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.^591 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 denounced the denial of it as heresy and blasphemy.
After this time no progress was made for the settlement of the difference, although much was written
on both sides. The chief defenders of the Greek view, after the controversy with Photius, were
Theophylactus, Euthymius Zigabenus, Nicolaus of Methone, Nicetus Choniates, Eustratius, and in
modern times, the Russian divines, Prokovitch, Zoernicav, Mouravieff, and Philaret. The chief
defenders of the Latin doctrine are Aeneas, bishop of Paris,^592 Ratramnus (or Bertram), a monk of
Corbie, in the name of the French clergy in the ninth century,^593 Anselm of Canterbury (1098),^594
Peter Chrysolanus, archbishop of Milan (1112),^595 Anselm of Havelberg (1120),^596 and Thomas
Aquinas (1274),^597 and in more recent times, Leo Alacci, Michael Le Quien, and Cardinal
Hergenröther.^598
§ 108. The Arguments for and against the Filioque.
We proceed to the statement of the controverted doctrines and the chief arguments.
I. The Greek and Latin churches agree in holding-
(1) The personality and deity of the third Person of the holy Trinity.
(2) The eternal procession ( , ) of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity.
(3) The temporal mission ( μ , μ ) of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son,
beginning with the day of Pentecost, and continued ever since in the church.
II. They differ on the source of the eternal procession of the Spirit, whether it be the Father
alone, or the Father and the Son. The Greeks make the Son and the Spirit equally dependent on the
Father, as the one and only source of the Godhead; the Latins teach an absolute co-ordination of
the three Persons of the Trinity as to essence, but after all admit a certain kind of subordination as
to dignity and office, namely, a subordination of the Son to the Father, and of the Spirit to both.
The Greeks approach the Latins by the admission that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through
(^591) In his Encyclical letter, 867, and in his Liber de Spiritus Sancti Mystagogia, written after 885, first edited by
Hergenröther, Ratisbon, 1857. Also inPhotiiOpera, ed. Migne (Par., 1861), Tom. II. 722-742 and 279-391. Comp. Hergenröther’s
Phoitius, vol. III., p. 154 sqq. The titleμυσταγωγία(=ἱερολογία,θεολογία, sacra doctrina) 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
Hergenröther (III. 157), shows "great dialectical dexterity, rare acumen, and a multitude of various sophisms, and has been
extensively copied by later champions of the schism." On the controversy between Photius and Nicolas, see § 70 this vol.
(^592) Liber adv. Graecos, in Acheri Spileg., and in Migne, "Patrol. Lat.," vol. 121, fol. 685-762. Insignificant.
(^593) Ratamni contra Graecorum opposita, Romanam ecclesiam infamantia, libri IV., in Acherii Spicil. , and in Migne,
l.c., fol. 225-346. This book is much more important than that of Aeneas of Paris. See an extract in Hergenröther’s Photius, I.
675 sqq.
(^594) De Processione Spiritus Sancti.
(^595) He went in the name of Pope Paschalis II. to Constantinople, to defend the Latin doctrine before the court.
(^596) In his Dialogues with the Greeks when he was ambassador of Emperor Lothaire II. at the court of Constantinople.
(^597) Contra errores Graecorum, and in his Summa Theologiae.
(^598) Photius, I. p. 684-711.