Filioque
A Latin phrase meaning "and the Son," which was
first added to the Nicene Creed in 589 at the Third Council of Toledo.
The original creedal statement reflects the tradition of the
east, which, while maintaining that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father in
a way differing from the Son's generation, hesitated to say more about the Holy
Spirit's origin than the text of John 15:26: "The Spirit of truth, who
proceeds from the Father."
The Greek fathers stressed the monarchy of the Father, that
is, his unity and his role as the sole cause (aitia) or principle (arche) of
the Son and the Holy Spirit, which for them guarantees the divinity and unity
of the Son and Spirit. When they link the Spirit with the Son, they refer not
to the inner life of the Trinity but rather to the economy of salvation, where
the Sprit's role follows that of the Son. This seems to be the case with their
statement, based on scripture, that the Holy Spirit is "the Spirit of the
Son" as well as of the Father (Athanasius, Ep. Serap. 3.1; Gregory of Nyssa,
Eun. 1.378), "the Image and Spirit of the Son" (Athanasius, Ep.
Serap. 1.24), "the Spirit of Christ" (Gregory of Nyssa, Maced. 13).
Gregory of Nyssa speaks of the Son's mediation or middle position (mesiteia)
with respect to the Spirit, which, however, "does not exclude the Spirit's
natural relation (phsike ... schesis) with the Father" (Tres Dii.).
This theme was developed later by Maximus the Confessor and
John of Damascus. Maximus says that "just as the Holy Spirit is by nature
and in essence the Spirit of God the Father, so is he by nature and in essence
the Spirit of the Son since he proceeds substantially and in an ineffable way
from the Father through the begotten Son" (Qu. Thal. 63). Elsewhere, he
states that "just as the Nous [the Father] is the cause (aitios) of the
Logos, so is he of the Spirit, but through the mediation of the Logos"
(Qu. dub. 34); in his case, these expressions appear to refer to the immanent
procession, and indeed he was criticized by some Greeks for beings too
sympathetic to the Latins. For his part, John of Damascus, calling the Holy
Spirit the "Spirit of the Son" but denying that the Son is
"cause" (aitios) or that the Holy Spirit is "from the Son"
(ek tou Uiou) (F.O. 1.8), says that "the Spirit of the Son proceeds, not
as from him (ex autou), but as through him (di autou) from the Father"
(F.O. 1.12). The phrase "through the Son" was added to the
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in the solemn profession of faith sent in 784
by Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople, to the eastern patriarchs. His
profession, with the addition, was examined without rejection at the Second
Council of Nicaea (787). In Greek patristic though, however, the phrase
"proceeds through the Son" occurs less often than is usually said,
and when used, it frequently applies only to the central role of the Son in the
economy of salvation and not to the immanent procession of the Spirit.
A somewhat different tradition developed in the west.
Tertullian says that he preserves the monarchy of the Father when he holds that
"the Spirits comes from no other source than from the Father through the
Son" (Prax. 4.1). Hilary of Poitiers syas that the Holy Spirit expresses
the unity of the Trinity because the Spirit "receives from both" the
Father and the Son (Op. hist. frg. 2.231). Marius Victorinus writes that the
Father is principally (principaliter) the source of the Holy Spirit (Adv. Arium
3.8) and that "the Spirit receives form Christ, Christ having received
from the Father, so that the Spirit also receives from the Father" (Adv.
Arium 1.13); this statement seems to imply a certain mediatory position or
influence of the Son. Ambrose holds that the Holy Spirits is not separated from
the Father and the Son "when he proceeds from the Father and the Son"
(Sp. Sanct. 1.11.120). Although in these texts Hilary, Victorinus, and Ambrose
speak directly of the saving mission of the Spirit, they tend to move from
these temporal mission or procession toward the eternal procession.
Against this traditional background, Augustine developed a
clearer, more explicit doctrine about the immanent procession the Holy Spirit.
"The Son," he says, "is born of the Father, and the Holy Spirit
proceed from the Father principally and (by [the Father's] gift and with no
lapse of time) commonly from both" (Trin. 15.26.47); he adds that the Son
"has it from the Father that the Holy Spirit should also proceed from
him" (ibid.). This carefully phrased Augustinian doctrine was already
simplified in the western creed known as Quicunque vult, reverenced as bearing
the authority of its supposed author, Athanasius, it said that "the Holy
Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made or created or begotten, but
proceeding."
