Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« The same procession of the Holy Spirit is demonstrated to be from the Son as well from the revealed internal order of the persons, which cannot be other than an order of origin; and likewise from the mission of the Holy Spirit, which, necessarily presupposing the internal procession of the person sent from the one sending, is from the Son just as it is from the Father ».

I. The order of the divine persons is handed down in the Scriptures themselves as altogether fixed and settled, wherever the three divine persons are enumerated according to their internal necessary relations: « in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit » Matth. XXVIII. 19; « the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit » 1. Io. V. 7; and, beginning from the third person as from the other extreme: « the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God » 1. Cor. XII. 4-6. On this passage of the Apostle St. Basil observes that it is not an inverted ontological order that is handed down, but that there is set forth « our condition; for when we receive gifts, first the one distributing occurs to us, then we think of the one sending (the Son), then we lead our thought to the fountain and cause of goods » (to the first person, who is not from another and from whom the other persons are) Basil. de Spiritu Sancto c. 16. n. 37. « Hence the way to the knowledge of God is from the one Spirit through the one Son to the one Father. And conversely, essential goodness and sanctity according to nature and royal dignity flow from the Father through the Only-begotten into the Spirit » ¹ ibid. c. 18. n. 47. cf. s. Iren. 1. V. c. 36. n. 2.

Moreover, the Christian profession expressed in all the creeds, in the solemn liturgical formulas, in the whole ecclesiastical preaching does not permit one to doubt this ontological and intrinsically necessary order of the persons. « Let them learn that the Spirit is pronounced in the same way with the Lord (the Son) as the Son also is pronounced with the Father. For the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit has been uttered in like manner. Therefore, just as the Son is related to the Father, so also the Spirit is related to the Son, according to the order of words handed down in baptism. But if the Spirit is joined to the Son, and the Son to the Father, it is clear that the Spirit himself also is joined to the Father... One, however, is the Holy Spirit himself, uttered also singularly, coupled through the one Son to the one Father, and by himself completing the blessed Trinity, which is to be glorified above all things » s. Basil. de Spiritu Sancto c. 17. 18. n. 43. 45. « He who has understood the Father has understood him in himself, and has at the same time embraced the Son in his understanding; but he who has apprehended the Son has not separated the Spirit from the Son; but he has expressed in himself the faith of the three, united by the identity of essence, holding themselves consequently indeed according to order, but unitedly according to nature ². And he who has said the Holy Spirit has at the same time embraced in this profession him whose Spirit he is; and because the Spirit is of Christ and from God, according to the saying of Paul (Rom. VIII. 9), just as one who takes hold of one extremity of a chain has also drawn the other at the same time, so he who has drawn the Spirit, as the Prophet says (Ps. CXVIII. 131), has drawn through him both the Son and the Father at the same time. Likewise, if anyone has apprehended the Son in truth, he will have him at the same time bringing along from both sides, here indeed his Father, there his own Spirit (ἑκατέρωθεν τὰ μὲν τοῦ ἑαυτοῦ Πατρός, τὰ δὲ τοῦ ἰδίου Πνεύματος συνεπαγόμενον); for he can be neither divided from the Father, always existing in the Father, nor separated from his own Spirit, working all things in him (the Son in his own Spirit). Similarly, he who has apprehended the Father has at the same time virtually embraced the Son and the Holy Spirit » Id. ep. 38. al. 43. n. 4.

1°. Now in this internal and necessary order of « consequence » of the persons, ἀκολουθίᾳ κατὰ τὴν τάξιν, as Basil speaks, considered in itself together with the numerical unity of the nature and of all absolute perfections in the three persons, the procession of the third person is contained as implicitly revealed, from the first as also from the second. For the real order of « consequence » in God says two things: the real distinction through the relations of origin, and determinately the origin of the consequent from the antecedent, in that way in which antecedent and consequent can be said in God. For a) if there is no real distinction, no real order can be conceived, since order says the connection of several distinct things according to some principle of unity; but in God, from what was demonstrated earlier, there is no real distinction except according to the relations of origin. Hence b) the order in the divine persons, because it is an order of origin, is analogous to the successive. Lest this be taken perversely, it must be understood that the three are not such that it is indifferent which person is called first, which second, and which third; for then there would no longer be a relation of origin of one person to another as to its principle, and accordingly the real distinction, and consequently the order itself, would be removed. But the first person is the Father, the second the Son, the third the Holy Spirit; yet it can be said neither that the Son and the Holy Spirit are two second persons, nor that the Spirit is the second and the Son the third person ³. But this internal order, that the Son is the second person and the Spirit the third, cannot be except from the mode of procession, because from this alone is there order in the divine persons. Therefore the procession of the second person is in some way prior to that of the third; but there can be no priority among the divine persons except the priority a quo, i. e. except the relation of principle and of what proceeds from the principle (above p. 387). Therefore in this very fact that the Holy Spirit is exhibited in Scripture as the third person in order, it is contained that the first and the second are prior with the priority a quo (which alone is given in the divine), i. e. that the first and the second are the principle of the third person (cf. S. Th. I. q. 48. a. 3).

