Orthodox Completely BUTCHER this "Anti-Filioque" Verse
Jugie on John 15:26
ARTICLE III. On two testimonies explicitly asserting the Catholic dogma, with some reference to the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit.
In the Gospel of St. John, there occurs two places explicitly proving that the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son, or that He has his *esse* from both; of these, the first directly refers to the procession from the Father, and indirectly to the procession from the Son; the other, to the contrary, directly refers to the procession from the Son, but indirectly refers to the procession from the Father. Yet, neither signify the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit, except by means of his procession to men, or temporal mission; so that, if, together with the Eastern Orthodox (Graeco-Russis dissidentibus), we suppose that there is no necessary connection of the temporal mission of the divine persons with his eternal procession, nor founded in it, but signifies something diverse, then every evangelical testimony, which report to us the very words of Christ himself, would would its demonstrative force, whether with respect to the origin of the Spirit from the Father, or with respect to his procession from the Son.
I. — On the words of Christ: “The Paraclete, whom I will send you from the Father…who proceedeth from the Father.” (John XV, 26)
The first passage stands thus in the original text: Ὅταν ἔλθῃ ὁ Παράκλητος, ὃν ἐγὼ πέμψω ὑμῖν παρὰ τοῦ Πατρός, τὸ Πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, ὃ παρὰ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται, ἐκεῖνος μαρτυρήσει περὶ ἐμοῦ.
This is the most famous text which the dissenting Greeks have always objected to the Latins, as if it clearly contradicted the Catholic dogma of the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit also from the Son. In the first place, they have have changed the simple affirmation of Christ “who proceedeth from the Father” into an exclusive proposition “who proceedeth from the Father ALONE” which is contrary to grammar and the sound laws of interpretation, especially where Divine Persons are concerned. For, it is well known that in the New Testament that something which must certain be held of all is not infrequently simply affirmed of only one or two divine persons. [1]
Moreover, they fail to note, in this very place, Christ indicates, so to speak, his auctoritatem over the Holy Spirit when He says: “whom I will send to you from the Father.” For, a divine mission, as we showed above, supposes a relation of origin between the person sending and the person sent.
Finally, the same [authors?] contend that the words “who proceedeth from the Father” and said of the Holy Spirit such that they are to be understood only of his eternal procession without any reference whatsoever to his temporal coming or his mission among men. [2] We, however, hold that these words, as they are read in the original text, do indeed assert something of the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father, yet not so much in recto as in obliquo. For, in recto, it directly refers to the future going forth of the Paraclete from the dwelling or bosom of the Father in order to bear testimony concerning the Son among men. However, indirectly it affirms the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father, insofar as He is Spirit, remains with the Father, and is said to go forth from “with the Father” as from a certain kind of dwelling, which implies procession or origin from the Father. Therefore, this metaphorial locution, directly alludes to the temporal mission of the Spirit, yet in such a way as to clearly insinuate the immanent procession from the Father.
The Greek text must be carefully examined: “ὃ παρὰ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται.” First, observe that the preposition used is not ἐκ, which of itself would indicate origin, but the preposition παρά with the genitive, which is only used to signify relations between persons already existing and constituted in their esse. It is used especially after verbs like “to receive” and its synonyms to learn, to know, to ask, to request, to come, to go forth by the command of another, to be sent by someone, etc. It does not, however, indicate origin properly so called. [3] Hence, the Son is not said in the Nicene Creed and other symbols to be “γεννηθέντα παρὰ τοῦ Πατρός” but “γεννηθέντα ἐκ τοῦ Πατρός.” [4] Likewise, when councils and fathers wished to signify the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father, in place of the preposition παρά, which is read in the text of the Gospel, they used the preposition ἐκ: “ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον.” Thus we have it in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed and in other Creeds like it, as well as in many writings of the Greek Fathers. Therefore, there is some sort of different sense between παρὰ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται and ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται, which is not apparent in the Latin version, “qui a Patre procedit,” since the Latin preposition a or ab does not fully correspond with the preposition παρά with a genitive, but has a much broader range. Hence, it is not surprising that our Latin authors did not notice this subtle difference, and interpreted the text of the Gospel as referring to nothing other than the eternal procession of the Spirit. [5] The Greeks, however, from the temporal mission directly signified in this text gradually passed to the eternal procession, which lies intimately beneath this first signification, changing the preposition παρά to ἐκ. Yet, we know of none of them who, before the controversy on this question arose, explicitly denied that the words of Christ, as they stand in the Gospel, could be understood of the temporal mission. On the contrary, we find certain Fathers who clearly support this intepretation, such as Athanasius [6], Anastasius of Antioch [7], and, among the Laters, the African Marius Victorinus [8].
