This is honestly just silly. Let's first consider the quote from Augustine you yourself provide:
"If therefore what is given also has him it is given by as its origin, because it did not receive its proceeding from him from anywhere else, we must confess that the Father and the Son are the origin of the Holy Spirit; not two origins, but just as Father and Son are one God, and with reference to creation one creator and one lord, so with reference to the Holy Spirit they are one origin; but with reference to creation Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit are one origin, just as they are one creator and one lord."
You claim that this is about the economic procession, i.e. the Father and the Son sending the Spirit into creation. However, Augustine explicitly tells you that this isn't the case. Instead, the Saint *contrasts* the Father and Son being "one origin" "in reference to the Holy Spirit," and the Trinity being one principle "in reference to creation." In Augustine's theology, there's no action God can do within time that doesn't originate at once from all three divine persons; anything else would divide the one power or energy of the Godhead. Instead, the only true way one can speak of the Father and Son standing as a single principle is if it's within the eternal relations of the Trinity. Augustine makes this even more clear later on in De Trinitate, in what even Craig Truglia admits is "the most Florentine" passage in the Augustinian corpus:
"And let him who can understand, in that which the Son says, “As the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself,” not that the Father gave life to the Son already existing without life, but that He so begot Him apart from time, that the life which the Father gave to the Son by begetting Him is co-eternal with the life of the Father who gave it: let him, I say, understand, that as the Father has in Himself that the Holy Spirit should proceed from Him, so has He given to the Son that the same Holy Spirit should proceed from Him, and be both apart from time: and that the Holy Spirit is so said to proceed from the Father as that it be understood that His proceeding also from the Son, is a property derived by the Son from the Father. For if the Son has of the Father whatever He has, then certainly He has of the Father, that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from Him. But let no one think of any times therein which imply a sooner and a later; because these things are not there at all. How, then, would it not be most absurd to call Him the Son of both: when, just as generation from the Father, without any changeableness of nature, gives to the Son essence, without beginning of time; so procession from both, without any changeableness of nature, gives to the Holy Spirit essence without beginning of time? For while we do not say that the Holy Spirit is begotten, yet we do not therefore dare to say that He is unbegotten, lest any one suspect in this word either two Fathers in that Trinity, or two who are not from another. For the Father alone is not from another, and therefore He alone is called unbegotten, not indeed in the Scriptures, but in the usage of disputants, who employ such language as they can on so great a subject. And the Son is born of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father principally, the Father giving the procession without any interval of time, yet in common from both [Father and Son]."
De Trinitate 15.47
Any temporal reading of this passage can be immediately dismissed since the Saint explicitly says that the “procession” in mind here occurs “apart from time,” and so the question becomes: what kind of eternal procession from the Son is Augustine talking about? Thankfully, he does not leave us guessing: “Just as generation from the Father, without any changeableness of nature, gives to the Son essence, without beginning of time; so procession from both, without any changeableness of nature, gives to the Holy Spirit essence without beginning of time.” I'm sorry, but how much more clear does Augustine need to be? The Spirit’s “procession from both” the Father and the Son refers to His receiving the divine “essence without beginning of time” from both. Even if your reading of Augustine's Trinitarian analogies was correct, it would not matter. At the end of the day, words have meaning, and if identifying the Spirit’s “procession” from the Father and Son with His receiving “essence” from the Father and Son does not refer to hypostatic causality, then we are just living in fantasy land.
You'll also notice that, according to this Doctor hailed by the 5th Ecumenical Council, the Spirit proceeding “from the Father principally” does not mean that He receives His essence from the Father alone, rather it means that the Father “giv[es] the procession without any interval of time” to the Son, such that the Spirit’s hypostatic procession occurs “in common from both” the Father and the Son. In other words, the reason why the Father is the monarch of the Godhead is not because He alone causes other divine Persons, but rather because He is the only one who has it in Himself to generate the Son and spirate the Spirit; the Son receives the latter from the Father and thus possesses it derivatively, thereby preserving the Father’s unique hypostatic properties.
This interpretation would be in contradiction with the other greek and latin fathers of his time. Son, as Augustine noted, only received from the Father procession to give the Spirit (eternally or economically) and not to give existence to the Spirit. All of the church fathers proclaim that unique role of the Son is to give and to manifest the Spirit both eternally and economically.
How exactly can the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father and receive from the Son eternally, without having the latter be a hypostatic property? After all, the only real distinctions in the Godhead we can rationally defend are relations of opposition, otherwise we introduce composition into God, which, by definition, is the union of two really distinct things. And if the Spirit receiving from the Son is an eternal hypostatic property of His, then how does that not contradict Blachernae’s condemnation of there being any intermediary whatsoever in the production of the Spirit’s hypostasis?
