In the year 325, the council of Nice condemned the heresies of Arius
concerning the Son, and formulated the orthodox doctrine on the subject
in what is known as the Nicene creed. In 381, the council of
Constantinople, being assembled on account of the errors of Macedonius,
concerning the Spirit, inserted into the Nicene creed a statement of
doctrine concerning the Third Person, in which occurred the phrase,
“which proceedeth from the Father.” About the year, 434, the council of
Ephesus, being the third general council, as the before mentioned were
the first and second, determined that no further addition should be made
to this creed. Disregarding this decree, and without the sanction of any
general council, the western or Latin church, about the end of the sixth
century, silently interpolated the formula of Constantinople, so as to
make it read,—“which proceedeth from the Father _and the Son_.” The
resulting controversies became one cause of the division between the
Latin and Greek churches. At the reformation, the Protestant churches
generally, without discussion, accepted the Romish doctrine on the
subject, and incorporated it into their doctrinal formularies.
In the foregoing discussion this theory is ignored, in favor of the
primitive doctrine; for the following reasons:
1. The point in question is the essential and eternal procession of the
Spirit. If there is one Scripture, referred to by any writer, or
contained in the sacred volume, which even seems to describe _such_
procession from the Son, it has not been my privilege to meet with it,
in the course of a careful and long continued inquiry. The texts usually
cited are, all of them, statements explicitly referring to the voluntary
and temporal mission of the Spirit, coming into the world; and _not_ to
his essential procession, which is involuntary and eternal. They are
John xv, 26; xvi, 7: Gal. iv, 6. “When the Comforter is come whom I will
send unto you from the Father.”—“If I go not away, the Comforter will
not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. “Because
ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father.” Will any one pretend that these passages refer to
the eternal procession?
2. The language in which Jesus speaks of this procession as being from
the Father seems designed to be adequate and exhaustive. “When the
Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the
Spirit of truth _which proceedeth from the Father_, he shall testify of
me.”—John xv, 26. That the Father, specifically, is the one essential
and peculiar source of the Spirit, is here doubly asserted, by the
phrase, “whom I will send unto you _from the Father_;” and by the
further expository statement, “which proceedeth from the Father.” Should
James and John unite in writing a book, any one who in speaking of James
should say that he wrote it, would be justly chargeable with
carelessness of statement. But if the book itself and its authorship and
origin are the subject of discussion, it could not be said, with any
regard to truth and accuracy that “This book was written by James.” And,
if the subject of the book were the life of John, and the statement were
made that “This book was written by James, and gives the story of John’s
life,” the omission, which previously might perhaps be accounted an
inadvertence, assumes a character of falsehood and deceit. This, it
seems to me, is a just parallel to the case which is made by the
insertion of the _filioque_ clause, making the procession to be from the
Father _and the Son_. In the place in question, Jesus is speaking
expressly of the Spirit, whom he describes with reference to his
qualification to be a witness, on behalf of the Son. Had the whole
thought of the passage been concerning the Father, and in describing him
Jesus had said, “From him proceedeth the Spirit,” the declaration would
seem scarcely reconcilable with a coincident procession from the Son.
But when the Spirit, himself, and his qualification to be a witness on
behalf of the Son, is the distinct subject of discourse,—the statement
that “He proceedeth from the Father, and will testify of me,” utterly
excludes a like procession from the Son. This conclusion is strengthened
by the remarkable language on the same subject, uttered by the Lord
Jesus upon another occasion. “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is
not true. There is another that beareth witness of me, and I know that
the witness which he witnesseth of me is true.... The works which the
Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do bear witness of
me that the Father hath sent me.”—John v, 31-36. Peter declares that
“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who
went about doing good.”—Acts x, 38. Jesus here expressly certifies that
the testimony thus by the Spirit given to his ministry was distinctively
the Father’s testimony and not that of the Son,—a statement wholly
irreconcilable with the supposition that the Spirit of witness who was
the efficient author of those miracles proceeded alike from the Son and
the Father.
3. The phrase,—“which proceedeth from the Father,”—is explanatory of the
language immediately preceding. “When the Comforter is come whom I will
send unto you _from the Father_.” But why “from the Father,” since it is
Christ that sends Him? Why not “from the Father and the Son?” Jesus
gives the reason,—“Which _proceedeth_ from the Father.” Either this
indicates something peculiar and exclusive, or words are without
meaning.
4. There is undoubtedly a voluntary and temporal bestowal of the Spirit
by the Father upon the incarnate Son, a bestowal in virtue of which, he,
as the Spirit of the Son, is by the Mediator breathed or shed upon his
people. But if the doctrine in question is true, the Spirit, proceeding
from the Father and the Son, sustains essentially and eternally the very
same identical relation to each, and it would be just as impossible that
he should be given by the Father to the Son, as on the contrary, by the
Son to the Father. The fact that he is given to the Son shows
conclusively that his relation to the Father is not only primary, but
peculiar, a fact which is the express contradictory of the theory in
question. In fact, by that theory the voluntary, temporal, and
mediatorial mission of the Spirit, by the Son as incarnate, is
necessarily and inextricably confounded with the eternal procession,
which is essential and involuntary, the Scripture testimony on the
subject is distorted and set at naught, and the whole subject involved
in perplexity and confusion. These considerations, and especially the
fact that there is not even a plausible pretense of Scriptural authority
for the doctrine, lead me to its rejection.