Bolotov: Theses on the Filioque (1898)

Vasilii Vasilievich Bolotov (1853-1900) became lecturer in church history at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy in 1879, at the age of 25, and full professor in 1885. In 1898 he published an article anonymously in German in the journal Revue internationale de théologie; the article, his “Theses on the ‘Filioque,'” has taken on something of the status of a modern classic, but, till now, I have not seen it translated into English. The work was written in the context of an ecumenical dialogue taking place at that time between Orthodox and Old Catholics; it is perhaps most important for its distinction between doctrine and theologoumena, and its relegating the issue of the filioque largely to the latter sphere. On Bolotov’s life and thought, see especially the following two articles by David Heith-Stade:

It was in reading these articles that I found a link to the German text. Since Bolotov’s work has considerable relevance for my research on John Bekkos, I wanted to read it. So (with much help from the website www.DeepL.com/Translator) I have made an English translation, which I present below.

Note: At some point, I may post to my blog some comments on Bolotov’s views, particularly on his interpretations of patristic texts. But, for the present, I think it is best just to give a translation of his article, and let him speak for himself.

Theses on the “Filioque” by a Russian theologian

Foreword

The following lines contain only the private opinion of a single theologian who submits them to the readers’ benevolent judgment; they are the translation of a Russian manuscript, which was not intended for printing and, if I am not mistaken, was known to only three Russian theologians. These sketches, with the exception of a few pages which have been reworked ad hoc, appear in the same form as they were written a few years ago. At that time the content of the resolutions reached by the Petersburg Commission (of 1893) could not be known to me, consequently I could not think of getting into any polemic with the Rotterdam Commission (of 1896), and if my sketch contains a kind of answer to some lines of the report of the same, it is quite unintentional.

In the interest of clarifying our mutual position I will take the liberty of discussing a few points in more detail.

The Rotterdam Commission finds that the Petersburg Commission does not seem to “distinguish dogma from theological opinion sharply enough.” If this remark were addressed to all Russian theologians, I too (as such) would have the right to join in, and would have said that this accusation is hardly a fair one. The Old Catholics strictly distinguish between: a) dogma and b) theological opinion; I personally (*) distinguish: a) dogma, b) theologoumenon and c) theological opinion, and hope that other Russian theologians, when these lines from the Revue Internationale de Théologie will be known to them, will also have no principled reason to disagree with my opinion.

  • (*) The one who is familiar with the ordinary life of the Russian theologian will easily understand why, under the pen of each one of us, it is only in extremely rare cases that an “I” can turn into a “we” with a certain authority. We do not have separate theological schools, in the sense of consistently carried out approaches; this is so, not only in matters of principle, but also in individual theses. Actually, each Russian theologian represents only his own private opinion.

A. On the question of what is dogma, there exists no disagreement between us and the Old Catholics, and none must exist.

B. I may be asked what I mean by theologoumenon? By its nature it is also a theological opinion, but an opinion of those who mean more to every “Catholic” than ordinary theologians; they are the theological opinions of the holy fathers of the one undivided Church; they are the opinions of men, among whom are also those rightly called οἱ διδάσκαλοι τῆς οἰκουμένης (*).

  • (*) A title which, on the whole and essentially, is analogous to the western “Doctores Ecclesiae”.

I place theologoumena very high, but without overestimating their importance; also, I think I distinguish them sharply enough from dogma.

The content of dogma is the true, the content of the theologoumenon is only the probable. In the realm of dogma are the necessaria, in the realm of the theologoumenon are the dubia: In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas!

No expert has the right to forbid me to adhere to a theologoumenon (as to my private opinion), if this theologoumenon has been pronounced even by a single church father (if, of course, it has not been proven that the competent ecclesiastical judgment has declared this view to be erroneous). (*)

  • (*) But if it is proven, then ipso facto this view ceases to be valid as a theologoumenon for me.

On the other hand, no expert will ask me to accept as my private theological opinion a theologoumenon which, although established by some Fathers of the Church, neither captivates me by its sublime theological beauty nor convinces me by its sovereign power accessible to my reason. One thing is clear for me in the given case: even if I do not myself confess the aforementioned theologoumenon, I nevertheless also do not have the right to condemn those theologians who do confess it; and if it is necessary for me to discuss this theologoumenon, then, even in that case, I should treat it reverently and with the respect due to the reputation of the church fathers.

Whether only one church father or several (*) accepted the given theologoumenon is a question that can have no essential meaning; each of the holy church fathers had the moral right to say with Paul: “But I think also that I have the Spirit of God” (I Cor. 7, 40), and if a whole crowd of such bearers of the high religious spirit accepts this theologoumenon, then my subjective conviction is confirmed that I also stand on solid ground, that this probability is most probable, that it is very close to a certainty. However, even a very common theologoumenon is not yet a dogma.

  • (*) In its opinion the Rotterdam Commission notes that not only “some” church teachers taught the immanent procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son, but that this was the common teaching of the East, and draws up a list of nine Greek church teachers. Didymus probably should not be on this list. In my opinion, his views were of a very peculiar nature; moreover, after the Fifth Ecumenical Council, his name was not in the best reputation among Orthodox theologians. (Cf. the Synodica of St. Sophronius of Jerusalem and the Definitio of the Sixth Ecumenial Synod.) It is hardly expedient to invoke his authority in theological disputes. Moreover, every Russian will notice that in this list the name of St. Chrysostom is “conspicuous by its absence,” of St. Chrysostom, one of the three hierarchs extolled by our Church, τρεῖς ἱεράρχαι, καὶ τῆς οἰκουμένης διδάσκαλοι, and this omission explains the whole state of affairs: Chrysostom is the representative of the Antiochene theological school, as is Theodoret of Cyrus. Certainly Theodoret was not an angel, but he was a man of honor; from the words of St. Cyril of Alexandria ἴδιον αὐτοῦ (τοῦ Υἱοῦ) πνεῦμα, ” the Son’s own Spirit,” Theodoret drew the following conclusion: εἰ δὲ [ἴδιον τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ Υἱοῦ ἔφη] ὡς ἐξ Υἱοῦ, ἢ δι’ Υἱοῦ τὴν ὕπαρξιν ἔχον, ὡς βλάσφημον τοῦτο καὶ ὡς δυσσεβὲς ἀπορρίψομεν: “But if He called the Spirit ἴδιον τοῦ Υἱοῦ in the sense that He has being from the Son or through the Son, we reject this view as blasphemous and impious.” Without further ado, an Arian sense is imputed to the expression δι’ Υἱοῦ. Theodoret would certainly not have acted in this way if the theologoumenon δι’ Υἱοῦ, “through the Son,” had also been common in the area of influence of the Antiochene school. All the nine names mentioned in the report belong to representatives of the Alexandrian theological perspective. The theologoumenon of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son would might therefore be called Alexandrian rather than generally eastern.

C. From theologoumena I distinguish sharply enough, perhaps even too sharply, theological opinions. The main characteristic of these latter is that they have no authority. They are merely private opinions of those who in my eyes are only theologians, nothing more. But the theologians — since I too am one, licet indignus — I must in principle regard as my pares. If I accept the theological opinions of a Thomas Aquinas, of a Petavius, of a Perrone as mine, I do it just for the same reason why I also assume that 2 x 2 makes 4. For me the circumstance has no importance at all that the great Pythagoras thought in the same way. I myself think that 2 x 2 equals 4, and could not even think differently; and just this subjective moment has a decisive meaning for me. If, however, the reasons given for a theological opinion are not convincing for me, then I quite simply reject this opinion and, if the circumstances demand it, I will attack it pitilessly, even ruthlessly, if only I possess the critical acumen necessary for this.

More important is the other side of the matter. In the choice of my theological private opinions I am free, but not unconditionally so. The limit of my freedom consists in the obligatory requirement that these private opinions must not contradict dogma. If I choose my private opinions among the theologoumena of the church fathers, I ipso facto place myself above any suspicion of contradiction with dogma. No expert will demand proofs from me for it. A theologoumenon of a church father contradicting a dogma sounds to the ear of a Catholic like a most screaming contradictio in adjecto, like dark light. If, on the other hand, I choose my private opinions among the theological opinions, then I am responsible for them, as for my own speculations, and have to take upon myself the onus probandi that, οὕτως φρονῶν, by thinking so, I do not contradict dogma.

