|
T h e F a t h e r s K n o w B e s t
FILIOQUE
|
This Rock
Volume 4, Number 12
 December 1993 
|
|
|
ONE of the key issues that
has separated the Eastern Orthodox churches from the Catholic Church
is the question of whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father
alone or whether he proceeds from the Father and the Son.
This issue came to a head in 1054 during what is called the filioque
controversy. The result was a schism that persists today.
The Western Church commonly used a version of the Nicene creed which
had the Latin word i> "filioque" ("and
the Son") added after the declaration that the Holy Spirit proceeds
from the Father. Some Eastern bishops insisted this was an illicit
addition, out of sync with the true faith.
Today many Eastern Orthodox bishops are coming around to the Catholic
view that the Spirit does proceed from the Father "and the Son"
or "through the Son." One of the reasons for this change
of view is that the Church Fathers and other early Christian writers,
both of the East and of the West, bear clear witness to this teaching.
Tertullian
"I believe that the Spirit proceeds
not otherwise than from the Father through the Son" (Against
Praxeas 4:1 [ca. A.D. 220]).
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 [ca. A.D. 227]).
Gregory Thaumaturgus
"[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" (Creed of Gregory Thaumaturgus
[ca. A.D. 265]).
Hilary
"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. 356]).
Hilary
"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 [A.D.
359]).
Basil
"[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" (The Holy Spirit
18:47 [A.D. 375]).
Epiphanius
"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]).
Didymus
"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 [ca. A.D. 375]).
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. 380]).
Ambrose
"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 6:64]"
(The Holy Spirit 1:15:152 [A.D. 381]).
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 [ca. A.D. 405]).
Augustine
"[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 [ca. A.D. 416]).
Augustine
"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. 417]).
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 [ca. A.D. 424]).
Fulgence
"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]).
Fulgence
"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 [A.D. 524]).
|
C A T H O L I C A N S W E R S :
[TOP]
