www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West The Filioque: Dogma, Theologumenon or Error?

Myles,

Okay, I'm looking everywhere and I can't find Cyril's Commentary on John, nor the phrase you cited. The closest thing I can find is:

"Just as the Son says 'All that the Father has is mine' [John 16:15], so shall we find that through the Son it is all also in the Spirit."

That's from Cyril's letters, not his commentary. Can you give a larger citation so that we can see the context of the quote you cited? There's no punctuation in the last sentence you cited, so I can't tell if that's your sentence or Cyril's, nor can I tell if the sentence ends there or continues on. And if the Greek is available, can you give that? I'd like to see what word is used for "exists," and I'd like to see the structure of the sentence (if possible) before I continue on. But if you don't have it, that's okay. At least more of the quote (or heck, if the source is online, point us toward it!) would be nice.

Thanks, and God bless,
Jason

Dear Jason

According to the 'search inside option' @ Amazon.com Cyril's commentary on John should be found within this book: Cyril of Alexandria (The Early Church Fathers) by Norman Russell [amazon.com] . Unfortunately his Thesauraus and The Dialogues on the Trinity do not appear to be extant in English.

The quote you requested is:
At this present time I have not got the Greek to give you. Sorry. But I have it on good authority that in the works referenced St Cyril says that the Father and the Son issue forth the Spirit.

Sincerely
Myles

The "filioque" as a theologoumenon (if that is what it really is) should be removed from the creed of the Latin Church, because a theological opinion has no place in an official creed that is meant to declare the faith of the whole Church.

Myles,

No one has ever disputed that St. Cyril has a doctrine of energetic manifestation (i.e., a doctrine that supports the consubstantial communion of the three hypostases), but he does not have a "filioque" as it was formulated at the Councils of Lyons II and Florence. St. Cyril never called the Son a cause of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, and so he could never have agreed to the Florentine decree.

In his book "Aristotle East and West" Dr. David Bradshaw gives one of the most concise explanations of the manifestation of the Spirit through the Son as divine energy (cf. pages 214-220), and how the West confuses this "manifestation" of the Spirit with His hypostatic procession from the Father alone, thus I highly recommend reading his treatment of the topic.

For those interested there is an English translation of the homilies of St. Cyril of Alexandria on the Gospel of St. John in a book series entitled "A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church: Anterior to the Division of the East and West" published in 1874.

Myles,

Once again, the Spirit as energy is manifested from the Father through the Son, but He does not proceed as hypostasis through or from the Son. As always Westerners seem to confuse the hypostatic procession of the Spirit, which comes only from the Father as the sole cause within the Godhead, with the Spirit's energetic manifestation through the Son, which expresses and reveals the consubstantial communion of the three divine hypostases within the Trinity.

Blessings to you,
Todd

This point was answered from the Eastern side by St. Gregory II of Cyprus who pointed out that the Spirit receives His existence from the Father alone (which concerns His hypostatic procession), but that the Spirit exists through the Son (which concerns His energetic manifestation), and that this latter manifestation reveals the communion of essence of the three hypostases within the Godhead.

Without addressing the heretical nature of one theological approach to another, has theology in general been hijacked by Greek ontology for too long? If we apply Heidegger to theology we might discover that Aristotle and Plato argue from the same side of the aisle.

Joe

There is also Jewish soteriology in the New Testament too.

Can we still give glory to the Father, thru the Son, and in the Holy Spirit?

Joe

My question concerning the filioque is not of a theological nature, but more of a legal nature.

Was the filioque officially added to the Creed of the Church? If so, when and by what Pope or Ecumenical Council? If not, is the Roman Church's use of the filioque just a liturgical addition in its acknowadgement of the truth of filioque doctrine?


Jesse Venner

Creed of what church?

I believe a Pope of long ago had the Creed engraved in plaques, one in Greek and the other in Latin, without the Filioque in response to those who put it in. Can't remember where it was placed.

The Creed is an Ecumenical document, not belonging to one particular tradition. The West putting it in their use of the Creed is akin to the State of Utah changing the US Constitution without the rest of the states.

Joe

Joe,

I did not ask when it was NOT added. I asked when it WAS added. Someone from the Roman Church's perspective had to have had the authority or though they had the authority to add it to the Creed. I want to know who or what this was and when. Thats all I want to know.