This is the reason why it is so desirable that, in judging the trinitarian mystery, theologians do not leave the relatively firm basis of the patristic theologoumena to enter the shaky ground of theological opinions, that they hold to the patristic expressions (*) themselves as formulas.

  • (*) To explain this sentence I would like to give only one example: In I. 2. of the Opinion we read that “not a few Doctors of the Church” have taught the immanent procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son, thus acknowledging the Son as its “secondary cause,” but … in one breath is pronounced both the quite indisputable statement of the fact (…”the immanent” etc…) as well as the daring conclusion (…”thus acknowledging the Son as its secondary cause”…) whose onus probandi, in my opinion, is as heavy as the globe itself; indeed, even the screamingly unpatristic designation “secondary cause” is presented as the only correct one! For an examination of this, see my Thesis 8.

It is not easy to believe that a perfecting of the patristic heritage, even if this is undeniably possible in theory and in principle, can be realized in practice. Where are our sources of help for such a perfecting?

How, in what way I understand the content of the theologoumenon of the church fathers concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son, δι’ Υἱοῦ, is presented in my first remark (which is to be considered as an introduction to my theses). In nuce my view is laid out at length sub versu pag. 693; and, to clarify my point of view towards viable western terminis technicis, I remark that it is the cause alone that is effective, a condition is not something productive.

Theological opinions as well as theologoumena are actually luxury articles, are not an inevitable necessity. If the life of the human soul consisted only of processes of logical thinking, dogma by itself would satisfy us completely. For us it would be enough to know the true, on its own; we could easily do without the probable. Sometimes, however, man prefers the less exact but aesthetically well-ordered idea of the thing to its absolutely exact concept. Mathematicians have a sufficiently exact conception of the geometrical π, as an empirically recognizable quantity. They can quite well designate this π by a twenty-digit number or by a twenty-digit logarithm; nevertheless, the history of mathematics reveres the names of a Wallis, a Leibniz, a Machin, who have proposed formulas for the calculation of approximate quantities of π. We observe the same thing in the history of astronomy: one is not content with a sufficiently exact knowledge of the distance of the planets from the sun; a Titius, a Wurm, invent simple rules for the calculation of these distances, which set up series of numbers, which are quite inaccurate, but indicate the progression of these distances more simply, more descriptively, even more elegantly from an aesthetic point of view. No wonder if also theology, alongside dogma, still sets up theologoumena and theological opinions. Simple natures are content with dogma, with a simple knowledge of the basic facts of faith, but deeper investigating spirits would like to approach at least a probable clarification of the “Quomodo” of these facts.

So far, we are separated from the Old Catholics by a potentiality, a possible, rather than an already existing difference in our relations with the theologoumena. We and the Old Catholics are on different levels of culture. Among us Russians very few yet feel the need to have theologoumena and private opinions alongside dogma, whereas among Old Catholics theological opinions are already elaborated. This potential difference can turn into a real one, if we Russians in the future (as it is to be hoped) remain worthy of our past, faithful to our cultural, historical principles; then our theological science will also elaborate its specific theological opinions, which will be based on the theologoumena of the fathers of the Eastern Church.

The basis of the theological opinions discussed at present lies in the purely western theologoumenon of St. Augustine. Therein lies the difficulty of the situation; what outcome is at hand? Perhaps I should be content now with the saying religiosum est divinari!

But in any case, wrong steps are to be avoided. Perhaps even the friendly “schiedlich friedlich” (agreeing to disagree) would not be the worst modus agendi to avoid such steps. In the not long history of our relations with the Old Catholics, a miserable word has already been pronounced, which is very regrettable: concessio, “to yield.” But the one who is expected to make a concessio (in this matter) has no right to make one. Excessive demands must not be made. Only what is absolutely necessary! A trade is not permissible here. Certainly also Topica, commonplace sayings, which obscure the truth, are to be avoided. Also no distortions of opinion!

Not much good could be expected from the negotiations if the Russians wanted to try to find in Augustine only the theologoumenon of the eastern church fathers; but I also doubt the scientific right of any theologian to describe the eastern fathers only as predecessors of Augustine, as if in Augustino patet, quod in Orientalibus latet! Russian theologians, I believe, will never be able to admit that Augustine’s teaching is the completion, the crowning of the construction of the theologoumenon of the Fathers of the Eastern Church. But is this opinion still accepted by many in the West? It cannot be denied that Augustine was not a connoisseur of the doctrine of the eastern fathers (*). He may have been a deep thinker, but does he not stand there as an isolated figure? And even the Augustinian theologoumenon, is it not more like a philosophoumenon?

  • (*) A. Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmen-Geschichte (Freiburg im Breisgau 1888), II. 296, 297: “His (H. Reuter’s) thesis, ‘he (Augustine) made very little use in trinitarian discussions, not only of Greek, but also of Latin authors’, is to be agreed with absolutely.” Cf. II. 292, note 2: “But the cause of the Spirit is the Father alone. This doctrinal concept remained dominant, and it does not detract from this that, in Epiphanius and Cyril, one passage has been demonstrated for each of them according to which the Spirit is ἐξ ἀμφοῖν.”

The basic terms of the eastern theologoumenon Πατὴρ, Υἱὸς – Λόγος, Πνεῦμα are taken textually from sacred Scripture; can the same be said of the Augustinian Mens ipsa, notitia mentis, amor – memoria, intelligentia, voluntas?

The Greek church fathers and Augustine went their independent ways in theology and arrived at two not at all identical theologoumena. There is no question of an Augustinian hegemony in trinitarian speculation.

One more word at the end: because of my 26th thesis I may be asked: What was the cause of the separation, the rupture of communion of the one Catholic Church? I answer frankly: the communion has been sundered by the Roman papacy, the old hereditary enemy of the Catholic Church, which will probably cease to exist only when the last enemy — death — is also abolished.

Introduction to the subjoined theses 

I.

In the following lines I will take the liberty to present my idea of the various images with the help of which the church fathers wanted to bring the mystery of the existence of the Holy Spirit closer to human understanding.

First of all, two general preliminary remarks:

1. Τhe hypostases of the Holy Trinity differ only τῷ τρόπῳ τῆς ὑπάρξεως, by their relations of causality, as αἴτιον – αἰτιατά.

The relation of the cause, τὸ αἴτιον, to the caused, τὸ αἰτιατόν, is a logical relation; in our thought the cause precedes, is a “prius,” of the caused. But man cannot in any way free himself from the conditions of space and time. Consequently, the logical prius becomes the chronological one. Man thinks first (earlier in time) of the cause and only then of the caused. Consequently, the metaphysical quality of the divine being, the extra-temporality (the eternity), is absolutely inconceivable for man; we can think this quality only by defacing it: the divine “from eternity” is for us a momentary act that happened in the most remote corner created by our imagination. The divine “always” is for our imagination an incessantly lasting process consisting of tercias, seconds, minutes, hours. The divine “out of space” is something quite unrealizable for our imagination; the best we can do to grasp the out of space is to impute to this “out of space” the smallest conceivable space, the so-called mathematical point. The divine “everywhere”‘ is given to us in our imagination with the character of spatial extension.

If the mathematician has to calculate the fraction ⅒ with logarithms, he takes it for a whole number 1,000,000,000 and gets for it the logarithm 9,000 0000. However, he adds to this logarithm a corrective by writing behind the mantissa 9,000 0000 still the negative characteristic -10; but this negative characteristic is applied only at the sum; in the process of the logarithmic calculation, however, the ten pennies continue to figure in the shape of a billion marks. What for the mathematician is the negative index -10, is for the theologian the reservation θεοπρεπῶς, worthy of God. Powerless to wrestle with the deformities which our thinking introduces into the dogma, we deny them, and make protest against them, asserting: may it stand with our thinking in reality, be it so, we, when we speak of Always and Everywhere, grasp these terms only in a “God-worthy” way, only in the sense of “timeless” and “extra-spatial”. In my arguments I will also use the time and space concepts freely, but I defend myself against them as against an inevitable lack. Just so the astronomer acts: he protests against the claim that the sun goes around the earth, although he always sees only the sun’s rising and setting, not the movement of the earth around its axis.

