THE SIXTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL--THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE
THE SIXTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL.
THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
A.D. 680-681
Emperor.--CONSTANTINE POGONATUS.
Pope.--AGATHO I.
Elenchus.
Historical Introduction.
Extracts from the Acts, Session I.
The Letter of Pope Agatho to the Emperor.
The Letter of the Roman Synod to the Council.
Introductory Note.
Extracts from the Acts, Session VIII.
The Sentence against the Monothelites, Session XIII.
The Acclamations, Session XVI.
The Definition of Faith.
Abstract of the Prosphoneticus to the Emperor.
The Synodal Letter to Pope Agatho.
Excursus on the Condemnation of Pope Honorius.
The Imperial Edict in abstract.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
The Sixth Ecumenical Council met on November 7, 680, for its first
session, and ended its meetings, which are said to have been eighteen in number, on
September 16th of the next year. The number of bishops present was under three
hundred and the minutes of the last session have only 174 signatures attached to
them.
When the Emperor first summoned the council he had no intention that it
should be ecumenical. From the Sacras it appears that he had summoned all the
Metropolitans and bishops of the jurisdiction of Constantinople, and had also
informed the Archbishop of Antioch that he might send Metropolitans and bishops. A
long time before he had written to Pope Agatho on the subject.
When the synod assembled however, it assumed at its first session the
title "Ecumenical," and all the five patriarchs were represented, Alexandria and
Jerusalem having sent deputies although they were at the time in the hands of the
infidel.
In this Council the Emperor presided in person surrounded by high court
officials. On his right sat the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch and next
to them the representative of the Patriarch of Alexandria. On the Emperor's
left were seated the representatives of the Pope. In the midst were placed, as
usual, the Holy Gospels. After the eleventh session however the Emperor was no
longer able to be present, but returned and presided at the closing meeting.
The sessions of the council were held in the domed hall (or possibly
chapel) in the imperial palace; which, the Acts tell us, was called Trullo
(<greek>en</greek> <s235<greek>w</greek> <greek>sekretw</greek> <greek>tou</greek>
<greek>qeiou</greek> <greek>palatiou</greek> <greek>tm</greek> <greek>outm</greek>
<greek>legomenw</greek> T<greek>roullw</greek>).
It may be interesting to remark that the Sacras sent to the bishops of
Rome and Constantinople are addressed, the one to "The Most holy and Blessed
Archbishop of Old Rome and Ecumenical Pope," and the other to "The Most holy and
Blessed Archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch." Some of the titles
given themselves by the signers of the "Prosphoneticus" are
interesting--"George, an humble presbyter of the holy Roman Church, and holding the place of the
most blessed Agatho, ecumenical Pope of the City of Rome ... ," "John, an
humble deacon of the holy Roman Church and holding the place of the most blessed
Agatho, and ecumenical Pope of the City of Rome ... ," "George, by the mercy of
God bishop of Constantinople which is New Rome," "Peter a presbyter and holding
the place of the Apostolic See of the great city Alexandria ... ," "George, an
humble presbyter of the Holy Resurrection of Christ our God, and holding the
place of Theodore the presbyter, beloved of God, who holds the place of the
Apostolic See of Jerusalem ... ," "John, by the mercy of God bishop of the City of
Thessalonica, and legate of the Apostolic See of Rome," "John, the unworthy
bishop of Portus, legate of the whole Council of the holy Apostolic See of Rome,"
"Stephen, by the mercy of God, bishop of Corinth, and legate of the Apostolic
See of Old Rome."
EXTRACTS FROM THE ACTS.
SESSION I.
(Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. VI., col. 609 et seqq.)
[After a history of the assembly of the Council, the Acts begin with the
Speech of the Papal Legatee, as follows:]
Most benign lord, in accordance with the Sacra to our most holy Pope(1)
from your God-instructed majesty, we have been sent by him to the most holy
footsteps of your God-confirmed serenity, bearing with us his suggestion
(<greek>a</greek>,s225><greek>aForas</greek>, suggestions) as well as the other suggestion
of his Synod equally addressed to your divinely preserved Piety by the
venerable bishops subject to it, which also we offered to your God-crowned Fortitude.
Since, then, during the past forty-six years, more or less, certain novelties
in expression, contrary to the Orthodox faith, have been introduced by those who
were at several times bishops of this, your royal and God-preserved city, to
wit: Sergius, Paul, Pyrrhus, and Peter, as also by Cyrus, at one time archbishop
of the city of Alexandria, as well also as by Theodore, who was bishop of a
city called Pharan, and by certain others their followers, and since these things
have in no small degree brought confusion into the Church throughout the whole
world, for they taught dogmatically that there was but one will in the
dispensation of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Holy Trinity, and
one operation; and since many times your servant, our apostolic see, has
fought against this, and then prayed against it, and by no means been able, even up
to now, to draw away from such a depraved opinion its advocates, we beseech
your God-crowned fortitude, that such as share these views of the most holy church
of Constantinople may tell us, what is the source of this new-fangled language.
[Answer of the Monothelites made at the Emperor's bidding:]
We have brought out no new method of speech, but have taught whatever we have
received from the holy Ecumenical Synods, and from the holy approved Fathers,
as well as from the archbishops of this imperial city, to wit: Sergius, Paul,
Pyrrhus, and Peter, as also from Honorius who was Pope of Old Rome, and from
Cyrus who was Pope of Alexandria, that is to say with reference to will and
operation, and so we have believed, and so we believe, so we preach; and further we
are ready to stand by, and defend this faith.
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 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 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 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. Far be this impiety from the
hearts of the faithful!), nor as though separated (per se separated) in two persons
or subsistences, but we say that as the same our Lord Jesus Christ has two
natures so also he has two natural wills and operations, to wit, the divine and
the human: the divine will and operation he has in common with the coessential
Father from all eternity: the human, he has received from us, taken with our
nature in time. This is the apostolic and evangelic tradition, which the spiritual
mother of your most felicitous empire, the Apostolic Church of Christ, holds.
This is the pure expression of piety. This is the true and immaculate profession
of the Christian religion, not invented by human cunning, but which was taught
by the Holy Ghost through the princes of the Apostles. This is the firm and
irreprehensible doctrine of the holy Apostles, the integrity of the sincere piety
of which, so long as it is preached freely, defends the empire of your
Tranquillity in the Christian commonwealth, and exults [will defend it, will render it
stable; and exulting], and (as we firmly trust) will demonstrate it full of
happiness. Believe your most humble [servant], my most Christian lords and sons,
that I am pouring forth these prayers with my tears, or its stability and
exultation [in Greek exaltation]. And these things I (although unworthy and
insignificant) dare advise through my sincere love, because your God-granted victory is
our salvation, the happiness of your Tranquillity is our joy, the harmlessness
of your kindness is the security of our littleness. 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 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. For woe is me, if I neglect to preach the truth of my Lord, which they
have sincerely preached. Woe is me, if I cover over with silence the truth which
I am bidden to give to the exchangers, i.e., to teach to the Christian people
and imbue it therewith. What shall I say in the future examination by Christ
himself, if I blush (which God forbid!) to preach here the truth of his words?
