"[W]e therefore request that we not be constrained to a different confession [of faith], but that we remain with the one that we find expressed in the Sacred Scriptures, in the Gospels, and also in the writings of the Holy Greek Doctors, namely, that the Holy Spirit does not have two origins, nor a double procession, but that He proceeds from one origin, as from a source — from the Father through the Son"
[From the First Article of the Synod of Brest, reconciling the Ukrainian Church to the Holy Roman See]
Let it be said at the forefront, the difference between Orthodox and Catholics on the question of whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, or proceeds from the Father alone, has to do with terminology. For the Greeks and their theology, the word "proceed" (ἐκπορεύεσθαι), though used in a more generic way in Scripture, came to entail not a mere "coming forth from" or "out of" (as opposed to the term προϊέναι), but refer to a specific, originating source, and is a personal, hypostatic quality. In Latin, however, the equivalent word ("procedere") has a more general connotation of simply coming forth from or out of. It can entail substance (and does in context of the Filioque), but does not specifically refer to the ultimate cause from which a thing proceeds.
Given that the Greek and Latin traditions evolved differently, this work will not be concerned with the Son as the ultimate, originate, hypostatic principle from which the Spirit comes into being. Rome itself recognizes the Father as "the fount of Divinity." Rather, while acknowledging that it is the Father to whom the Spirit owes His eternal origin, this work will show that the Church Fathers believed that Son is involved and utilized in the Father’s procession of the Spirit, that it could rightly be said that the Spirit proceeds (in the Greek sense of ἐκπορεύεσθαι) from the Father through the Son. This is precisely how many of the Fathers word it, and is in this sense which the phrase “from the Son” should be understood.
But what is the nature of this procession? What sort of relationship does the Spirit have with the Eternal Son? To adequately answer this, we must understand the true nature of the dispute, and thus must understand what exactly the majority of the Orthodox tradition is objecting to. The concerns of Byzantine Christians are nuanced, and these concerns are twofold.
- The Orthodox, when it comes to the issue of whether the Spirit proceeds from the Son, are not concerned with a temporal procession, but an eternal one. There exists a definite distinction in their thought between the relations of the Divine Persons in time as opposed to Their relations in eternity. Therefore, it will not be enough to show that the Spirit proceeds from the Son while Christ is incarnate on earth, but will need to be shown that the Spirit proceeds from the Son from all eternity.
- The Orthodox tradition is also informed by the Palamite doctrine, which makes a real distinction between God's essence (nature, substance) and God's energies (operations, manifestations.) It is common for Orthodox to argue that the Spirit proceeds energetically from the Father and the Son — that is, His grace and gifts — but that substantially, He proceeds from the Father alone. Their issue of contention does not concern whether the Spirit proceeds from the Son in a sort of activity, but from His very being.
In light of these approaches to theology adhered to by the East, the excerpts here provided are intended to demonstrate that when these Fathers speak of the procession of the Spirit from the Son, they are not referring to the grace or energy, but the actual Spirit. Some of these passages will be quite explicit. Where they are less explicit or more ambiguous, or just too dense to be easily deciphered, I will provide commentary to extrapolate and argue why they should be understood in favor of the Spirit's eternal, substantial relation to the Son.
Tertullian
But as for me, who derive the Son from no other source but from the substance of the Father, and (represent Him) as doing nothing without the Father's will, and as having received all power from the Father, how can I be possibly destroying the Monarchy from the faith, when I preserve it in the Son just as it was committed to Him by the Father? The same remark (I wish also to be formally) made by me with respect to the third degree in the Godhead, because I believe the Spirit to proceed from no other source than from the Father through the Son.
