The
Fundamental Difference Between the East and West
Professor John Romanides
This
article deals with the fundamental difference between Orthodoxy and Western
Christianity, mainly Roman Catholicism. Readers may be surprised to learn that
the division between "East" and "West" was actually more of
a political division, caused by the ambitions of the Franks and other Germanic
tribes, than a "theological" question.
Professor John Romanides of the University of Thessaloniki challenges the common
views regarding the causes for the Schism of the Church in the Roman world, and
offers his own provocative interpretation of the historical background of this
tragedy in the history of the Christian Church.
Far from seeing basic differences in the Roman world, which led to alienation
between the East and West, Romanides argues for the existence of "national,
cultural and even linguistic unity between East (Byzantine) and West
Romans"; that is, until the intrusion and takeover of the West Romans (the
Roman Catholics) by the Franks.
European
and American histories treat the alienation between Eastern and Western
Christian Churches as though it were inevitable, because of an alleged
separation of the Roman Empire itself into "East" and
"West," because of alleged linguistic and cultural differences, and
because of an alleged difference between the legal West and the speculative
East.1 Evidence strongly suggests that such attempts to explain the separation
between East and West are conditioned by prejudices inherited from the cultural
tradition of the Franks, and from the centuries-old propaganda of the Frankish
(Germanic dominated) Papacy.
The evidence points clearly to the
national, cultural, and even linguistic unity between East and West Romans which
survived to the time when the Roman popes were replaced by Franks. Had the
Franks not taken over the Papacy, it is very probable that the local synod of
the Church of Rome (with the pope as president), elected according to the 769
election decree approved by the Eighth Ecumenical Synod in 879, would have
survived, and that there would not have been any significant difference between
the papacy and the other four Roman (Orthodox) Patriarchates.
However, things did not turn out that
way. The Papacy was alienated from the (Orthodox) East by the Franks, so we now
are faced with the history of that alienation when we contemplate the reunion of
divided Christians. By the eighth century, we meet for the first time the
beginnings of a split in Christianity. In West European sources we find a
separation between a "Greek East" and a "Latin West." In
Roman sources this same separation constitutes a schism between Franks (a
confederation of Germanic Teutonic peoples living on the lower banks of the
Rhine who by the sixth century AD conquered most of France, the low countries
and what is now Germany. ed) and Romans. One detects in both terminologies an
ethnic or racial basis for the schism which may be more profound and important
for descriptive analysis than the doctrinal claims of either side.
The Roman Empire was conquered in three
stages: by Germanic tribes (the Franks) who became known as "Latin
Christianity," by Muslim Arabs, and finally, by Muslim Turks. In contrast
to this, the ecclesiastical administration of the Roman Empire disappeared in
stages from West Europe, but has survived up to modern times in the "East
Roman Empire" the Orthodox Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria,
Antioch, and Jerusalem.
The reason for this is that the Germanic
- Frankish conquerors of the West Romans (who became known as the "Roman
Catholic Church.") used the Church to suppress the Roman nation, whereas
under Islam the East Roman nation, the Orthodox Church, survived by means of the
Orthodox Church. In each instance of conquest, the bishops became the ethnarchs
of the conquered Romans and administered Roman law on behalf of the rulers. As
long as the bishops were Roman, the unity of the Roman Church was preserved, in
spite of theological conflicts.
Roman Revolutions and
the Rise of Frankish Feudalism and Doctrine
The Franks applied their policy of
destroying the unity between the Romans under their rule and the "East
Romans," the Orthodox, under the rule of Constantinople. They played one
Roman party against the other, took neither side, and finally condemned both the
iconoclasts and the Seventh Ecumenical Synod (786/7) at their own Council of
Frankfurt in 794.
In the time of Pippin of Herestal
(687-715) and Charles Martel (715-741), many of the Franks who replaced Roman
bishops were military leaders who, according to Saint Boniface, "shed the
blood of Christians like that of the pagans."2
The Imperial
Coronation - Charlemagne
An unsuccessful attempt was made on the
life of (the Roman) Pope Leo III (795-816), the successor of Hadrian. Pope Leo
was then accused of immoral conduct. Charlemagne took a personal and active
interest in the investigations which caused Leo to be brought to him in
Paderborn. Leo was sent back to Rome, followed by Charlemagne, who continued the
investigations. The Frankish king required finally that Leo swear his innocence
on the Bible, which he did on December 23, (800). Two days later Leo crowned
Charlemagne "Emperor of the Romans." Charlemagne had arranged to get
the title "Emperor" in exchange for Leo’s exoneration. Charlemagne
caused the filioque (the new line in the Creed that said that the Holy Spirit,
"proceeds from the Father and the Son," instead of the original which
read, "proceeds from the Father, to be added to the Frankish Creed, without
consulting the pope. When the controversy over this addition broke out in
Jerusalem, Charlemagne convoked the Council of Aachen (809) and decreed that
this addition was a dogma necessary for salvation. With this fait accomplit
under his belt, he tried to pressure Pope Leo III into accepting it.3
Pope Leo rejected the filioque not only
as an addition to the Creed, but also as doctrine, claiming that the Fathers
left it out of the Creed neither out of ignorance, nor out of negligence, nor
out of oversight, but on purpose and by divine inspiration. What Leo said to the
Franks but in diplomatic terms, was that the addition of the filioque to the
Creed is a heresy.
The so-called split between East and West
was, in reality, the importation into Old Rome of the schism provoked by
Charlemagne and carried there by the Franks and Germans who took over the
papacy.
The Bible and
Tradition
A basic characteristic of the Frankish
(Germanic-Latin) scholastic method, misled by Augustinian Platonism and
Thomistic Aristotelianism, had been its naive confidence in the objective
existence of things rationally speculated about. By following Augustine, the
Franks and the "Latin" Roman Catholic Church substituted the patristic
concern for spiritual observation, (which they had found firmly established in
Gaul when they first conquered the area) with a Germanic fascination for
metaphysics
In contrast to the Franks the Fathers of
the Orthodox Church did not understand theology as a theoretical or speculative
science, but as a positive science in all respects. This is why the patristic
understanding of Biblical inspiration is similar to the inspiration of writings
in the field of the positive sciences.
Scientific manuals are inspired by the
observations of specialists. For example, the astronomer records what he
observes by means of the instruments at his disposal. Because of his training in
the use of his instruments, he is inspired by the heavenly bodies, and sees
things invisible to the naked eye. The same is true of all the positive
sciences. However, books about science can never replace scientific
observations. These writings are not the observations themselves, but about
these observations.
