Sect. 98The Tradition of East and West on the Consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost with the Father and the SonThe Tradition of East and West on the Consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son
I. Just as the Arians misused the Homoousios of Nicæa against the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, so did the Greek schismatics misuse the words “Who proceedeth from the Father,” used by the Council of Constantinople to define the consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost with the other two Persons. They read the definition as if it excluded the Son from all participation in the communication of the Divine Essence to the Holy Ghost. It is, however, easy to show that the Greek Fathers of the fourth century, to whom the schismatics especially appeal, founded all their argument in favour of the origin of the Holy Ghost from the Father and His consubstantiality with the Father, on the assumption that the Third Person proceeds from the Son. Thus the schismatics, who reproach the Latin Church with making a change in the symbol, are themselves guilty of distorting the true sense of the symbol, of forsaking the guidance of their orthodox Fathers, and of embracing the cause of the Macedonians.
II. We shall here reproduce the doctrine of the Greek Fathers of the fourth century on the procession of the Holy Ghost. This will afford us a twofold advantage. (1) The difference of conception and expression which exists between the Latin and Greek Fathers on this subject will be made clear, and possible misunderstandings will be obviated; (2) the proper value of the Greek mode of conceiving and expressing the procession of the Holy Ghost will be rightly understood.
We shall divide this section into three parts: (A) The doctrine of the Greek Church on the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. (B) The Greek manner of conceiving and expressing the procession, compared with the Latin conception and expression. (C) The origin and tendency of the negation of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, which is properly the “heresy of the schism.”
A.—The Doctrine of the Eastern Church of the Fourth Century on the Origin of the Holy Ghost as the Foundation of His Consubstantiality with the Father and the Son
III. In order to get at a right understanding of this doctrine, it is necessary to bear in mind the question at issue between the Church and the “Pneumatomachi” (or Macedonians), viz. whether the Holy Ghost had such an origin from God that, by reason of His origin, He received, not a new essence, but the Essence of God. The Pneumatomachi, most of whom were Semi-Arians, conceded more or less the consubstantiality consequent upon generation (at least the Homoiousios); but they thought that in God, as also in man, no other consubstantiality was possible but that founded upon generation. Hence they argued that the Holy Ghost, in order to be consubstantial with the Father and the Son, ought to be generated by either of Them, which would cause the Holy Ghost to be either the son of the Father and the brother of the Son, or the son of the Son and grandson of the Father (St. Athan., Ad. Serap., i., n. 15 sqq.; iii., n. I sqq.). As, however, both suppositions are absurd, it follows that the Holy Ghost must have an origin similar to that of the other things which are made through (διὰ) the Son; and therefore no consubstantiality with the Father, no Divine Nature can be claimed for the Holy Ghost (cf. Franzelin, th. xxxviii.).
Against this heretical opinion the Divinity of the Holy Ghost could be defended in two ways.
IV. The first way, more suited to a dogmatic definition, was to affirm directly what the opponents denied, namely, the origin of the Holy Ghost from the Substance of the Father, and then to show that, though not generated, the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father as really as the Son proceeds from Him. This way was chosen by the Council of Constantinople, which—combining the texts (John 15:26), “Who proceedeth from the Father,” παρὰ τοῦ πατρός, and (1 Cor. 2:12) “the Spirit Who is of God,” ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ—defined that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father.
It was not necessary to assert here the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, because the adversaries did not deny it, but, on the contrary, maintained it, and because the assertion of the origin of the Holy Ghost from the Father determined at once the relation of principle which the Son bears to the Holy Ghost. Moreover, according to the Pneumatomachi, the procession of another Person from the Father was, as a matter of course, effected through that Person Who proceeds from Him as Son. It was not even fitting or advisable for the Council to mention the procession from the Son. The object of the Council was to put the origin of the Holy Ghost on a footing with the origin of the Son with respect to consubstantiality with the Father; the opponents were imbued with Arian ideas, and denied the Divinity of the Son; hence they could not be refuted by affirming the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. Besides, the Council wished to found its definition upon Holy Scripture, but the texts which formally teach the procession from the Father do not mention the procession from the Son. If it had wished to mention the Son, the Council ought to have appealed to other texts, e.g. in which the Holy Ghost is said to receive (take) from the Son. This is really done in the more explicit symbol given by St. Epiphanius in the Ancoratus (n. 121), a symbol much used in the East, and perhaps adopted by the Council as the basis of its definition. The Ancoratus was written A.D. 374; that is, seven years before the Council. It is not impossible, however, that, after the Council, Epiphanius made some additions to the Symbol in harmony with the definition. The text is, “And we believe in the Holy Ghost, Who spake in the Law and preached in the Prophets and descended on the Jordan, Who speaketh in the Apostles and dwelleth in the Saints. And this is how we believe in Him: He is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the perfect Spirit, the Paraclete, uncreated, Who proceedeth from the Father and receiveth [or taketh, λαμβανόμενον (middle voice)] from the Son, and is believed to be from the Son (το ἐκ τοῦ πατρός ἐκπορευόμενον, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ ὑιοῦ λαμβανόμενον καὶ πιστευόμενον).”
In the West, where the position taken up by the Pneumatomachi was not so well understood or borne in mind as in the East, the definition of the Council of 381 was soon found fault with; and whenever the Eastern doctors were asked for fuller explanations, they gave it in the terms of the Symbol of St. Epiphanius. Several Eastern Churches have adopted the same symbol in their Liturgy (cf. Van der Moeren, pp. 175 and 178).
V. The second way to oppose the Pneumatomachi was to argue from their own affirmation, viz. “that the Holy Ghost has His origin from and through the Son,” and to show how this origin from the Son is such that it implies consubstantiality with the Son and with the Father. This method was adopted by most of the Fathers. If they had denied or had not acknowledged the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, they could have reproved the Macedonians for admitting it. At any rate, they would have had an easy answer to the objection that the third Person, owing His origin to the Son, is grandson to the Father; viz. by stating that the Holy Ghost in no wise proceeds from the Son, but only from the Father. But the Fathers do neither; on the contrary, they accept the procession from the Son as a matter of course, and make a true conception of this procession from the Son the central point of the whole controversy with the Pneumatomachi. The line of defence taken by the Fathers is invariably to correctly determine the nature of the origin of the Holy Ghost from the Son. We shall consider it (1) in its positive aspect; (2) in its apologetic or defensive aspect.
