Dist. 12
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/1/d/12/q/bon-sent-I-d12-littera
----------------------------------------
### DISTINCTION XII.

### Chapter 1. *Whether the Holy Spirit proceeds prior or more fully from the Father than from the Son.*

Likewise it is asked, since the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, whether He has proceeded prior or more fully from the Father than from the Son; which the heretic strives to show, speaking thus: if the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father, He proceeded either when the Son was already born, or when the Son was not yet born. If when the Son was already born, then the Son was born before the Holy Spirit proceeded: therefore the nativity of the Son preceded the procession of the Holy Spirit. But if He proceeded from the Father when the Son was not yet generated, He proceeded before the Son was generated.

*The reply of Augustine.* To these and the like questions — more laborious than fruitful — Augustine replies in the fifteenth book *On the Trinity*, saying: «In that supreme Trinity which is God, there are no intervals of time through which it can be shown, or even inquired, whether the Son was first born of the Father, and afterwards the Holy Spirit proceeded from both». «Can we then ask whether the Holy Spirit had already proceeded from the Father when the Son was born, or had not yet proceeded, and, the Son having been born, He proceeded from both? These things cannot at all be asked there, where nothing is begun in time so as to be perfected in [a subsequent] time. Therefore he who is able to understand the generation of the Son from the Father without time, let him understand without time the procession of the Holy Spirit from both». Behold, by these words that question is settled, by which it was asked whether the Holy Spirit proceeded prior from the Father than from the Son.

### Chapter 2. *That the Holy Spirit is said principally and properly to proceed from the Father.*

Now must be treated what was asked second, namely whether the Holy Spirit proceeds *more fully or* more from the Father than from the Son. To which we say that, just as He does not proceed prior from the Father than from the Son, so He does not proceed more or more fully from the Father than from the Son. Augustine, however, in the fifteenth book *On the Trinity*, says that the Holy Spirit *principally* proceeds from the Father. «Not in vain, he says, in this Trinity is none called *Word of God* except the Son, nor *Gift of God* except the Holy Spirit; nor [is anyone] *He from whom the Word is begotten and from whom the Holy Spirit principally proceeds* except *God the Father*». Behold, you have heard that the Holy Spirit *principally* proceeds from the Father. But lest this disturb you, he immediately reveals in what sense he said it, adding: «Therefore I added *principally*, because the Holy Spirit is also found to proceed from the Son; but this also the Father gave to Him, not to one already existing and not yet having, but whatever He gave to the only-begotten Word, He gave by begetting. So therefore He begot Him, that the common Gift might also proceed from Him, and the Holy Spirit be the Spirit of both». Behold, he himself has expounded how the Spirit principally proceeds from the Father — not because He proceeds prior or more from the Father than from the Son, but because, since He proceeds from the Son, the Son has this very [property] from the Father.

In the same sense [the Spirit] is also said to proceed *properly* from the Father. Hence Jerome, in the *exposition of the Catholic faith and the Nicene Symbol*, says: «We believe in the Holy Spirit, who *properly* proceeds from the Father». Likewise: «We find in Scripture the Holy Spirit to be true God, and to be *properly* from the Father». And again: «From the Father is the Son, and the Holy Spirit *properly* and truly proceeds from the Father». Behold, he plainly says that the Holy Spirit is properly from the Father and properly proceeds from the Father. Which is not to be understood as if He proceeds prior or more fully from the Father than from the Son, but because the Father has this *from Himself*, not *from another*, that the Holy Spirit be from Him and proceed; whereas the Son has this not *from Himself*, but *from the Father*, that from Him also the Holy Spirit be and proceed.

Perhaps also according to this same understanding the Holy Spirit is said to be *sent through the Son* and *to be from the Father through the Son*. Hence Hilary, addressing God the Father concerning the Holy Spirit and the Son, in the twelfth book *On the Trinity*, says: «In Thy Holy Spirit, gone forth from Thee and sent through Him». Likewise: «Before times, Thy Only-begotten, born from Thee, abides, in such wise that from Thee through Him is Thy Holy Spirit; which, even if I do not perceive by sense, yet I hold by conscience. For in Thy spiritual things I am dull». Likewise in the same book: «Preserve, I pray, this religion of my faith, that what I professed in the Symbol of my regeneration I may always retain: namely that the Father — Thee — and Thy Son together with Thee I may adore; that Thy Holy Spirit, who is from Thee through Thy Only-begotten, I may merit to receive». Behold, he plainly says that the Holy Spirit is from the Father through the Son both sent and existent; which is not to be understood as though He were sent or were from the Father through the Son as a *lesser*, but because He is from the Father and the Son and is sent by both. But this very thing the Son has from the Father, that from Him the Holy Spirit both is and is sent. This therefore Hilary wished to signify by making a distinction in mode of speech, in order to show that in the Father is the *authority*. Hence also it is, that the Truth, showing that the Father is the *author* of the procession by which the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, said in the Gospel: *He proceeds from the Father*, although the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Hence Augustine in the fifteenth book *On the Trinity*: «If the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, why did the Son say: *He proceeds from the Father*? Why think you, except that He is wont to refer to Him even what is His own — Him from whom He Himself is — as He says: *My doctrine is not mine, but His who sent me*? If, then, here is to be understood His doctrine, which He yet did not call His own, but the Father's, how much more there is the Holy Spirit to be understood as proceeding from Him, where He thus says: *He proceeds from the Father*, in such wise as not to say: *He does not proceed from me*. From Him, however, from whom the Son has it, that He is God — for He is God from God — from Him certainly He has it that from Him also the Holy Spirit proceeds. And therefore the Holy Spirit, that He may also proceed from the Son, just as He proceeds from the Father, has from the Father Himself». «Wherefore, he who is able to understand, in that which the Son says: *Just as the Father has life in himself, so He gave to the Son also to have life in himself*, that the Father did not give life to the Son already existing without life, but begot Him without time, in such wise that the life which the Father gave the Son in begetting is co-eternal with the life of the Father who gave; let him understand also that, just as the Father has it in Himself that the Holy Spirit proceeds from Him, so He has given to the Son that from Him also the same Holy Spirit proceeds, and both without time. So therefore it has been said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, in such wise that it may be understood that He also proceeds from the Son [as] from the Father — [this being given] to the Son. For if the Son has whatever He has from the Father, He has from the Father certainly that from Him also the Holy Spirit proceeds. But let no times be thought of there which would have prior and posterior, because there are altogether none there».

---