The brightness of God, the Father in heaven!
At setting of sun, with hearts that are lowly,
We praise Thee for life this day Thou hast given."
"I love that hymn," said Gennadius, "because it was written long before the schism which rent the Holy Church into Latin and Greek."
"We will rejoice, then, that by the inspiration of the Holy Father, Eugenius, and the assent of your patriarch, the wound in the body of Christ has, after six centuries, at last been healed," replied Barletius.
"I fear that the healing is but seeming," said the Greek. "I was a member of the council of Florence, and know the motives of the men who composed it, and the exact meaning of the agreement—which means nothing. Your Pope cares not a scrap of tinsel from his back for the true Christian dogma; and while his ambition led him to desire to become the uniter of Christendom, his own bishops, who know him well, were gathered in synod at Basil, and pronounced him heretic, perjurer and debauchee."
"But you Greeks were doubtless more honest," said Barletius, with a tone and look of sarcasm.
"Humph!" grunted Gennadius, walking away; but turning about quickly he added,
"How could we be honest when, for the sake of the union, we assented to a denial of our most sacred dogmas by allowing the Filioque?[64] It is not in the power of men living to change the truth as expressed through all past ages in the creed of the true church. Our emperor yielded the points to the Latins; but holy Mark of Ephesus and Prince Demetrius, our emperor's brother, did not. They retired in disgust from Italy. Why, the very dog of the emperor, that lay on his foot-cloth, scented the heresy to which his master was about to subscribe, and protested against the sacrilege by baying throughout the reading of the act of union. And I learn that the clergy and populace at Byzantium are foaming with rage at this impiety of our Latinizing emperor. I am hasting thither that I may utter my voice, too, in my cell in prayer, and from the pulpit of St. Sophia, against the unholy alliance."
"Yet," said Barletius, with scorn, "your emperor and church authorities subscribed. What sort of a divine spirit do you Greeks possess, that prompts you to confess what you do not believe?"