2. My second preliminary remark concerns the intelligible character of the following arguments. I believe, however, that a certain excess in this respect is unavoidable, since the images that will be discussed are given by the Church Fathers themselves, who had to fight Arianism. The historical situation of the time demanded that, in the name of the higher understanding of the reasons of Christianity, the Fathers of the Church, animated by the consciousness of the divine traits imprinted in the profoundest depths of the human being, attacked and defeated the logic of the Arians as ἄλογος καὶ ἄσοφος on their own ground.

II.

The church fathers of the fourth century had a threefold task to solve, namely:

a) To overcome Arianism in its germ by proving that Christ is the Son of God, the true Son of the Father. In Orthodox theology the concept of the Son is theological, in Arianism it is cosmological. In the Orthodox systems the Son is “for the Father’s sake,” διὰ τὸν Πατέρα (John 6:57). The necessity of the Son’s being is motivated by the harmonious, incomprehensibly mysterious nature (λόγος, τρόπος) of the inward life of the Godhead: The Son is ad intra; whereas in Arianism the Son exists for the sake of the world. In the nature of the inner life of the One, all-perfect God, who has in Himself His full sufficiency and blessedness, there is no motive for the Son’s being. But since without the mediation of the Son the all-perfect God would not have had the possibility to bring forth the imperfect world, so for the Arian the Son is ad extra, as the hypostatic mediator between the infinite and the finite.

b) To show the inseparableness of the hypostases of the Holy Trinity.

c) To show that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are truly of one essence, i.e. to give a point of reference, a support for the human mind to imagine a unity of essence that is not a simple unity of species as perceived in the world, but is the true unity of the One God. This proof culminates in the thesis about τῆς θείας οὐσίας τὴν πρὸς ἑαυτὴν ἁρμονίαν, about τὸ συνεχὲς of the divine substance, in which there is no διαστήματός τινος ἀνυποστάτου κενότης, no empty fissure of “not being.” Accordingly, the three hypostases συμφυεῖς, συνημμέναι, ἔχονται ἀλλήλων, ἤρτηνται προσεχῶς, are grown together, immediately adjoining, clinging to each other, strongly joined together, so that human thought can find no empty interstice in the united substance of the Trinity, not κενεμβατεῖν (entering into an empty place), in a similar way as the eye of the human vision cannot grasp in the rainbow the precise boundary between the prismatic colors merging into each other. It is well known that the way of thinking of the ancient church fathers is characterized by its wholeness. It does not know the rubrics which have become a habitual thing for us from childhood. Thus, for example, their theological argumentation very seldom lets us be clear about the extent to which they understand concepts from the realm of ontological revelation on the one hand and those from the realm of economic revelation on the other, distinguishing these one from another. Also the explanation of the above-mentioned three theses often runs in parallel with the fathers. Hence, alongside the comparison of the trinitarian mystery with sun, ray and splendor, we encounter a so-to-speak analytical formula. The Fathers of the Church, taking as the starting point of their thinking the truth contained in the Word of Christ (in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) as an adequate, exact order of the hypostases (as well as man can understand it), which corresponds absolutely correctly to the inner essence of the Triune God, establish a thesis which looks like a mathematical formula: A : B :: B : C. The Father stands in the same relation to the Son as the Son to the Holy Spirit; or: The Son is the image of the Father, the Holy Spirit the image of the Son.

The logical basis of the first part of this comparison is: for man, the Father without the Son, or the Son without the Father, is absolutely inconceivable. “The Father exists, consequently the Son also exists.” This thought is not itself a conclusion, it is a mere statement of a fact. For the human thought no mediating concept exists between the concepts “Father and “Son” (and none, moreover, can exist).

Consequently: αα) No mediation can exist between the being (ὑπόστασις, ὕπαρξις) of the Father and the being (ὑπόστασις, ὕπαρξις) of the Son.

Consequently : ββ) The hypostasis of the Son συνεχῶς ἤρτηται (is directly linked) with the hypostasis of the Father, i.e. the Son is the second person of the Trinity, and for human thought there is an absolute necessity to presuppose the Son precisely as the second (i.e., the one and only hypostasis which presupposes as its prius, as its πρεσβύτερον, the one and only hypostasis alone, namely the first hypostasis).

Consequently : γγ) But if the being of the Son is directly established by the being of the Father Himself, then the Arian cosmological consideration of the Son, namely the order of the terms : God – the idea of the world – the Son, is false. 

Consequently: δδ) The Son is One and Alone from the One, the Only-begotten, who shone from the Father, and by his being (ὕπαρξις) presupposing the One, Only One Father as logical prius.

III.

The above also establishes the church fathers’ view of the person of the Holy Spirit. Human thought is unable to deduce with compelling clarity the existence of the Holy Spirit from the nature of the Father. The mediation of the Son comes to its aid and presents itself as absolutely necessary, if only because there is no possibility for thought to assume a third where a second is missing.

The Son is Λόγος, the Word of God, and the formula A : B :: B : C is actually formed into the thesis: the Father relates to the Son as the Word relates to the Spirit. (Among various other attempts at explaining the second half of the equation (:: B : C), one can still cite the one originally given by St. Gregory of Nyssa: like Χριστὸς to Χρίσμα, or like Βασιλεὺς to Βασιλεία.)

Man cannot possibly utter a word without breathing. The Word of God, notes St. Gregory of Nyssa, would be more defective than the human one if it were without the Holy Spirit.

Consequently: αα) the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit is linked with the hypostasis of the Son, and through the Son comes into connection with the hypostasis of the Father (*).

  • (*) S. Bas. Magn., ep. 38 (alias 43), n. 4: ὁ Υἱὸς — ᾧ πάντοτε τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον συνεπινοεῖται — τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα — τοῦ Υἱοῦ μὲν ἤρτηται, ᾧ ἀδιαστάτως συγκαταλαμβάνεται. S. Gregorius Nyssen., adv. Maced., n. 16 (Migne, S. Gr., t. 45, col. 1321 A.): μηδὲν εἶναι διάστημα μεταξὺ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος δι´ ἀπορρήτων αἰνίσσεται — ἀδιάστατός ἐστι πρὸς τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον τῷ Υἱῷ ἡ συνάφεια. S. J. Damasc.; τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον δι´ Υἱοῦ τῷ Πατρὶ συναπτόμενον.

That the Holy Spirit is a μέσον τοῦ ἀγεννήτου καὶ τοῦ γεννητοῦ, the mediator between the Son and the Father, is a theologoumenon which is more common in the Occident than in the Orient (*). Among the Orientals it is found scarcely more than in two instances. St. John of Damascus copied it from St. Gregory of Nazianzus, who had to use this expression (μέσον) in his refutation of the Arians, who claimed that between the generate and the ingenerate there could be nothing intermediate.

  • (*) St. Athanasius the Great, for example, thoroughly rejects such a view. Migne, S. Gr., t. 26, col. 373 B., orat. 3, c. Arian., n. 24: καὶ οὐ τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸν Λόγον συνάπτει τῷ Πατρὶ, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον τὸ Πνεῦμα παρὰ τοῦ Λόγου λαμβάνει. Also St. Basil the Great considers just the Son (sit venia verbo!) as terminus medius in the ratio (λόγος) of the inner life of the Holy Trinity, which is elevated above all reason. Epist. 38 (alias 43), n. 4: καὶ εἰ τὸν Υἱὸν ἀληθινῶς τις λάβοι, ἕξει αὐτὸν ἑκατέρωθεν, πῆ μὲν τὸν ἑαυτοῦ Πατέρα, πῇ δὲ τὸ ἴδιον Πνεῦμα συνεπαγόμενον. Cf. S. Gregor. Nyss., adv. Maced., n. 13 (Migne, S. Gr., t. 45, col. 1317 A.): ἀλλὰ πηγὴ μὲν δυνάμεώς ἐστιν ὁ Πατὴρ, δύναμις δὲ τοῦ Πατρὸς ὁ Υἱὸς, δυνάμεως δὲ πνεῦμα τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον.

