A Bavarian Protestant clergyman informed the assembly that, as there was no chance of their coming to an agreement by means of discussion about dogma, they had far better throw over dogma altogether, and trust to brotherly love to bring about union. Dr. von Döllinger, however, said that if they all shared this opinion, they had better have stayed at home. One reverend gentleman proposed to settle the difference by examining where the fathers all harmonize, and abiding by the result (a task which, as a looker-on observed, would give all the theological acuteness and learning in the world abundant work for about half a dozen centuries); whereupon Bishop Reinkens nervously tried to draw the debaters into the cloud-land of love and unity of purpose, etc., etc. But here Canon Liddon hastened to the rescue with a carefully-prepared scheme for effecting the reconciliation of the East and West, which was apparently received by the Orientals with a tranquil indifference, and was chiefly remarkable for its adroit semblance of effecting much, while it in fact does nothing. Yielding here and there a phrase of no special meaning, it declared in the next clause that it would retain its own form of the Creed until the dispute should be settled by “a truly œcumenical council.” This announcement was the signal for an outburst of disapproval, questions, and objections. “What did Canon Liddon mean by an œcumenical council?” “An assent of the whole episcopate.” This was too much for Lord Plunkett, who exclaimed that he would never have come to the Conference if he had known that it meant to confine the Christian Church within the bounds of episcopacy. What, he should like to know, was to hinder Presbyterian ministers from being admitted equally with bishops to take part in an œcumenical council?
On this the canon obligingly agreed to substitute “the whole church” for the obnoxious term; but while the assembly hesitated, some paragon of caution suggested the phrase “sufficient authority.” However, this masterpiece of conciliation—for nobody could say what it meant—was rejected for “the whole church,” this latter being equally ambiguous to those who were adopting it. On this they agreed. As the Times’ correspondent observes, “Everybody will agree with everybody else when all deliberately use words for the purpose of concealing what they mean. When men differ from each other essentially, it is childish folly to try to unite them by an unmeaning phrase.”
The great question was that of the procession of the Holy Spirit. On this M. Osinnin was the chief speaker on behalf of the Greeks, and he seems to have challenged every interpretation of the Westerns, maintaining even that procedit was not an exact rendering of ἐκπορεύεται. However, a committee was appointed, composed of the Germans, two Orientals, an Englishman, and an American; and Dr. von Döllinger announced to the Conference on its last sitting that an agreement had been arrived at on all essential points. The Greeks were to retain their version of the Nicene Creed, and the Westerns theirs; the latter were to admit that the Filioque had been improperly introduced, and that both were to agree that, whichever version they used, their meaning was that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. With regard to the last point, however, the Orientals said that although they had personally no objection to the expression, yet they must decline to give any official assent to the article until it had been submitted to their synods or other competent authorities at home.
Judging from every account we have seen (all of them Protestant) of the Bonn Conference, it is evident that its members, in order to give an appearance of mutual agreement, subscribed to propositions which may be taken in various senses. The six articles agreed to by the committee were couched in the following terms:
“We believe with S. John Damascene, 1, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the beginning, the cause, and the fountain of Deity. 2. That the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son ἐκ τοῦ υίοῦ, and that for this reason there is in the Godhead only one beginning, one cause, through which all that is in the Godhead is produced. 3. That the Holy Spirit is the image of the Son, who is the image of the Father, proceeding from the Father and resting in the Son, as the outbeaming power of the latter. 4. The Holy Spirit is the personal bringing forth of the Father, but belonging to the Son, yet not of the Son, since he is the Spirit of the Godhead which speaks forth the Word. 5. The Holy Spirit forms the connecting link between the Father and the Son, and is united to the Father through the Son. 6. The Holy Spirit proceeds [or, as amended by Mr. Meyrick, ‘issues’] from the Father through the Son.”
It is the supposed denial of that unity of the αρχή, or originating principle in the Most Holy Trinity, which has always been the ground of the Greek objections to the Latin form of the Creed.[205] “The double Procession[206] of the Holy Ghost has always been believed in the church, only to a certain number of minds it remained for a time obscure, and thus there are to be found in the writings of the fathers passages in which mention is made rather of the procession from the Father than of the double procession from the Father and the Son, but yet none which, although not formally indicating, exclude or contradict it.
“In recurring to the expressions employed by the fathers, the members of the Bonn Conference have made choice of some of those which are vague and least explicit, instead of others which convey to the mind a clear idea. We are fully aware that, from a historical point of view, the question of the Filioque presents some difficulties. At Nicæa, in 325, the question of procession was not even mentioned, from the fact of its not having up to that time been raised. At Constantinople, in 381, in order to cut short discussions which were tending to result in a denial of the Trinity, the addition had been made to the Creed that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, without mention of the Son. At the Third Council of Toledo, in 589, the faith of the church in the double procession was clearly indicated by the addition of the Filioque—an addition, which was adopted by several particular councils, and which became general in France. The popes, however, foreseeing that the Orientals—always inclined to be ill-disposed towards the West—would make this addition an excuse for breaking off into schism, appeared at first but little in favor of a modification which, although expressing with greater accuracy the faith of the church, would furnish fresh fuel to theological disputes. It was a question of prudence. But when the truth was once placed in peril, they hesitated no longer. All the West chanted the Filioque; and the Greeks themselves, on repeated occasions, and notably at the Council of Florence in 1438, confessed the double procession to be an article of the Catholic faith.”
The Old Catholics of Bonn have thus made, as it seems to us, a retrogression on this question. Will this help to secure “the union of the Christian churches” which was the object of the Conference? In outward appearance possibly it may, because all the separated communities willingly join hand in hand against the true church of Christ; but in reality, no, for the Greeks will continue to reject the procession through the Son, as the Anglicans will continue to accept it; and we have no need to say that the Catholic Church will never cease to confess the double procession, and to sing: Qui ex Patre Filioque procedit.
With regard to other subjects discussed by the meeting at Bonn, we will briefly mention that Canon Liddon spoke against the invocation of saints, and Dr. von Döllinger talked of “making a clear sweep” of the doctrine of purgatory and indulgences; although, in stating the belief of his co-religionists, he was obliged to reaffirm the doctrine of purgatory in terms nearly equivalent to those of the Creed of Pope Pius IV. On this matter, whatever the Greeks might do, how many of the Anglicans would agree with the Old Catholics? Not only are the people who go to these conferences from England in no sense representatives of the body to which they belong, but even they themselves do not always abide by what they have agreed to.[207] Dean Howson, in a statement he read at the last Conference, put a Low-Church interpretation on the resolution of last year’s Conference about the Eucharist, which interpretation Canon Liddon immediately repudiated. Before Greek or German schismatics can unite with the Church of England, they will have to make up their minds as to which of at least four theological systems is Anglicanism, and then to get that admitted by the other three.
As to the validity of Anglican orders, Dr. von Döllinger appears to have considered it as resting on the certainty of Parker’s consecration, without going into the really more important questions of Barlow’s orders, or the sufficiency of form or intention, all of which are matters of such grave doubt as to be practically worthless to any one insisting upon the necessity of certainty that the communion to which he belongs possesses the apostolic succession.