Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

« When the Arians and the Semiarian Pneumatomachi affirmed that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father by communication of the divine essence, but is a creature produced by the Son or through the Son, 1° the holy Doctors of the Church, whether individually one by one or in Councils, had directly to declare the procession from the Father and to deny that production through the Son which the heretics introduced; both of which heads being demonstrated, they not only do not deny the procession from the Son as from the Father by communication of the divine nature, but they assume this procession from the Son as a corollary to be conceded even by the adversaries. Wherefore 2° the doctrine of Theodorus Mopsuestenus and of Theodoretus also seems, as regards this head, to be explained in a catholic sense, where, in opposition to the Macedonian sense, they deny that the Holy Spirit has existence from the Son or through the Son. »

I. Some time after the Council of Nicaea, many withdrew from the Arian faction expressly denying the divinity of the Son, without however wishing to embrace the catholic faith defined at the Council; they said that they confessed the Son to be true God, similar in substance to the Father (ὁμοιούσιον); yet they refused to call Him consubstantial (ὁμοούσιον) with the Father. From these Semiarians arose the Pneumatomachi, called also Macedonians after their leader, who transferred the explicit and direct attack upon the mystery of the most holy Trinity to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. They conceded that the Son is begotten of the Father and therefore is God of God; they denied that the Holy Spirit is from the Father by substantial procession, and therefore denied that He is God; but they taught that the principle of the Holy Spirit is the Son by a creative production. Without circumlocution Eusebius had already proposed this opinion. « Indeed He alone can be called the one God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ; the Son, however, is the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father; but the Paraclete Spirit is neither God nor Son, since He did not receive generation from the Father equally as the Son; but He is one of those things which were made through the Son, since all things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made » De eccles. theol. l. III. c. 6. Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and of Nazianzus and the other Fathers of the IV and V centuries accuse this same heresy. « They pretend to profess the faith defined at Nicaea by the Fathers, but in reality they deny it, perverting the token of consubstantiality (τὸ ὁμοούσιον), and the same men blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, while they say that He is a creature and a thing made, produced through the Son » (καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ γεγενῆσθαι) Athan. ad Iovin. Imp. n. 1. Surely the opinion of the Arians themselves about the Holy Spirit was the same, with this sole difference, that they said in open words « a creature of the unbegotten is the Son, but the Paraclete of the only-begotten » (Eunomius apud Basil. l. II. n. 33). To Eunomius Basil answers, among other things: « no power (ἐνέργεια) of the Son is divided from the Father, nor is there anything of reality in the Son that is alien to the Father; for all things, he himself says, mine are yours and yours are mine; how then does (Eunomius) attribute the cause of the Spirit to the only-begotten alone? » ib. n. 24. See Ambros. de Spir. Sanct. l. I. c. 2; Damasum Pontif. ep. ad Paulin. n. 3. ed. Coustant. p. 511. 518; Philast. haeres. 67. 68.

In this doctrine of the heretics three things can be distinguished. Namely, a) the Holy Spirit is not from the Father, and therefore He is not God; b) the Holy Spirit is from the Son, or, which they hold for the same thing, He is through the Son; c) He is from the Son by creation. The heretics directly and chiefly intended the first head; they assumed the second as clear from the Scriptures and admitted by the Catholics themselves; but that it might agree with the heresy, they understood it in a distorted sense of the procession of the Spirit from the Son by creation, which we call the third head of the heresy. The opposite manner of exposition and of defense of the catholic faith had to be accommodated to the proper reason of the errors. What the Fathers chiefly and primarily regarded in that controversy was the demonstration of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and therefore the demonstration of the procession from the substance of the Father. The second head, that the Spirit is from the Son, the holy Doctors never simply denied; but rather from this common principle they inferred that the Spirit, because He is from the Son, is also from the Father. But the sense in which the catholic Doctors and in which the heretics understood the procession from the Son is most diverse. The Catholics, in the faith of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, saw that the procession from the Son is not by creation but from the substance of the Son, and they understood this procession to be equally from the substance of the Father as of the Son, which is one; the heretics, on the contrary, in the denial of the procession from the Father excluded the procession from the substance of the Son, and included the procession from the Son by creation.

