Annotation CCVIII

”I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete.” — John 14:16

Whether the Holy Spirit [is] from the Father alone.

Euthymius, interpreting these [words] in the commentaries, John Henten — the scholiast and translator of the same [Euthymius] — charges with the dogma of the more recent Greeks concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone; a conjecture being taken from this, that the author [Euthymius], expounding this passage, used this form of speaking: “The Holy Spirit is given by the Father, inasmuch as proceeding from him; but is sent by the Son, as it were co-operating, and not contrary.” And again, in the exposition of the fifteenth chapter, he repeats the same, saying: “The Holy Spirit proceeds, therefore, from the Father, as [being] of his substance; therefore he knows the [things] which are the Father’s, as also the Son [does],” etc. But how much such a conjecture is to be esteemed, and whether on its account Euthymius is to be dragged into the error of the Greeks, let others more learned than I judge. See Annotation 187 of this book.