The Filioque is accepted by the 3rd Ecumenical Council

[Ubenedictus]

Nope, it started when the West tried to force it on the East.

It was used in the West for several hundred years with only minor grumblings.

really??? How was the east forced to accept the filioque?
Ubenedictus

 

[dcointin]

The problem with that passage is that it only shows the economic sending of the Spirit by the Son. The Latin teaching does not limit the Filioque just to that.

I agree, I only meant that this verse is the most significant for the doctrine of the Filioque, contrary to the apparent assertion that there is nothing in scripture dealing with this (although I may be misunderstanding the poster who wrote stated that).

What do you think of the argument that if the Son sends the Holy Spirit, then there must be an ontological relationship between them that is more than their common origin in the Father?

 

[dcointin]

really??? How was the east forced to accept the filioque?
Ubenedictus

I believe the Eastern Catholic churches were required to use it liturgically until recent times, although I could be mistaken. Could anyone comment on that?

 

[Cavaradossi]

I agree, I only meant that this verse is the most significant for the doctrine of the Filioque, contrary to the apparent assertion that there is nothing in scripture dealing with this (although I may be misunderstanding the poster who wrote stated that).

What do you think of the argument that if the Son sends the Holy Spirit, then there must be an ontological relationship between them that is more than their common origin in the Father?

It’s not a particularly great argument. A better argument, however, is that from their unity in energy, and from the fact that there is a non-temporal ordering to the activity of the Trinity (from the Father, thought the Son, in the Holy Spirit), one might come to assume that the Spirit proceeds through the Son (of course, I still do not accept this argument). This is why I like Gregory Palamas’ solution to the impasse, because he so carefully establishes a relationship between the Spirit and the Son without making the Son some sort of cause of the Spirit, while taking into account the many different patristic passages used as proof texts.

 

[dcointin]

Would you be willing to accept the Filioque as a theologumenon?

 

[Hesychios]

i thought the headaches started when the east decided it was a manifestation of heresy.
Ubenedictus

Nope, it started when the West tried to force it on the East.

It was used in the West for several hundred years with only minor grumblings.

However, I think it is worth mentioning that it was used only in certain locales at that time, first in the Spanish church and later introduced from Spain into the Frankish Carolinian empire (about two hundred years later). All of this without even Papal approval and over the objections of some Popes (Popes did not have as much authority then as the would now, even in the west).

It was not, however, used in the Roman synod until the eleventh century. Some Popes, like Leo III, opposed it actively, but he could not get the churches of Spain or the Frankish empire to give it up.

Charlemagne was convinced somehow that the Greeks actually removed the interpolation from the creed, and accused them of heresy.

As per this post …

I believe it was the in the eighth century Libri Carolini where the Greeks were first accused of “removing” the Filioque from the creed. This same ridiculous claim was repeated by Cardinal Humbert in his bull of excommunication meant for Michael Cerlarius. Certainly, the Franks added much fuel to the fire themselves.

really??? How was the east forced to accept the filioque?
Ubenedictus

Among other things, Cardinals Humbert and Frederic accused the Greeks with “they cut off the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son” in their notorius Bull and accused them of the heresy of the Pneumatomachi and the Theomachoi (I have to admit I have no knowledge of these heresies).

Primarily the process of imposing the interpolation on the east bagan as the western crusaders were carving up the various eastern Orthodox territories for themselves. Churches were put under the control of Latin bishops.

The Bull Allatae Sunt has some very interesting comments about this very thing.

For example …
Pope Eugenius IV at the Council of Florence allowed the Orientals to say the Creed without the addition. But when he later received the Armenians into union he obliged them to include it (Harduin, vol. 9, p. 435B) perhaps because he had learned that the Armenians were less averse to the addition then were the Greeks.

Similarly, Pope Callistus III, when he sent Brother Simon of the Order of Preachers to Crete in the capacity of Inquisitor, commanded him to watch carefully that the Greeks said “and from the Son” in the Creed, since in Crete there were many Greek refugees from Constantinople which had fallen to the Turks two years earlier (Gregory of Trebizond, epistola ad Cretans, in his Graeciae Orthodoxae, quoted by Allatius, p. 537, and confirmed by Echardus, Scriptorum Ordinis Sanai Dominici, vol. 1, p. 762). It may be that the Pope suspected that the Greeks from Constantinople were weak in this dogma of the faith.
…

Interesting in that the Pope obliged the eastern Christians to believe the interpolation in the creed when he did not force them to recite it. If there was any suspician that the eastern Christians did not accept it, the Supreme Pontiff required that it be recited orally.

