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The Western Schism of the Franks and the ‘Filioque’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

R. G. Heath
R. G. Heath
Affiliation:
Professor of History, San Fernando Valley State College, Northbridge California, U.S.A.
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Extract

The tangled web of polemical debate, theological dispute and scholarly investigation surrounding the ‘Filioque question’ is essentially the consequence of the union newly created in the eighth century between the Franks and the papacy. It is our purpose, therefore, in so far as it is pertinent to our topic, to characterise the nature and bases of that unique union and its relevance to the historical kaleidoscope of events which made the new alignment a necessity. By this method it is hoped that the Filioque controversy may be integrated into the larger historical context from which it sprang and removed from its confinement to a segmented aspect of the development of ecclesiastical dogma. It is well-known that the addition to the creed of the words ‘and from the Son’, as they pertained to the procession of the Holy Spirit, resulted in a long-standing conflict of twelve centuries which only in our own days would seem to reach its term. In re-examining the origins, evolution and outbreak of the disagreement over the revised creed and in asking how what appears to modern eyes as a mere liturgical variation could become such a major issue during three centuries, we should like to demonstrate the exceptional character of a liturgical issue as it illuminates the then prevailing relationship between pope and Frankish emperor. By contrast, its significance for later doctrines of Church and State should also become apparent.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , April 1972 , pp. 97 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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References

page 97 note 1 See for example the article ‘Filioque’ by Palmieri, A., Dictionnaire de thdologie catholique, v, Paris 1939, 2309Google Scholar f.

page 97 note 2 See below, 112 n. 7.

page 97 note 3 B. Capelle, ‘L'introduction du symbole à la messe’ in Mélanges J. de Ghellinck, ii, Gembloux 1951, 1003. Also Jungmann, J. A., Missa Sollemnia, Freiburg 1952, 598Google Scholar f.; Fortescue, A., A Study of the Roman Liturgy, Aberdeen 1955, 287Google Scholar.

page 97 note 4 Migne, P.G., lxxxvi, 201.

page 98 note 1 Jungmann, loc. cit.

page 98 note 2 Augustine's definition is classic. Symbolum est regula fidei brevis et grandis: brevis numero verborum, grandis pondere sententiarum. (Sermo 59, n. 1). Quoted in Gihr, N., The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, St. Louis 1902, 484Google Scholar.

page 98 note 3 It would appear that a version of the creed before 400 already contains the ‘Filio-que’: Migne, P.L., cv. 57 and also Jungmann, op. cit., 597.

page 98 note 4 Mansi, J., Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, Florence 1759–1798, ix. 993Google Scholar. See also Hefele, C. J. and Leclercq, H., Histoire des Conciles, Paris 1907–1914Google Scholar, iii. Pt. 1, 222f.

page 98 note 5 Mansi, ibid.

page 98 note 6 Mansi, ix. 981.

page 98 note 7 Mansi, ix. 985.

page 98 note 8 For this aspect see especially J. A. Jungmann, ‘Die Abwehr des Germanischen Arianismus und der Umbruch der Religioesen Kultur im Fruehen Mittelalter’ in Zeitschrift fuer Katholische Theologie, lxix (1947), 61–6Google Scholar. See 66–8 for the contrast with Rome. Further by the same author, Die Stellung Christi im Liturgischen Gebet, Liturgie-Wissen-schaftliche Quellen und Forschungen, Heft 19–20, Muenster 1962, indicating the consequent emphasis on the Trinity in the mozarabic liturgy (91–2), and the concern with this doctrine from the fifth to the seventh centuries in the 17 ‘Toledan’ synods held during this time (194).

page 99 note 1 See A. Palmieri, D.T.C., v. 2309–10.

page 99 note 2 Capelle, B., ‘Alcuin et l'Histoire du Symbole de la Messe’, Travaux Liturgiques de Doctrine et d'Histoire, Louvain 1962, ii. 211–21Google Scholar.

page 99 note 3 Hesbert, J., ‘L'Antiphonale messarium de l'ancien rite beneventan’, Ephemerides Liturgicae (1938), lii. 36–40Google Scholar.

page 99 note 4 Amann, E., L'Epoque Carolingienne (Histoire de l'Eglise vi), Paris 1947, 174Google Scholar.

page 99 note 5 Einhardi Annales, Anno 767, Annales Laurissenses, Anno 767, MGH, SS i. 144–5

page 99 note 6 St. Ado, Chronicon, P.L., cxxiii. 125. Also Hefele-Leclercq, op. cit., iii. 726.

