First Nicene Council, CANON VI.

    LET the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis prevail,
that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since
the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also. Likewise in
Antioch and the other provinces, let the Churches retain their
privileges. And this is to be universally understood, that if any
one be made bishop without the consent of the Metropolitan, the
great Synod has declared that such a man ought not to be a bishop.
If, however, two or three bishops shall from natural love of
contradiction, oppose the common suffrage of the rest, it being
reasonable and in accordance with the ecclesiastical law, then let
the choice of the majority prevail.

NOTES.

ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON VI.

    The Bishop of Alexandria shall have jurisdiction over Egypt,
Libya, and Pentapolis. As also the Roman bishop over those subject
to Rome. So, too, the Bishop of Antioch and the rest over those who
are under them. If any be a bishop contrary to the judgment of the
Metropolitan, let him be no bishop. Provided it be in accordance
with the canons by the suffrage of the majority, if three object,
their objection shall be of no force.
    Many, probably most, commentators have considered this the most
important and most interesting of all the Nicene canons, and a whole
library of works has been written upon it, some of the works
asserting and some denying what are commonly called the Papal
claims. If any one wishes to see a list of the most famous of these
works he will find it in Phillips's Kirchenrecht (Bd. ii. S. 35). I
shall reserve what I have to say upon this subject to the notes on a
canon which seems really to deal with it, confining myself here to
an elucidation of the words found in the canon before us.

HAMMOND, W. A.

    The object and intention of this canon seems clearly to have
been, not to introduce any new powers or regulations into the
Church, but to confirm and establish ancient customs already
existing. This, indeed, is evident from the very first words of it:
"Let the ancient customs be maintained." It appears to have been
made with particular reference to the case of the Church of
Alexandria, which had been troubled by the irregular proceedings of
Miletius, and to confirm the ancient privileges of that see which he
had invaded. The latter part of it, however, applies to all
Metropolitans, and confirms all their ancient privileges.

FFOULKES.

(Dict. Christ. Antiq. voce Council of Nicaea).

    The first half of the canon enacts merely that what had long
been customary with respect to such persons in every province should
become law, beginning with the province where this principle had
been infringed; while the second half declares what was in future to
be received as law on two points which custom had not as yet
expressly ruled. ... Nobody disputes the meaning of this last half;
nor, in fact, would the meaning of the first half have been
questioned, had it not included Rome. ... Nobody can maintain that
the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria were called patriarchs then,
or that the jurisdiction they had then was co-extensive with what
they had afterward, when they were so called. ... It is on this
clause ["since the like is customary for the Bishops of Rome also"]
standing parenthetically between what is decreed for the particular
cases of Egypt and Antioch, and in consequence of the interpretation
given to it by Rufinus, more particularly, that so much strife has
been raised. Rufinus may rank low as a translator, yet, being a
native of Aquileia, he cannot have been ignorant of Roman ways, nor,
on the other hand, had he greatly misrepresented them, would his
version have waited till the seventeenth century to be impeached.

HEFELE.

    The sense of the first words of the canon is as follows: "This
ancient right is assigned to the Bishop of Alexandria which places
under his jurisdiction the whole diocese of Egypt." It is without
any reason, then, that the French Protestant Salmasius (Saumaise),
the Anglican Beveridge, and the Gallican Launoy, try to show that
the Council of Nice granted to the Bishop of Alexandria only the
rights of ordinary metropolitans.

BISHOP STILLINGFLEET.

    I do confess there was something peculiar in the case of the
Bishop of Alexandria, for all the provinces of Egypt were under his
immediate care, which was Patriarchal as to extent, but Metropolical
in the administration.

16

JUSTELLUS.

    This authority (<greek>exousia</greek>) is that of a
Metropolitan which the Nicene Fathers decreed to be his due over the
three provinces named in this canon, Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis,
which made up the whole diocese of Egypt, as well in matters civil
as ecclesiastical.
    On this important question Hefele refers to the dissertation of
Dupin, in his work De Antiqua Ecclesiae Disciplina. Hefele says: "It
seems to me beyond a doubt that in this canon there is a question
about that which was afterward calm the patriarchate of the Bishop
of Alexandria; that is to say that he had a certain recognized
ecclesiastical authority, not only over several civil provinces, but
also over several ecclesiastical provinces (which had their own
metropolitans);" and further on (p. 392) he adds: "It is
incontestable that the civil provinces of Egypt, Libya, Pentapolis
and Thebais, which were all in subjection to the Bishop of
Alexandria, were also ecclesiastical provinces with their own
metropolitans; and consequently it is not the ordinary fights of
metropolitans that the Sixth Canon of Nice confers on the Bishop of
Alexandria, but the rights of a superior Metropolitan, that is, of a
Patriarch."
    There only remains to see what were the bounds of the
jurisdiction of the Bishop of Antioch. The civil diocese of Oriens
is shown by the Second Canon of Constantinople to be conterminous
with what was afterward called the Patriarchate of Antioch. The see
of Antioch had, as we know, several metropolitans subject to it,
among them Caesarea, under whose jurisdiction was Palestine.
Justellus, however, is of opinion that Pope Innocent I. was in error
when he asserted that all the Metropolitans of Oriens were to be
ordained by him by any peculiar authority, and goes so far as to
stigmatize his words as "contrary to the mind of the Nicene
Synod."(1)

EXCURSUS ON THE EXTENT OF THE JURISDICTION OF THE BISHOP OF
ROME OVER THE SUBURBICAN CHURCHES.

    Although, as Hefele well says, "It is evident that the Council
has not in view here the primacy of the Bishop of Rome over the
whole Church, but simply his power as a patriarch," yet it may not
be unimportant to consider what his patriarchal limits may have
been.

(Hefele, Hist. Councils, Vol. I., p. 397.)

    The translation of this [VI.] canon by Rufinus has been
especially an apple of discord. Et ut apud Alexandriam et in urbe
Roma vetusta consuetudo servetur, ut vel ille Egypti vel hic
suburbicariarum ecclesiarum sollicitudinem gerat. In the seventeenth
century this sentence of Rufinus gave rise to a very lively
discussion between the celebrated jurist, Jacob Gothfried
(Gothofredus), and his friend, Salmasius, on one side, and the
Jesuit, Sirmond, on the other. The great prefecture of Italy, which
contained about a third of the whole Roman Empire, was divided into
four vicariates, among which the vicariate of Rome was the first. At
its head were two officers, the praefectus urbi and the vicarius
urbis. The praefectus urbi exercised authority over the city of
Rome, and further in a suburban circle as far as the hundredth
milestone, The boundary of the vicarius urbis comprised ten
provinces--Campania, Tuscia with Ombria, Picenum, Valeria, Samnium,
Apulia with Calabria, Lucania and that of the Brutii, Sicily,
Sardinia, and Corsica. Gothfried and Salmasius maintained, that by
the regiones suburbicariae the little territory of the praefectus
urbi must be understood; while, according to Sirmond, these words
designate the whole territory of the vicarius urbis. In our time Dr.
Maasen has proved in his book,(2) already quoted several times, that
Gothfried and Salmasius were right in maintaining that, by the
regiones suburbicariae, the little territory of the praefectus urbi
must be alone understood.
    Hefele thinks that Phillips "has proved" that the Bishop of Rome
had patriarchal rights over places outside the limits of the ten
provinces of the vicarius urbis; but does not agree

17

with Phillips in thinking Rufinus in error. As a matter of fact the
point is a difficult one, and has little to do with the gist of the
meaning of the canon. One thing is certain: the early Latin version
of the canons, called the Prisca, was not satisfied with the Greek
wording and made the Canon read thus: "It is of ancient custom that
the bishop of the city of Rome should have a primacy (principatum),
so that he should govern with care the suburban places, AND ALL HIS
OWN PROVINCE."(1) Another interesting reading is that found in
several MSS. which begins, "The Church of Rome hath always had a
primacy (primatum)," and as a matter of fact the early date of this
addition is evinced by the fact that the canon was actually quoted
in this shape by Paschasinus at the Council of Chalcedon.
    Hefele further on says, "The Greek commentators Zonaras and
Balsamon (of the twelfth century) say very explicitly, in their
explanation of the Canons of Nice, that this sixth canon confirms
the rights of the Bishop of Rome as patriarch over the whole West,"
and refers to Beveridge's Synodicon, Tom. I., pp. 66 and 67. After
diligent search I can find nothing to warrant the great amplitude of
this statement. Balsamon's interpretation is very vague, being
simply that the Bishop of Rome is over the Western Eparchies
(<greek>tpn</greek> <greek>esperiwn</greek> <greek>eparkiwn</greek>)
and Zonaras still more vaguely says that <greek>tpn</greek>
<greek>esperiwn</greek> <greek>arkein</greek> <greek>eqos</greek>
<greek>ekrathse</greek>. That the whole West was in a general way
understood to be in the Roman Patriarchate I have no doubt, that the
Greek scholiasts just quoted deemed it to be so I think most
probably the case, but it does not seem to me that they have said so
in the particular place cited. It seems to me that all they meant to
say was that the custom observed at Alexandria and Antioch was no
purely Eastern and local thing, for a similar state of affairs was
found in the West.

------------------------------------------------------------

First Council of Constantinople

CANON II.

    THE bishops are not to go beyond their dioceses to churches
lying outside of their bounds, nor bring confusion on the churches;
but let the Bishop of Alexandria, according to the canons, alone
administer the affairs of Egypt; and let the bishops of the East
manage the East alone, the privileges of the Church in Antioch,
which are mentioned in the canons of Nice, being preserved; and let
the bishops of the Asian Diocese administer the Asian affairs only;
and the Pontic bishops only Pontic matters; and the Thracian bishops
only Thracian affairs. And let not bishops go beyond their dioceses
for ordination or any other ecclesiastical ministrations, unless
they be invited. And the aforesaid canon concerning dioceses being
observed, it is evident that the

177

synod of every province will administer the affairs of that
particular province as was decreed at Nice. But the Churches of God
in heathen nations must be governed according to the custom which
has prevailed from the times of the Fathers.

