Driving home from Austin today, I finished two works on the Holy Spirit from Athanasius the Great and Didymus the Blind, and they were absolutely wonderful! Athanasius' was pretty great, and most of Didymus' was amazing. They both had a beautiful grasp of weaving prooftexts into their treatises without it becoming dry, a technique I really want to be able to emulate.
My favorite parts of these treatises, though, are the three images that they used to describe the relationship between the Father, Son, and Spirit: light, a river, and a body. They are significant because of something called the Filioque controversy. I don't think I've talked about it before here, but in summary, the Western church around the 1000s added the phrase "and the Son" to the third article of the Nicene creed, so that now we read, "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son..." even though the original version does not include that section. In Latin, this phrase is simply one word, Filioque, and as a result, it became known as the filioque controversy.
Coming back to the three images, they are significant because of their relation to this controversy. I first heard the images of light and a river in another work, Augsburg and Constantinople, which is a collection of the correspondences between Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople, the Greek patriarch, and the Tubingen theologians, the authors of the Formula of Concord. Towards the end, while the two sides hotly debate one of the single most ecumenically significant words in history, there is a bright spot in the conversation. Jeremiah brings up the image of light to describe the Trinitarian relations, and the Reformers respond saying (paraphrased from memory), "Yes of course, you're quoting Chrysostom [either a mistake on their part or a quotation I have yet to find]! We also agree with that image, and this other one of a river that Chrysostom also uses. Now here's why they point to our view and you suck." To which Jeremiah responds brilliantly, "No you suck." It was a moment of beauty where it seems the two could come to agreement, only to be spoiled by a geographic in-fighting.
This really summarizes my view of the Filioque. The West had no real right to change the creed--we would need an ecumenical council for that. This is also the reason why the Athanasian Creed makes me a bit uncomfortable. I like it and subscribe to it, but it wasn't from an ecumenical council like the Nicene was and doesn't have such deep history in the church like the Apostle's does. Instead, it's from some Western monks who wrote it in honor of Athanasius the Great in the 1000s. One tradition that could be fun would be to take parts of the canons from Ephesus and/or Chalcedon and confess them at the annunciation or something, that could be interesting, but I digress.
With all that said, I do still hold to the filioque, but I worry that it has led to poor catechesis on both sides. Historically, the Church has been very clear on the relationship between the persons: the Father begets the Son, the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and this procession comes from the Son, all of which happens in eternity. In this way, the ultimate cause of each person is the Father, but the Son is the medium through which the Spirit proceeds. To be clear, this is in eternity and is attached to the nature of God, so it is not at if the Son and Spirit are created by the Father as separate beings, but rather the Father begets His Son and breathes out His Spirit through His Son eternally. On a few occasions,I've heard from internet Eastern Orthodox that the Son has no involvement with the Spirit's procession, and I've heard from Protestants that the Son is a primary origin of the Spirit. However, these are neither the teachings of the scriptures, nor the fathers, nor the moderns. Rather, this historic view I mentioned above is that which the theologians of both sides teach, and we need an ecumenical council to sort this thing out. However, I contend that we have yet to see an ecumenical council on the topic because the Lord awaits a great and united Lutheran episcopate so that we can get invited, so that the great king who unites the church again before the return of Christ may come from Ethiopia. If and when such an event takes place, I would say that the best place to land is actually with neither keeping nor rejecting the filioque. Instead, I will advocate for the phrase "through the Son," which is not hedging language like most theological compromises but is actually more accurate to the discussion we're dealing with.
Now that I have gotten sufficiently afield of my original point, my actual purpose here is that these images showcase the agreement between the two sides and may point towards a middle way by which the Church can once again be joined together in the true confession. For the first and second image, let's see what Athanasius has to say:
“For such examples on this subject found therein are sufficient and fitting. The Father is called Fountain and Light. For it says: “They have forsaken me, the Fountain of living water [Jer. 2:13].” And again in Baruch: “Why is it, o Israel, that you are in the land of your enemies? You have forsaken the Fountain of wisdom [Bar. 3:10, 12].” And according to John: “Our God is Light [Jn 1:5].” But the Son, as if in reference to the Fountain, is called River: “The River of God is filled with waters [Ps 64:10].” And in reference to the Light, he is called Radiance, as Paul says: “He is the Radiance of his glory and the Character of his Subsistence [Heb 1:3].” Thus the Father is Light and his Radiance is the Son—for in particular one must not hesitate to affirm the same things about them many times—and so we are also permitted to see in the Son the Spirit in whom we are enlightened. For it says: “May he give to you the Spirit of Wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened [Eph 1:17-18]].” But when we are enlightened in the Spirit, it is Christ who enlightens us in him. For it says: “He was the true Light who enlightens every human being coming into the world [Jn 1:9].” And again, the Father is the Fountain and the Son is called the River, and so we are said to drink of the Spirit. For it is written: “We were all made to drink of one Spirit [1 Cor 12:13].”” Athanasius, On the Spirit 1.19.1-4
Once again, what I absolutely adore about this argument is that it is both stylistically elegant as well as chock-full with scripture passages. My mind comes alive with every sentence I read as the image connects in my head, all made using the inspired scriptures as his source. Anyway, the first image is of a light source, like a flame or the sun. The light source, which represents the Father, is the ultimate origin, and from Him comes the rays, which is the Only-Begotten Son. Just as the rays of light are of the same substance as the light which produced it, so the Son is the same substance as the Father from whom He springs, which is why we confess in the Nicene Creed that the Son is "Light of Light." The Spirit, then, is the visible light which flows from the Source through the Rays and is able to enlighten our hearts. In this way, we see the Spirit flowing from the Father and the Son, just as the Western Nicene Creed confesses, but from the Father as His ultimate origin and the Son as a mediated origin.
