For this Father always proclaims one cause in respect of God and one principle, the unbegotten Father, and he knows the single one as the divine source.
And for this reason he says that for us there is one God, because the things that are from Him have their reference to one cause; he does not say that the Son is from God from them, nor that the Holy Spirit is God from God in that sense.
…than that of creatures; by so much the more magnificent is it that the first cause should be the principle of divinity than the principle of creatures, and should come to creatures by means of an intermediate divinity.
But you, O blasphemy, who think in the Latin manner that through the medium of the Son—which is to say, through the medium of the Son's divinity—the Father comes to bring forth the Holy Spirit; and not even at this does your novel doctrine stop, but you also say that the Spirit is from the Son, that the causing of procession is common to Father and Son, on the ground that this Theologian said to those who had sailed in from Egypt that the Son has all that the Father has except unbegottenness alone.
…this will belong also to the Spirit; for the power of causing procession is not a property of sonship; for otherwise the Spirit would be both Son and Father, since it would also possess the power of causing procession.
And the same Theologian, in his own discourse On the Holy Spirit, says concerning the Holy Spirit Himself: "What among the great things, the things that are God's, can He not do?"
And the power of causing procession, according to you, likewise belongs to the Spirit as it does to the Son—and indeed from this it follows that it belongs to the Spirit doubly more than to the Son; for it will possess not only that which is the Father's but also that which is the Son's, according to your opinion concerning the Son.
Do you see into how many absurdities he falls who, on hearing that the Son has all that the Father has, understands this not of the things of nature alone, but joins also some of the hypostatic properties to the natural ones?
It is not necessary, then, to carry the discussion of this matter any further, since you have already been refuted; but for the sake of what is good, and lest anyone fasten blame upon the blameless one, we shall show in what follows that the saying of the holy one is indeed sound, but is wrongly construed through the ignorance of those who think in the Latin manner.
It is the same thing to say of God "unbegotten" and "causeless"; wherefore, even if you should search through all the books of theology, nowhere will you find the Holy Spirit called "unbegotten," and that though it is the very Spirit of the Begotten.
But John of Damascus the God-bearer, having said in the eighth chapter of the Dogmatics that "all that the Father has belongs also to the Spirit itself, except unbegottenness," showed that on God's part not only is the unbegotten the same as the causeless, but the causeless is also the same as the cause; for in God the cause coincides with the causeless—and by "cause" I mean cause of the divinity of the Son and of the Spirit.
…that is, according to begetting and causing procession, he said "except unbegottenness alone," as though that one term embraced together all the things that are proper to the Father.
But being thus the cause of an innate wealth that in no respect falls short of Himself, He would be His own enemy if He were the cause of one single thing only and thus made His wealth into poverty for Himself.
And besides this, that which is in every respect and altogether one is also imperfect; for which reason it became containable by the Jews, who were imperfect with respect to the knowledge of God.
But neither, being the cause of a consubstantial dyad—begetting the one, and bringing forth the other by procession—would He, so to speak, be carried away tastelessly into further multiplicity, since in Himself and in those who are from Him He circumscribes all infinitude.
And in addition to these, there is no other mode of innate existence; wherefore that which is beyond these is not divinity, but a falling away from divinity; this, accordingly, is also the polytheism of the godless Greeks.
…of the all-working God the Father, unto the begetting and the procession of the Son, the Creator of all things and the Perfecter of all; neither was the Son brought forth through the Spirit (for He would have been imperfect from the Father, if He had been begotten through the perfecting Spirit), nor is the Spirit through the Son; for, besides being imperfect from the Father, and that too the One who perfects all things, He would also have been one of the created things; for the things that came to be came to be through Him, whereas the Spirit is made known through the Son.
And "in the light, the Spirit, we behold the light," the Son—to speak at once prophetically and in the manner of the Father; that we may know them not only as existing from one principle, but also as having toward one another no interval, and as indwelling one another, and as one another…
…manifesting one another and shining forth through one another, yet not [as being] through one another, or even from one another, or [as being] one another's; for the "from whom" is one.
And so he who theologizes that the Son has all that the Father has except unbegottenness has said that He has all except causation, as he also clearly so qualified it elsewhere in his writings.