NOTES.

ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON II.

    No traveller shall introduce confusion into the Churches either
by ordaining or by enthroning. Nevertheless in Churches which are
among the heathen the tradition of the Fathers shall be preserved.

    In the above Ancient Epitome it will be noticed that not only is
ordination mentioned but also the "inthronization" of bishops. Few
ceremonies are of greater antiquity in the Christian Church than the
solemn placing of the newly chosen bishop in the episcopal chair of
his diocese. It is mentioned in the Apostolical Constitutions, and
in the Greek Pontificals. Also in the Arabic version of the Nicene
Canons. (No. lxxi.). A sermon was usually delivered by the newly
consecrated bishop, called the "sermo enthronisticus." He also sent
to neighbouring bishops <greek>sullabai</greek>
<greek>enqronistikai</greek>, and the fees the new bishops paid were
called <greek>ta</greek> <greek>enqronistika</greek>.

VALESIUS.
(Note on Socrates, H.E.v., 8).
    This rule seems to have been made chiefly on account of
Meletius, Bishop of Antioch, Gregory Nazianzen, and Peter of
Alexandria. For Meletius leaving the Eastern diocese had come to
Constantinople to ordain Gregory bishop there. And Gregory having
abandoned the bishoprick of Sasima, which was in the Pontic diocese,
had removed to Constantinople. While Peter of Alexandria had sent to
Constantinople seven Egyptian bishops to ordain Maximus the Cynic.
For the purpose therefore of repressing these [disorders], the
fathers of the Synod of Constantinople made this canon.

BALSAMON.

    Take notice from the present canon that formerly all the
Metropolitans of provinces were themselves the heads of their own
provinces, and were ordained by their own synods. But all this was
changed by Canon xxviij of the Synod of Chalcedon, which directs
that the Metropolitans of the dioceses of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace,
and certain others which are mentioned in this Canon should be
ordained by the Patriarch of Constantinople and should be subject to
him. But if you find other churches which are autocephalous as the
Church of Bulgaria, of Cyprus, of Iberia, you need not be
astonished. For the Emperor Justinian gave this honour to the
Archbishop of Bulgaria. ... The third Synod gave this honour to the
Archbishop of Cyprus, and by the law of the same synod (Canon
viii.), and by the Sixth Synod in its xxxixth Canon, the judgment of
the Synod of Antioch is annulled and this honour granted to the
bishop of Iberia.

TILLEMONT.
(Mem. ix., 489).
    The Council seems likewise to reject, whether designedly or
inadvertently, what had been ordained by the Council of Sardica in
favour of Rome. But as assuredly it did not affect to prevent either
Ecumenical Councils, or even general Councils of the East, from
judging of matters brought before them, so I do not know if one may
conclude absolutely that they intended to forbid appeals to Rome. It
regulates proceedings between Dioceses, but not what might concern
superior tribunals.

FLEURY.
(Hist. Eccl. in loc.).
    This Canon, which gives to the councils of particular places
full authority in Ecclesiastical matters, seems to take away the
power of appealing to the Pope granted by the Council of Sardica,
and to restore the ancient right.

HEFELE.

    An exception to the rule against interference in other
patriarchates was made with regard to those Churches newly rounded
amongst barbarous nations (not belonging to the Roman Empire), as
these were of course  obliged to receive their first bishops from
strange patriarchates, and remained after wards too few in number to
form patriarchates of their own and were therefore governed as
belonging to other patriarchates, as, for instance, Abyssinia by the
patriarchate of Alexandria.

178

CANON III.

    THE Bishop of Constantinople, however, shall have the
prerogative of honour after the Bishop of Rome; because
Constantinople is New Rome.

NOTES.

ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON III.

    The bishop of Constantinople is to be honoured next after the
bishop of Rome.

    It should be remembered that the change effected by this canon
did not affect Rome directly in any way, but did seriously affect
Alexandria and Antioch, which till then had ranked next after the
see of Rome. When the pope refused to acknowledge the authority of
this canon, he was in reality defending the principle laid down in
the canon of Nice, that in such matters the ancient customs should
continue. Even the last clause, it would seem, could give no offence
to the most sensitive on the papal claims, for it implies a
wonderful power in the rank of Old Rome, if a see is to rank next to
it because it happens to be "New Rome." Of course these remarks
only refer to the wording of the canon which   is carefully guarded;
the intention doubtless  was to exalt the see of Constantinople, the
chief see of the East, to a position of as near equality as possible
with the chief see of the West.

ZONARAS.

    In this place the Council takes action concerning
Constantinople, to which it decrees the prerogative of honour, the
priority, and the glory after the Bishop of Rome as being New Rome
and the Queen of cities. Some indeed wish to understand the
preposition <greek>meta</greek> here of time and not of inferiority
of grade. And they strive to confirm this interpretation by a
consideration of the XXVIII canon of Chalcedon, urging that if
Constantinople is to enjoy equal honours, the preposition "after"
cannot signify subjection. But on the other hand the hundred and
thirtieth novel of Justinian,(1) Book V of the Imperial
Constitutions, title three, understands the canon otherwise. For, it
says, "we decree that the most holy Pope of Old Rome, according to
the decrees of the holy synods is the first of all priests, and that
the most blessed bishop of Constantinople and of New Rome, should
have the second place after the Apostolic Throne of the Elder Rome,
and should be superior in honour to all others." From this therefore
it is abundantly evident that "after" denotes subjection
(<greek>upobibasmon</greek>) and diminution. And otherwise it would
be impossible to guard this equality of honour in each see. For in
reciting their names, or assigning them seats when they are to sit
together, or arranging the order of their signatures to documents,
one must come before the other. Whoever therefore shall explain this
particle <greek>meta</greek> as only referring to time, and does not
admit that it signifies an inferior grade of dignity, does violence
to the passage and draws from it a meaning neither true nor good.
Moreover in Canon xxxvj of the Council in Trullo,
<greek>meta</greek> manifestly denotes subjection, assigning to
Constantinople the second place after the throne of Old Rome; and
then adds, after this Alexandria, then Antioch, and last of all
shall be placed Jerusalem.

HEFELE.

    If we enquire the reason why this Council tried to change the
order of rank of the great Sees, which had been established in the
sixth Nicene canon, we must first take into consideration that,
since the elevation of Constantinople to the Imperial residence, as
New Rome, the bishops as well as the Emperors naturally wished to
see the new imperial residence, New Rome, placed immediately after
Old Rome in ecclesiastical rank also; the rather, as with the Greeks
it was the rule for the ecclesiastical rank of a See to follow the
civil rank of the city. The Synod of Antioch in 341, in its ninth
canon, had plainly declared this, and subsequently the fourth
General Council, in its seventeenth canon, spoke in the same sense.
But how these principles were protested against on the side of Rome,
we shall see further on in the history of the fourth General
Council. For the present, it may suffice to add that the aversion to
Alexandria which, by favouring Maximus, had exercised such a
disturbing influence on Church affairs in Constantinople, may well
have helped to effect the elevation of the See of Constantinople
over that of Alexandria. Moreover, for many centuries Rome did not
recognize this change of the old ecclesiastical order. In the
sixteenth session of the fourth General

179

Council, the Papal Legate, Lucentius, expressly declared this. In
like manner the Popes Leo the Great and Gregory the Great pronounced
against it; and though even Gratian adopted this canon in his
collection the Roman critics added the following note: Canon hic ex
iis est, quos Apostolica Romana Sedes a principio et longo post
tempore non recepit. It was only when, after the conquest of
Constantinople by the Latins, a Latin patriarchate was founded there
in 1204, that Pope Innocent III, and the twelfth General Council, in
1215, allowed this patriarch the first rank after the Roman; and the
same recognition was expressly awarded to the Greek Patriarch at the
Florentine Union in 1439.

T. W. ALLIES.(1)
    Remarkable enough it is that when, in the Council of Chalcedon,
appeal was made to this third Canon, the Pope St. Leo declared that
it had never been notified to Rome. As in the mean time it had taken
effect throughout the whole East, as in this very council Nectarius,
as soon as he is elected, presides instead of Timothy of Alexandria,
it puts in a strong point of view the real self-government of the
Eastern Church at this time; for the giving the Bishop of
Constantinople precedence over Alexandria and Antioch was a
proceeding which affected the whole Church, and so far altered its
original order--one in which certainly the West might claim to have
a voice. Tillemont goes on: "It would be very difficult to justify
St. Leo, if he meant that the Roman Church had never known that the
Bishop of Constantinople took the second place in the Church, and
the first in the East, since his legates, whose conduct he entirely
approves, had just themselves authorized it as  a thing beyond
dispute, and Eusebius of Dorylaeum maintained that St. Leo himself
had
proved it." The simple fact is, that, exceedingly unwilling as the
Bishops of Rome were to sanction it, from this time, 381, to say the
least, the Bishop of Constantinople appears uniformly as first
bishop of the East.

    Cardinal Baronius in his Annals (A.D. 381, n. 35, 36) has
disputed the genuineness of this Canon! As already mentioned it is
found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Decretum, Pars I., Dist. XXII,
c. iij. The note added to this in Gratian reads as follows:

NOTE IN GRATIAN'S "DECRETUM."
    This canon is of the number of those which the Apostolic See of
Rome did not at first nor for long years afterwards receive. This is
evident from Epistle LI. (or LIII.) of Pope Leo I. to Anatolius of
Constantinople and from several other of his letters. The same thing
also is shewn by two letters of Leo IX.'s, the one against the
presumptuous acts of Michael and Leo (cap. 28) and the other
addressed to the same Michael. But still more clearly is this seen
from the letter of Blessed Gregory (xxxj., lib. VI.) to Eulogius of
Alexandria and Anastasius of Antioch, and from the letter of
Nicholas I. to the Emperor Michel which begins "Proposueramus."
However, the bishops of Constantinople, sustained by the authority
of the Emperors, usurped to themselves the second place among the
patriarchs, and this at length was  granted to them for the sake of
peace and tranquillity, as Pope Innocent III. declares (in cap.
antiqua de privileg.).(2)

    This canon Dionysius Exiguus appends to Canon 2, and dropping 5,
6, and 7 he has but three canons of this Synod.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Council of Ephesus

THE LETTER OF THE SYNOD TO POPE CELESTINE.

