On
examining Augustine’s triadic theology, we noted the
following:
Just
like
the Cappadocian Fathers and the other Fathers,
Augustine also sought ways of expressing that
supreme mystery of the Holy Trinity. In his search
for those images that would at least somehow express
the mystery of the Holy Trinity, Augustine resorted
to the notion of the metaphysical, perfect Being
who is God; which perfect, metaphysical Being
Augustine had depicted on the basis of Platonic
belief regarding the perfect metaphysical Being.
According to Platonism, the perfect metaphysical
Being (which relates to God Himself) is the “Nous”
(mind, intellect). Consequently, the Nous relates to
God. God equals that perfect Being, which
in
essence is the Nous.
However,
according to Platonism, that perfect metaphysical
Being who is God, as the Nous, also possesses three
other characteristic elements. One
of them is Memory. The perfect Nous, the
perfect Βeing
who is the Nous, possesses the characteristic of
Μemory.
To Platonism,
Memory is of special significance,
because Platonism commences from the notion that the
entire truth is accumulated, stored, in the past. In
other words, man’s soul is eternal – its origin is
eternal – therefore, given its eternal origin, the
soul is endowed with the full truth, as though it is
somehow “stored” within it. Memory therefore is a
very important thing for Platonism. It is the
source, from which truth unfolds and manifests
itself. God therefore, as a perfect metaphysical
Being, possesses this source, this storage tank that
contains the entire truth. God therefore possesses
Memory; and that which is “Memory” in the case of
God (and as we have already said, it is the source
of life, thought, and energy of this supreme Being,
this Nous, this God) is -in Augustine’s dogmatic
language on the Holy Trinity- referred to as the
“Father”, because the “Father” –according to
standard Christian belief- is the source of all life
in the Holy Trinity. Thus, in using this
correlation (the element of Memory), Augustine
proposed a very clever means of expressing the
Father.
But in this perfect metaphysical
Being, Memory is not inactive. It does not remain
inert. It is Memory, because it is the storage tank
–the source- from which Knowledge
proceeds, and from which
the Truth proceeds. The (Greek) word for “Truth” is
«Α-λήθεια»
(pronounced A-lethea), which is
a
composite word, made up of the privative
«α»
and the ending
«λήθη»
(lethe, oblivion). In
other words, Αλήθεια
(Alethea) means “that which is remembered”, or “that
which does not fall into oblivion”, but rises up to
the surface of Memory. Thus, the Truth comes forth
from within Memory. But Truth becomes characterized
when it sees the light, through the realization of
things. And that is what is called
Knowledge, i.e. when Truth comes into the light.
When a tutor implements the Socratic
idea - the “obstetrics” method of acquiring
knowledge - he too is drawing from within the
pupil’s soul those things that the pupil supposedly
always knew, because according to Platonic
perception, nothing is new. The tutor gives nothing
new to the pupil that the pupil didn’t already know
beforehand. The pupil knows everything; every kind
of knowledge is apparently already stored away,
inside his soul. Because knowledge is supposedly
borne by the soul, and because each person’s soul is
eternal, it therefore carries knowledge inside it.
Consequently, what the tutor does, is to “deliver”
knowledge by means of the dialectic practice
(dialogue). He “delivers” (like an obstetrician) and
extracts. He extracts, until he succeeds in bringing
the pupil to the stage of acknowledging: “Yes, it is
just as you say”. The moment in their dialogue that
the pupil says “It is just as you say, master”, that
is supposedly the moment that “the child is born”,
so to speak. (This is the obstetrics method, in
other words). That is the moment when the perennial
Memory of a Truth is extracted from its storage
tank, and becomes Knowledge.
So, it
is from
this source of Memory that Knowledge comes from, and
it is in this “depiction” that Augustine finds a
useful correlation, given that the Son is also
characterized in classical and Christian terminology
as the “Logos”. The term “Logos” is a
concept that contains the element of Knowledge, of
reason. It is a Knowledge that is born of Memory.
But
this perfect
metaphysical Being –again according to Platonic
perception- not only has Memory and Knowledge; it
also has Love, because it is attracted by the
Benevolent, the Good and the Beautiful,
and therefore God –Who is the perfect Being, the
perfect Nous- cannot lack this element of Love.
