God The Holy Ghost part 75.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

Next in the order of witnesses we have Didymus, whose three very erudite volumes have been done into the Latin tongue by St. Jerome. He says:—"He shall not speak of Himself; that is to say, without Me and the wishes of the Father, because He is not inseparable from Mine and the Father's will, because He is not of Himself, but of the Father and Me. His very substance is of the Father and Me." It is interesting to consider the interpretation of the words, "He shall receive." They are clear, orthodox and in exact harmony with the reading of St. Athanasius. Didymus says: —"we must understand what it means to 'receive,' in connection with the divine nature. Just as the Son by giving does not part with what He gives, nor is it at any loss that He giveth to others; likewise the Holy Ghost receiveth not what before He had not, for if He were to receive what He had not before, after the gift had been transferred the giver would become empty and cease to have what he had given. As we observed before in arguing on incorporeal natures so do we in the present instance understand that the Holy Ghost receives what had been His by nature and does not mean a giver and a taker, but signifies one substance. Inasmuch as the Son also is said to receive from the Father the wherewithal of His substance, neither is the Holy Ghost aught else in substance but such as is given Him by the Son."

These words avow in clear accents the Latin Dogma. The schismatic ruse is but an endeavor to read into the procession of the Holy Ghost the idea of temporal communication— works ad extra, in time—of the Holy Ghost and the gifts of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son in the capacity of minister or servant and not the immanent and eternal procession of the Holy Ghost. The Fathers repudiate this idea and sustain the orthodox idea of the substantial production.

The Holy Ghost eternally receives from the Son in conjunction with future effect in time, the inspiration of the Apostles or the receiving, in the matter of the doctrine of Christ, the assistance of the Church. Christ bestows the Holy Ghost, not as a thing aloof from, and outside of, Himself, but, something, on the contrary, His very own and of Himself. St. Cyril says, "Since Christ brings forth the law, the Spirit of Himself as being in Him and naturally existent of Him brings forth the law." (Thesaurus.) Now to exist naturally from any one is the same as having one's origin from such a one; it is the same as being produced by Him. Hence the Holy Ghost 'receiving' of Christ does not "participate" in Christ. "By no means," says St. Cyril, "far from it to my mind. How can He Who is in Him and of Him and Whose own He is participate in Him, just as if He were to be sanctified by some external bond, and how is He to be, according to nature, outside Him, of Whose very Self we say He is." (Dial, vii de. Trinit.) The Greek affair has its side lights.

It is an established fact that the words of St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Basil have been tampered with by the so-called Greeks, but, authentic copies of the Fathers furnish the reverse of comfort to the enemies of the "Filioque." Cardinal Bessario found in the monastery of Christ the Saviour what he remarks as being "a source of tears and wonder. In a most ancient edition some one with a bold mind and still bolder hand had used an iron instrument to erase the parchment. But the thing miscarried, for since a space was left unfilled in, the very syllables half appearing revealed the audacity of the proceeding and clearly expressed the very truth." A similar fraud was detected in the Council of Florence when Joseph Methonensus disproved Marcus Ephesinus. Holy Writ compares the Holy Ghost to the waters and God to the fountain—particularly so St. John, (vii, 38, iv, 13,) and the Prophet David (in Ps.xxxv, 10.) St. Athanasius takes occasion therefrom to remark as follows:—"David knew that the Son with the Father is the Fount of the Holy Ghost." And by Jeremias the Son says, 'This people have done Me two wrongs, they have abandoned Me, the Fount of Life." St. Chrysostom says, "The Saviour thereby shows that He is Himself the Fount of Life, the Holy Ghost, the Living Waters." The substantial emanation of the Holy Ghost from the Son,— in other words the procession—is amply set forth in such kindred words as "flow forth"—proceed, "go forth from," "buist forth from," "own Spirit of Jesus Christ," "breath," "vapor," "odor of flowers"—all of which militate for the substantial procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. Let us repeat the words; "From Me," (that is the Son,) "the Spirit proceeds. I say from Me, I mean also from the Father; what is Mine is the Father's. This is how you are to understand the Word He shall receive of Mine." Another cavil of the schismatics is asserting that what the Holy Ghost receives from the Son He receives because the Son is in the Father. This is not so. The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, that is, receives from the Father and Son what is in the Father and Son as formally Father and Son. The heretical interpretation would impair the directness and perfection, aye, the real procession itself, of the Holy Ghost from the Son. As a matter of fact, "all things that are the Father's," (except alone the formal idea of Father) "are in identical number the Son's. Our Lord teaches that among all these things common to the Father and the Son is contained the virtue and act of communicating all things to the Holy Ghost, that is, of spirating the Holy Ghost by the communication of essence together with all its absolute perfections." (Franz. De Deo Uno et Trino, p. 455.) "The Father has the virtue of principle so that the Holy Ghost receives what is the Father's, therefore, also, the virtue of principle is Mine also so that the Holy Ghost receives of Mine." (Fulgentius Contra. Fabian.) In reply to the schismatics who scoff at the internal procession as being understood when a divine Person is sent and receives, it is to be said that, "whatever and howsoever One divine Person" (of Whom there is but one nature,) "may be said to accept or rather receive from another divine Person, such a thing cannot be conceived without perverting the whole mystery unless internal procession is supposed. For, God cannot accept to Himself from another only inasmuch as one Person is relative to another Person, by origin. But this origin takes place by the communication of the divine nature itself." (Franz, p. 457.) With divine Persons action means the divine essence, (with respect ad extra?) like-wise the communication of operation from one person to another is nothing less than the communication of the divine essence or nature. The Holy Ghost "receiving" from the Son can only be understood in the sense that the Son is the principium of procession communicating essence. The theologic consideration of the present truth has its message in our practical life. We see more and more the reason why we ought to cling to the Church and set the highest possible value on her infallible magisterium. We are thereby convinced of the disabilities of the human mind and of how, without the sure light of faith, the most skilled in human wisdom and the most finished in culture should go astray and be baffled. We find this to be true not only in connection with the revealed truth in its broader outline, but, also, in the component elements of its most august but intricate mechanism, that is to say, in all the lights and shades of the revealed economy. Church Dogmas are not mere assertions; they are divine assertions; and these form the laws and principles, without which, there is no religious liberty.