Activity and the Procession of the Holy Spirit

I am nearing completion of a translation of some 7th-century Greek questions-and-answers, falsely ascribed to St. Athanasius.  Most of these answers are short, dedicated to tightly-focused questions: "Some say that infants often die for their parents' sins.  Is it so?"  "Why was God seen by Moses in a bush, and not in another plant?"  "Why, since Christ was circumcised, do we not circumcise ourselves too, like Him?"  There is one set of questions included in my translation, though, that covers Trinitarian theology writ large, with careful metaphysical and theological precision.

In translating this last set of questions, I noticed how a grammatical distinction in Latin and Greek changes the understanding of the Holy Spirit's procession.  In the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (as the "Nicene Creed" is more precisely known, since it incorporates additions made at the First Council of Constantinople), the Holy Spirit is described via a chain of participial phrases.  When describing His procession, the Greek phrase is τὸ ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον, "the one proceeded out of the Father," with "out" or "from" (εκ) repeated twice, once in the participle, once in the phrase "from the Father."  The original Latin text similarly used a participial phrase: ex Patre procedentem, "proceeding from the Father."  With the addition of the Filioque, the section of the Creed relating to the Holy Spirit was rewritten to remove participles and add present-tense verbs.  Thus the current Latin form of the Creed, as recited at Mass, says, qui ex Patre Filioque procedit, "Who proceeds from the Father and the Son."

Focusing on the participles alone can be slightly muddy: it is clearer when we describe the procession with verbs.  As the Latin Creed says that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son," so the Greek, similarly rewritten, reads, "The Father proceeds-out the Spirit" (Ὁ Πατὴρ...ἐκπορεύει...τὸ Πνεῦμα).  Thus it reads in the questions-and-answers I am translating.

From this, we see the distinction in action.  In the Latin phrasing, the Spirit is the subject of the verb (Spiritum...qui...procedit); in the Greek phrasing, the Father is the subject of the verb.  The Spirit does not "make Himself proceed" from the Father, somehow; as the Greek emphasizes, it is the Father Who causes the Spirit's procession.  So it is that the text I am translating says that the Father is the one cause in the Trinity, while both the Son and the Spirit are caused, the former by begetting, the latter by procession.  

This is typical of the Greek view of the Trinity: the Father's role as Father, as "cause" of the other two Persons, is emphasized, in a way that can sometimes tend to subordinationism.  The transitive verb in Greek bears witness to this.  There is activity in the Latin view as well—though activity from both the Father and the Son—but it is slightly concealed under the intransitive verb.  As an analogy, perhaps one could consider the example of evaporation in the water cycle.  Speaking in a Latin way, we might say, "water evaporates due to the sun's heat"; in a Greek way, we'd instead say, "the sun's heat evaporates the water."  The latter is transitive (subject: sun's heat; object: water), while the former is intransitive.  Of course, when taking the prepositional phrase into consideration, the two say the same thing: the sun's heat causes the water to turn into water vapor.  But the sense of activity differs between the two formulations.

So it is with the Trinity.  Setting aside the Filioque for the purposes of this discussion, both formulations say that the Father is the cause of the Spirit by means of procession.  Yet, I think, the transitive verb used in Greek puts greater emphasis on the Father's activity, whereas the intransitive verb used in Latin focuses attention more on the act of procession itself.  (A side issue is the claim that the Greek verb cannot allow two subjects to be involved, hence the Orthodox rejection of the Filioque, but that is not something to be discussed here.)  

I do not mean by this discussion to imply a distinction in doctrine between the two formulations of the Spirit's procession, the Latin and the Greek.  Instead, it is a difference in style, in feel, in flavor.  The Greek formulation emphasizes the "monarchical" aspect of the Father, while the Latin tones it down (much more so with the later addition of the Filioque).  

Such minute distinctions might seem like mere trifles, simply to be brushed off, but I think the different flavors of theology worth noting and pondering.  And, regarding these trifling grammatical matters, we might recall the reproach of St. Basil:

"Those who are idle in the pursuit of righteousness count theological terminology as secondary, together with attempts to search out the hidden meaning in this phrase or that syllable, but those conscious of the goal of our calling realizes that we are to become like God, as far as this is possible for human nature.  But we cannot become like God unless we have knowledge of Him, and without lessons there will be no knowledge.  Instruction begins with the proper use of speech, and syllables and words are the elements of speech.  Therefore to scrutinize syllables is not a superfluous task.  Just because certain questions seem insignificant is no reason to ignore them.  Hunting truth is no easy task; we must look everywhere for its tracks. ... If a man spurns fundamental elements as insignificant trifles, he will never embrace the fullness of wisdom" (On the Holy Spirit I.2) 

Source: St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, tr. David Anderson, Popular Patristics Series 5 (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980), 16. 

The original Latin translation of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed is from Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, ed. Karl Rahner, 29th Ed. (Freiburg: Herder, 1953), #86, p. 42. 

Text ©2025 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.