We say therefore that this, as far as concerns the present, was the state of the question and the manner of disputing against the Pneumatomachi. The holy Fathers always assert the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son (in the generic signification, that the Spirit is from the Son) as a dogma and a principle common to both parties (cf. Bessarion. orat. dogm. Hard. Concil. T. IX. p. 343). From there, however, for the exposition of the catholic faith and the refutation of the double error, by which the heretics taught that the Spirit is not from the Father, and is from the Son by creation, the holy Doctors proceed in three ways.

1°. From the common principle, that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, they infer and demonstrate that He necessarily also proceeds from the Father, both from the inborn order of relations, because the Son Himself is from the Father, and from the explicit doctrine of Scripture, because just as the Spirit is called the Spirit of the Son, so He is called the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of God. This argumentation is everywhere obvious among the Fathers, the principal defenders of catholic doctrine in that controversy: Athanasius, Basil, the Nyssen, Cyril. Lest we heap up testimonies, let only those things be recalled to memory which we cited in the previous theses. « The Father's is the Spirit, who has been called the Son's, since the Son Himself says: the Spirit of truth, (i. e. of the Son, according to Athanasius and many other Fathers), who proceeds from the Father » Athan. ad Serap. ep. 3. n. 1. « He is said to proceed from the Father, because He shines forth from the Word, which is conceded to be from the Father » id. ad Serap. ep. 1. n. 20. « The Word of God indeed is the Son, but the Word of the Son is the Spirit... and since the Word is of the Son, accordingly it is of God (the Father) » Basil. contra Eunom. V. p. 304. « The Holy Spirit is said both to be from the Father, and is confirmed by testimony to be from the Son; for if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not His: therefore the Spirit is from God and is the Spirit of God » Greg. Nyss. serm. III. in or. domin. « As the Spirit is proper to the Son, naturally existing in Him and proceeding through Him, so also is He the Father's » Cyrill. in Io. p. 910. etc. Moreover, that they may convince that the mode of procession is by communication of nature, not by creation, besides the procession of the Spirit from the Son they assume another principle conceded by the Semiarians, that the Son proceeds from the Father not by creation, but as God of God. This being posited, they show from the Scriptures that the order of the Spirit to the Son is the same as that which is of the Son to the Father, and therefore that the procession of the Spirit from the Son is by communication of nature; if therefore the adversaries truly confess that the Son is God, let them also confess the Holy Spirit to be God. Thus Athanas. ep. I. ad Serap. and Basil, l. V. contr. Eunom. ¹ and elsewhere.

In this whole manner of disputing, solemn to the Fathers, two things are to be noticed as most opportune, if anything could remedy the intolerably sophistical character of the schismatics. First, that what the heretics suppose and the Fathers assume as a principle common and certain among all Christians is the procession of the person of the Holy Spirit from the Son, i. e. that the person of the Spirit itself has existence and being from the Son; there is no question, however, of the gifts, of the mission, of the effects of the Holy Spirit ad extra, which are said to be also from the Son. Nor is the procession also from the Son, or from the substance of the Son, said in that sense alone, that (as the schismatics most absurdly say) the Spirit is consubstantial with the Son; for the Pneumatomachi deny this consubstantiality, but the Catholics demonstrate consubstantiality from the substantial procession as from its reason and cause, in the same way as from the generation of the Son they demonstrate that He is ὁμοούσιον with the Father. The other thing most worthy of notice is that in this long and most serious struggle for the catholic faith against the Pneumatomachi, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son was assumed by the Fathers as most known and not needing polemical demonstration, although for abundance they are wont to confirm and illustrate it from the passages of Sacred Scripture. For they intend to demonstrate directly the procession from the Father, and thence the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and for this demonstration they assume the procession of the Spirit from the Son as a principle more known and conceded in a generic sense by the adversaries themselves.

