«FILIOQUE». - A term introduced by the Latin Church into the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, usually recited at Holy Mass («Et in Spiritum Sanctum... qui ex Patre Filioque procedit»), which was rejected by the Eastern dissenters as an illicit addition, prohibited by the Councils and, in part, as a cause of the division between the Eastern and Roman Churches. For this reason, in the early sessions of the Council of Florence (v.), the Greeks, led by Mark Eugenicus of Ephesus (and Bessarion before he abjured the schism), insisted on beginning the Trinitarian controversy with this issue, contrary to the opinion of the Latins.
However, it soon became clear that such a controversy was futile unless the dogma were admitted with the addition in question. Thus, in subsequent sessions, after serious discussions, the result was (with the consent of the Greeks) the proclamation of the Catholic doctrine concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, and hence this definition: «We also define that the word "F." is only an explanation by which the truth is made clearer, and that in a moment of grave necessity it was lawfully and with all safety inserted into the Creed» (Denz.-U., 697). Such an addition is not in conflict with any prohibition, whether of Scripture or of the Councils. For the decrees of the Council of Ephesus (Acts, VI: Mansi, IV, 1361-64) and of the Council of Chalcedon (Acts, V: Mansi, VII, 116), which are adduced in this matter, besides the fact that they declare inviolable not the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed but the Nicene Creed, forbid only the alteration of the dogmatic substance, not the literary expression of the Creed.
The historical origin of the F. remains unresolved to this day; its origin should be sought in Spain. Some indeed consider the Councils of Toledo as the authors of the term, although its existence can be attested in Spanish documents prior to those Councils. The earliest of these would appear to be the so-called Pides Damasi, which is neither drawn from the Creed nor the work of that Pope, but rather of a Synod of Saragossa in the year 380. As for the Councils of Toledo, it is certain that the term does not appear in the first of them (of uncertain date), and that it is only in a later redaction of that Synod, the Libellus ad modum Symboli of Bishop Pastor, that the term appears. It is, however, an undeniable fact that the Councils of Toledo, despite their essentially anti-Priscillian character, explicitly admitted the F. into the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed which they transcribed (Council III, a. 589; XII, a. 681; XIII, a. 683; XV, a. 688; XVIII, a. 694) and in the admirable theological syntheses which they customarily prefixed to the Creed (Council III, a. 589; IV, a. 633; V, a. 638; XI, a. 675; XVI, a. 693), thus causing this addition to spread throughout the Roman world as a brief formula «apt to express the origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son as from a single principle».
The addition of the F. was introduced into the Spanish Mozarabic liturgy, which at the time of the Councils of Toledo was at the height of its splendour. Thus it was that in Spain the custom first arose in the West of singing the Creed at Mass (with the addition of the F.), a practice previously reserved for the beginning of the Divine Office. From Spain, the F. spread, mainly through the liturgy, into Narbonese Gaul, which was subject to Spain, then throughout Gaul, and into Germany; finally, perhaps in the 11th century, into the Roman Church, though not without grave difficulties and strong resistance on the part of the latter.
The accusation of the dissenters against the F. as a cause of the Eastern Schism is therefore unfounded. Consider, in fact, the most salient stages in Rome’s prudent stance: before the 9th century, the epoch of the first disputes between East and West over the F., no document can be adduced in which the Popes universally impose II. It is therefore unjust to implicate Pope Damasus in the 4th century, or Pelagius I in the 6th, or St Agatho at the end of the 7th. a) The Council of Gentilly and the Libri Carolini in the 8th century impugned the Second Council of Nicaea of 787 and St Tarasius for their expression *ex Patre per Filium* instead of the *ex Patre F.* already generally accepted in the West; but Pope Adrian I vindicated the orthodoxy of that first traditional formula in the East. 3) There is moreover the whole stance of St Leo II against the introduction of the F. into Rome, when, although he always confessed in his letters the Catholic faith in the procession of the Spirit *ab utroque*, he not only disapproved the demands of the Latin monks of Jerusalem, who wished to introduce there the singing of the F. in the Creed according to the Western usage, but also resisted analogous conclusions from the Synod of Aquignana under Charlemagne, whose legates were received by the Pope in the sacristy of St Peter in the year 810 and were charged to make known to the imperial court Leo’s will—that the F. would not only not be accepted in Rome but would be abolished even in Gaul, as unnecessary for the confession of the true faith.
These facts leave intact the lawfulness of the addition, it being a question of expediency and prudence. The Roman Church, which has accepted the addition of the F. in the Creed for the West, has not imposed it either at the Council of Florence or in our own day upon the Eastern Catholic Churches.