diff --git a/lib/liquid/variable.rb b/lib/liquid/variable.rb
index a93fed7..5e18710 100644
--- a/lib/liquid/variable.rb
+++ b/lib/liquid/variable.rb
@@ -62,8 +62,8 @@ module Liquid
 
       @filters = []
       p = Parser.new(markup)
-
-      @name = Expression.parse(p.expression)
+      # Could be just filters with no input
+      @name = p.look(:pipe) ? nil : Expression.parse(p.expression)
       while p.consume?(:pipe)
         filtername = p.consume(:id)
         filterargs = p.consume?(:colon) ? parse_filterargs(p) : []
diff --git a/test/integration/parsing_quirks_test.rb b/test/integration/parsing_quirks_test.rb
index 7d0ada7..a7617c9 100644
--- a/test/integration/parsing_quirks_test.rb
+++ b/test/integration/parsing_quirks_test.rb
@@ -28,14 +28,11 @@ class ParsingQuirksTest < Minitest::Test
 
   def test_error_on_empty_filter
     assert Template.parse("{{test}}")
-
-    with_error_mode(:lax) do
-      assert Template.parse("{{|test}}")
-    end
-
+    assert Template.parse("{{|test}}")
     with_error_mode(:strict) do
-      assert_raises(SyntaxError) { Template.parse("{{|test}}") }
-      assert_raises(SyntaxError) { Template.parse("{{test |a|b|}}") }
+      assert_raises(SyntaxError) do
+        Template.parse("{{test |a|b|}}")
+      end
     end
   end