Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/465

 HOLY

411

HOLY

have associated Him with the Father; He would have avoided making a heterogeneous Trinity, composed of unlilte elements. What did God stand in need of? Did He need to join to Himself a being of different nature? . . . No, the Trinity is not composed of the Creator and the creature." A little later, St. Basil, Didymus of Alexandria, St. Epiphanius, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Ambrose, and St. Gregory of Nyssa took up the same thesis ex -professo, supporting it for the most part with the same proofs. All these writ- ings had prepared the way for the Council of Constan- tinople which, in 381, condemned the Pneumatoma- chians and solemnly proclaimed the true doctrine. This teac hing forms part of the Creed of Constantinople, as it is called, where the symbol refers to the Holy Ghost, " Who is also our Lord and Who gives life; Who pro- ceeds from the Father, Who is adored and glorified together with the Father and the Son; Who spoke by the prophets". Was this creed, with these particular words, approved by the council of 381? Formerly that was the common opinion, and even in recent times it has been held by authorities like Hefele, Hergenrother, and Funk; other historians, amongst whom are Harnack and Duchesne, are of the contrary opinion; but all agree in admitting that the creed of which we are speaking was received and approved by the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, and that, at least from that time, it became the official formula of Catholic orthodoxy.

IV. PROCE.SSION OF THE HoLT Ghost. — We need not dwell at length on the precise meaning of the Procession in God. (See Trinity.) It will suffice here to remark that by this word we mean the relation of origin that exists between one Divine Person and another, or between one and the two others as its principle of origin. The Son proceeds from the Fa- ther; the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son. The latter truth will be specially treated here.

A. That the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father has always been admitted by all Christians; the truth is expressly stated in John, xv, 26. But the Greeks, after Photius, deny that He proceeds from the Son. And yet such is manifestly the teaching of Holy Scrip- ture and the Fathers.

(1) In the New Testament. — (a) The Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of Christ (Rom., viii, 9), the Spirit of the Son (Gal., iv, 6), the Spirit of Jesus (Acts, xvi, 7). These terms imply a relation of the Spirit to the Son, which can only be a relation of origin. This conclu- sion is so much the more indisputable as all admit the similar argument to explain why the Holy Ghost is called the Spirit of the Father. Thus St. Augustine argues (In Joan., tr. xcix, 6, 7 in P. L., XXXV, 1888): "You hear the Lord himself declare: 'It is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you '. Likewise you hear the Apostle declare : ' God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts '. Could there then be two spirits, one the spirit of the Father, the other the spirit of the Son? Certainly not. Just as there is only one Father, just as there is only one Lord or one Son, so there is only one Spirit, Who is, consequently, the Spirit of both. . . Why then should you refuse to believe that He proceeds also from the Son, since He is also the Spirit of the Son? If He did not proceed from Him, Jesus, when He appeared to His disciples after His Resurrection, would not have breathed on them, saying: 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost'. What, indeed, does this breathing signify, but that the Spirit proceeds also from Him?" St. Athanasius had argued in exactly the same way (De Trinit. et Spir. S., n. 19, in P. G., XXVI, 1212), and concluded: "We say that the Son of God is also the source of the Spirit. "

(b) The Holy Ghost receives from the Son, accord- ing to John, xvi, 13-15: "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. For he shall not

speak of himself; but what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak; and the things that are to come, he shall shew you. He shall glorify me ; because he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it to you. All things whatsoever the Father hath, are mine. Therefore I said, that he shall receive of mine, and shew it to you. " Now, one Divine Person can receive from another only by Procession, being related to that other as to a prin- ciple. What the Paraclete will receive from the Son is immanent knowledge, which He will afterwards manifest exteriorly. But this immanent knowledge is the very essence of the Holy Ghost. The latter, therefore, has His origin in the Son, the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son. "He shall not speak of Himself", says St. Augustine (In Joan., tr. xcix, 4, in P. L., XXXV, 1887), " because He is not from Him- self, but He shall tell you all He shall have heard. He shall hear from Him from whom He proceeds. In His case, to hear is to know, and to know is to be. He derives His knowledge from Him from Whom He derives His essence." St. Cyril of Alexandria remarks that the words: "He shall receive of mine" signify " the nature " which the Holy Ghcst has from the Son, as the Son has His from the Father (De Trinit., dialog, vi, in P. G., LXXV, 1011). Besides, Jesus gives this reason of His assertion: " He shall receive of mine": " All things whatsoever the Father hath, are mine ". Now, since the Father has with regard to the Holy Ghost the relation we term Active Spiration, the Son has it also; and in the Holy Ghost there exists, con- sequently, with regard to both. Passive Spiration or Procession.

(2) The same truth has been constantly held by the Fathers. — This fact is undisputed as far as the West- ern Fathers are concerned; but the Greeks deny it in the case of the Easterns. We will cite, therefore, a few witnesses from among the latter. The testimony of St. Athanasius has been quoted above, to the effect that "the Son is the source of the Spirit", and the statement of Cyril of Alexandria that the Holy Ghost has His " nature " from the Son. The latter saint further asserts (Thesaur., assert, xxxiv in P. G., LXXV, 585) ; " When the Holy Ghost comes into our hearts. He makes us like to God, because He proceeds from the Father and the Son"; and again (Epist., xvii. Ad Nestorium, De excommunicatione in P. G., LXXVII, 117) : " The Holy Ghost is not unconnected with the Son, for He is called the Spirit of Truth, and Christ is the Truth; so He proceeds from Him as well as from God the Father." St. Basil (De Spirit. S., xviii, in P. G., XXXII, 147) wishes us not to depart from the traditional order in mentioning the Three Divine Persons, because " as the Son is to the Father, so is the Spirit to the Son, in accordance with the ancient order of the names in the formula of baptism". St. Epiphanius writes (Ancor., viii, in P. G., XLIII, 29, 30) that the Paraclete " is not to be considered as unconnected with the Father and the Son, for He is with Them one in substance and divinity ", and states that " He is from the Father and the Son " ; a little further, he adds (op. cit., xi, in P. G., XLIII, 35) : " No one knows the Spirit, besides the Father, except the Son, from Whom He proceeds and of Whom He re- ceives." Lastly, a council held at Seleucia in 410 proclaims its faith " in the Holy Living Spirit, the Holy Living Paraclete, Who proceeds from the Father and the Son " (Lamy, " Concilium Seleucice ", Louvain, 1868).

However, when we compare the Latin writers, as a body, with the Eastern writers, we notice a difference in language : while the former almost unanimously affirm that the Holy Ghost proceefls from the Father and jrom the Son, the latter generally say that He pro- ceeds from the Father through the Son. In reality the thought expressed by both Greeks and Latins is one and the same, only the manner of expressing it is slightly different: the Greek formula ix toO irarpbt