Augustine finds a correlation to the Spirit here.
So, the Spirit is the Will –or the Love- that this
supreme Nous has
Thus,
in his work
on the
Holy Trinity, Augustine succeeded with the help of
Platonism to somehow formulate an Apologetics of his
own; i.e., to translate the dogma on the Holy
Trinity into a language form that was familiar and
acceptable to the intellectuals in his environment.
But in attempting this, Augustine was digressing
from the basic principles that the Cappadocian
Fathers had outlined in the East – principles which
he may not have been aware of.
Here we
have a classical example of differentiation. What
does that differentiation consist of?
Well, one basic differentiation is that we can
relate all the above analogically, to only one
person; which means, we can theoretically refer to
the dogma of the Holy Trinity by looking at only
one person, who has all those elements
(depending on the degree of perfection that he has
attained).
According to the Cappadocian Fathers however, we
cannot find a depiction of the Holy Trinity
within one person. We need to use three
persons. Because the characteristic of the
Cappadocian Fathers’ theology is that: The three
Persons of the Holy Trinity are not the
energies of the one God, but are three complete
hypostases. Subsequently, in order to present
the fullness of those hypostases, the analogies must
be likewise in full. If we are to use correlations
based on people, it must be of three people
and not one person (or three suns, or
three lit torches). We must have
three,
fulfilled,
complete beings; thus, we have here a basic
differentiation.
Augustine’s
perception can lead to individualism, i.e., that God
is like an individual with various energies and
abilities and qualities, all of which can supposedly
be understood as “persons”. But, in this way, the
persons are again at risk of becoming (as they did
in Savellianism, and in ancient Hellenism) merely
guises; of becoming the characteristics of a one,
selfsame being, and not individual, complete and
fulfilled beings. We have, therefore, in this
instance, a huge differentiation.
The
Greek Fathers did not confuse,
or separate,
the Persons of the Holy Trinity as
“characteristics” –and in fact psychological
characteristics such as Memory, Knowledge and Love-
which the Greek Fathers had associated with the
Nature -the one Nature- of God, and not with
the three Persons. In other words, God has
one Knowledge, one Will, one
Love, and not three. Nor is the one Person equivalent to Knowledge and the other
Persons are
nothing, or, Love is one of the three Persons who
expresses Love, while the other two Persons don’t.
All three Persons express it, because
it is common to all three of them.
But, this is not what we refer to as “hypostatic
characteristics”. These are not the
characteristics of the hypostases.
The characteristics of the hypostases are something
else, and we have already clarified what they are.
We
therefore have a differentiation here. With
Augustine,
we can see the risk of projecting onto God the
psychological attributes of man; in other words,
we are faced with the risk of anthropomorphism.
Other facets of Augustinian
Theology
Augustine associated
God with the Nous. Thus, when asked “Who is the one
God?”, he was unable to reply with reference to the
Persons of the Holy Trinity – to any of the
Persons of the Holy Trinity – because to him, those
Persons are only attributes of the Nous –
the one Nous – and are not “persons” per se.
This is the way he interpreted and applied the
formula –the phrasing- which had prevailed, i.e.,
that God is one essence, three persons,
i.e., by taking the term “essence” and linking it to
“God”. Thus, God –the one God- is the essence, and
the Persons are merely the attributes that we
mentioned previously: they are the attributes of
that one Nous. In doing this,
Augustine gave
priority to the essence;
priority to the God-Nous, from whence the Persons
supposedly sprang as secondary elements. So, in
answer to the question “Who is the one God?”
Augustine’s reply was : “The one essence”.
With
the Greek Fathers,
we have a different situation. To the question “Who
is the one God?”, or, when we simply say “God”, the
answer is “The Father”. The element of Monarchy
(=sovereignty) does not reside within the essence
and the nature of God; it resides within the Person of the Father. When therefore
associating “God” with “the Father”, we are looking
at the Biblical way of referring to God also, i.e.,
“the God, and the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ…”. When the -par
excellence- God is acknowledged as “the Father”,
then we are led to realize why the Holy
Trinity is embodied in the concept of “one God”: On
the premise that the one God is the Father, and that
the term “father” is a term that presupposes a
relationship, a “father” can therefore not exist, if
there is no “son”. And –naturally- the Father is
not only Father to the Son, but is also “Father” to
the Spirit, only in a different way. Thus,
both the Son and the Spirit are -from
the very first moment- automatically included in the
concept of the “one God”.
