Posted on 07/22/2005 6:58:08 PM PDT by jec1ny
Your Creed also differs widely from the Greek original of the First Ecumenical Council. The anathemas are missing, for instance, and there are many additions.
My judgment that a canon issued by the Ephesian fathers forbids alterations of the Creed of Nicaea, not of Constantinople 381.
When these documents had been read out, the holy synod decreed the following.1. It is not permitted to produce or write or compose any other creed except the one which was defined by the holy fathers who were gathered together in the holy Spirit at Nicaea.
2. Any who dare to compose or bring forth or produce another creed for the benefit of those who wish to turn from Hellenism or Judaism or some other heresy to the knowledge of the truth, if they are bishops or clerics they should be deprived of their respective charges and if they are laymen they are to be anathematised.
Shame on me for not going to the original documents to see what the Council of Ephesus actually said. It may come to a great shock to you but the Council of Ephesus DOES NOT forbid changes to the words of the Creed. The actual words of Canon VII are:
WHEN these things had been read, the holy Synod decreed that it is unlawful for any man to bring forward, or to write, or to compose a different Faith as a rival to that established by the holy Fathers assembled with the Holy Ghost in Nicaea.Since the faith proclaimed by the Latin version in no way contradicts the faith proclaimed at Nicea and contained in the Greek version of the Creed there is no violation of canons of the Council of Ephesus.But those who shall dare to compose a different faith, or to introduce or offer it to persons desiring to turn to the acknowledgment of the truth, whether from Heathenism or from Judaism, or from any heresy whatsoever, shall be deposed, if they be bishops or clergymen; bishops from the episcopate and clergymen from the clergy; and if they be laymen, they shall be anathematized.
I caution you against insisting that the words of the Creed be exact. If this were so then Ephesus itself would be condemned by its own canon because the Creed of Constantinople differs from that of Nicea.
" Since the faith proclaimed by the Latin version in no way contradicts the faith proclaimed at Nicea..."
That is the Latin view, not the Orthodox view. The Orthodox view is that a different Faith was composed by the Council of Toledo in 589. History shows that Rome resisted using the Spanish version of the Creed until forced to do so in 1014. So I go with the popes of Rome before and you go with the popes of after. I go with Tradition and you with novelty.
A private judgment of the Greek bishops only and not an act of the entire Church.
History shows that Rome resisted using the Spanish version of the Creed until forced to do so in 1014. So I go with the popes of Rome before and you go with the popes of after. I go with Tradition and you with novelty.
The popes did not condemn Filioque before 1014. Pope Leo III approved its doctrine but only advised that the word be omitted from the recitation of the Creed.
But not in your liturgy.
the symbol of the Faith they issued is the Nicene-Constantinopleatin version
"They"? Where did Ephesus issue the new version of the Creed? The only one quoted in the Acts is the Creed of Nicaea.
creed being that which the Nicene fathers believed
Ah, I see. I thought you were upholding the old Orthodox position (i.e. the one defended by Mark of Ephesus) which was that it referred to the words themselves. Needless to say, since the filioque was believed by the Fathers at Nicaea and Constantinople, it is you who have departed from their creed, unless you want to claim, absurdly, that Sts. Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Basil, etc. did not believe in the creeds which they assisted in framing.
"Pope Leo III approved [the filioque] doctrine..."
Show us please. If you are right, I will recommend we start dropping more Western saints from the calendar.
Do you go with Pope St. Leo the Great?
Here begin the rules of the Catholic faith against all heresies, and especially indeed against the Priscillianists, which the bishops of Tarraco, Carthage, Lusitania, and Baetica have composed and with a command of Pope Leo of the City transmitted to Balconius, bishop of Gallicia. ...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. (Creed of the Council of Toledo, 447 AD)
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06073a.htm
"In 796 the Patriarch of Aquileia justified and adopted the same addition at the Synod of Friaul, and in 809 the Council of Aachen appears to have approved of it. The decrees of this last council were examined by Pope Leo III, who approved of the doctrine conveyed by the Filioque, but gave the advice to omit the expression in the Creed."
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. (Creed of the Council of Toledo, 447 AD)
Worse than I thought in Spain, but I'll not accuse St. Leo of this.
"In 796 the Patriarch of Aquileia justified and adopted the same addition at the Synod of Friaul, and in 809 the Council of Aachen appears to have approved of it. The decrees of this last council were examined by Pope Leo III, who approved of the doctrine conveyed by the Filioque, but gave the advice to omit the expression in the Creed."
That's an excellent tertiary source. Now show us a primary source please as to Pope Leo III's approval and conveyal.
