...again saying as it were this: that since the Cause and First as Cause is and is called Father of lights (that is, of the Son and the Spirit, for both, and not the Son alone, are second to the Father, as Gregory the Theologian also says in his Verses), since therefore this First is called Father of the lights with respect to both (for you would not find in the Scriptures any other appellation of Him), of the two that derive from this Cause, the light that proceeds by generation from light is at once understood as immediately joined to the Father, just as Nyssa himself maintains in the second book Against Eunomius, writing that the Father could not be conceived as set apart by Himself unless the Son were joined to Him through the very utterance of 'Father'; and again, having faith in the Father, the moment we hear 'Father' we shall together receive in our mind the Son as well.
The Son, then, both is and is conceived as from the Father; but the Holy Spirit, considered in itself, would indeed be and be conceived as from a Projector, yet not as from the Father directly; but through the Son, who is immediately conceived as from the Father, the Spirit too would be from the Father—the Father causing the Spirit to proceed, but begetting the Son.
1:903
ἘκγοῦντοῦγεννῶντοςτόμήγεννητόνΠνεῦμαπῶςἄνρηθείη;
那麼,非受生的聖靈,怎能說是出於那「生者」呢?
How then could the Spirit, which is not begotten, be said to be from the Begetter?
Is it not because of the Son, who being only-begotten is for this reason at once conceived together with the Begetter, keeping His own begottenness as His sole property and preserving it, while showing the Spirit to be from the Father not by generation?
Through the Son, therefore, the Spirit has its being and being conceived as from the Father; yet through itself it is from the Projector who projects it immediately and directly.
Therefore, as we said, he called the Son not a cause but only caused, and caused equally with the Spirit; and likewise with respect to the cause he distinguished these from the Father—although, according to the Latins' interpretation, it ought not to have been put thus.
...what is according to them seen as intermediate among the hypostases; then, advancing in his argument and saying that the Son is at once conceived as from the Father, and adding the reason, he ought, if he held the Latin view, to have said it so that the Son might appear not only as caused but also as cause; yet he says nothing of the kind, but rather, he says, that the Son alone may appear as begotten—which is the same as saying 'caused' in this manner.
And take this too into your mind: that this great one did not say the mediation of the Son is co-operative, but non-hindering—that is, not preventing the Spirit also from proceeding immediately from the Father.
Fire, then, when it has taken hold of matter, is by nature able both to give off vapor and to give light at the same time—begetting the light, as it were, and causing the vapor to proceed. From the giver of light, therefore, the light both is and is conceived immediately, of itself, from it; and likewise the vapor from that which gives off vapor.
But if anyone should say the vapor is from the giver of light, he will say it 'through the light,' having conceived the vapor as from the giver of light by means of the light—the mediation of the light keeping the property of being only-begotten to itself and not hindering the vapor's relation to that which gives light, that is, not impeding its being immediately from it.
Cain was a son of Adam and his only-begotten before he begot the others; and Eve was a 'portion' (taken from him). And then she became and was conceived as in all truth a portion of the father, through Cain both being and being conceived and (p. ...)
...and being called a portion of the father, the mediation of this son both keeping its only-begotten character to itself then and not preventing Eve from being a portion of the father; yet it was not on this account that Eve was originally taken from Adam mediately and not immediately.
But just as we conceive the Spirit, which is not begotten, as from a generative source through the Son—which is the same as saying 'from the Father'—for it is on account of the Son that He is and is called Father;
so through the Spirit itself, which is not begotten but proceeds, we conceive it as immediately from that which causes it to proceed—which is the same as saying 'from the Projector.'
I wished also to demonstrate at greater length concerning the preposition 'through'; but what further need of words, when this has been interpreted for us by the Holy Spirit itself?
For I, inquiring who first said the Holy Spirit is 'through the Son'—or rather who, by divine inspiration, delivered this to us (for our theology brings forth no expression that was not from the beginning revealed by divine revelation)—inquiring then who this first speaker was, I found that the Holy Spirit itself, concerning itself, revealed and at the same time interpreted this through John, most theological among the apostles, when the Mother of God urged on Gregory the Wonderworker; and the author of the Life of the wondrous Gregory and of the revelation contained in it, (p. ...)
