The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue?

(USCCB) ^ | 29th October 2003 | North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation

[Catholicguy]

Thanks, F L.

I was prolly too hasty in jumping to the defense of one of my heroes.

[Catholicguy]

Maybe society owes to the Father of the Family votes equal to the number of his children while the single man gets one vote in elections. To me that could be Just and Fair.

Notice I didn't mention the man voting for his wife. Had I, me bride woulda brained me.

[FormerLib]

I understand. Let's move on then.

[Romulus]

If I enjoy the esteem of both you guys, I must be doing something right.

Please have a look at these cites pertaining to contraception:

The Letter of Barnabas

"Moreover, he [Moses] has rightly detested the weasel [Lev. 11:29]. For
he means, ‘Thou shall not be like to those whom we hear of as committing
wickedness with the mouth with the body through uncleanness [orally
consummated sex]; nor shall thou be joined to those impure women who
commit iniquity with the mouth with the body through uncleanness’"
(Letter of Barnabas 10:8 [A.D. 74]).


Clement of Alexandria

"Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed
is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be
wasted" (The Instructor of Children 2:10:91:2 [A.D. 191]).

"To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to
nature" (ibid., 2:10:95:3).


Hippolytus

"[Christian women with male concubines], on account of their prominent
ancestry and great property, the so-called faithful want no children
from slaves or lowborn commoners, [so] they use drugs of sterility or
bind themselves tightly in order to expel a fetus which has already been
engendered" (Refutation of All Heresies 9:12 [A.D. 225]).


Lactantius

"[Some] complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they
have not enough for bringing up more children, as though, in truth,
their means were in [their] power . . . or God did not daily make the
rich poor and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on any account of
poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain
from relations with his wife" (Divine Institutes 6:20 [A.D. 307]).

"God gave us eyes not to see and desire pleasure, but to see acts to be
performed for the needs of life; so too, the genital [’generating’] part
of the body, as the name itself teaches, has been received by us for no
other purpose than the generation of offspring" (ibid., 6:23:18).



Epiphanius of Salamis

"They [certain Egyptian heretics] exercise genital acts, yet prevent the
conceiving of children. Not in order to produce offspring, but to
satisfy lust, are they eager for corruption" (Medicine Chest Against
Heresies 26:5:2 [A.D. 375]).


Augustine

"This proves that you [Manicheans] approve of having a wife, not for the
procreation of children, but for the gratification of passion. In
marriage, as the marriage law declares, the man and woman come together
for the procreation of children. Therefore, whoever makes the
procreation of children a greater sin than copulation, forbids marriage
and makes the woman not a wife but a mistress, who for some gifts
presented to her is joined to the man to gratify his passion" (The
Morals of the Manichees 18:65 [A.D. 388]).

"You [Manicheans] make your auditors adulterers of their wives when they
take care lest the women with whom they copulate conceive. They take
wives according to the laws of matrimony by tablets announcing that the
marriage is contracted to procreate children; and then, fearing because
of your law [against childbearing] . . . they copulate in a shameful
union only to satisfy lust for their wives. They are unwilling to have
children, on whose account alone marriages are made. How is it, then,
that you are not those prohibiting marriage, as the apostle predicted of
you so long ago [1 Tim. 4:1–4], when you try to take from marriage what
marriage is? When this is taken away, husbands are shameful lovers,
wives are harlots, bridal chambers are brothels, fathers-in-law are
pimps" (Against Faustus 15:7 [A.D. 400]).

"For thus the eternal law, that is, the will of God creator of all
creatures, taking counsel for the conservation of natural order, not to
serve lust, but to see to the preservation of the race, permits the
delight of mortal flesh to be released from the control of reason in
copulation only to propagate progeny" (ibid., 22:30).

