Part 23 (2/2)
”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 a.s.sent 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 sc.r.a.p 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 a.s.sented 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?”
”I feel your taunt,” replied Gennadius. ”It is both just and unjust.
Have not some of your own prelates lately taught that the end justifies the means? The union, though wrong in itself, was justified--according to Latin ethics--by the result to be secured, the safety of both Greek and Latin churches from being conquered by the Turks. Our Eastern empire, the glory of the later Caesars, has already become reduced to the suburbs of Byzantium. The empire of Justinian and Theodosius has not to-day ten thousand soldiers to withstand the myriads of the Sultan. There must be union. We must have soldiers, even if we buy them with the price of an article of the creed--nay the loan of the article--for the union will not stand when danger has pa.s.sed. Conscience alone is one thing: conscience under necessity--I speak the ethics of you Latins--is another thing. But I abhor the deceit. Your bishop, whom you call Pope, has no reverence from our hearts, though we were to kiss his toe. You are idolaters with your images of Mary and the saints. _Filioque_ is a lie!” cried the Greek, giving vent to his prejudice and spite.
Barletius in the meantime had felt other emotions than the holiest being kindled within him by these hot words of his companion; and when the Greek had flashed his unseemly denunciation at _Filioque_, the Latin's soul burst in responsive rage. But he was not accustomed to harsh debate. Words were consumed upon his hot lips, or choked in his fury-dried throat. His frame trembled with the pent wrath. His hands clenched until the nails cut into the flesh. But alas for the best saints.h.i.+p, if temptation comes before canonization! The thin hand was raised, and it fell upon the holy brother's face. The blow was returned. But neither of them had been trained to carnal strife, nor had they the skill and strength to do justice to their n.o.ble rage.
Constantine, who leaped forward to act as peace-maker, stopped to laugh at the strange pose of the antagonists; for the Greek had valiantly seized the cowl of the Latin, and drawn it down over his face; while Barletius' thin fingers were wriggling through Gennadius'
beard, and both were prancing as awkwardly as one-day-old calves about the narrow deck, with the imminent prospect of cooling their spirits by immersion in the water.
The presence of this danger led Constantine to separate the scufflers; although his laughter at the contestants had made his limbs almost as limp as theirs. The ecclesiastical champions stood glaring their celestial resentment, the one white, the other red, like two statues of burlesque gladiators carved respectively in marble and porphyry.
The conflict might have been renewed had not Morsinia risen from her cus.h.i.+on, and approached them. But no sooner did Gennadius realize the danger of having so much as his gown touched by a woman, than he bolted to the other end of the galley, and sat down, with fright and shame, upon a coil of ropes. The Greek had been trained at the monastery on Mount Athos. From that masculine paradise the fair daughters of Eve were as carefully excluded as if they were still the agents of Satan, and sent by the devil to work the ruin of those who, by lofty meditation and unnatural asceticism, would return to the pre-marital Adamic state of innocence. During the long twilight, and when the night left only the outlines of the mountains sharply defined high up against the star-lit sky, Gennadius still sat motionless; his legs crossed beneath him; his head dropped upon his bosom. He gave no response to the salutation of the attendant who brought him the evening meal: nor would he touch it. When the sailors sung the songs whose melody floated over the sea, keeping time to the cadences of the light waves which bent but did not break the surface, the monk put his fingers into his ears. He tried to drive out worldly thoughts by recalling those precepts of an ancient saint which, for four hundred years, had been prescribed at Mount Athos for those who would quiet their perturbed souls and rise into the upper light of G.o.d. They were such as these. ”Seat thyself in a corner; raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory; recline thy beard and chin upon thy breast; turn thy eyes and thoughts toward the middle of thy belly, the region of the navel; and search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul, which when discovered will be involved in a mystic and ethereal light.”
Barletius, equally chagrined by his display of temper before the laity, sought relief by inflicting upon himself a task of Pater Nosters, which he tallied off on his beads, made of olive-wood and sent him by a learned monk at Bethlehem.
When his punishment seemed accomplished, Morsinia asked him,
”Good father, why did you quarrel with the stranger?”
Barletius entered into a long explanation of the faith of the Roman Church at the point challenged by the Greek.
”I understand your words,” said Morsinia, ”but I do not understand their meaning.”
”It is not necessary that you should, my child. If Holy Church understands, it is enough. A child may not understand all that the mother knows; yet believes the mother's word. So should you believe what Mother Church says.”
”I would believe every word that Mother Church speaks, even though I do not understand why she speaks it,” said Morsinia reverently. ”But how can one believe another's words when one does not know what they mean; when they give no thought? Now what you say about the 'procession of the spirit,' and the 'begetting of the Son,' I do not get any clear thought about; and how then can I believe it in my heart.”
The monk cast a troubled look upon the fair inquirer, and replied--
”Then you must simply believe in Holy Church which believes the truth.”
”And say I believe the creed, when I only believe that the Church believes the creed?” queried the girl.
”It is enough. Happy are you if you seek to know no more. Beware of an inquisitive mind. It leads one astray from truth, as a wayward disposition soon departs from virtue. Credo! Credo! Credo! Help thou mine unbelief! should be your prayer. Restrain your thoughts as the helmsman yonder keeps our prow on the narrow way we are going. How soon you would perish if you should attempt to find your way alone out there on the deep! Woe to those who, like these wretched Greeks, depart from truth, and teach men so. Anathema, Maranatha!”
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