CHAPTER XI.
DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES.
§106. General Sum ey.
OUR period is far behind the preceding patristic and the succeeding scholastic in doctrinal importance, but it mediates between them by carrying the ideas of the fathers over to the acute analysis of the schoolmen, and marks a progress in the development of the Catholic system. It was agitated by seven theological controversies of considerable interest.
1. The controversy about the single or double Procession of the Holy Spirit. This belongs to the doctrine of the Trinity and was not settled, but divides to this day the Greek and Latin churches.
2. The Monotheletic controversy is a continuation of the Eutychian and Mouophysitic controversies of the preceding period. It ended with the condemnation of Monotheletism and an addition to the Chalcedouian Christology, namely, the doctrine that Christ has two wills as well as two natures.
3. The Adoptionist controversy is a continuation of the Nestorian. Adoptionism was condemned as inconsistent with the personal union of the two natures in Christ.
4 and 5. Two Eucharistic controversies resulted in the general prevalence of the doctrine of trausubstantiation.
6. The Predestinarian controversy between Gottschalk and Hincmar tended to weaken the influence of the Augustinian system, and to promote semi-Pelagian views and practices.
7. The Image-controversy belongs to the history of worship
476 FOURTH PEKIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
rather than theology, and has been discussed in the preceding chapter.1
The first, second, and seventh controversies affected the East and the West ; the Adoptionist, the two Eucharistic, and the Predestinarian controversies were exclusively carried on in the West, and ignored in the East.
§ 107. The Controversy on the Procession of the Holy Spirit.
See the Lit. in $ 67, p. 304 sq. The arguments for both sides of the ques tion were fully discussed in the Union Synod of Ferrara — Florence, 1438-'39 ; see HEFELE : Conciliengesch. VII. P. II. p. 683 sqq. ; 706 sqq. ; 712 sqq.
The FiLiOQUE-controversy relates to the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit, and is a continuation of the trinitarian con troversies of the Nicene age. It marks the chief and almost the only important dogmatic difference between the Greek and Latin churches. It belongs to metaphysical theology, and has far less practical value than the regenerating and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men. But it figures very largely in history, and has occasioned, deepened, and per petuated the greatest schism in Christendom. The single word Filioque keeps the oldest, largest, and most nearly related churches divided since the ninth century, and still forbids a reunion. The Eastern church regards the doctrine of the single procession as the corner-stone of orthodoxy, and the doctrine of the double procession as the mother of all heresies. She has held most tenaciously to her view since the fourth century, and is not likely ever to give it up. Nor can the Roman church change her doctrine of the double procession without sacri ficing the principle of infallibility.
The Protestant Confessions agree with the Latin dogma, while on the much more vital question of the papacy they agree with the Eastern church, though from a different point of view. The church of England has introduced the double procession
i See ch. X. M 100-104.
I 107. ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 477
of the Spirit even into her litany.1 It should be remembered, however, that this dogma was not a controverted question in the time of the Reformation, and was received from the medieval church without investigation. Protestantism is at perfect liberty to go back to the original form of the Nicene Creed if it should be found to be more in accordance with the Scripture. But the main thing for Christians of all creeds is to produce " the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, selfcontrol."
Let us first glance at the external history of the controversy.
1. The New Testament. The exegetical starting-point and foundation of the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit is the word of our Lord in the farewell address to his disciples : " When the Paraclete (the Advocate) is come, whom I will send
1 ''O God the Holy Ghost, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, have mercy upon us miserable sinners." No orthodox Greek or Russian Christian could join an Anglican in this prayer without treason to his church. It is to be understood, however, that some of the leading divines of the church of England condemn the insertion of the Filioque in the Creed. Dr. Neale (Introduction to the History of the Holy Eastern Church, vol. II. p. 1168) con cludes that this insertion " in the inviolable Creed was an act utterly unjusti fiable, and throws on the Roman church the chief guilt in the horrible schism of 1054. It was done in the teeth of the veto passed in the sixth session of the Council of Ephesus, in the fifth of Chalcedon, in the sixth collation of the second of Constantinople, and in the seventh of the third of Constantinople. It was done against the express command of a most holy Pope, himself a be liever in the double Procession, who is now with God. No true union — ex perience has shown it — can take place between the churches till the Filioque be omitted from the Creed, even if a truly oecumenical Synod should after wards proclaim the truth of the doctrine." Bishop Pearson was of the same opinion as to the insertion, but approved of the Latin doctrine. He says (in his Exposition of the Creed, Art. VIII): "Now although the addition of the words to the formal Creed without the consent, and against the protestation of the Oriental Church, be not justifiable ; yet that which was added, is neverthe less certainly a truth, and may be so used in that Creed by them who believe the same to be a truth ; so long as they pretend it not to be a definition of that Council, but an addition or explication inserted, and condemn not those who, out of a greater respect to such synodical determinations, will admit of no such insertion, nor speak any other language than the Scriptures and their fathers spake."