"For necessary sexual intercourse for begetting [children] is alone
worthy of marriage. But that which goes beyond this necessity no longer
follows reason but lust. And yet it pertains to the character of
marriage . . . to yield it to the partner lest by fornication the other
sin damnably [through adultery]. . . . [T]hey [must] not turn away from
them the mercy of God . . . by changing the natural use into that which
is against nature, which is more damnable when it is done in the case of
husband or wife. For, whereas that natural use, when it pass beyond the
compact of marriage, that is, beyond the necessity of begetting
[children], is pardonable in the case of a wife, damnable in the case of
a harlot; that which is against nature is execrable when done in the
case of a harlot, but more execrable in the case of a wife. Of so great
power is the ordinance of the Creator, and the order of creation, that .
. . when the man shall wish to use a body part of the wife not allowed
for this purpose [orally or anally consummated sex], the wife is more
shameful, if she suffer it to take place in her own case, than if in the
case of another woman" (The Good of Marriage 11–12 [A.D. 401]).

...

"I am supposing, then, although you are not lying [with your wife] for
the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust
obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those
who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do
they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a
shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this,
that they even procure poisons of sterility. . . . Assuredly if both
husband and wife are like this, they are not married, and if they were
like this from the beginning they come together not joined in matrimony
but in seduction. If both are not like this, I dare to say that either
the wife is in a fashion the harlot of her husband or he is an adulterer
with his own wife" (Marriage and Concupiscence 1:15:17 [A.D. 419]).


John Chrysostom

"Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where
there are medicines of sterility [oral contraceptives], where there is
murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain only a harlot,
but you make her a murderess as well. . . . Indeed, it is something
worse than murder, and I do not know what to call it; for she does not
kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you
condemn the gift of God and fight with his [natural] laws? . . . Yet
such turpitude . . . the matter still seems indifferent to many men—even
to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there
is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the
womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are
these innumerable tricks" (Homilies on Romans 24 [A.D. 391]).

"[I]n truth, all men know that they who are under the power of this
disease [the sin of covetousness] are wearied even of their father’s old
age [wishing him to die so they can inherit]; and that which is sweet,
and universally desirable, the having of children, they esteem grievous
and unwelcome. Many at least with this view have even paid money to be
childless, and have mutilated nature, not only killing the newborn, but
even acting to prevent their beginning to live" (Homilies on Matthew
28:5 [A.D. 391]).

"[T]he man who has mutilated himself, in fact, is subject even to a
curse, as Paul says, ‘I would that they who trouble you would cut the
whole thing off’ [Gal. 5:12]. And very reasonably, for such a person is
venturing on the deeds of murderers, and giving occasion to them that
slander God’s creation, and opens the mouths of the Manicheans, and is
guilty of the same unlawful acts as they that mutilate themselves among
the Greeks. For to cut off our members has been from the beginning a
work of demonical agency, and satanic device, that they may bring up a
bad report upon the works of God, that they may mar this living
creature, that imputing all not to the choice, but to the nature of our
members, the more part of them may sin in security as being
irresponsible, and doubly harm this living creature, both by mutilating
the members and by impeding the forwardness of the free choice in behalf
of good deeds" (ibid., 62:3).

"Observe how bitterly he [Paul] speaks against their deceivers . . . ‘I
would that they which trouble you would cut the whole thing off’ [Gal.
5:12]. . . . On this account he curses them, and his meaning is as
follows: ‘For them I have no concern, "A man that is heretical after the
first and second admonition refuse" [Titus 3:10]. If they will, let them
not only be circumcised but mutilated.’ Where then are those who dare to
mutilate themselves, seeing that they draw down the apostolic curse, and
accuse the workmanship of God, and take part with the Manichees?"
(Commentary on Galatians 5:12 [A.D. 395]).


Jerome

"But I wonder why he [the heretic Jovinianus] set Judah and Tamar before
us for an example, unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure; or
Onan, who was slain because he grudged his brother seed. Does he imagine
that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of
children?" (Against Jovinian 1:19 [A.D. 393]).

"You may see a number of women who are widows before they are wives.
Others, indeed, will drink sterility and murder a man not yet born, [and
some commit abortion]" (Letters 22:13 [A.D. 396]).


