are bound to observe and to the decrees set forth by the council of Chalcedon and that of Gangra, we leave it entirely to those who have the authority to settle such matters to say what must be said. And these, indeed, are the words of the patriarch Balsamon. B By the things he says, he shows, first of all, that from that time, or rather even before his own day, that aforementioned tome, made under the Porphyrogenitus and the patriarch Alexius, had ceased to be in use. He says, in fact: It has ceased to be in use. With that, as it were, buttress or foundation being undermined, the other two tomes made afterwards—one in the time of lord Manuel Comnenus, C and one in the time of Palaeologus—of necessity collapse with them. Furthermore, he implies this also: that not even the anathemas of those synods have any weight, even though they were promulgated for great and necessary reasons, provided one must obey the common Father, Chrysostom, and the other holy teachers who think and teach the same as him and rather advocate the extreme loving-kindness of Christ. But as for such matters, some may say these things and others perhaps different things, clinging to those synods. But I, setting those aside (for I do not wish to wrangle at present), say this: that it has been clearly and D beyond doubt demonstrated thus far, and copiously indeed, that that first tome, as not being in agreement with the aim of the Church, and especially with that common teacher, I mean Chrysostom, has ceased and stopped being in use, according to that wise Balsamon—which is what we also proposed to show. But with its use expiring, the others that were made subsequently must, of necessity, in like manner lose their strength and expire, as we have already said.
ANNO DOMINI MCCCLXXXIV.
DEMETRIUS CYDONIUS
NOTITIA
(FABRIC. Bibliotheca Græca ed. Harles, tom. XI, p. 398)Demetrius, as in the imperial manuscripts, manuscripts of the most Christian king, the Coislinian, and in Cantacuzenus IV, 16 and IV, 59, appears to be so called by the surname rather than Cydonius: from Cydonia in Crete, in which he stayed, as it seemed to Lambecius (lib. V, p. 185 [p. 387 sqq. Kollar, where he writes at length regarding this Demetrius]). For a similar reason he is called by others Thessalonican (a) or Byzantine: corruptly by Verderius as Sudon, and by Jo. Jacobus Frisius and Possevinus as Sidonius (b).
(a) The one from Thessalonica, in the imperial manuscript of letters at Lambecius, lib. V, p. 184 sqq. ed. Kollar. So also Volaterranus, lib. XV, Commentar. Urbanor.: "Demetrius Cydonius the Thessalonican, a man as learned as he is holy, endowed with both Greek and Latin eloquence." But Allatius, p. 856, De consensu utriusque Ecclesiæ, says he is Byzantine.
(b) [Regarding the work of Demetrius Cydonius, De processione Spiritus sancti, see Lambecius, lib. I, p. 145. [p. 264 Kollar]. See also p. 272 regarding the Enchiridion of Augustine, which he translated into Greek. HARL.]
A John Cantacuzenus, to whom, while he held the empire, he had been dear and familiar, in the year 1355, together with Nicolaus Cabasilas, he accompanied when he exchanged the purple for the monastic habit. Afterwards he came to Milan, as Volaterranus testifies, where he applied himself equally to Latin literature and to theology. Finally, returning, he settled in Crete, where, having distributed his goods to the poor, he lived very holily in a certain monastery there, though without taking the vows. He was still alive in the year 1384, when Manuel Palaeologus assumed the reins of the empire, and he sent letters to that emperor. Cave, in the second part of his *Historia litteraria scriptorum ecclesiasticorum* under the year 1357, noted that Nicephorus the hieromonk is the same person as this Demetrius. (FABR.) In Cave's *Hist. litt. SS. eccl.* vol. II, p. 56, in the Appendix, ed. Basil. under the year 1357, Henry Wharton reviewed in a few words the life and some writings of Demetrius Cydonius; and ibid. p. 59, Robert Geary corrected Wharton's account in part, and in part supplemented it. But Geary wrote that Demetrius Cydonius was also called Niphon the hieromonk. Furthermore, Du Pin in his *Hist. eccles.* vol. XII, p. 91, Casimir Oudin in *Comment. de SS. eccles.* under the year 1350, vol. III, col. 996-1005, and John Fabricius in *Hist. bibl. Fabric.* part I, p. 227, as well as Saxius in *Onom. litter.*, part I, p. 375, and in *Analect.* p. 570, have treated of our author, a diligent imitator of the ancient Greeks, and especially of Plato. B Laurence Mehus also cites him in his *Vita Ambrosii Camaldulensis*, p. CCCLVI, seq. Add what I have written in *Introd. in Hist. L. G.* II, part I, p. 536 seq. (HARL.)
Of his writings there exist: 1) Letters, of which one to Nicephorus Gregoras and another to Philotheus, the patriarch (who was in office from the year 1362 to 1376) of Constantinople, were published in Greek and Latin by Jean Boivin before the first volume of the *Historia* of Nicephorus Gregoras, Paris 1702, fol. Labbe mentions two letters to Philotheus in the royal codex 1354, p. 99, *bibl. novæ mss.* The Coislin library preserves 30 others, p. 428 seq., ten to the Emperor Manuel, three to Cabasilas, three to Georgius the philosopher, two to Caloferus, and single letters to the despot, the protosebastus, the megas domesticus, the Oeneotes, and the emperor's scribes; furthermore, single letters to Isidore Glabas, bishop of Thessalonica, Alexius Casandrenus, Prochorus the brother, Phacrasames the megas primicerius, Astras and Asanas, and finally one without an inscription. There is also in the library of the King of France, as Labbe testifies, p. 296, *Bibl. novæ mss.*, a letter on behalf of Theodorus Caucadenus to someone who had great power with the emperor. The Imperial library [in cod. 261, n. 4] preserves thirteen other manuscripts, worthy in the judgment of Lambecius (V, p. 184 [p. 585, not. 3, ed. Kollar, with which note compare]) to be inserted as a supplement to the *Corpus Historiae Byzantinae*; of these, nine were written to the Emperor Manuel Palaeologus (who reigned from the year 1384 to 1419), the others being single-letter addresses to Chius the physician, the megas chartophylax, John Tarchaniotas, and the despot Theodorus. C Those nine to the Emperor Manuel are also found in the Barocci codex 90. [One letter to Cabasilas is also in the Caesar codex 267, 32. See Lamb. V, p. 441.] I do not know whether our Cydo or Cydones is to be understood where, among the manuscripts of Isaac Vossius, you may see that the letter of Gabrilopulus to Cydon and of Cydon to Gabrilopulus is mentioned, along with canons for catching equal and unequal shadows: in the catalogue of the Leiden library, p. 597, n. 45. (FABRIC.) In the Byzantine history of Nicephorus Gregoras are excerpts from the writings of Demetrius Cydonius, and in the *Elogia* prefixed by the editor, the letters of Demetrius Cydonius to Philotheus. See above, vol. VII, p. 655. Two letters now first published, one of Nilus Cabasilas and one of Demetrius Cydonius, in a program by Chr. Frid. Matthäi, Dresden 1789, 4. Likewise, a learned man, from the Moscow synod manuscript XII, published eight letters of Demetrius Cydonius to the Emperor Manuel Palaeologus in a book entitled: *Isocratis, Demetrii Cydonis et Michaelis Glycae aliquot epistolae*. From the codices he published them, and added observations, at Moscow, 1776, May 8. In the observations, p. 172, those letters of Demetrius Cydonius seem to him to be preferred to many of many others, both on account of the elegance and purity of the Greek language, and because there is much in them that is "with grace and of the ethical [style], blooming and simple." The same learned man makes mention of that codex and codices 323, n. 14, and 524, in which exists one letter of Demetrius in the *Notit. codd. Gr. Mosquens.* p. 310, n. 7, and p. 212. In the Coislin codex 315 there are 36 letters, partly mentioned by Fabricius, and others of the works of Demetrius Cydonius. See Montfaucon, *Bibl. Coislin.* p. 428 sq.; and p. 455, four letters of an anonymous author to Cydon in codex 341. D Paris, in the public library, codex 1215, n. 30, 36, 37, and 39, various letters. In codex 1310, n. 4 and 5, two letters to Philotheus. In codex 2671, n. 11, a letter to Theodoritus the monk, and n. 12, another to a certain unnamed person. Venice, in the Marcian library, codex 309, a letter to Josephus Bryennius: inc. Τῶν μὲν σῶν. There follows an epigram on the sepulcher of Demetrius Cydonius: inc. Κόσμος, ὃς ἦν φύσεως. See *Cat. codd. Gr. Marc.* p. 273. Turin, in the royal library, codex 1794, seventeen letters: three to Joasaph, three to the Emperor Manuel, one to Cabasilas, one to the megas chartophylax, one to the patriarch Nilus, one to a physician, one to Purophilus, and six without names added. See *Cat. codd. Gr. Taur.* p. 266 sq. Rome, in the Vatican library, Demetrius Cydonius to Nicephorus Gregoras. See Montfaucon, *Bibl. bibl. mss.* p. 146. Florence, in the Laurentian library, codex 12, n. 24, plut. 57, four letters of the same, as Bandini suspects in *Cat. codd. Gr. Laurent.* II, p. 350. Ibid. in codex 24, n. 9, plut. 59, 22 letters which Bandini reviews, l. c. p. 542 sq. Ibid. in codex 13, n. 25 and 27, two letters of Nicephorus Cabasilas to Cydon, and n. 26 of this, a letter to Cabasilas. See Bandini l. c. p. 107, and, as this man notes, the same are in the Vienna codex 262, n. 31 and 32, according to Nessel's *Cat. bibl. Caer. Vindob.* part I, p. 368 and 569. (HARL.) 2. Monodia, and a lamentation on the internal tumult and sedition in Thessalonica, A. C. 1343, under the empire of John...
Cantacuzenus, where they perished. It exists in Greek and Latin among the writers after Theophanes in the *Corpus historiae Byzantinae*, pp. 385–392 [p. 317, see cat. bibl. Leid. p. 221, n. 56], edited by Francis Combefis, Paris 1685, fol. (FABR.) Cf. above, vol. VII, p. 683, n. 8, and the note there *h*. A Monody in cod. Paris. 1213, n. 38, public library. The same in cod. Coislin. 315, fol. 770. See Montfaucon, *Bibl. Coisl.* p. 429. (HARL.) 3. Deliberative Orations regarding the danger that was imminent from the power of the Turks, and concerning ways of averting this and meeting it through harmony with the Latins and their assistance, as well as through strong constancy and cautious virtue. These orations were written, in truth, while the emperor at Rome was John Palaeologus, not the son of Manuel as Combefis thought, p. 1281, whom the editors of the *Bibliotheca Patrum Lugd.*, vol. XXVI, p. 551 D, follow, but the son of Andronicus Palaeologus and son-in-law of John Cantacuzenus, whose profession of faith, edited at Rome in the year of Christ 1569, is presented to Urban V by Allatius in book II, *De consensu utriusque Ecclesiae*, c. 17, p. 843 seq., in Greek and Latin. Demetrius indeed published that oration I mentioned in both languages, Combefis, vol. II *Auctarii novi*, pp. 1221–1281. It begins: *It is proper, O men.* It exists in Latin from Combefis's version in vol. XXV *Bibl. Patrum Lugd.*, p. 515. (FABR.) In cod. Coislin. 315, fol. 650, the oration cited by Fabricius, and fol. 679, *Deliberative Orations II*. It begins: *It is fitting, O Roman men, not regarding such things.* See Montfaucon, *l. c.* p. 428. — Florence, in cod. bibl. Laurent. cod. 34, n. 3. It begins: *It is proper, O men.* See BANDINI, *Cat. cod. Gr. Laur.* X, p. 542. Paris, in bibl. cod. 1215, n. 32 and 33, this and the following oration. (HARL.) 4. Concerning Callipolis, a fortress of the Chersonese and Thrace (which, in the year 1357, they had already received from the Turks, though not by the virtue of others), that Muradus should not be surrendered, begging for peace for it. It begins: *It was proper, O men.* In Greek and Latin in vol. II of the new *Auctarium Combefisianum*, pp. 1284–1318. And in Latin in vol. XXVI *Bibl. Patrum*, p. 323. (FABR.) MS in the Coislin, Paris, and Laurentian codices, cited at n. 5. (HARL.) 5. On the contempt of death, an oration which Raphael Seiler, an Augustinian, first published in Greek and Latin from the library of Jo. Jac. Fugger, along with the *Irrisio* of Hermias, Basel 1553, 8vo. It begins: *The separation of the soul from the body.* Jerome Wolf, who added notes in the year 1577, testifies that in a codex of the Fugger library there existed a booklet of the same argument by the author Nemesius, *Nemesii oratio, that the fear of death is irrational*, from which a large part of this oration is transcribed up to the words p. 485, *so many things have been spoken by us*. It contains, however, besides what the title promises, noble arguments for confirming the immortality of souls, and excellent exhortations to so order one's life that, if we have lived like beasts, we may not be forced to fear not only a common destruction with beasts in death, but graver punishments after death. I use the edition which saw the light at Basel in 1577, 8vo, in the collection of writings (e), titled: *The doctrine of living and dying rightly*, and which was put through the press again in the same place in 1586, 8vo. Barthius, p. 3000 *Adversaria*, calls it an elegant and philosophically Christian diatribe once edited with Aeneas of Gaza. It refers, however, to the Tigurine edition of the year 1559, fol., where, among the writings of the ancient orthodox Greek theologians, edited by the care of Conrad Gesner, it occurs after the *Apostolic Canons*, the *Epistles of Ignatius*, the *Apology of Athenagoras* and the book *On the resurrection*, and the *Theophrastus* of Aeneas of Gaza, in Greek and Latin with the version of Seiler, having the *Irrisio* of Hermias and the *Paraeneticus* of Agapetus subjoined. (FABR.) The newest, and a more emended and learned and new revision, is that cared for by Kuinoel, which is inscribed: *Demetrii Cydonii opuscul. De contemnenda morte, Greek and Lat. reviewed, emended, and explained by Christ. Theoph. Kuinoel, cultivator of Sacred Theology. Leipzig 1786, 8vo.* MS in cod. Monac. Bavar., 58, which codex was formerly kept in the library of Jo. Jac. Fugger. See Hardt in *Aretini Beyträgen*, a. 1804, part 1, p. 38. In the Augustinian library of Vienna. See Reiser, *Index Mss. illius bibl.* p. 82, n. 15. — Paris, in the public library cod. 1213, nr. 26. In cod. Coislin. 315. See Montfaucon, *Bib. Coisl.* p. 428, Add. to note. (HARL.) 6. Homily on Saint Lawrence. It begins: *The prudent among lovers.* MS, in codex Barocciano 90. [See above, vol. X, p. 267.] 7. Another homily, whose beginning is: *To those regarding the great God and Saviour of ours.* MS in the same codex Barocciano 90. [See above, vol. X, p. 281.] 8. Solution of certain arguments concerning the incarnation of Christ. MS in the same codex. It begins: *Onward to this.* 9. In Pentecost on the Holy Spirit. It begins: *Those who after the brave combatants enter.* He mentions above regarding this. (c) See Jo. Leunclavius, *Pandectas turcicas*, for that year. (d) In the Imperial codex it is inscribed: *Demetrii Cydonii oratio, that the fear of death is irrational*, Lambec. V, p. 210. (FABR.) Or p. 436, ed. Kollar. n. 16. cod. 267. Flor. in cod. Medie. Laur. 24 n. 4, inser. *That the fear of death is irrational*. See BANDINI, *Cat. codd. Graec. Laurent.* 2, p. 512. (HARL.) (e) The other writings are: 1) Part of Plato's *Theaetetus* with the Latin version of Adolf Occon. 2) The booklet of Aristotle *On Virtues*, with the version of Justus Velsius. 3) The book of George Gemistus Plethon *On the four virtues*, with the version of Adolf Occon and a commentary by an anonymous author, whom it is established is Jerome Wolf, and also a more exact division of the virtues by Simon Grynaeus. 4) From the book of Nemesius *On the nature of man*, chapters *On pleasure and pain*, with the version of Nicasius Ellebodius. 5) Plato's *Axiochus* with the version and notes of the same Jerome Wolf, who did not hesitate, after five other interpreters, to translate this booklet anew.
A Allatius mentions them in *De consensu utriusque Ecclesiae*, p. 857. Gesner records his *Sermones in Pentecosten* in his *Bibliotheca*, p. 195. (FABR.) Cf. supra, vol. X, p. 308. (HARL.) 10. *Homily on the Annunciation of the B. Virgin*, which begins: "Those of the cities who wish to [address] the emperors." [Original Greek: Ὅσοι τῶν πόλεων βούλονται τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν]. It is found in the Barocci manuscript in Oxford in the Bodleian Library and in the Imperial Library [Cæsarea], as well as in the Royal Library of France and in the Coislin manuscript 315, fol. 591, where it is noted that it is not read in church, but is rejected by her: "Not to be read in the church because it has been rejected by the holy Catholic Church" [Original Greek: ὃ μὴ ἐπ' Εκκλησίας ἀναγινωσκόμενος διὰ τὸ τῇ καθολικῇ ἁγίᾳ Ἐκκλησίᾳ ἀποδοκιμασθῆναι], also in the same manuscript on p. 701. Two proemia to the *Chrysobull* of the monastery in Didymoteicho in the Royal Library of France, manuscript cod. 1759, according to Labbe, p. 835 of the *Bibliotheca nova Mss.* and 296. 12. *On the procession of the Holy Spirit*, with the response of Barlaam, H. Canisius published it in Latin from the Bavarian manuscript, vol. VI of *Lectiones antiquae*, Ingolstadt, 1601, 4to [p. 4f. in the Basnage edition, vol. IV, p. 369. HARL.], whence it was reprinted in vol. XXVI of the *Bibliotheca Patrum*, Lyons, 1677, p. 10. It begins: "When formerly you had left our parts." Confer Bzovius to the year 1532, num. 5. 13. *Book against Gregorius Palamas*, in which he collects and refutes his errors excerpted from his commentaries. Petrus Arcudius published it in Greek with his own version and notes in the *Opuscula Aurea Graecorum*, Rome, 1630, 4to, reprinted there in 1671, 4to [or 1670, 4to]. Also, the eight books of Joannes Cyparissiota *Against Palamas*, in certain manuscripts, are wont to be attributed to Demetrius Cydonius. [Conf. Oudin, l. c. col. 1003.] 14. *On the procession of the Holy Spirit* against Maximus Planudes, distributed into twelve chapters, it appeared in Greek and Latin in the same Arcudius collection, along with certain other writings of Jo. Veccus, Cardinal Bessarion, and Maximus Planudes (h). (FABR.) 15. Another book on the same subject, divided into 41 chapters, and composed at the request of a certain friend. It begins: "On account of your much-loved [learning]" [Original Greek: Ἐπὶ πολλῶν τῆς σῆς φιλομαθίας]. Manuscript in the Imperial Library [Cæsarea]. See Lambecius, V, p. 185 (FABR.), or p. 384 of the Kollar edition, n. 1, cod. 261, add. Lambec. vol. I, p. 264 sq. Also in the Synod library, cod. 502, n. 61. It has 42 chapters, according to Matthaei in his notes on the Greek manuscript in Moscow, p. 197. Venice, in the Marciana Library, codd. 156 and 157. Cf. Cavallieri, *Codd. Graec. Marc.* p. 89, and the distinguished Morell in his *Bibliotheca Ms. Gr. et Lat.* Cf. PLUER, *Itinerar. per Hispan.* p. 165. (HARL.) 16. Another book on the same subject for St. Thomas Aquinas against the arguments of Nicolaus Cabasilas. Allatius mentions it in *De consensu*, lib. II, cap. 18, § 5, who also observes that it is praised by Gennadius in his response to the VI syllogism of Marcus of Ephesus against the Latins. It begins: "The zeal of the man against the Latins" [Original Greek: Ἡ μὲν κατὰ Λατίνων προθυμία τοῦ ἀνδρός]. It also occurs in the Barocci manuscript 90, and in the Imperial Library, along with a letter of Demetrius Cydonius to a friend requesting that he communicate that little work to him, which begins: "If you wish to know the very reason" [Original Greek: Τὴν μὲν οὖσαν αἰτίαν εἰ βούλει μαθεῖν], as Lambecius testifies in the place cited (FABRIC.) in vol. V, p. 584 sq. of the Kollar edition, n. 2 and 5, cod. 26, add. Montfaucon, *Bib. biblioth. mss.* p. 549 E. Also in Venice in the Marciana Library, cod. 157, cf. the cited catalogue, p. 89. Also in the Synod library, cod. 391, n. 19. Cf. Matthaei *Note cod. Gr. Mosq.* p. 232. Florence, in the Laurentian library, cod. 17, n. 15, plut. 59. *Demetrius Cydonius, Oration for the Latins, solving the objections of the Greeks; which he brings forth against the syllogisms of Thomas Cabasilas (Nicolaus) in his booklet "Against the Latins,"* cf. Bandini, *Cat. codd. Gr. Laur.* II, p. 532; and Montfaucon, *Bibl. biblioth. mss.* p. 234 D. (HARL.) 17. I know not, moreover, if there exist dialogues of Demetrius Cydonius, as Possevino mentions in vol. I of the *Apparatus sacri*, p. 410 (FABR.). Are they of Demetrius Chrysoloras? In Florence, in the Laurentian library, cod. 72, plut. 5, exists a dialogue (of Demetrius Chrysoloras with Demetrius Cydonius on the angels, on the procession of the Holy Spirit, etc.) destroying the Oration written by Demetrius Cydonius against Nilus Cabasilas. Confer more, provided by Bandini, l. c. 1, p. 32, and there on Demetrius Chrysoloras. (HARL.) 18. *Against Eunomius, on the divinity of the Son*, which Volaterranus praises, lib. XV *Commentary*. It is in the Escorial Library. 19. *Book of the life, doctrine and miracles of Thomas Aquinas*. 20. *Chronographical compendium and genealogy of Christ, our Savior, from Adam up to his ascension, expressed in a tree of successions*, which is mentioned in the catalogue of Andreas Barotius [al. Baroetius].
A Mss. of the Escorial library, and it perished in the fire of that library in the year 167. (FABR.) A genealogy of Christ is in a codex of the Escorial, according to Plüerus in his *Itinerarium per Hispaniam*, p. 165. In Montfaucon’s *Bibliotheca bibliothecarum manuscriptorum*, p. 618 D, it is indicated thus: Cydonius’ genealogy of Christ and Mary from Adam, distinguished by a tree and genealogical orbs. (HARL.)
