The Angelic Doctor Against the Errors of the Greeks - Part Two - Prologue

After these explanations, then, we proceed now to show how on the basis of the authorities contained in the aforementioned book the true faith is taught and defended against error. It is to be kept in mind that the Son of God appeared precisely in order to destroy the works of the devil, as stated in 1 John 3:8). Hence, he has exerted and continues to exert his every energy in the opposite direction to destroy the work of Christ. He attempted to do this initially via tryants who inflicted bodily death on the ministers of Christ: subsequently, however, via heretics through whom he worked the spiritual death of many. Hence, on careful examination the errors of heretics appear tending mainly to diminish the dignity of Christ.

Indeed, Arius diminished the dignity of Christ by destroying that He was the Son of God consubstantial with the Father and by asserting Him to be a creature. Macedonius, by asserting that the Holy Spirit is a creature, took from the Son the honor of spirating a divine person. Mani diminished the dignity of Christ when he claimed that visible things were created by an evil God, thereby denying that all things were created through the Son. So, too, Nestorius destroyed what belonged to Christ, for in making one Person in Christ the son of man and another the Son of God he denied the unity of Christ. So, too, Eutyches, who by asserting that in the incarnation of Christ one nature was formed out of two, namely, the divine and the human, in fact deprived Him of both natures; for what is a composite of two things cannot truly be said to be either. Pelagius also dissolved Christ, for by saying that we do not need grace to attain salvation, he rendered Christ’s coming pointless; for, as stated in John 1:17: Grace and truth come through Jesus Christ. Jovinian lessened the dignity of Christ when he said that married persons were the equal of virgins, since we profess that Christ was born of a Virgin. Vigilantius lessened the dignity of Christ, when in attacking poverty embraced for the love of Christ he spoke against the perfection which Christ observed and taught. Therefore, it is justly remarked in 1 John 4:3: Every spirit that dissolves Jesus is not of God, but is the Antichrist.

So, also, at the present time  some  are described as dissolving Christ by diminishing His dignity so far as this lies in their power. In saying that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son, they lessen His dignity, since He together with the Father is the Spirator of the Holy Spirit. In denying, moreover, that there is one head of the Church, namely, the holy Roman Church, they clearly dissolve the unity of the Mystical Body; for there cannot be one body if there is not one head, nor one congregation if there is not one ruler. Hence, John 10:16 says: There will be one fold and one shepherd.

In denying that the sacrament of the altar can be consecrated of unleavened bread, they are manifestly in opposition to Christ, who, as the evangelists relate, instituted this sacrament on the first day of the unleavened read, when it was against the law for there to be leavened bread in the houses of the Jews. Their view also seems to diminish the purity of the sacramental body of Christ, to which the Apostle exhorts the faithful in 1 Cor. 5:8, saying: Let us, therefore, celebrated the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. In denying purgatory they also lessen the power of this sacrament which is offered in the Church both for the living and for the dead; for if purgatory does not exist, it avails the dead nothing; it cannot profit them if they are in hell, where there is no redemption;  nor can it do them any good if they are in heaven, where they are in no need of our prayers.

How these errors may be refuted using the authorities already cited, I will briefly demonstrate, dealing first with the procession of the Holy Spirit.