For there is one Lord Jesus Christ, not two, the same is God, the same is Lord, the same is King. He suffered in the flesh, and rose again, and ascended into heaven in the same body, and with glory he sat down at the right hand of the Father, and in the same body he will come in glory to judge both the quick and the dead, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
And we believe in the Holy Ghost, who spake in the Law, and preached in the Prophets, and descended at Jordan, and spake in the Apostles, and indwells the Saints. And thus we believe in him, that he is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, the perfect Spirit, the Spirit the Comforter, uncreate, who proceedeth from the Father, receiving of the Son (ek tou Patros ekporeuomenon, kai ek tou Huiou lambanomenon), and believed on. (kai pisteuomenon, which the Latin version gives in quem credimus; and proceeds to insert, Præterea credimus in unam, etc. It certainly looks as if it had read pisteuomen, and had belonged to the following phrase.)
[We believe] in one Catholic and Apostolic Church. And in one baptism of penitence, and in the resurrection of the dead, and the just judgment of souls and bodies, and in the Kingdom of heaven and in life everlasting.
And those who say that there was a time when the Son was not, or when the Holy Ghost was not, or that either was made of that which previously had no being, or that he is of a different nature or substance, and affirm that the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are subject to change and mutation; all such the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the mother both of you and of us, anathematizes. And further we anathematize such as do not confess the resurrection of the dead, as well as all heresies which are not in accord with the true faith.
Finally, you and your children thus believing and keeping the commandments of this same faith, we trust that you will always pray for us, that we may have a share and lot in that same faith and in the keeping of these same commandments. For us make your intercessions, you and all who believe thus, and keep the commandments of the Lord in our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom, glory be to the Father with the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.
[206] This is the title in the Acts of the IVth Council. Labbe, Conc., iv., 342.
[207] Soc., H. E., II., 10; Soz., H. E., III. 5; Athanas., De Synod., C. xxij.
[208] I have used Petavius's edition, Cologne, 1682; there are some differences in the various editions about the numbering of the chapters, and this seems to be the origin of the curious mistake Hefele makes in confounding the longer with the shorter creed.
[209] This would be the year 374, that is to say seven years before this Second Ecumenical Council which was held at Constantinople in 381.
Historical Excursus on the Introduction into the Creed of the Words "and the Son."
The introduction into the Nicene Creed of the words "and the Son" (Filioque) has given rise to, or has been the pretext for, such bitter reviling between East and West (during which many statements unsupported by fact have become more or less commonly believed) that I think it well in this place to set forth as dispassionately as possible the real facts of the case. I shall briefly then give the proof of the following propositions:
1. That no pretence is made by the West that the words in dispute formed part of the original creed as adopted at Constantinople, or that they now form part of that Creed.
2. That so far from the insertion being made by the Pope, it was made in direct opposition to his wishes and command.
3. That it never was intended by the words to assert that there were two 'Archai in the Trinity, nor in any respect on this point to differ from the teaching of the East.
4. That it is quite possible that the words were not an intentional insertion at all.
5. And finally that the doctrine of the East as set forth by St. John Damascene is now and always has been the doctrine of the West on the procession of the Holy Spirit, however much through ecclesiastico-political contingencies this fact may have become obscured.
With the truth or falsity of the doctrine set forth by the Western addition to the creed this work has no concern, nor even am I called upon to treat the historical question as to when and where the expression "and the Son" was first used. For a temperate and eminently scholarly treatment of this point from a Western point of view, I would refer the reader to Professor Swete's On the History of the Doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit. In J. M. Neale's History of the Holy Eastern Church will be found a statement from the opposite point of view. The great treatises of past years I need not mention here, but may be allowed to enter a warning to the reader, that they were often written in the period of hot controversy, and make more for strife than for peace, magnifying rather than lessening differences both of thought and expression.
Perhaps, too, I may be allowed here to remind the readers that it has been said that while "ex Patre Filioque procedens" in Latin does not necessitate a double source of the Holy Spirit, the expression ekporeuomenon ek tou patros kai ek tou Huiou does. On such a point I am not fit to give an opinion, but St. John Damascene does not use this expression.
1. That no pretence is made by the West that the words in dispute ever formed part of the creed as adopted at Constantinople is evidently proved by the patent fact that it is printed without those words in all our Concilias and in all our histories. It is true that at the Council of Florence it was asserted that the words were found in a copy of the Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical which they had, but no stress was even at that eminently Western council laid upon the point, which even if it had been the case would have shewn nothing with regard to the true reading of the Creed as adopted by the Second Synod. [210] On this point there never was nor can be any doubt.
