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The Holy Father, in the homily he gave in St
Peter Basilica on 29 June in the presence of the Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew I, expressed a desire that "the traditional doctrine of
the Filioque, present in the liturgical version of the Latin
Credo, [be clarified] in order to highlight its full harmony with what
the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople of 381 confesses in its creed:
the Father as the source of the whole Trinity, the one origin both of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit".
What is published here is the clarification
he has asked for, which has been undertaken by the Pontifical Council
for Promoting Christian Unity. It is intended as a contribution to the
dialogue which is carried out by the Joint International Commission
between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church.
In its first report on "The Mystery of the
Church and of the Eucharist in the light of the Mystery of the Holy
Trinity", unanimously approved in Munich on 6 July 1982, the Joint
International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman
Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church had mentioned the centuries-old
difficulty between the two Churches concerning the eternal origin of the
Holy Spirit. Not being able to treat this subject for itself in this
first phase of the dialogue, the Commission stated: "Without
wishing to resolve yet the difficulties which have arisen between the
East and the West concerning the relationship between the Son and the
Spirit, we can already say together that this Spirit, which proceeds
from the Father (Jn 15:26) as the sole source in the Trinity and which
has become the Spirit of our sonship (Rom 8:15) since he is also the
Spirit of the Son (Gal 4:6), is communicated to us particularly in the
Eucharist by this Son upon whom he reposes in time and in eternity (Jn
1:32)" (Information Service of the Secretariat for Promoting
Christian Unity, n. 49, p. 108, I, 6).
The Catholic Church acknowledges the conciliar,
ecumenical, normative and irrevocable value, as expression of the one
common faith of the Church and of all Christians, of the Symbol
professed in Greek at Constantinople in 381 by the Second Ecumenical
Council. No profession of faith peculiar to a particular liturgical
tradition can contradict this expression of the faith taught and
professed by the undivided Church.
On the basis of Jn 15:26, this Symbol confesses the
Spirit �to ek tou PatroV ekporeuomenon� (�who takes his origin from the Father�).
The Father alone is the principle without principle (arch
anarcoV)
of the two other persons of the Trinity, the sole source (phgh)
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit therefore takes his
origin from the Father alone (ek monou
tou PatroV)
in a principal, proper and immediate manner.1
The Greek Fathers and the whole Christian Orient
speak, in this regard, of the "Father's monarchy", and the
Western tradition, following St Augustine, also confesses that the Holy
Spirit takes his origin from the Father "principaliter", that
is, as principle (De Trinitate XV, 25, 47, PL 42,
1094-1095). In this sense, therefore, the two traditions recognize that
the "monarchy of the Father" implies that the Father is the
sole Trinitarian Cause (Aitia)
or principle (principium) of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
This origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father
alone as principle of the whole Trinity is called ekporeusiV
by Greek tradition, following the Cappadocian Fathers. St Gregory
of Nazianzus, the Theologian, in fact, characterizes the Spirit's
relationship of origin from the Father by the proper term ekporeusiV,
distinguishing it from that of procession (to
proienai) which the Spirit has in common with the Son. "The
Spirit is truly the Spirit proceeding (proion)
from the Father, not by filiation, for it is not by generation, but by ekporeusiV
(Discourse 39, 12, Sources chr�tiennes 358, p. 175). Even
if St Cyril of Alexandria happens at times to apply the verb ekporeusqai
the Son's relationship of origin from the Father, he never uses it for
the relationship of the Spirit to the Son (Cf. Commentary on St John,
X, 2, PG 74, 910D; Ep 55, PG 77, 316 D, etc.). Even
for St Cyril, the term ekporeusiV as distinct from the term "proceed" (proienai)
can only characterize a relationship of origin to the principle without
principle of the Trinity: the Father.
That is why the Orthodox Orient has always refused
the formula to ek tou PatroV
kai tou Uiou ekporeuomenon and the Catholic Church has refused
the addition kai tou Uiou to the
formula to ek tou PatroV
ekporeuomenon in the Greek text of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan
Symbol, even in its liturgical use by Latins.
