Scotus Academicus, Tomus tertius: De adorando divinae Trinitatis mysterio

FILIOQUE TO THE NICENE SYMBOL.**

It is more than certain that the addition of the particle Filioque to the Nicene Symbol was that which divided the two seas — not to say the hemispheres of the earth — and likewise both Churches, the Eastern and the Western, and furnished the Greeks with an occasion for withdrawing themselves from union with and obedience to the Roman Church.

For thus Marcus of Ephesus, the Greek spokesman, in the Council of Florence, when he had professed that the addition made to the Symbol was neither true nor suitable, added: Which assuredly is known to have been the principal cause of our schism and dissension; and below: The Roman Church had devised a dogma of its own, and on that account it is beyond doubt that it was the cause of dissolving our friendship and the beginning of our quarrels; whence Photius, who is held to have begun the Schism, in his Encyclical Letter to the patriarchal sees of the East, put forward this as the principal cause of his withdrawal from the Roman Church:

This, he says, is the sum and apex of evils: the sacred Symbol itself, which has irrefragable force and authority from all the synodical and ecumenical decrees, they did not hesitate (the Latins) to adulterate with certain spurious and false disputations... teaching anew that the Holy Spirit proceeds not from the Father alone, but from the Son.

This tragedy arose because in the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon the Fathers decreed that no one might be allowed to hand down a faith other than the Nicene, and those daring the contrary seem to be struck with anathema; but in the Nicene Symbol this particle Filioque is not found, nor anything equivalent; and so the Latins already seemed to have incurred the censure hurled by the Council of Ephesus. Wherefore two things especially are to be established in this Appendix, namely that that addition was legitimate, and the time at which it was first made is to be inquired into.

The first, the Fathers affirm — Greek as well as Latin — in the Council of Florence; for all subscribed to the Letters of Union published in the name of all by Eugene the Fourth, in which among other things these words are read: We define that the explanation of those words, Filioque, was lawfully and reasonably added to the Symbol for the sake of declaring the truth, and because of the necessity then impending. Hence no room for doubting this truth now remains. But for fuller persuasion, I urge thus: the addition would be illicit, either because it asserts something false, or because it was made to the Nicene Symbol contrary to the laws sanctioned by the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon; or finally because it was published without the consent of both Churches, the Eastern and the Western: but none of these stands in the way. — Not the first, indeed, for from what has been said it is clear that the Holy Spirit truly proceeds from the Father and from the Son; and so the particle asserting this truth savors of no falsehood. — Nor the second; otherwise the very Greeks themselves would first of all be to blame, who so often changed their Symbols after the Nicene had been published; for Mark of Ephesus, who defended the Greek cause most obstinately of all in the Council of Florence, confesses toward its end that no little time, to be sure, had intervened between the first Council, from which that divine Nicene Symbol had been published, and the second, in which interval of time almost thirty other Symbols had been produced by particular and private Councils. Then the Fathers of the Councils of Ephesus, Constantinople, and Chalcedon would have to be condemned and struck by their own thunderbolt; for if, as the Greeks will, it is not lawful to add even a Word to the Nicene Symbol, why then did they themselves add more? For, as was objected to the Greeks in the Council of Florence, the particles 'of heaven and earth' are found in the Constantinopolitan Symbol, which are not read in the Ephesine and the Nicene: similarly 'of the substance' is found in the Nicene, but is not found in the Ephesine and the Constantinopolitan: likewise 'of the Virgin Mary' is in the Constantinopolitan, but not in the Ephesine and the Nicene: moreover it is certain that in the Nicene Symbol no more was pronounced about the Holy Spirit than this, 'and in the Holy Spirit'; but afterwards those words, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, were added by the Fathers of the Council of Constantinople; yet of these the Greeks do not complain: therefore they also complain unjustly about the addition of the particle Filioque. Finally, an equal has no command over an equal, nor can anyone bind the hands of his successor; and so the Council of Ephesus and of Chalcedon could not forbid future Councils, when opportunity was given and necessity urged, to hand down a new explanation and addition of the Symbol; for it is free for successors, as being equals, to explain the faith in another way and in other words, provided they are willing to add or take away nothing against the right faith. — Not finally the third: since, as the Latins demonstrated in the Council of Florence, that addition of the Filioque was approved by the Greeks before it was approved universally by the Roman Church, namely in the 7th general Synod, which was almost wholly of Greek Fathers. Add, that just as the Greeks themselves, when opportunities were given, celebrated many Councils with no Father of the Latin Church present, in which they determined several things concerning the faith, proscribed heresies, and framed Symbols; why could not the Latin Fathers in like manner add this addition of the Filioque to the Symbol, namely for the sake of explaining the faith? Moreover, the Roman Church is by no means bound to convoke the others, especially since in old times many Synods were celebrated with a diverse number of Fathers and approved, sometimes with the Latin Fathers absent.

