God The Holy Ghost part 81.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

CHAPTER XIX. THE ORDER OF PERSONS.

The baptismal formula, the motto carved on the portals of the kingdom of Christ by our Lord Himself, reads in this way:—"In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." The Ecclesiastic Doxology re-echoes this dictamen—"Be glory given to the Father and the Son and to the Holy Ghost, this day and for aye." St. John's declaration preserves this arrangement: —"There are Three Who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these Three are One." (i, John v, 7.) These facts set forth such an order of persons as brooks no divergence from what is so clearly built on the deepest harmonies of Godhead as it is in its eternal rhythm. One would, by inverting this order of divine relations, be guilty of serious error. Were one, for example, to put the Holy Ghost first in order it would imply that the Holy Ghost is the One that begets. The Holy Ghost belongs in third place, in view of the relationship of procession. There is a difference in the matter of relationship but no difference in point of substance in the Trinity. There is a difference of persons but not of nature. Fatherhood is the First Person; Sonship is the Second Person and Spiration is the Third Person. There is, however, no superiority among the Three, no dependency, no inequality of years, of dignity or perfection. In the olden days, Catholics were marked out from the Arians, as Nicephorus informs us. Some Arians piped, "Glory to the Father in the Son," with the view to relegating the Son to an obscure and secondary place. Others skirled "Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Ghost." But such as made the true profession of consubstantiality carolled "Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost." The Council of Nice made an addition to these words of the following versicle, "as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, one God world without end." (March. Hort, past. to. iv lect.)

There is equality in the Trinity. The sense in which One of the Three is greater than Another is in that of 'cause', of principle or origin, that is to say, inasmuch as one proceeds from Another. St. Basil remarks upon the order of the Trinity, "Those who shift this order about, seeing that it has been handed down to us by our Lord, must discontinue the practice because they are in open war with the truth. Stable and incorrupt must we preserve this order of persons which we have received from our Lord's own lips." Theodoret also makes the observation: —"The order of names does not teach us that there is any difference in the matter of dignity and nature." St. Athanasius sympathetically agrees: —"therefore the Son Himself did not allege, 'the Father is better than I,' lest someone should fancy that His nature is not the same, but, 'greater than I,' said he, not by any greatness or age, but simply that He was begotten by the Father." St. Gregory Nazianzen queries in this style:—"What lacketh the Spirit of being the Son? We admit that He lacketh naught, for, God could not be lacking in aught. The difference, however, of what I might call Their manifestation and of Their mutual relationship, has created different names for Them." (Orat. xxxvii.)

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By Henry Aloysius Barry

Gregory Theolog elegantly observes that this "Unity, progressing from principle to duality, stops at Trinity." "Rightly considered, these views will be found to coalesce with the Greek and Latin Doctors on the procession of the Holy Ghost and to coalesce in one faith." (J. B. Fournals, Editor of Petav.) Lequien, the most learned commentator of St. John Damascene, vindicates this Father from discordancy and contends with vigor and logic that He is easily explained. The so-called Greeks distort the teaching of the Fathers. They twist the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son and from both in such a way as to restrict the meaning of it to two alternatives, namely, the temporal mission or that the gifts of the Holy Ghost, to the exclusion of His Person, are said to be from the Father and the Son. We have already disproved this perversion of the Fathers. The procession of the Holy Ghost therein recorded points to the eternal immanent res although the mission of the Holy Ghost is a fruit of His procession from the Father and Son and created gifts are also in the light of a consequence from the Father and Son and the Holy Ghost. By the procession from the Father and Son is meant the Third Person. St. Epiphanius says, —"The Father is Light, the Son is Light of Light, the Spirit is of the Two."

The so-called Greeks admit the procession of the Holy Ghost hypostatically speaking as far as the Father is concerned. In the case of the Son, they say it is not thus, but that the Holy Ghost is of His substance. The result of this position would be to make the Holy Ghost co-substantial, and they explain this in such a way as to repudiate the substance of the Son a quo as a principle of procession whence the Holy Ghost is, but rather make it a formal cause of the Holy Ghost's being of the same substance as the Son. Now when the Fathers of Nice said, simply, that "the Son is of the Father," the Allans took occasion therefrom to make these words harmonize with their error which was that the Son was created. To oppose this heresy the Fathers constructed a most effective formula, namely, that He was "of the substance of the Father." Here was expressed the communication of Essence and co-substantiality of the Son to the Father. What the Arians did with the order of the Son to the Father the Pneumatomachi attempted with the order of the Holy Ghost. The Fathers expressed in the same way as Nice had done in the Arian heresy the relationship of the Holy Ghost to the Son. They defined this procession as the communication of the same nature and substance thus: The Holy Ghost is of the substance—of the very substance—of the Father and Son. So in this case, as at Nice, the principium quod, namely, the "producing" person—in spiration the Father and Son —and also the principium quo is expressed, namely, the essence by the communication of which the spiration is brought about.

The formal cause, consequently, whereby the Holy Ghost is God is the very one communicated nature of the Father and the Son. The so-called Greeks call attention to the particular verbs, by which the orthodox Fathers have expressed the mode of the Holy Ghost emanating from or by the Son. They allege that these verbs have not a notional sound but rather a less intimate character. They say that these words assert the contrary of internal procession and rather impress one that they can only mean the external mission of the Holy Ghost or His gifts. As a matter of fact, the Fathers make use of the same verbs to express the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father.

St. Basil says:— "The spirit of God shining forth from God." Moreover in contexts where the Fathers use such words as "shine forth from" the Father and Son or both, where the verb, as far as the Father is concerned, can express no other meaning than the eternal procession, the same cannot hold good as otherwise understood in regard to the Son.

St. Cyril proves that the Holy Ghost is divine in essence, because, "He proceedeth from the Father and Son." The Greek Fathers most clearly have employed these words as immediately significative of the eternal immanent procession. Another subterfuge of the enemy is the interpretation of the Lord's words where He says the Holy Ghost "Shall receive of Mine." They would have it, "He shall receive of My Father." The proprieties of grammar disown such a reading. The Phocians allege with sophistic artifice that whatever is in the Trinity is either common to all or peculiar, hence, spiration is peculiar to the Father or common to the Three Persons—which would, they say, according to Latin doctrine, make the Holy Ghost proceed from Himself. Photius comments on this sophistic quandary to the effect that it outdoes the monstrous fables of the Gentiles themselves. St. Thomas says:—"Opposite relations are persons, and there are two persons just as there are two relations, but relations which in the same person are not in opposition are indeed two relations or peculiarities (proprietates), but not two persons, nay, one person." (1. Dist. 33, a. 2, ad one.) A spirator does not mean a person distinct from the father and son; it signifies one spirative force or one act and one relationship of spiration common to two persons and in a confused way signifies those persons whose act and relationship the spiration is. Spiration is really the same as paternity and sonship, and differs therefrom only "ratione." Fatherhood and sonship include spiration; it enters into either intestinally. Theologians say:—Supposing the real identity of spiration with the fatherhood and sonship and the distinction "ratione," that the constitution—the make-up—of the father and son in the fullest conception of the thing, means the formal "ratio" of fatherhood and sonship inasmuch as both embrace the act of spiration.

The so-called Greeks, in view of the Nature of the Trinity, say that if the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and Son there must be Two Principles of the Holy Ghost and, accordingly, either each Principle is perfect, in which case there would be Two Processions, or, if there be but One Procession from the Two Principles, the Father is insufficient and an imperfect Principle, and the Son is called in to take a hand in the matter. If then the Father and Son are One Principle, this reduces them to One Person, and thus, the heretics say, the Latins contract the Sabellian fault. The matter of all these objections is that the objectors are suffering from a sort of gastritis and their objections are very much on a par with the belchings which are characteristic of such infirmity.

St. Augustine remarks, substantially, that if the spirative force cannot be common to the two and be numerically one without confounding persons and destroying the distinction of generation of son from father, or if the spirative force cannot be in two distinct persons without being in each imperfect or without again the persons being divided and there being two spirators and two principles, then these things must be predicable of the creative force and the power of mission as well. That is to say, there cannot be one —in number—force and action of creation and of mission in distinct persons without thereby destroying by that unity distinction of persons. Or if the persons remain distinct, either this force will be imperfect in each or so separated as to have them turn out as many principles of creation or mission as there are persons creating and sending. The Photian contention is, therefore, not only heretical, but very inconsistent in its method of antagonizing the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son as from One Principle.

The Pneumatomachi, and, after them, the Phocians, in assuming the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father, conclude that if He proceeds, besides, from the Son and by the Son, as Catholic theology maintains, then the Holy Ghost must be a Grandson and the First Person a Grandfather. Thin idea supposes that the Persons are divided so that first of all the Father generates the Son and then the Son alone "generates" the Holy Ghost. As a matter of fact, the divine Persons create by a creative act numerically one; so, the Father and Son are One in number in the spirative act and therefore as one Principle— breathe —or breathes forth the Holy Ghost. St. Epiphanius says: "There is no Grandfather nor Grandson about it; the Holy Ghost is from the same substance of the Father and Son."