What satisfaction shall I be able to give for myself, what for the souls committed
to me, when he demands a strict account of the office I have received? Who,
then, my most clement and most pious lords and sons, (I speak trembling and
prostrate in spirit) would not be stirred by that admirable promise, which is made
to the faithful: "Whoever shall confess me before men, him also will I confess
before my Father, who is in heaven"? And which one even of the infidels shall
not be terrified by that most severe threat, in which he protests that he will be
full of wrath, and declares that "Whoever shall deny me before men, him also
will I deny before my Father, who is in heaven"? Whence also blessed Paul, the
apostle of the Gentiles, gives warning and says: "But though we, or an angel
from the heaven should preach to you any other Gospel from what we have
evangelized to you, let him be anathema." Since, therefore, such an extremity of
punishment overhangs the corruptors, or suppressors of truth by silence, would not any
one flee from an attempt at curtailing the truth of the Lord's faith? Wherefore
the predecessors of Apostolic memory of my littleness, learned in the doctrine
of the Lord, ever since the prelates of the Church of Constantinople have been
trying to introduce into the immaculate Church of Christ an heretical
innovation, have never ceased to exhort and warn them with many prayers, that they
should, at least by silence, desist from the heretical error of the depraved dogma,
lest from this they make the beginning of a split in the unity of the Church,
by asserting one will, and one operation of the two natures in the one Jesus
Christ our Lord: a thing which the Arians and the Apollinarists, the Eutychians,
the Timotheans, the Acephali, the Theodosians and the Gaianitae taught, and
every heretical madness, whether of those who confound, or of those who divide the
mystery of the Incarnation of Christ. Those that confound the mystery of the
holy Incarnation, inasmuch as they say that there is one nature of the deity and
humanity of Christ, contend that he has one will, as of one, and (one)
personal operation. But they who divide, on the other hand, the inseparable union,
unite the two natures which they acknowledge that the Saviour possesses, not
however in an union which is recognized to be hypostatic; but blasphemously join
them by concord, through the affection, of the will, like two subsistences, i.e.,
two somebodies. Moreover, the Apostolic Church of Christ, the spiritual mother
of your God-founded empire, confesses one Jesus Christ our Lord existing of and
in two natures, and she maintains that his two natures, to wit, the divine and
the human, exist in him unconfused even after their inseparable union, and she
acknowledges that each of these natures of Christ is perfect in the
proprieties of its nature, and she confesses that all things belonging to the proprieties
of the natures are double, because the same our Lord Jesus Christ himself is
both perfect God and perfect man, of two and in two natures: and after his
wonderful Incarnation, his deity cannot be thought of without his humanity, nor his
humanity without his deity. Consequently, therefore, according to the rule of
the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, she also confesses and
preaches that there are in him two natural wills and two natural operations. For if
anybody should mean a personal will, when in the holy Trinity there are said to
be three Persons, it would be necessary that there should be asserted three
personal wills, and three personal operations (which is absurd and truly profane).
Since, as the truth of the Christian faith holds, the will is natural, where
the one nature of the holy and inseparable Trinity is spoken of, it must be
consistently understood that there is one natural will, and cue natural operation.
But when in truth we confess that in the one person of our Lord Jesus Christ the
mediator between God and men, there are two natures (that is to say the divine
and the human), even after his admirable union, just as we canonically confess
the two natures of one and the same person, so too we confess his two natural
wills and two natural operations. But that the understanding of this truthful
confession may become clear to your Piety's mind from the God-inspired doctrine
of the Old and the New Testament, (for your Clemency is incomparably more able
to penetrate the meaning of the sacred Scriptures, than our littleness to set
it forth in flowing words), our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who is true and
perfect God, and true and perfect man, in his holy Gospels shews forth in some
instances human things, in others, divine, and still in others both together, making
a manifestation concerning himself in order that he might instruct his
faithful to believe and preach that he is both true God and true man. Thus as man he
prays to the Father to take away the cup of suffering, because in him our human
nature was complete, sin only excepted, "Father, if it be possible, let this
cup pass from me; nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." And in another
passage: "Not my will, but thine be done." If we wish to know the meaning of
which testimony as explained by the holy and approved Fathers, and truly to
understand what "my will," what "thine" signify, the blessed Ambrose in his second
book to the Emperor Gratian, of blessed memory, teaches us the meaning of this
passage in these words, saying: "He then, receives my will, he takes my sorrow, I
confidently call it sorrow as I am speaking of the cross, mine is the will,
which he calls his, because he bears my sorrow as man, he spoke as a man, and
therefore he says: 'Not as I will but as thou wilt.'" Mine is the sadness which he
has received according to my affection.(1) See, most pious of princes, how
clearly here this holy Father sets forth that the words our Lord used in his
prayer, "Not my will," pertain to his humanity; through which also he is said,
according to the teaching of Blessed Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles, to have
"become obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross." Wherefore also it is
taught us that he was obedient to his parents, which must piously be understood to
refer to his voluntary obedience, not according to his divinity (by which he
governs all things), but according to his humanity, by which he spontaneously
submitted himself to his parents. St. Luke the Evangelist likewise bears witness
to the same thing, telling how the same our Lord Jesus Christ prayed according
to his humanity to his Father, and said, "Father, if it be possible let the cup
pass from me; nevertheless not my will but thine be done,"--which passage
Athanasius, the Confessor of Christ, and Archbishop of the Church of Alexandria, in
his book against Apollinaris the heretic, concerning the Trinity and the
Incarnation, also understanding the wills to be two, thus explains: And when he says,
"Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless not my
will but thine be done," and again, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is
weak;" he shews that there are two wills, the one human which is the will of the
flesh, but the other divine. For his human will, out of the weakness of the flesh
was fleeing away from the passion, but his divine will was ready for it. What
truer explanation could be found? For how is it possible not to acknowledge in
him two wills, to wit, a human and a divine, when in him, even after the
inseparable union, there are two natures according to the definitions of the synods?
For John also, who leaned upon the Lord's breast, his beloved disciple, shews
forth the same self-restraint in these words: "I came down from heaven not to do
mine own will but the will of the Father that sent me." And again: "This is the
will of him that sent me, that of all that he gave me I should lose nothing,
but should raise it up again at the last day." Again he introduces the Lord as
disputing with the Jews, and saying among other things: "I seek not mine own
will, but the will of him that sent me." On the meaning of which divine words
blessed Augustine, a most illustrious doctor, thus writes in his book against
Maximinus the Arian. He says, "When the Son says to the Father 'Not what I will, but
what thou wilt,' what doth it profit thee, that thou broughtest thy words into
subjection and sayest, It shews truly that his will was subject to his Father,
as though we would deny that the will of man should be subject to the will of
God? For that the Lord said this in his human nature, anyone will quickly see
who studies attentively this place of the Gospel. For therein he says, 'My soul
is exceeding sorrowful even unto death.' Can this possibly be said of the
nature of the One Word? But, O man, who thinkest to make the nature of the Holy
Ghost to groan, why do you say that the nature of the Only-begotten Word of God
cannot be sad? But to prevent anyone arguing in this way, he does not say 'I am
sad;' (and even if he had so said, it could properly only have been understood of
his human nature) but he says 'My soul is sad,' which soul he has as man;
however in this also which he said, 'Not what I will' he shewed that he willed
something different from what the Father did, which he could not have done except
in his human nature, since he did not introduce our infirmity into his divine
nature, but would transfigure human affection. For had he not been made man, the
Only Word could in no way have said to the Father, 'Not what I will.' For it
could never be possible for that immutable nature to will anything different from
what the Father willed. If you would but make this distinction, O ye Arians,
ye would not be heretics."
In this disputation this venerable Father shews that when the Lord says
"his own" he means the will of his humanity, and when he says not to do "his own
will," he teaches us not chiefly to seek our own wills but that through
obedience we should submit our wills to the Divine Will. From all which it is evident
that he had a human will by which he obeyed his Father, and that he had in
himself this same human will immaculate from all sin, as true God and man. Which
thing St. Ambrose also thus treats of in his explanation of St. Luke the
Evangelist.