At Florence, in the Laurentian Library, codex 21, nos. 6, 7, 8, plate 59, three Orations of Demetrius Cydonius exist, not mentioned by Fabricius. See Bandini, *Catalogus* cited, II, p. 542, seqq. Oration to the Emperor Cantacuzenus. Begins: *Anēnenkamen, ō basileu, tōn synechōn*. Oration to the same. Begins: *Hoti men ta paronta chrē proseipein*. Oration to Emperor John Palaeologus. Begins: *Ariste basileu, pollōn agathōn pollakis*. (HARL.)
21. A Confutation of the Alcoran of Mohammed by Richard of Florence, a Dominican monk, famous around the year of Christ 1300, which Theodorus Bibliander published in his *Syntagma scriptorum anti-Muhamedanorum*, Basel, 1543, fol. page 85, along with the Latin version by Bartholomaeus Picenus. Reprinted at Rome, 1606, 8vo; it is mentioned in the catalogue of the Barberini library, p. 322. See, if you please, what I said about this work in volume VI of this library, p. 691 (FABR.); also vol. VIII, p. 86 seqq., and see there note oo. Add my Fabricius in *Delectus argumentorum et syllabus scriptorum, qui veritatem religionis Christianae asseruerunt*, p. 123 note. Oudin, *Commentarius* 1, c. col. 1000 seqq. An edition of the Alcoran with confutations from the edition of Theodorus Bibliander, Basel, 1543. Jo. Fabricius reviews it more fully in his *Historia bibliothecaria Fabriciana*, part II, p. 225 seqq. A manuscript also exists in the Vatican Library. See Montfaucon, *Bibliotheca bibliothecarum manuscriptorum*, p. 12 D. (HARL.)
22. Demetrius is said to have translated the Alcoran into the Greek language, according to Gesner in his *Appendix Bibliothecae*, published at Zurich, 1555, fol.
23. Gesner and others mention that he translated certain chapters from the Sermons of Augustine. (FABR.) Manuscript in the Vatican Library. See Montfaucon, l. c., p. 12 C, and p. 708 D regarding the codex of the Sfortiana library, in which are 37 Orations or Prayers of Augustine, converted from Latin into the Greek language by Demetrius Cydonius. — Augustine’s *Enchiridion* translated into Greek by Demetrius Cydon. See Lambecius I, p. 272 C. Compare, however, Schoenemann, *Bibliotheca historico-litteraria Patrum Latinorum*, tom. II, p. 300. (HARL.)
24. St. Thomas Aquinas’ *Summa contra gentiles*. (FABR.) Compare Lambecius I, p. 266 seqq.; and V, p. 364, 4; codex 257 contains a Greek translation of Book IV of Thomas Aquinas’ *De veritate catholicae fidei contra gentiles*, and of 43 miscellaneous chapters from his *Summa theologiae*. — Rome: in the Vatican codex. See Montfaucon, l. c., p. 12 C and D. — The first 49 Questions of Part I of Aquinas’ *Summa* are translated in the Barocci codex 65. The author of the *Catalogus manuscriptorum Angliae*, etc., I, p. 7, says the book itself is *anemigraphos* (without a named author). Yet it is attributed to Planudes in the printed catalogue, I know not by what author. For Possevinus testifies that Demetrius Cydonius translated the book of Aquinas. — Florence, in the Laurentian codex 12, no. 11, *Expositio articulorum fidei*, edited by Thomas Aquinas, and no. 12, from Book III of the same, *Contra Graecos*, cap. 122, that marriage ought to be indissoluble, translated into Greek. See Bandini, *Catalogus codicum Graecorum Laurentianorum* I, p. 534 seqq. — Paris: in the public library, codices 1235 and 1257, the second part of Thomas Aquinas’ *Summa theologiae*, translated into Greek by Demetrius Cydonius, from which Fabricius’ *Bibliotheca mediae et infimae Latinitatis*, tom. VI, p. 258, ed. Mansi, can be supplemented. (HARL.)
25. A part of the same *Summa theologiae* is in the Vatican and imperial (Vienna) libraries. [See note above.]
26. Of the same, *De contemptu mundi*.
27. Anselm of Canterbury’s book *De processione Spiritus sancti contra Graecos*. Begins: *Ei meta tous gennaious agōnistais eiselthontes*. Allatius mentions it, p. 857, *De consensu*. [In the Vatican codex. See Montfaucon, *Bibliotheca bibliothecarum manuscriptorum*, p. 12 C. Add above no. 9.]
28. The same Anselm’s Epistle on three questions, especially on leavened and unleavened bread, to Valerianus or Walerannus, Bishop of Naumburg. Begins: *Eidoti brachea legō*. Allatius mentions it in the cited place. (FABR.)
That a portion of the Liturgy or Mass according to the Roman rite was translated into Greek by Demetrius Cydonius is shown by the learned Morell in his *Bibliotheca manuscriptorum Graecorum et Latinorum*, tom. I, pp. 50 and 52 regarding codex Mart. 58; and he adds that another Mass for the Nativity of the Lord according to the Ambrosian rite is a common translation of Demetrius, by Antonio Fumagalli, a Cistercian monk, in the collection inscribed: *Raccolta Milanese*, Milan, 1757. (HARL.)
OF THE MOST WISE DEMETRIUS CYDONIUS OF CONSTANTINOPLE ON THE BLASPHEMOUS DOGMAS OF GREGORY PALAMAS AND ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Epistle of Paul, Patriarch of Constantinople, to the Most Blessed Pope and His Cardinals A
We, Paul, by the mercy of God Patriarch of Constantinople, make it known to all the faithful in Christ. Since there is nothing more brilliant, nothing more pleasant, nothing more agreeable than to know the truth—for the truth illuminates the interior of the intellect, fills it with joy, and inspires cheerfulness, while ignorance, on the contrary, darkens, saddens, and hardens—for this reason, so that the truth of events might not escape those who come after us, I judged it necessary to commit to writing the discussion that took place between the Emperor Cantacuzenus and myself. For since as it appears [that] he was a titular Latin [patriarch], such as there are today, whom the Roman Church, for the memory of the Prince of the Apostles, the founder of those dignities, adorns with this splendid title. (Although he was not instituted as Constantinopolitan by the Apostolic See, but much later crept little by little into their number, and at length, partly by the connivance of the Roman Pontiff and partly by his permission, in that that city was the seat of the empire and was ennobled by a most august senate, he placed himself before the other patriarchs.) B He, therefore, acting as this titular patriarch when fulfilling a legation in the name of the Pontiff to the Emperor of the Greeks, wrote an epistle to Urban V in the Latin tongue. But certain of our Greek Catholics rendered it [into Greek] to show the impious sense of the dogmas, both of that emperor and of Gregory Palamas, who was the author of that kind of pseudo-theology. We have rendered it back again into Latin from the Greek, since his autograph has perhaps perished.
ADVERSUS PALAMAM
A... of the master, Pope Urban V, by certain Greeks, that the aforementioned Emperor Cantacuzenus and the Church of the Greeks taught many godheads in their dogma, some superior and some inferior, because they asserted that the things which exist in God actually differ from one another, and that each of these is a distinct divinity, separated from the divine substance. Desiring to know the truth of this doctrine while I was staying in Constantinople, when I was sent to Emperor Palaeologus by the aforementioned supreme pontiff, we sought to learn this, but we were not able to understand anything certain about this opinion and impious doctrine by word or deed. For this reason, I was compelled to attack them with harsh words and to provoke them with certain arguments. Finally, the Emperor Cantacuzenus himself spoke with me about this opinion. Although at the beginning it seemed to me that he did not think correctly, as I suspected from his words that he asserted a real distinction; yet after several days, as the conversation was prolonged, he said that he did not intend a real distinction between those things that are in God, but only by reason and concept of the mind. Then, as if rejoicing, I said that he spoke well and agreed with Ambrose. Afterward, he committed the said conversations to writing, into which he inserted some things that cause doubt whether he contends that it is a distinction of reason only, or a real one as well. These writings I shall indeed show to the supreme pontiff, so that he may either disapprove them or confirm them. Then he wrote concerning the light which appeared on Mount Tabor, asserting that it was uncreated and not the essence of God, but a certain divine operation, which is not even to be heard. For there is nothing uncreated except the divine essence, and everything uncreated is eternal. Furthermore, nothing eternal is visible; for those things which are seen are temporal. Therefore, if he said that that visible light was a symbol of the invisible and uncreated light, he would certainly be wise. But to say that the light which was seen by bodily eyes is uncreated is entirely outside the bounds of the faith and contrary to all reason. These, therefore, we wish to be made manifest in the present writing, so that the truth of the matter may be preserved for the future.
DEMETRIUS CYDONIUS AGAINST GREGORIUM PALAMAS
DThat, in summary, the matters of Palamas may be known, taking the beginning from an ancient origin, we shall briefly show that the matter of...
this heresy was not first thought up by Palamas, but for many years prior, among those called Hesychasts, it was whispered about as if in a mystery concerning this heresy. And this is manifest from what a certain Simeon published, the head of the monastery called Xerocercus, upon whom the initiates and masters of such things also inscribed the title of "New Theologian." For while he composed many profane and blasphemous things in his other works, he discourses in a peculiar manner in his book on sobriety and consideration, saying: "Attend to doing what I tell you: having closed the doors, sit in some corner apart, and withdraw your mind from every vain, or rather, transitory thing. Then, cause your chin to lean and fix upon your chest, and move the sensible eye—along with your whole mind—into the middle of your belly, that is to say, toward the navel; also A constrain your throat and the intake of air through your nostrils, so that you do not breathe easily, and search inside within your vitals to find the place of the heart where all the powers of the soul are accustomed to dwell. At first, indeed, you will find darkness and an unyielding thickness; but if you persevere and consume nights and days in this work, oh, the wonder of it! You will perceive an unceasing gladness. For as soon as the mind finds the place of the heart, it sees immediately what it never knew before. For it sees the air between the expanse of the heart, and it presents itself altogether luminous and capable of discernment."
Palamas himself, also, in his second oration of those he entitles "The First," says the following: "Since, as one of the great ones says concerning these things: 'To the exterior shapes'—it is granted to be likened after the transgression—'how would one not accomplish something great for him who hastens to gather the mind into himself, so that it may not move in a straight, but in a circular and unerring motion, so as not to carry the eye hither and thither, but to rest it firmly, as if upon some support, against one's own chest or the navel? For in addition to the fact that, by B circling like an exterior (form)—as far as is possible—it winds itself in a way similar to the mind's motion which is practiced within itself, it will also send into the heart, through such a posture of the body, the power of the mind which receives from outside through the eyes.'"
Therefore, receiving such unceasing gladnesses, and lights, and the whole stage-play regarding these things by tradition, Palamas fashioned and deified it, as if it were some formless C matter. And first, indeed, in his letter to Menas, he says these things: "If anyone does not accept the jubilance of the saving Jesus, which the Fathers everywhere also call an exultation, a breathing power, and a motion of the living heart, such a person, I suppose, has not yet felt its sweetness." And again: "But the divine Isaiah, what spirit does he confess that we have received and brought forth? Is it not the Lord Jesus, who works by fire in the souls of the faithful and accomplishes salvation? And what kind of fire lashes the demons and puts them to flight, as the divine Father John says? Is it not that of the Lord Jesus, which ignites inside in the memory of Him?"
And what other breath of the Highest is there, if not the warmth of the Spirit, which sometimes even issues forth from the nostrils in an ineffable way?
In the discourses which he inscribes "Prior" and "Posterior," he says the following: "However, as for the light which they say they see spiritually in subsistence, he knows by experience that it exists, not imaginatively, but that it always exists, and that this light is immaterial and intelligible." And again, from another of the same [discourses], the beginning of which is A *Submurmurings* [or *Whispers*], they say: "Therefore, that light is both a symbol and a true light, and it was not true simply, but existed as the true light itself." And again in the same: "For even if it has the designation of light, it is also called true light, or rather, it is the true light itself, which God puts on as a garment." Having established that this light has this manner [of being], he proves by many arguments that it is also visible, adding besides that certain temperings and mixtures of such light occur with those who behold it; and he says in one of the discourses mentioned concerning the light: "It is one thing when it comes to be with the seer, and becomes visible in another way at another time. Sometimes it rises up from the body and carries it into an ineffable height; at other times, having transformed the body and imparted its own splendor, and having made it full of peace, and love, and divine-like pleasure and impassibility, it becomes—O the wonder!—perceptible to bodily eyes." And in another, the beginning of which is B *Reasonably, then, the discourse*, he says: "The light comes to be one in contemplation with those who encounter it through pure prayer, and is not divided from them." And again in the same: "The initiated know, and they say that it does not provide [this] sequence through a union of a few parts and powers, but that it is, as it were, a mixture, an in-dwelling of the light of grace, wonderful and, so to speak, ineffable. The nuptial contract seems to some to be something greater than the others. But not even that is a growing together, nor is it a mixture, but the many become one through a certain association and, as it were, an attachment. For he says, 'The two shall be one flesh,' and flesh alone, but not also spirit. But the union of God with those who have been deemed worthy C surpasses in every way any mode of knowledge, in that it is perfect: for it is the Spirit, penetrating all pure spirits more surpassingly than can be expressed."
Being reproved for these things by that Barlaam—who also exposed him from the beginning, as he was clearly making the essence of God visible and respirable—he, supposedly avoiding the absurdity, attempted to cure the heresy with a worse evil, and he dares to divide the supersubstantial existence of God by a real distinction into essence and operation, or rather, [to divide] into many operations. And he says in one of the aforementioned discourses that this light is not the essence of God—for that is untouchable—nor is it an angel, for it bears the characters of the Master. And again: "This light was a contemplation not of the divine nature, but of the glory of His nature, which the Lord also gave to the disciples, and through them D
A gave to all who believe in Him." And after a few words: "Thus He gave the glory of the Godhead even to human nature, but not the nature itself: therefore, the nature of God is one thing, and its glory [(nature)] is another. But although it is distinct from the divine nature, it should not be reckoned among created things." And for the confirmation of his arguments, he uses the light that was present at the Transfiguration of the Lord.
And concerning this same light, he narrates similar things in his various discourses. These things, however, his followers later pursued in an issued tome, regarding the distinction between the substance of God and His operation, saying the following:
This having been recited, the most honorable Chartophylax, and supreme of philosophers, as is the ecclesiastical custom, began to interrogate everyone, as to what sentiment they held concerning these dogmatic matters which were spoken of and discussed in detail; and all with one mouth, as if moved by one spirit, clearly confessed to God, together with the distinction of the divine substance and operation, a conjunction befitting God, following the theologians; and they embraced the uncreated divine operation, just as indeed they did the substance. And again in the same tome: "We have been taught by the sacred Scriptures that God has a substance, and a power and operation distinct from the divine substance—nay, rather, powers and operations." Regarding the light of the Transfiguration, it was inquired about afterward. They said it was shown by the saints to be an uncreated light of the Transfiguration of the Lord, and that it is not His substance; and almost everyone said that it was demonstrated. And in the anathematisms which they published against those who are not led to believe their blasphemies, where they celebrate themselves with praise, they say: "To those who say that the divine operation proceeds, indeed, from the divine substance, yet proceeds inseparably—signifying through that 'proceeding' B the ineffable distinction, and through that particle 'inseparably' the admirable conjunction—let there be eternal memory."
And concerning the light, they say, to those who confess the light which shone forth ineffably on the mount of the Transfiguration of the Lord, that it is an inaccessible light, and an immense light, and an uncircumscribed outpouring of divine splendor, and an ineffable glory, and a more than perfect brightness of divinity, a glory for the children, and the kingdom of God, and a true beauty, and one drawing to itself into love, surrounding that divine and blessed nature, and the natural glory of God, and of the Godhead of the Father and the Spirit flashing in the Only-begotten, and on account of this they judge such a light to be uncreated; yet they do not assert it to be the supersubstantial substance of God, as if that were entirely invisible and imparticipable, but they say rather that this light is the glory of the supersubstantial substance, proceeding from it inseparably and manifesting itself to those purified in mind according to His kindness, with which glory our Lord and God is to come at His second and C awesome advent, to judge D the living and the dead, eternal be the memory.
And again, to those who do not confess, according to the God-inspired theologies of the saints and the pious mind of the Church, that that most divine light is neither a creature nor the substance of God, but uncreated and natural grace, A and illumination and operation, proceeding inseparably and eternally from the divine substance itself, anathema.
Speaking generally, therefore, about the uncreated substance and operation of God, which they have also called light, and glory, and grace, and illumination, and condescended deity, and many other names of this kind, they have made these declarations, while they have employed many modes of distinction in particular.
The first mode is that which they say: The one is substance and hypostasis, the other is neither substance nor hypostasis. And Palamas says in the dialogue B which he inscribes *Theophanes* and *Theotimos*: “For if the Godhead is by nature neither hypostasis nor substance, it is nevertheless no less uncreated and eternal.” And Nilus of Thessalonica says in the discourse whose beginning is, *The Canon is theological*: “Each hypostasis, he says, subsists in itself; operation does not subsist in itself.” And in the *Tomos* all together say: “To us, they say, the discussion now is not about this operation and power, but about the common Godhead of the three-hypostasized [Trinity], which is not a hypostasis, but naturally and admirably belongs to each of the divinely-ruling hypostases.”
The second mode is that they say: The substance of God is what has, but the operation is what is had. C They declare, therefore, in the same *Tomos*, saying that that which has differs in some way entirely from that which is had. If, therefore, there is no difference between the divine substance and operation, the substance of God cannot have an operation. But what does not have an operation is inoperative. And what is inoperative is non-existent.
The third mode is that the substance of God is spoken of always in the singular, but the operation both in the singular and the plural. And they say in the *Tomos*: “When the divine Dionysius brought forward the illuminations in the plural, he showed that they are not the substance of God; for that D is never brought forward in the plural number. But having called them illuminations, and having said that they lack beginning and end, he showed them to be divine and uncreated operations.” And Nilus of Thessalonica says in the aforementioned discourse: “There is one substance, but these are many, and one and multitude are different.”
The fourth mode is that the substance is indeed the divine cause, but the operations—or rather, the operation—are caused by the substance, while being productive of creation. And Palamas indeed says in the discourse whose beginning is, *Whispering therefore*: “For the volitional and operative power is something natural, but not the nature.” And in the dialogue *According to Theophanes and Theotimos*: “The divine power and operation of the three-hypostasized nature is productive of things external, and is divided into ten thousand things.” And in the *Tomos* all together…
one might properly say that this is the first kind of distinction between the divine substance and divine operation, namely, according to cause and caused. A
The Fifth Method: They say that substance, strictly speaking, is not called Deity, or if it is called Deity, it is said to be supereminent; but the operation is strictly Deity, and it is a Deity remitted infinitely many times (that is, inferior). Whence, since the uncreated operations of God are many and innumerable, there are also many and innumerable deities. And Palamas, indeed, in his letter to Acindynus, says: “There is, therefore, a remitted deity, being a gift of the supereminent deity, and not only deity, but uncreatable deity, and above this deity is God.” B And in the sermon to the Nomophylax Symeon, he says: “For if [it] were not said to be remitted, or inferior, or lesser, or something of that kind, the divine operation would not truly be, nor would the holy Dionysius and all who are equal and similar to him teach that the substance of God is supereminent. For it is impossible for anything to be supereminent if that which is below does not exist.” And in the oration whose beginning is: *To the Spirit-moved Fathers*, he says: “Since even the nature of God is called deity, but the operation [is called so] more strictly.” And in the dialogue whose description is *Barlamite and Orthodox*: “The deity of the three hypostases,” he says, “is one, or rather the nature and substance is superessential, simple, invisible, unintelligible, and entirely imparticipable. C But the other deities spoken of by the saints, whether one, or two, or more, are different. For the fact of being everywhere, from *theein* (to run) and, as it were, reaching everywhere, has the name of deity; and the fact of being nowhere, from *apotheonta* (running off), as if escaping from everywhere. Also the splendor of God, which the apostles saw on the mountain, is called deity, from *aithein*, that is, to burn and to consume all wickedness; and the knowing of all things, from *theisthai* (the fact that God sees all things before they come to be), and the providing, from *ephoran* (to oversee), and in addition to these, the divinizing.” And after some words: “Do you see clearly that not only is the deity that is absolutely invisible and unintelligible and imparticipable the deity of God, but also the deity that is ineffably seen by the saints alone, and is intelligible and participable, is the deity of God?” D from *theein*, from *aithein*, from *theasthai*, from *ephoran*. And in another place: “But I say that the whole good processions of the one God are these substantial and natural [things] of God that are remitted in respect to the divine substance, and are different both from it and from each other: wisdom, power, operation, life, goodness, holiness, and all that is and is called the divine numen.” And again in the same oration: “But if there were no other deity besides the divine nature, unbegotten, and coeternal to it as its operation.” And after some words: “But they also added to all these sorts of things the infinite divine preeminence, infinity upon infinity.” And in the so-called *More Detailed Apology*: “For we have been deemed worthy to know that while the substance is one and simple and indivisible in itself, those [others] are not only many, but exceed in number.”
A And in the speech whose beginning is, *They contend to outdo one another*, “From whence,” he says, “have you convicted us, and by what means do you demonstrate that we are ditheists, holding to two gods, because we speak of the deific power as both visible, or rather, even intelligible, just as the God-inspired theologians teach?” And in another, whose beginning is, *There being three in the summary*, “But since,” he says, “we, in accordance with the patristic instruction, celebrate the deific and purgative and illuminative power and operation—and in addition to these, many others—by the appellation of ‘deity,’ and because of these we use that title also for the substance from which they spring up as from a fountain, how is it that you insist we speak of two deities, and not more?” And in the speech which he names *Refutations and Absurdities*, “There is, therefore,” he says, “a deity other than the substance of God, existing co-eternally with it. For the agent always excels the things operated upon, and the substance excels the things without substance, and the super-essential excels those which are named.” And Isidore, who was the first to become patriarch, in a certain Canticle says: “We speak of your operation properly as deity, but often, out of affection, as nature also.” Concluding all these things in the Tome, they say: “After this it was asked whether the divine, uncreated operation is called ‘deity’ by the saints, and this also appeared to be preached by the theologians; and in addition to this, again in the Tome, ‘We sought,’ they say, ‘to be shown by the theologians whether God is superior to this in substance; and this, too, appeared to be preached by all.’”