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By Henry Aloysius Barry

The so-called Greeks quote St. John Damascene to sustain their cause. They found their argument on the words: "we say that the Holy Ghost is of the Father and the Spirit of the Father; but we do not say that the Holy Ghost is of—from —the Son, though we call Him the Spirit of the Son." As a matter of fact, St. John has clearly expressed himself on the procession dia, through the Son, so as to set forth what is consistent with the other Fathers—"the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son, not that He proceeds from Him but through Him from the Father; only the Father is the cause." (primordial.) The saint wishes to convey the idea —"through" the Son that the Son is the principium of the Holy Ghost by the spirative force communicated to the Son. St. Thomas puts St. John Damascene on the catalogue of the so-called Greeks on this point. St. Thomas says, "the allegation that the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Son was first introduced by the Nestorians, as appears from a certain symbol of the Nestorians condemned by the synod of Ephesus. Theodoret Nestorian followed this error and after Mm many others among whom was Damascene, wherefore, in this matter his opinion is not to be followed." (I. Quest xxxvi. art. 2, respond. 3.) Taking a gloomy view of St. John Damascene's testimony, we must remember as yet there was no solemn definition of the Church on the point. Suppose for one reason or another, say, for example, he had not sufficiently compared the views of the Eastern Doctors and was so led into an error, more material after all than real, inasmuch as the Fathers have frequently said that the Holy Ghost proceeds dia, through the Son—in any case he is only one doctor against a host and could not, of course, count against overwhelming opposition. Franzlein is of the opinion that if St. Thomas could have had the advantage of subsequent demonstrations of Greek theologians such as Beccus, Demetrius, Cydonius, Bessario and the rest he would not so easily have admitted that St. John Damascene was discordant. Many places in the saint's writings tell us that the Holy Ghost proceeds by the Son in such a way as to be the opposite of the Eutychian heresy, which held as blasphemous the Cyrilian definition that the Holy Ghost has His existence from the Father by the Son. The saint is far from inculcating any other production by the Son save the natural and most divine. "It remains to be explained in what sense Damascene and other Greek Doctors have taught that the Holy Ghost has not His existence perfilium, whilst with united voices they proclaim that the Father produces the Holy Ghost by the Son or that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. They therefore deny that the Holy Ghost exists by the Son. (1) By any special action as distinct from the paternal; (2) Lest the Spirit would be taken in the sense in which Eunomius understood it, namely, a created thing and effect; (3) Lest the Spirit by this procession from the Son, as was understood by Apollonius, would be held as less than the Son; (4) Or finally lest the Son would be considered the primordial cause of the Spirit. On the other hand, they teach that the Holy Ghost progresses by the Son so that the Son is regarded as not without part in that natural action whereby the Father pours forth the Spirit and that the Divine Nature, by origin communicated to the Son before the Holy Ghost, will retain its natural fecundity in the Son, which begins from the Father Who alone is the Fount, the Virtue, the Well, the Principle, and therefore is called the Author of the Holy Ghost.

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By Henry Aloysius Barry

Unity of principle is not so explicitly set forth in the "dia" or "through the Son," but is rather contained in the consideration of the subject —God the Father and God the Son. The Fathers of the West in the "from the Father and the Son" directly insist upon the unity of essence and of spiration as against the Arians and include" distinguishing of persons as against the Sabellians. The Easterns in their more frequently employed formula—"from the Father 'by' the Son,"— directly give expression to distinctiveness and order of persons so as to counteract Sabellianism and the Arian calumny, more than once tried, of confounding the persons, and, at the same time, they "include" A unity of principle as against the heresy of the Arians.

The Eastern Fathers have used the "from the Father and the Son" and likewise the Latins have taken up the "from the Father by the Son." These latter with as much eloquence build the procession "principally" from the Father in the same sense as the Oriental Fathers speak of the Father as the "primordial principal." That is to say, although the Son is abintra a principal, He is not without-principle. The Holy Ghost abintra is not the principle of any other person. St. Gregory Nazianzen says:—"Without principle, also principle, and He Who is with principle is one God. The name, 'without principle' belongs to the Father. 'Principle' means the Son's and He, to Whom is given the name, 'with principle' is the Holy Ghost. One nature is in the three; namely God. The union, however, consists of the Father from Whom and to Whom they are related, Who proceed according to order." (Or. xlii, al. 32, n. 15.) The very contexts and the manner of teaching the procession of the Holy Ghost, "from" the Father "through" the Son being considered, all doubt on the meaning and consent of the East with the West is extinguished, for they directly avow that "through" the Son is pertinent to the immanent and eternal procession and is not merely a reference to the "mission ad extra." This appears from the fact that they say that the Holy Ghost proceeds by the Son "essentially" 'according to essence" "by nature" "naturally". They tell us that this procession of the Holy Ghost "from" the Father "by" the Son is the communication of nature from the Father by the Son. Says St. Athanasius: "We shall find such relationship of the Holy Ghost to the Son as the Son has to the Father, and as the Son says, 'all that the Father has, is Mine,'" (assuredly by immanent origin of the Son from the Father) so also shall we find all these by the Son in the Spirit." (for kindred reasons, by immanent origin) (Eph. iii, ad. Seraph, n. 1.) St. Basil says:— "Natural goodness and essential sanctity and royal dignity flow from the Father through the Son into the Holy Ghost." (De Spirit Sanct, c. xviii, n. 47 j Says St. Cyril: "Since the Spirit proceeds naturally 'through the Son' as His own Spirit, He is said (in Holy Writ) to receive all that the Son has in perfection." (In Jo. p. 929930.) A fragment of a letter alleged to be from the quill of St. Maximus, martyr of the seventh century,is shown to the effect that he—apparently— scouts the procession "from the Son,"— "Filioque!" The genuineness of this epistle has been questioned by both Latins and Greeks. The so-called Greeks produced it in the Council of Florence. Granting its genuineness, St. Maximus, after all, only seems to deny that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son—Filioque" —for, he confesses that this is demonstrated by the Fathers. He says, however, that it is not thence denied that the Father alone is the primordial fount of the Trinity and that if you consider the formula of the order of Persons, wherein the Holy Ghost is said to proceed from the Father and the Son, it has the same meaning as the other formula, wherein He is said to proceed dia or through the Son. (Pet. p. 407 Franz, p. 575.)

God The Holy Ghost part 77.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

CHAPTER XVIII. CATHOLIC IDEA OF "THROUGH THE SON."

The so-called Greeks are constrained to admit that the Holy Ghost proceeds "from the Father through the Son," but they mangle this statement in such a way as impresses one with their insincerity. The particle or preposition "through," designates an efficient cause with sub-ordination to the more principal cause, but, in the divine realm there is, and can be, no subordination excepting that of origin. In the language of Holy Writ and the Church works ad extra are said to be from the Father through the Son; where though there is one nature and hence one principle quo of operation and one indistinct operation, distinction between persons, however, is so indicated as that nature, one, in number, and the working power and operation is communicated by the Father to the Son. Though it can be said that apart and alone or by Himself, all things are created by the Father,— per patrem, and all things are created by the Son,— a filio, it is absurd to assert that He does so "through" the Son, because the 'through' signifies not only causality but communication of nature and operative power from one person to another. St. Basil sustains this meaning as against the Arians—"because the Father creates through the Son, this does not insinuate imperfection in the Father's will (or the substantial will which is the Divine Essence), so that the particle 'through' contains the confession of a primordial cause." (De. Sp. Sanct. c. 8. n. 21.) (Franz p. 530.)

