Filioque
The Western Church commonly uses a version of the
Nicene creed which has the Latin word filioque ("and the Son") added
after the declaration that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. Scripture
reveals that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The external
relationships of the persons of the Trinity mirror their internal relationships.
Just as the Father externally sent the Son into the world in time, the
Son internally proceeds from the Father in the Trinity. Just as the Spirit
is externally sent into the world by the Son as well as the Father (John
15:26, Acts 2:33), he internally proceeds from both Father and Son in the
Trinity. This is why the Spirit is referred to as the Spirit of the Son
(Gal. 4:6) and not just the Spirit of the Father (Matt. 10:20).
The quotations below show that the early Church
Fathers, both Latin and Greek, recognized the same thing, saying that the
Spirit proceeds "from the Father and the Son" or "from the Father through
the Son."
These expressions mean the same thing because everything
the Son has is from the Father. The proceeding of the Spirit from the Son
is something the Son himself received from the Father. The procession of
the Spirit is therefore ultimately rooted in the Father but goes through
the Son. However, some Eastern Orthodox insist that to equate "through
the Son" with "from the Son" is a departure from the true faith.
The expression "from the Father through
the Son" is accepted by many Eastern Orthodox. This, in fact, led to a
reunion of the Eastern Orthodox with the Catholic Church in 1439 at the
Council of Florence: "The Greek prelates believed that every saint, precisely
as a saint, was inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore could not err
in faith. If they expressed themselves differently, their meanings must
substantially agree. . . . Once the Greeks accepted that the Latin Fathers
had really written Filioque (they could not understand Latin), the
issue was settled (May 29). The Greek Fathers necessarily meant the same;
the faiths of the two churches were identical; union was not only possible
but obligatory (June 3); and on June 8 the Latin cedula [statements
of belief] on the procession [of the Spirit] was accepted by the Greek
synod" (New Catholic Encyclopedia, 5:972–3).
Unfortunately, the union did not last. In the 1450s
(just decades before the Protestant Reformation), the Eastern Orthodox
left the Church again under pressure from the Muslims, who had just conquered
them and who insisted they renounce their union with the Western Church
(lest Western Christians come to their aid militarily).
However, union is still possible on the filioque
issue through the recognition that the formulas "and the Son" and "through
the Son" mean the same thing. Thus the Catechism of the Catholic Church
states that "This legitimate complementarity [of expressions], provided
it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the
reality of the same mystery confessed" (CCC 248).
Today many Eastern Orthodox bishops are putting
aside old prejudices and again acknowledging that there need be no separation
between the two communions on this issue. Eastern Orthodox Bishop Kallistos
Ware (formerly Timothy Ware), who once adamantly opposed the filioque
doctrine, states: "The filioque controversy which has separated
us for so many centuries is more than a mere technicality, but it is not
insoluble. Qualifying the firm position taken when I wrote [my book] The
Orthodox Church twenty years ago, I now believe, after further study,
that the problem is more in the area of semantics and different emphases
than in any basic doctrinal differences" (Diakonia, quoted from
Elias Zoghby’s A Voice from the Byzantine East, 43).
Tertullian
"I believe that the Spirit proceeds not otherwise
than from the Father through the Son" (Against Praxeas 4:1 [A.D.
216]).
Origen
"We believe, however, that there are three persons:
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and we believe none to be unbegotten
except the Father. We admit, as more pious and true, that all things were
produced through the Word, and that the Holy Spirit is the most excellent
and the first in order of all that was produced by the Father through Christ"
(Commentaries on John 2:6 [A.D. 229]).
Maximus the Confessor
"By nature the Holy Spirit in his being takes substantially
his origin from the Father through the Son who is begotten (Questions
to Thalassium 63 [A.D. 254]).
Gregory the Wonderworker
"[There is] one Holy Spirit, having substance from
God, and who is manifested through the Son; image of the Son, perfect of
the perfect; life, the cause of living; holy fountain; sanctity, the dispenser
of sanctification; in whom is manifested God the Father who is above all
and in all, and God the Son who is through all. Perfect Trinity, in glory
and eternity and sovereignty neither divided nor estranged" (Confession
of Faith [A.D. 265]).
Hilary of Poitiers
"Concerning the Holy Spirit . . . it is not necessary
to speak of him who must be acknowledged, who is from the Father and the
Son, his sources" (The Trinity 2:29 [A.D. 357]).
"In the fact that before times eternal your [the
Father’s] only-begotten [Son] was born of you, when we put an end to every
ambiguity of words and difficulty of understanding, there remains only
this: he was born. So too, even if I do not grasp it in my understanding,
I hold fast in my consciousness to the fact that your Holy Spirit is from
you through him" (ibid., 12:56).
Didymus the Blind
"As we have understood discussions . . . about
the incorporeal natures, so too it is now to be recognized that the Holy
Spirit receives from the Son that which he was of his own nature. . . .
So too the Son is said to receive from the Father the very things by which
he subsists. For neither has the Son anything else except those things
given him by the Father, nor has the Holy Spirit any other substance than
that given him by the Son" (The Holy Spirit 37 [A.D. 362]).
