A gallery of teachings: Filioque Procedit

Saint Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae

QUESTION 37

The Person of the Holy Spirit: The Name ‘Love’

Next we have to consider the name ‘Love’ (amor). On this topic there are two questions: (1) Is ‘Love’ a proper name of the Holy Spirit? (2) Do the Father and the Son love one another by the Holy Spirit?

Article 1

Is ‘Love’ a proper name of the Holy Spirit?

It seems that ‘Love’ (amor) is not a proper name of the Holy Spirit:

Objection 3: Love is a bond between lovers, since according to Dionysius in De Divinis Nominibus, chap. 4, it ("love) is a certain unitive force("). But a bond lies between the things that it connects and is not something that proceeds from them. Therefore, since, as has been shown (q. 36, a. 2), the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, it seems that He is not the Love, i.e., the bond, between the Father and the Son.

Reply to Objection 3: The Holy Spirit is said to be the bond between the Father and the Son insofar as He is the Love. For since the Father loves both Himself and the Son by a single love (and vice versa), what is implied in the Holy Spirit as the Love is the relation that the Father bears to the Son (and vice versa) as a lover to His beloved. But from the very fact that the Father and the Son mutually love one another, it follows that their mutual love, which is the Holy Spirit, must proceed from them both. Therefore, as far as His origin is concerned, the Holy Spirit is not a medium between the Father and the Son, but rather a third person in the Trinity. But according to the relation just mentioned, He is a bond between the two of them who proceeds from them both.

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Saint Augustine of Hippo

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.

Saint 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.

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Catholic Straight Answers, Father William P. Saunders

Filioque is Latin for “and the Son.”

This filioque clause first appeared in the translation issued by the Council of Toledo, Spain, in 589.  During the Carolingian Dynasty, Charlemagne petitioned Pope Leo III at the Synod of Aachen (809) to have the filioque clause accepted universally; the Pope declined, hesitating to add anything, however appropriate, to the official text of a conciliar creed. Several Church fathers argued that the meaning of the filioque clause was no different from the meaning of the succinct teaching, “Father through the Son.” Nevertheless, the filioque clause was added to the creed recited in the Roman Mass (Latin Rite) by Pope Benedict VIII (1024), but was not used in the liturgy of the Eastern Rites.

The filioque clause has been cited as one of the official causes of the schism between the Western and Eastern Churches in 1054. Although this point was later officially remedied by the Churches at the Councils of Lyons II (1274) and Florence (1439), the reconciliation was short lived.

All three persons of the Trinity are equal, are distinct, share the same divine nature, and exist from all eternity.

With this is mind, examine Sacred Scripture. In Sacred Scripture, the Holy Spirit is referred to as both the Spirit of the Son (Galatians 4:6) and the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9, Philippians 1:19). He is also called Spirit of the Father (Matthew 10:20) and the Spirit of God (I Corinthians 2:11). These citations show the same relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Son as to the Father.

The Spirit is sent by both the Father and the Son as taught by Jesus Himself: “When the Paraclete comes, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father– and whom I myself will send from the Father– will bear witness on my behalf” (John 15:26). “It is much better for you that I go. If I fail to go, the Paraclete will never come to you; whereas if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7). “This much have I told you while I was still with you; the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will instruct you in everything, and remind you of all that I told you.” (John 14:25-6).

Finally, our Lord Himself attested to the intimate bonding and sharing between the Persons of the Trinity:  “When He comes, however, being the Spirit of Truth, He will guide you to all truth.  He will not speak on His own but will speak only what He hears, and will announce to you the things to come.  In doing this He will give glory to me, because He will have received from me what He will announce to you.  All that the Father has belongs to me. That is why I said that what He will announce to you He will have from me” (John 16:13-15). Given this basis in Scripture, the Church teaches that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son.

The Council of Florence (1439) summed it up well: The council defined that the Holy Spirit is eternally from both the Father and the Son, shares the same divine nature as Father and Son, and proceeds eternally in one “spiration” from Father and Son as from one “principle.” Moreover, the council stated that since the Father has given to the eternally begotten Son everything, “we define that the explanatory words ‘Filioque‘ have been added in the Symbol [creed] legitimately and with good reason for the sake of clarifying the truth and under the impact of a real need at that time.”