(Against Praxeas 4)
Following, therefore, the form of these analogies, I confess that I call God and His Word — the Father and His Son — two. For the root and the tree are distinctly two things, but correlatively joined; the fountain and the river are also two forms, but indivisible; so likewise the sun and the ray are two forms, but coherent ones. Everything which proceeds from something else must needs be second to that from which it proceeds, without being on that account separated. Where, however, there is a second, there must be two; and where there is a third, there must be three. Now the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son; just as the fruit of the tree is third from the root, or as the stream out of the river is third from the fountain, or as the apex of the ray is third from the sun. Nothing, however, is alien from that original source whence it derives its own properties. In like manner the Trinity, flowing down from the Father through intertwined and connected steps, does not at all disturb the Monarchy, while it at the same time guards the state of the Economy.
(Against Praxaes 12)
This is very consonant with Patristic thought. "Nothing, however, is alien from that original whence it derives its own properties", referring to the fact that the Persons are all consubstantial with one another, and that that Divine substance originates in the Father. This does not, however, prevent him from likening the Spirit as "third from God and the Son", likening the Father to the root/fountain/sun, the Son to the tree/river/ray, and the Spirit to the fruit/stream out of the river/apex of the ray. It is all one phenomenon, one being, though it occurs in degrees, or rather, with distinctions. For Tertullian (and others, as will be seen), there is nothing contradictory between the Son being seen as being a means to the substantial procession of the Spirit and still acknowledging of the Monarchia of the Holy Father.
Pseudo-Gregory Thaumaturgus
We acknowledge that the Son and the Spirit are consubstantial with the Father, and that the substance of the Trinity is one — that is, that there is one divinity according to nature, the Father remaining unbegotten, and the Son being begotten of the Father in a true generation, and not in a formation by will, and the Spirit being sent forth eternally from the substance of the Father through the Son, with power to sanctify the whole creation.
(Pseudo-Gregory Thaumaturgus, Sectional Confession of Faith 18)
St. Leotinus of Caesarea
This bishop was present at the council of Nicea, and was a friend of St. Gregory the Illuminator, apostle to Armenia.
[T]he Spirit proceeds from the Father, and is proper to the Son and gushes forth from Him.
Mansi II:868CD
St. Gregory of Nyssa
If, however, if any one cavils at our argument, on the ground that by not admitting the difference of nature it leads to a mixture and confusion of the Persons, we shall make to such a charge this answer — that while we confess the invariable character of the nature, we do not deny the difference in respect of cause, and that which is caused, by which alone we apprehend that one Person is distinguished from another — by our belief, that is, that one is the Cause, and another is of the Cause; and again in that which is of the Cause we recognize another distinction. For one is directly from the first Cause, and another by that which is directly from the first Cause; so that the attribute of being Only-begotten abides without doubt in the Son, and the interposition of the Son, while it guards His attribute of being Only-begotten, does not shut out the Spirit from His relation by way of nature to the Father.
(Gregory of Nyssa, To Abablius “On Not Three Gods”)
St. Gregory refers here to the Three Persons of the Trinity: One is "the Cause" (the Father), Another is "[directly] of the Cause" (The Son), and Another yet is "by that which is directly from the first Cause. (the Spirit)" The Casuality, in and of itself, is still referred back to the Father -- yet He is called "first Cause", and the Son is said to be "directly from the first Cause." Gregory is still assertive that the Spirit is not "shut out" from the Father in His relation to Him, but acknowledges that the Son plays an eternal role in that relationship.
Our account of the Holy Ghost will be the same also; the difference is only in the place assigned in order. For as the Son is bound to the Father, and, while deriving existence from Him, is not substantially after Him, so again the Holy Spirit is in touch with the Only-begotten, Who is conceived of as before the Spirit's subsistence only in the theoretical light of a cause. Extensions in time find no admittance in the Eternal Life; so that, when we have removed the thought of cause, the Holy Trinity in no single way exhibits discord with itself; and to It is glory due.(Against Eunomius 1:42)
Just as the Son, while His deriving existence from the Father, is not substantially posterior to Him, so likewise is the in touch with the Son. St. Gregory of Nyssa specifically says the Son is intellectually conceived prior to the Spirit "in the theoretical light of a cause."
