INTRODUCTION
To make an end of the Monothelite controversy, Emperor Constantine IV asked Pope Donus in
678 to send twelve bishops and four western Greek monastic superiors to
represent the pope at an assembly of eastern and western theologians. Pope
Agatho, who meanwhile had succeeded Donus, ordered consultation in the west
on this important matter. Around Easter 680 a synod in Rome of 125 Italian bishops, with Pope Agatho
presiding, assessed the replies of the regional synods of the west and composed
a profession of faith in which Monothelitism was condemned. Legates of the
pope took this profession to Constantinople, arriving at the beginning of
September 680.
On 10 September 680 the emperor issued an edict to Patriarch George of
Constantinople, ordering a council of bishops to be convoked. The council
assembled on 7 November in the hall of the imperial palace in Constantinople.
It immediately called itself an ecumenical council. There were 18 sessions, at
the first eleven of which the emperor presided.
In the 8th session, on 7 March 681, the council adopted
the teaching of Pope Agatho in condemnation of Monothelitism. Patriarch Macarius of Antioch was one of
the few who refused his assent; he was deposed in the 12th session.
The doctrinal conclusions of the council were defined in the 17th
session and promulgated in the 18th and last session on 16 September 681. The
acts of the council, signed both by 174 fathers and
finally by the emperor himself, were sent to Pope Leo II, who had
succeeded Agatho, and he, when he had approved them, ordered
them to be translated into Latin and to be signed by all the bishops of the
west. Constantine IV, however, promulgated the decrees of the council in all
parts of the empire by imperial edict. The council did not debate church
discipline and did not establish any disciplinary cannons.
Exposition of faith
The only Son and Word of God the Father, who became a man like us in all
things but sin, Christ our true God, proclaimed clearly in the words of the
gospel; I am the light of the world; anyone who follows me shall not walk in
darkness but shall have the light of life, and again, My peace I leave to you,
my peace I give you. Our most mild emperor, champion of right belief and
adversary of wrong belief, guided in godly wisdom by this teaching of peace
spoken by God, has brought together this holy and universal assembly of ours
and set at one the whole judgment of the church.
Wherefore this holy and universal synod of ours, driving
afar the error of impiety which endured for some time even till the present,
following without deviation in a straight path after the holy and accepted
fathers, has piously accorded in all things with the five holy and
universal synods: that is to say, with
- the synod of 318 holy
fathers who gathered at Nicaea against the madman Arius, and
- that which followed it
at Constantinople of 150 God-led men against Macedonius,opponent
of the Spirit, and the impious Apollinarius; similarly
too, with
- the first at Ephesus of
200 godly men brought together against Nestorius, who
thought as the Jews and
- that at Chalcedon of
630 God-inspired fathers against Eutyches and Dioscorus, hateful
to God; also, in addition to these, with
- the fifth holy synod,
the latest of them, which was gathered here against Theodore
of Mopsuestia, Origen, Didymus and Evagrius, and the writings of
Theodoret against the twelve chapters of the renowned Cyril, and the
letter said to have been written by Ibas to Mari the Persian.
Reaffirming the divine tenets of piety in all respects unaltered, and
banishing the profane teachings of impiety, this holy and universal synod of
ours has also, in its turn, under God's inspiration, set its seal
on the creed which was made out by the 318 fathers and confirmed again with
godly prudence by the 150 and which the other holy synods too accepted gladly
and ratified for the elimination of all soul-corrupting heresy
We believe in one God ...[Creed of Nicaea and of Constantinople 1]
The holy and universal synod said:
This pious and orthodox creed of the divine favour was enough for a
complete knowledge of the orthodox faith and a complete assurance therein. But
since from the first, the contriver of evil did not rest, finding an accomplice
in the serpent and through him bringing upon human nature the poisoned dart of
death, so too now he has found instruments suited to his own purpose--namelyTheodore, who
was bishop of Pharan, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter, who
were bishops of this imperial city, and further Honorius, who
was pope of elder Rome, Cyrus, who held the see of
Alexandria, and Macarius, who was recently bishop of Antioch,
and his disciple Stephen -- and has not been idle in raising
through them obstacles of error against the full body of the church sowing with
novel speech among the orthodox people the heresy of a single will and
a single principle of action in the two natures of the one member of the holy
Trinity Christ our true God, a heresy in harmony with the evil belief, ruinous
to the mind, of the impious Apollinarius, Severus and Themistius,
and one intent on removing the perfection of the becoming man of the same one
lord Jesus Christ our God, through a certain guileful device, leading from
there to the blasphemous conclusion that his rationally animate flesh is
without a will and a principle of action.
