A Notice

The editors at the Catholic University of America Press are asking me to take down the “work-in-progress” edition of Bekkos’s On the Union and Peace of the Churches of Old and New Rome, and I will do so within the next few days, probably by this Sunday, April 7, 2024. Until then, it can be ordered for $20 at the following link:

On the Union and Peace of the Churches of Old and New Rome

Below is a poster that was made to advertise my public lecture at Hillsdale College last month. There were actually two talks, a public one and a private one that took place in the context of a theology class; both of them went well, but unfortunately neither of them was recorded.

A lecture at Hillsdale College

I have been asked to give a talk — a couple of talks, actually — on John Bekkos at Hillsdale College in Michigan next month. The talks are scheduled for March 20th and 21st, but as yet I have no details as to their exact times and locations.

Also, one of the editors of the series Eastern Catholic Studies and Texts, published by the Catholic University of America Press, has offered to publish my edition and translation of Bekkos’s De unione ecclesiarum in that series, and I have accepted the offer. There is no word as yet when that edition will appear, but I hope to finish work on the book by the end of this year.

For those who would simply like to read my translation of the De unione, with the revised Greek text, I have published it privately, as a work-in-progress; it can be ordered for $20 (a very reasonable price for a scholarly book) at the link below:

On the Union and Peace of the Churches of Old and New Rome

A Christmas prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God
who take the sins away
of all the world: in your great love
come visit us this day.

You see the tears of the oppressed,
the wounds of those who bleed;
you hear their cry, and certainly
will help them in their need.

For you were once a little child
whom rulers sought to kill,
and bitter is your anger then
when children’s blood men spill.

Ten thousand children’s bodies lie
in Gaza’s gloomy grave;
ten thousand souls to heaven fly
beseeching you to save.

Surely the wrath of God will burn
upon all those who kill
the innocent, and those who claim
they thereby do your will.

Lord Jesus Christ, O Lamb of God:
cause wars to cease, we pray,
and by your birth in Bethlehem
grant peace to us today.

Remarks on Gaza

I posted to Facebook yesterday the above picture of two Palestinian children, Aya and Abood Moghari, who were killed in Gaza this past weekend in Israel’s Operation “Iron Swords,” which is itself a response to Hamas’s Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” which began on October 7. I wrote that “This madness has to stop.” Today, a friend wrote a reply; his view is that Israel’s assault on Gaza is justified in view of Hamas’s intent to “kill all Jews.” In response to him, I wrote the following. (I have added here a few links; otherwise, I have left the reply essentially as I posted it to Facebook a little while ago.)

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… My view is that there needs to be a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an equitable one that respects the rights of both Jews and Arabs, and that the United States has failed dismally in its responsibility to bring such a political solution about.

I would note the following:

1. Many Israelis are unconvinced about the claim that the IDF was caught completely off-guard by Hamas’s action on October 7. Israel has some of the world’s most sophisticated surveillance technology and Gaza is one of the most heavily surveilled places on the planet: the idea that Hamas could have done practice runs for their October 7th assault and Israel would not have known about it is preposterous. As Caitlin Johnstone pointed out yesterday, “That Israel had no idea what Hamas was up to prior to October 7, but ever since October 7 has known about every hospital, mosque, school, refugee camp and water tower that Hamas is hiding in” is a dumb idea. Also, Egypt reportedly informed the Israeli government before October 7 that Hamas was preparing something. These facts suggest that Netanyahu’s government had some foreknowledge of the attack and chose to allow it to proceed, to give a pretext for something they wanted to do anyway.

2. Netanyahu’s own Likud party promoted Hamas to govern Gaza in the 2000’s as a means of dividing the Palestinians of Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank and thus forestalling the emergence of a Palestinian state in keeping with the provisions of the Oslo Accords. Netanyahu has done everything he can to make a two-state solution impossible: most importantly, for over two decades he has implemented a policy of expanding Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, a policy which amounts to organized theft but which western governments choose to ignore. His current government, the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, is in coalition with religious extremists like the Otzma Yehudit party, led by former Kahanist Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security, who are committed to driving all Arabs out of the Holy Land and to rebuilding the Temple, a move which would necessitate the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest site. The events of October 7 were precipitated by another mass Jewish demonstration at the Al-Aqsa Mosque: as happened also earlier this year, on October 4 a crowd of Jewish settlers prayed at the Mosque compound on the Temple Mount in contravention to Israeli law; Muslim worshippers were prevented from entering the shrine; Israeli police supported the settlers. The fact that Hamas named its operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” tells you that, in their own minds at least, this provocation against an Islamic holy site is what demanded them to take action. At any rate, it was not out of a desire to “kill all Jews.” It was, in their own minds at least, a response to a specific provocation against Islam. And Netanyahu’s extremist government bears some responsibility for encouraging such religious provocations.

3. Nor was Hamas’s attack, so far as I can see, directed primarily against Israeli civilians. The “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack of October 7 was a military attack, and it was directed primarily against the IDF. I do not condone Hamas’s taking of civilian hostages and the civilian deaths; but at least some of the accusations that circulated subsequently, e.g., the claim about 40 decapitated babies, have turned out to be false.

