The Filioque Debates: Thoughts of a Bystander

It is absolutely necessary for me to begin this piece by openly acknowledging my ignorance about the issue of the filioque. Let me say it again: I know next to nothing about its theological nuances, Augustinian origins, monopatrism, how St. Maximos the Confessor understood procedere or what John Bekkos and Photios the Great had to say about how St. Maximos understood it.  Readers who are interested in such matters can hop over to Eirenikon’s prodigiously-titled “Filioquextravaganza“, or enlighten themselves with Dr. Peter Gilbert’s erudite but lucid and fascinating essays on St. Maximos and the filioque and Anastasius the Librarian (from which I have profited greatly). This post will contain nothing other than my own rather trite and half-baked observations about this hot, hot, hot debate, in which I’m not so much a participant as a moaning bystander injured by a stray bullet.  Beware, reader.

From what I can understand, people who debate the filioque belong to one of two camps.  They either think that the filioque rightly remains a theological issue that divides the Churches East and West, or they do not.  I’m oversimplifying, of course, because not everyone in each camp belongs to it for the same reasons.

Let also my bias in this issue be known.  With the little that I know, I consider myself a member of the latter camp.  I don’t think the filioque is a valid point of division.  As far as I can tell, St. Maximos, in his letter to Marinus, bridged the East-West differences quite clearly and very charitably.  That being said, I also think that the filioque should be removed from the Roman Catholic version of the Creed.  Whatever the historical circumstances that led to its insertion into the original Symbol, we live now in a different era, and the West at present has no dogmatic convictions about the Spirit or the Son that absolutely require its retention.  I say if there’s a whole half (or a whole “lung”, if you will) of the Church for whom the filioque is noxious, and the other half is not dogmatically attached to it, then it should go.

It’s not that I don’t think Trinitarian theology is important, or that I don’t care who’s who in the Trinity as long as we say that there are three Persons.  To those who say that the filioque controversy rightly remains a theological obstacle, I’d have to say that I simply don’t see how we can justify our longstanding schism on a subject so far beyond human comprehension—namely, God’s inner being.  It seems to me that, in order for us to maintain that the filioque is a valid dividing issue, we have to be absolutely sure about at least two things: (1) the exact nature of the relationships among the Persons of the Trinity; and (2) the unconditional validity of our statements about those relationships after accounting for the poverty of human language to describe the ineffable God.  To have this kind of absolute surety, it seems to me also, is entirely offensive to the apophaticism of Scripture and the Fathers.

I came across these words of St. Ephrem the Syrian the other day, and wondered what he would think about some of the incredibly complex and sophisticated arguments that are delivered in debates about the filioque.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be reached only by Their names;
do not look further, to Their persons, just meditate on Their names.
If you investigate the person of God, you will perish,
but if you believe in the name, you will live.
Let the name of the Father be a boundary to you,
do not cross it and investigate His nature;
let the name of the Son be a wall to you,
do not cross it and investigate His birth from the Father;
let the name of the Spirit be a fence for you,
do not enter inside for the purpose of prying into Him.
(Memra on Faith 4:129-40)*

I think the Harp of the Spirit would charge us with prying (or trying to pry) into the hidden God.  If he did, I’m afraid I’d be inclined to agree.

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* Quoted in Sebastian Brock, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1992), p. 63.

Matthew 7.21-29: A Historical Reading

Warning 3: There are two kinds of hearers (Matthew 7.24-27)

With today’s Gospel, we arrive at the final and climactic warning. The one who not only hears but also practices the Sermon is likened to a wise man who builds his house on rock. As a whole, modern commentators read this parable against the backdrop of wisdom literature (the classic distinction between the wise man and the foolish) and subsequently pass over any possibility of historical referents.  However, I think the most likely reading of this text is that it is an allusion to the Temple, “the House” built on the foundation stone by the wise man, King Solomon.  It makes best sense of the wise man/house/rock constellation.

What Jesus was calling for from his disciples was the building of another “house”—an alternative Temple to the Herodian renovation in Jerusalem that would serve as the last stronghold of Jewish resistance against Rome in 70 AD. In retrospect, we can see why Jesus passed over the Temple in silence when expounding the subject of “surpassing righteousness” earlier, despite the centrality of the Jerusalem Temple to Jewish piety.

