Tried to keep this post as concise as possible; it's inspired by a discussion in another thread, but is also written to reintroduce or restate the discussion for other readers. I think it is a mistake to suppose that the Filioque constitutes a substantial, theological addition or change to the Nicene Creed, at least in the manner that the Council of Ephesus (431) prohibits. The Filioque was not the first "addition" or "change" ever made to the Creed. Comparing the Council of Nicea's Creed (325) with the subsequent Council of Constantinople's Creed (381), one notices dozens of new words. Yet, evident from the first canon of the latter council, the Constantinopolitan Creed was not regarded to be a different Faith than that of the first ecumenical council. Gregory Nazianzen, one of the presidents of Constantinople (381), defended the expansion of the original Nicene Creed in his Second Letter to Cledonius, noting that the "additions" made at the council were clarifications, not additions. He also said, "I never have and never can honor anything above the Nicene Faith, that of the Holy Fathers who met there to destroy the Arian heresy; but am, and by God's help, ever will be of that faith" (emphasis mine). It is clear, then, those who ratified the Constantinopolitan Creed believed they were clarifying the doctrines of the first council's creed, not changing them. The Faith of the two Creeds was one and the same Faith. Therefore, we may conclude that the very authors of the Creed did not believe that linguistically adapting it is the same as changing the Faith. I think this should inform how we understand Canon 7 of Ephesus. It might be supposed, however, that the Filioque represents a separate doctrine than that taught by the Councils, as well as that taught by the early eastern fathers, and therefore constitutes a theological addition. We can discuss Eastern patristic texts, but that might be better left to the comment section. For now, consider this fact. At the Second Council of Constantinople (553), the trinitarian teaching of explicitly "Filioquist" Latin theologians, including Ambrose, Hilary, and Augustine were formally embraced "in every way" (see Session I). All but 16 of the 152 bishops at this council were eastern. So, if the West's understanding of the Spirit's procession was significantly different than that of the 6th century Eastern Church, no one at the council seemed to care, which is odd if Augustine and his mentors taught a spurious doctrine of the Holy Spirit. By the middle of the 7th century, some in the East became disturbed by the expression of the Filioque, as evident from a Letter written by the great eastern theologian, St Maximus (see Letter to Marinus). But it was not Maximus who was disturbed. Instead, he defended the Roman Church's confession of the Filioque, and noted that the difference of expression between the Greek and Latin churches was merely a matter of language. The Letter is not about the Creed, but it certainly suggests that Maximus (the most influential Greek theologian of his time) believed the two churches taught the same doctrine of the Spirit's Procession, though with different linguistic expression. Growth of significant eastern opposition to the Filioque historically correlates to the growth of papal overreach and political animosity. The more the Papacy and certain western political powers worked to westernize the East and effect submission, the more eastern leaders became repulsed by the peculiarities of western language and practice. The abuse of the papacy and the political chasm between East and West often provoked eastern leaders to become vitriolic and irrational. For example, Photios I, the 9th century Patriarch of Constantinople, displayed as much of a controlling persona as any Pope, demanding that the Filioque be rejected by Latin Christians as heresy (regardless of its explicit expression by the early Latin tradition), all while ignoring that the fathers of his own church, as late as only two centuries before him, saw harmony between the Greek and Latin traditions. Not to mention, Photios went as far as to reject any eternal procession of the Spirit from the Son, inventing the novel idea that the Spirit only proceeds from the Son in time. This places him at odds with all of the fathers who speak to the matter, whether Greek or Latin. It's a shame that he had so much influence on the Eastern Church. The way forward on the Filioque, in my opinion, is not the East adopting it in the Creed, or the West deleting it from the Creed. Rather, the way forward is each tradition maintaining its own historic expression, while recognizing that the fathers of East and West taught one doctrine of the Holy Spirit amid their linguistic differences.
With respect, any time spent worrying over the filioque clause is a hopeless waste of time. The real causes of the Schism were political and cultural, and it was by no means set in stone as early as 1054. The Western Churches could unilaterally delete the filioque tomorrow and it wouldn’t make one iota of difference to the Eastern Orthodox. Today the Orthodox and the Western Churches are far more different from each other than they were just 500 or even 100 years ago. They are now for all practical purposes separate religions altogether, with virtually no chance of reunification.
As it happens I more or less agree from my own reading. There were the other schisms beforehand, the Photian IIRC, and the East and West got back together in those contexts despite the west using the filioque for centuries, at least I think in the Frankish territories. The filioque really does seem to be a pretext, not that I understand the issue very well (or anybody for that matter). Although, and it's kind of stupid, I wish there wasn't a tiny filioque in the Athanasian Creed since, taken literally it would condemn the Greek churches. I know nobody takes it that way, but still.
