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The common tradition says the filioque first appeared in the Nicene Creed at the Third Council of Toledo in 589. In contrast, the manuscript evidence indicates it first appeared at the Eighth Council of Toledo in 653. The date of the insertion can be narrowed further based on a letter of Isidore of Seville (d. 636). This letter (ep. 6) has been typically considered spurious, but the evidence supports its authenticity.
The filioque ("and from the Son") is the principal theological issue that divides the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches,1 but it is more than a theological disagreement. The phrase is inserted into the creed commonly known as the Nicene Creed (more technically called the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed),2 a foundational creed for nearly all Christendom and an integral part of the celebration of the Holy Eucharist for many. Therefore, this altering of the pronouncement of an ecumenical council, the Council of Constantinople in 381, changed the worship and life of the church.
The Nicene Creed, originally written in Greek, does not contain the disputed clause. With filioque added, the creed affirms that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son." Even though in the sixteenth century, Cardinal Bellarmine, and others in the sixteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, said that the filioque was not included in the Nicene Creed at the Third Council of Toledo (589),3 it has been traditionally held since then that the first evidence of the insertion in the Western creed is at that council.4 But critical evidence revealed by A. E. Burn in English in 1908 questions this tradition.5 Since then many repeated the common tradition, because they were either unfamiliar with or unconvinced by the evidence against it.6
Scholarship in English shows limited attention to the issue. At the end of the nineteenth century, books were written specifically about the filioque but not limited to the event in Spain.7 During this same period, and the beginning of the twentieth century, a number of books about the many creeds were published with small portions devoted to the filioque.8 In the middle of the twentieth century, J. N. D. Kelly included a section devoted to the filioque.9 Since then, books and articles appeared devoted to a survey of the filioque or some aspect...