Examining the Testimonies of Tradition on the Filioque.

[Xavier]

In this thread, let's learn from our holy Fathers on the hypostatic relations between the Three Persons in the Holy Trinity. Filioque deals with the eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit. If the Holy Spirit were not eternally the Spirit of the Son, it would follow that Christ is not God.

1. Bishop St. Leontius of Caesarea, in the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, 325 A.D. confessed on behalf of the 318 Holy Fathers gathered there: "the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and is proper to the Son and gushes forth from Him."

2. Bishop St. Hillary of Poitiers, in the early 4th century, " We are bound to confess the Holy Spirit as being from the Father and the Son as Authors".

3. Bishop St. Ambrose of Milan, shortly thereafter, wrote,: "The Holy Spirit also, when He proceeds from the Father and the Son, is not separated from the Father and from the Son. For how can He be separated from the Father Who is the Breath/Spirit of His Mouth/Word?"

4. Patriarch St. Athanasius of Alexandria confessed in his Creed, "The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; not begotten, not made, nor created but proceeding". Cardinal St. Robert answers deniers of the Athanasian Authorship of the Athanasian Creed: ["To this testimony two things can be said. First that this creed is not really from Athanasius, but this is easily refuted, both from Nazianzen where he says in praise of Athanasius that he composed a most perfect confession of faith that the whole West and East venerate, and also from Augustine who by name cites Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria and adduces a complete section of this creed, and he uses whole sentences from it, with the name of Athanasius, as if it were very well known in the Church http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/procession.htm

5. Pope St. Damasus at a Roman Synod around 380 A.D. confessed "We believe...in the Holy Spirit, not begotten nor unbegotten, not created nor made, but proceeding from the Father and the Son, always co-eternal with the Father and the Son"

So we've not even crossed the 4th century yet, but it's already plain that Filioque as Sacred Theology is most certainly dogmatic Universal Apostolic Tradition.

6. Let us continue: Bishop St. Augustine shows why someone so learned and holy as Bishop St. Alphonsus- himself almost a latter day Saint Augustine- does not hesitate to consider him "the greatest light of the ancient Doctors": "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?"

A stunning refutation of the later 9th century heresiarch named Photius, a latter day Arius.

7. Patriarch St. Cyril of Alexandria, in a letter approved by 5 Ecumenical Councils: ""The Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth, and Christ is Truth, and so He proceeds from Him likewise as from the Father."

That will have to do for now. What else can we learn about the Filioque?

Edit: 8. And a last and eighth one from holy and learned Cardinal St. Robert Bellarmine, namely Pope St. Leo the Great, in a letter before 450 A.D. St. Robert adduces the dogmatic theological proof thus: "Ninth [of 15 Latin Fathers, and separately 15 Greek Fathers, and then 5 Ecumenical Councils, from Ephesus I to Nicaea II inclusive)Blessed Leo, "There is one who generates; another who is generated; another who proceeds from both." And this is that Leo the Great whom in the fourth Synod 630 Bishops, almost all Oriental, extolled with the greatest praise, and about whom they repeated again and again that as Leo believes so also do we believe."