Accordingly: ββ) The Spirit is the third hypostasis of the Holy Trinity. His being presupposes the existence of the Father as well as the Son, because the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and because the Father is Father of the Son alone. Consequently, as soon as God, the Προβολεὺς τοῦ Πνεύματος, is called Father, He is thought of as having a Son. Consequently, without danger of committing too great an inaccuracy, we may say ὑπάρχοντος (ὄντος, ὑφεστῶτος) τοῦ Υἱοῦ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον (given that the Son exists, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father) or: Filio generato ex Patre productus, as Zoernikav, speaking of the Holy Spirit, expresses himself.

According to what has been said, the view of the procession of the Holy Spirit in the Fathers of the Church is understandable: the breath comes out of the mouth of man and penetrates, so to speak, the word; the breath is necessary for the word to become sound. But since the mouth is opened, not to breathe, but to pronounce the sound and word, the word is a logical “prius” of the breath. The word, however, as having a certain meaning and having been conceived in the form of articulated sounds, does not produce these sounds from itself, and the breath does not come from the word itself, but from the human mouth, although the utterance of the word also inevitably entails breathing.

From this analogy follows:

aaa) The birth of the Word and the procession of the Holy Spirit are thought unitedly.

bbb) The logical prius is the birth.

ccc) The Son-Word is neither the cause nor the co-cause of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Λόγος is not Spirans.

But:

ddd) The birth of the Son-Word is a condition (*), worthy of God, of the unconditional procession of the Holy Spirit, is the motive and the reason (and therefore the logical “prius“) of the Holy Spirit’s procession from the Father.

  • (*) I borrow the expression “condition” from S. B. Kochomsky (Theological Dissertation, Russian, St. Petersburg 1875). A “condition”, attached to the “absolutum“, sounds like a logical contradictio in adjecto. Certainly; but I repel this blow with the theological shield θεοπρεπῶς, “worthy of God.” Surely the meaning of this prima facie improper expression is not unintelligible. If the Holy Spirit, like the Son, is of the essence of the Father — asked both the Arians and the Macedonians — why, nevertheless, is the Holy Spirit not Son? — Because the Spirit is of the Father ἐκπορευτῶς, and not γεννητῶς, they answered, — Why, then, is not the Spirit γεννητός (not begotten)? — Because the Only-begotten, ὁ Μονογενής, i.e. the Son alone, is γεννητός. So the Son, by his being begotten, determines also the τρόπος τῆς ὑπάρξεως, modus existendi, of the Holy Spirit, his not being begotten. In general, the theologoumenon δι’ Υἱοῦ either shapes itself into a thought, and then the mind operates with concepts by analyzing them and coming to the realization, for example, that the idea of “Father” as a relational concept includes in itself implicite also the idea of a “Son”; that every “third” inevitably presupposes a “second”. Or it forms itself into a vivid image, in which the imagination comes to the rescue with an admittedly very inadequate yet not unpicturesque idea of the passage of the spirit (breath) through the (spoken) word, and on condition that the Father does not εἰς κενόν τι πνεῖ, does not breathe into an empty space, since the Son holds firmly to the Father, ἀδιαστάτως τοῦ πατρὸς ἔχεται (ἤρτηται), represents to us
  • (a) an image to illustrate the moment of the processio aeterna (and thus the moment of the very purest revelation of the causality of the Father and the very beginning moment of the being of the Holy Spirit): the Spirit proceeding from the Father is received by the Son, and
  • b) another image to illustrate the moment of the processio sempiterna: the Spirit coming from the Father and resting in the Son shines through the Son. — To the question, how the procession of the Holy Spirit differs from the begottenness of the Son, of course only a strictly theological answer is possible: only the Triune God Himself knows that. In the times of polemical warfare, however, such a complete renunciation of the knowledge of the mystery of Christianity might even be received with triumphant whistling on the part of the opponents. Under such circumstances many a theologian felt compelled — even if he was not able to present a certain dogma — at least to express his assumption. Instead of a “We don’t know” one answered with a “We recognize this piecemeal”, by observing, without going too close to the innermost core of the mystery, the so-to-speak accompanying features. The γεννητῶς one explained by μόνος ἐκ μόνου; on the other hand, this feature was left out when interpreting the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. But if one wished to have a positive characteristic of the ἐκπορευτῶς, one found none but this: “while the Son is being, the Spirit proceeds from the Father,” ὄντος τοῦ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεται (in this it was quite indifferent whether the theologian took his stand in the domain of a thought or in the domain of an image: the result had to be one and the same in both cases). The descriptive formula of this theologoumenon was ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς δι’ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεται, “who proceeds from the Father through the Son.”

IV.

It should also be noted:

The birth of the Son of God is a generatio aeterna et sempiterna, i.e. it can be imagined only as an act accomplished from eternity and an act always present out of time. The procession of the Holy Spirit should be imagined in the same way:

α) The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father from eternity. From the pre-temporal, absolutely first moment of his procession, he is and exists (ὑπάρχει, ὑφέστηκε) as a perfect hypostasis, and the Logos Son is not thought of as something entering into the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit.

β) However, the Holy Spirit always proceeds from the Father, and this procession is identical with the eternal being, the divine life of the Holy Spirit. Human vision can imagine this moment only as a process, a process that never stops and always continues. If the first conception (“the procession as an act already accomplished from eternity and before eternity”) forces us to think of the movement precisely as a movement (even if its duration measures only a mathematical point), the second conception (“the procession as an act always present”), together with a character of duration and permanence, also brings into this movement a modifying moment of standing still, of rest. Since the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father during the existence of the Son, ὑπάρχοντος τοῦ Υἱοῦ, and since the Father and the Son are thought of as immediately touching each other, the moment of the ever-present procession of the Holy Spirit is understood in such a way that the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father is already seen as a perfect act of the Son. Spirit is already received by the Son as a perfect hypostasis; τὸ Πνεῦμα ἐκπορεύεται παρὰ τοῦ Πατρὸς, καὶ μένει παρὰ τῷ Υἱῷ θεϊκῶς, says Didymus (de Trinitate, 1. 31, Migne, S. Gr, t. 39, col. 425 A.). He proceeds from the Father and dwells in the Son; He proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son. The relation of the Son to the Holy Spirit in all these images differs from the relation of the Father to the Holy Spirit: as Προβολεύς, as cause, the Father is conceived as movens, the Son as imparting to this movement a character of rest, of abiding. But when the procession is thought of as a continuing movement, the proposition “who rests in the Son” and “in the Son abides” is replaced by an equivalent one: the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father as perfect hypostasis, comes through the Son (προϊόν), appears through the Son, reveals through Him His essence, which He has from the Father. He radiates or shines through the Son.

The Son, by means of his hypostatic existence, γνωρίζει, makes known, the Holy Spirit as such through himself and by means of himself. He reveals him, characterizes him, so to speak, as the cognizable. The Holy Spirit is characterized and recognized (γνωρίζεται) after the Son and with the Son. The image of the dawn, if one eliminates the inevitable flaw of this parable, can illuminate this viewpoint of the church fathers: The sun is still under the eastern horizon of the given locality, it is still invisible and its ray does not yet touch the surface of the earth. If there were no air, there would be complete darkness in this place. But the ray passes through the layers of air, penetrates them, and the dawn illuminates the given locality, announcing the proximity of the still hidden solar discus; but the appearance of the dawn itself proves the existence of the atmosphere, without which the appearance of the dawn would not have been possible, although the real cause of the dawn is the sun approaching the horizon. The Holy Spirit is a hypostatic power that shines through the Son, at the same time announcing the Word and revealing the hidden divinity of the Father.

It seems to me that these expressions — “abiding”, “resting” in the Son, “penetrating”, “appearing”, “shining forth” through the Son — according to the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, denote the eternal relationships of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and are expressed briefly by the phrase “the Holy Spirit comes from the Father through the Son”.

V.