I. The thesis of the Fathers
(a.) The Fathers first show negatively that the origin of the Holy Ghost through the Son is not like the origin of creatures through the Son, but should be conceived as an origin from the Son, or as the production of a hypostasis of the same kind as its principle, proceeding from the Substance of the Son, and therefore inseparably united with Him. They state that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son as the Son proceeds from the Father, viz. as principle of creation, and especially as principle of the supernatural sanctification of creatures, and of the conformation with the Son and the union with the Father implied in the process of sanctification. Hence it is in and through the Holy Ghost that the Son creates, sanctifies, and elevates creatures to conformity and union with Himself. But this would be impossible if the Substance and power of the Son were not communicated to the Holy Ghost—that is, if the Holy Ghost were not of and in the Substance of the Son (cf. St. Athan., Ad Serap., 1. i.; St. Basil, Ep., 38 (al. 43), n. 4, etc.). The Fathers call the Holy Ghost, in opposition to the external works, the power and activity (virtus et operatio, ἐνέργεια), and sometimes also the quality (ποιότης) of the Son. These expressions are used of the Son in relation to the Father; but when applied to the Holy Ghost in relation to the Son, the Fathers illustrate their signification by comparing the Son to a flower, of which the Holy Ghost is the perfume, or to a mouth, an arm, a branch, of which the Holy Ghost is the breath, the finger, the flower. They further convey the notions of consubstantiality by comparing the relations of the two Persons to honey and its sweetness, to a spring and its waters, to water and its steam, to a ray of light and its radiance, to fire and its heat (cf. Petav., 1. vii., c. 5 and 7).
(b.) The Fathers declare positively that the origin of the Holy Ghost from the substance of the Son must be put on the same level as the origin of the Son from the Father, and that the precedence of the Son as principle of the Holy Ghost does not destroy the equality and real unity between these two Persons any more than the precedence of the Father as principle of the Son causes any real inequality between Father and Son. They lay so much stress on this parallel that they apply to the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son all the expressions used to describe the generation of the Son from the Father (except “begotten” and “Son”), although they are aware that this makes it more difficult to answer the question why the Holy Ghost is not the son of the Son. (See St. Basil, C. Eun., 1. v.) In countless places they call the Holy Ghost the Word (verbum = ῥῆμα, not λόγος), the Effulgence, the Image (εἰκών), the Countenance, the Seal, the Figure, and the Form (χαρακτήρ, μορφή) of the Son; all of which expressions convey the idea of consubstantiality between the Holy Ghost and the Son, as much as when they are used of the Son in relation to the Father. (See Petav., 1. vii., c. 7; Franzelin, th. xxxvii.)
(c.) In the third place the Fathers show that, since the Holy Ghost stands to the Son as the Son to the Father, He must also proceed from the Father through the Son, and that, though not generated like the Son, He none the less receives through the Son, as really as the Son Himself, the Substance of the Father. The substantial connection of the Holy Ghost with the Father through the Son, and vice versâ, is illustrated by the comparisons given above (a), the three Persons standing in the relation of root, flower, and odour,—light, ray, and radiance, etc.; the Son and the Holy Ghost are to the Father as His mouth and the breath proceeding from it, or as His arm and finger. The Son is the Truth and Wisdom of the Father; the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Wisdom and of Truth. Cf. St. Athan., Ad. Serap., i., n. 19–21; and the chapter of St. Basil, C. Eunom., 1. v., inscribed, “That, as the Son stands to the Father, so the Holy Ghost stands to the Son.”
2. The defence of the Fathers against the Pneumatomachi is founded upon the above principles.
(a.) The first objection, urged principally by Eunomius, was that the order of origin in the Trinity involved a descending order in the excellence and nature of the Three Persons, and an essential difference between the substances. To this the Fathers had but one answer: that the Holy Ghost was no more inferior to the Son for proceeding from Him, than the Son was inferior to the Father for being generated by Him; and that the difference of origin implied no other difference whatsoever, except the difference of origin itself. St. Basil treats this point expressly in the beginning of his third book against Eunomius. See Franzelin, th. xxxv.
(b.) The second objection was that, if the Holy Ghost stood to the Son as the Son to the Father, the Holy Ghost ought to be the son of the Son, and the grandson of the Father. The Fathers do not evade this difficulty by stating that the Holy Ghost is only related to the Son inasmuch as He possesses the same Substance, and not by any relation of origin; on the contrary, they expressly affirm that the Holy Ghost is really from the Father through the Son. (St. Basil, C. Eunom., 1. v.: “Why is the Holy Ghost not called the Son of the Son? Not because He is not of God through the Son.”) They only point out that human relations cannot be unreservedly applied to God; that the expression “Son of the Son” leads to absurd consequences, e.g. to the supposition that in God, as in man, an indefinite series of generations is possible; that each Person in the Trinity must be as unique and individual in His personality as the Divine Substance; that, lastly, generation is not the only kind of origin, wherefore also Holy Scripture compares the origin of the Holy Ghost to the origin of the breath from the mouth. The essential difference between Divine and human generation lies in this: that man generates as an isolated substance independent of his own progenitor, whereas the Son of God can only work in unity with His Father, and so communicate the Divine Substance common to Father and Son. (St. Athan., Ad. Serap., i. 16.) Hence the expression, “through the Son,” when applied to the origin of the Holy Ghost, does not mean quite the same as when applied to human relations.
(c.) The third objection ran thus: If the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father as really and truly as from the Son, He ought to be the son of the Father and the brother of the Son. To this the Fathers answered that the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Father in the same way as the Son does; and that He does not proceed from the Father alone and in every respect directly, but through the Son; the Holy Ghost being not only the Spirit of the Father, but also the Spirit of the Son. (Cf. St. Basil, Ep., 38.)