A new eschatological Temple is unveiled, here at the Sermon’s end, as the end of the Sermon. It is the fulfillment of everything for which the Jerusalem Temple stood: the locus of Torah, worship, deeds of loving-kindness. From this vantage point, Jesus’ audience must again see that the Jerusalem Temple has thus rendered obsolete and de-centered. The old House is no longer the seat of the kingdom which one must possess or preserve in order to enter the kingdom.

What is necessary for entrance, rather, is hearing and doing the words of Jesus. Everyone who hears and does what Jesus proclaims here on the mountain participates in the building of the true and lasting eschatological Temple. To depart from the call of the Sermon, to refuse Jesus’ vision for Israel—whether by embracing armed resistance against Rome or by a “peaceful” attempt to preserve the status quo—is in the end to make only one decision: to build on sand and thereby choose wreckage.

The dichotomy is sharp: to refuse one way is to choose the other. The rains, the floods and the winds of divine judgment—the peirasmos dealt in the military wrath of pagan Rome—will break upon both Temples, but only one of these houses will be spared of destruction. This description of a storm that destroys a house is strikingly similar to Ezekiel 13.10-16. Signicantly, the Ezekiel text consists of an oracle of judgment against Jerusalem and the false prophets who proclaim to her a false peace, i.e. those who tell her inhabitants that the Babylonian incursions of the seventh and sixth centuries BC would neither last nor lead to prolonged exile. It was revealed, on the contrary, to Ezekiel that there would be a “deluge of rain, great hailstones will fall, and stormy wind break out” (Ezekiel 13.11) and that both the city and the false prophets would be destroyed—as was the case when Jerusalem was decimated by the Babylonian “storm” in 587 BC. That Jesus follows his own warning against false prophets with the announcement of an imminent “storm” can hardly be coincidental. He saw a future pagan assault on Jerusalem as clear and present danger.

The house will survive whose builders heed the command, “Do not resist” and learn to pray, “Lead us not into peirasmos but deliver us from the evil one”. The other house in Jerusalem, to which all other kingdom agendas lead, will also attempt to weather the Roman storm, yet it will fall. Its builders are “foolish” (mōros) and like the salt that has been “rendered foolish” (mōrainō, Matthew 5.13) they will be trampled under foot by men. Of this house Jesus said, “Great was the fall of it” (Matthew 7.27).  The Sermon snaps shut, leaving the course of history to be its vindicator.

Matthew 7.13-23: A Historical Reading

Just as the Torah given through Moses bore with it blessings and curses (Deuteronomy 28), so too the Torah that comes from the mouth of Jesus.  Having begun the Sermon with blessings, Jesus concludes it by preaching on the consequences of disobedience.

Like Moses of old, Jesus has set before his hearers “life and death” (Deuteronomy 30.19). He now gives them three strong warnings about disobeying his interpretation of the Torah.  Each of these draws a stark dichotomy between those who live by the Sermon and those who reject it. They can be structured as follows:

Warning 1: There are two ways (7.13-14)

The wide gate and the easy road vs. The narrow gate and the hard road

Warning 2: Beware of false prophets (7.15-23)

False prophets who bear bad fruit vs. True prophets who bear good fruit

Warning 3: There are two kinds of hearers (7.24-27)

The foolish who hear but do not obey vs. The wise who hear and obey

Let’s look at these in turn.

Warning 1: There are two ways (7.13-14)

The motif of entering in the first warning resumes Matthew 5.20, where the object of one’s entering in (eiserchomai) is the kingdom of heaven, as is the case in Matthew 7.21. Elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel, eiserchomai is used repeatedly to mean entry into the life of the kingdom (see Matthew 18.3; 18.8-9; 19.17; 19.23-24; 22.12; 23.13; 25.10; 25.21, 23). Since Matthew portrays Jesus as the New Moses, it is probable that this motif is rooted in ancient Israel’s entrance into the promised land of Canaan—an entrance which was refused to those who refused to place their trust in the God of Israel.

What is most interesting here is that the two ways and the two gates appear to be two attempts to arrive at a common destination. The easy road leads its traveler to the wide gate; an attempt to enter in this way leads to destruction. The hard road, on the other hand, leads one to the narrow gate by which one enters into life.

