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That is my impression reading the words of the Council as well. In fact, if John Beccus had said what he said in the Latin Church he would likewise be condemned. The Son is not, and can not be understood as, "cause" in the sense of aiton. Likewise, the union between the Father and the Son is absolutely not aiton. Only the Father is aiton, in Latin principaliter. To say that the Son has any function as aiton of the person of the Holy Spirit is absolute heresy. That is not what the Latins have ever said, and it is not how it is defined at the Council of Florence.

What does appear to have happened is a miscommunication of what the Greeks intended. The writings of the Council of Florence indicate a profound misunderstanding of the Greek Fathers, if indeed they are using "cause" to mean aiton (we REALLY need an original Greek copy of the decree). What's very noticible, however, is that the Latins say "according to the Greeks", but then they do not use the same terminology to explain their view. In light of the distinction of "principaliter" we've been discussing, this is a very important fact!

Principle, in Latin principium, does not have the connotation of "deriving itself from", but rather is simply "starting point". Latins were not unaware of the ambiguity this caused, which is why Thomas Aquinas stressed that the Son is principle in the relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit. In order to ensure the understanding that the actual origin of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit is preserved and understood, they coined the term principaliter to describe the Father's role. The reason that they stress that the Son is the principle of the person of the Holy Spirit is precisely to avoid the possible confusion of having part of the person of the Holy Spirit coming out of the Son, and part of it coming out of the Father seperate from the Son.

Let me stress this: by principaliter it is understood that, in processing (ekporeusis) the whole and complete personhood of the Holy Spirit, he "hands it off" to the Son, who then spirates (breathes) the Holy Spirit out. This occurs eternally, and not simply when Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit out on the Apostles, but it doesn't not represent the participation of the Son in ekporeusis.

Ecce Jason: I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been so definative in my statements. I blame it on my fatigue.

To clarify, I believe the Latins do not use the Greek phrasing of "through the Son" even when speaking Greek because of the implications it holds in Latin, not because of what it entails in Greek. A few posts back I mentioned that Thomas Aquinas illustrates this conundrum while explaining something else. To refresh it a bit, in Latin we can reverse the "through" in most cases when either the relationship between the two is unknown otherwise, or they share the same characteristics. This is also true in English to some extent, for example:

"Fire burns through heat" becomes "heat burns through fire". Since both heat and fire can be said to burn on their own. By saying the former, you are not ruling out the latter.

We can also make up a term and have the same result due to the indeterminate nature of the second term (this is the case in the Creed). This happens when we say "Brian works through gog,' or "gog works through Brian." Now, even if we first say "Brian made gog", we are not actually subordinating gog to Brian in such a way that prevents reversal, because we don't know from context what characteristics were imparted to gog by Brian. If gog is a super-human AI that takes over and controls Brian's actions (unknown, but possible), then "Brian works through gog" loses its automatic subordinating element, and actually means that Brian is able to work by the will of gog, and also that gog works through Brian, who acts as his pawn.

Now, in the Creed "through" is actually used once, when it says "through Him all things were made," refering to the Son. The context has already been provided, however, because earlier in the Creed it says of the Father "maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen." Since the Father is already understood to be the maker of everything when standing on His own, the "through" of the Son is necessarily understood to be subordinate to the Father. In the case of procession, however, nothing is mentioned until we get to the case of the Holy Spirit. There is no context for procession, even though the Son is understood to be "begotten" of the Father. This leaves open room for reversal in the manner of Brian and gog. That's just begging for another Western heresy; it's practically inviting it right into the Creed.

Now whether the Westerners were concious of this fact or not is another matter, but I think it's very good that they didn't go down that road given the linguistic implications of Latin. We have enough problems as it is. Now, again, this isn't to say that the expression in Greek is heretical, or even that it's heretical in Latin when properly understood, only that within the context of the Creed it poses more problems in Latin than filio que.

One intriguing and simple solution to this problem that I've seen put forth online is to simply place through with and, so it would read as "proceeds from the Father and through the Son", which in Latin would be "qui ex Patre et per Filium procedit".

And don't worry, I'm not interested in any ad hominems. Only the ideas matter to me here

God bless.

