WHO CHANGED THE CREED — AND WHY DID IT MATTER?
THREE WORDS THAT HELPED DIVIDE EAST AND WEST
Sometimes an enormous controversy turns on very few words.
That happened between Eastern and Western Christianity.
The Latin expression was:
FILIOQUE.
It means:
“AND THE SON.”
Those words were eventually added in the West to a statement about the Holy Spirit in the creed commonly called the Nicene Creed.
The disagreement became one of the major controversies between Eastern and Western Christianity.
But there were actually two questions involved.
What does the Bible teach about the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
And:
Who had authority to change a creed accepted by the church?
Those are not the same question.
We need to examine both.
1. FIRST, WHICH CREED ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
The Council of Nicaea met in A.D. 325.
Its creed said relatively little about the Holy Spirit. It concluded that portion with the words:
“And in the Holy Ghost.”
During the decades that followed, Christians continued debating questions concerning the Holy Spirit.
The creed in the form associated with the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381 said much more.
It confessed belief in the Holy Spirit as:
“The Lord and Giver of life.”
It also said that the Spirit:
“Proceedeth from the Father.”
This expanded creed became widely received in Eastern and Western Christianity.
It is commonly called the Nicene Creed, although its familiar wording is associated with Constantinople rather than being identical to the creed issued at Nicaea in A.D. 325.
Notice the wording about the Holy Spirit:
PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER.
Not:
PROCEEDS FROM THE FATHER AND THE SON.
The words “and the Son” were not part of the received Greek text of the creed.
That is where our story begins.
2. WHERE DID “AND THE SON” COME FROM?
The addition arose in the West.
The Latin expression is:
FILIOQUE.
Filius means “son.”
The ending -que means “and.”
Together, Filioque means:
“AND THE SON.”
The wording developed in Latin Christian theology and came to be included in the creed used in parts of the Western church.
It is clearly found in the creed associated with the Third Council of Toledo in Spain in A.D. 589.
Why did Christians in Spain use it?
One important background issue was Arianism.
Arian teaching denied that the Son possessed the same eternal divine status as the Father.
The addition emphasized the Son's divine relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Western Christians who supported the wording understood it as defending the full divinity of Christ and expressing the relationship among Father, Son, and Spirit.
We should not begin by assuming:
“Someone added these words because he wanted to divide the church.”
That is not what the historical evidence establishes.
The Western Christians who used the expression believed they were defending Christian teaching.
But the words had been added to a creed that Eastern Christians had received without them.
And that created a serious question.
3. WHAT WAS THE THEOLOGICAL QUESTION?
Jesus said concerning the Holy Spirit:
“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, he shall testify of me.”
— John 15:26, KJV
Read that carefully.
Jesus says the Spirit:
“PROCEEDETH FROM THE FATHER.”
He also says:
“WHOM I WILL SEND UNTO YOU FROM THE FATHER.”
The Father and the Son are both mentioned in relation to the Spirit.
But does the verse describe the same relationship in both statements?
That is the question.
Other passages speak about the Spirit's relationship with the Father and the Son.
Jesus said:
“And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.”
— John 14:16
Later He said:
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.”
— John 14:26
Then:
“For if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.”
— John 16:7
Paul spoke of:
“The Spirit of Christ.”
— Romans 8:9
And:
“The Spirit of his Son.”
— Galatians 4:6
These passages show a close relationship among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
But we still must ask:
What exactly do they say about that relationship?
And what conclusions are later theologians drawing from them?
4. THE EAST MADE AN IMPORTANT DISTINCTION
Eastern theologians emphasized the words of Jesus in John 15:26:
“Which proceedeth from the Father.”
They distinguished between two matters.
The first was the Spirit's eternal procession—the Spirit's relationship to the Father within the eternal life of God.
The second was the Spirit's being sent into the world in God's work of redemption.
Jesus says that He will send the Spirit.
Eastern theologians did not deny that statement.
But they argued that the Son's sending of the Spirit into the world does not necessarily establish that the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Son.
In their understanding, the Father is the unique source within the Trinity.
The Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father.
The Spirit is sent into the world through the Son.
Some Eastern theologians also used language describing the Spirit as proceeding from the Father through the Son, while carefully distinguishing what they meant by those words.
The central point is this:
BEING SENT BY THE SON
does not necessarily mean the same thing as:
ETERNALLY PROCEEDING FROM THE SON.
That distinction became very important in Eastern theology.
5. THE WEST SPOKE DIFFERENTLY
Western theologians increasingly emphasized the close relationship between the Son and the Spirit.
Augustine was particularly influential.
Western theology came to express the Spirit's eternal procession as being:
FROM THE FATHER AND THE SON.
But we should not misrepresent the Western position.
In its developed form, Western teaching did not intend to describe the Father and Son as two independent sources producing two different divine spirits.
