Athanasian Creed

[knee-v]

I was looking at a site online that had the Athanasian Creed on it. That creed taught dual procession of the Holy Spirit. Was that a bad version of it that I found, or does that creed teach dual procession. I know that the Athanasian creed is not binding on us, for it is not THE Creed. Just wondering.

[Shubunkin]

Sorry, cannot answer your question.

Must add my thoughts to your signature, though... there are 11 types of people in the world, those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who don't care! :)

[xristos.anesti]

Many years,

as far as I know in this regard (which is even less than what I know in general, which is nothing) is that this creed could be prescribed two histories.

One is that Creed was developed in the west sometimes during the Ninth Century and that included filioque.

The other one is that creed was developed in the east during the Fourth Century and that it did not include filioque.

Now, what is indeed interesting is that some versions of the creed state:

The Holy Ghost is of the Father [and of the Son], neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

some others state:

The Holy Ghost is of the Father, and of the Son neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

The obvious difference being the "bracketting" of the clause word(s) and of the Son (Filioque). Thus, in some versions it is obvious that this is later insert or non original insert; and in the others that difference can not be made.



Regardless which one is the truth (iv or ix cent or even some third version), this affirmation (aka. Quicunque vult or Pseudo Athanasian Creed) is neither of St. Athanasius nor creed, as far as the East (and the history of the Church, as well as Tradition) is concerned.

In the end, I really do not know, nor do I really care about it.

In any case, it is not Catholic Creed of the Holy Ecumenical Councils.

[tdcharles]

I am not aware of these two histories of the Athanasian Creed. It's true that it has its origin in local Eastern synods, chiefly from Alexandria, where St. Athanasius could have presided.

Regarding procession, implicit is the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son. From the Father through the Son, but since this procession is eternal therefore it is also fair to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both at once, since it is not a process where time is involved (to think that would be to admit that the Spirit was created at some point).

[choirfiend]

Charles, leave the RCC bits out....

[xristos.anesti]

I am not aware of these two histories of the Athanasian Creed. It's true that it has its origin in local Eastern synods, chiefly from Alexandria, where St. Athanasius could have presided.

Regarding procession, implicit is the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son. From the Father through the Son, but since this procession is eternal therefore it is also fair to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both at once, since it is not a process where time is involved (to think that would be to admit that the Spirit was created at some point).

Many years TDCharles,

as I said before, I got no clue about it, nor I care (info comes from the Roman Catholic Encyclopediae).

As far am I am concerned, the matter is fairly simple.

It (so called "Athanasius Creed") is not the Creed of the Catholic Church.




As far as "dual procession" is concerned the Creed of the Catholic Church does not mention it; nor does it imply it, in any way, shape or form.



(Greek Version of The Creed, Articles of the Holy Spirit)
Καί είς τό Πνεύμα τό ¨Αγιον, τό Κύριον, τό ζωοποιόν, τό εκ τού Πατρός εκπορευόμενον, τό σύν Πατρί καί Υιώ συμπροσκυνούμενον καί συνδοξαζόμενον, τό λαλήσαν διά τών Προφητών.

(Original Latin Version/Translation)
Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum et vivificantem, qui ex Patre procedit. Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur et conglorificatur: qui locutus est per prophetas.

(English translation of the Greek Version of The Creed, Articles of the Holy Spirit)
And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who from the Father proceeds. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.



Everything is else, as far as the Creed is concerned, is just... something else.

[Dust and Ashes]

Sorry, cannot answer your question.

Must add my thoughts to your signature, though... there are 11 types of people in the world, those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who don't care! :)

ROFL Either you do understand binary or that was one of the coolest coincidences ever. Coolest in geekdom anyway.

[xristos.anesti]

From the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers Series, On the so called "Athanasian Creed"


Of the other undoubtedly ‘spurious’ works the most famous is the ‘Athanasian Creed’ or Quicunque Vult. It is needless to say that it is unconnected with Athanasius: its origin is still sub judice. The second part of it bears traces of the period circa 430 a.d., and the question which still awaits a last word is whether the Symbol is or is not a fusion of two originally independent documents. NPNF II-IV (p.99).



In the same series [NPNF II-IV (p. 259-261)] is the work of St. Athanasius called Expositio Fidei (Statement of faith).




