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QUESTION: The original Nicene Creed states that we are to believe in “the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father.” Later, the Western churches added “and the Son” to the end of this statement, so that the Holy Ghost “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” Which do you think best characterized the Holy Spirit, which best corresponds to Scripture, and which best makes sense theologically?
ST. AUGUSTINE (354–430) was bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430. He was one of the Latin Fathers of the Church and is considered the most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul. His most influential works have been City of God, Confessions, and On the Trinity. The following readings are from On the Trinity (De Trinitate in Latin).
READING 1. The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality; and therefore that they are not three Gods, but one God: although the Father hath begotten the Son, and so He who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, and so He who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, Himself also co-equal with the Father and the Son, and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity. [On the Trinity, 1.4.7]
READING 2. And yet it is not to no purpose that in this Trinity the Son and none other is called the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit and none other the Gift of God, and God the Father alone is He from whom the Word is born, and from whom the Holy Spirit principally proceeds. And therefore I have added the word principally, because we find that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son also. But the Father gave Him this too, not as to one already existing, and not yet having it; but whatever He gave to the only-begotten Word, He gave by begetting Him. Therefore He so begat Him as that the common Gift should proceed from Him also, and the Holy Spirit should be the Spirit of both. [On the Trinity, 15.17.29]
READING 3. And They are infinite in themselves. So both each are in each, and all in each, and each in all, and all in all, and all are one. Let him who sees this, whether in part, or “through a glass and in an enigma,” rejoice in knowing God; and let him honor Him as God, and give thanks; but let him who does not see it, strive to see it through piety, not to cavil at it through blindness. Since God is one, but yet is a Trinity. [On the Trinity, 6.10.12]
READING 4. A certain writer, when he would briefly intimate the special attributes of each of the persons in the Trinity, tells us that “Eternity is in the Father, form in the Image, use in the Gift.” And since he was a man of no mean authority in handling the Scriptures, and in the assertion of the faith, for it is Hilary who put this in his book (On the Trinity, ii.); I have searched into the hidden meaning of these words as far as I can, that is, of the Father, and the Image, and the Gift, of eternity, and of form, and of use. […] When therefore we regard the Creator, who is understood by the things that are made we must needs understand the Trinity of whom there appear traces in the creature, as is fitting. For in that Trinity is the supreme source of all things, and the most perfect beauty, and the most blessed delight. Those three, therefore, both seem to be mutually determined to each other, and are in themselves infinite. [On the Trinity, 6.10.11; 6.10.12]
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