aggressor.[1] It is the last of Photius's five accusations that eventually became, and still is, the shibboleth of the quarrel. It seems that Photius at first did not think more of it than of the other points he had discovered. But it was soon found to be by far the best charge that could be made. It had much the most appearance of being a real abuse, and it has given them the chance of calling us heretics. In order not to interrupt the course of this story we may put off the consideration of the question itself till we come to examine the faith of the Eastern Churches to-day. We need now only note that this Encyclical of Photius (867) is the first occasion on which the accusation was made against us, that although the question itself is far too subtle and too abstruse to have really caused so much bad feeling for its own sake, nevertheless it has ever since been looked upon by the Easterns as a sort of compendium of all our offences; this very remote speculation, that either way has certainly never for a moment affected the trinitarian faith or piety of any single human being, has become to them a standard of anti-Latin orthodoxy, and they cherish and value it accordingly. And it has always been their accusation against us, not ours against them. They have anathematized us for what we believe and have added to the Creed. We have never asked them to add the word to their Creed. And in the main issue (the anathema pronounced at Ephesus in 431 against any one who modified the Creed) they are absolutely, incredibly wrong about the fact.[2]
Photius, then, had launched his thunderbolt, deposing our Pope, excommunicating us all. It is not easy to know what at this juncture the other Orthodox patriarchs thought about the matter. They could have had no conception how far-reaching its effects would eventually be. They only knew that there was a violent quarrel going on between two
- ↑ Kattenbusch (l.c. 381) says: "He tried to lift New Rome above Old Rome. This Œcumenical Patriarch really thought he could obtain the Primacy for Constantinople." These admissions are the more significant, since there is no question as to the animus of the writers in the Prot. Realenzyklopädie against Rome.
- ↑ For all this see p. 372.