These days it is generally acknowledged that the interpolation is heretical in it’s Greek form, and even Popes will no longer recite it in the Greek language. In those days it was imposed with vigor.

 

[Cavaradossi]

Would you be willing to accept the Filioque as a theologumenon?

Only in the way understood by Gregory Palamas and Gregory of Cyprus, who allow for an eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son.

 

[Trebor135]

Only in the way understood by Gregory Palamas and Gregory of Cyprus, who allow for an eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son.

Can the Latin understanding of the filioque and the Palamite/Gregorian interpretation of the same be reconciled?

(Forgive me if this is a stupid question–I’m new to the issue.)

 

[Cavaradossi]

Can the Latin understanding of the filioque and the Palamite/Gregorian interpretation of the same be reconciled?

(Forgive me if this is a stupid question–I’m new to the issue.)

Possibly. The two similar solutions of Gregory Palamas and Gregory of Cyprus would involve a rejection of the unguarded language used at Lyons, but would not involve a rejection of the Latin Fathers who understood some sort of eternal relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit. It also would not involve a rejection of Photius, whose primary concern was that having the Spirit take its existence from both the Father and Son constitutes a confusion of hypostatic properties with essential properties. That is why I especially like Palamas’ solution, because it is most consistent with all of the fathers.

 

[Nicea325]

The Filioque is accepted as a Theological belief in the 3rd Ecumenical Council. It is not approved for the Creed, however, it also is not debated as being bad theology or heresy. I will not join in a Filioque debate. I am posting this for informational purposes for my Eastern and Western Catholic brothers to use in defense of our faith.

This quote from the Third Letter of St Cyril of Alexandria to Nestorius was approved by the 3rd Ecumenical Council.

“For even if the Spirit exists in his own hupostasis, and moreover is considered by himself insofar as he is the Spirit and not the Son, yet he is not therefore alien from the Son, for he is called the Spirit of truth and Christ is the truth, and the Spirit proceeds from him, just as undoubtedly he also proceeds from God the Father.” - St Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 17:17 (Third Letter to Nestorius)

From: “The Fathers of the Church, St Cyril of Alexandria, Letters 1-50” translated by John I. McEnerney
Nihil obstat: Rev. Michael Slusser, S.T.B., D. Phil. Censor Deputatus
Imprimatur: Rev. Msgr. Raymond Boland, Vicar General for the Archdiocese of Washington
Copyright © 1987 by The Catholic University of America Press, Inc.

Another translation:
“For even though the Spirit exist in His Own Person, and is conceived of by Himself, inasmuch as He is the Spirit and not the Son, yet is He not therefore alien from Him; for He is called the Spirit of truth, and Christ is the Truth, and He proceedeth from Him, just as from God the Father.” - St Cyril of Alexandria, The Three Epistles of S. Cyril, Third Letter to Nestorius

Edited and translated by P. E. Pusey, Oxford, 1872

I am okay with it or with out it. If the CC and E.O. reunite and work it out,then I will accept whatever they choose.

 

[Vico]

really there is no biblical quotes for the filioque? Are you just joking or are u serious?
Ubenedictus

Not joking. These biblical quotes refer to the Holy Spirit coming to the faithful, in time, so are external not internal procession (also called mission):

John 7:37-39: “On the last and greatest day of the Feast [Tabernacles, v.2], Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified”

John 14:15-17: “If you love me you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Comforter to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him for he lives with you and will be in you.”

John 14:25, 26: “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

John 15:26: “When the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.”

John 16:7,8: “But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment…”

Luke 11:13: If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

 

[Dollinger]

Not joking. These biblical quotes refer to the Holy Spirit coming to the faithful, in time, so are external not internal procession (also called mission):

John 7:37-39: “On the last and greatest day of the Feast [Tabernacles, v.2], Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified”

John 14:15-17: “If you love me you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Comforter to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him for he lives with you and will be in you.”

John 14:25, 26: “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

John 15:26: “When the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.”

John 16:7,8: “But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment…”

Luke 11:13: If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

What about revelation 22:1?

And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

How do we answer such article:
catholicnick.blogspot.fr/2011/12/filioque-proved-in-revelation-221.html
?

 

[Cavaradossi]

What about revelation 22:1?

And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.

