What is the filioque clause / filioque controversy?

Ephesus, the third general council, decreed that nothing should be added to the creed. The great doctrinal point on which the Greek church split from Rome was the addition of filioque, "and from the Son," made to the creed. It appears to have come from Spain; and the eminent Pope Leo, a very able man, when consulted about it from France, said the doctrine was right, but that it ought not to be added to the creed. Yet this remains one great point of difference between East and West to this day. So little is there any certainty of faith to be found in this way, so false is it, that if we have scripture we can have what was held always, everywhere, and by all, unless they departed from the faith once delivered to the saints. The rule is true, not because that universality gives authority, for the church only receives truth, but if it was always held it was held by the inspired authors at the first, who received the revelation from God, and hence, and hence only, has authority. And the simple way of knowing what they held is by seeing what they teach. Holding gives no authority; revelation does. Hence we have what is certain in scripture, and nowhere else.

154 And note here, when the schism took place the Greeks charged the Romans with adding an important article to the creed, what is called the "Filioque" clause, the proceeding of the Spirit from the Son. This came in very late, had been adopted in no creed in the ninth century, came perhaps from Spain, and when Pope Leo was consulted about it he said it was right, but forbade it to be put in the creed, as general councils had forbidden anything to be added to their creeds long before, an order equally despised by subsequent ones.

And as to the creeds, the Nicene creed which we have now, contains an article — and an article which has divided the Greek, or most ancient, church system and the Roman — which was not in the ancient creed, and which was inserted contrary to the express decree of one of these councils and the decision of a very illustrious pope, who put up the creed without it on silver plates in a church at Rome that it might not be added. It was introduced by a small Spanish council, insisted on by Charlemagne; sanctioned by a council of three hundred prelates at Frankfort, who also condemned image-worship which had been sanctioned by what the Romanists hold for the seventh general council at Nice; and (if we are to believe modern Anglican catholics) an article forced upon the pope against his better judgment, and authority, and certainly in spite of the prohibition of a general council and the pope of the day. And this article is not on some immaterial point, but nothing less than the procession of the Holy Ghost, the third person in the Trinity, and the nature of His relationship with the Father and the Son. The Greeks hold procession from the Son to be error (nor do they nor the Anglicans believe in purgatory with the Romanists); the Anglicans and Romanists believe it to be truth, and recite it in the creed as essential truth. One of these general councils forbad any addition to the creed which did not contain it, and the pope forbad insertion of this particular clause. What can we say of the certainly defined faith?

If the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son rests on the church's authority, it is not worth much. The Greek church does not hold it. The early teachers extant are very loose indeed as to the doctrine of the Spirit, though not denying it; and, as we have seen, on the whole doctrine of the Trinity in general. But in John it is said, the Father sends, and the Son sends from the Father. As to the discussion between Greeks and Romanists, it is endless metaphysics. That the Holy Ghost is a divine person, one with the Father and the Son, scripture is clear. He wills, distributes, comes, is sent, is grieved, leads, intercedes: in a word, He does every kind of personal act; yet what is spoken of as done by Him, it is expressly said, God does, in the same chapter; 1 Cor. 12.

Further, the Spirit is called not only the Spirit of God, but the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son, in Galatians 4; the Spirit of Christ, even when speaking in the prophets, 1 Peter 1:11, and Romans 8:9; and of Jesus Christ, Philippians 1:19. He is, indeed, oftener called the Spirit of the Son than the Spirit of the (your) Father. The word procession is never applied to the Son. The Greek Fathers, before the separation from Rome, never use it but in connection with the Father, as it appears; the Latin, from after the Arian controversy, do. Charlemagne raised the question, and Pope Leo said it ought not to be put in the creed. It rather appears, that the dogmatical assertion (the Council of Nice had only, "I believe in the Holy Ghost"; the second, that of Constantinople, added, "proceeding from the Father," without adding "and the Son") first took place in Spain, where Arianism prevailed; but from the fifth century, the Latin Fathers speak of both Father and Son. The Greek held to the terms of scripture. The Council of Ephesus commanded nothing to be added to the creed. Pope Leo not only said to his legates at the French Council, it ought not to be inserted, but, to hinder it, had the creed fixed on at Constantinople, engraved in Greek and Latin on silver plates, and fixed up, without the addition of "and the Son." It was only in the papacy of Nicholas I, in the latter end of the ninth century, that it was regularly inserted. The Greeks objected, and, in what they call the eighth General Council, ordered it to be removed.