[After this follows a catena of Patristic quotations which I have not
thought worth while to produce in full. After St. Ambrose he cites St. Leo, then
St. Gregory Nazianzen, then St. Augustine. (L. & C., col. 647.)]
From which testimonies it is clear that each of those natures which the
spiritual Doctor has here enumerated has its own natural property, and that to
each one a will ought to be assigned. For an angelic nature cannot have a divine
or a human will, neither can a human nature have a divine or an angelic will.
For no nature can have anything or any motion which pertains to another nature
but only that which is naturally given by creation. And as this is the truth of
the matter it is most certainly clear that we must needs confess that in our
Lord Jesus Christ there are two natures and substances, to wit, the Divine and
human, united in his one subsistence or person, and that we further confess that
there are in him two natural wills, viz.: the divine and the human, for his
divinity so far as its nature is concerned could not be said to possess a human
will, nor should his humanity be believed to have naturally a divine will: And
again, neither of these two substances of Christ must be confessed as being
without a natural will; but his human will was lifted up by the omnipotency of his
divinity, and his divine will was revealed to men through his humanity.
Therefore it is necessary to refer to him as God such things as are divine, and as man
such things as are human; and each must be truly recognized through the
hypostatic union of the one and the same our Lord Jesus Christ, which the most true
decree of the Council of Chalcedon sets forth--[Here follows citation.] This same
thing also the holy synod which was gathered together in Constantinople in the
time of the Emperor Justinian of august memory, teaches in the viith. chapter
of its definitions. [Here follows the citation,] Moreover it is necessary that
we should faithfully keep what those Venerable Synods taught, so that we never
take away the difference of natures as a result of the union, but confess one
Christ, true and perfect God and also true and perfect man, the propriety of
each nature being kept intact. Wherefore, if in no respect the difference of the
natures of our Lord Jesus Christ has been taken away, it is necessary that we
preserve this same difference in all its proprieties. For whoso teaches that the
difference is in no respect to be taken away, declares that it must be
preserved in all things. But when the heretics and the followers of heretics say that
there is but one will and one operation, how is this difference recognized? Or
where is the difference which has been defined by this holy Synod preserved?
While if it is asserted that there is but one will in him (which is absurd), those
who make this assertion must needs say that that will is either human or
divine, or else composite from both, mixed and confused, or (according to the
teaching of all heretics) that Christ has one will and one operation, proceeding from
his one composite nature (as they hold). And thus, without any doubt, the
difference of nature is destroyed, which the holy synods declared to be preserved
in all respects even after the admirable union. Because, though they taught that
Christ was one, his person and substance one, yet on account of the union of
the natures which was made hypostatically, they likewise decreed that we should
clearly acknowledge and teach the difference of those natures which were united
in him, after the admirable union. Therefore if the proprieties of the natures
in the same our one Lord Jesus Christ were preserved on account of the
difference [of the natures], it is congruous that we should with full faith confess
also the difference of his natural wills and operations, in order that we may be
shown to have followed in all respects their doctrine, and may admit into the
Church of Christ no heretical novelty.
And although there exist numerous works of the other holy Fathers,
nevertheless we subjoin to this our humble exposition a few testimonies out of the
books which are in Greek, for the sake of fastidiousness.(1)
[Here follows a catena of passages from the Greek fathers, viz.: St.
Gregory Theologus, St. Gregory Nyssen, St. John bishop of Constantinople, St. Cyril,
bishop of Alexandria. (L. & C., col. 654.)]
From these truthful testimonies it is also demonstrated that these
venerable fathers predicated in the one and the same Lord Jesus Christ two natural
wills, viz.: a divine and a human, for when St. Gregory Nazianzen says," The
willing of that man who is understood to be the Saviour," he shows that the human
will of the Saviour was deified through its union with the Word, and therefore it
is not contrary to God. So likewise he proves that he had a human, although
deified will, and this same he had (as he teaches in what follows) as well as his
divine will, which was one and the same with that of the Father. If therefore
he had a divine and a deified will, he had also two wills. For what is divine
by nature has no need of being deified; and what is deified is not truly divine
by nature. And when St. Gregory Nyssen, a great bishop, says that the true
confession of the mystery is, that there should be understood one human will and
another a divine will in Christ, what does he bid us understand when he says one
and another will, except that there are manifestly two wills?
[He next proceeds to comment upon the passage cited from St. John, then
upon that from St. Cyril of Alexandria. After this follow quotations from St.
Hilary, St. Athanasius, St. Denys the Areopagite, St. Ambrose, St. Leo, St.
Gregory Nyssen, St. Cyril of Alexandria, which are next commented on in their order.
He then proceeds: (L. & C., col. 662.)]
There are not lacking most telling passages in other of the venerable
fathers, who speak clearly of the two natural operations in Christ, not to mention
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. John of Constantinople, or those who afterwards
conducted the laborious conflicts in defence of the venerable council of Chalcedon
and of the Tome of St. Leo against the heretics from whose error the assertion
of this new dogma has arisen: that is to say, John, bishop of Scythopolis,
Eulogius, bishop of Alexandria, Euphraemius and Anastasius the elder, most worthy
rulers of the church of Theopolis, and above all that emulator of the true and
apostolic faith, the Emperor Justinian of pious memory, whose uprightness of
faith exalted the Christian State as much as his sincere confession pleased God.
And his pious memory is esteemed worthy of veneration by all nations, whose
uprightness of faith was disseminated with praise throughout the whole world by
his most august edicts: one of these, to wit, that addressed to Zoilus, the
patriarch of Alexandria, against the heresy of the Acephali to satisfy them of the
rectitude of the apostolic faith, we offer to your most tranquil Christianity,
sending it together with this paper of our lowliness through the same carriers.
But lest this declaration should be thought burdensome on account of its
length, we have inserted in this declaration of our humility only a few of the
testimonies of the Holy Fathers, especially [when writing to those] on whom the care
and arrangement of the whole world as on a firm foundation are recognized to
rest; since this is altogether incomparable and great, that the care of the whole
Christian State being laid aside for a little out of love and zeal for true
religion, your august and most religious clemency should desire to understand
more clearly the doctrine of apostolical preaching. For from the different
approved fathers the truth of the Orthodox faith has become clear although the
treatment is short. For the approved fathers thought it to be superfluous to discourse
at length upon what was evident and clear to all; for who, even if he be dull
of wit, does not perceive what is evident to all? For it is impossible and
contrary to the order of nature that there should be a nature without a natural
operation: and even the heretics did not dare to say this, although they were, all
of them, hunting for human craftiness and cunning questions against the
orthodoxy of the faith, and arguments agreeable to their depravities.
How then can that now be asserted which never was said by the holy
orthodox fathers, nor even was presumptuously invented by the profane heretics, viz.:
that of the two natures of Christ, the divine and the human, the proprieties of
each of which are recognized as being preserved in Christ, that anyone in
sound mind should declare there was but one operation? Since if there is one, let
them say whether it be temporal or eternal, divine or human, uncreated or
created: the same as that of the Father or different from that of the Father. If
therefore it is one, that one and the same must be common to the divinity anti to
the humanity (which is absurd), therefore while the Son of God, who is both God
and man, wrought human things on earth, likewise also the Father worked with
him according to his nature (naturaliter, <greek>fusikws</greek>); for what
things the Father doeth these the Son also doeth likewise. But if (as is the truth)
the human acts which Christ did are to be referred to his person alone as the
Son, which is not the same as that of the Father; in one nature Christ worked
one set of works, and in the other another, so that according to his divinity the
Son does the same things that the Father does; and likewise according to his
humanity, what things are proper to the manhood, those same, he as man, did
because he is truly both God and man. For which reason we rightly believe that that
same person, since he is one, has two natural operations, to wit, the divine
and the human, one uncreated, and the other created, as true and perfect God and
as true and perfect man, the one and the same, the mediator between God and
men, the Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore from the quality of the operations there is
recognized a difference void of offence (<greek>aproskopos</greek>) of the
natures which are joined in Christ through the hypostatic union. We now proceed to
cite some passages from the execrable writings of the heretics hated of God,
(1) whose words and sayings we equally abominate, for the demonstration of those
things which our inventors of new dogma have followed teaching that in Christ
there is but one will and one operation.
