The Cappadocians and Augustine on the Trinity

[Swiss_Guy]

Cappadocian: origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone (ekporeusiV) as principle of the whole Trinity. (e.g., St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Cyril)

Augustine: the procession (to proienai) which the Spirit has in common with the Son.

Seems like pretty much the same view.

What I learned was that the Holy Spirit “originates” from the Father alone, but proceeds from the Father and the Son.

 

[Vico]

Seems like pretty much the same view.

What I learned was that the Holy Spirit “originates” from the Father alone, but proceeds from the Father and the Son.

The Roman tradition holds two truths:

1. the Father is the sole Cause (Aition / Principium) of the Spirit’s procession (“ekporeusis” Gk: ekporeusiV)
2. the consubstantial communion of Father and Son in the procession of the Spirit (“proienai”, Gk: proienai), the collective sense

So you can appreciate the different ephasis:

1) Cappadocian: origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone (ekporeusiV) as principle of the whole Trinity. (e.g., St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Cyril)

2) Augustine: the procession (to proienai) which the Spirit has in common with the Son.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

The Roman tradition holds two truths:

1. the Father is the sole Cause (Aition / Principium) of the Spirit’s procession (“ekporeusis” Gk: ekporeusiV)
2. the consubstantial communion of Father and Son in the procession of the Spirit (“proienai”, Gk: proienai), the collective sense

So you can appreciate the different ephasis:

1) Cappadocian: origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone (ekporeusiV) as principle of the whole Trinity. (e.g., St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Cyril)

2) Augustine: the procession (to proienai) which the Spirit has in common with the Son.

Ah, I see. So Augustine and the Cappadocians are just emphasizing different things.

 

[Vico]

To Alexander Roman and Ghosty, have you read the treatise that St. Thomas Aquinas wrote 10 years before Lyons II?

**CHAPTER 5 How Jesus is to be understood as Son of the paternal essence. **
From this it is clear how is to be interpreted what in the same work Cyril is led to say: “How, therefore, will Jesus, the Son, be a product of the Father’s essence?”
*[Note: Lib. 47, 29-30, enlarging on the Thesaurus **. 33 (PG 75, 508 D); the Greek text of Cyril reads: he (the Son) is endowed with the divine dignity of the paternal essence.]
For he is not called the Son of the Father’s essence as if he were begotten by the essence of the Father, but as it were receiving by generation the essence of the Father. And this is how all similar statements are to be interpreted, as, e.g., the Son and the Holy Spirit are said to proceed by essence.
*[Note: Proceed by essence: a phrase often used in the Lib., namely by Pseudo-Athanasius, e.g., Lib.3, 14; 3, 19; 4, 11; 11, 57, etc. *in so far as by proceeding they receive essence from the Father.]

josephkenny.joyeurs.com/CDtexts/ContraErrGraecorum.htm#5*

 

[Alexander_Roman]

Is Aquinas the one who St Bonaventure called the “father of all heretics?”

Alex

 

[Vico]

Is Aquinas the one who St Bonaventure called the “father of all heretics?”

Alex

Pope Benedict XVI said (2010):

"Consequently St Thomas and St Bonaventure define the human being’s final goal, his complete happiness in different ways. For St Thomas the supreme end, to which our desire is directed is: to see God. In this simple act of seeing God all problems are solved: we are happy, nothing else is necessary.

Instead, for St Bonaventure the ultimate destiny of the human being is to love God, to encounter him and to be united in his and our love. For him this is the most satisfactory definition of our happiness.

Along these lines we could also say that the loftiest category for St Thomas is the true, whereas for St Bonaventure it is the good. It would be mistaken to see a contradiction in these two answers."

ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/b16ChrstChrch109.HTM

 

[Alexander_Roman]

I agree with the Pope!

Now, if you had said the same thing . . .

