Divine Spiration in the Theology of Ss. Gregory Nazianzen and Thomas Aquinas

Abstract

Divine Spiration in the Theology of Ss. Gregory Nazianzen and Thomas Aquinas John Baptist Ku O.P. GREAT SORROW and anger have afflicted the Church at times on account of disputes over the procession of the Holy Spirit—namely, how he is or is not from the Son. It is salubrious, therefore, to take note of the agreement on this point between theologians of the East and the West and of different epochs, provided that we do not impose a harmony alien to an author's thought so as to quench our personal anxieties. This article will briefly compare St. Gregory of Nazianzus's understanding of the procession of the Holy Spirit with that of St. Thomas Aquinas.1 We will verify a profound basic agreement between these two saints but also clear differences. For instance, Nazianzen and Aquinas agree on the formulation that the Holy [End Page 373] Spirit comes forth from the Father not by generation but by way of procession (ἐκπόρευσις, processio). However, unlike Aquinas, Nazianzen does not pursue a systematic and synthetic exposition of the Holy Spirit's procession; his argumentation is instead defensive in nature.2 Also, whereas Nazianzen innovatively appeals to ἐκπόρευσις to name the Holy Spirit's coming forth in contradistinction to the Son's coming forth by way of generation, Aquinas's processio has both a generic and a specific sense. It can refer generally to any coming forth—namely, either to the Son's coming forth or to the the Spirit's coming forth—or properly and exclusively to the Spirit's coming forth; the Son's procession is named generation, and Holy Spirit's procession is named "procession." Thus, ἐκπόρευσις and processio are not simple equivalents.3 Although, as A. Edward Siecienski observes, there is no indication in John 5:264 that ἐκπορεύεσθαι is intended to distinguish the Spirit's manner of coming forth from the Son's manner of coming forth, after Nazianzen, ἐκπόρευσις comes to include not only the notion of coming forth, but the Spirit's coming forth from an unoriginate principle.5 With this definition established, a different verb—like προϊέναι—would be necessary [End Page 374] for later authors, such as Cyril of Alexandria, to speak of the Spirit's coming forth from or through the Son.6 Now, the idea of a unique unoriginate principle of the Holy Spirit is not absent from the Angelic Doctor's account. Aquinas's term for the unoriginate principle in the Trinity is auctor: "But the word author [auctor] adds to the meaning of a principle that it is not from another; and therefore the Father alone is said to be an author, although the Son too is called a principle notionally."7 Aquinas does allow that the Son has authority with respect to the Holy Spirit, but the Son is not an auctor in the Trinity.8 Unfortunately, Aquinas's careful distinction here is passed over by much recent Trinitarian theology.9 [End Page 375] In addition to agreeing that the Holy Spirit comes forth from the Father not by generation but by way of procession, both Nazianzen and Aquinas recognize that there is some kind of order between the Son and the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, whereas Aquinas expounds in detail how the Spirit is from the Father and the Son as from a single principle, principally from the Father, proceeding as Love and as a bond between the Father and the Son, Nazianzen refrains from saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from or through the Son.10 Moreover, Aquinas names the Father "Spirator," a word Nazianzen does not use. While there is a danger of overinterpreting Nazianzen to find in him an early Thomist, it is also mistake to make a precommitment to bifurcate the East and the West, or the ancient and the medieval. An anxiety to show that the whole Church should embrace the Filioque must absolutely not be allowed to distort our interpretation of ancient Eastern theologians. Such a distortion would only undermine the effort to achieve ecumenical unity. As Aquinas has remarked, one of the worst things one can do for the truth is to support it with poor reasoning, for then skeptics might well dismiss the...