Vindicating the Filioque: The Church Fathers at the Council of Florence
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
The Catholic doctrine of the Filioque—that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son—has historically been a source of contention between the Western Church and the Eastern Church. While recent efforts to reach ecumenical agreement have claimed to overcome this divide, their proposed solutions not only overlook but overturn the consensus reached by West and East alike at the fifteenth-century Council of Florence, which defined the doctrine and clarified its rootedness in the teaching of the Fathers of the Church.
In Vindicating the Filioque, Thomas Crean, O.P., mounts a robust ecumenical defense of the truth of this doctrine and the authority of its Florentine definition, building his case on principles common to both Catholics and Orthodox. The first part of the study gives a careful presentation of patristic testimony concerning the procession of the Spirit—material central to the conciliar debates at Florence and of abiding theological consequence. In the second part, Crean explores the nature of ecumenical councils, drawing on the first seven councils to establish criteria for conciliar ecumenicity and authority that can be used to evaluate the status of the Council of Florence. The third part describes the Council of Florence itself, showing how it fulfils the criteria for an ecumenical council and replying to objections against its authority.
Combining thorough study of patristic texts, sensitivity to theological common ground, and historical attentiveness to the acta of the council, Vindicating the Filioque demonstrates the soundness of the Florentine definition of the Holy Spirit’s procession and its importance as a basis for lasting unity of East and West.
- Mounts a robust ecumenical defense of the truth of the Filioque doctrine
- Gives a careful presentation of patristic testimony concerning the procession of the Spirit
- Describes the Council of Florence itself
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I The Procession of the Holy Spirit and the Fathers of the Church
- Chapter 1 The 1995 Statement on the Filioque: An Ambiguous Clarification
- Chapter 2 Prolegomena to the Study of the Fathers
- Chapter 3 St. Athanasius
- Chapter 4 St. Hilary
- Chapter 5 St. Basil the Great
- Chapter 6 St. Epiphanius
- Chapter 7 St. Gregory of Nazianzen
- Chapter 8 St. Ambrose
- Chapter 9 St. Gregory of Nyssa
- Chapter 10 St. Augustine
- Chapter 11 St. Cyril of Alexandria
- Chapter 12 Roots of Anti-Filioquism in the Patristic Era
- Chapter 13 St. Leo the Great
- Chapter 14 St. Gregory the Great
- Chapter 15 St. Maximus
- Chapter 16 St. John Damascene
- Chapter 17 Concluding Linguistic Remarks
- Part II The Theory of Ecumenical Councils
- Chapter 18 The Idea of an Ecumenical Council
- Chapter 19 The Essence of Ecumenicity
- Chapter 20 The Later Byzantine Theory
- Chapter 21 Do Ecumenical Councils Need To Be “Received”?
- Part III The Ecumenical Council of Ferrara-Florence
- Chapter 22 The Authority of the Council of Ferrara-Florence
- Chapter 23 Denials of the Authority of the Council of Ferrara-Florence
- Chapter 24 Postscript: Bessarion or Mark of Ephesus?
- Appendix 1 The Florentine Definition of the Procession of the Holy Spirit
- Appendix 2 Acts of Ecumenical Councils Approving by Name Certain Teachers of the Faith
- Appendix 3 Patristic Testimonies Claimed by John de Montenero in Addressing the Council of Florence at the Seventh and Eighth Public Sessions in March 1439 (with Judgments on Authorship from Clavis Patrum Graecorum and Clavis Patrum Latinorum)
- Appendix 4 Greek and Latin Traditions regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit (by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity)
- Bibliography
- index
Vindicating the Filioque is a great scholarly work. Placing the Filioque debate in a historical context gives much-needed clarity to the old dispute of the so-called ‘Greek’ and ‘Latin’ traditions regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit. It is both patristic theology and ecclesiology. Fr. Crean provides the reader with an engrossing analysis of a diverse range of Church Fathers on the topic with a detailed analysis of Greek and Latin theological terms, showing how the teaching of the Fathers stands in relation to the Florentine definition. Examining the concept of ecumenicity embodied by the first seven councils, Fr. Crean shows how the Council of Florence meets any criteria accepted at the time by Greeks or Latins, vindicating the infallibility of its definitive teachings on matters of faith. As a Catholic priest of the Byzantine Rite, I consider this book to hold a special importance for rediscovering the theological heritage of the Eastern Catholic Churches and I recognize its important contribution to ecumenical dialogue. The good friar has offered us a clear exposition of ‘fides orthodoxa’ regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit.
Rev. Dr. Yosyp Veresh, Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo
The Council of Florence is perhaps the greatest of all the Ecumenical Councils and Thomas Crean is its worthy expositor and champion. Its work and his is the antithesis of the ecumenism of ambiguity and compromise. Here is a scholasticism which goes ad fontes to drink deep of the sources of living faith at the fountains wrought for us by the Fathers of the Church. Here is the Latin tradition at its most self-confident but completely preoccupied with the need for reconciliation and reunion, with the indispensability to the life of the Church of the ancient and apostolic witness of Romania. This is the κατάστασις of the tragedy of Byzantium, the golden charter of reunion, which ensured that the last of the Palaiologoi could with clean hands and a pure heart make their final stand against a monstrous tyranny.
Alan Fimister, Holy Apostles College and Seminary