And if the Son has all that the Father has except being a cause—namely, of divinity—and the Father is a cause not only by begetting the Son but also by causing the Spirit to proceed, then the Son has all that the Father has except the begetting of the Son and the causing of the Spirit to proceed; which things, belonging to the Father alone, bear witness to the unbegottenness that is His.
Wherefore John of Damascus the theologian also says, in his work On the Holy Trinity: "On account of the Father"—that is, on account of the Father's existing—"the Son and the Spirit have all that they have"—that is, because the Father has them—"except unbegottenness, and begetting, and procession."
And if unbegottenness indicates that which is in every respect and altogether the cause in God, then begetting will most necessarily indicate that the begotten is in no respect and in no way a cause of divinity, just as procession indicates that which exists by way of procession from the Father.
Or how is the Father the first cause, and then the Son also after Him, as though the Holy Spirit proceeds from Him as well—as the Latins suppose they must believe, being deranged, as I think, and misreading the sayings of the Fathers?
For the rightly-named Theologian does not say so, but says: the Son has all that the Father has except unbegottenness—which is the same as to say, except the being-cause—and this is the same as to say, except the begetting and the causing to proceed.
And the Spirit has all that the Son has, except sonship—or, if you will, except begetting; for we shall not fear that it be without cause, even if it be found to be itself a cause, though it has no begetting; nor is it uncaused merely because it is not begotten. For that which, as ...
Thus we utter what is in harmony with those who theologize in the Spirit; and thus we refute those who utter discordant things, showing that the scriptural testimonies they put forward in fact stand against them.
For that too which the tribe of the Latins suppose they can adduce from this same Theologian in support of their own opinion—namely, that the Lord showed His own dignity when He said to the disciples, "I Myself will send you the Holy Spirit"—they bring forward against themselves, not knowing what they do.
For since the sending of the Spirit is truly great, and beyond great, and belongs to God alone (for the Father, having first said that He would send the Paraclete, then says, "I will send Him," thereby displaying His own dignity—so that the very deed, as it were, proclaims it with a voice, and he who bears the name of theology expounded it)—
Now to possess the dignity of sending the divine Spirit is indeed great—and so great that it shows the Son to be of the same nature, equal, and of equal honor with the Father; just as the fact that the Son is sent not by the Father alone, but also by the Spirit Himself, establishes that the Spirit is consubstantial and of equal honor with the Father.
And if the Son, coming of His own accord as self-impelled, sends the Paraclete, how are they not of one authority and one will, and how could they not be also of one nature?
Do you see how the sending of the divine Spirit establishes the oneness of will and oneness of essence between the one sending and the one sent—which is a most great dignity, present in the Three rightly and in a manner befitting God, as it also thus shows the self-determining freedom of those who are sent?
But he who says that this dignity is not divine but a matter of producing—first of all shows not the Son alone to be a cause of the divine Spirit, but the Spirit also to be a cause of the Son.
Besides this, he wrongly sets aside the self-determined will of each of these toward us—now in one way, now in another—dogmatizing that the sending toward us is a matter not of will but of nature, and therefore also without beginning.
And indeed the one named after theology (Gregory the Theologian), against those who reckoned the Son to be lesser because He was sent by the Father, says that the sending is a proof of the Father's good pleasure, but not of the Son's pre-eternal existence.
But it is also written, he says, that He was raised and taken up by the Father, yet also that He raised Himself and ascended again: those things belong to the good pleasure, these to His own authority.
Since therefore the Holy Spirit too, even if He was sent by the Son, yet also came to us of His own self, one must say that the former belongs to the good pleasure, the latter to the authority—but not on this account irrationally to innovate concerning the mode of existence of the divine Spirit.
(continued) ... not even the great Basil is found anywhere saying that the Spirit is also from the Son; and if he had said in his chapters "Against the Eunomians" concerning the divine Spirit that the Spirit is from the Father through the Son, yet he himself, becoming his own interpreter in those same chapters, made clear that he said this with respect to the bestowal, writing: the Apostle plainly proclaimed that the Spirit is from God, saying, "We have received the Spirit which is of God"; and he made it clear that the Spirit is manifested through the Son, by naming it the Spirit of the Son, just as he named it the Spirit of God, and by speaking of it as the mind of Christ, just as he spoke of God's Spirit as belonging to man.