Ghosty,

Thanks for your most recent words. Without getting into the nitty-gritty (because, as I recently said, I'm trying to withdraw from this discussion at least for now), I wanted to ask you about this: I'm not quite sure if that's true, particularly because Beccus was in frequent interaction with the Latins, including the legates of the Pope and the Pope himself (via letters). Plus, see this article from the Catholic Encyclopedia [newadvent.org] , which even states that the doctrines which Beccus was defending at the Council of Blachernae just were "the doctrines of the Western Church" (it says not only that he defended them, but that he defended them "energetically" and is easily the first among those Greeks who adhered to union with Rome).

God bless,
Jason

Apotheoun said:

This seems to be an incorrect assertion to me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, prior to the Council of 1285, Maximus articulated that there was no rejection on either side of the meanings of the other. In the Council itself, the issue of "by way of" never seems to come up at all, at least not that I have seen. Remember, the Council would originally have been written in Greek, and in reading the English here I can only assume that when the Council says "cause", that's the usual translation in English of "aiton", which is properly "sole origin". To apply "aiton" to the Son, or to the Father with the Son, is absolutely, fundamental heresy in Latin thinking. It would be the same as applying "principaliter" to the Son, or to the Father together with the Son, which is explicitly overruled, most notibly by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Lastly, the recent position by the Orthodox scholars, who are of course favorable to the said Council of 1285, and base their principles on it, has been one of increasing understanding that the Latin distinction does not, and has never once been understood to, impart "aiton" to the Father and the Son together. The main issue that remains is to ultimately settle what is meant, and by ultimately I mean sitting down jointly and definatively, because the Latin Church has put forth its understanding and the Orthodox have found it quite agreeable, pending joint "hashing out" and declaration.

The real question, which is becoming more and more clear to the Orthodox and Catholics, is whether or not the filioque can be permitted to stay in the Latin expression of the Creed, and the Latin Church does not have any dogmatic assertions on that matter to conflict with any ultimate decision.

What must be remembered, however, is that it may indeed be necessary to have a slightly different text in Latin than in Greek in order to properly convey the Greek understanding. In previous centuries, before linguistics was well understood, this was not viewed as a necessity. As linguistics has become a science, however, we have seen more and more that word-for-word translation can actually do much more to harm understanding than to promote it. Language is not matter of translating terms, but also meanings, and sometimes the terms and meanings that are harmonious in one language are conflicting or ambiguous in another.

I tutor English to non-English speakers of many different languages, and the FIRST question I ask them, after their name, is what their native language is. This is absolutely critical to conveying concepts and meanings. Here's an example of the problems that can occur:

In English, the word "in" can mean both "inside" and "with". For example, if a concert Hall was called Harmony, you could say "When we sing in Harmony, we will sing in harmony." The former refers to inside, and the latter to "with". The problem is that, grammatically speaking, both uses of harmony are nouns, so you can't make a rule saying "if in is followed by a noun, it means inside", or visa versa with "with". You literally have to "know what is meant" just by knowing.

The problem arises, in translation, when the connotation of a word in one language contradicts the connotation in another. If the word for "inside" in some hypothetical language implies "inside but absolutely seperate from", you've got a major issue to overcome in translating "When singing in Harmony, we will sing in harmony". Furthermore, they may not have a word for harmonious singing if they are a culture that only practices soloistic singing or chanting. So when we translate the word "in" in the first part of the sentance, it makes perfect sense to use the word for inside in the new language, because the people within the building do not become part of the building by entering. No conflicts. When we get to the second part, however, we have a very difficult problem. We can't use the word for inside, and then just say "we mean it in a different way this time", because the word for "inside" carries a connotation that completely contradicts the actual meaning. In this case, the people singing should be completely seperate, perhaps in different rooms, or singing at different times, or even singing different songs. Furthermore, there's no word in this culture for "singing together", because it doesn't happen in that culture.

We end up where the only way to translate the text is to leave the first part "as is", and turn the second part into something like "we will use our voices, while in the same room, at the same time, singing the same song, to mix the notes in such a way that is pleasing to the ears". Now the person in the other culture can somewhat grasp what is intended, but still doesn't "know" the difference between the uses of "in", because the solution is unique to this particular case, and can't be applied to, say, "walk a mile in my shoes". What's more, the text of the translation can't be translated back into English unless one knows exactly what was originally translated. After all, mix notes doesn't necessarily imply that the different people are using different notes, only that the notes of the song are being mixed in a pleasing way. That could be ANY song sung in concert, not necessarily a harmony part. After all, the point of a song isn't to mix notes in a way that sounds bad.

