Adolf Harnack · 19 of 20

2. The Controversy Regarding the Filioque and Pictures.

2. The Controversy regarding the Filioque and Pictures.

By the position it had taken up in the Adoptianist as well as in the predestination controversy, the Church of the Frankish kingdom identified itself, abandoning tendencies to higher characteristics of its own, with the popular Church ideas as represented by Constantinople and Rome. The theology it had inherited from Augustine was transformed into an ecclesiastical system such as had long prevailed in those chief Churches. But the West at that time still held tenaciously to its own characteristic position as compared with the East in two doctrines; it supported the filioque and rejected images. Both these subjects have been already discussed in Vol. IV., pp. 133, 317, therefore only a little falls to be added.

Even if we had not known it already, we see very clearly in the controversy regarding the filioque clause that the doctrine of the Trinity and Christology constituted dogma and the legal basis of the Church κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν, even for the West—see the Athanasian Creed. The filioque, which originated in Augustinian theology, came to the Frankish kingdom from Spain, but we know nothing more precisely as to how it did. It was held to be certain that it belonged to the Symbol, and this conviction was already expressed at the Synod of Gentilly (767). Charles’s learned theologians confirmed it, as is proved by Alcuin’s work De processione spiritus sancti, and the Libri Carolini. Official action was provoked by Western monks having had to submit to grave injustice in Jerusalem, because in the Liturgy they added, “sicut erat in principio” to the “Gloria patri,” and “tu solus altissimus” to the “Gloria in excelsis,” and in the Symbol “filioque” to “a patre.” They complained to the Pope, who turned to the Emperor. The latter commissioned Theodulf of Orleans to compose a work, “De spiritu sancto,” and got it decreed at the Synod of Aachen (809) that the filioque belonged to the Symbol. The Pope, however, who had to approve of this decision, still took the East into consideration, and did not permit the admission of the word, though he assented to the doctrine. Even the remonstrance of the Franks that the filioque was necessary to salvation did not move him. The matter continued thus till the great controversy under Photius, until the filioque became the Symbolic watchword in the whole of the West. The most worthless formula of Augustinianism, once recommended by its opposition to Arianism, was thus preserved in the West.

If in this controversy between the West and East the former at first received only a lukewarm support from Rome, which was still half Byzantine, the Pope ranged himself entirely on the side of the pious Eastern theologians in the Oriental controversy about images, and therewith his relations became strained with Frankish theology or the efforts made by Charles I. to promote civilisation. The attitude of that theology in the great conflict is extremely characteristic of the transition time in which it found itself. The spiritual (inner) element introduced into it by Augustine no longer reacted in Christology, and in the conception of the Mass, against mystical superstition and magic sacramentalism. It had been swallowed up by the more powerful Byzantine Roman current. But the Franks could not yet force themselves to adopt the Oriental worship of images. A halt was made at the Host. A spiritual, Augustinian element reacted against image-worship, but, paradoxical as it sounds, the lower state of dogmatic culture had also its effect here. It would indeed seem, on a superficial view, that he who rejects the veneration of images is always the more cultured. But that only holds in circumstances that did not then exist. Where men had once entered, as was the case in the Frankish kingdom, the magic circle of the Byzantine mysticism that enveloped Christ and the cultus, it was simply the sign of a religious faith not yet fully developed on this basis to halt at the Host, and to disdain the riches offered by images to theological thought and pious fancy. The East and Rome made their Christology living for themselves in pictures, and so saw the past mystery in the abiding present. How could a faith dispense with them that already aimed at the sensuous enjoyment of heavenly things and revelled in the worship of relics? But dogmatic culture was still backward in the West, the theosophy of images had not yet been learnt, and—what was most important—but few pictures were possessed.