Without “spiritualizing” terms like “gate” and “road” too quickly, there is the possibility that Jesus has in mind the circumstances of a traveler who, in approaching a city, must choose one of its two gates. I propose also that the city implied here is Jerusalem. If Jerusalem is “the city of the great King”, as Jesus referred to it earlier (Matthew 5.35), why should he not have it in mind when he speaks of “entering” the kingdom? Furthermore, in the oracles of restoration given by the prophets of Israel, Zion (the restored Jerusalem) lies at the center of God’s redemptive work and becomes the headquarters, as it were, of his kingdom.  This can be seen, for example, in passages like Isaiah 2, 60-61; Zephaniah 3.14-20; and Zechariah 12-14.

If the two gates of which Jesus speaks is taken with reference to Jerusalem, the eschatological connotations of eiserchomai are heightened by a particular first-century Jewish expectation among som, based on Scriptures such as Ezekiel 46.1-2, 12, Zechariah 14.4-5 and Joel 3.2, that the Messiah and his hosts (disciples?) would  enter Jerusalem from the east and bring about the awaited deliverance of Israel.  By this same token, it is not surprising that, when Jesus approached Jerusalem from the east after crossing the Kidron Valley on Palm Sunday, the crowds immediately hailed him as the Davidic heir—that is, the Messiah and King (Matthew 21.9; Mark 11.10; Luke 19.38; John 12.13).

I speculate that Jesus was in fact alluding to two specific entrances into Jerusalem: the (“wide”) Eastern Gate and the (“narrow”) Sheep Gate, both of which led to the Temple Mount. These gates can be taken to symbolize the two contrasting ways of bringing about the kingdom: (1) the “wide” gate representing the popular expectation of the Messiah’s glorious return and the military defeat of Israel’s enemies—that is, the way of resistance movements followed so many of Jesus’ contemporaries; and (2) the “narrow” gate, near which animals were prepared for Temple sacrifices, representing the way of non-violence and submission to persecution advocated by Jesus (“Do not resist…”).*

Could Jesus have possibly been calling his followers to become like sheep for sacrifice, after which the Sheep Gate received its name? Immediately after this saying the Teacher likens his disciples to “sheep” who must be on guard against “ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7.15). Although the allusion is cannot be verified with certainty, its immediate context seems to support the interpretation of the “narrow gate” I suggest here.

Warning 2: Beware of false prophets (7.15-23)

Jesus’ warning about false prophets is centered on their bearing “evil fruit” (Matthew 7.17-18). It is notable that these prophets are first likened to thorns and thistles, from which one cannot expect to harvest grapes or figs (Matthew 7.16). In the scriptures of Israel, thorns and thistles are common metaphors for the enemies of Israel who obstruct her flourishing and fruitfulness in the land—for instance, the Canaanite peoples who were in the land during the conquest (Numbers 33.55; Joshua 23.13; Judges 2.3). Similarly, in the prophetic tradition, these “weeds” represent Israel’s Gentile oppressors (Isaiah 5.6; 7.23-25; 10.17; 27.4; 33.12; 34.13; Ezekekiel 2.6; Nahum 1.10).

Yet the false prophets of whom Jesus speaks here cannot simply refer to all Gentiles, for the Teacher has already said that they are “outsiders” of the community actually masquerading as “insiders”—ravenous wolves in sheep’s clothing. They are quite capable of professing Jesus as “Lord” and performing mighty works (Matt 7.21-22). Who, then, are these false prophets who are likened to Gentiles?

Again, the scriptures of Israel afford light on the matter. False prophets in the history of Israel were not so much teachers of heretical doctrine as they were counterfeit political strategists. Especially in the time of they last days of the Davidic kingdom, they assured the people of peace and tranquility when in fact the true prophets announced God’s judgment on Judah in the form of pagan invasion.  An iconic instance of confrontation between a true prophet and a false prophet on this subject is that between Jeremiah and Hananiah (see Jeremiah 28.1-17).

Like the prophets of old, Jesus, had already warned of impending judgment for those who reject his manifesto for the kingdom (Matthew 5.13, 25, 29-30). Later, in his discourse on the destruction of Jerusalem, Jesus would warn against these false prophets who would arise in a time of political turmoil and mislead many into lawlessness (Matthew 24.11-12). Their way “leads to destruction” (Matthew 7.13). His hearers must be on guard, since false prophets will come who will dissolve the starkness of Jesus’ proclamation with a counterfeit announcement of peace for all. They are the promoters of “alternative” kingdom agendas and propagators of deluded hopes. Yet even these disguised wolves could be identified by their fruit, which Jesus calls “evil” (ponēros, Matthew 7.17)—that is, no different than that of the “evil” pagan aggressor (Matthew 5.39).  From these false prophets, too, his disciples must learn to pray to their heavenly Father, “Deliver us…”.