...of the same name and no less worthy—for this is Gregory of Nyssa, whose saying we clarified a little above and found that the Spirit is conceived as from the Father through the Son, but not as proceeding (from the Son)—he, doing very well indeed, set before us in his very words that revelation, which thus briefly makes clear the things of the Spirit. For, he says, 'There is one Holy Spirit, itself also having its existence from the Father and manifested through the Son'—that is, to human beings.
1:923
ὉρᾷςπῶςχρήτόΠνεῦμανοεῖνκαίλέγεινδιΥἱοῦ;
你可看見,當如何把聖靈想為、並說為「藉著聖子」嗎?
Do you see how one must conceive and speak of the Spirit as 'through the Son'?
1:924
Δηλονότιφανερωθέντοῖςἀνθρώποιςδιαὐτοῦ
即作為藉著祂而向眾人顯明者。
Namely, as manifested to human beings through Him.
So then understand it likewise yourself, wherever you find that the Spirit is given and sent through the Son from the Father—if indeed you do not wish to be an opponent of God, but rather both godly and taught of God.
And if you should wish to put 'from' instead of 'through,' we shall by no means blame you—only think and add what is true: say that the Spirit is manifested to us from the Son. But if you say the existence of the Holy Spirit is 'through the Son' as subsisting from the Son, we shall set you outside piety and outside the Church as one who stands outside true religion; for since we have also learned that the divine Spirit accompanies the Word, being itself a power contemplated by itself in its own peculiar hypostasis, manifestive of the Word, and unable to be separated from the God in whom it is and from the Word which it accompanies—as procession follows generation inseparably and timelessly—how shall we not err if, taking 'through' in the case of procession over into 'from,' we do so?
Rather, we shall understand and take 'through' together with 'with,' as the namesake of theology, Gregory, says: 'For us there is one God, the Father without beginning, the origin of all things; the Son; and the Holy Spirit—not from the origin, but with the origin and together with the origin, from the Father.'
The divine Cyril in his Thesauri concludes through many arguments that the Spirit exists naturally in the Son from the Father, and writes that the Spirit passes naturally and essentially from the Father into the Son, through whom He, anointing all things, sanctifies them. From the Father, then, He abides eternally in the Son; but from the Father through the Son He comes to be in those being sanctified, whenever there should be need.
And consider this too, among the most necessary points: that whenever it makes no difference to say 'from the Father through the Son' and 'from the Father and from the Son,' and in this manner, in theology, 'from' and 'through' are equivalent to one another, they do not present the division or difference of the Holy Trinity, but its union and unalterableness, which is according to the natural properties, showing that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same energy and will.
But the Latins attempt to demonstrate the difference of the divine hypostases from these prepositions, and (claim) that the Spirit has its hypostasis differently, as from the two hypostases and from each of them.
That this 'through' shows the union and the unalterableness, the great Basil clearly establishes, writing in the eighth chapter of his work To Amphilochius: 'The Father's creating through the Son neither establishes the Father's creative act as incomplete nor implies the Son's energy as feeble, but rather presents the oneness of will.' He, then, who says the Spirit comes forth through the Son and from the Son in respect of the bestowal, has well presented the concord of will of the Father and the Son; for by the good pleasure of the Father and the Son, and the Spirit's own concurring good pleasure, the Holy Spirit is bestowed on the worthy.
For, according to the sacred Damascene, creation is a work of the divine will, but the Godhead is not—far from it; for, again according to the same, the pre-eternal and everlasting generation and procession are a work not of the will but of the divine nature.
For we know that manifestation is subject to time, and that all things subject to time came to be through the Son; therefore we say that the Spirit is manifested both from Him and through Him, but does not proceed (from Him).
If in a transitive and passing-through manner—alas, the impiety! For thus you think the Spirit passes as through a pipe of the Son, and so He who fills all things and is ever full will have an empty space within Himself; and the Spirit will be contained in the Son as in a place, and there will be a limit to the Son, in respect of which He contains the Spirit (for a place is the limit of that which contains); and the Spirit will not even be of the same nature as the Son, for the nature of a place and of that which is in it are not the same.
But if as through an instrument, this too is impious; for the nature of an instrument is one thing, and of that which acts through it another; and again the nature of that which through it accomplishes what is accomplished is yet another.