It understood the Spirit as proceeding from the Father and the Son together, not from two separate divine origins.
The East objected that the wording could compromise the Father's unique place as the source within the Trinity.
The West maintained that the wording expressed the Son's full divine communion with the Father.
Both sides appealed to Scripture.
Both sought to preserve what they understood to be faithful teaching about the Trinity.
But they disagreed about how the biblical statements should be understood and expressed.
That is the theological disagreement.
It is not settled merely by observing that the Son sends the Spirit, nor by ignoring the passages that describe the Spirit's relationship with the Son.
We need to examine what each passage actually says.
6. BUT NOW ANOTHER QUESTION APPEARED
Suppose someone accepted the Western explanation of the Spirit's eternal procession.
There would still be another question:
WHO HAD AUTHORITY TO CHANGE THE CREED?
The creed had been received through the great councils and was used by Christians in both East and West.
Could one region add words to it?
Could a regional council do that?
Could a patriarch?
Could the bishop of Rome?
Or would a change to a creed intended to express the shared faith of the church require agreement across the church?
Now the Filioque controversy was no longer only about the Holy Spirit.
It was also about:
CHURCH AUTHORITY.
That brings us directly back to everything we studied in our first section.
A person might agree with a theological statement while questioning whether a particular church leader or region possessed authority to insert it into a common creed.
Those are separate questions.
7. EVEN ROME DID NOT IMMEDIATELY ADOPT THE CHANGE
This is an important part of the story.
The Filioque spread from Spain into other parts of Western Europe.
During the age of Charlemagne, its use gained support in the Frankish church.
But Rome did not immediately insert the words into the creed used in its own worship.
Pope Leo III, who held office from A.D. 795 to 816, accepted the Western theological teaching expressed by the Filioque.
Yet he resisted changing the wording of the creed.
He supported preserving the creed without the addition.
That distinction matters.
A person could believe that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son while still saying:
“DO NOT ALTER THE RECEIVED CREED.”
The wording was eventually adopted in the creed used in the Roman liturgy in A.D. 1014.
That was centuries after its use in Spain.
So we should not tell the story as though one pope simply added the words at Nicaea or Constantinople.
Nor should we imagine that the Western church immediately agreed about inserting them into the creed.
The theological expression and the decision to alter the creed had different histories.
8. SO THE CONTROVERSY WAS BIGGER THAN THREE WORDS
Consider how Eastern Christians viewed the situation.
A creed shared by the church had been received without:
“AND THE SON.”
Western Christians added the words in some regions.
The addition spread.
Eventually Rome used it in worship.
From an Eastern perspective, the question became:
BY WHAT AUTHORITY DID THE WEST ALTER THE COMMON CREED?
That question naturally connected with another growing disagreement:
HOW MUCH AUTHORITY DID THE BISHOP OF ROME POSSESS OVER THE REST OF CHRISTIANITY?
If Rome claimed authority to approve a change to the creed, what did that imply about its relationship with the other patriarchs and bishops?
If a creed had been received by the wider church, could one part of the church alter it for everyone?
Theology and church government were becoming intertwined.
The disagreement over the Spirit could not be separated entirely from the disagreement over who had authority to speak for the church.
9. THIS IS WHERE OUR EXEGETICAL METHOD BECOMES IMPORTANT
We should not begin with:
“THE EAST IS RIGHT.”
Nor:
“THE WEST IS RIGHT.”
Start with the text.
John 15:26 says:
“The Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father.”
That statement is clear.
Jesus also says:
“Whom I will send unto you from the Father.”
That is also clear.
So ask carefully:
Does sending describe the same relationship as eternal procession?
Does Scripture explicitly say that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father alone?
Does Scripture explicitly say that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son?
Or are later theologians attempting to describe eternal relationships within the Trinity by drawing conclusions from several biblical passages?
Those are questions of interpretation.
We should not answer them merely by repeating an Eastern or Western formula.
Nor should we assume that a theological conclusion is false simply because it is expressed in words that do not appear verbatim in Scripture.
The important question is whether the conclusion is supported by what Scripture teaches.
WHAT DOES THE TEXT STATE?
WHAT IS INFERRED FROM IT?
AND IS THAT INFERENCE WARRANTED?
That is where careful exegesis must guide our conclusions.
10. THERE IS ANOTHER TEXT WE SHOULD REMEMBER
Jesus promised that the Spirit would guide the apostles into truth.
He said:
“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.”
— John 16:13
Then:
“He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”
— John 16:14
And:
“All things that the Father hath are mine.”
— John 16:15
There is an extraordinarily close relationship among Father, Son, and Spirit in this passage.
But read the setting.
Jesus is speaking to His disciples about the Spirit's coming and the work the Spirit will perform.