The same is true of the Orthodox
understanding of the Bible and the writings of the Fathers. Neither the Bible
nor the writings of the Fathers are revelation or the word of God. They are
about revelation and about the word of God.
Revelation is the appearance of God to
the prophets, apostles, and saints. The Bible and the writings of the Fathers
are about these appearances, but not the appearances themselves. This is why it
is the prophet, apostle, and saint who sees God, and not those who simply read
about their experiences of glorification. It is obvious that neither a book
about glorification nor one who reads such a book can ever replace the prophet,
apostle, or saint who has the experience of glorification.
This is the heart of the Orthodox
understanding of tradition and apostolic succession which sets it apart from the
"Latin" (in other words, Frankish-Germanic) and Protestant traditions,
both of which stem from the theology of the Franks.
Following Augustine, the Franks
identified revelation with the Bible and believed that Christ gave to the Church
the Holy Spirit as a guide to its correct understanding. This would be similar
to claiming that the books about biology were revealed by microbes and cells
without the biologists having seen them with the microscope, and that these same
microbes and cells inspire future teachers to correctly understand these books
without the use of the microscope!
Historians have noted the naïveté of
the Frankish religious mind which was shocked by the first claims for the
primacy of observation over rational analysis. Even Galileo’s telescopes could
not shake this confidence. However, several centuries before Galileo, the Franks
had been shocked by the East Roman (Orthodox) claim, hurled by Saint Gregory
Palamas (1296-1359), of the primacy of experience and observation over
"reason" in theology.
Instruments,
Observation, Concepts, and Language
The universe has turned out to be a much
greater mystery to man than anyone was ever able to imagine. Indications are
strong that it will yet prove to be an even greater mystery than man today can
yet imagine. In the light of this, one thinks humorously of the (Latin) bishops
who could not grasp the reality, let alone the magnitude, of what they saw
through Galileo’s telescope. But the magnitude of Frankish naïveté becomes
even greater when one realizes that these same church leaders who could not
understand the meaning of a simple observation were claiming knowledge of God’s
essence and nature.
The Latin tradition could not understand
the significance of an instrument by which the prophets, apostles, and saints
had reached glorification.
Similar to today’s sciences, Orthodox
theology also depends on an instrument which is not identified with reason or
the intellect. The Biblical name for this is the heart. Christ says,
"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."4
The heart is not normally clean, i.e., it
does not normally function properly. Like the lens of a telescope or microscope,
it must be polished so that light may pass through and allow man to focus his
spiritual vision on things not visible to the naked eye.
In time, some Fathers gave the name nous
to the faculty of the soul which operates within the heart when restored to
normal capacity, and reserved the names logos and dianoia for the
intellect and reason, or for what we today would call the brain. In order to
avoid confusion, we use the terms noetic faculty and noetic prayer to designate
the activity of the nous in the heart called noera euche.
The heart, and not the brain, is the area
in which the theologian is formed. Theology includes the intellect as all
sciences do, but it is in the heart that the intellect and all of man observes
and experiences the rule of God. One of the basic differences between science
and Orthodox theology is that man has his heart or noetic faculty by nature,
whereas he himself has created his instruments of scientific observation.
A second basic difference is the
following: By means of his instruments, and the energy radiated by or upon what
he observes, the scientist sees things which he can describe with words, even
though at times inadequately. These words are symbols of accumulated human
experience, and understood by those with the same or similar experience.
In contrast to this, the experience of
glorification is to see God who has no similarity whatsoever to anything
created, not even to the intellect or to the angels. God is literally unique and
can in no way be described by comparison with anything that any creature may be,
know or imagine. No aspect about God can be expressed in a concept or collection
of concepts.
It is for this reason that in Orthodoxy
positive statements about God are counterbalanced by negative statements, not in
order to purify the positive ones of their imperfections, but in order to make
clear that God is in no way similar to the concepts conveyed by words, since God
is above every name and concept ascribed to Him. Although God created the
universe, which continues to depend on Him, God and the universe do not belong
to one category of truth. Truths concerning creation cannot apply to God, nor
can the truth of God be applied to creation.
Diagnosis and Therapy
Let us turn our attention to those
aspects of differences between Roman and Frankish theologies which have had a
strong impact on the development of differences in the doctrine of the Church.
The basic differences may be listed under diagnosis of spiritual ills and their
therapy.
According to the Orthodox Church, the
"East Romans," Glorification is the vision of God in which the
equality of all men and the absolute value of each man is experienced. God loves
all men equally and indiscriminately, regardless of even their moral status. God
loves with the same love, both the saint and the devil. To teach otherwise, as
Augustine and the Franks did, would be adequate proof that they did not have the
slightest idea of what glorification was.
According to the Orthodox, God multiplies
and divides himself in His uncreated energies undividedly among divided things,
so that He is both present by act and absent by nature to each individual
creature and everywhere present and absent at the same time. This is the
fundamental mystery of the presence of God to His creatures and shows that
universals do not exist in God and are, therefore, not part of the state of
illumination as in the Augustinian (Frankish Latin) tradition.
According to the Orthodox, God himself is
both heaven and hell, reward and punishment. All men have been created to see
God unceasingly in His uncreated glory. Whether God will be for each man heaven
or hell, reward or punishment, depends on man’s response to God’s love and
on man’s transformation from the state of selfish and self-centered love, to
Godlike love which does not seek its own ends.
One can see how the Frankish
understanding of heaven and hell poetically described by Dante, John Milton, and
James Joyce are so foreign to the Orthodox tradition (but in keeping with the
"Latin" tradition).
According to the Orthodox, since all men
will see God, no religion can claim for itself the power to send people either
to heaven or to hell. This means that true spiritual fathers prepare their
spiritual charges so that vision of God’s glory will be heaven, and not hell,
reward, and not punishment. The primary purpose of Orthodox Christianity then,
is to prepare its members for an experience which every human being will sooner
or later have.
While the brain (according to the
Orthodox) is the center of human adaptation to the environment, the noetic
faculty in the "heart" is the primary organ for communion with God.
The fall of man or the state of inherited sin is: a) the failure of the noetic
faculty to function properly, or to function at all; b) its confusion with the
functions of the brain and the body in general; and c) its resulting enslavement
to the environment.
Each individual experiences the fall of
his own noetic faculty. One can see why the Augustinian (Latin, Frankish)
understanding of the fall of man as an inherited guilt for the sin of Adam and
Eve is not, and cannot, be accepted by the Orthodox tradition.