The same thing is explained in other words. Namely, from the internal necessary order handed down in the Scriptures, the generation of the Son is pre-understood before the procession of the Holy Spirit; but the Son, by being born, has from the Father all perfections and formal reasons communicated, paternity excepted, and in all things is one with the Father, the formal reason of Father and Son excepted, by which alone the two persons are distinguished from each other; therefore the Son has from the Father the nature communicated also under the formal reason of the spirative power (or of the love producing love as an immanent term), and consequently he is no less one principle of the Holy Spirit with the Father, than he is one God with the Father.

2°. To this very point the holy Fathers, especially ⁴ even the Greeks, reduced that fixed order of the persons, namely that just as the second person has a relation of origin to the first, so the third to the second. St. Athanasius declares the order of the Trinity thus: according to the analogies handed down in the Scriptures, the Father is light, the Son splendor, the Holy Spirit illumination, whence « it is even allowed to discern in the Son the Holy Spirit, in whom we are enlightened »; likewise the Father is a fountain, the Son a river, the Holy Spirit water; the Father wise, the Son wisdom, the Holy Spirit the Spirit of wisdom, etc. « Since therefore in the Holy Trinity there is such an ordered conjunction (συνάφεια) and unity, who would now dare to separate either the Son from the Father, or the Spirit from the Son, or from the Father himself? »

If therefore it is asked, « how, when the Spirit is in us, the Son is said to be in us, and likewise when the Son is in us, the Father likewise is said to be in us; or how, when the Trinity is complete, the Trinity is nonetheless designated in one?.... a hesitation of this kind will be able to be healed by faith, and also by the aforementioned examples of image, splendor, fountain, river, substance and figure. For just as the Son is in the Spirit as in his own image, so also the Father in the Son... that we may believe that the sanctification is one, which is from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit... For because the Son is one, who is also the living Word, his virtue and gift must also be one, perfect and full, sanctifying and illuminating, living (ἐνέργειαν αὐτοῦ καὶ δωρεάν), which is said to proceed from the Father, because it shines forth from the Word, which is conceded to be from the Father, and is sent, and is given (διὰ τοῦτο ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς λέγεται ἐκπορεύεσθαι, ἐπειδὴ παρὰ τοῦ λόγου τοῦ ἐκ Πατρὸς ὁμολογουμένου ἐκλάμπει, καὶ ἀποστέλλεται, καὶ δίδοται) ⁵. For the Son indeed is sent by the Father; is sent; for thus, he says, God loved the world, that he might send his only-begotten Son (ἀπέστειλεν); but the Son sends the Holy Spirit; for if, he says, I go away, I will send the Paraclete to you; likewise the Son glorifies the Father, saying: I have glorified thee; but the Spirit glorifies the Son: for he, he says, will glorify me; moreover the Son says: the things which I have heard from the Father, these I speak in the world; but the Spirit receives from the Son: for from mine, he says, he will receive and will announce to you; furthermore the Son comes in the name of the Father; likewise also of the Holy Spirit the Son says: whom the Father will send in my name. Since therefore the Spirit has the same order and the same nature (the same property and natural relation) toward the Son as the Son has toward the Father, how would he who says the Spirit is a creature not necessarily think the same of the Son? For if the Spirit of the Son is a creature, it will follow that they also call the Word of the Father a creature » ⁶ Athanas. ep. I. ad Serap. n. 19-21.

