Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

That the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father is acknowledged by all who confess His divinity: for Eunomius, who asserted that He draws His origin from the Son alone, dreamed that He was not God, but a creature of the Word, just as the Word itself was a creature of the Father, as St. Basil relates and refutes in book 2, Contra Eunomium, saying: If anyone is raised from creatures to the comprehension of the substance, he understands that the Son is a creature of the Unbegotten (that is, of the Father); and the Paraclete, of the Only-begotten.

But a celebrated controversy still remains between the Greeks and the Latins concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit Himself from the Son; and in order that this contention may be resolved more evidently, first its origin must be uncovered. Therefore

Note 1. It is not yet ascertained who first asserted that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, as the deviating Greeks contend. For that some think the first assertor of this error was Macedonius, the impugner of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, scarcely has the appearance of truth; nor does that Epistle of Justinian, Bishop of Sicily, to Peter, Bishop of Antioch, which is found in the fifth General Council, lend anything to this assertion, in which it is read: Macedonius breathes the Holy Spirit from the Father alone; for certain most learned men think that in place of the word "breathes" one should read "separates," and this agrees very well with the heresy and opinion of Macedonius, who, since he denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit, likewise denied His consubstantiality with the Father; and so tore Him away from the Father and separated Him.

Nevertheless, by the more common reckoning of the ecclesiastical historians, Theodoret is believed to be the first assertor of this error while he was still a Nestorian; for, writing on behalf of the Nestorians against the Anathematisms of Cyril of Alexandria, by which the errors of Nestorius were condemned, and attacking the ninth anathematism, by which Cyril had said that the Holy Spirit is proper to the Son, Theodoret replies thus: that the Spirit is proper to the Son if indeed, as Cyril said, He proceeds from the Father as being of the same nature, we likewise confess at the same time; but if he says that He has His existence and essence as from the Son, or through the Son, we say that this is blasphemous and impious. This certainly futile and interjected erroneous opinion of Theodoret, Cyril deliberately omitted in his response, so as to pursue the disputation he had undertaken, namely by showing that the Holy Spirit is proper to the Son, that is, not adventitious and bestowed upon Him by accident; the contrary of which Theodoret taught along with the Nestorians, for which reason he was anathematized by the Council of Ephesus: but shortly after, coming to his senses and abjuring his former opinion, he was received and proclaimed a Catholic with the greatest applause of all in the Council of Chalcedon. Wherefore this error concerning the procession of the Son from the Father alone seems at this very time to have been expunged and lulled to sleep.

Note 2. This error was renewed again around the year 766; for around this time our Annals relate that the Council of Gentilly was celebrated, near Paris, in which, besides the question of the cult to be shown to the sacred Images, this also was agitated: whether the Holy Spirit, just as He proceeds from the Father, so also proceeds from the Son, as Ado of Vienne hands down in the Chronicle: the cause of convoking this Synod was this, namely that when the Emperor Constantine Copronymus the Iconoclast had sent legates to Pippin, King of France, to obtain his confederation, it happened that while the Franks reproached the Greeks for their contempt of their images, the Greeks, on the contrary, reproached the Franks and the Latin Church for having added the word Filioque to the Creed; wherefore, lest these sown tares of impiety creep further, the Council decreed both: that the sacred Images are to be venerated, and that the Holy Spirit truly proceeds from the Father and the Son. But these seeds of error could not be so extirpated that they did not soon sprout again: for Ado himself relates that under the year 809 a Synod was celebrated at Aachen by the mandate of Charlemagne, in which there was action on the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. This question a certain John, a monk, first stirred up at Jerusalem; for the settling of which, Barnharic, Bishop of Worms, and Jesse, Bishop of Amiens, and Adelhard, Abbot of the Monastery of Corbie, were sent to Rome to Pope Leo, etc., as the Annals of the Franks relate under the year 809. Moreover, John Pithoeus suspects that this John, the renewer of that error, was that most holy and most learned monk Damascene, who lived at Jerusalem around the year 730. Nor without reason: for he indeed seems to pronounce that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son in book 1, De Fide, chap. 11, where, after having several times said that He proceeds from the Father, toward the end of the chapter he adds: *But

we do not say that the Holy Spirit is from the Son, but we name Him the Spirit of the Son*: but how easily Damascene may be excused will appear below.