St. Chrysostom explains the "all things were made by Him," and shows that the particle or preposition dia, that is to say "through" does not signify "diminution", as the Arians alleged, but rather expresses one dignity of creative operation on the part of Father and Son—"If herein, we find 'by Him', this is so for no other reason than that one should not think that the Son is unbegotten." (In Joan. Horn, v.) St. Cyril speaks directly of the Holy Ghost and says that the meaning of the Father's sending the Holy Ghost "through" the Son is unity of principle in mission —Father and Son—with a distinction observed between the Father generating and the Son generated. "The Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father. The Father by Himself does not give the Paraclete or Holy Ghost, but, the Son by Himself doth give, nay, the Holy Ghost is given to the' saints from the Father, through the Son; and, therefore, whilst the Father is said to give, the Son giveth through Whom are all things; whilst the Son is said to give, the Father giveth from Whom are all things." (In Joan. p. 810.) 'From'the Father signifies the principle of spiration, so, also, on the other hand, 'through' 1 the Son signifies the same principle with the further signified distinguishing of persons in Father and Son, that namely the virtue and act of spiration is communicated by the Father to the Son, and so the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son. As in creation by the Father through the Son, there is not one cause and another, but one, two Persons, and at the same time the origin of the Son from the Father are signified. For similar reason in the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father through the Son, one principle of procession is exhibited, because as there is one essence so is there one spirative force, but there are two Persons shown, of Whom the essence is in the formal manner also of spirative force, though in such a way as that the Father is principium without principium, the Son is not principle without principle, but, with the Father one principle of the Holy Ghost as He is one with the Father, God and Creator inasmuch as by generation He has all things that are the Father's communicated —except Fatherhood—and thence also the spirative force. Neither are the Father and Son distinguished from each other more by spiration than Godhead or absolute attributes inasmuch as there is no other distinction between them than the formal relationship of Paternity and Sonship." (Franz, p. 532.) At heart there is no difference between the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father "through the Son" and "Filioque " from the Son. In the latter, unity of principle is better expressed, whilst the order of origin between the Father and Son is not so explicitly set forth as regards the spiration itself, namely that it is communicated "by" the Son. In the prior method of expression—'through the Son,'—direct significance is made of the order of origin between the two persons spirating; that, namely, the Father is the primordial font from whom the spirative force, just as the essence, is communicated to the Son.

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By Henry Aloysius Barry

Obedience is the perfection of freedom. Our Lord came down from heaven to do the will of Him Who sent Him. He was obedient unto death. We know our Lord's teachings as they are made clear to us by those who were sent to teach all nations and preach the Gospel to every creature. There can be no ground for dispute on the truths, which the Infallible Church, divinely charged in the matter, proposes to our assent. To conform, then, our judgments and lives to such in a more cultured obedience secures to us true liberty, which rightly assumes creatureship on the one hand and the dominance of God and a divine authority on the other.must be rejected as, at heart, erroneous. To conform to them with inward assent, that is, with judgment and will, is Catholic duty. The divine authority of the Church is not reared by the consent of men; it is built upon God; rather, it is God

Himself. In the revealed truths expounded by the Church, human judgment and free will must bend the knee and make a renunciation of themselves, that is to say, they have found, on these points, the right and the truth, the way and the life. Their quest is at an cud, in so far as these truths are concerned. "I am the way," says Pope Leo XIII. "Wherefore if the truth be sought by the human intellect, it must first of all submit it to Jesus Christ and securely rest upon His teaching, since, therein truth itself speaketh. There are innumerable and extensive fields of thought, properly belonging to the human mind, in which it may have full scope for its investigations and speculations and that not only agreeable to its nature, but even by a necessity of its nature. But what is unlawful and unnatural is that the human mind should refuse to be restricted within its proper limits and, throwing aside its becoming modesty, should refuse to acknowledge God's teaching. This teaching upon which our salvation depends is entirely about God and the things of God. No human wisdom has invented it, but the Son of God hath received it and drunk it in entirely from His Father—hence this teaching necessarily embraces many subjects which are not indeed contrary to reason— for that would be an impossibility—but so exalted that we can no more attain them by our own reason than we can comprehend God as He is in Himself. If there be so many things hidden and shielded by nature, which no human ingenuity can explain, yet which no man in his senses can doubt, it would be an abuse of liberty to refuse to accept those which are entirely above nature, because their essence cannot be discovered. To reject dogma is simply to deny Christianity. Our intellect, must bow humbly and reverently, "unto the obedience of Christ." (Encycl. Holy Year, 1900.)

How would the world fare at the hands of fanatics and dreamers, of feeble-minded and uneducated ranting demagogues? The divine Supremacy, the Papacy, tames the erring judgment, prunes and directs the free will by supplying it with the rules of spiritual science.

Republics are essentially built on the consent of the governed. This is very good for temporal states, but with religion it is different. Our Lord says, "You have not chosen Me, I have chosen you." Revelation and revealed .authority must be respected by individuals and nations. No institution can antagonize it and see success written on its horizon. The individual who is out of tune with it cannot have the peace of the Holy Ghost. There is independence, but there is no such thing as one's evading authority of one kind or another. It is essential in the world. You may vote for a president of these United States; a permanent rector may vote for an Ordinary—subject of course to Rome's final decision—this is democracy, this is republican so to speak, but anterior to all is (rod. He created us, He preserves us and He redeemed us. He is, and must be, by His very Godhead and Redemptionship, our Ruler and Teacher, and, we must obey Him in our conscience and in His revealed Voice, His Church. "If he will not hear the Church let him be to Thee as the heathen and the publicans." "The test of the spiritual man is his conformity to the mind of the Church." "The presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church, is the source of its infallibility."

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Next in the order of witnesses we have Didymus, whose three very erudite volumes have been done into the Latin tongue by St. Jerome. He says:—"He shall not speak of Himself; that is to say, without Me and the wishes of the Father, because He is not inseparable from Mine and the Father's will, because He is not of Himself, but of the Father and Me. His very substance is of the Father and Me." It is interesting to consider the interpretation of the words, "He shall receive." They are clear, orthodox and in exact harmony with the reading of St. Athanasius. Didymus says: —"we must understand what it means to 'receive,' in connection with the divine nature. Just as the Son by giving does not part with what He gives, nor is it at any loss that He giveth to others; likewise the Holy Ghost receiveth not what before He had not, for if He were to receive what He had not before, after the gift had been transferred the giver would become empty and cease to have what he had given. As we observed before in arguing on incorporeal natures so do we in the present instance understand that the Holy Ghost receives what had been His by nature and does not mean a giver and a taker, but signifies one substance. Inasmuch as the Son also is said to receive from the Father the wherewithal of His substance, neither is the Holy Ghost aught else in substance but such as is given Him by the Son."

These words avow in clear accents the Latin Dogma. The schismatic ruse is but an endeavor to read into the procession of the Holy Ghost the idea of temporal communication— works ad extra, in time—of the Holy Ghost and the gifts of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son in the capacity of minister or servant and not the immanent and eternal procession of the Holy Ghost. The Fathers repudiate this idea and sustain the orthodox idea of the substantial production.

The Holy Ghost eternally receives from the Son in conjunction with future effect in time, the inspiration of the Apostles or the receiving, in the matter of the doctrine of Christ, the assistance of the Church. Christ bestows the Holy Ghost, not as a thing aloof from, and outside of, Himself, but, something, on the contrary, His very own and of Himself. St. Cyril says, "Since Christ brings forth the law, the Spirit of Himself as being in Him and naturally existent of Him brings forth the law." (Thesaurus.) Now to exist naturally from any one is the same as having one's origin from such a one; it is the same as being produced by Him. Hence the Holy Ghost 'receiving' of Christ does not "participate" in Christ. "By no means," says St. Cyril, "far from it to my mind. How can He Who is in Him and of Him and Whose own He is participate in Him, just as if He were to be sanctified by some external bond, and how is He to be, according to nature, outside Him, of Whose very Self we say He is." (Dial, vii de. Trinit.) The Greek affair has its side lights.

