Tractatus de Deo Trino secundum personas

«It is the innate and perpetual right of the infallible ecclesiastical magisterium to propose Catholic doctrine in formulas and symbols of faith; wherefore it is evident no less from the very nature of the thing than from history, that in the Council of Ephesus and in the subsequent Councils heretical symbols were indeed proscribed, and even private ones were forbidden, which were brought forth to be substituted for the public ones; but absurd is the contention of Mark Eugenicus and his followers, by which, on account of the particle Filioque inserted in the symbol, they wish the Latins, even granted the truth of this profession, to be guilty of violated canons and of a corrupted symbol of faith».

Before the Council of Florence came to the disputation concerning the truth of the procession from the Father and the Son, in the first sessions — fourteen in all (from the II. to the XV.) — celebrated at Ferrara, the Greeks contended most pertinaciously, that it had been a crime to add the particle Filioque in the symbol, whatever might be the case with the dogma itself, and so even if what is declared in those words were true and revealed. Bessarion indeed prudently advised his Greeks, that according to the order which the matters themselves demanded, the truth of the doctrine should first be treated, whether the Holy Spirit truly proceeds from the Father and the Son. For, he said, « once the falsity of the dogma has been shown, the question of not adding it will no longer have a place ». If, however, it were contended in the inverted order, that even granted the truth the addition in the symbol is illicit: « I have shown, he said, the weakness of the proposition, and that it is ridiculous to think, that it is not permitted to add the truth to the symbol » (Bessar. de process. Spiritus Sancti p. 185. 187). They nevertheless persisted in their counsel once adopted; and — what indeed, in a matter so manifest, could not happen otherwise — they were so vanquished, with the same Bessarion as witness (ib. p. 207), « that having nothing to answer, they were struck silent; for what would anyone shamelessly answer against so great a truth? »

The single argument, by which the Greeks had at first persuaded themselves that a thing so incredible could be proved, was the decree of the Council of Ephesus Act. VI. The priest Charisius brought to the Ephesian Fathers, that it might be condemned by them, the symbol of Theodore of Mopsuestia, which, as most manifestly containing the Nestorian heresy, the partisans of Nestorius used, and to which they had ordered the Quartodecimans of Lydia to subscribe (cf. above p. 511 sqq.). The Fathers, when they had heard « the exposition of impious dogmas reduced to the form of a symbol », as Peter, the primicerius of the notaries, called it, pronounced this sentence: « The holy synod defined, that it is permitted to no one to utter or to write or to compose another faith (ἑτέραν πίστιν) besides that defined by the holy Fathers, who were gathered at Nicaea with the Holy Spirit. Those, however, who have dared either to compose another faith, or to utter it, or to offer it to those wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth.... these, if they are Bishops or Clerics, it decreed to be alien: Bishops from the episcopate, Clerics from the clericate; but if they are laymen, to be subjected to anathema. In like manner also, if any are found, whether Bishops or Clerics or laymen, to hold or to teach those things which are contained in the exposition offered by the priest Charisius concerning the incarnation of the only-begotten Son of God, or the wicked and perverse dogmas of Nestorius, which are also subjoined, let them lie under the sentence of this holy and universal synod: namely, that a Bishop indeed be removed from the episcopate and be deposed; a Cleric likewise fall from the clericate; but if he be a layman, let him also be anathematized, as was said above ». Mansi T. IV. p. 1362.

If we believe the Photians, the Ephesian Fathers had so consecrated and immutably fixed the very words of the Nicene symbol, that they abrogated for the Church herself the right either of proposing the same truths more explicitly in the symbol, or of inserting other truths, however revealed, into the same profession of faith. Let us examine this incredible matter first theologically, then historically.

1°. If the matter is considered theologically and in itself, a) with regard to the determination of the symbol, or of the solemn formula by which the Catholic faith is expressed, some things are of immutable divine right, others are subject to the disposition of the Church. It is of divine right, that nothing be inserted into the symbol of the things to be believed, which is against or beyond the revealed faith. The Church does not herself make the truths of faith, but infallibly guards those revealed by God, explains them, defines them in their true sense against the manifold forms of errors, and proposes them to the faithful as revealed; whence, if into a symbol, which is proposed as some complex of revealed truths to be professed with divine faith, there were inserted as things to be believed not only propositions against the faith, and so heretical, but also beyond the faith, h. e. which are not contained in revelation, by this very fact the faith would be violated.

