Among the issues that have divided Eastern and Western Christians throughout the centuries, few have had as long and interesting a history as the question of the filioque. Christians everywhere confess their faith in the ancient words of the Nicene Creed. But rather than serve as a source of unity, the Creed has been one of the chief sources of division, as East and West profess their faith in the Trinitarian God using different language. In the Orthodox East, the faithful profess their belief in "the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father." In the West, however, they say they believe in the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father "and the Son"-in Latin "filioque." For over a millennium Christendom's greatest minds have addressed and debated the question (sometimes in rather polemical terms) in the belief that the theological issues at stake were central to an orthodox understanding of the trinitarian God. To most modern people, this may seem like a trivial matter, and indeed most ordinary Christians would be hard pressed to explain the doctrine behind this phrase. In the history of Christianity, however, these words have played an immense role, and the story behind them deserves to be told. For to tell the story of the filioque is to tell of the rise and fall of empires, of crusades launched and repelled, of holy men willing to die for the faith, and of worldly men willing to use it for their own political ends. It is, perhaps, one of the most interesting stories in all of Christendom, filled with characters and events that would make even the best dramatists envious.
The History of a Doctrinal Controversy is the first complete English language history of the filioque written in over a century. Beginning with the biblical texts and ending with recent agreements on the place and meaning of the filioque, this book traces the history of the doctrine and the controversy that has surrounded it. From the Greek and Latin fathers, the ninth-century debates, the Councils of Lyons and Ferrara-Florence, to the twentieth- and twenty-first century-theologians and dialogues that have come closer than ever to solving this thorny problem, Edward Siecienski explores the strange and fascinating history behind one of the greatest ecumenical rifts in Christendom.
This book not only traced the Filioque controversy, it also embodied the spirit of it. This reader felt not only the logical force of both sides’ arguments, but sometimes the emotional turmoil that went with them. For example, if the Council of Ferrara-Florence was the most painful moment in Church history, it was also the most painful chapter in this book. Siecienski has done what few thought possible: present a fair, balanced account of a subject that probably defies human though and has started several wars.
Siecienski’s method is to read the fathers’ and theologians’ arguments per the internal relationships of the Trinity and avoid any type of simple reduction into a “pro-Western” or “pro-Eastern” model, except where the case is obvious like in Photios, Aquinas, and Anselm. This is an important move. When Western fathers like Hilary and Ambrose say that the Spirit proceeds et filii or even Filioque, Siecienski denies they are saying what later Filioquist polemics say they are saying. What Siecienski implies but does not say is important: these fathers do not teach the development of the filioque , and if they do not teach the development of the filioque, they are actually witnesses to the normativity of the Eastern model.
The hero of this story is St Maximus the Confessor. He demonstrates a way to interpret Western fathers who spoke in language similar to the filioque as a way of expressing the eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit—which he thinks is what the Filioque was trying to do. The text under consideration is his Letter to Marinus, and the reception of that text at varying points in European history says a lot about the presuppositions of either side. The Latins originally championed the text and saw Maximus as a good Roman Catholic. Did not Maximus say the Filioque was orthodox and did he not appeal to the Pope? The Orthodox then responded that Maximus specifically denied causality to the Son. Whatever else Maximus may have meant by Filioque—and it’s not clear he understood precisely what Filioque would later mean—he is not using the term in the sense it would later be used. The Latins realized this and at other points in history they denied the authenticity of Marinus.
Maximus is reading the Filioque to say (if not accurately) that the Spirit proceeds through the Son from the Father alone. For him this is the superior understanding for it maintains both an eternal relationship between Spirit and Son yet maintains the causality of the Father alone. He says while the Spirit does not derive from the Son, his procession from the Father always presupposes the Son (Siecienski, 77). What this eternal relationship entails exactly is not clear, and it would be the work of Gregory II of Cyprus and St. Gregory Palamas to expand upon it.
As is the case with many polemical controversies, after a while there is not anything new being said. One notices a common theme, a charge and a counter, running behind the numerous florigela and Scripture references. The East charges the West with introducing two causes into the Godhead, the Father and the Son. Since the time of St Gregory of Nazianzus all admitted the monarchia of the Father. The Father is the principle of unity as he causes the other two persons of the Trinity. When the West began positing the Son as part of that cause, which they had to do if they were to uphold filioquist logic, the East responded that the West is introducing two causes in the Godhead. The West responded that it was positing the two persons as one cause of unity. To the East, that was a distinction without a difference.
So, who is correct? It would help to consider Anselm of Canterbury’s logic. He said one can posit two persons as one cause because one can also posit three persons with one essence (118). Obviously, Anselm is locating the property of causation within the one essence of God. He might not say essence, but that is what his analogy assumes. From that he says since the Son is one essence with the Father then when the Creed says the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, it also implies from the Son.
