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doi:10.1017/S0009640711000886
The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy. By A- Edward Slecienski. Oxford Studies in Historical Theology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. v + 355 pp. $49.95 cloth.
In an entry on the filioque, the great historian of doctrine Jaroslav Pelikan wrote,
If there is a special circle of the inferno described by Dante reserved for historians of theology, the principal homework assigned to that subdivision of hell for at least the first several eons of eternity may well be the thorough study of all the treatises - in Latin, Greek, Church Slavonic, and various modem languages - devoted to the inquiry: Does the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father only, as Eastern Chrìstendom contends, or from both the Father and the Son (ex Paire Filioque), as the Latin Church teaches? (The Melody of Theology: A Philosophical Dictionary [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988], 90).
I am happy to announce that with the publication of Siecienski's book on the filioque, Pelikan's worry about the fate of historians in Dante's inferno has now been substantially laid to rest. The punishment of theologians that might have lasted "several eons of eternity" in that subdivision of hell has been largely, though not...