Nevertheless, it is to be noted in passing that in the Synod of Aachen there seems to have been action not so much on the procession itself from the Son, as on that addition of the four syllables Filioque to the Creed, as is gathered from the conference of Pope Leo with the legates of this Synod, as we shall say below.

Note 3. This error at length burst forth into open heresy with Photius as its author: for after St. Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, had been cast out, he was thrust into his see and place in the year 858; and being condemned for this cause by Nicholas I, the Supreme Pontiff, thenceforth raging against the Roman Church, he devised various calumnies against her, and cast up to her many heads of heresies, above all that the Latins asserted that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. For this man, says Hugh Eterianus, book 2, Against the Greeks, chap. 15, who after Theodoret, digging a well in the watery sand, burying not seeds but poisons, became the cause of the very enfeebled faith of Christians. For from that time almost all the Greeks conspired in that erroneous opinion, and held it as a kind of public token, by which they would tear the seamless tunic of Christ, withdrawing from the Latin Church, the firmest pillar of Catholic truth, by a nefarious schism, and even by various heresies. Thence it was attempted several times to recall them to the faith and unity of the Church: but, says Cardinal Hosius in the book De Communione sub utraque specie, So often were they led away from the faith by various and foreign doctrines, that as often as fourteen times they returned to the bosom of the Church, so often they abjured it. Wherefore we must strive to discuss this question most exactly, so that it may become more clearly known how senseless and how foul is the insanity of the Greeks. Therefore let it be

The single conclusion. — Truly the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

This is of faith, determined in various Councils, and defended by the holy Fathers of both the Eastern and the Western Church, to be set forth below.

It is gathered and proved 1. from Sacred Scripture. — First indeed from Ioan. cap. 16. v. 14., where Christ, promising the Apostles that He would send them the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, who would teach them all truth, says: He will glorify me, because he will receive of mine and will announce it to you. St. Ignatius weighs this text thus in the Epistola ad Ephesios, where he relates that the Son said to the Father: I have glorified you on earth; I have finished the work which you gave me to do; concerning the Holy Spirit he says: he will glorify me on earth, because he will receive of mine and will announce it to you: therefore each of the two glorifies Him from whom he also receives what he would do.

By these words Ignatius infers that, just as the Son glorified the Father because He receives from the Father by proceeding from Him, so the Holy Spirit glorifies the Son because He receives from Him by proceeding; for the word "will receive" signifies nothing other than procession: since in the Gospel it is never said that one divine Person gives to another, and that this one receives from that one, unless this one proceeds from that one; wherefore we nowhere read that the divine Father receives anything from the Son or from the Holy Spirit, nor the Son from the Holy Spirit, because neither does the Son proceed from the Holy Spirit, nor the Father from Him and the Son.

This St. Epiphanius clearly proves in the Ancoratus, where, after he had said at the beginning: The Holy Spirit is in the midst of the Father and the Son, from the Father and the Son, toward the middle he says:

But if Christ is believed, from the Father, to be God from God, and the Spirit from Christ, or from both, just as Christ says, who proceeds from the Father, and this one will receive of mine, etc. — It is confirmed from the following words in verse 15: All things which the Father has are mine; therefore I said that he will receive of mine: therefore the Son has from the Father not only the essence, but also the power of breathing, or the fecundity of producing the Holy Spirit. For all the substantial perfections of the Father are common to the Son Himself, with this one exception, that the Son is not the Father. Moreover, Christ therefore says that the Holy Spirit will receive from Him, because He Himself has all things which the Father has; for the particle "therefore" refers the cause why He said "he will receive of mine," namely because all things which He has etc. Whence St. Augustine: from whom the Son has it that He is God, from Him He has it of course that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from Him. And in book 3, De Fide, chap. 11: He who begot such a Son gave it by begetting, that the Holy Spirit should also proceed from Him. All of which Eugene IV lucidly explains in the Letters of Union: Since, he says, all things which are the Father's, the Father Himself gave to His only-begotten Son by begetting, except to be the Father; this very thing, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, the Son Himself has eternally, from Him from whom He was also eternally begotten. — To these things St. Damascene himself subscribes, whom the Greeks cast up to us for defending their error; for in book 1, De Fide, cap. 9 he says: All things which the Father has are the Son's, with this one exception, that He is not unbegotten. And chap. 11: In short, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are altogether one, except that the Father is not begotten, the Son is begotten, and the Holy Spirit has proceeded. But if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son, nor did this One breathe Him, He would be distinguished from the Father not only by generation, but also by the power of breathing: therefore, since St. Damascene affirms that the Father and the Son have all things in common except Paternity and Filiation, he undoubtedly thinks that they have the power of breathing in common, and so that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both.