b) In that very office of guarding, explaining, and more strictly defining the truths of faith is contained the right, and, according to the necessity and opportunity of the matter, the duty of the Church of framing symbols of faith; h. e. of determining, which of the revealed truths, and in what form of words, are to be comprehended and explicitly professed in tesserae of Catholic profession of this kind, in direct opposition against the errors pressing in. This right and duty is innate in the divine magisterium, infallible through the assistance of the Spirit of truth. It belongs, therefore, to the Church no less in the later than in the earlier age, and that from the very nature of the matter in question; not from some disposition or mutable law, but from the divine essential property and native constitution of the Church herself. It is repugnant, therefore, to the nature and character of the divinely instituted magisterium, that by a decree, by which it was forbidden « to utter another faith », the Church should have abrogated for herself the right of proposing to the faithful revealed truths, even those which up to now were not explicitly contained in the symbol, either in a distinct symbol or by inserting them into a pre-existing formula, according to the character of the matters and of the opposed errors. The decree, therefore, prohibiting « to utter another faith », must necessarily be understood either as a decree of faith proscribing symbols alien to the Catholic profession, or in such a way, that the right of determining the formula of the solemn profession of faith is declared to belong not to individuals, but to the universal and supreme magisterium alone in the Church.

Both of these rights had been violated by Theodore, in whose condemnation this decree was issued; for that symbol was both contrary to the divine faith, and by this very fact also, apart from and against the authority of the Church, it was first composed, and afterwards offered by the Nestorian presbyters to those, who wished to be converted from the heresy of the Quartodecimans. The former — that heretical symbols, namely, be proscribed — was certainly in the direct intention of the Council; for the condemnation immediately regarded the symbol infected with the Nestorian heresy, and consequently the caution and the threat of penalties pertained to symbols akin to it, which would be contrariwise beyond the Nicene faith. But that the apostate Theophanes Prokopowicz says, that this interpretation of the Catholics is ridiculous — truly he himself is to be laughed at. For he says, that things contrary to the faith could not have been prohibited by the Council to be inserted into the symbol, because that was already illicit before and of itself; and because the Church establishes her canons for Catholics, but for heretics she can no more give laws, than to Mohammedans. If Theophanes thought this, all the canons of faith ought to have seemed « ridiculous » to him; for in them heresies and heretics, who are or have been, are always no less condemned, than provision is made for the future by the threat of anathema and of penalties: « if anyone has said (this or that heresy), let him be anathema ». As to what Theophanes then adds, that for Bishops and Clerics corrupting the symbol only the penalty of deposition is threatened, and so they remain members of the Church¹, he could have read in the same words, there in one context, the same deposition established for the followers of the Nestorian heresy. Indeed, in the very sentence against the heresiarch Nestorius the holy synod expressed only the removal from the Episcopate and from the whole sacerdotal college (ἀλλότριον εἶναι τοῦ τε ἐπισκοπικοῦ ἀξιώματος καὶ παντὸς συλλόγου ἱερατικοῦ); and in the denunciation of the sentence to the Clergy and people of CP. the Fathers of the Council simply say: « Nestorius has been removed from the priesthood » (πέπαυται τῆς ἱερωσύνης) Mansi ib. p. 1295. 1303. Doubtless, according to the character of such a case, in the sentence of deposition there was contained also the expulsion from the communion of the faithful, as could easily be shown by very many other examples; and at Ephesus it was expressly declared by the legates of the holy See, especially by Bishop Arcadius in his « interpretation of the deposition » (Mansi ib. p. 1298).

Let it stand, therefore, what we have said: that the Ephesian Fathers intended in the first place to guard against the corruption of the Nicene symbol. In this very thing, however, as a means to the end, the other was included, which we have indicated. For the composition of symbols for public use was forbidden to individuals, whether Bishops or other Clerics or laymen, inasmuch as this matter regarded the integrity of the faith to be protected from the danger of perversion. Hence, with such a danger excluded, the Council without any reproach approved as valid the symbol, which Charisius offered on his own behalf as it were Nicene, to attest his orthodoxy, although in words it did not fully correspond either to the Nicene or to the Constantinopolitan formula² (Hard. T. I. p. 1515).

2°. What we have said is no less evident from the history of the symbols.

a) By the right of authentic teaching inborn in the Church, the Nicene synod itself constituted the symbol of the Catholic faith in direct opposition against the Arian heresy. Just as the Photians contend, that the form of the symbol is fixed, so that it is not lawful even for the Church to profess the true faith in other words; so the Arians, from an equal sophism, complained, that the Nicene Fathers had defined the faith in formulas other than those consigned in sacred Scripture³. The holy Fathers, however, constantly asserted this right and duty of the Church, that she declare and define the revealed faith in tesserae directly opposed against the arising errors. See Athanas. de decret. Nicaen. n. 18-21. 32.

