Catholic.id
Support

TractGod & Jesus Christ

What the Early Church Believed: Filioque

The Western Church's Nicene Creed adds *filioque* ("and the Son"): the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Scripture reveals this, and the Fathers, Latin and Greek, taught that the Spirit proceeds "from the Father and the Son" or "from the Father through the Son," which mean the same thing.

In three points

  1. The Spirit is sent by the Son as well as the Father, so he proceeds from both
  2. "From the Father and the Son" and "from the Father through the Son" are equivalent
  3. The Council of Florence briefly reunited East and West on this basis
  4. Many Orthodox now see the dispute as largely semantic

What Scripture reveals

The external relations of the Trinity mirror the internal ones. As the Father sent the Son into the world, the Son proceeds from the Father. As the Spirit is sent by the Son as well as the Father (John 15:26; Acts 2:33), he proceeds from both. That is why he is called the Spirit of the Son (Galatians 4:6), not only the Spirit of the Father (Matthew 10:20).

"And" or "through"?

"From the Father and the Son" and "from the Father through the Son" mean the same thing, because everything the Son has is from the Father, including the Spirit's procession from him. The procession is ultimately rooted in the Father but goes through the Son. Some Orthodox insist that equating the two is a departure from the faith, but many accept "through the Son." That agreement led to reunion at the Council of Florence in 1439. It did not last: in the 1450s the Orthodox left again under pressure from their Muslim conquerors. Union is still possible by recognizing the formulas as equivalent. The Catechism says this legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith (CCC 248).

Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware, once an opponent of the filioque, came to believe the problem lies more in semantics and emphasis than in basic doctrine.

The witness of the early Church

  • Tertullian (216): the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.
  • Origen (229) and Gregory the Wonderworker (265): the Spirit is produced by the Father through Christ and manifested through the Son.
  • Hilary of Poitiers (357): the Spirit is from the Father and the Son; from the Father through the Son.
  • Didymus the Blind (362): the Spirit has no substance other than that given by the Son.
  • Epiphanius of Salamis (374): the Spirit breathes from the Father and the Son.
  • Basil the Great (375): through the Son the Spirit is joined to the Father.
  • Ambrose (381): the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
  • Gregory of Nyssa (382): through the Son and with the Father the Spirit is perceived.
  • The Athanasian Creed (400) and First Council of Toledo (400): the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
  • Augustine (408, 416): Father and Son are one principle of the Spirit; the Spirit proceeds "principally" from the Father and also from the Son, as Christ showed by breathing on the disciples (John 20:22).
  • Cyril of Alexandria (424): the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
  • Fulgence of Ruspe (524): the Spirit of the Father and the Son proceeds from both.
  • Maximus the Confessor (630–633), John Damascene (712, 728) and the Second Council of Nicaea (787): the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.

Key Scripture

Catechism

CCC 248

Read online with linked Scripture: catholic.id/tracts/the-filioque/

Related questions