St. Ambrose of Milan

In this regard, it is impossible to discover the unity of nature more than the way in which St. Ambrose explains the words of Christ from me: "All that the Son received through the unity of nature, the Holy Spirit also received from Christ through the same unity".63 But here it does not appear that this commentary would be in favor of the Latin doctrine of the Filioque, as some of the supporters of the latter claim. Moreover, in order to receive from the Son, the Spirit must already exist: the Son cannot be the cause of the hypostatic existence of the Spirit, nor even that which unites Him with the Divine nature; the connection with this nature is presupposed in view of hypostatic existence. In this case, there is absolutely nothing to indicate that what the Spirit takes from the Son through the unity of natures is His hypostatic existence, or even His divine nature. But here, as we have already seen in St. Hilary, we are talking about the goods that belong to the general Divine nature, about the energies or actions that are transmitted from the Father through the Son to the Holy Spirit.

Here is another text by St. Ambrose, which is often cited in favor of the Latin doctrine of the Filioque: "Know now that just as the Father is the Source of life, so the Son is also presented as the Source of life, as most theologians have pointed out. For it is written: "From Thee, Almighty Father, Thy Son is the Fountain of Life," that is, the source of the Holy Spirit; for the Spirit is life, according to the word of the Lord: "The words which I speak to you are spirit and life" (John 6:63), for where the Spirit is, there is also life, and where there is life, there is also the Spirit."65

From St. Ambrose's assertion that the Son is the Source of the life of the Holy Spirit, it is impossible to conclude that "He is also the Source (together with the Father) of His being",66 that the Son Himself is "the pre-eternal Source of the Spirit",67 and that this refers to "the pre-eternal origin of the Spirit Himself",68 especially since "the holy teacher could not have expressed more openly the procession of the Spirit from the Son".69 St. Ambrose in this passage of his treatise asserts that "just as the Father is the source of life [...], the source of life is the Son," emphasizing here the new commonality of the nature of the Father and the Son, because life is a good that belongs to the common Divine nature, like eternity or goodness. Life is also related to divine grace, or, as some Greek Fathers maintained, to divine energy.70 St. Ambrose in this passage clearly implies the communication of this energy (which cannot be understood as a source of being or a principle of existence) from the Son (who received it from the Father) to the Holy Spirit.71 Note that in another place he speaks of grace as here he speaks of life.72 It is difficult to suppose that, according to the bishop of Milan, this communication takes place divinely and pre-eternally; and in this context it would be fair to say that the Spirit, as well as grace and energy, proceeds from the Father and from the Son. The context of this passage is clearly of a house-building nature, since St. Ambrose has in mind the communication of this grace to people. The quotation from St. John the Evangelist, which appears right there, points to this in the same way as it indicates that it is not the Very Person of the Holy Spirit, which St. Ambrose had in mind (the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit cannot be identified with either life or spirit), but something that belongs to Him: grace or energy.

The following text clearly confirms this interpretation:

"When we see in this the Source of the Father or the Son, we understand in any case that it is not the source of water from below, which is creation, but the water of divine grace, that is, of the Holy Spirit (divmae illius gratiae, hoc est, Spiritus Sancti), because He is living water."73

In another place we can find the statement that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and from the Son." This text is quoted primarily by those who want to see in St. Ambrose the defender of the Latin doctrine of the Filioque. But it is enough to place this passage in its context to see at once that the bishop of Milan puts this statement in the perspective of oikonomia: "The Holy Spirit is not sent out to depart from a place, nor is the Son Himself when He says, 'I came forth from God, and have come' (Jn. 8, 42) […]. The Son, neither when He proceeds from the Father, departs from there and is separated from Him, as the body is separated from another, nor when He is with the Father, is He continued by Him, as a body that is continued by another. His Holy Spirit, too, when He proceeds from the Father and from the Son (procedit a Patre et a Filio), is not separated from the Father, is not separated from the Son."74

St. Ambrose wants to show here clearly the unity of the nature of the three Divine Persons, or rather, he wants to make it clear that by virtue of this unity in the generations the three Persons are not separated from one another, when the Son proceeds from the Father to be sent into the world, or when the Holy Spirit proceeds or is sent from the Father and from the Son, being sent by the Son from the Father.75 Other passages also consider this unity of nature in perspective, which in the meantime may seem unquestionably theological, and not oikonomic. Thus, St. Ambrose writes:

"He who proceeds from another is either from His essence or from His power: from essence, like the Son who speaks. I have come (prodivi) out of the mouth of the Most High (Sir. 24:3), or as the Spirit Who proceeds (procedit) from the Father (John 15:26) and of whom the Son says: "He will glorify Me, because He will receive from Mine (John 16:14)." He also notes that the Son takes everything from the Father "through the unity of their nature (per unitatem naturae), and all that the Spirit receives from the Son receives through the same unity (per eamdem unitatem) as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself declares it of the Holy Spirit".77 And in another place he writes: "Is there anything more obvious than this unity? Everything that the Father has, the Son has, everything that the Son has, the Holy Spirit also receives THIS."78

[On the one hand, as confirmed by St. Ambrose, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. On the other hand, all the texts speak frankly of the transmission from the Father to the Son and from the Son to the Spirit (or from the Father through the Son to the Spirit,80) of all good things, all the qualities or all the actions or energies of the divine nature.81 These goods, actions, or energies are distinct from nature (or substance or essence) as such, as St. Ambrose himself has clearly made clear elsewhere.82 Whereas that which was received by the Spirit from the Father through the Son (or also from the Son) was received by the Spirit from the One Father at the same time as His personal or hypostatic existence. Elsewhere in the text it can be seen that the unity of nature is in a sense preceded by the communication from one Person to another of the goods or energies that are united to this nature (the Son, says St. Ambrose, takes everything from the Father, and the Spirit takes everything from the Son through the unity of their nature). What is said here about the goods that belong to nature, and not about nature as such, is confirmed by the fact of which St. Ambrose says: "What the Father has is with the Son, what the Son has, the Spirit also receives it," and this is not what the Father is, nor what the Son is. Here we see the idea, widespread among the Fathers, that "the Spirit takes from the Son", and in connection with this the words of Christ: "He will receive from Mine" (John 16:14); an idea which the Fathers interpreted, like St. Hilary, as the communication of Divine goods (or energies or actions of the "Divine nature").

On the basis of these latter texts and their importance, St. Ambrose appears to be one of those Latin Fathers to whom St. Maximus appeals in order to confirm the use of the expression "The Spirit proceeds also from the Son" to signify that the Father and the Son have one and the same nature (St. Ambrose has in mind, like St. Hilary, to defend the divinity of Christ, denied by the Arians). The theology of St. Ambrose is correlated in another place with the criterion of orthodoxy given by St. Maximus: it is obvious that St. Ambrose does not see in the Son the Cause or the Beginning of the Spirit, and as far as His personal existence is concerned; The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, as is shown by numerous passages in his writings.83 Thus Ambrose writes: "The Spirit proceeds at the same time from the Father and bears witness to the Son (a Patre procedit Spiritus Sanctus et testificatur de Filio)." He also observes: "His procession takes place without mediation and goes back to the One who never began, because the Father had no beginning, and since He had no beginning, the Spirit also did not have one, for the reason that He is in Him and He is His".85 In addition, one can quote a remark that openly indicates that St. Ambrose does not at all interpret the biblical expression "Spirit of the Son" in the sense of the procession of the Holy Spirit, who has the Son as His Beginning: "If you say 'Spirit,' you are at the same time naming God the Father, from whom the Spirit proceeds, and the Son, because the Spirit is also the Son."86 St. Ambrose himself reveals the difference between expressions that refer to the origin of the existence of the Holy Spirit and those that emphasize the unity of nature.

For example, he notes: "The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and He possesses, together with the Father and the Son, the same deity, the same action, and the same essence (procedentem ex Patre, et communem Patre et Filio deitatem, operationem et substantiam possidentem)."

The same difference is seen in the words of Christ Himself, when He says: "The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, and at the same time the Spirit is sent through the Son because of the community and unity of nature (propter societatem unitatemque naturae a Filio mittitur)," and the open manifestation of the unity of nature is here placed in a distinctly house-building perspective, because it is openly connected with mission. It will be possible to note the closeness of these last words of St. Ambrose to the words of St. Maximus: "They wanted to discover the work (of the Holy Spirit) to proceed (through the Son) and thereby establish the affinity and indistinguishability of the essence," as St. Ambrose, one of the Latin Fathers, whom St. Maximus had in mind in his letter, asserts in a different way than St. Ambrose, one of the Latin Fathers, whom St. Maximus had in mind in his letter.