From: db7n+@andrew.cmu.edu (D. Andrew Byler)
Subject: The Nicene Creed (was Re: MAJOR VIEWS OF THE TRINITY)
Organization: Freshman, Civil Engineering, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 152

Michael Bushnell writes;

>The so-called Creed of Athanasius, however, has always been a Western
>creed, and has always had the filioque.  The Orthodox have said that
>they accept all that it says, with the exception of the filioque, but
>it is not "in use."

Which is exactly what I pointed out.  (Though I was wrong about your use
of the Creed, the 1913 Catholic Encylcopedia in which I read about it
said the Orthodox do use the Creed minus the filioque.  Apparently that
has changed.)  The Athanasian Creed has always had the Filioque, the
Nicene - Constantinopolitan did not.
	Of course the Orthodox did not delete the Filioque from the Nicene
Creed (it wasn't there to begin with), but they certainly did from the
Athanasian Creed, which did have it from the beginning.
	I might point out that the whole problem started over the difference in
ways of explaining the generation of the Blessed Trinity, the East
emphasizing the idea of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father
through the Son, and the West using proceeding from the Father and the
Son.  In fact, some, such as Tertullian, used both formulations (see
below)

	"Following, therefore, the form of these examples, I profess that I do
call God and His Word, - the Father and and His Son, - two.  For the
root and the stem are two things, but conjoined; the fountain and the
river are two kinds, but indivisible; the sun and the ray are two forms,
but coherent ones.  Anything which proceeds from another must
necessarily be a second to that from which it proceeds; but it is not on
that account separated from it.  Where there is second, however, there
are two; and where ther is third, there are three.  The Spirit, then, is
third from God and the Son, just as the third from the root is the fruit
of the stem, and third from the fountain is the stream from the river,
and thrid from the sun is the apex of the ray."
	-Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 8, 5 (about 213 AD)

and

	"I believe that the Spirit proceeds not otherwise than from the Father
through the Son"
	-Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 4, 1 (about 213 AD)

And as St. Thomas showed in his Summa Theologica Part 1, Question 36,
Articles 2 and 3, there is no contradiction between the two methods of
generation, and in fact, the two methods of reckoning the procession
emphasize what St. Augustine, among others taught, that the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Father and the Son, but He proceeds from the Father in
a more preeminent way.

	"For whatever the Son has, He has from the Father, certainly He has it
from the Father that the Holy Spirit proceeds from Him ... For the
Father alone is not from another, for which reason He alone is called
unbegotten, not, indeed, in the Scriptures, but in the practice of
theologians, and of those who employ such terms as they are able in a
matter so great.  The Son, however, is born of the Father; and the Holy
Spirit proceeds principally from the Father, and since the Father gives
to the Son all that He has without any interval of time, the Holy Spirit
proceeds jointly from both Father and Son.  He would be called Son of
the Father and of the Son if, which is abhorent to everyone of sound
mind, they had both begotten Him.  The Spirit was not begotten by each,
however, but proceeds from each and both."
	-St. Augustine of Hippo, The Trinity, 15, 26, 47 (400 to 416 AD)