    (Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. III., col. 659; also in
Migne, Pat. Lat. [reprinted from Galland., Vett. Patr., Tom. ix.],
Tom. L., Ep. xx., col. 511.)

THE RELATION WHICH THE HOLY COUNCIL OF EPHESUS SENT TO POPE
CELESTINE; IN WHICH ARE EXPLAINED WHAT THINGS WERE DONE IN THAT HOLY
AND GREAT COUNCIL.

    The Holy Synod which by the grace of God was assembled at
Ephesus the Metropolis to the most holy and our fellow-minister
Coelestine, health in the Lord.

 The zeal of your holiness for piety, and your care for the right
faith, so grateful and highly pleasing to God the Saviour of us all,
are worthy of all admiration. For it is your custom in such great
matters to make trial of all things, and the confirmation of the
Churches you have made your own care. But since it is right that all
things which have taken place should be brought to the knowledge of
your holiness, we are writing of necessity [to inform you] that, by
the will of Christ the Saviour of us all, and in accordance with the
orders of the most pious and Christ-loving Emperors, we assembled
together in the Metropolis of the Ephesians from many and far
scattered regions, being in all over two hundred bishops. Then, in
accordance with the decrees of the Christ-loving Emperors by whom we
were assembled, we fixed the date of the meeting of the holy Synod
as the Feast of the Holy Pentecost, all agreeing thereto, especially
as it was contained in the letters of the Emperors that if anyone
did not arrive at the appointed time, he was absent with no good
conscience, and was inexcusable both before God and man. The most
reverend John bishop of Antioch stopped behind; not in singleness of
heart, nor because the length of the journey made the impediment,
but hiding in his mind his plan and his thought (which was so
displeasing to God,) [a plan and thought] which he made clear when
not long afterwards he arrived at Ephesus.

Therefore we put off the assembling [of the council] after the
appointed day of the  Holy Pentecost for sixteen whole days; in
the meanwhile many of the bishops and clerics were overtaken with
illness, and much burdened by the expense, and some even died. A
great injury was thus being done to the great Synod, as your
holiness easily perceives. For he used perversely such long delay
that many from much greater distances arrived before him.

[...]

    With our brethren and fellow-ministers, both Cyril the bishop
and Memnon, who had endured reproval at their hands, we are all in
communion, and after the rashness [of their accusers] we both have
and do per-

form the liturgy in common, all together celebrating the Synaxis,
having made of none effect their play in writing, and having thus
shewn that it lacked all validity and effect. For it was mere
reviling and nothing else. For what kind of a synod could thirty men
hold, some of whom were marked with the stamp of heresy, and some
without sees and ejected [from their dioceses]? Or what strength
could it have in opposition to a synod gathered from all the whole
world? For there were sitting with us the most reverend bishops
Arcadius and Projectus, and with them the most holy presbyter
Philip, all of whom were sent by your holiness, who gave to us your
presence and filled the place of the Apostolic See
(<greek>ths</greek> <greek>apostolikhs</greek>
<greek>kaqedras</greek>). Let then your holiness be angered at what
took place. But if license were granted to such as wished to pour
reproval upon the greater sees, and thus unlawfully and
uncanonically to give sentence or rather to utter revilings against
those over whom they have no power, against those who for religion
have endured such great conflicts, by reason of which now also piety
shines forth through  the prayers of your holiness [if, I say, all
this should be tolerated], the affairs of the Church would fall into
the greatest confusion. But when those who dare to do such things
shall have been chastised aright, all disturbance will cease, and
the reverence due to the canons will be observed by all.
When there had been read in the holy Synod what had been done
touching the deposition of the most irreligious Pelagians  and
Coelestines, of Coelestius, and Pelagius,  and Julian, and
Praesidius, and Florus, and Marcellian, and Orontius, and those
inclined to like errors, we also deemed it right
(<greek>edikaiwsamen</greek>) that the determinations of your
holiness concerning them should stand strong and firm. And we all
were of the same mind, holding them deposed. And that you may know
in full all things that have been done, we have sent you a copy of
the Acts, and of the subscriptions of the Synod. We pray that you,
dearly beloved t and most longed for, may be strong and  mindful of
us in the Lord. (3)


            THE LETTER OF POPE COELESTINE TO THE SYNOD OF EPHESUS.
(Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. III., col. 613. Also Migne, Pat.
Lat., Tom. L, col. 505.(1))

    Coelestine the bishop to the holy Synod assembled at Ephesus,
brethren beloved and most longed for, greeting in the Lord.
    A Synod of priests gives witness to the presence of the Holy
Spirit. For true is that which we read, since the Truth cannot lie,
to wit, the promise of the Gospel; "Where two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." And since
tiffs is so, if the Holy Spirit is not absent from so small a number
how much more may we believe he is present when so great a multitude
of holy ones are assembled together! Every council is holy on
account of a peculiar veneration which is its due; for in every such
council the reverence which should be paid to that most famous
council of the Apostles of which we read is to be had regard to.
Never was the Master, whom they had received to preach, lacking to
this, but ever was present as Lord and Master; and never were those
who taught deserted by their teacher. For he that had sent them was
their teacher; he who had commanded what was to be taught, was their
teacher; he who affirms that he himself is heard in his Apostles,
was their teacher. This duty of preaching has been entrusted to all
the Lord's priests in common, for by right of inheritance we are
bound to undertake this solicitude, whoever of us preach the name of
the Lord in divers lands in their stead for he said to  them, "Go,
teach all nations." You, dear  brethren, should observe that we have
received a general command: for he wills that all of us should
perform that office, which he titus entrusted in common to all the
Apostles. We must needs follow our predecessors. Let us all, then,
undertake their labours, since we are the successors in their
honour. And we shew forth our diligence in preaching the same
doctrines that they taught, beside which, according to the
admonition of the Apostle, we are forbidden to add aught. For the
office of keeping what is committed to our trust is no less
dignified than that of handing it down.
    They sowed the seed of the faith. This shall be our care that
the coming of our great father of the family, to whom alone
assuredly this fulness of the Apostles is assigned, may find fruit
uncorrupt and many fold. For the vase of election tells us that it
is not sufficient to plant and to water unless God gives the
increase. We must strive therefore in common to keep the faith which
has come down to us to-day, through the Apostolic Succession. For we
are expected to walk according to the Apostle. For now not our
appearance (species) but our faith is called in question. Spiritual
weapons are those we must take, because the war is one of minds, and
the weapons are words; so shall we be strong in the faith of our
King. Now the Blessed Apostle Paul admonishes that all should remain
in that place in which he bid Timothy remain. The same place
therefore, the same cause, lays upon us the same duty. Let us now
also do and study

221

that which he then commanded him to do. And let no one think
otherwise, and let no one pay heed to over strange fables, as he
himself ordered. Let us be unanimous thinking the same thing, for
this is expedient: let us do nothing out of contention, nothing out
of vain glory: let us be in all things of one mind, of one heart,
when the faith which is one, is attacked. Let the whole body grieve
and mourn in common with us. He who is to judge the world is called
into judgment; he who is to criticise all, is himself made the
object of criticism, he who redeemed us is made to suffer calumny.
Dear Brethren, gird ye with the armour of God. Ye know what helmet
must protect our head, what breast-plate our breast. For this is not
the first time the ecclesiastical camps have received you as their
rulers. Let no one doubt that by the favour of the Lord who maketh
twain to be one, there will be peace, and that arms will be laid
aside since the very cause defends itself.
    Let us look once again at these words of our Doctor, which he
uses with express reference to bishops, saying, "Take heed to
yourselves and to the whole flock, over which the Holy Ghost has
placed you as bishop, that ye rule the church of God, which he hath
purchased with his blood."
    We read that they who heard this at Ephesus, the same place at
which your holiness is come together, were called thence. To them
therefore to whom this preaching of the faith was known, to them
also let your defence of the same faith also be known. Let us shew
them the constancy of our mind with that reverence which is due to
matters of great importance; which things peace has guarded for a
long time with pious understanding.
    Let there be announced by you what things have been preserved
intact from the Apostles; for the words of tyrannical opposition are
never admitted against the King of Kings, nor can the business of
truth be oppressed by falsehood.

[...]
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Council of Chalcedon

CANON XXVIII.
    FOLLOWING in all things the decisions of the holy Fathers, and
acknowledging the canon, which has been just read, of the One
Hundred and Fifty Bishops beloved-of-God (who assembled in the
imperial city of Constantinople, which is New Rome, in the time of
the Emperor Theodosius of happy memory), we also do enact and decree
the same things concerning the privileges of the most holy Church of
Constantinople, which is New Rome. For the Fathers rightly granted
privileges to the throne of old Rome, because it was the royal city.
And the One Hundred and Fifty most religious Bishops, actuated by
the same consideration, gave equal privileges (<greek>isa</greek>
<greek>presbeia</greek>) to the most holy throne of New Rome, justly
judging that the city which is honoured with the Sovereignty and the
Senate, and enjoys equal privileges with the old imperial Rome,
should in ecclesiastical matters also be magnified as she is, and
rank next after her; so that, in the Pontic, the Asian, and the
Thracian dioceses, the metropolitans only and such bishops also of
the Dioceses aforesaid as are among the barbarians, should be
ordained by the aforesaid most holy throne of the most holy Church
of Constantinople; every metropolitan of the aforesaid dioceses,
together with the bishops of his province, ordaining his own
provincial bishops, as has been declared by the divine canons; but
that, as has been above said, the metropolitans of the aforesaid
Dioceses should be ordained by the archbishop of Constantinople,
after the proper elections have been held according to custom and
have been reported to him.

NOTE.

ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON XXVIII.
    The bishop of New Rome shall enjoy the same honour as the bishop
of Old Rome, on account of the removal of the Empire. For this
reason the [metropolitans] of Pontus, of Asia, and of Thrace, as
well as the Barbarian bishops shall be ordained by the bishop of
Constantinople.

VAN ESPEN.
    It is certain that this canon was expressly renewed by canon
xxxvi. of the Council of Trullo and from that time has been numbered
by the Greeks among the canons; and at last it was acknowledged by
some Latin collectors also, and was placed by Gratian in his
Decretum, although clearly with a different sense. (Pars I., Dist.
xxii., C. vj.)

BRIGHT.
    Here is a great addition to the canon of 381, so ingeniously
linked on to it as to seem at first sight a part of it. The words
<greek>kai</greek> <greek>wste</greek> are meant to suggest that
what follows is in fact involved in what has preceded: whereas a new
point of departure is here taken, and instead of a mere "honorary
pre-eminence" the bishop of Constantinople acquires a vast
jurisdiction, the independent authority of three exarchs being
annulled in order to make him patriarch. Previously he had
<greek>proedria</greek> now he gains <greek>prostasia</greek>. As we
have

288

seen, a series of aggrandizements in fact had prepared for this
aggrandizement in law; and various metropolitans of Asia Minor
expressed their contentment at seeing it effected. "It is, indeed,
more than probable that the self-assertion of Rome excited the
jealousy of her rival of the East," and thus "Eastern bishops
secretly felt that the cause of Constantinople was theirs" (Gore's
Leo the Great. p. 120); but the gratification of Constantinople
ambition was not the less, in a canonical sense, a novelty, and the
attempt to enfold it in the authority of the Council of 381 was
rather astute than candid. The true plea, whatever might be its
value, was that the Council had to deal with a fait accompli, which
it was wise at once to legalize and to regulate; that the
"boundaries of the respective exarchates ... were ecclesiastical
arrangements made with a view to the general good and peace of the
Church, and liable to vary with the dispensations to which the
Church was providentially subjected," so that "by confirming the
<greek>ek</greek> <greek>pollou</greek> <greek>krathsan</greek>
<greek>eqos</greek>" in regard to the ordination of certain
metropolitans (see Ep. of Council to Leo, Leon. Epist. xcviij., 4),
"they were acting in the spirit, while violating the letter, of the
ever-famous rule of Nicaea, <greek>ta</greek> <greek>arkeia</greek>
<greek>eqh</greek> <greek>krateito</greek> (cp. Newman, Transl. of
Fleury, iii., 407). It is observable that Aristenus(1) and Symeon,
Logothetes reckon this decree as a XXIXth canon (Justellus, ii.,
694, 720).
    After the renewal of this canon by the Council of Trullo,
Gratian adds "The VIIIth Synod held under Pope Hadrian II., canon
xxj." (Decretum Pars I., Diet. xxij., C. vii.) "We define that no
secular power shall hereafter dishonour anyone of these who rule our
patriarchal sees, or attempt to move them from their proper throne,
but shall judge them worthy of all reverence and honour; chiefly the
most holy Pope of Old Rome, and then the Patriarch of
Constantinople, and then those of Alexandria, and Antioch, and
Jerusalem."
    Some Greek codices have the following heading to this canon.
    "Decree of the same holy Synod published on account of the
privileges of the throne of the most holy Church of Constantinople."

TILLEMONT.
    This canon seems to recognise no particular authority in the
Church of Rome, save what the Fathers had granted it, as the seat of
the empire. And it attributes in plain words as much to
Constantinople as to Rome, with the exception of the first place.
Nevertheless I do not observe that the Popes took up a thing so
injurious to their dignity, and of so dangerous a consequence to the
whole Church. For what Lupus quotes of St. Leo's lxxviij. (civ)
letter, refers rather to Alexandria and to Antioch, than to Rome.
St. Leo is contented to destroy the foundation on which they built
the elevation of Constantinople, maintaining that a thing so
entirely ecclesiastical as the episcopate ought not to be regulated
by the temporal dignity of cities, which, nevertheless, has been
almost always followed in the establishment of the metropolis,
according to the Council of Nicea.
    St. Leo also complains that the Council of Chalcedon broke the
decrees of the Council of Nice, the practice of antiquity, and the
rights of Metropolitans. Certainly it was an odious innovation to
see a Bishop made the chief, not of one department but of three; for
which no example could be found save in the authority which the
Popes took over Illyricum, where, however, they did not claim the
power to ordain any Bishop.

EXCURSUS ON THE LATER HISTORY OF CANON XXVIII.
    Among the bishops who gave their answers at the last session to
the question whether their subscription to the canons was voluntary
or forced was Eusebius, bishop of Doryloeum, an Asiatic bishop who
said that he had read the Constantinopolitan canon to "the holy pope
of Rome in presence of clerics of Constantinople, and that he had
accepted it" (L. and C., Conc., iv. 815). But quite possibly this
evidence is of little value. But what is more to the point is that
the Papal legates most probably had already at this very council
recognized the right of Constantinople to rank immediately after
Rome. For at the very first session when the Acts of the Latrocinium
were read, it was found that to Flavian, the Archbishop of
Constantinople, was given only the fifth place. Against this the
bishop protested and asked, "Why

289

did not Flavian receive his position?" and the papal legate
Paschasinus answered: "We will, please God, recognize the present
bishop Anatolius of Constantinople as the first [i.e. after us], but
Dioscorus made Flavian the fifth." It would seem to be in vain to
attempt to escape the force of these words by comparing with them
the statement made in the last session, in a moment of heat and
indignation, by Lucentius the papal legate, that the canons of
Constantinople were not found among those of the Roman Code. It may
well be that this statement was true, and yet it does not in any way
lessen the importance of the fact that at the first session a very
different thing from the sixteenth) Paschasinus had admitted that
Constantinople enjoyed the second place. It would seem that Quesnel
has proved his point, notwithstanding the attempts of the Ballerini
to counteract and overthrow his arguments.
    It would be the height of absurdity for any one to attempt to
deny that the canon of Constantinople was entirely in force and
practical execution, as far of those most interested were concerned,
long before the meeting of the council of Chalcedon, and in 394,
only thirteen years after the adoption of the canon, we find the
bishop of Constantinople presiding at a synod at which both the
bishop of Alexandria and the bishop of Antioch were present.
    St. Leo made, in connexion with this matter, some statements
which perhaps need not be commented upon, but should certainly not
be forgotten. In his epistle to Anatolius (no. cvi.) in speaking of
the third canon of Constantinople he says: "That document of certain
bishops has never been brought by your predecessors to the knowledge
of the Apostolic See." And in writing to the Empress (Ep. cv., ad
Pulch.) he makes the following statement, strangely contrary to what
she at least knew to be the fact, "To this concession a long course
of years has given no effect!"
    We need not stop to consider the question why Leo rejected the
xxviijth canon of Chalcedon. It is certain that he rejected it and
those who wish to see the motive of this rejection considered at
length are referred to Quesnel and to the Ballerini; the former
affirming that it was because of its encroachments upon the
prerogatives of his own see, the latter urging that it was only out
of his zeal for the keeping in full force of the Nicene decree.
    Leo can never be charged with weakness. His rejection of the
canon was absolute and unequivocal. In writing to the Emperor he
says that Anatolius only got the See of Constantinople by his
consent, that he should behave himself modestly, and that there is
no way he can make of Constantinople "an Apostolic See," and adds
that "only from love of peace and for the restoration of the unity
of the faith" he has "abstained from annulling this ordination" (Ep.
civ.).
    To the Empress he wrote with still greater violence: "As for the
resolution of the bishops which is contrary to the Nicene decree, in
union with your faithful piety, I declare it to be invalid and annul
it by the authority of the holy Apostle Peter" (Ep. cv.).
    The papal annulling does not appear to have been of much force,
for Leo himself confesses, in a letter written about a year later to
the Empress Pulcheria (Ep. cxvi.), that the Illyrian bishops had
since the council subscribed the xxviiith canon.
    The pope had taken occasion in his letter in which he announced
his acceptance of the doctrinal decrees of Chalcedon to go on
further and express his rejection of the canons. This part of the
letter was left unread throughout the Greek empire, and Leo
complains of it to Julian of Cos (Ep. cxxvij.).
    Leo never gave over his opposition, although the breach was made
up between him and Anatolius by an apparently insincere letter on
the part of the latter (Ep. cxxxii.). Leo's successors followed his
example in rejecting the canons, both the IIId of Constantinople and
the XXVIIIth of Chalcedon, but as M. l'abbe Duchesne so admirably
says: "Mais leur voix fut peu ecoutee; on leur accorda sans doute
des satisfactions, mais de pure ceremonie."(1) But

290

Justinian acknowledged the Constantinopolitan and Chalcedonian rank
of Constantinople in his CXXXIst Novel. (cap. j.), and the Synod in
Trullo in canon xxxvj. renewed exactly canon xxviij. of Chalcedon.
Moreover the Seventh Ecumenical with the approval of the Papal
Legates gave a general sanction to all the canons accepted by the
Trullan Synod. And finally in 1215 the Fourth Council of the Lateran
in its Vth Canon acknowledged Constantinople's rank as immediately
after Rome, but this was while Constantinople was in the hands of
the Latins! Subsequently at Florence the second rank, in accordance
with the canons of I. Constantinople and of Chalcedon (which had
been annulled by Leo) was given to the Greek Patriarch of
Constantinople, and so the opposition of Rome gave way after seven
centuries and a half, and the Nicene Canon which Leo declared to be
"inspired by the Holy Ghost" and "valid to the end of time" (Ep.
cvi.), was set at nought by Leo's successor in the Apostolic See.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

A.D. 553.

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

[...]

