View Volume II - In Today's Catholic World

AND THEIR REFUTATION. 385
Christ. If he said that the Holy Ghost does not proceed from
the Word, but from the Father alone, he would fall into the
Greek heresy already refuted (Ref. iv) ; but he rather leans to
the heresy of Nestorius, who, admitting two Persons in Christ, a
Divine and a human Person, said, consequently, that the Divine
Person dwelling in Jesus Christ, together with the Father, sent
the Holy Ghost ;
and the human Person in Christ obtained from
the Father, by his prayers, that the Holy Spirit
should be sent.
Berruyer does not expressly say this ; but when he asserts that
the Holy Ghost was not sent by Jesus Christ, only by his prayer
alone, he appears to believe, either that there is no Divine Person
in Christ at all, or that there are two Persons one Divine, which
sends, of himself, the Holy Ghost ; the other human, which ob
tains, by his prayers, that he may be sent. He shows that that
is his
opinion, when he says that in Jesus Christ it was the Hu
manity alone that acted and suffered, that is, the Man alone
made in time the Son of God by the whole three Persons. This
was not, certainly, the Word who was born of the Father alone
before all ages.
But the Word, he says, was already united to
the Humanity of Christ in unity of Person ;
but then we should
remember, that according to his opinion the Word had nothing
to do, for it was only the Humanity that acted in Christ. That
being the case, of what service was the union of the Word in
unity of Person with the Humanity ? Merely, as he said, that
by means of the hypostatic union Christ might be made the Son
of God, of the three Divine Persons; and hence, he says, the
operations of Christ were not elicited by the Word, but merely
by his humanity, and the hypostatic union gave no value to his
unio hypostatica nihil
actions: "in ratione principii agentis
omnino contulit."
46. With what face could Berruyer assert that the Holy
Ghost was not sent by Jesus Christ, when he himself several
times said he was, and promised his Apostles that he would send
them the Paraclete :
" But
when the Paraclete cometh, whom I
will send you from the Father, the Spirit
of truth, who pro-
" For if I go not, the
ceedeth from the Father" (John, xv, 26) ;
Paraclete will not come to you ; but if I go, I will send him to
you" (John, xvi, 7). Listen to this ! Christ says that he sent
the Holy Ghost ; and Berruyer says that the Holy Ghost was
2c