VI. From the line of argument followed by the Fathers who lived at the time of the Second Council (A.D. 381), it is evident that the words of the Symbol, “Who proceedeth from the Father,” are not intended to mean from the Father alone, but through the Son from the Father and from the Father through the Son; which formula is, with the older Greeks, the standing and self-evident commentary on the words of the Symbolum. The interpretation, “from the Father alone,” is a falsification as bad as and akin to the Protestant interpretation of the words, “Man is justified by faith without the works of the law,” leaving unheeded the other words, “Charity which worketh through faith.” Nay, by suppressing “through the Son,” the formula “proceedeth from the Father” would be deprived of its natural sense as it presented itself to the mind of the Fathers. For, in that case, the Father, as Father, would have no relation to the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost ought either to be a son of the Father, or the Father ought to have another personal character besides that of Fathership. (Franzelin, th. xxxvi.)
B.—The Eastern manner of conceiving and expressing the Procession of the Holy Ghost compared with the Western
II. It is well known that the Eastern Fathers differ from the Western in their way of expressing the Procession of the Holy Ghost. The former commonly use the formula, ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς διὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ, “from the Father through the Son;” the latter, ex Patre Filioque, “from the Father and the Son.” No real difference of meaning, however, underlies these different expressions, as is sufficiently proved by the fact that Greek Fathers, who had most occasion to express the dogma in short formulas, especially St. Epiphanius and St. Cyril of Alexandria, use the Latin formula times out of number; and Latin doctors, like Tertullian and St. Hilary, frequently use the Greek expression. Besides, the Western Church never objected to the formula used in the East, but attributed a correct sense to it, although it might lead Latin scholars to a misunderstanding far from the mind of the Greeks.
VIII. As a matter of fact, the Greek formula has a sound sense and a natural origin, and has even a certain advantage over the Latin formula. It owes its origin to the fact that Holy Scripture, whenever it mentions the Divine operations, represents the Father as the principle out of which (ex quo, ἐξ οὗ) all things come, and the Son as the principle through or by means of which (per quod, διʼ οῦ) all things are made, or as the way by which all things come from and return to the Father. Moreover, the course which the controversy with the Pneumatomachi took, rendered the frequent use of this exposition natural. The sound meaning of the formula is that it represents the Father and the Son, not as two principles acting separately, but as two principles operating one in the other, or as one principle; and that it sets forth the particular position of the Father and the Son as principles of the Holy Ghost, viz. that the Son produces the Holy Ghost only as “principle from a principle” (principium de principio), whereas: the Father is “principle without a principle” (principium sine principio) and “principle of a principle: (principium principii) of the Holy Ghost. From this appears the relative advantage of the Greek formula. It clearly unfolds the meaning which lies hidden in the “ex Patre et Filio,” and which has to be expounded by the addition of “tanquam ab uno principio,” and “licet pariter ab utroque, a Patre principaliter” or “originaliter.” Its sole disadvantage is that it does not point out as clearly as the Latin formula the parity of the participation of Father and Son in the Spiration of the Holy Ghost.
IX. The special stress which the Greek Fathers laid on the formula διʼ υἱοῦ has a deeper reason in their manner of conceiving the dogma of the Trinity,—a conception which might be described as organic. To the Greek Fathers the two productions in God, Generation and Spiration, appear as a motion proceeding in a straight line, the Spiration originating in the Generation, and being intimately and essentially connected with it, so that not only does the Spiration essentially presuppose the Generation, but the Generation virtually contains the Spiration, tends towards it, and has its complement in it. They consider the productions in the Trinity as a motion of the Divinity, by which the Divinity passes first from the Father to the Son and then to the Holy Ghost, and so passes, as it were, through the Son. In harmony with this view, they chose their illustrations of the mystery from analogies in organic nature, in which one production leads to another, e.g. root, stem, and flower. The deeper reason for this conception is, however, to be found in this, that the Greek Fathers considered the production of the Son as a manifestation of the wisdom of the Father, and the production of the Holy Ghost as a manifestation of the sanctity of God which is founded upon His wisdom. In other words: they considered the Holy Ghost (according to John 15) as the Spirit of Truth Who proceedeth from the Father.
From this point of view, the production of the Holy Ghost, in as far as it was attributed to the Father, appeared as carried on by means of the generation of the Son, but going beyond this generation. Hence it was termed, as distinguished from the generation, προβολή or ἔκπεμψις (a sending forth). All the terms used exclusively to characterize either the generation of the Son or the spiration of the Holy Ghost, are explained and accounted for by the above remarks on the organic conception of the productions in the Trinity. It was the more necessary for the Greek Fathers to hold fast to a terminology based upon their “organic” conception, because any deviation from it (coupled with their formula that “the Holy Ghost stands to the Son as the Son stands to Father,” viz. as Word and Image) would easily have led to a misconception of the organic coherence of both productions, and would have made the Holy Ghost the grandson of the Father. For if, conjointly with the expression διά (through), they had used the expression ἐκ (from the Son), this might have conveyed the meaning that the Holy Ghost is of the Son exactly as the Son is of the Father, viz. by generation, and consequently that He is not directly, but only indirectly, produced by the Father. The “from” seemed to separate the Son from the Father in the production of the Holy Ghost, and was looked upon as inconvenient because it does not represent the Holy Ghost as the Spirit which is equally the Spirit of the Father and the Son. For the same reason it was deemed incorrect to call the Son the principle (αἰτία), pure and simple, of the Holy Ghost, because this seemed to imply that the Son, in the production of the Holy Ghost, acted as a principle separate from the Father, as a human son does. Therefore the Son was usually represented as only an intermediate principle, through which the Holy Ghost received His personality, whereas the Father was designated as the only principle pure and simple, from which the Holy Ghost proceeded as well as the Son. This mode of expression, however, meant only that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son inasmuch as the Son Himself, in virtue of His Sonship, is and remains in the Father, which the Latin Fathers express when they say, “Son and Father are but one principle of the Holy Ghost.”