[Then follow quotations from Apollinaris, Severus, Theodosius of
Alexandria. (L. & C., col. 667.)]
Behold, most pious lords and sons, by the testimonies of the holy Fathers,
as by spiritual rays, the doctrine of the Catholic and Apostolic Church has
been illustrated and the darkness of heretical blindness, which is offering
error to men for imitation, has been revealed. Now it is necessary that the new
doctrine should follow somebody, and by whose authority it is supported, we shall
note.
[Here follow quotations from Cyrus of Alexandria, Theodore of Pharon,
Sergius of Constantinople, Pyrrhus, Paulus his successor, Peter his successor. (L.
& C., col. 670.)]
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.
And these things we have taken pains to insert in the tractate of our
humility, for we have been afflicted and have groaned without ceasing that such
grievous errors should be entertained by bishops of the l Church, who are zealous
to establish their own peculiar views rather than the truth of the faith, and
think that our sincere fraternal admonition has its spring in a contempt for
them. And indeed the apostolic predecessors of my humility admonished, begged,
upbraided, besought, reproved, and exercised every kind of exhortation that the
recent wound bright receive a remedy, moved thereto not by a mind filled with
hatred (God is my witness) nor through the elation of boasting, nor through the
opposition of contention, nor through an inane desire to find some fault with
their teachings, nor through anything akin to the love of arrogance, but out of
zeal for the uprightness of the truth, and for the rule of the confession of the
pure Gospel, and for the salvation of souls, and for the stability of the
Christian state, and for the safety of those who rule the Roman Empire. Nor did they
cease from their admonitions after the long duration of this domesticated
error, but always exhorted and bore record, and that with fraternal charity, not
through malice or pertinacious hatred (far be it from the Christian heart to
rejoice at another's fall, when the Lord of all teaches, "I desire not the death of
a sinner, but that he be converted and live;" and who rejoiceth over one
sinner that repenteth more than over ninety-and-nine just persons: who came down
from heaven to earth to deliver the lost sheep, inclining the power of his
majesty), but desiring them with outstretched spiritual arms, and exhorting to embrace
them returning to the unity of the orthodox faith, and awaiting their
conversion to the full rectitude of the orthodox faith: that they might not make
themselves aliens froth our communion, that is from the communion of blessed Peter
the Apostle, whose ministry, we (though unworthy) exercise, and preach the faith
he has handed down, but that they should together with us pray Christ the Lord,
the spotless sacrifice, for the stability of your most strong and serene
Empire.
We believe, most pious lords [singular in the Latin] of all things, that
there has been left no possible ambiguity which can prevent the recognizing of
those who have followed the inventors of new dogma. For the sweetness of
spiritual understanding with which the sayings of the Fathers are full has become
evident to the eyes of all; and the stench of the heretics, to be avoided by all
the faithful, has been made notorious. Nor has it remained unknown that the
inventors of new dogma have been shewn to be the followers of heretics, and not the
walkers in the footsteps of the holy Fathers: therefore whoever wishes to
colour any error of his whatever, is condemned by the light of truth, as the
Apostle of the Gentiles says, "For everything that doth make manifest is light," for
the truth ever remains constant and the same, but falsehood is ever varying,
and in its wanderings adopting things mutually contradictory. On this account the
inventors of the new dogma have been shewn to have taught things mutually
contradictory, because they were not willing to be followers of the Evangelical and
Apostolic faith. Wherefore since the truth has shone forth by the observations
of your God-inspired piety, and falsity which has been exposed has attained
the contempt which it deserved, it remains that the crowned truth may shine forth
victoriously through the pious favours of your God-crowned clemency; and that
the error of novelty with it inventors and with those who follow their
doctrine, may receive the punishment due their presumption, and be cast forth from the
midst of the orthodox prelates for the heretical pravity of their innovation,
which into the holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ they have
endeavoured to introduce, and to stain with the contagion of heretical pravity the
indivisible and unspotted body of the Church [of Christ]. For it is not just that
the injurious should injure the innocent, nor that the offences of some should be
visited upon the inoffensive, for even if in this world to the condemned mercy
is extended, yet they who are thus spared reap for that sparing no benefit in
the judgment of God, and by those thus sparing them there is incurred no little
danger for their unlawful compassion.
But we believe that Almighty God has reserved for the happy days of your
gentleness the amending of these things, that filling on earth the place and
zeal of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who has vouchsafed to crown your rule, ye
may judge just judgment for his Evangelical and Apostolical truth: for although
he be the Redeemer and Saviour of the human race yet he suffered injury, and
bore it even until now, and inspired the empire of your fortitude, so that you
should be worthy to follow the cause of his faith (as equity demanded, and as the
determination of the Holy Fathers and of the Five General Synods decreed), and
that you should avenge, through his guardianship, on the spurners of his
faith, the injury done your Redeemer and Colleague in reigning, thus fulfilling
magnanimously with imperial clemency that prophetic utterance with which David the
King and Prophet, spake to God, saying, "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me
up." Wherefore having been extolled for so God-pleasing a zeal, he was deemed
fit to hear that blessed word spoken by the Creator of all men, "I have found
David, a man after my heart, who will do all my will." And to him also it was
promised in the Psalms, "I have found David, my servant, with my holy oil have I
anointed him: My hand shall aid him and my arm shall comfort him," so that the
most pious majesty of your Christian clemency may work to further the cause of
Christ with burning zeal for the sake of remuneration, and may he make all the
acts of your most powerful empire both happy and prosperous, who hath stored up
his promise in the Holy Gospels, saying," Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
all these things shall be added unto you." For all, to whom has come the
knowledge of the sacred heads, (1) have been offering innumerable thanksgivings and
unceasing praises to the defender of your most powerful dominion, being filled
with admiration for the greatness of your clemency, in that you have so benignly
set forth the kind intention of your august magnanimity; for in truth, as most
pious and most just princes, you have deigned to treat divine things with the
fear of God, having promised every immunity to those persons sent to you from
our littleness.
And we are confident that what your pious clemency has promised, you are
powerful to carry out, in order that what has been vowed and promised to God by
the religious philanthropy beyond your Christian power, may nevertheless be
fulfilled by the aid of his omnipotency.
Wherefore let praise by all Christian nations, and eternal memory, and
frequent prayer be poured forth before the Lord Christ, whose is the cause, for
your safety, and your triumphs, and your complete victory, that the nations of
the Gentiles, being impressed by the terror of the supernal majesty, may lay down
most humbly their necks beneath the sceptre of your most powerful rule, that
the power of your most pious kingdom may continue until the ceaseless joy of the
eternal kingdom succeeds to this temporal reign. Nor could anything be found
more likely to commend the clemency of your unconquerable fortitude to the
divine majesty, than that those who err from the rule of truth should be repelled
and the integrity of our Evangelical and Apostolic faith should be everywhere set
forth and preached.
