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. 630]).
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
g.asp 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]).