This is
extremely important, because the dogma of the Holy
Trinity becomes a primary issue. You cannot speak of
“one God” first, and then go on to speak of the Holy
Trinity, as a secondary issue. I wish to stress
this, because, on account of Augustine, Western
Theology was led to this division in Dogmatics,
which appeared during the scholastics age, and
which, unfortunately, was also emulated by Orthodox
Theologians, i.e., to first examine a chapter on the
one God, to examine that one God Himself, His
attributes, and whatever else you can imagine. And
then, to examine another chapter, which refers to
the Holy Trinity, as if it were ever possible for
one to refer to the one God without simultaneously
referring to the Holy Trinity.
But, as
Augustine asserted, in order for someone to refer to
the one God primarily and exclusively, one must
relate God to the essence and give priority to the
essence; one must say that the essence comes first,
then come the Persons. The subject is very
serious, whether priority should be given to the
essence or the person. Western Theology gave
priority to the essence (and there are many Orthodox
who do the same).
To us
Orthodox, the “one God” is the Father and not the one essence, and that is why the Holy
Trinity is the first thing that we say about God.
The first thing that we say about God is that “God
is the Father”. Since this is the first thing that
we say, we cannot avoid acknowledging the Trinity,
because the term “Father” is a meaning that
necessarily involves the Holy Trinity.
We have
here a very serious difference between East and
West. Can one speak of the one God, independently of
the Holy Trinity? According to Augustine in the
West, this was possible. And it is indeed being
done, in all the dialogues that take place nowadays,
with monotheistic religions. You can see, that this
is actually being done, in the West. “Let’s
first come to an agreement” –they say- “with
those who believe in one God, those who are the same
as us, and exclude the atheists. The next step is
to isolate the monotheists from the polytheists.
Nowadays, we don’t have many polytheists of course;
almost none. Polytheism has eclipsed. The other
religions are all monotheistic….” But what
happens in such dialogues,
is that we must presuppose that it is possible for
us Christians to speak of God –the one God- without
any reference to the Holy Trinity to begin with.
This is precisely where we are led -in a natural
way- by Augustine and by the priority of the essence
as opposed to the person. And because Dogmatics is
not an Academic subject, (i.e., something to
be comprehended with the mind); Dogmatics is not
only for those who study Theology in order to
acquire a diploma, but it is something that concerns
everyone, it must, therefore, have direct
consequences – existential consequences – for the
entire world.
And
there is in fact a serious consequence here,
which is: All those who pray, what/who are they
praying to? It may be possible to pray to
“God” per se, but: is it possible for one to
pray to the essence of God? This is the
perception of Augustine and of many Orthodox, who
have not thought things out very well, and have
related God to that which the Greek Fathers had
named “Divinity” (or “God”, in this, abstract
sense). When I say: “I am praying to God”, to
which God am I praying? Can I pray to the
one God, as the one Divinity, or, could it be, that
when we say: “I am praying to God” we are clearly
praying to one of the three Persons or to all three
Persons simultaneously? You cannot pray,
you cannot personally address the essence
of God, but you can pray to the one God.
So, if the one God is not the essence, then
to whom are you praying? You are of course
praying to the Person of the Father.
We
actually
have prayers in Orthodox worship that are addressed
only to the Father, as the –par excellence- God.
