The Controversy Of The Three Chapters And The Fifth Oecumenical Synod. F481 CHAPTER -Events Preceding The Opening Of The Fifth Synod.

SEC. 258. ORIGIN OF THE CONTROVERSY OF THE THREE CHAPTERS.

In order to divert the Emperor Justinian and also, as Evagrius adds (4. 37), the theologians of that period from the persecution of the Origenists, Theodore Ascidas, archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, of whom we have already heard, stirred up the controversy of the three chapters.

Although a leader of the Origenists at that time, yet in order that he might not lose his position and influence at Court, where he resided almost continually, he had assented to the rejection of Origen; but selfpreservation now bid him give a different direction to the Emperor’s passion for dogmatising. When Justinian was occupied with the notion of drawing up an extensive document with the view of reuniting the Acephali, a sect of the Monophysites, to the Church (see vol. 3, sec. 208), Ascidas, together with some friends, represented to him that there was a much shorter and surer way to that end, and it might spare him the trouble of a lengthy treatise, if he would only pronounce an anathema on Theodore of Mopsuestia and his writings, on the letter of Bishop Ibas of Edessa to the Persian Maris, and, finally, on those writings of Theodoret which had been put forth in defense of Nestorius and against Cyril and the Synod of Ephesus. This suggestion, which, as Liberatus indicates (l .c .), was supported by the Empress Theodora, who had Monophysite tendencies, was not without favoring circumstances, for, in fact, the Severians had declared, in the religious conference, A.D. 533 (see vol. 3, sec. 208, and above, sec. 246), that one of the reasons why they could not accept the Council of Chalcedon was that Ibas and Theodoret were there declared to be orthodox. The Emperor entered into the proposal and issued an edict, in which he pronounced the threefold anathema required, and thus provoked the controversy of the three chapters.

By kefa>laia , Capitula , were generally understood some propositions drawn up in the form of anathematisms, which threatened with excommunication everyone who maintained this or that. Thus the twelve well-known anathematisms of Cyril were constantly entitled his twelve kefa>laia . Similar kefa>laia were also contained in the edict which the Emperor Justinian now issued. We see this partly from the few fragments of it still extant (see below in this section), and also from a quite similar later edict, the oJmologi>a pi>stewv jIoustianou~ aujtokra>torov kata< triw~n kefalai>wn (see below). In the latter he says: “He wishes to draw up only a few kefa>laia in the interest of the orthodox faith,” and among these the most interesting are kefa>laia 12 to 14, as follows: “Whoever defends Theodore of Mopsuestia … let him be anathema”; “Whoever defends certain writings of Theodore … let him be anathema”; and “Whoever defends the impious letter written by Ibas … let him be anathema.” Three kefa>laia quite similar to these seem to have been contained in the first edict of the Emperor (on this subject), which is now lost; and we see from this in what sense the expression “tri>a kefa>laia, ” or “three chapters,” was originally to be understood. To be exact, we should have to say: “Whoever obeys the imperial edict, subscribes the tri>a kera>laia ; whoever does not, rejects them”; but the expression did not attain to this form; but rather by the kefa>laia quite generally, not those three popositions , but the persons and writings designated in them; and when we meet with the expression tri>a kefa>laia , or tria capitula , in the later imperial edicts, in the minutes of the fifth Oecumenical Synod, in papal and other letters, we understand by this:] (1) the person and writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia; (2) the writings of Theodoret for Nestorius and against Cyril and the Synod of Ephesus; and (3) the letter of Ibas to the Persian Maris.

The fifth Oecumenical Synod, in its closing sentence, thus declares: “Praedicta igitur tria capitula anathematisamus, id est, Theodorum impium Mopsuestenum cum nefandis ejus conscriptis, et quae impie Theodoritus conscripsit, et impiam epistolam, quae dicitur Ibae.” To a similar effect the Emperor Justinian expresses himself in that decree which was read at the first session of the fifth Council: “That he had consulted the bishops respecting the impia tria capitula , and that these impia tria capitula were nevertheless by many defended.” In the letter of Pope Vigilius to Bishop Eutychius of Constantinople, in which he gave his approval to the fifth Oecumenical Council, we read: ta< proeirhme>na toi>nun tri>a ajsebh~ qeo>dwron, k.t.l . Facundus, bishop of Hermiane, in Africa, a contemporary of these events and a zealous opponent of the imperial edict, named his extensive treatise in defense of Theodore, etc., Libri 12 pro defensione trium capitulorum ; and Liberatus (l .c .) relates that the Emperor had demanded the damnatio trium capitulorum . Thus by tria capitula are generally understood, not the three propositions of the imperial edict, but the well-known three points, Theodore and his writings, some writings of Theodoret, and the letter of Ibas. Only in the oJmologi>a of the Emperor, and probably in his first edict, was the original meaning of the kela>laia maintained. In the present superscription, probably not original, of the work of Facundus, as in the Chronicle of S. Isidore of Seville, we meet with the expression, tria Chalcedonensis concilii capitula ; and this has been translated by several scholars as “three decrees of the Council of Chalcedon”; others, with greater probability, “three questions which were discussed in that Synod.” But, in the first place, whilst at Chalcedon there were discussions on Ibas and Theodoret, there were none respecting Theodore of Mopsuestia, nor was any decree on him put forth. Besides, no decrees of Chalcedon were ever put forth with the predicate impia capitula , or ajsebh~ kela>laia . That this statement and translation is not admissible is finally shown by this, that the Emperor Justinian, Pope Vigilius, and all who rejected the three chapters, expressly declared that they had not in the least impugned the decrees of Chalcedon.

How it was, however, that these three chapters could become the subject of a violent controversy, will be understood when we consider more closely the three men around whose persons or writings the controversy was carried on. We have already seen (vol. 3, sec. 127) that Bishop Theodore of Mopsuestia, formerly a priest at Antioch, was the head of that Syrian theological school which, in opposition to Apollinarianism, endeavored to hold fast, in a new way, the truth of each of the two natures of Christ. The ecclesiastical term “Incarnation of God” appeared to him dangerous, as though it taught a change of God the Word into a man; and for this reason he wished to recognize only an indwelling or ejnoi>khsiv of the Word in a man and thereby divided the one Christ into two , into the man and the dwelling in Him, or, into the temple and the God who dwelt in it. Thus Theodore of Mopsuestia was the real father of that heresy which received its name from one of his disciples, Nestorius. Theodore had died before the Nestorian controversy broke out (A.D. 428), and this is undoubtedly the reason why the third Oecumenical Synod at Ephesus condemned Nestorius, and made no reference to Theodore of Mopsuestia (see vol. 3, sec. 134). In the same way his writings were spared, when the Emperor Theodosius II. had those of Nestorius burnt. Taking advantage of this circumstance, the confessed and secret Nestorians hastened to circulate the books of Theodore and those of the still earlier Diodorus of Tarsus, his master, and to translate them into Syriac, Armenian, and Persian. The principal seat of this movement was Edessa in Mesopotamia, in consequence of which, in the year 435, the bishop of this city, Nabulas, felt himself obliged to point out Theodore of Mopsuestia publicly as the real father of the Nestorian heresy, and to draw the attention of all his colleagues to this fact. Several of these were of a different view, and ascribed the action of Nabulas to personal resentment. The great Cyril of Alexandria, on the contrary, and the celebrated Proclus of Constantinople, recognized the correctness of the contention of Nabulas, and issued memorials warning against the errors of the Mopsuestian. They demanded an anathema to be pronounced upon him; and Cyril turned to the Emperor for this purpose.

Along with these orthodox opponents of Theodore, however, there appeared also, at the same time, monks and Armenians of Monophysite tendencies as accusers, and pointed out many orthodox statements of his as heresies. This caused Cyril and Proclus on the other side to defend the Mopsuestian, and to abstain from the demand for an anathema. Theodosius II. also issued an edict to the effect that the peace of the Church should be maintained, and that it should not be allowed that men who had died in the communion of the Catholic Church should be blackened (see vol. 3, sec. 160). Thus, for the time, the controversy was kept under, but not settled, and was therefore sure to break out again on the first opportunity. It was natural that the Monophysites should come forward from the beginning as violent opponents of the Nestorian Theodore. Even Eutyches had accused him and Diodorus of Tarsus of heresy (see vol. 3, sec. 171), whilst the Nestorians honored the Mopsuestian as one of the greatest teachers, and do so to this day. The judgments of the orthodox theologians were doubtful. On the one side, they could not deny the relationship between Theodore and Nestorianism; on the other hand, however, they would not go against what had been done by Cyril and the Emperor Theodosius II., and the fourth Oecumenical Synod of Chalcedon let it pass, without any remark in the way of correction, when, at their tenth session, that passage from the letter of Ibas was read, in which he said: “The tyrant of Edessa (Bishop Nabulas), under the pretext of religion, has persecuted even the dead, e .g . the late Theodore (of Mopsuestia), this herald of the truth and teacher of the Church,” and so forth (see sec. 196 in vol. 3). When the Emperor Justinian, a hundred years afterwards, demanded an anathema upon the person and writings of Theodore, the one party might regard this as well founded, whilst the other could think it was wrong at so late a period to anathematize a bishop who had died in Church communion more than a hundred years ago; besides that, the reputation of the Council of Chalcedon must in that way suffer.

The second man about whom the controversy of the three chapters turned was Theodoret, the learned bishop of Cyrus in Syria, already so often mentioned. He had also been a disciple of Theodore of Mopsuestia; and if he did not go so far as he did, yet he had, in former times, frequently maintained that, by the doctrine of Cyril and Ephesus, the natures in Christ are mingled. With peculiar violence he had in particular opposed the anathematisms of Cyril as Apollinarian (sec. 132 in vol. 3). At the third Oecumenical Synod at Ephesus he appeared in company with his patriarch, John of Antioch, and he was one of the most zealous members of the Conciliabulum which opposed the Ephesine Synod and decreed the deposition of Cyril and Memnon (sec. 135). For this reason he was, like others, excommunicated until he should amend (sec. 139). When the Emperor summoned deputies of both parties, as well of the Ephesine Synod as of the Antiochene faction, Theodoret was among the latter, came in this capacity to Chalcedon, distinguished himself here also by his polemic against Cyril, and would know nothing at all of Church communion with him. He was pained by the Emperor taking the orthodox envoys with him to Constantinople, whilst the Antiochenes were obliged to remain at Chalcedon; and still endeavored by speeches, letters, etc., to labor for what he thought the true doctrine, and cried “Woe” over the persecutors of Nestorius (secs. 145, 147, 148, 149).

After his departure from Chalcedon we meet with him again active against Cyril at Synods and by writings (secs. 151 152); soon, however, the explanation of Cyril, that he taught no mingling of the natures, gave him great satisfaction (sec 153). That he was not really a Nestorian he showed by his offer to anathematize all who separate the one Lord into two Sons, as well as by his endeavoring to gain over other Oriental bishops for the restoration of Church unity. When the union between Cyril and John of Antioch was actually effected, Theodoret was in agreement with the dogmatic part of the document of union, but would not at all consent with the anathematizing of Nestorius, which was contained in it, as he held his friend to be innocent in the principal matter, and considered him to be misunderstood (secs. 158, 159). He took, therefore, for some time a middle position between the decided friends and the complete opponents of the union, went, therefore, temporarily with his Patriarch John, became reconciled again after a conference with him, and entered into the union, after John had allowed that anyone who was unwilling need not subscribe the deposition of Nestorius (sec. 159).

When, after the death of Cyril, the Monophysite party began to grow powerful under the protection of his successor Dioscurus, Theodoret again came under suspicion of Nestorianism, and although he put forth a dear confession of his orthodoxy, Dioscurus nevertheless pronounced him excommunicated. The Emperor, too, became very ill-disposed towards him, and forbade him to appear at the next Synod unless he were expressly summoned (secs. 170, 175). Afterwards he was deposed at the Robber- Synod, and banished by the Emperor (sees. 179, 181). He appealed to the Pope, and petitioned for an impartial examination of his case at another Synod. The new Emperor Marcian recalled him; but he could not at once enter upon his bishopric, because the Synod of Chalcedon had first to decide on the subject. When he appeared at the eighth session, he was required immediately to pronounce anathema upon Nestorius. He hesitated, and at first was unwilling to do so unconditionally; yet he put his own orthodoxy out of doubt, and at last consented to the anathema, whereupon he received his bishopric back, and was troubled no more to his death (A.D. 457).

The Emperor Justinian, as we know, had not wished to anathematize the person nor all the works of Theodoret, but only those written against Cyril and the Synod of Ephesus and those in defense of Nestorius; and he was materially so far right, as the books in question contained, in fact, much that was erroneous, particularly many unfair attacks upon Cyril and the third Synod, many misrepresentations of the doctrine of Cyril and the third Synod, and a too favorable exposition of the Nestorian theses. From the orthodox side, therefore, it was possible to give an unhesitating assent to the anathema required in regard of these matters. As, however, the Synod of Chalcedon restored Theodoret without further demand, and pronounced no sentence on any part of his works, many of the orthodox supposed that the edict of the Emperor contained an attack upon the credit of the Council of Chalcedon, and the Monophysites could not fail, in fact, to use it in this sense. This scruple could not but arise when it was remembered that formerly at the religious conference at Constantinople, A.D. 533, the Severians had made the restoration of Theodoret a reproach against the Council of Chalcedon (sec. 246), and had maintained that he had not pronounced anathema on Nestorius at Chalcedon honestly, but only in appearance and deceptively. f493 Finally, in regard to the letter of Ibas to Maris, we have already seen (sec. 160) that, when Nabulas came forward with his violent polemic against the dead Theodore of Mopsuestia, Ibas was a priest of Edessa, and a great admirer of Theodore. After the death of Nabulas he became himself bishop of Edessa. About twelve years later some of his clergy brought a complaint against him, before the Patriarch Dominus of Antioch, on several grounds, particularly because he had circulated the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, had allowed himself in heretical expressions, and had made his dissolute nephew, Daniel, bishop of Carrae, and had spent Church property (sec. 169). In order to the investigation of the matter two commissions had to meet in Berytus and Tyre (about the year 448); the subject, however, came up at the ninth and tenth sessions of Chalcedon, at which the earlier minutes of Berytus and Tyre were read again (sec. 196). The chief Corpus delicti was the letter to Maris, bishop of Hardaschir in Persia, ascribed to Ibas, and this was naturally also read at Chalcedon. We gave a short extract from it under the tenth session of Chalcedon (sec. 196). The letter judges Cyril and the first Ephesine Synod with distinct unfairness and injustice, misrepresents the history of the Synod, accuses Cyril of having held an Apollinarian doctrine before the union with the Orientals, and casts the same reproach against the Synod of Ephesus because they approved the anathematisms of Cyril. Later, however, he says, Cyril and his adherents had corrected themselves, and, in the union, had accepted the true faith. The letter also will not admit the Communicatio idiomatum . In such a view of the matter an anathema on him (Ibas) was fully justified, in an objective sense, for he was really in a high degree offensive and insulting, not only towards the friends of Cyril, but also towards all who respected the third Oecumenical Synod. This part of its contents was capable of only one meaning.

On the contrary, the letter offered also a side in respect to which double and opposed judgment was possible. The author also declares in the letter that he holds fast that doctrine which had been enunciated at the union between Cyril and the Orientals, and recognizes the unity of the one Lord in the duality of the natures. If importance were attached to this, it might be inferred that Ibas had been peculiarly orthodox, and only through a misunderstanding had earlier opposed Cyril, and later denied the Communicatio idiomatum . But we might also understand that the author was only in appearance at the point of view of the union, and that his continued denial of the Communicatio idiomatum , and also the manner in which he still expressed himself in this letter respecting Cyril and the third Oecumenical Council, showed that then, too, he was still heretical, and that the whole letter was penetrated with the Nestorian leaven.

The Emperor and the members of the subsequent fifth Oecumenical Synod had taken the latter view; the defendants of the three chapters, on the contrary, formed a more favorable and kindly judgment on the letter and its author. On this side could be urged the circumstance that Ibas at the transactions at Tyre (sec. 196) had declared his adhesion to the third Oecumenical Synod, and at the same time had himself recognized and retracted a leading error in the letter. He was therefore, and because he gave assurance of his orthodoxy, agreed to the anathema on Nestorius, and could present a good testimony from his clergy, acquitted by his judges at Tyre (sec. 196). It is true that the Robber-Synod deposed him again, but the Synod of Chalcedon annulled this sentence again, declared the accusations brought against Ibas to be groundless, and restored him to his bishopric. This judgment was preceded by the reading of the Acts already passed in this matter, the minutes of Berytus and Tyre, the letter to Maris, and the testimony of the clergy of Edessa in favor of Ibas; and the Synod thereupon decreed the restoration of Ibas on the condition that he should pronounce anew an anathema upon Nestorius and his heresy. On the letter to Maris in specie the Synod pronounced no judgment. Whatever was Nestorian in it Ibas must have abjured by the required anathema on Nestorius. Some few of the voters at Chalcedon, however, namely, the papal legatees and Bishop Maximus of Antioch, expressed themselves in such a manner as to imply that in this very letter to Maris (on its bright side) they had discovered a proof of the orthodoxy of Ibas. That this explanation of their words is the correct one, we shall discuss later on, in the third chapter of this book, when we treat of the confirmation of the fifth Oecumenical Council by Pope Vigilius; and in any case it was not surprising that many among the orthodox should see, in the demand for an anathema upon the letter, an insult to the Synod of Chalcedon.

In order to pacify them the Emperor and his friends endeavored to bring proof that Ibas had never acknowledged that letter to be his, nay, that at the Synod at Chalcedon he had denied the authorship rather clearly. But the proof was insufficient; and also the way in which they sought to explain the votes of the papal legates, etc., and to show in an artificial manner that the Synod of Chalcedon had specially rejected that letter, could give no satisfaction. Many of the orthodox, particularly Bishop Facundus of Hermione in his Defensio trium capitulorum , also for some time Pope Vigilius, maintained, likewise going too far, the exact contrary, that the Council of Chalcedon had dearly approved the letter of Ibas to Maris, and declared it orthodox, and that an anathema upon it was not possible without detracting from that Synod. From all this we see how the imperial edict for the condemnation of the three chapters found, and must have found, differences of judgment among the orthodox.

If, now, we look a little closer at this edict itself, the contemporary Liberatus (l .c .), in the first place, tells us only that the Emperor demanded an anathema upon Theodore of Mopsuestia and the letter of Ibas. Of Theodoret he is silent at first; but some lines later he says: “Theodore Ascidas counselled the Emperor cunningly to declare an anathema on the three chapters in a special imperial decree,” i .e . not to bring the subject in a more uncertain manner before a Synod, but to decide it by a peremptory imperial decree. “Thereupon,” he says, “the Emperor actually issued a book (a detailed edict) in damnationem trium capitulorum .” To a similar effect Facundus also, in lib. 1 c. 2 of his Defensio trium capitulorum , speaks first of the letter of Ibas, the anathematizing of which had been advised to the Emperor; but in other places, and in the preface to the work mentioned, he says expressly that an anathema had been demanded and pronounced upon some writings of Theodoret, and on the person and writings of Theodore. f495 Liberatus maintains (l.c .) that Theodore Ascidas gave this advice to the Emperor chiefly on two grounds: First, because he was himself not merely an Origenist, but also an Acephalus, and, moreover, because, as an Origenist, he hated Theodore of Mopsuestia, who had written against Origen. There is no doubt that Liberatus was here mistaken, as no one else says anything of the Monophysitism of Ascidas, and, in fact, he is not to be suspected of it. The opposition of the Mopsuestian to Origen, however, had reference only to his exegetical methods, and certainly did not give occasion for the controversy of the three chapters. The thorough accurate account of its origin is given by the man who must have been best informed on the subject, Bishop Domitian of Ancyra, the friend of Ascidas, and the second head of the Origenisis. In his letter to Pope Vigilius he writes that, “on account of the doctrine of the pre-existence and apokatastasis they had unjustly attacked and condemned Origen and other holy and celebrated teachers. Those who wished to defend such doctrines had not been able to do so; therefore they had completely given up this controversy, and had begun another over Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia, and had endeavored to get an anathema pronounced upon him, with the intention of abolishing the movement that was going on against Origen” (ad abolitionem ut putabant eorum, quoe contra Originem mota constituerant or constiterant ). Facundus, who communicates this fragment of a letter (l.c. lib. 4, chap. 4, p. 708, and lib. 1, chap. 2, p. 667), infers from it illegitimately that the Origenisis had acted only from revenge, and for this reason had sought to stir up disturbance in the Church (l.c. lib. 1, chap. 2); but he may be right in this, when he declares that the Monophysites, who hitherto had labored in vain to destroy the credit of the Synod of Chalcedon, had now made use of the Origenists, in order through these, who on this point (in regard to the Council of Chalcedon) were not suspected, to carry out their plans.

That the first edict, in which Justinian, at the wish of Ascidas, published the three anathematisms of which we have heard, was drawn up, not by the Emperor himself, but by the Monophysites and Origenists, Facundus maintains repeatedly, and professes to know that these had prefixed the name of the Emperor by imposition (lib. 2, chap. 1). This, however, is only facon de parler , in order the more easily to attack the edict in question; and, in fact, he only means to say that they had outwitted the Emperor, as this edict stands in contradiction with other decrees, particularly his declarations of faith (lib. 2, chap. 1). Theodore Ascidas is generally considered to be the author of this imperial edict. Walch, however (Ketzerhist. Bd. 8, S. 152), has contested this view, as Ascidas expressly asserted later, on his reconciliation with Vigilius, that he had written nothing in this matter. But Walch is here plainly wrong, since Theodore Ascidas, Mennas, and their associates in the letter in question, say only they had written nothing that was contrary to the union effected between the Emperor and the Pope of the year 550 (sec. 261). Thus it is only the authorship of the later imperial edict, the oJmologi>a , which is denied.

We can no more settle with certainty the time of the composition than we can the authorship of the first edict, as this has been lost together with the subscription. Baronius removed it into the year 546, whilst Cardinal Noris (De Synodo , 5, chap. 3) showed that it was probably issued towards the end of the year 543, or at the beginning of 544. In opposition to him the learned Jesuit Garnier contended for the year 545; but the Ballerini, Walch, and others concerned in the reckoning of Noris, have also given the preference to the beginning of A.D. 544. It is incontestable that the edict cannot have been drawn up before the year 543, for it is plain that it was issued after the anathema on Origen, and to draw the Emperor away from this. It cannot, however, be placed later than 545, for in this year Pope Vigilius traveled from Rome to Constantinople, and the edict had been issued some time before his departure. We said that the edict in question had been lost. Baronius (ad ann. 546, n. 10), Mosheim (Inst. Hist.

Ecclesiastes p. 249), and others thought that we might find its contents in the later oJmologi>a of the Emperor, of which we shall hereafter have to speak more fully; but Noris has completely disproved this; and all subsequent writers, particularly the Ballerini and Walch, have justly coincided with him. To give only a few reasons, we note: In the oJmologi>a , among other things, mention is made of that Synod at Mopsuestia, summoned by the Emperor, which was not held until the year 550, whilst our edict was drawn up in the year 544. Moreover, we do not find in the oJmologi>a those fragments which Facundus communicates from the first edict of the Emperor. Of these fragments there are three. The first occurs in Facundus (l.c. lib. 2, chap. 3), and contains the anathematismus: “Si quis dicit, rectam esse ad Marim impiam epistolam, quae dicitur ab Iba esse facta, ant ejus assertor est, et non magis anathemati subjicit, utpote male tractantem sanctum Cyrillum, qui dicit quia Deus Verbum factus est homo, et ejusdem Sancti Cyrilli 12 capitulis detrahentem, et primam Ephesinam synodum impetentem, Nestorium vero defendentem, laudantem autem Theodorum Mopsuestiae, anathema sit.” A second fragment, in Facundus (lib. 4, chap. 4, l.c. p. 709), runs: “Si quis dicit haec nos ad abolendos ant excludendos sanctos patres, qui in Chalcedonensi fuere concilio, dixisse, anathema sit.” The third fragment, finally (in Facundus, 2:3), in its content, is connected with the first, and contains no anathematism, but the words: “Oportet aperte inspicere ad Marim epistolam, omnia quidem sine Deo et impie dicentem, illud tantummodo ostendentem bene, quia ex illo Theodorus per Orientem in ecclesia anathematizatus est.” Further information in regard to the nature of the first imperial edict is given by the African Bishop Pontianus, in his letter to the Emperor Justinian, in which he says that the Emperor’s letter contains first a correct explanation of the faith; and at its close a demand that an anathema should be pronounced upon Theodore, on certain writings of Theodoret, and on the letter of Ibas.

The first imperial edict, as Facundus declares, was again altered by the Origenist and Monophysite counsellors of the Emperor, and instead of the longer formula of anathema against the letter of Ibas given above (Fragment 1), the shorter was substituted: “Si quis dicit, rectam esse ad Marim impiam epistolam, aut eam defendit, et non anathematizat eam, anathema sit. This later edition is called by Facundus the Formula subscriptionis, whilst he designates the earlier as the Epistola damnationis.

As reason for this alteration he states that, in the first formula, only some parts of the letter had been rejected as objectionable, namely, the passages against Cyril, etc., but that now the Monophysites had demanded an anathema on the letter in general, so that its orthodox content as well, the doctrine of the two natures, might seem to be anathematized. Walch (l.c. p. 151 f.) supposes that the Emperor Justinian himself had, at a later period, withdrawn his edict, as he was obliged to bring the controversy of the three chapters before a Synod, and for this reason it had been so soon lost.

The first from whom the Emperor demanded the subscription of the edict was the Patriarch Mennas of Constantinople. He hesitated at first, and declared that we must not imperil the credit of the Council of Chalcedon, and that he would do nothing without the apostolic see. At last, however, he subscribed; but after they had promised him on oath that, in case the bishop of Rome should not agree, his subscription should be given back to him. In the same way Ephraim, patriarch of Antioch, would not agree; but when he was threatened with deposition, he also subscribed, his office, as Facundus (4, 4) remarks, being dearer to him than the truth. Similar weakness and inconsistency were shown by the Patriarch Peter of Jerusalem. When, at the beginning, a company of monks visited him (for what purpose Facundus does not say), he declared, with an oath, that whoever agreed with the new decree attacked the Council of Chalcedon. In spite of this he agreed himself later on.

