The original section of the Nicene Creed on the Holy Ghost is as follows:
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.
In 589, a local council of Spanish bishops added the phrase, “and the son”, to the procession clause. Eventually, it gained popularity in Western Christendom and was codified. Thus, the section of the Nicene Creed on the Holy Ghost in the West became:
And I believe
in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together
is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.
This addition to the Nicene Creed, called the ‘Filioque’, was not received
in the Eastern Church, and it became a major point of contention between the East and the West. Eventually, the Pope of Rome
and the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated each other over it which led to the Great Schism between the Greek and
John 16:7
“But I tell you
the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send
Him to you.”
Commentary:
Jesus says that He will send the Holy
Spirit.
John 16:13-15
“But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on
His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for
He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of
Mine and will disclose it to you.”
Commentary:
Here, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will speak whatever Jesus told Him to speak.
John 20:22
And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said
to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Commentary:
Here, the Holy Spirit proceeded from Christ in the form of His breath.
Acts 16:7
…and after they came to
Commentary:
What can this text mean but that the Holy Spirit proceeded from Christ?
Galatians 4:6
Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit
of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
Commentary:
The Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son.
The one text used by the Greek (i.e. Eastern Orthodox) Church is John 15:26:
John 15:26
“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds
from the Father, He will testify about Me…”
Commentary:
This was the phrase of Scripture that was placed directly into the Creed. The Council was only concerned with the heresy of Arianism, and thus, whether the Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son or just the Father was not important to them.
As to the text itself, just because it says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father does not necessarily exclude it from proceeding from the Son. For example, say two imaginary people, Joe and Tom, were at a party. If someone asked, “Where is Joe?” and I answered, “At a party,” then that does not mean that Tom was not at a party but only that I did not mention him. In the same way, the Eastern Orthodox are arguing from silence. They argue that because the text does not mention that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, therefore, the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son.
Another illustration can be used, this time from Scripture. In Matthew, a single angel spoke to the women, but in Luke’s Gospel,
there are two angels. Just because only one angel spoke does not mean that the other angel was not there. That would be
an argument from silence. Thus, when John
Here are some quotes from the Church fathers affirming the double-procession (emphasis mine):
“And there is One Holy Spirit, having His subsistence from God, and being made manifest by the Son, to wit to men: Image of the Son, Perfect Image of the Perfect; Life, the Cause of the living; Holy Fount; Sanctity, the Supplier, or Leader, of Sanctification; in whom is manifested God the Father, who is above all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all.”
-Gregory Thaumaturgus, A Declaration of Faith
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-06/anf06-06.htm#P248_29577
“Concerning the Holy Spirit I ought not to be silent, and yet I have no need to speak; still, for the sake of those who are in ignorance, I cannot refrain. There is no need to speak, because we are bound to confess Him, proceeding, as He does, from Father and Son.”
-Hilary of
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-09/Npnf2-09-09.htm#P1012_627785
“We are all spiritual if the Spirit of God dwells in us. But this Spirit of God is also the Spirit of Christ, and though the Spirit of Christ is in us, yet His Spirit is also in us Who raised Christ from the dead, and He Who raised Christ from the dead shall quicken our mortal bodies also on account of His Spirit that dwelleth in us.”
-Hilary of
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-09/Npnf2-09-15.htm#P1599_1051234
“As in the revelation that Thy Only-begotten was born of Thee before times eternal, when we cease to struggle with ambiguities of language and difficulties of thought, the one certainty of His birth remains; so I hold fast in my consciousness the truth that Thy Holy Spirit is from Thee and through Him, although I cannot by my intellect comprehend it.”
-Hilary of
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-09/Npnf2-09-19.htm#P2295_1462882
“And yet it is not to no purpose that in this Trinity the Son and none other is called the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit and none other the Gift of God, and God the Father alone is He from whom the Word is born, and from whom the Holy Spirit principally proceeds. And therefore I have added the word principally, because we find that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son also.”
-Augustine, On the Trinity 15.17.29
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-03/npnf1-03-21.htm#P2022_1027363
“For when, among other things, I had taught them by testimonies of the Holy Scriptures that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, I continue: “If, then, the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son, why did the Son say, ‘He proceedeth from the Father?’ “Why, think you, except as He is wont to refer to Him, that also which is His own, from whom also He Himself is? Whence also is that which He saith, “My doctrine is not mine own, but His that sent me?” If, therefore, it is His doctrine that is here understood, which yet He said was not His own, but His that sent Him, how much more is it there to be understood that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from Himself, where He so says, He proceedeth from the Father, as not to say, He proceedeth not from me? From Him, certainly, from whom the Son had his Divine nature, for He is God of God, He has also, that from Him too proceeds the Holy Spirit; and hence the Holy Spirit has from the Father Himself, that He should proceed from the Son also, as He proceeds from the Father.”
-Augustine, On the Trinity 15.27.48
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-03/npnf1-03-21.htm#P2140_1081404
“And while in the property of each Person the Father is one, the Son is another, and the Holy Ghost is another, yet the Godhead is not distinct and different; for whilst the Son is the Only begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, not in the way that every creature is the creature of the Father and the Son, but as living and having power with Both, and eternally subsisting of That Which is the Father and the Son.”
-Pope Leo I, Sermons of Leo I, Sermon 75.3
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-12/Npnf2-12-211.htm#P3971_1013308
The following are cited from this website (emphasis
mine): http://www.thefathershouse.org/creed/filioque.html
“Insofar as we understand the special relationship of the Son
to the Father, we also understand that the Spirit has this same relationship to the Son. And since the Son says, “everything that
the Father has is mine (John
-Athanasius, Letters of St. Athanasius, To Serapion
“For the Only-Begotten Himself calls Him “the Spirit of the Father,” and says of Him that “He proceeds from the Father,” and “will receive of mine,” so that He is reckoned as not being foreign to the Father nor to the Son, but is of their same substance, of the same Godhead; He is Spirit divine,...of God, and He is God. For he is Spirit of God, Spirit of the Father and Spirit of the Son, not by some kind of synthesis, like soul and body in us, but in the midst of Father and Son, of the Father and of the Son, a third by appellation...The Father always existed and the Son always existed, and the Spirit breathes from the Father and the Son; and neither is the Son created nor is the Spirit created.”
-Epiphanius of
“The Spirit is always with the Father and the Son,...proceeding from the Father and receiving of the Son, not foreign to the Father and the Son, but of the same substance, of the same Godhead, of the Father and the Son, He is with the Father and the Son, Holy Spirit ever subsisting, Spirit divine, Spirit of glory, Spirit of Christ, Spirit of the Father...He is third in appellation, equal in divinity, not different as compared to Father and Son, connecting Bond of the Trinity, Ratifying Seal of the Creed.”
-Epiphanius of
“The Father is of none, neither made, nor created, nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone, neither made nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.”
-Ambrose (maybe), Quicunque Vult
“Since the Holy Spirit when He is in us effects our being conformed to God, and He actually proceeds from Father and Son, it is abundantly clear that He is of the divine essence, in it in essence and proceeding from it.”
-Cyril of
“We must not say that the one Lord Jesus Christ has been glorified by the Spirit, in such a way as to suggest that through the Spirit He made use of a power foreign to Himself, and from the Spirit received the ability to work against unclean spirits, and to perform divine signs among men; but must rather say that the Spirit, through whom He did indeed work His divine signs, is his own.”
-Cyril of
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Some helpful online reading can be found here:
http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/0304/030401uttinger.php
http://www.thefathershouse.org/creed/filioque.html
The ‘Filioque’