Going back to the original issue, the solution in the Catholic Church, with its multiplicity of languages, has been to use different texts of the same Creed depending on the language being spoken. It expresses the same truth, but in order to do so it absolutely must be different, and possibly mutually exclusive when it comes to translating back and forth, as in my example above. If Latins take out the filioque, it leaves open the possibility that a fundamental aspect of the personhood of the Holy Spirit, and of the Son too, will be denied (as happened in ancient history in the West, though that may not be a problem that would arise anymore. On the other hand, it would give the Mormons claim to professing the Creed, as their theology is ONLY combatted, within the Creed, with the filioque), and if they use "through", as the Creed stands, it lends itself to giving TOO much to the Son when spoken in Latin.

It's a linguistic problem that has HUGE significance, and must be dealt with jointly and charitably. What we are trying to do here in this thread is simply to see if Eastern Catholics are "left out in the cold" by the Council of Florence, and to me it seems clear that given the Latin understanding of the terms used in the Decree, Eastern Catholic Theology is not only welcome, but definatively protected. If that were not the case, then at some point in the 500 years of unity, a Latin-speaking Pope would have ordered an abandonment of the Eastern conception upon hearing it on the basis of the Council of Florence, and it's silly to assume that no Latin theologians in that time ever heard of Energies and Hypostasis. :p

God bless!

RayK: Use whatever you like of mine. The water hose bit was all me, as was the Adam/Eve/Abel thing, but that was with inspiration from Thomas Aquinas. I can't guarentee that any of it will appease everybody, but it's all just my humble attempts at clarifying the Latin position, as a Latin Catholic.

God bless!

Ghosty,

You and I have two very different understandings of the nature of the Trinity.

I hold that the Father alone is cause within the Godhead, and so He alone causes the Son by generation, and He alone causes the Spirit by procession (ekporeusis). This causal power of the Father is what differentiates Him from the other two hypostases (persons) of the Trinity (i.e., the Son and the Spirit).

That being said, I accept that there is a manifestation (proienai) of the Spirit through the Son, not as hypostasis (person), but as energy, and that this eternal manifestation is not causal, but is a true shining forth of the Spirit from the Father through the Son within the divine energy, both temporally and eternally.

Nevertheless, neither the Son nor the Spirit are causes within the inner life of the Godhead, for the property (idiomata) of causation is a characteristic of the hypostasis of the Father alone. Moreover, because the Father alone is cause within the Godhead it follows that there is only one God.

The West, beginning with Augustine, has a different conception of the Trinity, which primarily focuses upon the unity of the divine essence over the trinity of hypostases.

The West thinks that the Son can be a "co-principle" with the Father in originating the Holy Spirit as hypostasis (i.e., at the level of the Spirit's subsistent being), but for an Easterner this idea involves the confounding of the hypostases (persons) of the Father and the Son, which is simply a form of Sabellianism. In the Byzantine tradition it is impossible to ascribe the properties of the Father to the Son, without simultaneously destroying the reality of the Trinity of persons.

As I see it, you continue to confuse the hypostatic origin of the Spirit, which comes only from the Father, with the eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son as divine energy. That is why I cannot agree with you when you speak of the Spirit proceeding "by way of" the Son.

Finally, I should point out that I changed rites, after having been a Latin Rite Catholic for more than 17 years, because of these theological issues.

Blessings to you,
Todd

Apotheun: No, nothing you described in your Eastern description conflicts with the Western description, even taking Augustine's terms into account.

After some pondering, it occured to me that part of the problem we are facing is due to a subtle but linguistically inherent logical fallacy when translating Latin to Greek.

Namely, this is the fallacy of "post hoc, ergo propter hoc", or "after this, therefore because of this". Now Latins have a word that implies "cause" in the Greek sense, and also includes an issuing forth of something: propagare (from which we get propigate).

