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Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival. Cf. The Symbol of Faith (Creed), as Defined by the Second Ecumenical Council, Bilingual - Greek / English - text, translated by Elpenor.
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34 Pages
Page 10
Kai eis to hagion pneuma pisteuomen,...ek tou patros ekporeuomenon kai ek tou Huiou lambanomenon kai pisteuomenon, eis mian katholiken k.t.l. Now it looks to me as if the text had got corrupted and that there should be a full stop after lambanomenon, and that pisteuomenon should be pisteuomen. These emendations are not necessary however for my suggestion although they would make it more perfect, for in that case by the single omission of the word lambanomenon the Western form is obtained. It will be noticed that this was some years before the Constantinopolitan Council and therefore nothing would be more natural than that a scribe accustomed to writing the old baptismal creed and now given the Constantinopolitan creed, so similar to it, to copy, should have gone on and added the kai ek tou Huiou, according to habit.
However this is a mere suggestion, I think I have shewn that there is strong reason to believe that whatever the explanation may be, the Spanish Church was unaware that it had added to or changed the Constantinopolitan creed.
5. There remains now only the last point, which is the most important of all, but which does not belong to the subject matter of this volume and which therefore I shall treat with the greatest brevity. The writings of St. John Damascene are certainly deemed entirely orthodox by the Easterns and always have been. On the other hand their entire orthodoxy has never been disputed in the West, but a citation from Damascene is considered by St. Thomas as conclusive. Under these circumstances it seems hard to resist the conclusion that the faith of the East and the West, so far as its official setting forth is concerned, is the same and always has been. And perhaps no better proof of the Western acceptance of the Eastern doctrine concerning the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit can be found than the fact that St. John Damascene has been in recent years raised by the pope for his followers to the rank of a Doctor of the Catholic Church.
Perhaps I may be allowed to close with two moderate statements of the Western position, the one by the learned and pious Dr. Pusey and the other by the none less famous Bishop Pearson.
Dr. Pusey says:
"Since, however, the clause, which found its way into the Creed, was, in the first instance, admitted, as being supposed to be part of the Constantinopolitan Creed, and, since after it had been rooted for 200 years, it was not uprooted, for fear of uprooting also or perplexing the faith of the people, there was no fault either in its first reception or in its subsequent retention."
"The Greeks would condemn forefathers of their own, if they were to pronounce the clause to be heretical. For it would be against the principles of the Church to be in communion with an heretical body. But from the deposition of Photius, a.d. 886 to at least a.d. 1009, East and West retained their own expression of faith without schism. [224] "
"a.d. 1077, Theophylact did not object to the West, retaining for itself the confession of faith contained in the words, but only excepted against the insertion of the words in the Creed. [225] "
And Bp. Pearson, explaining Article VIII. of the Creed says: "Now although the addition of words to the formal Creed without the consent, and against the protestations of the Oriental Church be not justifiable; yet that which was added is nevertheless a certain truth, and may be so used in that Creed by them who believe the same to be a truth; so long as they pretend it not to be a definition of that Council, but an addition or explication inserted, and condemn not those who, out of a greater respect to such synodical determinations, will admit of no such insertions, nor speak any other language than the Scriptures and their Fathers spoke."
[224] Peter of Antioch about a.d. 1054, says that he had heard the name of the Roman Pontiff recited from the Diptychs at the mass at Constantinople forty-five years before. Le Quien, p. xii.
[225] E. B. Pusey. On the clause "and the Son," p. 72.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/second.asp?pg=10
