A summary of Constantine Meliteniotes’ First Discourse against Gregory of Cyprus and his Tome
January 16, 2026
In 1986, Markos A. Orphanos published an edition1 of the two antirrhetic discourses of Constantine Meliteniotes, archdeacon and chartophylax of the Great Church during the patriarchate of John Bekkos and a devoted friend of his who attended to him in prison during the final years of his life; the discourses were written in the aftermath of the Second Synod of Blachernae (1285) and in refutation of that synod’s Tome, composed by Patriarch Gregory the Cypriot. On pp. 69-79 of this edition, Orphanos gives a Modern Greek summary of the contents of the first discourse. Below, I provide an English translation of Orphanos’s summary.
The contents of the work here published may be summarized briefly and with a view to their most important features in the following way:
f. 82: A look backward at the peaceful period and life of the Church from the time of iconoclasm to the appearance and meddling activity of George the Cypriot.
ff. 82-83: A character sketch of George the Cypriot and a critique of his manner of playing to both sides with respect to the union and to the latinophrones, until the death of the Emperor Michael VIII.
ff. 83-84: A brief description of the quick succession of events that followed the death of the Emperor Michael, including the return of Patriarch Joseph to the patriarchal throne and, especially, those things which took place at the synod of monks and laymen during the first days of January 1283 for the purpose of restoring (in their view) ecclesiastical affairs to their proper state.
ff. 84-85: A synoptic presentation of the events surrounding the elevation of George the Cypriot to the patriarchal throne, and his (in Meliteniotes’ view) hostile standpoint and inhospitable bearing towards the things that pertain to union and ecclesiastical peace.
ff. 85-86: A brief description of the calling and acts of the First Synod of Blachernae, which was presided over by Patriarch Gregory II the Cypriot, but was criticized, nevertheless, by Andronikos, bishop of Sardes. A vivid description of the violence and wrongs suffered by the supporters of union; the author characterizes this as a Robber Synod and, indeed, worse than the one that goes by that name that took place in the year 449.
ff. 86-87: A recounting of the things which took place at the synod at Adramyttium in the year 1284 for the purpose of reconciling the Arsenites with the Josephites and the recognized Church. A side note concerning the success of the Patriarch Gregory, which nevertheless lasted only for a short duration.
ff. 87-89: The demands made by John Bekkos, by means of letters sent from Prusa, for the convoking of a synod, for the purpose of defending himself and of showing that Patriarch Gregory II the Cypriot not only has acquired the patriarchal throne uncanonically, but that he is also the preacher of heretical doctrines. The Cypriot’s endeavor to thwart this attempt proved fruitless.
ff. 89-90: Convoking, and acts, of the Second Synod of Blachernae. A precise specification of the day of its convocation. An attempt is made to persuade Constantine Meliteniotes, George Metochites, and their supporters to change their allegiance in view of the new, antiunionist government policy, an attempt which they forthrightly resist. An interruption, for some time, of the workings of the Synod. Publication of the Tome, authored by Patriarch Gregory the Cypriot. Condemnation of the unionists who remained opposed, and the cutting off of John Bekkos, George Metochites, and Constantine Meliteniotes from the Church.
ff. 90-92: An attempt to rebut the assertion of George the Cypriot that the associates of John Bekkos teach that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Son and that they take the Only Begotten to be the cause of his existence in the same way that the Father also is his cause. According to Constantine Meliteniotes and those who are likeminded with him, the Holy Spirit “is produced” from the Father through the Son in a causal way, according to the words of John of Damascus, because “producer” signifies “cause”; but the Father is the principal cause. The Son does not constitute a “separate, opposed” beginningless principle or a principal cause. In this way, both the dogma of the monarchy is preserved and the Father remains the first and principal cause.
ff. 92-93: Criticism of George the Cypriot for inconsistency and backsliding with regard to the union proclaimed by the Second Council of Lyons and the ensuing peace. A listing of circumstances, which show the Cypriot not only to have been a supporter of the union, but also a collaborator with John Bekkos and even someone who, by the use of threats, forced others into accepting it.
ff. 94-95: A partial rejection by Constantine Meliteniotes of George the Cypriot’s viewpoint, according to which the Holy Spirit, in proceeding from the Father, does not have also the Son as a cause of his existence, because the Spirit refers his existence back to the Father alone, without any kind of participation by the Son whatsoever. According to Constantine Meliteniotes, to the extent that the concept of the Holy Spirit’s procession from the Father is synonymous with that of his existence from the Father, the procession through the Son logically involves also his existence through the Son. To back up his claim, Constantine Meliteniotes calls upon passages from the works of the fathers – in fact, from Athanasius, Cyril, and Basil – endeavoring thereby to show that the terms “procession” and “effusion” signify “existential origination.”2
ff. 95-96: Constantine Meliteniotes, in going back one by one through the relevant questions of George the Cypriot, defends the Roman origins both of himself and of his fellow defendants, underlines their abiding in the doctrines and traditions of the Church, and alludes to the dangers and miseries they suffered for the sake of the Church, which nearly brought them to death. Opposing, moreover, the foreign and insignificant background of the Cypriot to the Byzantine one shared by himself and his associates, he further notes the Cypriot’s double-mindedness and stresses that, given the Cypriot’s ambition, time-serving, and selfishness, he is in no way justified to condemn anyone else for the furtherance of his purposes.
ff. 96-97: Meliteniotes, referring to the document signed by Bekkos that had been issued by the First Synod of Blachernae and that was included by George the Cypriot in his Tome, confirms that the former Patriarch really did sign this, but states that he did so involuntarily and as forced thereto under the pressure of circumstances. Once he was given the opportunity, he renounced it in action and in word and in writing. The signing of the document by Bekkos, Meliteniotes affirms, was an act of prudence and foresight and not of cowardice; this is shown by the heroic firmness he showed, after he had signed this, in the face of the many persecutions he had to endure from both Church and Society.
ff. 97-99: Constantine Meliteniotes’ answer to the first chapter of George the Cypriot’s Tome, and to its accusation that Bekkos, Meliteniotes, and Metochites, although brought up in the customs and doctrines of the Church, have denied them. According to Meliteniotes, on the contrary, he and his co-accused follow the teaching of the fathers, that is, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, Tarasius, Anastasius, and so on. And this, because, according to these fathers, the existence, or procession, of the Holy Spirit is from the Father through the Son. When they teach that the Spirit is shed forth, goes forth, is sent forth, comes forth, shines out, exists from the Father through the Son, they give it to be known that the Holy Spirit possesses, from the Father and the Son, his existential procession.
ff. 99-99v: Reference is made to the contents of the second chapter of the Tome, according to which Constantine Meliteniotes and those who think like him changed the “apostolic confession” through an addition, which is foreign and opposed to the teaching of the fathers and teachers of the Church. Constantine Meliteniotes, nevertheless, denies this and thinks that George the Cypriot’s assertion is baseless and not worth refuting.
ff. 99v-103v: Criticism by Constantine Meliteniotes of the claim of the third chapter of the Tome, according to which the statement of St. John of Damascus “He therefore is … and through the Word the producer of the manifesting Spirit” does not indicate the procession of the Holy Spirit according to existence, but his appearing and manifestation. Acceptance of a participation by the Son in the Holy Spirit’s existential procession would entail that the Son is also constituted a co-cause of his existence. Constantine Meliteniotes, denying this claim, stresses that this is a new form of the Arian heresy, which turns the Son into a ministerial tool of the Father. The Father is cause of the existence of the Holy Spirit through the Son, because the Son is not divided from the Father, but naturally “mediates” the existence of the Holy Spirit. This natural mediation does not take away the fact that the Father is the primordial cause of the procession; on the contrary, a denial of it leads to the abolition of the Son’s being Only-begotten and constitutes the Holy Spirit also to be a Son.
ff. 103-106: Constantine Meliteniotes opposes those things contained in the Tome’s fourth chapter, namely, that the coming forth of the Holy Spirit “through the Son and from the Son” refers, according to the fathers, to the appearing, illumination, manifestation, sending, bestowal, and gift through the Son and not to the Holy Spirit’s existence; against this he proposes the following claim: that the Holy Spirit “exists through the Son and from the Son” is the unanimous teaching of the fathers. To allege that, through this, what is indicated is the appearing, the manifestation, the gift, etc., is Arianism. Furthermore, the analogy of the sun, the ray, and the light confirms that the Holy Spirit has his existence from the Father, but through the mediation of the Son. If the Holy Spirit eternally shines forth and is manifested and is sent through the Son, then, reasonably, he also exists through him. The existence of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son does not constitute the Son a cause and a first principle. The Father remains the first cause. Acceptance of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone can lead to the unacceptable consequence that the Son and the Holy Spirit are brothers, or that the Father is the Holy Spirit’s grandfather while the latter is the Father’s grandson.
ff. 106-108: Refuting the views of Gregory of Cyprus in the fifth chapter of the Tome, Constantine Meliteniotes stresses that in fact the prepositions from and through “are of equal force” with each other and can stand in place of one another, as Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian teach. The preposition from “is appropriated” to the Father on account of his being the first and primal cause. The preposition through “is attached” to the Son as an indication of the primordial cause, but both nevertheless have the same concept. In line with these things, the procession through the Son indicates also the existence and essencing3 of the Holy Spirit. This certainly does not entail the existence of two causes. The Father is root, fountain, and cause of the Holy Spirit, but through the Son. And the fathers, as often as they characterize the Father as only source and cause of the Holy Spirit, conceive him thus as the beginningless and primal source and cause. Other fathers, again, like Athanasius and Chrysostom, envisage also the Son as a fountain of the Holy Spirit. George the Cypriot’s assertion — Constantine Meliteniotes continues — that the Holy Spirit’s procession through the Son indicates his eternal shining forth, is unfounded. And this, because this eternal shining forth is synonymous with the coming-forth into being, that is to say the procession, of the Holy Spirit.
ff. 108-110: Here the author of the discourses rejects the teaching of George the Cypriot contained in the sixth chapter of the Tome, according to which it is not the common substance of the Father and the Son that is the cause of the Holy Spirit’s existence, but, instead, the substance with its particular characteristics, that is, the hypostasis. Consequently he denies George the Cypriot’s view that the common substance cannot be the cause of a hypostasis because this (the common substance) is neither “begetting” nor “emitting,” just as, likewise, the characteristic “to beget” or “to emit” pertains to the individual, that is, to the hypostasis, and not to the substance. According to Constantine Meliteniotes, these teachings of George the Cypriot introduce the idea of the existence in the Holy Trinity of some non-hypostasized substance, outside that substance which exists in three hypostases, and transforms the Trinity into a tetrad. Furthermore, it introduces into Christian doctrine Plato’s theory concerning ideas. According to Constantine Meliteniotes, the enhypostasized nature and substance of the Father, through the enhypostasized nature and substance of the Son, is the cause of the existence of the enhypostasized nature and substance of the Holy Spirit.