X. The Latin conception, as developed after St. Ambrose and St. Jerome, may be termed the “personal” conception of the productions in the Trinity. It does not, like the Greek, consider the production of the Holy Ghost as a continuation of the production of the Son, but as an act in which the Person produced by generation, by reason of His unity and equality with His principle, brings into play His personal union with His principle: both, acting side by side as equals, communicate what is common to Them to the Holy Ghost. Here the Holy Ghost is the bond and the pledge of mutual love between Father and Son, or between the original model and its copy. From this point of view, nothing was more natural than to say that the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son, and to find fault with a formula which made no mention of the Son. It would seem equally strange to see the Greeks put the Holy Ghost in immediate relation with the Son alone as “image of the Son;” but nobody would think of finding in the expression, “ex Patre et Filio,” a separation of the Two Persons in the act of producing the Third. The only objection of the Latin Church to the formula, “through the Son,” was that it might lead to the notion of the Son as the mother of the Holy Ghost (cf. St. Augustine, In Joan., tract. 99). The Latin Fathers, therefore, avoided the formula “through the Son,” lest the Holy Ghost should appear to be the Son of the Father and of the Son; whereas the Greeks avoided the formula, “from the Son,” lest He should be thought the grandson of the Father.
For the history of the introduction of the word Filioque into the Symbol, see Hergenröther, Photius, i., p. 692 sqq.; Franzelin, thes. xli.
XI. From what has been said, it is evident that there was no contradiction between the older Eastern and the Western Church as regards the Procession of the Holy Ghost. The former taught the Catholic doctrine as decidedly as the latter. The difference of expression was, indeed, likely to lead to misunderstandings; but, like the former misunderstandings concerning the terms “hypostasis” and “persona,” they could easily have been brought to a satisfactory issue, had it not been for the schismatic jealousy of the Greeks, who by degrees advanced from a mutilation of the Latin formula to the negation of the Eastern doctrine.
C.—The Heresy of the Schism
XII. A formal and absolute denial of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from God the Son is to be found nowhere among the older orthodox Fathers of the Greek Church. If Photius had any forerunners, they certainly were Greek heretics, Nestorians and Monothelites, who dragged this point into the controversy in order to cast suspicion on their opponents. As to the Nestorians (especially Nestorius himself, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and even Theodoret), it is most probable that they rejected the “through the Son” in the same sense as the Fathers had rejected it in the Macedonian controversy, viz. created or generated through the Son. In fact, the Nestorians accused St. Cyril of holding the views of the Macedonians. The Monothelites, on the contrary, attempted by their criticisms of the Latin formula, to show that the Western Church favoured Macedonianism—perhaps they also misinterpreted the Greek formula—but St. Maximus refuted them. Certain monks of Jerusalem, jealous of the Franks, were the first to openly deny the ancient doctrine (A.D. 808). Photius, by the proclamation of his schism, disregarding the tradition of the Greek not less than of the Latin Church, made the negation of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son his fundamental dogma. On the Nestorians and Theodoret, see Card. Newman, Historical Sketches, vol. ii.; Kuhn, § 32; and Franzelin, th. xxxviii. On the audacious sophisms of Photius, see Hergenröther, Photius, iii., p. 400 sqq.
XIII. As the Photian schism has been the greatest and most enduring of all the schisms that have rent the Church, we are not surprised to find that the heresy which it invented should carry schism and division even into God Himself. All schisms, in the pretended interest of the monarchy of Christ, have rejected His visible representative on earth, and have thus destroyed the economy (οἰκονομία) of the Church. The Photian heresy, in the pretended interest of the monarchy of God the Father, rejects the character of the Son as principle; but in so doing it tears, rends, and destroys the living unity (economy) which, according to the Greek and Latin Fathers, exists in the Trinity.
The divisions and rents which the heresy of the schism introduces into the Trinity are the following: (a) It destroys the immediate and direct union of the Holy Ghost with the Son, for this union can only consist in the relation of origin; at the same time it deprives the Holy Ghost of His attribute of “own Spirit of the Son.” (b) It destroys the perfect unity of Father and Son, in virtue of which the Son possesses everything in common with the Father, except Paternity, (c) It tears asunder the indivisible unity of the Father, by dividing the character of Paternity from the character of Spirator, or προβολεύς, and so giving Him a double Personality, (d) It annihilates the fixed order and succession, in virtue of which the Three Persons form one continuous golden chain. (e) It destroys the organic coherence of the two productions in the Trinity so much insisted upon by the Greek Fathers themselves. (f) Above all, it destroys the perfect concatenation of the Divine Persons, in virtue of which each of Them stands in the closest relation to the other two and forms a connecting link between them (cf. St. Basil, Ep., 38, n. 4). Thus the Greek Fathers point out the intermediate position of the Son between the Father and the Holy Ghost: the Son goes forth from the Father, and sends forth from Himself the Holy Ghost, so that, through the Son, the Father is in relation with the Holy Ghost and vice versâ. The Latin Fathers, on the other hand, describe the Holy Ghost as the exhalation of the mutual love of Father and Son, which binds Them together like a band, “vinculum,” “osculum amplexus.” (g) Lastly, the heresy of the schism curtails and mutilates the Trinity in its very Essence. For the Father is Father only inasmuch as He gives the Son whatever He Himself possesses and can give by generation, including His entire fecundity, with the exception of the special character of Paternity. The Son is perfect Son only if He is equal and like to the Father in the Spiration of the Holy Ghost, and if, in particular, the Spirit of the Father is communicated to Him by the very act of generation and not by a new act of the Father. The Holy Ghost, too, is only conceivable as perfect Spirit and as a distinct Person if the Son is His principle. For it is an axiom accepted by the Fathers, that all personal differences in God, being founded upon the relations of origin, exist only between the principle and its product. No distinction is conceivable in God which does not include the most intimate union of those that are distinct. And as, according to the Greek Fathers, the Father produces the Holy Ghost only through the Son and not side by side with the Son, the Holy Ghost would remain in the Son and be identical with Him if He did not proceed from the Son.