B The sixth mode is that they say the substance is invisible and incomprehensible, but the operation is visible. And Palamas, slandering the great Basil in the *Dialogue of the Barlamite and the Orthodox*, says: “Do you see that he too acknowledges the deity of God not only as invisible, but also as visible? Since its light is visible.” And in the speech whose beginning is, *Having whispered*, “For it was seen by human eyes,” he says, “and it flashed upon the mind; therefore it is called both visible and intelligible deity.”
The seventh mode is that the substance is altogether immovable, but the operation is moved, and is a movement. And Palamas says in the speech which he entitles *Refutations and Absurdities*: “And while the substance of God remains immovable, this deity is naturally apt to be moved and shared.” And they declare collectively in the Tome that they know this substantial and natural movement of God to be such that it proceeds and flows from the divine substance as from a perennial fountain.
The eighth mode is that the substance is incomprehensible, but the operation is known and comprehensible. And he says in the aforementioned speech, whose beginning is, *Having whispered, therefore*, “The divine operation differs from the divine substance in many ways, just as in many and per
ways we have demonstrated. One of these modes is that the divine substance is entirely imperceptible, while the divine operations are known. A
The ninth and tenth mode is that the substance is entirely imparticipable and impartible, and imperceptible and unintelligible, while the operation is participable and partible and perceptible and intelligible. And Palamas says in the same speech: “That which is thus divided is the divine operation, while the substance remains entirely impartible.” And in his more detailed Apology: “According to substance, God is indeed imparticipable; but according to deifying grace and operation, which is also called the glory of God, He is participated in and seen by those who are worthy.” And again in the same: “What then, will they inherit the nature and substance of God? By no means; but rather the deifying grace and kingdom, which, even if it is not the nature of God—for that is imparticipable—it is B nevertheless the natural operation of God, naturally following God, and always considered inseparably around Him; therefore the heir of this is called an heir of God.” And in the twelfth speech against Acindynus, he has it thus: “That our adversaries, while warning us to flee from those who say that the divine Numen is imperceptible according to substance, as being transcendent, but that its substantials are perceptible and visible to bodily eyes, being other and subordinate to it, they are warning us to flee from the saints.” And in the dialogue which he entitles *Theophanes and Theotimus*: “How is it that the godhead of the same God is recorded in letters as being in one respect intelligible, and in another unintelligible, visible to the worthy by the power of the Spirit, and yet to all entirely invisible, and we call it participable and imparticipable according to the norm of piety?” C
Gathering all these things into the *Tome*, they ratified them in common, saying that these kinds of godheads differ from one another, namely in that the divine operation is participated in and divided impartibly, and is named, and is in a way—however dimly—understood from its effects. But the substance is imparticipable, and impartible, and unnamed, as of course exceeding every naming and being entirely unintelligible.
The fifteenth mode, that the substance has no difference within itself, but the operations differ both from one another and from the substance. And Palamas says in the mentioned speech, whose beginning is, *Having whispered*, “Let those who wish to practice piety and to be sober-minded confess that all such things indeed differ from one another; but that the cause of them is that in which and from which they are, since that is above these things.” D And in another speech, whose beginning is, *To those stirred by the Spirit*, “But who could enumerate all the voices of the saints, by which both the substance of God and the powers of God are testified to be uncreated, and their difference from one another is shown, and that all these are one godhead...”
as being uncreated.” A And in another oration, whose beginning is, *They contend indeed*: “Not only are the divine operations many, but they also differ from one another, and necessarily differ from the one substance.”
The eighteenth mode is that the substance is spoken of as non-being above every eminence, but the operation as non-being by eminence. And Palamas says in one of the earlier orations: “And above that which is non-being by eminence, spiritually seen through intellectual sensation, which is by no means the substance of God.”
The nineteenth mode is that the substance is without relation and inimitable, while the operation is a relation, and an imitation, and an imitative object; and they declare in the *Tome* that not even the deifying gift of the Spirit, the deification itself, is created, because it is a relation toward those things that are being deified. And again: “So that to be called an imitative object does not hinder the deification from being uncreated.”
The twentieth mode is that the substance is immortal of itself, but the operation is immortal on account of the substance, yet of itself it is a mortification. And Palamas says in the treatise *On Divine and Deifying Participation*: “But if they live in this manner and live immortally, and have died—and many of those living here are dead—as the Lord of life and death has shown—it follows that there is also a godhead of mortification, while remaining immortal according to nature.” B
Moreover, many other modes inserted in their dogmas have been passed over by us, as we have selected the more universal ones. But since other very impious dogmas are likewise found among them, which do not fall under the modes of distinction, it is necessary to set forth some of these here as well. The godheads, therefore, which they have newly constituted, they in some places even call gods. Palamas says, therefore, in one of his orations concerning the light, wishing to prove that the divine nature is twofold: C “Not only is God existing above beings—namely, the operation of which his discourse was—but he is also super-God; and he is not only above every position, but also above every abstraction, [he is] the eminence of the thing exceeding all things, and hath exceeded every eminence made in any way whatsoever.” And again in the same oration: “Nor did he hear from theology that then the divine nature will become for us in place of all things, so that hence at least he might believe that this light is God.” And in the second [oration] against the things that Barlaam wrote second, which he entitled *Catalogue of the Absurdities that Follow*: “But since, in truth, there are things that participate in God, and the super-essential substance of God, which is above every substance, is entirely unparticipable, there is given, therefore, between the unparticipable substance and the things that participate, a certain medium through which these participate in God.” D And a little later: “We must therefore seek another God, not only being self-perfect, self-operative, himself beholding himself through himself, but also good.” And again: “And simply, for our sake, to seek a God in this way participable, of whom we participate.”
A There is, therefore, something between the generated and that supersubstantiality that cannot be participated in; not one thing only, but many, and as many as the things that participate. These are not in themselves—the mediations, that is—for they are powers of that supersubstantiality, which uniquely and simply possesses beforehand, and contains, the whole multitude of participants. And in the discourse whose beginning is, “Heus tu, non est nobis”: “And this divine splendor, therefore, and grace, and operation, and gift of the most holy Spirit, the holy Scriptures name the holy Spirit, and also deity, and God, and deifying B gift.” And again: “That the holy Scriptures name this divine grace, operation, and gift, which proceeds from the supersubstantial Trinity, as deity, and God, and deifying, and self-goodness, and good-making, and creator of the universe, the Areopagite Dionysius is witness.” And Isidore, who was patriarch, in one of his Canticles: “To be, indeed, this very thing, we understand, but what you are, we do not grasp.” They dogmatically declare God to be an operation, not that the substance of the holy Spirit is present and sanctifies the creation, but a certain uncreated and non-substantial grace; and that there are other holy spirits that are uncreated, other C than the holy Spirit, who is one of the three persons of the Godhead. And Palamas says in the fifth discourse to Acindynus: “These things are therefore sufficient to persuade that the grace and operation of the Spirit, which is given and received by those whom God deems worthy of his grace, is neither created nor the substance of the Spirit, for the Spirit himself is the holy Spirit. For God gives his substance to no one, nor, since it is imperceptible, can it be perceived by anyone.” And Coccinus, who was patriarch, in a discourse whose inscription is, “None of the divine operations are created,” speaks thus: “What envious and malignant demon has boldly brought into the Church of God [the claim] D that the very substance of God, dwelling in men, purifies those who are being purified, and illuminates and brightens those who are being illuminated, and brings back those who have been swept away from the right path by some tempest of wickedness, and, dwelling in the creatures, works these things?” And again Palamas in a certain dialogue: “But if there were not another deity besides the divine nature, unbegotten and coeternal with it, as its operation, and a holy Spirit other than the divine nature of the holy Spirit, lower as its operation, how was Elizabeth filled with the holy Spirit? And with what [Spirit] was she filled? For she was not filled with the substance of the Spirit. For this is immovable, and intransitive, and untouchable, and immense, and unalterable.” And in the letter to the Bishop of Cyzicus, whose beginning is, “Scire te volo”: “As, therefore, the many spirits do not take away the unitary, simple, and uncompounded nature of the Spirit—for they are his operations—in the same way, even if one speaks of many deities, while speaking of the operations of the one Godhead, it does not take away its unitary and simple nature.” And
in the epistle to Acindynus: “It is also pleasing to Isaiah to call the operations of the Holy Spirit ‘spirits,’ that is to say, the gifts of the Spirit. But the operations of God are uncreated.” B Furthermore, they say that no composition arises from the substance of God and those things which they themselves deem to substantially coexist with it. And Palamas says in the discourse whose beginning is, *To the Spirit-moved Fathers*, “That the word ‘uncreated,’ when added, shows one, equal, and simple Godhead, which is seen in this distinction. For every uncreated thing is of the same honor and union, and a composition among uncreated things gathered into one would never exist.” And in another, whose beginning is, *Having whispered then*. “Neither was he able to perceive this, who foolishly imagines compositions in these things, since the concourse into one of uncreated and truly simple things produces no composition.” And Coccinus, who was patriarch, in one of his fourteen chapters says, “We, having learned from the saints that natural properties never make a man composite, nor do technical expressions and sciences—for no one would ever call a man composite because he has a nature and a natural operation, or because he has a nature and the art of grammar, or carpentry, or agriculture, for instance. But if this is the case with humans, what must one say of God, who possesses all things supernaturally? But composition occurs and is so called when two things, each having its own subsistence and being able to be contemplated by itself without the other, when such things are put together and united to each other into one subsistence, just as in man the soul and body, or in building a house, stones, wood, and iron. For these, each being a subsistence by itself, when they are combined and united to each other into one subsistence, then it is called composition, or the union of two or more subsistent things.” And in the Tome, all C jointly decreed: “After this we asked of the saints whether one could conceive any composition in God because of the difference between the divine substance and operation. It was therefore shown to have been declared by all the saints that it is not permitted to think any composition exists in God on account of this.” And in the anathematisms they pronounce: “To those who think and say that any composition at all occurs in God on account of these things, and do not acquiesce to the teaching of the saints, who teach that no composition occurs from natural things in nature, as this difference in no way harms the divine simplicity, anathema.” D Furthermore, they dogmatize that in a certain way the three persons of the Godhead are not distinguished from one another insofar as they are persons, but even with regard to the powers and operations
A they have the persons alternately. And Palamas says in his discourse to Paul Asan: "When the Divine Numen is divided according to the hypostases, it has indivisibility according to the operations; but when it is divided according to powers and operations, it remains indivisible according to the hypostases." And in another discourse, which begins: *Merito igitur oratio* [Rightly, therefore, the discourse...]: "For since the Divine Numen is distinguished according to hypostases and operations, the diversity is seen according to another distinction, since they have themselves alternately toward one another. For the proper names of the divine hypostases are common to the operations, while those which are common to the hypostases become proper to the divine operations."
Furthermore, they dogmatize that the power and operation being per se existent and per se subsistent is not sufficient for the one Godhead of the three persons, but that it also requires another non-subsistent one. And Palamas asserts in one of his dialogues: "The Father truly has the Son, wisdom, and power, and life, and operation as substantial and natural; but the Son will be without power, without life, and without operation; or even the whole substance of the holy Trinity [will be so]." And in the synodal tome they declare these things: "From these, therefore, the holy synod B says: it is clearly demonstrated that he who says only the Son and the Holy Spirit are the uncreated operations of God, as though not considering the common natural operation of the three hypostases, dares to introduce into the Church of God the heresy of Marcellus, Photinus, and Sophronius, which long ago died and was abolished." And a little later: "But for us at present the matter is not about this, but about the common [Godhead] which is the Godhead of one among the three persons, which is not a hypostasis, but nature, and supernaturally is present to each of the divinely reigning hypostases."
Furthermore, they dogmatize that those who are purified among them, and the effects of such operations, become uncreated and uncreated. And Palamas says in his letter to Acindynus: "Do you see clearly that grace is uncreated? And not only is such grace uncreated, but the effect of such an operation of God C is also uncreated. For this reason, therefore, great Paul, when he no longer lived this temporal life, but the life which was of the indwelling Word, divine and eternal, became without beginning and without end by grace." And a little later: "Paul therefore was created so long as he lived the life made by the command of God from non-being; but when he no longer lived this, but that which came to pass by the indwelling of God, he became uncreated by grace, and everyone who has acquired the Word of God as effective and living." And again in the same letter: "How, therefore, would anyone concede, even if he had no account of the divine persons, that there is one uncreated, unless he added it to the nature, when some are uncreated and gods by grace, and have a divinity necessarily corresponding to themselves?" And again: "But for [they are uncreated] D
they are all such by grace, just as indeed they are gods; but this grace itself is uncreated, as was proven a little above." And again: "The operations of God are uncreated, even if the greater part of these effects are creatures." And in the discourse whose beginning is: *They strive indeed:* "How then is the grace not uncreated, through which those who have become its participants have been called by the Fathers unoriginate, and uncreated, and endless, and eternal, and heavenly according to it?"
Furthermore, they dogmatize that there are many hypostases of God. And Palamas says: "But since God has many and diverse hypostases and powers and operations, unless there is one thing that is the cause in them, there will be many and diverse principles of the divinity."
Furthermore, they dogmatize that these many operations are also substances. And Palamas says in the discourse to the bishop of Ainos, whose beginning is, *Verily, modesty having been lost:* "And yet, according to the truly great and spirit-moved mind of the holy Fathers, one might piously call each of the operations of God a substance." B
Furthermore, they judge the substance of God to be corruptive and consuming, if it is to be participable. And Palamás says in the fifth discourse against Akindynos, whose beginning is, *But who:* "This divine nature, therefore, which is participated in and received by itself, will either undergo commixture, or, exhausting the passive nature, will consume it before it is received." And again: "If at all God is in those who are worthy—whatever that finally is according to substance—it is necessary that they either be gods by nature, not by grace, those who are participants of God, or be burned up and perish." And they clearly confirmed this in the Tome, and having stated that the substance of God, because it has been called by the holy ones inaccessible and imparticipable, should be considered by us as corruptive—to those who think so about it, O impious audacity!—they declared [it to be such], even though God said this to Moses: "No one shall see my face and live." C
Furthermore, they have dared in everything most impudently to say that there is a proportion, as the mysteries in the Law are to the traditions of the evangelical preachings, so also these are to the new Palamite dogmas. For the one published by the one who functioned as Patriarch, Kokkinos, as if from the monks of the Holy Mountain, in which Palamas is commended and approved, says word for word the following: "The matters recently spoken of, and commonly known to all, and dogmas proclaimed openly, existed through Moses as mysteries of the Law, foreseen by the prophets only in the Spirit; but the good things promised to the saints for D the age to come are the mysteries of the evangelical state, for those who have been deemed worthy to see them through the Holy Spirit; and to these they are given and foreseen in a moderate way by way of a pledge. But just as if someone of the Jews, not listening cautiously to the prophets saying that the Word and the Spirit of God are coeternal and...
before the ages, would restrain his ears, thinking he is hearing voices forbidden to piety, and contrary to the confession acknowledged by the pious, namely that which says, "The Lord our God, the Lord is one." So, even now, perhaps someone might suffer similarly if he does not listen with reverence to the mysteries of the Spirit, which are known only to those who have been purified by virtue. A And again, just as the outcome of those predictions declared that what were then mysteries agreed with those things which were later revealed, and we now believe in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Godhead of three persons, one in nature; so also in the future age, when it is revealed in its own times according to the ineffable manifestation of God, who is one in three perfect hypostases, the mysteries will be manifest to everyone as being in agreement with those things which are now revealed. One must, however, also consider that even if the three-fold hypostasis of the Godhead, which in no way harms the principle of the monarchy, was only later revealed to the ends of the earth, yet to those prophets, even before the outcome of events, it was exactly known, and though the same was not commonly accepted by those who were persuaded at that time, it was nonetheless not unacceptable to them. B In the same way, therefore, even now we are not ignorant of the reasons for the confession of those things which are openly preached, nor of those which are now mystically foreshadowed in the Spirit to those who are worthy. C These things, selected from many and innumerable profane dogmas of Palamas, have been set forth here by us, deeming their multitude a burden, and for that reason we have avoided it. But I think they are sufficient to represent their faith, which is entirely outside the boundaries of the faith which is preached in the holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
BY THE SAME
ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
TO THOSE WHO SAY THAT THE SON OF GOD IS NOT FROM THE SUBSTANCE OF THE FATHER.
CHAPTER ONE.
That many absurdities follow from the fact that they deny the Son of God is from the substance of the Father.
D That in the holy Trinity it was a mark of the ancient heretics to sever the Son from the substance of the Father, and that he is from the substance of the Father and is begottenA completely to deny, is manifest, since the Church has openly and deservedly struck Arius and those who have dared such things with anathema. But since some at present also rashly dare to introduce these things, who confess the Son to be from the Father, or from the hypostasis, or from the paternal property, but do not admit that he is begotten from the substance of the Father, it would be necessary to deem them worthy of no reply whatever, who speak thus concerning God not so much foolishly and ignorantly as impiously, and who openly overturn the principles of the faith. Yet, since it is necessary to try to destroy and refute, as far as one's ability permits, every lofty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and since, according to the prince of the apostles, Peter, one ought to be ready to give a reason to everyone who asks B concerning the faith that is in us, it must be demonstrated that those who say these things are forced, against their will, to destroy many things which reflect the most established Catholic faith, and are weighed down by many absurdities, and in no way differ from those ancient heretics.
First, therefore, one must ask them what they imagine the hypostasis to be, or the paternal property, namely, the fatherhood, so that we may discourse upon some common ground; and since they oppose substance to hypostasis and say that the one is not as the other, it is manifest to everyone that they will surely concede that the hypostasis is not substance. For that which is opposed to substance is not substance, and substance is opposed to that which is not substance. But that which is not substance is not substance; and that which is not substance is non-substantial; and that which is non-substantial C is non-subsistent; so that they posit the hypostasis of the Father as non-subsistent. They show that they think this same thing from those matters which they themselves discuss concerning substance and operation. For, since they divide God into substance and operation, and posit the one as being substance and the other as being operation, and distinguish the latter from the substance, and define it as non-substantial and non-subsistent, it is evident that in this case also, by saying the hypostasis is something other than the substance, they will place it in the same rank as the operation. For they will have no other third thing D which, in God, is neither substance nor operation. For everything, they say, in God—as they themselves have divided it—is either substance or operation; for they do not admit accidents, but deem the operation to be non-subsistent, so that they are forced, according to their own positions, to confess that the hypostasis, which they contend is something other than substance, is also non-substantial and non-subsistent. But if they wish to posit the hypostasis as a third thing, first of all this is contrary to their own positions, according to which they simply divide God into substance and operation; furthermore, what ought to be thought concerning the hypostasis will be said shortly, but for the present, it is enough that they say it is not substance. And that, by dividing God into substance and operation, they believe the operation to be non-substantial and non-subsistent is clear from those things encompassed in the volume concerning substance and operation, which they have written for the confession of their own faith. For thus it is written there at the end. For us
A however, the discussion now is not about this operation and power, namely of the Son and of the Spirit, but about that which is common to the three divine persons, which is not a hypostasis. B Furthermore, in the beginning of that same volume they say that the light of the Lord's transfiguration is uncreated, and that it is not the substance of God. Privately, Palamas also says in his dialogue *Theophanes* and *Theotimus*: “For although this deity (the light of transfiguration) is neither a hypostasis nor a substance, it is nevertheless uncreated and coeternal with the substance of God.” But Nilus Cabasilas of Thessalonica, in the oration whose beginning is, *Canon is theological*, says: C “Substance indeed subsists by itself, but operation does not subsist by itself.”
Since, therefore, it has been shown from the things they say that both hypostasis and operation do not subsist, especially by the men whom they themselves, on account of their piety (as they also say in the volume), ascribe to the choir of the ancient saints and teachers, and whom they honor now just as they honor those: since they say that hypostasis is another thing besides substance: according to them, the hypostasis will be non-substantial, and the substance will be non-subsistential. And since theologians speak indiscriminately about the divine generation of the Son, and sometimes they discuss theologically that he is generated from the substance of the Father, and at other times from the hypostasis, if indeed substance is one thing and hypostasis is another, according to the manner which the adversaries themselves understand, one of two things must be the case: either they will have to admit that two sons are generated from the Father—one from the substance, and the other from the hypostasis—or [admit] that the generation of the Son is not one and simple. D Furthermore, since properties are said to constitute hypostases, such as paternity the hypostasis of the Father, and the hypostasis of the Father is the person of the Father, since in the view of the theologians hypostasis and person are the same, they will concede that what is subsistent comes from what is not subsistent, namely the very person of the Father. For the faith confesses that the person of the Father subsists. Because the properties of the persons, of whom they are the properties, are hypostatic, constituting the persons, it is necessary that the Father not be without cause, but be from something, and that from what is not subsistent, as has been said, something subsistent should exist, and from what is not a hypostasis, a hypostasis should exist; and this either according to generation, or according to procession, or if they wish to express it otherwise. And thus two species of the Trinity will appear: one indeed [derived] from paternity and whatever proceeds from paternity—the very sonship and the spirit-hood, if it is necessary to name it so—and the other [being] Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or the three persons. Furthermore, they will acknowledge that it is not person from person, but relation from relation: for since a person is a substance with a certain property (for a person has been defined by Damascene as that which is common with the particular), but substance, while being one and...
A the same in number, is neither unbegotten, nor begotten, nor proceeding; for otherwise there would be three distinct substances, separate from one another, and opposed to each other. It remains that nothing else proceeds from another, except property from property, or, if you will, sonship from paternity.
Furthermore, since it is accepted by common consent that the Son and the Holy Spirit are from the Father, but the Father, according to their positions, is from the paternal property—which is neither substance nor hypostasis—and this according to their positions, and all things, according to the theologians, have come to be from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit, they will be forced to posit that which does not subsist as the cause of the divine Persons and of all creation.
Furthermore, they will be forced to confess composition in God, even if not of substance and hypostasis, yet of substance and hypostasis, and of paternity and sonship, which are relative. B And these relative things, insofar as they are a certain reality, will create a composition with that to which they have been added. Furthermore, it will be necessary to assert that this is an accident; for every thing whose being consists in being in something else, is an accident. Furthermore, it will be necessary for some thing *beside* the substance of God to be eternal. All of which are certainly heretical and absurd, yet they follow necessarily from the opinion of those who posit paternity and hypostasis as being something other than the substance.
CAPUT II.