    Such were the Acts of the fifth Council. This it learnt from the
third and fourth Councils, and approved; and in this argument we
have brought at once in favour of our opinion the decrees of three
Ecumenical Councils, of Ephesus, of Chalcedon, and the second Con-

300

stantinopolitan. The Emperor Justinian desired that the question
concerning the above-mentioned Three Chapters should be considered
in the Church. He therefore sent for Pope Vigilius to
Constantinople. There he not long after assembled a council. He and
the Orientals thought it of great moment that these Chapters should
be condemned, against the Nestorians, who were raising their heads
to defend them; Vigilius, with the Occidentals, feared let this
occasion should be taken to destroy the authority of the Council of
Chalcedon: because it was admitted that Theodoret and Ibas had been
received in that Council, whilst Theodore, though named, was let go
without any mark of censure. Though then both parties easily agreed
as to the substance of the Faith, yet the question had entirely
respect to the Faith, it being feared by the one party lest the
Nestorian, by the other lest the Eutychian, enemies of the Council
of Chalcedon should prevail. Vigilius on the 11th of April, 548,
issues his "Judicatum" against the Three Chapters, saving the
authority of the Council of Chalcedon. Thereupon the Bishops of
Africa, Illyria, and Dalmatia, with two of his own confidential
Deacons, withdraw from his communion. In the year 550 the African
Bishops, under Reparatus of Carthage, not only reject the Judicatum,
but anathematize Vigilius himself, and sever him from Catholic
Communion, reserving to him a place for repentance. At length the
Pope publicly withdraws his "Judicatum." While the Council is
sitting at Constantinople he publishes his "Constitutum," in which
he condemns certain propositions of Theodore, but spares his person;
the same respecting Theodoret; but with respect to Ibas, he declares
that his letter was pronounced orthodox by the Council of Chalcedon.
However this may be, so much is clear, that Vigilius, though
invited, declined being present at the council: that nevertheless
the council was held without him; that he published a "Constitutum,"
in which he disapproved of what Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas were
said to have written against the Faith; but decreed that their names
should be spared because they were considered to have been received
by the fourth Council, or to have died in the communion of the
Church, and to be reserved to the judgment of God. Concerning the
letter of Ibas, he published the following, that, "understood in the
best and most pious sense," it was blameless; and concerning the
three Chapters generally, he ordered that after his present
declaration ecclesiastics should move no further question.
    Such was the decree of Vigilius, issued upon the authority with
which he was invested. But the council, after his Constitution, both
raised a question about the Three Chapters, and decided that
question was properly raised concerning the dead, and that the
letter of Ibas was manifestly heretical and Nestorian, and contrary
in all things to the Faith of Chalcedon, and that they were
altogether accursed, who defended the impious Theodore of
Mopsuestia, or the writings of Theodoret against Cyril, or the
impious letter of Ibas defending the tenets of Nestorius: and all
such as did not anathematize it, but said it was correct.
    In these latter words they seemed not even to spare Vigilius,
although they did not mention his name. And it is certain their
decree was confirmed by Pelagius the Second, Gregory the Great, and
other Roman Pontiffs. These things prove, that in a matter of the
utmost importance, disturbing the whole Church, and seeming to
belong to the Faith, the decrees of sacred councils prevail over the
decrees of Pontiffs, and that the letter of Ibas, though defended by
a judgment of the Roman Pontiff, could nevertheless be proscribed as
heretical.

    EXCURSUS ON THE GENUINENESS OF THE ACTS OF THE FIFTH COUNCIL.

    Some suspicion has arisen with regard to how far the acts of the
Fifth Ecumenical Council may be relied upon. Between the Roman
Manuscript printed by Labbe and the Paris manuscript found in Mansi
there are considerable variations and, strange to say, some of the
most injurious things to the memory of Pope Vigilius are found only
in the Paris manuscript. Moreover we know that the manuscript kept
in the patriarchal archives at Constantinople had been tampered with
during the century that elapsed before the next Ecumenical Synod,
for at that council the forgeries and interpolations were exposed by
the Papal Legates.
    At the XIVth Session of that synod the examination of the
genuineness of the acts of the Second Council of Constantinople was
resumed. It had been begun at the XIIth Session. Up to this time
only two MSS. had been used, now the librarian of the patriarchate
presented a third MS. which he had found in the archives, and swore
that neither himself nor any other so far as he knew had made any
change in these MSS. These were then compared and it was found that
the two first agreed in containing the pretended letter of Mennas to
Pope Vigilius, and the two writings addressed by Vigilius to
Justinian and Theodora; but that none of these were found in the
third MS. It was further found that the documents in dispute were in
a different hand from the rest of the MS, and that in the first book
of the parchment MS., three quarternions had been inserted, and in
the second book between quarternions 15 and 16, four unpaged leaves
had been placed. So too the second MS. had been tampered with. The
council inserted these particulars in a decree, and ordered that
"these additions must be quashed in both MSS., and marked with an
obelus, and the falsifiers must be smitten with anathema." Finally
the council cried out, "Anathema to the pretended letters of Mennas
and Vigilius! Anathema to the forger of Acts! Anathema to all who
teach, etc."
    From all this it would seem that the substantial accuracy of the
rest of the acts have been established by the authority of the Sixth
Synod, and Hefele and all recent scholars follow Mansi's Paris MS.
    It may be well here to add that a most thorough-going attack
upon the acts has been made in late years by Professor Vincenzi, in
defence of Pope Vigilius and of Origen. The reader is referred to
his writings on the subject: In Sancti Gregorii Nysseni et Originis
scripta et doctrinam nova defensio; Vigil., Orig., Justin. triumph.,
in Synod V. (Romae, 1865.) The Catholic Dictionary frankly says that
this is "an attempt to deny the most patent facts, and treat some of
the chief documents as forgeries," and "unworthy of serious
notice."(1)



     THE DECRETAL EPISTLE OF POPE VIGILIUS IN CONFIRMATION OF THE
FIFTH                                  ECUMENICAL SYNOD.

HISTORICAL NOTE.

(Fleury. Hist. Eccl., Liv. xxxiii. 52.)
    At last the Pope Vigilius resigned himself to the advice of the
Council, and six months afterwards wrote a letter to the Patriarch
Eutychius, wherein he confesses that he has been wanting in charity
in dividing from his brethren. He adds, that one ought not to be
ashamed to retract, when one recognises the truth, and brings
forward the example of
Augustine. He says, that, after having better examined the matter of
the Three Chapters, he finds them worthy of condemnation. "We
recognize for our brethren and colleagues all those who have
condemned them, and annul by this writing all that has been done by
us or by others for the defence of the three chapters."

THE DECRETAL LETTER OF POPE
VIGILIUS.

    (The manuscript from which this letter was printed was found in
the Royal Library of Paris by Peter de Marca and by him first
published, with a Latin translation and with a dissertation. Both of
these with the Greek  text are found in Labbe and Cossart's Con-
cilia, Tom. V., col. 596 et seqq.; also in Migne's Patr. Lat., Tom.
LXIX., col. 121 et seqq. Some doubts have been expressed about its
genuineness and Harduin is of opinion that the learned Jesuit,
Garnerius, in his notes on the Deacon Leberatus's Breviary, has
proved its supposititious character. But the learned have not
generally been of this mind but have accepted the letter as
genuine.)

Vigilius to his beloved brother Eutychius.
    No one is ignorant of the scandals which the enemy of the human
race has stirred up in all the world: so that he made each one with
a wicked object in view, striving in some way to fulfil his wish to
destroy the Church of God spread over the whole world, not only in
his own name but even in ours and in those of others to compose
diverse things as well in words as in writing; in so much that he
attempted to divide us who, together with our brethren and fellow
bishops, are stopping in this royal city, and who defend with equal
reverence the four synods, and sincerely persist in the one and the
same faith of those four synods, by his sophistries and machinations
he tried to part from them; so that we ourselves who were and are of
the same opinion as they touching the faith, went apart into
discord, brotherly love being despised.(1)
    But since Christ our God, who is the true light, whom the
darkness comprehendeth not, hath removed all confusion from our
minds, and hath so recalled peace to the whole world and to the
Church, so that what things should be defined by us have been
healthfully fulfilled through the revelation of the Lord and through
the investigation of the truth.
    Therefore, my dear brothers, I do you to wit, that in common
with all of you, our brethren, we receive in all respects the four
synods, that is to say the Nicene, the Constantinopolitan, the first
Ephesian, and the Chalcedonian; and we venerate them with devout
mind, and watch over them with all our mind. And should there be any
who do not follow these holy synods in all things which they have
defined concerning the faith, we judge them to be aliens to the
communion of the holy and Catholic Church.
    Wherefore on account of our desire that you, my brothers, should
know what we have done in this matter, we make it known to you by
this letter. For no one can doubt how many were the discussions
raised on account of the Three Chapters, that is, concerning
Theodore, sometime bishop of Mopsuestia, and his writings, as well
as concerning the writings of Theodoret, and concerning that letter
which is said to have been written by Ibas to Maris the Persian: and
how diverse were the things spoken and written concerning these
Three Chapters. Now if in every busi-