2°. The other manner of disputing is this, that the Fathers, while indeed deliberately demonstrating the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, about which the question directly was, at the same time join the procession from the Son as included in it and easily to be understood from it. To the argument of the heretics, that the Holy Spirit is either the Son of God or a creature, we have heard the response of St. Basil. « Why is the Spirit not called the Son of the Son? Not because He is not from God through the Son, but lest the Trinity be thought an infinite multitude (in which there would be Sons from Sons).... For this reason the Apostle openly indeed preached that He is from God, since we have received the Spirit who is from God; and that He shone forth through the Son He made manifest, by naming Him the Spirit of the Son just as also of God, and by calling Him the mind of Christ as the Spirit of God » Basil. contr. Eunom. V. p. 305. « Since the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, it is manifest that He is of the divine essence, proceeding essentially in it and from it » Cyrill. Thesaur. p. 345. But to this point almost all the testimonies cited could be brought, where we set forth the express doctrine of the Fathers.

3°. In that state of the question which we have described, especially when the aim of the Church was not to refute by arguing but only authentically to condemn the errors by the direct opposition of catholic doctrine, as in the creeds and definitions of Councils, there was no need of an explicit declaration of the procession from the Son; but rather the direct opposition required only the profession of the double head denied by the Pneumatomachi: namely, the profession of the procession from the Father, and of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Thus the second ecumenical Council, celebrated in the year 381 against the Pneumatomachi, in the profession of the Nicene creed « we believe.... and in the Holy Spirit », declared by this other formula directly opposed to that double error: « we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is together adored and together glorified, who has spoken through the Prophets », or, retaining the Greek construction, as Dionysius Exiguus translates: « we believe... and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, proceeding from the Father, with the Father and the Son to be adored and to be glorified, who has spoken through the holy Prophets » ²

The Fathers therefore in this creed³ against the first head of the heretics — that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father — explicitly define the dogma: « who proceeds from the Father ». To the other twofold head — that the Spirit proceeds from the Son and proceeds as created — they oppose only the profession of His divinity: « in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped together »; by this very fact, therefore, the other part — the procession from the Son, I mean, to which they set nothing contrary — they accept as most true, provided the procession is understood in a manner befitting God (θεοπρεπής), as s. Cyril speaks (in Ioan. p. 929). The matter is manifest, if one attends to the character of the heresy to which the creed is opposed. We described it a little before from the testimonies of the Fathers, and in the same way the Patriarch John Beccus declares it. The question of the schismatics was: « why did the holy Fathers of the II Council, explaining the sacred Nicene creed, expressly set down the divinity of the Holy Spirit, but about His procession said what is consonant with the Gospel: who proceeds from the Father; and did not add also that, from the Son? » Beccus answers after many other things: « the truest cause why the holy Fathers in the procession of the Holy Spirit did not add the Son is this, that the heretics (those very ones, indeed, against whom the creed is opposed) said and thought that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son alone » (This sense of the heretics Beccus then proves from the testimony of s. Basil and of Justin, Bishop of Sicily). Therefore the heretics asserted that the Spirit is from the Son and not from the Father. But the holy Fathers explicitly proclaimed in the creed that which the heretics denied, saying: « who proceeds from the Father; for that He proceeds from the Son the heretics conceded, nor was there controversy with them on this point » (Becc. in dictis SS. inter opusc. aurea p. 155. sqq.).

Moreover, that in the profession of the procession from the Father there was understood also the procession from the Son, in that the Father and the Son are one by spiration, sufficiently stands from the doctrine and testimonies of the Fathers which we have adduced. Indeed, we learn from Epiphanius that to the Constantinopolitan creed itself a fuller explanation was wont to be added in many Churches of the East, in which explicit mention was made that the Holy Spirit, just as He proceeds from the Father, so also is to be believed to be from the Son. For after the formula of the creed has been set forth, which we have said to be the same as the Constantinopolitan, Epiphanius adduces another a little more explicit (cf. Tract. de Incarnatione th. XVII.), about which he speaks thus. « You (in the Church of the Suedrans of Pamphylia) and we and all orthodox Bishops and, in sum, the whole holy Catholic Church, against the onrushing heresies, in agreement with the faith of those holy Fathers (he means the Nicenes) set forth a little before, we thus enjoin, especially upon those approaching the holy laver, that they profess and say: We believe in one God » etc. In this creed now the Constantinopolitan profession about the Holy Spirit is thus declared: « and we believe in the Holy Spirit, who spoke in the law, and preached in the prophets, and descended to the Jordan, speaks in the Apostles, dwells in the Saints. And thus indeed we believe in Him, namely that He is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the perfect Spirit, the Paraclete Spirit, uncreated, who proceeds from the Father, and receives and is believed to be from the Son »⁴ Ancorat. n. 121. p. 124. In what sense the Spirit is said to receive from the Son according to Io. XVI. 14. 15., the other clause declares: that He is believed to be from the Son, ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ πιστευόμενον⁵. Here therefore, in a creed which in the IV century in the East was destined for the instruction of catechumens and the confirmation of the faithful against the arts of the heretics and was employed in many Churches, we have an express declaration: the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and is believed to be from the Son by revealed faith, to be professed by all. Moreover, this profession is in a creed which is exhibited as the fuller and, without controversies, received explanation of the simpler formula: who proceeds from the Father; in this very formula, therefore, both pastors and faithful understood the procession from the Son not as excluded but as included, and expressly professed it.