Finally, Zoilus, patriarch of Antioch, wrote very soon and spontaneously to Pope Vigilius, that he also had subscribed under constraint. Similar compulsion was brought to bear upon the other bishops, and it was resolved to extort the subscriptions of the whole episcopate, in order, says Facundus, that it might appear as though the whole Church were opposed to the Synod of Chalcedon. Liberatus also speaks of this constraint, remarking that some had been caught by presents, and others frightened by the threat of banishment. In particular, Mennas compelled the bishops under him to subscribe, as a number of them complained in a memorial to Stephen, the papal legate. Garnier assumed that Mennas, for this purpose, held a special Synod at Constantinople; but there is nothing said of this in the original documents. In order to produce a better inclination to a subscription of the imperial edict, it was from the beginning declared that the question would also be put on the subject to the Roman Church; but Facundus shows (l.c. 4, 3) how deceptive such a supplementary inquiry would have been, since everyone who judged otherwise than the edict on the matter would have been previously anathematized.

Cunning and violence succeeded, by degrees, in gaining the whole East to subscribe the edict. The Latins were not so pliant. The papal legate, Stephen, who resided in Constantinople, immediately reproached the Patriarch Mennas for his weakness, and broke off Church communion with him. faa15 The same was done by Bishop Dacius of Milan, who was residing at Milan at that time, and subsequently went thence to Sicily (hinc reversum ), in order to make the Pope acquainted with what had happened. At the same time, or soon afterwards, there were also residing in Constantinople several African bishops, among them Facundus of Hermione. That this was so, and that Facundus, at the instigation of his colleagues, even before the arrival of Pope Vigilius in Constantinople, composed a memorial to the Emperor against the condemnation of Theodore, etc., we see from his Praefatio to his Defensio trium capitulorum . Moreover, he and his friends broke off Church communion with Mennas and all adherents of the imperial edict. Before Facundus had quite finished that document, Pope Vigilius arrived at Constantinople; and when, afterwards, there was begun, under his presidency, an examination of the points of controversy, the Pope suddenly broke up the proceedings, and required that each one of the bishops present should give in his vote in writing (see below, sec. 259).

For this business the imperial Magister Officiorum allowed Facundus no more than seven days, in which were two holy days, on which account he hastily took a good deal out of his now half-ready book into his new Responsio , and added more. Subsequently, with greater leisure, he completed and improved the first work, and in particular corrected many patristic passages, which he must formerly have drawn from inferior manuscripts, and which must have been transferred from this inaccurate text into that Responsio. He remarks this expressly for the enlightening of those readers who might compare the Responsio with his improved principal work — Defensio trium capitulorum. It is therefore quite a mistake to say, as was formerly done, that Facundus composed the Defensio itself in seven days.

When the copy of the imperial decree came to Rome, a favorable judgment of it by the learned deacon, Ferrandus of Carthage, was brought forward; and the Roman deacons, Pelagius and Anatolius, wrote to him, asking him, together with the bishop of Carthage and other zealous and learned men, to give them counsel as to what in general they should do. Already, in the question of inquiry of the Romans it was expressed that the Acephali, with the assistance of so-called orthodox men, had stirred up the whole affair to the prejudice of the Council of Chalcedon and the Epistola dogmatica of Leo I.; and Ferrandus replied that the letter of Ibas, which the OEcumenical Synod of Chalcedon had approved, and generally the three chapters, could not be objected to, because otherwise the estimation of all synodal decrees might be called in question. In consequence of this the whole of Africa and Rome was opposed to the wishes of the Emperor, and an interesting evidence of this sentiment is given in the still extant letter of the African Bishop Pontianus to the Emperor, recently referred to. Justinian, however, now summoned Pope Vigilius to Constantinople, in order to get him to assent to his plans. Vigilius obeyed unwillingly, for he foresaw the inconveniences which awaited him; but he was forced to take the journey, as a letter of the Italian clergy testifies; and Victor of Tununum also asserts that the Emperor had compelled him. Indeed, Anastasius (Vit.

Pontif .) professes to know that the Empress Theodora sent the officer of State, Anthemius, to Rome with orders, if the Pope did not agree to come, to take him by force from his palace, or even out of any church except St.

Peter’s, and carry him on board ship. He says, too, that this had actually been done, and that the Pope was seized on the 22nd of November, in the Church of St. Cecilia, and that the people had thrown stones, etc., at the ship on which he was carried off, and had invoked hunger and pestilence on the imperial commissioner.

We are assured by the much more trustworthy Facundus, that when Vigilius departed from Rome the whole of Rome entreated him not to agree to the condemnation of the three chapters. The same petition was presented to him after he had arrived at Sicily by the Christians of Sardinia and Africa. Here in Sicily he also met with Bishop Dacius of Milan, arrived from Constantinople, and commended him highly and his own legate Stephen on account of their breach with Mennas. Here also he met an envoy of the Patriarch Zoilus of Alexandria, who was instructed to inform him that the patriarch had subscribed only under compulsion. Later on, when Vigilius, after a long stay of about a year in Sicily, sailed for the Peloponnesus, and traveled from thence to Constantinople by land, over Hellas and Illyricum, the faithful of these two countries besought him not to agree to this innovation; and he himself on his journey wrote a letter to Mennas, in which he expressed his strong disapproval of his proceedings, and of all that had been done in this matter, and demanded a retractation. From this it is clear how greatly Victor of Tununum is mistaken, when he relates, under the year 543, that the Empress Theodora had obtained a promise from Vigilius, before he became Pope, to anathematize the three chapters. This is an evident anachronism.

SEC. 259. — POPE VIGILIUS AND HIS JUDICATUM OF APRIL 11, 548.

When Vigilius arrived in Constantinople, January 25, 547, he was received by the Emperor with many honors. According to Theophanes we might suppose that the Pope had pronounced a condemnation of the three chapters immediately after his arrival; but the chronicler condenses the narrative, and says that Vigilius, inflated by the friendly reception of the Emperor, had punished Mennas by separating him from Church communion for four months. The Pope inflicted the same censure on all the other bishops who had subscribed the imperial edict. Naturally, Mennas now had the name of the Pope struck out of the diptychs of his church. Gregory the Great professes to know that Vigilius then pronounced anathema also on the Empress Theodora and the Acephali, at the very time that Rome was plundered by the enemy (the Goths). Before long Vigilius altered his position in the most surprising manner.

How this happened is not fully known. What is certain is, that the Emperor had frequent personal intercourse with him, and also repeatedly sent officers of State and bishops to him, to induce him to agree with Mennas and the rest. The vehement Facundus (l.c. p. 814, a and b ) maintains that no violence was done to him, but that he was led astray by ambition and by bribery. The Italian clergy, on the contrary, speak of the imprisonment and serious persecution of the Pope, and relate that he said on one occasion to his persecutors: “Contestor, quia etsi me captivum tenetis, beatum Petrum apostolum captivum facere non potestis. After some time, however, Vigilius first gave privately a promise that he would anathematize the three chapters; and the imperial Minister Constantine, as commissioned by his master, gave the assurance at the seventh session of the fifth Council that the Pope had given this promise in writing and by word of mouth, and this in the presence of the Emperor, his Ministers, and some bishops. To this time probably belong also the two letters, containing these promises, from Vigilius to the Emperor and the Empress. They are short, and have almost verbally the same contents. The one to the Emperor runs: “We never were heretical, and are not so. But I demand the rights which God has granted to my see. But your Piety must not infer from this that I defend heretics. Behold, I respond to your irresistible command, and anathematize the letter of Ibas, and the doctrines of Theodoret, and of Theodore formerly bishop of Mopsuestia, who was always foreign to the Church, and an opponent of the holy Fathers.

Whoever does not confess that the one only-begotten Word of God, that is, Christ, is one substance, and one person, and unam operationem (mi>an ejne>rgeian ), we anathematize,” etc. These letters were read subsequently in the seventh session of the fifth and in the third session of the sixth OEcumenical Synod, and at the latter their genuineness was contested by the papal legates. This led to an inquiry, the result of which will be given below, sec. 267, when we come to treat of the Acts of the fifth OEcumenical Synod. For the present it is sufficient to remark that these two letters are probably genuine, but interpolated, and that the words unam operationem were inserted by a Monothelite. At the time of Vigilius there was still a controversy as to whether there were one or two operations and wills in Christ.

When Vigilius began to change his mind, he again resumed Church communion with Mennas, and his name was again received into the diptychs of Constantinople. The fact, however, stated by Theophanes, that his name was put in the first place in the diptychs of Constantinople, even before the bishop of Constantinople, did not take place until A.D. 552. Theophanes says further, that it was particularly the Empress Theodora who brought about the reconciliation, and that it took place on June 29, the festival of the Apostles Peter and Paul, A.D. 547. This agrees entirely with his previous statement in regard to the four months; for, if Vigilius arrived at Constantinople on January 25, 547, and shortly afterwards broke off communion with Mennas, then four months elapsed from that time to the reconciliation on June 29.

By the will of the Emperor conferences were now begun, to which nearly all the bishops present in Constantinople were summoned. After the arrival of the Pope, many of the bishops who had not yet subscribed the imperial edict had betaken themselves to Constantinople, in order to watch the further development of the matter; and Facundus states that about seventy bishops attended the conferences, besides those who had previously subscribed. These conferences are frequently described as a Constantinopolitan Synod of A.D. 547 and 548; e.g. by Baronius (ad ann. 547, n. 32 sq.), Pagi (ad ann. 547, n. 8), Walch (l.c . S. 171 sq.); but Facundus, who was himself a member of this assembly, and to whom we owe our information on the subject, never uses the expression Synod, but Judicium and Examen (l.c. pp. 665, 813), calls the Pope who presided over it repeatedly Judex (l.c . p. 814), and describes the whole in such a manner as to make us understand that it was a conference for the examination of the anathematisms of the three chapters laid before them by the Emperor, a judicium or examen on the question whether the Pope could agree to give the final decision, whilst the bishops present had only to give counsels.

Facundus says quite distinctly (l.c. p. 814), that if the votes given by the bishops in writing had not pleased the Pope, he would have torn them up or burnt them, or by his own sentence he could have invalidated them (ea scindere vel urere, ant per suam evacuare sententiam ). So also we learn from Facundus (l.c. p. 813a ), that three such conferences took place, and he communicates the following particulars from the gestis of the third. He requested that the Pope would institute an examination into the question as to whether the letter of Ibas was really accepted (suscepta ) by the Synod of Chalcedon or not, since the opponents maintain that the anathema on Theodore of Mopsuestia was actually no attack upon the importance of that Synod, since it had not received the letter of Ibas in which Theodore was commended. He, Facundus, admitted often that he had not broken off communion with Mennas, etc., on account of the anathema on Theodore in itself. He could not indeed approve of this anathema, but he regarded it partly as endurable, partly as not particularly important; but the aim of his opponents was, by this means, to undermine the authority of the fourth OEcumenical Synod. It was natural that this question of Facundus should be very inconvenient for Pope Vigilius, since he had already given private assurances to the Emperor. He would therefore simply put it aside by answering that “this was not known to him (either that the Synod of Chalcedon had received the letter of Ibas, or also that the other party wanted to destroy the importance of that Synod)”; but Facundus now asked leave “to bring proof that that letter was really received at Chalcedon, and to invalidate all the arguments of the opponents.” Upon this Vigilius broke up the whole consultation in perplexity, and required a vote in writing of each of the bishops. The seventy bishops, who had not hitherto subscribed, were now individually plied by the adherents of the imperial edict, and led astray to declarations which were hostile to the Synod of Chalcedon; and, in order that they might not be able to recant, they were conducted, some days later, in public procession, well guarded, to Vigilius, in order to present their votes to him. We have already seen (sec. 258) that Facundus, in this emergency, drew up in seven days an extract from his work, Defensio trium capitulorum, which was not yet quite complete. He further tells us that Vigilius immediately carried these votes of the seventy bishops into the palace, where they were added to the declarations of those bishops who had already subscribed. In order, however, to excuse this conduct, he declared to the party of Facundus that he did not intend to take those votes with him to Rome, nor to deposit them in the Roman archives, so that it might not be inferred that he himself had approved of them. Soon afterwards, on Easter Eve, April 11, 548, Vigilius issued his Judicatum , addressed to Mennas, which, as its title indicates, professed to give the result obtained by him as Judex through the conferences and votes (the judicium and examen ). Unfortunately this important document is also lost, and up to the present day it has been generally maintained, that only a single fragment of it has been preserved, which is found in a letter of the Emperor Justinian to the fifth OEcumenical Synod, according to the text edited by Baluze. It was overlooked that five such fragments exist in another contemporaneous document.

First of all, let us examine closely that first fragment. After the Emperor had said that the Judicatum issued by the Pope (first to Mennas) had been made known to all the bishops, he gives the anathema, contained in it, on the three chapters, with Vigilius’s own words: “Et quoniam quae Nobis de nomine Theodori Mopsuestini scripta porrecta sunt, multa contraria rectae fidei releguntur, Nos monita Pauli sequentes apostoli dicentis: Omnia probate, quod bonum est retinete, ideoque anathematizamus Theodorum, qui fuit Mopsuestiae episcopus, cum omnibus suis impiis scriptis, et qui vindicant eum.

Anathematizamus et impiam epistolam, quae ad Marim Persam scripta esse ab Iba dicitur, tamquam contrariam rectae fidei Christianae, et omnes, qui eam vindicant, vel rectam esse dicunt. Anathematizamus et scripta Theodoreti, quae contra rectam fidem et duodecim Cyrilli capitula scripta sunt. Besides this fragment it was known only that Vigilius had introduced in his Judicatum a clause or caution to the effect, that “the importance of the Council of Chalcedon should not be called in question.” Noris and Natalis Alexander might mislead us to the opinion that, with reference to this, the words in the Judicatum stood thus: “Salva in omnibus reverentia Synodi Chalcedonensis.” But this formula was invented by Noris himself, because he found in the original documents that Vigilius had repeatedly protested that the Judicatum contained nothing which could detract from the importance of the four ancient OEcumenical Councils or that of his predecessors the Popes. The same was testified also by the Italian clergy, writing to the Frankish ambassadors, “that Vigilius, in the Judicatum, solicite monuit, ne per occasionem aliquam supradicta synodus (of Chalcedon) pateretur injuriam”; and that “they had afterwards wanted to compel the Pope to anathematize the three chapters anew, without such a clause or caution in favor of the Synod of Chalcedon, ut absolute ipsa capitula sine Synodi Chalcedonensis mentione damnaret. So much was formerly known of the Judicatum . A repeated dealing with the later Constitutum of Vigilius (of May 14, 553) led me to see that in this there are five more fragments of the Judicatum to be discovered. Towards the end of the Constitutum, Vigilius mentions that his predecessors, Popes Leo and Simplicius, had repeatedly and solemnly declared that the decrees of Chalcedon must remain unweakened in force, and from this that it was clear what care he (Vigilius) must also take pro apostolicae sedis rectitudine et pro universalis ecclesiae consideratione. “Being long mindful,” he proceeds, “of this caution, in the letter which we then addressed to Mennas, and which (after it had been, in the presence of all the bishops and the Senate, handed to your Majesty by Mennas, and by your Majesty with his consent handed back to us) we now annul, so far as the three chapters are concerned, — in that letter we provided that all due respect should be paid to the Synod of Chalcedon, as the contents of that letter testify. In proof we will add a few considerations out of many that might be given.” There can be no doubt that by the letter to Mennas, here referred to, the Judicatum is meant, for this agrees admirably with all that is further added, that Mennas handed it to the Emperor, and that he in a solemn assembly had restored this document to the Pope, in order by this means to calm the excitement which had arisen on that subject and against Vigilius. Cf. below, sec. 261. We have therefore no doubt that the five passages which Vigilius took into his Constitutum from the letter in question to Mennas must be considered as fragments of the Judicatum. These are mere variations on the theme Salvi in omnibus reverentia Synodi Chalcedonensis, merely passages in which, although he anathematized the three chapters, yet protested and maintained his adhesion to the Council of Chalcedon; so that no one should, through that anathema, regard the decrees of Chalcedon as partially incorrect or as imperfect. These five fragments run: — 1. Cum apud nos manifesta ratione praeclareat, quicumque in contumeliam antefatae Synodi aliquid tentat agere, sibi potius nociturum. 2. Item post alia: Sed si evidenter nobis fuisset ostensum in ipsis gestis potius contineri, nullus auderet tantae praesumptionis auctor existere, aut aliquid, quod in ilium sanctissimum judicium productum est, velut dubium judicaret; cum credendum sit, illos tunc praesentes a praesenti rerum memoria diligentins, etiam praeter scriptum, aliqua requirere vel definire certius potuisse, quod nobis nunc post tanta tempora velut ignota causa videatur ambiguum; cum et hoc deferatur reverentiae synodorum, ut et in his quae minus intelliguntur, eorum cedatur auctoritati. 3. Item post alia: Salvis omnibus atque in sua perpetua firmitate durantibus, quae in Nicaeno, Constantinopolitano, Ephesino primo, atque Chalcedonensi venerandis constat conciliis definita, et praedecessorum nostrorum auctoritate firmata; et cunctis, qui in memoratis sanctis conciliis abdicati sunt, sine dubitatione damnatis; et his nihilominus absolutis, de quorum ab iisdem synodis absolutione decretum est. 4. Item post alia: Anathematis sententiae eum quoque subdentes, qui quaevis contra predictam Synodum Chalcedonensem, vel praesenti, vel quaelibet in hac causa sive a nobis sive a quibuscumque gesta scriptave inveniantur, pro aliqua susceperit firmitate; et sancta Chalcedonensis Synodus, cujus magna et inconcussa est firmitas, perpetua et veneranda, sicut Nicaena, Constantinopolitana, ac Ephesina prima habent, suam teneant firmitatem. 5. Item post alia: Anathematizamus et eum quoque, quicumque sanctam Nicaenam, Constantinopolitanam, Ephesinam primam, atque Chalcedonensem sanctissimas Synodos in una et immaculata fide de Apostolis consonantes, et ab Apostolicae sedis praesulibus roboratas, non et fideliter sequitur et aequaliter veneratur; et qui ea quae in ipsis conciliis, quae prefati sumus, gesta sunt, vult quasi prave dicta corrigere, aut vult imperfecta supplere. From the letter of Vigilius to Rusticus and Sebastian we learn that Rusticus, a nephew of the Pope and a deacon, his attendant in Constantinople, at first extolled the Judicatum to the echo, declared it to be quite excellent, and circulated it without the knowledge or will of the Pope in many copies. The deacon Sebastian and other Roman clerics who were about the Pope had also at first approved of it; but they afterwards went over to the other party of the Africans, and offered the Pope such opposition, that he was obliged to place them under anathema, which he did in the letter in question. Significant for the point of view of Vigilius is his utterance, three years later, on the aim and character of his Judicatum, in the bull of excommunication against Theodore Ascidas. He said that, “in order to remove present offense, he had condescended, in order to quiet men’s minds, he had relaxed the severity of right, and in accordance with the need of the time had ordered things medicinally .” To the same effect the Italian clergy about this time, that “Vigilius had at first been unwilling to agree to the anathema on the three chapters, but in consequence of negotiations (tractatu habito ), he had ordered the matter sub aliqua dispensatione, carefully admonishing that the Synod of Chalcedon must in no way suffer depreciation.” We can see that these clergy, as well as Vigilius, proceeded on the supposition that nothing could be undertaken against Theodore of Mopsuestia in particular, as he had died more than a hundred years ago in the communion of the Church, and had not been condemned by the Council of Chalcedon. In the same way the reputation of the two other men was not to be attacked, as the Synod of Chalcedon had restored Theodoret and Ibas to their sees, after they both had pronounced anathema on Nestorius, without condemning the letter of the one, or certain writings of the other. But as, on the other hand, the three Capitula had given so great offense to many, and troubled the peace of the Church, an anathema on them might be justified as a remedy for the sickness of the time, and as a compromise, since, objectively considered, the anathema on Theodore of Mopsuestia and his writings, and also that on some writings of Theodoret, and on the letter of Ibas, might be justified. If, therefore, on the other hand, an anathema should be pronounced over the really reprehensible three chapters, and, on the other hand, should protect the authority of the Council of Chalcedon in the most effectual manner, nothing wrong would be done, and both parties would be satisfied.

Cardinal Noris therefore (l.c. t. 1, p. 595) remarks quite accurately: “Et quidem utrique parti si fecisse satis Vigilius arbitrabatur: Graecis, quod tria capitula condemnasset; Latinis, quod salva synodo Chalcedonensi id se fecisse contestaretur.”

SEC. 260. OPPOSITION TO THE JUDICATUM.

Soon after the publication of the Judicatum, the Empress Theodora, the great enemy of the three chapters, died, June 28, 548; but her death seems to have had no influence on the progress of the controversy. That the Emperor Justinian was not quite contented with the Judicatum, and demanded a similar document from the Pope without the clause in reference to the Council of Chalcedon, we are told by the Italian clergy in their letter to the Frankish envoys. As, however, no one else speaks of this, and the Emperor Justinian was always a great admirer of the fourth OEcumenical Council, this intelligence deserves little credit; and, moreover, the remark of Victor of Tununum rests upon an anachronism, when he says that Justinian now issued new commands against the three chapters. On the contrary, it is certain that an energetic opposition to the Judicatum soon arose, and Vigilius was bitterly blamed by many, and accused of treachery. This happened principally in Constantinople itself, where the Pope spent several years, because the Emperor wished it, perhaps also because Rome had at that very time fallen into the hands of the Goths. Prominent among those who were dissatisfied with the Judicatum in Constantinople were Bishop Dacius of Milan and Facundus of Hermione. It is well known that the latter composed a large work in twelve books in defense of the three chapters and presented it to the Emperor, and the only question is as to the time of its completion and presentation. Victor of Tununum would place it in the eleventh year after the consulate of Basil. According to the ordinary mode of reckoning, the year 551 would be signified; but, as Noris has long ago excellently showed (l.c. t. 1, p. 652 sq.), Victor follows another mode of reckoning.

As is known, Basil was the last consul in the year 541; but for a long time they indicated the years following by his name. Accordingly the year must be called simply post Consulatum Basilii, but the year 543, ann. ii. post Cons. Bas. Departing from this manner of reckoning, Victor designates the year 542 as ann. ii. post Cons. Bas. (regarding it as the second year of his enduring consulate), and thus, with him, ann. xi. post Cons. Bas. is not identical with 551, but with 550. But neither must we place the composition of the Defensio trium capitulorum, by Facundus, in the year 550. Baronius (ad ann. 547, n. 32) thinks that the whole contents of the book point to the conclusion that it was completed before the rupture of the author with the Pope, and thus before the issuing of the Judicatum, and before Facundus took up a schismatical position. In fact, Pope Vigilius is never attacked in this Defensio, whilst, in his second treatise, Contra Mocianum, Facundus falls upon him most violently. Yet Baronius was partly wrong; and the correct account of the matter is, that half of the Defensio was composed before the Judicatum; but the work was interrupted by the conferences (sec. 259), and it was not until the end of these, and so after the appearance of the Judicatum, which followed directly after the conferences, that it was completed.” This completion, however, must not be brought so late as the year 550, but rather to a period immediately after the appearance of the Judicatum. Later on Facundus would have written much more violently; but at that time the tension between him and the Pope had not yet led to a complete rupture.

He still spared Vigilius, so that even in the last books of the Defensio he did not refer to the Judicatum, and he might then still hope to bring about an agreement with the Emperor. At a later period he would certainly have no longer cherished sanguine expectations of this kind, and to such a later time belongs the composition of his book, Contra Mocianum Scholasticum, which blamed the African bishops because they had broken off communion with Vigilius after the appearance of the Judicatum. In this book Facundus attacks the Judicatum as a nefandum. He had then, for the sake of his safety, fled from Constantinople, and was in a place of concealment known only to his friends. The time of composition falls between the appearance of the Judicatum and that of the Constitutum ; for by the latter, in which he now defended the three chapters, Vigilius had again propitiated Facundus. That the treatise in question should not be removed to a still later period, when Vigilius had anathematized the three chapters a second time and confirmed the fifth Synod, we learn from the fact that Facundus in the treatise is quite silent on this subject.

We learn from Vigilius himself that at an early period some in Constantinople so strenuously opposed him and his Judicatum, that he had been obliged to excommunicate them. With these, he says, his own nephew, the deacon Rusticus who had previously commended the Judicatum so highly, secretly associated himself, and stirred up others against him both in Constantinople and in Africa. When examined on the subject he had, in writing, given his assurance on oath never again wilfully to infringe his obedience to the Pope. Nevertheless he had attached himself to the much worse Roman deacon Sebastian, who had likewise formerly commended the Judicatum, and called it a heaven-descended book. Both had cultivated intercourse with the monks Lampridius and Felix, who, on account of their opposition to the Judicatum, had already been excommunicated by the general threat of excommunication contained in that document, and also, with other excommunicated men, had arrogated to themselves the teaching office, and had written to all the provinces that “the Pope had done something to the disparagement of the Council of Chalcedon.”

By their position as Roman deacons it had become possible to them to lead many astray, and thus through them such confusions and party fights had arisen in different places that blood had been shed in the churches. Further, they had ventured to assert, in a memorial to the Emperor, that Pope Leo I. had approved the heretical writings of the Mopsuestian, etc. Vigilius had long tolerated this, and, in priestly patience, had deferred their punishment (resecatio ), hoping that they would come again to reflection. As, however, they had despised his repeated exhortations, which he had conveyed to them by bishops and other clergy, and by layman of high standing, and had refused to return either to the Church or to the Pope, he must now punish them, and herewith depose them, until they amended, from the dignity of the diaconate. In the same way the other Roman clerics who had taken their side, John, Gerontius, Severinus, John, and Deusdedit, should be deprived of their posts as subdeacons, notaries, and defensors until they began to amend. The like judgment shall befall the monk (abbot) Felix, already mentioned, who presided over the Gillitan convent in Africa, and by his levity scattered his monks, and also all those who would keep up communication with him or any other excommunicated person, particularly with Rusticus and the others. If this sentence of excommunication was sent forth after March 18, 550, as we shall shortly show, we can also see: (a) that, immediately after the appearance of the Judicatum, some of those at Constantinople opposed the Pope so violently that he was obliged to excommunicate them; (b) that two monks, Lampridius and Felix of Africa, came to Constantinople and opposed the Judicatum by speech and by writing; (c) that the Pope’s nephew Rusticus and other Roman clergy joined these opponents, and circulated detrimental reports concerning the Pope in all the provinces; (d) that the Pope gave them repeated warnings before proceeding to extremities; and that (e) in many provinces parties arose for and against the Judicatum , and there arose between them bloody frays even in the churches.