It is true that the idea of the interpenetration of the Holy Spirit by the Son, and of the immediate relation of the third Person of the Trinity precisely to the second, is so strongly established in the minds of the fathers that they even asserted that the Holy Spirit was united (συνάπτεται) to the Father through the Son. And yet this does not at all give reason to suppose that an intimation of any causative moment in the relation of the Son to the Holy Spirit is implied in this δι’ Υἱοῦ. The Holy Spirit has his hypostasis from the Father as the sole cause. One of the most eloquent testimonies of such abandonment of the theologoumenon δι’ Υἱοῦ is in the following words of St. John of Damascus: Πνεῦμα τοῦ Πατρὸς, ὡς ἐκ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον· Υἱοῦ δὲ Πνεῦμα, οὐχ ὡς ἐξ αὐτοῦ, ἀλλ’ ὡς δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον. Μόνος γὰρ αἴτιος ὁ Πατήρ. “The Holy Spirit is Spirit of the Father, since He proceeds from the Father. He is also the Spirit of the Son, but not as if He had His being from the Son, but for the reason that He proceeds from the Father through the Son. For the Father alone is the cause.” So the δι’ Υἱοῦ is immediately followed by the unsurpassably laconic Μόνος αἴτιος, as if it were self-evident to all the world, after all, that the cause could be indicated only by ἐκ, but not also by διὰ. But if the Father is also the sole cause of the being of the Holy Spirit, yet the idea of the latter’s procession from the Father through the Son seems, at first sight, to cause us at least to raise the question: Whether the Father is directly, ἀμέσως, or indirectly, ἐμμέσως, the cause of the Holy Spirit. As far as I know, such a question was explicitly discussed almost solely by St. Gregory of Nyssa. (*) The termini technici which this church father uses (in the passage a) are compiled by Dr. N. B. Swete very clearly in the following scheme:

and the Spirit is predicated as “the mediately derived”, as “indirectly proceeding”.

  • (*) The fundamental passages are: a) quod non sint tres dii, Migne, t. 45, col. 133 B. C; b) contr. Eunom., col. 369 A., Migne, ibid.; c) contr. Eunom., col. 464 B. C, Migne, ibid.; d) adv. Maced., n. 6, col. 1308 B., Migne, ibid.
  • (2) In a) τὸ αἰτιατὸν [“the caused”] is also named τὸ ἐκ τοῦ αἰτίου [“that which is from the cause”]; in b) the Son is described as κατὰ τὸ προσεχὲς ἀδιαστάτως τῷ πατρὶ συνεπινοούμενος, and the Holy Spirit as δι´ αὐτοῦ καὶ μετ´ αὐτοῦ (i.e. through the Son and with the Son) εὐθὺς καὶ συνημμένως καταλαμβανόμενος [directly and continuously understood].

This conclusion would be quite impossible if we read only one passage in St. Gregory, i.e., d: “Provided that we see the flame divided into three lamps, and that the first flame is the cause of the third light, which by means of the transmission through the middle one has kindled the outermost light, nothing prevents us from considering the third lamp as a fire, if it were also kindled on the preceding flame”. [Ὥσπερ ἂν εἴ τις ἐν τρισὶ λαμπάσι διῃρημένην βλέπων τὴν φλόγα [αἰτίαν δὲ τοῦ τρίτου φωτὸς ὑποθώμεθα εἶναι τὴν πρώτην φλόγα ἐκ διαδόσεως διὰ τοῦ μέσου τὸ ἄκρον ἐκάψασαν] — εἰ δὲ κωλύει οὐδὲν πῦρ εἶναι τὴν τρίτην λαμπάδα, κἂν ἐκ προλαβούσης ἀναλάμψῃ φλογὸς, τίς ἡ σοφία τῶν διὰ ταῦτα τὴν τοῦ ἁγίου Πνεύματος ἀξίαν ἀθετεῖν ἀσεβῶς νομιζόντων, ἐπειδήπερ μετὰ Πατέρα καὶ Υἱὸν ἠριθμήθη παρὰ τῆς θείας φωνῆς;] Thus, concludes the church father, the Holy Spirit, though the third person, is also of the same dignity with the Father and the Son. However, when judging this passage, which at first sight seems to be decisive, one must not overlook: First, that the effect of the cause by means of a medium is expressly assumed here, but only in the speech of the flame and the lamps, not in the speech of the Son and the Holy Spirit itself. Secondly, as is well known, St. Gregory piously honored St. Basil, calling him not just his brother but rather his “father and teacher,” Πατὴρ καὶ διδάσκαλος, indeed ὁ ἅγιος Πατὴρ ἡμῶν. It is not difficult to suppose that St. Gregory considered it his duty and glory not to depart even by a hair’s breadth from the teachings and views of Basil, who was also great to him, τοῦ μεγάλου Βασιλείου, and that one of the classical passages of St. Gregory on the theologoumenon under discussion, namely b, leans, even in its expressions, on St. Basil’s view (*). (See pages 698 and 699.)

  • (*) St. Basil, epist. 38 (alias 43) (A. D. 369-370), is addressed Γρηγορίῳ ἀδελφῷ, that is, to St. Gregory of Nyssa, and had — very probably — a great influence on the formation of the way of thinking of the latter. All parallels under the heading “St. Basil” are taken from § 4 of this letter.

St. Basil:

Between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit there is no empty interspace into which thought can enter. For between them nothing inserts itself, neither emptiness of any non-existing interspace which divides the concretum by interposing something empty.

St. Gregory:

In the uncreated substance the Father is thought of as beginningless, unbegotten and always as Father. 

From him immediately (is) the Only Begotten Son, (who) is thought inseparably together with the Father.

But through Him and with Him immediately (before an idea about something empty and non-existent forces itself in) also the Holy Spirit is conceived together, who is not later than the Son according to his being (so that one could imagine the Begotten one without the Spirit), 

But the Spirit also has the cause of his being from the God of the universe, from whom also the Begotten light has the being, but shines through the true light, so that he is neither separated by an interspace nor by a difference of nature from the Father or from the Begotten.

St. Basil:

The Son is always thought inseparably together with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is (indeed) united with the Son, but possesses being in dependence on the cause, namely from the Father, from whom He also proceeds. He has the characteristic feature, peculiar to Him (alone) in His hypostasis, that He is recognizable after the Son and possesses being from the Father.

The Son, however, who makes the Spirit coming out of the Father recognizable through himself and with himself, — only he shines only out of the Unoriginate light as Only-begotten, and so on.

As we see, the two church fathers proclaim the δι’ Υἱοῦ explicitly, even urgently, but only in connection with predicates such as γνωρίζεσθαι, καταλαμβάνεσθαι: through the Son, the Holy Spirit is theologically recognizable, and this is a characteristic feature of the hypostasis of the Son himself, of his innermost personal life; it is his γνώρισμα. But though grounded in the innermost, most mysterious relations of the trinitarian life, the “through the Son” is free from the faintest veneer of causal significance: the expression δι’ Υἱοῦ, so far as I know, always disappears as soon as the two Fathers of the Church begin to speak of the αἰτία, the causa, the cause of the being of the Holy Spirit. “According to His being,” says the great Basil, “the Holy Spirit is dependent on the cause, namely, the Father from whom He also proceeds.” St. Gregory expresses himself even more succinctly: “The Holy Spirit has the cause of his being also there, where the Only-begotten Son himself has it, namely from the God of the universe.” Thus, from the point of view of the causality relation, the Son is not logically superior to the Holy Spirit, rather they are placed on the same logical level, as coordinati.

And thirdly, among the Fathers of the Church, St. Gregory of Nyssa, according to the consensus theologorum, is the most Origenist. Against Origen, however, complaints are least admissible that he did not sufficiently recognize a theological importance of the concept of cause, of αἰτία, of ἀρχή, of πηγή. This meaning was certainly as clear to St. Gregory as it was to Origen himself. Nevertheless, the Origenizing church father said nothing at all that needed to elevate the Son above the order of the αἰτιατά, the caused. Several times he misses the best opportunity to state that the Son also, as the living transmitter of the causative effect of the Father on the Spirit, is co-cause or co-source of the Spirit. Such silentium is profound and can prove something.

Under this light I would like to consider also the first (a) classical passage of St. Gregory.

Τὸ μὲν γὰρ προσεχῶς ἐκ τοῦ πρώτου, τὸ δὲ διὰ τοῦ προσεχῶς ἐκ τοῦ πρώτου, ὥστε καὶ τὸ Μονογενὲς ἀναμφίβολον ἐπὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ μένειν, καὶ τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς εἶναι τὸ Πνεῦμα μὴ ἀμφιβάλλειν, τῆς τοῦ Υἱοῦ μεσιτείας καὶ αὐτῷ τὸ Μονογενὲς φυλαττούσης, καὶ τὸ Πνεῦμα τῆς φυσικῆς πρὸς Πατέρα σχέσεως μὴ ἀπειργούσης.