It is an established fact that the words of St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Basil have been tampered with by the so-called Greeks, but, authentic copies of the Fathers furnish the reverse of comfort to the enemies of the "Filioque." Cardinal Bessario found in the monastery of Christ the Saviour what he remarks as being "a source of tears and wonder. In a most ancient edition some one with a bold mind and still bolder hand had used an iron instrument to erase the parchment. But the thing miscarried, for since a space was left unfilled in, the very syllables half appearing revealed the audacity of the proceeding and clearly expressed the very truth." A similar fraud was detected in the Council of Florence when Joseph Methonensus disproved Marcus Ephesinus. Holy Writ compares the Holy Ghost to the waters and God to the fountain—particularly so St. John, (vii, 38, iv, 13,) and the Prophet David (in Ps.xxxv, 10.) St. Athanasius takes occasion therefrom to remark as follows:—"David knew that the Son with the Father is the Fount of the Holy Ghost." And by Jeremias the Son says, 'This people have done Me two wrongs, they have abandoned Me, the Fount of Life." St. Chrysostom says, "The Saviour thereby shows that He is Himself the Fount of Life, the Holy Ghost, the Living Waters." The substantial emanation of the Holy Ghost from the Son,— in other words the procession—is amply set forth in such kindred words as "flow forth"—proceed, "go forth from," "buist forth from," "own Spirit of Jesus Christ," "breath," "vapor," "odor of flowers"—all of which militate for the substantial procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son. Let us repeat the words; "From Me," (that is the Son,) "the Spirit proceeds. I say from Me, I mean also from the Father; what is Mine is the Father's. This is how you are to understand the Word He shall receive of Mine." Another cavil of the schismatics is asserting that what the Holy Ghost receives from the Son He receives because the Son is in the Father. This is not so. The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, that is, receives from the Father and Son what is in the Father and Son as formally Father and Son. The heretical interpretation would impair the directness and perfection, aye, the real procession itself, of the Holy Ghost from the Son. As a matter of fact, "all things that are the Father's," (except alone the formal idea of Father) "are in identical number the Son's. Our Lord teaches that among all these things common to the Father and the Son is contained the virtue and act of communicating all things to the Holy Ghost, that is, of spirating the Holy Ghost by the communication of essence together with all its absolute perfections." (Franz. De Deo Uno et Trino, p. 455.) "The Father has the virtue of principle so that the Holy Ghost receives what is the Father's, therefore, also, the virtue of principle is Mine also so that the Holy Ghost receives of Mine." (Fulgentius Contra. Fabian.) In reply to the schismatics who scoff at the internal procession as being understood when a divine Person is sent and receives, it is to be said that, "whatever and howsoever One divine Person" (of Whom there is but one nature,) "may be said to accept or rather receive from another divine Person, such a thing cannot be conceived without perverting the whole mystery unless internal procession is supposed. For, God cannot accept to Himself from another only inasmuch as one Person is relative to another Person, by origin. But this origin takes place by the communication of the divine nature itself." (Franz, p. 457.) With divine Persons action means the divine essence, (with respect ad extra?) like-wise the communication of operation from one person to another is nothing less than the communication of the divine essence or nature. The Holy Ghost "receiving" from the Son can only be understood in the sense that the Son is the principium of procession communicating essence. The theologic consideration of the present truth has its message in our practical life. We see more and more the reason why we ought to cling to the Church and set the highest possible value on her infallible magisterium. We are thereby convinced of the disabilities of the human mind and of how, without the sure light of faith, the most skilled in human wisdom and the most finished in culture should go astray and be baffled. We find this to be true not only in connection with the revealed truth in its broader outline, but, also, in the component elements of its most august but intricate mechanism, that is to say, in all the lights and shades of the revealed economy. Church Dogmas are not mere assertions; they are divine assertions; and these form the laws and principles, without which, there is no religious liberty.

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By Henry Aloysius Barry

The same saint makes the observation elsewhere that "The Holy Ghost is not extraneous to the Father and Son but of the same substance, of the same divinity, of the Father and Son, always consubstantial with the Father and the Son." (Haer. lxxii, Num. 4.) St. Gregory Nyssen, commenting upon the order of Persons in the Blessed Trinity, remarks that the divine Persons differ only in origin, principle or cause: —"We must say as much of the Holy Ghost," says the saint, "Who differs only in order. For as the Son is coupled with the Father and though He has His being of the Father, yet, for all that, has existed as long as the Father, likewise also the Holy Ghost proximately belongs to the Son, Who in thought only, that is to say as a matter of principle,— origin—is viewed as in production prior to the Spirit, because intervals of time do not figure in the life that antecedes the ages, hence, if you remove the point of principle—the matter of cause or origin— there is really no difference in the Blessed Trinity one from another." (lib. 1. contra Eunom.) The Holy Ghost, therefore, differs from the Father and the Son only in the order of relationship, of origin and procession. There is no 'before' nor 'after' in the Trinity except in the sense of One Having his origin of Another. The Son is linked to the Father so that although He has His being of the Father, He has not His existence after the Father; He simply proceeds from the Father. So, also, is the Holy Ghost linked to the Son but is after Him only in the sense that He proceedeth from Him.

Our next sainted witness is St. Cyril of Alexandria, whose words run thus, "We are obliged to confess that the Spirit is of the substance of the Son. For inasmuch as He (the Holy Ghost) has His natural existence of the Son and is sent by Him unto creatures, He works out the renewal, effects the rounding off (complementum,) of the Blessed Trinity. Now if this is so the Holy Ghost is therefore God of God and not a creature." (lib. 34, Theo.) Here the saint clearly distinguishes between the mission of the Holy Ghost and His very existence. He says that the Holy Ghost has His very existence naturally of the Son. This cuts the ground from under the so-called Greeks. He here over proceeds to demonstrate the thing. He proves that the Holy Ghost is God and of God, because He has His existence of the Son, for, He makes no mention of the Father. This existence and procession must be such that through it and by virtue of it He should have all that would so to speak, make Him God, which means that He should receive the nature of God and have divinity communicated by Him, of Whom He holds existence. The Holy Ghost must certainly, therefore, have His origin of the Son. On the side of Greek quibbling there is no possible way of evading the force of this convincing testimony. (Petavius, p. 279.) Our Lord says: "But when He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will teach you all truth, for, He shall not speak of Himself but what things soever He shall hear, He shall speak, and the things that are to come He shall show you." (St. John, xvi, 13 and fol.) When the word 'receive' has a divine connection, it means procession. The Son has, according to Our Lord's own declaration, everything that the Father has—except of course the paternal relation. Now the Father has the power of "Spiration," as being distinct from paternity, and, hence, the Son has it. The future tense refers to the mission of the Holy Ghost which is the manifestation of His procession. At the time Our Lord spoke the words, "shall receive," this mission was yet to be. Thus procession is the authentic interpretation of the Lord's Words, 'He shall receive of Mine'. A proof of this is found for example in St. Athanasius, —"The Spirit proceeds from Me, (the Son). I say from Me, but, I mean also from the Father. What is Mine is the Father's. In this light we are to view the words, "He shall receive of Mine." (Or. iii, Cont. Arian. n. 24.)

God The Holy Ghost part 73.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

CHAPTER XVII. THE GREEK FATHERS AND THE "FILIOQUE.

As it were not enough for the stubborn race of men to have once rent in twain the seamless mantle of the Nazarene, it is deplorable that there should have been still further rupture in the Church and especially such a significant one as involved and still involves in its disintegration such vast millions as profess the Greek faith with the harrowing prospect of its influence widening in the far reaching tracks of the prowling but silent, patient and aggressive Russian bear. That the Greek wing of the Church should tear itself away from its orthodox moorings when in tranquility and peace Peter's bark lay at quiet anchorage in the Dardanelles it were, indeed, important to have surveyed. But that the Greeks, furthermore, should have shattered the cable that linked them in sacred belief to a long line of illustrious saints challenges credibility; yet, it is a sad fact which constitutes one of the world's most curious phenomena. The lesson of the Jewish—prospectively —and Roman nations losing their nationhood in collision with the chair of Peter had been lost upon them. The pity of it all is heightened by the broader, sentimental view point when we recall in addition to its saint-ship the philosophy, the chivalry, the poetry and art of the Grecian people. Chrysostom, Basil, Plato, Socrates, Homer, Praxiteles, Demosthenes—what names!

"Thus may the Greeks review their native shore, Much famed for generous deeds, for beauty more." —Illiad III. . . . O once of mortal fame O Greeks! if yet ye can deserve the name.— xiv.

But to the point: In the Council of Florence it was argued out whether the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and Son and also whether it was right to make addition to the Nicene Creed. We have seen that, given the former, there could be no question of the latter. The important thing then is whether the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Son also— "Mlioque." The Church has defined it and of course we must profess that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son also. At the same time we will consider the Greek Fathers, having in mind to show that they too have held this doctrine and to lay bare the utter arbitrariness and folly of their schismatical and heretical descendants. St. Epiphanius puts it with mathematical clearness: —"We believe that Christ is of the Father, God of God, and that the Spirit is of Christ or, in other words, we believe the Spirit is of the two, as Christ asserts when He says, 'Who proceedeth from the Father,— (John xv, 26)—and 'He shall receive of Mine,'" (xvi, 14,) (in, Ancor. num. 67.) Nothing could be more plain or emphatic I say. The saint asserts that the Holy Ghost proceeds from Christ, as Christ from the Father, that is God from God. He asserts, besides, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from both. The saint quotes the words, "He shall receive of Mine," which the Latins employ against the Greeks and which Gennadius, Bessario and before them, John Beccus, patriarch of Constantinople, had made use of. (Collect, sentent. de. sp. sanct. cap. v.)— (Petavius. Dog. Theology, iii, p. 274.)

God The Holy Ghost part 72.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

CHAPTER XVI. THE WAGES OF SIN.