Now consider this for a minute: if the Latins had intended to indicate true cause on the part of the Son in any way, why don't they use the term "propagare" in reference to the "Father together with the Son"? We have a word that means that, means it much more directly than any other word in Latin, why insist on using "principium" to the exclusion of "propagare"? It's because principium does not carry the inherent connotation of propagare.

Now, whatever is being used to indicate "principle" in Greek seems to carry with it an inherent "propagare" that does not exist in Latin. A principium can also be a propagare, but it's not directly implied in the word itself. Again, we need to see the Council of Florence in Latin, but I see nothing to indicate from the English translations that propagare is being used. If they had meant propagare, they would have said it, as they do elsewhere.

To use your words with insertion:

Now propagare isn't the same word as causa, but it does seem to properly sum up the Eastern conception of transmitting personhood. If the Latins had intended to say that the Son was a cause in the Greek sense, the aiton, they would have used propagare. The fact that the Council explicitly states that the Latins call it "principium" indicates that they were avoiding using "propagare".

Yes, we have different explainations of the Trinity, based on different starting points, but they don't pose any contradiction for eachother, nor are either of them ruled out by the Council of Florence. What's more, the difference in views was established before even the Council of Chalcedon, and was not a cause for disunity then.

Ecce Jason: The reason that John Beccus' pronouncements would be considered heretical in Latin is precisely because I can only assume that he was using the word "aiton" when he said that the Son was a cause of the Holy Spirit. Such an understanding is absolutely heretical in Latin, and would be the equivalent of calling the Son "co-principaliter" and/or propagator of the Holy Spirit. Had he said in Latin, what he said in Greek, he would have anathemized so fast his head would have been spinning.

Now whether or not Beccus intended that is another question, and I'm no expert. The words he used in Greek were absolutely, disgustingly heretical, however.

As for the Catholic Encyclopedia, it's not always a good source on matters regarding the Schism. For example, it also definatively states that Patriarch Photius was excommunicated by Pope John VIII, which is positively false. Photius died in communion with Rome.

God bless.

Okay, really, this is intended to be my last post in this thread.

Ghosty, if the Catholic Encyclopedia isn't good enough -- and I agree that it has some bad errors (although I don't know if the thing about Photius is one of them; I think he was actually excommunicated but then restored to a communion at a later time) -- you can look at some of the work of the aforementioned Fr. Joseph Gill, S.J. (who wrote the book on the Council of Florence). His praise for John Beccus is equally high. See his book Church Union : Rome and Byzantium.

As for your other concerns, mark the following words of St. Thomas Aquinas. They seem to me to be more or less definitive. In them he explains that by "principle" the Latins do mean a cause of the origin of Persons, they just don't say "cause" because it sounds to them like it makes the Son a creature and so on. He also indicates that he understands the Greek distinction between hypostases and the essence. Finally, he even says that the Son participates in the procession of the Spirit with the Father because He (the Son) shares the Father's property of spirating the Spirit and He actively spirates the Person of the Spirit with Him(!). This is all from his work, Contra Errores Graecorum [Against the Errors of the Greeks] (I've added emphasis in certain places). The last quote is probably the most damaging:

If you want to see the Latin, it's here [corpusthomisticum.org] .

God bless,
Jason

It seems to me that you're reading an awful lot into Thomas's words. Since you seem to have access to an English edition of the Contra erres Graecorum, would you be so kind as to forward me (possibly to my PM box) the entirety of the actual passage being used? My Latin is rusty, to say the least, and a lot is left out in what you post here.

That being said, you are presenting an argument with some of the text, and I'll address them by each major point:

First I would point out that him saying three reasons is not a limiting factor. He's simply articulating three reasons, and ennumerates them. Secondly, the fact that the Father is called principle of the Son, which is absolutely true, is not an indication that principle shares the same meaning/implication as aiton. He's simply expressing that it's customary to use the term principle, which describes the relationship between two points on a given trajectory. The Father is definately principle, so that term is used to describe the Father's relationship to the Son.