Not to mention, what Latin fathers are you talking about? If anything, the Latin tradition after Augustine is even more explicit that the Spirit procession from the Father and the Son is His eternal hypostatic property.
St Dumitru Stăniloae says that Son proceeds the Spirit, as in manifests him and this is his unique hypostatic property or relation to the Spirit. So in this sense both Father and the Son proceed the Spirit in different manners.
"The particular Idea of Gregory of Cyprus Is that the Holy Spirit is manifested through the Son not only temporally but also eternally: the “manifestation” or “shining forth” of the Spirit through the Son represents the eternal relation between them. According to Gregory, the expression “through the Son” used by some of the Fathers “indicates the irradiation and manifestation of foe Spirit through the Son, for, in a manner known to all, foe Paraclete shines forth and is manifested eternally through the Son, like light from the sun through a ray."
- St. Dumitru Stăniloae, “Trinitarian Relations,” p. 17
So, we too, like west, believe that there is this unique relation between Son and Spirit, but it's not causation
A denial of the Filioque is simple incoherence in this scheme. “Causation” in terms of the divine person is and always has been just an analogous term to designate a hypostatic property. According to Blachernae and the anathemas associated with it, EO must reject that the Son plays *any* role in the procession of the Spirit *whatsoever,* because they understood that the Son mediating the procession of the Spirit from the Father (the meaning of “from the Father through the Son”) is just the Filioque dressed up in different language. That’s exactly what John Bekkos was condemned for. If you affirm that the Spirit’s unique hypostatic property is that He proceeds from the Father and the Son, that’s the Filioque. You can’t qualify that by saying, “but not from the Son in terms of causation.” That’s like saying, “I believe Jesus is fully God, just as much as God the Father, but He doesn’t share the divine essence.” It’s just asserting a contradiction because you don’t understand the concepts at play.
It's weird that you are reading into our own teaching something that we never believed, and it's also interesting that you have no idea what Gregory of Cyprus even taught.
“although the verbs “pass” and “shine” do not actually mean the method of origin; just as here, speaking about the procession of the Holy Spirit through the Son, we apply the force of the meaning of the word “proceed” to one culprit - the Father, and, as a result, we correctly observe what is denoted by this saying according to the theology of the Savior, and use the word “through Son" not to denote communication in origin, but, guided by sound fatherly teaching, healthy and safe ( ασφαλως ) at the same time we mean what they themselves have explained in other places - namely, that, proceeding from the Father, the Holy Spirit appears, is revealed, shines and is sent through the Son. If you want to imagine all this as clearly as possible, listen to the great lamp of Gregory the Shepherd of Nyssa. He says: “In relation to beings, from cause we think of another difference. For one is immediately from the first,” he means the Son, Who is immediately from the Father - omnifinitely, by this he also wants to say that He is from the Father through birth (γεννητως), implying the very method of origin, although this is not directly expressed in these words. As for the Spirit, then He, says [the Holy Father], is from the first- of course; at the same time He also says that He is from the first through procession (εκπορευτω), so that here too the method of origin is understood, although the word itself is literal and does not occur. But at the same time he says that the Spirit is through Him who is immediately from the first. Tell me, for God’s sake, what meaning do you see in the word “through someone who is immediate”? Don't you think that the Spirit comes and has existence through the Son? Of course, you won’t think this, but you will think that He shines, appears and passes [through the Son], as [the Holy Father] says everywhere else.”
- Gregory of Cyprus, The Strongest Apology Against Attacks on His Scroll [Citing Gregory of Nyssa, on not three gods]
As for John Bekkos, he literally had no idea what he was saying. It is very obvious from reading all church fathers, both greek and latin that they all believe Father is the Cause/Principle of both and that Holy Spirit is manifested by the Son and given by both, while again he solely receives existence from the Father.
Unlike your comment, mine actually contains an argument about *why* I believe the position you’re articulating isn’t coherent. Your comment is just assertions and a quote, not an actual engagement with the arguments I made. I’ll restate those arguments in case you’d like to try a more substantive response:
If you affirm that the Spirit’s unique hypostatic property is that He proceeds from the Father and/through the Son, that’s the Filioque. You can’t qualify that by saying, “but not from the Son in terms of causation/receiving existence.” That’s like saying, “I believe Jesus is fully God, just as much as God the Father, but He doesn’t share the divine essence.” It’s just asserting a contradiction because you don’t understand the concepts at play.
I have a material from Florentine's Filioque, and i can show you that Florentine's Filioque is align with the Orthodox Teachings about the Procession of the Holy Spirit.
This is honestly just silly. Let's first consider the quote from Augustine you yourself provide:
"If therefore what is given also has him it is given by as its origin, because it did not receive its proceeding from him from anywhere else, we must confess that the Father and the Son are the origin of the Holy Spirit; not two origins, but just as Father and Son are one God, and with reference to creation one creator and one lord, so with reference to the Holy Spirit they are one origin; but with reference to creation Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit are one origin, just as they are one creator and one lord."
