A pla, from which the history of the Council of Florence can be aptly illustrated in certain respects. It is worthwhile here to compile a catalog of the books published by Mark, which we have encountered thus far. These are indeed as follows:
1. Homilies or two Orations on Purgatory delivered at Ferrara (39). 2. Homily that divine gifts are sanctified not only by the words of the Dominical B prayer, but also by the power of the Holy Spirit (40). 3. Epistle to George Scholarios, in which he censures him for having defected to the Latins. (We have published this epistle in the Appendix, n. 1.) 4. Solutions to certain doubts proposed by him (41). 5. Dialogue on the addition made by the Latins to the Creed. (In Appendix, n. 4.) 6. Epistle to the monk Theophanes, in which he praises his writings against the union with the Latins (42). 7. Another epistle to the same, which we have provided in the Appendix, n. 2. 8. Circular epistle to all those dwelling everywhere in the world and in the islands concerning the Florentine synod (b). 9. Epistle to Emperor John Palaiologos, a fragment of which Allatius displays in *De synodo Photiana*, p. 549. (Appendix, n. 5.) 10. Syllogistic Chapters currently edited by us. 11. Profession of faith refuted by Patriarch Gregory. 12. Epistle to Presbyter George against the rites and sacrifices of the Roman Church (43). 13. Antirrheticus against Andrew of Colossae. 14. Apology for his flight, written in the year 1440. 15. Treatise against the encyclical of Bessarion. 16. Final words to George Scholarios. (Appendix, n. 3.) 17. Homily on the Lord’s Prayer (44). 18. Poems and hymns to the Mother of God (45). 19. Several epistles (46).
(39) Testified by Montfaucon, in *Bibl. Coisl.* p. 406; in *cod. Coislin.* 289 (old 337) it is read: "Mark of Ephesus, homily delivered in Ferrara of Italy to the cardinals and other Latin teachers concerning the cleansing fire glorified by them." Beginning: "Since having answered with love to the things spoken by you..." Both orations exist in *cod. Paris.* 1218, 15th cent., catalog p. 256, n. 2, 3 (n. 4 is a refutation of objections). (40) "...are the Latin innovators, who in the holy mystery perfect the divine gifts by the Dominical words spoken by the priest, but the power of the prayer [perfects them] hereafter, as our orthodox Church glorifies." Beginning: "We have the exposition of the mystical liturgy from the holy apostles and the teachers who succeeded them." It exists in *cod. Mon.* 256 f. 127, in *cod. Coislin.* 290 (old 352. See Montfaucon *l.c.*), *Paris.* 1218, n. 9 (*Catal. l.c.*). Cf. also *Paris.* 1261, and printed at the end of the Liturgies of SS. James, Basil, and Chrys. ed. Paris 1560, fol. p. 158. In Latin in *Liturg. Cl. de Sainctes* Antwerp 1562, 8, p. 82. *Mon.* 256, f. 136 seq. under the title: "Solutions to someone who has posed the present questions, 1st Question. Of what shape is God?" Answer: "God has no shape, neither human nor any other like those of sensible things; for he is incorporeal and immaterial; everything that is incorporeal must necessarily not have shape." There are twenty questions. (42) In the cited *cod. Mon.* 256 is read f. 143 an epistle of Theophanes with this title: "To our most divine and most reverend emperor Lord John Palaiologos, the humble and least among the hieromonks, Theophanes, who is in the mountain of Monovyzos, in the island of ...". Beginning: "Would that I were abandoned by all, I think." There follows f. 146 a *Syntagma* of the same beginning: "The piety and true faith which is ours as Christians, which we have received and possess." At the end a scholion f. 155 b: "For these things were sent to the [bishop] of Ephesus by the most honorable among hieromonks, Lord Theophanes, while the holy [bishop] of Ephesus was then in Constantinople, so that he might bring them to the emperor, to see if the things written might appear correct, which the holy man having received, he not only praised it, but also wrote back these things to him." There follows f. 155 b, Mark's epistle: "Having received the writing of your holiness, I received no small comfort." "...written concerning the things occurring in the divine prayer, that is, of 'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.'" Beginning: "How great is the power of the prayer and what [grace] it bestows on those using it..." Fragment of an epistle of Mark to George the presbyter, given by Allatius in *Creyghon exerc.* xi, p. 190. (44) *Cod. Paris.* 2075. (45) *Cod. Paris.* cit. (46) *Cod. Paris.* 965, 1191, 1218, 1286, 1295, 1310, 1527, 2005, 2075.
SYLLOGISTIC CHAPTERS AGAINST THE LATINS BY MARK OF EPHESUS, OF THE EUGENIKOS FAMILY, AND THE RESPONSE OF THE MOST WISE LORD GEORGE SCHOLARIUS TO THESE, ELABORATED AT THE REQUEST OF THE BLESSED MEMORY PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE, LORD GREGORY, THE NEW CONFESSOR. NOW FIRST EDITED BY J. HERGENROETHER, PROFESSOR OF SACRED THEOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WÜRZBURG.
AEPHES. CHAP. I. Let us ask the Latins: If you wish the Son to have all that belongs to the Father, why do you not also make Him the Father? Because, they say, this has an opposition to the Son, and opposition has the power to distinguish persons, not to join them, so that there may be no confusion in them. If, therefore, opposition distinguishes the divine persons, as you maintain, O most wise, and if both opposites cannot simultaneously exist and coincide in any one of them, then neither will the cause and the caused coincide (for these too are opposites), nor will the Son be simultaneously caused and cause, just as the Son is not simultaneously the Father. What will they argue against this? They would say, perhaps, that He would also be the Father if He had someone to whom He could be referred (as the Son does). What an absurdity! Again that ridiculous sophism returns to us, and they do the same B thing—
A as those who declare and affirm that every man is begotten, and thus would say that Adam too would have been begotten if he had had a father.
RESPONSE OF GEORGE SCHOLARIUS
The Latins, when they hear the words of the holy Gospels: *All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine*; and again, *All mine are thine, and thine are mine*; and again, *I and the Father are one*; they are not forced by this universal word "all" to say that the Son is the Father or the Father is the Son; for the very words do not compel this, but rather they persuade and convince us to believe that the property remains immovable in the Son, and in the same way in the Father, if one rightly understands these words. Nor is it because they exclude properties from the statement that they also cast out those things which, in no wise, imply they are common—nay, the necessity of the matter perhaps even demands it. But they preserve the properties immovable and the communion in no way diminished; that is to say, they preserve in their statements both the personal distinction and the unity of the divine essence unshaken. B Moreover, they consider it equally foolish if someone, hearing the word "all," should include the property as well—which is absolutely impossible—or if one should suppose that the expression intends this; and if anyone, by excluding from the word what cannot be understood, also excludes that which is not necessary, yet not in any way impossible, but indeed, if not impossible, then even necessary, as far as divine things are concerned, in which the category of the contingent has no place. For no sound discourse would suppose that in the same way one should cast out along with the impossible that which can exist, nor is he wise who speaks thus, for it is an act of audacity to lie against the truth and its oracles.
It is sufficient, therefore, for the Latins that they consider these Gospel C passages to be understood while remaining immovably within the bounds of this twofold and most universal head of true theology: namely, the unity of the divine essence and the distinction of the persons. But they also have the doctors as patrons of their opinion, or, to speak more correctly, as guides and leaders: on one side, those who openly say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, who certainly would not have said this if, with the property of begetting, the property of spirating had also been cast out as some other thing; and on the other, those who interpret that expression, who exclude only the property of begetting from this universal utterance, all wishing the same thing in other words. If, moreover, they had known the property of the Father relative to the Son as "spirating" or "emission" (for one must not be overly concerned now with the elegance of terms), D and that it was a property to be cast out together with the other, then certainly all, or at the very least one, would have been found who would have cast it out; but as it is, no one has done so at all. But Cyril says: "We believe the Son to be co-eternal with the Father, and having all things equally, except for begetting." And the same author elsewhere: "In the Son..."
A in all things similar and equal to the Father, except for the one paternity." And Athanasius indeed: "The same things are said of the Son as are said of the Father, except that He is not called Father." And the same elsewhere: "The things that the Scriptures say of the Father, these they also say of the Son, except only that He is not called Father." And no one of the Fathers says: "except for spiration." But if the Theologian said "except for the cause," he either understands by "cause" the fountain and the cause without cause, just as the Oriental Fathers also seem to use this term for the cause, or he calls "cause" that which is opposed to the Son, that is, that which pertains to begetting. For otherwise he would neither have agreed with the saints who say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, nor with those who say that the Son has all things of the Father except the paternity and the being Father and the begetting—and nowhere have they said "production"—if indeed he himself also calls the "production" a cause at the same time; but it is absolutely necessary that he should agree with everyone.
The solution to the proposed argument
, while already clear from what has been said, will be even clearer when we do not go through every single point, but show from where he took his handle, and where the fraud lies hidden, which we shall detect and refute; and we shall cut off many words which he gathered with great ostentation, or for I know not what reason, and entirely beside the point. For, taking from the confession of the Latins the proposition which teaches that opposition distinguishes the divine persons, and joining to it at the same time the hypothesis of the Latins, according to which the Son is at once C originated and origin—which are opposites—he arrives at the conclusion: that the Son would be distinct from Himself through such an opposition and would constitute two persons, or that the opposites would have to be posited simultaneously in the same divine person. But neither is true; for one is impossible according to theological principles, and the other is impossible according to the common opinion of all; whence the supposition itself is impossible, namely, that the Son is origin just as He is originated. At the same time he shows, while not even accepting this, that the divine persons are distinguished by relative opposition; D for this is the mode of reduction to the impossible. The Latins, therefore, will say: "We grant the reasoning of the epicheirema; for it is admittedly impossible that the Son should be distinct from Himself, and that opposites should be in Him at the same time; but we deny the consequence, namely, that those impossibilities follow if the Son is origin and originated; for there is no necessity." And as to the first impossible point, we say that opposition in the divine is the cause of personal distinction, when that of the same—is to the same; but when it is of the same to one thing and another, then there is no cause of personal distinction in that which has the opposition, except in relation to those things which have such opposition alternately. A For if the ratio of principle and of that which is principled exists in the Son, which are opposed to one another, they do not distinguish the Son from himself, but from the Father and the Spirit, in that he has opposition and distinction towards the Father by the relation of the principled, but towards the Spirit by the relation of the principle. And this is found true in all cases. For paternity and filiation, or cause and caused, if you will, existed in Isaac, but because he had these in relation to one thing and another (for one was in relation to Abraham, and the other in relation to Jacob), there was one person of Isaac; but it was altogether impossible for it to be one person if he had been cause and caused in relation to the same thing, B I mean, in relation to the same species of nature. The same things must also be said regarding the second impossible point, namely, that those who hold that it is impossible for opposites to exist in the same thing at the same time, conceive this as being also in the same respect, and in relation to the same thing, and in the same manner, and whatever else the philosopher defines in his treatise on argumentation, of which if even one is lacking, neither does anything impossible follow, nor is there an argument according to the philosopher. The Latins, then, say that the principle and the principled are opposites and that they are in the Son, but not in relation to the same thing nor in the same manner; for the one is in relation to the Father, and the other in relation to the Spirit; and in relation to the Father, it is by way of generation, whereas in relation to the Spirit, it is by way of procession; and in this way, neither does anything impossible follow, C nor is the axiom destroyed. And thus his reduction to the impossible is dissolved. But he confirms this as if by an example, saying: "Just as it is impossible for the Son to be Son and Father, so it is impossible for him to be both principle and principled." But he does not speak correctly; for these things are not equal. For the name "Father" signifies a specific mode of cause, and because the Father cannot be Father of the Father, because the things which pertain to the superessential processions of the divine persons do not convert with one another, nor are the divine persons or their properties confused from one another, nor is there another Son in the divine in relation to whom the Son could be Father, D for this reason the Father cannot exist in the Son. But "principle" is a generic name, and it contains within itself both specific modes of the divine processions; and since there is something in the divine of which the Son can be the principle or producer—namely, the Holy Spirit—it is in no way repugnant for the Son to be in such a manner a principle or producer. It would indeed be repugnant and impossible, so far as it pertains to the Son himself, if this were opposed to the ratio of filiation; but procession is not opposed to (passive) generation; whence it is not altogether impossible. Wherefore, neither is the ratio similar, nor does he rightly reprehend the answer of the Latins.
A They indeed say that it is impossible for the Son to be the Father, since there is no one toward whom He might be Father; but as far as the dignity regarding opposites is concerned, it would not have been impossible; for the dignity of the same person having the capability of being both Son and Father, albeit toward different subjects, would not have been undone. But now it is impossible, not because of this, but because of the fact itself. Just as if Isaac had not begotten, but had died childless, it would not have been impossible for him to be both son and father, were it not for the fact that he was childless—not because of the dignity, but because he had begotten Jacob, and the same person was both father and son, and the B dignity of opposition is not undone.
Moreover, the example he adduces is altogether insipid and absurd. For the Latins do not say that every person in the Godhead is the Father. Then, as he himself adds, "But in truth the Son is not the Father," they reply that the Son would in truth be the Father if there were a person to whom He could be related; for in this way the example would be similar. But they do not say that the Father is the Son, just as he himself asserts that this is impossible. The Latins do, however, call Him the principle or producer of the Holy Spirit, not because it cannot be deemed impossible, but because they judge it to be necessary. He, however, in attempting to demonstrate that this is impossible, has concluded nothing.
But as a seasoning to the solution of this argument, I will add this, that his example is not even a sophism, and does not touch the subject at hand, even if it were to hold in a similar way. For according to the principles of the faith, it is not a lie that "every man is begotten," nor, if anyone were to seek an objection from Adam, would it be a false answer to say that Adam also would have been begotten if he had had a father, that is to say, if he had not been the principle (of the human race). For in so far as he is a man, it is necessary that he be begotten; C but in so far as he is a principle, it cannot happen. Just as if someone were to say that every continuous magnitude is divisible, and then at another moment, while pointing to a point—which is a continuous magnitude and yet not divisible—one were to reply that the point also would have been divisible, in so far as it is a continuous magnitude, had it not been the principle of the continuous magnitude; but now it is a principle, and for this reason it is indivisible; for it is necessary that a principle be indivisible, just as the unit in numbers. If anyone, therefore, were to say these things, he would in no way err. Thus also the true faith posits Adam as the principle of men, and in so far as this is not a hindrance, as an unbegotten principle, which nevertheless obtained its existence through creation; but this does not prevent every man being begotten. Wherefore, the objection sought from Adam is of no validity, nor would he who answers as that man does, be answering poorly at all.
EPHESIAN CHAP. II
If it is more honorable and noble to God to be the cause of the Godhead than to be the cause of created things, how, [if] the more honorable...
cause of the Godhead is communicable, why has the Spirit not shared in it? And if it is wholly incommunicable, as being proper to the Father, just as unbegottenness is, then the Son also will in no way share in it, even if the Latins desire this very much. A
SCHOLARIUS
The Latins, having learned from Athanasius, Basil, and many other teachers that the Son is second and inferior to the Father in order and in the dignity of principle, believe that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Son as from the Father; they believe this necessarily, both from the canonical Scriptures, which contain many things that lead to this, and from the teachers of the Church celebrated among them, who explicitly teach the same. If anyone were to ask them: "Do you then say that the Holy Spirit is second from the Son in the order and dignity of principle, and third from the Father?" B they would not deny it, knowing that no absurdity follows from this. For if being second in order and in the dignity of principle is no obstacle to the natural dignity of the Son, neither will being third in order be an obstacle to the dignity of the Spirit; and if this were shameful for the Spirit, it would be no less shameful for the Son. The Latins only need to be careful that they state what they appear to believe correctly, and that they do not draw these conclusions poorly from the principles of the faith; as long as the teachers assert that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, and the principles of the faith necessarily lead to this, it might not be necessary to respond to the implications of absurdity; for it would be more convenient for those who first thought this to defend it. C But if one should respond to the other implications of absurdities, yet not to this one. For it is not absurd in itself that the Holy Spirit is third in the dignity of principle and in order, nor does this cause a reduction in the dignity of nature, if indeed being second does not do so in the case of the Son. And again, if one were to ask them: "Is the Spirit, then, not a principle of the Godhead?" Truly, they will answer with confidence: "He is not, indeed." For of whom would He be the principle? For He will not be a principle of those from whom He is believed to have been originated, in terms of rotation (for, as Dionysius says, things pertaining to divine processions do not rotate backwards), D nor of Himself, nor of anyone else. But if the Greeks assert that it is absolutely necessary for Him to be a principle of something, let them either teach it themselves and give an account of their innovation, or let them not blame the Latins. For as long as it follows from the principles of the faith and is preached by the teachers that the Spirit also proceeds from the Son, even if it happens that He is third in order and in the dignity of principle, and even if He alone is a principle of nothing, and whatever else of such a sort follows,
which are in no way absurd, nor do they anywhere conflict with the dogmas. But let it be granted that these things are absurd: it is not so much against the Latins as against the teachers of the Church that they A impute these charges; rather, they bring common difficulties regarding the faith to bear, the solving of which would be the task only of him who first taught such a faith. The Latins, then, could say these things in their own defense. But indeed, they could also bring forward the saints who declare the Son to be greater than the Spirit, and the Spirit to be third after the Father in order and, clearly, in the dignity of causality. But even if they could bring forward no one, it would be enough for them that it is believed that the Son is less than the Father, and second in order and in the dignity of principle, and yet, no less than the Father, He is of the same substance and the same glory and is true God.
The solution to this argumentation, which is clear from what has been said, can also be set forth and illustrated in this way: If the Holy Spirit, he says (Ephesus), does not communicate with the Father and the Son in the causality of the Godhead, He will be less in dignity and Godhead; but the consequent (the condition) is false; therefore, the antecedent is also (false). Either, therefore, the Father and the Son are the principle of the Godhead, and the Spirit also communicates in this—which is impossible—or neither the Father nor the Son are the principle of the Godhead. He thinks, moreover, that he proves the result by B an argument *a fortiori* in this way: If the Spirit, not communicating with the Father and the Son in the causality of created things—which is something less for God—would Himself be less, how much more would He be less if He did not communicate in the causality of the Godhead, which is something greater for God. If, therefore, this acuteness of mind, according to him who speaks, excludes from the principle of the Godhead not only the Son, but also the Father, I grant and leave this to those who are in any way experienced in pondering and refuting such things. For in order that the Spirit might not be less in dignity and Godhead, it is necessary that He not fail to communicate with the Father in the causality of the Godhead; He will communicate, therefore. Or, consequently, the Spirit will also be a principle of the Godhead; but this is impossible, or else the Father is not. For if the Father is the principle of the Godhead, and the Spirit is not, according to him, the Holy Spirit will be less in Godhead. But the Latins will ask him—and with very good right, impelled by his own dilemma: If it is nobler for God to be the cause of the Godhead than the cause of created things, how, by not communicating with the Father in that which is nobler, will the Son not be inferior in dignity and Godhead? I suppose he will say that it is not at all necessary for C the Son to be a participant in all that belongs to the Father, even if they are most noble; for while he is a participant in the rest absolutely, as for those things which cannot possibly exist in the Son *as* Son, if the Son is not a participant in them, there is nothing absurd, nor is the Godhead and dignity of the Son thereby destroyed. Moreover, he will say that the principle of the Godhead is of such a kind, namely, properly belonging to the Father and such that it can in no way exist in the Son. But let us pass this over; for this is the very thing which is in question and concerning which the controversy exists. Meanwhile, he will say that that which cannot exist in the Son does not in the least harm the dignity of the Son if it be said that it does not exist D
A or that a similar answer and solution will not be sufficient regarding the Spirit, or even regarding the Son. But he does not answer anything else to the stated question beyond what has been said; and if he should answer anything else, it will be a lie and not even tolerable to the ears. For given that the Son is not the principle in the deity, this alone can be the answer to him who doubts concerning the dignity and deity of the Son, just as it is to him who might doubt how the Son is true God and consubstantial with the Father; if he does not share with Him in the quality of being unoriginate and unbegotten—a matter of such importance—it could not be truly answered in any other way than by the stated mode. B He said foolishly, moreover, that it is more noble for God to be the cause of deity than the cause of creation, since of those things which inhere in God, one is not more noble than another; but this those only dared to assert who, by innovating, have fashioned grades of the divine powers and operations, and whoever—being ignorant themselves—have adhered to those ignorant men. The truth, however, is this: that if anything belongs to God and to the Father as God, and not insofar as He is distinguished from the Son—that is, not as Father and generator—this must by nature also belong to the Son; and if it does not belong, whatever it be, in this respect the Son will be inferior to the Father. The same reasoning holds regarding the Spirit in respect to the Father and the Son. For if anything belongs to the Father and C the Son insofar as they are God, and not insofar as they have a relation and habitude to the Holy Spirit, this must also belong to the Spirit; and if it does not belong, the Spirit will be inferior to them in nature. But that spiration belongs to them insofar as they are referred to the Holy Spirit; therefore, it is not necessary that it also inhere in the Spirit, nor consequently that the Spirit should be inferior to them in nature. If it were not so, a place would be given to the Arians, who, because the Son is begotten, declare Him inferior to the Father in nature, and attempt to bring the Gospel into the patronage of their lie, declaring the Father to be greater than the Son. For they opined that from the fact that the Son does not have the Father's innascibility and that He is D less than the Father in the dignity of principle, He must necessarily be inferior in nature and have received a substance different from the Father; but these things are not so. Therefore, from all these things it is shown that both the series of this argument and its proof are altogether destitute of truth.
OF EPHESUS, CHAP. III
Those things which inhere in God must belong to Him properly and alone, and to Him only, and only those things, and always, and in every way.
A Those things which are natural and common to the three persons, and those which are hypostatic and personal to each of the three. For there is nothing there that is accidental, nothing acquired or subsequently added, and nothing that is not proper and solitary. B Just as, therefore, God is called good and wise and God and King and Creator, and is further called invisible and immortal and eternal, and is distinguished by all these names solely and properly in relation to creatures (for the Apostle says: *To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only wise God; and again: Who alone hath immortality and inhabiteth light inaccessible*), so too whatever might be said of each of the three persons separately is that which is said of it solely and properly in relation to the others. The Father, therefore, is Father and only and alone and properly and in only one way; the Son is Son and only and alone and properly and in only one way; and the Spirit likewise is the Holy Spirit.
