'But there is nothing absurd,' he says, 'if one speaks of two principles — yet not opposed ones, but the one from the other, as Gregory the Theologian also says of the Son, the principle from the principle; for thus again there will be one principle, and the doctrine of the monarchy is preserved.'
And does not Elihu, who in discourse with Job spoke on behalf of God's justice, saying, 'The Spirit of the Lord is that which made me,' call the Spirit a creative principle?
And the divine psalmist David, singing that by the word of the Lord the heavens were established and by the Spirit the hosts of the heavens — does he not attribute the creative principle to the Spirit no less than to the Son?
If, then, because it is written 'the principle from the principle,' nothing hinders, according to you, from speaking of two principles, then neither, because it is written that the Spirit too is a maker, does anything hinder from speaking of two makers; or, because by the Word of God and the Spirit creation is established — that is to say, is constituted — there is nothing absurd in speaking of three principles.
1:127
Ἀλλοὐδαμοῦτῶνθεολόγωνεἶπέτιςοὔτεδύοοὔτετρεῖς
然而眾神學家中,無論誰,都從未說過「兩個」或「三個」。
But nowhere did any of the theologians speak of either two or three.
For just as we call each of those three adorable hypostases 'God,' and each of them 'God from God,' yet not on this account two or three Gods ever, so too we say 'principle from principle,' yet never two principles; for a second principle we have not, even to this day, heard from the devout —
But for us there is one God and one monarchy that is worshipped — not composed of two Gods, nor of two principles coming together into one; since neither in these respects is the object of our worship divisible to us.
And indeed it is not according to the same respect that it is both divided and gathered together; for it is distinguished by the hypostatic properties, but is united by the things pertaining to nature.
If, then, nothing hinders speaking of two principles, these, accordingly, are the [respects] by which it is divided; to be united again according to these is therefore impossible; the two, then, are not one.
Or rather, taking up yet another principle and granting it for the sake of argument, let us, so far as we are able, make clear the things pertaining to the most monarchical Principle, that we may both show him surnamed for theology to hold things fitly named, and may refute those who dogmatize two principles of the one Holy Spirit — both that they do dogmatize this, and that they do so wrongly.
Whenever, then, we say that the things brought forth from non-being are 'from God' — both the goodness through which they obtained being, and the grace implanted [in them], whereby each fittingly partook of well-being, and the [grace] subsequently added, through which the fallen returned to well-being — whenever we make our discourse of these and concerning these, we say that the Son, in the Holy Spirit, is principle and fountain and cause; not another — far from it! — but the same, inasmuch as the Father, through Him in the Holy Spirit, both brings forth and brings back and rightly holds together all things.
But the Father, besides being the fountain of all things through the Son in the Holy Spirit, is also fountain and principle of Godhead, being alone God-begetting.
and 'He who calls Him from the generations the Principle,' and 'with Thee is the Principle in the day of Thy power,' understand it of the created things — just as John too plainly cries out concerning Him in the Apocalypse, 'the Beginning of the creation of God' — not as a primal source, far from it (for He is God), but as their Maker; for He is partaker of the paternal Principle from which these come, which is also the title of the Lordship over all.
And if the Son is principle of the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, while it is impossible to share this principle with the Father — for the Father alone is theologized as the fountain-Godhead — then the Son would be principle of some other, different Godhead, and would have torn the Spirit away from the Godhead that wells up from the Father.
And yet the generative power is in both of them, but it is different and in different hypostases; wherefore these are not one principle, just as we adduced above the divine prelate of Nyssa as saying — and yet the one of these is from the other.
If, then, even here, where, though not one, yet the generative power is in both, it is not possible for the one [offspring] to have one principle, how, in the case of the supreme Trinity, are the two principles of the one Holy Spirit (according to them) one — in which there is by no means any communion in respect of God-begetting?
Either, therefore, let them too say that the Spirit is from the Son alone, and thus say that it is from one principle — consistently with themselves, indeed, but not piously (for it is not from the same source from which the Son is); and thence, again, there will be two principles in the Godhead, and the Father will no longer be greater in respect of being cause of the Son, for the Son too is equally cause of Godhead — or, saying that it is from the Father alone, let them piously assign to the Spirit, as also to the Son, one principle.
