536 RELATIONS OF THE GREEK AND ROMAN CHURCH. agreed upon, and it was determined that, in place of the anathema against the God of Mohammed, should be substituted the certainly more judicious form: "against Mohammed, and his doctrine, and everything connected therewith." In respect to the relation of the Greek church to the Latin, the aftereffects of those schisms which had made their appearance at an earlier period still continued to be experienced. The systematic evolution of the system of faith of the Roman church, by scholasticism, and the perfected form of papal absolutism, could only serve to define more sharply the line of division between the two churches, and to make the difference still more radical. While they on the side of the Roman church, in their consciousness of possessing the only true tradition and an authority founded on divine right, and destined to judge and decide over all, supposed they could look down on the Greek church with a feeling of superiority; they of the Greek church, priding themselves on a traditional literary culture, which, to be sure, must fade to insignificance when compared with the new mental achievements of the West, were still inclined to despise the Latins as barbarians. The crusades brought Greeks and Latins into closer connection and more living contact with each other; but these were frequently but sources of controversy and distrust, and served rather to widen than to narrow the distance between the two parties. As we have already remarked on a former page, the disputed question prevailing between the two churches, concerning the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, was brought up anew for discussion at the beginning of these undertakings, in 1098, before a council held by pope Urban the Second, at Bari. Anselm of Canterbury stood forth as advocate of the Latin church doctrine, and the anathema on that of the Greek church was here renewed. Among the succeeding transactions between the two churches, one particularly deserving notice was a conference held under the Greek emperor John Comnenus the Second, between Anselm of Havelberg,3 a bishop eminently distinguished for weight of character, intellectual ability, and education, and the archbishop Nechites (doubtless Nicetas) of Nicomedia, who superintended the direction of studies already noticed, at Constantinople, in 1146, on the questions in dispute between the two churches, and the means of settling them. When Anselm, at a subsequent period, was residing at the court of pope Eugene the Third, he drew up, at the request of that pope, a full account of that conference. We may take it for granted, indeed, that we are not presented here with a set of minutes drawn up with diplomatical accuracy; still, we have every reason to presume that the mode in which the Greek prelate managed his cause in this conference, has, in all essential respects, been truly represented by Anselm. He 1 Ανάθημα τῷ Μωάμετ καὶ πασῇ τῇ αὐ- Geschichtskunde des preussischen Staates τοῦ διδαχῇ καὶ διαδοχῇ. 2 Page 458. See, respecting him, A. F. Riedel's Essay, in the Allgemeinen Archiv, für die von L. von Ledebur, vol. viii, f. 97; and by Dr. Spieker, in Illgen's Zeitschrift für historische Theologie, vol. ii, f. 1840. In D'Achery Spiceleg. t. i. CONFERENCE AT CONSTANTINOPLE IN 1146. 537 represents him as saying many pointed and striking things against the Latin church, such as he, assuredly, could not have invented at his own point of view, and would not have put into the mouth of his opponent. In respect to the contested point in the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, Nicetas appealed, as the Greeks were ever wont to do, to the passage in the gospel of St. John, and to the inviolable authority of the Nicene creed. Anselm replied conformably with the doctrine of the church, as it had been settled since the time of Vincentius of Lerins. He presented, on the other side, the progressive evolution of that doctrine, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, actuating the church, by virtue of which the doctrine, contained as to its germ in the sacred Scriptures, had been more exactly defined and explicated, and what it contained in spirit, reduced to the form of more precise conceptions; just as the work of one universal council is completed in the gradual development of Christian doctrine by another and later. All this is the work of the same Spirit, promised by Christ to his disciples and to his church; of whom he says that he would teach many things which the apostles, at that time, could not understand. Even the doctrine of the Trinity, as explained by the council of Nice, the doctrine of the divinity of the Holy Ghost, cannot be pointed out as a doctrine expressed, in so many words, in the Bible.1 Anselm alleged, in behalf of the well-grounded authority of the Roman church, that all heresies had found their birthplace in the Greek church; while in the former, the pure doctrine had ever been preserved, free from alloy, amid all the disputes proceeding from that other quarter. To this Nicetas replied "If the heresies had sprung up in the Greek church, still, they were subdued there; and they could only contribute to the clearer evolution and stronger confirmation of the faith." And he endeavors to point out, here, a substantial advantage of the Greek church over the Latin, tracing it to the predominating scientific culture which had distinguished the Greek church from the beginning. "Perhaps the very reason why so many heresies had not sprung up among the Romans was, that there had not been among them so many learned and acute investigators of the sacred Scriptures. If that conceit of knowledge by which the Greek heretics had been misled, deserved censure, still, the ignorance of the Latins, who