“For the one is that which is immediately from the first, and the other is that which is through that which is immediately from the first, so that the quality of being Only-begotten remains indisputably to the Son, while, again, the fact that the Spirit has being from the Father is not subject to doubt, since the Son’s mediation, while it guarantees to Himself the character of being Only-begotten, also does not prevent the Spirit from possessing communion of nature with the Father.”

The thesis probanda of this passage is: a diversity of nature, ἡ κατὰ φύσιν διαφορά, is not to be assumed in the Trinity. The diversity of the hypostases is not an argument against the unity of essence. Τὸ ἀπαράλλακτον τῆς φύσεως ὁμολογοῦντες, τὴν κατὰ τὸ αἴτιον καὶ αἰτιατὸν διαφορὰν οὐκ ἀρνούμεθα, ἐν ᾧ μόνῳ διακρίνεσθαι τὸ ἕτερον τοῦ ἑτέρου καταλαμβάνομεν. “In confessing that the nature of the Trinity is one without distinction, we do not at all deny the difference of the cause and the caused; we even assert that in this difference alone consists the difference of individual persons.” But the consideration of the hypostatic difference is here introduced, only to ward off an objection of the opponents, περὶ τῆς τοιαύτης ἀπολογησόμεθα μέμψεως, so that the logical emphasis is on the conclusion of the ὁμοούσιον: the mediation of the Son is considered from the standpoint of the community of substance.

The fact that the Son is the second, the Holy Spirit the third hypostasis, is taken as a given and illuminated in the sense that in it there is no obstacle to the ὁμοουσιότης of the Spirit. But there is no mention of the effect of the cause; therefore the question whether the Holy Spirit has his being from the Father directly, or δι’ Υἱοῦ, through the mediation of the Son, remains explicitly unanswered. (*) “The Spirit receiving being from the Father” and “the Spirit having being from the Father,” these terms, nevertheless, for the human mode of imagination, designate two different moments of the divine life. In my opinion, St. Gregory’s theologoumenon is dedicated only to the second moment and keeps us in the realm of the conception about the ἔκλαμψις καὶ ἔκφανσις of the Holy Spirit, not about his ἐκπόρευσις in the most proper core of this dogmatic concept.

  • (*) Also the passage d does not give an answer. Τοῦ Μονογενοῦς ἔχεται τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, ἐπινοίᾳ μόνῃ κατὰ τὸν τῆς αἰτίας λόγον προθεωρουμένου τῆς τοῦ Πνεύματος ὑποστάσεως. I understand these words (as, for example, N. M. Bogorodsky also understood them in 1879) as follows: Quite theoretically, the Son is also presented before the existence of the Spirit, as logical prius in relation to the Cause (not “as the Cause and therefore as logical prius“). Brothers, a firstborn son and a later born son, differ from each other according to their relation to the cause, to the father, and yet the elder brother is in no sense the cause of the existence of the youngest brother.

VI.

These mutual relations of the divine hypostases must illustrate precisely the consubstantiality of the Holy Trinity, the identity of the nature of the three Persons, their communion by nature. The theologoumenon of the Fathers of the Church, that essential goodness comes from the Father to the Holy Spirit through the Son, represents, so to speak, the pulse of the mysterious divine life, and under the pen of St. Ambrose becomes a powerful proof of the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father. “No one is good but God alone,” asserted the Arians. “The Holy Spirit,” Ambrose replied, “is good, and receives from the Father essential goodness through the Son; but if the Spirit is good, the Son is also good.” To attribute the διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ only to the temporal gift of the Holy Spirit to the creature through the Son, would be to weaken such proofs of the church fathers as those mentioned above. In the Gospel there is only one passage (Joh. 20, 22) which can be cited to justify the δι’ Υἱοῦ, and from this passage it is immediately evident that the Holy Spirit is given to the creature through the Son (cf. Tit. 3, 5-6). This is also affirmed by the Fathers of the Church. But that, from this historical fact, they never draw a conclusion concerning the eternal relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Son, so that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit through the Son is rather a reflection of this eternal basic fact on the temporal (*) — the onus probandi for proving this would fall to the one who would dare to deny the thought that the Holy Spirit shines through the Son from eternity, and I believe that this onus would be much too difficult for a theologian.

  • (*) To reinforce the likelihood of such an inference, I would like to bring to mind another theologoumenon, namely the attempt of the church fathers to make it somewhat understandable why the Son and not the Father became man. Cf. Photii Bibliotheca, cod. 222, pp. 181b, 182, 193, 199b, 196, ed. Bekker.

Theses.

It must be taken into account that the Old Catholics testify with honorable frankness to the differences that exist over the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit. They do everything in their power to prevent misunderstandings, which are so harmful to ecclesiastical union, and which occur so frequently in union efforts when not everything is said that needs to be said; when this happens, those questions that were left unclarified are subsequently settled by both sides according to their different opinions, and sometimes serve later for mutual recriminations.

In my opinion, therefore, it seems possible to accept the following theses as correct:

Thesis 1. The Russian Orthodox Church considers as dogma (credendum de fide) only the truth that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and is of one essence with the Father and the Son. Τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται καὶ ὁμοούσιόν ἐστι τῷ Πατρὶ καὶ τῷ Υἱῷ. Other particulars (insofar as they are not identical in sense with this truth) are to be considered as theologoumena.

E.g. § 1. The fact that the Holy Spirit is “worshiped and glorified at the same time as the Father and the Son” is a dogma, not a mere theologoumenon, because it is identical in meaning with the homoousion of the Holy Spirit and is therefore already implicit in the content of this fundamental truth.

§ 2. In the sense of such a difference between dogma and theologoumenon, I also understand the answer that we find in the detailed Catechism: To the question: “Can the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit be subject to any change or addition?” the answer is: “No, it cannot.” 

As dogma it may not be supplemented, neither by the explanatory addition “by the Son”, nor by the restrictive addition “by the Father alone”. But when the Fathers of the Church, like John of Damascus (de Fide orthodoxa, c. 12), say that the Holy Spirit is a power of the Father that announces the hidden Godhead, that He is a power of the Father proceeding from the Father through the Son, δύναμις τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκ Πατρὸς μὲν δι’ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορευομένη, that the Holy Spirit is also the Son’s Spirit, not as if He proceeds from the Son, but because He proceeds from the Father through the Son, Υἱοῦ δὲ Πνεῦμα, οὐχ ὡς ἐξ αὐτοῦ, ἀλλ’ ὡς δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον, they certainly do not say this in order to change the fullness of the mysterious being of the Holy Spirit, but to bring it nearer to our understanding, to enlighten it. They say it because they recognize this enlightenment as a possible and correct theologoumenon.

Thesis 2. The view that the Holy Spirit ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεται, or πρόεισι, or ἐκλάμπει, “proceeds, passes through, shines forth from the Father through the Son”, so frequently exhibits in the fathers the high significance, the importance which can be seen by its multiple repetition in the “Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith” of St. John of Damascus, and especially by its inclusion in the Synodikon of St. Tarasius of Constantinople, the orthodoxy of which is attested by both the East and the Orthodox West (in the person of Pope Hadrian of Rome) and also by the Seventh Ecumenical Council — this importance is so obvious and sublime that theologians have the right to see in this διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ not only a mere private opinion of a church father, but a so-to-speak ecumenical, universally authorized theologoumenon of the Orthodox East.

Thesis 3. The assumption that in the διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ there is always and everywhere contained solely the idea of the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit into the world for the bestowal of grace upon creatures, leads to distortions in the explanation of some patristic passages.

§ 1. It is known that the Patriarch of Constantinople Gregory II of Cyprus (1283-1289), notwithstanding his antagonism to the unionist John Bekkos, found it decidedly impossible to accept the opinion that the church fathers meant by ἔκλαμψις only the temporary effulgence of the Holy Spirit by the Son.