Epiphanius of Salamis
"The Father always existed and the Son always existed,
and the Spirit breathes from the Father and the Son" (The Man Well-Anchored
75 [A.D. 374]).
Basil The Great
"Through the Son, who is one, he [the Holy Spirit]
is joined to the Father, one who is one, and by himself completes the Blessed
Trinity" (The Holy Spirit 18:45 [A.D. 375]).
"[T]he goodness of [the divine] nature, the holiness
of [that] nature, and the royal dignity reach from the Father through the
only-begotten [Son] to the Holy Spirit. Since we confess the persons in
this manner, there is no infringing upon the holy dogma of the monarchy"
(ibid., 18:47).
Ambrose of Milan
"Just as the Father is the fount of life, so too,
there are many who have stated that the Son is designated as the fount
of life. It is said, for example that with you, Almighty God, your Son
is the fount of life, that is, the fount of the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit
is life, just as the Lord says: ‘The words which I have spoken to you are
Spirit and life’ [John 6:63]" (The Holy Spirit 1:15:152 [A.D. 381]).
"The Holy Spirit, when he proceeds from the Father
and the Son, does not separate himself from the Father and does not separate
himself from the Son" (ibid., 1:2:120).
Gregory of Nyssa
"[The] Father conveys the notion of unoriginate,
unbegotten, and Father always; the only-begotten Son is understood along
with the Father, coming from him but inseparably joined to him. Through
the Son and with the Father, immediately and before any vague and unfounded
concept interposes between them, the Holy Spirit is also perceived conjointly"
(Against Eunomius 1 [A.D. 382]).
The Athanasian Creed
"[W]e venerate one God in the Trinity, and the
Trinity in oneness. . . . The Father was not made nor created nor begotten
by anyone. The Son is from the Father alone, not made nor created, but
begotten. The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made nor
created nor begotten, but proceeding" (Athanasian Creed [A.D. 400]).
Augustine
"If that which is given has for its principle the
one by whom it is given, because it did not receive from anywhere else
that which proceeds from the giver, then it must be confessed that the
Father and the Son are the principle of the Holy Spirit, not two principles,
but just as the Father and the Son are one God . . . relative to the Holy
Spirit, they are one principle" (The Trinity 5:14:15 [A.D. 408]).
"[The one] from whom principally the Holy Spirit
proceeds is called God the Father. I have added the term ‘principally’
because the Holy Spirit is found to proceed also from the Son" (ibid.,
15:17:29).
"Why, then, should we not believe that the Holy
Spirit proceeds also from the Son, when he is the Spirit also of the Son?
For if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from him, when he showed himself
to his disciples after his resurrection he would not have breathed upon
them, saying, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ [John 20:22]. For what else did
he signify by that breathing upon them except that the Holy Spirit proceeds
also from him" (Homilies on John 99:8 [A.D. 416]).
Cyril of Alexandria
"Since the Holy Spirit when he is in us effects
our being conformed to God, and he actually proceeds from the Father and
Son, it is abundantly clear that he is of the divine essence, in it in
essence and proceeding from it" (Treasury of the Holy Trinity, thesis
34 [A.D. 424]).
"[T]he Holy Spirit flows from the Father in the
Son" (ibid.).
"Just as the Son says ‘All that the Father has
is mine’ [John 16:15], so shall we find that through the Son it is all
also in the Spirit" (Letters 3:4:33 [A.D. 433]).
Council of Toledo
"We believe in one true God, Father and Son and
Holy Spirit, maker of the visible and the invisible.
. . . The Spirit is also the Paraclete, who is
himself neither the Father nor the Son, but proceeding from the Father
and the Son. Therefore the Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten, the
Paraclete is not begotten but proceeding from the Father and the Son" (Council
of Toledo [A.D. 447]).
Fulgence of Ruspe
"Hold most firmly and never doubt in the least
that the only God the Son, who is one person of the Trinity, is the Son
of the only God the Father; but the Holy Spirit himself also one person
of the Trinity, is Spirit not of the Father only, but of Father and of
Son together" (The Rule of Faith 53 [A.D. 524]).
"Hold most firmly and never doubt in the least
that the same Holy Spirit who is Spirit of the Father and of the Son, proceeds
from the Father and the Son" (ibid., 54).
John Damascene
"Likewise we believe also in one Holy Spirit, the
Lord and giver of life . . . God existing and addressed along with Father
and Son; uncreated, full, creative, all-ruling, all-effecting, all-powerful,
of infinite power, Lord of all creation and not under any lord; deifying,
not deified; filling, not filled; sharing in, not shared in; sanctifying,
not sanctified; the intercessor, receiving the supplications of all; in
all things like to the Father and Son; proceeding from the Father and communicated
through the Son" (Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 8 [A.D. 712]).
"And the Holy Spirit is the power of the Father
revealing the hidden mysteries of his divinity, proceeding from the Father
through the Son in a manner known to himself, but different from that of
generation" (ibid., 12).
"I say that God is always Father since he has always
his Word [the Son] coming from himself and, through his Word, the Spirit
issuing from him" (Dialogue Against the Manicheans 5 [A.D. 728]).
Council of Nicaea II
"We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver
of life, proceeding from the Father through the Son" (Profession of
Faith [A.D. 787]).
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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