There are two known memory systems built
into living beings, 1) cell memory which determines the function and development
of the individual in relation to itself, and 2) brain cell memory which
determines the function of the individual in relation to its environment. In
addition to this, the patristic tradition is aware of the existence in human
beings of a now normally non-functioning or sub-functioning "memory in the
heart", which when put into action via noetic prayer, includes unceasing
memory of God and, therefore, the normalization of all other relations.
When the noetic faculty is not
functioning properly, man is enslaved to fear and anxiety and his relations to
others are essentially utilitarian. Thus, the root cause of all abnormal
relations between God and man and among men is that fallen man, i.e., man with a
malfunctioning noetic faculty, uses God, his fellow man, and nature for his own
understanding of security and happiness. Man outside of glorification imagines
the existence of god or gods which are psychological projections of his need for
security and happiness.
That all men have this noetic faculty in
the heart also means that all are in direct relation to God at various levels,
depending on how much the individual personality resists enslavement to his
physical and social surroundings and allows himself to be directed by God. Every
individual is sustained by the uncreated glory of God and is the dwelling place
of this uncreated creative and sustaining light, which is called the rule,
power, grace, etc. of God. Human reaction to this direct relation or communion
with God can range from the hardening of the heart, i.e., the snuffing out of
the spark of grace, to the experience of glorification attained to by the
prophets, apostles, and saints.
This means that all men are equal in
possession of the noetic faculty, but not in quality or degree of function. It
is important to note the clear distinction between spirituality, which is rooted
primarily in the heart’s noetic faculty, and intellectuality, which is rooted
in the brain. Thus:
1) A person with little intellectual
attainments can rise to the highest level of noetic perfection.
2) On the other hand, a man of the
highest intellectual attainments can fall to the lowest level of noetic
imperfection.
3) One may also reach both the highest
intellectual attainments and noetic perfection.
Or 4) one may be of meager intellectual
accomplishment with a hardening of the heart.
Saint Basil the Great writes that
"the in-dwelling of God is this—to have God established within ourself by
means of memory. We thus become temples of God, when the continuity of memory is
not interrupted by earthly cares, nor the noetic faculty shaken by unexpected
sufferings, but escaping from all things this (noetic faculty) friend of God
retires to God, driving out the passions which tempt it to incontinence and
abides in the practices which lead to virtues."5
Saint Gregory the Theologian points out
that "we ought to remember God even more often than we draw our breath; and
if it suffices to say this, we ought to do nothing else…or, to use Moses’
words, whether a man lie asleep, or rise up, or walk by the way, or whatever
else he is doing, he should also have this impressed in his memory for
purity."6
Saint Gregory insists that to theologize
"is permitted only to those who have passed examinations and have reached
theoria, and who have been previously purified in soul and body, or at least are
being purified."7
This state of theoria is two fold or has
two stages: a) unceasing memory of God and b) glorification, the latter being a
gift which God gives to His friends according to their needs and the needs of
others. During this latter state of glorification, unceasing noetic prayer is
interrupted since it is replaced by a vision of the glory of God in Christ. The
normal functions of the body, such as sleeping, eating, drinking, and digestion
are suspended. In other respects, the intellect and the body function normally.
One does not lose consciousness, as happens in the ecstatic mystical experiences
of non-Orthodox Christian and pagan religions. One is fully aware and conversant
with his environment and those around him, except that he sees everything and
everyone saturated by the uncreated glory of God, which is neither light nor
darkness, and nowhere and everywhere at the same time. This state may be of
short, medium, or long duration. In the case of Moses it lasted for forty days
and forty nights. The faces of those in this state of glorification give off an
imposing radiance, like that of the face of Moses, and after they die, their
bodies become holy relics. These relics give off a strange sweet smell, which at
times can become strong. In many cases, these relics remain intact in a good
state of preservation, without having been embalmed. They are completely stiff
from head to toe, light, dry, and with no signs of putrefaction.
There is no metaphysical criterion for
distinguishing between good and bad people. It is much more correct to
distinguish between ill and more healthy persons. The sick ones are those whose
noetic faculty is either not functioning, or functioning poorly, and the
healthier ones are those whose noetic faculty is being cleansed and illumined.
These levels are incorporated into the
very structure of the four Gospels and the liturgical life of the Church. The
Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke reflect the pre-baptismal catechism for
cleansing the heart, and the Gospel of John reflects the post-baptismal
catechism which leads to theoria by way of the stage of illumination. Christ
himself is the spiritual Father who led the apostles, as He had done with Moses
and the prophets, to glorification by means of purification and illumination.8
One can summarize these three stages of
(Orthodox) perfection as a) that of the slave who performs the commandments
because of fear of seeing God as a consuming fire, b) that of the hireling whose
motive is the reward of seeing God as glory, and c) that of the friends of God
whose noetic faculty is completely free, whose love has become selfless end
because of this, are willing to be damned for the salvation of their fellow man,
as in the cases of Moses and Paul.
THE
FILIOQUE
Historical
Background
The Franks deliberately provoked
doctrinal differences, between the East Romans, (the Orthodox) and the West
Romans, (the Roman Catholics) in order to break the national and ecclesiastical
unity of the original Roman nation. Because of this deliberate policy, the
filioque question took on irreparable dimensions. However, the identity of the
West Romans and of the East Romans as one indivisible nation, faithful to the
Roman Christian faith promulgated at the Ecumenical Synods held in the Eastern
part of the Empire, is completely lost to the historians of Germanic background,
since the East Romans are consistently called "Greeks" and
"Byzantines."
Thus, the historical myth has been
created that the West Roman Fathers of the Church, the Franks, Lombards,
Burgundians, Normans, etc., are one continuous and historically unbroken
"Latin" Christendom, clearly distinguished and different from a
mythical "Greek" Christendom. The frame of reference accepted without
reservation by Western historians for so many centuries has been "the Greek
East and the Latin West."
A much more accurate understanding of
history presenting the filioque controversy in its true historical perspective
is based on the Roman viewpoint of church history, to be found in (both Latin
and Greek) Roman sources, as well as in Syriac, Ethiopian, Arabic, and Turkish
sources. All these point to a distinction between Frankish and Roman
Christendom, and not between a mythical "Latin" and "Greek"
Christendom. Among the Romans, Latin and Greek are national languages, not
nations. The Fathers are neither "Latins" nor "Greeks" but
Romans.
Having this historical background in
mind, one can then appreciate the significance of certain historical and
theological factors underlying the so-called filioque controversy. This
controversy was essentially a continuation of the Germanic or Frankish effort to
control not only the Roman nation, now transformed into the serfs of Frankish
feudalism, but also the rest of the Roman nation and Empire.