page 99 note 7 ‘Et usitate confitetur’: Libri Carolini sive Caroli Magni Capitulare de Imaginibus, MGH, Leg. iii, Concil. ii. Pt. 2. Supplementum, 110, cap. 3. Although the foregoing does not answer the question of how or when the Filioque reached Gaul, and does not attempt to do so, in view of the conclusions stated in this paper, there is sufficient evidence that the Filioque had not only arrived there by 767 but was also a point of concern. The view of Jungmann (Die Abwehr, etc.) that the Spanish Church was indirectly the teacher for the West during this period (53) is of course a basic starting point and he agrees (55–7) with Capelle, Alcuin (220–1) that from the origin of the Symbol in Spain there was a transmission to Ireland where it found its way into the Stowe Missal and thence to York and Alcuin. Since there were so many variations of the creed using the Filioque before it became stan-dardised by the Franks, it is possible that B. Capelle's derivation from Alcuin might well apply to one version, namely that of the Stowe Missal. But the sources make it clear that the Filioque was already in current usage well before Alcuin's arrival at the imperial court. As with most of Charlemagne's major projects and concerns, if not all of them, they were already present under Pippin.

page 100 note 1 Cod. Car. No. 11, MGH Epp. iii, esp. 505. See also ibid., No. 10, 501 where ‘St. Peter’ himself writes a letter to Pippin beseeching his aid and Nos. 13, 510; 16, 514 and 33, 539 f. Also for references to ‘Vivat qui Francos diligit Christus’ in the Lex Salica, see Ullmann, W., The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages, London 1970, 62Google Scholar.

page 100 note 2 See Kantorowicz, E. H., Laudes Regiae, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1958, 56Google Scholar ff.; Rosenstock, E., ‘Die Furt der Franken’ in Rosenstock, E. and Wittig, J.Das Alter der Kirche, Berlin 1927–1928, ii. 486Google Scholar f. This rebirth of the Old Testament is the hinge on which the ‘Carolingian Renaissance’ swings.

page 100 note 3 Cod. Car., No. 11. Also Nos. 43 and 49 where, like David, Pippin is predestined to defend the Church.

page 100 note 4 Cod. Car., No. 33, 540.

page 100 note 5 Because the Frankish king was beyond tribal law his daughter was not allowed to marry.

page 100 note 6 L. Duchesne (Christian Worship: its origin and evolution, trans, by M. L. McClure, London 1903, 103–4) points out that the widespread anarchy resulting from the acephalous episcopate of the Frankish Church, whereby each church possessed its own book of canons and particular liturgical usage, was irremediable without the appeal to the tradition and the authority of the Roman Church.

page 101 note 1 Cod. Car., No. 62, 589: Hadrian, after the conquest of the Lombard kingdom in 774, ‘victorem te super omnes barbaras nationes faciat’. For Stephen 11, see No. 8, 498 n. 1.

page 101 note 2 Cod. Car., No. 39.

page 101 note 3 E. H. Kantorowicz, op. cit., 53–4.

page 101 note 4 See idem., The King's Two Bodies: a Study in Medieval Political Theology, Princeton 1957, 61–87Google Scholar, et passim.

page 101 note 5 Idem., Laudes Regiae, 60; E. Rosenstock, op. cit., 494: ‘Die Liturgie naemlich gibt alien theologischen und rechtlichen Diskussionen die Richtung;’ Bishop, E., ‘The Liturgical Reforms of Charlemagne,’ Downside Review, xxxviii (1919), 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 101 note 6 The peace terms which bring the Saxon wars to an end indicate Frankish policy: renunciation of national religious customs and worship of devils, acceptance of the sacraments of the Christian faith and religion. See Einhard, Vita Karoli Magni, Scriptores rerum germanicarum in usum scholarum. Separate edition. Hanover and Leipzig 1905, 8–9, cap. 7.

page 101 note 7 Klauser, T., ‘Die liturgischen Austauschbeziehungen zwischen der roemíschen und der fraenkisch-deutschen Kirche vom achten bis zum elften Jahrhundert’, Historisches Jahrbuch der Goerres-Gesellschqft, Munich, liii (1933), 170Google Scholar f.

page 101 note 8 MGH, Epp. iv. 288, Alcuin's letter to David, No. 174. The Franks were more proud of their own power than that of the second Rome.

page 101 note 9 M. Andrieu, Les Ordines Romani du Haut Moyen Age, i, Louvain 1957, 471–525. In this connexion see esp. 476–7.

page 102 note 1 F. Cabrol, ‘Charlemagne et la Liturgie’, in Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, Paris 1924, iii. 807–25 esp. 823: ‘II faut ajouter que c'est la premiàre école liturgi-que proprement dite … ’.