Thus, too, is the Father uncaused or unbegotten only and alone and properly and in only one way; but He is also the cause, likewise, in the same manner; and therefore the remainder of the persons are only caused and alone and properly and in only one way. For when there are two, a cause and a caused, if the Father alone has the character of cause, then the remainder C of the persons are only caused and alone and in only one way. For one must consider that the word "only" is always said in relation to its opposite; for the Father is only the Father, but not also the Son, and the Son is only the Son, but not also the Father; and the Holy Spirit is only the Spirit, but not the Father or the Son; and the Father is only uncaused, but not also caused and having a cause; thus He is also only the cause, but not the caused; and therefore the remainder of the persons are only caused and none of them is the cause. For if any of them were also a cause, the "only" would be destroyed, and it would be neither only and properly the cause, nor only and properly the caused, to the contrary of which it has already been demonstrated that it must necessarily have a place. For the opposition is the cause of distinction, even according to the Latins themselves, and for both opposites to coincide in one of the thearchic persons is impossible—
D Whole is the Monad and whole is the Trinity, the Godhead; for the one is not monad, and the other not monad; for the Father is only and alone Father, and the Son is only and alone Son, and the Holy Spirit is only and alone the Holy Spirit... But if the Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son, the Godhead is no longer a whole monad; for the Father is no longer solely the Father—for how could He be, to whom the Son is associated as the paternal cause? The Son is no longer only the Son—for how could He be, who is also a father in part of the Spirit? The Spirit is no longer one and sole—for how could He be, when He is not from one and alone? The Trinity itself is no longer whole, but the Father is imperfect and, in addition, not good, inasmuch as He is "other" to the perfect procession of the Spirit; and the Son is not wholly Son, but is a "filiopater," a being constituted of imperfect parts; neither will be whole; and the Spirit, as is fitting for these, proceeds from such two. All things are divided and imperfect and removed altogether from the simplicity of the Monad.
A For one of these will not strictly exist, and for that reason it will also not exist at all. With these also agree the sayings of the saints, from among which Damascene says in his *Theological Chapters*: "The Father is the sole cause." And Theodore the Studite sings: "O sole begetter of the Only-begotten Son, O Father, and sole, sole light, radiance of light, and truly the holy Spirit of God, Lord of the Lord, solely holding what is truly." The Son, therefore, will not have the role of cause, since he ought to be solely caused and solely Son, just as the holy Spirit is also solely and remaining the Spirit of God and Father.
B
SCHOLARIUS
The Latins are so far from saying that anything is adventitious or comes later to God, that it is plain to many that, lest they should be seen either secretly to hold or to openly express such a thing, they contend against a double production or procession of the Spirit—which you yourself call double in reality—and you make the Son a participant in the temporal [procession], while you remove his eternal [procession] from him entirely; and you push and reduce the sayings of the doctors, which state that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, solely to a temporal procession. But we shall discuss later whether the procession of the holy Spirit is double, and whether they are separated from one another in reality; for now, however, it suffices that the Latins also assert that the temporal procession is the same as the eternal one, and they maintain that they are only distinct in concept, so that they might not be forced to posit any accident or adventitious element in God. But those who say that the temporal procession in the holy Spirit is a thing different from his eternal procession, these affirm that something does indeed approach and come to be in God later, even if they pretend C to deny this. But who more than the Latins confesses that all things strictly inhere in God, or rather that God is all things that are said to be, and that these are strictly so, both commonly and particularly in each of the persons? But that which concerns those terms—"only," "to the sole," "solely," and the rest—requires much investigation as to how they can be stated both concerning natural and hypostatic properties. But he, carelessly casting these aside, contradicts both the truth and himself in many places. But since he does not attack the Latins so vehemently here, we too, leaving aside their defense, proceed to the solution of the argument.The argument, therefore, is such: Everything said to be in God, whether as natural to the three persons, or as hypostatic and personal to each of the three, this must also strictly be, and solely, and to the sole, and solely D and always and in every way. But the nature of the "caused" is in the Son; therefore, it is solely in him, and therefore the nature of the "cause" is not. For, he says, "solely" is said in opposition to...
that which is opposed to it, that is, the "caused," and for this reason the Father is "cause" alone, and not "caused." A First, therefore, since whatever things he says inherent in God in his proposition, he divides into natural and hypostatic—that is, personal—and then adds: "The nature of the 'caused' is in the Son," the Latins will ask him—and very reasonably—where he places the nature of the "caused" among those things that belong to God: whether in the natural, or in the hypostatic and personal? For if it is in the natural, this must also belong to the Father; but if it is in the personal, it must belong to one person, either the Son or the Spirit; for those around him assert that personal attributes befit one person alone. B Each of these alternatives involves an impossibility; so either the proposition is not true, or the division of the attributes in God into natural and personal is not sufficient, or one of the impossible outcomes will necessarily be true. Let him therefore seek a defense; for either, finding none, he will cease even himself from asking the Latins whether they call "spirating" a natural and essential attribute, or a personal and hypostatic one, and from leading them into absurdities on either side—since he will see that he himself falls into similar ones—or, having spurned his own useless division and after condemning the other manner of dividing those things that inhere in God, perhaps he will divide them in favor of the Latins, and cease from contention with them. Then the Latins will say to him, "If your proposition, O most wise man, is true, the Son is in danger of being 'caused' alone, and the Father solely Father, and nothing else." C For it will not be permitted to him to place all those determinations in the major proposition, but in the conclusion not to take them all, but only those which he thinks helpful for his goal; for example, when he wishes, by concluding, to ascribe "principle" to the Father, to omit "solely," but when he wishes to vindicate "caused" to the Son, to cast out "by himself." For these are the ways of those who study sophisms, or who do not know what they are saying, and by their ignorance harm both themselves and others; just as nothing could be worse than, having set down his major proposition—as he himself accounts it—and having appended the minor, namely that "principle" belongs to the Father, and "caused" to the Son, to conclude that "principle" belongs to the Father properly and solely and only and alone and always and everywhere, and likewise that "caused" belongs to the Son. D For perhaps "the caused" belongs to the Son alone, but not *only* to him; for it also belongs to the Spirit. And perhaps "the cause" also belongs to the Father *alone*, but not *solely*; for he is not "cause" of those things from him in one way, but in two: as Father and as Producer. But neither does "caused" belong to the Son alone, nor "cause" to the Father alone; nay rather, it does not even befit the Father to be only Father to the Father, but also to be Producer, nor is "cause" attributed to him alone. For how could the Father be Producer were it not through the Son?
A But this is for later; for the present it suffices us that the proposition itself is neither self-evident, nor did he himself establish the necessity of the proposition. Rather, even when it is posited, many falsehoods are gathered from it, because it contains many determinations from which, in every conclusion, he assumes at his own discretion those that are useful to him. It was necessary, however, to assume them all, and thus the falsehood of the proposition would have been apparent in the falsehood of the conclusions. He also said foolishly that "only" is always said in relation to an opposite; for what is said in relation to an opposite is relative, wherefore "only" would also be relative. But this is not true; for "only" is not in relation to anything, but is rather eliminative, whether it is said of persons, or of an operation, or of any thing whatsoever. But, as it seems, he knows no difference between a relative term and an eliminative one. It is also possible to observe how he is refuted by himself. For after having said that "only" is used in relation to an opposite, he added: "For the Father is only Father, but not also Son," so that in this place he takes "Father" as an opposite to "Son"; and it is false that he is Father "only," for the Father is not only that which is opposed to the Son, but also something else, in that he has an opposition to the Holy Spirit, that is to say, Producer. Then he adds: "And only Son, but not also Father," so that if "only" is used in relation to an opposite, as he himself says, when he says the Son is only Son, but not also Father, he does not restrain the Son from producing. B For "Father," insofar as it is opposite to the Son, does not denote the Producer. But what need is there to go through everything which is said poorly in the present argumentation, because a weak foundation is posited for it by those unproven determinations of the proposition, which do not apply equally to all the things said about God, as he himself claims? He confirms the conclusions of his argument—namely, that the Father alone is the Principle, and consequently the Son alone is the principiate, and not indeed a Principle—with the sayings of Divine Damascene and Theodore the Studite, who, I suppose, would have owed him greater gratitude if he had tried to show them in agreement with the multitude of teachers, rather than if he should decide to set them alone, complying with his own will, against all other teachers and to revolt against them. It is indeed amusing that he even procures for himself the confirmation of his own doctrine from the chants, being apparently unable to seek it elsewhere. However, for those of the teachers who are more humane, and for auditors who possess greater wisdom, there is certainly no trouble in joining these two to those earlier great teachers. For the one says that the Spirit is only of God, namely of the Father and of the Son, of whom the Spirit is said to be; C for he does not say that it is only of the Father, but that it is only of God, which differs by a great deal. The other, even if this is truly the case in his theology, D
wishes the Father alone to be the principle, because he alone is the principle without principle, according to which meaning and cause we see all the Orientals using the name of principle and the preposition *ex* (from), from which also all disagreement with the Latins is removed for us. But he does not say that the Son entirely does not share with the Father in the procession and existence of the Holy Spirit; for how could he say this, who proclaims that he proceeds from the Father through the Son and is produced from the Father through the Son? In such a way it has been shown that the Ephesian’s conclusion in no wise proceeds, since his major proposition has been rendered entirely infirm, and from the things which he later wishes to use for its confirmation, he has taken nothing further.
OF EPHESUS. CHAP. IV.
We indeed, while we remove the Son from the cause of the Spirit, do not at all lower him from the dignity of God and Father; for we do not say that the cause of the Godhead is communicable, just as we do not say that the lack of principle or the ingenerateness of the Father, nor fatherhood itself, is. But the Latins, who hold the cause of the Godhead to be communicable, and then affirm it to be lacking in the Spirit, by all necessity render him inferior to the Godhead and dignity of the Father and the Son, and according to this they are forced to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, just as they are also forced to do in many other ways.
SCHOLARIUS.
The Latins also here will use the same defense against the blasphemy charged against them as they used for the second argument, since this is the same as that one—I do not know in what way and with what wisdom C distinguished—and the solution given to that will also be sufficient for this. It would be appropriate to say only so much at present: if that very wise man had well understood the good of order, as far as it pertains to arguments and reasons, he would not have set forth as two separately those things which have altogether the same force; and as far as divine matters are concerned, about which the discourse is, he would have brought forth neither the second argument then, nor this fourth one now. For from the fact that he is ignorant of the good of order, he believes himself to be granting something great by attributing the cause of the Spirit to the Father alone, while excluding the Son from it, and he judges the Latins to be blaspheming because they do not dare the same things as he. But if, strictly speaking, that which does not partake of the cause that is in the Father is inferior to the Father’s Godhead and honor, as he himself asserts, then the Latins blaspheme against the Spirit, and he himself likewise against the Son; D and he is so much the worse, in as much as they, from those things by which they honor the Son, are accused of sinning against the Spirit, whereas he, while pushing the Son away from his fitting honor for the sake of contention, simultaneously casts the Spirit out from it as well. But when, given that the cause is shared-in with the Son, he says that the Spirit follows as being lower and lacking this,
A if indeed no one among the saints has decreed that the Spirit is from the Son and proceeds from the Son, and that the Father and the Son are one principle of the Spirit (and before all else, the Son himself says that all things that are the Father’s belong to him, and they all add, except for generation and fatherhood), then the blasphemy is surely on the part of the Latins. But if, from many sources and in many ways, it is necessary to concede and posit that the Son is the principle of the Spirit, how is it that he who removes the cause of the Spirit from the Son does not blaspheme all the more against God? If, moreover, he thinks that those teachers who say the Holy Spirit is from the Son and proceeds from the Son are blaspheming those who do not also say that the Holy Spirit is a principle of deity—inasmuch as they are separating him from the equality of honor with the Father and the Son—then, in this way, he will surely and nonetheless himself be blaspheming, by attaching the charge of blasphemy to the teachers. For that clever argument did not escape them, nor the fact that by saying the Son is the principle of the Spirit, but confessing that the Spirit is the principle of nothing, they would be rendering the Spirit lesser and would be blaspheming. Yet, nevertheless, they do not blaspheme while saying the Son is the principle of the Spirit (nor, therefore, does any necessity of blasphemy follow for the Latins; on the contrary, they rather obey B the doctrines of the teachers and the principles of the faith, among which is the order of the divine persons and their processions); nor do they honor the Father excessively, as this man does, by bringing ignominy upon the Son, and they believe that no excellence of honor is lacking C to the Spirit, when they say that he proceeds from the Father and the Son genuinely and naturally. For it is the same thing, as regards honor, both to proceed naturally from God and to produce God in this way. But if not producing God were to be a diminution for the Spirit, then not being produced by God would be a diminution for the Father; since both, as I said, have equal weight in terms of honor—both to produce and to be produced. But to be from no one and to be without cause, and to be the cause of nothing, and on the other hand to be from another but to produce another from oneself—these things follow the good of order, which is necessary to be present in the divine persons to a much greater degree. And the difference according to these things is a difference of order; D so far is it from harming the identity of the essence that they much rather display it openly. We confess the identity of nature, says the great Basil, since the Son is from the Father. And all—not to say more—the teachers speak in this way. Is the identity of the essence set aside, therefore, because the Father is not also from the Son? By no means. Therefore, the identity of the essence of the Spirit with the Father and the Son is also most brilliantly illuminated by the fact that he proceeds from the Father through the Son; and if neither the Father nor the Son is from the Spirit, the identity of the essence would not be set aside because of this, nor would the Spirit become lesser in terms of deity, nor does anything else stand in the way of the persons being what they are, either from one another or in some other way, save only for the good of order;
A so that it is manifest that to hold the contrary—that there is any other way of being or proceeding—destroys the good of order. So far are those people from blaspheming who, while keeping everything else unchanged, also preserve the good of order, in which all necessity consists. When this noble man perceives this well and decides to keep it, he will henceforth cease from thinking those who keep it to be blasphemers.
OF EPHESUS. CHAP. V.
Of those things which pertain to the divine nature, some are always spoken of only in the singular, even though they are understood in the three persons—just as "God," and "Creator," and "King," and "Good," and anything of this sort; for we say "one God," "one Creator," "one King," and "one Good"—the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Others, however, are always spoken of in the plural, even if they be in only two persons, as is the case for the "caused" [principiatum] with respect to the Son and the Spirit; for we say that there are two caused [things], and not one. B Since these things are so, and since the Latins assign the cause of the deity to two persons, namely to the Father and the Son, we ask of them to which of the aforementioned categories they join this.
If they say to the second, the absurdity is manifest of its own accord; for there will be two causes, just as there are two effects, and thus a duarchy will enter in, and the celebrated unity of the principle will be removed from the midst.
But if they say to the first, it is asked, first of all, how? For those things are common and natural, and pertain equally to the three persons. Then, and in this way, they will again fall into the same trap; for that one principle, in that it is "Genitor" and "Spirator," which is the Father alone, is not the same in number as that one principle, in that it is "Spirator" alone, which is the Father and the Son, as they themselves say. Therefore, even in this way there will be two principles and two causes, C and from every side the duality of principles surrounds them.
The cause of the deity, as the Latins themselves would say, pertains to the Father and to the Son in a different manner, and not in the same way; but to the Father indeed insofar as he is "Genitor" and "Spirator," but to the Son insofar as he is "Spirator" only. But the difference, according to the Fathers, introduces number along with itself. Therefore there are two causes of the deity, and the monarchy is from this point driven out by the Latins.
SCHOLARIUS
The Latins know how to preserve the one principle of all things above all else, and they ward off the double principle on every side, both in their confessions D and in instructions, and in written books, and this
A they impart in their initial theological instructions, when the teachers of theology set it forth to their students as one of the other sciences, not only with order but with exceptional care. For they do not, from the fact that they have read many of the writings of the learned, after having studied rhetoric a little before, take to themselves the name of doctor, or receive it from the populace or from the judgment—or rather, the lack of judgment and prejudice—of the uneducated. B But just as there is no one who can be a master of philosophy who has not first examined the philosophy of Aristotle and the commentaries of the ancients upon it, as well as the questions of more recent thinkers, and is able to refute everything and logically demonstrate it well, and dissolve every opposition, and stand ready to give an account of everything pertaining to philosophy; so too, they do not entrust theology to anyone unless he has first been a student for many years, has engaged in many discussions, has been exercised in all things pertaining to it, and has, under many teachers presiding over him, often given proof of the science he has thus acquired, so that he may be judged worthy of teaching theological matters. And he must become known to everyone through the judgment of those who are knowledgeable; it is necessary first to be a philosopher and a dialectician, and then to take up theology. Thus do the Latins value theology, and thus do they take great care that no one, owing to ignorance, should become a cause of harm C to himself and to others by handling theology, the greatest of all sciences, without method and art. For how could it be possible for anyone to perceive the consequences that follow from principles and connect them to these, or to separate those which do not rightly follow, and in general to be well-acquainted with the principles of sequence, and thereby regulate every argument and every opinion, unless he has learned many such things in dialectic, has often practiced them in other disciplines, and has also gathered many things from the rest of philosophy which, even if they do not serve to constitute theological science, nevertheless tend to adorn it? For it is entirely impossible to distinguish and divide the reasons for consequences—without which no one can be a master of theology, just as no one can be a master of any other science D—correctly, without dialectic and the rest of philosophy. But those who neither study nor know any of these things, but move forward to questions regarding the greatest matters without method and without any rule, these would push away and dishonor as spurious the pure dogmas, while they would eagerly embrace it if someone were to put forward something good and yet unapproved, and they would view with suspicion the safe things that are free of all suspicion, while they would speak boldly about things requiring great caution and much
A reverence, and this is much more true when someone who knows nothing is convinced that he knows, and is considered by others as an expert. What then is there of such a sort that one might blame in the Latins, or what is it that he who is about to engage in theology would expect them to fall into so easily—something which it is shameful for a geometer to suffer in his diagrams, and for a physicist in his logic regarding moving bodies, namely, to remove the principle from the middle?
How could someone easily believe that while the Latins are good geometers and physicists, and filled with all knowledge, they are yet such absolute ignoramuses in theology that, through the opinions they hold, they destroy one of the principles of theology which they themselves value highly and wish to guard, and concerning which they philosophize daily in both public and private discussions—and this while we are shouting at them to pay attention and be on their guard, and while the matter is not only shameful but also extremely dangerous? For what is more shameful and at the same time more dangerous than one who professes the science of theology, through the opinions he holds, destroying the principles of theology without even realizing it, and losing the salvation which is obtained most of all in the truth of the faith? B And what could be more shameful than that so many should suffer this? For I would have rather believed that the Latins, having learned and opined that the monarchy is not necessary in divine matters, were saying something that would ruin it, than that they would honor and wish to guard the monarchy—if indeed it is a principle of the faith—and yet, through what they otherwise say, be destroying it, not knowing that all who say those things are inevitably introducing a dual principle. The former would have been a case of negative ignorance, to which, since they are human, they might easily succumb; but the latter would be a case of willfully sought and privative ignorance, which those who are so well-imbued with dialectic and other philosophical disciplines cannot suffer, neither in theology nor in any other subject.
And although we know that many others before them, possessed of such wisdom, have been cast down into the abysses of heresies, yet neither were they as great a multitude, nor were they endowed with similar wisdom, nor were all the dogmatic questions so thoroughly clarified at that time, nor could there be so many teachers to serve as their guides to the knowledge of the truth. For we know that the other heresies were established rather through folly and ignorance; but Arius, Nestorius, and Sabellius, perhaps wise men indeed, began only from the Scriptures. For not yet did men pay such reverence to any of the teachers that they would adhere to his opinions without any doubt; C for perhaps there was no such person then. But in the contests against those heretics, as if in a certain training ground, others gave a specimen of wisdom, faith, and accurate exposition of doctrines, and immediately became luminaries of the Church, having been D venerated so much later that their theology became the canon and standard for all, and laws were established commanding this; and there are so many of them, and each left behind so many books, that from then on it is impossible for anyone to dispute any of the questions and doctrines in theology, for those who altogether have such—
A honor, so that their theology might be a rule and standard for all, and laws might have been laid down prescribing this. And so, many are they, and so numerous are the individual books they have left behind, that concerning no other problem or dogma of theology could they raise a doubt who know clearly how to judge such things, having been enlightened by so many doctors and the writings of so many individuals; and if indeed anything discordant is found even in these, they rightly compose and harmonize it with those methods by which the doctors of the Church themselves joined together the divine Scriptures and showed them to be consistent against those who attempted to divide them, and in this division confirmed the foundation of their own perverse opinion.
Since all these things are so, who would easily believe that the Latins truly abhor a duality of principle in God, but are yet driven into it again as if it followed necessarily from this opinion of theirs? For they themselves do not yield to anyone in wisdom, nor is it probable that, being wise, they should suffer this; but it is rather likely that those who do not understand the wisdom of the Latins beyond measure succumb to such a deception, thinking that those things result from the opinion of the Latins which are once and for all entirely separated from it.
