09 May 2022

The Angelic Doctor Against the Errors of the Greeks - Chapter 8

 How the Holy Spirit is to be understood as unbegotten.

Doubtful also seems a text of Gregory Nazianzenus in his sermon on the Epiphany: “The Holy Spirit as he exists in God proceeds such that he is unbegotten and not the Son, a mean between unbegotten and begotten.” Footnote Now it does not seem that the Holy Spirit can be said to be unbegotten. For Hilary in his book on the Synods Footnote states that if anyone say there are two unbegottens, he asserts there are two gods. Similarly, Athanasius says in his letter to Serapion that “the Holy Spirit is not unbegotten, because the Catholic Church assembled at Nicaea rightly and faithfully attributed to the Father alone the property of being without origin and unbegotten, and commanded this to be believed only of the Father and preached to the whole world under penalty of anathema.” Footnote

It should be noted, however, that unbegotten can be taken in two senses. Taken one way it connotes him who is without a principle, and in this sense it applies only to the Father, as is clear from the words of Athanasius. Taken in the other way it signifies him who, though he has a principle, is not begotten; and in this sense, not only Gregory Nazianzenus in the passage quoted above, but also Jerome Footnote in his rules for definitions against heretics says the Holy Spirit is unbegotten.

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