page 102 note 2 MGH, Capit., i. 64, No. 23, cap. 24.

page 102 note 3 MGH, Capit., i. 110, No. 38, cap. 2.

page 102 note 4 MGH, Capit., i. 234, No. 116, cap. 7.

page 102 note 6 MGH, Capit., i. 64, No. 23, cap. 18.

page 102 note 6 MGH, Capit., i. 53 f.

page 102 note 7 MGH, Capit., i. 116, Nos. 4 and 7. Also Andrieu, op. cit., 478. Hincmar of Rheims was to form a similar programme in 852: ibid., 478–9.

page 102 note 8 In 811 or 812.

page 102 note 9 MGH, Epp., v. 242 f.

page 102 note 10 Ibid.

page 102 note 11 Cod. Car., No. 89, 626.

page 102 note 12 T. Klauser, op. cit., 178 f.

page 102 note 13 The Gregorian Sacramentary, ed. H. A. Wilson, Henry Bradshaw Society, London 1915, xxi f.

page 102 note 14 Ibid., 323.

page 102 note 15 Ibid., 186. See also Rosenstock, op. cit., 537.

page 102 note 16 H. A. Wilson, op. cit., 187.

page 102 note 17 Also E. Bishop, Liturgica Historica, Oxford 1918, who in ‘The Genius of the Roman rite’ notes the change from liturgical anarchy to close union with Rome (15–16). Yet Alcuin's revision was to cause the disappearance of Roman liturgy, properly speaking, see F. Cabrol, ‘Les écrits liturgiques de Alcuin’, in DACL, i. 1090. H. Leclercq, article ‘Messe’ in ibid., ii. cols. 761–2. The Frankish liturgical reform also marked the end of the influence of Byzantine liturgy in the West. It is generally overlooked to what extent this Eastern liturgy had gained ground in Rome before the advent of the Carolingians, which supports the position taken in Pirenne's thesis: see A. Baumstark, Vom geschichtlichen Werden der Liturgie, Freiburg i. Breisgau 1923, 62–4.

page 103 note 1 Cod. Car., No. 72, 602. Also Alcuin speaks of a ‘universalis papa': MGH, Epp. iv, No. 3, 20.

page 103 note 2 Libri Carolini, 20–2, cap. 6. ‘Das Kirchliche und politische Wirken Hadrians 1—das ist Summe—war voellig in den Bannkreis der fraenkischen Grossmacht des Abendlandes eingeschlossen': E. Caspar, ‘Das Papsttum unter fraenkischer Herrschaft’, Zeitschrift fuer Kirchengeschichte, liv (1935), 187. von Schubert, Also H., Geschichte der chrisilichen Kirche im Fruehmittelalter, Hildesheim (1962), 357Google Scholar f. esp. 361.

page 103 note 3 E. Bishop, The Liturgical Reforms of Charlemagne, 2.

page 103 note 4 F. Cabrol on Alcuin, op. cit., 1073 f. and 1084–5.

page 103 note 5 Which the first words of the Libri Carolini make abundantly clear. Ibid., 1.

page 103 note 6 ‘Nam si novas constitutiones ecclesiae ingerere jactantia est, scisma est’: Libri Carolini, Prae., 4.

page 103 note 7 Whoever the author was, the title and the superscript make clear without a doubt who the sponsor is.

page 103 note 8 Libri Carolini, 8–12, cap. 1.

page 103 note 9 Cf. H. von Schubert, op. cit., 383.

page 104 note 1 Libri Carolini, Prae. 2, ‘ad regendum commissa est’, and footnote to same. The king's interest, therefore, is in ruling a Christian empire: MGH, Epp., iv. 241.

page 104 note 2 Libri Carolini, 14–16, cap. 3.

page 104 note 3 Libri Carolini, 134, cap. 15.

page 104 note 4 Libri Carolini, 9. cap. 9. See Psalm 89.

page 104 note 5 Libri Carolini, Prae. 3.

page 104 note 6 Libri Carolini, 110–13, cap. 3.

page 104 note 7 Libri Carolini, 106–8, cap. 1.

page 104 note 8 MGH, Epp., v. 7 ff. See Amann, op. cit., 127 for the ambiguity of Hadrian's attitude.

page 104 note 9 Libri Carolini, 227–8, cap. 28, and Einhardi Annales, Anno 794, MGH, SS i. 181.

page 105 note 1 MGH, Concil., ii. Pt. 1, 142

page 105 note 2 MGH, Concil., ibid., 163.

page 105 note 3 Ibid., 167.

