Sect. 105The Special Names of the Divine Productions as Communications of Life in Analogy with Generation and Spiration in the Animal Kingdom—the Personal Names Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—the Economy (ΟἰΚΟΝΟΜΊΑ) of the Divine PersonsThe Special Names of the Divine Productions as Communications of Life in Analogy with Generation and Spiration in the Animal Kingdom—the Personal Names Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—the Economy (ΟἰΚΟΝΟΜΊΑ) of the Divine Persons

I. The name “generation,” is given to the first production in God, because it is “a true communication of intellectual life to another subject, or a production of one person from another,” whence also its Principle is termed “Father” and its Product “Son.” In mankind, the father, and not the mother, is the proper active principle of generation; and the son, not the daughter, is the product of generation perfectly like the father. The paternity in the Divine generation is not only real but is paternity in the highest sense. The Divine Father transfers His life into His Son, exclusively by His own power, whereas the human father only prepares a communication of life, which, in reality, is accomplished through the influence of a higher vital principle. Moreover, the Divine Father does not require the cooperation of a maternal principle in order to perfect His Product: His generation is absolutely virginal. In short: God the Father, as such, is the sole and adequate principle of the perfect Son. Thus the Eternal Father is, in the strictest sense, the “own” Father (Pater proprius) of His Son, and the eternal Son, the “own” Son (Filius proprius) of the Father. For the same reason the Paternity of the Eternal Father is the ideal and type of “all paternity in heaven and on earth” (Eph. 3:15)—that is, of any paternity of God respecting creatures and of all paternity among creatures. And the Sonship of the Eternal Son is the ideal and type of all sonship, but particularly of the sonship of adoption, which consists in the creature being made by grace partaker of the life which belongs to the Son by nature.

II. The second production in God, as far as it is a real communication of life to another person, has no analogue in human nature. It has, however, an analogue in the tendency to communicate one’s own life to another person, and this is “the emission of the breath from the heart.” which, notably in the act of kissing, gives a most real expression to the tendency of love towards intimate and real communion of life. More than this is not required to show that the corresponding act in God is a real communication of life, and that its Product is a real Person. What in the creature is a powerless tendency or striving, is in God an efficacious operation; wherefore, as the Spirit or Breath of God not only awakens and fosters, but gives life when emitted and imparted to creatures, so also the internal emission of this Spirit is necessarily a real communication of life. This becomes still more evident if we consider that the emission of the Divine Spirit of life is not destined to bring about a union of love between two loving hearts existing separately, but flows from one heart, common to two Persons, to manifest and enact their absolute unity of life, and consequently must tend to communicate life to a Third Person, distinct from the First and Second. The emission of the human breath is inferior to generation as an analogue for a Divine communication of life, because it does not produce a new person; but, on the other hand, it has the double advantage of being more apparent and visible, and of standing in closer connection with the higher life of the human soul, notably with love.

By reason of this analogy of origin there can be no human personal name designating the Third Person in the Trinity as the name “Son” designates the Second. On the other hand, however, the name “Spirit,” or “Ghost,” in the sense of immaterial being, cannot be His proper name, because in this sense it is common to the Three Persons. The proper name of the Third Person is taken from the impersonal emission of breath (πνεῦμα spiritus) in man, and receives its personal signification in God by being conceived as “Spiritus de Spiritu,” the life-breath of the purest Spirit. Where the spirating subject is a pure spirit, its whole substance and life are necessarily contained in the substantial breath (spirit) which it emits; and thus this breath is not only something spiritual, but is a Spiritual Hypostasis or Person. The relation of the Spirit of God to the spiritual Nature of its Principle and its Essence is expressed by the name “Holy Ghost,” because the purest spirituality of God culminates in the Substantial Holiness of the Divine Life.

The connection of the name “Ghost” or “Spirit” with the human breath is generally taught by the Fathers. Its relation to the spirituality of the spirating (breathing) person is especially pointed out by the Greek doctors, although they do not describe the origin as spiration as often as the Latin writers; it corresponds with their organic conception of the Holy Ghost as the “Perfume” and “Oil” of the Godhead. The Latin Fathers, on the other hand, although they more frequently use the term spiratio, do not lay much stress on the original meaning of spirit, but give great prominence to the idea of the osculum (kiss) as a bond of union. They used to say, following St. Augustine, that the Third Person is properly called “Spirit,” because the other Two, whose communion He is, are commonly so called. By both Greeks and Latins, however, it is always noted that the name Spirit, applied to the Third Person, ought, like the name Son, to be taken relatively, that is as the Spirit of Somebody. The Greeks lay more stress on the genitive of origin (viz. origo per emanationem substantialem ex principio), whereas the Latin doctors rather point out the genitive of possession, considering, as it were, the Holy Ghost as the common soul of the two Persons united in love.

III. Although no human person furnishes an adequate analogue for the Third Person in the Blessed Trinity, still we can point to one who approaches as near as the diversity between Divine and human nature allows. This human person is no other than the bride, who as spouse and mother, stands between father and son in the communication and representation of human nature, and is as essentially the third member of the human community, or the connecting link between father and son, as the Holy Ghost is the Third Person in the Divinity.