The historical appearance of Frankish
theology coincides with the beginnings of the filioque controversy. Since the
Roman Fathers of the Church took a strong position on this issue, as they did on
the question of Icons (also condemned initially by the Franks), the Franks
automatically terminated the patristic period of theology with Saint John of
Damascus in the East (after they accepted the Seventh Ecumenical Synod) and
Isidore of Seville in the West. After this, according to the Franks, the Roman
Empire no longer can produce Fathers of the Church because the Romans rejected
the Frankish filioque. In doing so, the Romans withdrew themselves from the
central trunk of Christianity (as the Franks understood things) which now
becomes identical with Frankish Christianity, especially after the East Franks
expelled the Romans from the Papacy and took it over themselves.
From the Roman viewpoint, however, the
Roman tradition of the Fathers was not only not terminated in the eighth
century, but continued a vigorous existence in the East, as well as within
Arab-occupied areas. Present research is now leading to the conclusion that the
Roman Patristic period extended right into the period of Ottoman rule, after the
fall of Constantinople New Rome. This means that the Eighth Ecumenical Synod
(879), under Photios, the so-called Palamite Synods of the fourteenth century,
and the Synods of the Roman Patriarchates during the Ottoman period, are all a
continuation and an integral part of the history of Patristic theology. It is
also a continuation of the Roman Christian tradition, minus the Patriarchate of
Old Rome, which, since 1009 after having been captured, ceased to be Roman and
became a Frankish institution.
Without ever mentioning the Franks, the
Eighth Ecumenical Synod of 879 condemned those who either added or subtracted
from the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and also those who had not yet
accepted the Seventh Ecumenical Synod.
It must first be emphasized that this is
the first instance in history wherein an Ecumenical Synod condemned heretics
without naming them. In this case the heretics are clearly the universally
feared Franks. It is always claimed by Protestant, Anglican, and Latin scholars
that since the time of Hadrian I or Leo III, through the period of John VIII,
the Papacy opposed the filioque only as an addition to the Creed, but never as
doctrine or theological opinion. Thus, it is claimed that John VIII accepted the
Eighth Ecumenical Synod’s condemnation of the addition to the Creed and not of
the filioque as a teaching.
However, both Photios and John VIII’s
letter to Photios testify to this pope’s condemnation of the filioque as
doctrine also. Yet the filioque could not be publicly condemned as heresy by the
Church of Old Rome. Why? Simply because the Franks were militarily in control of
papal Romania, and as illiterate barbarians were capable of any kind of criminal
act against the Roman clergy and populace. The Franks were a dangerous presence
in papal Romania and had to be handled with great care and tact.
Yet the Romans in the West could never
support the introduction of the filioque into the Creed, not because they did
not want to displease the "Greeks," but because this would be heresy.
The West Romans knew very well that the term procession in the Creed was
introduced as a parallel to generation, and that both meant causal relation to
the Father, and not energy or mission.
This interpretation of the filioque is
the consistent position of the Roman popes, and clearly so in the case of Leo
III. The minutes of the conversation held in 810 between the three apocrisari of
Charlemagne and Pope Leo III, kept by the Frankish monk Smaragdus, bear out this
consistency in papal policy.9 Leo accepts the teaching of the Fathers, quoted by
the Franks, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, as taught
by Augustine and Ambrose. However, the filioque must not be added to the Creed
as was done by the Franks, who got permission to sing the Creed from Leo but not
to add to the Creed.
When one reads these minutes, remembering
the Franks were a dangerous presence in Rome capable of acting in a most cruel
and barbarous manner if provoked, then one comes to the clear realization that
Pope Leo III is actually telling the Franks in clear and diplomatic terms that
the filioque in the Creed is a heresy.
In the light of the above, we do not have
the situation usually presented by European, American, and Russian historians in
which the filioque is an integral part of so--called "Latin"
Christendom with a "Greek" Christendom in opposition on the pretext of
its introduction into the Creed. (The addition to the Creed was supposedly
opposed by the popes not doctrinally, but only as addition in order not to
offend the "Greeks.") What we do have is a united West and East Roman
Christian nation in opposition to an upstart group of Germanic races who began
teaching the Romans before they really learned anything themselves. Of course,
German teachers could be very convincing on questions of dogma, only by holding
a knife to the throat. Otherwise, especially in the time of imposing the
filioque, the theologians of the new Germanic theology were better than their
noble peers, only because they could read and write and had, perhaps, memorized
Augustine.
The
Theological Background
At the foundation of the filioque
controversy between Franks and Romans lie essential differences in theological
method, theological subject matter, spirituality, and, therefore, also in the
understanding of the very nature of doctrine and of the development of the
language or of terms in which doctrine is expressed.
When reading through Smaragdus’ minutes
of the meeting between Charlemagne’s emissaries and Pope Leo III, one is
struck not only by the fact that the Franks had so audaciously added the
filioque to the Creed and made it into a dogma, but also by the haughty manner
in which they so authoritatively announced that the filioque was necessary for
salvation, and that it was an improvement of an already good, but not complete,
doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit. This was in answer to Leo’s strong hint
at Frankish audacity. Leo, in turn, warned that when one attempts to improve
what is good he should first be sure that in trying to improve he is not
corrupting. He emphasizes that he cannot put himself in a position higher than
the Fathers of the Synods, who did not omit the filioque out of oversight or
ignorance, but by divine inspiration.
The question arises, "Where in the
world did the newly born Frankish theological tradition get the idea that the
filioque is an improvement of the Creed, and that it was omitted from creedal
expression because of oversight or ignorance on the part of the Fathers of the
Synod?" Since Augustine is the only representative of Roman theology that
the Franks were more or less fully acquainted with, one must turn to the Bishop
of Hippo for a possible answer. I think I have found the answer in Saint
Augustine’s lecture delivered to the assembly of African bishops in 393.
Augustine had been asked to deliver a lecture on the Creed, which he did. Later
he reworked the lecture and published it. I do not see why the Creed expounded
is not that of Nicaea-Constantinople, since the outline of Augustine’s
discourse and the Creed are the same. Twelve years had passed since its
acceptance by the Second Ecumenical Synod and, if ever, this was the opportune
time for assembled bishops to learn of the new, official, imperially approved
creed. The bishops certainly knew their own local Creed and did not require
lessons on that. In any case, Augustine makes three basic blunders in this
discourse and died many years later without ever realizing his mistakes, which
were to lead the Franks and the whole of their Germanic Latin Christendom into a
repetition of those same mistakes.