I think Anselm’s logic is inadequate. While he stops at saying that somebody must also proceed from the Holy Spirit as well, the logic demands it. If causation is a property, not only of the Father’s hypostasis, but also of the essence, and the Holy Spirit is part of that essence, then absurdities follow: The Holy Spirit must proceed from himself, and another person of the Godhead must proceed from the Son and the Holy Spirit. Men may mock St. Photios’ rebuttal, but they have yet to face the logical force of it.
Conclusions and Response
This book will likely be the standard in Filioquist studies for the near future. It is published by Oxford, which means all must defer to its teachings, and the author writes with a spirit of peace and a hope for the unity of the Church. While the weight of the argument leans to the East, he avoids simple reductions.
Because of his charitable spirit, which is to be praised, Siecienski does not always follow through with his arguments. He does not note the interconnection between a strong Filioquist theology and a strong view of papal supremacy. To note this, however, one must also discuss absolute divine simplicity and the Latins’ different interpretation of “one” and “unity.” (The “many” are reduced to “the one.”) Thomas Aquinas is very clear on this point—the filioque and papal rule stand or fall together. For this reason I disagree with his suggestion that the Church could have been unified at the Council of Florence had the Emperor allowed Mark of Ephesus to expound Gregory II of Cyprus’ teaching on eternal manifestation (158). Yes, if he had been allowed to expound upon these teachings, the anti-unionists would have clearly won the debate at Florence. But given the framework upholding the Filioque and Papal universal jurisdiction (see the Pope wanting the Patriarch to kiss his boots in public and in obedience), it is hard to imagine the Pope simply capitulating to these arguments.
On a similar note, and in good modern academic fashion, Siecienski simply dismisses the logical force of Photios’s arguments. He never says where Photios is wrong. To be fair to Siecienski, though, if he had engaged what Photios implied, he would have to broaden the scope of his project. Photios is giving a genealogy of the Filioque. One suspects the reason modern academicians do not seriously engage Photios is because his arguments resist the trend of microhistory.
The book is worth the $50. Given the dearth of accessible, yet balanced literature on this topic, Siecienski’s project will likely be a landmark for the next decade.
A level-headed, elegant, thorough treatment of ecclesial and theological development. Though Siecienski never once takes his eyes off the Filioque, he can’t help but capture the scope of Church history in his peripheral vision. His prose is unembellished without ever growing dry. He leaves no stone unturned in his research, rigorously comparing and contrasting every relevant excerpt from fathers, saints, clergy, theologians—Eastern and Western, prominent and obscure—to lend a remarkable level of clarity to an inherently unclear thorn in the flesh of the Church.
As someone fairly unstudied in these matters it’s funny to imagine that he could be just straight up lying about every single thing and I would have no way of knowing.
While this is a competent and thorough overview of the history of the doctrinal controversy that is the filioque, it unfortunately adopts the 'neutral' stance of the modern academic historian. This is unfortunate because truth is not neutral but is rather an articulation of the 'biases' of God, as it were. For the Orthodox this means -- among other things -- that the Holy and God-bearing fathers of the Orthodox Church are authorities that we are called to submit to, not mere objects of historical study. Yet they (particularly Sts. Photius and Mark of Ephesus) appear here as mere men with opinions alongside other men with opinions, distorting the truth of the matter. Other Orthodox saints like Sts. Maximus & St. Gregory Palamas are treated much more favorably by comparison, but only because aspects of their work are more conducive to an optimistic ecumenical outlook (when taken in isolation from the rest of the Church's witness.)
This is a major failing, but it's one common to all works of this nature. If you appropriately account for the fact that the author is attempting to occupy the 'neutral' ground of academic historical theology, which eschews any 'denominational bias' that would 'taint' its value as history, then there is a lot to glean from the text in terms of its shedding light the contours of the debate, and the various ebbs and flows throughout history, between East and West.
The author is brilliant and his recounting of much of the history is excellent. However, he simply assumes all the texts-- all of them-- are genuine, not forged or interpolated. There's a huge problem with that. Adam Zernikav made a huge study of these things centuries ago and proved that many of the texts we possess solely in Latin have been either forged to teach filioquism (i.e., not from the author entirely), or have been interpolated to teach filioquism.
Not only Zernikav, but centuries before him, St. Mark of Ephesus proved this to the synod assembled at Florence, when they trotted out interpolated texts allegedly from St. Basil. One specific interpolation that Zernikav caught was the declaration of faith from St. Theodore of Tarsus and the English Church. Zernikav proved within a reasonable degree of academic certainty that the word "ineffably" and the phrase "and from the Son" were additions of a later author. Siecienski is silent on this.
