- The Nicene Creed, in its original form of 325, closes abruptly with the article: "And [we
believe] into the Holy Spirit.^578 In the enlarged form (which is usually traced to the Council of
Constantinople, 381, and incorporated in its acts since 451, but is found earlier in Epiphanius, 373,
and Cyril of Jerusalem, 362, we have the addition: "the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from
the Father," etc.^579 This form was generally adopted in the Eastern churches since the Council of
Chalcedon, 451 (at which both forms were recited and confirmed), and prevails there to this day
unaltered. It is simply the Scripture phrase without any addition, either of the Greek "alone," or of
the Latin "and from the Son." The Greek church understood the clause in an exclusive sense, the
Latin church, since Augustin and Leo I., in an incomplete sense.^580
The Latin church had no right to alter an oecumenical creed without the knowledge and
consent of the Greek church which had made it; for in the oecumenical Councils of Nicaea and
Constantinople the Western church was scarcely represented, at Nicaea only by one bishop (Hosius
of Spain), in the second not at all; and in the Council of Chalcedon the delegates of Pope Leo I.
fully agreed to the enlarged Greek form of the Nicene symbol, yet without the Filioque, which was
then not thought of, although the doctrine of the double procession was already current in the West.
A departure from this common symbolical standard of the most weighty oecumenical councils by
a new addition, without consent of the other party, opened the door to endless disputes.
The Enlargement of the Nicene Creed.
The third national Synod of Toledo in Spain, a.d. 589, held after the conversion of King
Reccared to the Catholic faith, in its zeal for the deity of Christ against the Arian heresy which
lingered longest in that country, and without intending the least disrespect to the Eastern church,
in loc.: " It is difficult (with Luthardt, Meyer, and most modems) to refer the words: who proceedeth from the Father, to the
same fact as the former: whom I will send to you from the Father, as this would be mere tautology. Besides, the futureπέμψω.
I will send, refers to an historical fact to take place at an undefined period, while the presentἐκπορεύεται, proceedeth, seems
to refer to a permanent, divine, and therefore eternal relation. As the historic fact of the incarnation corresponds to the eternal
generation of the Son, so the pentecostal effusion of the Holy Spirit to the eternal procession of the Spirit from God. The divine
facts of revelation are based upon the Trinitarian relations, and are, so to speak, their reflections. (Les faits de la révélation
reposent sur les relations trinitaires. Ils en sont comme les reflets.) As the incarnation of the Son is related to His eternal
generation, so is the mission of the Holy Spirit to His procession with the divine essence.—The Latin Church, starting from
the words,I will send, is not wrong in affirming the Filioque, nor the Greek church, starting from the words: from the Father,
in maintaining per Filium, and the subordination. To harmonize these two views, we must place ourselves at the christological
stand-point of St. John’s Gospel, according to which the homoousia and the subordination are both at the same time true (sont
vrais simultanément)." Milligan and Moulton in loc. (in Schaff’s Revision Com. ): " The words ’which goeth forth from the
Father,’ are not intended to express any metaphysical relation between the First and Third Persons of the Trinity, but to lead
our thoughts back to the fact that, as it is the distinguishing characteristic of Jesus that He comes from the Father, so One of
like Divine power and glory is now to take His place. The same words ’from the Father’ are again added to ’I will send,’ because
the Father is the ultimate source from which the Spirit as well as the Son ’goes forth,’ and really the Giver of the Spirit through
the Son who asks for Him (comp. 14:16). In the power of this Spirit, therefore, the connection of the disciples with the Father
will, in the time to come, be not less close, and their strength from the Father not less efficacious, than it had been while Jesus
was Himself beside them."(^578) Καὶ[πιστεύομεν]εἰς τὸ ἅγιον πνευ̑μα.
(^579) τὸ κύριον[καὶ]τὸ ζωοποιὸν, τὸ ἐκ του̑ πατρὸς· ἐκπορευόμενον, κ.τ.λ.See my Creeds of Christendom, vol. II, 57,
60.
(^580) The chief passages of Augustin on the double procession are quoted in vol. III. § 131. See on his whole doctrine of
the Trinity, Theod. Gangauf,Des heil. Augustinus’ speculative Lehre von Gott dem dreieinigen(Augsb. 1866), and Langen,Die
trinitarische Lehrdifferenz, etc. (Bonn, 1876). On the teaching of Leo. I. comp. Perthel,Leo der Grosse, p. 138 sqq.