Naturally, the Holy Trinity cannot be divided; where the Father is, there the Son is and there the
Spirit is. But as for us who are addressing God
(where the Persons are united and inter-embraced
yet are hypostatically different), we are each what
we are: individuals. That is what allows us
to pray to a specific Person: we can even pray to
the Holy Spirit separately, as in the prayer “Thou
heavenly King, the Paraclete…” which is
addressed to the Holy Spirit. We of course have very
many prayers that are addressed to Christ, and we
also have prayers addressed to the Father, which are
basically all the prayers of the Divine Eucharist –
they are the eucharist prayers, the prayers of
thanks. The Divine Eucharist is addressed to the
Father. And if one studies the prayers of the
Divine Liturgy of the first centuries and sees how
they developed and arrived at the form they have in
the Liturgies of the Chrysostom and Basil that we
have nowadays, it will become obvious that the
supplication prayer in the Divine Liturgy is a
supplication that was originally addressed to the
Father. This has been preserved, in the Liturgy of
Basil the Great. That prayer is addressed to the
Father. It is evident that we are addressing only
the Father, however without this precluding the
presence of the Son and the Spirit. Nonetheless,
we are addressing a person, just
as the Son (while in the flesh) addressed –and
prayed to– the person of the Father,
even though He Himself continued to be “within the
Father”, through their inter-embracing. Therefore,
the fact of His “being within the Father” clearly
did not deter the Son from addressing the Father. This is what characterizes the hypostases.
But in
this case that we are studying, things appear
extremely vague; we have “Knowledge” praying to
“Love”, and “Love” praying to “Memory”…. This cannot
be applied to any existential
experience, and even more so, to the Church’s
experience of worship. That is why in the West, in
the matter of prayer, the Holy Trinity was put
aside. One can see that in the West, one prays to
God generally and vaguely; it is either to the
essence of God, or –usually- to Christ. That is
where Westerners’ piety and spirituality resides.
Bearing in mind that Christ is a man, it is possible
for one to sense Him better; it is possible to sense
Him more hypostatically, as a person. Augustine’s
theology not only made it possible to speak of one
God prior to the Holy Trinity; he also made
it possible to pray to the one God without
necessarily praying to one specific person.
To us,
the “one God” is undoubtedly the Father, at least
from the aspect of worship (which is what determines
Theology), because it is a Person to whom we
are praying. The “one God” is therefore the Father,
in the sense that He is the One “from Whom”
the Persons of the Holy Trinity originate. The
Father is the par excellence God; He is not the essence, He is the
Person of Father.
This is
how Orthodoxy is contradistinguished, opposite
Augustine.
With
these
Augustinian principles of the Holy Trinity in mind,
we shall attempt to examine a thorny issue that had
arisen between the East and the West, with regard to
Triadic Theology. It is an issue that continues to
preoccupy us, i.e., the famous “Filioque”.
The Filioque has two aspects. The one aspect is the
canonical one, which is linked to the historical
problem behind the appearance of the Filioque, and
the other aspect is the theological one, which is
linked to the justification of the Filioque by the
Westerners or its rejection by the Orthodox.
In
order to comprehend the theological aspect, we must
definitely be well acquainted with the following two
things: Augustine’s theology, and the Cappadocians’
theology. This is because the Westerners theologized
the Filioque on the basis of Augustine’s theology,
while the Eastern Orthodox rejected it, on the basis
of the Cappadocians’ theology.
Before
arriving at the theological justification or
rejection of the Filioque, we should mention a few
things regarding the canonical aspect, the
historical aspect that the Filioque problem
presents. “Filioque” is the Latin expression
inserted in the Creed, which means “and from the
Son”. In other words, that the Holy Spirit not only
proceeds from the Father, but “also from the
Son”. This concept, this Filioque procession,
existed in the West, even during the 4th
century. We find it in Ambrose mostly, but in a
form that didn’t create any theological problems,
and also during the age of Saint Maximus, when a
minor disturbance had begun to appear. Maximus, who
kept in touch with Rome, was asked about it. There
is an epistle by Maximus addressed to Marinus, in
which it appears that Maximus had been asked: “What’s
going on in Rome? They say that the Filioque exists
there”; to which Maximus had replied: “Yes.
It is a fact that this exists in the West, but the
way in which they present it, is absolutely Orthodox
and correct.” Therefore, it was not a
theological issue during Maximus’ time. We are now
in the 7th century. Up until that time,
we have a theologically neutral situation. In a
certain strange way, the Filioque entered the
everyday scene, and became the epicenter of
scandal, for purely political reasons.
It was
first of all inserted by the West in the Creed (the
Symbol of Faith), in Spain, in the 6th
century, during the 3rd Synod of Toledo.