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Anselm of Canterbury 

Anselm continues his argument in the line of Augustine: ‘But in being begotten from the Father, the Son does notpass outside the Father but remains within Him and does not differ from the Father spatially or temporally or essentially; moreover, that from which theHoly Spirit proceeds is one and the same for the Father and the Son.’25 Since God exists from ‘within’ God, not ‘outside’ God, all three persons retain in their deity a singularity. Heron clarifies: ‘The origin of the Spirit lies in the divinity shared by the Father and the Son, not in their relationship: he cannot therefore proceed in one way from the Father and in another way through the Son, for this would make the differentiation between the Father and the Son ontologically prior to his own being.’26 Thus the filioque, far from dividing the Godhead into two separate sources, safeguards its fundamental unity. Even though the Spirit does not proceed from the Son in the same way as from the Father, it is vitally necessary that we name the Father and the Son together in affirming his procession, otherwise we might exclude the Spirit from the ontologically fundamental unity. - The Filioque Clause in the Teaching of Anselm of Canterbury — Part 1, by Dennis Ngien

(T)wo different ways of being ‘God from God’. If the Holy Spirit is ‘begotten’ of the Son, (Anselm) argues, then the Holy Spirit would be the Son’s son as the Son is the Father’s. Thus the Spirit exists from the Son as he exists from the Father by ‘procession’, not by generation. Now either the Holy Spirit exists from the Son or the Son exists from the Holy Spirit. Anselm argues for the former, contending that the Son is not begotten of the Holy Spirit, because if he were, the Holy Spirit would be his father. But the Holy Spirit is not the Father. The Son does not proceed from the Holy Spirit, because if he were, he would be the son of the Holy Spirit. Therefore by ‘unassailable reason’, the Holy Spirit must proceed from the Son as He is from the Father. Just as the Son cannot be really distinct from the Father unless he exists (proceeds) from the Father by begetting, so the Holy Spirit cannot be really distinct from the Son unless he exists from the Son by proceeding. The relation of the Father (the begetter) and the Son (the begotten) is such that if the Holy Spirit exists by proceeding from the Father, he too exists by proceeding from the Son. The principle of the ontological unity of the Godhead is to be maintained insofar as it does not infringe the distinct characteristics of the individual persons. So there can be no Father except the Father of the Son, no Son except the Son of the Father, and no Holy Spirit other than the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Evans summarizes Anselm’s unity-trinity dialectic: (Anselm’s) argument turns on symmetry. Only if the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son do we have a situation in which each person of the Trinity is peculiar to himself and each has an attribute which he shares with the other two. Only the Son has a Father; only the Father has a Son; only the Spirit does not have a Spirit proceeding from himself. But both the Father and the Spirit do not have a Father; both the Spirit and the Son do not have a Son; and both the Father and the Son have a Spirit proceeding from themselves. - ibid.

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Maximus Confessor

Ad Domnum Marinum Cypri presbyterum (Letter to the priest Marinus of Cyprus), PG 91, 134D-136C.

“Those of the Queen of cities have attacked the synodal letter of the present very holy Pope (Martin I), not in the case of all the chapters that he has written in it, but only in the case of two of them. One relates to theology, because it says he says that ‘the Holy Spirit proceeds (ἐκπορεύεσθαι) also from the Son.’

“The other has to do with the divine incarnation, because he has written, ‘The Lord, as man, is without original sin.’

“With regard to the first matter, they (the Romans) have produced the unanimous documentary evidence of the Latin fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria, from the sacred commentary he composed on the gospel of St. John. On the basis of these texts, they have shown that they have not made the Son the cause of the Spirit — they know in fact that the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession; but [they use this expression] in order to manifest the Spirit’s coming-forth (προϊέναι) through him and, in this way, to make clear the unity and identity of the essence….

“The Romans have therefore been accused of things of which it is wrong to accuse them, whereas of the things of which the Byzantines have quite rightly been accused (viz., Monothelitism), they have, to date, made no self-defense, because neither have they gotten rid of the things introduced by them.

“But, in accordance with your request, I have asked the Romans to translate what is peculiar to them in such a way that any obscurities that may result from it will be avoided. But since the practice of writing and sending (the synodal letters) has been observed, I wonder whether they will possibly agree to doing this. One should also keep in mind that they cannot express their meaning in a language and idiom that are foreign to them as precisely as they can in their own mother-tongue, any more than we can do.”

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]).

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]).

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USCCB: The Filioque: A Church Dividing Issue?: An Agreed Statement (1999 to 2003, the North American Orthodox-Catholic Consul­tation).

The different liturgical traditions with regard to the Creed came into contact with each other in early-ninth-century Jerusalem. Western monks, using the Latin Creed with the added Filioque, were denounced by their Eastern brethren. Writing to Pope Leo III for guidance, in 808, the Western monks referred to the practice in Charlemagne’s chapel in Aachen as their model. Pope Leo responded with a letter to “all the churches of the East” in which he declared his personal belief that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son. In that response, the Pope did not distinguish between his personal understanding and the issue of the legitimacy of the addition to the Creed, although he would later resist the addition in liturgies celebrated at Rome.