Jesse Venner

The "filioque" began being added to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed in the West (in Spain, at the Third Council of Toledo in 589 A.D.) at the end of the 6th century. It spread from Spain into the Frankish kingdom and other parts of the West, but the addition of the "filioque" to the creed was resisted by the Popes for many centuries, and as J Thur pointed out, Pope Leo III 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." [The Filioque: A Church Dividing Issue? An Agreed Statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation] Finally, in 1014 A.D. the Pope, Benedict VIII, under pressure from King Henry II, the German Emperor, added the "filioque" to the creed at Rome itself.

For more information on this topic click the link below:

The [i]Filioque[/i]: A Church Dividing Issue? [usccb.org]

Apotheoun said:

Well, of course first off this is an Economic situation and so it's a bit of a different issue. That being said, however, I don't think any of the options you listed accurately reflect the situation as it transpired. Even John Chrysostom, in his homilies, states that it's not clear what is occuring at that moment. Jesus could be giving them the "gifts of the Spirit", or could be making them ready to receive the "gifts of the Spirit" at a later time (Pentecost). Either way, the Spirit Himself is not necessarily involved at all at this particular point in time, and St. John Chrysostom even mentions in Homily 86 on the Gospel of John that what's being described either way is the powers of the Spirit, i.e. the Divine Energies, not the Holy Spirit as a Person or an identifiable Energy. Chrysostom makes this explicit by pointing out that the "powers" of the Spirit are the "powers" of the Father and Son also.

As is so often the case in the Gospel of John, the (power of the) Spirit is used here to represent the Divine Energies as a category, at least according to St. John Chrysostom. What is clear is that the Apostles did not receive the whole of the Holy Spirit's power at that moment in time. As Chrysostom states, Jesus says "receive the Holy Spirit", not "you have received the Holy Spirit". It could easily be a direction for the coming Pentecost, which is the direction I tend to lean in. They are certainly given some authority and blessing at this moment, but they are not receiving any extreme, miraculous Energy just yet. This is made clear by the shattering change that occurs forty days later compared to what we see here. This also ties directly back to John 16 where Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will not be among the Apostles until Jesus returns to the Father (and He also states that Christ would be doing the sending).

In short, I think it's a non-starter as a question. I'll have to check out Gregory Palamas' "One Hundred and Fifty" to see the Spirit as an Energy. So far I see no Patristic support for it yet.

Peace and God bless!

Ghosty,

Patristic support for the idea of the Spirit as an energy can be found at least twice in St. Athanasius. Look at his Epistolae ad Serapionem (sometimes just Ad Serapionem -- they're his "Letters to Serapion"), I.20, and I.30. In both places he refers to the Holy Spirit as the energeia (energy) of the Son.

Myles,

Forgive me for taking a little longer in getting around to the "more on Cyril" I'd mentioned; I'm in grad school, so I've been busy lately, and Apotheoun already gave part of the response to your quotation. I'll reiterate it again first, and then give some other considerations that ought to give us pause before we say that St. Cyril supported the filioque as it comes to be expressed by the Latins.

First, as Apotheoun pointed out, Eastern Trinitarian theology makes a distinction between "having existence" vs. "existing," which corresponds to the distinction between hypostatic procession vs. energetic manifestation which has already been mentioned. The Spirit "has existence" from the Father alone (i.e., He hypostatically processes from the Father alone) but He exists through the Son (i.e., He is manifested through the Son, so that the movement through the Son in some way characterizes His divine life). Apotheoun mentioned Bradshaw's book, and this is a great place to start. As Bradshaw puts it there, "Gregory [II of Cyprus] concedes that the Spirit may be said to exist through the Son insofar as He eternally shines forth from the Son, but denies that the Spirit therefore has His existence through the Son . . . Gregory invoked [St. John] Damascene's analogy with light: radiance exists through the ray in that it shines forth from the ray, but it has its existence directly from the sun" (p. 218-219). Later, sums it up as follows: "The Spirit proceeds from the Father to rest upon the Son, and in so doing both glorifies the Son, manifesting His energy, and is Himself made known through the Son" (p. 220). This whole idea is nascent in St. John of Damascus, who says, "We do not speak of the Spirit as from the Son, but yet . . . we confess that He is manifested and imparted to us through the Son," and also in St. Gregory of Nyssa (although some think the letter is St. Basil's), who says, "[the Spirit is recognized by the facts] that He is known after the Son and together with the Son, and that He has His subsistence from the Father." So, hopefully that makes the distinction clear. Prima facie, then, Easterners are not going to have trouble accepting the quote from St. Cyril and still denying the Latin filioque.