Moreover, most pious and God-instructed sons and lords, if the Archbishop
of the Church of Constantinople shall choose to hold and to preach with us this
most unblameable rule of Apostolic doctrine of the Sacred Scriptures, of the
venerable synods, of the spiritual Fathers, according to their evangelical
understanding, through which the form of the truth has been set forth by us through
the assistance of the Spirit, there will ensue great peace to them that love
the name of God, and there will remain no scandal of dissension, and that will
come to pass which is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, when through the
grace of the Holy Spirit the people had come to the acknowledging of Christianity,
all of us will be of one heart and of one mind. But if (which God forbid!) he
shall prefer to embrace the novelty but lately introduced by others; and shall
ensnare himself with doctrines which are alien to the rule of orthodox truth and
of our Apostolic faith, to decline which as injurious to souls' these have put
off, despite the exhortation and admonitions of our predecessors in the
Apostolic See, down to this day, he himself should know what kind of an answer he
will have to give for such contempt in the divine examination of Christ before the
judge of all, who is in heaven, to whom when he cometh to judgment also we
ourselves are about to give an account of the ministry of preaching the truth
which has been committed to us, or for the toleration of things contrary to the
Christian religion: and may we (as I humbly pray) preserve unconfusedly and
freely, with simplicity and purity, whole and undefiled, the Apostolic and
Evangelical rule of the right faith as we have received it from the beginning. And may
your most august serenity, for the affection and reverence which you bear to the
Catholic and Apostolic right faith, receive the perfect reward of your pious
labours from our Lord Jesus Christ himself, the ruler with you of your Christian
empire, whose true confession you desire to preserve undefiled, because nothing
in any respect has been neglected or omitted by your God-crowned clemency,
which could minister to the peace of the churches, provided always that the
integrity of the true faith was maintained: since God, the Judge of all, who disposes
the ending of all matters as he deems most expedient, seeks out the intent of
the heart, and will accept a zeal for piety. Therefore I exhort you, O most
pious and clement Emperor, and together with my littleness every Christian man
exhorts you on bended knee with all humility, that to all the God-pleasing
goodnesses and admirable imperial benefits which the heavenly condescension has
vouchsafed to grant to the human race through your God-accepted care, this also you
would order, for the redintegration of perfect piety, to offer an acceptable
sacrifice to Christ the Lord your fellow-ruler, granting entire impunity, and free
faculty of speech to each one wishing to speak, and to urge a word in defence
of the faith which he believes and holds, so that it may most manifestly be
recognized by all that by no terror, by no force, by no threat or aversion any one
wishing to speak for the truth of the Catholic and Apostolic faith, has been
prohibited or repulsed, and that all unanimously may glorify your imperial
(divinam) majesty, throughout the whole since of their lives for so great and so
inestimable a good, and may pour forth unceasing prayers to Christ the Lord that
your most strong empire may be preserved untouched and exalted. The
Subscription. May the grace from above keep your empire, most pious lords, and place
beneath its feet the neck of all the nations.
THE LETTER OF AGATHO AND OF THE ROMAN SYNOD OF 125 BISHOPS WHICH WAS TO SERVE
AS AN INSTRUCTION TO THE LEGATES SENT TO ATTEND THE SIXTH SYNOD.
(Found in Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. VI., col. 677 et seqq., and in
Migne, Pat. Lat. Tom. LXXXVII., col. 1215 et seqq. [This last text, which is
Mansi's, I have followed].)
To the most pious Lords and most serene victors and conquerors, our own
sons beloved of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, Constantine, the great Emperor,
and Heraclius and Tiberius, Augustuses, Agatho, the bishop and servant of the
servants of God, together with all the synods subject to the council of the
Apostolic See.
[The Letter opens with a number of compliments to the Emperor, much in
style and matter like the introduction of the preceding letter. I have not thought
it worth while to translate this, but have begun at the doctrinal part, which
is given to the reader in full. (Labbe and Cossart, col. 682.)]
We believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of
all things visible and invisible; and in his only-begotten Son, who was begotten
of him before all worlds; very God of Very God, Light of Light, begotten not
made, being of one substance with the Father, that is of the same substance as
the Father; by him were all things made which are in heaven and which are in
earth; and in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the
Father, and with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified;
the Trinity in unity and Unity in trinity; a unity so far as essence is
concerned, but a trinity of persons or subsistences; and so we confess God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; not three gods, but one God, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost: not a subsistency of three names, but one substance
of three subsistences; and of these persons one is the essence, or substance
or nature, that is to say one is the godhead, one the eternity, one the power,
one the kingdom, one the glory, one the adoration, one the essential will and
operation of the same Holy and inseparable Trinity, which hath created all
things, hath made disposition of them, and still contains them.
Moreover we confess that one of the same holy consubstantial Trinity, God
the Word, who was begotten of the Father before the worlds, in the last days of
the world for us and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was
incarnate of the Holy Ghost, and of our Lady, the holy, immaculate, ever-virgin and
glorious Mary, truly and properly the Mother of God, that is to say according to
the flesh which was born of her; and was truly made man, the same being very God
and very man. God of God his Father, but man of his Virgin Mother, incarnate
of her flesh with a reasonable and intelligent soul: of one substance with God
the Father, as touching his godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his
manhood, and in all points like unto us, but without sin. He was crucified for
us under Pontius Pilate, he suffered, was buried and rose again; ascended into
heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father, and he shall come again to
judge both the quick and the dead, and of his kingdom there shah be no end.
And this same one Lord of ours, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of
God, we acknowledge to subsist of and in two substances unconfusedly,
unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably, the difference of the natures being by no means
taken away by the union, but rather the proprieties of each nature being preserved
and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not scattered or divided
into two Persons, nor confused into one composite nature; but we confess one and
the same only-begotten Son, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, not one in
another, nor one added to another, but himself the same in two natures--that is to
say in the Godhead and in the manhood even after the hypostatic union: for
neither was the Word changed into the nature of flesh, nor was the flesh
transformed into the nature of the Word, for each remained what it was by nature. We
discern by contemplation alone the distinction between the natures united in him of
which inconfusedly, inseparably and unchangeably he is composed; for one is of
both, and through one both, because there are together both the height of the
deity and the humility of the flesh, each nature preserving after the union its
own proper character without any defect; and each form acting in communion
with the other what is proper to itself. The Word working what is proper to the
Word, and the flesh what is proper to the flesh; of which the one shines with
miracles, the other bows down beneath injuries. Wherefore, as we confess that he
truly has two natures or substances, viz.: the Godhead and the manhood,
inconfusedly, indivisibly and unchangeably [united], so also the rule of piety
instructs us that he has two natural wills and two natural operations, as perfect God
and perfect man, one and the same our Lord Jesus Christ. And this the apostolic
and evangelical tradition and the authority of the Holy Fathers (whom the Holy
Apostolic and Catholic Church and the venerable Synods receive), has plainly
taught us.
[The letter goes on to say that this is the traditional faith, and is that
which was set forth in a council over which Pope Martin presided, and that
those opposed to this faith have erred from the truth, some in one way, and some
in another. It next apologizes for the delay in sending the persons ordered by
the imperial Sacra, and proceeds thus: (Labbe and Cossart, col. 686; Migne, col.
1224).]
