V

THE EASTERN CHURCH

SINCE the middle of the thirteenth century the sharp division between the Churches of East and West had become more and more accentuated. For this state of affairs religion continued to share the responsibility with politics, the animosity of churchmen being encouraged by the animosity of statesmen. Occasionally, indeed, there happened to be political motives for friendliness which necessitated attempts at theological adjustment, but these attempts all proved futile, and after the downfall of the Eastern Empire the motives themselves which prompted them no longer existed. This notwithstanding, the attempts at agreement and even at reunion which took place during the mediaeval period in the West are full of interest for the student of doctrinal development. Fear of the Turk drove the Eastern Emperor John Palaeologus I to present himself to the Pope in 1369, when Urban V had the satisfaction of witnessing his assent to the Filioque. In 1438 a notable effort to achieve union was made at the papal council held at Ferrara, afterwards at Florence, where, in response to the pressure of the Latins, the Greeks agreed dogmatically to the Augustinian interpretation of the Procession. Further than that they refused to go, and it might have been that their strong objection to the insertion of the Filioque in the Creed was due as much to their disinclination to reunion as to their enthusiasm for orthodoxy.' It is more than possible that even their dogmatic agreement was signified from considerations of personal safety during their residence in Italy. At all events, the Greek attitude at the Council was a familiar compromise which would no more succeed then than it had done previously in the case of Leo III. To crown all, the Eastern Church vigorously refused to confirm the nominal adhesion of her delegates, while John Palaeologus II, who had himself journeyed to Ferrara with his theologians, also, in course of time, renounced this delusive union altogether. So

the gulf which separated the two sections of Christendom yawned more widely than ever, particularly when, after the capture of Constantinople, the Turks offered to shield the Greek Church from papal domination.

GENNADIUS

Of this momentous section of Church history in the East the outstanding religious character is Georgios Scholarios (c. 1400-c. 1468), who became patriarch of Constantinople in 1453 as Gennadius II. From his many writings his first Confession of faith may be taken as illustrative of his position during the first period of his career. 'God,' he declares, 'is an invisible Being, intellectual and inexplicable. God is a resounding Wind, a sleepless Eye, an ever-moving Mind. . There is one God of gods and Lord of lords, and no Other beside Him. . . . We speak of Three and One. . . . Understand this, that because of this God is called inexplicable, since we cannot comprehend His Nature, nor is His Person like us. .. Yet God is one, while the Persons of the same Godhead are three. . . Just as there is one sun, though the sun possesses its ray (aκтís) and its light (pws), so also does it imply this concerning God. There is one God, but of the one God there are three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

...

one God and not three Gods. And as the sun's disc begets the ray, and from the sun and the rays proceeds the light, so the God and Father begets the Son and His Word, and from the Father and the Son proceeds the Holy Spirit.' And the Holy Spirit is everywhere . . . and lightens every man, and does not leave any place.' Further analogies of the Trinity receive mention: 'Life (vxn) and reason (óyos) and breath (von) are one Life and three Persons.' In fire, too, there is the fire itself (Top), its property of heat (kavσtikóv), and its property of light (pwTIOTIKóv). Common is Their · Essence, common Their timelessness, common Their power, goodness, and justice; and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit possess all things equally, with the exception of Their distinctive characteristics (Av Tŵv idíwv avtŵv). . . . I affirm one Source in God, and this is the Father; He begets

1 καὶ ὥσπερ ὁ δίσκος ὁ ἡλιακὸς γεννᾷ τὴν ἀκτῖνα, καὶ παρὰ τοῦ ἡλίου καὶ τῶν ἀκτίνων ἐκπορεύεται τὸ φῶς· οὕτω ὁ Θεὸς καὶ Πατὴρ γεννᾷ τὸν Υἱὸν καὶ Λόγον αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ Υἱοῦ ἐκπορεύεται τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον.

the Son and breathes forth the Holy Spirit. . . . And behold They are co-eternal (ovvávapxoi), and no One is before and no one after in the Holy Trinity.'