The second image, which is a bit clearer because the language is less convoluted, is that of a river. The Father is a fountain from which the Godhead springs, the Son is the river by which the gifts of God flow, and the Holy Ghost is the water of life, the actual summary of all God's gifts. This is seen more clearly in Didymus the Blind's work on the Spirit, where he notices that in Matthew 7:11, our Lord promises, "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" In Luke 11:13, which is in the same immediate context, He says something slightly differently, "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" He sees this as confessing that the Spirit is the One who is the culmination of all of God's gifts (something Wolfmueller picks up on as well). In this way, we can see the image as once more confessing that the Father is the source, the Son is the medium, and the Spirit is the gifts which the Lord gives.
The final image, which is my favorite, is that of the body, and is confessed by Didymus the Blind:
"Another scriptural example shows that Trinity has a single nature and power. The Son is called the Hand, the Arm, and the Right-hand of the Father. Just as we have often taught that these terms demonstrate that the one nature lacks difference, so too is the Holy Spirit named the Finger of God because he is conjoined in nature to the Father and the Son. In the Gospels, when some were disparaging the miracles by the Lord saying: “He cast out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons,” [Lk 11:15] the Savior, asking why they said this replied: “If it is by Beelzebub that I cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast out demons? But if it is by the Finger of God that I cast out demons, then the reign of God has come upon you. [Lk 11:19-20]” When writing about the same event, another evangelist has the Son say: “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons [Mt 12:28].” These passages show that the Finger of God is the Holy Spirit. Therefore, if a finger is joined to a hand and a hand to him whose hand it is, then without doubt the finger is ascribed to the substance of him whose finger it is…For just as the hand, through which everything is accomplished and worked, is not divided from the body, and just as the hand belongs to him whose hand it is, so also is the finger not separated from the hand of which it is a finger." 87-88, 90
I have often heard the Spirit called the Finger of God, but I was never able to find out where that idea came from, but here it is! In a similar argument to the one about good gifts mentioned above, in Luke, Christ claims to cast out demons by the Finger of God, but in Matthew, He says that He does so by the Holy Spirit. The solution is that the Spirit is the Finger of God. In this way, we can see the Godhead as a body. The Father is the Body/Head (1 Cor. 11:3; part of a very contentious passage which I hope to wade into at a later date), the Son is the Right Arm/Hand, and the Spirit then is the Finger. Just as an arm or hand has its self and agency from the body and head respectively, so to the Son is begotten from the Father. Just as a finger's self and agency come ultimately from the body and head respectively and mediately from the hand it's attached to, so too the Spirit proceeds from the Father ultimately and from the Son mediately.
Also, just to mention about this whole "Finger of God" thing, since it isn't talked about as much in the modern day, this means that the numerous places in the Pentateuch where God is said to work through His Finger (including writing the Law in stone!) is a reference to the work of the Holy Ghost. In addition, this also may give some new symbolic meaning to Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam. I have often been confused why God is touching Adam to give Him life when He is said to breathe life into Adam. However, this makes much more sense here, since the Spirit by which He gives life is the same as the Finger of God.
But yeah, that's really all I have to say about all that. I really think these images are very ecumenically important because they highlight the fact that the two groups do traditionally agree with one another even if they linguistically differ. In addition, they are remarkably helpful to me personally when trying to understand the relations between the three members of the Trinity.
In another post on Traducianism, I hope to give an image of my own, simply elaborating on what it means for the Holy Ghost to be "God's Spirit" in a related way to how man has a spirit of his own.
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