For so long as they say it is from the Son, or from both, but not from the Father alone, it is not possible for there to be one principle of the Godhead and of the one Spirit.
For if the Son shares with the Father in respect of God-begetting in emitting the Spirit, and the God-begetting [power] is one in them, and so is this procession from them, then this belongs to the nature, and there are not two principles, nor are the two one, but simply one — and the Spirit itself has been estranged from the divine nature, as not itself sharing in respect of God-begetting.
But if the Son does not share with the Father in this respect, nor is this 'emitting' one in them, then the procession of the Spirit belongs to the Son hypostatically; this procession, therefore, is different from the procession of the Spirit from the Father; for the hypostatic properties are different.
How, then, are the different principles one? — and that, when the great Dionysius, in the second chapter of his treatise On the Divine Names, says that whatever belongs to the Father and the Son is to be ascribed commonly and unitedly to the divine-ruling Spirit also; and when the great Basil, in his Refutatory chapters against the Eunomians, writes that all things common to the Father and the Son are common to the Spirit too?
If the emitting is common to Father and Son, it will be common to the Spirit too, and the Trinity will become a Tetrad; for the Spirit too will emit another Spirit.
But if, according to the Latins, the emitting is not common to the Father and the Son — inasmuch as the Spirit is emitted, according to them, by the Father mediately but by the Son immediately (for thus they say the Son too possesses the emitting power hypostatically) — then, according to them, the creating and the sanctifying, and simply all the natural [operations], are not common to Father and Son, since the Father creates and sanctifies through the Son, and makes and sanctifies through the Son as intermediary, whereas the Son does not [act] through a Son.
Consequently, according to them, the Son possesses the creating and sanctifying hypostatically; for [He does so] immediately, and not, as the Father, mediately; and thus
He differs in nothing as regards the hypostatic [properties]; and therefore the nature [differs in nothing] from the hypostasis, so that, according to them, God would be neither tri-hypostatic nor tri-natured.
And if then they should say that the Son creates and sanctifies through the Spirit — but, in the first place, it is not customary for the theologians to say that the Son or the Father is creator of created things 'through the Spirit,' but rather 'in the Holy Spirit';
and next, besides their not even thus escaping the absurdity shown above — for the Son is not again revealed as creator 'through a Son,' as the Father is — it will follow for them to say that the creating and sanctifying are not common to the Spirit either, inasmuch as [it acts] not through another, nor as the Father, or even the Son, performs these.
According to them, then, the Spirit too possesses the creating and sanctifying hypostatically, as creating and sanctifying not mediately, as the Father does.
Hence again, according to them, these things are shown both to be [hypostatic] and to be indistinguishable from the hypostatic [properties] — namely, the natural [operations].
Have they not, then, plainly fallen away from the supreme Trinity, and from the unity of the faith, and from the communion of the Holy Spirit — those who thus speak and think these things?
1:175
Ἀλλάγάρἐπανέλθωμενὅθενἐξέβημεν
但讓我們回到先前離題之處。
But let us return to the point from which we digressed.
For who, hearing or saying or believing that the Holy Spirit has His existence from both — from the Son and the Father — and from the Son immediately, but from the Father mediately, and [hearing] the things bandied about and chanted by them — 'proximate' and 'in order' and 'remote' — who, hearing and believing these things, will not glorify two principles of the one Spirit?
And indeed, in the case of creation — of which the Son too is manifestly cause and co-cause with the Father, since it received its being from the Father through Him and from Him — it is altogether impious to say that we do not call creation 'from the Son,' and that the creative [power] is a property of the Father's hypostasis.
Consequently, if the Holy Spirit, which exists by procession, also had its being from the Father through the Son and from Him, it would not be at all the part of a devout man to say that we do not say the Spirit's being is 'from the Son,' and that the property of emitting belongs to the Father alone.
But since those who say these things are David the God-ancestor, and Gregory the most brilliant luminary of the Nyssaeans, and Damascene the God-bearer, then of all necessity those who call the Son co-cause with the Father in the case of the all-holy Spirit, and who grant Him existence 'from the Father through the Son and from the Son,' are as far removed from true religion as the aforenumbered saints, and those who theologize in concord with them, hold fast to it.