The second doubt, namely at what time this addition was made, has not yet been sufficiently explored; for some will that the addition was made by the Roman Council under Damasus, which Stanislaus Socolovius infers in this way in cap. 1. of the annotation Censurae Orientalis Ecclesiae factae per Hieremiam Patriarcham Constantinopolitanum, where he says that when Damasus had summoned to Rome the Fathers of the Eastern Church gathered at Constantinople, that they might there celebrate a universal Council with the Latins, and since on account of various inconveniences it was not permitted to proceed thither, they sent their faith to the Roman Council, which Damasus approved together with the Roman Council, only that particle Filioque having been added

to the Symbol of faith published in that Council for the fuller explanation of the Nicene Symbol; which the Constantinopolitan Fathers again confirmed. This, however, he proves from the Letter of the Council to Damasus, and from the Symbol of Damasus, which is found in Jerome, where the aforesaid particle is added. But this opinion rests on little: both because in the aforesaid Letter of the Constantinopolitan Council there is not even a word about the addition of the particle Filioque; and because among the decrees of that Roman Council, which are contained in the 9th book of the Tripartitae historiae, cap. 16., nothing is decreed about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, but by Canon 16. only he is condemned who has denied that the Holy Spirit is from the Father. What, however, is brought forward from the Symbol of Damasus helps little: both because it is not certain whether that Symbol is truly Damasus's; moreover it is far different from the Nicene and the Constantinopolitan: but here the question is not raised where this truth was first defined, but where the particle Filioque was first added to the Nicene Symbol, which is sung in the Church.

One might suspect, not without foundation, that this addition was made by the Fathers of the first Council of Toledo, celebrated in the year of Christ 400.; for in the Confession of faith, which Idatius of Limoges indicates was published in this Synod, we read: that the Spirit is also the Paraclete, who is neither the Father Himself nor the Son, but proceeds from the Father and from the Son. Which again is constantly affirmed in the third Toledan Synod. But since that Confession of faith is far different from the Nicene Symbol, which is sung in the Church, one cannot conclude from that that this particle Filioque was added from that time to the Symbol about which the Greeks complained.

Wherefore I judge it better to say that this addition was made by certain particular Churches about the year of Christ 620., and from there was adopted by others, the Supreme Pontiff approving: which I gather first from the words of Andrew the Theologian, speaking in the name of the Latins in the Council of Florence, session 7.: With a very great Schism impending in Gaul and in the Spains, when the Filioque was already celebrated everywhere, it was necessary for the Roman Pontiff, amid the concourse of many Westerners of ample dignity and the great concord of a Council of Fathers, the Ex Filioque having been added, to illustrate the Symbol more fully. Then in the 8th Council of Toledo, in the year 653., the same Nicene Symbol is recited with this addition: We believe also in the Holy Spirit, the life-giver, proceeding from the Father and from the Son, to be adored and glorified with the Father and with the Son. Finally, an indication of this truth is that in the Synod of Gentilly the question of the present controversy was debated between the Greeks and the Latins, and, which is the chief point, in the 7th general Synod, action 7., the Symbol is recited with this addition; and so it is likely that this addition was made earlier.

You will say: The Master of the Sentences, lib. 1. dist. 11. cap. 2., asserts that Leo the Third, who sat about the year 796., gave a refusal to the orators of Charlemagne, who sought in his name, and also in that of the Council of Aachen, the addition and the celebration of the particle Filioque in the Mass: therefore this is a sign that this addition had not yet been approved by the Roman Church; for why should Leo be loath to concede this, if it had been approved and conceded so many years before by his predecessors? He refused, nevertheless, for, as Baronius relates, tom. 9., for the year 809., he answered the aforesaid orators: If I had been asked before it was sung in that way, it would not have been introduced; I would surely have answered: and immediately, confirming his counsel and his judgment, he adds:

Is it more salutary to believe, or perilous not to believe, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, as from the Father — Him who is known to be the Son, Wisdom, God, begotten of Wisdom, God, Truth, God, of Truth, God — and yet that both are one wisdom, one truth, essentially God; since nevertheless it is certain that this was not added to that same Symbol by the holy Fathers?

Moreover, the same Master of the Sentences affirms that the Pontiff, immediately upon the departure of the aforesaid orators, had the Constantinopolitan Symbol written out on two silver tablets, on the one indeed in Latin, on the other in Greek, in both cases without that addition Filioque: therefore it follows that at that very time this addition had not yet been legitimately made, nor approved by the Roman Church.

I answer, that Leo the Third indeed rightly did these things, because perhaps at that very time this addition was not yet read by the Roman Church in the sacrifice of the Mass, although in some particular Churches the custom had grown strong of reciting this particle Filioque, long since added to the Constantinopolitan Symbol, amid the solemnities of the Masses: he did not, however, on that account condemn the addition, but he did not approve that it be sung in the Mass without the prior ordinance of the Roman Church. Nor does it matter that he had the Symbol written out in that way without the aforesaid particle: for he did this in order that the memory of the whole Constantinopolitan Symbol might be preserved, which could have been obliterated by the new explanation of the Symbol; and in order that it might be clear that nothing contrary to antiquity was taught, but that the whole ancient faith was retained, with only explanations newly added.