Similarly St. Basil, in l. V. contra Eunom., lays down this proposition: « that as the Son is related to the Father, so the Spirit is related to the Son ». In his declaration the holy Doctor could seem to affirm not only the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, but also the same mode of procession as that of the Son from the Father; but his aim must be attended to, which was to demonstrate the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, and by this very fact from God, i. e. from the Father and the Son, as they are one; he did not, however, need to give the intimate reason why this procession is not generation, and so why the Holy Spirit is not the Son of the Son. To this proposed question, in which he evidently presupposes as catholic doctrine the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son through the communication of nature, he answers only two things: a) that in the Scriptures he is not called the Son of the Son, although the Holy Spirit is from the substance of the Son; b) that he is called not Son but Spirit, so that the processions in the internal life of God may be understood as closed by the procession of the Spirit, lest, if the one proceeding from the Son were a Son, this second Son too would seem to demand a third Son, and so on to infinity. « As the Son is related to the Father, so the Spirit is related to the Son. Therefore the Word of God (the Father) indeed is the Son, but the Word of the Son is the Spirit...... and since the Word is of the Son, consequently it is of God ⁷. But the Word and Speech of God is living and operative...... Why then is the Spirit not also called the Son of God? Not because he is not from God through the Son (ἐκ Θεοῦ δι' Υἱοῦ), but lest the Trinity be thought an infinite multitude, as if it seemed to have sons from sons, as happens among men. But you say: if the Son is indeed the image of God and the Spirit the image of the Son; likewise if the Son is the Word of God and the Spirit the Word of the Son, why has the Spirit not been called the Son of the Son? But if we are silent, as those who are unwilling to inquire curiously into the things of God, you judge the glory of the divine Spirit to be vanquished, for this reason, that the appellation of Son has not been applied to him, as if the same could not be asked of you. For if you confess that countless sons of adoption are made through the Spirit, why is the Spirit not called Son even by adoption?.... We, moreover, also answer this for ourselves as best we can..... We say therefore, that if anyone had said a Son from the Son, he would have brought the Trinity of the Godhead into suspicion of multitude among men who heard this ⁸. For it was prone to be suspected that, if the Son had been begotten from the Son, from him too another would again have been begotten, and again another... Therefore the Apostle openly proclaimed that the Spirit is from God, saying: we have received the Spirit who is from God (1. Cor. II. 12); and that he shone forth through the Son (ὃ δι' αὐτοῦ ἐκλάμψαν) he made manifest by naming him the Spirit of the Son just as the Spirit of God, and by calling him the mind of Christ just as the Spirit of God, just as also is the spirit of a man (1. Cor. II. 11); but to call him the Son of the Son he was careful not to do » Basil. l. V. cont. Eunom. T. I. p. 304. sq.

Now, I ask, who, agreeing with the Photian heresy, has ever so anxiously sought, or could seek, subtle reasons why the Spirit of the Son is not, or is not called, the Son of the Son? In that opinion the reason is unique and altogether evident, because the Spirit has no origin from the Son. But the holy Fathers, holding without doubt the fixed order of the persons through the relations of origin, and accordingly that the consubstantial Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son through the communication of nature, felt the difficulty to be not slight and had need either simply to confess that it is unknown to us, or to seek out more subtle reasons why the Spirit is not the Son of the Son, about which matter, as Basil here, so Augustine and others often dispute. Indeed the Arians themselves, unless they had had in view the doctrine of the catholic Church concerning the procession of the Spirit from the Son through the communication of nature, could not even have proposed that question; for in the Photian opinion it could only be asked why the Spirit is not the brother of the Son; but in no way why he is not the Son of the Son?

Most clearly St. Gregory of Nyssa, Basil's brother, from the very order, namely that the Son is to be understood by reason as prior to the Holy Spirit, declares that priority in God cannot be other than by reason of principle and of what proceeds from the principle, and therefore, just as the Father is presupposed to the Son in the order of principle, so the Son (with the Father) is presupposed by the same reason of principle (priority a quo) to the Holy Spirit proceeding from him, or (as Gregory speaks) depending on him. After he demonstrated that by the generation of the Son from the Father the eternity of the Son is not excluded, because the Father is prior to the eternally begotten Son not by duration but only by the reason of the principle eternally generating, he descends to declaring this same thing about the Holy Spirit. « Our doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit is the same, recognizing the difference (between the persons) in order alone. For just as the Son is joined to the Father, and, having being from him, is nonetheless not posterior in existence; so likewise the Holy Spirit depends on the Only-begotten, so that the Son is pre-understood by thought alone, according to the reason of principle, before the hypostasis of the Spirit ⁹. For temporal dimensions have no place in the eternal life, so that, the reason of principle excepted, the Holy Trinity is discerned in nothing in itself » Nyss. contr. Eunom. l. I. p. 104.