In the II. Council many things were inserted into the Nicene symbol, namely concerning the Holy Spirit against the Pneumatomachians (above p. 508). Will anyone therefore say, that the Constantinopolitan Fathers, against right and law, put forth « another faith »? On the contrary, it has always been said, that the Nicene faith was explained by the II. synod, and more strictly defined against new errors, and that the symbol thus enlarged was held by the universal Church in the same degree of infallible authority, by which the Nicene itself had been sanctioned.

Here, however, let it be observed, that the symbol, which the Ephesian Fathers sanctioned as to be retained, and to which they opposed the other proscribed symbols, is not the Constantinopolitan but altogether the Nicene: « that it is permitted to no one to utter another faith besides that defined by the holy Fathers, who were gathered at Nicaea with the Holy Spirit ». Hence, if the symbol, of which there was speech at Ephesus, had been inculcated again not only as a positive norm of right faith, as we say; but, materially considered, had been sanctioned as the only legitimate formula, as Macarius and the other Photians try to persuade; in this hypothesis, I say, from the Ephesine decree the Nicene formula alone would henceforth be lawfully to be used, the Constantinopolitan, however, would at least have been excluded and proscribed from public use; nor consequently would it be lawful to profess in the symbol anything else, e. g. about the Holy Spirit, except this one thing: « we believe in the Holy Spirit », as it is in the Nicene. But these things are utterly absurd both in themselves and from the history of the symbols. Absurd, therefore, is the hypothesis of the Photians about the sense of the Ephesine decree.

In the subsequent Councils IV. V. VI. VII., after not only the Nicene and Constantinopolitan symbols, but also the other sanctions of all the antecedent Councils had been recited against the new errors of the Nestorians, Eutychians, Monothelites, Iconoclasts, and after the letters of Cyril, Leo, Agatho, etc. had been adopted, then at last, in relation to all these preceding definitions of faith, in almost the same words which the Ephesine Fathers had used, it is subjoined: « the holy and universal synod defined (Chalcedonensis, Constantinopolitana II. III.), that it is permitted to no one to utter or to write or to compose or to hold another faith, or to teach others. Those, however, who have dared to compose another faith... or to hand over another symbol to those wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth — these, if they are Bishops or Clerics, Bishops to be alien from the episcopate, Clerics from the clericate; but if they are monks or laymen, them to be anathematized » Hard. T. II. p. 455.; T. III. p. 202. 1402; T. IV. p. 454. 455. The Councils, therefore, under the name of faith comprehend not only the formula of the Nicene or Constantinopolitan symbol, but all the definitions of faith. Wherefore, while they define, that no one dare compose or hold another faith, they cannot be understood in the Photian sense, as if they abrogated for the Church herself the right of conceiving and declaring the true faith in other words; for in this sense the Church would be prohibited not only from putting forth a new symbol, but also from putting forth new definitions of the truth against new errors, which is evidently absurd, and would involve all the Councils in a manifest contradiction, since each of them in this sense would both have written another faith, and have prohibited another to be written. Most certainly, therefore, just as the definition of the subsequent Councils, so also that of the Ephesine, in all things identical, « that no one dare write another faith », pertains in no way to prohibiting the explanation of the faith, whether in the symbol itself or outside the symbol, which is made by the authentic magisterium itself of the Church; but both from the very nature of the Church and the scope of the symbols, and from the manifest contexts of the Councils, in that definition, inasmuch as it is dogmatic and immutable, heretical doctrines are first and directly proscribed; in the second place there is the coercion of the abuse of proposing symbols of faith at the will of individuals, whether Bishops or others, the formulas solemnly sanctioned by the Church and adopted for universal use being neglected and passed over. See in the Council of Florence the demonstration of Card. Julian (Hard. IX. p. 138. sq.).

b) That the immutability of the symbol was decreed by what we have said — not, however, in the Photian sense, nor could it have been decreed in that sense — is most fully confirmed and illustrated from other monuments.

Eutyches, in the Ephesine conciliabulum (the robber council) under Dioscorus, interpreted the decree of the III. Council entirely in the Photian sense; he said, that he remained in the Nicene profession, and that just as it was not lawful to take anything away from it, so neither to add anything to it. « This faith, and the anterior holy and universal synod mentioned here (at Ephesus), whose president was Cyril... confirmed it, and put forth a definition, that he who shall have added anything besides it, or taken anything away (al. adinvenerit, Greek version: τὸν παρὰ ταύτην προστιθέντα τι ἢ ἐπινοοῦντα), or taught, should lie under the condemnations, which were then written ». The same sense in the Chalcedonian Council Dioscorus and his Egyptian Bishops defended: « let no one admit an addition, no one a diminution; what were established at Nicaea, let them be kept ». But the Catholic Bishops cried out against it. « He has lied; there is no such definition, there is no such rule », said Eusebius of Dorylaeum. Diogenes of Cyzicus explained this: « He deceitfully set forth the synod of the holy Fathers; for he received the additions on account of the perverse understanding of Apollinaris and Valentinus and Macedonius and those who are like them » (Mansi VI. p. 631. sq.). This appeal of Dioscorus to the Ephesine decree was constructed against the dogmatic letter of s. Leo, in which they said a new symbol was proposed.