page 105 note 4 E. Caspar points out (‘Das Papsttum unter fraenkischer Herrschaft’, Zeitschrift fuer Kirchengesckichte, liv (1935), 248–9Google Scholar) that by Frankish assumption of the synodal canons and the synodal Symbol the universal Church no longer existed.

page 105 note 5 MGH, Concil., ii. Pt. 1, 177 f.

page 105 note 6 Ibid., 187.

page 105 note 7 Ibid., 181.

page 105 note 8 Ibid., 189.

page 105 note 8 Capelle, B., ‘L'origine antiadoptianiste de notre texte du symbole de la messe’, Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale, i (1929Google Scholar).

page 105 note 10 Ibid., 18

page 106 note 1 Ibid., 11 f. This position was also taken in Jahrbuecher des fraenkischen Reiches unter Karl dem Grossen, by Sigurd Abel, continued by Bernhard Simson, ii (784–814), Leipzig 1883, 405, which quotes Walafrid Strabo as its original source.

page 106 note 2 See above, 105, n. 4.

page 106 note 3 MGH, Epp., iv. 137, No. 93.

page 106 note 4 The foregoing should make it obvious that the Roman empire was not a model for Charlemagne. However, convincing proof can be found in the article of Rosenstock previously cited. See also E. Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae, 63: ‘Rome’ took the place of ‘Jerusalem’ because of the need of the pope. In addition on this point E. Pfeil, Die fraenkische und deutsche Romidee des fruehen Mittelalters, Munich 1929. Despite the popes’ need for an emperor, the imperial title, as Schubert has pointed out (op. cit., 390) eliminated the possibility of Charlemagne's being ignored again, as at Nicea 11.

page 106 note 5 MGH, Epp., v. 64. No. 7.

page 107 note 1 Ibid., 85: ‘qualiter crederemus symbolum’.

page 107 note 2 Ibid., 66.

page 107 note 3 Ibid., 66–7.

page 107 note 4 Ibid., 67, No. 8; P.L., cii. 1030 and Mansi xiii. 978–9.

page 107 note 5 It was this same Theodulf from Spain who, writing to the priests of his parish in 797, advised the faithful from the least to the greatest to learn the creed by heart along with the Lord's Prayer. Unless they were memorised and believed wholeheartedly ‘catholicus esse non poterit’. He also wished the creed to be prayed every day: Mansi xiii, Acta xxii and xxiii, 1000. This clearly shows that it was not the content of the creed that was the issue but the excessive zeal of Frankish methods.

page 107 note 6 P.L., cv. 239–76.

page 107 note 7 Ibid., 239.

page 107 note 8 MGH, Epp., iv. 490–1.

page 107 note 9 MGH, Condi., ii. Pt. i, 23 f.

page 107 note 10 Einhardi Annales, Anno 809, MGH, SS i. 196. Also Hefele, Histoire des conciles, iii. Pt. 2, 1127–31,

page 108 note 1 MGH, Concil., ii. Pt. i, 239 f. Also Hefele, ibid., 1132–3.

page 108 note 2 MGH, Concil., ii. Pt. i, 243.

page 108 note 3 Ibid.

page 108 note 4 Ibid. Dom B. Capelle, ‘Le Pape Léon III et le Filioque’, in L'Eglise et les églises 1054–1094, (Collection Irénikon, Editions de Chevetogne) 1954, 309–22, defends the position taken by Leo m without seeming to realise that the Franks were able to override the pope's protests and force the Filioque on the Church through their ‘Rex et Sacerdos’.

page 108 note 5 Ibid. MGH, Concil., ii. Pt. 1, 241–2.

page 109 note 1 Dix, G., The Shape of the Liturgy, Westminster 1945, 545Google Scholar.

page 109 note 2 ‘Pro amore et cautela orthodoxe fidei’, in the vita of Leo III, Le Liber Pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, reprinted Paris 1955, ii. 26, as well as the invaluable commentary, ibid., 46.

page 109 note 3 Ibid., 46, n. 110.

page 109 note 4 Ibid.

page 109 note 5 More fully, Dawson, C., The Making of Europe, Cleveland 1964, 221Google Scholar f.

page 109 note 6 MGH, Capit., ii. 451, No. 300. cap. 3.

page 110 note 1 Annales de Saint-Bertin, ed. F. Grat (Société de l'Histoire de France) Paris 1964, 107. Hincmar was the author of this account for the year 864. See W. Ullmann, op. cit., 208, n. 5 for additional references.

page 110 note 2 MGH, Epp., vi. 459, No. 88.

page 110 note 3 F. Dvornik, The Photian Schism, Cambridge 1948 and Runciman, S., The Eastern Schism, Oxford 1963Google Scholar.