And this too is among the most necessary things to perceive: that just as we, having our generation 'from the Father through the Son and from the Son,' call upon and confess both 'Father' and 'maker' — both together and each apart — so too each [of them] would be called both 'Father' and 'emitter' of the divine Spirit, both together and apart, if indeed the Spirit had its existence 'from the Father through the Son and from the Son.'
But all such things, manifoldly confounding the divine hypostases, plainly establish that the Holy Spirit does not have its existence also from the Son.
From the Father alone, then, does the Holy Spirit proceed, just as the Son is begotten from the Father alone, and proximately and immediately He depends on the Father in respect of existence, even as the Son does — even if He has come to be 'Spirit of the Father' through the Son, inasmuch as the one who emits is also Father.
And since the testimony of two men is true, according to the word of the Lord, and 'by two or three witnesses every word shall be established,' we too, leaving aside the others for the present because of their length, will present to you three witnesses, plainly forbidding your addition.
And let there come forward first the one who is also first in time, Basil the Great; for in his chapters Against Eunomius he says: 'God begets, not as man does, yet truly begets; and that which is begotten from Him reveals a word not human, but reveals a true word from Himself; He sends forth Spirit through a mouth, not such as the human, since neither is God's mouth bodily; and the Spirit is from Him, and not from elsewhere.'
And elsewhere he shows that this Word too comes forth from the same mouth: 'For if you do not believe,' he says, 'that the Spirit has come forth from the mouth of God, neither will you believe in the Word.'
Do you see plainly that the Son is 'Word,' but not 'mouth' of the Father — that mouth from which, according to the great Basil, [the Spirit] comes forth in respect of existence, as the Holy Spirit?
And in the same manner his brother, who also thinks brotherly things, Gregory, in his discourse On the Knowledge of God, says: 'And the Spirit, which proceeds from the paternal hypostasis.'
For this reason David also said 'Spirit of [His] mouth,' but did not also say 'Word of [His] mouth,' that he might confirm the property of emitting as belonging to the Father alone.
After him, let the living luminary of Alexandria, Cyril, come forward to bear witness together with that unerring witness of the truth; for he says in his work On the Holy Trinity: 'The three adorable hypostases are known and believed in the Father without beginning, and in the Only-begotten Son, and in the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father — not by generation, as the Son, but proceeding, as has been said, from the Father alone, as from a mouth, yet made manifest through the Son and speaking in all the holy prophets and apostles.'
And again elsewhere: 'Not as the Son is from the Father by generation, so also the Holy Spirit is from the Son by procession — away with such blasphemy and polytheism! For with us there is one cause and bond of both persons: the Father.'
1:201
Ἆρἔστιτρανότερονἔλεγχοντῆςσῆςδυσσεβείαςπαρελθεῖν;
還能舉出比這更明確的話來駁斥你的不虔麼?
Is it possible to bring forward a clearer refutation of your impiety?
But this too the Spirit has given us — John, who made wise the man from Damascus; for he says: We say the Spirit is of the Son, but we do not say from the Son; rather we confess that through the Son He is made manifest and imparted to us.
And leaving you to string together in succession the others — who are very many, well-nigh as many as the Fathers, and who speak in their own writings no less than if they were alive — I will judge you out of your own words; and assuredly God too [will judge you].
For when you yourself say that the Spirit proceeds 'from the Father and the Son,' and 'alone' is not added, do you not, even from these words, conceive the Spirit to be from these alone, and understand 'alone' together with it, even if you do not utter it aloud?
1:206
Ἀλλάζητήσομενκατάτήνσήν, ἵνοὕτωςεἴπω, ( σελ
那麼,我們是否要照你的推理(姑且這樣說)來追問,
But shall we inquire, according to your reasoning, so to speak,
No indeed; but rather, that I may again from these same things compound for you the cure of your truly grievous wound, and may draw you out of both impious dogmas and words — tell me, O excellent one, if someone should ask you concerning the Son: since it is written, 'We beheld His glory, glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father,' and 'I believe in one Son, begotten of the Father before the ages,' and the other things enumerated above for you, to which 'alone' is not added — would you, adding [it], say that the Son was begotten 'from the Father and from the Holy Spirit,' alleging this very pretext, that 'alone' is not added?
