February 12 - One word

February 12 – One word

One word. One simple little word.

In the mid 800s a church in Spain added one word to the Nicene Creed. This addition created chaos! Why? Well, at the last meeting of both the Eastern and Roman Christians, the Creed had been approved and then at two later councils, a vow had been made that the creed would never be changed.

When this Spanish church changed the creed from saying “The Spirit proceeds from the Father” to “The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son,” the Roman church decided they liked it and were glad to revise the Nicene Creed.

Chaos!

The problem was that while both the Eastern and the Roman church believed in the Trinity, they each had differing ways in which they looked at it. Now, this might get a little convoluted. I’ll do what I can to bring it forth sensibly.

The Romans believed that the divine being dwelled equally in the Father, Son and Spirit. One essence … three manifestations of that essence.

The Eastern church believed that the divine could only dwell in one person – the Father – who then shares it with the Son and Spirit. They retain divinity, though. Now, they would accept that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, but not from the Father AND the Son, because that means that the Son shares the divine being with the Father.

Yikes? Yikes.

What does this look like scripturally? Here are several references:

John 14:26 “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

John 15:26 “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spiirt of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me, but you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.”

John 16:7 “Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

Galatians 4:6 “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’”

Both the Roman and Eastern church views are viable with these scriptures. It doesn’t really help, does it?

In 867, the bishop of Constantinople made a lot of noise and denounced the added phrase. That was fine. In 962, the Roman pope said that he would drop it if the Eastern church would accept the pope’s supremacy. No, that wasn’t going to happen … but what did happen was that this was the beginning of the separation of the two churches.