§ 2. It is also known that the bishop Sylvester (Answer of an Orthodox to the Schema of the Holy Spirit. Kiev, 1874, pag. 72-75) admits that St. Gregory of Nyssa (contra Eunomium 1. I, Migne, S. Gr., t. 45, col. 336 D., 416 C.) speaks of the eternal appearance of the Holy Spirit through the Son (ἐν τῷ δι’ αὐτοῦ τοῦ Υἱοῦ πεφηνέναι, δι’ αὐτοῦ μὲν ἐκλάμπον). He speaks of the revelation or appearance of the “being” which, as already a finished one, the Holy Spirit received from the Father, or, if you will, of a “being” which, if you may so express it, you had to imagine as already existing from the moment of eternity from which the Holy Spirit is to be thought, from the appearance of the Holy Spirit through the Son, unconditionally, independently of His temporal mission into the world.

§ 3. In the “Definition of Orthodoxy of His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Tarasius”, as the fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council called the Synodikon of St. Tarasius, the διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ is found in the following context: “I believe in one God the Father, the Almighty, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our God, who is timeless and eternally begotten of the Father. καὶ εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, τὸ κύριον καὶ ζωοποιοῦν, τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς δι’ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορευόμενον, and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father through the Son, the true God, in the one essential Trinity — equally to be praised, equally enthroned, eternal, uncreated founder of all created things. I believe in one ἀρχή, one Godhead and dominion, one kingdom, one power and might, which is indivisibly divided and dividedly united in three hypostases.”

Since in this section not a word is said concerning the relation of the Son of God to the world (the words of the Constantinopolitanum, “by whom all things were created,” are not given in the Synodikon), and the Incarnation is spoken about only in the section that follows, it is natural that the thought of St. Tarasius moves within the limits of theology in the strict sense, θεολογία, envisioning the eternal and everlasting relations of the divine hypostases.

§ 4. In a passage by St. John of Damascus (Migne, S. Gr., t. 94, col. 1512 B., dialog. contra Manichaeos, E.), the following answer is given to the Manichaean, who says to him, “How?! Did not then God change, according to you, by giving birth to the Son and bringing forth the Holy Spirit?” Οὐδαμῶς· οὐ γὰρ λέγω, μὴ ὢν πρότερον Πατὴρ, ὕστερον γέγονε Πατὴρ, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ ἦν ἔχων ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ τὸν αὑτοῦ Λόγον καὶ διὰ τοῦ Λόγου αὐτοῦ ἐξ αὐτοῦ τὸ Πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ ἐκπορευόμενον. “Not in the least! For I do not say that God, having not been Father before, became Father later, but that He is always (Father), having from Himself His Word, and through His Word His Spirit proceeding from Him (the Father).”

The whole force of the answer lies here in the fact that these relations are eternal, beginningless and therefore unchangeable.

§ 5. To insist that the words προϊόν, ἐκλάμψαν, πεφηνός, προελθόν, not to speak of ἐκπορευόμενον, indicate only temporal relations, would be to place oneself in indissoluble opposition with the fact that in the holy fathers, as in the hymns of the Church, these terms are also used to designate the pre-temporal relationship of the Spirit to God the Father. In the fathers, as well as in the hymns of the Church, these terms are also used to designate the pre-temporal relationship of the Spirit, sometimes also of the Son, to God the Father.

α) For example, St. Gregory the Theologian (Migne, S. Gr., t. 36, col. 348 B., orat. 39 n. 12) says: Πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἀληθῶς τὸ Πνεῦμα, προϊὸν μὲν ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς, οὐχ υἱϊκῶς δὲ: οὐδὲ γὰρ γεννητῶς, ἀλλ´ ἐκπορευτῶς.

β) According to the same father,

ἴδιον δὲ, Πατρὸς μὲν ἡ ἀγεννησία,
  Υἱοῦ δὲ ἡ γέννησις,
  Πνεύματος δὲ ἡ ἔκπεμψις.

γ) St. John of Damascus (Migne, S. Gr., t. 95, col. 60, epistola de Hymno trisagio, n. 27) writes: Πνεῦμα ἅγιον τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον: ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς γάρ, διὰ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ Λόγου προϊόν, οὐχ υἱϊκῶς δέ.

Cf. N. M. Bogorodsky (Russian theological dissertation, St. Petersburg 1879), p. 64, n. 1.

δ) Again, the same father (Migne, S. Gr., t. 94, col. 816 C. de fide orthodoxa, 1, c, 8): ὁ Υἱὸς … Μονογενὴς δὲ, ὅτι μόνος ἐκ μόνου τοῦ Πατρὸς μόνως ἐγεννήθη.

ε) Again, the same father (Migne, S. Gr., t. 96, col. 833: ὁ [iambic] κανὼν εἰς τὴν Πεντηκοστὴν, ᾠδὴ δ´, ὁ εἰρμός):

Ἄναξ ἀνάκτων οἶος ἐξ οἴου μόνος
      Λόγος προελθὼν Πατρὸς ἐξ ἀναιτίου.

Note the precise parallelism of the non-standard term προελθών in ε, and the indisputably standard, clear-as-day ἐγεννήθη in δ.

ζ) St. Cyril of Alexandria (Migne, S. Gr., t. 76, col. 1157 A. B. de recta fide ad Theodosium imp., nn. 16, 18) writes: τοῦ πεφηνότος ἐκ Θεοῦ κατὰ φύσιν Υἱοῦ, τουτέστι τοῦ Μονογενοῦς…τὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι καὶ Μονογενῆ πιστεύοντες καὶ πρωτότοκον: Μονογενῆ μὲν, ὡς Θεοῦ Πατρὸς λόγον καὶ ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας αὐτοῦ πεφηνότα, πρωτότοκον δ´ αὖ, καθὸ γέγονεν ἄνθρωπος…καὶ τοῦ ἐκ Θεοῦ Πατρὸς πεφηνότος Λόγου…τὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ Λόγον…νοήσομεν…ἕνα καὶ τὸν αὐτὸν, φύσει μὲν ὄντα Θεὸν καὶ ἐξ αὐτῆς πεφηνότα τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ Πατρὸς: ἐν ἐσχάτοις δὲ τοῦ αἰῶνος καιροῖς γενόμενον ἄνθρωπον.

η) St. Gregory the Theologian (Migne, S. Gr., t. 36, col. 141 C, oratio 31, n. 9) says: “Τί οὖν ἐστι, φησὶν (πνευματομάχος), ὃ λείπει τῷ Πνεύματι πρὸς τὸ εἶναι Υἱόν; Εἰ γὰρ μὴ λεῖπόν τι ἦν, Υἱὸς ἂν ἦν.” Οὐ λείπειν φαμέν· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐλλειπὴς Θεός· τὸ δὲ τῆς ἐκφάνσεως, ἵν´ οὕτως εἴπω, ἢ τῆς πρὸς ἄλληλα σχέσεως διάφορον, διάφορον αὐτῶν καὶ τὴν κλῆσιν πεποίηκεν.

And in the ecclesiastical hymns from the Ὀκτώηχος συντεθεῖσα παρὰ τοῦ ἁγίου Ἰωάννου τοῦ Δαμασκηνοῦ: 

θ) (ἦχος βαρὺς, τῇ κυριακῇ πρωΐ, ἐν τῷ μεσονυκτικῷ, κανὼν τριαδικὸς, ᾠδὴ α´, τροπάριον β´):

   Νοῦς ὁ ἄναρχος Λόγον
συναϊδίως γεννήσας,
καὶ Πνεῦμα συνάναρχον
ἐκλάμψας, κατηξίωσεν
ἕνα Θεὸν κατ´ οὐσίαν σύμμορφον
ἡμᾶς προσκυνεῖν τρισυπόστατον.

Note the parallelism between ἐκλάμψας and γεννήσας.

ι) (ἦχος πλάγιος β´, τῷ σαββάτῳ ἑσπέρας, εἰς τὸ Κύριε ἐκέκραξα, θεοτόκιον):

ὁ γὰρ ἀσπόρως (the Slavonic translation presupposes ὁ γὰρ ἀχρόνως) ἐκ Πατρὸς ἐκλάμψας Υἱὸς μονογενής.

κ) (ἦχος γ´, τῇ κυριακῇ πρωΐ, εἰς τὸν ὄρθρον, κανὼν τῆς Θεοτόκου, ᾠδή θ´, τροπάριον β´):

…..Χριστέ,
ἵλεων νέμοις ἡμῖν
Πνεῦμα μεταδοτικὸν ἀγαθότητος
ἐκ Πατρὸς διὰ σοῦ προερχόμενον.