(This declaration also voids the objection raised by Photius against the Filique which suggests that the doctrine incorporates the concept of time into eternity -- Nyssen claims the fact that it is eternity being discussed in the first place which eliminates a temporal understanding.)
For the plea will not avail them in their self-defense, that He is delivered by our Lord to His disciples third in order, and that therefore He is estranged from our ideal of Deity. Where in each case activity in working good shows no diminution or variation whatever, how unreasonable it is to suppose the numerical order to be a sign of any diminution or essential variation! It is as if a man were to see a separate flame burning on three torches (and we will suppose that the third flame is caused by that of the first being transmitted to the middle, and then kindling the end torch), and were to maintain that the heat in the first exceeded that of the others; that that next it showed a variation from it in the direction of the less; and that the third could not be called fire at all, though it burnt and shone just like fire, and did everything that fire does. But if there is really no hindrance to the third torch being fire, though it has been kindled from a previous flame, what is the philosophy of these men, who profanely think that they can slight the dignity of the Holy Spirit because He is named by the Divine lips after the Father and the Son?
(Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Spirit, Against the Macedonians 6)
Here, Gregory vouches for the co-equality of persons signified by the Divine Name (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) against those who infer, from the fact that those titles occur in a certain sequence, that there must be degradation in dignity. St. Gregory compares the Divine Nature shared by all three Persons to a Fire alight upon three Torches. Ablaze on all three torches is the same fire, signifying the oneness of Divine nature and being, but one of those torches supplies the other two with that flame. That first torch passes its fire to a second, which in turn passes that fire received from the first torch onto the third. One torch is originator of that flame, and it is the same flame among all three, but the third torch receives the first torch's light via the second torch. It is not difficult to grasp the point he is making.
St. Hilary of Poitiers:
As in the revelation that Your Only-begotten was born of You before times eternal, when we cease to struggle with ambiguities of language and difficulties of thought, the one certainty of His birth remains; so I hold fast in my consciousness the truth that Your Holy Spirit is from You and through Him, although I cannot by my intellect comprehend it.
(Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity 12:56)
Hilary compares the "revelation" of the Son's eternal origin with the "truth" of the Spirit, and if he is taking this comparison to its fullest extent, then he is also be referring to the Spirit's eternal origin. A great mystery of the Christian faith is that the Son was born eternally of the Father; another great mystery of the Faith is that the Spirit is "from [the Father] through [the Son.]
Accordingly He receives from the Son, Who is both sent by Him, and proceeds from the Father. Now I ask whether to receive from the Son is the same thing as to proceed from the Father. But if one believes that there is a difference between receiving from the Son and proceeding from the Father, surely to receive from the Son and to receive from the Father will be regarded as one and the same thing. For our Lord Himself says, Because He shall receive of Mine... whether it will be power, or excellence, or teaching — the Son has said must be received from Him, and again He indicates that this same thing must be received from the Father. For when He says that all things whatsoever the Father has are His, and that for this cause He declared that it must be received from His own, He teaches also that what is received from the Father is yet received from Himself, because all things that the Father has are His. Such a unity admits no difference, nor does it make any difference from whom that is received, which given by the Father is described as given by the Son. Is a mere unity of will brought forward here also? All things which the Father has are the Son's, and all things which the Son has are the Father's. For He Himself says, And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine.
(Hilary of Poitiers, ibid 8:20)
This is a significant quotation, because Hilary is actually one of the few early Latin Fathers to be familiar with the native Eastern distinction between the specific procession of the Spirit from the Father, and a more general procession of the Spirit from Father and Son. But this does not at all stop him from recognizing that the general procession concerns that of substances and origin. He rhetorically questions whether to proceed from the Father and to receive from the Son should be regarded as the same thing. For Hilary, it implies that the Spirit receives from Both all the excellencies of the Godhead. The Spirit, in proceeding from the Father, receives from both the Father and the Son.