But that this absurdity cannot in any way be inferred from the doctrine of the Latins, B a simple and true argument persuades us, and one which, if anyone should reject, he must of necessity also reject many principles of theology at the same time. For they say that the Father and the Son produce the Holy Spirit by one spirative virtue, because this virtue follows the essence of the Father and the Son, not the relations by which they are distinguished, and just as the power of generating and being generated is one in the Father and the Son, so too is the power of spirating one in them. For if the power which is in them, other than the power of generating and being generated, must be one, it is necessary that this one power introduces one operation, one procession, and one principle; neither, therefore, is it absurd that there is one spirative virtue in the Father and the Son, nor does it follow, since this is one, that the principle of the Spirit in the Father and the Son is not one, but C double. Moreover, the Father and the Son, abstracting from the relative opposition which they have toward one another—insofar as the one generates and the other is generated—as regards other things, are one, and one whole, and one in number. As, therefore, there is one God and one Creator and one sender, so also there is one principle of the Holy Spirit or one spirator. For if the Son could not share with the Father in the production of the Holy Spirit for some other reason, the case would be different; but if nothing else stands in the way, as far as the destruction of the monarchy is concerned, there is nothing to fear; just as if the Son could not be creator, nor the Holy Spirit, just as the Father is, the case would be clearly different; but as long as it is necessary that creation be common to the three, there is nothing to fear regarding the monarchy. For they create by one virtue, and as God, the power of creating resides in each of them, whence, since they are one God, they are necessarily also one creator. But if it is a marvel, the two sub-D
A admiration, seeing that the three hypostases are one principle and yet do not coalesce. But all who believe in this indeed marvel at it, nor do they believe any the less for that; rather, they believe precisely because they marvel. For divine things must be supernatural, above our mind and superior to it. This is how the matter before us stands. It is indeed wondrous, and even more than wondrous, that two hypostases, perfectly distinguished by their properties, should be one principle for the third person and one in number, and yet not be confounded with one another, nor distinguished by any difference of nature from the hypostasis that proceeds B from them. Nevertheless, this must concur with the other principles of the faith, and truth must exist alongside this paradox. Nor should the Latins be blamed if, following the words of the teachers, they believe that the Spirit is from the Son, and that the Father and the Son are one principle of Him, and then by certain reasonings comfort and console the weakness of the mind, as if in the absence of an exact solution—which it is not given to attain in this matter—they employed an apparent logic, taking as guides and leaders in this those same authorities from whom they received this opinion. For this, before fair judges, would incur no reproach whatsoever. But if, for the sake of contention C against us, they intended to confirm their own opinion—one entirely foreign, invented by them first and alone—and if, carried away by human wisdom into such reasonings, they were attempting to mask the falsehood of their mind and their deceit with fair-sounding words, this would indeed be strongly censured in them, and no pardon would be granted to them for introducing such innovations. But it is far from the case that anyone can truly level such a charge against the Latins. For it is not in reliance upon one teacher, nor upon the few and obscure words of any individual, but trusting in all their teachers together, and in some of our own who in many places and as if by design discourse D upon this matter, that they have arrived at the defense—insofar as it can be done—of the opinion of the saints. They did not seek to demonstrate it with arguments, but endeavored to soften and resolve the difficulty, both for themselves and for those of their brethren who were scandalized, just as they might answer that they take the greatest care in other questions of faith, if someone were to question them opportunely. And this is what those who wish to defend the Latins in favor of the monarchy—or rather in favor of themselves—would say; they will strongly entreat the man not to fear on their behalf, lest they might provide a passage for dyarchy, as he himself says, through the things they posit and believe. They are so far from fearing the force of the syllogism themselves that they believe it to be firm or indissoluble, just as they are easily able to solve it in this way. They will say, therefore, in the first place, that there are many things that condemn his principal proposition. For he takes the necessity from the verbal mode of expression, saying that the attributes present in the divine nature are spoken of in a twofold way; but this
A If anyone wishes to preserve this mode of speaking in matters pertaining to the faith, he will concede many absurd things, but he will also strike down not a few things that are admitted. For immediately, if we take the Spirit being called [the Spirit] of the Son as an indication that the Holy Spirit is also from the Son, you contradict us, necessarily asserting that no relationship is to be understood in this statement, except for the identity of nature alone. Whence you also consider that "Spirit of the Father" and "Spirit from the Father" do not signify the same thing; but [you claim] that the one signifies the relationship of cause, while the other signifies the relationship of nature. Therefore, it is no wonder if the Father is not said to be from the Spirit, for the things of the superessential theogony do not convert to one another; but if [the Father] is not called [the Father] of the Spirit—the mode of speaking which signifies B natural identity—that would indeed be a wonder. For it cannot be said that the Spirit is the same as the Father by nature, while the Father has a different relationship to the Spirit. Therefore, as far as the truth of the matter is concerned, the Father also ought to be called the [Father] of the Spirit. But it is not said, lest anyone suspect that the Spirit is begotten. Yet, even if this cannot be said for the aforementioned reason, as far as the fact itself is concerned, it would be true to say that the Father is [the Father] of the Spirit, if indeed that expression can signify nothing but a relationship of nature, and no relationship of cause, as you claim. And one would quickly err multiple times from the truth and from propriety if, attributing everything to the mode of speaking, one were to seek to grasp the truth both in divine and in human matters. Then C we very gladly admit what you concede, that you allow a certain communion between two persons alone among all things, just as you say that being a caused [being] is common to the Son and the Spirit. For it will not be permitted for you to deny that there is also a certain communion in another matter between the Father and the Son alone. But to your question, to which member of your division we attach our opinion—namely, that which says the Father and the Son are the principle or cause or author or by whatever name you wish to call it—of the Spirit—we answer: to the second member, as far as the fact itself D is concerned, and most emphatically so. For just as it is common to two persons to be from a cause, so too is the matter and name of the principle common to two persons. And just as the communion in the reason of a principled [being] neither draws the Son and the Spirit into one, nor expels them from consubstantiality with the Father, with whom they do not have communion in the denomination and fact of being principled, so too the communion in the reason of a principle neither draws the Father and the Son, in whom this exists, into one, nor separates them according to nature from the Spirit, as being devoid of that which is common to them. For these reasons we attach our opinion to the second member of the division, as far as the fact itself is concerned, since our discourse is about things, and about things
A of quality, we do not disagree. For why, because those are called two caused things, while these are called one principle and one cause? It is indeed necessary that those be called caused things, because as they are two, they are caused, since also as they are caused thus, in a different manner, they possess number and duality. But the Father and the Son, not insofar as they are two, are the principle of the Spirit; for neither insofar as they are the principle of the Spirit are they two, but for some other reason. If, therefore, something else hinders the similarity of the utterance of what is common, one must not for that reason cast out the similarity of the communion that is in the thing itself, nor place it entirely outside your division, since it is permissible to place it in one of the second members, and with very good right; nor ought one to decry its non-existence, because it cannot be uttered in the same way as some other thing. For in the same manner some other absurdity would happen to us, if, having professed that the Father and the Son are one principle of the Spirit, we were to set down no communion between the Son and the Spirit in the sense of the caused, because they cannot be called one caused thing, as the B Father with the Son is one principle. For it is not toward the word, but toward the truth of the thing, that it is necessary for us, and for you, and for every mind endowed with sense, to declare the cause of the dissimilarity in the mode of speaking, and to perceive well and consider that this is no obstacle to the thing itself. It is also witty that, just as if aware of the weakness in your argument alone and its conclusion, you have attached that wise enthymeme of Cabasilas, having made it as an episode for your own, over which he labored much. This alone perhaps will excuse you before that man—that you join his things to his things; for your own things that appear to be yours are taken from his, differing only in composition and diction, and perhaps not even for the better. But we, because they are attached opportunely and because we have written a separate apology against him, consider it superfluous now to examine that addition. Let it suffice to have said this, that we can confidently assert the Father and the Son are one cause and one principle of the Spirit as Spirator, but we would not say they are one cause as Begetter and Spirator, nor do we know how to theologize in such a base way C that one might ask in vain whether we say these things are one and the same in number or not—of which we do not say the latter at all. As for how many other things are superfluous to this argument of Cabasilas in the first chapter of the book he wrote against us, we are conversant with them, as has been said, having separately examined and well refuted them in the rebuttals against him; whence in vain does anyone from among us D theologize; whence in vain does anyone [index: entries preserved]
A
EPHES. CHAPTER VI.
Thomas, the teacher of the Latins, believing that one of the oppositions is necessary for distinguishing the divine Persons, since, he says, material distinction has no place in divine matters, wishes the opposition according to relation to be the only one that distinguishes, as if no other opposition had any place. We must therefore demonstrate that the opposition which is antiphatic (contradictory) is more capable of distinguishing, and that by it alone, according to the theologians, are all the divine Persons distinguished from one another. First, it is evident in divine matters that the mode of existence of each is most sufficient for distinguishing it from another; and the theologians call the modes of existence in the divine Persons the unbegotten, the begotten, and the proceeding, or, to speak more universally, the uncaused and the caused, which clearly stand in contradictory opposition to one another; for that which has a cause and that which has no cause are contradictories. The Father, therefore, is distinguished from the Son and the Spirit by these in a contradictory manner, while the Son and the Spirit are distinguished from each other, in turn, by their own proper modes of existence; for existence by generation and existence not by generation, but by procession, are modes of existence in these, and they are opposed to one another contradictorily. Gregory the Theologian says this concerning the Spirit: "Proceeding indeed from the Father, but not in the manner of the Son; for it is not by generation, but by procession." This distinction, then, B which is according to contradiction, is both in agreement with the truth and with all the theologians, and it is capable of distinguishing all the divine Persons. But the one which Thomas introduces as if it were the only capable one—I mean that according to relation—distinguishes the Father from those who proceeded from Him, namely the Son and the Spirit, but it does not distinguish the remaining Persons from one another in any way whatsoever; for neither is one the cause of the other; nor does any of the theologians appear to have stated this distinction, but rather the contrary. For the Damascene says, "The Father is alone the cause." And Gregory of Nyssa says: "Of that which is from a cause, we understand in turn another difference." He says "another" beyond the one already mentioned; and that one was, clearly, according to cause and caused. But in general, the illustrious Dionysius declares that it is not to be dared to speak or to think anything beyond what has been revealed to us in a divine manner from the sacred oracles. C
SCHOLARIUS.
The Latins, relying on many other teachers and not on Thomas alone, in these last times D
A have all alike honored and revered them, because they have shown them the way to the truth of the faith and to a life adorned with virtue, acting as guides; and as good disciples, they attend to the doctrines set forth by them, having been persuaded by many arguments and signs that these men are teachers immune from error. The greatest and most manifest of all these signs is that they have stood at the head of the common dogmas of the Church and hold everywhere to the canons of theology—that is to say, they never depart from the divine oracles and the teaching of the Fathers regarding their accurate treatment. All, therefore, as I said, revere them equally, but the wiser ones admire them even more and pay even greater attention to them; this is done commonly by all, but especially by those who follow them well, possessing a mind fit for knowledge and eager, by God’s grace and long study, to follow them. There are, therefore, many among the later followers B of Thomas who do not greatly praise this point: that he thinks the Son cannot be distinguished from the Spirit unless the one proceeds from the other; rather, they judge that the differing mode of procession is sufficient for their distinction, even if there be no other cause of the difference; and this they concede to all the Greeks and do not wish to contradict. But although they blame Thomas for the reasoning derived therefrom, C they nonetheless do not spurn the consequences, and they prove this point by many other arguments. For if someone were to show that Thomas does not state necessary things in this particular argument, one would not therefore reject the rest of his reasons leading to the same conclusion—which possess evident necessity—nor would one disparage that same opinion, which one knows to be true and which one will be able to demonstrate by many arguments against which nothing can be objected. For it would be contrary to reason to wish to deny altogether a truth that has been acknowledged because of the weakness of those who defend it, when many endeavor to support it—though not all with equal success, for some defend it less successfully, others more so. Thus, it is in this way that what concerns the common teachers is judged by us, and the difference in the arguments and reasonings by which they teach us the dogmas of the faith and defend them against adversaries D does not lead anyone to despise the truth. For we know that not only do some handle things more wisely and accurately than others, but that even the same teachers individually handle them with many necessary arguments...
A even to the extent of adding things out of surplus, so to speak—not perhaps for the sake of demonstration, but to confirm their proposition—and of displaying wisdom to those who contend against the truth by means of human wisdom. Yet, even without this necessity, it was not out of place for them, being human, to serve human reasonings without blame, and to show their disciples that wisdom is something divine and of the greatest importance.
If, therefore, one were to reproach Thomas for these things, or reproach the truth for Thomas’s sake, it would be permissible for any who wished to reproach the common teachers of the Church, or to hold in little regard the truth taught by them. But it is not thus—it is not so. For you, to pass over other teachers, among whom it is permitted to establish a difference and a degree regarding the demonstration of truth and the power of the arguments set forth for it, you yourself, I say, would not approve of everything in Cabasilas, nor would you adhere to everything as if they were spoken with logical necessity; rather, there are some things you would prefer to pass over as having been said out of much surplus (for that is the better way to speak). Yet you do not on this account despise his conclusion or his other arguments directed toward it, for which you would even be ready to lay down your life.
For these reasons, therefore, those who after Thomas B investigated such matters, while they testify to the accuracy and necessity of the other arguments and discourses by which Thomas supports this opinion, do not accept this one argument concerning the distinction [between persons], but they do not on that account reject the opinion itself, which they both believe and prove to be true by many arguments, or rather, by every necessity.
Nor will it profit you much, therefore, to shake this argument, even if you were capable of invalidating it; but since you are now in every way unequal and impotent, and just as Thomas, in this argument, appeared to have defended that opinion weakly and without vigor, which he had instead powerfully proven by many other arguments, so too you now refute falsehood weakly and without vigor, so that you appear to be of small power not only in the contests against the truth, but even in the refutations of falsehood.
Although one might say that this is the most evident C sign of weakness: that you wish to refute the Latins with certain trite and ancient contradictions. For what you say against Thomas’s argument from the distinction, Cabasilas said, and many before him and after him, and all of them appear to have criticized it. A certain Cydonius, however, bestowing his advocacy and patronage upon Thomas, does not sufficiently prove that these contradictions have no power, so that he D...
A might be found even to this day to have refuted that defense, whether out of zeal for the truth or for sparing the glorious reputation of Cabasilas, which has suffered such misfortune. Relying, then, upon these ancient and dishonored contradictions as if they were noble weapons, you share the danger with those who first devised them. You ought rather to have shown that Cydonius was behaving sophistically with regard to these very contradictions, and then you might have returned in due time to the reproach of Thomas and his arguments; so that you would henceforth not even consider any apology to be necessary in response to these things. For the arguments of Cydonius are sufficient, and more than sufficient, and you have not been able—and you have not been able up to this very moment—to raise any objection against them. But so that you might learn now that there are some men who are not only wiser than you, but also more learned than Cydonius—even though he greatly excels your own teachers—we concede to you that Thomas perhaps did not necessarily state the argument in these terms, and that Cydonius, in defending him, acts both ingenuously and truthfully in other respects; but in this particular part, he argues nobly and correctly against Cabasilas, who imagined that he was refuting Thomas while being in no way able to do so, and who was in no wise capable of reaching the truth. But we do not on that account destroy the conclusion, for the reasons we have already stated. For those who came after Thomas grant that the different procession of both from the Father is a sufficient distinction between the Son and the Spirit; and they believe that this very thing is the greatest reason why the Son is B the principle and cause of the Spirit, since the difference in the procession establishes such an order between them, and the procession of the Spirit from the Son follows upon such an order. It is sufficient, therefore, for distinguishing them that they proceed from the Father in a different way; but from the fact that they proceed from the Father in a different way, it follows that one proceeds from the other. Wherefore, the Son is not distinguished from the Spirit by the relative opposition of principle, as Thomas says, in the sense that he is not distinguished primarily by that; but he is distinguished primarily by the different procession, and the opposition of principle follows upon this. That these things, indeed, are well-established in this way, and that even before Cabasilas many of the Latins reverently contradicted Thomas and affirmed that he had used this argument somewhat too simply, this would be a matter for another inquiry and demonstration. But that you neither destroy the conclusion, even if you were intending to refute Thomas, nor refute it validly and fittingly—this the Latins make manifest, who, in this part, neither agree with Thomas completely nor deny his thesis; and you yourself have shown as much by bringing forward again into the middle those already-refuted objections, which, C even if it were difficult for others to do likewise, were not previously weakened by Cydonius, and in no way.
CHAPTER VII OF EPHESUS
A If the caused [principiated] comes to the Son and the Spirit in a different way (for the one is begotten, the other proceeding), and if, according to the Fathers, difference introduces number along with itself, then there are two caused things: the Son and the Spirit. In the same way, if the cause of the Godhead is present to the Father and the Son in a different way (for the one is Begetter and Spirator, the other Spirator only), there will be two causes of the Godhead, with difference following the number—that is, the duality, according to the pronouncement of the theologians.SCHOLARIUS
The Latins will again answer here that they both see and flee the absurdity and impossibility by which this man has attempted to ensnare them, and that they will in no way allow themselves to be caught in the nets of this absurdity on account of that opinion of theirs. A defense for them, simply stated, will be sufficient to demonstrate this, which they employed for the fifth B argument of Marcus; and by offering their defense also in part to the present argument, they will make it clear, easily dissolving the deduction to absurdity. Now, the force of this deduction to absurdity is this: If the cause of the Godhead is present to the Father and the Son, since it is present to them in a different way, there will be two causes of the Godhead; but the consequent is impossible, therefore the antecedent is also. That it is present to them differently, he takes as a premise by saying: for the one is Begetter and Spirator, while the other is Spirator only. And he shows the logical consequence from the axiom of the saints, who say that where there is some difference, there is also number. C This he also seeks to prove from something similar in divine matters. For he says: Because even the caused, which is present to the Son and the Spirit, is present to them differently, by the axiom of the Doctors, it is necessary that the Son and the Spirit should be two caused things. However, the solution to this argument is very clear. For spirating is not present to the Father and the Son in a different way, insofar as the Father is Begetter and Spirator, and the Son is Spirator only; for these things do not make a difference in them with regard to spiration. The operation of spiration, by which the Holy Spirit is and subsists, is one and the same in the Father and the Son, even though the Father also produces the Son by generation, while the Son has nothing of the sort besides spiration. D But if one should wish to speak truly and properly, it should rather be said that the spiration is present to the Son and the Father in a different way, inasmuch as it is present to the Father for his own self, but to the Son because of the Father—that is, to the former without a cause, but to the Son as having a cause, which...A some speak of after the manner of a principle and not after the manner of a principle. If, however, someone should wish to draw the difference that this man posits to this point, nothing impossible will follow. For he will say that the being a spirator exists in the Son and the Father in a different way, insofar as the Father is the generator and the spirator, as one who is the producer in the act of begetting and the spirator through the Word—or, which is the same thing, the fountain and principle of the whole godhead—whereas the Son is only the spirator, as the proximate and immediate principle of the Spirit. But that these things do not constitute such a difference as to introduce number is manifest; rather, the contrary is the case, and because the Father and the Son are distinguished by an active and passive generation, even if there is something common in them, it is understood with a certain difference. For it is necessary that everything which is the same in them be present to the Father of himself and not as from a principle, as the fountain, but to the Son as from a principle, as has been said before; and since they are not one, they are distinguished by these differences, but being distinct by personal properties, they communicate in this way in those things which are common to them. B If, however, to produce so differently, as has been said, were to create a difference and a distinction of number in them, then being itself, and essence, and divinity, and all things simply common to them would be distinct by number, because the Father has these not from a principle and from no one, but for his own self, while the Son has them from the Father and because of the Father. But to assert this is not that of one gifted with a mind. Hence, that which is said by the doctors must not be understood and solved simply—namely, that "a difference introduces number." This statement is not the same as saying, "A difference makes number." The former relates to a difference that follows a distinction according to number; the latter is said of a difference that is the efficient cause of such a distinction. Just as in the divine realm [that which is] the efficient cause of difference according to number is that which relates to begetting and being begotten, and producing and being produced, and the difference of production and generation; the difference of producing, however, insofar as it is considered with a certain distinction in the Father and the Son consequent to their personal distinction, would rather be C a sign of number. Wherefore, that man plays sophistically with the equivocation of "differing" in the fact that to produce exists in the Father and the Son in a different way. For that which has a principle, which exists in the Son and the Spirit in a different way, is a cause of number in them, since they are distinguished by the fact that they proceed from the Father in a different way, namely, by generation and by production—and by nothing else, even according to him—but the principle which exists in the Father and the Son in a different way is not an efficient cause of number and distinction, but rather it follows from their distinction according to number. And if indeed this man posits a difference, should anyone wish to draw it to this point, nothing impossible will follow D [by saying] that to exist as the spirator is present to the Son and the Father in a different way, insofar as one is the begetter and the producer, as in [the act of] begetting, the producer, and the producer through the Word—it is the same to say the fountain and principle of the entire godhead—and the other is the producer only, that is, the proximate and immediate cause of the Spirit. But that these do not make such a difference as to introduce number also is plain; for rather, on the contrary, and because the Father and the Son are distinguished by begetting and being begotten, even if anything is common in them, it is understood with a certain difference. For everything existing in them must be in the Father without a beginning and without a cause as the fountain, but in the Son as having a cause, as has been said before; and they are not distinguished by these differences as if they were existing [as individuals] in them, but being distinguished by the hypostatic properties of those things which are common to them, they communicate in this way. If, however, to produce differently in this way, as has been said, made a difference in them and a distinction of number, then existence and essence and godhead and all things simply common would also be distinguished by number, because these are present to the Father without a cause and from no one, but through himself, and to the Son from the Father and because of the Father—but these things are not of one who has sense to assert. Whence also that which is said by the teachers must not be understood and solved simply. For, he says, "The difference also introduces number"—but this is not the same as saying "The difference makes number." For the one is regarding a difference following after the distinction according to number, but the other is regarding a difference that is productive of such a distinction; it is said accordingly, as the difference being productive of number in divine matters is that which is according to begetting and being begotten, and to produce and to be produced, and [the difference] of being begotten and being produced; but the difference of producing, in as much as this is contemplated in the Father and the Son with some sort of distinction, and consequentially to the personal distinction of these, would be rather a sign of number, so that this man sophistically exploits the homonymy of "differing"; for the caused [thing] existing in a different way in the Son and the Spirit is effective of number in them; since they are distinguished by proceeding from the Father in a different way, namely by being begotten and by being spirated, and by nothing else even according to him; but the cause existing in a different way in the Father and the Son is not effectively of number and distinction, but follows rather from their distinction according to number; because, since they are two hypostases distinguished by the difference or property of begetting and being begotten, and altogether by the unbegotten and that [which is] from a beginning, from this it results that the communion of producing or of the cause is also understood in them with a certain separation, as
also is the communion in other things which are in them by nature. Just as, therefore, being, and goodness, and divinity, and nature, and such-like, are one in them, so also is producing, and they are one producer, one cause, and one principle of the Holy Spirit. It does not therefore follow that to have the Son and the Spirit as caused in a different way is the same as for the Father and the Son to produce in a different way. For the former difference, which makes A the mode of existence different, also produces multiplicity and distinction; but this latter difference, remaining in the mode of the different existence, produces nothing of the kind. Moreover, in general, a different mode of procession produces multiplicity and distinction in those that proceed, or the caused, but in the principle it is far from doing so; for otherwise the Father would be distinguished from Himself, producing from Himself the Son in one way and the Holy Spirit in another. But if the Father is one principle of the Son and of the Spirit, even though He is a different principle for them—because He is the begetter of the one, but the producer of the other—it is manifest that there is no necessity for the B Father and the Son to be two principles, for the reason that they have the reality and the name of principle in a different way. For if by some device the Father and the Son were one person, they would not on that account be distinguished from themselves because they brought forth the Holy Spirit in a different way. But as it is, the Father and the Son are two and two persons for another cause, namely, for the different mode of existence in them; but they are not two principles of the Spirit because of the different account of the principle found in them, but rather one principle and one producer because of the one power and operation in number, by which they are related to the Holy Spirit, without their personal distinction standing in the way. Just as this personal C distinction takes away nothing from those things which are in them commonly and in the same way and singly, so this argument of his (Mark’s) is also stale. For all along it had escaped him that to be caused in a different way establishes the Son and the Spirit as having a different mode of personal existence, while for the Father and the Son to be a principle in a different way does not establish them as two, since those indeed would not be two if they were not caused in a different way, whereas these (the Father and the Son), together with the fact that they produce in a different way, exist as two distinct persons.
