Filioque
Filioque is a
theological formula of great dogmatic and historical importance. On the one
hand, it expresses the Procession of the Holy Ghost from both Father and Son as
one Principle; on the other, it was the occasion of the Greek schism. Both
aspects of the expression need further explanation.
Dogmatic
meaning of filioque
The dogma of
the double Procession of the Holy Ghost from Father and Son as one Principle is
directly opposed to the error that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, not
from the Son. Neither dogma nor error created much difficulty during the course
of the first four centuries. Macedonius and his followers, the so-called
Pneumatomachi, were condemned by the local Council of Alexandria (362) and by
Pope St. Damasus (378) for teaching that the Holy Ghost derives His origin from
the Son alone, by creation. If the creed used by the Nestorians, which was
composed probably by Theodore of Mopsuestia, and the expressions of Theodoret
directed against the ninth anathema by Cyril of Alexandria, deny that the Holy
Ghost derives His existence from or through the Son, they probably intend to
deny only the creation of the Holy Ghost by or through the Son, inculcating at
the same time His Procession from both Father and Son. At any rate, if the
double Procession of the Holy Ghost was discussed at all in those earlier
times, the controversy was restricted to the East and was of short duration.
The first
undoubted denial of the double Procession of the Holy Ghost we find in the
seventh century among the heretics of Constantinople when St. Martin I (649-655),
in his synodal writing against the Monothelites, employed the expression
"Filioque". Nothing is known about the further development of this
controversy; it does not seem to have assumed any serious proportions, as the
question was not connected with the characteristic teaching of the
Monothelites.
In the
Western church the first controversy concerning the double Procession of the
Holy Ghost was conducted with the envoys of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus,
in the Synod of Gentilly near Paris, held in the time of Pepin (767). The
synodal Acts and other information do not seem to exist. At the beginning of
nineth century, John, a Greek monk of the monastery of St. Sabas, charged the
monks of Mt. Olivet with heresy, they had inserted the Filioque into the Creed.
In the second half the same century, Photius, the successor of the unjustly
deposed Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople (858), denied the Procession of
the Holy Ghost from the Son, and opposed the insertion of the Filioque into the
Constantinopolitan creed. The same position was maintained towards the end of
the tenth century by the Patriarchs Sisinnius and Sergius, and about the middle
of the eleventh century by the Patriarch Michael Caerularius, who renewed and
completed the Greek schism.
The rejection
of the Filioque, or the double Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and
Son, and the denial of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff constitute even today
the principal errors of the Greek church. While outside the Church doubt as to
the double Procession of the Holy Ghost grew into open denial, inside the
Church the doctrine of the Filioque was declared to be a dogma of faith in the
Fourth Lateran Council (1215), the Second council of Lyons (1274), and the
Council of Florence (1438-1445). Thus the Church proposed in a clear and
authoritative form the teaching of Sacred Scripture and tradition on the
Procession of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.
As to the
Sacred Scripture, the inspired writers call the Holy Ghost the Spirit of the
Son (Galatians 4:6), the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9), the Spirit of Jesus
Christ (Philippians 1:19), just as they call Him the Spirit of the Father
(Matthew 10:20) and the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:11). Hence they
attribute to the Holy Ghost the same relation to the Son as to the Father.
Again,
according to Sacred Scripture, the Son sends the Holy Ghost (Luke 24:49; John
15:26; 16:7; 20:22; Acts 2:33; Titus 3:6), just as the Father sends the Son
(Romans 3:3; etc.), and as the Father sends the Holy Ghost (John 14:26).
Now the
"mission" or "sending" of one Divine Person by another does
not mean merely that the Person said to be sent assumes a particular character,
at the suggestion of Himself in the character of Sender, as the Sabellians
maintained; nor does it imply any inferiority in the Person sent, as the Arians
taught; but it denotes, according to the teaching of the weightier theologians
and Fathers, the Procession of the Person sent from the Person Who sends.
Sacred Scripture never presents the Father as being sent by the Son, nor the
Son as being sent by the Holy Ghost. The very idea of the term
"mission" implies that the person sent goes forth for a certain purpose
by the power of the sender, a power exerted on the person sent by way of a
physical impulse, or of a command, or of prayer, or finally of production; now,
Procession, the analogy of production, is the only manner admissible in God. It
follows that the inspired writers present the Holy Ghost as proceeding from the
Son, since they present Him as sent by the Son.
Finally, St.
John (16:13-15) gives the words of Christ: "What things soever he [the
Spirit] shall hear, he shall speak; ...he shall receive of mine, and shew it to
you. All things whatsoever the Father hath, are mine." Here a double
consideration is in place. First, the Son has all things that the Father hath,
so that He must resemble the Father in being the Principle from which the Holy
Ghost proceeds. Secondly, the Holy Ghost shall receive "of mine"
according to the words of the Son; but Procession is the only conceivable way
of receiving which does not imply dependence or inferiority. In other words,
the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son.
The teaching
of Sacred Scripture on the double Procession of the Holy Ghost was faithfully
preserved in Christian tradition. Even the Greek Orthodox grant that the Latin
Fathers maintain the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. The great work
on the Trinity by Petavius (Lib. VII, cc. iii sqq.) develops the proof of this
contention at length. Here we mention only some of the later documents in which
the patristic doctrine has been clearly expressed:
the dogmatic letter of St. Leo I to
Turribius, Bishop of Astorga, Epistle 15 (447);
the so-called Athanasian Creed;
several councils held at Toledo in the
years 447, 589 (III), 675 (XI), 693 (XVI);
the letter of Pope Hormisdas to the Emperor
Justius, Ep. lxxix (521);
St. Martin I's synodal utterance against
the Monothelites, 649-655;
Pope Adrian I's answer to the Caroline
Books, 772-795;
the Synods of Mérida (666), Braga (675),
and Hatfield (680);
the writing of Pope Leo III (d. 816) to the
monks of Jerusalem;
the letter of Pope Stephen V (d. 891) to
the Moravian King Suentopolcus (Suatopluk), Ep. xiii;
the symbol of Pope Leo IX (d. 1054);
the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215;
the Second Council of Lyons, 1274; and the
Council of Florence, 1439.