Still more lucidly the same Gregory, from the common catholic doctrine, hands down the order of the persons in such a way that the second is from the first alone, where he presupposes the signification of the name of the Only-begotten as begotten from one; but when the first and second person are presupposed, by this very fact, he says, the third is indeed also from the first, but not except through the second, and therefore only the Son is from the Father alone, but the Holy Spirit, according to the reason of principle and of what proceeds from the principle, is from the Father through the Son, and so not from one but from two persons. « We do not deny the difference according to principle and principiate (κατὰ τὸ αἴτιον καὶ αἰτιατόν), in which alone we admit one to be distinguished from another, because we believe one indeed to be the principle, another however to be from the principle. And of that which is from the principle we consider again another difference; for one is proximately (and without a medium) from the first, the other however through that which is proximately from the first, so that in the Son too the property of the Only-begotten may remain without ambiguity, and that the Spirit is from the Father may not be doubtful, while the interposition of the Son (between the Father and the Spirit) preserves for him too the property of the Only-begotten and does not remove the Spirit from the natural relation to the Father » ¹⁰ Nyss. ad Ablav. quod non tres Dii T. II. p. 459 (cf. above p. 159).

II. The Holy Spirit is said to be sent by the Son just as by the Father. « I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete.... the Spirit of truth »; « the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name » Io. XIV. 16. 26. « When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father »; « if I do not go away, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go away, I will send him to you » ibid. XV. 26.; XVI. 7.

The words of Christ are so manifest that not even the Photians themselves deny that the Holy Spirit is sent also by the Son; but they are unwilling to acknowledge that in the mission itself the eternal procession of the person sent from the one sending is necessarily presupposed; indeed they abuse this distinction between the eternal procession according to the being of the person, and the mission and procession in time according to the effect ad extra, for a false interpretation of the holy Fathers, where they speak of the procession of the Holy Spirit.

That the darkness obscured by evil arts may be dispelled, the effect ad extra and in particular the conferral of supernatural gifts must be distinguished from the mission of the divine person itself. For although the mission of a person includes supernatural effects ad extra and the conferral of gifts (if it be a mission for sanctifying souls), nevertheless this effecting and conferral of gifts, considered simply and in itself, is not the mission of the person. Insofar as the effect is considered as of God insofar as He is the one God, or by appropriation as of God the Father, no mission of a person can be conceived; but in order that this be understood, it is necessary that the supernatural effect be referred to a person proceeding from another, by whom He is said to be sent. And so the mission of a divine person is necessarily determined to a person with the connotation of a twofold respect: first, of a real and eternal relation to the sending person as to the principle of the sent person; and then, of a respect to the actual existence of the supernatural effect in time (cf. S. Th. above p. 191).

Against the Arians, in order to demonstrate that the one sent is not less than the one sending, Augustine sometimes considers only the efficiency ad extra and, calling the mission thus incompletely regarded improper, says that a person is sent even by Himself, because e. g. the Son effected the assumption of the flesh in one operation with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit the form of the dove in one operation with the Father and the Son. But we are treating of mission properly so called, as it is exhibited in the Scriptures, and by which Augustine himself completes or corrects that former consideration. For the present cause only stands in need of the declaration of what we have said about the real relation of the one sent to the one sending.

In the first place, when a person is said to be sent by a person, a real distinction between the one sending and the one sent is demonstrated; for no one is properly sent by himself. Whence also the Fathers frequently use this doctrine of the mission of persons to confute the Sabellians (Petav. l. VIII. c. 1. n. 1.). Furthermore, mission among creatures — from which, like other names, so also this name was first taken — includes some authority of the one sending over the one sent, whether in the proper sense of command, or in the improper sense of counsel, or generally by a transmission of the will from one to another. Whence necessarily also in the transference to the divine persons the name retains not indeed the same but an analogical signification; for with all analogy set aside, the revelation about the mission of one divine person by another would remain for us wholly without intelligible sense (cf. th. XIX.). Now indeed authority, superiority, dignity (ἀξίωμα) of one person over another, the transmission of the will or, as Basil speaks, the irradiation (ἔλλαμψις) in divine things, is and can be conceived solely according to origin, as of a principle over the one proceeding from the principle, unless perhaps the incarnate person be regarded according to His assumed nature, formally as He is man.

Hence it is that the Father, who proceeds from no person (ἀνέκφοιτος, ἀγέννητος), is never said, nor can be said, to be sent by another person ¹¹. The Son, regarded according to divinity, is said to be sent by the Father alone; but with the incarnation supposed, formally as man, for the offices of the Redeemer He is said to be sent even by the Holy Spirit: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...... to preach the gospel to the poor He hath sent me Luc. IV. 18.