In his De Fide et Symbolo,10 Augustine
makes an unbelievable naive and inaccurate statement: "With respect to the
Holy Spirit, however, there has not been, on the part of learned and
distinguished investigators of the Scriptures, a fuller careful enough
discussion of the subject to make it possible for us to obtain an intelligent
conception of what also constitutes His special individuality (proprium)."
Everyone at the Second Ecumenical Synod
knew well that this question was settled once and for all by the use in the
Creed of the word procession as meaning the manner of existence of the Holy
Spirit from the Father which constitutes His special individuality. Thus, the
Father is unbegotten, i.e. derives His existence from no one. The Son is from
the Father by generation. The Holy Spirit is from the Father, not by generation,
but by procession. The Father is cause, the Son and the Spirit are caused. The
difference between the ones caused is the one is caused by generation, and the
other by procession, and not by generation.
In any case, Augustine spent many years
trying to solve this non-existent problem concerning the individuality of the
Holy Spirit and, because of another set of mistakes in his understanding of
revelation and theological method, came up with the filioque.
It is no wonder that the Franks,
believing that Augustine had solved a theological problem which the other Roman
Fathers had supposedly failed to grapple with and solve came to the conclusion
that they uncovered a theologian far superior to all other Fathers. In him the
Franks had a theologian who improved upon the teaching of the Second Ecumenical
Synod.
A second set of blunders made by
Augustine in this same discourse is that he identified the Holy Spirit with the
divinity "which the Greeks designate theotes" and explained
that this is the "love between the Father and the Son."11
The third and most disturbing blunder in
Augustine’s approach to the question before us is that his theological method
is not only pure speculation on what one accepts by faith (for the purpose of
intellectually understanding as much as one’s reason allows by either
illumination or ecstatic intuition), but is a speculation which is transferred
from the individual speculating believer to a speculating church, which, like an
individual, understands the dogmas better with the passage of time.
Thus, the Church awaits a discussion
about the Holy Spirit "Full enough or careful enough to make it possible
for us to obtain an intelligent conception of what also constitutes His special
individuality (proprium)."
The most amazing thing is the fact that
Augustine begins with seeking out the individual properties of the Holy Spirit
and immediately reduces Him to what is common to the Father and Son. However, in
his later additions to his De Trinitate, he insists that the Holy Spirit is an
individual substance of the Holy Trinity completely equal to the other two
substances and possessing the same essence as we saw.
In any case, the Augustinian idea that
the Church herself goes through a process of attaining a deeper and better
understanding of her dogmas or teachings was made the very basis of the Frankish
propaganda that the filioque is a deeper and better understanding of the
doctrine of the Trinity. Therefore, adding it to the Creed is an improvement
upon the faith of the Romans who had allowed themselves to become lazy and
slothful on such an important matter. This, of course, raises the whole question
concerning the relationship between revelation and verbal and iconic or symbolic
expressions of revelation.
For Augustine, there is no distinction
between revelation and conceptual intuition of revelation. Whether revelation is
given directly to human reason, or to human reason by means of creatures, or
created symbols, it is always the human intellect itself which is being
illumined or given vision to. The vision of God itself is an intellectual
experience, even though above the powers of reason without appropriate grace.
In contrast to this Augustinian approach
to language and concepts concerning God, we have the Patristic position
expressed by Saint Gregory the Theologian against the Eunomians. Plato had
claimed that it is difficuIt to conceive of God but, to define Him in words is
an impossibility. Saint Gregory disagrees with this and emphasizes that "it
is impossible to express Him, and yet, more impossible to conceive Him. For that
which may be conceived may perhaps be made clear by language, if not fairly
well, at any rate imperfectly..."12
The most important element in Patristic
epistemology is that the partial knowability of the divine actions or energies,
and the absolute and radical unknowability and incommunicability of the divine
essence is not a result of philosophical or theological speculation, as it is in
Paul of Samosata, Arianism, and Nestorianism, but of the personal experience of
revelation or participation in the uncreated glory of God by means of vision or
theoria. Saint Gregory defines a theologian as one who has reached this theoria
by means of purification and illumination, and not by means of dialectical
speculation. Thus, the authority for Christian truth is not the written words of
the Bible, which cannot in themselves either express God or convey an adequate
concept concerning God, but rather the individual apostle, prophet, or saint who
is glorified in God.
Because the Franks, following Augustine,
neither understood the Patristic position on this subject, nor were they willing
from the heights of their majestic feudal nobility to listen to
"Greeks" explain these distinctions, they went about raiding the
Patristic texts. They took passages out of context in order to prove that for
all the Fathers, as supposedly in the case of Augustine, the fact that the
Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit means that the Holy Spirit derives His
existence from the Father and Son.
The Fathers always claimed that
generation and procession are what distinguish the Son from the Holy Spirit.
Since the Son is the only begotten Son of God, procession is different from
generation. Otherwise, we would have two Sons, in which case there is no only
begotten Son. For the Fathers this was both a biblical fact and a mystery to be
treated with due respect. To ask what generation and procession are is as
ridiculous as asking what the divine essence is. Only energies of God may be
known, and then only in so far as the creature can receive.
In contrast to this, Augustine set out to
explain what generation is. He identified generation with what the other Roman
Fathers called actions or energies of God which are common to the Holy Trinity.
Thus, procession ended up being these same energies. The difference between the
Son and the Spirit was that the Son is from one and the Holy Spirit from two.
When he began his De Trinitate,13
Augustine promised that he would explain why the Son and the Holy Spirit are not
brothers. After completing his twelfth book, his friends stole and published
this work in an unfinished and uncorrected form. In Book 15.45, Augustine admits
that he cannot explain why the Holy Spirit is not a Son of the Father and
brother of the Logos, and proposes that we will learn this in the next life.
In his Rectractationun, Augustine
explains how he intended to exiain what had happened in another writing and not
publish his De Trinitate himself. However, his friends prevailed upon him, and
he simply corrected the books as much as he could and finished the work with
which he was not really satisfied.
What is most remarkable is that the
spiritual and cultural descendants of the Franks are still claiming that
Augustine is the authority par excellence on the Patristic doctrine of the Holy
Trinity!
Whereas no Greek-speaking Roman Father
ever used the expression that the Holy Spirit proceeds (ejkporeuvetai) from the
Father and Son, both Ambrose and Augustine use this expression. Since Ambrose
was so dependent on such Greek-speaking experts as Basil the Great and Didymos
the Blind, particularly his work on the Holy Spirit, one would expect that he
would follow Eastern usage.