That Rusticus and Sebastian had, at a very early period, occasioned movements in the province of Scythia, we see from the Pope’s letter to Bishop Valentinian of Tomi, dated March 18, 550. The latter had given the Pope intelligence respecting the rumors circulated in his province, and the disturbances which had arisen, and Vigilius, in his answer, declares that it is entirely untrue that he had censured the persons of Theodoret and Ibas, or generally that he had done wrong to any of those bishops who had subscribed the Council of Chalcedon. If his Judicatum to Mennas were read, it would be shown that he had done or ordained nothing which was contrary to the faith and the doctrine of the four venerable Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, or the decrees of the earlier Popes. The originators of that scandal which arose in Scythia, were Rusticus and Sebastian, whom he had excommunicated some time ago, and who would soon, unless they amended, receive the canonical punishment (deposition from office). He requested Valentinian to warn all connected with him against these promoters of disturbances; and if any had doubts, they might come personally to the Pope. Archbishop Aurelian of Arles, as well as Valentinian of Tomi, had written to the Pope in the year 549. Occasion for this also was given by the accusation, circulated in Gaul, that the Pope had done something which contradicted the decrees of his predecessors, and the creed of the four OEcumenical Councils. Vigilius quieted him on this subject, and appointed him to be his vicar in Gaul, to warn all the other bishops against false and lying rumors. He adds that he will explain to Aurelian, as far as possible, all that has happened, through Anastasius, whom Aurelian had sent with his letter to Constantinople; and further, that when the Emperor allows him to return to Rome, he will send from thence a special envoy to Arles. Meanwhile let Aurelian unceasingly petition Childebert, king of the Franks, that he would apply to the King of the Goths (Totilas), who had taken the city of Rome, on behalf of the Roman Church and its rights. Still more violent than in Gaul and Scythia was the opposition to the Judicatum in Illyria, Dalmatia, and Africa. That the bishops of Dalmatia did not receive the Judicatum, we learn from the letter of the Italian clergy, already frequently quoted. The Illyrian bishops, however, according to the account given by Bishop Victor of Tununum, assembled in a Synod in the year 549, according to his corrected chronology, already noted. Where this Synod was held is not known; but the bishops declared themselves for the three chapters, addressed a document in defense of them to the Emperor, and deposed their Metropolitan Benenatus from Justiniana I., because he defended the rejection of the three chapters. The Africans went still further, and at their Synod, A.D. 550, under the presidency of Reparatus of Carthage, formally excommunicated Pope Vigilius on account of the Judicatum until he should do penance. They also sent memorials in favor of the three chapters, through the Magistrian Olympius, to the Emperor. The latter found the matter of such importance, that he addressed rescripts to the Illyrians and Africans, in which he defended the anathema on the three chapters. They are lost; but we gain information respecting them in Isidore of Seville. SEC. 261. THE JUDICATUM IS WITHDRAWN, AND A GREAT SYNOD PROPOSED.

For the appeasing of the disputes which had arisen over the Judicatum, the Pope and Emperor, about the year 550, agreed, first, to withdraw the Judicatum, and further, to have the question of the three chapters decided anew by a great Synod. The Emperor therefore gave leave to Vigilius to withdraw the Judicatum, and it was decided in consultation between the two, in which also Mennas, Dacius of Milan, and many Greek and Latin bishops took part, that, before the decision of the Synod which was to be called, no one should be allowed to undertake anything further for or against the three chapters. This is related by Vigilius himself in the edict against Theodore Ascidas. The Italian clergy, however, tell us, besides, that Vigilius demanded that five or six bishops should be summoned from each province, and explained, that only that which should then be peacefully determined in common should prevail, since he, for his own part, would do nothing whereby, as people said, the credit of the Synod of Chalcedon should be called in question. He thus took back, formally at least, his Judicatum ; but, that he might not give it up materially, nor oppose the Emperor at the coming Synod, he took an oath to him in writing, on the 15th of August 550, to the effect that he would be of one mind with the Emperor, and labor to the utmost to have the three chapters anathematized; whilst, on the other hand, for the security of the Pope, this oath should be kept secret, and the Emperor should promise to protect him in case of necessity. SEC. 262. SYNOD AT MOPSUESTIA, A.D. 550.

In preparation for the intended great Council, the Emperor caused a kind of Synod of the bishops of Cilicia II. to be held at Mopsuestia, in order to ascertain whether the name of Theodore of Mopsuestia had been entered on the diptychs there. The Acts of this Synod are found in the minutes of the fifth session of the fifth OEcumenical Synod, at which they were read. The first document referring to this assembly is the letter of the Emperor Justinian, dated May 23, 550 (not May 13, as Noris gives it), to Bishop John of Justinianopolis, metropolitan of Cilicia II., to the effect that he would come to Mopsuestia to meet the bishops belonging to his Synod, and then have a meeting with all the aged people there, clergy and laity, in order to learn whether they could remember the time at which the name of Theodore had been struck from the diptychs. If they could not do this, they might declare that, in their knowledge, the name of Theodore had never been read out at divine service; finally, the diptychs were to be exhibited in their presence, and in the presence of the bishops, in order to see who had been inscribed in them instead of Theodore. A messenger with intelligence of the result of this inquiry should be sent to the Emperor, and another to the Pope. The Emperor sent Bishop Cosmas of Mopsuestia information of this command given to the metropolitan, with commissions referring to it. This second document is dated May 22, 550. The Acts of the Synod of Mopsuestia are appended to it, the Synod being held June 17, 550, in the Secretarium of the church there, under the presidency of the metropolitan named, and in presence of eight other bishops and many other distinguished men. The office of imperial commissioner was discharged by the Comes domesticorum, Marthanius. The holy Gospels were placed in the middle of the place of assembly, and first of all the command of the Emperor was read. Thereupon the Defensor of the Church of Mopsuestia, the deacon Eugenius, presented seventeen aged priests and deacons, and the same number of aged lay-men of distinction (among them comites and palatini ) from Mopsuestia; and the Custos of the church effects, the priest John, brought in the diptychs, as well those which were then used in the church as two older which had formerly been used. These diptychs were first publicly read, then each bishop read them individually, and then the presbyter John took oath that he knew of none besides or older than these.

In the same way the aged witnesses were required to make declarations on oath, laying their hands upon the book of the Gospels.

The first and oldest, the priest Martyrius, declared: “I am now eighty years old, for sixty years in Orders, and do not know and have never heard that Theodore’s name was read from the diptychs; but I heard that, instead of his name, that of St. Cyril of Alexandria had been inscribed, and the name of Cyril does, in fact, occur in the present diptychs, although there never was a Bishop Cyril of Mopsuestia. The Theodore, however, whose name is found in two diptychs, in the place before the last, is certainly not the older one, but the bishop of Mopsuestia who died only three years ago, and who was a native of Galatia.” The like was deposed by all the other witnesses, clergy and laymen; whereupon the bishops, in somewhat prolix discourse, brought together the results of these testimonies and of the examination of the diptychs, namely, that at a time beyond the memory of any living man, the Theodore in question had been struck from the diptychs, and Cyril of Alexandria inscribed in his place. This declaration was subscribed by all the bishops, and also the two documents required of them for the Emperor and Pope, in which they communicated the principal contents of the minutes of the Synod. SEC. 262B. THE AFRICAN DEPUTIES.

About the same time the Emperor summoned the bishops of Illyricum and Africa for the contemplated great Synod at Constantinople. The Illyrians refused to come. From Africa, however, appeared, as deputies of the collective episcopate, Reparatus, archbishop of Carthage; Firmus, primate, or primae sedis Episcopus, of Numidia; and Bishops Primasius and Verecundus, from the province of Byzacene. Soon Greek bishops endeavored, by flatteries and threats, to gain them over to subscribe the anathema on the chapters. As this remained without result, Reparatus of Carthage was blamed, as being the cause of the imperial Magister militum in Africa, Areobindus, a relative of the Emperor, being murdered by the usurper Guntarit (Gontharis ); and upon this accusation Reparatus was deprived of his office and property, and was banished. At the same time, by imperial authority, the faithless representative of the deposed bishop, Primasius (who is not to be confounded with the bishop of the same name mentioned above), was placed on the throne of Carthage, in an uncanonical manner, during the lifetime of Reparatus, against the wishes of the clergy and laity, after he had condemned the three chapters. His intrusion was not carried through without effusion of blood.

The second African deputy, the Primate Firmus of Numidia, allowed himself to be bribed by presents, and subscribed the required anathema, but died on the return journey to the sea, a disgraceful death. His colleague, Primasius, of the Byzacene province, was at first steadfast, and was therefore sent into a monastery; but afterwards, when Boethius, the primate of the Byzacene province, had died, he agreed to sign the anathema on the three chapters, in order to become his successor. He returned to Africa and oppressed and plundered the bishops of the opposite party, until at last the merited punishment overtook him, and he was forced to give up all his unrighteous possessions, and died a miserable death.

Finally, the fourth African deputy, Bishop Verecundus, on account of his adhesion to the three chapters, was forced subsequently to flee with Pope Vigilius to Chalcedon, and take refuge in the Church of St. Euphemia, where he also died. The governor of Africa, moreover, sent all those bishops whom he had discovered to be willing to receive a bribe, or to be otherwise perverted, to Constantinople, in order that they might subscribe the condemnation of the three chapters. SEC. 263. THE SECOND IMPERIAL EDICT AGAINST THE THREE CHAPTERS.

How little the Emperor and his party really wanted a new synodal examination of the whole question is shown not only by what has already been mentioned, but also by the strange conduct of Theodore Ascidas. In the harshest contradiction to the union between the Pope and Emperor already mentioned (sec. 261), at his suggestion a document was read aloud in the imperial palace, in which the three chapters were anathematized, and to which the subscriptions of several Greek bishops were demanded.

Vigilius remonstrated on the subject with him and his friends, and they asked forgiveness with specious excuses. In spite of this, Theodore Ascidas circulated that document still more widely, irritated the Emperor, and made him discontented with Vigilius, and brought it about that, without waiting for the Synod, edicts were drawn up, containing an anathema on the three chapters. Vigilius himself tells this; and the new edicts in question were certainly nothing else, in several places, than passages taken from the complete oJmologi>a pi>stewv jIoustinianou~ aujtokra>torov kata< tw~n triw~n kefalai>wn . This second edict of the Emperor against the three chapters was drawn up between 551 and 553, probably in the year 551, was addressed to the whole of Christendom, and is still extant. Nothing is so calculated, the Emperor says, to propitiate the gracious God, as unity in the faith; therefore he lays down here the orthodox confession. Then follows a kind of creed, in which, first, the doctrine of the Trinity, principally in opposition to Sabellius and Arius, is defined; but much more completely is the doctrine of the Person of Christ explained, in opposition to the Nestorians and Monophysites. For example, “He who was born of Mary is one of the Holy Trinity, according to His Godhead of one substance with the Father, and according to His manhood of one substance with us, capable of suffering in the flesh, but incapable of suffering in the Godhead; and no other than the Word of God subjected Himself to sufferings and death. It is not one Word (Logos) that worked miracles, and another Christ who suffered; but one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, became flesh and man.... If we say that Christ is composed (su>nqetov ) of two natures, Godhead and manhood, we bring no confusion (su>gcnsiv ) into this unity (e[nwsiv ), and since we recognize in each of the two natures the one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God made man, we bring no separation nor partition nor division into the one personality; but we designate the natures of whichHE is composed, and this difference is not denied by the e[nwsiv , since each of the two natures is in Him.... The divine nature is not changed into the human, nor the human into the divine; rather, whilst each remains within its bounds, the unity of personality (hypostatic unity) is produced by the Logos. This hypostatic unity means that God the Word, this one Hypostasis (Person) of the Trinity, united Himself not with a previously existing man, but in the body of the blessed Virgin,HE took flesh for Himself of her own person, animated by the reasonable and rational soul, — and this is human nature.

This hypostatical union of the Word with flesh is taught also by the Apostle Paul.... Hence we acknowledge two births of the Logos: the one from all eternity of the Father, incorporeal; the other in the last days, whenHE became flesh and man from the holy God-bearer (qeoto>kov ).... He is Son of God by nature, we are so by grace; He has, for our sakes and kat j oijkonomi>an, become a Son of Adam, whilst we are by nature sons of Adam.... Even after the IncarnationHE is one of the Holy Trinity, the onlybegotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, composed (su>nqetov ) of both natures. This is the doctrine of the Fathers. Confessing this, we accept also the expression of Cyril, that there is mi>a fu>siv tou~ qeou~ lo>gou sesarkwme>nh, ... for as often as he used the expression, he made use of the word fu>siv in the sense of uJpo>stasiv , for in the books in which this mode of speech occurs, he speedily uses again, instead of this, the expressions lo>gov and uiJo>v and monognh>v (as identified with mi>a fu>siv tou~ qeou~ lo>gou sesarkwme>nh ), and thereby indicates the Person or Hypostasis, and not the Nature... And he who confesses Christ as God and as man, cannot possibly say that there is only one nature or substance (oujsi>a ) in Him. That Cyril, in those places, really took fu>siv in the sense of person, is shown by his two letters to Succensus and the thirteenth chapter of his Scholia ... Christ is thus one Hypostasis or Person, andHE has in Himself the perfection of the divine and uncreated nature, and the perfection of the human and created nature.”

Further, those are combated who, misusing a simile of the Fathers, would teach only one nature of Christ. Some Fathers, particularly Athanasius, had compared the union of the Godhead and manhood in Christ with the union of body and soul in man. Then the Monophysites said: As body and soul constitute only one human nature, so the Godhead and manhood in Christ also combine into one nature. On the contrary, the imperial edict declares: “If there were only one nature in Christ, then were it necessary thatHE should be either without flesh, and only of one substance with God, or pure man, and only of one substance with us; or that the united natures should constitute one new nature different from both; but then Christ would be neither God nor man, and consubstantial neither with God nor with us.

Such an assumption, however, were impious.”

Another objection of the Monophysites ran: We must not assume a number of natures in Christ, otherwise we should bring in a division in Christ, which would be Nestorian. To this the imperial edict replied: “If there was a reference to a number of different persons, then this would imply a division into parts; but if we speak of a number in united objects, the division is made only in thought, as, for example, in the distinction of soul and body in the unity of the human person. There, too, there are two fu>seiv , that of the soul and that of the body, but the man is not thereby himself divided into two. So in Christ we have to recognize a number of natures, but not a number of persons.

This is proved from Gregory of Nazianzus, from Cyril, and from Gregory of Nyssa, and then the difference between fu>siv (= ousi>a ) and uJpo>stasiv is explained, particularly in the Holy Trinity. “We may therefore,” the Emperor proceeds, “speak of one compound Hypostasis (Person) of God the Word (dia< tou~ eujsebw~v ei]poi tiv a\n mi>an uJpo>stasin tou~ qeou~ lo>gou su>nqeton ), but not of one composed of one nature. The nature is, in itself, something indefinite (ajo>riston ), it must inhere in a person. When, however, they say: The human nature in Christ must also have its own personality, this is as much as to say that the Logos has become united with a man already existing by himself; but two persons cannot become one... Whoever says that before the union there were two natures, like Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius, means that there was first a man formed, and then he was united with the Logos. But whoever says that after the union we must no longer speak of two, but only of one nature of Christ, introduces a su>gcusiv and fantasi>a , like Apollinaris and Eutyches. Before the Incarnation there were not two Lords, and after the Incarnation there is not merely one nature.” The four OEcumenical Synods, including that of Chalcedon, are then adduced, and then the edict goes on: “As this is the truth, we will append kefa>laia , which contain in brief the true faith and the condemnation of heretics.” The principal contents of these are as follows: — 1. Whoever does not confess the Father, Son, and Spirit as one Godhead or nature, to be worshipped in three hypostases or persons, let him be anathema. 2. Whoever does not confess that the eternal Son of God was made man, and so had two births, an eternal and a temporal, let him be anathema. 3. Whoever says that the wonder-working Logos is another than the suffering Christ, and that the Logos united Himself with one born of a woman, and is not one Lord, etc., let him be anathema. 4. Whoever does not confess an hypostatical union of the Logos with the flesh, mi>an aujtou~ thstasin su>nqeton, but, like Nestorius, merely a union of the Godhead and manhood, kata< ca>rin , or, as the heretic Theodore of Mopsuestia says, kata< eujdoki>an , let him be anathema. 5. Whoever does not name Mary the Godbearer in the full sense, let him be anathema. 6. Whoever does not confess that the crucified Christ is true God and One of the Holy Trinity, let him be anathema. 7. Whoever accepts two natures but not one Lord, but allows a diai>resiv ajna< me>rov , as if each nature were a proper hypostasis, like Theodore and Nestorius, let him be anathema. 8. Whoever, speaking of two natures in Christ, assumes not merely a diafora< th~| qewri>a| , but a numerical division into parts (diai>resin ajna< me>rov ), let him be anathema. 9. Whoever, speaking of a mi>a fu>siv tou~ qeou~ lo>gou sesarkwme>nh does not understand this so that of the divine and human natures there has come one Christ, but that Godhead and manhood coalesced into one nature, like Apollinaris and Eutyches, let him be anathema. 10. The Catholic Church anathematizes both those who separate and those who mix (diairou~ntav kai< sugce>ontav ). Whoever does not anathematize Arins, Eunomius, Macedonins, Apollinaris, Nestorius, and Eutyches, and all who teach as they do, let him be anathema. 11. Whoever defends Theodore of Mopsuestia, who says: (a) That God the Word is one, and another is the Christ tormented by sufferings of the soul and ejpiqumi>av th~v sarko>v , Who grew in virtue, was baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, through baptism received the grace of the Holy Spirit and Sonship, and is reverenced as the image of God the Word, like the image of an Emperor, and after the resurrection became unchangeable in disposition and quite sinless; (b) who (Theodore) further says: The union of God the Word with Christ is of the same kind, according to the Apostle Paul ( Ephesians 5:31), as that between man and wife, the two become one flesh; (c) who, besides countless other blasphemies, dared also to say: When the Lord, after the resurrection, breathed upon the disciples with the words: “Receive the Holy Ghost” (St. John 15:28), He had given them not the Holy Ghost Himself, but breathed upon them (only to point to the Holy Ghost); (d) he said further: The words which Thomas, after feeling Him, spoke: “My Lord and my God” (St. John 20:28), had reference not to Christ, but to God who raised Christ up; (e) and, what is worse, in his commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, Theodore compares Christ with Plato, Manichaeus, Epicurus, and Marcion, and says that, as each of these invented his own doctrine, and thus gave to his disciples the name of Platonists, Manicheans, etc., in the same way Christians were named after Christ, who invented a new doctrine. Whoever defends Theodore thus blaspheming, and does not anathematize him and his adherents, let him be anathema. 12. Whoever defends those writings of Theodoret, which he composed in opposition to the right faith, against the Synod of Ephesus, and against Cyril and his twelve anathematisms, and in which Theodoret teaches and maintains only a scetikh< e[nwsiv of the Word with a man, saying that Thomas had touched the Risen One, but adored Him who raised Him up; and in which he calls the teachers of the Church impious because they maintain an hypostatic union, and finally refuses to call the Virgin Mary the Godbearer, whoever defends these writings of Theodore, and does not rather anathematize them, let him be anathema.

For, on account of these blasphemies, he was deposed from his bishopric, and was subsequently compelled by the holy Synod of Chalcedon to maintain the opposite of these writings of his, and to confess the true faith. 13. Whoever defends the impious letter which Ibas is said to have written to the Persian heretic Maris, in which the Incarnation of the Logos is denied, and it is maintained that not God the Word, but a mere man, named Temple, was born of Mary; in which, moreover, the first Synod of Ephesus is reviled, as though it had condemned Nestorius without examination and judgment; in which, finally, St.

Cyril is called a heretic, and his twelve propositions designated as impious, whoever defends this impious letter, and in whole or in part declares it to be right, and does not anathematize it, let him be anathema.

The edict then proceeds thus: “The adherents of Theodore and Nestorius maintain that this letter was accepted by the holy Council of Chalcedon.

They thus do injustice to the holy Synod, and endeavor thereby to protect Theodore, Nestorius, and the impious letter from anathema, the letter which Ibas, when often questioned on the subject, never ventured to acknowledge as his. Thus, e.g., Ibas at Tyre (more correctly, at Berytus, see secs. 196 and 169) declared, that, since the union of the Antiochenes with Cyril, he had never written anything against the latter, whilst, in fact, the letter to Maris is plainly composed after that union, and is full of insults against Cyril. Ibas thus denied the authorship. His judges (at Tyre and Berytus) therefore demanded that he should take action against that letter (i.e. anathematize Nestorius, etc.); and, as he did not comply, he was deposed, and Nonnus raised to his place. When Ibas was subsequently again accused at Chalcedon, he did not venture to acknowledge that letter, but, immediately after its being read, said that he was far from that which was imputed to him as an offense; but the Synod, not satisfied with this denial of the letter, compelled him to do the reverse of that which was contained in the letter, namely, confess the true faith, accept the Synod of Ephesus, agree with St. Cyril, and anathematize Nestorius. It was therefore impossible that the Synod of Chalcedon should have approved of that letter. Even when in this letter mention is made of two natures and one Dynamis, one Prosopon, even here there is a mixture of the impiety of the author. Here, as in other writings, he regards the natures as hypostatised, but the e\n pro>swpon he refers to the unity of dignity and honor. That his opinions generally are heretical, he shows at the end of the letter, where he says ‘We must thus believe in the Temple, and in Him Who dwells in the Temple... Like Him, Nestorius also united with expressions of orthodox sound an heretical meaning... We, however, in all ways following the doctrine of the Fathers, have set forth as well the union of the two natures, of which our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity, the incarnate Word of God, is composed, as the difference (diafora> ) of these natures, which is not removed by that union. “That would suffice, but the opponents also maintain that the letter of Ibas itself should not be rejected, because it is found in some copies of the Acts of Chalcedon. This objection is invalid, for we also find in the Acts of the Council passages from Nestorius and others. Besides, this letter is not found in the authentic Acts of Chalcedon; and besides, anything brought forward by this or that member of a Synod has no force, but only that which is decreed by the assembly. Whilst, further, some rejected the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia as impious, but would not anathematize his person, this is contrary to the word of Holy Scripture, which says: ‘For the ungodly and his ungodliness are both alike hateful unto God’ (Wisd. 14:9). When, however, they say that Theodore should not be anathematized after his death, they must know, that a heretic who persists in error until his end, is rightly punished in this manner for ever, and even after his death, as it happened with Valentinus, Basilides, and others... But that Theodoret was anathematized even in his lifetime, is shown distinctly by the letter of Ibas (sec. 196). They say further, that he should not be anathematized, because he died in Church communion. But only those die properly in Church communion who hold fast the common faith of the Church until the end; and the Mopsuestians themselves, as the Synod there (recently) showed, had long ago struck Theodore from the diptychs. Even Judas had communicated with the apostles, notwithstanding which the apostles rejected him after his death, and elected another in his place... “When they further adduce, in favor of Theodore, that Cyril had once commended him, this by itself proves nothing, for there are other heretics, who, before they were properly known, had been commended by holy Fathers, e.g. Eutyches by Leo, and besides, Cyril had, in many other places, expressed the strongest condemnation of Theodore. The allegation was false that Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus had written letters full of the praise of Theodore. Gregory’s letter referred, not to Theodore of Mopsuestia, but to Theodore of Tyana; and the letter of Chrysostom is not full of praise, but full of blame, because Theodore had left the monastic life. If, then, John of Antioch and an Oriental Synod commended Theodore, these men had also (at Ephesus) condemned Cyril and defended Nestorius. Finally, we must refer to St. Augustine. When, after the death of Cecilian, it was maintained that he had done something contrary to ecclesiastical order, and some (the Donatists) had separated themselves from the Church on that account, Augustine wrote to Boniface (Epist. 185, n. 4), ‘If that were true which was charged against Cecilian, I should anathematize him even after his death.’

Moreover, a canon of the African Synod requires that bishops who bequeath their property to a heretic, shall be anathematized even after their death (see sec. 84, chap. 15). Further, Dioscurus was anathematized by the Church in Old Rome after his death, although he had not offended against the faith, but on account of a violation of ecclesiastical order... Whoever, after this true confession and this condemnation of heretics,... separates himself from the Church, as though our piety consisted only in names and expressions, has to give account, for himself and for those led astray by him, on the day of judgment, to the great God and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

SEC. 264. PROTEST, PERSECUTION, AND TWO FLIGHTS OF THE POPE.

After issuing this imperial edict, a great conference was held in the residence of the Pope, the Placidia Palace. Greek and Latin bishops of different neighborhoods, and the priests, deacons, and clerics of Constantinople, were present. Even Theodore Ascidas was present. Both Vigilius and Dacius of Milan warned them against receiving the new imperial edict; and the former, in particular, said: “Beseech the pious Emperor to withdraw the edicts which he has had drawn up, and await the (projected) oecumenical decree on the matter in question, until the Latin bishops, who have taken offense (at the condemnation of the three chapters), shall be either personally present at a Synod, or send their votes in writing. If he should not listen to your petitions, then you ought to give your assent to nothing which tends to a rending of the Church. If, however, you should do so, which I do not believe, you must know that, from that day, you are excommunicated from the apostolic see of Peter.” In a similar sense spoke Bishop Dacius of Milan: “I and a part of those bishops in whose neighborhood my church lies, namely, from Gaul, Burgundy, Spain, Liguria, AEmilia, and Venetia, testify that whoever assents to those edicts, loses the Church communion of the bishops of the forenamed provinces, because I am convinced that those edicts infringe the sacred Synod of Chalcedon and the Catholic faith.” Vigilius writes that not only was the edict not withdrawn, but that, on the very same day, something more vexatious was done, in opposition to all ecclesiastical rules, and with infringement of the apostolic see. What he means by this we learn from his Damnatio Theodori (l.c .), namely, that Ascidas, with the other bishops whom he drew after him, in opposition to the express papal command, went into the church in which the edict was published, there celebrated the Missarum solennia, by their arbitrary authority struck from the diptychs Bishop Zoilus of Alexandria (certainly in partnership with Mennas) because he would not condemn the three chapters, and declared a certain Apollinaris as bishop of Alexandria.

The Pope, therefore, excommunicated him in the middle of July 551. The Emperor became now so embittered against Vigilius and Dacius, that they, fearing for liberty and life, fled (in August 551) into the Basilica of St.

Peter at Constantinople, named in Ormisda, when the Pope, August 14, 551, confirmed in his writing his previous declaration, and on the 17th of this month pronounced the deposition of Ascidas, who had been excommunicated thirty days before, and a sentence of excommunication on his adherents, especially Mennas, ex persona et auctoritate beati Petri apostoli, as he says, and in communion with the Western bishops who were staying with him (likewise in the Basilica of St. Peter), namely, Dacius of Milan, John of Marsicus, Zacchaeus of Squilaci, Valentinus of Silva Candida, Florentius of Matelica, Julian of Siani, Romulus of Numentus or Numana, Dominicus of Calliopoli, Stephen of Rimini, Paschasius of Aletro, Jordan of Cortona, Primasius of Adrumetum, and Verecundus of Juncae. The last two we have already met (sec. 262B) as deputies of the African episcopate; all the others were from Italy.

