What is the "Filioque"?

Breaking down the development and the controversy for reunification

Happy Friday.

This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, the end of the Easter Season.

Pentecost Sunday occurs 50 days after Easter, as the name suggests and 10 days after the Ascension of the Lord. This feast commemorates when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles in the Upper Room.

Our Gospel this Sunday recounts this great feast:

On the evening of that first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, "Peace be with you."
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them,
"Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained."

This momentous occasion of the descent of the Spirit inaugurates the public ministry of the Church.

Until this moment, the Holy Spirit is only mentioned in passing throughout Scripture but we do not necessarily see the Holy Spirit in action as we do following the event of Pentecost.

With the advent of the coming Spirit and His working in the world and in the Church, it is necessary that we understand who the Spirit is.

The Nicene Creed that the Church professes today comes from the Council’s of Nicaea and Constantinople in the 4th Century. The clause on the Holy Spirit was added at the Council of Constantinople as an orthodox defense of the full divinity of the Holy Spirit in response to the Macedonian heresy which denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. However, there is one word in the Creed that is professed today that is not found in the original documents from the Council, which we know was inserted in the Latin West around 200 years later: the filioque.

The Creed, as it is professed today and as it has been professed for centuries, states that:

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.

This clause can be found in the original creed from the 4th century. However, what you will not find is the phrase “and the Son”, which in Latin is filioque. This word was inserted in the Creed as a further clarification of the procession of the Holy Spirit. As it is professed today, the Church believes that in the immanent Trinity (the inner nature of the Trinity), the Holy Spirit proceeds, or comes forth (from eternity) from the Father AND the Son, not just from the Father, as the original Creed suggests.

This, among other doctrinal and ecclesiological controversies is what led to the Great Schism of 1054.

So, in what follows, we will give a cursory glance and a beginning analysis of the theology of the filioque. We will discuss:

1. What is the filioque?

2. What did the early Church believe about the procession of the Spirit in the Trinity?

3. When was it inserted in the Creed?

4. What are you REQUIRED to believe?

5. What does the Catechism say?

This is an important ecumenical point of discussion in the reunification of the East and the West and it is therefore important that it be developed and analyzed objectively, with the appropriate theological rigor, and with the eyes of faith.

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What is the Filioque?

The combined creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople are together what the Church has adopted as her official liturgical profession of faith.

The filioque refers to the clause that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. In other words, in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. This additon is a development from the original creed which stated that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father only. As we will see, this ends up being more of a semantic issue and less a difference in theological understanding. Nevertheless, without a proper understanding of the development, any ecumenical dialogue between East and West will fall short.

The Filioque in the Creed

Originally, the creed produced by Constantinople or at least adopted by the Council stated that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Greek version states “and (we believe) in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified…”¹ While the Latin version states “and (I believe) in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who together with the Father and the Son is likewise worshipped and glorified…”² In the Latin, the phrase is “Filioque procedit”³ which means the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

In the Fathers

Before the official introduction of the filioque into the creed, we see Pope St. Leo the Great already affirming the theology of the filioque.

Pope St. Leo the Great

• Pope Leo writes in Quam laudabiliter: “and that there is not one who begets, another who is begotten, another who proceeds from both…”⁴

Tertullian

• Tertullian in the 3rd Century states that “I believe the Spirit to proceed from no other source than from the Father through the Son.”⁵

Origen of Alexandria

• Origen of Alexandria writes that “We therefore, as the more pious and the truer course, admit that all things were made by the Logos, and that the Holy Spirit is the most excellent and the first in order of all that was made by the Father through Christ.”⁶

St. Hilary of Poitiers

• St. Hilary of Poitiers writes that “we are bound to confess Him[the Holy Spirit], proceeding, as He does, from Father and Son…”⁷ and “Your Holy Spirit is from You[Father] and through Him[Son]…”⁸

St. Ambrose of Milan

• St. Ambrose of Milan writes that “The Holy Spirit also… proceeds from the Father and the Son…”⁹

St. Augustine

• Lastly, St. Augustine is a tireless defender of the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son. He writes that “it must be admitted that the Father and the Son are a Beginning of the Holy Spirit, not two Beginnings; but as the Father and Son are one God, and one Creator, and one Lord relatively to the creature, so are they one Beginning relatively to the Holy Spirit.”¹⁰

As you can see, the belief in the Holy Spirit proceeding from both the Father and the Son is not a novel theological idea. It has a strong foundation in the Fathers of the Church.

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Addition in the Creed

The first addition

The first addition of the filioque into the creed was at the Third Synod of Toledo in 589. Toledo says that “we must profess and proclaim that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son…”¹¹ While this addition was new, the underlying theology was ancient. It is therefore appropriate to see the addition of the filioque into the creed of Toledo as a development of the Church’s credo, not a break of tradition.

Formally taught by Ecumenical Councils