The Filioque: From the Latins Which Were Obedient to Satan - St. Gregory Palamas

St. Gregory Palamas wrote two treatises on the procession of the Holy Spirit presenting the Orthodox dogmatic teaching and refutes the Latin heresies, especially that of the “filioque.” Not only do these texts show forth the glory of true theology, of which St. Gregory acquired by God’s revelation to his heart, but they destroy any notion that St. Gregory thought of those in Roman Catholicism as “separated brethren” or still in any way part of the true Church of Christ. Furthermore, he explicitly states that not only do the Orthodox and Roman Catholics use different terminology, they indeed also have different theology. Let the listener be inspired by this brief excerpt from St. Gregory’s Apodicitic Treatises on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, now available for the first time in English from Uncut Mountain Press.

This recording was originally posted on the @OrthodoxEthos channel: A Reading from Apodictic Treatises on...

St. Gregory writes:

Once again the subtle serpent and source of vice rears his own head against us, whispering things opposite to the truth. Or rather, since he has been crushed in his head by the Cross of Christ, he makes those who obey his destructive counsels in every generation each take the place of his own head, and similar to a hydra he has sprouted many heads instead of the one, relentlessly speaking utter unrighteousness through them. Thus he attached to his coiled body the Arians, thus the Apollinarians, thus the Eunomians and Macedonians, thus the host of many others who ran to him, spewing his venom through their speech against the sacred Church. In lieu of fangs, he has used their words and sunk them into the source of piety, as into the root of a plant that had youthfully grown virtue, burdened with the best of fruit; yet he was not able to utterly lay waste to it. For, his fangs were in turn shattered by those who had been bitten by him, meaning, by those who have truly made Christ their own Head.

Accordingly, this serpent, which is noetic and, because of this, all the more accursed, the first, middle, and final evil, the wicked one, always feeding off of serpentine and earthly wickedness, the vigilant stalker, tirelessly looking out for the heel,  that is to say, deception, the sophist, most resourceful and incomparably ingenious in every opinion obnoxious to God, not having at all forgotten his own evil art, introduces, through the Latins which were obedient to him, innovative expressions concerning God. While these innovations seem to make but a small change, they actually create the occasion for many evils and bring in many things that are subtle, foreign to piety, and logically absurd. In doing this he clearly displayed to all that even the smallest thing is not small in matters concerning God. For if, with each of our arguments, when one fallacious thing has initially been premised many absurdities ensue, how can it not be that, when one uncustomary premise has been made in relation to the common principle of all and to the indemonstrable first principles, from this more absurdities will not irreverently ensue?

Into these adsurdities the race of the Latins would have also fallen manifestly, had we not stripped away the greatest part of the cacodoxy by contradicting this novel dogma. Indeed, on occasion they recoil to such a degree that they even claim that they are of the same mind as us, disagreeing only in words, lying against themselves on account of their awkwardness. For while we say that the existence of the Holy Spirit is not also from the hypostasis of the Son, they say that He is also from the hypostasis of the Son, making it impossible for us to be united in one concept. For, one is the only-begotten and the existence of the Spirit is one. In any event, since the denial is always the contrary to its affirmation, the one proposition is always false if the other is true, and it is not possible to affirm and deny the very same thing about the same subject and be with the truth.

But I think that no one among those with a sound mind and not in agreement with them [sc. the Latins], will dispute that they not only speak things contrary to us but also think contrary to us. Nor will such a man dispute the fact that they dogmatize not only against us but also against the very word of truth itself, which has been preserved among us undiminished, and without increase, and
entirely unaltered. You all precisely know this without a need for logical demonstration (by ‘you’ I am referring to the fullness of the pious). Nevertheless, God willing, it will also be shown through this present treatise here, so that “every mouth” which disputes this “may be shut”, and those who are ambivalent may be established upon one confession.