affirmed neither one thing nor another about the faith, but only followed the lead of others in unlearned simplicity, deserved not to be praised.3 It must be ascribed either to blamable negligence in examining into the faith, or to singular inactivity of mind and dulness of apprehension, or to hindrances growing out of the heavy load of secular business."4 He applies to the Latins, in this regard, the words in 1 Tim. 1: 7, and to the Greeks what Aristotle says of the usefulness of doubt as a passage Lib. ii, c. xxii, seqq. 2 Lib. iii, c. xi. Lib. iii, c. xi: Sicut haereticorum, qui apud nos fuerunt, vana sapientia, qua seducti sunt, culpanda est, ita nimirum [which, without doubt, should read minime, as irony here would be out of place] laudanda est Romana imperitia, qua ipsi nec hoc nec illud de fide dixerunt, sed alios inde dicentes et docentes simplicitate quasi minus docta audierunt. 4 Quod contigisse videtur vel ex nimia negligentia investigandae fidei vel ex grossa tarditate hebetis ingenii vel ex occupatione ac mole saecularis impedimenti. 538 INFLUENCE OF THE CRUSADES. way to truth. Earnestly does Nicetas protest against the intimation, that the Greek church might be compelled to adopt what the pope, without a council held in concurrence with the Greeks, might, on his own self-assumed authority, prescribe. "If the pope, seated on the high throne of his glory, will fulminate against us, and hurl down his mandates upon us from his lofty station; if, not with our concurrence, but arbitrarily, and according to his own good pleasure, he will judge us, nay, order us; what fraternal or what paternal relation can subsist long on such terms? Who would patiently endure this? If we could, we might justly be called, and should be in fact, slaves, and not sons of the church." He then goes on to say that, if such authority belonged to the pope, then all study of the Scriptures, and of the sciences, all Greek intellect and Greek learning, were superfluous. The pope alone would be bishop, teacher, and pastor; he alone would have to be responsible to God for all, whom God had committed to his charge alone. The apostolic creed did not teach men to acknowledge a Roman church in especial, but one common, catholic, apostolic church.3 Though Nicetas defended the use of ordinary bread in the celebration of the Lord's supper, a custom which had always been handed down in the Greek church, yet he estimates the importance of this disputed point with Christian moderation.4 He says that he himself, in case no other bread was to be had, would have no hesitation in using unleavened bread in the mass. "Since, however," he adds, "the number of the narrow-minded far exceeds that of persons well-instructed in the faith, and the undistinguishing multitude easily take offence, it was worthy of all pains, that both Latins and Greeks should be induced to join, heart and hand, in bringing about, in some suitable place and at some suitable time, a general council, at which the use of leavened or unleavened bread, by all at the same time, should be adopted; or, if such an agreement could not be arrived at without giving scandal to one of the two parties, yet all should agree in this, that neither party should condemn the other, and this difference should no longer turn to the injury of holy charity. "Mutual condemnation," says he, "is a far greater sin than this diversity of custom, which was in itself a matter of indifference." Both finally agreed on this point, that a general council, consisting of Latins and Greeks, for the purpose of bringing about a reunion of the two churches, was a thing greatly to be desired. But the irritable state of feeling between the two parties, heightened by the crusades and the consequences following in their train, and the arrogant pretensions of the popes, who would not lower their tone, put the assembling of such a council out of the question; and even if it See the passage cited from Abelard, above, p. 491. 2 Si Romanus pontifex in excelso throno gloriae suae residens nobis tonare et quasi projicere mandata sua de sublimi voluerit, et non nostro consilio, sed proprio arbitrio pro beneplacito suo de nobis et de eccle siis nostris judicare, imo imperare voluerit, quae fraternitas seu etiam quae paternitas haec esse poterit? Quis hoc unquam acquo animo sustinere queat? Tunc nempe veri servi et non filii ecclesiae recte dici posse mus et esse. 3 Lib. iii, c. viii. 4 Lib. c. c. xviii. LETTER OF GERMANUS TO GREGORY THE NINTH. 539 could have been held, it must, for the same reasons, have failed of coming to any beneficial results. When afterwards, in the twelfth century, several provinces of the East were conquered by the crusaders, when finally, in 1204, a Western empire was founded at Constantinople, the Latins conducted towards the Greeks in so unchristian, despotic, and cruel a manner that the hate of the latter was thereby roused to a higher intensity, and the impression endured for a long time afterwards. Every violent measure was resorted to for the purpose of subjecting all to the church of Rome, and of suppressing everything peculiar to the Greeks. The monks especially were treated with great harshness. Many Greeks died as martyrs at the stake, for the liberties of their church, and the honest convictions of their minds.1 Though by these events the Greeks must have become still more alienated from the Roman church, and the transactions on the island of Cyprus and at Constantinople had left an indelible impression on the minds of the Greek clergy, yet a new political interest came into play, which made the Greek emperors, who had taken up their residence at Nice, more desirous than ever of the union of the two churches. The emperor John Ducas Vatazes hoped, by the mediation of the pope, that