C *In what sense the theologians say that substance is one thing and hypostasis another.*It is necessary, therefore, while preserving the principles of the faith (which teaches that the same God is both one and three), to posit substance as being hypostasis and property, according to the doctrine of the theologians. Although, according to another understanding, it has also been said by the doctors that substance is one thing and hypostasis is another—and in what way it is possible for both to be true—will be stated in what follows. If, therefore, there was anything deeper to be considered here, it must be passed over for the present, since our speech is addressed to men who are unable to grasp what pertains to reasoning, just as those who are ill-nourished loathe all food; so too these men turn away from every argument. D But I shall approach the discourse from the teachers, using as much clarity as possible. And first, according to what understanding the theologians say that substance is one thing and hypostasis is another; second, in what way substance, and hypostasis, and property are the same in God.
We must mention to those who propose this what the great Basil says in the letter where he treats of the difference between substance and hypostasis: "Whatever relation the common has to the particular, that is the relation of substance to hypostasis." Damascene, defining hypostasis, said: "Hypostasis is the common with the particular." But what this "common" means to them, the divine Basil again clearly handed down in his letter to his brother Gregory, saying: "Community is referred to substance; but hypostasis is the distinctive sign of each." It is evident, then, from these things, that the common corresponds to the simple, while the particular [...]
A corresponds to the "how." For Peter is both man and son of Jonah; and he who calls the same person Peter a man does not signify something different from him who calls the same person a son of Jonah. But he indicates a difference only according to the "simply" and the "how." Clearly, in the former case, by calling Peter a man, he signifies the subject by a detached and common name; but here, by a proper, relative, and defined name, he shows the same person to be both man and son, from the man Jonah who is his father. Therefore, by both names, the same thing is shown in different ways, namely, relatively and absolutely; for it differs only in the "simply" and the "how." For the one signifies the substance detached, while the other signifies the same substance having some relation to something. Since, therefore, the common of substance in God is the three hypostases, and it is the common itself—which is also the proper substance for each, for the "what it was to be" of the three is one, and whatever each is, this is also, paradoxically, common—and as Gregory the Theologian says, the three are one, and the one is three, in which is the Deity, or to speak more accurately, which the Deity is; and each of the hypostases is either Father, or Son, or Holy Spirit, B insofar as they are said relatively to one another, while hypostasis is spoken of as the common together with the distinctive: it is evident that each of the persons is both substance and hypostasis. For just as the very substance of the three is the hypostases, so each of the hypostases is both substance and hypostasis. Therefore, it is the same thing to speak of substance and hypostasis according to the thing itself, and another thing to speak of substance and another of hypostasis according to the account, as there is a difference in the significance of the names, not of the things, and both are true. For they are not both [true] according to the same respect: insofar as substance signifies the common and the "what it was to be," while hypostasis signifies the same thing as having a relation to something, either by way of begetting, or being begotten, or by way of producing, or proceeding. The great Athanasius testifies to these things first, and after him the most divine Maximus, saying the same in the dialogue against the Anomoean. For when the Anomoean (which means "the Dissimilar") C had said, "Substance is one thing and hypostasis another," the divine Maximus replies: "Another and another, not as a thing." And upon his saying, "Therefore there is composition," the saint infers: "I said 'another and another,' not as things, but as substance signifies one thing and hypostasis another—just as a grain of wheat is called and is both seed and fruit, and seed signifies one thing, and fruit another." The saint, therefore, while conceding there that the hypostasis of the Father is substance and deity, does not for that reason grant that there are two deities, as there are two hypostases, because "deity" and "hypostasis" do not signify the same thing in the same way. For "deity," he says, signifies the "what it was to be," but "hypostasis" signifies the "being." If, therefore, that "being" and "what it was to be" is the same, [it is] only that hypostasis signifies the "being" of the same thing, while deity D signifies the "what it was to be"—deity being taken as the common, and hypos-
hypostasis as the proper. A Since the definition of our hypostases, which signifies the "what it was to be," is the same, but the definition of "existence" is different—for the definition of what we call the "what it was to be" is the definition of our substance, or species; but the definition of "existence" is a certain description, which is taken from those things which are by accident material properties—therefore, the former is one in all, for the species is one. But the latter is assigned differently to different things according to the individualization of matter, which happens differently and in different ways to different things. But since in God there is no matter, nor the accidents which necessarily follow it, it remains that in Him the "what it was to be" and the "existence" are the same. B It is manifest, therefore, from what has been said, that substance is the same thing as hypostasis, and that they differ only in this: that substance signifies something absolute in God, while hypostasis signifies the relative, according to which manner the saints said that substance and hypostasis are not the same, as if they were saying that in the supersubstantial Deity, the absolute and the relative are not the same. For indeed the divine persons are distinguished by relatives, but are joined by absolutes. For unity follows substance, but distinction follows hypostases; yet unity and distinction are not the same.
CHAPTER III. That substance, and hypostasis, and property are the same in reality in God.
Furthermore, it must be said here also concerning the hypostatic properties, employing opinions both possible and necessary, taken from the monuments of the doctors. Therefore, Gregory the Theologian says in his C funeral oration on the blessed Athanasius: "For when one substance and three hypostases are piously spoken of by us—for one signifies the nature, but the other [signifies] the properties of the three, and the rest." In these he wishes nature and substance to be the same, and affirms that the hypostases are properties.
Furthermore, the same [Gregory], in his Oration on the Holy Lights: "But when I say God, be illuminated by one and three lights: three indeed according to the properties, or hypostases." D There, therefore, having first said hypostases, he interpreted them to be properties; but here he explains the properties to be hypostases. Which surely he would not have said, unless it were the same thing and indifferent, if anyone should wish to call properties or hypostases the same thing. But also the great Athanasius, in the Oration that the word "consubstantial" was rightly spoken by the Fathers gathered at Nicaea, says this: "Wherefore you will not say that the creation is a handiwork of Him who is God, if 'Father' and 'God' do not signify the very substance of Him who is, but some other thing, which you fabricate. But if this is unseemly, it is also highly impious even to think of it." And a little later: "For although we are unable to comprehend what it is that He is, yet when we hear the words 'Father' and 'Son' and 'Creator' and 'Almighty,' we do not mean some other thing, but the very blessed and
A simple and incomprehensible substance of Him who is, which we understand as signified. And you yourselves, Arians, have said that the Son is from God, that is to say, you have said He is from the substance of the Father.
Furthermore, Damascene says in his theological chapters: B "Deity signifies the nature, whereas Father signifies the hypostasis. For the terms God and man are used to signify the substance, as when we say: God is an incomprehensible substance; but it is also said of the hypostases. If, therefore, the word God signifies the substance, and yet the hypostasis is also called God, then the hypostasis is a substance. For the substance, or nature, is understood and expressed according to the mode of the word’s signification—a mode which the intellect follows—as a species; whereas the hypostasis, or person, signifies what is common and united in a distinct manner; and thus it is either the common with the particular, or the common and that which relates in some way to something, as has been said."
But indeed, according to St. Athanasius, just as the name God signifies the substance, so according to Damascene, Father signifies the hypostasis; therefore, the term Father indicates substance and hypostasis, and through both, the thing that is signified is one—the common itself together with the particular—whether one says Father or the hypostasis of the Father. And since the name Father signifies a hypostasis, and a hypostasis is the same as a property, according to divine Gregory, and the property in the Father is fatherhood—for this is confessed by all—it is clear that fatherhood and Father are the same. But according yet again to the great Athanasius, the word Father signifies substance; therefore, fatherhood also signifies substance, so that properties are the same as hypostases, and hypostases are the Deity and the substance. "For," he says, "the three are one, and the three are the Deity, as has been said," and the discourse again returned to the same point. For they differ only in this, in that they are spoken of simply and [in terms of] mode. "For we have not been taught that the Monad is one thing and the Triad another, but that the same is truly called both Monad and Triad—the former by reason of substance, the latter by the mode of existence, according to St. Maximus, who indeed also said a little before to the Dissimilar [i.e., the Anomoean] that substance and hypostasis are not the C same. And in what way? According to the principle of the signification of words, which is the principle that follows the subsistences of the persons. For he added: 'But [they are not the same] as if the substance signified one thing and the hypostasis another, just as a grain of wheat is spoken of, and it is both seed and fruit.'"
Furthermore, let no one stir up a tumult, surmising or slandering us by claiming that we say the divine persons are distinguished by reason alone. For the doctors, when they say that fatherhood and hypostasis or Father are the same, and that the hypostases are the substance or the Deity, and the same Monad and Triad, do not believe that they are distinguished by reason alone, or according to opposites, which are in relatives, and [that they are] opposed substances and distinct from one another D by themselves as three different things; but rather they are one
A substance B, saying that the three persons subsist by themselves, and believing that each of the persons subsists by itself, as the divine Dionysius says in the book *On Unified and Distinct Theology*: that the supersubstantial name is the thing of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And whenever I say God, I understand the substance by an absolute and common name; but when I say Father or Son or Holy Spirit, I am compelled to understand the substance itself, the common thing itself, and that which is in some way related, by a relative name fitted to distinguish the persons. And indeed through each of the three relatives (which is also C marvelous) the same and one substance is indicated. Since no one of the persons is a part of the one and whole Godhead. For without the relatives it is impossible for there to be order or distinction in divine things. And this is ineffably above all reason, so that it is only to be believed that it was given at present through revelation from God. Therefore, if one does not have an exact demonstration of these things, whether from immediate and first principles of the conclusion, just as if it were subject to natural principles, let him not condemn the things said as having no strength, but rather let him confirm his own error, as if in God there were one thing as substance, another as hypostasis, and another as property, which differ from one another in reality, or even more than these, which fools might say: that in Him there are natural and essential [things], the wisdom, the goodness, the life, and all things that are said absolutely of Him, being other than His substance, differing both in reality and in reason from the substance and from one another. But holding fast to what has been securely handed down concerning the Monad and the Triad, and consoling oneself by possible and convenient arguments concerning things that are believed without demonstration, let one venerate the declarations of the saints. D Since if one says the Monad is one thing, and the Triad is another, what is worshipped will be a quaternity. Indeed, if the hypostasis is one thing in the supersubstantial Godhead, and the property is another, just as there are three hypostases, there will also be three properties, and in this way there will be a senary and not a Trinity. But if, again, what is besides these is a common substance, and what they wish to call a common operation is another, it will happen to be manifestly an octonary. And if to these were added the natural [faculties], as they say, which are infinite and beyond number, differing from one another and from the substance, what is worshipped will be a myriad. But let such a religion of the Greeks be far from the faith of the Christians.
CAPUT IV
That although paternity and filiation are substance, it does not therefore follow by necessity that the Son is the Father, or the Father the Son.
If, however, anyone doubts by what reason we say the properties or the relations are substance, when the substance is one, but the properties are three, or even [that there are] hypostases said to be opposite to one another, and he thinks that he brings in some absurdities, as that one would need to say that the hypostasis of the Father is the hypostasis of the Son, or
A that the Father is the Son, because there is one substance for them—first, this is nothing to us; for this thesis is common to the faith. Then, too, it has been shown by the teachers to be so. It shall be spoken of now in some manner, since the argument is necessary. That we have posited substance as the relation for the sake of avoiding the previously mentioned absurdities, and of preserving the pronouncements of Scripture and the teachers, and altogether the principles of the faith, without any absurdity following for us, has been said—it is reasonable, and it is manifest. For just as there is something which B is the same [thing] as an accident and as a relation, in those [realms] where it is possible for there to be accidents; so it is necessary for the same [thing] to be substance and a relation in those [realms] where it is not possible for there to be an accident. Wherefore, in created things the relation is different from the substance both in concept and in reality, since they are accidents; but in God it is the same in reality, but different in concept. For as it has been said, the substance is the same as the hypostases that subsist through relations, but it differs simply and in a certain manner: for thus the matter stands. The substance of God is not that substance which is placed among the categories, or a genus, or one of those things [that are] under the genus, so that it cannot be something else. Nor, again, is the relation that is in God a genus of relation, or one of those things [that are] under them, so that it cannot be a substance. For whatever, in the end, that divine thing itself is, and whatever one ought to call it, it is not a genus, C but it is the origin of genera, containing all genera in itself and transcending them in one and the same [thing], and in it even opposites are present uniformly and conjointly, and [there is] a perfect paternity and filiation according to the divine Dionysius, from whom every family in heaven and on earth [is named], and it contains the whole of being within itself, according to the Theologian Gregory. Just as, therefore, there are attributed to the essence of God in reality those things which follow His goodness, wisdom, and life; for otherwise He would be composite. For a composite [thing] consists at least of two [parts], of which one is not the same as the other in reality and in concept, or [one] which is capable of something else beyond itself for existence; for the concurrence of these produces one, or [what is] D completed by many things converging into the same; and according to the divine Dionysius, if anyone were to say that the name of goodness and the others are not said of the whole Godhead, he dares to divide and sever impiously the super-unified Monad; which truly happens to those who posit the life and the goodness of God as other things than His substance. Just as, therefore, in order that the super-unified Monad might not, besides being divided, also be composite, and [be subject to] all the things that follow composites, those things which follow upon goodness are attributed in reality to the substance of God, in so far as the substance is goodness, and the goodness is His substance, as also the divine Basil has said in those [writings] to Amphilochius, "[He is] Good who was begotten from the Good, having goodness as His substance." For it is not possible that the inherent thing should be one thing, and that in which it inheres should be another, due to the extreme simplicity and union, unless one should take it more carnally, as we speak also of hands and feet in God, or as a difference in concept, and not as a difference in the reality contemplated.
A Thus also, the things that follow "relative to something" are attributed really to the essence, insofar as it is also "relative to something," and for this reason, also the being really distinguished and opposed is attributed to it, not, however, insofar as it is essence, but insofar as it is "relative to something." For those things which are "relative to something," even if they are contained among the accidents, are not declared according to inherence; for the definition of an accident is inherence, as is quantity and quality; but it is declared as to something external. Just as knowledge, insofar as it is a relation toward the thing known, and is considered not as a habit, but as a relation, it is clearly not of the knower as an inhering habit, but of the things known; for it is referred to the thing known. Whence also the relations do not exist in this way according to the mode of essence, but in another mode of category, apart from properties that are said substantially in God. For essence is not said to be "relative to something," nor is anything else the same as essence of those things which are said commonly and absolutely. But paternity and filiation are spoken of according to the nature of relatives toward one another. B Just as, therefore, wisdom, when it is considered in the Father, by its relation and reference to the essence, is common to the Son—for the Father and the Son are one wisdom in number—yet when the Father is understood as begetting wisdom, it is not the same as the begotten wisdom, which is the Son, clearly according to the begetting and the being begotten, because of the relation toward one another; so indeed also paternity and filiation, by the relation to the essence, are essence and the same thing, but by the opposition toward one another they are opposed, and neither is the other. C For since there is perfect paternity and filiation in God, when they are considered absolutely in the essence, by the relation to the essence they are the same, just as the other things which are attributed absolutely to the essence of God; but by the opposition toward one another, they are opposed according to those things which are said "relative to something." So that, in one respect, inasmuch as paternity is considered in the essence, since at that time it is taken simply as essence, paternity is in the Son, and filiation in the Father, according to the common and absolute properties, I say, just as also one wisdom and essence and power is the same for both. But in another respect, inasmuch as it is not considered according to the mode of essence, and of the things said to be in it substantially, in no way is paternity filiation, insofar as they are said to be opposed toward one another according to the logic of "relative to something"; in which mode also the begotten wisdom is not the begetting (wisdom), even though it is one for both, or rather, both are one. Therefore, it is not because there is one essence for the three that the relation of the person is also common to the three, because of the opposition of the relations toward one another. D For the same relation, as has been said, according to the logic of its proper genus insofar as it is a relation, does not have its being in another, but rather its being toward another. For as we were saying, drawing from the words of the holy Maximus, even if the Godhead and the hypostasis are the same thing, it is not the case that if the Godhead is the same, the hypostasis is also the same. For the hypostasis of the Father is the very Godhead, and the essence of the Son, as has been shown, as it is considered in the Father, and not as it is considered toward something else. Since the hypostasis of the Son is also the Godhead of the Father according to the same logic, not, however, is the (hypostasis) of the Father
A a hypostasis through the opposition toward each other. For this is blasphemous, and we reject it even to the Sabellians.
Therefore, since fatherhood is contemplated in the substance, it is the same as the substance of the Father and the Son. But since it is attributed to the Father according to the mode of relationship, it is not in the Son. For it is the same as substance in the Son and in the Father, but it is the same in the Son as receiving from another, and as being, clearly, from another—namely, the Father—but in the Father, as giving to another, that is, to the Son, and from whom another person (is), clearly; and there in the Son it is (as) begotten, but here in the Father it is generative. So that it is the same and one thing, "begotten" in this way, but "generative" when contemplated otherwise according to the mutual opposition of the relationships, or hypostases, or persons, as has been said many times.
The nature of these relationships is to be spoken of as opposed to each other, and for neither to be the other; therefore, neither is fatherhood sonhood, nor is sonhood fatherhood. And it is not possible to say that the Father has something which the Son does not have, or that the Son has something which the Father does not have. For the same thing, according to one perspective, belongs to the Son, but according to another, to the Father. Whence, neither is "to beget" to be attributed to the Son; since this is contrary to the account of the relationship which he has toward the begetter, according to which the Son is called begotten Wisdom, Power, Life from Life, or whatever such thing it may be. For all things are common where the opposition of relationship is not contrary; just as fatherhood does not share in sonhood because of the relationship, although as regards the substance, fatherhood and sonhood are B the same, if one looks at the substance and not at the mutual relationship, as has been said.
Since, therefore, fatherhood and sonhood were said to be substance if one looks at it, then they are also the same toward each other; since there is one substance without the contradiction contemplated in the mutual opposition. And since the Father and the Son are the same without the contradiction contemplated in the mutual opposition, then the Father and fatherhood are the same, and sonhood and the Son are the same; and, conversely, it will follow thus: just as the Father and the Son are one and the same in number, excluding the mutual opposition, so also the fatherhood of the Father, and the sonhood of the Son, are the same in number, excluding the mutual opposition—which is the cause and the caused. The same must also be said concerning the relationship of the Holy Spirit.
If, however, the matters of which we speak transcend the mind and are as it were imperceptible, yet we do not presume to prove these things but only to provide some solace to the reason, and this because of the insolence of those who contradict. In these arguments, the things of faith agree, and nothing impossible proceeds, C just as with those who claim that fatherhood and sonhood subsist in the substance of God, being other than it. For it is easier to come to faith that the same thing is both substance and a relative, in matters where it is not possible for it to be an accident, just as it is something the same that is an accident and a relative in matters where accidents are possible, than to say that in the same thing in number there exist opposed realities separated from it—that is, from that in which it exists, namely, in the substance of God—setting (them) as others according to the reality of... D
the substance, and (as) things differing from each other in reality. To these things, then, both the things from the faith and the things spoken by the saints agree. Whichever path one may be able to follow, one will arrive at one end of the truth, and there will be no difference regarding this.
CAPUT V
Propositions of those who say: “Just as existing as hypostasis and existing as substance, and as Fatherhood in God, does not cause composition, so too some other things which are said to subsist within the substance of God, and which really differ from the substance and from one another, do not cause composition,” are unreasonable.From what has been said, that which the Palamites have termed “skeleton,” perhaps on account of the difficulty as they thought—and which they rashly brought forward in contention—is resolved: namely, [implied in B] that in God nothing prevents there being diverse things inherent in Him, which differ among themselves and are infinitely inferior to the substance itself, and which they call “deities” that exceed number; and that it is so, and that nevertheless God is simple. Because they imagined that substance, and hypostasis, and property, or relation, really differ among themselves; yet not on account of this is God composite. For this, as far as it was possible, has been shown both by reasons and by the utterances of the saints, that they do not differ among themselves according to reality. Therefore, God is neither composite, nor do the aforementioned absurdities arise. For compositions take place in those things which differ in reality and have, as it were, a path and a juxtaposing toward one another, so that they are contemplated as existing in one something. But in those things in which no such difference can be found, neither is it permissible to imagine a path and a composition toward one another; and yet it is true to say that God would not be a Trinity of persons, nor Fatherhood, nor Sonship, nor procession in the divine, if from these it necessarily followed that God, the first cause, is composite. For everything composite is created. But they are so far from showing what they wish, that they even commit what is called by the dialecticians “begging the question.” For no less in this way is the same thing again asked: how, if the substance is one thing and the hypostasis is another, and other things are the hypostatic properties (that is, those things which constitute the hypostases), in the manner in which they themselves understand it, is God not composite from these? Although the comparison of the things is entirely dissimilar. For the three are a certain determined thing; but those things which they say are other than the substance, such as the life, the goodness of God, and all those things that are said absolutely in Him, which they also call by the common name of energy, are an infinite and indeterminate multitude; and there, indeed, the three are taken as perfect hypostases, and of these, each in a manner beyond nature is the same and one God-ruling substance; for each is entirely God and perfect; for not…
A from imperfect things is the divine power. But these many things are posited neither as hypostases nor as substance, and it is said that none of them is anything other than the other; and while it is said that these many things do not subsist by themselves, the three hypostases do not exist in another being. But if they wish to have a proportion between the three persons, or the three relations, and these many and diverse things, it is necessary either to confess that these too are perfect hypostases, or to opine that the divine subsistences are insubsistent. We have it by revelation that God is one and Trine, since this cannot be demonstrated; but that God himself is simple and entirely incapable of any composition, even men led by the natural light of reason have been able to demonstrate. Just as [they have demonstrated] that God is one, and good, and just. For from the magnitude and beauty of B the creatures, the Creator is known by analogy. Therefore, there was no need to wish to prove clearer things from more obscure ones, nor to demonstrate those things that can fall under demonstration from those that transcend it, since by doing so they not only overthrow the latter, but through this they conclude for themselves something more absurd, namely that God consists of diverse things. For who is so stupid as to deny that things which are diverse in reality, when they come together into one, do not make a composition? On the contrary, rather, one ought to conclude from the clearer things which are not such, if it were possible, as the universal rule requires. Especially since the discourse is about those things which are said to belong to God by C themselves and absolutely, while those men brought an objection from the personal [properties] and from the properties, which are of the relative genus. But, say those who are skilled in demonstrations, the counter-argument must be from the same genus, the opposite of which they themselves were doing and thereby erring. But it was necessary to maintain reasons concerning simplicity [to be] universal and true, and as for that which seems to differ in only one respect, either to endeavor to render even that consonant with the universal reason, or not, on account of that obscure thing, to overthrow even those things which are clear to all, by destroying the excellent opinions about God, as the great Basil said. Therefore it is utterly irrational if someone, because substance and hypostasis and properties are said to be one thing and another, D does not therefore say that composition follows in God; so also if someone introduces into Him diverse things according to many and opposite divisions, to contend that composition does not follow.