King Requarerdos, who had converted from Arianism,
was –like every new convert- likewise fanatically
supportive of the new faith. He was positively
adamant about reinforcing the anti-Arian position
that the Son is God, and he found the means of doing
this in the Filioque idea which, albeit existent in
the West, had not yet been officially inserted in
the Creed. He thenceforth proceeded to persuade that
Synod to insert the Filioque in the Creed, so that
it could be triumphantly confessed that the Son is
equal to the Father. So far, things were more or
less innocuous. But that which ensued, was the cause
that opened up an entirely new age.
It was
the appearance
of the Franks, and the appearance of Charlemagne as
the Byzantium’s opposition (in the sense that he
wanted to establish the genuine Roman state, as the
successor of the former Roman state, whereas the
Byzantine Emperor regarded himself as the successor,
and the Byzantine Empire the natural continuation of
the Roman Empire). In his designs to wage war
against Byzantium, Charlemagne “activated” the
Filioque, because in those times (unlike today,
where nobody pays attention to a religious
definition), you could start a war with a single
dogmatic word. Charlemagne therefore rallied all of
his troops around the Filioque theory, claiming that
the Byzantines were the heretics, who didn’t
acknowledge it. This entire quarrel with Byzantium
was consequently an issue of faith.
But at
the time, the pope had expressed his disagreement
with Charlemagne. He regarded Charlemagne as a risk
to his own authority as well; thus, the pope found
himself supporting the side of Byzantium, and
opposed to the introduction of the Filioque in the
Creed. In order to triumphantly prove this, pope
Leo III instructed the inscribing of the Creed,
without
the Filioque,
onto two plaques, which he placed visibly inside the
basilica of Saint Peter. In fact, in one of the
recent conventions that took place in Rome regarding
the 2nd Ecumenical Council, a Roman
Catholic theologian had proposed that it would be a
good move on the part of the Roman Catholic Church,
to put those plaques (which had been hidden out of
sight) back in their place; those plaques of pope
Leo III, which have the original Symbol of Faith
inscribed on them, without the Filioque.
Up
until that time, the defending of the Filioque had
remained a Frankish matter. Rome did not agree with
it. Rome introduced the Filioque for the first time
officially, only in the 11th century. In
the year 1014, and on the insistence of Frederick IV
-a Frankish emperor of German descent- his
coronation ceremony in Rome by the Pope was agreed
upon, on the condition that the Creed would be
introduced, with the inclusion of the
Filioque.
For
reasons of expediency, Rome agreed to this
(expediency was usually Rome’s priority). The time
was ripe; there had also been a dispute with Photios
because Rome had insisted on imposing its policy in
Bulgaria, and the matter of the Filioque had soon
entered the dispute. An atmosphere of opposition
between Rome and Constantinople had been created, in
which dispute the Filioque had also played a certain
role. So, the time was ripe in the 11th
century; the Filioque was officially inserted in
Rome’s Creed, and ever since that moment, Rome
itself, together with the Franks, undertook the
defence of the Filioque, to the point that in 1054
(the year of the schism between Rome and
Constantinople), the Pope’s anathema -which Umberto
had deposited on the Holy Altar of the Church of
Hagia Sophia- contained the accusation that
the Easterners had eliminated the
Filioque from the Creed!!
Now
this is very interesting, because, for centuries,
the West has believed that the Easterners had eliminated the Filioque, and not that
Westerners had inserted it!!
Ever
since then, an entire industry of theological
arguments has sprung up, on both sides. The fight
for the justification or the rejection of the
Filioque was now under way, with the West drawing
its arguments from Augustine’s theory, and
cultivating and further developing them with the aid
of scholastic theology by Thomas Aquinatus. We even
discovered the slogan that whoever doesn’t believe
in the Filioque is a heretic.
On the
other side, an anti-Filioque theology had developed,
with the argument that whoever accepts the Filioque
is a heretic. These polemics lasted for centuries.
And now that we are in the present time, the
theological problem has resurfaced even more
acutely, mainly because of its implementation by the
Slavophiles of Russia during the previous century.