II. The character of the controversy having now been set forth, and the manner of disputing of the holy Fathers against the Pneumatomachi considered in accordance with it, this seems to be the proper place for examining whether, and in what sense, in the age of that flourishing heresy some ecclesiastical writers denied that the Holy Spirit proceeds from or is from the Son. Up to the VIII century there is no trace of such a denial in any monument which should not, on other grounds, be regarded as heretical or suspect both by the Photians and by the Catholics. Those are nevertheless named who first denied the procession from the Son: Theodorus of Mopsuestia and his disciples Nestorius and Theodoretus, when the latter was championing the cause of Nestorius against s. Cyril. We could indeed, without detriment, concede these first beginnings and this birth to the Photian heresy; for neither by the authority of men whose very names, or at least whose writings, have been branded with the anathema of the whole Church, nor from the silence of the Church when such a denial was first heard, will the common sense and consensus ever be weakened, which both at that very time and in the preceding and subsequent age most manifestly stands from the entire manner of speaking and disputing of the holy Fathers in the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Son as to the Father. The silence of the Church, on the hypothesis of which we speak, would be reduced to this one point: that while the whole attention and contention of the Fathers and Councils was directed solely to proscribing the heresy denying the incarnation of the Word and the hypostatic unity of the God-man, an error thrown in incidentally on an entirely other dogma — about which no controversy had yet been heard, and therefore no special inquiry had been instituted — was then transmitted by the Fathers without direct attack and explicit condemnation, lest the attention be diverted from the principal object, which the adversaries would have most wished, to something else. It is therefore not some necessity for the defense of Catholic doctrine, nor a dogmatic reason, but the truth to be drawn out in the history of dogmas, or rather of heresies, that leads us to examine the sense in which those three, or rather two, writers of the V century denied that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son or through the Son. Since, however, most weighty and indeed many men think altogether that Theodorus, and consequently Nestorius and Theodoretus (at least as long as he favored Nestorius), preformed that heresy which Photius afterwards spread abroad and strengthened in his faction, we wish all that we are going to say in this part of theological history to be subjected, by way of a question, to the examination and judgment of the readers.

1°. That this was the opinion of Theodorus and Nestorius⁶ is drawn from no other source than the creed which, brought to the Council of Ephesus by the priest Charisius, was condemned by this very council and afterwards by other councils and Fathers, by name, on account of the Nestorian heresy about the incarnation of the Word contained in it. That profession had Theodorus as its author; by Nestorius, however, and his followers it was used to propagate their heresy, about which matter we have said enough in Tract. de Incarnat. th. XXIV. Moreover, in the first part of the creed, which, treating of the Trinity, pertains to the present question, the context runs thus. First there is a brief exposition of the faith about the Father and the Son, entirely orthodox; then follows a much more prolix and manifestly polemical declaration about the Holy Spirit in this manner. « And (we believe) in the Holy Spirit, who is from the substance of God, yet is not the Son; but He is God existing in essence, inasmuch as He is of the same essence of which God and the Father is, from whom He is according to essence; for we, he says (the Apostle), have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, separating (the Apostle) Him from the whole creation and joining Him to God, from whom He is according to essence in a manner peculiar to Himself and diverse from all creatures, which we believe to be from God not according to essence but by the causality of creation; and we neither believe Him to be the Son, nor to have received existence through the Son⁷. But we profess the Father perfect in person, and the Son likewise, and in like manner the Holy Spirit⁸, with the doctrine of piety retained, that we believe the Father and the Son and in like manner the Holy Spirit not to be three differing essences, but one to be acknowledged by the identity of the Godhead » (Conc. Mansi T. IV. p. 1348).

