478 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth (or, goeth forth] from the Father, he shall bear witness of me."1
On this passage the Nicene fathers based their doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit,2 as his personal property or characteristic individuality3 while the unbegotten fatherhood4 belongs to the person of the Father, and the eternal generation 5 to the person of the Son.
Our Lord says neither that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, nor that he proceeds from the Father- and the Son. But in several other passages of the same farewell ad dresses he speaks of the Spirit as being sent by the Father and the Son, and promises this as a future event which was to take place after his departure, and which actually did take place on the day of Pentecost and ever since.6
On these passages is based the doctrine of the mission of the Spirit.7 This is regarded as a temporal or historical act, and must be distinguished from the eternal procession in the Trinity itself. In other words, the procession belongs to the Trinity of essence, and is an intertrinitarian process (like the eternal gen eration of the Son), but the mission belongs to the Trinity of
1 John 15: 26: o Ilapa/c^rof . . . rb irvevfta rfj^ afy&etaz, b Trap a rov Harp 6? £K7ropeveTai (Vulg. : procedit). The verb £K7ropei'Ofj.ai (med.), procedo, may in itself describe either proceeding from a source, or proceeding on a mission ; but in the former case £/c, out q/j would be a more suitable preposition than irapd, from {he side of. Hence the Nicene Creed and the Greek fathers substi tute £K for Trapd in stating their dogma. The napd, however, does not exclude the £K, and the Father is in any case the source of the Spirit. The question is only, whether hie is the sole source, or jointly with the Son.
2 eKTrdpevffie, a patristic noun, derived from the biblical and classical verb £Kirop£vo/Ltai, as the Latin processio is from procedure.
3 Called by the Greeks Idiov or Idtdrrj^ by the Latins proprietor personalis or character hypostaticus- See vol. III. \ 130, p. 679.
* ayevvrjaia, paternitas.
* yevvrjaia, yivvrjaiq^ generatio, filiatio.
6 John 15: 26, Christ says of the Spirit: bv kyo Trt/u^u. Comp. 16: 7: u avrdv, and 14: 26: b-Trlp-tyei 6 Tlar^p kv r£ bv6fj.ari p.ov.
I 107. ON THE PKOCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 479
revelation in the historical execution of the scheme of redemp tion. In this exegesis the orthodox divines of the Greek and Latin churches are agreed. They differ on the source of the procession, but not on the mission.
Modern cxegetcs, who adhere closely to the grammatical sense, and arc not governed by dogmatic systems, incline mostly to the view that no metaphysical distinction is intended in those passages, and that the procession of the Spirit from the Father, and the mission of the Spirit by the Father and the Son, refer alike to the same historic event and sotcriological operation, namely, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and his continued work in the church and in the heart of believers. The Spirit " proceeds " when he " is sent" on his divine mission to glorify the Son and to apply the redemption to men. The Saviour speaks of the office and work of the Spirit rather than of his being and essence. Neverthe less there is a difference which must not be overlooked. In the procession, the Spirit is active : in the mission, he is passive ; the procession is spoken of in the present tense (exxopeuSTai) as a present act, the mission in the future tense (TIS/JL^CO) as a future act, so that the former seems to belong to the eternal Trinity of essence, the latter to the historical or economical Trinity of revelation. Now God indeed reveals himself as he actually is, and we may therefore reason back from the divine office of the Spirit to his divine nature, and from his temporal mission to his eternal relation. Yet it may be questioned whether such infer ence justifies the doctrine of a double procession in the absence of any express Scripture warrant.1
1 On the exegetieal question, see the commentaries on John 15 : 26 and the parallel passages by Lange (Am. ed., p. 469), Luthardt, Meyer, Weiss (6th ed. of Meyer), Alford, Westcott, Godet. Lange says: "To the Father doubt less belongs the honor of being the first fipx>] from which the Son himself pro ceeds; but since the Holy Spirit is at the same time the Spirit of the Son, unto whom it is also given to have life in himself, the dta rov viol (FK rov Trarp6^) of the Greek theology is not sufficient," Godet in loc, : "It is difficult (with Luthardt, Meyer, and most moderns) to refer the words : who procecdeth from