he should be able to recover what had been rent from the empire by the arms of the Latins; and for this reason invited and favored negotiations for union. The patriarch Germanus of Constantinople, but who also resided at Nice, sent two letters to pope Gregory the Ninth, and to the cardinals, which certainly betray no evidence in him of a man who could have been induced by any political considerations to bow before the papacy. The patriarch begins with saying that he regarded Christ as the only true cornerstone, on which the whole church was founded: "Whoever believes on thee, as this cornerstone," he exclaims,-addressing Christ, and probably alluding already to the exclusive pretensions of the church of Rome,—"shall in nowise come to shame, nor find himself torn from the foundation of his hope. This truth none can gainsay but a disciple of the father of lies." As Christ proclaims peace to those who are nigh, and to those who are afar off, as by his death on the cross he had brought together all, from the utmost bounds of the earth, into a fellowship of piety, so it was his own cause to bring back those who had fallen apart to 1 See the report of an unknown Greek particularly concerning the cruelties perpetrated on the island of Cyprus, in the work of Leo Allatius, a Greek who had gone over to the Roman church: De ecclesiae occidentalis atque orientalis perpetua consensione, lib. ii, c. xiii, p. 694. To this learned man such proceedings of the Romish church seem perfectly regular, and he very naïvely remarks: Opus erat, effraenes propriaeque fidei rebelles et veritatis oppugnatores non exilio, sed ferro et igne in saniorem mentem reducere. Haeretici proscribendi sunt, exterminandi sunt, puniendi sunt et pertinaces occidendi, cremandi. Ita leges sanciunt, ita observavit antiquitas, nec alius mos est recentioris ecclesiae tum Graecae tum Latinae. 2 These two letters, published by Matthew of Paris, at the year 1237, f. 386. Nothing but the bias of party-interest could ever lead one to hold that these letters are a fabrication, on the ground of the violent passages in them directed against the popes; Gregory's answer shows that many passages of that sort must have been in the letter to which he is replying; besides, what took place subsequently, during the negotiations at Constantinople, testifies to the existence of such a tone of feeling as is expressed in these letters. 540 EMBASSY SENT BY GREGORY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. the unity of faith. He then urgently calls upon the pope to make every effort for the restoration of church-fellowship between Greeks and Latins. He defends the Greeks against the objections made to their orthodoxy; against the complaints that they were the authors of the schism: "Many persons of high dignity and power," says he, "would listen to you, were they not afraid of unjust oppressions, wanton extortions, or indecorous servitude." Only one thing was wanting to the Greeks, the blood and crown of martyrdom: "What I say, and why I say it," he then exclaims, "the famous island of Cyprus can tell, which has furnished new martyrs. Was that a pretty business, most holy pope, successor of the apostle Peter? Did Peter, the gentle and humble disciple of Christ, prescribe that?" And he held up to the pope the doctrine set forth in the first epistle of Peter; while to the Greeks he applies what the same apostle says of the faith that is tried by the fire of sufferings. He concludes with again entreating the pope that he would spare no pains in bringing about the great work of restoring unity to the church, as he himself would not be hindered by any bodily weakness, any infirmity of old age, from doing all that lay within his power. He said: "He was well aware that both parties maintained the error was not with them, which each would of course say of itself. But both parties should look into the mirror of the sacred Scriptures, and of the writings left behind them by the old church teachers, and thereby examine themselves." The same spirit also expressed itself in the letter written by the patriarch to the cardinals: "Let us all," said he to them, "be of the same mind. Let not one of us say: I am of Paul; another, I am of Apollos; another, I am of Cephas; another, I am of Christ, but let us all call ourselves of Christ, as we are all called Christians." Here, too, the rending of the unity of the church was attributed to the extortions and oppressive measures of the church of Rome : "From being a mother, she had turned into a step-mother; unmindful of the words of our Lord, that he who humbleth himself shall be exalted, she trampled most under foot those who humbled themselves the most before her." The pope hereupon sent two Dominicans and two Franciscans to Constantinople, as delegates to treat concerning peace, -with two letters to the patriarch, in which he took notice of the reproaches thrown out in the above-cited letters, but also passed by many things, perhaps purposely, in silence. He allowed that the patriarch was right, in saying that Christ is the chief corner-stone and first foundation of the church; but reminded him that the apostles were the secondary foundations (secundaria fundamenta), among whom the first and most important was the apostle Peter, of whose primacy he was careful to remind him. The envoys, on their arrival at Constantinople, in 1233, were received with great marks of honor; but the negotiations, in which the Greeks betrayed the irritated state of their feelings at the wrongs they had suffered, led to no favorable results. The legates declared that the Roman church would not depart an iota from their faith and symbol; the Greeks must confess to the faith that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son as well as from |