But the all-powerful influence of the popes, the sensuous tendency and credulity of the age, the
ignorance of the clergy, and the grosser ignorance of the people combined to secure the ultimate
triumph of image-worship even in France. The rising sun of the Carolingian age was obscured by
the darkness of the tenth century.
CHAPTER XI.
DOCTRINAL CONTROVERSIES.
§ 106. General Survey.
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.
- 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. - The Monotheletic controversy is a continuation of the Eutychian and Monophysitic
controversies of the preceding period. It ended with the condemnation of Monotheletism and an
addition to the Chalcedonian Christology, namely, the doctrine that Christ has two wills as well as
two natures. - 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 transubstantiation. - The Predestinarian controversy between Gottschalk and Hincmar tended to weaken the
influence of the Augustinian system, and to promote semi-Pelagian views and practices. - The Image-controversy belongs to the history of worship rather than theology, and has
been discussed in the preceding chapter.^568
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 question 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 controversies 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
(^568) See ch. X. §§ 100-104.