EPHE. CAP. VIII.
The theologians say that the Spirit proceeds from the paternal hypostasis. But if the same proceeds also from the hypostasis of the Son, does He not proceed from two hypostases? And that which proceeds from two hypostases, does it not have two principles of D its own existence? By no means, therefore, will the Latins escape the duality of principle, as long as they affirm that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Son.
A The Latins, even if they deem that hypostasis and essence differ simply as the common differs from the particular, according to the theologians of the Church—for which opinion they also believe in three hypostases but one essence—nevertheless, in each hypostasis they judge that this very thing, the hypostasis and the essence, is the same and does not differ, whether one should say that the Son is generated from the essence of the Father or, conversely, that He is generated from the hypostasis of the Father (for in the Father His essence and His hypostasis are one thing), with only such a difference existing between them as that the essence is included in the account of the hypostasis, since hypostasis is essence with relation, while the hypostasis is included in the reality of the essence, as being formed and specified by it and in it; entirely otherwise than is the case in created things, in which the essence is accustomed to take its operation and species in the individual and from the individual. Nor is it possible to separate the essence of the Father when speaking of the paternal hypostasis. For the essence of the Father is the Father’s hypostasis, even if the Father’s hypostasis is not the divine essence simply. Whence it comes about that he who says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the paternal B hypostasis can also affirm that He is from the essence of the Father, and similarly he who asserts that He is from the essence of the Son will also be going to say that He is from the Son and from the filial hypostasis. And just as saying that He is from the essence of the Father and from the essence of the Son does not necessarily introduce a duality of principles or a double principle, so also saying that He is from the hypostasis of the Father and from the hypostasis of the Son introduces nothing of that kind. The Latins, therefore, who declare and think these things in such a way, and realize that there is no difference in re between essence and hypostasis in one and the same person, but that they differ only by reason, do not deem themselves ever to be swept away into the abyss of the duality of principles.
But since the doctrine concerning essence and hypostasis comprises and includes almost the entire doctrine of the true faith, it would neither be useful nor very appropriate for the present treatise to treat it at length now; but it is sufficient to solve and eliminate that argument of theirs. For, apart from the account of essence and person, there would scarcely be an occasion to dispute and refute this argument, so futile is it. For it says thus: The theologians say that the Spirit proceeds from the paternal C hypostasis (he hints, as it seems, at Gregory of Nyssa); wherefore, if He also proceeds from the Son, it will be true to say likewise that He also proceeds from the hypostasis of the Son; but if this is true, the Holy Spirit proceeds from two principles; for it is impossible that that which proceeds from two hypostases should not also have its existence from two principles. It would be truly marvelous, and in the highest degree, if, deeming these things true and necessary, he does not also believe that there are three principles of creation, since it is founded from three hypostases; for it is not easy D
A for him to say that one God is the creator of creation, but to deny that each of the divine hypostases is this. But if he should cry out, as many do, about the difference between creation and the divine processions, he will be placed in the same category as the common crowd; for this difference will not help him in the least, as long as he claims that what proceeds from two hypostases has two principles. For if he claims this only for the present hypothesis, he takes for granted what is in question; but if he claims it simply and in general, he will have no escape henceforth from being supposed to say that there are three principles of creation from those he posits. But if the three hypostases that create creation are one creator thereof and one principle thereof, without their personal distinction standing in the way—since they are not three in that respect, but are one in that they create creation—then by the same logic the two hypostases are one producer of the Spirit and one principle of Him, without their hypostatic distinction standing B in the way, because they bring forth the Holy Spirit from themselves not in that they are two, but in that they are one. For the three hypostases would not be more easily united by anything commonly existing in them than the two (one would rather suspect the opposite), nor are the hypostases of the Godhead more united by their relation to creation than by their relation to themselves. Are the three hypostases one creator because they work outside themselves, but the Father and the Son cannot be one spirator of the Holy Spirit because they fulfill such an operation within themselves, bringing forth a consubstantial person? For besides the fact that it is false that the unity or plurality of those who bring forth is to be taken from the nature of those produced, but rather from how the products should be, if it is permissible for the three hypostases to be one creator because of the one power and operation of creating, then nothing stops the two hypostases from being one spirator because of the one operation and power of spirating. This, then, being neglected, would be an immense enigma: if the Father and the Son were one God because they create creatures by one power, but were not one spirator, even though they produce the Spirit by one power, and even if they had more unity in relation to creatures than in relation to themselves. C But let us leave him to examine the matter dialectically and proceed to the proof of the truth and to the refutations to be derived from it. First of all, then, those who say that the Holy Spirit is from the paternal hypostasis or proceeds from it say the same as proceeding from the Father, and they understand the Father by the paternal hypostasis (for the matter cannot be otherwise); and they say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father according to the Savior's voice, the name of the Father being taken not according to its signification, but according to its supposition; for it stands for the principal and first hypostasis, but signifies the begetter. But if it be accepted also according to the signification, it is not, however, according to the specific sense, as He is called Father of the Son, but according to the general sense, as D
A He is called "Father of lights" (1), in which sense it is never specifically applied to the Spirit (for we never say, as the Damascene states, "Father of the Spirit"). Thus, even when those who say [the Spirit proceeds] from the paternal hypostasis use the name of the paternal hypostasis in this way. By this method, then, the Father has no opposition to the Son, nor are there two hypostases in this respect; so that from the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the paternal hypostasis and from the Son, it does not follow that He proceeds from two hypostases. But if, as Nyssen says, [He proceeds] from the paternal hypostasis, nothing prevents those who say the Spirit proceeds from the Son from also saying He proceeds from the filial hypostasis; the word is indeed true, but it does not follow from this that one must say the Spirit is from two hypostases. And even if it were to follow that He is from two hypostases, it does not follow that He is also from two principles. This is clear from the following.
By the name "hypostasis," there is signified, on the one hand, the very property of the divine persons, which constitutes each one in relation to the other divine person; but there is also signified the thing itself to which such a property belongs, without including the account of the property. For although the property is in the highest degree the very thing of the hypostasis, yet our mind is able to separate those things which are not separated by nature, and to add a difference of account to those things which are the same by nature, since it is otherwise unable to conceive of any of the things that exist or of the superessential things. In regard to the understanding of things existing here, it uses the aid of its own nature; but in regard to the understanding of superessential things, it proceeds from the manner of the understanding of things that exist here. B Thus, therefore, when we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the paternal hypostasis, or conversely from the hypostasis of the Son, we take the name of hypostasis according to the latter signification; but when we say that the Son proceeds from the Father's hypostasis, or that the Father and the Son are two persons, we understand the name of hypostasis in the former way. C Therefore, if anyone says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the hypostasis of the Father and from the hypostasis of the Son, he does not understand "hypostasis" under the account of property, which constitutes the person of the Father on the one hand, and of the Son on the other, but under the account of the thing to which such a property belongs. And this thing is one and the same in the Father and in the Son; and thus it is not true to say simply: "From the hypostasis of the Father and from the hypostasis of the Son, therefore from two hypostases," nor again: "If from two hypostases, then also from two principles." But if anyone says that the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit is from the paternal and filial hypostasis, the name of hypostasis is taken in the Spirit under the account of property; for He has no other constitutive property D except that of procession. But the Father is constituted and subsists by the property of active generation, and the Son likewise by that of passive generation; without which it is impossible to conceive of the Father and
the Son as related to one another, as when someone says that the hypostasis of the Son is or is generated from the hypostasis of the Father. But without these, it is possible for the Father and the Son to be conceived as related to the Holy Spirit, even if another certain property is understood to exist therein, which belongs to them in common—a property other than the property of begetting and being begotten, through which they are two persons. And this is what those who defend the Latin position everywhere weary themselves in saying: that the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is nevertheless not referred to a double principle, since he does not proceed from them as they are Father and Son, but according to another thing that is commonly in them, and not as they are two, but as they are one. Thus, this clever argument of the man, B also taken from the storehouse of Cabasilas, has been shown to be weak and, rather than casting the crime of dual-principle onto the Latin thesis, it produces all else [but that].
OF EPHESUS. CHAP. IX.
If, as the Son is from the Father, so the Spirit is from the Father, why is the Spirit not also the Son? Because he differs in the mode of existence, according to the theologians, and the Spirit does not proceed from the Father in the way of a Son, nor by generation. If, therefore, the Spirit is not a Son proceeding from the Father, what more accurate distinction for him shall we seek C between the Son and the Spirit, both in relation to the Father and in relation to one another? For if, from the same [source], one is the Son and the other is not the Son, but something else, it is evident that they are distinguished from the Father by the reason of relation and are related as effects to a cause, but are distinguished from one another by opposition according to contradiction. For "being Son" and "not being Son" are manifestly opposed to one another contradictorily. Is not, therefore, an opposition according to relation necessary in these, namely in the Son and the Spirit, in order to distinguish them, if they can also be distinguished through contradictory opposition?
[[SCHOLARIUS]]
The Latins will respond to your ninth argument with all those things which they already said regarding the sixth, adding only this: that it has escaped your notice D that you are suffering for the second time from the same disease, using as though they were different reasons and arguments those which are entirely the same, because you are unskilled in making distinctions. Who, then, would readily believe you—refuted in this way in your arguments—regarding dogmas and the judgment to be passed upon them?
OF EPHESUS. CHAP. X.
The Latins, not wishing to follow the principles of theology commonly acknowledged by all, but devising others themselves that are conducive to their own supposition, do not divide what belongs to God as we divide it, saying that some things are common and others are peculiar—
A but rather in another, newer way. They say some things are peculiar, some common, and others most common; calling those that belong to one person "peculiar," those common to two "common," and those belonging to all three together "most common." Now, that these terms are unusual and have been customarily innovated even by the Latins is clear from the words themselves. But let us see what it is that they say is "common" and not "most common." They say that for the Son and the Spirit, it is common to be "from the Father"—that is to say, to be caused—and also to be sent by Him, and whatever else is akin to these; and for the Father and the Son, to send the Spirit, to pour Him forth, to cause Him to spring forth, and anything else of this sort, by which they affirm the same thing as the essential procession of the Spirit.
The matter must therefore be considered from the beginning. If the term "caused," when applied to God, denoted something other than "begotten" and "proceeding," it would have a place to be called common to those two persons. But if it is not permitted—not even in thought—to take "caused" as applying to each of them without a mode (for the one is caused by generation, the other by procession), then "caused" is one word, but there are two realities: the begotten and the proceeding. These same realities we call the "peculiar" features of each of them. Therefore, nothing else that is "common" to the two persons exists in relation to the Father, beyond their own peculiar traits, which distinguish them both from the Father and from each other.
B Furthermore, to be "sent" and whatever is of that nature denotes, for the most part, the good pleasure of God, according to Gregory the Theologian, and the fact that all things that relate to those which are from the First Cause are referred back to It, so that they may not appear to be opposed to God. Moreover, to be sent is temporal, occurring at a certain time and for a certain purpose; wherefore it should not easily be reckoned among the divine properties, which must be without beginning and eternal. We shall say the same things regarding "sending"; because it too is temporal, and existing at a certain time, for a certain object, and for a certain purpose, it could not rightly be attributed as a property to the Father and the Son in relation to the Spirit; it is very far from being the same as the procession of the Holy Spirit, which is without beginning or principle. C Besides, the Spirit is not removed from the active mission; which is manifest from those things which the prophet says in the person of the Son: "The Lord has sent me, and His Spirit." If, however, He is said to have been sent by the Spirit as man, whence can this be shown? Either prove it or desist from sophistry. Although the divine Chrysostom, in his homilies on the Gospel of John, shows that this was said by the Father, from the very words of the prophecy of Isaiah: "The Lord has sent me, and His Spirit"; and he maintains that this was sent by the Son and the Spirit D as a most common [notion].
κοινότατον. A therefore, is sending, and not common, as it seems to the Latins. And neither, therefore, is the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit common to the Father and the Son. Furthermore, it is not at all surprising if there is something common to the Son and the Spirit in relation to the Father. For the Father is not only a principle, but also lacks a principle and is caused by no one else; but both of these have the Father as their principle. But from whence shall we attribute anything common to the Father and the Son, which does not also exist in the Holy Spirit? For the great Dionysius does not allow this, crying out aloud: "The divine word, which has been handed down from on high, attributes those things which are common to the Father and the Son, also to the Holy Spirit, in a communal and united way." And Gregory the Theologian says: "All things that the Father has, are the Son’s, except for the cause; all things that the Son has, are the Spirit’s, except for the generation."
But we must examine the mission more accurately. The Father was surely known in the Old Testament; but it was necessary for the Son to also be known in the New. This, therefore, is what it means for the Son to be sent: that He was, as it were, manifested and declared by the Father into the world. Again, once the Son was known, it was necessary for the Holy Spirit to be known as well. For this reason, He is said to be sent by the Father and the Son, who were already known—that is, He is said to be manifested. For what other mission could there be for God, who is present everywhere and moves nowhere? Therefore He says: "If I go away, I will send Him to you." And this, by no means, signifies the eternal procession; for He does not say: "If I do not go away, I will not produce the Paraclete; but if I go away, then I will produce Him." Rather, He says: "When I am removed from your eyes, I will manifest His grace and power B to you."
Furthermore, since moving is foreign to God (for it is proper to bodies), if "being sent" is said of the Son, it signifies His bodily presence in the world. "For God," says the Apostle, "sent His Son into the world, born of a woman." If, however, it is said of the Holy Spirit, it indicates His grace and operation, not His subsistence. And that this is distinct from that, the divine Chrysostom is a witness, who, in his homilies on the Gospel according to John, speaks as follows: "The Scripture sometimes calls the grace of the Spirit fire, and sometimes water, showing that these are not names of essence, but of operation." And again: "Spirit, in this context, C indicates the operation..." D
For it is the very same that is divided, and it is therefore the same that is sent. It is sent, however, from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit, since it is common to the Trinity, or rather, one and the same. Nothing, therefore, is common to the Father and the Son that is not also present in the Holy Spirit, according to what the glorious Dionysius declares. B
SCHOLARIUS.
The Latins will first respond to this man regarding the blasphemies leveled against them by pointing out that while he uses words with great authority, he is unaware that he is himself entangled in the very crimes he imputes to his brethren. For if it is permitted for him to divide as he wishes, why should it not be even more permitted for the Latins to dare such things, especially since they possess favorable evidence from many sources? But if he says it is not permitted for them at all, he shows himself to be reckless in the very things he decrees. Let him, therefore, examine and consider what he might answer them in his own defense, while they reproach him with innovation. That he is himself guilty of innovation is clear from his remark that the Latins do not divide as we do, meaning himself and those who hold the same opinions as he. But if he were to say that he calls his own division that which he has received from the teachers of the Church, "But we are not," the Latins will say, "so foolish, nor such enemies of our own salvation, that, being well aware that the saints divide in that way, we would nevertheless devise C another and contrary division by our own efforts." If, however, you cannot yourself prove that they speak in such explicit terms, but it suffices for you to adhere as accurately as possible to the doctrine of the teachers and to wish that what you say corresponds to what they say, then in justice you could not blame us if we say these same things ourselves. Let us suppose, indeed, that your division is clearly used by all the saints, and that ours is seen to be used by none in explicit terms; if there were a battle and opposition between the two, you could surely contradict us in good time; but as it is, ours is in every way exactly the same. For we, too, say that of the things which belong to God, some are common, while others are proper to the divinely-ruling persons, and thus we in no way clash with your division. D If, however, by subdividing, we say that some of these common things are appropriate for two persons, while others belong to all, or if we say that some of the proper things are simply proper, while others are proper in a relative sense, we are not proceeding against that division, but rather establishing it. Just as if someone were to divide an animal into rational and irrational, and another person, refining this further, were to subdivide it, asserting that a rational animal is either mortal or immortal, this latter person would not be fighting with the one who divided it in the former way; for, on the contrary, he would seem both to be confirmed by him and to be confirming that first division through his own. For if...
A any subdivison is false, none of those things which are admitted should be removed from the middle, and all labor concerning the sciences will be vain, for which, if anything else is, the method of dividing is certainly profitable. But if one is not permitted to propose a false subdivision, then this too must be subjected to examination, whether it relies upon truth, or is entirely deprived of it. If it should appear to have been brought forth in conformity with the truth, and to be in harmony with the doctors, it must be judged as resulting from their correct divisions, and thanks must be rendered to its inventors; it is in no way to be despised for the reason that it was not enunciated by them, since it contains nothing discordant toward them or toward the truth. For if Damascene B or another of the doctors says that of the things which belong to God, some are common and others are proper, he leaves it entirely to us to investigate the nature of both the common and the proper; and if anyone were to ask him, "In what place, O Master, do you locate the caused?" he would then necessarily make use of our distinction. But if one were to take the proper and similarly the common in a restricted and narrow sense, he would not have the wherewithal to answer the point correctly; but it would be necessary for him to remove the very division he proposed, or to say that the caused is one thing among those which belong to God, yet without all the aforementioned things. Furthermore, the Latins do not construct their own opinion from this division, nor would you ever hear any Latin arguing from this point; but you would hear Greeks, in their own books against the Latins, attempting to ensnare the Latins in certain absurdities by means of this division. For they say: Since the things belonging to God are of a twofold kind, some proper and others common, if they posit the procession as C referring to the common and essential qualities, it will be necessary for the Spirit also to be a participant in this; but if they refer it to the proper and personal, then it must necessarily belong either to the Father alone, or, if the Son also participates in it, the Son becomes one person with the Father on account of the communion of one personal characteristic. Since, therefore, they make such attempts, those who speak in defense of the Latins say that they are deceived by the condensed nature of the division; and they show that the necessities, in which they think they are enclosing the Latins, have nothing similar to logical necessity, and thus they refute the deduction as empty and sophistical, dividing both the common and the proper, and similarly distinguishing the term of the personal characteristic. Concerning these matters, thinking it to be outside the need of the present D requirement to speak, we refer those who wish to learn to those who have written upon these things; but now it suffices to say just this much, that the Latins do not posit that division to establish their own opinion, but to dissolve an absurd deduction, and to show that the necessity is not a necessity. Whence, even if they do not say things that are extremely necessary, it suffices for them that through these they rightly remove those who think they are concluding necessary things against them; for it is permitted to dissolve by means of possible things that which is not a real, but a seeming necessity. But yet they also say that they are saying necessary things, and that they are following the doctors not only...
in opinion but in their express declarations. And this much for that. B
Since he has also proceeded to attack the division, bringing forward as examples things that are common to two persons, and striving to show that nothing in the divine is so common that it could also cast out the spiration from this classification, it must be proved that he errs entirely in these matters just as he does in others. First, he speaks concerning the caused or originated, contending that it is in no way common to the Son and the Spirit in relation to the Father. But he ought to have kept in mind the words of Nyssen, who says: "Confessing the unity of the nature without difference, we do not deny the difference which is according to cause and caused, in which alone we understand the one to be distinguished from the other; and we perceive yet another difference of that which is from a cause." In which saying, both he himself and all those who contend against the Latins do not interpret "the one from the other" as any hypostasis from any hypostasis, but they understand the Father from the Son and from the Spirit, regarding the Father as one, and taking the other from the Son and the Spirit. This they judge to be the holy [doctrine] according to the recapitulation in the subdivision of that which is from a cause; whence, according to them, both the Son and the Spirit are distinguished from the Father C by the concept of the caused, inasmuch as that [caused] exists in them commonly, and so very commonly, that according to this communion, even by a singular number and term, the Son and the Spirit are signified; for so they say "from the other," that is, from the Son and the Spirit. But this man did not understand how this is, but contends that "caused" is merely a word and not two things, and he posits as the cause of this that it is absolutely impossible for the "caused" to be conceived even by thought without the mode in the Son and the Spirit. Therefore, he first declares Gregory of Nyssen to be ignorant and unlearned, since that man, while confessing the unity of the divine nature without difference, does not deny that difference which is according to cause and caused, in which alone it is understood D that the one is distinguished from the other. For he would be absurd if, while wishing to distinguish the divine persons, he distinguished them only in word; and wherein would Sabellius be worse than Nyssen, if Nyssen himself were to say that the Father is distinguished from the Son and the Spirit only by the notion of cause and caused, but were to assert that this—that by which alone he is distinguished from them—is a certain word and not a reality? But if Nyssen is wise and truthful, and second to hardly any of the doctors in both wisdom and truthfulness, it is clearly evident that the caused is also truly one reality in the Son and in the Spirit.
