By Henry Aloysius Barry
Gregory Nyssene has recorded these words:
"Therefore, the Spirit which is from God, is also the Spirit of God, but the Son, though He is from God, neither is, nor is said to be of the Spirit, nor may the relationship be twisted about."
The Holy Ghost is here and there called, "Spirit of the Son," or the "Spirit of Christ," or the "Spirit of the Father and Son," but you cannot say that the Second Person is the "Son of the Spirit." . This order of the Trinity makes profession of the order of relationship of origin and principle such as exists in the Blessed Trinity.
When the Father is said to be greater than the Son, reference is made to dignity or authority, and merely goes to show that one is the origin or principle of the other. Our Lord intimates that the Holy Ghost is greater than He Himself— " by the Spirit of God, cast out devils," and "whosoever shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come." St. Athanasius takes up the point and assures us that our Lord is now speaking in the role of Man. When He is speaking in the capacity of, or according to, the divine Nature, He is greater than the Holy Ghost, that is to say, the Third Person proceeds from Him — and the Father, of course. Our duty in this matter is plain; it urges us to preserve with care the sacred order of the Trinity and to draw constant benefit from an enlightened appreciation of the orthodox profession, inasmuch as it sets forth the true relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
The Holy Ghost is called by the Greek Fathers the 'Image of the Son.' The angelic doctor comments on this:—"The Holy Ghost," says St. Thomas, "cannot be called the natural image of the Son—as St. Cyril asserts —only inasmuch as He is like the Son according to nature, receiving His nature from the Son." Says St. Cyril of Alexandria:—"If the Spirit of God is termed the 'Image of the Son,' He is therefore God and nothing else." (Thesaur. xxxiii.) The Holy Ghost is called "the Word of the Son." St. Thomas understands this in the sense that the saints, inspired by the Holy Ghost, have spoken of the Son. —"But there is another sense more strict, which signifies origin and procession of the Holy Ghost, for St. Cyril calls the Holy Ghost the 'mind of God,' inasmuch as He naturally proceeds from the substance of the Son." (Thesaur. xxxiv.) The Holy Ghost is called the "Countenance of the Son," in order to indicate procession from the Son and that He receives from the Son a likeness or identity of nature. We have already pointed out the calumny against the solid procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son — "Filioque " —when we made reference to St. John Damascene. The academic elucidation is interesting to the elite of the schools, but it is, in a way, simple enough to interest the least among us. It is based on the use of, and distinction between, the two words or prepositions, ek and dia — to anglicize the Greek preposition — which means 'from' and 'by,' or 'through!' The key to the whole demonstration we get from St. Augustine. It runs like this:—"The principle of all Divinity, or better still of all Godhead, is the Father," that is to say, the Father is principium —origin or cause—by no principle produced;— he is the primordial cause and fountain-head, having all that He has non-communicated. The ek —
from —goes to illustrate and to keep well in the foreground the truth and order of the divine relations. The dia —'through' the Son —does not indeed negative the procession of the Holy Ghost from' the Son, but by the preposition 'that is 'through' the Son, St. John and other fathers would indicate, yea, impress upon us, this fact, namely, that the Son has not from Himself the power of production but He receives all things from the Father. It is in this light that we find St. Gregory Nyssene speaking these words: —"The Son is proximately from the first 'principle,' and the Holy Ghost is 'through' Him Who is proximately from the first principle." St. Basil bears witness to it, —"the word 'through' whom embraces the profession of the 'principal cause,' but is not intended to exclude the 'efficient cause.'" The 'dia' or 'through' the Son does not, therefore, exclude the Son from efficiency or the 'cause' of the Holy Ghost, but merely goes to demonstrate that the Father is the primordial cause. The two prepositions 'through' and 'from' have been, as we before remarked, convertibly employed. St. Cyril says:—"Do we not say that Emanuel was born 'through' the Holy Virgin." Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ 'by' the will of God. (I Cor. i.) As the Holy Ghost proceeds 'from' the Father because He is of the nature of the Father, in a like or equal manner He proceeds also 'through' the Son because He is naturally of Him and consubstantial with the Son." St. Basil says:—"That the Father builds by the Son does not demonstrate any dearth of efficiency, neither does it weaken action on the part of the Son, but, rather, signifies union of will."
