II. OBJECTIONS ANSWERED
13. They object, first, that the Scripture speaks of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father alone, and not from the Son, but we have already answered this (N. 6), and we remind the reader that though the Scripture does not express it in formal, it does in equivalent terms, as has been already proved. But, besides, remember that the Greeks recognized, equally with the Latins, the authority of tradition, and that teaches that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.
14. They object, secondly, that in the First Council of Constantinople, in which the Divinity of the Holy Ghost was defined, it was not defined that he proceeded from the Father and the Son, but from the Father alone; but to this we reply, that this Council did not declare it, because this was not the point that the Macedonians controverted. The Council, therefore, defined the procession from the Father alone, because the Macedonians and Eunomians denied the procession from the Father, and, consequently, the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. The Church does not draw up definitions of Faith until errors spring up, and, on that account we see, that in several General Councils afterwards, the Church defined the procession of the Holy Ghost as well from the Son as from the Father.
15. They object, thirdly, that when, in the Council of Ephesus, the Priest Carisius publicly read a Symbol, composed by Nestorius, in which it was asserted that the Holy Ghost was not from the Son, nor that he had not his substance through the Son, that the Fathers did not reject the doctrine. We reply, First that this can be easily explained, by supposing that Nestorius properly denied, in a Catholic sense, that the Holy Ghost was from the Son, in opposition to the Macedonians, who said that he was a creature of the Son, and had received existence from the Son, just like any other creature. Secondly We should not forget that in the Council of Ephesus it was not of the procession of the Holy Ghost that they were treating at all, and, therefore, they left it undecided, as it is always the practice of Councils, as we have stated already, not to turn aside to decide on incidental questions, but merely to apply themselves to the condemnation of those errors alone on which they are then deciding.
16. They object, fourthly, some passages of the Holy Fathers which appear to deny the procession from the Son. St. Dionisius(l) says, that the Father alone is the consubstantial fountain of the Divinity : ” Solum Patrem esse Divinitatis fontem consubstantialem.” St. Athanasius (2) says, that he is the cause of both Persons : ” Solum Patrem esse causam duorum.” St. Maximus says (3), that the Fathers never allowed the Son to be the cause, that is, the principle of the Holy Ghost : ” Patres non concedere Filiura esse causam, id est principium Spiritus Sancti.”
(1) St. Dionys.l. 1, de Divin. nom. c. 2. (2) St. Athan. Quæs. de Nat Dei. (3) St. Maxim. Ep. ad Marin.
St. John of Damascus says (4), we believe the Holy Ghost to be from the Father, and we call him the Spirit of the Father : ” Spiritum Sanctum et ex Patre esse statuimus, et Patris Spiritum appellamus.” They also quote certain passages of Theodoret, and, finally, they adduce that fact which we read of in the life of Pope Leo III., who commanded that the word ” filioque” (and from the Son), added by the Latins to the Symbol of Constantinople should be expunged, and that the Symbol, with that word omitted, should be engraved on a table of silver, for perpetual remembrance of the fact. We answer that the preceding authorities quoted from the Holy Fathers prove nothing for the Greeks. St. Dionisius calls the Father alone the fountain of the Divinity, because the Father alone is the first fountain, or the first principle, without a beginning, or without derivation from any other Person of the Trinity. To St. Dionisius we can add St. Gregory of Nazianzen (5), who says, ” Quidquid habet Pater, idem Filii est, excepta causa.” But all that the Saint means to say is, that the Father is the first principle, and for this special reason he is called the cause of the Son and the Holy Ghost, and this reason of the first principle cannot be applied to the Son in this way, for he has his origin from the Father; but by this the Son is not excluded from being, together with the Father, the principle of the Holy Ghost, as St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, and several others, with St. Athanasius (quoted in N. 9), attest. The same answer will apply to the quotation of St. Maximus, especially as the learned Petavius remarks (6), as the word principle, or ” principium,” among the Greeks means the first fountain, or first origin, which applies to the Father alone.
17. We can reply to the argument adduced from the quotation from St. John of Damascus, by remarking that the Saint here speaks guardedly, to oppose the Macedonians, who taught that the Holy Ghost was a creature of the Son, as he uses the same caution in not allowing that the Blessed Virgin should be called the Mother of Christ Christiparam Virginem Sanctum non dicimas to avoid the error of Nestorius, who called her the Mother of Christ, to argue that there were two persons in Christ.
(4) St. Damas. I. 1, de Fide Orth. c. 11. (5) St. Greg. Nazian. Orat. 24, ad Episcop. (6) Petavius. l. 7, de Trin. c. 17, n. 12n
Cardinal Bessarion, however, in the Council of Florence (7), answered this objection most clearly. The Saint, he says, used the preposition Ex to denote the principle without a beginning, as is the Father alone. St. John of Damascus himself, however, teaches the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, both in he place quoted, where he calls him the Spirit of the Son, as also in the subsequent part of the same chapter, in which he compares the Father to the sun, the Son to the rays, and the Holy Ghost to the light, thus showing that as the light or splendour proceeds from the sun and the rays, so the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son : ” Quemadmodum videli cet ex sole est radius, et splendor; ipse enim (Pater), et radii, et splendoris fons est; per radium autem splendor nobis communicatur, atque ipse est, qui nos collustrat. et a nobis percipitur.”
18. To the objection from Theodoret we answer, that the authority of Theodoret on this point is of no weight, because here he is opposed to St. Cyril, or we may suppose also that he was opposing the Macedonians, who taught that the Holy Ghost was a creature of the Son. Finally, as to the fact related of Leo III., we answer, that the Holy Father did not disapprove of the Catholic dogma of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, since he agreed on this point with the Legates of the Gallican Church, and of Charlemagne, as we see by the acts of the Legation ( Vol. II.); but he disapproved of the addition of the word Filioque to the Symbol, without absolute necessity, and without the authority of the whole Church, and this addition was afterwards made by subsequent General Councils, when it was found necessary to do so, on account of the Greeks, who so frequently relapsed, and it was thus confirmed by the authority of the universal Church.
19. The last objection made by the Greeks is founded on these reasons : If the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son, he would proceed not from one, but from two principles, for he would be produced by two Persons. We have already answered this in proving the dogma (N. 6), but we will explain it more clearly. Although the Father and the Son are two Persons, really distinct, still they neither are, nor can be, called two principles of the Holy Ghost, but only one principle, for the power by which the Holy Ghost is produced is but one alone, and is the same in the Father as in the Son. Neither is the Father the principle of the Holy Ghost by Paternity, nor the Son by Filiation, so that they might be two principles; but the Father and the Son are the principle of the Holy Ghost by active spiration, which, as it is one alone, and is common to both, and undivided in the Father and the Son, therefore the Father and the Son cannot be called two principles, or two spirators, because they are but one spirator of the Holy Ghost, and although both Persons spirate, still the spiration is but one. All this has been expressly laid down in the Definition of the Council of Florence. (7) Bessar. Orat. pro Unit,