In this exposition everyone sees that the author of the creed had before his eyes and directly attacked the doctrine of the Pneumatomachi of that age. They denied, as we showed a little before, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, and therefore at the same time denied His divinity; this twofold head, just as the holy Fathers had vindicated it, so also Theodorus in the first place proposes and most strongly urges. Indeed, lest any doubt about the scope of the creed in this part remain, there is evidently seen in it the very own and peculiar manner of arguing of the Pneumatomachi. We have seen this manner of peculiar sophism described by s. Basil. The Holy Spirit, they said, if He is from the substance of God, by that very fact He is the Son; but if, as the Catholics themselves confess, He is not the Son, it remains that He be a creature. To this very dilemma the creed of which we treat opposes the Catholic doctrine in the same sentences and almost the same words which Basil contr. Eunom. l. V. l. c., Gregory Naz. or. 31. (al. 37) n. 7-11. and others used. The other peculiar manner of arguing, to which Origen gave occasion (above p. 446), those heretics deduced from the words of Io. I. 3: « all things were made through him », among which all things they said the Holy Spirit also was comprehended. Thus report Basil contra Eunom. V. p. 308., Ambrose, Philastrius, Damasus in the places cited at the beginning of this thesis. An example of this argumentation you have in Eusebius at the place which we cited there. The Holy Spirit therefore, they said, like all other things created by the Son, received existence through the Son. But now he who sets down the simply contradictory of this proposition: the Holy Spirit did not receive existence through the Son — he no longer universally denies the procession of the Spirit from the Son, but only denies the reception of existence in the sense of the adversaries, i.e. production by creation. Since therefore this first part of the creed, but especially the profession about the Holy Spirit, from its whole conformation and from the peculiar manner of its enunciations evidently regards the Eunomian and Semiarian heresy and is directly opposed to it; there is no reason why this last clause should be understood otherwise than as the contradictory of the heresy against which it is directed; and so as denying the reception of existence in the way in which the Pneumatomachi affirmed it, not however in that sense in which all the Fathers of this age, in this same controversy against the heretics, supposed and most expressly taught the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son. Not without reason, therefore, Emmanuel Calecas (Bibl. Max. PP. T. XXVI. p. 409) judged in this chapter about the Holy Spirit that creed to be orthodox, of which he himself thought Nestorius to be the author; nor, except by neglecting the state of the question and the manner of disputing most common to the Fathers of the IV and V centuries against the Pneumatomachi, could Garnerius call Calecas' interpretation violent (Opp. Marii Mercatoris T. II. p. 256). That Theodorus, whom elsewhere (in Tract. de Incarnat. th. XXIV.) we demonstrated with the greatest certainty to be the author of this creed, was orthodox in the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son — now after the publication of his commentaries on the epistles of Paul, Card. Mai feels and contends this to be plainly established, although he himself judges the creed of which we treat to be heretical in this very doctrine and therefore to be disowned by Theodorus (Card. Mai Spicileg. Roman. T. IV. p. 525). On Rom. VIII. 11. Theodorus comments thus. « If anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is not his... but if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you... First saying (the Apostle) the Spirit of Christ, again he says: the Spirit of him who raised Christ dwells in you, proceeding from Christ to the Father, manifestly teaching nothing other than this, that from the Son also the Spirit is not alien from the paternal Godhead⁹; and those (the Son and the Spirit of the Son) to whom there is one virtue, to these altogether also the essence with the Father is coeternal. For fittingly indeed he says that, with the Holy Spirit dwelling and sin mortified, rewards are set before those who contend, of which the first and greatest is the resurrection from the dead ». I do not indeed affirm that by these words it is immediately and expressly enunciated: the Spirit is from the Son, although the most eminent editor seems to have understood the place thus, since he subjoins this note: « note the testimony sufficiently evident, as I hope, of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, especially if there be compared another of Nyssenus edited by me, Script. Vet. T. VII. p. 6. » But to refute the Pneumatomachi, whose doctrine we know from the foregoing, Theodorus argues thus: Paul teaches that the Spirit of the Son, by this very fact that He is of the Son, is also the Spirit of the Father (proceeding from Christ to the Father). But the Spirit is of the Son because He is from the Son, as the Pneumatomachi concede and contend; He is, however, from the Son in such a way that He is one virtue, and accordingly one essence, which is proved because the Spirit inhabits the just and is the cause of the remission of sin and of the glorious resurrection. But now Paul teaches that the Spirit is of the Father in the same way in which He is of the Son. Therefore, just as He is of the Son because He is from the Son in unity of virtue and essence, so He is from the Father in unity of virtue and essence, since otherwise, with the adversaries the Pneumatomachi conceding, there is one virtue and essence of the Father and of the Son. Therefore, having regard to the doctrine which Theodorus attacks, the sense of the words: « Paul manifestly teaches that from the Son also the Spirit is not alien from the paternal Godhead » is ultimately reduced to this: from the Son, who is not alien from the paternal Godhead and whose Spirit He is, the Spirit has it that He Himself also is not alien from the paternal Godhead, ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα οὐκ ἀλλότριον τῆς πατρικῆς θεότητός ἐστι. In this same way we saw above (p. 505. 506) that also the holy Fathers of that age assume the procession from the Son as an argument by which they demonstrate, against the Pneumatomachi, the procession from the Father and the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Justly, therefore, Card. Mai could infer from this place the agreement of Theodorus with the Fathers fighting against the Pneumatomachi.