Photius, who in the year 866 began the bombardment of the Article of Faith wherein we believe that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son and Cerularius, who in the year 1043 carried on or resumed the assault, were both of them patriarchs of Constantinople. The rupture which the latter brought about lasted until the Council of Lyons 1274. The Greek legates nominally subscribed to the council and a temporary restoration of peace eventuated and lasted during the reign of John Beccus, who replaced the patriarch Joseph upon the latter's unwilling retirement from the patriarchate; but the latter was reseated and the old wound reopened upon the death in 1283 of Michael Palaeologus. Exile, poverty and disgrace were visited upon the Greeks who kept the Latin faith. Manuel Calecas, the illustrious chronicler, was among those who fell under the iron hoof of cruel treatment. This last outbreak A was brought on by the very men among the Greeks who had subscribed to the Council of Lyons. Again, in the reign of Eugenius IV., another truce was patched up between the Latins and the Greeks, in the Ferrarian or Florentine Council. John Palaeologus and the patriarch with other leading dignitaries attended the synod in 1439. Marcus Ephesinus maintained the anti-Latin side with vigor, but peace was restored between the East and West. This same Marcus Ephesinus, who would not subscribe to the Council, soon after with other mutinous churchmen succeeded in bringing about a final rupture between the Greeks and Latins. Worse than dogs the Greeks returned, not once, but many times, to their emesis. It is worthy of observation that the Latin side had among the Greeks such men as Nicephorus Blemmydis, the most erudite and devout man of his era, John Beccus and Manuel Calecas. On the other hand, it is a case of the "hind that would be mated to the lion." Photius and Cerularius were dominated by a fierce pride; they would have no superior. The ambitions of these men led them into a plot whereby they should achieve perfect independence of the Pope, the Vicar of Christ on earth. The Holy Ghost's procession "from the Son" was but the weapon or rather the mask they used to hide their real purpose and deceive and dupe the faithful. Whilst focussing public attention upon the apparent point of attack the heretics were in reality undermining, with malice prepense and diabolical design, the very structure of faith, the supreme authority of Rome in Greece. It is a most lurid bit of infernal politics when ambition is let go so far and pride is so allowed to romp, with no bounds set to its liberties, that the faith of millions is slain to nourish Photius, in the first place, was but a tool of royalty. Ignatius was removed by force from his See because, following in the footsteps of John Beccus, he did his duty in correcting Barda from an incestuous life. Law and order give no credentials to Photius, his suborned successor. The character of this man was such, however, as to make him a choice that would not embarrass the evildoer in high places,—a snap shot of him, but all that is necessary. This is the Father of the Greek schismatics; this is the man who closed the Latin churches in Constantinople and banished the Monks who faithfully adhered to the Roman See. Priests and laics who would not obey his injunctions were thrown into prisons vile and publicly lashed. The divinity of our Blessed Lord was irrigated by blood; the Holy Ghost has had His victims. How indeed can men be convinced of any divine message being sent to the world and entrusted to such foul hands as those of Henry VIII., Luther and Photius. Impure, unchaste rulers, they scattered the seed of antagonism to truth. Herod, Henry and Barda—a lewd trio. Power will always find however, enough tools among the ambitious to needle their way. Like any passion it will deaden conscience and lend itself to what will bring grist to its mill, food to its vanity or furnish salve for its pruriency. Ambition and sensuality make sociable mates; each gets from the collusion all that portion of the booty that he cares to have.

We have said that in 1439 the Greeks subscribed to the Latin Synod in the Council of Florence, but, they did not generally live up to it, afterwards. At most they did so for no more than a brief space, for, we find that Pope Nicholas in 1451 indignantly, with deep feeling and in a prophetic tone, wrote the Greeks as follows:—"We put up with your delays out of consideration for Jesus Christ, the eternal Pontiff, Who let the sterile fig tree stand until the third year, though the gardener was ready with axe in hand to cut it down because it bore no fruit. We have waited three years to see if you would not, at the voice of our divine Saviour, retreat from your schism—very well! If we have waited in vain, you shall be cut down so that you will no longer vex the earth with your useless presence." Three years after or about fourteen years dating from the Council of Florence, Mahomet the Second stood under the walls of Constantinople, the capital of Greece.

The Greeks shouted for help but the Latins stopped their ears to the cry. Bloody battles were fought but the Greek Empire was undone. Her fate was settled on May 29th, 1453, on the very feast of Pentecost, of all days of the year the one especially dedicated to the Holy Ghost. Twice the Turks were repulsed, but the third assault made them victors.

Constantine, the Emperor, fought with his soldiers; he threw aside his royal mantle and flung himself with true, kingly valor upon the ranks of the enemy, wielding his sword and shouting in a stentorian voice encouragement and direction to his troops. He fell, and by his side fell in their own blood the noblest of the Grecian Empire and their crimson life-current mingled with the blood of the fatalist Musselmen. Three days were consumed in massacre, looting and fire. On the fourth day Mahomet made his entrance into the city, took possession of the Imperial Palace and made a Mosque out of the Church of St. Sophia. To this day the Greeks groan under the bitter rule of the Sultan. They have freedom of worship, to be sure, but the patriarch must be confirmed by the Sultan and pay a very enormous sum for his letter of confirmation. Thus the tomb of Greece was erected by the Turk beside the sarcophagus of Imperial Rome in the cemetery of nations. The latter fell in the bloody war against the Son of God, and the divinity of Jesus Christ; the former fell in the war against the Holy Ghost, that began with Photius in the ninth century and was waged with only intermittent spells of harmony down to the fatal hour when the star of the Grecian Empire faded out of sight in the Western sky, leaving in its wake a trail of black night. Whilst from the Latin altars the fumes of incense arose on that fatal Pentecost—aye, fatal indeed for Grecian Imperialism— and mingled with the song of praise and of peace, what a lurid contrast it made with the smoke of battle, the fury of arms and the sad chant of the slain around the walls of Constantinople, reading to us the fate of those who resist the Holy Ghost; for, with nations as with individuals, such resistance is doomed to catastrophe. The cruel weight of the Turkish Sultan presses hard upon the Greeks, but, a more horrid, cunning and crafty power, that, namely, of the Evil Spirit, lowers upon the soul that offers resistance to the power and attraction of grace and overshadows sin's captives with the midnight darkness of future and eternal doom. Says Pope Leo:—"As with individuals, so with nations, these all must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from the way. The Son of God, the Creator, Redeemer of Mankind is King and Lord of the earth and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively'." 'And He gave Him power, glory, and a kingdom, and all peoples, tribes and tongues shall serve Him—I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession.' (Ps. ii, 6, 8.) But when men's minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow or any to aim at." The message which the Holy Father would deliver unto nations and men is that they shall keep their minds, hearts, deeds and words pure by walking in the light of the "Spirit of Jesus," by cultivating an abiding consciousness of the Spirit's presence and a stern fidelity to the momentary promptings and guidance of the Spirit of Jesus. Come, Holy Spirit!

God The Holy Ghost part 71.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

CHAPTER XV. THE GREEKS AND THEIR HERESY. AN HISTORIC RETROSPECT.

The Council of Nice, which today would figure on the Atlas under the name of Isnick of Turkey in Asia, convened in the year 325. The bishops of the Council sat round to the number of 318. The Council drew up a symbol determining the Catholic Faith. Passing upon the Holy Ghost the Nicene Symbol professed as follows:—"We believe also in the Holy Ghost." Nice so set its boundary lines because there had been no question raised on the point, as we are informed by St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen. The Council of Constantinople sat in the year 378 or 379— according to Hurter 381—and made an addition of some words to the Nicene Symbol. Constantinople went on to say, on the point of the Holy Ghost, "we believe in the Holy Ghost, Lord and Life-giver, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who, together with the Father and the Son is to be adored and glorified and Who spoke by the Prophets." At this juncture one ought to tarry to get bearings on the decisional principle of Church. There has never been any variance of the Councils on the subject of this principle.

They do not decide what is to be believed for the first time, that is to say, as never having been believed before. Their rule is to set forth what has always been believed. The bishops do not pretend to such a prerogative as determining a new doctrine, but confine themselves to bearing witness to what has always been the belief of the Church. If heretics did not tamper with the beliefs of the faith, there should be no call for the Church to come out with any decisions anew. A case in point: the divinity of the Holy Ghost, set forth by Constantinople, was only the reproduction of primordial belief, but, as soon as the Macedonians had made an attempt to

disturb this belief, occasion eventuated on the part of the Church to act, not by laying down a fresh and brand-new doctrine, sprung upon the world for the first time, but by reasserting a truth already imbedded in the Church's beliefs. Constantinople restated what had been professed, for example, by the Church of Neo Caesarea and notably read in the profession of faith of St. Gregory Thaumaterg, to wit:—"The Holy Ghost is of God, and in Him are shown God the Father and God the Son, in this perfect Trinity there is no division nor difference in point of glory, eternity or sovereignty and nothing of the creature, nothing of the inferior, nothing of the new that has not always existed; the Father has never been without the Son nor the Son without the Holy Ghost. But the Trinity remains always the same, immutable and invariable."

Now the Council of Ephesus, convened in the year 434, decreed that "It is not lawful to make any profession of faith other than the one penned by the Holy Fathers, who were gathered with the Holy Ghost at Nice." According to the Greek reading of this decree, rigorously and logically carried out, the additions of the Council of Constantinople, that had convened in the meantime, should be set aside and inhibited. Throughout the Eastern Church catechumens were required to recite the Nicene Symbol with the subsequent additions of Constantinople as far back as the Nicene Council. This symbol did not figure in the Western Liturgy—so it is commonly agreed —until the middle of the fifth century. As far as its usage is concerned in the Church, that is to say apart from the baptismal rite, it is believed to have been brought into Antioch in the year 421 by one Peter Le Foulon and into Constantinople in the year 511.