Hence the Chalcedonian Council itself, in its allocution to the emperor Marcian, declared the sense of that Ephesine decree. First the Fathers indicate the complaints of the adversary, who accuses the letter of Leo, « asserting, that it is not lawful for anyone to set forth a faith besides the Fathers, who concordantly came together at Nicaea »⁴. They respond, however, that the Nicene profession is indeed to be held by the law of the Church « as in the principal place », and that it is handed down to catechumens. Moreover, they say, if heretics did not disturb the path of piety by their innovations, « it would be fitting for the sons of the Church to devise nothing more, than what is certainly declared in the symbol ». Against the new errors of the heretics, however, « it is necessary for us to refute their devious inventions too with salutary additions (al. oppositionibus), not as always seeking out something new for piety, as if something were lacking to the faith (al. quod fidei desit), but as devising, against those things which have been innovated by them, those things which are judged salutary »⁵. They show then, that explanations of the truth against new errors were inserted into the symbol itself, vindicated by the definitions of the Councils and the declarations of the holy Fathers. Explanations of this kind, however, were never so absolutely concluded, that new definitions and professions of faith could not be opposed by the Church, the teacher, to new heresies. « If anyone, however, thinks, that those who wish to defend the faith according to their ability ought to stand still up to this point, he will indeed have to promulgate this precept most of all to the heretics, removing them from attacking, not turning the pastors away from protection. For every law restrains the unjust from offences, it does not separate the judges from power⁶. But otherwise let the indocile be taught, that even now it is lawful, when the ambiguity of the question has arisen, that we adapt our confession to the interpretations of the Fathers »⁷ (Mansi VII. p. 455 sqq.).

With the very words by which the Ephesine law is explained in the Council of Florence and by Catholic theologians, Eulogius of Alexandria, the successor of Cyril in the episcopal see in the sixth century, had already gone before — words, I say, preserved for us by Photius himself in his Bibliotheca. The calumny which the followers of Dioscorus brought at Chalcedon against the letter of Leo, the Monophysites afterwards repeated against the synod of Chalcedon itself, « that it (the synod) had set forth a definition, a deed of such a kind having been altogether forbidden by the first synod held at Ephesus ». The Monophysites saw no less than the Catholics that the Council of Chalcedon (as we have shown was afterwards done by other synods) had placed its definitions as explanations of the creed and of authority equal to the creed. Hence Eulogius does not answer the adversaries' objection drawn from the Ephesine decree — as the Photians say, that the Fathers of Chalcedon had changed nothing in the creed, but rather had decreed anew its immutability; rather he places the whole defense against the calumny of the Monophysites in explaining the genuine sense of the Ephesine decree, namely that additions contrary to the Nicene faith were proscribed, but by no means those congruent with the same faith, which both the nature of things and the perpetual tradition and custom of the Church show always to have been licit; were this not so, the Ephesine Fathers would have condemned both the second ecumenical synod and themselves, inasmuch as they too, in professing the creed, added new definitions. « If according to the delirium of these men the (Ephesine) synod forbade another definition to be brought forth altogether, this one before all others passed sentence of condemnation against itself. For in framing this very decree (concerning the immutability of the creed) it defines what nothing before it had defined (i.e., the decree itself would already involve a contradiction). Moreover, its definition is the union according to hypostasis, which the more ancient synods had not defined. Certainly, according to what these men rave, it condemns the synod of the one hundred fifty holy Fathers held at Constantinople (the second ecumenical); for this one, proscribing the Pneumatomachus, fitted to the Nicene definition the doctrine on the divinity of the Holy Spirit by a congruent addition. But if the antecedent Councils are not liable to reproach on account of their additions, neither will the subsequent ones be able to be condemned dissimilarly in like causes. Thus folly confuses and perverts all things. For the Ephesine synod forbade another faith altogether, whose dogmas are contrary to the synod of Nicaea, to be set forth; but the exposition of the genuine dogmas preserved in it (the Nicene synod), such as the time may demand, the synod itself added, and the nature of things as mistress and the tradition of the Church is seen always to cherish this »⁸. Eulog. in Photii Bibl. cod. 230. (Migne, T. CIII. p. 1049). s. Maximus has very similar things against the Monophysite calumniators of the synod of Chalcedon « on account of the words added to the Nicene definition » (Migne T. XCI. p. 258. 259).

c) Indeed, long before the times of Photius we see that the explanation of the Constantinopolitan creed through the added particle Filioque was joined at the same time with the proclamation of the immutable definitions sanctioned in the Ephesine and the subsequent Councils. So certain and ratified was it that a coaptation of this kind of our confession with the interpretations of the Fathers, as the Council of Chalcedon says, is not an addition or subtraction, such as is proscribed in the Councils against heretics.

