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.
