Filioque
The clause “and from the Son”, added in the Latin West to the creed's statement that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. Its addition is one of the standing disagreements between the Orthodox East and the Catholic West, and several arguments in this Atlas were built to attack or defend it.
Latin filioque, “and from the son”.
The creed of 381 says the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father". Latin usage added *filioque*, "and from the Son", and by the eleventh century the addition was being read in Rome. The East objected both to the theology and to the unilateral amendment of a conciliar creed.
Much of what looks like abstract argument in this Atlas was written in that fight. Eustratius of Nicaea's triangle exists to make the Son and the Spirit symmetrical and so leave no room for the addition. Aquinas's opposition-of-relations exists to make room for it. Reading either one without knowing what it was for makes both look stranger than they are.
Where this comes up
Sources
- Debby research packet OTC-002, on Eustratius of Nicaea