It seems, however, that at the time of
the death of Ambrose, before the Second Ecumenical Synod, the term procession
had been adopted by Didymos as the hypostatic individuality of the Holy Spirit.
It had not been used by Saint Basil (only in his letter 38 he seems to be using
procession as Gregory the Theologian) or by Saint Gregory of Nyssa before the
Second Ecumenical Synod. Of the Cappadocian Fathers, only Saint Gregory the
Theologian uses very clearly in his Theological Orations what became the final
formulation of the Church on the matter at the Second Ecumenical Synod.
Evidently, because Augustine transformed
the doctrine of the Holy Trinity into a speculative exercise of philosophical
acumen, the simple, schematic and biblical nature of the doctrine in the East
Roman (Orthodox) tradition had been lost sight of by those stemming from the
scholastic tradition.
Thus, the history of the doctrine of the
Trinity has been reduced to searching out the development of such concepts and
terminology as three persons or hypostases, one essence, homoousios, personal or
hypostatic properties, one divinity, etc.
The summary of the Patristic theological
method is perhaps sufficient to indicate the nonspeculative method by which the
Fathers theologize and interpret the Bible. The method is simple and-the result
is schematic. Stated simply and arithmetically, the whole doctrine of the
Trinity may be broken down into two simple statements as far as the filioque is
concerned. (1) What is common in the Holy Trinity is common to and identical in
all three persons or hypostases. (2) What is hypostatic, or hypostatic property,
or manner of existence is individual, and belongs only to one person or
hypostasis of the Holy Trinity. Thus, we have tav koinav and tav ajkoinwvnhta,
what is common and what is incommunically individual.
Having this in mind, one realizes why the
West and East Romans did not take the Frankish filioque very seriously as a
theological position, especially as one which was supposed to improve upon the
Creed of the Second Ecumenical Synod.
However, the Romans had to take the
Franks themselves seriously, because they backed up their fantastic theological
claims with an unbelievable self-confidence and with a sharp sword. What they
lacked in historical insight, they made up with "nobility" of descent,
and a strong will to back up their arguments with muscle and steel.
In any case, it may be useful in
terminating this section to emphasize the simplicity of the Roman position and
the humor with which the filioque was confronted. We may recapture this Roman
humor about the Latin filioque with two syllogistic jokes from the Great Photios
which may explain some of the fury of Frankish reaction against him.
"Everything, therefore, which is
seen and spoken of in the all-holy and consubstantial and coessential Trinity,
is either common to all, or belongs to one only of the three: but the projection
(probolhv) of the Spirit, is neither common, nor, as they say, does it belong to
any one of them alone (may propitiation be upon us, and the blasphemy turned
upon their heads). Therefore, the projection of the Spirit is not at all in the
lifegiving and all-perfect Trinity."14
In other words, the Holy Spirit must then
derive His existence outside of the Holy Trinity since everything in the Trinity
is common to all or belongs to one only.
"For otherwise, if all things common
to the Father and the Son, are in any case common to the Spirit, …and the
procession from them is common to the Father and the Son, the Spirit therefore
will then proceed from himself: and He will be principle (arche) of himself, and
both cause and caused: a thing which even the myths of the Greeks never
fabricated."15
Keeping in mind the fact that the Fathers
always began their thoughts about the Holy Trinity from their personal
experience of the Angel of the Lord and Great Counselor made man and Christ, one
only then understands the problematic underlying the Arian/Eunomian crisis,
i.e., whether this concrete person derives His existence from the essence or
hypostasis of the Father or from non-being by the will of the Father. Had the
tradition understood the method of theologizing about God as Augustine did,
there would never have been an Arian or Eunomian heresy. Those who reach
glorification (theosis) know by this experience that whatever has its existence
from non-being by the will of God is a creature, and whoever and whatever is not
from non-being, but from the Father is uncreated. Between the created and the
uncreated, there is no similarity whatsoever. Before the Cappadocian Fathers
gave their weight to the distinction between the three divine hypostases and the
one divine essence, many Orthodox Church leaders avoided speaking either about
one essence or one hypostasis since this smacked of Sabellian and Samosatene
Monarchianism. Many preferred to speak about the Son as deriving His existence
from the Father’s essence and as being like the Father in essence (homoiousios).
Saint Athanasios explains that this is exactly what is meant by coessential (homoousios).16
It is clear that the Orthodox were not searching for a common faith but rather
for common terminology and common concepts to express their common experience in
the Body of Christ.
Equally important is the fact that the
Cappadocians lent their weight to the distinction between the Father as cause
and the Son and the Holy Spirit as caused. Coupled with the manners of existence
of generation and procession, these terms mean that the Father causes the
existence of the Son by generation and of the Holy Spirit by procession and not
by generation. Of course, the Father being from no one derives His
existence neither from himself nor from another. Actually, Saint Basil pokes fun
at Eunomios for being the first to say such an obvious thing and thereby
manifest his frivolousness and wordiness. Furthermore, neither the essence nor
the natural energy of the Father have a cause or manner of existence. The Father
possesses them by His very nature and communicates them to the Son in order that
they possess them by nature likewise. Thus, the manner by which the uncaused
Father exists, and by which the Son and the Holy Spirit receive their existence
from the Father, are not to be confused with the Father’s communicating His
essence and energy to the Son and the Holy Spirit. It would, indeed, be strange
to speak about the Father as causing the existence of His own essence and energy
along with the hypostases of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
It also must be emphasized that for the
Fathers who composed the creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople neither generation
nor procession mean energy or action. This was the position of the heretics
condemned. The Arians claimed that the Son is the product of the will of God.
The Eunomians supported a more original but bizarre position that the uncreated
energy of the Father is identical with His essence, that the Son is the product
of a simple created energy of God, that the Holy Spirit is the product of a
single energy of the Son, and that each created species is the product of a
special energy of the Holy Spirit, there being as many created energies as there
are species. Otherwise, if the Holy Spirit has only one created energy, then
there would be only one species of things in creation. It is in the light of
these heresies also that one must appreciate that generation and procession in
the Creed in no way mean energy or action.
