APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XIII.

The Doctrine of the Orthodox Eastern Church

INCE this volume was sent to the press the perennial

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controversy as to the teaching of the Holy Eastern Church has been renewed in the columns of one of the Church newspapers. I do not think that anything has been said which would make it necessary for me to alter what I have written in this volume as to the Eastern doctrine concerning the souls in the Intermediate-disembodied-State. In my book The Soul Here and Hereafter (1898) I stated what I still believe to be the truth, namely, that the Primitive Liturgies represent the unsettled eschatology of the Early Church, while the Orthodox Confession, the eighteenth decree of the Synod of Bethlehem, and the teaching of such a first-rate theologian as the Russian Bishop Macarius, represent the doctrine that was popular in the Church during the Middle Ages, and prevailed both in the East and West until about the time of the Council of Florence, 1439. This doctrine was not a novelty. It was in substance the belief of those among the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Jews who believed in the survival of the soul and future rewards and punishments. The doctrine was apparently held as an opinion by one or two of the Fathers. It cannot be said, however, to have been taught at all generally, or as other than an opinion. During the Middle Ages, when the tone of Primitive teaching had been in a great measure forgotten,

the belief referred to was very generally accepted, and it is this doctrine, I believe, that the Eastern Church has officially maintained, although she has never explicitly defined it as a dogma to be held by all her children. Consequently there are, doubtless, very many in the modern Eastern Church who hold other opinions. The horror of the mediæval doctrine expressed by some Anglicans and their refusal to allow that any such belief is taught in the Eastern Church, in spite of the plain words of her theologians, only serves to remind us of the gulf that separates the theology of this century from that of the Middle Ages, and, indeed, from the opinions of some of the Fathers. To the modern mind it may seem "fiendish to suppose that souls destined eventually for Heaven should be detained in Hell, or in a Purgatory that is "Hell" in all but the name. To the theologians of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, the thought was not so uncongenial. The Eastern Church is proverbially conservative, but nevertheless much that she jealously guards is not representative of the tone of the Primitive Church. Her theologians strongly reject the developments of modern Rome, but they equally strongly defend doctrines and practices that were developed-though not originatedbetween the fifth and twelfth centuries. For instance, at the Bonn Conference, 1874, the Greeks refused to assent to the following thesis proposed by Döllinger: "We acknowledge that the invocation of saints is not commanded as a duty necessary to salvation for every Christian." Any enlightened modern Roman theologian would assent to this proposition, but not so the Greeks. Archpriest Janyschew replied, "The invocation of saints has been in all ages a prevailing and universally diffused practice in the Church, and we have no reason to oppose the practice." Rhossis declared the "thesis seems to contradict the decrees of the seventh General

Council on the Invocation of Saints." In spite of all explanation the Orthodox rejected the thesis. They refused, as Janyschew said, to "discriminate between a duty and a practice recommended by the Church." I do not, of course, maintain that the invocation of saints is merely a mediæval practice. It dates from the Church of the great Fathers (see p. 189), but the mental attitude of the Greeks at Bonn in regard to this was characteristic rather of the twelfth than of the nineteenth century.

As to the main point of controversy in the Greek teaching about the souls in the intermediate state, we must go back to the centuries before the Council of Florence for guidance. At that time it was commonly held that, speaking generally, the Unseen World was composed of two states, Heaven and Hell. According to the belief of the pre-Christian religions of Greece and Rome, and that held by some of the Jews, Hell was thought of as a place where some souls were temporarily punished, and others eternally. The Latins, about the time of St. Thomas Aquinas (1224-74), taught that there is a middle place between Heaven and Hell, called Purgatory, in which the souls of the penitent but sinstained are kept apart from the damned, and purified. The Greeks rejected this innovation, and officially they have kept to the older belief popular in the Middle Ages.

It is really throwing dust in people's eyes for controversialists to try and harmonise the more authoritative Greek teaching with the latest and most mild theories of modern Anglican eschatology. As I have said, the Greek and Roman doctrine is essentially (as Macarius allows) much the same, and to the medieval mind was by no means so horrible as it seems to the fastidious taste of the twentieth century. What the Greeks reject now, as formerly, is the Latin innovation of Purgatory as a middle place. The old-fashioned

Romanist Bishop Hayes wrote, "This place [Purgatory] cannot be heaven, for in heaven there can be no suffering. It cannot be hell, for out of hell there is no redemption, and those who die in a state of grace cannot be condemned for ever; therefore it must be a middle place distinct from both.” Anyone who compares this statement with Macarius' teaching in his Observation sur le Purgatoire will see what he denies.

"Il n'y a pas un lieu particulier intermédiare où se trouvent et font l'objet des prières de l'Église les âmes de ceux qui firent pénitence avant leur mort; toutes ces âmes vont en enfer, d'où elles ne peuvent être tirées que par ses prières."1

Words could hardly more plainly teach the belief once held by the ancient Jews, Greeks, Romans, and hinted at by St. John Chrysostom, a belief shared by the Latin Church in the Middle Ages, before the theory of Purgatory as a distinct place was developed. The belief that the damned pass at once to Hell is still taught in the Latin Church, and Purgatory is frequently made to differ from Hell in nothing but the name. There is, therefore, no reason to suppose that the authoritative documents of the Eastern Church were intended to teach that "Hell" or "Heaven" are closed until the day of resurrection. Their teaching is not compatible-any more than the Latin doctrine-with such a belief. It is, however, quite true that in both Heaven and Hell the Greeks teach that there are degrees of glory or pain. The souls of the damned are necessarily in a worse state than those of the penitent, since the latter have the knowledge of their final salvation and a growing sense of their approaching deliverance from Hades.

1 "There is no special intermediate place where those who become penitent before death find themselves, and are the object of the Church's prayers; all such souls go to Hell [Hades], from which they can only be delivered by her prayers."

This seems what Theodoret meant when he said, "There is one Ades to all, but light to some, dark to others." An author in Suidas says that "in Ades it must needs be well with some, worse with others."

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As to the Beatific Vision the Greeks are not clear if it is granted before the resurrection. They seem to prefer the statement that the souls of the perfected righteous enjoy (in Heaven before their final reward) the sight of Jesus Christ. The following quotation from the Longer Catechism, by the late enlightened Metropolitan of Moscow - His Holiness Philaret-may be quoted here. Philaret represents the modern school of Easterns rather than that which finds expression in the more authoritative and official documents, such as those of the Synod of Bethlehem.

Question. In what condition are the souls of the departed until the general resurrection? Answer. The souls of the just are in light and peace, and enjoy a foretaste of everlasting bliss; but the souls of the sinful are in a condition the reverse of this. Q. Why do not the souls of the just enjoy the consummation of their bliss immediately after death? A. Because it has been foreordained that the full recompense of the whole man shall be delayed until the resurrection of the body and the last Judgment (2 Tim. iv. 8; 2 Cor. V. 10). Q. Does this foretaste of bliss include the actual vision of Jesus Christ Himself? A. It does so, especially in the case of the saints, for St. Paul seems to imply as much when he says, 'I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ' (Phil. i. 23). Q. What may be remarked of such souls as have departed with faith, but without having had

1 Macarius, however, says that the disembodied righteous "see God face to face." In speaking of the reward granted after the resurrection he repeats this, and adds, “le seul et vrai Dieu dans sa triple hypostase." See p. 401.