The first indication of this custom in Spain is seen in the Council of Toledo, toward the year 589. The Gauls followed under Charlemagne, and it was finally established in Rome under the Pontificate of Benedict VIII., in the year 1014. As there had been no inkling of heresy, no muttering under the breath, there had existed therefore no need of introducing the custom. To-day we recite in the Church the Nicene Creed, supplemented by Constantinople, and the word adopted for the first time by the whole Church at the Second Council of Lyons in the year 1274, namely the famous one, "Filioque," —"and from the Son." This word had been engrafted by many symbols before it had been universally adopted at Lyons. This word constitutes the line of demarcation, the firing line of the Greeks and Latins. The schismatics asked why the Second Council, namely that of Constantinople, did not add the word, "Filioque," — "and from the Son,"—when it had set about the work of the Holy Ghost's procession. The purport of this query is no doubt to insinuate and show that it was not the belief of the Church at that time that the Holy Ghost does proceed from the Son. Beccus, the illustrious Greek apologist of the Latin Faith makes this reply, "That the heretics against whom the symbol was opposed said and believed that the Holy Ghost proceedeth only from the Son, therefore the heretics averred that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Son and not from the Father. The Holy Fathers preached what the heretics denied and asserted in the symbol, 'Who proceedeth from the Father;' for, at that time the heretics owned that He proceedeth from the Son, and no controversy was raised on this point." In plain words: the heretics of that period said that the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Father. In rebutal, the Council of Constantinople said precisely and directly that the Holy Ghost does proceed from the Father. Here we find no mincing of words, no evasion or circumlocution, no chance left for misconception, no wasting of powder. The assertion of the Council fitted the denial very snugly. Again, according to the Greeks, the Council of Ephesus so consecrated and unalterably fixed the words of the Nicene Symbol as to abrogate all right, thenceforward, on the part of the Church, to propound, in symbolic form, the same truths in a more explanatory manner or to insert, therein, any other revealed truths of faith whatever. The Greek contention is of course baseless. If the Church invented anything or added to a symbol anything not revealed, the divine right is infringed. The Church does not manufacture truths; she is the infallible guardian of truth, she explains and defines them in their true sense, as against the many errors that arise about them and proposes them as revealed to the minds and hearts of the faithful. The Greek contention argues against the divine constitution of the Church, by muzzling her teaching voice, when it construes the words of Ephesus as meaning that the Church abrogates her own right to insert truths not explicitly contained in the symbols and the power of meeting errors with distinct symbols in addition to pre-existing formulas. Ephesus by the word, "another faith," proscribed symbols not in harmony with Catholic faith or inhibited the determining by individuals of the formula of solemn profession of faith—a right which belongs exclusively to the universal and supreme magisterium of the Church. The Council of Ephesus aimed, in the first place, at the corruption of the Nicene Symbol and, as a means of safe-guarding its purity, forbids, under graduated penalties, bishops, priests and the laity composing any other formula lest perversities of faith might be occasioned. The divinely appointed and infallible guardianship of faith as resident in the Church, is a triumph of our Lord. This provision for the Church's perpetuity is a stumbling block to Sophists. Arius found it decidedly inconvenient for his errors and forthwith accused the Church of exceeding her rights and over-stepping her prerogatives in the Nicene Formula. Photius was not so radical but denied as much of the Church's power as he found embarrassing; he restricted her to the Nicene Symbol.

Against all these negatives and sophistries as a matter of historic fact the Church has always exercised her teaching rights and defined the truth in antagonism to errors. For facts we have Constantinople making an insertion in the Nicene Symbol to cover the error of the Pneumatomachians on the Holy Ghost. We have other Councils adding the "Mlioque" to the previous symbol, yet no one has dreamt that a crime was being committed against the Council of Nice. On the contrary, the augmented symbols have been received by the whole Church with the prestige of infallible authority. In the "Doete"—"Go and teach all nations"—the doctrinal power of the Church, that is, in her authoritative power of revealed luminance, truth is provided with an irresistible body guard, with an aegis, a palladium. The arrows of the heretical cannot open an introduction to the divinely wrought shield—tempered, as it has been and is, in the Furnace of the Holy Ghost, Whose flames have been burning from eternity and are unquenchable. They would tear it from her breast so as to reach the very heart and vitals with their poisoned arrow-tips. One can fancy the wrath of a thief who is foiled by a vigilant watchman or disturbed in his depredations by a faithful watchdog. His plan would be to murder the watchman and poison the watchdog. It is perfidious logic to gag the mouth of the guardian of truth. It is very natural, however, that the heretic should scowl at the faithful guardian—the teaching power of the Church defeats his designs and brings his purpose to naught. The question of "discipline" lies close to the shores of authority and within the shadow of her fortresses.

Ephesus had this disciplinary aspect. Destroy discipline, the outpost, and the next point of attack is authority itself. The Council of Ephesus in inhibiting "any other faith than the Nicene," strikes the keynote of the deeply reverential character of discipline. It builds a granite outer wall around authority. The question is not whether a certain private addition made without the sanction of the supreme authority to a solemn symbol is true or not. No individual or province should presume to encroach upon the universal magisterium of the Church. Solemn symbols are the universal Church's definitions. To augment them by anticipation or without her sanction is an infringement upon the domain of her rights and, by the very fact, inculpates. The "Filioque" —"and from the Son"—was explicitly professed in the sixth century by the Third Council of Toledo, with the Bishops of Spain and Narbonne in Gaul, under King Recarredo A. D. 589. Thence it spread into the kingdom of the Franks. Thence to Germany, and' still onward to Illyria. In the eighth century, Constantine Coprinom despatched legates to Pippin, King of the Franks, on something having relation to the Holy Ghost, but exact particulars of the affair are lost to history. Before the time of Photius, no marks of antagonism are visible against the Holy Ghost's procession "from the Son also"— "Filioque." —This is proof that the East and West were united in one faith. The Latin Monks at Jerusalem, stationed on Mt. Olivet, added the "Filioque " to the symbol, a custom which they had brought along with them from the Royal Chapel of King Charles. A Greek Monk, one John by name, brought a charge of heresy against them. The Latins had like to be mobbed by the incensed faithful. The Latins then made an appeal to the patriarchs and priests of Jerusalem. The letter of the Latin Monks to the Holy Father showed that the Greeks professed any departure from the Apostolic Roman See as heresy. Pope Leo indited at the time a profession of faith for "all the Oriental christians," namely, the "Holy Ghost equally proceeding from the Father and Son." This closed the incident. The affair is providential as producing retrospective evidence of perfect harmony in faith having always existed between the East and the West on the dogma itself of the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. At the same time the Holy Father did not wish to insert the dogma in the solemn and long-sanctioned symbol, but, on the contrary, wished to have the custom in vogue with the Franks of singing it in the church judiciously discontinued. The two things are consistent, though at first sight it looks awkward. In the case of the Franks it was all along contrary to discipline to have added to the solemn symbol. In the East where the Supreme Pontiff at the same time prescribed it, the Holy Fathers saw the need of a profession of faith in the dogma of those parts in view of the controversies that had arisen and the dangers of a conflagration.

The Franks then commented as follows:—Ah, then, if the dogma of the "Filioque" is true, what reason is there for interdicting the singing of it in Church in conjunction with the solemn symbol? The Holy Father replied that whilst the dogma is indeed true, the discipline of the Church inhibited such addition by any other authority than that of the magisterium of the Church. Later on, after the middle of the ninth century, the dogma itself of the procession of the Holy Ghost "from the Son also"— "Filioque" —was set upon by the Photian wolves and other schismatics and then eventuated the moment for the explicit profession of the dogma. The addition finally of the  "Mlioque " received the adoption of the universal Roman Church. Whether or not this had come about by solemn decree or first of all by universal usage between the ninth and eleventh centuries is a matter of dispute; at all events the addition of the "Filioque " was solemnly decreed at Lyons in the year 1274. After the rupture under Photius it is gathered from the decrees of the Laternal Council that the Greek defectants returned to the Latin communion under Innocent III.

God The Holy Ghost part 70.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

The venerable Bede similarly asserts the law of mystic enlightenment and spiritual refreshment, namely, the cost of self-denial, "Whoso shall have made renunciation of earthly longings or passions out of regard for the teachings of Christ, by how much he shall advance in the love of Christ, insomuch will he find more that are wrapped in eternal desire and are upheld on its solid substance."

"And why not death, rather than living torment;
To die is to be banished from myself;
And Silvia is myself, banished from her,
Is self from self; a deadly banishment:
What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?

What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
Unless it be to think that she
And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
Except I be by Silvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale;

Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
There is no day for me to look upon."