ff. 110-111: An attempt is made to refute the assertion made by George the Cypriot in his seventh chapter that the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son introduces two causes, even though the latinophrones deny this. The use of the two prepositions from and through testifies, against George the Cypriot, to the differentiation of causes. According to Constantine Meliteniotes, George the Cypriot’s assertion is jejune, because, just as the bestowal, giving, illumination, and manifestation of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son does not introduce two causes, so also, in the same manner, use of the different prepositions from and through, even with respect to the Holy Spirit’s existential procession, does not introduce two causes.
ff. 111-113: Rebutting the contents of the Tome’s eighth chapter, whereby those who teach that the Holy Spirit proceeds, not from the hypostasis of the Father, but from the Father’s nature, are condemned, Constantine Meliteniotes underlines that the Father is cause of the existence of the Holy Spirit “with respect to” both the nature and the hypostasis. The nature and the hypostasis do not admit of division, but only of a conceptual distinction. On account of this, George the Cypriot’s assertion that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the hypostasis of the Father introduces a division between the divine nature and the divine hypostases, it leads to heretical opinions and is opposed to the doctrine of Athanasius the Great, according to which “substance is the cause of substances,” as well as that of St. John of Damascus, who only “in concept” divides the substance from the hypostasis.
ff. 113-117: Here Constantine Meliteniotes criticizes the things contained in the ninth chapter of the Tome, namely, that the participation of the Son in the creation of the world does not imply his participation also in the procession of the Holy Spirit. And this, according to the teaching of the Tome, because, while in the creation of the world the Son is cause of “the things that come into being through him,” in “theology,” that is, with respect to the hypostatic procession of the Holy Spirit, the Father alone is cause. But as for the emission of the Holy Spirit through the Son, this refers to the manifestation and not to his emergence into being.
According to Constantine Meliteniotes, in opposition to the Tome, both with respect to creation and with respect to the existential origination of the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Father is cause — of the divine persons, naturally or productively, of the making of the world, by way of creation. Again, the Son participates, in the case of the Holy Spirit’s procession, “substantially” and “inwardly,” in the case of the world’s creation “effectively” and “outwardly.” This, Meliteniotes stresses, necessitates the indivisibility of the Trinity and this is what was taught by the fathers, in particular, both Athanasius and Gregory of Nyssa. But the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son signifies his being caused through the Son. Again, his illumination or manifestation through the Son is synonymous with his existence through the Son.
ff. 117-120: Meliteniotes, in refuting the Cypriot’s attempts to overturn the opinions of Bekkos, as these attempts are set forth in Chapter Ten of the Tome, stresses that Bekkos, in self-defense, did not maintain that the Theotokos is called “fountain of life” according to the same manner, and in the same sense, that the phrase applies also to the Son. According to Bekkos, the Theotokos is called “fountain of life” because from her was born, in his human nature, the enhypostatic life and Word of God. But the Son is called this, because through him, from the Father, proceeds the Holy Spirit, the preëternal, enhypostatic Life.
In what follows, Constantine Meliteniotes rejects Gregory the Cypriot’s interpretation which holds that the Son is called “fountain of life” because he bestows life upon those who are dead from sin. This view leads to the result that the Son did not exist, in a preëternal way, as fountain of life, but he became such in time, in order to restore to life those deadened by sin. This, however, is plain Arianism. Again, Meliteniotes continues, it is not that, through the Son, the grace and gifts of the Holy Spirit pour forth, as the Cypriot teaches through his Tome, but it is this very Holy Spirit himself who pours forth, and from him, as from a fountain, come the gifts. Again, it is not possible to separate the grace from the Holy Spirit, because it fountains from him and is his energy. This, according to Meliteniotes, is precisely the concept expressed by Chrysostom in his sermon On the Holy Spirit.
ff. 120-122: A rebuttal of the Cypriot’s calumnies contained in Chapter Eleven of his Tome, wherein he claims that those who side with Bekkos interpret the views of the fathers not in harmony with “the right outlook of the Church” and the “traditions” of the fathers, but in mere semblance, in a way contrary to their consistency and contrary to the fathers’ spirit and general teaching.
In opposition to this, Constantine Meliteniotes testifies, that is what the Cypriot does, who doubts the authenticity of certain fathers and “critiques” many of them and some of their writings, thereby coming into conflict with the tradition of the Church, while at the same time he ascribes patristic authority to writers like John Phurnes, Niketas Stethatos, and Michael Psellos, who are nothing more than bearers and representatives of the ecclesiastical tradition.
ff. 122-125: Here Constantine Meliteniotes replies to questions posed by the Tome and substantially takes up again opinions of his expressed earlier. Thus, he again stresses that fathers of the Church like John of Damascus, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria and others conceive the Father to be cause of the Holy Spirit, but through the Son, which indicates that the Son participates in the existential procession of the Holy Spirit. The Father, again, is not cause of the Holy Spirit “by reason of the hypostasis” but “by [reason of] the hypostasis and nature.” Certainly the Father is the primordial cause of the Holy Spirit, but the Son also “mediates” with respect to his “coming forth” into being. Since, according to Meliteniotes, the illumination or manifestation of the Holy Spirit is synonymous with his coming forth into being, it follows that also his hypostatic procession comes about from the Father through the Son.
ff. 125-127: In reply to G. the Cypriot’s accusations against the man, Meliteniotes defends Bekkos and stresses that, as well in his writings as also in his lived teaching, he bases himself upon the teaching of Holy Scripture and of the fathers, interpreting this in an orthodox way. To the contrary, George the Cypriot perverts and changes the sense of Holy Scripture and of the patristic writings. According to them, it is the teachings of George the Cypriot, not those of Bekkos and his friends, that are thorns, tares, weeds, the spawn of vipers and basilisks, procurers of spiritual death, worthy of drawing down the wrath and vengeance of God.
ff. 127-129: In reply, finally, to George the Cypriot’s warning, expressed throughout his Tome, that anyone, whether now or in the future, who accepts union with the Roman Church, or who has been in communion with her formerly and has not repented, shall be cut off from the Orthodox Church, Constantine Meliteniotes stresses the point that G. the Cypriot had himself been in communion with the supporters of union. But after the change in imperial policy he abandoned and renounced this communion, like the prodigal in the gospel passage. Nevertheless, if he repents, he shall become once again gladly received. In what follows, Constantine Meliteniotes compares George the Cypriot to Simon Magus and accuses him, on account of his general attitude and his role in changing the ecclesiastical situation, of heresy, hypocrisy, and self-seeking. He therefore recommends avoiding the heretical teachings of G. the Cypriot and expresses his optimism that the turmoil of persecution and the trial of the Unionists will pass, and ecclesiastical order and truth will be restored once again.
ff. 129-131: Repeating the point that the Unionists, in contrast with the Antiunionists, hold firmly to ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition, Meliteniotes stresses that some fathers, for instance, Theophylact of Bulgaria, deny the procession of the Holy Spirit through the Son, doing this because they are unaware of the statements of the fathers, like Cyril of Alexandria, Athanasius, Epiphanius, etc., who speak on this matter in an opposite way. To the contrary, G. the Cypriot, although he knows these statements, abuses and perverts their teaching and denies the authenticity of a part or the whole of their writings.
ff. 131-131v: In concluding his first discourse, Constantine Meliteniotes expresses once again his firm commitment to his ideas, namely, his opposition to the views and policy of George the Cypriot, and considers the possible consequences of this position. Finally, he makes supplication, requesting divine assistance for a restoration of the truth and of the sound faith.
It is sometimes easier to know what a thing is not than to know what it is. If someone argues that a bullet hit John F. Kennedy in the neck, then veered around and wounded John Connelly, then veered again and landed in the grass fully intact, showing no signs of having hit anybody, then one can know for certain that the Warren Commission case against Lee Harvey Oswald, which rests on this “magic bullet” theory, is fatally flawed. But that does not, by itself, tell you who killed John F. Kennedy, only that it could not have been Oswald, acting alone. Similarly, if two jets strike two steel skyscrapers, and some hours later these two skyscrapers, as well as a third one, collapse at free fall speed into their own footprint, as though the upper part of the buildings received no physical resistance from the thousands of tons of steel and concrete below them, something which defies the laws of physics, then one can fairly confidently conclude that something else was involved in causing these buildings to collapse besides the force of the airplanes and the subsequent fires. When one adds to this anomaly the fact that a hijacker’s passport was purportedly discovered intact at the base of the towers, although the jets which the hijackers purportedly commandeered were completely incinerated in striking the buildings, this gives all the more reason for being skeptical about the official explanation of what happened. It does not, by itself, tell you how the buildings came down or who did it, but it tells you that, as in the case of the JFK assassination, there are strong reasons for doubting the official explanation.
People who notice anomalies like this and who ask questions about them are often made the object of abuse by others, who are offended by the unwillingness of some to accept popular accounts of things at face value. And, no doubt, it is possible at times that official explanations do give a true account of things. A person who doubts everything will doubt also the reality of physical law, which is the basis for asking questions like those I asked above about JFK and 9/11. (Thus, there are some people online who have revived the thesis that the earth is flat, and will try to defend this claim on social media. I must regard them as deluded.) But when people point out anomalies in official explanations of things on the basis of observable fact and known physical laws, and others deride them as insufferable kooks for doing so, then it can also be known that it is not those who ask the questions who are dishonest and immoral, but those who try to shut them up.
Pachymeres: De Michaele Palaeologo V.28
September 4, 2025
Further on the subject of the former Patriarch Joseph and Bekkos.
(Failler, vol. II, pp. 528-530.)
While Joseph was residing at the monastery of Anaplous, a serious illness befell John, the patriarch in charge — that is to say, Bekkos, who had previously been chartophylax. After much suffering he began to improve, and the doctors thought it best to transfer the patient to a place of rest, so that he could be cared for separately, for fear that too much activity would prolong his illness; as he was improving and also taking purgative potions, the Lavra was considered a suitable place for this purpose. On account of this, the emperor wanted to move Joseph; he judged it inappropriate for the patriarch who was no longer in office and the patriarch who was currently in office to live at the same monastery. But John knew Joseph’s cheerful disposition; he also knew that it was almost thanks to his vote that he had received the helm of the Church: indeed, the sovereign, wishing to take his advice, had asked Joseph about the appropriate person, and he had recommended John in preference to the others, because he was both learned and experienced in affairs. For these reasons, therefore, but also because he trusted his peaceful spirit, John prevented his transfer and, with Joseph remaining there, he himself took up residence at the monastery; from that moment on, he began to correspond with Joseph, receiving his replies in a friendly spirit and with great affability. The man was indeed peaceful and cheerful, and was so disgusted with the Church’s action that he was not even ashamed to admit that it was his oath that prevented him from being involved in this matter, because he assumed one should not do more than what had already been done.