A For they are distinguished from the Father solely by that in which they are acknowledged to be. For the diverse mode of this common reality is not sought out for the purpose of distinguishing these from the Father, but rather they are distinguished from the Father in that they are entirely from a cause; yet in that this common reality belongs to them in a diverse mode, they possess the distinction within themselves. Furthermore, even if the account regarding these common realities were otherwise in other things, it would still not be necessary to suppose that the case is so regarding divine things. But now, he takes this for granted regarding divine things, with no one conceding it, and thus he acquires no support for himself from things that are contrary to the common suppositions of the faith or from other matters. But if he had known dialectic and the rest of philosophy, he would have recognized well both the account of what is common and of the conceptual B in other things, and indeed, regarding the divine things themselves, he would have been led by the hand from there to the truth. For having heard that the Peripatetics held that universals are certain concepts and not subsistent realities—a view which in a certain way our own faith also accepts—he thinks that universals are in no way realities, neither as each one exists in itself, nor as it is conjoined with something else in the same thing which subsists according to truth, and becomes a part of that substance. But this is in every way insane. For by such reasoning, nothing would be subsistent among existing things, not even the primary substance itself, the ultimate subject of all things, if the essential parts of things, which are precisely the universals, were only certain concepts, even as they are in things. But so that he himself—though late—may learn, and everyone C who is ignorant of the matter in the same way as he is: every universal, in so far as it is one in itself, is a certain concept, not a reality existing and subsisting by itself, as those around Plato have believed. But in so far as it is a part of the substance of a particular thing, it is a reality and is subsistent in the particular, and it is one reality in all those things that participate in it. Nor does it stand in the way that each of those participating in it participates in it in a diverse manner; for the difference in this common and universal reality does not belong to it from its own nature, but from its connection and adaptation to the particular in which it has its existence. For an animal, which is the genus of man and horse and the other species of animals, is both a universal and a concept (i.e., an idea); D therefore, in so far as it signifies some one thing and one concept (i.e., idea), which is adapted to many things, the animal does not subsist in any way among existing things, nor is there in existing things one certain nature which one may call "this very thing," namely, a substance animate and endowed with sensation and nothing more, which is the definition of an animal; but in so far as it is drawn into the nature of a particular thing—of this or that species—by certain diverse substances, it is a reality; just as in man, the animal is a reality infused into him through the difference of rationality and mortality. But if even this universal, the "animal," is impossible to be drawn down into the nature of a reality, unless through the
A differences—that is to say, from the different mode of existence—it does not follow that the universal itself and the mode of its existence are the same thing. For the animal and the "rational mortal animal" in man are not the same; since if they were the same, it would suffice for those who wish to define man to call him "animal," and he who separates the rationality and mortality—and simply the mode of existence—from the animal would not be considering the animal in itself (except insofar as one considers that concept as it is in man, which does not exist in the things themselves), but rather the thing which is subject to the concept. For the concept is in no way in man, since the differences opposed to the concept exist there virtually; but the animal is in man along with certain separate, and not contrary, differences; for otherwise it would happen that man would be both rational and irrational, mortal and immortal, and, in sum, composed of opposite things. And hence it is that the various species of animal are separated in genus from all things of a different genus, whereas they are separated from one another by differences conceived in this or that way; and such a distinction is made in them in reality, because they signify things—both the genus and their differences. If, however, the definition itself, which is composed of these, is a concept of another sort because it applies to many, this does not oppose the present dispute. For insofar as it signifies the quiddity of the thing and is convertible with the thing itself, it has no aspect of a universal; and in such a manner, the parts of the definition are also things, even though each one separately is a universal and a certain concept of either a genus or a difference. Almost the same argument applies to every common and universal thing with respect to what is more particular, both of a genus to a species, and of a species to an individual. So, therefore, the "caused" in the divine Persons, being common to the Son and the Spirit and spoken about them or predicated of them, is taken entirely under the aspect of a universal and is a certain notion, as it also seems to this person; but he rather wishes this not to be a notion. However, the divine Persons are not distinguished by the caused taken in this manner. But because this common thing, insofar as it is considered as existing in the Son and the Spirit, is a reality, by this common thing the Son and the Spirit B are distinguished from the Father according to Gregory of Nyssa, or rather according to the true supposition of the faith; but the different mode in each distinguishes them from one another. And if anyone were to abstract this different mode and leave only the account of the "caused" in the Son and the Spirit, the Son and the Spirit would be distinguished from the Father solely by the account of the "caused" as by a certain common difference and a common reality; and neither is the different mode by which they are caused the same as this very thing, being caused, nor will the caused be perceived separated from this mode by reason alone, because it is a common something and a universal. But C insofar as it is in the Son and the Spirit, it is a reality, even if D
it is a certain notion A in itself. And the Son and the Spirit are distinguished from the Father not by the caused, insofar as it is considered in itself and as a notion, but by the caused, insofar as it is in them. For if this cannot be otherwise even in created things, much less can it be so in the divine persons, whose distinction is most perfect and real, not one of notion and reason, as the idle talk and error of Sabellius would have it.
These things therefore being so, B the Latins confidently conclude that there is, then, something common to two persons only, such as the Son and the Spirit, namely, to be from a cause. But since he also attempted to strike out and remove “to send” from the list of things common to the two persons, let us see what he says about this also, hurriedly and in passing, as it is allowed, so that he might not seem to say something noble and superior to objection—not that there is any great necessity for the Latins to defend themselves regarding these matters, since, as has been said, the things which the Latins claim concerning that which is commonly held by two persons, they do not speak of for the purpose of proving their own opinion, but rather for dissolving the objections raised against it.
Therefore, having the intention to show that “to send” is not one of the things common to the two persons, just as neither is “to be caused,” as he thought, he proves the matter from the fact that it is common to the three, and he concludes: C “To be sent” (or the passive mission) denotes good pleasure according to the divine Gregory; but good pleasure is common; therefore, to be sent is also common.
First, then, he sins in this: he proposes to discuss active sending, but attempts to prove the matter regarding passive sending. Then, while he says that even the Father is sent, as if he also has good pleasure—a thing which no one has said—he thus miserably confuses and mixes everything together. But, he says, the divine Gregory calls mission “good pleasure.” Truly, not the mission by which someone is sent, but that by which he sends; and for this reason he also says: “Think of the good pleasure of the Father as a mission,” clearly the mission of the Father as the sender; as if he were saying: “Understand ‘the Father sends’ instead of ‘it pleases him.’”
If, therefore, someone correcting this man should say against the Latins: “Be it so, let ‘to send’ denote good pleasure; but good pleasure is common; therefore, ‘to send’ is also common, so that it is not more common to two persons than to the three divine hypostases”; to this we answer: First, when the heretics said that the Father has a dignity of lordship over the Son because he is said to have sent and to have sent forth the Son, the divine Gregory says that the mission is a will, as if one, instead of saying “The Father sends the Son,” should instead explain and affirm that “It has pleased the Father that the Son should come into the world.” If, therefore, the will of bestowing benefits upon the creature is common, nevertheless the will that this should be done through the Son, our mediator, belongs properly to the Father; for this is not also common and interchangeable; for otherwise, the Son would also have wished [that this be done] through the Father, and the Son would have sent the Father into the world; but this is not the case. And what must one say concerning this will, by which God wills his only-begotten Son to come into the world? The Father indeed wills to beget (for D not...
A involuntarily does he beget); the Son wills to be begotten by the same will (for he is not begotten involuntarily), but not in such a way that the Father wills to be begotten, which the Son wills, or that the Son wills to beget, which the Father wills. And again, the Son is from the will of God, according to the theologians; the Holy Spirit also is from it, and the creature also is from it; but in a different manner, although the same will exists in the Father. That, therefore, if anyone speaks simply concerning the divine will, it is easy for him to fall into many absurdities, is plainly obvious. If, then, both to will and to be well-pleased is common to the divine persons in relation to the creature, it does not follow from this that sending is also common, even if the divine Gregory said that sending signifies will and pleasure; nor is it necessary that what is common to some should be common to them in exactly the same way. For the Father sends the Son, and the Holy Spirit also sends him; but the Father sends him as God and as man; for that axiom, "The Divinity is not sent," is understood according to the common notion of the word "to be sent," to which there belongs at once both the mode of servile ministry and the passage according to mode and time, but not according to the act itself by which he is sent, with all these things abstracted from it, which are taken from the common notion. The Father, therefore, I say, sends the Son both as God and as man; but the Spirit sends the Son only as man. If indeed it were possible for the Spirit to send him also as God, yet he would not do so according to the operation of begetting as the Father does (for the Father sends him by begetting him), nor according to any other operation of that kind, but according to a certain simple pleasure or will only, by which he wills the Son to be sent from the Father. Likewise, the Father and the Son admittedly send the Holy Spirit, and in the same way, because [each] sends according to the same operation of procession; and even if to send is to have pleasure, and the pleasure is common, nevertheless the Holy Spirit is not said to send himself; for according to no operation suitable to God does he send himself, since in no way is he the principle of himself. But some say that the Holy Spirit also can be said to be sent by himself or to send himself; but this is certainly according to that will by which he wills to be sent by those from whom he is said to be sent; but that he sends himself absolutely, just as he is sent by the Father and the Son, no one has said, nor will anyone say. To this point also lead those words: "Lest he should seem to be contrary to God." For he himself also has the will to be sent, just as the Father has the will to send him; D yet not because "to send" is "to be well-pleased" does he, being well-pleased to be sent, also send himself, as he is sent by the Father and the Son. That "to be sent" denotes the relation toward the cause, I wonder how he let it escape him when he set it forth.
For he will not be able to say that being sent by the Father A denotes that all things relating to the first cause are referred thereto—which is the Father—while the sending of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son denotes that all things relating to the cause are referred thereto, which is the Father, and also the Son, both together sending the Holy Spirit with one sending. But if this is so, it suffices that the Holy Spirit is sent by the Son, for all things which are of the Spirit to be referred to the Son as to a principle—though a principle no other than the Father, as has been said.
Next, he says it is impossible for "sending" to be a property of the Father and the Son toward the Spirit, since "sending" is temporal, and no property of the divine persons is temporal, but eternal and beginningless. And if it is impossible for it to be a property, he says, it is far from being identical to the beginningless and eternal procession B of the Spirit. First, he speaks wrongly in saying that there is no temporal property. For if no property is temporal, then nothing temporal will be a property; the incarnation of the Son, therefore, would not be a property of the Son, since it is temporal. But this is impossible; for the teachers of the Church distinguish the Son from the Father and the Spirit by this very thing; and furthermore, if it is not something proper, it will be common, and thus the hypostasis of the Father, as well as that of the Spirit, would be thought to have been incarnate.
Secondly, even if the mission is temporal, "to send" is not temporal. For by the term "to send," the property of the person who is able to send is meant, and likewise by "to be sent," the property of the one who can be sent. But mission signifies the act or operation itself of such a property, C since such power or property is manifested through the external operation. And if it be granted that "to send" and "mission" are the same, still, "to send" and "to produce the sent person eternally" do not differ at all in reality. Thus, likewise, "to be sent" and "to proceed eternally"; and even if they are not the same thing in reality (a), still one follows the other, so that it is fitting for the person sent to be produced eternally, and if anything is not producedeternally by someone, it cannot be sent (by him) either; for hence it is impossible for the Father to be sent, because he does not proceed from anyone at all (b). When, therefore, all other things are granted, nonetheless, since it is fitting for that which temporally proceeds to be also eternally produced, the Holy Spirit D proceeds temporally from the Son, being sent by him, and proceeds eternally from him. Hence it is that the Holy Spirit is not said to be sent by himself, just as he is not said to proceed from himself.
Furthermore, if because the Spirit is said to be sent by the Son, for that reason he is also rightfully said to proceed from him, then since the Son is also said to be sent by the Father, let him also be said to proceed from the Father, so that the Father may not only arrogate to himself the property of the Son, but also that of the Spirit, and the whole Godhead may be contracted into one person, etc.
A nor to send himself, just as he does not proceed from himself. B If, however, he also sends the Son, he does so insofar as he has become flesh; and this answer is not sophistic but true. For the Theologian says that the Son is sent by the Lord primarily as man; and if he grants that he is also sent as God, he says that nothing impossible follows if one understands the mission as a manifestation of good pleasure. Thus, even when he is sent by the Spirit, if it is as man—which is what must be said primarily—this counts for nothing against the Latins; but if it is as God, the mission is understood as the good pleasure of the Holy Spirit, and this too does not count against the Latins, as has just been said. But if he who does not demonstrate [the point] argues sophistically, he who does not show how the Holy Spirit sends the Son as God is arguing even more sophistically; for he is in no way able to show that this is said by any of the saints. Furthermore, it involves a great absurdity; and above all, he declares that the communion of the Son and the Spirit in the ratio of the caused is nothing wonderful or strange, yet he proclaims the communion of the Father and the Son in some matter to be strange. First of all, then, he ought not to have established the truth of the faith in that which is not wonderful or unusual; for we know that our faith, on the contrary, abounds in matters that induce wonder and difficulty. One might rather inquire not unreasonably whether he thinks it wonderful if "to produce" is common to the Son and the Father, or if "to send" is common to them; for it is not clear. If, therefore, he wishes to speak about "producing" (producing), yet the proposal was concerned with "sending"; for he ought to have shown that "sending" is likewise not among those things common to two persons, just as "being caused" is not. But if he speaks of "sending," there was no reason to wonder if it is common to the Father and the Son. For that the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit cannot be denied, since the Truth itself affirms both; therefore it does not belong to one person. But that the Spirit also sends himself or is sent C by himself is nowhere found written in the Scriptures; therefore, "to send the Holy Spirit" is not [an action] of all three persons. For even if the Spirit blows where he wills, he does not for that reason also send himself or is sent by himself. For sending denotes the order of one person toward another, at the minimum—which he himself, as he proceeds, posits—that when one divine person has become invisible, the other is manifested. It is impossible to consider such an order to be the order of the Spirit toward himself. But "blowing where he wills" portrays the power and authority of the Spirit which he possesses while being sent by the Father and the Son; for, having a common will and one with the Father and the Son, namely that of sanctifying all and benefiting all who are worthy, and having that same power in every way, nothing stands in his way; rather, he distributes his beneficence and grace with authority to those in need. And these things are said if [one is speaking] regarding the community of "sending." D
A If, however, one were to doubt concerning "producing," although this was for the time being quite far from the scope of our intended argument, perhaps he was previously inquiring consistently, but now he will be devoid of any difficulty. For if the sending of the Holy Spirit, which is common to the Father and the Son, does not belong to the Spirit, it is no wonder if the "producing," which is likewise common to them, does not belong to the Spirit.
If, however, he thinks that the community of the Son and Father in "producing" is excluded and prohibited by Dionysius and Gregory, lest the Spirit also be introduced into this community, yet even the Latins will assert with the greatest confidence that they are permitted to collect this community in the Father and the Son from those things which Cyril argues, who in one place says: "We believe the Son is co-eternal with the Father and possessing everything by the same measure, only if you except begetting;" and elsewhere: "In the only-begotten Son, in all things similar and equal to the Father, except for fatherhood." In the same way, Athanasius also says: "The same things are said concerning the Son as also concerning the Father, except for being called Father." And the same [author] again: "The things that are said B concerning the Father, these the Holy Scriptures also say concerning the Son, except for the fact that he is not called Father." For neither of these, nor any other person, said: "Except for producing, or spiration."
But that neither the words of Dionysius stand in the way, nor those which the Theologian says, while many things could be said, these things demonstrate; but it suffices to say just this much: that regarding Dionysius, even if we grant that "producing" is not common to the Son and the Father—because it is impossible that it belong to the Spirit (since the saint says that the things common to them are also common to the Spirit)—nevertheless, certainly in no way is it [the case that] the "sending of the Holy Spirit" is present to the Spirit C himself, while it is common to the Father and the Son, to such a degree that it is not permitted to deny this. Therefore, either Dionysius does not claim this universally (for it is possible to object from the "sending"), or one must conceive of all things that are not opposed to the notion of the Spirit. If, however, he does claim it correctly—just as one must also conceive, regarding "All things of the Father are the Son's," [the added condition:] "those things not opposed to the notion of the Son"—then if the great Gregory says: "All things that are the Son's, are the Spirit's, except for the begetting," he includes under the begetting also the procession, as passing through the begotten from the Father unto the Spirit, D and as being given to him by the Father at the moment of begetting, because they are included under the notion of begetting and sonship, since he who is begotten of the Father receives these things as he comes into being.
A Next, he endeavors to show that the mission of the Holy Spirit is something other than the eternal procession, and he asserts that the sent Holy Spirit is not a hypostasis, but the grace or operation, as he puts it, of the Spirit. But we have previously spoken with moderation concerning the mission and the procession, namely, that even if these be granted as two things, nonetheless the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit presupposes His eternal procession. If, however, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father and whom the Son sends, is said not to be the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, he who is about to be convinced of this must be far removed from a sound mind, from all judgment, and from any skill in logic. B Since, therefore, all these things are as they are, he rebukes the Latins in vain, as if they were wrongly resolving that reductio ad absurdum derived from the division of those things which inhere in God. For it has certainly been demonstrated that being caused is common to the Son and the Spirit, and that sending is common to the Father and the Son, and thus it is shown that there is no necessity that everything which is said of God must pertain either to one person alone or to the three together, as the argument produced against the Latins would have it; and the reasons which that man brings against such a solution have been proven to be futile in every respect and containing nothing sound.
EPHESIAN CHAPTER XI
C The Latins, holding it as conceded that the Holy Spirit is the third after the Father and the Son, think it can be shown from this order that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Son. For, they say, if He did not have an order toward the Son according to a relationship to Him, He would not be called the third, nor next after Him. But, O noble men, I would say to them: if after the Father the Son is second (for the relationship demands this), and nothing else falls in between, what else indeed could the Holy Spirit be but third? For He would not be first, by any means; the Son is necessarily second; therefore, the Holy Spirit is third, since He is the completion of that blessed Trinity. For this reason, I think, order has been adopted by the theologians, D so that the Son might not be thought to be placed after the Father—for otherwise they even abolish the order. For the holy Trinity has no order, they say, not as being disordered, but as being elevated above order; and again: "The same things are both prenumbered and connumbered and subnumbered." What then does order contribute to your hypothesis, if it is not necessary that everything which is connected to something else according to order should also have its being from it? Come now, let us also set before you the great Basil, that we may know what he declares concerning the question at hand: "Since," he says, "the Holy Spirit, from whom every outpouring of goods toward the created order gushes forth, depends upon the Son, with whom He is inseparably conjoined, and has been suspended from the cause of the Father..."
A from whom He also proceeds; this He possesses as a characteristic sign of the property according to hypostasis: that He is recognized after the Son and with the Son, and exists from the Father. Do you hear the heavenly-minded one, what he says? "He depends," he says, upon the Son, that is to say, He is connected to Him—not that He proceeds from Him, but that with Him, without any interval, He is understood as having existence from the Father, the mediation of the Only-Begotten, as his brother Gregory of Nyssa says, both preserving the reason of the Only-Begotten for itself and not excluding the Spirit from the natural relation to the Father. And again, he says, He has a cognoscitive sign: that He is recognized after the Son and with the Son, and exists from the Father. What could be clearer or more evident than these things, or more in harmony with our own opinion? B
SCHOLARIUS
The Latins also, for their part, remove from God that order which the teachers of the Church remove. But those [teachers] reject the order of "prior" and "posterior," which is indeed properly called order in created things, and generally any order that comes upon things from without, from some agent which makes it in them. For they maintain that the Holy Trinity is above an order of this kind. But even as far as we are concerned, they have no order defined in themselves; rather, according to different viewpoints, the divine persons can be pre-numbered, and enumerated, and sub-numbered, even if another order is the cause of this. For although the benefits of the whole Trinity that are poured out upon us are common, nevertheless their variety proceeded from that source along with a certain order taken from the property of each of the divine persons, for which reason we are accustomed to ascribe the grace of other benefits specifically C to other divine persons and to offer thanks accordingly. Just as the memory of such benefits comes to us, so also are we accustomed to number and arrange the divine persons, and thus proceed to offering thanks or to glorifying the blessed Trinity. The order, therefore, which the saints exclude from God, the Latins certainly exclude along with them; but the order without which the blessed Trinity can in no way be called the Trinity, and which divine Basil and Nyssen, and before them the common tenets of the faith, teach us arises necessarily from the properties and processions of the divine persons, and is rightly signified by the very names of the divine persons, they do not dare deny, nor do they dare throw themselves into obvious danger for the sake of contention. D The order is profitable to them not only for that tenet concerning which the controversy is held, but for all truth, which they know well will immediately desert their souls as soon as they themselves deny the order. For innovation regarding order, says the great
Basil, A contains within itself a disregard for the very existence of things, and is a denial of the whole faith. It is also ridiculous that he (Marcus) thought the Latins ascribed to the divine persons an order such as belongs to things connected with one another. The Latins are not so unskilled as to think the divine persons are arranged like three houses or some such things that are thus contiguous and connected, although some of the saints, for the sake of a more manifest declaration of the truth, speak of the divine persons as holding together and being contiguous to one another in a coarse and figurative manner, wishing to demonstrate to those of grosser understanding the unity of nature without any interval, within the perfect distinction of the hypostases. Concerning, therefore, the order in the divine persons, what has been written by many before is sufficient; yet for the present argument, even those things which we have urged in the present case for the Latins, rejecting his inference, are sufficient. For this eleventh argument which he brings forward offers nothing else that stands in need of a response. If, however, he perchance says that the order of the divine persons is not inherent in them by nature, nor legislated in the beginning by the common Teacher, who is one of the blessed Trinity, but was received from the doctors to avoid a certain absurdity: to this it would be better to respond with silence and laughter.
EPHES. CAP. XII.