4. Israel has enforced a most strict and draconian blockade on Gaza for the past 16 years, producing a situation of unspeakable misery that has been described as the world’s largest open-air concentration camp: for some years, the inhabitants of Gaza were kept on a close to starvation diet of 2,279 calories per person per day, scientifically determined to be the minimum necessary to keep them alive; their water purification plants have been destroyed; most of them have no opportunity to leave the territory or even go fishing in the Mediterranean; virtually no trade with the outside world is allowed, so essentially the Gazan economy is on life-support, with unemployment over 50% and the population being almost entirely dependent on international relief organizations for survival; attempts to bring food and medical supplies there directly, bypassing Israeli checkpoints at Erez and Rafah, have been met by the Israeli military with extreme violence, as in the case of the Mavi Marmara flotilla of 2010. Moreover, the people of Gaza are subject to recurrent bombing raids by the Israeli military, actions which the Israelis refer to callously as “mowing the lawn” and which often target structures of economic or cultural value. Legally, this means that, for most of the past 20 years, Israel has been in a de facto state of war against the people of Gaza. If Israel is enforcing this absolute blockade upon the people of Gaza, which is in itself an act of war and a war crime (collective punishment), it cannot claim to be a victim when the Gazans take military action to break the blockade.

5. Yes, I have seen videos of little Muslim children affirming a desire to kill Jews, and being encouraged in this by their elders. And I have also seen videos of little Jewish children affirming their hatred for Arabs and their desire to get rid of them, and being encouraged in this by their elders. There is a long history of bloodshed in the Middle East, and no side has clean hands. But none of this justifies the war crimes currently being committed by Israel in its Operation “Iron Swords”: the cutting off of food, water, medical supplies, and electricity to a population of 2.3 million, the systematic bombing of hospitals, the use of white phosphorus, the dropping of two tons of explosives on the refugee camp of Jabalia, killing most of its inhabitants, the targeting of Gaza’s last functioning water purification plant, the affirmed intention to lay all of Gaza flat. What is happening now in Gaza has been described as a genocide; I am more and more inclined to accept that description. At the very least, there is a clear intention on the part of the Israeli government to force the whole population of Gaza to leave, as a kind of final solution to Israel’s Palestinian problem — that in itself is a war crime. 

6. One incentive for the Israeli government to encourage the population of Gaza to leave is the recent discovery of gas reserves off of Gaza’s coast; the Israeli government knows that, if the Palestinians achieve their own state, Israel will lose this potential source of wealth. I suspect that this is one factor in Israel’s response to the events of October 7th.

7. So, to repeat: there needs to be a political solution to this, something which has been put off for decades and which spineless western leaders, for reasons mostly of domestic politics, have been reluctant to demand. And, immediately, there needs to be a ceasefire — not just a temporary, two-day lull, but a complete end to the ongoing industrial-scale massacre, where the death toll now stands at about 10,000 civilians, about half of them children. I acknowledge that there have been war crimes on both sides. But if your point is that Israel has the right to defend itself: well, the Palestinians are human beings, and they also have that right. No political solution is likely to be found unless Israel agrees to lift its punitive blockade of Gaza and to halt completely its illegal expropriation of Palestinian properties in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Until those points are agreed to, it is hypocritical for Israel to claim victimhood in this matter: it has one of the world’s most advanced military machines, and it is using it upon a mostly defenseless people with obscene savagery.

Expiration date

Something is telling me
that the date on this package is due
that it is time for these materials
to be recycled.

You would think
that I’d be ready for eternity
but you would think
wrong.

So many good people
each day pass through that door
some of them joyously
some of them with sorrow.

Have you accepted Jesus?
Have you given him your life?
Has he held you up
when you were falling?

I spend my time
grumbling over the evil in the world
forgetful that all things
are in the Maker’s hands

and those things
include my breath
and the number of my days.
I must realize that, when I go,
I shall have nothing to complain of.

The bells of Kiev

The bells of Kiev
are tolling in pain
for the terrible things
that will come to Ukraine

Gog’s and Magog’s
eschatological fight
is happening there
on this very night

Wonder of wonders
that Frankie and Bart
have chosen to meet there
to make a new start

Please place your signature
here on this line
all will be legal
nothing divine

Globalist values
will now be proclaimed
upon every pulpit
where Jesus is named

On the Nestorian antecedents of a Photian argument

At Mystagogy §93, Photius writes:

“Therefore, in so far as He is man, Christ is anointed by the Spirit; and since the Spirit anoints Christ, He is called the Spirit of Christ. But you say, ‘Because He is called the Spirit of Christ, He certainly also proceeds from Christ.’ Accordingly, the Spirit of Christ will not come forth from Him because He is God, but because He is man; consequently, the Spirit will not have been existent from the beginning and together with the Father before the ages, but only from the time when the Son assumed human substance.”

(Holy Resurrection Monastery tr., p. 115)

In the last chapter of his point-by-point refutation of Photius’s Mystagogy, John Bekkos criticizes this argument; he says that, if Photius denies that the Spirit is from Christ, as eternal from eternal, neither will he say that Christ’s passion is the passion of God, nor his blood the blood of God…. (Refutatio Photiani libri de Spiritu Sancto 34; PG 141, 861B-864B). In other words, he rejects Photius’s argument as smacking of Nestorianism.