While John was staying there, there came into his hands numerous pamphlets published by the sectarians, presenting the Union as dangerous and as leading away from God, and at the same time presenting the Italians as guilty of heresies, heresies, moreover, not veiled and doubtful, but manifest and glaring. They claimed to take their evidence from the Writings, texts of which they continually gathered, even if it was a matter of some arbitrary expression, one might say, that was uttered by the saints and that came to them personally — as for example, with regard to peace, that we must make peace when we do not offend God and that we must make war on the contrary when we risk offending God. Transposing these considerations to a more general level and interspersing their writings with a host of other similar reflections, the dissidents presented the Union as dangerous.
Consequently, Bekkos saw himself obliged to write too and to respond to each of their assertions; but, knowing that scandals arise in this battle of arguments against arguments, where the writer cannot escape the accusation, real or apparent, of transgressing higher things, he kept quiet and promised Xiphilinos, a venerable man who was the church’s chief financial officer, never to write — that is, by way of refutation. “It is to be feared,” he said, “that we shall appear to contravene what is established, whatever we may say. These people who appear to fight and to seek to hold on against ecclesiastical innovation, whatever they say and even if they openly attack established dogmas, have as sufficient excuse their alleged resistance for the good of the Church, and then they could easily affect the undertaking they are trying to subvert. But as for us, even if we put forward most obvious facts, we must be satisfied if not only we do not attract attention to ourselves, but also if we are not accused of overturning what is established.” Such were the words he spoke then when taking in hand the writings of the sectarians; as they contained many fallacies, he wanted to refute them on many of their assertions, but he restrained himself, even if in the end he did not avoid the temptation; he thus fell into a host of evils. So, after continuing his stay for days at the Lavra and making a full recovery, he returned to Constantinople, after saying goodbye to Joseph with joy.
Pachymeres: De Michaele Palaeologo V.6
September 4, 2025
Concerning the emperor’s marriage alliance with the Serbs and the journey which, for that reason, the patriarch made to that country1
(Failler, vol. II, pp. 452-456)
As for his second daughter, Anne, the emperor decided to send her to the kral of Serbia, Stephen Uroš, to marry Uroš’s second son, Milutin, because the first, who had the same name as his father, had been given as a son-in-law to the king of Pannonia. Once the mutual agreements had been concluded, he dispatched the bishop as an ambassador and at the same time sent the young girl with an imposing imperial train. On arriving in Berroia, they decided to send the chartophylax Bekkos to Stephen Uroš and, with him, the metropolitan of Traianoupolis Kondoumnes. The empress had ordered the chartophylax to take the lead and to find out more clearly about the Serbs’ way of life and government; she was preparing a considerable train for her daughter with all the variety of imperial luxury. It was therefore incumbent upon Bekkos to take the initiative to inform himself and to inform others before the patriarch reached Serbia. When they arrived, not only did they see nothing of the sort of domestic attendants that would befit the most ordinary state, but moreover Uroš, seeing their household staff and their familiars, and especially the group of eunuchs, inquired as to what they could possibly be. When he learned from them that it was an imperial retinue and that these people followed the princess to serve her, the kral, indignant, immediately said: “Ah! Alas! What is this? We are not used to this kind of life.” And he spoke, at the same time pointing to the poorly dressed young woman who was busy spinning, and said, gesturing toward her: “This is how we treat young women.” And indeed, their life was one of absolute simplicity and poverty, to the point that they had to live by hunting and plundering.
When the envoys returned and gave him an accurate report of what they had seen and heard, they broke the courage of the patriarch and his entourage, and the people themselves feared that they might unexpectedly fall into bad straits; they could not trust men who were indifferent to shame and blame. So some went ahead, walking slowly and being wary of everything. When they reached Achrida, they left the princess, her familiars and all the service staff to rest there; as for themselves, they sent messengers to Uroš and advanced slowly on their way. They had reached Pologos, which these people called, according to their language, “the sacred wood of God,” and were already on their way to Lipainion, when an ambassador was sent from there, the mesazon2 of these people, named George; he was ambushed and mistreated by men hiding in ambush. When they heard about these attacks, the patriarch and his people were terrified; but then they began to fear, distinctly and seriously, that some fatal blow would be dealt against them, because those who thus ambushed even their own people and, what is more, their notables and chiefs, would certainly spare foreigners even less. They also learned from George that the realities of the embassy were in total disagreement with the goal pursued by the sovereigns and, moreover, conditions were altered. It was indeed also in his capacity as future ruler following his father that they had accepted the second son for a marriage alliance, since the eldest son, Stephen, had broken his leg and was not involved in government; but George, hiding behind certain other considerations, equivocated about the terms agreed to. They also learned that the conditions of the road were, moreover, difficult, as he himself showed by what he had endured. As the empress’s orders and demands were so severe as to make him reflect on the situation, the chartophylax took it upon himself to discourage the patriarch and the archons from advancing any further, for the settlement of the alliance was not progressing effectively and in the right direction, but in a different way, wrong and dangerous.
They had reached this point when another unfortunate incident occurred, leading them to suspect that, if they went any further, they would have to face the worst. In fact, the inhabitants of the country, traveling in groups, often approached those who had stopped there; when they saw that they had come from afar, their plan was to observe their property, so as to emerge at night to plunder them. This is what took place shortly thereafter; indeed, coming silently at night, they stole their horses and disappeared at full speed. In the morning, at dawn, they realized what had happened and searched for the culprits, but the investigators’ efforts were in vain: they could learn nothing from the inhabitants, who concealed their own, and there was no point in actively pursuing the search and investigation, for fear that something worse would happen, because they had fallen among people who looked like men, but were as wild as animals. However, as they were unable to move, they resorted to the help of the local chiefs; in exchange for the excellent horses they had lost, they received local ones, which were in no way comparable, and they decided to turn back. As the decision seemed good and more advantageous than disadvantageous, they put the stern forward, as they say; dashing towards the rear, they reached Achrida. From there they went to Thessalonica with the princess and, judging this marriage, the agreements, and the alliance to be worthless, they returned to the emperor.
1054 and the Crab Nebula
August 28, 2025
I learned something today. On July 4, 1054, twelve days before the event that is usually taken as marking the schism between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, a supernova appeared in the sky. The supernova was visible during the day for the next three weeks, and at night for nearly two years; it was noted by Chinese and Japanese astronomers, and a record of it was made within the Islamic world and at a site in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. The remnants of that supernova constitute the Crab Nebula. It makes me wonder: What were Humbert and Cerularius thinking when they excommunicated each other, while the sky itself gave an omen concerning the explosive nature of what they were doing?
“These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide. In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked ‘twixt son and father.” Gloucester, in King Lear, Act I, sc. ii.
By NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University) – HubbleSite: gallery, release., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=516106
Mother Agapia Stephanopoulos interviewed by Tucker Carlson
August 13, 2025
I urge everyone who reads this blog to watch this video. Watch it to the end. I assure you it will be time well spent.
A brief notice
July 16, 2025
This is to notify readers that I have decided to publish to this blog my full translation of John Bekkos’s work De pace ecclesiastica, or On Peace. A link to it will be found on the sidebar, among the pages; or, if you prefer, it will be found here.
This work is an important historical essay, in which Bekkos defends the union of the churches solely on the basis of the facts surrounding an outbreak of schism that occurred during the days of Patriarch Photius. By presenting extracts from various letters, Bekkos essays to show that Photius knew about the differences between Latin and Greek ecclesiastical customs, but made them a pretext for division only after Pope Nicholas I finally decided against his claim to be the rightful Patriarch of Constantinople. Bekkos also argues that, after his rejection by Popes Nicholas I and Adrian II, when a reconciliation occurred at the Council of 879-880 and his claims to be the rightful Patriarch were accepted by Pope John VIII, Photius dropped all his hostile accusations against the Church of Rome. Towards the end of the essay, Bekkos argues that Rome deserves some of the blame for the outbreak of hostilities, because of the excessive violence of its reaction to Photius; there was, he says, “an impassioned and muddied impulse on both sides.”
Much debate has occurred over the question whether Bekkos had at his disposal some different version of the acts of the Council of 879-880 than what has come down to us. He does not mention Pope John’s agreement that the acts of the Council of 869 be repealed and that the text of the Creed be preserved unchanged; these are arguably the main factors that led Photius to view Rome in a different light. Still, in this essay, Bekkos makes a plausible case that some of the things for which Photius publicly faulted Rome after his bid to be recognized as Patriarch of Constantinople was rejected were things that he had earlier identified as legitimate cultural differences. He gives strong reasons for thinking that, if Rome had accepted Photius’s claim to be Patriarch, Photius almost certainly would not have raised the dogmatic issue that eventually divided the churches.
Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae
June 4, 2025
Below is provided a list of links to an old but still useful resource for Byzantine history, the series Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. I downloaded this list some years ago from the following link; it was evidently put together by a faculty member of Loyola University in Chicago named M. Hooker. The link to the original page at Loyola is now broken, but the links to the online texts seem to be all still intact, so perhaps Prof. Hooker will not mind if I republish his work here.
Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae
[Numbering of volumes differs in different libraries: I have ordered these according to the volume number printed in the University of California’s copy, where such a copy is viewable; in brackets, unbolded, appears the volume numbers according to the University of Cincinnati‘s system.]