Statement of Faith of our father among saints, St. Athanasius, Patriarch of the see of St. Mark, Ancient city of Alexandria.


We believe in one Unbegotten God, Father Almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible, that hath His being from Himself.

And in one Only-begotten Word, Wisdom, Son, begotten of the Father without beginning and eternally; word not pronounced nor mental, nor an effluence of the Perfect, nor a dividing of the impassible Essence, nor an issue; but absolutely perfect Son, living and powerful (Heb. iv. 12), the true Image of the Father, equal in honour and glory. For this, he says, ‘is the will of the Father, that as they honour the Father, so they may honour the Son also’ (Joh. v. 23): very God of very God, as John says in his general Epistles, ‘And we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ: this is the true God and everlasting life’ (1 Joh. v. 20): Almighty of Almighty. For all things which the Father rules and sways, the Son rules and sways likewise: wholly from the Whole, being like the Father as the Lord says, ‘he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father’ (Joh. xiv. 9). But He was begotten ineffably and incomprehensibly, for ‘who shall declare his generation?’ (Isa. liii. 8), in other words, no one can. Who, when at the consummation of the ages (Heb. ix. 26), He had descended from the bosom of the Father, took from the undefiled Virgin Mary our humanity, Christ Jesus, whom He delivered of His own will to suffer or us, as the Lord saith: ‘No man taketh My life from Me. I have power to lay it down, and have power to take it again’ (Joh. x. 18). In which humanity He was crucified and died for us, and rose from the dead, and was taken up into the heavens, having been created as the beginning of ways for us (Prov. viii. 22), when on earth He shewed us light from out of darkness, salvation from error, life from the dead, an entrance to paradise, from which Adam was cast out, and into which he again entered by means of the thief, as the Lord said, ‘This day shalt thou be with Me in paradise’ (Luke xxiii. 43), into which Paul also once entered. [He shewed us] also a way up to the heavens, whither the humanity of the Lord, in which He will judge the quick and the dead, entered as precursor for us.

We believe, likewise, also in the Holy Spirit that searcheth all things, even the deep things of God (1 Cor. ii. 10), and we anathematise doctrines contrary to this.

For neither do we hold a Son-Father, as do the Sabellians, calling Him of one but not of the same essence, and thus destroying the existence of the Son. Neither do we ascribe the passible body which He bore for the salvation of the whole world to the Father. Neither can we imaginethree Subsistences separated from each other, as results from their bodily nature in the case of men, lest we hold a plurality of gods like the heathen. But just as a river, produced from a well, is not separate, and yet there are in fact two visible objects and two names. For neither is the Father the Son, nor the Son the Father. For the Father is Father of the Son, and the Son, Son of the Father. For like as the well is not a river, nor the river a well, but both are one and the same water which is conveyed in a channel from the well to the river, so the Father’s deity passes into the Son without flow and without division. For the Lord says, ‘I came out from the Father and am come’ (Joh. xvi.). But He is ever with the Father, for He is in the bosom of the Father, nor was ever the bosom of the Father void of the deity of the Son. For He says, ‘I was by Him as one setting in order’ (Prov. viii. 30). But we do not regard God the Creator of all, the Son of God, as a creature, or thing made, or as made out of nothing, for He is truly existent from Him who exists, alone existing from Him who alone exists, in as much as the like glory and power was eternally and conjointly begotten of the Father. For ‘He that hath seen’ the Son ‘hath seen the Father (Joh. xiv. 9). All things to wit were made through the Son; but He Himself is not a creature, as Paul says of the Lord: ‘In Him were all things created, and He is before all’ (Col. i. 16). Now He says not, ‘was created’ before all things, but ‘is’ before all things. To be created, namely, is applicable to all things, but ‘is before all’ applies to the Son only.