I think Bekkos has an important insight here. Nestorius was an extreme representative of Antiochene theology, which, like Photius four and a half centuries later, opposed the teaching that the Son of God is in any sense a source of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit. We see here how that opposition is grounded in christology.

The Nestorian view borders on something like this: the temporal Christ can only send the Spirit’s temporal gifts, cannot be a source of the eternal Spirit himself to believers. St. Cyril of Alexandria would answer that the temporal Christ is the eternal Son, and that, in whatever spiritual gifts the temporal Christ bestows, the eternal Spirit is hypostatically present. The unity of theology and economy is founded upon the unity of Christ’s person. For Nestorius, if I read him correctly, Christ’s temporal acts can only be acts of the temporal πρόσωπον, not the eternal one (I may be wrong in supposing that he says this, but this is doubtless how Cyril read him). In any case, a sharp division must be drawn, for the Antiochene theology, between acts whose subject is the human Christ and acts whose subject is the divine Christ.

(Perhaps there is some reason for the Antiochene position. Christ slept; Christ ate; Christ, in the garden, felt dread at the prospect of being crucified; Christ suffered and died. Traditionally, these actions are seen as revelatory, not of his divine nature, but of his human one. Doubtless Cyril would agree; but he would nonetheless insist that they are all actions of the same divine person who rose from the dead and existed with the Father from all eternity.)

For Cyril, it is the eternal Son who is the subject of the temporal Christ’s actions. Because of this, the temporal Christ’s breathing upon his disciples is revelatory of the eternal relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit. To make a sharp differentiation between theology and economy here is not only to miss Cyril’s point; it is to risk compromising the unity of Christ. Just as, when Christ suffers, it is the eternal, impassible Son who suffers, so Christ’s breathing is a breathing from the eternal Son. A breathing of the eternal Spirit, not just of temporal gifts.

A recognition of this undermines some recent readings of Cyril, e.g., that of André de Halleux (“Cyrille, Théodoret et le «Filioque»,” RHE 74 [1979], 597-625), who claims that Cyril’s language about the relationship of Christ to the Spirit, because it is stated in a christological context, has no bearing upon the question of the Spirit’s eternal origination. It seems, rather, that St. Cyril normally understood economy and theology to go together, for the reasons stated above: the oneness of Christ’s person implies that Christ’s temporal acts—at least, such acts as touch upon another divine person—are revelatory of his eternal relationships. So, if Cyril on many occasions speaks of the Holy Spirit as being from the Father and the Son and, in one place, implies that being through the Son and being from the Son are equivalent in meaning (De adoratione I, PG 68, 148A), it is a subterfuge and sleight of hand to allege that these statements have no implications for Cyril’s views on the Holy Spirit’s eternal procession. To argue thus is to read Cyril as an Antiochene theologian, or as having no basic disagreement with writers like Theodoret—something which de Halleux explicitly maintains, disingenuously in my view.

Norman H. Redington on Bright Week

A friend of mine, Norman Redington of Lubbock, Texas, sent me the following reflection on Bright Week last Friday; in my reply, emailed the same day, I offered to publish his essay here on this blog, and early this morning he wrote back, telling me to go ahead and do so. So I offer it now, a little late for Bright Week, but still worth reading. A couple of things to note: first, Norman Redington is an Orthodox Christian and a physicist by training, who maintains a blog titled The Net Advance of Physics. Secondly, my publication of his essay here should not be taken as implying an endorsement of all the opinions, political or otherwise, contained in it.

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BRIGHT WEEK 2023

This is Bright Week. Did it seem bright to them, to the Twelve hiding behind locked doors in the upper room, to the Seventy and the rest hiding who knows where, waiting for the policeman’s knock: ‘Were you not one of them? Even your accent betrays you!’ Yes, it was bright, the brightest of all weeks, the same week as this. But did it seem so?

Does it seem so now? Is it bright in the holy New Jerusalem of Kyiv, where monks sworn to live out every precept of the Gospel and accept all suffering with joy are now whining because, God forbid, they are being forced to change their digs? Is it bright in the holy Third Rome – well, yes, it is, everything seems to be gilded there – but is it truly bright in the Third Rome, where the most wise patriarch is honouring the ancient and sacred tradition of trusting in princes and their chariots (so long as the princes endorse no gay-pride parades, only Soviet-pride parades, and the chariots are hypersonic)? Is it bright in the Second Rome, without which the Church – the faith that established the universe! – cannot exist? Surely it must be bright where the Primus Sine Paribus shines glorious as the sun over benighted Türkiye, for whose conversion he and his predecessors have toiled so ceaselessly and selflessly as regional bishops! But yes, despite all that, it is bright in these places: καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν. 