Alex

 

[Ghosty]

To Alexander Roman and Ghosty, have you read the treatise that St. Thomas Aquinas wrote 10 years before Lyons II?
**CHAPTER 5 How Jesus is to be understood as Son of the paternal essence. **
From this it is clear how is to be interpreted what in the same work Cyril is led to say: “How, therefore, will Jesus, the Son, be a product of the Father’s essence?”
*[Note: Lib. 47, 29-30, enlarging on the Thesaurus ***. 33 (PG 75, 508 D); the Greek text of Cyril reads: he (the Son) is endowed with the divine dignity of the paternal essence.]*For he is not called the Son of the Father’s essence as if he were begotten by the essence of the Father, but as it were receiving by generation the essence of the Father. And this is how all similar statements are to be interpreted, as, e.g., the Son and the Holy Spirit are said to proceed by essence.
*[Note: Proceed by essence: a phrase often used in the Lib., namely by Pseudo-Athanasius, e.g., Lib.3, 14; 3, 19; 4, 11; 11, 57, etc. *in so far as by proceeding they receive essence from the Father.]

josephkenny.joyeurs.com/CDtexts/ContraErrGraecorum.htm#5*

I don’t really see the relevance of this. All it is saying is that the Divine Essence is common to all three Persons.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Vico]

I don’t really see the relevance of this. All it is saying is that the Divine Essence is common to all three Persons.

Peace and God bless!

It means that the Son is not begotten by the essence of the Father but receiving by generation. It is a communication.

 

[Ghosty]

It means that the Son is not begotten by the essence of the Father but receiving by generation. It is a communication.

Yes, I know what it means, but I don’t see the relevance to this discussion, hence my confusion. I’m trying to understand the point you’re trying to make with the citation.

God bless!

 

[marlo]

I think it was Charles Coulombe who says that St. Bonaventure called St. Thomas the Father of all Heresies, but i dont know where he got this info. as St. Thomas is an Angelic Doctor of the Church.

Is Aquinas the one who St Bonaventure called the “father of all heretics?”

Alex

 

[Alexander_Roman]

I was kidding after all . . .

Alex

 

[Vico]

Yes, I know what it means, but I don’t see the relevance to this discussion, hence my confusion. I’m trying to understand the point you’re trying to make with the citation.

God bless!

Not sure what “this discussion” means in your post. My post was a question to you and Ghosty which was not answered. The topic of the thread is the Trinity and the internal processions came up, and that includes that of the Son. It seems neither of you are interested in commenting on that procession.

 

[Ghosty]

Not sure what “this discussion” means in your post. My post was a question to you and Ghosty which was not answered. The topic of the thread is the Trinity and the internal processions came up, and that includes that of the Son. It seems neither of you are interested in commenting on that procession.

It’s not that I’m not interested, it’s that I don’t know what your point of the quote was, nor what exactly you wanted to discuss. I don’t think anyone disagrees with the notion that the Son receives the Essence of the Father by Generation, and that’s all Aquinas was saying. Both Augustine and the Cappadocians asserted as much.

It’s difficult to start a discussion by stating a point that no one, East or West, disagrees with. How about “when the traffic light turns red it means stop. Discuss”.

Peace and God bless!

 

[steve_b]

As Rome is big on doing things the ancient way, it should return to the original Nicene Creed without the Filioque.

Any other differences here and there do not affect the faith or is open to misunderstanding the way the Filioque is.

As Fr. Meyendorff once said, if unity is what was the desired goal at Florence, both sides could have agreed to the original Creed without the Filioque and then could have agreed to the formula “From the Father through the Son.”

When Jesus asks, “who do men say that I am”

• the Arians got it wrong
• the Pelagians got it wrong
• The monothelites got it wrong
• The monophysites got it wrong
• etc etc etc

These are all Christological heresies. They ALL got the answer of who Jesus is, …wrong. What about those who continue to fight against the filioque?
A:

Don’t let this get around, but it seems that Rome has a penchant for making confusing statements which it then has to explain in several pages or volumes of theological explanation.

Rome’s additional penchant for scholastic “overkill” in theological development tends to be heavily weighted toward a type of rationalism. It is* better to bow before a mystery* than to try and make feeble attempts at understanding it.

Alex

Alex,

Bp Ware in his book “The Orthodox Church” intratext.com/X/ENG0804.htm spells out WHY the East is anti scholastic/ scholarship. And he says it’s lamentable and unfortunate. (see chapters “Church under Islam”) But it is because the East has been under Islam for most of your existence. In order for EO priests to get an education they had to leave the East and come West. EO he said, studied under Catholic AND Protestant teachers. It’s the latter influence that probably caused most of the trouble. So before you attack scholastics / scholarship, as something bad and in opposition to the Eastern mindset, just know where that mindset originates from, for the EO.

