Annotation CLXXXVII

”For God giveth not the Spirit by measure.” — John 3:34

Whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone.

Theophylact, in the commentaries, expounding this clause, teaches that the Holy Spirit proceeds not from the Father and the Son, but from the Father only — with these words: “It will not be unseasonable to say in this place how the Son has the Spirit, and how [the Spirit] is called the Spirit of the Son. For the Apostle too says, ‘He sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father’; and again, ‘But if anyone has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.’ Truly the Latins, expounding these [things] badly, and understanding [them] less rightly, say that the Spirit also proceeds from the Son. But we say this first of all to them: that it is one thing to be from someone, and another to be [someone’s]

—[another thing to be] someone’s own: as the Spirit is indeed the Spirit of the Son, without doubt, and approved by all Scripture; but that [the Spirit] is from the Son no Scripture attests — lest we introduce two principles of the Spirit, [namely] the Father and the Son. “Assuredly,” he says: “for [Christ] both breathed on the disciples, and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ O folly! if he then gave the disciples the Spirit, when he breathed [on them]: how did he afterward say to them, ‘You shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, not after many days’? Or how do we believe the descent of the Spirit to have been made at Pentecost, if indeed he gave him on the evening of the day of resurrection? For then he breathed [on them]. But these [things] are indeed very ridiculous. For it is manifest that he did not then give them the Holy Spirit, but one gift of the Holy Spirit — namely, the remission of sin. For at once he adds, ‘Whose sins you shall remit.’ But the Son has the Spirit substantially, as consubstantial to himself — not [as one] from whom he receives operation, as the prophets [do]. And [the Spirit] is called the Spirit of the Son inasmuch as [he is] truth, and power, and wisdom. But the Holy Spirit is described by Isaiah as the Spirit of truth, and of fortitude, and of wisdom. And otherwise [he is called the Spirit of the Son], because through the Son he is given to men: on that account he is called [the Spirit] of the Son. Believe thou, therefore, that the Spirit indeed proceeds from the Father, but is given to the creature through the Son; and let this be to thee the canon of orthodox doctrine.”

This opinion of Theophylact, John Damascene, Euthymius, and very many other more recent Greeks approve — though the ancient fathers of the Eastern and Western church cry out against [it], who most clearly testify that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.¹ But because Theophylact charges the Latin defenders of this opinion with a twofold argument — namely, that they have no testimony of this assertion in the divine Scripture, and that they set up two principles of the Holy Spirit, namely the Father and the Son — therefore, refuting both, we say, first, that we have in the sacred writings the testimony of Christ, who, speaking of the Holy Spirit in John, says: “When he shall come, that Spirit of truth, he will teach you all truth; for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, he shall speak; he shall glorify me, because he shall receive of mine, and shall announce [it] to you. All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine. Therefore I said, that he shall receive of mine, and shall announce [it] to you.” From these words it is clear that the Holy Spirit is produced from the Son; for [in] that he says, “He shall receive of mine,” it is just as if he said: As he shall receive subsistence from me by production, so also [he shall receive] all knowledge. For as the Son had said elsewhere that he had heard from his Father, so now he says that the Holy Spirit hears from him. And how [the Spirit] hears, he declares, adding, “Because he shall receive of mine” — that is, “Because he is, and is [being] produced, and shall be produced, of my substance, and from me. And that I said he would receive from me — do not wonder: because, as he receives from the Father, so he receives from me. For all [things] which the Father has are mine. If, then, he receives of the substance of the Father, he must [also] receive of mine.” If, therefore, the Spirit receives of my substance, it cannot be but that he also proceeds from me.

And lest anyone suspect that this passage was understood otherwise by the ancient fathers of the Eastern church, it is worth bringing forward here the interpretations of certain illustrious

fathers of Greece — among whom Didymus, in book 1 On the Holy Spirit, Jerome [being] the translator, writes thus: “The Savior, who is also the Truth, says of the Spirit,² ‘He shall not speak of himself’ — that is, not without me, and without what is mine, and the will of the Father; because he is inseparable from my will and the Father’s: because he is not of himself, but is of the Father and of me. For this very [thing], that he subsists and speaks, is to him from the Father and from me. I speak the truth — that is, I inspire — [the things] which he speaks: since indeed he is the Spirit of truth.” Epiphanius too, bishop of Salamis, in the book which is entitled Ancoratus, expounds this same testimony of Christ with these words: “‘He shall glorify me, because he shall receive of mine, and shall announce [it] to you.’ If, then, he proceeds from the Father, and ‘shall receive of mine,’ says the Lord — just as no one knows the Father, save the Son, and no one [knows] the Son, save the Father — I dare indeed to affirm that no one knows the Spirit, save the Father and the Son, from whom he proceeds, and shall receive.” And below: “The Spirit is of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son — not according to any composition, as in us the soul and body [are], but in the midst of the Father and the Son, [proceeding] from the Father and the Son.” Athanasius likewise, writing to Serapion, interprets thus: “The Spirit receives from the Son, according to the Lord’s word, ‘He shall receive of mine, and shall announce [it] to you.’ For the Spirit has such an order and nature toward the Son as the Son [has] toward the Father.” These [things are] to the first objection of Theophylact.

But as to what he adds in the second place — that we deduce the Holy Spirit from two principles — [it] is so far from the truth that we even execrate those who hold so, as is clear from the anathematisms of various synods, but especially of Lyons and of Florence. For in the eighth session of the general Council of Florence it is read thus: “Since the Greeks suspect that we profess two principles, or two causes, in the holy consubstantial Trinity, therefore [those] holding this opinion, or professing such [things], we mark with an anathema.³ Since we ourselves believe that the operation and power of the Father and the Son [is] the one single cause of the Holy Spirit — so that the Son is not a principle different from the Father, from which the Holy Spirit proceeds and has [its] being. For we profess the Father to be the one cause, and root, and fount of the divinity; yet not so as to confound the persons of the Father and the Son [as arising] from it, [merely] because we believe their operation to be one (for that would be impious to believe); but [we profess] that there exist two persons, of the Father and of the Son, but one operation, and one power of theirs of sending [the Spirit]; and, in fine, that there is one [Spirit] which is sent from their substance and hypostasis. And on this account we say that the divine Creed was declared and elucidated by our elders — lest anyone, doubting whether the Son is a cause of the Holy Spirit, should fall into some heresy. For those believing that the Holy Spirit in no way proceeds from the Son must [necessarily] understand that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, and consequently [that] there is no Son. But those who assert that the Spirit proceeds from the person of the Father alone — these without doubt separate the substance from the hypostasis, and imagine a partition of the divine substance — which [the Council] piously believes to be very alien from reason and from faith.”

I pass over, consulting brevity, the anathematisms of the Council of Lyons and of the Lateran, [directed] both

—both a[gainst] those who assert that the Holy Spirit [proceeds] from two principles, and against those who deny that he proceeds from the Son. I omit likewise the sentences of Athanasius, Basil, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Cyril, and Maximus, which teach the same [thing]. Whoever desires to see these [things] more fully treated, let him read the seventh and eighth sessions of the Council of Florence.