I am not really looking to open yet another discussion of the filoque - well - I am - but a focused discussion. I am tracking down its origin� and I would appreciate it if anyone can point me to any documents which contain Saint Athanasius's speech at the Council of Alexandria in 362 - which speech (according to Eusebius) swayed that Council to accept the Western wording of �from the father and the son� for use in the Latin church.
Apparently (and I am not sure of this at all and that is why I want to track it down) apparently what took place was a shift or further refinement of the word hypostasis. For four centuries of Greek philosophy (when the idea of God being a Trinity had not yet happened) the word was used to mean �person� and assumed person and substance to be the same thing. By the time of the first Council of Alexandria - the word hypostasis had also come to mean �nature� and another word became to mean person� and now one nature could have three persons.
Hypostaseos (nature) meaning the same as ousias (person?) for the four centuries.
Apparently two heresy of the time (Sabian and Semi-arian) continued to use the older meaning (where hypostasis and person were both thought of as one �substance�) resulting in three gods and three persons (divided) and because of these heresies some thought that Rome of doing the same thing - which prompted Saint Athanasius's to convince the Alexandria Council that the Western addition (from the father and the son) was used and understood properly in the Latin Church to correctly mean that the person of the holy sprit proceeds (as a person) from the one same nature that the father and son shared. Apparently Athansius won acceptance of the West�s filoque for use in the West (where it was understood properly) while the East preferred to not to use that wording in order to guard against Saian and Semi-arian interpretations.
So it appears that the Latin language had already made a difference between person and substance (or nature) while the Greek language was just coming to that. It also appears that the filoque originated in Spain and Rome was the last to accept it in the West.
So I am looking for Athanasius�s arguments and/or documents from that council (Alexandria 362) which pertain to anything on that subject. I am also looking for anyone familiar with the Greek language and/or Latin and this apparent further evolution of hypostaseos/ousias and substance/person.Nope. I am not sure of any of this.
-ray
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I find some supporting documents that seem to indicate that such an acceptance did take place. For example, from Eusebius himself in his �Letter of Eusebius of C�sarea to the People of his Diocese�
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/athanasius/original/epistle1-5.html In which he related Athanasius making the case to the Council and the Council�s acceptance. It is too long to quote here.
And an oration which Gregory of Nazianzen delivered to the First Council of Constantinople (Oration XXXIX - On The Holy Lights) in which he seems to reiterates (perhaps from the Alexandria Council) that the words made little difference as long as they held the same meaning.
quote:
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((From the Oration - On the Holy Lights))
Let none be astonished if what I have to say contains some things that I have said before; for not only will I utter the same words, but I shall speak of the same subjects, trembling both in tongue and mind and thought when I speak of God for you too, that you may share this laudable and blessed feeling. And when I speak of God you must be illumined at once by one flash of light and by three. Three in Individualities or Hypostases, if any prefer so to call them, or persons,(43) for we will not quarrel about names so long as the syllables amount to the same meaning; but One in respect of the Substance-that is, the Godhead. For they are divided without division, if I may so say; and they are united in division. For the Godhead is one in three, and the three are one, in whom the Godhead is, or to speak more accurately, Who are the Godhead. Excesses and defects we will omit, neither making the Unity a confusion, nor the division a separation. We would keep equally far from the confusion of Sabellius and from the division of Arius, which are evils diametrically opposed, yet equal in their wickedness. For what need is there heretically to fuse God together, or to cut Him up into inequality?
XII. For to us there is but One God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and One Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom are all things; and One Holy Ghost, in Whom are all things;(44) yet these words, of, by, in, whom, do not denote a difference of nature (for if this were the case, the three prepositions, or the order of the three names would never be altered), but they characterize the personalities of a nature which is one and unconfused. And this is proved by the fact that They are again collected into one, if you will read-not carelessly-this other passage of the same Apostle, "Of Him and through Him and to Him are all things; to Him be glory forever, Amen."(45) The Father is Father, and is Unoriginate, for He is of no one; the Son is Son, and is not unoriginate, for He is of the Father. But if you take the word Origin in a temporal sense, He too is Unoriginate, for He is the Maker of Time, and is not subject to Time. The Holy Ghost is truly Spirit, coming forth from the Father indeed, but not after the manner of the Son, for it is not by Generation but by Procession (since I must coin a word for the sake of clearness(46) ); for neither did the Father cease to be Unbegotten because of His begetting something, nor the Son to be begotten because He is of the Unbegotten (how could that be?), nor is the Spirit changed into Father or Son because He proceeds, or because He is God-though the ungodly do not believe it. For Personality is unchangeable; else how could Personality remain, if it were changeable, and could be removed from one to another? But they who make "Unbegotten" and "Begotten" natures of equivocal gods would perhaps make Adam and Seth differ in nature, since the former was not born of flesh (for he was created), but the latter was born of Adam and Eve. There is then One God in Three, and These Three are One, as we have said.