However, when the Franks began raiding
the Fathers for arguments to support their addition to the Creed, they picked up
the categories of manner of existence, cause and caused, and identified these
with Augustine’s generation and procession, thus transforming the old Western
Orthodox filioque into their heretical one. This confusion is nowhere so clear
than during the debates at the Council of Florence where the Franks used the
terms cause and caused as identical with their generation and procession, and
supported their claim that the Father and the Son are one cause of the
procession of the Holy Spirit. Thus, they became completely confused over
Maximos who explains that for the West of his time, the Son is not the cause of
the existence of the Holy Spirit, so that in this sense the Holy Spirit does not
proceed from the Father. That Anastasios the Librarian repeats this is ample
evidence of the confusion of both the Franks and their spiritual and theological
descendants. For the Fathers, no name or concept gives any understanding of the
mystery of the Holy Trinity. Saint Gregory the Theologian, e.g., is clear on
this as we saw. He ridicules his opponents with a characteristic taunt: "Do
tell me what is the unbegotteness of the Father, and I will explain to you the
physiology of the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit, and we
shall both of us be frenzy-stricken for prying into the mystery of God’’17
Names and concepts about God give to those who reach theoria understanding not
of the mystery, but of the dogma and its purpose. In the experience of
glorification, knowledge about God, along with prayer, prophecy and faith are
abolished. Only love remains (1 Cor. 13, 8-13; 14,1). The mystery remains, and
will always remain, even when one sees God in Christ face to face and is known
by God as Paul was (I Cor. 13.12).
The
Significance of the Filioque Question
Smaragdus records how the emissaries of
Charlemagne complained that Pope Leo III was making an issue of only four
syllables. Of course, four syllables are not many. Nevertheless, their
implications are such that Latin or Frankish Christendom embarked on a history
of theology and ecclesiastical practice which may have been quite different had
the Franks paid attention to the "Greeks."
I will indicate some of the implications
of the presuppositions of the filioque issue which present problems today.
1 ) Even a superficial study of today’s
histories of dogma and biblical scholarship reveals the peculiar fact that
Protestant, Anglican, Papal, and some Orthodox theologians accept the First and
Second Ecumenical Synods only formally. This is so because there is at least an
identity of teaching between Orthodox and Arians, which does not exist between
Orthodox and Latins, about the real appearances of the Logos to the Old
Testament prophets and the identity of this Logos with the Logos made flesh in
the New Testament. This, as we saw, was the agreed foundation of debate for the
determination of whether the Logos seen by the prophets is created or uncreated.
This identification of the Logos in the Old Testament is the very basis of the
teachings of all the Roman Ecumenical Synods.
We emphasize that the East Roman
(Orthodox) Fathers never abandoned this reading of the Old Testament theophanies.
This is the teaching of all the West Roman Fathers, with the single exception of
Augustine, who, confused as usual over what the Fathers teach, rejects as
blasphemous the idea that the prophets could have seen the Logos with their
bodily eyes and, indeed, in fire, darkness, cloud, etc.
The Arians and Eunomians had used, as the
Gnostics before them, the visibility of the Logos to the prophets to prove that
He was a lower being than God and a creature. Augustine agrees with the Arians
and Eunomians that the prophets saw a created Angel, created fire, cloud, light,
darkness, etc., but he argues against them that none of these was the Logos
himself, but symbols by means of which God or the whole Trinity is seen and
heard.
Augustine had no patience with the
teaching that the Angel of the Lord, the fire, the glory, the cloud, and the
Pentecostal tongues of fire, were verbal symbols of the uncreated realities
immediately communicated with by the prophets and apostles, since for him this
would mean that all this language pointed to a vision of the divine substance.
For the bishop of Hippo this vision is identical to the whole of what is
uncreated, and could be seen only by a Neoplatonic type ecstasy of the soul, out
of the body within the sphere of timeless and motionless eternity transcending
all discursive reasoning. Since this is not what he found in the Bible, the
visions therein described are not verbal symbols of real visions of God, but of
creatures symbolizing eternal realities. The created verbal symbols of the Bible
became created objective symbols. In other words, words which symbolized
uncreated energies like fire, etc., became objectively real created fires,
clouds, tongues, etc.
2) This failure of Augustine to
distinguish between the divine essence and its natural energies (of which some
are communicated to the friends of God), led to a very peculiar reading of the
Bible, wherein creatures or symbols come into existence in order to convey a
divine message, and then pass out of existence. Thus, the Bible becomes full of
unbelievable miracles and a text dictated by God.
3) Besides this, the biblical concept of
heaven and hell also becomes distorted, since the eternal fires of hell and the
outer darkness become creatures also whereas, they are the uncreated glory of
God as seen by those who refuse to love. Thus, one ends up with the three-story
universe problem, with God in a place, etc., necessitating a demythologizing of
the Bible in order to salvage whatever one can of a quaint Christian tradition
for modern man. However, it is not the Bible itself which needs demythologizing,
but the Augustinian Franco-Latin tradition and the caricature which it passed
off in the West as "Greek" Patristic theology.
4) By not taking the above-mentioned
foundations of Roman Patristic theology of the Ecumenical Synods seriously as
the key to interpreting the Bible, modern biblical scholars have applied
presuppositions latent in Augustine with such methodical consistency that they
have destroyed the unity and identity of the Old and New Testaments, and have
allowed themselves to be swayed by Judaic interpretations of the Old Testament
rejected by Christ himself. Thus, instead of dealing with the concrete person of
the Angel of God, Lord of Glory, Angel of Great Council, Wisdom of God and
identifying Him with the Logos made flesh and Christ, and accepting this as the
doctrine of the Trinity, most, if not all, Western scholars have ended up
identifying Christ only with Old Testament Messiahship, and equating the
doctrine of the Trinity with the development of extra Biblical Trinitarian
terminology within what is really not a Patristic framework, but an Augustinian
one. Thus, the so-called "Greek" Fathers are still read in the light
of Augustine, with the Russians after Peter Mogila joining in.
5) Another most devastating result of the
Augustinian presuppositions of the filioque is the destruction of the prophetic
and apostolic understanding of grace and its replacement with the whole system
of created graces distributed in Latin Christendom by the hocus pocus of the
clergy.
For the Bible and the Fathers, grace is
the uncreated glory and rule (basileia) of God seen by the prophets, apostles,
and saints and participated in by the faithful followers of the prophets and the
apostles. The source of this glory and rule is the Father who, in begetting the
Logos, and projecting the Spirit, communicates this glory and rule so that the
Son and the Spirit are also by nature one source of grace with the Father. This
uncreated grace and rule (basileia) is participated in by the faithful according
to their preparedness for reception, and is seen by the friends of God who have
become gods by grace.