In the first place, a great number of us are spread over a vast extent of
country even to the sea coast, and the length of their journey necessarily took
much time. Moreover we were in hopes of being able to join to our humility our
fellow-servant and brother bishop, Theodore, the archbishop and philosopher of
the island of Great Britain, with others who have been kept there even till
to-day; and to add to these divers i bishops of this council who have their sees
in different parts, that our humble suggestion [i.e., the doctrinal definition
contained in the letters] might proceed from a council of wide-spread
influence, lest if only a part were cognizant of what was being done, it might escape
the notice of a part; and especially because among the Gentiles, as the
Longobards, and the Sclavi, as also the Franks, the French, the Goths, and the Britains,
there are known to be very many of our fellow-servants who do not cease
curiously to enquire on the subject, that they may know what is being done in the
cause of the Apostolic faith: who as they can be of advantage so long as they hold
the true faith with us, and think in unison with us, so are they found
troublesome and contrary, if (which may God forbid!) they stumble at any article of
the faith. But we, although most humble, yet strive with all our might that the
commonwealth of your Christian empire may be shown to be more sublime than all
the nations, for in it has been rounded the See of Blessed Peter, the prince of
the Apostles, by the authority of which, all Christian nations venerate and
worship with us, through the reverence of the blessed Apostle Peter himself. (This
is the Latin, which appears to me to be corrupt, the Greek reads as follows:
"The authority of which for the truth, all the Christian nations together with
us worship and revere, according to the honour of the blessed Peter the Apostle
himself.")
[The letter ends with prayers for constancy, and blessings on the State
and Emperor, and hopes for the universal diffusion and acceptance of the truth.]
EXTRACTS FROM THE ACTS.
SESSION VIII.
(Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. VI., col. 730.)
[The Emperor said]
Let George, the most holy archbishop of this our God-preserved city, and
let Macarius, the venerable archbishop of Antioch, and let the synod subject to
them [i.e., their suffragans] say, if they submit to the force
(<greek>ei</greek> <greek>stoikousi</greek> <greek>dunamei</greek>) of the suggestions sent by
the most holy Agatho Pope of Old (1) Rome and by his Synod.
[The answer of George, with which all his bishops, many of them, speaking
one by one, agreed except Theodore of Metilene (who handed in his assent at the
end of the Tenth Session).]
I have diligently examined the whole force of the suggestions sent to your
most pious Fortitude, as well by Agatho, the most holy Pope of Old(1) Rome, as
by his synod, and I have scrutinized the works of the holy and approved
Fathers, which are laid up in my venerable patriarchate, and I have found that all
the testimonies of the holy and accepted Fathers, which are contained in those
suggestions agree with, and in no particular differ from, the holy and accepted
Fathers. Therefore I give my submission to them and thus I profess and believe.
[The answer of all the rest of the Bishops subject to the See of
Constantinople. (Col. 735.)]
And we, most pious Lord, accepting the teaching of the suggestion sent to
your most gentle Fortitude by the most holy and blessed Agatho, Pope of Old
Rome, and of that other suggestion which was adopted by the council subject to
him, and following the sense therein contained, so we are minded, so we profess,
and so we believe that in our one Lord Jesus Christ, our true God, there are two
natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, undividedly, and two natural wills and two
natural operations; and all who have taught, and who now say, that there is
but one will and one operation in the two natures of our one Lord Jesus Christ
our true God, we anathematize.
[The Emperor's demand to Macarius. (Col. 739.)]
Let Macarius, the Venerable Archbishop of Antioch, who has now heard what
has been said by this holy and Ecumenical Synod [demanding the expression of
his faith], answer what seemeth him good.
[The answer of Macarius.]
I do not say that there are two wills or two operations in the
dispensation of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, but one will and one theandric
operation.
THE SENTENCE AGAINST THE MONOTHELITES.
SESSION XIII.
(L. and C., Concilia, Tom. VI., col. 943.)
The holy council said: After we had reconsidered, according to our promise
which we had made to your highness, the doctrinal letters of Sergius, at one
time patriarch of this royal god-protected city to Cyrus, who was then bishop of
Phasis and to Honorius some time Pope of Old Rome, as well as the letter of
the latter to the same Sergius, we find that these documents are quite foreign to
the apostolic dogmas, to the declarations of the holy Councils, and to all the
accepted Fathers, and that they follow the false teachings of the heretics;
therefore we entirely reject them, and execrate them as hurtful to the soul. But
the names of those men whose doctrines we execrate must also be thrust forth
from the holy Church of God, namely, that of Sergius some time bishop of this
God-preserved royal city who was the first to write on this impious doctrine; also
that of Cyrus of Alexandria, of Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter, who died bishops of
this God-preserved city, and were like-minded with them; and that of Theodore
sometime bishop of Pharan, all of whom the most holy and thrice blessed Agatho,
Pope of Old Rome, in his suggestion to our most pious and God-preserved lord
and mighty Emperor, rejected, because they were minded contrary to our orthodox
faith, all of whom we define are to be subjected to anathema. And with these we
define that there shall be expelled from the holy Church of God and
anathematized Honorius who was some time Pope of Old Rome, because of what we found
written by him to Sergius, that in all respects he followed his view and confirmed
his impious doctrines. We have also examined the synodal letter of Sophronius of
holy memory, some time Patriarch of the Holy City of Christ our God, Jerusalem,
and have found it in accordance with the true faith and with the Apostolic
teachings, and with those of the holy approved Fathers. Therefore we have received
it as orthodox and as salutary to the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and
have decreed that it is right that his name be inserted in the diptychs of the
Holy Churches.
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, anathema!
To Stephen
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 assembled 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. Christ, therefore, our God, has raised up our faithful Sovereign, a
new David, having found him a man after his own heart, who as it is written, "has
not suffered his eyes to sleep nor his eyelids to slumber," until he has found
a perfect declaration of orthodoxy by this our God-collected and holy Synod;
for, according to the sentence spoken of God, "Where two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," the present holy and
Ecumenical Synod faithfully receiving and saluting with uplifted hands as well the
suggestion which by the most holy and blessed Agatho, Pope of ancient Rome, was
sent to our most pious and faithful Emperor Constantine, which rejected by
name those who taught or preached one will and one operation in the dispensation
of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ who is our very God, has likewise
adopted that other synodal suggestion which was sent by the Council holden under
the same most holy Pope, composed of 125 Bishops, beloved of God, to his
God-instructed tranquillity, as consonant to the holy Council of Chalcedon and to the
Tome of the most holy and blessed Leo, Pope of the same old Rome, which was
directed to St. Flavian, which also this Council called the Pillar of the right
faith; and also agrees with the Synodal Epistles which were written by Blessed
Cyril against the impious Nestorius and addressed to the Oriental Bishops.
Following the five holy Ecumenical Councils and the holy and approved Fathers, with
one voice defining that our Lord Jesus Christ must be confessed to be very God
and very man, one of the holy and consubstantial and life-giving Trinity,
perfect in Deity and perfect in humanity, very God and very man, of a reasonable
soul and human body subsisting; consubstantial with the Father as touching his
Godhead and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; in all things like
unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before all ages according to
his Godhead, but in these last days for us men and for our salvation made man of
the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary, strictly and properly the Mother of God
according to the flesh; one and the same Christ our Lord the only-begotten Son
of two natures un-confusedly, unchangeably, inseparably indivisibly to be
recognized, the peculiarities of neither nature being lost by the union but rather
the proprieties of each nature being preserved, concurring in one Person and in
one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons but one and the same
only-begotten Son of God, the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, according as the
Prophets of old have taught us and as our Lord Jesus Christ himself hath instructed
us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers hath delivered to us; defining all this
we likewise declare that in him are two natural wills and two natural operations
indivisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, inconfusedly, according to the
teaching of the holy Fathers. And these two natural wills are not contrary the one to
the other (God forbid!) as the impious heretics assert, but his human will
follows and that not as resisting and reluctant, but rather as subject to his
divine and omnipotent will. For it was right that the flesh should be moved but
subject to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius. For as his
flesh is called and is the flesh of God the Word, so also the natural will of his
flesh is called and is the proper will of God the Word, as he himself says: "I
came down from heaven, not that I might do mine own will but the will of the
Father which sent me!" where he calls his own will the will of his flesh, inasmuch
as his flesh was also his own. For as his most holy and immaculate animated
flesh was not destroyed because it was deified but continued in its own state and
nature (<greek>orw</greek> <greek>te</greek> <greek>kai</greek>
<greek>logw</greek>), so also his human will,
although deified, was not suppressed, but was rather preserved according to
the saying of Gregory Theologus: "His will [i.e., the Saviour's] is not contrary
to God but altogether deified."