130 So much for the church's teaching, and Vincentius' "what always, what everywhere, what by all," as the sure rule of faith. The Latins did not quote church authority for it, for they had none to quote. All the world knew (for heathens Lucian's Philopatris gives the substance of the creed very exactly, though in scorn) that church authority had never sanctioned it, and a General Council forbidden all addition, and Pope Leo this particular one. They appealed to deductions from scripture, such as "He shall take of mine, and shew it unto you"; "All things that the Father hath are mine"; and they said He was received from the Son, and hence proceeded from Him. I do not decide anything about the time; but, as to the Catholic church having always taught it, there cannot be a greater mistake, or more unfounded assertion. And see what a proof the author gives us — she teaches it: therefore it must be right. That is a convenient argument in a book which is to prove she is right. The quotation of Mr. Whiston is unhappy. He wanted to have acknowledged as scripture acknowledged impostures of an Alexandrian, Arian seemingly in his views (as it appears Mr. W. was too), of the fifth century, and which our priest himself quotes in ignorance as of the first, but not as scripture.

238 But we have the faith of the church in creeds: the Apostles' Creed, for instance, universally recommended in all ages by the church. Now this is a deception; they know its history well, they will not venture to speak of the ancient fable, for fables were plentiful in those days (there was one Lucius with uncertain name, a coiner of false documents), that each apostle came forward to give one article. The Apostles' Creed is not, as we have it, as ancient as the Nicene Creed. Some analogous formulary was gradually established in each diocese; the Roman creed was pretty much the same as what we have, save some important articles. But what we have, save these, is first given by Ruffinus (published in Fell's Cyprian) in the fourth or fifth century; but there was no descent to hell in it, and, what is more important, no procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. This was added, it is said, from Spain, when the Visigoths gave up Arianism, and thence passed into Gaul; but this was quite late, and Leo put up the creed in silver tablets at Rome that nothing might be added, the Council of Ephesus having forbidden any additions. This article, added none knows how, is rejected by the whole Greek church, and is the avowed cause of division. I say avowed, for it is pretty clear it was ambition and rivalry. I am not insisting on rejecting nor on receiving it; but what if true must be of first-rate importance in the creed has divided the professing church, instead of having a common faith by it.

233 It is worthy of note here, that the article added to their creed is still rejected by the Greeks, who hold the creed as settled by the Council of Constantinople. And it is further to be remarked, that the general council of Ephesus forbade any other creed to be proposed to any one, and the great Pope Leo, the means of Dr. N.'s becoming a Romanist, this very article in particular. This added article, which came from Spain and France, is the great subject of division with the Greeks, though they do not believe in purgatory either, nor, of course, recognize the popes. Not only did Pope Leo formally forbid its being inserted, but had the Constantinopolitan creed engraved in Greek and Latin on silver plates on this account in the church. (Compare Pearson on the Creed, on the eighth article, where the authorities are cited.)