Because the Frankish filioque presupposes
the identity of uncreated divine essence and energy, and because participation
in the divine essence is impossible, the Latin tradition was led automatically
into accepting communicated grace as created, leading to its objectification and
magical priestly manipulation.
On the other hand, the reduction by
Augustine of this revealed glory and rule (basileia) to the status of a creature
has misled modern biblical scholars into the endless discussions concerning the
coming of the "Kingdom" (basileia should rather be rule) without
realizing its identity with the uncreated glory and grace of God.19
In the patristic tradition, all dogma or
truth is experienced in glorification. The final form of glorification is that
of Pentecost, in which the apostles were led by the Spirit into all the truth,
as promised by Christ at the Last Supper. Since Pentecost, every incident of the
glorification of a saint, (in other words, of a saint having a vision of God’s
uncreated glory in Christ as its source), is an extension of Pentecost at
various levels of intensity.
This experience includes all of man, but
at the same time transcends all of man, including man’s intellect. Thus, the
experience remains a mystery to the intellect, and cannot be conveyed
intellectually to another. Thus, language can point to, but cannot convey, this
experience. The spiritual father can guide a person to, but cannot produce, the
experience which is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
When, therefore, the Fathers add terms to
the biblical language concerning God and His relation to the world like
hypostasis, ousia, physis, homoousios, etc., they are not doing this because
they are improving current understanding as over against a former age. Pentecost
cannot be improved upon. All they are doing is defending the Pentecostal
experience which transcends words, in the language of their time, because a
particular heresy leads away from, and not to, this experience, which means
spiritual death to those led astray.
For the Fathers, authority is not only
the Bible, but the Bible plus those glorified or divinized as the prophets and
apostles. The Bible is not in itself either inspired or infallible. It becomes
inspired and infallible within the communion of saints because they have the
experience of divine glory described in the Bible.
The presuppositions of the Frankish
("Latin") filioque are not founded on this experience of glory. Anyone
can claim to speak with authority and understanding. However, we Orthodox follow
the Fathers and accept only those as authority who, like the apostles, have
reached a degree of Pentecostal glorification.
Within this frame of reference, there can
be no institutionalized or guaranteed form of infallibility, outside of the
tradition of spirituality which leads to theoria, mentioned above, by St.
Gregory the Theologian.
What is true of the Bible is true of the
Synods, which, like the Bible, express in symbols that which transcends symbols
and is known by means of those who have reached theoria. It is for this reason
that the Synods appeal to the authority, not only of the Fathers in the Bible,
but also to the Fathers of all ages, since the Fathers of all ages participate
in the same truth which is God’s glory in Christ.
For this reason, Pope Leo III told the
Franks in no uncertain terms that the Fathers left the filioque out of the Creed
neither because of ignorance nor by omission, but by divine inspiration. However
the implications of the Frankish filioque were not accepted by all Roman
Christians in the Western Roman provinces conquered by Franco-Latin Christendom
and its scholastic theology. Remnants of Roman biblical orthodoxy and piety have
survived and all parts may one day be reassembled, as the full implications of
the Patristic tradition make themselves known, and spirituality, as the basis of
doctrine, becomes the center of our studies.
1. The European and Middle
Eastern parts of the Roman Empire were carved out of areas which, among other
linguistic elements, contained two bands, the Celtic and the Greek, which ran
parallel to each other from the Atlantic to the Middle East. The Celtic band was
north of the Greek band, except in Asia Minor, where Galatia had the Greek band
to the east, the north, and the south. Northern Italy itself was part of the
Celtic band and Southern Italy a part of the Greek band (here called Magna
Graecia) which in the West covered Southern Spain, Gaul, and their Mediterranean
islands. Due consideration should be given to the fact that both the Celtic and
Greek bands were east and west of Roman Italy. The Romans first took over the
Greek and Celtic parts of Italy and then the Greek and Celtic speaking peoples
of the two bands. The Celtic band was almost completely Latinized, whereas the
Greek band, not only remained intact, but was even expanded by the Roman policy
of completing the Hellenization of the Eastern provinces initiated by the
Macedonians. The reason why the Celtic band, but not the Greek band, was
Latinized was that the Romans were themselves bilingual in fact and in
sentiment, since in the time of their explosive expansion they spoke both Latin
and Greek, with a strong preference for the latter. Thus, one is obliged to
speak of both the Western and Eastern parts of European Romania in terms of a
Latin North and a Greek South, but certainly not of a Latin West and a Greek
East, which is a Frankish myth, fabricated for the propagandistic reasons
described in Lecture I, which survives in text books until today. Indeed, the
Galatians of Asia Minor were in the fourth century still speaking the same
dialect as the Treveri of the province of Belgica in the Roman diocese of Gaul.
(Albert Grenier, Les Gaulois [Paris, 1970], p. 115.) That the Latin West/Greek
East division of Europe is a Frankish myth is still witnessed to today by some
25 million Romans in the Balkans, who speak Romance dialects, and by the
Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Balkans and the Middle East, who call
themselves Romans. It should be noted that it is very possible that the
Galatians of Asia Minor still spoke the same language as the ancestors of the
Waloons in the area of the Ardennes when the legate of Pope John XV, Abbot Leo,
was at Mouzon pronouncing the condemnation of Gerbert d’Aurillac in 995
2. Migne, PL 89:744.
3. For a review of the historical and
doctrinal aspects of this question, see J. S. Romanides, The Filioque, Anglican
Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Discussions, St. Albans 1975—Moscow 1976 (Athens,
1978).
4. Matthew 5.8.
5. Epistle 2.
6. Theological Oration 1.5.
7. Ibid. 1.3.
8. On the relations between the Johanine
and Synoptic gospel traditions see my study, "Justin Martyr and the Fourth
Gospel," The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 4 (1958-59), pp. 115-39.
9. PL 102.971 ff. For interpretation of
these minutes and related matters see my JH Dogmatikhv kaiv Sumbolikhv th`~
jOrqodovxou Kaqolikh`~ jEkklhsiva~, pp. 340-78.
10. 19.
11. Ibid.
12. Theological Orations, 2.4.
13. 11.3.
14. J. N. Karmiris, Tav Dogmatikav
kaiv Sumbolikav Mnhmei`a th`~ jOrqodovxou Kaqolikh`~ jEkklhsiva~, Athens
1966, Vol. 1, p. 325.
15. Ibid, p. 324.
16. De Synodis, 41.
17. Theological Orations, 5.8.
18. Besides the works mentioned in footnotes
above, see my study, "Justin Martyr and the Fourth Gospel," The Greek
Orthodox Theological Review, 4 (1958-59), 115-39
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