This creed, together with Augustine's theology, influenced
the Third Council of Toledo (589) to teach, with less care than had Augustin,
that Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son (ex Patre et filio
proedere) and to anathematized "those who do not believe... that the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son" (ed. Vives. pp. 109, 118);
however, the text of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, including the phrase
"proceeding from the Father and the Son," was added to the
manuscripts of this council only at a later dat. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan
Creed had been sung for some time in the Eucharist Liturgy in Spain; it was
perhaps in 675, at the Third (provincial) Council of Braga, that the phrase
"and from the Son" was added to "proceeds from the Father"
so that the creed used in the liturgy now read that the Holy Spirit "proceeds
from the Father and the Son". Some scholars hold that the phrase was added
in order to emphasize, against Arianism, the Son's equality and
consubstantiality with the Father; others maintain it was imply a normal
development grown out of western theology.
In a synodal letter to Constantinople in 649, Pope Martin I
caused irritation by including the phrase "and from the Son." But it
was Charlemagne’s introduction of the singing of the creed (including the
Filioque) into the imperial liturgy that led to difficulties. In 807, some
Latin monks, after visiting Aachen, began singing the creed, with the
Fillioque, in the liturgy of their Jerusalem monastery. This action drew bitter
protest from Greek monks in the Holy City: their patriarch protest to Pope Leo
III, and the Latin monks appealed to the Pope for a decision.
Two issues were involved. The first was the addition the
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, because the councils of Ephesus (431) and
Chalcedon (451) had forbidden any faith diverse from that of Nicaea. For the
Greeks, this meant prohibition of verbal addition, whereas the Latins held that
a change of faith not of words, was proscribed. In fact, Ephesus had spoken of
the creed of Nicaea without the additions of Constantinople (although Chalcedon
referred to the entire creed) and the Second Council of Nicaea (787) heard,
without dissent, the creed of Tarasius with the addition of "through the
Son," a phrase that brought objections from the Libri Carolini written at
Charlemagne's court in opposition to this council, including its acceptance of
Tarasius's altered creed.
The second issue was that of doctrine. The phrase Filioque
seemed to the Greeks to make the Son unoriginate and, with respect to the Holy
Spirit's origin, totally equal. The Greek verb ekporuesthai, which corresponds
to the Latin procedere, implies that the subject of the verb, designated as the
source of the procession, is without origin; hence, for the Greeks the subject
of ekporeuesthai could be only the unoriginate Father. The Greeks were
concerned to maintain the equality and consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit
with the Father against the Pnuematomachi ("Spirit-Fighters"), who,
they feared, might argue that the Spirit's procession from the Son would imply
that the Spirit originates from the Father only mediately and is therefore inferior
in being to the Father. The also thought that the Filioque would make the
Father's originating role imperfect and partial.
Charlemagne's theologians, informed by Pope Leo III, produced
several works defending the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from
the Son as well as from the Father; they accused the Greeks of heresy in their
doctrine of procession. Although declaring the western view orthodox, Pope Leo
III refused to allow the insertion of the creed, with the Filiqoue, into the
Roman Liturgy and counseled the Spanish and Frankish churches to remove the
creed gradually from the liturgies He also had placed before the tomb of St.
Peter two plates containing the creed, written in Latin and Greek and without
the Filioque or its Greek equivalent. The Frankish court of Charlemagne
nevertheless continued to use it, in part to assert itself politically against
the eastern empire. Use of the creed with the Filioque gradually spread in the
west and at a later date (perhaps ca. 1013) entered the liturgy of Rome itself.
In 867, Photius, Patriarch of Constaninople, protested against the presence of
Latin missionaries in Bulgaria, insisting that the area depended on him as
patriarch; in the same letter, he accused them of heresy because they recited
the creed with the added Filioque. Photius insisted that the Holy Spirit
proceeds "from the Father only." Ratramnusof Corbie wrote his Conta
Graecorum opposita to answer Greek attacks on the west. Concerning the Holy
Spirit he argued, among other things, from scriptural use of "Spirit of
the Son" or "Spirit of Christ," from Christ's promising to send
the Spirit from the Father (John 15:26), and from Christ's saying that the Holy
Spirit would "receive from Christ (John 16:14). In 879-880, Photius led a
council in the presence of legates of Pope John VIII that condemned the
addition of the Filioque, and wrote a letter (PG 102.793B-821B) and a treatise,
the Mystagogia (PG 102.280A-400A), to answer the arguments of the Latins.
[Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, Second Edition]
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