...proceeds, having this as a mark distinctive of its existence according to hypostasis: that it is made known after the Son and together with Him, and subsists from the Father.
And the Son, making known the Spirit which proceeds from the Father through Himself and together with Himself, having alone in an only-begotten manner shone forth from the unbegotten Light, has no community whatsoever, as regards what is proper to the distinguishing marks, with the Father or with the Holy Spirit.
Do you hear what is the distinguishing mark of the hypostasis of the divine Spirit—that it is to be made known through the Son, but not to have its hypostasis from Him, but rather to subsist from the Father?
And the Lord Himself, saying in the Gospels, "When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who from the Father ...
(continued) ... proceeds"—did He not show that proceeding is a distinguishing mark proper to the Spirit, while causing to proceed belongs to the Father, since each of these is also hypostatic, and the hypostatic properties are distinctive?
Therefore, since according to the great Basil the Son has no community at all with the distinguishing marks proper to the Father, He will not have the causing-to-proceed either.
For this reason again the same Father, in his work "Against the Eunomians," says concerning the Spirit: the Son of God, holy fruit from the Holy One, eternal from the Eternal, the supplier of the Holy Spirit for the subsistence and forming of creation.
Now attend to what follows; for he says: he who does away with the Son has done away with the principle of the creation of all things; for the Word of God rules over the subsistence of all things, through whom all things came to be.
The Word of God rules over the subsistence of all things, but not over the subsistence of the divine Spirit; and He is the principle of the creation of all things, but not of the existence of the Spirit.
And how, when the great Basil here wishes to exalt the Son to the highest, would he—had he been able to call Him the principle of the divine Spirit, as though the Spirit had its being through Him—not have said so? Instead he called Him only its supplier, but principle only of the creation which has received its being through Him.
But Chrysostom the theologian, they say, declares: Christ came to us, gave us the Spirit which is from Him, and took up our body; and again: because the body of Christ became a temple of the divine power on earth, you too become a temple after His likeness; for you receive the Spirit sent forth from Him; just as, therefore, having recognized Christ you recognized God, so too you have received the Spirit of Christ as God.
(continued) Now concerning the recognition, it is plain from this very passage; and concerning the sending and the giving, we have spoken earlier as well.
Yet here too one must first consider what exactly Father Chrysostom means by the Spirit that is received and taught: the very essence and hypostasis of the Spirit, or the grace and the energy?
But that we may not weary ourselves with searching, let us put forward this same golden-mouthed theologian as interpreter of the very thing we now inquire into; for he, in his discourse "On the Spirit," says: the gift is sent, the Spirit is not sent.
And having heard John the forerunner and baptist saying of Christ that He received the Spirit from the Father not by measure—"for God gives the Spirit not by measure," he says, "but has given all things into His hand"—Chrysostom, expounding it himself, says: here by "Spirit" he means the energy; for it is this that is apportioned.
For we all received the energy of the Spirit by measure, but He received entire the whole energy; and if His energy is immeasurable, much more is His essence.
And after a little: for here he means the grace that came upon the flesh; for all the grace was poured out into that temple; for the Father gives the Spirit to Him not by measure.
But we possess only a little, a mere droplet of that grace; for "of his fullness," it says, "we have all received" (John 1:16)—as one might say, from that which overflows, from that which is in excess.
And you, hearing now the Golden-mouthed [John Chrysostom] saying "Christ gave to us," call also to mind those words which we spoke earlier: that God and the existence of God [the divine hypostasis] do not stand in relation to another as something given, nor is one given to anyone; rather, it is also without cause, having as its cause the one from whom it derives existence causelessly—not existing from him by reason of a cause.
And just as God and the existence of God are without cause, so too that which has come to be by reason of a cause [i.e. the divine energy] is common both to the Causeless One himself and to those who exist causelessly from him [the Son and the Spirit].