[The third warning will be covered in tomorrow's post.]

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* According to Eusebius, the fourth-century bishop of Caesarea, animals were washed in the large pools by the Sheep Gate in preparation for sacrifice in the Temple: “There are now pointed out twin pools, of which one is filled by the rain water (winter rains) and the other it appears that the water becomes miraculously red, as they say, bearing the traces of the sacrificial victims formerly washed in it. So it is called the sheep after the sacrifice…. The sacrificial victims were brought unbound by the priests into the bath, whence it received its name” (Onomasticon 58.21-26). Moreover, it is likely that these animals might have been sold to pilgrims there as well (Urban C. von Wahlde, “Archaeology and John’s Gospel”, in Jesus and Archeology, ed. James H. Charlesworth [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006], p. 553).

Matthew 7.6-12: A Historical Reading

For those who are coming in mid-stream, this series on historical readings of the Sermon on the Mount generally follows the Gospel texts assigned by the Roman lectionary in these days.  They are largely adapted from my finished thesis, and so are not intended to offer a full verse-by-verse commentary of the biblical passages.

The generosity about which Jesus has been speaking, at the same time, must be accompanied with vigilance toward outsiders, to which the Lord turns his attention in today’s text. In practicing generosity and refraining from judging one another, the disciples must yet be careful not to give “the holy thing” (to hagion) to dogs nor their pearls to swine (Matthew 7.6). “Dogs” is the common Jewish derogatory term for Gentiles in general (see, for example, Matthew 15.26-27). Swine is likewise associated with Gentiles. Given Matthew’s inclusive orientation towards the Gentiles, evidenced in passages like Matthew 28.19-20, “dogs” and “swine” more likely refer to those outside the discipleship community rather than to all Gentiles.

Taken in this sense, Jesus’ words can be interpreted as a caution to his disciples to be prudent in their generosity toward outsiders lest they be trampled under foot—perhaps another cryptic reference to Roman aggression (cf. Matthew 5.13). If this is the case, Jesus is probably warning against imprudent proclamation of the kingdom rather than a reckless generosity with one’s possessions. As the history of persecution in the early Church proves, the Christian confession in an alternative kingdom with its own “lord” constituted a serious threat to the self-aggrandizing claims of the Roman Empire!

To possess this kind of discernment, one must turn to the wisdom which comes from above; hence, Jesus turns once again to the subject of divine providence in Matthew 7.7-10. Although this section is the “literary twin” of Matt 6.25-33, its placement after the saying about “dogs” and “swine” indicates that the emphasis here is on praying for divine provision of discernment rather of food, drink or clothing.

The disciple must “ask”, “seek” and “knock”—verbs often associated with prayer in the Old Testament—for the gift of discernment towards outsiders, trusting in the heavenly Father who cares and does not mislead his children by giving them stones and serpents when they ask for bread and fish.

In keeping with rabbinic practice of encapsulating the entire Torah into one maxim,* Jesus, having given his final word of interpretation of the Torah, sums up all this in one saying: “So (oun) whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matt 7.12). This saying forms a literary “frame” with Matthew 5.17, and enfolds Jesus’ definitive interpretation of “the law and the prophets” which he had come to fulfill. Thus, in the Sermon Jesus has interpreted for all time the Torah of Israel, deriving thereby a whole way of life (worship and deeds of righteousness) proper to the kingdom which has “come near” (Matthew 4.17).

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* Two examples of other rabbis doing this in the Talmud:

Bar Kappara expounded: “What short text is there upon which all the essential principles of the Torah depend? In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will direct thy paths (Prov 3.6).” (b. Berakoth. 63a)

On another occasion it happened that a certain heathen came before Shammai and said to him, “Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.” Thereupon he repulsed him with the builder’s cubit which was in his hand. When he went before Hillel, he said to him, “What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbour: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof; go and learn it.” (b. Sabbath 31a)