Secondly, it is proved from those texts of Sacred Scripture in which the divine Son promises the Apostles that He will send them the Holy Spirit. Thus in the same chap. 16. v. 7.: If I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go away, I will send him to you. And earlier He had said in chap. 15.: When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father: but the mission of one Person from another cannot be understood, unless He substantially proceeds from Him by whom He is sent, especially when the Persons are of the same nature and substance, as the Greeks themselves affirm of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: therefore the Holy Spirit truly proceeds from the Son, since He is sent by Him. Whence Gregory the Great, Hom. 26. on the Gospels: The mission of the Holy Spirit, he says, is the procession itself, because He proceeds from the Father and the Son. With this Athanasius agrees in the Epist. to Serapion, where he says: The Son came in the name of the Father; but the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, since the Spirit has such an order and nature toward the Son as the Son has toward the Father, etc. As if he would say: because the Son proceeds from the Father, He is also sent by the Father; so also the Holy Spirit is sent by the Son, because He proceeds from Him.

The Greeks reply, that the Son Himself is sent by the Holy Spirit, from whom He nevertheless does not proceed: therefore from the fact that the Holy Spirit is sent by the Son it does not follow that He proceeds from Him. The antecedent is proved from that passage of Isaiah 48.: And now the Lord and His Spirit have sent me: and of Luke 4.: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me, and has sent me to evangelize the poor.

But I answer. Christ the Lord is indeed sent by the Holy Spirit insofar as, by reason of the humanity He assumed, He is inferior to the Holy Spirit, and so He can be sent by Him with an authoritative mission; and although the denomination of this mission can be attributed to the Word through the communication of idioms, in truth, however, Christ is not immediately and precisely sent by the Holy Spirit insofar as He is the uncreated Word; and so from this nothing is evinced against the present assertion.

Thirdly, it is proved from all those texts in which the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ and of the Son; thus Romans 8.: If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. And Galatians 4.: God sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts; but He could in no way be called the Spirit of the Son, unless He were referred to the Son; nor be referred to Him, unless He proceeded from Him: for if either the identity of nature and power, or another cause, sufficed for Him to be called the Spirit of the Son, by the same reason the Son could be called the Son of the Holy Spirit. It is confirmed: for just as the Son quidditatively regards the Father begetting, so also the Spirit regards the one breathing; whence, just as the Word cannot be called the Son of a Person who is not the Father, so the Holy Spirit could not have been called the Spirit of a Person who were not a spirator.