page 110 note 4 P.G., cii. 721–41.

page 110 note 5 Ibid., 378–9.

page 110 note 6 Hefele, op. cit., iv (1). 442 f.

page 111 note 1 MGH, Epp., vi. 440, No. 83.

page 111 note 2 S. Runciman, op. cit., 32.

page 111 note 3 F. Dvornik, op cit., 253.

page 111 note 4 MGH, Epp., 600–9, No. 100.

page 111 note 5 Ratramnus Corbiensis, Contra Graecorum Opposite: P.L., exxi. 223 f. W. Ullmann (op. cit., 199, n. 2) drily remarks that there is some resemblance with the Libri Carolini. However this resemblance is one of many points essential to the fact that Nicholas 1 is the heir t o the Frankish religious reform, hence the similarity of claims and techniques.

page 111 note 6 F. Dvornik, op. cit., 196–7 is pertinent.

page 111 note 7 Mansi, xvii, 371.

page 111 note 8 Ibid., 522.

page 111 note 9 Ibid., 514–15.

page 112 note 1 Amann, op. cit., 495–6.

page 112 note 2 P.L., cxlii. 1060 f.

page 112 note 3 It is very likely that popes appointed by the Saxon emperors were not commemorated on the diptychs of Constantinople because oftheir German Creed. The last mention of a Roman pope in 1009 would not seem to be mere coincidence. See S. Runciman, op. cit., 32–4.

page 112 note 4 The creed also has its place in the mass where the Carolingians put it, after the reading of the Gospel. See Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, ii. 46.

page 112 note 5 During the Norman period in southern Italy Greek sources quoted in a little-known monograph by E. Caspar justify Byzantine ecclesiastical claims to Syracuse on the grounds that the pope ‘unter den Barbaren festgehalten werde. Byzanz hat den Bund Roms mit den Franken und das deutsche Kaisertum theoretisch niemals anerkannt’: E. Caspar, Die Gruendungsurkunden der Sicilische Bistuemer und die Kirchenpolitik Graf Rogers I. 1082–1098, Inaugural Dissertation, Innsbruck 1902, 50.

page 112 note 6 A. Hauck, Kirchengeschkhte Deutschlands, Leipzig 1912, iii. 434, asks rightly who membered that Charlemagne had imposed the Filioque. See T. Klauser, op. cit., 189.

page 112 note 7 Two observations on modern developments might be ofinterest. After 1870 the Alt-Katholiken retained the decisions ofthe first seven ecumenical councils but discarded the Filioque because of the uncharitable techniques used by the Franks. In 1924 a young monk, Lambert Beauduin, a close friend of the man who was to become John XXIII, founded the Chevetogne community in Belgium which celebrates both the Eastern and the Roman rite daily, thereby marking an historic milestone in the attempt to heal the schism.

page 113 note 1 St. Anselm in his ‘De Processione Spiritus Sancti’ (F. S. Schmitt, S. Anselmi Cantu-ariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, Edinburgh 1946, ii. 175–219), was to defend the Frankish-Roman position but later, drawing on Augustine's argument in De Trinitate, he was to write to the abbot Rainaldus (ibid., iii, Epistola 83, 208) that the differences of view should not lead to argument, the Greek view being no less faithful, a counsel too often ignored for centuries. However the deep desire for ecumenical union now has led to the other extreme, minimising in unhistorical fashion the real long-lasting wound. See n. 4, below.

page 113 note 2 In this connexion E. Rosenstock-Huessy's pioneer essay (in Rosenstock and Wittig, Das Alter der Kirche, Berlin 1927–1928, ii. 486Google Scholar f.) cannot be stressed too highly; see also by the same scholar, Frankrekh-Deutschland, Mythos oder Anrede, Berlin 1957, 29–31Google Scholar, where reference is made to the Frankish Filioque placed in the context of the Carolingian sources of the French and German national languages. For further references to the interplay between the Franks and Rome and the consequences therefrom see Heer, F., Europaiesche Geistesgeschichte, Stuttgart 1965, 84Google Scholar ff. and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution, Norwich, Vermont 1969, 485 f.

page 113 note 3 Ladner, G. B., ‘Aspects of Medieval Thought on Church and State’, Review of Politics, ix (1947), 407Google Scholar.

page 113 note 4 This essential truth is lacking in the recent books of Dvornik, F., Byzantium and the Roman Primacy, New York 1964Google Scholar, and Congar, Y., After Nine Hundred Tears, New York 1959Google Scholar. Their attempts to heal the schism do not tell us how it came about.