We glorify two natural operations indivisibly, immutably, inconfusedly,
inseparably in the same our Lord Jesus Christ our true God, that is to say a
divine operation and a human operation, according to the divine preacher Leo, who
most distinctly asserts as follows: "For each form (<greek>morfh</greek>) does
in communion with the other what pertains properly to it, the Word, namely,
doing that which pertains to the Word, and the flesh that which pertains to the
flesh."
For we will not admit one natural operation in God and in the creature, as
we will not exalt into the divine essence what is created, nor will we bring
down the glory of the divine nature to the place suited to the creature.
We recognize the miracles and the sufferings as of one and the same
[Person], but of one or of the other nature of which he is and in which he exists, as
Cyril admirably says. Preserving therefore the inconfusedness and
indivisibility, we make briefly this whole confession, believing our Lord Jesus Christ to
be one of the Trinity and after the incarnation our true God, we say that his
two natures shone forth in his one subsistence in which he both performed the
miracles and endured the sufferings through the whole of his economic conversation
(<greek>di</greek> <greek>oolhs</greek> <greek>autou</greek>
<greek>ths</greek> <greek>oikonomkhs</greek> <greek>anastrofhs</greek>), and that not in
appearance only but in very deed, and this by reason of the difference of nature which
must be recognized in the same Person, for although joined together yet each
nature wills and does the things proper to it and that indivisibly and
inconfusedly. Wherefore we confess two wills and two operations, concurring most fitly
in him for the salvation of the human race.
These firings, therefore, with all diligence and care having been
formulated by us, we define that it be permitted to no one to bring forward, or to
write, or to compose, or to think, or to teach a different faith. Whosoever shall
presume to compose a different faith, or to propose, or teach, or hand to those
wishing to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the Gentiles or
Jews, or from any heresy, any different Creed; or to introduce a new voice or
invention of speech to subvert these things which now have been determined by us,
all these, if they be Bishops or clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from
the Episcopate, the clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laymen: let
them be anathematized.
THE PROSPHONETICUS TO THE EMPEROR.
(Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. VI., col. 1047 et seqq.)
[This address begins with many compliments to the Emperor, especially for his
zeal for the true faith.]
But because the adversary Satan allows no rest, he has raised up the very
ministers of Christ against him, as if armed and carrying weapons, etc.
[The various heretics are then named and how they were condemned by the
preceding five councils is set forth.]
Things being so, it was necessary that your beloved of Christ majesty
should gather together this all holy, and numerous assembly.
Thereafter being inspired by the Holy Ghost, and all agreeing and
consenting together, and giving our approval to the doctrinal letter of our most
blessed and exalted pope, Agatho, which he sent to your mightiness, as also agreeing
to the suggestion of the holy synod of one hundred and twenty-five fathers held
under him, we teach that one of fire Holy Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ, was
incarnate, and must be celebrated in two perfect natures without division and
without confusion. For as the Word, he is consubstantial and eternal with God
his father; but as taking flesh of the immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of God,
he is perfect man, consubstantial with us and made in time. We declare
therefore that he is perfect in Godhead and that the same is perfect likewise in
manhood, according to the pristine tradition of the fathers and the divine
definition of Chalcedon.
And as we recognize two natures, so also we recognize two natural wills
and two natural operations. For we dare not say that either of the natures which
are in Christ in his incarnation is without a will and operation: lest in
taking away the proprieties of those natures, we likewise take away the natures of
which they are the proprieties. For we neither deny rite natural will of his
humanity, or its natural operation: lest we also deny what is the chief thing of
the dispensation for our salvation, and lest we attribute passions to the
Godhead. For this they were attempting who have recently introduced the detestable
novelty that in him there is but one will and one operation, renewing the
malignancy of Arius, Apollinaris, Eutyches and Severus. For should we say that the
human nature of our Lord is without will and operation, how could we affirm in
safety the perfect humanity? For nothing else constitutes the integrity of human
nature except the essential will, through which the strength of free-will is
marked in us; and this is also the case with the substantial operation. For how
shall we call him perfect in humanity if he in no wise suffered and acted as a
man? For like as the union of two natures preserves for us one subsistence
without confusion and without division; so this one subsistence, shewing itself in
two natures, demonstratesas its own what things belong to each.
Therefore we declare that in him there are two natural wills and two
natural operations, proceeding commonly and without division: but we cast out of the
Church and rightly subject to anathema all superfluous novelties as well as
their inventors: to wit, Theodore of Pharan, Sergius and Paul, Pyrrhus, and Peter
(who were archbishops of Constantinople), moreover Cyrus, who bore the
priesthood of Alexandria, and with them Honorius, who was the ruler
(<greek>proedron</greek>) of Rome, as he followed them in these things. Besides these, with the
best of cause we anathematize and depose Macarius, who was bishop of Antioch,
and his disciple Stephen (or rather we should say master), who tried to defend
the impiety of their predecessors, and in short stirred up the whole world, and
by their pestilential letters and by their fraudulent institutions devastated
multitudes in every direction. Likewise also that old man Polychronius, with an
infantile intelligence, who promised he would raise the dead and who when they
did not rise, was laughed at; and all who have taught, or do teach, or shall
presume to teach one will and one operation in the incarnate Christ. . . But the
highest prince of the Apostles fought with us: for we had on our side his
imitator and the successor in his see, who also had set forth in his letter the
mystery of the divine word (<greek>qeolo</greek> <greek>gias</greek>). For the
ancient city of Rome handed thee a confession of divine character, and a chart from
the sunsetting raised up the day of dogmas, and made the darkness manifest, and
Peter spoke through Agatho, and thou, O autocratic King, according to the
divine decree, with the Omnipotent Sharer of thy throne, didst judge.
But, O benign and justice-loving Lord, do thou in return do this favour to
him who hath bestowed thy power upon thee; and give, as a seal to what has
been defined by us, thy imperial ratification in writing, and so confirm them with
the customary pious edicts and constitutions, that no one may contradict the
things which have been done, nor raise any fresh question. For rest assured, O
serene majesty, that we have not falsified anything defined by the Ecumenical
Councils and by the approved fathers, but we have confirmed them. And now we all
cry out with one mind and one voice, "O God, save the King! etc., etc."
[Then follow numerous compliments to the Emperor and prayers for his
preservation.]
LETTER OF THE COUNCIL TO ST. AGATHO.
(Found in Migne, Pat. Lat., Tom. LXXXVII., col. 1247 et seqq.; and Labbe
and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. VI., col. 1071 et seqq.)
A copy of the letter sent by the holy and Ecumenical Sixth Council to
Agatho, the most blessed and most holy pope of Old Rome.
The holy and ecumenical council which by the grace of God and the pious
sanction of the most pious and faithful Constantine, the great Emperor, has been
gathered together in this God-preserved and royal city, Constantinople, the new
Rome, in the Secretum of the imperial (<greek>qeiou</greek>, sacri) palace
called Trullus, to the most holy and most blessed pope of Old Rome, Agatho, health
in the Lord.