322

ness sound wisdom demands that there should be a retractation of
what was propounded after examination, there ought to be no shame
when what was at first omitted is made public after it is discovered
by a further study of the truth. [And if this is the case in
ordinary affairs] how much more in ecclesiastical strifes should the
same dictate of sound reason be observed? Especially since it is
manifest that our Fathers, and especially the blessed Augustine, who
was in very sooth illustrious in the Divine Scriptures, and a master
in Roman eloquence, retracted some of his own writings, and
corrected some of his own sayings, and added what he had omitted and
afterward found out. We, led by their example never gave over the
study of the questions raised by the controversy with regard to the
before-mentioned Three Chapters, nor our search for passages in the
writings of our Fathers which were applicable to the matter.
    As a result of this investigation it became evident that in the
sayings of Theodore of Mopsuestia (which are spoken against on all
hands) there are contained very many things contrary to the right
faith and to the teachings of the holy Fathers; and for this very
reason these same holy Fathers have left for the instruction of tile
Church treatises which they had written against him.
    For among other blasphemies of his we find that he openly said
that God the Word was one [Person] and Christ another [Person],
vexed with the passions of the soul and with the desires of the
flesh, and that he little by little advanced from a lower to a
higher stage of excellence by the improvement
(<greek>prokiph</greek>, per profectum operum) of his works, and
became irreprehensible in his manner of life.(1) And further he
taught that it was a mere man who was baptized in the Name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and that he received
through ilia baptism the grace of the Holy Spirit, and merited his
adoption; and therefore that Christ could be venerated in the same
way that the image of the Emperor is venerated as being the persona
(<greek>eis</greek> <greek>proswpon</greek>) of God the Word. And he
also taught that [only] after his resurrection he became immutable
in his thoughts and altogether impeccable.
    Moreover he said that the union of the Word of God was made with
Christ as the Apostle says the union is made between a man and his
wife: They twain shall be one flesh; and that after his
resurrection, when the Lord breathed upon his disciples and said,
Receive tile Holy Ghost, he did not give to them the Holy Spirit. In
like strain of profanity he dared to say that the confession which
Thomas made, when he touched the hands and side of the Lord after
his resurrection, saying, My Lord and my God, did not apply to
Christ (for Theodore did not acknowledge Christ to be God); but that
Thomas gave glory to God being filled with wonder at the miracle of
the resurrection, and so said these words.
    But what is still worse is this, that in interpreting the Acts
of the Apostles, Theodore makes Christ like to Plato, and
Manichaeus, and Epicurus, and Marcian, saying: Just as each of these
were the authors of their own peculiar teachings, and called their
disciples after their own names, Platonists, and Munichaeans, and
Epicureans, and Marcionites, just so Christ invented dogmas and
called his followers Christians after himself.
    Let therefore the whole Catholic Church know that justly and
irreproachably we have arrived at the conclusions contained in this
our constitution. Wherefore we condemn and anathematize Theodore,
formerly bishop of Mopsuestia, and his impious writings, together
with all other heretics, who (as is manifest) have been condemned
and anathematized by the four holy Synods aforesaid, and by the
Catholic Church: also the writings of Theodoret which are opposed to
the right faith, and are against the Twelve Chapters of St. Cyril,
and against the first Council of Ephesus, which were written by him
in defence of Theodore and Nestorius.
    Moreover we anathematize and condemn the letter to the Persian
heretic Maris, which is said to have been written by Ibas, which
denies that Christ the Word was incarnate of the holy Mother of God
and ever-virgin Mary, and was made man, but declares that a mere man
was born of her, and this man it styles a temple, so from this we
are given to understand that God the Word is one [Person] and Christ
another [Person]. Moreover it calumniates Saint Cyril, the master
and herald of the orthodox faith, calling him a heretic, and
charging him with writing things similar to Apollinaris; and it
reviles the first Synod of Ephesus, as having condemned Nestorius
without deliberation or investigation; it likewise declares the
twelve chapters of St. Cyril to be impious and contrary to the right
faith; and further still it defends Theodore and Nestorius, and
their impious teachings and writings.
Therefore we anathematize and condemn

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the aforesaid impious Three Chapters, to-wit, the impious Theodore
of Mopsuestia and his impious writings; And all that Theodoret
impiously wrote, as well as the letter said to have been written by
Ibas, in which are contained the above mentioned profane
blasphemies. We likewise subject to anathema whoever shall at any
time believe that these chapters should be received or defended; or
shall attempt to subvert this present condemnation.
    And further we define that they are our brethren and fellow-
priests who ever keep the right faith set forth by those afore-
mentioned synods, and shall have condemned the above-named Three
Chapters, or even do now condemn them.
    And further we annul and evacuate by this present written
definition of ours whatever has been said by me (a me)or by others
in defence of the aforesaid Three Chapters.
    Far be it from the Catholic Church that anyone should say that
all the blasphemies above related or they who held and followed such
things, were received by the before-mentioned four synods or by any
one of them. For it is most clear, that no one was admitted  by the
before-mentioned holy Fathers and especially by the Council of
Chalcedon, about whom there was any suspicion, unless he had  first
repelled the above-named blasphemies and all like to them, or else
had denied and condemned the heresy or blasphemies of which he was
suspected.

Subscription.

    May God preserve thee in health, most honourable brother. Dated
VI. Id. Dec. in the xxijd year of our lord the Emperor Justinian,
eternal Augustus, the xijth year after the consulate of the
illustrious Basil.(1)

          HISTORICAL EXCURSUS ON THE AFTER HISTORY OF THE COUNCIL.

    Pope Vigilius died on his way home, but not until, as we have
seen, he had accepted and approved the action of the council in
doing exactly that which he "by the authority of the Apostolic See"
in his Constitutum had forbidden it to do.(2) He died at the end of
554 or the beginning of 555.
    Pelagius I., who succeeded him in the See of Rome, likewise
confirmed the Acts of the Fifth Synod. The council however was not
received in all parts of the West, although it had obtained the
approval of the Pope. It was bitterly opposed in the whole of tile
north of Italy, in England, France, and Spain, and also in Africa
and Asia. The African opposition died out by 559, but Milan was in
schism until 571, when Pope Justin II. published his "Henoticon." In
Istria the matter was still more serious, and when in 607 the bishop
of Aquileia-Grado with those of his suffragans who were subject to
the Empire made their submission and were reconciled to the Church,
the other bishops of his jurisdiction set up a schismatical
Patriarchate at old Aquileia, and this schism continued till the
Council of Aquileia in 700. But before this the II. Council of
Constantinople was received all the world over as the Fifth
Ecumenical Council; and was fully recognized as such by the Sixth
Council in 680.

------------------------------------------------------------------

THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

A.D. 680-681

THE LETTER OF AGATHO, POPE OF OLD ROME, TO THE EMPEROR, AND THE
LETTER OF AGATHO AND OF BISHOPS OF THE ROMAN SYNOD, ADDRESSED TO THE
SIXTH COUNCIL.

    (Read at the Fourth Session, November 15, at the request of
George, Patriarch of Constantinople and his Suffragans.)

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

(Bossuet, Defensio Cler. Gal. Lib. VII., cap. xxiv.)
    All the fathers spoke one by one, and only after examination
were the letters of St. Agatho and the whole Western Council
approved. Agatho, indeed, and the Western Bishops put forth their
decrees thus ['We have directed persons from our humility to your
valour protected of God, which shall offer to you the report of us
all, that is, of all the Bishops in the Northern or Western Regions,
in which too we have summed up the confession of our Apostolic
Faith, yet(1)] not as those who wished to contend about these things
as being uncertain, but, being certain and unchangeable to see them
forth in a brief definition, [suppliantly beseeching you that, by
the favour of your sacred majesty, you would command these same
things to be preached to all, and to have force with all.']
Undoubtedly, therefore, so far as in them lay, they defined the
matter. The question was, whether the other Churches throughout the
world would agree, and a matter so great was only made clear after
Episcopal examination. But the high, magnificent, yet true
expressions, which St. Agatho had used of his See, namely, that
resting on the promise of the Lord it had never turned aside from
the path of truth, and that its Pontiffs, the predecessors of
Agatho, who were charged in the person of Peter to strengthen their
brethren, had ever discharged that office, this the Fathers of the
Council hear and receive. But not the less they examine the matter,
they inquire into the decrees of Roman Pontiffs, and, after inquiry
held, approve Agatho's decrees, condemn those of Honorius: a certain
proof that they did not understand Agatho's expressions as if it
were necessary to receive without discussion every decree of Roman
Pontiffs even deride, inasmuch as they are subjected to the supreme
and final examination of a General Council: but as if these
expressions taken as a whole, in their total, hold good in the full
and complete succession of Peter, as we have often said, and in its
proper place shall say at greater length.

THE LETTER OF POPE AGATHO.

(Found in Migne, Pat. Lat., Tom. LXXXVII., col. 1161; L. and C.,
Tom. VI., col. 630.)

    Agatho a bishop and servant of the servants of God to the most
devout and serene victors and conquerors, our most beloved sons and
lovers of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Emperor Constantine
the Great, and to Heraclius and Tiberius, Augustuses.
    While contemplating the various anxieties of human life, and
while groaning with vehement weeping before the one true God, in
prayer that he might impart to my wavering soul the comfort of his
divine mercy, and might lift me by his right hand out of the depths
of grief and anxiety, I most gratefully recognize, my most
illustrious lords and sons, that your purpose [i.e. of holding a
Council] afforded me deep and wonderful consolation. For it was most
pious and emanated from your most meek tranquillity, taught by the
divine benignity for the benefit of the Christian