Furthermore, from what has been said, those things which Nilus of Thessalonica accumulated for the establishing and verifying of this opinion are resolved, such as: the divine power is indeed one according to nature, but not one according to hypostases. And insofar as it is one, and insofar as it is not one, how is it the same? And the substance indeed is one, but the hypostases are many, and one and a multitude are different things; and that since hypostasis and substance among the theologians are not the same, and some say that only the divine nature is uncreated, while all things beyond this are begotten and created, the divine hypostasis would be created, and such [things] from which he wished to introduce real differences in God.
A These things have not only manifest blasphemy, but also show the great foolishness of him who said them. For he was utterly ignorant that the theologians did not speak of the same thing not in reality, but in definition. For substance is not one thing and hypostasis another, as has been demonstrated, and [that] "one" can be taken in various ways as an equivocal term. For something is said to be one both when it exists as one in number or in reality, and when it exists as one in definition; and similarly also "not one." So, having taken the "not one" in definition for [that which is one] in reality, he wrought a paralogism. By these arguments, everything else they put forward is refuted. For the [distinction of] "other and other," and "not the same," not in reality but in definition, has the greatest power for the dissolution of those things which are put forward in this way; which it is possible to observe in current matters. B For God is called substance and wisdom and anything of this sort, but not because the names are different do they denote different things; for thus He would be multiform, consisting of dissimilar parts, and composite. But because our nature cannot even in the slightest degree indicate by a single name what He is, for this reason we call the same thing by various and different names, the difference being considered only in the names and according to their definitions. For example, insofar as the definition of substance is to subsist by itself, and of wisdom to be knowledge of divine and human things, or knowledge of existing causes, according to these definitions God is called and is both wisdom and substance, and in whatever other way human ingenuity is able to define [Him]. C The blessed Maximus also declares this in the dialogue *Against the Dissimilar*, saying, "The very hypostasis of God is also His immortality; and not only immortality, but also incorruptibility and justice and sanctification and redemption and lordship and power. And God is not these things by composition, but these are said according to different conceptualizations: immortality, because of the interminable; incorruptibility, because of the indissoluble; justice, because of equality; sanctification, because of keeping from sin; redemption, because of saving our life from corruption; lordship, because of ruling over all; power, because nothing resists Him." Yet, D because these are said according to different conceptualizations, they are not non-existent things signifying nothing; as, for example, when we imagine a hircocervus. For that is a figment of the mind, and is based upon no underlying reality. But in the thoughts and names which we, understanding and speaking about God, attribute to Him, it is the very substance of God which corresponds to all these, on account of [His] extreme perfection, simplicity, and unity. Therefore, they are ridiculous in their proofs, and still more laughable in their conclusions. But let us now proceed to our proposed subject, having made a slightly more diffuse digression because of these men's rashness.
CHAPTER VI. That the Doctors of the Church teach A that the Son is from the substance of the Father, and is generated.
These things having been determined, so that the Catholic faith might avoid the aforementioned absurd conclusions, all the doctors of the Church—assuming beforehand how one must distinguish between substance and hypostasis, and yet how they are the same—when delivering and expounding to us the things concerning the divine processions, used to speak theologically of the Son of God and the Father, sometimes saying He is from the substance of the Father, and sometimes from His hypostasis, without B making any rigid distinction. For the first in Nicaea, the synod of those holy men, stated in the Symbol of faith: "We believe also in the Son of God begotten of the Father," that is, of the substance of the Father. But if some say, "Yet the second synod in Constantinople, delivering this same Symbol, said He was begotten of the Father before all ages, and it is necessary to believe this more, inasmuch as the later things are more secure"—we will not dare to say that what was spoken by the former is blasphemous, nor for that reason prefer the later ones as saying things that are more true, or despise the former and try to lead them to the truth. For indeed those men, C setting the confession of the former as a firm foundation, drew their own conclusions; and we likewise, whether we say we embrace the confession of faith of the second or the first, think it makes no difference. And so, having judged that being generated from the Father is equivalent to being from the substance of the Father (as they themselves explained), they judged that it was not necessary to add anything further. Gregory the Theologian, who presided over that synod, testifies to this, writing thus to Cledonius: "We have never preferred, nor can we prefer, the faith of the holy Fathers who assembled in Nicaea for the destruction of the Arian heresy; but we are of that faith, with God, and shall be, further D clarifying concerning the Holy Spirit that which was less explicitly stated, because that question had not previously been raised—that one must acknowledge the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit as one Deity, recognizing both God and the Spirit." Furthermore, the great Athanasius in the disputation against Arius, which took place in the Nicene synod, whose beginning is, "By the providence of God," says: "Therefore, God saying to His own Son through the prophet: 'From the womb before the morning star I have begotten you' (Ps. CIX, 3), signifies the generation of the Son from the paternal substance." And a little later: "For no other reason does He name the womb than to show that the Son Himself has been begotten from the substance of the Father." And after a few words: "We learn that the Son is begotten from the substance of God and the Father." Furthermore, the same man in the confession of faith to Pope Julius, of which Gregory the Theologian also makes mention in his encomiastic oration, saying: "Receiving confidence, he dares to confess the truth in writing, saying that the substance of the three is one; for our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, God and man. He is God, begotten from the substance of the Father before the ages, and He is man from the sub-
- A stance of the Mother in the age born. Further, the same author in the discourse whose beginning is: "You did well to signify to me the matter sought by you," says: "The substance of the Son is not found from without, nor introduced from non-existent things; but it is from the substance of the Father, as the brightness of light, and as the vapor of water." Further, in the epistle which was written by the synod of Jerusalem to the Church of Alexandria, whose beginning is: "To all of us who have come together for the same purpose," these things are found: "For they who have anathematized the Arian heresy know that the Word is not a creature, but is a product from the substance, and that the substance of the Father is the beginning, fountain, and root of the Son." B Further, the great Basil in his epistle to the canonicals, whose beginning is: "How much distress has afflicted us," says: "And when we are taught that the Son is begotten from the substance of the Father, let us not fall into bodily thoughts of passions. For the substance was not divided from the Father to the Son, nor did He beget by flowing." The same author in the second book against Eunomius: "But as long as they are silent, let them not escape notice, setting the substance of the Only-begotten as secondary to the ages." The same author in the letter to Amphilochius: "It is said to be from God, not as all things (created) are from God, but as proceeding from God—not by generation like the Son, but as the Spirit of His mouth; and yet it is not a member, nor is the Spirit a fleeting breath that is dissolved, but it is a mouth matching God, and the Spirit is the substance of life, the mistress of sanctification." C Further, the Damascene in chapter 13, *On Divine Names*: "For when I have understood one of the hypostases, I know it to be perfect God and a perfect substance." The same author in chapter 7: "For from Him—that is, from the nature of the Father—we say the generation of the Son is." And a little later: "But the generation is indeed without beginning and eternal; since it is the work of nature, and proceeding from His substance." And after a few words: "The Son alone is begotten, for He is begotten from the substance of the Father without beginning and without time; and the Holy Spirit alone is from the substance of the Father, not begotten but proceeding." Further, the Nyssen in his homily on the *Our Father*: "For the Son is begotten from the Father, and up to this point the divine word holds the property for Him." And again the same: "The Spirit: who proceeds from the paternal hypostasis." Further, the divine Chrysostom, D explaining that passage, *In the beginning was the Word*: "This Word is a certain substance subsisting, proceeding impassibly from the Father Himself." Further, the same, in his homily on the Holy Spirit, whose beginning is: "Yesterday to us, O lovers of Christ, the advent of the holy and adorable Spirit": "The Holy Spirit is by nature indivisible, as one who proceeds from an indivisible and impartible nature." Further, Saint Cyril in one of the chapters which are on the simplicity of the Son, whose beginning is: "He is called the fountain of wisdom and life, and is God," says: "The Son, therefore, was coeternal with the One who begot Him, as flowing from a certain fountain of paternal substance." And in another chapter: "For this one, indeed, proceeding from the substance of the Father, immediately shows the Father who begot Him." And in another chapter.
Just as the Father lacks a beginning, so also the Word, proceeding from His substance, lacks a beginning.” And in another chapter: “That the Word proceeds from the substance of the Father.” And in another: “He who proceeds from Him extra-temporally is the Son.” And in another: “The Son proceeding from the substance of the Father.” And in another: “The whole being of the Son proceeds from the substance of the Father.” A The same author in his discourse to Nestorius, which begins, [Blaterant nonnulli], says: “For just as it is proper to man, and indeed to every other living creature, that which is generated from it according to nature, so also it should be thought and called proper to God that which is understood to be from His substance.” Furthermore, the great Athanasius in his first oration against the Arians: “The Son is the true, legitimate, and natural offspring of the Father, proper to the substance of the Father. He is not a creature, nor a work, but the proper offspring of the Father’s substance, and the power and true image of the Father’s substance.” In the same oration: “For we see the Word always existing, and existing from Him, and proper to the substance of which He is the Word.” In the same: “He who believes in the Son, believes in the Father; for he believes in that which is proper to the Father’s substance.” In the same: “For if the Word were not the proper offspring of the Father’s substance, as the radiance of light, [and the rest].” B Furthermore, the great Basil in the discourse whose beginning is: [Adversatur Judaismus gentilismo], “We confess the Father and the Son, who with respect to substance are the same. Since the Son is from the Father, not made by command, but begotten by nature.” Furthermore, Saint Cyril on the text: “Because I have descended from heaven, not that I may do my own will,” says: “For the fact that the Son is begotten from the Father will surely compel us, even against our will, to attribute to Him consubstantiality.” The same author in his first book *Ad Hermiam*: “If, then, the Son is consubstantial with the Father, He exists from Him and in Him according to nature, and substantially.” Furthermore, Saint Augustine in the thirteenth chapter of the fifteenth book of *De Trinitate*: “Just as our knowledge is to that knowledge of God, so also our word, which is born from our knowledge, is dissimilar to that Word of God which is born from the Father’s essence. C Such, however, is it as if I were to say: from the Father’s knowledge, from the Father’s wisdom; or, to speak more expressively, from the Father the knowledge, from the Father the wisdom.” The same author in the book *De fide ad Petrum*: “For that nature, which always remains begotten from the Father, assumed our nature without sin, so as to be born of the Virgin.” In the same book: “Believe, therefore, that Christ the Son of God, that is, the one person from the Trinity, is true God, in such a way that you do not doubt that His divinity is begotten from the nature of the Father.” And thus much for these matters. D
Chapter VII. That those who deny that the Son is or is begotten from the substance of the Father destroy the principles of the faith and contend against the teachers.
A From what has been said, it is clear that substance and hypostasis and property are the same thing in reality, even if they differ regarding the meaning of the names according to reason; and that the Son is explicitly acknowledged to be from the substance of the Father, and that it is not one thing that is from the substance and another from the hypostasis; and that the names “Father” and “Son” are names of subsistent persons. For he who says the Son is from the substance of the Father denotes the Son entirely as a subsistent substance; and it is the same for the Father and the Spirit. And [it is clear] that the Son is perfect God and a perfect substance, as are also the Father and the Holy Spirit; and that the terms “to proceed,” “to gush forth,” “to come forth,” and all such expressions, indifferent and identical, signify the generative subsistence of the Son from the Father, just as the term “to be begotten” itself does. And that on this account the Son is consubstantial with the Father, because He was not made from the Father, but was begotten from His nature; and that it is necessary that the Son be either a creature or from the substance of the Father. For these stand against one another as a contradiction: for everything is either created or uncreated, and there is nothing between these; for among things that stand against one another as a contradiction, there is no mean.
B Those, therefore, who think that the substance or nature is one thing, the hypostasis of the Father another, and yet propose the property of this one as something else, clearly and manifestly establish the hypostasis of the Father, the Father Himself, His substance, and His fatherhood as diverse things—and the same must be said concerning the other hypostases. Thus, they themselves manifestly contradict the saints and the principles of the faith, and they conclude the aforementioned absurdities. C And in addition to these, they secretly infer with Arius that the Son of God is a creature. Their blasphemy is indeed common, but they are more foolish than he in that he, while asserting the Son to be a creature, would not even endure to hear that He has the consubstantiality and all things that are the Father’s without any variation; whereas these men, confessing these things, then affirm—against all reason—those things from which they foolishly fall into the same pernicious error, and against their own theses. For it was consequent, for those positing the Son to be consubstantial with the Father, and the character, and the immutable image of the Father, not to doubt that He is also from His substance. D For consubstantiality signifies nothing other than having the same and one substance with Him. But this was impossible unless, according to the process of generation, He derived the substance of God and the Father from Him as He was begotten, dragging it along with Himself; so that it is necessary to confess that He is begotten, or exists, or proceeds from the substance of the Father. It was therefore incumbent upon him who denies this, to deny also the consubstantiality along with Arius. For to confess this [the former], and yet not to accept that He is from His substance, is altogether foolish.
A Furthermore, since these people hear, "All things that the Father has are mine," they say that by "all things" they mean the natural goods (for these people, even here, wondrously distinguish nature from natural properties, and substance from substantial properties, just as they do both in created and composite things, and in God). Therefore, it follows that the Son must have the substance or nature along with the natural properties; for natural properties could never exist without the nature, since they cannot subsist by themselves—a point which they themselves inadvertently blurt out even regarding God, paying no heed to His simplicity. B Therefore, since they all confess that the Son possesses everything that is begotten of the Father, they will be forced to concede that He receives the substance first along with the other things, if He is to possess all that is the Father's, completely and genuinely. How, then, can they deny that the Son is from the substance?
Furthermore, the Catholic faith hands down that the Son of God, having been begotten of the substance of God and the Father before all ages, assumed our nature. And the divine Dionysius, in the second chapter of *The Divine Names*, where he treats of the conjoint and discrete theology—to which also the Damascene consents—says that the whole divine nature is incarnated in one of its hypostases. C But these men, while holding that the hypostasis is not substance, according to what they say, will be forced to confess that He who is without substance assumed human nature; now, it is not even necessary to state what great blasphemy this involves. For they will confess that Christ is indeed a perfect man, but not at all true God, nor that He possesses divine nature and perfect substance; but this is absurd.
Furthermore, just as Christ is true man because He was born of the substance of His mother, so too is there no need to believe that He is true God in any other way than that He is begotten of the substance of the Father. Therefore, he who denies that He is from the substance of the Father will also deny that He is true God, just as he who does not believe that He was born from the substance of the Virgin will not believe that He became true man; D for an equal absurdity follows from either side.
Furthermore, if that which is by grace is subsequent to that which is by nature, and the one is by nature prior while the other is posterior—things that might be said of those things which are by grace [to be] indicative of a genuine condition, much more [should they be said] concerning natural things. Yet concerning those who are adopted by favor and grace, it is said in Scripture: "I have begotten and exalted sons, but they have rejected me." Therefore, it is much more appropriate to say that the Son of God is begotten from God, who is confessed by the Doctors to be Son by nature. But the generation according to grace is distinguished from that which is according to nature by this, that the one is by position, whereas the other is this very thing by nature, and from the substance of the begetter. For nature and substance and species and form, according to the Damascene...
in God, are the same; the Son, therefore, is generated from the substance of the Father.
Præterea, in those who beget and are begotten according to nature, that which is begotten proceeds from the substance of the begetter, which is the perfection of the begetter, insofar as it possesses it perfectly. But every A perfection is from the universal and first cause; and in the causes, the perfections are much prior than in the things caused, according to the great Dionysius, and as universal reason demands, and it is necessary that each thing be more honorable in its cause than in the things caused. It is necessary, therefore, according to nature, that God be more perfect and more eminent, insofar as He is perfect, that He should generate from His own substance, and in the same species, an equal to Himself. But what befits the perfection of God, even this is the very thing itself; for He is the first and purest entelechy, and that which is being in potency is far removed from Him. The Son, therefore, is generated from the substance of God and the Father. This is also confirmed by the Holy B Scripture in Isaiah; for it is said: "Shall I who make others to travail, not travail myself? And He who gives to others to generate, shall I be barren, says the Lord God?"
Furthermore, if the Son is not from the substance of the Father, He Himself would be imperfect, not fully preserving the paternal marks, He who is the radiance of the glory and the character of His substance, and these things are common to the designation of the Son, since the good things of the Father are communicated to the Son; moreover, likewise, the Father would be imperfect and impotent, not producing from Himself a Word equal to Himself and consubstantial and in the same species. Those, therefore, who deny that the Son is generated from the substance of the Father, it is C necessary that they confess these things, and furthermore, that they err concerning the meaning of the word "to be generated." For generation, which is according to nature, defines that which is produced as proceeding from the substance of the begetter.
Furthermore, since all things are said to be from God, and both the Son and the Spirit are from God, one might ask how the Son and the Spirit are to be distinguished from the creature? For insofar as they are caused, and are said to be from God, they would have no distinction from the creature. But indeed, the divine persons are said by the saints to be substantially and naturally and in the same species, whatever they are, and eternally, and D indeed also from the substance; whereas those things outside God are brought into being by the goodness of the creative power alone, in time. It must be said, therefore, that the Son and the Holy Spirit proceed from the substance of God and have their existence; if we are not to intend, without distinguishing according to the theology of the teachers, to rank them unworthily among the creatures, nor to place them together with all other things, nor to say that God and Father is the Father of the divine persons and of us in the same way, according to that spoken by the Apostle: "One God, the Father, from whom are all things." For not in an equal sense is the Father of the Son, and called the Father of all. That this is said concerning the person of the Father is manifest. For he adds, di-
-Astinguishing: "And one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things, and one Holy Spirit, in whom all things."
Furthermore, the holy Fathers held it to be confessed among those who differ that the Son is from the substance of the Father, to such an extent that even from those things by which the heretics were blaspheming—by denying this—they conclude the truth superabundantly. For as it became clear from what was proposed, the great Athanasius, taking the major premise from the blasphemers and positing the minor himself (as seems right both to him and to the truth), reasons thus: "Since you, O Arians, say that the Son is from the Father, and the name 'Father' signifies substance, even if it does not express what that might be, you too, therefore, even against your will, have said that He is from the substance of the Father." This, naturally, is pious according to the intention of the holy Father; for this was what he was striving for in everything, and for the sake of which he suffered many troubles from the Arians. Therefore, that those who deny the "from the substance" destroy the principles of the faith, and contend against the teachers, and show themselves worse and more irrational than the Arians, and worthy of laughter among those who are in any way prudent—or rather, to speak more mildly, worthy of pity—there is no need to say more, since what has been said is sufficient. From which also this may be added as a kind of corollary: that the consubstantiality of the Son to the Father is not gathered from elsewhere than that He is from the Father as from His natural cause. For according to the great Basil, we confess the identity of substance, inasmuch as the Son was not made by the Father, but begotten from His nature. The divine Cyril also said: "The fact that the Son is begotten from the Father will compel everyone, even against their will, to attribute consubstantiality to Him." And again: "If the Son is consubstantial with the Father, He is from Him substantially and in Him according to nature."
CAPUT VIII. That what, in the end, were the causes of their deception.
Furthermore, they were deceived, first indeed because they were not able to understand in what sense the teachers had said that substance is one thing and hypostasis another, and that they are not the same. Second, because they heard one of the teachers saying that the substance of God does not beget substance, they think it is the same as if it were said that the substance of the Father does not beget the substance of the Son; but this possesses a great difference. For they could not perceive, according to the principles of the faith, that the name "God" is from those things which are absolute, and signifies the nature itself singularly and indistinctly (although it does not express what that might be), just as also "wise," and "creator," and "good." And since God is one substance and nature, it is not pious to say absolutely that the substance of God begets substance, lest a division of the monad be thought of, apart from those things which exist and are spoken of relatively, and lest three substances be accepted in the manner of a multitude of gods, separated absolutely from one another; but the name of Father and of Son are of those things which are relative, and are persons of ne-
necessary indication, which have a relation to one another. Therefore, it is true to say that the substance of the Father begets the substance of the Son, because by A the substance of the Father it is permitted to understand nothing other than the hypostasis or person of the Father. Now, the hypostasis, as has been shown, is the common together with the specific. And substance is indeed the common, while Father is the specific (if indeed there be no need to think that substance is one thing, the hypostasis another, the Father a third, and paternity a fourth, which along with impiety has also much of folly in it). And it is similar as if it were said that the hypostasis of the Father begets the hypostasis of the Son, which is indeed according to the position of the faith. These things, therefore, they failed to know completely, those who ought, whether taught by themselves or by others, not to wander so far from the truth, nor to claim to be wise and then play the fool. B Yet when it is said that the substance of the Son is begotten of the substance of the Father, do they contradict the sense or the words? For if they contradict the sense, let them be placed among the number of the unbelievers, since they alienate the substance of the Son from the substance of the Father. But if they do not accept the mode of speaking, yet the doctors speak in this way. Moreover, if they are forced to admit the expression as being that of the saints, but derive no sense from this mode of speaking, they speak utterly unintelligible things, like those irrational animals, such as the magpie, which we hear and see producing human speech, but not understanding what it is that it says. They do not read according to the intent of the doctors who treated all these matters for us. But if, as humans, they do elicit some sense from the word, why then are C they offended by the letter like Jews? And why do they suffer that which divine Dionysius asserts to be irrational and foolish: the not attending to the force of the intent, but to the words? And like infants, why do they fear a fear where there is no fear? And why do they not look to the intent of the doctors, from which all clarity of the words might be told to them? For now, looking to them—as if they were the rules of their own words—they destroy the principles of the faith and conclude with blasphemies about God. For the doctors certainly do not wish to understand from that phrasing two substances, separated from one another and differing in number, but they know that each of the persons is enousios (having substance) and subsisting in itself, and they assert that neither the hypostasis is without D substance, nor the substance without hypostasis. By the word "Son" indicating the hypostasis or person, but by "substance" explaining the subsistent and perfect substance, and taking "substance of the Son" in the place of his hypostasis. Therefore, adhering with a suitable sense to the statement of the doctors, let them stand with us and with them. Just as we say that the Son is from God, and we certainly do not on that account reject this saying, because the Son is God, and the Father is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, lest we be forced to say that the Son is from himself, since he is
A of a substantial nature, the one by way of generation, the other by way of procession; and we understand the Son to have his existence according to the procession of generation. And when we hear "the Son," we immediately understand the Father also, for he is referred to Him; and on this account we take "the Son from God" to mean "from the Father," and from this we both hold fast to the wording and do not err from the correct understanding. Thus also concerning such matters it is fitting everywhere so to conduct ourselves that we may preserve the principles of the faith and the universal reasons, and that the conclusions may chance to be consistent with the principles.