As our 1st pope said, re: knowledge. It’s NOT an option it’s a requirement.

[2 Pet 1:5…]
make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 Forif you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Notice the conditional statement Peter makes?

Ergo

one who does NOT make every effort to add to their faith, knowledge, in ever increasing amounts, they will be ineffective and unproductive in knowing who Jesus is. iow, ongoing knowledge/learning, is an integral part of the process of theosis. The CC as you know takes education and knowledge of the faith with the utmost seriousness. You call scholarship overkill. You refer to explaining the faith and understanding the faith, as rationalism. Peter as you can see disagrees.

 

[Chaldean_Rite]

I myself recite the Creed without the filioque, even when I’m visiting a Roman parish, even though I agree with the teaching.

This does not make sense. If you are at a Latin parish, you should follow their liturgy, not some hybrid. No? Do you also stand when they kneel? Bow when they genuflect?

 

[Ghosty]

This does not make sense. If you are at a Latin parish, you should follow their liturgy, not some hybrid. No? Do you also stand when they kneel? Bow when they genuflect?

It trips me up to say the filioque when reciting the Creed from memory, so I don’t say it. It has nothing to do with rejecting it, or trying to do something different than the Latins. The other prayers in the Mass are either completely different (the Sanctus, the Gloria, ect), or the wording is exactly the same (Our Father), so there is no mental stumble with the flow like there is with the filioque (and the “true God from true God”, which I also usually miss) in the Creed.

So it’s not a conscious resistance, but simply the habitual flow of the prayer.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Vico]

It’s not that I’m not interested, it’s that I don’t know what your point of the quote was, nor what exactly you wanted to discuss. I don’t think anyone disagrees with the notion that the Son receives the Essence of the Father by Generation, and that’s all Aquinas was saying. Both Augustine and the Cappadocians asserted as much.

It’s difficult to start a discussion by stating a point that no one, East or West, disagrees with. How about “when the traffic light turns red it means stop. Discuss”.

Peace and God bless!

I asked if you read it or not, the still unanswered question: “To Alexander Roman and Ghosty, have you read the treatise that St. Thomas Aquinas wrote 10 years before Lyons II?”

I can’t agree with your satement that there agreement.

Eunomians declared that the Divine Essence was fully expressed in the simplicity of agennetos and fully comprehensible by the human mind. Then some of the Greek Fathers asserted the Orthdoxy of the incomprehensibility of Divine Nature, particularly with regard to the internal processions. These were Saint Basil of Caesarea (The Great), St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Saint John Damascene, and others too. (Citations on request.)

And who were the greatly influential Cappadocians? None other than St. Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and friend Gregory of Nazianzus.

 

[Ghosty]

I asked if you read it or not, the still unanswered question: “To Alexander Roman and Ghosty, have you read the treatise that St. Thomas Aquinas wrote 10 years before Lyons II?”

I can’t agree with your satement that there agreement.

Eunomians declared that the Divine Essence was fully expressed in the simplicity of agennetos and fully comprehensible by the human mind. Then some of the Greek Fathers asserted the Orthdoxy of the incomprehensibility of Divine Nature, particularly with regard to the internal processions. These were Saint Basil of Caesarea (The Great), St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Saint John Damascene, and others too. (Citations on request.)

And who were the greatly influential Cappadocians? None other than St. Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and friend Gregory of Nazianzus.

Yes, I read what he wrote. That still doesn’t tell me why it’s relevant to this discussion. I’m not trying to be difficult, on the contrary I’m trying to engage what you wanted me to, but I can’t figure out what it is.

If all you wanted to know is if I’d read it, then the answer is yes. I’ve also read St. John of the Cross’ “Ascent of Mt. Carmel”. Any other works you’d like to discuss?

As for there not being any debate, I mean on this thread, between East and West. Eunomianism is a heresy that was refuted long before any distinctions between Eastern and Western theology.

Peace and God bless!