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Aquinas on the Greeks Rejecting Filioque: "Ignorant" and "Stubborn"?

Aquinas on the Greeks Rejecting Filioque: "Ignorant" and "Stubborn"?

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Quodlibeta Theologica
Jul 10, 2025
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Aquinas on the Greeks Rejecting Filioque: "Ignorant" and "Stubborn"?
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It is sometimes observed that Thomas seems to issue derogatory remarks against “the Greeks” who refuse to concede a filio, as well as dismissive remarks against their arguments to the contrary–among which remarks are “ridiculous,” “frivolous,” “ignorant,” “stubborn,” and “even a first-year could do better” (this last is modernized and merely a gesture at Thomas’s actual remark). Here, we want not so much to explain away or justify these remarks, as to explain what their nature actually is. Let us proceed through six points.

Not Greek Fathers, but Greek Theologians

First, we must immediately remind that the persons involved are not the Greek fathers, but certain (then) contemporary Greek theologians. Needless to say, Thomas’s posture toward the fathers both Greek and Latin is entirely pious (really, this is an understatement). When handling their sayings which seem contrary to a filio, sayings which come equally from Latin (e.g., Augustine) and Greek (e.g., the Damascene) fathers, Thomas will solve these conflicting authorities the same mode how he solves any authority conflicting with any proven proposition. In the few cases when Thomas decides that the conflict cannot be solved by any explanation, but the authority seems to constitute an actual error opposite to a filio (e.g., the famous saying of the Damascene), Thomas will then “go the extra mile” and cover the nakedness of his father, justifying (so to speak) the error along various lines.

Unsurprisingly, Thomas has a different posture toward contemporary theologians with whom he is professionally equal (for lack of better terms); and that posture is fundamentally the same regardless of whether the theologians happen to be Greek or Byzantine, or happen to be Latin and/or the scholastici. More, the scholastic masters have certain practices for handling errors and errant theologians, practices which Thomas is following. One practice is speaking of those errant by name only after e.g., the question has been determined somehow by the Magisterium: e.g., the error of Porretanus regarding relations being extrinsically affixed. Sometimes, when there are many who hold this error, they are spoken of as a school: the error of the Porretanians. It is in this last sense which Thomas speaks of “the Greeks,” namely certain theologians (who all happen to be Byzantine) of a certain school involving an error which has been determined as such by the Magisterium, and furthermore is highly demonstrably so through theological arguments.

To be sure, one important difference must be mentioned. By contrast to e.g., Porretanus, who after the council’s determination conceded his error (something which Thomas never fails to underline), these Greek theologians have not yet done so but continue in it. This places them for Thomas in a more negative category, and it would be wrong to cover over that fact. The category is negative enough, and the error severe enough, that other scholastics like Bonaventura will say that these theologians are heretics (e.g., I Sent d 11 a 1 q 1).1 Notably, Thomas refrains from speaking so.

Regardless, in sum, although with the Greek fathers Thomas will gratefully receive all their sayings and then solve any conflicting authorities, with these certain Greek theologians, he will rebut their contrary arguments and in that context issues his negative remarks–same as every scholastic theologian will do with any error of this sort.

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Fundamental Agreement, at the Level of Judgments

Second, we must also emphasize that Thomas holds that these same Greek theologians concede a filio in its equivalent or according to its sense (likely among the reasons why Thomas refrains from speaking of them as haeretici), although they refuse to concede it according to this very word. This, we underline, is not an uncommon position, held also by Lombard and thus the majority of scholastic bachelors. At least in the vast majority of cases, the persons involved to not reject a filio at the level of intellect and judgment; they only refuse to concede the Latin proposition which signifies such a judgment. This means that the situation involves making someone concede a proposition whose intellectual content is (at least) subcontained in their own judgment, rather than making someone hold a certain judgment which they dissent from.

Thus, Thomas will say e.g., that “it is therefore manifest that those who are saying that the Holy Spirit is from the Father through the Son, but not from the Son, do not know this unique word [a/ab, = from], just as Aristotle says of Anaxagoras; for wanting to be teachers of the law, they do not understand either about what they are speaking, nor about those which they are affirming, as is said in 1 Timothy 1:7.”2 For him, the situation with these Greek theologians is comparable to Aristotle’s situation with Anaxagoras or Paul’s situation with the teachers of the law, who focus on the letter and not the spirit (intellectus!).

Theologically Necessary Arguments

Third, there are many arguments in favor of this proposition, arguments which are theologically necessary (e.g., De pot q 10 a 4)–the best being that if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son, then he could not be really distinguished from him (e.g., De pot q 10 a 5). This means that someone, and particularly some professional theologian, who refuses to concede this proposition is running against the internal logic found at the very heart of trinitarianism.

And this is why Thomas will speak so strongly–as strongly as he ever does–in e.g., Contra errores, and associate this error with the error of heretics, all of whom “principally tend to detract from the dignity of Christ.”3 “So likewise in our time,” Thomas says after a list of ancient heretics, “there are said to be some who try to undercut Christ, diminishing his dignity as much as in them lies. For example, when they say that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, they diminish his dignity how simultaneously with the Father he is the spirator of the Holy Spirit.”4

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