They were the ones who eventually headed the
theology of the Émigrés (the Russian emigrants who
arrived after the communist revolution in Europe),
amongst whom was the protagonist who re-introduced
the Filioque into the dispute between East and West,
and in fact in the form of a heresy (and even
worse); he was Lossky.
So,
Lossky did not simply bring the Filioque back into
the limelight; it was re-introduced even more
exacerbated than it was during the Middle Ages. Of
course today’s psychological climate does not allow
for exacerbations, but if you were to ask a
Westerner or an Orthodox what is that which
basically differentiates us, they will say it is the
Filioque. And this gave a new look to the
theological problematics of the Filioque.
However,
the canonical aspect remains as is. It remains as a
problem, which has the following form: Does a
“church” such as the Western one have the right to
unilaterally insert a new expression in the Symbol
of Faith? That is where the issue is canonical: Can
there be a one-sided alteration of the Creed, when
this Symbol of Faith was the product of an
Ecumenical Synod? How can one party change it,
without the consent of the others?
Observation by OODE:
We need to point out here,
that there have been
some
very important Synods related to
the above matter –such
as the 8th, with Photios the Great
(879-880); also the Hesychast Synods of 1341, 1347,
1451 (9th Ecumenical); the more recent
Synods of Constantinople (1722, 1727, 1838 and
others)- but also the divinely inspired saints such
as Mark of Ephesus, Athanasios of Paros, Nicodemus
of the Holy Mountain, Nektarios of Pentapolis, who,
with their evangelical, patristic and holy-synodical
theological argument, outrightly condemned the
Latins or pro-Latins as heretics. Actually, as a
general rule, all Synods and Patriarchal Circulars
in their poemantic obligation to safeguard the
people from the Franco-Latin propagandas, use
intensely trenchant –albeit not untrue or
malevolent- characterizations. This is also
observed in the “Synodical of Orthodoxy”, which was
included in the Triodion and is read in
Monasteries. On the basis of such Orthodox Synodic
and Patristic criteria, the Rev. father Hierotheos
of Nafpaktos in one of his articles stresses that
there is no apostolic succession (in the bestowing
of Grace and the Truth); that there are no
Sacraments, nor is there any literal notion of a
“Church” in Papism. Otherwise, if simple
“historical succession” constituted a guarantee of
genuine Apostolicity (Orthodox Apostolic tradition),
then we would have to acknowledge it in all the
other heretics and heresy leaders, which is out of
the question. For example, Saint Mark of Ephesus observes:
«Την μεν
αιτίαν του σχίσματος εκείνοι δεδώκασι, την προσθήκην
εξενεγκόντες αναφανδόν, ήν υπ’ οδόντα πρότερον
έλεγον· ημείς δε αυτοίς εσχίσθημεν πρότεροι, μάλλον
δε εσχίσαμεν αυτούς και απεκόψαμεν του κοινού της
Εκκλησίας σώματος. Διότι ειπέ μοι: Πότερον, ως ορθήν
έχοντας δόξαν ή ορθώς την προσθήκην εξενεγκόντας;
Και τις αν τούτο είποι, μη σφόδρα τον εγκέφαλον
διασεσεισμένος; αλλά ως άτοπα και δυσσεβή φρονούντας
και παραλόγως την προσθήκην ποθήσαντας.
Ουκούν ως
αιρετικούς αυτούς απεστράφημεν και δια τούτο αυτοίς
εχωρίσθημεν... αιρετικοί εισιν άρα και ως αιρετικούς
αυτούς απεκόψαμεν».
English
rendition:
“For it was they who provided the
cause of the schism, by outrightly expressing the
addition
(of the
Filioque), which
(schism) they had
previously propagated through their teeth
(verbally), by saying that
we
(Orthodox)
had deviated
first, when it was we who had cut them off and had
removed them from the common body of the Church.
Because, tell me, which of the two applies: that the
existing belief is correct, or that the addition was
correctly proposed? And who, if saying they desire
the addition –unless they are seriously mentally
deranged- would not admit the addition to be
something unfitting and irreverent and preposterous?
It was therefore not because we repulsed them as
heretics and for this reason departed from them; but
it was because they are in fact heretics, and as
such, we excised them.”