The Orthodox Orient does not, however, refuse all
eternal relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit in their origin
from the Father. St Gregory of Nazianzus, a great witness to our two
traditions, makes this clear in response to Macedonius who was asking:
"What then is lacking to the Spirit to be the Son, for if nothing
was lacking to him, he would be the Son? � We say that nothing is
lacking to him, for nothing is lacking to God; but it is the difference
in manifestation, if I may say so, or in the relationship between them (thV
pros allhla scesewV diajoron) which makes also the difference in
what they are called" (Discourse 31, 9, Sources chr�tiennes
250, pp. 290-292).
The Orthodox Orient has, however, given a happy
expression to this relationship with the formula dia
tou Uiou ekporeuomenon (who takes his origin from the Father by
or through the Son). St Basil already said of the Holy Spirit:
"Through the Son (dia tou Uiou),
who is one, he is joined to the Father, who is one, and by himself
completes the Blessed Trinity" (Treatise on the Holy Spirit,
XVIII, 45, Sources chr�tiennes 17 bis, p. 408). St
Maximus the Confessor said: "By nature (jusei)
the Holy Spirit in his being (kat�
ousian) takes substantially (ousiodwV)
his origin (ekporeuomenon) from
the Father through the Son who is begotten (di�
Uiou gennhqentoV)" (Quaestiones
ad Thalassium, LXIII, PG 90, 672 C). We find this again in St
John Damascene: "(o Pathr) aei
hn, ecwn ex eautou ton autou logon, kai dia tou logou autou ex eautou to
Pnewma autou ekporeuomenon�, in English: �I say that God is
always Father since he has always his Word coming from himself, and
through his Word, having his Spirit issuing from him� (Dialogus
contra Manichaeos 5, PG 94, 1512 B, ed. B. Kotter, Berlin
1981, p. 354; cf. PG 94, 848-849 A). This aspect of the
Trinitarian mystery was confessed at the seventh Ecumenical council,
meeting at Nicaea in 787, by the Patriarch of Constantinople, St
Tarasius, who developed the Symbol as follows: "to
Pneuma to agion, to kurion kai zwopoion, to ek tou Patros dia tou Uiou
ekporeuomenon� (Mansi,
XII, 1122 D).
This doctrine all bears witness to the fundamental
Trinitarian faith as it was professed together by East and West at the
time of the Fathers. It is the basis that must serve for the
continuation of the current theological dialogue between Catholic and
Orthodox.
The doctrine of the Filioque must be
understood and presented by the Catholic Church in such a way that it
cannot appear to contradict the Monarchy of the Father nor the fact that
he is the sole origin (arch, aitia)
of the ekporeusiV
of the Spirit.
The Filioque is, in fact, situated in a theological and
linguistic context different from that of the affirmation of the sole
monarchy of the Father, the one origin of the Son and of the Spirit.
Against Arianism, which was still virulent in the West, its purpose was
to stress the fact that the Holy Spirit is of the same divine nature as
the Son, without calling in question the one monarchy of the Father.
We are presenting here the authentic doctrinal
meaning of the Filioque on the basis of the Trinitarian faith of
the Symbol professed by the second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople.
We are giving this authoritative interpretation, while being aware of
how inadequate human language is to express the ineffable mystery of the
Holy Trinity, one God, a mystery which is beyond our words and our
thoughts.
The Catholic Church interprets the Filioque
with reference to the conciliar and ecumenical, normative and
irrevocable value of the confession of faith in the eternal origin of
the Holy Spirit, as defined in 381 by the Ecumenical Council of
Constantinople in its Symbol. This Symbol only became known and received
by Rome on the occasion of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451.
In the meantime, on the basis of the earlier Latin theological
tradition, Fathers of the Church of the West like St Hilary, St Ambrose,
St Augustine and St Leo the Great, had confessed that the Holy Spirit
proceeds (procedit) eternally from the Father and the Son.2
Since the Latin Bible (the Vulgate and earlier
Latin translations) had translated Jn 15:26 (para
tou PatroV ekporeuetai) by "qui a Patre procedit",
the Latins translated the ek tou PatroV
ekporeuomenon of the Symbol of Nicaea-Constantinople by "ex
Patre procedentem" (Mansi VII, 112 B). In this way, a false
equivalence was involuntarily created with regard to the eternal origin
of the Spirit between the Oriental theology of the ekporeusiV
and the Latin theology of the processio.