You claim that this is about the economic procession, i.e. the Father and the Son sending the Spirit into creation. However, Augustine explicitly tells you that this isn't the case. Instead, the Saint *contrasts* the Father and Son being "one origin" "in reference to the Holy Spirit," and the Trinity being one principle "in reference to creation." In Augustine's theology, there's no action God can do within time that doesn't originate at once from all three divine persons; anything else would divide the one power or energy of the Godhead. Instead, the only true way one can speak of the Father and Son standing as a single principle is if it's within the eternal relations of the Trinity. Augustine makes this even more clear later on in De Trinitate, in what even Craig Truglia admits is "the most Florentine" passage in the Augustinian corpus:
"And let him who can understand, in that which the Son says, “As the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself,” not that the Father gave life to the Son already existing without life, but that He so begot Him apart from time, that the life which the Father gave to the Son by begetting Him is co-eternal with the life of the Father who gave it: let him, I say, understand, that as the Father has in Himself that the Holy Spirit should proceed from Him, so has He given to the Son that the same Holy Spirit should proceed from Him, and be both apart from time: and that the Holy Spirit is so said to proceed from the Father as that it be understood that His proceeding also from the Son, is a property derived by the Son from the Father. For if the Son has of the Father whatever He has, then certainly He has of the Father, that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from Him. But let no one think of any times therein which imply a sooner and a later; because these things are not there at all. How, then, would it not be most absurd to call Him the Son of both: when, just as generation from the Father, without any changeableness of nature, gives to the Son essence, without beginning of time; so procession from both, without any changeableness of nature, gives to the Holy Spirit essence without beginning of time? For while we do not say that the Holy Spirit is begotten, yet we do not therefore dare to say that He is unbegotten, lest any one suspect in this word either two Fathers in that Trinity, or two who are not from another. For the Father alone is not from another, and therefore He alone is called unbegotten, not indeed in the Scriptures, but in the usage of disputants, who employ such language as they can on so great a subject. And the Son is born of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father principally, the Father giving the procession without any interval of time, yet in common from both [Father and Son]."
De Trinitate 15.47
Any temporal reading of this passage can be immediately dismissed since the Saint explicitly says that the “procession” in mind here occurs “apart from time,” and so the question becomes: what kind of eternal procession from the Son is Augustine talking about? Thankfully, he does not leave us guessing: “Just as generation from the Father, without any changeableness of nature, gives to the Son essence, without beginning of time; so procession from both, without any changeableness of nature, gives to the Holy Spirit essence without beginning of time.” I'm sorry, but how much more clear does Augustine need to be? The Spirit’s “procession from both” the Father and the Son refers to His receiving the divine “essence without beginning of time” from both. Even if your reading of Augustine's Trinitarian analogies was correct, it would not matter. At the end of the day, words have meaning, and if identifying the Spirit’s “procession” from the Father and Son with His receiving “essence” from the Father and Son does not refer to hypostatic causality, then we are just living in fantasy land.
You'll also notice that, according to this Doctor hailed by the 5th Ecumenical Council, the Spirit proceeding “from the Father principally” does not mean that He receives His essence from the Father alone, rather it means that the Father “giv[es] the procession without any interval of time” to the Son, such that the Spirit’s hypostatic procession occurs “in common from both” the Father and the Son. In other words, the reason why the Father is the monarch of the Godhead is not because He alone causes other divine Persons, but rather because He is the only one who has it in Himself to generate the Son and spirate the Spirit; the Son receives the latter from the Father and thus possesses it derivatively, thereby preserving the Father’s unique hypostatic properties.
This interpretation would be in contradiction with the other greek and latin fathers of his time. Son, as Augustine noted, only received from the Father procession to give the Spirit (eternally or economically) and not to give existence to the Spirit. All of the church fathers proclaim that unique role of the Son is to give and to manifest the Spirit both eternally and economically.
How exactly can the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father and receive from the Son eternally, without having the latter be a hypostatic property? After all, the only real distinctions in the Godhead we can rationally defend are relations of opposition, otherwise we introduce composition into God, which, by definition, is the union of two really distinct things. And if the Spirit receiving from the Son is an eternal hypostatic property of His, then how does that not contradict Blachernae’s condemnation of there being any intermediary whatsoever in the production of the Spirit’s hypostasis?
Not to mention, what Latin fathers are you talking about? If anything, the Latin tradition after Augustine is even more explicit that the Spirit procession from the Father and the Son is His eternal hypostatic property.
