482 FOURTH PEKIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
From Spain the clause passed into the Frankish church. It was discussed at the Synod of Gentilly near Paris in 767, but we do not know with what result.1 The Latin view was advo cated by Paulinus of Aquileja (796),2 by Alcuin (before 804), and by Theodulf of Orleans.3 It was expressed in the so-called Athanasian Creed, which made its appearance in France shortly before or during the age of Charlemagne.4 The clause was sung in his chapel. He brought the matter before the Council of Aixla-Chapelle in 809, which decided in favor of the double proces sion.5 He also sent messengers to Pope Leo III., with the reques*t to sanction the insertion of the clause in the Nicene Creed. The pope decided in favor of the doctrine of the double proces sion, but protested against the alteration of the creed, and caused the Nicene Creed, in its original Greek text and the Latin version, to be engraved on two tablets and suspended in the Basilica of St. Peter, as a perpetual testimony against the innovation.6 His predecessor, Hadrian I., had a few years be-
1 Hefele, III. 432.
2 At a synod in Forumjulii (Friaul), at that time the seat of the bishops of Aquileja. Hefele, III. 718 sq.
3 Alcuin wrote a book De Processione S. Spiritus (Opera, ed. Migne, II. 63), and Theodulf another, at the request of Charlemagne (Migne, Tom. 105).
* Ver. 23: "Spiritus Sanetus a Patre ET FILIO: non factus, nee creatus, nee genitus: sed procedens" For this reason the Greek church never adopted the Athanasian Creed. Most Greek copies read only OTTO rov Trarpdf, and omit et Wio."
5 It is uncertain whether the Synod also sanctioned the insertion of the Filioque in the creed. Pagi denies, Burterim, Hefele (III. 751), and Hergenrother (I. 698) affirm it. The Synod of Aries (813) likewise professed the double procession, Hefele, III. 757.
6 Mansi, XIV. 18; Baronius, ad ann. 809; Gieseler, II. 75 (Am. ed.); He fele, III. 754; Hergenrother, Photius, I. 699 sqq. The fact of the silver tablets, weighing nearly one hundred pounds, is related by Anastasius (in Vita Leonis //./.), and by Photius (Epist. ad Patriarch. Aquilej.), and often appealed to by the Greek controversialists. The imperial commissioners urged that the belief in the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son was necessary for salvation; but the pope replied that other things were necessary for salvation, and yet not mentioned in the creed. He also advised to omit the signing of the clause in the imperial chapel ; all other churches in France would follow the example of omission, and thus the offence given would be most easily removed.
2 107. ON THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 483
fore (between 792 and 795) defended the Greek formula of John of Damascus and patriarch Tarasius, that the Spirit pro ceeds from the Father through the Son.1 But the violent assault of Photius upon the Latin doctrine, as heretical, drove the Latin church into the defensive. Hence, since the ninth century, the Filioque was gradually introduced into the Nicene Creed all over the West, and the popes themselves, notwith standing their infallibility, approved what their predecessors had condemned.2
The coincidence of the triumph of the Filioque in the West with the founding of the new Roman Empire is significant ; for this empire emancipated the pope from the Byzantine rule.
The Greek church, however, took little or no notice of this innovation till about one hundred and fifty years later, when Photius, the learned patriarch of Constantinople, brought it out in its full bearing and force in his controversy with Nicolas I., the pope of old Rome.3 He regarded the single procession as the principal part of the doctrine concerning the Holy Spirit on which the personality and deity of the Spirit depended, and
1 In his defence of the second council of Nicrea against the Libri Carolini, which had charged Tarasius with error. See Migne's Opera Caroli M., II. 1-49.
2 Pope John VIII., in a letter to Photius, condemned the Filioque; hut this letter is disputed, and declared by Roman Catholic historians to be a Greek fabrication. See above, p. 315, and Ilefele, IV. 482. It is not quite certain when the Roman church adopted the Filioque in her editions of the Nicene Creed. Some date it from Pope Nicolas, others from Pope Christophorus (903), still others from Sergius III. (904-911), but most writers from Benedict VIII. (1014-1015). See Hergenrother, Photius, I. 706.
3 In his Encyclical letter, 867, and in his Liber de Spirit us Sancti Hfystagoffia, written after 885, first edited by Hergenrother, Ratisbon, 1857. Also in Pno- TII Opera, ed. Migne (Par., 1861), Tom. II. 722-742 and '279-391. Cornp. Hergenrother's Photius, vol. III., p. 154 sqq. The title //cara; <->;/' a (=hopo?,o- >/a, tffoAoj/a, sacra doctrind) promises a treatise on the whole doctrine of the third person of the Trinity, but it confines itself to the controverted doctrine of the procession. The book, says Hergenrother (III. 157), shows "great dia lectical dexterity, rare acumen, and a multitude of various sophisms, and has been extensively copied by later champions of the schism.'1 On the contro versy between Photius and Nicolas, see I 70, p. 312-317.