The Byzantines were by necessity veritable masters of legal and rhetorical skill, as well as misdirection and obfuscation, and could have unleashed an endless array of arguments to “prove” that what the Pope was endorsing was actually what the Byzantines had already taught first, if that had suited their purpose. Mere words were never going to stand in the way of the narrative they wanted to tell. The reason the Byzantines allowed something so arcane (and frankly irrelevant) as the addition of the filioque clause to become controversial is because it suited their purpose to do so. The theological arguments marshaled in defense of the Byzantine position are just ‘window dressing’. Likewise, it suited Rome’s purpose to counterattack on ostensibly theological grounds, for any division within Christendom would potentially threaten yet more division and thereby weaken Rome’s carefully constructed yet quite tenuous power base in the West. This set of circumstances didn’t stop the Byzantines from seeking Western aid against the Seljuks less than 50 years later, in the hope that the Byzantines could resume their rule over territories with majority Christian populations that were now under Muslim rule. In the end, the Crusades were a disaster for the local Christian populations, and Constantinople was ultimately conquered by the very soldiers from whom it had sought assistance. It is very telling that Constantine XI, the final Christian emperor of Byzantium, died in communion with Rome four centuries after the traditional date of the Schism, just before Hagia Sophia was occupied by the soldiers of Mehmet II.
It should be noted that the schism was not a hard and fast thing. It was not like the local churches woke up and realized that they were in schism. It gradually hardened over the years and 1054 is seen as the date when it happened and applied backwards to it. As for Constantine XI he died in communion with Rome because he wanted help not for any real theological reasons. Yes the Crusades were a disaster ultimately but they did not have to be. Manual could have been more diligent with the Seljuks Manzikert did not have to be. Romanus Diogenes was a competent emperor and a competent general. He was just screwed over by half his army deserting him. In fact the situation could have been salvaged if Andronicus had cared more for the empire than his families ambitions and brought up the rear guard. Even then the situation could have been salvaged after the defeat if they had honored the treaties and not fallen into civil war. Even better imagine if Isaac Comennus had lived 20 years as emperor instead 2 and handed off his empire to his very able nephew Alexios (the same who called for the Christian assistance that became the crusades.)
Random question, but from a strategic perspective, why weren't the crusades in Egypt? It actually seems a lot more important than the Levant. It produced tons of food, had oodles of Christians in it, and was at a strategic juncture.
The original purpose of the Crusades was to assist the Byzantines in preserving their territorial sovereignty, and was later augmented to include reclaiming Christian control over holy sites in the Levant. In more economic terms, the Crusaders didn’t need to control Egypt if overland travel had to go through Palestine to reach other markets. Mainly though, the Crusaders thought in feudal terms and saw it as a land grab. The Muslims thought in mercantile terms and wanted control in order to promote trade. The Crusaders would probably have liked to control Egypt, but Cairo was arguably the main base of power in the Islamic world at the time, so taking it just wasn’t in the cards.
Eventually there were several crusades or attacks against Egypt. Some came close to succeeding. For a long time, while the Crusaders were extant Egypt was weak militarily
It's probably true that the EO Churches would remain reclusive regardless of whether others dropped the Filioque. But ever since the beginning of the ecumenical movement, and especially later on toward the close of the 20th century, it became popular among Anglicans to support or entertain canning the Filioque. I suspect there's reasons for this that go beyond theology, possibly connected to detachment from Western identity in general, but whatever the reasons are for it, I don't think it's a good thing to want the Filioque gone. It may seem silly to a lot of people to think the Filioque is indispensable. Today, not too many western Christians are left who seem to care one way or another. Evangelicals don't pay any serious attention to it, roman catholics mostly either hope or secretly hope the Magisterium removes it from the Mass, and not too many Anglicans seem passionate about keeping it, if they don't support removing it. But the way I see it, it's integral to the doctrine of the Trinity as it has been taught in the West as long as the Trinity itself was taught. I don't think it can be eliminated without creating disillusionment in our congregations about the entire western theological tradition. We've inherited that tradition, it is full of truth and beauty, and it should be maintained. That may not be a convincing point to more progressive Christians (or rigid evangelicals for that matter), but I find it very convincing, since in all honesty, I think the western tradition not only produced the best trinitarian expositions ever written (e.g. Augustine's De Trinitate), but also provided the best framework for understanding the Trinity, at least for the western mind.
I’m not in favor of deleting it, either. My position is that theological debates about it are a waste of time, not merely because the Orthodox position is set in stone, but because the debate itself is inherently meaningless.