1 [1]: Agathias, ed. Niebuhr (Bonn, 1828) [link] [alt. link]
2: Anna Comnena, ed. Schopen, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1839) [link]
3: Anna Comnena, ed. A. Rifferscheid, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1878) [link] [alt. link]
4 [36]: Michael Attaliota, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1853) [link] [alt. link]
5 [23]: Ioannes Cantacuzenus, ed. Schopen, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1828) [link]
6 [24]: Ioannes Cantacuzenus, ed. Schopen, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1831) [link]
7 [25]: Ioannes Cantacuzenus, ed. Schopen, vol. 3 (Bonn, 1832) [link] [alt. link]
[8?] [13]: Georgius Cedrenus, ed. Bekker, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1838) [link]
9 [14]: Georgius Cedrenus, ed. Bekker, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1839) [link]
10 [32]: Laonicus Chalcondyles, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1843) [link]
[11?] [4]: Chronicon Paschale, ed. Dindorf, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1832) [link]
[12?] [5]: Chronicon Paschale, ed. Dindorf, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1832) [link]
13 [26]: Ioannes Cinnamus, Nicephorus Bryennius, ed. Meineke (Bonn, 1836) [link] [alt. link]
14 [15]: Codinus Curopalates, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1839) [link] [alt. link]
15 [16]: Georgius Codinus, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1843) [link]
16 [7]: Constantine Porphyrogenitus, ed. Bekker, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1829) [link]
[17?] [8]: Constantine Porphyrogenitus, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1830) [link]
[18?] [9]: Constantine Porphyrogenitus, ed. Bekker vol. 3 [+ Hierocles, Synecdemus] (Bonn, 1840) [link]
19 [10]: Dexippus, Eunapius, Petrus Patricius, etc., ed. Bekker and Niebuhr (Bonn, 1829) [link]
20 [11]: Ducas, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1834) [link]
21 [12]: Ephraemius, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1840) [link]
22 [20]: Georgius Syncellus, Nicephorus Cp., ed. Dindorf, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1829) [link]
23 [21]: Georgius Syncellus, Nicephorus Cp., ed. Dindorf (Bonn, 1829) [link]
24 [37]: Michael Glycas, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1836) [link] [alt. link]
[25?] [38]: Nicephorus Gregoras, ed. Schopen, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1829) [link] [alt. link]
26 [39]: Nicephorus Gregoras, ed. Schopen, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1830) [link] [alt. link]
[27?] [40]: Nicephorus Gregoras, ed. Bekker, vol. 3 (Bonn, 1855) [link]
28 [22]: Historia Politica et Patriarchica Constantinopoleos; Epirotica (Bonn, 1849) [link] [alt. link]
29 [27]: Ioannes Lydus, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1837) [link] [alt. link]
30 [33]: Leo Diaconus etc., ed. Hase (Bonn, 1828) [link]
31 [34]: Leo Grammaticus, Eustathius, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1842) [link] [alt. link]
32 [28]: Ioannes Malalas, ed. Dindorf (Bonn, 1831) [link] [alt. link]
33 [6]: Constantinus Manasses, Ioel, Georgius Acropolita, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1837) [link] [alt. link]
34 [35]: Merobaudes, Corippus, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1836) [link] [alt. link]
35 [41]: Nicetas Choniates, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1835) [link]
36 [17]: Georgius Pachymeres, ed. Bekker, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1835) [link]
37 [18]: Georgius Pachymeres, ed. Bekker, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1835) [link] [alt. link]
38 [42]: Paulus Silentiarius, George Pisida, Nicephorus Cpolitanus, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1837) [link]
39 [19]: Georgius Phrantzes, Ioannes Cananus, Ioannes Anagnostes, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1828) [link]
40 [43]: Procopius, ed. Dindorf, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1833) [link]
41 [44]: Procopius, ed. Dindorf, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1833) [link]
42 [45]: Procopius, ed. Dindorf, vol. 3 (Bonn, 1838) [link]
43 [46]: Theophanes Confessor, ed. Classen, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1839) [link]
44 [47]: Theophanes Confessor, ed. Classen, vol. 2 [+ Anastasius, ed. Bekker] (Bonn, 1841) [link] [alt. link]
45 [48]: Theophanes Continuatus, Ioannes Cameniata, Symeon Magister, Georgius Monachus, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1838) [link] [alt. link]
46 [49]: Theophylactus Simocatta, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1834) [link]
47 [29]: Ioannes Zonaras, ed. Pinder, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1841) [link]
[48?] [30]: Ioannes Zonaras, ed. Pinder, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1844) [link]
49 [31]: Ioannes Zonaras, ed. Pinder, vol. 3 (Bonn, 1897) [link] [alt. link]
50 [50]: Zosimus, ed. Bekker (Bonn, 1837) [link] [alt. link]
Venance Grumel: St. Thomas and the doctrine of the Greeks on the Procession of the Holy Spirit
June 4, 2025
An article by the learned Byzantinist Venance Grumel (1890-1967); it discusses St. Thomas Aquinas’s theology of the Holy Spirit’s procession, giving especial attention to how Aquinas handles Greek objections to the Latin doctrine. In the notes, I have supplied some links to the relevant documents. The essay is published here in English translation because I think it is still worth reading after 99 years; its publication should not be taken as implying that I agree with everything the author says or how he says it.
Translation of V. Grumel, “Saint Thomas et la doctrine des Grecs sur la procession du Saint-Esprit,” Échos d’Orient 25 (1926), 257-280.
We sometimes have illusions about how sincere Greeks made their dogmatic union with Rome at the Council of Lyons (1274) and after it. We speak as if they had renounced a heresy or embraced a dogma they did not know. The truth is different: the Latins, having added the Filioque to the Symbol of Faith, were accused by the Greeks of going against the teaching of the Fathers and the tradition of the Church and of introducing two principles into the Trinity instead of one. For those Greeks who were not blinded by political passion, it was a matter of investigating whether the crime of which the Latins were accused was real, whether the Latins were indeed the heretics they were said to be. And it was in this sense that the Peace of Lyons was made. What was the attitude of the Latin West? Accused of heresy and scandalized by the opposition of the Greeks to the Filioque, it accused in turn, identifying its formula with orthodoxy itself and concluding that the rejection of one implied the rejection of the other. It did not suspect that there could be another way of thinking that maintained the dogma in other words. There was thus a serious misunderstanding between the two great parts of the Christian world, in which everyone participated: the Latins who wanted to force the Greeks to use their language, and the Greeks who accused the Latins who used theirs of heresy. It is fair to add, however, that since the Greeks were the first to attack the Latin formula, the Latins were entitled, if not to impose it (I exclude here the supreme authority of the Church), at least to demand formal recognition of its legitimacy.
Our aim in these few pages is to explain how the greatest Doctor of the Middle Ages, Saint Thomas Aquinas, dealt with the Filioque problem, and how, without absolving himself entirely of any terminological misunderstanding, he was able, while defending the dogma and the Latin formula, to do justice to the traditional Greek formula: the role of unifier and conciliator that suited his peaceful and serene soul. He almost fulfilled this role at the Council of Lyons. We know that Gregory X had summoned the most famous theologians of the time: St. Bonaventure and Blessed Albert the Great went there; Blessed <p. 258> Peter of Tarentaise was already there as Archbishop of Lyons. St. Thomas was to be among them and would have been the most brilliant light of the august assembly had he not died suddenly on the way. The Church needs no one. Like the Bishop of Hippo on the eve of the Council of Ephesus, Bro. Thomas died on the eve of the Council of Lyons. But his thoughts are not unknown to us, and by reading his writings, we can imagine how he would have fulfilled the general expectations of the Latins and satisfied the fundamental mentality of the Greeks regarding the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
The works in which St. Thomas deals ex professo with the question that concerns us are the following: 1° Contra errores Graecorum (1263). This treatise, composed at the request of Urban IV, teaches us that the procession of the Holy Spirit was the main point of division between the two Churches. It is, in fact, devoted almost entirely to the Trinitarian question and deals only in passing with the other controversial points: the primacy of the Pope, unleavened bread, and purgatory. However, it is not in this work that we find the most interesting evidence of the Angelic Doctor’s broad-mindedness. 2° The treatise Contra Gentes (1258-1260), which contains two chapters (xxiv and xxv of book IV) on the Filioque question. 3° Question X of De Potentia (1263) has two long articles on the same subject. 4° The Commentary “in I Sententiarum” (1264), which devotes questions XI and XII to it, and finally 5° the Summa Theologica, where this question is dealt with in the Ia pars (1269-1270), q. xxxvi, art. 2, 3 and 4.
Do not expect to find here a complete exposition and development of St. Thomas’s entire doctrine and all his proofs concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit. That would take us too far and go beyond the scope of this study. We will confine ourselves first to presenting and examining our Doctor’s response to certain difficulties that constituted and still constitute the main objections of the Greeks, and then to seeking and noting his understanding of the Eastern formulas expressing the dogma of this procession.
1. Saint Thomas and the objections of the Greeks.
A first objection raised by the Greeks is this: to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son is to say that the Father is the principle of the Holy Spirit and that the Son is also the principle of the Holy Spirit; <p. 259> and since the Father and the Son are two distinct persons, it follows that the Father and the Son are two principles of the Holy Spirit. This objection obviously presupposes that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son insofar as they are distinct from one another: in that case, they would indeed be two principles. However, in his commentary “in I Sententiarum” (1), St. Thomas, without seeming to have the Greeks in mind, has an article entitled: “Utrum Spiritus Sanctus procedat a Patre et Filio in quantum sunt unum?” and he raises, among other things, the following objection, which is similar to the one just presented and which must even be considered its metaphysical foundation:
Actus sunt suppositorum. Si ergo spirare est actus Patris et Filii, oportet quod sit actus eorum in quantum sunt supposita distincta. Sed Spiritus Sanctus procedit ab eis per actum spirationis. Ergo procedat ab eis in quantum sunt personae distinctae (2).
His answer applies perfectly to the difficulty faced by the Greeks. He distinguishes two original relationships in every act: one to the agent, the other to the principle of action. The agent is the subject; the principle of action is the substantial or accidental form through which it acts. To say that spiration belongs to the Father and the Son insofar as they are distinct subjects is correct if we mean only that the Father and the Son from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds are distinct from one another; it is not correct if we mean the principle of the act or of spiration: for then it must be said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both insofar as they are one. For since spiration is a simple and single act by which the one and simple person of the Holy Spirit proceeds, it is necessary that there be something in the Father and the Son that is the principle of this act. What, then, is this unique source of spiration in the Father and the Son, this unique principle of the Holy Spirit? Is it the divine nature? Is it a property? St. Augustine, in declaring that the Father and the Son are one principle, and not two principles of the Holy Spirit, adds these words:
Sicut Pater et Filius unus Deus, et ad creaturam relative unus creator et unus Dominus, sic relative ad Spiritum Sanctum unum principium (3).
<p. 260> If this explanation were to be taken in all its rigor, it would follow that it is immediately by virtue of their unity of essence that the Father and the Son are a principle of the Holy Spirit. Saint Anselm also develops the same thought as Saint Augustine (4). The Greeks rejected this explanation, saying that since the divine essence is common to the three Persons of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit would then have to proceed from himself, which is impossible. St. Thomas devotes a special article to this problem: Utrum Spiritus Sanctus procedat a Patre et Filio in quantum sunt unum in natura (5)? Before answering, he presents the reasons for and against the affirmative. Among the latter is precisely that of the Greeks, in these terms:
In virtute divinae essentiae communicat non tantum Filius, sed etiam Spiritus sanctus. Si igitur Pater et Filius spirant Spiritum Sanctum in quantum sunt unum in natura, oportet quod etiam Spiritus sanctus simul cum eis spiret seipsum, quod est impossibile (6).
