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142 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,
producing and the produced. The first producing cannot pro
duce himself, for otherwise he would be at the same time existent
and non-existent existent, because he produces himself non
existent, because he had no existence till after he was produced.
This is a manifest absurdity. That axiom, that no one can give
"
what he has not Nemo dat, quod non habct," proves the same
thing; for if the producer gave
existence to himself before he
was produced, he would give that which he had not. But is not
God self-existing ? Most certainly ; but that does not mean that
he gave existence to himself. God exists of necessity ; he is a
necessary Being that always did and always will exist ; he gives
existence to all other creatures ; if he ceased to exist, all other
things, likewise, would cease to exist. Let us return to the
point. The Father is the principle (principiumj of the
Divinity,
and is distinguished from the Son by the opposition that exists
between the producer and produced. On the other hand, those
things in God, which have no relative opposition among them
selves, are in nowise distinguished, but are one and the same
thing. The Father, therefore, is the same with the Son, in all
that in which he is not opposed relatively to the Son. And as
the Father is not relatively opposed to the Son, nor the Son to
the Father, by both one and the other being the principle in
the spiration of the Holy Ghost, therefore, the Holy Ghost is
spirated, and proceeds from the Father and the Son ; and it is
an Article of Faith, defined both by the Second General Council
of Lyons, and by that of Florence, that the Holy Ghost proceeds
from one principle and from one
principles
spiration, and not from two
nor from two spirations.
" We condemn and reprobate
" who rashly dare to assert that
all," say the Fathers of Lyons,
the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, as from
two principles, and that he does not proceed from them as from
one principle." The Fathers of the Council of Florence
"
define
that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son
eternally, as from one principle, and by one spiration." The
reason is this (6) : Because the power of spirating the Holy
Ghost is found in the Son as well as in the Father, without any
relative opposition. Hence, as the world was created by the
(6) St. Greg. Nyss.
/. ad Ablav.