Vigilius did not immediately publish this Damnatio , but gave the document in question, as he informs us, in charge to a Christian person, in order to give the Emperor, as well as the bishops excommunicated, time to alter their mind. Should these, however, not alter their mind, or should violence be done to the Pope, or evil treatment be inflicted, or he should die, the edict was to be published at the most important places, and everyone should receive information on the subject. Vigilius was a short time, perhaps scarcely a day, in the Basilica of St.

Peter, when the Praetor and a considerable number of soldiers with naked swords appeared in the church, in order to bring him out by force. He clung to the pillars of the altar; the Praetor, however, after he had made them drag out the deacons and other clergy of the Pope by the hair, gave command that the Pope himself should be seized by the feet, the head, and the beard, and dragged out. As Vigilius did not let go the pillars of the altar, it fell over, and some of its pillars were broken. In fact, the altar table would have fallen upon Vigilius and struck him dead, had not some clerics held it fast with their hands. The people were so angered by this sight, that they broke out into loud murmurs, and even several of the soldiers showed such unwillingness that the Praetor thought it well to draw off. Somewhat gentler measures were now adopted, and the Emperor sent a number of high officers of State, the celebrated Belisarius and three others, ex-consuls, Cethegus, Peter, and Justin, to the Pope, with the offer of an oath that no wrong should happen to him if he returned to his former residence. If, however, he would not receive this oath, force would have to be used. Vigilius now drew up a sketch of the oath which the Emperor was expected to furnish in writing; but the Emperor would not accept the sketch, and ordered that the commissioners already named should take the oath. This was done. They laid the document containing the oath upon the altar, and took a corporal oath upon the cross, in which a portion of the sacred cross of Christ was enclosed, and upon the keys of St. Peter; whereupon Vigilius, in accordance with the wish of the Emperor, returned to the Placidia Palace. With him also Dacius and all his other companions left the asylum in the Basilica of St. Peter. The assurances given to the Pope were, however, so badly fulfilled, that he repeatedly reminded those imperial commissioners, in writing, of their oath, and requested them to represent to the Emperor that he had been promised protection from all molestations. Yet the persecution became daily more wanton; servants and clerics of the Pope and his friends were bribed to inflict insults upon them; faithful servants, on the contrary, were torn from them; and emissaries were sent to Italy, in order to circulate falsehoods against the Pope and Dacius, to stir up the people against them, and to mislead them to the election of other bishops. They went so far as to get a notary to imitate the handwriting of the Pope, and to prepare, in his name, false letters, which a certain Stephen then brought into Italy, in order to inflame the public mind against Vigilius. The Italian clergy, who relate this, add that the intention was not attained; yet they themselves seem to have apprehended from all this a very unfavorable effect upon public sentiment, on which account they now, perhaps, assembled in a Council, conveyed to the envoys then sent by the Frankish King Theodobald to Constantinople, the document to which we have so often referred, and which we first brought to light, in which the course of the controversy on the three chapters up to this time is described. At the same time, the petition was inserted in the document to the Frankish envoys that they would convey this intelligence to their own country as speedily as possible, so that their countrymen might not be deceived either by the emissaries ordered there, or by that Anastasius, who had been sent more than two years ago by Bishop Aurelian of Arles to Constantinople, to the Pope, but had been kept there so long, until he promised that he would persuade the Gallican bishops to pronounce an anathema on the three chapters. The envoys were also requested to ask the Gallican bishops to write letters to Vigilius and Dacius, to comfort them, and to encourage them to make opposition to all innovations. In the third place, during their stay in Constantinople, they should intercede for Dacius, so that he might, after an absence of fifteen or sixteen years, be allowed to return again to his diocese, particularly as many sees, for which new bishops had to be ordained, had for years been vacant, so that many persons had died without baptism. Moreover, they should ask Dacius personally why he had not long ago returned to his church. Finally, they must take care not to be caught by the opponents, even if these should declare that they were thoroughly orthodox and full of respect for the Council of Chalcedon. The Italian clergy add that they had received all this intelligence from quite trustworthy people in Constantinople, also that in Africa acts of violence were committed against clergymen, and that all Romans were forbidden to visit the Pope. In the meantime Vigilius found out, more and more, that the Emperor was thoroughly indisposed to keep that oath. All ways of approach to the dwelling of the Pope were watched, and the residence itself surrounded by so many suspicious people, that Vigilius escaped two days before Christmas, 551, full of anxiety, and under the greatest dangers, with his friends to Chalcedon, and sought refuge in the Church of St. Euphemia (a celebrated asylum) there, in which the fourth OEcumenical Synod was held. From hence he published, in January 552, the decree against Ascidas and Mennas, which had been drawn up nearly six months before; but here also he was persecuted, even beaten, two of his deacons, Pelagius and Tullianus, torn from the church, various sacerdotes (probably bishops in the train of the Pope) arrested. Vigilius himself was here seized by a violent sickness, and his companion, Bishop Verecundus of Africa, died in the hospital of the Church of St. Euphemia (sec. 262B).

SEC. 265. NEW NEGOTIATIONS FOR GAINING OVER POPE VIGILIUS.

Towards the end of January 552, the Emperor again entered into communications with the Pope, and, on the 28th of January, sent the same commissioners to him whom he had sent previously to the Basilica of St.

Peter. They must have again offered an oath to the Pope, and invited him to return to Constantinople. He answered: “If the Emperor will arrange the affairs of the Church and restore peace again, as his uncle Justin did, I need no oath, and will immediately appear. If, however, he will not do this, I likewise need no oath, for I will not leave the Church of St.

Euphemia, unless the offense is first removed from the Church.”

At the same time, Vigilius placed before the commissaries what he had said to the bishops in that conference (sec. 264), when he had betaken himself to St. Peter’s Church, and drawn up the sentence of punishment against Ascidas and Mennas, etc. He also informed the Emperor, through the commissaries, that he would have no intercourse with the excommunicated men.

At the end of January one of those commissaries, Peter, appeared, for the second time, in the Church of St. Euphemia, and presented a document which Vigilius was required to accept. He refused, and declared the document to be a forgery, because it was not signed by the Emperor, and also because the commissary would not sign it. Its contents are unknown.

Vigiltus says only that it was full of untruths, insults, and, moreover, of accusations against the Vicar of the Prince of the Apostles. It was, however, the occasion of his addressing an Encyclical to all the faithful, in which he relates all that we have communicated from this Encyclical. To this he adds the information, already given above, of his being ill-treated in the Church of St. Peter, of his being subsequently induced by an oath to return to the palace; but, notwithstanding, of his being obliged to flee to the Church of St. Euphemia. In order, however, he proceeds, that the lies circulated might deceive no one, he adds a complete confession of faith, in which he first recognises the importance of the four OEcumenical Synods, and then emphasises the unity of the person and the duality of the natures in Christ, and finally, anathema is pronounced upon Arius, Macedonius, Eunomius, Paul of Samosata, Photinus, Bonosus, Nestorius, Valentinus, Manes, Apollinaris, Eutyches, Dioscurus, and their doctrines. Finally, this Encyclical relates that, on Sunday, February 4, that State official, Peter, had come again, and had declared in the name of the Emperor that the Pope should determine on what day the imperial commissaries should appear again, in order to take a new oath to him, since he was required to leave the Church of St. Euphemia and return to the capital. Vigilius declared anew, he only wished that the Emperor would restore peace to the Church, for the sake of which he had, seven years ago, come to Constantinople. As, however, Peter had no sufficient authority, he had wished that the Emperor would give adequate security on oath, through two high officials, so that Dacius and some others might personally go to the Emperor, and by commission of the Pope make arrangements with regard to the affairs of the Church. So far goes the Encyclical of the Pope, dated February 5, 552.

What immediately followed upon this is not reported in the original document. We may suppose, however, that, by the negotiations of Dacius and the others, the matter took this turn, that Mennas, Ascidas, and their friends should present a confession of faith to the Pope that should be satisfactory to him, and that the Synod, long resolved upon, should finally be held for the settlement of the controversy. What is certain is, that now Mennas, Theodore Ascidas, Andrew of Ephesus, Theodore of Antioch in Pisidia, Peter of Tarsus, and many other Greek bishops, presented a confession of faith to the Pope, who was still in the Church of St.

Euphemia; and that Vigilius was satisfied with it, and afterwards received it into his Constitutum, so that by that means we still possess it.

They declared in this that they desired the unity of the Church, and therefore had set forth this document, to the effect that they, before everything, held fast inviolably to the four holy Synods of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, as well to their decrees on the faith as to their other ordinances, without adding or subtracting anything; and that they would never do, or allow anything to be done, to the blame, or to the alteration, or to the reproach of these Synods under any pretext whatever; but, on the contrary, would accept everything which, by general decree, in agreement with the legates and of the apostolic see, had then been pronounced. In like manner, they were ready to give a complete assent to the letters of Leo, and to anathematize everyone who acted against them. As regarded, however, the matter now coming in question respecting the three chapters, none of them had prepared a statement on this subject in opposition to the agreement between the Emperor and the Pope (A.D. 550, sec. 262B); and they were agreed that all writings should be given over to the Pope (i.e. should first be put out of operation — until the decision of a Council). As for the injuries which the Pope had experienced, they were not in fault, yet they would ask forgiveness as though they had themselves committed them. So, too, they would ask forgiveness for having, during the time of division, held communion with those whom the Pope had excommunicated. SEC. 266. VIGILIUS GIVES AND RECALLS HIS ASSENT TO THE HOLDING OF AN OECUMENICAL SYNOD.

Soon afterwards Mennas died, in August 552, and a short time before also Dacius of Milan; but Eutychius received the see of Constantinople, and soon after his entrance upon office also sent a confession of faith to the Pope, on the Feast of the Theophany, i.e. January 6, 552. And he affirms, before everything, his love for unity in the faith, through which God’s grace was obtained, then speaks of his loyal adhesion to the four holy Synods, and declares that he will thoroughly agree with the letters which the Roman bishops, particularly Leo, wrote on the true faith. As regards the three chapters, however, which come into question, a common consultation must be held, and a final decision arrived at in accordance with the four holy Synods.

Along with Eutychius there subscribed at the same time Apollinaris of Alexandria (sec. 264), Domnus or Domninus of Antioch, and Elias of Thessalonica. Besides these, all those bishops who had not subscribed the former confession of faith of Mennas and Ascidas, expressed their agreement, but without any special giving of names. Vigilius replied, January 8, 553, in several letters, all to the same effect, addressed to Eutychius, Apollinaris, etc. “He rejoices,” he says, “in a high degree at the end of the separation. He has received the letter of Eutychius, which he subscribed with joy (he inserts his letter verbally in his own), and also he will remain inviolably faithful to the true faith therein confessed. Finally,” he says, “he is thoroughly in accord with this, that a general consultation, under his presidency, servata aequitate, on the subject of the three chapters, should be held, and that by a common decision, in accordance with the four holy Synods, all division should be taken away. A letter of convocation referring to this Synod is no longer extant; we learn, however, from a somewhat later edict of the Emperor, that he summoned the assembly. From the same document and from the Constitutum of Vigilius we learn further, that the latter, after Mennas, Ascidas, Eutychius, and others had sent him the declarations of faith, and the Emperor had demanded from all the bishops the sending of the same kind of confessions, wished that they should hold the Synod that had been agreed upon in Italy or Sicily, at which numerous bishops might be present from Africa and other parts of the West, where hesitation was felt as to the rejection of the three chapters. The Emperor, however, did not agree to this, but made the proposal to summon to Constantinople those bishops whom the Pope wished to consult. Probably the Emperor speedily gave up this plan, because he might fear that, by bringing in these Africans, etc., a great opposition to his plans might be occasioned. In short, the Africans and others did not come; but Vigilius was still unwilling to take part in a Synod where, besides himself and a few other Latins, merely Greeks were to be present. In order to make a compromise, the Emperor made the proposal, soon before Easter, either to summon a tribunal for decision, or to hold a smaller assembly, to which from all parts an equal number of bishops might be got together. Vigilius understood this to mean that, of all the many Greek bishops who were present, only as many as he had Latins around him should be chosen to the conference; but the Emperor meant that from each patriarchate there should be a like number of bishops chosen, and so, as many from Constantinople as from the West, and again, as many from Alexandria, etc.

Taking the matter in his sense, the Pope prepared to bring only three bishops from his side with him, and so from the Greek side there should be only four persons selected, the three patriarchs and one other bishop besides. But the Emperor demanded that each Greek patriarch might bring three to five bishops with him. As the Pope would not agree to this, and on the other side the Emperor and the Greek bishops rejected the Pope’s proposal, Vigilius paid no regard to the repeated request that he would, without further delay, appear at the Synod, but declared that his intention was to express his judgment in writing and for himself; and the Synod was therefore opened without his presence, in order to advance the via facti, and by the fait accompli to make the Pope compliant.

CHAPTER -The Transactions Of The Fifth Oecumenical Synod.

SEC. 267. THE FIRST SESSION AND THE ACTS OF THE SYNOD.

IN accordance with the imperial command, but without the assent of the Pope, the Synod was opened on the 5th of May 553, in the Secretarium of the Bishop’s Church at Constantinople. Among those present were the Patriarchs Eutychius of Constantinople, who presided, Apollinaris of Alexandria, Domninus of Antioch, three bishops as representatives of the Patriarch Eustochius of Jerusalem, and 145 other metropolitans and bishops, of whom many came also in the place of absent colleagues. At the close of the Synod 164 members signed. At the first session six Africans came up, at the last eight, among them Bishop Sextilian of Tunis as representative of Archbishop Primosus (Primasius, sec. 362B) of Carthage. The Greek Acts of our Synod have been lost; but we still possess a Latin translation of them, which was probably prepared at the time of the Synod for the use of Pope Vigilius, and can be shown to have been used by one of his nearest successors, Pelagius II. (578-590). The questions whether these Acts are genuine, gave occasion to an extensive inquiry at the sixth OEcumenical Council in the year 680. At its third session the Acts of the fifth were read from a manuscript which was divided into two books; and in the first book the so-called preliminary Acts seem to be contained, and in the second the minutes proper of the sessions with appendices. When from the first book a supposed letter of Mennas to Pope Vigilius on the unity of the will in Christ (in the sense of Monothelitism) began to be read, the papal legates protested, and declared this document spurious. It was immediately shown, in fact, that it was written by another hand than the other pieces in the first book, and upon leaves which had been added afterwards, and were not paged like the others. The Emperor Constantine Pogonatus therefore would not allow this document to be read further at the sixth Synod; and in the course of time it has completely disappeared; it is not now extant.

The second book of the Acts of the fifth Council was then read, and when they came to those two letters which Vigilius was said to have written to the Emperor Justinian and to his consort (with the expression unam operationem , sec. 259), the papal legates also protested against the genuineness of these two documents, and an examination was instituted, the result of which we find in the minutes of the fourteenth session. So far there were used, at the sixth Synod, two manuscript collections of the Acts of the fifth Council, taken from the archives of the patriarchate of Constantinople: (1) a parchment codex, divided into two books, which, in its first book, contained, as we have remarked, that spurious letter of Mennas; (2) a paper codex which contained only the Acts of the seventh session.

On further examination, the Dean and Chartophylax George found in the archiepiscopal archives of Constantinople, besides, (3) a third codex, also written on paper, and containing the Acts of the whole of the fifth Synod.

He declared on oath that, in these old books, neither by him nor, with his consent, by anyone else, had any alteration whatever been made; and he was now commissioned by the sixth Synod to compare these three codices with one another, and with other old paper manuscripts of the earlier Council (where these were found we are not told). It was then discovered (a) that the latter and the codex No. 3 did not contain those letters of Mennas and Vigilius; (b) that in the first book of the parchment codex No. 1, three quaterns (sheets of four leaves each) had been added by a later hand, and that in these the letter of Mennas was found (besides that, probably other documents); (c) that in the second book of that parchment codex, in the section relating to the seventh session, between the original fifteenth and sixteenth sheets, a sheet had been at a later period inserted, not paged, and containing the two supposititious letters of Vigilius; and that (d) the paper codex No. 2 had been falsified in the same manner. The Council therefore decided to cancel the three documents thus shown to be spurious in MSS. No. 1 and No. 2, to mark them respectively with an obelus, and anathematize them. By another way we arrive at the same result, that these three pieces were not found in the oldest collections of the Acts of the fifth Council. In the fourteenth session of the sixth OEcumenical Synod the following is related by Constantine, a presbyter of Constantinople and a Latin grammarian (Grammaticus Latinus ). Not long before (about thirty years), Paul, then patriarch of Constantinople, had visited the archives, and had there discovered a codex which contained a Latin translation of the Acts of the fifth OEcumenical Council. At the command of the patriarch he, the Grammaticus, had compared this codex with the Greek, and had found that the two letters of Vigilius were lacking in it. At the express command of the patriarch he had translated them from the Greek, and added them to the Latin codex. Accordingly the two letters were not in the old Latin codex, but only in a Greek translation of the Latin original. That Latin codex, however, which the Patriarch Paul found about the year 650, was certainly nothing but a copy of the original Latin translation, which, if we are not mistaken, was made for Vigilius. Such a Latin codex, either the original codex of Vigilius itself or a copy, the papal legates had naturally brought from Rome with them, and as the letter of Mennas and the two letters of Vigilius were lacking in it, they made their protest both on this formal ground, and on account of the Monothelite tendency of the contents of these two documents. There are two alternatives possible: Either these documents are entirely spurious, and had no existence at the time of the fifth Synod, but were fabricated at a later period by a Monothelite, and are therefore to be removed from the collection of the Acts; or they are — at least the two letters of Vigilius (the lost one of Mennas was, without doubt, quite spurious) — for the most part genuine, and they were certainly read in the seventh session of our Council, but they had not yet the addition unam operationem, and this must have been interpolated by a Monothelite.

Baluze declared for the latter theory in his fine Praefatio in acta Concilii V .; and even Baronius (ad ann. 680, n. 47) anticipated him here.

Moreover, it must not be overlooked that the two letters of Vigilius in question, apart from the phrase unam operationem, entirely fit that time of Vigilius, and certainly have witnesses for their genuineness in the Emperor Justinian, in his minister Constantine, and in Facundus of Hermione, since all three declare that Vigilius at that time (before his Judicatum ) had privately promised the Emperor, in writing, an anathema on the three chapters (sec. 259). That these two letters are wanting in the oldest collections of the Acts of the fifth Council in no way proves their entire spuriousness, for the collections of conciliar Acts have always been very different in completeness, and in many there were wanting documents of uncontested genuineness.

The first who printed the Acts of the fifth OEcumenical Synod, now extant only in Latin, was Surius, in the year 1567. He had at command only one old manuscript. The Roman editors restricted themselves to reprinting his text, as they had no manuscript at hand. Labbe was, on the contrary, fortunate enough to be able to compare a second manuscript, Codex Parisiensis, belonging to Joly, precentor of Paris; but he did not make his work sufficiently thorough. Baluze was the first to make full use of the Paris codex, and found in it a series of the most important variations from the text of Surius. He was able, besides, to compare a Codex Bellovacensis, which Hermant, the learned canon of Beauvais, had lent him, and which almost entirely harmonized with the text of Surius. Thus equipped, Baluze brought out a much better edition of the Acts of the fifth Council, accompanied with critical notes, and introduced by a very interesting Praefatio. We find his work also completely copied in Mansi (t. 9, p. 163 sqq.), whilst Hardouin has made only partial use of it. Besides the genuineness of our Acts, their completeness has also become subject of discussion. This is connected with the question whether the fifth OEcumenical Synod was merely occupied with the controversy on the three chapters, or also held several sessions on Origen and his adherents.

The most important defender of the latter view was Cardinal Noris, who maintained that, before the eight sessions, the Acts of which have come to us, there were one or several other sessions for the purpose of examining and censuring Origen, but that their Acts are entirely lost. So also, that the Synod, after settling the matter of the three chapters, occupied themselves further with Origenism, and anathematized two Origenists long dead, Didymus the Blind and the deacon Evagrius Ponticus († 399). That the first part of this hypothesis, namely, that the eight sessions, whose Acts we have, and which were occupied only with the matter of the three chapters, were preceded by others, is not tenable, was seen by the Ballerini, in their defense of Noris’s dissertation against the Jesuit Garnier. As we related above, the Acts of our Council were examined at the sixth OEcumenical Synod, particularly a codex which contained only the seventh session, and it was there shown that what is now called the seventh session was originally marked by the same number.

We cannot, therefore, assume that one or more sessions were held before those of which we possess the Acts. This decided the Ballerini to alter the hypothesis of Cardinal Noris to this extent, that it was not until after the eight sessions on the three chapters that some further sessions were held on account of Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius. Our Acts, they thought, were thus incomplete, as, moreover, is clear, since the usual acclamations in honor of the Emperor, etc., are wanting. A direct proof from antiquity, that the Acts of the fifth Synod had once been more complete, Noris and the Ballerini could, therefore, not discover; but they thought that they were justified in such an assumption, or even forced to it, by inferences from passages in the Fathers. (a) The priest Cyril of Scythopolis, who was a contemporary of the fifth Council, a disciple of St. Sabas, and one who, as a member of the great Laura in Palestine, took part in the Origenist controversy of that time, says, in his biography of St. Sabas, c. 90, quite expressly: “When the holy and OEcumenical fifth Synod was assembled in Constantinople, they smote with common and catholic anathema Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia, and also what Evagrius and Didymus had taught on pre-existence and restitution. (b) Of almost equal antiquity with the priest Cyril was the ecclesiastical historian Evagrius, at the time when our Synod was held, a youth of about fifteen years. He also writes, in his Church History (lib. 4, chap. 38), that the fifth OEcumenical Synod, after the Palestrinian monks Eulogius, Conon, etc., had presented a memorial against Origen (after the anathematizing of the three chapters), had also pronounced a condemnation on Origen and his adherents, particularly on the blasphemies of Didymus and Evagrins. (c) The third witness whom Noris and the Ballerini adduce is the Lateran Synod of 649, at which (c. 18), and in an utterance of Bishop Maximus of Aquileia, Origen, Didymus, and Evagrins are mentioned among those anathematized by the first five Synods. Since, then, no decree was drawn up against these three men by the first four Councils; this must have been done by the fifth OEcumenical Synod. (d) The sixth OEcumenical Council, too (A.D. 680), declares, in its seventeenth and eighteenth sessions, that the fifth Synod was assembled on account of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius. (e) To the same effect the seventh OEcumenical Synod expresses itself in its seventeenth session (Hardouin, t. 4, p. 454), not to mention other less important witnesses. From all these utterances Noris and the Ballerini are led to the supposition, that, besides the eight sessions of the fifth Council, of which we possess the Acts, others must have been held on account of Origen, etc.

The contentions of Cardinal Noris on this subject were opposed by the Jesuit Garnier in his dissertation contributed to the Breviarium of Liberatus, De quinta Synodo, chap. 2, and particularly chap. 5. In the re-editing of this treatise in the Actuarium of his edition of the works of Theodoret, he left out the greater part of this (the old fifth chapter); but he retained the principal portion, maintaining that Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius were not anathematized at the fifth Synod. It is not to be denied that the argument of Cardinal Noris and the Ballerini has much to recommend it, and that their witnesses are of importance; nevertheless, we are unable to agree with them, and can go no further than to say that certainly the fifth Synod anathematized Origen, but not in a special session, and not in consequence of special transactions, but only transeundo and in cumulo, since, in their eleventh anathematism, among a number of older heretics, they brought forward his name (see below). The names of Evagrius and Didymus we do not find in the Acts of our Synod at all. The reasons which we oppose to Noris and the Ballerini are the following: (a) That only half of the Acts of the fifth OEcumenical Council have come to us is hinted at by none of the ancients, and yet this is the main assumption of Cardinal Noris, etc. (b) In the imperial edicts which called our Council into being, and prescribed the direction of its activity, there is nowhere any reference to Origen, but only the tri>a kefalai>a are always indicated as the subject with which the Synod has to deal. (c) To the same effect Pope Vigilius, in the two edicts in which he confirmed the fifth Synod several months after its close, speaks only of the three chapters, and not in the least of Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius, as little as of the other old heretics who are brought forward in the eleventh anathematism of the Synod. (d) The inferences that the close of our Acts is wanting, because no acclamations are contained in them, and that only that part of the minutes was translated into Latin for Vigilius which dealt with the three chapters, because only this interested him, and not the part concerning Origen, are two quite arbitrary assumptions of the Ballerini (l.c. p. 1019) which have nothing to support them. (e) In subscribing the minutes of the eighth session, the Patriarch Eutychins recapitulated in brief all that had been decreed without giving one syllable of a reference to Origen, from which (in spite of Noris) it is clear that, at least up to this time, no special transaction had taken place at our Synod on account of Origen. If, however, he was named only transeundo in the eleventh anathematism, Eutychius had no more reason to refer to him than to the other old heretics there brought forward. (f) Pope Gregory the Great says: “The Synod which dealt with the three chapters anathematized only one single person, namely, Theodore of Mopsuestia.” This he could not have said, if the Roman copy of the synodal Acts had contained a special sentence against Origen. Only in the eleventh anathematism the Roman copy of the synodal Acts also contains the name of Origen along with those of other old heretics; and Gregory names these here as little as Origen, because the anathema on them did not belong to the special business of the fifth Council. (g) We have already remarked that the Church historian Evagrius, one of the chief witnesses of Cardinal Noris, confounded the fifth Synod with the one held somewhat earlier (A.D. 543) under Mennas, which did anathematize Origen and drew up fifteen propositions against him. (h) With Cyril of Scythopolis, however, we may perhaps suppose a slight error. Victor of Tununum says, ad ann. 565 (Galland. t. 12, p. 231), that the Emperor Justinian, in this year, exiled Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople, the damnator trium capitulorum, et Evagrii eremitae diaconi ac Didymi monachi. This points to the fact that the Patriarch Eutychius, after the holding of our Synod at which he presided, published an edict in his diocese, and therein made known the decrees of the fifth Council, at the same time pronounced anathema on Evagrins and Didymus, and also on Origen (perhaps renewed the decrees of the Synod under Mennas). If this was so, then Cyril, living as a hermit in the remote Laura, might easily confound the edict of Eutychius following the fifth Synod with this, and so arrive at his conclusion respecting Origen. If, however, the statement was once circulated by him and Evagrins, that the fifth Council had also anathematized Origen and the others, this might have been repeated by a hundred others bona fide. So, too, at the sixth OEcumenical Council, in their copy of the Acts of our Synod, amplified as we know, a passage may have been found on Origen, Diodous, and Evagrius. It is quite true that here a critical examination of the copies was ordered; but this extended, as far as we can see from the text of the fourteenth session of the sixth Council, only to the supposed letter of Mennas and the two letters of Pope Vigilius; for a comparison and examination, extending to all particulars, there seemed no great need, nor had they sufficient time. After the 151 bishops had taken their places at the opening of our Synod, the imperial Silentlatins Theodore begged for admission, and presented a letter from the Emperor, dated on the same day (May 5), addressed to the Synod. This letter was immediately read by the deacon and notary Stephen, and ran as follows: “The effort of my predecessors, the orthodox Emperors, ever aimed at the settling of controversies which had arisen respecting the faith by the calling of Synods. For this cause Constantine assembled 318 Fathers at Nicaea, Theodosius 150 at Constantinople, Theodosius the younger the Synod of Ephesus, the Emperor Marcian the bishops at Chalcedon. As, however, after Martian’s death, controversies respecting the Synod of Chalcedon had broken out in several places, the Emperor Leo wrote to all bishops of all places, in order that everyone might declare his opinion in writing with regard to this holy Council. Soon afterwards, however, had arisen again the adherents of Nestorius and Eutyches, and caused great divisions, so that many Churches had broken off communion with one another. When, now, the grace of God raised us to the throne, we regarded it as our chief business to unite the Churches again, and to bring the Synod of Chalcedon, together with the three earlier, to universal acceptance. We have won many who previously opposed that Synod; others, who persevered in their opposition, we banished, and so restored the unity of the Church again. But the Nestorians want to impose their heresy upon the Church; and, as they could not use Nestorius for that purpose, they made haste to introduce their errors through Theodore of Mopsuestia, the teacher of Nestorius, who taught still more grievous blasphemies than his. He maintained, e.g ., that God the Word was one, and Christ another. For the same purpose they made use of those impious writings of Theodoret which were directed against the first Synod of Ephesus, against Cyril and his twelve chapters, and also the shameful letter which Ibas is said to have written. They maintain that this letter was accepted by the Synod of Chalcedon, so would free from condemnation Nestorius and Theodore who were commended in the letter. If they were to succeed, the Logos could no longer be said to be ‘made man,’ nor Mary called the ‘God-bearer.’ We therefore, following the holy Fathers, have first asked you in writing to give your judgment on the three impious chapters named, and you have answered, and have joyfully confessed the true faith. Because, however, after the condemnation proceeding from you, there are still some who defend the three chapters, therefore we have summoned you to the capital, that you may here, in common assembly, place again your view in the light of day. When, for example, Vigilius, Pope of Old Rome, came hither, he, in answer to our questions, repeatedly anathematized in writing the three chapters, and confirmed his steadfastness in this view by much, even by the condemnation of his deacons, Rusticus and Sebastian. We possess still his declarations in his own hand. Then he issued his Judicatum, in which he anathematized the three chapters, with the words, Et quoniam, etc. (sec. 259). You know that he not only deposed Rusticus and Sebastian because they defended the three chapters, but also wrote to Valentinian, bishop of Scythia, and Aurelian, bishop of Arles, that nothing might be undertaken against the Judicatum. When you afterwards came hither at my invitation, letters were exchanged between you and Vigilius in order to a common assembly.