And here is how Saint Thomas answers the question:
The Father and the Son spirate the Holy Spirit, insofar as they are one in the power of spiration, in quantum sunt unum in potentia spirativa. The power of spiration, continues the Angelic Doctor, is a certain middle between essence and property, because it designates essence in the manner of a property. The notional act, in fact, comes from the essence, not in the sense that the essence is the agent, but in the sense that it is that by which the act is produced. Thus, generation comes from the essence, not insofar as it is essence, but insofar as it is fatherhood… Similarly, spiration comes from essence, not in the sense that essence spirates, but in the sense that it contains a certain notion that is common to the Father and the Son, and which is called common spiration: and thus the power of spiration signifies essence conceived as a property.
In summary, according to our way of thinking, we can say that the unity of nature between the Father and the Son is the remote reason, and the common spirative power is the proximate reason why they are one in the production of the Holy Spirit. This response from St. Thomas is a welcome advance, or rather a welcome clarification, to the explanation given by St. Augustine and St. Anselm.
The Angelic Doctor takes his analysis even further and wonders whether the common property that the Father and the Son have <p. 261> of “spirating” the Holy Spirit allows us to say that they are one single spirator: Utrum Pater et Filius sint unus spirator (7)? I do not know whether St. Thomas was thinking of the Greeks at the time, but this was to pose the question of the single principle in the most precise manner possible. His answer on this point varied somewhat. In his Commentary on the Sentences, he states that it must be said that the Father and the Son are not one spirator, but two spirators of the Holy Spirit. The reason for this is that “the act receives its number from its subjects; hence the verb, which signifies substance in the manner of an act, is said of several persons in the plural, although the essence is one, as in St. John, x, 30: Ego et Pater unum sumus. Now, the act is signified in the verb, in the participle, and in the verbal noun; but nevertheless the participle is closer to substance than the verb, and the verbal noun closer than the participle or the verb. And that is why we cannot say that the Father and the Son spirate [in the singular] the Holy Spirit, or that they are spirating (spirans), or that they are a spirator; but (only) that they spirate [in the plural] and that they are spirating, and that they are spirators; and although the act by which they spirate is one, nevertheless, according to how each of these terms approaches more closely the meaning of the act, it is less apt to be predicated in the singular. And let no one object to the expression unus creator applied to the three divine Persons, for creation is the act of the three Persons, not insofar as they are distinct, but insofar as they are united in essence, since, if we remove the distinction between the Persons from our minds, creation remains: while spiration is an act proper to several subjects insofar as they are distinct. There is no contradiction here with what St. Thomas affirmed above concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son inquantum sunt unum. This last expression meant that the principle of spiration was one and the same in the Father and the Son. What is affirmed here is that the plurality and distinction of the two Persons is essential to spiration, so that they cannot be removed by abstraction without at the same time removing spiration itself. The notion of divine essence is sufficient for the notion of creation; it is not sufficient for the notion of spiration. We can therefore say, and indeed must say, that the Father and the Son are two spirators of the Holy Spirit.
<p. 262> In his Summa Theologica, the fruit of more mature thinking, Saint Thomas corrects this initial response. After restating it, he adds: “It seems better” to speak differently and “to say that spirating being an adjective and spirator a noun, we can say that the Father and the Son are two who spirate [lit., two spirating], because of the plurality of the subjects, but not that they are two spirators, because of the single spiration. This is because adjectives derive their number from their subjects, but nouns derive their number from themselves, according to the form signified” (8). Since the form signified by the word spiration is one in the Father and the Son, we must say that they are only one spirator. This way of expressing it is certainly more felicitous than the other, which, in a controversy with the Greeks, would not have been without serious drawbacks.
A second objection raised by the Greeks, closely linked to the first, is this: The property of producing the Holy Spirit can belong only to the Father, for in the Trinity there is only that which is common to all and that which is proper to each. There is no middle ground between the essence that belongs to the three Persons and the property that constitutes each of them. The property of producing the Holy Spirit can belong only to one Person, namely the Father, who is the principle in the Trinity. This objection is found in De Potentia, q. x, a. 4, and briefly in Ia pars, q. xxxvi, art. 4, obj. 1, where it is said that the same property cannot belong to two subjects. St. Thomas responds to this metaphysical aspect of the difficulty by saying that nothing prevents the same property from being in several, provided that they have the same nature (9). As for the axiom that everything in God is either common or proper, essential or personal, Saint Thomas distinguishes two kinds of proper: one absolute, which is proper to only one, such as being laughable for man, and the other relative, such as being reasonable, which is proper to man by comparison with the horse, although it is also found in the angel. There is therefore something in God that is common to the three Persons, such as being God and other similar things; something that is proper in the strict sense, which is appropriate only to one Person; and something that is relatively proper, such as spirating the Holy Spirit is proper to the Father and the <p. 263> Son in relation to the Holy Spirit: for it is necessary to establish this proper attribute in God, even if the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, because esse ab alio still remains proper to the Son and the Holy Spirit in comparison with the Father (10). This answer could not, of course, satisfy the Greeks, who would admit only strictly personal properties in God; but it at least sufficiently defended the position of the Latins and prevented it from being accused of contradiction. A priori, it cannot be decided whether there are only strictly personal properties in the Trinity or whether there are also common properties. Even esse ab alio, which St. Thomas gives as a property common to the Son and the Holy Spirit, cannot be cited as an example, because the Greeks could argue, and in fact did argue, that this esse ab alio is a common notion that does not express a single property, but in reality covers two distinct properties, the gigni and the procedere. It is therefore only by establishing elsewhere the procession of the Holy Spirit ex Filio that we can admit into the Trinity a property common to two Persons, and likewise we can only reject it if we prove elsewhere that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son. The formula: in God everything is essential or personal, everything is common or proper, understood in the strict sense of the Greeks, can only come as a conclusion and not as proof of their denial of the Filioque. Similarly, St. Thomas’s response to this objection of the Greeks has force only when linked to his entire doctrine on the procession of the Holy Spirit.
Let us go further and address what we believe to be the original opposition, the source of all others, between the two theses at issue: I am referring to the particular conception that the Greeks have of the distinction that must be made between generation and procession. For them, this distinction is the origin of everything. It has its raison d’être in itself. Generation and procession are distinguished by themselves, primordially: seipsis distinguuntur generatio et processio. In his Commentary on the Sentences, St. Thomas does not touch on this problem. In the Summa contra Gentiles, he bases the doctrine of the Filioque theologically on the necessity of distinguishing between generation and procession, and consequently between the Son and the Holy Spirit: ad hoc ut <p. 264> Spiritus Sanctus distinguatur a Filio, necesse est quod sit a Filio (11). It is in the treatise De Potentia, q. x, that Saint Thomas develops this question at length. An extensive article is devoted to it: Utrum Spiritus remaneret a Filio distinctus si ab eo non procederet (12)? Saint Anselm had taught that only the difference in processions distinguished the Son from the Holy Spirit: one is generation and the other is not (13). What Anselm says, replies our Doctor, is quite true: the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinguished only by their difference in procession; but, he adds, this difference can only exist if the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son (14). The reason he gives is based on the principle that any personal distinction in God can only come from the opposition of relations. If there is no relative opposition between the Son and the Holy Spirit, nothing distinguishes them any longer. And since there is no relative opposition in God except that based on origin, we must admit, in order to maintain the distinction between the Son and the Holy Spirit, that one proceeds from the other. St. Thomas anticipates an objection here. I have not examined whether it was raised against him in his time: it is found in certain later scholastics, and even in the Capita syllogistica (15) of Mark of Ephesus against the Filioque dogma. Here it is:
Let it not be said, he said, that to make this distinction between Persons, it is sufficient to have the opposition between affirmation and negation: for such opposition presupposes distinction, but does not cause it, since every being is distinguished from another or from others by something that is inherent in it as substance or as accident; for this not being that is due to their being distinct. Similarly, it is clear that the truth of any negative proposition, if it concerns beings that exist, is based on the truth of an affirmative proposition: thus, the truth of the negative proposition “the Ethiopian is not white” is based on the truth of the affirmative proposition “the Ethiopian is black.” It follows from this that any difference that is constituted by the opposition of affirmation and negation must be reduced to the difference of an affirmative opposition. Consequently, it cannot be that the first reason for the distinction between the Son and the Holy Spirit is that the Son is begotten, not spirated, and the Holy Spirit is spirated, not begotten, unless we presuppose between generation and spiration, <p. 265> and between the Son and the Holy Spirit, the distinction caused by the opposition of two affirmations, namely, that the Son is spirating, and that the Holy Spirit is spirated (16).
Undoubtedly, the doctrine that St. Thomas has just expounded is not necessary for the maintenance of the dogma, and that is why some scholastics have been able to attack it, reserving the right to prove the Filioque by Scripture and Tradition; but we believe, and the manner in which the Orthodox contradict it confirms us in this belief, that its theological value touches on the most intimate mystery of the Holy Trinity, that to reject it is to close one’s eyes to the dogma and abandon a strong position in the controversy with the Orthodox. To yield to them on this point is to strengthen them in everything else and to introduce a crack in the block of Catholic defense. No doubt the argument in question will not convince them, but to escape it they will have only one recourse, an extreme one: that of appealing to the ineffability of the mystery of the procession of the Holy Spirit. We know that they readily resort to this. On this ground, of course, they can no longer be reached.
A final group of objections can be summarized as follows: The Holy Spirit proceeds perfectly from the Father; he does not have to proceed from the Son, and to say that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Son is to teach that the procession a Patre is imperfect. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit cannot proceed from the Son without contradicting his infinite simplicity, which requires a single principle. St. Thomas repeatedly refuted this objection, which stems from a false conception of how the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is affirmed. He responds as follows in his Commentary on the Sentences:
It must be said that the Father spirates the Holy Spirit in all perfection. But since all perfection of the Father that is not contrary to his nature is communicated to the Son, for nothing distinguishes them except their relationship of origin, it is necessary that, just as he communicates to him the perfection of divinity, he also communicates to him the perfection of breathing. Consequently, it is not because of the Father’s imperfection that the Son spirates, but because of the perfection of the Son, who has all the perfection of the Father. Otherwise, one could also conclude that the Son is not God or that he does not create (17).
<p. 266> The reply in the Summa is even more precise:
From the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds in all perfection from the Father, it does not follow that it is superfluous to say that He proceeds from the Son, but it is absolutely necessary. For there is only one virtue for the Father and for the Son; and everything that is from the Father must necessarily be from the Son, unless this is contrary to the property of filiation (18).
As for the simplicity of the Holy Spirit, it is guaranteed by the unity of essence of the Father and the Son (19), from which their unique spirative virtue derives.