The Greek ekporeusiV
signifies only the relationship of origin to the Father alone as the
principle without principle of the Trinity. The Latin processio,
on the contrary, is a more common term, signifying the communication of
the consubstantial divinity from the Father to the Son and from the
Father, through and with the Son, to the Holy Spirit.3 In
confessing the Holy Spirit "ex Patre procedentem", the
Latins, therefore, could only suppose an implicit Filioque which
would later be made explicit in their liturgical version of the Symbol.
In the West, the Filioque was confessed from
the fifth century through the Quicumque (or "Athanasianum",
DS 75) Symbol, and then by the Councils of Toledo in Visigothic Spain
between 589 and 693 (DS 470, 485, 490, 527, 568), to affirm Trinitarian
consubstantiality. If these Councils did not perhaps insert it in the
Symbol of Nicaea-Constantinople, it is certainly to be found there from
the end of the eighth century, as evidenced in the proceedings of the
Council of Aquileia-Friuli in 796 (Mansi XIII, 836, D, ff.) and that of
Aachen of 809 (Mansi XIV, 17). In the ninth century, however, faced with
Charlemagne, Pope Leo III, in his anxiety to preserve unity with the
Orient in the confession of faith, resisted this development of the
Symbol which had spread spontaneously in the West, while safeguarding
the truth contained in the Filioque. Rome only admitted it in
1014 into the liturgical Latin version of the Creed.
In the Patristic period, an analogous theology had
developed in Alexandria, stemming from St Athanasius. As in the Latin
tradition, it was expressed by the more common term of procession (proienai)
indicating the communication of the divinity to the Holy Spirit from the
Father and the Son in their consubstantial communion: "The Spirit
proceeds (proeisi) from the
Father and the Son; clearly, he is of the divine substance, proceeding (proion) substantially (ousiwdwV)
in it and from it" (St Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus, PG
75, 585 A) .4
In the seventh century, the Byzantines were shocked
by a confession of faith made by the Pope and including the Filioque
with reference to the procession of the Holy Spirit; they translated the
procession inaccurately by ekporeusiV.
St Maximus the Confessor then wrote a letter from Rome linking together
the two approaches � Cappadocian and Latin-Alexandrian � to the
eternal origin of the Spirit: the Father is the sole principle without
principle (in Greek aitia) of
the Son and of the Spirit; the Father and the Son are consubstantial
source of the procession (to proienai)
of this same Spirit. "For the procession they [the Romans] brought
the witness of the Latin Fathers, as well, of course, as that of St
Cyril of Alexandria in his sacred study on the Gospel of St John. On
this basis they showed that they themselves do not make the Son Cause (Aitia)
of the Spirit. They know, indeed, that the Father is the sole Cause of
the Son and of the Spirit, of one by generation and of the other by ekporeusiV
� but they explained that the latter comes (proienai)
through the Son, and they showed in this way the unity and the
immutability of the essence" (Letter to Marinus of Cyprus, PG
91, 136 A-B). According to St Maximus, echoing Rome, the Filioque
does not concern the ekporeusiV
of the Spirit issued from the Father as source of the Trinity, but
manifests his proienai (processio) in the consubstantial communion of
the Father and the Son, while excluding any possible subordinationist
interpretation of the Father's monarchy.
The fact that in Latin and Alexandrian theology the
Holy Spirit, proceeds (proeisi)
from the Father and the Son in their consubstantial communion does not
mean that it is the divine essence or substance that proceed in him, but
that it is communicated from the Father and the Son who have it in
common. This point was confessed as dogma in 1215 by the Fourth Lateran
Council: "The substance does not generate, is not begotten, does
not proceed; but it is the Father who generates, the Son who is
begotten, the Holy Spirit who proceeds: so that there is distinction in
persons and unity in nature. Although other (alius) is the
Father, other the Son, other the Holy Spirit, they are not another
reality (aliud), but what the Father is the Son is and the Holy
Spirit equally; so, according to the orthodox and catholic faith, we
believe that they are consubstantial. For the Father, generating
eternally the Son, has given to him his substance (...) It is clear
that, in being born the Son has received the substance of the Father
without this substance being in any way diminished, and so the Father
and the Son have the same substance. So the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit, who proceeds from them both, are one same reality" (DS
804-805).
