Filioque

MARCUS PLESTED

The single most vexed theological issue dividing Greek East and Latin West, refer­ring to the addition of the word filioque (“and from the Son”) to the Creed of Nicea-Constantinople (381) to denote the Latin Church’s doctrine of the eternal pro­cession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. This doctrine of double pro­cession is rooted in Latin patristic sources, above all St. Augustine, for whom it served to affirm the divine unity. Hints of filioque language can also be found in certain early Syriac sources (Brock 1985). Creedal usage employing the filioque is first attested at the Council of Toledo (589), underscoring there the divinity of the Son against con­tinuing Arianism in Visigothic Spain. The double procession spread to become the received doctrine of much of the Latin Christian world, as witnessed by the Coun­cil of Hatfield (680). East-West polemic enters the equation only with the Carolin- gians. Frankish monks in Jerusalem had encountered Greek objections to the addition and this prompted the canoniza­tion of the addition and the doctrine at the Council of Aachen (809). While a desire to combat resurgent christological adoption- ism was certainly in the background here (Gemeinhardt 2002), there is no doubt but that the council served Charlemagne’s broader policy of confrontation with the Eastern Roman Empire. Rome would have none of it: Pope Leo III unequivocally condemned the addition of the phrase to the ancient creed, while recognizing the legitimacy of the doctrine it represented. He caused the uninterpolated creed to be inscribed on silver plates and displayed in St. Peter’s. Rome adopted the addition only in the early 11th century. Competition in the Bulgarian mission field in the 9th century stirred further polemic, with St. Photius condemning both the addition and the doctrine it conveyed, proposing instead an uncompromising monopatrism (the Spirit’s eternal procession from the Father alone). Other eastern theologians, such as St. Maximus the Confessor and St. John of Damascus, have affirmed the underlying harmony of the trinitarian doc­trine of east and west through some sort of doctrine evoking a per filium formula (“through the Son,” dia tou uiou). Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus nuanced this approach with his understanding of the eternal “shin­ing forth” of the Spirit through the Son. This is a position embraced by St. Gregory Palamas, who allowed for filioque language within the immanent Godhead while firmly rejecting the doctrine in respect of the divine origination. The reunion council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–9) saw a partial concession to Orthodox sensibilities in equating the Latin filioque with the Greek dia tou uiou and the affirmation of proces­sion “As if from one principle.” Ottoman- era Orthodox theologians tended to veer between an uncompromising rejection of the filioque (Eustratios Argenti) and the pursuit of underlying harmony (Maximos Margounios). In the modern period, Orthodox theologians have been wholly united in rejecting the addition but have often found grounds for rapprochement in the matter of the doctrine or language of the filioque. When detached from the creed and the related question of papal authority there seems no insurmountable reason for this legitimate patristic theologoumenon to continue to bedevil relations between Orthodoxy and the western confessions.

SEE ALSO: Fatherhood of God; Holy Spirit; Holy Trinity

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Brock, S. (1985) “The Christology of the Church of the East,” in G. Dragas (ed.) Aksum-Thyateira. London: Thyateira House, pp. 125–42. Gemeinhardt, P. (2002) Die Filioque-Kontroverse zwischen Ost- und Westkirche im Fruhmittelalter. Berlin: de Gruyter.