QUOTATIONS FROM EARLY EASTERN FATHERS

Several early Eastern Christian writers use language that suggests
that, if the question had been put to them explicitly, they would
have agreed with the statement that the Spirit proceed from the
Father and the Son jointly rather than simply from the Father. For
example (roughly in chronological order):

St. Gregory the Wonderworker wrote a Creed, around 265, from which
the following is taken:

 >      One God, the Father of the living Word, of subsistent
 > Wisdom and Power, and of the Eternal Image. Perfect Begetter of
 > the Perfect, Father of the only begotten Son.
 >      One Lord, Only of Only, God of God, Image and Likeness of
 > the Godhead, Efficient Word, Wisdom comprehending the
 > constitution of the universe, and Power shaping all creation.
 > Genuine Son of Genuine Father, Invisible of Invisible, and
 > Incorruptible of Incorruptible, and Immortal of Immortal, and
 > Eternal of Eternal.
 >      And one Holy Spirit, having substance of God, and who is
 > manifested [to men, that is,]* through the Son; Image of the
 > Son, Perfect of the Perfect; Life, the Cause of living; Holy
 > Fountain; Sanctity, the Dispenser of Sanctification; in whom is
 > manifested God the Father, who is above all and in all, and God
 > the Son, who is through all. Perfect Trinity, in glory and
 > eternity and sovereignty neither divided nor estranged.

      *(The bracketed phrase above is thought to be a later
        editorial addition.)

St. Athanasius writes in about 360 to Serapion of Thmius:

 > Insofar as we understand the special relationship of the Son to
 > the Father, we also understand that the Spirit has this same
 > relationship to the Son. And since the Son says, "everything
 > that the Father has is mine (John 16:15)," we will discover all
 > these things also in the Spirit. through the Son. And just as
 > the Son was announced by the Father, who said, "This is my
 > beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17)," so also
 > is the Spirit of the Son; for, as the Apostle says, "He has
 > sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba!
 > Father!' (Galatians 4:6)."

St Epiphanius of Salamis (315?-12 May 403), a scholar much admired
by St. Jerome, wrote in 374 in his ANKYROTOS (The Man Well
Anchored):

 >   For the Only-Begotten Himself calls Him "the Spirit of the
 > Father," and says of Him that "He proceeds from the Father,"
 > and "will receive of mine," so that He is reckoned as not being
 > foreign to the Father nor to the Son, but is of their same
 > substance, of the same Godhead; He is Spirit divine,... of
 > God, and He is God. For he is Spirit of God, Spirit of the
 > Father and Spirit of the Son, not by some kind of synthesis,
 > like soul and body in us, but in the midst of Father and Son,
 > of the Father and of the Son, a third by appellation.  ...
 >   The Father always existed and the Son always existed, and the
 > Spirit breathes from the Father and the Son; and neither is the
 > Son created nor is the Spirit created.

He further writes a year or so later in his PANARION (Breadbox):

 > The Spirit is always with the Father and the Son, ...
 > proceeding from the Father and receiving of the Son, not
 > foreign to the Father and the Son, but of the same substance,
 > of the same Godhead, of the Father and the Son, He is with the
 > Father and the Son, Holy Spirit ever subsisting, Spirit divine,
 > Spirit of glory, Spirit of Christ, Spirit of the Father. ...
 > He is third in appellation, equal in divinity, not different as
 > compared to Father and Son, connecting Bond of the Trinity,
 > Ratifying Seal of the Creed.

St Gregory of Nyssa (died 394), in his EPISTLE TO ABLABIUS, writes:

 > While we confess the invariableness of the [divine] nature we
 > do not deny the distinction of cause and of caused, by which
 > alone we perceive that one Person is distinguished from
 > another, in our belief that it is one thing to be the cause and
 > another to be from the cause; and in that which is from the
 > cause, we recognize yet another distinction. It is one thing to
 > be directly from the First Cause, and another to be through Him
 > who is directly from the First, so the distinction of being
 > Only-begotten abides undoubtedly in the Son, nor is it doubted
 > that the Spirit is from the Father; for the middle position of
 > the Son is protective of His distinction as Only-begotten, but
 > does not exclude the Spirit from His natural relation to the
 > Father.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, a principal champion of the orthodox faith
against the Nestorians, in a work called THE TWELVE ERRORS (or THE
TWELVE ANATHEMAS) written in 430, said:

 > We must not say that the one Lord Jesus Christ has been
 > glorified by the Spirit, in such a way as to suggest that
 > through the Spirit He made use of a power foreign to Himself,
 > and from the Spirit received the ability to work against
 > unclean spirits, and to perform divine signs among men; but
 > must rather say that the Spirit, through whom He did indeed
 > work His divine signs, is his own. [Error 9]

Earlier (probably around 424), in his THESAURUS (Treasury of the
Holy and Consubstantial Trinity), he said:

 > Since the Holy Spirit when He is in us effects our being
 > conformed to God, and He actually proceeds from Father and Son,
 > it is abundantly clear that He is of the divine essence, in it
 > in essence and proceeding from it. [Thesis 34]

      QUOTATIONS FROM EARLY WESTERN FATHERS

Now let us consider some early Western writers. The following
examples are again in roughly chronological order.

St. Hilary of Poitiers, "The Athanasius of the West," in his great
work DE TRINITATE (which he wrote in 356-359, while in exile in the
East because of his opposition to Arianism, just as the Eastern
bishop Athanasius was at the same time and for the same reason
exiled to the West by the Arian emperor Constantius):

 > Concerning the Holy Spirit... who is of the Father and the Son,
 > His Sources. [2:29]

 > We are all spiritual men, if the Spirit of God is in us. But
 > this Spirit of God is the Spirit also of Christ. And since the
 > Spirit of Christ is in us, the Spirit of Him also who raised
 > Christ from the dead is in us; and he that raised Christ from
 > the dead will vivify our mortal bodies too, on account of His
 > Spirit's dwelling in us. (quote from Romans 8:11) [8:21]

 > In the fact that before times eternal Your Only-begotten was
 > born of You, when we put an end to every ambiguity of words and
 > difficulty of understanding, there remains only this: He was
 > born. So too, even if I do not grasp it in my understanding, I
 > hold fast in my consciousness to the fact that Your Holy Spirit
 > is from You through Him. [12:56]

Pope St. Damasus I, in a statement that has been preserved in the
Acts of the Council of Rome of 382, writes:

 > The Holy Spirit is not of the Father only, or the Spirit of the
 > Son only, but He is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. For
 > it is written, "In anyone loves the world, the Spirit of the
 > Father is not in him (1 John 2:15)"; and again it is written:
 > "If anyone, however, does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is
 > none of His (Romans 8:9)". When the Father and the Son are
 > named in this way, the Holy Spirit is understood, of whom the
 > Son Himself says in the Gospel, that the Holy Spirit "proceed
 > from the Father (John 15:26)," and that "He shall receive of
 > mine and shall announce it to you (John 16:14)."

The QUICUNQUE VULT is an early Western Creed. Its origins are not
known with certainty, but many scholars suppose it to have been
written in the late 300's, and probably by St. Ambrose of Milan.  It
is explicit and emphatic on the Dual Procession, saying:

 >     The Father is of none,
 > neither made, nor created, nor begotten.
 >     The Son is of the Father alone,
 > neither made nor created, but begotten.
 >     The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son,
 > neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

St. Augustine taught that the Holy Spirit is the bond of love that
exists between the Father and the Son.

Writing to Pascentius, he says:

 > It is our faith to believe and profess that the Father and the
 > Son and the Holy Ghost are one God; but we do not call Him
 > Father Who is the Son, nor do we call Him Son Who is the
 > Father, nor do we designate Him either Father or Son Who is the
 > Spirit of the Father and of the Son. [Ep. 238, 2:14]

In his HOMILIES ON JOHN he writes:

 > Why then should we not believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds
 > also from the Son, when He is the Spirit also of the Son? For
 > if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from Him, when he showed
 > Himself to His disciples after His resurrection, He would not
 > have breathed on them, saying, "Receive the Holy Spirit." For
 > what else did He signify by that breathing on them, except that
 > the Holy Spirit proceeds also from Him? [99, 7]