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Notes: to Oration XXXiX
43 The sense of Person (here pro/swpon), which is the usual post-Nicene equivalent of u 9po/stasij, was by no means generally attached to that word during the first Four Centuries, though here and there there are traces of such a use. Throughout the Arian controversy a great deal of trouble and misunderstanding was caused by the want of a precise definition of the meaning of u 9po/stasij. It seems to have been at first understood by the Eastern Church to mean Real Personal Existence - Reality being the fundamental idea. In this fundamental sense it was used in Theology as expressing the distinct individuality and relative bearing of the Three "Persons" of the Blessed Trinity to each other (to\ i!di/on pa\ra to\ koino/n, Suidas). But Arius gave it a heretical twist, and said that there are Three Hypostases, in the sense of Natures or Substances: and this doctrine was anathematized by the Nicene Council, which, apparently regarding the term u 9po/stasij as exactly equivalent to ou'si/a (as Arius tried to make it) condemned the proposit on that the Son is e'c e 9te/raj u 9posta/sewj h@ ou 9si/aj (Sybm. Nic.). Similar is the use of the word in S. Athanasius. As against Sabellius, however, who taught that in the Godhead there are tpi/a pso/swpa (using this word in the sense of Aspects only) but would not allow trei=j u 9posta/seij (I. e., Self-existent Personalities), the post-Nicene Church regarded u 9po/stasij as designating the Person, and spoke freely of trei!j u 9posta/seij. The Western Church increased the confusion by continuing to regard u 9po/stasij as equivalent to ou'si/a, and translating it by Substantia or Subsistentia. It was not till the word Essentia came into use to express ou'si/a that the Western Church grasped the difference, so long accepted in the East, so as to use the words accurately. Meantime, however, there would seem to have grown up a difference in the use of the two words supposed to represent u 9po/stasij, of the same kind as that between u 9po/stasij and ou'si/a; Substantia being appropriated to the Essence of a thing, that which is the foundation of its being; while Subsistentia came rather to connote a limitation, i.e., Personality. Thus the West also became confused, and Substantia was held to be the true equivalent of u 9po/stasij. Hence the condemnation at Sardica (A.D. 347) by the Western Bishops of the doctrine of Three Hypostases as Arian. The confusion lasted long, but in 362 a Council was held at Alexandria, when this difference was seen to be a mere logomachy, and it was pronounced orthodox to confess either trei=j u 9posta/seij in the sense of "Persons," or mi/an u 9po/stasin in that of "Substance." Our author in his Oration to the Fathers of the Council of Constantinople fully acknowledges this. "What do you mean," he says, "by u 9posta/seij or pro/swpa: You mean that the Three are distinct, not in Nature, but in Personality" And in the Panegyric on S. Athanasius (Or. xxi. c. 35), he remarks on the orthodoxy of the phrase mi/a ou'si/a, trei=j u 9posta/seij, that the first expression refers to the Nature of the Godhead, the second to the special properties of the Persons. With this, he says, the Italians agree, but the poverty of their language is such that it does not admit of the distinction between ou'si/a and u 9po/stasij, and therefore has to call in the word pro/swpon, which if misunderstood is liable to be charged with Sabellianism.
During the Arian controversy, much confusion originated over the word "begotten," due to the presence of two different Greek words, both pronounced the same way. One word (genetos--one "n") meant "that which has (or can) come to be, that which is the result of a process,"5 or "originate." This word and its negative (agenetos-inoriginate) "respectively denied and affirmed the eternal existence"6 of something. This word was equivalent to "creature." The second word (gennetos --two "n's") meant "generate" or "begotten." This word and its negative (agennetos--not begotten, or without parentage) described philosophical relationships of being.