St. Athanasius of Alexandria:
If then, as you say, 'the Son is from nothing,' and 'was not before His generation,' He, of course, as well as others, must be called Son and God and Wisdom only by participation; for thus all other creatures consist, and by sanctification are glorified. You have to tell us then, of what He is partaker. All other things partake of the Spirit, but He, according to you, of what is He partaker? Of the Spirit? Nay, rather the Spirit Himself takes from the Son, as He Himself says; and it is not reasonable to say that the latter is sanctified by the former. Therefore it is [of] the Father that He partakes; for this only remains to say.
(Four Discourses Against the Arians, ibid I:5:15) *
The Arians apparently acknowledged that all created things, by virtue of the creatureliness, partake of God's Holy Spirit for their existence and subsistence. Athanasius, in taking Arian christology to task, essentially presses them with the question which naturally arises from their theology: if the Logos is a creature, shouldn't He then partake of the Spirit for His sanctification as well? Athanasius then immediately presents the corrective theology, crediting its truth upon the words of Christ: "Nay, rather the Spirit Himself takes from the Son, as He Himself says," juxtaposing this with the fact that "it is the Father [of which] He partakes" is all there is left to say.
In asserting this, Athanasius rejects that the Son "partakes of the Spirit", insisting instead the reverse: that the Spirit shares in the Son, while the Son participates only in the Father. The saint is not referring to simply the inner-Trinitarian communion of grace, for all Three Persons share the Divine Energies. The only intelligible meaning available is an existential one (the existential being of the Son, of course, exactly the core concern of the Arian controversy.) In other words, Athanasius argues the Son is God because He partakes of the Father directly, and implies that He does not partake of the Spirit, but the Spirit partakes of Him.
This same notion can be found in multiple other places of his corpus. One such example:
Not then as the Son in the Father, so also we become in the Father; for the Son does not merely partake the Spirit, that therefore He too may be in the Father; nor does He receive the Spirit, but rather He supplies It Himself to all; and the Spirit does not unite the Word to the Father , but rather the Spirit receives from the Word.
(Athanasius, ibid III:25:26)
Didymus the Blind
For it is not the case that the Father announces to the Son his will as though the Son, who is Wisdom and Truth, were ignorant, since everything which [the Father] speaks he possesses in wisdom and in substance, as he is wise and truly subsisting. For the Father, therefore, to speak, and for the Son to hear, or, vice versa, for the Son to speak to the Father, signifies the identity of nature and of volition that is in the Father and the Son. And also the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Wisdom, cannot hear the Son speaking things which he does not already know, since he himself is that which is put forth from the Son…The Lord’s words that follow confirm this opinion, when he says, “He (i.e., the Paraclete) shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine” (Jn 16:14). Once more, this term, “to receive,” must be understood in a manner befitting the divine nature… For just as the Son, in giving, is not deprived of those things which he bestows, and does not confer upon others to his own loss, so likewise the Spirit does not receive what he did not have before…For neither is the Son anything apart from those things which are given to him by the Father, nor is there any other substance belonging to the Holy Spirit besides that which is given to him by the Son.
(Didymus the Blind, de Spiritu Sancto 36-37)
Now, Didymus' work On the Holy Spirit has been subject to much debate. It only survives in Latin, deriving from a translation originally performed by St. Jerome. Most scholars believe the text has been tampered with, possibly interpolating commentary into the actual work itself. The parts of the work which speak overtly on the matter at hand are believed to reflect are more developed understanding of the Latin filioque doctrine.
It may reasonably be argued, however, that it is still fair to reckon Didymus as having held this view. Firstly, to my knowledge, the section I have quoted is not one of the suspect passages. Beyond that, however, which school does Didymus the Blind hail from? The Alexandrian school. Didymus’ fellow alumni and theological predecessors (Origen, St. Athanasius, and St. Cyril) have all been shown to believe likewise. Even in the light of tampered writings, it remains a reasonable conjecture that Didymus believed this doctrine, because by so doing he would simply be in line with what was taught by his theological forebearers and fellow countrymen.