The belief in the Filioque asserted in this Confession is remarkable as coming from one who was destined to fill the highest office in the Eastern Church, and at first sight it might afford some ground for the assertion, constantly made by Latin theologians, that the Greeks themselves were realizing the truth of the twofold Procession. But this was in fact far from the truth. Policy and not conviction prompted Scholarios to trim his first creed to suit Western tastes, for, as an official of the court, he had attended John Palaeologus II to the Council of Ferrara prepared to assist his imperial master in his desire for the proposed ecclesiastical union of East and West. It was after his homecoming, when he discovered the Greek hostility to the Ferrara compromise, that he altered his attitude to the question of union, and with it his attitude to the dogma of the Procession. The second period of his career may be said to open with his exchange of court life for monastic seclusion, when, under the new name of Gennadius, he began to write against the Western view. The Confession which he presented to the Sultan after his elevation to the patriarchate, at least thirteen years after his return from Florence, could hardly have been this first Confession in view of the historical events already noted. Internal evidence points to his second Confession as the one then presented, as being more in harmony with the Greek view. Otherwise there is little addition to the phraseology of the first Creed. There occurs a further trinitarian analogy of mind (vous), reason (λóyos), and breath (veμa); also the statement, 'We call the will of God the Spirit of God, and Love,' which serves to demonstrate the agreement of both Churches in regard at least to the distinctive attributes of the Spirit of God. In his book entitled Of one God in a Trinity is found a philosophical discussion which treats of the personal distinctions eternally existing in the Godhead. But of the genuineness of his antagonism to the Filioque no trace of doubt could remain after a perusal of two further works, On the Procession of the Holy Spirit and On the Addition to the Creed, both of which are strongly anti-Latin in sentiment.

1 The word тpiás seems first to have been brought into general usage by Origen.

In the East, indeed, there had occurred isolated cases where exception had been taken to the prevailing opinion concerning the Procession, but such cases had been rare in the extreme. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries also, certain Western divines ventured to assert that the Greeks really believed in the Filioque. This, however, was complete fiction. 1 The Greek Church has always been careful to distinguish between the temporal procession or mission of the Holy Spirit from the Son to the race, and, on the other hand, His eternal or metaphysical procession from the Son. This is clear from the Orthodox Confession of the Eastern Church (1643) and from later declarations from similar sources; clear also from the Conference at Bonn in 1875 when the Old Catholics (who seceded in 1870) and Anglo-Catholics agreed to surrender the ' unauthorized' addition. But no Western surrender has been effected, the practices of East and West still diverge, and there is at present little sign of any further appeal to the mediation of John of Damascus.

1 The Greeks, on their side, would have been justified in retorting upon the case of Simon Episcopius († 1643), a Dutch theologian who held to their own view very strongly.

VI

THE PRE-REFORMATION REFORMERS

In the long struggle against papal domination one indirect part had already been played by the great fourteenth-century Mystics. Another indirect part was being played by d'Ailly and Gerson, who ventured to criticize within narrow limits certain abuses of the Church. A more direct part, however, was now played by certain notable men, who may correctly be termed forerunners of Luther, not, indeed, as root and branch opponents of the Catholic system either in dogma or in authority, yet as holders of evangelical opinions which were in the main based upon Holy Scripture. Heralds of the Reformers were many, among them being the Lollards, the Hussites, the followers of Savonarola, and the Waldenses whose piety was openly acknowledged by Louis XII. Whatever else may be said concerning this whole preparatory movement as touching its connexion with ecclesiastical, political, or social causes, it was in itself fundamentally spiritual, arising out of the religious experiences of human hearts left cold by what Romanism had offered, and hungering for saving truth stripped of all cloakings and unrealities.

JOHN WYCLIF

Pre-eminent among the guiding spirits of this preliminary movement is John Wyclif (c. 1320-1384), often alluded to as the morning star of the Reformation.' Owing much as he did to Occam and to Bradwardine, Wyclif was reputed to be the first schoolman of his day, his intellectual power in debate as in knowledge being quickly recognized at Oxford, his alma mater, which at that time outshone even Paris. The Oxford period of his life, before the schoolman was transformed into the pamphleteer,' was in its nature scholastic, Augustine continually furnishing the bases for his Latin productions.

'So John Richard Green, History of the English People, pp. 228 f.