Sadly, or perhaps thankfully, I have been busy this week, (something on every day and not one a medical appointment!) There is a clear distinction between a doctrine of double procession, which indeed has a strong level of scriptural support, and the notion of the filioque generally promoted by Constantine C800. How the clause came to be part of the Nicene Symbol is a matter of conjecture and in some sense, I feel it may have been an accident of history, and the problem of the loss of version control. I think Constantine saw it as part of the Creed, not an insertion, however, he used it as part of his argument with the Byzantines. You should remember that Constantine from 812 was Holy Roman Emporer, and the Byzantines saw the Roman Empire with its Captial at Constantinople and themselves as Romans. Our convention helps us keep history organised, however, it was not so organised at the time. In some senses, it makes little difference, in that it was simply the masthead over which a power battle was waged. The nub of the issue in the 11th Century was the nature and character of Papal authority, and the struggle was in some sense far more about Primacy than it was about Procession. I simply don't say it. I acknowledge double procession, however not in a way that would unteach the beginning of Genesis, confuse the Incarnation, or make a mess of the motif in the account of the Baptism of Jesus. I am glad to see Augustine's De Trinitate being referenced, for here is a Western Father whose Creed did not include the Filioque, however, he does advance a doctrine of Double Procession and is careful to make the point that where the Spirit is clearly seen to proceed from the Son, it is to be understood that the Spirit has proceeded contemporaneously from the Father. A similar position was later advanced by Aquinas. As Anglicans, if we are to take seriously Four Oecumenical Councils, which is a position held by both Communion and Conference Anglicans, to me it seems strange that we would not want to embrace the Nicene Creed of the Councils. I don't believe we should delete the Filioque, I think we should stop inserting it.
We don’t actually know where the Creed came from though, as it doesn’t enter the light of history until Chalcedon, and it wasn’t used in the Liturgy itself until about a century later. It’s also unlikely there was a single, decisive moment when “the West” inserted the clause (or the clause “God from God”/“Deum de Deo”, which also doesn’t occur in the Greek version), as opposed to it merely being the form in which it was gradually received in Latin. All the conciliar prohibitions against modifying the Creed were regarding the Creed of Nicea in 325, which the Creed we now call the “Nicene Creed” in fact modified. And the Creed of 325 was itself a modification of earlier Creeds (plural), with a highly controversial insertion of its own. From a conservative standpoint, it is fair to ask, ‘Why not just delete the Creed from the Liturgy altogether and save everyone the trouble of arguing over what words it should and shouldn’t have?’ We Anglicans probably know better than anyone that there’s just no such thing as ‘liturgical purity’, in other words, and an ideal of universal acceptability, however noble, is no substitute for the living liturgy we actually have. And if the words themselves express the Truth, there’s no reason not to say them.
I can sympathize at least when it comes to 'God from God.' It's a fabulous addition. I wouldn't want to see that stricken as a logical continuation of ending the filioque. For what is worth, the ACNA BCP lets the officiant omit the filioque at the minister's discretion, but in their theological foundations they haven't abrogated it as a doctrine. There might be some wisdom in that, on the subject of liturgical purity or lack thereof. Anglicanism has always been a negotiated settlement. It was in the Reformation, it was with the tractarians and it is now. Certainly we can negotiate the filioque.