But now he had altered his view, would no longer have a Synod, but required that only the three patriarchs and one other bishop (in communion with the Pope and the three bishops about him) should decide the matter.

In vain we sent several commands to him to take part in the Synod. He rejected also our two proposals, either to call a tribunal for decision, or to hold a smaller assembly, at which, besides him and his three bishops, every other patriarch should have place and voice, with from three to five bishops of his diocese, We further declare that we hold fast to the decrees of the four Councils, and in every way follow the holy Fathers, Athanasius, Hilary, Basil, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Theophilus, John (Chrysostom) of Constantinople, Cyril, Augustine, Proclus, Leo, and their writings on the true faith. As, however, the heretics are resolved to defend Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius with their impieties, and maintain that that letter (of Ibas) was received by the Synod of Chalcedon, so do we exhort you to direct your attention to the impious writings of Theodore, and especially to his Jewish Creed which was condemned at Ephesus and Chalcedon. You will thence see that he and his heresies have since been condemned, and that therefore his name has long since been struck from the diptychs of the Church of Mopsuestia. Consider the absurd assertion that no one who has died is to be anathematized; consider further the writing of Theodoret and the supposed letter of Ibas, in which the incarnation of the Word is denied, the expression ‘Godbearer’ and the holy Synod of Ephesus rejected, Cyril called a heretic, and Theodore and Nestorius defended and praised. And, as they say that the Council of Chalcedon has received this letter, you must compare the declarations of this Council relating to the faith with the contents of the impious letter. Finally, we entreat you to accelerate the matter, and commend you, holy fathers, to the divine protection.” After the reading of the imperial letter, the Silentiarius was required to withdraw; and the Synod gave orders that, as the Emperor spoke of a correspondence with Vigilius, the documents connected with it should be communicated. The notary Stephen then read the letter of Eutychius of Constantinople to Vigilius, and then the answer of the Pope, from both of which documents we have given extracts above (sec. 266). The Acts add correctly that Apollinaris of Alexandria and Domninus of Antioch, together with their suffragans who were present in the residence, had addressed quite the same letters to the Pope as Eutychius, and had received the same answer. The bishops then declared that although several of them and the imperial officials had already frequently exhorted Vigilius to enter into common consultation with them, yet it was reasonable to do this once more; and thereupon, whilst the rest remained assembled, there went a highly distinguished and numerous deputation, among them the three Oriental patriarchs, to the Pope, to invite him to take part in the Synod.

They returned with the intelligence that Vigilius had stated that, on account of being unwell, he was unable to give them an immediate answer, and he requested the deputies to come again next day in order to receive his answer. In expectation of this they closed the first session.

SEC. 268. SECOND AND THIRD SESSIONS ON THE 8 TH AND 9TH OF MAY.

On the 8th of May 553, the same bishops came together again in the same place, and on request the deputies sent in the first session to Vigilius gave an account of their second visit to the Pope. “As the Pope of Old Rome,” they said, “appointed the next day for us, so we betook ourselves again to him on the 6th of May, two days ago, reminded him of the letters already exchanged between us and him, and requested him, in accordance with his promise, now to declare whether he would take council in common with us on the subject of the three chapters. He refused to take part in the Synod, with the remark, that the number of Orientals was so great, and that he had only a few bishops with him; so that he had begged the Emperor to allow more bishops to come from Italy. We replied that neither by us nor by the Emperor had the promise been given to await the arrival of the Western bishops; whilst Vigilius had promised in writing to meet with us, and it was not right for him to distinguish so abruptly between Western and Eastern, as they both held the same faith, and that in the case of the first four OEcumenical Synods not many Westerns had been present. And besides, there were, in fact, a good many Western bishops from Africa and Illyria present at Constantinople. He replied, we will come together in equal numbers, I will take three bishops with me; from the other side, let the three patriarchs come with one other bishop, so that there may be four on each side. We made the counter proposal, that at least each patriarch should bring with him the same number of bishops as the Pope, and added that it was, moreover, unbecoming, that out of so many bishops who were here, the matter should be decided by so few. As he persevered in his refusal, we added, that, as the Emperor had commanded us, as well as him, to deliver an opinion on the three chapters, we, on our part, should assemble without him and express our view. He then declared: I have asked the Emperor for a delay of twenty days, within which time I will answer his written question. If I have not by that time expressed my opinion, then I will accept all that you decree on the three chapters. We replied: In the correspondence between us and you there was nothing said of a separate, but of a common declaration on the three chapters. If your Holiness only wishes for delay, it is to be considered that the matter has already lasted seven years, since your Holiness came into this city. Moreover, you are perfectly informed on the subject, and have already frequently anathematized the three chapters, both in writing and orally. Vigilius refused to give any further answer. We, however, persevered in the request that he would come with us, and immediately gave the Emperor information of our conference with Vigilius. He promised to send some State officials (indices ) and bishops to him, in order to admonish him anew.” Diodorus, the Archdeacon and Primicerius of the Notaries, now declared that yesterday, May 7, the Emperor had actually sent several State officials, together with a number of bishops, to the Pope, and the former were ready to give a report concerning their mission. They related: “At the command of the Emperor, we had recourse to Pope Vigilius on the 1st of May in the company of Belisarius and others, and again on the 7th of May in company with Theodore, bishop of Caesarea, and others, and presented to him both times the same command of the Emperor, that he would either negotiate with all the bishops in common, or, if he did not like this, that he would first with the patriarchs and some other bishops consider the question of the three chapters, so that the judgment of this commission might then be received by the other bishops. He refused, however, both the consultation with all and that with the patriarchs, and demanded delay, in order that he might give his answer alone. We told him that he had already frequently anathematized the three chapters alone, both in writing and orally, but that the Emperor desired a common sentence upon them. Vigilius, too, had already himself communicated to the Emperor his wish for a delay; and had received for answer, that, if he were really ready for a common consultation with the bishops or patriarchs, then he should receive a still longer delay. As, however, he was now visibly trying to put the matter off, it was necessary that the other bishops should give their judgment in a Synod.... We presented this to him, and besought him repeatedly to take part in the Synod. But he persisted in his refusal.” This report of the imperial officials was confirmed by the bishops who went with them to Vigilius. The former now withdrew again from the session with the words: “The bishops, having the fear of God before their eyes, should make a short end to the affair, and be convinced that the Emperor held inviolable and defended the definitions of the faith of the four holy Synods, and rejected all that was in opposition to them. At his command, also, those four Synods were inscribed in the diptychs — a thing which was never done before.” The Synod thereupon sent deputies to the Western bishops present in Constantinople, Primasius of Africa (sec. 262B), Sabinianus, Projectus, and Paul from Illyricum, in order to request their appearance. The envoys speedily returned with the intelligence that Primasius would not come because the Pope was not there; and the other three had said that they must first take counsel with their archbishop, Benenatus. The Synod resolved to inform the latter that Benenatus was in fellowship with the Synod, and one of his suffragans, Phocas, was even present. As to Primasius, however, his case should be decided, in due time, according to the rules of the Church, that the Emperor should immediately receive information on this point also, and that a new session should be held on the following day. In this, the third session, on May 9, 553, the minutes of the two previous transactions were read, and then a confession of faith was drawn up by the bishops, which was partly identical with that of the Emperor in his edict of May 5, and declares adhesion to the decrees of the four early Councils, and to the doctrine of the Fathers, Athanasius and others. To this the Synod adds the threat of anathema on all who should separate themselves from the Church (certainly with allusion to Vigilius), and closes with the words: “In regard to the controversy on the three chapters, with respect to which the Emperor questioned us, a special meeting is necessary on another day.” SEC. 269. FOURTH SESSION ON THE 12TH OR 13TH OF MAY.

When the bishops again assembled on the 12th, or, according to the Paris codex, on the 13th of May, they caused to be read, from the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, the passages already collected, on account of which he had been accused of heresy by the holy Fathers. fat159 Callonymus, the deacon and notary, read no fewer than seventy-one passages, together with the infamous creed of Theodore (see sec. 267). The first of these passages front the third book of Theodore against Apollinaris, declares the difference between the Word and Him who was born of Mary, between the temple and the dweller therein, in a strong Nestorian sense. The same meaning is given by the second passage, which leaves it doubtful whether the Logos was united with the Son of Man in the womb of Mary, or only afterwards. The mere dwelling of the Word in a man is then declared very distinctly in Nos. 3, 4, etc. Twelve of these passages are taken from the books of Theodore against Apollinaris, others from his commentaries on John, Matthew, Luke, Acts of the Apostles, Epistle to the Hebrews, Psalms, and Prophets, from the works, De Incarnatione, Ad baptizandos, De creatura, and others. Some of them we have used above (vol. 3, sec. 127) in order to set forth Theodore’s teaching, and this has been done more completely by Dr. Gengler in the Tubingen Theolog. Quartalschrift, 1835, S. 223 ff.

Even during the reading, after the twenty-seventh passage which speaks of a dwelling of the Godhead in man, and, as though the latter had been supported and healed by the former, the Synod exclaimed: “That we have already condemned, that we have already anathematized. Anathema to Theodore and his writings... a Theodore, a Judas.” And after the whole reading was ended, they exclaimed: ‘This creed (Theodore’s) Satan has made. Anathema to him who made this creed! The first Synod of Ephesus anathematized this creed with its author. We know only one creed, that of Nicaea: the other three Synods have also handed this down; in this creed we were baptized and baptize others. Anathema to Theodore of Mopsuestia! He has rejected the Gospels, insulted the incarnation of God (dispensatio, oijkonomi>a , cf. Suicer, Thesaur. s.v .). Anathema to all who do not anathematize him! His defenders are Jews, his adherents heathens.

Many years to the Emperor!... We all anathematize Theodore and his writings.” The Synod hereupon declared: “The multitude of blasphemies read out, which Theodore has spit out against our great God and Savior, essentially against his own soul, justifies his condemnation. Yet because we will be quite exact in the examination of the matter, we must hear further on another day.” SEC. 270. FIFTH SESSION ON MAY 17.

The day on which the fifth session was held is given differently in the manuscripts of the synodal Acts. The codex of Surius had viii Idus Maii (=May 8). But this reading cannot possibly be received, since the previous session took place on the 12th or 13th of May. The Roman editors, in their Collection of the Councils, corrected viii Idus into iii Idus (=May 13), and endeavored to justify this assumption by a passage from a speech of Archdeacon Diodorus presently to be noticed. Baluze found, however, in his two codices, the date xvi Kal Junias (=May 17), and showed that this reading must be retained, which was then taken by Hardouin into the text.

At the beginning of this session Diodorus, archdeacon of Constantinople, spoke thus: “The holy Synod remembers that, on a former day, they had recognized the impiety of Theodore and his writings, but at the same time had resolved in another session to have read aloud what the holy Fathers and the imperial edicts pronounced concerning Theodore.” The Synod adhered to this resolution, and after, as in all the other sessions, the minutes of the earlier ones had been read, a deacon brought forward from the now lost treatise of Cyril against Theodore of Mopsuestia, ten passages which contained first Thedore’s own words and then Cyril’s answer. This was followed by a rather large fragment from the very violent letter of the Armenian and Persian clergy to Proclus, formerly bishop of Constantinople, in which Theodore is called a pestifer homo, nay, a wild beast in human form, and his influence and his errors are described.

From the answer of Proclus to the Armenians two small passages are extracted; then four passages from four letters of Cyril, one from the letter of Nabulas to Cyril, and one from the now lost Church History of Hesychius, a priest of Jerusalem (in the fifth century), in which the biography of Theodore of Mopsuestia is given in brief, and a very severe judgment pronounced upon him. Next followed two imperial edicts of Theodosius the younger, and two utterances of Gregory of Nyssa against Theodore. Finally, in proof that the writings attacked by Cyril really proceeded from Theodore, and that he was accused of heresy at so early a period, three passages from Theodoret were held sufficient. The examination immediately proceeded to another point: Whether it was true that St. Cyril, in one of his writings, had praised Theodore and called him bonus Theodorus. In order to clear up this question, a passage was read from the treatise of Cyril against Theodore, in which this phrase certainly occurs: “Scriptum est a bono Theodoro adversus haeresin Arianorum,” etc.; but that which goes before and that which follows show quite clearly that on one point Cyril commended the zeal of Theodore and yet accused him of false doctrine. So also several letters of Gregory of Nazianzus were read, in order to prove that the Theodore to whom they were addressed was not the Mopsuestian, but the bishop of Tyana (sec. 263); which was confirmed by Euphranta, who was then bishop of Tyana, and was present at the Synod, and by Bishop Theodosius of Justinianopolis. In order to weaken the further objection of the opponents, that no dead man should be anathematized, the deacon Photinus read several passages from Cyril; and the African bishop, Sextilian, declared that the old African Synods had decreed that those bishops who left their property to heretics should be anathematized even after their death; Augustine, too, had expressed himself in a letter in favor of the lawfulness of anathematizing one who is dead (see sec. 263). In proof three passages were read from Augustine, upon which Bishop Benignus of Heraclea remarked that, as a matter of fact, many had been anathematized after their death, e.g.

Valentinus, Marcian, Apollinaris, etc., and many Eusebians. In agreement with this, Rabulas of Edessa had anathematized Theodore of Mopsuestia after his death, and so had the Roman Church Dioscurus, bishop of Rome (antipope), after his death, although he had never offended against the faith. Theodore Ascidas, John of Nyssa, and Basil of Justinianopolis now alleged that the defenders of Theodore relied upon a supposed letter of St. Cyril to John of Antioch, in which the former disapproved of the anathema on Theodore. They produced the letter, and showed its spuriousness by quoting the genuine utterances of Cyril on the Mopsuestian. From other passages of Cyril they showed that he considered an anathema on one who was dead as allowable, and they added that the opponents could not support themselves by the fact that Cyril at one time (vol. 3, sec. 160), with prudent regard to the circumstances, was unwilling to obtain an anathema on Theodore of Mopsuestia. As, however, this toleration (dispensatio ) did not win back those who had gone astray, Cyril and Proclus had afterwards expressed themselves the more violently against Theodore. The Apostle Paul, too, had used similar toleration towards the weak, and had even kept the ordinances of the old law. So, Basil the Great and Athanasius had in some measure commended Apollinaris, and Pope Leo, at one time, Eutyches (vol. 3, sec. 171); but afterwards they anathematized those heretics. So, many others had been anathematized after their death, e.g. Origen. Whoever would go back to the times of Theophilus of Alexandria and still further, would find this. Indeed, the bishops present and Pope Vigilius had done the same in regard to Origen. A supposed letter of Chrysostom in honor of the Mopsuestian, which was circulated by the opposition, was spurious, and contradicted the genuine letter of Chrysostom to Theodore, in which he blamed him for abandoning the monastic life. Nor could they say that Theodore had died in the communion of the Church, for only he who held the true faith until death died in Church communion. — At the close the bishops recited another passage from Gregory of Nyssa, which declared the doctrine of two Sons, and so the doctrine of Theodore, to be unchristian. After the long addresses of the three bishops the Acts of the recently held Synod of Mopsuestia (sec. 262), with the imperial edicts prefixed, were read, in proof that the name of Theodore had long ago been struck out of the diptychs of his own church. Here the inquiry concerning Theodore closed, and Theodoret of Cyrus came next in his turn. Several passages from his writings against Cyril, etc., were read; namely, four fragments from his polemic against the twelve anathematisms of Cyril, four fragments from some discourses of Theodoret, and five merely entire letters of his. Theodoret declared himself here as openly heterodox, whilst he himself wanted to make the doctrine of Cyril to be heretical. In order to oppose the supposed mingling of the divine and the human with Cyril, he made a separation in a Nestorian sense between Godhead and manhood in Christ, and rejected expressions which, up to the present day, are the Shibboleth of orthodoxy in the Church. In the first fragment, e.g., he says, “God the Word is not incarnate”; in the second, “an hypostatic union we do not acknowledge at all:; in the third and fourth he opposes the communicatio idiomatum ; in the fifth he calls St. Cyril an impius ; in the sixth an impugnator Christi ; in the seventh a novus haereticus, who confuses the natures in Christ, etc. After the reading was finished the Synod declared: “The accuracy of the Council of Chalcedon is wonderful. It recognized the blasphemies of Theodoret, at the beginning it directed many exclamations against him, and received him only after he had anathematized Nestorius and his blasphemies. — On a subsequent day an inquiry was to be instituted on the last chapter, the letter of Ibas.” SEC. 271. SIXTH SESSION ON MAY 19.

In the sixth session, May 19, 553, the minutes of the previous meetings were again read at the beginning, and the Synod then declared: “As certain persons maintain that the supposed letter of Ibas was received by the Council of Chalcedon, and, in proof, appeal to the utterances of one or another member of that assembly, whilst at the same time all the other bishops were not of the same view, the letter in question must first of all be read.” This was done, and our Acts contain here the Latin translation of the letter which is preserved in the Greek original in the minutes of the tenth session of Chalcedon. We gave its chief contents above (vol. 3, sec. 196).

The Synod then ordered the reading of the letter of Proclus to John of Antioch, in which the former relates that Ibas had been accused before him of being an adherent of Nestorianism, and of having translated writings of Theodore into Syriac and circulated them. After, then, the Synod had pronounced the rejection of the letter to Maris in general, Theodore Ascidas and three other bishops gave an account of the transactions held on the subject of Ibas more than a hundred years ago (vol. 3, secs. 169 and 196), how he had been accused, but at Tyre had pronounced anathema on Nestorius, and maintained that, since the union between Cyril and the Orientals, he had written nothing more against him. At the same time, he had denied the authorship of the letter. Subsequently, because of his opposition to Cyril, he had been deposed, together with Domnus of Antioch (the bishops do not mention that this was done at the Robber- Synod, see vol. 3, sec. 179), and that, at Chalcedon, putting aside the question about the letter, he had spoken only of the other charges which were brought against him. The bishops then say, further, that the opposition, with heretical slyness, referred to one or two utterances on Ibas which were made by individual members at Chalcedon, in order to prove that the Synod had accepted his letter. But in Councils nothing was decided by the utterance of one or another. Moreover, these votes should be considered more closely, and it would be found how these very voters (indirectly) rejected the letter, since they demanded of Ibas that he should acknowledge the Council of Ephesus and anathematize Nestorius, the direct contrary of which was contained in the letter.

The bishops then adduced some of the testimonies (vota ) given at Chalcedon, particularly that of Eunomius of Nicomedia, to which the opposition particularly appealed, as if he had blamed the first part of the letter, but commended the second. They show that, by the words in posterioribus recte confessus, not the latter part of the letter, but the later confession of Ibas at Chalcedon, is meant. All the bishops at Chalcedon had demanded from Ibas an anathema on Nestorius, who was commended in that letter; and Ibas had given such an anathema; and so had done it twice over. On the one hand, he had denied the authorship of the letter; on the other hand, he had (indirectly) anathematized the letter itself. The bishops, however, pass over the most important votes in silence, namely, that of the papal legates and that of the Patriarch Maximus of Antioch (vol. 3, sec. 196). The former said: “Relectis chartis agnovimus ex sententia reverendissimorum episcoporum (the commission at Tyre) Ibam innoxium probari. Relecta enim ejus epistola agnovimus eum esse orthodoxum.”

Similarly Maximus: kai< ejk tou~ ajnagnwsqe>ntov de< ajntigra>fou th~v ejpistolh~v... ojrqo>doxov w]fqh aujtou~ hJ uJpagori>a. In order to make it more completely dear, by comparison, that the letter to Maris is heretical, they caused a series of documents of the Synods of Ephesus and Chalcedon to be read, as follows: — 1. The second letter of Cyril to Nestorius (vol. 3, sec. 129), with some utterances of Cyril and other bishops at the OEcumenical Synod of Ephesus, bearing upon it. 2. The answer of Nestorius to Cyril (ib. and sec. 134) again in connection with the judgments rendered at Ephesus. 3. The letter of Coelestius of Rome to Nestorius. 4. The letter of Cyril and the Alexandrian Synod to Nestorius, together with the twelve appended anathematisms of Cyril (secs. 131 and 134). 5. From the minutes of the second session of Chalcedon (sec. 190) they read, first, the demand of the imperial commissaries, that the bishops should now quickly declare the true faith (sec. 190), and next the famous Epistola dogmatica of Leo should be read (sec. 176). Also, 6. An expression of Bishop Atticus from the same session of Chalcedon (sec. 190), from which it is plain that the Synod had recognized the letter of Leo just named, and also the letter of Cyril and his Synod to Nestorius as an expression of the true faith, and had put it into the hands of the bishops for their own more careful guidance. 7. A number of other documents were taken from the fourth session of Chalcedon: (a ) a demand of the imperial commissaries, that the bishops would now publish their view on the faith without fear (sec. 192); (b ) the second demand, that they would lay their hand upon the Gospels and declare whether the letter of Leo agreed with the creed of Nicaea and Constantinople; and (c ) the votes of the bishops on these subjects. 8. Finally, they brought forward, from the Acts of the fifth session of Chalcedon, the confession of faith of this Council, together with the creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople inserted in it (see sec. 193). After this was done, the deacon and notary Thomas was required to read a short document, prepared beforehand, in which utterances of the Council of Chalcedon and statements from the letter to Maris were set over against each other, in order to show that the Council had taught the opposite of that which was to be read in the letter. The Council said: “God the Word has become flesh and man, is our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Trinity”; the letter, on the contrary, called everyone a heretic and an Apollinarist who spoke of an incarnation and a becoming man of the Divine Word.

The Council called Mary the Godbearer; the letter contested this predicate.

The Council declared its consent to follow the decrees of Ephesus, and anathematized Nestorius; the letter insulted the Synod of Ephesus, and defended Nestorius. The Council honored Cyril as a teacher, and had accepted his letter with the twelve anathematisms; the letter to Maris called Cyril a heretic, his anathematisms impious, and blamed his doctrine of two natures and one person, and of the Communicatio idiomatum. The Fathers of the Council confess repeatedly that they teach exactly as Cyril did; the letter scoffs at the teaching of Cyril. The Council anathematizes all who introduce another creed; the letter praises Theodore, who drew up an impious creed. Generally, the doctrine of the letter was quite opposed to that of Chalcedon, and even when it spoke of two natures, as did the Synod of Chalcedon, it signified by that properly two persons, like Nestorius. After all this the Synod pronounced the sentence: “The transactions which have taken place show clearly that the letter which Ibas is said to have written is thoroughly contradictory to the declaration of faith of Chalcedon. Therefore all the members of that Synod demanded that Ibas should anathematize Nestorius, whom that letter defended, and should subscribe the declaration of faith. In doing so they showed that they regarded as invalid what one or two had said in favor of that letter; whilst these also united with the others, and accepted Ibas only after he had done penance and anathematized Nestorius, and had subscribed the confession of faith of Chalcedon.” All exclaimed: “The letter is heretical; we all condemn this letter; it is foreign to the Synod of Chalcedon. It is quite heretical, quite blasphemous. Whoever accepts it is a heretic; the declaration of faith of Chalcedon condemned this letter. Anathema to Theodore, to Nestorius, and to the letter ascribed to Ibas. Whoever does not anathematize this letter insults the Synod of Chalcedon. Many years to the Emperor! many years to the orthodox Emperor !” SEC. 272. THE CONSTITUTUM OF VIGILIUS, MAY 14, 533.