It seems to contribute something of great importance to the Latins for the establishing of their hypothesis, that the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of the Son; C and I would add to this, that He is also called "proper to the Son" and "not alien to the Son," and whatever is similar to these. Does He therefore proceed from Him because of this? But Theodoret will not permit this, in the first place, considering such an opinion to be blasphemous and impious; then the most divine Cyril himself, in his words where he says: We do not in any way tolerate that the faith defined by our holy Fathers, that is, the symbol of the faith, be shaken, nor do we permit ourselves or others to change even one word of those which are set down therein; for they did not D speak themselves, but the Spirit [spoke through them]. And we have seen His chapters—which were not long before refuted by the most holy Cyril and anathematized by the same synod, and by all the synods thereafter—so explicitly and clearly [forbidden], contrary to the judgment of the synod.
A For it was not these men who spoke, but the Holy Spirit, who proceeds indeed from God the Father, but is not alien to the Son according to the reason of essence. Do you hear according to what reason the Spirit is said to be both of the Son and his own, and not alien to him? "According to the reason of essence," he says, meaning, of course, as consubstantial with him. And the divine Gregory of Nyssa also says: "The Holy Spirit is said to be of the Son, with whom he is conceived simultaneously and without any interval, but he has his existence from that cause, the Father, from whom he also proceeds." What better interpreter, therefore, shall we accept for the apostolic and his own words than these divine theologians?
SCHOLARIUS
B The Latins, although they have much to say regarding Theodoret, as one may see in the apologetic books written in their defense—and although they are able to raise an objection against him initially, and yet able again to reconcile him with the others whenever he embraced a sound opinion—nevertheless say only this: that the writings of Theodoret, being full of great ambiguity, ought not to be brought forward. For it can be said that he, as long as he clung to the pernicious error of Nestorius, C held by a similar logic to that man that the Spirit was alien to the essence of the Son, and therefore denied that he had his subsistence from the Son and through the Son, by which [arguments], if by anything else, the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit with the Son could be demonstrated. Yet it can also be said that, even after he later progressed to the path of truth, he in no way thought that the Spirit was created from the Son, as the heretics of those times thought, and that for this reason he denied that he had his existence from the Son and through the Son; for those men foolishly babbled that he, like other creatures, had his subsistence, or rather, his genesis, from the Son and through the Son. Therefore, as far as the discourses on the Holy Spirit are concerned, D it is not very necessary to trust Theodoret, since it is possible to find the truth with great accuracy from many other sources. That the Holy Spirit being called the "Spirit of the Son" signifies nothing other than his proceeding from him and through him, they demonstrate with many arguments from the principles of the faith. For without the need to conceive of any relationship in divine matters other than that which is according to cause—when one is said to be of another—which relationship according to cause and the identity of essence necessarily proceed [from one another], the great Basil also says in the eighteenth [chapter] of his work *To Amphilochius* that he is called the "Spirit of Christ" as being appropriated to him by nature. What better, then...
also necessarily induces the identity of essence—A (as the great Basil says: "I perceive the propriety toward the Father, since it proceeds from the Father," and again: "We confess the identity of nature, since the Son is from the Father"),—but they say that by this very induction [the Son] is not excluded, as you suppose. Who does not know that the Spirit is called the Father’s because it is from or proceeds from the Father? But it is impossible for it to be called the Spirit of the Son in any other way than the way in which it is also said to be of the Father, lest the lack of difference of the Son toward the Father should inadvertently perish. But the arguments [the Latins] present, although they are entirely true in every respect, do not provide as manifest a defense for them as the sayings of the teachers provide. For they bring forward the great Athanasius, who says: "This Spirit is the breath [or spiraculum] of the Son," and blessed Epiphanius stating: "And the Spirit breathes from the Father and the Son." For what the former calls the breath of the Son, the latter asserts to breathe from the Father and the Son. B In the same way, they also produce the divine Maximus saying: "For just as the Holy Spirit, according to nature and essence, exists from God and the Father, so also it is from the Son according to essence, as one who proceeds in an ineffable way essentially from the Father through the begotten Son." For he says here clearly that the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of the Father and of the Son because it proceeds essentially from the Father through the Son. Furthermore, they also produce Cyril asserting the same things as the others, now saying that "the Spirit proceeds through him naturally as his own," now, "the Spirit is his own, and in him, and from him, just as it is understood of God and the Father himself." From all these testimonies and many others, they say it is evidently demonstrated C that to call the Spirit the Son’s and the Son's own declares nothing other than that it proceeds from the Son and through the Son. But they assume that Cyril is not contrary to himself, if indeed he is not contrary to his own self, in that they affirm that the Spirit is not alien, but evidently the Son's own according to the rational principle of essence. For he says it is the Son's own, not as a possession or as something that comes to him from without, but according to the rational principle of essence, namely, since the essence of the Holy Spirit is one and the same with the essence of the Son. He says that it indeed proceeds from God the Father, but that it is the Son's own—which is the same thing as to proceed from him—because of the rational principle of essence; which [claim] the Latins also everywhere state and proclaim: that the Holy Spirit has its existence D indeed from God and the Father as from a fountain (for the Father is the fountain of the divinity both of the Son and of the Holy Spirit), but because of the rational principle of essence, it proceeds through the Son and from the Son, who partakes of all things [of the Father] except for the property of begetting, which cannot be communicated to him. "For I," he says, "and the Father are one, and one according to essence."
since as regards the properties A or hypostases they are two; so if they are one according to essence, they are one in all respects, provided that it does not follow from the argument regarding the opposition between them, so that they are also one spirator, as has often been said, and one sender. In this way, the Spirit also, who is said to be the Spirit of the Father, is also said to be the Spirit of the Son according to the rationale of the essence, clearly because of the identity of the essence. And the saying of [Gregory] of Nyssa also points to the same understanding, however one might take it. For if you read: *it exists as dependent upon the Son*, then the argument is most clearly in favor of the Latins; but if it is read *it is said to be of the Son*, then he says: the Spirit is indeed called "of the Son," as being conceived together with the Son; and this absolutely signifies a relation (for to be conceived together pertains to relative terms, or to things otherwise opposed, but most of all to relative terms), yet it is said to proceed from the Father, as having its existence attached to that cause which is the Father. It has its existence, he says, also from the Son, whose Spirit it is said to be, but not as attached to the Son (for it does not proceed from the Son as from a source), but it has this [existence] attached to the cause which is the Father, and reaching to it through the Son as through a kind of chain. As one might say, the heat of a ray is as if it were coming forth immediately from that ray, and for this reason is conceived together with the ray, yet it has its existence attached to the cause which is the sun; for this cause is primary, because the heat is from there in the first place. Thus, then, these sayings of the saints, when understood in this way, are in harmony with the principles of the faith, and contain nothing contrary to the other sayings of the teachers; otherwise it is impossible for the consistency to be maintained in all things. So that, not only for the defense of the Latins, but also for the refutation of those arguments which he himself puts forward against the Latins, these sayings of the teachers, when correctly understood, are here sufficient in themselves.
EPHESUS CHAP. XIII
The fact that the Lord, after the resurrection, gave the Spirit to the disciples by insufflation, the Latins make D a symbol and indication that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from Him. Since, therefore, it is—do not, my good sir, criticize the Latins, claiming that they do not say this by themselves or on their own authority, but that, having many saints as allies and patrons, they proclaim this with confidence. But you, having no saint who contradicts them, by weaving together in isolation your own vain and novel arguments against them, clearly show yourself to be fighting against the truth.
A That the substance of the Holy Spirit was not given at that time through the insufflation is clear from the fact that the Holy Spirit had not yet come. For if I do not go away, He says (1), the Paraclete will not come to you. The divine Chrysostom also testifies to this in his commentaries on the Gospel according to John, saying: "Some, therefore, say that Christ did not give the Spirit, but rendered the disciples fit to receive Him through the insufflation. Yet one would not be wrong to say that they then received some power and spiritual grace, so as to be able to forgive sins; wherefore He also added, 'Whose sins you shall forgive,' etc., showing what kind of operation he gives. For ineffable is the grace of the Holy Spirit and manifold is the gift, and it is nothing wonderful, given that God even took from the Spirit that was upon Moses and bestowed it upon others. But in the Lord Christ all the grace of the Holy Spirit rested: 'For God does not give the Spirit by measure to Him'; therefore, He also bestowed it from Himself and through Him performed divine signs. 'For in the Spirit of God,' He says, 'I cast out demons.'"
B **SCHOLARIUS.** The Latins do not invent this symbol themselves, but follow others who do so, whom it is not right to doubt. For Augustine, explaining that Gospel text, says that that corporal breath was not the substance of the Holy Spirit, but a demonstration by means of a fitting sign, that the Holy Spirit proceeds not from the Father alone, but also from the Son. And again, in the fourth book of *De Trinitate*, he says: "Nor do I see what else He could have wished to signify when, breathing into the faces of the disciples, He said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.' For that bodily breath, experienced with the sensation of being touched corporally and proceeding from the mouth, was not the substance of the Holy Spirit, but a demonstration by means of a fitting sign, that the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from the Father, but also from the Son." The divine Cyril, moreover, regarding the statement, "And I will ask the Father," says: "For this reason He breathed it upon the disciples corporally, showing that just as human breath C proceeds from the human mouth, so the Spirit D that is from the divine substance is poured forth in a manner befitting the Godhead." And again, you, having no saint who contradicts them, by weaving together in isolation your own vain and novel arguments against them, clearly show yourself to be fighting against the truth.
A For as it proceeds from the human mouth, so too does it flow forth from the divine essence in a manner befitting God. B And again, in the fourth book of his works against Hermias, he says: “As if from a fountain of his own fullness, breathing and saying, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit,’ C by that more carnal and manifest breathing, he very well adumbrated the nature of the Spirit.” One would find that Basil and almost all the saints say the same things, calling that bodily breathing a type, an indication, and a demonstration through suitable signification, and terming it an adumbration and exhibition. But the blessed Augustine is unable to perceive that this breathing could have had any other goal than to indicate the invisible procession of the Spirit from the divinity of the Son. Wherefore he manifestly slanders the Latins who attributes this thought to them as if they were the first to assert it; or he even thinks that the doctors who teach the contrary are hallucinating, while he believes that what he teaches is true. This, therefore, suffices for the Latins to defend their cause, that they retain the assertion of such great and such kinds of doctors. But if this man D thinks that that which is signified by the breathing is the created grace of the Spirit, the Latins will say he is utterly mistaken. For Cyril says: “By a carnal and more manifest breathing, well adumbrating the nature of the Holy Spirit”; whence, according to Cyril, that which is signified is the nature of the Holy Spirit. But it is ridiculous that he has considered the dictum of Chrysostom to be contrary to the common assertion of the doctors and the doctrine of the Latins. For Chrysostom is not treating of the then-proffered type and the thing which that type or sign manifested, but rather of that which was given to the apostles, asking what that was: whether it was merely a certain preparation for the future reception of the Spirit, as some said, or also a certain grace of the Spirit, such as the grace of the remission of sins. He does not himself deny that the former is the opinion of others, as is clear from his words: “Nor would one err who says they had received it then, etc.”; but he puts forth the latter as his own opinion, and perhaps with a certain uncertainty and hesitation, for which reason it has seemed to many that that part of his discourse was alien to the doctor’s ingenuous freedom of speech and his certainty. But even if it is most genuine, it is not, however, contrary to the other sayings of the doctors. For since there are two questions: the one, whether that bodily breathing was a type or demonstration of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son and through the Son or not; the other, whether that which was then done and given was a certain preparation, or a certain grace out of those many graces which the Savior was later to send forth in abundance; to the first question, both the saints brought forward not long ago and many others with them respond and solve it,
and from this very solution the argument of the Latins regarding this question arose. But Chrysostom responds to the second question and solves it well. A Thus, that a certain grace was given then, and that what took place was not a mere preparation, is not contrary to the fact that the events occurring then were a demonstration of a certain greater reality, nor does this statement contradict other statements. That it is entirely consistent is clear to anyone who possesses understanding. For Christ, by breathing, gave the Spirit, not the breath, but what was signified by the breath—proceeding, not from His humanity, but naturally from His divinity. This, then, is the Holy Spirit, proceeding from Christ, who at that time established in the apostles a certain grace: that of forgiving sins. But He neither merely prepared them, nor did He infuse into them all graces (for this was going to happen afterward, when the Holy Spirit was to arrive at them essentially—that is, bodily, so to speak—and most fully, and to fill them with His own gifts). And indeed, the essence and hypostasis of the Spirit was proceeding from the Son both then and afterward; but the disciples of Christ were not receiving this, but rather its effect and grace: at that time exactly one, the one mentioned above, and after these things, also the whole. For the Spirit did not proceed from Christ, and the disciples receive Him in that same manner without difference; but from Him, He proceeded just as He was in Himself, essentially and naturally, namely, while they received within themselves the grace of the Spirit created in them by the Spirit. B For a created nature is not capable of the divine essence, but receives it according to the manner fitting to itself, that is, in the effect of the divine essence, since indeed, in general, everything that is in anything is not according to its own manner, but according to the manner of that in which it is; yet each thing is in itself as it is naturally born to be according to itself; just as the species of a stone is materially in the stone, but spiritually in the eye, and intelligibly in the soul. Thus, the Holy Spirit Himself is in Himself a hypostasis of the Father and the Son, distinguished in one nature and divinity with them; but in the Father and the Son, He is as in one beginning and source, because of the identity of essence in them, yet with a certain distinction taken from their personal rationale, because, namely, the Father is a beginning without beginning, but the Son is a beginning from a beginning, and to the Father the Spirit comes from no one, but to the Son from the Father. C And He is in the Father and the Son, whole in wholes, or rather also in them in a whole, and just as He is in Himself, except for the real relation toward them, which He does not have at all toward Himself. But this Holy Spirit was also in the disciples of Christ, and is in all who are worthy, but neither as He is in Himself, nor as He
A is in the Father and the Son—that is, not according to His essence and nature or hypostasis, but as the nature of those who receive Him requires, that is, according to some effect of His, plainly wisdom or the grace of the Word or counsel or something of this sort, which are accustomed to be called charisms of the Spirit. Those, therefore, who possess such charisms are said to possess the Holy Spirit Himself, because these things are inseparable from the Spirit who creates them in them, being infinite in nature and omnipotent; and he who has the grace of the Spirit has Him who bestows it. But neither is grace the Holy Spirit Himself, nor, if Christ makes this grace dwell in men through the Spirit, does He cause only this grace to germinate; for in such a manner He would differ in no way from men. But just as the grace of the Spirit is indeed in the Spirit eternally, not as an effect but as an essential operation, while it is in the recipients as the temporal effect of that operation, B so also the Holy Spirit is indeed in the Son and proceeds from Him eternally, yet in men He proceeds from Him, not as He proceeds from the Son, but as those who receive Him are able to receive Him according to their capacity, that is, in His own proper effect. From all these things it is manifest that the divine Chrysostom, in asserting that a certain grace of the Holy Spirit was then given to the apostles, would not have denied that grace is also an effect of the Holy Spirit, as it is in men, and that in this effect the Holy Spirit dwells in men, but not as He is in Himself and in His own proper nature. And that it is the Son of God who causes this grace to dwell within, causing the Holy Spirit to proceed, and that He produces this Holy Spirit eternally, even if the producer appears in time; but to those by whom the producer is known and to whom He produces the same, C they receive the grace of the Holy Spirit and the temporal effect of that eternal operation, not His nature or hypostasis, as He is produced by Him. These things, I say, Chrysostom would not have denied; for they are entirely true and contain nothing contradictory; neither any of the doctors nor the divine Chrysostom himself would have denied these things, nor would we deny them, if we wished to be mindful both of others and of him. For even if it is a subject of doubt how men receive the Holy Spirit sent from the Son, when it is asked whether He proceeds from the Son, yet there should be no doubt at all as to how they receive the Spirit proceeding from the Father; for He Himself manifestly proceeds from the Father, and men are said to receive, and do receive, the Spirit proceeding from the Father. For when, He says, the Paraclete shall come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father (John xv, 26). But they do not receive Him as He D proceeds from there, although they are said to receive Him, but in those very modes mentioned above, which preserve both truth and propriety and are not far removed from the opinion of the doctors. Therefore, the same is also to be understood regarding
the Son, and thus the statement of Chrysostom appears in no way to conflict either with the position of the Latins or with the conceptions of the doctors from which this position is derived.
EPHES. CHAP. XIV
Again, the Latins drag B into the defense of their doctrine the fact that the Holy Spirit is said to be according to the image of the Son. We say in response to this, that it is not at all necessary for the image to have as its cause that which is represented by the image, neither if one is speaking of art, nor if one is speaking of nature. For even the Son is called the image of the Father, not so much as being referred to him as a cause, as in that he shows forth and figures the Father within himself; as he says somewhere to Philip: "He who sees me, sees the Father" (John xiv, 9). The Holy Spirit, therefore, is also the image of the Son, not as if the Son were his cause, but because it is not possible to know the Son otherwise than through the Holy Spirit. For, says Paul, "No one can say 'Lord Jesus' except in the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. xii, 3). And again, Christ says: "He will glorify me, because he will receive of mine and will announce it to you" (John xvi, 14). Explaining this, the divine Chrysostom says: This means, he says, he will speak in accord with mine; for since things that are my own are the things of the Father, and he will speak from the things of the Father, he will speak from my own. For just as the Son, who had come in order to fulfill the old law, that is, to complete it and to add those things which had been omitted because of the infirmity of the hearers, by this very act glorified the Father who had placed that old law (for "I," he says, "have glorified you on earth; I have completed the work which you gave me to do" [John xvii, 4]), so the Holy Spirit in turn completed the work of the Son. For, says the Savior, "I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will teach you all truth. For he will not speak of himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will announce to you the things to come. He will glorify me, because he will receive of mine and will announce it to you" (John xvi, 12-14). Out of my work, he says, he will take the basis and the occasion and will announce to you those things which, evidently, still remain. Which work is the same as the work of the Father; for "all things that the Father has are mine" (John xvi, 15). For these reasons, therefore, the Holy Spirit is the image of the Son, because he announces the things that are the Son's and glorifies the Son by taking from his work and fulfilling it.
A
SCHOLARIUS. The Latins, hearing the Fathers of the Church teaching that the Holy Spirit is the image of the Son, just as the Son is the image of the Father and the Father the prototype, rightly confirm their own opinion from this premise as well. For they do not think that these things lead to anything so much as to the fact that the Holy Spirit manifests within himself the essence and nature of the Son, which the Son, receiving from the Father, is—and is called—his image; and through him, in turn, the Holy Spirit, receiving from the Father, is acknowledged by Divine Scripture as the image both of the Father and of the Son, just as the fact that the Son is the image of the Father B signifies nothing else than that the essence and nature of the Father shines forth clearly in him, as in the natural Son and subsistent Word, communicated to him through generation. But this wise man, as if the Latins were claiming that every image has the relationship of a caused thing to its cause in relation to that of which it is called the image, objects and argues that not every image is of such a kind. Yet they are not speaking of every image, nor do they make their inference from every image; rather, they say that the term "image" ought not to be understood regarding the Spirit in relation to the Son any differently than it is understood regarding the Son in relation to the Father. For if the Son is called the image of the Father because he receives and has the essence and nature of the Father from the Father when he is begotten, it is absolutely necessary that the Spirit also be called the image of the Son because he receives and has the essence and nature of the Son through the Son and from the Son as he proceeds. For if the term "image" did not exist here and there in the same way, then the equality of the divine persons would be removed from the midst, C and there would exist in them a "more" and a "less"; Cyril would also be in error when he calls the Spirit the image of the Son in the same way that the Son is the image of the Father, in chapter thirteen of the second book of his *Thesaurus*. The Latins, therefore, draw their conclusion from the name of "image"—as it is said of the Son in relation to the Father—and not from "image" in a universal sense. But this man, as if they were making a claim about every image, objects by citing created things, claiming that it is not necessary, either in the products of art or of nature, for the exemplar to have the relationship of a cause to its own image; yet he is far from adding what those things are in which this is the case. Instead, either having nothing to say, or arguing unskillfully, he comes to the Son and shows that he is called the image of the Father not so much as being referred to him according to a cause, D as by showing forth and representing the Father within himself. The man lies, therefore, in both respects: first in that he appears to wish to seek a counter-example from other things; for it is necessary for every image to be referred to its exemplar as its cause in some way to its own proper cause—
A provided that it is called an image by reason of a certain resemblance brought about in it in some way by the prototype—that is, the model—either naturally or technically; whence it follows that every image exists on account of its prototype. Secondly, he errs in that he says the Son is the image of the Father, B rather as showing and figuring the Father in Himself than as being referred to Him according to cause. For he seems to be saying something when he says nothing. For the Son to show and figure the Father in Himself is the very thing that constitutes Him being the image of the Father; wherefore he says that the Son is the image of the Father because He is an image, just as if someone were to say that man is rational because he is rational. And—which is worse—he determines that He is on this account more properly so called, rather than because He is referred to the Father as to a cause; whereas even if they were two in truth, which he takes as two, the Son would be an image by the fact that He represents the Father in Himself, but He would exhibit the Father by the fact that He is referred to Him as to a cause and as naturally the Father. Whence He would be an image more because He is from the Father than because He manifests the Father. He acts well, however, afterwards by showing entirely the same causes, both that the Spirit is called the image of the Son and that the Son is the image of the Father; because, he says, He receives from the Son, and because He glorifies the Son and perfects the work of the Son, just as also these same things are said concerning the Son with a view toward the Father. For he explains, and indeed well, the name of "image"—how it is accepted regarding the divine persons—but he does not eliminate the relation of cause through these things. He introduces, therefore, this point first: that if the name of image is used in the same ways regarding the Son and the Holy Spirit, it will be present to the Son as proceeding from the Father, and it will be present to the Spirit as proceeding from the Son. C Then, that for which the Son is the image of the Father and not the reverse, and likewise the Spirit is the image of the Son and not the Son the image of the Spirit, what cause could there be, if not that those things which pertain to the superessential procession of the divine persons, according to Saint Dionysius, are not convertible to one another? For neither those things which were accomplished concerning the divine persons and by the divine persons, nor those things which are said concerning them, have taken place or are said in vain.