Caesarius of Arles

"Who is he who cannot warn that no woman may take a potion so that she
is unable to conceive or condemns in herself the nature which God willed
to be fecund? As often as she could have conceived or given birth, of
that many homicides she will be held guilty, and, unless she undergoes
suitable penance, she will be damned by eternal death in hell. If a
woman does not wish to have children, let her enter into a religious
agreement with her husband; for chastity is the sole sterility of a
Christian woman" (Sermons 1:12 [A.D. 522]).


Council of Ancyra (c. 372)

"If any woman has fornicated and has killed the infant thence born or
has desired to commit an abortion and kill what she has conceived, or to
take steps so that she may not conceive, either in adultery or in
legitimate marriage, the earlier canons decreed that such women might
receive communion at death; we, however, in mercy judge that such women,
or other women who are accomplices of their crimes, should do penance
for 10 years."



CASTI CONNUBII
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI
ON CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE
31st day of December, of the year 1930

55. Small wonder, therefore, if Holy Writ bears witness that the Divine
Majesty regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime and at
times has punished it with death. As St. Augustine notes, "Intercourse
even with one's legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the
conception of the offspring is prevented. Onan, the son of Juda, did
this and the Lord killed him for it."[45]


finally: Father Gregory Naumenko, writing in Orthodox Life:

"The true Church of Christ has never in the past given her blessing for
such a practice. This is clearly stated in the Book of Needs (Trebnik),
where, in the Order of Confession, among the questions addressed to
women we find the following: “Did they wear herbs so as not to have a
child,… or whether someone poured something into her womb so as not to
conceive, or ate some herb…She is to desist and be excluded for six
years.” Here the Book of Needs draws support from a ruling of the Sixth
Ecumenical Council. Thus, the use of contraceptives goes against not
only the spirit and purpose of the Christian marriage and the teachings
of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, but also goes against the
clear and direct decrees and laws of the Church."

[Romulus]

For the Son of God became man so that we might become God

Also echoed by Aquinas.

[FormerLib]

From the OCA website.

The control of the conception of a child by any means is also condemned by the Church if it means the lack of fulfillment in the family, the hatred of children, the fear of responsibility, the desire for sexual pleasure as purely fleshly, lustful satisfaction, etc.

Again, however, married people practicing birth control are not necessarily deprived of Holy Communion, if in conscience before God and with the blessing of their spiritual father, they are convinced that their motives are not entirely unworthy. Here again, however, such a couple cannot pretend to justify themselves in the light of the absolute perfection of the Kingdom of God.

Does this really sound as if the Orthodox embrace the widespread use of contraception? Clearly, they do not draw as hard a line, if you will, as do the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, but I do not believe that this stance indicates that we have abandoned the narrow path (a reference injected by someone other than those pinged here).

[Tantumergo]

"For the Son of God became man so that we might become God" was written by St. Athanasios the Great, Archbishop of Alexandria , in De inc., 54, 3: PG, 192B, in his refutation of Arius during the First Ecumenical Council."

Small correction - St. Athanasius was actually a DEACON when he made his interventions at Nicea. He only became a bishop much later when Alexander of Alexandria died. ;)

[american colleen]

Have you never wondered why the East has never declared an Ecumenical Council since the schism?

Just last night I was reading this month's "Crisis" magazine. In it there is an interesting article by Fr. Ray Ryland on Vladimir Soloviev which touches on this very same thing. He quotes Soloviev as saying "Since breaking with Rome, the Eastern Churches haven't been able to convoke and ecumenical council and probably never will be able to" (I am paraphrasing because I'm too lazy to get up and get the magazine, but the paraphrase I wrote is almost a duplicate for the original).

My question is why hasn't there been an ecumenical council by the Eastern Churches since @1054 and what did Soloviev mean when he said the EC's haven't been able to and probably never will be able to convoke one? I'd be interested in both of your thoughts on this since I find both of you fair and fact minded.

Good article, btw - although it left me with some unanswered questions (like above) and there were a couple of things I disagreed with (on the part of the author of the piece and not Soloviev).