—Two Gentlemen Of Verona.

The intensity of human, passionate love is but the spasmodic and disorderly breaking out of this mighty force of the heart which was created and destined for God. There is a tinge of idolatry in it, for, the full powers of the soul must not be spent except on God, Who alone is worthy of them and Who alone has a right to them in their fulness, Who alone is a proper object for them.

Thus earthly loves prove, however, that there is a God and something higher than creatures to love and in that love to find peace and happiness. "A world which respects nothing but physical facts and material forces, which turns away from the super sensuous, the ideal, the divine, as a dream of its childhood, is surely doomed to decadence and decay. The known and natural cannot suffice for man as a moral being. Without a spiritual horizon the whole value of life, which is its ethical value, fades away." (Quarterly Review.) Of the spiritual love, of that deep, pure love, which the human heart has for its Creator, it cannot be said, as it must be said, of passionate earthly love,

"This weak impress of love is as a figure
Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat,
Dissolves in water and doth lose its form."

Humility is an essential predisposition to the efflorescence of this spiritual, mystical soul. "The knowledge of our sins and of ourselves," says St. Theresa, "is the bread which we have to eat with all the meats however delicate they may be, in the way of prayer." So is a courageous self-denial, a daily, relentless war against one's disorderly attachments. "Oh! wake then, ye that slumber.

Prayer and bloody war against self are hinges held fast by an humble frame upon which the door of love hangs opening to the hidden things; but, the hand that opens that door is the hand of the soul, the hand of the spiritually strong and mighty, aye, even though they should be puny and utterly weak in bodily frame; and that door must remain locked to those who, though rugged in the body and affluent in this world's goods, are weak in the spirit. It is not each man's lot to be trans shifted in holy trance nor to be of the contemplative life, of whose members it is more readily said, "When holy and devout religious men are at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence, so sweet is zealous contemplation." (King Rich, iii.) At the same time, all men of faith, you and myself, are called to know in a relative degree of spiritual perfection the voice of God in revelation and to understand on general principles of the inner sense the language of the Holy Scripture, —/ repeat, interiorly, "According as God hath divided to everyone the measure of faith." (Rom. xii, 3.) It was to the rank and file of christian men that St. Paul gave his message, "we speak wisdom among the perfect." No, it was not to priests nor religious men as such but to the broad christian world that he addressed these words. It is a profound blunder, in fact absurd, to assume that the spiritual sight is withheld from any christian man. Such an assumption paralyzes spiritual effort in others as well as in ourselves. No indeed, the one barrier that stands between any christian man and the perfection of spiritual understanding alluded to by St. Paul when he spoke to the Corinthians, is that man's own disorderly affections and lusts, and such a man as gallantly struggles against these enemies arrayed against his soul will have as his heritage and reward a perception of life and of God, a power to hear and understand the inner voice of the Gospel, that is to say, in proportion to his gallantry he shall receive a generous measure of the outpourings of the Holy Ghost. "Taking account, dearly beloved, of what so many leaders of the people have taught us," says St. Augustine expiating upon the apostles and saints, "let us strive to act out the fulfilment of their injunctions. Let us learn from their example how to have contempt for worldly riches, how not to love worldly pleasures, how to desire the heavenly kingdom, how never to prefer anything at all before Christ, but, to obey His commands in all things, to

cultivate a love for the poverty of present things, to heap up the treasures of virtue, to long for the riches of wisdom, to go in search of spiritual joys, to envy no one but to love all men, our friends in God and our enemies for God's sake; this alone is true love, these are princes most perfect in the love of God, and having fulfilled the duty of neighborly love, they have been able hence to overcome the powers of the world and to subdue the cruel life, inasmuch as they have never, in anything, loved aught but the will of God. So let it be with us, brethren, let us delight in doing in all things the will of God and let us love our Creator in Himself, but creatures in their Creator, and, in so doing we shall have the most orderly charity, because God is charity, and he who loveth this charity loveth God, and if so we have loved, God Himself will love us, the holy apostles, our judges, will love us and pray for us that we may be crowned forever in the general judgment of Christ." (Serm. xiii, de Sanctis.) We know then our part; let us play it like men, like real actors on the stage of life filled with the divine art of the Holy Ghost, with all the unselfishness of losing one's self in the temperament of the truly divine artist in the love of God, an art not acquired but born in us in baptism and only awaiting development by our own spiritual activity to make us perfect saints.

"Love courses as swift as thought in every power, And gives to every power a double power.

It adds a precious seeing to the eye. A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind, A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound, Love's feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of cockled snails.

Is not love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as sphinx; as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write

Until his ink were tempered with love's sighs."

—Love's Labor Lost.

The Holy Ghost will make our bleak life now
hid "in sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow, and
all the conduits of my blood froze up"
beautiful spring "when daisies pied and violet blue, and
lady-smocks all silver-white, and cuckoo-buds of
yellow hue do paint the meadows with delight."

The Holy Ghost is "Love Whose month is ever
May"—Come, Holy Spirit!

God The Holy Ghost part 69.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

As Newman says of the heart, "He who is infinite alone can be its measure. He alone can answer to that mysterious assemblage of feeling and thoughts which it has within it." "Created nature cannot open to us or elicit the ten thousand mental senses, which belong to us and through which we really live. None but the presence of our Maker can enter us, for to none besides can the whole heart, in all its thoughts and feelings, be unlocked and subjected." To whom is the human heart revealed? Yes, who knows the heart like the lover? If we do not love God these internal senses of ours must lie dormant. In time they become paralyzed or practically dead; the spiritual instinct suffers decadence. The psalms evidence the reality of the mystic sense. Who but an out and-out lover of God filled to the brim with the Holy Ghost can understand the love-songs of the Canticles? What I say then is that the procession of the Holy Ghost being such a pure essence of mystery appeals to the mystic sense and feeds the spiritual mind and heart. These profound truths of heaven and God become more opaline to us as we grow in love, under the increasing communication of the Holy Ghost, Who is Love, the fountain-head of love, Love itself. The mysteries of God, besides, far from warping man and stealing away his liberty, on the contrary, expand him and his whole being with its thousand mystic chords, that vibrate to the subtle touch of the deep and hidden things and provide the inner man with music, that has no counterpart even in the languid strains of the Aeolian Harp. Is the heart of Christ really known by one who is not really in love with the Master? When an inamorata is full of his tender passion he sees the object of his affection everywhere; she stands always between him and the object upon which he would set his gaze, she is before him at work, at play, riding, walking, dreaming. "I can no longer," says Lacordaire, "love anyone, without the soul stealing behind the heart so that Jesus Christ stands between us." To be so filled with the Holy Ghost as to love our Lord so that He would be a sort of immovable eyeglass and we should look through Him at all things, see Him in every place, measure and value everything by Him, in Him, with Him—Ah! this indeed were knowing Christ, for we shall have had the "Spirit" of Jesus, the Holy Ghost; this indeed were cultivating the spiritual soul within us. St. Gregory, St. Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Teresa were types of the very highest mysticals, who from the most clever execution of functions and ministrations, merely secular, commonplace and external, withdrew themselves directly therefrom and dipped into ecstatic moods. Love in them had made all things serve it in the capacity of handmaid.