Therefore, although it is often said both by the God-man Word and subsequently by the God-bearing Fathers that the Spirit is sent and given by the Son, this is never said apart from a cause, nor without the person who receives, for whose sake also it is sent; but it has always been rendered conjoined with the causes—first by him who alone is both God and theologian [John the Evangelist], who also set forth the procession absolutely, without any cause whatsoever; and then by all those who speak through him, from whom we are taught that the hypostasis of the all-holy Spirit is not also from the Son, nor is this hypostasis given, nor received from anyone—but rather the divine grace and energy [is what is given].
And if indeed not all, nor always, make mention of the persons or of the causes, this is not because they do not think thus, but because these things have been said many times and are from that fact acknowledged.
And it is by not attending to this, nor giving it heed, that those who think in the Latin manner have misunderstood many of the sayings of Athanasius the Great and of the divine Cyril, and have wrongly perverted them.
"But what might one say," such people argue again, "upon hearing the God-speaking Gregory of Nyssa say that the Son is contemplated as prior in respect of the principle of causation of the hypostasis of the Spirit?"
...by offering in response that which is true and most evident even to those who give it but a little attention: namely, that the hypostasis of the Son is contemplated as prior to the hypostasis of the Spirit, derived from the Father—not according to the principle of being the cause of the Spirit, but according to the principle of his own hypostasis from the Father, which is to exist from the Father by way of generation.
For when one hears "Father," he straightway conceives him as the Father of an offspring; and when he hears the offspring as being also the Word, then he comes also to the conception of the divine Spirit.
Therefore this divine Gregory, president of Nyssa, says in the first of his books Against Eunomius: "Just as the Son is joined to the Father and, having his being from him, is not posterior in respect of existence, so again the Holy Spirit is held to the Only-begotten, who is contemplated as prior to the hypostasis of the Spirit only in conception, according to the principle of causation."
...that according to the principle of his own causation—that is, inasmuch as the Son is contemplated as prior, derived from the Father—nothing stands in the way to prevent the Spirit from being held [to the Son] and from being together with him at once from the Father.
And one must observe this also, which is plainly added: that he said the Son is contemplated as prior to the Spirit not simply in conception, but in conception alone; and that he called the Son to be from the Father, but says that the Holy Spirit is held to the Son—that is, that it exists from the Father together with the Son at once, yet does not have its being from him [the Son].
"But the same God-speaking Gregory of Nyssa," they say, "elsewhere wisely places the Son in the middle between the Father and the Spirit, and through him, who is immediately related to the Father, the Spirit also [is related]..." (p. ...
What then, if we show that he attributes the property of procession to the Father alone, and declares the Father to be the sole cause of the Son and the Spirit, and [says] that the Son and the Holy Spirit are both immediately from one and the same person, that very Father, and shows that whoever does not think thus is a polytheist?
For in teaching how in three persons there is one God, he says: All the persons of a man do not have their being immediately from the same person, so that, besides the things caused, the causes too are many and diverse.
But in the case of the Holy Trinity it is not so; for there is one and the same person of the Father, from whom the Son is begotten and the Holy Spirit proceeds.
And he undertook with such great zeal to show that the property of procession belongs to the Father alone, that he even brought forward as witness the divine David, sweet singer among kings, who declares the Holy Spirit to proceed not merely from the Father, but from his very hypostasis.
For in his discourse On the Knowledge of God, after philosophizing not a little concerning the Father and the Son, he says: "And the Spirit is that which proceeds from the paternal hypostasis; for this very reason David called it also 'the breath of his mouth' (Ps 33:6), that he might confirm the property of procession to belong to the Father alone."
What could be clearer, or more certain, or more incontrovertible, or more demonstrative than these words, that the Spirit does not also proceed from the Son?
For if it were also from him [the Son], then neither would each [the Son and the Spirit] be immediately from one person, nor could we dare to say that we worship one principle of the Godhead, nor to maintain firmly that the three persons are one God.
...the cause existed in two persons, as is seen also in our own case, then the property of procession would not belong to the Father alone, even though the Son too possessed the power of causing procession; but as it is, both Gregory of Nyssa himself confirms that it belongs to the Father alone, and he brings forward the God-ancestor David as further confirmation—or rather, the Holy Spirit who spoke through the prophets.