The « general council » of England, the Hedefeldense, celebrated in the year 680 under Archbishop Theodore (Greek by nation), published a profession of faith, in which besides other things these words are read. « We receive the holy and universal five synods of the blessed and God-acceptable Fathers (each one is enumerated).... and the synod which was held in the city of Rome at the time of the most blessed Pope Martin:.... We receive and glorify our Lord Jesus Christ just as these glorified Him, adding or subtracting nothing.... glorifying God the Father without beginning, and His only-begotten Son generated from the Father before the ages, and the Holy Spirit proceeding ineffably from the Father and the Son, just as those whom we have mentioned above, the holy Apostles and prophets and doctors, preached; and we all subscribe, who with Archbishop Theodore have set forth the catholic faith » Mansi XI. p. 176.

With set purpose, s. Paulinus of Aquileia in the Foroiuliense Council of the year 796 declares the sense of the Ephesine decree, namely that by the name of « addition and diminution », which is proscribed, there is by no means to be understood an insertion also into the creed itself of a further explanation of the Nicene faith, but only the perversion of the faith itself is proscribed. According to this declaration of Paulinus, proved there by a lengthy disputation, the same synod not only adopted the creed with the particle Filioque, as it had long since been accustomed to be recited in the kingdoms of Charles the Great, in which the province of Aquileia was comprised; but also a fuller exposition of the same faith is there added, which, together with the profession twice repeated of the procession from the Father and the Son, is ordered to be retained in its entirety by memory. With incredible impudence Adam Zoernikaw (Czernikow), Theophanes Prokopowicz, Macarius Bulgakow dare to cite s. Paulinus and this Council of his with truncated texts, in order to demonstrate that the Foroiulian Fathers had declared that the insertion of the particle Filioque into the creed of faith is absolutely forbidden by the Ephesine decree. Wherefore it will be worth the effort to have inspected the context itself a little more diligently.

Paulinus with his synod treats only the dogmatic question, insofar as the Ephesine decree absolutely proscribes « another exposition of faith », and in this sense he says that not the true explanation of the faith is forbidden — which afterwards the schismatics contended stubbornly even in the Council of Florence, and now Macarius and others contend — but that the decree must be understood of an exposition contrary to the catholic faith. The disciplinary part, however, which after a decade Leo III regarded together with the dogmatic part, Paulinus does not touch; but just as the other bishops and theologians familiar to Charles the Great, so also the Foroiulians acquiesced in the king's desire, who pressed for the recitation of the creed with the explanation Filioque. To the difficulties of the Romans, however, which were disciplinary and not dogmatic, the Foroiulians, like generally the familiars of Charles, responded only from the dogmatic part, in which truly all Catholics agreed, namely that by itself and absolutely neither by the Ephesine nor by any other decree is or can be the insertion of a truth of faith forbidden. Whence their declarations do not indeed avail against the contrary disciplinary usage of the Roman Church of that time, as afterwards Pope Leo explained; but they contain an outstanding exposition of the Ephesine decree against the later absurd interpretations of the Photians.

First Paulinus indicates the opposition of the adversaries, who, appealing to the Ephesine decree, had said that it is not lawful to compose another faith, i.e., another creed, and therefore that the insertion of the particle Filioque is not to be admitted. He responds, however, that by another faith is understood a faith contrary to the truth, of which sort was that of Nestorius and Eutyches, not however an explanation of the truth. This he proves from the insertions made in the creed by the Fathers of the Constantinopolitan Council. Whence he infers that by the same right the explicit profession of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son was added by those who came after.

« Concerning the mystery of the holy and wonderful Trinity I profess that I have promised to speak with a plainer discourse.... On account of the various errors of heretics, to be sure, and the diverse suspicions of certain simple people, I consent to compose or teach not another faith, but that which, handed down by the holy Fathers, all ages have sincerely received. For I know that in certain synodal documents (the Ephesine and Chalcedonian) it has been sanctioned — for refuting indeed the new and manifold heresies, especially on account of the fraudulent and feigned faith of Nestorius or Eutyches, false and pestilential men, of whom I shall not say faith but rather perfidy ⁹ — that it is not lawful for anyone to teach or compose a creed of another faith. But far be it from us, and far be it from every faithful heart, to compose or teach another creed or faith, or one otherwise than they instituted; but according to their sense we have decided to hand over for exposition those things which, on account of the compendious brevity, are understood by the simple less than is fitting, and we have committed to memory to retain it (the exposition of faith) and the very text of the creed, inasmuch as according to the Apostle the man of God may be fit, prepared for every good work.... For truly it is not to add or diminish in the matter of faith those things which have been promulgated well and salubriously by the holy Fathers ¹⁰, to sense rightly according to their sense, and to supply for exposition their subtle genius; but to add or diminish is to sense cunningly against their sacrosanct sense, otherwise than they, with crafty tergiversation, and to compose with confused style a perverse dogma, and thereby to presume with impious mouth rather to chatter boastfully than to teach ».