« But what Christian is ignorant that the Father sent, and the Son was sent? For it was fitting that not the begetter be sent by him whom he begot, but the begotten by the begetter; yet this is not an inequality of substance but an order of nature (of nativity), not that the one was prior to the other, but that the one was from the other...... But if you are unwilling to acquiesce in this rule, that wherever you have read in the authority of the divine utterances that the Son appears shown as less than the Father, you accept it as said either from the form of a servant, in which He is truly less than the Father, or as said for this reason, that He may be shown to be the one from the other; if, I say, you are unwilling to acquiesce in this most correct rule, certainly nevertheless you will in no way call Him the true Son of God, unless you say that He is of the same substance of which the Father is » Aug. contr. Maxim. Arian. l. II. c. 14. n. 8.

And so, as regards the signification of the personal relations, it must be understood in almost the same way when a person is said to be sent by a person, as when Christ the Son of God says: « because the Father is greater than I » Io. XIV. 28. The Fathers teach, namely, that this appellation of the greater can be taken in two ways: either that the Father is said to be greater than the Son regarded according to human nature, and so not only the Father but also the Holy Spirit is greater than the Son, indeed even the Son Himself according to the divine nature is greater than Himself, inasmuch as He is man and emptied Himself (Aug. in Io. tract. 79. n. 2); or so that the Father is said to be greater than the Son regarded according to the divine nature, and so nothing else can be understood than the notion of principle in the Father over the begotten Son (cf. above p. 156). Now according to the same notion, mission, if indeed it be referred to Christ as He is man, expresses authority properly so called, and can be attributed both to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, indeed in some less proper signification even to the Son Himself; but if it be referred to the person regarded according to the divine nature, it necessarily indicates the ἀξίωμα of principle in the sending person and the relation of procession in the sent person. For this reason, while the Holy Spirit, who is of the divine nature only, is exhibited as sent equally by the Son as by the Father — not indeed separately by the Father and separately by the Son, but by both inasmuch as they are one — by this very fact the Son together with the Father is predicated the principle of the immanent and eternal procession of the Holy Spirit, because the procession of the sent person from the sending person is the first presupposition and, as it were, the root of mission.

Therefore Athanasius, as we saw a little earlier, joins the procession (ἔκλαμψιν) and the mission of the Holy Spirit from the Son. Likewise Cyril: « it is necessary to confess, he says, that the Spirit is of the essence of the Son; for, as existing from Him naturally and sent by Him into the creature (ὡς ἐξ αὐτοῦ κατὰ φύσιν ὑπάρχον καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν κτίσιν παρ' αὐτοῦ πεμπόμενον), He works renovation » Thesaur. p. 358. Most lucidly do the Latin Fathers, after Augustine, explain this intimate connection of mission with procession. « The Son is sent by the Father, not the Father by the Son, because the Son is born of the Father, not the Father of the Son; similarly also the Holy Spirit is read as sent by the Father and the Son, because He proceeds from the Father and the Son » Fulgent. contra Fabian. fragm. 29. « Behold, here is the Paraclete whom the Father sends in the name of the Son; the Son Himself sends Him from the Father. He sends, moreover, from the Father the Spirit of truth; He sends therefore from the Father His Spirit, for He Himself is the truth. The Father sends Him in the name of the Son, because He is the one Spirit of the Father and of the Son; the Son sends Him from the Father, because He proceeds from the Son just as He proceeds from the Father; the same also is the Spirit of the Father, who is the Spirit of truth » Ibid. fragm. 27.

Indeed, speaking more exactly, the mission ad extra must be called the manifestation of the procession ad intra. This is the one difference, that mission is understood as the eternal procession with the connotation of a term and of supernatural operation ad extra; but procession in itself does not have this connotation. There can therefore be an eternal procession without mission, but there cannot be, nor can there be conceived, a mission of a person according to the divine nature without the eternal procession of the same from the one sending. Thus the Word could be eternally begotten of the Father, without the Father's creating through the Word, and without the Word's being sent into the world; but no operation of the Father through the Word, nor mission of the Word (according to the divine nature) can be conceived, unless the eternal procession of the Word from the Father be understood; since those locutions say nothing other than the eternal procession itself with the connotation of the manifestation ad extra, which takes place in time.