I. Just as the Arians misused the Homoousios of Nicæa against the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, so did the Greek schismatics misuse the words “Who proceedeth from the Father,” used by the Council of Constantinople to define the consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost with the other two Persons. They read the definition as if it excluded the Son from all participation in the communication of the Divine Essence to the Holy Ghost. It is, however, easy to show that the Greek Fathers of the fourth century, to whom the schismatics especially appeal, founded all their argument in favour of the origin of the Holy Ghost from the Father and His consubstantiality with the Father, on the assumption that the Third Person proceeds from the Son. Thus the schismatics, who reproach the Latin Church with making a change in the symbol, are themselves guilty of distorting the true sense of the symbol, of forsaking the guidance of their orthodox Fathers, and of embracing the cause of the Macedonians.
II. We shall here reproduce the doctrine of the Greek Fathers of the fourth century on the procession of the Holy Ghost. This will afford us a twofold advantage. (1) The difference of conception and expression which exists between the Latin and Greek Fathers on this subject will be made clear, and possible misunderstandings will be obviated; (2) the proper value of the Greek mode of conceiving and expressing the procession of the Holy Ghost will be rightly understood.
We shall divide this section into three parts: (A) The doctrine of the Greek Church on the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. (B) The Greek manner of conceiving and expressing the procession, compared with the Latin conception and expression. (C) The origin and tendency of the negation of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, which is properly the “heresy of the schism.”
A.—The Doctrine of the Eastern Church of the Fourth Century on the Origin of the Holy Ghost as the Foundation of His Consubstantiality with the Father and the Son
III. In order to get at a right understanding of this doctrine, it is necessary to bear in mind the question at issue between the Church and the “Pneumatomachi” (or Macedonians), viz. whether the Holy Ghost had such an origin from God that, by reason of His origin, He received, not a new essence, but the Essence of God. The Pneumatomachi, most of whom were Semi-Arians, conceded more or less the consubstantiality consequent upon generation (at least the Homoiousios); but they thought that in God, as also in man, no other consubstantiality was possible but that founded upon generation. Hence they argued that the Holy Ghost, in order to be consubstantial with the Father and the Son, ought to be generated by either of Them, which would cause the Holy Ghost to be either the son of the Father and the brother of the Son, or the son of the Son and grandson of the Father (St. Athan., Ad. Serap., i., n. 15 sqq.; iii., n. I sqq.). As, however, both suppositions are absurd, it follows that the Holy Ghost must have an origin similar to that of the other things which are made through (διὰ) the Son; and therefore no consubstantiality with the Father, no Divine Nature can be claimed for the Holy Ghost (cf. Franzelin, th. xxxviii.).
Against this heretical opinion the Divinity of the Holy Ghost could be defended in two ways.
IV. The first way, more suited to a dogmatic definition, was to affirm directly what the opponents denied, namely, the origin of the Holy Ghost from the Substance of the Father, and then to show that, though not generated, the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father as really as the Son proceeds from Him. This way was chosen by the Council of Constantinople, which—combining the texts (John 15:26), “Who proceedeth from the Father,” παρὰ τοῦ πατρός, and (1 Cor. 2:12) “the Spirit Who is of God,” ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ—defined that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father.
It was not necessary to assert here the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, because the adversaries did not deny it, but, on the contrary, maintained it, and because the assertion of the origin of the Holy Ghost from the Father determined at once the relation of principle which the Son bears to the Holy Ghost. Moreover, according to the Pneumatomachi, the procession of another Person from the Father was, as a matter of course, effected through that Person Who proceeds from Him as Son. It was not even fitting or advisable for the Council to mention the procession from the Son. The object of the Council was to put the origin of the Holy Ghost on a footing with the origin of the Son with respect to consubstantiality with the Father; the opponents were imbued with Arian ideas, and denied the Divinity of the Son; hence they could not be refuted by affirming the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. Besides, the Council wished to found its definition upon Holy Scripture, but the texts which formally teach the procession from the Father do not mention the procession from the Son. If it had wished to mention the Son, the Council ought to have appealed to other texts, e.g. in which the Holy Ghost is said to receive (take) from the Son. This is really done in the more explicit symbol given by St. Epiphanius in the Ancoratus (n. 121), a symbol much used in the East, and perhaps adopted by the Council as the basis of its definition. The Ancoratus was written A.D. 374; that is, seven years before the Council. It is not impossible, however, that, after the Council, Epiphanius made some additions to the Symbol in harmony with the definition. The text is, “And we believe in the Holy Ghost, Who spake in the Law and preached in the Prophets and descended on the Jordan, Who speaketh in the Apostles and dwelleth in the Saints. And this is how we believe in Him: He is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the perfect Spirit, the Paraclete, uncreated, Who proceedeth from the Father and receiveth [or taketh, λαμβανόμενον (middle voice)] from the Son, and is believed to be from the Son (το ἐκ τοῦ πατρός ἐκπορευόμενον, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ ὑιοῦ λαμβανόμενον καὶ πιστευόμενον).”
In the West, where the position taken up by the Pneumatomachi was not so well understood or borne in mind as in the East, the definition of the Council of 381 was soon found fault with; and whenever the Eastern doctors were asked for fuller explanations, they gave it in the terms of the Symbol of St. Epiphanius. Several Eastern Churches have adopted the same symbol in their Liturgy (cf. Van der Moeren, pp. 175 and 178).
V. The second way to oppose the Pneumatomachi was to argue from their own affirmation, viz. “that the Holy Ghost has His origin from and through the Son,” and to show how this origin from the Son is such that it implies consubstantiality with the Son and with the Father. This method was adopted by most of the Fathers. If they had denied or had not acknowledged the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, they could have reproved the Macedonians for admitting it. At any rate, they would have had an easy answer to the objection that the third Person, owing His origin to the Son, is grandson to the Father; viz. by stating that the Holy Ghost in no wise proceeds from the Son, but only from the Father. But the Fathers do neither; on the contrary, they accept the procession from the Son as a matter of course, and make a true conception of this procession from the Son the central point of the whole controversy with the Pneumatomachi. The line of defence taken by the Fathers is invariably to correctly determine the nature of the origin of the Holy Ghost from the Son. We shall consider it (1) in its positive aspect; (2) in its apologetic or defensive aspect.