How do we answer such article:
catholicnick.blogspot.fr/2011/12/filioque-proved-in-revelation-221.html
?

When we receive life from God, do we receive the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit and the essence of God, or is it the energy of life which is worked in us from the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit? Indeed, because good Trinitarian theology demands that all three Trinitarian persons work an act, that the river of life is not functioning here as a metaphor for the Holy Spirit, but refers to the very energy of life which belongs equally from all three Trinitarian persons (though in a different manner), and is manifest into existence through the Son in the Holy Spirit, and is given to us as a form of grace.

That verse only works as a Filioque prooftext if we confuse essence, hypostasis and energy with each other, and ignore the principle that no operation of the Trinity belongs only to two persons without including the third.

He attempts to address this in his answer to Objection 2, but fails: The answer to this is similar to the response in Objection 1. In this case, the EO problem is actually worse because it means the term “proceeds” (at least when applied to God) is no longer logically connected to a Divine Person. In other words, if the “river of life” that “proceeds” in 22:1 means something like “energy proceeds” from God, this logically opens the door to saying the Holy Spirit is not a Person precisely because He “proceeds” just as the non-personal energy does. His answer ignores that the verb ekporeuo is a common verb in Greek, which simply means that something is sent out from a source. His answer also fails because it does not take into account that that which proceeds from an hypostasis (the Holy Spirit) will be hypostatic, and that that which proceeds from an essence (energies) will consequently be anhypostatic (without hypostasis), as essence too is also anhypostatic. Here he is caught in a snare. If he confesses that the stream of life is proceeding from the Father and the Son alone, then he has introduced an energy which is only worked by two persons of the trinity, destroying the consubstantiality of the Trinity, because it would mean that the Father and Son share in some common nature in which Holy Spirit does not. If he confesses that the stream of life proceeds from the nature of the Father and the Son, then he must confess that it refers not to the Holy Spirit (because the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the divine nature), but that it is an anhypostatic energy.

 

[GaryTaylor]

In order to articulate the Dogma of the Trinity, the Church had to develope its own terminology with the help of certain notions of philisophical origin; ‘substance’, ‘person’, ‘hypostasus’ and ‘relation’ and so forth. IN doing so the church does not submit the faith to human wisdom, but gives a meaning to these terms which from then on would used to signify an ‘ineffable mystery’ infanitly beyond all that we can humanly understand.

The Churchs Use’s

1, the term substance (rendered at times by ‘essense’, ‘nature’ to designate the Divine being in the unity

1. the term ‘person’ or ‘hypostasis’ to designate the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the distinction among them.
2. the term ‘relationship’ to designate the fact that their relationship to each of the other, which is God whole and entire.

Its not so easy to disregard the filioque for the wording exists in the Nicene Creed from the start.

Nicaea 325- The Son is Consubstantial with the Father

Constantinople 381- The expression is kept, the Nicene Creed confessed; "the only begotton Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten not made Consubstancial with the Father.

By this confession the Church recognized the Father as…“The sourse and origin of the Divinity” Council of Florence VI

However, the eternal origin of the Spirit is not unconnected with the Sons origin; "The Holy Spirit, the Third person of the Trinity, God one and equal with the Father and the Son, of the same substance and also of the same nature/essense yet he is not called the HS of the Father alone, but the Spirit of both the Father and the Son. “Council of Toledo XI”

Council of Constantinople- Confesses; “With the Father and the Son, He is worshipped and Glorified!”

Council of Florence- elaborates, The HS is eternally from the Father and Son; the HS has His nature/essense and subsistance at once (simul) from the Father and the Son who are “Consubstantial” The HS proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and one spiration…since the Father has through generation given to the only begotten Son “everything” that belongs to the Father in Communion as a Eternal Gift, from whom He is eternally born, that is the HS proceeds from the Son.

While the filioque does not appear in the creed in 381 Pope Leo 1st confessed it Dogmatically in 447, following the ancient Latin and Alexandrian Tradition “Quam laudabiliter” in 447. thus “before” the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

"he Father is that which the Son is, the Son is that which the Father is, theFather and the Son are that which the HS is…i.e., by Nature/Essense One God"Lateran Council

Indeed everything is onewhere there is no oppostition of relationship. All three are wholly in each other.