Is it bright in Africa, the “dark continent” of the fallen empires, as new empires on other continents seek to perpetuate division and revive slavery: Africa, where the ever-so-canonical and ever-so-apolitical Russian Exarchate builds its bailiwick on the territory of His Divine Beatitude the Pope and Patriarch, Father of Fathers, Pastor of Pastors, Prelate of Prelates, Thirteenth Apostle, Judge of the Universe, and, perhaps most importantly, member of the chosen Greek genos? Yes, nevertheless, it is bright even in Africa. καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει …

Is it bright east of the Dnieper, where an invading army of Orthodox Christians (after a fashion) carrying red flags and ikons of Stalin and Ivan the Terrible battle a defending army of Orthodox Christians (after a fashion) who prefer red-and-black flags and images of Bandera and the Theotokos-with-a-Tomahawk? … καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν.

How about here? Is it bright here in the English-speaking world? All Orthodox of course scoff: Here? Here in the decadent, materialistic, heterodox West, with its declining religiosity, its silicon-fuelled shallowness, its fundamentalist preachers and flagrant pornographers, Trumpites and tree-huggers, Brexiteers and abortionists, incels and snowflakes? Here, in the Orthodox Anglosphere, with no Patriarch to hold the course, with all the competing jurisdictions, all the ‘canonical’ bishops sharing the same city?  Here? 

Yes, here. In fact, it is brighter here. Here, where there is no persecution worth mentioning. Here, where there is no war (yet). Here, where there is no censorship. Here, where there is nothing whatever to impede the Gospel. Here, where the Orthodox have limitless access both to every part of their own tradition and to the learning and wisdom of the whole non-Orthodox world, endless clover fields from which St. Basil’s bee might gather nectar new and old. Here, where physical riches, too, abound — ah, is that it? Is wealth the source of the darkness we all perceive, shadowing us even in Bright Week? And yet, in itself, wealth is not harmful. Unshared wealth, perhaps, but there is no force that stops us Orthodox of the Anglosphere (or, more broadly, of the Global West) from sharing wealth physical, intellectual, or spiritual.

No force but ourselves. 

Nikephoros Blemmydes: Oration I on the Holy Spirit (to Jacob, Archbishop of Bulgaria), §§ 1-12

The following translation is a work in progress. I am offering here only the first twelve paragraphs of this oration; later, I will add other sections, and will eventually, for ease of access, publish the whole thing as a page on the side bar of this blog. I began translating Blemmydes during the depths of the recent covid lockdowns; his influence upon Bekkos is indisputable, although there is a large debate over the question of whether Bekkos read him correctly. According to Pachymeres, Blemmydes’s two Orations on the Holy Spirit, written in the 1250’s, were given to Bekkos to read while he was in prison in 1273, when his answer opposing Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos’s plans for union with Rome incurred the wrath of the latter. These orations evidently played a large role in changing Bekkos’s mind and shaping his views about the procession of the Holy Spirit and about the legitimacy of the emperor’s proposed ecclesiastical union.

Blemmydes is a complex writer, and his comments at the beginning of this discourse might well lead one to think that he expresses his views on the subject at hand with some guardedness. For, on the one hand, he states very explicitly that the Latin teaching on the procession of the Holy Spirit, the teaching that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, is wrong and even a heresy; on the other hand, he both states that the teaching that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son is a common teaching of the Fathers which none of them denied and that “from the Son” and “through the Son” are linguistically interchangeable. One should also observe that Blemmydes devotes some attention to the meaning of the patristic expression that the Spirit “appears through the Son”; Blemmydes explicitly says that “appears” implies existence (note the very end of this translation: “‘to appear’ and ‘to proceed’ mean the same thing”). At any rate, I am not convinced, as are some contemporary commentators (e.g., M. Stavrou, Th. Alexopoulos, D. Makarov), that Bekkos thoroughly misread Blemmydes, and that the most authentic and accurate interpretation of Blemmydes’ pneumatological thought was that which was given by Gregory of Cyprus, with his doctrine of an eternal, non-hypostatic, non-existential manifestation of the Spirit through or from the Son.

I translated the following from Laemmer’s 1864 edition, which is readily available online (the bracketed numbers give Laemmer’s pagination, with links to the pages). Later, I consulted Michel Stavrou’s recent Sources Chrétiennes edition of the discourse: Nicéphore Blemmydès: Oeuvres Théologiques, Tome II (Paris 2013), pp. 74-153. In the enumeration of paragraphs, I follow Laemmer, who himself is reprinting the 1652 edition of Leo Allatius (which can be read here).

Note: Early in this discourse, Blemmydes makes extended quotations from two earlier works, the Sacred Arsenal of Andronikos Kamateros and the Dialogues of Nicetas of Maroneia. Both of these works have now appeared in critical editions by Alessandra Bucossi, which unfortunately are not available to me.

One further comment: Because Blemmydes is a very subtle writer, and may possibly be observing some distinction in his use of different terms for “from,” I have tried here to reflect this usage by consistently translating the Greek word ἐκ as “out of,” reserving “from” for other words like παρά. Although this results in occasionally unidiomatic English, it seemed to me worth doing, for the sake of accuracy.