In his great work DE TRINITATE (On the Trinity), written between 400
and 416, he says:

 > All the Catholic interpreters of the divine books of the Old
 > and New Testaments whom I have been able to read, who wrote
 > before me about the Trinity, which is God, intended to teach in
 > accordance with the Scriptures that the Father and the Son and
 > the Holy Spirit are of one and the same substance constituting
 > a divine unity with an inseparable equality; and therefore
 > there are not three gods but one God, although the Father begot
 > the Son, and therefore He that is the Father is not the Son;
 > and the Son is begotten by the Father, and therefore He that is
 > the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the
 > Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of
 > the Son, Himself, too, co-equal to the Father and to the Son,
 > and belonging to the unity of the Trinity. [1, 4:7]

 > If, therefore, that which is given has for its principle the
 > one by whom it is given, because it did not receive from
 > anywhere else that which proceeds from the giver, then it must
 > be confessed that the Father and the Son are the Principle of
 > the Holy Spirit, not two Principles, but just as Father and Son
 > are one God and, relative to a creature, one Creator and one
 > Lord, so too, relative to the Holy Spirit, they are one
 > Principle, while relative to a creature, Father and Son and
 > Holy Spirit are one Principle, even as they are one Creator and
 > one Lord. [5, 14:15]

 > [With the Father and the Son] the Holy Spirit, too, exists in
 > this same unity of substance and equality. For whether he be
 > the unity of the Father and the Son, or Their holiness, or
 > Their love, or Their unity because He is Their love, of Their
 > love because he is Their holiness, it is clear that He is not
 > one of the Two, since it is by Him that the Two are joined, by
 > Him that the Begotten is loved by the Begetter, and in turn
 > loves Him who begot Him. [6, 5:7]

 > Therefore the Holy Spirit, whatever it is, is something common
 > to both the Father and the Son. But that communion itself is
 > consubstantial and co-eternal; and if it may fitly be called
 > friendship, let it so be called; but it is more aptly called
 > love. And this is also a substance, since God is a substance,
 > and "God is Love," as it is written. [6, 5:7]

 > And yet is is not without reason that in this Trinity only the
 > Word of God is called Son, only the Gift of God the Holy
 > Spirit, and only He of whom the Word is begotten and from Whom
 > principally the Holy Spirit proceeds is called God the Father.
 > I have added the term "principally" because the Holy Spirit is
 > found to proceed also from the Son. But this too the Father
 > gave the Son, not as if the Son did not already exist and have
 > it, but because whatever the Father gives the Son, He gives by
 > begetting. He so begot Him, then, that the Gift might proceed
 > jointly from Him, and so that the Holy Spirit would be the
 > Spirit of both. [15, 17:29]

 > For if whatever the Son has, He has from the Father, certainly
 > He has it from the Father that the Holy Spirit proceeds from
 > Him.... The Son, however, is born of the Father; and the Holy
 > Spirit proceeds principally from the Father, and since the
 > Father gives [to the Son all that He has] without any interval
 > of time, the Holy Spirit proceeds jointly from both Father and
 > Son. [15, 26:47]

 > From Him from Whom the Son has it that He is God (for He is God
 > of God),-- from Him he certainly has it that the Holy Spirit
 > also proceeds from Him; and therefore the Holy Spirit has it
 > from the Father Himself that He proceeds also from the Son just
 > as He proceeds for the Father. [15, 27:48]

St. Fulgence of Ruspe, in his DE FIDE (The Rule of Faith), written
around 524, says:

 > Hold most firmly and never doubt in the least that the only God
 > the Son, who is one person of the Trinity, is the Son of the
 > only God the Father; but the Holy Spirit, Himself also one
 > Person of the Trinity, is Spirit not of Father only, but of
 > Father and Son together. [53]


Pope St. Leo I (died 461), said:

 > The Son is the Only-begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit
 > is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, not as any
 > creature, which also is of the Father and of the Son, but as
 > living and having power with both, and eternally subsisting of
 > that which is the Father and the Son.
 >   [Sermons 75:3]