Does the Holy Spirit proceed only from the Father—or also from the Son? Protestants and Roman Catholics might immediately answer the latter and wonder why their Orthodox friends protest. Historically one of the major obstacles to Christian unity across the East-West divide, the Filioque—the part of the Latin translation of the Nicene Creed claiming the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son—still bedevils Trinitarian theologians today. How can the church possibly achieve unity in the face of this dogmatic difference, implacable for over a millennium? Giulio Maspero shows us how the answer can be found in history. In the fourth century, when Pneumatomachians denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the Cappadocian Fathers came to a relational understanding of the most elusive person of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit was conceived of as the glory and power eternally exchanged between the Father and the Son. In fact, this understanding is still fundamentally shared by Eastern and Western Christians. Examining Syriac traditions as an example, Maspero observes that both Syriac and Latin lack the linguistic precision to describe the nature of the Holy Spirit’s procession from the Trinity in the same way as Greek, hence the ambiguous Filioque. Yet what might be seen on the surface as a mere translation error reveals deep questions about the triune nature of God. With rigorous theological argument, Maspero ultimately proposes a way forward for East and West—one based not on centuries of polemics, but on a common tradition established by the Greek Fathers. Essential reading for the ecumenically minded theologian, Rethinking the Filioque with the Greek Fathers takes a crucial step toward Christian unity.

In this volume, Giulio Maspero explores both the ontology and the epistemology of the Cappadocians from historical and speculative points of view. He shows how the Cappadocians developed a real Trinitarian Ontology through their reshaping of the Aristotelian category of relation, which they rescued from the accidental dimension and inserted into the immanence of the one divine and eternal substance. This perspective made possible a new conception of individuation. No longer exclusively linked to substantial difference, as in classical Greek philosophy, the concept was instead founded on the mutual relation of the divine Persons. The Cappadocians' metaphysical reshaping was also closely linked to a new epistemological conception based on apophaticism, which shattered the logical closure of their opponents, and anticipated results that modern research has subsequently highlighted, Bridging the late antique philosophy with Patristics, Maspero' s study allows us to find the relational traces within the Trinity in the world and in history.

Rethinking Catholic Theology: From The Mystery of Existence to the New Creation provides readers with an intelligent, informed, critical grasp of at least the central truths of the Catholic/Christian tradition. It aims to help readers to rethink more deeply these essential truths, and moreover, in what specific ways the understanding of the Catholic faith has changed and/or remained the same since Vatican II. The first part centers on Jesus Messiah and the mystery of existence. It delineates how his life, death, resurrection as “transformed physicality,” and ascension usher in the kingdom of God and best answer the questions: Who am I? Who are we? Where did we come from and where are we ultimately headed? What is the meaning of it all? The second part focuses on how Pentecost, the Trinity, the Church, the Scriptures, the Sacraments, Christian life itself, Mariology, the Communion of Saints, and Christian mysticism shed light on the mystery of existence. It demonstrates how the church flows intrinsically and naturally from the person of Jesus Christ and how the Scriptures and the sacraments likewise arise intrinsically and naturally from the church. Part three stresses considers various views of afterlife mainly from the Judeo-Christian tradition. It raises difficult after-death questions, such as individual and general judgment, the intermediate state, the nature of the soul after death, Limbo, and Purgatory. Finally, it outlines the idea of Jesus’s Second Coming and considers such concepts as Deep Incarnation, and the New Creation.

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The Carolingian period (c. 750-900) has traditionally been described as one of ‘reform’ or ‘renaissance’, where cultural and intellectual changes were imposed from above in a programme of correctio. This view leans heavily on prescriptive texts issued by kings and their entourages, foregrounding royal initiative and the cultural products of a small intellectual elite. However, attention to understudied texts and manuscripts of the period reveals a vibrant striving for moral improvement and positive change at all levels of society. This expressed itself in a variety of ways for different individuals and communities, whose personal relationships could be just as influential as top-down prescription. The often anonymous creators and copyists in a huge range of centres emerge as active participants in shaping and re-shaping the ideals of their world. A much more dynamic picture of Carolingian culture emerges when we widen our perspective to include sources from beyond royal circles and intellectual elites. This book reveals that the Carolingian age did not witness a coherent programme of reform, nor one distinct to this period and dependent exclusively on the strength of royal power. Rather, it formed a particularly intense, well-funded and creative chapter in the much longer history of moral improvement for the sake of collective salvation.

The central task of Being With God is an analysis of the relation between apophaticism, trinitarian theology, and divine-human communion through a critical comparison of the trinitarian theologies of the Eastern Orthodox theologians Vladimir Lossky (1903–58) and John Zizioulas (1931– ), arguably two of the most influential Orthodox theologians of the past century. These two theologians identify as the heart and center of all theological discourse the realism of divine-human communion, which is often understood in terms of the familiar Orthodox concept of theosis, or divinization. The Incarnation, according to Lossky and Zizioulas, is the event of a real divine-human communion that is made accessible to all; God has become human so that all may participate fully in the divine life. Aristotle Papanikolaou shows how an ontology of divine-human communion is at the center of both Lossky's and Zizioulas's theological projects. He also shows how, for both theologians, this core belief is used as a self-identifying marker against "Western" theologies. Papanikolaou maintains, however, that Lossky and Zizioulas hold profoundly different views on how to conceptualize God as the Trinity. Their key difference is over the use of apophaticism in theology in general and especially the relation of apophaticism to the doctrine of the Trinity. For Lossky, apophaticism is the central precondition for a trinitarian theology; for Zizioulas, apophaticism has a much more restricted role in theological discourse, and the God experienced in the eucharist is not the God beyond being but the immanent life of the trinitarian God. Papanikolaou provides readers with a richer understanding of contemporary Orthodox theology through his analysis of the consensus and debate between two leading Orthodox theologians.

Focusing on the ninth-century beginnings of Byzantine writings against the Latin addition of the Filioque to the creed, Inventing Latin Heretics illuminates several aspects of Byzantine thought-their self-definition, their theology, their uniquely constituted state-based both on what they had to say for themselves and on modern approaches to the study of group identity, religious conflict, and sociology of knowledge. The book introduces the concept of heresiology in general, defining terms, summarizing a vast body of secondary scholarship, and bringing the history of Byzantine antiheretical texts down to the ninth century. It discusses relations between Latin and Greek Christians before and into the time of Photios, as well as his knowledge of Latin customs. The next chapters examine the transmission, form, and contents of the three anti-Filioque texts attributed to Photios and other texts that exemplify what ninth-century Byzantines were saying about Latin errors, raising textual questions that cannot be ignored and ultimately providing a window onto Byzantine mentalities.