their meaning is true and the entire argument of Basil presupposes it as something logical and indispensable.”¹⁰

c) Of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (†389) Bardenhewer observes: “The Filioque is not found in the writings of St. Gregory as clearly and openly as in those of Basil. He takes it, however, for recognized and granted, that the Son also is principle or origin of the Holy Spirit. When he says¹¹ in his discourse delivered at the Second Ecumenical Council (381), that the Father is ἄναρχος, the Son ἀρχή, and the Holy Spirit τῆς ἀρχῆς,¹² he implicitly affirms that the mutual relation between the Holy Spirit and the Son is that of one who proceeds to Him from whom He proceeds. Moreover, he expressly says that the Holy Spirit is τὸ ἐξ ἀμφοῖν συνημμένον,¹³ i. e., He proceeds equally from the Father and the Son.” The poem entitled Praecepta ad Virgines ends with these words: “One God from the Begetter through the Son, to the great Spirit” (εἷς Θεὸς ἐκ γενετῆρος ἰὼν διὰ υἱοῦ ἐς μέγα πνεῦμα — this is the so-called Reditus Trinitatis, or “return of the Monad into the Triad”), “since the perfect Divinity subsists in perfect Persons.”¹⁴

Gregory of Nyssa, a brother of Basil the Great (†after 394), also teaches that “the Holy Ghost is considered a distinct Hypostasis, because He is from God (ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ), and is of Christ (τοῦ Χριστοῦ), so that He does not share either the property of not proceeding (τὸ ἀγέννητον) with the Father, or the property of being the Only-begotten with the Son.”¹⁵ There is another passage in the writings of Gregory, which, if its genuineness could be established, would be even more conclusive. Cardinal Bessarion cited it against those of his Greek countrymen who were opposed to the reunion, and at the same time protested against the perversion to which the passage had been subjected in an ancient manuscript codex of the works of St. Gregory at Florence, wherein some Greek forger had clumsily expunged the preposition ἐκ. The passage occurs in the third of Gregory’s Sermones in Orationem Dominicam, and reads thus: “Spiritus Sanctus et ex Patre (ἐκ τοῦ πατρός) dicitur et ex Filio esse (καὶ [ἐκ] τοῦ υἱοῦ) perhibetur — The Holy Ghost is said to be from the Father and is shown to be also from the Son.”¹⁶

d) The “Filioque” was very clearly taught by St. Epiphanius, Bishop of Constantia (†403). In his Ancoratus¹⁷ he employs the formula τὸ πνεῦμα ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ at least three times.¹⁸ And in his work “The Medicine-Chest,”¹⁹ usually cited as Haereses, because written against eighty heresies,²⁰ he says: “Audi, quisquis es, quod Pater vere est Filii Pater, totus lux, et Filius vere Patris lumen de lumine, et Spiritus Sanctus veritatis lumen tertium a Patre et Filio (φῶς τρίτον παρὰ πατρὸς καὶ υἱοῦ).”²¹

To these authorities we may add Didymus the Blind (†about 395), who, despite his Origenistic tendencies, according to the testimony of St. Jerome was certainly orthodox in his treatise on the Trinity.²² Didymus paraphrases John XVI, 13 as follows: “Non enim loquetur a semetipso, hoc est non sine me et Patris arbitrio, quia inseparabilis a mea et Patris voluntate; quia non ex se, sed ex Patre et me est: hoc enim ipsum, quod subsistit, a Patre et me illi est — He will not speak of himself, that is to say, not without Me and the judgment of the Father, because He is inseparable from Mine and the Father’s will; because He is not from Himself, but from the Father and Me; for He has His very subsistence from the Father and Me.”²³

Lastly we will mention St. Cyril of Alexandria (†444), whose writings fairly swarm with texts in support of the “Filioque.” Not only does he employ the formula “Ἐκ πατρὸς δι’ υἱοῦ προχεόμενον πνεῦμα — The Holy Ghost flows forth from the Father through the Son,”²⁴ but he distinctly asserts: “Spiritus Sanctus procedit ex Patre et Filio (πρόεισι δὲ καὶ ἐκ πατρὸς καὶ υἱοῦ) — The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.”²⁵

e) Cardinal Bessarion, in his famous dogmatic discourse at the Council of Florence, A. D. 1439, summarized the teaching of the entire Patristic period on the dogma of the Blessed Trinity in these words: “Latini Patres clarissime et dissertissime docent, Spiritum Sanctum procedere ex Filio et Filium, sicut Patrem, esse eius principium. Deinde Orientales quoque, non secus ac Occidentales, hoc ipsum dicere demonstravimus, cum alii Spiritum ex Patre per Filium procedere, alii ex Patre et Filio atque ex ambobus esse aiunt, sicque aperte docent, esse etiam ex Filio — The Latin Fathers teach most clearly and eloquently that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son, and that the Son, like the Father, is His principle. We have also demonstrated that the Greek Fathers, too, agree in this teaching of the Latins; some of them saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, while others declare that He proceeds from the Father and the Son, or from both, which manifestly means that He proceeds also from the Son.”²⁶