Don't you think that, while throwing around principle so often, he would have included it in this list if it meant "consubstantial origin"? On the contrary, he's setting these aside from the term principium, which does not imply a consubstantial origin. Principium refers only to the relationship between two points, the starting point of a particular motion as it relates to two points. Let me use an example from Thomas Aquinas' discourse in the Summa about the Holy Spirit:

I highlight one particular example just for ease of explaination, but all are suitable. In this case, love of gain is most certainly the principle of the artisan working, because the love of gain leads the artisan to work. Love of gain is hardly consubstantial with working, in this case manual work. They couldn't be more different, in fact, as one is emotional and the other is material. There is no essence or substance communicated whatsoever. Compare this with the word fount, which relates directly to what is coming from the fount. A fount of water, for example, pours water, and that water is the same water that is coming from the fountain; they are consubstantial. A fount of water does not put forth blood, and a fount of blood does not put forth water, and the water that the fount puts forth is not distinct from the "founting", but it is rather one continuous stream. While the fount is the principle of the water, principle does not imply consubstantiality, and does not imply that any substance or essence is communicated by the principle. Indeed a fountain made of stone could be the principle of the water, and it would not send forth little fountains made of stone (differing essence), nor would the water be of one body with the stone fountain (differing substance). :p

I don't think he's saying that they mean the same at all, and I think that's reading far too much into it, perhaps even with an improper intention behind it. He's saying that the Greeks were attempting to explain something, just as when Latins use the term principle. He's not equating the terms, but rather the efforts. I see absolutely nothing here to indicate otherwise, and in fact it seems to be a rather odd twisting of his words.

Again the term "persons" is bracketed in where there's no reason to believe it should be. In fact, knowing Aquinas' work it's far more likely that he means substance there, rather than persons. I'm not sure why you're doing it that way.

Regardless, nothing in this paragraph seems to pose any problems, so I'm not certain why you quote it. All he's saying is that each person should have some term attached to them: generates, begotten, proceeds. If you mean to imply that he's indicating a kind of union between the Father and the Son because the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father and the Son, that's nonsense in this context because that would imply a unity of personhood, that the Father and the Son are not distinct persons, and Thomas Aquinas certainly never held to that.

If you mean to say that Thomas Aquinas is, by recognizing that hypostasis means person, he is suggesting by saying that the "Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son" implies that the hypostasis or personhood is derived in any way from the Son, you'd be sorely mistaken. The Holy Spirit passes through the Son, like a train through a city, but derives nothing from such a procession, just as the train derives nothing from the city.

Yes, so? At most this indicates a personal error, and reflects in no way on the dogma put forth by the Council of Florence, as that document never uses the term "active". The discussion isn't whether or not Thomas Aquinas is an infallible witness to the doctrine, as he's anything but! The discussion is what the terms mean, and none of the terms under discussion are used in this passage. In fact, the term "spirate" doesn't appear in the Creed either, and that the Son actively spirates the Holy Spirit is not a confession of Faith for the Latins.

In fact, that the term "activa" is specifically used here, but does not appear in the documents of the Council of Florence in relation to spiration, indicates that "activa" is not implicitly understood in spiration. If it was, one would expect it to either always be used in Latin, or never used at all. That it appears here, specifically to show a kind of unity with the Son and the Father, indicates that the modifier "activa" is required to demonstrate the "unity of image" that the author is attempting to demonstrate.

Furthermore, it's not clear whether or not this is Thomas Aquinas quoting another, or saying it himself; we don't even know to whom to apply the error.

In short, don't be too quick to apply meanings to words that aren't implicit in the text. Careful analysis shows that your fears are unfounded, at least in the case of this particular work.

As for your first remarks, yes Photius was excommunicated, but he was actually restored to communion by John VIII, and died in communion. My point is that the Catholic Encyclopedia states that John VIII excommunicated Photius yet again, which is utterly false.

As for the work of Fr. Joseph Gill, you've already said that he's tried to make the Greeks out to be bafoons, which indicates he has a polemical bent to him. Also, just because he praised Beccus doesn't mean he fully understood what the implications of "aiton" are in Greek. Recent proclaimations by the Catholic Church have explicitely ruled out any participation of the Son in the "aitia" of the Trinity. This much is said in the "Filioque Clarification" document you linked to earlier. Therefore, if Beccus ascribed aitia in any way to the Son, his views are heretical in the Latin Church.

Since you don't want to participate in the thread anymore, feel free to PM me any response you have.

God bless!

Dear Ghostly...