For nowhere is the Spirit called 'begetter' — you will rightly say, together with us — nor does it possess anything in common with the Father which is not also common to the Son; nor is the one brought forth from the dyad, nor is it referred back into the dyad; nor is the Monad moved into a Monad, and again the dyad into another Monad; but the Monad, being moved in a God-befitting manner into a dyad, came to rest at the Triad.
These, then, are among His distinguishing marks; for He alone [is such]; the Holy Spirit, therefore, will have no communion with respect to these, since 'the things of the supra-essential God-begetting do not convert into one another,' Dionysius the heavenly-minded would again have said.
by your own feathers, and have been truly profitably smitten by the word that does battle on behalf of the right; for, as far as concerns the word itself, you have not only been smitten, but also healed, according to what is said, as by God: 'I will smite and I will heal.'
For whatever you would say, together with us and with the truth, against those who say the Son was begotten 'from the Father and from the Spirit' — alleging various pretexts in their sins, or rather impieties, and namely that 'alone' is not added to 'begotten of the Father' — these same things you yourself must now hear from us and from the truth, you who say that the Holy Spirit proceeds 'from the Father and the Son,' and who try to confirm this from another quarter, namely from the fact that 'alone' is not added to 'proceeds from the Father.' For from the very adoption-as-sons through the Holy Spirit will he fall away who says that the Spirit is also from the Son. For where in the God-inspired oracles could anyone find the Son named 'emitter,' even though by the great theologian Gregory all the appellations of the Son have often been enumerated — and not only enumerated but also contemplated?
He who, in expounding 'Only-begotten,' says: 'Not that He is alone from one alone and only, but also in a singular manner' — which elsewhere he called 'singularly, in a peculiar manner,' expounding this same thing again.
But if the Father too is called 'Father only,' it is fittingly so — for the Spirit too is from the Father — and the Spirit is called 'of the Father,' and the Father would be called also 'of the Spirit,' as its cause; for the great James, the brother of God, called Him 'Father of the lights,' that is, of the Son and the Spirit, as also Athanasius the Great says in his exposition.
[The Son] has [the Spirit], just as indeed He does; [but only if He were emitter] would the Son too be called 'Father of light,' that is, of the Holy Spirit — even if, according to you, the Spirit is from Him.
If, then, it had been [right] to name such things — such as 'Father of light' or 'emitter of the Holy Spirit' — how would not Gregory, the great in theology, have set this before well-nigh all His other names, even though he was striving to demonstrate [the Son's equality] with the Father?
If, then, being 'emitter' had belonged [to Him], how would he not have called it 'a thing so great,' through which he would have thought to demonstrate even more [His] equality with the Father?
1:226
Ἀλλοὐκεἶπεν˙οὐκοῦνοὐδέπρόσεστιν
但他並未這樣說;所以這事也不屬於〔子〕。
But he did not say so; therefore neither does it belong [to Him].
For this great theologian does not even simply lay down 'that which proceeds' as a property of the Spirit, but 'that which proceeds from the Father' — foreseeing, no doubt, and forestalling your impious addition.
For having said a little before that the Father is 'begetter and emitter,' but the Son is 'not emitter, but only offspring,' he proceeds, saying: 'But we, standing within our own definitions, introduce the Unbegotten, and the begotten, and that which proceeds from the Father.'
He did not say that 'that which proceeds' simply is a property of the Spirit, lest anyone should suppose the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Son or also from the Son; for 'the begotten' introduces the Father together [into the mind], but 'the proceeding' does not do so likewise.
For this reason he set down 'that which proceeds from the Father' as a property of the Spirit; for this, says the great Basil too, is the distinguishing sign of the property according to hypostasis which the Holy Spirit possesses: 'to be known after the Son and together with Him, and to subsist from the Father.'