Do you see that you plainly think the opposite concerning the Spirit, and lay down doctrines contrary to it and fight against it, but do not rightly theologize the Spirit—having become a wicked arbiter of the God-begetting Godhead and a robber of the properties proper to God the Father, moving and transferring the immovable properties, and confounding your own part and throwing into confusion the peace that surpasses all understanding and is peace itself?
What then? Do you not shudder upon hearing these things, and do you not flee with all speed from this terrible error, and lament your former life as not having been spent in piety?
But let us examine also the testimony of Gregory of Nyssa just now adduced by them, and, having to the best of our ability reviewed it, let us clear up for all the difficulty in it which, for the most part, also produced their error; would that, having cleared it up, we might also deliver them themselves from the deception.
In his work To Ablabius, On why, although we speak of one Godhead in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, we forbid speaking of three gods, having set forth the utter unity of the divine nature, he says: "But if anyone should slander the argument as though, from its not admitting a difference according to nature, it were constructing some mingling and re-circulation of the hypostases, we shall make this defense against such a charge: that while confessing the unvarying sameness of the divine nature, we do not deny the difference according to cause and the thing caused, in which alone we apprehend the one to be distinguished from the other—believing the one to be (p. ...
For the one is immediately from the first, and the other is through that which is immediately from the first; so that the property of being only-begotten remains beyond doubt with the Son, and that the Spirit is from the Father is not cast into doubt—the mediation of the Son both preserving for himself the property of being only-begotten and not excluding the Spirit from its natural relation to the Father.
This, then, must first be said here to the Latins: since you suppose that not only that which is from a cause, but the cause itself, exists in two persons (for you place the cause of the divine Spirit in two persons, and in each of these differently)—if this most luminous luminary of Nyssa had thought as you do, he would have divided the cause before the thing caused.
But having done this [dividing not the cause but the thing caused], he is in no way evident as having even taken into mind that which you attempt to gather from his words—from which, to one who considers rightly, even the opposite of your doctrines is made manifest.
Then neither must this be passed over without notice: that after saying "we do not deny the difference according to cause and the thing caused," having called the Son, together with the Spirit, a thing caused, he added "in which alone we apprehend the one to be distinguished from the other," thereby plainly forbidding the Latin innovation—as though the Son were not only caused but also a cause—and in brief shaking off all the differences they have devised among these: that first the Father is the cause of the Spirit, and second the Son, and whatever else is akin to these. For he says, "in the cause and the thing caused alone do we contemplate the divine nature," and "we do not behold the cause in two persons, but of the thing caused" (p. ...
...alone do we conceive this difference as being in two persons—a difference which is not that one of these is also a cause while the other is only caused, as the Italians [Latins] think, or rather are deranged in thinking, but that the one is Son while the other is not Son.
For having said earlier in his discourse what these three are—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—namely, one supra-essential essence, and then showing how these three are, whether in a caused manner as having also a cause, or altogether causelessly, he says that the one of them is a cause, while the other has its being in a caused manner—and he says that the Son and the Holy Spirit have their being in a caused manner.
Then, wishing to show how each of these two persons exists in a caused manner—lest anyone suppose, as the Latins do, that he is again introducing that difference of cause and thing caused even between the Son and the Spirit—he says plainly that concerning these we conceive another difference.
But the Latins, in a God-opposing manner, say against this not "another," but "the same"; and again, while the saint set out to say how the Son has his being in a caused manner, they slander him as saying how he is a cause.
For that the Son is in any way a cause is nowhere shown to be either said or thought by this God-bearing Father, and least of all in the very words of his just now set before us.
...to exist, just as the Holy Spirit also does—in a caused manner, indeed, by way of generation; while the Holy Spirit too exists in a caused manner, yet not by way of generation.
For since both [persons] are spoken of—as of the Father and as from the Father, namely the Son and the Spirit—the great-minded one [Gregory] called the Son immediately related to the Father, and through the Son, who is immediately related to the Father, he said the Spirit is understood to be from the Father, yet not proceeding through the intermediary of the Son. (p. ...