Proof 2. from the definitions and doctrine of the Councils. — First indeed this truth was defined in the Epistle which Cyril sent with the Council of Alexandria to Nestorius, and which was received and approved by the whole Council of Ephesus, which is the third General Council; and it is the tenth among the Epistles of Cyril, where it is said: The Spirit of truth is named, and Christ is the truth, and He is poured out from Him just as from God the Father; or as it was had in the ancient compilation of the Councils: He proceeds from Him as from the Father. And in general all the synodal Epistles of Cyril were approved by the Council of Chalcedon, which is the fourth General Council, in the fifth action, and by the sixth Synod, which is the third Constantinopolitan, in the seventeenth action; and the seventh General Council, namely Nicaea 2., in action 7., referring to and approving the Nicene Creed written in the first General Council, adds: Who proceeds from the Father and the Son: although that Council was for the most part of Greek Fathers. — Nor does it matter that in the Council of Florence, sess. 6. and 7., the later Greeks said that in their codices of this Council the particle Filioque is not read; for Andrew, the theologian of the Latin Church, replied learnedly and most aptly, and in that sess. 7. testified that he had a most ancient manuscript codex, in which that particle was contained. Moreover, an ancient historian was cited there as a witness of the same particle. — Nor likewise does it matter that St. Damascene, who flourished at the time of the aforesaid seventh Council, wrote, We do not say that the Holy Spirit is from the Son, as was related in the third Note. For it is probable either that he died before the celebration of the aforesaid Council, or that he wrote that book Ex Filio Spiritum sanctum non dicimus before it; the indication of which is that in his works he cites the Councils only up to the sixth. — This truth likewise has been defined in several Latin Councils; for first, Pope Agatho in Epist. 2., which is also of the Roman Synod, and is contained in the sixth General Synod, says: He proceeds from the Father and the Son; a passage which Cardinal Julian complained had been corrupted by the Greeks in that Disputation which he held against them in the Council of Florence. Nor is it a wonder that this Pontiff with his Roman Council so decreed, since Leo the Great, older than he by many years, in the Epistle to Turribius, Bishop of Astorga, chap. 1., says: He proceeded from both. — Moreover, under Pope Anastasius, in the year of Christ 400., the first Council of Toledo was celebrated, in which this truth is likewise defined in these words: We believe that the Spirit is also the Paraclete, who is neither the Father Himself nor the Son, but proceeding from the Father and the Son: and also in the third of Toledo under Pelagius II., in the year 589., where in the confession of faith set forth by 150 Fathers, Can. 3., it is said: Whoever does not believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, let him be anathema. The same is defined in the fourth Council of Toledo, chap. 1., and in the 8th, around the times of Martin I., and in the 11th under Adeodatus the Supreme Pontiff; all of which Councils were celebrated before the sixth General Synod. — We read the same truth also in the Council of Gotfeld, in the year 650., in Bede, book 4. of the English History, chap. 17., where the Fathers openly profess the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. Finally, the Council of Gentilly was celebrated in the year 766., that of Aachen around the year 809., that of Worms under the year 860., and around the year 1090., in the time of Urban II., a Council was celebrated at Bari of Greeks and Latins, as St. Anselm is the authority, who himself was present at it, and the writer of the life of the same St. Anselm, book 1., narrates the whole matter more fully as an eyewitness. — Likewise the General Councils defined this same truth: the Lateran under Innocent III., chap. 1., with the Greeks also present and consenting to the same, as is clear from chap. 4. of the same; the Council of Lyons under Gregory X., in which, with the Greeks present and consenting, this truth was defined, and the Nicene Creed was sung three times in Greek and in Latin with that explanation, He proceeds from the Father and the Son: finally the Council of Florence, in the year 1438., after long and exact disputations on this matter between the Greek and Latin Fathers, at length it was defined that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, as is clear in the Letters of Union, to which the Fathers, both Latin and Greek, subscribed. — But, as the minds of the Greeks are light and fickle, they did not remain long in faith and concord; but soon after relapsed into their former schism and their errors, and swallowed back their own vomit, by which they are still defiled. Nor is it a wonder, since in the very first-fruits of the Church there was a murmur of the Greeks against the Hebrews, of whom alone the Church then consisted; so that from this there would be a fatal presage that the Greeks, prone to division and contention, would divide the Church, the seamless tunic of Christ, by their lamentable schism.

Proof 3. from the Greek Fathers. — First indeed from the Symbol of St. Athanasius, in which we read: The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

The Greeks reply 1. that this Symbol is not of Athanasius.

But on the contrary, first, Gregory Nazianzen, in the Oration on the Praises of St. Athanasius, testifies that he published a perfect confession of faith, which he offered to the Emperor, and which the whole East and West venerates: He offers to the Emperor, he says, a truly royal and magnificent gift, namely a written confession against the new dogma (namely of the Arians); and after a few words: Moved, as it seems to me, by the authority of this confession, both the Westerners and whatever is vital in the East, etc. Then St. Augustine, in Psalm 120., recites the preceding verse under the name of Athanasius: Concerning this sun, he says, Father Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, spoke thus beautifully: The Son is from the Father alone, etc. He also makes mention of the same Symbol in other places, but with the name of Athanasius suppressed, as in 5. De Trinit., chap. 8., and in the Enchiridion, chap. 35., etc. By which it is established that in the time of St. Augustine it was doubtful to no one that this Symbol was published by St. Athanasius. Finally, Genebrardus, in book 3. De Trinit., and Nauclerus, in the Chronology, affirm that there exists a most ancient codex in the Monastery of St. Germain of Paris, in which it is asserted that Athanasius published the aforesaid Symbol at Trier, while, because of the pressing persecutions of the Arians, he lay hidden in a certain well.