1:231
Ἀλλὁρᾷς, ὅπωςπαρἡμῶν ( σελ
但你豈不看見,你被我們逐出〔教會的〕相通,乃是何等公正麼——
But do you see how justly you have been driven by us
For either you will call the Son too 'Father' — as has been shown above — so that the Spirit may be 'proceeding also from Him' for you; or 'to proceed from the Father' will not be a property of the Spirit for you, nor will you reckon 'to emit' to be a property of the Father, and you will theologize contrary to him who acquired the surname of 'theologizing,' and you will take your stand on the truly opposite side, and will become outcast from us; for we know his utterances to be revelations of the Holy Spirit.
But indeed, just as, when moisture proceeds from moist bodies and has this as its property, it is also the property of the moist bodies to emit the moisture, in the same way too, since the Spirit has as its property 'to proceed from the Father,' it is also of necessity the Father's [property] 'to emit the Spirit.'
To the Father alone, therefore, belongs the procession of the Spirit; and the Spirit always proceeds from the Father alone, according to an existential, not a manifestative, coming-forth.
For even in those cases where 'from the Father' is not uttered together with 'that which proceeds,' it is always supplied for those who hear intelligently, just as in the case of the Son 'from the Father' is supplied together with 'that which is begotten.'
For each of us all is begotten; but the Son alone is begotten 'from the Father' — that is to say, 'from God the Father'; so that this conjoined [phrase] is His property and is always understood together, even if it is not uttered together.
Consequently, it is not 'that which simply proceeds' that is the property of the Holy Spirit, but 'that which proceeds from the Father'; for He is always Father.
And not only is 'from the Father' supplied together with 'that which proceeds,' but also 'from the Father alone,' just as it is with 'that which is begotten.'
For as the inspired theologians teach us — which we also said above — apart from 'by generation' and 'by procession,' the Spirit too is 'from the Father' just as the Son is; consequently it is altogether impossible [for it to be] also from the Son.
How, then, does the same Gregory, the great in theology, say: 'The Unoriginate, and the Origin, and that which is with the Origin, are one God; and the nature is one for the three; and the union is the Father, from whom and to whom the rest are referred — not so as to be confounded, but so as to be held [together]'?
For one who hears that the Spirit is joined to the Father 'through the Son' might understand this as being said on account of the [order of] utterance in the confession, the Son being placed in the middle.
For thus you will rightly take the 'through' not as the 'from' — that would be wrong — but as the 'with,' in concord with him who is surnamed for theology.
And 'to accompany' is 'to follow along with,' as the same [author] says there; so that the Spirit is from the Father not also 'from the Son,' but 'together with the Son' — the procession following the generation without interval and timelessly.
And he said 'we have learned,' inasmuch as the God-bearers before him so taught; from whom, being initiated thus to understand 'the Spirit through the Son,' he altogether forbade saying that this is 'from the Son.'
And if the great Basil says that there is nothing discordant in taking 'through' for 'from' — but [he says this] in the case of created things, wherefore he also adduced the Apostle who said, 'from Him and through Him and unto Him are all things' (for from Him all things were created, and through Him are held together, and unto Him all existing things are turned) — yet the sacred Damascene, in the seventh of his Theological chapters, having again set forth what we said above, in agreement, after certain things, with the Catechetical Oration of the inspired Gregory of Nyssa, says that the Holy Spirit is an essential power, contemplated in itself in a distinct hypostasis, and being manifestative of Him — that is, of the Word — and unable to be separated from the God in whom it is, and from the Word which it accompanies: is it not plain even from this that the Holy Spirit is not also from the Son?
Yet, since by the theologians sometimes the Father is said to be 'in the middle' of the Son and the Spirit, sometimes the Son 'in the middle' of the Father and the Spirit, and sometimes the Spirit 'in the middle' of the Father and the Son, the Spirit could not be 'third from the Father,' nor could it have its being 'from the Father through the Son.'
For with three points placed in succession, none of those lying at either extreme could ever be in the middle; rather, the 'middle-ness' conceived in theology resembles the points at the corners of an equilateral triangle, lying at the extremities; for there each is found to be in the middle of the other two on either side.
If, then, someone should posit the one as the principle and cause of the two centres, that one necessarily stands proximately and immediately related to each — and indeed in the same way among the units.
And what of those who say that each one of them stands related to the other no less than to itself? Do they not most plainly establish that they stand immediately related to one another?