by the comparison of the Father with the root, the Son with the stem, the Spirit with the fruit, and
such analogies as the sun, the ray, and the beam; the fire, the flame, and the light.
(c) The analogy of the eternal generation of the Son, which is likewise from the Father
alone, without the agency of the Spirit.
(d) The authority of the Nicene Creed, and the Greek fathers, especially Athanasius, Gregory
Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and John of Damascus. The
Antiochean school is clearly on the Greek side; but the Alexandrian school leaned to the formula
through the Son (dia; tou' uiJou', per Filium). The Greeks claim all the Greek fathers, and regard
Augustin as the inventor of the Latin dogma of the double procession.
The Latin doctrine is charged with innovation, and with dividing the unity of the Godhead,
or establishing two sources of the Deity. But the Latins replied that the procession was from one
and the same source common to both the Father and the Son.
- The Latin theory of the double procession is defended by the following arguments:
(a) The passages where Christ says that he will send the Spirit from the Father (John 15:26;
16:7); and that the Father will send the Spirit in Christ’s name (14:26); and where he breathes the
Spirit on his disciples (20:22). The Greeks refer all these passages to the temporal mission of the
Spirit, and understand the insufflation to be simply a symbolical act or sacramental sign of the
pentecostal effusion which Christ had promised. The Latins reply that the procession and the mission
are parallel processes, the one ad intra, the other ad extra.
(b) The equality of essence (oJmoousiva) of the Father and Son to the exclusion of every
kind of subordinationism (since Augustin) requires the double procession. The Spirit of the Father
is also the Spirit of the Son, and is termed the Spirit of Christ. But, as already remarked, Augustin
admitted that the Spirit proceeds chiefly from the Father, and this after all is a kind of subordination
of dignity. The Father has his being (oujsiva) from himself, the Son and the Spirit have it from the
Father by way of derivation, the one by generation, the other by procession.
(c) The temporal mission of the Spirit is a reflection of his eternal procession. The Trinity
of revelation is the basis of all our speculations on the Trinity of essence. We know the latter only
from the former.
(d) The Nicene Creed and the Nicene fathers did not understand the procession from the
Father in an exclusive sense, but rather in opposition to the Pneumatomachi who denied the divinity
of the Holy Spirit. Some Greek fathers, as Epiphanius, Cyril of Alexandria, and John of Damascus,
teach the Latin doctrine. This is not the case exactly. The procession of the Spirit "through the Son,"
is not equivalent to the procession "from the Son," but implies a subordination.
(e) The Latin fathers are in favor of Filioque, especially Ambrose, Augustin, Jerome, Leo
I., Gregory I.^602
(f) The insertion of the Filioque is as justifiable as the other and larger additions to the
Apostles’ Creed and to the original Nicene Creed of 325, and was silently accepted, or at least not
objected to by the Greek church until the rivalry of the Patriarch of Constantinople made it a
polemical weapon against the Pope of Rome. To this the Greeks reply that the other additions are
consistent and were made by common consent, but the Filioque was added without the knowledge
(^602) Hilary of Poitiers is also quoted, as he uses the formula a Patre et Filio (Trinit. II. 29) as well as the other ex Patre
per Filium. Tertullian, however, is rather on the Greek side: "Spiritum S. non aliunde puto quam a Patre per Filium." Adv. Prax.
c. 4. So also Novatian, De Trinit.