These are undoubtedly not all of the theological objections of the Greeks against the Filioque, but they are the main ones. The others can be traced back to them or are based on them. Saint Thomas does not present them as coming from the Greeks; thus, they appear in his writing in a more scholastic form, but the solution he provides can also apply to them. In his work Contra errores Graecorum, he leaves aside theological arguments and bases his position solely on Scripture and Tradition, authorities commonly accepted and claimed by both sides. We will refrain from examining the arguments he draws from them, and will content ourselves with briefly outlining the solutions he offers to the difficulties raised by the Greeks in this area.
To the scriptural argument based on the Johannine text, Spiritum veritatis qui a Patre procedit, Saint Thomas gives the common response, namely, that everything said of the Father in Scripture, even in an exclusive manner, must be said of the Son, except when it concerns that which causes the distinction between persons. This principle is corroborated by traditional texts: that of St. John, xvii, 3: Haec est vita aeterna, ut cognoscant te solum Deum verum; that of St. Matthew, xi, 27: Nemo novit Filium nisi Pater, et nemo novit Patrem nisi Filius et cui voluerit Filius revelare. The first does not exclude the Son or the Holy Spirit from true divinity, and the second does not exclude the Holy Spirit from knowledge of the Father and the Son. To the objection drawn from the prohibition of the Council of Ephesus to introduce a new symbol or to add to that of Nicaea, our doctor replies that this symbol undoubtedly contains the Catholic faith sufficiently, but that because of heresies, subsequent councils had to explain it. What the councils could do, the <p. 267> Roman Pontiff, to whom the councils are subject, can also do. This response, which was peremptory in a scholastic teaching chair, was ineffective on the Greeks. St. Thomas adds another, which hits them harder. The Council of Chalcedon, he said, approved the synodal letters of Saint Cyril to Nestorius: now, in one of them, it is written that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Son, as he also proceeds from the Father. No doubt St. Cyril said flows: profluit, and not proceeds, but that does not matter, because proceeding is the most general term for expressing origin, and it follows that what is sent, or flows, or comes out, necessarily proceeds” (20). It should be noted here that the version used by St. Thomas was more accurate than the Vulgate, which has: procedit, because the Greek text reads: παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ προχεῖται, καθάπερ ἀμέλει ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ πατρός (21).
As for patristic objections, only one specific objection is found in St. Thomas, and it appears several times. It is the famous text of St. John Damascene: Spiritum Sanctum ex Patre dicimus, et Spiritum Patris nominamus; ex Filio autem Spiritum non dicimus, Spiritum vero Filii nominamus (22). In his Commentary on the Sentences, Saint Thomas severely judges this statement by the Greek doctor: Ad tertium dicendum, quod Damascenus in hac parte non creditur. However, he adds, he does not deny that it has to do with the Son, but he says that he does not concede it, because among them the matter was still in doubt (23). In De Potentia (24) and then in the Summa Theologica (25), he explains how this error does not originate with Saint John Damascene, but goes back to Theodoret, who attributes to Saint Cyril words that he did not say. St. John Damascene merely followed Theodoret’s opinion. Therefore, we should not dwell on his opinion: eius sententiae non est standum. Saint Thomas therefore believed in Saint John Damascene’s error. However, he does not condemn it absolutely: he reports the judgment of several who think that, if Damascene does not confess that the Holy Spirit is from the Son (a Filio), at least he does not deny it either by virtue of his words (26). In another <p. 268> passage of De Potentia, he says that Damascene, by confessing that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, gives to understand that his origin comes in some way from the Son, dat intelligere quod origo Spiritus aliquo modo sit a Filio (27).
The Greek doctor’s text raises only a question of terminology. Saint Thomas, as we shall see in the second part, recognized that there could be a difference in terminology in the expression of the dogma on the procession of the Holy Spirit. It is surprising that he did not apply this view to the text in question. What is even more surprising is that he did not use another expression familiar to the Greek doctor to explain it: the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father through the Son, ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς δι᾽ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορευόμενον. There is one passage in particular by this author that greatly embarrassed the enemies of union after the Second Council of Lyons, where the Father is called: Λόγου γεννήτωρ καὶ διὰ Λόγου προβολεὺς ἐκφαντορικοῦ Πνεύματος. This text, like the previous one, is found in the same work, a few pages away from the one that served as an objection (28). How is it that St. Thomas does not use it? Was he unaware of it? This problem is undoubtedly related to that of the patristic sources of the holy doctor. Did he know some of them, and St. John Damascene in particular, only through anthologies? Or did he only have access to truncated translations? We pose the question without resolving it.
2. Differences in terminology
We are well aware of how differences in expression within the same doctrine caused confusion in the early centuries in the exposition of the principal mysteries of our religion. If this difficulty existed among users of the same language, it was naturally increased among theologians of different languages. Therefore, when rendering the exposition of a dogma from one language into another, one should not copy the same expressions exactly, but choose terms of equivalent usage. Saint Thomas was well aware of this rule: multa quae bene sonant in lingua graeca, he said, in latina fortassis bene non sonant, propter quod eamdem fidei veritatem <269> aliis verbis Latini confitentur et Graeci, and after citing the example of Trinitarian terminology, where the Greek hypostasis is rendered persona, and not substantiel, he adds: Nec est dubium quin etiam simile sit in aliis multis, and formulates in these terms the golden rule of all translation: Ad officium boni translatoris pertinet ut, ea quae sunt catholicae fidei transferens, servet sententiam, mutet autem modum loquendi secundum proprietatem linguae in quam transfert (29). To what extent did St. Thomas observe this rule? We can answer that he complied with it enough to avoid giving a heterodox meaning to expressions whose Latin rendering was reprehensible, but not enough to do them full justice.
A) The terms. — i° Αἰτία — causa. The term is commonly used by the Greek Fathers to express the relationship of origin of the Father to the other two persons. The Latin translators, and St. Thomas after them, rendered it by causa. While reverently expounding this expression, our Doctor finds excellent reasons for rejecting it from Latin usage and preferring the word principium, which has the advantage, among others, of expressing consubstantiality (30).
Apud Latinos non est consuetum quod Pater dicatur causa Filii vel Spiritus Sancti, sed solum principium vel auctor.
Auctor: Saint Thomas found the exact word that best conveys the meaning of αἰτία, and it should be noted that when he wants to express in an abstract way the original rank that fatherhood gives to the Father over the Son, he uses auctoritas instead of principalitas, which would be called principium. One of the reasons why he prefers the term principle to any other when applying it to the Father is its breadth: for it is an axiom of our doctor that, when formulating dogma, it is better to choose expressions that retain their proper meaning and, for that reason, to take them from among the most common possible: the most extensive concepts are the most suitable for application to God. Now, causa is a term <p. 270> whose meaning is so restricted that it must be diverted here into an improper sense, if we do not want it to mean heresy. The axiom must be weighed. One may wonder, in particular, whether it does not fail to render sufficiently the whole richness of the divine being. In the present case, and without giving the word the meaning of our causa, it is clear that it expresses more precisely what is appropriate to the Father than the word principium. The latter, too general, evokes only the idea of beginning, in whatever order. Αἰτία is precise and means principium existendi, ratio existendi: it indicates an activity that is the source of existence, and when used in the form αἴτιος, as is frequently done in Greek, it means the activity of a person, or rather a person who is the active source of existence. We have said that this cannot be better rendered than by the Latin term auctor.
2° Ἀρχή — principium. Saint Thomas gives the word principium a broader meaning than Greek theologians. By this term, they mean a very first origin, which has no origin, at least in the same order. For Saint Thomas, the same thing can be of a principle and be a principle: esse principium non est contrarium ei quod est esse a principio, nisi intelligatur respectu eiusdem (31), and even, after explaining how the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son, he categorically states: Semper illud per quod aliquid producitur est principium eius quod producitur (32). This single difference in the meaning of “ἀρχή” and “principium” gives us an idea of the difficulty that Greeks and Latins had in understanding each other.
3° Ἐξ — ab. Saint Thomas usually translates the idea expressed by the Greeks with ἐξ or ἐκ as ab. It seems that this is his technical term for expressing procession. Unfortunately, he does not indicate the Greek expression to which he is referring. When he wants to talk about it, he does so through the Latin a, and moreover, what he says fits perfectly with the Greek particle ἐκ.
Dicitur ( Spiritus ) proprie procedere a Patre, maxime cum haec praepositio « a » apud Graecos notet relationem ad primam originem : unde apud eos non dicitur, quod lacus sit a rivo, sed quod est a fonte; et inde est etiam quod non concedunt quod Spiritus Sanctus sit a Filio, sed a Patre (33).
<p. 271> This is indeed the most common meaning of ἐκ among the Greeks. Apud eos, on the other hand, indicates that, apud nos, the preposition a does not have the same precise meaning: hence a new source of misunderstanding between Greeks and Latins. Here, at least, it is recognized, and Saint Thomas sets foot on the ground of mutual understanding where the controversy over the procession of the Holy Spirit should always have been. But such is the hold of Latin conceptions that he immediately abandons it when he adds:
Nihilominus tamen, that is to say, despite the meaning that the Greeks attach to the particle a — ἐκ, non est dicendum quin etiam a Filio proprie procedat, qui cum Patre est unum principium Spiritus Sancti. Non autem sic rivus et fons sunt unum principium laci.
Certainly, in the Latin sense of a, and of procedere and principium, but not in the Greek sense of ἐκ, ἐκπορεύεσθαι and ἀρχή. A commendable effort, though unfinished.
4° Ἐκπορεύεσθαι — proceed. The Greek expression ἐκπορεύεσθαι, which contains the preposition ἐκ, the usual sign of origin without origin, of principle without principle, is the verb that corresponds to this idea. Saint Thomas did not suspect this; the Latin procedere, according to his own explanation, does not indicate this nuance: on the contrary, it is devoid of any nuance.
Verbum enim processionis inter omnia quae ad originem pertinent, magis invenitur esse commune, et minus modum originis determinare (34).
True to his principle that divine things must be translated using the most general terms, the Latin doctor is surprised that the Greeks do not want to use it, even though, he says, they use other synonymous expressions, such as esse, existere, spirari, emanare, and profluere a Filio. This is precisely because these expressions did not contain the particular nuance that is specific to the term ἐκπορεύεσθαι, and which prevents it from being used in reference to the Son. John Bekkos himself, whose orthodoxy cannot be suspected, always refrained from using it. The equivalence seems so obvious to St. Thomas that he goes so far as to accuse the Greeks of ignorance or bad faith (35). It is therefore in relation to the terms ἐκπορεύεσθαι and procedere that the misunderstanding between the Greeks and the Latins is most <p. 272> flagrant, and since it concerns the very expression of the origin of the Holy Spirit, it is also most regrettable. Let us add that Saint Thomas, and the Latins in general, because of the broad meaning they give to the term processio, also apply it to the generation of the Son, whereas the Greek authors expressly reserve the term ἐκπόρευσις to the Holy Spirit. This is a further cause of misunderstanding.