They reply 2. that the particle "and from the Son" was added by the Latins.

But on the contrary 1. this phrase is read also in the Greek text of the Athanasian Symbol. Then in the Fourth Council of Toledo, celebrated in the year 633, and consequently before the schism of the Greeks, the same Symbol of Athanasius is reported with that phrase, and the Son: what reason would there have been then for making this addition, when as yet no public dispute was moved between the two Churches? Finally, which is the chief point, Athanasius himself teaches this same truth in many places, especially in Oration 1. Contra Arianos: For we do not, he says, introduce three principles or three Fathers, as the Marcionists do: since we do not bring three Suns into comparison; but one only Sun, and its splendor, and one only light from both. With which he compares the Father to the Sun, the Son to the splendor, and the Holy Spirit to the light, arising not only from the Sun, but from the Splendor.

And in the Epistle to Serapion ad Serapionem he speaks thus:

The Apostle commands us to avoid a heretical man after one or another correction, even if you should see some flying through the air with Elias, and with Peter and Moses treading the seas with dry foot, unless they profess the Holy Spirit to be God existing essentially from God the Son, just as we profess the Son to be God naturally begotten, existing essentially from God the Father; do not receive them.

Secondly, St. Basil, book 3. Contra Eunomium, says:

Why is it necessary that, if the Spirit is third in dignity and order, He should also be third in nature? For the rule of piety hands down that He is second after the Son in dignity, since He has His being from Him and depends entirely upon that cause; but that He is third in nature we have neither learned from the sacred Scriptures, nor is it possible to gather from the things said before.

Likewise Epiphanius, in Heresy 62.: From the same essence, he says, from the same truth, from the Father and the Son, with the Father and the Son the Holy Spirit is always in substance: and in Heresy 69.: By which, he says, Christ the Lord showed the Father to be light, and the Son light, and the Holy Spirit light, and a fountain from a fountain, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Only-begotten, for rivers shall flow from His womb. Cyril of Alexandria also subscribes, not only in the ninth anathematism, but also in many places, especially in the book De recta fide ad Reginam, where toward the end he concludes: From the Father proceeds the Son, in all things equal and like unto Him. But the life-giving Spirit also proceeds through both. And book 11. on John cap. 27.: Coming forth, he says, from the very substance of God the Father (the Holy Spirit), but poured out upon the saints through the consubstantial Word, from whom He has, according to the emission, to be and to subsist. Which he declares more clearly in book 13. of the Treasury, cap. 1., saying: It is altogether necessary to confess that the Holy Spirit is from the substance of the Father and of the Son: and cap. 2.: But we believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son naturally and essentially, just as from the Father. Nazianzen explains this same truth admirably in Oration 37., where he compares the divine Trinity to three persons of the human race: namely, the Father to Adam, because the Father derived His origin from no Person, as Adam from no man; the Son to Eve, because Eve proceeded from the substance of Adam alone, as the Son from the Father alone; the Spirit to Seth, because he was born of Adam and Eve, as the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. I pass over the opinions of the other Greek Fathers, which you will be able to read abundantly in the Council of Florence, as also in St. Thomas, Opusculum 1. Contra Graecorum errores, cap. 32., Hugh Eterianus, Petavius, and innumerable others, both more recent and more ancient, who have shown that the Greek Fathers assent to this truth.

