Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/264

238 accuses the Latin Church of a wrong action in venturing to insert a word in the venerated Nicene Creed. The clause in the Latin version asserting the procession of the HolySpirit originally ran: "Qui ex patre procedit." The Roman Church now renders this clause: "Qui ex Patre Filioque procedit." The insertion of Filioque at this point in the creed became the chief ground of division between the two churches, and it has remained so down to the present day without any hope of reconciliation, each community anathematising the other on account of the fine point of doctrine.

As with most controversies, it was possible for each party to point to testimony in the writings of venerated Fathers of antiquity that seemed to favour its own specific contention. That is nearly always the case, because it is controversy that sharpens definitions; and inasmuch as there is certainly something to be said for both sides of an argument in which sincere and able men are engaged, it is pretty certain that before the ideas crystallise on one side or the other they will be found in a mixed state of solution. Thus Tertullian in the West seemed to favour what was adopted later as the Eastern view, when he said, Spiritum non aliunde puto quam a Patre per Filium, and Hilary of Poitiers, the most important literary defender of the Nicene Creed in the West during the fourth century, writes, Loqui de Eo (i.e. the Holy Spirit) non necesse est, Qui a Patre et Filio auctoribus confitendus est, and at the close, referring to the Holy Spirit, he says, ex te per unigenitum suum; and again explicitly, A Patre procedit Spiritus Sanctus, sed a Filio et a Patre mittitur. On the other hand, Athanasius in the East seems to anticipate the Western view when he writes, "The Word gives to the Spirit, and whatever the Spirit hath, He hath from the Word." This may not refer to original being. St. Basil is more definite, writing, "Since the Holy Spirit … de-