Compare this with the prayer of St. Hilary of Poitiers (Migne, S. Lat., t. 10, col. 472, De Trinitate l. 12, n. 57): dona mihi — ut — sanctum spiritum tuum, qui ex te per unigenitum tuum est promerear.

Thesis 4. Given all this, it is at least not reprehensible to think that the sayings of the church fathers that the Holy Spirit “proceeds/goes out” (ἐκπορευόμενον, προϊόν) from the Father through the Son, “shines forth” (ἐκλάμπει) through the Son, “appears” (πεφηνός) through the Son, contain an indication of some mysterious moment in the eternal activity, in the eternal life, in the eternal internal relations of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. This moment is also called the eternal “abiding” (μένον), the eternal “rest” (ἀναπαυόμενον) of the Holy Spirit in the Son.

Thesis 5. This moment is the pictorial representation of the identity of essence (συμφυές) of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, and also of the incomprehensible but Gospel-revealed truth that the Holy Spirit is the third and the Son the second person of the Holy Trinity.

Thesis 6. This moment is not identical in sense with that which is revealed in the words ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται (if we will only understand this phrase in the narrow [i.e., strictly theological] sense of the termini technici ἐκπορευτῶς and ἐκπορεύεται).

Thesis 7. According to this, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, ἐκ μόνου τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται, in the strict sense of the term ἐκπορευτῶς. But this proposition is only a theologoumenon, and not a dogma.

§ 1. “not a dogma”: see § 2 on thesis 1 (the paragraph “As dogma” etc., pag. 704).

§ 2. The expression ἐκ μόνου τοῦ Πατρὸς not only lacks the sanction of an ecumenical council (a sanction which would render it equal to the witness of the δι’ Υἱοῦ at the Seventh Ecumenical Council), but it also lacks the degree of authority which belongs to a theological expression which the fathers themselves used. Photius would have found it very difficult to justify the ἐκ μόνου τοῦ Πατρὸς with citations from the church fathers.

§ 3. The church fathers speak of the Son as “the One from the One” (see δ and ε in § 5 on thesis 3), but they do not use this expression when they speak of the Holy Spirit, as if it were out of prudence that the thesis “the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone” not become the antithesis of the theological idea “and shines forth through the Son”.

§ 4. The thesis ἐκ μόνου τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται should not be taken as a negation e.g. of the thesis ἐκ μόνου μὲν τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται, δι´ Υἱοῦ δὲ πρόεισιν (*).

  • (*) In order to indicate at least the direction which human thinking must hold to in speculating about this Greek theologoumenon, a forced translation attempt may here be given: The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, but comes out through the Son. From the Father alone the Holy Spirit has His hypostasis, His personal being, but through the Son He presents His hypostasis as existing.

Thesis 8. From the thesis, which is not opposed by anyone, that the Father is the μόνος αἴτιος (the only, the sole cause) of the being of the Holy Spirit, it follows that the Son is neither the author nor the co-author of the being (ὕπαρξις) of the Holy Spirit.

§ 1. “The unconditional condition” (as S. B. Kochomsky [Russian theological dissertation, St. Petersburg 1875] expresses it), is not a cause in any respect.

§ 2. Thesis No. 8 can only be proved in a negative way (because the Augustinian view was not a subject of judgment among the Greek Fathers and, of course, they [the Fathers] did not establish a specific antithesis).

a) No one has provided any passage where the Son is characterized as αἴτιος (or συναίτιος) [cause, or co-cause] of the Holy Spirit.

b) In the fullest, most detailed enumerations of the hypostatic ἰδιότητες (e.g., in the “De Fide orthodoxa,” I, c. 12), the Son is called only αἰτιατός [caused], as is the Holy Spirit.

But on the other hand:

Thesis 9. The western view differs from the eastern theologoumenon. Without twisting the sense, one can neither explain the filioque in terms of the δι’ Υἱοῦ, nor expound the view of the eastern fathers in a sense similar to that of the western.

Thesis 10. It is to be assumed that in the oldest, pre-Augustinian stage the western theologoumenon was intended to clarify only that thought which the eastern δι’ Υἱοῦ also illuminates: namely, that the Holy Spirit has the same essence with the Father and the Son, and that the ex Patre et Filio was initially only an inaccurate rendering of the ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς δι’ Υἱοῦ.

Thesis 11. The ex Patre et Filio, however, as it was given by Augustine, is not covered by the doctrine of the eastern fathers, not only according to the formula, but also according to the sense, since —

Thesis 12. not only the “a Patre et Filio aequaliter” of Pope Leo III, but also the “ex Patre principaliter” of St. Augustine himself says less than the μόνος αἴτιος of the eastern fathers, and —

Thesis 13. the difference between the views of the westerners and the easterners cannot be felt so much in the words ex Patre Filioque, as in Augustine’s conception, connected with them, of the one Spiratio of the Father and the Son, according to which both together form one principle of the Holy Spirit. But this conception is unknown to the eastern fathers: as far as we know, none of them called the Son “Spirans” or συμπροβολεὺς.

Thesis 14. Even in terms of private opinion, we cannot recognize the equality of the western Filioque with the eastern δι’ Υἱοῦ, for the following reasons:

Thesis 15. aa) The western filioque decidedly lacks an equivalent recognition to that of the δι’ Υἱοῦ, which Tarasius inscribed in his Synodikon.

Thesis 16. bb) In the West itself, the filioque (regardless of its dissemination) seems to have no other support for itself than the isolated authority of St. Augustine.

Thesis 17. cc) More serious protests (not based on any misunderstanding) were heard against the filioque on the part of the easterners than the objections against the δι’ Υἱοῦ.

Thesis 18. dd) A western writer (around AD 560), the Roman Diaconus Rusticus, knew that some of the ancients formulated the difference of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit with the words: “He does not proceed from the Son as He proceeds from the Father”, and therefore could not decide to insist on the filioque. (*)

  • (*) Migne, S. Lat., t. 67, col. 1237 C, contra acephal. disput. «Quidam vero antiquorum et hoc proprietatibus adiecerunt, quia sicut Spiritus cum Patre Filium sempiterne non genuit, sic nec procedit Spiritus a Filio sicut a Patre. Ego vero, quia Spiritus quidem Filium non genuerit sempiterne, confiteor (nec enim duos dicimus Patres) : utrum vero a Filio eodem modo quo a Patre procedat, nondum perfecte habeo satisfactum.»

But:

Thesis 19. According to God’s unfathomable counsel, the Western view proposed by St. Augustine as a private opinion was not protested at that time by the Eastern Church.

Thesis 20. Many Westerners who preached the filioque to their flocks lived and died in intercommunion with the Eastern Church without hearing any objection from any side.

Thesis 21. The Eastern Church honors the fathers of the ancient Western Church as its own, so it is natural that the private opinions of these fathers also seem sacred to the West.

Thesis 22. When the Easterners read the filioque at the Synod of St. Martin, they expressed their misgivings about it. At that time, however, the matter was settled and the Easterners did not object to intercommunion with the Pope. They were content with the explanation of his envoys, who explained the filioque in terms of δι’ Υἱοῦ and excused it with the help of some citations of the Western fathers and St. Cyril of Alexandria.

Thesis 23. If the Westerners did not present their filioque to the Sixth and Seventh Ecumenical Councils, neither was any question put to them by the Easterners in order to solve the misunderstanding caused by the Synodica of St. Martin.

Thesis 24. At the beginning of the ninth century, the Jerusalem affair (*) created no grounds for breaking off intercommunion with the Western Church on account of the filioque.

  • (*) See F. X. Kraus, Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte (Trier 1882), § 74, 3. — F. X. Funk, Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte (Rottenburg a. N. 1886), § 99. — H. B. Swete, History of the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit (Cambridge 1876).

Thesis 25. Photius and his successors stood in intercommunion with the Western Church without receiving from it a conciliar denial of the filioque “verbis explicitissimis“, and also, as we see, without demanding it from the Western Church.

Consequently:

Thesis 26. It is not the question of the filioque which caused the separation of the Church.

Thesis 27. Thus, the filioque as a private theological opinion cannot be considered as an “impedimentum dirimens” for the establishment of intercommunion between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Old Catholic Church.