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THE ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH

the form "from the Father through the Son"; this, too, was admitted, and in Greek it was acknowledged to be sufficient to use the preposition through ((Greek characters)) instead of from ((Greek characters)). The decree of Florence which for us defines the Catholic faith and which the Easterns then also signed, but afterwards repudiated, is: "The Holy Ghost is eternally from the Father and the Son, and he has his essence and his subsistent being both from the Father and the Son, and he proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and by one spiration. And we declare that what the holy doctors and Fathers say, namely, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son, comes to mean the same thing, that the Son also is the cause, according to the Greeks, or the principle, according to the Latins, of the subsistence of the Holy Ghost."[1]

It will be seen how the council, while inevitably maintaining the essential Catholic faith, was scrupulously conciliatory and tolerant towards the Easterns in every point that possibly could be conceded. And this faith of Florence is established, not only by such passages of Scripture as declare that the Holy Ghost is the "Spirit of the Son" (Gal. iv. 6, Rom. viii. 9) just as he is the "Spirit of the Father" (Matt. x. 20), that he "receives from our Lord" (John xvi. 13-15), that he is "sent by Christ" (John xv. 26, xvi. 7), but also by a long chain of Fathers both Latin and Greek. As an example for the Latin Fathers St. Augustine may stand: "Why then should we not believe that the Holy Ghost proceeds also from the Son, since he is the Spirit of the Son? If he did not proceed from him, (Christ) after his resurrection would not have breathed on his apostles saying: Receive the Holy Ghost. What then did that breathing mean but that the Holy Ghost proceeds from him too?"[2] And for the Greeks St. Athanasius says: "We are taught by Holy Scripture that he (the Holy Ghost) is the Spiration of the Son of God, and we call the Son of God the source of the Holy Ghost."[3] So in this matter, too, the modern Orthodox have forsaken the faith of their fathers.

  1. ↑ Denzinger, p. 586.
  2. ↑ Aug. in Ioh. 99, 6 and 7. M.P.L. xxxv. 1888.
  3. ↑ Athan. de Trin. 19. M.P.G. xxvi. 1212. Along list of Fathers will be found quoted to prove this thesis in any textbook of dogmatic theology. See,
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