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From the most holy and most philosophical among monastics, the presbyter Sir Nikephoros Blemmydes, to Jacob, Archbishop of Bulgaria: First Oration, demonstrating through patristic texts the theological teaching that the Holy Spirit is through the Son and from the Son

[L108]

There is an ailment which afflicts me, which I shall relate; for in fact my address is directed to a sacred healer, and to as many as share with him the same science. I shall speak freely to the wise, and no fear shall cause me to hide my train of thought; for either a confirmation or a correction would be brought to the things I am about to say by your irreproachable judgment. But I hesitate [L109] when speaking to the unwise, and especially when I make some pronouncement concerning God; for I fear that they will misconstrue it, and will, for this reason, view my discourse with some dangerous suspicion. And if the unwise should also possess a love of contention, in that case I am utterly reluctant and hesitant to speak. For just as no one should give heed to a man who speaks about divine things boastfully and without due consideration (for it is necessary that theology be handled with fear, so that precarious matters be not pushed towards destruction), in a similar way one should oppose and dismiss anyone who hears a matter just for the sake of arguing against it, and with naysaying as his sole aim. For acrimony, an evil joy, muddies and mixes up the truth. Moreover, if many tongues agree in making the same point, how would they not, in their multitude, appear to prevail over one that says something different? And again, if some of them are in positions of authority, how would it go well with someone who, for the truth’s sake, contradicts them, and that openly?

2. Given that my attitude and feelings on these matters are such, and since the present address is directed towards wise men who seek and pursue the peace which is in Christ, I shall speak freely and openly concerning the proposed matter of inquiry. And this is, whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, [L110] or is instead directly from the Father, not through the Son. Now the fact that many of our august teachers handed down the first of these as a tradition, but none of them the second, I suppose will be acknowledged by every man familiar with the sacred writers, who is guided by them in uprightness. And it is no less than this about which we have already made some preliminary remarks in three epistles.

3. But while the lack of a clear occurrence of this expression in the gospels is taken by many people as a ready excuse for opposing it, this absence by no means implies that the dogma is unacceptable; the high [L111] credibility of those who have asserted it in their theological statements proves this. For, as the Theologian states in his Invectives, “we are not permitted to disbelieve the things said by godbearing men, but we must take their trustworthiness as a demonstration stronger than any rational or antirational power.” For the same one who inspired the evangelists inspired also the rest of the divine teachers, and the writings of the saints are utterances of God.

➔ Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 4.102; PG 35, 637 B.

4. But the claim that these writings have been corrupted by the Pneumatomachians is stupid, since the confession that the Holy Spirit is, by way of emanation, from the Father through the Son in no way at all gives support to that heresy; rather, quite the contrary, it both overthrows it and demolishes it. For, by the one teaching, the Spirit is blasphemed [L112] as a creature, but, by the other, the Spirit is proclaimed to be out of the very substance of the Son, and consubstantial with the Father and the Son. And what likelihood would there be that so great mischief should befall, simultaneously, the sacred books of so many of the saints throughout the world, and that thus there should have come about a universal corruption of the writings of the great fathers, and that no one of former times should have made mention of this outrage? No, no, it is not so. Such an idea is the invention of a sick mind.

5. And why is it that all those who, after the schism and the separation, polemicized against the Romans opposed, as far as they were able, the claim that the Spirit is substantially out of the Son, but not at all the claim that he is from the Father through the Son? Rather, indeed, the more learned among them both manifestly promoted this claim and, on the grounds of this, sought to refute the teaching “out of the Son.” And that this is in fact the case we learn from the book The Sacred Arsenal; and that this book was held in high esteem by the experts among the learned men of that time, [L113] and that it was much in demand afterwards, even to the present, and that no one, not even among those who are completely shameless, has ever dared to wag his tongue against it, since it very forcefully opposes the Spirit’s emanation from the Son — all these things the facts themselves clearly proclaim.

In this book, the Romans, following the rules of debate, introduce a saying from the most wise Cyril, presenting it in support of their own dogma; it goes like this:

“The Spirit is in no way changeable, or, if he is so infirm as to change, the mockery will reflect back upon the very divine nature itself, since of the God and Father and, indeed, also of the Son is the Spirit who comes forth substantially out of both, that is, out of the Father through the Son.”

➔ Cyril of Alexandria, De adoratione, I, PG 68, 148 A.

So then, let us carefully observe what reply is made to the Romans.

This blessed father Cyril, cutting off beforehand the many pretexts of our speeches, brought a clarification to the sense of an ambiguous locution. [L114] For, in saying that the Spirit comes forth substantially out of both, he straightway added the clause, “that is, out of the Father, through the Son.” Now, the term “through” included in this supplementary clause [implies] nothing else than that the Spirit comes forth out of the Father, not also out of the Son. For if the latter were the case, there would have been no need for the saint to make such an addition.

In response to this, the men of Rome say:

Then neither are we in error when, in line with this divine father, we say that the Spirit proceeds out of the Father and out of the Son, although we understand and interpret “out of” as standing in place of “through” with reference to the Son.

