636 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
awarded him of being in the front rank of the master spirits from whom the genius of the Arabs drew its inspiration."1
One other interesting fact deserves mention. It was to John of Damascus that the Old Catholics and Oriental and Anglo- Catholics turned for a definition of the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and Son which should afford a solid basis of union.2 " He restored unity to the Triad, by following the ancient theory of the Greek church, representing God the Father as the dpffl, and in this view, the being of the Holy Spirit no less than the being of the Son, as grounded in and derived from the Father. The Holy Spirit is from the Father, and the Spirit of the Father ; not from the Son, but still the Spirit of the Son. He proceeds from the Father, the one dpxy of all being, and he is communicated through the Son ; through the Son the whole creation shares in the Spirit's work ; by himself he creates, moulds, sanctifies all and binds all together." 3
§ 145. Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.
I. PHOTIITS: Opera omnia, in Migne, "Patrol. Gr." Tom. CI.-CIV. (1860).
Also Monumenta Grceca ad Photium ejusque historiam pertinentia, ed. Hergenrother. Regensburg, 1869.
II. DAVID NICETAS : Vita Ignatii, in Migne, CV., 488-573. The part which relates to Photius begins with col. 509 ; partly quoted in CI. iii. P. DE H. E. (anonymous) : Histoire de Photius. Paris, 1772. JAGER : Histoire de Photius. Paris, 1845, 2d ed., 1854. L. TOSTI : Storia dell' origine dello scisma greco. Florence, 1856, 2 vols. A. PICHLER: Oeschichte der kirchlichen Trennung zwischen Orient und Occident. Munich, 1864-65, 2 vols. J. HERGENROTHER: Photius, Patriarch von Constantinopel Sein Leben, seine Schriften und das griechische Schisma. Eegensburg, 1867-69, 3 vols. (The Monumenta mentioned above forms part of the third vol.) Of. Du PIN, VII., 105-110; CEILLIER, XII., 719-734.
PHOTIUS was born in Constantinople in the first decade of the ninth century. He belonged to a rich and distinguished family. He had an insatiable thirst for learning, and included theology
1 Lnpton, p. 212. 2 Schaff, Creeds, vol. ii., pp. 552-54.
* Neander, vol. iii., p. 554. Comp. above, p. 307 sqq.
§ 145. PHOTIUS, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 637
among his studies, but he was not originally a theologian. Rather he was a courtier and a diplomate. When Bardas chose him to succeed Ignatius as Patriarch of Constantinople he was captain of the Emperor's body-guard. Gregory of Syracuse, a bitter enemy of Ignatius, in five days hurried him through the five orders of monk, lector, sub-deacon, deacon, and presbyter, and on the sixth consecrated him patriarch. He died an exile in an Armenian monastery, 891.
As the history of Photius after his elevation to the patriarch ate has been already treated,1 this section will be confined to a brief recital of his services to literature, sacred and secular.2
The greatest of these was his so-called Library,3 which is a unique work, being nothing less than notices, critiques and ex tracts of two hundred and eighty works of the most diverse kinds, which he had read. Of the authors quoted about eighty are known to us only through this work. The Library was the re sponse to the wish of his brother Tarasius, and was composed while Photius was a layman. The majority of the works mentioned are theological, the rest are grammatical, lexical, rhetorical, im aginative, historical, philosophical, scientific and medical. No poets are mentioned or quoted, except the authors of three or four metrical paraphrases of portions of Scripture. The works are all in Greek, either as originals or, as in the case of a few, in Greek translations. Gregory the Great and Cassian are the only Latin ecclesiastical writers with whom Photius betrays any inti mate acquaintance. As far as profane literature is concerned, the Library makes the best exhibit in history, and the poorest in grammar. Romances are mentioned, also miscellanies. In the religious part of his work Chrysostom and Athanasitis are most prominent. Of the now lost works mentioned by Photius the
1 Cf. chapter V. pp. 312-317.
2 Cf. the exhaustive analysis of his works by Hergenrother (vol. iii. pp. 3- 260.
3 Bibliotheca or Hvpio/3'i^iov, Migne, CIIL, CIV. col. 9-356 ; Hergenrother, III. pp. 13-31.