[FormerLib]

I'm sure there's an incredible number of opinions on the topic, but it has been explained to me that the Church cannot hold an Ecumenical Council when the Eastern and Western Churches are divided.

I would imagine that this poses another problem for reunification since there have been councils in the West that the East will never fully recognize. I hope you will excuse me from any specifics here as I know very little (virtually nothing, really) about any of the councils in the West since 1054.

[FormerLib]

On the subject of Crisis magazine, I would like to see the answers given to the "Here are 12 myths every Catholic should be able to expose" quiz that is displayed on their homepage.

[Catholicguy]

The Greek Melkite Catholic website needs updating :)

To be fair (what did I just say?) I think they didn't intend it to mean he was an A.B. when he said it

[Catholicguy]

I remember one from the Raucous Caucus who now no longer posts, sadly. She posted a series on Soloviev that was amasing. I think I can scare up a link quickly. Jes a sec.

BTW, what was that woman's name? She was smashing

[Catholicguy]

http://praiseofglory.com/solovievrock.htm

[american colleen]

Re: the 12 myths... I think I got those when I subscribed and I was disappointed - nothing outside of what you would read on FR threads dealing with apologetics... not so much anymore but a couple of years ago when Catholics used to debate a lot with the Fundamentalists and sometimes the Calvinists.

[american colleen]

I'm sure there's an incredible number of opinions on the topic, but it has been explained to me that the Church cannot hold an Ecumenical Council when the Eastern and Western Churches are divided.

I dunno... I would think that our respective Churches think the other one has broken off and that theirs is the Church left to settle debates and teach Truth... for instance, on the divorce issue in the Eastern Churches, there must have been some kind of council convened to discern the teaching of the Church since the teaching changed a bit along the way?

[american colleen]

Thanks for the link -- I remember when the threads of V. Soloviev's writings on the papacy were posted and indeed they were terrific. I can't remember the posters name though.

[american colleen]

Soloviev on the papacy.

It was JMJ333 - who left because of the SSPX vs. "neo-con" threads. It pained her to see Catholics so divided. She was a very good poster and I miss her.

[Catholicguy]

You're Aces, AC. Thanks. Yeah, she was smashing. I miss her. Very bright

[Hermann the Cherusker]

I would imagine that this poses another problem for reunification since there have been councils in the West that the East will never fully recognize. I hope you will excuse me from any specifics here as I know very little (virtually nothing, really) about any of the councils in the West since 1054.

I don't want to wade in too deeply into this either.

It doesn't seem clear to me that the uniates like the Melkites or Romanians or Chaldeans have been asked to change themselves in conformance to councils of which they were not a part. The Melkites, for example, list as normative the first 8 councils, I believe, and then the last two, beause those were the ones the Patriarch of Antioch participated in. I believe they are asked to accept and understand these councils, but not necessarily to adopt their terminology. The Melkites, especially, are quite interesting. They proclaim themselves to be fully Orthodox and of no different a belief than the other Orthodox, but that they are in communion with Rome. Their official website lists the first 8 councils, I think, and the the last two (Vatican I and II). The others are not there because the Melkite Patriarch of Antioch was excluded from them.

The reception of the Catholic councils held since the 12th century, and the Orthodox councils in 1285, 1341/51, and 1672 would require some sort of adoption or subscription via another council which would harmonize the decrees, or leave their interpretation flexible enough to accomodate theological strains of both Church which are in harmony, but not necessarily identical (just as Catholics have Thomists, Molinists, Congruists, etc. in the doctrine of grace and free will). As an historical example, the Persian Church, the Church of the East, was not represented at Nicea. The creed and canons were brought to them by the Roman Church in AD 410 and they were subscribed to at that time.

Obviously there is a great conformity between some of these councils. The decress of the Council of Jerusalem in 1672 by the Orthodox are almost identical the those of Trent. Not a big surprise, they were both held against Protestants.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

there must have been some kind of council convened to discern the teaching of the Church since the teaching changed a bit along the way

I don't think there has been. The origin for Orthodox practice is in the Code of Justinitian and the Council of Quinisext if I am remembering my history right.