Taking up the issue of the Jerusalem controversy, Charlemagne asked Theodulf of Orleans, the principal author of the Libri Carolini, to write a defense of the use of the word Filioque. Appearing in 809, De Spiritu Sancto of Theodulf was essentially a compilation of patristic citations supporting the theology of the Filioque. With this text in hand, Charlemagne convened a council in Aachen in 809-810 to affirm the doctrine of the Spirit’s proceeding from the Father and the Son, which had been questioned by Greek theologians. Following this council, Charlemagne sought Pope Leo’s approval of the use of the creed with the Filioque (Mansi 14.23-76). A meeting between the Pope and a delegation from Charlemagne’s council took place in Rome in 810. While Leo III affirmed the orthodoxy of the term Filioque, and approved its use in catechesis and personal professions of faith, he explicitly disapproved its inclusion in the text of the Creed of 381, since the Fathers of that Council - who were, he observes, no less inspired by the Holy Spirit than the bishops who had gathered at Aachen - had chosen not to include it. Pope Leo stipulated that the use of the Creed in the celebration of the Eucharist was permissible, but not required, and urged that in the interest of preventing scandal it would be better if the Carolingian court refrained from including it in the liturgy. Around this time, according to the Liber Pontificalis, the Pope had two heavy silver shields made and displayed in St. Peter’s, containing the original text of the Creed of 381 in both Greek and Latin. Despite his directives and this symbolic action, however, the Carolingians continued to use the Creed with the Filioque during the Eucharist in their own dioceses.

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Catechism of the Catholic Church, Note 247, cited in the Pastoral Letter of the Ukrainian Catholic Hierarchy in Canada To the Clergy, Religious, Monastics and Faithful: On the Creed and the Filioque.

The affirmation of the filioque does not appear in the Creed confessed in 381 at Constantinople. But Pope St. Leo I, following an ancient Latin and Alexandrian tradition, had already confessed it dogmatically in 447, even before Rome, in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, came to recognize and receive the Symbol of 381. The use of this formula in the Creed was gradually admitted into the Latin

liturgy (between the eighth and eleventh centuries).

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Catholic Bridge

(W)hen Toledo added the Filioque to the Constantinopolitan Creed in A.D. 589, the Western bishops had no intention of amending the Greek meaning of the Creed (i.e., the original, intended meaning of the Constantinopolitan fathers) because that original, intended meaning was not directly known to them. Rather, all that the West ever intended to do was to elaborate on what the Latin term "procedit" referred to, or could refer to, in orthodox Western understanding. And given that the Latin "procedit" carries a different implication than the Greek "ekporeusis," what this means is that it was possible (for the West) to stress a different, equally-orthodox truth about the procession of the Holy Spirit than what the fathers at Constantinople I originally intended to refer to(.)

With that said, however, it must be noted that neither the council of Toledo, nor any Roman decree in favor of Toledo or other accommodations of the Filioque, ever denied Constantinople I or the original Greek meaning of the Creed. On the contrary, Toledo itself anathematized anyone who denied the teachings of Constantinople I (381) and the other Ecumenical Councils. And so, it follows that the Western Church (despite any deficient appreciation of the Greek expression) has never abandoned or turned its back on the original, intended meaning of "proceeds" as proclaimed by the fathers at Constantinople I. Rather, the Western Church teaches, and has always taught, that the Father, and the Father alone, is the Source, Principal, and Cause ("Aition") of the Holy Spirit –that is, the formal proclamation of Constantinople I. Indeed, even St. Augustine, who is often made into an intellectual scapegoat among some Eastern Orthodox (their argument being that Filioque is based totally on Augustine’s supposedly flawed theology) clearly taught that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father "principaliter" --that is, "as Principle" (De Trinitate XV, 25, 47, PL 42, 1094-1095). So, there is clearly no contradiction between Augustine and the Cappadocians or the Constantinopolitan fathers on this issue. Both Greek East and Latin West confess, and always have confessed, that the Father alone is the Cause (Aition) or Principle (Principium) of both the Son and the Spirit.

Ergo, the Catholic Church does not deny the Constantinopolitan Creed as originally written. This is why our Byzantine Catholic Churches recite the Creed without the Filioque, and why even we Romans are able to recite the Creed without the Filioque when participating in Byzantine Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Liturgies. This is also why we reject the clause "…kai tou Uiou …" ("…and the Son") being added to the Creedal expression "ek tou Patros ekporeuomenon" in Greek, even when used by Latin Rite Catholics in Greek-speaking communities. If the Greek word "ekporeusis" is to be used or intended, then it is incorrect and heretical to say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father "and the Son." Neither East nor West believes that the Spirit proceeds "from the Father and the Son" as a common source or principal (aitia). Rather, that one Source and Principal (Aition) is the Father, and the Father alone.

https://www.catholicbridge.com/downloads/response-on-the-filioque.pdf