Parts from the Councils quote from Pope Paul VI “1st Paragraph”

Peace

 

[Dollinger]

When we receive life from God, do we receive the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit and the essence of God, or is it the energy of life which is worked in us from the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit? Indeed, because good Trinitarian theology demands that all three Trinitarian persons work an act, that the river of life is not functioning here as a metaphor for the Holy Spirit, but refers to the very energy of life which belongs equally from all three Trinitarian persons (though in a different manner), and is manifest into existence through the Son in the Holy Spirit, and is given to us as a form of grace.

That verse only works as a Filioque prooftext if we confuse essence, hypostasis and energy with each other, and ignore the principle that no operation of the Trinity belongs only to two persons without including the third.

He attempts to address this in his answer to Objection 2, but fails: The answer to this is similar to the response in Objection 1. In this case, the EO problem is actually worse because it means the term “proceeds” (at least when applied to God) is no longer logically connected to a Divine Person. In other words, if the “river of life” that “proceeds” in 22:1 means something like “energy proceeds” from God, this logically opens the door to saying the Holy Spirit is not a Person precisely because He “proceeds” just as the non-personal energy does. His answer ignores that the verb ekporeuo is a common verb in Greek, which simply means that something is sent out from a source. His answer also fails because it does not take into account that that which proceeds from an hypostasis (the Holy Spirit) will be hypostatic, and that that which proceeds from an essence (energies) will consequently be anhypostatic (without hypostasis), as essence too is also anhypostatic. Here he is caught in a snare. If he confesses that the stream of life is proceeding from the Father and the Son alone, then he has introduced an energy which is only worked by two persons of the trinity, destroying the consubstantiality of the Trinity, because it would mean that the Father and Son share in some common nature in which Holy Spirit does not. If he confesses that the stream of life proceeds from the nature of the Father and the Son, then he must confess that it refers not to the Holy Spirit (because the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the divine nature), but that it is an anhypostatic energy.

Thanks; i understand better. And how would you answer this other claim about Revelation 22:1:

As for how the Orthodox interpret Revelation 22:1, what I can tell you is that, in John Bekkos’s day, people like George Moschabar were claiming that the passage had to refer, not to the Spirit in his eternal hypostastic nature, but solely to the eschatological gift of the Spirit, or rather, to the Spirit’s gifts. John Bekkos didn’t buy that interpretation; he pointed out that the verse uses the very word, ἐκπορεύεσθαι (“to proceed”), that people like Moschabar usually claim is a unique, technical term for indicating the Spirit’s eternal, hypostatic origination. In other words, he charged Moschabar with inconsistency, using ἐκπορεύεσθαι as a technical theological term when he feels like it (at John 15:26) and denying the technical theological use of the term when he doesn’t feel like it (at Rev 22:1).
My guess is that part of the reason why the verse does not come up more often in the writings of the Greek fathers is that the Book of Revelation, in many of the fathers’ eyes, is too obscure to serve as a basis for dogma. St. Gregory the Theologian notably does not include it in the scriptural canon that he writes up in the form of a poem (PG 37, 471-474); moreover, it is a book that is never read liturgically within the Orthodox Church. I indeed have sometimes wondered if a greater receptivity to the Book of Revelation helped make the West more open to the Filioque doctrine; but, so far as I can tell, the argument based on Rev 22:1 is a relatively late one, even within a Latin-speaking context; I don’t find it in Augustine, for instance. That is not to say that it is a poor argument. It is hard to read John 7:38-39, where the “living water” is identified with the Spirit himself, while reading the “water of life” of Rev 22:1 to mean something else entirely.

bekkos.wordpress.com/filioque-introduction/#comment-1020

 

[Ubenedictus]

However, I think it is worth mentioning that it was used only in certain locales at that time, first in the Spanish church and later introduced from Spain into the Frankish Carolinian empire (about two hundred years later). All of this without even Papal approval and over the objections of some Popes (Popes did not have as much authority then as the would now, even in the west).

It was not, however, used in the Roman synod until the eleventh century. Some Popes, like Leo III, opposed it actively, but he could not get the churches of Spain or the Frankish empire to give it up.

Charlemagne was convinced somehow that the Greeks actually removed the interpolation from the creed, and accused them of heresy.

As per this post …

Among other things, Cardinals Humbert and Frederic accused the Greeks with “they cut off the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son” in their notorius Bull and accused them of the heresy of the Pneumatomachi and the Theomachoi (I have to admit I have no knowledge of these heresies).

Primarily the process of imposing the interpolation on the east bagan as the western crusaders were carving up the various eastern Orthodox territories for themselves. Churches were put under the control of Latin bishops.