5° Προβάλλειν, προβολεύς, (projicere, projector) — Spirare, spirator. These are the terms used in both languages to express the procession of the Holy Spirit in an active manner. The Latin terms have a broader meaning and can apply equally well to the Son and to the Father: no idea of primary origin is implied. The Greek terms, on the other hand, have the same restricted meaning as their correlative ἐκπορεύεσθαι and are only suitable for the absolutely first principle, ἄναρχον, ἀναιτιατόν. This is why they are only ever applied to the Father.
B) Formulas. — i° Μία ἀρχή or αἰτία, εἷς αἴτιος — unum principium. The meaning of these formulas is determined by that of ἀρχἠ, αἰτία-αἴτιος and principium: When the Greeks say: μία ἀρχή, as by this word they mean an absolutely first source of being, they necessarily restrict this expression to the Father, who alone has no origin, and cannot conceive that it applies equally to the Son, who is not without origin. The same must be said of αἰτία, whose activity has no origin, and even more so of those who express the same idea, but in a personal mode: they can only apply to the Father. Furthermore, the expression μία ἀρχή, which means that the Father is the sole principle of the Holy Spirit, also means that there is only one principle in the Trinity, one absolutely first, from whom the others proceed. Now, the Son is not absolutely first: he has his ἀρχή, his αἴτιος. He cannot therefore be called μία ἀρχή with the Father. No doubt it was not in this latter sense that the Latins said that the Son is one principle with the Father, but only in relation to the Holy Spirit. But this itself undermined the Greek formula, for it had an absolute meaning: the Father is in any case μία ἀρχή, and if he is not so alone, apart from the Holy Spirit, he is no longer so absolutely. This position is naturally explained by the meaning of ἀρχή and αἴτιος indicated above.
Among the Latins, the broader meaning of the word principium allows it to be applied to the Son, even though he himself has the Father as his principle. <p. 273> However, if we cannot say that there are two principles, but only one, it is because the word principle does not directly affect the person, as it does among the Greeks, but primarily means the form or property, the source of the action. Omnis actus, says St. Thomas, refertur ad duo originaliter, scilicet ad agentem, et ad principium actionis. Agens autem est ipsum suppositum, et principium actionis, est aliqua forma in ipso, vel substantialis, vel accidentalis (36). As we can see, there is a distinction between suppositum and principium. The principium of the procession of the Holy Spirit is, directly, the common virtue of the Father and the Son. It is because of this community and because in God there is no distinction between the person and his property that we can say that the Father and the Son are one principle: Pater et Filius… sunt unum principium Spiritus Sancti propter unitatem proprietatis significatae in hoc nomine, principium (37). And: Cum dicitur: Pater et Filius sunt unum principium Spiritus Sancti, designatur una proprietas quae est forma significata per nomen (38). It is because of the unique property of the spirating virtue, the cause of the unique spiration, that we must say that the Father and the Son are unus spirator Spiritus Sancti, as we have seen.
In summary, ἀρχή, αἰτία, αἴτιος refer exclusively to the primordial source of all being in the Trinity, and therefore can only be said of one Person, to the exclusion of all others. The Latin principium can have this restricted meaning and then obviously applies only to the Father; but it can also refer to the immediate cause of spiration, which is the virtue of breathing: and since this is common to the Father and the Son, it follows that they can be called unum principium Spiritus Sancti. We will see a little further on, in connection with the formula of procession, how St. Thomas implicitly recognized the Greek way of seeing things.
2° Δι᾽ Υἱοῦ (per Filium) — ex Filio. The Greek Fathers conceived of the Trinity as a straight line diagram, because they were inclined to consider the order of origin rather than the equality of persons. They expressed this order by the formula ἐκ Πατρὸς δι᾽ Υἱοῦ Πνεῦμα ἐκπορεύεται. The Latins, having focused more on the equality of persons, expressed the relationship of origin of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son by the expression ex Patre et ex <274> Filio Spiritus procedit. Since it is impossible to find a single expression that conveys this double nuance, the two formulas complemented each other very well, each supplementing the deficiency of the other. Far from opposing them, St. Thomas recognizes the meaning and truth contained in the formula per Filium and, moreover, shows that it can only be understood by means of the formula ex Filio, expounding a beautiful doctrine of mediation that is possible in the Trinity.
Saint Thomas first presents the various uses of the word per. Either this word designates the cause of the action, insofar as it proceeds from the agent, that is, the cause that causes the agent to act, or the final cause: the worker works for the love of gain, or the efficient cause or motive: he acts by order of another, or formal cause: he works by his art; or it refers to that which is the cause of the action, insofar as it ends in the effect: the worker acts by means of the hammer. Thus, the proposition per can mean the reason for the first agent (auctoritas), sometimes in recto, as in the last case where the first agent, the worker, is the subject of the verb, sometimes in obliquo, as in the example cited above: the worker acts on the orders of another, where the first agent, this other, is grammatically placed in dependence on per. Saint Thomas also uses this double example: the king acts through the bailiff, and the bailiff acts through the king. The expression: the Father spirates the Spirit through the Son, which is equivalent to this: the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, belongs, and can only belong to the first kind and means that the Son received from the Father the power to spirate the Holy Spirit (39). However, we must not believe that the action of the Son serves as an intermediary for the action of the Father in the spiration of the Holy Spirit. Saint Thomas warns us against this gross error.
In every action, two things can be considered: the agent who acts and the virtue by which he acts: thus fire heats by its heat. Therefore, if in the Father and the Son we consider the virtue by which they breathe the Holy Spirit, there is no room here for an intermediary, because this virtue is one and the same. But if we consider the persons themselves who breathe, in this capacity, as the Holy Spirit proceeds, through a common procession, from the Father and the Son, we will say that he proceeds immediately from the Father, insofar as he is from him, and mediately, insofar as he is from the Son. And this is how it is said that he proceeds from the Father through the Son (40).
<p. 275> The unity of virtue and spiritual action is what also prevents us from considering the Son as an instrument of the Father or from saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds more from the Father than from the Son (41). All mediation therefore consists in the natural order of persons (42), namely, that the Son is from the Father, and the Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son; the Holy Spirit would not be from the Father and the Son if the Son were not from the Father, or more simply: the procession of the Holy Spirit depends on the generation of the Son. Without the latter, the former would not exist. There is an order between those who spirate, but there is no order in the spiration itself, which is one, simple, identical, and indivisible. For Saint Thomas, therefore, the formula per Filium is true only if it is explained by the formula ex Filio. Once the commonality of virtue and spirating action in the Father and the Son is removed, the expression per Filium is reduced to meaning that the Son is a pure instrument of the Father in the production of the Holy Spirit. The perfect doctrinal equivalence of the two formulas is so obvious to our doctor that, for him, those who, admitting that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, refuse to say that he proceeds from the Son, do not know what they are saying, propriam vocem ignorant (43). He could have added that if the expression ex Filio or a Filio (in the Latin sense, of course) is necessary to the expression per Filium in order to preserve its orthodoxy, the latter is no less necessary to the former. Ex Filio prevents per Filium from signifying an instrumental cause, but per Filium prevents ex Filio from signifying a second principle. They must be joined together to give a full expression of the dogma of the procession of the Holy Spirit. The two formulas, embracing each other, enlighten each other. The Latins approved the Greek formula and enriched their theology with it. The Greeks rejected the Latin formula. If they did so in view of the particular meaning of ἐκπορεύεσθαι ἐκ; if, in denying the equivalence of ἐξ Υἱοῦ and δι᾽ Υἱοῦ, they meant only to say that δι᾽ Υἱοῦ can never mean that the Son is the primordial source of the Holy Spirit, as the Father is, no one will certainly reproach them for it. But are they not wrong to condemn the Latins who use precisely the Greek formula to clarify their own, and to anathematize those Greeks who, seeing in <p. 276> this explanation a guarantee of Latin orthodoxy, have courageously attempted to restore religious unity?
The difficulty raised against the equivalence of ἐξ Υἱοῦ and δι᾽ Υἱοῦ was this: if ἐξ and διὰ are equivalent, one could just as well say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son through the Father as that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son; but the latter formulation is inadmissible. Saint Thomas was aware of this objection. He undoubtedly did not see the terminological misunderstanding hidden there, but it is interesting to know his response, because it clarifies the doctrine and fully justifies the Latins’ exchange of procedere per and procedere ex with regard to the Son, since the latter expression does not have the restricted meaning that its Greek counterpart has: ἐκπορεύεσθαι ἐκ. Here it is, summarized:
The equivalence of ex and per with regard to the Son would imply the same equivalence with regard to the Father (and thus one could say: the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son through the Father), if the expression per Filium meant that there is in the Son a spirating virtue distinct from that of the Father and moved by it, for the authority of the Father could still be indicated obliquely: per Patrem would then mean that the virtue of the Son obtains its result only because of the virtue of the Father, the first agent. But since the spirating virtue is one and the same in the Father and the Son, the authority of the Father cannot be indicated in this way; but only in recto: The Father breathes the Holy Spirit through the Son, or, which is the same thing, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. We cannot therefore conclude that the equivalence of per and ex with regard to the Son entails the same equivalence with regard to the Father: per Filium can be translated as ex Filio, because of the spirating virtue which he shares with the Father, but ex Patre cannot be translated as per Patrem, because that would destroy the authority which is in the Father. In other words, if the Son spirated the Holy Spirit through a virtue distinct from that of the Father and moved by it, the Father would be the means of the spirating of the Holy Spirit in this order of virtues, and one could say: the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Father, and the authority of the Father would be signified in obliquo, but since there is only one identical spiring virtue for the Father and the Son, there is no place in this order of virtues for mediation: it is therefore impossible for the Father to be the means, and consequently to say: The Holy Spirit proceeds through the Father. Only one mediation remains possible: that of persons, between whom <p. 277> there is an order of origin: the Son is of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son (44).
In Patre et in Filio non est accipere distinctionem quantum ad principium operationis, quia illud est idem in utroque, scilicet divina potential sed solum quantum ad operantes, qui sunt ad invicem distincti. Et ideo cum in Patre sit auctoritas, dicitur Pater operari per Filium, et nullo modo Filius per Patrem. Inde est etiam quod secundum aliquem modum Filius est medium in operatione Patris, sed Pater nullo modo in operatione Filii (45).
The explanations by which St. Thomas draws the per Filium of the Greeks to signify the ex Filio of the Latins should not lead us to conclude that the first formula has been replaced by the second, for this would not do justice to the Greek language. It is sufficient that in both cases the relationship of origin of the Holy Spirit to the Son is expressed. This relationship is sufficiently translated in the Greek expression δι᾽ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεται and would be too much so, one might say, if it were replaced by the Latin calque: ἐξ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεται (46).