I do not, however, conceal that others dissent from this interpretation, whether of the most eminent Mai or ours, among whom is the most eminent Card. Hergenroether (Photius T. I. p. 687).

2°. Theodoretus seems able to be understood in the same sense. The place which is wont to be adduced, to show that the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son was simply denied by Theodoretus, stands in his attack on the anathematisms of Cyril, at anath. IX. Since s. Cyril had there said that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit proper to Jesus Christ, Theodoretus — surely acting iniquitously and sophistically in that whole attack — cast in the suspicion whether Cyril had perhaps, in a Macedonian sense, called the Spirit proper to the Son, namely that He would be not from the Father but from the Son alone, and that in such a way that He would not be of the same essence with the Father and the Son. This his most iniquitous opinion, or rather calumny, Theodoretus himself indicates in the ep. to the monasteries against Cyril (which was recited in the V synod, Act. V.), where, treating of that IX anathematism of Cyril, he says: « but he blasphemes also the Holy Spirit, saying that He does not proceed from the Father according to the voice of the Lord, but that He is from the Son; that is the fruit of the seed of Apollinarius¹⁰, and it approaches indeed the malign culture of Macedonius » Auctuar. Garnerii Opp. Theodoreti T. V. p. 62. With this suspicion already prestructured he attacks the IX anathematism thus: « if indeed he said that the Spirit is proper to the Son and of the same nature with Him and proceeding from the Father, we shall at the same time confess and receive the voice as pious; but if, as having existence from the Son or through the Son¹¹, we shall reject this as blasphemous and impious. For we believe the Lord saying: the Spirit who proceeds from the Father, and the most sacred Paul saying likewise: but we... have received the Spirit who is from God » (Opp. T. IV p. 718). Namely, it will be blasphemous if the Spirit is denied to proceed from the Father, and if He is said to have existence from the Son or through the Son by creation, both of which pertain « to the malign culture of Macedonius ». Elsewhere Theodoretus says more distinctly: « according to the execrable heretics the Holy Spirit was created from God through the Son », διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ δεδημιουργῆσθαι (in Rom. VIII. 11). So also s. Cyril understood the calumny of Theodoretus. For in the apology of this anathematism written against Theodoretus, he insists first of all on the dogma which was directly at issue: that Jesus Christ, God and man, is one hypostasis; His own is the Holy Spirit, through whom, as through His own and not an alien virtue, He wrought miracles. Then a) indignantly he rejects the calumny, as though he himself had ever thought the Holy Spirit not consubstantial with the Father and the Son: « for that the Holy Trinity is consubstantial and of one virtue and operation, we have not learned at length through your discourse, but have been most fully taught from the divinely inspired Scripture ». b) Against the other calumny, as though he himself were suspect with the Macedonians of the denied procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father, when he said in the anathematism that the Holy Spirit is proper to the Son Jesus Christ, he answers: « the Holy Spirit is His own (of Jesus Christ the Son), just as He is also indeed of God the Father; for He operates through the Spirit as the Father, so also He Himself (Io. X. 32.; XIV. 10.; Matth. XII. 28).... referring the operation through the Spirit to Himself and to the Father on account of the identity of essence » (Mansi T. V. p. 58). Cyril therefore in those words of Theodoretus: « that the Spirit has existence from the Son or through the Son, we reject as blasphemous », understood nothing other than that a calumny was being set up against him, as though with the Macedonians