The Bull Allatae Sunt has some very interesting comments about this very thing.

For example …
Pope Eugenius IV at the Council of Florence allowed the Orientals to say the Creed without the addition. But when he later received the Armenians into union he obliged them to include it (Harduin, vol. 9, p. 435B) perhaps because he had learned that the Armenians were less averse to the addition then were the Greeks.

Similarly, Pope Callistus III, when he sent Brother Simon of the Order of Preachers to Crete in the capacity of Inquisitor, commanded him to watch carefully that the Greeks said “and from the Son” in the Creed, since in Crete there were many Greek refugees from Constantinople which had fallen to the Turks two years earlier (Gregory of Trebizond, epistola ad Cretans, in his Graeciae Orthodoxae, quoted by Allatius, p. 537, and confirmed by Echardus, Scriptorum Ordinis Sanai Dominici, vol. 1, p. 762). It may be that the Pope suspected that the Greeks from Constantinople were weak in this dogma of the faith.
…

Interesting in that the Pope obliged the eastern Christians to believe the interpolation in the creed when he did not force them to recite it. If there was any suspician that the eastern Christians did not accept it, the Supreme Pontiff required that it be recited orally.

These days it is generally acknowledged that the interpolation is heretical in it’s Greek form, and even Popes will no longer recite it in the Greek language. In those days it was imposed with vigor.

wow, the example you bring are after the east-west divide, no? I believe it is possible that the west the full implication in greek.
Ubenedictus

 

[Ubenedictus]

Not joking. These biblical quotes refer to the Holy Spirit coming to the faithful, in time, so are external not internal procession (also called mission):

John 7:37-39: “On the last and greatest day of the Feast [Tabernacles, v.2], Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified”

John 14:15-17: “If you love me you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Comforter to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him for he lives with you and will be in you.”

John 14:25, 26: “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

John 15:26: “When the Comforter comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.”

John 16:7,8: “But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment…”

Luke 11:13: If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

have you heard the arguement that the external manifestion is just the outer reflection of the internal procession.
Ubenedictus

 

[Vico]

have you heard the arguement that the external manifestion is just the outer reflection of the internal procession.
Ubenedictus

Yes, a mirror in the supernatural of the natural. The Church has based the filioque on the council of Nicea “consubstantial” however. Note that it was in 447 A.D. that the dogma was declared by Pope Leo I.

 

[Cavaradossi]

Thanks; i understand better. And how would you answer this other claim about Revelation 22:1:

bekkos.wordpress.com/filioque-introduction/#comment-1020

Let me break this passage down a bit:

As for how the Orthodox interpret Revelation 22:1, what I can tell you is that, in John Bekkos’s day, people like George Moschabar were claiming that the passage had to refer, not to the Spirit in his eternal hypostastic nature, but solely to the eschatological gift of the Spirit, or rather, to the Spirit’s gifts. John Bekkos didn’t buy that interpretation; he pointed out that the verse uses the very word, ἐκπορεύεσθαι (“to proceed”), that people like Moschabar usually claim is a unique, technical term for indicating the Spirit’s eternal, hypostatic origination. In other words, he charged Moschabar with inconsistency, using ἐκπορεύεσθαι as a technical theological term when he feels like it (at John 15:26) and denying the technical theological use of the term when he doesn’t feel like it (at Rev 22:1).

John Bekkos’ linguistic argument is weak. The meaning of words changes over time. Before the Cappadocian Fathers began using the term ἐκπορευόμενον, nobody thought twice about what the meaning of that word was in John 15:26 or thought to use it to describe the eternal manner of existence of the Spirit from the Father. Before that, the verb was simply used to mean that something is caused to come out of something else, and it continued to have that meaning, even after the Cappadocians began to use it in a Pneumatological context. In fact, that verb is used in a multitude of ways in the New Testament. For example, in Matthew 15:11, “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man,” the verb used for “come out” is ἐκπορευόμενον. Would anybody have the foolishness to use Bekkos’ argument here, that it is the Holy Spirit which proceeds out of the mouth of man and defiles him?

His argument is also weak because he cannot correctly distinguish between the energies of God and the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit (see below).