But (they say, moving on to refute these men) the conjunction “and,” added by you with reference to the Son, does not allow you to say such things; for it plainly demonstrates that, when you say that the Spirit proceeds out of the Father and out of the Son, in whatever sense you take “out of” in the case of the Father, you both understand and speak this term in the same sense in the case of the Son. Therefore, either you are claiming that the same meaning “out of” applies with reference to “both” (that is, to the Father and to the Son) — and how are you not in opposition to the divine father, who expressly takes “out of” as applying to the Father, and “through” as applying to the Son — or else with reference to “both,” you are taking “out of” as equivalent to “through,” and are saying that the Spirit proceeds through the Father and through the Son; and, accordingly, you imply that there is someone else out of whom the Spirit is said to proceed through these two. For since the same preposition is to be employed in one sense in the case of the Father and in another sense in the case of the Son, you are forbidden from taking this unitive conjunction in a violent way, as we said before. For to say or to write, without any conjunction, “out of the Father, out of the Son,” is something you yourselves reject as barbarous and unintelligible.

➔ Andronikos Kamateros, Sacred Arsenal, Monac. gr. 229, f. 25.

So much, then, out of the Sacred Arsenal.

[L115] 6. But another of those who are distinguished and who was himself involved in dialogue with the men of Rome, since he had made it his intention to prove that the statements made by the saints are, according to the truth, in no way opposed to each other, even if they appear to be to those who are inconsiderate, said:

“They would be opposed if, while referring to the same thing, in the same respect and at the same time [cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics Γ.3, 1005b19-20], they were rejected by some of them and approved of by others.” Among such, therefore, is also Christ’s statement that the Spirit proceeds out of the Father (Jn 15:26); and perhaps all [L116] [the patristic texts would take Christ to be] referring [here] to the Father as to the first cause, and attribute the Spirit’s procession to him. And Athanasius the Great spoke in this way:

“The Spirit [is] out of the Father, as proceeding from the Word who is out of the Father.”

[Probably a paraphrase of a text which is cited more fully below, Athanasius, Epistola I ad Serapionem 20, PG 26, 577C – 580A. Same text had been cited by Andronicus Camaterus, Sacrum armamentarium, ch. 1, secs. 72, 73.]

And after the bishop of Nyssa said

“The Son is immediately out of the first, that is to say, the Father,”

he thereupon says:

“the Spirit is through the one who is immediately out of the first.”

➔ Gregory of Nyssa, Ad Ablabium quod non sint tres dei, GNO vol. 3,1 p. 56; PG 45, 133 B-C.

The wise Cyril plainly has said “out of both” (namely, the Father and the Son). But, going on to clarify in what sense he said “out of both,” he added, “that is, out of the Father through the Son.”

➔ Cyril of Alexandria, De Adoratione et Cultu in Spiritu et Veritate, lib. I, PG 68, 148A.

As for John of Damascus, who uses the expression “out of the Father” in the sense of out of the primal origin and the first cause, he says that [we do not say] “out of the Son” in the sense of out of the first cause, and he does not prohibit the expression “out of the Son” in the sense of out of him who is immediate, or through him who is immediate. For the preposition “through” (διά) and [L117] the preposition “out of” (ἐκ) have an identical force. And this is both a habitual usage of Scripture itself, and something that was not unknown to the holy fathers.

➔ John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa I.8 (PG 94, 832 B).

If then [one can say that the Spirit is] “out of the Son,” in the sense that he is out of the Father through the Son, and, similarly, [that he is] “out of both,” and [that he is] on the one hand out of the first cause, the Father, and on the other hand out of him who is immediate, the Son, which things are said by Athanasius the Great, by Cyril the Great, and by Gregory of Nyssa, then the wise John would not be contradicting them, but would himself also say that, in this sense, the Spirit is out of the Son. For he himself likewise says that [the Spirit is] through the Son, insofar as [the terms] “through” and “out of” are equivalent. But if someone were to say that [the Spirit] is “out of the Son” as out of the first cause, something which not one of the saints has said, he, too, would speak against this, and with a loud voice.

➔ Nicetas of Maroneia, Sixth Dialogue between a Greek and a Latin on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, ed. V. Giorgetti, pp. 379-381.

So much, then, for these matters.

7. Furthermore, we find many other more recent writers who, while they oppose the teaching “out of the Son,” postulate, in a very noble way, the teaching “through the Son,” in keeping with the account which we provided earlier. For this reason, I fail to understand what is the matter now with some people who do not uphold the Spirit’s coming-forth from the Father through the Son. But let us observe what sort of things Athanasius, worthy of his name (“Immortality”), [L118] teaches the bishop Serapion on this matter, by way of an epistle.

“Just as the Son is an only-begotten offspring, so, too, the Spirit, who is given and sent from the Son, is himself also one and not many, nor one out of many, but a unique, selfsame Spirit. For the sanctifying and illuminating Life of the one living Word, who is the Son, must be one, perfect and complete, being his energy and gift, which indeed is said to proceed out of the Father, since from the Word who is out of the Father it confessedly shines forth and is sent and is given.”

➔ Athanasius, Epistola I ad Serapionem 20, PG 26, 577C – 580A.