In 1274 the Second Council of Lyons confessed that
"the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son,
not as from two principles but as from one single principle (tamquam
ex uno principio)" (DS 850). In the light of the Lateran
Council, which preceded the Second Council of Lyons, it is clear that it
is not the divine essence that can be the "one principle" for
the procession of the Holy Spirit. The Catechism of the Catholic
Church interprets this formula in n. 248 as follows: "The
eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion
implies that the Father, as the 'principle without principle' (DS 1331),
is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only
Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Spirit
proceeds (Second Council of Lyons, DS 850)".
For the Catholic Church, "at the outset the
Eastern tradition expresses the Father's character as first origin of
the Spirit. By confessing the Spirit as he 'who proceeds from the
Father' ("ek tou PatroV
ekporeuomenon" cf. Jn 15:26), it affirms that he comes from
the Father through the Son. The Western tradition expresses first the
consubstantial communion between Father and Son, by saying that the
Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (Filioque). (...)
This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does
not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery
confessed" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 248). Being
aware of this, the Catholic Church has refused the addition of kai
tou Uiou to the formula ek tou
PatroV ekporeuomenon of the Symbol of Nicaea-Constantinople in
the Churches, even of Latin rite, which use it in Greek. The liturgical
use of this original text remains always legitimate in the Catholic
Church.
If it is correctly situated, the Filioque of
the Latin tradition must not lead to a subordination of the Holy Spirit
in the Trinity. Even if the Catholic doctrine affirms that the Holy
Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in the communication of
their consubstantial communion, it nonetheless recognizes the reality of
the original relationship of the Holy Spirit as person with the Father,
a relationship that the Greek Fathers express by the term ekporeusiV.5
In the same way, if in the Trinitarian order the
Holy Spirit is consecutive to the relation between the Father and the
Son, since he takes his origin from the Father as Father of the only
Son,6 it is in the Spirit that this relationship between the
Father and the Son itself attains its Trinitarian perfection. Just as
the Father is characterized as Father by the Son he generates, so does
the Spirit, by taking his origin from the Father, characterize the
Father in the manner of the Trinity in relation to the Son and
characterizes the Son in the manner of the Trinity in his relation to
the Father: in the fullness of the Trinitarian mystery they are Father
and Son in the Holy Spirit.7
The Father only generates the Son by breathing (proballein
in Greek) through him the Holy Spirit and the Son is only begotten by
the Father insofar as the spiration (probolh
in Greek) passes through him. The Father is Father of the One Son only
by being for him and through him the origin of the Holy Spirit.8
The Spirit does not precede the Son, since the Son
characterizes as Father the Father from whom the Spirit takes his
origin, according to the Trinitarian order.9 But the
spiration of the Spirit from the Father takes place by and through (the
two senses of dia in Greek) the
generation of the Son, to which it gives its Trinitarian character. It
is in this sense that St John Damascene says: "The Holy Spirit is a
substantial power contemplated in his own distinct hypostasis, who
proceeds from the Father and reposes in the Word" (De Fide
orthodoxa I, 7, PG 94, 805 B, ed. B. Kotter, Berlin 1973, p.
16; Dialogus contra Manichaeos 5, PG 94, 1512 B, ed. B.
Kotter, Berlin 1981, p. 354).10
What is this Trinitarian character that the person
of the Holy Spirit brings to the very relationship between the Father
and the Son? It is the original role of the Spirit in the economy with
regard to the mission and work of the Son. The Father is love in its
source (2 Cor 13:13; 1 Jn 4:8,16), the Son is "the Son that he
loves" (Col 1:14). So a tradition dating back to St Augustine has
seen in the Holy Spirit, through whom "God's love has been poured
into our hearts" (Rom 5:5), love as the eternal Gift of the Father
to his "beloved Son" (Mk 1:11; 9:7; Lk 20:13; Eph 1:6).11
The divine love which has its origin in the Father
reposes in "the Son of his love" in order to exist
consubstantially through the Son in the person of the Spirit, the Gift
of love. This takes into account the fact that, through love, the Holy
Spirit orients the whole life of Jesus towards the Father in the
fulfilment of his will. The Father sends his Son (Gal 4:4) when Mary
conceives him through the operation of the Holy Spirit (cf. Lk 1:35).