Each of these errors destroys the Trinity in Unity, the first by denying the Unity of the Essence, the second by denying the Trinity of the Persons. The true and scriptural doctrine of the Trinity steers between these two erroneous extremes, and holds a Trinity of Persons in a Unity of Essence. Now, the Lord Jesus, as the eternal Son of the Father, is distinct from Him as His Son, and yet necessarily one with Him as partaking of the same Essence; and the Holy Spirit, as proceeding from the Father and the Son, is distinct also from those Persons of the Trinity, and yet, as eternally proceeding from both, partakes of their Essence likewise. Thus we have a Trinity of Persons, but a Unity of Essence—One God, but eternally subsisting as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Eternal Sonship gives to the Son a Unity of Essence with the Father, and yet a distinctness of Person; thus, as the Son He is one with the Father (John 10:30), and yet as the Son He is distinct from the Father. So eternal procession from the Father and the Son gives to the Holy Spirit Unity of Essence with the Father and the Son, and yet a distinct Personality. Upon this firm basis the Trinity stands. But if you remove the eternal Sonship of Christ, you also must take away the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit; and by so doing you destroy the Unity of Essence and inter-communion of Nature of Israel’s Triune God. If the denial of the eternal Sonship of Jesus involve such consequences, well may we tremble at such an error as removes the very foundations of revealed truth. All other views of the Sonship of Christ lower His essential and eternal dignity and, however craftily disguised, tend to, and usually end in, Arianism. If His Sonship be not His eternal mode of subsistence, it must, in some way or other, be created Sonship, and what is this but Arian doctrine in its very root and essence? How the Son can be eternally begotten, and how the Holy Spirit can eternally proceed, is a mystery which we cannot understand, much less explain; but we receive it by faith, in the same way as we receive the “great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.” If once we begin to reason on these matters, we are lost at the very threshold of our inquiry. To believe, not to speculate; to receive the testimony that God has given of His Son; not to doubt, argue and cavil, is the only sure path, as well as the peculiar blessedness of a child of God.

The unsearchable riches of Christ, which form the subject-matter of the Spirit's testimony, are nothing less than the revelation of the Divine fulness as mediately opened to the eye of faith in the person of the Son (1 Tim. 2:5). In Christ Jesus all the fulness of the Godhead dwells; it dwells in the Son "bodily" (somatikos, Col. 2:9). The Holy Ghost, as the Divine messenger and witness of the finished grace of Jesus, is sent of the Father in His name (John 14:26). Though it be an equal truth that He is sent of Jesus, yet it is as proceeding from the Father. Hence, in Acts 2:33, the descent of the Spirit as the Divine power of testimony, is referred by Peter to the Father as the fulfiller of promise.

It is not that the Scriptures fail to teach the Eternal Sonship to the simple believer, but the wording must be twisted round to fit in with the new "thoughts of men which are vain." Such expressions as those quoted above do not describe a supposed isolated act in the past, but an eternal and essential relation existing between the Father and Son (see, e.g., John 5:26); and the "Procession of the Spirit" an eternal relation between Him and the other Divine Persons (John 15:26). It was not a solitary act which supervened, but a condition which necessarily existed in the Divine Being. The Son is necessarily the Brightness (lit. outshining) of the Divine glory, as the photosphere may be regarded as a necessary condition of the Sun's existence.

“To come to the point—it is the personal relations or distinctive relative properties which belong to each Person which distinguish Them from one another; as paternity in the First Person, filiation in the Second, and spiration in the Third; or, more plainly, it is begetting Psalm 2:7 which peculiarly belongs to the First, and is never ascribed to the Second and Third, which distinguishes Him from Them both, and gives Him; with great propriety, the Name of the Father; and it is being begotten, that is the personal relation, or relative property of the Second Person, hence called the only begotten of the Father (John 1:14), which distinguishes Him from the First and Third, and gives Him the name of the Son; and the relative property, or personal relation of the Third Person is, that He is breathed by the First and Second Persons; hence called the breath of the Almighty, the breath of the mouth of Jehovah the Father, and the breath of the mouth of Christ the Lord, and which is never said of the other Two Persons, and so distinguishes Him from Them; and very pertinently gives Him the name of the Spirit, or breath” (Job 33:4; Psalm 33:6; 2 Thessalonians 2:8). “Body of Divinity,” Book 1., ch. 28.