8. Some people cling to the expression “shines forth,” and say that it is indicative of manifestation, not of existence: for, they say, the term “proceed” had already indicated existence. So then, since it is on the grounds that the Spirit is manifested from the Word that he is said to proceed from the Father, it would follow that, if there were not this manifestation, he would not be said to proceed out of the Father. What then? Before the coming-into-being of the creation (whether the sensible creation or the noetic one), to which the Holy Spirit had been manifested by the [L119] Word, would the Spirit not have been said to proceed out of the Father? For just as, if someone were to say that man is a sentient being possessing a soul because he is an animal, then, if someone else were to remove the cause, this would simultaneously remove what is inferred from it: in the same manner, if one were to dismiss the hypothesis of these people, then the inference from it, to the extent that it depends thereon, would also be destroyed.

9. And let these people still seek out a reason why the Spirit is said to proceed from the Father; but, as for us, arguing on the basis of the word’s true significance, we shall reason as follows. The Spirit comes forth from the Word, that is, through the Word, out of the Father, just as an illuminating radiance, through [a beam] of light, comes out of the sun. And, since this is the case, and the Word is confessed to be out of the Father, through this [Word] also the Spirit is said to proceed from the Father. And the teacher has employed the term “shine forth,” as corresponding to the illuminating Life. For this reason the saint has also named the Holy Spirit the living and subsisting energy of the Word, knowing as he does that the Word and Son is the subsistent power of God. But since energy is through power, and the power is confessedly out of God, for this reason the energy is out of God. For this is what the teacher [L120] has in mind when he says, “he is said to proceed,” since the procession of the Spirit is said and proclaimed to be out of the Father on account of its reference to the first cause. Therefore, as the energy of the Son and Word of God, the Holy Spirit eternally shines forth from him, which is the same as to say, through him, out of the Father; and as a gift he is naturally both sent and given.

10. But that “manifestation” in theology is indicative of passionless and timeless existence, Basil the Great also shows when he speaks in this way in the second book of his Antirrhetics:

“There similarly exists a presupposition common to all Christians, among those who are truly worthy of this title, concerning the fact that the begotten Son is shone forth out of the unbegotten light.”

➔ Basil, Adv. Eunomium II.25; PG 29, 629 A-B.

And again:

“From a good Father [there shone forth] a good Son, and from the unbegotten there shone forth the eternal light.”

➔ Basil, Adv. Eunomium II.27; PG 29, 636 A.

And Gregory the wise hierarch of the people of Nyssa speaks thus in the first book of his Antirrhetics:

“The Father is understood to be beginningless and unbegotten and always Father. And from him, in an immediate way without interval, [L121] the Only-begotten Son is understood together with the Father. And through him and with him, before any vain and non-subsisting concept interposes through the midst, straightaway the Holy Spirit is conjointly understood, not coming in second place after the Son according to his existence, as though the Son might be thought of without the Spirit, but being from, on the one hand, the God of all things, and having the cause of his being from the same source whence also the Only-begotten is a light, but shining forth through the true Light, he is not cut off from the Father or the Only-begotten by either interval or otherness of nature.”

➔ Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium I, 1 § 378; PG 45, 369.

Again, Basil the Great writes to him concerning the difference between hypostasis and ousia:

“But the Son, knowing through himself and with himself the Spirit who proceeds from the Father, [L122] and shining forth from the unbegotten light alone in an Only-begotten way, has no sharing with the Father with respect to any particularizing characteristic, or [L123] with the Holy Spirit.”

➔ Ps.-Basil (= Gregory of Nyssa), ep. 38.4, 29-34; ed. Courtonne, vol. 1, p. 85.

John the wise Poet in hymns to the most holy Mother of God:

“You, Mother of God, [L124] without conjugal intercourse gave birth to him who shone forth from the incorrupt Father.”

➔ Beginning of the theotokion of the 3rd ode of the canon for Sunday Orthros, 1st plagal mode (or, Tone 5).

[L125] On which the interpreter, held in admiration by many, who is also the first expositor of the sacred canons, says:

“The term ‘who shone forth’ [L126] indicates the supernal, passionless begetting of the Son. For as the brilliance comes forth passionlessly out of the sun, in the same way also the Son has passionlessly been begotten by the Father; and the Poet teaches, through the ‘shining forth,’ the Son’s being eternal and, in this respect, beginningless. For just as a light and the brilliance that comes from it are both simultaneous, in the same way, simultaneously with the thought of the Father, there is the thought also of the Son that accompanies it.”

➔ John Zonaras, an unpublished commentary on the Sunday canons of John of Damascus.

But these things, perhaps, go beyond what is necessary. For wherever a word is seen to admit of a well-considered and well adapted meaning, when taken in one sense, but is suspected of another meaning, one which involves much irrationality and lack of harmony, what need is there to seek any more for an explication of the truth in the latter?

11. But the claim that it is in order that no one should suppose that it is as an origin of the Spirit that the Son manifests the Spirit through his teaching and gives him as one connatural with himself [and] that, for this reason, the Spirit is said to proceed from the Father, is beside the point, but is easy enough to refute. For what kind of suspicion of “origin” would [the terms] “manifest” and “give,” as such, introduce? Or why, given that the Word has [L127] confessedly “appeared out of the Father,” should not all things that the Word possesses be confessedly out of the Father? And why, finally, should the Word be considered an origin of the Spirit? I know that, to such a vain disputer, you yourself might say, “Away with such misrepresentations!” Now as for the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, Basil the Great also asserts this in many places, and in fact also in his Antirrhetics, where he says:

“How then should inseparable things be separated, the Word of God and the Spirit, who is out of God through the Son? If the Spirit is not believed in, then the Word also is not believed in.”