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commonwealth divinely entrusted to your keeping, that your imperial
power and clemency might have a care to enquire diligently
concerning the things of God (through whom Kings do reign, who is
himself King of Kings and Lord of Lords) and might seek after the
truth of his spotless faith as it has been handed down by the
Apostles and by the Apostolic Fathers, and be zealously affected to
command that in all the churches the pure tradition be held. And
that no one may be ignorant of this pious intention of yours, or
suspect that we have been compelled by force, and have not freely
consented to the carrying into effect of the imperial decrees
touching the preaching of our evangelical faith which was addressed
to our predecessor Donus, a pontiff of Apostolic memory, they have
through our ministry been sent to and entirely approved by all
nations and peoples; for these decrees Holy Spirit by his grace
dictated to the tongue of the imperial pen, out of the treasure of a
pure heart, as the words of an adviser not of an oppressor,
defending himself, not looking with contempt upon others; not
afflicting, but exhorting; and inviting to those things which are of
God in godly wise, because he, the Maker and Redeemer of all men,
who had he come in the majesty of his Godhead into the world, might
have terrified mortals, preferred to descend through his inestimable
clemency and humility to the estate of us whom he had created and
thus to redeem us, who also expects from us a willing confession of
the true faith.
    And this it is that the blessed Peter, the prince of the
Apostles, teaches: "Feed the flock of Christ which is among you, not
by constraint, but willingly, exhorting it according to God."
Therefore, encouraged by these imperial decrees, O most meek lords
of all things, and relieved from the depths of affliction and raised
to the hope of consolation, I have begun, refreshed somewhat by a
better confidence, to comply with promptness with the flyings which
were sometime ago bidden by the Sacra of your gentlest fortitude,
and am endeavouring in obedience therewith to find persons, such as
our deficient times and the quality of this obedient province
permit, and taking advice with my fellow-servant bishops, as well
concerning the approaching synod of this Apostolic See, as
concerning our own clergy, the lovers of the Christian Empire, and,
afterwards concerning the religious servants of God, that I might
exhort them to follow in haste the footsteps of your most pious
Tranquillity. And, were it not that the great compass of the
provinces, in which our humility's council is situated had caused so
great a loss of time, our servitude a while ago could have fulfilled
with studious obedience what even now has scarcely been done. For
while from the various provinces a council has been gathering about
us, and while we have been able to select some persons of those from
this very Roman city immediately subject to your most serene power,
or from those near by, others again we have been obliged to wait for
from far distant provinces, in which the word of Christian faith was
preached by those sent by the predecessors of my littleness; and
thus quite a space of time has elapsed: and I pass over my bodily
pains in consequence of which life to a perpetually suffering person
is neither possible nor pleasant. Therefore, most Christian lords
and sons, in accordance with the most pious jussio of your God-
protected clemency, we have had a care to send, with the devotion of
a prayerful heart (from the obedience we owe you, not because we
relied on the [superabundant] knowledge of those whom we send to
you), our fellow-servants here present, Abundantius, John, and John,
our most reverend brother bishops, Theodore and George our most
beloved sons and presbyters, with our most beloved son John, a
deacon, and with Constantine, a subdeacon of this holy spiritual
mother, the Apostolic See, as well as Theodore, the presbyter legate
of the holy Church of Ravenna and the religious servants of God the
monks. For, among men placed amid the Gentiles, and earning their
daily bread by bodily labour with considerable distraction, how
could a knowledge of the Scriptures, in its fulness, be found unless
what has been canonically defined by our holy and apostolic
predecessors, and by the venerable five councils, we preserve in
simplicity of heart, and without any distorting keep the faith come
to us from the Fathers, always desirous and endeavouring to possess
that one and chiefest good, viz.: that nothing be diminished from
the things canonically defined, and that nothing be

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changed nor added thereto, but that those same things, both in words
and sense, be guarded untouched? To these same commissioners we also
have given the witness of some of the holy Fathers, whom this
Apostolic Church of Christ receives, together with their books, so
that, having obtained from the power of your most benign
Christianity the privilege of suggesting, they might out of these
endeavour to give satisfaction, (when your imperial Meekness shall
have so commanded) as to what this Apostolic Church of Christ, their
spiritual mother and the mother of your God-sprung empire, believes
and preaches, not in words of worldly eloquence, which are not at
the command of ordinary men, but in the integrity of the apostolic
fifth, in which having been taught from the cradle, we pray that we
may serve and obey the Lord of heaven, the Propagator of your
Christian empire, even unto the end. Consequently, we have granted
them faculty or authority with your most tranquil mightiness, to
afford satisfaction with simplicity whenever your clemency shall
command, it being enjoined on them as a limitation that they presume
not to add to, take away, or to change anything; but that they set
forth this tradition of the Apostolic See in all sincerity as it has
been taught by the apostolic pontiffs, who were our predecessors.
For these delegates we most humbly implore with bent knees of the
mind your clemency ever full of condescension, that agreeably to the
most benign and most august promise of the imperial Sacra, your
Christlike Tranquillity may deem them worthy of acceptance and may
deign to give a favourable hearing to their most humble suggestions.
Thus may your meekest Piety find the ears of Almighty God open to
your prayers, and may you order that they return to their own
unharmed in their rectitude of our Apostolic faith, as well as in
the integrity of their bodies. And thus may the supernal Majesty
restore to the benign rule of your government through the most
heroic and unconquerable labours of your God-strengthened clemency,
the whole Christian commonwealth, and may he subdue hostile nations
to your mighty sceptre, that there may be satisfaction from this
time forth to every soul and to all nations, because what you
deigned to promise solemnly by your most august letters about the
immunity and safety of those who came to the Council, you have
fulfilled in all respects. It is not their wisdom that gave us
confidence to make bold to send them to your pious presence; but our
littleness obediently complied with what your imperial benignity,
with a gracious order, exhorted to. And briefly we shall intimate to
your divinely instructed Piety, what the strength of our Apostolic
faith contains, which we have received through Apostolic tradition
and through the tradition of the Apostolical pontiffs, and that of
the five holy general synods, through which the foundations of
Christ's Catholic Church have been strengthened and established;
this then is the status [and the regular tradition(1)] of our
Evangelical and Apostolic faith, to wit, that as we confess the holy
and inseparable Trinity, that is, the Father, the Son and the Holy
Ghost, to be of one deity, of one nature and substance or essence,
so we will profess also that it has one natural will, power,
operation, domination, majesty, potency, and glory. And whatever is
said of the same Holy Trinity essentially in singular number we
understand to refer to the one nature of the three consubstantial
Persons, having been so taught by canonical logic. But when we make
a confession concerning one of the same three Persons of that Holy
Trinity, of the Son of God, or God the Word, and of the mystery of
his adorable dispensation according to the flesh, we assert that all
things are double in the one arm the same our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ according to the Evangelical tradition, that is to say, we
confess his two natures, to wit the divine and the human, of which
and in which he, even after the wonderful and inseparable union,
subsists. And we confess that each of his natures has its own
natural propriety, and that the divine, has all filings that are
divine, without any sin. And we recognize that each one (of the two
natures) of the one and the same incarnated, that is, humanated
(humanati) Word of God is in him unconfusedly, inseparably and
unchangeably, intelligence alone discerning a unity, to avoid the
error of confusion. For we equally detest the blasphemy of division
and of commixture. For when we confess two natures and


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two natural wills, and two natural operations in our one Lord Jesus
Christ, we do not assert that they are contrary or opposed one to
the other (as those who err from the path of truth and accuse the
apostolic tradition of doing.

[...]

And therefore I beseech you with a
contrite heart and rivers of tears, with prostrated mind, deign to
stretch forth your most clement right hand to the Apostolic doctrine
which the co-worker of your pious labours, the blessed apostle
Peter, has delivered, that it be not hidden under a bushel, but that
it be preached in the whole earth more shrilly than a bugle: because
the true confession thereof for which Peter was pronounced blessed
by the Lord of all things, was revealed by the Father of heaven, for
he received from the Redeemer of all himself, by three
commendations, the duty of feeding the spiritual sheep of the
Church; under whose protecting shield, this Apostolic Church of his
has never turned away from the path of truth in any direction of
error, whose authority, as that of the Prince of all the Apostles,
the whole Catholic Church, and the Ecumenical Synods have faithfully
embraced, and followed in all things; and all the venerable Fathers
have embraced its Apostolic doctrine, through which they as the most
approved luminaries of the Church of Christ have shone; and the holy
orthodox doctors have venerated and followed it, while the heretics
have pursued it with false criminations and with derogatory hatred.
This is the living tradition of the Apostles of Christ, which his
Church holds everywhere, which is chiefly to be loved and fostered,
and is to be preached with confidence, which conciliates with God
through its truthful confession, which also renders one commendable
to Christ the Lord, which keeps the Christian empire of your
Clemency, which gives far-reaching victories to your most pious
Fortitude from the Lord of heaven, which accompanies you in battle,
and defeats your foes; which protects on every side as an
impregnable wall your God-sprung empire, which throws terror into
opposing nations, and smites them with the divine wrath, which also
in wars celestially gives triumphal palms over the downfall and
subjection of the enemy, and ever guards your most faithful
sovereignty secure and joyful in peace. For this is the rule of the
true faith, which this spiritual mother of your most tranquil
empire, the Apostolic Church of Christ, has both in prosperity and
in adversity always held and defended with energy; which, it will be
proved, by the grace of Almighty God, has never erred from the path
of the apostolic tradition, nor has she been depraved by yielding to
heretical innovations, but from the beginning she has received the
Christian faith from her founders, the princes of the Apostles of
Christ, and remains undefiled unto the end, according to the divine
promise of the Lord and Saviour himself, which he uttered in the
holy Gospels to the prince of his disciples: saying, "Peter, Peter,
behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he might sift

332

you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that (thy) faith fail not.
And when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." Let your
tranquil Clemency therefore consider, since it is the Lord and
Saviour of all, whose faith it is, that promised that Peter's faith
should not fail and exhorted him to strengthen his brethren, how it
is known to all that the Apostolic pontiffs, the predecessors of my
littleness, have always confidently done this very thing: of whom
also our littleness, since I have received this ministry by divine
designation, wishes to be the follower, although unequal to them and
the least of all.

[...]

    Let then your God-rounded clemency with the internal eye of
discrimination, which for the guidance of the Christian people you
have been deemed worthy to receive by the Grace of God, take heed
which one of such doctors you think the Christian people should
follow, the doctrine of which one of these they should embrace so as
to be saved; for they condemn all, and each one of them the other,
according as the various and unstable definitions in their writings
assert sometimes that there is one will and one operation, sometimes
that there is neither one nor two operations, sometimes one will and
operation, and again two wills and two operations, likewise one will
and one operation, and again neither one, nor two, and somebody else
one and two.
    Who does not hate, and rage against, and avoid such blind
errors, if he have any desire to be saved and seek to offer to the
Lord at his coming a right faith? Therefore the Holy Church of God,
the mother of your most Christian power, should be delivered and
liberated with all your might (through the help of God) from the
errors of such teachers, and the evangelical and apostolic
uprightness of the orthodox faith, which has been established upon
the firm reek of this Church of blessed Peter, the Prince of the
Apostles, which by his grace and guardianship remains free from all
error, [that faith I say] the whole number of rulers and priests, of
the clergy and of the people, unanimously should confess and preach
with us as the true declaration of the Apostolic tradition, in order
to please God and to save their own souls.

[...]

SESSION XVI.

(Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. VI., col. 1010.)

[The Acclamations of the Fathers.]