The passage tells us about the Spirit's relationship with the Father and Son and His work in revealing Christ's truth.
Does it also define the Spirit's eternal procession?
That requires further interpretation.
A theological explanation may bring several passages together.
It may be carefully reasoned.
But we must still ask:
HOW MUCH DOES THE TEXT ITSELF ACTUALLY SAY?
And how much is a conclusion drawn from the text?
That distinction matters in every Bible study—not only this one.
11. THIS ALSO TEACHES US SOMETHING ABOUT CREEDS
Creeds can be useful.
They can summarize what Christians believe Scripture teaches.
They can help identify serious doctrinal disagreements.
They can preserve important historical testimony.
But a creed is not the biblical text itself.
The apostles did not write the Nicene Creed.
They preached and taught the gospel, and their teaching is preserved in the apostolic writings.
Christians disagree about the authority of creeds and councils and about the relationship between Scripture and apostolic tradition.
But a creed's age alone does not settle whether every statement in it faithfully expresses apostolic teaching.
That applies to the creed's original wording.
It applies to the Filioque.
And it applies to every creed written afterward.
For our study, the question remains:
WHAT SCRIPTURAL TEACHING SUPPORTS THE CREED'S WORDS?
We should examine the passages, their context, and the reasoning used to connect them to the creed.
12. AND HERE WE SEE HOW DIVISION DEVELOPED
Both Eastern and Western Christians confessed:
ONE FATHER.
ONE SON.
ONE HOLY SPIRIT.
Both claimed the apostolic faith.
Both appealed to Scripture.
Yet they disagreed about how to express the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son.
And behind the theological question stood another disagreement:
WHO HAS AUTHORITY TO DECIDE?
A council?
A patriarch?
The bishop of Rome?
An emperor?
Or must the church reach agreement through some combination of its bishops and councils?
Those questions were not new.
We encountered them when studying the development of bishops, regional church organization, and Roman primacy.
Now they were part of a controversy over the wording of a creed.
The Filioque did not, by itself, cause every disagreement between East and West.
But it became an important part of their growing separation.
13. REMEMBER JESUS' PRAYER
Jesus prayed:
“That they all may be one.”
— John 17:21
But immediately before speaking about that unity, He described future believers as those who would believe:
“Through their word.”
— John 17:20
Whose word?
The apostles' word.
That gives us an important principle for this entire study:
CHRISTIAN UNITY AND APOSTOLIC TEACHING BELONG TOGETHER.
Unity cannot simply mean:
“IGNORE WHAT THE TEXT SAYS.”
But neither should Christians create unnecessary division by demanding conclusions that the text itself does not support.
That is why careful exegesis matters.
It helps us distinguish what the apostles taught from the explanations and formulas developed by later Christians.
14. SO WHO CHANGED THE CREED?
Historically, the words “and the Son” were added to the creed in parts of Western Christianity.
They are clearly documented in the creed associated with the Third Council of Toledo in Spain in A.D. 589.
The wording spread through Western Europe.
Rome itself resisted inserting the words into its liturgical text for centuries, even while accepting the theology expressed by them.
The Roman church adopted the wording in its liturgical use of the creed in A.D. 1014.
The Eastern Orthodox churches did not adopt the addition.
To this day, the Filioque remains a historic difference between Eastern and Western Christianity.
But now we can see why the controversy mattered.
It raised two questions:
WHAT DOES SCRIPTURE TEACH ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT?
And:
WHO HAS AUTHORITY TO DEFINE THAT TEACHING IN A CREED INTENDED TO SPEAK FOR THE CHURCH?
The first concerns the interpretation of Scripture.
The second concerns church authority.
Together, they helped push East and West farther apart.
READ IT FOR YOURSELF
Begin with the biblical passages:
John 14:16–17
John 14:26
John 15:26
John 16:7–15
Romans 8:9–11
Galatians 4:4–6
Acts 2:32–33
1 Corinthians 2:10–12
Then compare the historical documents:
The creed of Nicaea — A.D. 325
The creed associated with Constantinople — A.D. 381
The Third Council of Toledo — A.D. 589
The later Western form of the creed containing Filioque
Ask:
What does the biblical text actually say?
What conclusions are being drawn from it?
And who has authority to add those conclusions to a creed intended to speak for the whole church?
Those questions take us toward an even larger disagreement.
East and West were not merely arguing over words in a creed.
They increasingly disagreed over the authority claimed by one particular bishop:
THE BISHOP OF ROME.
And that is where we go next.
TEXT B4 TRADITION
Read First. Conclude Later.
RETURN TO MAIN SERIES: ONE CHURCH, SO MANY DIVISIONS—WHAT HAPPENED?
NEXT STUDY: DID THE EAST EVER ACCEPT THE POPE AS HEAD OF THE WHOLE CHURCH?