That's a compelling perspective, and has some similarities to the position taken by Pope Leo III— that while the doctrine of the Filioque, itself, is an article of Faith, it should not be inserted into the Nicene Creed, out of a pious submission to the original framers. "Far be it from me to count myself their equal!" Some of your comments about Constantine VI seem to refer actually to Charlemagne, who leveled accusations of heresy against the Byzantines on a number of theological topics, including that of the Holy Spirit's procession. This was undoubtedly inspired by politics, and was part of a powermove toward the Byzantine Empire. The accusations made by Charlemagne had very little theological substance, a fact illustrated by the Libri Carolini, which is clearly a malignant work riddled with misunderstandings. Leo III's balanced view of the Filioque issue was almost necessary to moderate Charlemagne's extremities and diffuse tension in the church. The Filioque's presence in certain Latin translations of the Creed predates its use as a weapon by Charlemagne. He was not the first to embrace the insertion, nor were his reasons for promoting it as part of the Creed common to those who first did so. Instead, it probably entered the Creed first in Spain in the context of stamping out the Arianism of the Visigoths. In fact, I know of no evidence that Western Churches ever used the Nicene Creed in the liturgy without the Filioque. According to the available evidence, every time the Creed was used in western liturgies, it contained the Filioque. That changes the picture a little bit as to what was going on between Leo and Charlemagne, because at that time, Rome had not yet included the Creed at all in the liturgy, which occurred in 1014 AD. Moreover, though Leo was not happy about the Franks reciting the Creed with the Filioque inserted, his advice was not to remove the Filioque. Rather, it was to remove the entire Creed from the liturgy, for fear that people's faith in the doctrine would be injured. Also, Augustine's creed was the Apostles' Creed. His theology, of course, lines up perfectly with that of the councils (contrary to what many of our Eastern Orthodox friends say), but the Nicene Creed was of little immediate occasion for the West until its use began in Spain around the turn of the 6th century. The rule of faith used in the West before this was mostly the Apostles' Creed, and possibly the Athanasian in some remote parts. I don't think Augustine ever mentioned the Nicene Creed. Even if he did, he nevertheless agreed with St Hilary that the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son "are one and the same thing." Therefore I have a hard time believing he would have seen any more than a petty difference between "from the Father" and "from the Father and the Son," and I have a hard time believing he would have had a problem with the recitation of the latter as a confession of the Nicene Faith. If they are, truly, one and the same thing, as the procession is by "One Principle," the Filioque expresses nothing different than the original words of Constantinople I. And, if the Filioque is, even then, still too different from the original to count as part of the Nicene Faith, then I suppose translating the Creed out of Greek into Latin (or any other language) might also create too big of a difference from the original, which a few people actually say. In this way, "the original" can become a blindfold and an idol. It is to many Eastern Orthodox what the Bible is to many fundamentalists, in that the text itself becomes practically superior to its meaning.
correct. pardon my slightly blond moment! Yes, I am fairly sure the Filioque was in the creed as Charlemagne received it. The Filioque does not address Arianism, but perhaps more so against Spanish Adoptionism, which was loosely a variant of adoptionism couched in an over-emphasis onPaul's kenotic theory (Philippians 2:7) Part of the intent and purpose of the Anglican expression was to return to the purity of the primitive Church, with the attached bits and bongles that had become appended to it. I do see the Filioque as a bit and bongle, and it can be read in a way that is in keeping with the Creed without it, or it can be read in a way that does not. That is where the rub comes for me.
I think we have a pretty fair idea about how the Creed was developed. The need for creed came about as the Church needed to find some formal expression of the content of faith. There was the Roman Symbol which predates Nicea by perhaps a little less than a century. The Nicene Creed of 325 certainly built in part on that as it sought to address specifically the issue of Arianism. In the period following it was clear that the Creed had come up short in bringing an end to Arianism. In the period between the 1st Council of Nicea and the 1st Council of Constantinople, there were three specific theologians, Basil, Bishop of Caesarea who came to be known as Basil the Great, his younger brother Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa known as Gregory of Nyssa, and a close friend Gregory, Bishop of Sasisma and later Patriarch of Constantinople at the time of the Council. We know from the writings of the Capadocians that they were a great influence on the Creed of this Council, especially Basil. Thus Basil wrote: In a brief statement, I shall say that essence (ousia) is related to person (hypostasis) as the general to the particular. Each one of us partakes of existence because he shares in ousia while because of his individual properties he is A or B. So, in the case in question, ousia refers to the general conception, like goodness, godhead, or such notions, while hypostasis is observed in the special properties of fatherhood, sonship, and sanctifying power. If then they speak of persons without hypostasis they are talking nonsense, ex hypothesi; but if they admit that the person exists in real hypostasis, as they do acknowledge, let them so number them as to preserve the principles of the homoousion in the unity of the godhead, and proclaim their reverent acknowledgment of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the complete and perfect hypostasis of each person so named. —Epistle 214.4. When it comes to the pneumatology of the Creed of the 2nd Council, it clearly has its eyes focused on addressing Montanism and the heresy of the Pneumatomachi. They principally argue that the Holy Spirit was a creation of the Son, which I dare say most of you will realise is not supported by any proper reading of Scripture. They were also careful here not to undo the force of the opening of the Creed, - we believe in one God - or as some describe it, the Monarchical Integrity of the Father. I am a little concerned that some of those who wish to dispense with Creeds, and the Nicene Creed in particular is the risk that we up with faith without content. I cringe when asked to sing as a hymn 'I believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows'. Maybe it is just me, but there you go.
The difference between East and West in the Church is not merely a matter of semantics of language it is a serious salvation matter of Truth (Christ in the East/Monopatrism as believed and kept by Constantine Constantinople 381) versus the Lie (the Antichrist in the West/Filioque as believed and kept by Charlemagne Aachen 809).