I. The thesis of the Fathers
(a.) The Fathers first show negatively that the origin of the Holy Ghost through the Son is not like the origin of creatures through the Son, but should be conceived as an origin from the Son, or as the production of a hypostasis of the same kind as its principle, proceeding from the Substance of the Son, and therefore inseparably united with Him. They state that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son as the Son proceeds from the Father, viz. as principle of creation, and especially as principle of the supernatural sanctification of creatures, and of the conformation with the Son and the union with the Father implied in the process of sanctification. Hence it is in and through the Holy Ghost that the Son creates, sanctifies, and elevates creatures to conformity and union with Himself. But this would be impossible if the Substance and power of the Son were not communicated to the Holy Ghost—that is, if the Holy Ghost were not of and in the Substance of the Son (cf. St. Athan., Ad Serap., 1. i.; St. Basil, Ep., 38 (al. 43), n. 4, etc.). The Fathers call the Holy Ghost, in opposition to the external works, the power and activity (virtus et operatio, ἐνέργεια), and sometimes also the quality (ποιότης) of the Son. These expressions are used of the Son in relation to the Father; but when applied to the Holy Ghost in relation to the Son, the Fathers illustrate their signification by comparing the Son to a flower, of which the Holy Ghost is the perfume, or to a mouth, an arm, a branch, of which the Holy Ghost is the breath, the finger, the flower. They further convey the notions of consubstantiality by comparing the relations of the two Persons to honey and its sweetness, to a spring and its waters, to water and its steam, to a ray of light and its radiance, to fire and its heat (cf. Petav., 1. vii., c. 5 and 7).
(b.) The Fathers declare positively that the origin of the Holy Ghost from the substance of the Son must be put on the same level as the origin of the Son from the Father, and that the precedence of the Son as principle of the Holy Ghost does not destroy the equality and real unity between these two Persons any more than the precedence of the Father as principle of the Son causes any real inequality between Father and Son. They lay so much stress on this parallel that they apply to the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son all the expressions used to describe the generation of the Son from the Father (except “begotten” and “Son”), although they are aware that this makes it more difficult to answer the question why the Holy Ghost is not the son of the Son. (See St. Basil, C. Eun., 1. v.) In countless places they call the Holy Ghost the Word (verbum = ῥῆμα, not λόγος), the Effulgence, the Image (εἰκών), the Countenance, the Seal, the Figure, and the Form (χαρακτήρ, μορφή) of the Son; all of which expressions convey the idea of consubstantiality between the Holy Ghost and the Son, as much as when they are used of the Son in relation to the Father. (See Petav., 1. vii., c. 7; Franzelin, th. xxxvii.)
(c.) In the third place the Fathers show that, since the Holy Ghost stands to the Son as the Son to the Father, He must also proceed from the Father through the Son, and that, though not generated like the Son, He none the less receives through the Son, as really as the Son Himself, the Substance of the Father. The substantial connection of the Holy Ghost with the Father through the Son, and vice versâ, is illustrated by the comparisons given above (a), the three Persons standing in the relation of root, flower, and odour,—light, ray, and radiance, etc.; the Son and the Holy Ghost are to the Father as His mouth and the breath proceeding from it, or as His arm and finger. The Son is the Truth and Wisdom of the Father; the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of Wisdom and of Truth. Cf. St. Athan., Ad. Serap., i., n. 19–21; and the chapter of St. Basil, C. Eunom., 1. v., inscribed, “That, as the Son stands to the Father, so the Holy Ghost stands to the Son.”
2. The defence of the Fathers against the Pneumatomachi is founded upon the above principles.
(a.) The first objection, urged principally by Eunomius, was that the order of origin in the Trinity involved a descending order in the excellence and nature of the Three Persons, and an essential difference between the substances. To this the Fathers had but one answer: that the Holy Ghost was no more inferior to the Son for proceeding from Him, than the Son was inferior to the Father for being generated by Him; and that the difference of origin implied no other difference whatsoever, except the difference of origin itself. St. Basil treats this point expressly in the beginning of his third book against Eunomius. See Franzelin, th. xxxv.
(b.) The second objection was that, if the Holy Ghost stood to the Son as the Son to the Father, the Holy Ghost ought to be the son of the Son, and the grandson of the Father. The Fathers do not evade this difficulty by stating that the Holy Ghost is only related to the Son inasmuch as He possesses the same Substance, and not by any relation of origin; on the contrary, they expressly affirm that the Holy Ghost is really from the Father through the Son. (St. Basil, C. Eunom., 1. v.: “Why is the Holy Ghost not called the Son of the Son? Not because He is not of God through the Son.”) They only point out that human relations cannot be unreservedly applied to God; that the expression “Son of the Son” leads to absurd consequences, e.g. to the supposition that in God, as in man, an indefinite series of generations is possible; that each Person in the Trinity must be as unique and individual in His personality as the Divine Substance; that, lastly, generation is not the only kind of origin, wherefore also Holy Scripture compares the origin of the Holy Ghost to the origin of the breath from the mouth. The essential difference between Divine and human generation lies in this: that man generates as an isolated substance independent of his own progenitor, whereas the Son of God can only work in unity with His Father, and so communicate the Divine Substance common to Father and Son. (St. Athan., Ad. Serap., i. 16.) Hence the expression, “through the Son,” when applied to the origin of the Holy Ghost, does not mean quite the same as when applied to human relations.
(c.) The third objection ran thus: If the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father as really and truly as from the Son, He ought to be the son of the Father and the brother of the Son. To this the Fathers answered that the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Father in the same way as the Son does; and that He does not proceed from the Father alone and in every respect directly, but through the Son; the Holy Ghost being not only the Spirit of the Father, but also the Spirit of the Son. (Cf. St. Basil, Ep., 38.)