Servian of Gabala
To God the Father, the Unbegotten, and to the Only-begotten Son, begotten from him, and to the Holy Spirit who proceeds from their essence, to the Three in One substance, be all glory, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.
(Servian of Gabala, Sermon on the Epiphany, c. 390)
St. Epiphanius of Salamis
But someone will say, "Therefore we are saying that there are two Sons. And how then is He the Only-begotten?" Well then. "Who art thou that repliest against God?" [Rom 9:20]. For if he calls the one Who is from Him the Son, and the one Who is from both (παρ᾽ ἀμφοτέρων) the Holy Spirit, which things we understand by faith alone, from the saints
(The Man Well-Anchored 71)
“Christ is believed to be from the Father, God from God, and the Spirit to be from Christ, or indeed from both (παρ᾽ ἀμφοτέρων) — as Christ says, ‘Who proceeds from the Father’ (Jn 15:26), and ‘He shall receive of mine’ (Jn 16:14)” (Epiphanius, Ancoratus 67)
St. Epiphanius is arguing against those who accuse the orthodox of believing the Father has two Sons, because both the Logos and the Spirit are from Him. How does he counter this? He explains that this claim is unfounded, because the Son and Spirit come from the Father in different ways: the Son is from the Father; the Spirit is from the Father and the Son.
And we believe in the Holy Ghost, who spake in the Law, and preached in the Prophets, and descended at Jordan, and spake in the Apostles, and indwells the Saints. And thus we believe in him, that he is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the perfect Spirit, the Spirit the Comforter, uncreate, who proceedeth from the Father, receiving of the Son, and believed on.
(Creed of St. Epiphanius)
St. Ambrose of Milan
It is difficult to label Ambrose as expressing a theology which does not reflect the Filioque. Aside from the texts themselves, let it be known that he is the teacher of St. Augustine of Hippo, whom everyone knows did teach the Filioque. It is not a likely historical scenario that Augustine believed it while Ambrose did not.
Learn now that as the Father is the Fount of Life, so, too, many have stated that the Son is signified as the Fount of Life; so that, he says, with You, Almighty God, Your Son is the Fount of Life. That is the Fount of the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit is Life, as the Lord says: The words which I speak unto you are Spirit and Life, (John 6:64) for where the Spirit is, there also is Life; and where Life is, is also the Holy Spirit.
(Ambrose of Milan, On the Holy Spirit 1:15:172)
And this, again, is not a trivial matter that we read that a river goes forth from the throne of God. For you read the words of the Evangelist John to this purport: And He showed me a river of living water, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street thereof, and on either side, was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of all nations. (Revelation 22:1-2)
This is certainly the River proceeding from the throne of God, that is, the Holy Spirit, Whom he drinks who believes in Christ, as He Himself says: If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink. He that believes in Me, as says the Scripture, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spoke He of the Spirit. (John 7:37-38) Therefore the river is the Spirit
(On the Holy Spirit, 3:20:153-154)
Sts. Isaac of Seleucia & Maruthas of Tagrit
We confess the living Holy Spirit, the living Paraclete, who is from the Father and the Son, in One Trinity, in One Essence, in One Will, in accordance with the creed of the 318 bishops in the city of Nicaea.
(Synod of Selucia, A.D. 410)
St. Cyril of Alexandria
The Spirit is assuredly in no way changeable; or even if some think Him to be so infirm as to change, the disgrace will be traced back to the divine nature itself, if in fact the Spirit is from God the Father and, for that matter, from the Son, being poured forth substantially from both, that is to say, from the Father through the Son.
(In Worship and Adoration in Spirit and Truth 1)
For, in that the Son is God, and from God according to nature (for He has had His birth from God the Father), the Spirit is both proper to Him and in Him and from Him, just as, to be sure, the same thing is understood to hold true in the case of God the Father Himself.