The Holy Spirit makes Jesus manifest as Son of the Father by resting
upon him at Baptism (cf. Lk 3:21-22; Jn 1:33). He drives Jesus into the
wilderness (cf. Mk 1:12). Jesus returns "full of the Holy
Spirit" (Lk 4:1). Then he begins his ministry "in the power of
the Spirit" (Lk 4:14). He is filled with joy in the Spirit,
blessing the Father for his gracious will (cf. Lk 10:21). He chooses his
Apostles "through the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:2). He casts out
demons by the Spirit of God (Mt 12:28). He offers himself to the Father
"through the eternal Spirit" (Heb 9:14). On the Cross he
"commits his Spirit" into the Father's hands (Lk 23:46).
"In the Spirit" he descended to the dead (cf. 1 Pt 3:19), and
by the Spirit he was raised from the dead (cf. Rom 8:11) and
"designated Son of God in power" (Rom 1:4).12 This
role of the Spirit in the innermost human existence of the Son of God
made man derives from an eternal Trinitarian relationship through which
the Spirit, in his mystery as Gift of Love, characterizes the relation
between the Father, as source of love, and his beloved Son.
The original character of the person of the Spirit
as eternal Gift of the Father's love for his beloved Son shows that the
Spirit, while coming from the Son in his mission, is the one who brings
human beings into Christ's filial relationship to his Father, for this
relationship finds only in him its Trinitarian character: "God has
sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba! Father!� (Gal
4:6). In the mystery of salvation and in the life of the Church, the
Spirit therefore does much more than prolong the work of the Son. In
fact, whatever Christ has instituted � Revelation, the Church, the
sacraments, the apostolic ministry and its Magisterium � calls for
constant invocation
(epiklhsiV)
of the Holy Spirit and his action (energeia),
so that the love that "never ends" (1 Cor 13:8) may be made
manifest in the communion of the saints with the life of the Trinity.
�
NOTES
1 These are the terms employed by St
Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica, Ia, q. 36, a. 3, 1um and
2um.
2 It is Tertullian who lays the
foundations for Trinitarian theology in the Latin tradition, on the
basis of the substantial communication of the Father to the Son and
through the Son to the Holy Spirit: "Christ says of the Spirit: 'He
will take from what is mine' (Jn 16:14), as he does from the Father. In
this way, the connection of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the
Paraclete makes the three cohere one from the other. They who are one
sole reality (unum) not one alone (unus) by reason of the
unity of substance and not of numerical singularity" (Adv.
Praxean, XXV, 1-2). This communication of the divine
consubstantiality in the Trinitarian order he expresses with the verb
"procedere" (ibid., II, 6). We find this same theology in St
Hilary of Poitiers, who says to the Father: "May I receive your
Spirit who takes his being from you through your only Son" (De
Trinitate, XII, PL 10, 471). He remarks: "If anyone
thinks there is a difference between receiving from the Son (Jn 16:15)
and proceeding (procedere) from the Father (Jn 15:26), it is
certain that it is one and the same thing to receive from the Son and to
receive from the Father" (De Trinitate, VIII, 20, PL
10, 251 A). It is in this sense of communication of divinity through
procession that St Ambrose of Milan is the first to formulate the Filioque:
"The Holy Spirit, when he proceeds (procedit) from the
Father and the Son, does not separate himself from the Father and does
not separate himself from the Son" (De Spiritu Sancto, I,
11, 120, PL 16, 733 A = 762 D). St Augustine, however, takes the
precaution of safeguarding the Father's monarchy within the
consubstantial communion of the Trinity: "The Holy Spirit proceeds
from the Father as principle (principaliter) and, through the
latter's timeless gift to the Son, from the Father and the Son in
communion (communiter)" (De Trinitate, XV, 25, 47, PL
42, 1095). St Leo, Sermon LXXV, 3, PL 54, 402; Sermon
LXXVI, 2, ibid. 404).
3 Tertullian uses the verb procedere
in a sense common to the Word and the Spirit insofar as they receive
divinity from the Father: "The Word was not uttered out of
something empty and vain, and he does not lack substance, he who
proceeded (processit) from such a [divine] substance and has made
so many [created] substances" (Adv. Praxean, VII, 6). St
Augustine, following St Ambrose, takes up this more common conception of
procession: "All that proceeds is not born, although what is born
proceeds" (Contra Maximinum, II, 14, 1, PL 42, 770).