VI. From the line of argument followed by the Fathers who lived at the time of the Second Council (A.D. 381), it is evident that the words of the Symbol, “Who proceedeth from the Father,” are not intended to mean from the Father alone, but through the Son from the Father and from the Father through the Son; which formula is, with the older Greeks, the standing and self-evident commentary on the words of the Symbolum. The interpretation, “from the Father alone,” is a falsification as bad as and akin to the Protestant interpretation of the words, “Man is justified by faith without the works of the law,” leaving unheeded the other words, “Charity which worketh through faith.” Nay, by suppressing “through the Son,” the formula “proceedeth from the Father” would be deprived of its natural sense as it presented itself to the mind of the Fathers. For, in that case, the Father, as Father, would have no relation to the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost ought either to be a son of the Father, or the Father ought to have another personal character besides that of Fathership. (Franzelin, th. xxxvi.)
B.—The Eastern manner of conceiving and expressing the Procession of the Holy Ghost compared with the Western
II. It is well known that the Eastern Fathers differ from the Western in their way of expressing the Procession of the Holy Ghost. The former commonly use the formula, ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς διὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ, “from the Father through the Son;” the latter, ex Patre Filioque, “from the Father and the Son.” No real difference of meaning, however, underlies these different expressions, as is sufficiently proved by the fact that Greek Fathers, who had most occasion to express the dogma in short formulas, especially St. Epiphanius and St. Cyril of Alexandria, use the Latin formula times out of number; and Latin doctors, like Tertullian and St. Hilary, frequently use the Greek expression. Besides, the Western Church never objected to the formula used in the East, but attributed a correct sense to it, although it might lead Latin scholars to a misunderstanding far from the mind of the Greeks.
VIII. As a matter of fact, the Greek formula has a sound sense and a natural origin, and has even a certain advantage over the Latin formula. It owes its origin to the fact that Holy Scripture, whenever it mentions the Divine operations, represents the Father as the principle out of which (ex quo, ἐξ οὗ) all things come, and the Son as the principle through or by means of which (per quod, διʼ οῦ) all things are made, or as the way by which all things come from and return to the Father. Moreover, the course which the controversy with the Pneumatomachi took, rendered the frequent use of this exposition natural. The sound meaning of the formula is that it represents the Father and the Son, not as two principles acting separately, but as two principles operating one in the other, or as one principle; and that it sets forth the particular position of the Father and the Son as principles of the Holy Ghost, viz. that the Son produces the Holy Ghost only as “principle from a principle” (principium de principio), whereas: the Father is “principle without a principle” (principium sine principio) and “principle of a principle: (principium principii) of the Holy Ghost. From this appears the relative advantage of the Greek formula. It clearly unfolds the meaning which lies hidden in the “ex Patre et Filio,” and which has to be expounded by the addition of “tanquam ab uno principio,” and “licet pariter ab utroque, a Patre principaliter” or “originaliter.” Its sole disadvantage is that it does not point out as clearly as the Latin formula the parity of the participation of Father and Son in the Spiration of the Holy Ghost.
IX. The special stress which the Greek Fathers laid on the formula διʼ υἱοῦ has a deeper reason in their manner of conceiving the dogma of the Trinity,—a conception which might be described as organic. To the Greek Fathers the two productions in God, Generation and Spiration, appear as a motion proceeding in a straight line, the Spiration originating in the Generation, and being intimately and essentially connected with it, so that not only does the Spiration essentially presuppose the Generation, but the Generation virtually contains the Spiration, tends towards it, and has its complement in it. They consider the productions in the Trinity as a motion of the Divinity, by which the Divinity passes first from the Father to the Son and then to the Holy Ghost, and so passes, as it were, through the Son. In harmony with this view, they chose their illustrations of the mystery from analogies in organic nature, in which one production leads to another, e.g. root, stem, and flower. The deeper reason for this conception is, however, to be found in this, that the Greek Fathers considered the production of the Son as a manifestation of the wisdom of the Father, and the production of the Holy Ghost as a manifestation of the sanctity of God which is founded upon His wisdom. In other words: they considered the Holy Ghost (according to John 15) as the Spirit of Truth Who proceedeth from the Father.
From this point of view, the production of the Holy Ghost, in as far as it was attributed to the Father, appeared as carried on by means of the generation of the Son, but going beyond this generation. Hence it was termed, as distinguished from the generation, προβολή or ἔκπεμψις (a sending forth). All the terms used exclusively to characterize either the generation of the Son or the spiration of the Holy Ghost, are explained and accounted for by the above remarks on the organic conception of the productions in the Trinity. It was the more necessary for the Greek Fathers to hold fast to a terminology based upon their “organic” conception, because any deviation from it (coupled with their formula that “the Holy Ghost stands to the Son as the Son stands to Father,” viz. as Word and Image) would easily have led to a misconception of the organic coherence of both productions, and would have made the Holy Ghost the grandson of the Father. For if, conjointly with the expression διά (through), they had used the expression ἐκ (from the Son), this might have conveyed the meaning that the Holy Ghost is of the Son exactly as the Son is of the Father, viz. by generation, and consequently that He is not directly, but only indirectly, produced by the Father. The “from” seemed to separate the Son from the Father in the production of the Holy Ghost, and was looked upon as inconvenient because it does not represent the Holy Ghost as the Spirit which is equally the Spirit of the Father and the Son. For the same reason it was deemed incorrect to call the Son the principle (αἰτία), pure and simple, of the Holy Ghost, because this seemed to imply that the Son, in the production of the Holy Ghost, acted as a principle separate from the Father, as a human son does. Therefore the Son was usually represented as only an intermediate principle, through which the Holy Ghost received His personality, whereas the Father was designated as the only principle pure and simple, from which the Holy Ghost proceeded as well as the Son. This mode of expression, however, meant only that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son inasmuch as the Son Himself, in virtue of His Sonship, is and remains in the Father, which the Latin Fathers express when they say, “Son and Father are but one principle of the Holy Ghost.”