I. The analogy is easily understood if the bride be considered in her ideal, ethical position in the human family, as wife and mother. Here she stands out as the representative of the union of father and son; as the focus in which the mutual love of father and son centres; as love personified and as the soul of the family. The differences arising from the diversity of Divine and human nature are: (a) In the Trinity the Personified Love is only a bond—not a mediator—between Father and Son, and, consequently, is not the mother of the Son. (b) The Person of Love cannot be considered as the wife of the Father, because this Person is not a co-principle with Him, but only proceeds from Him. (c) The Person of Love stands in the same relation to the Son as to the Father; hence, as regards origin, the Son comes between the Father and the Substantial Love of Both. The intermediate position of the human mother between principle and product; her function of nourishing, fostering, cherishing and quickening, and of being the centre where the love of father and child meet, find their analogue in the relations of the Holy Ghost to the external products of Father and Son, viz. to created natures.

2. Considering the wide differences between the “Person of Love” in God and in mankind, human names cannot be unreservedly applied to the Holy Ghost. The names “mother” or “wife” must be excluded altogether; the name “bride” might be applied in the restricted sense that the Holy Ghost is the original and bridal partner of Father and Son. He is a bridal partner, because in virtue of their love He constitutes a substantial unity with them; He is a virginal partner, because He is with Father and Son, not as supplying a want of their nature, but as a Gift; He is the bridal partner of Both, because He bears the same relationship of origin to the Father and to the Son.

3. The constituents of the analogy in question are sufficiently expressed by the name “Holy Ghost” (which in Hebrew is of the feminine gender רוּחַ, ruach, like anima in Latin), inasmuch as it designates the Third Person of the Trinity precisely as the focus of a mutual love that is purely spiritual, chaste, and virginal. We may further remark that the name Holy Ghost is derived from the name Ghost common to the other Two Persons, just as the name Eve, with respect to her relationship of origin, was derived from that of man (Gen. 2:23). Moreover, the proper name which Adam gave to the wife taken from his side to signify her maternal character, is not only analogous in construction, but quite synonymous with the name Ghost; for Eve (חַוָה) signifies life, or, more properly, the outflowing life, the breath, i.e. that which, in analogy with the breath, quickens and fosters by its warmth. And as herein is expressed the ideal essence of the universal mothership of the first woman (“And Adam called the name of his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living”), so also it expresses the characteristic of the Holy Ghost as principle of all the life of creation; wherefore also the Holy Ghost in this respect is called the “Fostering Spirit.”

This analogy is completed by the origin of the first woman, an origin different from generation but similar to the origin of the Holy Ghost, and symbolizing the origin of the mystic bride of God. For the “taking” of Eve from the side of Adam, that is, from his heart, can only signify an origin by loving donation on the part of Adam, although this donation only gave the matter which, by the supernatural intervention of God, was endowed with life. Now, according to all the Fathers, the origin of Eve was the type of the origin of the Church, the virginal bride of Christ, from the side of her Bridegroom, nay, from His very Heart, and by virtue of His own vital force through the effusion of His life’s Blood. But, on the other hand, the effusion of the Blood of Christ being the vehicle and the symbol of the effusion of the Holy Ghost, and the Church, by reason of her moral union with the Holy Ghost, being the bride of Christ, we have here an illustration of the character of the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost Himself, which bears the closest relation to the emission of the breath from the heart.

IV. In order to preserve all the force of this human analogy, and, at the same time, to do away with its inherent imperfections and to point out the elements which do not appear in it, Revelation itself represents the Holy Ghost, with regard to this origin and position, under the symbol of an animal being, viz. the Dove. He appeared in the form of a dove on the Jordan (Matt. 3:16), but already in the narrative of creation (Gen. 1:2) this form is hinted at. The dove, in general, is the symbol of love and fidelity, especially of chaste, meek, patient, and innocent love, and so it illustrates nearly all the attributes of the Spirit of Wisdom, described in Wisd. 7, that is, in one word, His Holiness. But the Divine Dove represents also the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of God—that is, as the Spirit proceeding from Father and Son and uniting Them. Like a dove, the Holy Ghost ascends from the heart of Father and Son, whilst in Him they breathe their Love and Life or Soul; and, like a dove, with outspread wings and quiescent motion, He hovers over them, crowning and completing their union, and manifesting by His sigh the infinite felicity and holiness of Their love. In short, this image shows the Holy Ghost as the hypostatic “Kiss,” “Embrace,” and “Sigh” of the Father and the Son, that is, in His character of Their virginal Bride.

The same image also represents the Holy Ghost in His relation of “Virginal Mother” to creatures. As a dove He descends from the heart of God upon the creature, bringing down with Him the Divine Love and its gifts, penetrating creatures with His warming, quickening, and refreshing fire, establishing the most intimate relations between God and them, and being Himself the pledge of the Love which sends Him and of the love which He inspires; and lastly, in the supernatural order, penetrating into the creature as into His temple to such a degree that the creature in its turn becomes the virginal bride of God and the virginal mother of life in others, and thus receives itself the name of dove—a name applied especially to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Church, and the virgins of Christ, and generally to all pious souls (Cant. 2:10).