Neither, truly, is it entirely to be denied that essence is from essence, provided only that the appropriate determination of what is understood or said be appended; for piety does not consist for us in words, but in the meanings of the mind, according to the divine Gregory. For even that can be said piously, provided only that we understand, that is to say, the Son as essence, and the Father as from essence, in that each of them is subsistent, and perfect essence, and a whole, as has been said. Since we also confess true God from true God; yet we are not on this account forced to say there are two essences, just as we are not forced to say there are two Gods according to the definition of the faith.
That it is by no means C unlawful to speak thus, the great Athanasius hands down in the disputation which he published against the Orthodox and the Dissimilar, saying thus: "The nature of God is the cause both of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and of the whole of creation." This indeed one must again understand with a determination: for the Son and the Holy Spirit [it is the cause] substantially, naturally, and consubstantially before all ages, as has been said, and as he himself also explains shortly below; but for creation, it is as a Creator and in time. Then in the following he adds: "But the unbegotten nature of God is not the cause of the begotten. For it is not the non-generation of God that is the cause of essences, but the essence is the cause of essences." So far, then, is it from being blasphemous to say that the Son is from the essence of the Father, that even what seems simply absurd has been found to be correctly stated, provided only it is understood as is fitting. But if this, stripped of his own intelligence, is held piously, how is it not much more necessary that that should be acceptable as pious? For to say "essence from essence" would not otherwise be correctly stated, unless we understand that the essence of the Son is from the essence of the Father. For that which is D subsistent is the cause of subsistents, and it is the same as if it were said: "The hypostasis of the Son is generated from the hypostasis of the Father," or "The Son is from the Father."
CAPUT IX.
That to contradict those who say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, has forced them not to confess that the Son is from the essence of the Father.What, therefore, they contrived for themselves along with the deception
A these things are. It has led them into this irrational objection, so that, because of their intense opposition to those who acknowledge that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, they might not confess that the Son is from the essence of the Father. For these men, clearly convinced by many other arguments to believe most firmly that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, and indeed from this very fact—that the same and one Holy Spirit is said by the theologians to be from the essence of the Father and of the Son—conclude piously from this that He possesses existence from the Father and the Son, believing that in reality, essence and hypostasis are the same, and that the name of 'Father' signifies an essence that is subsistent and a person, and thinking that to say 'from the essence of the Person' is equal to saying 'from the hypostasis,' just as we consider that it makes no difference to say that the Son is begotten from the hypostasis of the Father and from His essence. Those others, bearing with displeasure what is inferred, because they do not wish—so as not to be compelled—to say, just as we consider that there is no difference between the Son being from the hypostasis of the Father and from His essence, that it is likewise indifferent to say [that] the Holy Spirit [is] from the hypostasis of the Son and from His essence, and because they do not wish to concede and acknowledge from this that the Son, along with the Father, is the cause of the Spirit—[they] say that the Son is indeed of the essence of the Father, but only from the hypostasis [of the Father], curing B an evil with an evil, positing that essence differs in reality from hypostasis, and entangling themselves in many absurdities. If, indeed, it appears to those who contemplate it that many absurdities are collected from this, and that many things which are confessed are destroyed, and [if] it has been stated how essence is one thing and hypostasis another, while essence and hypostasis and property are the same thing in reality, and that 'from the essence of the Father' is equivalent to 'from His hypostasis,' then, so that we may not be rolled into absurd thoughts, it is clear that [the expression] 'from the essence of the Son' is the same as 'from His hypostasis.' And no absurdity follows for those who confess that the divine Spirit has existence from the Father and the Son; for the aforementioned absurdities follow those who deny this. And this would not happen if the assumed premise were not absurd and false; for as the universal rule teaches, that from which, when it is assumed, an absurd and false consequence follows, is itself of such a nature. If, therefore, anyone, denying that the Son is from the essence of the Father and that the Holy Spirit is from the essence of the Father and of the Son, at the same time denies that the Holy Spirit has existence from the Father and the Son, he certainly is carried beyond the bounds, just like those wild animals which, when struck by a sword, throw themselves even more upon it. They might have some excuse, though a cold and dangerous one because of the irrational custom.
But if anyone acknowledges that C the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, [yet] denies that He is from the essence of the Father and of the Son, or denies that the Son is begotten from the essence of the Father, such a person—one or the other—either [follows] the [path] of the Arians
senselessly, as has been shown, while feeling shame at the manifest absurdity, yet being carried toward the same [absurdity] by another path; or he is altogether foolish. B Whichever way it might be, he becomes a teacher of falsehood.
CHAPTER X.
*On what are considered the principal objections brought forward by those who claim that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and first concerning consubstantiality, and the solutions to such arguments.*But at this point, who could endure the objections of these clever men? For they object: if the Holy Spirit is from the essence of the Father and the Son because the Father and the Son are not [a different] substance, then surely, by the same logic, since the substance of the Father and the Spirit is one, it would meritoriously follow that the Son is also from the substance of the Father and the Spirit. C Therefore, those who object in this way seem to be ignorant of the principles of the faith; yet they ought, at the very least, to have learned these before acting the theologian. For as one of the holy teachers said (and he is Gregory), the best order is to learn first, and then to teach. Although, since the saints discourse that the Spirit is from the essence of the Father and the Son, we shall say that the objection has nothing to do with us; nevertheless, it must be said: it is necessary, together with the principles of the faith, to confess also this, that we must venerate the Monad in the Triad and the Triad in the Monad; and that we must not, while discussing [these things], divide the Monad because of the Triad, nor confuse the Triad because of the Monad. But here, a confusion would clearly follow if one were to say that the Son is from the essence of the Father and the Spirit; for the Spirit would be the Father—since the Son is named in relation to the Father D—and thus there would be two fathers in the Triad, and the Father would not strictly be the Father. Which things are alien to the faith.
Although there are not lacking other names from which one could in no way suspect that the Spirit is the Father of the Son, such as that the Son is [called] the Word of the Spirit, a power, a living and substantial energy, a sanctification, a natural life, a rose, a flower, a scent, an image, and such things as are said by the doctors to belong to the Spirit of the Son. Yet never, according to these names, has the Son been found to be called of the Spirit. This could not happen from any other cause than the order itself. And indeed, it is necessary that he who objects in this way not only falls into these [errors], but also subverts the order of the divine persons in the Triad among themselves. For the Son is said to be of the Father, but the Spirit of the Son; and the former alone is called the only-begotten from the Only, and up to this point is the property belonging to Him, which is to be from the Father immediately; and [the fact] that the appellation of Son signifies being immediately from the Cause, according to the divine Anastasius in his dogmatic discourse, as will be clear further on; whereas the Holy Spirit is acknowledged by the saints to be third in order from the Father, though not third in nature; and he who changes the order even slightly is a denier of the faith and a destroyer of the existence of the Spirit, as the great
A Basil affirms in his letter to the canonesses. Likewise, the order which the Son has toward the Father, the Spirit has toward the Son; and the Son is the living, substantial, and subsistent operation of the Father, and the Spirit is all these things of the Son; and the Father works through the Son, but the Son works through the Spirit. And the Son indeed receives from the Father, but the Spirit from the Son: "For he shall receive of mine," he says, according to the great Athanasius; and I omit the greater part, so as not to delay by enumerating each one, for these things are said to those who are already expert in them. Hence, Nyssenus also, in his *Confutatory* books, teaching the eternal B existence of the Son and of the Spirit, says: "For one thing, indeed, is immediately from the first, namely the Son; the other, however, is through that which is immediately from the first," as if he were to say: The Son has existence directly and immediately from the Father, but the Spirit has existence through the Son, who is begotten directly and immediately from the Father. His discourse concerns their eternal existence. Whence, consistently, they have handed down that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, wishing to signify His existence, and that this "proceeding" is nothing other than this, and through this they weave their theology, those who have been the illustrious teachers of the Church from the first until the seventh synod. Therefore, he who brings in the necessity that the Son follows from the substance of the Father and of the Spirit, destroys all these things as much as lies within him. For if this is posited, the contrary C rather would happen. The Son would be said to be of the Spirit, and not solely from the Sole, nor only-begotten, nor second in order from the Father, but third. The Spirit would be second from Him [the Father] and the Spirit would be said to be begotten from the Father through the Spirit, and I pass over in silence the other names, by which the Son and Word would be said in relation to the Spirit—by which rather the Spirit is referred to the Son. But these clearly introduce a confusion of the properties, and alter the immovable order of the Trinity. Therefore, that this may not happen, the Son of the Spirit, and all that is said to follow upon this, neither is, nor is it said, nor does this relative consequence reciprocate, according to Gregory of Nyssa in his *Homily on the Lord's Prayer*. Nor, indeed, is the Spirit called the definition, the term, and the Word of the Father, nor D the immutable image, although He is glorified together with the Father and the Son, and exists as consubstantial.
But neither is it reasonable to assert that the Spirit is the Son's, and that all these things are said on account of consubstantiality. First, because things that are consubstantial reciprocate with one another, but these do not in any way. Next, these are not said according to substance; for one and the same is the substance, and one thing is not said of another according to this, for otherwise there would be three substances absolute from one another.
(4) The passage of Nyssenus is found in the *Oration to Ablabius*, which is not printed with his other works, and exists in the Vatican library, but not in the *Confutatory* books, which are against Eunomius; therefore Demetrius has suffered a mnemonic error.
A For this reason they are one, and are not said to be relative to something. For relation is considered between two; and the one, in so far as it is one in the thing, is not said to be relative to itself, but it is clear that according to the way in which the persons have a certain order to each other, and according to this their immovable and eternal order towards each other, this is said to be of that, and that of this, and one thing is said to be the image, or power, or natural life, or something of that kind. From which also the procession, together with their personal existence, is grasped. B Furthermore, it has been shown by the saints that the Son is for this reason consubstantial with the Father, because He is begotten from the substance and nature of the Father. Which indeed is evident from the very operation. For because Peter has his existence from the nature of John according to an essential cause, for this reason he is of the same nature as him, and is rightly called his son. Otherwise, he would not be a son, but a brother, or in some other way according to the consequence that reciprocates the similarity or affinity to those who are similar. Although in those things which are through generation and corruption, even without one having the natural cause of existence from the other, it is possible, according to a certain affinity of matter, for this to be called this one’s, and similar, or simply consubstantial; but in God, where there is no matter, and all material things are absent, and it can neither be said according to excess and defect, nor as a possession, or work, or in any other way according to such an affinity, truly it cannot be said that this is of that, nor that it is consubstantial, according to any other reason than that it has the cause from Him. For the same reason, therefore, the Spirit is not said to be of the Son, and also His power, and natural and essential life and operation, and to be from His substance, because, as they say, He is consubstantial with Him, but because He has the cause of His personal existence from the Father through the Son Himself; for this reason the Spirit is said to be these things of the Son, and to be from His substance, and to be consubstantial with Him, especially since the relation of these does not convert to the Spirit. Which indeed it ought to have converted, if it were assigned according to the common definition of the sequence which is according to reciprocity: as has been said, if those things were all called so because of consubstantiality. C Furthermore, if the Spirit is said to be all these things of the Son because He is consubstantial with Him, it is necessary that one of two things be the case: either that both are from the Father alone immediately, with no order and relation considered between the Son and the Spirit, or that one has its existence from the other. But if the first, the Son and the Spirit would be brothers to one another; for those which are from one person, and have no order of their existence between themselves, are brothers to one another; or in some other way according to such an affinity. But this is absurd. For there would be two sons in the Trinity; nay rather, there would not even be a Trinity. For one would rightly ask, D by what the Son is distinguished from the Spirit? Since in divine things
A there is no other cause of distinction (since matter and all that follows it are far removed), except that one is cause and the other is caused. It remains, therefore, that the latter must be the case, namely, that the one has its existence from the other. Since it has been shown B that consubstantiality is inferred from this in divine things, because the one is from the other as from its own cause. But the Son assuredly would not be said to be from the Spirit. For those things which the holy Scripture assigns to the Spirit would not befit the Son; especially since it is asserted by the theologians that the Spirit also proceeds from the Father through the Son. If the contrary were the case, the order, along with their personal existence, would be destroyed. Therefore the Spirit is not called the Spirit of the Son because He is consubstantial with Him, but because He is from Him and is referred to Him; for this reason He is also said to be of His substance, and is consubstantial with Him.
C Furthermore, "this of that" is said in many ways; for it is said as a possession, and an artifact, and a birth, and a part, and an instrument, and such like; but "consubstantial" does not have such a wide application. For in those things in which "consubstantial" is said, there also "this of that" can be said. But in those in which "this of that" is said simply, "consubstantiality" cannot be said in all these cases. Every cause, moreover, is referred to the caused either as being of wider application, or equally wide, but never as narrower. For to one asking why man is an animal, it will suitably be answered: because he is a sensitive being. For "sensitive" is predicated of more things than is "man." To him, however, asking why he is risible, it will be answered: because he is man. For these are mutually predicated of each other and are equal. If, however, someone should say that man is an animal because he is risible, he will not speak according to reason, assigning the risible as the cause for man being an animal, which is predicated of more things than the risible. For if anything is risible, it is an animal, but not if anything is an animal, is it risible. For they do not convert, because they are not equally predicated of each other. Therefore, the Spirit would not be called the Spirit of the Son, or His power, or operation, or natural and essential life, because He is consubstantial with Him. For he who posits consubstantiality as the cause for the Spirit being called the Spirit of the Son errs, since he perversely assigns that which is narrower as the cause of that which is wider. D But if we consider it in consubstantial things alone, we shall not by any means find that it follows that "this of that" is said, but that it is lacking in many of these cases as well; for Peter is consubstantial to Paul, and Paul to Peter, yet neither is Peter called Paul's, nor Paul Peter's; we shall say that he errs all the more, for "consubstantial" would be of much narrower application in respect to what it is to be and be called "this of that."
Furthermore, that which is in time cannot be the cause of that which is above all time; but the dispensing and giving and sending of the Paraclete by the Son to those worthy has come to pass in time; but to be called the Spirit of the Son, and His power, and His natural and essential life, and to be from His substance, and from
A the Father through the Son to proceed without time, is attributed to Him. For the procession of the Spirit is outside of time, and altogether the order which the Spirit has towards the Son. He, therefore, who on this account—because He is sent by Him to those worthy—assigns the reason for His being called the Spirit of the Son and all such things, assigns as cause for that which is above time that which has come to pass in time. He himself, then, is ignorant, erring concerning the assignment, and both renders the existence of the Spirit temporal and will acknowledge that something happens to the divine persons in time. Not, however, because the Paraclete is said to be sent to those worthy in time, does something therefore happen to God in time. For according to the great Basil in his fourth book against Eunomius: "That which proceeds from God does not proceed in time, even if it puts forth its operations in time." B Furthermore, the same author in the same book: "For we were not going to have anything less for coming to know that the Spirit exists from God by hearing [Him called] the Spirit of His mouth, but this name also is sufficient to signify His existence from God. If, therefore, that, 'the Spirit exists from God,' is equivalent to that which is said, 'the Spirit of His mouth,' but that [former expression] signifies the existence of the Holy Spirit from God, then 'to be called the Spirit of the Son' also indicates the same existence of the Spirit [proceeding] from the Son. For it is sufficient, he said, even for this to declare the existence of the Spirit." Therefore, to be called the Spirit of the Son does not, as some wish, signify consubstantiality, but that He is from Him, and for this reason He is also consubstantial with Him. And the same reasoning holds for that which is said, "the Spirit is the proper [Spirit] of the Son." For the Son is called proper to the Father, and the Spirit C is proper both to the Father and to the Son, because both are referred to Him whose they are proper, as to a cause; and it is manifest that it is not convertible. But if "proper" is said as "consubstantial" to Him whose it is proper, yet consubstantiality primarily signifies cause and caused, as has been shown; and therefore "to be proper" also expresses cause and caused. And yet to proceed, that it signifies nothing other than to have existence in the mode of procession, all would surely confess; just as also "to be begotten" expresses the mode of the Son's existence, that is to say, clearly, in a begotten manner. Therefore, that the Holy Spirit is declared by all theologians to proceed through the Son is a clear doctrine that He has His existence through the Son from the Father. But this is sufficient in place of everything, and there is no need for anything further, neither for the theologians who discourse on the substantial procession of the divine Spirit, D nor indeed for those who wish to be rightly taught concerning this, will there be any need for anything more. They are not, therefore, lacking in diction who seek this, when some of the foremost of the saints say that He proceeds *from* the Son, and others indeed that He proceeds *through* the Son; for to distinguish in this place the preposition "through" into different understandings is to assign this sense to the diction rashly against all reason, and to constitute themselves the rule. From which they appear more absurd than those who invent goat-stags. But if these things are so, who of sound mind would withstand that the Holy Spirit has His existence from the Father and from the Son? And [therefore]
A furthermore, in as much as the Father is called by the Damascene the producer of the Spirit through the Word. For if the expression "all things were made through the Son," in so far as it pertains to the preposition "through," shows the Son also to be one creator and maker of existing things along with the Father, as the Catholic faith confesses, how could the Son not be the co-cause of the procession of the divine Spirit, and a single cause, having in Himself the Father as the producer of the Spirit who is consubstantial to Him? B Let them instruct us, then, how in all things created through the Son He is more united to the Father, but in the procession through the Son He is separated? In which one might perhaps say there ought to be an even greater conjunction. Since from the common and divine substance the Father and the Son produce the Holy Spirit, who Himself also exists of the same substance, whereas in the production of creatures they do not produce them from the common substance, since their nature is altogether alien to the divine. Therefore, one could not say, unless he were mad, that "to proceed through the Son" signifies "to be given through the Son." For it is not only "to be given," or "to be sent," or "to be dispensed through the Son" that is spoken of by the teachers, nor are C we discussing these things now (although this very fact also demonstrates that to proceed through the Son means to have existence through Him. For surely He would not be sent through the Son if He did not also have His existence through Him beforehand, according to which, while proceeding eternally, He is known by men to exist in time—which is indeed a knowledge of His greatness and of that mission of existence to men and by men). But the argument now is about the term "to proceed," according to which they say He proceeds from the Father through the Son, and which all acknowledge to be indicative of His existence. Although even some of the teachers instruct that the procession D of the Holy Spirit is an eternal mission: this, on the one hand, is the Thaumaturge Gregory, and on the other, Gregory the Theologian. The former, in the discourse whose beginning is: "Most hostile and alien," saying: "Since indeed the Father is unbegotten, the Son begotten from the Father, and the Spirit eternally emitted from the substance of the Father through the Son." The latter, in the discourse to Heron the philosopher, calling the mission a property of the Holy Spirit. If, therefore, they say that the mission of the Holy Spirit is eternal and a property of the Spirit, how would the mission not justly be, and be called, a procession according to this? Unless someone were to say that the procession is also temporal; and were to posit that which is in time as the cause of that which is before all time; and were to suppose that some things happen to the divine persons, and thus heap upon himself all the absurdities mentioned. But that also is altogether insipid, which they say: that if the Holy Spirit is from the substance of the Father and the Son, because the essence of the three is one, He must also exist from Himself. For first, indeed, it is not necessary that all things which are common to the Father and
A to the Spirit, except for those which are absolute. For these exist commonly and immutably in the three, as in one thing. But those things that follow upon the personal and hypostatic [properties] do not necessarily have it so. For it is clear that being caused belongs to two persons, but not at all to the Father; and that the Holy Spirit is given, or sent, is assigned to the Father and to the Son; but He is not said to give or send Himself. Then, just as the Son is said to be begotten of the Father, and the Father and the Son are one substance, yet it is not said, nor is it found, that the Son is begotten from His own substance, nor that the Father is from the substance of the Son—for this would overturn the order of the divine persons in the Trinity—in the same way, regarding the Spirit, if it be said that He is from the substance of the Father and of the Son, it is by no means necessary that He be said to be from His own substance; since no person provides subsistence for Himself, nor is any person the cause of Himself, according to which reason the Spirit also does not give or send Himself. But it is necessary that He be sent by Him from whom He also has His existence; otherwise, being sent only by the Son, and not also receiving from Him, He would show that the Son does not have all things that are the Father’s immutably, nor that the Holy Spirit is equally common to both. Would it then be right? He who is the character of His hypostasis, and the immutable image, and the definition and Word of the Father? From which the reason is manifest why the Father is not sent. For since, as uncaused, He is not from anyone, for that reason He is not expressly said in the sacred Scriptures to be sent by anyone.
CHAPTER XI. That they bring another objection against the same things, which is from two principles, and the solution of this.
What they object again is an argument of the same flour; for they falsely claim there are two causes of the Spirit, if anyone says that He is from the substance of the Father and the Son. But it is fitting to object this not to us, but to Scripture and the teachers. For these are they who discourse theologically that the Spirit is from the substance of the Father and of the Son, and is sent by both, and proceeds through the Son, and is from the Father and the Son, and all things of that kind. If, therefore, these things wish to signify two givers, or two processions and causes, we by no means, by following them and their words—since no absurdity follows—will be justly liable to the crimes of those who accuse; but it is manifest that, free from the accusations, we will stand constantly with them. But if there is need here to say something also: we do not say that the Spirit is from the Father insomuch as He is Father; for according to the holy Maximus, in the dialogue *Ad Anomoeum*: "The Spirit does not have a Father." Nor, again, from the Son insomuch as He is Son; for the Son is called Son in relation to the Father; although, insomuch as He is the Father’s Son by nature, true and without any variation fromA the Father in the act of generation, He carries with Him everything that is the Father’s in that same generation; but [this is] as far as the Father and the Son are one. For insofar as this one is Father and that one is Son, and neither is the Son the Father, nor is the Father the Son according to the rationale of the opposition of relatives, they are not one, namely on account of the number of the persons. However, insofar as the Father and the Son are one substance, and one according to the productive power—which of necessity must be common, since nothing forces it to be separately proper and belonging to the Father alone, just as the [act of] generating, which the rationale of the opposition [of relatives] does not permit to be common to the Son for the Father’s constitutive [identity]—for this reason, these [actions of] generating and being generated are incommunicable to one another; but insofar as the Father and the Son are one, the Holy Spirit is said to be from the Father and the Son. And if that which is one, whatever it may be in them, and this power is one and the same, it is manifest that the Father and the Son are one cause of the Holy Spirit, not insofar as they are two, but insofar as they are one. And neither does confusion follow from these things, since the distinction of the persons of the Father and the Son is preserved in respect of generating and being generated, nor does the order in the most holy Trinity fall in any way, and the sayings of Scripture and of the teachers remain in their place. For just as the great father Basil says that the Holy Spirit, being sent from the Father through the Son, is sent by one bestowal and one dispensation, so also we say that He proceeds by one procession, action, and power from the Father through the Son.