So, in a sense, all of the formulations are correct (to the West at
least), because the Holy Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son, but
in proceeding from the Son, the orgin of that procession is the
procession from the Father, so the Holy Spirit is proceeding from the
Father through the Son, but as all that the Son has is from the Father,
the Holy Spirit can be said to proceed from the Father, without any
mention of the Son being necessary.
	In any case, I am happy to know that I follow in the beliefs of Pope
St. Leo I, St. Fulgence of Ruspe, St. Cyril of Alexandria, Pope St.
Damsus I, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Epiphanius of Salamis, St. Ambrose
of Milan, St. Hilary of Poitiers, Tertullian, and others among the
Fathers, who all have very quotable quotes supporting the Catholic
position, which I enunciated above.
	As for the issue of the adoption of another Creed being forbidden, I
will point out that the Holy Fathers of Ephesus and Chalcedon both spoke
of the Creed of Nicea in their statement forbidding anyone "to produce,
write, or compose a confession of faith other than the one defined by
the Fathers of Nicea."  That Creed is a different Creed than that of
Constantinople, which is commonly called the Nicene Creed.  Not of
course in that they were condemning the adoption of the
Constantinopolitan Creed, which is but an enlargement upon the Creed of
Nicea, but that they were condemning the impious opinions of Nestorious,
who had adopted a radically different Creed from the one used by the
Church, which among other things denied the procession of the Holy
Spirit form the Son.  Thus, the additions of the Constantinopolitan
Creed were not thought to be in violation of this, and as the Council
Chalcedon also affirmed the doctrine of the procession of the Holy
Spirit from the Son, which Nestorius denied, they could hardly have been
against explaining in a fuller way the Creed, for they themselves
approved of previous additions to it.  And if the further explanations
of the Creed made in Constantinople were not denigrating of the work
done by the Holy Fathers of Nicea or in any way heretical, it follows
that the Council of Toledo was fully able to add what was not disputed
by the faithful to the Creed so as to combat the impieties of the Arians
in Spain, because the filioque was not in dispute in the Church until
many years later under Photius and others.  And that the filioque was
not disputed, I provide more quotes below.

	"Since the Holy Spirit when he is in us effects our being conformed to
God, and he actually proceeds from the Father and Son, it is abundantly
clear that He is of the divine essence, in it in essence and proceeding
from it."
	-St. Cyril of Alexandria, The Treasury of the Holy and Consubstantial
Trinity, Thesis 34, (423-425 AD)

	"The Holy Spirit is not of the Father only, or of the Son only, but he
is the Spirit of the Father and the Son.  For it is written: `If anyone
loves the world, the Spirit of the Father is not in him'; and again it
is written: `If anyone, however, does not have the Spirit of Christ, he
is none of His.'  When the Father and the Son are named in this way, the
Holy Spirit is understood, of whom the Son himself says in the Gospel,
that the Holy Spirit `proceeds from the Father,' and that `He shall
receive of mine and shall announce it to you.'"
	-Pope St. Damasus I, The Decree of Damasus, 1 (382 AD)

	"The only-begotten Holy Spirit has neither the name of the Son nor the
appelation of Father, but is called Holy Spirit, and is not foreign to
the Father.  For the Only-begotten Himself calls Him: `the Spirit of the
Father,' and says of Him the `He proceeds from the Father,' and `will
receive of mine,' so that He is reckoned as not being foreign to the
Son, but is of their same substance, of the same Godhead; He is Spirit
divine, ... of God, and He is God.  For he is Spirit of God, Spirit of
the Father, and Spirit of the Son, not by some kind of synthesis, like
soul and body in us, but in the midst of Father and Son of the Father
and of the Son, a third by appelation....
	"The Father always existed and the Son always existed, and the Spirit
breathes from the Father and the Son; and neither is the Son created nor
is the Spirit created."
	-St. Epiphanius of Salamis (which is on Cyprus), The Man Well-Anchored,
8 and 75 (374 AD)

	"Concerning the Holy Spirit, I ought not to remain silent, nor yet is
it necessary to speak.  Still, on account of those who do not know Him,
it is not possible for me to be silent.  However it is necessary to
speak of Him who must be acknowledged, who is from the Father and the
Son, His Sources."
	-St. Hilary of Poitiers, The Trintiy, 2, 29 (356 to 359 AD)

	Thus, as I have pointed out before, Gaul, Spain, Italy, Africa, Egypt,
Palastine, and the lands of the Greeks, all of Christnedom at that time,
all have Fathers who can be cited to show that they confess the doctrine
expressed by the filioque.  I suggest to those of the Orthodox Church
that they come up with some of the Fathers, besides St. John of Damascus
who all will admit denied the filioque, to support their views.  It is
not enough to bring up the "proceeds from the Father" line of the Creed
or the Gospel of John, for that says what we believe also.  But it does
not say the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, only that He does
proceed from the Father.

Andy Byler