It is proved fourthly. from the Latin Fathers. — First indeed St. Martial, Epist. 1. To the Burdigalenses cap. 10., says: The Holy Spirit, glorious in divine equality, proceeded ineffably from Him who begot, and from Him who was begotten: and so the Spirit, the Lord of the Lord, is proceeding from the Father and the Word. Tertullian favors this, book De Symbolo cap. 8.: The Spirit, he says, is third from God and the Son, just as the fruit is third from the root, coming from the shoot, and the river and the stream third from the fountain, and the apex of the ray third from the Sun. — Likewise Hilary, book 8. De Trinit., asserts that for the Spirit to receive from the Son is the same as to proceed from the Son, just as the Son receives and proceeds from the Father. Ambrose subscribes, book De Symbolo cap. 3.: But the Holy Spirit, he says, is truly a spirit, proceeding indeed from the Father and the Son, but He is not the Son Himself, because He is not begotten, nor the Father, because He proceeds from both: not begotten, not unbegotten, not made. But best and most subtly of all, St. Augustine taught this truth in many places, especially in book 4. De Trinit.: Nor can we say, he says, that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, for not in vain is the same Spirit called the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son. And in book 15., cap. 26., he inculcates this truth more often: But concerning the splendor from both, he says, it is thus taught, because the Son Himself said: He proceeds from the Father: and when He had risen from the dead and appeared to His disciples, He breathed upon them and said: receive the Holy Spirit, so that He might show that He also proceeds from Himself. It would be futile to summon other holy Latin Fathers to bear witness to this truth, for they are innumerable, and all to a man conspire to the same dogma.

Wherefore all the Greeks are to be blamed most of all, because they give no credence to so many and such most faithful witnesses of the divine truth, whom nevertheless the Fathers of the Fifth General Synod proclaim are to be heard above all others, professing so openly: We follow in all things the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church, Athanasius, Hilary, Basil, Gregory, Augustine, Theophilus, John of Constantinople, Cyril, Leo, Probus, and we receive all things which they have written concerning the right faith and the condemnation of heretics.

All these things were proved by the lamentable loss of the Eastern Church, by which God Himself seems to have cast His vote for the Latins: for from the time when the Greeks withdrew themselves from their communion because of these quarrels about the Procession of the Holy Spirit, the Greeks have always fallen into worse state; and that nation, once conspicuous in doctrine to the point of envy, celebrated in holiness to the point of miracle, mistress of the nations by empire, today mourns under the dire captivity of the Turks, and without King, without Prince, without Academies and Schools, bears the barbarous yoke of the Saracens; and, what is a wonder, Constantinople was stormed and the Greek Empire overthrown in the year 1452, on the 28th day of May, according to the more celebrated authors, on which day had fallen the Feast of Pentecost, sacred to the Holy Spirit, so that that might be verified which Christ said, Matth. 12.: Whoever shall have spoken blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.

It is proved by theological reason. from the Subtle Doctor in 1. dist. 11. q. 1.:

He who has a perfect productive principle, before he is understood to have a product, can produce by that principle, namely when the principle is so perfect that it does not depend on a passive subject, nor can it be impeded by anything: but the Son has the will, by which He is the productive principle of adequate love, and He also has it as prior to the produced act of the will: therefore He can produce by it: therefore He produces it.

He proves the minor:

Generation and Spiration have a certain order between themselves, so that in some way generation is prior to spiration, and in that prior moment every divine perfection is communicated to the one begotten, insofar as it is not repugnant to him, and so too the will: therefore he then has the will as prior to the act of the will, because as yet no production is understood to have been made through the mode or act of the will.

It is confirmed. from the fact that if one had to doubt about the influence of the Father and of the Son in the production of the Holy Spirit, it would rather seem that one should doubt about the Father than about the Son, since the Father, in the production of His Son, already has an action adequate to Himself, if you consider natural reason; for His productive action of the Son is infinite, and consequently adequate to the principle; therefore it seems that He cannot have any other action at least adequate along with it; for that reason it seems that He cannot further be occupied, by a new infinite action, for a new production of another Person: but the Son has no productive action antecedent to the production of the Holy Spirit, nor can He have any other ad intra than spiration alone; and so if natural reason is considered, this spirative action would seem to be conceded to Him rather than to the Father, if it were to be attributed to one divine Person only.

The Greeks object first indeed the sacred Scripture, which as often as it commemorates the procession of the Holy Spirit, so often makes mention of the Father alone; thus Ioan. 15.: When the Paraclete shall have come, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father. Therefore they deem that He proceeds from the Father alone.

