An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. John of Damascus

The Greek theologians, founding on the primary sense of the Greek term Πνεῦμα, and on certain passages of Scripture in which the word seemed to retain that sense more or less (especially Psalm xxxiii. 6. in the Vulgate rendering, verbo Dei cœli formati sunt: et spiritu oris ejus omnis virtus eorum), spoke of the Holy Ghost as proceeding from the Father like the breath of His mouth in the utterance or emission of His Word. See ch. 15 of this Book, where we have the sentence, οὐδεμία γὰρ ὁρμὴ ἄνευ πνεύματος. Compare also such passages as these—Greg. Naz., Orat. i. 3: Cyril. Alex., Thes., assert. 34, De Trin. dial. 2, p. 425, and 7, pp. 634, 640; Basil, Contra Eunom., B.V., and De Spiritu Sancto, ch. 18; Greg. Scholar., Contra Latin., de process. Spiritus Sancti, i. 4, where we have the statement οὕτω καὶ τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα ὥσπερ ὁρμὴ καὶ κίνησις, ἐνδοτέρα τῆς ὑπερφυοῦς ἐκείνης οὐσίας, so the Holy Spirit is like an impulse and movement within that supernatural essence.

2 Or, substance; οὐσία.

3 Text, φανεροῦσα: various reading, φέρουσα (cf. Cyril, De Trinitate).

4 Greg. Nyss., Catech., c. 2.

5 Text, ἀκούσαντες: variant, ἀκούοντες (so in Cyril).

6 So Cyril speaks frequently of the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father and being (ειναι) and abiding (μένειν) in the Son; as also of the Spirit as being of the Son and having His nature in Him (ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐμπεφυκὼς αὐτῷ). The idea seems to have been that as the Son is in the bosom of the Father so the Spirit is in the bosom of the Son. The Spirit was compared again to the energy, the natural, living energy, of the Son (ἐνέργεια φυσικὴ καὶ ζωσα, τὸ ἐνεργὲς τοῦ υἱοῦ), Cyril, Dial 7 ad Hermiam. Such terms as προβολεὺς ἐκφαντορικοῦ πνεύματος, the Producer, or, Emitter of the revealing Spirit, and the ἔκφανσις or ἔλλαμψις, the revealing, the forth-shewing, were also used to express the procession of the one eternal Person from the Other as like the emission or forth-shewing of light from light.

7 Greg. Naz., Orat. 37, 44.

8 Text, πρὸς πᾶσαν πρόθεσιν: variant θέλησιν in almost all the codices.

9 αἵρεσις.

10 Greg. Orat. 38, and elsewhere.

11 Greg. Nyss., Catech., c. 3.

12 Ps. cxix. 89.

13 Ib. cvii. 30.

14 Text, διαμένει: variant, μένει.

15 Ps. civ. 30.

16 Ib. xxxiii. 6.

17 Job xxxiii. 4.

18 Basil, De Spir. Sancto, ad Amphil. c. 18.

      Chapter VIII.

       Table of Contents

      —Concerning the Holy Trinity.

We believe, then, in One God, one beginning1, having no beginning, uncreate, unbegotten, imperishable and immortal, everlasting, infinite, uncircumscribed, boundless, of infinite power, simple, uncompound, incorporeal, without flux, passionless, unchangeable, unalterable, unseen, the fountain of goodness and justice, the light of the mind, inaccessible; a power known by no measure, measurable only by His own will alone (for all things that He wills He can2), creator of all created things, seen or unseen, of all the maintainer and preserver, for all the provider, master and lord and king over all, with an endless and immortal kingdom: having no contrary, filling all, by nothing encompassed, but rather Himself the encompasser and maintainer and original possessor of the universe, occupying3 all essences intact4 and extending beyond all things, and being separate from all essence as being super-essential5 and above all things and absolute God, absolute goodness, and absolute fulness6: determining all sovereignties and ranks, being placed above all sovereignty and rank, above essence and life and word and thought: being Himself very light and goodness and life and essence, inasmuch as He does not derive His being from another, that is to say, of those things that exist: but being Himself the fountain of being to all that is, of life to the living, of reason to those that have reason; to all the cause of all good: perceiving all things even before they have become: one essence, one divinity, one power, one will, one energy, one beginning, one authority, one dominion, one sovereignty, made known in three perfect subsistences and adored with one adoration, believed in and ministered to by all rational creation7, united without confusion and divided without separation (which indeed transcends thought). (We believe) in Father and Son and Holy Spirit whereinto also we have been baptized8. For so our Lord commanded the Apostles to baptize, saying, Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit9.

(We believe) in one Father, the beginning10, and cause of all: begotten of no one: without cause or generation, alone subsisting: creator of all: but Father of one only by nature, His Only-begotten Son and our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Producer11 of the most Holy Spirit. And in one Son of God, the Only-begotten, our Lord, Jesus Christ: begotten of the Father, before all the ages: Light of Light, true God of true God: begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, through Whom all things are made: and when we say He was before all the ages we shew that His birth is without time or beginning: for the Son of God was not brought into being out of nothing12, He that is the effulgence of the glory, the impress of the Father’s subsistence