Is it any wonder Rome necessitated the Filioque in light of the Eastern heresies ..?
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: 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) 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),
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.