(Commentary on the Prophet Joel 35)
Since the Holy Spirit, when He is in us effect our being conformed to God, and actually proceeds from the Father and Son, it is abundantly clear that He is of the divine essence, in it in essence and proceeding from it"
(Treasury of the Holy Trinity 34, A.D. 424)
Thus, Paul knows no difference of nature between the Son and the Holy Spirit, but because the Spirit exists from Him and in Him by nature, He calls Him by the name of Lordship.
(Thesaurus 34)
The Spirit is from the essence of the Son
(Thesaurus 34, PG 75, 588A)
The Spirit has by nature His subsistence from Him [the Son], and being sent from Him upon the creature, works its renovation.
(Thesaurus; PG 75, 608)
St. Gregory the Dialogist (the Great)
But the Mediator of God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, in all things hath Him (the Spirit) both always and continually present. For the same Spirit even in Substance proceeds from Him. And thus, though He abides in the holy Preachers, He is justly said to abide in the Mediator in a special manner, for that in them He abides of grace for a particular object, but in Him He abides substantially for all ends.
(Morals on the Book of Job 2:92, A.D. 594)
For since it is certain that the Spirit, the Paraclete, always proceeds from the Father and the Son, why does the Son say that he is going to go away, so that that one (the Paraclete) may come, who is never absent from the Son?
(Dialogues on the Life and Miracles of the Italian Fathers, book 2)
St. Maximus the Confessor
Those of the Queen of cities have attacked the synodal letter of the present very holy Pope (Martin I), not in the case of all the chapters that he has written in it, but only in the case of two of them. One relates to theology, because it says he says that ‘the Holy Spirit proceeds (ἐκπορεύεσθαι) also from the Son.’... With regard to the first matter, they (the Romans) have produced the unanimous documentary evidence of the Latin fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria, from the sacred commentary he composed on the gospel of St. John. On the basis of these texts, they have shown that they have not made the Son the cause of the Spirit — they know in fact that the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession; but [they use this expression] in order to manifest the Spirit’s coming-forth (προϊέναι) through him and, in this way, to make clear the unity and identity of the essence…
(St. Maximus the Confessor, Letter to Marinus)*
Here, Maximus argues that the Latins are not heretics for their Filioque doctrine, that it is consonant with orthodox Greek theology and teaching. They are not saying that there is more than one originate source of Godhead within the Trinity, but only saying that the Spirit's procession from the Son shows forth the likeness of Their common essence. Some may wish to argue this as merely a temporal, economic procession being referred to, due to St. Maximus using the term "coming-forth." But this is noting the tree and missing the forest; Maximus refers to "the unanimous documentary evidence of the Latin fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria" -- who all taught something stronger than mere mission into the world.
Further, the interpretation of his letter as referring to substance is more consonant with the Confessor's own thought as shown elsewhere in his works. To demonstrate what sort of procession is being referred to, here is some of Maximus' own theology on the matter to explain his view.
“For just as the Holy Spirit exists, by nature, according to substance, as belonging to the Father, so also does he, according to substance, belong to the Son, in that, in an ineffable way, he proceeds substantially from the Father through the begotten Son.”
(St. Maximus the Confessor, Question 63 to Thalassius)
“Just as Mind is the cause of the Word, so also it is [cause] of the Spirit, but by means of the Word. And just as we are unable to say that a word is ‘of the voice,’ so also neither can we say that the Word is ‘of the Spirit.’”
(St. Maximus the Confessor, Quaestiones et dubia, I, 34)
Andrew of Caesarea
The river of God, having been filled with waters running through the heavenly Jerusalem, is the Life-giving Spirit which proceeds from God the Father and through the Lamb, through the midst of the most supreme powers which are called throne of divinity, filling the wide streets of the holy city, that is, the multitude in her being "increased more than the [grains of] sand," according to the Psalmist [Psalm 139.18].
( Andrew of Caesarea; Commentary on the Apocalypse, )
St. John of Damascus
He Himself (the Father) then is Mind, the depth of reason, begetter of the Word, and through the Word the Producer of the revealing Spirit.