It remains, then, for you to say only this: that just as all things are through Him from the Father—not transitively but creatively, not as through an instrument but as a co-creator—so too the Spirit is through Him.
...itself, just as there too, co-creating, it perfects all things; or rather not itself, but another unalterably like it, contemplated in its own hypostasis. For when the Father creates through the Son in the Holy Spirit, that which comes to subsist is altogether other; and when the Father begets and causes to proceed before the ages—even though the things from Him are consubstantial—yet each is other than Him and than one another according to hypostasis.
Therefore, since (according to them) causing-to-proceed is common to the Father and the Son, the Spirit too must necessarily have this; and the Trinity will be a quaternity.
Yet this has been demonstrated and attested above at great length: that in every way and altogether the Father alone is one fountainal Godhead, alone the origin, alone unbegotten, alone the cause, alone Father, alone Projector, alone fountain of Godhead, alone the God-begetting Godhead; and that, as cause of the Son, the Father is greater, the Son being only caused, but not a cause of Godhead.
But if anyone is found saying the Son is greater than the Spirit, yet also the Spirit greater than the Son—as the divine Cyril says in the Thesauri; for having set forth that saying of the Savior, 'But if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons,' he added: 'If by the energy of the Spirit God is glorified in casting out demons, how is not that in which He is glorified greater than He?'
1:951
ΚατασκευάζωνἐντεῦθενἄκτιστονεἶναιτόΠνεῦματόἅγιον
—他由此確立聖靈乃是非受造的。
—from this establishing that the Holy Spirit is uncreated.
Such things are said of both the Son and the Spirit not because they are causes of one another—far from it—but because of the varied and manifold wisdom of God in His economy toward us, which through one another (p. ...)
But Cyril of Alexandria, they say, declares that the Son has naturally in Himself the properties and special things of the Father, the property of the Begetter passing naturally into Him; and he says the Spirit is from the substance of the Son, and that, poured forth from the Father through the Son, He sanctifies creation, and is poured forth essentially from both.
And again, in the seventh of his treatises issued To Hermeias, he clearly explains this to us concerning the Son: 'For,' he says, 'in absolving from sins the one who clings to Him, He thereupon anoints him with His own Spirit, which He Himself, as Word from God the Father, infuses, and causes to well up to us out of His own nature.'
It is indeed time for us to say to the one who advances such arguments: Are you still uncomprehending, and have you not at all understood, having heard from us many times above, that God, and existence from God, is causeless and beyond time?
Therefore, hearing that the 'pouring-forth' is temporal and for a cause (for it is poured forth after and on account of the one being sanctified; how could it be otherwise?), and moreover that it is given for the remission of sins by the Son, just as indeed by the Father, and is not poured forth absolutely but to certain persons—do you not recall what you have been taught by us and by the truth, that the pre-eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father is not for anything, nor toward anyone, nor at all subject to time?
Yet the sending was not a generation; for the Son was not begotten from both, nor for our sake, nor indeed after us—even though after us, for our sake, He came down essentially, being united to our nature according to hypostasis and becoming as we are, for our sake; (He came) not only before us, but also before the ages, being begotten from the Father alone.
It has therefore been poured out essentially for our sake and after us; for it manifested itself, supplying the divine power through itself, and moreover is ever present to us essentially, and assuredly also according to hypostasis—even though we partake least of all of the essence or the hypostasis, but of the grace.
And Peter, at once foundation and chief of the Church, made known to us the difference of the very outpouring of the Holy Spirit from both: 'For the Son, having received,' he says, 'the promise of the Spirit from the Father, poured out this which you now see and hear'—plainly saying that word of the Lord and Teacher: 'But when the Paraclete comes, whom I will send from the Father.'
...nor does the Spirit have its existence through the Son, but the Father has it from Himself, the Spirit proceeding from Him immediately, causelessly and pre-eternally; yet the Son also, He says, causes this to well up to us out of His own nature—rightly and most truly; for there is one nature for the three, and they are naturally in one another.
And as often as this God-minded Cyril says the Spirit is from the substance of the Son, he presents the consubstantiality, but not that the Son is a cause of the Spirit.
For he wrote such things against those who deny the consubstantiality: 'For the Holy Spirit is called living water, and the fountain of this water is the Father, who through the prophet says concerning the Jews: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and have hewn out for themselves broken cisterns.'
