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Notes Introduction 1. it is known as the “nicene Creed” because its formulation was begun at the Council of nicaea in 325, although the third clause, about the Holy spirit, was not added until the Council of Constantinople in 381. i should perhaps note that the traditional datesaugustine himself is supposed to have given for the time of writing the The Trinity (400-416) share in the uncertainty of many dates of events in the ancient world. (for a survey of views that place the writing of the various books of The Trinity from as early as 399 to possibly as late as 427, see lewis ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology, 118-20.) 2. Especially by Hilary of Poitiers and Marius victorinus. i will take these up along with a more detailed discussion of augustine’s thought in Chapter 4. 3. augustine, The Trinity, trans. stephen McKenna, 3.1.1. “Quod se ea quae legamus de his rebus sufficienter edita in latino sermone aut non sunt aut non inueniuntur aut certe difficile a nobis inueniri queunt, graecae autem linguae non sit nobis tantus habitus ut talium rerum libris legendis et intellegendis ullo modo reperiamur idonei” (De Trinitate 3.1.1). Unless otherwise indicated, all latin quotations from saint augustine are from the latin texts of his works online at http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/august.html. 4. “Egoque ipse multa quae nesciebam scribendo me didicisse confitear” (ibid.). 5. rowan Williams, “the theological Epistemology of augustine’s De Trinitate by luigi Gioia,” 187. 6. for Constantine’s role in the theological disputes of the time, see rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, 69-72, 74-81, and ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy, 18-19, 9091 . on the even more forceful role of the emperor theodosius (reigned 379-395 CE) in promoting pro-nicene theology and convoking the Council of Constantinople to make it official, see Ayres, 258-59. It was Theodosius who made the change from Constantine’s policy of tolerating Christianity among other religions to declaring nicene Christianity the only legal religion of the empire and all other versions of Christianity as well as other religions illegal. Code of Theodosius 16.1.2: “We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since, in our judgment, they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics. . . . They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation, and in the second the punishment which our authority, in accordance with the will of Heaven, shall decide to inflict.” In Henry S. Bettenson, ed., Documents of the Christian Church, 31. 327 328 Notes to Pages 2–6 7. one should also bear in mind that augustine thought an approach to a knowledge of God required pursuing a path of inner spiritual purification and that the Trinity could never be grasped as an intellectual object. see “augustine’s theological Epistemology” in Khaled anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine, 242-49, especially 244-45. 8. i acknowledge that there are those who think there are no real differences and that the apparent ones are only variant formulations trying to express the same faith. see, for example, Maria-Helene Gamillscheg, Die Kontroverse um das Filioque: Möglichkeiten einer Problemlösung auf Grund der Forschungen und Gespräche der letzten hundert Jahre, 220: “Dass beide den gleichen Glauben ausdrücken wollen.” also, Gilles Emery, The Trinity: An Introduction to Catholic Doctrine on the Triune God, 142: “the Catholic Church and the orthodox Churches share the same faith in the Holy spirit, although they express this faith from different perspectives, and with a different vocabulary.” the whole point of the present book, however, will be to show that there are important differences of interpretation and that exploring them in greater depth can disclose intellectual and spiritual resources in the joint tradition of East and West that can be enriching, perhaps to both. 9. see the introduction to Eric voegelin, Israel and Revelation, 39-53. see also voegelin, From Enlightenment to Revolution, 68; and Eugene Webb, Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of History, 53-54, 75, 91, 101-2, 213-14, 216. 10. augustine, The Trinity 12.6.7; Gen. 1:26. In contrast, as we will see in the chapters that follow, the biblical image that the Eastern Christian tradition has tended to focus on in its thinking about father...

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