The example of these saints demonstrates that the every day life of the least among us may be preeminently spiritual and that the man of affairs can, and ought to be, in his own measure, also a spiritual man, and that, not simply in an indifferent way, but in a refined, methodical and strenuous fashion, cultivating the religious faculties as the foremost and the noblest pursuit and the only one absolutely worthy to preoccupy the mind gotten up in God's own image. "In his heart, he hath disposed to ascend by steps." (Ps. lxxxiii, 6.)— Yes, of course, it is not done all at once; it is daily work, it is accomplished by steps. There must be mystery because there is a Creator and a Creature, an infinite and a finite being. Reason convinces us that we cannot find happiness except in our end. Experience makes it clear that we inwardly sigh and languish for that which is infinite and immutable. St. Augustine has expressed the foundation of this, when he said: "Thou hast made us for Thyself, Lord, and our heart is disquiet until it rests in Thee." (Conf. lib. i, c. 1.) These mysteries unfold themselves to the soul as the soul grows in the perfection of love. The final complete repose of the soul will come, and can only come, however, in heaven. Ah, then, the full bloom of vision, the eternal realization of the beautiful and true. Of that moment Bossuet has said, "We shall see the true Son of God coming forth eternally from the bosom of the Father, and remaining eternally in the bosom of His Father, we shall see the Holy Ghost, that torrent of flame, proceeding from the mutual embrace, which the Father and Son give to one another, or rather, Who is Himself the embrace, the love and the kiss of the Father and Son; we shall see that unity so inviolable that number can bring it no division, and that number so well ordered that unity does not put confusion in it. My soul is wrapt, christian men, with the hope of so sublime a spectacle, and I can but cry out with the prophet "How lovely are Thy tabernacles, oh! Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord." (Ps. lxxxiii, 1,2.) Take the man of idols, the ambitious man, the money grubber, the sensualist and let the flame of the Holy Ghost "make sweet music with the enamelled stones, giving a gentle kiss to every sedge,"—to all passions and attachments, and how truly may the transformed spirit say, "For now My love is thawed, which like a waxen image against a fire bearest no resemblance to the thing it was." (Two Gentlemen of Verona.) Change the name of Silvia to God, to Whom alone belong such words as the poet has put in the lover's mouth and how true —apart of course from the despondent touch and allowing of course for the poet's license,—it were then, in this torpor of evil habits and of sin. Wake, before you are awakened by the trump of the archangel! Hear the holy angels sing, 'Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men;' see those bright and pure spirits, longing to be rejoined by you and desiring your coming; and then look down on the passions which are holding you captives, the desires which you are serving, the cares and unsatisfied longings which are destroying your peace, the petty troubles about which you are repining, the petty gains and enjoyments, for which you are bartering your souls, and then say,  whether they be worthy of your new origin, your second birth, whether these suit the characters of the Sons of God and heirs of everlasting life, and make your choice." (Dr. Pusey.) Without this cleansing of the soul, as we have remarked again and again, without these burnings of the fetid loves that hamper, debase and becloud and keep the soul a prisoner behind bars with ball and clanking chains, the Gospel of Jesus Christ must be a dead language, a secret, a riddle more or less dark, according to the extent of our evil passions, out of which the captive soul gazes in an impotent stare. St. Paul says, "My speech and my preaching was not in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the showing of the spirit and power. That your faith might not stand on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Howbeit, we speak wisdom among the perfect: yet not the wisdom of the world, neither of the princes of this world that cometh to naught, but we speak the wisdom of God, in a mystery, a wisdom which is hidden, which God ordained before the world, unto our glory, which none of the princes of this world knew, for if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory, but as it is written, 'That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what thing God hath prepared for them that love Him.' But to us, God hath revealed them by His Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of man, but the spirit of a man that is in him? So the things also that are of God, no man knoweth, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of this world but the Spirit of God, that we may know the things that are given us from God, which things we also speak, not in the learned language of human wisdom, but in the doctrine of the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of the Spirit of God; for it is foolishness to him and he cannot understand, because it is spiritually examined. But the spiritual man judgeth all things." (I. Cor. ii, 4, 15.) Says St. Jerome, "Whoso, for the faith of Christ and the Gospel preaching shall bid farewell to all lusts and shall have cast under their feet the riches and pleasures of this world shall receive in an hundredfold, besides, life-everlasting — Whoso, for the Saviour's sake, shall have driven forth carnal things shall receive spiritual." (Lib. 3 in Matt i, 19, Cap. xix.) 

God The Holy Ghost part 68.

By Henry Aloysius Barry

Says St. John Damascene,—"We only know, as Holy Scripture teaches, that the Holy Ghost is not begotten but proceedeth, so that this mode of generation or procession cannot be comprehended." (lib. il, Cap. ix.) St. Augustine when asked why, since both are of the Father's substance, one comes to be a Son and the other is not, simply replies,

— "This is my answer, take it or leave it. The Son is of the Father, the Holy Ghost is of the Father, but the former is begotten, the latter proceedeth. The former is therefore of the Father, of Whom He is begotten, and the latter is of both because He proceedeth from both. What there is between being born and proceeding, apropos of the most high nature, who can explain? Every one proceeding is not born, though everyone that is born proceedeth. Just as not every biped is a man, though every man is a biped, I know as much as this, but I do not know how, I cannot, I am unable, to differentiate the generation in the former case from procession in the latter." (De Trin. Lib. xv. Cap. 7. et. 20. et. Tract, xcix. in. Joan.) St. Basil observes that, "The Son is by generation, the Holy Ghost by a manner hidden and unspeakable." (in. orat. Cont. Sabellian.)

Here we meet the christian test; here the pure-blooded Catholic alone treads; yes, here is the very center of mystery, here we are in the heart of holy dreamland where the faculties and senses stand credulous, unfalteringly so, secure, certain, child-like, yet, in the sacred shadow where the eyes of reason are, as it were, bandaged. What the Holy Ghost has to do with such a pure catholicity, such essence of faith, the great Newman has expressed:

"The safeguard of faith is a right state of heart. This it is which gives it breath, it also disciplines it.—It is love which forms it out of the rude chaos into the image of Christ—we believe because we love. How plain a truth."—Yes indeed the Holy Ghost is love. St. Thomas calls faith "that dawning vision." Bossuet teims it "the effort at vision." "Faith which is dim at first like the first inkling of a great light, but which becomes clear in proportion to the growth of the soul." (Gatry.) When in the beautiful conflagration of all the idols of the human heart Self-perishes, the supernatural faculty perceives high things in the clearer rays. The saints have been illumined in hidden things, "angels have talked with him, and showed him thrones. Ye knew him not; he was not one of ye." (Tennyson) The apostle says, "The holy man of God spoke inspired by the Holy Ghost." (II. Peter i, 21.)

Only in the light of glory can God be seen fully, that is, in the light of His own presence and as far of course as man can possibly see Him. At the same time there is a mystic knowledge wherein He is seen through a lessening mist by the purest hearts, by the lovers of God. What a luminance was shed on St. Peter in the vision at Joppe on the breadth of christian charity! In the depths of its glorious revealed ligh the saw the length and width of it in a clear sky. (Acts, ii.) What a satisfying effect, what a refreshment to the soul of St. Gregory were his Ecstasies! What a source of deep religious knowledge and refreshment and fragrance of love were the bewilderments, the holy trances, of St. Teresa! Mystery is love's fascinating language. It is the idiom of the ultra Godlike. Says Maurice Maetlerlinck, "I believe that the writings of the mystics are the purest diamonds of the prodigious treasures of humanity. Mystical truths have over ordinary truth a strange privilege, they can neither grow hard nor die.— It is not only in heaven but on earth, it is especially in ourselves that there are more things than all the philosophies contain and as soon as we are no longer obliged to formulate what there is mysterious in us, we are more profound than all that has been written and greater than all that exists." "It is unfortunate for us," said Carlyle, "if we have in us only what we can express and make visible." Mysticism is a perfection of faith, faith born of love, the love of the heart, "that linked woes of many a fiery change had purified, and chastened and made free." (Tennyson.) When one is smitten with a purely earthly love, who can understand his spirit except one who has known the fiery and subtle influence of its flame? This extravagant, passionate disposition does not highly transfigure the soul but misshapes it and, under the influence of its touch defects become beauty-points, contrarieties merge into sweet harmonies. Such an illusionary state has its peculiar ideas and therefore peculiar literature. Such a transformation occcurs in a true, pure and noble sense in faith on fire with love.

True, it does not canonize defects, nay, it betrays the ignominy of evil to the uplifted faculties, it reveals  the whole truth in all its nakedness as it is in God, it brings out at the same time the hidden beauties of Godhead and laps the mind in light waves and bathes the heart in a sea of eternal refreshment, it clears the judgment whilst it invigorates the will and makes it prompt in its obedience to good. No, indeed, the mystic sense is no nightmarish phenomenon. The trend of the multitude has been, in recent years, in a direction contrary to the supernatural idea. Faith then had to be recessional. The fruit of it all has been an unhumanizing, matter-of-fact love of earthly things, money and the rest, that disfigures the world and a rampant sensuality that shrinks from no foe but flesh and blood, that is to say, one that can only kill and harm the body. The world needs baptism in the Holy Ghost, that is to say, the spiritual character, nourished and developed— not mere immersion so to speak in water but the spiritual understanding, the consecrated, sacramental idea —brought day by day upwards, and which is full and complete when it sees and knows God, the Spirit, with inward eye and touches Him with hidden hand, and senses His perfumed breath with the mystic nostrils, as the connoiseur recognizes the fragrance of the magnolia bloom. "Is there in human nature a faculty separate from the faculties by which we judge of the things of sense and the abstraction of pure intellect and a true and trustworthy faculty for knowing God— for knowing God in some such way as we know the spirits and souls, half disclosed and half concealed under the mask and garment of flesh, among whom we have been brought up, among whom we live? Can we know Him in such a true sense as we know those whom we love and those whom we dislike? Is there a faculty in the human soul for knowing its Maker and God—knowing Him though flesh and blood can never see Him—knowing Him though the questioning intellect loses itself in the thought of Him?—in the psalms is the evidence of that faculty. The proof that the living God can be known by man is that He can be loved and longed for with all the freedom and naturalness and hopes of human affection. The answer as to whether God has given to man the faculty to know Him might be sought in vain in the Vedas or the Zenda Vesta. It is found in the Book of Psalms." (Dean Church.)