During the sessions of the Synod heretofore described, Pope Vigilius prepared that comprehensive memorial to the Emperor, of the composition of which he had already informed the commissaries sent to him in the words: He would within twenty days set forth his view of the three chapters separately from the Synod (sec. 268). It is headed, Constitutum Vigilii Papae de tribus capitulis, and therefore is called Constitutum, and is dated May 14, 553, from Constantinople, and is subscribed by sixteen other bishops, besides Vigilius, and three Roman clergy. Of those sixteen bishops, nine were Italians — from Marsi, Scyllacium, Silva Candida, Cingulum, Ariminum, Malta, Nomentum, Lipara, Numana; two Africans — from Nasaira and Adrumetum; two from Illyricum — from Ulpianum and Zappara; and three from Asia — from Iconium, Claudiopolis, and Melitene in Armenia. The three Roman clerics were Archdeacon Theophanius and the two deacons Pelagius and Peter. The Constitutum begins by praising the Emperor for having demanded declarations of faith from all the bishops, with a view to removing the discord in the Church. Two such, the Pope proceeds, had already been given, and he inscribed them here verbally, namely, that of Mennas and Theodore Ascidas, and the somewhat later one of Eutychius, the new patriarch of Constantinople, and others (sec. 265). He had wished that soon an assembly (Synod) might be held in Italy or Sicily, in order to consider the subject of the three chapters; but the Emperor had not agreed to this, and, on the contrary, had made the proposal to summon to Constantinople, from Africa and other Western provinces, those bishops whose names the Pope would put down, and whom he wished as councillors. Out of love for peace, he had assented. A short time before Easter the Emperor had resolved that an equal number of the bishops present in Constantinople should consider the matter (i.e . as Vigilius understood it, as many Greeks as Latins; whilst the Emperor meant that the same number of bishops should be chosen from each patriarchate). Whilst, then, the Pope, in giving effect to his view of the matter, was occupied with the three chapters, the officer of the palace, Theodore, had handed him an imperial letter, not many days before Eastern — an imperial letter in which Justinian already pronounced his judgment on the three chapters, and also demanded a declaration upon them from the Pope (this means the edict which was read at the first session of the fifth Synod, sec. 267). The Greek bishops had not agreed to consider the matter in a number equal to that of the Pope and his bishops, nor even that the Pope should set forth his view in writing, on the assumption that he would make concessions by word of mouth which he would be afraid to put in writing.

Moreover, the Emperor had again sent officials to him with the demand that he would, as soon as possible, make a declaration concerning the three chapters. In order also to respond to this wish, he had now asked for a delay of twenty days, in reference to his well-known sickness, and had sent the deacon Pelagius to the bishops with the explanation, that, as the customary way and manner of meeting had not been observed they ought to wait twenty days longer, and not, in opposition to the rule of the Church, give their own judgment before the appearance of the sentence of the apostolic see, by which course new troubles might arise. He had now carefully examined the Acts of the four old holy Synods, the decrees of his predecessors, and the writings of other tried Fathers, in regard to the matter of the three chapters, and had scrutinized the paper codex which the. Emperor had sent to him through Bishop Benignus of Heraclea, in Pelagonia. This contained, in its first part, many expressions (of Theodore of Mopsuestia) which were thoroughly opposed to the orthodox doctrine, which he therefore solemnly anathematized, and thought well to embody in his Constitutum.

There now follow, in sixty numbers, the most of those seventy-one passages from several books of Theodore of Mopsuestia which we met with at the fourth session (sec. 269). Immediately after each of these verbally quoted Capitula Theodori, Vigilius makes his Responsio follow, in which he endeavors to set forth briefly their heretical character. After he had once more condemned them ex apostolicae sententiae auctoritate, he proceeds: As the codex communicated to him by the Emperor ascribed these infamous passages to Theodore of Mopsuestia, he had thought it necessary to inquire in the old Fathers what had been said and concluded by them respecting Theodore. He had found that St. Cyril, after the death of Theodore, had communicated the following concerning him in a letter to John of Antioch: “As the declaration of faith read at Ephesus, ascribed to Theodore, contained nothing sound, the holy Synod had rejected it, as full of perversities, and had condemned all who thus thought. Of the person of Theodore, however, in particular, they did not speak, did not anathematize him or any other by name ” (vol. 3, sec. 206). In the Acts of the first Synod of Ephesus, he (Vigilius) had formed no judgment at all on the person of Theodore, and it was clear that Cyril, holding the priestly moderation in regard to the dead, had not wished that Theodore’s name should be inscribed in the Acts, as he, lower down in his letter, also blamed those who directed their arrows against the ashes of Theodore (vol. 3, sec. 160). In proof that it was not right to anathematize the dead, the Pope appeals further to some utterances of Bishop Proclus of Constantinople, who declared that he had demanded an anathema on the propositions of Theodore, but not on his person. The Council of Chalcedon, too, Vigilius goes on, had decreed nothing on the person of Theodore, and had uttered nothing prejudicial thereto, whilst they had referred with recognition and commendation to that letter of John of Antioch and his Synod to Theodosius the younger, then Emperor, in which Theodore is excused, and a condemnation of him after his death deprecated. And this allocution the Emperor Justinian himself had adduced as testimony in his edict on the sentence, “One of the Trinity was crucified.” The Pope said, he had further inquired carefully what his predecessors had said on the question, whether anyone who had not been anathematized in his lifetime could be anathematized after his death. Against such harshness Leo and Gelasius had, in particular, declared themselves, saying that the dead should be left to the judgement of God. The Roman Church, too, had always, in practice, followed this rule, and in like manner Dionysius the Great, of Alexandria, had indeed condemned the books of the departed Bishop Nepos, because they contained chiliastic error, but not his person (see vol. 1, sec. 8).

Accordingly, the Pope said he did not venture to pronounce anathema on the person of the departed Theodore of Mopsuestia, and did not allow that others should do so. But it did not, in the least, follow from this that he should tolerate or find admissible those utterances ascribed to Theodore, or any other heretical utterance.

In the second place, as regarded the writings circulated under the name of Theodoret, he wondered that anything was undertaken to the dishonor of this man, who, more than a hundred years ago, had subscribed without hesitation the sentence of Chalcedon, and had willingly given his assent to the letters of Pope Leo. Although Dioscurus and the Egyptian bishops at Chalcedon had called him a heretic, yet the holy Synod, after a careful examination of Theodoret, had required nothing else from him than that he should anathematize Nestorius and his heresy. He had done this with loud voice, and therewith had anathematized at Chalcedon all statements of Nestorian tendency, whencesoever they might proceed (thus even if they proceeded from himself). If these Nestorianising propositions were condemned, in connection with the name of Theodoret, this would be an insult to the Synod of Chalcedon; and it would be the same as to say that some of its members (namely, Theodoret) had on one side rejected the Nestorian heresies, and on the other had upheld them. Nor should it be said that the Fathers at Chalcedon had neglected to enter upon the insults which Theodoret had cast upon the twelve anathematisms of Cyril. On the contrary, this shows either that Theodoret had not been guilty of this offense, or that the Fathers had chosen to follow the example of Cyril, who, at the union, passed over in silence all the insults of which the Orientals had before that been guilty at Ephesus. By this, that Theodoret solemnly accepted the doctrine of St. Cyril, he had given him adequate satisfaction. For this reason also nothing should now be undertaken to the dishonor of Theodoret; but the Pope anathematizes all statements favorable to Nestorianism or Eutychianism, whether they are circulated under the name of Theodoret or of any other. It must certainly suffice that he (the Pope) should anathematize Nestorius with Paul of Samosata and Bonosus, Eutyches with Valentinus and Apollinaris, and all other heretics with their heresies. He will, however, add specially five anathematisms. 1. If anyone does not confess that, without encroachment on the unchangeableness of the divine nature, the Word became flesh, and by the conception in human nature was hypostatically united with it, but, on the contrary, says that the Word united Himself with an already existing man, and therefore does not call the holy Virgin in the full sense God-bearer, let him be anathema. 2. If anyone denies the hypostatic union of the natures in Christ, and says that God the Word dwelt in a separately existing man, as one of the righteous, and does not confess an hypostatic union of the natures, in such a manner that God the Word remained one subsistence or person with the flesh assumed, let him be anathema. 3. If anyone so separates the expressions of the Gospels and apostles, which refer to the one Christ, that he introduces also a separation of the natures, let him be anathema. 4. If anyone says that the one Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, and at the same time the true Son of man, had no knowledge of the future, and specially of the last judgment, and knew only so much of it as the Godhead, who dwelt in Him as another, revealed thereof, let him be anathema. 5. If anyone understands the passage, Hebrews 5:7,8, only of Christ stripped of the Godhead,... and introduces two Sons, let him be anathema. Finally, the Pope says he had instituted inquiries with respect to the letter of the venerable Ibas, and, as he was not himself acquainted with Greek, he had caused those who were about him to look out this subject in the Acts of Chalcedon. They had there found the testimonies (vota ) of the papal legates, of Anatolius of Constantinople and Maximus of Antioch, which the Pope verbally inserted (see vol. 3, sec. 196, and above, sec. 271). It was clear that the legates of the apostolic see regarded Ibas as orthodox after the reading of his letter; that Anatolius said: “From all that has been read, the innocence of Ibas results”; and Maximus: “From the letter read his catholic confession is clear.” The other bishops had not only not contradicted, but evidently had agreed. They had therefore found the confession of Ibas orthodox; because in the letter in question he had commended the union between the Orientals and Cyril, and had accepted the confession of faith of the union. The attacks on Cyril, which Ibas allowed himself to make in his letter, from want of complete knowledge, were not approved by the Fathers at Chalcedon; indeed they were condemned by Ibas himself upon fuller information, as is shown by the testimony of Eunomius in stating an historical fact: “Ilia quae culpaverat refutavit.” The testimony of Juvenal shows the same.

Moreover, before this, as is shown by the sentence of judgment of Photius and Eustathius, Ibas had quite publicly recognized the decrees of the first Ephesine Synod, and placed them beside those of Nicaea, and had also had communion with Cyril after the latter had explained his anathematisms. So long as he misunderstood the propositions of Cyril, he had opposed them in an orthodox sense; but after better understanding, he had himself accepted them.

At the second Synod of Ephesus (the Robber-Synod) he had been wrongly deposed; but the Synod of Chalcedon had rightly declared and accepted him as orthodox; he had given adequate satisfaction for his attacks on Cyril, which had proceeded from ignorance. The Pope therefore declared that the judgment of the Fathers at Chalcedon, as in all other points, so in regard to the letter of Ibas, must remain inviolate. No cleric must oppose this judgment, or venture to alter the sentence of Chalcedon on the letter of Ibas as incomplete. Let no one, however, suppose that this could derogate from the letter of Cyril and his anathematisms, as it was well known that Ibas, after the explanation of the words of Cyril which ensued, had maintained Church communion with him until his death. Moreover, no one must maintain that the papal legates at Chalcedon (who led the way in the restoration of Ibas to his bishopric) had authority only in points of faith, but not in regard to the restoration of wrongfully deposed bishops. Such an opinion was contradicted by the express words of Pope Leo, who had learned and confirmed all that had taken place at Chalcedon. The same Leo had also repeatedly declared that nothing was to be altered in the decrees of Chalcedon. So Pope Simplicius, and Vigilius himself, in his letter to Mennas (i.e. the Judicatum ), of which five fragments were communicated (see sec. 259). They must also abide by that which was contained in the testimonies of the bishops and of the papal legates at Chalcedon in regard to the letter of Ibas and his person, and that must suffice for all Catholics which that holy Synod had regarded as sufficient, when it declared: “He shall only anathematize Nestorius and his doctrines.” The Constitutum finally closes with the words: “We ordain and decree that it be permitted to no one who stands in ecclesiastical order or office, to write or bring forward, or undertake, or teach anything contradictory to the contents of this Constitutum in regard to the three chapters, or, after this declaration, begin a new controversy about them. And if anything has already been done or spoken in regard of the three chapters in contradiction of this our ordinance, by any one whomsoever, this we declare void by the authority of the apostolic see.” SEC. 273. SEVENTH SESSIONS, MAY 26.

Immediately after the opening of the seventh session an imperial commissary entered, in order, by his master’s commission, to give information respecting the conduct of Pope Vigilius. The Paris codex places this seventh session on the 3rd of June; the manuscript of Beauvais, on the contrary, as well as that which Surius used, on the 26th of May; and the latter is to be preferred, since the 2nd of June is given in all the MSS. without exception as the date of the eighth session. Generally speaking, the manuscripts in regard to the Acts of the seventh session differ more widely than at any other place. The Paris codex, which we follow, is again much more complete than the two others, which agree with one another. All three codices relate that after the reading of the minutes of the earlier sessions, and before the Synod passed to any new business, the quaestor of the imperial palace, Constantine, entered, and spoke substantially as follows: “You know how much the Emperor has always thought of having the doubts respecting the three chapters resolved. For this reason also he has required that Vigilius should come to you, and draw up a decree on this matter in accordance with the orthodox faith. Although, therefore, Vigilius has already frequently condemned the three chapters in writing, and has done this also by word of mouth in the presence of the Emperor, imperial ministers, and many members of this Council (sec. 259), and has smitten with anathema all who defend Theodore of Mopsuestia, and the letter ascribed to Ibas, and the writings of Theodoret against Cyril, etc., yet he has refused to do this in communion with you and your Synod.... Yesterday Vigilius sent Servus-Dei, a subdeacon of the Roman Church, and invited Belisarius, Cethegus, and some other high officers of State, as well as Bishops Theodore Ascidas, Benignus, and Phocas, to come to him, as he wished to give through them an answer to the Emperor.

They came, but speedily returned, and informed the Emperor that Vigilius wished to give them a document just prepared by him, in order that they might read it, and then communicate it to the Emperor. As they hesitated to receive it, the papal subdeacon Servus-Dei was now standing at the door of the Emperor, in order to convey that document to him. The Emperor, however, did not admit the subdeacon, but sent him, by his minister, the following answer to Vigilius: ‘I invited you to take measures in common with the other patriarchs and bishops with respect to the three chapters.

You have refused this, and now wish, for yourself alone, to give a judgment in writing (in the Constitutum ). But, if you have, in this, condemned the three chapters, I have no need of this new document, for I have from you many others of the same content. If, however, you have, in this new document, departed from your earlier declarations, you have condemned yourself.’ This answer the Emperor gave only by word of mouth. Before, however, you bring the matter in regard to the three chapters quite to an end, the Emperor wishes to communicate to you some more documents, namely, two letters from Vigilius, an autograph to the Emperor, and one written by another hand, but signed by him, to the Empress; further, the edict in which Vigilius deposed the Roman deacons Rusticus and Sebastian, etc., his letters to the Scythian Bishop Valerian, and to Bishop Aurelian of Arles, and finally that written promise, in which he had declared on oath that he would anathematize the three chapters if his Judicatum were given back to him, which was necessary (secs. 259, 260, and 261). To-day the Emperor allowed the Western bishops and the clergy of Vigilius, together with Bishop Vincentius of Claudiopolis, to meet together, and sent to them the patrician Cethegus, myself, and others.

We placed before them that written promise of Vigilius, just named, to which the subdeacon Servus-Dei and Bishop Vincentius had affixed their seal. This seal was broken, the document read, and Vincentius declared that he had then been still subdeacon in the Roman Church, and in this capacity had taken part in the affair. — Further, by commission of the Emperor, I must inform you that Vigilius and his clergy often said to the Emperor, that he must maintain the state of the Church as it was in the time of his father (adoptive father, Justin I.). In order, therefore, to show that his father had the same opinion with regard to the three chapters, the Emperor communicates to you his letter to Hypatius, the Magister militum in the East. This letter was occasioned by an incident in the city of Cyrus, where Theodoret’s likeness was carried round in triumph, and an ecclesiastical festival was celebrated in honor of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Diodorus of Tarsus, Theodoret, and Nestorius, which led to the deposition of Sergius who was bishop there. All these documents it was necessary to bring to the knowledge of the Synod.” The bishops naturally agreed to this, and had read: — 1. The letter of Vigilius to the Emperor (secs. 259 and 267). 2. His letter to the Empress Theodora (ibid .). 3. The edict in which the Pope pronounced the deposition of Rusticus, Sebastian, and other Roman clerics (sec. 260). 4. The letter of the Pope to the Scythian Bishop Valentinian (sec. 260). 5. The letter to Bishop Aurelian of Arles (ibid .). 6. The document in which the Pope asserted on oath that he was willing to anathematize the three chapters on receiving back the Judicatum (sec. 261); and finally — 7. The letter of the Emperor Justin I. to Hypatius on account of the incident in the city of Cyrus, August 7, 520.

The Synod declared that from this the zeal of the Emperor for the true faith was dearly to be recognized, and promised daily to pray for him. As, however, they wanted to close the session, the quaestor Constantine presented one other letter of the Emperor, containing the command, that the name of Vigilius should be struck from all the diptychs, because, through his defense of the three chapters, he had participated in the impiety of Nestorius and Theodore. The Emperor, however, did not mean by this entirely to break off communion with the apostolic see, neither did he wish the Synod to do so. The minutes inform us that this letter was read, and approved by the Synod with the words: “This is in accordance with the efforts of the Emperor for the unity of the Churches, and we will preserve unity with the apostolic see of Old Rome.”

It is remarkable that this letter of the Emperor is, in the Acts, dated July 14, whilst the seventh session took place on the 26th of May. Remi Ceillier and Du Pin inferred from this, that it could not have been read at the seventh session, nor even at the eighth and last; but the synodal minutes, as they stand in the Paris codex, places the reading of this letter so decidedly and with such details at the seventh session, that we prefer to believe that the imperial edict was then, indeed, communicated to the Synod, but that it was not until the 14th of July that it was publicly posted up, and therefore it bears the date. SEC. 274. EIGHTH AND LAST SESSION, JUNE 2, 553.

It had already been determined, at the end of the previous session, at once to publish the final judgment on the matter of the three chapters, and the deacon and notary Collonymus therefore read immediately the uncommonly copious sketch of the synodal sentence which had been prepared beforehand, probably by Eutychius and Ascidas. Its beginning is still extant in Greek, the whole, however, only in the old Latin translation; and the substance of it is as follows: “Because we saw that the adherents of Nestorius were making the effort by means of the impious (impium =heretical) Theodore, who was bishop of Mopsuestia, and his writings, moreover by that which Theodoret impiously wrote, and by the shameful letter which is said to have been written by Ibas to the Persian Maris, to impose their impiety upon the Church of God, therefore have we risen up to prevent this, and have come together, by the will of God and at the command of the pious Emperor, in this city of the residence. And, as Vigilius is also residing here, and has often condemned the three chapters, orally and in writing, and has agreed in writing to take part in a Synod, and to take counsel in common with us on the three chapters... the Emperor exhorted both him and us to come together, and we requested him to fulfill his promise, and drew his attention to the apostolic Council and the old Synods.... We and the Emperor sent frequently to him; but he declared that he wished to give his view of the three chapters in writing for himself alone. After we received this answer, we remembered the word of the apostle: ‘Every one of us shall give account of himself unto God’ ( Romans 14:12), assembled at the Synod, and first of all made confession of the orthodox faith…united with an anathema on all who had been condemned by the four previous holy Synods. We then began the inquiry as to the three chapters, and first on Theodore of Mopsuestia. His blasphemies were produced from his books... and we were so angered thereby, that we immediately anathematized Theodore by acclamation....

Further, there were read utterances of the holy Fathers, who opposed Theodore, and imperial laws, etc. (at the fifth session), and the questions examined, whether heretics could still be anathematized after their death, and whether Cyril and Proclus really spoke in favor of Theodore (both points were here, in the sentence, copiously discussed). Then there was read a little from the writings of Theodoret against Cyril, against the first Ephesine Synod, and the true faith, also (at the sixth session) the supposed letter of Ibas was read... and it was examined whether the latter had been accepted by the Council of Chalcedon. In order to put aside all objections, we also caused to be read utterances of St. Cyril and Pope Leo (the Epistola dogmatica ), and also presented the declaration of faith of Chalcedon, in order to show that the letter of Ibas was in entire contradiction to this.... The testimonies (vota ) of some few bishops at Chalcedon, however, which seem favorable to the letter, cannot be adduced by the opposition, since all the members of that Synod demanded of Ibas an anathema upon Nestorius and his doctrines, also on the contents of that letter.... We now condemn and anathematize, with all other heretics who have been condemned and anathematized at the four holy Synods, and by the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, also Theodore, formerly bishop of Mopsuestia, and his impious writings, likewise that which Theodoret wrote impie against the true faith, and against the twelve anathematisms of Cyril, against the first Synod of Ephesus, and in defense of Theodore and Nestorius. Besides this, we anathematize the impious letter which Ibas is said to have written to Maris, in which it is denied that God the Word became flesh and man of the holy Godbearer and perpetual Virgin Mary.

We also anathematize the three chapters named, i.e. the impious Theodore of Mopsuestia with his mischievous books, and what Theodoret impie wrote, and the impious letter which Ibas is said to have composed, together with their defenders who declare the three chapters to be right, and who sought or shall seek to protect their impiety by the names of holy Fathers or of the Council of Chalcedon. Finally, we find it necessary to put together the doctrine of truth and the condemnation of heretics and their impiety into some chapters (anathematisms). As these fourteen anathematisms, besides the old translation, are still extant in the Greek original text, we give the latter with a German (English) translation added, and remark at the same time that these anathematisms are, to a large extent, verbally identical with those contained in the Emperor’s oJmologi>a fat200 (sec. 263).

I.

Ei] tiv oujc oJmologei~ patromatov mi>an fu>sin, h]toi oujsia>n, mi>an te du>namin kai< ejxousi>an, tria>da oJmoou>sion, mi>an qeo>that ejn trisisesin h]goun prosw>poiv proskunoume>nhn oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e[stw ei[v ganta, kai< ei=v ku>riov jIhsou=v Cristonta, kai< e\n pveu~ma a[gion, ejn w+ ta< pa>nta.

If anyone does not confess that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost have one nature or essence, one power and might; (or does not confess) the co-essential [consubstantial] Trinity, one Godhead in three hypostases or persons worshipped, let him be anathema. For there is one God and Father of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit in whom are all things.

II.

Ei] tiv oujc oJmologei~, tou~ qeou~ lo>gou ei+nai tao gennh>seiv, th>n te pro< aijw>nwn ejk tou~ patronwv kai< ajswma>twv, th>n te ejp j ejoca>twn tw~n hJmerw~n, tou~ aujtou~ katelqo>ntov ejk tw~n oujranw~n, kai< sarkoqe>ntov ejk th~v aJgi>av ejndo>xou qeoto>kou kai< ajeiparqe>nou Mari>av, kai< gennhqe>ntov ejx aujth~v oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e]stw.

If anyone does not confess that there are two births of God the Word, the one from eternity of the Father, out of time and incorporeal, and the other in the last days, in that He came down from heaven, and was made flesh of the holy, glorious Godbearer, and ever-virgin Mary, and was born of her, let him be anathema.

III.

Ei] tiv le>gei, a]llon ei+nai tou~ qeou~ lo>gon tonta, kai< a[llon tonta, h\ togon sunei~nai le>gei tw~| Cristw~| genome>nw| ejk gunaikorion hJmw~n jIhsou~n Cristogon, sarkwqe>nta kai< ejnanqrwph>santa, kai< tou~ aujtou~ ta> te qau>mata kai< ta< pawv uJpe>meine sarki> oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e[stw. If anyone says that the Word of God who worked miracles is one, and that Christ who suffered is another; or says that God the Word is become the same as the Christ who was born of a woman, or is in Him as one is in another, and that it is not one and the same our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, who became flesh and man, and that the miracles which He wrought and the sufferings which He voluntarily endured in the flesh are not His, let him be anathema.

IV.

Ei] tiv le>gei, kata< ca>rin, h\ kata< ejne>rgeian, h\ kata< ijsotimi>an, h\ kata< aujqenti>an, h\ ajnaforasin, h\ du>namin, thgou proan, wJv ajresqe>ntov tou~ qeou~ lo>gou tou~ ajnqrw>pou, ajpo< tou~ eu+ kai< kalw~v do>xai aujtw~| peri< aujtou~, kaqwdwrov maino>menov le>gei, h\ kata< oJmwnumi>an, kaq j h\n oiJ Nestorianoi< togon jInsou~n (perhaps uiJoston kalou~ntev, kai< tonwv Cristozontev, kai< tonwv Cristozontev, kai< du>o pro>swpa profanw~v le>gontev, kata< mo>nhn than kai< timhan kai< prosku>nhsin, kai< e\n pro>swpon kai< e[na Cristonontai le>gein ajll j oujc oJmologei~ thgou prorka ejmyucwme>nhn yuch~| logikh~| kai< noera~|, kata< su>nqesin h]goun kaq juJpo>stasin gegenh~sqai, kaqwrev ejdi>daxan kai< dia< tou~to mi>an aujtou~ th>n uJpo>stasin, o[ ejstin oJ ku>riov jIhsou~v Cristoav tri>adov oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e]stw polutro>pwv gasewv, oiJ mea| jApollinari>ou kai< Eujtucou~v ajkolouqou~ntev, tw~| ajfanismw~| tw~n sunelqo>ntwn prokei>menoi, thgcusin thousin oiJ de< ta< Qeodw>rou kai< Nestori>ou fronou~ntev, th~| diaire>sei cai>rontev, scetikhgousin hJ me>ntoi aJgi>a tou~ qeou~ ejkklhsi>a eJkate>rav aiJre>sewv thbeian ajpoballome>nh, thrka kata< su>nqesin oJmologei~, o[per ejsti< kaq j uJpo>stasin hJ ganqesin oJmologei~, o[per ejsti< kaq j uJpo>stasin hJ ga su>nqesin e[jnwsiv ejpi< tou~ kata< Cristoou, ouj mo>non ajsugcu>ta ta< sunelqo>nta diafula>ttei, ajll j oujde< diai>resin ejpide>cetai.

If anyone says that the union of God the Word with man has taken place only by grace, or by operation, or by equality of honor and distinction, or by a carrying up and condition (see No. 6), or by power, or by good pleasure, as though God the Word were pleased with man, from its seeming well and good to Him concerning him — as the raving Theodore says; or that it has taken place through the sameness of name, according to which the Nestorians call God the Word Jesus (Son) and Christ, and so name the man separately Christ and Son, and so clearly speak of two persons, and hypocritically speak of one person and of one Christ only according to designation, and honor, and dignity, and worship. But if anyone does not confess that the union of God the Word with the flesh enlivened by a reasonable and thinking soul, according to synthesis (combination), or according to hypostasis, as the holy Fathers said, and that therefore there is only one person, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ, one of the Holy Trinity, let him be anathema. As, however, the word union (e[nwsiv ) is taken in different senses, those who follow the impiety of Apollinaris and Eutyches, assuming a disappearance of the natures which come together, teach a union by confusion; whilst the adherents of Nestorius and Theodore, rejoicing in the separation, introduce a merely relative union. The Holy Church of God, on the contrary, rejecting the impiety of both heresies, confesses the union of God the Word with the flesh by a combination, i.e. personally. For the union by combination (synthesis) not only preserves, in regard to the mystery of Christ, that which has come together (the two natures) unconfused, but allows of no separation (of the persons).

V.

