Quomodo Spiritus Sanctus est amor Patris et Filii
by Richard of Saint Victor
Source text: Public Domain. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://migne.app/pl/196/quomodo-spiritus-sanctus-est-amor-patris-et-filii/
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## How the Holy Spirit Is the Love of the Father and the Son

[1011A]You seek to know how that is true which Augustine says. For he says that the Father loves the Son by the Holy Spirit, and the Son by the same Spirit loves his Father. Yet that the Father is wise by that wisdom which the Son is — this he altogether denies, and refutes with a reasoning of this kind. For if he were wise by that wisdom which the Son is, then not so much would the Son be from the Father as the Father from the Son — for in them to be is the same as to be wise. Hence it is that some object in this manner and say: Since there to love is the same as to be, how is it said that the Father or the Son is not by that love with which the one loves the other? Since therefore the Father is denied to be wise by the wisdom which he begot, lest he be understood to be by it, there is in this, as it seems to me, a great difference for him between making and being made, between instructing and being instructed, between making wise and [1011B] becoming wise. Certainly the Father, if he were wise by that wisdom which the Son is and became wise, would beyond doubt be from him — he for whom to be is the same as to be wise, the same as to be wise. But when the Father instructs someone through the Son, that wisdom which the Son is does something, and yet it does not follow that the Father is from the Son. Just as, then, the Father instructs by the Son, and yet it does not follow that he is from the Son, so he loves by the Holy Spirit — and yet it does not follow that he is from the Holy Spirit. That the Father, however, or the Son, is said to love by the Holy Spirit, we can understand both rightly and wrongly, and draw toward a true or a false sense. But perhaps you ask me to have this very thing distinguished, and how it can be understood now according to the true sense, now according to the false. Beyond doubt, what the Son [1011C] does, the Father does, from whom the Son receives that he may act and be able to act. Hence that saying of blessed Hilary: « Understand the Son as acting. Likewise I say, understand the Holy Spirit as acting, and through him not only the Father but also the Son as acting. The Son instructs, the Holy Spirit loves, and in both the Father acts, because from him each receives the power to do the very thing it does. But that the Father is said to work through the Son is not so understood [1012A] as though the Son were the author and origin of the power which the Father is, and which works what it wills, but that the Father is the author and origin of the power which the Son is, and does what he does according to his good pleasure. Likewise, that the Father is said to love by the Holy Spirit is not so understood as though the Holy Spirit were the author and origin of the love which the Father is, and loved at his own discretion what he loves, but that the Father breathes forth that love by which the Son is loved and which the Holy Spirit is, and is its author and origin. The Father, then, is said to love by the Holy Spirit, not that through him he has love, but that he shows it forth; not that he receives love from him, but that through him he bestows it. » Augustine says of the Son: « The Son spoke and the Father taught, and the Son said of himself: My doctrine is not mine. Why does not the Holy Spirit also [1012B] by equal reasoning say: My love is not mine, but the Father's from whom it proceeds, and the Son's who breathed it forth? If the Holy Spirit is the love of both, why should not the Father rightly be said to love by the Holy Spirit — that is, by his own love? Why should not the Son too rightly be said to love by the Holy Spirit — that is, by his own love? » The human mind is not love, but love proceeds from it, and therefore it does not love by itself, but by the love which proceeds from itself. But the Father is love, and the Holy Spirit is his love, and therefore the Father loves by himself, loves by the Holy Spirit. He loves by himself, who is love; he loves by his own love. Who does not know that the Son of blessed Mary and Jesus the son of Nave are named equivocally? Likewise your love and the divine love would be said equivocally, if the Holy Spirit were called the love of your heart, just as the Holy [1012C] Spirit is called the love of the Father and the Son. Who, I ask, could deny that you love by the Holy Spirit (that is, by your love)? If you are rightly said to love by the love which proceeds from you, why should not the Father and the Son be rightly said to love by the love which proceeds from them? Is this, brother, that question which they think insoluble, and both call and write of as insoluble?