he had said that the Holy Spirit was created by the Son, and so with the same heretics had denied the Spirit to be consubstantial with the Father and proceeding from the substance of the Father; he did not, however, understand the words of Theodoretus as though he had called the common doctrine of all the Fathers of that and the preceding age about the procession of the Spirit from the Son and through the Son blasphemous. From these things, however, let judgment now be made in passing about the intolerable sophism of the schismatics, who say that Cyril, at the admonition of Theodoretus, departed from the opinion about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son. That I may say nothing of the fact that the holy Father, in works written after the calumnies of Theodoretus, most expressly professes the procession from the Father and the Son (see Lequien Damascenic. dissert. I. n. 5. 6): let the apology of the anathematism alone be inspected. He had said that the Holy Spirit is proper to the Son; Theodoretus raises the suspicion lest perhaps he had said it in a sense approaching « the malign culture of Macedonius », namely that the Spirit proceeds from the Son alone and is not consubstantial with the Father and the Son. Cyril in the apology first rejects the calumny of the denied consubstantiality; then among a few clauses he repeats five times what he had said in the anathematism, that the Holy Spirit is proper to Jesus Christ the Son of God; but to repel the suspicion, as though he thought Him to proceed from the Son alone, he adds that the Spirit is proper to the Son in the same way as He is proper to the Father. Where he evidently supposes that even by the adversary it is understood that that proper is said relatively by reason of the procession. Which, for further abundance, Cyril himself expressly declared. After the apology written against Theodoretus before the Council of Ephesus (see Garnerium in Opp. Marii Mercatoris T. II. p. 132), in the Council itself, at the request of the Fathers, he set forth his anathematisms. There, what he had said in anath. IX., that Jesus Christ the Son of God wrought the divine signs (miracles) through the Holy Spirit proper to Him, he thus explains: « the only-begotten Word of God, made man, even thus remained God, and is all that the Father is, with this alone excepted, that He is the Father; and having the Holy Spirit as His own, who is from Him and abides in Him essentially, He wrought the divine signs »¹². The Spirit therefore, says Cyril, is proper to the Son because He is from Him by immanent procession and communication of essence. This, however, he proves from this: that the Son has all things in common with the Father except the sole formal reason of paternity; the Holy Spirit therefore is from the Son as from the Father, inasmuch as of the Father and the Son there is one common power of spiration.

Although, however, the sense which we have shown seems to be that of Theodorus and Theodoretus, we do not for that reason deny that their manner of speaking in this matter is obscure, from which it appears that in their mind there was not yet a clear and distinct notion of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son as from the Father, inasmuch as the Father and the Son are one by spiration. This defect of a deeper understanding of the dogma, however, differs much from its explicit denial, and for that age, where no more subtle polemical inquiry had yet been necessary, could be excused. But at the same time it is manifest how greatly these men — learned indeed, but in other heads at least deviating from sound doctrine by a genius too self-confident — were surpassed by the holy Doctors in secure and limpid faith and in the explanation of the innermost recesses of the mystery of the Holy Trinity in the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son: Athanasius, I mean, Basil, Nyssenus, Epiphanius, Cyril, to say nothing of the Latin Fathers, Hilary, Augustine, Leo, Fulgentius and the rest in succession.