Serious illnesses call for greater helps, as you know, most blessed
[father]; and therefore Christ our true God, who is the creator and governing power
of all things, gave a wise physician, namely your God-honoured sanctity, to
drive away by force the contagion of heretical pestilence by the remedies of
orthodoxy, and to give the strength of health to the members of the church. Therefore
to thee, as to the bishop of the first see of the Universal Church, we leave
what must be done, since you willingly take for your standing ground the firm
rock of the faith, as we know from having read your true confession in the letter
sent by your fatherly beatitude to the most pious emperor: and we acknowledge
that this letter was divinely written (perscriptas) as by the Chief of the
Apostles, and through it we have cast out the heretical sect of many errors which
had recently sprung up, having been urged to making a decree by Constantine who
divinely reigns, and wields a most clement sceptre. And by his help we have
overthrown the error of impiety, having as it were laid siege to the nefarious
doctrine of the heretics. And then tearing to pieces the foundations of their
execrable heresy, and attacking them with spiritual and paternal arms, and
confounding their tongues that they might not speak consistently with each other, we
overturned the tower built up by these followers of this most impious heresy; and
we slew them with anathema, as lapsed concerning the faith and as sinners, in
the morning outside the camp of the tabernacle of God, that we may express
ourselves after the manner of David,(1) in accordance with the sentence already
given concerning them in your letter, and their names are these: Theodore, bishop
of Pharan, Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, Paul, Pyrrhus and Peter. Moreover, in
addition to these, we justly subjected to the anathema of heretics those also who
live in their impiety which they have received, or, to speak more accurately, in
the impiety of these God - hated persons, Apollinaris, Severus and Themestius,
to wit, Macarius, who was the bishop of the great city of Antioch (and him we
also stripped deservedly of his pastor's robes on account of his impenitence
concerning the orthodox faith and his obstinate stubbornness), and Stephen, his
disciple in craziness and his teacher in impiety, also Polychronius, who was
inveterate in his heretical doctrines, thus answering to his name; and finally all
those who impenitently have taught or do teach, or now hold or have held
similar doctrines.
Up to now grief, sorrow, and many tears have been our portion. For we
cannot laugh at the fall of our neighbours, nor exult with joy at their unbridled
madness, nor have we been elated that we might fall all the more grievously
because of this thing; not thus, O venerable and sacred head, have we been taught,
we who hold Christ, the Lord of the universe, to be both benign and man-loving
in the highest degree; for he exhorts us to be imitators of him in his
priesthood so far as is possible, as becometh the good, and to obtain the pattern of
his pastoral and conciliatory government. But also to true repentance the most
Serene Emperor and ourselves have exhorted them in various ways, and we have
conducted the whole matter with great religiousness and care. Nor have we been
moved to do so for the sake of gain, nor by hatred, as you can easily see from what
things have been done in each session, and related in the minutes, which are
herewith sent to your blessedness: and you will understand from your holiness's
vicars, Theodore and George, presbyters beloved of God, and from John, the most
religious deacon, and from Constantine, the most venerable sub-deacon, all of
them your spiritual children and our well-loved brethren. So too you will hear
the same things from those sent by your holy synod, the holy bishops who
rightly and uprightly, in accordance with your discipline, decreed with us in the
first chapter of the faith.
Thus, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, and instructed by your doctrine, we
have cast forth the vile doctrines of impiety, making smooth the right path of
orthodoxy, being in every way encouraged and helped in so doing by the wisdom
and power of our most pious and serene Emperor Constantine. And then one of our
number, the most holy praesul of this reigning Constantinople, in the first
place assenting to the orthodox compositions sent by you to the most pious emperor
as in all respects agreeable to the teaching of the approved Fathers and of
the God-instructed Fathers, and of the holy five universal councils, we all, by
the help of Christ our God, easily accomplished what we were striving after. For
as God was the mover, so God also he crowned our council.
Thereupon, therefore, the grace of the Holy Spirit shone upon us,
displaying his power, through your assiduous prayers, for the uprooting of all weeds
and every tree which brought not forth good fruit, and giving command that they
should be consumed by fire. And we all agree both in heart and tongue, and hand,
and have put forth, by the assistance of the life-giving Spirit, a definition,
clean from all error, certain, and infallible; not 'removing the ancient
landmarks, as it is written (God forbid!), but remaining steadfast in the
testimonies and authority of the holy and approved fathers, and defining that, as of two
and in two natures (to wit, the divinity and the humanity) of which he is
composed and in which he exists, Christ our true God is preached by us, and is
glorified inseparably, unchangeably, unconfusedly, and undividedly; just so also we
predicate of him two natural operations, undividedly, incontrovertibly,
unconfusedly, inseparably, as has been declared in our synodal definition. These
decrees the majesty of our God-copying Emperor assented to, and subscribed them with
his own hand. And, as has been said, we rejected and condemned that most
impious and unsubstantial heresy which affirmed but one will and one operation in
the incarnate Christ our true God, and by so doing we have pressed sore upon the
crowd who confound and who divide, and have extinguished the inflamed storm of
other heresies, but we have set forth clearly with you the shining light of the
orthodox faith, and we pray your paternal sanctity to confirm our decree by
your honourable rescript; through which we confide in good hope in Christ that
his merciful kindness will grant freely to the Roman State, committed to the care
of our most clement Emperor, stability; and will adorn with daily yokes and
victories his most serene elemency; and that in addition to the good things he
has here bestowed upon us, he will set your God-honoured holiness before his
tremendous tribunal as one who has sincerely confessed the true faith, preserving
it unsullied and keeping good ward over the orthodox flocks committed to him by
God.
We and all who are with us salute all the brethren in Christ who are with
your blessedness.
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.
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.
THE IMPERIAL EDICT POSTED IN THE THIRD ATRIUM OF THE GREAT CHURCH NEAR WHAT IS
CALLED DICYMBALA.
In the name of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour, the
most pious Emperor, the peaceful and Christ-loving Constantine, an Emperor
faithful to God in Jesus Christ, to all our Christ-loving people living in this
God-preserved and royal city.
[The document is very long, Hefele gives the following epitome, which is
all sufficient for the ordinary reader, who will remember that it is an Edict of
the Emperor and not anything proceeding from the council.]
Hefele's Epitome (Hist. of the Councils, Vol. v., p. 178).
"The heresy of Apollinaris, etc., has been renewed by Theodore of Pharan
and confirmed by Honorius, sometime Pope of Old Rome, who also contradicted
himself. Also Cyrus, Pyrrhus, Paul, Peter; more recently. Macarius, Stephen, and
Polychronius had diffused Monothelitism. He, the Emperor, had therefore convoked
this holy and Ecumenical Synod, and published the present edict with the
confession of faith, in order to confirm and establish its decrees. (There follows
here an extended confession of faith, with proofs for the doctrine of two wills
and operations.) As he recognized the five earlier Ecumenical Synods, so he
anathematized all heretics from Simon Magus, but especially the originator and
patrons of the new heresy, Theodore and Sergius; also Pope Honorius, who was their
adherent and patron in everything, and confirmed the heresy (<greek>ton</greek>
<greek>kata</greek> <greek>panta</greek> <greek>toutois</greek>
<greek>sunairethn</greek> <greek>kai</greek> <greek>bebaiwthn</greek> <greek>ths</greek>
<greek>airesews</greek>, further, Cyrus, etc., and ordained that no one henceforth
should hold a different faith, or venture to teach one will and one energy. In
no other than the orthodox faith could men be saved. Whoever did not obey the
imperial edict should, if he were a bishop or cleric be deposed; if an official,
punished with confiscation of property and loss of the girdle
(<greek>zwnh</greek>); if a private person, banished from the residence and all other cities."