My guess is that part of the reason why the verse does not come up more often in the writings of the Greek fathers is that the Book of Revelation, in many of the fathers’ eyes, is too obscure to serve as a basis for dogma. St. Gregory the Theologian notably does not include it in the scriptural canon that he writes up in the form of a poem (PG 37, 471-474); moreover, it is a book that is never read liturgically within the Orthodox Church. I indeed have sometimes wondered if a greater receptivity to the Book of Revelation helped make the West more open to the Filioque doctrine; but, so far as I can tell, the argument based on Rev 22:1 is a relatively late one, even within a Latin-speaking context; I don’t find it in Augustine, for instance. That is not to say that it is a poor argument. It is hard to read John 7:38-39, where the “living water” is identified with the Spirit himself, while reading the “water of life” of Rev 22:1 to mean something else entirely.

Here is the problem. When Jesus breathed upon the apostles in John 20:22 and said to them, “receive ye the Holy Ghost,” what was it that the apostles received? Did they receive the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit? Clearly not, as that would be absurd. Did they receive the divine nature? That too would be absurd. Clearly then, what they received were the energies of the Holy Spirit, which were worked in them by the Holy Spirit. Similarly, when the tongues of flame descended upon the apostles at Pentecost, were these tongues of flame the very hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, come to be partaken of by the apostles? That would also be absurd, as it would turn the Holy Spirit into some sort of pantheistic monster. Surely then, the tongues of flame were a manifestation of the divine energies manifested by the Holy Spirit through the Son and from the Father and worked in the Apostles to grant them the gifts of the Spirit.

Now let’s look at that verse: [bibledrb]Revelation 22:1[/bibledrb]

When we see the river of the water of life proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb, is this river of the water of life the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit? Surely, the term is in some way representative of the Holy Spirit, because it is by the Holy Spirit that all graces come into the world, but is the river of the water of life the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit? When we participate in the energy of life, does it come through some sort of hypostatic union with the Spirit? If we reject this (as we rightfully should), then there is no reason for us to assume that the river of the water of life must be the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit itself, but that it refers literally to the energy of life, which is given to us as grace by the Spirit. This passage then, does not refer to the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit, but to the manifestation of the Spirit from the Father through the Son.

 

[dcointin]

I recently found this by St. Ambrose of Milan in “On the Holy Spirit”:

"176. But lest perchance any one should speak against as it were the littleness of the Spirit, and from this should endeavour to establish a difference in greatness, arguing that water seems to be but a small part of a Fount, although examples taken from creatures seem by no means suitable for application to the Godhead; yet lest they should judge anything injuriously from this comparison taken from creatures, let them learn that not only is the Holy Spirit called Water, but also a River, as we read: “From his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this He said of the Spirit, Whom they were beginning to receive, who were about to believe in Him.”

1. So, then, the Holy Spirit is the River, and the abundant River, which according to the Hebrews flowed from Jesus in the lands, as we have received it prophesied by the mouth of Isaiah. This is the great River which flows always and never fails. And not only a river, but also one of copious stream and overflowing greatness, as also David said: “The stream of the river makes glad the city of God.”
2. For neither is that city, the heavenly Jerusalem, watered by the channel of any earthly river, but that Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Fount of Life, by a short draught of Whom we are satiated, seems to flow more abundantly among those celestial Thrones, Dominions and Powers, Angels and Archangels, rushing in the full course of the seven virtues of the Spirit. For if a river rising above its banks overflows, how much more
   does the Spirit, rising above every creature, when He touches the as it were low-lying fields of our minds, make glad that heavenly nature of the creatures with the larger fertility of His sanctification.
3. And let it not trouble you that either here it is said “rivers,” or elsewhere “seven Spirits,” for by the sanctification of these seven gifts of the Spirit, as Isaiah said, is signified the fulness of all virtue; the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness, and the Spirit of the fear of God. One, then, is the River, but many the channels of the gifts of the Spirit. This River, then, goes forth from the Fount of Life.
4. And here, again, you must not turn aside your thoughts to lower things, because there seems to be some difference between a Fount and a River, and yet the divine Scripture has provided that the weakness of human understanding should not be injured by the lowliness of the language. Set before yourself any river, it springs from its fount, but is of one nature, of one brightness and beauty. And do you assert rightly that the Holy Spirit is of one substance, brightness, and glory with the Son of God and with God the Father. I will sum up all in the oneness of the qualities, and shall not be afraid of any question as to difference of greatness. For in this point also Scripture has provided for us; for the Son of God says: “He that shall drink of the water which I will give him, it shall become in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life.” This well is clearly the grace of the Spirit, a stream proceeding from the living Fount. The Holy Spirit, then, is also the Fount of eternal life."

ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf210.iv.ii.ii.xvii.html