The Arians considered the two words to be equivalent, the confusion probably arising from the application of the second word (begotten, or not begotten) to inanimate objects by some of the Greek philosophers, and by a confusion of the terms by some of the earlier Christian writers.
The Arians had in view the idea that the Father alone was "unoriginate" (agenetos--existing eternally), and that the Son was "originate" (genetos--not existing eternally; a creature), having been "begotten (that is, created) before all time" by the will of the Father.
The Orthodox believed that the Fatherhood of God was the result of his nature, not of his will. Thus there was always the Father and always the Son. The Father is "unoriginate." The Son is "unoriginate" in the sense of having existed from eternity, but was more appropriately called "begotten" (gennetos), "that is, belonging to the Father, who would not be Father unless there was a begotten one (gennema) to justify the name."7
Due to the confusion of terms, the use of these two words was avoided by the Orthodox.
History of the Roman Filoque�
There seems little doubt that the words were first inserted in Spain. As early as the year 400 it had been found necessary at a Council of Toledo to affirm the double procession against the Priscillianists,(3) and in 589 by the authority of the Third Council of Toledo the newly converted Goths were required to sign the creed with the addition.(4) From this time it became for Spain the accepted form, and was so recited at the Eighth Council of Toledo in 653, and again in 681 at the Twelfth Council of Toledo.(5)
But this was at first only true of Spain, and at Rome nothing of the kind was known. In the Gelasian Sacramentary the Creed is found in its original form.(6) The same is the case with the old Gallican Sacramentary of the viith or viiith century.(7)
However, there can be no doubt that its introduction spread very rapidly through the West and that before long it was received practically everywhere except at Rome.
In 809 a council was held at Aix-la-Chapelle by Charlemagne, and from it three divines were sent to confer with the Pope, Leo III, upon the subject. The Pope opposed the insertion of the Filioque on the express ground that the General Councils had forbidden any addition to be made to their formulary.(8) Later on, the Frankish Emperor asked his bishops what was "the meaning of the Creed according to the Latins,"(9) and Fleury gives the result of the investigations to have been, "In France they continued to chant the creed with the word Filioque, and at Rome they continued not to chant it."(10)
So firmly resolved was the Pope that the clause should not be introduced into the creed that he presented two silver shields to the Confessio in St. Peter's at Rome, on one of which was engraved the creed in Latin and on the other in Greek, without the addition. This act the Greeks never forgot during the controversy. Photius refers to it in writing to the Patriarch of Acquileia. About two centuries later St. Peter Damian(1) mentions them as still in place; and about two centuries later on, Veecur, Patriarch of Constantinople, declares they hung there still.(2)
It was not till 1014 that for the first time the interpolated creed was used at mass with the sanction of the Pope. In that year Benedict VIII. acceded to the urgent request of Henry II. of Germany and so the papal authority was forced to yield, and the silver shields have disappeared from St. Peter's.
3. Nothing could be clearer than that the theologians of the West never had any idea of teaching a double source of the Godhead. The doctrine of the Divine Monarchy was always intended to be preserved, and while in the heat of the controversy sometimes expressions highly dangerous, or at least clearly inaccurate, may have been used, yet the intention must be judged from the prevailing teaching of the approved theologians. And what this was is evident from the definition of the Council of Florence, which, while indeed it was not received by the Eastern Church, and therefore cannot be accepted as an authoritative exposition of its views, yet certainly must be regarded as a true and full expression of the teaching of the West. "The Greeks asserted that when they say the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, they do not use it because they wish to exclude the Son; but because it seemed to them, as they say, that the Latins assert the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Father and the Son, as from two principles and by two spirations, and therefore they abstain from saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. But the Latins affirm that they have no intention when they say the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son to deprive the Father of his prerogative of being the fountain and principle of the entire Godhead, viz. of the Son and of the, Holy Ghost; nor do they deny that the very procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, the Son derives from the Father; nor do they teach two principles or two spirations; but they assert that there is one only principle, one only spiration, as they have always asserted up to this time."
