Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/35

 FATHERS

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FATHERS

Athenagoras (who as an Atlienian may have been in relation with the West) is the only one who asserts tlie Unity of the Trinity. Hippolytus (somewhat diversely in the "Contra Noetum" and in the "Philo- sophumena," if they are both his) taught the same division of the Son from the Father as traditional, and he records that Pope Callistus condemned him as a Ditheist.

Origen, like many of the others, makes the pro- cession of the Word depenil upon His office of Creator; and if he is orthodox enough to make the procession an eternal and necessary one, this is only because he regards t'reation itself as necessary and eternal. His pupil, Dionysius of Alexandria, in combating the Sabellians, who atlmitted no real distinctions in the Godheafl, manifested the characteristic weakness of the Greek theology, but some of his own Egyptians were more correct than their patriarch, and appealed to Rome. The Alexandrian listened to the Roman Dionysius, for all respected the unchanging tradition and unblemished orthodoxy of the See of Peter; his apology accepts the word " consubstantial ", and he explains, no doubt sincerely, that he had never meant anything else; but he had learnt to see more clearly, without recognizing how unfortunately worded were his earlier arguments. He was not present when a council, mainly of Origenists, justly condemned Paul of Samosata (268) ; and these bishops, holding the traditional Eastern view, refused to use the word "consubstantial" as being too like Sabellianism. The Arians, disciples of Lucian, rejected (as did the more moderate Eusebius of Ca>sarea) the eternity of Creation, and they weie logical enough to argue that consequently " there was (before time was) when the Word was not", and that He was a creature. All Christendom was horrified; but the East was soon appeased by vague explanations, and after Nica^a, real, undisguised Arianism hardly showed its head for nearly forty years. The highest point of orthodoxy that the East could reach is shown in the admirable lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. There is one God, he teaches, that is the Father, and His Son is equal to Him in all things, and the Holy Ghost is adored with Them; we cannot separate Them in our worship. But he does not ask himself how there are not three Gods; he will not use the Nicene word "consubstantial", and he never suggests that there is one Godhead common to the three Persons.

If we turn to the Latins all is different. The essen- tial Monotheism of Cliristianity is not saved in the West by saying there is "one God the Father", as in all the Eastern creeds, but the theologians teach the unity of the Divine essence, in which suljsist three Persons. If TertuUian and Novatian use subordi- nationist language of the Son (perhaps borrowed from the East), it is of little consequence in comparison with their main doctrine, that there is one substance of the Father and of the Son. Callistus excommuni- cates equally those who deny the distinction of Persons, and those who refuse to assert the tmity of substance. Pope Dionysius is shocked that his name- sake did not use the word "consubstantial" — this is more than sixty years before Nica?a. At that great council a Western bishop has the first place, with two Roman priests, and the result of the discussion is that the Roman word "consubstantial" is imposed upon all. In the East the council is succeeded by a conspiracy of silence; the Orientals will not use the word. Even Alexandria, which had kept to the doc- trine of Dionysius of Rome, is not convinced that the policy was good, and Athanasius spends his life in fightmg for Nica^a, yet rarely uses the crucial word. It takes half a century for the Easterns to digest it; and when they do so, they do not make the most of its meaning. It is curious how little interest even Athanasius shows in the Unity of the Trinity, which he scarcely mentions except when quoting the Dio-

nysii; it isDidymus and the Cappadocians who word Trinitarian doctrine in the manner since consecrated by the centuries — three hypostases, one usia; but this is merely the conventional translation of the ancient Latin formula, though it was new to the East.

If we look back at the three centiu'ies, second, third, and fourth, of which we have been speaking, we shall see that the Greek-speaking Church taught the Divin- ity of the Son, and Three inseparable Persons, and one God the Father, without being able philosophically to harmonize these conceptions. The attempts which were matle were sometimes condcmnetl as heresy in the one direction or the other, or at best arrived at unsatisfactory and erroneous explanations, such as the distinction of the Ai7os ivdidBeTos and the Advos 7rpo(popiK6s or the assertion of the eternity of Creation. The Latin Church preserved always the simple tra- dition of three distinct Persons and one divine Essence. We must judge the Easterns to have started from a less perfect tradition, for it would be too harsh to accuse them of wilfully perverting it. But they show their love of subtle distinctions at the same time that they lay bare their want of philosophical grasp. The common people talked theology in the streets; hut the professional theologians did not see that the root of religion is the unity of God, and that, so far, it is better to be a Sabellian than a Semi-Arian. There is somethuig mythological about their conceptions, even in the case of Origen, however important a thmker he may be in comparison with other ancients. His conceptions of Christianity dominated the East for some time, but an Origenist Christianity would never have influenced the modern world.

The Latin conception of theological doctrine, on the other hand, was by no means a mere adherence to an uncomprehended tradition. The Latins in each controversy of these early centuries seized the main point, and preserved it at all hazards. Never for an instant did they allow the unity of God to be obscured. The equality of the Son and his consubstantiality were seen to be necessary to that unity. The Pkiton- ist idea of the need of a mediator between the trans- cendent God and Creation does not entangle them, for they were too clear-headed to suppose that there could be anj'thing half-way between the finite and the infinite. In a word, the Latins are philosophers, and the Easterns are not. The East can speculate and wrangle about theology, but it cannot grasp a large view. It is in accordance with this that it was in the West, after all the struggle was over, that the Trini- tarian doctrme was completely systematized by Augustine; in the West, that the Athanasian creed was formulated. The same story repeats itself m the fifth century. The philosophical heresy of Pelagius arose in the West, and in the West only could it have been exorcized. The schools of Antioch and Alexan- dria each insisted on one side of the question as to the union of the two Natures in the Incarnation; the one School fell into Nestorianisra, the other into Euty- chianism, though the leaders were orthodox. But neither Cyril nor the great Theodoret was able to rise above the controversy, and express the two complementary truths in one consistent doctrine. They held what St. Leo held; but, omitting their interminable arguments and proofs, the Latin writer words the true doctrine once for all, because he sees it philosophically. No wonder that the most popular of the Eastern Fathers has always been imtheological Chrysostom, whereas the most popular of the Western Fathers is the philosopher Augustine. \Vhenever the East was severed from the West, it contributed nothing to the elucidation and development of dogma, and when united, its contribution was mostly to make difficulties for the W'est to unravel.

But the West has continued without ceasing its work of exposition and evolution. After the fifth century there is not much development or definition