The same hold concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit as gift and as giftable. « As therefore the Father begot, the Son was begotten; so the Father sent, the Son was sent.... For as being born is for the Son to be from the Father, so to be sent is for the Son to be known to be from Him. And as for the Holy Spirit to be the gift of God (by His property, to be giftable) is to proceed from the Father, so to be sent is to be known to proceed from Him. Nor can we say that the Holy Spirit does not also proceed from the Son; for not in vain is the same Spirit called the Spirit both of the Father and of the Son.... What therefore the Lord says: whom I will send you from the Father, shows the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.... Not therefore is the Son less because He was sent by the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit less because both the Father and the Son sent Him, has been sufficiently, as I judge, demonstrated. For whether on account of the visible creature (on account of the effect ad extra) or rather for the commendation of the principle, not on account of inequality or imparity or dissimilitude of substance, are these things understood to be set down in the Scriptures; because even if God the Father had willed to appear visibly through a subject creature, nevertheless He would most absurdly be said to be sent, either by the Son whom He begot, or by the Holy Spirit who proceeds from Him » s. Aug. Trin. l. IV. n. 29. 32. « The mission of the Holy Spirit is the procession itself by which He proceeds from the Father and the Son. As therefore the Spirit is said to be sent because He proceeds, so also the Son is not incongruously said to be sent because He is generated » s. Gregor. M. in Evangel. Io. hom. XXVI. n. 2. This unity of procession and mission, as it is in God Himself, Hugo Etherianus declares from the eternity and immutability of God. « Although the Apostles and the prophets received the Spirit from Christ in time, nevertheless the Son of God did not begin to have the Spirit in time, nor did the same Spirit take a beginning of going out from the Son through any time. Surely from the days of eternity, as the Son is generated by the Father, so the Holy Spirit goes out from both, is sent eternally by both.... As far as concerns themselves (the Father and the Son in themselves), before all ages they send and give (breathing the Spirit to be sent and to be given); but with creatures worthy of the gift or mission existing, they are said to begin to send or to give (the existence of the term ad extra begins)... Wherefore perhaps it may not be unsuitable, if the procession of the Holy Spirit flowing eternally from the Father and the Son be called, with respect to the receiving creatures, mission; more commonly, donation; and if anything else of this kind » Hug. Ether. cont. Graec. l. III. c. 18.

Cardinal Bessarion concludes the argument most beautifully. « That power of sending which is in the Father and the Son, according to which both send the Holy Spirit, as even our countrymen (the Greeks) confess, is either the same in the Father and the Son, or other and other. But if it be other and other, it will namely be greater and less, and consequently the missions will be diverse; therefore neither will there be one power and potency, nor one operation of them.... Therefore not other and other, but the same is (the power of sending). But indeed in the Father the power of sending the Spirit is at the same time with the power of spirating Him; for the Father always spirates the Holy Spirit and, spirating, sends Him. Therefore also the Son, together with the power of spirating and producing Him, sends Him; therefore also the Son is the producer of the Holy Spirit » de Process. Sp. S. (inter Opusc. aurea p. 237).

Although therefore the Photinians should prevail, maintaining that the locutions of the Greek Fathers, by which they say the Holy Spirit is poured forth, gushes forth, goes forth, shines forth, appears (προχεῖσθαι, ἀναβλύζειν, προϊέναι, ἐκλάμπειν, πεφηνέναι) from the Son or through the Son, designate by their immediate signification the mission and procession ad extra, they would nevertheless profit nothing; for this procession ad extra includes as its foundation the procession ad intra, or rather, if we speak theologically, the mission is the very procession ad intra with the connotation of supernatural efficiency ad extra (see Hieronym. Donatum l. IV. c. 4. apud Em. Mai SS. vv. nova Collect. T. VII. P. II. p. 125. sqq.).

In almost the same way we have seen above (p. 166-169) that some ancient Fathers speak of the generation of the Son in the creation of the universe, i. e. of the manifestation of the Son eternally begotten. Moreover, the Greek Fathers also in many places so speak that those words must necessarily be understood in the immediate sense of the eternal immanent procession of the Holy Spirit, so that He physically, essentially, according to nature shines forth, appears, gushes forth, proceeds from the Son or through the Son, or from the essence of the Son (φυσικῶς, οὐσιωδῶς, φύσει, κατὰ φύσιν, ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ υἱοῦ) Epiphan. Haeres. 62. n. 4; Ancor. n. 7; Cyrill. de adorat. l. I. p. 9; Thesaur. p. 345. 354. 358; in Io. p. 126; Maxim. q. 63. in Scriptur. Opp. T. I. p. 238. 239. (cited also by Beccus the patriarch among the Opusc. aurea. p. 117). But there will be a place for speaking of the Fathers below.