Much later St Thomas Aquinas remarks that "the divine nature is
communicated in every processing that is not ad extra" (Summa
Theologica, a, q. 27, a. 3, 2um). For him, as for all this Latin
theology which used the term "procession" for the Son as well
as for the Spirit, "generation is a procession which puts the
divine person in possession of the divine nature" (ibid., a, q. 43,
a. 2, c), for "from all eternity the Son proceeds in order to be
God" (ibid.). In the same way, he affirms that "through his
procession, the Holy Spirit receives the nature of the Father, as does
the Son" (ibid., a, q. 35, a. 2, c). "Of words referring to
any kind of origin, the most general is procession. We use it to
indicate any origin whatever; we say, for instance, that the line
proceeds from the point; that the ray proceeds from the sun, the river
from its source, and likewise in all kinds of other cases. Since we
admit one or another of these words that evoke origin, we can therefore
conclude that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son" (ibid., a, q.
36, a. 2, c).
4 St Cyril bears witness here to a
Trinitarian doctrine common to the whole school of Alexandria since St
Athanasius, who had written: "Just as the Son says: 'All that the
Father has is mine' (Jn 16:15), so shall we find that, through the Son,
it is all also in the Spirit" (Letters to Serapion, III, 1,
33, PG 26, 625 B). St Epiphanius of Salamis (Ancoratus,
VIII, PG 43, 29 C) and Didymus the Blind (Treatise on the Holy
Spirit, CLIII, PG 34, 1064 A) link the Father and the Son by the same
preposition ek in the
communication to the Holy Spirit of the consubstantial divinity.
5 "The two relationships of the Son
to the Father and of the Holy Spirit to the Father oblige us to place
two relationships in the Father, one referring to the Son and the other
to the Holy Spirit" (St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Ia,
q. 32, a. 2, c).
6 Cf. Catechism of the Catholic
Church, n. 248.
7 St Gregory of Nazianzus says that
"the Spirit is a middle term (meson)
between the Unbegotten and the Begotten" (Discourse 31, 8, Sources
chr�tiennes 250, p. 290). Cf. also, in a Thomistic perspective, G.
Leblond, "Point of view on the procession of the Holy Spirit",
in Revue Thomiste, LXXXVI, t. 78, 1978, pp. 293-302.
8 St Cyril of Alexandria says that
"the Holy Spirit flows from the Father in the Son (en
tw Uiw)�, Thesaurus, XXXIV, PG 75, 577 A).
9 St Gregory of Nyssa writes: "The
Holy Spirit is said to be of the Father and it is attested that he is of
the Son. St Paul says: �Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ
does not belong to him� (Rom 8:9). So the Spirit who is of God [the
Father] is also the Spirit of Christ. However, the Son who is of God
[the Father] is not said to be of the Spirit: the consecutive order of
the relationship cannot be reversed" (Fragment In orationem dominicam,
quoted by St John Damascene, PG 46. 1109 BC). And St Maximus
affirms in the same way the Trinitarian order when he writes: "Just
as the Thought [the Father] is principle of the Word, so is he also of
the Spirit through the Word. And, just as one cannot say that the Word
is of the voice [of the Breath], so one cannot say that the Word is of
the Spirit" (Quaestiones et dubia, PG 90, 813 B).
10 St Thomas Aquinas, who knew the De
Fide orthodoxa, sees no opposition between the Filioque and
this expression of St John Damascene: "To say that the Holy Spirit
reposes or dwells in the Son does not exclude his proceeding from the
Son; for we say also that the Son dwells in the Father, although he
proceeds from the Father" (Summa Theologica, a, q. 36, a. 2,
4um).
11 St Thomas Aquinas, following St
Augustine, writes: "If we say of the Holy Spirit that he dwells in
the Son, it is in the way that the love of one who loves reposes in the
loved one" (Summa theologica, la, q. 36, a. 2, 4um). This
doctrine of the Holy Spirit as love has been harmoniously assumed by St
Gregory Palamas into the Greek theology of the ekporeusiV
from the Father alone: "The Spirit of the most high Word is like an
ineffable love of the Father for this Word ineffably generated. A love
which this same Word and beloved Son of the Father entertains (crhtai)
towards the Father: but insofar as he has the Spirit coming with him (sunproelqonta)
from the Father and reposing connaturally in him" (Capita
physica XXXVI, PG 150, 1144 D-1145 A).
12 Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Dominum
et Vivificantem, nn. 18-24, AAS LXXVIII, 1986, 826-831. Cf.
also Catechism of the Catholic Church, nn. 438, 689, 690, 695,
727.
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