§ 131. THE POST-NICENE TRINITASIAN DOCTEIN'E. GS7
3 relation to the Father as immediate as tliat of the Son. The Spirit is not created hj the Son, but eternuUy proceeds directly from the Father, as the Son is from eternity begotten of the Father. Everything proceeds from the Father, is mediated by the Son, and completed by the Holy Ghost. Athanasins, Basil, and the Gregories give this view, without denying procession from the Son, Some Greek fathers, Epiphanius,' Marcellus of Ancyra," and Cyril of Alexandria,' derived the Spirit from the Father and the Son ; while Theodore of Mopsuestia and Theodoret would admit no dependence of the Spirit on the Son.
Augustine's view gi'adually met universal acceptance in the West. It was adopted by Boethius, Leo the Great and others.* It was even inserted in the Nicene Creed by the council of Toledo in 589 by the addition of Filioque^ together with an anathema against its opponents, by whom are meant, however, not the Greeks, but the Arians.
Here to this day lies the main difference in doctrine between the Greek and Latin churclies, though the controversy over it did not break out till the middle of the ninth century under patriarch Photius (867).' Dr. Waterland briefly sums up the points of dispute thus:" "The Greeks and Latins have had
' Ancor. § 9 : "Apa 0ebs Ik naTphs Kol v'tov rh TrieD^a. Yet he says not expressly: iKiropeverai e'/c rod vlov.
" Though in a Sabellian sense. '^ ' Who in liis anathemas against Nestorius condemns also those who do no; derive the Holy Ghost from Christ. Theodoret replied : If it be meant that the Spirit is of the same essence with Christ, and proceeds from the Father, we agree ; but if it be intended that the Spirit has his existence through the Son, this is impious, C'Omp, Neander, Dogmengesch. i. p. 322,
* Comp. the passages in Hagenbach's Dogmengeschichte, vol. i. p. 267 (in the Engl. ed. by H. B. Smith, New York, 1861), and in Perthel, Leo der G. p. 138 ff. Leo says, e. ff., Serm. Ixxv. 2 : " Huius enira beataj trinitatis incommutabilirf deltas una est in substantia, indivisa in opere, concors in voluntate, par in potentia, «equalis iu gloria."
* Comp. on tills controversy J. G. Walch : Historia controversiae Grascorun; Latinoruraque de Processione Spir. S., Jen. 1751. Also John Mason Neale: A History of the Holy Eastern Church, Lond. 1850, vol. i. 1093. A. P. Stanley (East, em Church, p. 142) calls this dispute which once raged so long and so violently, "an excellent specimen of the race of extinct controversies,"
* Works, vol. iii. p. 287 f.
688 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590
many and tedious disputes about the prooession. One thing is observable, that though the ancients^ a})pealed to by both parties, have often said that the Holy Ghost proceeds /Vom the Father^ without mentioning the Son^ yet they never said that lie proceeded from the Father alone', so that the modem Greeks have certainly innovated in that article in expression at least, if not in real sense and meaning. As to the Latins, they have this to plead, that none of the ancients ever condemned their doctrine; that many of them have expressly asserted it ; that the oriental churches themselves rather condemn their taking upon them to add anything to a creed formed in a general council^ than the doctrine itself ; that those Greek churches that charge their doctrine as heresy, yet are forced to admit much the same tiling, only in different words; and that Scripture itself is plain, that the Holy Ghost proceeds at least hy the So9i, ii not from him,' which yet amounts to the same thing."
This doctrinal difference between the Greek and the Latin Church, however insignificant it may appear at first sight, is characteristic of both, and illustrates the contrast between the conservative and stationary theology of the East, after the great ecumenical councils, and the progressive and systematizing theology of the West. The wisdom of changing an ancient and generally received formula of faith may be questioned. It must be admitted, indeed, that the Nicene Creed lias undergone several other changes which were embodied in the Constantinopolitan Creed, and adopted by the Greeks as well as the Latins. But in the case of the Filioque^ the Eastern Church which made the Nicene Creed, was never consulted, and when the addition was first brought to the notice of the bishop of Rome by Charlemagne, ho protested against the innovation. His successors acquiesced in it, and the Protestant churches accepted the Nicene Creed with the Filioque^ though without investigation. The Greek Church has ever protested against it since the time of Photius, and will never adopt it. She makes a sharp distinction between tlie procession, which is an eternal and internal process in the Holy Trinity itself, and the mission, of the Spirit, which is an act of