I deny the consequence: for as St. Augustine notes, book 3. De Trinit., by these words the Son is not excluded, but the Father is expressed as the principal author, because indeed He is the principle without principle, to whom He refers everything that He Himself has. In this manner He said in Ioannis 7.: My doctrine is not mine, but His who sent me, the Father's; which Augustine weighs thus in tractate 29. on John: Because, he says, the Word cannot be the word of no one, but of someone, and He calls His own doctrine Himself, and not His own, because the Word is the Father's. For what is so much yours as yourself, and what is not so much yours as yourself, if you are someone's, what you are? And so the divine Son refers everything that He is back to the Father, and therefore attributes to Him that productive fecundity of the Holy Spirit which He received from the Father. Which St. Augustine, book 15. De Trinit. cap. 17., explains admirably, saying: Not in vain, he says, is it not said in this Trinity from whom the Holy Spirit principally proceeds, except God the Father; but I added principally for this reason, because the Holy Spirit is also found to proceed from the Son, but the Father gave this also to Him.

He answers 2. St. Anselm, in the book De Processione Spiritus sancti, maintains that in asserting the Father to be productive of the Holy Spirit, the Son is not on that account excluded, because the affirmation of one is not the negation of the other: indeed, he says, even if it were said openly: No one produces the Holy Spirit, except the Father; that expression would not on that account exclude the Son, since exclusive expressions added to one divine Person do not exclude the other Persons, unless the predicate be opposed to them relatively, as is clear from these words of Matth. 11.: No one knows the Son, except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son: by which, however, the Son is not excluded from knowledge of Himself, nor the Holy Spirit from knowledge of both.

They object 2. In the Council of Ephesus the Symbol of the Nestorians was read before the Fathers, in which it was expressly contained that the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son; and yet none of the Fathers protested, and so they all seem to have consented to this proposition.

I answer 1. An argument from negative authority, which nowhere avails much, concludes nothing here, since the silence of the judges was engaged with something other than that proposition; for the Council then did not wish to dispute ex professo about this question of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, because it had convened on account of another matter, namely about the one Person of Christ the Lord, and about His Divinity, whom the Virgin Mary brought forth. For the rest, the Council signified its opinion quite openly enough when it approved the doctrine of Cyril and condemned the contrary doctrine of the Nestorians and of Theodoret.

They object 3. Various authorities of the holy Fathers; first indeed of St. Dionysius, book De Divinis nominibus cap. 2., where he says: The Father alone is the supersubstantial fountain of the Deity. Secondly of Nazianzen, Orat. 21., where he says: All things which the Father has, the Son also has, except the cause: or as others translate, Except the causality: therefore the Son does not have from the Father that He should be the cause, or principle, of the Holy Spirit. Thirdly of Basil, Epist. 43. to Gregory of Nyssa, where he says: The Son has no communion with the Father according to His proper notion: but if the Son spirated, He would have active spiration as a notion common with the Father: therefore etc. Finally they bring forward Damascene, book 1. De Fide cap. 7. and 8., where he says: The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and rests in the Son: and a little below: We say the Holy Spirit is from the Father; we do not say from the Son: and again: The Holy Spirit is indeed from the Father, but not from the Son: therefore in reality the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son.

I deny the consequence, and to St. Dionysius I say that he therefore calls the Father the supersubstantial fountain, because He alone is the principle without principle; but the Son is like a river flowing from that very fountain, from whom, as also from the fountain, the pool is derived, namely the Holy Spirit. In which sense Epiphanius also, in Heresy 69., calls the Son a fountain from a fountain. To Nazianzen I say that he speaks of the causality by which the Father and the Son are mutually related, not of that by which they regard the Holy Spirit. To Basil I answer that he there speaks not of every notion of these two Persons, but of the proper notion of each, namely of Paternity and Filiation, according to which they have no communion at all; for Paternity and Innascibility belong to the Father alone, just as Filiation is proper to the Son alone. Finally, to Damascene I say that although St. Thomas, 1. p. q. 36. art. 2. ad 3., answers that *many of the Greeks followed in this

the Nestorian Theodoret, among whom was also Damascene*, nevertheless he can be interpreted benignly, as Bessarion expounded, Orat. pro unione cap. 6., namely that Damascene did not absolutely deny that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, but only dissented from the Catholics in his manner of speaking, thinking it safer to say through the Son than from the Son; for the preposition from seemed to him to denote the first cause not proceeding from another cause, the contrary of which the preposition through denoted, which without doubt has causal force.