You see Ghostly - there is some type of blockage. No matter how many times we explain the meaning of the Latin Filoque - it is as if they simply can not hear it. It is spooky.

We agree with them (as to what the filoque should not mean) - and they insist we don't agree. It is truly spooky.

An indoctrination so strong that when we present the color blue - they actually physically see - the color red.

Of course, this IS the human condition - isn't it. We are all subject to this illusion in varied degrees and areas. So when we see it - we must say "There go I." There is the cause in humanity of all my troubles.

I have come to the strong conclusion that the differences between the Latin church and certain Eastern churches (the differences that hurt) are all based in habits of human nature and culture.

The Greek fathers were - a two sided coin. On one hand they solidified the church socially - on the other hand we were lucky to survive them. The early Councils were more a sign of the arguments and differences - than a sign of their like mindedness. The Councils were needed - because they we so because these fathers were so boisterous, argumentative, separated, divided, and self righteous. The Councils were rather a sign of some unity while underneath there was seething disunity� bishops imprisoning other bishops� excommunications being thrown about by everyone� the slaughter of the pagans by the edict of Byzantine bishops� imprisonment of the Pope of Rome by the Byzantine Emperor� the confiscation of all property of any Christian who professed the Pope as head of the church - the imprisonment of such as Maximus for having sympathies for Rome � the excommunication of any church which refused to adopt Greek as their theological language (as the Copts and church of Ethiopia refused).

The sins of the Byzantine empire - would later be repeated in Europe with the sins of the Latin hierarchy partnering with Kings - and result in the Reformation.

Spiritual authority and state authority (Christendom) had an effect of a rapid social growth of the church. But - at the expense of its spiritual life. Perhaps it would have been better to demand that all bishops must live in the desert - wear rags - and eat locust - and never be called �your holiness�.

So while we can all look back at the Byzantine Empire and lament that it was indeed � �paradise lost�� it was a paradise that simply can not be. Not here. Not ever. Not in physical form.

Cheers.
-ray

Ray,

With all due respect, I would like to suggest that your personal innuendos are not only uncharitable, but are also offensive. The implication that there is almost something defective in those of us who are having trouble with the Latin filioque (i.e., there is some "blockage," and we apparently can't see what is clearly the truth -- despite the fact that this truth has been an area of disagreement amongst holy men and scholars for over 1000 years) is not only crass, it is an impediment to true Christian dialogue, to true desire for unity, and to any sense of civility in discussion. I would suggest, in fact, that such insults against persons are often the very factor that makes the reunion of churches so difficult, and I would suggest, on that basis, that you reconsider them.

Forgive me if this post is too aggressive and/or offensive.

May God bless you,
Jason

Ghosty,

I'll likely PM you. However, I should point out (and I should have pointed out originally) that the translation of the Latin is not my own, and the words inserted in brackets were not inserted by me but by the translator. Sorry for being unclear about that. In any case, I did check some of the translation against the Latin and it generally seems correct.

Here's the link to the translation: Against the Errors of the Greeks [globalserve.net] .

Thanks, and God bless,
Jason

Ghosty,

I'm going to go ahead and post this here only because I think Apotheoun may be interested in it too. Hope you don't mind! I have placed a * by one of the points that I think is maybe most important.

In regard to the fact that Thomas mentions there are three reasons for the Latins not to use "cause," instead of "principle," you say:

I didn't say that it was a limiting factor. However, he does say quite plainly that there are three reasons, and they are the only ones he gives, and he mentions nothing about not wanting to make the Son a "cause" of the Holy Spirit. That's all I claimed. My reasons for mentioning this are twofold: first, Thomas was quite possibly the philosopher that made as many distinctions and gave as many reasons as possible, so the fact that he gives only these three reasons is still significant (and he does not say there are "at least" three reasons, just that there are three -- and Thomas is known for his carefulness, too); second, this shows that Thomas and the Latins (Contra Errores Graecorum was written for the Pope, after all) understood exactly what the Greeks meant by "cause," and they allowed the Son to be both a cause and a principle of the Holy Spirit at Florence, which seems to at least speak slightly against your claim that the Latins would regard the Greek view as almost heretical and as actually heretical were it said in Latin (again, Thomas suggests nothing of the sort, and is in fact explaining why it would really be fine to say "cause"). Even so, this is not a central point, so let's continue.