C Furthermore, everywhere the preposition "through" is taken up in cases that involve a cause, it signifies the medium of the antecedent, aiding in the accomplishment of that operation which that cause intends. For example, a saw, through which the woodworker fashions a bench, assists toward that result, but it does not cooperate with the craftsman toward something of a different kind. For surely it will not assist him in heating or whitening, and the one who pulls machinery for the pulling of a weight; and in general, the things through which something is done cooperate with those who primarily move [them] in their own way, becoming joint causes to them either as instruments or in some other way assisting them. These [things] would also be causes, and simply so, like the first, if their nature were not different from those who use them; and the former are men, while the latter are simply instruments made of different materials; and this would be the case even more, if the operation of them and those using them were one and the same. But since the nature of the Father and the Son is considered as one in number, and one operation belongs to them, and both are one and the same God, D therefore, deservedly, the preposition "through" of the Son will not differ in its meaning from the "from" of the Father; but this [preposition "through"] will pass over to [the meaning of] "from," and that [preposition "from"] will in turn pass over to [the meaning of] "through," and the principle of the Holy Spirit will be common and one and the same, together with the Father, once it is confessed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son; and since all the saints expressly cry out that it is not right to conceive of any difference whatsoever in these prepositions; and since they have judged this to be indefinitively true of all divine matters, both in the case of the Father and the Son…
in all divine things they have judged them to be indeterminate, and have taught that the preposition *ex* [from] differs in nothing from the preposition *per* [through], except in so far as they distinguish the hypostases and signify the order of the divine persons, in which the person of the Son occupies the middle place, which the preposition *per* always signifies, even in common parlance; and this is so that no one might suspect either that the Father and the Son are one person because of the similarity of the prepositions, or that both are two A contradictory causes of the Spirit; or that the person of the Son is such as that of the Father, having nothing pre-thought or prior to itself, just like the Father. For the preposition *ex* brings the mind to a stop, and does not compel it to proceed further and seek the primary cause to which *ex* is primarily allotted. But the preposition *per* introduces another person besides the one it presents, and promotes the mind toward that one, and signifies that this is the principal cause, and that the person concerning whom it is used is the middle person, between the first and that to which the procession or operation pertains. And thus B the preposition *per* clearly expresses the Trinity to us, and at the same time indicates the order which the persons have toward one another, and makes manifest the unity of substance, connecting the third person with the first by means of itself. For according to Gregory of Nyssa, the one is immediately from the first, the other is through that which is immediately from the first; so that the fact that the Son is the Only-Begotten remains indubitable, and that the Spirit is from the Father is not to be doubted, since the Son, by interceding, both preserves for Himself the title of Only-Begotten and does not bar the Spirit from His natural relation to the Father. Wherefore the preposition C *per* only shows that the Son is the medium between the Father and the Holy Spirit, with no other difference besides this. These things have indeed caused Damascenus also to say: "We say the Spirit of the Son, but we do not say from the Son." For if in this matter, as some suppose, the saint wished to signify this, and held this sense, that He is not from the Son, then the teacher would entirely think that the Holy Spirit has His existence from the Father alone. But if this is so, then He is also immediately from the Father; and if immediately, then by projecting He is the constitutive [hypostatic] power of the Father; and if this is so again, it is incommunicable to the Son; for the constitutive properties D of the persons are proper, and in no way communicable to each other: how therefore does he assert that the Father is the producer of the manifestative Spirit through the Word? How does he teach in many places that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son? How, if the Spirit has no order or relation to the Son, does he say: "But it is necessary that the Word should have the Spirit"? For these things are utterly contrary to one another. For if He is a producer through the Word, then the act of producing would not be the hypostatic [property] of the Father; and if He proceeds from the Father immediately, He would not proceed through the Son. For to proceed through the Son most clearly shows that the Son is a medium, which Nyssen delivers, and with him all the theologians; and thirdly, the Holy Spirit is ordered from the Father in rank according to the great Basil. And indeed, the teacher would not only be contrary to himself, as some interpret the word, but also to the teachers who were before him. For they say: "He is from the Son,"
and from His substance, and proceeds from Him. He, however, says that He is not from the Son, nor from His substance, nor proceeds from Him. These things are admittedly a contradiction. From which it follows—either that we must confess this man alone to be a teacher of the Church and at the same time declare him a saint, while neglecting the others (for I shrink from saying that they are to be cast aside), or else, showing reverence for the multitude and antiquity of those others, we must not accept this man. But this is absurd. For it is necessary that we receive and venerate all of them reverently, as those who were inspired by God for our salvation; and He, being good, would certainly not have wished to deceive B later generations through them, whom He desired to lead to the truth. Therefore, one must try to explain their writings in such a way that both the teachers agree with themselves and with one another; and this is especially true in the case of the present subject, concerning which much contention has arisen. This could in no other way be harmonized and preserved with all and through all, unless we say most securely that the preposition "from" (ἐκ) was not taken by the Damascene regarding the Son, lest the Father and the Son be suspected of being one person because of the similarity of the prepositions, or lest the Son appear to have nothing conceived as prior to Himself—just as the Father does—and other such things as are proposed; but rather that he accepted the preposition "through" (διὰ), and most especially, because it represents the order of the persons to us along with the Monad, due to its own proper characteristic. Since, along with the Monad, we are also bound to confess the distinction of the persons, according to the faith handed down to us. This, indeed, both expressions—that the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father through the Son—make manifest; but to be said “from the Son” [the Damascene] by no means—it was more acceptable to him to take the preposition that indicates both the Monad and the distinction, rather than [the preposition] “from,” which signifies only the cause and not the distinction. Therefore, the Damascene denies such a fountain in the Son as the great Dionysius sets in the Father, C calling Him alone the fountain of the supersubstantial Godhead. And he removes from the Son such a cause as Augustine ascribed to the Father, calling Him the principal cause. For that even the Son is called a fountain of the Holy Spirit, we have from many places among the teachers; but since the Father is conceived prior to the Son, and nothing prior to the Father, and He Himself is said to be from that One and is referred back to Him, and everything that is said to be from Him (the Son) has its reference to the first cause, according to the great Basil in the *Refutatories*; according to which mode [the Father] could be called root, and fountain, and sole cause, so that that from which [the Spirit proceeds] may be shown, and not three or two principles be admitted in the manner of many gods; wherefore it is also said: “I live because of the Father,” and “Of that hour no one knows, not even the Son,” and “I do nothing of Myself,” and “As I hear, I judge,” and “My teaching is not Mine,” and “My Father is greater than I,” and if anything of such a kind has been said by Him, referring everything to the Father. Whence even the great Basil says: “The ‘through’ does not show the Son’s power to be slack, but rather D the confession of the preliminary cause.” And let this also be added to the things said…
He did not say that it is not out of the Son, but that we do not say “out of the Son.” But this contributes nothing to the matter at hand; for there are many things that we do not say, such as what happened at the beginning of the preaching: for example, that the Son of God is consubstantial with the Father, that the ever-virgin Theotokos is proclaimed in the Church, that the Son of God was united to human nature according to the hypostatic union, and such things. These, though not spoken of previously, even while being true, were later confirmed to be spoken in the Church in whatever way necessity urged. If, therefore, anyone had asked another, before the first synod was gathered for the confirmation of the divinity of the Son, whether the Son was called consubstantial with the Father, he would have heard exactly the same thing, that we do not say it; yet by this he did not signify that it is not, but only this much, that it is found neither in Holy Scripture nor in usage word for word. This, later being demonstrated as true from the words of Scripture, was established such that those who do not confess it are ranked with the heretics. The same must be said regarding the present matter.
B That, therefore, the preposition “through” does not differ from the preposition “out of,” except in that it distinguishes the hypostases and indicates the order between them and shows the operation to be one—whether it be said that all things were created by the Father through the Son, or that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son—is manifest, both from the operation itself, as has been said, and from the teachers who in no way permit the conceiving of any difference whatsoever in these prepositions C on account of the one substance and process. And this is what all the holy Fathers judged to be equal, without distinction, and proved from Scripture: the indifference of the prepositions in the Father and the Son. For to think that these prepositions differ in the Father and the Son was the mark of the ancient heretics, who wanted to introduce a difference of substances from this distinction of powers, actions, and processions, and consequently, as naturally follows for those now wishing to distinguish them, a distinction of substance also follows by necessity. For they will not be able to give a cause for not dividing this substance as well. For the preposition “through” either brings nothing to the procession of the Spirit, D or if it brings anything, it is an imperfect cause, either instrumental, or as through a place or time. But since it were empty to say “through the Son,” with the preposition signifying nothing at all, it remains, since the others in no way befit God, that we say it contributes to this: that the Holy Spirit proceeds substantially from the Father according to the same one procession and operation, to give Him subsistence, which the saints also confess. For that which is “through” something naturally is also “out of” it; and this is more valid there because of the sameness of the substance, and the Son’s being of the same Godhead with the Father, and the other sameness and lack of variation [compared] to Him, as is in Scripture; and furthermore, regarding that which is out of the
A substance of the Son, the Spirit is said to proceed and to be.
Moreover, even those who contradict [us] concerning the operation, or the goodness, or the life of God, or those graces which men receive from God to work—all of which they wish to be uncreated and things different from the essence—say that they are established within the essence of God itself, and that this [essence] is their cause; and they confess that they have their existence now from the Father through the Son, now from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For they posit them as being caused by the three hypostases. This they would not say at all if they did not think that the hypostases are the essence of God, which is contrary to what they prattle elsewhere. It is clear, therefore, from these things that they themselves also make no distinction in these prepositions, B clearly because of the sameness and indifference of the essence, the procession, and the operation. They also imply that not only in created things does the preposition "through" shift backward and forward to the preposition "out of" (which they object to against the doctrine of the saints, who believe that these prepositions in divine matters have simply no difference, as has been said), but that in uncreated things, too, they give way to each other and pass into one another in turn. Let them also be persuaded by the examples which the teachers used to demonstrate the procession and order of the Persons in the Trinity: for instance, the sun, the ray, and the light; the eye—that is, the first source of the fountain—and the fountain and the river; furthermore, the fountain, the river, and the marsh; C or the root, the branch, and the fruit, and others like these. In these, it is clear that the third has its existence from the first through the middle [one], according to one procession, while at the same time preserving the natural connection and unity with one another.
From these examples, certainly, with the matter and the dimensions and those things that follow it removed (for these have no place in God, for which reason these examples often displeased the teachers in all respects), there remains the principle of order, which exists among the Persons with one another, together with the connection; which principle alone is suitable to be accepted in God regarding the divine Persons. And this alone, with the other things that follow being discarded, pleases the holy teachers, so that they may express both the procession, and the order, and the natural connection, as far as is D possible from examples, in our terms. For if we should not take these as clearly indicating the procession even according to the order, nor [as serving] to indicate the relation of the divine Persons to one another, I do not know what else these examples could possibly mean to convey to us.
CAPUT XII. That the saints theologically discuss that the Holy Spirit is from the substance of the Father and of the Son, and that He is, and exists, and proceeds, and goes forth from the Son.
Now indeed it is time to prove, from the teachers, that the Holy Spirit is from the substance of the Father and of the Son, which, even as
A has been accepted as a point admitted, our discourse shall have a fitting conclusion.
In the first place, therefore, the divine Cyril, in the second book of the *Thesaurus*, in one of the chapters, makes the following inscription: "That the Holy Spirit is from the substance of the Father and the Son." If this same proposition is set before him, it is manifest that, strongly accepting the thesis, he wishes to conclude it. And in this same chapter, which is inscribed in this way, he says: "Since, therefore, the Holy Spirit, when He is in us, makes us conformable to God; but He proceeds from the Father and the Son, it is clear that He is of the divine substance, essentially in it and proceeding from it." B Again, in the same chapter: "But the Spirit is proper to the Son, and not brought in from without." And again in another chapter: "It is necessary to confess that the Spirit Himself exists from the substance of the Son and God, since He possesses all His power and operation." And again in another: "Therefore the Spirit is from the substance of the Son."
Furthermore, the same [author] in his exposition on the Gospel according to John, on that saying: *And the Word was God*: "He is therefore not lesser, who has the same operation with the perfect Father, living and subsisting, just as indeed the Father Himself is." Again, the same in the same exposition on: *And I will ask the Father, and C He will give you another Paraclete*: "For since the Son is essentially a participant in the natural goods of God and the Father, He has the Spirit in that manner in which the Father also can be understood—not brought in, nor from without; for it is foolish, or rather insane, to think thus. But just as each of us contains his own spirit within himself, and pours it forth from the inmost parts to the outside, for this cause also did Christ breathe it forth corporally, showing that just as spirit proceeds from the human mouth corporally, so also the Spirit, who is from the substance of God, is poured forth from it, as befits God."
Again, the same [author] in the discourses according to question and answer to Palladius, near the beginning: "But the Spirit is by no means mutable, D or if He labors under this disease of mutability, the reproach will run back to the divine nature itself. Since He is of God and the Father, nay, even of the Son, who essentially proceeds from both—that is, from the Father through the Son—as Spirit."
Again, the same in his third letter to Nestorius, the beginning of which is, *Our Savior saying, "He who loves father or mother"*: "For even if the Spirit is in His own hypostasis, and is also understood by Himself, insofar as He is Spirit and not the Son; nevertheless, He is not alien to Him; for He is named the Spirit of truth, and Christ is the truth; and He is poured forth from Him, not otherwise, indeed, than from God and the Father."
If anyone in this place wishes the Spirit to be a gift that does not subsist, in truth, first of all, he [Cyril] has said Him to be living and subsisting, and to be in His own hypostasis, and by Himself. Then, when...
Christ A breathed [upon them], they say that He gave not another than the Holy Spirit Himself, who is substantial and subsistent. For in his writings to Amphilochius, the great Basil says: “The Spirit, being ordered together with the living Word for the work of creation, is a living power, and a divine nature, ineffable, manifested from an ineffable mouth, ineffably sent into man by the breathing, and again through the breathing restored into man according to the form shown corporally by Christ.” If, therefore, the Spirit who was restored to man through the breathing is called a divine nature, and is ordered together with the living Word for the work of creation, how could anyone call Him non-subsistent?
Furthermore, the great Athanasius, in his letter to Serapion concerning the Holy Spirit: “Indeed, the Father sending the Spirit, the Son, by breathing, gives Him to the disciples; since all things that the Father has are the Son’s.” And Cyril, in the fourth book of his work to Hermias: “By a corporal and more manifest breathing, He very well shadowed forth the nature of the Spirit.” Moreover, we sing in the hymns during the feast of the Theophany: “In whose name, then, shall I baptize you? The Father’s? But you bear Him within yourself. The Son’s? But you yourself are the One who became incarnate. The Holy Spirit’s? But you know that He is given to the faithful through the mouth.” B
But also the holy synod, in the twelfth chapter of its conclusion, speaks thus: “If anyone defends the impious Theodore of Mopsuestia, who said that the God-Word is one, and Christ another, and who, among his other innumerable blasphemies, dared to say that after the resurrection the Lord, having breathed upon the disciples and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit,’ did not give them the Holy Spirit, but breathed only in semblance; let therefore those who have ever thought such things, and have persisted in such impiety to the end, be anathema.”
It is possible to gather from the words of the divine Father Basil that he meant the Spirit exists from the Son. For the Son is the mouth of the Father, and He said that [the Spirit] was manifested from an ineffable mouth. For if anyone interprets “to be manifested” as meaning “to appear,” he says nothing. For, in the first place, the saints take it to mean “to be” [His very self]. For the divine Basil says: C “The Spirit has nothing acquired, but has all things from eternity, as the Spirit of God, and has manifested from Him.” And the divine Cyril, in his discourse to Valerian the bishop, says: “For being holy by nature, just as the Father is, the Only-begotten Son who is from Him is said to be sanctified by the Father, insofar as He is man.”
And “to be manifested” signifies not only this, but also that [the Spirit] shines forth the timeless existence of the Son; for example, when the Damascene says: “You have become inseparably the Mother of God, of Him who shone forth from the immaculate Father.” And furthermore, the Studite sings in the hymns: “For the Father is without beginning, from whom the Son was born before time, and the Holy Spirit, companion of the same majesty, shone forth together from the Father.” And indeed, the terms “to proceed,” “to gush forth,” and “to be sent forth,” just as “to be manifested,”
A do no less express the existence of the Son, just as the term “to be begotten” itself does. And surely this must be said to hold in the same way regarding the Spirit, when he himself (the Spirit) is said to appear, to go forth, or to proceed and emanate from the Son. Furthermore, whoever interprets that expression “to be manifested” otherwise seems to be ignorant of these small and childish things, namely that some verbs signify one thing in the present tense, but assume another meaning in their own past tenses, or even in the future. For example, the word *prattō* in the present signifies “I effect,” but the term *pepraka* in its own past tense signifies “I have sold,” according to that which is chanted in the Oriental Church: “And as a slave he sold his Master.” Likewise, *peithō* in the present signifies “I persuade,” but *peithomai* in the future denotes a passion, and is understood as “I shall endure,” or “I shall suffer.” Therefore, the verb also in the present, *phainō*, when it signifies “I illuminate” or “I show,” in the past tense signifies “to be” and “to exist” in this context; as the statements of the saints brought forward prove, and as the series of discourse along with the sense compels us to admit. But neither is it lawful to say that when the Holy Spirit is said to be given, or distributed, or sent by the Son, it is not the subsistent Holy Spirit himself who is then indicated, but something else that is not subsistent. For, in the first place, there are not many Holy Spirits. For Gregory the Theologian says in his oration to Heron the philosopher: B “But define also, while teaching our piety, that they should know one God, the unbegotten Father, one truly begotten Son, and one Holy Spirit proceeding or emanating from the Father.” The holy Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, also in his Confession of Faith, after some remarks, adds: “And in one Holy Spirit.” And before these, the great Paul says: “One Holy Spirit, in whom are all things.” Then, if we should grant that other spirits are spoken of, yet none of them is called Holy Spirit, or divine, nor is any said to proceed from the Father, or to proceed through the Son, nor is any subsistent; since they are not of the same nature and dignity, but differ as much as created things differ from the Creator. For that no other Spirit exists is evident from the common sense of the faith, which sets forth that there are only three persons as God. This is also evident from the saints themselves. For the great Athanasius, in his Epistle to Serapion, the beginning of which is: “The letters of your holy affection,” says: C “Tell me, therefore, where in the Holy Scriptures the Holy Spirit is found called simply ‘Spirit,’ without the addition of being said to be ‘of God,’ or ‘of the Father,’ or ‘my,’ or ‘of Christ himself and of the Son,’ or ‘from me’—that is, from God—or without the article, so that when it is not said simply ‘Spirit,’ but ‘the Spirit of God,’ or this very thing, ‘the Holy Spirit,’ the ‘Paraclete,’ or ‘of the truth’—that is, of the Son, who names himself ‘the Truth’—and not simply cited as holy, you ought to understand and perceive that you should not consider this word ‘Spirit’ [to be meant] simply, but with the addition, ‘the Holy Spirit’.” The holy Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch, also D
A in his dogmatic oration, the beginning of which is: *The discourse concerning our upright faith*, after many things says, “The Holy Spirit you will not find at all called thus. But ‘Spirit,’ as I have previously said, God is called, and ‘Holy’ God is called. Both names together suitably belong to him who is particularly called ‘Holy Spirit,’ just as the appellation of ‘Father’ pertains to the Cause, and the appellation of ‘Son’ pertains to him who is immediately from the Cause.”
But also the divine Chrysostom, in his homily concerning the Holy Spirit, the beginning of which is, “Yesterday, O lovers of Christ,” says: “These are the names of the ineffable nature of the Holy Spirit: Spirit of God, Spirit which is from God, Spirit of the Lord, Spirit of the Father, Spirit of the Son, Spirit of Christ, Spirit of him who raised Christ, Spirit of life, Spirit of truth.” If, therefore, B being called ‘Spirit of the Son’ and ‘Spirit of Truth’ signifies the very nature of the Holy Spirit, it is manifest that which was said, namely, that since the Spirit is called the Spirit of the Son and the Spirit of Truth being sent by the Son himself, it is the substantial and subsistent divine Spirit himself who is the Paraclete, who proceeds from the Father through the Son according to the theology of the saints, not, however, some unsubstantial gift, as some think, that is signified.
But if again the divine Chrysostom asserts in the same place: “But when you hear that he is sent, do not understand that Deity is meant, for God is not sent,” he is not opposing reason, nor is he contrary to himself. For insofar as he is God, no person is sent. Nor is he sent insofar as he is substance and Deity; for so there would be a multitude of gods sending and being sent, and some would be lords, others servants, or both for each. For he would not be properly God if, insofar as he is God, he were said to be sent. According to which reasoning, neither does the Father, insofar as he is God, beget the Son, nor would substance be said simply to beget substance; C for it would follow that there are either three fathers, or three substances considered by themselves, divided, and separated from one another; but insofar as he is a person, he is said to be sent. Just as also, insofar as he is Father, the Father begets; and insofar as he is Son, the Son is begotten; namely, according to the properties of the hypostases and their significance, and according to the order which such things have toward one another, which are properly assigned to the persons along with the identity according to substance.
