Friday, December 13, 2024

The Filioque

Lost in Translation #115

For better or for worse, no discussion of the Nicene Creed would be complete without a discussion of the Filioque. When the topic has come up on this website in the past, several Ortho-bros have claimed that the Filioque was the camel’s nose under the tent for the Novus Ordo. Such brilliant deductions are a reminder of why New Liturgical Movement shut down its commentary feature for a while.

The Filioque, the formulation that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son rather than through the Son, is the product of the Third Council of Toledo in AD 589, which added the term to the Creed to counter Arianism. The move worked, prompting King Reccared I and several other Arians in his Visigothic Kingdom to become Catholic. From Spain, the Filioque spread throughout the Latin-speaking West until it was finally accepted by Rome in 1014. The Great Schism occurred forty years later, and the Filioque has been the subject of controversy between East and West ever since.

King Reccared on the Filioque: Works for me.
And the controversy will never be resolved until we turn, not to theology, but to language. One of the best explanations of the controversy that I have come across was posted online ten years ago. I copied and pasted the author’s explanation, but unfortunately I did not copy and paste his name. If anyone knows the identity of this astute grammarian, please let me know. Here are some of his insights:
“The Greek word ἐκ-πορεύειν (“to walk out of”) gives an answer to the question: whence does the Spirit come? Where has He got His origin? Who is His ultimate source? The Latin word pro-cedere (“'to walk forth”) answers the question: whither does the Spirit go (once He has emanated from the Father and through the Son)?
“Furthermore, in the Greek version, the procession of the Spirit is expressed as a participle, which closely yokes together the motion and its source syntactically, the Father being attribute [sic] to the procession, giving the notion of a still-standing image illustrating a direct relation between source and motion, like in a diagram. In the Latin version though, the procession is expressed in a relative clause, the proceeding being the predicate, to which the source is indicated as an adverbial qualification. This construction lays much more weight on the process of the proceeding than on the relation of the proceeding and its source: here, the forthgoing of the Spirit is focused as an activity, and the sources of the motion, while not being downgraded as mere extras, are rather juxtaposed as a clarification of circumstances.
“It is true that, in the Latin version, both Patre (“the Father”) and Filio (“the Son”) are in the ablative case and both depend on ex (“out of”); but from this it does not follow that the Father and the Son be the sources of the Holy Ghost in an equal fashion. The perspective of the Latin phrase is rather that of somebody turning back to see what lies behind him from his point of view, and that would in our case be both the Father and the Son, as our Wanderer has already come out of the Father and passed through the Son on his way.
“These different perspectives are fundamental characteristics of the two languages, Latin and Greek: Latin is a very subjective and practical language and often looks both on the process and the end; Greek, however, is a highly systematic language, and it is much more apt to Greek thinking to freeze certain situations in time and meditate their origins and the relations of their parts. It also tends to take an objective standpoint to watch things from a remote position, an idea completely foreign to ancient Latin.
“Both versions are correct; in the Latin version, the Filioque is not necessary, but in no way false; it adds a further truth of faith to the Creed, which is beautiful and worthwhile contemplating. However, to add a filioque to the Greek version would doubtlessly end up in a heretic statement, as τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρός τε καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορευόμενον would mean that the Holy Ghost proceed both from the Father and from the Son in the same manner, which is certainly not true.
“It is erroneous to say the Son has no part in the procession (as some less-catechized Orthodox sadly do) and it is also wrong to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son in the same manner He proceeds from the Father (as most Orthodox think we do). Both the Greeks and Romans believe the same truth upheld at the Seventh Ecumenical Council, but the Creeds are different (the Greek Catholics use the Greek Creed). It took a couple Greeks without sufficient knowledge of Latin (like Photios) to start the trouble, and a few ignorant Westerners (like the pompous Cardinal Humbert) to exacerbate it.”
The final point I would make about the language is the choice of conjunction. The copulative participle -que is added to the end of word and means “and.” The author could have just as easily used et, ac, or atque to achieve the same result but with one exception: classically, -que denotes a closer connection than et. The Father and Son are not simply involved in the procession of the Holy Spirit, they are intimately involved. Since the Holy Spirit is Love, it is appropriate that Its procession is the result of such intimacy.

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