It has been maintained, but it is not absolutely certain, that the Synod of Gentilly (767) emitted a declaration as to image-worship satisfactory to the Pope. The Synod of Frankfort (794) unanimously condemned the decision of the seventh Œcumenical Council, which required “service and adoration” (servitium, adoratio) to be rendered to images. The decisions of the Council were undoubtedly extant only in a very bad translation. “Certain chapters” had been previously sent to Rome against the worship of images, these being an extract (85 ch.) from the Libri Carolini, which Alcuin had composed shortly before, at the Emperor’s command, in conjunction with other theological Court officials; they were written against the Oriental Councils of 754 and 787. In these iconoclasm, but still more strongly image-worship, are forbidden as foolish and mischievous. It was right to have pictures for decoration and recollection, but not to adore them (Gregory I., Ep. VII. III: “therefore the picture is used in Churches that those who are ignorant of letters may at least read by seeing upon the walls what they cannot read in books,” and, further, Libri Carol. præf.: “having images in the ornaments of our churches and in memory of past events, and worshipping God alone, and exhibiting fit veneration to his saints, we are neither iconoclasts with the one party nor worshippers with the other”). Image-worship is then refuted at greater length, and the addition of the seventh to the six Œcumenical Councils is condemned; the two Synods (of 754 and 787) are “infamous” and “most foolish” (infames, ineptissimæ). Some would see in these books a proof of the Carlovingian “illumination”; but the enlightenment, which is unmistakable in other respects, only went the length of ignorance of the theosophy of images, failure to understand the subtle distinctions between λατρεία (worship) and προσκύνησις (veneration), and the king’s effort to advance civilisation. What the books really show is the self-reliance and sense of power of the Frankish Church, which break out with youthful audacity, convicting with mischievous glee the older and wiser sister of error, and actually summoning, and requiring the Pope formally to prosecute, the Byzantine Emperor and the Empress-Regent.

These books already show that the Roman West and the East could no longer go together, because the former sought to take command. They also reveal a trace of Augustinian spiritual teaching, but knowing what we do of the sort of thing held sacred at that time in the Frankish kingdom, they cannot be taken as proving that men were more enlightened in the Western than in the Eastern Church. Pope Hadrian refuted the chapters, but took care not to exaggerate the difference. Under Louis the Pious, a Synod convoked at Paris on account of an embassy from Michael the Stammerer (825) pronounced itself decidedly against the image-worshipping Pope, and held strictly to the line laid down in the Libri Carolini: pictures might be set up “in memory of pious love” (pro amoris pii memoria), as ornaments, and, above all, for the sake of the uneducated; but they were not to be adored, and their erection might therefore be dispensed with. Louis adopted more stringent measures against image-worship than Charles. Pope Eugene II. wrapped himself in silence; nay, even in A.D. 863 a Lateran Synod, while it recognised image-worship in guarded language, said nothing about the seventh Œcumenical Council. Image-worship and the seventh Synod of 787 were gradually accepted only after the time of the eighth general Synod (869). Yet the Carlovingian theologians were still hostile to image-worship at the close of the period. Hinkmar, who wrote a work, no longer preserved, “on the worship of pictures of the Redeemer and the Saints,” would only admit them as means of instruction (or for ornament); and Agobard, Jonas of Orleans, Walafrid Strabo, and Æneas of Paris held the same view. Hinkmar also calls the Council of 787 a Pseudo-Synod, and all Frankish authorities known to us, of the ninth century, reckon only six Councils. Even the (eighth) Council of 869 was at first not recognised by Hinkmar. It was only when the Frankish German Church again came to the light after the dark ages that it also saw the seventh and eighth Councils. Yet the difference with the Pope regarding the pictures hardly did any harm to his prestige in the ninth century. His authority, that is, had not been carried so high or become so sensitive that such shocks could bring about its fall. Image-worship was never able to domesticate itself thoroughly where antiquity was not the ruling spirit. Even at the present day Italy is still the classic land of image-worship in the West. While, however, in the East that worship expresses the religious faith and the philosophy of religion themselves, because it is evolved from the Christology, in the West pictures form part of the system of intercessors and helpers in need. In practice, indeed, the difference is pretty well obliterated.