Moo Point #1

He was explaining to me his reticence toward the Church; his inability to accept faith as it is lived in the Church, his imperviousness to the teachings of the Church.  He is a radiant boy, full of light, goodness and love for peace.  What can one say to such people, or rather how can one defend a Christianity in which Christ is somehow obscured from view by an accumulation of inexplicable obstacles and taboos?  Those people who have the gift of life, life’s religious sense, often do not need a “religion” which fills a void, which takes away fear.  This kind of joyless, lifeless religion repels people, mainly because its outlook on life is often mean, censorial and judgmental.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, on a young man who’d come to see him (Journal, entry dated March 13, 1974)

When I lived in Denver, many of us “faithful” Catholics felt good about ourselves by criticizing Colorado’s neo-pagans—you know, those twentysomething yuppies who worshipped fun, who’d rather go skiing on Copper Mountain or hiking at Rocky Mountain National Park than give glory to the Lord our God on Sundays at church.  We’d point and sometimes laugh at the people who said, “My church is the [insert place of stunning natural beauty here], these people say.  Whatever.  If they only knew about the Eucharist.”

It gave us a sort of permission to feel good about ourselves—us lovers of God who, despite the clear sky and calm day, kept our communion fasts, buttoned up our pressed shirts and even put on a tie to go inside a building, sing hymns and commune with God in the sacramental life.  What sacrifice.  You can almost hear the cherubim fluttering their wings in delight at such godliness.

As the years went by, I began to realize that the mountain-loving granola folk were generally less tightly-wound, felt less guilty about being happy and, horror of horrors, actually seemed more full of life than the churchy people did.  Most of my conversations with them were not about how the Enlightenment had birthed Modernity which in turn generated misery for all mankind (or humankind, excuse me).  They were mostly about normal, tangible things, like the traffic on I-70 up the mountains (of course—they were skiers, after all), good pizza joints in our neighborhood, who’s playing at the Fillmore, or when we should hop over to the newly-opened Cheeky Monk (the bar, that is) for a communal happy hour.  I didn’t have to use words like hypostasis as much or justify my actions with Apostolic Canon 34.

And you know, I liked them better.

It occurred to me one day that the Catholic Church might not have room for such as these.  I’m not thinking of shortcomings in ministries or funding.  I’m talking about the strange suspicion that, once we got a hold of them and ran them through our catechumenate, we’d turn these life-filled, vivacious people into boring, pressed-shirt-wearing, pious church-folk who either agonize about whether or not their romantic relationships are godly enough or are tortured by the possibility of a vocation to religious life or the priesthood, or both. I suspect that their hikes to see the aspen turn and thrilling rafting trips on whitewater will be replaced by somber discernment retreats at monasteries and incessant talk about the “revelation” given by their spiritual director yesterday.  I’ve seen it happen. Compliment someone on their tattoo, and listen to a mind-numbingly boring testimony about how this person has just discovered the “theology of the body” and regrets ever mutilating his/her body like that.

I mean, all I said was, “Hey, that’s a cool dragon on your shoulder.”

No wonder some people avoid us Christians like the plague.  We say Jesus came to give life and give it abundantly, but the way most non-Christians see it, we’re here to sap every ounce of life they’ve got and make sure they’re glad they’ll have large mansions in heaven after death-marching through this valley of tears.

I suspect that there is a kind of piety that prevents Christians from seeing reality and experiencing it in its fullness.  Rather, it offers us a way of escaping reality, a way of living in a different and allegedly more “spiritual” world.  This kind of “spirituality” veils the drama of sin and redemption which takes place in this world, obscuring it with clouds of anxious novenas, apparition-chasing and sappy religious-speak. It’s the kind of godtalk that freaks the rest of the world out, only we don’t realize it because we’re so trapped in our little holy huddles or, if we do, we attribute it to our fidelity to the Gospel and their being sold under sin.

I’m not saying that Christians should be liked.  I’m saying that Jesus called us salt and light, and we have to do a better job of figuring out what that means.  If the Church is supposed to be the place of communion and life, if that Kingdom which we bless at the beginning of every Divine Liturgy has in fact broken into this world, then the peoples of the earth should feel liberated by the Gospel rather than trapped by it as they so often do.  If the Gospel is life, then people ought to be thirsting for it when Christians proclaim it, and yet they so often feel the compulsion to take shelter and defend themselves against our “good news”.  Certainly we must be doing something wrong?  You can chalk it up to the fact that these non-believers are darkness-dwellers who shun the light, but Jesus said very little about that.  He seemed more focussed on how his disciples ought to live in that city on a hill so that the nations would be drawn to it.

It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the LORD
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”

Isaiah 2.2-3