st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

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122 ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
and his hearers that they may die unto sin with Christ,
resting as on that day in the stillness of the grave, he
takes occasion from this very pause and intermission,
as it were, in the work of Christ, to pass in review
the whole system of God s dealings with man. This,
while adding to the importance of the present homily,
as conveying to us the views of Damascenus on many
doctrinal matters, leads to a somewhat tedious pro
lixity.
Beginning at the very beginning, with the eternal
existence of a Divine First Cause, God the Father,
he passes on to speak of the eternal generation of the
Son, and the procession of the Holy Ghost, and the
relations between the persons of the Holy Trinity.
"The
Holy Ghost is of God and the Father, as
proceeding from Him and is also said to be
; of the
Son, as being through Him made manifest and com
municated to the created world, but not as having
His existence from Him
(c.
1
iv.).
In describing the Creation, Damascenus gives free
play to his exuberance of language. And though the
effect is. marred by the incongruous nature of the
materials he works with, old epic and dramatic
1
The memorable addition of the words filioque
to the
Western creed, which involved the doctrine that the Holy
Ghost proceeds from the Son in like manner as from the
Father, is said to have been first made in 589, at the third
Council of Toledo. The clause would appear to have been
slipped in almost without opposition
or comment at the time.
The first
open contention about it between the Greek and Latin
churches began at the Council of Gentilly in 767, not many
years after this sermon of Damascene s was delivered. See
Lumby s "History of the Creeds," 1873, p. 85.