But let's not stop there, because there are other things about St. Cyril's writings to consider in this connection, too. I assume you're familiar with the fact that he was quite involved in a Christological debate with the heretic Nestorius, and as a result of that wrote many letters to him. Well, in one of those letters, St. Cyril wrote that the Holy Spirit is Christ's own Spirit. One of Nestorius companions, Theodoret of Cyrus, responded angrily: Now, the things to note about this are first that Theodoret was trying all he could do to find mistakes in Cyril; that he would cite this fact and charge Cyril with potential blasphemy then suggests that the idea of the Spirit having His subsistence from or through the Son would have seemed wrong to those watching the debate. However, what's perhaps more significant than this is that Cyril responded, and instead of defending himself forcefully or even charging Theodoret and Nestorius with additional mistakes, he simply clarified himself and used much more guarded language (emphasis added): This is a much more guarded thing to say. Here Cyril reemphasizes that the procession is from the Father, but just that the Spirit is not "alien" from the Son; he then connects this "not alien" notion to the fact that the Father and the Son have all things in common, apparently implying that the Son is also consubstantial with the Spirit and "has" Him in some way. Now, nothing in this response from Cyril alone obviously speaks in favor of either side here, but it at least should make us hesitant to say that he ascribed to anything like the Latin filioque. But we shouldn't stop here, either, because there are other things Cyril says that should tilt us a bit further in the direction of thinking that he might not hold the filioque doctrine. For it seems in other places that what St. Cyril means when he says that the Son "has" the Spirit, that the Spirit belongs to Him and is not "alien" to Him, and so on, is defined more explicitly. For instance, at another spot in his Commentary on John, He says that the Holy Spirit is the "radiance" of the Word of God, which -- keeping in mind the "light" analogy above -- seems to suggest something like energetic manifestation rather than hypostatic procession. In his Commentary on Luke, Cyril says that although the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, He is united to the Son consubstantially, and belongs to Him "naturally" as the finger naturally belongs to the hand (I get this from Richard Haugh's Photius and the Carolingians, p. 190). So what Cyril seems to want to say is that the Spirit proceeds from the Father but is consubstantial with the Son and so "belongs" to Him by nature (this is, in fact, exactly the conclusion Haugh reaches; incidentally, it is also the interpretation that Gregory II of Cyprus gave him, and seems to be suggested by other quotes from Cyril that are often taken by apologists to address the filioque). Other things pointing in favor of this are that Cyril elsewhere insists that the Spirit is said to "proceed perfectly" from the Father; so it seems that, if the procession from the Father is perfect, there ought to be nothing to add to it -- Gregory II of Cyprus uses an argument like this (see Aristeides Papadakis' Crisis in Byzantium, p. 93). So, there are a number of things in Cyril himself, as well as in his interpreters, that are mitigating against the belief that Cyril taught the filioque doctrine as it is now expressed; and even if not, the Eastern tradition has no problem accommodating the quote you've provided.

I should mention one thing about Cyril, too. At his time, distinctions between "nature" (or essence) and "person" were still being forged -- this was a crucial part of his debate with Nestorius; the terminology was not fixed -- and so he is hard to interpret as it is. As Richard Haugh (mentioned above) puts it, "Cyril's triadological thought is not always clear because it suffers from a lack of precision in distinguishing between nature and person . . . Cyril's language is ambiguous because sometimes he speaks as though he identifies the Holy Spirit with the Divine Essence without distinguishing what is 'natural' in God and what is 'personal' or 'hypostatic'" (ibid., p. 189-190, emphasis his). However, as I've noted, Haugh maintains that Cyril's clearest intention is to say that the Spirit is consubstantial with the Son and that both are divine.

Hopefully that's at least somewhat helpful.

Thanks, and God bless,
Jason