The Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son — Article 1: The Heresy of the Greek Schism and Its Condemnation by the Church

SECTION 2: THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY GHOST FROM THE FATHER AND THE SON

The second Procession in the Godhead is qualitatively distinct from Generation. Though often designated by the generic term processio (ἐκπόρευσις) it is by most theologians and several councils called Spiration (spiratio, πνεῦσις). Revelation leaves no room for doubt as to the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father. But the Greeks, since the schism of Photius, heretically assert that He proceeds from the Father alone, and not from the Son. To this heretical assertion, which has been expressly rejected by the Church, we oppose the Catholic doctrine that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.

ARTICLE 1: THE HERESY OF THE GREEK SCHISM AND ITS CONDEMNATION BY THE CHURCH

1. The Heresy of the Schism

It is impossible to ascertain just when the heresy asserting the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father alone originated. When the Macedonians declared the Holy Ghost to be a creature of the Logos-Son, the Second Ecumenical Council (A. D. 381), to safeguard the dogma of His Divinity, thought it sufficient to affirm His Consubstantiality with the Father in the phrase: “Qui ex Patre procedit — Who proceeds from the Father.”

Petavius and Bellarmine assume, but without sufficient warrant, that Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret were the original authors of the heresy with which we are dealing.¹ The more probable theory is that certain Nestorians, whose identity can no longer be ascertained, in course of time somehow came to believe that the Council of Constantinople by “ex Patre” meant “ex solo Patre.” This view was publicly defended for the first time in Jerusalem, A. D. 808, by some fanatic monks, who protested against the insertion of the word “Filioque” into the Nicene Creed, because, as they alleged, the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Son. It was, however, reserved for Photius, the ambitious and crafty Patriarch of Constantinople, the most learned scholar of his age,² (†891), to accuse the Latins of heresy for adopting the “Filioque” and to raise the denial of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son to the rank of a palmary dogma of the Greek Church. At a great council held in Constantinople, A. D. 879, which was attended by 380 bishops, the Greeks formally pronounced sentence of anathema against all who should add to, or take from, the Symbol of Nicaea. After Photius’s death “peace was restored temporarily between the churches, although by this time there is already a strong anti-papal party at Constantinople. But the great mass of Christians on either side are reconciled, and have no idea of schism for one hundred and fifty more years.”³ In the eleventh century came the final rupture under Michael Cerularius. The Great Schism settled into permanency, and, after a brief reunion in the fifteenth century, still continues.⁴

2. The Teaching of the Church on the Procession of the Holy Ghost

The Church jealously guarded the Apostolic teaching that the Holy Ghost proceeds from both the Father and the Son. This appears clearly from the insertion of the word “Filioque” into the Constantinopolitan Creed.

Though the Council of Chalcedon (A. D. 451) had forbidden the reception into the Creed of any other faith⁵ than that of Nicaea, there soon came a time when it was found necessary to enforce explicit profession of faith in the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son as well as from the Father. The “Filioque” first came into use in Spain. On the occasion of the conversion of the Arian Goths under King Reccared, the Third Council of Toledo (A. D. 589) decreed the insertion of the term into the Creed and ordered that the words “ex Patre Filioque” should be sung “with raised voices” during the celebration of the Divine Mysteries. In course of time the “Filioque” spread to France and Germany, thence to England and Upper Italy, and finally to Rome, where, however, for disciplinary reasons, the Popes did not encourage its adoption, though from a purely dogmatic point of view the matter had long been ripe for a decision. As early as A. D. 410, a large number of bishops, assembled in synod at Seleucia, had solemnly professed their faith “in Spiritum vivum et sanctum, Paraclitum vivum et sanctum, qui procedit ex Patre et Filio — In the living and holy Ghost, the living and holy Paraclete, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.”⁶ The “Athanasian Creed” contains the clause: “Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et Filio — The Holy Ghost [is] of the Father and the Son;” and long before its composition (5th or 6th century) a synod believed to have been held at Toledo (A. D. 447), had defined that “the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son.”⁷ Pope Hormisdas (†523), in a letter to the Emperor Justin I, employed the phrase: “de Patre et Filio.” Many provincial synods inculcated the same doctrine (Aix-la-Chapelle, A. D. 789; Friaul, A. D. 791; Worms, A. D. 868; etc.). The Emperor Charlemagne was particularly attached to the “Filioque” and it consequently became very popular among the Franks. But when a few Frankish zealots undertook to censure as insufficient the Greek formula “a Patre per Filium,” Pope Hadrian I defended it and quoted the Greek Fathers in its support.

Long after the outbreak of the Great Schism the Fourth Lateran Council (A. D. 1215) again took up the matter and defined it as an article of faith that “Pater a nullo, Filius a Patre solo, ac Spiritus Sanctus pariter ab utroque — The Father [is] from no one; the Son [is] from the Father alone; and the Holy Ghost [is] equally from both the Father and the Son.” Lastly there is the important definition of the Ecumenical Council of Lyons, A. D. 1274, that the Holy Ghost proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son as from one principle and in one Spiration: “Spiritus Sanctus aeternaliter ex Patre et Filio, non tamquam ex duobus principiis, sed tamquam ex uno principio, non duabus spirationibus, sed unica spiratione procedit.”⁸ This teaching was solemnly confirmed in the decree by which the Council of Florence (1439) sealed the restored union: “Diffinimus, quod Spiritus Sanctus ex Patre et Filio aeternaliter est et essentiam suam suumque esse subsistens habet ex Patre simul et Filio, et ex utroque aeternaliter tamquam ab uno principio et unica spiratione procedit — We define that the Holy Ghost is eternally from the Father and the Son, and has His essence and subsistence at once from the Father and the Son; and that He eternally proceeds from both as from one Principle and by one Spiration.”⁹

Upon this definition is based the well-known theological axiom: “Duo quidem spirantes, sed unus spirator.”¹⁰

In consequence of the machinations of the schismatical Bishop Mark of Ephesus, the reunion brought about at Florence came to as bad an end as that effected at Lyons two centuries earlier. It must have seemed to many like a manifestation of divine anger when, on Pentecost Sunday, A. D. 1453, the Turks broke down the walls of Constantinople, and its last Emperor, Constantine Dragases, fell in battle at the gate of St. Romanus.

Readings

On the history of the Greek Schism, see Werner, Geschichte der apologetischen und polemischen Literatur der christlichen Theologie, Vol. III, Schaffhausen 1864; Hergenröther, Photius, Freiburg 1867–69, I, 684 sqq., III, 399 sqq.; Idem, Kirchengeschichte, 4th ed., Vol. II, pp. 234 sqq., Freiburg 1904; Langen, Die trinitarische Lehrdifferenz zwischen der abendländischen und morgenländischen Kirche, Bonn 1876; Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, Vol. IV, 2nd ed., Freiburg 1879; Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church, pp. 134 sqq., London 1907; Duchesne-Mathew, The Churches Separated From Rome, pp. 109 sqq., London 1907; Alzog-Pabisch-Byrne, Manual of Universal Church History, Vol. II, pp. 449 sqq., 5th ed., Cincinnati 1899; S. Vailhé, s. v. “Greek Church,” in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VI, pp. 763 sqq.