Smart people can also be dupes. I'm sad to say that he seems to do this with his book on the papacy, as well. Orthodox scholarship simply conceding the ground to all manuscripts that come down without attestation or corroboration is naive at best, and at worst, a part of ecumenist chicanery. The Latins have been caught again and again in the act of fabricating wholesale: the pseudo-Symmachian forgeries (upon which their canon about no one is able to judge the Pope is based, the pseudo-Isidorean decretals, the Donation of Constantine (which fooled even the East), to name but a few of that notable ones. This complete naive acceptance of forgeries and interpolations pretty much makes his book a wash. Rather blah, except as a record of some of the arguments made by the Church against the Latins' erros. Stick with Ostroumoff's History of the Council of Florence for a treatment of the patristic doctrine of the Spirit's procession (free in pdf format online).
This work came recommended to me as a balanced treatment of the Filioque controversy, and it delivered. I don’t know which position, if any, the author personally holds. His focus is examining the theological controversy but does this chronologically giving it a historical flow. He outlines intricately how the Filioque controversy has been complicated by cultural peculiarities, political and ecclesiastical power struggles, language barriers, and textual criticisms to name a few. The filioque controversy has been a disagreement between two portions of the universal church which share a high value for church tradition and the church fathers’ wisdom and interpretation of Scripture. A controversy that finds them disagreeing about the topic (presumably) closest and dearest to their heart, that is, God Himself. This is probably the one fact that best explains why a resolution has proved so elusive. I learned a lot reading this book, but still feel ill-prepared to sum up the disagreement. However, I blame this on the complexity of the controversy, its evolvement over time, and my own inadequacies, not the book! I came into this book thinking the foundational disagreement between the West and the East roughly was whether the cause of the Trinity is grounded in the Father or in the divine essence. However, to make this even more confusing to me, in subsequent lengthy debates, it seems clear that the West did not seek to deny the monarchy of the Father, nor generally, despite the East’s concerns, did they seek to claim two causes in God. Some claimed that the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and Son was still only from one cause (both together) and that the Son could be a “joint-cause” because He received this “ability” from Father. It does seem that the foundational distinction is then not a denial of the monarchy of the Father per se, but whether the procession of the Spirit is from the hypostasis of the Father or from the divine essence. I love the author’s extensive depth on the topic theologically and historically accompanied by his engaging storytelling.
I only have two complaints about the book worth mentioning: The author kept assuming Markan priority. Also, endnotes instead of footnotes.
Phenomenal work. The word that continuously came to mind was "Charity". Siecienski is a top-notch scholar and the work he has done here has made an exceedingly difficult debate mired in linguistic challenges something that can be easily approached and understood. He can't resolve the nuances for you - he makes this point himself - but he definitely equips the reader with a more than sufficient understanding of the history of the 'Filioque', how it came to be, how it's addition into the Creed came to be, and the various ways its orthodoxy could be justified (or unjustified). I cannot recommend a book more for someone with an ecumenical heart like myself. 5/5.
Fantastic book, one of the best historical theology treatments I ever read. Reads like a novel despite being dense. Lewis Ayres - take note, Siecienski shows that it can be done without sacrificing theological density and precision. Conclusion: Maximus the Confessor was a true giant. And, (per page 204), read Thomas Weinandy: "[T]he Son, being begotten in the Spirit, simultaneously loves the Father in the same Spirit by whom He Himself is begotten". (The Father's Spirit of Sonship, p 34). Siecienski (Eastern Orthodox) sought not to be polemical, and he succeeded beautifully. As a Presbyterian minister I will continue confessing the Filioque, but now with even greater appreciation.
A must read for anyone interested in Church history. It provides a hermeneutic that has been long vilified - the Carolingian subversion of the western church, under Charlemagne and Alcuin.
This was a great history of the issue of the Filioque, the author's research was complete (as much as it could be for one book!). I see this issue as one that comes about by trying to explain the unexplainable, and then when words are translated there can never be an exact meaning. Does the Spirit get lost in the translation? Is there a "ranking" if you will, to the order of the "persons' of God? Words such as "source," "processing," "proceeds,"or "persons" and so on seem to create more of a misunderstanding for many who are looking at face value. This includes most of the people in the pews. Should there be a language for all to understand? What does this say about the level of catechetical education? There is a completeness with the Father, Son, and Spirit that needs to be expressed as part of the conversation ~ especially in the understanding of one God. Another way of looking at this is Creator, Word, and Breath. God co-exists with the differences, just as flame, heat and light within a fire. Good book that opens the door even more to the ongoing conversation.
This is a remarkable book. After I had gone over the Filioque with my discussion group based on Fr. Marthaler's book on the Creed, I realized how little I knew about the issues.
The problem of keeping one principle within the Godhead, the problem raised by the incompleteness of the Creed as enunciated at Constantinople with regard to the Spirit, the separate developments of theology in East and West, the separate politics, all led to the basic problem of rationalistic theology triumphing over the Spirit.
As far as I can tell, the author is fair to both sides and pessimistic as to a resolution despite the many attempts to bridge the gap.
I am glad that I read it but I cannot claim to know enough to be able to comprehend the theology.