The Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son

By Joseph Pohle and Arthur Preuss

The second Procession in the Godhead is qualitatively distinct from Generation. Though often designated by the generic term processio (ἐκπόρευσις), it is by most theologians and several councils called Spiration (spiratio, πνεῦσις). Revelation leaves no room for doubt as to the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father. But the Greeks, since the schism of Photius, heretically assert that He proceeds from the Father alone, and not from the Son. To this heretical assertion, which has been expressly rejected by the Church, we oppose the Catholic doctrine that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.

CrossReach Publications

• Language: English
• Publisher: CrossReach Publications
• Release date: Mar 18, 2019

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Article 1. the heresy of the greek schism and its condemnation by the church

1. The Heresy of the Schism.

—It is impossible to ascertain just when the heresy asserting the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father alone originated. When the Macedonians declared the Holy Ghost to be a creature of the Logos-Son, the Second Ecumenical Council (A. D. 381), to safeguard the dogma of His Divinity, thought it sufficient to affirm His Consubstantiality with the Father in the phrase: "Qui ex Patre procedit—Who proceeds from the Father."

Petavius and Bellarmine assume, but without sufficient warrant, that Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret were the original authors of the heresy with which we are dealing.11 The more probable theory is that certain Nestorians, whose identity can no longer be ascertained, in course of time somehow came to believe that the Council of Constantinople by "ex Patre meant ex solo Patre. This view was publicly defended for the first time in Jerusalem, A. D. 808, by some fanatic monks, who protested against the insertion of the word Filioque into the Nicene Creed, because, as they alleged, the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Son. It was, however, reserved for Photius, the ambitious and crafty Patriarch of Constantinople, the most learned scholar of his age,22 (+ 891), to accuse the Latins of heresy for adopting the Filioque and to raise the denial of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son to the rank of a palmary dogma of the Greek Church. At a great council held in Constantinople, A. D. 879, which was attended by 380 bishops, the Greeks formally pronounced sentence of anathema against all who should add to, or take from, the Symbol of Nicaea. After Photius’s death peace was restored temporarily between the churches, although by this time there is already a strong anti-papal party at Constantinople. But the great mass of Christians on either side are reconciled, and have no idea of schism for one hundred and fifty more years."33 In the eleventh century came the final rupture under Michael Cerularius. The Great Schism settled into permanency, and, after a brief reunion in the fifteenth century, still continues.44

2. The Teaching of the Church on the Procession of the Holy Ghost.

—The Church jealously guarded the Apostolic teaching that the Holy Ghost proceeds from both the Father and the Son. This appears clearly from the insertion of the word "Filioque" into the Constantinopolitan Creed.

Though the Council of Chalcedon (A. D. 451) had forbidden the reception into the Creed of any other faith55 than that of Nicaea, there soon came a time when it was found necessary to enforce explicit profession of faith in the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son as well as from the Father. The "Filioque first came into use in Spain. On the occasion of the conversion of the Arian Goths under King Reccared, the Third Council of Toledo (A. D. 589) decreed the insertion of the term into the Creed and ordered that the words ex Patre Filioque should be sung with raised voices" during the celebration of the Divine Mysteries. In course