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&nbsp;Filioque--the part of the Latin translation of the Nicene Creed claiming the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father&nbsp;and the Son--still bedevils Trinitarian theologians today. How can the church possibly achieve unity faced with a dogmatic difference, implacable for over a millennium? Giulio Maspero shows us how the answer can be found in history. In the fourth century, faced with the Pneumatomachians denying 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&nbsp;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,&nbsp;Rethinking the&nbsp;Filioque&nbsp;with the Greek Fathers&nbsp;takes a crucial step toward Christian unity.

Rethinking the Filioque with the Greek Fathers

Maspero, Giulio

Religion & Spirituality

Eerdmans

The Cappadocian Reshaping of Metaphysics: Relational Being

History

World

Cambridge University Press

After Pandemic, After Modernity: The Relational Revolution

St. Augustines Press

Dr. Giulio Maspero is a priest, theologian and physicist who in this work embarks on a study of the Trinity--the Christian triune God--and in a single narrative pieces together the classical metaphysics, revealed truths and Patristic apologetic theology that directed the development of Trinitarian dogma. Maspero views the importance of this project from several perspectives. It connects us both exegetically and in fellowship to Christianity's Jewish roots and the living God of shared Scripture. It introduces the reader to a deeper understanding of the historical development of the Trinity, which is especially engaging given the formidable minds and arguments involved in this history, particularly on the part of the Cappadocian Fathers: Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nanzianzus and Basil the Great. Maspero also notes that knowing the Trinity better will offer greater insight into papal descriptions of the human family as necessarily rooted in a Trinitarian foundation, a "communion of persons in the image of the union of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."&nbsp; An approach to Trinitarian theology often favors overly technical language, or undue triteness. Maspero succeeds in leading both scholar and student to see how the unfolding of the mystery of the Trinity and its dogmatic development is a discovery of the "mystery from which all true love flows" in history. This discovery is only possible because of God's self-revelation and immanence--that is, his heart and his "within." The revelation of his being wholly and eternally Father and Son and the Love between them has made a more complete unity know to humanity through the perfect unity of divine communion. The foundation of all being and reality is this communion of love, personal unity that is given in relation and not in spite of relation. After a career of studying theology and theoretical physics, Maspero is especially keen on emphasizing the radical nature of this concept. It is an extension of Greek philosophy but ripped open and assigned immeasurable new value in communion and relation.&nbsp; The brevity of this work limits the amount of citations and textual references given, and Maspero instead urges the reader to study the book alongside Scripture. His manner of writing respects the impossibility of speaking of God in his immanence, but he nonetheless carves out a place for the Trinity in the human intellect, a place where the Jewish and Christian God might be encountered. As Maspero observes, truth is found in the personal dimension, but "just as in the use of a map for a journey, the cognitive grasp of the Trinity is to prevent us from getting lost, to keep us from reducing and simplifying the Trinity into something we understand merely on a natural level." A highlight of this work is Maspero's reliance on Mary, Theotokos, in his presentation of Trinitarian theology, the person who first opened herself to this manner of thinking.

The Mystery of Communion

Are Communion and Otherness contradictory or can they be reconciled? In his book, Jesmond Micallef refers to John Zizioulas’s celebrated book, Being as Communion to try to answer this question underlining the importance of communion for life and for unity. He explains that Communion and Otherness are not contradictory but complementary because Communion is the basis for true Otherness and identity. The author traces the work of Zizioulas who probes the Christian tradition and highlights the existential concerns that already underlay the writings of the Greek Fathers and the definitions of the early ecumenical councils.

Trinitarian Ontology: The concept of the person for John D. Zizioulas

Christian Books & Bibles

Coda, Piero

Micallef, Jesmond

Churches & Church Leadership

Domuni Press

La Trinidad explicada hoy

Ediciones Rialp, S.A.

Essere e relazione. L'ontologia trinitaria di Gregorio di Nissa

Theology

Città Nuova

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Books by Maspero, Giulio