Some of the
foregoing conciliar documents may be seen in Hefele,
"Conciliengeschichte" (2d ed.), III, nn. 109, 117, 252, 411; cf. P.G.
XXVIII, 1557 sqq. Bessarion, speaking in the Council of Florence, inferred the
tradition of the Greek Church from the teaching of the Latin; since the Greek
and Latin Fathers before the ninth century were the members of the same Church,
it is antecedently improbable that the Eastern Fathers should have denied a
dogma firmly maintained by the Western. Moreover, there are certain
considerations which form a direct proof for the belief of the Greek Fathers in
the double Procession of the Holy Ghost.
First, the Greek Fathers enumerate the
Divine Persons in the same order as the Latin Fathers; they admit that the Son
and the Holy Ghost are logically and ontologically connected in the same way as
the Son and Father [St. Basil, Epistle 38; Against Eunomius I.20 and III, sub
init.]
Second, the Greek Fathers establish the
same relation between the Son and the Holy Ghost as between the Father and the
Son; as the Father is the fountain of the Son, so is the Son the fountain of
the Holy Ghost (Athanasius, Ep. ad Serap. I, xix, sqq.; On the Incarnation 9;
Orat. iii, adv. Arian., 24; Basil, Against Eunomius V; cf. Gregory of
Nazianzus, Oration 43, no. 9).
Third, passages are not wanting in the
writings of the Greek Fathers in which the Procession of the Holy Ghost from
the Son is clearly maintained: Gregory Thaumaturgus, "Expos. fidei
sec.", vers. saec. IV, in Rufinus, Hist. Eccl., VII, xxv; Epiphanius,
Haer., c. lxii, 4; Gregory of Nyssa, Hom. iii in orat. domin.); Cyril of
Alexandria, "Thes.", as. xxxiv; the second canon of synod of forty
bishops held in 410 at Seleucia in Mesopotamia; the Arabic versions of the
Canons of St. Hippolytus; the Nestorian explanation of the Symbol.
The only
Scriptural difficulty deserving our attention is based on the words of Christ
as recorded in John 15:26, that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, without
mention being made of the Son. But in the first place, it can not be shown that
this omission amounts to a denial; in the second place, the omission is only
apparent, as in the earlier part of the verse the Son promises to
"send" the Spirit. The Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son is
not mentioned in the Creed of Constantinople, because this Creed was directed
against the Macedonian error against which it sufficed to declare the
Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father. The ambiguous expressions found
in some of the early writers of authority are explained by the principles which
apply to the language of the early Fathers generally.
Historical
importance of the filioque
It has been
seen that the Creed of Constantinople at first declared only the Procession of
the Holy Ghost from the Father; it was directed against the followers of
Macedonius who denied the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father. In the
East, the omission of Filioque did not lead to any misunderstanding. But
conditions were different in Spain after the Goths had renounced Arianism and professed
the Catholic faith in the Third Synod of Toledo, 589. It cannot be acertained
who first added the Filioque to the Creed; but it appears to be certain that
the Creed, with the addition of the Filioque, was first sung in the Spanish
Church after the conversion of the Goths. In 796 the Patriarch of Aquileia
justified and adopted the same addition at the Synod of Friaul, and in 809 the
Council of Aachen appears to have approved of it.
The decrees
of this last council were examined by Pope Leo III, who approved of the
doctrine conveyed by the Filioque, but gave the advice to omit the expression
in the Creed. The practice of adding the Filioque was retained in spite of the
papal advice, and in the middle of the eleventh century it had gained a firm
foothold in Rome itself. Scholars do not agree as to the exact time of its
introduction into Rome, but most assign it to the reign of Benedict VIII
(1014-15).
The Catholic
doctrine was accepted by the Greek deputies who were present at the Second
Council of Florence, in 1439, when the Creed was sung both in Greek and Latin,
with the addition of the word Filioque. On each occasion it was hoped that the
Patriarch of Constantinople and his subjects had abandoned the state of heresy
and schism in which they had been living since the time of Photius, who about
870 found in the Filioque an excuse for throwing off all dependence on Rome.
But however sincere the individual Greek bishops may have been, they failed to
carry their people with them, and the breach between East and West continues to
this day.
It is a
matter for surprise that so abstract a subject as the doctrine of the double
Procession of the Holy Ghost should have appealed to the imagination of the
multitude. But their national feelings had been aroused by the desire of
liberation from the rule of the ancient rival of Constantinople; the occasion
of lawfully obtaining their desire appeared to present itself in the addition
of Filioque to the Creed of Constantinople. Had not Rome overstepped her rights
by disobeying the injunction of the Third Council, of Ephesus (431), and of the
Fourth, of Chalcedon (451)?
It is true
that these councils had forbidden to introduce another faith or another Creed,
and had imposed the penalty of deposition on bishops and clerics, and of
excommunication on monks and laymen for transgressing this law; but the
councils had not forbidden to explain the same faith or to propose the same
Creed in a clearer way. Besides, the conciliar decrees affected individual
transgressors, as is plain from the sanction added; they did not bind the
Church as a body. Finally, the Councils of Lyons and Florence did not require
the Greeks to insert the Filioque into the Creed, but only to accept the
Catholic doctrine of the double Procession of the Holy Ghost.
[Anthony Maas,
"Filioque," The Catholic Encyclopedia]
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