St. Leo's own words:
And so under the first head is shown what unholy views they hold about the Divine Trinity: they affirm that the person of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is one and the same, as if the same God were named now Father, now Son, and now Holy Ghost: and as if He who begot were not one, He who was begotten, another, and He who proceeded from both, yet another; but an undivided unity must be understood, spoken of under three names, indeed, but not consisting of three persons. This species of blasphemy they borrowed from Sabellius, whose followers were rightly called Patripassians also: because if the Son is identical with the Father, the Son’s cross is the Father’s passion: and the Father took on Himself all that the Son took in the form of a slave, and in obedience to the Father. Which without doubt is contrary to the catholic faith, which acknowledges the Trinity of the Godhead to be of one essence in such a way that it believes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost indivisible without confusion, eternal without time, equal without difference: because it is not the same person but the same essence which fills the Unity in Trinity. (Letter 15, Quam laudabiliter, To Turribius, Bishop of Asturia, 447 AD)
I'll see about getting back to you on St. Leo III.
Endless rationalizations. The "Creed" is an exact definition of Faith, as formulated by the Councils. How can we profess the same Faith if the eastern half omits an important word, and the western part adds it?
I could understand that the uncertainty remains if the last Council were that of Ephesus, which the Latins reject. But the definition of the Faith as stated in that Council was approved and recognized, by the whole Church, as true and final at the the following Council. From then on, neither side of the Church had any authority to change its contents by adding or subtratcing from that expression of Faith lest it formulate a new faith -- because the finalized Creed is a definition of Faith, not a description of Faith.
That some individual Fathers of the East shared in formulating filioque before the Church defined it is not surprising. The Fathers were not always right on all points. But, the question is: did any of the Eastern Fathers continue to profess or speculate about the filioque after the Council of Chalcedon?
It appears that only the Western Patriarchate continued in its defiance of the Councils by insistitng on using the filioque.
Please notice the tenses here in what you quoted: "... as if He who begot were not one, He who was begotten, another, and He who proceeded from both, yet another."
This is not, as is the filioque heresy, a discussion of the eternal hypostatic procession of the Holy Spirit. It is instead a reference, at least apparently, to there being three distinct persons and to the Son's mission in time. For example, Holy Scripture tells us, "And when he had said this, he breathed on [them], and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost" (Jhn 20:22). That, it appears to me, is what St. Leo is referring to. The Creed, by contrast, refers to the hypostatic eternal generation of the Son and to the hypostatic eternal procesion of the Holy Spirit, an entirely different subject. Of this, Jesus Christ Himself said, "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, [even] the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father (Jhn 15:26 )".
Do not ping me to your posts please.
This seems to be an interpretation very hard to maintain, in light of the fact that St. Leo is explicitly explaining why the Persons are differentiated, a matter of their eternal relation. Moreover, how would a temporal procession of the Spirit be congruous with the eternal begetting of the Son by the Father? "who begot .. He who was begotten ... He who proceeded".
How grotesque to find you still banging the "Catholic Encyclopedia" drum. It has particular biases that are well known, and it has no official status.
Yes. For instance, St. Hormisdas' formula of reunion had the filioque. John of Montenero noted at Florence:
After Augustine came Pope Hormisdas, who reigned in the days of the Emperor Justin, when John, Patriarch of Constantinople, was trying to bring peace again to the Church after the aberrations of his predecessor Acacius. Both Emperor and Patriarch accepted the profession of faith of Hormisdas to make it the norm of orthodoxy. Yet that profession contained the following:'Great and incomprehensible is the mystery of the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, an undivided Trinity, and yet it is known because it is characteristic of the Father to generate the Son, characteristic of the Son of God to be born of the Father equal to the Father, characteristic of the Spirit to proceed from Father and Son in one substance of deity' (P.L. 63, 514B).
"After Augustine came Pope Hormisdas, who reigned in the days of the Emperor Justin, when John, Patriarch of Constantinople, was trying to bring peace again to the Church after the aberrations of his predecessor Acacius. Both Emperor and Patriarch accepted the profession of faith of Hormisdas to make it the norm of orthodoxy. Yet that profession contained the following:
'Great and incomprehensible is the mystery of the Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, an undivided Trinity, and yet it is known because it is characteristic of the Father to generate the Son, characteristic of the Son of God to be born of the Father equal to the Father, characteristic of the Spirit to proceed from Father and Son in one substance of deity' (P.L. 63, 514B)"
I may be mistaken but I believe St. Mark of Ephesus refused to accept this. In other words, as with the Didache, it is of questionable provenance. Being of questionable provenance, it is unworthy of consideration other than as a curiosity of some sort. Sort of like an unusual dead rat.
"The words of the western Fathers and Doctors, which attribute to the Son the cause of the Spirit, I never recognize (for they have never been translated into our tongue nor approved by the Oecumenical Councils) nor do I admit them, presuming that they are corrupt and interpolated ..."
PS: Note that while Mark insists that the Son isn't the cause of the Spirit, Gregory of Nyssa says that he is (Against Eunomius, I, 42).
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