He is then by nature an Offspring, perfect from the Perfect, begotten before all the hills (Prov. viii. 25), that is before every rational and intelligent essence, as Paul also in another place calls Him ‘first-born of all creation’ (Col. i. 15). But by calling Him First-born, He shews that He is not a Creature, but Offspring of the Father. For it would be inconsistent with His deity for Him to be called a creature. For all things were created by the Father through the Son, but the Son alone was eternally begotten from the Father, whence God the Word is ‘first-born of all creation,’ unchangeable from unchangeable. However, the body which He wore for our sakes is a creature: concerning which Jeremiah says, according to the edition of the seventy translators (Jer. xxxi. 22): ‘The Lord created for us for a planting a new salvation, in which salvation men shall go about:’ but according to Aquila the same text runs: ‘The Lord created a new thing in woman.’ Now the salvation created for us for a planting, which is new, not old, and for us, not before us, is Jesus, Who in respect of the Saviour was made man, and whose name is translated in one place Salvation, in another Saviour. But salvation proceeds from the Saviour, just as illumination does from the light. The salvation, then, which was from the Saviour, being created new, did, as Jeremiah says, ‘create for us a new salvation,’ and as Aquila renders: ‘The Lord created a new thing in woman,’ that is in Mary. For nothing new was created in woman, save the Lord’s body, born of the Virgin Mary without intercourse, as also it says in the Proverbs in the person of Jesus: ‘The Lord created me, a beginning of His ways for His works’ (Prov. viii. 22). Now He does not say, ‘created me before His works,’ lest any should take the text of the deity of the Word.

Each text then which refers to the creature is written with reference to Jesus in a bodily sense. For the Lord’s Humanity437 was created as ‘a beginning of ways,’ and He manifested it to us for our salvation. For by it we have our access to the Father. For He is the way (Joh. xiv. 6) which leads us back to the Father. And a way is a corporeal visible thing, such as is the Lord’s humanity. Well, then, the Word of God created all things, not being a creature, but an offspring. For He created none of the created things equal or like unto Himself. But it is the part of a Father to beget, while it is a workman’s part to create. Accordingly, that body is a thing made and created, which the Lord bore for us, which was begotten for us, as Paul says, ‘wisdom from God, and sanctification and righteousness, and redemption;’ while yet the Word was before us and before all Creation, and is, the Wisdom of the Father. But the Holy Spirit, being that which proceeds from the Father, is ever in the hands of the Father Who sends and of the Son Who conveys Him, by Whose means He filled all things. The Father, possessing His existence from Himself, begat the Son, as we said, and did not create Him, as a river from a well and as a branch from a root, and as brightness from a light, things which nature knows to be indivisible; through whom to the Father be glory and power and greatness before all ages, and unto all the ages of the ages. Amen.


Many years.

[Shubunkin]

ROFL Either you do understand binary or that was one of the coolest coincidences ever. Coolest in geekdom anyway.

Okay, I admit it, I'm a geek. :blush: I have taken programming classes in college.

[Philip]

Must add my thoughts to your signature, though... there are 11 types of people in the world, those who understand binary, those who don't, and those who don't care! :)

Sorry, but this is incorrect. There are three types of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't.

[knee-v]

Sorry, but this is incorrect. There are three types of people in the world: those who can count, and those who can't.

Either you're joking, or you're not one of the 11 types of people mentioned above (or 10, depending on which list you follow).

[Philip]

Either you're joking, or you're not one of the 11 types of people mentioned above (or 10, depending on which list you follow).

There are two types of people in the world: those who get my humor and those who have a real sense of humor.

[The Prokeimenon!]

Is the Athanasian Creed accepted by the Latin Church (or more appropriately, is it used, Liturgically, in the Latin Church)?

I've seen it in the back of Lutheran hymnals but I've never heard it used in a Catholic (Orthodox or Latin) or Protestant Church.

Moses

[Philip]

Not to my knowledge.

[knee-v]

I've seen it in the back of PCA hymnals.

[tdcharles]

Is the Athanasian Creed accepted by the Latin Church (or more appropriately, is it used, Liturgically, in the Latin Church)?

I've seen it in the back of Lutheran hymnals but I've never heard it used in a Catholic (Orthodox or Latin) or Protestant Church.

Moses
It's accepted as a Creed, just as the Apostle's Creed is accepted as a Creed, even though neither had their origins from an ecumenical council. It's used in the Divine Office on certain Sunday Primes to this day, but it also used to be used in the Mass in place of the Nicene Creed sometime during the Middle Ages. This was before Pope St. Pius V codified the Mass in the 1500's, so it could have varied from region to region with regards to the Mass.