Hitherto he has said what it is not, and what it is, to compose or teach another faith. There follows the proof from the comparison of the Constantinopolitan creed, which, although increased by explanations, nevertheless has not another faith than the Nicene, whose faith the Constantinopolitan Fathers themselves wished everywhere to remain perpetually inviolate. « For we read the venerable work composed of the sacred faith of very many catholic men and of the worshippers of the Churches of God (the creed), resounding indeed in other words and with a different pen, but they are proved to breathe forth concordantly the same sense and the same understanding of the mind in one document of assertion of the inviolate faith. For if the venerable series of the Nicene creed be reviewed, nothing else about the Holy Spirit will be able to be found promulgated in it, except in this manner: what, then, to this very insertion, both in the formula of the creed, as Paulinus handed it over to be retained in memory, and in the ampler exposition of faith? The apostate Theophanes easily extricates himself, stubbornly affirming to his followers: that all these things are spurious, and interpolated by the Latins! Aided by what argument, what edition, what codex does he assert things so incredible? He has no codex, no edition, no witness; but this one and only argument: because Paulinus a little before had said that it is not lawful to compose a creed of another faith. But had he not at the same time demonstrated by a long disputation that a creed of another faith is only that which contains a perverse dogma? These things are indeed evident in the context of Paulinus, but they are to be studiously concealed from the Photians.

Macarius l. c., as I have said, far surpasses the master Theophanes. Having cut away the troublesome trifles, he settles the whole business with a light hand. Since he does not produce the Latin text of Paulinus, but dresses up his own version, by truncating and changing he turns everything into the contrary sense — in which matter we have already elsewhere admired Macarius as a notable artificer. Everyone sees that the substance of the whole opinion of Paulinus is found in that period in which he explains what is not, and what is, an addition or diminution, which is forbidden by the Ephesine and the other Councils. « For truly it is not in the matter of faith to add or diminish those things which have been promulgated by the holy Fathers — to sense rightly according to their sense, and to supply for exposition their subtle genius (to expound explicitly what they understood implicitly with their subtle genius); but to add or diminish is cunningly.... to compose a perverse dogma ». Now Macarius, not by paraphrase, as is sometimes done by impostors, but entirely as a verbal translation, renders that whole passage thus: « car ajouter ou retrancher quoi que ce soit à ce que les ss. Pères ont légué pieusement (understand: in the creed, as is read immediately before in Macarius), est un act incompatible avec la foi ». You have the Macarian Paulinus! Namely, the first clause « for truly it is not in the matter of faith to add or diminish those things which have been promulgated by the holy Fathers », torn from the context, he translates in his own way, with all the rest of the same period ingeniously suppressed. By these arts the thesis of Macarius is proved: « ainsi dans le Concile d'Italie (sic) Paulin patriarche d'Aquilée rejeta positivement cette addition » (Filioque), and certainly any other absurdity could be proved no less expeditiously.

and in the Holy Spirit, they say, (we believe) ». He shows then that by the very co-numeration with the Father and the Son in the Nicene creed it is sufficiently taught that the Holy Spirit is God, « just as afterwards (it was taught) by the holy Fathers, the one hundred fifty (of the second Council), who testified that the faith of the creed of the Nicene Council remains perpetually inviolate. Yet they supplied, as it were by expounding their sense; and they profess to believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, proceeding from the Father, to be adored and conglorified with the Father and the Son. For these things and the rest which follow are not contained in the sacred dogma of the Nicene creed ». Now from the premises Paulinus infers that which he chiefly regarded for its defense: namely, that rightly the explicit declaration of the procession from the Father and the Son had already long since been inserted in many particular Churches, against the heretics who had said that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. Concerning this dogma, Charles the Great himself, to whom Paulinus sent and as it were dedicated the acts of his synod, and no less the bishops and theologians in his kingdoms, showed themselves quite solicitous, and sometimes they ascribed the contrary heresy, which was at length confirmed by Photius, even to the orthodox Orientals, who professed that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son — all of which is clearly evident from the Caroline Books (l. III. c. 3. et 8), from the book of Alcuin on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, from the letter of Hadrian I to Charles, from those things which shortly after were done in the Council of Aachen and at Rome by the legates of Charles before Pope Leo III. Otherwise, already from the Council of Gentilly of the year 767, in which the legates of Constantine Copronymus the iconoclast had raised questions about this dogma, the faith of the Greeks with respect to this article was held at least suspect in the kingdoms of the Franks.