3° Ἐκ Πατρὸς δι᾽ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεται — ex Patre Filioque procedit. What immediately stands out when comparing these two formulas is that the first establishes a hierarchy between the Father and the Son in the production of the Holy Spirit, while the second expresses equality between them. In his commentary “in I Sententiarum,” St. Thomas, without thinking of the Greek formula, but only of certain expressions of the Latin Fathers, has an article in which this question is posed: Utrum Spiritus sanctus magis procedat a Patre quam a Filio (47)? The answer, of course, is no: the reason is that the Father and the Son are a single principle of the Holy Spirit, and where there is unity, there cannot be more or less. The patristic expressions that gave rise to the article were a text by St. Augustine stating that the Holy Spirit proceeds in principaliter from the Father, and another by St. Jerome (now recognized as apocryphal) where it is said that he proceeds proprie. St. Thomas explains the first in the sense of St. Augustine himself and Peter Lombard.
<p. 278> Spiritus Sanctus dicitur esse principaliter a Patre, quia in Patre est auctoritas spirationis, a quo etiam habet Filius virtutem spirativam, et non propter aliquem ordinem vel gradum prioritatis vel posterioritatis Patris et Filii (48).
In this regard, he warns that the preposition a signifies a relationship ad primam originem in Greek. He says even more succinctly, “principaliter” non dicit gradum virtutis, sed ordinem originis, quia a Patre Filius habet quod Spiritum spiret. With these explanations, St. Thomas agrees with the Greek expression ἐκ Πατρὸς δι᾽ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεται. As for the other text attributed to Saint Jerome, Peter Lombard justified it for this reason: “hoc Pater habet a se, non ab alio, ut de ipso sit et procedat Spiritus Sanctus; Filius autem non a se, sed a Patre hoc habet, ut de ipso sit et procedat Spiritus Sanctus.” Saint Thomas does not reject this explanation, but does not want it to be said that the Holy Spirit does not properly proceed from the Son. For the term “proceed” has, for him, the broadest meaning among all its synonyms, and must therefore be equally applicable to the Son as to the Father. Peter Lombard’s thinking on this point is closer to the Greek conception.
Finally, let us note that the auctoritas of the Father in the procession of the Holy Spirit is indicated in some way in the Latin formula: ex Patre Filioque procedit, by the very order in which these two persons are named. This necessary and always observed order means that the virtue of breathing, which the Son possesses in common with the Father, proceeds from the Father. It cannot be reversed without destroying this auctoritas and thereby introducing two distinct principles of the Holy Spirit.
* * *
The differences in terminology that we have pointed out, and of which St. Thomas and all the Latins of his time could not have been aware, are the reason for the objections of the Greeks against the Filioque set forth in the first part of our study. They are made in a state of mind in which procession, ἐκπόρευσις, is understood in the restricted sense of coming from a first, absolute, and independent principle. This way of thinking gives rise to and legitimizes the following two objections: 1° that procession a Filio would mean a second principle of the Holy Spirit: this is clear from <p. 279> the very meaning of ἐκπορεύεσθαι and of ἀρχή and αἴτιος, which correspond to it; 2° that since procession ex Patre is perfect, procession ex Filio becomes useless and even implies a contradiction. As for the fundamental distinction between generation and procession and the axiom that everything in God is either common or strictly personal, these are things which, as we have said, cannot be decided a priori because of the impenetrability of the divine mystery; the restricted meaning which the Greeks gave to the term could legitimately lead them to such assertions. Thus, the Greeks were justified in raising the above objections: they had meaning and scope in their terminology. But they did not strike at the dogma of the Latins, only at their understanding of it. What was needed above all, but no one thought of it, was a frank and loyal explanation of the terms used on both sides, and then mutual tolerance to allow each Church to retain its traditional expression of the dogma, while preserving the unity of faith in the diversity of languages and formulas. One thing alone was and remains essential to maintain, namely, the relationship of origin of the Holy Spirit to the Son; it is to recognize, however it may be expressed, that the Son is not foreign to the Father in the production of the Holy Spirit, and that in this production he has a real efficiency in unity with him. Whether this relationship is translated by this or that term is not important in principle, although it may be imposed by supreme authority. For the thought to be orthodox, it is sufficient that this relationship be recognized. The Greeks, out of tradition and literal fidelity to Scripture, reserved the term ἐκπορεύεσθαι for the procession ex Patre, giving this word the restricted meaning of: to proceed from a first, absolute, and unprincipled principle, and they recognized the efficiency of the Son by means of other terms, such as προχεῖσθαι, ἐκλάμπειν, προχωρεῖν, etc., and especially: ἐκπορεύεσθαι δι᾽ Υἱοῦ. Heresy begins where this role of the Son is rejected, where all connection of origin between the Son and the Holy Spirit is broken. Everything else is verbal quarreling and terminological misunderstanding. Shall we now say that the responses of the Latins, of St. Thomas in particular, to the objections of the Greeks were useless and fell on deaf ears? No. First of all, they had value in their own eyes: they legitimized the terminology of their dogma, while at the same time helping to penetrate its content. Moreover, they could influence the Greeks who were of good faith and, by introducing them to the Latin conception, lead them to judge fairly <p. 280> a dogmatic formula different from their own. As for the others, who denied any efficiency of the Son in the procession of the Holy Spirit, these responses could do nothing to them, and it was enough that the logic was irreproachable.
CONCLUSION
This modest essay has shown us what reconciliation is possible between the Latins and the Greeks on the subject of the procession of the Holy Spirit. Here are the terms: The Greeks will no longer reproach the Latins as heretics or misguided for saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, nor for saying that the Son is the principle of the Holy Spirit, for the terms “proceed” and “principle” have a much broader meaning in Latin than their Greek equivalents and do not mean that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as from a principle separate from the Father, as if the Son held this perfection from himself and not from the Father. The Latins, for their part, will not force the Greeks to change their traditional way of expressing themselves and to say that the Holy Spirit ἐκπορεύεται ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ, or that the Son is an ἀρχή or an αἴτιος or a προβολεύς of the Holy Spirit with the Father, or that the filiation is an ἐκπόρευσις. They could and even should continue to say: ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς δι᾽ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεται. But above all they must, for this is the essence of the dogma, preserve in this expression δι᾽ Υἱοῦ its obvious and patristic meaning of “real efficacy” resulting not in manifestation, but in the very existence and person of the Holy Spirit. Then the same faith will be proclaimed in the diversity of languages and formulas. This diversity, far from being a defect, will remain a treasure, since it will allow aspects of the dogma to be expressed that cannot be translated into a single formula. And so each Church, conscious of the support it gives and receives, will be able to remain faithful to its traditional formula and continue to pay special homage to the face of truth that it has become accustomed to contemplating.
V. Grumel.
- Dist. XI, q. 1, art. 2. ↩︎
- Ibid., ad 3. ↩︎
- De Trinitate, l. V, c. xv: P. L. XLII, col. 922. ↩︎
- De processione S. Spiritus, c. xviii; P. L. t. CLVIII, col. 311-312. ↩︎
- In I Sent., dist. XI, q. i, art. 3. ↩︎
- Ibid., sed contra. ↩︎
- In I Sent., dist. XI, q. i, art. 4. ↩︎
- Ia p., q. xxxvi, art. 4, ad 7. ↩︎
- Ia p., q. xxxvi, art. 4, ad 1. ↩︎
- De Potentia, q. x. a. 4, ad 7. ↩︎
- L. IV, c. xxiv. ↩︎
- De Pot., q. x, a. 5. ↩︎
- De process. S. Spiritus, c. iv; P. L. t. CLVIII, col. 292. ↩︎
- De Pot., loc. cit., ad 2. ↩︎
- Ch. xxv. Documents relating to the Council of Florence. II. Anti-conciliar works of Mark of Ephesus published by Mgr. L. Petit in Patr. Or. of Graffin-Nàu, vol. XVII, fasc. 2, pp. [255-259]. ↩︎
- De Pot., q. x, a. 5, body of the article. Pègues, Commentaire de la Somme théologique, t. 1, pp. 372-373. ↩︎
- Dist. XI, q. 1, a. 1, ad ult. Cf. De Potentia, q. x, a. 4, ad 20. ↩︎
- Ia pars, q. xxxvi, a. 2, ad 6. ↩︎
- De Pot., loc. cit., ad 19. ↩︎
- De Pot., q. x, a. 4, ad 13. ↩︎
- P. G., t. LXXVII, col. 117-118. ↩︎
- P. G., t. LXXVII, col. 117-118. ↩︎
- In I Sent., dist. XI, q. 1, a. 2, ad 3. ↩︎
- Q. x, a. 4, ad 24. ↩︎
- Ia p., q. xxxvi, a. 2, ad 3. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- De Pot., q. x, a. 5, ad 15. ↩︎
- P. G., t. XCIV, col. 48 D and 849 A. ↩︎
- Contra errores Graecorum, Prooemium. It should be noted here that the term causa had the same broad meaning among the Latin Church Fathers as it did among the Greeks, and that it is to Saint Anselm that we owe the definition it now has and which has been established through usage. ↩︎
- Op. cit., l. I, c. 1; Comm. in I Sent., dist. XII, q. 1, a. 2, ad 1. ↩︎
- De Pot., q. x, a. 4, ad 6. ↩︎
- Ibid., body of the article. ↩︎
- In I Sent., dist. XII, q. i, a. 2, ad 3. ↩︎
- Contra errores Graecorum, 1. II, c. xvi. ↩︎
- Ia p., q. xxxvi, a. 2, body of the article. ↩︎
- In I Sent., dist. XI, q. i, a. 2. ↩︎
- Ia p., q. xxxvi, art. 4, body of the article. ↩︎
- Ibid., ad 2. ↩︎
- Ia p., q. xxxvi, art. 3. ↩︎
- Ibid., ad 1. ↩︎
- Ibid., ad 2. ↩︎
- In I Sent., dist. XII, q. 1, a. 1. ↩︎
- De Pot., q. x, a. 4, c., towards the end. ↩︎
- Ia p., q. xxxvi, a. 3, ad 4; In 1 Sent., dist. XII, q. 1, a. 3. ↩︎
- In I Sent., ibid., ad 4. ↩︎
- It is well understood that in the profession required for the return of Greek Orthodox Christians to Catholic unity, the expression ἐκ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεται is restricted to signifying solely the Filioque of the Latins. ↩︎
- Dist. XII, q. 1, a. 2. ↩︎
- Ibid., ad 3. ↩︎
De unione ecclesiarum 