When Thomas says that, instead of cause, the Latins use other words to denote consubstantial origin, you object:

What you're saying about "setting these aside" from principium is simply not in the text; in fact, Thomas' language absolutely does suggest quite the opposite of what you're saying: namely, that he does means to include the word "principle" here -- and to define that term as something having to do with consubstantial origin -- because the paragraph immediately before this one is the one wherein he says that, instead of using "cause," the Latins use "principle or originator" (you see the implicit equivalance; the terms are interchangeable), and then he says there are three reasons. This passage just is his first reason, so obviously he's connecting them and taking it as an explanation for why they use words like "principle" or "originator" to express origin instead of cause (as he explicitly says in the preceding paragraph). Even when he lists the words, he explicitly says we use these words "and other names of this kind." So the idea that he's setting aside terms that are clearly delineated against "principle" is stretching it, at best.

You then attempt to argue from a passage in Thomas' Summa Theologicae that "principle" does not mean consubstantial origin. I will grant your point that it does not always mean consubstantial origin, but I never claimed that, and that point is not relevant to my argument here. In fact, again, the passage you cite from the Summa is irrelevant against Thomas' point in the Contra Errores Graecorum because, in the Summa, he explicitly says that he's talking about "principle" with reference to final cause, whereas in the Contra Errores he explicitly says that he is talking solely about originating cause and not final cause. This is shown in the portions already quoted.

Regarding Thomas' third reason, you say:

The portion in ellipses is not that significant; you can refer to the full translation I provided in the thread, if you'd like (and as I noted, the translator added the bracketed words, not me). In fact, referring to the translation will make my next point...

As for my "leaping by this point," I don't understand why you say that. My claim with regard to Thomas' third reason was only this: principle refers to origin even more than "cause" does. You say I'm leaping, but here's what Thomas says in that passage: "No word pertains to origin, if indeed we can speak of origin with regard to the divine, as much as 'principle' does." I almost said exactly what he said, word for word.

Now, you say that his only point is that "principle" applies to "origin" the best. Fine, even that is generally the same as the point I'm making. However, you then go on to make the rather odd claim that "origin" here does not mean "deriving its essence and substance." Well, first, in saying this you assume another point of yours (namely, that Thomas has set "principle" aside from the other words) which I already addressed above. But beyond that, you also again go against the most obvious reading of what Thomas is saying. The entire context of this passage is Thomas elaborating on the manner in which the Father is the origin of the essence, substance, and Person of the Son. Maybe I should have included more of the translation in the first post. If you go and look at the words he includes from other saints (which I left out, using ellipses) you'll see him referring to words that speak of eternal origin outside of time, "the cause of his true origin," the Council of Nicea (which was almost exclusively about the intra-Trinitarian essence), and so on. In fact, a few sections down in the Contra Errores, Thomas explicitly refers to the essence being begotten and spirated, and even says that the Son spirates the essence of the Holy Spirit (see the section entitled "How it should be understood when it is said that essence is begotten in the Son and spirated in the Spirit").

Finally, when I present what is probably the most clear proof that Thomas means exactly what I've been claiming that he means (and, by the way, what scholars have generally always taken him to mean), you say:

But you have been using Thomas and his use of terms to defend Florence, by attempting to say that "cause" doesn't mean (in Thomas or medieval Latin) what we think it means! This shows patently that that defense does not work (and see also the * point below).

This is a red herring. No one ever claimed he was infallible, but see my preceding point about your defense technique. Further, Thomas' doctrine set the background for the discussion at Florence, and it more or less was the doctrine of the Latins at that time (again, see my * point below); if you doubt that, read the dialogues that took place at Florence. Montenero was a Thomist, or at least an Augustinian.

You also say: Again, refer to my prior points about his doctrine setting the background, however. And even so, the notion that "spiration" is not necessarily active is, as far as I know, just incorrect. See Metropolitan John's comments on the Filioque Clarification; even from the time of the Cappadocians the procession was understood to be an activity. And even if this point doesn't hold, Thomas still admits that the Father and the Son share a property, and this is indeed expressed at Florence when it says that the procession of the Spirit is given to the Son by the Father. You can say that Florence doesn't explicitly say that a property was shared, but that seems to be the most obvious reading of it, and it is also the way it has been historically understood, and it is also the way of reading it that meshes with Thomas (and the rest of Latin theology; see my * point below) here.