EPHES. CHAPTER XV.
D The Nyssen theologian says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. To whom is it not manifest from this that the producing of the Spirit is the hypostatic or personal property of the Father? For just as when we say that the hypostasis of the Only-Begotten was incarnate, we show this to be incommunicable to the Father and to the Spirit, so also when we say that the hypostasis of the Father produces the Holy Spirit, we would certainly not at all attribute this to the Son. Either, therefore, let the Latins show some one of the theologians asserting that the Spirit is also from the hypostasis of the Son,A or it will clearly appear from there that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone.
SCHOLARIUS. The Latins will answer this argument, too, just as they have already answered the eighth and the tenth, and the solution given to those will be sufficient for this one as well. For there was nothing in them apt to persuade, much less to compel and extort assent, nor does this contain anything beyond what is written there; it only has this, that, as if led by repentance for what he had B then innovated and contrived, he now says that the being incarnate is proper to the hypostasis of the Son and incommunicable to the Father and the Spirit. Although "being incarnate" is temporal, yet there he had asserted that nothing temporal could be proper to any divine person; whereas we had demanded the instance from the incarnation, as if foreseeing that this man would contradict even himself—which I think he will do regarding everything—and that he would again ingenuously oppose the things he now says, when he might apply his thought to them without contention and with ready obedience toward the truth. For now one must fear lest he be C carried away by a spirit of contention and vain glory even to dare something worse. He asks of the Latins that they show him even one of the saints asserting that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the hypostasis of the Son. Yet they show him more than ten saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, and they have never had his assent; rather, he explicitly denies what is handed down in so many words by the doctors of the Church; perhaps because not all of them say it. But he ought not then to have clung so tenaciously to Nyssen; for he alone says that the Holy Spirit proceeds D from the hypostasis of the Father, and no one else; yet all say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and above all, Truth itself. He errs, therefore, even in this, that he follows Nyssen alone, since he is unwilling to obey the many who say the Spirit proceeds from the Son, for the reason that not all say this same thing. But it is dire that if he did not have Nyssen, he would be in danger of not being able to believe any longer that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the paternal hypostasis. For if he alone says it, and it could have happened that not even he himself had said it, this man would have been about to deny such a truth! But those endowed with sense would by no means allow this, but even if Nyssen did not say that the Spirit proceeds from the paternal hypostasis—just as no other of the doctors says it—they would believe it thus; and since they have learned most fully that He proceeds from the Father, they would without any doubt deem that "proceeding from the Father" is the very same thing as "proceeding from the paternal hypostasis." If, however, he alone said "proceeding from the paternal hypostasis," what is the wonder if no one at all is found to have said "proceeding from the filial hypostasis"? Nor will those endowed with sense be compelled on that account to deny so great a truth.
EPHES. CHAPTER XVI.
A The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, proceeds from them either in so far as they are distinct or in so far as they are united. If indeed he proceeds from them in so far as they are distinct and are two—and they are distinct according to the hypostases and are two—then the Holy Spirit proceeds from two hypostases, and therefrom, of necessity, from two principles also. But if it be in so far as they are united, first of all, he no longer proceeds from the Father and the Son in so far as they are distinct; therefore, he does not proceed from their hypostases; nor, therefore, from the paternal hypostasis, nor from the hypostasis of the Son. But Gregory of Nyssa refutes B the former as true and the latter as false; for he speaks in these express words: "The Spirit proceeding from the paternal hypostasis." Furthermore, what would this be, in accordance with which they are united? They will perhaps say "the nature" or "the spirative power." But if he proceeds from the nature, he will also proceed from himself; for the nature is common to the three persons. But if from the spirative power, the Spirit ought also to possess this; for "what things are common to the Father and the Son, these are common also to the Spirit," as the great men Dionysius and Basil say. But what is their wise, or rather, ridiculous response to this? They say, "He would possess it himself, were it not impossible that he should produce himself." This, therefore, is similar to C as if someone, seeing it concluded from his own reasoning that a man is a stone, should not attempt in any way to correct that from which this is concluded, but should say that a man would indeed be a stone, were it not impossible for a rational animal to be inanimate and motionless.
SCHOLARIUS
The Latins, believing that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, fear no derivation to the absurd. For they do not believe this as having found it out by their own strength, but having learned it from the doctors of the Church, whom they judge never to have erred regarding so grave a truth, especially since such and so great men have existed. Wherefore, they are not compelled to reply anything D to those who interrogate dialectically in this way and wish to lead them to the absurd; for if even any absurdity were to follow from this opinion (let the impossibility be assumed), they judge that it is rather for the doctors to perceive and solve it. They themselves, however, affirm that they are in every way exempt from these accusations, and rather believe that those who wish to overturn the theology of the saints are subject to many accusations on account of certain absurdities and impossibilities which perhaps arise from that doctrine. For by such a method, those who dare these things will also fill the whole of the true faith with many difficulties, against which the natural reason often contends.
A But in order to confirm both the truth itself and the honor of the teachers, who seem to be so shaken by folly and the spirit of contention, and that they may not seem to take refuge in the authority of the masters because of a lack of suitable replies—especially since they know that some are prone and ready to speak more boldly and unfairly against the teachers—the Latins also will briefly reply to this interrogation: that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, in so far as they are one thing [that is] personally distinct; and therefore that they in no way permit the unity to be broken, so that the Father and the Son might be understood as two distinct principles of the Holy Spirit, but rather that by their personal distinction the confusion of them is warded off and excluded. And thus the interrogation of this man becomes useless. For the Father and the Son do not produce the Holy Spirit only in so far as they are distinct, nor only in so far as they are united, so that he might combine those absurdities himself. Since, therefore, the interrogation has been thus ejected, neither does the reduction to the absurd any longer have a place for him—which he establishes upon this interrogation—nor is it necessary for us to labor in examining and refuting the sequence of the absurdities inferred from either side. B If, however, one must also say something more to these points, out of abundance, this too will become clear from the replies we gave to the previous arguments. For the solution given to the eighth and tenth argument will also be suitable for solving and refuting the consequences for those who could choose what is appropriate from that [previous material], since it has not pleased us—desirous of brevity and at the same time filled with distaste—to speak often about the same superfluous and loosely connected disputations of this man. He holds the reply of the Latins up to mockery, as if it does not overturn his reduction to the absurd, but only points out the impossibility—what the impossibility is—and compares it with another certain reply. How much difference there is between these things is manifest to those who have even slightly tasted logic with their first lips. I think he would easily hold many other things up to mockery, which are most true. Suppose someone believes that the Son is wise, or good, or the true God, just as the Father is. Let someone ask him why he believes this, and let him reply that he believes it because he has heard that the Son possesses all things that are of the Father. Then let him lead this person into an absurdity: "If you think the Son is also good and wise because he possesses all things that are of the Father, he will also be the Father, for this too is one of the things that belong to the Father." C He will therefore reply that even this would be the Father [in this sense], were it not impossible; but that it is impossible because it is opposed to the definition of the Son, and because there is only one Son in the divine. D And therefore he will despise this reply, just as he did the other; for they have the same power. But he shall not rejoice in his accusations, as long as there is someone who is able to refute such things. He will also despise this reply, since he holds it in contempt; for it has the same force. But he shall not rejoice in his accusations, as long as there is someone who is able to refute such things.
A They also draw the progression or procession—the term "through the Son"—of the Holy Spirit into the same meaning as "proceeding from the Son," saying that the preposition "through" is equivalent in Scripture to the preposition "from." Now, where it is equivalent, the subject is creation, when it is also placed of the Son without the Father. For, the Scripture says, "All things were made through him." But the procession of the Spirit is never placed without the Father, but they say "from the Father through the Son." It is clear, therefore, that "through the Son" signifies something else, and not "from the Son." And yet, even regarding the procession, this is not said, but it is spoken of regarding the communication. For John of Damascus says: "We call him the Spirit of the Son, but we do not say he is from the Son; but we confess that he is manifested and communicated to us through the Son." B This distinction clearly demonstrates that the phrase "through the Son" signifies something entirely different from what the Latins intend. But if this is ever said even concerning the essential procession of the Spirit, let us again call upon the theologians themselves as interpreters of their own words. For the divine Gregory of Nyssa says in his books *Against Eunomius*: "The Holy Spirit is understood as being conjoined through the Son, not being posterior in existence after the Son, such that the Only-begotten might at any time be thought of without the Spirit; but as having his origin of being from the God of all, whence he is also the Only-begotten light, which has shone forth through the true light." In these words, he clearly intends to signify by "through the Son" that he is not posterior in existence, which is the same as saying "with the Son," C which he expressly states in other places. "Through him, and with him," he says, before any new and unsubstantial thought can intervene, the Holy Spirit proceeds. And John of the Golden Eloquence, explaining that apostolic saying, "To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God," took "through the Church" in the place of "with the Church"; for the Church did not truly teach the angels. Thus, therefore, "through the Son" is to be taken here; for it stands as follows: Since the Holy Spirit is said to proceed essentially from the Father, lest another Son be thought to exist (for the Father is referred to the Son), D for this reason the phrase "through the Son" has been added, with the mediation of the Son, as the holy Gregory also says elsewhere, and keeping the rationale of the Only-begotten itself [as] shining forth. The Holy Spirit proceeds indeed from the Father in an ineffable manner according to the voice of the Savior, at the same time that the Son is begotten and beyond understanding; but he is supplied to the world through the Son, not only because the Only-begotten, reconciling the Father to us, caused the Spirit to descend, but because he himself, having become incarnate, manifested his knowledge, just as he also manifested the knowledge of the Father, not sub-obscurely and to some, but clearly and shining forth as known to the whole world.
C And that it may not exclude the Spirit from a natural relationship to the Father. For this reason he also says elsewhere that the Son is immediately from the First, as the Son, clearly, is from the Father; but he did not say that the Holy Spirit is not immediately from the First—for thus he would be posterior in existence—but [he said it is] through that which is immediately from the First. This, however, demonstrates communion and reciprocal connection, as has been said, and also that both proceed from the Father with equal honor and identical nature. For thus, if the Father were also called the Producer, the Spirit would be immediately from the Producer, and the Son [would be] with him who is immediately from the Producer, that is, with the Spirit, since both proceed from the Father with equal honor and conjoined. Therefore, the preposition "through" does not offer the Latins any further support for establishing their opinion. D Nay, the matter is entirely the opposite of what they themselves desire. Let the witness of truth and confessor, the most divine Maximus, come forward again to testify for us. For he says the following in a letter to Marinus, a presbyter of Cyprus: "The citizens of the Queen of Cities did not take exception to the synodical [letters] of the most holy pope who now is in as many chapters as you wrote, but in two only, of which the one is about theology, namely that he said the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Son; and the other pertains to the economy, that he said the Lord is not without original sin in so far as he is a man." And regarding the first, they brought forward the statements of the Roman Fathers and of Cyril of Alexandria from the treatise C which he elaborated on the holy Evangelist John, from which they did not show that the Son makes himself the cause of the procession of the Holy Spirit (for they know the Father to be the one cause of the Son and the Spirit, of the former by way of generation, and of the latter by way of procession), but [they brought them forward] to signify that the Spirit proceeds *through* him, and by that means to demonstrate the conjunction of substance and the likeness without any variation. Here the Latins proceed along a path contrary to the great Maximus, as if on purpose. For he, together with the Romans of that time and the pope himself, transfers the preposition "from" to the preposition "through," and declares that this makes the conjunction of substance free from all diversity; but they—thinking it not enough to obey the Fathers unless they also think the opposite of them—regard the formula "through the Son" as equivalent to the expression "from the Son," and attribute to the Son the cause of the Spirit, from which the aforementioned men removed him once and for all. What could be more shameless than this struggle? D SCHOLARIUS. The Latins give thanks to this man, because he himself, obeying Maximus, [changes] the preposition "from" into...
A *per* ("through"). For he will not obey Gregory of Nyssa, who asserts that the Holy Spirit proceeds "from" the paternal hypostasis, and he will repeat this same thing many times, as if threatening with weapons; but he will despise and belittle Maximus. For if we also change the preposition *per* into *ex*, the Latins will say, "You are failing to obey the Fathers, as you claim; but meanwhile you yourself change *per* into *ex* by obeying Maximus; whereas, since he does this openly, you do not dare to contradict him." Therefore, you have no grounds to blame us when we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds "from" the Son, if we understand this "through the Son"—something which not even Maximus reproached in the Latins of that time, who insisted on thinking and speaking in this way.
But if we change the preposition *per* back into *ex*, it remains B for us to show whether we do this in accordance with the truth and this same Maximus, or not. He, therefore, allows the Spirit to be said to be "from" the Son, by accepting the preposition *ex* in place of the preposition *per*; for in this way, he says, no one would make the Son the cause of the procession of the Holy Spirit. And by "cause" here, he signifies the primary cause, taking the name of "cause" in a restricted sense, not explicitly and broadly, and not insofar as it also bears a certain modification of meaning attached to it, nor according to its meaning alone; for otherwise it would be impossible for Maximus to be speaking the truth. For to concede that the Holy Spirit proceeds "through" the Son and, on the other hand, to deny altogether that the Son is the cause of the Spirit would be [the act of one] who is ignorant even of himself. For the Greek language C does not recognize [any] other such shiftings of this man, and furthermore it would be entirely contrary to reason if anyone were to place the preposition *cum* ("with") in place of the preposition *per*. For in this way, both the Son would be proceeding *with* the Spirit, or the Spirit generated *with* the Son, if anyone were to say that the Spirit proceeds *with* the Son, as this man asserts. Concerning these matters, I have discussed them more accurately in those things which I have written on this question.
But that Maximus has such an aim, and that he excludes the Son from being a cause understood in this way, is clear from the fact that he did not say "cause of the Spirit," but "cause of the procession of the Holy Spirit." For the Son, he says, is indeed the cause of the Spirit, insofar as [the Spirit] proceeds through Him, and it cannot be otherwise; but D He is not at all the cause of the *procession* of the Spirit. For the Father alone is the cause both of the Holy Spirit's proceeding through Him and of His proceeding in general, the Father who is the cause both of the Son and of the Spirit and of all things that belong to them; for which reason He is also properly called "cause," and that in a restricted and precise manner. If, therefore, Maximus conceives of the matter in this way, and we also, the Latins will say, take the phrase "through the Son" in the place of the phrase "from the Son," not in a strictly [...]
A limiting sense, as is customary regarding the First Cause, but explicitly, and only as it refers to the progression, and not as it signifies the order of that progression. We do not deny obedience to him, nor do we think anything contrary to him; but if he is correct elsewhere, then here too we agree and are in accord with him. But when we wish to express the order, we say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, and we do not, by interpreting it, transform the preposition "through" into "from." But when we are upbraided—as are the teachers of the Church along with us—for saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, as if the suspicion were present that this is said in terms of the principle of His proceeding and of the primary and first cause, we answer commonly on behalf of everyone that we say it "from the Son" in such a way as to mean "through the Son," consistent here with the words of Maximus and with Cyril, who writes to Palladius: "The Spirit, who essentially is poured forth from both, that is, from the Father through the Son." B
THE REPLY OF THE MOST WISE CARDINAL LORD BESSARION TO THE CHAPTERS OF THE EPHESIAN, COMPOSED AT THE REQUEST OF THE PATRIARCH LORD GREGORY
SAPIEΝTISSIMI CARDINALIS DOMINI BESSARIONIS RESPONSIO AD EPHESII CAPITA PETENTE PATRIARCHA D. GREGORIO CONCINNATA. NUNC PRIMUM EDITA CURANTE J. HERGENROETHER, S. THEOL. IN WIRCEBURGENSI LITTERARUM UNIVERSITATE PROFESSORE.
CHAPTER I
The struggle between the Latins and the Greeks concerning the greatest and most divine matters is most bitter, my most holy and most venerable Father and Lord, and the greater the matters on which it turns, the more difficult it has become and still persists. For the truth which concerns the Godhead is something greater and more precious than can be expressed in words; the present conflict C is indeed most severe and of long duration.
a struggle more difficult and at the same time more lasting than any other; nor is it possible to find another which has persisted for so long, nor one which has cast men into such a frenzy against one another A and set them aflame. For not only do they bespatter one another with the charge of impiety, though they are established under the same Savior and Lord; but frequently, even when peace has been established and they seemed to have come to an agreement, they have separated from one another again, and—what is worse—with a still sharper madness have proceeded and do still proceed to battle against each other, trying to show one another to be guilty of impiety, atheism, error, the principles of duality (dyarchy), fusion, and countless heresies. But the Latins, and the elders among the Latins, once they had spoken on these matters, would keep silent; even then, when they did debate, they were defending the dogma itself rather than attacking their opponents with violent force. The Greeks, however, and those who hunted for their opinion, since they cannot manage the matter B from any other source, flatter the ignorance of the crowd, court popular favor, and strive to gain glory from them, nor do they cease from hurling blasphemies against the Latins and spewing forth against them taunts which could be uttered by any tongue and which cannot be related in speech.
Such, too, is the new theologian who now encounters us, Marcus of Ephesus, a man not otherwise prudent and filled with the appearance of wisdom instead of wisdom itself.
His wavering threads and weak sophisms, with which he attempts to attack the straight and impregnable theology of the Christians, and which you bid me to encounter—even though you yourself are more able to do this—if they scandalize anyone, especially those who have long since been imbued and preoccupied with such arguments from their parents and have not yet heard the truer things, it is no wonder, and let pardon be given to their perturbation of mind (the evil which they suffer). It is fitting and proper, however, as you yourself bid, to cleanse their dulled hearing by the force of truer arguments. Since, therefore, I have already touched upon everything which he now brings forward in the works I previously wrote concerning the present dogma (for they are common and trite arguments, being on everyone’s lips, and I have shown with God’s help, as they say, that they are all sufficiently tottering and resound with something spurious and perverse, by employing arguments from the blessed men who lived before us): D I send these to you, and especially the discourse to Alexius Philanthropenos, which will be able to serve as an antidote to those whom the bites of the serpents of heresy have wounded, and which, in my own opinion, is aptly suited to all points. Yet there are also many things pertaining to this in the dogmatic discourse, or the one concerning our union, and again in those things written against Palamas, as you ordered me to say.A I have written, at your request, for the wise Beccus, those things which entirely expunge and dismantle that farrago of the Ephesian’s arguments; he who wishes to inquire into these will find them there, and there will be none of those cobwebs which he cannot most easily dissolve by means of them. Nevertheless, now also for your sake, we shall say what is fitting regarding his first and most formidable syllogism, showing the wavering force of the same, while passing over the rest for the present as being unworthy of a more copious disputation. However, in order that we may contribute something toward solving those matters more easily, and toward overturning and refuting the absurd consequences which are deduced against the true doctrine, we shall briefly hand down a canon hereafter, from those things which we ourselves have disputed more fully elsewhere, and which not a few who flourished in wisdom before us have set forth. By the help of this canon, these incomprehensible arguments against the Latins, or rather, against the truth, will, as I judge, be dissolved, and the truth will be manifested more clearly than any light. B If these things are sufficient, it will be well; but if certain other brief orations are required for these matters, we shall oppose them when time is granted to us. We shall, in fact, say the same things and nothing new; for it is not permitted to find other solutions, since the speech of truth is simple; while he who lies and blathers about new things may be allowed to talk nonsense, but it is fitting for one who speaks the truth always to say one and the same thing; therefore, Socrates also desired not only to speak about the same things, but always to speak by means of the same things.
EPHESUS: CHAPTER XVIII
C The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, advances either as if from two persons, or as if from their common essence, or from the spirative power. But if indeed He proceeds as if from two persons, there will manifestly be two principles, two causes in the divine Trinity, and there will be two authors of procession; the monarchy is taken away, and that which says that the Father alone is the fountain of the superessential Deity is taken away. But if as if from their common essence or nature, then we say, first, that it has never been heard of until now, that when a third proceeds from two hypostases, this is said to be not from them, but from the common nature; then, also, by this very way they fall back into the same point. For a hypostasis is nothing other than D nature with properties; whence it is necessary that what is from the nature of someone or of some persons must also be from the person or persons. It is added that the act of causing procession does not belong simply to the divine nature; for then even the Spirit would cause the procession of another, or of Himself, being a partaker of the same.
A nature. If, then, it be from the projective power, it must be inquired what this projective power is, and whether it be something other than the nature, or the same as it. If indeed it is the same nature, the same arguments return, bringing in the same absurdities; but if it be something other than the nature, they have already admitted that something else, which they would rather have their tongues cut out than admit as acknowledged in other discussions, attaches to God besides His own nature. Furthermore, how is it not absurd that there should be something other than the divine nature that is perfective and completive of the divine nature or person? Yet, not even by this will they escape the two principles. For, in truth, that which is begotten of a father and mother proceeds from their generative faculty, or by the generative faculty which is common to them, even if it differs in its modes; yet it is nonetheless from two hypostases and has two principles of generation. No one surely would dare to deny this. Hence, the Holy Spirit, since He proceeds from the Father and the Son through the projective or spirative power, will have two principles of His own existence.