Paulinus therefore proceeds to this principal chapter for his purpose. « But also afterwards, on account of those heretics, namely, who whisper (doubtless before Photius no clear testimonies stood forth for the existence of this heresy) that the Holy Spirit is of the Father alone and proceeds from the Father alone, it was added: who proceeds from the Father and the Son. And yet these holy Fathers are not to be blamed, as if they had added something or diminished from the faith of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers, because they did not sense diverse things against their sense, but strove to supply their blameless understanding with sound modes (i.e., ways) ».

This is nothing but the legitimate inference from the principles which Paulinus had laid in advance for demonstrating this very thing, supposing namely the truth of the dogma itself inserted into the creed, about which they were certain by universal consent. Nevertheless, to complete the demonstration for the legitimately made insertion — as long, namely, as the question is regarded only dogmatically and not from the disciplinary laws — Paulinus subjoins a lengthy proof of the revealed truth itself, which he draws from the consubstantiality of the Father and the Son, by which they are one in spiration no less than in nature and operation; from the symbolic insufflation of the Son upon the Apostles, Io. XX. 22; from the one common mission of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son; from the fact that the Spirit is preached in the Scriptures as of the Son just as of the Father; from the fact that the procession from the Father named in the Scriptures is necessarily understood as the same procession from the Son, just as baptism in the name of Jesus, on account of the consubstantiality of the persons, is understood as baptism in the name of the three persons. Whence he concludes this part of the oration, exclaiming: « how catholicly the holy Fathers, solidly founded in this stability of faith (concerning the consubstantial Father and Son), professed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father! how gloriously too those who confess that He proceeds from the Father and the Son! » (Mansi XIII. p. 833. sqq.). Against the Photians themselves Ratramnus disputed things very similar to these demonstrations of Paulinus, l. II. c. 2.

3°. Someone could perhaps say that in this matter the Photians do not dissent as regards the substance of the thing; for they do not deny that truths of faith can be inserted into the creed by an ecumenical synod. But he who should assert this in general would show that he does not have the disputations of the Greeks in view, namely in the first congregations of the Council of Florence (at Ferrara). For they contended altogether that this is the sense and this the force of the Ephesine decree: that the faculty is taken away from the universal Church itself, whether gathered in a synod or outside it, of adding or changing anything — no less in the creed than in Sacred Scripture — even by way of explanation and with a sense however true and comprised in divine revelation. In this manner, in the third, fifth, seventh, eighth, ninth, twelfth congregations, Mark of Ephesus and Bessarion of Nicaea disputed in the name and with the consent of the rest (Mansi T. XXXI. p. 519. 534. 583. 584. 603. 607. 610. 615. 626. 678. 679). « It was established by the (Ephesine) Fathers that no license lies open henceforth to anyone of changing in any way the Nicene creed, which is the same as saying the Constantinopolitan.... Moreover, that license which had lain open up to those times they close off for themselves and for all the rest » (ταύτην τὴν ἄδειαν καὶ ἑαυτῶν ἀφαιροῦνται καὶ πάντων τῶν ἄλλων). And that, he subjoins, the Council demonstrated by the very fact; for on account of this prohibition it did not add to the creed the word θεοτόκος, although quite necessary. Thus Mark l. c. p. 534. Bessarion repeated the same in words even more expressive. « We will that Your Reverence know that by us this faculty is denied to the universal Church and to the synod, even the ecumenical.... We deny it, however, not from ourselves; but we judge that this is denied by the decrees of the Fathers »¹¹. Ibid. p. 610. 626. But if now Macarius, and before him Theophanes Prokopowicz, constrained by the very evidence of the matter and by the arguments of the Catholics, are forced to confess that an ecumenical Council has the power, even after the Ephesine decree, of inserting revealed dogmas into the creed, by this concession of theirs they first of all depart from the doctrine of their predecessors in the schism, as is evident from what has been said; then this confession, thrown in here and there by these authors as if doing something else, contradicts their whole remaining manner of disputing, which is the same and rests on the same arguments as that of their more ancient teachers; finally, with this opinion admitted, they must also confess that the Western Church, from its catholic principles concerning the value of the consent of the Church and concerning the supreme, universal, and infallible authority of the Roman Pontiff in definitions of faith and morals, professes with the best right the dogma of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son in the creed itself. I know that the Photian heretics deny this authority, both of the consent of the catholic Church and of the head of the Church; but if the matter stands thus, then the dispute can be only about the authority of the catholic Church and of its head in definitions of faith in general, but no controversy about the right by which the profession of the procession from the Son was added to the creed. For the Photians themselves must confess that the right of defining dogmas of faith and the right of inserting definitions into the creed itself are one and the same, if that opinion of Macarius and Theophanes which I mentioned is sincere; when therefore it shall be established about that prior right of defining dogmas, it will be established also for the Photians themselves about the right of inserting the same dogmas into the creed. The Greeks in the Council of Florence perceived this connection of things, and therefore saw that, in order to demonstrate the illegitimate insertion of an article however true and defined, there was necessary for them that absurd contention: that for the whole Church, which certainly has the right of defining dogmas, it is nevertheless not lawful to change even one word in a creed once sanctioned and altogether immutable.