2. The addition was not made at the will and at the bidding of the Pope. It has frequently been said that it was a proof of the insufferable arrogancy of the See of Rome that it dared to tamper with the creed set forth by the authority of an Ecumenical Synod and which had been received by the world. Now so far from the history of this addition to the creed being a ground of pride and complacency to the advocates of the Papal claims, it is a most marked instance of the weakness of the papal power even in the West.
"Baronius," says Dr. Pusey, "endeavours in vain to find any Pope, to whom the formal addition' may be ascribed, and rests at last on a statement of a writer towards the end of the 12th century, writing against the Greeks. If the Council of Constantinople added to the Nicene Creed, in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of life,' and the Council of Chalcedon to that of Constantinople, perfect in Divinity and perfect in Humanity, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, consubstantial with us as touching his manhood,' and some other things as aforesaid, the Bishop of the elder Rome ought not to be calumniated, because for explanation, he added one word [that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son] having the consent of very many bishops and most learned Cardinals.' For the truth of which,' says Le Quien, be the author responsible!' It seems to me inconceivable, that all account of any such proceeding, if it ever took place, should have been lost." [211]
We may then dismiss this point and briefly review the history of the matter.
There seems little doubt that the words were first inserted in Spain. As early as the year 400 it had been found necessary at a Council of Toledo to affirm the double procession against the Priscillianists, [212] and in 589 by the authority of the Third Council of Toledo the newly converted Goths were required to sign the creed with the addition. [213] From this time it became for Spain the accepted form, and was so recited at the Eighth Council of Toledo in 653, and again in 681 at the Twelfth Council of Toledo. [214]
But this was at first only true of Spain, and at Rome nothing of the kind was known. In the Gelasian Sacramentary the Creed is found in its original form. [215] The same is the case with the old Gallican Sacramentary of the vii^th or viii^th century. [216]
However, there can be no doubt that its introduction spread very rapidly through the West and that before long it was received practically everywhere except at Rome.
In 809 a council was held at Aix-la-Chapelle by Charlemagne, and from it three divines were sent to confer with the Pope, Leo III, upon the subject. The Pope opposed the insertion of the Filioque on the express ground that the General Councils had forbidden any addition to be made to their formulary. [217] Later on, the Frankish Emperor asked his bishops what was "the meaning of the Creed according to the Latins," [218] and Fleury gives the result of the investigations to have been, "In France they continued to chant the creed with the word Filioque, and at Rome they continued not to chant it." [219]
So firmly resolved was the Pope that the clause should not be introduced into the creed that he presented two silver shields to the Confessio in St. Peter's at Rome, on one of which was engraved the creed in Latin and on the other in Greek, without the addition. This act the Greeks never forgot during the controversy. Photius refers to it in writing to the Patriarch of Acquileia. About two centuries later St. Peter Damian [220] mentions them as still in place; and about two centuries later on, Veccur, Patriarch of Constantinople, declares they hung there still. [221]
It was not till 1014 that for the first time the interpolated creed was used at mass with the sanction of the Pope. In that year Benedict VIII. acceded to the urgent request of Henry II. of Germany and so the papal authority was forced to yield, and the silver shields have disappeared from St. Peter's.
3. Nothing could be clearer than that the theologians of the West never had any idea of teaching a double source of the Godhead. The doctrine of the Divine Monarchy was always intended to be preserved, and while in the heat of the controversy sometimes expressions highly dangerous, or at least clearly inaccurate, may have been used, yet the intention must be judged from the prevailing teaching of the approved theologians. And what this was is evident from the definition of the Council of Florence, which, while indeed it was not received by the Eastern Church, and therefore cannot be accepted as an authoritative exposition of its views, yet certainly must be regarded as a true and full expression of the teaching of the West. "The Greeks asserted that when they say the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, they do not use it because they wish to exclude the Son; but because it seemed to them, as they say, that the Latins assert the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Father and the Son, as from two principles and by two spirations, and therefore they abstain from saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. But the Latins affirm that they have no intention when they say the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son to deprive the Father of his prerogative of being the fountain and principle of the entire Godhead, viz. of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; nor do they deny that the very procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, the Son derives from the Father; nor do they teach two principles or two spirations; but they assert that there is one only principle, one only spiration, as they have always asserted up to this time."
4. It is quite possible that when these words were first used there was no knowledge on the part of those using them that there had been made any addition to the Creed. As I have already pointed out, the year 589 is the earliest date at which we find the words actually introduced into the Creed. Now there can be no doubt whatever that the Council of Toledo of that year had no suspicion that the creed as they had it was not the creed exactly as adopted at Constantinople. This is capable of the most ample proof.