But, they say, created things, existing from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit through their creative power, are from one God and Creator, and have one principle, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. What, then, prevents the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, from being likewise from one God and projector, and having one principle, B the Father and the Son? You have led us away from the subject, my good man, by linking the Holy Spirit with creatures, and you have clearly declared yourself a *Pneumatomachus* (an opponent of the Spirit). For if the creature is from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in the very same way, and the Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, what else will the Holy Spirit be but a creature? But I, on the contrary, will speak to you more piously, saying that if creation is in this way, the Holy Spirit is not. For that which comes to be from two or many by creation may be said to have come to be from one, when looking to the creative reason—and this not only in the divine production of things, according to which there is one and the same will, and disposition, and wisdom, and power, and operation, but also in human production, C and that which is among us. For one and the same is the technical reason in different craftsmen, and in this regard all craftsmen are one; and according to this, that which has come from many can be said to have come from one and to have one principle. But that which naturally has its existence from two, no one would ever say is from one; for it is impossible for each in the same way to contribute to the existence, and the Latins themselves say that the procession of the Spirit from the Father is different from that from the Son, and that the one is immediate and the other mediate; so that they could in no way escape the two principles, unless they were to fall into other and greater absurdities. And what prevents, they say, two D
A principles, one of which is subordinated to the other, so that in this way the two might be one? This is something which the Theologian Gregory is also found to say: "Principle from principle," if you speak of principles in such a way that one is nearer and the other further away—I do not know whether they would be two more because of the fact that they are subaltern, or rather two because they are also very different. But consider this: will each of these principles be a principle more or less than the other, in one respect more, in another less? The nearer principle will be a principle more, for the very reason that it is next, and the more remote will be so more because it contains the nearer within itself. If, therefore, they differ in this way, how will they be one principle? Who would ever say that Adam and Seth are one principle of Enos? And yet each of these is a principle, one nearer, the other more remote; how, therefore, are these one? And how are the blasphemies tolerable, which those utter who thus place the Spirit far from the paternal hypostasis and call him, as it were, a grandson? And yet he is called the Spirit proceeding from the Father, and the Spirit proceeding from the paternal hypostasis. But what the Theologian said, he said with a view to the creatures, just as if one were to say "creator from creator," just as "light from light," and "God from God," and "good from good"—all of which, existing with the Father, is one God with Him, and one light, and one good, and one principle of all things that have come into being. "For all things," says the Evangelist, "were made through him, and without him not even one thing was made that has been made." That which has not been made, therefore, is not from him, nor through him; and this is the Holy Spirit. That the statement made by the Theologian is to be explained in this way is clear from what he says in other places: "Principle-less, and principle, and that which is with the principle, one God." He did not say "that which is from the principle," but "that which is with the principle," B [proceeding, that is, from the principle-less one. And yet, if he at all held the opinion that the Son was a principle of the Spirit, where would he have been more likely to say this, O most violent of all men? But neither he nor any other of our theologians is seen to hold this opinion, even if you waste all your time reasoning with sophistries and cavils.]
BESSARION'S RESPONSE
D We respond to the first of his arguments, in which, carrying forward his discourse according to division, he argues that the Spirit proceeds either from two hypostases, Father and Son, or as [the rest of the text is missing from the Latin original].
spirative virtue, thinking that he constrains us on every side with inescapable snares, we reply, I say, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the spirative virtue, yet this spirative virtue is on one hand common to the Father and the Son, inasmuch as it is not hypostatic to the paternal person—and is therefore common also to the Son, as has been demonstrated elsewhere—and on the other hand, it is the same thing really with the divine essence, differing only in logical consideration; hence, such a grand examination of reasons is so uselessly cast aside. B The Spirit, moreover, does not spirate himself, although he is a participant in the same nature, because that is entirely opposed to his property. Just as the Son, too, begotten from a generative virtue—which in reality is the same as the divine essence—does not beget himself, although he is a participant in the same nature and essence. For the same thing cannot be simultaneously its own principle and its own principiate. C This spirative virtue, which is one and the same in number in the Father and in the Son, avoids the absurd duality of principles entirely, and leaves him—who pointlessly strings together so many reasonings, and who is not even capable of understanding how great is the difference between the generative faculty, which is in father and mother, and the spirative faculty, which is in Father and Son—empty-handed, for he errs most shamefully concerning the greatest matters. For the former is double in number and therefore produces a double, nay even a multiple, offspring; but this spirative virtue in the Father and the Son is one and the same in number, and therefore it produces one principle and one principiate that is supremely one. D As for his censuring of the solution which the Latins bring forward against his antithesis, let him know that he is censuring the divine Augustine, whose eminent dignity in the Church, on account of his incomparable wisdom and virtue, is sufficient to stop his mouth; for he is the one who first discovered this antithesis and resolved it in this way.
Marcus, however, says nothing, pointlessly stringing many things together. For it does not follow that the Spirit is a creature, if we—both that teacher and ourselves—dissolve that accusation by means of an example and image of created things that is in every way similar, since our own Eastern Fathers and teachers also do this with things not entirely similar—from soul, mind, and word, or from mind, word, and spirit, that is, our own human constitution, and furthermore from sun, ray, and light, and again from eye, fountain, and river, which are more three than one, in order to illustrate the real Trinity of persons of the Father, Son, and Spirit in the unity of nature. But he openly says things contrary to the truth when he asserts that that which has its origin from many through creation and is in human affairs and things made by art can be said to be from one, but that which is naturally from two holds no place for a contrary [argument] at all. For everything is [in fact] the opposite. For that which has happened from two workmen, since it is a matter of number and they are in every respect two, is entirely from two; but that which is from two in nature, and especially thus understood...
as it is accepted in the divine nature, which right doctrine celebrates as one and the same in number subsisting in the Father and the Son, must of necessity be said to be from one. A Nor indeed do the Latins say that the procession of the Spirit from the Father is different from that from the Son (for that is his own [Marcus’s] invention and a fiction of his own mind), but they say it is one and the same; yet they say the Spirit is from the Son immediately and mediately: the former on account of the unity and identity of the spirative power, the latter on account of the order in which the Father is placed first, the Son follows, and after him the Holy Spirit, rightly judging by reason, and not like him and those who adhere to him, who know not how to distinguish at all, as we have explained more fully elsewhere against his master, Palamas. B But as to the subaltern principles, which they make into a solution and an antithesis for him (for this is not the language of the Latins), we leave that also for him to judge and correct. Although this solution also could be shown to proceed correctly by the very same arguments. I know not, however, whence that precise consequence of his arguments follows, by which he says: if all created things were created through the Son and from the Son (for this is what "what has been made" signifies), then the Spirit, since he is not a creature nor made, is not at all from the Son nor through the Son. C For whether he concludes this in the second figure, by inferring from the fact that creatures were made through the Son, and the Spirit is not a creature, that the Spirit is not through the Son, he reasons in a paralogism, changing the middle term from "has been made" to "is," and falsely concluding absolutely what is true only in a qualified sense; or if he uses conversion with opposition, let him know that he falls far short of that consequence. For it stands thus: If all things were made through the Son, that which has not been made is not through the Son; but the Spirit has not been made; therefore he is not through the Son nor from the Son. How worthy of his wisdom! D For an expert in the art should have said: That which has not been made has not been made through the Son, and thus infer: Therefore the Spirit was not made through the Son. (For that which is not made, being absolutely not created, was not made from the Son nor through the Son nor from any other or through another.) Nothing, however, prevents it from being and proceeding. For by this argument of his, not even the Son will be from the Father; for all the same conditions being placed, as you see, the same result occurs concerning the Son, whether in the second figure or by conversion with opposition. For all things have been made from the Father, and without him nothing was made. He will therefore add to these wise arguments of his, that that which has not been made is not from him [the Father], and this is the Son. Thus it is logical. Then it is read: From this syllogism it is concluded that the Spirit was not made through the Son. But he
is indeed deaf to these [arguments], though we have sufficiently demonstrated them elsewhere. Also, the Son is no less with the Father, even if he exists from the Father; the entire scripture of the doctors is full of this, so that not only, as Mark boasts, by no means at all, but from every side and in every part, the Latins avoid the duality of the principle, and [one may] show him declaiming and perorating in vain. A Does he who has made himself our teacher of this order perceive it, or does he proceed, displaying his ignorance of these matters to the Latins with an eyebrow raised high in reproach? But if Gregory the Theologian said B the Spirit is that which is with the beginning or with the Son, this does not harm the Latin doctrine; for it is both with him and from him, and those who have stated the Spirit is from the Son bear witness to this—to whose voices he is indeed deaf, though we have sufficiently demonstrated this elsewhere. And the Son is no less with the Father, even though he is from the Father; the entire scripture of the doctors is full of this, so that not only, as Mark boasts, by no means at all, but from every side and in every part, the Latins avoid the duality of the principle, and [one may] show him declaiming and perorating in vain.
And these things have been said in response to the first and strongest contests of the Ephesian. But so that one might more easily dissolve the remaining sophisms of his and of men of the same grain, we shall briefly hand down certain general canons; if someone who is not entirely unskilled in such matters uses these, he will handle things perfectly, refuting them by himself and escaping and resolving the difficulties that are brought forth from them. Since, as commonly happens, error arises from the fact that one cannot distinguish and is ignorant of how many ways each thing is said—just as it also seems to Aristotle—it is necessary to distinguish and to explain in how many ways things that contribute most to the matter we are considering are said. C
[He] falsely concludes that it is not through the Son. That it is falsely concluded is clear from the fact that the same thing is concluded also in the case of the generation of the Son from the Father, with the terms being placed similarly, such as: 11. The things that have been made. [The Son] is not from the Father. For it will be concluded, according to the Ephesian, that the Son is not from the Father, which is impious; but that the Son has not been made from the Father is true.
With antithesis, the flawed conversion of the Ephesian
If through the Son all things were made, The thing not made is not through the Son. The Spirit has not been made. Therefore, it is not through the Son.See how that very absurdity is concluded also in the case of the Son, so that the exposition is non-syllogistic: If from the Father all things were made, The thing not made is not from the Father. The Son has not been made. Therefore, the Son is not from the Father.
A 1. One must therefore know the accurate and correct Christian theology concerning the divine Trinity: that we should posit nothing other than the divine essence and the hypostases—that is, the persons—and should confess that the hypostases are three in number and entirely distinct from one another, but that the divine essence is one and the same in number, common and most uniquely singular within the three; in each of the three persons it subsists, being one and the same in reality with each of the hypostases, though distinguished from them by reason alone—the opposite of what is the case for us. For the common human essence in three men, or humanity, being one in species, is three in number; hence there are three men. But there, the divine essence or deity is one in number and supremely one, and therefore the three persons are one God.
When essence and persons are considered in the divine Trinity, as has been said, if anything else is said about it, and especially toward it, it comes back to the same thing as the essence and signifies the same reality, differing in definition only. For some of the divine names are absolute and signify perfection—these are said to refer to things internal—while others are said to refer to things external, such as "good," "wise," "life," "provident," and others that signify perfection. The blessed and divine essence and Trinity is spoken of with regard to itself, with no external relationship being conceived. Of these, some are essential, such as wisdom, life, and the like; others are the tokens of the persons, such as fatherhood, B innascibility, and if there is anything of a similar character.
Regarding the essential properties, some signify affirmation, such as "wise" and "good," while some signify negation, such as "incorruptible" and "immortal." And of those that signify an affirmation, some are attributed to one person separately, yet they are not his own proper property; for instance, wisdom is attributed to the Son separately, yet it is not his own proper property, since it is common to the entire Trinity. Likewise, love, while attributed to the Holy Spirit, is spoken of no C less as belonging to the whole.
[alt-version omitted]
The syllogism will be: "Things that are made are made from the Father; but the Son is not made; therefore, he is not made from the Father." According to the Ephesian, however, it is concluded: "Therefore the Son is not from the Father," which is impious; but that the Son is not "made" from the Father is true.
Another schema representing the flawed reasoning of Marcus is as follows: If through the Son all things were made, The thing not made is not through the Son. The Spirit is not made; Therefore, he is not through the Son.
See how the same absurdity is gathered even with regard to the Son: If from the Father all things were made, The thing not made is not from the Father. The Son, however, is not made; Therefore, the Son is not from the Father.
A Likewise, love is attributed to the Holy Spirit, and nonetheless it is predicated of the whole Trinity; others are simply common, such as divinity and essential being and the like. Now, as regards the badges of the persons, some denote position, as for example, fatherhood, while others signify negation, as in the Father, innascibility. Of those, however, which signify position, one thing is that which pertains specifically to some one person and is proper to it, and is proper in such a way that it constitutes the person, as fatherhood, sonship, procession; another is that which is appropriate to two persons, such as to breathe or to produce, which is indeed proper to the two, the Father and the Son, yet not so proper as to constitute a person; and to be sent eternally and properly is proper to the Son and the Spirit, according to the fact that both are brought forth from the Father. B And thus, of those things which are spoken of toward external things, the divine Trinity also displays a relationship toward creation; some belong to the three persons, such as creator, maintainer, provider, king, and lord, while others belong to two only, such as being embodied and crucified and whatever pertains to the economy, for the Son; but [to be seen] in the form of fire or in the form of a dove belongs to the Holy Spirit.
Since the divine [nature], inasmuch as it is most simple, would scarcely receive so many names, those of these which are said toward internal things and toward itself are one and the same in reality with the divine essence; whereas those [said] toward external things are distinguished in reality from the essence, and manifest no position in the divine essence, but only in the creature. For the relations of God to effects or created things are not in reality in God, but only in the mode of conception, according to which other things are referred to Him; C just as even in the object of knowledge, the relation is not as a thing, even if it is called relatively to the knowledge, but is in the knowledge alone. For since many relations toward external things are spoken of regarding God anew and temporally, such as to be the lord or administrator of this certain thing, which has now first begun, if any one of these relations were subsisting in reality in God, it would clearly follow that something accrues to God anew, and thus He would change either in Himself or by accident. That this is absurd is proved in many ways. These and similar names, therefore, have this D manner. Those which are said toward internal things, which are also called absolute and signify perfection, all these are the same as the essence, differing in reality not at all from one another nor from the essence itself, but distinct only by reason; for of the essential [attributes], some express position, others negation, others are attributed to some one person, yet are not proper to it, others are simply common. Similarly among the personal badges, some denote position, others negation, others constitute a person, others do not constitute a person; and these all are the same in reality with the divine essence—except insofar as some are positive, positing a certain perfection in it, while others remove imperfections from it (for the incorruptible and immortal
A neither posit anything, yet they exclude corruption and death, which are certain imperfections, from that blessed and divine substance). Consequently, all these names signify one and the same thing, and since they are in reality identical with the divine substance, they return to the same status with it, being distinguished from it only by reason. However, such names are spoken of God neither equivocally, nor univocally, nor multivocally, but only analogically; not in the way that two or even more things are referred to some one common thing, but in the way by which the order and connection of two things is understood—not toward something distinct, but toward one of them; just as "being" is predicated of substance and accident, insofar as the accident has a connection to the substance, not insofar as substance and accident are referred to some third thing.
The reason why that one, most simple, and most singularly one thing is called by so many names is both its own immensity and the weakness of our mind, which, since it cannot know it otherwise than through its effects, must needs designate its perfection by diverse names derived from perfections found in perceptible things. For if we could know the divine essence itself as it is, we would denote it by only one name, which is also promised to those who will see God according to his essence, or face to face. For, as the divine Zacharias says, "In that day the Lord will be one, and his name one" (Zach. XIV, 9). B I know that our adversaries will cry out against these things and, tumultuously shouting with a high voice, will rend themselves asunder, especially when they hear that the aforementioned names are distinguished from the divine essence only by reason, not in reality, while they themselves impiously distinguish them in reality, and—since "to spirate" is not the property of the Father, nor does it constitute his person, but belongs to the Father and the Son, following the persons already established and subsisting—they themselves hold it to be the property of the Father and a constitutive element of him, and think that we are assuming what is in question and begging the principle.
But there is absolutely no reason in them. For as we have already discussed these matters sufficiently elsewhere, so also not a few of the blessed and holy men who preceded us have demonstrated this most excellently and clearly, so that it is in no way permitted to gainsay it; he who wishes to do so will find it if he searches. For having chosen to provide a short canon here C, we avoid the length of those discourses, since we posit these things as agreed upon; except that for the sake of consolation and a little regarding the divine names, it must be said that as they signify one and most simple thing—such as is the divine essence—it is necessary that they be one and the same in reality and the same in reality as that which they signify, for otherwise the essence would be distributed among the things. D
A For otherwise, the essence would be divided simultaneously among those things which are distinguished in reality by their names, and there would be as many things as there are significations; but this oversteps into all manner of impiety. As regards the property of spiration, if it does not constitute the Person of the Father, it will be common also to the Son; for, apart from the personal properties, all other things are common to all, so that it would be common even to the Spirit, were it not that it is repugnant to His own reason. But since it does not constitute the Paternal Person, it remains that spiration must be common also to the Son. For since any person is constituted by only one property, it must needs be that it is by the property either of generating or of spirating that the Father is constituted. But the Father is called and is Father on account of generation. Therefore, spiration does not constitute His Person. But since that is not proper to the Father alone, nor constitutes His Person, it is common also to the Son. But enough of these matters.
II. B Nor should this escape the listener who is eager to learn: that the Persons of the divine Trinity, while they are no more one in essence than they are three in persons—and are thus distinguished from one another in reality—are not distinguished from one another according to any of the things which are said of them absolutely, that is, in terms of their absolutes and essentials (for there is one essence, power, life, goodness, wisdom, and whatever similar things there are for all of them). It is, however, by their relations toward one another that the divine Persons both subsist C and are distinguished from one another; these are their idioms, which are relative and, as things that are "toward something," are opposed to one another. For if it is necessary that the constitutive properties be incommunicable with one another, and impossible for them to exist simultaneously in the same thing, they are altogether opposed to one another. For those things which cannot exist simultaneously in the same thing possess this quality on account of some opposition that exists for them entirely. And they are not opposed as habit and privation, nor as contraries, nor as affirmation and negation (for this has been demonstrated in many ways by many blessed men). It remains, therefore, that these personal idioms—and the Persons themselves—are opposed to one another according to relations. For the divine Persons themselves as subsisting are hypostatic properties, and the hypostatic properties as subsisting are the divine Persons themselves. For in other things that differ from one another in essence, the relations considered between them do not constitute the things themselves, but are added to the things already constituted by other means; for example, Socrates and Plato, one of whom is teacher and the other disciple, are not constituted personally by teaching and learning, D but each is first a man, and they differ from one another in their substances and individual subsistence.
A But the divine persons, not differing from one another in their essences (for the essence in them is one and undivided and numerically the same), are discerned from one another by the subsistence-constituting properties: namely, by paternity, filiation, and procession; for the person and the property differ only in the mode of our conception, in that the person is indeed conceived as that which possesses, while the property is conceived as that which is possessed, yet they are strictly the same thing. For if anyone says that the persons are discerned by the processions—as if to say that the Father is discerned from the others not by paternity alone, but also by active generation, and the Son not by filiation alone, but also by passive generation—let such a person know that he does not discern the persons by the said processions in a proper manner. For while active generation and paternity are identical in reality, as are passive generation and filiation, they differ nonetheless according to the mode of our intelligence. For "to be generated" does not signify a certain species residing in the begotten, but is, as it were, a certain way toward the begotten and the Son; filiation, however, is as it were a species, since it is the limit of generation. Furthermore, "to generate" already presupposes the paternal person, whereas "to be generated" signifies that the Son does not yet subsist; for this reason, it is filiation that discerns or constitutes B the Son, and not passive generation, except insofar as filiation follows upon this. The matter stands similarly also in regard to active and passive spiration. Primarily, therefore, and properly, it is the relations that constitute and discern, and consequently the processions also, insofar as they are really the same as the relations. But since there are those who, while conceding that the Father and the Son are discerned from one another by relative processions, do not admit that the Son is discerned from the Spirit in the same way, but wish them to be discerned by different progressions from the Father, according to which one is begotten and the other proceeds, it must be asked of them by what reasoning the progressions of both from the Father are called different. For if they are different because generation is indeed immediately from the Father, while spiration is through generation, and the Spirit through the Son, this is our argument; but if it is because both are from the Father alone, let them know that, given this supposition, the Son and the Spirit cannot be discerned from one another any further. For C the progressions of things are different either in regard to the cause or in regard to that which is caused, and in regard to that which is caused they are different in two ways: either because the caused things are of different species, or because they terminate in different individuals. But these divine persons of the Son and of the Holy Spirit cannot differ from one another as to species, since they have obtained, in proceeding, one and the same numerically nature and divine essence from the Father, nor as to the difference which is according to individuals; first, because there is no matter there, nor anything corresponding to matter, by which individuals of the same nature are separated from one another; then, because the progressions of individuals from the same causes are also of the same species.
A Here, however, there are neither two generations nor two processions. It remains, therefore, that the difference of the progressions can only have place according to the reason of the cause. But if the Father alone is the cause, and there is nothing besides Him, the distinction of the Son and of the Holy Spirit will vanish, and there will be no difference between them, but both will be of one person; this, however, is absurd and repugnant to the faith. It is necessary, therefore, if the divine persons are to be distinguished from one another, that they be constituted and distinguished by hypostatic relations, and by the opposition to one another which is as of relators, and among these, that which is according to cause and caused; and that the Son is distinguished from the Father by filiation and paternity, and the Spirit, just as from the Father, so also from the Son, by the relation of the breathed to the breather; and in no other way can they be distinguished.
3. We must further discuss with these people how many ways the principle and cause of each thing is understood. It must be said, therefore, that the principle is twofold: one as that from which or by which and altogether the "whence" of the thing, or what is the same, the "principle which"; for example, this craftsman and universally that which acts; the other, however, is the principle as that "by which" or "by which as a species," B which exists in the mind of the agent, to which it makes that which acts similar; for every agent produces something similar to itself according to the species by which it acts. For the sake of an example, the cause of this image is the painter himself, as that "from which" and "whence" is the principle, and universally the "that which," and the species which is present in the mind of the painter as that "by which," to which he has made the image similar. In the same way, we also say in the divine persons that the Father, that is, His divine hypostasis, is the cause as the "that which" or "from which," but His divine essence as the "principle by which." For it is itself the species to which those things which are produced from Him are made similar; C whence both the Son and the Spirit are consubstantial with Him, because every producer produces what is similar to the species by which it produces; and God the Father produces the Son and the Spirit by His divine essence, and therefore produces them consubstantial with Himself. Whence it comes about, since the essence is common and one and the same in number for the Father and the Son and the Spirit, and subsists in each of the divine persons, as has been said, that if anything proceeds from both, it does not proceed more as from two than as from one, because the principle, which is as a species, is one and the same in number D and is most strictly one.
These things have been said to you, most holy lord, who know them better than we do, and have gladly suffered many things for the sake of this truth; they have been said for the sake of obedience, and because we judged it absolutely wicked to [oppose your commands. I think indeed, that if any]