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The following is my fourth thread regarding allegations of “Latin”/RC forgeries or interpolations made by certain EO apologists. This time, the claim concerns St. Gregory the Great’s Dialogi 2.38, and is the most widely circulated one I have addressed thus far.
To begin, St. Gregory states in this passage (no matter how differently RCs and EOs might wish to interpret it) that “the Paraclete, the Spirit, ever proceeds from the Father and the Son” (Paraclitus Spiritus ex Patre semper procedat et Filio).
However, some EO fellows have discovered that a certain 10th-century manuscript of the Dialogi, namely Egerton MS 3089, originally lacked the words “and the Son” (et Filio), which were then added above the line. Below is a picture of how this appears in the MS:
Some EO apologists have rather zealously concluded (or at least strongly insinuated), based on this one MS alone, that the words “et Filio” are altogether an interpolation (seemingly in the entire MS tradition!), i.e., that St. Gregory never wrote them.
See, e.g., this 2019 post from an Italian EO blog: https://luceortodossamarcomannino.blogspot.com/2019/09/interpolazione-del-filioque-nei.html.
@SnekTheRedSun also included this in his December 2020 thread of alleged “papal forgeries” before deleting said thread after we entered discussions.
@SnekTheRedSun also included this in his December 2020 thread of alleged “papal forgeries” before deleting said thread after we entered discussions.
Passing over others, the most prominent instance of this claim being asserted, and my primary motivation for this thread, is a February 2020 episode of @Jay_D007’s Analysis featuring Snek and the author of the 700+ page-long dossier “Errors of the Latins.”
The point was discussed for approximately 3 minutes, and the relevant folio from Egerton MS 3089 was pictured on the screen as an example of “Latin” malice and deception for more than 10,000 viewers to see (watch from 28:12 to 31:42): .
However, we have a very high degree of certainty that St. Gregory wrote the words “et Filio” in his original work. They are regarded as original not only in the old editions, such as the 1705 Maurist edition (reprinted in the PL), but also by 20th-century critical scholarship.
The 1924 critical edition of U. Moricca (who used 10 Italian MSS: 2 from the 8th century, 3 from the 9th, 1 from the 9th/10th, 2 from the 10th, and 2 from the 11th) includes “et Filio” as original, and the critical apparatus makes no mention of a relevant variant:
The Byzantinist M. Jugie, in his 1936 monograph De processione Spiritus Sancti (pp. 219, fn. 1; 222), likewise states that it is “certain” (certum) that this reading is genuine, and that “no room for being in doubt is present” (nullus … adest dubitandi locus).
Jugie (p. 222, fn. 3) also recounts how in 1908, A. Ratti, the then-prefect of the library housing one of the two 8th-century MSS later used by Moricca (namely Ambrosianus B 159, from the year 747), wrote assuring him that this very early MS does in fact contain this reading.
But the real clincher is the most up-to-date critical text available, namely that of A. de Vogüé in Sources Chrétiennes (SC) 260 (1979), who, in addition to consulting the editions of the Maurists and Moricca, also made use of two further 8th-century MSS.
Vogüé, like Moricca, unequivocally includes the words “et Filio” as original, with not even a hint in the critical apparatus that either of the two 8th-century MSS he used (namely codex Sangallensis 213 and codex Augustodunensis 20) lack these words:
In fact, you can look at the former of these two 8th-century MSS, codex Sangallensis 213, and see the words “et Filio” for yourself at https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/csg/0213/60 .
Accordingly, the only natural conclusion (unless someone brings forward a better explanation) is that the 10th-century Egerton MS 3089 is an anomaly, and that the addition of “et Filio” above the line is therefore not a wrongful interpolation, but a rightful correction.
But it gets even better: not only are the words “et Filio” original to Dialogi 2.38, but St. Gregory makes a similar remark in his Homiliae in Evangelia 26.2, namely that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son” (de Patre procedit et Filio).
That “et Filio” is also original to this homily is confirmed by R. Étaix’s critical edition in Corpus Christianorum: series latina (CCSL) 141 (1999). Pictured below are the relevant place in Étaix’s edition and my translation of the surrounding context (between the red bars):
For most readers, you can now skip to my concluding remarks. The Latin text which St. Gregory himself wrote, not only in Dialogi 2.38, but also in Homiliae in Evangelia 26.2, is secure; both loci contain the assertion that the Holy Spirit in some way proceeds from the Son.
It is also my understanding, from discussing the matter with @SnekTheRedSun, that the EO theologian J.-C. Larchet acknowledges the words “et Filio” as original to both these passages, although he interprets them differently than how many RC theologians would.
But as a side-tangent, I will now briefly mention an issue not actually related to the claim at hand, but which I do not want to muddy the waters, namely that of the 8th-century Greek translation of the Dialogi made ~150 years later by Pope St. Zacharias (r. 741-752).
While St. Gregory’s Latin text certainly says that the Spirit “always proceeds from the Father and the Son,” the later Greek translation here states that He “proceeds from the Father and abides in the Son” (ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς προέρχεται καὶ ἐν τῷ Υἱῷ διαμένει).
(By the way, it should be apparent that this issue of the Greek transl. renders nonsensical the claim based on Egerton MS 3089. If St. Gregory’s originally said only that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father,” why on earth does the later Greek transl. mention the Son at all?)
That aside, there are a few possible explanations as to why the Greek differs from St. Gregory’s Latin text. For example, the possibility of a later Greek interpolator, alleged by John the Deacon in the 9th century, is briefly mentioned in SC 260, p. 249, fn. 4 (pictured above).
Personally, I am inclined towards the opinion of Jugie, namely that “proceeds from the Father and abides in the Son” is not a later Greek interpolation, but how Zacharias himself rendered the text of St. Gregory into Greek, in order to make it conformable to Eastern locutions.
For his treatment of the matter, see pp. 222-228 of his aforementioned monograph: https://archive.org/details/DeProcessione/page/n231/mode/2up.
But once again, I would like to stress that the question of the later Greek transl. of Dialogi 2.38 is separate from the main issue at hand, namely that some EO apologists, upon seeing one 10th-century MS, made a claim contradicted by 8th-century MSS and the critical editions.
Now for a few closing remarks. I. By making this thread, I am not intending to weigh in on what St. Gregory the Great means when he says that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, that is, whether or not he supports the RC position.
II. As I stated in my third thread, I do not intend to throw any EO apologists under the bus. Snek in particular has been a very kind interlocutor, and I am confident that any mistakes he has made in this regard are not the product of malice.
III. However, there is only so much that we, as those who profess to follow Christ the Truth, can tolerate. More than 10,000 people, many of whom are doubtless credulous, saw this faulty claim regarding St. Gregory, without any mention of the information I have presented.
This is especially ironic seeing as several EO apologists have attributed “Liguorian” deceit to RCs, and have claimed that we are the ones who make shoddy claims, do not check sources or editions of texts, etc.
IV. Lastly, while this is only my fourth thread, it is perhaps time to consider the bigger picture. From what I have seen thus far, these faulty forgery claims are not isolated incidents; rather, they reflect a systemic problem of EO apologetics being riddled with errors of fact.
I hope to continue these sorts of threads in the future, and, Deo volente, to perhaps address more significant claims which some EO polemicists have made, since I have seen very few (if any) RCs sufficiently tackle them.
