From dlupher@ups.edu Sun Oct 8 13:29:01 2000 Received: from mxu2.u.washington.edu (mxu2.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.9]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id NAA16020 for ; Sun, 8 Oct 2000 13:29:00 -0700 Received: from mail.ups.edu (main.ups.edu [192.124.98.219]) by mxu2.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id NAA11530 for ; Sun, 8 Oct 2000 13:28:59 -0700 Received: from [207.207.116.71] (wyatt1dhcp71.ups.edu [207.207.116.71]) by mail.ups.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id NAA17274 for ; Sun, 8 Oct 2000 13:28:56 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <39DF2FCC.23776.1A68D933@localhost> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2000 13:28:39 -0700 To: classics@u.washington.edu From: David Lupher Subject: "Filioque" R.I.P.? I hope a non-classical question will be permmitted if it at least concerns a Latin phrase. I missed the news reports which announced the promulgation on Sept. 5 of the Vatican document "Dominus Iesus" by Cardinal Ratzinger and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but I was intrigued by Peter Steinfels' article in the Oct. 7 NYT on the uproar it has caused. (The document criticizes religious "relativism" and insists upon "the central redemptive role of Jesus." The suggestion that one needs to be a Christian in order to achieve the Christian version of "salvation" is, apparently, regarded as profoundly insulting to non-Christians and troubling to Christians who fear that non-Christians will feel discriminated against.) Ironically, though the document is being widely denounced as a giant step back from "ecumenicism," Steinfels notes that it quotes the Nicene Creed "in its original form, without the added language that Eastern Orthodox churches reject." The "added language" would of course be the "Filioque," interpolated into the Creed at the Third Council of Toledo (589), one of the greatest obstacles to any possible reunification of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Does the excision of the "Filioque" in this new document constitute what is now official Catholic policy? Has there been any more explicit statement from the Vatican on the dumping of the "Filioque"? And will this have any effect on the Catholic doctrine of the "Double Procession of the Holy Spirit"? The doctrine antedates the "Filioque" (it was expressed by Augustine, for example), so presumably it can live without it. That would mean a continuing theological disagreement between East and West, but at a greatly reduced temperature without the offensive clause in the Creed. P.S.: Speaking of early Christianity in the NYT, today's Sunday NYTBR contains the first *positive* review I have read of Keith Hopkin's quirky "A World Full of Gods." The author is Robert A. Oden, pres. of Kenyon College and author of a book on Lucian's "De Dea Syria" and co-editor of an edition of Philo of Byblos' "Phoenician History." He says that when people would ask him what book they should read to understand the world in which Christianity arose, he would recommend Apuleius' "Golden Ass." Now he will add Hopkins' book. David Lupher Classics Dept. Univ. of Puget Sound .