 Many years to the Emperor! Many years to Constantine, our great
Emperor! Many years to the Orthodox King! Many years to our Emperor
that maketh peace! Many years to Constantine, a second Martian! Many
years to Constantine, a new Theodosius! Many years to Constantine, a
new Justinian! Many years to the keeper of the orthodox faith! O
Lord preserve the foundation of the Churches!O Lord preserve the
keeper of the faith!

    Many years to Agatho, Pope of Rome! Many years to George,
Patriarch of Constantinople! Many years to Theophanus, Patriarch of
Antioch! Many years to the orthodox council! Many years to the
orthodox Senate!

    To Theodore of Pharan, the heretic, anathema! To Sergius, the
heretic, anathema! To Cyrus, the heretic, anathema! To Honorius, the
heretic, anathema! To Pyrthus, the heretic, anathema!

To Paul
To Peter
To Macarius       the heretic, anath-
To Stephen            ema!
To Polychronius
To Apergius of Perga

To all heretics, anathema! To all who side with heretics, anathema!
    May the faith of the Christians increase, and long years to the
orthodox and Ecumenical Council!

THE DEFINITION OF FAITH.

(Found in the Acts, Session XVIII., L. and C., Concilia, Tom. VI.,
col. 1019.)

    The holy, great, and Ecumenical Synod which has been assembled
by the grace of God, and the religious decree of the most religious
and faithful and mighty Sovereign Constantine, in this God-protected
and royal city of Constantinople, New Rome, in the Hall of the
imperial Palace, called Trullus, has decreed as follows.
    The only-begotten Son, and Word of God the Father, who was made
man in all things like unto us without sin, Christ our true God, has
declared expressly in the words of the Gospel, "I am the light of
the world he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall
have the light of life." And again, "My peace I leave with, you, my
peace I give unto you." Our most gentle Sovereign, the champion of
orthodoxy, and opponent of evil doctrine, being reverentially led by
this divinely uttered doctrine of peace, and having convened this
our holy and Ecumenical assembly, has united the judgment of the
whole Church. Wherefore this our holy and Ecumenical Synod having
driven away the impious error which had prevailed for a certain time
until now, and following closely the straight path of the holy and
approved Fathers, has piously given its full assent to the five holy
and Ecumenical Synods (that is to say, to that of the 318 holy
Fathers who assembled in Nice against the raging Arius; and the next
in Constantinople of the 150 God-inspired men against Macedonius the
adversary of the Spirit, and the impious Apollinaris; and also the
first in Ephesus of 200 venerable men convened against Nestorius the
Judaizer; and that in Chalcedon of 630 God-inspired Fathers against
Eutyches and Dioscorus hated of God; and in addition to these, to
the last, that is the Fifth holy Synod assembled in this place,
against Theodore of Mopsuestia, Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius, and
the writings of Theodoret against the Twelve Chapters of the
celebrated Cyril, and the Epistle which was said to be written by
Ibas to Maris the Persian), renewing in all things the ancient
decrees of religion, and chasing away the impious doctrines of
irreligion. And this

our holy and Ecumenical Synod inspired of God has set its seal to
the Creed which was put forth by the 318 Fathers, and again
religiously confirmed by the 150, which also the other holy synods
cordially received and ratified for the taking away of every soul-
destroying heresy.
    The Nicene Creed of the 318 holy Fathers.
We believe, etc.
    The Creed of the 150 holy Fathers as-
sembled at Constantinople. We believe, etc.
    The holy and Ecumenical Synod further says, this pious and
orthodox Creed of the Divine grace would be sufficient for the full
knowledge and confirmation of the orthodox faith. But as the author
of evil, who, in the beginning, availed himself of the aid of the
serpent, and by it brought the poison of death upon the human race,
has not desisted, but in like manner now, having found suitable
instruments for working out his will (we mean Theodorus, who was
Bishop of Pharan, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter, who were
Archbishops of this royal city, and moreover, Honorius who was Pope
of the elder Rome, Cyrus Bishop of Alexandria, Macarius who was
lately bishop of Antioch, and Stephen his disciple), has actively
employed them in raising up for the whole Church the stumbling-
blocks of one will and one operation in the two natures of Christ
our true God, one of the Holy Trinity; thus disseminating, in novel
terms, amongst the orthodox people, an heresy similar to the mad and
wicked doctrine of the impious Apollinaris, Severus, and Themistius,
and endeavouring craftily to destroy the perfection of the
incarnation of the same our Lord Jesus Christ, our God, by
blasphemously representing his flesh endowed with a rational soul as
devoid of will or operation.

[...]

EXCURSUS ON THE CONDEMNATION OF POPE HONORIUS.

    To this decree attaches not only the necessary importance and
interest which belongs to any ecumenical decision upon a disputed
doctrinal question with regard to the incarnation of the Son of God,
but an altogether accidental interest, arising from the fact that by
this decree a Pope of Rome is stricken with anathema in the person
of Honorius. I need hardly remind the reader how many interesting
and difficult questions in theology such an action on the part of an
Ecumenical Council raises, and how all important, not to say vital,
to such as accept the ruling of the recent Vatican Council, it is
that some explanation of this fact should be arrived at which will
be satisfactory. It would be highly improper for me in these pages
to discuss the matter theologically. Volumes on each side have been
written on this subject, and to these I must refer the reader, but
in doing so I hope I may be pardoned if I add a word of counsel--to
read both sides. If one's knowledge is derived only from modern
Eastern, Anglican or Protestant writers, such as "Janus and the
Council," the Pere Gratry's "Letters," or Littledale's controversial
books against Rome, one is apt to be as much one-sided as if he took
his information from Cardinal Baronius, Cardinal Bellarmine,
Rohrbacher's History, or from the recent work on the subject by
Pennacchi.(1) Perhaps the average reader will hardly find a more
satisfactory treatment than that by Bossuet in the Defensio. (Liber
VII., cap. xxi, etc.)
    It will be sufficient for the purposes of this volume to state
that Roman Catholic Curialist writers are not at one as to how the
matter is to be treated. Pennacchi, in his work referred to above,
is of opinion that Honorius's letters were strictly speaking Papal
decrees, set forth auctoritate apostolica, and therefore
irreformable, but he declares, contrary to the opinion of almost all
theologians and to the decree of this Council, that they are
orthodox, and that the Council erred in condemning them; as he
expresses it, the decree rests upon all error in facto dogmatico. To
save an Ecumenical Synod from error, he thinks the synod ceased to
be ecumenical before it took this action, and was at that time only
a synod of a number of Orientals! Cardinal Baronius has another way
out of the difficulty. He says that the name of Honorius was forged
and put in the decree by an erasure in the place of the name of
Theodore, the quondam Patriarch, who soon after the Council got
himself restored to the Patriarchal position. Baronius moreover
holds that Honorius's letters have been corrupted, that the Acts of
the Council have been corrupted, and, in short, that everything
which declares or proves that Honorius was a heretic or was
condemned by an Ecumenical Council as such, is untrustworthy and
false. The groundlessness, not to say absurdity, of Baronius's view
has been often exposed by those of his own communion, a brief but
sufficient summary of the refutation will be found in Hefele, who
while taking a very halting and unsatisfactory position himself, yet
is perfectly clear that Baronius's contention is utterly
indefensible.(2)
    Most Roman controversialists of recent years have admitted both
the fact of Pope Honorius's condemnation (which Baronius denies),
and the monothelite (and therefore heretical) character of his
epistles, but they are of opinion that these letters were not his ex
cathedra utterances as Doctor Universalis, but mere expressions of
the private opinion of the Pontiff as a theologian. With this matter
we have no concern in this connexion.
    I shall therefore say nothing further on this point but shall
simply supply the leading proofs that Honorius was as a matter of
fact condemned by the Sixth Ecumenical Council.
    1. His condemnation is found in the Acts in the xiiith Session,
near the beginning.
    2. His two letters were ordered to be burned at the same
session.

352

    3. In the xvith Session the bishops exclaimed "Anathema to the
heretic Sergius, to the heretic Cyrus, to the heretic Honorius,
etc."
    4. In the decree of faith published at the xviijth Session it is
stated that "the originator of all evil ... found a fit tool for his
will in ... Honorius, Pope of Old Rome, etc."
    5. The report of the Council to the Emperor says that "Honorius,
formerly bishop of Rome" they had "punished with exclusion and
anathema" because he followed the monothelites.
    6. In its letter to Pope Agatho the Council says it "has slain
with anathema Honorius."
    7. The imperial decree speaks of the "unholy priests who
infected the Church and falsely governed" and mentions among them
"Honorius, the Pope of Old Rome, the confirmer of heresy who
contradicted himself." The Emperor goes on to anathematize "Honorius
who was Pope of Old Rome, who in everything agreed with them, went
with them, and strengthened the heresy."
    8. Pope Leo II. confirmed the decrees of the Council and
expressly says that he too anathematized Honorius.(1)
    9. That Honorius was anathematized by the Sixth Council is
mentioned in the Trullan Canons (No. j.).
    10. So too the Seventh Council declares its adhesion to the
anathema in its decree of faith, and in several places in the acts
the same is said.
    11. Honorius's name was found in the Roman copy of the Acts.
This is evident from Anastasius's life of Leo II. (Vita Leonis II.)
    12. The Papal Oath as found in the Liber Diurnus(2) taken by
each new Pope from the fifth to the eleventh century, in the form
probably prescribed by Gregory II., "smites with eternal anathema
the originators of the new heresy, Sergius, etc., together with
Honorius, because he assisted the base assertion of the heretics."
    13. In the lesson for the feast of St. Leo II. in the Roman
Breviary the name of Pope Honorius occurs among those excommunicated
by the Sixth Synod. Upon this we may well hear Bossuet: "They
suppress as far as they can, the Liber Diurnus: they have erased
this from the Roman Breviary. Rave they therefore hidden it? Truth
breaks out from all sides, and these things become so much the more
evident, as they are the more studiously put out of sight."(3)
    With such an array of proof no conservative historian, it would
seem, can question the fact that Honorius, the Pope of Rome, was
condemned and anathematized as a heretic by the Sixth Ecumenical
Council.