St Dumitru Stăniloae says that Son proceeds the Spirit, as in manifests him and this is his unique hypostatic property or relation to the Spirit. So in this sense both Father and the Son proceed the Spirit in different manners.
"The particular Idea of Gregory of Cyprus Is that the Holy Spirit is manifested through the Son not only temporally but also eternally: the “manifestation” or “shining forth” of the Spirit through the Son represents the eternal relation between them. According to Gregory, the expression “through the Son” used by some of the Fathers “indicates the irradiation and manifestation of foe Spirit through the Son, for, in a manner known to all, foe Paraclete shines forth and is manifested eternally through the Son, like light from the sun through a ray."
- St. Dumitru Stăniloae, “Trinitarian Relations,” p. 17
So, we too, like west, believe that there is this unique relation between Son and Spirit, but it's not causation
A denial of the Filioque is simple incoherence in this scheme. “Causation” in terms of the divine person is and always has been just an analogous term to designate a hypostatic property. According to Blachernae and the anathemas associated with it, EO must reject that the Son plays *any* role in the procession of the Spirit *whatsoever,* because they understood that the Son mediating the procession of the Spirit from the Father (the meaning of “from the Father through the Son”) is just the Filioque dressed up in different language. That’s exactly what John Bekkos was condemned for. If you affirm that the Spirit’s unique hypostatic property is that He proceeds from the Father and the Son, that’s the Filioque. You can’t qualify that by saying, “but not from the Son in terms of causation.” That’s like saying, “I believe Jesus is fully God, just as much as God the Father, but He doesn’t share the divine essence.” It’s just asserting a contradiction because you don’t understand the concepts at play.
It's weird that you are reading into our own teaching something that we never believed, and it's also interesting that you have no idea what Gregory of Cyprus even taught.
“although the verbs “pass” and “shine” do not actually mean the method of origin; just as here, speaking about the procession of the Holy Spirit through the Son, we apply the force of the meaning of the word “proceed” to one culprit - the Father, and, as a result, we correctly observe what is denoted by this saying according to the theology of the Savior, and use the word “through Son" not to denote communication in origin, but, guided by sound fatherly teaching, healthy and safe ( ασφαλως ) at the same time we mean what they themselves have explained in other places - namely, that, proceeding from the Father, the Holy Spirit appears, is revealed, shines and is sent through the Son. If you want to imagine all this as clearly as possible, listen to the great lamp of Gregory the Shepherd of Nyssa. He says: “In relation to beings, from cause we think of another difference. For one is immediately from the first,” he means the Son, Who is immediately from the Father - omnifinitely, by this he also wants to say that He is from the Father through birth (γεννητως), implying the very method of origin, although this is not directly expressed in these words. As for the Spirit, then He, says [the Holy Father], is from the first- of course; at the same time He also says that He is from the first through procession (εκπορευτω), so that here too the method of origin is understood, although the word itself is literal and does not occur. But at the same time he says that the Spirit is through Him who is immediately from the first. Tell me, for God’s sake, what meaning do you see in the word “through someone who is immediate”? Don't you think that the Spirit comes and has existence through the Son? Of course, you won’t think this, but you will think that He shines, appears and passes [through the Son], as [the Holy Father] says everywhere else.”
- Gregory of Cyprus, The Strongest Apology Against Attacks on His Scroll [Citing Gregory of Nyssa, on not three gods]
For more on Nyssa read this https://open.substack.com/pub/journeytotheeast/p/filioque-and-saint-gregory-of-nyssa?r=35hq2n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
As for John Bekkos, he literally had no idea what he was saying. It is very obvious from reading all church fathers, both greek and latin that they all believe Father is the Cause/Principle of both and that Holy Spirit is manifested by the Son and given by both, while again he solely receives existence from the Father.
Unlike your comment, mine actually contains an argument about *why* I believe the position you’re articulating isn’t coherent. Your comment is just assertions and a quote, not an actual engagement with the arguments I made. I’ll restate those arguments in case you’d like to try a more substantive response:
If you affirm that the Spirit’s unique hypostatic property is that He proceeds from the Father and/through the Son, that’s the Filioque. You can’t qualify that by saying, “but not from the Son in terms of causation/receiving existence.” That’s like saying, “I believe Jesus is fully God, just as much as God the Father, but He doesn’t share the divine essence.” It’s just asserting a contradiction because you don’t understand the concepts at play.
This is absolutely Top Notch Mr. samurai.
Can i have your email please?
I have a material from Florentine's Filioque, and i can show you that Florentine's Filioque is align with the Orthodox Teachings about the Procession of the Holy Spirit.
I hope we can discuss more about this, Sir
Sure, whatareyoulookinat777@gmail.com.
I don't believe that it does but I am open to be convinced otherwise
Thank you for your patience, brother in Christ.
I have replied to you via email.
I hope you can check your email, please.