LIV
FROM HIM AND THROUGH HIM AND IN HIM
Ex ipso
et per ipsum et in ipso sunt omnia, ipsi gloria in saecula (Rom. 1136).
St Paul says, 'From him and through him and in him are all things, to whom be
glory and honour.' These words are said of the three Persons and the unity
of their nature. From him applies to the Father, the origin of all
things in eternity and in time. Through him applies to the Son,
through whom all things proceeded forth. In him applies to the Holy
Ghost, in whom all things are contained, made spirit and brought back to their
end. From another point of view these words, again, betoken the three
Persons by their from and through and in. As these words
are distinct even so do they show the distinctions of the Persons. But
from the word him (which is the same for all) we gather the oneness of
their nature. He says, 'To him be glory and honour.' Proclaiming the three
Persons as one God, to whom alone be all honour.
Now we proceed to speak of the things
of God, of Persons and essence, which we hardly understand. Those that
cannot follow this discourse can take refuge in the dogma I have taught before,
that the three Persons are in one essence and one essence in the three
Persons. Remember we are speaking of Father and paternity, and you must
understand that these two are not apart in two hypostases, but they are one
hypostasis, and moreover they are one and three rationally speaking.
Consider the meaning of paternity. It means the power of father-kind. A
father is known by the fact that he begets, but we recognize paternity in a
potential father. Take, for example, the maid who is a virgin. By
nature she is maternal though not actually mother. The same thing with a
father: in his power to beget he is paternal, but the fact that his begetting
makes him father. Mark this difference between father and paternity when
the Word is gotten ghostly in the soul. This we take to be the case when
the soul, sublimed and in the proper state, grows pregnant with God's light and
divine by nature: by the unique power of God grown big with Deity. You
see, in this immanent power, soul too is paternal. But radiant with
revelation, she with the Father begets and is then with the Father called
father. This father and fatherhood differ as applied to the soul.
Mark, too, that the Son differs from filiation, remembering that these two are
not separate in two hypostases: they are the same hypostasis. We find filiation
in potential father-nature, unborn. If he were not unborn in his potential
nature the Father could not beget him, for a thing that comes out must first
have been in. So much for filiation. But the Son we explain as the
Father's begetting of his own Word, whereby the Father is Father. The Son,
moreover, is God in himself, not God of himself but of the Father alone. Were he
God of himself he would not be one with the Father so there would be two without
any beginning. Which is impossible. We postulate three distinct
properties, the Father's property is that he comes from none but himself.
The Son's property is that he does not come from himself: he descends from the
Father by way of nativity. The Holy Ghost's property is that he comes from the
Father not as being born: he proceeds from them twain, both Father and Son, not
as a birth but as love. For two who are sundered in Person cannot together
bear one but they can bear mutual love. The Holy Ghost is not born because he
proceeds out of two and not merely out of the Father, albeit certain doctors do
maintain that the Holy Ghost comes from the Father alone and not from the Son at
all. This is false; for when the Father gat the Son he gave him his whole
nature as well as all perfection, which goes with being of that nature, the
Father withholding nothing from his Son. It follows that the Father cannot
alone bring forth the Holy Ghost as he alone did get the Son. Had these
doctors envisaged it aright, they would no doubt have said the same. They
were speaking without understanding. So it is wrong to say the Son is God from
himself and not from the Father. The Son may be said to bring forth the Spirit
yet not from himself: from the Father whence he comes himself. Thus the
Holy Ghost comes from them twain and not from one: but not as being twain, as
being one. So much for the Son and filiation.
It may be asked concerning the Spirit
and spiration, Can we use these term or not? Is there some objection, which
makes it inadmissible? Filiation is found latent in the nature of the
Father, that is plain, seeing he is not merely brought forth out of him. Herein
lies the objection to speaking of the Spirit and spiration. Let us see if
we can find precisely the right meaning of Spirit and spiration. We have here
two and one. That is the difference between Spirit and spiration. In the
first, when we predicate two we mean Father and Son. But by saying in one we
refer to spiration. This same in one is formless: the mark of spiration.
Again, when we say in another that signifies Spirit, who is another than
Father and Son in his Person.