➔ Ps.-Basil, Adv. Eunomium V, PG 29, 737 B.

Concerning this also the most perceptive Epiphanius in his Ancoratus expresses himself in this way:

“Therefore the blessed Peter says to those who were with Ananias, ‘Why has Satan tempted you, that you should lie to the Holy Ghost?’ And he said, ‘You have not lied to a man, but to God.’ There the Spirit, who had been lied to by those who had purloined a portion of the tribute money, is God, out of the Father and the Son.”

➔ Epiphanius, Ancoratus 9, 2-3, ed. Karl Holl, p. 16 (PG 43, 32 C).

And again:

“The Father is Father of a true Son, who is wholly Light, and Son of a true Father, Light [L128] out of Light. Nor is it in the manner of a handiwork or creature that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, a third Light from the Father and the Son. But all other things are by position or opposition or appellation.”

➔ Epiphanius, Ancoratus 71, 2, ed. Holl, p. 88 (PG 43, 148 B).

These things, then, are said by the most perceptive Epiphanius, who employs the phrase “out of the Father and the Son” instead of “out of the Father through the Son.”

Likewise also the most wise Cyril in his Thesaurus is observed to speak in this manner:

“That which the blessed Moses maintained to have been breathed by God into the man, the same thing did Christ, renewing it in us according to his revivification out of the dead, breathe into his own disciples saying, ‘Receive the Spirit,’ so that, having been formed anew into the image that was from the beginning, we might appear conformed with our Creator through the participation of the Spirit. Since therefore the Holy Spirit, when he has come to be in us, shows us to be conformed with God and, again, comes forth out of the Father and the Son, it is manifest that he is of the divine substance, coming forth substantially in it and out of it.”

➔ Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus 34; PG 75, 585 A.

He comes forth, he says, out of the Father and the Son, that is, from the Father through the Son. [L129] And that beacon light of the people of Nyssa and of the whole world, in how many different ways does he clearly show that the Holy Spirit is out of the Father through the Son? To begin with, in the first book of his Antirrhetics, he says these things concerning the Spirit:

“Being again joined to the Father in respect of his being uncreated, he is separated in not being, like him, a Father; and, while joined with the Son in respect of being uncreated and in that he has the cause of his existence out of the God of all things, he stands apart, again, in that which is unique to him, in that he exists out of the Father not in an only-begotten way, and in that it is through the Son himself that he has appeared. And again, since the creation exists through the Only-begotten, in order that the Spirit might not be thought to have something in common with it by reason of the fact that he has appeared through the Son, the Spirit is distinguished from the creation in respect of his invariability and unchangeableness and his lack of need of any external goodness.”

➔ Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium I, 1, 280-281, ed. W. Jaeger, vol. I, pp. 108-109 (PG 45, 336).

12. Some people are puzzled about the expression “to appear,” saying, Perhaps it indicates manifestation, not hypostasis. Now in point of fact, even if they had failed to notice that the word is active both in voice and in meaning, they ought to have comprehended the signification of the word on the basis of [L130] other patristic texts, and not to have set themselves up as calumniators of the truth to no purpose. For, to begin with, Basil the Great says these things about the Spirit:

“… possessing in himself nothing extrinsically acquired, but eternally possessing all things as Spirit of God, and as having appeared out of him.”

➔ Basil of Caesarea, Adversus Eunomium PG 29, 772

And the most wise Cyril, concerning Christ:

“We say that the mediator of God and men is compounded, according to the scriptures, of our own humanity, which is possessed by him in his own unique way, and of him who appeared from God as Son according to nature, that is to say, the Only-begotten.”

➔ Cyril of Alexandria, De Incarnatione, PG 75, 1208 CD.

And again:

“The Spirit is proper to the Son, not only inasmuch as he is the Word that has appeared from the Father; but even if he is understood as having become man like us, it is manifest that the Spirit is God, the one who chiefly and naturally [receives] from him as God. But other things, as creatures, have appeared in an improper sense from the one from whom they are said to be, as from a Maker and Creator.”

➔ Cyril of Alexandria, De Incarnatione, PG 75, 1241 B.

So that, plainly, “to appear” is indicative of existence, the Scripture thus narrating concerning the Spirit that,

“just as the creator Word established the heavens, so also [did] the Spirit of God who proceeds from the Father, that is to say, from his mouth.”

➔ Basil of Caesarea, Homilia in Ps. 32; PG 29, 333 B.

And again:

“Nor is the Spirit, having appeared in an ineffable way from an ineffable mouth, foreign to the glory of God.”

➔ Ps-Basil of Caesarea, Homilia de Spiritu Sancto, PG 31, 1433 BC.

Does this not clearly show that, in the case of the Spirit, the words “to appear” and “to proceed” mean the same thing?

Interview with Erick Ybarra

I had a discussion yesterday evening with the Catholic blogger and author Erick Ybarra on his YouTube channel, mostly about John Bekkos. The interview can be watched at the link below.