In matter of fact it is only by harmoniously blending the Latin “ex Patre Filioque” with the Greek “ex Patre per Filium” that we arrive at the whole truth. Nor was the Latin formula limited to the Latins, or the Greek formula to the Greeks. The Greek formula, which Scheeben calls “the organic conception,” occurs e. g. in the writings of Tertullian,²⁷ Novatian, and Hilary;²⁸ while, conversely, the Latin conception, which has been styled the “personal,” is familiarly employed by several of the Greek Fathers, as we have seen in a previous paragraph. In the “organic” formula the preposition διά has a causal meaning, indicating that the Son is not merely the passage or “channel,” as it were, of the paternal Spiration of the Holy Ghost, but Himself positively cooperates in the act of Spiration; for the Father and the Son together constitute one undivided principle of Spiration, and Spiration itself is one single (notional) act consummated by both Divine Persons in consort. The coordinating conception of the Latins brings this out very clearly, but it rather neglects another equally important truth, viz., that, despite the identity of the act of Spiration, the Father is its original principle (ἀρχή), whereas the Son is the “principiatum” (θεὸς ἐκ θεοῦ), who receives the “virtus spirandi” from the Father. This truth is more sharply emphasized in the Greek formula.²⁹

It is in the light of considerations such as these that we must interpret certain utterances of St. John of Damascus, of which the schismatics make much, and which St. Thomas thought it his duty to censure.³⁰ In matter of fact the Damascene does not deny the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. He merely says: “Καὶ υἱοῦ δὲ πνεῦμα, οὐχ ὡς ἐξ αὐτοῦ, ἀλλ’ ὡς δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον· μόνος γὰρ αἴτιος (= ἀρχὴ ἄναρχος) ὁ πατήρ.”³¹ This view is fully shared by the Latin Fathers. St. Augustine, e. g., says: “Spiritus Sanctus principaliter procedit de Patre … qui, quidquid unigenito Verbo dedit, gignendo dedit — The Holy Ghost proceeds principally from the Father… . who, whatever He gave to the Only-begotten Word, He gave by begetting Him.”³² Similarly St. John Chrysostom: “The phrase, through Him (δι’ αὐτοῦ), is employed for no other reason than to exclude the suspicion that the Son is ingenerate.”³³ The Council of Florence (A. D. 1439), following that of Lyons (A. D. 1274), confirmed this view in its famous decree of reunion,³⁴ and formally defined both the “ex Patre et Filio” and the “unica spiratio amborum” as articles of faith.

3. Theological Argument

In their debates with the anti-unionist Greeks at the Council of Florence, the Latin theologians rightly insisted that, if the Son were excluded from cooperation in the act of Spiration, there would be no ground for distinguishing Him hypostatically from the Holy Ghost; because the Son is hypostatically distinct from the Holy Ghost only by virtue of the relative opposition involved in breathing (spirare) and being breathed (spirari).

a) St. Thomas³⁵ and his school adopted and developed this theological argument, whereas Duns Scotus,³⁶ with a few of his followers, denied its cogency,³⁷ — an attitude for which they have been more or less severely blamed by the “sententia communis.”³⁸ In matter of fact the argument stands unshaken to the present day. It is a theological axiom that “All is indistinctly one in the Godhead, except where a relative opposition of Person to Person furnishes the basis for a real distinction.” If this be true, as we shall demonstrate later on in treating of the divine Relations, no personal distinction can be posited between the Son and the Holy Ghost outside of that of a relative opposition between two Divine Persons. Now, no such relative opposition is conceivable between them unless One proceeds from the Other. Consequently the Holy Ghost proceeds also from the Son, else both would coincide in an indistinguishable unity and lose their independence as distinct Hypostases.

b) Scotus’s objections against this theological argument will not bear scrutiny. If, he says, the Son alone without the Father breathed the Spirit, the personal distinction between the Father and the Holy Ghost would still remain; consequently, Procession as such cannot be a conditio sine qua non of the relative opposition and the hypostatic differences existing in the Godhead. We answer that in the hypothesis of Scotus the Holy Ghost would still proceed from the Father. True, His Procession would be a mediate one through the Son; but even such a mediate Procession would suffice to establish relative opposition, and therefore a hypostatic difference. If, conversely, we assumed with the schismatics that the Father alone breathes, without the Son, the Son would differ hypostatically from the Father by virtue of His Filiation, but He would not differ hypostatically from the Holy Ghost, nor could any personal difference arise unless the Son were placed in relative opposition to the Holy Ghost, which is conceivable only on the basis of a processio. All of which proves that it is a postulate of theological consistency that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son.

Readings

Van der Moeren, De Processione Spiritus Sancti ex Patre Filioque, Lovanii 1864; Kleutgen, Theologie der Vorzeit, 2nd ed., Vol. I, Münster 1867; A. Vincenzi, De Processione Spiritus Sancti, Romae 1878; Franzelin, De Deo Trino, thes. 32–41, Romae 1881 (a very exhaustive treatise); Idem, Examen Doctrinae Macarii Bulgakow … de Processione Spiritus Sancti, Romae 1876; A. Kranich, Der hl. Basilius und seine Stellung zum Filioque, Braunsberg 1882.

Of the Scholastics, cfr. St. Thomas, Contr. Gent., IV, 24 sqq. (Rickaby, Of God and His Creatures, pp. 356 sqq., London 1905); St. Anselm, De Processione Spiritus Sancti contra Graecos; Suarez, De Trinit., l. X; Ruiz, De Trinit., disp. 67; Petavius, De Trinit., l. VII. Cfr. also Petr. Arcudius, Opuscula Aurea Theologica, Romae 1670, and Hugo Laemmer, Scriptor. Graeciae Orthodox. Bibliotheca Selecta, Friburgi 1864 sq.