You then add: * It seems to me quite clear. He's quoting Richard of St. Victor, and he's doing so approvingly. Look at the translation. He also quotes Augustine in the same passage. In fact, what's even more damning is that he says explicitly that *this "error" is an example of the custom among Latins(!)*. This is the way the Latins themselves customarily understand it, not just Thomas. This is the Latin understanding, and this understanding is the backdrop for Florence. I don't know what more to say beyond that.

Read the rest of the text, too. It's all the more telling.

Thanks, and God bless,
Jason

Dear Jason,

Glad to see you are still hanging around the thread I have a question for you. In your opinion to what extent does each side get to be the arbiters of their own tradition? For example, if Ghosty was telling you that Eastern Orthodox actaully misinterpreted some part of Gregory of Palamas and in fact Ghosty had decided that his interpretation was the correct one would that bother you at all? I mean isn't each side in the best positon to interpret their own saints? I have a feeling that is part of the reason RayK is expressing frustration, though perhaps a bit too strenuously Anyway, just a thought I had. I wish I was knowledgable enough to contribute something more substanitive, lol.

Matt,

Actually, your question is a very good one. And, to some extent, my answer is (get ready for this), "I don't know." I'll explain why by doing something very Thomistic and making a distinction.

Each side certainly gets to interpret which statements are authoritative (in the sense of having binding implications) and which are not. Each side certainly gets to tell me what their doctrinal position is. However, this doesn't mean that each individual on either side automatically has more authority than an individual on another side when it comes to historical interpretation or interpretation of individual authors. For example, if a Roman Catholic scholar who specializes in the doctrine of St. Gregory Palamas came here and started telling me that I had Palamas all wrong, I'd certainly listen up. Of course, the scholar could present a fairly conclusive case as to why by showing me where I went wrong, and so on. So, that's the distinction. When it comes to Roman Catholic doctrine, Roman Catholics are certainly in a better position to tell me what their doctrine is, and if they are Roman Catholics of authority (i.e., they're bishops or some such thing), I basically have to shut up and listen to some extent. However, when it comes to an historical matter such as what a given historical figure did or did not say, there's some room for discussion and argument, I'd think; again, if a scholar came here and started slapping me around with evidence, I wouldn't say that he was wrong just because he's not Orthodox or some such thing. So as long as the discussion is one that involves historical evidence, I don't really think anyone's privileged; one can present a case regardless of what "side" one is on.

Now this brings up an interesting question. Because clearly, the Roman Catholic Church has interpreted its filioque doctrine in a way that's very compatible with what Ghosty and others are saying; their recent filioque clarification is all about the Father as the sole source of the Trinity. So, to some extent, I may be arguing more against historical Roman Catholicism at Florence (i.e., 15th century Roman Catholicism) than contemporary Roman Catholicism and its actual doctrine. On the other hand, however, there is some extent to which Florence still is the doctrine. For example, one problem in the debate is whether or not the Son is a "cause" of the Holy Spirit. The recent Filioque Clarification suggests that the Roman Catholic Church does not think so anymore, but I would say that the document is unfortunately ambiguous at this point: for example, whenever it refers to the fact that the Father is the sole cause of the Spirit, it says, "sole Trinitarian cause," or sole cause "in a principal, proper, and immediate manner," i.e., it always uses a modifier to qualify the statement, never saying flat-out that the Father is the sole cause. It leaves open the possibility that the Son is a cause in a non-principal or mediate manner, and even that is not acceptable in the East.

So, I don't know if I've even answered your question, but there it is. Let me know.

God bless,
Jason

By the way, in case there's confusion, I'm not Orthodox; I'm Eastern Catholic.

Jason,

That was a good answer and I agree with most of it. One point is who gets to say what Florence really stated about the filioque? I mean if the Latins say that Florence does not contradict their current position and that you are just misinterpreting it to say what it was never intended to then should you defer to them? I mean they are the ones who accept it as a valid council. I'm not sure of the answer to that one.

Matt