[tdcharles]

xristos.anesti, I'm afraid I won't be reading all of that today because I am so tired. lol Nevertheless:

Even if it was a later addition, it doesn't have the meaning many of you attribute to it. That the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son was said by Pope St. Gregory the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas, both of whom are doctors of the Church. I am not the one for thinking all disagreements are just semantics, but this one I think really is just a misunderstanding and little or no doctrinal differences actually exist.

[xristos.anesti]

xristos.anesti, I'm afraid I won't be reading all of that today because I am so tired. lol Nevertheless:

Even if it was a later addition, it doesn't have the meaning many of you attribute to it. That the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son was said by Pope St. Gregory the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas, both of whom are doctors of the Church. I am not the one for thinking all disagreements are just semantics, but this one I think really is just a misunderstanding and little or no doctrinal differences actually exist.


The point is that, RCC calls it Athanasian creed with a deliberate wish to portray that words AND THE SON (Filioque) [at least in its common anglian translation] and the science of it, as an eastern development.

This (most likely) comes from the same "school" that invented so called "Constantine donation".

Point is that in the age of instant information, this practice just does not work.

As far as THROUGH THE SON, that is nothing to do with with AND THE SON. First one is not the Filioque clause (an article of great schism), and the second is.

What you are doing is changing subject from a heretical clause [either inserted or "originally" present in a false statement - written by people who did not care about what the person whom they are "making" to say things, actually taught and said] in supposed creed of an Eastern Patriarch speaking of eternal procession from the Son also, and start talking about something that is not issue here.

That is why you were provided with the ACTUAL statement of faith of that particular Patriarch; which (statement) has no such words. You do not have to read it. Thats not the problem. The problem is that those who invented so called Athanasian creed did not read what St. Athanasius HIMSELF wrote that HE, HIMSELF, believes. So, if you close your eyes, it just might go away.

There might be (FOR YOU) "little or no doctrinal difference", given that RCC teaches both, but (FOR ME) there is all the difference in the world.

Filioque is, was and will be heretical clause that "changes" (hardly in reality) Monarchia in the Trinity, it is non-ecumenical clause, inserted unilaterally [by the Franko-Spanish elements of the glorious Church of Rome (before Schism) to be (one of the) pre-cursor(s) for her divison from the Body of Christ] into the Ecumenical Creed of the Catholic Church.

In the end, I know of no so called Athanasian creed but his Statement of faith. We have a creed (that St. Athanasius worked on himself, be thanks to the Lord) the creed that is Catholic and unchanged, one and holy, teaching rightly what is taught rightly, without addition or deletion, in fullness and truth.




P.S.

Thomas Aquinas?! Who is he? ^_^

[Servus Iesu]

I don't think we are going to solve the filioque issue here.

[Servus Iesu]

Thomas Aquinas?! Who is he? ^_^

The Angelic :holy: Doctor

[xristos.anesti]

I don't think we are going to solve the filioque issue here.


The Angelic :holy: Doctor


1. There is no issue to be solved.
Church does not have "filioque".

2. This thread is about so called "Athanasian creed".
Church does not have such a "creed"

3. Thomas Aquinas.
Church does not have such "doctor".


Many years.

[Servus Iesu]

Xristos,

You are right if the Orthodox Church is the true Church. I'm not going to argue with you.

Peace be with you.

[xristos.anesti]

Xristos,

You are right if the Orthodox Church is the true Church. I'm not going to argue with you.

Peace be with you.


Are you questioning the fact that Orthodox Chuch is the Church?


No need to answer that, it has nothing to do with the OP.

[Ioan cel Nou]

Just a small point, but the procession through the Son accepted in the east is not the eternal procession of the filioque and which seems to be intrinsic to the 'Athanasian' creed. The Orthodox idea of procession through the Son is temporal procession. In other words it talks of the Father's sending the Holy Spirit into the world through the Son, and not the eternal origins of the Holy Spirit. I've often seen that it is an inability to make such a distinction on the part of many RCs that leads them to believe that there aren't any real doctrinal differences between us when, in fact, there are.

I agree that it is futile to try and solve the filioque issue here, but it is equally futile to try and pretend that no such issue exists.

James