And the Son too is a fountain of this water, as Chrysostom also shows, writing about baptism: 'The Savior,' he says, 'shows Himself to be the fountain of life and living water—the Holy Spirit.'
But Christ shows the Holy Spirit itself also to be a fountain of this water: 'For whoever drinks,' He says, 'of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst forever; but the water that I shall give'—namely the Holy Spirit—'shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto eternal life.'
There are, then, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit together a fountain of the living water—that is, of the divine grace and energy of the Spirit.
For the grace of the Spirit, says Chrysostom the father, Scripture sometimes calls fire and sometimes water, showing that these are names not of essence but of energy.
For, to speak according to the divine Cyril himself, as he writes To Hermeias: 'The Son would not be conceived as other than the Father, as far as natural identity goes'; and assuredly the Holy Spirit also—as the same Cyril, expounding that gospel saying 'For He shall not speak from Himself,' says concerning this: 'The Holy Spirit is nothing other than the Son, as far as identity of nature goes.'
And the fountain of life, according to the great Dionysius, is the divine nature poured forth into itself, standing upon itself, and ever contemplated through itself.
'But it is not possible,' he says, 'for the Spirit to be from the substance of the Son and not be from His hypostasis; for they do not perceive that, whenever something is of one essence and hypostasis, that which has its existence in any way from that essence has it also from that hypostasis, and conversely; for whatever is from that hypostasis is also from that essence. But whenever something is of one essence, yet not of one hypostasis but of several, that which is from that one essence is not from the remaining hypostases of it, but from some one of them.'
Since, then, the most exalted and adorable Trinity is for us one nature in three hypostases, that which has its hypostasis from the essence is not from the remaining hypostases, but from some one of them—namely the paternal; for it is not possible for it not to be from this; therefore it is not also from another, but from that alone, if indeed from one.
And this is clear from human beings; for each of us is from the essence of Adam, but is not also from his hypostasis, because the essence of human beings is now one, but the hypostases are many.
But when human nature was in the beginning one essence and one hypostasis—that of Adam—Eve, being from the essence of Adam, was also from his hypostasis.
And likewise before Cain existed, when there was one male essence and hypostasis, Cain came from one and the same male essence and hypostasis, that of Adam; but when two men already subsisted according to hypostasis, Cain's son Enoch was indeed from the essence of Adam, but not also from his hypostasis—rather from that of Cain alone.
Those, then, who hold the Latin view, maintaining that the Spirit is also from the hypostasis of the Son—if indeed it is theologized as being from the nature—are shown, except for the divine Spirit, to hold that in God there is one hypostasis just as one essence, utterly setting aside the Father, showing the Son to be the only one according to hypostasis, and presenting the Holy Spirit as having its existence from the Son alone.
If, then, anyone, hearing 'the Spirit from the nature of the Son,' understands it as 'from the hypostasis,' he makes the Son of the same hypostasis as the Father, since He is consubstantial; or else he conceives the difference and distinction even in the divine nature, and not in the three divine hypostases alone—not hearing, among other things, Chrysostom the theologian teaching that the order distinctive of the divine hypostases is known to the saints, but a distinction of natures is to be rejected in the case of the Holy Trinity.
Therefore it would be well to say that the Spirit is not from the hypostasis of the Son, but from Him naturally and from the essence of the Son (p. ...)
...the Spirit, on account of the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and the consubstantiality of the divine Spirit with the Father and the Son being thereby shown—but not a different mode of the Spirit's existence from the Father; and it is equivalent to say also 'the Spirit is from the essence of the Son' on account of the consubstantiality, and that the Spirit is of the same essence as the Son.
...of the Spirit, as being more manifest and pre-announced and pre-confirmed; and the Son has naturally in Himself the properties and special things of the Father, the property of the Begetter passing naturally into Him—not the hypostatic properties and special things of the Father (for He has neither the being-without-origin and unbegottenness, nor the generative power), but the natural properties and boasts proper to the nature of the Father, which the Holy Spirit also has naturally.
And the divine Cyril, taking great pains in this—that no one be led astray to imagine the Holy Spirit to be from the hypostasis of the Son—as often as he says 'from His nature' and 'naturally' and 'according to nature,' says that the Holy Spirit also wells up from His nature, according to which He is the same with the Father, but nowhere in his words says 'from the hypostasis'; and he ever theologizes that the Son has the properties of the Father naturally and essentially and according to nature.
