Directed to no one in particular, but a short history of the Creed in the West. Quoting from Dom Fernand Cabrol’s
The Mass of the Western Rites:
The Spanish were the first in the West to introduce the symbol of Nicea-Constantinople into the Mass. In the East the custom already existed, and in 568 Justinus the Younger made it a law. In 597 the Third Council of Toledo issued an edict: “Ut prius quam Dominica dicatur oratio, voce clara a populo” (symbolum Constantinopolitanum) “decantetur, quo fides vera,” etc. This is a fresh example of the eagerness shown by the Spanish Bishops to follow the customs of Constantinople. From Spain the usage spread into Gaul; but Rome held out long, and only yielded in the eleventh century. The true place of this symbol is in the rite of Baptism and it is not an essential element of the Mass. The Gallican churches sang it after the Gospel, at the end of the Mass of the catechumens, and this too is the place given to it by Rome. Like the Greeks and Orientals, the Spanish, by putting it at the end of the Canon, before the “Pater,” rather disturbed the general equilibrium of this part of the Mass; and, moreover, diminished accordingly the importance of the “Pater.”
The minutes of the
Third Council of Toledo of 589 quote the Creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople a couple of times. While the Constantinopolitan Symbol already contains some ‘added’ clauses imported from the Nicaean version (bolded below), both instances did not yet contain the controversial clause. Here is the first:
INCIPIT FIDES A SANCTO NICENO CONCILIO.
Credimus in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, omnium visibilium et invisibilium conditorem.
Et in unum Dominum Iesum, Filium Dei, de Patre natum unigenitum, hoc est de substantia Patris. Deum ex Deo, lumen ex lumine, Deum verum ex Deo vero, natum non factum,
homousion Patri, hoc est eiusdem cum Patre substantiae. Per quem omnia facta sunt, quae in caelo et quae in terra. Qui propter nos et propter nostram salutem descendit, et incarnatus est, homo factus, passus est, et resurrexit tertia die, et ascendit in caelos, inde venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos.
Et in Spiritum Sanctum, eos autem qui dicunt: Erat quando non erat, et antequam nasceretur non erat, et quia ex nullis exsistentibus factus est, aut ex alia substantia vel subsistentia dicunt esse, aut convertibilem vel mutabilem [o] Filium Dei anathematizat catholica et apostolica ecclesia.
ITEM SANCTA FIDES QUAM EXPOSUERUNT CL PATRES IN CONCILIO CONSTANTINOPOLITANO.
Credimus in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium Conditorem.
Et in unum Dominum Iesum Christum, Filium Dei unigenitum, ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula.
Deum ex Deo, lumen ex lumine, Deum verum, ex Deo vero. Natum non factum,
homousion Patri,
hoc est, eiusdem cum Patre substantiae. Per quem omnia facta sunt,
quae in caelis et quae in terris sunt. Qui propter nostram salutem descendit, et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto, et Maria virgine. Homo factus, passus est sub Pontio Pilato, sepultus, tertia die resurrexit. Ascendit in caelos, sedet ad dexteram Patris. Iterum venturus in gloria iudicare vivos et mortuos: cuius regni non erit finis.
Et Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et Vivificantem. Ex Patre procedentem, cum Patre et Filio adorandum et glorificandum: qui locutus est per prophetas. Unam, catholicam, atque apostolicam ecclesiam. Confitemur unum baptisma in remissionem peccatorum. Expectamus resurrectionem mortuorum, vitam futuri saeculi. Amen.
The genesis of the clause can be seen throughout the minutes of that same council:
Id est ut confiteamur esse Patrem, qui genuerit ex sua substantia Filium sibi coaequalem et coaeternum, non tamen ut ipse idem sit natus et genitor (natus ingenitus), sed persona alius sit Pater, qui genuit, alius sit Filius, qui fuerit generatus, unius tamen uterque substantiae divinitate subsistat: Pater, ex quo sit Filius, ipse vero ex nullo sit alio, Filius, qui debeat (habeat) Patrem, sed sine initio et sine diminutione in ea quia Patri coaequalis et coaeternus est, divinitate subsistat.
Spiritus aeque Sanctus confitendus a nobis et praedicandus est a Patre et a Filio procedere et cum Patre et Filio unius esse substantiae; tertiam vero in Trinitate Spiritus Sancti esse personam, qui tamen communem habeat cum Patre et Filio divinitatis essentiam. Haec enim sancta Trinitas unus est Deus, Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus, cuius bonitate, omnis (hominis) licet bona sit condita creatura (natura), per assumptam tamen a Filio humani habitus formam a damnata progenie reformamur ad beatitudinem pristinam.
Quicumque Spiritum Sanctum non credit aut non crediderit
a Patre et Filio procedere, eumque non dixerit coaeternum esse Patri et Filio et coessentialem, anathema sit.
(Whoever does not believe in the Holy Spirit or should not believe Him to proceed from the Father and the Son, and declare that He is not coeternal and coessential with the Father and the Son, let him be anathema.)
But this is also hardly new: a century before the third Synod, a different confession of faith found in the First Council of Toledo in 400 already has the following statement (under the form
Filioque):
Spiritum quoque esse Paraclitum, qui nec Pater sit ipse, nec Filius,
sed a Patre Filioque procedens. Est ergo ingenitus Pater, genitus Filius, non genitus Paraclitus,
sed a Patre Filioque procedens.
(The Spirit is also the Paraclete, who is Himself neither the Father nor the Son but proceeding from the Father and the Son. Therefore the Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten, the Paraclete is not begotten but proceeding from the Father and the Son.)
And the Armenian Orthodox obviously believe something different than the rest of the Churches.
So here we have a local council changing the universal Creed of the Church. Either the Fathers of Constantinople are hypocrites, OR the proper understanding of their prescription is not that the terminology of the Creed cannot be changed, but rather the DOCTRINAL FAITH that it was expressing could not be changed.
)…