Therefore, the saint, looking to these things, did not deny that, for it is evident that he affirmed this in many places, but that he denies, lest two gods, insofar as they are divided gods, should be understood, this one as sender, that one as sent. Since he who sends is accustomed to be separated from him who is sent, and thus one indeed would be Lord, but the other servant; and two deities, and whatever other absurd things follow. Otherwise, how would the holy teacher have denied that the Paraclete is sent by the Son, when the Lord himself says expressly concerning himself: “But when the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father”? Unless perhaps someone would say that the Paraclete himself, the Spirit of truth, is one diviD
divine, unsubstantial person of the Trinity. But this contains much that is impious and foolish. Rather, the divine Chrysostom adds much strength to the present truth. For in homily 39 of his Exposition of the Gospel according to John, fashioning his argument as if from the contrary, he says: “And how, he says, is the sender and the sent one of the same substance?” And he adds: “Again you bring the discourse down to human things, and do not understand that all these things were said for no other reason than that we might know the cause, and not fall into the disease of Sabellius.” B In these things two points are gathered: first, that he who sends is a subsistent essence, and the same for him who is sent; for he concedes entirely that both are of the same substance. Second, that being sent indicates at once the distinction of the divine persons, and at the same time expresses the cause: “For no other reason, he says, was it said that he is sent, but that we might know the cause, and not fall into the disease of Sabellius.” If, therefore, sending and being sent indicates the cause and the caused, and the Holy Spirit is sent by the Son, it is clear, according to the divine Chrysostom, that the Son is the cause of the Holy Spirit; for nothing stands in the way of this consequence. Thus, the truth shines more brightly even from those things by which some wish to tear it apart, and the whole is turned against them into the contrary.
That, however, many other spirits called by such names, apart from the one Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, differ from Him as much as created things differ from the Creator, is evident from those things which Gregory the Theologian transmits in his oration concerning the Holy Spirit; for he says: “He is called the Spirit of adoption, of liberty, the Spirit of prudence, the Spirit of wisdom, of counsel, of strength, of knowledge, of piety, of the fear of God. For He is the maker of all these.” C Since, therefore, that doctor says that the Holy Spirit is the maker of these gifts, it is certain that these are created things. The Holy Spirit is named by such terms, by the same names, just as the craftsman is named from his works, and he who is an artificer from the things wrought by art, and in sum, the cause from the caused. Therefore, the blessed Paul also called them operations, saying: “And there are divisions of operations, but it is the same God who works all in all.” Therefore, to say that the operations are uncreated is equivalent to considering things that are created to be worthy of the name of Creator. D
Finally, it is absurd to say that counsel or fear are uncreated in God. For where there is counsel, there the lack of knowledge is also considered. But there is nothing of the sort in God; for He is wisdom itself, and knowledge itself, knowing all things before they come to be. Similarly, there cannot be fear, since God, particularly from eternity, fears no one. In us, however, there is a passion that lifts our soul toward more perfect things, and has the power of perfecting it. This is what is called fear, holding the nature of an element or principle, according to that of the Scripture: “The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord,” which God has given us.
just as all other things. For both being and well-being are from Him. Therefore, all things may rightly be called graces, even this very fact of coming into being from non-being; since we have not received this as a reward for works that preceded it. A
But indeed the divine Maximus, in chapter 39 of the fifth century of the *Theological Chapters*, says: “The Spirit of the fear of God is the operation according to virtue in abstaining from evils. The Spirit of fortitude is a prompt impulse of the soul and a movement to action and the practice of the commandments. The Spirit of counsel is the habit of discretion. The Spirit of knowledge is the firm cognition regarding morals in the actions of the virtues. The Spirit of understanding is the comprehension of the arguments which are to be observed in the commandments. The Spirit of prudence is the approbation, or more properly to say, the transformation, toward the morals and reasons of the virtues. The Spirit of wisdom is the reduction and conjunction of the spiritual arguments concerning the commandments to the (primary) cause.” B
It is, therefore, most irrational to say that the practice of the commandments, and the transformation of the arguments of the virtues, and the prompt impulse and movement toward what is good, and, in short, every power and habit and perfection of the human soul are uncreated in God. From which, among many absurdities that follow, this also will follow most clearly: that God is potent and wise by the same cognition and knowledge and fortitude as we are. And since those whose perfections are the same, the essence is also the same, men would be according to essence the same as God and consubstantial with Him. This, therefore, as irrational, let it be utterly rejected. But we must return to the proposed subject. C
Furthermore, in the acts of the first Nicene synod, in those things which the Fathers answered to the philosopher through Leontius the bishop, it is said that the Spirit proceeds indeed from the Father, but is proper to the Son, and emanates from Him.
Furthermore, the great Athanasius, in the oration *On the Incarnation of the Word of God*, whose beginning is: “Those who wish to understand the divine Scriptures perversely,” says: “He Himself sent it [the Spirit] from above as God, and He Himself received it from below as man; from Himself, therefore, it descended into Himself, from His divinity to His humanity.” D
Furthermore, the divine Chrysostom, in the oration *On the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ* and *That angels preside over every climate*, whose beginning is: “Truly the grace of God has appeared to us,” says: “Christ came to us, gave us the Spirit which is from Himself, and took up our body.”
Furthermore, Saint Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch, in the book *On the Right Dogmas of our Religion of the Church*, whose beginning is: “A discourse concerning our right faith,” says: “But [the] body...”
A of it as a pattern, we have set forth the mutual coherence of the divine things by the analogy and likeness of the members. For by this reason also, the Spirit of his mouth—that is to say, of God—is called the Holy Spirit, the mouth being the Only-Begotten. And the Spirit, again, proceeding from him, and being sent not only by the Father but also by the Son.” And after a few things: “For the Lord, demonstrating it to exist from himself, breathing it into the disciples, said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” And after a few things: “For the apostles, by praying and supplicating as to a Master, would induce the Holy Spirit—if one might say so—into those who were worthy of his visitation; but our Savior, as from a certain treasury, provided it forth from himself to those who had become sufficiently capable through purity of life.” In the same book: “The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God’s mouth; for the Son is the mouth of the Father.” Again in the same: “The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. And this indeed proceeds from the Father, but it receives from the Son.”
Saint Athanasius, in the epistle to Serapion, the beginning of which is: “The letters of your sacred disposition,” says: “And the Son indeed says, ‘What I have heard from the Father, these things I also speak to the world,’ but the Spirit receives from the Son: ‘For he shall take of mine,’ he says, ‘and shall declare it to you.’” And again in the same: “For since the Son is one, the living Word, there must also be one perfect and full sanctifying and illuminating life, being his operation and gift, which is indeed said to proceed from the Father; because it shines forth from the Word who is acknowledged to be from the Father, and is sent, and is given.” The same, in the third [oration] against the Arians: “The Spirit does not join the Word to the Father, but rather the Spirit receives this from the Word.” B
Saint Cyril on that [verse]: *He shall glorify me:* “It is therefore completely irreprehensible, and beyond all refutation, if it be said that his Spirit receives something from the Only-Begotten. For proceeding naturally through him, as being his own, together with all things that he has, he is said to receive perfectly the things that are his.” The same in the fifth book unto Hermias: “The Holy Spirit is as a certain natural quality of the holy and wise Godhead, which is considered in the Father and the Son.” The same in the books to the same: “The Holy Spirit is as a certain natural and living operation, and, so to speak, a quality of the Godhead of the Son, and is as a sort of vapor, or quality, of the substance of the Father.” The same on that [verse]: *For he shall not speak of himself:* “For the Holy Spirit is not understood as alien to the substance of the Only-Begotten, but proceeds naturally from it. Being nothing else beside him C so far as identity of nature is concerned, even if he be thought of as subsisting in his own right.”
Saint Epiphanius in the *Ancoratus* says: “The Spirit is incomprehensible, not alien to the Father and D the Son.”
A And a little later: “The Holy Spirit is not brother, not uncle, not grandfather, not great-grandfather, not descendant, but is of the same substance as the Father and the Son.” And a little later: “For the Only-Begotten Himself says, ‘The Spirit of the Father,’ and ‘who proceeds from the Father,’ and ‘He shall take of Mine,’ so that He might not be thought alien to the Father or the Son.” And a little later: “From the Father and the Son, third in naming.” And after many things: “Both dwell in the righteous man, Christ and His Spirit. But if Christ is believed to be God from God, from the Father, then the Spirit is from Christ, or from both, as Christ says: ‘Who proceeds from the Father,’ and ‘He shall take of Me.’” And after a few things: B “But someone will say: ‘Do we then say there are two Sons? And how then is He the Only-Begotten?’ But who are you, indeed, who contradict God? For if He calls Him who is from Himself the Son, but the Holy Spirit [is] from both—these things are perceived by faith only by holy men, [they are] luminous, light-giving, and have a luminous action.” And after a few things: “The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, is the third light from the Father and the Son.” And after a few things: “For in the same way as no one knows the Father except the Son, nor the Son except the Father, so I dare to say that no one knows the Spirit except the Father and the Son, from whom He proceeds and from whom He receives; and neither [does anyone know] the Son and the Father, except the Holy Spirit, who truly glorifies, who teaches all things, who [is] from the Father and from the Son.” And after some things: “Therefore, the Father existed always, and the Spirit breathes from the Father and the Son.” Again in the same [work]: “‘Send forth Thy light and Thy truth,’ says David. He Himself is the Lord who said: ‘In the last days I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh, and their sons and their daughters shall prophesy, and their young men shall see visions.’ He shows us three persons of the holy ministry, namely, one hypostasis from another, up to the number of three.”
Moreover, Gregory of Nyssa in the first book of the *Against Eunomius*, the beginning of which is, “It was not as it appears,” [says]: C “In the same way that the hypostasis of the Father is contemplated prior to the hypostasis of the Son by the account of cause, the same account [applies] also regarding the Spirit. It is only in the order which is according to cause and caused that it has a difference; for just as the Son is joined to the Father, and having His being from Him, is not posterior in existence, so again the Holy Spirit is joined to the Son, the hypostasis of the Spirit being contemplated prior only by the thinking of the mind according to the account of the cause.”
Moreover, Gregory the Theologian, concerning the relationship or order which the Son has toward the Spirit, and the Spirit toward the Son—which order, indeed, in the divine persons can be understood only according to cause and caused, and in no other way is it permitted—in his *Refutatory Oration on the Holy Spirit*, as if proposing an objection to himself, says: “What then, he says, is lacking to the Spirit, for Him to be the Son? For if something were not lacking, He would be the Son.” This is the objection. But he adds:
we say that it is not that God is wanting, A but that the emanation, if I may so call it, or the difference in the relationship to one another, has also produced a different naming for them.
Furthermore, the blessed Augustine, in his book *De fide ad Petrum*: “For the Son, who exists born from the nature of the Father, is eternal and without beginning; and that which the Holy Spirit proceeds from the nature of the Father and the Son is also eternal and without beginning.” Again, in the same book: “In that Trinity, therefore, which we repeat so often so that it might be more firmly fixed in our heart, there is one God the Father, who alone essentially begat one Son from Himself; and one Son, who alone is essentially begotten from one Father; and one Holy Spirit, who alone essentially proceeds from the Father and the Son.” Again, in the same: “For it would not be the property B of the Father alone in that Trinity, because He is not Himself born, but that He begat one Son from Himself; nor is it the property of the Son alone, because He did not beget, but is born from the essence of the Father; nor is it the property of the Holy Spirit, because He is neither born nor did He beget, but proceeds solely from the Father and the Son.” Again, in the same book, chapter eleven: “Hold most firmly, and do not doubt in any way, that the same Holy Spirit, who is the one Spirit of the Father and the Son, proceeds from the Father and the Son.” The same Augustine, in his *Exposition of the Gospel according to John*, and in the fourth book *De Trinitate*, chapter twenty: “For that bodily breathing forth, proceeding corporeally with the sense of touching, was not the substance of the Holy Spirit, C but a demonstration through a suitable signification that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from the Father, but also from the Son.” The same, in the fifteenth book of *De Trinitate*, chapter 17: “Not in vain is no one in this Trinity called the Word of God except the Son; nor the gift of God, except the Holy Spirit; nor is anyone the One from whom the Word is begotten, nor the One from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds principally, except God the Father. However, I added ‘principally’ because the Holy Spirit is also found to proceed from the Son; but since the Father gave this to Him also—not to Him already existing and not yet having it—whatever He gave to the only-begotten Word, He gave in begetting Him. Thus, therefore, He begat Him so that the common gift would also proceed from Him, and the Holy Spirit would be of both.” D
Hilarius in the sermon which is read on the first Sunday after Pentecost at the feast of the most holy Trinity (5), says: “We believe in the Holy Trinity, that is,
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one almighty God, of one substance, of one existence, of one power, the creator of all creatures, from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things. The Father is from himself, not from another; the Son is begotten of the Father, true God from true God, true light from true light, yet not two lights, but one light; the Holy Spirit proceedeth equally from the Father and the Son, consubstantial and coeternal with the Father and the Son. The Father is full God in himself. The Son is full God, begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit is full God, proceeding from the Father and the Son. But we say not three gods, but one God, almighty, eternal, invisible, immutable, who is present whole everywhere, not divided into parts, but whole in all things, not locally but potentially; who without change of himself created changeable things, and governs the things created; always remaining what he is, to whom nothing accidental can ever occur, because to the simple nature of the Divinity nothing can be added or taken away, because he always is what he is; to whom it is proper, to whom it is eternal, to whom it is the same to be, to live, and to understand. And these three are one God, and one God are these three.”
These statements of the saints are thus many, and so clear, and are but a few gathered from many; moreover, there is no need to bring forward others, which might signify that the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father through the Son, both because this opinion of the teachers is manifest to almost everyone, and because those things which have been said suffice conveniently for those who love the truth. Although, if none of those things had been said whence we have that [proceedeth] "from the Son" and "from the Son" clearly and in many places, would not this one statement alone, that the Holy Spirit has his existence from the Father through the Son, be sufficient both for the teachers themselves C when discussing the substantial procession of the Father, as has been said before, and for those who seek the truth would there be no need for anything more? Since both the order is conceded as far as the preposition "through" goes, and the cause is manifest together with the expression which they seek, which signifies the existence of the Spirit. For the word "to proceed" indicates nothing else here than that the Holy Spirit has his existence from the Father through the Son by way of procession. Unless someone should say that the preposition "through" designates a ministry; which is a manifest contradiction to the principles of faith and the opinions of the theologians. For it would not be said substantially, nor naturally, through the Son D to pro-
[Note: The remaining text on this page is a historical-critical commentary by the Latin editor regarding the authenticity of certain Breviaries and the writings of Fabius Benevolentius (this section belongs to the editorial apparatus, which is often dense in Migne, but as the text continues with an argument regarding Gregory Nazianzen), which we conclude as follows:]
Nor are they found jointly and in continuous discourse among these teachers and authors, so that for that reason even the fourth Breviary cites no author, since they are not all from one, but some are from some, and others from others, and that one point in particular, that God is not divided into parts, and that the three are one God, and one God the three; likewise that there are not two lights, but one light, are read explicitly in Gregory Nazianzen’s oration *On the Holy Spirit*, where three are sub-understood, that is, three persons. If anyone wishes to examine these mentioned Breviaries with his own eyes, let him approach the library of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus in the Roman College in the City.
A to proceed, and to be, and to emanate, and to possess existence, and such like; nor is it forbidden that it be through Him according to a servile ministry, nor that the Son has the Spirit in the same manner as the Father, except for the addition of the statement that He proceeds from the Father through the Son. And since many other proofs abound, it has been demonstrated with superabundance to those who contend vehemently that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. For those things which they seek, in order to teach and demonstrate this, they could find by collecting them from many places here and there, if only, with contention removed and the irrational prejudice born of time cut away, they would seek with charity; for the servant of the Lord must not be litigious, but gentle, teachable, and all those things which the Apostle adds. B
That the cited teachers are worthy of faith is indeed true, as is likewise clear from the common consensus which we have concerning them, and from the holy and ecumenical fifth synod, in its third session about the middle, which has it thus to the letter: "We follow in all things the holy Fathers and the teachers of the Church, Athanasius, Hilary, Basil, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Augustine, Theophilus, and John of Constantinople, Cyril, Leo, Proclus; and we accept all things which have been set forth by them concerning the right faith and for the condemnation of heretics. We also accept the other holy and orthodox Fathers who have preached the orthodox faith in the holy Church of God blamelessly until the end. But also, in the so-called Synodical Tome, which is recited in the churches, all those are subjected to anathema who do not accept by name the aforementioned teachers, C and do not confess all things from them." And in a peculiar way, the holy and ecumenical synods, the third, the sixth, and the seventh, declared Saint Augustine to be a most excellent teacher of the Church and holy, as is evident from their Acts.
And now regarding the aforementioned holy Anastasius of Antioch, the sixth synod commemorates these things: "We accept the holy Anastasius, who answered orthodoxly for the tome of Saint Leo and the illustrious Pope." And again: "The whole East calls holy this man of holy memory, Anastasius, who was archbishop of Antioch, and whoever does not accept him, may God anathematize." D Since, however, certain persons bring forward some things from the writings of Theodoret against Saint Cyril for the confirmation of their own error, let them know that the holy and ecumenical sixth synod, among other things which it decreed against Theodoret, also decreed these things, in the chapter of his authors: "If anyone does not anathematize the writings of Theodoret which are against the right faith of Saint Cyril, and the epistle which is called Ibas's, and Theodore of Mopsuestia, and his writings, and if anyone does not accept the writings of Saint Cyril, and especially those which are against Theodore and Theodoret, and Andrew, and Nestorius, and those who share their sentiments…
or think as they do, let him be anathema. The same things regarding him may be found more abundantly in the Acts of the holy and ecumenical fifth synod. A
CHAPTER XIII
A brief repetition of what has been said, with an epilogue.
What has been recounted concerning these matters is sufficient. I wish, however, to take up the thread from the beginning and summarize what has been said. First, it was demonstrated that to those who deny that the Son is from the substance of the Father, many absurdities follow. Second, in what sense theologians speak of "substance" and "hypostasis" as different things in God. Third, that substance, hypostasis, and property in God are one and the same thing in reality. Fourth, that even if the paternal nature and the filiation are substance, it does not necessarily follow from this that the Son is the Father, or the Father the Son. Fifth, that those who assert that just as one thing is "hypostasis," another "substance," and another "fatherhood" in God does not constitute a composition, so too those things which are said to subsist within the substance of God, and which differ really from the essence and from one another, do not constitute a composition, are unreasonable. Sixth, that the teachers of the Church proclaim theologically that the Son is from the substance of the Father. Seventh, that those who deny that the Son is from the substance, or is begotten [of Him], destroy the principles of faith and fight against the teachers. Eighth, what finally were the causes of their error. Ninth, that resisting those who say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son forced them not to confess that the Son is from the substance of the Father. Tenth, what objections they bring forward, which seem most important, against those who say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; and first, those which are drawn from consubstantiality, and the solutions to them. Eleventh, that they also bring forward another objection against the same people, the one from the "two principles," and the solution to it. Twelfth, that the saints theologize concerning the Spirit as [being] from the substance of the Father and the Son, and that He is from the Son, and subsists, and proceeds forth, and flows out, and proceeds. And lastly, upon all these, [we have] the gathering together of what has been said. B Here, then, let the discourse have its end, since up to this point its purpose extended.
If, therefore, the discourse has attained a fitting end and has throughout stoutly completed the present work, thanks be to God, who grants even to the mute to speak and to the deaf to hear. But if not, if anything seems weak, let the deficiency be attributed not to the questions with which this discourse has been concerned, but to the speaker. I think, however, that because what we have proposed in our discourse is true, it will, by the grace of God, be judged that our words are also good and most true. C Unless someone, on account of rusticity and barbarity, or out of malice and impiety of soul, wishing to appear as something among the foolish, might desire to behave most shamelessly against the truth. D
DEMETRIUS CYDONES' LETTER TO BARLAAM ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
(Vide inter mutuas Barlaami et Demetrii epistolas in Barlaamo.)NOTICE ON THE ORATION OF DEMETRIUS CYDONIUS REGARDING THE ADMISSION OF LATIN AID
(COMBEFIS. Auctar. nov., tom. II.)Regarding Demetrius Cydonius, Possevinus, drawing from Volaterranus, says these words: "Demetrius Cydonius of Thessalonica, a man equally learned and holy, endowed with both Greek and Latin eloquence, left his fatherland and came to Milan, where he dedicated himself to Latin letters and theology. He translated the books of St. Thomas Aquinas into the Greek language, which version is still visible today in the Vatican Library. He also wrote against Eunomius concerning the Divinity of the Son, etc. His oration on life and death, published at Basel, is also extant. The indices of libraries hold more of his works. Among these, this one oration has seemed to me preeminent and opportune for my stated goal, whereby the history of the Greeks might subsequently be brilliantly illustrated by Manuel. For the Emperor John, who had gone to Rome—where Demetrius presented these [arguments]—should not be seen as any other than John, son of Manuel, whom Phrantzes (ch. 41) also records as having gone into Hungary to solicit aid: 'On November 15, in the year 6932 [1424 AD], Emperor John crossed into Hungary, having appointed his brother, the Despot Constantine, to be left in the city in his stead.' Demetrius does not remain silent about this departure of his. That oration [was delivered] when the Greeks, having lost almost everything, scarcely kept the city safe. The argument, however, reveals both the mind of Demetrius, which was more favorable toward the Latins, and the bias of many Greeks against those same [Latins], whom they admitted with such difficulty, even when they were voluntarily incurring dangers for their sake: they considered the yoke of the Turks lighter than that of the Latins. Among other monuments of Demetrius, there exists in the Royal codex a very long Oration, *On the Gospel* (τὸν Εὐαγγελισμόν), in which he treats and pursues most clearly almost everything concerning the fall of man and his reparation, adducing congruences such as almost those of St. Thomas in the *Summa*. To its title is added: 'Not read in church, due to [its being]... by the Catholic Church rejected.' However, this discourse is not read in church because it was rejected by the Catholic Church. I have read it, and I have found nothing in which it is less in agreement with the Greeks or with our own [Latins]; and therefore I think it was rejected out of hatred for the author, whom the Greek schismatics pursued with hatred as a 'Latinizer' (Λατινόφρονα). Certainly, there is extant in the same place his sufficiently long epistle addressed to Theodorus Glabas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, in which he clears himself and complains of the sinister rumors spread about him, by which he was traduced as a heretic; he signifies that he is ready to be instructed, so that the other might show and prove better things; he would not, however, yield in pressing certain matters of the fathers, of the people, or of this or that authority, or even by experience or some sense: by which he clearly lowers the authority of his own Church, which he knew to be divided by schism and not entirely sound in dogma, and he criticizes the credulity of his own people, who pay such tribute to schismatic and heretical masters, and wish nothing further to remain for the investigation of truth. Therefore, as much as Cydonius’s memory is odious to the schismatic Greeks, so much should it be welcome and sacred to the orthodox Latins; and it is more in the interest of the Christian cause to make his monuments public law than those of Philotheus, or Cabasilas, or of other contemporaries, who are in no way superior to Cydonius in doctrine or in the polish of their eloquence, [but] who are clearly infected with errors in faith along with schism.