they have added, to do violence to the holy and sacred Creed, which has been confirmed by all the œcumenical councils, and possesses irresistible force. O diabolical inventions! Using new language, they affirm that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father only, but from the Son also! Who ever heard such language, even from the mouth of the impious of past ages! Where is the Christian who could admit two causes in the Trinity, that is to say, the Father — cause of the Son and Holy Spirit; and the Son — cause of the same Spirit?
"This is to divide the first principle into a double divinity — it is to lower Christian theology to the level of Grecian mythology, and to wrong the Trinity incomprehensible and one in principle, ((
Greek characters).) But how should the Holy Spirit proceed from the Son? If the procession He holds from the Father is perfect, (and it is thus, since He is very God of very God,) what is this procession from the Son, and what is its object? Certainly it is a vain and futile thing. Moreover, if the Spirit proceed from the Son as well as the Father, why is not the Son begotten by the Spirit as well as by the Father? Let them say this in order that there be no piety mixed with their impiety, that their opinions may agree with their language, and they may shrink from no undertaking. Let us consider further, that if the property of the Holy Spirit be known in that He proceeds from the Father, the property of the Son likewise consists in His being begotten by the Father. But as they in their madness assert, the Spirit proceeds also from the Son; hence the Spirit is distinguished from the Father by more numerous properties than the Son, since the Spirit proceeding from both, is something common to the Father and to the Son. The procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son is the property of the Spirit. If the Spirit is further removed from the