X. The Latin conception, as developed after St. Ambrose and St. Jerome, may be termed the “personal” conception of the productions in the Trinity. It does not, like the Greek, consider the production of the Holy Ghost as a continuation of the production of the Son, but as an act in which the Person produced by generation, by reason of His unity and equality with His principle, brings into play His personal union with His principle: both, acting side by side as equals, communicate what is common to Them to the Holy Ghost. Here the Holy Ghost is the bond and the pledge of mutual love between Father and Son, or between the original model and its copy. From this point of view, nothing was more natural than to say that the Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son, and to find fault with a formula which made no mention of the Son. It would seem equally strange to see the Greeks put the Holy Ghost in immediate relation with the Son alone as “image of the Son;” but nobody would think of finding in the expression, “ex Patre et Filio,” a separation of the Two Persons in the act of producing the Third. The only objection of the Latin Church to the formula, “through the Son,” was that it might lead to the notion of the Son as the mother of the Holy Ghost (cf. St. Augustine, In Joan., tract. 99). The Latin Fathers, therefore, avoided the formula “through the Son,” lest the Holy Ghost should appear to be the Son of the Father and of the Son; whereas the Greeks avoided the formula, “from the Son,” lest He should be thought the grandson of the Father.
For the history of the introduction of the word Filioque into the Symbol, see Hergenröther, Photius, i., p. 692 sqq.; Franzelin, thes. xli.
XI. From what has been said, it is evident that there was no contradiction between the older Eastern and the Western Church as regards the Procession of the Holy Ghost. The former taught the Catholic doctrine as decidedly as the latter. The difference of expression was, indeed, likely to lead to misunderstandings; but, like the former misunderstandings concerning the terms “hypostasis” and “persona,” they could easily have been brought to a satisfactory issue, had it not been for the schismatic jealousy of the Greeks, who by degrees advanced from a mutilation of the Latin formula to the negation of the Eastern doctrine.
C.—The Heresy of the Schism
XII. A formal and absolute denial of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from God the Son is to be found nowhere among the older orthodox Fathers of the Greek Church. If Photius had any forerunners, they certainly were Greek heretics, Nestorians and Monothelites, who dragged this point into the controversy in order to cast suspicion on their opponents. As to the Nestorians (especially Nestorius himself, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and even Theodoret), it is most probable that they rejected the “through the Son” in the same sense as the Fathers had rejected it in the Macedonian controversy, viz. created or generated through the Son. In fact, the Nestorians accused St. Cyril of holding the views of the Macedonians. The Monothelites, on the contrary, attempted by their criticisms of the Latin formula, to show that the Western Church favoured Macedonianism—perhaps they also misinterpreted the Greek formula—but St. Maximus refuted them. Certain monks of Jerusalem, jealous of the Franks, were the first to openly deny the ancient doctrine (A.D. 808). Photius, by the proclamation of his schism, disregarding the tradition of the Greek not less than of the Latin Church, made the negation of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son his fundamental dogma. On the Nestorians and Theodoret, see Card. Newman, Historical Sketches, vol. ii.; Kuhn, § 32; and Franzelin, th. xxxviii. On the audacious sophisms of Photius, see Hergenröther, Photius, iii., p. 400 sqq.
XIII. As the Photian schism has been the greatest and most enduring of all the schisms that have rent the Church, we are not surprised to find that the heresy which it invented should carry schism and division even into God Himself. All schisms, in the pretended interest of the monarchy of Christ, have rejected His visible representative on earth, and have thus destroyed the economy (οἰκονομία) of the Church. The Photian heresy, in the pretended interest of the monarchy of God the Father, rejects the character of the Son as principle; but in so doing it tears, rends, and destroys the living unity (economy) which, according to the Greek and Latin Fathers, exists in the Trinity.
The divisions and rents which the heresy of the schism introduces into the Trinity are the following: (a) It destroys the immediate and direct union of the Holy Ghost with the Son, for this union can only consist in the relation of origin; at the same time it deprives the Holy Ghost of His attribute of “own Spirit of the Son.” (b) It destroys the perfect unity of Father and Son, in virtue of which the Son possesses everything in common with the Father, except Paternity, (c) It tears asunder the indivisible unity of the Father, by dividing the character of Paternity from the character of Spirator, or προβολεύς, and so giving Him a double Personality, (d) It annihilates the fixed order and succession, in virtue of which the Three Persons form one continuous golden chain. (e) It destroys the organic coherence of the two productions in the Trinity so much insisted upon by the Greek Fathers themselves. (f) Above all, it destroys the perfect concatenation of the Divine Persons, in virtue of which each of Them stands in the closest relation to the other two and forms a connecting link between them (cf. St. Basil, Ep., 38, n. 4). Thus the Greek Fathers point out the intermediate position of the Son between the Father and the Holy Ghost: the Son goes forth from the Father, and sends forth from Himself the Holy Ghost, so that, through the Son, the Father is in relation with the Holy Ghost and vice versâ. The Latin Fathers, on the other hand, describe the Holy Ghost as the exhalation of the mutual love of Father and Son, which binds Them together like a band, “vinculum,” “osculum amplexus.” (g) Lastly, the heresy of the schism curtails and mutilates the Trinity in its very Essence. For the Father is Father only inasmuch as He gives the Son whatever He Himself possesses and can give by generation, including His entire fecundity, with the exception of the special character of Paternity. The Son is perfect Son only if He is equal and like to the Father in the Spiration of the Holy Ghost, and if, in particular, the Spirit of the Father is communicated to Him by the very act of generation and not by a new act of the Father. The Holy Ghost, too, is only conceivable as perfect Spirit and as a distinct Person if the Son is His principle. For it is an axiom accepted by the Fathers, that all personal differences in God, being founded upon the relations of origin, exist only between the principle and its product. No distinction is conceivable in God which does not include the most intimate union of those that are distinct. And as, according to the Greek Fathers, the Father produces the Holy Ghost only through the Son and not side by side with the Son, the Holy Ghost would remain in the Son and be identical with Him if He did not proceed from the Son.
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