Ei] tiv than uJpo>stasin tou~ kuri>ou hJmw~n jIhsou~ Cristou~ ouJtw~v ejklamba>nei, wJv ejpidecome>nhn pollw~n uJposta>sewn shmasi>an, kai< dia< tou~to eijsa>gein ejpiceirei~ ejpi< tou~ kata< Cristoou du>o uJposta>seiv h]toi du>o pro>swpa, kai< tw~n par j ajutou~ eijsagome>nwn du>o prosw>pwn e\n pro>swpon le>gei kata< aJxi>an kai< timhnhsin, kaqa>per Qeo>dwrov kai< Nesto>riov maino>menoi sunegra>yanto kai< sukofantei~ than ejn Calkhdo>ni su>nodon, wJv kata< tau>thn thnhn tw~| th~v ui>av uJposta>sewv rJh>mati, ajlla< mh< oJmologei~ togou sarki< kaq j uJpo>stasin eJnwqh~nai, kai< dia< tou~to mi>an aujtou~ thstasin, h]toi e\n pro>swpon, ou[twv te kai< than ejn Calkhdo>ni su>nodon mi>an uJpo>stasin tou~ kuri>ou hJmw~n jIhsou~ Cristou~ oUmologh~sai oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e[stw.

Ou]te gakhn prosw~pwu h]goun uJposta>sewv ejpede>xato hJ aJgi>a triantov tou~ eJnoav, tri>adov qeou~ lo>gou.

If anyone so understands the expression, one Hypostasis of our Lord Jesus Christ, that thereby is meant the designation of the union of many hypostases, and hereby undertakes to introduce into the mystery of Christ two hypostases or two persons, and often having introduced two persons, speaks of one person according to dignity, honor, and worship, as Theodore and Nestorius in their madness maintained; and if any one slanders the holy Synod in Chalcedon, as though it had used the expression, one hypostasis, in this impious sense, and does not confess that the Word of God was personally united with flesh, and that therefore there is only one hypostasis or one person, as also the holy Synod in Chalcedon confessed one hypostasis of our Lord Jesus Christ, — let him be anathema!

For the holy Trinity, when God the Word, one of the holy Trinity was incarnate, did not suffer the addition of a person or hypostasis.

VI.

Ei] tiv katacrhstikw~v, ajll j oujk ajlhqw~v, qeoto>kon le>gei than e[ndoxon ajei[arqe>non Mari>an h\ kata< ajnaforapou yilou~ gennhqe>ntov, ajll j oujci< tou~ qeou~ lo>gou sarkwqe>ntov (kai< th~v ) e\x aujth~v, ajna>ferome>nhv de< (kat j ejkei>nou ) th~v tou~ ajnqrw>pou gennh>sewv ejpi< togon, wJv suno>nta tw~| ajnqrw>pw| genome>nw| kai< sukofantei~ than ejn Calkhdo>ni su>nodon, wJv kata< tau>thn throu e[nnoian qeoto>kon thnon eijpou~san h\ ei] tiv ajnqrwpoto>kon aujthkon, wJv tou~ Cristou~ mh> o]ntov qeou~, ajlla< mh< kuri>wv kai< kat j ajlh>qeian qeoto>kon aujthnwn eJk tou~ patro~v gennhqe>nta qeogou ejp j ejsca>twn tw~n hJmerw~n ejx aujth~v sarkwqh~vai, ou[tw te eujsebw~v kai< th~n aJgi>an ejn Calkhdo>ni su>nodon qeoto>kon aujth>n oJmologh~sai oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e]stw. If anyone says that the holy, glorious, ever-virgin Mary is called Godbearer by abuse and not truly, or by analogy, as though a mere man were born of her, and not as though God the Word were incarnate of her, but that the birth of a man were connected with God the Word, because He was united with the man born; and if anyone slanders the holy Synod of Chalcedon, as though, in accordance with this impious opinion held by Theodore, it called the virgin God-bearer; or, if anyone calls her manbearer or Christbearer, as though Christ were not God, and does not confess her as Godbearer, in the proper sense and in truth, because God the Word, who was begotten of the Father before all worlds, was incarnate of her in the last days; and (does not confess) that in this pious sense the holy Synod of Chalcedon confessed her to be Godbearer, — let him be anathema.

VII.

Ei] tiv ejn du>o fu>sesi le>gwn, mh< ejn qeo>thti kai< ajnqrwpo>thti torion hJmw~n jIhsou~n Cristozesqai oJmologei~, i[na dia< tou>tou shma>nh| thsewn, ejx w+n ajsugcu>twv hJ a]frastov e[nwsiv ge>gonen, ou]te tou~ lo>gou eijv thntov fu>sin, ou[te th~v sarkogou fu>sin metacwrhsa>shv, — me>nei gateron o[per ejsti< th~| fu>sei, kai< genome>nhv th~v eJnw>sewv kaq j uJpo>stasin, — ajll j ejpi< diaire>sei th~| ajna< me>rov ththn lamba>nei fwnhou, h\ tosewn oJmologw~n ejpi< tou~ aujtou~ eJnoou hJmw~n jIhsou~ tou~ qe>ou lo>gou sarkwqe>ntov, mh< th~| qewri>a| mo>nh| thtwn lamba>nei, ejx w+n kai< sunete>qh, oujk ajnairoume>nhn dia< thtera — ajll j ejpi< tou>tw| ke>crhtai tw~| ajriqhw~|, wJv kecwrisme>nav kai< ijdiou`posta>touv e]cei taseiv oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e]stw. If anyone, speaking of the two natures (see vol. 3, sec. 173), does not confess that he acknowledges in the Godhead and manhood the one Lord Jesus Christ, so that by this he signifies the difference of natures, of which the unspeakable union takes place without confusion, without the nature of the Word being changed into that of the flesh, nor that of the flesh into the nature of the Word — for each remains what it was in nature after the personal union has taken place — or who takes that expression in reference to the mystery of Christ in the sense of a separation into parts, or, confessing the two natures in relation to the one Lord Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, takes the difference of these of which He was composed, but which is not destroyed by the union — forHE is one of both, and through one both — takes this difference not as an abstraction, but uses the duality in order to separate the natures, and to make them separate persons (hypostases), — let him be anathema.

VIII.

Ei] tiv ejk du>o fu>sewn, qeo>thtov kai< ajnqrwpo>thtov, oJmologw~n than fu>sin tou~ qesu~ lo>gou sesarkwme>nhn le>gwn, mh< ou[twv aujta< lamba>nh|, kaqa>per kai< oiJ a[gioi pa>terev ejdi>daxan, o[ti ejk th~v qei>av fu>sewv kai< th~v ajnqrwpi>nhv, th~v ejnw>sewv kaq j uJpo>stasin genome>nhv, ei+v Cristosqh, ajll j ejk tw~n toiou>twn fwnw~n mi>an fu>sin h\toi oujsi>an, qeo>thtov kai< sarkogein ejpiceirei~ oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e]stw. Kaq j uJpo>stasin gagontev togon hJnw~sqai, oujk ajna>cusin tina thlouv tw~n fu>sewn pepra~cqai fame>n menou>shv de< ma~llon ejkate>rav, o[per ejstimen togou dio< kai< ei+v ejstin oJ Cristozei hJ tou~ qeou~ ejkkkhsi>a.

If anyone does not take the expressions, of two natures, the Godhead and the manhood, the union took place, or, the one incarnate nature of the Word, as the holy Fathers taught, that from the divine nature and the human, personal union having taken place, one Christ was constituted, but endeavors, by such expressions, to bring in one nature or essence of the Godhead and manhood of Christ, let him be anathema. For, when we say that the only-begotten Word was personally united, we do not say that a confusion of the natures with each other has taken place; but rather we think that, whilst each nature remains what it is, the Word has been united with the flesh. Therefore, also, there is one Christ, God and man, the same who is of one substance with the Father as to His Godhead, and of one substance with us as to His manhood. For the Church of God equally condemns and anathematizes those who separate and cut asunder the mystery of the divine economy of Christ, and those who confess it. (See secs. 127, 158, 193, 269.)

IX.

Ei] tiv proskunei~sqai ejn dusi< fu>sesi le>gei too proskunh>seiv eisa>gontai, ijdi>a tw~| qew~| lo>gw|, kai< idji>a tw~| ajnqrwpw~| h\ ei] tiv ejpi< ajnaire>sei th~v sarkosei th~v qeo>thtov kai< th~v ajnqrwpo>thtov, h\ mi>an fu>sin h]goun oujsi>an tw~n sunelqo>ntwn terateuo>menov, ou[tw proskunei~ toa| proskunh>sei togon sarkwqe>nta meta< th~v ijdi>av aujtou~ sarkoper hJ tou~ qeou~ ejkklhsi>a pare>laben ejx ajrch~v oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e[stw.

If anyone says that Christ is to be worshipped in two natures, by which two kinds of worship are introduced, the one for God the Word, the other for the man; or if anyone, by taking away the flesh, or by confusion of the Godhead and manhood, or preserving only one nature or essence of those which are united, thus worships Christ, and does not worship God made flesh together with His flesh with one worship, as the Church of God received from the beginning, — let him be anathema.

X.

Ei] tiv oujc oJmologei~, tonon sarki> ku>rion hJmw~n jIhsou~n Cristorion th~v do>xhv, kai< e[na th~v aJgi>av tria>dov oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e]stw.

If anyone does not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ crucified in the flesh is true God, and Lord of glory, and one of the Holy Trinity, let him be anathema.

XI.

Ei] tiv mh< ajnaqemati>zei ] Areion, jEuno>mion, Makedo>nion, jApollina>rion, Nesto>rion, jEutuce>a, kai< jWrige>nhn, meta< tw~n ajsebw~n aujtw~n suggramma>twn, kai< tountav aiJretikountav kai< ajnaqematisqe>ntav uJpo< th~v aJgi>av kaqolikh~v kai< ajpostolikh~v ejkklhsi>av, kai< tw~n proeirhme>nwn aJgi>wn tessa>rwn suno>dwn, kai< tou~v ta< o[moia tw~n proseirhme>nwn aiJretikw~n fronh>santav h\ fronou~ntav, kai< me>cri te>louv th~| oijkei>a| ajsebei>a| ejmmei>nantav oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e]stw.

If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Nestorius, Eutyches, and Origen, together with their impious writings, and all other heretics condemned and anathematized by the Catholic and Apostolic Church and by the four holy Synods already mentioned, together with those who have been or are of the same mind with the heretics mentioned, and who remain till the end in their impiety, let him be anathema.

Halloix, Garnier, Basnage, Walch and others suppose, and Vincenzi maintains with great zeal, that the name of Origen is a later insertion in this anathematism, because (a) Theodore Ascidas, the Origenist, was one of the most influential members of the Synod, and would certainly have prevented a condemnation of Origen; further, (b) because in this anathematism only such heretics would be named as had been condemned by one of the first four OEcumenical Synods, which was not the case with Origen; (c) because this anathematism is identical with the tenth in the oJmologi>a of the Emperor (sec. 263), but in the latter the name of Origen is lacking; and, finally, (d) because Origen does not belong to the group of heretics to whom this anathematism refers. His errors were quite different. All these considerations seem to me of insufficient strength, on mere conjecture, to make an alteration in the text, and arbitrarily to remove the name of Origen. As regards the objection in connection with Theodore Ascidas, it is known that the latter had already pronounced a formal anathema on Origen, and certainly he did the same this time, if the Emperor wished it or if it seemed advisable. The second and fourth objections have little weight. In regard to the third (c ), it is quite possible that either the Emperor subsequently went further than in his oJmologi>a , or that the bishops at the fifth Synod, of their own accord, added Origen, led on perhaps by one or another anti-Origenist of their number. What, however, chiefly determines us to the retention of the text is (a ) that the copy of the synodal Acts extant in the Roman archives, which has the highest credibility, and was probably prepared for Vigilius himself, contains the name of Origen in the eleventh anathematism; and (b ) that the monks of the new Laura in Palestine, who are known to have been zealous Origenists, withdrew Church communion from the bishops of Palestine after these had subscribed the Acts of the fifth Synod. In the anathema on the three chapters these Origenists could find as little ground for such a rupture as their friend and former colleague Ascidas: it could only be by the Synod attacking their darling Origen. (c ) Finally, only on the ground that the name of Origen really stood in the eleventh anathematism, can we explain the widely-circulated ancient rumor that our Synod anathematized Origen and the Origenists. (See sec. 255 and 267.)

XII.

Ei] tiv antipoiei~tai Qeodw>rou tou~ ajsebou~v, tou~ Moyouesti>av, tou~ eijpo>ntov, a]llon ei+nai togon kai< a]llon tomenon, kai< tw~n ceiro>nwn kata< mikromenon, kai< ou[twv ejk prokophav a[mwmon katasta>nta, wJv yiloou pveu>matov, kai< dia< tou~ bapti>smatov thrin tou~ aJgi>ou pveu>matov la>bein, kai< uiJoqesi>av ajxiwqh~nai, kai< kat j ijso>that basilikh~v eijko>nov eijv pro>swpon tou~ qeou~ lo>gou proskunei~sqai, kai< meta< thstasin a]trepton tai~v ejnnoi>aiv, kai< ajnama>rthton pavtelw~v gene>sqai kai< pa>lin eijrhko>tov tou~ aujtou~ ajsebou~v Qeodw>rou, thgou prothn gegenh~sqai, oi+an oJ ajpo>stolov ejpi< ajndrov “e]sontai oiJ du>o eijv sarka< mi>an ” kai< androtoiv aujtou~ blasfhmi>aiv tolmh>santov eijpei~n, o[ti meta< thstasin ejmfushsav oJ ku>riov toi~v maqhtai~v, kai< eijpw>n ” “ La>bete pneu~ma a[gion, ” oujde>dwken aujtoi~v pveu~ma a[gion, ajlla< sch>mati mo>non ejnefu>shse ou+tov de< kai< than Qwma~, thsei tw~n ceirw~n kai< th~v pleura~v tou~ kuri>ou meta< thstasin, to< “oJ ku>riov mou kai< oJ qeoxw| th~v ajnasta>sewv ejkplage>nta toranta ton to< de< cei~ron, kai< ejn th~| tw~n pra>xewn tw~n ajposto>lwn genome>nh| par j aujtou~ dh~qen ejrmhvei>a|, sugkri>nwn oJ aujtodwrov totwni, kai< Mavicai>w|, kai< jEpikou>rw|, kai< Marki>wni, le>gei o[ti w[sper ejkei>nwn e[kastov euJra>menov oijkei~on do>gma, tou~v aujtw~| maqhteu>santav pepoi>hke kalei~sqai Platwnikououv, kai< jEpikourei>ouv, kai< Markionistapon kai< tou~ Cristou~ euJrame>nou do>gma, ejx aujtou~ cristianounou ajsebesta>tou Qeodw>rou kai< tw~n ajsebw~n aujtou~ suggramma>twn, ejn oi+v ta>s te eijrhme>nav kai< a[llav ajnariqmh>touv blasfhmi>av ejxe>cee kata< tou~ mega>lou qeou~ kai< swth~rov hJmw~n jIhsou~ Cristou~ ajlla< mh< ajnaqemati>zei aujtommata, kai< pa>ntav tounouv h\ kai< ejkdikou~ntav aujtogontav, ojrqodo>xwv aujtoqai, kai< touyantav uJpetwn, kai< tou~v ta< o[moia fronou~ntav h\ fronhsantav pw>pote, kai< me>cri te>louv ejmmei>nantav th~| toiau>th| aiJre>sei ajna>qema e]stw.

If anyone defends the impious Theodore of Mopsuestia, who says (a) God the Word is one, and another is Christ who was troubled with sufferings of the soul and desires of the flesh, and who by degrees raised himself from that which was more imperfect, and by progress in good works and by his way of life became blameless; and further, that as mere man he was baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and through baptism received the grace of the Holy Spirit, and was deemed worthy of sonship, and was worshipped with reference to the person of God the Word, like the image of an emperor, and that (only) after the resurrection he became unchangeable in his thoughts and completely sinless; and (b) again, as the same impious Theodore says, the union of God the Word with Christ was of such a nature as the apostle says there is between man and wife: “they two shall be one flesh”; and (c) among other blasphemies, dared to say that, when the Lord, after the resurrection, breathed upon His disciples, saying, “Receive the Holy Ghost,” He did not give them the Holy Ghost, but only breathed upon them as a sign; (d) and again, that the confession of Thomas, on touching the hands and the side of the Lord after the resurrection, “My Lord and my God,” was not spoken concerning Christ by Thomas, but that, astonished at the miracle of the resurrection, Thomas praised God who raised Christ; (e) and what is still worse, in his exposition of the Acts of the Apostles, Theodore compares Christ with Plato, Manichaeus, Epicurus, and Marcion, and says that, as each of these devised his own doctrine and gave to his disciples the name of Platonists, Manichaeans, Epicureans, and Marcionists, in the same manner, when Christ also devised a doctrine, after Him they were called Christians. — If anyone, then, defends the forenamed most impious Theodore and his impious writings, in which he poured out the above-mentioned and other countless blasphemies against the great God, our Savior Jesus Christ, and does not anathematize him and his impious writings, and all who adhere to him, or defend him, or say that he has given an orthodox interpretation, or who have written in defense of him and his impious writings; and who think or have ever thought the same, and remained to the end in this heresy, let him be anathema.

XIII.

Ei] tiv ajntipoiei~tai tw~n ajsebw~n suggramma>twn Qeodwri>tou, tw~n kata< th~v ajlhqou~v pi>stewv, kai< th~v ejn jEfe>sw| prw>thv kai< aJgi>av suno>dou, kai< tou~ ejn aJgi>oiv Kuri>llou, kai< tw~n ib j aujtou~ kefalai>wn, kai< pa>ntwn w+n sunegra>yato uJperou kai< Nestori>ou, tw~n dussebw~n, kai< uJpenoiv Qeodw>rw| kai< Nestori>w| fronou>ntwn, kai< decome>nwn aujtoubeian, kai< di j aujtw~n ajsebei~v kalei~ touv dida>skalouv, toustasin thgou fronou~ntav kai< oJmologou~ntav kai< ei]per oujk ajnaqemati>zei ta< eijrhme>na ajsebh~ suggra>mmata, kai< toutoiv fronh>santav h\ fronou~ntav, kai< pa>ntav de< touyantav kata< th~v ojrqh~v pi>stewv, h\ tou~ ejn aJgi>oiv Kuri>llou, kai< tw~n dw>deka aujtou~ kefalai>wn, kai< ejn toiau>th| ajsebei>a| teleuth>santov oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e]stw.

If anyone defends the impious writings of Theodoret which are directed against the true faith, and against the first and holy Synod of Ephesus, and against the holy Cyril and his twelve chapters, and (defends) all that he wrote in defense of Theodore and Nestorius, the impious ones, and others who think the like with those named, with Theodore and Nestorius, and receive them and their impiety, and for their sakes calls the teachers of the Church impious, who maintain and confess the hypostatic union of God the Word; and if he does not anathematize the impious writings named, and those who thought and think the like, and all who have written against the true faith or the holy Cyril and his twelve chapters, and have persevered in such impiety, — let him be anathema.

XIV.

Ei] tiv ajntipoiei~tai th~v ejpistolh~v th~v legome>nhv para< [Iba gegra>fqai prorhn torsnhn, th~v ajrnoume>nhv megou ejk th~v aJgi>av qeoto>kou kai< ajeipaqe>nou Mari>av sarkwqe>nta a]nqrwpon gegenh~sqai, legou>shv de< yilon lo>gon kai< a[llon tooiv Ku>rillon thstin khru>xanta diaballou>shv wJv aiJretikowv jApollinari>w| tw~| dussebei~ gra>yanta kai< memfome>nhv thsw| prw>thn aJgi>an su>nodon, wJv cwrisewv kai< zhth>sewv Nesto>riou kaqelou~san kai< ta< dw>deka kefa>laia tou~ ejn aJgi>oiv Kuri>llou ajsebh~ kai< ejnanti>a th~| ojrqh~| pi>stei ajpokalei~ hJ aujth~ ajsebha th~| ojrqh~| pi>stei ajpokalei~ hJ aujth~ ajsebhdwron kai< Nesto>rion kai< ta< ajsebh~ aujtw~n do>gmata kai< suggra>mmata ei] tiv toi>nun th~v eijrhme>nhv ejpistolh~v ajntipoiei~tai, kai< mh< ajnaqemati>zei aujthnouv aujth~v, kai< le>gontav aujthrov aujth~v, kai< gra>uantav kai< gra>fontav u[per aujth~v h\ me>rov aujth~v, kai< gra>uantav kai< gra>fontav u[per aujth~v h\ tw~n periecome>nwn aujth~| ajsebeiw~n, kai< tolmw~ntav tau>thn ejkdikei~n, h\ tanav aujth~| ajsebei>av ojno>mati tw~n aJgi>wn pate>rwn, h\ th~v aJgi>av ejn Calkhdo>ni suno>dou, kai< tou>toiv me>cri te>louv ejmmei>nantov oJ toiou~tov ajna>qema e]stw.

If anyone defends the letter which Ibas is said to have written to Maris the Persian, in which it is denied that God the Word became flesh and man of the holy Godbearer and ever-virgin Mary, and in which it is maintained that he was born of her a mere man, called the temple; and that God the Word is one and the man is another; and in which the holy Cyril who proclaimed the true faith of Christ is accused as a heretic, and as if he had written the same as the impious Apollinaris; and in which the first holy Synod of Ephesus is censured, as though it had condemned Nestorius without examination and trial; and the twelve chapters of the holy Cyril called impious and opposed to the true faith, and Theodore and Nestorius and their impious doctrines and writings defended; if anyone defends the letter in question, and does not anathematize it, together with those who defend it, and say that it is right, or a part of it, and who have written or do write in defense of it or of the impieties contained in it, and venture to defend it or the impieties contained in it by the name of holy Fathers or of the holy Synod of Chalcedon, and persevere therein to the end, — let him be anathema.

In the appendix to these fourteen anathematisms, the Synod declares that, “if anyone ventures to deliver, or to teach, or to write anything in opposition to our pious ordinances, if he is bishop or cleric, he shall lose his bishopric or office; if he is a monk or layman, he shall be anathematized.” All the bishops present subscribed, the Patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople first, altogether 164 members, among them eight Africans. It is nowhere indicated that any debates took place over the plan.

That the fifteen anathematisms against Origen, ascribed to the fifth Synod, do not belong to it, but to an earlier assembly, has already been shown in sec. 257.

CHAPTER -Recognition Of The Fifth Oecumenical Synod And Further Course Of The Controversy On The Three Chapters.

SEC. 275. SYNOD AT JERUSALEM, A.D. 553. THE EMPEROR ENDEAVORS TO COMPEL THE RECOGNITION OF THE FIFTH SYNOD.

IT is beyond question that the Emperor did not fail solemnly to confirm the decrees of the Synod in a special edict. As, however, no document of that kind has come down to us, Walch supposed (Bd. 8, S. 297) that such an edict would be superfluous, and would therefore not be issued, especially as Justinian, in his earlier edicts, had most clearly pronounced his will in this matter. But the formal order and the practice of the Byzantine Government required a formal document of confirmation, and Zonaras († 1118) says, in his Annals : “he Emperor confirmed what the holy Fathers, from love to God, had decreed.” Besides this, we learn from Cyril of Scythopolis, who was a contemporary of our Synod, that the Emperor himself sent the synodal Acts into the provinces, in order that they might be subscribed by the bishops who had come to Constantinople.

In all the Greek and Oriental parts of the empire this was done almost without any opposition; and the same Cyril speaks (l.c .) particularly of an assembly or Synod of the bishops of Palestine at Jerusalem, probably A.D. 553, which had received and confirmed with hand and mouth the decrees of the fifth Council collectively. Alexander of Abyla alone had spoken against it, and had therefore been deposed. Finally, Cyril of Scythopolis speaks also of the monks of the new Laura in Palestine who had now broken off Church communion with the bishops of Palestine, and for this reason had been driven from the country by the imperial general Anastasius (A.D. 554). We have already referred to this passage as making it probable that the name of Origen was really contained in the eleventh anathematism of the fifth Synod (sec. 274).

Of any further opposition to this Synod we find no trace in the East; but the hope was not fulfilled which the Emperor had cherished, that now many Monophysites would unite with the Church. That this did not take place we are told most distinctly by Leontius of Byzantium. It was worse in the West; since here the fifth Synod, instead of reuniting the separatists to the Church, divided the orthodox among themselves. To prevent this, the Emperor, for the most part, employed violent measures, and sometimes milder ones. The Roman deacon Rusticus and the African Abbot Felix, these old opponents of the anathema on the three chapters, who were then still at Constantinople, published immediately a writing against the decrees of the fifth Synod, but were immediately banished, together with their friends, to the Thebaid in Egypt. Bishop Victor of Tununum, who relates this, and who also was a vehement opponent of the fifth Synod, adds: “As a punishment for this banishment, etc., the city of Constantinople was immediately afterwards visited by a violent earthquake by which many altars were thrown down.” Here the earthquake appears as a punishment for the reception of the fifth Synod; whilst Cyril of Scythopolis (l.c. ) indicates that Bishop Alexander of Abyla was killed by that earthquake at Constantinople because he refused to recognize the fifth Synod.

Further on Victor of Tununum remarks (ad ann. 557) that Abbot Felix was banished to Sinope and there died A.D. 557. Of Facundus of Hermione, the greatest of all the defenders of the three chapters, he gives us here no information; but we see, from his own book ad Mocianum, that, at an earlier period, so long as the nefandum Judicatum, as he calls it, was in force, and thus even before the opening of the fifth Synod, he had betaken himself to a secret hiding-place, in order to escape from the snares of his enemies. SEC. 276. POPE VIGILIUS CONFIRMS THE FIFTH SYNOD.

It is probable that the Pope and the bishops who were faithful to him, and were about him in Constantinople, suffered the punishment of exile. That the Emperor had demanded, even during the fifth Synod, that the name of Vigilius should be struck from the diptychs, we have already seen; and we found it probable that the edict in reference to this was published generally on July 14, 553. About the same time occurred what Anastasius and the author of the additions to the Chronicle of Marcellinus relate, that Vigilius and his clergy were banished into different places, and that they had been condemned to labor in the mines. As particular places of their exile, Anastasius mentions the city of Gypsus in Upper Egypt, and Proconnesus, an island in the Propontis. But, he proceeds, after the imperial general Narses had freed the city of Rome from the Goths, the Roman clergy petitioned for the liberation and return of their bishop and their colleagues, and the Emperor agreed. The liberation, however, was dependent upon the condition that Vigilius would recognize the fifth Synod; and he did so, as in the meantime he had come to the conviction, certainly a right one, that the Council of Chalcedon was thereby in no ways infringed upon. Let us consider only what took place at Chalcedon and at Constantinople in the fifth Synod. In the first place, as regards Theodore of Mopsuestia, there could be here, in fact, no contradiction between the fourth and fifth OEcumenical Synods, since the former said nothing whatever about him. To say that one who was dead must not be anathematized, however, was an idle contention, contradictory to history and to the nature of the case, so that in this the defenders of the fifth Council had easy work.