4°. The dogmatic question about the insertion of a dogma into the text of the creed, which the Photians ineptly stirred up and of which we have spoken so far, is altogether to be distinguished — and it is wonderfully different from the disciplinary question — although this too is intimately connected with the custody of the deposit: in what circumstances of things, by what authority, the insertion into the formula of the creed of truths of faith, about which there is certain knowledge, can, or sometimes even must, be tolerated, permitted, approved, commanded.

In this matter there is a great distinction between the particular formulas of faith, which for the special circumstances of certain regions and Churches were sometimes prescribed by bishops, either singly or of one or several provinces, and the solemn creeds which, sanctioned by the universal Church, have been received into common use as it were the tokens of faith. Into these latter, with which we are chiefly concerned now — both on account of the special veneration which is owed and has always been had for Christian antiquity, and on account of the universality, in that they are the tokens of the whole Church, and on account of the supreme authority by which they were sanctioned — changes through the insertion of truths of faith which were not previously contained explicitly in them cannot legitimately be introduced except by that same supreme authority to which the universal Church is subject, namely the authority of the Roman Pontiff or of an ecumenical Council, at least assenting and holding ratified a usage already prevailing (cf. S. Th. I. q. 36. a. 2. ad 2). Nevertheless, the transgression of this right by itself — unless perhaps the ecclesiastical authority itself should be denied — will not be a dogmatic error (as the schismatics dreamed), but a violation of discipline, and one more or less grave, according as either a right only implicit in the general hierarchical discipline, or an express law, stood in the way. Indeed, even with the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff neither approving nor expressly permitting, but nevertheless knowingly and tacitly conniving, the custom of insertion could come to be, and in several Churches from the sixth to the ninth century it seems to have come to be a custom legitimate to a certain extent.

How great, however, was the caution with which the addition of the particle Filioque in the Constantinopolitan creed, which is in question, proceeded, history demonstrates. First, in the sixth century that explicit profession was inserted in Spain and in Narbonensian Gaul (supra p. 467); thence it was propagated into the kingdom of the Franks, into Germany, Illyricum, etc. But the Roman Pontiffs indeed constantly taught this faith; the addition, however, in the Constantinopolitan creed itself, although they did not expressly disapprove it, they nevertheless did not admit into the Roman Church. When in the year 809 a Council was held at Aachen on the occasion of the disturbances which had been excited against the profession of the procession from the Son inserted into the creed by a monk of Jerusalem (supra p. 524. note), Charles the Great sent legates to Pope Leo III to obtain the sanction of the addition. But Leo indeed asserted and confirmed this article in the profession of faith itself, sent on the same occasion « to all the Eastern Churches », and before the legates of Charles ¹²; but he would not approve the addition in the solemn and anciently sanctioned creed ¹³, indeed he advised that the usage introduced among the Franks be corrected gradually, as far as could be done without loss to the true doctrine ¹⁴. After, however, the addition of this explanation in the creed had become almost universal throughout the whole West, and at the same time, from Photius after the middle of the ninth century, the contradiction of the schismatics against the dogma itself had brought the necessity or certainly the opportunity of that explicit profession, the Roman Pontiffs by the very fact held it ratified, and adopted it in the Roman and in the whole Latin Church, and sanctioned it with supreme authority. Because this was done not by some solemn decree, but by the usage itself, the time at which the usage first began to be universal is not clearly established, with the opinions of the learned varying between the middle of the ninth century and the eleventh, from Nicholas I to Benedict VIII. See Lequien Damasc. I. n. 28. (who further still prolongs the delay to some successor of Benedict VIII, up to Leo IX, for reasons not very probable); de Rubeis ad vitam Georgii Cyprii dissert. dogm. II. c. 4. n. 5. p. 190. sqq.; c. 5; Em. Hergenroether in suo Photio T. I. p. 705. sqq.