the authority of the Church itself was on the rise. Between Constantine and Clovis there was certain “deadness” in both Eastern and Western Churches. Though papal claims remained lofty throughout the Middle Ages, the actual ecclesial power of the Popes diminished considerably between 600 and 1050. Councils of Bishops often ruled in various Western territorial Churches with kings presiding over them. With the “prophets” of the early Church no longer exhibiting Church authority, with no official emperor, and with the diminishing influence of the papacy, Western Churches (those previously controlled by the emperor) were able to develop a greater degree of local ecclesial control.
Within this context we can examine the importance of the Filioque debate. The clause was first inserted into the Nicene Creed at the third council of Toledo (ca. 589) under King Reccared (ca. 586–601). Though the Eastern Church objected to this emendation, they were more offended at not having been consulted about the change. The struggle reached its climax in 1054 with the “official” addition of the Filioque clause into the Nicene Creed. This amendment, performed by Pope Benedict VIII at the Council of Florence,61 stated that, by begetting the Son, the Father also bestowed upon the Son that the Spirit should proceed from the Son as well as from Himself. This action factored heavily into the intense political upheaval that soon followed. Pope Hildebrand (1070s) proclaimed the legal supremacy of the Pope over all Christians and of the clergy over all secular authorities, and Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade in 1095. Berman demonstrates that Filioque gave the papacy theological grounds to capitalize on the schism. In attempting to use the crusades to export the Papal Revolution to Eastern Christendom, the schism eventually took the form of violence and conquest. Filioque was thereby a major contributor to the conception of the popular slogan, “the freedom of the Church.”62
The Papal Revolution is described as rapid (with sweeping changes often occurring overnight) and total (including political, socioeconomic, cultural, and intellectual changes). Technological developments and new methods of cultivation contributed to the rapid increase in agricultural productivity, surplus, and trade. European population increased by more than half between 1050 and 1150, and thousands of new cities and towns emerged. Cultural changes include the creation of the first universities, the first use of scholastic methods of learning, and the rigorous systematization of theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, and science.63 Behind these improvements stood a critical change in the conception of the Church itself and its responsibility to reform the world. This Papal Revolution resulted in a political disengagement (but not separation) of the sacred from the secular, as well as the “desacrilization” of the state, granting various political and religious groups a relative freedom of religion (though the Popes attempted to rule in matters of faith and morals) along with freedom from state rule and oppression. “The freedom of the Church” became an apocalyptic struggle for a new order of things. As a result, the concept of the Church became one of dynamic involvement in the world and in its practical affairs (i.e., ethics, law, government, etc.).64
Is there any connection between the Filioque emendation and the change that occurred regarding the Church’s understanding of its role in the world? This question is one to ponder as we examine two major contributors to the Filioque debate: Augustine and John of Damascus.
Augustine
Augustine (354–430) was intensely interested in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Though the Filioque doctrine had already been taught in one form or another by other Church Fathers (i.e., Tertullian, Hilary, Ambrose), Augustine’s understanding of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of love and the Spirit of unity between the first two Persons of the Trinity was considered novel for his time. Beginning with the idea of the Trinity as pure relation, Augustine calls the Spirit the vinculum caritas (“bond of love”) between the Father and the Son,65 and a caritas (“mutual gift”) primarily from the Father to the Son, but also from the Son to the Father.66 As the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, he “proceeds”67 simultaneously from both the Father and the Son (and thus from only one source). Holding that the Spirit receives His divinity from the Son (just as the Son receives His divinity from the Father), Augustine rules out the idea that the Son is only a medium through which the Spirit proceeds (as proposed in the Eastern view). Instead, the Spirit acts as the principle agent in the economy of Christ’s salvation by bringing the sinner into the life of the Trinity, into the relationship of love provided therein. Augustine gives the following summary of the Spirit’s work:
According to Holy Scripture, this Holy Spirit is neither only the Spirit of the Father nor only the Spirit of the Son, but is the Spirit of both. Because of this, he is able to teach us that charity which is common both to the Father and to the Son and through which they love each other.68
Latin tradition regarding the trinitarian Persons exposes this understanding of the Spirit. In the unity of the godhead (which is defined in the word homoousios), the Persons are distinguished by the way they are relationally opposed to each other. Since the Spirit and Son proceed equally from the Father, there must be a processional relationship between Son and Spirit as well (proceeding from Son to Spirit) in order for them to be distinguished.69 In De Trinitate Augustine confirms this Latin conception of procession by referring to the terms “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit” as “relative” terms—that is, expressions of relationship. Since such relational diversity exists within the same substance or “essence,”70 absolute terms such as “good,” “all-powerful,” and “Creator” apply to each of the Persons without diversifying or multiplying the substance. Though all three Persons may rightly be called “Creator,” this does not amount to three creators.71
Augustine deals with the question of Filioque in De Trinitate as well, and his conclusions accord with the above thinking. In his writing he seems to make a deliberate effort to oppose the Eastern conception of the Spirit by associating divine auctoritas (i.e., authority or source or authorship) with the Father alone (rather than to all three Persons). Augustine states,
Scripture enables us to know in the Father the principle, auctoritas, in the Son being begotten and born, nativitas, and in the Spirit the union of the Father and the Son, Patris Filioque communitas. . . . The society of the unity of the Church of God, outside of which there is no remission of sins, is in a sense the work of the Holy Spirit, with, or course, the co-operation of the Father and the Son, because the Holy Spirit himself is in a sense the society of the Father and Son.72
How does Augustine deal with John 15:26, which tells us that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father”? He replies that the Father communicated to the Son all that he is, apart from his being Father. Thus, all that the Son has comes from the Father.73
John of Damascus
John of Damascus (ca. 675—ca. 749) has been described as “the last great theologian of the Eastern Church.” John’s pneumatology is essentially a synthesis of the basic concepts provided by Athanasius and the Cappadocians. His De Fide Orthodoxa came to serve as a primary textbook for Eastern theology that provided Greek theologians with many theological standard concepts, including the monarchy of the Father, the distinction between the Son’s begetting and the Spirit’s ekporeusij (“procession”), and clarifications regarding the Son/Spirit relationship