(An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 1:12)
And the Holy Spirit is the power of the Father revealing the hidden mysteries of His Divinity, proceeding from the Father through the Son in a manner known to Himself, but different from that of generation.
(ibid 1:12)
The Holy Spirit is God, being between the unbegotten and the begotten, and united to the Father through the Son.
(ibid 1:13)
I say that God is always Father since he has always his Word coming from himself, and through his Word, having his Spirit issuing from him
(Dialogue against the Manicheans 5, c. A.D. 749)
St. Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople
“And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, Who Proceeds from the Father through the Son, and is acknowledged to be Himself God”
ADDITIONAL QUOTATIONS:
St. Basil of Caesarea*
"Even if the Holy Spirit is third in dignity and order, why need He be third also in nature? For that He is second to the Son, having His being from Him and receiving from Him and announcing to us and being completely dependent on Him, pious tradition recounts; but that His nature is third we are not taught by the Saints nor can we conclude logically from what has been said."
[Against Eunomius 3:1 in PG 29:655A, c. A.D. 365]
Let it be acknowledged that this quotation is highly controversial. It comes from St. Basil's "Against Eunomius", and this version of the passage is not present in many editions of the work. The majority of scholars believe this quote is inauthentic, deeming it as an interpolation pertaining to a later theological controversy.
There are, however, valid foundations on which to warrant an argument for its authenticity. Firstly, it matches well with other statements from his brother and fellow Origenist, St. Gregory of Nyssa. Both were students of Origen of Alexandra, who certainly taught that the Spirit owes his origin to the Son as well as the Father.
Another aspect to take into account: as noted by Dr. Peter Gilbert, if this passage is authentic, it is only work within the Cappadocian corpus which comments on, makes reference to, John 16:14 (“He shall receive of Mine”). If it is inauthentic, an important verse concerning the Holy Spirit on the issue is strangely absent from the existent passages of the Cappadocian Fathers.
One Father, one Son, one Holy Spirit must be confessed according to the divine tradition. Not two Fathers, nor two Sons, since the Spirit neither is the Son nor is called. For we do not receive anything from the Spirit in the same way as the Spirit from the Son; but we receive him (ie. the Spirit) coming to us and sanctifying us, the communication of divinity, the pledge of eternal inheritance, and the first fruits of the eternal good."Homilies,PG 31:1433(ante A.D. 379),in GIL,204
Basil makes the point that Christians do not receive from the Spirit in the same manner in which the Holy Spirit receives from the Son. Christians receive his sanctification, the participation in divinity and first fruits in the new creation. The Holy Spirit, by contrast, receives from the Son in a more significant way than this. This sort of line of theologizing eliminates a purely temporal way of understanding the procession of the Spirit from the Son, and also suggests that it is more than mere grace or energy.
Finally, in order to show the similarity between the Early Church (even in its Eastern lung) and later Roman Catholic theology, here are quotations from the latter’s most eminent and renowned theologians:
St. Augustine of Hippo
the Father is the beginning (principium) of the whole divinity, or if it is better so expressed, deity. He, therefore, who proceeds from the Father and from the Son, is referred back to Him from whom the Son was born (natus).
(St. Augustine of Hippo, De Trinitate IV.20.29)
St. Thomas Aquinas
Therefore, because the Son receives from the Father that the Holy Ghost proceeds from Him, it can be said that the Father spirates the Holy Ghost through the Son, or that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son, which has the same meaning. . . [I]f we consider the persons themselves spirating, then, as the Holy Ghost proceeds both from the Father and from the Son, the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father immediately, as from Him, and mediately, as from the Son; and thus He is said to proceed from the Father through the Son.
(Summa Theologiae I:36:3)
These two quotations, from the two preeminent theologians of Roman Catholic theology, are added here to lend a voice to the part of the Latin tradition which recognizes the primacy or Monachia of the Father within the Trinity, recognizing that He is the fount of divinity and root of Divine nature, and that the Spirit is referred back to Him in an ultimate sense.