And indeed, having been slandered as though he glorified the Spirit as having its existence also from the hypostasis of the Son, he asserted this very thing—that he was being slandered—maintaining that the Spirit is proper to the Son and not foreign to Him, but not from the Son.
And this stands on record as a conspicuous and brilliant refutation of the Latins; who, from those very (Fathers) from whom they ought rather to have refrained from their malice, think it right to be led to the bad opinion that not the Father alone, but also the hypostasis of the Son, is a cause of the hypostasis of the divine Spirit.
1:1001
ὉδέλέγωνεἶναιἐκτῆςτοῦΥἰοῦὑποστάσεωςτόΠνεῦμα, (σελ
但凡說聖靈出於聖子位格者,(頁……)
But he who says the Spirit is from the hypostasis of the Son, (p. ...)
...on the ground that the divine Cyril said the property of the Begetter passes naturally into the Son—let him be put to shame by the divine Cyril himself, who writes in the Thesauri: 'How shall the Spirit not be God, having in itself essentially the whole property of the Father and of the Son, whose Spirit it also is, being bestowed upon creation through the Son?'
For according to their understanding, which they have acquired in the theologies of the God-bearing Fathers, the Spirit will be at once begotten and a begetter; of which what could be heard more novel?
But these things have just now been said by us, as it were superabundantly, against those who maintain the Spirit is from the hypostasis of the Son, since it has been said to be 'from the nature.'
For the divine Cyril here says to us that what wells up from the nature is not the nature of the Spirit, nor the hypostasis, but the energy, which wells up, according to the theologian Damascene, from the one tri-hypostatic nature.
That the energy of the divine nature is also uncreated, and that it is called natural and essential, the great Athanasius too will briefly establish, writing in his works Against Macedonius: 'The Father and the Son do not work by one and another providence, but by one and the same essential energy of the Godhead.'
And that such energy wells up not from some one of the hypostases, but from the tri-hypostatic nature, let the great Dionysius also bear witness, writing in the fourth chapter of his book On the Celestial Hierarchy: 'All things partake of providence, which gushes forth from the all-causing Godhead.'
And that the divine Cyril here, in saying the Spirit is given to us from the Father and the Son, does not mean the nature or the hypostasis of the Spirit, but its uncreated and natural grace and energy—a clear proof, among others, (p. ...)
...is also his mention of the Forerunner and Baptist's saying in the Gospel concerning Christ, which says the Spirit is given to the Son by the Father not by measure.
Thus the power of the truth of what we have said overcomes all things, making your difficulties an occasion of abundance, and by itself—as by a single straight line—refuting a multitude of crooked, divergent lines.
1:1012
Ταύτῃτοιτῶνμένγραφικῶςπροβαλλομένωνἅλις
所以,從聖經所引之事,已足夠了。
Therefore, enough of the things put forward from Scripture.
But since the Latins use against us—or rather against themselves—not only the scriptural sayings but also their own reasonings, come, let us examine what seems to them incontrovertible, with which, once resolved, the rest too will flow away dissolved; or rather, it will even be deprived of being named, by derivation, from 'reasoning' (dianoia), being shown to be unintelligible (adianoeta); for there is no need to go through these things one by one.
And although we just now had least of all chosen to extend our discourse beyond moderation, nevertheless our argument has been drawn out to length, stretched along together with their outflows born of ignorance.
'Everything that proceeds from something,' he says, 'proceeds through something, and this holds in all cases, even if the speaker does not indicate it by a word; and this in turn, the through something, is also said to be from that through which it is. Through what other, then, if not through the Son, is the Spirit?'
But not even in the case of created things that proceed according to nature shall we fail to understand the 'through something,' even when it is not stated.
1:1021
Οὐμήνδιάτοῦτοτοῖςκατάφύσιντάὑπέρφύσινὁμοιώσομεν
然而我們不會因此就把超本性之事比作按本性之事。
Yet not on this account shall we liken things above nature to things according to nature.
For answer me, you who intrude into things you have not seen: is not every son, being begotten from someone, begotten through someone, and does this not hold in all cases, even if the speaker does not indicate it by a word?