Therefore Christ our God has stirred up the faithful emperor, the new
David, finding in him a man after his own heart, who, as the scripture says,
did not allow his eyes sleep or his eyelids drowsing until through this holy
assembly of ours, brought together by God, he found the perfect proclamation of
right belief; for according to the God-spoken saying, Where there are two or
three gathered in my name, there am I in their midst.
This same holy and universal synod, here present, faithfully
accepts and welcomes with open hands the
report of Agatho,
most holy and most blessed pope of elder Rome, that came to our most reverend
and most faithful emperor Constantine, which rejected by name those who
proclaimed and taught, as has been already explained, one will and one
principle of action in the incarnate dispensation of Christ our true God; and
likewise it approves as well
the other synodal report to his God-taught serenity, from
the synod of 125 bishops dear to God meeting under the same most holy
pope, as according with the holy synod at Chalcedon and with the Tome of the
all-holy and most blessed Leo, pope of the same elder Rome, which was sent to
Flavian, who is among the saints, and which that synod called a pillar of right
belief, and furthermore with the synodal letters written by the blessed Cyril
against the impious Nestorius and to the bishops of the east.
Following the five holy and universal synods and the holy and accepted
fathers, and defining in unison, it professes our lord Jesus
Christ our true God, one of the holy Trinity, which is of one same being and is
the source of life, to be perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same
truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the
Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards
his humanity, like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the ages
from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the same for us
and for our salvation from the holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, who is properly
and truly called mother of God, as regards his humanity; one and the same
Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which
undergo no confusion, no change, no separation, no division; at no point was
the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the
property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single
subsistent being [in unam personam et in unam subsistentiam
concurrente]; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the
same only-begotten Son, Word of God, lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets
taught from the beginning about him, and as Jesus the Christ himself instructed
us, and as the creed of the holy fathers handed it down to us.
And we proclaim equally two natural
volitions or wills in him and two natural principles of action
which undergo no division, no change, no partition, no confusion, in accordance
with the teaching of the holy fathers. And the two natural wills not in
opposition, as the impious heretics said, far from it, but his human will
following, and not resisting or struggling, rather in fact subject to his
divine and all powerful will. For the will of the flesh had to be moved, and
yet to be subjected to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius.
For just as his flesh is said to be and is flesh of the Word of God, so too the
natural will of his flesh is said to and does belong to the Word of God, just
as he says himself: I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but
the will of the Father who sent me, calling his own will that of his flesh, since
his flesh too became his own. For in the same way that his all holy and
blameless animate flesh was not destroyed in being made divine but remained in
its own limit and category, so his human will as well was not destroyed by
being made divine, but rather was preserved, according to the theologian
Gregory, who says: "For his willing, when he is considered as saviour, is
not in opposition to God, being made divine in its entirety." And we hold
there to be two natural principles of action in the same Jesus Christ our lord
and true God, which undergo no division, no change, no partition, no confusion,
that is, a divine principle of action and a human principle of action,
according to the godly-speaking Leo, who says most clearly: "For each form
does in a communion with the other that activity which it possesses as its own,
the Word working that which is the Word's and the body accomplishing the things
that are the body's". For of course we will not grant the existence of
only a single natural principle of action of both God and creature, lest we
raise what is made to the level of divine being, or indeed reduce what is most
specifically proper to the divine nature to a level befitting creatures for we
acknowledge that the miracles and the sufferings are of one and the same
according to one or the other of the two natures out of which he is and in
which he has his being, as the admirable Cyril said. Therefore, protecting on
all sides the "no confusion" and "no division", we announce
the whole in these brief words: Believing our lord Jesus Christ, even after his
incarnation, to be one of the holy Trinity and our true God, we say that he
has two natures [naturas] shining forth in his one subsistence[subsistentia]
in which he demonstrated the miracles and the sufferings throughout his entire
providential dwelling here, not in appearance but in truth, the difference of
the natures being made known in the same one subsistence in that each nature
wills and performs the things that are proper to it in a communion with the other;
then in accord with this reasoning we hold that two natural wills and
principles of action meet in correspondence for the salvation of the human
race.
So now that these points have been formulated by us with all precision
in every respect and with all care, we definitely state that it
is not allowable for anyone to produce another faith, that is, to write or
to compose or to consider or to teach others; those who dare to compose another
faith, or to support or to teach or to hand on another creed to those who wish
to turn to knowledge of the truth, whether from Hellenism or Judaism or indeed
from any heresy whatsoever, or to introduce novelty of speech, that is,
invention of terms, so as to overturn what has now been defined by us, such
persons, if they are bishops or clerics, are deprived of their episcopacy or
clerical rank, and if they are monks or layfolk they are excommunicated.
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