Nicene Creed

Summer Eucharist at 10:30

As part of a different liturgical book these summer Sundays, Enriching Our Worship 1 instead of The Book of Common Prayer, we have been saying the Church’s restored version of the Nicene Creed. “Restored” in that it drops the filioque from the sentence “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.” By now, those who are interested know that filioque is Latin for “and the Son,” and that the phrase was added without the authority of a General Council of the whole church, by the Western (Latin, Roman) Church in the centuries leading up to the Great Schism of 1054, in which the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church split apart and mutually excommunicated each other. Slowly but nevertheless, and not as a theological issue, the filioque is being dropped by the Anglican Communion, including The Episcopal Church.

We have used the restored Creed for enough Sundays now, that “and the Son” is heard less frequently echoing across the room. Speaking for myself, I still have to bite my tongue to keep from blurting it out.

The other noticeable thing about the restored, revised, corrected Nicene Creed is in the paragraph about Jesus, where the phrase “and was made man” has been changed to “and became truly human.” The original Greek creed says “καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντα” which means “and took on human form.” The Roman Church’s Latin translation is “Et homo factus est,” which was rendered into English as “And was made man.” It’s like a ring of kids playing “Gossip” -- whisper, whisper, whisper until the message at the end is not quite, or not at all, what the original was. Thus “καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντα” is translated direct “and took on human form” -- or “and became truly human,” which is more clear theologically.

So, we are reading, saying, hearing the Nicene Creed as the General Councils of 325 and 381 A.D. meant us to have and understand it. 

TW+