NOTE: — 66 —

[... declaring] the condition of the consubstantial divine power by saying: "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world." Likewise also concerning the true Spirit: "The Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father" (in Agath[angeghos], page 527). Likewise also concerning the proceeding of the true Spirit from the Father is the following word to be understood: "Which proceedeth from the Father; it proceedeth and is not divided, it issueth forth and is not exhausted" (ibid., page 529). "One is the nature and existence of the All-Holy Trinity, and Its own is the selfhood and from Its own existence. For from the beginning It hath the cause: the Father being [the cause] of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (in the *Yajakh[apatum] Discourse* 1). It is manifest unto the holy wise, who possess the knowledge of the holy scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles and Doctors, that one is the nature of the All-Holy Trinity in power, and in glory, and in eternity; unchangeable truth; life and vivifier of men and of all living beings. "The Father is the Father of the only-begotten Son, and the Emitter of the Holy Spirit; the cause of their essences from the same nature" (*Yajakh[apatum] Discourse* 5). Unto this same sense writeth also our Pontiff Nersēs Shnorhali in the epistle to Manuel, Emperor of the Greeks: "We confess, even as we were taught by the Holy Fathers, the hypostatic property of the Father [to be] unbegotten and without beginning; and of the Son, the birth from the unoriginate Father uncreatedly and timelessly; and of the Spirit, the proceeding and coming forth and sending outward from the Father ineffably." And further there: "The Father is cause, and the Son and the Spirit are from the cause, timelessly and without cause." And Saint Grigor Narekatsʻi, in orthodox confession, writeth thus in his prayerful discourses: "Beneficent God, mighty, awesome, good Father of the grace of Thy mercy, Whose very name of greatness proclaimeth compassion and familiarity, sweet unto the bitter and the ungrateful. With Thee also is Thy Son, like unto Thee; a mighty hand, like unto Thine; with timeless awesome sovereignty, exalted together with Thy creative power. And Thy Holy Spirit of truth, proceeded forth from Thee without exhaustion, perfect reality of existence, eternal essence, equal unto Thee in all things, co-glorious with the sovereignty of Thy Son" (*Narek*, chapter 33). And Saint Movsēs Khorenatsʻi, our Father of Poets, writeth the orthodox confession concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit in the *Sharakan* of the three holy Ecumenical Councils: "This day [we praise] the Spirit of tr[uth]..."