More plausible was the objection in regard to Theodoret and Ibas; but this, too, was easily set aside. Theodoret and Ibas were suspected of Nestorianism, and it was therefore demanded, at Chalcedon, that they should pronounce anathema on Nestorius and his heresies. They did so, and were restored to their bishoprics. But by this means no approval was expressed on their earlier proceedings and their earlier writings, particularly on what they had done before the union with Cyril. On the contrary, the demand for a strict and frank anathema on Nestorius (vol. 3, secs. 195, 196) was a consequence of the doubts which the past of these men instilled. And on this past alone did the fifth Council pronounce a judgment, without in the least contesting the sentence of Chalcedon and the restoration of the two men. They did at Constantinople what they could have done at Chalcedon, without doing anything in the least contradictory.

Moreover, the judgment of the fifth Synod was objectively well founded, as we have seen (sec. 258), and the most that could be said was that it was in contradiction with the opinion of some few members at Chalcedon. This doubt also disappeared when it was considered, as has been done above (sec. 258), that the letter, from one point of view, might be a testimony that Ibas had, in the ground of his heart, no heretical opinions, at least since the union; whilst to others it appeared in a more favorable light. But only few then made these distinctions so quietly. The enemies of the fifth Synod persisted in the old exaggerated contention that the Council of Chalcedon had approved of the letter of Ibas, and the like; whilst the others thought to remove all difficulties by the assertion (a) that Ibas had never acknowledged the letter as his, and had rejected it at Chalcedon; and (b) that those few supporters at Chalcedon, who seem to have commended the letter, could not weigh in the scale against the judgment of the whole Synod, which had demanded from Ibas an anathema upon all Nestorianism, and so also on that contained in the letter (sec. 270).

This style of argument used by the friends of the fifth Synod was now accepted by Vigilius; but he went a good deal further, to a very bold argument, as we see particularly from the second of those documents which we have now to consider.

That Pope Vigilius had given his assent to the fifth Synod sometime after its close, has long been known from Evagrius and Photius, and from the Acts of the sixth OEcumenical Synod, eighteenth session. In the seventeenth century, however, Peter de Marca and Baluze discovered the two edicts in which the Pope expressed this assent. The first of these documents, discovered by Peter de Marca in a codex in the Royal Library in Paris, is addressed to the Patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople, and dated December 8, 503. We see from this that more than seven months had passed since the end of the Synod when Vigilius arrived at his new resolve. Here he says: “The enemy of the human race, who sows discord everywhere, had separated him from his colleagues, the bishops assembled in Constantinople. But Christ had removed the darkness again from his spirit, and had again united the Church of the whole world... There was no shame in confessing and recalling a previous error; this had been done by Augustine in his Retractations. He, too, following this and other examples, had never ceased to institute further inquiries on the matter of the three chapters in the writings of the Fathers. Thus he had found that Theodore of Mopsuestia had taught error, and therefore had been opposed in the writings of the Fathers (here he inserts several heretical expressions of Theodore, almost verbally taken from the twelfth anathematism of the Synod, sec. 274). The whole Church must now know that he rightly ordained the following: We condemn and anathematize, together with all the heretics who have been already condemned and anathematized at the four holy Synods and by the Catholic Church, also Theodore, formerly bishop of Mopsuestia, and his impious writings; also that which Theodoret impiously wrote against the right faith, against the twelve anathematisms of Cyril, against the first Synod of Ephesus, and in defense of Theodore and Nestorius. Moreover, we anathematize and condemn also the impious letter, etc. (here are the very same words which the Synod employed in their sentence, sec. 274). Finally, we subject to the same anathema all who believe that the three chapters referred to could at any time be approved or defended, or who venture to oppose the present anathema. Those, on the contrary, who have condemned, or do condemn, the three chapters, we hold for brethren and fellow-priests. Whatever we ourselves or others have done in defense of the three chapters we declare invalid. Far be it from anyone to say that the before-mentioned blasphemies (from the books of Theodore and Theodoret, etc.), or those who teach the like, have been approved by the four holy Synods, or by one of them. On the contrary, it is well known that no one who was in anyway under suspicion was received by the Fathers named, especially by the holy Synod of Chalcedon, unless he first had anathematized the said blasphemies, or the heresy of which he was suspected.” The second document, discovered by Baluze in the Colbert Library, dated February 23, 554, is in Latin, and has no superscription, and the beginning is also wanting. It bears the title “Vigilii Papae Constitutum de damnatione trium capitulorum” (thus the second Constitutium ), was perhaps addressed to the bishops of the West, and at great length took in hand to set aside their doubts of the condemnation of the three chapters. After a repetition of the confessions of faith from the Acts of Chalcedon, etc., it begins with the words: “After putting before you the declaration of faith of Chalcedon, and the letter of Leo on the true faith, and you and the whole Church see that I abide by this faith, I hold it necessary also to discuss the matter of the three chapters, and to decide it by provident promulgation of the sentence.”

Vigilius next relates the historical facts in connection with Ibas, and then endeavors to show that the letter to Marts, ascribed to him, had never been approved by the Synod of Chalcedon; but, on the contrary, that its contents stood in contradiction to the teaching of the Council. But the letter was only falsely ascribed to Ibas. He had decidedly disavowed it, and shown that, like other things, it had been foisted upon him by the Eutychians. Here Vigilius evidently goes too far, and maintains more decidedly than other friends of the Synod the spuriousness of the letter to Maris, although in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon the letter is quite distinctly ascribed to Ibas (Concil. Chalced. Sess. 10, in Mansi, t. 7, p. 242, and Hardouin, t. 2, p. 527); and Ibas, at and after its reading, said not a syllable against its genuineness, although that would have been very much in his favor. But Vigilius goes still further, and tries to show that even those testimonies (vota ) of the papal legates at Chalcedon, and of Bishop Maximus of Antioch, were not adduced by the defenders of the three chapters. The votum of the papal envoy ran: “Relecta enim ejus epistola agnovimus, eum (Ibam) esse Orthodoxum”; but by this epistola ejus we must not understand the letter to Maris, but the letter drawn up by the clergy of Edessa in favor of Ibas. This was read last at Chalcedon, immediately before the voting, and could be called the epistola of Ibas, since Ibas presented this document in his favor. It is quite customary for anyone to say of the documents on which he supports his cause: “Those are my documents.”

Even the testimony of Maximus, which points still more decisively to the letter to Maris, Vigilius would invalidate. On this he says: kai< ejk tou~ ajnagnwsqe>ntov de< ajntigra>fou th~v ejpistolh~v, tou~ proskomisqe>ntov para< tou~ ajntidi>kou aujtou~, ojrqo>doxov w]fqh aujtou~ hJ uJpagori>a, i.e. “Even from the reading of the copy, the letter brought forward by his opponent, the orthodoxy of his meaning was seen.”

As, in fact, the opponent of Ibas brought forward the letter to Maris in support of his accusation, but had willingly passed over in silence the letter of the clergy of Edessa in favor of Ibas, so that Ibas had to demand that it should be read; so it is probable that we should here think not of this, but of the letter to Maris. But Vigilius answered: All that was read at Chalcedon in reference to Ibas was taken from the minutes of the earlier transactions at Tyre and Berytus. These minutes the opponent of Ibas had brought complete, and therefore it could be said, also the letter of the Edessenes, although possibly kept back by him, yet by him pron , since he had actually brought it. Here Vigilius attempted a kind of argument in favor of the fifth Synod which none had ventured upon before him. Much more timidily had the bishops of the fifth Synod stepped on this point when they said “the voices of some few bishops were not decisive” (see 271); and again: “Since all the members of the Synod of Chalcedon demanded that Ibas should anathematize Nestorius, whom that letter defended, they showed that they held as invalid what one or two had said in favor of that letter; and these, too, had united with the others.” Indeed Vigilius himself had said in his first Constitutum : “It was clear that the legates of the apostolic see regarded Ibas as orthodox after the reading of his letter to Maris, and that Maximus of Antioch had declared that from this letter read the catholic confession of Ibas was clear; and the other bishops had not only not contradicted, but evidently had agreed.” He now maintained the direct opposite of his earlier contention.

He further, in the new edict, pronounces a full anathema on the letter in question, and on all who maintain that it was declared orthodox by anyone at Chalcedon; he then proceeds to Theodore of Mopsuestia, whom, together with the writings of Theodoret against Cyril, he declares worthy of condemnation, and finally closes with an anathema on all the three chapters together, on their defenders, and on everyone who should maintain that that letter was declared to be orthodox by the Synod of Chalcedon, or by any member of it. SEC. 277. MANY WESTERNS REFUSE TO RECOGNIZE THE FIFTH SYNOD.

After publishing these writings, Vigilius made return from Constantinople to Rome, probably in the summer of 554; but fell sick on the way, in Sicily, of pains in the stone, and died at Syracuse towards the end of the year 554, or in January of 555. His body was conveyed to Rome, and, as Anastasius relates, was entombed in the Church of St. Marcellus on the Salarian Way. His successor was his previous deacon Pelagius I. (from April 555 to March 560), whom we have seen peculiarly active as papal representative in Constantinople at the anathematizing of Origen. He had also subscribed the Constitutum in which Vigilius declared himself for the three chapters, and had been at Constantinople in the train of the Pope. At an earlier period, moreover, he seems to have been of a different mind, on which account Justinian intended to raise him to the Roman see in place of Vigilius, if Anastasius tells the truth. The Pope’s compliance, however, altered the case. But Pelagius came under suspicion, as though he had acted in a faithless manner towards Vigilius, and occasioned much of his oppression by the Emperor, on which account most of the bishops of Italy and very many clergy and laity of Rome withdrew at first from his Church communion, so that only two bishops were present at his consecration, who ordained him with the assistance of a priest. He therefore found it necessary, immediately on his entering upon his office, solemnly to defend and purge himself in St. Peter’s Church in Rome. In spite of this, that both Vigilius and his successor recognized the fifth OEcumenical Synod, many Westerns still persisted in their opposition.

Probably about this time a number of bishops addressed a memorial to the Emperor Justinian, in which they declared, in vigorous language, the condemnation of the three chapters as invalid, and said that the intention had been thereby to give satisfaction to the Monophysites. To which province these bishops belonged is not known, as their memorial itself is lost, and we now possess only the extensive and harsh reply of the Emperor, which has no special address, which was discovered, in the last century, in the Medicean Library at Florence. That it was bishops from whom the memorial proceeded we see from the beginning of the answer, in which it, is said that they had separated themselves from the other bishops, and in proud presumption had compared themselves with the apostles. The Emperor then meets all their doubts as to the anathema on the three chapters, and shows at length that the condemnation of them was fully justified, and in noway infringed upon the Council of Chalcedon. (Much is here borrowed from the earlier edict of the Emperor, the oJmologi>a pi>stewv .) The Emperor, further, finds much in the memorial of the bishops which is even directly heretical, and especially finds fault with the statement that the anathematisms of Cyril are obscure, and first received the true light through the letter of Ibas. The Emperor speaks also of an impious teacher, who misleads the authors of the memorial, and has circulated heresy in a locality where previously no heretic had set his foot.

If, however, he concludes, the bishops, in their memorial, gave him counsels as to what answers he should give to the Egyptians (Egypt was the chief seat of the Monophysites), they should before everything reform themselves; but to satisfy them, the Emperor would have to make the Egyptians into Nestorians and Theodorians.

Perhaps this answer and that memorial may be connected with an occurrence which Victor of Tununum relates, that, in the year 554 or 555, Frontinus, metropolitan of Salona in Dalmatia, was cited to Constantinople for defending the three chapters, and was banished to the Thebaid; and that Peter had been ordained in his place by the heretics. By the heretics Victor, the martyr for the three chapters, understands the adherents of the fifth Synod, and there is no difficulty in assuming that the bishops of Illyricum occidentale, under the presidency of Frontinus, had sent out that memorial to the Emperor, and that therefore their metropolitan, styled “the impious teacher” in the answer of the Emperor, had been exiled. We have already heard of the zeal of the Illyrians and Dalmatians for the three chapters (secs. 261 and 262).

When Vigilius gave his assent to the fifth Synod almost all the African bishops were on the opposite side, but their opposition broke out, as Victor of Tununum says, since the year 559. The principal agitator on this side was Primasius of Carthage, the primate of the whole of Latin Africa, who, as we know, immediately on his institution had accepted the anathema on the three chapters (sec. 262B). For this reason most of the other bishops of those provinces separated from him; but now two of his friends, Bishops Rufinus and Vidus, succeeded in persuading their colleagues in the pro-consular province of Africa so that they entered into Church communion, perhaps at a Synod, with Primasius and all the opponents of the three chapters. This example was soon followed by their neighbors in the Numidian province. They, too, came to Carthage, in order to enter into Church communion with Primasius. Only few from both provinces refused their concession, and for that reason were persecuted by Primasius with blows, imprisonment, and exile. To these belonged Victor of Tununum, also Theodosius of Cebarsusa, Donatus, Brumasius, Musicus, and Chrysonius. After they had been forced to change their place of exile and imprisonment several times, they were at last confined in different monasteries. SEC. 278. THE SCHISM IN UPPER ITALY. TUSCANY AND FRANCE ARE ALSO AGAINST THE FIFTH SYNOD.

We receive important intelligence respecting the further progress of the controversy on the three chapters from the letters of Pope Pelagius I., and we learn that, in Upper Italy, from the west to the eastern coast, in the west the bishops of Liguria and AEmilia, in the east those of Venetia and Istria, on account of the three chapters and the fifth Synod, separated formally from communion with the holy see. At the head of the eastern bishops of Upper Italy stood Paulinus of Aquileia, as supreme metropolitan of Venetia and Istria with a part of Illyricum, Rhaetia II., and Noricum; whilst the westerns had their ecclesiastical head in the archbishop of Milan. Pope Pelagius I. sent Roman clergymen into those parts in order to bring back the bishops to Church communion with Rome, and requested Narses as commander-in-chief in Italy to support the Church with the secular arm, and to constrain those who had gone astray to the right way.

Especially was he to send the chief promoters of the disquiet, the bishops of Milan and Aquileia, to Constantinople to the Emperor, that he might dispose of them. At the same time he complains (Epist. 3) of a Synod which the Schismatics had held (at Aquileia) for the rejection of the fifth Council, whilst the old Church rule required that, in case of doubts arising with respect to an OEeumenical Council their solution was to be sought of the Roman see, and not by a provincial Synod. Nothing more is known respecting the Synod in question; it probably fell in the year 554 or 555, and must not be confounded with a later Synod at Aquileia, mentioned by Bede. From the sixth letter of Pelagius I. we see that the Tuscan bishops also renounced communion with him, whilst they regarded him as a heretic because of his rejection of the three chapters. He endeavored to propitiate them, and asserted his orthodoxy. This he did, moreover, in an encyclical letter to the whole Christian people, to which he also appended a confession of faith; and so in two letters to Childebert, king of the Franks, as his orthodoxy was suspected also in Gaul. To the second of these letters also a confession of faith was appended. When Pelagius I. died, A.D. 560, and the Emperor Justinian in November 565, the opposition had already been partially softened, and in order to increase this still more the Emperor Justin II. issued an edict similar to the Henoticon, which endeavored to represent the whole controversy as unimportant. It is given verbally in Evagrius (v. 4), and it orders that there shall be no more wrangling over persons and syllables. Among the persons, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and Ibas were evidently intended; whilst the expression “over syllables” probably referred to the controversy which broke out in the last years of Justinian on the corruptibility or incorruptibility of the body of Jesus (fqarto>v and ajfqarto>v, vol. 3, sec. 208). Evagrius himself remarks: As this edict at the close declared that the present status quo of the Church should be maintained, none of the sectaries returned to the Church.

SEC. 279. VICTORIES OF THE LONGOBARDI. PARTIAL UNION OF THE MILANESE.

Soon after this, from the year 568, the Longobardi under Alboin by degrees got possession of all the provinces of Upper Italy, and very many sees of the schismatical bishops in those parts came under their power, particularly the two great metropolitan sees of Milan and Aquileia. Bishop Paulinus of Aquileia, therefore, fled with the treasures of the church to Grado, and removed his throne to this little island, in the neighborhood of Trieste, which still belonged to the Emperor. So also Honoratus of Milan, when this city was seized by Alboin in September 569, betook himself to Genoa, which had never come into the hands of the Longobardi. But these districts, whether taken or not, persisted still in their separation from Rome and in their rejection of the fifth Synod. Bright hopes of union emerged, however, when, after the death of Honoratus of Milan (†570), the one part, namely, the Milanese clergy who had fled to Genoa, the majority, elected Lawrence II., but the clergy who had remained at Milan a certain Fronto; and the former, in order to get the better of his rival, again entered into Church communion with Rome in 571, and laid before the Pope (John III.) a written and most definite assurance (districtissimam cautionem, says Gregory the Great). We learn this from two letters of Gregory the Great to the successor of Lawrence, Archbishop Constantine, and we may from these infer the contents of this cautio. That they declared for the restoration of Church communion with Rome was naturally the first; but besides this, we learn from the second of the letters of Gregory referred to, it bound Bishop Lawrence in this manner, that if it should be asked he could not swear that he had not anathematized the three chapters. There must therefore have been a concession contained in it in regard to the anathema on the three chapters. And this cautio was subscribed, not by Bishop Lawrence alone, but along with him by many viri nobilissimi, both from his side and from that of the Pope, for Gregory the Great himself subscribed it when he was still Praetor urbanus at Rome. This union of the Milanese of necessity increased still more when Lawrence II., after the death of his rival Fronto, came into the uncontested possession of the see, and even the part of his diocese which had remained at Milan recognized him. SEC. 280. ATTEMPTS AT UNION WITH THE SEE OF GRADO.

About the same time attempts were made also in the east of Upper Italy to bring back to the Church the schismatical bishops of Istria and Venetia, particularly those who were still subject to the Emperor. At their head stood Elias, archbishop of Aquileia at Grado (the title of Aquileia was still retained after the removal); and the imperial exarch over Italy, Smaragdus, proceeded to employ force. The Schismatics, therefore, turned to the Byzantine Emperor Maurice (582-602), and he gave orders to the governor henceforth not to disturb any bishop on account of the union. In a more peaceful way than Smaragdus, Pope Pelagius at the same time pursued the same end, and sent letters and deputies to Elias and his suffragans in order to invite them to union. At the same time he moved for a conference (religious colloquy) at Rome or Ravenna, and endeavored to remove from them all suspicion in regard to his orthodoxy. That Elias about the same time (579) held a Synod at Grado with regard to the removal of the see of Aquileia to Grado, is probably a fiction; and at least the supposed Acts of this assembly are more than suspected, since, according to these, the Synod was held with the approval of the Pope and in the presence of a Roman legate, whilst Elias still refused Church communion with Pelagius.

When Elias died, A.D. 586, and Severus succeeded him in the see of Grado, the imperial exarch Smaragdus renewed his methods of restoring Church union, brought Archbishop Severus and three of his suffragans by force to Ravenna, and, when the schismatics would not be driven over, he put them in prison, and ill-treated them to such an extent, with threats of exile, that they at last entered into communion with Archbishop John of Ravenna, who had anathematized the three chapters, and naturally was in union with Rome. When, after a year’s delay, they were allowed to return to Grado, their people regarded them as apostates, and would have no communion with them, until Severus, at a Synod of ten bishops at Mariano or Marana in Friaul, on the coasts of the Adriatic Sea, recalled his step, and renewed the schism. SEC. 281. GREGORY THE GREAT WORKS FOR UNION.

SYNODS OF THE SCHISMATICS.

When Gregory the Great, on September 3, 590, ascended the papal chair, he immediately directed new solicitude to the restoration of ecclesiastical union, and obtained from the Emperor Maurice the command, that Severus of Aquileia (Grado) and his suffragans should come to Rome for the purpose of a friendly conference. In order to evade this, the sectaries immediately held two Synods. Severus and the schismatical bishops of Upper Italy, etc., who stood under imperial authority, assembled at Grado, and those who were subject to the Longobardi at another place which is unknown; because, through mistrust of their government, closer intercourse with the empire did not seem advisable. From this second Synod we still possess a letter to the Emperor Maurice, which was subscribed by ten bishops from Venetia and Rhaetia II., first by Ingenuinus of Seben, also by Agnellus of Trent, Junior of Verona, and others. They say, in this letter, that Pope Vigilius and almost all the bishops had declared the anathema on the three chapters to be detestable. Vigilius, in particular, had, in an edict circulated in all the provinces, threatened with excommunication everyone who should receive that anathema (they entirely ignore the later assent of Vigilius).

Afterwards, indeed, many bishops, under compulsion of the Emperor, had agreed to that anathema; but they, on the contrary, taught by Vigilius, had with steady fidelity held the decrees of Chalcedon, and had broken off communion with those who had rejected the three chapters.

They further relate what attempts had been made to compel those of their colleagues, who were still subject to the Emperor, to the recognition of the anathema on the three chapters; for example, what had been done by Smaragdus against Bishop Elias and his successor Severus, and how, quite recently, Pope Gregory had wanted to compel Severus to come to Rome.

The imperial command to this effect was certainly gained surreptitiously; but they had been, in the highest degree, troubled by it, because their metropolitan (Severus) would now have to be subject to his (the Pope’s) judgment, who was himself of the other party in this matter, and whose communion they and their predecessors had left. They had petitioned their archbishop that he would draw up no decree without them on the common ecclesiastical question (they feared he might yield). After the disquiet about war was ended, they would themselves come to Constantinople, in order to give an explanation with regard to their Church communion; then it would be suitable to decide the controversy by a Synod in presence of the Emperor. Finally, they threatened that, in case the Emperor should compel Severus to compliance, they would separate from the metropolis of Aquileia. They would then unite themselves with the bishops of Gaul, just as in other churches, Salzburg, Augsburg, and others, priests had been instituted by Frankish bishops. From the other Synod of the schismatics, under Severus at Grado, no document is extant; but we learn from a letter of the Emperor to the Pope, that both the Synod and Severus in particular addressed memorials to the Emperor, and sent deputies to Constantinople. Maurice complied with their requests, and ordered the Pope to leave the bishops in question undisturbed, until Italy should be restored to peace, and the other bishops of Istria or Venetia should be brought back to their earlier position, i.e. should again be subjected to the Roman Empire. In consequence of this Gregory was obliged to refrain from all more violent measures, so long as Romanus — a slothful, covetous man, and one unfriendly to the Pope — was imperial exarch of Italy. Gregory, nevertheless, made continuous efforts by letters to bring about the suppression of the schism and the general peace of the Church, and, probably at this time, sent out that famous letter which, in the various editions generally bears the title, Ad episopos Hibernicae. Those addressed, as the opening of the letter shows, were plainly schismatics, who had been forced to endure inconveniences on account of their non-acceptance of the fifth Council. In order to instruct them, Gregory sent them the book of his predecessor Pelagius (probably his third letter in Mansi, t. 9, p. 433; Hardouin, t. 3, p. 421). It has been inferred from this that a schism must have arisen in Ireland also on account of the three chapters; but a still extant letter of St.

Columban to Pope Boniface shows that he, for the first time, received information respecting the schism on account of the three chapters after his arrival in Upper Italy, and that nothing was known of it in Ireland. Many therefore have supposed that we should read Istriae instead of Hiberniae. But since neither of these words stands in the old MSS., as we are assured by the Benedictines, and, indeed, there is no indication of place at all, the Ballerini are certainly right when they assume that this letter of Gregory’s was an Epistola encyclica. After the death of Romanus, Callinias became exarch of Italy, and the Emperor forbade anew the molestation of the Istrians. But the general Basil, a friend of Gregory’s, supported the latter in his efforts for union; and Smaragdus did this still more when, in A.D. 602, he had again become exarch of Italy. The island of Caprulae (Caorle, near Venice) now returned to the Church, and received a Catholic bishop of its own. Somewhat later three other Istrian bishops, Providentius, Peter, and Ferminus of Trieste, entered the union. SEC. 282. THE UNION OF THE PROVINCE OF MILAN IS RENEWED AND EXTENDED.

A still more favorable result was gained by Gregory the Great in the west of Upper Italy. Bishop Lawrence II. of Milan (sec. 279) had died in communion with the Roman Church, and the portion of the clergy still resident in Milan elected the deacon Constantine as his successor, and gave notice of this to Pope Gregory the Great. The latter commissioned his subdeacon John instantly to proceed to Genoa, in order to ascertain whether the Milanese who had fled thither were contented with Constantine; and if he discovered that it was so, he should have him consecrated by the bishops of the province with the assent of the Pope.

This was done, and the new bishop subsequently maintained the most friendly relations with Gregory, and received the pallium from him. Soon after the Pope learned that three suffragans of Constantine had broken off communion with him, because he had consented to the anathematizing of the three chapters, and had put forth a written cautio in this direction. So, too, the famous Queen of the Longobardi, Theodelinda, for the same reason, withdrew from communion with Archbishop Constantine. Gregory the Great therefore sent envoys, A.D. 594, into Lombardy, with a letter to the Queen and two letters to Constantine. In the latter he declared that neither in writing nor by word of mouth had the bishop put forth a cautio on account of the three chapters, and that there had been no necessity for any such thing, as without this the Pope fully trusted him. In the letter to Theodelinda, however, Gregory asserts his orthodoxy, declares that under Justinian (at the fifth Synod) nothing had been done to the prejudice of the Council of Chalcedon, and requests her at once to resume communion with Constantine, whose ordination she had received with approval. Soon afterwards Archbishop Constantine wrote to him that he had not ventured to convey the letter to the Queen, because it contained mention of the fifth Synod; requesting the Pope therefore to send another letter to her.

Gregory did so, and contented himself, in this new letter, with a powerful assurance of his own adhesion to the four holy Synods. He had, moreover, learned from Constantine that the bishop and the inhabitants of Brescia had demanded an assurance on oath that he (Constantine) had not anathematized the three chapters. Gregory strengthened him in the purpose not to take this oath, since his predecessor Lawrence had certainly not taken any such oath, and had not infringed the juramenta of his cautio. On the other hand, however, for the quieting of the Brescians, while communicating the anathema, he should declare to them in a letter that he neither infringed upon the faith of Chalcedon himself in the least degree, nor would receive into his communion anyone who should venture to infringe it; that he condemned all who condemned the Council of Chalcedon, and recognized all who had recognized that. The Pope, therefore, not only himself was silent to the Lombardian Queen on the fifth Synod, and on the three chapters, but he requested that Constantine also should be entirely silent on that subject, and that he should direct his efforts to one point, “restoration of union with Rome,” perceiving that, in time, this would draw after it; in peace everything else that was necessary. And, in fact, the schism in the west of Italy was now extinguished, and only that in the east maintained for some time a miserable existence.

SEC. 283. END OF THE SCHISM.